Subject: (urth) sphinx etc.

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 15:22:35 +0000

Thanks for the input, Nutria.  Seven Lions is an interesting character, and if 
anyone has a divine archetype it might be him.

On another tack, had to go look up the parentage of the Sphinx.  Perhaps I was 
mistaken, too many versions of the story to keep straight.  In some myths, she 
is the daughter of Echidna and Typhon (or Orthrus or laius or Ucalegon).  
However, she was definitely sent by Hera to Thebes to punish Laius.  I knew 
Hera was somehow reponsible for her ... there are too many versions of Greek 
myths, and this is why I find the Soldier books somewhat frustrating.  Even a 
name like Pandora is fraught with too many diverse interpretations.  Sorry for 
the mistake - but still, what does "I am your mother, and your mother's 
mother" mean?!

Very good point about Latro's journey echoing Hercules - he meets the Lernean 
Hydra by the rock with a hole in it, and it does seem as though these 
creatures are the daughters of Enodia or Echidna.  However, he doesn't meet 
Anteus - when Hercules gives him advice on how to defeat Basias, he gives him 
the advice he used to defeat that earth bound creature.

Hey, there are only a few imbedded stories in the soldier series.  One deals 
with the wrath of Achilles on the last daughter of Priam, and the other deals 
with a pregnant clump of earth (since a wife doesn't fire the earth she uses 
to dupe her husband, it gets pregnant and the sons soul infests an apple tree, 
whose branch the husband uses to dupe his stepmother, and said branch kills 
both husband and wife).  I am interested in the theme of the wrath of Achilles 
in the Soldier books, since when Odysseus rips out that one guys throat for 
Latro in a fight he starts spouting about 'more blood for the wrath of 
Achilles'.  Any other evidence that Achilles is acting throughout the text?

Probably enough for now ...
Sorry again about the Sphinx, I'm confused, too.

Marc Aramini

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <katbarx at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 15:45:00 +0000

Snipping one line out of a fascinating set of notes,

>but still, what does "I am your mother, and your mother's mother" mean?!

It seems to me that if Wolfe is going to play around with Graves's concepts
and imagery _anywhere_ it would be in a story about ancient Greece, neh?
... perhaps this is an invocation/citation/statement of the all-female, the 
one-
three Goddess ... in which case the Sphinx being Echidna's daughter doesn't
prevent her from being Hera's, since both Hera and Echidna are the Mother
... I think it's time for me to reread these; it's going to be a bit of a 
wait for
Wizard-Knight anyway.

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