BW: No matter which of the many interpretations of Pale Fire one may prefer, it is difficult to accept the necessity of the proposed second line of the couplet ( . . . by its own double in the windowpane).

This is not a couplet. Line 1001 is the coda of Shade’s poem. In Italian coda means “tail.” In a letter of Nov. 18, 1831, to Yazykov Pushkin quotes Khvostov's epistle to him in which Khvostov (whose name comes from khvost, “tail”) says that he became an ally of zodiac and mentions July (“in my old age I sang of July”):

Хвостов написал мне послание, где он помолодел и тряхнул стариной. Он говорит

Приближася похода к знаку,

Я стал союзник Зодиаку;

Холеры не любя пилюль,

Я пел при старости июль

и проч. в том же виде. Собираюсь достойно отвечать союзнику Водолея, Рака и Козерога. Впрочем всё у нас благополучно.

Pushkin wanted to reply to "the ally of Aquarius, Cancer and Capricorn." Alas, my patchy knowledge of English (reflected in repetitiousness and gaps in my posts) prevents me from replying to Barry Warren’s criticism. I’m afraid that he did miss something in my arguments, though…

According to Gogol, Pushkin said that Yazykov should have entitled his first book of poetry Khmel’ (“Intoxication”). In his Commentary Kinbote says that the whole clan of Gradus (Shade’s murderer whose name to a Russian ear suggests alcohol) seems to have been in the liquor business (note to Lines 17, 29). According to Kinbote, Gradus “contended that the real origin of his name should be sought in the Russian word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making in Vinogradus” (ibid.). In his essay on Yazykov (included in “The Silhouettes of Russian Writers”) the critic (and VN’s friend) Yuli Ayhenvald says that it was some sultry summer noon that stifled Yazykov’s poetry and quotes Yazykov’s poem in which vinograd is mentioned:

Настал какой-то знойный полдень, который и задушил его поэзию. Как своеобразно говорит прежний поэт, теперешний "непоэт":

Попечитель винограда,
Летний жар ко мне суров;
Он противен мне измлада,
Он, томящий до упада,
Рыжий враг моих стихов…

A guardian of grape,

The summer heat is hard on me;

I hate it from infancy.

Trying one to the point of exhaustion,

It is the red enemy of my verses...

The name Yazykov comes from yazyk (tongue; language). This fact is stressed by Gogol who compares Yazykov’s command of language to an Arab’s command of his horse:

"Имя Языков пришлось ему недаром. Владеет он языком, как араб диким конём своим, и ещё как бы хвастается своею властью... Всё, что выражает силу молодости, не расслабленной, но могучей, полной будущего, стало вдруг предметом стихов его. Так и брызжет юношеская свежесть от всего, к чему он ни прикоснётся".

Kon’ (horse) rhymes with ogon’ (fire). This rhyme occurs in Chapter Two of Pushkin’s Mednyi vsadnik (“The Bronze Horseman,” 1833), in which “Count Khvostov, the poet beloved by heavens,” is also mentioned:

А в сём коне какой огонь!
Куда ты скачешь, гордый конь,
И где опустишь ты копыта?

And what fire is in this steed!

The proud horse, where do you speed?

And where will you put down your hooves?

Pushkin died in the prime of life and talent, never entering the rich autumn of his genius. His last long poem, “The Bronze Horseman,” is also his best. As VN points out in his EO Commentary, after Pushkin’s death his works were mutilated by unscrupulous translators.

Shade (who shares with Kinbote and Gradus their birthday, July 5) wrote his last poem, Pale Fire, in July. It was almost finished, when the poet was killed by Gradus. I suspect that the killer Gradus is Kinbote’s alter ego and the last line of Shade’s last poem is… (see top of this post)

Alexey Sklyarenko