It does not happen often in the vast field of heroic poetry that one is able to compare two versions of the same episode standing as many as two generations apart and in two contrasting styles of treatment. But, thanks to the genius of the Russo-German turkologist V.V. Radlov (W. Radloff), who was active in Central Asia and Siberia during the latter half of the nineteenth century, it is possible to do so in several instances. Or rather, it is possible for some to do so and it will only become possible for others when the scholars of Kirgizia succeed in publishing even a fraction of the heroic-epic material in their archives relating to the national hero Manas. Yet within the limits imposed in this field on a scholar of the West, one theme has become available for comparison, that of the Birth of Manas.

Radlov's version of a hundred and sixty lines was taken down by him in a dialect with some southern features from a bard of the Sary Bagysh tribe south of Tokmak in 1869. Radlov comments on its brevity and surmises that it was improvised merely to meet his enquiry concerning the birth of the hero. Here-below, these hundred and sixty four lines (and no others recorded by Radlov) will be referred to as "R".

The version of the bard Sagymbay Orozbakov (1867-1930), consisting of some twelve hundred lines as it stands in the edition, was recorded during the 1920's and published as part of the whole Boyhood of Manas. The anonymous preface does not even broach the question how the text was recorded, a subject on which Radlov in his case is admirably explicit Since the convention of Manas was one entirely of verse (unlike the Uzbek Alpamysh, in which verse alternates with prose), we can be sure that the prose passages at the beginning of the Boyhood of Manas are the work of editors anxious to condense. This condensation, however, can be supplemented at some risk from the harmonized version of Manas, Semetey and Seytek in four volumes, the editors of which had access to the full text of Sagymbay together with other versions which they introduce at their pleasure. Sagymbay was born on the southern shores of Lake Issyk Kul, but it must be remembered that his interest ranged far and wide (indded too wide for the comfort of scholars) over the lands of Islam and Turkic speech. This published version of Sagymbay on the birth of Manas, unscholarly and incomplete as it is, will be referred to below as "S".

R may be regarded as giving the elements of a version of the hero's birth which the bard could have extended at will according to his patron and the occasion; whereas S offers an episode in Sagymbay's full epic manner. Comparison of the two texts should thus provide us with an opportunity of discovering by what means Sagymbay obtained that fullness of circumstantial narrative detail which since the days of Aristotle has been ascribed to "epic"; so that if anything is to be gained from the comparison it may serve to sharpen the eyes of scholars in other fields in which such opportunities are not given. Radlov was well aware of the importance of his heroic material in Kirgiz for the study of Homer, and I myself shall look in the direction of Homer in my conslusion.

R may be briefly analysed thus:
1. The genealogy of Manas (lines 1-6>
2. Manas' father Jakip's marriage with the mother, Cirici (10-11)
3. The couple's childlessness over fourteen yeears (12-19)
4. Jakip's steps to overcome their childlessness (20-39)
5. Cirici bears the hero (40-1)
6. The outward appearance of her son (42-4)
7. The sacrificial feast for and the naming of Manas by four prophets (45-49). (In this section there are indications that the bard can expand if he so wishes.)
8. Young Manas is reared in concealment (60-5)
9. Manas announces his programme of heroic exploits from the eradle (66-72). (Althought this programme is conceived by Radlov's bard as a sort of jihad, it has traditional roots in Kirgiz heroic poetry, see p. 228 below.)

The episode now strides forward to Manas' youth. Jakip, perceiving his son's martial ardour, gives him a steed and arms (73-80). He then summons wise old Bakay to be Manas' companion and by bardic license gives a fuller version of Manas' itinerary than Manas had given himself (81-143). (The bard is warming to his theme.) Bakay accepts the charge (144-9). Manas' swift rise to manhood and early victories, introduced by the epithet ordo caykan 'palace-destroyer (150-64).
S can be analysed as followed. (Where there is a correspondence with R, I insert the latter's number in round brackets.)

