The Stakes of the Warrior by Georges Dumezil (PDF)

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⭐As we read in “The Destiny of a King” of George Dumezil, sins of pride and lying for noble reasons are damaging to the King status, but are recoverable, what about other sins? What about sins against the primary functions, against Queen Medb’s rules, Alwyn and Brinley Rees write about in their widely acclimated study Celtic Heritage?”Jealousy would be a fatal weakness in a judge, as would fear in a warrior and niggardliness in a farmer. The higher the status, the more exacting are the standards that go with it, and it is noteworthy that the most reprehensible sin in each class is to indulge in the foibles of the next class below it. Meanness may be excused in a serf, but it is the denial of the farmer’s vocation; fear is not incompatible with the peaceful role of farmer, but it is the warrior’s great disgrace; jealousy, as we have seen, is a trait of the warrior’s character, the correlative of his virtue, but it can undermine the impartiality required in a judge. A king must give the virtues of all the functions without their weakness”. (Rees 130-31)”Indulging in the foibles” of the own and next classes, is, indeed, literally destructive to a potential King, myths of Scandinavia or Germania, India and Greece tell us. In these tales heroes, kingly hopefuls commit three sins against the virtues of three Indo-European castes – sacrilegious acts against the moral norms, cowardness, and venal or adulterous behavior – which lead them to a sudden or gradual (when a hero sequentially looses his splendor or sanity, might and looks), but total destruction at the end.To illustrate this thesis Georges Dumezil chooses Scandinavian-German tale, told us in Gautrekssaga Islanding saga, and by Danish historian of XII century Saxo Grammaticus, about a hero named Starkadr-Starcatherus, who, despite his exemplary and brilliant record of serving as a general, tutor and regent for many kings, commits, first, a murder in disguise of a mock sacrifice, then, being a general, cowardly flees a battle, gravely endangering another king he now serves, and finally kills one more king as a contractor just for mere gold.Another story of the similar archetype comes from Mahabharata, which tells us about king Sisupala who was born with strange abnormalities, with tree eyes and four hands. To the exaltation of his parents, who were about to abandon the monstrous child, Sisupala was miraculously cured by another hero, Krishna, incarnation of Vishnu. However, there was a prophecy that the one who normalize Sisupala will be executioner. Concerning mother asked Krishna to forgive her son one hundred times for his possible insults and assaults on Krishna. Krishna promised, but one hundred times is not a big number if you make insulting of somebody a purpose of your life, which, insulting Krishna, Sisupala did make his sole purpose. Once, during a festival honoring a great king, Sisupala was doing his usual business accusing Krishna in disrespecting honors of present kings, which was really most unfair. But this time it was one too many – one hundred first offence. Krishna explains situation to the kings, tells them about past insults, describing five most memorable, which fall in the category of three sins against three functions, and slays Sisupala on the spot.Yet another similar set of sins, as Diodorus Siculus tells us, is committed by Heracles, who, first, ignores a divine command to go into the service of king Eurystheus, for which he is punished by madness resulting into killing his children. Overcome by his deed, Heracles resigns himself into doing these famous labors made up by king Eurystheus. With this work done, Heracles treacherously, not in a fare fight, kills an enemy next to him, and is stricken by a physical illness. Finally he “forgets” he is married and enters into illicit relationship, direct consequence of which is a bodily burning from the tunic soaked in blood of centaurs Nessos. (Dumezil 1983 1-3,7)When we look at these tales closely, we’ll see an interesting circumstance that all heroes commit these sins almost not by their free will. They are influenced by particular divinities who are in a conflict with the proper god-protector of the kingly and warrior caste. Our heroes lured by the alien, for their function, divinities onto the path of their destruction, then staged and played like pawns.Who are these divinities, and what is their domain, which Kings and Heroes must avoid wandering in?Starkadr and OdinStarkadr had a very peculiar family history. According to the saga, his grandfather was a giant, named also Starkadr, the first Starkadr. He was killed by Thor, when he kidnapped a girl who mutually expressed her interest to Thor himself. After her