Subject: (urth) Quadrifons & Juturna

From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 02:57:14 +0000

Did anybody ever work out what the deal with Quadrifons is? Going  back thru the archives, I see suggestions that Quadrifons is the name of a cherub. I'm sure that's true, but I'm also sure that the more relevant association is with Janus, in his four-faced aspect - Janus Quadrifons. After all, the text describes Quadrifons as "the god of doors and crossroads, and much else", which sounds pretty much like Janus to me. 

Assuming the connection with Janus is intended, why "Quadrifons" rather than the more usual "Bifrons"? 

Janus was married to the nymph Juturna, the goddess of springs and wells. Wolfe presumably knows this, but what's it supposed to mean?  Like all of these speculations, anything you can make of it is based on the flimsiest textual evidence; but I wonder if Juturna is the Undine Scylla and Silk speak with at the end of RTTW; and whether somehow Juturna's interest in Severian stems form this? Dunno! 

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 14:53:58 +0000

At 08:57 PM 12/20/2002, you wrote:
>Did anybody ever work out what the deal with Quadrifons is? Going  back 
>thru the archives, I see suggestions that Quadrifons is the name of a 
>cherub. I'm sure that's true, but I'm also sure that the more relevant 
>association is with Janus, in his four-faced aspect - Janus Quadrifons. 
>After all, the text describes Quadrifons as "the god of doors and 
>crossroads, and much else", which sounds pretty much like Janus to me.
>

         Cherubim have four faces. Sphinxes are a one-faced form of the 
cherub. Being cats, they guard crossroads (as you know if you have a cat; 
look where he/she likes to sit: where he can watch up and down the halls 
and into the rooms). Cherubim guard doors, particularly the door into Eden.

Nutria

>
>Janus was married to the nymph Juturna, the goddess of springs and wells. 
>Wolfe presumably knows this, but what's it supposed to mean?  Like all of 
>these speculations, anything you can make of it is based on the flimsiest 
>textual evidence; but I wonder if Juturna is the Undine Scylla and Silk 
>speak with at the end of RTTW; and whether somehow Juturna's interest in 
>Severian stems form this? Dunno!
>

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From: Josh Geller <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 16:05:57 +0000

> and into the rooms). Cherubim guard doors, particularly the door into Eden.

My first thought, which apparently did not occur to GW, was Trimurti (the
syncretic Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva being the One God
(or reasonable facsimile of same) in various Indian religions), Who is
always represented with *four* faces rotated ninety degrees from each
other. There are a number of different readings as to why four faces; the
most mundane one is so that three of them will be visible from any point
around a freestanding idol. Some of the more interesting ones have to do
with more-than-three-dimensional geometry (as do some of the more
interesting reasons why Indian gods generally have a multiplicity of
limbs).

.

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