On the Loathly Bride- Coomaraswamy 1945
On the Loathly Bride
by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
Speculum, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Oct., 1945), pp. 391-404
ON THE LOATHLY BRIDE
BY ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY
Nigra sum, sedfomosa ... nolite me considerare quodfusca sum, Cant. I. 3
I.
THE episode of the Marriage of Sir Gawain, and more generally that of the Loathly Lady Transformed, well known to all students of Arthurian Romance, has often been discussed.[1] The correct interpretation is, no doubt, the one that is given by Professor Loomis, [2] who identifies her with the Earth Goddess and therefore with the Sovereignty - the kingdom, the power, and the glory which he who possesses the Earth enjoys - which, in the Celtic sources is, of course, the Sovereignty of Ireland (Eriu). Most of all is Loomis right in recognizing that the archetypal pattern is the mythological theme of the marriage of the Sun-god (Lug) with the Earth (Eriu, Ire-land); and in the fine passage in which he puts forward the metaphysical basis of Gawain's (and other solar heroes') multiple marriages, - his many loves being but 'different manifestations, different names for the same primeval divinity' who is also 'Isis, [3] Europa, Artemis, Rhea, Demeter, Hecate, Persephone, Diana; one might go on indefinitely.' Accordingly, 'Gawain was no light of love, for in spite of his many marriages, it was the same goddess he loved.' In almost the same words A. B. Cook justifies the many loves of Zeus, - Dion of Prousa's 'common Father and Saviour and Keeper of Mankind.' [4] In the same connection there might have been cited Indra, Krishna, - and Christ for, as the 'Platonist and Puritan' Peter Sterry said, 'the Lord Jesus hath his Concubines, his Queenes, his Virgines; Saints ... who kept themselves single for the immediate imbraces of their Love.' The Solar Spirit, Divine Eros, Amor, is inevitably and necessarily 'polygamous,' both in himself and in all his descents, because all creation is feminine to God, and every soul is his destined bride. [5]
The tale of the Loathly Lady occurs in several Irish contexts, amongst which that of the Five Sons of Eochaidh related in the Temair Breg and Echtra mac Echdach Mugmed6in may be regarded as typical. [6] The five brothers in turn go to a fountain to obtain a drink of its 'water of virtues,' but it is guarded by a most hideous hag who demands a kiss as the price of a drink. [7] Only the youngest brother, Niall who, like many another hero, has been reared in exile, throws his arms about her 'as if she were forever his wife'; thereupon she becomes a beautiful maiden and foretells Niall's rule in Tara. 'As at first thou hast seen me ugly,' she says, 'but in the end beautiful, even so is royal rule. Without battles it may not be won, but in the end, to anyone, it is comely and handsome.' Similarly, in the story of Lughaid Laighe, only he who dares and consents to sleep with the Loathly Lady is the destined king; asked who she is, she says that High Kings sleep with Per, and that she is 'the kingship of Alba and Eriu.'
In just the same way the Indian Goddess Sri (-Laksmi) is 'the personification of the right to rule ... (the) Spirit of Sovereignty ... and certainly so when the relationship is ... a marital one. [8] But this is to anticipate; my intention in the present article is to call attention to certain aspects of the story of the transformation of the 'Loathly Lady' that have hitherto been overlooked, and, in particular, (1) to adduce a number of Oriental parallels, (2) to point out that the Loathly Lady must be identified with the Dragon or Snake whom the hero disenchants by the Fier Baiser, and (3) to point out that the Loathly Lady or Dragon-Woman is the Undine, mermaid soul, the Psyche, whose disenchantment and transformation are brought about by her marriage with the Hero.
To begin with the marriage of Indra, the 'Great Hero' of the Rigveda, to Apala, the 'Unprotected.' [9] Apala is the wooer: thinking 'What if we go and wed with Indra? Will he not further, yea and work for us, enrich us?' Bringing Soma, which she prepares by chewing, as her sacrificial offering, she addresses Indra as 'Thou that movest yonder, little hero, looking round about upon one house after another, [10] and asks him to 'replant her father's (bald) head, (barren) field, and "this below my belly". [11] Indra drinks the Soma from her lips; in the words of the Brahmana, 'He, verily, drank the Soma from her mouth: and whoever, being a Comprehensor of this (myth, or doctrine) kisses a woman's mouth, that becomes for him a Soma-draught,' that is to say, of the Water of Life, of which this was the 'first drinking.' It is not explicit in the brief RV. text that Apala was loathsome, but this is implied by the statement that Indra purifies her thrice by drawing her through the naves of his (evidently three-wheeled, cf. RV. i. 164.2, trindbhi) solar chariot, making her 'sun-skinned' at last. The longer versions of the Brahmanas make it clear that Apala was originally 'of evil hue' and that the purifications are removals of her scaly reptilian skins, so that from the third she emerges in the fairest of all forms and as one to be embraced. The same story is paraphrased in Jdtaka No. 31, where the story of Indra's marriage with Sujata ('Eugenie') is essentially the same, but the successive purifications are spoken of as 'births.' Beyond all question, Indra's drinking of Soma involves a Fier Baiser.
