The Play
Has there ever been a serious study of the myriad themes and elaborate symbolism in the play of Dr. Talos in _Claw of the Conciliator_? I've read it several times over, yet still cannot understand the symbolic qualities of certain roles. All in all, however, the play is a work genius, but the arcane style eludes me.
I'm not sure that we're supposed to look for any deep symbolism in the characters of the play. This is a story about the end of one world and = the beginning of a new one, and in that sense the play as a whole "symbolises" Severian's story - as the opening lines of the chapter say, it is based on the lost "Book of the New Sun". Interestingly, we don't actually get to the incidents dramatised in the play until "The Urth of the New Sun".
As we might expect from a play called "Eschatology and Genesis", this is also a re-telling of the Genesis story. The Biblical Genesis story is itself a re-telling of earlier Sumerian genesis stories, as I'm sure = Wolfe knows. There is even a throwaway reference to a Greek genesis myth: in Greek mythology the survivors of the flood are told to repopulate the world by throwing stones (the bones of Mother Earth) over their = shoulders, and in the play we have:
MESCHIANE: It might come to life. I heard something once about raising sons from stones.
The names Meschia and Meschiane... I have an idea that these are the names of Adam and Eve in another (Hebrew?) genesis myth. Any ideas?
A lot of stories didn't make it into the collection of texts we know as = the Bible, but have just the same provenance. These can be found in the Apocrypha, and one of them is the story of Lilith - Adam's first, = discarded wife, today a byword for a demonic seductress. In the play, this is = clearly Jahi.
Nod, the giant, is one of the Nephilim. Go back to the Biblical Genesis story and you'll find the Nephilim described as the offspring of angels and the "Sons of God" - one of those little details which reminds us that this story originated as Sumerian creation myth. Who were the Sons of God? Nobody knows for sure, but they obviously have no place in the conventional Christian universe.
1) I say the play has seven acts and they probably describe a divine week, with the final act coming on (New) Sunday. The Autarch is Saturn (Saturday); Jahi is Venus (Friday); and so on. We never see the last act of the play, which is too bad, but it would be an interesting exercise to "reconstruct" it from the reality of deluge Urth/post-deluge Ushas.
2) alga has said before that the play is more about the =Persian= creation myth than either the Hebrew or Sumerian. (Does Sumer have Titan-like Nephilim? I don't recall offhand, unless those shadowy "judge" characters of the underworld who never really appear in the main stories.)
3) I think the play is quite gnostic at the mythic level; I think it shows a lot of the dynamic between Severian and women (especially Agia and Dorcas, who really are Lilith and Eve) at the psychological level; I think it is constantly being acted out in the course of all five books.
Mantis wrote: >1) I say the play has seven acts and they probably describe a divine >week, with the final act coming on (New) Sunday. The Autarch is >Saturn (Saturday); Jahi is Venus (Friday); and so on.
Nice idea, but I don't see anything in the books to support such an elaborate scheme. More importantly, it actually contradicts what Severian tells us. He never suggests that the play is divided into acts at all, and the script given in Claw of the Conciliator certainly doesn't begin "Act I Scene i" or anything.
>We never see >the last act of the play, which is too bad,
Again, I have to disagree. There are a number of passages in the books which strongly suggest that what we see of the play is all there is. In Chapter XXXII of Shadow, Severian says that "In the final part" he holds court as inquisitor over the rest of the cast, while Baldanders slowly frees himself. This is precisely the final part of the play as given in the Claw of the Conciliator script.
After Baldanders frees himself in the performance in Shadow, Dr Talos tells the audience "at the conclusion of our play you will see what occurs now that the monster is free at last" again suggesting that the really isn't much more to come.
Finally, in Claw, Severian prefaces the play at the end of Chapter XXIII, saying that he wants to give an "approximation of the text". That doesn't sound like someone who's going to break off part way through for no readily apparent reason.
What makes us feel that the play is incomplete is that it invariably ends with Baldanders leaping into the audience and everyone still in peril on stage! But I think this is still part of the play, and still part of the play's curious mirroring of the Book of the New Sun story. Here I agree with Mantis:
>I think it is constantly being acted out in the course of all >five books.
