The interpretation of the myths themselves will be taken up in detail later on, and all detailed critical comments on the above mode of explanation are here refrained from. 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 elementary thoughts 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 very general traits of the human psyche, than in a primary community or in migration. This assumption appears to be more justifiable as such general movements of the human mind are also expressed in still other forms, and in other domains, where they can be demonstrated as unanimous.
Concerning the character of these general movements of the human mind, the psychological study of the essential contents of these myths might help to reveal the source from which has uniformly flowed at all times, and in all places, an identical content of the myths. Such a derivation of an essential constituent, from a common human source, has already been successfully attempted with one of these legendary motives. Freud, in his “Dream Interpretation,”[16] reveals the connection of the Œdipus fable [where Œdipus is told by the oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother, as he unwittingly does later on] with the two typical dreams of the father’s death, and of sexual intercourse with the mother, dreams which are dreamed by many now living. Of King Œdipus he says that “his fate stirs us only because it might have been our own fate; because the oracle has cursed us prior to our birth, as it did him. All of us, perhaps, were doomed to direct the first sexual emotion towards the mother, the first hatred and aggressive desire against the father; our dreams convince us of this truth. King Œdipus, who has murdered his father Laios, and married his mother Iokaste, is merely the wish fulfilment of our childhood.”[17] The manifestation of the intimate relation between dream and myth,—not only in regard to the contents, 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 (“Der Künstler,” 1907). 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 and illustrated in an example, by Abraham, in his paper on “Dreams and Myths” [1909].[18] The intimate relations between dream and myth find further confirmation in the following circle of myths, 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[19] 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, “The Riddle of the Sphinx,” 1889, and also of ignorance of the relevant teachings of Freud. The latter help us not only to understand the dreams themselves, but also show their symbolism and close relationship with all psychic phenomena in general, especially with the day dreams or phantasies, 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 individual—that the modern myth theory is obliged to concede a high rank, perhaps the first, for the ultimate origin of all myths. The interpretation of the myths in the astral sense, or more accurately speaking as “almanac tales,” gives rise to the query, according to Lessmann,—in view of a creative imagination of humanity,—if the first germ for the origin of such tales is to be sought precisely in the processes in the heavens;[20] or if, on the contrary, readymade tales of an entirely different [but presumably psychic] origin were only subsequently transferred to the heavenly bodies. Ehrenreich (General Mythology, 1910, p. 104) makes a more positive admission: The mythologic evolution certainly begins on a terrestrian soil, in so far as experiences must first be gathered in the immediate surroundings before they can be projected into the heavenly universe. And Wundt tells us (loc. cit., p. 282) that the theory of the evolution of mythology according to which it first originates in the heavens whence at a later period it descends to earth, is not only contradictory to the history of the myth, which is unaware of such a migration, but is likewise contradictory to the psychology of myth-formation which must repudiate this translocation as internally impossible. We are also convinced that the myths,[21] originally at least, are structures of the human faculty of imagination, which at some time were projected for certain reasons upon the heavens,[22] and may be secondarily transferred to the heavenly bodies, with their enigmatical phenomena. The significance of the unmistakeable traces which this transference has imprinted upon the myths, as the fixed figures, and so forth, must by no means be underrated, although the origin of these figures was possibly psychic in character, and 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 those investigators who make use of an exclusively natural mythological mode of interpretation, in any sense, were unable, in their endeavor to discover the original sense of the mythical tales, to get entirely away from a psychological process, such as must be assumed likewise for the creators of the myths.[23] The motive is identical, and led to the same course in the myth creators as well as in the myth interpretorsIt is most naïvely uttered by one of the founders and champions of comparative myth investigation, and of the natural mythological mode of interpretation, for Max Müller points out in his “Essays” [1869] [20] that this procedure not only invests meaningless legends with a significance and beauty of their own, but it helps to remove some of the most revolting features of classical mythology, and to elucidate their true meaning. This revolt, the reason for which is readily understood, naturally prevents the mythologist from assuming that such motives as incest with the mother, sister or daughter; murder of father, grandfather or brother could be based upon universal phantasies, 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 revolt is therefore only the reaction of the dimly sensed painful recognition of the actuality of these relations; and this reaction impels the interpreters of the myths, for their own subconscious rehabilitation, and that of all mankind, to credit these motives 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 defence probably was the first reason for the projecting of these relations to the firmament. The psychological pacifying through such a rehabilitation, by projection upon external and remote objects, can still be realized, up to a certain degree, by a glance at one of these interpretations, for instance that of the objectionable Œdipus fable, as given by a representative of the natural mythological mode of interpretation. Œdipus, who kills his father, marries his mother, and dies old and blind, is the solar hero who murders his procreator, the darkness; shares his couch with the mother, the gloaming, from whose lap, the dawn, he has been born, and dies blinded, as the setting sun [Goldziher, 1876]. [24]
It is intelligible that a similar interpretation is more soothing to the mind than the revelation of the fact that incest and murder impulses against the nearest relatives are found in the phantasies of most people, as remnants of the infantile ideation. But this is not a scientific argument, and revolt 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, [25] 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, which 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 plea will be amply vindicated by the results of our method of interpretation. With this object we shall first take up the legendary material on which such a psychological interpretation is to be attempted for the first time on a large scale; selecting from the mass [26] of these chiefly biographical hero myths those which are the best known, and some which are especially characteristic. These myths will be given in abbreviated form as far as relevant for this investigation, with statements concerning the provenance. Attention will be called to the most important, constantly recurrent motives by a difference in print.
Sargon
Probably the oldest transmitted hero myth in our possession is derived from the period of the foundation of Babylon (about 2800 B.C.), and concerns the birth history of its founder, Sargon the First. The literal translation of the report—which according to the mode of rendering appears to be an original inscription by King Sargon himself—is as follows: [27]
“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, 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 Istar, I became the king, and for 45 years I held kingly sway.”