Wet

Sexual love is repeatedly described as a process of 'liquefying, melting' (TTIKECTOOU) and is characterised as vy pos,' liquid, wet'. Thus, according to the Homeric Hymn to Pan (xix), Hermes went as herdsman to a mortal, 'for coming upon him there burgeoned liquid desire'

Onians establishes that in archaic Greek thought 'wet' (ὑγρός) is the defining quality of erotic and vital force, linking the life-liquid — seed, tears, desire — under the single adjective ugros.

Onians, R B, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis

Expand passageDig deeper with Sebastian →

uyp6<; [adj.] 'wet, moist, watery, fluid; weak, soft, flexible' (n.). ≈IE *ugw-ro- 'moist'

Beekes establishes the Proto-Indo-European etymological root of 'wet' (ὑγρός), demonstrating that wetness, moisture, and flexibility were semantically unified in the ancient conceptual field.

Beekes, Robert, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010thesis

Expand passageDig deeper with Sebastian →

Compare e.g. old Icelandic sqfi 'sap', sefi 'mind' with froDa, frodr, vatr 'wet' for 'wise', Purr 'dry' = ignorant

Onians recovers Germanic linguistic evidence in which 'wet' cognates denote wisdom and mental acuity, inverting the modern denigration of moisture and situating epistemic vitality in the liquid register.

Onians, R B, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis

Expand passageDig deeper with Sebastian →

uYP-u(vw 'to wet, water' (lA), very often with Ku8-, Ol-, etc.; -uvat<; [f.] 'wetting' (Gal. etc.); Ku8uypuall0<; [f.] 'wetting' (late medic.)

The derivative verbal family of ὑγρός reveals that 'wetting' was sufficiently significant in ancient medical and physiological discourse to generate an elaborate technical vocabulary.

Beekes, Robert, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting

Expand passageDig deeper with Sebastian →

There is a proverb which says, 'Wash my fur, but don't make me wet!' That's what people generally mean when they say such things. But this man really wanted his fur washed and didn't mind getting wet.

Von Franz deploys the proverbial fear of being 'made wet' as an emblem of resistance to genuine psychological transformation, contrasting it with a patient who authentically accepts the immersive cost of inner change.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, 1974thesis

Expand passageDig deeper with Sebastian →

Although the young fox is able to cross, it has no surplus strength, so when it tries to cross, it gets its tail wet. It exhausts its strength in this attempt and is unable to carry on to the end.

In the I Ching commentary tradition, getting the tail wet symbolizes insufficient inner resource — the condition of one who begins a crossing without the surplus strength needed to complete the transformative passage.

Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting

Expand passageDig deeper with Sebastian →

TrevKccAerrai• §T|pa( VETCH, the dryness of a vessel... Is their dryness to the point? It is, and not only for physical

By reconstructing the archaic valuation of dryness as a deficient or desirable condition of the bodily vessels, Onians implicitly defines wet/dry as the primary polarity organizing ancient psychophysiological thought.

Onians, R B, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting

Expand passageDig deeper with Sebastian →

Francis couldn't help thinking of a magician and how the magician conjures a wet rabbit out of his hat. He mimics the bafflement of the magician when he sees this dripping rabbit appear. George also laughs and points out that the strange thing is precisely that the rabbit is not wet at all.

Bosnak's dream seminar surfaces the comic incongruity of wetness as an expectation attached to emergence from a hidden container, highlighting how the image of a 'wet rabbit' condenses ideas of birth, magic, and surprise in the dream-work.

Bosnak, Robert, A Little Course in Dreams, 1986aside

Expand passageDig deeper with Sebastian →