Describing IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) in Canto Three of his poem, John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions l’if, 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)
In his Commentary Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) writes:
Line 501: L'if
The yew in French. It is curious that the Zemblan word for the weeping willow is also "if" (the yew is tas).
Line 502: The grand potato
An execrable pun, deliberately placed in this epigraphic position to stress lack of respect for Death. I remember from my schoolroom days Rabelais' soi-disant "last words" among other bright bits in some French manual: Je m'en vais chercher le grand peut-être.
Line 502: IPH
Good taste and the law of libel prevent me from disclosing the real name of the respectable institute of higher philosophy at which our poet pokes a good deal of fanciful fun in this canto. Its terminal initials, HP, provide its students with the abbreviation Hi-Phi, and Shade neatly parodies this in his IPH, or If, combinations. It is situated, most picturesquely, in a southwestern state that must remain anonymous here.
I am also obliged to observe that I strongly disapprove of the flippancy with which our poet treats, in this canto, certain aspects of spiritual hope which religion alone can fulfill (see also note to 549).
The yew in Russian is tis. In Pesn’ 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, 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)
In his Commentary Kinbote mentions the Russian adventurer Hodinski, Queen Yaruga's goliart (court jester) and a poet of genius, who is said to have forged in his spare time a famous old Russian chanson de geste generally attributed to an anonymous bard of the twelfth century:
When I was a child, Russia enjoyed quite a vogue at the court of Zembla but that was a different Russia - a Russia that hated tyrants and Philistines, injustice and cruelty, the Russia of ladies and gentlemen and liberal aspirations. We may add that Charles the Beloved could boast of some Russian blood. In medieval times two of his ancestors had married Novgorod princesses. Queen Yaruga (reigned 1799-1800) his great-great-granddam, was half Russian; and most historians believe that Yaruga's only child Igor was not the son of Uran the Last (reigned 1798-1799) but the fruit of her amours with the Russian adventurer Hodinski, her goliart (court jester) and a poet of genius, said to have forged in his spare time a famous old Russian chanson de geste generally attributed to an anonymous bard of the twelfth century. (note to Line 697)
The action in Slovo begins on Tuesday, April 23, 1185. One of the bad omens mentioned in Slovo (ll. 111-118) is the Solar eclipse of May 1, 1185. In Shevyryov's remarkable poem Son ("A Dream," 1827) two suns rise in the sky simultaneously, one in the East and another in the West, only to 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 critics confused the Dream of Svyatoslav in Slovo with Shevyryov's "Dream." In Shevyryov's poem Troystvo ("The Threesome," 1830) Homer, Dante and Shakespeare merge in a triple and whole image in another, sonorous and harmonious, world:
Я, в лучшие минуты окрыляясь,
Мечтой лечу в тот звучный, стройный мир,
Где в тройственный и полный лик сливаясь,
Поют Омир и Данте и Шекспир,—
И радости иной они не знают,
Как меж собой менять знакомый стих,—
И между тем как здесь шумят за них,
Как там они друг друга понимают!
...and while here people make noise for them,
how there they understand each other!
In Canto Two of his poem Shade mentions the talks with Socrates and Proust in cypress walks:
So why join in the vulgar laughter? Why
Scorn a hereafter none can verify:
The Turk's delight, the future lyres, the talks
With Socrates and Proust in cypress walks,
The seraph with his six flamingo wings,
And Flemish hells with porcupines and things?
It isn't that we dream too wild a dream:
The trouble is we do not make it seem
Sufficiently unlikely; for the most
We can think up is a domestic ghost. (ll. 221-230)
The seraph with his six flamingo wings brings to mind shestikrylyi serafim (a six-winged seraph) who appeared to the Poet at the crossroads in Pushkin's poem Prorok ("The Prophet," 1826). Flemish hells with porcupines and things evoke Bosch's paintings, but they also make one think of the Italian goddesses with Flemish babes in arms mentioned by Shade in his poem "Art:"
I remember one little poem from Night Rote (meaning "the nocturnal sound of the sea") that happened to be my first contact with the American poet Shade. A young lecturer on American Literature, a brilliant and charming boy from Boston, showed me that slim and lovely volume in Onhava, in my student days. The following lines opening this poem, which is entitled "Art," pleased me by their catchy lilt and jarred upon the religious sentiments instilled in me by our very "high" Zemblan church.