disappearance her parents called Thor for help, who was eager to find and free her. However, when Thor found and killed first Starkadr, Thor’s girl was already pregnant with Starkadr’s son, Storvirkr. He had a normal human appearance, but very strong. Storvirkr married princes and become a king of a small domain. However, soon after our Starkadr was born, Storvirkr was slain by king of Agdir, Haraldr. He adopted little Starkadr as his second son, so his own son, Vikar, had a friend. Viking’s life is full of violence and uncertainty. After few years king Haraldr was also killed by another king of Hordaland, Herthjofr, who took both boys as hostages.Here comes into play very interesting figure, a puppeteer who staged a spectacle for many years to come. He worked out a plan for both boys, one of whom was destine to be sacrificed, and another to be the sacrificer in Puppeteer’s honor. He takes an appearance of a common man Hrossharsgrani (Horse-hair Grani) and enters into the service of king Herthjofr, buys of the young boy Starkadr, and, for nine years, nurtures, trains and educates him. When time comes and Starcadr becomes a man, he takes on a mission to free his friend of childhood, and restore him on a throne, which is done brilliantly and successfully. No wonder that Starkadr remains a most trusted and influential person in king Vikar’s court.Life of courts of Viking kings is preoccupied with banquets and, of course raids. During on of these raids king Vikar’s band was grounded by storms to an island for a better part of a year. Being embarrassed by such a long period of idleness without any great deeds of rampage, pillage and plunder, Vikings resorted to divination and found out the reason for their extended stay on the island is the Odin’s desire for a human sacrifice. They draw lots and found out that king Vikar is the Odin’s choice.That was not exactly a humiliating act for a king to be sacrificed in the name of Odin. That remained a core of Indo-European tradition that the sacrifice benefits more the sacrificed than the sacrificer. The death from hanging and spear throwing was as noble as the death in a battle, which any wellborn Scandinavian or German was wishing for. Such a death would guaranty ascending to meadow-halls of Valhalla, where honored Einherjar (Lone Fighters) would enjoy bountiful feasts, interchanged by recreational fierce, but harmless, battles in Valhalla’s nearby fields. Such an honorable shortcut would be a matter of the last resort for old and sick, who would not able to participate in a battle anymore.Despite such a noble perspective, king Vikar was still able to take a more routine, battle path, and sacrificing their king would mean a fiasco of the whole campaign for everybody else, after all these efforts and time invested into the enterprise. Confused by the turn of events, everybody took a recess for a night to come up with the mutually satisfying solution.While everybody is either fast fell asleep, or share the sleepless night with comrades around campfires, Starkadr is getting visited by an unexpected guest – the mentor of his childhood and youth years, Horse-hair Grani. He invites Starkadr to make a short trip to a nearest uninhabited islet. After crossing fjord on a boat they make their way in the middle of dense forest growing on the islet, until they reach an opening with twelve high seats standing in the circle and surrounded by a crowd of figures of human appearance. Eleven seats were already occupied by Scandinavian gods. Horse-hair Grani quietly leaves Starkadr in the crowd under starry sky, and few moments later Odin comes to the podium and takes his seat. He declares that this gathering is convened to decide destiny of Starkadr.”In fact, the event comes down to a magical-oratorical duel between Odin and Thor. Thor, taking the floor immediately, declares that he cannot bear good will toward a young man whose grandfather was a giant whom he had had to kill and whose grandmother, in her girlhood, had preferred this giant to him – to him, Thor, the `Thor of the AEsir’!Concluding, he imposes a first fate, a bad one: `Starkadr will have no children’.Odin formulates a compensation: `Starkadr will have three human life spans’.But Thor rejoins: `He will commit a villainy, a `nidingsverk’, in each’.And the duel continues: `He will always’, says Odin, `have the best arms and the best raiments’.