Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0013608, Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:25:51 -0700

Subject
PF's "Et in Arcadia" Guercino painting
Date
Body
Line 286: A jet’s pink trail above the sunset fire



I, too, was wont to draw my poet’s attention to the idyllic beauty of airplanes in the evening sky. Who could have guessed that on the very day (July 7) Shade penned this lambent line (the last one on his twenty-third card) Gradus, alias Degré, had flown from Copenhagen to Paris, thus completing the second lap of his sinister journey! Even in Arcady am I, says Death in the tombal scripture.



Boyd's NOTES to PF in the LOA edition report " "Et in Arcadia ego" as inscription on on a tomb in a paitning by Guercino (1591-1666) as well as by later painters.



The attachment gives the painting in which the "Et in Arcadia" is visible on the tomb.



Don Johnson

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