Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0007046, Thu, 7 Nov 2002 14:59:45 -0800

Subject
Fw: Versipel in Lewis and Short
Date
Body
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 2:16 PM
Subject: Re: Versipel in Lewis and Short


>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (29
lines) ------------------
> The Lewis and Short Latin dictionary (now superseded by the
> Oxford Latin Dictionary) may be searched online at
> http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform
> thanks to the resources of the Perseus website sponsored by
> Tufts University. (The same page is used to search the
> Liddell and Scott Greek dictionary , so make sure you have
> "Latin" selected.)
>
> I too wondered if Ovid might have used "versipellis" in the
> Metamorphoses. I don't have an Ovidian concordance here, but
> a search of the Latin text as well as those of some of
> Ovid's other major works doesn't turn it up. It is not a
> particularly common word in Latin literature; again, I don't
> have the full TLL (searchable disk of extant Latin
> literature) at hand, but to judge by the citations in Lewis
> and Short it's not something you'd run across every day even
> if you were a practicing Latinist. I think it's quite likely
> that Nabokov looked at the page in Webster's II that
> contains "verse" and just continued reading. However,
> following an idea mentioned by Don, I wonder whether someone
> could check in a comprehensive French dictionary, such as
> Littre, and tell us if "versipel" is to be found there.
>
> As I was typing this I received Brian Boyd's informative
> gloss on my last posting, and yes, I do think it was "aqua
> tofana" I was thinking of as another term that is in W2 but
> not W3.
>
> Mary Bellino
>