[TUC Spoilers] Psalm of Imimorûl

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Madness

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« Reply #30 on: September 08, 2017, 01:45:59 am »
Why the use of the word "hair"? Possibly just because we read Sorweel's interpretation of the text?
That's a good point. 'Hair' could just be how the Amiolas translates the concept from Ihrimsu because it's being worn by a human.

Lol, my joking aside, why couldn't Imimorul have had hair? I don't get it. He's an anomaly in the text for a variety of supernatural reasons.

Also, I love that this has been a point of contention, Duskweaver ;).

Stepping away from the hairy issue for a moment. Could there be any connection between Imimorul supposedly coming from the sky and the Nonman association of depth with the past and altitude with the future (c.f. the Great Pit of Years)?

Oh, I like that. I'm sure FB has brought up versions of this before but per-Enlightenment "maps" of reality tended to look like this:



A lot of Great Chain of Being interpretations, right ;)?
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Duskweaver

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« Reply #31 on: September 08, 2017, 02:45:39 pm »
why couldn't Imimorul have had hair? I don't get it. He's an anomaly in the text for a variety of supernatural reasons.
Maybe the Nonmen are hairless because Imimorul didn't have any hair on his fingers? ;)

In any case, the issue isn't Imimorul's hirsuteness or otherwise, but the strangeness of a hairless species using the word 'hair' as a poetic metaphor.

Quote
Also, I love that this has been a point of contention, Duskweaver ;).
I wouldn't say we were contending. I'm certainly not suggesting that the use of the word 'hair' is a mistake. I just think it raises some potentially interesting questions. Were Nonmen always bald? Did the Amiolas translate the poem non verbum e verbo sed sensum de sensu, hence inserting a metaphor from Sorweel's culture? Did the poem originate as a history lesson from a Nonman to his Emwama, and thus use a metaphor that made sense to them rather than to the poet's own species?

Quote
Oh, I like that. I'm sure FB has brought up versions of this before but per-Enlightenment "maps" of reality tended to look like this:

A lot of Great Chain of Being interpretations, right ;)?
Sure. The Chain is sort of an Ourouboros in Earwa, though, isn't it? Coming too close to the Absolute, the Godhead at the top, damns you and returns you right to the bottom, with the Ciphrang, deader than stone. Unless you can turn it on its side, realise the circle is a spiral (no circle, no soul), and escape laterally into Oblivion.

Although I was really just suggesting that Imimorul might have come from the future. ;)
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Madness

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« Reply #32 on: September 08, 2017, 03:29:26 pm »
I wouldn't say we were contending. I'm certainly not suggesting that the use of the word 'hair' is a mistake. I just think it raises some potentially interesting questions. Were Nonmen always bald? Did the Amiolas translate the poem non verbum e verbo sed sensum de sensu, hence inserting a metaphor from Sorweel's culture? Did the poem originate as a history lesson from a Nonman to his Emwama, and thus use a metaphor that made sense to them rather than to the poet's own species?

Lol, all possibilities.

Sure. The Chain is sort of an Ourouboros in Earwa, though, isn't it? Coming too close to the Absolute, the Godhead at the top, damns you and returns you right to the bottom, with the Ciphrang, deader than stone. Unless you can turn it on its side, realise the circle is a spiral (no circle, no soul), and escape laterally into Oblivion.

Although I was really just suggesting that Imimorul might have come from the future. ;)

I'm sure we have a thread on creation myths or lack-thereof in Earwa...

- Who (or what) created Eärwa?
- And maybe, tangentially, Inchoroi Gods.

And I didn't catch the temporal thought, that's interesting - though then you're still stuck figuring out why a future Nonman had hair ;). FB has long suspected a block universe and I'll yield to his or your leanings on myth/historical antecedents 8).
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Wolfdrop

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« Reply #33 on: September 10, 2017, 11:08:45 am »
Imimorûl uses the wombs of lions for his progeny and the mane for wigs.

Bakker pls confirm.

solipsisticurge

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« Reply #34 on: September 10, 2017, 03:08:16 pm »
The Gods ever hunger for only the finest, silkiest of manes, my brothers, which age not with the death of seasons or the blooding of second-born Sons; I implore thee to know - to believe! - that the soul most sacred can be found ONLY in the mane most luxuriant!

And thus do the Gods await the arrival of our salvation, Esmenet-most-Glossy, Esmenet-most-Coiffured, to their side; the Bringer of Style, the Harbinger of Wind Resistance, the Herald of the Great Parting, which will see all souls freed from the accursed chains of The Thinning Years! Salvation awaits all Men should they but seek it - not through great acts - nay, the crutch of false-souled Men who would blind thine eyes to their Recession through Worldly deed! Not through mercy - nay, the tenor of Heaven sings from the follicle, not the split end!

Salvation is a journey, my brethren - the toll of years tracked upon our scalps' cruel ground. And we, my kin, shall be saved where all others fall into endless torment, for WE! WEAR! CONDITIONED! GROUND!

...sorry.
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Monkhound

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« Reply #35 on: September 11, 2017, 06:01:57 am »
Wow... lol... xD
Cuts and cuts and cuts...

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« Reply #36 on: September 13, 2017, 12:39:04 am »
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Wilshire

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« Reply #37 on: June 12, 2019, 02:15:18 pm »
The Gods ever hunger for only the finest, silkiest of manes, my brothers, which age not with the death of seasons or the blooding of second-born Sons; I implore thee to know - to believe! - that the soul most sacred can be found ONLY in the mane most luxuriant!

And thus do the Gods await the arrival of our salvation, Esmenet-most-Glossy, Esmenet-most-Coiffured, to their side; the Bringer of Style, the Harbinger of Wind Resistance, the Herald of the Great Parting, which will see all souls freed from the accursed chains of The Thinning Years! Salvation awaits all Men should they but seek it - not through great acts - nay, the crutch of false-souled Men who would blind thine eyes to their Recession through Worldly deed! Not through mercy - nay, the tenor of Heaven sings from the follicle, not the split end!

Salvation is a journey, my brethren - the toll of years tracked upon our scalps' cruel ground. And we, my kin, shall be saved where all others fall into endless torment, for WE! WEAR! CONDITIONED! GROUND!

...sorry.
This is brilliant.

Anyway, this thread go derailed rather strongly by the confusion about hair. Am I the only one still confounded by the poem itself. Read it a few times now, its very confusing.

First of all, whats a "myriad"? It doesn't seem to be used in the normal sense meaning "a number of" (usually Many), but rather some kind of noun...
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« Reply #38 on: June 17, 2019, 05:24:52 pm »
First of all, whats a "myriad"? It doesn't seem to be used in the normal sense meaning "a number of" (usually Many), but rather some kind of noun...

I think it might be two different contextual uses, although I can likely do it with one.

I, Imimorul, fled the Heavens,

so much did I love the brooks that chirrup,

the high mountains that hiss,

the myriads that bolt through this blessed hair,

This one is the most curious, but I part of it is that it is imply "many divisions."  Even though the idea of "bolting through" is not how we'd normally consider as the nature of division of hair.

I, Imimorul, did flee the Starving [sky], so much did I fear the Heavens,

the wrath of those who were wroth, who would forbid my love,

of the myriads of the World.

And you were as children to me,

the form of Gods as the issue of Lions, sons who would father nations,

and daughters who would mother the myriads of the World.[/i]

Here again though, I think this strongly implies a reading of "many divisions," as in many individuals, in use.  In the former case, as the many who were "wroth" and "who would forbid."  In the latter, the myriads are offspring, children to the "mother."  So, perhaps the aim here could be to draw the idea of hair on a body, being many divisions, then of the world, being divided into a "self" and "others," then the sort of "genesis" that is, the division born out through reproduction.
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Wilshire

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« Reply #39 on: June 17, 2019, 05:50:11 pm »
The World to him, who sings my song,

for I am the Font, the Spirit of the Deepest Deep,

and mine is the first heart to beat your blood.

The World to him, who sings my song.

This is Imimorul saying anyone that sings his song (the rest of the poem?) will get the World.
And that he is the proginator of those singers, which could technically be either the Nonmen or Humans?


I, Imimorul, fled the Heavens,

so much did I love the brooks that chirrup,

the high mountains that hiss,

the myriads that bolt through this blessed hair,

Imimorul was a God of some description who loved the world, and so left Heaven (The Outside) to live among the Inside.


The World to him, who raises up rooves in the Deep.

I, Imimorul, did flee the Starving [sky], so much did I fear the Heavens,

the wrath of those who were wroth, who would forbid my love,

of the myriads of the World.

Worth noting that the depths of the world seem to be the beginning of the world, or at least the parts Imimorul loves most deeply.

Feeling the Sky once he's in the world, afraid that the heavens could see/stop him. So he flees underground.

"Myriads of the world" here meaning all the different things of the world? Living creatures, plants, the ground and the caverns.


The World to her, who kindles her fire in the Deep.
More about the Holy Deep, but who is "her".


I, Imimorul, did cut from my hand my fingers,

and from my arm, my hand, and from my body, my arm,

and these pieces of me I did place in the wombs of Lions,

so that I might dwell content in my own company.

He cuts off his fingers, hand, arm. Gives the bits to Lions. These bits become his children (dwelling in his own company). Unless they become his clones, to literally dwell in his own company.


And I became One-Armed, Imimorul, the Unshielded.

This might have some poetic meaning beyond the obvious "shielded" because he cut off his shield arm.



And you were as children to me,

the form of Gods as the issue of Lions, sons who would father nations,

and daughters who would mother the myriads of the World.

The phalanges he put into lions become his children who sired nations.
Interestingly, its the Men who fathered nations.

The Nonmen Women are something of an enigma even here. They did not mother nations, but rather became "the myriads of the World". Earlier, it looks like myriads is being used to describe the inaniment world, or maybe both the ground/depths itself as well the creatures living among it.

Also, these Nonmen from Lions are not from women. It could be the nonmen women are not necessarily human-analogue shaped. That the nonmen actually are birth from the beasts of the world. Though, I don't think this really fits in with the lore we assume we know.


And I sang to you such songs as are only heard in the highest of Heavens, and nowhere in the Hells.

We did weep together, as we sang, for woe cares not for names or glory only that skin blackens for bruising, breaks for blood.

Heaven and NOT Hell. There are at least two distinct possibilities, no more. I'm not sure what the ramifications are for a hell that has no songs of nonmen.

And a penchant for remembering only sorrow, blood, and pain. Maybe the Erratics are no so different than what Nonmen always became later in life?



The World to him, who sings my song.

Pretty clear, discussed initially above


The World to him, who finds me in the Deep.

A final reference to what is basically The Holy Deep. This, if its the Nonmen creation myth, really explains why they are obsessed with the underground. It seems they believe their God lives in the Earth, not the Sky.



The World to him, and woe.

The suffering motif to end it. Not redemption or Eden, only more sorrow.  Maybe this is why they seek oblivion as well, someplace that is neither the Woe that is their god, nor the Hunger that is the Gods.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2019, 06:12:50 pm by Wilshire »
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