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Re: THOUGHTS: Lolita, Melampus, Babio
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Matt Roth: "I am torn as to whether what follows is a true allusion or just a wicked Nabokovian coincidence. Readers of Lolita will remember the Farlows' dogs, Cavall and Melampus. Brian Boyd has nicely unpacked this reference to the hunting dogs of King Arthur and Actaeon, but perhaps VN had also in mind an equally brief appearance by Melampus in another work....".
Stan Kelly-Bootle (off-list) writes to JM:"...seeing Melampus mentioned by Matthew Roth, I idly googled the name, finding matches in Homer and 37,000 other places!" and, inspired by Stan's curiosity and A.Bouazza's information, I did my own kind of wide-search and came up with what looks like an elegant coincidence. Melampus, the name of Actaeon's dog with black paws, who tore his owner to pieces after he'd been metamorphosed into a stag, is linked to the similarly horned, agile gazelles or antelopes!
Wikepedia explains that the "impala (Aepyceros melampus - Greek: aipos "high", ceros "horn" + melas "black" pous "foot") is a medium-sized African antelope. The name impala comes from the Zulu language meaning "gazelle". They are found in savannas and thick bushveld...in numbers of up to 2 million in Africa.
The name "Melampus" is mostly descriptive (black paws), like "Oedipus" ("swollen feet), but metamorphosis seems to leave its marks on some verbal designations, too, when they don't follow a being's new incarnation, such as the dog named "Cavall" (horse), or "Alce" (deer).
The question remains: why did Nabokov choose this particular pair among the other bizarre dog names, chosen by Lord Byron? Perhaps Brian Boyd is right in this aspect: "Even if we track down Cavall and Melampus, and link them to the Enchanted Hunters, and through Cavall as King Arthur's dog link to the Arthurian pattern that Nabokov seems to have attached from the first to the Lolita theme, I am not satisfied with what we can interpret of either the Enchanted Hunters or the Arthurian (and Merlinesque) pattern. Nabokov's patterns have powerful implications, once we trace them far enough, and in the case of Lolita I don't think I or anyone else has yet reached that point."
A little research shows that, before Brian Boyd "nicely unpacked this reference to the hunting dogs..." ( a slip, or a deliberate quip?), we must consider other packs: Alfred Appel,Jr.'s annotations in 1970 and A.Bouazza's additional interpretation (The Nabokovian,1994) for example. A.Bouazza, in "Lord Byron's Pack", departs from Alfred Appel,Jr.'s observations in "The Annotated Lolita", to ch.10, p.89. As A.B quotes him: "Alfred Appel, Jr., annotates the names of the Farlows' dogs as follows: 'Cavall' comes from cavallo (a horse), and 'Melampus' from the seer in Greek mythology who understood the tongue of dogs...[Nabokov] thinks it was Lord Byron who had many bizarrely named dogs." (369) [It's on p.373 in the 3rd.ed.,1991. GB] . AB explains that "Melampus ( meaning "black foot" in Greek) is the name of one of Acteon's dogs..." and that "Actaeon, metamorphosed into a stag by [spying on Diana] the goddess, is attacked by his own dogs...Melampus is also mentioned by C.Julius Hyginus in his Fabellae (CLXXXI. Diana)... The amusing coincidence is that Jean Farlow mentions Cavallo and Melampus after spying "artistically" on Humbert Humbert and Charlotte lake-bathing. Finally, I would not be surprised if Lord Byron's "bizarrely named dogs" had names like Nape, Alce, Borax.." In my opinion, which I think |Matt Roth shares, Nabokov wasn't always candid towards Alfred Appel Jr. to whom he downplayed Lord Byron's participation in his Lolita chapter. Perhaps Lord Byron's "Pack" hides yet another pattern... Then there's the recent article by Alain Didier Machu and his indication concerning Nabokov's notes to Eugene Onegin.
Julio Cortázar's considerations about quotations, allusions and references has been developped, in a more philosophical vein, by J.L.Borges in "Otras Inquisiciones," ( which I'll soon be ready to share with the VN-List), long before post-modernistic extensions about the "death of the author."
Art may prescind an individual author when it comes to the "One" or an "universal soul" (defended by Shelley) but style matters - and quotations, too. Even, as Borges himself remembers, Ben Johnson's quilt made of fragments of Seneca, Quintilianus, Justus Lipsio, Vives, Erasmo, Maquiavel, Bacon and Escaligero, which obeys a discipline that is quite distant from the famous anedocte about Oscar Wilde, who once exclaimed: " I wish I had said that" and heard Whistler's reply: " You will, Oscar, you will." (JM)
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Stan Kelly-Bootle (off-list) writes to JM:"...seeing Melampus mentioned by Matthew Roth, I idly googled the name, finding matches in Homer and 37,000 other places!" and, inspired by Stan's curiosity and A.Bouazza's information, I did my own kind of wide-search and came up with what looks like an elegant coincidence. Melampus, the name of Actaeon's dog with black paws, who tore his owner to pieces after he'd been metamorphosed into a stag, is linked to the similarly horned, agile gazelles or antelopes!
Wikepedia explains that the "impala (Aepyceros melampus - Greek: aipos "high", ceros "horn" + melas "black" pous "foot") is a medium-sized African antelope. The name impala comes from the Zulu language meaning "gazelle". They are found in savannas and thick bushveld...in numbers of up to 2 million in Africa.
The name "Melampus" is mostly descriptive (black paws), like "Oedipus" ("swollen feet), but metamorphosis seems to leave its marks on some verbal designations, too, when they don't follow a being's new incarnation, such as the dog named "Cavall" (horse), or "Alce" (deer).
The question remains: why did Nabokov choose this particular pair among the other bizarre dog names, chosen by Lord Byron? Perhaps Brian Boyd is right in this aspect: "Even if we track down Cavall and Melampus, and link them to the Enchanted Hunters, and through Cavall as King Arthur's dog link to the Arthurian pattern that Nabokov seems to have attached from the first to the Lolita theme, I am not satisfied with what we can interpret of either the Enchanted Hunters or the Arthurian (and Merlinesque) pattern. Nabokov's patterns have powerful implications, once we trace them far enough, and in the case of Lolita I don't think I or anyone else has yet reached that point."
A little research shows that, before Brian Boyd "nicely unpacked this reference to the hunting dogs..." ( a slip, or a deliberate quip?), we must consider other packs: Alfred Appel,Jr.'s annotations in 1970 and A.Bouazza's additional interpretation (The Nabokovian,1994) for example. A.Bouazza, in "Lord Byron's Pack", departs from Alfred Appel,Jr.'s observations in "The Annotated Lolita", to ch.10, p.89. As A.B quotes him: "Alfred Appel, Jr., annotates the names of the Farlows' dogs as follows: 'Cavall' comes from cavallo (a horse), and 'Melampus' from the seer in Greek mythology who understood the tongue of dogs...[Nabokov] thinks it was Lord Byron who had many bizarrely named dogs." (369) [It's on p.373 in the 3rd.ed.,1991. GB] . AB explains that "Melampus ( meaning "black foot" in Greek) is the name of one of Acteon's dogs..." and that "Actaeon, metamorphosed into a stag by [spying on Diana] the goddess, is attacked by his own dogs...Melampus is also mentioned by C.Julius Hyginus in his Fabellae (CLXXXI. Diana)... The amusing coincidence is that Jean Farlow mentions Cavallo and Melampus after spying "artistically" on Humbert Humbert and Charlotte lake-bathing. Finally, I would not be surprised if Lord Byron's "bizarrely named dogs" had names like Nape, Alce, Borax.." In my opinion, which I think |Matt Roth shares, Nabokov wasn't always candid towards Alfred Appel Jr. to whom he downplayed Lord Byron's participation in his Lolita chapter. Perhaps Lord Byron's "Pack" hides yet another pattern... Then there's the recent article by Alain Didier Machu and his indication concerning Nabokov's notes to Eugene Onegin.
Julio Cortázar's considerations about quotations, allusions and references has been developped, in a more philosophical vein, by J.L.Borges in "Otras Inquisiciones," ( which I'll soon be ready to share with the VN-List), long before post-modernistic extensions about the "death of the author."
Art may prescind an individual author when it comes to the "One" or an "universal soul" (defended by Shelley) but style matters - and quotations, too. Even, as Borges himself remembers, Ben Johnson's quilt made of fragments of Seneca, Quintilianus, Justus Lipsio, Vives, Erasmo, Maquiavel, Bacon and Escaligero, which obeys a discipline that is quite distant from the famous anedocte about Oscar Wilde, who once exclaimed: " I wish I had said that" and heard Whistler's reply: " You will, Oscar, you will." (JM)
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/