While reading an article about Galileo's inventions, I
found a reference to the "clepsydra" as the instrument Galileo
employed to measure the progress of dropping inert bodies and
the "time-lapse". It is similar to
the hourglass, but it measures seconds with water, instead of
sand. The weight of the water, in Galileo's 1604 experiment, was
equivalent to the passage of time (Cf. "The ten most beautiful experiments",
2008, George Johnson.
ADA: "Curious how that appalling actress
resembles "Eve on the Clepsydrophone" in Parmigianino’s famous
picture’."
Brian
Boyd's Annotations: 14.05: Clepsydrophone: a "clepsydra" is a water clock; W2 explains
its derivation from Greek kleptein (conceal) and hydor (water). In
view of Marina's concealing the fact of her lover when Demon calls (16.15-16),
the etymology seems pointed (nowhere else are "dorophones" called
"clepsydrophones"). Cf. "we shall presently dispose of 'flowing' time,
water-clock time, water-closet time" (539.27-28); "clepsydras" (544.08). MOTIF:
dorophone,
technology.
....................................................
I don't
know if VN was familiar with the clepsydra through Galileo's epoch-making
demonstration. VN at least twice mentioned other
quaint instruments using liquids (The cartesian devil, already
illustrated in past postings by C.Kunin). Both Aqua and Marina ( both
bear liquid names), also Lucette, are joined by various experiences related
to water.
The use
of "doro" ( related to hydro, ladore, durée, dorée,adorée) and VN's
insistence with bubbling chattering or dropping water ( from The Vane
Sisters, Lolita onto Ada) suggests its link with "time" ( at least, with
"duration" and the philosophy of Bergson. We may include, from Lolita,
the "Hourglass lake".
(btw: the
twisted "ampersand" sign (&) VN once described shaping a
rubberband stimulated me to think of electricity (amber, lettrocalamity,
"ampère") and sandglass (ie:hourglass and "our
glass").
Further quotes: I, Demon, rattling my crumpled
wings and cursing the automatic dorophone, could not live without you
[...]Now that is the sketch made by a young
artist in Parma, in the sixteenth century, for the fresco of our destiny,
in a prophetic trance, and coinciding,[...] with an image repeated in two
men’s minds.
[...] technologists ...were trying to make publicly
utile and commercially rewarding the
extremely elaborate and still very expensive, hydrodynamic
telephones and other miserable gadgets [...]
in a dream[...] Demon’s former valet explained to Van that the
‘dor’ in the name of an adored river equaled the corruption of hydro in
‘dorophone.’ Van often had word
dreams.
[...] yes,
the polliphone./It had
died, but buzzed as soon as he recradled the receiver, and Lucette knocked
discreetly at the same time.‘La durée... For goodness sake, come in without
knocking.[...]You don’t know if it’s dorée or
durée?
[...}With a quick gesture he centrifuged them [...] and despite his
pretty cousin’s protests [...] campophoned for his car. Then he
clattered, in Lucette’s wake, down the cataract of the narrow staircase,
katrakatra (quatre à quatre). Please, children not katrakatra
(Marina).
[...] He still hoped the Ladore dorophone would be in
working order before his departure. Le château que baignait le
Dorophone. Anyway, he assumed the aerogram would reach her in a couple
of hours. Lucette said ‘uhn-uhn,’ it would first fly to Mont-Dore — sorry,
Ladore
[...] brutal elation as the car entered the oak avenue
between two rows of phallephoric statues presenting arms. A welcome habitué of
fifteen years’ standing, he had not bothered to ‘telephone’ (the new official
term).