In his commentary to Shade's poem Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) quotes the beginning of a sonnet that Conmal (the king’s uncle, Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) composed directly in English:
English being Conmal's prerogative, his Shakspere remained invulnerable throughout the greater part of his long life. The venerable Duke was famed for the nobility of his work; few dared question its fidelity. Personally, I had never the heart to check it. One callous Academician who did, lost his seat in result and was severely reprimanded by Conmal in an extraordinary sonnet composed directly in colorful, if not quite correct, English, beginning:
I am not slave! Let be my critic slave.
I cannot be. And Shakespeare would not want thus.
Let drawing students copy the acanthus,
I work with Master on the architrave! (note to Line 962)
In his Pis'mo iz Italii ("A Letter from Italy," 1842) Vasiliy Botkin (the author of several articles on Shakespeare, including On Shakespeare in Ketscher's Translation, 1841) describes his first arrival in Rome on October 29, 1841, and mentions the architraves of a temple dedicated to the goddess Felicitas:
Теперь видите направо восемь колоссальных колонн, поддерживающих остатки карниза, и архитравы: это был храм Счастия; возле, пониже, стоят три колонны превосходной работы; на куске большого прелестного карниза, уцелевшего на них, можно еще прочесть: "tonante"; это был храм Юпитера Громовержца. Недалеко от них вышла в половину из земли роскошная арка Септимия Севера. Там подальше в поле одиноко стоят три колонны; они поддерживают широкий, величественный карниз самой изящной работы: это остатки здания, в котором принимала республика чужестранных послов. Далее всю правую сторону горизонта заслоняет длинная гора мусора, кирпича и мраморных обломков, заросших густою травою. Это было здание, которого великолепие недоступно нашему воображению, -- это был дворец цезарей. Около развалин этих глядят в пустынное поле великолепная, почти вся уцелевшая, но чуждая древнего изящества арка Константина и нежная тень арки Титовой. Наконец, обращаясь влево, глаза останавливаются на громадной, полуразрушившейся массе, поднявшейся широкими арками в 5 величайших рядов. Это Колизей... Сурово стоишь ты, памятник величия римского! Но не битвы гладиаторов, не ристалища, не представления занимают в нем меня -- нет, здесь защищал Рим свое существование от неслыханного и последнего противника своего: тысячи христиан замучены на широкой арене этого амфитеатра.
Shirokaya arena etogo amfiteatra (the large arena of this amphitheatre), as Botkin calls the Colosseum, brings to mind the opening lines of Lermontov's poem Umirayushchiy gladiator ("The Dying Gladiator," 1836) and Amphitheatricus, a not unkindly writer of fugitive poetry in the liberal gazettes mentioned by Kinbote in his commentary:
Alfin the Vague (1873-1918; regnal dates 1900-1918, but 1900-1919 in most biographical dictionaries, a fumble due to the coincident calendar change from Old Style to New) was given his cognomen by Amphitheatricus, a not unkindly writer of fugitive poetry in the liberal gazettes (who was also responsible for dubbing my capital Uranograd!). King Alfin's absent-mindedness knew no bounds. He was a wretched linguist, having at his disposal only a few phrases of French and Danish, but every time he had to make a speech to his subjects - to a group of gaping Zemblan yokels in some remote valley where he had crash-landed - some uncontrollable switch went into action in his mind, and he reverted to those phrases, flavoring them for topical sense with a little Latin. Most of the anecdotes relating to his naïve fits of abstraction are too silly and indecent to sully these pages; but one of them that I do not think especially funny induced such guffaws from Shade (and returned to me, via the Common Room, with such obscene accretions) that I feel inclined to give it here as a sample (and as a corrective). One summer before the first world war, when the emperor of a great foreign realm (I realize how few there are to choose from) was paying an extremely unusual and flattering visit to our little hard country, my father took him and a young Zemblan interpreter (whose sex I leave open) in a newly purchased custom-built car on a jaunt in the countryside. As usual, King Alfin traveled without a vestige of escort, and this, and his brisk driving, seemed to trouble his guest. On their way back, some twenty miles from Onhava, King Alfin decided to stop for repairs. While he tinkered with the motor, the emperor and the interpreter sought the shade of some pines by the highway, and only when King Alfin was back in Onhava, did he gradually realize from a reiteration of rather frantic questions that he had left somebody behind ("What emperor?" has remained his only memorable mot). Generally speaking, in respect of any of my contributions (or what I thought to be contributions) I repeatedly enjoined my poet to record them in writing, by all means, but not to spread them in idle speech; even poets, however, are human.
