Iakov
Levi
When
she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower,
which lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but
quite at the top was a little window. When
the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and
cried: “Rapunzel,
Rapunzel, let down your hair to me”. Rapunzel had magnificent long
hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the
enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them
round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair
fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.
After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son rode through
the forest and passed by the tower.
Then he heard a song, which was so charming that he stood still
and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in
her solitude passed her
time in letting her sweet voice resound. The
king's son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the
tower, but none
was to be found.
He rode home, but the singing had so deeply touched his heart,
that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it. Once when
he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw that an enchantress came
there, and he heard how she cried: “Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair”.
Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress
climbed up to her. If that is the ladder
by which one mounts,
I too will try my fortune, said he, and the next day when it began to
grow dark, he went to the tower and cried: “Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair”.
Immediately the hair fell down and the king's son climbed up. At first
Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as
her eyes had never yet beheld, came to her. But
the king's son began to talk to her quite like a friend, and told her
that his
heart had been so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had
been forced to see her. Then Rapunzel lost
her fear, and when
he asked her if she would take him for her husband, and she saw that he
was young and handsome, she thought, he will love me more than
old dame gothel does. And she said yes,
and laid her hand in his. She said, I will willingly go away with you,
but I do not know
how to get down. Bring with you a skein of
silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and
when that is ready
I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.
They agreed that until that time he should come to her every
evening, for the
old woman came by day. The enchantress
remarked nothing of this, until once Rapunzel said to her, tell me,
dame gothel, how
it happens that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the
young king's son - he is with me in a moment. Ah.
You
wicked child, cried the enchantress. What
do I hear you say. I thought I had
separated you from all the world, and yet you have
deceived me. In her anger she clutched
Rapunzel's beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand,
seized a pair of
scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off, and the
lovely braids lay on the ground. And she
was so pitiless that she
took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief
and misery.
On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress
fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to
the hook of the window, and when the king's son came and cried:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair”, she let the hair down.
The king's son ascended, but instead of finding his dearest Rapunzel,
he found the enchantress, who gazed
at him with wicked and venomous looks. Aha,
she cried mockingly, you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful
bird sits
no longer singing in the nest. The cat has
got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel
is lost to you. You will never see
her again. The king's son was beside
himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life,
but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes.
Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but
roots and
berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of his
dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at
length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she
had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards
it, and when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept.
Two of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew
clear again, and he could see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was joyfully
received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and
contented.
( http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/009.txt )
The tale
contains some elements that we find also in Greek myth. Rapunzel gives
to the
hero her hair as a rope, to find his way while performing his heroic deed,
which, as the tale explicitly says, is to reach her. In Greek myth,
Ariadne
gives to Theseus a thread, to
find his way while
performing the heroic deed, which is to kill the Minotaur,
the totemic beast. As Freud has shown, the totemic beast of myths and
tales
represents a
paternal imago[1].
However, totemic beasts in myths usually condense also some aspects of
the
unconscious image of the Mother. For instance,
The Sphinx in Oedipus’ tragedy,
being a lion usually represented with breasts, condenses both the
paternal (the
lion) and the maternal (the breasts)
images. Heracles kills the Hydra, a female
phallic monster with many heads, Bellerophon kills the Chymera,
another poly-phallic
female symbol,
Saint George kills the dragon, which, being a huge snake, is a
female phallic symbol[2],
and even Pinocchio encounters a snake in his way, during his own initiation
heroic deed. Namely, the young hero must defeat the female penis symbol, in order to perform the heterosexual penetration, and in this way to complete his initiation heroic deed.
Perseus kills the Medusa, Tamino, the hero of The Magic Flute,
begins his initiation saga with the death of a huge snake, and Ovid’s
Apollo, who
is the patron of the young heroes testing themselves in the Pythian
games,
kills the Python which was threatening mankind, et. All the heroes must
first
kill a female monster, in order to be granted the woman.
In
Rapunzel’s tale, the female phallic monster is represented by the
enchantress.
She fights the hero, who is in his way to reach the woman.
At first,
the prince is overwhelmed by the female monster, but eventually he is
granted
the woman, who also cures his blinded eyes by her love. In the
meantime, she
had given birth to twins. This is another element which is present in
the
mythology of the heroes, as in the saga of
Like
Oedipus, the king’s son of Rapunzel's story pays for his daring deed by blinded
eyes,
hinting at the unconscious incestuous substance
of every craving for a woman. As in Oedipus’ myth, the thorns into
which he fell pierced his eyes is synonymous of castration.
