Yesterday I'd been trying to figure out something
related to "taxonomic Latin" and Nabokov's "golubyanki" in ADA,
and elsewhere.*
I found it impossible to locate any hint related
to the literal translation of the "Lycaeides idas sublivens," particularly
of the word "sublivens," with the resources I had at
hand.
The word "life" in Latin (Vita) isn't close
to "live" in "sublivens" - and one Latin dictionary led
me from the "sublime" towards "livid" in "pale blue
because of Envy".
There is most certainly no
etymological relation bt. Nabokov's proud discovery of the "bolubyanka"
female, and the word "envy" that I encountered by mere
chance.
However, were Nabokov even minimally aware of any
emotional tonality of green-blue-livid envy in in the
given "sublivens" (like Othello's green-eyed monster...) it's possible to admit
that his malicious genius could have planted his small butterfly when he
wanted to indicate one of these "ancient human passions on their final
parade."
PS: A recent posting
("delossampson") mentions that "It should probably be pointed out that the
translation of VN's 'Postscript to the Russian Edition of Lolita' was published
in 'Nabokov's Fifth Arc', eds. J.E. Rivers and Charles Nicol, University of
Texas Press, 1982."
I was so happy to find VN's Russian postscript to
Lolita online (thus making it available to students abroad among
those who cannot get enough bibliographical information about Nabokov at
their universities or bookstores), that I wanted to share it with the List.
I'm sorry that, inadvertently, I may have been carried
away and divulged something that, although it is already online as a fait
accompli, must be a pirated text.
Jansy Mello
............................................................................
178.12: golubyanka: VN identifies this modestly in his
notes as “Russ., small blue butterfly.” This is the so-called Nabokov’s Blue, or
Lycaeides idas sublivens. (Kyoto
Reading Circle http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/Ada29.pdf )
(the stress on "modestly" is mine)
.................................................................................
-----Mensagem Original-----
Enviada em: sábado, 4 de janeiro de 2014
13:32
Assunto: [NABOKV-L] CHALLENGE: Nabokov
and Olesha
St. Petersburg Nabokov scholar Evgenii
Belodubrovskii offers the following quotation from Yuri Olesha's
Envy
and calls for general discussion and more complete elaboration of the links
between the Soviet writer Olesha and his admirer, Nabokov.
The
quotation is from Kovalerov:
...многие характеры
разыгрывали комедию старого мира. Занавес закрывается. Персонажи должны
сбежаться к авансцене и пропеть последние куплеты. Я хочу быть посредником
между ними и зрительным залом. Я буду дирижировать хором и последним уйду со
сцены.
...мне
выпала честь провести последним парадом старинные человеческие
страсти...
ЮРИЙ ОЛЕША. РОМАН "Зависть" (
СЛОВА героя романа НИКОЛАЯ КАВАЛЕРОВА)
SB's rather hasty
translation:
...many characters played out the comedy of the Old
World. The curtain closes. The
dramatis personae should all
run up to the proscenium and sing the final couplets. I want to be the
intermediary between them and the auditorium hall. I will be conductor of the
chorus and will be the last to leave the stage.
...to me falls
the honor of guiding ancient human passions on their final parade...