Alexey Sklyarenko:In his
Commentary (note to line 49) Kinbote quotes a quatrain from Shade's poem "The
Sacred Tree": Here is Goethe's poem "Ginkgo Biloba" from "The
West-Eastern Divan":...Gibt geheimen Sinn zu kosten,/Wie's den Wissenden
erbaut.//Ist es ein lebendig Wesen,/Das sich in sich selbst getrennt?Sind es
zwei, die sich erlesen,/Daß man sie als eines kennt?.../Fühlst du nicht an
meinen Liedern,/Daß ich eins und doppelt bin?
JM:
Great find and link, Alexey. Kinbote does indeed appear to allude to
Goethe's poem on the Gingko tree, its "secret meaning" and to a splitting of the
ego. It's interesting that Goethe's lines open a choice: is there only one
person who, by undergoing a splitting, also operates as
his double? Are there actually two different people who
choose to be seen as one?
btw: I checked various images of the gingko leaves.
Some, but not all of them, are shaped a bit like the butterfly Shade
describes, with a slight parting in the middle. as indicated by
Goethe.