{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/458", "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": 458, "subject": "Greek to me", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1998-03-29T14:31:44+00:00", "last": "1998-03-29T14:31:44+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "al at interport.net" }, "date": "1998-03-29T14:31:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Greek to me", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "3) Valeria's second husband (who *was* he? any ideas?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This one, at least, we know. Dux Caesidius was one of Severian's military\ncommanders during the Ascian War. He never appears in the texts, but we\ndo know that he looks something like Severian himself.\n\"Dux\" is, I believe, a Latin word meaning \"leader,\" a cognate to \"duke.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, \"dux\" means \"leader\" in Latin, and is still used for \"head boy\" in\nScottish schools (OED)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "4) The names of the planets beside Urth, Verthandi, Skuld, and Dis.\n6) The previous Lictor of Thrax.\n7) Cyriaca's husband.\n8) The name of Dorcas' (\"Cas\") husband.\n9) The Cumaean's real name, if any." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think she may be an unhumu ;-)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "10) The name (and purpose) of Baldanders' undine." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Oddly enough, one of the undines has essentially the same name as the\nlake where Baldanders's castle stands: Juturna = Diuturna, as \"diurnal\"\nbecame our \"journal.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It really is the same name, which indicates to me that she was the nymph of\nthe lake before she grew so large, thus by extension she does in a way\nbelong to Baldanders, or maybe he to her." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Wasn't \"Duxbellorum\" one of historical King Arthur's titles?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. With the words separated, I think." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To 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." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmmm. Does that mean that you did find biblical/mythological links to most\nof Sev's other deadly acts? Gosh....what about the sizzling of li'l Sev?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Re: planets. I now tend to think Abaddon is the word for \"subspace\"\n(which makes much more sense" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, it does. It's Milton's word for the pit of hell (Hebrew: destruction).\nOf course, TBOTNS is full of hell imagery." }, { "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." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, the \"alge\" part of the word in Latin refers to cold, which would work\nhere. But in Greek, it refers to pain, which I think works better. (OED\nagain)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So 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?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Noxious? Leontine?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dead 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?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Greek. It means \"monstrous\" and refers to medical malformations." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Glyph\" is used to describe elements of written Hebrew, I believe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Glyph is also Greek, used to describe carvings or symbols.\n\nI'd say Greek wins in a walk.\n\nThanks, Damien, for stations of the cross. And for lively Peace piece!\n\nSeth, Disclave is dead for this year. And if you're going to join our list\n(I hope you do), it would be wise for you to skim the Archives. If you had\ndone so, you'd already know that.\n\n-a-" } ] } ] }