The fountain does not “spring” but “bubbles and seeps” up into the “still and secret” pool, with its “low mossy stone” surrounded by “peaks and freshenings” of “running and closing” waters. This may all be read as a symbol of female language, which is partly suppressed, partly self-communing, dumb before the intrusive male and not able to speak out. The male fountain spurts and springs. Mélusine’s fountain has a female wetness, trickling out from its pool rather than rising confidently, thus mirroring those female secretions which are not inscribed in our daily use of language (langue,
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