Pynchon's misdirection

Joseph Hutchison joe at jhwriter.com
Mon Jan 29 20:51:46 CST 2007


Our commentator should look beyond the OED. ³Nefandis² is a Latin adjective
meaning ³impious² or ³wicked.² Interestingly, it occurs in Ovid¹s
Metamorphoses (Book 10, Line 228) among the songs of Orpheus. In this
particular passage, Orpheus tells about the Cyprian city Amathus, which
before its gates had an altar to Jove, the protector of strangers and
guests. When Venus saw that the altar was stained with the blood not of
sacrificial animals‹typically lambs and calves‹but of innocent guests, she
was enraged by the blasphemy and to punish it, turned the city¹s horned
women (known as cerastae) into bulls. The rest of the city¹s women (the
Propoetides) nevertheless denied Venus¹ divinity, so she turned them into
the world¹s first prostitutes; after a time they lost their shame, and Venus
turned them into stones. ³A very small difference, really,² Orpheus remarks.

I¹m sure ³nefandis² appears elsewhere in Latin literature, but this episode
of impious betrayal of both Jove and Venus certainly echoes themes in
CofL49....

Joe H


on 1/29/07 4:54 PM, Dave Monroe at monropolitan at yahoo.com wrote:

> In Lot 49
> he has a character named Nefandis, and when we go to
> the O.E.D. we find there is no word "nefandis," but
> the word "nefarious" (and all its cognates) is on the
> page where Nefandis is supposed to be.


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