(urth) vanished people=Hieros

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/12/2011 7:48 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* David Stockhoff <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> > Where did the hunter come from? Night is still present in the second
> > event, robbed of its stars. Morning is not yet present, or else the
> > noose would be invisible: it is Night that makes the noose visible. 
> What
> > else may persist? Unless the sun is known as a noose-hunter, it is
> > rather awkward to invoke a new metaphor or image not even fully 
> imagined
> > until the last line (though the third line tells us he not a killer but
> > a catcher of things).
>
> > What does the sun catch but not kill? Perhaps the sun catches that 
> which
> > it illuminates, but that's hard to read from "the Hunter in the East 
> has
> > caught" if you don't react, "Oh, the Sun, that old Hunter in the East.
> > Of course." I argue that the Hunter is already there---and is known by
> > the reader to be there, because he's there all summer and fall---and 
> has
> > snared his prey at the moment he himself disappears.
> I agree with most of your post, but I remain convinced that the Hunter 
> is the rising Sun, not Orion.
> Suppose we forget about the traditional association of Orion and 
> hunting for a moment, and consider the metaphor entirely in its own 
> light (no pun intended). It’s not even a metaphor, it’s a really nice 
> description! Imagine a desert city at dawn. The sky is light and the 
> stars – or most of them - are gone. The Sun has not yet risen as far 
> as someone on the ground is concerned, but its light strikes the 
> topmost part of the highest tower (‘the Sultan’s Turret’). Imagine 
> such a turret seen from any direction other than the west – isn’t a 
> ‘noose of light’ not just a metaphor but a great descriptive image?

Actually, no. I don't think I "see" a noose at all no matter how hard I 
try---to me it seems purely literary, a play on words already spoken. 
But pray continue.
> And who cast the noose? Obviously the Sun. Hunters cast nooses, and 
> the Sun rises in the east – hence, obviously, the Hunter of the East. 
> Everything fits perfectly. I think you’d agree that were it not for 
> the known association of Orion and hunting, you would happily accept 
> this interpretation?

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

No. If I had only the second couplet above and no knowledge of the 
first, since I know Orion rises in the east, I'd first assume the noose 
is an interpretation of Orion's weapon-constellation, which is variously 
a club or bow or a lion. (James's point about Orion's Net supports this 
but I had no idea of it.) On second thought, I'd suspect that "east" and 
"light" point to a dawn scene. And since I know Orion can rise at dawn, 
I'd wonder why Orion the hunter had a noose of light but would assume 
the sun lent him his noose at the moment of daybreak. That's essentially 
my current interpretation. I'd "get" it then.

I accept that the hunter is in some way the sun, since he uses a noose 
of sunlight; to reverse this, since I have already argued that the sun 
finishes Orion's act of hunting, Orion becomes the sun and thus the sun 
IS Orion, the hunter. But without Orion there can be no hunter. I could 
not remove Orion from the poem---if I did, I'd wonder why the dawn sun 
is a hunter, why he hunts with a noose, and why the dawn has been 
described in this awkward and pompous way. It would make no sense at 
all. No poetry. DOA. Formula: X1=Y1, X2=Y2, X3=Y3. Yawn.
> If so, the question is whether this known association so constrains 
> Fitzgerald that he cannot mean the Sun – anytime Fitzgerald speaks of 
> a Hunter in connection with the dawn (not night) sky he must be 
> speaking of Orion. First, I don’t know much about Fitzgerald but I 
> don’t see why he would be so limited in his imagination.

Correct. As you said, the name brand is totally owned by Orion as purely 
literary allusion. Yes, this is limiting, if you consider a deep 
Victorian steeping in classical literature that opens a whole new 
universe of language to be poetically limiting!

> Second, I don’t think Orion works. Orion clearly didn’t cast the 
> noose. Orion has no special association with the east (he rises there, 
> but then again he sets in the west). By contrast we are speaking 
> specifically of the rising Sun so the ‘East’ needs no explanation.

Orion is associated with wherever he is low and hunting, whether to the 
east or west. His location is associated with the season at the time he 
hunts. That is his role. The poet is telling us in the plainest allusive 
language possible, Hey! There's young Orion rising before the dawn! He 
lets loose his hounds! Day breaks! (In the original, apparently, Start 
drinking!)

You haven't said why Orion doesn't work other than denying that he 
exists, which you cannot do. But the sun has no "special association" 
with noose-hunting. And where is the rising sun in the poem? It is not 
mentioned anywhere---there is no "rising" depicted whatsoever. You have 
inferred it without realizing it. Where is the sun itself? Nowhere in 
the poem at all. If it is there, what does it look like? Does it have a 
disk? A color? A mien? It might be like a stone in one way, but 
otherwise there are no answers. It's not there.
> And besides all that, Orion is gone! It’s no longer Night, and the 
> stars including Orion have already been put to flight by the time we 
> can see sunlight circling the top of a tower. Hunters don’t disappear 
> after snaring their prey, they come up and capture them fully. That’s 
> exactly what the Sun will do with the Sultan’s tower.

This is where you go terribly wrong. Isn't it a poem rather than a 
report or analysis? And why do you say Night went away---when only the 
stars have gone? Is it already day? No and no. You've not responded to 
my comments on these points.

Should the sun now take the tower to market and sell it, then go home to 
his wife? That's what a hunter would do in the real world. But in fact 
the sun will release the tower as day comes and the "noose" vanishes. Do 
you mean to say that since the noose vanishes it never existed? (In a 
sense it did not because it is an illusion/allusion.) But that's your 
argument regarding Orion---he vanishes, so he was never there. Nonsense.
> I guess it’s interesting that the argument is tending in a similar 
> direction to some of those regarding Wolfe, that is to say I am as 
> usual on the side of pooh-poohing interpretations based on classical 
> associations and concentrate instead on images and metaphors inherent 
> in the text.

You are not kidding!