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The Myth of the Birth of the Hero

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Achilles
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« Reply #45 on: December 29, 2009, 05:13:32 am »

Oedipus, on hearing accidentally that he is a foundling, asks the Delphian oracle about his true parents, but receives only the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. In the belief that this prophecy refers to his foster parents, he flees from Corinth to Thebes, but on the way unwittingly kills his father Laius. By solving a riddle, he frees the city from the plague of the Sphinx, a man-devouring monster, and in reward is given the hand of Jocasta, his mother, as well as the throne of his father. The revelation of these horrors and the subsequent misfortune of Oedipus were a favorite subject for spectacular display among the Greek tragedians.
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« Reply #46 on: December 29, 2009, 05:13:43 am »

An entire series of Christian legends have been elaborated on the pattern of the Oedipus myth, and the summarized contents of the Judas legend may serve as a paradigm of this group. Before his birth, his mother, Cyboread, is warned by a dream that she will bear a wicked son, to the ruin of all his people. The parents expose the boy in a box on the sea. The waves cast the child ashore on the Isle of Scariot, where the childless queen finds him, and brings him up as her son. Later on, the royal couple have a son of their own, and the foundling, who feels himself slighted, kills his foster brother. As a fugitive from the country, he takes service at the court of Pilate, who makes a confidant of him and places him above his entire household. In a fight, Judas kills a neighbor, without knowing that he is his father. The widow of the murdered man--his own mother--then becomes his wife. After the revelation of these horrors, he repents and seeks

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the Saviour, who receives him among his apostles. His betrayal of Jesus is known from the Gospels.
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« Reply #47 on: December 29, 2009, 05:14:02 am »

The legend of St. Gregory on the Stone--the subject of the narrative of Hartmann von Aue--represents a more complicated type of this mythological cycle. Gregory, the child of the incestuous union of royal lovers, is exposed by his mother in a box on the sea, saved and raised by fishermen, and is then educated in a convent for the church. But he prefers the life of a knight, is victorious in combats, and in reward is given the hand of the princess, his mother. After the discovery of the incest, Gregory does penance for seventeen years on a rock in the midst of the sea, and he is finally made the Pope, at the command of God. 1

A very similar legend is the Persian epic of King Darab, told by the poet Firdausi. 2 The last Kiranian Behmen nominated as his successor his daughter and simultaneous wife Humâi; his son Sâsân was grieved and withdrew into solitude. A short time after the death of her husband, Humâi gave birth to a son, whom she resolved to expose. He was placed in a box, which was put into the Euphrates and drifted downstream, until it was stopped by a stone that had been placed in the water by a tanner. The box with the child was found by him, and he carried the boy to his wife, who had recently lost her own child. The couple agreed to raise the foundling. As the boy grew up, he soon became so strong that the other children were unable to resist him. He did not care for the work of his foster father, but learned to be a warrior. His foster mother was forced by him to reveal the secret of his origin, and he joined the army that Humâi was then sending out to fight the king of Rim. Her attention being called to him by his bravery, Humâi readily recognized him as her son, and named him her successor.
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« Reply #48 on: December 29, 2009, 05:14:12 am »

Footnotes

21:1 According to Bethe (Thebanische Heldenlieder), the exposure on the waters was the original rendering. According to other versions, the boy is found and raised by horseherds; according to a later myth, by a countryman, Melibios.

22:1 Cholevicas: History of German Poetry According to the Antique Elements.

