اسطوره تولد قهرمان بخش اول A
The Cycle of Myths
Sargon
Probably the oldest and simplest hero myth in our possession dates from the period of the founding of Babylonia (about 2800 B.C .) 1 and concerns the birth history of its founder, Sargon the First; this version reduces the myth to a single motif. The literal translation of the report—given the style, it appears to be an original inscription by King Sargon himself—is as follows. 2
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 Azupirani, situated on the bank of the Euphrates, my mother, the vestal, conceived me. In a hidden place she gave birth to me. 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. In the kindness of his heart, Akki the water carrier lifted me up. Akki the water carrier raised me as his own son. Akki the water carrier made me his gardener. In my work as a gardener I was beloved by Ishtar; I became king, and for forty-five years I held kingly sway.
In the Babylonian myth of Etana, Zimmern (1903), following Harpner (1890), sees a parallel with the legends of the birth of the first national kings such as Sargon, Cyrus, and Romulus. Ward (1886) considers the illustrations on the Etana cylinder seals to be depictions of the early life of the hero beginning with the time when he was exposed, cared for flocks of sheep, and stole in order to survive. (Etana later flies on an eagle up to the throne of Ishtar, queen of the gods and helper in the birth of children, to fetch an herb conducive to the conception of a son. Yet he falls with the eagle into the depths: just before reaching his destination, he loses courage.) Similarly, a text on the Babylonian god Tammuz reads: “As a small boy, he lies in a sinking ship” (Zimmern 1909, 727).
Moses
The biblical birth history of Moses, 3 told in the second chapter of Exodus, presents a major similarity to the Sargon legend and a correspondence of individual motifs. Already the first chapter (verse 22) relates that Pharaoh commanded his people to throw into the river all sons born to Hebrews, while the daughters were permitted to live; the reason for this order is given as fear of the great fertility 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. 4 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 [Mosheh] and she said: “Because I drew him out of the water.” 5
This account is ornamented by rabbinical mythology (Shemot Rabba) with an account of the events preceding Moses’ birth, which can be summarized, based on Bergel 1882, as follows. In the sixtieth year after Joseph’s death, the reigning pharaoh sees in a dream an old man who holds a pair of scales; all the inhabitants of Egypt are on one side, with only a suckling lamb on the other, but nevertheless it outweighs all the Egyptians. The startled king at once consults the scholars and astrologers, who declare the dream to mean that a son will be born to the Israelites and that he will destroy all of Egypt. The king, frightened by this interpretation of the dream, at once orders the death of all the newborn children of the Israelites in the entire country. On account of this tyrannical order, the Levite Amram, who lives in Goshen, decides to separate from his wife Jochebed, so as not to foredoom to certain death the children who would be conceived through him. But this resolution is opposed later by his daughter Miriam, who foretells with prophetic assurance that precisely the child suggested in the king’s dream will come forth from her mother’s womb and will become the liberator of his people. 6 Amram therefore rejoins his wife, from whom he had been separated for three years. At the end of three months she conceives and later bears a boy at whose birth the entire house is illuminated by an extraordinarily luminous radiance, suggesting the truth of the prophecy.
Just as with Sargon, a divine model is found for the Moses legend in the Egyptian god Thoth (Völter 1912, 30ff.). Additional parallel Egyptian legends are the legend of Osiris (Adonis), who floats on the ocean in a chest (the story of the birth of the pharaoh’s son; cf. Erman 1905, 40), and the legend of Ahi, the child of Ra and Hathor, who proceeds from Nu, the young flood (Brugsch 1885, 376). (Other parallels to the Moses legend are presented in Kampers 1901, 10, n. 3; Gunkel 1903, 69; and Wundt 1905, 2.3:294ff., 262ff., 268ff.) Of particular interest is the comment in the most recent work by Frazer (1919, 2:451) that the legend of the exposing of Moses has been compared with various tales of the Tonga-speaking tribes of northwestern Rhodesia (cf. Torrend 1910).
The fact that the same motifs are also common among primitive peoples is seen in the following examples. Stucken (1907) relates the New Zealand legend of the Polynesian robber of fire (and seed), Mani-tiki-tiki, who is exposed shortly after his birth: his mother casts him into the sea in an apron. Frobenius (1904, 379) relates a similar legend from Betsimisaraka (eastern Madagascar) in which a child, exposed on the water, is found and raised by a wealthy, childless woman. In the end, though, the child decides to find his true parents. And according to a report by Bab (1906, 281), there is a legend from Singapore relating how the wife of the raja Besurjak receives a child, floating on a bubble of foam. In a myth from Maui, a youngest son describes his birth to his mother (cf. numerous versions in White 1887, vol. 2). In Frobenius 1904, 66ff., the tale reads as follows.
I know that I was born prematurely on the seashore and that I was thrown into the sea after you wrapped me in a lock of your hair, which you had cut off for this purpose. Then the sea grass embraced me with its long tresses; it formed and shaped me. The soft eels wrapped themselves about me to protect me. Myriads of flies buzzed around me and laid their eggs on me so that the maggots could eat me. Flocks of birds collected around me to peck at me, but at this moment appeared my great ancestor, the sky, Tama-nui-ki-te-rangi, and he saw the flies and the birds. The old man rushed toward me as fast as he could, unwound the eels from around me and found me, a living being. Then he took me and hung me up under the roof so that I could feel the warm smoke and the heat of the fire. Thus was I rescued through the old man’s kindness.
Accounts similar to the story of Moses, with whom the history of the Jews begins, are given of the birth of Abraham, the ancestor of the Hebrew nation. He was a son of Terah—Nimrod’s captain—and of Amtelai. Prior to the birth of Abraham, it is revealed to King Nimrod through the stars that the child to be born will overthrow powerful princes and take possession of their lands. King Nimrod plans to have the child killed immediately after its birth, but when the boy is requested from Terah, he says: “Indeed, a son was born to me, but he has died.” However, he hands over an unrelated child, concealing his own son in a cave beneath the ground, where God permitted him to suck milk from a finger of his right hand. In this cave, Abraham is said to have remained until the third (or tenth) year of his life. (Cf. Wünsche 1907, 14ff., where a translation of the legend of the birth of Abraham is provided. Cf. also Beer 1859, 27ff., which cites parallels to the exposing of Moses. See also Marmorstein 1913.)
