35
Random influxes of strangers in April and July... we should expect that again in early October, I believe. The weekend of curses also appears to change its timing along with the season. Can we expect the third weekend to be cursed during the autumn months? Perhaps a tangible pattern would be asking too much of the deities.
I've had a fair amount of time to think recently--today, especially, as I was hiding from aspiring poets--and I found myself returning to the May incident with Adrastus and his mother. There's more to it than I've puzzled out, I'm sure of it.
I don't know if the name Adrastus has any overwhelming significance. It's a Grecian name, of course--Ἄδραστος, or Ἄδρηστος. It was given to any number of individuals, from the unfortunate king who attacked Thebes to the father of Eurydice. There isn't a historical or mythological Adrastus that this one can be connected to without multiple inferences on my part, so perhaps it's best if I simply move on to his mother.
Since Adrastus is a Greek name, I don't think it's a great leap of logic to look to Grecian mythology for information regarding his mother. I was rather caught up on her possible connection to the River Styx of the Grecian underworld (of course, it was also the name of a relatively obscure goddess and a nymph, and the word means--very literally--hatred), and so it didn't occur to me that she might have a relation to Nyx. Nyx--Νύξ--makes a bit more sense, actually, as she was thought to be an ancient goddess of the night... immensely powerful, seldom mentioned but ever-present. Like her mythological offspring, Hypnos and Thanatos among them (sleep and death, respectively), she straddles the line between idea and deity--a personification.
If Hesiod is to be believed, Nyx was born of Chaos. She's also referred to as the mother of the Keres (Κῆρες), the death-spirits that took female form. The Iliad also draws a connection between Nyx and fate. All mythology of course; there's nothing reliable to be said of Nyx. She was, in all depictions, incredibly powerful. So powerful, in fact, that even Zeus feared her anger. I've been referring to Adrastus' mother as a power higher than the deities, and that certainly supports the idea.
There are a bevy of other goddesses who, like Adrastus' mother, appear to have associations with death as well as life--Chicomecoatl, Mania or Manea (the Roman and Etruscan version, not the Grecian), Libitina, Izanami-no-Mikoto, Neith, and Serket, among others. Given the multilingual nature of her message, I believe Adrastus' mother may be a combination of all of these goddesses (or, more likely, the personification of the idea behind the goddesses of various cultures) rather than a specific one.
I'm still not entirely comforted by her parting words. sENEBTi xAIRe vALETe indeed. Anyone who uses words that are equally suited to greetings and departures upon leaving clearly has no intention of staying away for long.
The City is like that though, isn't it? A farewell is very seldom permanent.
Cyclic--it's all circular by nature. The clock, the pattern of curses, the comings and goings, the symbolic carousel (and I do believe it's symbolic, even if I'm not entirely sure what it symbolizes)... and, of course, the City Dead. There was an inscription on a tomb in the Vatican City that comes to mind--Vel in vita nos es in nex. "Even in life we are in death."
It's not a thought I care to dwell on, as relevant as it may be.
Pet projects aside, I can't find anything on Sidhe. They're simply not supposed to exist. Of course, neither am I, on a purely technical level, but it's difficult to find anything that isn't simply myth and lore about them. Endlessly frustrating.
Back to the nitrocellulose, I suppose. Not that the explosive compounds I was working with in my world matter all that much here in a world that's familiar with atomic warfare. And the Cardinal thought that I was a danger to the laboratory's infrastructure! I can't imagine what he would say about weapons that can annihilate entire cities in one go. My God, not even I know what to say and I've had a good eight months to get used to the idea.
Perhaps I should busy myself with research and forego inventing while I'm here. Being well over a century behind the latest technological innovations is discouraging, you see; every time I think I've stumbled across something new, someone's beaten me to it.
I feel like something of an intellectual Neanderthal.
I've had a fair amount of time to think recently--today, especially, as I was hiding from aspiring poets--and I found myself returning to the May incident with Adrastus and his mother. There's more to it than I've puzzled out, I'm sure of it.
I don't know if the name Adrastus has any overwhelming significance. It's a Grecian name, of course--Ἄδραστος, or Ἄδρηστος. It was given to any number of individuals, from the unfortunate king who attacked Thebes to the father of Eurydice. There isn't a historical or mythological Adrastus that this one can be connected to without multiple inferences on my part, so perhaps it's best if I simply move on to his mother.
Since Adrastus is a Greek name, I don't think it's a great leap of logic to look to Grecian mythology for information regarding his mother. I was rather caught up on her possible connection to the River Styx of the Grecian underworld (of course, it was also the name of a relatively obscure goddess and a nymph, and the word means--very literally--hatred), and so it didn't occur to me that she might have a relation to Nyx. Nyx--Νύξ--makes a bit more sense, actually, as she was thought to be an ancient goddess of the night... immensely powerful, seldom mentioned but ever-present. Like her mythological offspring, Hypnos and Thanatos among them (sleep and death, respectively), she straddles the line between idea and deity--a personification.
If Hesiod is to be believed, Nyx was born of Chaos. She's also referred to as the mother of the Keres (Κῆρες), the death-spirits that took female form. The Iliad also draws a connection between Nyx and fate. All mythology of course; there's nothing reliable to be said of Nyx. She was, in all depictions, incredibly powerful. So powerful, in fact, that even Zeus feared her anger. I've been referring to Adrastus' mother as a power higher than the deities, and that certainly supports the idea.
There are a bevy of other goddesses who, like Adrastus' mother, appear to have associations with death as well as life--Chicomecoatl, Mania or Manea (the Roman and Etruscan version, not the Grecian), Libitina, Izanami-no-Mikoto, Neith, and Serket, among others. Given the multilingual nature of her message, I believe Adrastus' mother may be a combination of all of these goddesses (or, more likely, the personification of the idea behind the goddesses of various cultures) rather than a specific one.
I'm still not entirely comforted by her parting words. sENEBTi xAIRe vALETe indeed. Anyone who uses words that are equally suited to greetings and departures upon leaving clearly has no intention of staying away for long.
The City is like that though, isn't it? A farewell is very seldom permanent.
Cyclic--it's all circular by nature. The clock, the pattern of curses, the comings and goings, the symbolic carousel (and I do believe it's symbolic, even if I'm not entirely sure what it symbolizes)... and, of course, the City Dead. There was an inscription on a tomb in the Vatican City that comes to mind--Vel in vita nos es in nex. "Even in life we are in death."
It's not a thought I care to dwell on, as relevant as it may be.
Pet projects aside, I can't find anything on Sidhe. They're simply not supposed to exist. Of course, neither am I, on a purely technical level, but it's difficult to find anything that isn't simply myth and lore about them. Endlessly frustrating.
Back to the nitrocellulose, I suppose. Not that the explosive compounds I was working with in my world matter all that much here in a world that's familiar with atomic warfare. And the Cardinal thought that I was a danger to the laboratory's infrastructure! I can't imagine what he would say about weapons that can annihilate entire cities in one go. My God, not even I know what to say and I've had a good eight months to get used to the idea.
Perhaps I should busy myself with research and forego inventing while I'm here. Being well over a century behind the latest technological innovations is discouraging, you see; every time I think I've stumbled across something new, someone's beaten me to it.
I feel like something of an intellectual Neanderthal.