22:2 Firdausi: Shah Namah ("The Book of Kings"), as rendered by F. Spiegel: Eranische Alterumskunde, Vol. II, p. 584.
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« Reply #49 on: December 29, 2009, 05:14:47 am »

p. 23
PARIS

The famed Greek legend of the birth of Paris relates that King Priam of Troy had with his wife Hecuba a son, named Hector. When Hecuba was about to bear another child, she dreamed that she brought forth a burning log of wood, which set fire to the entire city. Priam asked the advice of Aisakos, who was his son with his first wife, Arisbe, and an expert in the interpretation of dreams. Aisakos declared that the child would bring trouble upon the city, and advised that it be exposed. Priam gave the little boy to a slave, Agelaos, who carried him to the top of Mount Ida. The child was nursed during five days by a she-bear. When Agelaos found that he was still alive, he picked him up, and carried him home to raise him. He named the boy Paris; but after the child had grown into a strong and handsome youth, he was called Alexander, because he fought the robbers and protected the flocks. Before long he discovered his parents. How this came about is told by Hyginus, according to whose report the infant is found by shepherds. One day messengers, sent by Priam, come to these herders to fetch a bull which is to serve as the prize for the victor in some commemorative games. They selected a bull that Paris valued so highly that he followed the men who led the beast away, assisted in the combats, and won the prize. This aroused the anger of his brother Deiphobus, who threatened him with his sword, but his sister Cassandra recognized him as her brother, and Priam joyfully received him as his son. The misfortune which Paris later brought to his family and his native city, through the abduction of Helen, is well known from Homer's Iliad, as well as from countless earlier and later poems.

A certain resemblance with the story of the birth of Paris is presented by the poem of Zal, in Firdausi's Persian hero myths. 1 The first son is born to Sam, king of Sistan, by one of his consorts. Because he had white hair, his

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« Reply #50 on: December 29, 2009, 05:15:03 am »

mother concealed the birth. But the nurse reveals the birth of his son to the king. Sam is disappointed, and commands that the child be exposed. The servants carry it to the top of Mount Elburz, where it is raised by the Seemurgh, a powerful bird. The full-grown youth is seen by a traveling caravan, whose members speak of him as "whose nurse a bird is sufficient." King Sam once sees his son in a dream, and sallies forth to seek the exposed child. He is unable to reach the summit of the elevated rock where he finally espies the youth. But the Seemurgh bears his son down to him; he receives him joyfully and nominates him as his successor.
Footnotes

23:1 Ibid., translated by Schack.

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« Reply #51 on: December 29, 2009, 05:15:25 am »

TELEPHUS
Aleos, King of Tegea, was informed by the oracle that his sons would perish through a descendant of his daughter. He therefore made his daughter Auge a priestess of the goddess Athena, and threatened her with death should she mate with a man. But when Hercules dwelt as a guest in the sanctuary of Athena, on his expedition against Augeas, he saw the maiden, and while intoxicated, he raped her. When Aleos became aware of her pregnancy, he delivered her to Nauplius, a rough sailor, with the command to throw her into the sea. But on the way she gave birth to Telephus on Mount Parthenios, and Nauplius, unmindful of the orders he had received, carried both her and the child to Mysia, where he delivered them to King Teuthras.

According to another version, Auge secretly brought forth as a priestess, but kept the child hidden in the temple. When Aleos discovered the sacrilege, he caused the child to be exposed in the Parthenian mountains. Nauplius was instructed to sell the mother in foreign lands, or to

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kill her. She was delivered by him into the hands of Teuthras 1
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« Reply #52 on: December 29, 2009, 05:15:42 am »

According to the current tradition, Auge exposes the newborn child and escapes to Mysia, where the childless King Teuthras adopts her as his daughter. The boy, however, is nursed by a doe, and is found by shepherds who take him to King Corythos. The king brings him up as his son. When Telephus has grown into a youth, he betakes himself to Mysia, on the advice of the oracle, to seek his mother. He frees Teuthras, who is in danger from his enemies, and in reward receives the hand of the supposed daughter of the king, namely his own mother Auge. But she refuses to submit to Telephus, and when he in his ire is about to pierce the disobedient one with his sword, she calls on her lover Hercules in her distress, and Telephus thus recognizes his mother. After the death of Teuthras he becomes King of Mysia.
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« Reply #53 on: December 29, 2009, 05:16:00 am »

PERSEUS

Acrisius, the king of Argos, had already reached an advanced age without having male progeny. As he desired a son, he consulted the Delphian oracle, but this warned him against male descendants, and informed him that his daughter Danaë would bear a son through whose hand he would perish. In order to prevent this, he had his daughter locked up in an iron tower, which he caused to be carefully guarded. But Zeus penetrated through the roof, in the guise of a golden shower, and Danaë became the mother of a boy. 2 One day Acrisius heard the voice of young Perseus in his daughter's room, and in this way learned that she had given birth to a child. He killed the nurse, but carried his daughter with her son to the domestic

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« Reply #54 on: December 29, 2009, 05:16:13 am »

altar of Zeus, to have an oath taken on the true father's name. But he refuses to believe his daughter's statement that Zeus is the father, and he encloses her with the child in a box, which is cast into the sea. 1 The box is carried by the waves to the coast of Seriphos, where Dictys, a fisherman, usually called a brother of King Polydectes, saves mother and child by drawing them out of the sea with his nets. Dictys leads the two into his house and keeps them as his relations. Polydectes, however, becomes enamored of the beautiful mother, and as Perseus was in his way, he tried to remove him by sending him forth to fetch the head of the Gorgon Medusa. But against the king's anticipations Perseus accomplishes this difficult task, and a number of heroic deeds besides. Later, in throwing the discs during a contest, he accidentally kills his grandfather, as foretold by the oracle. He becomes the king of Argos, then of Tiryns, and the builder of Mycenae. 2
Footnotes

25:1 In the version of Euripides, Aleos caused the mother and the child to be thrown into the sea in a box, but through the protection of Athena this box was carried to the end of the Mysian river Kaikos. There it was found by Teuthras who made Auge his wife and took her child into his house as his foster son.

25:2 Later authors, including Pindar, state that Danaë was impregnated, not by Zeus, but by the brother of her father.
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« Reply #55 on: December 29, 2009, 05:16:33 am »

GILGAMESH

Aelian, who lived about 200 A.D., relates in his "Animal Stories" the history of a boy who was saved by an eagle:

Animals have a characteristic fondness for man. An eagle is known to have nourished a child. I shall tell the entire story, in proof of my assertion. When Senechoros reigned over the Babylonians, the Chaldean fortunetellers foretold that the son of the king's daughter would take the kingdom from his grandfather; this verdict was a prophecy of the Chaldeans. The king was afraid of this prophecy, and humorously speaking, he became a second Acrisius for his daughter, over whom he watched with the greatest severity. But his daughter, fate being wiser than the Babylonian,

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« Reply #56 on: December 29, 2009, 05:16:49 am »

conceived secretly from an inconspicuous man. For fear of the king, the guardians threw the child down from the acropolis, where the royal daughter was imprisoned. The eagle, with his keen eyes, saw the boy's fall, and before the child struck the earth, he caught it on his back, bore it into a garden, and set it down with great care. When the overseer of the place saw the beautiful boy, he was pleased with him and raised him. The boy received the name Gilgamesh, and became the king of Babylonia. If anyone regards this as a fable, I have nothing to say, although I have investigated the matter to the best of my ability. Also of Achaemenes, the Persian, from whom the nobility of the Persians is derived, I learn that he was the pupil of an eagle. 1

Footnotes

26:1 Simonides of Ceos speaks of a casement strong as ore, in which Danaë is said to have been exposed. Geibel: Klassisches Liederbuch, p. 52.

