vanished people=hieros

Lee Berman · 10 Nov 2011, 22:34 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:34:39 -0500
Subject: (urth) vanished people=hieros
Message-ID: <SNT123-W434F12B0B1FC6DACA2C73ACFDC0 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: Could be.  But then the Sun couldn?t be the Hunter.

In the sky, the sun isn't the Hunter. Orion is the Hunter, a mythological fact 

of which Omar Kayaam was as aware as most of us here. The constellation rises

in the east like all others. Persians were obsessed with astrology. Calling

the sun The Hunter would be like calling Orion a golden orb. They took names

seriously back then, as does WOlfe.

But that doesn't really matter here, does it? What matters is what Wolfe

was thinking when he wrote those lines. And Wolfe doesn't mention the Hunter 

or the noose. They aren't in the text and are thus not relevant ;- ).

In the House of Apu-Punchau:

>Barbatus: In a way it's like a line of verse. Famulimus, what was the

>one you quoted to me?

>His wife sang, "Awake, for the Morning in the Bowl of Night, has flung

>the Stone that puts Stars to Flight"

>Severian: "Yes", I said, "I understand".

Wolfe uses the quote in reference to Severian, The New Sun; Apu Punchau, 

the sun god. The stone is the sun. Severian is a Sun god in a Stone Town

Why would Venus be relevant in those words in this context? (perhaps David has an idea....)

>David Stockhoff: I haven't worked this out at all, but it always seemed to 

>me that the poet observes a specific night sky, with Orion, followed immediately by 
>a dawn sky. And the implication to Wolfe must be the sweeping away of 
>myths by the coming of Christ.

Yes. I'm not sure but you might be on the right track and perhaps WOlfe is on that 

same track. The last star to be swept away by the sun each morning is the Morning Star 

which is an epithet for Lucifer.

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