MDDM Ch. 11 Stars and Planets: Uranus

[jbor]

"In the Astrology of this island, the Sun must be reckoned of less
importance than Darkness incorporated as some integral, anti-luminary
object, with its own motions, positions, and aspects,--Black Sheep of the
family of Planets, neither to be sacrificed to Hades nor spoken of by
Name.... " (107.9) 

on 7/11/01 9:13 PM, Otto at o.sell at telda.net wrote:

> No, it best might be a reference to still unknown Pluto (who is of greater
> importance in GR), or to Kuyper-Belt Object Varuna as the Brothers Hades,
> Poseidon and Zeus are echoing the old Vedic trinity of Mitra, Varuna and
> Indra (as Ranke-Graves writes) IF -- the object hadn't been discovered just
> recently in Nov. 2000? Another one, KBO "KX76" is likely to be called Hades
> but it isn't decided yet.
> http://forums.about.com/ab-astrology/messages/?msg=1129

Well, no, I think that the mythological reference fits better with Uranus,
which is the only one of the planets named after a Greek deity (therefore
making it a "Black Sheep of the family of Planets"). Pluto (from "Plutus",
meaning wealthy,) was another title for Hades, and it was the name which was
adopted by the Romans. If it is a reference to Pluto then the first part of
the clause, "neither to be sacrificed to Hades", doesn't really make sense.
The last part of the sentence ("nor spoken of by name") would refer to the
name "Georgium Sidus" given to the new planet by Herschel twenty years later
on (1781), and which had been referenced (the name given as "Georgian", in
inverted commas) back in the previous chapter at p. 95.

The inversions of sun and darkness, and of land and sea, seem to resonate
with the notion of Uranus as the ruling planet in the island's astrology:

        The Olympian Creation Myth
    At the beginning of all things Mother Earth emerged from Chaos and
    bore her Son Uranus as she slept. Gazing down fondly at her from the
    mountains, he showered fertile rain upon her secret clefts, and she bore
    grass, flowers, and trees, with the beasts and birds proper to each.
    This same rain made the rivers flow and filled the hollow places with
    water, so that lakes and seas came into being.
                                     [Robert Graves, _The Greek Myths_, 39]

In Greek mythology Uranus ("king of the mountains") came to be the
personification of heaven, or the sky. The various versions of Uranus's
conception, birth and subsequent rise to become ruler of the universe are
relevant. According to Graves, Uranus was associated with the pastoral god,
Varuna, one of the Aryan male trinity, and that is how he came to assume his
position as the First Father. But, says Graves, "his Greek name is a
masculine form of Ur-ana ('queen of the mountains', 'queen of summer',
'queen of the winds', or 'queen of wild oxen') -- the goddess in her
orgiastic mid-summer aspect." (39)

And, according to Graves' version of the Orphic myth:

    "Night's sceptre passed to Uranus with the advent of patriarchalism."

According to Hesiod, Uranus married Mother Earth and fathered the Titans,
after which he threw his previous brood of sons, the three Cyclopes, into
Tartarus. In revenge Mother Earth persuaded the Titans to attack their
father, and they did so, led by Cronus, the youngest of the seven, who she
had armed with a flint sickle. With this weapon Cronus castrated Uranus in
his sleep, the Cyclopes were released, and Cronus was made sovereign ruler
of the earth.

Later on, according to the Olympic Creation Myth, the Cyclopes, Brontes,
Steropes, and Arges, were killed by Apollo in revenge for the death of
Asclepius, and their ghosts dwelt in the volcano of Mt Aetna thereafter.

Thematically, there's a lot to tie in with these stories at this point in
the narrative: the night/day, sea/earth inversions; the rain; Aunt Euphy's
description of St Helena as a "Paradise ..., The Orange and Lemon Groves,
the Coffee-Fields"; Kit Smart's transvestitism and the matriarchy/patriarchy
thing; Cronus, as "Chronos", or Father Time, with his "relentless Sickle"
(Ethelmer's "Didn't days take twenty-four hours to pass?" at 106.16,
Maskelyne's "too many idle minutes" at 118.12); Maskelyne's presentiment of
the monster "dwelling within the Volcanoe" at 135.7, &c.

But, clinching it I think, there is this:

    Maskelyne is the pure type of one who would transcend the Earth,--
    making him, for Mason, a walking cautionary Tale. For years now,
    after midnight Culminations, has he himself lain and listen'd to
    the Sky-Temptress, whispering, forget the Boys, forget your
    loyalties to your Dead, first of all to Rebekah, for she, they,
    are but distractions, temporal, flesh, ever attempting to drag the
    Uranian Devotee back down out of his realm of pure Mathesis,
    of that which abides. (134.4)

***

Thanks for the info. on Sirius's visibility at St. Helena. I think you are
right. For Mason, whose point of view we have adopted from the top of p. 107
("what Mason sees ... "), it is true that "ev'ry Midnight the baleful Thing
is there, crossing directly overhead." It is thus no error: Mason is
bemoaning the yellow star's presence every night since *he* arrived at St
Helena and began watching the skies with (for?) Maskelyne.

best
 
> 
> Seriously: Pluto's discovery (Feb. 18, 1930) has been made public on March
> 13, exactly 149 years after Herschel had discovered Georgian in 1781.
> 
> It is astrology that is spoken about above, not astronomy, but our
> astronomers, at least Maskelyne, are still in the old tradition of Kepler:
> "Kepler said that Astrology is Astronomy´s wanton little sister, who goes
> out and sells herself that Astronomy may keep her virtue" (136, 17-19 -- if
> I may take this from a forthcoming chapter)
> 
> Douglas Lannark should speak about this but astrologically Pluto and his
> aspects mostly aren't especially the nicest ones in a horoscope, influencing
> many people and whole generations, like the short-time Venusian influence
> seemed to turn even the Boers who are violating all Venus-aspects normally
> to relatively nice people in chap. 10.
> 
> Some astrologers seem to have little problems to incorporate newly found
> celestial objects like Pluto or now from the Kuyper Belt into their
> calculations while I know from others who refuse even to use the near-Earth
> asteroids like Vesta or Chiron. I don't know what astrologers say to the
> following from Pynchon about influences from other stars like Sirius, Gamma
> Draconis and Mira. Does he make up the forgotten signs of astrology, the
> "Apocrypha of Astrology" (107.15).

>> 
>> And, just above this, is the "Black Sheep of the family of Planets,
> neither
>> to be sacrificed to Hades nor spoken of by Name.... " (107.9) still a
>> reference to Uranus?
>> 
>> 
>> best
>>