As in the Celtic and Greek traditions Eriu-Europa, so in the Indian Apala- Sujata bears many different names, and the story is told or implied in many contexts. So we have as names of Indra's consort, Indrani: Saci, Sri, Viraj, Uma, Sital and many others, and all these in the last analysis are forms of the Earth Goddess, and of one and the same Maya-Sakti, and as such represent Dominion; not the Ruler himself, but the Power, the Glory and the Fortune with which he operates. In the great hymn to the Earth Mother (Atharva Veda xI. [12]) she is described as 'whose Bull is Indra,' 'whose Lord is Parjanya' (Indra as Rain-god); she is the Mother, Parjanya the Father, 'I her son'; 'adorning herself, shaking off the Serpent, choosing (in marriage) not Vrtra but Indra, she keeps herself for Sakra (Indra), the virile Bull'; she is invoked to 'establish us in the first drinking' (of Soma), [13] and to bestow upon us 'force and strength, in utmost royalty (rdstram) . . and fortune (Sri).' The expression, 'shaking off the serpent,' [14] i.e., casting her slough, is in itself a proof of Mother Earth's originally ophidian nature; this is, however, explicit in RV. x. 22.14, cf. 1.185.2, where she is 'footless' (apadi) i.e., like Ahi-Vrtra, a 'serpent,' while on the other hand in II. 55.14 as Agni's Mother, 'she stands erect, with feet (padyd), adorned with many beauties'; and again explicit, in that Earth is the 'Serpent Queen' (sarparadji, Satapatha Br. Iv. 6.9.17) who is now represented by the Bengali 'Snake-goddess,' Manasa Devi. [15]
Sri ('Splendor')-Lakgmi ('Insigne') is the well-known Indian Goddess of Fortune (Tyche), Prosperity (the personified 'Luck' of western folklore) and Beauty: she is the principle and source of all nourishment, kingship, empire, royalty, strength, sacerdotal-lustre, dominion, wealth and species, which are appropriated from her by the Gods whose distinctive properties they are, when she abandons Prajapati, weakened by the act of creation (Satapatha Br. XI. 4.3.1.f.). She is identified with Viraj, [16] that maternal Nature (natura naturans) from whom all beings 'milk' their characteristic qualities (Atharva Veda VIII. 9): and 'the Viraj, they say, is This (Earth), and he who possesses the most thereof becomes the most fortunate' (Sresthah, superlative of Sri), SB. xi. 6.1.40. Sri-Laksmi (in Pali, Siri, Lakkhi) has a contrary Alaksmi (in Pali, Alakkhi), Kali (Milinda Paiho 191), or Kalakanni ('Black-Ear'), the Goddess of Misfortune or Ill-luck.
These contrasted powers, as distinguished from one another, can be thought of either as sisters, of whom Alaksmi is the 'Elder' (Jyestha), or as the daughters respectively of the (originally ophidian) Regents of the North and West; but like Durga (with whom Alaksmi is sometimes identified) and Uma, and Night and Day, they are also to be regarded as the polar forms of a single principle. [17] It is explicit, accordingly, that either can assume the other's form; Laksmi assunies the form of Alaksmi for the overcoming of the Titans ('laksmir alaksmiruipena danavam vadhaya,' Harivamia 3279); that under other circumstances a converse transformation takes place is, of course, implied. The Mdrka-neya Purdaa, LXXIV4. , says that the Goddess (Can.dika, Durga, etc., who is also the Earth and Magna Mater) 'is Sri herself in the homes of well-doers, but Alaksmi in those of evil-doers.'
In other words, the form in which the Luck appears, whether that of Good Luck or Bad Luck (the word itself is indeterminate) is that which is appropriate to the given situation; the person of Dominion appears in her form of beauty only to those who deserve her; the expression 'none but the brave (or good) deserve the fair' takes on a fuller meaning, and could never have been better said than of the hero of a Fier Baiser. It is precisely in respect of her fundamental polarity and changeability or fickleness that we can so clearly recognize the principle that underlies the transformations of the Lady of the Land in Celtic contexts; and realize that even in stories that speak of Fortune and Misfortune as relatives, this still means that they are interchangeable aspects of one and the same 'fee' or Fata. We see, accordingly, a parallel to the story of Eochaidh's Five Sons
in Jdtaka No. 382; here the Bodhisatta hero is a wealthy and generous merchant; Kalakanni (Alak?mi) and Siri (gri), still in heaven above, have each of them laid claim to precedence, and it is adjudged that they shall descend and appear to the Bodhsiatta, whose decision shall determine their dispute. Balakanni appears first in a blue-black robe (the color of darkness and death), and explains that she wanders about the world, misleading men to their undoing; the Bodhisatta refuses her. Siri then appears in golden radiance, and in answer to the question who she is explains that she presides over such conduct as gives Lordship (issariya). The Bodhisatta makes her welcome, and she spends the night with him, sharing his couch.
We have seen that Sri is the 'personification of the right to rule ... (the) Spirit of Sovereignty ... and certainly so when such relationship is ... a marital one.' [18] This marital relation of the Ruler to the Earth is directly expressed in the word Bhiipati, 'Lord of the Earth,' i.e., a king. The notion that a King is 'espoused unto his Kingdom' survives at least as late as the seventeenth century in Europe. [19] In this connection there can be cited the legends of the founders of Cambodia.
Without going into great detail, it will suffice to cite the Champa inscription of A.D. 658, which records that the great Brahman Kaundinya, [20] who came overseas from India, 'planted his spear' in the capital (Bhavapura), where there lived a daughter of the King of the Nagas, whom he married. Nagas, of course, are Snakes or Dragons, connected with the Waters, and to say that the Lady of the Land was of this race is as much as to call her a mermaid; more than one Indian dynasty traces its descent from the union of a human prince with such an Undine. [21] As Aymonier [22] remarks 'In all the legends, the leading role is the woman's. She is the foundress of the royal race. She, and not the immigrant prince, is the protectress of the realm.' The memory of the mythical founders long survived in Cambodian folklore and ritual, and notably in the requirement, binding on the king, to sleep with the Lady of the Land every night, before approaching any of his human brides. A Chinese author records, in the thirteenth century, that there was a golden tower in the palace at Angkor Thom at the top of which the king sleeps, - 'all the people say that in this tower there dwells the spirit of a nineheaded Serpent, the Lord of the Whole Land, and that every night he appears there in the form of a woman. It is with him that the king first sleeps and cohabits.... If ever the spirit of the Serpent does not appear, the time has come for the king to die; if ever the king fails to come, some disaster follows.' [23]
There may be some confusion in this Chinese account, which should be taken to mean that the Lady of the Land is the daughter of a nine-headed Serpent or Dragon, but appears to the King in the form of a beautiful woman. The connection of Naginis with the Waters is more significant in the present context than might appear at first sight. For, in the first place, Sri-Lakgmi is the Indian 'Aphrodite,' born of the foam at the Churning of the Ocean in the beginning;[24] she is otherwise known as Padma, the 'Lotus,' or 'Lotus Lady,' and is represented iconographically seated or standing in the flower of a lotus; while, at the same time, the Earth is thought of as an island floating on the surface of the primordial sea, and is regularly symbolized, accordingly, by the lotus leaf or flower.[25] All that is as much as to say that Sri is 'Flora,' and by the same token 'Rosa Mundi'; [26] and this is not without its bearing for us here, for as Loomis (loc. cit., p. 222) says, 'we shall do well to remember the conception of a damsel, called the Sovereignty of Ireland, who by her embraces confers immortality, who gives her cup to the hero, and whose floral names have some significance'; in the same connection Loomis cites the names of other daughters of the Gods, Blathnat (Little Flower') and Scothniamh ('Flower-luster'), and we meet with other significant names such as Blanchefleur, Flore de la lunel and Rosa Espania.
