Thursday 5 May 2016

Sun And Sea

On the Birthday of Mithras, the Mithraists in Ys dedicate their temple in the basement of The Raven Tower. They have statues of the Dadophori and of lion-headed Time.

Daylight is a glimmer "...in a cavern of night..." (Gallicenae, p. 153), which is appropriate since Mithras is worshiped in a cave.

At nightfall, when Gratillonius and his visiting father return to the palace, wind yells, driving rain and chill down the streets, and:

"Under the sea wall, tide ramped and snarled." (p. 158)

Why does Chapter VII end with this sentence? Because the Mithraeum is below the waterline and vulnerable to the sea god, Lir, Who will overwhelm His city, inundating everything in it, especially the basements built just beneath the sea wall. The doom that is to come is foreshadowed in much of the preceding text.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

The bit about "Under the sea wall, tide ramped and snarled" is yet another of how the Andersons used the pathetic fallacy in THE KING OF YS. Because of how often you point out how Amderson used this method in his works I hope to be more alert to noticing the pathetic fallacy on rereading them.

Sean