Subject: (urth) Mamelta is Kypris?

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 10:35:02 +0000

I said to Chris
>>Funny you should say that. Go back and search the
>>archives for the  discussion
>>on whether Mamelta is Kypris and Silk's mother.

Chris responded:
>Maybe something's wrong with the archives, or with my brain, but google is 
>giving me a set of hits that don't include this discussion. I looked for 
>conjunctions of "Mamelta" with both "Kypris" and "mother", separately, and 
>no dice.

Perhaps that discussion occurred during the Missing Year.

The details centered around the Mamelta appearance and Silk's dream in which
Mamelta, Marble, and Hyacinth's appearance (in Hy's case, Kypris said explicitly
that she used to look like her) are confabulated. I wish I could remember every
reference put forward right now, but I can't. 
The theory is not beyond the realm of deniability, but frankly I found it brought
so much into focus that I didn't understand about the book that I was convinced.
And subsequent realizations regarding the text confirmed it.

Maybe someone has the original emails and can repost them?

~ James Wynn

---

From: aramini1 at cox.net <aramini1 at cox.net>
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 13:04:14 +0000

This was one of my theories.  First off, her name begins with Ma, as Pas starts with Pa.  She has blue eyes, something Crane says is very rare, and so does Silk.  Silk descends the ladder and looks up at her genitals at the same time that he sees the stars, and gets the feeling of "home".  He has a vision before he runs into her that says he won't sleep until his "mother" comes, but we don't get to see that.  Instead, Mamelta shows up.  Kypris also had blue eyes and dark hair, and Silk was inexplicably attracted to Mamelta.  

I don't know if I have any of the old links.
Marc Aramini

---

From: Keltin Barney <xentrocia at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 17:04:46 +0000

I have tried, in the past, to look for another incarnation of Kypris but I 
never thought of Mamelta. I think you just may be right about this.

>From: <aramini1 at cox.net>
>Reply-To: The Urth Mailing List <urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
>To: <urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
>Subject: Re: (urth) Mamelta is Kypris?
>Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 16:10:44 -0400
>
>This was one of my theories.  First off, her name begins with Ma, as Pas 
>starts with Pa.  She has blue eyes, something Crane says is very rare, and 
>so does Silk.  Silk descends the ladder and looks up at her genitals at the 
>same time that he sees the stars, and gets the feeling of "home".  He has a 
>vision before he runs into her that says he won't sleep until his "mother" 
>comes, but we don't get to see that.  Instead, Mamelta shows up.  Kypris 
>also had blue eyes and dark hair, and Silk was inexplicably attracted to 
>Mamelta.
>
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From: nastler <nastler at yahoo.dk>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 01:08:11 +0000

Marc Aramini skrev:

You may remember that a while ago I became interested
in the idea that Mamelta was Kypris - for several
reasons. The first was her black hair and 
blue eyes - a Hyacinth look-a-like, and we know that
Kypris loves Hy because of how closely she resembles
herself as a living girl. The second was from a 
vision on page 534 of Litany of the Long Sun

"the woman who slept in the glass tube, the tube in
which he himself now slept beside Chenille, who was
Kypris, who was Hyacinth, who was Mamelta, with
Hyacinth's jet-black hair,"

Chenille and Hyacinth were both possessed by Kypris -
and since Mamelta has Hyacinth hair, and Kypris had
Hyacinth hair, and they are all related here, I
figured it would be neat if Mamelta were Kypris. Then
I found this bit of niftiness: p 424

"But quite soon now, as the swift floater sailed over
a landscape grown liquid, his mother would come to
kiss him good-night; he liked to be awake for it, to
say distinctly, 'good night to you, too Mama,' when
she left. He resolved not to sleep until she came"

Here, Silk resolves not to sleep until his mommy comes
(here, it is Mama). Well, who does he meet in the next
chapter?  Mamelta! And later, what do we get in
Epiphany of the Long Sun (Calde,actually) on page 220:
"The Outsider was the dancing man on a toy, and the
water the polished toy-top on which he danced with
Kypris, who was Hyacinth and Mother, too."

Kypris is Mother!  and she is probably Mamelta, too. 
Now I understand why the Mamelta scene is so familiar
- it is like the Dorcas scene in Shadow of the
Torturer - except instead of Grandma, we get Silk's
mom! In the scene where he leaves his body, I am
certain that the tall man with blue eyes is Pas, and 
the mother (not the one who raised him) was Mamelta.

