Tom (Rymour) Having applied my mind to the problem, let me provide a
closely-reasoned and succinct solution: Old McNab used that particular
noun, "pond" -- because he needed a rhyme for "blond".
Hugs and
kisses, PS: I challenge anyone to form an anagram from either word.
JM: To respond like a
true blond chic chick, I must
needs ponder the egg before any anagrammatic
homelet.
In the meantime, a query to all:
T.S.Eliot wrote a note for the last
verse of his first Canto (Burial of the Dead) of "The Waste Land," (often
suggested in PF) by appropriating and translating C.Baudelaire's famous
dedication. Eliot chose to translate "mon semblable" as "my double".
In Portuguese we find the word for "
mon semblable" (" meu semelhante") applied as, in English, in
the proverb "love thy neighbour" ( the implied "similarity"
indicating shared humanity and not a replication, like in "double").
Eliot's choice may have ellicited some kind of criticism from Nabokov
(who spoke French as well as he spoke English).
(a) Is there a better word for "semblable" in English? The French
"vraisemblable" in English appears related to "verisimilitude" (here it's
closer to "doubles" than to "neighbours");
(b) Could Nabokov's choice to have Kinbote as Shade's neighbour
also in any way implicate "his double" (in support of the split-person
theories)?
Cf. Eliot's note: Baudelaire, Preface to Fleurs du Mal.
C'est l'Ennui!
....
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
Hypocrite lecteur!
mon semblable, mon frère!
Eliot's translation:
It's boredom! ....
You know him, reader, this dainty monster,
Hypocritical reader! my double, my brother!