Fallen Sagittarius, Mountain Sparrows and Other Thoughts on Footnote 6 in Chapter 3

It was Gaspard-Serge Coriolis, of course, who first detailed the mathematical principles that govern the function of kinetic energy. Much of Straka’s work evinces an understanding of, and appreciation for, the work of innovative practitioners of the sciences. Straka was particularly impressed by some of the lesser-known of these people, like Wolfgang Spatzberg, Samuel Quinn-Collier, and Sagittario della Caduta. Careful readers of Book V of Coriolis will discover the roles each of these men’s findings play in the development of the narrative.

First there are the names themselves.  I started with Sagittario della Caduta which in Italian means "Fall of Sagittarius."  Sagittarius is the constellation representing a centaur with bow and arrow drawn.  All the imagery is taken directly from Greek mythology, but Sagittarius does not have a clear mythological link to the Greeks.

The Babylonians identified Sagittarius as the god Nergal, a strange centaur-like creature firing an arrow from a bow. It is generally depicted with wings, with two heads, one panther head and one human head, as well as a scorpion's stinger raised above its more conventional horse's tail. The Sumerian name Pabilsag is composed of two elements – Pabil, meaning 'elder paternal kinsman' and Sag, meaning 'chief, head'. The name may thus be translated as the 'Forefather' or 'Chief Ancestor'. The figure is reminiscent of modern depictions of Sagittarius.

In Greek mythology, Sagittarius is usually identified as a centaur: half human, half horse. However, perhaps due to the Greek's adoption of the Sumerian constellation, some confusion surrounds the identity of the archer. Some identify Sagittarius as the centaur Chiron, the son of Philyra and Saturn and tutor to Jason, who was said to have changed himself into a horse to escape his jealous wife, Rhea. However, Chiron is in fact represented by the constellation Centaurus, the other heavenly centaur. An alternative tradition is that Chiron merely invented the constellation Sagittarius to help in guiding the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece.

It also appears that Sagittario is a common name for airplanes and boats in Italy.  The Italian Destroyer, Sagittario, was involved in Operation Mercury which was the invasion to take Crete by the Axis Powers during World War 2.  The invasion started on May 20, 1941 and ended June 1, 1941 with a German victory.

I think the Sumerian name Pabilsag for the constellation Sagittarius may be meaningful in the context of one of the other names given, Samuel Quinn-Collier.  Samuel means "name of God" or "heard by God."  Quinn is deriviative of Conn, which means "chief, intellect or mind."  Quinn means "son of chief, son of Conn, race of Conn."  Collier is French for ruff or necklace.  It maybe a stretch, but I think that Samuel Quinn-Collier might be a reference to Moses and the golden calf.  Moses was raised by the Pharoah's daughter who claimed Moses as her own son.  The Israelites in Exodus melted down their gold to create the calf while Moses was on Mount Sinai to receive the 10 commandments.

The third and final name is Wolfgang Spatzberg.  Wolfgang roughly means "wolf path or wolf journey" and Spatzberg, I think means in the context of German, "mountain sparrow."  Although so far, I have not found what I felt were any meaningful connections, I did find an interesting poem by Goethe (archive.org) called:

WINTER JOURNEY OVER THE HARTZ* MOUNTAINS.

[The following explanation is necessary, in order to make this
ode in any way intelligible. The Poet is supposed to leave his
companions, who are proceeding on a hunting expedition in winter,
in order himself to pay a visit to a hypochondriacal friend, and
also to see the mining in the Hartz mountains. The ode
alternately describes, in a very fragmentary and peculiar manner,
the naturally happy disposition of the Poet himself and the
unhappiness of his friend; it pictures the wildness of the road
and the dreariness of the prospect, which is relieved at one spot
by the distant sight of a town, a very vague allusion to which is
made in the third strophe; it recalls the hunting party on which
his companions have gone; and after an address to Love, concludes
by a contrast between the unexplored recesses of the highest peak
of the Hartz and the metalliferous veins of its smaller
brethren.]

