Subject: (urth) Fish

From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2003 00:26:06 +0000

Howdy y'all.  It seems like my brain is on fire today.  One of the 
arguments I have been expecting against my theory that Valeria is 
Severian's  sister is the fact that Fish in the Tale of a Boy called 
Frog is described as Frog's twin brother.  This only bothered me 
slightly because all throughout Graves there are indications of gender 
name change.  A God who was originally an aspect of the Goddess, but 
became masculinized.  I figured there would be a gender difference 
between Frog and Fish in either Greek or Latin.  What I found has my 
wheels turning.  Ichthys is fish in Greek, and it is very masculine.  
In fact it is used as the acronym for Christ, as well as being an 
aspect of Horus and some other sun gods.  This seems like a strike 
until I looked a little further and dug up the word Delphos, which also 
means fish (I think more correctly dolphin, though I'm not sure the 
word distinguishes between mammal and fish) and womb.  It turns out 
that the fish is an ancient symbol (allegedly) of a variety of 
goddesses and was co-opted by the masculine sun gods.  So the Tale of a 
Boy called Frog might also be read as a triumph of the masculine.  What 
troubles me is this duality.  Valeria fits the profile of Frog's twin, 
but so does Silk in a way (though it would have to be fraternal).  All 
of the embryo's on the Whorl are stored underground.  And Severian sees 
Silk as Malrubius.  It occurs to me that Malrubius might be another 
black bean, corresponding with death, and that Silk's genetic 
similarities with him make him appear as similar in his astral state.  
I think I need to just reread Long Sun.

Don

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