As so often occurs, the same mythological motifs appear in the next generation, as in the story of Isaac. Prior to his birth, King Abimelech is warned in a dream not to touch Sarah on pain of death. After a long period of barrenness, she finally bears Isaac. After some delay, his own father determines to sacrifice him, but in the end he is saved. But Abraham casts out his elder son Ishmael, with Hagar, the boy’s mother (Genesis 20:6; Bergel 1882).
Of course, the biblical story of Joseph also fits here. It is nothing more than an elaborate adventure based on the legend of exposing the child: the youngest child is exposed and remains in a cistern for three days (water motif). He is then rescued, but his brothers deceive their father by showing him a bloody animal hide. And the typical career of the exposed child (administrator of the state) is not lacking.
Karna
A close relationship with the Sargon legend is also shown in certain features of the ancient Indian epic Mahābhārata, 7 in its account of the birth of the hero Karna. The contents of the legend are briefly rendered by Lassen (1858, 673) as follows. The princess Pritha, also known as Kuntī, bears as a virgin the boy Karna, whose father is the sun god Surya. The young Karna is born with the golden ear ornaments of his father and with an unbreakable coat of mail. The mother, in her distress, conceals and exposes the boy. In the adaptation of the myth by Holtzmann (1846, 2:117– 27), 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 Acvā.” Floating on the waves, the basket reaches the river Ganges and travels as far as the city of Campā. “There, Azirath the charioteer, the noble friend of Dhrtarastra, happened to be passing along the bank of the river, and with him was Radha, his beautiful and pious spouse. She was deeply sorrowful, for 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 care for the boy and raise him as their own child. Kuntī later marries King Pāndu, who is forced to refrain from conjugal relations due to the curse that he is to die in the arms of his spouse. But Kuntī bears three sons—again through divine conception—one of whom is born in the cave of a wolf. One day Pāndu dies in the embrace of his second wife. The sons grow up, and at a tournament they arrange, Karna appears in order to measure his strength against the best fighter, Arjuna, the son of Kuntī. 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 Kuntī, seeing the divine mark, recognizes Karna as her son. Revealing to him the secret of his birth, she begs him to desist from the contest with his brother. But he considers her revelation a fantastic tale and insists implacably upon satisfaction. He falls in the combat, struck by Arjuna’s arrow (cf. the detailed account in Lefmann 1890, 181ff.). 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 tragic tradition. 8 Apollo, in the grotto of the cliff of the Athenian Acropolis, sires a son with Kreusa, the daughter of Erechtheos. In the grotto the boy is 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. Erechtheos later gives his daughter Kreusa in marriage to Xuthos. As the marriage long remains childless, they address the oracle of Delphi, praying to be blessed with progeny. The god reveals to Xuthos that the first person to meet him on leaving the sanctuary will be his son. He hastens outside and meets the youth, whom he joyfully greets as his own son, giving him the name Ion, meaning “walker.” Kreusa 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, Kreusa 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, live for a long time in childless wedlock. Laius, who longs for an heir, asks the Delphic Apollo for advice. The oracle answers that he shall have a son if he so desires but that fate has ordained that his own son will kill him. Fearing the fulfillment of the prophecy, Laius refrains from conjugal relations, but being intoxicated one day he nevertheless sires a son, whom he orders exposed in Kithairon barely three days after his birth. In order to be quite sure that the child will perish, Laius orders his ankles to be pierced through. According to Sophocles’ account, which is not the oldest however, the shepherd entrusted with the exposure surrenders the boy to a shepherd of King Polybos of Corinth, at whose court he is brought up, according to the general report. (Others say that the boy was exposed in a box on the sea and was taken from the water by Periboea, the wife of King Polybos, as she was rinsing her clothes by the shore.) 9 Polybos brings him up as his own son. Oedipus, on hearing accidentally that he is a foundling, asks the oracle of Delphi about his true parents, but he 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 he unwittingly kills his father Laius. By solving a riddle, he frees the city from the torments of the Sphinx, a man-eating 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 depiction among the Greek tragedians. 10 An entire series of Christian legends was elaborated on the pattern of the Oedipus myth. The summarized contents of the Judas legend will serve as a paradigm for this group. Before his birth, his mother, Cyborea, 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 the royal couple have a son of their own, and the foundling, who feels himself slighted, kills his foster brother. As a fugitive from Scariot, 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 it is his father. He then marries the dead man’s widow—thus his own mother. After the revelation of these horrors, he repents and seeks the Savior, who receives him among his apostles. His betrayal of Jesus is known from the Gospels. 11
The tale of Saint Gregory on the Rock—the subject of the narrative of Hartmann von Aue—represents a more complicated variant of this legend. 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 then trained as a priest in a convent. But he prefers the life of a knight, is victorious in combat, and in reward is given the hand of the princess, his mother. 12 After the discovery of the incest, Gregory does penance for eighteen years on a rock in the midst of the sea and is finally made pope at the command of God.
A very similar legend is the Persian epic of King Dārāb, told by the poet Firdusi in his Shāhnāme [Book of kings], as related by Spiegel (1871, 2:584). The last Kaianian shah, Behmen, names as his successor his daughter (simultaneously his wife), Humāi. Therefore his son Sāsān is grieved and withdraws into solitude. Shortly after the death of her husband, Humāi gives birth to a son, whom she resolves to expose. He is placed in a box, which is put into the Euphrates and drifts downstream until it is stopped by a stone that had been placed in the water by a tanner. The tanner picks up the box and finds the child; he brings him to his wife, who has recently lost her own child. The couple decides to raise the foundling. As the boy grows up, he soon becomes so strong that the other children are no match for him. Because he does not care for the work of his foster father, he becomes a warrior. He forces his foster mother to reveal the secret of his origin and joins the army that Humāi is sending out to fight the king of Rūm. Made aware of his bravery, Humāi recognizes him as her son and names him her successor.
