In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and compares tips offered by the Institute to the amber spectacles for life's eclipse:
While snubbing gods, including the big G,
Iph borrowed some peripheral debris
From mystic visions; and it offered tips
(The amber spectacles for life's eclipse) -
How not to panic when you're made a ghost:
Sidle and slide, choose a smooth surd, and coast,
Meet solid bodies and glissade right through,
Or let a person circulate through you.
How to locate in blackness, with a gasp,
Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp.
How to keep sane in spiral types of space.
Precautions to be taken in the case
Of freak reincarnation: what to do
On suddenly discovering that you
Are now a young and vulnerable toad
Plump in the middle of a busy road,
Or a bear cub beneath a burning pine,
Or a book mite in a revived divine. (ll. 549-566)
In Slovo o polku Igoreve (“The Song of Igor’s Campaign, Igor son of Svyatoslav and grandson of Oleg”), an anonymous epic poem of the twelfth century, the first bad omen is the Solar eclipse of May 1, 1185 (April 23, 1185, by the Old Style):
Тогда Игорь възре на светлое солнце и виде отъ него тьмою вся своя воя прикрыты, И рече Игорь къ дружине своей: «Братие и дружино! Луце жъ бы потяту быти, неже полонену быти, а всядемъ, братие, на свои бръзыя комони да позримъ синего Дону». Спала князю умь похоти, и жалость ему знамение заступи искусити Дону Великаго. «Хощу бо, — рече, — копие приломити конець поля Половецкаго; съ вами, русици, хощу главу свою приложити, а любо испити шеломомь Дону».
Then Igor glanced up at the
bright sun
and saw that from it with
darkness
his warriors were covered.
And Igor says to his Guards:
"Brothers and Guards!
It is better indeed to be slain
than to be enslaved;
so let us mount, brothers,
upon our swift steeds,
and take a look at the blue
Don."
A longing consumed the prince's
mind,
and the omen was screened from
him
by the urge to taste
of the Great Don:
"For I wish," he said,
"to break a lance
on the limit of the Kuman field;
with you, sons of Rus, I wish
either to lay down my head
or drink a helmetful of the
Don."
In Shevyryov's poem Son ("A Dream," 1827) two suns rise in the sky, one in the East and another in the West, causing the dreamer's fear that they will collide at noon:
Мне бог послал чудесный сон:
Преобразилася природа,
Гляжу - с заката и с восхода
В единый миг на небосклон
Два солнца всходят лучезарных
В порфирах огненно-янтарных,
И над воскреснувшей землей
Чета светил по небокругу
Течет во сретенье друг другу.
Всё дышит жизнию двойной:
Два солнца отражают воды,
Два сердца бьют в груди природы -
И кровь ключом двойным течет
По жилам божия творенья,
И мир удвоенный живет -
В едином миге два мгновенья...
In his Eugene Onegin Commentary (vol. II, p. 523, footnote) VN points out that the Soviet Pushkinists confused the Dream of Svyatoslav in Slovo with Shevyryov's "Dream:"
But the first "crimson hand" in Lomonosov occurs even earlier, in an ode known only from a fragment, which he published in his Manual of Rhetoric (1744). It slips rather easily into English rhymes:
From golden fields descends Aurora
On us with crimson hand to strew
Her brilliants, sparks, festoons of Flora,
To give the fields a rosy hue;
To hide the dark with her bright cloak
And birds to mellow songs provoke.
Most pure, the ray of blessings thine
Doth ornament my zealous line;
Groes clearer in thy purple's fire
The tone of my most humble lyre.
Porfira, the "royal purple" in line 9 of Lomonosov's piece, is not always seen as blood red by Russian poets. It is given a fiery-amber color (v porfirakh ognenno-yantarnykh) in l. 6 of Shevïryov's remarkable A Dream (Son; fifty-three iambic tetrameters, published in 1827). Franciszek Malewski (1800-70), a Polish man of letters, has left a note in his diary to the effect that this Dream was criticized (as "the delusion of a champagne drinker") at a party in Polevoy's house, where Pushkin, Vyazemski and Dmitriev were present.* Shevïryov apparently knew English: his epithet seems to come from Milton's L'Allegro (1645), ll. 59-61:
Right against the Eastern gate,
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames and Amber light...
