The Exposed Child

Summary

The exposed child is the story of a child put out of its home at birth to die or to vanish, cast into a river or the sea or left on a mountain, who survives, is reared by a female beast or bird or by a poor man, and returns to the place he was put out of. Its oldest written telling in the hero's own voice is the story of Sargon, king of Akkad, in an Akkadian text copied in Ashurbanipal's library: my mother the high priestess bore me in secret, set me in a basket of rushes, sealed its lid with bitumen and cast me into the river, which did not rise over me; it carried me to Aqqi the water-drawer, who lifted me out as he dipped his bucket, reared me and made me his gardener; and Ishtar loved me, and I became king.

The story recurs among many peoples. In Rome Amulius, who has seized his brother's kingship, orders the twins Romulus and Remus thrown into the Tiber; a she-wolf suckles them and a herdsman raises them, and Romulus kills Amulius and builds Rome. In Herodotus, Astyages king of the Medes dreams that his daughter's son will rule Asia and orders the baby killed; a herdsman and his wife raise him, and he becomes the Cyrus who overthrows him. In the Shahnameh Zal is left on Mount Alborz because he was born with white hair, and the Simurgh rears him in her nest. Among the Greeks Paris is exposed on Mount Ida because his mother dreamed she bore a firebrand that would burn Troy, and Oedipus has his ankles pierced and is put out on Mount Cithaeron because the oracle said he would kill his father. In India Krishna is carried across the Yamunā on the night of his birth to escape his uncle Kaṃsa. In Japan the first couple put their child Hiruko in a reed boat and leave him to the water. In the Hebrew Bible the mother of Moses puts her son in a papyrus basket daubed with bitumen and pitch among the reeds at the edge of the Nile.

The idea these stories turn on is that the child the old order tries to be rid of comes back to rule. In most of them the one who puts the child out is a man who rules and is afraid: a grandfather, father or uncle who has heard an oracle or seen a dream that this newborn will take his place, so that putting him out becomes the road to what he feared. In others the child is put out for a blemish that shames the family: Zal's white hair, Hiruko's body that cannot stand. Water carries the child in a basket or a boat, or the mountain holds him, between death and life; then he is reared by those at the bottom of society or outside it: a water-drawer, a herdsman, a herdsman's wife, a she-wolf, a bear, a bird. When he returns he brings what those who stayed in the palace do not have: knowledge of the land from below, a mark on his body, and a legitimacy that lineage does not give, so Sargon says Ishtar loved him and Romulus says Mars was his father. The stories part in the return: Sargon, Cyrus and Romulus found a new kingship; Zal returns to his father's house and carries its glory; Paris returns and brings the ruin of his city; Oedipus returns and uncovers what is in his house; and in the Kojiki Hiruko never returns at all.

As for the words, Arabic calls such a child manbūdh: in Lane the manbūdh is a child cast out by its mother in the road at its birth, whom a man picks up and maintains, a foundling; nabadhahu is he cast it away as a thing of no account. Sargon's basket is Akkadian quppu, a box or basket of reed or wood, and Akkadian also has qappatu, a basket of palm leaves. We read them, as a reading proposed on the method, as quffa: in Lane the quffa is a basket of the same kind as the miqṭaf, larger than it and smaller than the zanbīl. Q is q, f answers p, and the doubled consonant stays doubled. The man who lifted Sargon out is a dālû, a water-drawer, from dalû, bucket, which is Arabic dalw letter for letter; Lane gives dalā al-dalwa, he drew the bucket up full from the well.

Linguistic Root

The basket words

Under šūru, a bundle of reeds, the Akkadian dictionary gives the phrase "a basket of rushes", the phrase of the Sargon legend. The basket, quppu, is made of reed or wood, holds food, silver or tablets, and serves as a bird cage. We read it in Arabic, as a reading proposed on the method, as quffa: q is q without substitution, f answers p by the first law of the Juthoor project, both words have the doubled consonant, and Lane gives the sense basket. The first three tests meet, and the story is that of a child in a basket. What stays open is the word's history: we have found no witness of quffa in Arabic before Islam, so we do not know whether it belongs to the common stock or entered Arabic later from Aramaic or Akkadian.

The water-drawer and the bucket

In the Akkadian dictionary dālû is a water-drawer, as an occupation, from the verb dalû, to draw water with a bucket, and the noun dalû, a bucket, of bronze, for drawing water. The letters d, l, w are Arabic dalw without substitution; Lane gives dalā al-dalwa, he drew the bucket up full from the well, and adlā dalwahu, he let down his bucket. This is one word in the two sister languages, and it names the man who lifted Sargon out of the river.

Cast away and put down

The Arabic name of the story comes from nabadha: in Lane nabadhahu is he cast or threw it away as a thing of no account, the original sense, and the manbūdh is a child cast out by its mother in the road at its birth, whom a man picks up and maintains, a foundling. Latin says exponere, to put out, and Livy says the servants "put out" the twins in the nearest floodwater; Greek ektíthēmi has the same sense. In Arabic waḍaʿa is to put down, and waḍaʿat is she brought forth, the second reading by which the Greek essay reads the name of Oedipus: the newborn put down before he was born. In Arabic, giving birth and putting down are one verb.

Attestations by Culture

Mesopotamia: Sargon

Sargon tells his birth in his own voice: a high-priestess mother, an unknown father, a basket of rushes sealed with bitumen on the Euphrates, a water-drawer who lifts him out and makes him a gardener, and Ishtar who loves him. The Sumerian King List knows the gardener father and makes Sargon cupbearer to Ur-Zababa king of Kish, and the Sumerian tale tells how Ur-Zababa tried to have him killed and Inana protected him.

Rome: Romulus and Remus

Livy says Amulius ordered the two babies thrown into the river; the Tiber had overflowed, so the servants put them in the nearest standing water by a fig tree, and when the water fell a thirsty she-wolf came down from the hills to their crying and suckled them, and Faustulus, the king's herdsman, found her licking them with her tongue and carried them to his wife Larentia. Romulus later returns, kills the king, restores the kingdom to his grandfather, and builds a city where he was exposed.

Iran: Cyrus, Zal and Kay Khosrow

Herodotus says Astyages dreamed that his daughter Mandane passed water that flooded Asia, then that a vine grew from her and overshadowed Asia, so he handed her son to Harpagus to kill; Harpagus gave him to a herdsman, whose wife had just borne a dead child; her name in the Median tongue was Spako, "bitch", and the two exchanged the babies. At ten, Cyrus was made king by the boys in their game and had a noble's son whipped, and was recognized. His parents later spread the story that a bitch had suckled him. In the Shahnameh Zal is left on Alborz and reared by the Simurgh, and Kay Khosrow, after his father's murder, is given to the shepherds of Mount Kalur to raise with his birth unknown, and later returns to take vengeance on his grandfather Afrasiab. Herodotus 1.107–122, Warner, vol. I, pp. 239–248, vol. II, pp. 328–334.

Greece: Paris, Oedipus and others

Paris is exposed on Ida and a bear suckles him for five days; Oedipus is exposed on Cithaeron with pierced ankles; Acrisius casts his grandson Perseus into the sea with his mother in a chest; Telephus is exposed on Mount Parthenius and a doe suckles him. Each of these has an oracle, a dream or a fear of a child, and each has a return. Before them in the genealogy of the gods stands Kronos, who swallows his children, so that Rhea hides Zeus on Crete until he grows up and overthrows him.

India: Krishna

Kaṃsa hears a voice telling him that the eighth child of his sister Devakī will kill him, so he imprisons her and kills her children. When Krishna is born the guards fall asleep, and his father Vasudeva carries him across the Yamunā, which parts for him, and exchanges him for the daughter of Yaśodā, wife of the herdsman Nanda; he grows up among herders and cattle, and later returns and kills Kaṃsa.

Japan: Hiruko

The couple Izanagi and Izanami go round the pillar of heaven, she speaks first, and a leech-like child is born to them; they put it in a reed boat, leave it to the water and do not count it among their children. Aston notes that the reed boat recalls the Akkadian legend of Sargon and his ark of rushes, and Moses. Hiruko does not return in the Kojiki, but from the Middle Ages he was worshipped as Ebisu, patron of fishermen and fortune.

The Hebrew Bible: Moses

Pharaoh orders every Hebrew boy cast into the river; Moses' mother hides her son three months, then puts him in a papyrus basket daubed with bitumen and pitch and sets it among the reeds; Pharaoh's daughter draws him out and names him Moses, "because I drew him out of the water".

Symbolic Reading

These stories join three places: the palace the child is put out of, the water or mountain he is cast into, and the poor house, nest or cave where he is reared. Most of their heroes are founders: Sargon first joined Sumer and Akkad, Romulus built Rome, Cyrus founded the Persian kingship. The story gives a man who does not inherit the throne a hidden royal or divine birth, and an upbringing at the bottom of society that teaches him the land he will rule: water, orchard and flock. Brian Lewis studied the Sargon text together with the tale of the hero exposed at birth among other peoples. Where the child is put out because of an oracle, as with Oedipus and Paris, the exposure itself becomes the oracle's road, as happens in oracles and divination. Where the nurse is a she-wolf, a bear, a bitch or a bird, the child is reared by what lies outside the city, and returns to it with something of that in him.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

The exposed child meets the divine twins in Romulus and Remus, twins cast out together, one of whom later kills the other at the city wall. It meets the culture heroes when the child returns with what he learned outside and builds a city or founds a kingship. It differs from the story of Kronos in that there the father swallows his children instead of casting them out, and it is the mother who hides the child.