“Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an hook in his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?”
Numerous parallels to this motive are to be found among exotic myths in Frobenius, where the maternal sea monster was also fished for. The comparison of the mother libido with the elementary powers of the sea and the powerful monsters borne by the earth show how invincibly great is the power of that libido which we designate as maternal.
We have already seen that the incest prohibition prevents the son from reproducing himself through the mother. But this must be done by the god, as is shown with remarkable clearness and candor in the pious Egyptian mythology, which has preserved the most ancient and simple concepts. Thus Chnum, the “moulder,” the “potter,” the “architect,” moulds his egg upon the potter’s wheel, for he is “the immortal growth,” “the reproduction of himself and his own rebirth, the creator of the egg, which emerged from the primitive waters.” In the Book of the Dead it says:
“I am the sublime falcon (the Sun-god), which has come forth from his egg.”
Another passage in the Book of the Dead reads:
“I am the creator of Nun, who has taken his place in the underworld. My nest is not seen and my egg is not broken.”
A further passage reads:
“that great and noble god in his egg: who is his own originator of that which has arisen from him.”[[532]]
Therefore, the god Nagaga-uer is also called the “great cackler.” (Book of the Dead.) “I cackle like a goose and I whistle like a falcon.” The mother is reproached with the incest prohibition as an act of wilful maliciousness by which she excludes the son from immortality. Therefore, a god must at least rebel, overpower and chastise the mother. (Compare Adam and Lilith, above.) The “overpowering” signifies incestuous rape.[[533]] Herodotus[[534]] has preserved for us a valuable fragment of this religious phantasy.
“And how they celebrate their feast to Isis in the city of Busiris, I have already previously remarked. After the sacrifice, all of them, men and women, full ten thousand people, begin to beat each other. But it would be sin for me to mention for whom they do beat each other.