MM: Greg told Van with distaste about "an ugly engine, surgically circumcised, terrifically oversized and high-colored, with such a phenomenal cœur de bœuf; nor had either of the fascinated, fastidious boys ever witnessed the like of its sustained, strongly arched, practically everlasting stream". This seems to refer to Percy de Prey, whom I'm assuming is also Edward de Vere (preying on youth?).

Indeed, Moses de Vere was a lover of Praskovia de Prey, Percy's mother: 'At the races, the other day, I [Demon Veen, Van's and Ada's father] was talking to a woman I preyed upon years ago, oh long before Moses de Vere cuckolded her husband [Count Peter de Prey, a member of the first Venus Club Council: 2.3] in my absence and shot him dead in my presence - an epigram you've heard before, no doubt from these very lips - ' (1.38) The maiden name of Praskovia de Prey (a namesake of Praskovia Larin, Tatiana's and Olga's mother in Eugene Onegin, and of Praskovia Osipov, Pushkin's neighbor, mother of Annette and Zizi Vulf and their brother Alexey), Lanskoy, reminds one of Pushkin's widow Natalia Nikolaevna who married Peter Lanskoy after the poet's death.

Another de Vere mentioned in Ada (1.32) is Vere de Vere: He [Van] always remembered, with shudders of revulsion, the indoor pool of his prep school... and especially, especially, the bland, sly, triumphant and absolutely revolting wretch who stood in shoulder-high water and secretly urinated (and, God, how he had beaten him up, though that Vere de Vere was three years older than he).

Romantically inclined handmaids, whose reading consisted of Gwen de Vere and Klara Mertvago, adored Van, adored Ada, adored Ardis's ardors in arbors. (2.7)

The Poems of Yuri Zhivago appended to Pasternak's novel (Lara Antipov is Zhivago's mistress) begin with Gamlet (Hamlet). In Ada (1.5), Gamlet is a hamlet near Ardis Hall (btw., "ardis" is a Greek word).

Gwen de Vere reminds one of Queen Guinevere (Van revises his first novel on board Queen Guinevere: 2.2), King Arthur's wife, while Percy brings to mind Percival, a knight of King Arthur's court. On the other hand, Gwen is a fat little fille de joie who helps Voltemand (Van's pen name, after a courtier in Hamlet) to sell his book. Voltemand's novel is reviewed by the First Clown in Elsinore (a distinguished London weekly). According to Ada (1.10), Elsie de Nord (another alias of the First Clown?) is a vulgar literary demimondaine who thought that Lyovin went about Moscow in a nagol'nyi tulup.

Re Philip II: a great lover of Bosch's paintings, Philip of Spain is mentioned in Part Four of The Life of Klim Samgin (a namesake of Gorky's hero, Baron Klim Avidov gave Marina's children a set of Flavita: 1.36) and in VN's Podvig (one of Vadim's couplets begins: "Filip ispanskiy byl proidokha...").