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Re: Details: cardinals and waxwings, "wind rose",
cardinals and waxwings, from JF
cardinals and waxwings, from JF
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JF- "Rosa dos ventos" in English is a "wind rose". Since the young Nabokov admired Housman, I feel obliged to mention that some old ones had 12 rays instead of 16: "From far, from eve and morning,/ And yon twelve-winded sky..." )
JM: I was expecting corrections from you, SF, from SKB and CHW, about the "wind rose", since there are different instruments being designated simultaneously.
Charles Watkins wrote that "a gnomon in Euclid is an asymmetrical geometrical figure, being a parallelogram from one corner of which a similar parallelogram has been removed..."
I finally located my "The Charting of the Oceans" by Peter Whitfield, with ancient maps of Nova Zembla and artic expeditions, fantasy maps and even one of the isle of Mitilene ( various word plays with Mitil, Lesbos, methylène blue, Sappho and Pierre Louys are found in "ADA"). A curious comment about Shackleton suggested to me a metaphorical reading for his plight since he was so isolated that Wolrd War I was going on and he had no information about it: his isolation connects us with "circles" and "ivory/ivy towers", like those mentioned in PF.
The least complicated compass I found represents an 8-point classical wind system. Mediterranean sea-farers relied on the direction of the winds instead of magnetic direction, astro-navigation nor... who knows, H.G.Well' s "gravitrons"...
The eight or twelve winds were personified as faces around the edtes of medieval and Renaissance maps ( page 7).
I was reminded of a blowing Boreas ( didn't check if it was indeed Boreas) propelling Venus to the shore in Boticcelli's painting VN also wrote about, mentioning either russet Lolita or Lucette.
The eight-point system names: Boreas, Caecias, Apeliotes, Eurus, Notus, Lips, Zephyrus and Argestes. The author ( Whitfield) mentions that on the third century BC the wind-rose was used "to underlay the earliest known written aids to navigation - the pilot book or periplus". There is also a "wind compass", with 32 compass points which were used, instead of "degrees" until the nineteenth century (page 81).
A "gnomon", even if mounted on a roseate compass, is a different instrument altogether.
Charles Watkins observed that the "gnomon" is a key word italicised on the first page of Dubliners, which is no doubt relevant. Although the homeric Ulysses must have relied on wind-roses, as would Vikings ( they also used a type of compass based on the sun) I wonder if and how the Euclidean gnomon was used. VN was strongly opposed to any mythological parallel with Homer's Ulysses and Joyce's book, but I don't know how many scholars endorse a similar point of view.
Jansy
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JM: I was expecting corrections from you, SF, from SKB and CHW, about the "wind rose", since there are different instruments being designated simultaneously.
Charles Watkins wrote that "a gnomon in Euclid is an asymmetrical geometrical figure, being a parallelogram from one corner of which a similar parallelogram has been removed..."
I finally located my "The Charting of the Oceans" by Peter Whitfield, with ancient maps of Nova Zembla and artic expeditions, fantasy maps and even one of the isle of Mitilene ( various word plays with Mitil, Lesbos, methylène blue, Sappho and Pierre Louys are found in "ADA"). A curious comment about Shackleton suggested to me a metaphorical reading for his plight since he was so isolated that Wolrd War I was going on and he had no information about it: his isolation connects us with "circles" and "ivory/ivy towers", like those mentioned in PF.
The least complicated compass I found represents an 8-point classical wind system. Mediterranean sea-farers relied on the direction of the winds instead of magnetic direction, astro-navigation nor... who knows, H.G.Well' s "gravitrons"...
The eight or twelve winds were personified as faces around the edtes of medieval and Renaissance maps ( page 7).
I was reminded of a blowing Boreas ( didn't check if it was indeed Boreas) propelling Venus to the shore in Boticcelli's painting VN also wrote about, mentioning either russet Lolita or Lucette.
The eight-point system names: Boreas, Caecias, Apeliotes, Eurus, Notus, Lips, Zephyrus and Argestes. The author ( Whitfield) mentions that on the third century BC the wind-rose was used "to underlay the earliest known written aids to navigation - the pilot book or periplus". There is also a "wind compass", with 32 compass points which were used, instead of "degrees" until the nineteenth century (page 81).
A "gnomon", even if mounted on a roseate compass, is a different instrument altogether.
Charles Watkins observed that the "gnomon" is a key word italicised on the first page of Dubliners, which is no doubt relevant. Although the homeric Ulysses must have relied on wind-roses, as would Vikings ( they also used a type of compass based on the sun) I wonder if and how the Euclidean gnomon was used. VN was strongly opposed to any mythological parallel with Homer's Ulysses and Joyce's book, but I don't know how many scholars endorse a similar point of view.
Jansy
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
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