M & D Deep Duck Motrix

[David Mugmon]

I've been following the bouncing ball here for years.  I don't participate because it would be a bit like showing up at an intellectual Gunfight at the OK Corral with a cap gun.  I've loved reading the craziness over here for years though.

I've read M & D a couple of times and in my mind it's Pynchon's greatest work.  I've really enjoyed the discussion so far, from ampersands to Cherrycoke.

In regards to Dixon laughing without the "Motrix of honest Mirth", I have the definition of Motrix in the margin of my copy as a "female instigator".  The Greek goddess who brings forth mirth is Euphrosyne.

This deity can be famously found in Milton's poem, L'Allegro.

But come thou goddess fair and free,
In heav'n yclep'd Euphrosyne,

.......The speaker orders Melancholy from his life, telling it to find a dwelling place among the Cimmerians—people who live in a land of unending darkness. At the same time, he invites a goddess of joy, Euphrosyne, to bring him mirth on the dawning of a new spring day as the song of the lark and the din of a rooster chase the last of the darkness away.  

.......John Milton's "L'Allegro" is a lyric poem centering on the joy of taking part in the delights of a spring day, including those provided by nature in a pastoral setting and those provided by the theater in an urban setting. The title is an Italian word that originally meant "the cheerful man." The poem was published in London in 1645 as part of a collection,The Poems of John Milton, Both English and Latin. It is a companion piece to "Il Penseroso," a lyric poem centering on sober, contemplative living that courts melancholy rather than joy. The poems use similar metric and rhyme schemes.

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides8/lallegro.html

Il Penseroso and L'Allegro...  The melancholy man and the cheerful man?

On another note...

I have a question re the text in the current section that I've never been able to decipher.  Mason asks Dixon, "Come, Sir - What's the first thing they'll ask when you get back to County Durham? Eh?  'Did ye see them rahde the Eeahr at Taahburn?' (Pg. 15)

Taahburn = Tyburn?

I just can't cut thru Mason's mock Durham dialect.  I've read it out loud, asked others and I can't make sense of it.  What in the hell will they ask Dixon when he returns home?


> On Jan 11, 2015, at 3:48 PM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> Maybe 'vis motrix' (Newton's force acting upon a body "proportional to the motion which it produces in a given time"; or motivating force), but omitting the 'vis' (maybe redundant, not as neat?...)?  I read it as meaning something like his eyes weren't participating in his smile.
> 
> On Jan 11, 2015, at 12:14 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> https://books.google.com/books?id=_yPWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=vis+motrix+definition&source=bl&ots=mQ4yVNu4Pz&sig=OULbkV51vtYiTNMuqWu8cPSkDWs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kgWzVN6VCo61ogTxgoLwBw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=vis%20motrix%20definition&f=false
>> p. 15. All:  define and riff on 'the Motrix of Mirth'
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> 
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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