Astrology

[Keith McMullen]

“Oh, don’t I remember those, Lens-brother,— ’tis our Burden. Kepler said that Astrology is Astronomy’s wanton little sister, who goes out and sells herself that Astronomy may keep her Virtue,— surely we have all done the Covent Garden turn. As to the older Sister, how many Steps may she herself indeed already have taken into Compromise? for, 

Be the Instrument brazen, or be it Fleshen, [Maskelyne sings, in a competent Tenor] 

Star-Gazing’s ever a Whore’s profession,— (Isn’t it?) 

Some in a Palace, all Marble and Brick, 

Some behind Hedges for less than a kick, tell me 

What’s it matter, The Stars will say, We’ve been ga-zing, back at ye, Many a Day, 

And there’s nothing we haven’t seen 

More than one way, 

Sing Deny o deny o day . . . [Recitative]

> On Aug 1, 2020, at 1:43 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Reading C.V. Wedgwood's Thirty Years War, and came across this line which
> Pynchon mentions in Mason & Dixon, the part where Maskelyne and Mason are
> casting each other's horoscope
> 
> "A pseudo-scientific interest in Astrology was the fashion. Kepler himself,
> half humorously, half indignantly, averred that the astronomer could only
> support himself by ministering to the follies of astronomy's "silly little
> daughter, astrology""
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l