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THE SONG OF THE MOTH
[pp. 87-126

Starring the naked body with cold snow,
Deafened, it takes away the summer joy.
And sinking deeper in the shadows of winter,
Suddenly draws close to that which it flees,
Sees itself warmly embraced with rosy light
Leaning against the lost consort.
Thus I went, suffering the punishment of exile,
Away from your countenance, into the ancient place.
Unprotected, turning to the desolate north,
Always retreating deeper into the sleep of death;
And then would I awake on your heart,
Blinded by the splendor of the dawn.

28The whistling and snapping is a tasteless, archaic relic, an allurement for the theriomorphic divinity, probably also an infantile reminiscence (quieting the child by whistling and snapping). Of similar significance is the roaring at the divinity. ("Mithr. Lit.," p. 13): "You are to look at him and give forth a long roar, as with a horn, using all your breath, pressing your sides, and kiss the amulet ... etc." "My soul roars with the voice of a hungry lion," says Mechthild von Magdeburg. "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after God."—Psalms xlii:2. The ceremonial custom, as so often happens,has dwindled into a figure of speech. Dementia praecox, however, revivifies the old custom, as in the "Roaring miracle" of Schreber. See the latter's "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken," by which he demands that God, i.e. the Father, so inadequately oriented with humanity, take notice of his existence.

The infantile reminiscence is clear, that is, the childish cry to attract the attention of the parent to himself; the whistling and smacking for the allurement of the theriomorphic attribute, the "helpful animal." (See Rank: "The Myth of the Birth of the Hero.")

29 The water—god Sobk, appearing as a crocodile, was identified with Rê.

30 Erman: "Aegypten," p. 354.

31 Erman: Ibid., p. 355.

32 Compare above ἀστέρας πενταδακτυλιαίους ("five-fingered stars").

33 The bull Apis is a manifestation of Ptah. The bull is a well-known symbol of the sun.

34 Amon.

35 Sobk of Faijum.

36 The God of Dedu in the Delta, who was worshipped as a piece of wood. (Phallic.)

37 This reformation, which was inaugurated with much fanaticism, soon broke down.

38 Apuleius, "Met.," lib. XI, p. 239.

39 It is noteworthy that the humanists too (I am thinking of an expression of the learned Mutianus Rufus) soon perceived that antiquity had but two gods, that is, a masculine god and a feminine god.

40 Not only was the light- or fire-substance ascribed to the divinity but also to the soul; as for example in the system of Mâni, as well as