reta, I should like to remind the reader of
the foul and stinking bodies that in the parable lie in liquid (Section
15) on which falls a warmer rain. The parable psychoanalytically regarded,
is the result of a regression leading us into infantile thinking and
feeling; we have seen it clearly enough in the comparison with the myths.
And here it is to be noticed how great an interest children take in the
process of defecation. I should not have considered this worthy of notice,
did not the hermetic symbolism, as we shall see later, actually use in
parallel cases the expressions "fimus," "urina puerorum," etc., in quite
an unmistakable manner. In any case it is worth remembering that out of
dung and urine, things that decompose malodorously and repulsively, fresh
life arises. This agrees with the infantile theory of procreation, that
babies are brought forth as the residue of assimilation; we are to
observe, however, still other interrelations that will be encountered
later. A series of mythological parallels may be cited. I shall rest
satisfied with referring to the droll story, "Der Dumme Hans." Stupid Jack
loads manure (faeces, sewage) into a cart and goes with it to a manor;
there he tells them he comes from the _Moorish_ land (from the country of
the blacks) and carries in his barrel the _Water of Life_. When any one
opens the barrel without permission, Stupid Jack represented himself as
having turned the water of life into sewage. He repeated the little trick
with his _dead_ grandmother whom he sewed up in black cloths and gave out
as a wonderfully beautiful princess who was lying in a hundred years'
sleep. Again, as he expected, the covering was raised by an unbidden hand
and John lamented, that, on account of the interference, instead of the
princess, whom he wanted to take to the King, a disgusting corpse had been
magically substituted. He succeeded in being recompensed with a _good
deal_ of money. [Jos. Haltrich, Deut. Volksmed. d. Siebenbuerg, II, p.
224.]

Inasmuch as the wanderer of our parable finds himself not outside but
inside of the receptacle, he is as if in a bath. I note incidentally that
writings analogous to the parable expressly mention a bath in a similar
place, as the parable also does (Sec. 15). In dreams the image of bathing
frequently appears to occur as a womb or birth phantasy.

At the end of the 14th section, as the inmates of the prison die, his
certain ruin stands before the wanderer's eye