In VN's novel Pale Fire (1962) Hazel Shade (the poet's daughter whose "real" name seems to be Nadezhda Botkin) drowned in Lake Omega. In A Song to David (1763) Christopher Smart (an English poet, 1722-71, who wrote A Song to David and Jubilate Agno during his confinement for insanity in St. Luke's Asylum in London) mentions seven letters of the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Gamma, Eta, Theta, Iota, Sigma and Omega):
XXX
The pillars of the Lord are seven,
Which stand from earth to topmost heav'n;
His wisdom drew the plan;
His WORD accomplish'd the design,
From brightest gem to deepest mine,
From CHRIST enthron'd to man.
XXXI
Alpha, the cause of causes, first
In station, fountain, whence the burst
Of light, and blaze of day;
Whence bold attempt, and brave advance,
Have motion, life, and ordinance
And heav'n itself its stay.
XXXII
Gamma supports the glorious arch
On which angelic legions march,
And is with sapphires pav'd;
Thence the fleet clouds are sent adrift,
And thence the painted folds, that lift
The crimson veil, are wav'd.
XXXIII
Eta with living sculpture breathes,
With verdant carvings, flow'ry wreathes,
Of never-wasting bloom;
In strong relief his goodly base
All instruments of labor grace,
The trowel, spade, and loom.
XXXIV
Next Theta stands to the Supreme—
Who form'd, in number, sign, and scheme,
Th'illustrious lights that are:
And one address'd his saffrom robe,
And one, clad in a silver globe,
Held rule with ev'ry star.
XXXV
Iota's tun'd to choral hymns
Of those that fly, while he that swims
In thankful safety lurks;
And foot, and chapitre, and niche,
The various histories enrich
Of God's record'd works.
XXXVI
Sigma presents the social droves,
With him that solitary roves,
And man of all the chief;
Fair on whose face, and stately frame,
Did God impress His hallow'd name,
For ocular belief.
XXXVII
OMEGA! GREATEST and the BEST,
Stands sacred to the day of rest,
For gratitude and thought;
Which bless'd the world upon his pole,
And gave the universe his goal,
And clos'd th'infernal draught.
Alpha brings to mind Alphina (the youngest of Judge Goldsworth's four daughters) and King Alfin (the father of Charles the Beloved). An iota is the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet. The expression "not one iota" comes from the Bible (Matthew 5:18): "For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." Kinbote's landlord, Hugh Warren Goldsworth is an authority on Roman law and distinguished judge.
The third letter of the Greek alphabet, Gamma is the initial of Gradus (Shade's murderer) and Judge Goldsworth. Gamma is Russian for "gamut." At the beginning of Pushkin’s little tragedy “Mozart and Salieri” (1830) Salieri mentions prostaya gamma (a simple scale):
Все говорят: нет правды на земле.
Но правды нет — и выше. Для меня
Так это ясно, как простая гамма.
All people say: there is no truth on earth.
Not in the heavens, neither! This to me
Appears as clear as any simple scale. (Scene I)
In Pushkin’s little tragedy Mozart uses the phrase nikto b (none would):
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.
If all could feel like you the power
of harmony! But no: the world
could not go on then. None would
bother about the needs of lowly life;
All would surrender to free art. (Scene II)
Nikto b 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 (who liked to read words backwards). Nadezhda (Hazel Shade's "real" first name) means “hope.” There is a hope that, when Kinbote completes his work on Shade’s poem and commits suicide (on October 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. In one of his epigrams on Count Vorontsov (the General Governor of New Russia, the poet's boss in Odessa) Pushkin compares himself to David and Vorontsov, to Goliath:
Певец-Давид был ростом мал,
Но повалил же Голиафа,
Который был и генерал,
И, побожусь, не ниже графа.
David the bard was small,
but he managed to bring down Goliath,
who was a General and whose title,
I swear, was not lower than Count.
David (1501-04) is a sculpture by Michelangelo. At the end of Mozart and Salieri Salieri wonders if the creator of Vatican (i. e. Michelangelo) was no murderer after all:
Ты заснёшь
Надолго, Моцарт! но ужель он прав,
И я не гений? Гений и злодейство
Две вещи несовместные. Неправда:
А Бонаротти? или это сказка
Тупой, бессмысленной толпы — и не был
Убийцею создатель Ватикана?
Your sleep
Will be a long one, Mozart. But is he right,
And I’m no genius? Genius and villainy
Are two things incompatible. Not true:
What about Buonarotti? Or is that just
A fable of stupid, senseless crowd,
And the Vatican’s creator was no murderer?
(Scene II)
New Wye (a small University town where Shade and Kinbote live) brings to mind the Wye, a river in England and Wales, and the silver Y (Autographa gamma), a migratory moth of the family Noctuidae which is named for the silvery Y-shaped mark on each of its forewings:
The moth's Russian name is sovka-gamma. It is also called sovka l'nyanaya (a linen noctuid) and bogachka gamma (bogachka means a rich woman).