Siegfried decides to separate from the demon which was the mother in the past, and he gropes forward with the longing directed towards the mother. Nature acquires a hidden maternal significance for him (“doe”); in the tones of nature he discovers a suggestion of the maternal voice and the maternal language:

This psychology we have already encountered in Hiawatha. By means of his dialogue with the bird (bird, like wind and arrow, represents the wish, the winged longing) Siegfried entices Fafner from the cave. His desires turn back to the mother, and the chthonic demon, the cave-dwelling terror of the woods, appears. Fafner is the protector of the treasure; in his cave lies the hoard, the source of life and power. The mother possesses the libido of the son, and jealously does she guard it. Translated into psychological language, this means the positive transference succeeds only through the release of the libido from the mother-imago, the incestuous object in general. Only in this manner is it possible to gain one’s libido, the incomparable treasure, and this requires a mighty struggle, the whole battle of adaptation.^[705] The Siegfried legend has abundantly described the outcome of this battle with Fafner. According to the Edda, Siegfried eats Fafner’s heart, the seat of life. He wins the magic cap, through whose power Alberich had changed himself into a serpent. This refers to the motive of casting the skin, rejuvenation. By means of the magic cap one can vanish and assume different shapes. The vanishing probably refers to dying and to the invisible presence; that is, existence in the mother’s womb. A luck-bringing cap, amniotic covering, the new-born child occasionally wears over his head (the caul). Moreover, Siegfried drinks the dragon’s blood, which makes it possible for him to understand the language of birds, and consequently he enters into a peculiar relation with Nature, a dominating position, the result of his knowledge, and finally wins the treasure.

Hort is a mediæval and Old High German word with the meaning of “collected and guarded treasure”; Gothic, huzd; Old Scandinavian, hodd; Germanic hozda, from pre-Germanic kuzdhó—for kudtho—“the concealed.” Kluge^[706] adds to this the Greek κεύθω, έκυθον = “to hide, to conceal.” Also hut (hut, to guard; English, hide), Germanic root hud, from Indo-Germanic kuth (questionable), to Greek κεύθω and κύσθος, “cavity,” feminine genitals. Prellwitz,^[707] too, traces Gothic huzd, Anglo-Saxon hyde, English hide and hoard, to Greek κεύθω. Whitley Stokes traces English hide, Anglo-Saxon hydan, New High German Hütte, Latin cûdo = helmet; Sanskrit kuhara (cave?) to primitive Celtic koudo = concealment; Latin, occultatio.

The assumption of Kluge is also supported in other directions; namely, from the point of view of the primitive idea:

“There exists in Athens^[708] a sacred place (a Temenos) of Ge, with the surname Olympia. Here the ground is torn open for about a yard in width; and they say, after the flood at the time of Deucalion, that the water receded here; and every year they throw into the fissure wheatmeal, kneaded with honey.”

We have observed previously that among the Arrhetophorian, pastry in the form of snakes and phalli, was thrown into a crevice in the earth. This was mentioned in connection with the ceremonies of fertilizing the earth. We have touched slightly already upon the sacrifice in the earth crevice among the Watschandies. The flood of death has passed characteristically into the crevice of the earth; that is, back into the mother again; because from the mother the universal great death has come in the first place. The flood is simply the counterpart of the vivifying and all-producing water: Ὠκεανοῦ, ὅσπερ γένεσις πάντεσσι τέτυκται.^[709] One sacrifices the honey cake to the mother, so that she may spare one from death. Thus every year in Rome a gold sacrifice was thrown into the lacus Curtius, into the former fissure in the earth, which could only be closed through the sacrificial death of Curtius. He was the typical hero, who has journeyed into the underworld, in order to conquer the danger threatening the Roman state from the opening of the abyss. (Kaineus, Amphiaraos.) In the Amphiaraion of Oropos those healed through the temple incubation threw their gifts of gold into the sacred well, of which Pausanias says:

“If any one is healed of a sickness through a saying of the oracle, then it is customary to throw a silver or gold coin into the well; because here Amphiaraos has ascended as a god.”

