Pike's ghost

David Stockhoff · 30 Nov 2011, 14:26 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:26:50 -0500
Subject: (urth) Pike's ghost
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On 11/30/2011 12:38 AM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> From: David Stockhoff<dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>>
>> Sorry, what's the Levi quotation?
>
> This sentence from the occultist Eliphas Levi, which I'd quoted earlier.
>
> "Some alchemists, impressed by this idea, speculated on the culture of
> the mandragore, and experimented in the artificial reproduction of a
> soil sufficiently fruitful and a sun sufficiently active to humanise the said root, and thus create men without the concurrence of the female."

thanks!

"A sun sufficiently active to humanize...." What a suggestive line.
>> Why don't they point to Ymar?  The two Biblical references to mandrakes are in connection with Rachel and
>> the maiden in the Song of Songs, both types of the Virgin Mary in Catholic theology (or I can find at least one
>> source that says that about each one).  I don't think I need to make the last connection.
>
>> Actually, please do.
> The last connection is that Ymar is an anagram of Mary.

d'oh!
>
>> I don't follow this or know the references at
>      all. Why Ymar? (I did just find the Rachel ones but don;t know how
>      to interpret them.)
>
>
> Just disagreeing with Lee's comment that the word "mandragora" could only point to Typhon.  I don't think any of these word games /necessarily/ point to one thing.  You can always find connections to others.  Of course, you and Lee and others may have reasons for preferring one connection.
>
>
> I meant to add that "mandragora" can suggest "dragoman".  Agia and the jungle guide might both count as dragomans.  Maybe some people will like a possible connection between the mandragora and Father Inire.

I'm pretty "catholic" in my tastes when it comes to connections.
>>> Or why not the Sleeper?  Shakespeare refers to mandragora as a soporific, including in a fairly famous passage from /Othello/.
>> Meaning "the sleepers" on the Whorl? Or another sleeper?
>
> I was thinking of the god worshiped on Ushas under that name, but any one you want.

Ah. Perhaps.

The quote:

Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.
Othello, 3. 3
>>> Or Severian in his first life or two?  The most famous quotation about a mandrake starts "Go and catch a falling star", which immediately brings to mind the slingers' song, which Wolfe said illuminates--darkly--Severian's past and future.
>> This quotation?:
>>
>> ?Go, and catch a falling star, / Get with child a mandrake root, / Tell me, where all past years are, / Or who cleft the Devil's foot.?
>>   John Donne quotes(English poet, 1572-1631)
> Great lines, and of course Severian finds out where past years are.  Other connections can easily be made.  But I can't say whether Wolfe had it mind or not.
>
>
>> Not necessarily.  Maybe we're meant to leave it as a mystery and concentrate on the interaction between Severian and the homunculus.
>> I agree. But the Donne quote, if it is a key link, does lead to the image of impregnating a mandrake root, which takes us back to who and why, and what resulted from it.
>>
>>
>> Oddly enough, it doesn't take me to those questions at all.

Does it at least take you back to Levi?
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