The vow of IDOMENEO

Speranza

Apollodoro tells us that while Idomeneo, king of Creta, was away with his army at the siege of Troia, his wife Meda at home was debauched by a certain Leuco, who afterwards murdered her and her daughter, and, having seduced ten cities of Crete from their allegiance, made himselm lord of the island and expelled the lawful king Idomeneo when, on his return from Troy, he endeavoured to reinstate himself in the kingdom.

The same story is told, almost in the same words, by Tzetzes, who doubtless here, as in so many places, drew his information direct from Apollodorus.

The exile of Idomeneo is mentioned by Virgilio, who says that the IDOMENEO, driven from his ancestral dominions, settled in the Sallentine land (SALENTO), a district of Calabria at the south-eastern extremity of Italy. Indeed, he is said to be the founder of SALENTO and there is a bust to him in LECCE.

VIRGILIO says nothing about the cause of Idomeneo's exile.

But his commentator Servio Onorato explains the exile by a story which differs entirely from the account given by Apollodorus.

The story is this.

When Idomeneo, king of Crete, was returning home after the destruction of Troy, he was caught in a storm and vowed to sacrifice to Nettuno whatever should first meet him.

It chanced that the first to meet him was his own son, and Idomeneus sacrificed him or, according to others, only wished or attempted to do so.

Subsequently a pestilence broke out, and the people, apparently regarding it as a divine judgment on their king's cruelty, banished him the realm.

The same story is repeated almost in the same words by the First and Second Vatican Mythographers, who clearly here, as in many places, either copied Servio Onorato or borrowed from the same source which he followed.

But on one point the First Vatican Mythographer presents an interesting variation.

For according to him, it was not his son but his *daughter* (alla IFIGENIA) whom the king first met and sacrificed, or attempted to sacrifice.

A similar story of a rash vow is told of a certain Maeander, son of Cercafo and Anaxibia, who gave his name to the river Maeander.

It is recorded of MEANDRO that, being at war with the people of Pessinus in Frigia, he vowed to the Mother of the Gods that, if he were victorious, he would sacrifice the first PERSON (rather than living being) who should congratulate him on his triumph.

On his return the first who met and congratulated him was his son Archelao, with his mother and sister.

In fulfilment of his vow, Maeander sacrificed them at the altar, and thereafter, broken-hearted at what he had done, threw himself into the


NOTES:

1 Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron, 384-386, compare Schol. on id. 1093.

a Virgil, Aen. iii. 121 sq., 400 sq. ; compare id., xi. 264 aq.

----

Servius, on Virgil,
Aen. iii. 121 and on xi. 264.

The two passages supplement each other on some points, and in the text we have combined them.

4

Scriptores return mythicarum Latini,
ed. G. H. Bode, vol. i. pp. 59, 145 sq.
(First Vatican Mythographer, 195; Second Vatican Mythographer, 210).

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river, which before had been called Anabaenon, but which henceforth was named MEANDRO after him.

The story is told by the Pseudo-Plutarch, who cites as his authorities Timolao, in the first book of his treatise on Frigia, and Agatocle the Samian, in his work, The Constitution of Peisinua.

In this last story, according to the only possible interpretation of the words, MEANDRO clearly intended from the outset to offer a HUMAN sacrifice, though he had not anticipated that the victims would be his son, his daughter, and his wife.

Similarly in the parallel Israelitish legend of Jefta's vow it seems that Jefta purposed to sacrifice a HUMAN victim, though he did not expect that the victim would be his daughter:

"And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord,
and said,
If thou wilt indeed deliver the children of Amnion into mine hand,
then it shall be, that WHOsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me,
when I return in peace from the children of Ammon,
he shall be the Lord's, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering."

For so the passage runs in the Hebrew original,4 in the Septuagint, and in the Vulgate and so it has been understood by the best modern commentators.

In the sequel Jephthah did to his daughter

NOTES ON MEANDRO:


Pseudo-Plutarch, De fluviis, ix. 1.

Ti&taro rfj Mrjrpl rvv 6twv, €av eyKpar^s yivirrai Ttjs Vlktis, Bvfftiv rby frpwrov dvrtji ffvyxaptvra [2*1] Tcus avtipayaQlcus rp6wata rpcpovri. * Judges, xi. 30 sq.

Judges, xi. 31, Tttni?1? Trj 'nVro us? itft» »si>n rrrn • • • • nVw vnfifrt).

8 /col tarai b iKivopfu6/j.evos hs oi* ££c&0]j airb T7)s Qupas rod Oxkov Uov its avvaim)olv fxov . . . avoiaw avrby &\OKavToifia.

6 Quicumque primus fucrit cgressus de foribus domus meae, mihique occurrerit . . . eum holocaustutn offeram Domino.


J. S. Black (The Smaller Cambridge Bible for Schools, 1892), G. W. Thatcher (The Century Bible, n.d.), G. F. Moore (The International Commentary, Second Edition, 1903), G. A. Cooke (The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, 1913), C. F. Burney (1918).
Professor G. F. Moore observes,

"That a human victim is intended is, in fact, as plain as words can make it; the language is inapplicable to

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according to his vow, in other words he consummated the sacrifice.

"Early Arabian religion before Mohammed furnishes a parallel:


Al-Mundhir, king of al-Hirah, had made a vow that on a certain day in each year he would sacrifice the first person he saw.

'Abid came in sight on the unlucky day, and was accordingly killed, and the altar smeared with his blood.'
 

Similar vows meet us in folk-tales.

Thus in a German story from Hesse we read how a man, setting out on a long journey, promised his three daughters to bring back a present for each, whatever they should desire.

The youngest of them, his favourite child, asked him to bring back a singing, soaring LARK.

 On his way through a forest, the man saw a singing, soaring lark perched on the top of a tree, and he called to his servant to climb up and catch the bird.

But as he approached the tree, a lion leaped from under it, saying that he would devour whoever tried to steal his singing, soaring lark. The man prayed the lion to spare his life and to take a large sum of money instead. But the animal replied, "Nothing can save thee, unless thou wilt promise to give me for my own what first meets thee on thy return homo; but if thou wilt do that, I will grant thee thy life, and thou shalt have the bird for thy daughter, into the bargain." The man accepted the offer, and on his return home the first who met him was his youngest and dearest daughter, who came running up, kissed and embraced him, and when she saw that he had brought with him a singing, soaring lark, she was beside herself with joy. But her father wept and said, "My dearest child, I have bought the little bird dear. In return for it I have been obliged to promise thee to a savage lion, and when he has thee, he will tear thee in pieces and devour thee."

But the brave damsel, like Jephthah's daughter, consoled her sorrowful father, saying that he must keep his word, and that she would go to the lion and try to mollify him. The story ends happily, for the lion turned out to be no real lion but an

an animal, and a vow to offer the first sheep or goat that he comes across—not to mention the possibility of an unclean animal—is trivial to absurdity."

NOTES:

 

1 Judges, xi. 39.

* G. A. Cooke, on Judges, xi. 31, quoting Lyall, Ancient Arabian Poetry, p. xxviii.

enchanted prince, who married the girl, and after a series of adventures the two lived happily together.1


A similar tale is reported from Lorraine. Its substance is as follows.

Once upon a time there was a man who had three daughters.

One day he told them that he was setting out on a journey and promised to bring each of them back a present, whatever they pleased.

The youngest, whom he loved the best, said she would like to have THE TALKING ROSE.

So one day on his travels the man came to a fine castle from which issued a sound of voices speaking and singing.

On entering the castle he found himself in a courtyard, in the middle of which was a rose-bush covered with roses.

It was the roses which he had heard speaking and singing.

"At last," thought he, "I have found the talking rose."

He was just about to pluck one of the roses, when a white wolf ran at him, crying,

"Who gave you leave to enter my castle and to pluck my roses?
You shall be punished with death.
All who intrude here must die."

 The poor man offered to give back the talking rose, if only the white wolf would let him go.

At first the wolf would not consent.

But, on hearing that the man's daughter had begged for the talking rose, he said,

"Look here. I will pardon you, and more than that I will let you keep the rose, but on one condition.

It is that you will bring me the first person you meet on returning home.'

The poor man promised and went away back to his own country.

The first person he saw on entering his house was his youngest daughter.

