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Re: SIGHTING--Reading Lolita at Twelve
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Re: [NABOKV-L] SIGHTING--Reading Lolita at TwelveStan Kelly-Bootle: "Nick Antosca's first quotation from Lolita includes that mood-killing technical word, NATES, which, unsurprisingly, 12-year-old Nick has to look up. Alas, NATES still rhymes with GRATES in my affronted Anglophonic soul...If the use of NATES is to suggest a surgical lexicon/mindset for Humbert, why does VN use the everyday English SHOULDER-BLADES in the same passage, rather than the matching cold-medical OMOPLATES."
JM: The equivalent term to the English "nates," in Portuguese, is "nádegas" (vulgar latin "natica," from "nates, -ium").
It's equally medically-sounding here, but it leads no one to a dictionary, for it is routinely applied to baby's bums (diapers and creams in common advertising), or to indicate where an injection is to be applied.. The most usual term in "bunda" (abbreviated as "bum bum"), inspired by Angolan slaves (Bantu ethnic group of the "Ovimbundos"), brought to Brazilian shores more than three hundred years ago. They display "esteatopygia" (a fat ass), considered to be as beautiful as the Greek "kalipygean" ones ("pygos" are the nates in Greek).
btw: please excuse me for sporadic incorrect spellings of foreign mechanically transposed words.
I wonder wherefrom did "bum" in English find its inspiration?
Artistically speaking: I just found several instances in which the equivalent word for "nates" has been erotically employed (in the Portuguese translation).
I'm almost sure that Nabokov was familiar with these verses by Rimbaud and Verlaine (" Les Stupra").
I copied some parts from them, from the internet*.
Frankly, "buttocks", "hindpart","behind", perhaps even "rump" are not nearly as erotically sonorous, as in Nabokov's choice "nates"...
.............................................
* An excerpt from "Buttocks" [As translated by Oliver Bernard: Arthur Rimbaud, Collected Poems (1962)]
"...for women, it is only in the charming parting
That the long tufted silk flowers.
A touching and marvellous ingenuity
Such as you see only in angels in holy pictures
Imitates the cheek where the smile makes a hollow.
Oh! For us to be naked like that, seeking joy and repose,
Facing one's companion's glorious part,
Both of us free to murmur and sob?"
..."pour elles, c'est seulement dans la raie
Charmante que fleurit le long satin touffu.
Une ingéniosité touchante et merveilleuse
Comme l'on ne voit qu'aux anges des saints tableaux
Imite la joue où le sourire se creuse.
Oh ! de même être nus, chercher joie et repos,
Le front tourné vers sa portion glorieuse,
Et libres tous les deux murmurer des sanglots ?"
A more cruel and daring one, from which the excerpts are only in its French original, "Le Sonnet du Trou du Cul," par Arthur Rimbaud et Paul Verlaine ( en forme de parodie d'un volume d'Albert Mérat, intitulé l'Idole, où sont détaillées toutes les beautés d'une dame : Sonnet du front, Sonnet des yeux, Sonnet des fesses, sonnet du..., dernier sonnet...)
"Obscur et froncé comme un oeillet violet
Il respire, humblement tapi parmi la mousse
Humide encor d'amour qui suit la pente douce
Des fesses blanches jusqu'au bord de son ourlet."
NB: In Portuguese, the word "nádegas" is used for the French "fesses"
Franzida e obscura como um ilhós violeta,
Ela respira, humilde, entre a relva rociada
Inda do amor que desce a branda rampa das
Alvas nádegas até o coração da greta.
Cf. Arthur Rimbaud. Les Stupra. (on donne ce titre éloquent à trois sonnets attribués à Rimbaud, publiés pour la première fois ensemble en 1923.)
www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Stupra.html -
Arthur Rimbaud - The ancient beasts bred even on the run... ...www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Beasts.html -
www.starnews2001.com.br/rimbaud.html
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JM: The equivalent term to the English "nates," in Portuguese, is "nádegas" (vulgar latin "natica," from "nates, -ium").
It's equally medically-sounding here, but it leads no one to a dictionary, for it is routinely applied to baby's bums (diapers and creams in common advertising), or to indicate where an injection is to be applied.. The most usual term in "bunda" (abbreviated as "bum bum"), inspired by Angolan slaves (Bantu ethnic group of the "Ovimbundos"), brought to Brazilian shores more than three hundred years ago. They display "esteatopygia" (a fat ass), considered to be as beautiful as the Greek "kalipygean" ones ("pygos" are the nates in Greek).
btw: please excuse me for sporadic incorrect spellings of foreign mechanically transposed words.
I wonder wherefrom did "bum" in English find its inspiration?
Artistically speaking: I just found several instances in which the equivalent word for "nates" has been erotically employed (in the Portuguese translation).
I'm almost sure that Nabokov was familiar with these verses by Rimbaud and Verlaine (" Les Stupra").
I copied some parts from them, from the internet*.
Frankly, "buttocks", "hindpart","behind", perhaps even "rump" are not nearly as erotically sonorous, as in Nabokov's choice "nates"...
.............................................
* An excerpt from "Buttocks" [As translated by Oliver Bernard: Arthur Rimbaud, Collected Poems (1962)]
"...for women, it is only in the charming parting
That the long tufted silk flowers.
A touching and marvellous ingenuity
Such as you see only in angels in holy pictures
Imitates the cheek where the smile makes a hollow.
Oh! For us to be naked like that, seeking joy and repose,
Facing one's companion's glorious part,
Both of us free to murmur and sob?"
..."pour elles, c'est seulement dans la raie
Charmante que fleurit le long satin touffu.
Une ingéniosité touchante et merveilleuse
Comme l'on ne voit qu'aux anges des saints tableaux
Imite la joue où le sourire se creuse.
Oh ! de même être nus, chercher joie et repos,
Le front tourné vers sa portion glorieuse,
Et libres tous les deux murmurer des sanglots ?"
A more cruel and daring one, from which the excerpts are only in its French original, "Le Sonnet du Trou du Cul," par Arthur Rimbaud et Paul Verlaine ( en forme de parodie d'un volume d'Albert Mérat, intitulé l'Idole, où sont détaillées toutes les beautés d'une dame : Sonnet du front, Sonnet des yeux, Sonnet des fesses, sonnet du..., dernier sonnet...)
"Obscur et froncé comme un oeillet violet
Il respire, humblement tapi parmi la mousse
Humide encor d'amour qui suit la pente douce
Des fesses blanches jusqu'au bord de son ourlet."
NB: In Portuguese, the word "nádegas" is used for the French "fesses"
Franzida e obscura como um ilhós violeta,
Ela respira, humilde, entre a relva rociada
Inda do amor que desce a branda rampa das
Alvas nádegas até o coração da greta.
Cf. Arthur Rimbaud. Les Stupra. (on donne ce titre éloquent à trois sonnets attribués à Rimbaud, publiés pour la première fois ensemble en 1923.)
www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Stupra.html -
Arthur Rimbaud - The ancient beasts bred even on the run... ...www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Beasts.html -
www.starnews2001.com.br/rimbaud.html
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/