Subject: (urth) speaking beast / Hyacinth as man?

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 22:42:47 +0000

Anyway, was any consensus ever reached in the old days about the phantom 
presence of Triskele being able to "speak" in Severian's dream in Shadow of 
the Torturer? Is the friend with dripping jaws definitely Triskele? I ask this 
because that presence in the mine at Saltus which Severian awakens has the 
same kind of subterannean associations, and I know that has been discussed a 
lot.

Also, I wanted to apologize if I offended anyone about bringing up that study; 
it seems the media should be blamed rather than making fun of me for using a 
search engine with a poem. Sniff.  You have to admit that without technology 
like that we could never have our enlightened discussions - and I only brought 
it up to a list of maybe 25 people, while the media reaches hundreds of 
millions. I was only interested in the idea that a mother's behavior and past 
influences the devlopment of her child; it obviously does during pregnancy, 
but this study analyzed events that occured before gestation - I wasn't really 
concerned with the specifics. (Wolfe seems to believe that behavior affects 
development).

While we are on this topic, there is an interesting thing going on in 
Nightside the Long Sun which involves "boy toys" in mythology.  When Silk 
breaks into Bloods house, he runs into a statues of Catamitus and Ganymede 
(both young boys who have relations with older men; Ganymede was Zeus' 
cupbearer and special "plaything").  At first this seems to obviously invoke 
Musk as Blood's special "friend", but THIS IS WHERE HE RUNS INTO HYACINTH ... 
and in myth, if I am not mistaken, Hyacinthus is another one of those "boy 
toys". Chenille makes the comment that Hyacinth used to be very flat before 
Crane doctored her up ... Is there a possibility that Hyacinth could have been 
a man at one time?  
Here is the story of Hyacinthus:

"A Greek vegetation divinity who was loved by both Apollo and Zephyrus. He 
returned the love of Apollo, but not of Zephyrus.
 When he and Apollo were throwing the discus together, Zephyrus blew Apollo's 
discus out of its course. It struck the head of Hyacinthus and killed him. 
>From his blood Apollo made spring up a flower, the hyacinth. "

OK, what we have here is Apollo (and his obvious associations in Wolfe's work) 
contending with THE WIND, while a flower blooms up, though trod under the 
shepherds heel.  Ho ho ho.  Notice how many times the Wind comes up 
prominently in the Short Sun: it's in almost all of the prophecies, and is 
even mentioned as one of the primary differences between Blue and Urth.  Now, 
if we accept that Apollo might have some connection with someone like Severian 
or someone who comes to associate himself with Severian, like Silk, do we get 
an accurate image of anything?  Here is my question: COULD Hyacinth have been 
altered more than we suspect by Dr Crane, and if so, could her death have 
directly resulted from the awkward place in which she was placed: being a 
loyal wife of Calde Silk while still serving enemy forces?

Marc Aramini

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 13:16:40 +0000

On Wed, 6 Feb 2002, maa32 wrote:

> contending with THE WIND

Also, Apollo vs. the Wind makes me think of Severian vs. Typhon
("typhoon")

-Rostrum

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