tenebrae

[Dave Monroe]

Okay, while I'm catching up on old business ...

--- Qwpoi at aol.com wrote:
> "Tenebrae has seated herself and taken up her
> Needlework, a piece whos size and difficulty are
> already subjects of Discussion in the House, the
> Embroidress herself keeping silence..."
> 
> I thought this was maybe an allusion to Penelope
> from the Odyssey, or Arachnae(i dont remember what
> her name was) the person who challenged Athena, the
> Goddess of Weaving or something, this is all off the
> top of my head, but I just wanted to put that out
> there...

Ten·e·brae 
'te-n&-"brA, -"brI, -"brE
noun plural but singular or plural in construction
Medieval Latin, from Latin, darkness -- more at
TEMERITY
1651
: a church service observed during the final part of
Holy Week commemorating the sufferings and death of
Christ

te·mer·i·ty 
t&-'mer-&-tE
noun
plural -ties
Middle English temeryte, from Latin temeritas, from
temere blindly, recklessly; akin to Old High German
demar darkness, Latin tenebrae, Sanskrit tamas
15th century
1 : unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger or
opposition : RASHNESS, RECKLESSNESS
2 : an act or instance of temerity

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

Surprisingly, there wasn't much in the archives ...

http://waste.org/pynchon-l/

But what was there will hopefully prove helpful ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0004&msg=222&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0004&msg=224&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0106&msg=867&sort=date

The latter note, from Doug Millison, yields ...

"Tenebræ is the name given to the service of Matins
and Lauds belonging to the last three days of Holy
Week.  [...] All this suggests, as Kutschker has
remarked, that the Office of these three days was
treated as a sort of funeral service, or dirge,
commemorating the death of Jesus Christ. [...] The
noise made at the end of Tenebræ undoubtedly had its
origin in the signal given by the master of ceremonies
for the return of the ministers to the sacristy. A
number of the earlier Ceremoniales and Ordines are
explicit on this point. But at a later date others
lent their aid in making this knocking. For example
Patricius Piccolomini says: 'The prayer being ended
the master of ceremonies begins to beat with his hand
upon the altar step or upon some bench, and all to
some extent make a noise and clatter.' This was
afterwards symbolically interpreted to represent the
convulsion of nature which followed the death of Jesus
Christ."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14506a.htm

As well as ...

Tenebrae
"From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable: (Lat.,
darkness, gloom). In the Western Church the Mattins
and Lauds of the following day sung on the Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday of Holy Week. The lights
[wicks--GET IT?] of 15 candles are extinguished one by
one at the end of each psalm, the last after the
Benedictus. The Miserere is then sung in darkness. The
ritual goes back to the 8th century and symbolizes
dramatically Christ's Passion and Death."

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/extra/ety.html#tenebrae

And note as well the film, Tenebrae (dir. Dario
Argento, 1982), although I think Thomas Eckhardt would
be able to address that far better than I ever will,
so ... 




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