to his own prospects and importance[43]), the individual finds in the noble parents of the myth the re-embodiment of those conceptions which had become untenable as regards the real world. The series of legends (in so far as they immediately concern us here) thus serve to express the persistence in the Unconscious of the original infantile idealisation of the parents as a consolation for the loss of the parent ideal which an appreciation of the actual human imperfections of the parents has inevitably brought in its train. [Sidenote: Exaggerated love concealing hate] The manifestations of the hate, as distinct from the love, elements of the Œdipus complex, may also, when subjected to repression in the course of moral development, assume a negative form--in this case usually appearing as a morbid and exaggerated, but of course relatively superficial, love for the hated parent; a love which constantly tends to find expression in somewhat forced and unnatural exhibitions of affection. This superficial love is often accompanied by an unreasoning anxiety as to the welfare of the parent in question and a persistent dread lest he or she should come to some harm. This symptom merely constitutes a form of repression of the unconscious wish that the parent _should_ come to some harm. Persons afflicted with a neurotic anxiety of this kind will frequently suffer very greatly at the death of the parent concerning whom the anxiety is felt; for this event constitutes the supreme gratification of the unconscious and repressed desires, thus calling for an exceptionally vigorous effort on the part of the repressing force in its endeavour to substitute in consciousness an emotion of the opposite quality to that which would be felt if the repressed tendencies held undisputed sway. [Sidenote: Open parent-hatred] Quite frequently however--in this respect unlike the love tendencies--the hate impulse may manifest itself with a very considerable degree of frankness and directness, leading to openly hostile relations to the parent, which may persist throughout life. In such cases it will usually be found that the original hatred as a consequence of jealousy or envy has been supplemented by vindictive feelings arising from a (real or imaginary) attitude of cruelty or tyranny on the part of the hated parent towards the child or towards some third member of the family, to whom the child's love and sympathy has gone out.