MDMD Sappho's Frag

[Otto]

Maybe I've been influenced by the translation which definitely makes it a
male by translating "Dear" with "Mein Bester." But I'm pretty much convinced
now that Terrance and you are right.

Otto

Robert:
> One of the scenarios for the "odd behaviour" all around the world is "out
of
> Bed-chamber windows, close together in the naked sunlight whilst the Wife
> minds the Beats of the Clock" (97.4), and I suspect that it is such a
> situation that the opening exchange refers to. I can't hear either Mason
or
> Dixon referring to the other as "Dear". That "[s]omebody, somewhere in the
> World" is deliberately indeterminate, however, a favourite trope of
> Pynchon's. A lot of loyal, subservient, intelligent women standing beside,
> or behind, their astronomer-husbands I guess.
>
> best
>
> > Terrance:
> >>
> >> I suspect that that the "somebody somewhere" is female.
> >> She is "corrected" and we never hear from her again.
> >> A theme perhaps, the subjugation of women, the patriarchal dominance, a
> >> transformation of Venus to matter, to fetish, to dynamo....
> >> Venus
> >>
> >> http://www.venus-transit.de/venus.html
> >
> >
>
me:
> > Strange, didn't occur to me. I had the slight suspect that it could have
> > been Dixon corrected by Mason.
> > But as I've learned these days that Sappho's poems have been burned by
early
> > Christians your idea maybe is the better solution and does indeed make
some
> > sense to me:
> >