II.
The whole motive of the transformation of the Loathly Lady or Serpent into the Perfect Bride is reflected in the lunar periodicity of a woman's life, and it is, perhaps, only from this point of view that the traditional menstrual tabus can be rightly interpreted. The menstruating woman is regarded as dangerous and baleful, alike to men and crops, and she is often secluded where the light of sun or moon cannot reach her (light is the progenitive power, and she must not beget at this time). What this seclusion implies is a temporary return to her primordial state, which is not, so to speak, human, but uncanny. Menstruation has often been regarded as a kind of infection or possession; the following purification followed by intercourse is the regeneration of her humanity, and a repetition of the nuptial ritel by which she was first 'made a woman' who had been a 'nymph.' Accordingly: 'She is, assuredly, the very Sri of women [Fortuna incarnate] when she removes the soiled garment; therefore, let the man approach this Glorious-woman (yaSasvi) then, uttering a blessing; or, if she does not yield, strike her with a rod or his hand, uttering the curse, "I, by my power and by my glory, take thy glory to myself",[27]--and she becomes inglorious. But if she yields, the blessing, "I, by my power and by my glory, bestow glory upon thee," -and both are glorified' (Brhaddranyaka Up., vI. 4.7.8). All this reflects the archetypal marriage of Siirya, the Daughter of the Sun and paradigm of the human bride. At her wedding: 'Discarded is the Potentiality (krtyd, evil, spell, enchantment) [28] that clung about her; her (new) kinsmen prosper; her husband is secured by obligations. "Cast away the soiled garment, give largesse unto Brahmans!" Now hath Potentiality gotten her feet (padvatz bhiutv), and as a wife associates with a husband' (RV. x. 85.28,29). From this 'gotten feet' it is clear that the wife's original form, that clung to her, was ophidian: and, if we collate the two contexts, that the monthly purification, after which the woman is no longer dangerous, but most acceptable, is a regeneration, thought of as the casting of the slough and a glorious emergence, analogous on the one hand to Apala's, and on the other to that of every one who 'puts off' the old man and is renewed.
We have so far seen that the heroic motive of the transformation of a hideous and uncanny bride into a beautiful woman cannot be regarded as peculiarly Celtic, but much rather represents a universal mythical pattern, underlying all marriage, and one that is, in fact, the 'mystery' of marriage. In more than one case it is emphasized that the disenchantment is effected by a kiss; so, for example, in the story of Eochaidh's sons, and again in the Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell where, when he is backward, she begs him: 'For Arthur's sake, at least kiss me.' Surely these are 'Fiers Baisers!'
In a typical version of the Fier Baiser, the hero reaches the Otherworld, Underwave. The population is enchanted. He enters a castle. A great snake enters, and begs him, 'Kiss me,' but he refuses. The next evening he dreams of what would have followed had he given the kiss; and he resolves to do so. The snake comes again, this time in a more terrible form, with two heads, and begs him, 'Kiss me," but he refuses. He dreams again, and hears a voice, 'Thou wouldst, nevertheless, have only done rightly hadst thou kissed the snake.' He makes up his mind to do so; and this time, when the snake enters, now in a still more awful form, with three heads, it coils about him and begs, 'Kiss me.' He kisses it, and 'as soon as he had kissed it, the snake turned into a beautiful maiden, as beautiful as a maiden could be. The snake was the enchanted daughter of the lord of the castle. After the kiss, all belonging to the castle, and the whole town, were disenchanted.' In this case the actual marriage is postponed by the hero's human desire to revisit his parents in this world, but when he recollects himself, it is to return to his bride and the kingdom that awaits him. [29] Exactly the same principles are involved in what may be called the Fier Baiser manque, of which an example will be found in William Morris' 'Lady of the Land' (the second story for June in The Earthly Paradise); the hero reaches an unpopulated island, enters a deserted castle, and finds a beautiful woman, who tells him that in her enchanted form, from which she is released on only one day of each year, she is a Dragon, and that if he would win both her and the kingdom, he must kiss her in the dragon form, in which she will appear to him on the morrow. The hero's courage fails him, and he flies, leaving the Dragon wailing. [30]
The motive of the Fier Baiser is too well known for it to be necessary to cite any other examples. [31] Our main object has been to point out that the Loathly Lady and the Snake or Dragon, Mermaid or Undine or Nagini, are one and the same 'Lady of the Land.' We must, however, point out that the motive appears in the story of Apala; for it is beyond question that she was a reptile[32] when Indra drank the Water of Life from her lips; the purification takes place afterwards. The words of the Brahmana are well worth repeating: 'He, verily, drank the Soma from her mouth: and whoever, being a Comprehensor of this (myth, or doctrine) kisses a woman's mouth, that becomes for him a Soma-draught.' The Bride is always in some sense a servant of the Living Waters, of which the Hero robs her, whether by force or favor: and the principle remains the same when (as in the story of Eochaidh's Sons) it is a draught from the Well (of Life) that the Hag gives only to him who kisses her, or when (as in many other versions of the story, and as reflected in custom) she offers him the bridal cup. We have shown elsewhere[33] that the true Soma Sacrifice ('Interior Agnihotra,' the offering of 'what the Brahmans understand by "Soma," of which none tastes who dwells on earth') [34] is one of the life-blood of the draconian Psyche, - macrocosmically 'the sovereignty of Erin, who by her embraces confers immortality, who gives her cup to the hero. [35]
