Note 430 — Chapter V · SYMBOLISM OF THE MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH

But I must mention that Nork (“Realwörterbuch,” sub. Theben und Schiff) pleads that Thebes is the ship city; his arguments are much attacked. From among his arguments I emphasize a quotation from Diodorus (I, 57), according to which Sesostris (whom Nork associates with Xisuthros) had consecrated to the highest god in Thebes a vessel 280 els long. In the dialogue of Lucius (Apuleius: “Metam.,” lib. II, 28), the night journey in the sea was used as an erotic figure of speech: “Hac enim sitarchia navigium Veneris indiget sola, ut in nocte pervigili et oleo lucerna et vino calix abundet” (For the ship of Venus needs this provision in order that during the night the lamp may abound with oil and the goblet with wine). The union of the coitus motive with the motive of pregnancy is to be found in the “night journey on the sea” of Osiris, who in his mother’s womb copulated with his sister.