Trivigaunte

A Whorl city "well to the south" of Viron. Trivigaunte is warlike and extremely matriarchal (in contrast to Viron's highly patriarchal society).

Etymology and Definition

Trivigante (note the variation in spelling) is the supposed root of the word termagant which is a goddess said to be worshiped by pagans in Medieval literature (and by extension, Moslems as well) typically portrayed as railing and malignant and dressed in Oriental robes.

According the The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the meaning of trivigante is supposed to come from Latin word tri meaning "three" and -vagant (feminine present participle of vagari) meaning "wandering." So trivigante means "thrice wandering" and so is said to designate the deity and worship of the moon wandering under the names of Selene (Luna) in heaven, Artemis (Diana) in earth, and Persephone (Proserpina) in hell.

This seems a reasonable explanation because in The Legend of Syr Guy, the Saracen says:

So helpe me, Mahoune, of might,
And Termagaunt, my god so bright.
[emphasis added]

Termagant also means variously:

“A hundred thousand Turks assailed him, every one a Termagant.”
The Picture, Massinger

"Twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too.”
Henry IV., v. 4., William Shakespeare

Termagant is variously spelled in Medieval literature termagaunt, termagante, termagaunte, tervagant, tervagaunt, etc, etc.. The spelling of Trivigaunte is nowhere used anywhere that I know of, but Wolfe seems to have consciously applied to the word trivigante the u variation of termagant and termagaunt. 

Commentary

The Trivigaunti bear the name of the trideitic Earth Mother/Moon goddess of Robert Graves' The White Goddess and The Greek Myths. In these works, Graves postulated that the Goddess-worshipping cultures, eventually overwhelmed by those of Zeus and Apollo, were matrilineal and to some extent matriarchal (such that the king was an executive owing his power to the Goddess' priestess who ritually executed him at the end of his term). 

While the Trivigaunti culture differs to from Graves' vision, it seems to be Wolfe's speculation of what such a culture, infused as well with Amazonian war values, might be like. Trivigante/Termagaunt is also a masculinized deity. Starting out as the Moon goddess, Trivigante was thought of by Medieval dramatists as a male god in oriental robes. Later, because its robes looked like women's garb, the word 'termagant' came to mean a railing woman. 

Graves also associated the trideitic goddess with the Cretan Bee goddess, the goddess of Death-In-Life whom he in turn associated with the Theban Sphinx, called "the man-snatching plague" by Aeschylus in Seven Against Thebes. Of course the Trivigaunte worship solely the Mainframe war goddess, Sphigx. Wolfe would have had this on his mind during the writing of The Book of the Long Sun because Graves makes this association in The Greek Myths in his notes on Aristeas (The Greek Myths 82:5).

Also, as Amazons, (descendents and worshippers of the war god Ares) the Triviganti are associated through Graves as worshippers of the Moon goddess: Graves denied the traditional etymology of "amazon" as "without breasts." He claimed that it was an Armenian word meaning "moon women" and that the priestesses of the the Moon goddess bore arms ala Athena (Ibid 100:1).

Medieval 'miracle' drama is also a source for the Trivigaunti's inclusion in Wolfe's Whorl, but interestingly it has as much to do with chems and Horn as it does with Amazonian invaders. The play by Jean Bodel, The Play of St. Nicolas (Le Jeu de Saint Nicolas) c.1200. The play takes place in the Near East, and centers on a Saracen ruler. Jean Bodel had been himself a former crusader in Egypt, and his tavern scenes are credibly realistic. The Saracen has an ugly 'living statue' of Tervagant that smiles and weeps (an innovation in stage design). He sets a challenge between between his image and an image of St. Nicolas of a captured Christian (evidently a monk of some sort), named Li Preudom (Good Man). If St Nicolas wins the challenge, Li Preudom will live. The pagans make jokes regarding the image's horns (his mitre). St. Nicolas does win the challenge and the Saracen ruler not only sets Li Preudom free, but becomes a Christian. The climax of the story is when the Saracen throws Tervagant down a flight of steps shouting, "Prophesy how many steps!"

