Subject: (urth) Accord, curation...and a surprise.

From: Alice Turner <akt at attglobal.net>
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 19:46:14 +0000

> From: Dan Parmenter <dan at lec.com>

> Isn't Father Inire, the old BEM himself at least one of the curators
> of the Botanical Garden?  Damn, I don't have the text here.

I agree with pretty much everything in the last digest, uncluding the
general awfulness of the covers, but I thought I might doublecheck on Dan's
question. And lookee what I found:

In a conversation on the Admamnian steps about religion, the Claw and
whether the Conciliator is more than a legend, Agia veers to talk of
sunshine being hard on women's skin, causing wrinkles and showing up
defects. In a Jonas-like statement, she remarks, "Urvasi loved Pururavas,
you know, before she saw him in a bright light."

So I thought I'd look them up, Pururavas first. She turned out to be an
apsara, a sort of sky-nymph or minor angel (like Polychrome, Wm.<g>).
They're very popular in Hindu art. And paired with her friend and fellow
apsara Urvasi (*not* a male--this time), she occasionally will go into
voluntary concubinage to a notable human. Well! So then I looked up Urvasi,
who is a dawn apsara, sometimes invoked at hearths and by lovers, and guess
what else *she* is called.

Usas or Ushas.

Here's the story: Urvasi decided to live on earth for a while and Pururavas,
male here, wanted to marry her. She agreed, under three conditions, one of
which was that she wouldn't have to see him naked. Eventually the gods
wanted her back, so they stole her sheep (keeping her sheep in the bedroom
was another condition--hey, where do you think writers get these ideas?--the
third was that she got plenty of clarified butter). Pururavas jumped up to
run after the sheep, naked, the gods made lightening so that Urvasi saw him,
and, bam, she was outta there!

Now, Dan's question. There is an old man, a curator, at the gate, but we
don't learn his name. Sev tells a story which features Inire. And it turns
out that Inire ordered the averns (from off-planet) to be planted. So Inire
is certainly concerned with the garden. But I suspect he is too busy to be a
specific curator of anything except the Autarchy itself.

Ooops, I just looked in LU and mantis already has the story. But I've typed
it, and it's entertaining, and we can speculate on why this should come from
Agia (of all people) and about "bright light" so I'm going to send it
anyway.

-alga

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