-------- Original Message --------
I have to correct something I said in my earlier post. Brian
Boyd doesn't say that Hazel as the butterfly was trying to
keep her father away from the Goldsworth house, much less
distract him. He only raises as one possible initial
reading the idea that she might be tugging at his sleeve
to warn him off. I had to post in a hurry at a small library
instead of at home (modem, lightning), and I didn't think
to check his book on line either.
To reply to Jansy's message (below), the fault is with my
English: an oddly placed adverbial phrase (how Nabokovian
of me). I meant that two of Shade's references to Hazel,
as he thinks of her after her death, are associated with
a bird and butterflies. I certainly didn't mean that you,
Jansy, were saying they were references to her in an
afterlife.
And when I said I disagreed with you about the possibility
that Hazel could be a beautiful bird or a butterfly, I
meant that though you discounted such a possibility, I
thought it was reasonable. So I understood you just as
James Studdard did.
Finally, an amusing but not (in my opinion) definitive
connection between the red admiral and Tereus is that the
first poem I can think of on Atalanta is the first I
can think of on Philomela: the beginning of a chorus from
Swinburne's /Atalanta in Calydon/, which I hope I may
be forgiven for quoting.
WHEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half assuaged for Itylus,
For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces.
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.
<http://www.bartleby.com/101/808.html>
> > From: jansymello <jansy@AETERN.US>
> > Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS: Shade's Mockingbird (JF)]
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Date: Friday, July 11, 2008, 7:01 PM
> > Jerry Friedman: Jansy Mello reminded us of points where
> > Hazel after her death is associated with a bird and with a
> > butterfly. I wouldn't dismiss the idea that the
> > cardinal and the cabbage butterflies are also Hazel
> > signalling to her father[...]On the other hand, I disagree
> > with Jansy about the possibility that Hazel could be a
> > beautiful bird or butterfly.
> > Jansy Mello: You must all excuse me for my inability to
> > express myself correctly in English. I never thought nor
> > alluded to a metempsychicotic Hazel, nor did I suggest she
> > could be a beautiful bird or butterfly. Quite the opposite,
> > indeed!