Carolyn Kunin: Seagulls and Cigales! I didn't think of that! Interesting that the "quip" as you call it belongs to Kinbote and not to Shade as I misremembered. I should have expected the artist to prefer "alive the song."
Mary Efremov: i think aqua was madder than marina in ada
 
Jansy Mello: Thanks to both C.Kunin and Mary Efremov for having corrected my slips.
The verses about "the Frenchman in Nice" are Shade's ,and the comment about the Queen's monument is Kinbote's.*
 
I expect that Shade prefers "alive the song," like Nabokov. However, on his walk back home with Sybil, on the day of his daughter's death, Shade discovered "an empty emerald case" close to "its companion piece, a gum-logged ant." (line 240) and, therefore, he must be also indicating that a cicada has managed to escape from her "case," whereas the ant's body (cum dead mandible) was preserved in amber. If Hazel's death represents her being freed from her "emerald" prison to live the immortal life of the soul, I suppose that the poet must at least have planned to draw on a distinction bt. the artist's material and his spiritual survival.     
 
I also meant to refer to Aqua's madness, not Marina's.  
..................................................................................................................
* - Line 240: ...When I visited Nice a quarter of a century later...Not many Englishmen walked there, anyway, though I noticed quite a few just east of Mentone, on the quay where in honor of Queen Victoria a bulky monument, with difficulty embraced by the breeze, had been erected, but not yet unshrouded, to replace the one the Germans had taken away. Rather pathetically, the eager horn of her pet monoceros protruded through the shroud. (C.Kinbote).
John Shade (lines 240-245): " ... 
That Englishman in Nice,/ A proud and happy linguist: je nourris/ Les pauvres cigales — meaning that he/ Fed the poor sea gulls!/ Lafontaine was wrong:/Dead is the mandible, alive the song."
 
 
Google Search
the archive
Contact
the Editors
NOJ Zembla Nabokv-L
Policies
Subscription options AdaOnline NSJ Ada Annotations L-Soft Search the archive VN Bibliography Blog

All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.