Subject
tempi passati
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Date
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'Okh, nado passati!' exclaimed Percy in the Slavic slang he affected, blowing out his cheeks and fumbling frantically at his fly. (1.39)
Vivian Darkbloom comments in his "Notes to Ada": passati: pseudo-Russian pun on 'pass water'.
Possat' (pf. of ssat') is Russian vulgar slang for "urinate" (nado means "one must"). As to the word passati, it occurs in the Italian phrase tempi passati ("past times"). This phrase is used by Heine in "The Journey from Munich to Genoa" (Chapter XXX):
"...England der Zufluchtsort fuer freie Geister war, wenn der Despotismus den ganzen Kontinent unterdrueckte; das sind tempi passati! England mit seinen Aristokraten gehe jetzt immerhin zugrunde, freie Geister haben jetzt im Notfall einen noch besseren Zufluchtsort; wuerde auch ganz Europa ein einziger Kerker, so gaebe es jetzt noch immer ein anderes Loch zum Entschluerpfen, das ist Amerika, und gottlob! das Loch ist noch groesser als der Kerker selbst."
In the next paragraph Heine speaks of Russia and Russians:
"...die Russen werden schon durch den Umfang ihres Reichs von der Engherzigkeit eines heidnischen Nationalsinnes befreit, sie sind Kosmopoliten oder wenigstens Sechstel-Kosmopoliten, da Russland fast den sechsten Teil der bewohnten Welt ausmacht* -
Und wahrlich, wenn irgendein Deutschrusse, wie mein livlaendischer Reisegefaehrte, prahlerisch patriotisch tut und von unserem Russland and unserem Diebitsch** spricht, so ist mir, als hoerte ich einen Hering, der das Weltmeer fuer sein Vaterland und den Walfisch fuer seinen Landsmann ausgibt."
In his piscine metaphor, Heine compares one's fatherland (namely, the fatherland of his traveling companion, a Baltic Russian) to world ocean. The reader of Ada is reminded of both Aqua, Marina's poor mad twin sister (and Demon Veen's wife), who believed, in her delusion, that she could understand the language of water (1.3), and Lucette, Van's and Ada's half-sister, who drowns herself (3.5) and becomes "a mermaid in the groves of Atlantis". One also remembers the stock phrase "much water has flowed under the bridges" (mnogo vody uteklo) used by people speaking of their distant past.
tempi passati = pastime + pisatel' - el'
pisatel' - Russ., writer
el' - Russ., fir tree
*On Antiterra (Earth's twin planet on which Ada is set) Russia is a land in N America. Therefore Van Veen, the protagonist and narrator, is surprised and amused that "'Russia,' instead of being a quaint synonym of Estoty, the American province extending from the Arctic no longer vicious Circle to the United States proper, was on Terra the name of a country, transferred as if by some sleight of land across the ha-ha of a doubled ocean to
the opposite hemisphere where it sprawled over all of today's Tartary, from Kurland to the Kuriles!" (1.3)
**Russian general
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Vivian Darkbloom comments in his "Notes to Ada": passati: pseudo-Russian pun on 'pass water'.
Possat' (pf. of ssat') is Russian vulgar slang for "urinate" (nado means "one must"). As to the word passati, it occurs in the Italian phrase tempi passati ("past times"). This phrase is used by Heine in "The Journey from Munich to Genoa" (Chapter XXX):
"...England der Zufluchtsort fuer freie Geister war, wenn der Despotismus den ganzen Kontinent unterdrueckte; das sind tempi passati! England mit seinen Aristokraten gehe jetzt immerhin zugrunde, freie Geister haben jetzt im Notfall einen noch besseren Zufluchtsort; wuerde auch ganz Europa ein einziger Kerker, so gaebe es jetzt noch immer ein anderes Loch zum Entschluerpfen, das ist Amerika, und gottlob! das Loch ist noch groesser als der Kerker selbst."
In the next paragraph Heine speaks of Russia and Russians:
"...die Russen werden schon durch den Umfang ihres Reichs von der Engherzigkeit eines heidnischen Nationalsinnes befreit, sie sind Kosmopoliten oder wenigstens Sechstel-Kosmopoliten, da Russland fast den sechsten Teil der bewohnten Welt ausmacht* -
Und wahrlich, wenn irgendein Deutschrusse, wie mein livlaendischer Reisegefaehrte, prahlerisch patriotisch tut und von unserem Russland and unserem Diebitsch** spricht, so ist mir, als hoerte ich einen Hering, der das Weltmeer fuer sein Vaterland und den Walfisch fuer seinen Landsmann ausgibt."
In his piscine metaphor, Heine compares one's fatherland (namely, the fatherland of his traveling companion, a Baltic Russian) to world ocean. The reader of Ada is reminded of both Aqua, Marina's poor mad twin sister (and Demon Veen's wife), who believed, in her delusion, that she could understand the language of water (1.3), and Lucette, Van's and Ada's half-sister, who drowns herself (3.5) and becomes "a mermaid in the groves of Atlantis". One also remembers the stock phrase "much water has flowed under the bridges" (mnogo vody uteklo) used by people speaking of their distant past.
tempi passati = pastime + pisatel' - el'
pisatel' - Russ., writer
el' - Russ., fir tree
*On Antiterra (Earth's twin planet on which Ada is set) Russia is a land in N America. Therefore Van Veen, the protagonist and narrator, is surprised and amused that "'Russia,' instead of being a quaint synonym of Estoty, the American province extending from the Arctic no longer vicious Circle to the United States proper, was on Terra the name of a country, transferred as if by some sleight of land across the ha-ha of a doubled ocean to
the opposite hemisphere where it sprawled over all of today's Tartary, from Kurland to the Kuriles!" (1.3)
**Russian general
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/