become primitive. Both characters symbolize the id, that unconscious reservoir of
primitive instincts in so-called civilized people.
However, perhaps the greatest mystery of An I maginary Life is the nature of
the transformation which Ovid experiences, especially in the fifth and final section
and which culminates in transformation; that of his physical death and spiritual
rebirth. That transformation is pre-empted when Ovid in dream after dream
ventures
... out beyond the stubbled fields into the desolate plain beyond,
into the grasslands beyond the edge of our world. ... the air is
filled with the wings of cabbage moths. I fall to my knees and
begin digging with my long nails in the earth. Sometimes wolves
come, and they claw at the earth beside me. Howling. We dig
together, and they pay no more attention to me than they would
to a ghost. But I know that whatever it is they are scratching
after, I must discover before them or I am lost. So I dig harder,
faster, sweating, with the moonlight greasy upon me. Unable to
tell myself: this is a dream. I know what it is we are looking for.
I t is the grave of the poet Ovid (Malouf, 1978:17-18).
This section is filled with potent symbols, for example: the moth, irresistibly
drawn to the light and consumed by it, is a symbol of the soul’s mystic, self-
sacrificing love of the divine light (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1994:676). The wolves,
although in certain cultures have diabolical aspects, in others symbolize the spiritual
and since it sees well in darkness, was regarded as a symbol associated with light
and often appears as a companion to Apollo. There is also the legendary female
wolf that suckled the abandoned twins, Romulus and Remus, and that became the
emblem of Rome. She is a symbol of the helpful animal or of chthonic powers and
occasionally appears as psychopomp (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1994:1119 -1121).
Finally, after journeying beyond the River I star for many days, Ovid and the
Child come to it, the place:
... from here I ascend, or lower myself, grain by grain, into the
hands of the gods. I t is the place I dreamed of so often, back
there in Tomis, but could never find in all my wanderings in sleep
- the point on the earth’s surface where I disappear ... I t is not at
all as I had imagined. There are no wolves. I t is clear sunlight, at
the end of a day like each of the others we have spent out here, a
fine warm spring day with larks in the air (Malouf, 1978:150).
This passage suggests one of a number of things: perhaps it is echoic of the
Christian Gospel message and the common initiation concept whereby an individual
must die to ordinary life in order to attain psychic and spiritual transformation, in