Naomi B.Pascal: Nabokov's verse "ex Ponto," at the end of the Foreword to Speak,
Memory, would appear to be an echo of the Roman poet Ovid, who wrote a number of
poems "ex Ponto," referring to his exile at Tomis on the Black Sea (Pontus).
Like Ovid, Nabokov was writing from a strange land.
JM: Also Pushkin
wrote from exile at the Black Sea and his lines were addressed to
Ovid. Pontus probably became, for Nabokov, emblematic of exile.