Breakfast with Apheta

b sharp · 23 Jul 2008, 04:25 · from 2008-July.txt.gz

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From: bsharporflat at hotmail.com (b sharp)
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:25:52 -0400
Subject: (urth) Breakfast with Apheta
Message-ID: <BAY103-W55EFB6CBB8D7975EC14D64D7840 at phx.gbl>

I wish I had a better answer for Roy's query but this is all I come up with. Maybe it 
is worth something:

The meal reminds me somewhat of the meal Pia serves Severian on a brassy tray.
It also has cakes (made of cattail flower and clams) and Pia tests the wine, the fish 
and the duck before Severian tries them. She doesn't taste the salad and of course 
that's where the drug mushrooms are.

Apheta's meal is also served on a tray.  She tastes the cakes first and then Severian
tries them and sips milky drink from the cup. Apheta has to urge Severian to eat before
he finshes both. After that Severian says, among other things, "As though the cup were 
drugged, I seemed to stand infinitely far from myself, to watch myself as a man watches
a mote, to hear my own voice as a hawk hears the squeaking of a meadow mouse".

The seeing of himself from far above definitely reminds me of Severian's feeling of double
identity when he is both a star (white fountain) and a man. Perhaps the milky drink 
(in addition to the sex?) did serve as some sort of drug which assists in creating Severian's
New Sun status.

Pia was a prisoner-slave when she rather unwillingly served the drugged meal to Severian.
Could Apheta be in a similar role? There are a bunch of guys standing watch in her chambers.
And in conversation during the meal, Apheta admits that she lied the previous night and didn't
desire Severian at all before they coupled; considers him a monster.

Wolfe used the "squeaking of mice" as a simile twice previously in this story. Once by Master 
Palaemon to say how the words of a prisoner should be heard in SotT.  So again we must 
wonder about who might be a prisoner in this situation. Plus we have a predator/prey relationship
mentioned.

The other use of the mouse simile is from CotA in a dream sequence.  Severian hears Hethor's voice
as the squeaking of a mouse. And in this dream, Hethor happens to be inside a carafe of water, the 
third item from Apheta's meal.  The dream has Hethor babbling on about his ship with its "demon 
haunted mirror sails, our hundred-league masts" and "My lady, the mate of my soul", "she is her 
own ship, she is the figurehead of her own ship and captain". Tzadkiel? The dream also includes 
 the Cumaean and Malrubius, who guide Severian to Typhon's eye where he is able to
see the fruits of the Urth of the New Sun.

Perhaps I have been unduly influenced by the What's So Great About Ushas thread but thanks to that
and Roy I now may perceive another deceptive and perhaps sinister side to Apheta's role and thus the 
Hierogrammates. Still a rather jumbled view I concede, but it makes one go, "hmmm...".

-bsharp

Roy's post:

>On the morning after Severian bedded Apheta, she brought him breakfast on a
>tray. It consisted of "... small cakes, a carafe of cool water, and cups of
>some steaming liquid that looked like milk and yet was not milk." (URTH, XX,
>146) He ate one of the cakes and drank a cup of the milky fluid, after
>Apheta took a bite of one of the cakes. I think this was the only meal
>Severian mentioned having on Yesod, and I believe there is some significance
>to its components or their combination that eludes me. Any ideas?

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