When Baldanders breaks his bonds, Severian, in character, fights him. This fight recurs all through the books, from Severian's dream to the actual fight at the end of Lictor. I suspect it also symbolises Severian's overall fight against Darkness as the New Sun: he fights Baldanders with a torch.
It's significant, too, that he is playing a torturer at the time: we are told later that humanity can only be saved through pain. (Wolfe also says this, in Castle of the Otter.)
The fight to save humanity is millenial, perhaps never- ending. How else can the play end but on a knife-edge, with the New Sun battling Darkness and everything still in doubt?
>3) I think the play is quite gnostic at the mythic level; I think it >shows a lot of the dynamic between Severian and women (especially >Agia and Dorcas, who really are Lilith and Eve) at the psychological >level;
Interesting point. (Although I take it "Agia" is a typo for Jolenta!) Severian is protective of Meschiane, but tempted by Jahi, etc etc.
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
On 20 Nov 1997, Tony Ellis wrote:
> What makes us feel that the play is incomplete is that it > invariably ends with Baldanders leaping into the audience > and everyone still in peril on stage! But I think this is still > part of the play, and still part of the play's curious mirroring > of the Book of the New Sun story. Here I agree with Mantis:
Also, isn't there some mention when Severian first meets Talos and the rest of the acting troup that ALL of Dr. Talos's plays end with Baldanders leaping out and frightening the audience so that they will run away and, ideally, drop some of their valuables for the troupe to scarf up?
Perhaps Mantis's speculations about the play are more appropriately thought of as concerning the Urthian works of literature and/or drama from which Dr. Talos's play undoubtably descends.
-Rostrum
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
Tony Ellis, M. Driussi, and Friends,
A response to the letters by Mr. Ellis, and Sieur Driussi.
>Interestingly, we don't actually get to the incidents dramatised in the play until "The Urth of the New Sun".
Really? I have not read _Urth_ yet. The Orb re-release is out now and I shall go buy that as soon as I can. Don't worry about spoiling anything for me, 'cause the suspense would kill me if you didn't. <g>
>>In the play, this is clearly Jahi.
Really? Now, I usually have to read a Wolfe work several times to
understand it, but I thought that Jahi was the *daughter* of Meschia and Meschiane, due to the Autarch's comments about her age.
>Nod, the giant, is one of the Nephilim.
Yep, Nod was one of the most humourous characters in the play. His
comments about the east of Eden were most interesting. I think that he is really meant to be Baldanders (not just played by him) because his is so slow with understanding that what is coming is the second creation; Gabriel said that "You have the wrong creation, my friend."
>>Nobody knows for sure, but they obviously have no place in the conventional Christian universe.
LOL, look up Nephilim in "The Devil's Dictionary," that wonderful satire
by Ambrose Bierce, and you'll see that you and that definition agree in opinion.
>Does Sumer have Titan-like Nephilim?
I don't think so. I believe that the world was created by just the main pantheon of gods, mostly Enki. I may be wrong, though.
>...(especially Agia and Dorcas, who really are Lilith and Eve)
This really seems to be the case. Agia is certainly an evil woman, just like Lilith. Dorcas, however, is the just, kind woman who Severian comes to know. However, there are other women whose roles we shall have to assertain, such as Thecla, Thea, Jolenta, the Pelerine in Thrax, etc.
>...the play is more about the =Persian= creation myth than either the Hebrew or Sumerian.
Hmm, let's look at the Persian religion Zoroastrianism. Who is the deity?
The SUN! Actually, it is revered as a home/incarnation of the god of light, Ahura-Mazda. Could Severian/Conciliator/New Sun be symbolic of Ahura-Mazada?
Now for my questions:
1) Is the Contessa symbolic of the magicians in the mountains in _Sword of the Lictor_? Both the Contessa and the magicians fear the coming of the New Sun, although the magicians don't complain about it like the Contessa, they act.
2) Gabriel is present to "set the scene" but could he be much more important? And who played him in the presentation at the House Absolute, was it Dr. Talos himself?
Let's continue this interesting study!
Christopher R. Culver <crculver@aol.com> http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html
"Ignorance, that light of fools steers a wayward path" -Brendan Perry
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
Reply: Item #7230818 from URTH@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#
Tony Ellis,
Re: the length of the play and the completeness of the drama we are shown. First off, please count the number of times the stage direction "stage darkens" appears--this traditionally indicates the end of one "act" and the beginning of the next "act." (The dramatic equivalent of chapters, I suppose.) I count five, myself, but I also think the play has been cut off: so six acts, at least.
