MD3PAD 25-27

[Toby G Levy]

        Mrs. Jellow leads the dog away from the cockfight. The dog leads
Mason to a fortune teller named Hepsie.

vw#7: arietta - a brief aria

vw#8: pythoness - female prophet

        Here we learn of the death of Mason's wife two years earlier
(this would make the year of her death 1758, when Mason was only 30
years old). Mason is still mourning her and hoping to somehow connect
with her through some paranormal means.

        Here Pynchon makes up the word "nyperthrenia" which he says
means "excess in mourning." he constructs the word from the real word
"threnody" which means song of mourning.

        For the first of many times, Pynchon uses the word "smoak" on
page 25. The context indicates it is used to mean "understand" or
"figure out."

        The dog was hoping that Hepsie would have been given something
for Fang by someone named Angelo but there is no package.Who knows what
the dog was expecting?


vw#9: scryess - a woman who predicts the future using a crystal ball

        Hepsie wants a half a crown to read the future of Mason and
Dixon. How much money is that? Mason wants Dixon to pay half, but
eventually digs the whole fee up himself. Hepsie warns Mason and Dixon
that they will be attacked by the French when they are at sea aboard the
Seahorse.

Toby