"Ah, my daughter," said he, "what a sad journey!" "Have you not found the talking rose ?" quoth she. "I found it," quoth he, " to my sorrow.

 In the castle of the white wolf I found it, and I must die."

When he explained to her that the white wolf had granted him his life on condition of his bringing the first person he should meet on entering his house, she bravely declared herself ready to go with him.

So together they came to the castle.

There the white wolf received them very civilly and assured them that he would do them no harm. "This castle," said he, " belongs to the fairies; we who dwell in it are all fairies; I myself am condemned to be a white wolf by day.

If you keep the secret, it will go well with you." That night the white wolf appeared to the maiden in her

1 Grimm's Household Tales, No. 88 (vol. ii. pp. 5-10 of Margaret Hunt's translation).

chamber in the form of a handsome gentleman and promised that, if only she followed his directions, he would marry her and make her his queen, and she should be mistress of the castle.

All went well till one day the girl received a visit from one of her sisters, and, yielding to her importunity, revealed the wondrous secret.

A frightful howl at once rang through the castle.

The maiden started up affrighted, but hardly had she passed the doorway when the white wolf fell dead at her feet.

She now rued her fatal compliance.

But it was too late, and she was wretched for the rest of her life.

So in a Lithuanian story we read of a king who had three fair daughters, but the youngest was the fairest of them all.

Once on a time the king wished to go on business to Wilna, there to engage a maid who would look after his royal household, sweep the rooms, and feed the pigs.

But his youngest daughter told him that she needed no maid-servant, for she would herself discharge these domestic duties, if only he brought her back from Wilna a mat woven of living flowers.

So the king went to Wilna and bought presents for his two elder daughters, but though he searched the whole town and went into every shop, he could not find a mat woven of living flowers.

His way home led him through a forest, and there in the wood a few miles from his castle, what should he see but a white wolf sitting by the side of the path with a hood of living flowers on his head. The king said to the coachman,

"Get down from the box, and fetch me that hood."

But the white wolf opened his mouth and said, "My lord and king, you may not get the flowery hood for nothing." The king asked him, "What would you have? I will gladly load you with treasures in return for the hood." But the wolf answered, "I want not your treasures. Promise to give me whatever you shall first meet. In three days I will come to your castle to fetch it." The king thought to himself, " It is still a long way to home. I am quite sure to meet some wild beast or bird. I'll promise it." And so he did. Then he drove away with the flowery hood in the carriage, and on the whole way home he met just nothing at all. But no sooner had he entered the courtyard of his castle than his youngest daughter came forth to meet him.

The king and likewise the queen wept bitter tears.

Their daughter asked, "Father and

1 E. Cosquin, Gontes populaircs de Lorraine (Paris, n.d.), ii. 215-217.

mother, why do you weep so?" Her father answered,

"Alas, I have promised you to a white wolf; in three days he will come to the castle, and you must go with him." Sure onough the white wolf came on the third day and carried off the princess to his castle; for he was really a prince who was a wolf by day, but put off the wolf skin by night and appeared in his true form as a handsome young man.

After a series of adventures, in the course of which the wolf-skin is burnt by the mother of the princess and the prince in consequence disappears for a time, the rediscovered and now transformed prince marries the princess in his fine castle.
 

In a Tyrolese story of the same type, a merchant, setting out on his travels, asks his three daughters what he shall bring them back from the city.

The youngest asks him to bring her a leaf that dances, sings, and plays.

In the city, as usual, he buys the presents for his elder daughters but cannot find the leaf on which his youngest daughter had set her heart.

However, on his way home he comes to a palace with a beautiful garden; and in the middle of the garden is a tree on which all the leaves are dancing and singing and playing delightfully. Thinking that one of these leaves is just the thing his daughter wants, he plucks one; but no sooner has he done so than a great serpent appears and says: "Since you have taken a leaf, I demand of you that you send me within three days the first person whom you shall meet at home. Woe to you if you do not!" With a foreboding of evil he goes home, and the first person that meets him there is his youngest daughter. "Father," she asks, "have you brought the leaf?" "I have," he answers sadly, "but it will cost you dear." He then tells her on what condition he had received the leaf from the serpent. But his daughter goes cheerfully to the serpent, who, as usual, turns out to be an enchanted nobleman. Dancing with him at the wedding of her. sisters, the young lady inadvertently treads on his tail and crushes it;• this suffices to break the spell: he turns into a handsome young man in her arms: the two are married, and he introduces his bride to his noble and overjoyed parents.

 

1 A. Leskien und K. Brugman, Litauische Volkslieder und Marchen (Strasbourg, 1882), No. 23, pp. 438-443.

2 Chr. Schneller Marchen und Sagen aus Walschtirol (Innsbruck, 1867), No. 25, pp. 63-65.

A Hanoverian story relates how once upon a time a king had three daughters, but the youngest was the apple of his eye. Setting out one day to make some purchases at the yearly fair, he asked his daughters what presents he should bring them back. The youngest asked for a tinkling lion-leaf.1 At the fair the king easily bought the presents for his elder daughters, but do what he would, he could not find the tinkling lion-leaf. Riding dejectedly home, ho had to traverse a wide, wide wood, and in the wood he came to a great birchtree, and under the birch-tree lay a great black poodle dog. Seeing the king so sad, the poodle asked him what ailed him, and on learning the cause of his sadness the dog said, "I can help you. The tinkling lion-leaf grows on this very tree, and you shall have it if in a year and a day from now you will give me what to-day shall first come out of your house to meet you." The king thought to himself, " What should that be but my dog?" So he gave his word. Then the poodle wagged his tail, climbed up the birch-tree, broke the leaf off with his paw, and gave it to the king, who took it and rode merrily home. But when he came near the house, his youngest daughter sprang joyfully out to meet him. Struck with horror he pushed her from him.. She wepPiand thought, " What can be the matter that my father thus repels me?" And she went and complained to her mother. The queen asked her husband why he had so treated his youngest daughter; but he would not tell her, and for a whole year he continued in the dumps and pined away. At last, when the year was all but up, he let the cat out of the bag. At first the queen was thunderstruck, but soon she pulled herself together, and concerted with her husband a device to cheat the black poodle by palming off the goose-girl instead of their daughter on him'when he came to fetch away the princess. The deception succeeded at first, but when the poodle had carried off the goose-girl to the wood, he detected the fraud and brought her back. A second time a false princess was fobbed off on him, and a second time detected. At last the parents had, amid the loud lamentation of the courtiers, to give up their real daughter to the black poodle, who led her away and lodged her, all alone, in a little cottage in the depth of a great forest. There

1 Ein klinkesklankes Lowesblatt. I am not sure of the meaning.

A POLL. II. D D

she learned from an old hag that the poodle was an enchanted prince, the cottage an enchanted castle, the wood an enchanted city, and the wild beasts enchanted men, and that every day at midnight the black poodle stripped off his shaggy hide and became an ordinary man. Following the directions of the hag, the princess waited till the third night, and when the enchanted prince had laid aside the black dogskin and was fast asleep, she got hold of the skin and threw it on the fire. That broke the spell. The prince now appeared before her eyes in his true, his handsome form; the cottage turned into a palace, the wood into a city, and the wild beasts into men and women. The prince and princess were married, and at the wedding feast the bride showed great honour to the old hag, who thereupon blessed her and, vanishing away, was never seen or heard of again.1.

Two stories of the same general type have been recorded in Sehleswig-Holstein. In one of them a king has three daughters, and when he is about to set out on a journey he asks them what presents he should bring them back. The eldest daughter wished for a golden spinning-wheel, the second for a golden reel, and the youngest for a golden jingle-jangle.2 When the king had procured the golden spinning-wheel and the golden reel, and was about to set out for home, he was very sad, for he did not know how to get a golden jingle-jangle. While he sat and wept, an old man came up to him and inquired the cause of his sorrow. On hearing it he said, " The golden jingle-jangles are on a great tall tree in the forest, and a big bear watches over them; but if you promise the bear something, he will give you one." So the king went and found the big bear under the big tree, and begged him to let him have a golden jingle-jangle. The bear answered, "You shall have a golden jingle-jangle if you will give me whatever first meets me in your castle." The king consented, and the bear promised to come next morning to the castle and bring the golden jingle-jangle. But when the bear appeared in the castle next morning, who should first meet him but the king'syoungest daughter? The bear would have carried her off at once, but the king was sore troubled and said to the bear, " Go away;