So Silk is the son of the father of the gods and his
lover, the only creature that he has mercy for.  And
Mamelta is Kypris; she goes down and repairs the 
circuitry that allows the exodus to begin.  She dies
in the lake (as St. Mamelta does - quick note though,
on the www.Catholic.org site, Mamelta is listed as a
male saint, but female on some other ones).  So she
allows her son to begin the descent, even though she
doesn't remember him. And his love for Hyacinth ... is
really his love for his mother.

--- aramini1 at cox.net skrev:

> This was one of my theories.  First off, her name
> begins with Ma, as Pas starts with Pa.  She has blue
> eyes, something Crane says is very rare, and so does
> Silk.  Silk descends the ladder and looks up at her
> genitals at the same time that he sees the stars,
> and gets the feeling of "home".  He has a vision
> before he runs into her that says he won't sleep
> until his "mother" comes, but we don't get to see
> that.  Instead, Mamelta shows up.  Kypris also had
> blue eyes and dark hair, and Silk was inexplicably
> attracted to Mamelta.  
>

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 08:45:27 +0000

> she left. He resolved not to sleep until she came"

[...]

> Now I understand why the Mamelta scene is so familiar

Well ... and for what it's worth ... the scene is also
familiar, at least to those who have read Proust, 
because it echoes a great deal of the 'Ouverture'
from "Du Cote de Chez Swann." Young Marcel
spends a lot of time agonizing about how he can't
get to sleep unless Mama comes up and gives 
him a goodnight kiss, etc.

--Dan'l

-- 
I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
                        -- St Teresa of Avila
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 12:31:04 +0000

Re. the confabulation of Kypris, Hyacinth, Mamelta and the woman in Silk's
death vision who was his biological mother:

While it's true that Kypris said that Hy looked much like she herself had
looked when she was a real woman, I wouldn't attach too much meaning to it.
Iirc, Hy's tits were phony; who knows how much of her looks were artificial?
One thing she couldn't change was her height. Chenille said of her, "the top
of her head doesn't even hit my shoulder". She was short and petite, which
is why Silk was so amazed when she overpowered the pilot on the airship. He
made a big deal of it; it was part of what put him on the roof of the
airship contemplating suicide.

Silk's birth mother was also short. FWIW.

Mamelta, otoh, was a big girl. She was described by Silk as a "tall,
raven-haired woman".

If the silent woman in Silk's death vision, his biological mother, was
supposed to be a representation of the flesh-and-blood original of Kypris,
Typhon's mistress, what did Silk see? Was she short or tall?

-Roy

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:42:10 +0000

Roy says:
>of her head doesn't even hit my shoulder".

I believe the "looks like I used to bit" refers to her black hair and maybe
her eyes (I'll have to recheck that). Kypris used to look like Hy in the
same way she used to look like Mint (thus her attempt to possess her). She
looked like Hy in the same way and for the same reasons that Marble said
*she* looked like Teasle or Dahlia with black short hair. Black short hair
in both cases.

>[Hy] was short and petite, which

Yeah, does anything strike you as fishy about that? Like maybe he wasn't
only in dispair about Hy being too good a fighter?

>Typhon's mistress, what did Silk see? Was she short or tall?

I'm pretty sure right now that the "souls" of people in the Mainframe looked
the way they saw *themselves.*  Tartaros had no form because he had no
concept of his looks. He told Auk:
*********************
"What your augurs and sibyls see, if they see anything, is the self-image of
the god who chooses to be seen. You say that you could nearly make out the
face of my father's concubine, her self as she imagines that self to appear.
I feel confident that it was a beautiful face. I have never meta any woman
more secure in her own vanity. In the same fashion, we sound to them as we
conceive our voices to sound...What you see [of me], Auk, is that part of me
which can be seen. That is to say, nothing, I came blind from the womb, Auk,
and because of it I am incapable of formulating a visual image for you.
******************************

It seems to me that the self-images of the divine modules must have been
manipulated for Echidna or Typhon or Scylla to see themselves as monsters.
But they could not be overhauled or implanted. Tartaros implies this just
prior to this when he says that he could not be made to see even as a god.

Is it the same for humans. I believe it is, even though I don't have an
suitable *human* example. I do however have an example of a human *soul*: in
Jahlee. The Rajan is approached by a drunk woman from behind. He hears her
voice and thinks it is Chenille.
******************
"They're y'are."
I looked around at the swaying woman behind me and said, "Chenille?"
"Tha' lady on Green? No, 's me." Jahlee dropped onto Auk's stool and leaned
across the table on her hands. "Guesh my faish's not sho good, huh?"
"Don't smile," I told here.
"I won'. I'sh jush show hungry. I foun' thish woman in a alley."
"Not so loud, please."
"drank 'n drank, 'n I fell down 'n I knew I better shtop."
~ RTTW pg 155
***********************

This is about as straightforward as you get for this kind of thing from
Wolfe -- Jahlee's mother fed on Chenille. Chenille's soul is in Jahlee. She
was drunk, she sounded just like Chenille when *she* was drunk. What does
the soul in Jahlee look like?
****************************
I went over to watch Rigoglio, and in a moment more found Jahlee clinging to
me like the lianas, her body warm and damp with perspiration (as those of
inhumi never are), and fragrant with some heavy, cloying scent. Long sorrel
hair that proceeded from no wig draped us both like the vines of Silk's
arbor. When I tried to free myself from her, she grinned at me. "I've got
teeth here. Real teeth, Rajan. Adieu to my famous tight-lipped smile! Look
what I can do now." She grinned again, more broadly than ever...Jahlee
joined me there, naked still save for her long hair....I spoke to Hide.
"Honesty compels me to tell you that Jahlee is not an inhuma at present. She
is a human being here, exactly as we are, and I believe for the same
reason..."...[Hide said] "You really look a lot more like my real father
here. You're taller than he was and older, but you look more like him than
you used to."
RTTW pg 315-320
****************************

Sorrel is reddish brown color. Chenille's hair, as Roy noted in his other
post, was not red or reddish. It was dark. How dark I can't say right now;
I don't believe black, but dark. But her image of herself was having reddish
hair mingled with dark brown roots. Sorrel.

Later the Rajan described Jahlee when she is an inhuma again:
*******************************
"The third member of our party is my daughter Jahlee. She is of medium
height, red-haired and attractive, with a smooth almond-shaped face and a
sly smile many find captivating."
~ RTTW pg 20
*********************************

Is he describing her soul or the way the way she looks to others? Well, I
don't think he considers an inhuma to be his daughter, so I think he himself
is describing her soul, but it may be one in the same. Likely it is.

Sooo...what did Kypris/Silk's mother look like in the mainframe? She looked
the way she saw herself. Not as she truly looked.

I'm sorry if it seems I've made much out of little, Roy, but it is important
to clarify this point before I answer your other post.

~ J

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 13:05:38 +0000

>*she* looked like Teasle or Dahlia with black short hair. Black short hair

I'm not following you. Mint's hair was cut short, like a nun's, to
deliberately look unattractive to men. Hy was doing the opposite. The exact
quote from Kypris is: "I was there last night. Yes. But not for you. Only
because I play with Hy sometimes. Now she reminds me of the way I used to
be, but all that will be over soon. She's twenty-three." The "Now" implies
there was a time when Hy didn't look so much like her. Before the boob job
and whatever other cosmetic changes were made in a deliberate attempt by Hy
to conform her looks, so far as possible, with the image of the goddess she
saw in the monitor. She tried to do the same thing right after her wedding,
to apply cosmetics to her face in such a way as to suggest the shape of the
heart on her cheap wedding ring, with the assistance of the hotel monitor.

>Jahlee.

You can't compare the "soul" of those transported by astral projection with
computer generated images. They are unrelated. I know you're not going to
try to tell me that Oreb saw himself as a thirteen-year-old girl when they
projected to Urth. That was Scylla in him, as we all know, and she didn't
transport looking like a monster. She looked like the kid she had been at
the time she was scanned.

>The Rajan is approached by a drunk woman from behind. He hears her
>Wolfe -- Jahlee's mother fed on Chenille.

Could you give me the textual foundation for that latter supposition?

>Chenille's soul is in Jahlee. She

You meant IGJ. This is how Silk described Chenille's hair: "her tightly
curled hair was the color of ripe raspberries." (NIGHTSIDE, chap. 10) He
also called it "fiery". The cat on the hilt of the dagger was "scarlet". I
don't think any woman's idealized self-image includes dark roots showing
under hair dyed her preferred color. And I've never seen a horse the color
of raspberries. I believe her hair was short as well as curly, not long like
Jahlee's in the above quote, but I'm not sure.

>Later the Rajan described Jahlee when she is an inhuma again:

He was describing her as she looked to any humans they encountered while
traveling, the same as other inhumi trying to pass as human. It was her
disguise, an illusion. And even then she wasn't tall, like Chenille. She
looked different at different times, as in Gaon and at the farmhouse.

