Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0027493, Thu, 31 Aug 2017 16:28:43 +0000

Subject
Re: Fascinum in LOLITA?
Date
Body
Mo,
There is a reference to this bridal practice in Augustine's "City of God":

"Priapus is also there, and he is all too masculine. It used to be that the new bride was told to sit on his huge and indecent phallus, in accord with the most respectable and most religious custom of the matrons!" (Book 6, Chapter 9) Interestingly, the original Latin term used by Augustine here is "fascinum" (super cujus irumanissum et turpissimum fascinum). There is also a detailed discussion of the fascinum in Montague Summers' "History of Witchcraft and Demonology" (1926), where Summers cites Augustine and several other classical descriptions. I am fairly certain that VN read Summers' book on werewolves, so he may have read this as well.

By the way, the passage Mo Ibrahim cites continues: "Marriage and cohabitation before the age of puberty are still not uncommon in certain East Indian provinces." Nabokov got this from the book "Child Marriage," by Mary Ellen Richmond and Fred Smith Hall (1925). They write, on page 24, "Marriage and cohabitation even before the age of puberty are not uncommon in certain East Indian provinces and among many African tribes."

Cheers,
Matt Roth

-----Original Message-----
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf Of Mo Ibrahim
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2017 11:12 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Fascinum in LOLITA?

H.H. describes some pictures:

"Here is Virgil who could the nymphet sing in single tone […] Here are two of King Akhnaten’s and Queen Nefertiti’s pre-nubile Nile daughters (that royal couple had a litter of six), wearing nothing but many necklaces of bright beads, relaxed on cushions, intact after three thousand years, with their soft brown puppybodies, cropped hair and long ebony eyes. Here are some brides of ten compelled to seat themselves on the fascinum, the virile ivory in the temples of classical scholarship." (19)

The Virgil reference could be to two stanzas in ECLOGUES that reads: “Who could the Nymphets sing? Who strew the ground \ With blooming plants, or mantle o'er the springs”.

The "Nile daughters" is a reference to a wall painting of Neferneferure and Neferneferuaten - two daughters of King Akhnaten and Queen Nefertiti.

However, Appel didn't note a reference to ten-year-old brides straddling ivory dildos. And I can't seem to locate one. Maybe, this isn't an allusion. Any ideas?

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