Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/397

 She did not twist him living around her face, But threw him coiled upon the path, Upon which the great God wandered at ease Through all his lands.

"The venerable God stepped forth radiantly, The gods who served Pharaoh accompanied him, And he proceeded as every day. Then the venerable worm stung him The divine God opened his mouth And the voice of his majesty echoed even to the sky. And the gods exclaimed: Behold! Thereupon he could not answer, His jaws chattered, All his limbs trembled And the poison gripped his flesh, As the Nile seizes upon the land."

In this hymn Egypt has again preserved for us a primitive conception of the serpent's sting. The aging of the autumn sun as an image of human senility is symbolically traced back to the mother through the poisoning by the serpent. The mother is reproached, because her malice causes the death of the sun-god. The serpent, the primitive symbol of fear,[37] illustrates the repressed tendency to turn back to the mother, because the only possibility of security from death is possessed by the mother, as the source of life.

Accordingly, only the mother can cure him, sick unto death, and, therefore, the hymn goes on to depict how the gods were assembled to take counsel:

"And Isis came with her wisdom: Her mouth is full of the breath of life, Her words banish sorrow, And her speech animates those who no longer breathe.