"Another ancient greek of the same name"

I've always taken this to mean that only at that moment does Jonas realize that he's on Earth, rather than some very odd colony world. His knowledge is obviously based on reading the odd glyphs (there must be mirror-teleporters all over the galaxy). Perhaps this is too simplistic a reading, but I have a mental picture of the software that does his speech having a slot for "the planet I'm on = 'Urth'", "the home world = 'Earth'"; but of course, the two are homophones, so Severian is a bit confused when Jonas says "On <the home world>." Dave Lebling (aka vizcacha)

he's on Earth, rather than some very odd colony world. His knowledge is obviously based on reading the odd glyphs (there must be mirror-teleporters all over the galaxy). Perhaps this is too simplistic a reading, but I have a mental picture of the software that does his speech having a slot for "the planet I'm on ='Urth'", "the home world = 'Earth'"; but of course, the two are homophones, so Severian is a bit confused when Jonas says "On <the home world>." << David, I can only give you my word as assurance that I did not rip you off for the homophone angle. I wrote my earlier post last night but did not send it until today. When I checked the urth list this afternoon I saw that you had posted a similar idea this morning. Bad timing on my part--and it's not the first time such a thing has happened to me. Perhaps we can just chalk it up to the old saw about great minds thinking alike. <g> Roy

This was going through my mind, too, and it seems to tie up the loose end in the most plausible. It's the sort of mistake Severian makes a lot. Nice way of illustrating that even if (as Thackeray kept insisting) the narrator is omniscient, he still doesn't know everything :-). corncrake