LIKE the vulture
Who on heavy morning clouds
With gentle wing reposing
Looks for his prey,--
Hover, my song!
For a God hath
Unto each prescribed
His destined path,
Which the happy one
Runs o'er swiftly
To his glad goal:
He whose heart cruel
Fate hath contracted,
Struggles but vainly
Against all the barriers
The brazen thread raises,
But which the harsh shears
Must one day sever.
Through gloomy thickets
Presseth the wild deer on,
And with the sparrows
Long have the wealthy
Settled themselves in the marsh.
Easy 'tis following the chariot
That by Fortune is driven,
Like the baggage that moves
Over well-mended highways
After the train of a prince.
But who stands there apart?
In the thicket, lost is his path;
Behind him the bushes
Are closing together,
The grass springs up again,
The desert engulphs him.
Ah, who'll heal his afflictions,
To whom balsam was poison,
Who, from love's fullness,
Drank in misanthropy only?
First despised, and now a despiser,
He, in secret, wasteth
All that he is worth,
In a selfishness vain.
If there be, on thy psaltery,
Father of Love, but one tone
That to his ear may be pleasing,
Oh, then, quicken his heart!
Clear his cloud-enveloped eyes
Over the thousand fountains
Close by the thirsty one
In the desert.
Thou who createst much joy,
For each a measure o'erflowing,
Bless the sons of the chase
When on the track of the prey,
With a wild thirsting for blood,
Youthful and joyous
Avenging late the injustice
Which the peasant resisted
Vainly for years with his staff.
But the lonely one veil
Within thy gold clouds!
Surround with winter-green,
Until the roses bloom again,
The humid locks,
Oh Love, of thy minstrel!
With thy glimmering torch
Lightest thou him
Through the fords when 'tis night,
Over bottomless places
On desert-like plains;
With the thousand colours of morning
Gladd'nest his bosom;
With the fierce-biting storm
Bearest him proudly on high;
Winter torrents rush from the cliffs,--
Blend with his psalms;
An altar of grateful delight
He finds in the much-dreaded mountain's
Snow-begirded summit,
Which foreboding nations
Crown'd with spirit-dances.
Thou stand'st with breast inscrutable,
Mysteriously disclosed,
High o'er the wondering world,
And look'st from clouds
Upon its realms and its majesty,
Which thou from the veins of thy brethren
Near thee dost water.

*It should be noted that Hartz appears to be a typo or mis-translation as later versions of the poem correctly refer to the Harz Mountains (harz meaning resin in German).

Other blog posts relating to these topics:
http://ladansedusinge.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/jill-aggies-treasure-trove-of-digging/


(8/17/14 edited for clarity and tags added)

The Monkey's Marginalia, No 9

These posts are about the various and sundry ideas, items and wagtails that are too short for their own blog post.

1.  The so aptly named Mississippi Muse commented recently on two of my blog posts and had some great insights.  Plus she is absolutely right that I should have included Gertrude Stein in the list of Lost Generation writers.  Her comments are below:

This maybe far fetched, but I think it is relevant. I know there are references to Hemingway early in the text. & the themes of being, "Lost", multiple characters, and this concept of "palimpsest" both pertaining to relationships and land/archaeology "histories of a place" reminds me of a quote Hemingway made about "The Sun Also Rises" (which bears the epigraph: "You are a lost Generation" --- Gertrude Stein) to his editor, Max Perkins that the "point of the book" was not so much about a generation being lost, but that "the earth abideth forever"; he believed the characters in The Sun Also Rises may have been "battered" but were not lost." Here is the Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 NKJV: Which has relevance and many themes pertaining to S. Verse 7. Which is similar to the quote: "What begins at the water shall end at there and what ends there shall once more begin" ..." & from the Book Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWaAZCaQXdo) " This is what happens when men are "LOST", Men are erased & reborn."

Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 NKJV

"Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher; "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." 3 What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun? 4 One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever. 5 The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose. 6 The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit. 7 All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again. 8 All things are full of labor; Man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there anything of which it may be said, "See, this is new"? It has already been in ancient times before us. 11 There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after."

2.  In my last post, I mentioned the literary genre bildungsroman.  Goethe, who is considered the originator of this genre with his book, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship,incorporated a secret society into this work.  More to come on this one perhaps, but I have some reading to do.  I have added it to the list.