A. (I) The genealogy of Manas (Prose) (5, 1-17)
b. The political fate of Manas' elder kinsmen (Prose)(5,17-6,13)
c. (2) Jakip marries Ciyirdi (elder wife) and Bakdoolot (Prose) (6,14-21)
d. (3) Jakip laments that at forty-seven he is childless (Prose) (6,24-7,5)
e. Jakip and his two wives see prophetic dreams betokening the birth of a son (Manas) and later of a daughter (Kardigac) to Ciyirdi, and of two children to Bakdoolot. Jakip gives a feast (Prose and verse)(7,6-9.6)
f. Jakip's enforced migrations, cf b., above (From now on all is in verse)(10,1-11,23)
g. Manas is conceived after two years (11, 24-12,3)
h. Ciyirdi obtains and eats a tiger's heart in order to give her son ferocity and courage. She is also tricked into easting the heart of a mare that has died of teli (a gyrating disease)(12,4-15,8)
i. Ciyirdi's heroic pangs begin. Jakip sacrifices (15,9-17,4)
j. Jakip's nerve gives way. After tethering forty four-year-olds as prizes for those who will race to bring him news, he rides to the foothills (17,25-19,13)
k. In the hills, to the auspicious whistling of a mountain-turkey, Jakip sees a grey mare gravid with the future steed of Manas (19,14-20,20)
l. (4) The bard reverts to Ciyirdi, who after a week's labour bears the hero. Manas emerges clutching a handful of blood (20,21-21,12)
m. The boy's portentous sex. Stretching out his hand he terrifies the women. As Bakdoolot lifts him from the ground she feels his massive weight (21,13-23,1)
n. Manas at the breast - more marvels of comedy and wonder (23,2-19)
o. In the absence of Jakip, Ciyirdi sacrifices (23,20-29)
p. The bard reverts to Jakip, in search of whom forty men set out on his horses (24,1-13)
q. Jakip's friend Ak-balta has scorned to join the race, but his wife Zulayka goads him into participating. Comedy (24,14-28,28)
r. Jakip watches the grey mare foal while Ak-balta observes him. Jakip swoons at his friend's news that he has a son. Their altercation over Ak-balta's reward. Comedy (28,29-35,11)
s. Jakip and Ak-balta ride home to see Jakip's new born son (35,12-37,11)
t. (5) A portrait of young Manas (37,12-38.4)
u. In Manas, Jakip sees not only hte future avenger of his wrongs but also a possible threat to his own life (38,5-38,18)
v. (6) A sacrificial feast for Manas and his naming by a mysterious dervish (38.21-47,29)
(Later episodes deal with hero's youthful exploits with the outcome that he is made Khan - pages 48-126.)

1. To begin with, the persons of the genealogies are largely different, a sure sign of divergent traditions. It what follows it is my purpose to discuss the literary implications of these genealogies when confronted. Their historical implications have been studied by V.M. Zhirmunskiy. In the hundred and sixty lines of R, the tribal group of Boyon and his descendants is not given. Jakip hopes that his son will annihilate the Noygut (30), those of Kokand (31), the plainsdwelling Sart (33), the Kazakh (35) and the Kirgiz (38); and men of the Nogoy agree in a parallel passage with the hostile Kitay that Manas when older will prove terrible (55 ff.). The latter circumstance, however, is not sufficient to disprove that the bard of R may have imagined Manas as a (Sary) Nogay, as he is reckoned to be in some of Radlov's other recordings. (in the Smert' Kukotay-khana recorded by Ch. Valikhanov, Buyun is great-grandfather to Manas.) In S, the Nogay have been assimilated as an aristocratic element into the great tribe of the (idealized) Kirgiz, having been originally adopted from Kazakh heroic tradition. It is appropriate that in S, Manas' grandfather should bear the name of "Nogoy" as against the stereotype "Kara-kan" of R. The name "Boyon" occurs in S, but this Boyon is on eof the Kalmak overlords of Jakip (6,16) Thus do illustrious names float around in tradition and even cross the frontiers separating friend from foe. Jakip's father Kara-kan in R has just such another floating name.

