Subject
Re: TT-2ff; or Hunting he Heffalump with Nabokov and Byron .
ARMANDE CHAMAR
ARMANDE CHAMAR
From
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
EDNOTE. I queried John Rea about the name ARMANDE CHAMAR. His erudite reply
(for which I thank him) follows:
----------------
Date: Monday, July 12, 2004 4:34 PM -0500
From: John A Rea <j.rea2@insightbb.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: TT; or Hunting he Heffalump with Nabokov and Byron
------------------
On 9 July D. Barton Johnson e-mailed me as follows:
Dear John,
As a Romance philologist do you have any thoughts about either part of
"Armande Chamar" (other than Arm and Hammer Baking soda)? I haven't checked
a good Byron concordance yet. Tried the index to VN Eugene Onegin since
there is a lot of Byron stuff there but no luck. Best, Don
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
---------------------------
John Rea <j.rea2@insightbb.com> replies:
I allowed my opinion that Portuguese "chiamas" I only knew as the
second singular of the verb meaning "call", but said I'd check.
A quick perusal of my 2 vol Shorter Oxford produced the following:
chama a marine bivalve mollusc
chamar member of a low Hindu cast whose usual occupation is leather working
Our narrator in TT says on p 17,
"I believe Byron uses 'chamar' meaning 'peacock fan,' in a very noble
Oriental milieu"
Byron's Don Juan in Canto XVI, Stanza xv has,
Oh the long evenings of duets and trios....
With "Tu mi chiamas" from Portingale,
To soothe our ears....
This would be fine as , "Thou callest me," but does nothing for
peacock fans. I went to the basement where I keep my faithful
Century Dictionary (ed. William Dwight Whitney, who composed
that Sanskrit Grammar we all used). This, you will recall
upset the British editors of OED by starting publication first!
As an aside, I presumed that it was the one meant by another
annotator when dealing with a Sician poison, but since the
Century glosses that word well, presumed that he had some
personal reason for not including it in the "two largest
English dictionaries.
At any rate, the Century gives two meanings for 'chamar': bivalve,
and a second entry: "fly whisk; a fan of feathers...
used in the East Indies as one of the insignias of royalty."
Aha! We need only understand that those fine feathers are peacock
as would be fit for royalty.
Notes to Don Juan inform us that Byron twice translated a Portuguese
poem printed among his (ambiguously/) entitled "Occasional piece
the poem being named "Tu mi chiamas" and including the line
'You call me still your life."
I shall leave it to Professors Boyd and Johnson to provided any
necessary explication of the connection amongst "fly whisk",
"thou callest me", and Armande of TT.
John
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
EDNOTE. I queried John Rea about the name ARMANDE CHAMAR. His erudite reply
(for which I thank him) follows:
----------------
Date: Monday, July 12, 2004 4:34 PM -0500
From: John A Rea <j.rea2@insightbb.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: TT; or Hunting he Heffalump with Nabokov and Byron
------------------
On 9 July D. Barton Johnson e-mailed me as follows:
Dear John,
As a Romance philologist do you have any thoughts about either part of
"Armande Chamar" (other than Arm and Hammer Baking soda)? I haven't checked
a good Byron concordance yet. Tried the index to VN Eugene Onegin since
there is a lot of Byron stuff there but no luck. Best, Don
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
---------------------------
John Rea <j.rea2@insightbb.com> replies:
I allowed my opinion that Portuguese "chiamas" I only knew as the
second singular of the verb meaning "call", but said I'd check.
A quick perusal of my 2 vol Shorter Oxford produced the following:
chama a marine bivalve mollusc
chamar member of a low Hindu cast whose usual occupation is leather working
Our narrator in TT says on p 17,
"I believe Byron uses 'chamar' meaning 'peacock fan,' in a very noble
Oriental milieu"
Byron's Don Juan in Canto XVI, Stanza xv has,
Oh the long evenings of duets and trios....
With "Tu mi chiamas" from Portingale,
To soothe our ears....
This would be fine as , "Thou callest me," but does nothing for
peacock fans. I went to the basement where I keep my faithful
Century Dictionary (ed. William Dwight Whitney, who composed
that Sanskrit Grammar we all used). This, you will recall
upset the British editors of OED by starting publication first!
As an aside, I presumed that it was the one meant by another
annotator when dealing with a Sician poison, but since the
Century glosses that word well, presumed that he had some
personal reason for not including it in the "two largest
English dictionaries.
At any rate, the Century gives two meanings for 'chamar': bivalve,
and a second entry: "fly whisk; a fan of feathers...
used in the East Indies as one of the insignias of royalty."
Aha! We need only understand that those fine feathers are peacock
as would be fit for royalty.
Notes to Don Juan inform us that Byron twice translated a Portuguese
poem printed among his (ambiguously/) entitled "Occasional piece
the poem being named "Tu mi chiamas" and including the line
'You call me still your life."
I shall leave it to Professors Boyd and Johnson to provided any
necessary explication of the connection amongst "fly whisk",
"thou callest me", and Armande of TT.
John
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L