Subject
CORRECTION: CHW to JF
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Date
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Apologies to JF for posting off the top of my head.
In (reasonably) modern Icelandic (= Old Norse, more or less), "skugg-sja or
-sjo" means "shade-show -- or mirror" (Cleasby-Vigfusson Icelandic-English
Dictionary, 1874). "Skugga" means (also in Swedish) both "shade" and "shadow",
and can extend to something like "spectre".
"Konungr", which can also be contracted to "kongr" in Icelandic, means
"king"; otherwise "konung" is more clearly modern Swedish (otherwise usually now
contracted to "kung"), with "kong" more clearly modern Danish.
The more normal Icelandic word for a mirror is "spegill", Swedish "spegel",
German "Spiegel", ie Latin "speculum". "Skugg-sjo" has an archaic ring to it.
The concept seems to be of the image as a ghost or alter ego, rather than as
a clear reflection. Applying this to Shade and Kinbote it might suggest that
Shade was King Charles Kinbote's ghost, rather than the other way round.
Charles J
In a message dated 17/03/2007 21:58:54 GMT Standard Time, nabokv-l@UTK.EDU
writes:
On "Kongs-skugg-sio": the reason I asked is the Danish, Nynorsk, and
Bokmal
Wikipedias don't use that spelling or anything like it. (Maybe I should
have said
so.) However, Matt answered part my question off-list: "Kongs-skuggs-sio"
is
used in earlier English texts, so Nabokov didn't invent it as an example
of
Zemblan. Maybe it's obsolete Danish or partially Danicized Old Norse?
Whatever the literal meaning of the "sja" element, there can't be much
doubt
that "skuggsja" meant "mirror", as the Latin title was /Speculum Regale/.
It's interesting that "shadow" is part of the compound, though, so thanks
for mentioning that.
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