It is probable that this oropic well is also the place of his “Katabasis” (descent into the lower world). There were many entrances into Hades in antiquity. Thus near Eleusis there was an abyss, through which Aidoneus passed up and down, when he kidnapped Cora. (Dragon and maiden: the libido overcome by resistance, life replaced by death.) There were crevices in the rocks, through which souls could ascend to the upper world. Behind the temple of Chthonia in Hermione lay a sacred district of Pluto, with a ravine through which Hercules had brought up Cerberus; in addition, there was an “Acherusian” lake.^[710] This ravine was, therefore, the entrance to the place where death was conquered. The lake also belongs here as a further mother symbol, for symbols appear massed together, as they are surrogates, and, therefore, do not afford the same satisfaction of desire as accorded by reality, so that the unsatisfied remnant of the libido must seek still further symbolic outlets. The ravine in the Areopagus in Athens was considered the seat of inhabitants of the lower world. An old Grecian custom^[711] suggests a similar idea. Girls were sent into a cavern, where a poisonous snake dwelt, as a test of virginity. If they were bitten by the snake, it was a token that they were no longer chaste. We find this same motive again in the Roman legend of St. Silvester, at the end of the fifth century:^[712]

“Erat draco immanissimus in monte Tarpeio, in quo est Capitolium collocatum. Ad hunc draconem per CCCLXV gradus, quasi ad infernum, magi cum virginibus sacrilegis descendebant semel in mense cum sacrificiis et lustris, ex quibus esca poterat tanto draconi inferri. Hic draco subito ex improviso ascendebat et licet non ingrederetur vicinos tamen aeres flatu suo vitiabat. Ex quo mortalitas hominum et maxima luctus de morte veniebat infantum. (Lilith motive.) Sanctus itaque Silvester cum haberet cum paganis pro defensione veritatis conflictum, ad hoc venit ut dicerent ei pagani: ‘Silvester descende ad draconem et fac eum in nomine Dei tui vel uno anno ab interfectione generis humani cessare.’”^[713]

St. Peter appeared to Silvester in a dream and advised him to close his door to the underworld with chains, according to the model in Revelation, chap, xx:

(1) “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand.

(2) “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.

(3) “And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him.”

The anonymous author of a writing, “De Promissionibus,”^[714] of the beginning of the fifth century, mentions a very similar legend:

“Apud urbem Romam specus quidam fuit in quo draco miræ magnitudinis mechanica arte formatus, gladium ore gestans,^[715] oculis rutilantibus gemmis^[716] metuendus ac terribilis apparebat. Hinc annuæ devotæ virgines floribus exornatæ, eo modo in sacrificio dabantur, quatenus inscias munera deferentes gradum scalæ, quo certe ille arte diaboli draco pendebat, contingentes impetus venientis gladii perimeret, ut sanguinem funderet innocentem. Et hunc quidam monachus, bene ob meritum cognitus Stiliconi tunc patricio, eo modo subvertit; baculo, manu, singulos gradus palpandos inspiciens, statim ut illum tangens fraudem diabolicam repperit, eo transgresso descendens, draconem scidit, misitque in partes: ostendens et hie deos non esse qui manu fiunt.”^[717]

The hero battling with the dragon has much in common with the dragon, and also he takes over his qualities; for example, invulnerability. As the footnotes show, the similarity is carried still further (sparkling eyes, sword in his mouth). Translated psychologically, the dragon is merely the son’s repressed longing, striving towards the mother; therefore, the son is the dragon, as even Christ is identified with the serpent, which, once upon a time, similia similibus, had controlled the snake plague in the Wilderness. John iii: 14. As a serpent he is to be crucified; that is to say, as one striving backwards towards the mother, he must die hanging or suspended on the mother tree. Christ and the dragon of the Antichrist are in the closest contact in the history of their appearance and their cosmic meaning. (Compare Bousset, the Antichrist.) The legend of the dragon concealed in the Antichrist myth belongs to the life of the hero, and, therefore, is immortal. In none of the newer forms of myth are the pairs of opposites so perceptibly near as in that of Christ and Antichrist. (I refer to the remarkable psychologic description of this problem in Mereschkowski’s romance, “Leonardo da Vinci.”) That the dragon is only an artifice is a useful and delightfully rationalistic conceit, which is most significant for that period. In this way the dismal gods were effectually vulgarized. The schizophrenic insane readily make use of this mechanism, in order to depreciate efficient personalities. One often hears the stereotyped lament, “It is all a play, artificial, made up,” etc. A dream of a “schizophrenic” is most significant; he is sitting in a dark room, which has only a single small window, through which he can see the sky. The sun and moon appear, but they are only made artificially from oil paper. (Denial of the deleterious incest influence.)

