GR translation: hair smocks

[David Morris]

I’m not following your logic.  Forgive me if I have misunderstood you.

1.  A hair smock is not the same thing as a hair shirt.

2.  A smock is a protective cover-garment used to keep a person clean while
doing a job that is inherently messy (such as gardening).

3.  A hair shirt was an under-garment used in medieval times purposely made
of irritating material so that a person in ritual penance would be
uncomfortable.

4.  It makes no sense, as far as I can see, to think Pynchon was alluding
to a hair shirt when he wrote “hair smock.”  If you can’t connect the two
different things by anything in the text, Pynchon probably didn’t want you
to.

David Morris

On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 9:52 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm not sure if any penance is involved, but if it is, it doesn't appear
> to be related to the rooftop garden.
>
> From the poem I quoted, it seems the phrase could be used to refer to a
> hair shirt. Why would Corydon Throsp wear them, we have no way to know. But
> it doesn't seem any weirder than my initial guess.
>
> On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 11:05 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> If you are going to make a leap to claim that Pynchon is referencing a
>> “hair shirt” when he uses “hair smock,” I think it is incumbent to have a
>> rationale other than a desire to impart something “literary” onto it.
>>
>> “A hair shirt is a shirt made of rough uncomfortable cloth which some
>> religious people used to wear to punish themselves. countable noun. If you
>> say that someone is wearing a hair shirt, you mean that they are trying
>> to punish themselves to show they are sorry for something they have done
>> .”
>>
>>
>> I can’t think of any kind of penance that makes sense,  in regards to the
>> roof top garden.
>>
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 10:30 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Given the context, this seems to be more likely. I did find the exact
>>> phrase in a 17th century English poem by Richard Lovelace, Her Muffe:
>>>
>>> Nor could your ten white nuns so sin,
>>> That you should thus pennance them in,
>>> Each in her coarse hair smock of discipline.
>>>
>>> So it's probably some kind of garment made of coarse cloth.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 5:33 AM Mike Weaver <mike.weaver at zen.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > It's a play on 'hair shirt' and a popular image of the Pre-Raphaelites:
>>> >
>>> > A self-imposed punishment or penance. The term comes from *the medieval
>>> > practice of doing penance by wearing a shirt made of coarse haircloth
>>> (made
>>> > from horsehair and wool)*, mentioned from the thirteenth century on in
>>> > numerous sources, including Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (The Second
>>> Nun's
>>> > Tale).
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> http://preraphaelitepaintings.blogspot.com/2011/12/william-morris-in-smock.html
>>> >
>>> > Smocks became popular again in 60s/70s rural hippie culture, as did the
>>> > 'cultivation' of pharamceuticals!
>>> >
>>> > cheers
>>> > Mike
>>> > On 10/04/2022 02:43, Mike Jing wrote:
>>> >
>>> > V5.20-26, P5.35-41   Bloat is one of the co-tenants of the place, a
>>> > maisonette erected last century, not far from the Chelsea Embankment,
>>> by
>>> > Corydon Throsp, an acquaintance of the Rossettis’ who wore hair smocks
>>> and
>>> > liked to cultivate pharmaceutical plants up on the roof (a tradition
>>> young
>>> > Osbie Feel has lately revived), a few of them hardy enough to survive
>>> fogs
>>> > and frosts, but most returning, as fragments of peculiar alkaloids, to
>>> > rooftop earth, . . .
>>> >
>>> > What's a "hair smock" exactly? Is it a smock you wear when you are
>>> having a
>>> > haircut?
>>> > --
>>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
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>>> >
>>
>>
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>