(urth) Soldier: Hegesistratus the Lame Lycanthrope

[aramini1 at cox.net]

Interesting.  Thanks for the information about Lycius.  Certainly Drakaina is the lamia that supplants Eurykles.
That actually makes more sense if Lucius is the wolf in terms of the prophecy, because Hegesistratus isn't really around much when Elata (as the pythia or whatever it is she has become at the temple) and Aglaus are fooling around with Lucius/Latro at the end of Soldier of Arete. Thus, Wolf, nymph, and faun spellbound. But what is the spell?

When I read Soldier of Arete again, it really, really seemed to me as if Lucius is somehow an avatar of Pleistorus, but I can't reconcile his home life memories with the gods.  Intersting that his families god was a tutelary spirit between a dog and an ape called Lars.  Interesting also that in Wizard Knight, the cat identifies himself as a tutelary lars.  Hmm.

I'll find some more quotes to back up the idea that Latro is Plesitorus later.  Especially interesting is when Io talks to Latro about how players at a play wear normal masks to hide what they really are.  It really reminded me of the ironic scene in Claw of the Conciliator where Severian wonders what the Conciliator come again would do dressed at a costume party, not even knowing he was the conciliator.

Marc



> 
> From: "mournings glory" <mourningsglory at hotmail.com>
> Date: 2006/03/31 Fri AM 02:31:20 EST
> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> Subject: Re: (urth) Soldier: Hegesistratus the Lame Lycanthrope
> 
> A true son of Rome (but not of Greece) Marcus Aramini writes:
> 
> >One possibility is that Latro is the wolf ... but despite Borski's 
> >argument, Lucius does not mean wolf
> 
> I've yet to receive my order of Long & Short & Everything In Between, but 
> one of my students handed in a midterm on Keat's "Lamia" last week, and in 
> it the Lamia's lover is named Lycius--which absolutely means "wolf". I know 
> because we googled it and received over a hundred confirmations, with lots 
> of citations about Apollo the Wolf-God. Given as well that the upsilon in 
> Greek can be translated as *either* "y" or "u" it seems to me "Lycius" and 
> "Lucius" are almost certainly equivalent.
> 
> Keat's "Lamia" also appears to be at least one of the inspirations for 
> Wolfe's Eurykles. (Or has Crush already pointed this out on his site? Can't 
> remember.)
> 
> <There is another character who could be the wolf: Hegesistratus the mantis 
> with the lame leg.>
> 
> How does lycanthropy work if you're maimed in either your human or bestial 
> form? Would a limping human also limp as wolf? Would a foot you gnawed off 
> as a werewolf also remain absent when you morphed back into human? Who's our 
> resident loup-garou authority?
> 
> Also don't know if any of you caught this, but there was a manuscript copy 
> of Soldier of Sidon up for bid on eBay recently.
> 
> The winning bid topped out at $108.50, which may well be indicative of how 
> much people are looking forward to this long-delayed title.
> 
> mu sigma gamma  <up late -- it's spring break for another 24 hours, woohoo!>
> 
> 
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