*Incidentally, the commentary to this diary, in Lit. nasl., LVIII (1952), 268, n. 30, makes the incredible mistake of assigning that criticism to the dream of Svyatoslav in Slovo o polku Igoreve. (EO Commentary, vol. II, pp. 522-523)
By 1652, John Milton (the author of Paradise Lost, 1667) had become totally blind. Milton's Sonnet 16, written in May, 1652, is addressed to Oliver Cromwell ("Cromwell, our chief of men..."). A leading advocate of the execution of Charles I in January 1649, which led to the establishment of The Protectorate, Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector from December 1653 until his death in September 1658. The son of Charles I Stuart, King Charles II of England ruled in 1660-85. Kathleen Winsor's historical novel Forever Amber (1944) tells the story of an orphaned Amber St. Clare, who makes her way up through the ranks of 17th-century English society by sleeping with or marrying successively richer and more important men while keeping her love for the one man she can never have. The subplot of the novel follows Charles II of England as he returns from exile and adjusts to ruling England. The novel includes portrayals of Restoration fashion, including the introduction and popularization of tea in English coffeehouses and the homes of the fashionably rich; politics; and public disasters, including the plague and the Great Fire of London. Many notable historical figures appear in the book, including Charles II of England, members of his court, and several of his mistresses including Nell Gwyn (an English stage actress and celebrity figure of the Restoration period).
According to Kinbote (who lives in Judge Goldsworth's rented house), judging by the novels in Mrs. Goldsworth's boudoir, her intellectual interests were fully developed, going as they did from Amber to Zen. By Amber Kinbote probably means Kathleen Winsor's novel. Its author's name brings to mind the Windsor Castle, the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world. Founded by William the Conqueror in the 11th century, it has since been the home of 40 monarchs. Windsor is the surname of the present British royal family, adopted in place of Wettin in 1917 as a response to anti-German feeling during World War One. The eldest of Judge Goldsworth's four daughters, Dee (who was born in 1944) makes one think of the missing 'd' in Winsor. The author of a book on surnames, Kinbote would know that Winsor is a variant of the name Windsor.
In his dream in Slovo Svyatoslav III (Igor's elder cousin, a wise Kievan Prince) tells about his troubled dream in which he saw himself lying on a bedstead of yew (na krovaty tisove):
А Святъславъ мутенъ сонъ видѣ
въ Киевѣ на горахъ.
„Си ночь съ вечера одѣвахуть мя, — рече, —
чръною паполомою
на кроваты тисовѣ; чръпахуть ми синее вино,
съ трудомъ смѣшено,
сыпахуть ми тъщими тулы поганыхъ тльковинъ
великый женчюгь на лоно
и нѣгуютъ мя.
Уже дьскы безъ кнѣса
в моемъ теремѣ златовръсѣмъ.
Всю нощь съ вечера
бусови врани възграяху у Плѣсньска,
на болони бѣша дебрь кияня,
и несошася къ синему морю“.
And Svyatoslav saw a troubled
dream
in Kiev upon the hills:
"This night, from eventide,
they dressed me," he said, "with
a black
pall
on a bedstead of yew.
They ladled out for me
blue wine mixed with bane. From
the empty quivers
of pagan tulks
they rolled great pearls
onto my breast,
and caressed me.
Already the traves
lacked the master-girder
in my gold-crested tower!
All night, from eventide,
demon ravens croaked.
On the outskirts of Plesensk
there was a logging sleigh,
and it was carried to the blue
sea!" (ll. 391-413)
At the beginning of Canto Three Shade mentions l’if (the yew in French), lifeless tree:
L'if, lifeless tree! Your great Maybe, Rabelais:
The grand potato.
I.P.H., a lay
Institute (I) of Preparation (P)
For the Hereafter (H), or If, as we
Called it--big if!--engaged me for one term
To speak on death ("to lecture on the Worm,"
Wrote President McAber).
You and I,
And she, then a mere tot, moved from New Wye
To Yewshade, in another, higher state. (ll. 500-509)