Matt Roth: "Back in 2008 I noted VN’s refiguring, in
PF, of a passage from Symonds’ Renaissance in Italy: The Age of
Despots:[https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=nabokv-l;1cfd3e5f.0811]
...I have now done some more reading... and I feel fairly certain that the
following passages are connected also.
PF: (n. 62):
“Everybody knows how given to regicide Zemblans are: two Queens, three Kings,
and fourteen Pretenders died violent deaths, strangled, stabbed, poisoned, and
drowned, in the course of only one century (1700-1800)”
(95).
Symonds: “No one believed in the natural
death of a prince: princes must be poisoned or poignarded. Out of
thirteen of the Carrara family, in little more than a century (1318-1435) three
were deposed or murdered by near relatives, one was expelled by a rival from his
state, four were executed the Venetians. Out of five of the La Scala family,
three were killed by their brothers, and a fourth was poisoned in exile
(120).”
Victor Fet: An interesting
early (1665) meaning of ‘bodkin’ (not discussed previously as far as I recall)
leads to Newton and color perception self-mutilation...
"“Scientists
occasionally conduct experiments on themselves. Among the most famous was Isaac
Newton's extraordinary method for probing the nature of colour. He stuck a
bodkin, a
long sewing needle with a blunt point, into his eye socket, between eye and
bone, and recorded seeing coloured circles and other visual phenomena…”
Jansy Mello: The two wonderful
postings, by M.Roth and V.Fet, made me connect the two words: poignard and
bodkin. In fact, they are related! Here is what I gleaned by
googling: ( I underlined them )
poignard (n.)
bodkin, dagger, dirk,
knife, poniard
tradutor.sensagent.com/poignard/fr-en/
bodkin /ˈbɒdkɪn/
/ˈbɒdkɪn/
www.wordreference.com/enfr/bodkin
WordReference English-French Dictionary © 2013:
bodkin
n(clothing: pointed tool for making holes in cloth or leather)grosse aiguille
nf
bodkin n(blunt needle for threading ribbon through holes)passe-lacet
nm
bodkin n(medieval dagger)poignard nm
bodkin (dagger)
Definition:a dagger with a slender blade
Class:artifact noun
(man-made objects)
Plural:bodkins
Type of:dagger » knife » weapon system »
instrument
Original source:Princeton
WordNet
Synonyms:poniard
Etymology:boydekin, of unknown origin. The
ending suggests a diminutive form, and Celtic...
(Source: Online
Etymology) [more]
There's another interesting fact, brought up by wikipedia, in
relation to Charlotte Coday
Poignard: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Poignard, or
poniard, (Fr.), refers to a long, lightweight thrusting knife with a
continuously tapering, acutely pointed blade and crossguard, historically worn
by the upper class, noblemen, or the knighthood. Similar in design to a parrying
dagger, the poignard emerged during the Middle Ages and was used during the
Renaissance in Western Europe, particularly in France, Switzerland, and Italy
[...] In modern French, the term poignard has come to be defined as
synonymous with dague, the general term for "dagger", and in English the term
poignard or poniard has gradually evolved into a term for any small, slender
dagger.
Jean-Paul Marat was murdered in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a
Girondist sympathize, with a poignard during the French
Revolution.