{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6746", "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": 6746, "subject": "Short Story 206*: The Hour of the Sheep", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2015-04-28T14:53:23+00:00", "last": "2015-04-28T14:53:23+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-28T14:53:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 206*: The Hour of the Sheep", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "#THE HOUR OF THE SHEEP\n\n\"The Hour of the Sheep\" first appeared in *Fast Forward 1* in 2007 and has\nnever been collected.\n\n##Summary\n\nAt the suggestion of the President-Protector, Tiero of Trin considers how\nto write a book on swordsmanship and self-defense, which he has decided to\nentitle *Swords for Peace*. Speaking into his vphone to dictate it, he\nconsiders that he is not a great talker, and that the resulting manuscript\nwill be too wordy and diffuse, so he takes up a pen \"and the little\nivory-handled pen knife Mother had given him in the year before her death.\"\n\nHe vows to write his book by hand and then read it into the vprint, and\nthinks that, since the President-Protector suggested it, his manuscript\nwill of course be published. \"It would be published; and he - Tiero, now\ncalled the greatest swordsman alive - would look an arrant fool unless it\nwere insightful and decently written.\"\n\nHe vows to write as well as he can and avoid fine turns of phrase, and\nthinks of his father's story of a temple in Attenis with a statue of the\ngoddess:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Her whole posture offered blessing and forgiveness to an erring\nhumankind. The people loved her and wished to make her statue more\nbeautiful still, so they covered her lovely body with a gown of purple silk\nand put polychrome beads around her neck. For a time her feet puzzled them,\nsince they were one with the block of marble upon which she stood. At last\nthey cut the soles from a pair of black leather pumps and cemented them to\nthe feet of their image of the goddess. When they had added a brown hat\nwith a long scarlet feather, they declared their work at an end. And every\nvisitor to Attenis was shown their beautiful goddess." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He thinks how proud his father, a schoolmaster, would be to see his son at\ncourt, and remembers his father's advice:\n\"First tell them what you're going to tell them Tiero. Then tell them. And\nwhen you've told them, tell them what you've told them. That is nine-tenths\nof teaching.\"\n\nTire describes the five hours of the sword that must be mastered \"to be\nsafe in the streets and to make the streets safe for others.\"\n\nThe first is the Hour of the Sheep, that of relaxation when one is off\nguard, which must be left behind before leaving one's house.\n\nThe second is the Hour of the Lion, representing watchfulness, always\nlooking for signs of danger but not fearing it.\n\nThe third is the Hour of the Tiger, or of heightened awareness, when danger\nhas been identified and the situation must be assessed for advantages and\ndisadvantages.\n\nThe fourth is the Hour of the Bull, ready for the attack as it starts, for\n\"*We are not sheep to stand empty-eyed, awaiting the blow.*\"\n\nThe bull transitions to the last hour, that of the Wolf, in the heat of\nbattle, \"*and wolflike slaying man after man. Behold the empty eyes of our\nfoes, those who thought to surprise us, themselves surprised!*\"\n\nHe goes on to talk of a hypothetical foe and his tactics - considering if\nhe is old or young, lame or hale, brave or cautious, and hearing what\nwitnesses have to say of his style and predilections. \"*If we are to defend\nourselves on the streets, still more if we are to render those streets safe\nfor the defenseless, we must learn all we can about those who have made\nthem dangerous.*\"\n\nHe considers how his book will look on the shelf, and decides to dedicate\nit to the President-Protector, and continues his writing on learning of the\nweapons of one's enemies, concluding, \"*If our minds are our own best\nweapons - and they are, never doubt it - are not the minds of our foes\ntheir best weapons also? We may deride the foes we find in the streets as\nmen of little education, but they too have learned.*\"\n\nAt this point he considers people will ask him about his encounters in the\nstreet, \"Yet there had been none.\" His lessons and the duels leading up to\nhis proclamation as the greatest swordsman of all were held in a regulated,\ncontrolled environment.