All that R and S have in common in the genealogy, the, is the element

The link Jakip-Manas is attested as far back as the beginning of the sixteenth century in a pseudo-historical source that draws on the poetic tradition. But even then we note the apparently Kuranic Biblical name of Jacob, whereas "Manas" and its variants are deeply embedded in Turkic folk-tradition. The link Cirici/Ciyirdi-Manas is more slender. The similarity with difference in the obviously divergent traditions of R and S argues for some ancientry in this name for Manas' mother, and we note that Sagymbay's Ciyirdi is supported as early as 1862 by the occurrence of the form Cirdi at Radlov V, I,3) 1410 Cirdi baidin Cin ["true"] Manas (in apparent conflict with Bagdi Dolot at 367 and 639 before, and 1855 after line 1410 in the same episode). On the other hand, the episode recorded by Radlov on Manas' battle with Kokeo, gives Bagdi Dolot as Manas' nother: 367 ena Bagdi Dolot Baibica, which, despite his capitalization, Radlov very oddly obliterates in his translation at this, its first mention, by rendering it literally as "Meine reich begabte Mutter" (Perso-Arabic-Kirgiz bak/bakti doolot "good fortune" twice over). In this group of episodes (with the exception already noted of Cirki at 3) 1410) "Bagdi Dolot" recurs frequently as the apparently sole wife of Jakip and mother of Manas and also of Mana's sister Kardigac, who in S (together with Manas) is the offspring of Ciyirdi. The situation becomes clear when we note that in the episode recorded by Radlov, "How Alamambet turned Turk, deserted Kokco and joined Manas", Manas' mother bears the name of "Cakan" (1255: at 1841 and 1844, however, Radlov fails to detach the possessive affix in his translation "Tschakanym", cf 1255 "Tschakan"!). Cakan's role is to give one breast to her son Manas and the other to Almambet so that they may become milk-brothers. We thus have three different names for Manas' mother, so that it must be concluded that at a time when the name of Jakip had established itself, there was no fixed name for her. How, then was she referred to? The state of the texts affords a sure answer. She was referred to as Jakip's "Old Lady", a woman of uncertain age whose conceiving after a long period of apparent barenness was to lend wonder to the birth of the hero. At line 60, R reads: Bu baibica Cirici ("This elderly lady C.") In S, baybice and Ciyirdi are self-sufficient alternatives; the apellative function of baybice emerges clearly at 11,27 ff., where the bard turns from Jakip's affairs to the conception of Manas and refers to the expectant mother for the first time, not as Ciyirdi, but as baybice. Radlov's "Battle with Kokco", line 367, has already been quoted: ena Badgi Dolot baibica. The line 1841 from "How Alman Bet turned Turk etc." giving the third name for Manas' mother reads: bu Cakanim baibica. One may fairly conclude that only when a more developed stage of "epic" marrative was reached did bards find it necessary to specify a name for the hero's mother. In the Er Tostuk both of a bard recorded by Radlov and of Sayakbay Karalaev (b, 1894), the hero's mother is not named either at his conception or at his birth. Sayakbay introduces her as "kempir" ("Old woman") in his first line.

In S, however, baybice means not only "Old Lady" but also "Senior wife", a title of respect, because Jakip has a junior wife - Bakdoolot! Here Ciyirdi, already a member of the leading Kirgiz-Nogoy family through her first marriage to Ciyir, is presented as "positive", whereas Bakdoolot, a daughter of Jakip's Kalmak overlord Cayan, tends to be "negative" (her sons later betray Manas' only son Semetey). Furthermore, this plurality of wives seems to have been exploited by Sagymbay or a predecessor to imply that it was Jakip,not his wives, who was sterile, with the insinuation that his childlessness was the expression of his stinginess, a quality loathed by poets dependent upon patronage. The condensed prose of S fails to clarify how Jakip and his wives overcame their childlessness: but the harmonized version not only causes Ciyirdi to welcome the "melting of the ice" round Jakip's heart (18, 68 f.), but also has Bakdoolot upbraid him for his meanness, on which he ponders, and then gives a feast. This may well be the text of Sagymbay. The situation is comparable in Radlov's version of Er Tostuk. Eleman had begotten eight worthless sons and it was only after a long interval of sterility that this likewise stingy Khan gave a lavish feast at a hit from a heavenly wind, after which his wife conceived the hero

Examination of the forms R Cirici and S Ciyirdi, supported by 3) 1410 Cirdi, throws more light on the prior history of Manas. It was said above that the similarity with difference of the two forms requires us to allow some time for their divergence. Cirici is merely Radlov's notation of what would now be spelt as Ciyrici (cf. Radlov V, 17/367 jin "assembly", modern Kirgiz jiyin; 26/689 urundo "in the herd", modern uyurundo). Variants with elimination of the second syllable before r are given in the magnificent Kirgiz-Russian dictionary of K. K. Yudakhin as a matter of course: thus under kiyu we are referred to kiyir I "edge". There can therefore be no objection to deriving the Cirici of R via Ciyrici from Ciyirici. Similarly, Cirki at 3) 1410 can be derived from Ciyirdi - the form which actually occurs in S. Then both R Cirici and S Ciyirdi can be derived from Ciyir, which, as we have seen, was the name of the lady's first husband, a paternal uncle of Jakip. Jakip evidently married Ciyir's Sakan by an extension of the levirate to perpetuate not only his "seed" but also his name. The