>the way she saw herself. Not as she truly looked.

Do you really think there was a computer terminal under all that rubble,
probing a dead man's eyes and reading a dead man's thoughts, and sending the
data to Mainframe? Silk was dead, as all those present believed. The gods of
Mainframe have no power to raise the dead, and Quetzal said so. He didn't
believe the Outsider's powers to be any different from the computer gods. He
was wrong. Silk's resurrection was a miracle orchestrated by the Outsider.
His death vision came from the Outsider, not Mainframe. So the people Silk
saw in his death vision looked exactly as the Outsider portrayed them --
unless the Outsider deceived him.

-Roy

---

From: Matt Sab <mbs808 at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 14:15:01 +0000

I didn't see this mentioned on list...

The Wizard Knight is nominated for best novel

AND

'Golden City Far' is nominated for best novella.

http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 18:15:45 +0000

I said:
>>don't think he considers an inhuma to be his daughter, so I think he
>>himself is describing her soul, but it may be one in the same. Likely it
>>is.

>looked different at different times, as in Gaon and at the farmhouse.

I disagree. The Rajan didn't describe her at this point has having *many*
faces. He is describing an event in the past but describes *her* in the
present tense suggesting continuous action. Kind of like the difference
between "esta" and "es". Not "sometimes she looks like..." but "she looks
like...". Furthermore, he described her using her explicit appearance of her
soul during dream-travel. You're welcome to any opinion you wish, but I'm
not going along.

And why on earth would you think Jahlee would have to physically look like
Chenille to have her soul? We don't agree on much, I know, but I know you to
be a careful reader. Do you really *really* believe the inhuma *actually*
looked physically like the persons whose souls they inherited? Physically,
she didn't look anything like Chenille. Physically, Krait didn't look
anything like Sinew. Unless they chose for humans to see them that way
(which btw is exactly the people see the gods in the Mainframe, according to
Tartaros). In the dark bar, the Rajan heard the tenor of her voice and for a
moment believed it was Chenille. I don't think there is any other reasonable

explanation for that.

Roy responded:
>probing a dead man's eyes and reading a dead man's thoughts, and sending
>the data to Mainframe? Silk was dead, as all those present believed. The
>gods of Mainframe have no power to raise the dead, and Quetzal said so.
>He didn't believe the Outsider's powers to be any different from the
>computer gods. He was wrong. Silk's resurrection was a miracle
>orchestrated by the Outsider. His death vision came from the Outsider,
>not Mainframe. So the people Silk saw in his death vision looked exactly
>as the Outsider portrayed them -- unless the Outsider deceived him.

1) As for "reading a dead man's thoughts" Wolfe doesn't explain how the
Mainframe reads the thoughts of dead people to permit Remora and Hyacinth
and Silk talk to their mothers when they go to the Sun's end. That ship has
sailed. Whether you find it believable or not (I find it tough to swallow,
myself), it is really beyond hand-wringing as far as the novels go.

2) Someone else also recently asserted that Silk was not in the Mainframe
but actually in Heaven. This is how the scene is described:
*************************
     The Trivigante airship was a brown beetle, infinitely remote, the
Aureate Path so near he knew it could not be his final destination.
     He lighted upon it, and found it a road of tinsel down a whorl no
bigger than an egg. Where were the lowing beasts? The spirits of the other
dead?
************************
The text here supports the reading that he was in Heaven, that Silk was not
*merely* in the Mainframe.However, it also supports the naturalistic reading
as well. Silk IS on the Mainframe's "Aureate Path" as the text says (unless
you think Wolfe is suggesting there is a tinsel road to Heaven) but from
where he is he can note that it is not the ultimate goal or even much of a
goal at all. It is tinsel...phony. Like the "clockwork" nature he discovered
the Whorl to have when he was enlightened. So are these people in the
Mainframe or are they from the true afterlife? It seems to me that Wolfe is
having it both ways.

Anyway it doesn't really matter as far as the current question is concerned.
"The Short Sun" segment makes it clear that the appearance of souls is the
same for *real* human souls.

>deliberately look unattractive to men. Hy was doing the opposite.

I don't consider that relevant.

>The exact
>saw in the monitor.

a) Your theory about what Kypris meant by "now" is interesting. I'm not so
sure that's what she meant, nor what "soon" meant to her (as in "that will
be over soon"), and Kypris doesn't elaborate.

b) Do you think Hy could see the goddess although she was not a virgin? I
think Tartaros stated unambiguously that that was it was not possible for
men who had slept with women or women who had had sex with men to see god or
goddess.

