Subject:
Re: [NABOKV-L] RES: [NABOKV-L] Good News from Ghent
From:
Stan Kelly-Bootle <stan@bootle.biz>
<mailto:stan@bootle.biz>
Date:
Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:09:08 +0000
To:
Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
<mailto:NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
Some delightful VN word-play, Jansy.
Eros qui
prend son essor! Arts that our marblery harbors: Eros, the rose and the
sore,’ I am ill at these numbers, but e’en rhymery is easier
‘than confuting the past in mute prose.’ Who wrote that? Voltimand or
Voltemand? Or the Burning Swine? A pest on his anapest! ‘All our old
loves are corpses or wives.’ All our sorrows are virgins or whores.
And a near-Joycean rhythm! Did
you notice the clever levels in “e’en rhymery is easier
...?” “E’en” = abrev. for “even” and “evening” (compare “yestreen”),
of course. But also OE/Dialect/Scots plural of “eye” leading to “eye
rhymes” being easier. E.g., “wind” and “mind,” “love” and “prove.”
(always allowing for sounds changing over the years.)
In my own folk repertoire: the Lancashire Four-Loom Weaver:
Oor Margaret declares if she’d clo’es to put on,
She’d go up to Lunnon and see tha great mon;
An’ if things didna alter when thor she ‘ad been
She swears she would FIGHT wi’ BLOOD UP TO TH’E’N (up to the eyes)
SKB