Mythology among the Hebrews and its historical development/Appendix 2

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The Original Form of The Legend of Prometheus

Mythology among the Hebrews and its historical development
by Heymann Steinthal, translated by Russell Martineau

The Legend of Samson

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4754211Mythology among the Hebrews and its historical development — The Legend of SamsonRussell MartineauHeymann Steinthal

THE LEGEND OF SAMSON.

By H. Steinhal.

When an author can presume that his readers share his views on things in general, and also accept like principles respecting the special sphere to which his subject belongs, it may be fitting to descend from the general to the particular. But when, as is now more frequently the case, no such assumption can be made, the opposite course, from the particular to the general, is preferable for the sake of both the matter and the manner of the investigation itself. I shall therefore adopt it.

I shall, therefore, at the outset leave out of the question what view it is possible to hold respecting the growth of the people of Israel, and especially of their monotheism. I shall not proceed on the assumption that any particular view is proved true, but try whether, after the consideration of our subject in its details, any result affecting general questions is reached. I also for the present leave undetermined the value of the Biblical Books as sources of history, the period of the composition of the separate books, and even their relative age—i.e. the earlier or later compilation of one with reference to others. For all these are still disputed points; and I desire not to build upon any unproved assumption, but to see how much can be contributed to the solution of the questions that arise. Even the question, whether, and how far, we are justified in treating the history of Samson in the Bible as legend,^[1] may be left to be answered only from the result of the following enquiry. If, on comparing these stories with other nations’ stories, similarities are discovered alongside of much that is dissimilar, nothing shall, in the first instance, be decided about the cause and significance of such similarities, but new investigation shall be made on the subject.

I. THE ADVENTURE WITH THE LION, AND THE RIDDLE.—THE FOXES.

I pass over the narrative of the birth of Samson for the present, intending to come to it only after the con- templation of his actions. The reason for this arrangement will then become apparent. I therefore commence with Samson’s first action.

It is narrated (Judges XIV.) that Samson was attacked by a lion when on the way to see his bride, and killed him. When he went by the same road to his wedding, he looked at the carcase of the lion, and found a swarm of bees and honey in it. This occurrence suggested the following riddle, which he put forth at the wedding-feast: ‘Out of the Eater came forth Meat, and out of the Strong [Wild] came forth Sweetness.’ By his bride’s treachery the riddle was solved: “What is sweeter than honey? and what stronger than a lion?’

Samson’s riddle is still a riddle even to us now. It has never yet been solved, as far as I know; certainly not in the Bible itself, for the answer there given is a still greater riddle than the riddle itself, which seems not to have been observed. Only look closely at the pretended solution. It looks as if the question had been: ‘What is the sweetest, and what the strongest?’ But the actual problem was: “Out of the wild eater comes sweet food;’ how that came to pass, was the question—and still is a question. For even the story of the slain lion and the honey found in his carcase cannot contain the solution, because it involves a physical impossibility. Bees do not build in dead flesh; their wax and honey would be spoiled by putrefaction. In no such wise can honey come out of the lion. Besides, Samson would be very foolish to base a riddle on a mere personal experience known to no one; it would then be absolutely insoluble. We cannot credit the original narrative with so gross an ineptitude. Then what is the position of the affair?

It is certain that a riddle like the one in question was in circulation among the ancient Hebrews, and that Samson was believed to have proposed it. It is equally certain that its solution lay in the words transmitted from antiquity: ‘What is sweeter than honey, what stronger than a lion?’ But it is not only to us at the present day that this solution is as obscure as the riddle itself; it was quite as unintelligible to the latest elaborator of the Book of Judges. So he attempted a solution on his own responsibility. He had two data in his possession: the riddle, and the story of the lion-killing. Well, he concluded, Samson must have found honey in the carcase of this lion. What he had wrongly inferred, he narrated as a fact which ought to yield the solution of the riddle. But we must guess better. If it is certain that Samson cannot have found honey in the lion’s carcase, yet, on the other hand, the pretended solution at least proves that by the strong eater the lion is to be understood, and by the sweet food the honey. And if this was solution sufficient for the legend, it follows that at the time when the riddle arose some connexion between lion and honey was so definitely and clearly present to the consciousness of every individual, because held by the mind of the entire people, that it came into prominence as soon as ever lion and honey were named together: somewhat as among us when we speak of bear and honey together, though with reference to something else.^[2] But there must have been some known connexion which made it evident how honey came out of the lion. It is our task now to discover this connexion if we are to attempt the solution of the riddle—one which is more than thirty centuries old, and the unriddling of which has been forgotten for some twenty-five. Can there be any other riddle of equal interest? In the following remarks I endeavour to solve it.

↑ Sage, a ‘saying’ or legendary story, which may have no historical foundation, but be produced out of mythic matter. Where, as here, it is sharply distinguished from history, I render it legend; elsewhere story, which is generally the best English equivalent, notwithstanding its derivation from historia.—Tr.
↑ The allusion is to the story of Bruin the bear and the honey, in Reynard the Fox: see Reinhart, v. 1533-1562, Reinaert, v. 601-706, in Jacob Grimm's edition, Berlin 1834; and Goethe’s modern German version, canto 2.—Tr.

[1] Sage, a ‘saying’ or legendary story, which may have no historical foundation, but be produced out of mythic matter. Where, as here, it is sharply distinguished from history, I render it legend; elsewhere story, which is generally the best English equivalent, notwithstanding its derivation from historia.—Tr.

[2] The allusion is to the story of Bruin the bear and the honey, in Reynard the Fox: see Reinhart, v. 1533-1562, Reinaert, v. 601-706, in Jacob Grimm's edition, Berlin 1834; and Goethe’s modern German version, canto 2.—Tr.

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