{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/895", "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": 895, "subject": "hierarchy of days", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-07-02T18:59:07+00:00", "last": "1998-07-03T03:42:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "mary whalen", "address": "marewhalen at yahoo.com" }, "date": "1998-07-02T18:59:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: hierarchy of days", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is Sean Whalen (prion).\n\nQuite a while ago, either mantis or nutria (I'm sorry but I can't\nrecall who it was) wrote about how each class in the Commonwealth was\nconnected to a day of the week, and used the Roman gods associated\nwith those days to determine which is which.\n\nI, however, think that the comparison may be more significant and\nobservable if we use the Norse/Germanic gods as the base of\ncomparison. I think this is allowable because Wolfe gives some\nplanets the names of Norse figures, and in English the days have\nGermanic names.\n\nSunday: Sun; priests\nMonday: Moon; cacogens\nTuesday: Tiw (Tyr); armigers\nWednesday: Woden (Odin); exultants\nThursday: Thor; commonality\nFriday: Frigg/Freyja; servants of the throne\nSaturday/Marketday: optimates\n\nThis is for these reasons: Sunday's the holy day; Moon is not part of\nEarth, is like and not like the Sun (I think these are the\ncorrespondents made for these two days in the previous post as well);\nTiw was the wargod and god of justice (armigers are also like\nsamurai); Odin was the god of jarls (the nobility), rule, etc.; Thor\nwas the common man's god; Frigg was Odin's wife, who attended upon\nhim; the optimates are merchants (Saturn; for whom this day is named\nin English is not a Germanic but a Roman god, hence my use of\nMarketday, which is what it is, too).\n\nprion." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com" }, "date": "1998-07-03T03:42:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: hierarchy of days", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "prion,\n\nIIRC, the purpose of the \"days of the week and associated gods\"\nexperiment was related to divining some of the hidden structure to\nDoctor Talos's play \"Eschatology & Genesis,\" which might have seven\nsegments (the stage darkens between these segments) and the play\npresumably ends with the arrival of the New Sun (the \"genesis\" part,\nand there is a cast role for \"New Sun\"); hence, the play ends by\ndefinition on \"(New)Sunday,\" which hints at further \"divine week\"\npatterns of one sort or another.\n\nPlus, in the play we see various archetypes scurrying around trying\nto position themselves for the new world order. Again, this seems to\nme like the situation of the Titans as the Olympians were coming to\npower, or later on, the Olympians as the Christians were coming to\npower. The character of the Autarch in the play seems to me like a\nvery Saturnian figure--in the end he razes the gardens (note\nharvesting imagery: check) in an attempt to halt the new genesis--oh\nNero! (It is my understanding that the celestial Titans were the\noriginal gods of the days of the week, fwiw.)\n\nAnd the play seems to loom large in the deeper structure of\nSeverian's Narrative, at least equal to the stories in the brown\nbook.\n\nBut the experiment was of dubious success and I haven't made much\nprogress in grasping the entire matter of the play, alas! For\nexample, we (I) should be able to piece together what the missing\nsections of the play have based upon (1) the characters on the list\nnot yet introduced in the play as we have it, and (2) the action\nwithin Severian's Narrative related to the analogous characters\nthat Severian meets and interacts with.\n\nFor example, \"Angelic Being\" is obviously Tzadkiel in Severian's\nlife--but how would that complex situation on ship and Yesod be\nrepresented in one or two segments of a rollicking play like\n\"Eschatology & Genesis\"? And what does \"The Moon\" do in the play,\nwhen Lune only acted like a weeping Valeria for a moment in\nSeverian's life in Ushas? (Unless somehow we work in that whole\n\"Valeria's assassination as a solar eclipse\" thing . . . )\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }