The Myth of the Birth of the Hero E-Book

Otto Rank

• Herausgeber: E-BOOKARAMA
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Originally published in 1909, Otto Rank's "The Myth of the Birth of the Hero" offered psychoanalytical interpretations of mythological stories as a means of understanding the human psyche. 
Like his mentor Sigmund Freud, Rank compared the myths of such figures as Oedipus, Moses, and Sargon with common dreams, seeing in both a symbolic fulfilment of repressed desire.

In Otto Rank's view, this book was the first to attempt a psychoanalytical interpretation of myths: In it he declared that psychological reality is responsible for organizing what is narrated by the myth or the story. This work, a "cornerstone" of the psychoanalytical study of mythology, and written at Freud's request, did indeed open up original perspectives in the methodological approach to the problem of the formation and function of myths.

Breaking away from the naturalist analysis of mythology, Rank founded his study on the parallel between dream and myth and on the concept proposed by Freud of the "f amily romance of neurotics."

Leseprobe

Table of contents

THE MYTH OF THE BIRTH OF THE HERO

Introduction

Note For The Circle Of Myths

Sargon

Moses

Karna

Oedipus

Paris

Telephus

Perseus

Gilgamesh

Cyrus

Tristan

Romulus

Hercules

Jesus

Siegfried

Lohengrin

The Interpretation Of The Myths

THE MYTH OF THE BIRTH OF THE HERO

Otto Rank

Introduction

THE prominent civilized nations--the Babylonians and Egyptians, the Hebrews and Hindus, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, as well as the Teutons and others--all began at an early stage to glorify their national heroes--mythical princes and kings, founders of religions, dynasties, empires, or cities--in a number of poetic tales and legends. The history of the birth and of the early life of these personalities came to be especially invested with fantastic features, which in different nations--even though widely separated by space and entirely independent of each other--present a baffling similarity or, in part, a literal correspondence. Many investigators have long been impressed with this fact, and one of the chief problems of mythological research still consists in the elucidation of the reason for the extensive analogies in the fundamental outlines of mythical tales, which are rendered still more puzzling by the unanimity in certain details and their reappearance in most of the mythical groupings.

The mythological theories, aiming at the explanation of these remarkable phenomena, are, in a general way, as follows: 1

1. The "Idea of the People," propounded by Adolf Bastian. 2 This theory assumes the existence of elemental ideas, so that the unanimity of the myths is a necessary sequence of the uniform disposition of the human mind and the manner of its manifestation, which within certain limits is identical at all times and in all places. This interpretation was urgently advocated by Adolf Bauer as accounting for the wide distribution of the hero myths. 3

2. The explanation by original community, first applied by Theodor Benfey to the widely distributed parallel forms of folklore and fairy tales 4. Originating in a favorable locality (India), these tales were first accepted by the primarily related (Indo-Germanic) peoples, then continued to grow while retaining the common primary traits, and ultimately radiated over the entire earth. This mode of explanation was first adapted to the wide distribution of the hero myths by Rudolf Schubert. 5

3. The modern theory of migration, or borrowing, according to which individual myths originate from definite peoples (especially the Babylonians) and are accepted by other peoples through oral tradition (commerce and traffic) or through literary influences. 6

The modern theory of migration and borrowing can be readily shown to be merely a modification of Benfey's theory, necessitated by newly discovered and irreconcilable material. This profound and extensive research of modern investigations has shown that India, rather than Babylonia, may be regarded as the first home of the myths. Moreover, the tales presumably did not radiate from a single point, but traveled over and across the entire inhabited globe. This brings into prominence the idea of the interdependence of mythological structures, an idea which was generalized by Braun as the basic law of the nature of the human mind: Nothing new is ever discovered as long as it is possible to copy. 7 The theory of elemental ideas, so strenuously advocated by Bauer over a quarter of a century ago, is unconditionally declined by the most recent investigators (Winckler, 8 Stucken), who maintain the migration theory.

