Subject
THOUGHTS: Crashaw, "Hebe's Cup," and "Night Rote" in PF
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After doing some checking, I'm relatively sure (but correct me if I'm wrong)
that there hasn't been much discussion--either on the list or in print--of
the origin of Shade's book title Hebe's Cup. (Hebe provides the only link to
the eponymous catamite, Ganymedes, but that's another discussion). While
the words "Hebe's Cup" appear in texts by various authors, only one of those
authors is mentioned in Pale Fire. Recall that Shade's attack occurs while
he is giving a talk at the Crashaw Club. In Richard Crashaw's poem "Music's
Duel," we find these lines: "Those parts of sweetness which with nectar
drop, / Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup." If Shade was an expert
on Crashaw, he surely knew this poem--one of Crashaw's most popular,
according to one critic.
But why is Crashaw important to understanding Pale Fire? Part of the answer
may come from the title of one of Crashaw's two books: Steps to the Temple.
This title is itself an allusion, a Christian variation of "steps to
Parnassus," or Gradus ad Parnassum. Crashaw, then, is VN's confirmation
that Gradus's name should send us to Gradus ad Parnassum. But which one,
the Latin primer or Fux's treatise on counterpoint? Since Crashaw wrote his
poem almost a century before Fux, Crashaw certainly did not have Fux in
mind. But the poem where we find "Hebe's Cup" may give us more options.
"Music's Duel" is a quintessential baroque poem about a "Devil Went Down to
Georgia"-type duel between a Lute Player and a Nightingale (lute wins, bird
dies). It is, then, a flesh-and-bone example of counterpoint--of one voice
against another. Would it not follow, then, that by taking Shade's book
title from "Music's Duel," VN has shown us which Gradus ad Parnassum to look
at?
By the way, Kinbote is right about Shade's other book, "Night Rote": it is
indeed the sound of the sea. In particular, it refers to the those times
when the waves are louder than normal though the weather is clear--a
harbinger of an approaching storm. As New Englander James Russel Lowell
explained it: "Rote is a familiar word all along our seaboard to express
that dull and continuous burden of the sea heard inland before or after a
great storm. . . . It is one of those Elizabethan words which we New
Englanders have preserved along with so many others. It occurs in the
'Mirror for Magistrates,' 'the sea's rote,' which Nares , not understanding,
would change to rore! It is not to be found in any provincial glossary, but
I caught it alive at Beverly and the Isle of Shoals." Nares is Robert
Nares, whose glossary also quotes the 'Mirror for Magistrates' as an example
of rote. "Mirror for Magistrates" is interesting because it is another
moral mirror, like the Kong-Skugg-Sio Kinbote mentions.
Enough.
Matt Roth
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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that there hasn't been much discussion--either on the list or in print--of
the origin of Shade's book title Hebe's Cup. (Hebe provides the only link to
the eponymous catamite, Ganymedes, but that's another discussion). While
the words "Hebe's Cup" appear in texts by various authors, only one of those
authors is mentioned in Pale Fire. Recall that Shade's attack occurs while
he is giving a talk at the Crashaw Club. In Richard Crashaw's poem "Music's
Duel," we find these lines: "Those parts of sweetness which with nectar
drop, / Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup." If Shade was an expert
on Crashaw, he surely knew this poem--one of Crashaw's most popular,
according to one critic.
But why is Crashaw important to understanding Pale Fire? Part of the answer
may come from the title of one of Crashaw's two books: Steps to the Temple.
This title is itself an allusion, a Christian variation of "steps to
Parnassus," or Gradus ad Parnassum. Crashaw, then, is VN's confirmation
that Gradus's name should send us to Gradus ad Parnassum. But which one,
the Latin primer or Fux's treatise on counterpoint? Since Crashaw wrote his
poem almost a century before Fux, Crashaw certainly did not have Fux in
mind. But the poem where we find "Hebe's Cup" may give us more options.
"Music's Duel" is a quintessential baroque poem about a "Devil Went Down to
Georgia"-type duel between a Lute Player and a Nightingale (lute wins, bird
dies). It is, then, a flesh-and-bone example of counterpoint--of one voice
against another. Would it not follow, then, that by taking Shade's book
title from "Music's Duel," VN has shown us which Gradus ad Parnassum to look
at?
By the way, Kinbote is right about Shade's other book, "Night Rote": it is
indeed the sound of the sea. In particular, it refers to the those times
when the waves are louder than normal though the weather is clear--a
harbinger of an approaching storm. As New Englander James Russel Lowell
explained it: "Rote is a familiar word all along our seaboard to express
that dull and continuous burden of the sea heard inland before or after a
great storm. . . . It is one of those Elizabethan words which we New
Englanders have preserved along with so many others. It occurs in the
'Mirror for Magistrates,' 'the sea's rote,' which Nares , not understanding,
would change to rore! It is not to be found in any provincial glossary, but
I caught it alive at Beverly and the Isle of Shoals." Nares is Robert
Nares, whose glossary also quotes the 'Mirror for Magistrates' as an example
of rote. "Mirror for Magistrates" is interesting because it is another
moral mirror, like the Kong-Skugg-Sio Kinbote mentions.
Enough.
Matt Roth
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm