In his Foreword 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) mentions good old Frank, his present publisher:
Imagine a soft, clumsy giant; imagine a historical personage whose knowledge of money is limited to the abstract billions of a national debt; imagine an exiled prince who is unaware of the Golconda in his cuff links! This is to say - oh, hyperbolically - that I am the most impractical fellow in the world. Between such a person and an old fox in the book publishing business, relations are at first touchingly carefree and chummy, with expansive banterings and all sorts of amiable tokens. I have no reason to suppose that anything will ever happen to prevent this initial relationship with good old Frank, my present publisher, from remaining a permanent fixture.
Frank has acknowledged the safe return of the galleys I had been sent here and has asked me to mention in my Preface - and this I willingly do - that I alone am responsible for any mistakes in my commentary. Insert before a professional. A professional proofreader has carefully rechecked the printed text of the poem against the phototype of the manuscript, and has found a few trivial misprints I had missed; that has been all in the way of outside assistance. Needless to say how much I had been looking forward to Sybil Shade's providing me with abundant biographical data; unfortunately she left New Wye even before I did, and is dwelling now with relatives in Quebec. We might have had, of course, a most fruitful correspondence, but the Shadeans were not to be shaken off. They headed for Canada in droves to pounce on the poor lady as soon as I had lost contact with her and her changeful moods. Instead of answering a month-old letter from my cave in Cedarn, listing some of my most desperate queries, such as the real name of "Jim Coates" etc., she suddenly shot me a wire, requesting me to accept Prof. H. (!) and Prof. C (!!) as coeditors of her husband's poem. How deeply this surprised and pained me! Naturally, it precluded collaboration with my friend's misguided widow. (Foreword)
At the beginning of Artisticheskoe narodnichestvo (“The Artistic Populism,” 1910), a review of Vyacheslav Ivanov’s book Po zvyozdam (“By the Stars,” 1909), the philosopher Semyon Frank quotes Merezhkovski who compared V. Ivanov’s muse to Delfiyskaya Sibilla (the Delphic Sibyl):
"Если бы на Невском, в сумерки, когда зажигаются электрические огни, отражаясь пестрыми столбами в мокрых тротуарах, -- появилась вдруг высокая, бледная женщина, вся с головы до ног закутанная, как бы запеленатая льняными пеленами, священными повязками -- Дельфийская Сибилла, -- то сначала толпа удивилась бы, засмеялась бы: "ряженая!" -- а потом шарахнулась бы в ужасе. Такое впечатление производит критическая муза Вяч. Иванова в современной русской литературе".
Так, с присущей ему художественной меткостью, характеризует книгу Вяч. Иванова Д. С. Мережковский {В реферате "Земля во рту" (Речь, 1909 г., No 314).}. Для полноты картины следовало бы добавить еще одну существенную черту, усиливающую впечатление загадочности этого "видения". Дельфийская Сибилла не проходит по улицам Петербурга молча, с сознанием своей отчужденности и несвоевременности; она совсем не замечает пропасти, отделяющей ее от остальной публики на Невском. На своем почти непонятном, полугреческом, полурусском языке, заменяя отвлеченные слова загадочными символами и темными мифологическими намеками, она обращается с речами к толпе, говорит о причинах нашего поражения на Дальнем Востоке или нашей неудачи в освободительном движении и призывает к сближению интеллигенции с народом. Она говорит об унылых русских лесах, точно о священных рощах, в которых происходят античные мистерии; в то время, когда другие хлопочут, напр., об "организации мелкой земской единицы", она совершенно серьезно призывает к созданию из народной общины, с помощью "хорового действа", единого "оргийного тела". Но и этого мало; странность впечатления усугубляется еще тем, что "дельфийская сибилла" начинает отрекаться от самой себя: она проповедует отказ от эллинско-римской культуры и прославляет "новое варварство", во имя христианского идеала отвергает самодовлеющее поклонение красоте, возвещает "русскую идею" слияния с мужиком и, сама "с головы до ног закутанная священными повязками", зовет "совлечься всех риз и всех убранств", чтобы уподобиться убогой наготе народа.
As pointed out by Frank, Merezhkovski speaks of V. Ivanov’s book in his essay Zemlya vo rtu (“The Earth in the Mouth,” 1909). According to Kinbote, God is not the earth in one's rattling throat:
SHADE: There is always a psychopompos around the corner, isn't there?
KINBOTE: Not around that corner, John. With no Providence the soul must rely on the dust of its husk, on the experience gathered in the course of corporeal confinement, and cling childishly to small-town principles, local by-laws and a personality consisting mainly of the shadows of its own prison bars. Such an idea is not to be entertained one instant by the religious mind. How much more intelligent it is--even from a proud infidel's point of view!--to accept God's Presence--a faint phosphorescence at first, a pale light in the dimness of bodily life, and a dazzling radiance after it? I too, I too, my dear John, have been assailed in my time by religious doubts. The church helped me to fight them off. It also helped me not to ask too much, not to demand too clear an image of what is unimaginable. St. Augustine said--
SHADE: Why must one always quote St. Augustine to me?