`He will have’, says Thor, `neither land nor real property’.Odin: `He will have fine furnishings’.Thor: `He will never feel he has enough’.Odin: `He will have success and victory in every combat’.Thor: `He will receive a grave wound in every combat’.Odin: `He will have the gift of poetry and improvisation’.Thor: `He will forget all he has composed’.Odin: `He will appeal to the well-born and the great’.Thor: `He will be despised by the common folk’.” (Dumezil 1983 12-5)Show is over, other gods sign off Odin’s and Thor’s predictions, starlight dims, gods and crowd vanishes, and Starkadr remains one-to-one with Odin-Hrossharsgrani. He asks Starkadr to give him Vikar, to place the king in a position of sacrifice and everything else leave to Odin himself. Feeling in debt to Odin for his actions of “philanthropy” in defending his destiny, Starkadr agrees to do the job. Odin hands him over his spear, which turns into a stick of reed in Starkadr’s hands and brings him back to Viking’s camp.In the morning, when a thing, Vikings’ counsel, is assembled, Starkadr offers to fellow men a plan of mock sacrifice. King Vikar would stand on a high stump under nearby fir three, with a noose on his neck tided to a small, easily breakable branch, and he, Starkadr will throw a stick at Vikar.The plan is adopted with enthusiasm. A calf is gutted and getting prepared for the feast in anticipation of leaving the island. Starkadr ties a slender branch to the ground by calf’s guts, and sets the noose on it. King Vikar examines the scene, not without bad presentiments:”‘If this apparatus is no more dangerous than it looks to me, then I think it will not harm me, but if it is otherwise, then it is for fate to decide what will happen’.Then he stood up on the stump, and Starkadr laid the noose around his neck and stepped down from the stump. Then Starkadr thrust his stick at the king and said, `Now I give thee to Odin’… The reed-stick suddenly became a spear and pierced the king. The stump fell out from beneath his feet, and the calf’s intestine became a strong withy, and the branch sprang up and dragged the king into the leaves, and there he died. Thereafter the place has been called Vikarsholmar, `Vikar’s Island’. From this deed Starkadr became much despised by the people, and was exiled from Hordaland”. (Dumezil 1983 16)Odin acquires what he wanted and what the whole combination, and his play by Thor and Sarkadr was aimed at. Starkadr moves on along his three lives, committing `nidingsverk’ against next kings he serves.Sisupala and Rudra-ShivaStarkadr’s Hindu analog, Sisupala, is a secondary character of Mahabharata. He comes into play before the main intrigue develops. In the first books the authority of Pandavas brothers, main characters of subsequent events, is not yet disputed. The older brother, Yudhisthira is getting ready for the imperial consecration ceremony, which includes celebrating not only taking on royal rights, `rajasuya’, but as well `samrajya’, universal kingship, and `parthivya’, earthly sovereignty.Yudhisthira brothers are sent into all four corners of the earth to secure consent, by persuasion or coercion, of all kings. With this work done, the ceremony may begin, and all kings pour Yudhisthira’s capital to pledge their allegiance for the new `Imperor’.Celebration starts with the hospitality procedure of giving gift of excellence, `arghya’ to the most honorable guest. Great-uncle and tutor of the Pandavas family, Bhishma, chooses Krishna, who is just back from the `special operation’ of a Hollywood style, which removed the last and a grave obstacle to the whole event, the evil king Jarasandra, famous by his obsession with human sacrifice.At the beginning no one from the guest kings objects the decision. No one, except the king of Cedi, Sisupala. He refuses to accept that on the assembly of kings the greatest honor is given to a person who is not a king:”If you must honor Madhusudana, why bring these kings here – to insult them, Bharata?It was not out of fear for the great-spirited Kaunteya that we all offered him tribute, nor out of greed or to flatter hum. He wanted the sovereignty and proceeded according to Law; so we gave him tribute and now he does not count us! What but contempt moves you, if in an assembly of kings you honor Krishna with the guest gift, while he has not attained to the title? …As a marriage is to a eunuch, as a show is to a blind man, so is this royal honor to you Madhusudana, who are no king!” (Dumezil 1983 62)This demagogy is most unfair. Sisupala’s words may appear are defending the royal honor, but his actions show that his understanding of this honor is far removed from what he is preaching. In addition to having his own throne, Sisupala worked as a general for king Jarasandra, who was also a contender to the `Emperror’s’ title, until Krishna took care of this problem. King Jarasandra was obtaining his power from favors of Rudra-Shiva in exchange to sacrifices of conquered kings.Bhishma rejects Sisupala’s boastings, explaining that Krishna is more then a king, enumerating already familiar to us high qualities of all three functions that Krishna possesses. However, Sisupala’s rhetoric finds its way into hearts and minds of many kings, and youngest of Pandavas brothers, Sahadeva, to keep the order, threatens to put his foot on a face of anybody who challenges Bhisma’s decision. View of the Sahadeva’s foot brings assembly into proper silence.To enlighten kings, especially young, who may not know a whole story of Sisupala – Krishna relationships, Bhishma tells the story of Sisupala’s birth.When, as it was mentioned above, Sisupala was born with four arms and three eyes, it was not the extra arms that bothered king and queen of Cedi so much that they were ready to abandon the newborn. Many arms of Hindu folklore personages are a frequent condition, and that does not scare off people around them. This is the third eye in the middle of forehead, an attribute of Vedic Rudra, replaced later by Shiva, the god of destruction, which alarmed royal parents.When parents were ready literally to throw away the baby, a disembodied Voice sounded off, assuring grieving royal couple that when Sisupala will be placed on a lap of a chosen person, extra arms and eye will disappear. However there was one catch – the person-normalizer will be also a source of death for Sisupala.The rumor about strange events quickly spreads among nearby kingdoms and far away lands. Many people come to Cedi to try to help desperate parents and the baby with their problem. Royal couple greets everybody gracefully, places Sisupala on the guest’s lap, and… nothing happens. Nothing happens until the news riches town of Dvaravati, the hometown of Krishna. Krishna and his brother decide to visit Cedi, especially this event has a family matter – Susupala’s mother is Krishna’s aunt.And finally, when queen of Cedi places baby Susupala on Krishna’s lap, miracle occurs. The mother is relived and troubled in the same time, she remembers the second part of the prediction:”Give a boon to me, Krishna, who am sick with fear, strong-armed one, for you are the relief of the oppressed and grant safety to those that are afeared! …Pray pardon, strong man, the derelictions of Sisupala!”Krishna answers:”I shall forsooth forgive a hundred derelictions of your son, paternal aunt, even though they may be capital offences. Do not sorrow”. (Dumezil 1983 55-6)Sisupala, as we already know that, does not feel grateful or somehow obliged to Krishna. Third eye of Shiva is not a coincidence on Sisupala’s forehead. Sisupala is the incarnation of Rudra-Shiva, Puranas tell us. The very etymology of his name refers to Rudra-Shiva. `Sisu-` means `small’, the Vedic epithet for Rudra and later Shiva, who is called `pasupati’, `lord of animals’; thus Sisupala means `protector (lord) of the small’. (Dumezil 1983 57)This conflict with Krishna is not the first in the `history’ of previous lives of Sisupala, and Krishna himself, who is also incarnation of another divinity, Vishnu. In former lives Sisupala was demon Hiranyakasipu, and, then, demon Ravana, both slain by Vishnu.When Bhishma has finished his story, Krishna gives the kings samplings of Sisupala’s sins against him:”1. Knowing that we had gone to the city of Pragjyotisa, this fiend, who is our cousin, burned down Dvaravati, our capital.2. While the barons of the Bhojas were at play on Mount Raivataka, he slew and captured them.”These are two examples of the sin against the second virtue of a King – “Sisupala, instead of fairly and openly giving battle, waits until he knows a king is absent to burn down his capital, and surprises rajanyas in the midst of disporting themselves to massacre or kidnap them”.”3. Malevolently, he stole the horse that was set free at the Horse Sacrifice and surrounded by guards to disrupt my father’s sacrifice.”Here, “Sisupala attacks the king in the area of religion by preventing him from celebrating most solemn of royal sacrifices”. This is a sin in the domain of the first, Jurist-Magician caste.”4. When she was journeying to the country of the Sauviras to be given in marriage, the misguided fool abducted the unwilling wife-to-be of the glorious Babhru.5. Hiding beneath his wizardry, the fiendish offender of his uncle abducted Bhadra of Visalia, the intended bride of the Karusa”. (Dumezil 1983 59-60)The third, Commoner-Procreator caste may be known for its levelly, sexual excesses, but such a behavior against brides is out of allowed boundaries.Sisupala continues mocking Krishna:”How is it you not ashamed of yourself, decrepit defiler of you family, while you frighten all these kings with your many threats?”But the tide has turned, sympathies of the kings is no longer on Sisupala’s side:”All the assembled kings, upon hearing this and more from Vasudeva, now began to revile the Cedi king”.Krishna warns Sisupala that he exhausted the limit of all one hundred offences he promised to leave unpunished, but Sisupala continues his arrogant fronde:”‘Forgive me, if you have that much faith, or don’t, Krishna, what could possibly befall me from you, however angry or friendly?’