CHAPTER I ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO
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Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav) and Hinkle, Beatrice M.
Their near relations are the “Idaean dactyli” (finger or Idaean thumb),[214] to whom the mother of the gods had taught the blacksmith’s art. (“The key will scent the true place from all others! follow it down!—’twill lead thee to the Mothers!”) They were the first leaders, the teachers of Orpheus, and invented the Ephesian magic formulas and the musical rhythms.[215] The characteristic disparity which is shown above in the Upanishad text, and in “Faust,” is also found here, since the gigantic Hercules passed as an Idaean dactyl.
The colossal Phrygians, the skilled servants of Rhea,[216] were also Dactyli. The Babylonian teacher of wisdom, Oannes,[217] was represented in a phallic fish form.[218] The two sun heroes, the Dioscuri, stand in relation to the Cabiri;[219] they also wear the remarkable pointed head-covering (Pileus) which is peculiar to these mysterious gods,[220] and which is perpetuated from that time on as a secret mark of identification. Attis (the elder brother of Christ) wears the pointed cap, just as does Mithra. It has also become traditional for our present-day chthonian infantile gods,[221] the brownies (Penates), and all the typical kind of dwarfs. Freud[222] has already called our attention to the phallic meaning of the hat in modern phantasies. A further significance is that probably the pointed cap represents the foreskin. In order not to go too far afield from my theme, I must be satisfied here merely to present the suggestion. But at a later opportunity I shall return to this point with detailed proof.
The dwarf form leads to the figure of the divine boy, the puer eternus, the young Dionysus, Jupiter Anxurus, Tages,[223] and so on. In the vase painting of Thebes, already mentioned, a bearded Dionysus is represented as ΚΑΒΕΙΡΟΣ, together with a figure of a boy as Παῖς, followed by a caricatured boy’s figure designated as ΠΡΑΤΟΛΑΟΣ and then again a caricatured man, which is represented as ΜΙΤΟΣ.[224] Μίτος really means thread, but in orphic speech it stands for semen. It was conjectured that this collection corresponded to a group of statuary in the sanctuary of a cult. This supposition is supported by the history of the cult as far as it is known; it is an original Phœnician cult of father and son;[225] of an old and young Cabir who were more or less assimilated with the Grecian gods. The double figures of the adult and the child Dionysus lend themselves particularly to this assimilation. One might also call this the cult of the large and small man. Now, under various aspects, Dionysus is a phallic god in whose worship the phallus held an important place; for example, in the cult of the Argivian Bull—Dionysus. Moreover, the phallic herme of the god has given occasion for a personification of the phallus of Dionysus, in the form of the god Phales, who is nothing else but a Priapus.
He is called ἑταῖρος or σύγκωμος Βάκχου[226].[227] Corresponding to this state of affairs, one cannot very well fail to recognize in the previously mentioned Cabiric representation, and in the added boy’s figure, the picture of man and his penis.[228] The previously mentioned paradox in the Upanishad text of large and small, of giant and dwarf, is expressed more mildly here by man and boy, or father and son.[229] The motive of deformity which is used constantly by the Cabiric cult is present also in the vase picture, while the parallel figures to Dionysus and Παῖς are the caricatured Μίτος and Πρατόλαος. Just as formerly the difference in size gave occasion for division, so does the deformity here.[230]
Without first bringing further proof to bear, I may remark that from this knowledge especially strong sidelights are thrown upon the original psychologic meaning of the religious heroes. Dionysus stands in an intimate relation with the psychology of the early Asiatic God who died and rose again from the dead and whose manifold manifestations have been brought together in the figure of Christ into a firm personality enduring for centuries. We gain from our premise the knowledge that these heroes, as well as their typical fates, are personifications of the human libido and its typical fates. They are imagery, like the figures of our nightly dreams—the actors and interpreters of our secret thoughts. And since we, in the present day, have the power to decipher the symbolism of dreams and thereby surmise the mysterious psychologic history of development of the individual, so a way is here opened to the understanding of the secret springs of impulse beneath the psychologic development of races. Our previous trains of thought, which demonstrate the phallic side of the symbolism of the libido, also show how thoroughly justified is the term “libido.”[231] Originally taken from the sexual sphere, this word has become the most frequent technical expression of psychoanalysis, for the simple reason that its significance is wide enough to cover all the unknown and countless manifestations of the Will in the sense of Schopenhauer. It is sufficiently comprehensive and rich in meaning to characterize the real nature of the psychical entity which it includes.
The exact classical significance of the word libido qualifies it as an entirely appropriate term. Libido is taken in a very wide sense in Cicero:[232]
“(Volunt ex duobus opinatis) bonis (nasci) Libidinem et Lætitiam; ut sit lætitia præsentium bonorum: libido futurorum.—Lætitia autem et Libido in bonorum opinione versantur, cum Libido ad id, quod videtur bonum, illecta et inflammata rapiatur.—Natura enim omnes ea, quæ bona videntur, sequuntur, fugiuntque contraria. Quamobrem simul objecta species cuiuspiam est, quod bonum videatur, ad id adipiscendum impellit ipsa natura. Id cum constanter prudenterque fit, ejusmodi appetitionem stoici βούλησιν appellant, nos appellamus voluntatem; eam illi putant in solo esse sapiente, quam sic definiunt; voluntas est quæ quid cum ratione desiderat: quæ autem ratione adversa incitata est vehementius, ea libido est, vel cupiditas effrenata, quæ in omnibus stultis invenitur.”[233]
The meaning of libido here is “to wish,” and in the stoical distinction of will, dissolute desire. Cicero[234] used “libido” in a corresponding sense:
“Agere rem aliquam libidine, non ratione.”[235]
In the same sense Sallust says:
“Iracundia pars est libidinis.”
In another place in a milder and more general sense, which completely approaches the analytical use:
“Magisque in decoris armis et militaribus equis, quam in scortis et conviviis libidinem habebant.”[235]
Also:
“Quod si tibi bona libido fuerit patriæ, etc.”
The use of libido is so general that the phrase “libido est scire” merely had the significance of “I will, it pleases me.” In the phrase “aliquam libido urinæ lacessit” libido had the meaning of urgency. The significance of sexual desire is also present in the classics.
This general classical application of the conception agrees with the corresponding etymological context of the word, libido or lubido (with libet, more ancient lubet), it pleases me, and libens or lubens = gladly, willingly. Sanskrit, lúbhyati = to experience violent longing, lôbhayati = excites longing, lubdha-h = eager, lôbha-h = longing, eagerness. Gothic = liufs, and Old High German liob = love. Moreover, in Gothic, lubains was represented as hope; and Old High German, lobôn = to praise, lob = commendation, praise, glory; Old Bulgarian, ljubiti = to love, ljuby = love; Lithuanian, liáupsinti = to praise.[236] It can be said that the conception of libido as developed in the new work of Freud and of his school has functionally the same significance in the biological territory as has the conception of energy since the time of Robert Mayer in the physical realm.[237] It may not be superfluous to say something more at this point concerning the conception of libido after we have followed the formation of its symbol to its highest expression in the human form of the religious hero.