The descent of the three hundred and sixty-five steps refers to the sun’s course, to the cavern of death and rebirth. That this cavern actually stands in a relation to the subterranean mother of death can be shown by a note in Malalas, the historian of Antioch,^[718] who relates that Diocletian consecrated there a crypt to Hecate, to which one descends by three hundred and sixty-five steps. Cave mysteries seem to have been celebrated for Hecate in Samothrace as well. The serpent also played a great part as a regular symbolic attribute in the service of Hecate. The mysteries of Hecate flourished in Rome towards the end of the fourth century, so that the two foregoing legends might indeed relate to her cult. Hecate^[719] is a real spectral goddess of night and phantoms, a Mar; she is represented as riding, and in Hesiod occurs as the patron of riders. She sends the horrible nocturnal fear phantom, the Empusa, of whom Aristophanes says that she appears inclosed in a bladder swollen with blood. According to Libanius, the mother of Aischines is also called Empusa, for the reason that “ἐκ σκοτεινῶν τόπων τοῖς παισὶν καὶ ταῖς γυναιξίν ὡρμᾶτο.”^[720]

Empusa, like Hecate, has peculiar feet; one foot is made of brass, the other of ass’ dung. Hecate has snakelike feet, which, as in the triple form ascribed to Hecate, points to her phallic libido nature.^[721] In Tralles, Hecate appears next to Priapus; there is also a Hecate Aphrodisias. Her symbols are the key,^[722] the whip,^[723] the snake,^[724] the dagger^[725] and the torch.^[726] As mother of death, dogs accompany her, the significance of which we have previously discussed at length. As guardian of the door of Hades and as Goddess of dogs, she is of threefold form, and really identified with Cerberus. Thus Hercules, in bringing up Cerberus, brings the conquered mother of death into the upper world. As spirit mother (moon!), she sends madness, lunacy. (This mythical observation states that “the mother” sends madness; by far the majority of the cases of insanity consist, in fact, in the domination of the individual by the material of the incest phantasy.) In the mysteries of Cerberus, a rod, called λευκόφυλλος,^[727] was broken off. This rod protected the purity of virgins, and caused any one who touched the plant to become insane. We recognize in this the motive of the sacred tree, which, as mother, must not be touched, an act which only an insane person would commit. Hecate, as nightmare, appears in the form of Empusa, in a vampire rôle, or as Lamia, as devourer of men; perhaps, also, in that more beautiful guise, “The Bride of Corinth.” She is the mother of all charms and witches, the patron of Medea, because the power of the “terrible mother” is magical and irresistible (working upward from the unconscious). In Greek syncretism, she plays a very significant rôle. She is confused with Artemis, who also has the surname ἑκάτη,^[728] “the one striking at a distance” or “striking according to her will,” in which we recognize again her superior power. Artemis is the huntress, with hounds, and so Hecate, through confusion with her, becomes κυνηγετική, the wild nocturnal huntress. (God, as huntsman, see above.) She has her name in common with Apollo, ἕκατος ἑκάεργος.^[729] From the standpoint of the libido theory, this connection is easily understandable, because Apollo merely symbolizes the more positive side of the same amount of libido. The confusion of Hecate with Brimo as subterranean mother is understandable; also with Persephone and Rhea, the primitive all-mother. Intelligible through the maternal significance is the confusion with Ilithyia, the midwife. Hecate is also the direct goddess of births, κουροτρόφος,^[730] the multiplier of cattle, and goddess of marriage. Hecate, orphically, occupies the centre of the world as Aphrodite and Gaia, even as the world soul in general. On a carved gem^[731] she is represented carrying the cross on her head. The beam on which the criminal was scourged is called ἑκάτη.