{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1444", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1444, "subject": "White Wolves", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-03-22T00:52:56+00:00", "last": "1999-03-22T20:10:35+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1999-03-22T00:52:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) White Wolves", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From SWIMMING WITH THE UNDINES, Excerpt # 2:\n\nAfter Severian manages to extricate himself from the antechamber where he\nand Jonas have been imprisoned, and goes looking for Terminus Est, he\naccidentally discovers Hethor's friend Beuzac hiding in a loft. Later, when\nhe returns to the same closet, he discovers Beuzac has crawled out a hole\nin the back. That prompts this response: \"It is said that in the House\nAbsolute such recesses are inhabited by a species of white wolf that slunk\nin from the surrounding forests long ago. Perhaps he fell prey to these\ncreatures.\"\n\nStill later (and we must remember Severian is writing his memoirs at some\nfuture remove, so the time frame involved is much longer), Sev has this to\nsay about apocryphal lupines lurking about: \"In wandering [the Secret\nHouse's] narrow corridors, I have seen no white wolves.\"\n\nGene Wolfe, of course, frequently inserts these sorts of punning references\nto wolfes in his works--they're the literary equivalent of cameos, and very\nsimilar to the appearances director Alfred Hitchcock made in his films. But\nother than this, and playing off a rather prominent urban legend (i.e.,\nalbino alligators in the sewers of New York), do the white wolves have any\nspecial significance? And why are they no longer present in the House\nAbsolute? Thecla, at one point, remembers coursing them [1], so apparently\nthere is some truth to Sev's statement.\n\nTwo separate possibilites occur to me. Although interestingly, each plays\nto the same notion.\n\nThe first involves the alzabo. While Gene Wolfe no doubt based part of his\nalzabo on Borges, a significant part also draws upon Pliny's Naturlis\nHistoria. Michael Andre-Driussi mentions the latter in his Lexicon Urthus,\nbut neglects to mention that Pliny also writes of another fabulous beast\ncalled the leucrocota, which translated from the Greek means \"white\ndog-wolf.\" (Actually, Pliny borrows heavily upon Ctesias the Cnidian's\nIndica, where the creature is known as a crocotta, kynolykos, or cynolycus,\n\"dog-wolf\"). At any rate both the cynolycus and the leucrocota are likened\nto be a species of hyena with a special facilty of imitating the human\nvoice, just like Wolfe's alzabo. Does this mean that at one time there were\nalzabos running around the House Absolute? Possibly. Keep in mind that\nWolfe has always portrayed himself as a translater of the New Sun\nmanuscript, and that one of the perils of translating is choosing the right\nequivalent word in the second language.[2] One translator's leucrocota\nmight therefore be another's alzabo. And to some extent having alzabos in\nthe House Absolute, or access thereto, makes sense, because it would allow\na steady and fresh supply of analeptic to be on hand, in case of dire\nevent. As for why they are no longer around after Severian the Great takes\noffice, there's no need for them--Sev is the last of Urth's autarchs, the\nredemptive New Sun. \n\nThe second possible meaning of white wolf has its origins in alchemy.\nAntimony--which is brittle white in color--was known medievally as lupus\nmetallorum, owing to its use in purifying gold. As Joannes Agricola in his\nTreatise on Gold puts it [3], \"The Grey Wolf must eat the Lion, which must\nbe devoured by it three times, after first purifying itself and cleansing\nits eyes with the Wolf's blood, so that they shine brightly. The Wolf is\nthe antimony; the Lion, however, the pure gold.\" Again, since Sev is the\ntrue New Sun--symbolically, pure gold--there's no need for any purifying\nreagents--hence no white wolves in the House Absolute.\n\n[1] This sounds like a dangerous activity. Then again, look what happens\nevery year during the Feast of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain.\n\n[2] Mistranslations, of course, are part and parcel of all such work. E.g.,\nlukos--wolf--has often been mistranslated as leukos--light. While a more\npertinent example has Sev pondering over the constellation called The\nEight, which curiously has only three stars. The constellation he's talking\nabout is our Octans, meaning octant--an eighth of a circle--which is\ntriangular-shaped. Hence someone in the future, in compiling his or her\natlas of the sky, has mistranslated Octans as The Eight.\n\n[3] Agricola here is actually commenting on a passage found in The Twelve\nKeys, a famous alchemical work written by Basil Valentine, a Benedictine\nMonk of the 15th century.\n\nRobert Borski" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Charles Dye", "address": "raster at highfiber.com" }, "date": "1999-03-22T20:10:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: White Wolves", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Robert Borski\" writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gene Wolfe, of course, frequently inserts these sorts of punning references\nto wolfes in his works--they're the literary equivalent of cameos, and very\nsimilar to the appearances director Alfred Hitchcock made in his films." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adding my two asimis' worth to the \"cameo\" theory: Little Severian, asking\nfor a bedtime story, demands that \"There should be wolfs [sic] in it.\"\n\nraster at highfiber.com" } ] } ] }