Second, if this =really= is all the play that there is, then how do you explain the presence of the following characters in the list preceeding the play: Angelic Beings, The New Sun, The Old Sun, The Moon? In other words, if the play really is supposed to end with Baldanders going berserk (which might be a good stunt for getting stuff from country bumpkins but I could've sworn that Talos and Baldanders admitted that it was a bad, bad mistake to pull such a trick on the hierodules--a mistake that may have cost Baldanders the autarchy), then why would these other characters be listed? (They seem logical to the flow, and they seem to appear in the Ushas or "real" enactment of the play.)
(My theory, fwiw, is that Baldanders always really does go nuts when they get to that part of the "play." Under his cool, sluggish exterior is not only a detatched scientist but also a raging maniac. One of his hot buttons is "superstition," and based upon his inability to maintain his composure during the drama, the idea that the New Sun will triumph in the end sends him into a real mindless and murderous rage.)
(Reminder: Baldy jumps twice--once at Ctesiphon's Cross in Nessus, the first time we glimpse the play; and second at House Absolute, when the text of the play is given.)
You write:
"How else can the play end but on a knife-edge, with the New Sun battling Darkness and everything else still in doubt?"
Uh, is this a trick question? <g> It can end with the triumph of the New Sun, naturally! Be careful--you are assigning allegorical qualities to a play already steeped in mythos: the battle at the truncation is not between "the New Sun" (a character on the list who has not yet appeared in the play--though he probably was spotted by the countessa) and "Darkness" (a character who does not exist in the play); rather, it is between the Familiar (a torturer) played by a torturer and Nod (a titan who would retake the throne of Zeus) played by a titan who would retake the throne of Zeus.
Re: "Agia as a typo for Jolenta." Nope. Granted, I can see how that might appear to be a mistake, since Agia never appears in the play. However, Agia really =is= Lilith to Severian. Jolenta, who only plays Lilith in the stage production, is really only a victim with a capital V; a living puppet.
=mantis=
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
Mantis writes:
>Re: the length of the play and the completeness of the drama we are >shown. First off, please count the number of times the stage >direction "stage darkens" appears--this traditionally indicates the >end of one "act" and the beginning of the next "act." (The dramatic >equivalent of chapters, I suppose.) I count five, myself, but I also >think the play has been cut off: so six acts, at least.
What always strikes me about this play (I guess I was reading Tom Swift when the teacher covered Persian creation myths) is a sort of pervasive Shakespearean quality. Characters are constantly entering and departing as the actors are recycled. Comedy by mistaken identity, plus we get at least one fool who demonstrates his foolishness through a torrent of clever wordplay. And the ends of acts are marked by rhyming couplets.
Not only are we missing the seventh act, but we can't be sure we've seen all of the sixth. Look at the last line (Severian's, of course.) It rhymes and it scans, but it's too short. Lupine ambiguity ....
raster@highfiber.com
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
Here’s my take on Dr. Talos’s play:
I think it clearly parallels the only other pageant in the series, that in Urth (V), where the aquastors gather before Tzadkiel (who represents the Increate) to speak for and against Severian. In the play, the representatives of those who live on Urth gather before the Autarch, who represents the Increate, to debate the coming of the New Sun. (Note that the Autarch makes it clear that, even as an actor, he is –not- the Increate, he is merely standing in for him as the owner of the garden.)
Meschia and Meschiane represent mankind. The Contessa represents us—that small segment of first-world mankind that owns computers and reads books—as well as the exultant class. Small roles are given to the military, to a religious/philosopher type, to a servant, a judge, even to a torturer. Thus virtually everyone we meet in the book is seen in the play.
Gabriel represents the angels, and, as has been pointed out, more angelic beings are to appear in the unfinished portion of the play. Jahi represents the demon world—I think it extremely decent of Dr. Talos to give demons a say—and thus not only Shaitan, Ahriman, Erebus, Abaia, the Aschians etc., but, as mantis says, Agia. Two demons disguised as merchants also appear, and it would seem that there might be a debate with the angelic beings to come, though how this would be staged is hard to say, since I believe they are played by the women.
