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- Eric Rappe
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Thu, 07/28/2005 - 11:45pm
#1
Casssandra/Dierdre
Well, I seem to have unfortunate timing. I make my first post the day before the site is revamped, and now I don't remember it. :dry: Bah, say I. Guess I'll just start again.
There is a short verse in the last chapter of The Eagle's Brood (the American version, if it matters) that I've never understood:
[i:]Dierdre of the Violet Eyes. Cassandra of the Valley. Dierdre of the Weeping Sighs. Cassandra in the Valley. Deep the grave were Dierdre lies. Cassandra, Merlyn's Folley...[/i:]
Why it's there, whether it's part of or from a larger work, and who Dierdre/Cassandra was in the Arthur legend have never been clear to me, so I'm hoping someone else will know.
Thanks all,
Jenny
Jenny,
It's too bad you didn't check back sooner. None other than Jack Whyte himself posted a response to your enquiry. In it he confessed to not even remembering writing the passage in question but thinking that it sounded familiar.
I have to admit that I felt the same way - that the passage sounded strangely familiar, but I couldn't quite place it within the context of the books. It definately shows off Jack's wonderful poetic abilities to the fullest.
Your question began quite a spate of conversation on the forum surrounding the obscureness of the quote. It was quite amusing to find out that Jack couldn't remember writing it. Hopefully the webmaster will post a link to the old forum so we can refer to it from time to time.
I don't know whether it's necessary to try to integrate the posts from the old forum into this one. I think that locking it up and just creating a link to it would suffice.
And welcome to the forum.
Cathy
Hi Jenny, and welcome to the new and improved Camulod.com!
Your question really had me going, but in true Forumite fashion, Julia, one of our regulars, had an answer in no time. She must have the hardcover of The Eagle's Brood, because she found the quote on page four-hundred-something, while in my paperback edition (US TOR books mass-market paperback) it is on page 612. I don't think that it is part of a larger poem, nor do I recall it being elsewhere in Arthurian legend.
Hope to "see you around" now that you've broken the ice.
Regards,
Chief Scott
Hi Jenny, and welcome to the new and improved Camulod.com!
Your question really had me going, but in true Forumite fashion, Julia, one of our regulars, had an answer in no time. She must have the hardcover of The Eagle's Brood, because she found the quote on page four-hundred-something, while in my paperback edition (US TOR books mass-market paperback) it is on page 612. I don't think that it is part of a larger poem, nor do I recall it being elsewhere in Arthurian legend.
Hope to "see you around" now that you've broken the ice.
Regards,
Chief Scott
Hello all, and thanks for the welcome. He really didn't remember it? It must not be very significant, then. The quote itself really doesn't have that much context in the book; it was the strangeness of it being there that got my attention. Still, does anyone have any opinions on the girl herself? I know about the Dierdre legend, and I know about Cassandra the Greek prophet, but what they have to do with each other is what I'm wondering. If anything...:whistle:
Jenny
Hey, Jenny!
Don't go getting all hung up on parallels and images and alternate universes . . . there's not that much in here that's too esoteric or profoundly metaphysical. The association between Deirdre and Cassandra was just a neat strytelling device that occurred one day among the sparking synapses of the author's consciousness . . . or maybe his subsoncsciousness . . . whatever... It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Jack
Hello All..first post, sorry to revive a dead topic, but I just finished said book in question and had a thought on the idea.
Given the leaning toward presience that Merlyn had thus avoided up until the end of this particular book, but came to realize as true near the end. Couldn't that particular snippet simply be a foretelling in his mind of some much later future, in which children recount the fable through rhyme? Much like stories and fables told to scare children evolved through much of the Dark and Middle ages, and still persist today?
As soon as I reached that passage in the book, and Merlyn's reaction to it, that is the first thought that crossed my mind. Just a random thought from a fresh perspective.
jirah