8. The Myth of Heracles
GA 87/1901-12-28/p039
·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.
The whole myth of Hermes is proof that the human striving for knowledge is simultaneously a matter of earthly and spiritual nature. This dual striving for knowledge is expressed in Hermes. He is the "clever one, the 'cunning one'. Even as a child he raids Apollo's herd of cattle and drags away a number of cattle. His cunning as a child is already so great that the pursuer cannot even follow their trail. He leads them in such a way that the cattle go the other way. The pursuer is thus misled. Apollo [does] solve the mystery with the help of Zeus.
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