>>I don't believe black, but dark. But her image of herself was having
>>reddish hair mingled with dark brown roots. Sorrel.

>This is how Silk described Chenille's hair: "her tightly
>of raspberries. I believe her hair was short as well as curly, not long
>like Jahlee's in the above quote, but I'm not sure.

I don't consider that relevant.

J

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 22:31:12 +0000

>soul during dream-travel. You're welcome to any opinion you wish, but I'm

What continuous action? He also described himself and Hide and Oreb in the
present tense a few pages earlier. And Oreb still looked just like a night
chough, "smaller than a hen", not the puffed up thing he was during astral
travel. Jahlee was a wicked inhuma. She looked as desirable as she could
make herself look just to tempt Hide and Silkhorn and any other man she
could. She was an animal.

>looked physically like the persons whose souls they inherited?

No. That seemed to me to be what _you_ were trying to establish with the
sorrel hair and the quotes about how Jahlee looked during astral travel.

>Physically,
>moment believed it was Chenille. I don't think there is any other
>reasonable explanation for that.

The inhumi don't have vocal cords anymore than they have hair. Fake voice or
fake face, what's the difference? Part of the problem here is that I don't
concede Jahlee contains Chenille's "soul", and I have yet to see proof she
does. Was it the Chenille in her that caused her to try to kill Nettle?

>myself), it is really beyond hand-wringing as far as the novels go.

Not quite. Either Silk died and went to Mainframe or he didn't. If he did
(ignoring the how of it), the data went to the computer. When he came back
to life, what happened to the data? If it was erased, who erased it? If it
wasn't erased, the computer contains invalid data which, given Silk's
importance to the plans of Pas, should have caused major ripples in the
schemes of the ship's gods. If when he died he didn't go to Mainframe,
things would go on as before, which is what happened, as I see it.

>but actually in Heaven. This is how the scene is described:

I don't think Silk went to "Heaven". His soul just left his body briefly.
Somewhere someone in LS said something to the effect that gods can only
communicate with people by using symbols and terms that they can understand.
The only concept of an afterlife Silk was familiar with was what he had been
taught about Mainframe afterlife. So that's how the Outsider communicated
with him.

>men who had slept with women or women who had had sex with men to see god
or

If he did, he was wrong. Sometime after his wedding night, while on the
airship, Silk saw Kypris again, when she made him that famous offer to
become Pas. (EXODUS, 346) So, yes, I believe Hy could see Kypris.

-Roy

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 07:57:02 +0000

Well, Roy, most of your last response was merely argumentative. I guess we disagree about Jahlee and that's that. I wish you had tried harder, though.

>>Chenille to have her soul? We don't agree on much, I know, but I know you
>>to be a careful reader. Do you really *really* believe the inhuma *actually*

>sorrel hair and the quotes about how Jahlee looked during astral travel.

Oh. I see. You misunderstood. I was saying that the Rajan was describing her soul, not her physical appearance.

>fake face, what's the difference?

Errr...because the Rajan explicitly misstook that voice for Chenille's. And it is clear from her response to the Rajan that Jahlee was not intending to mimic her. And we have the parallel example of Tartaros stating the the voices of the simulations are as they perceive them to be. You're not even trying, here. 

>Part of the problem here is that I don't
>concede Jahlee contains Chenille's "soul", and I have yet to see proof
>she does.

Yes. But that reasoning is circular, since you haven't noted any proof that *would* convince you, and I doubt there is any.

>Was it the Chenille in her that caused her to try to kill Nettle?

That's a silly refutation. The nature of the inhumi's inherited souls is clearly defined enough for you to be able to distinguish it from "possession". 

I guess we've done all the damage we're going to do here. I'll move on to your other post.

J

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 10:15:26 +0000

--- "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:

> >men who had slept with women or women who had had
> sex with men to see god
> or
> >goddess.
> 
If he did, he was wrong. Sometime after his wedding
night, while on the
airship, Silk saw Kypris again, when she made him that
famous offer to
become Pas. (EXODUS, 346) So, yes, I believe Hy could
see Kypris.

OR, Silk and Hyacinth did not consumate their vows. 
Why this would be, I'm not sure, but it could be the
reason Silk was suicidal on the airship.

Don

---

From: Jason Willard <funesmem6 at msn.com>
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 11:54:15 +0000

What about the old Crying Game theory brought up some time ago?
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: don doggett<mailto:kingwukong at yahoo.com> 
  To: The Urth Mailing List<mailto:urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net> 
  Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 12:15 PM
  Subject: Re: (urth) Mamelta is Kypris?

