The Dictionary of Symbols
In the broadest and most abstract sense, the king symbolizes universal
and archetypal Man. As such, according to animistic and astrobiological ways of
thought widespread from India to Ireland (21), he possesses magic and supernatural powers. He also expresses the ruling or governing principle, supreme
consciousness, and the virtues of sound judgement and self-control (56). At the
same time, a coronation is equivalent to achievement, victory and consummation
(33). Hence any man may properly be called a king when he achieves the culminating point in the unfolding of his individual life. Deriving from, and equated
with the king-symbolism are the symbols for gold, the sun and Jupiter. These
symbols imply in essence the idea that the king is Man transposed to the solar
plane, to the ideal or ‘golden’ situation—that is, ‘saved’ and made eternal. The
idea of immortality was passed from god to monarch, and only later was it
vouchsafed to the hero and later still to ordinary mortals in so far as they merited
the ‘crown’ of success, having overcome certain obstacles (usually of a moral
order). The king, quite apart from all this, may also symbolize the ‘royalty’—’or
grandeur—of Man. In this case, he may be subjected to a period of unfavourable
or painful circumstances; when this is so, the particular symbol becomes that of
the ‘sick king’ (like Amfortas in Parsifal), or of the ‘sea-king’ (signifying the
negative aspect of humanity) (32). Love also plays a highly important part in the
symbolism of royalty, since love is held to be one of the most obvious of culminating points in the life of Man. This is why the bride and bridegroom in the
Greek marriage-ceremony wear crowns made of some precious metal. The king
and queen together comprise the perfect image of the hieros gamos, of the union
of heaven and earth, sun and moon, gold and silver, sulphur and mercury; and—
according to Jung—they also signify the spiritual ‘conjunction’ that takes place
when the process of individuation is complete, with the harmonious union of the
unconscious and consciousness. The title of king is bestowed upon the most
outstanding specimen in every species or type: so, the lion is the king of beasts,
as is the eagle of birds or gold among the metals (57). To come back to the
symbolism of the ‘sick king’, he—like such afflicted heroes as Philoctetes—
signifies, on the one hand, the punishment which pursues sin as the shadow
follows the body (given the existence of the light of consciousness), and, on the
other, sterility of spirit. A particularly significant instance of the symbolic process is implied by the king’s projecting his spiritual state on to nature around him,
as happens with Amfortas in Parsifal, in the Waste Land of Eliot, and, to some
extent, the Fall of the House of Usher by Poe. As for the ‘sea-king’, he is symbolic
of the ocean (another version of Neptune) and therefore personifies the deeps of
the unconscious in their regressive and evil form as opposed to the waters of the
‘Upper Ocean’ (the clouds, rain or fresh water) which are fecund (32). The ‘aged
king’—such as Dhritarashtra, the aged monarch of Vedic epics, or king Lear, or all
those aged kings of legends and folktales—is symbolic of the world-memory, or
the collective unconscious in its widest and most all-embracing sense (38). The
king often exhibits, in concentrated form, the characteristics of the father and the
hero, and there is a touch of the Messianic about him; by inversion of the temporal order of things, what is past becomes ‘what is to pass’ and the dead king is
supposed by his subjects to be living a strange existence as a ghost, later to return
to his country when it is in great danger. This legend tends to accrue to the names
of historical monarchs,who have fallen in strange or unhappy circumstances, as in
the case of the Portuguese dom Sebastian or that of don Rodrigo, the last of the
Gothic kings. The supreme example is the mythic king Arthur, called by Malory
Arthurus, rex quondam, rexque futurus (q.v.) (16).
Dream Moods
To see a king in your dream, indicates that success and prestige are within reach. You will rise above your problems and adversities. The king is symbolic of power and control. Alternatively, the king symbolizes your father or some father figure. You are looking for support.
To dream that you are the king, represents your masculine power. Alternatively, it indicates that you have attained a high level of authority and power. Perhaps you are becoming too domineering or overly confident.
10,000 Dreams Interpreted
To dream of a king, you are struggling with your might, and ambition is your master.
To dream that you are crowned king, you will rise above your comrades and co-workers.
If you are censured by a king, you will be reproved for a neglected duty.
For a young woman to be in the presence of a king, she will marry a man whom she will fear. To receive favors from a king, she will rise to exalted positions and be congenially wedded.
