Another understated Biblical allusion:
"'Enough,' said Everard awkwardly. 'Go and sin no more.'" (p. 426)
Maybe this time I can leave it to blog readers to recognize or locate this reference?
Lorenzo plays games with religion. Wanda Tamberly lets him begin to seduce her so that archangel Everard can appear and order Lorenzo to celibacy and the Crusade. Having prayed over her medallion in her native dialect (alerted Everard through her communicator in American English), Tamberly encourages seduction by saying:
"'I feel purified enough to be ready for mischief.'" (p. 423)
Lorenzo warns her that her remark:
"'...edges the Catharist heresy.'" (ibid.)
Who can split hairs about doctrine while beginning a seduction? Lorenzo.
The seduction will take place in "'...the Apollo bower.'" (p. 421) Lorenzo explains that the bower must have been sacred to some god and that that god should have been Apollo. He proposes to thank God for His bounty by taking pleasure in the bower. There is some oscillation between pantheons here but Lorenzo finally comes down on the side of Paganism:
"'Deny not Cupid, here in his own abode.'" (p. 424)
Appropriate language and ideas if inconsistent with his professed concern about Catharism.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
John, Chapter 8.
Catharism was a hot button issue in Lorenzo's time. So I would most people to have at least a passing knowledge of it.
Ad astra! Sean
People in the Renaissance -- and Italians considerably earlier -- made references to Classical paganism as a sort of metaphor. Nobody thought they were taking it literally.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling! And I'm sure that's still true even now, among those of a more literary turn of mind. In fast, I recalled just now how OFTEN Dante made Classical references in his DIVINE COMEDY. Ad astra! Sean
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