From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Copperheaded Lilith
Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 08:38:40 

On Wed, 9 May 2001, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

>     When the NP, in his new-found Pride at the Power of his position,
> inadvertently pressed a button on the Changer and exchanged the copperhead
> snake in the leaves for its cognate in The Garden, he got Lilith, Adam's
> first wife, who represents Sin, in general, and Lust, specifically. The
> irony is that when Lilith grabbed the Changer and pressed the button, *she*
> exchanged the NP for the old Adam she disdained, who "grunted" over her, who
> is the very tall man at the end of the story. And he is a man, not God;
> Wolfe conflates the biblical passages alluded to so that it is the new Adam
> who does both the cursing and who "shall crush your head under my heel."

Although I'm not sure how (if?) it fits with the creation narratives in
Genesis, the Lilith myth seems to take place before the Fall.  There is a
tradition that before the Fall, humanity and all of nature were different,
more glorious.  This accounts for Adam's godlike appearance, his authority
to condemn Lilith, and for the weirdness of the place where the new
President ends up; he's in the unfallen Eden where the trees sing and the
the ram's horns make music.

-Rostrum


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