(urth) Eyes of Thecla

[Rex Racer]

Actually, forebearance with an e is an acceptable variant of forbearance, so
it is not even a typo or editorial error. I actually would use it a lot in a
former life writing letters that required such serious precise verbiage

Just as "grey" seems darker to me than "gray," forebearance just seems more
"serious"

On 5/5/06, mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >From: "b sharp" <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
>
> >In Solar Labyrinth(and perhaps briefly in the Archives) Robert Borsky
> makes
> >an elaborate argument that Appian is Thecla's father.  Most of the
> evidence
> >he uses stems from clues that Appian was involved in her upbringing.
> There
> >seems very little to suggest he has a genetic connection to her.
>
> I came across what is either an interesting clue in this regard, a typo,
> or
> sloppy copy-editing, depending on your druthers.
>
> In Chapter VI of _Shadow_ Severian is reading a note from Master Gurloes:
>
> "'By the will of a court we have in our keeping the exulted person of the
> Chatelaine Thecla; and by its further will we would furnish to the
> Chatelaine Thecla in her confinement such comforts as lie not beyond
> reason
> and prudence. That she may while away the moments until her time with us
> is
> come - or rather, as she has instructed me to say, until the heart of the
> Autarch, whose forebearance knows not walls nor seas, is softened toward
> her, as she prays she asks that you, consonant with your office, provide
> her
> with certain books...'"
>
> Now what is the oddest word in all of the above paragraph? It's
> "forebearance" with an -e, which relates to *ancestral* forebearers, not
> to
> "the action or habit of forbearing." In the other four books of the Urth
> cycle, Wolfe also always uses the e- version of 'forebears' to mean
> ancestors and the non-e version 'forbear' to mean, "to bear with, have
> patience with, put up with, tolerate."
>
> So is this indeed a secret clue as to Thecla's paternity? Or simply a
> typo/copyediting mistake? (Speaking of which, has the Garsec/Garvaon
> mistake
> been corrected in the trade paperback edition of _Wizard Knight_? Sad to
> say, but the very nice SFBC edition of _Book of the Short Sun_, despite
> being printed on much higher quality paper, perpetuates all the typos of
> the
> original edition, which is surely the most error-ridden of any Wolfe book,
> primary or secondary.)
>
> Also, if not a typo, however would such wordplay survive translation into
> another language?
>
> Me sSe eg
>
>
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