KINBOTE: As St. Augustine said, "One can know what God is not; one cannot know what He is." I think I know what He is not: He is not despair, He is not terror, He is not the earth in one's rattling throat, not the black hum in one's ears fading to nothing in nothing. I know also that the world could not have occurred fortuitously and that somehow Mind is involved as a main factor in the making of the universe. In trying to find the right name for that Universal Mind, or First Cause, or the Absolute, or Nature, I submit that the Name of God has priority. (note to Line 549)
In his book De Trinitate ("On the Trinity") St. Augustine says:
Non enim paruae notitiae pars est cum de profundo isto in illam summitatem respiramus si antequam scire possimus quid sit deus, possumus iam scire quid non sit.
For when we aspire from this depth to that height, it is a step towards no small knowledge, if, before we can know what God is, we can already know what He is not. (VIII, 2)
In “The Artistic Populism” S. Frank mentions St. Augustine’s transcende te ipsum (transcend yourself) and V. Ivanov’s alkhimicheskaya zagadka (alchemic riddle):
Пафос идеалистического символизма -- иллюзионизм... Пафос реалистического символизма: чрез Августиново "transcende te ipsum", к лозунгу: "a realibus ad realiora". Его алхимическая загадка, его теургическая попытка религиозного творчества -- утвердить, познать, выявить в действительности иную, более действительную действительность. Это -- пафос мистического стремления к ens realissimum, эрос божественного.
In De Vera Religione (“Of True Religion”) St. Augustine says:
Noli foras ire, in teipsum redi; in interiore homine habitat veritas; et si tuam naturam mutabilem inveneris, transcende et teipsum. Sed memento cum te transcendis, ratiocinantem animam te transcendere. Illuc ergo tende, unde ipsum lumen rationis accenditur.
Do not look outside yourself but turn, rather, inside yourself. In the inner man dwells truth. And if therein you find your mutable nature, transcend even yourself. But remember that when you transcend yourself, you transcend the rational soul. Proceed onward, therefore, to the place where the very light of reason is illuminated. (XXXIX, 72)
In his sonnet Transcende te ipsum (1904) V. Ivanov mentions vechnaya Sofia (eternal Sophia):
Два жала есть у царственного змия;
У ангела Порывов — два крыла.
К распутию душа твоя пришла:
Вождь сей тропы — Рахиль; и оной — Лия.
Как двум вожжам послушны удила,
Так ей — дела, а той — мечты благие.
Ей Отреченье имя, — чьи дела;
Той — Отрешенье. Вечная София —
Обеим свет. Одна зовет: «Прейди
Себя, — себя объемля в беспредельном».
Рахиль: «Себя прейди — в себя сойди».
И любит отчужденного в Одном,
А Лия — отчужденного в Раздельном.
И обе склонены над темным дном.
The regal serpent has a two-pointed tongue;
The angel of Impulses has two wings.
To a parting of the ways your soul has come:
The ruler of this path is Rachel; and of the other — Leah.
Just as a horse's bit obeys two reins,
So to one belong actions, and to the other - blessed dreams.
Repudiation is the name of the one whose sphere is actions;
The name of the other is Renunciation. Eternal Sophia
Is light to them both. One calls: "Transcend
Yourself — by embracing yourself in the infinite."
Rachel says: "Transcend yourself - descend into yourself."
And she loves the other in the One,
While Leah loves the other in the Divided.
And both are bowed over the dark deep.
(tr. Pamela Davidson)
The “real” name of both Sybil Shade (the poet’s wife) and Queen Disa (the wife of Charles the Beloved) seems to be Sofia Botkin, born Lastochkin. Lastochki (“The Swallows,” 1884) is a poem by Afanasiy Fet (who was married to Maria Botkin) and a poem (1895) by Merezhkovski. An American scholar of Russian descent, Professor Vsevolod Botkin went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus (the poet’s murderer) after the tragic death of his daughter Nadezhda (Hazel Shade’s “real” name). Nadezhda (“Hope,” 1894) is a poem by Merezhkovski, the author of Voskresshie bogi. Leonardo da Vinchi ("Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci," 1900). Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Mone, Queen Disa seems to blend Leonardo’s Mona Lisa with Desdemona, Othello’s wife in Shakespeare’s Othello.
Btw., there is a pelargonium Frank Hazel. In VN’s novel Ada (1969), in the Night of the Burning Barn (when Van and Ada make love for the first time), Ada compares the texture of Van’s male organ to pelargonium bloom:
‘Well, why,’ she asked (demanded, challenged, one flame crepitated, one cushion was on the floor), ‘why do you get so fat and hard there when you —’
‘Get where? When I what?’
In order to explain, tactfully, tactually, she belly-danced against him, still more or less kneeling, her long hair getting in the way, one eye staring into his ear (their reciprocal positions had become rather muddled by then).
