MDMD2: Metempsychosis

[Terrance]

Dave Monroe wrote:
> 
> A la Orpheus?  And while I've yet to locate a source
> for "hyperhrenia" (and have shamefully not consulted
> the OED in doing so), or for "long Voyages by sea
> being thought to help [t]his condition," do note
> Richard Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (NY: NYRB
> Books [much redundancy at either end there ...], 2001
> [1621]), Pt. 2, Sec. 2, Mem. 3, on "Air Rectified"...

Hyperthrenia: Excess in mourning. Pynchon, M&D.25

I consulted quite a few dictionaries looking for this one. Did I search
the OED? 
Yup, I'm sure I did. 

But, maybe P gave us the only definition we need. 


Hyper = hyper is Greek, huper-, from huper, over, beyond, over, above, 
and  Excessive; excessively. 

Threnia? Nice name. 
threnodial?  

threnody:  from the greek threnos, threnoidia is a poem or song of
mourning or lamentation. 


um, hyperphrenia is  excessive mental activity and not necessarily
effective mental
activity to boot, to much thought, thinking about,  the term is used to
characterize the manic phase of bipolar disorder. Also, unusually high
intellectual ability. 



http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wolpert-sadness.html

As to sailing away ones grief, oh-boy, and where is the origin of this
prescription, not sure, but it can be found in Greek literature and
philosophy, Roman stoics, maybe Wicks got the idea from Epictetus or
anachronistically, from Ishmael. 

  Call me Ishmael. 

 Whenever I find myself
growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly
November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing
before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral
I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me,
that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from
deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking
people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as
soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly
take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but
knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish
very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

Today people go to that corner of Manhattoes and look. 
The skyline forever changed. And when the tears blur their vision they 
turn to the lady in the harbor, to the great green mothers of it all,
the lady and the  sea. 

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs- commerce surrounds it with her
surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme
downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and
cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of
land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
  Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from
Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall,
northward. What do you see?- Posted like silent sentinels all around
the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in
ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon
the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China;
some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better
seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath
and plaster- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks.
How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?
  But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water,
and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but
the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of
yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the
water as they possibly can without falling And there they stand- miles
of them- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys
alleys, streets avenues- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all
unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the
compasses of all those ships attract them thither?

          "Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United
States.
                 "WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL."
                 "BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."


That same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the
image of
the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.


But,  

There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted
by a gentle rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea,
from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is
on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your
identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And
perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled
shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no
more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!

"That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, says
you have g.p.i. He's up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman. General
paralysis of the insane!

"Because you have the cursed jesuit strain inyou..."