It is by this draught that the 'mortal' Hero, Dying God, Divine Eros, child of a supernatural Father and an earthly Mother, who has assumed a mortal and passible body in order to rescue his destined Bride - and in so doing 'fetters himself by himself, like a bird in the net'[36] - is restored to his otherworldly kingdom in which the Lover and Beloved live together happily 'ever afterwards.' On the other hand, this is a consummation that may be postponed; and in this case the bridal cup is rather to be regarded as a pledge than as a fulfilment. For it happens all too often that the Hero is not yet altogether liberated from the ties that bind him to this world. He would, for example, return to earth to visit, console and say farewell to his parents or companions. It is a dangerous undertaking, to which his Fairy Bride consents unwillingly. She provides him with a talisman, or sound advice; but the talisman is stolen, or the advice ignored, with the result that the Fairy Bride is forgotten and the Hero tricked into marriage with an evil bride, the antithesis of the immortal Beloved by whom he is only rescued at the last moment. She, for her part, undergoes innumerable trials and lives in disguise until, by some ingenious device, or by means of a token, she succeeds in reminding the Hero of his forgotten adventure;[37] a lethe and an anamnesis that are not with-out relation to the Platonic and Indian doctrine of Recollection. Or again, if the Hero has not forgotten but loses his immortal Bride by the infringement of a tabu (whether this infringement be the result of his own thoughtlessness, or human weakness, or brought about by an adversary), then it remains for him to seek her out in that Otherworld or unknown City whence she first came, and of which the very name and place are strange to all those of whom he asks the way, for who knows 'where' is overseas or underwave, or east of the sun or west of the moon, or 'when' was once upon a time? The theme is infinitely varied but always the same story of the Liebesgeschichte Himmels, the story of a separation and a reunion, enchantment and disenchantment, fall nd redemption.[38]
Hero and Heroine are our two selves - duo sunt in homine - immanent Spirit ('Soul of the soul,' 'this self's immortal Self') and individual soul or self: Eros and Psyche. These two, cohabitant Inner and Outer Man, are at war with one another, and there can be no peace between them until the victory has been won and the soul, our self, this 'I,' submits. It is not without reason that the Heroine is so often described as haughty, disdainful, 'Orgelleuse.[39] Philo and Riimi repeatedly equate this soul, our self, with the Dragon[40] and it is this soul that we are told to 'hate' if we would be disciples of the Sun of Men.
The myth of the Loathly Bride survives in St Bonaventura's prediction of Christ's Marriage to his Church: 'Christ will present his Bride, whom he loved in her baseness and all her foulness, glorious with his own glory, without spot or wrinkle.'[41] 'Nor ever chast, except thou ravish mee,' - and it is by a true analogy that a woman 'ravished' is said to be in gloria. We can see no other and no less meanings than these in even the oldest forms of the story of the Loathly Lady's or Dragon-woman's transformation. To suppose that 'old folklore motives' (of which the origin is left unexplained) are taken up into scriptural contexts, in which they survive as foreign bodies, is to invert the order of nature: the fact is that scriptural formulae survive in folklore, it may even be long after the 'scripture' itself has been romanticized or rationalized in more sophisticated circles. In whichever context they are preserved correctly, the motives retain their intelligibility, whether or not they are actually understood by any given audience. These motives are not primarily 'figures of speech,' butfigures of thought, and whoever still understands them is not reading meanings into them, but only reading in them the significance that was originally concreated with them (cf. Rom. I. 20).
Myths are significant, it will be conceded: but of what? If we do not ask the right questions, with the Grail before our eyes, our experience of the mythical material will be as ineffectual as that of the hero who reaches the Grail castle and fails to speak, or that of the hero who will not kiss the Dragon: our science will amount to no more than the accumulation of data, which can be classified, but cannot be brought to life.[42] Myths are not distorted records of historical events.[43]
They are not periphrastic descriptions of natural phenomena, or 'explanations' of them; so far from that, events are demonstrations of the myths. The aetiological myth, for example, was not invented to explain an oddity, as might be supposed if we took account only of some isolated case. On the contrary, the phenomena are exempla of the myth: for instance, if we are told 'Why the Hare has no Tail,' investigation will show that the Symplegades motive by which this is 'explained,' explains too much. It also explains how the good ship Argo lost her stern-ornament, how the end of Giviok's canoe was crushed, and how the spurs were cut from the feet of a Celtic hero by the Active Door of an Otherworld castle. It is only in a later than the 'myth-making age,' and when nothing but the symbol survives as a 'motive' or 'art form,' that anyone could have imagined that the whole and complex pattern of the Otherworld Quest or Himmelfahrt could have been invented to explain a minor fact of natural history![44] 'Docking' is a figure; and if the function of a figure is to be understood, it is not alone of the figure itself, but also of its configuration (Gestalt), that we must take account. It is only when we realize that the arts and philosophies of our remote ancestors were 'fully developed,' and that we are dealing with the relics of an ancient wisdom, as valid now as it ever was, that the thought of the earliest thinkers will become intelligible to us.[45] We shall only be able to understand the astounding uniformity of the folklore motives all over the world, and the devoted care that has everywhere been taken to ensure their correct transmission, if we approach these mysteries (for they are nothing less) in the spirit in which they have been transmitted 'from the Stone Age until now,' -with the confidence of little children, indeed, but not the childish self-confidence of those who hold that wisdom was born with themselves. The true folklorist must be, not so much a psyischologist as a theologian and a metaphysician, if he is to "understand his material.' [46] Many or most of our fairies and heroes were originally Gods;[47] in this connection, the special value of the early Indian parallels lies in the fact that here the 'deeds of love and high emprise' are still those of the Gods themselves.
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS,
BOSTON, MASS.
1 E.g., G. L. Maynadier, The Wife of Bath's Tale, London, 1901 (Grimm Library xIII); L. Sumner, The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell, 1924 (Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, Vol. v, no. 4); G. B. Saul, The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell, New York, 1934; A. C. L. Brown, The Origin of the Grail Legend, Cambridge, 1943 (Ch. vII, The Hateful Fee Who Represents the Sovereignty'); J. W. Beach, The Loathly Lady (an unpublished Dissertation, 1907, in the Harvard University Library).
