{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/267",
    "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": 267,
    "subject": "Play Answers (a few)",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-11-24T02:34:00+00:00",
    "last": "1997-11-24T02:34:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0005-0404@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-11-24T02:34:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Play Answers (a few)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Christopher Culver,\n\nRe: the contessa, I think she represents (aside from the contessa who\ncameos in URTH OF THE NEW SUN) the aristocracy, yes, but also a facet\nof the old human race.  In evolutionary terms, Meschi-boy and\nMeschi-girl are sort of like Cro-magnon arriving at the end of the\nNeanderthal time; the contessa hopes to subvert the new paradigm\n(heh) by getting some of Meschi-boy's seed and founding a hybrid line\n(i.e., she wants to pull a \"Lilith\").  (The Autarch of the play,\nindependent and on his own, comes up with a similar plan for himself\nand Meschi-girl.)  This strategy we might call \"the cuckoo gambit\" in\nshorthand.\n\nNot all of the old humans follow this strategy, but then, so few of\nthem understand the metaphysical depths of what is going on in the\nscrewball comedy around them.\n\nGabriel is played by Dr. Talos, according to Gene Wolfe in one of the\narticles in THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER.\n\nalga,\n\nWhat?! I failed to list Kyneburga, Solange, and Lybe--not only in the\nLEXICON URTHUS but also in AE&1 and AE&2?!  Bad, bad.  Very bad!\nThey are saints.  I've got Kyneburga (aka Cyniburg) here right now\n(Oxford), and I'm 95% certain I spotted Solange and Lybe at the\nlibrary.  I'll double check later in the week. (The contessa is\nscared and is calling for her friends and/or maids, I think.  But\nyes, I first thought one or more might be a goddess, as when Thecla\nmentions \"Caitanya,\" another word I couldn't find anywhere so Gene\nWolfe helped me out--the goddess called Wisdom in Bible\ntranslations.)\n\n(Which isn't to say that saints can't also be former goddesses!  I\nmean, St. Catherine and Kali seem to go way back, just to give one\nexample off the cuff.)\n\nRe: statue kissing Jahi's foot.  You know, this has always struck me\nas being that archaic tableau wherein the Goddess (who became Eve in\nthe OT version) treads upon the head of the chthonic circuit Serpent\n(her consort who became the tempter in the OT version).  A stage in\nthat old cycle: SHE (god) and HE (snake) have HIM (icon: a five\npointed star); HIM and HE fight it out, the winner/survivor HIM\nbecoming married to SHE; SHE and HIM have HE; HE and HIM fight it out\n . . . et cetera.\n\nRe: play enacted elsewhere in the text.  When Sev gets back to the\nHouse Absolute and regent Valeria is on the throne, the =lines= are\nstraight out of the play.  Which is especially interesting because\nmost of the speakers did not see the play; also Jader's sister turns\nout to have become the prophet (so \"autarch\" and \"prophet\" roles are\nbeling played by women); and then there's the contessa who sees\nSeverian . . . just like \"the contessa\" reported seeing a \"strange\nman\" in the play!\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}