26:2 According to Hüsing, the Perseus myth in several versions is also demonstrable in Japan. Compare also Sydney Hartland: Legend of Perseus, 3 vols. (London, 1894-6).
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« Reply #57 on: December 29, 2009, 05:17:25 am »

CYRUS

The myth of Cyrus the Great, which the majority of investigators place in the center of this entire mythical circle--without entirely sufficient grounds, it would appear--has been transmitted to us in several versions. According to the report of Herodotus (about 450 B.C.), who states that among four renderings known to him, he selected the least "glorifying" version, 2 the story of the birth and youth of Cyrus is as follows:

Royal sway over the Medes was held, after Cyaxares, by his son Astyages, who had a daughter named Mandane. Once he saw, in a dream, so much water passing from her as to fill an entire city and inundate all Asia. He related his dream to the dream interpreters among the magicians, and was in great

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« Reply #58 on: December 29, 2009, 05:18:42 am »

fear after they had explained it all to him. When Mandane had grown up, he gave her in marriage, not to a Mede, his equal in birth, but to a Persian, by name of Cambyses. This man came of a good family and led a quiet life. The king considered him of lower rank than a middle-class Mede. After Mandane had become the wife of Cambyses, Astyages saw another dream-vision in the first year. He dreamed that a vine grew from his daughter's lap, and this vine overshadowed all Asia. After he had again related this vision to the dream interpreters, he sent for his daughter, who was with child, and after her arrival from Persia, he watched her, because he meant to kill her offspring. For the dream interpreters among the magicians had prophesied to him that his daughter's son would become king in his place. In order to avert this fate, he waited until Cyrus was born, and then sent for Harpagos, who was his relative and his greatest confidant among the Medes, and whom he had placed over all his affairs. Him he addressed as follows: "My dear Harpagos, I shall charge thee with an errand which thou must conscientiously perform. But do not deceive me, and let no other man attend to it, for all might not go well with thee. Take this boy, whom Mandane has brought forth, carry him home, and kill him. Afterwards thou canst bury him, how and in whatsoever manner thou desirest." But Harpagos made answer: "Great King, never hast thou found thy servant disobedient, and also in future I shall beware not to sin before thee. If such is thy will, it behooves me to carry it out faithfully." When Harpagos had thus spoken, and the little boy with all his ornaments had been delivered into his hands, for death, he went home weeping. On his arrival he told his wife all that Astyages had said to him. But she inquired, "What art thou about to do?" He made reply: "I shall not obey Astyages, even if he raved and stormed ten times worse than he is doing. I shall not do as he wills, and consent to such a murder. I have a number of reasons: in the first place, the boy is

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« Reply #59 on: December 29, 2009, 05:18:52 am »

my blood relative; then, Astyages is old, and he has no male heir. Should he die, and the kingdom go to his daughter, whose son he bids me kill at present, would I not run the greatest danger? But the boy must die, for the sake of my safety. However, one of Astyages' men is to be his murderer, not one of mine."

Having thus spoken, he at once despatched a messenger to one of the king's cattle herders, by name Mithradates, who, as he happened to know, was keeping his herd in a very suitable mountain pasturage, full of wild animals. The herder's wife was also a slave of Astyages’, by name Cyno in Greek, or Spako ("a ****") in the Median language. When the herder hurriedly arrived, on the command of Harpagos, the latter said to him: "Astyages bids thee take this boy and expose him in the wildest mountains, that he may perish as promptly as may be, and the King has ordered me to say to thee: If thou doest not kill the boy, but let him live, in whatever way, thou art to die a most disgraceful death. And I am charged to see to it that the boy is really exposed." When the herder had listened to this, he took the boy, went home, and arrived in his cottage. His wife was with child, and was in labor the entire day, and it happened that she was just bringing forth, when the herder had gone to the city. They were greatly worried about each other. But when he had returned and the woman saw him again so unexpectedly, she asked in the first place why Harpagos had sent for him so hurriedly. But he said: "My dear wife, would that I had never seen what I have seen and heard in the city, and what has happened to our masters. The house of Harpagos was full of cries and laments. This startled me, but I entered, and soon after I had entered, I saw a small boy lying before me, who struggled and cried and was dressed in fine garments and gold. When Harpagos saw me, he bid me quickly take the boy, and expose him in the wildest spot of the mountains. He said Astyages had ordered this, and added awful threats if I failed to do so. I took the child and went away with it, thinking

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