Baldanders’s roles are downright fascinating. As Nod, he represents the elementals, the children of Urth, not only the Nephilim, Titans, Jontun, ogres, giants, trolls, creatures in the cave, Gayomart, Enkidu, etc, but also the dumb beasts who cannot speak for themselves. As the Statue, he stands for androids, demi-humans and the cacogens, but also, I think, for ruins, monuments, the nobler detritus of mankind. It’s possible that he, rather than Dr. T, will play the Old Sun in the last act, yet he is crucial to the development of Ushas, or so I think.
The time is out of time, a magical midnight between the end of the Old Sun and the start of the New. The destruction which we witness in V is predicted. The actors know what their roles were in ages past, but they cannot say for sure what their new roles will be. Note that there will be a mirror in V, when Odilo, Pega and Thetis take on Meschia, Meschiane and Jahi.
Over to you.
-alga-
I'm not sure why the Statue kisses Jahi's foot, but I can make a sort of = poetic guess--that a certain obeisance to the demonic is necessary to = technology.
Also, help, please. On p216 (hardcover), I would guess that Solange is = merely a general sort of name for a French maid. But who are Kyneburga = and Lybe? My big book o' goddesses doesn't list them.=20
-alga-
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
Here's my deduction of who played whom in Dr. Talos's play, based on explicit statements, physical characteristics, and the constraint that no actor can appear in more than one role simultaneously. I'm sure many readers of this list have already worked this out, but others may welcome it as a useful reference for the present discussion. I will gladly receive additions and corrections.
-- Dan Rabin
Gabriel - Dr. Talos The Giant Nod - Baldanders Meschia, the First Man - Severian Meschiane, the First Woman - Dorcas Jahi - Jolenta The Autarch - Dr. Talos The Contessa - Jolenta Her Maid - Dorcas Two Soldiers - Dr. Talos and Severian [note 1] A Statue - Baldanders A Prophet - Severian The Generalissimo - Severian Two Demons (disguised) - Severian and Dorcas The Inquisitor - Dr. Talos His Familiar - Severian Angelic Beings [note 2] The New Sun The Old Sun The Moon
[note 1] Dr. Talos must be First Soldier and Severian Second Soldier, because First Soldier and Familiar appear together in a scene. Also, Second Soldier's role requires physical strength (carrying Jahi/Jolenta), which we know Dr. Talos does not possess (see _The Sword of the Lictor_).
[note 2] I don't think it obvious who plays which demon. Both demons appear simultaneously with Autarch/Talos, and Second Demon appears simultaneously with Nod/Baldanders and Jahi/Jolenta. The pair must thus be Severian and Dorcas, but which is which? I favor Severian as Second Demon because 1) his prophecies in the first demon-scene include the line about natural resources cited in an Epilogue by Wolfe, and 2) Second Demon adopts the stance of a soldier (one of Severian's roles) in the second demon-scene.
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
Christopher Culver,
Re: the contessa, I think she represents (aside from the contessa who cameos in URTH OF THE NEW SUN) the aristocracy, yes, but also a facet of the old human race. In evolutionary terms, Meschi-boy and Meschi-girl are sort of like Cro-magnon arriving at the end of the Neanderthal time; the contessa hopes to subvert the new paradigm (heh) by getting some of Meschi-boy's seed and founding a hybrid line (i.e., she wants to pull a "Lilith"). (The Autarch of the play, independent and on his own, comes up with a similar plan for himself and Meschi-girl.) This strategy we might call "the cuckoo gambit" in shorthand.
Not all of the old humans follow this strategy, but then, so few of them understand the metaphysical depths of what is going on in the screwball comedy around them.
Gabriel is played by Dr. Talos, according to Gene Wolfe in one of the articles in THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER.
alga,
What?! I failed to list Kyneburga, Solange, and Lybe--not only in the LEXICON URTHUS but also in AE&1 and AE&2?! Bad, bad. Very bad! They are saints. I've got Kyneburga (aka Cyniburg) here right now (Oxford), and I'm 95% certain I spotted Solange and Lybe at the library. I'll double check later in the week. (The contessa is scared and is calling for her friends and/or maids, I think. But yes, I first thought one or more might be a goddess, as when Thecla mentions "Caitanya," another word I couldn't find anywhere so Gene Wolfe helped me out--the goddess called Wisdom in Bible translations.)