…from this moment Krishna’s mind is made up… he `thinks’ of the `cakra’, the discus, his infallible weapon that has already punished the excesses of so many demons… At this solemn moment Krishna explains the situation once more, justifying his action. Then he acts:`I have had to forgive a hundred of his offences, at his mother’s request. What she asked of me, I have given, and the tally is complete. Now I shall slay him before the eyes of all you earth-lords’. So saying, at that moment the best of the Yadus, scourge of his enemies, irately cut off his head with his discus. The strong-armed king fell like a tree that is struck by a thunderbolt.” (Dumezil 1983 64-5)Heracles and HeraThis story begins when Zeus decides to give people a great ruler, the ruler they’ve never seen before. The ruler who would possess traits of Zeus himself, of course scaled down to capabilities of the earthly King. Obviously, he should be Zeus’s son. However, the choice of mother is also important. She should a woman of noble, heavenly descent, and the process of an inception of the future King should not be tainted by violence acts, which Zeus allowed himself to commit in relationships with other earthly women.Zeus chooses Alkmene, descendant of Perseus, and taking the form of Alkmene’s husband Amphitryon, thus makes sure that she shares nights with him voluntary. Zeus invests triple efforts, to make him perfect, in begetting the child – a future High King:”…when Zeus lay with Alkmene he made the night three times its normal length and by the magnitude of the time expended on the procreation he presaged the exceptional might of the child which would be begotten.And, in general, he did not effect this union from the desire of love, as he did in the case of other women, but rather only fir the sake of procreation. Consequently, desiring to give legality to his embraces, he did not choose to offer violence to Alkmene, and yet he could not hope to persuade her because of her chastity; and so, deciding to use deception, he deceived Alkmene by assuming in every respect the shape of Amphitryon.” (Diodorus IV, 9, 2-3)When all things looked like on the right track, Zeus, master of fates and lawgiver of heavenly and earthly order, declares before the gods that the person who will be born on Heracles’s due date will be the High King.However Zeus, preoccupied with his grandiose plans of the world importance, forgets to take into account more elemental and individualistic motives of actions of other gods, and in particular his wife Hera.Hera was jealous (sic!), of Zeus’s sexual adventures with other women, and she did all what she can to make his project fail. She tempered with the pregnancy of Eurystheus mother, and he was born just before Heracles. That made all Zeus’s plans to go awry. Even the very name of the hero, Heracles, comes from that enmity, and means “fame from (struggling with) Hera”. The fame, for example, which came from killing two snakes sent by Hera, by baby Heracles.Now, bound by his own promises, Zeus can’t make Heracles a king, the only thing he can do for Heracles is to evacuate Heracles to Olympus. However, Hera, before giving her consent to Zeus, makes sure that Heracles looses also his moral rights to be a king. She makes a condition that Heracles should serve a prematurely born, grotesque and ridiculous king Eurystheus, who occupies Heracles’s promised throne. Of course Heracles’s pride makes him disobey Zeus’s orders, and now Hera can rightfully punish him for the first Indo-European sin of hero, sin of sacrilege. Hera sends madness on Heracles, and in the eclipse of consciousness he kills his wife and children.Gravely punished, Heracles, at last, goes into the service of king Eurystheus and performs those famous, but pointless and worthless Twelve Labors. To make this work bearable, he sometimes allows himself to have a bit of fun along the way, like during the Fourth Labor Heracles literally follows the task description, and brings the Erymanthian Boar alive just before the Eurystheus’s throne, and the former takes a refuge from the Boar in a barrel.The second sin of the warrior, when Heracles treacherously murdered unexpected Iphitos by surprisingly throwing him off the walls, is also inducted by Hera’s spells. After being done with Labors in service of Eurystheus, Heracles continues pursuing the search of throne, now through a marriage. He downgraded his ambitions, and the throne in a small kingdom would be enough. Conveniently, Eurytus, king of the city Oechalia, holds an archery contest which prize is his daughter Iole as a bride for a winner. Heracles, whom Eurytus taught archery many years ago, beats all contestants. However, Eurytus remembers the fate of