Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/47

 A NEW POINT IN THE SYMBOIJSM OF FLUTE PLAYING 203

3. The flute in the dream was black and cylindrical. The latent content showed that the flute reminded him of a black ebony walking stick with a coloured sphere on the top which belonged to his father. His father usually carried this stick on his walks in which the patient accompanied him (aged five or six). During these walks there were interruptions when his father met a friend and entered into conversation with him; the patient then amused himself by sucking the coloured sphere on the walk- ing stick, and imagined it to be a fountain.

As a boy he had indulged in competitive games with his urinary stream, as to direction, distance and height. He had made various attempts to make the "best fountain", i. e. to direct the stream vertically. Further, he played a game of making a "crystal fountain". This, he explained, was a game in which his urinary stream was directed into his mouth; as it came from himself it was free from contamination, and therefore "pure as crystal". Urination into the mouths of his companions, and vice versa, was also an enjoyable game. ,i

Further associations showed that "playing the flute" was con- cerned with air and wind, and made a noise as of "passing ! water", and a sound like whistling. There was a Dutch (Low) proverb "Ik wil vleit", the literal translation of which is "I want to j whistle", i. e. to pass water. Cabmen whistled to their horses to malce j them pass water, and nurses whistle to babies for the same purpose. ;]

Some later remarks from the patient showed that he displayed i

much curiosity regarding his father in the act of micturition, when on certain occasions they had taken walks together in the country, and he had noticed that his father's stream was much larger and more forceful than his own.

I think it will be agreed that these associations point to Urethral Erotism.

It is interesting to note in these associations the non-usage of the word "piss" — a vulgar term for micturition — which also has a whistling sound. ^.

> At a meeting at which this note was read, Dr. Ernest Jones threw further light on this symbolism by showing a picture by the French artist, Fdlicien Rops, entitled "Joujou". In this a hermaphroditic figure (chiefly female) is seen playing on a flute in the shape of a large phallus, through which she blows bubbles in profusion, which appear to develop into innum- erable worlds of all sizes, thus embodying the creative idea through the phallus by water and wind.

■~1