CHAPTER VIII THE SACRIFICE (continued 1)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav) and Hinkle, Beatrice M.
“Still thou art holy to me, as the Power of Earth
Which took thee away, lovely assassin!...
And I would have followed the hero to the depths,
Had Love not held me.”
This poem betrays the secret longing for the maternal depths.[795]
He would like to be sacrificed in the chalice, dissolved in wine like pearls (the “crater” of rebirth), yet love holds him within the light of day. The libido still has an object, for the sake of which life is worth living. But were this object abandoned, then the libido would sink into the realm of the subterranean, the mother, who brings forth again:
Obituary.
(Unfinished poem.)
“Daily I go a different path.
Sometimes into the green wood, sometimes to the bath in the spring;
Or to the rocks where the roses bloom.
From the top of the hill I look over the land,
Yet nowhere, thou lovely one, nowhere in the light do I find thee;
And in the breezes my words die away,
The sacred words which once we had.
“Aye, thou art far away, O holy countenance!
And the melody of thy life is kept from me,
No longer overheard. And, ah, where are
Thy magic songs which once soothed my heart
With the peace of Heaven?
How long it is, how long!
The youth is aged; the very earth itself, which once smiled on me,
Has grown different.
“Oh, farewell! The soul of every day departs, and, departing, turns to thee—
And over thee there weeps
The eye that, becoming brighter,
Looks down,
There where thou tarriest.”
This distinctly suggests a renunciation, an envy of one’s own youth, that time of freedom which one would like to retain through a deep-rooted dislike to all duty and endeavor which is denied an immediate pleasure reward. Painstaking work for a long time and for a remote object is not in the nature of child or primitive man. It is difficult to say if this can really be called laziness, but it seems to have not a little in common with it, in so far as the psychic life on a primitive stage, be it of an infantile or archaic type, possesses an extreme inertia and irresponsibility in production and non-production.
The last stanza portends evil, a gazing towards the other land, the distant coast of sunrise or sunset; love no longer holds the poet, the bonds with the world are torn and he calls loudly for assistance to the mother:
Achilles.
“Lordly son of the Gods! Because you lost your loved one,
You went to the rocky coast and cried aloud to the flood,
Till the depths of the holy abyss heard and echoed your grief,
From the far reaches of your heart. Down, deep down, far from the clamor of ships,
Deep under the waves, in a peaceful cave,
Dwelt the beautiful Thetis, she who protected you, the Goddess of the Sea,
Mother of the youth was she; the powerful Goddess,
She who once had lovingly nursed him,
On the rocky shore of his island; she who had made him a hero