{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2986", "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": 2986, "subject": "Watts, presentiments, eponyms", "messages": 6, "voices": 5, "first": "2002-02-24T00:37:49+00:00", "last": "2002-02-26T05:12:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2002-02-24T00:37:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Watts, presentiments, eponyms", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have a saved copy of Watts' Psalm 90, so I decided I would reprint it in its \nentirety here (the 1st part, anyway). Has anyone commented on how the theme of \na saving flood in the stanza after the one that opens Shadow of the Torturer \nis pretty prophetic for the text? Here is the psalm:\n\n\t\t\t\t\tIsaac Watts Psalm 90\nPart 1. \nMan frail, and God eternal.\n\n 1 Our God, our help in ages past,\n Our hope for years to come,\n Our shelter from the stormy blast,\n And our eternal home.\n\n 2 Under the shadow of thy throne\n Thy saints have dwelt secure;\n Sufficient is thine arm alone,\n And our defense is sure.\n\n 3 Before the hills in order stood,\n Or earth received her frame,\n From everlasting thou art God,\n To endless years the same.\n\n 4 Thy word commands our flesh to dust,\n \"Return, ye sons of men:\"\n All nations rose from earth at first,\n And turn to earth again.\n\n 5 A thousand ages in thy sight\n Are like an ev'ning gone;\n Short as the watch that ends the night\n Before the rising sun.\n\n 6 [The busy tribes of flesh and blood,\n With all their lives and cares,\n Are carried downwards by the flood,\n And lost in following years.\n\n 7 Time, like an ever-rolling stream,\n Bears all its sons away;\n They fly, forgotten, as a dream\n Dies at the op'ning day.\n\n 8 Like flowery fields the nations stand\n Pleased with the morning light;\n The flowers beneath the mower's hand\n Lie with'ring ere 'tis night.]\n\n 9 Our God, our help in ages past,\n Our hope for years to come,\n Be thou our guard while troubles last,\n And our eternal home.\n\nNote how similar stanza 8 is to the conclusion of Return to the Whorl where \nthe chrasmologic writings invoke the Hyacinth and the Shepherd. Stanza 6 \nexplicitly invokes a flood that wipes out the \"tribes of flesh and blood\" just \nlike in Urth of the New Sun. I am especially interested in 8 because of its \n\"like flowery fields the nations stand pleased with the morning light\" which \ncompares the nations to, you guessed it, vegetable matter in the form of \nfoliage that withers when the sun isn't there. In any case, the poem \ndefinitely presages the flooding of Urth, and earlier stanzas also reflect the \nability of the vivimancer to recall dust to living matter. I was fascinated \nby the flower imagery, and even if you don't buy my ideas about the Short Sun, \nyou can read the Green Man into stanza eight. It also occurs to me that The \nGreen Man recieves his nourishment directly from Severian's stellar body - \nthat white hole actually feeds him. As such, a part of Severian comes to rest \nin the Green Man (just as a part of Thecla comes to rest in Severian, or a \npart of Horn comes to rest in Silk, or ... through the same sun dependent \nassociation that I am willing to ascribe to Horn/Silk, a part of Severian \ncomes to rest in Silkhorn the heliophagist) KEEP IN MIND THAT THE GREEN MAN \nCAN USE THE CORRIDORS OF TIME. I propose that Silkhorn is a type of green \nman, and has no problem going back in time - in part because Severian has been \nassimilated through their feasting on his symbolic sun body and incorporated \ninto their being. Convenient, eh? Horn can be every man of his kind because \nhe feasts on the sun that comes from Severian, who really is every man of his \nkind, and becomes more closely associated with him. Note the parallels between \nSeverian and Horn in the story of the man with the black blade in In Green's \nJungles. He loses his light and sword in a deluge, just as Severian loses his \nsword and his special light at Lake Diuturna fighting Baldanders. Horn brings \na flood and clears out the sewer, Severian brings a flood and clears out the \ncrap of the earth.\n\nWilliam stated my reading didn't add anything to the text for him. For me, it \nallows us to know what happened to the people on the moon who were eaten by \nthe terraformed trees that got out of control, it allows us to know how the \ngreen men came to inhabit the urth, it details the future fate of urth, it \nreveals what happens to Horns spirit in Babbie, it makes sense of the secret \nof the inhumu, (whose feastings produce heritable genetic features in their \nchildren),it explains how the vegetable inhumu can survive jumping from Blue \nto Green, it makes sense of the last Hyacinth quote, it makes sense of the \nmysterious eucharists by applying their symbolic value to the text, it makes \nsense of who is watching the narrator in those eucharist scenes, it explains \nall the similarities and differences between Urth and Blue, it explains the \npit scene and the subsequent powers of Horn, it explains exactly why the \nnieghbors respect Horn (since the batch he talks with were made from his DNA), \nit explains the nature of his affinity for jungle life, and it reveals that it \nreally is just Silk at the end of Short Sun, and makes sense of the narrative \nchanges from one book to the next. It makes sense of why the narrator needs \nto find Seawrack, the spy of the mother who jeopardizes the fate of mankind. \nIt explains why his staff might be alive and people are afraid of it. It \nexplains how his image might actually visit Inclito's mother across time so \nthat he shows up in her story (time instead of astral travel). I think that it \nadds quite a bit to a reading of short sun. It also explains the double \nlimbed animals that are exactly like the animals of Urth. Is a hus a \nrhinocerus or a polyploid Alzebo?