Paris
Apollodorus (in Bibliotheca) relates concerning the birth of Paris that King Priam of Troy had with his wife Hecuba a son named Hector. When Hecuba is about to bear another child, she dreams that she brings forth a burning log, which sets fire to the entire city. Priam asks the advice of Aisakos, his son with his first wife, Arisbe, and an expert in the interpretation of dreams. Aisakos declares that the child will bring destruction upon the city and advises that he be exposed. Priam gives the little boy to a slave, Agelaos, who carries him to the top of Mount Ida. The child is nursed for five days by a she-bear. When Agelaos finds that he is still alive, he picks him up and carries him home to raise him. He names the boy Paris; but after the child has grown into a strong and handsome youth, he is called Alexandros (defender of men) because he fights robbers and protects the flocks. Before long he discovers his parents. How this came about is told in Fabulae by Hyginus, 13 according to whose report the infant is found by herdsmen. One day messengers, sent by Priam, come to these herdsmen to fetch a bull, which is to serve as the prize for the victor in some commemorative games in honor of Paris. Paris is so fond of the bull they choose that he follows the men when they lead the beast away. He participates in the games and wins the prize. This arouses the anger of his brother Deiphobos, who threatens him with his sword, but his sister Cassandra recognizes him as her brother, 14 and Priam joyfully receives him as his son.
The misfortune 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 the subsequent cyclic poems.
A certain resemblance with the story of the birth of Paris is presented by the poem of Zal in Firdusi’s Persian hero myths (1877). A first son is born to Sam, king of Sistan, by one of his consorts. Because he has white hair, his mother conceals his 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 him to the top of Mount Elburz, where he is raised by the simurgh, a powerful bird. The full-grown youth is seen by a traveling caravan, whose members speak of him as the one for whom “a bird is sufficient nurse.” One day King Sam sees his son in a dream and sallies forth to seek the exposed child. He is unable to reach the summit of the steep cliff where he sees the youth. But after the simurgh brings his son down to him, 15 he receives him joyfully and names him as his successor.
Telephos
Aleos, king of Tegea, is informed by the oracle that his sons will perish through a descendant of his daughter. He therefore makes his daughter Auge a priestess of Athena and threatens her with death should she mate with a man. But when Hercules, on his expedition against Augeas, is staying in the sanctuary of Athena as a guest, he sees the maiden and, while intoxicated, takes her by force. When Aleos notices that she is pregnant, he delivers her to Nauplios, a rough sailor, commanding him to throw her into the sea. But on the way she gives birth to Telephos on Mount Parthenios, and Nauplios, unmindful of the orders he has received, carries both her and the child to Mysia, where he delivers them to King Teuthras. According to another version, Auge secretly brings forth her child as a priestess but keeps the child hidden in the temple. When Aleos discovers the sacrilege, he has the child exposed in the Parthenian mountains. 16 Nauplios is instructed to sell Auge abroad or to kill her; he delivers her to Teuthras.
According to the general 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 Korythos. The king brings him up as his son. When Telephos has grown into a youth, he goes to Mysia, on the advice of the oracle, to seek his mother. He frees Teuthras, who is in grave danger from his enemies, and in reward receives the hand of the supposed daughter of the king—his own mother, Auge. But she refuses to submit to Telephos. Angered by her intransigence, he is about to pierce her with his sword. In her distress, she calls on her lover Hercules, and Telephos thus recognizes his mother. After the death of Teuthras he becomes king of Mysia.
Perseus
Akrisios, the king of Argos, had already reached an advanced age without having male progeny. As he desires a son, he consults the oracle of Delphi. The oracle warns him against male descendants: his daughter Danaë would bear a son through whose hand he would perish. In order to prevent this, he has his daughter locked up in an iron tower, which he keeps carefully guarded. But Zeus penetrates the roof in the guise of a golden shower, and Danaë becomes the mother of a boy. 17 One day Akrisios hears the voice of the young Perseus in his daughter’s room and thus learns that she has given birth to a child. He kills the nurse but carries his daughter with her son to the domestic altar of Zeus, to have her swear an oath concerning the true father’s name. But he refuses to believe his daughter’s claim that Zeus is the father, and he encloses her with the child in a box, 18 which he casts into the sea. The box is carried by the waves to the coast of Seriphos, where Diktys, a fisherman, usually said to be a brother of King Polydektes, saves mother and child by drawing them out of the sea with his nets. Diktys leads the two into his house and keeps them as members of his family. Polydektes, however, becomes enamored of the beautiful mother, and as Perseus is in his way, he tries 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 other heroic deeds besides. Later, in throwing the discus during a contest, he accidentally kills his grandfather, as foretold by the oracle. He becomes the king of Argos, and then of Tiryns, and builds Mycenae. 19
Dionysus
In the legends of Greek gods and heroes the motif of exposing the child regularly appears in nearly all mythic forms. The story of the youth of Dionysus is especially significant because it involves the origin of the mystery cult.