Both
Oedipus, and the king’s son, wander helpless in their blindness.In
Rapunzel’s tale, what seems to be new is that the heroine, too, is
punished by castration. As we shall see, Jocasta’s suicide by hanging,
symbolizes castration, too.
In Medusa’s myth, the hair is symbol
of the pubic hair, and the snakes growing from it are multiple penis (cf. S. Freud, Medusa’s Head, 1940 ).
Tresses of braided hair growing from the head are equivalent to Medusa’s
serpents. The enchantress “In her anger she
clutched Rapunzel's beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground”. “Snip, snap, they were cut off” is an obvious description of castration.
A
psychoanalyst told me of one of his patients who dreamed of
his father, attached to a rope, hanging on
an abyss, and fishing into a waterfall. As the say goes: "To hang by a thread".
Then, the father stared at him with a
very angry glance. By the chain of associations subsequent to the
dream, it
became clear that what the patient was omitting is that he had desired
to cut
that rope, which held his father from falling into the abyss.
Therefore, the
instinctual drive expressed by the dream
is to castrate his father. Since water
is always associated with the mother [3],
the dream expressed the fantasy of seeing his father performing
intercourse
with his mother (fishing into the water), and at that very time
castrating him
(cutting the rope). The penis’ symbol (the rope)
[3b]
was displaced
from the lower
part of father’s body into the higher par of the representation. The
inversion,
typical to dreams, represented the father held by a rope, instead of the other
way around: the father holding the rope.
In Oedipus’
myth, apparently the woman escapes the punishment of castration.
However,
Jocasta hangs herself. A rope, on which she committed suicide, is equivalent to
Rapunzel’s tresses. Moreover, as Freud has shown, death is psychically
equivalent to castration (“The Uncanny" [Das Unheimliche],
1919) [4].
The other heroine of the rope, Ariadne, according to the Odyssey was
abducted
and taken to the island
of Dia where
she died,
because Artemis put her to
death. According to another version of the
myth, she
died in Amathus on the island
of Cyprus during
her
childbirth ( http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/ariadne.html).
One way or
the other, death – castration are associated with having helped the
hero in his
heroic deed.
I shall
focus on long hair, which represents the fantasized missing penis, and on
other
female penis substitutes.
As we have
seen in Rapunzel’s tale, the hero craves for the hair – female penis, which is benevolent and helping to him. He even climbs on it.
As Freud has shown, in dreams symbolism climbing (steigen) has an obvious sexual connotation [5]
Ariadne helps Theseus offering him a rope (her penis) through which to
descend and
ascend the labyrinth.
Mary
Magdalene, Jesus’ lover and companion, is always represented with long
and
fluent hair. Sometimes, she gathers it in tresses, too. She even wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair. Again, a helping and loving female penis.
Juliet too, is always represented with long hair, which is craved by Romeo. The scenes describing the dialogue between the two, while Juliet stands on the balcony and Romeo craves at her from below, are very similar to the scene described in Rapunzel’s tale.
In these
scenes we see a young hero, standing in a low place, and craving at the
woman
above him. The link between the two is the female member which she
bestows upon
him. In Theseus and Ariadne too, the female stands at the opening of
the
labyrinth, while the hero descends and ascends (in the myth Jesus –
Mary
Magdalene there is an obvious inversion: he stays above and she below –
See
Christ in the House of Simon - Rubens).
From what
we have seen so far, the story is one of incestuous Oedipal love
between man
and woman. However, in the condensation peculiar to dreams and mythical
fantasies, it is possible that fantasies of birth too are activated,
in the
context of some regressive economic (quantitative) distribution of the
libido.
In the process of libidinal regression from higher psychosexual levels
of
organization, an activation of early models is usually triggered. So,
there is
no contradiction in seeing in the rope – hair a symbol of the female
penis, and
of the umbilical cord at the same time. In a progressive Oedipal
-genital
context, the female penis represents her genital, while in a regressive
distribution of the libido, it is unconsciously interpreted as
umbilical cord.
Million Dollar Baby: the same huge tress represents the condensation of the fantasized female penis and Faeces. As Freud has shown, preciousness - jewels are the symbol of the female genital, and money stands for Faeces. It is quite an Uncanny image, very condensed. Million Dollar Baby: a lot of money, precious like Faeces and the female genital, and Baby, associating to the cloacal theory, according to which children are convinced that babies exit the mother's body through the anus. Moreover, Freud and Abraham, have shown the unconscious equivalence between female penis, Faeces, and child (See Note 7 below and see Medusa, the Female Genital and the Nazis).
