In a message dated 29/01/2005 18:49:59 GMT Standard Time, chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu writes:

I'm grateful to Carolyn for providing the reference to Beckett. VNs phrase
had always sung in my head with on odd familiarity. But I had read Godot
about 20 years before reading Speak, and could never place it. I think,
though, that the image or idea has a much earlier provenance and probably is
one of the universal thoughts or images. Isn't a similar image in Beowulf,
with a bird flying in one window of the mead hall and then flying out a
window on the other side?

I had long noticed the similarity, but also the difference. VN's image is oddly imprecise: is the cradle floating, or is it on the ledge of a cliff, for instance? Whereas Beckett's image of a woman giving birth astride a grave is all too precise, very nasty in fact.

Anthony Stadlen