According to the version of Pausanias (Periegesis Hellados [Description of Greece] 3.24.3ff.), which originated in Prasiai, in Lakonia, Kadmos discovers that his daughter Semele has borne a child (by Zeus) before her marriage. He encloses mother and child in a chest and has them thrown into the sea. They are washed ashore on the Lakonian coast. The mother is dead, but her sister Ino cares for the child in a motherly way, nurses him, and raises him. According to the legend related by Appian, with her sisters Autonoë and Agauë she conceals the boy in the mountains, fearing Hera and Pentheus. There, in a cave that was later considered a sanctuary, they place the boy in a fir chest, which they cover with deer skins and wreathes of blooming ivy. To mask the child’s whimpering, they dance to music around the chest. Thus, with the Boeotian women who join them, they celebrate the first secret rite around the hidden chest. Then the sacred chest with the demigod, wreathed with ivy, is placed on a donkey’s back and taken to the shore of Euripos, where a fisherman ferries it across to Euboia. There, in his cave, Aristaeus removes little Dionysus from Ino’s chest. He cares for the boy with the help of dryads and beekeeping nymphs. According to Usener (1900, 185), the four motifs united here appear separately in other versions. The Bithynians told of Dionysus’ arrival in their land riding a dolphin. The Ionians told of his arrival on a ship, on whose deck a wondrous grapevine was growing. But there is also a legend in which, enclosed in the chest, he is carried by the waves from Lemnos to the island of Sikinos. Another version has it that Eurypilos brings a wooden image of Dionysus to Patrai in a chest. In the Dodonaean legend as reported by Philiskos, Dionysus is carried through the waves by the donkey . Given fragments on the cults, we can conclude that similar beliefs held for the birth of Apollo. Near the Cretan settlement of Xanthos, by the river of the same name, the grove of Leto lay near an ancient temple of Lycian Apollo. A legend describes the founding of the temple: wolves led the wandering goddess there, and after the birth of her children they washed them in the river. An old woman took them into her poor home. A similar legend is associated with Ainos, the hero of the island of Delos —the old king and priest of Apollo. Diodorus (5.62.1ff.) relates of his birth that Rhoio, impregnated by Apollo, was exposed in a chest in the sea by her father. The chest comes ashore on the coast of Delos. There Rhoio gives birth to the boy, whom she names Ainos (sorrowful). 20 She lays the infant on the altar of Apollo and prays that he take pity on the boy if he is the father. Apollo takes up the boy and conceals him at first but then raises him.
Adonis, the son of the incestuous union of Smyrna with her father, is hidden by Aphrodite in a chest, which she gives for safekeeping to the goddess of the underworld, Persephone. Persephone opens the chest and is so enchanted by the boy’s beauty that she does not wish to give him up. Zeus decides the quarrel of the two goddesses, pronouncing that the boy shall remain with each goddess for half a year.
Similarly, Athena conceals Erichthonios, born of the earth, in a woven basket or chest containing snakes, which guard him. She delivers him to the three daughters of Kekrops, with instructions never to open the chest. They nevertheless do so, whereupon they see the boy with a snake. Mad with fright, they cast themselves from the cliff of the Acropolis. After the boy, said to have the lower body of a snake, is grown, the childless Kekrops cedes to him rulership over Attica.
Gilgamesh
Claudius Aelianus (12.21), ca. A.D. 200, relates in his Historia animalium [Animal stories] the story of a boy who is 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 fate outsmarted the Babylonian king, and his daughter secretly bore a child, having conceived by a man of low station. For fear of the king, the guardians threw the child down from the fortification where the king’s daughter was imprisoned. The eagle, with its keen eyes, saw the boy’s fall, and before the child struck the earth, it caught him on its back, bore him into a garden, and set him 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 no objection, although I have investigated the matter to the best of my ability. I have also heard that Achaemenes the Persian, from whom the Persian nobility descend, was cared for by an eagle. 21
Cyrus
The legend of Cyrus the Great, which the majority of researchers place in the center of this entire cycle of myths—apparently without sufficient grounds—has come down to us in several versions. According to Herodotus (ca. 450 B.C .), who states that among four versions known to him he selected the least “glorifying” one (Historia 1.95), the story of the birth and youth of Cyrus is as follows (Historia 1.107ff.).
Royal sway over the Medes was held, after Cyaxares, by his son Astyages, who had a daughter named Mandane. Once he dreamed that so much water was passing from her that it filled the whole city and inundated all of Asia. He related his dream to the dream interpreters among the magicians and was in great fear after they had explained it all to him. When Mandane had grown up, he gave her in marriage not to a Mede from a family as noble as his own but to a Persian by the 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. During the first year after Mandane had become the wife of Cambyses, Astyages had another dream. He dreamed that a vine grew from his daughter’s lap, and that it overshadowed all of Asia. After he had again related this vision to the dream interpreters, he sent for his daughter, who was with child. After her arrival from Persia, he watched her as he intended to kill her offspring: 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, his relative and his greatest confidant among the Medes, and whom he had placed over all his affairs.
He addressed Harpagos as follows: “My dear Harpagos, I shall charge you with an errand which you must conscientiously perform. But do not deceive me, and let no one else attend to it, lest you meet with ill fate. Take this boy, whom Mandane has brought forth, carry him home, and kill him. Then you may bury him however you wish.” Harpagos answered: “Great King, never have you found your servant disobedient, and also in future I shall beware not to sin before you. If such is your 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 to be killed, he went home weeping. There, he told his wife all that Astyages had said to him, and she asked: “What are you going to do?” He replied: “I shall not obey Astyages. Even if he raves and storms ten times worse than he is doing, I shall not do as he wishes, and consent to such a murder. I have many reasons. In the first place, the boy is my blood relative. Also, Astyages is old, and has no male heir. If he dies, and the kingdom goes to his daughter, whose son he has told me to kill, would I not be in the greatest danger? Still, for the sake of my safety, the boy must die. However, one of Astyages’ men must be his murderer, not one of mine.” Having thus spoken, he at once sent a messenger to bring one of the king’s cowherds, Mithradates, who, as he happened to know, kept his herd in a suitable pasture in mountains full of wild animals. The cowherd’s wife was also a slave of Astyages; her name was Cyno in Greek, or Spako (bitch) in Median. 22
When the cowherd hurriedly arrived on Harpagos’ command, Harpagos said to him: “Astyages commands you to take this boy and expose him in the wildest mountains, so that he may perish as soon as possible. He has ordered me to say to you: ‘If you do not kill the boy, but let him live, in whatever way, you will die a most disgraceful death.’ And I have been ordered to see that the boy is really exposed.” When the cowherd had heard this, he took the boy and went home to his hut. His wife was with child and had been in labor the entire day, and it happened that she was just giving birth when the cowherd went to the city. They had been greatly worried about each other. But when he returned and his wife saw him again so unexpectedly, she asked first why Harpagos had sent for him so hurriedly. He said: “My dear wife, I wish I had never seen and heard what has happened in the city, and that it had never befallen our masters. The house of Harpagos was full of cries and laments. Although this seemed strange, I entered and soon saw a small boy lying before me, fussing and crying, and dressed in fine garments and gold. When Harpagos saw me, he told me to take the boy quickly and expose him in the wildest place in the mountains. He said Astyages had ordered this, and added awful threats if I failed to do it. I took the child and went away with him, thinking he had been born to one of the servants, for it had not yet occurred to me that he was born of royalty. But on the way, I learned the whole story from the servant who led me from the city and placed the boy in my hands. He is the son of Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, and of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And Astyages has ordered his death. Look, here is the boy!”
