Dionysus, the Mausoleum

James Wynn · 21 Dec 2010, 18:08 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:08:52 -0600
Subject: (urth) Dionysus, the Mausoleum
In-Reply-To: <800A22D0-145F-44BC-8034-E981DD03CB02 at butcherbaker.org>
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	<800A22D0-145F-44BC-8034-E981DD03CB02 at butcherbaker.org>
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On 12/21/2010 11:36 AM, Son of Witz wrote:
> This is getting really interesting...
> Good post, James.
> I don't know the Long-Short lineage stuff, so I can't judge yet.
> This bit you wrote lit my head up, can you elaborate?
> ""If Severian is understood as somehow directly associated with the myths in the Brown Book, it restores a scattered unfocused unedited brain dump back to a comprehensible narrative."
>
> I would love for that to hold water. How is he related to the book in your view? I really don't know the Classics well enough to spot certain heroic analogies here. What was that about him being Frog or suchlike?

I believe that Spring Wind in the Story of Frog is Typhon. Some 
story-teller read the story of Romulus and fragments of the Jungle Books 
and said, "Oh, these are /obviously/ just a retelling of the story of 
Typhon's son. These other versions add a little bit of flavor missing 
from the version I'm familiar with. It even gives the name of Frog's 
mother and grandmother and a twist on the motive. I'll combine all this 
into an authoritative telling."

Mythologists make such cognitive leaps all the time. They always have. 
"Jehovah is just Dionysus" [Tacitus]. "Jesus is just Mithras". "Merlin 
is just Odin." Etcetera. Wolfe has imagined this happening the distant 
future. Typhon has become myth, just as Arthur and Alexander the Great did.

In The Story of the Student and his Son, I believe the Student is Typhon 
again. I believe this because Wolfe reminds us of that story when 
Severian encounters him. Wolfe does a feint, associating Typhon with the 
ogre. But, then, in a few pages, he tumbles from his castle. This is 
analogous, in a mythical sense, to the Student tumbling from his castle 
at the Son's return. And so in a sense, Typhon has become Severian's 
defeated ogre as well. Very Wolfean, at least in the way I read him.

But if Typhon is the Student and Spring Wind, /who is Severian/? How can 
he be Typhon's son, since that is the role he seems to play? I can't get 
there with Severian going back in Time. Off the top of my head, I can 
only get there by guessing that Severian is /biologically/ the same 
person. So that's what I say. Severian is a clone of Frog. Fish is 
Severian's lost twin that is referenced shortly before Sev reads the 
Story of Frog. It's possible he has others in the story. But that is one 
of them.

u+16b9

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