King's Alfin's absent-mindedness was strangely combined with a passion for mechanical things, especially for flying apparatuses. In 1912, he managed to rise in an umbrella-like Fabre "hydroplane" and almost got drowned in the sea between Nitra and Indra. He smashed two Farmans, three Zemblan machines, and a beloved Santos Dumont Demoiselle. A very special monoplane, Blenda IV, was built for him in 1916 by his constant "aerial adjutant" Colonel Peter Gusev (later a pioneer parachutist and, at seventy, one of the greatest jumpers of all time), and this was his bird of doom. On the serene, and not too cold, December morning that the angels chose to net his mild pure soul, King Alfin was in the act of trying solo a tricky vertical loop that Prince Andrey Kachurin, the famous Russian stunter and War One hero, had shown him in Gatchina. Something went wrong, and the little Blenda was seen to go into an uncontrolled dive. Behind and above him, in a Caudron biplane, Colonel Gusev (by then Duke of Rahl) and the Queen snapped several pictures of what seemed at first a noble and graceful evolution but then turned into something else. At the last moment, King Alfin managed to straighten out his machine and was again master of gravity when, immediately afterwards, he flew smack into the scaffolding of a huge hotel which was being constructed in the middle of a coastal heath as if for the special purpose of standing in a king's way. This uncompleted and badly gutted building was ordered razed by Queen Blenda who had it replaced by a tasteless monument of granite surmounted by an improbable type of aircraft made of bronze. The glossy prints of the enlarged photographs depicting the entire catastrophe were discovered one day by eight-year-old Charles Xavier in the drawer of a secretary bookcase. In some of these ghastly pictures one could make out the shoulders and leathern casque of the strangely unconcerned aviator, and in the penultimate one of the series, just before the white-blurred shattering crash, one distinctly saw him raise one arm in triumph, and reassurance. The boy had hideous dreams after that but his mother never found out that he had seen those infernal records. (note to Line 71)
Duke of Aros, Conmal (1855-1955) is the eldest half-brother of Queen Blenda (the mother of Charles the Beloved, 1878-1936). Amphitheatricus seems to hint at Alexander Amfiteatrov (1862-1938), the author of Gospoda Obmanovy ("The Obmanovs," a satire on the Russian emperial family, 1902) and of Gogolevy dni ("Gogol's Days," 1909), an essay written for the hundredth anniversary of Gogol's birth. In Gogol's story Zapiski sumasshedshego ("The Notes of a Madman," 1835) Poprishchin imagines that he is Ferdinand VIII, the King of Spain. In his fragment Rim ("Rome," 1842) Gogol describes a carnival in Rome (carne vale means in Latin "farewell to meat;" Kinbote is a confirmed vegetarian) and mentions il gran poeta morto (the great dead poet) and his sonetto colla coda (tailed sonnet):
Внимание толпы занял какой-то смельчак, шагавший на ходулях вравне с домами, рискуя всякую минуту быть сбитым с ног и грохнуться на-смерть о мостовую. Но об этом, кажется, у него не было забот. Он тащил на плечах чучело великана, придерживая его одной рукою, неся в другой написанный на бумаге сонет, с приделанным к нему бумажным хвостом, какой бывает у бумажного змея, и крича во весь голос: Ecco il gran poeta morto! Ecco il suo sonetto colla coda (Вот умерший великий поэт! вот его сонет с хвостом).
In a footnote Gogol says that in Italian poetry there is a kind of poem known as “sonnet with the tail” (con la coda) when the idea cannot be expressed in fourteen lines and entails an appendix which can be longer than the sonnet itself:
В италиянской поэзии существует род стихотворенья, известного под именем сонета с хвостом (con la coda), когда мысль не вместилась и ведёт за собою прибавление, которое часто бывает длиннее самого сонета.