Having thus spoken, the cowherd uncovered the child and showed him to her, and when she saw that he was a strong and handsome child, she wept, and fell at her husband’s feet, and implored him not to expose him. But he said he could not do otherwise, for Harpagos would send servants to see if it had been done; he would have to die a disgraceful death unless he did so. Then she said: “If I have failed to convince you, then do as I say—if they absolutely must see an exposed child. I have brought forth a dead child. Take him and expose him, but we will raise the son of Astyages’ daughter as our own child. In this way, you will not be found a disobedient servant, nor will we fare ill ourselves. Our stillborn child will be given a kingly burial, and the living child’s life will be spared.” The cowherd did as his wife had begged him. He placed his own dead son in a basket, dressed him in all the finery of the other, and exposed him on the most deserted mountain. Three days later he announced to Harpagos that he could now show the boy’s body. Harpagos sent his most faithful bodyguards and had the cowherd’s son buried. The other boy, however, who was later known as Cyrus, was brought up by the cowherd’s wife. They did not call him Cyrus but gave him another name. 23
When the boy was twelve years old, the truth was revealed through the following circumstance. He was playing on the road, with other boys of his own age, in the village where the cattle were kept. The boys were playing “king” and elected the cowherd’s foster son. 24 He commanded some to build houses and others to carry lances; some he made the royal watchmen, and others were charged with the bearing of messages. In short, each received his appointed task. One of the boy’s playmates, however, was the son of Artembares, a respected man among the Medes, and when he did not do as Cyrus commanded, Cyrus had the other boys seize him. The boys obeyed, and Cyrus had them give him some heavy blows. After they let him go, he became violently angry, thinking he had been treated improperly. He ran into the city and complained to his father about what Cyrus had done to him. (He did not say “Cyrus,” for he was not yet called that, but said “the cowherd’s son.”) Artembares went wrathfully with his son to Astyages, complained of the disgraceful treatment, and said: “Great King, we have suffered such outrageous treatment from your servant, the cowherd’s son.” He showed him his own son’s shoulders. When Astyages heard and saw this, he wished to avenge the boy for the sake of Artembares, and he sent for the cowherd and his son. When both were present, Astyages looked at Cyrus and said: “Have you, the son of a lowly man, had the effrontery to treat so disgracefully the son of a man I greatly honor!” But Cyrus answered: “Lord, he has only received his due. The boys in the village, including him, were playing, and they made me their king since they thought I was the best suited. And the other boys did as they were told, but he was disobedient and did not obey me at all. For this he has received his just reward. If I deserve punishment, here I am.” When the boy spoke in this way, Astyages knew him at once, for the features of the face appeared to him as his own, and the answer was that of a nobleman. Furthermore, the time of the exposure seemed to correspond to the boy’s age. This smote his heart, and he remained speechless for a while. As soon as he regained control over himself, he wished to get rid of Artembares so as to be able to question the cowherd without witnesses. “My dear Artembares,” he said, “I shall make sure that neither you nor your son shall have cause for complaint.” Thus he dismissed Artembares. Cyrus, however, was led into the palace by the servants, on the command of Astyages, and the cowherd was obliged to stay with Astyages. When he was alone with him, Astyages asked him where he had obtained the boy, and who had given the child into his hands. But the cowherd said that he was his own son and that the woman who had borne him lived with him. Astyages remarked that he was very unwise and that he should expect the most cruel tortures; he beckoned the lance-bearers to seize him. As he was being led to torture, the cowherd confessed the whole story from beginning to end, finally begging for forgiveness and grace.
Astyages was not as angry with the cowherd, who had revealed the truth, as he was with Harpagos. He ordered the lance-bearers to summon him, and when Harpagos stood before him, he asked him: “My dear Harpagos, how did you take the life of my daughter’s son, whom I once handed over to you?” Seeing the cowherd standing nearby, Harpagos did not resort to falsehood, for fear that he would be refuted at once.
And so he proceeded to tell the truth. Astyages concealed the anger Harpagos had aroused in him, and first told him what he had learned from the cowherd; then he mentioned that the boy was still living, and that everything had turned out well. He said: “I greatly regret my actions concerning the child, and my daughter’s reproaches have pierced my soul. But as everything has ended so well, send your son to greet the newcomer, and then come to dine with me, for I am ready to prepare a feast in honor of the gods who have brought all this about.”
