{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/147", "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": 147, "subject": "Strewn garments", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-08-12T14:05:31+00:00", "last": "1997-08-12T22:16:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kieran Cleary", "address": "kierannwn at tinet.ie" }, "date": "1997-08-12T14:05:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Strewn garments", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "vividly coloured oddments of clothing. Hmmm. From memory & probably\ninaccurately;\n\ntBotNS:\n\n- scented, peach coloured scarf in antechamber. Dropped by prankster\nexultant.\n- Pelerine scarf (?) in shepherd's beehive hut (red with tassles?)\n- ditto left behind in stone town? Merryn's?\n\nok. all women's scarves. any more? \n\nlasrach\n\n\n\n\n----------" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Alice Turner \nTo: whorl at lists.best.com\nSubject: (whorl) Peachy scarf!\nDate: Tuesday, August 12, 1997 12:57 AM\n\n\n[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long\nSun]\n\n\nWow!\n\nI feel boorish saying it, but the scarf in Mattak's drawer (I'm sure that\nis Mattak's drawer) is not necessarily peach-colored; the perfume reminds\nSilk of a peach-colored handkerchief of Blood's.\n\nI always thought that scarf would lead to something, but I thought it was\njust another clue to Hy's perfidy, that she slept with both Oosik and\nMattak. But a historical clue....\n\nBut how could it be? The antechamber scene takes place centuries after\nTyphon dispatched the Whorl. Doesn't it?\n\n(alga, excited, gets up to join the dance, but trips over own cilia)\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-08-12T22:16:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Strewn garments", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #0962161 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#\n\nlasrach,\n\nRight, there's the tassled hem (or whatever) of the pelerines which\nSeverian gets in the stone town (presumably given to him by Apu\nPunchau, as it turns out later in URTH, if I recollect aright) and\nwhich he then leaves in the shepherd's hut as payment for rations\nconsumed. Good point--it is similar to the scarf, but in this case I\nknow that it really is a clue for the hero and I know what the clue\nis (\"find the pelerines\").\n\nWhich is a set up for, among other things, the masque at Thrax where\nCyriaca (the adultress) is costumed as a pelerine and Severian falls\nfor it. Then he falls for her! Proving that she is guilty! Then he\nbetrays his guild by not executing a client!\n\n(Cyriaca escaped to Nessus. Sometimes I imagine her teaming up there\nwith Dorcas. Two Seamstresses . . . and Ouen. Maybe they could open\nup a shop? Not in Cobbler's Common, that's too classy for them. Maybe\nsouth of there, near the khan with the statue of Night on its roof, across\nthe river from the Old Citadel. Repair clothes for travelers staying at\nthe khan, that sort of thing. Or gee, I suppose they could buy that\nrag shop just north of the bridge? Not at first I suppose. Too\ncreepy.)\n\nNow I realize that this next note reflects an obsessive nature, and I\napologize in advance. On the way to the Sanguinary Field, Severian\nsees a lot of red and yellow silk being worn by women. Skipping\nlightly over the \"silk\" aspect, in that same room where Silk finds\nthe scarf, he also finds sweaters red and yellow in color. I don't\nknow what this means, I don't know or mean to suggest that it =does=\n\"mean\" anything, but it is there.\n\nMEANWHILE, okay, now this is kind of scary. I was wondering about\ncolor symbology with regard to the soldiers of the autarch, and\nranking within the Commonwealth; specifically I was thinking about\nthe guild tincts and the colors of soldiers' armor--gold, mirror,\nblue, etc. So what I was looking for was some scale that had gold\nand silver at the top, down to black/fuligin at the bottom.\nPreferably a scale in use in medieval times.\n\nWell lookee here! Turns out that heraldry shorthand uses numbers to\nindicate colors.\n\n1. Gold (Septentrion Guard, erentarii kelau)\n2. Silver (Praetorian Guard)\n3. Red (dimarchi of Thrax) (pelerines)\n4. Blue (xenagie of Nessus, blue huzzars at Orithyia)\n5. Black (Black Tarantines) (the torturers)\n6. Green (green/black Guasacht's irregulars)\n7. Purple\n8. sanguine/murray\n9. tenne'/orange\n10. carnation (\"flesh\")\n11. bleu celeste (color of Claw's light)\n12. ashen gray (the librarians)\n13. brown (the pelerine postulants)\n\nWell okay, so what?\n\nHey, maybe \"scarf\" is just a punning reference to \"escarpe\" (source\nof word) as \"escape,\" since the scarf shows up in prison settings and\nsomehow sorta leads to escape? (Scarf leads to manly talk of\nprostitutes between Oosik and Silk, which maybe tilts Oosik toward\nfreeing Silk; peachy leads Severian to hints about the whip weilders.)\n\nNow =that= is about as tenuous as a belch in a hard vacuum. And\ntangential as all get out.\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }