Subject
Re: Kings never die...( Pale Fire)
From
Date
Body
The words, following Charles Wallace, could be found and copied easily, so I reproduce them here:
1. The hymn that we are told has inspired the song:
"There is a happy land far far away where saints in glory stand, bright, bright as day. Oh how they sweetly sing, "Worthy is our Savior King", Loud let his praises ring, praise, praise for aye."
2. The song "Old Soldiers Never Die"
There is an old cookhouse, far far away
Where we get pork and beans, three times a day.
Beefsteak we never see, damn-all sugar for our tea
And we are gradually fading away.
cho: Old soldiers never die,
Never die, never die,
Old soldiers never die
They just fade away.
Privates they love their beer, 'most every day.
Corporals, they love their stripes, that's what they say.
Sergeants they love to drill. Guess them bastards always will
So we drill and drill until we fade away.
Kinbote would note that in the beer song there is a mention of "gradus" ( "we are gradually fading away") and identify Zembla in the "happy land far far away" or in "worthy is our Savior King". I won't, of course. But I think it worthwhile now to quote the sentence that prompted this paper/digital chase:
Kinbote, line 894 ( a king):
Shade: ... "The Extremists and their friends invented a lot of non-sense to conceal their discomfiture; but the truth is that the King walked out of the palace, and crossed the mountains, and left the country, not in the black garb of a pale spinster but dressed as an athlete in scarlet wool."
"Strange, strange," said the German visitor, who by some quirk of alderwood ancestry had been alone to catch the eerie note that had throbbed by and was gone.
Shade [smiling and massaging my knee]: Kings do not die - they only disappear, eh, Charles?"
"Who said that?" asked sharply, as if coming out of a trance, the ignorant, and always suspicious, Head of the English Department.
A few lines later we find one of the references to Pnin when Kinbote mentions that he speaks Russian and is thereby indirectly acknowledging that he had chatted with this Russian "Punoo"( this item has already brought up in a recent posting).
More lines and we find Gerald Emerald "spreading out his palms like a disciple in Leonardo's Last supper" ( such as Andrew, Simon and James, also Christ, but not Judas).
Kinbote or Dan Brown might also have noted ( had the first not been distraught by Emerald's words) that the name "Leonardo" doesn't appear in VN's novels with a great frequency. There is an apparition in "Pnin", though.
"To the latest issue of the school magazine Victor had contributed a poem about painters, over the nom de guerre Moinet, and under the motto 'Bad reds should all be avoided; even if carefully manufactured, they are still bad' (quoted from an old book on the technique of painting but smacking of a political aphorism). The poem began:
Leonardo! Strange diseases
strike at madders mixed with lead:
nun-pale now are Mona Lisa's
lips that you had made so red. "
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Chaswe@AOL.COM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 2:31 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Kings never die...( Pale Fire)
Actually, the text to this song, complete with music, showing it to be a parody of a well-known hymn, is easily available via Google: see here:
http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiOLDSOLDR;ttHPP
Mention of "sugar for our tea", inter alia, identifies it as British, imho.
Charles Harrison Wallace
Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
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
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
1. The hymn that we are told has inspired the song:
"There is a happy land far far away where saints in glory stand, bright, bright as day. Oh how they sweetly sing, "Worthy is our Savior King", Loud let his praises ring, praise, praise for aye."
2. The song "Old Soldiers Never Die"
There is an old cookhouse, far far away
Where we get pork and beans, three times a day.
Beefsteak we never see, damn-all sugar for our tea
And we are gradually fading away.
cho: Old soldiers never die,
Never die, never die,
Old soldiers never die
They just fade away.
Privates they love their beer, 'most every day.
Corporals, they love their stripes, that's what they say.
Sergeants they love to drill. Guess them bastards always will
So we drill and drill until we fade away.
Kinbote would note that in the beer song there is a mention of "gradus" ( "we are gradually fading away") and identify Zembla in the "happy land far far away" or in "worthy is our Savior King". I won't, of course. But I think it worthwhile now to quote the sentence that prompted this paper/digital chase:
Kinbote, line 894 ( a king):
Shade: ... "The Extremists and their friends invented a lot of non-sense to conceal their discomfiture; but the truth is that the King walked out of the palace, and crossed the mountains, and left the country, not in the black garb of a pale spinster but dressed as an athlete in scarlet wool."
"Strange, strange," said the German visitor, who by some quirk of alderwood ancestry had been alone to catch the eerie note that had throbbed by and was gone.
Shade [smiling and massaging my knee]: Kings do not die - they only disappear, eh, Charles?"
"Who said that?" asked sharply, as if coming out of a trance, the ignorant, and always suspicious, Head of the English Department.
A few lines later we find one of the references to Pnin when Kinbote mentions that he speaks Russian and is thereby indirectly acknowledging that he had chatted with this Russian "Punoo"( this item has already brought up in a recent posting).
More lines and we find Gerald Emerald "spreading out his palms like a disciple in Leonardo's Last supper" ( such as Andrew, Simon and James, also Christ, but not Judas).
Kinbote or Dan Brown might also have noted ( had the first not been distraught by Emerald's words) that the name "Leonardo" doesn't appear in VN's novels with a great frequency. There is an apparition in "Pnin", though.
"To the latest issue of the school magazine Victor had contributed a poem about painters, over the nom de guerre Moinet, and under the motto 'Bad reds should all be avoided; even if carefully manufactured, they are still bad' (quoted from an old book on the technique of painting but smacking of a political aphorism). The poem began:
Leonardo! Strange diseases
strike at madders mixed with lead:
nun-pale now are Mona Lisa's
lips that you had made so red. "
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Chaswe@AOL.COM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 2:31 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Kings never die...( Pale Fire)
Actually, the text to this song, complete with music, showing it to be a parody of a well-known hymn, is easily available via Google: see here:
http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiOLDSOLDR;ttHPP
Mention of "sugar for our tea", inter alia, identifies it as British, imho.
Charles Harrison Wallace
Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
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
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm