Source for title Gravity's Rainbow?

[Andrew Dinn]

Foax,

Leafing for a second time through a collection of Rilke's poems the
other day I noticed again, and this time paid attention to, a poem
called Schwerkraft - Gravity - written in October 1924. I believe it
is very likely to be a source for Pynchon's title. Here is the poem:

    Mitte, wie du aus allen
    dich ziest, auch noch aus Fliegenden dich
    wiedergewinnst, Mitte, du Staerkste.

    Stehender: wie ein Trank den Durst
    Durchstuerzt ihn die Schwerkraft.

    Doch aus dem Schlafenden faellt,
    wie aus lagernder Wolke,
    reichlicher Regen der Schwere.

The (not particularly lovely) translation I have is by Michael
Hamburger and goes as follows:

    Centre, how from them all
    you draw yourself, even from flying creatures
    win back yourself, centre, the strongest.

    The standing man: as drink through thirst
    gravity rushes through him.

    But from the sleeper falls,
    as from a cloud at rest,
    gravity's plentiful rain.

As far as my small German (and my not very large dictionary) goes,
Schwerkraft is definitively gravity, the attractive force, whereas the
word Schwere in the last line suggests more gravity as in seriousness
although it can stand in for Schwerkraft.

So, why is this a source for the title? Well, the mere mention of rain
and gravity in the last line line ought to be cause enough for
speculation, as should the whole conceit of gravity/seriousness as a
central force, weighing on those who try to stand against it, dragging
down those who try to fly away.

But consider also the contrast in the second and third stanzas between
the standing - or striving? - man, on whom gravity hangs heavy like an
anchor chain and the sleeping man floating like a cloud, shedding his
heaviness. Mindlessness, dreaming, has its own particular pleasures
and achieves some form of liberation from heavyness, seriousness.

And of course after shedding one's burden of gravity like a rain
shower what else would you expect in the calm which follows the storm
but a rainbow.

Gravity's Rainbow.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.