As Freud
and Abraham have shown, the little Oedipal child, directs at the mother
his
first genital urges, and later at other females in the family.
Experiencing
that urge at the genital, he is in search of a similar member in the
female,
towards which to direct it. However, he cannot find what is not there.
At this
point, he does not give up, because he cannot renounce his own
instinctual
need. So, he wonders where this missing member actually is. In his
endeavour,
he advances to himself several theories. Abraham has shown that one of
the
solutions is in drawing an equivalence between penis (which he cannot
find in
females) and breasts (which females own and males do not)[6].
However, before operating a displacement from the low belly to the
upper part
of the body, the child feels that the female penis is inside the body,
and
comes out in the form of faeces [7].
The faecal column is also interpreted as a penis, due to the child’s
own
previous erotic excitement while defecating. In a regressive
distribution of
the libido, genital excitement becomes equivalent to defecation, and
the faecal
column becomes equivalent to a penis in erection. In this context, the
female faecal
column is interpreted as her missing penis. He did not find the female
penis
where it should be, namely in the front. So, he searches it behind,
where there
is its substitute: the faecal column. This is the
reason why many men have a particular affection for females’ buttocks,
and at
the same time they disdain the female genital. They could not overcome
the
stress and the delusion associated with the non – view of the female
penis, and
now they still search it in the rear, from where they did see it
exiting. For
the same reason, many prefer anal penetration to the more natural way. Such men
fantasize that penetrating through the anus they will meet there, in
the form
of faecal column, the female penis they did not find when they searched
for it
in its alleged place.
Since the article was completed, a couple of months ago, I have been wondering where is Rapunzel – Madonna della cintola, and other female penis-Faeces – umbilical cord representations in Hebrew mythology. After all, the same nuclear elements of instinctual needs searching for an expression are present in different ways in the all stories and mythology of the peoples. The instinctual need is the same everywhere, and only the external expression, which is filtered by the Ego’s overlay, differs from people to people. The Greeks – Romans expressed themselves through the imagery of the sagas of the Heroes: A detailed narrative accompanied by sculptures and reliefs. The Catholics, who inherited the frame of mind and the cultural patterns of their Greek –Roman predecessors, enhanced even more the medium of the eye as an instrument for expressing unconscious contents: sculptures and paintings tell it all, even without the help of a detailed narrative. The eye is the story-teller as every traveler through churches and palaces in the Catholic world is able to witness. The Protestants who, like the Jews, feel hostility to the icon worshipping mode of the Classic-Catholic world, easily reconnected to the story-telling mode of their tribal ancestors. From the Grimm brothers to Andersen, the fairy tale is Nordic, not Catholic. The Jews, on the other hand, were utterly straight-jacked by the impositions of an intolerant iconoclastic religion, which not only hindered every image expression, but also limited the scope of the story telling to the declared religious aims of the Second Temple priestly class - firstly - and of the Rabbis, after then. The original Hebrew mythology was repressed and the ancient folklore stories were distorted, in order to fit the new post-Exile monotheistic religion. The instinctual needs, expressed by the Greek- Romans in the sagas of the Heroes and their deeds, and certainly present in the stories handed over from generation to generation in Hebrew mythology too - as in that of other Semitic peoples of the region - were converted into pious stories making an apology of a sole almighty god and his relationship to his chosen people. The Bible, and the Oral Law thereafter, remained the only containers of the people's mythology. [1] Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of
the Ego, (1921),
Postcript, Chap. XII B [2]
Nietzsche grasped the symbolism of the snake, or a dragon, as that of the female penis. As he says in Seven Epigrams on Woman : " Young: a cavern decked about. Old: a dragon sallies out." ( Beyond Good and Evil, 237)
[3] S.Freud, "Introductory Lectures on Psycho
- Analysis; Symbolism in Dreams", 1915 - [3b] As confirmation of the rope as a penis' symbol, I quote from a book by Theodor Reik: " [4]
In poetry, literature, and in matter of speech, we are used to compare
life itself with a thread, which as pointed by Abraham (Supra), is a penis' symbol. Therefore, cutting that thread is equivalent to castration = death. Tom Wolfe, one of the greatest contemporary writers, says:
[5] S.Freud, "Introductory Lectures on Psycho
- Analysis; Symbolism in Dreams", op.cit., p. 164. [6] Karl Abraham,
"An Infantile Sexual Theory not Hitherto Noted" (1925), in Selected Papers of Karl Abraham,
edited
by Ernest Jones, [7] K.Abraham, “The Female Castration
Complex"
(1920), in op.cit, p.343.
