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THOUGHTS: Charlotte Hayes in LO
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A.Bouazza offers M.Couturier "the scan of a few pages containing all the information you require" from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by Pisanus Fraxi.
" The French translation in question is of Nocturnal Revels; or, the History of King's-Place, and other Modern Nunneries [...],1779.
Charlotte Hayes is mentioned on page 257, under "Fashionale Lectures: composed and delivered with Birch Discipline [...] the extracts cited are very interesting when compared to Eric Veen's Villa Venus. " M.Roth, to M.C: "Your revelations concerning Charlotte Hayes are interesting indeed. Now that I've done some Googling, I see that CH was "the most famous madam of her day" and particularly was known for her stable of "Nymphs." and offered "a few links of interest". Priscilla Meyer describes "Dieter's annotations and indeed his whole oeuvre are prodigious and inspiring.", but she notes that "When I was working on my book on Pale Fire in the mid-eighties, there was no internet..."
JM: Although I frequently resort to google-information the experience of searching through "material" books is, for me, something indispensable - and I don't mean the factual information, valuable in either way, but the actual, reverential sensation of leafing through old and rare books ( I learned that Dante used to wear formal clothing and gloves whenever he sat down to read), or the muscle-spindle firing when we stretch arms and legs to pick out a desired volume from the shelf. Therefore I was doubly happy to get both: A.Bouazza's important scan and M.Roth's internet "links" with their conjectures and P.Meyer's return to Pale Fire ["My book does discuss the Kongs-skugg-sja, Hodinski, Ossian, The Song of Igor's Campaign...as part of a system of Kinbote's readings...my accumulation of annotations suggests that Nabokov reviews three intertwined strains of the history of the North for 1000 years that culminate in his own tragedy"].
btw: while I was reading a translation of "The Seafarer" I found a quotation on the back-cover, inserted by its translator into Portuguese, Rodrigo Garcia Lopes, where he mentions Charles Harrison Wallace. Isn't he a participant of the VN-List?
Tom Rymor's popping-up after a long silence to offer his "Seasonally, lang may yer lum reek..."[...] became a nice New Year presence... As "a native speaker of the so-called "Lallans", born in Ayrshire," the wrote to "remind Nabokophiles that the young VN had a Scots tutor, Mr Burness.He may have been related to Robert Burness (later Burns)...and his Jolly Beggars Cantata. I speculate that Mr Burness (who turns up in Pale Fire under another name) introduced the young VN to certain Lowland Scots expressions."
Knowing how VN enjoyed Rupert Brooke's work, additional information on Mrs.Hayes, Gay's "The Beggar's opera" or "Coxcombe"matters, might be of interest: Brooke, Rupert. John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama. London, John Lane, 1916. I must confess that I cannot see Charlotte as a "madam" or her daughter in a "stable of nymphs" and this is why I'm curious to learn more about this suggestion of "debauchery" and poor silly Mrs. Haze-Humbert.( Or am I misguided and alone when I find a strain of authorial cruelty in such a connection?)
To Mary ["lalage" and "lullaby" might be "distantly related through the Indoeuropean root *la, which means to talk or babble". This has doubtless been pointed out before, but Nabokov's reference to Lolita as "my Lalage" is likely an allusion to one of Horace's odes (2.5, Nondum subacta ferre iugum valet). ]
Thank you for the information concerning Horace and "Lalage". I'll check Willett's translation, as you indicated. Gaining access into VN's original sources adds an unprecedent depth to VN. If I'm not mistaken, in a different mood, VN also brought up Horace's ode 2.14 (" Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni, nee pietas moram/rugis et instanti senectae/adferet indomitaeque morti.."). However I cannot remember if it was hinted at in Pale Fire or in Ada... It will be wonderful to learn more about these Odes.
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