‘Repeat!’ he cried as if she were far away, a reflection in a dark window.
‘You will show me at once,’ said Ada firmly.
He discarded his makeshift kilt, and her tone of voice changed immediately.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said as one child to another. ‘It’s all skinned and raw. Does it hurt? Does it hurt horribly?’
‘Touch it quick,’ he implored.
‘Van, poor Van,’ she went on in the narrow voice the sweet girl used when speaking to cats, caterpillars, pupating puppies, ‘yes, I’m sure it smarts, would it help if I’d touch, are you sure?’
‘You bet,’ said Van, ‘on n’est pas bête à ce point’ (‘there are limits to stupidity,’ colloquial and rude).
‘Relief map,’ said the primrose prig, ‘the rivers of Africa.’ Her index traced the blue Nile down into its jungle and traveled up again. ‘Now what’s this? The cap of the Red Bolete is not half as plushy. In fact’ (positively chattering), ‘I’m reminded of geranium or rather pelargonium bloom.’
‘God, we all are,’ said Van.
‘Oh, I like this texture, Van, I like it! Really I do!’
‘Squeeze, you goose, can’t you see I’m dying.’
But our young botanist had not the faintest idea how to handle the thing properly — and Van, now in extremis, driving it roughly against the hem of her nightdress, could not help groaning as he dissolved in a puddle of pleasure.
She looked down in dismay.
‘Not what you think,’ remarked Van calmly. ‘This is not number one. Actually it’s as clean as grass sap. Well, now the Nile is settled stop Speke.’ (1.19)
Nilskaya delta (“The Nile Delta,” 1898) is a poem by Vladimir Solovyov, the author of a doctrine about the Divine Sophia. In VN's novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert mentions a naked girl, with cinnabar nipples and indigo delta, charmingly tattooed on the back of big Frank's crippled hand:
I heard the sound of whistling lips nearing the half-opened door of my cabin, and then a thump upon it.
It was big Frank. He remained framed in the opened door, one hand on its jamb, leaning forward a little.
Howdy. Nurse Lore was on the telephone. She wanted to know was I better and would I come today?
At twenty paces Frank used to look a mountain of health; at five, as now, he was a ruddy mosaic of scarshad been blown through a wall overseas; but despite nameless injuries he was able to man a tremendous truck, fish, hunt, drink, and buoyantly dally with roadside ladies. That day, either because it was such a great holiday, or simply because he wanted to divert a sick man, he had taken off the glove he usually wore on his left hand (the one pressing against the side of the door) and revealed to the fascinated sufferer not only an entire lack of fourth and fifth fingers, but also a naked girl, with cinnabar nipples and indigo delta, charmingly tattooed on the back of his crippled hand, its index and middle digit making her legs while his wrist bore her flower-crowned head. Oh, delicious… reclining against the woodwork, like some sly fairy. (2.22)
In the same chapter of Lolita Humbert Humbert mentions a heterosexual Erlkönig in pursuit:
Mrs. Hays in the meantime had alerted the local doctor. “You are lucky it happened here,” she said; for not only was Blue the best man in the district, but the Elphinstone hospital was as modern as modern could be, despite its limited capacity. With a heterosexual Erlkönig in pursuit, thither I drove, half-blinded by a royal sunset on the lowland side and guided by a little old woman, a portable witch, perhaps his daughter, whom Mrs. Hays had le.nt me, and whom I was never to see again. (2.22)
One of the leitmotifs in Shade’s poem is the beginning of Goethe’s Erlkönig (1782):
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind.
Who rides so late through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
Dr. Blue brings to mind Starover Blue (Professor of astronomy at Wordsmith) mentioned by Shade in Canto Three of his poem. According to Kinbote, Professor Blue's ancestor, Sinyavin migrated from Saratov to Seattle and changed his name to Blue. Semyon Frank was a Professor of the Saratov and Moscow Universities.
According to Humbert Humbert, he was brought up by his Aunt Sybil:
My mother’s elder sister, Sybil, whom a cousin of my father’s had married and then neglected, served in my immediate family as a kind of unpaid governess and housekeeper. Somebody told me later that she had been in love with my father, and that he had lightheartedly taken advantage of it one rainy day and forgotten it by the time the weather cleared. I was extremely fond of her, despite the rigidity - the fatal rigidity of some of her rules. Perhaps she wanted to make of me, in the fullness of time, a better widower than my father. Aunt Sybil had pink-rimmed azure eyes and a waxen complexion. She wrote poetry. She was poetically superstitious. She said she knew she would die soon after my sixteenth birthday, and did. Her husband, a great traveler in perfumes, spent most of his time in America, where eventually he founded a firm and acquired a bit of real estate. (1.2)
The Night of the Burning Barn in Ada brings to mind the Haunted Barn (where certain phenomena occurred in October 1956, a few months before Hazel Shade's death) in Pale Fire.