There is really no such sharp contrast between the various theories or their advocates, for the concept of elemental ideas does not interfere with the claims of primary common possession or of migration. Furthermore, the ultimate problem is not whence and how the material reached a certain people; the question is: Where did it come from to begin with? All these theories would explain only the variability and distribution of the myths, but not their origin. Even Schubert, the most inveterate opponent of Bauer's view, acknowledges this truth, by stating that all these manifold sagas date back to a single very ancient prototype. But he is unable to tell us anything of the origin of this prototype. Bauer likewise inclines to this mediating view; he points out repeatedly that in spite of the multiple origin of independent tales, it is necessary to concede a most extensive and ramified borrowing, as well as an original community of the concepts in related peoples. 9 The same conciliatory attitude is maintained by Lessmann in a recent publication (1908), in which he rejects the assumption of elemental ideas, but admits that primary relationship and borrowing do not exclude each other. 10 As pointed out by Wundt, however, it must be kept in mind that the appropriation of mythological contents always represents at the same time an independent mythological construction; because only that can be retained permanently which corresponds to the borrower's stage of mythological ideation. The faint recollections of preceding narratives would hardly suffice for the refiguration of the same material, without the persistent presence of the underlying motifs; but precisely for this reason, such motifs may produce new contents that agree in their fundamental themes, even in the absence of similar associations. 11

Leaving aside for the present the inquiry as to the mode of distribution of these myths, the origin of the hero myth in general is now to be investigated, fully anticipating that migration (or borrowing) will prove to be directly and fairly positively demonstrable in a number of the cases. When this is not feasible, other viewpoints will have to be conceded, at least for the present, rather than bar the way to further progress by the somewhat unscientific attitude of Hugo Winckler, who says: When human beings and products, exactly corresponding to each other, are found at remote parts of the earth, we must conclude that they have wandered thither; whether we have knowledge of the how or when makes no difference in the assumption of the fact itself. 12 Even granting the migration of all myths, the origin of the first myth would still have to be explained. 13

Investigations along these lines will necessarily help to provide a deeper insight into the contents of the tales. Nearly all authors who have hitherto been engaged in the interpretation of the birth myths of heroes find in them a personification of the processes of nature, following the dominant mode of natural mythological interpretation. The newborn hero is the young sun rising from the waters, first confronted by lowering clouds, but finally triumphing over all obstacles. 14 The taking into consideration of all natural (chiefly atmospheric) phenomena--as was done by the first representatives of this method of myth interpretation 15--and the regarding of the legends, in a more restricted sense, as astral myths (Stucken, Winckler, and others) are approaches not so essentially distinct as the followers of each individual direction believe to be the case. Nor does it seem a basic improvement when the purely solar interpretation, as advocated especially by Frobenius, 16 was no longer accepted and the view was advanced that all myths were originally lunar. Hüsing holds this theory in his discussion of the myth of Cyrus the Great; Siecke also claims this view as the only legitimate, obvious interpretation of the birth myths of the heroes; and it is a concept that is beginning to gain popularity. 17

The interpretation of the myths themselves will be taken up in detail later on, and we shall refrain here from all detailed critical comments on the above mode of explanation. Although significant, and undoubtedly in part correct, the astral theory is not altogether satisfactory and fails to afford an insight into the motives of myth formation. The objection may be raised that the tracing to astronomical processes does not fully represent the content of these myths, and that much clearer and simpler relations might be established through another mode of interpretation. The much abused theory of elemental ideas indicates a practically neglected aspect of mythological research. At the beginning, as well as at the end of his contribution, Bauer points out how much more natural and probable it would be to seek the reason for the general unanimity of these myths in the very general traits of the human psyche, rather than in primary community or migration. This assumption appears to be more justifiable, since such general movements of the human mind are also expressed in still other forms and in other domains, where they can be demonstrated as universal.

Concerning the character of these general movements of the human mind, the psychological study of the essence of these myths might help to reveal the source from which has flowed uniformly, at all times and in all places, an identical mythological content. Such a derivation of an essential constituent, from a common human source, has already been successfully attempted with one of these legendary motifs. Freud, in his Interpretation of Dreams, reveals the connection of the Oedipus fable--where Oedipus is told by the oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother, as he unwittingly does later--with two typical dreams experienced by many now living: the dream of the father's death, and the dream of sexual intercourse with the mother. Of King Oedipus he says:

His fate moves us only because it might have been our own, because the oracle laid upon us before our birth the very curse which rested upon him. It may be that we were all destined to direct our first sexual impulses toward our mothers, and our first impulses of hatred and resistance toward our fathers; our dreams convince us that we were. King Oedipus, who slew his father Laius and wedded his mother Jocasta, is nothing more or less than a wish-fulfillment--the fulfillment of the wish of our childhood. 18

The manifestation of the intimate relationship between dream and myth--not only in regard to the content but also as to the form and motor forces of this and many other, more particularly pathological, psyche structures--entirely justifies the interpretation of the myth as a dream of the masses of the people, which I have recently shown elsewhere. At the same time, the transference of the method, and in part also of the results, of Freud's technique of dream interpretation to the myths would seem to be justifiable, as was defended by Abraham, and illustrated in an example, in his paper on "Dreams and Myths." In the circle of myths that follow, the intimate relations between dream and myth find further confirmation, with frequent opportunity for reasoning from analogy.

