Digest urth.v030.n118

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes23 May 2001, 11:43original as archived

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Roy wrote: ... has anyone else wondered exactly what Wolfe intended with the last six words of the story: "a mountain ram winded its horns."?

I presume it was a reference to the ram's horn or shofar blown in the Temple on the High Holy Days (Yom Kippur?). It is generally agreed (among those who believe in the Fall to begin with) that the unfallen animals had characteristics & abilities not present in the Fallen world -- i.e., the lion & the lamb were at peace, Eve wasn't surprised to hear a serpent talking, etc., etc. -- so perhaps in an unfallen world, the ram might blow his own shofar without humans needing to kill him? I dunno... --Dan'l

Alice Turner23 May 2001, 20:34original as archived

↳ follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · by subject

I swore I wasn't going to get into this one, but...sigh.

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"Adam and Lilith never found peace together; for when he wished to lie with her, she took offence at the recumbent posture he demanded. 'Why must I lie beneath you?' she asked 'I also was made from dust, and am therefore your equal.' Because Adam tried to compel her obedience by force, Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic name of God, rose into the air and left him." We know that Wolfe is familiar with Graves, and I think that Jane Doe's "Vhas a groose." and "Aw zay, 'ou vhill nawt neffer grawnt offer mee agan." almost certainly refers to Adam in this Lilith myth.

Roy is right. "I say, you will not never grunt over me again." Double negative being part of GW's accent-addiction. And I guess she's going "Yuck!" in the first part, though that's not the tradition, which was that she got bored always doing it one way, not that she disliked it altogether.

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On another tack, has anyone else wondered exactly what Wolfe intended with the last six words of the story: "a mountain ram winded its horns."?

Even if

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Wolfe hadn't been raised in Texas, much less been a former Aggie, he has to know that no animal blows a horn, much less its own.

This is why I'm outta this. (Or should be.)

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Further perusal of HEBREW MYTHS yields the following wrt the fratricide of Cain and Abel: Wolfe has a tendency to conflate and otherwise rearrange mythological elements to suit himself, which is what he seems to me to have done in "Copperhead". Thus "Dhoss bhoyes, de vhun keels de odder", I still maintain refers to Cain and Abel, whether or not it also refers to the murdered man and Boone.

Yup. But (defiantly) it's still a dumb story. -alga