[EDNote: Matt Roth Strikes Again!]
-------- Original Message --------
I like VF's note about the Russian for goalpost. That seems a very
likely association. I would like to supplement it with another. It is
well known that VN gleaned many of his esoteric tidbits from the
journal Notes & Queries. In PF, his note about the Kong-Skugg-Sio
has its origins in an entry in N&Q, and I have suggested that
Kinbote's note about the origin of the name Lukin also comes from an
entry there. So it may be that VN was particularly interested in this
page, from a 1901 issue:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Y0gAAAAAYAAJ&dq=stang%20lime%20line%20lind&pg=PA42#v=onepage&q=stang%20lime%20line%20lind&f=false
Here, in the left column, is a description of the origins of the term
"lime-tree," tracing its derivation from "lind" to "line" to "lime."
Kinbote, of course, notes this same etymology in his note on
Shakespeare's trees. Directly across from this note, on the right-hand
side, you will see a note about "riding the stang," an ancient
Anglo-Saxon tradition in which, usually, an adulterer or a wife-beater
was made to straddle a pole (the stang) and was carried around thus by
the men of the town. In this note, it's an effigy, but you can look up
the phrase in Google Books and get several more versions of the
practice. In any case, the proximity of the "stang" entry to the "lime"
entry makes me think that VN's interest in the word made have found its
spark here. He then probably looked it up in W2 and found the
"handrail" meaning, which he employed in Shade's poem. It may be
interesting, however, to imagine the overtones of humiliation,
preserved from the ancient practice, spilling over onto Hazel as she
gripped that rail.
Someone asked where we can hear VN reading from PF:
http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/from_the_poetry_center_archive_vladimir_nabokov_aesthetic_bliss/
Best,
Matt Roth