End of Book One

Peter Stephenson · 06 May 1998, 08:52 · from urth-v0010.mbox · original

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From: Peter Stephenson <pws at ifh.de>
Subject: Re: (urth) RE:End of Book One
Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 10:52:49 +0200
Message-ID: <urth-v0010-0092 at digest.urth.net>
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>What would Hethor's crime be?  WARNING:Quantum leap in logic...  He hints =
at
>the fact that he may of been the CAPTAIN of the -quazar-.  "I the old
>captain, the old lieutenant, the old c-c-cook in his old kitchen, cooking
>soup, cooking broth for the dying pets!"  he has obviously been unbalanced
>by the crew stealing his 'doll.'

Ever on the look out for tenuous links:  there's a late nineteenth century
humorous poem by W.S. Gilbert, about an old sailor the narrator met,
wandering around the coast.  It turns out he's the last survivor of a
shipwreck, and has actually eaten his way through the rest of the crew to
survive --- the last person he ate being the cook, if I remember right;
there's a debate at some point about who is competent to cook whom.

Anyway, what triggered the association with the quotation above was the
verse, repeated several times as the reader gradually works out what has
happened, which I quote from ancient memory:

`Oh, I am the cook, and the captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy Brig,
And the bosun tight, and the midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig.'

Is it _just_ possible that Hethor has eaten his shipmates to survive,
and that is his crime???

The poem is called `The Yarn[?] of the Nancy Bell', and although I can't
point to a copy it's in lots of anthologies, particularly for children.

pws
--=20
Peter Stephenson <pws at ifh.de>       Tel: +39 50 844536
WWW:  http://www.ifh.de/~pws/
Gruppo Teorico, Dipartimento di Fisica
Piazza Torricelli 2, 56100 Pisa, Italy

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