So here is a thirteenth century play with many of the elements of The Book of the Long Sun: A Trivigante, a living statue that sibyl like prophecies, whose enemy is a protagonist with 'horns'.

The Trivigaunte are sometimes offered as proof of Wolfe's misogyny. But in fact, they are nothing other than a matriarchal version of patriarchal Viron and no more or less dystopian; Siyuf is no more arrogant or cruel than Lemur, Loris, and Potto.  Nor is lesbianism among the Trivigaunte a badge of villainy. It marks the Trivigaunti as a feminization of Greek (primarily Spartan) society. 

More Termagant References

That admiral hath great possessions;
He makes them bear before him his dragon,
And their standard, Tervagan's and Mahom's,
And his image, Apollin the felon.
Ten Canelious canter in the environs,
Song of Roland, Anonymous Old French epic (c. 1050)

v 134-145
Dieu pri qu'aient melancolie, 
Dont chascuns face tel folie 
Dont il soient prins et pendu ; 
Que ja n'an soient deffendu! 
Je leur done maleïçon 
De Tervagant et de Mahon, 
De Baucibus, de Lucifer, 
De touz les deables d'enfer 
C'onques portierent croz de fer. 
Qui porter les puist en enfer, 
Auctoritate Domini
Se il n'an viennent a merci!
Des Vilains,  

vs 477-480
By Jovin and Plotoun, 
And by Mahoun and Tervagant 
There shall no man ben his waraunt, 
Emperour, no king with croun.'

vs 499-504
Sche kist Mahoun and Apolin,
Astirot, and Sir Jovin,
For drede of words awe.
And while she was in the temple there
Of Tervagant and Jubiter
She lerd the hethen lawe.

vs 595-600
Thou leave nought wele afine
On Jubiter no on Apoline
Amorwe #no aneve;
No in Mahoun no in Tervagant,
Therefore is lorn this litel faunt
No wonder they me grieve.'
King of the Tars, Anonymous Middle English poem, c. 1300

Till that there came a great giaunt,
His name was Sir Oliphaunt,
A perilous man of deed;
He saide, "Child, by Termagaunt, 
But if thou prick out of mine haunt,
Anon I slay thy steed
With mace.
Here is the Queen of Faery,
With harp, and pipe, and symphony,
Dwelling in this place."
Tale of Sir Thopas, Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1370)

LVIII
The Spanish cavalier the stream beside
Arrived, who had pursued her traces there:
Angelica no sooner him espied,
Than she evanished clean, and spurred her mare:
The helm this while had dropt, but lay too wide
To be recovered of the flying fair.
As soon as sweet Angelica he saw,
Towards her full of rapture sprang Ferrau.

LIX
She disappeared, I say, as forms avaunt
At sleep's departure: toiling long and sore
He seeks the damsel there, 'twixt plant and plant,
Now can his wretched eyes behold her more.
Blaspheming his Mahound and Termagant,
And cursing every master of his lore,
Ferrau returned towards the sylvan fount,
Where lay on earth the helmet of the count.
Orlando Furioso, Canto 12, Ludovico Ariosto (1516)

This terrible termagant, this Nero, this Pharaoh.
King John, John Bale (1538)

LXXXIV
For nations twain inhabit there and dwell
Of sundry faith together in that town,
The lesser part on Christ believed well,
On Termagent the more and on Mahown,
But when this king had made this conquest fell,
And brought that region subject to his crown,
Of burdens all he set the Paynims large,
And on poor Christians laid the double charge.
Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), First Book, Torquato Tasso (1581)
translated by Edward Faifax (1600)

So did the Squire, the whiles the Carle did fret,
And fume in his disdainefull mynd the more,
And oftentimes by Turmagant and Mahound swore.
The Faerie Queene, Book 6, cant vii, Edmund Spenser (1590)

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