\n\nNow, are the eponyms those white statues that move around the House Absolute \nin Claw of the Conciliator? In In Green's Jungles, Regalio seems to place some \nimportance on eponyms when he first goes back to Urth, and I'm trying to \nfigure out that scene now in a way that will justify its temporal removal from \nthe present of the text. An eponym is also a word that comes from someone's \nname, like sandwiches or johns/crappers (according to urban legend, anyway). I \nwas trying to figure out what eponym might help solve that scene. Regalio \nsays his real name is Roger, but that means very little to me. Roger? Any \nfamous eponyms associated with that?\n\nMarc Aramini" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2002-02-25T00:31:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Watts, presentiments, eponyms", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " From: \n maa32 " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Isaac Watts Psalm 90" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It also explains the double \nlimbed animals that are exactly like the animals of Urth." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI am still hopeful that Blue and Green turn out to be Urth and Lune in\n_Planet Of The Apes_ fashion, though perhaps in an era =before= the\nWhorl left. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now, are the eponyms those white statues that move around the House Absolute \nin Claw of the Conciliator? In In Green's Jungles, Regalio seems to place some \nimportance on eponyms when he first goes back to Urth, and I'm trying to \nfigure out that scene now in a way that will justify its temporal removal from \nthe present of the text. An eponym is also a word that comes from someone's \nname, like sandwiches or johns/crappers (according to urban legend, anyway). I \nwas trying to figure out what eponym might help solve that scene. Regalio \nsays his real name is Roger, but that means very little to me. Roger? Any \nfamous eponyms associated with that?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tRoger is an acknowledgment in radio chatter, which may be thought of as\nastronaut talk. \n\tRegalio's eponyms could conceivably be regale, to entertain by story\ntelling, potentially a projection of the author into the text, and\nregalia, which usually means an official dressy costume, but can mean\nthe symbols and emblems, and insgnia displayed on such a costume, making\nan meta-meta-referential symbolism that could lead to almost any meaning\nremotely pertinent to the text." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson\nHow Am I Posting? 1-800-555-6789\n\"If your SecOp can see you, so can the enemy.\" -Cpt Law\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner3 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2002-02-25T01:03:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Watts, presentiments, eponyms", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not quite sure what the context is for reprinting this. It's a famous\nold Anglican hymn. I'm a heathen now, but I was brought up as an\nEpiscopalian/Anglican and I will staunchly say that our music is the\nbest--aside from a few early items by designer names (Bach, Handel etc.) and\nsome fabulous gospel, mostly Baptist, I suppose, we win hands down for\nmusic. This one is sort of a drone, but an effective drone. Wolfe is RC;\nthis doesn't count for him,.\n\nAlice" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Isaac Watts Psalm 90\nPart 1.\nMan frail, and God eternal.\n\n 1 Our God, our help in ages past,\n Our hope for years to come,\n Our shelter from the stormy blast,\n And our eternal home.\n\n 2 Under the shadow of thy throne\n Thy saints have dwelt secure;\n Sufficient is thine arm alone,\n And our defense is sure.\n\n 3 Before the hills in order stood,\n Or earth received her frame,\n From everlasting thou art God,\n To endless years the same.\n\n 4 Thy word commands our flesh to dust,\n \"Return, ye sons of men:\"\n All nations rose from earth at first,\n And turn to earth again.\n\n 5 A thousand ages in thy sight\n Are like an ev'ning gone;\n Short as the watch that ends the night\n Before the rising sun.\n\n 6 [The busy tribes of flesh and blood,\n With all their lives and cares,\n Are carried downwards by the flood,\n And lost in following years.\n\n 7 Time, like an ever-rolling stream,\n Bears all its sons away;\n They fly, forgotten, as a dream\n Dies at the op'ning day.\n\n 8 Like flowery fields the nations stand\n Pleased with the morning light;\n The flowers beneath the mower's hand\n Lie with'ring ere 'tis night.]\n\n 9 Our God, our help in ages past,\n Our hope for years to come,\n Be thou our guard while troubles last,\n And our eternal home." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com" }, "date": "2002-02-25T04:48:26+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Watts, presentiments, eponyms", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Alice,\n Isaac Watts was not Church of England but a Congregationalist. The \nPuritan Congregationalists (his forebears) sang only metrical psalms. Watts \nset most of the Biblical psalter to verse as new metrical psalms, though a \nbit more freely than was traditional (and thus as better English poems). \nThis one, and \"Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun\" (Psalm 72) are found in \nalmost all English-language hymnals: Methodist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, \nBaptist, etc.\n Wolfe is now RC, but grew up Presbyterian. He probably sang a four \nor five stanza reduction of Watt's Psalm 90 growing up -- few hymnals have \nall the stanzas.\n The tune commonly used for Psalm 90, St. Anne, is famous also \nbecause Bach wrote a wonderful Prelude and Fugue for organ based on it, \nsometimes used for wedding processions.