Heracles’s first wife Megara and her and Heracles’s children, and, fearing for his daughter to suffer similar fate, stops the contest and refuses Heracles to get the prize. As a result Heracles dishonorably kills Eurytus’s son Iphitos and leaves the city.Heracles doesn’t give up neither the idea of a royal marriage, or the memory of Iole, and he finds another, less picky Calydonian king Oeneus, who gives his daughter Deianara as a bride to Heracles. Now, as a prince, he has an army and uses it to conquer city Oechalia. Heracles kills stubborn Eurytus and his other sons, while Iole tries to throw herself off the city’s walls, but her garments work as a parachute and she safely lands on Heracles’s hands, and he makes Iole a concubine.This is the third and last sin of a King. The problem here is not in a sexual violence and adultery in itself. This type of a behavior is natural for the third, Wellbeing-Fertility caste, typical representative of which, like Centauri, Pans or Gandharva, are half-men, half-beasts, and they are excused for such a behavior while they bring life-forces of nature to the human world. It’s the use of such behavior to get personal advantages in the world of petty, artificially made up ranks (from the point of view of the third caste) what makes this type of conduct venal and punishable for a King.No surprise that Deianara, who were a mere tool for Heracles to satisfy his lust for power, were also a tool for delivering his punishment. At the beginning of their marriage, Heracles saved Deianara from the rape by centaurs Nessus by killing him with poisoned in the Hydra blood arrow. When dyeing, Nessus gave Deianara his last gift – he told her to collect his blood, the blood of the ultimate creature of third function, which carries secrets of passion and procreation. When and if Heracles in the future decides to leave Deianara, she could use the centaur’s blood as a love potion. She probably forefelt that the moment will come, so Deianara collects the blood.Now, being afraid that Heracles will forget her in favor of Iole, Deianara soaks Heracles’s cloak in Nessus’s blood and sends it to Heracles with a servant. When Heracles puts it on and the body heat warms the cloak, the second, personal “gift” from Nessus to Heracles turns on. Nessus’s blood was tainted with the Hydra’s poison, so it’s not only centaury magic of a love potion starts to work, but the Hydra’s destructive magic, too. Heracles is not only hyperbolically burned by the newly awakened passion to Deianara, but also literally burned by the magical flames of Hydra’s poison.Not after Heracles has committed all three sins of a Hero and is completely destructed by them, Hera gives her permission to Zeus to bring Heracles back to Olympus and adopt him as her own son. Heracles, suffering from never-healing burns consults the Oracle, and it tells Heracles he had to ascend to a pyre. When Heracles obeyed and the wood is ignited, a lightning strikes the pyre, instantly consuming it. Friends of Heracles can’t find his bones in the ashes after the lightning strike, so it was decided he was ascended to heavens and joined the gods.

⭐This is a worthy effort by someone who knew the inside’n’out of what came to be known as the “Indo-European culture”. Actually after getting to know some of Georges Dumezil’s works I have realized that it is a big stretch to call any culture “Indo-European” (even if it’s a hybrid), as it would make as much sense to call something “Turco-Western”.In any case, after analyzing the lives of some main Solar hero types in 3 great traditions (Nordic; Indian; Greek) Georges attmptes to draw some parallels in their lives, sins, and their deaths. In particular he is interested in their morality and how it applies to their “heroic” image. From reading the book I saw deeper into the real motives of the Heroes of the Myths and taking off the veil of inscrutability, saw very vulnerable, human characters, who besides their supernatural strength, and the tough warrior lifestyle have actually accumulated many agendas, which ultimately lead to their demise, and in some cases postmortem deification. Heroes of Georges Dumezil lie, betray, cheat and what have you – all in order to achieve their ends, which rarely border on survival given their immense health and strength. They are allowed a greater range of desires and can choose their deaths. Although knowing their vulnarabilities we somehow come to connect to and appreciate the giants of Starkad’s kind for their raw material, ferocity and unyielding cunning. We love Hercules for his spirit, and we envy Starkad for his stature and his ability to change the course of lives of the whole nations. I readily recommend this book to all who are interested in the topic.

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