The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Figure 6. The Monster Tamer (inlaid shell and lapis lazuli, Sumerian, Iraq, c. 2650–2400 b.c.). The central figure is probably Gilgamesh. [This is the topmost register from the sounding-box plaque on an ornate lyre, found in the so-called Royal Tombs at Ur by Sir Leonard Woolley. — Ed.] Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.

Figure 7. Śākyamūni Buddha Beneath the Bodhi Tree (carved schist, India, c. late ninth–early tenth century a.d.). Bihar, Gaya District. From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection. Courtesy of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Figure 8. Yggdrasil, the World Tree (etching, Scandinavia, early nineteenth century a.d.). Richard Folkard, Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics (c. 1844), after Finnur Magnusson, “The World Tree of the Edda,” Eddalàeren og dens Oprindelse, book III (1825).

Figure 9. Omphalos (gold phial, Thracian, Bulgaria, fourth–third century b.c.). Part of the so-called Panagyurishte Treasure. Archaeological Museum, Plovdiv, Bulgaria. © Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 10. Psyche Entering Cupid’s Garden (oil on canvas, En-gland, a.d. 1903). John William Waterhouse (1849–1917). © Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Lancashire, UK. The Bridgeman Art Library.

Figure 11. Apis in the Form of a Bull Transports the Deceased as Osiris to the Underworld (carved wood, Egypt, c. 700–650 b.c.). From an Egyptian coffin in the British Museum. [In the original edition of this book, Campbell followed Budge in assigning the identity of the bull incorrectly to Osiris. Apis was the son of Hathor and protected the newly deceased on the journey to the afterlife. According to Diana Brown of the University of Edinburgh: “The images at the top symbolize the unification of the Two Lands — the lotus of Upper Egypt and the papyrus of Lower Egypt. The wavy lines at the bottom on which the bull is standing represent water. In ancient Egypt, the sky (Nut) was thought of as a watery expanse. Therefore the Apis bull is carrying the Osiris figure to the sky. The bull is identified with the creative, regenerative force through which the deceased is transfigured into Osiris, a supernatural being.” — Ed.] E.A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, London: Philip Lee Warner; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911, vol. I, p. 13.

Figure 12. Isis in the Form of a Hawk Joins Osiris in the Underworld (carved stone, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. first century a.d.). This is the moment of the conception of Horus, who is to play an important role in the resurrection of his father. (Compare Figure 47.) From a series of bas-reliefs on the walls of the temple of Osiris at Dendera, illustrating the mysteries performed annually in that city in honor of the god. E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, London: Philip Lee Warner; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911, vol. II, p. 28.

Figure 13. Apollo and Daphne (carved ivory, Coptic, Egypt, fifth century a.d.). Museo Nazionale, Ravenna, Italy. © Scala/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 14. The Rocks That Crush, the Reeds That Cut (sand painting, Navaho, North America, a.d. 1943). [Note the magical feather on the left; the tiny black rectangle represents the twins, carried safely through the danger. — Ed.] Reproduction of an original sand painting by Jeff King. From Maude Oakes and Joseph Campbell, Where the Two Came to the Father: A Navaho War Ceremonial, Bollingen Series, Pantheon Books, 1943, plate III.

Figure 15. Virgil Leading Dante (ink on vellum, Italy, fourteenth century a.d.). Dante and Virgil entering a fortress surmounted by owls, from the “Inferno” by Dante Alighieri (a.d. 1265–1321). © Musée Conde, Chantilly, France. Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library.

Figure 16. Odysseus and the Sirens(detail; polychrome-figured white lecythus, Greece, fifth century b.c.). Now in the Central Museum, Athens. Eugénie Sellers, “Three Attic Lekythoi from Eretria,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. XIII, 1892, plate I.

Figure 17. Baal with Thunderbolt Spear (limestone stele, Assyria, fifteenth–thirteenth century b.c.). Found at the acropolis in Ras Shamra (ancient city of Ugarit). © Musée du Louvre. The Bridgeman Art Library.

Figure 18. Saturn Swallowing His Children(detail; oil on plaster, mounted on canvas, Spain, a.d. 1819). Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (a.d. 1746–1828). From the “Black Paintings” series. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. © Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 19. Threshold Guardians, Bearing Thunderbolts (painted wood, Japan, a.d. 1203), Unkei (d. a.d. 1223). Kongø-rikishi (Sanskrit, Vajrapāṇi, “Thunderbolt Handler”), giant threshold guardians housed at opposite sides of the portal of the Great South Gate before Tødaiji, Temple of the Great Sun Buddha, Mahāvairocana (Japanese, Dainichi-nyorai). Nara, Japan.