(Which isn't to say that saints can't also be former goddesses! I mean, St. Catherine and Kali seem to go way back, just to give one example off the cuff.)
Re: statue kissing Jahi's foot. You know, this has always struck me as being that archaic tableau wherein the Goddess (who became Eve in the OT version) treads upon the head of the chthonic circuit Serpent (her consort who became the tempter in the OT version). A stage in that old cycle: SHE (god) and HE (snake) have HIM (icon: a five pointed star); HIM and HE fight it out, the winner/survivor HIM becoming married to SHE; SHE and HIM have HE; HE and HIM fight it out
. . . et cetera.
Re: play enacted elsewhere in the text. When Sev gets back to the House Absolute and regent Valeria is on the throne, the =lines= are straight out of the play. Which is especially interesting because most of the speakers did not see the play; also Jader's sister turns out to have become the prophet (so "autarch" and "prophet" roles are beling played by women); and then there's the contessa who sees Severian . . . just like "the contessa" reported seeing a "strange man" in the play!
=mantis=
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
=
24/11/97
=
09:13
RE>Dr Talos's Play
Paul C Duggan wrote (re raising sons from stones): >I had originally thought that that was a reference to Jesus words about >being able to raise up stones as sons of abraham...
Actually, that makes just as much sense as my theory. I wonder which is right?
Re Nephilim: >Huh? Part of the Bible but not the "christian universe"? I guess most >assume they perished in the flood (except for grendels mother :-).
Christianity teaches that there was only one Son of God. And as for perishing in the flood... if the Son of God can walk on water, then why not the Sons? :-)
CRCulver wrote: >LOL, look up Nephilim in "The Devil's Dictionary," that wonderful satire >by Ambrose Bierce, and you'll see that you and that definition agree in >opinion.
Sadly I don't have a copy. Care to share this definition with Paul C Duggan and I?
Mantis wrote: >Re: the length of the play and the completeness of the drama we are >shown. First off, please count the number of times the stage >direction "stage darkens" appears--this traditionally indicates the >end of one "act" and the beginning of the next "act."
It also indicates the division between one "scene" and the next "scene", which is what I would call these divisions. An "act" normally consists of a number of scenes, these do not, but each changes the locale.
>...I count five, myself, but I also >think the play has been cut off: so six acts, at least.
Ironically, if the divisions are acts, five would be an appropriate number. Horace established the five-act play, and it became the model for Renaissance drama, which Dr Talos's play resembles more than any other kind.
In any event, I still don't see any justification for extrapolating a symbolic "divine week", I'm afraid.
However, let me confess that in doing a little more research to defend my theory that what we see of the play is all there is, I instead found evidence which shoots my theory down in flames! In the chapter in Claw that follows the play, Severian says that what what was supposed to happen at the point Baldanders broke free was that "Baldanders would rest the flambaux from me, pretend to break my back, and so end the scene." This indicates, I can't deny it, that there are indeed more scenes to come.
Mantis goes on to say, with some justifaction: >Second, if this =3Dreally=3D is all the play that there is, then how do >you explain the presence of the following characters in the list >preceeding the play: Angelic Beings, The New Sun, The Old Sun, The >Moon?
I can't, Mantis, and I should have spotted this - but then, neither do you explain why Severian ends his transcript where he does. Or why, in Shadow, Severian describes as "the final part" of the play a scene that is precisely the final scene of the transcript. If the play doesn't end here, why is Severian saying it does?
The simplest explanation I can come up with (apart from the one in which Gene Wolfe fails to proof the final draft of Claw properly) is that Severian is talking about the play =3Das it was performed=3D rather than = as it existed as a whole. The play the peasants saw ended with Baldanders breaking free, and so, by mischance, does the play the House Absolute sees, so this is the play Severian reports to us. He does say, in Chapter XXIV of Claw, that he wants to record the play "as it might have been recorded by some diligent clerk in the audience." And what we get is indeed the play that clerk would have seen.
