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Re: THOUGHTS re Location of New Wye and Hamlet
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As Fran Assa returned to Danish stilettos and the location of
New Wye, maybe this is a good time to mention a couple things
that I can't find in the list archives.
Not explicitly, anyway--I think both Carolyn Kunin and
Andrew Brown have hinted at the connection with Dr. Jekyll.
Nabokov said in /Lectures on Literature/ that "Jekyll"
comes from the Danish word for "icicle". As Shade uses
"stiletto" as a metaphor for icicles, Kinbote's "Danish
stiletto" could refer to the dual personality of Botkin and
Kinbote, or as Carolyn argued, of Dr. Kinbote and Mr. Shade.
A person interested in American Botkin genealogy asked me about
the etymology of the Russian "Botkin", and I found this:
Ботка - в Ð¿Ñ ÐºÐ¾Ð²Ñ ÐºÐ̧Ñ… говорах то же, что
ботало ÑˆÐµÑ Ñ‚ Ñ ÐºÐ¾Ð½ÑƒÑ Ð¾Ð¾Ð±Ñ€Ð°Ð·Ð½Ñ‹Ð¼
наконечнÐ̧ком, которым хлопают по воÐ́е,
чтобы Ð²Ñ Ð¿ÑƒÐ³Ð½ÑƒÑ‚ÑŒ рыбу Ð̧ загнать ее в Ñ
етÐ̧.
Ð’ÐµÑ€Ð¾Ñ Ñ‚Ð½Ð¾, прозвÐ̧ще Ð²Ñ‹Ñ Ð¾ÐºÐ¾Ð³Ð¾,
хуÐ́огочеловека. (Ф).
<http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/lastnames/1547>
In case the Cyrillic doesn't come through, "Botka - v pskovskikh
govorakh to zhe, chto botalo shest c konusoobraznym nakonechikom,
kotorym khlopayut po bode, chtoby vspugnut' rybu i zagnat' ee
v seti. Veroyatno, prozvishche vysokogo, khudogocheloveka. (F)."
I hope I got that right.
Sad to say, I don't read Russian, but with the help of
<http://www.rustran.com/>, Wikipedia, and on-line dictionaries, I
came up with this:
[From] "botka": the same in the dialects of Pskov, a cowbell on a
pole with a conical tip, slapped on the water to scare fish and
tire them out in a net. Possibly a nickname for a tall, thin man.
Would anyone like to correct that?
Finally, from the little I've learned, it seems less likely that
the Botkin families of the area corresponding to New Wye have
any Russian ancestry (till Gleb Botkin, the son and grandson of
court physicians, moved to Virginia).
Jerry Friedman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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New Wye, maybe this is a good time to mention a couple things
that I can't find in the list archives.
Not explicitly, anyway--I think both Carolyn Kunin and
Andrew Brown have hinted at the connection with Dr. Jekyll.
Nabokov said in /Lectures on Literature/ that "Jekyll"
comes from the Danish word for "icicle". As Shade uses
"stiletto" as a metaphor for icicles, Kinbote's "Danish
stiletto" could refer to the dual personality of Botkin and
Kinbote, or as Carolyn argued, of Dr. Kinbote and Mr. Shade.
A person interested in American Botkin genealogy asked me about
the etymology of the Russian "Botkin", and I found this:
Ботка - в Ð¿Ñ ÐºÐ¾Ð²Ñ ÐºÐ̧Ñ… говорах то же, что
ботало ÑˆÐµÑ Ñ‚ Ñ ÐºÐ¾Ð½ÑƒÑ Ð¾Ð¾Ð±Ñ€Ð°Ð·Ð½Ñ‹Ð¼
наконечнÐ̧ком, которым хлопают по воÐ́е,
чтобы Ð²Ñ Ð¿ÑƒÐ³Ð½ÑƒÑ‚ÑŒ рыбу Ð̧ загнать ее в Ñ
етÐ̧.
Ð’ÐµÑ€Ð¾Ñ Ñ‚Ð½Ð¾, прозвÐ̧ще Ð²Ñ‹Ñ Ð¾ÐºÐ¾Ð³Ð¾,
хуÐ́огочеловека. (Ф).
<http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/lastnames/1547>
In case the Cyrillic doesn't come through, "Botka - v pskovskikh
govorakh to zhe, chto botalo shest c konusoobraznym nakonechikom,
kotorym khlopayut po bode, chtoby vspugnut' rybu i zagnat' ee
v seti. Veroyatno, prozvishche vysokogo, khudogocheloveka. (F)."
I hope I got that right.
Sad to say, I don't read Russian, but with the help of
<http://www.rustran.com/>, Wikipedia, and on-line dictionaries, I
came up with this:
[From] "botka": the same in the dialects of Pskov, a cowbell on a
pole with a conical tip, slapped on the water to scare fish and
tire them out in a net. Possibly a nickname for a tall, thin man.
Would anyone like to correct that?
Finally, from the little I've learned, it seems less likely that
the Botkin families of the area corresponding to New Wye have
any Russian ancestry (till Gleb Botkin, the son and grandson of
court physicians, moved to Virginia).
Jerry Friedman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm