Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/372



"The personage Chiwantopel, came from the south, on horseback; around him a cloak of vivid colors, red, blue and white. An Indian in a costume of doe skin, covered with beads and ornamented with feathers advances, squats down and prepares to let fly an arrow at Chiwantopel. The latter presents his breast in an attitude of defiance, and the Indian, fascinated by that sight, slinks away and disappears within the forest."

The hero, Chiwantopel, appears on horseback. This fact seems of importance, because as the further course of the drama shows (see Chapter VIII) the horse plays no indifferent rôle, but suffers the same death as the hero, and is even called "faithful brother" by the latter. These allusions point to a remarkable similarity between horse and rider. There seems to exist an intimate connection between the two, which guides them to the same destiny. We already have seen that the symbolization of "the libido in resistance" through the "terrible mother" in some places runs parallel with the horse.[1] Strictly speaking, it would be incorrect to say that the horse is, or means, the mother. The mother idea is a libido symbol, and the horse is also a libido symbol, and at some points the two symbols intersect in their significances. The common feature of the two ideas lies in the libido, especially in the libido repressed from incest. The hero and the horse appear to us in this setting like an artistic formation of the idea of humanity with its repressed libido, whereby the horse acquires the significance of the animal unconscious, which appears domesticated and subjected to the will of man. Agni upon the ram, Wotan upon Sleipneir, Ahuramazda upon Angromainyu,[2] Jahwe upon the monstrous seraph, Christ upon the ass,[3] Dionysus upon the