[NPPF] Canto Four: Versipellis

[s~Z]

"The more I weigh, the less secure my skin;"

On the surface, 'bimanist' is a reference to being bimanual, but in this
contrapuntal poem, such a coined word also points to Shade as two-man-ist. I
could not disagree more with Boyd's assessment of Shade in _The Magic of
Artistic Discovery_. Shade has great secrets and surprises and 'is
[in]stability itself.' His very name 'Shade' or 'Shadow' indicates the
reader is in for more than what things seem on the surface with this
character. Aunt Maud and John Shade are very complex, dark, and disturbing
characters.

"I had a brain, five senses (one unique)"

Shamelessness as a Relief from Shame
The reaction against unbearable humiliation often took the form of
disengagement. The hardened skin is the disposable skin; it could be put on
and off like armor or makeup. The subject, like the dependent, delighted in
being callidus, wily as well as hard; he or she enjoyed being a versipellis,
a protean creature who changed his or her skin to suit the moment. Tacitus'
aristocrats often adopted the survival strategy of Plautus' slaves:
metamorphosis. It is important to add, moreover, that if being an itinerant
trickster made one like a the slaves in Plautus or Petronius, it also made
one like a god. Jupiter was, of course, the ultimate versipellis (Plautus,
Amphitryon 123). The slave, like the god, was unattached to his face.
www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/6-2/html/barton.html

The Romans also knew this superstition. Anyone who was supposed to have been
turned into a wolf by means of magic spells or herbs was called versipellis
"turnskin" by the Romans.
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/4626/lycanthr.html

Hearing this I could not close an eye; but as soon as it was daylight, I ran
home like a pedlar that has been eased of his pack. Coming to the place
where the clothes had been turned into stone, I saw nothing but a pool of
blood; and when I got home, I found my soldier lying in bed, like an ox in a
stall, and a surgeon dressing his neck. I saw at once that he was a fellow
who could change his skin (versipellis), and never after could I eat bread
with him, no, not if you would have killed me. Those who would have taken a
different view of the case are welcome to their opinion; if I tell you a
lie, may your genii confound me!
http://www.mythology.com/bookofwerewolves2.html

In all this, says Lewis Hyde, "Trickster is the mythic embodiment of
ambiguity and ambivalence, doubleness and duplicity, contradiction and
paradox" (7), and can thus be seen as the archetypal boundary-crosser,
although here Hyde notes that "there are also cases in which trickster
creates a boundary, or brings to the surface a distinction previously hidden
from sight"
http://southerncrossreview.org/18/trickster.htm