Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/396

 was a nymph upon the island of Chryse; according to the account of the scholiasts in Sophocles's "Philoctetes," this nymph loved Philoctetes, and cursed him because he spurned her love. This characteristic projection, which is also met with in the Gilgamesh epic, should be referred back, as suggested, to the repressed incest wish of the son, who is represented through the projection as if the mother had the evil wish, for the refusal of which the son was given over to death. In reality, however, the son becomes mortal by separating himself from the mother. His fear of death, therefore, corresponds to the repressed wish to turn back to the mother, and causes him to believe that the mother threatens or pursues him. The teleological significance of this fear of persecution is evident; it is to keep son and mother apart.

The curse of Chryse is realized in so far that Philoctetes, according to one version, when approaching his altar, injured himself in his foot with one of his own deadly poisonous arrows, or, according to another version[34] (this is better and far more abundantly proven), was bitten in his foot by a poisonous serpent.[35] From then on he is ailing.[36]

This very typical wound, which also destroyed Rê, is described in the following manner in an Egyptian hymn:

"The ancient of the Gods moved his mouth, He cast his saliva upon the earth, And what he spat, fell upon the ground. With her hands Isis kneaded that and the soil Which was about it, together: From that she created a venerable worm, And made him like a spear.