Where do the words come from? What do they say?

My mother while expecting me
It seems inquired what I would be.
Phoebus said ‘boy’, Mars ‘girl’; their fight
Juno topped off, ‘hermaphrodite’.
How would I die? She said, ‘run through’’,
Mars ‘hanged’, ‘drowned’ Phoebus; all came true.
I climbed a streamside tree; my sword
And I let slip, myself I gored,
Limb-caught, stream-foundered, met my loss,
Girl-boy, by Water, Sword, and Cross.

MATTHEW OF VENDOME? 12th Century

Why does this strange poem haunt me? What is it about those words, so simple and strange, that seem to echo from some place both far away in time, and always present. It sounds to me a both poem, prophecy and riddle. hinting at an arcane knowledge at the very tips of any conscious thought.

Jung referred to it in one of his compendiums. See whether his words explain the mystery, fail to grasp it or simply sound somewhat obvious, in a psycho analytic sense, of course...


000517 The paradoxa. 3. The enigma of Bologna. In: Jung, C., Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 14. 2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 1970. 702 p. (p. 56-88).

An epitaph found in Bologna and known as the Aelia-LaeliaCrispis Inscription is cited, and it is demonstrated that both the epitaph, which was in reality a joke, and the numberless interpretations of it reveal the workings of the collective unconscious. A review of the interpretations is provided with special attention given to those of Barnaud, Maier, Malvasius, Senior, Richard White, Veranius and Schwartz. The interpretations of Barnaud and Maier are based on alchemical concepts of prima materia, lapis, dismemberment, panacea and coniunctio. The interpretation of Malvasius reveals anima projections and feminine archetypes: the oak, a feminine numes, is seen to be the source of the fountain, a vessel, mother, and the source of life. Attention is drawn to similar images in modem dreams. The motif of the oak tree is examined in the fight of the Cadmos myth with its symbols of loss of anima in the realm of the unconscious, incest relationship, transition to exogamy, the battle of split off complex and the moral problem of opposites. This same myth is given an alchemic interpretation: Cadmos is Mercurius in his masculine form (Sol) in search of his feminine counterpart (Luna); in order to destroy the chaos he must kill the serpent to allow the coniunctio or harmony of elements to occur. The spoils of the battle are offered to the oak tree, representative of the unconscious, the source of life and harmony. Both the enigma and the commentaries are seen as perfect paradigms of the method of alchemy in general. Analogies are found in medieval literature in Vita Merlin, the epigram of the Hermaphrodite attributed to Mathieu de Vendome and in the Niobe epigram. Richard White’s definition of the soul as the selfress of all mankind is interpreted as a possible reference to the collective unconscious; attention is given as well to his discovery of the androgynous nature of the human soul. Comment is made on the Veranius’ interpretation as a forerunner of Freud’s sexual theory of the unconscious. Schwartz’s interpretation, in which the monument is understood as the church, is considered significant in that the symbol of the church expresses and substitutes for all the secrets of the souls which humanistic philosophers projected into the Aelia inscription. The study of both the inscription and its interpretation leads to the conclusion that the collective unconscious, through archetypes, provides a priori conditioning for the assignment of meaning. 2 references.