Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0024494, Sat, 17 Aug 2013 23:45:31 -0300

Subject
Re: [SIGHTING] Enkrypted words and transparencies
Date
Body
Carolyn Kunin on "Diablonnet": "Oh, I knew something rang a bell: Dubonnet!"

Jansy Mello: Perhaps someone will track down references to these various "spirits." Dubonnet, for one? There's also the Hennessy Cognac Bras d'Or .http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-190372-0000-hennessy-bras-d-or-cognac-france - where shall that road carry us to?

As for characters, I can only remember now John Shade and his secret drinking. Of course, there's Gradus (Vinograd=grape// Vinogradus) whose "whole clan" was on the "liquor business."
John Shade has a book of poems with the title Hebe's cup* (another added meaning related to "muscat grape"?) and, perhaps in ADA too, there's a reference to Ganymede** and, most certainly, to Dionysus.
Social drinking abounds in ADA, served with proficiency by Bouteillan, Bout and other butlers.
There are strange links bt. Van and Vinelander by a reference to (VD's notes)p.402. cart de van: Amer., mispronunciation of carte des vins. ( cf, "He demanded the 'cart de van' (affording the real Van mild amusement), but, being a hard-liquor man, cast only a stunned look at the 'Swiss White' page of the wine list before 'passing the buck' to Ada who promptly ordered champagne".)
....................................................
* -
Dim Gulf was my first book (free verse); Night Rote

Came next; then Hebe's Cup, my final float

In that damp carnival,

C.Kinbote writes: Many years ago Disa, our King's Queen, whose favorite trees were the jacaranda and the maidenhair, copied out in her album a quatrain from John Shade's collection of short poems Hebe's Cup, which I cannot refrain from quoting here ...":


The Sacred Tree

The ginkgo leaf, in golden hue, when shed,

A muscat grape,

Is an old-fashioned butterfly, ill-spread,

In shape.


** - A quick dip in wikipedia:
a. In Greek mythology, Ganymede...is a divine hero whose homeland was Troy. Homer describes Ganymede as the most beautiful of mortals. He was the son of Tros of Dardania, from whose name "Troy" was supposed to derive, and of Callirrhoe. His brothers were Ilus and Assaracus. In one version of the myth, he is abducted by Zeus, in the form of an eagle, to serve as cup-bearer in Olympus. The myth was a model for the Greek social custom of paiderastía, the socially acceptable erotic relationship between a man and a youth. The Latin form of the name was Catamitus, from which the English word "catamite" derives.

b. In Greek mythology, Hebe ... is the goddess of youth... She is the daughter of Zeus and Hera. Hebe was the cupbearer for the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus, serving their nectar and ambrosia, until she was married to Heracles... her successor was Zeus's lover Ganymede. Another title of hers, for this reason, is Ganymeda. . .





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