Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/398

 She said: 'What is that; what is that, divine father? Behold, a worm has brought you sorrow'

"'Tell me thy name, divine father, Because the man remains alive, who is called by his name.'"

Whereupon Rê replied:

"'I am he, who created heaven and earth, and piled up the hills, And created all beings thereon. I am he, who made the water and caused the great flood, Who produced the bull of his mother, Who is the procreator,' etc.

"The poison did not depart, it went further, The great God was not cured. Then said Isis to Rê: 'Thine is not the name thou hast told me. Tell me true that the poison may leave thee, For he whose name is spoken will live.'"

Finally Rê decides to speak his true name. He is approximately healed (imperfect composition of Osiris); but he has lost his power, and finally he retreats to the heavenly cow.

The poisonous worm is, if one may speak in this way, a "negative" phallus, a deadly, not an animating, form of libido; therefore, a wish for death, instead of a wish for life. The "true name" is soul and magic power; hence a symbol of libido. What Isis demands is the re-*transference of the libido to the mother goddess. This request is fulfilled literally, for the aged god turns back to the divine cow, the symbol of the mother.[38] This symbolism is clear from our previous explanations. The onward urging, living libido which rules the conscious