Shade's poem is almost finished when the author is killed by Gradus. Kinbote believes that, to be completed, Shade’s poem needs but one line (Line 1000, identical to Line 1: “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain”). But it seems that, like some sonnets, Shade's poem also needs a coda (Line 1001: “By its own double in the windowpane”). Dvoynik ("The Double") is a short novel (1846) by Dostoevski and a poem (1909) by Alexander Blok (who, according to G. Ivanov, did not know what a coda was). In his poem Kol’tso sushchestvovan’ya tesno (“The ring of existence is tight…” 1909) Blok quotes the saying “all roads lead to Rome:”
Кольцо существованья тесно:
Как все пути приводят в Рим,
Так нам заранее известно,
Что всё мы рабски повторим.
И мне, как всем, всё тот же жребий
Мерещится в грядущей мгле:
Опять — любить Её на небе
И изменить ей на земле.
The ring of existence is tight:
just as all roads lead to Rome,
thus we know beforehand
that we shall slavishly repeat everything.
And I, like everybody, see the same lot
shimmer in the future mist:
again – to love her in heaven
and be unfaithful to her on earth.
In his diary (the entry of Aug. 30, 1918) Blok mentions dvoyniki (the dopplegangers) whom he conjured up in 1901 (when he courted Lyubov Mendeleev, his future wife), drugoe ya (alter ego) and Botkinskiy period (the Botkin period) of his life:
К ноябрю началось явное моё колдовство, ибо я вызвал двойников ("Зарево белое...", "Ты - другая, немая...").
Любовь Дмитриевна ходила на уроки к М. М. Читау, я же ждал её выхода, следил за ней и иногда провожал её до Забалканского с Гагаринской - Литейной (конец ноября, начало декабря). Чаще, чем со мной, она встречалась с кем-то - кого не видела и о котором я знал.
Появился мороз, "мятель", "неотвязный" и царица, звенящая дверь, два старца, "отрава" (непосланных цветов), свершающий и пользующийся плодами свершений ("другое я"), кто-то "смеющийся и нежный". Так кончился 1901 год.
Тут - Боткинский период.
Vasiliy Botkin (1811-69) is the author of Mozart (1838), a biographical essay, and of Pis'ma ob Ispanii (Letters about Spain, 1851), a travelogue. After line 274 of Shade’s poem there is a false start in the draft:
I like my name: Shade, Ombre, almost 'man'
In Spanish... (Kinbote's note to Line 275)
The Spanish word for “man” is hombre. Hombres (1891) is a collection of homoerotic poetry by Paul Verlaine (a French poet, 1844-96). The second poem in Verlaine's Hombres is entitled Mille et Tre ("Thousand and Be"). The poem's title is a play on Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre (But in Spain already one thousand and three), a line in the "Catalogue aria" (sung by Don Juan's servant Leporello) in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (1787):
Madamina, il catalogo è questo
Delle belle che amò il padron mio;
un catalogo egli è che ho fatt'io;
Osservate, leggete con me.
In Italia seicento e quaranta;
In Alemagna duecento e trentuna;
Cento in Francia, in Turchia novantuna;
Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre.
My dear lady, this is the list
Of the beauties my master has loved,
A list which I have compiled.
Observe, read along with me.
In Italy, six hundred and forty;
In Germany, two hundred and thirty-one;
A hundred in France; in Turkey, ninety-one;
But in Spain already one thousand and three.
The first word of Leporello’s aria, madamina (It., “my dear lady”) brings to mind minnamin (“my darling”), a word used by Kinbote's Zemblan nurse:
Many years ago--how many I would not care to say--I remember my Zemblan nurse telling me, a little man of six in the throes of adult insomnia: "Minnamin, Gut mag alkan, Pern dirstan" (my darling, God makes hungry, the Devil thirsty). Well, folks, I guess many in this fine hall are as hungry and thirsty as me, and I'd better stop, folks, right here. (note to Line 1000)
Bessonnitsa rebyonka ("A Child's Insomnia," 1904) is a poem by Nik. T-o (I. Annenski's penname). In Pushkin’s Mozart and Salieri Mozart mentions his insomnia:
Сальери
Что ты мне принёс?
Моцарт
Нет — так; безделицу. Намедни ночью
Бессонница моя меня томила,
И в голову пришли мне две, три мысли.
Сегодня их я набросал. Хотелось
Твое мне слышать мненье; но теперь
Тебе не до меня.
Salieri
What did you bring me?
Mozart
This?
No, just a trifle. Late the other night,
As my insomnia was full upon me,
Brought some two, three ideas into my head;
Today I jot them down... O well, I hoped
To hear what you may think of this, but now
You're in no mood for me. (Scene I)
A little earlier the blind fiddler plays an aria from Mozart’s Don Giovanni:
Сальери
Ты здесь! — Давно ль?
Моцарт
Сейчас. Я шёл к тебе,
Нёс кое-что тебе я показать;
Но, проходя перед трактиром, вдруг
Услышал скрыпку... Нет, мой друг, Сальери!
Смешнее отроду ты ничего
Не слыхивал... Слепой скрыпач в трактире
Разыгрывал voi che sapete. Чудо!
Не вытерпел, привёл я скрыпача,
Чтоб угостить тебя его искусством.
Войди!
Входит слепой старик со скрыпкой.
Из Моцарта нам что-нибудь!
Старик играет арию из Дон-Жуана;
Моцарт хохочет.
Сальери
И ты смеяться можешь?
Моцарт
Ах, Сальери!
Ужель и сам ты не смеешься?
Сальери
Нет.
Мне не смешно, когда маляр негодный
Мне пачкает Мадонну Рафаэля,
Мне не смешно, когда фигляр презренный
Пародией бесчестит Алигьери.
Пошёл, старик.
Salieri
You here! -- since long?
Mozart
Just now. I had
Something to show you; I was on my way,
But passing by an inn, all of a sudden
I heard a violin... My friend Salieri,
In your whole life you haven't heard anything
So funny: this blind fiddler in the inn
Was playing the "voi che sapete". Wondrous!
I couldn't keep myself from bringing him
To treat you to his art. Entrez, maestro!
(Enter a blind old man with a violin.)
Some Mozart, now!
(The old man plays an aria from Don Giovanni; Mozart
roars with laughter.)
Salieri
And you can laugh?
Mozart
Ah, come,
Salieri, aren't you laughing?
Salieri
No, I'm not!
How can I laugh when some inferior dauber
Stains in my view the great Raphael's Madonna;
How can I laugh when some repellent mummer
With tasteless parodies dishonors Dante.
Begone, old man! (ibid.)
Voi che sapete is a reference to Voi sapete quel che fa (You know what he does), the last words of Leporello’s aria. In Pushkin's little tragedy Mozart mentions the power of harmony and uses the phrase nikto b (none would):
Моцарт
Когда бы все так чувствовали силу
Гармонии! но нет; тогда б не мог
И мир существовать; никто б не стал
Заботиться о нуждах низкой жизни;
Все предались бы вольному искусству.
Mozart
If all could feel like you the power
of harmony! But no: the world
could not go on then. None would
bother with the needs of lowly life;
all would surrender to free art. (Scene II)
The last day of Shade's life has passed in a sustained low hum of harmony:
Gently the day has passed in a sustained
Low hum of harmony. The brain is drained
And a brown ament, and the noun I meant
To use but did not, dry on the cement.
Maybe my sensual love for the consonne
D'appui, Echo's fey child, is based upon
A feeling of fantastically planned,
Richly rhymed life. I feel I understand
Existence, or at least a minute part
Of my existence, only through my art,
In terms of combinational delight;
And if my private universe scans right,
So does the verse of galaxies divine
Which I suspect is an iambic line. (ll. 963-976)
Nikto b (none would) is Botkin (Shade's, Kinbote's and Gradus' "real" name) in reverse. An American scholar of Russian descent, Professor Vsevolod Botkin went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus after the tragic death of his daughter Nadezhda (Hazel Shade’s "real" name). Nadezhda means “hope.” There is a hope that, when Kinbote completes his work on Shade’s poem and commits suicide (on Oct. 19, 1959, the anniversary of Pushkin’s Lyceum), Botkin, like Count Vorontsov (a target of Pushkin’s epigrams, “half-milord, half-merchant, etc.”), will be full again.