Carolyn K: "I would like to see
somewhat shorter notes - - as a member I don't have to read everything that
comes to me, but our poor ed.s do."
Jansy: Our editors are editors, not
"our poor ed"s. Let them cope as they see fit.
You are wise when
you simply delete longer notes instead of deleting other people's. Every
subscriber can also become their own Ed.
Item Four
CK: There are hints linking this
student to both of Hazel's parents.He is very possibly her half brother and
definitely a homosexual interest of her father's.
He is variously referred
to in the story as an oriental prince, son of a padishaw, and as an
Asiatic potentate. And though his name is never mentioned (like that of the head
of the Shadows) it is probably Caspar.
Jansy: Could you demonstrate your
intriguing hypothesis or is it too long to post?
This student, a putative
half-brother of Hazel and a homosexual interest of their father Shade ( or
is he half-brother on the mother's side?) is a recurrence of the incest theme?
What is the link bt.the Korean student and Kinbote's black gardener CK insists
of seeing dressed up in silks as a prince, a moor, one of the three
Magi?
Item Five
Chance brought a 12 or13th Century poem
to my attention, with the suggestive title "Unter dem Linden" and, as I
checked in the internet, with verses that have been often set to music
( Grieg and lyrics in Swedish, Busoni plus others I forget who). In it
I found a description that reminded me of the mattress/pilow theme recently
discussed and the not so recent question on Kinbote's patifolia.
There is a poem written by W.
von Vogelweide in which an illicit love affair is described. Only a
"taranderei" from a bird could reveal its secret, or the evidence of
a pillow made of broken flowers where the girl's head had lain... (
this verse, in particular, has not always been translated and often this meaning
was eluded).
A direct reading from Shade's verses does not
suggest he had any illicit love affair, but Carolyn maintains that he was not
always the faithful husband. In his poem Shade still holds
by his first love for Sybil. The image of the creased pillow, though, may
be an original creation or an allusion to the same "illicit love" as suggested
in Vogelweide's.
"We have been married forty years. At least
Four thousand
times your pillow has been creased
By our two heads. ..."
Da hat er
gemachet schnell, bei Scherzen
Von Blumen reich die Ruhestatt;
Ja, mancher noch lachet von ganzem Herzen,
Wenn er kommt
denselben Pfad.
An den Rosen er wohl mag
--
Tandaradei
Merken, wo das Haupt mir
lag.
"Unter den Linden"
Walther von der
Vogelweide (1170?-1228?)
In a Nov. 13,
2002 VN-List posting we find:
EDNOTE.
Nabokov's Latin was mostly based in Linnean taxonymy terms. Although W.T.
Stern's standard BOTANICAL LATIN does not specifically give the term patifolia,
PAT- often has the meaning 'broad'. Hence "patifolia" would mean something like
"broad leaf"--a suitable descriptive term for Kinbote's play
pillow.
-------------------
For other needs than sleep Charles Xavier had
installed in the middle of the Persian rug-covered floor a so-called
patifolia, that is, a huge, oval,
luxuriously flounced, swansdown
pillow the size of a triple bed"--