The hostile attitude of the most modern mythological tendency (chiefly represented by the Society for Comparative Mythological Research) against all attempts at establishing a relation between dream and myth is for the most part the outcome of the restriction of the parallelization to the so-called nightmares ( Alpträume), as attempted in Laistner's notable book, and also of ignorance of the relevant teachings of Freud. 19 The latter not only help us to understand the dreams themselves but also show their symbolism and close relationship with all psychic phenomena in general, especially with daydreams or fantasies, with artistic creativeness, and with certain disturbances of the normal psychic function. A common share in all these productions belongs to a single psychic function: the human imagination. It is to this imaginative faculty--of humanity at large rather than of the individual--that the modern myth theory is obliged to concede a high rank, perhaps the first, as the ultimate source of all myths. The interpretation of the myths in the astral sense--or more accurately speaking, as "almanac tales"--gives rise to the query: In view of a creative imagination in humanity, should we seek (with Lessmann) for the first germ of the origin of such tales precisely in the processes of the heavens, or on the contrary, should we conclude that ready-made tales of an entirely different (but presumably psychic) origin were only subsequently transferred to the heavenly bodies? 20 Ehrenreich makes a more positive admission: The mythologic evolution certainly begins on terrestrial soil, in so far as experiences must first be gathered in the immediate surroundings before they can be projected into the heavenly universe. 21 And Wundt tells us that the theory of the evolution of mythology according to which it first originates in the heavens, whence at a later date it descends to earth, is contradictory both to the history of the myth (which is unaware of such a migration) and to the psychology of myth formation (which must repudiate such a translocation as internally impossible). 22 We are also convinced that the myths, 23 originally at least, are structures of the human faculty of imagination, which were at some time projected for certain reasons upon the heavens, and may be secondarily transferred to the heavenly bodies, with their baffling phenomena. The significance of the unmistakable traces--the fixed figures, and so forth--that have been imprinted upon the myth by this transference must by no means be underrated, although the origin of these figures was possibly psychic in character; they were subsequently made the basis of the almanac and firmament calculations precisely on account of this significance.

In a general way, it would seem as if the investigators who apply an exclusively "natural" scheme of interpretation have been unable, in any sense--in their endeavor to discover the original sense of the myths--to get away entirely from a psychological process such as must be assumed similarly for the creators of the myths. 24 The motive is identical, and led to the same course for myth-creators and for myth-interpreters. It is most naïvely uttered by one of the founders and champions of comparative myth investigation and of the natural mythological mode of interpretation; Max Müller points out in his Essays that this procedure not only invests meaningless legends with a significance and beauty of their own but also helps to remove some of the most revolting features of classical mythology, as well as to elucidate their true meaning. 25 This readily understandable revulsion naturally prevents the mythologist from assuming that such motifs--incest with mother, sister, or daughter; murder of father, grandfather, or brother--could be based on universal fantasies, which according to Freud's teachings have their source in the infantile psyche, with its peculiar interpretation of the external world and its denizens. This revulsion is, therefore, only the reaction of the dimly sensed painful recognition of the actuality of these relations; and this reaction impels the myth interpreters, for their own subconscious rehabilitation, and that of all mankind, to credit these motifs with an entirely different meaning from their original significance. The same internal repudiation prevents the myth-creating people from believing in the possibility of such revolting thoughts, and this defense probably was the first reason for projecting these relations onto the firmament. The psychological pacifying through such a rehabilitation, by projection upon external and remote objects, can still be realized--to a certain degree, at least--by a glance at one of these interpretations, for instance that of the objectionable Oedipus fable, as given by Goldhizer, a representative of the natural school of myth interpreters: Oedipus (who kills his father, marries his mother, and dies old and blind) is the solar hero who murders his procreator, the darkness; he shares his couch with his mother, the gloaming, from whose lap, the dawn, he has been born; he dies, blinded, as the setting sun. 26

It is understandable that some such interpretation is more soothing to the mind than the revelation of the fact that incest and murder impulses against their nearest relatives are found in the fantasies of most people, as remnants of infantile ideation. But this is not a scientific argument, and revulsion of this kind--although it may not always be equally conscious--is altogether out of place in view of existing facts. One must either become reconciled to these indecencies, provided they are felt to be such, or one must abandon the study of psychological phenomena. It is evident that human beings, even in the earliest times, and with a most naïve imagination, never saw incest and parricide in the firmament on high, 27 but it is far more probable that these ideas are derived from another source, presumably human. In what way they came to reach the sky, and what modifications or additions they received in the process, are questions of a secondary character that cannot be settled until the psychic origin of the myths in general has been established.