\n Marc brought it up to suggest that more than just the one stanza \nWolfe quoted is relevant to the Severian narrative.\n Finally, and just so you know, it is the Lutherans who have the \nbest church music. I'll bet many of the tunes you remember actually go back \nto Lutheran sources. But that's only a statistical win. The Welsh cannot be \nexcluded, nor can later Anglican, etc.\n\nJim Jordan (Nutria)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:03 PM 2/24/2002, you wrote:\nI'm not quite sure what the context is for reprinting this. It's a famous\nold Anglican hymn. I'm a heathen now, but I was brought up as an\nEpiscopalian/Anglican and I will staunchly say that our music is the\nbest--aside from a few early items by designer names (Bach, Handel etc.) and\nsome fabulous gospel, mostly Baptist, I suppose, we win hands down for\nmusic. This one is sort of a drone, but an effective drone. Wolfe is RC;\nthis doesn't count for him,.\n\nAlice" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Isaac Watts Psalm 90\nPart 1.\nMan frail, and God eternal.\n\n 1 Our God, our help in ages past,\n Our hope for years to come,\n Our shelter from the stormy blast,\n And our eternal home.\n\n 2 Under the shadow of thy throne\n Thy saints have dwelt secure;\n Sufficient is thine arm alone,\n And our defense is sure.\n\n 3 Before the hills in order stood,\n Or earth received her frame,\n From everlasting thou art God,\n To endless years the same.\n\n 4 Thy word commands our flesh to dust,\n \"Return, ye sons of men:\"\n All nations rose from earth at first,\n And turn to earth again.\n\n 5 A thousand ages in thy sight\n Are like an ev'ning gone;\n Short as the watch that ends the night\n Before the rising sun.\n\n 6 [The busy tribes of flesh and blood,\n With all their lives and cares,\n Are carried downwards by the flood,\n And lost in following years.\n\n 7 Time, like an ever-rolling stream,\n Bears all its sons away;\n They fly, forgotten, as a dream\n Dies at the op'ning day.\n\n 8 Like flowery fields the nations stand\n Pleased with the morning light;\n The flowers beneath the mower's hand\n Lie with'ring ere 'tis night.]\n\n 9 Our God, our help in ages past,\n Our hope for years to come,\n Be thou our guard while troubles last,\n And our eternal home." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-02-25T18:49:49+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Watts, presentiments, eponyms", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not quite sure what the context is for reprinting this. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't have my copies to hand, but didn't Wolfe use one verse\n(the 'a thousand ages in thy sight' verse) as a epigraph to one\nof the volumes of tBotNS?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm a heathen now, but I was brought up as an Episcopalian/Anglican\nand I will staunchly say that our music is the best" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Pffff. I was also, and now I'm a Catholic, and I will staunchly say\nthat the Methodists have everyone else beat, except for the really \ngood gospel choirs." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wolfe is RC; this doesn't count for him,." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not so. Catholicism realized in the '60s and '70s that they had some\nreally lousy hymns (see the book \"Why Catholics Can't Sing\"), and \nstarted efforts to change this by (1) introducing bad folk songs (anyone \nwho was around then still shudders at the phrase \"folk mass\" and some\nof them can be driven to apoplexy by a few bars of \"Kum-by-yah\") and\n(2) cribbing good songs from other churches. So it's pretty common,\nfor example, to hear \"Amazing Grace\" in a Catholic church these days.\n\nIt would not be at all unlikely for Wolfe to hear Watts in church; more\nto the point, though, any serious fan of Lewis Caroll eventually hunts\nWatts down, if only to squash him like a bug.\n\n--Dan'l" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner3 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2002-02-26T05:12:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Watts, presentiments, eponyms", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank you, Ratty, very informative post and I stand corrected. Some day I hope that you and I will get together and sing hymns. I'm not a very good singer, but I know tons of hymns and carols and love to sing them. (I bet you'd agree that RC hymns mostly suck--though you wouldn't put it that way.) I like show tunes too.\n\n-alga\n Isaac Watts was not Church of England but a Congregationalist. The Puritan Congregationalists (his forebears) sang only metrical psalms. Watts set most of the Biblical psalter to verse as new metrical psalms, though a bit more freely than was traditional (and thus as better English poems). This one, and \"Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun\" (Psalm 72) are found in almost all English-language hymnals: Methodist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Baptist, etc. \n Wolfe is now RC, but grew up Presbyterian. He probably sang a four or five stanza reduction of Watt's Psalm 90 growing up -- few hymnals have all the stanzas.\n The tune commonly used for Psalm 90, St. Anne, is famous also because Bach wrote a wonderful Prelude and Fugue for organ based on it, sometimes used for wedding processions.\n Marc brought it up to suggest that more than just the one stanza Wolfe quoted is relevant to the Severian narrative.\n Finally, and just so you know, it is the Lutherans who have the best church music. I'll bet many of the tunes you remember actually go back to Lutheran sources. But that's only a statistical win. The Welsh cannot be excluded, nor can later Anglican, etc. \n\n Jim Jordan (Nutria)" } ] } ] }