\n\"And here he was, wielding the pen instead of the sword. Reciting, like any\nother student, his masters' secondhand opinions. It would not do.\"\n\nHe picks up his sword, seeing that its dial contained a full charge and\nplaying with its \"demon stone\" to produce an energy blade \"aglow with fell\nTyrian energy\" whose length he can control.\n\nHe dresses gaudily and goes out to look for trouble in the Questing\nQuarter, \"that very quarter of the city he had scrupulously avoided all his\nlife.\"\n\nIt is so called because people go there to gamble and to seek out mates and\ndrink there. \"Fifty years before, it had been popular and fashionable. It\nwas worn, hard, and a trifle dirty now. When it was frequented by persons\nof quality, as it sometimes was still, they were generally men who hoped\nthat poverty and perversion might season lives grown stale.\"\n\nHe enters a tavern eyeing everyone with hostility, but no trouble\ntranspires. He walks the streets, and \"once a drunken roisterer nearly\nvomited on his boots; he skipped quickly to one side and reflected that it\nwas his closest approach to danger.\"\n\nHe enters a brothel and sits there, regarding the women until they are\nmostly gone, and then selecting none of them. One of the prostitutes calls\na bouncer with a cudgel who proclaims, \"I don't want no trouble with you.\"\nTiero sees that the man is regarding his right hand, and uses his left to\npull out his energy sword and incinerate the man's club [Tiero's subterfuge\nis here probably extraneous, given the different ranges of their weapons].\n\nHe walks outside in the dark as the moon rises, but does not find trouble.\nHe enters a gambling den and makes two large bets, then displays his wealth\nto tempt robbers: \"If this would not do it, noting would. Nothing did,\nclearly.\"\n\nAfter patrolling almost to the edge of the district, he turns around, and\nfinally hears a woman scream as three men attempt to push her into a coach\ndoor. He runs to defend her, and the attackers wield burning swords - he\nsevers one man's arm and then struggles with the second for a bit before\nfelling him as well. The third gets away in the coach. The woman kisses him\nin gratitude, stuttering in her fright as he waves down a jitney to take\nthem away from the Questing Quarter. She says the man is a suitor, and that\nshe knew the cruel fate of his first wife, one that Tiero would not\nbelieve, claiming she killed herself.\n\nTiero says he understands why the man wants her, for she is the most\nbeautiful woman in the world, and she in turn tells him how comely he is.\nShe asks if he is married, and he responds, \"Now you'll wonder whether I\nkilled a wife, or drove one to suicide. I've never had one.\"\n\nShe recognizes his name and says she is Corlane Ryki Marella,\nChatelaine-minor di Mirbellos. Tiero realizes her father is supposedly the\nLord of Mirbellos, and she his unmarried eldest daughter.\n\nShe says she is his only daughter, continuing, \"I'd never lie to you,\nTiero. Not after what you did. Never! And now you are getting all\nrespectful ... and I don't want that. Call me Ryki. It's what all my\nfriends call me, I assure you, and if you're not a friend, who is?\"\n\nShe says the man in the coach, whose name is Mercus, will go to her\nfather's house and inquire if she is there, probably trying to bribe a\nservant named Aengius. She asks to go to Tiero's house instead.\n\nLater, at ease from their recreation, Tiero whispers into his vprint to\ncontinue his book, claiming that while knives and cudgels are the usual\nweapons wielded by thugs, he has been forced to engage three men with\nswords." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"*That such situations are ever fraught with danger, I need hardly say." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When engagement cannot be avoided - as in my own case - the swordsman must\nabove all know that he faces an additional foe: time. If he does not win\nquickly, he will not win at all. In my own case I parried the thrust of an\nattacker with ease, and dispatched the maker of it at once. The second died\nnearly as fast. The third -*\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At this point, the door of Tiero's lodgings was kicked down by a red-faced" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mercus. A moment later Mercus shouted, \"Deceiver! Adulteress!\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He shouted these things indeed, and more; but being a man of some\nexperience in these matters, he did not shout them until the point of his\nblade had found Tiero's throat." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "##Commentary\n\nWhile it is easy to identify Tiero's brand of heroism and gallantry as\nfalse and self-serving, there is still a slight bit of sympathy for the\nfalse bravado that Tiero employs: underneath all the things he has learned,\nhe doubts that he actually deserves his reputation, and knows that he has\nto prove it. His failure is in believing that the Hour of the Sheep could\nonly occur before his encounters, and only in looking for masculine, direct\nfoes. However, he has no one to blame for his death but himself - the\ndifference between bravery and foolhardiness can be subtle - though it\nisn't in this case, since Tiero spends enormous effort looking for a fight.\nMercus returns to catch him completely unaware in his own home, as he\nboasts of easily defeating the three swordsmen ... ironically just as the\nthird one, whose ears should be ringing from his mention, kicks in Tiero's\ndoor and kills him. The final passage is dripping with the kind of irony\nWolfe loves: claiming that the fight was unavoidable, Tiero had to look for\nit all night long, patrolling up and down and trying to start fights - so\nunavoidable as to remain almost undiscovered.\n\nAs far as his prowess in battle, Tiero proves capable of defeating enemies\nwhen he is prepared (and when his weaponry, \"fell Tyrian energy\",\novermatches the bouncer's club, though he does fight two men with burning\nswords in saving Mercus's adultery-minded wife). Tiero's advice and\ninstruction are actually fairly interesting and well thought out examples,\nthough he allows, as most of Wolfe's characters do, his unconscious ego and\nbias to distract him from the actual lesson of his book. Once again we have\na narrator deluding himself, though in this case the overall societal ennui\nand decadence clearly contribute to his attitude: he has been proclaimed\n\"the greatest swordsman of all\" with no real experience, but he was not the\none who made that proclamation. Indeed, it is his lingering doubt that he\nactually knows anything that isn't just regurgitated that sets him upon his\nbelligerent path of smug self-destruction.\n\nThe fine irony is present throughout: Mercus's wife claims she would never,\never lie to Tiero, but she does not even reveal her own name, instead\npretending to be someone else and fabricating an excuse to go to his house\n- for she clearly cannot have him take her to her husband Mercus's home\nafter just escaping his clutches. Tiero was only looking for a very\nparticular type of obvious foe, unaware of the weapons \"Ryki\" could employ.\n\nOne of Wolfe's most straightforward stories, it is quite clear that the\nwife of Mercus uses flattery to garner the protection of a \"white knight\",\ntrapping him with her wiles in the titular Hour of the Sheep. The society,\nbesides having the feel of an Italian Renaissance setting run to\ndissipation and decadence as could be penned by Fritz Leiber or Jack Vance,\nthough it is clearly science fiction. All of the duels and fights which\nTiero has participated in have been regulated and controlled, like an\namateur pugilist or fencer who has never fought outside a very particular\nset of rules, and he justifiably wonders if the skills he has been taught\nare just rote nonsense cast down from teachers or if they actually have\npractical application. Ostensibly, the motive of the book is to defend\nothers - but no one is there to defend Tiero from the woman he saves, for\nhe lacks the complete picture to make a sound decision. Tiero, paying lip\nservice to the ideal of making the street a safer place, actually acts in\nhis night out recklessly and almost as a bully to try to promote a fatal\ntrouble that still takes hours and hours to find. His reverence for the\n\"President-Protector\" is also ironic, for in seeking to impress him and\njustify what could have been an insincere and offhand remark in polite\nconversation (which could have run, \"Oh, you are a sword master? You should\nwrite a book ...\"), no one is there to protect Tiero from his own\nself-congratulatory naivety.\n\n##Names\n\nThe names have a certain Vanceian feel to them: the over-confident Tiero of\nTrin, the merciless Mercus, and the duplicitous Chatelaine-minor di\nMirbellos, Corlane Ryki Marella. In general, they seem a mixture of Romance\nlanguages without being purely Italian or Latin (in modern Italian, the\nproper names would all almost certainly end in a vowel rather than the -s\nor -us of the older Latin style.)\n\nTiero is an Italian family name which implies \"strong army\" ... and though\nthere is a small city in Switzerland which goes by the name of Trin, in\nItaly, \"trin\" would be recognizable as the sound a horse makes as it trots\n- and this is almost certainly intentional, given the way that Tiero tries\nto make himself as obvious and noisy as possible in his movement through\nthe city, to attract attention. (Tiero may also have a resonance with the\nword \"tyro\" - an amateur or novice.)\n\nWhen Tiero uses his blade, he describes the blade as composed of Tyrian\nenergy - Tyr is the Norse god of law and heroic glory - and he is one\nhanded because the Fenris Wolf bit off his hand. Gene Wolfe will do more\nthan bite off Tiero of Trin's hand ... Ironically, however, Tyr was\nrenowned for his wisdom, something Tiero lacks, though he actually has\nfunctional ability. (The name which the temptress wants to be called, Ryki,\nis also Norse in origin, and means \"lone ruler\" or \"island ruler\").\n\nMirbellos seems to be a derivation of Mirabella, which means someone of\nwondrous beauty (or, if we approximate its translation directly with a more\nSpanish root in mind, \"behold the beautiful ones\" - and Teiro is distracted\nfrom his life by her beauty.) Her last name, Marella, means \"shining sea\".\nWhile the meaning of her first name, Corlane, does not seem to be\nuniversally agreed upon, the first part may be derived from \"crow\" and can\nimply a talkative person (though in its Norse etymology it implies a\nravine, which would fit more thematically with the sea and island imagery\nof the other names she probably makes up). In addition, it ties her to\nMercus, who has a rather strange name composed of what seems to be a root\nfor \"sea\" or \"lake\" augmenting the more traditional name Marcus, which\nmeans someone dedicated to Mars or Ares, the Greek and Roman gods of war.\nThe god Tyr is also tied to war and is sometimes considered a Norse cognate\nof Mars.\n\nAttenis could be an ancient, uncommon spelling of Athens, so perhaps the\ncity in question with the anecdote of the goddess is meant to be either\nAthens itself or to resonate with it as a center of culture which was\nappropriated and almost forgotten in the time of the ascendancy of Rome and\nItaly. Its statue of the goddess, which was meant to embody beauty, is\ndressed up ridiculously, given shoes, beads, and a hat, thereby\naccessorizing and making ridiculous something which has no need to be so\ndecorated - the essence of the goddess is not in any of that excess, just\nas the essence of heroism and combat is not in the excessive bravado and\nself-aggrandizement that Tiero seeks ... though it *is* underneath there,\nwhen the gaudy clothes and extra decoration are stripped away.\n\nWhile perhaps irrelevant to the story, the title President-Protector would\nbe known to Wolfe, born in Texas, from the historical Jose Bernardo de\nGuiterrez, who was given the title of \"President Protector of the State of\nTexas\" after declaring it independent from Spain in 1813 (Chipman 250).\n\n##Unanswered questions\n\nThe technology of the sword Tiero uses has a demon stone to activate it,\nand probably resembles the energy emanation of Patera Silk's azoth as well.\nWhat is the relationship between this story and *The Book of the Long Sun*?\nThere is a moon in the sky, so it does not seem that the setting is the\nWhorl.\n\nHow did Mercus find Tiero's living quarters so easily?\n\n##Connection with other works\n\nAlthough not a very complicated story, the fine portrayal of ironic\ndecadence and arrogance is highly stylized and very effective. The story\nworks very well on a first read in the same fashion as \"In the House of\nGingerbread\" - an ironic denouement that, for an instant, makes us pity\nsomeone who probably doesn't quite deserve it, for Tiero's story is filled\nto the brim with situational and verbal irony. Wolfe's use of irony is most\neffective in stories with characters who are blind to some flaw or\nshortcoming in their character, and examples of this include the Nebraskan\nin \"The Nebraskan and the Nereid\" and the first person narrator of\n\"Redbeard\", who clearly evinces a modern attitude which Wolfe is actually\nexcoriating as unlivable.\n\nTiero of Trin is one of Wolfe's finest short ironic character sketches: a\nman with some knowledge and ability but no common sense and a complete lack\nof understanding for his own true motivations - if he had taken his own\nadvice (or simply not patrolled for trouble all night long), he would still\nbe alive.\n\n##Resources\n\n-Chipman, Donald E. and Harriet Denise Joseph. *Spanish Texas, 1519-1821:\nRevised Edition.* Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010. Print." } ] } ] }