Janus, Juturna and the reconciliation with Ocean
The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 24 Dec 2002
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3715

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Andrew Bollen — 24 Dec 2002, 03:56

> Chris wrote:
> IMHO, there is never a problem of not having enough clues; the problem is,
> rather, that the given set of clues can produce a nearly infinite number
> of
> internally consistent hypotheses.

[snippety]

> The second possibility is to, as a reader, come up with a reading of the
> text that is as aesthetically pleasing (to you) as you can. In this sense
> we
> are in some way pushing each other to come up with more beautiful
> interpretations in consistency, form, and symmetry among other things -
> and
> in this context, what the author *meant* has little if anything to do with
> matters. One can look for the simplest explanation, but depending on your
> taste this won't always be the best.

[snip snip]

> I can't speak for anyone else, but I tend to look at things from the
> second
> perspective, which lends itself well to tolerance of many different
> interpretations.

Me too! Wolfe places demands on readers to do much of the story-telling
themselves; I like this, and I'm quite happy not to have a a "definitive"
auctorial reading available. (On the other hand, if Wolfe *did* intend
definitive readings for all the various narrative points under
discussion, then he obviously failed to give enough information. I think
enough smart people have looked closely enough at the text, for long enough,
to warrant such an assertion.)

Looking for the "simplest" explanation is rarely the best way to approach
Wolfe. The explanation with the greatest "poetic meaning" is probably the
most appropriate, as was said of Robert Graves. I agree with Crush on this,
I think: it is fruitful to approach Wolfe with the same "analeptic" mode of
enquiry that Graves brought to myths. Concretely, for Graves it was always
appropriate to ask questions such as "What song did the sirens sing?"; with
Wolfe, I believe, one is expected to ask questions such as, "What song does
Seawrack sing?", and to formulate an answer for oneself. I also agree with
Crush, I think, in believing that Graves was probably one of Wolfe's
specific inspirations, or at least a source of imagery and themes - but even
if that's not actually true, Wolfe allows at least enough narrative space,
for one to enjoyably approach the text from that direction.

Anyway, my idosyncratic reading goes like this:

The powers in the sea are one of the strongest links between New Sun and
Short Sun/Short Sun, but they remain deeply mysterious. We are given to
understand that they are inimical, wishing to extend their empire to the
land (on Urth), and a strong component of the forces arrayed against the New
Sun. (Juturna, the undine who saved Severian at the very beginning of the
cycle, tells us in UOTNS that the powers wished only to "tame" humanity, but
surely there is little difference between "taming" and "enslaving".)

And yet both Severian and SilkHorn are beloved in one way or another by
these powers. It is valid to ask the question, "Why?", and expect to find an
answer. These powers are not bound completely by time, so the answer need
not be.

I think SilkHorn performed a reconciliation with these powers, by his grace
towards their acolyte, Scylla; and possibly by the action of the Mother and
the Vanishing People. Through this reconciliation, a new
relationship between man and Ocean is established: respect, but do not
worship (as SilkHorn puts it, I believe in his wedding sermon or at any rate
towards the end of RTTW) - in contrast to the old choices, worship or
abominate.

I see in
this a serious effort by Wolfe to answer Graves' call for abandonment of
solar, male dominated theology in favor of a return to a worship of the
Mother and her Ocean; No, says Wolfe, but neither is she unclean or
horrific.

Dually, one must suppose a similar shift by the powers: respect humans, and
do not enslave them.

With this reconciliation, Blue's future is made more secure, and I believe
also that Ushas is spared. For with the universal flood, surely Abaia would
otherwise be free to dominate the world, and enslave the new race of humans.
For me, this remains a major unsolved mystery at the end of the UOTNS; and I
think that a major strand running through Short Sun/Long Sun is the
resolution of this mystery. SilkHorn's "respect but do not worship"
statement *must* be a new development over the theological context of BOTNS,
I think. If the powers remain effectively inimical, as they remain
throughout BOTNS, then surely "resist, and do not worship" would be the
appropriate slogan.

Perhaps the iteration presented in New Sun is not to be thought of as the
final refinement of Severian? Perhaps SilkHorn has "changed the story", so
that we start again, perhaps with a melded Sev/SilkHorn, and reach a
conclusion graced with a New Sun, but also with mankind and Ocean
reconciled?

Or perhaps we might think of the "man and woman deposited by a certain ship
of the caogens" at the end UOTNS as being SilkHorn and Seawrack (very
flimsy, I admit)?

There are specific connections between Severian and SilkHorn pointing both
to a deep identiication of the two, on some level, and also to this
reconciliation.

The connection between Sev and SilkHorn is signified (inter alia) by their
connection through Janus. Both Severian and SilkHorn are types of Janus.
Janus also signifies the reconciliation, because and Janus in at least one
account was married to Juturna, the goddess of springs, fountains and pools.
It seems clear to me that Janus and hiis connection to Juturna were on
Wolfe's mind; specifically, from at least the time of the writing of UOTNS.
For I can think of no other reason for the undine to take the name of such
an obscure water goddess.

