"The shortest way to the atrium was through the roses." (p. 60)
"The plain white stola fell in severe folds..." (ibid.)
"'...there was a Power in that place...'" (p. 61)
What is a capitalized "Power"? Something like a depersonalized god?
Eodan frequently refers to the Bull worshiped by the Cimbri, e.g.:
"'I was driven by the Powers of earth; the Bull was within me that day, Phryne.'" (p. 62)
The Bull was before us in Chapter I:
"It was a heavy image, cast in bronze, with horns that seemed to threaten the stars." (p. 15)
Threatening the stars foreshadows Anderson's interstellar sf. "The Bull" also wakes in Gratillonius when he is King Of Ys. See also Mithras And The Bull and The Myth Of Mithras.
"'...we are all pursued by our private Furies.'" (p. 63)
This is true although the Furies are myths.
Phryne loved a young slave who was sold and sent to Egypt. Although the man is probably still alive, Eodan reflects that:
"His ghost will not let her look on another man." (pp. 63-64)
Here, "ghost" means a memory rather than a departed spirit.
Eodan, now running errands for Cordelia, carries a purse of denarii. She names him after Hercules, the son of Alcmeme. Another of her slaves is "'...a witch from Thrace...'" (p. 68) Eodan had captured Cordelia's husband, Flavius, at the Battle of Arausio.
Eodan says that he cannot help his wife, also enslaved, but:
"Suddenly it burst within him. As if the sun had taken him full in the eyes, he gasped and cried low, 'But I can!'" (p. 72)
One of Anderson's many moments of realization.
Lifting hands to the eastern light and speaking in Cimbrian, he calls day, dark, wind, sea "...and all the Powers of earth to witness his promise." (p. 72)
- an irrevocable promise to rescue Hwicca, his wife, from Flavius' house in Rome.
3 comments:
Paul:
I'm not sure what PA intended with his use of "Power" capitalized, but I've seen it used by other writers as a term for a god, not necessarily depersonalized, but with his/her name not actually spoken – and perhaps unknown by the characters at that point in the story. Michael Scott Rohan's The Winter of the World series comes to mind. In the first book, one major character explains to the protagonist (who didn't realize, at that point, that capitalization applied):
"But such powers there are, and my people have long revered them—too long, perhaps, for they have faded into half-truth and legend, figures on walls and banners, half-remembered songs, no more. Saithana, if truly she exists, may be one. But Raven certainly is! For know, smith, that you shod the steed of a great power that night. If you like, a god!"
(Saithana is the daughter of Niarad, Power of the seas. In our much-later millennia she's recalled as the Inuit sea-goddess Sedna, while her father is the Norse Njörðr or Njord. Raven is a trickster figure in Native American legends ... but in The Winter of the World, his resemblance to Odin is far stronger – including that he's accompanied by a pair of ravens that sometimes croak, "Thinking!" "Remembering!")
I digress. At any rate, I think PA meant there was the feeling of a deity actually being (or having been) present in that shrine, but his character didn't know what name to call him/her/it.
Poul also pays careful attention to language in this book. What the Cimbri speak is a very early form of proto-Germanic -- hence the "hw" sounds, for example.
Kaor, DAVID and Mr. Stirling!
David: I agree, here PA was using "Power" simply as a means of referring to a god without using a name.
Albeit, to see Michael S. Rohan using "THE WINTER OF THE WORLD" for his series was a bit jarring. I'm far more used to that title being used for Anderson's earlier book of the same name!
And "Rohan" brings to mind both the aristocratic French family of that name and Tolkien's Kingdom of Rohan in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. But I'm not sure if Tolkien was aware of the Rohan family when he was writing LOTR.
Mr. Stirling: Such as the "Hw" in the name of Eodan's wife. A neat touch, I agree.
Ad astra! Sean
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