AtD translation: invested in, invested by

[Jochen Stremmel]

Mike,

your reading isn't primitive at all, in fact it's quite elaborate; but
perhaps you were being ironic – then I agree.

As for the Investing of Words by the Passing of Time I'm sure you know it
from the Chinese language as well: in German and English words can grow old
and lose their original meaning or get new ones. Let's take "to invest". I
would imagine that the OED terms the meaning "to surround a place in order
to besiege it" as archaic, meaning that nobody speaking today would use it
in that sense.

To make myself perfectly clear: I believe that no reader of that passage
you quoted in your first mail had the meaning "besieged by the siegecraft
of Time and its mysteries" in mind. Including the author.