Subject
Villa Paradisa, Frost & Onhava in Pale Fire
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Dieter Zimmer: 'Pluto's other names are Hades and Dis.'
Carolyn Kunin: 'Hades is an anagram for Shade - or vice versa (see versipel)
I suppose.'
In his poem Proserpina (1824) Pushkin mentions koni blednogo Plutona (pale
Pluto's horses) rushing the god from aid (Hades) to the nymphs of Pelion and
then back again and calls Proserpina (Pluto's wife) ada gordaya tsaritsa
(the proud Queen of Hell). Kon' (horse) rhymes with ogon' (fire). Kon' bled
("Pale Horse," 1903) is a poem by Bryusov.
In a letter of Sept. 10, 1824, to Pushkin Delvig says that Proserpina is
pure music: a bird of paradise's singing that one can hear for a thousand
years without noticing the passage of time:
Прозерпина не стихи, а музыка: это пенье райской птички, которое слушая, не
увидешь, как пройдёт тысяча лет. Эти двери давно мне знакомы. Сквозь них,
ещё в Лицее, меня [иногда] часто выталкивали из Элизея. Какая искустная
щеголиха у тебя истина. Подобных цветов мороз не тронет!
What a smart dashing lady is istina (truth) in your poems. Such flowers will
be spared by the frost!
Rayskaya ptichka (bird of paradise) mentioned by Delvig (who addresses
Pushkin "your Parnassian majesty") brings to mind the Mediterranean Villa
Paradisa built by Queen Disa's grandfather:
In 1933, Prince Charles was eighteen and Disa, Duchess of Payn, five. The
allusion is to Nice (see also
<http://www.shannonrchamberlain.com/palefirepoem.html#line238> line 240)
where the Shades spent the first part of that year; but here again, as in
regard to so many fascinating facets of my friend's past life, I am not in
the possession of particulars (who is to blame, dear S.S.?) and not in the
position to say whether or not, in the course of possible excursions along
the coast, they ever reached Cap Turc and glimpsed from an oleander-lined
lane, usually open to tourists, the Italianate villa built by Queen Disa's
grandfather in 1908, and called then Villa Paradiso, or in Zemblan Villa
Paradisa, later to forgo the first half of its name in honors of his
favorite granddaughter. There she spent the first fifteen summers of her
life; thither did she return in 1953, "for reasons of health" (as impressed
on the nation) but really, a banished queen; and there she still dwells.
(Kinbote's note to Lines 433-434)
Soon after Proserpina Pushkin composed his famous epigram on Count Vorontsov
(the governor general of New Russia who called Pushkin "a weak imitator of
Lord Byron"):
Полу-милорд, полу-купец,
Полу-мудрец, полу-невежда,
Полу-подлец, но есть надежда,
Что будет полным наконец.
Half-milord, half-merchant,
Half-sage, half-ignoramus,
Half-scoundrel, but there's a hope
Thet he will be a full one at last.
There is a hope that after Kinbote's suicide on Oct. 19, 1959 (the Lyceum
anniversary) V. Botkin (Shade + Kinbote + Gradus) will be "full" again. One
wonders if Disa, too, does become "full" (Paradisa? 'Disdemona'?) again.
"Kaby na tsvety da ne morozy" (it was the frost that killed the flowers) is
the closing line of G. Ivanov's poem Mayatnika mernoe kachan'ye ("The
rhythmical swing of pendulum," 1947):
Маятника мерное качанье,
Полночь, одиночество, молчанье.
Старые счета перебираю.
Умереть? Да вот не умираю.
Тихо перелистываю <Розы> -
<Кабы на цветы да не морозы>!
Morozy (pl. of moroz, frost) rhymes with Rozy ("Roses," 1931), the title of
Ivanov's collection mentioned in the poem's penultimate line. In Canto Two
of his poem Shade mentions Frost:
I was in time to overhear brief fame
And have a cup of tea with you: my name
Was mentioned twice, as usual just behind
(one oozy footstep) Frost. (ll. 423-26)
In his Commentary Kinbote writes:
The reference is, of course, to Robert Frost (b. 1874). The line displays
one of those combinations of pun and metaphor at which our poet excels. In
the temperature charts of poetry high is low, and low high, so that the
degree at which perfect crystallization occurs is above that of tepid
facility. This is what our modest poet says, in effect, respecting the
atmosphere of his own fame.
Frost is the author of one of the greatest short poems in the English
language, a poem that every American boy knows by heart, about the wintry
woods, and the dreary dusk, and the little horsebells of gentle
remonstration in the dull darkening air, and that prodigious and poignant
end--two closing lines identical in every syllable, but one personal and
physical, and the other metaphysical and universal. I dare not quote from
memory lest I displace one small precious word.
With all his excellent gifts, John Shade could never make his snowflakes
settle that way. (note to Line 426)
It was Delvig who quipped that the nearer to heaven, the colder one's verses
get (as reported by Pushkin in a MS note), and it was Delvig who intended to
kiss Derzhavin's hand when the latter visited the Lyceum (see n. to Eight:
II: 3). (EO Commentary, vol. III, p. 23) In Delvig's best poem (written at
the Lyceum and dedicated to Pushkin whom Delvig calls "a swan born in
blooming Ausonia") "fleets with treasures untold from America" are
mentioned.
