8. The Myth of Heracles
GA 87/1901-12-28/p013
·1901-12-28
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Auch wenn die Mitschrift noch nicht die später übliche Genauigkeit aufweist» (Even though the transcript does not yet have the accuracy usual later). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 87), which calls the cycle the earliest of which a listener's transcript exists. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
We know: Dionysus is the son of a mortal, Semele. Semele perished. She had asked Zeus to appear to her in his heavenly splendor and glory. When he granted her this, he had to appear like this and she was struck by his lightning bolt and burned to death. Dionysus had to be born a second time, [after Zeus had saved him by bringing the still immature child to maturity in his own thigh,] so that Dionysus, who was born as a man, was then burnt and then appeared as god-born.
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