Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon (1997)
Read Professor Irwin Corey's acceptance speech for Pynchon's 1974 National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow.
Also, have a look at Douglas Kløvedal Lannark's exhaustive documenting of "love" in Gravity's Rainbow.
Dark Red Sphere
"'You are all safe, so long as I have,'—thumb and Index together, he twirls his wrist and is immediately holding up a dark Red sphere about the size of a Cherry,— 'this. 'Tis a Pearl, yet not from beneath the Sea. Once it was a Cyst, growing within the Brain of a Cobra. None but experienc'd Harvesters are able to tell which Cobras bear them and which are not worth killing. The pearls are taken north into the Himalayan Mountains, where they find use in the Tibetan Medicine....Therefore fear not the Advent of the Wolf, for here is the soul of the Cobra, yet living, yet potent."
Mason & Dixon (p.550)
The following discussion/thread regarding the above quote occurred on the Pynchon List in January 1998:
From: "Schwitterz"
By coincidence I just passed by this passage. It's on p. 550. Can't
imagine what it's supposed to mean. Dark red sphere the size of a cherry.
Must represent some principal that counters whatever governs the wolf's
destiny. Maybe Yin and Yang have something to do with it. Or possibly
yingle-yangle. Beats the heck out of me. Those harvesters better
watch out for that cobra venom. Cobras have hoods somewhat like the
garb of the Franciscans possibly seen as rivals to the Jesuits in America.
Naw.
P.
These aren't exactly red stones from cobra brains, but are in the neighborhood:
"...a late creation of the same symbolism presents Lucifer and the fallen angels with stones in their foreheads (in certain variants the stones were detached when they fell), diamonds in the heads or jaws of serpents, and so forth."
(Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy, Mircea Eliade, p.139)
"This stone was known to Pliny and also to the medieval alchemists, who named it draconites, dracontias, or drachates. It was reputed to be a precious stone, which could be obtained by cutting off the head of a sleeping dragon. But it becomes a gem only when a bit of the dragon's soul remains inside, and this is the 'hate of the monster as it feels itself dying.'"
(AION, Jung, p.138)
From: Paul Mackin
A private message suggests the image of a 'cherry bomb,' which from
my youth I recall to be a round, red, very powerful firecracker,
which my tipster also observers is 'sans Wick.' Nice tie-in
to the Chinese invention of gunpowder with a nod at the same time
to the abominable sandwich of earlier contention. Where does the cobra
fit? Well, no doubt someone must have thought of building exploding
dragons, serpents, cobras, worms, whatever. An unpleasant
surpise may await El Lobo, though super-farfetched of course.
From: "Schwitterz"
>...so by now it's sounding like the Philosophers' Stone, no less. Maybe "References to the brain are also found in Greek alchemy, an especially
large role being played by the 'lithos ecephalos' (brain-stone) which was
equated with the 'lithos ou lithos' (stone that is no stone).
--MYSTERIUM CONIUNCTIONIS, Jung, p. 436. Cinnabar is another red substance related to things serpentine. "Cinnabar
was supposed to be identical with the uroboros dragon. Even in Pliny,
cinnabar is called 'sanguis draconis' (dragon's blood), a term that lasted
all through the Middle Ages." --ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS, Jung, p. 300.
From: Murthy Yenamandra
I've been meaning to follow up to this question since it was first
asked a month ago: I don't really know if the cobra has a hardened
cyst/stone like part at the top of its head (there may be some sort of a
physiological basis - I think it forms when they reach a certain age or
something), but it's quite common in India to portray cobras with a
luminous gem on their hoods. Various properties are attributed to this
"gem," known as "Nagamani" (gem of the snake) in Sanskrit. All this is common enough to be a straight-forward reference.
From: Erik Pohl Just to tie some things together here that are really cool: 1. The uroboros dragon was, of course, the dragon biting its own tail-- a
symbol of infinity or... tah dah... the cycle of the stars in the sky. Is
this your eel in the tub? (The eel in the tub sounds also like a small
version of the world serpent Thor fights-- a mirror of uroboros... the
ocean wrapped around earth.) 2. Adding to the cherry bomb (sans Wick) image is the idea that the whole
tale of Mason & Dixon is a Cherry(coke) bomb... a sort of cyst in the head
of Cherrycoke. Only the best harvesters know which brains contain these
Pearls. (A post by Murthy comes in which seems reasonable at this point) Still,
it's fun to speculate if certain image correlations/potentially loaded word
choices leading exotic correspondences could be intentional. Nice work.
>someone would fill in the blanks on that?
>Cheers,
>David
More blanks in which to fill:
From: John Rodgers
re. pearls on cobras: I've been a lurker but I wanted to point out (perhaps it has been already and I missed it) that images of Gotama Buddha typically depict him with a kind of top-knot. Sometmes it looks in statues like a pile of curls or a little helmet but was supposed to be an appendage or topknot of flesh of some kind- but was supposed to be one of the special signs by which the wise men who studied him as an infant were able to determine we was to be a very holy man. There is often a connection made between Gotama Buddha and the cobra.
From: millison@online-journalist.com (Doug Millison)
Didn't a cobra shield the Siddhartha from attack during the final onslaught of Maya prior to his enlightenment? That's how it was dramatized in the relatively recent movie "Little Buddha."
