The Master of the Curators

CHAPTER VI SUMMARY*

At the Library of Nessus Severian meets Master Ultan and apprentice Cyby. Ultan quotes phrases from books. Severian gets four books (one of them is brown, one is green) requested by an exultant prisoner.

TERMINOLOGY

Cyby (41.3/16) a Welsh saint (pronounced Sigh-bee).

Iubar (41.11/24) Latin, meaning "becoming light," a hint that the road runs from East to West.

esplanade (41.13/26) a level patch of ground for walking.

Gerbold (43.3/43) a French saint.

Chatelaine (45.1/61) a polite form of address for a female exhultant, from the French, "Lady of the Chateau."

Thecla (45.11/71) Greek, "face of god" there are no less than eight saints named Thecla.

chain (46.2/80) a measure of distance, equal to 100 spans, about 70 feet.

cordwain (46.3/81) a soft, fine-grained leather made of horsehide.

gilt (46.3/81) covered in gold.

Gwinoc (46.3/81) a Welsh saint.

Blaithmaic (46.3/81) an Irish saint.

chrisos (46.11/91) a gold coin.

pharmacon (47.1/93) a medicine, drug, or poison.

Loman (47.2/94) Gaelic, "enlightened," supposedly Saint Patrick's nephew.

Hermas (47.2/94) a reference to the god Mercury, Hermes; there are multiple Saints Hermas.

drachm (47.1/106) 60 minims, 1 dram.

ell (48.1/108) a measure of distance, equal to 5 spans or 40 inches.

saffian (48.1/108) a leather made from goat or sheep skin.

ascetic (48.1/108) one who has renounced earthly pleasures.

pantocrator (48.1/108) "one who has mastered the physical."

hypostases (48.1/108) those whose union constitutes the Increate, think the three figures of the Christian trinity.

POST READING THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS

(Potential spoilers for the sixth chapter)

And candles in blue glass to symbolize the Claw. (42.1/28) We will learn more about the Claw, for which the second volume of the novel - Claw of the Conciliator - in Chapter 18 of The Destruction of the Altar.

The Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky (46.1/79) full title: The Book of Wonders of Urth and Sky, Being a Collection from Printed Sources of Universal Secrets of Such Age That Their Meaning Has Become Obscured of Time, sometimes it is referred to as, simply, the brown book. Know this reader, when stories are told by Severian, they usually hold more truth than Severian's own narrative and he rarely understands their true significance. Pay attention to them, particularly those from the brown book.

Lives of the Seventeen Megatherians (46.3/81) The number seventeen is auspicious in The Book of the New Sun. Not as auspicious as nineteen in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, but similar.

I opened the book at random and read, "... by which a picture might be graven with such skill that the whole of it, should be destroyed, might be created from a small part, and that small part might be of any part." (46.10/90) This makes me think of a Mandelbrot set, or genes. On the next page, 47.10/102, Ultan talks about how the son can look like the father. They don't really remember genetics, so they suspect that people want to eat the dead because by eating a part they get all of the person's ... life? knowledge? essence?