^[732] To her, as to the Roman Trivia, the triple roads, or Scheideweg, “forked road,” or crossways were dedicated. And where roads branch off or unite sacrifices of dogs were brought her; there the bodies of the executed were thrown; the sacrifice occurs at the point of crossing. Etymologically, scheide, “sheath”; for example, sword-sheath, sheath for water-shed and sheath for vagina, is identical with scheiden, “to split,” or “to separate.” The meaning of a sacrifice at this place would, therefore, be as follows: to offer something to the mother at the place of junction or at the fissure. (Compare the sacrifice to the chthonic gods in the abyss.) The Temenos of Ge, the abyss and the well, are easily understood as the gates of life and death,^[733] “past which every one gladly creeps” (Faust), and sacrifices there his obolus or his πελανοί,^[734] instead of his body, just as Hercules soothes Cerberus with the honey cakes. (Compare with this the mythical significance of the dog!) Thus the crevice at Delphi, with the spring, Castalia, was the seat of the chthonic dragon, Python, who was conquered by the sun-hero, Apollo. (Python, incited by Hera, pursued Leta, pregnant with Apollo; but she, on the floating island of Delos [nocturnal journey on the sea], gave birth to her child, who later slew the Python; that is to say, conquered in it the spirit mother.) In Hierapolis (Edessa) the temple was erected above the crevice through which the flood had poured out, and in Jerusalem the foundation stone of the temple covered the great abyss,^[735] just as Christian churches are frequently built over caves, grottoes, wells, etc. In the Mithra grotto,^[736] and all the other sacred caves up to the Christian catacombs, which owe their significance not to the legendary persecutions but to the worship of the dead,^[737] we come across the same fundamental motive. The burial of the dead in a holy place (in the “garden of the dead,” in cloisters, crypts, etc.) is restitution to the mother, with the certain hope of resurrection by which such burial is rightfully rewarded. The animal of death which dwells in the cave had to be soothed in early times through human sacrifices; later with natural gifts.^[738] Therefore, the Attic custom gives to the dead the μελιτοῦττα, to pacify the dog of hell, the three-headed monster at the gate of the underworld. A more recent elaboration of the natural gifts seems to be the obolus for Charon, who is, therefore, designated by Rohde as the second Cerberus, corresponding to the Egyptian dog-faced god Anubis.^[739] Dog and serpent of the underworld (Dragon) are likewise identical. In the tragedies, the Erinnyes are serpents as well as dogs; the serpents Tychon and Echnida are parents of the serpents—Hydra, the dragon of the Hesperides, and Gorgo; and of the dogs, Cerberus, Orthrus, Scylla.^[740] Serpents and dogs are also protectors of the treasure. The chthonic god was probably always a serpent dwelling in a cave, and was fed with πελανοί.^[741] In the Asclepiadean of the later period, the sacred serpents were scarcely visible, meaning that they probably existed only figuratively.^[742] Nothing was left but the hole in which the snake was said to dwell. There the πελανοί^[743] were placed; later the obolus was thrown in. The sacred cavern in the temple of Kos consisted of a rectangular pit, upon which was laid a stone lid, with a square hole; this arrangement serves the purpose of a treasure house. The snake hole had become a slit for money, a “sacrificial box,” and the cave had become a “treasure.” That this development, which Herzog traces, agrees excellently with the actual condition is shown by a discovery in the temple of Asclepius and Hygieia in Ptolemais:

“An encoiled granite snake, with arched neck, was found. In the middle of the coil is seen a narrow slit, polished by usage, just large enough to allow a coin of four centimeters diameter at most to fall through. At the side are holes for handles to lift the heavy pieces, the under half of which is used as a cover.”—Herzog, Ibid., p. 212.