Onhava (the capital of Kinbote's Zembla) seems to hint at heaven.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
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Carolyn Kunin: 'Hades is an anagram for Shade - or vice versa (see versipel)
I suppose.'
In his poem Proserpina (1824) Pushkin mentions koni blednogo Plutona (pale
Pluto's horses) rushing the god from aid (Hades) to the nymphs of Pelion and
then back again and calls Proserpina (Pluto's wife) ada gordaya tsaritsa
(the proud Queen of Hell). Kon' (horse) rhymes with ogon' (fire). Kon' bled
("Pale Horse," 1903) is a poem by Bryusov.
In a letter of Sept. 10, 1824, to Pushkin Delvig says that Proserpina is
pure music: a bird of paradise's singing that one can hear for a thousand
years without noticing the passage of time:
Прозерпина не стихи, а музыка: это пенье райской птички, которое слушая, не
увидешь, как пройдёт тысяча лет. Эти двери давно мне знакомы. Сквозь них,
ещё в Лицее, меня [иногда] часто выталкивали из Элизея. Какая искустная
щеголиха у тебя истина. Подобных цветов мороз не тронет!
What a smart dashing lady is istina (truth) in your poems. Such flowers will
be spared by the frost!
Rayskaya ptichka (bird of paradise) mentioned by Delvig (who addresses
Pushkin "your Parnassian majesty") brings to mind the Mediterranean Villa
Paradisa built by Queen Disa's grandfather:
In 1933, Prince Charles was eighteen and Disa, Duchess of Payn, five. The
allusion is to Nice (see also
<http://www.shannonrchamberlain.com/palefirepoem.html#line238> line 240)
where the Shades spent the first part of that year; but here again, as in
regard to so many fascinating facets of my friend's past life, I am not in
the possession of particulars (who is to blame, dear S.S.?) and not in the
position to say whether or not, in the course of possible excursions along
the coast, they ever reached Cap Turc and glimpsed from an oleander-lined
lane, usually open to tourists, the Italianate villa built by Queen Disa's
grandfather in 1908, and called then Villa Paradiso, or in Zemblan Villa
Paradisa, later to forgo the first half of its name in honors of his
favorite granddaughter. There she spent the first fifteen summers of her
life; thither did she return in 1953, "for reasons of health" (as impressed
on the nation) but really, a banished queen; and there she still dwells.
(Kinbote's note to Lines 433-434)
Soon after Proserpina Pushkin composed his famous epigram on Count Vorontsov
(the governor general of New Russia who called Pushkin "a weak imitator of
Lord Byron"):
Полу-милорд, полу-купец,
Полу-мудрец, полу-невежда,
Полу-подлец, но есть надежда,
Что будет полным наконец.
Half-milord, half-merchant,
Half-sage, half-ignoramus,
Half-scoundrel, but there's a hope
Thet he will be a full one at last.
There is a hope that after Kinbote's suicide on Oct. 19, 1959 (the Lyceum
anniversary) V. Botkin (Shade + Kinbote + Gradus) will be "full" again. One
wonders if Disa, too, does become "full" (Paradisa? 'Disdemona'?) again.
"Kaby na tsvety da ne morozy" (it was the frost that killed the flowers) is
the closing line of G. Ivanov's poem Mayatnika mernoe kachan'ye ("The
rhythmical swing of pendulum," 1947):
Маятника мерное качанье,
Полночь, одиночество, молчанье.
Старые счета перебираю.
Умереть? Да вот не умираю.
Тихо перелистываю <Розы> -
<Кабы на цветы да не морозы>!
Morozy (pl. of moroz, frost) rhymes with Rozy ("Roses," 1931), the title of
Ivanov's collection mentioned in the poem's penultimate line. In Canto Two
of his poem Shade mentions Frost:
I was in time to overhear brief fame
And have a cup of tea with you: my name
Was mentioned twice, as usual just behind
(one oozy footstep) Frost. (ll. 423-26)
In his Commentary Kinbote writes:
The reference is, of course, to Robert Frost (b. 1874). The line displays
one of those combinations of pun and metaphor at which our poet excels. In
the temperature charts of poetry high is low, and low high, so that the
degree at which perfect crystallization occurs is above that of tepid
facility. This is what our modest poet says, in effect, respecting the
atmosphere of his own fame.
Frost is the author of one of the greatest short poems in the English
language, a poem that every American boy knows by heart, about the wintry
woods, and the dreary dusk, and the little horsebells of gentle
remonstration in the dull darkening air, and that prodigious and poignant
end--two closing lines identical in every syllable, but one personal and
physical, and the other metaphysical and universal. I dare not quote from
memory lest I displace one small precious word.
With all his excellent gifts, John Shade could never make his snowflakes
settle that way. (note to Line 426)
It was Delvig who quipped that the nearer to heaven, the colder one's verses
get (as reported by Pushkin in a MS note), and it was Delvig who intended to
kiss Derzhavin's hand when the latter visited the Lyceum (see n. to Eight:
II: 3). (EO Commentary, vol. III, p. 23) In Delvig's best poem (written at
the Lyceum and dedicated to Pushkin whom Delvig calls "a swan born in
blooming Ausonia") "fleets with treasures untold from America" are
mentioned.
Onhava (the capital of Kinbote's Zembla) seems to hint at heaven.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L