2 R. S. Loomis, Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance, New York, 1927, esp. pp. 221-222 and Ch. XXIX.
3 Who 'is adored throughout the world in divers manners, in variable customs and by many names' (Apuleius, Golden Ass, Bk. xi). Cf. A. Jeremias, 'Die eine Madonna' in Der Alte Orient, XXXII, (1932), 12, 18; M. Durand-Lefebure, Etude sur l'origine des Vierges Noires, Paris 1937. The identity of the Virgin with the Earth-goddess is asserted iconographically in the older Christian Nativities (e.g., at Palermo, and in many Russian icons) where the more familiar 'ruined stable' is represented by an opened mountain, or 'grotto'; cf. B. Rowland, in Bull. Fogg Art Museum VII, 1939, p. 63: 'The original reason for the "choice" of the mountain cave - or rather the "necessity" for it-- lies dead and buried in the minds of the creators of the Christian legend who had the memories of the cosmological foundations of all the great religions of the Semitic world dating from Sumer behind them.'
4. A. B. Cook, Zeus, Cambridge (E.), I (1914), 779: 'Zeus as sky-father is in essential relation to an earth-mother. Her name varies from place to place and from time to time ... everywhere and always either patent or latent, the earth-mother is there as the necessary correlative and consort of the skyfather.' For Dion see ibid., in, 961.
5. For so long as men still understood the true nature of their myths, they were not shocked by their 'immorality.' The myths are never, in fact, immoral but, like every other form of theory (vision), amoral. In this respect also they must be distinguished from invented allegories; their pattern may be 'imitated' ritually, where many things are done which might be, humanly speaking, improper. The content of the myths is intellectual, rather than moral; they must be understood, - 'Ohne ein solches Bewusstsein ware es fur die spateren Geschlechter schlecht und gottlos gewesen, von ihren hochsten Gott und dem Vater ihres Ideal-helden solche Nichtswiirdigkeiten zu erfinden. Die alten Naturmythen sind aber keine Erfindungen, sondern die in Worte gekleideten Erkenntnisse wahrgenommener und daher nicht abzuleugnender Vorgange' (Siecke, Drachenkiimpfe, p. 64). Just as the injunction to 'hate' father and mother, brother and sister (Luke 14.26) was never meant to be a rule for the active life, so when King Pariksit cannot understand gri Krishna's behaviour gri gukadev says, 'Listen, King! you do not understand the distinction, but are judging the Lord as though he were a man' (Prem Sagar, Ch. 34). Myths and fairy-tales are not moral treatises, but supports of contemplation; and whoever deprecates the hero's 'morals' has already misconceived the genre.
6. For the stories referred to in this paragraph see A. C. L. Brown, loc. cit., Ch. vII, and other references cited in Note 1; S. H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, i, 327-330 and II, 369-373 and 489-549.
7. I fully agree with A. C. L. Brown's suggested equation of the fairy guardian of a 'marvellous water' with a damsel guardian of the Grail. I would add that all these are, so to speak, 'Hesperides.' I also fully agree with Brown's observation, that 'it is not incredible that all these personages [Perceval's sister, and cousin, and wife, and the Grail messenger, as equated by Miss Mallon] were originally different manifestations of one supernatural earth-mother who controlled the plot'; and so with the suggestion that Cundrie, the hideous Grail-messenger, who in Wauchier 'transforms herself into a beauty' is 'a fee who took an ugly shape in order to test the greatest of all knights' (loc. cit., pp. 211. 217, notes 6 and 24).
8. J. C. De, 'On the Hindu Conception of Sovereignty,' The Cultural Heritage of India, Calcutta, n.d. (1937), In, 258. See also G. Hartmann, Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Gittin Lak§mf, Wertheim a. M., 1933.
9. RV. vin. 91: see full details and references in H. Oertel, 'Brahmana Literature, II Indra cures Apala,' JAOS, 18, 26-31, and my Darker Side of Dawn, Smithsonian Institution, Miscellaneous Collections, 94, 1, 1935. Apala is a pati-dvi? 'who hates her (former) lord and master,' like the 'allgenerating' Earth who in AV.xII.1.37 'shaking off the snake, chooses not Vrtra but Indra."'
10 Viraka, cf. RV. vmII. 69.15 where Indra is 'a little boy' (kumaraka); the theme of the hero's precocity and strength out of all proportion to his size (cf. 'Tom Thumb') recurs throughout the traditional literature: cf. Cuchullain as 'boy-hero.' The designation 'mannikin' has further reference to the very usual identification of Indra, as immanent deity, with the 'Person in the Right Eye,' analogue of the greater Person in the Sun; the left eye pertaining to Indrani, and their beatific union being consummated in the 'heart,' where also the draught of Soma is really imbibed. The 'houses' of the text are, of course, the bodies of the living beings in which the solar Indra is the vivifying and conscious principle, -'Thee, O Indra, we discern in every birth' (Brhaddevatd Iv. 73).
11. These are, at least in one sense, the 'waste lands' that Indra 'fil's' or 'peoples' (RV. Iv. 19.7); Indra is the typical 'Grail-winner' of The Vedas. Apala's father is Atri; in his case, the 'hair' to be restored is probably rays of light. The 'field' (urvard, fertile ground, earth) is, no doubt, Apala's (Earth's) own womb, cf. AV. xiv. 2.14 where the Bride is referred to as 'an animate field' (dtmanvi urvard); Rv. vIII. 21.3 where Indra is 'Lord of the Field' (urvardpati) as in iv. 57.7 (k$etrapati, in connection
with Sita, the Furrow, 'whose Lord is Indra,' PGS. ii. 17.9); BD. iv. 40 where Priana (often= Indra) is 'the only "Knower of-the-Field",' i.e., of the body with its powers. For 'hair' = vegetation cf. TS. vii. 4.3.1. 'This (earth) was bare and hairless; she desired, let me be propagated with plants and trees'; SB. ix.3.1.4 (beard on chin analogous to plants on earth); and VS. xix. 21 where 'hair' is represented by sprouts of grass and barley. Apala's lack of hair is a result of her 'skin-disease': a parallel can be cited in Perlesvaus where the Grail Messenger has lost her hair at the time of the Dolorous Stroke, and foretells that it will grow again when the Grail Hero asks the fateful question; and there can be no doubt but that, as Loomis (loc. cit., p. 282) says by 'hair' she means 'the bursting buds and shooting stalks of reawakened earth.' Similarly the 'Damsel of the Car,' whose head is bald and will be so 'until such time as the Grail be achieved,' see H. Muchnic, 'The Coward Knight and the Damsel of the Car,' PMLA XLIII, 1928, 323-343.
