Besides this chronological reversal, the reversal of the contents requires special explanation. The first reason for the representation of the birth by its opposite,—the life threatening exposure in the water, is the accentuation of the parental hostility towards the future hero. [87] The creative influence of this tendency to represent the parents as the first and most powerful opponents of the hero will be appreciated, when it is kept in mind that the entire family-romance in general owes its origin to the feeling of being neglected, namely the assumed hostility of the parents. In the myth, this hostility goes so far that the parents refuse to let the child be born, which is precisely the reason of the hero’s lament, moreover, the myth plainly reveals the desire to enforce his materialization even against the will of the parents. The vital peril which is thus concealed in the representation of birth through exposure, actually exists in the process of birth itself. The overcoming of all these obstacles also expresses the idea that the future hero has actually overcome the greatest difficulties by virtue of his birth, for he has victoriously thwarted all attempts to prevent it. [88] Or another interpretation may be admitted, according to which the youthful hero, foreseeing his destiny to taste more than his share of the bitterness of life, deplores in pessimistic mood the inimical act which has called him to earth. He accuses the parents, as it were, for having exposed him to the struggle of life, for having allowed him to be born. [89] The refusal to let the son be born, which belongs especially to the father, is frequently concealed by the contrast motive, the wish for a child (as in Œdipus, Perseus and others), while the hostile attitude towards the future successor on the throne and in the kingdom is projected to the outside, namely it is attributed to an oracular verdict, which is thereby revealed as the substitute of the ominous dream, or better, as the equivalent of its interpretation.
From another point of view, however, the family romance shows that the phantasies of the child, although apparently estranging the parents, have nought else to say concerning them besides their confirmation as the real parents. The exposure myth, translated with the assistance of symbolism, likewise contains nothing but the assurance: this is my mother, who has borne me at the command of the father. But on account of the tendency of the myth, and the resulting transference of the hostile attitude, from the child to the parents, this assurance of the real parentage can only be expressed as the repudiation of such parentage.
On closer inspection, it is noteworthy in the first place that the hostile attitude of the hero towards his parents concerns especially the father. Usually, as in the myth of Œdipus, Paris, and others, the royal father receives a prophecy of some disaster, threatening him through the expected son; then it is the father who causes the exposure of the boy and who pursues and menaces him in all sorts of ways after his unlooked-for rescue, but finally succumbs to his son, according to the prophecy. In order to understand this trait, which at first may appear somewhat startling, it is not necessary to explore the heavens for some process into which this trait might be laboriously fitted. Looking with open eyes and unprejudiced minds at the relations between parents and children, or between brothers such as these exist in reality [90]—a certain tension is frequently, if not regularly revealed between father and son, or still more distinctly a competition between brothers; although this tension may not be obvious and permanent, it is lurking in the sphere of the unconscious, as it were, with periodical eruptions. Erotic factors are especially apt to be involved, and as a rule the deepest, generally unconscious root of the dislike of the son for the father, or of two brothers for each other, is referable to the competition for the tender devotion and love of the mother. The Œdipus myth shows plainly, only in grosser dimensions, the accuracy of this interpretation, for the parricide is here followed by the incest with the mother. This erotic relation with the mother, which predominates in other mythic cycles, is relegated to the background in the myths of the birth of the hero, [91] while the opposition against the father is more strongly accentuated.
The fact that this infantile rebellion against the father is apparently provoked in the birth myths by the hostile behavior of the father is due to a reversal of the relation, known as projection, which is brought about by very peculiar characteristics of the myth forming psychic activity. The projection mechanism, which also bore its part in the re-interpretation of the birth act, as well as certain other characteristics of myth formation, to be discussed presently,—necessitates the uniform characterisation of the myth as a paranoid structure, in view of its resemblance to peculiar processes in the mechanism of certain psychic disturbances. Intimately connected with the paranoid character is the property of separating or dissociating what is fused in the imagination. This process, as illustrated by the two parents couples, provides the foundation for the myth formation, and together with the projection mechanism supplies the key to the understanding of an entire series of otherwise inexplicable configurations of the myth. As the motor power for this projection of the hero’s hostile attitude on to the father stands revealed the wish for its justification, arising from the troublesome realization of these feelings against the father. The displacement process which begins with the projection of the troublesome sensation is still further continued, however, and with the assistance of the mechanism of separation or dissociation, it has found a different expression of its gradual progress in very characteristic forms of the hero myth. In the original psychologic setting, the father is still identical with the king, the tyrannical persecutor. The first attenuation of this relation is manifested in those myths in which the separation of the tyrannical persecutor from the real father is already attempted, but not yet entirely accomplished, the former being still related to the hero, usually as his grandfather, for example in the Kyros-myth with all its versions, and in the majority of all hero myths in general. In the separation of the father’s part from that of the king, this type signifies the first return step of the descent fantasy toward the actual conditions, and accordingly the hero’s father appears in this type mostly as a lowly man: See Kyros, Gilgamos and others. The hero thus arrives again at an approach toward his parents, the establishment of a certain kinship, which finds its expression in the fact that not only the hero himself, but also his father and his mother represent objects of the tyrant’s persecution. The hero in this way acquires a more intimate connection with the mother (they are often exposed together: Perseus, Telephos, Feridun), who is nearer to him on account of the erotic relation; while the renouncement of his hatred against the father here attains the expression of its most forcible reaction, [92] for the hero henceforth appears, as in the Hamlet saga, not as the persecutor of his father (or grandfather, respectively) but as the avenger of the persecuted father. This involves a deeper relation of the Hamlet saga with the Iranese story of Kaikhosrav, where the hero likewise appears as the avenger of his murdered father (compare Feridun and others).
