(urth) vanished people=Hieros

[António Pedro Marques]

Nick Lee wrote (07-11-2011 22:31):
> Here's something else. I assume Wolfe has read Ovid. If we look at the
> Metamorphesis, we see several characters that Wolfe, or our "translator,"
> has appropriated:
>
> Typhon, the Sybil of Cumean, Aeneas, Scylla, Bacchus, Hyacinth, etc.
>
> He doesn't mention Aeneas or Bacchus by name but makes direct reference to
> them. I think he makes the same reference to Proteus/Vertumnus in this way.
> You just have to have read your Ovid to catch it the reference in the green man.
>
> I'll admit that I don't know what that means beyond the reference; maybe the
> green man is as simple a character as he appears at first glance.

More than once Wolfe has professed to collect ideas and names to use in his 
work, with no necessary deep connection to their previous meanings.
(In fact, much of his work is doing new things with old stuff; the fact is 
that he doesn't invent his materials, it's the use that is novel.)