SLSL "The Small Rain"

[pynchonoid]

http://www.millikin.edu/aci/crow/chronology/pynchonbio.html
March 1959         "The Small Rain" (The Cornell
Writer, March 1959) First published short story 

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_biblio.html
"The Small Rain,"
"Cornell Writer 6," no. 2 (March 1959): 14-32.


Re:  the title

"as the small rain upon the tender herb..."
Deuteronomy 32:2

Hard not to think of the Biblical water cycle imagery
of the Rainbow that will serve as the central metaphor
for the novel Pynchon will publish a quarter-century
later.  

Here's the Biblical context, 


Deuteronomy 31
14   And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thy days
approach that thou must die: call Joshua, and present
yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation, that
I may give him a charge. And Moses and Joshua went,
and presented themselves in the tabernacle of the
congregation.
15   And the LORD appeared in the tabernacle in a
pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood
over the door of the tabernacle.
16   And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt
sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up,
and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of
the land, whither they go to be among them, and will
forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made
with them.
17   Then my anger shall be kindled against them in
that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my
face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many
evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they
will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon
us, because our God is not among us?
18   And I will surely hide my face in that day for
all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that
they are turned unto other gods.
19   Now therefore write ye this song for you, and
teach it the children of Israel: put it in their
mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against
the children of Israel.
20   For when I shall have brought them into the land
which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with
milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled
themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto
other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break
my covenant.
21   And it shall come to pass, when many evils and
troubles are befallen them, that this song shall
testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be
forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know
their imagination which they go about, even now,
before I have brought them into the land which I
sware.
22   Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and
taught it the children of Israel.
23   And he gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and
said, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt
bring the children of Israel into the land which I
sware unto them: and I will be with thee.
24   And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end
of writing the words of this law in a book, until they
were finished,
25   That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the
ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying,
26   Take this book of the law, and put it in the side
of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that
it may be there for a witness against thee.
27   For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck:
behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye
have been rebellious against the LORD; and how much
more after my death?
28   Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and
your officers, that I may speak these words in their
ears, and call heaven and earth to record against
them.
29   For I know that after my death ye will utterly
corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which
I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the
latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of
the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of
your hands.
30   And Moses spake in the ears of all the
congregation of Israel the words of this song, until
they were ended.

Deuteronomy 32
1   Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2   My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech
shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the
tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
3   Because I will publish the name of the LORD:
ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
4   He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his
ways are judgment: a God of truth and without
iniquity, just and right is he.
5   They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not
the spot of his children: they are a perverse and
crooked generation.
6   Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and
unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee?
hath he not made thee, and established thee?
7   Remember the days of old, consider the years of
many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew
thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
8   When the Most High divided to the nations their
inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he
set the bounds of the people according to the number
of the children of Israel.
9   For the LORD's portion is his people; Jacob is the
lot of his inheritance.
10   He found him in a desert land, and in the waste
howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed
him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11   As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over
her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,
beareth them on her wings:
12   So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no
strange god with him.
13   He made him ride on the high places of the earth,
that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he
made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of
the flinty rock;
14   Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of
lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats,
with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink
the pure blood of the grape.
15   But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art
waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with
fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and
lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16   They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods,
with abominations provoked they him to anger.
17   They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods
whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up,
whom your fathers feared not.
18   Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful,
and hast forgotten God that formed thee.
19   And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them,
because of the provoking of his sons, and of his
daughters.
20   And he said, I will hide my face from them, I
will see what their end shall be: for they are a very
froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
21   They have moved me to jealousy with that which is
not God; they have provoked me to anger with their
vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those
which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger
with a foolish nation.
22   For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall
burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth
with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of
the mountains.
23   I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend
mine arrows upon them.
24   They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured
with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will
also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the
poison of serpents of the dust.
25   The sword without, and terror within, shall
destroy both the young man and the virgin, the
suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
26   I said, I would scatter them into corners, I
would make the remembrance of them to cease from among
men:
27   Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy,
lest their adversaries should behave themselves
strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high,
and the LORD hath not done all this.
28   For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is
there any understanding in them.
29   O that they were wise, that they understood this,
that they would consider their latter end!
30   How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten
thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them,
and the LORD had shut them up?
31   For their rock is not as our Rock, even our
enemies themselves being judges.
32   For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of
the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of
gall, their clusters are bitter:
33   Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the
cruel venom of asps.
34   Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed
up among my treasures?
35   To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their
foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their
calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come
upon them make haste.
36   For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent
himself for his servants, when he seeth that their
power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.
37   And he shall say, Where are their gods, their
rock in whom they trusted,
38   Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and
drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise
up and help you, and be your protection.
39   See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no
god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I
heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my
hand.
40   For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live
for ever.
41   If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take
hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine
enemies, and will reward them that hate me.
42   I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my
sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of
the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of
revenges upon the enemy.
43   Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he
will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render
vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful
unto his land, and to his people.
44   And Moses came and spake all the words of this
song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son
of Nun.
45   And Moses made an end of speaking all these words
to all Israel:
46   And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all
the words which I testify among you this day, which ye
shall command your children to observe to do, all the
words of this law.
47   For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is
your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong
your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to
possess it.
48   And the LORD spake unto Moses that selfsame day,
saying,
49   Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount
Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over
against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which
I give unto the children of Israel for a possession:
50   And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and
be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died
in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people:
51   Because ye trespassed against me among the
children of Israel at the waters of MeribahKadesh, in
the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in
the midst of the children of Israel.
52   Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou
shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the
children of Israel.

Two more resources re the title:

Booker, M. Keith. "A Probable Source for the Title of
'The Small Rain.'" Pynchon Notes 22-23 (1988): 75-77.

Darabaner, Richard. "A Possible Source for the Title
of 'The Small Rain.'" Pynchon Notes 15 (1984): 69-72.






=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com