The person of the grandfather himself, who in certain sagas appears replaced by other relatives (the uncle, in the Hamlet saga), also possesses a deeper meaning. [93] The myth complex of the incest with the mother—and the related revolt against the father—is here combined with the second great complex, which has for its contents the erotic relations between father and daughter. Under this heading belongs besides other widely ramified groups of sagas (quoted in the author’s “Incest Book,” Chapter XI), the story which is told in countless versions of a newborn boy, of whom it is prophesied that he is to become the son-in-law and heir of a certain ruler or potentate, and who finally does so in spite of all persecutions (exposure and so forth) on the part of the latter. Detailed literary references concerning the wide distribution of this story are found in R. Köhler, “Kleine Schriften,” II, 357. The father who refuses to give his daughter to any of her suitors, or who attaches certain conditions difficult of fulfillment to the winning of the daughter, does this because he really begrudges her to all others, for when all is told he wishes to possess her himself. He locks her up in some inaccessible spot, so as to safeguard her virginity (Perseus, Gilgamos, Telephos, Romulus), and when his command is disobeyed he pursues the daughter and her offspring with insatiable hatred. However, the unconscious sexual motives of his hostile attitude, which is later on avenged by his grandson, render it evident that again the hero kills in him simply the man who is trying to rob him of the love of his mother: namely the father.
Another attempt at a reversal to a more original type consists in the following trait: The return to the lowly father, which has been brought about through the separation of the father’s rôle from that of the king, is again nullified through the lowly father’s secondary elevation to the rank of a god, as in Perseus and the other sons of virgin mothers; Karna, Ion, Romulus, Jesus. The secondary character of this godly paternity is especially evident in those myths where the virgin who has been impregnated by divine conception, later on marries a mortal (Jesus, Karna, Ion) who then appears as the real father, while the god as the father represents merely the most exalted childish idea of the magnitude, power and perfection of the father. [94] At the same time, these myths strictly insist upon the motive of the virginity of the mother, which elsewhere is merely hinted at. The first impetus is perhaps supplied by the transcendental tendency, necessitated through the introduction of the god. At the same time, the birth from the virgin is the most abrupt repudiation of the father, the consummation of the entire myth, as illustrated by the Sargon legend, which does not admit any father, besides the vestal mother.
The last stage of this progressive attenuation of the hostile relation to the father is represented by that form of the myth in which the person of the royal persecutor not only appears entirely detached from that of the father, but has even lost the remotest kinship with the hero’s family, which he opposes in the most hostile manner, as its enemy (in Feridun, Abraham, King Herod against Jesus, and others). Although of his original threefold character as the father, the king, and the persecutor, he retains only the part of the royal persecutor or the tyrant, the entire plan of the myth conveys the impression as if nothing had been changed, but as if the designation as “father” had been simply replaced by the term of “tyrant.” This interpretation of the father as a “tyrant” which is typical of the infantile ideation, [95] will be found later on to possess the greatest importance for the interpretation of certain abnormal constellations of this complex.
The prototype of this identification of the king with the father, which regularly recurs also in the dreams of adults, presumably is the origin of royalty from the patriarchate in the family, which is still attested by the use of identical words for king and father, in the Hindoo-Germanic languages [96] (compare the German “Landesvater,” father of his country, = king). The reversal of the family romance to actual conditions is almost entirety accomplished in this type of myth. The lowly parents are acknowledged with a frankness which seems to be directly contradictory to the tendency of the entire myth.
Precisely this revelation of the real conditions, which hitherto had to be left to the interpretation, enables us to prove the accuracy of the latter from the material itself. The biblical Moses-legend has been selected, as especially well adapted to this purpose.
Briefly summarizing the outcome of the previous interpretation-mechanism, to make matters plainer, we find the two parent-couples to be identical, after their splitting into the personalities of the father and the tyrannical persecutor has been connected; the high born parents being the echo, as it were, of the exaggerated notions which the child originally harbored concerning its parents. The Moses-legend actually shows the parents of the hero divested of all prominent attributes; they are simple people, devotedly attached to the child, and incapable of harming it. Meanwhile, the assertion of tender feelings for the child is a confirmation, here as well as everywhere, of the bodily parentage (compare Akki, the gardener, in the Gilgamos-legend; the teamster, in the story of Karna; the fisher, in the Perseus myth, etc.). The amicable utilization of the exposure motive, which occurs in this type of myth, is referable to such a relationship. The child is surrendered in a basket to the water, but not with the object of killing it (as for example the hostile exposure of Œdipus and many other heroes), but for the purpose of saving it (compare also Abraham’s early history, p. 15). The danger fraught warning to the exalted father becomes a hopeful prophecy for the lowly father (compare, in the birth story of Jesus, the oracle for Herod and Joseph’s dream), entirely corresponding to the expectations placed by most parents in the career of their offspring.