As to Janus:

- First, Quadrifons. The god of doors, crosswords, "and much else", as RTTW
puts it. He is clearly Janus. The earliest depictions of Janus have four
faces - Janus Quadrions. The Olavine scene in RTTW makes the identification
very clear. She carries the key of Janus (part of his standard regalia,
along with a sceptre). Passing through the door, one passes beneath Janus'
oak. Janus, from at least the time of Fraser, has been recognized as an oak
god: his name a form of Dianus, and he is a "rustic Jupiter", as Graves puts
it. The pools beyond on the door are to me undoubtedly Juturna's. (I do not
discount also the cherub/sphinx connotations in his lion/eagle
significations, but see these as "syncretic" to the Janus signification.)
- Both SilkHorn and Severian are "two faced" in the sense they are two
personalities in one. Note that Janus was often depicted with a man's face
and a woman's, which does well for Severian.
- Apart rom his role as god of doorways, Janus was also a "culture hero" -
introducing agriculture, money and (something else?). He inaugurated the
Golden Age. He resonates with the Odin/Mercury/Gwydion "culture hero" aspect
which is very clear in SilkHorn - grain from the sky, giving law to
primitive communities, inaugurating a new religious dispensation etc - and
also in much of the "earlier" life of Severian as Conciliator. He was the
god of new beginnings, and he marked the transitions between old and new in
development of civilizations. As a form of Jupiter, the supreme god, he
therefore seems well fitted to be a god of whom SilkHorn and Sev are in some
sense "avatars" or representatives.
- Severian also carries Janus' great key (in Thrax). And "Terminus Est" -
glossed as "This is the line of division" - is an appropriate motto for
Janus in his marking of transitions between old & new.
- Quadrifons is especially holy, and his name especially "magical", perhaps
because he is dimly remembered as (the god of) the Conciliator.
- "Quadrifons", rather than "Bifrons", in accordance somehow with the
general leitmotif of doublings in New Sun/Short Sun; and perhaps speaking
directly to an amalgamation of the two "doubles", Sev and SilkHorn?

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Chris — 24 Dec 2002, 06:06
  follows, by subject match Andrew Bollen

Just a couple notes on different subjects, but at least on something less 
general than before:

I agree that Graves is very helpful in trying to understand Wolfe's work; of 
course, I also agree with someone else who posted that attempts to jam Wolfe 
into a... Graves-ian framework, aren't going to work. Comparisons tend to be 
fruitful, though.

There are also qabbalistic references here and there in his work. I only 
knew enough, at the time, to make some general inferences which have 
probably been rehashed here 20 times. However, by coincidence I picked up a 
commentary of the Sefer Yetzirah (for non-Wolfe-related reasons), and when I 
finish it I'm hoping those pieces will fall into place.

Also, w.r.t. Abaia and the undersea entities... I felt that their function 
in the story was largely allegorical- to the point that they may partially 
(or even entirely) be the invention of Severian (as an author, and aware of 
the devices of authors) to illustrate a point. Where he uses them, I find 
that nearly always the water they are submerged under is time/history, and 
the large entities like Abaia could be compared to the influence of 
long-dead nations and cultures, and possibly even dominant *ideas*, cast 
aside but reaching out to extend their largely subconscious influence on the 
present. One of the most obvious instances (if any are needed, though I 
suspect everyone's gone well over this by now) is the defeat of Baldanders 
and the potential of what he could have been: he goes back under the waters, 
swallowed by time.

Not to say that this is a universal theme applied to all segments in the 
story, it's just a sub-story alongside the story, I suppose. But I find it 
an interesting consequence that, from this point of view, the cycle must 
necessarily end with a flood.

From this way of looking at things, it would follow that while Abaia & co. 
achieve victory at the end of a cycle in a sense, they nonetheless are 
vanquished at that instant where the end of the old cycle gives way to the 
beginning of the new (though they may be reborn). I am unable to produce any 
textual evidence whether such an extinction did/did not occur, but I would 
be interested if anyone knows.

Apologies, by the way, if I have spent a great deal of time re-hashing what 
everyone has taken for granted/dismissed a long time ago; I haven't seen it 
in the archives, but I also haven't read them from beginning to end either. 
I've been babbling on far too much of late.

Chris

> Andrew wrote:
> Looking for the "simplest" explanation is rarely the best way to approach
> Wolfe. The explanation with the greatest "poetic meaning" is probably the
> most appropriate, as was said of Robert Graves. I agree with Crush on this,
> I think: it is fruitful to approach Wolfe with the same "analeptic" mode of
> enquiry that Graves brought to myths.

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