‘Me the truth, I speak’ 19th June 1968 – provenance & ambiguities : 2nd September 2026 : Julia Evans

SECTION 1

NOTE ; A COMPLETE VERSION OF THIS TEXT CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM WWW.LACANIANWORKSEXCHANGE.NET /AUTHORS A-Z (EVANS)

INDEX OF THIS POST

Background
Lessons from compiling this text – Julia Evans
Commentary
Related posts

SECTION 2
  1. Jacques Lacan cites ‘The Freudian Thing’ 7th November 1955

1a. Session of 19th June 1968 Seminar XV

Me the truth I speak

**1b. The Freudian Thing 7th November 1955

– first appearance of ‘Me the truth, I speak’

**1c. The Freudian Thing 7th November 1955

The trade route of truth no longer passes through thought: strange to say, it now seems to pass through things: riddle, it is through you that I communicate,

…as Freud said ‘From me [de moi], the truth that speaks’,

1d. Interpretation of Dreams (1900) in 1c.

The dream-thoughts and the dream-content are presented to us like two versions of the same subject-matter in two different languages. SE IV p277

**1e. The Freudian Thing 7th November 1955,

“I speak”, in order to shackle “There is word/speech [parole] only from language.”

“Everything is language: language, such as my heart beating faster when a sudden pang seizes me;”

1f. reference to 1e, Psalm 19

2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

1g. [Note to 1e.] the progression from speech [parole] to logos -The Gospel of St John

Jean 1, 1 Au commencement était la Parole,

John I, 1 In the beginning was the Word [logos],

1h. [Note to 1e.] Jacques Lacan quotes the Gospel of St John-15th June 1955 Seminar II

LACAN – Does this short story illustrate language or speech [parole]?

Collette AUDRY – Both, on the one side there is language, and on the other, word/speech [parole].

…and *verbum* is language in the strict sense; it’s the same word.

…also emphasised in the Greek text: “Εν αρχη ην ο Λογος” (iii), Λογος: language, not word/speech. And after that, God makes use of the speech/word [parole]. He says, “Let there be light.”

… humans take an interest—in the most “inter-es(t)” [inter-esse] sense—in the speech/logos [parole].

In any case, what interests [intéresse] us is understanding the difference.

– 1i. Note on Ambiguity 15th June 1955 Seminar II plus ‘Wo Es war; soll Ich warden (GW XV p86)

…what gives it its meaning are the temporal breaks we introduce into it – as you yourself said – which, incidentally, if they are incorrect, can introduce ambiguities(i) that are sometimes difficult to resolve, but to which we will always eventually assign a meaning.

1j. Jacques Lacan’s quotes the Gospel of St John – continued from 1h Seminar II.

LACAN – In principio erat verbum: this is unquestionably language, not speech/word [parole].

Serge LECLAIRE – So, there is no beginning.

1k. A similarity between Sigmund Freud’s text & St John’s Gospel

-Where Id (It) was; I (Ego) should become (SE XXII p71),

Wo Es war; soll Ich warden (GW XV p86)

-…, so that where I (Other) am, there you (subject) may be also. (St John, Ch 14, v1)

**1l. The Freudian Thing 7th November 1955, continued from 1b. 1c. & 1e.

-One began only to repeat after Freud the word of his discovery: Id speaks, and, no doubt, where it is least expected, namely, where id (it) hurts.

– The truth has said: ‘I speak’

-‘There is speech/word (parole) only from language’

1m. (reference to 1l.) Civilisation and its Discontents : 1929 : Sigmund Freud,

Neurosis appeared to be the outcome of a struggle between the drive for self-preservation and the demands of the libido, a struggle in which the ego/I had triumphed, but at the cost of severe suffering and sacrifice.

1m. Footnote [4] to 1l. Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego 1921

Lacan …when the Apostle Paul, in his famous Epistle to the Corinthians, extols love above all else, he certainly understood it in the specific ‘broader’ sense SE XVIII p91

Civilisation, Thus, the contrast between the ‘ego’ drives and those directed at the object, the ‘libidinal’ drives of love in the broadest sense. [4] SE XXI p117

1n. Footnote to 1l. “Medusa’s Head” (Das Medusenhaupt) : 1922 : Sigmund Freud

This symbol of horror is worn upon her dress by the virgin goddess Athena.

