In his commentary to Shade’s poem Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) says that the Zemblan word coramen denotes the rude strap with which a Zemblan herdsman attaches his humble provisions and ragged blanket to the meekest of his cows when driving them up to the vebodar (upland pastures):
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"A unicursal bicircular quartic" says my weary old dictionary. I cannot understand what this has to do with bicycling and suspect that Shade's phrase has no real meaning. As other poets before him, he seems to have fallen here under the spell of misleading euphony.
To take a striking example: what can be more resounding, more resplendent, more suggestive of choral and sculptured beauty, than the word coramen? In reality, however, it merely denotes the rude strap with which a Zemblan herdsman attaches his humble provisions and ragged blanket to the meekest of his cows when driving them up to the vebodar (upland pastures).
The cow being a sacred animal in India, vebodar may hint at Cedrus deodara, the deodar cedar, Himalayan cedar, or deodar (a species of cedar native to the Hymalayas). In her story Durbar v Lakhore ("The Durbar in Lahore," 1881) Helena Blavatsky (a Russian and American mystic, the co-founder of the Theosophical Society, born Helena von Hahn, 1831-1891) mentions the marvellous freshness of the forest of deodars and firs:
Итак, беспристрастно разделив при прощании искреннее сожаление между нашими добрыми друзьями англичанами и чудною прохладой диодоровых и сосновых лесов, мы приготовились рано утром 21 октября в путь.
And so, after impartially dividing our sincere regrets upon parting between our good English friends and the marvellous freshness of the forest of deodars and firs, we prepared to set off, in the early morning of October 21st. (I)
According to Kinbote, he writes his commentary, index and foreword (in that order) to Shade's poem in Cedarn, Utana (actually, Botkin writes them in a madhouse near Quebec). Kinbote's foreword to Shade's poem is dated "Oct. 19, 1959." On this day (the anniversary of Pushkin's Lyceum) Kinbote completes his work on Shade's poem and commits suicide. There is a hope that, after Kinbote's death, Botkin (Shade's, Kinbote's and Gradus's "real" name), like Count Vorontsov (a target of Pushkin’s epigrams, “half-milord, half-merchant, etc."), will be "full" again.
On second thought, vebodar's first part seems to hint at nebo (sky, heaven in Russian). As to coramen (the rude strap with which a Zemblan herdsman attaches his humble provisions and ragged blanket to the meekest of his cows when driving them up to the vebodar), it seems to hint at korameenu, one of India's most popular and tastiest fish, also known as snakehead or Murrel.