Georges Dumézil’s work on the warrior function – preliminary textual comparison

The 1969 edition, a reprint of the 1985 edition, a photocopy of the 1956 text and the English translation.

Mitra-Varuna is the best place to go, in English, for Dumézil’s views on the first function of sovereignty, and its twofold nature: the first judicial and worldly, the second divine and supernatural. In French, Les Dieux souverains des Indo-Européens (Gallimard 1977) updates and expands many of these analyses, but that’s not a text available in English. The second volume of Mythe et épopée, translated as three English books – The Stakes of the Warrior, The Plight of a Sorcerer and The Destiny of a King – discusses related questions. Except for The Destiny of a King those English volumes are out of print, but the forthcoming new edition of Mitra-Varuna is an attempt to bring some of this work back into circulation.

For the second, martial function of Dumézil’s tripartite analysis – sovereigns, warriors, producers – an English reader could look at The Stakes of the Warrior, but I think a better place to start is The Destiny of the Warrior. Again, the book is unfortunately out of print.

The book has an interesting publishing history.

In 1956, Dumézil published Aspects de la fonction guerrière chez les Indo-Européens with Presses Universitaires de France. 

Avant-Propos                                                                                      

Introduction                                                                                        

I. La geste de Tullius Hostillius et les mythes d’Indra          

I. Les «Horatii» et les «Āptya»                                 

II. Mettius Fuffetius et Namuci                                 

III. Remarques                                                            

II. Les trois péchés du Guerrier                                            

I. Les péchés et les pertes d’Indra et de Yima         

II. Les trois péchés de Starcatherus                          

III. Les trois péchés d’Héraclès                                  

Note Finale                                                                                         

Appendice: Discussion sur Starkađr   

In 1964 the book was translated into German by Inge Köck as Aspekte der Kriegerfunktion bei den Indogermanen (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), and as with many of his books, Dumézil used this as an opportunity to amend some of its claims. [In particular, note that the French Appendix is omitted, and two other pieces are translated as Anhang – “Der Krieg der Asen und Vanen und der Krieg zwischen Romulus und Tatius” from L’héritage indo-européen à Rome, 125-42 and “Der einäugige und der einhändige”, taken from “Mythes romains”, Revue de Paris, Dec 1951, 105-115 (on Gallica), beginning at 111. There is at least one note in the German which is not in the French – either the earlier or subsequent editions.]

In 1969 he published a new edition in French, with the original title becoming the subtitle, with a small amendment, as Heur et malheur du Guerrier: Aspects mythiques de la fonction guerrière chez les Indo-Européens.

Introduction

Première Partie: Services

La geste de Tullius Hostilius et les mythes d’Indra

  1. Mythe et épopée
  2. Les «Horatii» et les «Āptya»
  3. Mettius Fuffetius et Namuci
  4. Rapports de la fonction guerrière et des autres
  5. Héritage indo-européen

Deuxième Partie: Fatalités

Les trois péchés du guerrier

  1. Solitude et liberté
  2. Indra pécheur
  3. Les trois péchés de et les pertes d’Indra
  4. Les trois péchés de Starcatherus
  5. Les trois péchés d’Héraclès
  6. Fatalités de la fonction guerrière

Troisième Partie: Promotions

Épiphanies, mannequins, signes

  1. Les moments d’une carrière héroïque
  2. Vrtrahan, Vərəθraγna, Vahagn
  3. Guerriers et formes animales
  4. Scénarios et accessoires
  5. Signes sur le héros

In this 1969 edition, he updated the 1956 text’s two main parts, “with considerable alterations and new notes”. There was some additional material and some other relatively small changes. Some of what appear to be new sections in parts one and two are just giving titles to sections which do not have them in 1956. He also added a third part, which he says “revives and rounds out some older publications: sections of two chapters from Mythes et dieux des Germains (1939), and several articles from Revue de l’Histoire des Religions”.

He dropped the original edition’s appendix on Starkađr, in part because it was superseded by the additional part, but the fullest discussion of this figure is in The Stakes of the Warrior. The 1956 edition’s ‘Note Finale’ became section VI of the second part. It was this 1969 text which was the version translated by Alf Hiltebeitel as The Destiny of the Warrior in 1970 with University of Chicago Press. (The French title is closer to Fortune and Misfortune of the Warrior: Mythical Aspects of the Warrior Function among the Indo-Europeans).

Introduction

I. Services

The Epic of Tullus Hostilius and the Myths of Indra

  1. Myth and Epic
  2. The ‘Horatii’ and the ‘Āptya’
  3. Mettius Fuffetius and Namuci
  4. The Warrior Function and its Relations to the Other Two Functions
  5. The Indo-European Heritage

II. Fatalities

The Three Sins of the Warrior

  1. Solitude and Liberty
  2. Indra the Sinner
  3. The Sins and the Losses of Indra
  4. The Three Sins of Starcatherus
  5. The Three Sins of Hercules
  6. Fatalities of the Warrior Function

III. Promotions

Epiphanies, Dummies, Grimaces

  1. The Moments of a Heroic Career
  2. Vrtrahan, Vərəθraγna, Vahagn
  3. Warriors and Animal Forms
  4. Scenarios and Accessories
  5. Signs upon the Hero

Just before the end of his life, Dumézil completed a second edition of Heur et malheur du Guerrier, but which is really a third edition of Aspects de la fonction guerrière. It was published with Flammarion in 1985. 

Introduction 

Première Partie

La geste de Tullus Hostilius et les mythes d’Indra

  1. Mythe et épopée
  2. Les «Horatii» et les «Āptya»
  3. Mettius Fuffetius et Namuci
  4. Rapports de la fonction guerrière et des autres
  5. Héritage indo-européen

Deuxième Partie

Les trois péchés du guerrier

  1. Solitude et liberté
  2. Indra pécheur
  3. Les trois péchés de et les pertes d’Indra dans le MärkandeyaPurāna
  4. Les trois péchés de Śiśupāla, de Starcatherus, d’Héraclès
  5. Les dernier Tarquins père et fils
  6. Les trois péchés de Soslan et de Gwynn
  7. Fatalités de la fonction guerrière
  8. Autre récits

Troisième Partie

Le personnel divin de la fonction guerrière

  1. Le personnel divin de la fonction guerrière dans le RgVeda et dans l’Avesta
  2. Le personnel de la fonction guerrière à Rome et en Scandinavie

Quatrième partie

Aspects de la fonction guerrière

  1. Les moments d’une carrière héroïque
  2. Vrtrahan, Vərəθraγna, Vahagn
  3. Guerriers et formes animales
  4. Scénarios et accessoires
  5. Signes sur le héros

This makes lots of small changes, including in the Introduction. Part Two is considerably reworked, removing some material discussed in Mythe et épopée but adding some other examples. The 1985 text also adds a new third part, based on an article (“Vishnu et les Marut à travers la réforme zoroastrienne”, Journal asiatique 242, 1953, pp. 1-25), which pushes the 1969 edition’s third part into fourth place. That fourth part though is little changed from 1969.

This 1985 edition was reprinted in 1992 and 1996 after Dumézil’s death. I understand the Italian translation Le sorti del guerriero. Aspetti della funzione guerriera presso gli indoeuropei (Adelphi, 1990) is of the final French version, but I’ve yet to see a copy of this. The 1985 edition was also included along with Loki as supplements in the 2011 edition of the collection Mythes et dieux des Indo-Europeens. 

What all this means is that the English translation The Destiny of the Warrior is quite different from Dumézil’s final version of the text. I estimate that there are about 86 pages of the 236 pages of the 1985 edition which are not available in English.

[Update: I should clarify that there are other works which discuss this warrior function, notably Horace et les Curiaces from 1942. Here though I am concerned with the book which he revised three times.]

This page is part of the research for a new project on Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France. For a discussion of how the Mythe et épopée series has been partially translated into English, see here.