Thomas Harris' Hannibal
Section V - A Pound of Flesh

Chapter 80

• Page 396: [448] She had been without [her parents] for a long time and she had them only in her mind ... She felt it strongest in her sense of right and wrong.

• Page 397: [448] Who had ever recognized her?

• Page 397: [448] Almost as ugly as the act itself was the fact that Mason would do this with the tacit agreement of men sworn to uphold the law. It is the way of the world. The elemental ugliness, the crowd at the torture exhibit, Pan fetching the bucket for the Flaying of Marsyas, God watching on as Mischa was butchered.

• Page 398: [449] As she creased the heavy paper, she knew she was not quite herself, and she was glad.

Chapter 82

• Page 401: [452] The smell of a coal fire in the tack room of Mason's barn ... In SOTL, Starling tells of a tack room in the barn in Montana where she found "W. W. Greener's Humane Horse Killer". We also learn that Hannah the horse couldn't see very well. [See page 403 below]

• the trotting horse Fleet Shadow I don't have the reference but Starling remembers the taste of Fleets medicine she took as a child.

• Dr. Lecter hangs beneath the skull of the horse.

• Page 403: [454 - 455] holding the prod close in front of Lecter's face ... plunged it arcing into Dr. Lecter's eye. In Euripedes satyr-play, The Cyclops, the one-eyed Polyphemus is blinded by Odysseus who takes a long, heated stick and melts Polyphemus' eye. Polyphemus was a cannibal.

• Page 404: [455] He leaned his face against the cool marble flank of Venus. Venus de Milo? Recall Venus in Boticelli's Primavera.

Chapter 86

• Page 420: [473] "This little piggy went EEE EEE EEE all the way home." Interestingly, on page 372 [421] Krendler tells us that Yquem is pronounced EEE-Kim

• Page 423: [477] He pulled off Starling's boots and put them on his own bare feet. Dionysos wore buskins, a sort of boot, and frequently dressed in women's clothing. Actors in Greek tragedies also wore buskins.

Chapter 88

• Page 429: [483] Margot, using a cattle prod, harvests Mason's sperm then kills him. Osiris is the Egyptian god of the underworld and vegetation (verdure). The Pharoah was believed to become Osiris after his death. Isis, Osiris' sister/wife, impregnated herself with his seed after his death. [Thanks Timothy]

  
  

• Page 430: [484] The mighty eel thrashing, as long as Margot and thick, its festive skin flashing. Harris attributes festive skin to Pinsky's translation on Dante's Inferno. It's in Canto I:

  After I had rested my weary body awhile
    I started again across the wilderness,
    My left foot always lower on the hill,
  
  And suddenly - a leopard, near the place
    The way grew steep: lithe, spotted, quick of foot.
    Blocking the path, she stayed before my face
  
  And more than once she made me turn about
    To go back down.  It was early morning still,
    The fair sun rising with the stars attending it
  
  As when Divine Love set those beautiful
    Lights into motion at creation's dawn,
    And the time of day and season combined to fill
  
  My heart with hope of that beast with festive skin -
    But not so much that the next sight wasn't fearful:
    A lion came at me, his head high as he ran,
  
  Roaring with hunger so the air appeared to tremble.
  

  From Page 3: You would think that such a day would tremble to begin...