From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" 
Subject: RE: (urth) Tracking Song
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 10:26:18 -0700

Nutria then Alga wrote...

> > Certainly the Bible gives no hint of an ultimately 
> > saved Cain, and I know of no pseudigraphical literature
> > that does. But it looks to me as if Wolfe might be
> > playing that trick here.

> But Ratty, way back when, someone, maybe you, silenced me 
> on some rant by pointing out that Cutthroat is loved 
> wherever hegoes. By  everyone. Even when he is menaced 
> underground it isthe immediate affection that everyone 
> seems to feel for him immediately that saves him. How does 
> that follow a Cain reading? The mark? If so, that needs a
> bit of explanation.

Genesis 4:14 
	But the LORD said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, 
	he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD 
	put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill 
	him.

Okay, this is a little ambiguous ... the two statements may
be taken as related in (at least) two different ways:

1) The mark effectively informs anyone who finds Cain that God
   will take sevenfold vengeance on anyone who kills him;
2) the mark in some way directly prevents anyone who finds Cain
   from killing him.

_IF_ we read "Tracking Song" as a riff on Cain -- concerning 
which I remain not fully convinced -- then we'd have to 
conclude that Mr Wolfe had based his story on the second
interpretation.

--Blattid


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