When Harpagos heard this, he prostrated himself on the ground before the king and considered himself lucky that his error had turned out well, and for being invited to the king’s table in commemoration of a happy event. So he went home, and when he arrived there, he at once sent off his only son, a boy about thirteen years old, telling him to go to Astyages, and to do as he was told. Then Harpagos joyfully told his wife what had happened. But Astyages butchered Harpagos’ son when he arrived, cut him to pieces, and roasted part of the flesh; another portion of the flesh was boiled, and when everything was prepared, he kept it in readiness. When the hour of the meal had come, Harpagos and the other guests arrived. A table with mutton was arranged before Astyages and the others, but Harpagos was served his own son’s flesh—without the head, and without the hands and feet, but with everything else. The extra parts lay hidden in a basket. When Harpagos seemed to have eaten his fill, Astyages asked him if the meat had tasted good to him, and when Harpagos answered that he had enjoyed it, the servants who had been ordered to do so brought forth his son’s head, with the hands and feet, in the covered basket. They stepped up to Harpagos, inviting him to uncover the basket and to take what he wished. Harpagos uncovered the basket, and saw the remnants of his son. Yet he did not give way to his horror but controlled himself. Astyages then asked him if he knew of what game he had eaten, and he replied that he knew it very well, and that whatever the king did was well done. Thus he spoke, took the flesh that remained, and went home with it, where, I suppose, he intended to bury it all together. Such was Astyages’ revenge upon Harpagos. But concerning Cyrus, he took counsel and summoned the same magicians who had explained his dream before. He asked them how they had previously interpreted his dream. Once again, they answered in the same way, saying that the boy would become a king if he remained alive and did not die first. But Astyages replied: “The boy is alive, and is here, but when he was staying in the country the boys of the village elected him their king. He did everything like a real king, for as ruler he arranged for lance-bearers, gatekeepers, messengers, and everything else. How do you interpret this?”
The magicians answered: “If the boy is alive and has been king in that sense, without
anyone’s help, you can be at ease as far as he is concerned. Be of good cheer, for he will not again be made a king. Already several of our prophecies have ended up as trifles: what rests upon dreams often turns out to be of no consequence.”
Astyages replied: “O sorcerers, I completely agree that the dream was already fulfilled when the boy was king in name and that I have nothing more to fear from him. Yet advise me carefully as to what is safest for my house and for yourselves.” Then the magicians said: “Send the boy away, that he may get out of your sight; send him to the land of the Persians, to his parents.”
When Astyages had heard this, he was very pleased. He sent for Cyrus and said to him: “My son, I have wronged you greatly, misled by a deceitful dream, but your good fortune has saved you. Now go cheerfully to the land of the Persians: I shall give you safe conduct. There you will find a very different father, and a very different mother than the cowherd Mithradates and his wife.” Thus spoke Astyages, and sent Cyrus forth. When he arrived at the home of Cambyses, his parents received him with great joy when they learned who he was, for they thought he had perished, and wished to know how he had been saved. He told them that he had believed he was the son of the cowherd but had learned everything on the way from the guards Astyages had sent with him. He told them that the cowherd’s wife had raised him and praised her throughout: Spako played the main role in his story. The parents spread about this name, so that the preservation of the child might appear still more miraculous, thus laying the foundation of the legend that the exposed Cyrus had been nursed by a bitch. Later, Cyrus, on the instigation of Harpagos, stirred up the Persians against the Medes.
War was declared, and Cyrus, at the head of the Persians, conquered the Medes in battle. Astyages was captured alive, but Cyrus did not harm him and kept him with him until the end of his days.
Herodotus’ report concludes with the words: “But from that time on the Persians, under Cyrus, reigned over Asia. Thus was Cyrus born and raised, and made a king” (cf. also Duncker 1880, 4:256ff.). 25 The report of Pompeius Trogus is preserved only in the excerpt by
Justin, 26 according to whom Astyages had a daughter but no male heir. His version continues:
In his dream Astyages saw a vine growing forth from his daughter’s lap, the sprouts of which overshadowed all of Asia. The dream interpreters declared that the vision signified the greatness of his grandson, whom his daughter was to bear, but also his own loss of power. In order to banish this dread, Astyages gave his daughter in marriage neither to a prominent man nor to a Mede, lest his grandson become arrogant, having a noble father beside a noble mother. Instead he married her to Cambyses, a man of moderate station from the then unknown people of the Persians. But this was not enough to banish Astyages’ fears, so he summoned his pregnant daughter in order to have her infant destroyed before his eyes. When a boy had been born, he gave him to Harpagos, his friend and confidant, to kill him. Fearing that Astyages’ daughter would take revenge upon him for the death of her boy if she came to reign after her father’s death, he delivered the boy to the king’s cowherd to be exposed. At the same time that Cyrus was born, a son also happened to be born to the cowherd. When his wife learned that the king’s grandson had been exposed, she urgently asked for him to be brought to her so that she could see him. Moved by her entreaties, the cowherd returned to the woods. There he found a bitch standing beside the child, giving him her teats and keeping the beasts and birds away from him. Seeing this he was filled with the same compassion as the bitch. He picked up the boy and carried him home, and the bitch followed him with great concern. When his wife took the boy in her arms, he smiled at her as if he already knew her, and as he was very strong and had ingratiated himself with her through his pleasant smile, she voluntarily begged the herder to [expose her own child instead and to] 27 permit her to raise the boy, either because she was concerned for his welfare or because she placed her own hopes on him. Thus the two boys had to exchange fates; one was raised in place of the cowherd’s child, while the other was exposed instead of the grandson of the king.
The remainder of this apparently earlier report agrees essentially with the account of Herodotus.
An altogether different version of the Cyrus myth is extant in the report of Ctesias, a contemporary of Herodotus. The original has been lost, but the text is preserved in the writings of Nicolaus Damascenus (Fragments, ch. 66), which provide a summary of Ctesias’ tale from his De Rebus Persicis [On Persia], chs. 2 and 5.