[8]
As stated by Theodor Reik: "the unconscious behaves like the ancient languages. Both express the importance and significance of a process by means of repetition" (The Puberty Rites of Savages", in Ritual, Farrar & Straus, New York 1946, p.140).
The Unconscious and Art
Matisse
Degas
Arturo Martini: La Lupa Ferita (The Wounded She-Wolf)
Chagall: Nude Upon Vitebsk Manzů: Sitting Girl
The Giacomo Manzu Collection at Ardea (Rome)
...And Matisse in Berlin
La Madonna
della cintola (The Madonna of the Belt)
La Madonna della cintola by Lorenzo di Credi
La Virjen de la cinta in Barcellona
Postscript (Oct. 7, 2005)
The original narrative was distorted and compressed. Nevertheless it did not disappear, and its traces are scattered everywhere in the text in a disguised form, albeit adapted to the official ideology. All the elements of the mythology of the peoples are present in the Bible, albeit concealed in a compressed and condensed form.
Here she is, the biblical Rapunzel –Ariadne - Madonna della cintola (and Mary Magdalene in the same condensation):
Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men as spies secretly, saying, Go, view the land, and Jericho. They went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and lay there. It was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men in here tonight of the children of Israel to search out the land. The king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men who are come to you, who have entered into your house; for they have come to search out all the land. The woman took the two men, and hid them; and she said, Yes, the men came to me, but I didn't know whence they were: and it happened about the time of the shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out; where the men went I don't know: pursue after them quickly; for you will overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order on the roof. The men pursued after them the way to the Jordan to the fords: and as soon as those who pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate […] Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for her house was on the side of the wall, and she lived on the wall. (Joshua 2:1-15)
The same merciful saving woman, and by the same mean: the cord.
Karl Abraham has defined mythology as a collective dream (Dreams
and Myths: A Study in Race Psychology, 1909).
As in dreams, the unconscious instinctual need is represented by repetitions [8].
Rahab, the prostuitute, is represented with a rope descending from her. She is a repetition of the city of Jericho which, as every city, symbolizes the woman. We have a double representation of the symbol of the woman: Rahab and Jericho, from the walls of which a rope hangs.
Furthermore, Karl Abraham has shown that in dreams a spider with a thread means a female genital with a penis (see note 3b).
The heroes descend the female penis, like the hero of Rapunzel ascended and descended the girl's tress. Inversions are very common in dreams: Ascending and descending are equivalent.
A female penis perceived as very dangerous by the rabbis
The Arts' Keeper in the Gemalde-Galerie (Berlin)
On the snake as symbol of the missing
female penis,
see: Iakov Levi, “Biancaneve e alter vergini”, in< http://www.psicoanalisi.it/psicoanalisi/osservatorio/articoli/osserva24.htm>,
in Scienza e psicoanalisi. Rivista multimediale di psicoanalisi e
scienze applicate [Entered Sept. 8, 2002].
See also: Medusa, the Female Genital and the Nazis and Caravaggio and La Madonna del serpente
Furthermore, Karl Abraham has shown that the spider is the symbol of the female genital. One of his patients dreamed of a spider with a thread, and he interpreted the dream as the repressed memory of the childish perception of a female genital with a penis ("The Spider as a Dream Symbol" (1922), in Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, Hogarth Press, London 1927, pp. 326-332). In this case too, the thread stays for the penis: a female member which is similar to the male's.
You still think you are going to live forever! And in fact, you are attached to your youth only by a thread, not a cord, not a cable, and that thread can snap at any moment, and it will snap soon in any case. And then where are you? ( A Man in Full, Macmillan, London 1998, p.156)
translated by
Douglas Bryan and Alix Strachey, Hogart Press,
London 1927, pp. 334 -7.
The Chariot of the Sun and the Messiah
Little Red Riding Hood
Girls' Desire for Incest in Myth and in the Bible
Superman and the Myth of the Heroes
Cinderella and "The Puss with the Boots"
The Three Little Pigs and Bruno Bettelheim. How not to make an interpretation