Fergus

[O']

Fergus is an Irish-American Jew: 

Mixolydian: In music terminology, the mixolydian mode is a
major scale with a flatted, aka minor or (appropriate to
"the laziest living creature in New York") "lazy" seventh
degree.
	Tim Ware's HyperArt Pynchon 


If you have read Irish Literature or have read Yeats or
Joyce's Ulysses, the name Fergus will set off a few big
bangs. Joyce's novel opens with a parody of the Catholic
Celebration of The Eucharist and transubstantiation and some
talk of Father and Sons, Hamlet,  and the funeral of
Stephen's recently departed Mother. 

James Joyce was called home to Ireland, where his mother was
dying of cancer and he sang to his mother the lines "Who
Goes with Fergus" from Yeats' play *The Countess Cathleen.*

The Father & Son and Dead Mother (from Stencil here, to GR,
VL, M&D and so on) theme, is critical to both Pynchon and
Joyce. 

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fears no more.

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.
--W. B. Yeats

What the Hell has this to do with Pynchon's Fergus and the
price of mirrors in Dublin? 

Well nothing I guess, but Joyce's comments on nightmares,
history, and the cracked looking-glass of a servant, maybe? 


It is Stephen's faithless friend Buck Mulligan who quotes
Yeats in the tower in the opening pages of the novel: 

    And no more turn aside and brood
    Upon love's bitter mystery
    For Fergus rules the brazen cars.

And later Stephen is lying drunk and half-conscious in the
street, muttering to himself:

    Who...drive...Fergus now.
    And pierce....wood's woven shade?...



The "Circe" chapter ends with Stephen supine and
semi-conscious, murmuring fragments of that most beautiful
and enigmatic of Yeats' poems, "Who Goes With Fergus?" while
Bloom stands over him muttering masonic phrases and
entranced with the vision of Rudy. Rudy is on the scene
because Bloom has found a son. Bloom repeats masonic slogans
because they represent a kind of religion of man, an ideal
of fraternity, in which both the main characters will be
united. And Stephen (whose unconsciousness is more
significant than the process which brought it about) murmurs
phrases from "Who Goes With Fergus?" because he is
commending himself to the guidance of a dark, occult
principle.

who. . . rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

http://home.adelphia.net/~hbjames/Intro_to_Ulysses.htm

Maybe this has little to do with Ford Foundations, Rabbis,
Streets, Dead Mothers, Fathers & Sons, and  Profanity. 


See THE BATTLE OF GARACH and that two handed rainbow
sword/engine again, and See also,  Yeats' Cuchulan's Fight
With The Sea

O'