1 Carl und Theodor Colshorn, Marchen und Sagen (Hanover, 1854), No. 20, pp. 64-69.

2 "Einen goldenen Klingelklangel."

she will soon follow you." But instead of his own daughter the king dressed up the shepherd's daughter and sent her to the bear, who detected the fraud and returned her to the king. The same thing happened to the swineherd's daughter, whom the king next attempted to palm off on the bear instead of the princess. Last of all the king was forced to send his youngest daughter, and with her the bear was content. Afterwards the bear brought her back on a visit to her father's castle and danced with her there. In the dance she trod heavily on one of his paws, and immediately he was changed into a rich and handsome prince and took her to wife.1

Another story, recorded in Schleswig-Holstein, relates how a king lost his way and wandered in a great forest, till a little black man appeared and offered to guide him home if the king would promise to give him whatever should first come out of the king's house to meet him. The king accepted the offer, and on his return to the castle the first to run out to meet him was his daughter. He told her with tears of his promise; but she answered, "Since I have been the means of saving your life, I will willingly go away thither." Accordingly she is fetched away by a white wolf, who, as usual, turns out to be an enchanted prince, and marries her as soon as the spell which bound him is broken. *

In a German story of the same type a nobleman loses his way in a wood and meets a poodle who promises to guide him home if the nobleman will give the poodle whatever on his return should first come forth from the nobleman's house to meet him. As usual, the nobleman's daughter is the first to come forth to meet him; and, as usual, the seeming calamity ends in the girl's marriage with a prince.3

Similarly in a Swedish story we hear of a king who had three daughters, but he loved the youngest best of all. One day he lost his way in the forest, and, whichever way he turned, he always met a man in a grey cloak, who said to him, "If you would make your way out of the forest, you mast give me the

1 K. Miillenhoff, Sagen Mdrchen und Lieder der HerzcgthiXmer Schleswig-Holstein und Lauenburg (Kiel, 1845), pp. 384 sq.

2 K. Miillenhoff, op. cit. pp. 385-388.

P. Zaunert, Deutsche Mdrchen seit Qrimm (Jena, 1919), pp. 303 sqq.

4°3 first living thing that meets you at your home-coming." The king thought to himself, "That will be my greyhound as usual "; so he promised. But it was his youngest and dearest daughter who met him first. The king sent his two elder daughters, one after the other, into the forest; but the man in the grey cloak sent them both back with rich presents. At last the king sent his youngest daughter, and after various adventures she was happily wedded to the man in the grey cloak, who, as usual, turned out to be an enchanted prince or nobleman, the owner of a fine castle.1

Thus in most of the folk-tales the rash vow turns out fortunately for the victim, who, instead of being sacrificed or killed, obtains a princely.husband and wedded bliss. Yet we may suspect that these happy conclusions were simply devised by the story-teller for the sake of pleasing his hearers, and that in real life the custom, of which the stories preserve a reminiscence, often ended in the sacrifice of the victim at the altar.

Of such a custom a record seems to survive in the legends of Idomeneo, Maeandro, al-Mundhir, and Jephthah.

XIII.—Ulysses And Polyphemus
(Apollodorus, Epitome, Vii. 4-9)

Stories like that of Ulysses and Polyphemus have been recorded in modern times among many widely separated peoples. So close is the resemblance between the various versions of the tale that they must all apparently be derived from a common original, whether that original was the narrative in the Odyssey, or, more probably, a still older folktale which Homer incorporated in his epic. Some of these parallel versions were collected by Wilhelm Grimm about

1 J. Bolte und G. Polivka, Anmerkungen zu den Kinderund Hausmarchen der Briider Qrimm, i. (Leipsic, 1913), pp. 16 sq. As to stories of this type, see further E. Cosquin, Conies populaires de Lorraine, ii. 218 sqq.; W. Baumgartner, "Jephtas Geliibde," Archiv fur Beligionswissenschaft, xviii. (1915), pp. 240-249.