CHAPTER VIII THE SACRIFICE (continued 1)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav) and Hinkle, Beatrice M.
With the might of her strengthening bath and the powerful song of the waves.
And the mother, mourning, hearkened to the cry of her child,
And rose, like a cloud, from the bed of the sea,
Soothing with tender embraces the pains of her darling;
And he listened, while she, caressing, promised to soften his grief.
“Son of the Gods! Oh, were I like you, then could I confidently
Call on the Heavenly Ones to hearken to my secret grief.
But never shall I see this—I shall bear the disgrace
As if I never belonged to her, even though she thinks of me with tears.
Beneficent Ones! And yet Ye hear the lightest prayers of men.
Ah, how rapt and fervently I worshipped you, holy Light,
Since I have lived, the Earth and its fountains and woodlands,
Father Ether—and my heart has felt you about me, so ardent and pure—
Oh, soften my sorrows, ye Kind Ones,
That my soul may not be silenced, may not be struck dumb too early;
That I may live and thank Ye, O Heavenly Powers,
With joyful songs through all the hurrying days.
Thank ye for gifts of the past, for the joys of vanished Youth—
And then, pray, take me, the lonely one,
Graciously, unto yourselves.”
These poems describe more plainly than could be depicted with meagre words the persistent arrest and the constantly growing estrangement from life, the gradual deep immersion into the maternal abyss of the individual being. The apocalyptic song of Patmos is strangely related to these songs of retrogressive longing. It enters as a dismal guest surrounded by the mist of the depths, the gathering clouds of insanity, bred through the mother. In it the primitive thoughts of the myth, the suggestion clad in symbols, of the sun-like death and resurrection of life, again burst forth. Similar things are to be found in abundance among sick people of this sort.
I reproduce some significant fragments from Patmos:
“Near is the God
And hard to comprehend,
But where Danger threatens
The Rescuer appears.”
These words mean that the libido has now sunk to the lowest depths, where “the danger is great.” (Faust, Part II, Mother scene.) There “the God is near”; there man may find the inner sun, his own nature, sun-like and self-renewing, hidden in the mother-womb like the sun in the nighttime:
“... In Chasms
And in darkness dwell
The eagles; and fresh and fearlessly
The Sons of the Alps pass swiftly over the abyss
Upon lightly swinging bridges.”
With these words the dark phantastic poem passes on. The eagle, the bird of the sun, dwells in darkness—the libido has hidden itself, but high above it the inhabitants of the mountains pass, probably the gods (“Ye are walking above in the light”), symbols of the sun wandering across the sky, like the eagle flying over the depths:
“... Above and around are reared
The summits of Time,
And the loved ones, though near,
Live on deeply separated mountains.
So give us waters of innocence,
And give us wings of true understanding,
With which to pass across and to return again.”