We will now return to the visions of Miss Miller. Those now following need no further detailed discussion. The next vision is the image of a “purple bay.” The symbolism of the sea connects smoothly with that which precedes. One might think here in addition of the reminiscences of the Bay of Naples, which we came across in Part I. In the sequence of the whole, however, we must not overlook the significance of the “bay.” In French it is called _une baie_, which probably corresponds to a bay in the English text. It might be worth while here to glance at the etymological side of this idea. Bay is generally used for something which is open, just as the Catalonian word _badia_ (_bai_) comes from _badar_, “to open.” In French _bayer_ means “to have the mouth open, to gape.” Another word for the same is _Meerbusen_, “bay or gulf”; Latin _sinus_, and a third word is golf (gulf), which in French stands in closest relation to _gouffre_ = abyss. Golf is derived from “κόλπος,”[573] which also means “bosom” and “womb,” “mother-womb,” also “vagina.” It can also mean a fold of a dress or pocket; it may also mean a deep valley between high mountains. These expressions clearly show what primitive ideas lie at their base. They render intelligible Goethe’s choice of words at that place where Faust wishes to follow the sun with winged desire in order in the everlasting day “to drink its eternal light”: “The mountain chain with all its gorges deep, Would then no more impede my godlike motion; And now before mine eyes expands the ocean, With all its bays, in shining sleep!” Faust’s desire, like that of every hero, inclines towards the mysteries of rebirth, of immortality; therefore, his course leads to the sea, and down into the monstrous jaws of death, the horror and narrowness of which at the same time signify the new day. “Out on the open ocean speeds my dreaming: The glassy flood before my feet is gleaming, A new day beckons to a newer shore! A fiery chariot borne on buoyant pinions, Sweeps near me now! I soon shall ready be To pierce the ether’s high, unknown dominions, To reach new spheres of pure activity! This Godlike rapture, this supreme existence.... · · · · · “Yes, let me dare those gates to fling asunder, Which every man would fain go slinking by! ’Tis time, through deeds this word of truth to thunder; That with the height of God’s Man’s dignity may vie! Nor from that gloomy gulf to shrink affrighted, Where fancy doth herself to self-born pangs compel,— To struggle toward that pass benighted, Around whose narrow mouth flame all the fires of Hell:— To take this step with cheerful resolution, Though Nothingness should be the certain swift conclusion!”