The serpent, as protector of the hoard, now lies on the treasure house. The fear of the maternal womb of death has become the guardian of the treasure of life. That the snake in this connection is really a symbol of death, that is to say, of the dead libido, results from the fact that the souls of the dead, like the chthonic gods, appear as serpents, as dwellers in the kingdom of the mother of death.^[744] This development of symbol allows us to recognize easily the transition of the originally very primitive significance of the crevice in the earth as mother to the meaning of treasure house, and can, therefore, support the etymology of Hort, “hoard, treasure,” as suggested by Kluge, κεύθω, belonging to κὲῦθος, means the innermost womb of the earth (Hades); κύσθος, that Kluge adds, is of similar meaning, cavity or womb. Prellwitz does not mention this connection. Fick,^[745] however, compares New High German hort, Gothic huzd, to Armenian kust, “abdomen”; Church Slavonian čista, Vedic kostha = abdomen, from the Indo-Germanic root koustho -s = viscera, lower abdomen, room, store-room. Prellwitz compares κύσθος κύστις = urinary bladder, bag, purse; Sanskrit kustha-s = cavity of the loins; then κύτος = cavity, vault; κύτις = little chest, from κυέω = I am pregnant. Here, from κύτος = cave, κύυαρ = hole, κύαθος = cup, κύλα - depression under the eye, κῦμα = swelling, wave, billow, κῦρος = power, force, κύριος = lord, Old Iranian caur, cur = hero; Sanskrit çura -s = strong, hero. The fundamental Indo-Germanic roots^[746] are kevo = to swell, to be strong. From that the above-mentioned κυέω, κύαρ, κῦρος and Latin cavus = hollow, vaulted, cavity, hole; cavea = cavity, enclosure, cage, scene and assembly; caulæ = cavity, opening, enclosure, stall^[747]; kuéyô = swell; participle, kueyonts = swelling; en-kueyonts = pregnant, ἐγηυέων = Latin inciens = pregnant; compare Sanskrit vi-çvá-yan = swelling; kûro -s (kevaro -s), strong, powerful hero.

The treasure which the hero fetches from the dark cavern is swelling life; it is himself, the hero, new-born from the anxiety of pregnancy and the birth throes. Thus the Hindoo fire-bringer is called Mâtariçvan, meaning the one swelling in the mother. The hero striving towards the mother is the dragon, and when he separates from the mother he becomes the conqueror of the dragon.^[748] This train of thought, which we have already hinted at previously in Christ and Antichrist, may be traced even into the details of Christian phantasy. There is a series of mediæval pictures^[749] in which the communion cup contains a dragon, a snake or some sort of small animal.^[750]

The cup is the receptacle, the maternal womb, of the god resurrected in the wine; the cup is the cavern where the serpent dwells, the god who sheds his skin, in the state of metamorphosis; for Christ is also the serpent. These symbolisms are used in an obscure connection in I Corinthians, verse 10: Paul writes of the Jews who “were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (also reborn) and “did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.” They drank from the mother (the generative rock, birth from the rock) the milk of rejuvenation, the mead of immortality, and this Rock was Christ, here identified with the mother, because he is the symbolic representative of the mother libido. When we drink from the cup, then we drink from the mother’s breast immortality and everlasting salvation. Paul wrote of the Jews that they ate and then rose up to dance and to indulge in fornication, and then twenty-three thousand of them were swept off by the plague of serpents. The remedy for the survivors, however, was the sight of a serpent hanging on a pole. From it was derived the cure.

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of one bread.”—I Corinthians x: 16, 17.

Bread and wine are the body and the blood of Christ; the food of the immortals who are brothers with Christ, ἀδελφοί, those who come from the same womb. We who are reborn again from the mother are all heroes together with Christ, and enjoy immortal food. As with the Jews, so too with the Christians, there is imminent danger of unworthy partaking, for this mystery, which is very closely related psychologically with the subterranean Hierosgamos of Eleusis, involves a mysterious union of man in a spiritual sense,^[751] which was constantly misunderstood by the profane and was retranslated into his language, where mystery is equivalent to orgy and secrecy to vice.^[752] A very interesting blasphemer and sectarian of the beginning of the nineteenth century named Unternährer has made the following comment on the last supper:

“The communion of the devil is in this brothel. All they sacrifice here, they sacrifice to the devil and not to God. There they have the devil’s cup and the devil’s dish; there they have sucked the head of the snake,^[753] there they have fed upon the iniquitous bread and drunken the wine of wickedness.”^[754]

Unternährer is an adherent or a forerunner of the “theory of living one’s own nature.” He dreams of himself as a sort of priapic divinity; he says of himself:

“Black-haired, very charming and handsome in countenance, and every one enjoys listening to thee on account of the amiable speeches which come from thy mouth; therefore the maids love thee.”

He preaches “the cult of nakedness.”

“Ye fools and blind men, behold God has created man in his image, as male and female, and has blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and make it subject to thee.’ Therefore, he has given the greatest honor to these poor members and has placed them naked in the garden,” etc.

“Now are the fig leaves and the covering removed, because thou hast turned to the Lord, for the Lord is the Spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,^[755] there the clearness of the Lord is mirrored with uncovered countenance. This is precious before God, and this is the glory of the Lord, and the adornment of our God, when you stand in the image and honor of your God, as God created you, naked and not ashamed.

“Who can ever praise sufficiently in the sons and daughters of the living God those parts of the body which are destined to procreate?

“In the lap of the daughters of Jerusalem is the gate of the Lord, and the Just will go into the temple there, to the altar.^[756] And in the lap of the sons of the living God is the water-pipe of the upper part, which is a tube, like a rod, to measure the temple and altar. And under the water-tube the sacred stones are placed, as a sign and testimony of the Lord, who has taken to himself the seed of Abraham.

“Out of the seeds in the chamber of the mother, God creates a man with his hands, as an image of himself. Then the mother house and the mother chamber is opened in the daughters of the Living God, and God himself brings forth a child through them. Thus God creates children from the stones, for the seed comes from the stones.”^[757]

History teaches in manifold examples how the religious mysteries are liable to change suddenly into sexual orgies because they have originated from an overvaluation of the orgy. It is characteristic that this priapic divinity^[758] returns again to the old symbol of the snake, which in the mystery enters into the faithful, fertilizing and spiritualizing them, although it originally possessed a phallic significance. In the mysteries of the Ophites, the festival was really celebrated with serpents, in which the animals were even kissed. (Compare the caressing of the snake of Demeter in the Eleusinian mysteries.) In the sexual orgies of the modern Christian sects the phallic kiss plays a very important rôle. Unternährer was an uncultivated, crazy peasant, and it is unlikely that the Ophitic religious ceremonies were known to him.

The phallic significance is expressed negatively or mysteriously through the serpent, which always points to a secret related thought. This related thought connects with the mother; thus, in a dream a patient found the following imagery: “A serpent shot out from a moist cave and bit the dreamer in the region of the genitals.” This dream took place at the instant when the patient was convinced of the truth of the analysis, and began to free himself from the bond of his mother complex. The meaning is: I am convinced that I am inspired and poisoned by the mother. The contrary manner of expression is characteristic of the dream. At the moment when he felt the impulse to go forwards he perceived the attachment to the mother. Another patient had the following dream during a relapse, in which the libido was again wholly introverted for a time: “She was entirely filled within by a great snake; only one end of the tail peeped out from her arm. She wanted to seize it, but it escaped her.” A patient with a very strong introversion (catatonic state) complained to me that a snake was stuck in her throat.^[759] This symbolism is also used by Nietzsche in the “vision” of the shepherd and the snake:^[760]

“And verily, what I saw was like nothing I ever saw before. I saw a young shepherd, writhing, choking, twitching with a convulsed face, from whose mouth hung a black, heavy serpent.

“Did I ever see so much disgust and pallid fear upon a countenance?^[761] Might he have been sleeping, and the snake crept into his mouth—there it bit him fast?

“My hand tore at the serpent and tore—in vain!—I failed to tear the serpent out of his mouth. Then there cried out of me: ‘Bite! Bite! Its head off! Bite!’ I exclaimed; all my horror, my hate, my disgust, my compassion, all the good and bad cried out from me in one voice.

“Ye intrepid ones around me! solve for me the riddle which I saw, make clear to me the vision of the lonesomest one.

“For it was a vision and a prophecy; what did then I behold in parable? And who is it who is still to come?

“Who is the shepherd into whose mouth crept the snake? Who is the man into whose throat all the heaviness and the blackest would creep?^[762]

“But the shepherd bit, as my cry had told him; he bit with a huge bite! Far away did he spit the head of the serpent—and sprang up.

“No longer shepherd, no longer man, a transfigured being, an illuminated being, who laughed! Never yet on earth did a man laugh as he laughed!

“O my brethren, I heard a laugh which was no human laughter—and now a thirst consumeth me, a longing that is never allayed.

“My longing for this laugh eats into me. Oh, how can I suffer still to live! And how now can I bear to die!”^[763]

The snake represents the introverting libido. Through introversion one is fertilized, inspired, regenerated and reborn from the God. In Hindoo philosophy this idea of creative, intellectual activity has even cosmogenic significance. The unknown original creator of all things is, according to Rigveda 10, 121, Prajâpati, the “Lord of Creation.” In the various Brahmas, his cosmogenic activity was depicted in the following manner

“Prajâpati desired: ‘I will procreate myself, I will be manifold.’ He performed Tapas; after he had performed Tapas he created these worlds.”

The strange conception of Tapas is to be translated, according to Deussen,^[764] as “he heated himself with his own heat,^[765] with the sense of ‘he brooded, he hatched.’” Here the hatcher and the hatched are not two, but one and the same identical being. As Hiranyagarbha, Prajâpati is the egg produced from himself, the world-egg, from which he hatches himself. He creeps into himself, he becomes his own uterus, becomes pregnant with himself, in order to give birth to the world of multiplicity. Thus Prajâpati through the way of introversion changed into something new, the multiplicity of the world. It is of especial interest to note how the most remote things come into contact. Deussen observes:

“In the degree that the conception of Tapas (heat) becomes in hot India the symbol of exertion and distress, the ‘tapo atapyata’ began to assume the meaning of self-castigation and became related to the idea that creation is an act of self-renunciation on the part of the Creator.”

Self-incubation and self-castigation and introversion are very closely connected ideas.^[766] The Zosimos vision mentioned above betrays the same train of thought, where it is said of the place of transformation: ὁ τόπος τῆς ἀσκήσεως.^[767] We have already observed that the place of transformation is really the uterus. Absorption in one’s self (introversion) is an entrance into one’s own uterus, and also at the same time asceticism. In the philosophy of the Brahmans the world arose from this activity; among the post-Christian Gnostics it produced the revival and spiritual rebirth of the individual, who was born into a new spiritual world. The Hindoo philosophy is considerably more daring and logical, and assumes that creation results from introversion in general, as in the wonderful hymn of Rigveda, 10, 29, it is said:

This philosophical view interprets the world as an emanation of the libido, and this must be widely accepted from the theoretic as well as the psychologic standpoint, for the function of reality is an instinctive function, having the character of biological adaptation. When the insane Schreber brought about the end of the world through his libido-introversion, he expressed an entirely rational psychologic view, just as Schopenhauer wished to abolish through negation (holiness, asceticism) the error of the primal will, through which the world was created. Does not Goethe say:

The hero, who is to accomplish the rejuvenation of the world and the conquest of death, is the libido, which, brooding upon itself in introversion, coiling as a snake around its own egg, apparently threatens life with a poisonous bite, in order to lead it to death, and from that darkness, conquering itself, gives birth to itself again. Nietzsche knows this conception:^[769]

The hero is himself a serpent, himself a sacrificer and a sacrificed. The hero himself is of serpent nature; therefore, Christ compares himself with the serpent; therefore, the redeeming principle of the world of that Gnostic sect which styled itself the Ophite was the serpent. The serpent is the Agatho and Kako demon. It is, indeed, intelligible, when, in the Germanic saga, they say that the heroes had serpents’ eyes.^[770] I recall the parallel previously drawn between the eyes of the Son of man and those of the Tarpeian dragon. In the already mentioned mediæval pictures, the dragon, instead of the Lord, appeared in the cup; the dragon who with changeful, serpent glances^[771] guarded the divine mystery of renewed rebirth in the maternal womb. In Nietzsche the old, apparently long extinct idea is again revived:^[772]