MDMD (10) Sappho 2

[John Bailey]

End of the world or not, you may be on to something here regarding the use 
of Hesperus as an invocation of the West. There is quite a bit of material 
later in the book which looks at sunrise and sunset and the difference 
between going West and going East, moving with or against the sun, etc. West 
as the New World, West as the direction of dreams, these myths are exposed 
as fancy.


>From: Michel Ryckx <michel.ryckx at freebel.net>
>To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: MDMD (10) Sappho 2
>Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 11:52:54 +0200
>
>Otto wrote:
>
> > "Abendstern - bringst alles heim, was der strahlende Morgen zerstreute -
> > bringst das Schaf, bringst die Ziege - bringst zurück zur Mutter die
> > Tochter."
> > http://www.venus-transit.de/text/MasonDixon.html
> >
> > Fr. 95
> > Evening, thou that bringest all that bright morning scattered; thou 
>bringest
> > the  sheep, the goat, the child back to her mother.
> > H. T. Wharton
>
>[snip interesting stuff]
>
>Italy lies west of Greece.  For the ancient Greeks, nowadays southern Italy 
>was
>their "Far West"even in literal sense; in fact in latin it was called 
>"Magna
>Graecia" or Greater Greece.  Indeed, everything there, compared to the 
>homeland
>--home-polis-- was larger than life.
>
>Naming a country West of Greece 'Hesperia' was that common that Horace 
>(Quintus
>H. Flaccus that is --his satires were a basis for some of Alexander Pope's
>satires, as mr. Pope says himself in their title) calls Italy more than 
>once
>'Hesperia'.  He uses it also when referring to Romans living in Spain.
>
>The Street of Gibraltar, the gate between Mediterrranean and Atlantic was 
>called
>"the Hesperides", daughters of Hesperus.  It was, except for some 
>courageous
>adventurer, the end of the world.  For the Greeks the West was the end of 
>the
>world --if you'd pass the Hesperides, you would be likely to fall off the 
>world.
>
>My point: invoking Hesperus is invoking the West.
>
>I think it may be possible that the quotation of Fragment 95 is a pun on 
>Mason
>and Dixon's later adventures in America.  Not to mention that the US was, 
>and
>continues to be, so I'm told, not the Sunset, but the Sunrise of many a 
>man's
>life.  And note that specific tone of home-coming in the Sappho quote.
>
>"Does Britain, when she sleeps, dream?  [. . .]"
>
>Michel.
>


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