> >"How else can the play end but on a knife-edge, with the New Sun >battling Darkness and everything else still in doubt?" > >Uh, is this a trick question? <g> It can end with the triumph of the >New Sun, naturally! Be careful--you are assigning allegorical >qualities to a play already steeped in mythos: the battle at the >truncation is not between "the New Sun" (a character on the list who has >not yet appeared in the play--though he probably was spotted by the >countessa) and "Darkness" (a character who does not exist in the >play); rather, it is between the Familiar (a torturer) played by a >torturer and Nod (a titan who would retake the throne of Zeus) played >by a titan who would retake the throne of Zeus
It seems hardly fair of you, Mantis, to criticise my reading of the battle as overly allegorical when actually I'm making your own point that the play "is constantly being acted out in the course of all five books." Of course "Darkness" and "the New Sun" don't appear in the play as characters, but they are still the main contenders in the Book of the New Sun story on which the play is based. I could just as easily criticise your critique for bringing in "Zeus" when he manifestly doesn't exist in the play.
I think we have to see the play as two plays: the Whole Play, which exists mainly in Dr Talos's head (but also "on the fragments of soiled paper we passed from hand to hand that afternoon"), and the Performed Play the play that is actually enacted. The Whole Play may have any number of additional scenes, we just don't know, but the Performed Play is the one Wolfe shows us, and for that reason, I think, the one we are supposed to think about.
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
Dan Rabin,
Yes, your list is nearly perfect. According to Wolfe, the demons are both played by Dorcas and Jolenta.
Re: the missing characters, I would make a strong bet that "the Moon" is played by Dorcas, and I'm also guessing that the women play the Angelic Beings (mirroring how they played the demons).
Tony Ellis,
Re: sons from stones in Greek myth, to be precise I believe you are thinking of Deucalion's Flood (alga note: wolves and wolfmen here), which is not exactly a genesis myth--more an eschatology and genesis myth (i.e., a flood myth). "Noah" here being Deucalion, and his wife here being "Pyrrha."
Re: acts versus scenes. Ah, so the whole misunderstanding was due to my misuse of the technical term? It happens: "scenes" they are then; a one act play with several scenes on a stage without a curtain in a Greco-Roman culture.
Re: divine week. Right, that was the nebulous theory "frosting" built upon a few layers of cake, said cake in turn concocted of solid info (cast of characters; number of internal divisions; relation of play to several eschatology, genesis, and eschatology and genesis myths; how often genesis myths use a divine week; and so on). Sorry, I really should always remember to tag mantic things as mantic and solid things as solid.
Re: why Severian ends his transcript when he does. I thought I had hammered this home a couple of times, but you've managed to get most of it despite my fumbling: yes, he is recording the play as it was performed both times. The first time, at Ctesiphon's Cross, he walked on cold and was talked/stage directed through the whole thing (as was Dorcas), and Baldanders did his scare bit; the second time, while somewhat (i.e., barely) more practiced, ended the same way.
My main point of "why" before had to do with the wrath of Baldanders.
But now I'd like to move beyond that and make a hash of why Severian is being coy about the play (or why he has to be coy about it).
The fact is, I think we all agree, that this play is a blueprint of the whole Urth-into-Ushas shebang. Playing as an actor in such a play obviously has an impact upon the actors who actually turn out to have a role in the real deal. We're back to the thorny thicket of Free Will versus Determinism. If Severian leans too heavily upon the play when he is going through the real thing, then he is just a puppet of a pre-determined Fate; if he willfully ignores the play as he transforms the world, then he is a fool of Free Will.
The same thing is going on to a lesser extent with the stories in the brown book. They really are all messages to him about his big mission.
The same thing is going on to a much greater extent in a third text which is shrouded in such crafty silence that most readers do not know that it was read in the cell by Thecla and Severian: the original, "long lost" work (that Dr. Talos has also apparently seen), (Canog's) THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. (No, I didn't figure this one out, dispite the clues--I only learned it in an essay by Wolfe in PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING.)
(Obviously this has to be. Otherwise, Severian would always be saying to himself and the reader, "Lessee now, what did the Conciliator do next?" Rather than just going through life as it presented itself to him.)
Re: which play (whole/truncated) is "the one we are supposed to think about," I disagree. I think both are important--and often times, in Wolfe's fiction, things hinted yet =not= said are very important indeed. But everybody is entitled to a different opinion, of course.
