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<DIV>Hello! I've been lurking here for a while: but as most here
have re-read all of Wolfe _at least_ once, whereas I've only read most of Wolfe
_once_, (and my science skills are non-existent) I've been shy about
writing. But, I've just finished re-reading SotT and CotC and have been
doing a lot of research. A lot of it into dead ends, I'm sure.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But I was struck by the passage in Ultan's library about Sulpicius as well,
and as there is/was a Sulpicius Severus (as well as another Sulpicius, a saint,
with whom Sulpicius Severus, from my understanding, is confused), and as as
Severian means a follower of Severus (although OED refers to "the Monophysite
patriarch of Antioch (early 5th c.)"), I have thought for a while that there
must be a connection between these two autarchs, Sulpicius and our hero
Sev. I have also wondered if Wolfe hasn't set up some elaborate verbal
joke on the Pelagian heresy. According to W2, 'Pelagian' is "a follower of
Pelagius"; 'pelagian' (little 'p') is either an adjective meaning
"pelagic" ("the pelagic argosy sights land!") or a noun: "A pelagic
animal." (Like an undine, or something bigger?) Also, as the Oxford
Classical Dictionary notes in its entry for Severus, Sulpicius, "In old age he
seems to have passed through a period of Pelagianism." Could it be said
that Severian has passed through a similar period in his allegiance to
Vodalus?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I'm also intent on reading (Time! I need more Time!!!) Severus's
history. (Yes, he is, importantly, an influential writer, as Severian
is.) His history, again according to the OCD, is "a universal chronicle to
AD 400 which is an important source for the history of 4th-cent. events .. The
whole book is an interesting attempt to present a 'breviarium' of history from
the Christian point of view: it uses Christian chronographers ... but also
pagan writers." I'd be very surprised it Mr. Wolfe hasn't come across this
work at some point. Or, perhaps, this is yet another dead end.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Jason</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>From:</B> <A title=mailto:rclackey@stic.net
href="mailto:rclackey@stic.net">Roy C. Lackey</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=mailto:urth@urth.net
href="mailto:urth@urth.net">urth</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, October 04, 2004 1:38
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> (urth) Sulpicius</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>In the early hours of Severian's autarchy he was told by the
aquastor<BR>Malrubius that his immediate predecessor, the Old Autarch
Appian, had been<BR>the only ruler since the first autarch, Ymar, to represent
Urth at trial in<BR>Yesod. (IV, p.214)<BR><BR>At another time, when Sev was
trying to recall something, he began "to<BR>search those veiled lives that lie
behind the last, memories that I have<BR>scarcely mentioned in this narrative,
that dim as they grow stranger and<BR>stretch backwards, perhaps, to Ymar, and
behind Ymar to the Age of Myth."<BR>(V, p.294)<BR><BR>I am interested here
only in the thousand years between Ymar and Appian.<BR>Appian, just before his
death, told Sev that he contained "hundreds of<BR>personalities. . . We are
many lives." (IV, p.202)<BR><BR>Now to my point: Ultan spoke to Sev of ". . .
the room we of the library<BR>have maintained for three hundred years against
the return of the Autarch<BR>Sulpicius (and into which, in consequence, no one
ever comes) . . ." (I,<BR>p.47)<BR><BR>So, where did he go? Elsewhere on Urth?
Off planet? The Corridors of Time?<BR>We know from the above that he didn't go
to Yesod. The only things that are<BR>clear are that when he left he was
autarch and that he didn't come back. Had<BR>he come back, there would have
been no point in preserving the room for<BR>three centuries and, anyway, he
should have been long dead. In any event,<BR>the autarchy survived him. Even
if we posit that he just disappeared<BR>inexplicably, dead or alive, how was
the chain of autarchial succession<BR>maintained and, more importantly, the
seemingly unbroken links of memories<BR>that stretched from Ymar to
Sev?<BR><BR>It would be easiest to assume that Wolfe just screwed up
somewhere, but I<BR>doubt that he did. Of the relatively few things that Ultan
might have said<BR>or did say in his only scene in the Urth Cycle, why did
Wolfe put those<BR>words in his mouth? It doesn't serve the larger plot in any
way that I can<BR>see, but G.W. must have had an answer. I
don't.<BR><BR>-Roy<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Urth
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