12. Sita, the 'Furrow,' and wife of Rama. Cf. in this connection J. J. Bachofen, Urreligion und antike Symbole, Leipzig, 1926, II, 305 ('Was aus dem spurium geboren wird, hat nur eine Mutter, sei es die Erde, sei es die Weib').
13. An allusion to the 'Ford of Acquisition' and 'that pathway whereby they drink of the pressed juice' (RV. x. 114.7), and so the archetypal draught offered by Apala, beside the river (RV. vmII. 91).
14. The 'casting of the slough' is the ever-recurring Indian equivalent for the 'putting off of the old man' from whom the new emerges; and the 'shaking off of bodies' (physical, mental, etc.) is essential to the ascent, because 'no one becomes immortal with a body.'
15. All of the above material is much more fully treated in my Darker Side of Dawn (see Note 4), where the references will be found. Manasa Devi is so-called because the hymns of the Serpent Queen are orationes secretae, mentally (manasa), i.e., silently, recited.
16 'Shining about' or 'Wide-ruling'; raj, to 'shine' or 'rule,' in raja, rex, 'royal,' 'realm,' etc.
17. In this connection cf. Gerda Hartmann, loc. cit. pp. 13-15 and 35-42.
18 See p. 393. I have shown in SpiritualA uthoritya nd TemporaPl oweri n the Indian Theory of Government (New Haven, 1942, see esp. notes 26, 45) that the Ruling (as distinct from the Sacerdotal) function is essentially feminine. This is of interest in connection with the transformation motive in The Wedding of Sir Gawain, where Dame Ragnell tells us that what women 'desyren of men aboue all m#ner thyng (is) To haue the sovereynte, withoute lesyng, Of alle, bothe hyghe and lowe' (11. 42274). So in India likewise; for we have seen above that Siri (Sri) is the presiding genius of Lordship (issariya), and in the Anguttara Nikdya III. 363, where the ruling passions or functions of human beings are listed, that of Lordship (issariya) is assigned to Klatriyas (the ruling class) and to women. Alike in government and marriage, the woman's is the power, and the man's the authority. By a tyrant or virago the feminine 'power' is abused; by legitimate king or true wife, exercised in accordance with justice. On Sarah as the 'sovereignty' see Philo, references in the Loeb Library edition, vol. 1, p. xxvii.
19 Heylin's Cyprianus Anglicus, 1668, p. 145. It might seem, at first sight, that some contradiction is involved in the fact that, in the Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell, the latter's disenchantment and transformation take place as a consequence not only of Gawain's embrace but inasmuch as he gives her 'the sovereignty of all his body and goods.' Similarly in Atharva Veda II. 36.3 we find that a married woman is to rule (vi rajatu); and in Anguttara Nikdya in. 633 that 'lordship' is proper to both the ruling class and to women. This does not mean that the reins of all government are handed over to her, but that hers is the executive power in a joint government. Dame Ragnell in fact undertakes 'never to anger, disobey or contend with' Sir Gawain, while in the Atharva Veda in the same way the wife will 'never thwart' (vi-rddh) him. She is the source of his Sovereignty in that without her he would not be a Sovereign; the King without a Realm is no King in the same sense that as Meister Eckhart says, 'Before creatures were, God was not "God."'
20. Matronymic from Kundiin, perhaps 'Son of the Well.' Kundina and Kaundinya are well attested old Indian names.
21. Naginis are still represented in Indian art as womanly from the waist up, but with a scaly fish-tail
below. For Nagas generally see J. Ph. Vogel, Indian Serpent-Lore, London, 1925; also Coedes, G.,
'La legende de la Nagi,' BIFEO. xi, 1911. M. Guenon informs me that there are European families,
e.g. the French Lurignan, whose descent is traced from a mermaid.
22. E. Aymonier, Histoire de l'ancien Cambodge, Strasbourg, n.d. (1924?).
23. P. Pelliot, 'M6moires sur les coiumes du Cambodge," BEFEO. n1, 1902, p. 145.
24. Rdmayana i. 45.40-43. In this connection it may be observed that just as in Classical sources Cupid is the son of Venus, so in Indian contexts Kamadeva (Eros) is the son of Laksmi (HarivathSa 11535; 12483, cf. Mbh. xII. 11.1 ff.).
25. On the lotus symbolism see my Elements of Buddhist Iconography, Cambridge, 1935, pp. 17-22 and notes 28-44. On 'Floating Islands' see A. B. Cook, Zeus, III2, 975-1015; and my 'Symplegades,' to appear later. It is emphasized, e.g., in the Sri Sikta, that the beginnings of the lotus are in the slime of the depths; its development and blossoming are in response to the light of the Sun (Mbh. xII. 228.21, and passim), that of 'the one lotus of the sky,' the Sun or Brahma (Brhaddra.yaka Up. II. 3.6, vi. 3.6), -a transformation into the same image. That the lotus represents equally the Earth and Sri-Lak§mi reflects their essential identity.
26. Just as the Earth-lotus in the Vedic tradition blooms on the surface of the primordial Ocean in response to the down-shining of the lights of heaven above, so in the Greek tradition the Sun perceives a fertile land, Rhodos, the Rose, rising from the depths of the Sea, 'and there it was that Helios mingled with the Rose, and begat seven sons who inherited from him yet wiser minds than any of those of the heroes of old' (Pindar, 0. Odes, vI. 54 f.). On Rose and Lotus as symbols of the Magna Mater
see also my 'Tree of Jesse and Indian Parallels or Sources,' Art Bulletin xi (1929), 217-220. I do not attach here any importance to the possibility of Indian influence; all that concerns us is the universality of doctrines and of the formulae in which they are expressed. The Mother of God is always a 'Flower.'
27. Rite, sacrifice, reenactment of cosmic relationships; cf. 9B. xi. 6.2.10, BU. vi. 4.2, 3, CU. II. 17.3, and the marriage formula, 'I am Sky, thou art Earth, I the Chant, thou the Verses, let us be one, and bring forth offspring,' AV. xiv. 2.71. Facere sacra facere when, and only when, the act of kind is referred to its paradigm in divinis, - 'the act of fecundation latent in eternity.'
28. Krtya, personified gerundive (faciendum) as 'potentiality' is Evil, contrasted with the highest Good, characterized by a 'being all in act' (krtakrtya). So krtyd, abstractly, is often 'witchcraft,' 'enchantment,' 'necromancy,' etc. Krtya in RV corresponds to mala (defilement) in BU: clinging, i.e., at once like the coils of a snake and the folds of a garment. It is to be borne in mind that in the traditional doctrine about transformation or shape-shifting all changes of appearance are thought of in terms of the putting on or taking off of a skin or cloak, by which acts a proper essence is concealed or revealed, as the case may be. A were-wolf, for example, is not a species, but a man who knows how to wear a wolfskin as though it were his own. This conception underlies the well known motive of disenchantment by flaying ('Abhautungsmotiv,' cf. C. J. Jung, Einige Bemerkungen zu den Visionen des Zosimos, Zirich, 1938, p. 30, and G. L. Kittredge, Sir Gawzin and the Green Knight, 1916, pp. 214 ff.). Our real Self, accordingly, appears only when all its disguises have been shed; the bride is unveiled before her husband; and in the same way, 'across Thy (Love's) threshold naked all must pass,' cf. Philo., LA. 11. 55 f. Every 'property' (in the theatrical and other senses of the word) must be dispensed with; and only the thread of our existence, as Ruim I says, is suitable for the eye of the needle. In the last analysis even our own bodies (personalities) are disguises, from which only a (the) Prince Charming can extract us: and, as JUB. III. 30.4 expresses it, 'these same Gods above have shaken off their bodies.' Even 'to disappear' is thought of as a 'putting on' of invisibility; so we find an adept escaping from his enemies by 'investing his body in the tarn-cloak of contemplation' (Jdtaka v. 127).
29. A. H. Wratislaw, Sixty Folk-Tales, Exclusively from Slavonic Sources, London, 1889, No. LVIII. As Siecke remarks in a more general context, 'der Drache und die Jungfrau sind nattirlich identisch' (Drachenkimpfe, 1907, p. 14).
30. The barren island is evidently a Waste Land, which would have been repopulated had the hero achieved the quest. Morris' use of mythical or magical motivations in his romances is always accurate. In the present case I do not know his immediate source, but cf. Brown, loc. cit., p. 213, note 7 ('Only a persistently brave hero wins the ugly-appearing fte,' etc.).
31. References will be found in W. H. Schofield, Studies on the Libeaus Desconus, Boston, 1895 ('Disenchantment by Means of a Kiss,' pp. 51, 199-208). Cf. Axel Olrik, A Book of Danish Ballads, Princeton, 1939, p. 271, 'The Serpent Bride.' The wording of the Carduino (I Cantari di Carduino in Rajna, Poemetti CavaUereschiB, ologna, 1873, 1-44, cited by Schofield, p. 51) is significant:
Che come quella serpe fu basciata
Ella si devent [37] una donzella
Legiadra e adorna e tutta angiclicata.
In several other versions of the story the donzella is explicitly Gaia Donzella, Pulzella Gaia, the daughter of Morgan le Fay, and the hero is Gawain (E. C. Gardner, The Arthurian Legend in Italian Literature, 1930, pp. 167, 241-247, 308, 309). See also my 'Sunkiss' in JAOS 60, 1940.
32 Cf. also PB. ix. 2.14 where, as Akuipara (cf. of Akuipari, 'Infinite,' 'Ocean,' primordial 'Tortoise'), Indra's bride is described as having a 'skin like a lizard's.'
33 'Atmayajfia,' HJAS. vi, 1942.
34 RV. x. 85.3, 4, cf. AV. xiv. 1.5.
35 Loomis, loc. cit., p. 222.
36 Maitri Up. II. 2.
37 For instance, in the Polish story of 'Prince Unexpected' (Wratislaw, loc. cit., no. xvII), when the Prince and the youngest Princess have eluded pursuit, the former sees a beautiful town, and desires to visit it; the Princess tells him that if he must go, he must beware of a beautiful child whom he must not kiss. But the beautiful child runs into his arms, and he kisses him impulsively, but: 'That momenthis memory was darkened, and he utterly forgot the Princess, Bony's daughter.' Before long, the Prince is to be married to the King's daughter; but the Princess takes service in the royal kitchen, and obtains leave to make the wedding cake; when it is cut, a pair of pigeons appears; the female pursues the male, her cooing restores the Prince's memory, he finds the true Princess, and again they make their escape, and in this case safely reach the Prince's (heavenly) Father's kingdom. The essential motive in this familiar pattern (cf., for example, the King's forgetfulness in the Epic and Kalidasa's versions of the story of Sakuntala, and in Maitri Up. II. 2 the deluded soul's forgetfulness of 'its immortal Soul') is that of the loss and recovery of memory. This is the mythical formulation of the well known Indian and Platonic doctrine of lethe and anamnesis; and every such story has been told, at least in the beginning (however it may have been 'voided of content on its way down to us'), not merely for the amusement of 'children' whether young or old but also to expound a doctrine for the
sake of those who have ears to hear and to whom it is given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Plato and Aristotle were profoundly right in calling the marvellous 'the only beginning of philosophy,' and in equating 'the lover of myths' with 'the lover of wisdom!'
38 Cf. E. Siecke, Liebesgeschichte Himmels, Strasbourg, 1892, and note the equation of Indra and Vrtra with Sun and Moon (normally Groom and Bride) in SB. I. 6.4.18, 19. See also my 'Atmayajfia,' loc. cit., pp. 361-862, and 'Two Passages from Dante's Paradiso,' Speculum, xi (1936), 333-334).
39 Typically, for example in the well known story of Enid and Geraint; and in the Lay of Graelent (W. H. Schofield, 'The Lays of Graelent and Lanval,' Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. of America, xv (Baltimore, 1900), 131; E. M. Grimes, The Lays of Desire, Graelent and Melion, New York, 1928, p. 23). The maiden of the fountain is extremely scornful, but as soon as Graelent has had his way with her, submissive and devoted. There can be no doubt that the contrast of pride and humility parallels that of reptilian hideousness and the height of womanly beauty; and one may say that the motive survives in secular contexts as a 'Taming of the Shrew.'