=mantis=
[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
=
25/11/97
=
09:46
Yet more playfulness
Alga wrote: >Note that there will be a >mirror in V, when Odilo, Pega and Thetis take on Meschia, Meschiane and >Jahi.
Hmmm. I can see your point that at the end of Urth of the New Sun the dead Odilo, Pega and Thetis have been deified as, loosely speaking, Earth Father, Earth Mother and Jahi figures. But are you saying that that Odilo and Pega have actually assumed the Meschia, Meschiane roles? In the last minutes of the House Absolute we learn that a naked man and woman have been spotted in the gardens: surely these are Meschia and Meschiane?
Possibly I'm taking you too literally, in which case - sorry!
Mantis wrote: >...If Severian leans too heavily upon the >play when he is going through the real thing, then he is just a >puppet of a pre-determined Fate; if he willfully ignores the play as >he transforms the world, then he is a fool of Free Will.
Agreed. This is why I felt (and still feel) that the play ending with Severian battling Baldanders with a flaming torch is highly significant. Although in one sense Severian's success as bringer of the New Sun is pre-determined (hey, it's been on its way for the last x thousand years), in another sense it really is still in doubt. However the play is supposed to end, the fact that it always breaks off here, at a moment of conflict, reflects this uncertainty.
Re: significance of withholding ending. Absolutely--I mean, even Severian might balk if he was told up front he would have to =die= on the ship in order to succeed!
I tend to agree with Mantis that the full play is not shown. The dramatis personae are listed in order of appearance. The fact that Angelic Beings, New Sun, Old Sun & Moon are at the end of the list but have not yet appeared on stage, implies that they are due to be seen in a subsequent (and possibly last) scene.
Baldander's actions at the end of the first performance may well have been planned by Dr.Talos in order to acquire 'dropsies' from the audience, but the indications are that this was not meant to happen at the House Absolute. Severian states as much, and describes how the scene was meant to end. Note he says 'end the scene', not end the play. The logic of the subject matter also implies that the play is meant to end with the coming of the New Sun and Urth's rebirth (hence the back to front title: Eschatology and Genesis).
My first reactions on reading about the play were that it reminded me of a medieval Mystery Play. These were performed out of doors, with scenes mounted on a wagon-stage. Their subjects were usually biblical, including The Creation, The Fall & Redemption Of Man, The Last Judgement and so on. God, archangels, devils were portrayed, usually by males but with the occasional nude female as Eve or Bathsheba. They were in the vernacular with no attempts at historical realism and were apparently often witty and satirical. In other words popular entertainment of their time. I think that this is the kind of effect that Wolfe has recreated here, but with ideas and symbolism relevant to the future age.
There was also a tradition of Morality Plays, in which the characters were abstractions such as The World, The Flesh and The Devil, Universal Wisdom and Death. There are similarities here with Talos's introduction to the first performance, referring to the players as Strength, Courage, Vice, Death etc.
I do like the idea of a posthistoric Mystery Play, with angels, giants, laser pistols and spaceships. I'd love to see it performed by some inventive theatre company. I know of a few that could probably do it justice, but I don't suppose there are enough people aware of the mythology of the late period Commonwealth to make it worth their while!
Meanwhile, back to the play "Eschatology & Genesis" (hereafter E&S).
It seems to me that there are at least two main scenes left to be seen: the deluge itself and the genesis. (What about the "eschatology" or judgement scene? Tricky question. Normally we think of eschatology as the final judgement, after death; but in a sense a judgement was made and the deluge is the sentence! However, URTH OF THE NEW SUN clearly has a judgement scene on Yesod, if not all the weird things that happen on ship Tzadkiel--covering a catalogue of heresies and legends surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus. But since that happens out of Briah's time frame, where to place it within a play? Before the flood? After the flood? During the flood--i.e., those who survive are "chosen"?)
Basically what has to happen is: the flood erases civilization; the New Sun arrives to take the place of the Old Sun; a new agreement is worked out with the Moon; Angelic Beings explain stuff to Adam and Eve, either the judgement itself, and/or the relation of humans to the Increate, and/or how to grow crops, build huts, and other civilization jump starts. (To make it extra cyclical, the play should end with Adam being crowned as the first Autarch of Ushas!)
