# sphinx etc. *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 09 May 2003* > 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. --- ### maa32 *09 May 2003, 15:22* 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 --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *09 May 2003, 15:45 · follows maa32* 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. ---