Lacan, in the hope that the Athenian might come face to face with the Athena who emerged, clad in her armour, from Freud’s mind.

SECTION 3
  1. Seminar IV

2a. 5th December 1956

‘…before ‘I’ emerges from ‘self’ [soi] or ‘id’ [ça], there was something that the ‘id’ was, of course. It is simply a question of knowing what this ‘id’ [ce ça] is.’

2b. (Footnote to 2a) Lecture XXXI 16th June 1931 Sigmund Freud

Wo es war, soll Ich werden SE XXII p71

Where Id was, there I should become

2c. 5th December 1956

‘The Es. .. that is, that which in the subject is liable to become ‘I’’

2d. 27th February 1957

It (phallus) is never really there where it (self or me) [le moi] is, it (phallus) is never quite absent there where it (self or me)[le moi] isn’t.

2e. 13th March 1957

…at the level of the big Other there is someone who is able to respond in any event, and who only responds in all cases the phallus, the truth, the real penis

2f. 13th March 1957

But he can only enter within this order of the law if for at least a moment he has had a real partner in front of him, … someone who responds to him. …

… insofar as he is the symbolic father, it is the one who could say as the God of monotheism said: I am the one who am …

… in other words that everything goes to be resolved through the: ‘You are the one who is’. Don’t believe it, because in order to say this to whomever, this should be (in place) from other, who am I?

SECTION 4
  1. Truth & Science 1st December 1965 Seminar XIII

3a. Jacques Lacan’s citation – 19th June 1968 Seminar XV

And actually, before I articulated it precisely as I did here one day…

… and as if wearing a perfectly logicised label, the article titled “Truth and Science” in my *Écrits*

3b. 1st December 1965 Science & Truth

… but because the logical form given to this knowledge [ce savoir] includes the mode of communication as suturing the subject that it implies.

3c. Footnote to 3b. Fetishism : 1927 : Sigmund Freud

the fetish is a substitute for the penis

To put it more plainly, the fetish is a substitute for the phallus of the woman (the mother), in which the little boy believed and which – for reasons we know – he is unwilling to do without.

3d. Footnote [i] to 3c. Leonardo da Vinci (1910)

It is by no means irrelevant what a person believes they remember from their childhood; as a rule, hidden within the fragments of memory which they themselves do not understand …

The erotic attraction emanating from the mother soon culminated in a longing for her genitals, which were perceived as a penis. With the realization, acquired only later, that the female does not possess a penis, this longing often turns into its opposite, giving way to a sense of revulsion…

SECTION 5

4. The Return to ‘Me the truth I speak – 19th June 1968 Seminar XV

4a. 19th June 1968

“Me [Ego/self] the truth, I speak.”

Who is this “I” who speaks?

4b. Reference [iv] to 4a. The Situation of Psychoanalysis and the Training of Psychoanalysts in 1956, 30th September 1956

…Freud’s discovery is this truth that the truth never forfeits its claims, and that sheltering its credentials in the field/domain devoted to the immediacy of the instincts, only its register permits conceiving this inextinguishable duration of the desire

4c. Reference [v] to 4a. The Scream 1893 Edvard Munch

See here

4d. 19th June 1968 Seminar XV

But if you take the prosopopoeia seriously ‘Me the truth, I speak’, Id can above all have, unfortunately for those who put themselves within this path, some large inconveniencies.

If I say that the unconscious is structured as a language,

it is because this unconscious which interests us is what can say itself, and then saying itself, it generates the subject.

________________________________________________

BACKGROUND

In September 2026, I became engaged with the phrase

‘Me the truth I speak’ 19th June 1968 Seminar XV (i),
« Moi la vérité, je parle » [p.409 Staferla/Séminaire XV].

I pondered on it and its translation, which is not straight forward.

I started to trace Jacques Lacan’s use of this phrase and how its development takes place. Lacan himself references ‘The Freudian Thing’ 7th November 1955 (ii).

