(urth) vanished people=Hieros

[James Wynn]

> On 11/10/2011 4:01 PM, James Wynn wrote:
>> Thinking about it, I think Gerry is the more right. The noose is the 
>> sun rising behind the sultan's tower.  The Hunter might still be 
>> Orion, which at the time the poem is written is "behind" the path of 
>> the sun, still below the eastern horizon.
>
>
> David Stockhoff wrote:
> Why do you think this? Could Orion not be briefly visible? Could the 
> sun be rising right into Orion and the tower standing before his net? 
> I haven't worked this out at all, but it always seemed to me that the 
> poet observes a specific night sky, with Orion, followed immediately 
> by a dawn sky.

If Orion is "in front" of the sun (in the night sky). Then he would have 
to be well in front to be visible....and then he wouldn't be "the Hunter 
of the East". He'd be in the West.

I am imagining a Summer morning. The sun has not yet risen but a tower 
on the horizon is in a circle of dawn. It is the day of the year when 
the Sun is located directly over the Milky Way, right above Orion's 
"head".  In this case, the Hesperides as the "noose" still works since 
they might well be located directly behind the tower--even though you'd 
have to just *know* they are there and what they are.

J.