Cof L49, p75 hc: "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow"

[János Székely]

What comes to my mind is something quite different. It might be one of
OBA's open-ended conspiracy moves. Later on (113), the couplet turns
out to be taken from a pornographic version in the Vatican Library,
unknown to Bortz the Scholar before 1961, but that is _not_ the
edition Driblette used. So Driblette learned about the couplet from an
unidentifiable source, or somebody else planted the lines in the typed
copies, or (and) the Vatican version had been faked in modern times
(of course by the Tristero). Anyway, Driblette, whose production is
"particularly virtuous", found the couplet relevant and a means of
"speaking out" to an unaware present-day public. Whatever the source
is, he uses it as a topical comment (and maybe that is why he has to
die). Now Oedipa's quest culminates in this binary possibility (136):
"For there either was some Tristero beyond the appearance of the
legacy America, or there was just America".

I mean, _for Driblette_, either by coincidence or by deliberate
fakery, the "hallowed skein of stars" means the stars in the upper
left corner of the flag, that is, the United States, and this is a
deliberately anachronistic "aside", whose message is "if you accept
the existence of Tristero, the 'real' America cannot protect you".

Janos

2009/5/24 Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>:
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> Trow = to know, think, believe.
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> A--and (more Shadowingly):
> Like the troll of Scandinavian legend, with which the trow shares many similarities, trows are nocturnal creatures; venturing out of their ‘trowie knowes’ (earthen mound dwellings) solely in the evening, often proceeding to enter households as the inhabitants slept. Trows traditionally have a fondness for music, and folktales tell of their habit of kidnapping musicians or luring them to their dens.
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> Does anyone link "hallowed skein of stars" with Driblette's, then Oedipa's planetarium metaphor?
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