<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:SNT123-W2653D606C043EBE1AF6FF8CFD30@phx.gbl"
type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">If one presumes that Silk was a clone of Typhon, Barnacles-as-Midas
works perfectly.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
Lee-
I shouldn't need explanation for this but I might. IIRC, in your theory,
Midas figures into the Spring Wind/Typhon legend perhaps with Alexander's
story as a mediating influence. But I think the connection isn't the
obvious one involving Alexander's cutting of Midas' Gordian Knot. How does
the connection work? </pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Well, it would be nice if Wolfe had worked such a connection into
the story. He's pretty good about that sort of thing. I haven't
detected it, but it might be that I've failed to catch an allusion.<br>
<br>
Typhon, as you say, is an Alexander-figure. When Kypris says of him
that took over the world so fast and no one could believe it, I
thought of Alexander immediately. Additionally, Alexander is member
of an important legendary triad that I think was appealing to Wolfe:
Alexander, Moses, and the Green Man.<br>
<br>
The Midas connection is more allusive but he keeps popping up. His
main connection to the story is through Dionysus. Midas found drunk
<font>Silenus </font>in his rose garden. He took him in and was
regaled with a story of a continent to the West inhabited by the
ancient-living powerful Hyperboreans (Neighbors). In thanks for
caring for his mentor, Dionysus granted Midas his golden touch. Then
inspired by <font>Silenus</font>' stories, he sends an expedition
of 10 million colonists to the land of the Hyperboreans. On the way,
they encounter a whirlpool (Short Sun) with a stream nearby where
two trees were growing: <font>The fruit of one would cause the
eater to weep, groan, and pine away (Green). The fruit of the
other would make the eater young again, and younger, until he
became an infant and then disappeared (Blue; Horn speaks of the
colony moving back in time in technology). </font><br>
<br>
The Book of the Long Sun is plotted over the life of Aristaeus, as
described by Robert Graves, as described by Herodotus, as described
by Pindar (Soldier of the Mist). Aristaeus is the author of the
story of the Hyperborans. <br>
<br>
Finally, Alexander, Midas, and Dionysus all have horns. D is the
"two-horned god". Alexander is depicted with horns on his coins.
Quetzal, the Whorl's demon-Dionysus, plants a tamarin tree outside
his window, and that particular species plays a key role in India's
version of a Midas story--in which Midas grows horns instead of
donkey ears. <br>
<br>
u+16b9<br>
</body>
</html>