SLSL: mary as sea-goddess

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 + "besides his analyst flange had only one other consolation: the sea. (...) he 
 had read or heard somewhere in his pre-adolescence that the sea was a woman, 
 and the metaphor had enslaved him and largely determined what he became from 
 that moment. (...) she looked up gravely. whitecaps danced across her eyes; 
 sea creatures, he knew, would be cruising about in the submarine green of her 
 heart."
                               (low-lands, pp. 56f, 75, picador edition)  


  taken pynchon's (at least partly: catholic) christian background, it is 
  astonishing that the story's association of women with water does not 
  explicitly include the virgin mary. the only hint we do find at a place where 
  one wouldn't expect it: the mentioned minesweeper is called "IMMACULATE" (p. 
  59). why so shy about it? the author has no problem with linking the sea to a 
  'pagan' goddess. "if the goddess fortune controls everything this side of the 
  moon then there must be, he felt, a curious and tender dominion or swing about 
  the pacific, which some say is the chasm the moon left when it tore loose from 
  the earth" (p. 57). yet no explicit mention of mary: did pynchon fear to 
  appear --- blasphemous?  

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 elementary correspondences in the rosenkreuzer tradition of the golden dawn:

  fire --- king --- summer --- wands --- south

  water --- queen --- fall --- cups --- west

  air --- prince --- spring --- swords --- east

  earth --- princess --- winter --- disks --- north

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  ".... the virgin's association with the sea must never been forgotten, for in 
  a different age the night's sky principal practical function was navigation. 
  mary's astral character gives her, in medieval legend, hegemony over tempests, 
  not only as the star that leads sailors to safety, but even more directly as a 
  goddess with powers to still the wind and calm the waves. (...) another of 
  these early miracle stories of the virgin illustrates her power over the 
  element of water (...) at the shrine of mont st. michel [hi henry! kfl] in 
  normandy, a woman who is just about to give birth is washed overboard in a 
  storm. she calls on the virgin and st. michael to help her, and, as the 
  version of the dominican jean hérolt, written 1435-40, describes, 'it seemed 
  to the woman a sleeve held above her so kept her save and untouched by the 
  dreadful sounding flood of the sea that not even the last drop of all that 
  deep touched her garments. but she, as though she lay in the finest of all 
  dwellings, brought forth her child without fear, remaining there until the 
  sea, withdrawing its wave to itself, gave a free passage to the woman, and she 
  came with the child to the shore'. this miracle was so popular that it was 
  retold and translated into many languages, from its first appearance in 
  dominic of evesham's collection at the end of the eleventh century until the 
  close of the middle ages. (...) in the renaissance, the heavenly attributes of 
  mary were increased, although the medieval appetite for allegory and typology 
  declined. the virgin's governance of oceans was adopted to a practical 
  purpose: she was prayed to by the missionaries who set out across the atlantic 
  and other oceans to conquer new territories for christ. christopher columbus 
  placed his ship under her aegis; and spanish and portugese explorers after him 
  invoked the protection of our lady of the navigators, whom painters like alejo 
  fernandez (d. 1543) depicted as towering queen of heaven, illuminated by the 
  sun, floating on banks of clouds over the sea. under the folds of her sky-blue 
  mantle she gathers together all involved in the enterprise, from the fur-robed 
  patrons and sponsors of the expedition to the armoured knights and the ragged 
  crew, while beneath them the tall ships float ready to weigh anchor./ 
  sanctuaries all along the shores of the mediterranean celebrate her relation 
  with the sea. at tindari, in sicily, on a spectacular bluff overlooking the 
  azure, sparkling waves, a black madonna is enshrined. according to local 
  legend, she was found washed up like sea-born aphrodite on the shore in a 
  casket during the iconaclast heresy in the east. (...) it is prncipally as the 
  immaculate conception that the virgin is associated with the moon and the sky, 
  and thereby with the sea. it is therefore interesting that at the time --- the 
  mid-seventeenth century --- there was much debate about the best visual 
  expression of the belief, one priest suggested that the most apposite symbol 
  would be a pearl, enclosed in a shell, because a pearl is pure and 
  imperishable. pearls are also glistening, white, and spherical, an exact 
  epiphany of the moon, and a fruit of the sea. the suggestion was not acted 
  upon, principally because there is no biblical foundation for associating the 
  virgin with a pearl. but in some places in the world, the connection of images 
  has led to the pearl's appearance...."

  (marina warner: alone of all her sex. the myth and the cult of the virgin 
  mary, 1976, vintage book edition, pp. 265ff)

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 SOU FILHO DO MAR.
 DAS ONDAS DO MAR
 DA ESPUMA DO MAR
 MINLIA MAE YEMANJA
 O, VIRGEM MARIA,
 COMO ES LINDA FLOR,
 CELESTE HARMONIA,
 DULCISSIMO AMOR.
 MANDA EM NOSSOS LARES
 RINHA DOS MARES,
 DA TERRA E DOS CEUS,
 EM RISOS ENCOBRES
 MARIA OS SEUS DONS,
 TESOURO DOS POGRES
 RIQUEZA DOS BONS.
 MANDA EM NOSSOS LARES
 RAINHA DOS MARES,
 DA TERRA O DOS CEUS.


                                                             KFL *