Oh, look! While looking for something else, as is so often the case, I found these notes on "Eschatology and Genesis," dating from May 1994. It appears that I called the divisions "scenes" back then, and I counted six--all of which just goes to show how far I've fallen since those heady days of yore.
Scene I: (the Garden)
Gabriel
Nod
Meschia (Adam/Fool)
Meschiane (Eve)
Autarch (as False God)
Jahi (as Lilith [to Adam]/consort to False God)
Contessa ([her name is] Carina)
Maid
[A lot of Scene I is pre-echoed by events in the Botanical Gardens of Nessus involving Severian, Dorcas, Agia, Hildegrin; with cameo by "Charonus" the nameless boatman as "Gabriel."]
Scene II: (under a rowan tree)
Meschiane (victor [of fight with Jahi], hence Queen of _____)
Jahi (claims strength of Underworld, causes snow)
Ivo (first soldier) captures Jahi
[Second soldier]
Statue (seduced by Jahi)
(note: rowan = quickbeam aka "tree of life," Graves, WHITE GODDESS)
[The comedic surprise here is that nice girl Meschiane won in the fistfight with riot grrrl Jahi. Shades of Hyacinth, that--playing kittenish when Adam is around, but look out when he's not present!]
(Convulsor and Conciliator: when Sev is hit by convulsor in URTH, there is an earthquake; as in Scene II where stabbing Meschiane leads to an earthquake.)
(Curse of the Conciliator: when Sev as Conciliator curses town of Os and raises a storm, this echoes Scene II where Jahi causes snow to fall.)
Scene III: (underground palace)
Autarch (Typhon [to Conciliator]/Valeria [to New Sun])
Prophet (Severian/Conciliator/Jader's sister)
Nod [Baldanders to Valeria]
Generalissimo
First Demon
Second Demon (B, F, & O; or Erebeus and Abaia)
(razing of grounds)
(Fight between Autarch and Nod echoes Severian vs. Baldanders)
Scene IV: (torture chamber)
Inquisitor
Familiar
Contessa (wants to offer herself as new Eve: three women
[Meschiane, Jahi, Contessa], Judgement of Paris?)
Meschiane
Jahi
Nod
First Soldier
Scene V: (House Absolute again)
Jahi (hider)
Second Demon
Nod (seeker)
Scene VI: (torture chamber again)
Familiar
Autarch
Meschiane
Nod
[The fight between Nod and Familiar has clear and obvious
connections to the fight between Baldanders and Severian as well as the puppet theater dream which foretold both]
Scene VII: (arrival of New Sun?)
Angelic Beings
The New Sun
The Old Sun
The Moon
[Note how in Ushas, Severian "dreams" that Valeria is weeping over him but wakes up to see Lune surrounded by clouds from which rain falls upon his face. Also how Valeria's assassination can be seen as a solar eclipse; Valeria is Moon to Severian's New Sun.]
+++++++++++++++++++++++
=Scenes as Days of [Divine] Week= SCENE DAY PLANET I.....Monday......Moon--Jahi as Moon [now I think Meschiane is Moon] II....Tuesday.....Mars--appearance of soldiers III...Wednesday...Mercury--underworld and prophets IV....Thursday....Jupiter V.....Friday......Venus [this is Jahi, I'm thinking] VI....Saturday....Saturn--autarch usurped [unrecognized in his own palace]
VII...Sunday......Sun--arrival of New Sun
[END OF NOTES]
Here is another general statement about E&G: I don't think it is as much an unconscious blending of various and sundry eschatologies and genesises; rather I think it is a self-aware, self-conscious eschatology and genesis that remembers (or whose audience remembers) all the earlier stories (as well as our post-modern concepts of evolutions and extinctions) and now makes them equally valid and somehow sequential--this is the umpteenth eschatology and genesis in a long series. (Kabbalah opens up Genesis from the same OT text and finds not one creation but the creations of four different universes, each successively further from God; and of course the Hindu cosmology which posits a chain of four major ages, from a golden age to a base and degenerate age, with minor twilight ages and apocalypses in between.)
<<two demons disguised as merchants? like Agia and Aguilus...?>>