In a letter to Fliess at the time of Freud's father's death, Freud referred to himself as “Pegasus yoked to the plough.” Meanings condensed in this phrase have remained unexamined for over 30 years. Part I identifies and analyzes references embedded in the phrase and proposes an interpretation: Important early experiences, stirred up by his father's death, were grasped momentarily and expressed in an image from a poem by Schiller (1796). I believe that in writing the phrase, Freud revealed a well-kept secret: that his early experiences included maternal seduction and the primal scene. Part II examines the fate of the memories of these traumatic experiences and discusses the implication of their repression for Freud's rejection of the Seduction Theory.