  Don

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 12:17:04 +0000

>reason Silk was suicidal on the airship.

He had sex alright; he bragged to Horn about it while on the roof of the
airship:
*************************************
"I won't ask if you've lain with a woman, Horn; it's too personal a matter
to broach save in shriving, and I know you too well to shrive you. Should
you wish to be shriven, I hope you'll go to Patera Remora."
    "All right."
    "I had not until my wedding night. Indeed, it remains my only such
experience. You needn't tell me that Hyacinth has lain with scores of men. I
knew it and was acutely conscious of it; so was she. I can't say what our
experience meant to her, and perhaps it meant little or nothing. To me it
was wonderful. Wonderful! I came to her as one starving. And yet?"
    Still very frightened, Horn jerked his head. "I know."
    "Good. I'm glad you understand. There was a taint that came from neither
Hyacinth nor me, but from the act itself. After two hours, or about that, I
rested. We had done what men and women do more than once, and more than
twice. I was happy, exhausted, and soiled. I felt that Echidna,
particularly, was displeased; and I doubt that I would have had the courage
if I had not rejected her in my heart after her theophany. You were there, I
know."
    Horn nodded again. "She's a very great goddess, Cald?."
    "She is. Great and terrible. It may be that I was wrong to reject her?I
won't argue the point. I only say that I had, and felt as I did. As I've
said, the Outsider enlightened me a second time then. I won't tell you all
that he told me?I couldn't. But one thing was that he created Pas. The
Seven, as everyone knows, are the children of Pas and Echidna; it had never
occurred to me to wonder whence they themselves came." (EXODUS, 341)
*************************************************

I think this quote answers Crush's question, which was:

>>Sooo...how does Silk see Kypris and Pas at the end of The Long Sun after
his wedding night with Hy when it is a rule that he cannot if he, as a man,
has had sex with a woman?<<

My conservative opinion is that Silk's rejection, in his heart, of Echidna
is what allowed him to continue to see the gods in violation of her rule. In
other words, the inability of those with carnal knowledge to see the gods
was a function of belief. The Outsider outranked the gods, and Echidna was a
hypocrite. The taint Silk felt goes back to Genesis.

-Roy

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 12:31:49 +0000

> hypocrite. The taint Silk felt goes back to Genesis.
Obviously from the text, Silk and Hy had sex.  I
recall now that one of the theophanies in a window
shows a reconstituted Pas choking the life out of
Echidna.  My guess is that this is when Scylla fled
into Oreb and when Echidna's ban ceased to have
effect.

Don

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 17:10:05 +0000

Don said:
>I recall now that one of the theophanies in a
>window shows a reconstituted Pas choking the
>life out of Echidna.  My guess is that this is when
>Scylla fled into Oreb and when Echidna's ban ceased
>to have effect.

So, you figure that the Echidna interface is a security module that
prevented the other modules from displaying their forms to the human
"objects" if they do not meet the required criteria. With Echidna on the
run, she shut down her security functions to reserve power for hiding from
Pas or she had become too corrupted to perform that task. It's not bad
supposing. It's conceivable.

But I think it is suggested that the "Echidna Rule" continued 20 years
afterward. In RTTW pg 110, the Rajan was talking to Hound in Viron:

***********************
     "Does Scylla appear in your Sacred Windows?"
     "Oh, that...Not like it used to be I suppose. She comes to the window
in the Grand Manteion two or three times a year, or the augurs say she
does."
~ RTTW pg 110
***********************

Now this could be read to say that Hound simply had never been at the Grand
Manteion when the theophanies occurred. But the way he says it, as though
"of course I didn't see with my own eyes", makes me think that the augurs
saw her because they had not had sex with a woman and reported it to Hound
because as a married man he had.

So I think this suggests the Echidna was not *the* security control. The
original Echidna was the one that insisted all of the divine interfaces
(gods) had that control, and so that was the way it worked regardless of the
persistence or corruption of the Echidna interface.

J

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 22:08:38 +0000

> afterward. In RTTW pg 110, the Rajan was talking to

Or it could be that there are few functioning windows
anymore.  Half the time the Whorl is in a state of
interrupted power.  Whatever the case, I don't think
that Tartaros was wrong in the way Roy seems to be
suggesting. At the time he spoke, the "rule" was in
effect.  Something must have changed and it appears to
have something to do with Pas' return.

Don 

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