vanished people=hieros

Gerry Quinn · 11 Nov 2011, 13:13 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:13:17 -0000
Subject: (urth) vanished people=hieros
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W434F12B0B1FC6DACA2C73ACFDC0 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W434F12B0B1FC6DACA2C73ACFDC0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <06D528FF886241E4A6C0E2DB9A4EB6E5@Rover>

From: Lee Berman 

> > 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.

Sure, Orion rises in the east.  But not at dawn, if it wants to be visible.  And Orion doesn?t place a noose of light around turrets.  The Sun does these things.  Give Omar Khayyam or his translators a bit of credit for imagination and logic (Wolfe too).

> 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....)

I said that the original reference in the poem is probably to Venus.  Here I think the main reference is the White Fountain, which will put to flight the daytime stars of Urth, as the cankered Old Sun fails to.  Of course it?s hard to disentangle references to Severian, the New Sun, and the White Fountain.   I think of Severian as Morning (Head of Day), having flung the stone (the White Fountain).

- Gerry Quinn

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