At any rate, besides the astral conception, the claims of the part played by the psychic life must be credited with the same rights for myth formation, and this argument will be amply vindicated by the results of our method of interpretation. With this object in view, we shall first take up in the following pages the legendary material on which such a psychological interpretation is to be attempted on a large scale for the first time.

Note For The Circle Of Myths

FROM the mass of chiefly biographic hero myths, we have selected those that are best known and some that are especially characteristic. 28 These myths will be given in abbreviated form, as far as relevant for this investigation, with statements concerning the sources. Attention will be called to the most important and constantly recurring motifs by the use of italic type.

Sargon

Probably the oldest transmitted hero myth in our possession is derived from the period of the foundation of Babylonia (about 2800 B.C.) and concerns the birth history of its founder, Sargon the First. 29 The literal translation of the report--according to the mode of rendering, it appears to be an original inscription by King Sargon himself--is as follows:

Sargon, the mighty king, King of Agade, am I. My mother was a vestal, my father I knew not, while my father's brother dwelt in the mountains. In my city Azuripani, which is situated on the bank of the Euphrates, my mother, the vestal, bore me. In a hidden place she brought me forth. She laid me in a vessel made of reeds, closed my door with pitch, and dropped me down into the river, which did not drown me. The river carried me to Akki, the water carrier. Akki the water carrier lifted me up in the kindness of his heart, Akki the water carrier raised me as his own son, Akki the water carrier made of me his gardener. In my work as a gardener I was beloved by Ishtar, I became the king, and for forty-five years I held kingly sway. 30

Moses

The biblical birth history of Moses, which is told in the second chapter of Exodus, presents the greatest similarity to the Sargon legend, even an almost literal correspondence of individual traits. 31 Already the first chapter (22) relates that Pharaoh commanded his people to throw into the river all sons that were born to Hebrews, while the daughters were permitted to live; the reason for this order is given as fear of the overfertility of the Israelites. The second chapter continues as follows:

And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. 32 And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him and said, this is one of the Hebrews' children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: 33 and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

This account is ornamented by rabbinical mythology with an account of the events preceding Moses' birth. In the sixtieth year after Joseph's death, the reigning Pharaoh saw in a dream an old man who held a pair of scales; all the inhabitants of Egypt lay on one side, with only a suckling Iamb on the other, but nevertheless this outweighed all the Egyptians. The startled king at once consulted the wise men and astrologers, who declared the dream to mean that a son would be born to the Israelites who would destroy all Egypt. The king was frightened, and at once ordered the death of all newborn children of the Israelites in the entire country. On account of this tyrannical order, the Levite Amram, who lived in Goshen, decided to separate from his wife Jochebed, so as not to foredoom to certain death the children conceived through him. But this resolution was opposed later on by his daughter Miriam, who foretold with prophetic assurance that precisely the child suggested in the king's dream would come forth from her mother's womb, and would become the liberator of his people. 34

Amram therefore rejoined his wife, from whom he had been separated for three years. At the end of three months, she conceived, and later on bore a boy at whose birth the entire house was illuminated by an extraordinary luminous radiance, suggesting the truth of the prophecy. 35

Similar accounts are given of the birth of the ancestor of the Hebrew nation, Abraham. He was a son of Terah--Nimrod's captain--and Amtelai. Prior to his birth, it was revealed to King Nimrod from the stars that the coming child would overthrow the thrones of powerful princes and take possession of their lands. King Nimrod planned to have the child killed immediately after its birth. But when the boy was requested from Terah, he said, "Truly a son was born to me, but he has died." He then delivered a strange child, concealing his own son in a cave underneath the ground, where God permitted him to suck milk from a finger of the right hand. In this cave, Abraham is said to have remained until the third (according to others the tenth) year of his life. 36

In the next generation, in the story of Isaac, the same mythological motifs appear. Prior to his birth, King Abimelech is warned by a dream not to touch Sarah, as this would cause woe to betide him. After a long period of barrenness, she finally bears her son, who (in later life, in this report) after having been destined to be sacrificed by his own father, Abraham, is ultimately rescued by God. But Abraham casts out his elder son Ishmael, with Hagar, the boy's mother. 37

Karna

A close relationship with the Sargon legend is also shown in certain features of the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata, in its account of the birth of the hero Karna. 38 The contents of the legend are briefly rendered by Lassen. 39

The princess Pritha, also known as Kunti, bore as a virgin the boy Karna, whose father was the sun-god Surya. The young Karna was born with the golden ear ornaments of his father and with an unbreakable coat of mail. The mother in her distress concealed and exposed the boy. In the adaptation of the myth by A. Holtzmann, verse 1458 reads: "Then my nurse and I made a large basket of rushes, placed a lid thereon, and lined it with wax; into this basket I laid the boy and carried him down to the river Acva." Floating on the waves, the basket reaches the river Ganges and travels as far as the city of Campa. "There was passing along the bank of the river, the charioteer, the noble friend of Dhritarashtra, and with him was Radha, his beautiful and pious spouse. She was wrapt in deep sorrow, because no son had been given to her. On the river she saw the basket, which the waves carried close to her on the shore; she showed it to Azirath, who went and drew it forth from the waves." The two take care of the boy and raise him as their own child.

Kunti later on marries King Pandu, who is forced to refrain from conjugal intercourse by the curse that he is to die in the arms of his spouse. But Kunti bears three sons, again through divine conception, one of the children being born in the cave of a wolf. One day Pandu dies in the embrace of his second wife. The sons grow up, and at a tournament which they arrange, Karna appears to measure his strength against the best fighter, Arjuna, the son of Kunti. Arjuna scoffingly refuses to fight the charioteer's son. In order to make him a worthy opponent, one of those present anoints him as king. Meanwhile Kunti has recognized Karna as her son, by the divine mark, and prays him to desist from the contest with his brother, revealing to him the secret of his birth. But he considers her revelation as a fantastic tale, and insists implacably upon satisfaction. He falls in the combat, struck by Arjuna's arrow. 40

A striking resemblance to the entire structure of the Karna legend is presented by the birth history of Ion, the ancestor of the Ionians. The following account is based on a relatively late tradition. 41

Apollo, in the grotto of the rock of the Athenian Acropolis, procreated a son with Creusa, the daughter of Erechtheus. In this grotto the boy was also born, and exposed; the mother leaves the child behind in a woven basket, in the hope that Apollo will not leave his son to perish. At Apollo's request, Hermes carries the child the same night to Delphi, where the priestess finds him on the threshold of the temple in the morning. She brings the boy up, and when he has grown into a youth makes him a servant of the temple. Erechtheus later gave his daughter Creusa in marriage to Xuthus. As the marriage long remained childless, they addressed the Delphian oracle, praying to be blessed with progeny. The god reveals to Xuthus that the first to meet him on leaving the sanctuary is his son. He hastens outside and meets the youth, whom he joyfully greets as his own son, giving him the name Ion, which means "walker." Creusa refuses to accept the youth as her son; her attempt to poison him fails, and the infuriated people turn against her. Ion is about to attack her, but Apollo, who does not wish the son to kill his own mother, enlightens the mind of the priestess so that she understands the connection. By means of the basket in which the newborn child had lain, Creusa recognizes him as her son, and reveals to him the secret of his birth.

Oedipus

The parents of Oedipus, King Laius and his queen, Jocasta, lived for a long time in childless wedlock. Laius, who longs for an heir, asks the Delphic Apollo for advice. The oracle answers that he may have a son if he so desires; but fate has ordained that his own son will kill him. Fearing the fulfillment of the oracle, Laius refrains from conjugal relations, but being intoxicated one day he nevertheless procreates a son, whom he causes to be exposed in the river Cithaeron, barely three days after his birth. In order to be quite sure that the child will perish, Laius orders his ankles to be pierced. According to the account of Sophocles, which is not the oldest, however, the shepherd who has been intrusted with the exposure, surrenders the boy to a shepherd of King Polybus, of Corinth, at whose court he is brought up, according to the universal statement. Others say that the boy was exposed in a box on the sea, and was taken from the water by Periböa, the wife of King Polybus, as she was rinsing her clothes by the shore. 42 Polybus brought him up as his own son.

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.

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 the Saviour, who receives him among his apostles. His betrayal of Jesus is known from the Gospels.

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. 43

A very similar legend is the Persian epic of King Darab, told by the poet Firdausi. 44 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.

Paris