Where's the Minotaur?

Jeff Wilson · 10 Feb 2011, 05:23 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:23:35 -0600
Subject: (urth) Where's the Minotaur?
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W48F3253A70A3EBE64C5628CFEC0 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W48F3253A70A3EBE64C5628CFEC0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D537657.5010203 at io.com>

On 2/9/2011 7:17 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>
>> Jeff WIlson:  and it reminded me that I had been meaning to pick up the thread about
>> the "teratoid symbols" Sev sees on the door to Inire's mirror chamber.
>> Thecla also has seen the chamber door, and describes their designs as
>> labyrinthine. So LEE BERMAN, where's the Minotaur?
>
> Heh, that one's a bit too easy Jeff. I wasn't sure if you were kidding or not. But perhaps
> you haven't followed any of the discussion between James and I on the general mythological
> subject matter. Finding Dionysus and Ariadne is sorta tough. Finding Theseus, not so
> difficult. Minotaur, somewhere in between I guess.
>
> In the tale of the Student and His Son, the Son is obviously a Theseus analog. His labyrinth
> is a series of islands and channels, his Ariadne is Noctua so obviously the Naviscaput is
> the Minotaur analog. As the raper of his sister Night, the Naviscaput is mythologically like
> Erebus. But Severian compares this creature to Abaia. So, first answer for Minotaur= Erebus and Abaia.

That's fine, for that maze and that level of metafictionality.

> But we also have monster and labyrinth symbols in the Secret House. Who can be found at the
> center of the Secret House? What is the connection of Father Inire to Erebus and Abaia?
>
> Elsewhere I have discussed the connections between Father Inire and Dionysus. One of the primary
> symbols of Dionysus is the bull. In his battlefield delirium, Severian/Thecla has a memory of her
> father who inexplicably takes the form of a "man with the horns and muzzled face of a bull".
>
>
> As Wolfe took Earth's Mowgli and Romulus and Remus and mushed them together to give us Urth's
> Fish and Frog, so he has taken Earth's Dionysus and Minotaur and mushed them in a similar way
> to give us Urth's Inire, Abaia and Erebus- the monster(s) at the center of the Labyrinth which
> is BotNS.
>
> (add Flora/Fauna and the Dionysian snake and you can add the Cumaean to the list as well).
>
>
> I'm sure that answer is just what you were looking for ;- ). 		 	   		

I was wanting the monster that goes with the panels - of course, there's 
a *lot* of monsters that can come through the mirrors - but what 
minotaur-like entity is associated with the House Absolute?

Not Thecla's dad - male exultants don't get to live there.

Not Abaia or Erebus - they are the monsters outside.

Inire lives there, but he's supposed to be a monkey.

Though if the monkey rides on the back of a bull, is it the Autarch? A 
particular autarch?

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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