{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/452", "note": "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.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 452, "subject": "Forgotten Names", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-03-28T19:21:00+00:00", "last": "1998-03-29T18:11:56+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com" }, "date": "1998-03-28T19:21:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Forgotten Names", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #2316394 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#\n\nraster,\n\nRight re: Dux Caesidius. He died the year before Severian returned\nto Urth (and there was that dead assassin in the Second House; are\nthese two deaths related?). In addition to the Claudius theme, I\nbelieve the scenario shows us that Severian hasn't fully learned the\nlesson of the Storm on Gyoll south of Os, which was raised because of\nhis jealousy regarding Burgundofara and Captain H. That is to say,\nthe same sort of thing happens--Severian's \"ID Monster\" raises the dead\nassassin and allows it to kill Valeria for her infidelity, but in\nthis case by way of a familiar (to Severian) mechanism exactly that of\njudge (who hands down death sentence, but doesn't execute it) and\ntorturer (who executes but doesn't judge) which leaves two people\n\"guiltless\" (persons one step removed) and one person dead.\n\n(Wasn't \"Duxbellorum\" one of historical King Arthur's titles?)\n\nTo which I'd like to add a new speculation regarding Holy Katharine,\npatron saint of Severian's guild. I remain puzzled as to Severian's\nrather quick and callous murder of Prefect Prisca (V, ch. 36), a move\nwe know was instrumental in breaking the guild of jailers into the\nguild of torturers and the guild of witches (attributed to Ymar). I\nhave failed to find any case of Jesus doing something like this\nwomanslaying, nor any clear mythic link. Yet it just might be that\nthis tyrannicide is transformed into the yearly atonement ritual for\nHoly Katharine.\n\nRe: planets. I now tend to think Abaddon is the word for \"subspace\"\n(which makes much more sense). Don't forget \"Serenus\" aka Jupiter\naka \"Bethor.\"\n\nRe: G17. Perhaps they have \"Correct Thought\" versions of politburo\ntitles? (Since GW has said G17 comes from soviet politburo.)\n\"Number 2 is dead--long live Number 2!\"\n\nRe: carbon dating personal names of Urth. The paradox of our world\nwhere such modern sounding names as \"Catherine\" are applied to such\nancient saints, and saints of several centuries later have such\nunusual \"ancient\"-sounding, exotic names. As alga pointed out, Jonas\nis an Old Testament name, suggesting (perhaps tentatively) that this\ncharacter comes from a pre-Conciliator period (let alone the whole\nissue of how the biblical \"Jonah\" story shapes the Urth adventures of\nJonas).\n\nSo \"modern\" names can be ancient and \"ancient\" names can be modern,\ndepending on the overall theory (i.e., \"the what's-the-point? point\"\nin vernacular) in play.\n\nHow about names for the quarters of Nessus? My newest theory is that\n\"Algedonic Quarter\" is the Latinate officialese form given to a dead\n(but not yet forgotten) quarter, referring in this case to the\ntorturers and the prostitutes to be found there. The people\nof a living quarter refer to it by some landmark: their use of the\nterm \"Old Citadel\" implies there is a \"(newer) Citadel\" (presumably\nthe citadel of the archon of Nessus); Dorcas goes home to \"Oldgate,\"\nwhich is now a nameless ruin but had a living name when Dorcas was\nfirst there forty years earlier.\n\nSo across the river from the Algedonic Quarter we have the khan of\nNight and a lion pit as two famous features. What might the Latinate\nname of that quarter be?\n\nDead languages: on Urth we have quasi-Latin and pseudo-Greek in some\nuse, both using alphabets; we also have a \"crimson teratoid sign\"\nreferred to as \"a glyph from some tongue beyond the shores of Urth\"\n(II, ch. 18). What language analog does this belong to?\n\n\"Glyph\" is used to describe elements of written Hebrew, I believe. But\nthe hierodules, who use Hebraic terms for planets, seem to describe a\nsigil of \"snake biting its own tail\" as the symbol for Urth (III, ch.\n33). True--a culture can use both symbol and glyph; or there could\nbe two different cultures.\n\nHard to say. I should probably re-read Borges's THE BOOK OF\nIMAGINARY BEINGS, which Wolfe cites as the origin of Baldanders; maybe\nthere's an answer therein.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "C R Culver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-03-29T01:25:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Forgotten Names", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mantis said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Severian's \"ID Monster\" raises the dead assassin and allows it to kill\nValeria for her infidelity<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Um, doesn't Severian find out she remarried *after* he revives the assassin? I\nblieve Odilo or Pelagia tells him after the Flood.\nAnd there always seemed something Christly about Severian's revival of the\nassassin, as he is giving even sinners a new life after death." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "their use of the term \"Old Citadel\" implies there is a \"(newer) Citadel\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(presumably the citadel of the archon of Nessus)<<\n\nAre you sure \"old\" is capitalised? And yes, the archon has to be somewhere.\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Charles Dye", "address": "raster at highfiber.com" }, "date": "1998-03-29T18:11:56+00:00", "subject": "re: (urth) Forgotten Names", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: m.driussi at genie.geis.com\nSubject: (urth) Forgotten Names" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Re: planets. I now tend to think Abaddon is the word for \"subspace\"\n(which makes much more sense). Don't forget \"Serenus\" aka Jupiter\naka \"Bethor.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You're right on Serenus -- I'd completely forgotten that one. I'll\nhave to disagree on Abaddon, as Severian lists it among \"worlds\" and\n\"spheres of ... cindery hills where lava rivers flow\" But perhaps\nthe name of a planet was later applied to a plane, or vice versa." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How about names for the quarters of Nessus? My newest theory is that\n\"Algedonic Quarter\" is the Latinate officialese form given to a dead\n(but not yet forgotten) quarter, referring in this case to the\ntorturers and the prostitutes to be found there. The people\nof a living quarter refer to it by some landmark: their use of the\nterm \"Old Citadel\" implies there is a \"(newer) Citadel\" (presumably\nthe citadel of the archon of Nessus); Dorcas goes home to \"Oldgate,\"\nwhich is now a nameless ruin but had a living name when Dorcas was\nfirst there forty years earlier." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Given the definite article and the caps, I still assume that the\nAlgedonic Quarter is a specific name for a specific part of the city:\n\"the Echopraxia is in the Algedonic Quarter,\" not \"the Echopraxia is\nan algedonic quarter.\" Moreover, I'm not even sure that the torturers'\ntower is really within that Quarter. The peltast on the bridge places\nthe Old Citadel at the edge of the Algedonic Quarter, but Roche implies\nthat the Citadel is outside the Quarter. Do you have a derivation for\nthat word \"algedonic?\"\n\nTopic veer: \"algedonic\" sounds like it might have been a name for a\nwing of the House Absolute, doesn't it? We have the Hypogeum\nAmaranthine and the Hypogeum Apotropaic. Would Master Ultan's stacks\nconnect with a \"Hypogeum Athenaeum?\" Never mind.\n\nraster at highfiber.com" } ] } ] }