<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"> <div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Lee Berman <severiansola@hotmail.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> urth@urth.net <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Friday, March 16, 2012 3:31 PM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> (urth) Fish<br> </font> </div> <br><br>But there's the fish's mouth subset of that. If Typhon and Severian's<br>tete a tete is meant to reference the temptation of Christ, then as<br>surely the fish's mouth is meant to reference the story where Peter is<br>told by Jesus to pay his taxes with a coin he'll find in the
mouth of<br>the next fish he catches.<br> <br>I can't help but think Wolfe's reference to this story points out that<br>while Christ is associated with universal spritual salvation, Jesus was<br>a guy who made a number of instructive points with simple magic and <br>parlour tricks such as this. Likewise for Severian's life.<br><br>____________________________________________<br>I don't know the story but I agree that the juxtaposition must mean something.<br><br><br> <br>>“It might have been the snarling face of Jurupari, or perhaps a map, and it <br>>was wreathed with letters I did not know.”<br> <br>...<br>Learning that a Jurupari is a S.American demon who captures people in his cave-<br>like mouth and is also a cichlid fish which broods eggs in its mouth I must connect<br>it with the star named Fomalhaut (fish's mouth) and the Ouroboros story in which <br>men are swallowed in a cave-like mouth and probably the cave of the man-apes
in<br>which some monstrous presence lurks below.<br> <br>Add the mention of a fishy monster like Abaia who is so large he could easily<br>brood a school of daughter undines in his mouth, and a picture of what Agia was <br>referencing with her drawing becomes, if not perfectly clear, at least a bit more <br>in focus. (I believe this also helps us understand the relationship between The<br>Mother and Seawrack) <br><br>______________________________________<br>What is it, then? A monstrous mouth? A fish sign, but fully annotated rather than two curved lines? A black hole?<br> </div> </div> </div></body></html>