From: "Schwitterz"
Since the head and tail have opposite charges and would attract each other it looks uroboric to me.
Also:
I found one more reference in Jung which has references to red/blood, stones, and serpents:
Gerard Dorn quoted in Jung's 'Alchemical Studies' (p. 291):
"In like manner, too, the blood of their stone will free the leprous metals
and also men from their diseases.
"The stone is found in the head of a snake or a dragon, or is the "head-element" itself, as in Zosimos. World-mountain, world-axis, and homo maximus are synonymous."
This is all harmonious with the full quote in which it is said that the pearl contains the soul of the Cobra and is used in Tibetan medicine. I wonder if there are more explicit references in Tibetan sources?
From: "Vaska Tumir"
Straightforward or not, the cobra with a gemstone in place of its "third eye" is probably one of the most widespread and best known motifs of Indian religious art. It represents Siva/Shiva. And, depending on which strand of Hindu theology you happen to be into, Siva is either the Lord of Destruction, plain and simple, or the Lord of Creation and Destruction, both. Pynchon's made references to him before, but most notably in certain "silent" corners of Gravity's Rainbow, especially there where he evokes von Braun, a nuclear scientist well-versed in Sivaic scholarship, as it happens.... Make of it what you will.
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Paul DiFilippo writes:
>For a writer so versed in Shakespeare that he named a character
>"Porpentine," it seems likely that TRP knows the reference in
>Shakespeare (what play? Damned if _I_ recall!) to "the venomous
>toad that wears a jewel in its forehead."
As You Like It, (Act II, Scene i), from the opening speech of Duke Senior, where he announces that he is actually enjoying exile:
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; [...]
>I seem to remember
>that Shakespeare was merely alluding to a common Elizabethan belief.
It should be noted that some reptiles, including snakes, contain a primitive eye on the top of their heads, known as the parietal eye. Since it doesn't have a lens, it doesn't really look like an eye. Mistaking it for a jewel seems rather reasonable.
From: "Schwitterz"
From: http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/timelines/topics/games.htm
Name of Game: TIME TO DIG FURTHER
Hey, even ancient Egyptians liked to play once in a while. What you see here is one of the earliest board games discovered in Egypt (from 2800 B.C.) called "snake." The stone board represented a coiled serpent with its head in the center. The winner was the first to move his or her stone counter around the squares on the snake's body to the center.
I'll bring this. Who'll sign up for the E-O Wheel?
From: "Schwitterz"
These aren't found in the Cobra's brain, but we're getting closer. >From http://www.agt-gems.com/AGTbook/AGTav/AGTav.html [site no longer loads]:
Pearls from the cobra's hood are perfectly round, like fish pearls, and they
radiate a natural effulgence. By repeated washing, a snake pearl becomes as
lustrous as a polished sword blade. Anyone possessing such a naga-mani
attains piety, rare good fortune, and eventually becomes illustrious as a
leader of men, complete with a great collection of all precious gems. Upon
acquiring such a snake pearl, the owner should have the rite of installation
performed by a priest who is learned in religious formalities. After hearing
from the owner how the pearl was obtained and conducting the benedictory
ritual, the priest should formally install the jewel inside the owner's
house. On such an auspicious occasion, the sky becomes filled with dark and
heavy rain clouds, thunder, and flashing lightning, such as exhibited at the
time of universal dissolution. A man in possession of such a snake pearl
will never be troubled by snakes, demonic beings diseases, or disturbances
in any form. (Later in M&D, it protects from Jesuits). From: "Schwitterz"
>442.5 `He has been trying ot find what in his calling is known as the "the chunk of Rose Quartz where cross" Here we have an image of a man prostrate before a Rose Quartz at the cross
point of a longitude line and latitude line. To me, this is the Rosy Cross
of the Rosicrucians. This is a great reference point. The symbol of the
cross is replete with meaning across the ages long before and after
Christianity, and one basic meaning is the intersection of the horizontal
and the vertical. The quartz is at that juncture where they are united. In
the story the image evokes a geographical point and a secret mystical
society. (I've also added the quartz image to my list of oxides as quartz is
silicon dioxide, SiO2, or Si'oo.)
>in Mason's case it must be that he sees Rebecca, to judge by `Huge, dark
eyes' (442.15).
"Aahhrrhh!" Mason recoiling and nearly casting away the crystal.
"The face I see is a bit more friendly,--" In Carl Spitteler's Prometheus and Epimetheus, Pandora brings what she sees
as a healing jewel to her father, but it is perceived as a menace by the
people. The king sent it to the priest for spiritual evaluation:
"But hardly had the high priest glanced at the face of the image (in the
jewel) than he shuddered with disgust, and crossing his arms over his
forehead as though to ward of a blow (unannounc'd?), he shouted: "Away with
this mockery! For it is opposed to God and carnal is its heart and insolence
flashes from its eyes."
[p. 144 in Spitteler; cited in Jung's Psychological Types/CW, Vol. 6, p.267] The source of integration and healing is anathema to the prevailing
world view. Perhaps healing for Mason means staring Rebecca's death square in
the eyeballs.
>"Ghost", another Crystal inside the ostensible one, more or less clearly
>form'd' This crystal at the X on the map was earlier described as `the
>single point to which all work on the West Line (and its eastward
>protraction to the Delaware Shore) will finally refer.