40 In slightly different ways, corresponding respectively to RV. x. 85.28 where Krtya is described as clinging about Sirya, and 29 where Sirya is spoken of as having been Krtya, - just as 'Soma was Vrtra!' Thus for Philo (Opif. 40, LA. I. 21 f., II. 50 f., 73 f., II. 221 f.) povs is the 'Man' (rational heavenly, superior, artist), alo-Oiats is the 'Woman' (irrational, earthly, inferior, material); the latter, carnal 'soul' (lvxi =nefesh), bringing to the former the realm of things perceived, the former, 'soul of the soul,' imposing order upon them; and Pleasure ()0opv) is the 'Serpent' that coils about the sensitive soul like an evil garment. Hence Philo's Drachenkampf (6tLo,uaXlai)s the conflict of Reason with Pleasure (cf. HJAS. vi, 1942, p. 397); and the Victory implies a transformation, for when the Soul submits herself to Mind, her lawful husband 'there will be flesh no more, but both of them will be Mind' (cf. HermesT rismegistosx . 19a). Similarlyf or Plutarch( Moralia3 71 B, C) 'Typhon (Seth) is that part of the soul which is passible and titanic.' For Ruimi (Mathnawi i. 1375, 2617-9, in. 1053, 2548, etc.) Reason ('aql) is the Man, and the Soul (nafs) the Woman, and these are at war; she is the Dragon, whom only the God, or Moses within you, can overcome.
41 D ominicap rimap ost octavume piphaniaei,i . 2: 'without wrinkle'( sine ruga)m ight well describe such a transformationa s Apala's,w hoses kin was originally' rough.'C f. St Bernard,D e grad. h umilitatis 41, 'unitest his soult o himselfa s a gloriousb ride'; Misc. Serm. 4 5.4 'fromt he slimeo f the abyss'; Gracea nd FreeC hoicex . 35 'changedi nto the same image,f rom glory to glory' (Opera1 388).T ransformationsf romh ideoush ag to beautifuls pirit,d ifferentlym otivated,m ay be notedh ere as occurring in the Buddhist Petavatth(uS BB.x III, 1942,1 58f . and 167f .).
42 Add to this, that even the data will be only imperfectly a ssembled i f the folklores ourcesa lonea reinvestigated. For this reason,n o doubt,t he Symplegadesm otive in Rgvedav i. 49.3, AtharvaV edax iv 1.63 and SdakhdyanaA ranyakai v. 13 (=Kaus. Up. II. 13) has been overlooked,a s has that of Decapitation in numerousI slamic contexts, for example in the DZwdniS hams-i-Tabr2(zN icholson, ii. 3) 'When thou seest in the pathway a severed head, which is rolling . . . ask of it, ask of it the secretso f the heart' and Riumi,M athnauaT, abrize d. 206.6, 'The more he plied his sword, t he more my head became.'I t is not a deificationo f humanh eroes,b ut the humanisationo f Godst hat 'literary history'd emonstratesO. n Decapitations ee furtherm y 'Sir Gawaina nd the GreenK night;I ndraa nd Namuci'i n SpeculumX, IX( 1944),w hereI have also discussedt he natureo f myth and folklore.
43. Cf. LordR aglan,T heH ero,1 936;E . Siecke,D rachenkampf1e9, 07,p . 61; N. P. Nilsson, Mycenean Origin of Greek Mythology 1932 (p. 31, Mythology can never be converted into history). Itmaybe observed here that wherever it is asserted that a given event, such as the temporal birth of Christat once unique and historically true we recognize an antinomy; because, as Aristotle perceived (Met. vi. 2.12, xi. 8.3), 'knowledge (rri;rT7l) is of that which is always or usually so, not of exceptions,'
whence it follows that the birth in Bethlehem can only be thought of as historical if it is granted, that there have also been other such 'descents,' if, for example, we accept the statement that, 'for the establishment of Justice, I am born in age after age' (Bhagavad Gitd Iv. 7, 8).
44. On the Hare and hounds see Karl von Spiess, 'Die Hasenjagd,' Jahrb. f. historische Volkskunde, v, vI (1937), 243 ff. Also E. Pottier, 'L'histoire d'une bete,' Revue de l'Art Ancien et Moderne, t. xxvII, 1910, pp. 419-436, and Bull. de Corr. Hellenique, 1893, p. 227; L. von Schroeder, Arische Religion, II, 1923, p. 664; and John Layard The Lady of the Hare, London, 1945.
45. Aristotle, Met. xII. 8.21. Cf. W. Andrae, Die ionische Siule, 1933, p. 65; E. Dacqu6, Das verlorene Paradies, Munich, 1940; F. Marti, 'Religion, Philosophy, and the College,' Rev. of Religion vii, 1942. ('Men live by myths . . . they are no mere poetic invention'); N. Berdyaev, Freedom and the Spirit, 1935 ('Behind the myth are concealed the greatest realities, the original phenomena of the spiritual life.... Christianity is entirely mythological, as indeed all religion is'); M. Eliade in Zalmoxis iI, 78 ('La memoire collective conserve quelquefois certain details precis d'une "theorie" devenue depuis longtemps inintelligible... des symboles archaiques d'essence purement metaphysique') and in Revista Fundafilior Regale, April 1939, p. 16 ('O buna parte din ornamenta;ia populara este de origine metafizica'); J. Strzygowski, Spuren indogermanischen Glaubens in der bildenden Kunst, p. 344 ('Wir miissen wohl in der Religion die Unterschied zwischen Natur- und Kulturvolken fallen lassen'); Fr. Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man, 1922, p. 156 ('This led us to a consideration of whether the hereditary mental faculty was improved by civilisation, an opinion that did not seem plausible to us'). Similar views could be cited ad. lib.
46. On this subject see my, "Primitive Paternity," and the "Puppet Complex"; a Study in Anthropological Methodology, Psychiatry, vmII, 1945.
47. Diu Krone (1. 29622) still refers to the Grail Bearer as 'die gotine Wolgetan' (Loomis, loc. cit., p.286).