Astyages is said to have been the worthiest king of the Medes after Arbakes. Under his rule occurred the great transformation through which rulership passed from the Medes to the Persians; this occurred in the following manner. The Medes had a law that a poor man who went to a rich man for his daily bread, and surrendered himself to him, was to be fed and clothed and considered a slave by him; in case the rich man refused to do so, the poor man was free to approach someone else. In this way a boy by the name of Cyrus, a Mede by birth, came to the king’s servant in charge of the palace sweepers. Cyrus was the son of Atradates, who due to poverty lived as a robber; his wife, Argoste, Cyrus’ mother, made her living by tending goats. Cyrus surrendered himself to earn his daily bread and helped to clean the palace. As he was diligent, the foreman gave him better clothing and advanced him from the outside sweepers to those who cleaned the interior of the king’s palace, placing him under their superintendent. This man was severe, however, and often whipped Cyrus. The boy left him and went to the lamplighter, who liked Cyrus and brought him closer to the king by placing him among the royal torchbearers. As Cyrus distinguished himself also in this new position, he came to Artembares, who was at the head of the cupbearers, and himself presented the cup to the king. Artembares gladly accepted Cyrus, and had him pour the wine for the guests at the king’s table. Not long afterward, Astyages noticed the dexterity and nimbleness of Cyrus’ service and his graceful presentation of the wine cup. He asked Artembares where this youth had come from, who was so skillful a cupbearer. “O Lord,” he said, “this boy is your slave, of Persian parentage, from the tribe of the Mards, who has surrendered himself to me to make a living.” Artembares was old, and once, when he had a fever, he asked the king to let him stay at home until he had recovered: “In my stead, the youth whom you have praised will pour the wine, and if he should please you, O King, as a cupbearer, I who am a eunuch will adopt him as my son.” Astyages consented, and Artembares confided in many ways in Cyrus as in a son. Cyrus thus stood at the king’s side and poured his wine by day and by night, showing great ability and cleverness. Astyages conferred upon him the income of Artembares, as his son, adding many presents, and Cyrus became a great man whose name was heard everywhere. Astyages, though, had a very noble and beautiful daughter, 28 whom he gave to the Mede Spitamas, adding all of Media as her dowry. Then Cyrus sent for his father and mother in the land of the Medes, and they rejoiced in the good fortune of their son, and his mother told him the dream she had had when she was carrying him in her womb and had fallen asleep in the sanctuary while tending the goats. She dreamed that so much water passed from her that it was like a great current, inundating all of Asia, and flowing as far as the sea. When the father heard this, he ordered the dream to be told to the Chaldeans in Babylon; Cyrus summoned the wisest among them, and communicated the dream to him. He declared that the dream foretold great good fortune to Cyrus, and the greatest glory in Asia. But he added that Astyages must not learn of it. “For otherwise he would disgracefully kill you, as well as myself as the interpreter,” said the Babylonian. They swore to each other to tell no one of this great and incomparable vision. Cyrus later rose to still higher dignities, made his father a satrap of Persia, and raised his mother to the highest rank and possessions among the Persian women.
The Babylonian is killed soon afterward by Oebares, the confidant of Cyrus; the Babylonian’s wife betrays the fateful dream to the king on learning of Cyrus’ expedition to Persia, which he has undertaken in preparation for the revolt. The king sends his horsemen after Cyrus with the command to deliver him dead or alive, but Cyrus escapes them by a ruse. Finally a battle ensues, ending in the defeat of the Medes. Cyrus also conquers Egbatana.
Here the daughter of Astyages and her husband Spitamas, with their two sons, were taken prisoner. But Astyages himself could not be found, for Amytis and Spitamas had concealed him in the palace, under the rafters of the roof. Cyrus then ordered that Amytis, her husband, and children should be tortured until they revealed the hiding place of Astyages, but he came out voluntarily so that his family would not be tortured on his account. Cyrus ordered the execution of Spitamas because he had lied in claiming that he did not know where Astyages was hidden. But Amytis became the wife of Cyrus. He released Astyages from the fetters with which Oebares had bound him; he honored him as a father and made him a satrap of the Barkanians.
A great similarity to Herodotus’ version of the Cyrus myth is found in the story of the youth of the Persian kingly hero Kaikhosrav, as related by Firdusi in the Shāhnāme [Book of kings]. This myth is most extensively rendered by Spiegel (1871, 1:581ff.). During a war waged by King Kaikāus of Bactria and Iran against King Afrāsiāb of Turan, Kaikāus falls out with his son, Siāvaksh, who applies to Afrāsiāb for protection and help and is kindly received by him. Afrāsiāb even gives him his daughter Feringis in marriage, having been persuaded to do so by his vizier, Pirān—although he had received the prophecy that the son born of this union would bring great misfortune upon him. Garsevaz, the king’s brother and a close relative of Siāvaksh, approaches Afrāsiāb and slanders Siāvaksh; Afrāsiāb leads an army against him. Before the birth of his son, Siāvaksh is warned by a dream foretelling destruction and death for himself but rulership for his offspring. He therefore flees from Afrāsiāb but is taken prisoner and killed at the king’s command. His pregnant wife is saved by Pirān from the hands of the hangmen. On condition that he inform the king at once of the birth of Feringis’ child, Pirān is granted permission to keep her in his home. One day the shade of the murdered Siāvaksh comes to him in a dream and tells him that an avenger has been born, and indeed, in Feringis’ room Pirān finds a newborn boy, whom he names Kaikhosrav. Afrāsiāb no longer insists on killing the boy but orders Pirān to surrender the child with a nurse to the herdsmen, who are to raise him in ignorance of his origin. But his royal descent is soon revealed in his courage and his demeanor, and when Pirān takes the boy back into his home, Afrāsiāb becomes distrustful and has the boy brought before him. Instructed by Pirān, Kaikhosrav plays the fool, 29 and reassured as to his harmlessness, the king releases him to his mother, Feringis. Finally, Kaikhosrav is crowned as king by his grandfather, Kaikāus. After prolonged, complicated, and exhausting combats, and with divine assistance, Afrāsiāb is at last taken prisoner. Kaikhosrav strikes his head off and also has Garsevaz decapitated.
