Subject
Patifolia
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Date
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After D.B. Johnson's suggestion of "patifolia" as ...something like "broad leaf"--a suitable descriptive term for Kinbote's play pillow, I found reference to a kind of vegetable with pods and seeds, for sale in the internet ( "dalbergia patifolia").
There is also a palm described as "false pati", the Cocos botryophora (Cf Michaelis): .http://images.mobot.org/tropicos/QK495F21M34182350V2/fullsize/QK495F21M34182350V2_0346.jpg .
Don Johnson's description corresponds to the Latin "patulus" (from "patere": to be open). Neither seed, pod nor palm suggest the comforts of a big pillow used for Kinbote's espatulate "patifolia": as a filling they would create a rather corny bumpy mattress. So, the word must really apply to the shape of the pillow itself.
The long tapering leaf of the pati-palm, though, looks similar to the blade of a sword (a foil) but it doesn't broaden out, like a gardener's spade. The possibility of a play turning "folia" into "flower" or as a "stiletto" also occurred to me, by the French translation of Hamlet's "foil" for the sword named "fleuret" ( the "floweret" in Shade's poem is, to my ears, a neat reference to this blade). And yet, although fencing foils were known since medieval days, the so-called "floret" was only invented in XVIII Century France. ( Perhaps Nabokov had been acquainted with the French foiled translation - but I doubt it...)
Foil, in Walter W. Skeat's reference, informs that the meaning of "foiled" (defeated) suggests the kind of "blunt blade" of a sharp tipped weapon used in fencing. Foil is also a "set-off, as in setting a gem", a leaf, 'also the foyle of precious stones".
Although I found the word "fleuret" used in English as a synonim of "fencing foil" ( following James L. Taylor Portuguese-English Webster's), there was no "fleuret" with this meaning in the COD. [In the internet I found "Floret, Florete, Florett, Floretti: Foil as a whole: cf.Roger McLassus.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Foil-2004-A.jpg/505px-Foil-2004-A.jpg ]
I was wondering if Nabokov didn't make another of his "heraldic" allusions,one of Ada's "transmongrelizations". The complicated vocabulary of heraldry is sometimes used by Nabokov [ "bend sinister", "gule" ( red), probably even "azure" or "nebula" ( wavy pattern)].
Couldn't VN have mounted puzzles which, set in place, would represent a specific coat of arms? Or Zembla's crown jewels?
I saw various beautiful illustrations of "pattee cross and flory", in wikipedia, mainly decorating Royal Crowns:.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Imperialcrown.jpg
for "patance" ( included in the M.DCC.LXXI. edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica) reveals "a cross, with flory at the ends and extended in a pattee-form."
The "pattee" is a design that is " small in the centre and widening to the extremes -which are very broad." so here we find both "pattee" and "flory" linked together. Although I could find no other reference to "patance", both pattee and flory were easy to get in the internet.
The word "pattee", despite the similitude to a flat pat and the English "pati" sound for "patee", is related to the French "patte", a paw. Flory (flowery) is usually applied to the Fleur de Lys.Wikipaedia ennumerates, among other things, the cross pattée as "placed before the name of the bishop who issues a Catholic imprimatur.... also associated with the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity...known as a "cross pattee", "cross patty" or "cross formy".
A design on a broad soft pillow carrying a "pattee cross" or a "patance" embroidered on its pillow-case became a possible choice for an elaborated "patifolia". But it might simply mean just that: a flat, broad leaf-shaped mattress...
Jansy
PS: I couldn't find the reference to the coat of arms Kinbote explicitly describes.
The Vintage ed. mentions the "patifolia" on page 110, note to line 80. It is Fleur (a flower!) who lies in this "ample nest...curled up in its central hollow"...
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There is also a palm described as "false pati", the Cocos botryophora (Cf Michaelis): .http://images.mobot.org/tropicos/QK495F21M34182350V2/fullsize/QK495F21M34182350V2_0346.jpg .
Don Johnson's description corresponds to the Latin "patulus" (from "patere": to be open). Neither seed, pod nor palm suggest the comforts of a big pillow used for Kinbote's espatulate "patifolia": as a filling they would create a rather corny bumpy mattress. So, the word must really apply to the shape of the pillow itself.
The long tapering leaf of the pati-palm, though, looks similar to the blade of a sword (a foil) but it doesn't broaden out, like a gardener's spade. The possibility of a play turning "folia" into "flower" or as a "stiletto" also occurred to me, by the French translation of Hamlet's "foil" for the sword named "fleuret" ( the "floweret" in Shade's poem is, to my ears, a neat reference to this blade). And yet, although fencing foils were known since medieval days, the so-called "floret" was only invented in XVIII Century France. ( Perhaps Nabokov had been acquainted with the French foiled translation - but I doubt it...)
Foil, in Walter W. Skeat's reference, informs that the meaning of "foiled" (defeated) suggests the kind of "blunt blade" of a sharp tipped weapon used in fencing. Foil is also a "set-off, as in setting a gem", a leaf, 'also the foyle of precious stones".
Although I found the word "fleuret" used in English as a synonim of "fencing foil" ( following James L. Taylor Portuguese-English Webster's), there was no "fleuret" with this meaning in the COD. [In the internet I found "Floret, Florete, Florett, Floretti: Foil as a whole: cf.Roger McLassus.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Foil-2004-A.jpg/505px-Foil-2004-A.jpg ]
I was wondering if Nabokov didn't make another of his "heraldic" allusions,one of Ada's "transmongrelizations". The complicated vocabulary of heraldry is sometimes used by Nabokov [ "bend sinister", "gule" ( red), probably even "azure" or "nebula" ( wavy pattern)].
Couldn't VN have mounted puzzles which, set in place, would represent a specific coat of arms? Or Zembla's crown jewels?
I saw various beautiful illustrations of "pattee cross and flory", in wikipedia, mainly decorating Royal Crowns:.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Imperialcrown.jpg
for "patance" ( included in the M.DCC.LXXI. edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica) reveals "a cross, with flory at the ends and extended in a pattee-form."
The "pattee" is a design that is " small in the centre and widening to the extremes -which are very broad." so here we find both "pattee" and "flory" linked together. Although I could find no other reference to "patance", both pattee and flory were easy to get in the internet.
The word "pattee", despite the similitude to a flat pat and the English "pati" sound for "patee", is related to the French "patte", a paw. Flory (flowery) is usually applied to the Fleur de Lys.Wikipaedia ennumerates, among other things, the cross pattée as "placed before the name of the bishop who issues a Catholic imprimatur.... also associated with the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity...known as a "cross pattee", "cross patty" or "cross formy".
A design on a broad soft pillow carrying a "pattee cross" or a "patance" embroidered on its pillow-case became a possible choice for an elaborated "patifolia". But it might simply mean just that: a flat, broad leaf-shaped mattress...
Jansy
PS: I couldn't find the reference to the coat of arms Kinbote explicitly describes.
The Vintage ed. mentions the "patifolia" on page 110, note to line 80. It is Fleur (a flower!) who lies in this "ample nest...curled up in its central hollow"...
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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