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

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, found it...I would read that, off the top, set within the pornographic Vatican text,
as a statement that the text had no hint of a pornographic element.  

BUT, if my reading of that phrase is too narrow, your point is made in the rest of Bortz's words,
it seems.  Driblette was a "pecularly moral man"...close to the author, etc.

I was remembering in my post when Bortz said 'hallowed skein of stars' meant "God's will"...
So, America as a nation founded on "God's will", many say...[American exceptionalism; The American legacy] 
may be being contrasted wuth the Tristero....

So, if Bortz is a reliable character, and he seems to be, then I can't understand why he died via no-reason suicide...
So, your reason might be it.....................

(I had wanted to argue that Driblette committed suicide cause adding the assassins went too far....almost nihilistic
within an otherwise 'group' over centuries...)



----- Original Message ----
From: János Székely <miksaapja at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 3:10:04 PM
Subject: Re: Cof L49, p75 hc: "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow"

Sorry: "typically virtuous". P. 113 in the blue-haired edition,
conversation with Bortz.

Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> írta (2009. május 24. 20:31):
>
> Where is Driblette's prodcution called "particularly vituous"..
> in a Google Book Search of CofL49 in English, I get no hits on that phrase....
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: János Székely <miksaapja at gmail.com>
> To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 12:09:22 PM
> Subject: Re: Cof L49, p75 hc: "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow"
>
> 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>:
>>
>> Trow = to know, think, believe.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> Does anyone link "hallowed skein of stars" with Driblette's, then Oedipa's planetarium metaphor?
>>
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