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The Destiny of a King.
1973 University of Chicago. 8vo., 155pp., index, hardcover. Fine, no DJ.
170 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Georges Dumézil
97 books92 followersGeorges Dumézil was a French comparative philologist best known for his analysis of sovereignty and power in Proto-Indo-European religion and society. He is considered one of the major contributors to mythography, in particular for his formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis of social class in ancient societies.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 1, 2023
Too often, comparative mythology and literature are intoxicating. And also obviously humour. In this slim book where Dumezil geeks out in the best way that he knows, he brings to the fore the figure of Yayati who is recounted several times in the Mahabharata as the greatest king and at other moments, the ideal king in that he forms the prototype for the oddness of the kingly condition. Underneath all the cold scholarship and the lively humour is nearly a mellow meditation on what the Indo-Aryan idea of power is. (Also the MBh makes you cringe so much and so many times that if you don't come out an open-minded liberal person, might as well not have read it.)
July 22, 2024
An excellent comparative study between two homologous mythological character, Iranian Yima (later Jamshid), universal king, and Indian Yama, the ruler of the afterlife for the blessed dead. From this seemingly very specific introduction, we move to analyze, as a whole, the titular destiny of a king in proto-Indo-European society and its thinking, using examples from Rome and from as extreme west as Ireland.
Chapter 1 tells of Yayati, cursed by his father-in-law, the sorcerer Kavya Usanas, to be instantly turned old, but granted that if someone wishes to take on his old age and lose his youth for his sake, the magical transfer may be done. Of his five sons, only one, the youngest, agrees to do it, for which he reigns "the central" fifth, the best one, and sends off his sons to rule over other parts of the world, the four cardinal directions - a familiar story to anyone who ever read the beginning of the Shahnameh, but also curious for its fifth-part division of the world, which is also seen in Ireland, the extreme west of the Indo-Euro world. Anyway, Yayati ascends to heaven, his son reigns inordinately long, his other sons populate the rest of the world and all's well that ends well.
in Chapter 2, Yayati falls from heaven due to ONE sin, a momentary fleeting thought, and it is his four grandsons from an hilariously complicated genealogy from a daughter, Madhavi, that saves him by transfering all her merits to him. Madhavi is still a "virgin" and this is relevant, for it is from this notion of "virginity" that her power comes from, virginity meaning innate potential, what is "stored up", as compared in the "Perspectives" with the vestal virgins of Rome. Madhavi's name is also philologically analyzed to come from very ancient *madhu-, "intoxicating drink", i.e. mead, the same as Queen Medb of Irish myth fame. So we analyze Queen Medb and her connections to Sovereignty, flaith. From here we see that the tie of sovereignty to women who had a name tied with an intoxicating drink came from royal beer and mead-drinking rituals.
This is where my own study comes in: I have noted that there is a story in multiple Indo-European mythos of a man who is beloved by a woman representative of the goddess of war/sovereignty such as Hera, Morrígan, Freyja, etc, and commits some sin along the way: Jason, Sigurd, Cuchulainn, etc. All of these have their own common imagery, and here we see some explanations that helped me immensely in my own study, per example, the drinking of Morrígan's milk in the Táin< /i> is entirely cognate with the beer of Sovereignty, and indeed in the Iranian version it is indeed milk: here we may say that it is milk because the goddess of sovereignty is also a cow-goddess, such as "cow-eyed" Hera. Likewise the theme of "picking up a old woman", such as Cuchulain and Jason both do, became explained as being nothing but the early vicissitudes of holding kingship, which are ugly (must be taken by coup, early instability) but then becomes a beautiful woman, the excellence of kingship...
This study goes beyond this in many aspects, despite being so short: most of it is an incisive summary of Avestan and Indian epic mythology, as well as of Irish tales, before moving on to Roman ritual. It is excellent and well worth the read, alongside with Dumézil's other short (and long) studies.
Chapter 1 tells of Yayati, cursed by his father-in-law, the sorcerer Kavya Usanas, to be instantly turned old, but granted that if someone wishes to take on his old age and lose his youth for his sake, the magical transfer may be done. Of his five sons, only one, the youngest, agrees to do it, for which he reigns "the central" fifth, the best one, and sends off his sons to rule over other parts of the world, the four cardinal directions - a familiar story to anyone who ever read the beginning of the Shahnameh, but also curious for its fifth-part division of the world, which is also seen in Ireland, the extreme west of the Indo-Euro world. Anyway, Yayati ascends to heaven, his son reigns inordinately long, his other sons populate the rest of the world and all's well that ends well.
in Chapter 2, Yayati falls from heaven due to ONE sin, a momentary fleeting thought, and it is his four grandsons from an hilariously complicated genealogy from a daughter, Madhavi, that saves him by transfering all her merits to him. Madhavi is still a "virgin" and this is relevant, for it is from this notion of "virginity" that her power comes from, virginity meaning innate potential, what is "stored up", as compared in the "Perspectives" with the vestal virgins of Rome. Madhavi's name is also philologically analyzed to come from very ancient *madhu-, "intoxicating drink", i.e. mead, the same as Queen Medb of Irish myth fame. So we analyze Queen Medb and her connections to Sovereignty, flaith. From here we see that the tie of sovereignty to women who had a name tied with an intoxicating drink came from royal beer and mead-drinking rituals.
This is where my own study comes in: I have noted that there is a story in multiple Indo-European mythos of a man who is beloved by a woman representative of the goddess of war/sovereignty such as Hera, Morrígan, Freyja, etc, and commits some sin along the way: Jason, Sigurd, Cuchulainn, etc. All of these have their own common imagery, and here we see some explanations that helped me immensely in my own study, per example, the drinking of Morrígan's milk in the Táin< /i> is entirely cognate with the beer of Sovereignty, and indeed in the Iranian version it is indeed milk: here we may say that it is milk because the goddess of sovereignty is also a cow-goddess, such as "cow-eyed" Hera. Likewise the theme of "picking up a old woman", such as Cuchulain and Jason both do, became explained as being nothing but the early vicissitudes of holding kingship, which are ugly (must be taken by coup, early instability) but then becomes a beautiful woman, the excellence of kingship...
This study goes beyond this in many aspects, despite being so short: most of it is an incisive summary of Avestan and Indian epic mythology, as well as of Irish tales, before moving on to Roman ritual. It is excellent and well worth the read, alongside with Dumézil's other short (and long) studies.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews