The theme is most familiar to many English readers from Matthew
Arnold’s famous narrative poem Sohrab and Rustum, which is based on an
episode from the Sha ̄h-na ̄ma.^91 In Firdawsi’s epic Rustum, or Rostam, leaves a
princess pregnant with a heroic son, Sohrab. When the lad is old enough he
goes in search of his father. After many adventures he comes into his presence,
but Rostam, not knowing that it is his son, denies that he is Rostam. They
fight, and only after Rostam has dealt his son a mortal blow do they discover
each other’s identities.
Oedipus meets and kills his father in a chance encounter, neither knowing
who the other is. But these are not warrior heroes, and the manslaughter is
not the nub of the Oedipus myth. A better Greek example is the story of
Telegonus, related in the lost Cyclic epic Te l e g o n y. He was born to Circe after
Odysseus’ year-long sojourn with her. She told him about his father, and
when he was of an age he sailed to Ithaca to look for Odysseus. Taking the
stranger for a raider, Odysseus fought him and was killed by Telegonus’
unusual spear, which was made from the barb of a sting-ray. This was taken to
fulfil a prophecy that death would come to Odysseus from the sea.
The motif appears also in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata (14. 78–80). Arjuna meets his
death from a poisoned arrow shot by his son Babhruva ̄hana, whom he had
fathered in a distant place and who had been brought up there.
TheHildebrandslied tells how Hiltibrant and his son Hadubrant met on the
battlefield. Hiltibrant demands to know his opponent’s name and lineage.
Hadubrant names himself and says that he has been told his father was
Hiltibrant, who departed to the east long ago. Hiltibrant intimates that they
are close kin and offers his son gold rings off his arm as a token of honour.
But Hadubrant, believing his father to be dead, thinks it is a trick. Hiltibrant
realizes that they are doomed to fight and one to kill the other. The combat
begins. Here the fragment of the old poem ends, but from later sources we
gather that it was the son who was killed.
In the Irish and Russian traditions too it is the father who kills the son. Cú
Chulainn has left Aife pregnant with a boy, Connla, and after seven years he
comes in search of his father, showing aggression to all comers. Cú Chulainn
comes against him to defend Ulster, dismissing a warning that it is his own
son. The boy refuses to name himself, they fight, and Connla is killed. In the
bylina of Ilya Murometz and Sokolnicˇek the mighty hero Ilya at firstfights
against his son in ignorance, but then, on discovering his identity, spares his
life. Subsequently, at his mother’s instigation, the son returns to kill his father,
but is killed himself.^92
(^91) Sha ̄h-na ̄ma 5. 14–20; Levy (1967), 67–80.
(^92) Aided óenfir Aífe, ed. van Hamel (as n. 62), trs. Thomas Kinsella, The Táin (Oxford 1969),
39–45; P. N. Rybnikov, Pesni (2nd edn. by A. Ye. Gruzinski, Moscow 1909), i. 425–31, ii. 637 f.
- King and Hero 441