Of Note: the Siegfried Incident

I am promising to write more on the death of the hero, the catastrophe of having died in a profound sense while still remaining alive. But in my characteristic Ayresian fashion I will point to an etymology to sort of save the day.

This is the mystery of "segh," and as a matter of segway I would like to add that the hero and the snake are brothers. Both serve the mother. (All this is discussed in Jung's "Symbols of Transformation," and I owe a debt to my analyst Gordon Nelson for discussing it with me today, although something is not necessarily right in including this in a web-log on Oppermann, I will include it in the words of Kafka, "so that I may feel that I have left nothing out) If the hero is killed (by the snake), the option is not to serve the snake, but to wait, perhaps to grieve.

segh- DEFINITION: To hold. Oldest form *seh-, becoming *segh- in centum languages. Derivatives include hectic, eunuch, scheme, and scholar. 1. Suffixed form *segh-es-. Siegfried, from Old High German sigu, sigo, victory, from Germanic *sigiz-, victory (< “a holding or conquest in battle”). 2. hectic; cachexia, cathexis, entelechy, eunuch, Ophiuchus, from Greek ekhein, to hold, possess, be in a certain condition, and hexis, habit, condition. 3. Possible suffixed (abstract noun) form *segh-wr, toughness, steadfastness, with derivative *segh-wr-o-, tough, stern. severe; asseverate, persevere, from Latin sevrus, stern; b. sthenia; asthenia, calisthenics, hypersthene, hyposthenia, thrombosthenin, from Greek sthenos, physical strength, from a possible related abstract noun form *sgh-wen-es- (with zero-grade of the root). 4. O-grade form *sogh-. epoch, from Greek epokh, “a holding back,” pause, cessation, position in time (epi-, on, at; see epi). 5. Zero-grade form *sgh-. a. scheme, from Greek skhma, “a holding,” form, figure; b. scholar, scholastic, scholium, school1, from Greek skhol, “a holding back,” stop, rest, leisure, employment of leisure in disputation, school. 6. Reduplicated form *si-sgh-. ischemia, from Greek iskhein, to keep back. (Pokorny seh- 888.)