Based on the motif of playing the fool and other corresponding motifs, Jiriczek (1900) classifies the Hamlet legend as a variant of the Iranian legend of Kaikhosrav; this idea has been further developed by Lessmann (1906). Lessmann shows that in certain aspects, such as playing the fool, the Hamlet legend shows obvious correspondences to the Brutus and Tell legends as well, and he also points to the story of David as told in the books of Samuel. 30 There, too, the royal offspring, David, is made a shepherd; gradually, he climbs the social ladder all the way to the royal throne. He, too, receives the daughter of the king (Saul) as his wife, and the king wishes to have him killed. But in miraculous ways, David is repeatedly rescued from grave danger. He, too, escapes persecution by playing the fool.
The Hamlet legend also has an obvious counterpart in the Finnish legend of Kullervo. Untamo, at war against his brother Kalervo, kills him and all his kin—except for one pregnant woman. In Untamo’s home, she bears Kullervo as the avenger of his family. Fearing danger, Untamo wishes to be rid of the boy: he is placed in a barrel on the water, but he survives and proves to be supernaturally protected from fire and air (hanging). As a servant he carries out pranks like those of Till Eulenspiegel; after his service with Ilmarinen he returns to his family. In the forest he unwittingly takes his sister by force; she throws herself into the water when she discovers who he is (cf. Ophelia’s similar fate). He also laments, wishing that he had been killed as a child (Hamlet’s pessimism). Finally, seeking vengeance, he plans an attack against Untamo but, upon his return, cannot find his family; he commits suicide at the place where he had defiled his sister.
The Kalervo legend, which is only an episode in the Finnish epic, forms the entire content of the Estonian epic. The Estonian hero is Kalevi-Poeg (Kalev’s son). His father dies before his birth and his mother is abducted by a Finnish sorcerer. Kalevi-Poeg swims after her to Finland. On an island he takes a maiden by force (whose sisterhood is forgotten, reminiscent of Ophelia); she drowns herself. In order to free his mother, he kills the sorcerer but finds his mother already dead. He descends to the underworld and finally kills himself with his own sword (reminiscent of Hamlet). (For a discussion of this entire cycle of legends, cf. Setälä 1911.) In the Finnish epic Kalevala (ch. 1), the hero Väinämöinen is borne by the water mother, who was impregnated by the wind and the waves. For a long time he floats on the waves until he finally drifts ashore. As a youth, he courts Joukahainen’s sister, who dislikes him and plunges into the sea. The hero, in the guise of a fish, rescues her. Later, she throws him into the sea, where he swims for many days until he is saved by an eagle. A certain resemblance to the Kaikhosrav legend, although more remote, is presented by the myth of Feridun, as told by Firdusi (1877). Zohāk, 31 the king of Iran, once sees in a dream three men of royal descent. Two of them are bent with age, but between them is a younger man who holds a club topped with a bull’s head in his right hand; this man steps up to him and fells him to the ground with his club. The dream interpreters declare to the king that the young hero, who will dethrone him, is Feridun, a scion of the tribe of Jemshid. Zohāk at once sets out to look for the tracks of his dreaded enemy. Feridun is the son of Abtin, a grandson of Jemshid. His father hides from the pursuit of the tyrant but is seized and killed. Feridun himself, a boy of tender age, is saved by his mother, Firānek, who escapes with him and entrusts him to the care of the guardian of a distant forest. Here he is suckled by the cow Purmāje. For three years he remains hidden in this place, but then his mother no longer believes him safe and carries him to a hermit on Mount Elburz. Soon afterward Zohāk comes into the forest and kills the guardian as well as the cow Purmāje. When Feridun is sixteen years old, he comes down from Mount Elburz, learns of his origin through his mother, and swears to avenge the death of his father and of his nurse, the cow. On the expedition against Zohāk he is accompanied by his two older brothers, Purmāje and Kayānush. He orders a club to he forged for him and ornaments it with a bull’s head, in memory of his foster mother, the cow. With this club he smites Zohāk, as foretold in the dream.
Trakhan
A similar tale is told of the exposure and rescue of Trakhan, the king of Gilgit, a city situated at an elevation of more than five thousand feet in the eternal snows of the Himalayas, and which once was the seat of a mighty royal family. Trakhan, who ruled at the beginning of the thirteenth century, was the greatest among his family. He is said to have been the strictest and proudest king; the legends outdo one another in their descriptions of his experiences and deeds (Biddulph 1880 and Muhammed 1905). The tale of his birth and exposure is as follows (Frazer 1919, 2:452). His father, TraTrakhan, king of Gilgit, marries a wife from a family in Darel. He is a passionate polo player and travels every week to Darel to play polo with his wife’s seven brothers. One day they agree that the winner shall slay the losers. After a hard match, the king is the winner, and kills his seven brothers-in-law. His wife immediately avenges the death of her brothers by poisoning the king, in whose place she now rules. A month after the king’s death, the queen bears his son, whom she names Trakhan. However, she cannot bear to look upon the child of her brothers’ murderer, so she places him in a wooden barrel and secretly throws it into the river. The stream carries the barrel to Hoder, a village in the Chilas district. There, two poor brothers notice it; suspecting that there is a treasure within, one of them wades into the river to bring it ashore. In order to arouse no suspicions, they wrap the barrel in a bundle of cloth and bring it home. There, to their amazement, they find a living boy, who is raised with great care by their mother. With the boy, good luck enters her home, and the brothers soon become wealthy and respected.
When he is twelve years old, the boy decides to travel to Gilgit, about which he has often heard. His two foster brothers go with him. On the way, they rest on a hilltop, in a place called Beldas. His mother is still queen of Gilgit, but as she is ill and lacks a successor, her people are searching for a king from elsewhere to rule over them. One morning the cocks do not crow as usual, but crow: “Beldas tham bayi” (There is a king in Beldas). Then men are sent out to bring to Gilgit any strangers found in Beldas. The messengers find the three brothers and bring them to the queen. Because Trakhan is handsome and well built, the queen turns to him, and during the conversation learns of his story. To her joy and surprise, she finds that he is the long lost son she had thrown into the river, overcome by pain and anger. She embraces him and declares him the rightful king of Gilgit.
