{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3332",
    "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": 3332,
    "subject": "Typhon and Apollodorus",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-07-01T17:57:53+00:00",
    "last": "2002-07-01T17:57:53+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0207-1294@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Wynn",
        "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-07-01T17:57:53+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) RE: Typhon and Apollodorus",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The following is the story of Typhon’s war with Zeus and the Olympians as\ntold by Apollodorus. It is a story that seems rife with potential background\nfor Wolfe’s Typhon. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find anyone to take Zeus’\nrole. The bit about Typhon’s head brushing the stars and his reach extending\nto the west and east is certainly applicable. Also, when Severian finds\nTyphon, he can be thought of as entombed in a mountain.\n\nCan anyone find a stand-in for Zeus in the Sun books? Surely not Severian,\nhe’s Apollo (who according to Apollonius Rhodius killed Delphyne) or\nHercules. Nor Ymar since, if I’m right about Typhon being entombed in a\nmountain ala Mt Etna, the end of Typhon’s war with Zeus occurs shortly after\nthe prophecy of the Concilliator in the Urth of the New Sun. Perhaps\nTzadkiel? But I’m not aware of any evidence that the Hieros ever so\ncompletely fleeing before Typhon. Perhaps the war is personified in the\ndying red Sun that Severian must rejuvenate. Whadya say?\n\n-- Crush\n\nApollodorus, Book 1, Chapter 6, Section 3\n“When the gods had overcome the giants, Earth, still more enraged, had\nintercourse with Tartarus and brought forth Typhon in Cilicia, a hybrid\nbetween man and beast. In size and strength he surpassed all the offspring\nof Earth. As far as the thighs he was of human shape and of such prodigious\nbulk that he out-topped all the mountains, and his head often brushed the\nstars. One of his hands reached out to the west and the other to the east,\nand from them projected a hundred dragons' heads. From the thighs downward\nhe had huge coils of vipers, which when drawn out, reached to his very head\nand emitted a loud hissing. His body was all winged, unkempt hair streamed\non the wind from his head and cheeks; and fire flashed from his eyes. Such\nand so great was Typhon when, hurling kindled rocks, he made for the very\nheaven with hissings and shouts, spouting a great jet of fire from his\nmouth. But when the gods saw him rushing at heaven, they fled to Egypt, and\nbeing pursued they changed their forms into those of animals.\nHowever Zeus pelted Typhon at a distance with thunderbolts, and at close\nquarters struck him down with an adamantine sickle…”\n\nNote from Crush: This is, of course, the same sickle that Cronus used to\ncastrate Ouranos–that is, to “cut the link between Earth and the Heavens”\nala the Hittite myth of Ullikummi. The connection between Typhon and\nUllikummi is drawn credulously by Robert Graves as well as Hittite mythology\nscholars. Ullikummi was the child of the obscure god, Kum-arbis, who\nprecisely parallels Cronus. It was Kum-arbis who separated Earth from Heaven\nwith the knife used against Ullikummi.\n\nApollodorus continues:\n\n“…and as Typhon fled, Zeus pursued him closely as far as Mount Casius, which\noverhangs Syria. There, seeing the monster sore wounded, he grappled with\nhim. But Typhon twined about him and gripped him in his coils, and wresting\nthe sickle from him severed the sinews of his hands and feet, and lifting\nhim on his shoulders carried him through the sea to Cilicia and deposited\nhim on arrival in the Corycian cave. Likewise he put away the sinews there\nalso, hidden in a bearskin, and he set to guard them the she-dragon\nDelphyne, who was a half-bestial maiden.\nBut Hermes and Aegipan stole the sinews and fitted them unobserved to Zeus.\nAnd having recovered his strength Zeus suddenly from heaven, riding in a\nchariot of winged horses, pelted Typhon with thunderbolts and pursued him to\nthe mountain called Nysa, where the Fates beguiled the Typhon; for he tasted\nof the ephemeral fruits believing that he would be strengthened by them. So\nbeing again pursued he came to Thrace, and in fighting at Mount Haemus he\nheaved whole mountains. But when these recoiled on him through the force of\nthe thunderbolt, a stream of blood gushed out on the mountain, and they say\nthat from that circumstance the mountain was called Haemus. And when he\nstarted to flee through the Sicilian sea, Zeus cast Mount Etna in Sicily\nupon him. That is a huge mountain, from which down to this day they say that\nblasts of fire issue from the thunderbolts that were thrown. So much for\nthat subject.”"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}