vanished people=Hieros

Gerry Quinn · 11 Nov 2011, 18:40 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:40:41 -0000
Subject: (urth) vanished people=Hieros
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W590B5D65ECD91E113A84D6CFDD0 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W590B5D65ECD91E113A84D6CFDD0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <9401E4BF41DE4891B3B9B27A06BA5FD3@Rover>

From: Lee Berman 

>Gerry Quinn: Erm... how about the one quoted by Wolfe?

> What quote by Wolfe determines that the Stone is Venus? I haven't seen such a
>  quote but perhaps you know of one Gerry? I'm interested to see it.

Did you read my post ? I explained my thinking.

I?m not committed to the stone being Venus, but I think Venus is a viable interpretation.  [Of the original, I think Wolfe means the White Fountain.]

Another interpretation I think is viable is that the stone is entirely metaphorical and does not refer to any celestial body.

> The Omar Kayaam quote appears a few pages from the very end of a 5 book 
> series about the New Sun.  The original translator seems to think it means the sun. 

I don?t think so.  I think the original translator used ?Hunter of the East? to mean the Sun.  I don?t think it?s elegant if the stone is also the Sun.

> The sun is round, like a stone and it does wash away the stars in the morning.

Stones can be any shape, and don?t usually glow.  A stone cast into a pool makes the reflected stars vanish, but also vanishes itself.  And the Sun is NOT cast into the Bowl of Night, it is at best moving slowly into the edge of the Bowl.

Here?s my reading: dawn is breaking, and the stars flee the bowl of night (the night sky) as if a stone had been cast into a dark reflective pool, destroying the reflections.  The Sun is not yet visible, but the tops of the highest towers are limned in light.  The poet or translator likens this to a noose of light cast around them by a hunter ? thus the Hunter of the East is the rising Sun.  [A later translator used a different metaphor, but still referred to the Sun in the second couplet.]

The stone cast into the bowl is difficult to see as the Sun, or at least I find it so ? it must either be the Morning Star (as James suggested) or entirely metaphorical. 

>  I don't see the difficulty in understanding the sun reference. After all this 
> discussion, is the idea that it might be the sun and not be Venus be so
> impossible to consider? Or is this simply a battle where not an inch may be openly ceded to the 
> enemy?

I understand the sun reference, I just don?t think it?s what was intended.  Now perhaps it was: you and David clearly think differently from me and James.  I?ve explained above why I don?t like the stone as a sun reference, i.e, the sun has not been cast into the bowl, and there is already another sun metaphor.  But unless the translator left notes, I don?t think it can be proven one way or the other.

David thinks the Hunter must be Orion, basically because Orion has that metaphor trademarked at least as regards the sky.  And maybe the first translator agrees with David.  But then we need to explain why the first translator substituted an Orion reference for a Sun reference, because the second translation makes it clear that the Sun must have been referenced in the second couplet of the original.  I think the Sun as hunter works well with the noose of light image, so well that the first translator decided to run with it despite the strong association between huntsmen and Orion.  And the attempts to explain the noose of light in the context of Orion seem a bit strained, not to mention the association with the East.  The rising Sun scores a bulls-eye on both.

- Gerry Quinn

In regard to the BotNS-irrelevant Hunter:

> Sure, Orion rises in the east. But not at dawn, if it wants to be 
> visible.

David Stockhoff: Not at dawn. BEFORE dawn.

Correct. The translator calls it the Hunter "of" the East not the Hunter "in" the east. 

You are where you came from.      
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