Did Jack Vance write any stories or novels with the original Emphyrio as a protagonist?

Question

In Jack Vance's excellent 1969 novel Emphyrio, the protagonist, Ghyl Tarvoke, adopts the name of a legendary hero, Emphyrio, as a sort of nom de guerre. Within the novel, we are told the story of Emphyrio in summary form twice: First, when Ghyl attends a a traditional play based on the story, and later, a more historical account.
Vance linked many of his works into a "Gaean Reach" universe and in fact refers to Emphyrio in other novels. It wouldn't surprise me if the story of the original Emphyrio was a reference to some earlier work.
I'd like to know if Vance ever told the story of the original Emphyrio by itself, in a story or novel standing on its own.  Or was this story-within-a-story just a plot device?

Buzz · Accepted Answer

He did not.  Like an awful lot of Vance's worldbuilding, the culture hero Emphyrio was just part of the background—never fully explained.  It was not usually Vance's practice to flesh out the background references in his works through additional stories.
Moreover, in this particular case, giving an explicit version of the story of Emphyrio would probably undermine the message that the novel Emphyrio (which, unlike most of Vance's writing, is something of a novel of ideas) is trying to convey.  Ghyl Tarvoke puzzles about what must really have happened to Emphyrio in legendary past, and he eventually learns a lot—but by no means the whole tale.  Had Vance laid out a complete narrative explaining everything that happened to the character of Emphyrio, that would have taken away from the "punch" of the 1969 novel.

Did Jack Vance write any stories or novels with the original Emphyrio as a protagonist?

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