(urth) vanished people=Hieros

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/11/2011 1:40 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* Lee Berman <mailto:severiansola at hotmail.com>
>
>
> >Gerry Quinn: Erm... how about the one quoted by Wolfe?
>
>
>
> > What quote by Wolfe determines that the Stone is Venus? I haven't 
> seen such a
> > quote but perhaps you know of one Gerry? I'm interested to see it.
>
> Did you read my post – I explained my thinking.
> I’m not committed to the stone being Venus, but I think Venus is a 
> viable interpretation. [Of the original, I think Wolfe means the White 
> Fountain.]
> Another interpretation I think is viable is that the stone is entirely 
> metaphorical and does not refer to any celestial body.

Exactly. It relates more to the "bowl of stars" in that case.
>
> > The Omar Kayaam quote appears a few pages from the very end of a 5 book
> > series about the New Sun. The original translator seems to think it 
> means the sun.
> I don’t think so. I think the original translator used ‘Hunter of the 
> East’ to mean the Sun. I don’t think it’s elegant if the stone is also 
> the Sun.

I'd like to hear why the sun might be a hunter, but I agree with this.
> > The sun is round, like a stone and it does wash away the stars in 
> the morning.
> Stones can be any shape, and don’t usually glow. A stone cast into a 
> pool makes the reflected stars vanish, but also vanishes itself. And 
> the Sun is NOT cast into the Bowl of Night, it is at best moving 
> slowly into the edge of the Bowl.
> Here’s my reading: dawn is breaking, and the stars flee the bowl of 
> night (the night sky) as if a stone had been cast into a dark 
> reflective pool, destroying the reflections. The Sun is not yet 
> visible, but the tops of the highest towers are limned in light. The 
> poet or translator likens this to a noose of light cast around them by 
> a hunter – thus the Hunter of the East is the rising Sun. [A later 
> translator used a different metaphor, but still referred to the Sun in 
> the second couplet.]
> The stone cast into the bowl is difficult to see as the Sun, or at 
> least I find it so – it must either be the Morning Star (as James 
> suggested) or entirely metaphorical.

I prefer these too, though I can see the stone as the sun if it precedes 
Morning, not the sun.
> > I don't see the difficulty in understanding the sun reference. After 
> all this
> > discussion, is the idea that it might be the sun and not be Venus be so
> > impossible to consider? Or is this simply a battle where not an inch 
> may be openly ceded to the
> > enemy?
> I understand the sun reference, I just don’t think it’s what was 
> intended. Now perhaps it was: you and David clearly think differently 
> from me and James. I’ve explained above why I don’t like the stone as 
> a sun reference, i.e, the sun has not been cast into the bowl, and 
> there is already another sun metaphor. But unless the translator left 
> notes, I don’t think it can be proven one way or the other.
> David thinks the Hunter must be Orion, basically because Orion has 
> that metaphor trademarked at least as regards the sky. And maybe the 
> first translator agrees with David. But then we need to explain why 
> the first translator substituted an Orion reference for a Sun 
> reference, because the second translation makes it clear that the Sun 
> must have been referenced in the second couplet of the original. I 
> think the Sun as hunter works well with the noose of light image, so 
> well that the first translator decided to run with it despite the 
> strong association between huntsmen and Orion. And the attempts to 
> explain the noose of light in the context of Orion seem a bit 
> strained, not to mention the association with the East. The rising Sun 
> scores a bulls-eye on both.
>

We don't need to explain those things because we can't. We have no idea 
whether the Persian original remotely matches either version we have. 
For all we know, the original said,

Awake! The chessboard of stars is swept clear,
As the White Queen advances boldly
Capturing the King's citadel
With a spear of light.

and Fitzgerald didn't like the chess imagery. The two versions are 
almost that different.

As I've suggested, Orion works perfectly if the date is midsummer. That 
puts Orion in the east at dawn. The transfer from hunting ability from 
Orion to sun is definitely tricksy, but what else could explain the sun 
as a hunter with a noose? Where else does such an image come from? Have 
you ever seen the sun go hunting? I'd call that "strained."

Everything in a poem is at least two things. Fixing a single meaning to 
each element does no work. It can't only be the sun that rises in the east.