Falcon having written:
<On to Oreb. I don't find the evidence presented thus far at all convincing. Just because Oreb sees Scylla in the lake and another person sees Scylla walking beside Oreb and someone else doesn't prove that Oreb is being ridden by Scylla.>
Note the very last line from "The Night Chough" that I quote. In the original text the word "Scylla" is italicized. But it's what follows that's important. "That was the bird. And not the bird." In other words, Oreb is saying "Scylla," but it's actually Scylla (and not the bird) that's providing the information. My argument: that if you're a god and you're using a bird for your mouthpiece, you're riding it.
Re: William Ansley's gentle reminder that he was the first to speculate upon the following:
<Horn gave his eye to Pig. And Marble's daughter gave up one of her eyes for her mother.>
My humble apologies toWilliam for not remembering this and therefore attributing the Horn-to-Pig ocular transferal speculation to him.
Mr. Ansley then writing:
<It is completely certain to me that an eight-legged creature one-third(?) the height of a man will look more like a cluster of (shorter than a man) boys or two men on their hands and knees (short
- because doubled over - and with eight leg-like - because of position - limbs) than a Neighbor, who is as tall as or taller than a man and has only four leg-like limbs (and, of course, four arm-like ones).>
All right, just for the sake of argument, let's say you're right here. The 8-legged thingie is merely some indigenous, but anonymous, member of Blue's faunal kingdom. What possesses it to jump from the cliff to the sea? If directed by Mucor, what has she done so? In other words what are we make of this leap in a broader context? Also: when last seen, the eight-legged thingie has plunged into the water and disappeared very near to Horn's boat. Just coincidentally, when Babbie first appears upon the scene some few hundred words later, it's also in the water very near to the boat. I just think the simplest most elegant solution is to assume both are one and the same. If I'm wrong, I still need to understand the 8-legged beastie's motivation for jumping--possibly even to its death, since according to you (or at least I'm inferring this) we never see it again.
Nice to have you back in the Devil's Advocate Position, William!
Robert Borski
*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.