"it took death to show it..."

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

When that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, 

Chaucer's Irony

April is the cruelest month

Eliot's Irony on Chaucer's

Pynchon's Irony on both. 
The March violets in the waste land here, may imply a far
darker ironic vision than either Chaucer's or Eliot's.
Violet is a color for Lent, a shade lighter than black. We
go down to Tiresias, but these men (the engineers) can not
be restrained. Eliot's Tiresias embodies a failure to
discern the One in the Many, to reconcile the divine and
earthly viewpoints. He is ironic in that he is a pagan
figure, a seer not capable of comprehensive vision. A may
uprising of the spirit? Plymouth to Dungeness, blazing for
the love of spring? NO! "a new regime has been taking over,"
we will stay in the playground and not venture into the
woods, it isn't free out here, even the men (von Braun,
Teller, von Neuman) that dream of flying to the moon can not
thrust above a certain height, they too are not free of
gravity, even if they fail to know it. You can't steer
between them boys, didn't you learn that in bourgeois
terms?     




steering between Scylla and Carybds the whole way to
Brennschluss
a host of other souls
Rocketlike
"

BK XI, The Odyssey (Trans. G. Chapman)     

 At the length did land
      Theban Tiresias' soul, and in his hand
      Sustain'd a golden sceptre, knew me well,
      And said: 'O man unhappy, why to hell
      Admitt'st thou dark arrival, and the light
      The sun gives leav'st, to have the horrid sight
      Of this black region, and the shadows here?

The black blood tasting, thus instructed me:
      'Renown'd Ulysses! All unask'd I know
      That all the cause of thy arrival now
      Is to enquire thy wish'd retreat for
home;                     
      Which hardly God will let thee overcome,
      Since Neptune still will his opposure try,
      With all his laid-up anger, for the eye
      His loved son lost to thee. And yet through all
      Thy suffering course (which must be
capital)              
      If both thine own affections, and thy friends,
      Thou wilt contain, when thy access ascends
      The three-fork'd island, having 'scaped the seas,
      Where ye shall find fed on the flowery leas
      Fat flocks, and oxen, which the sun doth
own,            
      To whom are all things as well heard as shown,
      And never dare one head of those to slay,
      But hold unharmful on your wished way,

BK XII
For here the whuling Scylla shrouds her
face,                  
      That breathes a voice at all parts no more base
      Than are a newly-kitten'd kitling's cries,
      Herself a monster yet of boundless size,
      Whose sight would nothing please a mortal's eyes,
      No nor the eyes of any God, if
he                              
      (Whom nought should fright) fell foul on her, and she
      Her full shape show'd. Twelve foul feet bear about
      Her ugly bulk. Six huge long necks look out
      Of her rank shoulders; every neck doth let
      A ghastly head out; every head three
set,                  
      Thick thrust together, of abhorred teeth,
      And every tooth stuck with a sable death.
        She lurks in midst of all her den, and streaks
      From out a ghastly whirlpool all her necks;
      Where, gloting round her rock, to fish she
falls;       
      And up rush dolphins, dogfish; somewhiles whales,
      If got within her when her rapine feeds;
      For ever-groaning Amphitrite breeds
      About her whirlpool an unmeasured store.
      No sea-man ever boasted touch of
shore                   
      That there touch'd with his ship, but still she fed
      Of him and his; a man for every head
      Spoiling his ship of. You shall then descry
      The other humbler rock, that moves so nigh
      Your dart may mete the distance. It
receives             
      A huge wild fig-tree, curl'd with ample leaves,
      Beneath whose shades divine Charybdis sits,
      Supping the black deeps. Thrice a day her pits
      She drinking all dry, and thrice a day again
      All up she belches, baneful to
sustain.                       
      When she is drinking, dare not near her draught,
      For not the force of Neptune, if once caught,
      Can force your freedom. Therefore in your strife
      To 'scape Charybdis labour all for life
      To row near Scylla, for she will but
have                  
      For her six heads six men; and better save
      The rest, than all make off'rings to the wave.'
        This need she told me of my loss, when I
      Desired to know, if that Necessity,
      When I had 'scaped Charybdis'
outrages,                  
      My powers might not revenge, though not redress?
      She answer'd: 'O unhappy! art thou yet
      Enflamed with war, and thirst to drink thy sweat?
      Not to the Gods give up both arms and will?
      She deathless is, and that immortal
ill                       
      Grave, harsh, outrageous, not to be subdued,
      That men must suffer till they be renew'd.
      Nor lives there any virtue that can fly
      The vicious outrage of their cruelty.
      Shouldst thou put arms on, and approach the rock,   
      I fear six more must expiate the shock.
      Six heads six men ask still. Hoise sail, and fly,
      And, in thy flight, aloud on Cratis cry