(urth) cynocephalus (was: Re: Boatman as Inire)
Jane Delawney
jane_delawney at sky.com
Sun Aug 8 17:36:55 PDT 2010
On 08/08/10 11:09, Lee Berman wrote:
>
> We see a
> character who resembles Hethor on the ship also, in the weird part where Severian is
> kidnapped and ordered to move like an Autarch hologram. I find that one of the most difficult
> scenes in the 5 books to comprehend. But working on it. What IS Hethor?
>
Apart from a sad little man ... Well. It's been suggested in quite a few
places afair that 'Nessus' could be a linguistic corruption of 'Buenos
Aires'. Kind of works. On the same basis - actually not so much of a
stretch - 'Hethor' does pretty well as a linguistic corruption of
'Ahasuerus'.
OK, 'Hathor' would be more convincing, but GW couldn't use that, She's
an Egyptian goddess of course. And having the vowel degrade back to 'e'
over time is not implausible (cf. 'Angle-land / 'England' for instance).
>
> I once might have thought some of the stuff that happens on Yesod is new stuff, but lately
> the sham of all that trial stuff seems to echo the sham of the Commonwealth-Ascia war
> (though such shams do kill people) and is perhaps akin to it. Burgundofora is sorta new as
> she seems to be a combination Mary Magdalene/Judas figure. Then again The Temptation of Typhon
> already sets up Severian as a Jesus-like figure.
>
There's plenty of that kind of thing throughout BOTNS without venturing
into 'volume 5'. Toward the end of 'Shadow', Hethor of all people is
even heard offering to carry Terminus Est for Sev, ostensibly because
he's worried that the burden of this cross-like object may be too great
to bear.
(Of course given later developments, we all know this is a sham; Hethor
is Agia's lover/spy and no doubt if Sev had given H. his 'cross' to
bear, H. would have made off with it pronto! but the important feature
of this little episode is the symbolism invoked, which - in the universe
of Urth - echoes back down the ages).
>
> So, yeah, if everything else, B, F and O, The Conciliator, Ushas, Juturna, Apu Punchau, etc.,
> in UotNS refers back to the first four books, what does the the evolution and shape shifting
> of shaggy blob apport, to monkey-like thing to Zak, to Tzadkiel, male and female refer back to?
> I certainly find it to be an interesting question.
>
Undoubtedly ... re-reading and noticed something I hadn't noticed for a
while, which is that the monkey-like thing on Tzadkiel's Ship is not the
first monkey-like thing Sev has come across (and I am not referring here
to the shaman of bk. 4) - while Sev lies recovering from the avern-wound
in the soldiers' lazaret toward the end of 'Shadow', he sees a
'cynocephalus' (ape with a dog's head) running across the floor. He
thinks he's dreaming or delirious - but he then goes on to see the same
creature when he knows he's in his right mind (in so far as he ever is
:) ).
Very interesting, but as of right now I have no idea what if anything
this refers to, save forward to the ape-like creature on the Ship (or,
if you prefer, that ape-like creature may refer back to the cynocephalus
episode).
strange stuff indeed
jd
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