There seemed to be an echo here of Freud’s phrase “Wo es war, soll Ich werden” (iii), which is again difficult to translate.
James Strachey translates as “Where Id was, there Ego shall be.” SE XXII p71
Another translation would be, Where It was, there I shall be.
Further, Where Id was, there I shall be.
& lastly, Where It was, there Ego shall be.
It seems that Jacques Lacan translates it, to French of course, as

‘Where Id was, there I shall be.’

Jacques Lacan appears to forge the link on 5th December 1956 (iv),
The Es. .. that is, that which in the subject is liable to become ‘I’, (p4 of EC’s translation)
so using ‘Where Id was, there I shall be’ to proceed to ‘Me the Truth, I speak’.

There follows details of this progression through Jacques Lacan’s texts , from The Freudian Thing 7th November 1955 to 19th June 1968 Seminar XV.
Any Sigmund Freud texts follow Jacques Lacan’s citation of them.

Julia Evans 24th October 2026

(i) 19th June 1968, see Session of Seminar XV : 19th June 1968 : Jacques Lacan, this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19680619)

P7 Cormac Gallagher’s translation, I had given to this word another function in an article called “La chose freudienne” where one can read these terms:

“Me the truth I speak”.

p.409 Staferla/Séminaire XV .…j’avais donné à ce mot une autre fonction, dans un article qui s’appelle La chose freudienne[120], où on peut lire ces termes :

« Moi la vérité, je parle. »

(ii) The Freudian Thing 7th November 1955, see The Freudian Thing or the Meaning of the Return to Freud in Psychoanalysis : 7th November 1955 (Vienna) : Jacques Lacan (19551107 or https://web.archive.org/web/20210225162125/http://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=12074)

(iii) The phrase appears in the last but one sentence of ‘Lecture XXXI Dissection of the personality : 6th June 1932 : Sigmund Freud ’, see this site /Sigmund Freud (19320606 or Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts)

(iv) 5th December 1956, See Session of Seminar IV (The signifier and the Holy Spirit) : 5th December 1956 : Jacques Lacan, at this site /Sigmund Freud (19561205)

Lessons from compiling this text – Julia Evans

This started as an idea for a post in mid-August 2026. I am typing these notes on 8th November 2026 so nearly three months later. It has been a roller coaster & probably I should introduce more structure into this text. Maybe tomorrow!

The following is what has emerged from this journey:

– Jacques Lacan’s French is very formal and was in formation over a hundred years ago. Internet translators, Linguée & Google & …, simplify and modernise it. I stray to a more literal translation, where meaning may not emerge immediately. I also find my Uncle’s Naval, French-English dictionary very useful – it dates to the First World War!

– it seems to me that Jacques Lacan’s method of transmission is to make something emerge through speaking, many times in dialogue with others. I discovered that in the published Seminar II, much of the dialogue has been omitted – see texts in 1h., 1i., & 1j. The lesson is to always use original texts from Staferla, École lacanienne de la psychanalyse, etc and even then be careful with any text published after about 1975 and always publish the French and English text side by side.

– Method of translating. I attempt to translate within Jacques Lacan’s logic or process of transmission. This is clearly an impossibility. It remains however the job of each of us to link to what Lacan might be saying or arguing and bring it into the meaning available to each.

-Ambiguity – see Section 1i. There are at least four possible translations of ‘“Wo es war, soll Ich werden” and at least three of “Moi la vérité, je parle”. [Me the truth, I speak, Ego the truth, I speak or Self the truth, I speak or am speaking ….]. I have used the one that makes most sense to me, and that does not mean it will work for you. I like to think of my translations as informed guestimates, based in a thorough grounding in French grammar sixty or more years ago.

Julia Evans – 9th November 2026

Commentary

– Section 6, The narcissistic structure of the ego, in
‘From a seminar on the first four chapters of ‘Civilisation and its Discontents’ : Winter 1994 : Richard Klein
See this site /5 Authors A-Z (Klein)
A commentary on Lacan’s ‘where one can read these terms: ‘Me, the truth, I speak.’’

Related text

General information – Seminar XV – The Psychoanalytic Act (1967-1968) : from 15th November 1967 : Jacques Lacan, SE XXI p58-145, see this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19671115)
Session of Seminar XV : 19th June 1968 : Jacques Lacan, see this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19680619)