Thursday 26 May 2016

Light And Darkness

Corentinus needs help from Bishop Martinus. Apuleius advises:

"'Make haste. He can't have much time left in this world. Who shall carry the light he has kindled?'"
-Poul and Karen Anderson, The Dog And The Wolf, Chapter IV, section 4, p. 95.

This is immediately followed by:

"Darkness deepened." (ibid.)

We are unsurprised, by now used to pathetic fallacy. However, we might miss an irony when we turn the page. There is darkness indeed. Gratillonius' personal enemies continue to plot against him - and allege that his new village will be full of paganism and black sorcery! We know that Corentinus' angelic vision saved Gratillonius from drowning in Ys but his enemies agree that he could only have been rescued by Satan. Personal and political spite know no bounds.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

While some of the surviving Ysans may have become Christians for merely pragmatic reasons, that was not true of all of them. Others did so from honest belief. Or from disgust and anger at their former "gods."

Too true, what you said about personal and political spite! Alas, I don't expect that to ever vanish from the human race.

Sean