The correspondence of “woman” and “door,” or of “wife” and “threshold,” in the Arabic, has already been pointed out.[675] A similar suggestion is in Sanskrit terms.[676]
In Germany, even at the present time, a common term for “woman” is “woman chamber” (_frauenzimmer_), as in Arabic _hareema_ is a woman, while _hareem_ is the women’s apartment. A remark attributed to a prominent American clergyman, as showing the naturalness of the figure of woman as a door, is: “He who marries a wife opens a door, through which unborn generations shall troop.”
A Chinese character is the representation of “threshold,” of “door,” and also of “woman.”[677] It is suggested by the lexicographer that the origin of this character was a small door in a large gate, as the inner door to the hareem or women’s apartments; but it seems probable, from the correspondence of this twofold idea with the primitive thought of woman as the door of humanity, that the Chinese character must have had an origin prior to that degree of civilization which recognized such a classification in household apartments. The combination of “door” and “border” is another Chinese character[678] that stands for “threshold” or “door-sill.”[679] Confucius said that this
threshold “should not be trodden on when walking through” the door.
See also citations from Buxtorf at p. 200, _supra_.
_Handwörterbuch_, Mülhan and Volck, 11th ed., s. v.
See S. Wells Williams’s _Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language_, pp. 496, 1141.
As showing the antiquity, as well as the universality, of the symbolism of the two sexes as the source of life, in connection with reverent worship, an illustration of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead is noteworthy. In a vignette on Chapter CXXV, in the Papyrus Ani, a worshiper, is represented before the throne of Osiris, in the Hall of Righteousness, with uplifted hands, in token of covenant worship, while his offering is a lotus flower, the symbol of fecundity, laid on the conventional phallus, the symbol of virility.[680] This vignette is reproduced on the cover of this volume. The lotus flower has the same signification in Assyria and India as in Egypt.[681]
The pine cone, which, as the symbol of virility and vitalizing force, was prominent in the ancient Assyrian sculptures, as also in the Phenician and Grecian cults,[682] was likewise to be found in ancient Rome. An enormous bronze pine cone, eleven feet high, probably older than the Christian era, still ornaments a fountain in the gardens of the Vatican. Lanciani says: “Pope Symmachus, who did so much toward the embellishment of sacred edifices in Rome (between 498 and 514), removed the pine cone from its ancient place, most probably from Agrippa’s artificial lake in the Campus Martius, and used it for adorning the magnificent fountain which he had built in the center of the so-called ‘Paradise’ of S. Peter’s, viz., in the center of the square portico in front of the basilica.”[683]