3.  The Desjardins letter. I'll admit I totally misread the forward to Ship of Theseus and for a few days was geeking out over the fact there were 20 Straka books before I realized my mistake.  Doh!  Back to the Desjardins letter: totally disgusted and a bit discouraged I started going back through the book.  And I think there are a couple of scenarios that fit for the letter.  Remember in the marginalia, Eric states that he thought Desjardins' english was pretty good but maybe it was worse than he remembers (page 87) and later that Desjardins had written a paper in 1982 stating that Straka may not have been as fluent in languages as had been thought and needed someone to help clean up his work (page x).

• The letter was written by Desjardins, but is a form of constrained writing. Constrained writing is an encoded letter in which the true message is hidden within a seemingly harmless text. 
• The letter was written by Straka or someone with a less than fluent grasp of English and was NOT written by Desjardins.  
• The letter was written by Straka and is also a form of contrained writing.  

If it is constrained writing, I haven't figured it out yet. 

4.  Nabokov, like many other authors, did use pseudonyms.  One of these was "Sirin."  Which bears a striking resemblance the Serin Group mentioned in the marginalia. 

5.  I have discovered there is an unpublished and fragementary autobiography by the anarchist, devout Christian and King of the Hobos, Ben Reitman.  The name of the work?  Following the Monkey. 

(8/17/14, edited for grammar/clarity and tags added)

A Different Kind of Burden Shirt

I've been thinking for awhile now that the Belastunghemd (or burden shirt from Fn 5, pg 52) might be related to a couple of things.  In doing some research on types of fiction, sometimes references are only a close approximation to the object, idea or person being referenced. The specific example I found came from an academic paper (about Finnegans Wake), but unfortunately I can't find it again.  I have found a list of references to two characters in Finnegans Wake here to give you an idea.

To give you another example, I can create one using James Joyce, author of Finnegans Wake and Ulysses.  In Gaelic, his surname would be Seoighe (shoy).  Suppose somehow he is connected to archery, whether it be through word play or the sport.  Archer in gaelic is saighdeoir (sijue, long i).  The two words somewhat resemble each other but different enough that only someone who understands the connection that I am making would get it.  I suspect that there are these kinds of connections in S. that need to be found, too.

Back to the burden-shirt.  Mystimus and Geekyzen have talked about its possible connection to the shirt of Nessus. When I first came across the term, the first thought that came to my mind was the hair shirt worn by Thomas Becket, who was famously matyred when still wearing his (you can blame my high school literature teacher for this one), and the mystery plays of the middle ages.

The hair shirt or cilice, is an object worn by the faithful as an act of penitence or atonement; or as a way to assume some of the suffering of Christ.  The whole point of the garment is to make the wearer uncomfortable and/or to cause pain.  Although mostly associated with the Christian faith since biblical times, the practice has been traced to prehistoric cultures; the practice in Christianity comes from the biblical tradition of wearing sackcloth and ashes during mouring and debasement.  Related to this is the biblical tradition of rending one's clothes to expose a broken heart.  More recently, the hair shirt metaphor was applied to one of the Lost Generation writers; Virginia Woolf compared T. S. Eliot's wife, Vivienne, to "a bag of ferrets" worn around his neck.  It might also be that the burden shirt is a reference to five mourners; or to five sinners who need to atone for their sins.

It makes sense then that the play Belastunghemd performed by children is a morality play that takes place on Ash Wednesday.  Medieval European religious festivities at some point evolved into the formal dramas called mystery plays, using content taken directly from the bible.  They were sometimes performed around important holidays. Later, as mystery plays fell out of favor, morality plays became the form of entertainment popular in the 15th and 16th centuries.  Sometimes containing a moral or sometimes not, morality plays, often called interludes, were allegories in which the protagonist is encouraged to choose a Godly life through interactions with virtues shown in human form.

Using the same loose logic that I connected Joyce to the archer, I think Belastunghemd may also be a reference the literary genre bildungsroman, that originated in Germany in the 18th century from Goethe.  Goethe, who is probably most famous for his Faust (which also contains allegory), is credited for writing the first coming of age novel.  The term comes from the german meaning "novel of formation/education/culture"  Bildungsroman "is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood."  Which makes sense as becoming an adult comes with its own trials and responsibilities. In order to become an adult, one must give up childish things and assume the burdens or burden-shirt of maturity.


(8/17/14 edits for grammar and tags added)