From mammoth hunts and Odysseys
And Oriental charms
To the Italian goddesses
With Flemish babes in arms. (note to Line 957)
The Odyssey is an epic poem by Homer. In his essay Ob Annenskom (“On Annenski,” 1921) Hodasevich compares Annenski to Ivan Ilyich Golovin (the main character in Tolstoy’s story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” 1886) and points out that Annenski regarded his penname Nik. T-o (“Mr. Nobody”) as a translation of Greek Outis (the pseudonym under which Odysseus conceals his identity from Polyphemus, the Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey):
Чего не додумал Иван Ильич, то знал Анненский. Знал, что никаким директорством, никаким бытом и даже никакой филологией от смерти по-настоящему не загородиться. Она уничтожит и директора, и барина, и филолога. Только над истинным его "я", над тем, что отображается в "чувствах и мыслях", над личностью -- у неё как будто нет власти. И он находил реальное, осязаемое отражение и утверждение личности -- в поэзии. Тот, чьё лицо он видел, подходя к зеркалу, был директор гимназии, смертный никто. Тот, чьё лицо отражалось в поэзии, был бессмертный некто. Ник. Т-о -- никто -- есть безличный действительный статский советник, которым, как видимой оболочкой, прикрыт невидимый некто. Этот свой псевдоним, под которым он печатал стихи, Анненский рассматривал как перевод греческого "утис", никто, -- того самого псевдонима, под которым Одиссей скрыл от циклопа Полифема своё истинное имя, свою подлинную личность, своего некто. Поэзия была для него заклятием страшного Полифема -- смерти. Но психологически это не только не мешало, а даже способствовало тому, чтобы его вдохновительницей, его Музой была смерть.
According to Hodasevich, Annenski's Muse was was death. A few moments before Shade's death, Kinbote asks him if the muse (whom in Canto Four of his poem Shade calls "my versipel") has been kind to him:
Neither Shade nor I had ever been able to ascertain whence precisely those ringing sounds came - which of the five families dwelling across the road on the lower slopes of our woody hill played horseshoe quoits every other evening; but the tantalizing tingles and jingles contributed a pleasant melancholy note to the rest of Dulwich Hill's evening sonorities - children calling to each other, children being called home, and the ecstatic barking of the boxer dog whom most of the neighbors disliked (he overturned garbage cans) greeting his master home.
Through the trees I distinguished John's white shirt and gray hair; he sat in his Nest (as he called it), the arborlike porch or veranda I have mentioned in my note to lines 47-48. I could not keep from advancing a little nearer - oh, discreetly, almost on tiptoe; but then I noticed he was resting, not writing, and I openly walked up to his porch or perch. His elbow was on the table, his fist supported his temple, his wrinkles were all awry, his eyes moist and misty; he looked like an old tipsy witch. He lifted his free hand in greeting without changing his attitude, which although not unfamiliar to me struck me this time as more forlorn than pensive.
"Well," I said, "has the muse been kind to you?"
"Very kind," he replied, slightly bowing his hand-propped head. "exceptionally kind and gentle. In fact, I have here [indicating a huge pregnant envelope near him on the oilcloth] practically the entire product. A few trifles to settle and [suddenly striking the table with his fist] I've swung it, by God."
The envelope, unfastened at one end, bulged with stacked cards.
"Where is the missus?" I asked (mouth dry).
"Help me, Charlie, to get out of here," he pleaded. "Foot gone to sleep. Sybil is at a dinner-meeting of her club."
"A suggestion," I said, quivering. "I have at my place half a gallon of Tokay. I'm ready to share my favorite wine with my favorite poet. We shall have for dinner a knackle of walnuts, a couple of large tomatoes, and a bunch of bananas. And if you agree to show me your 'finished product,' there will be another treat: I promise to divulge to you why I gave you, or rather who gave you, your theme."
"What theme?" said Shade absently, as he leaned on my arm and gradually recovered the use of his numb limb.
"Our blue inenubilable Zembla, and the red-capped Steinmann, and the motorboat in the sea cave, and -"
"Ah," said Shade, "I think I guessed your secret quite some time ago. But all the same I shall sample your wine with pleasure. Okay, I can manage by myself now." (note to Line 991)
In Outis (Odysseus's pseudonym, Nobody) there is tis (Russian for “yew”). In a letter of October 17, 1908, to Ekaterina Mukhin, Annenski says that people who ceased to believe in God but who continue to fear the devil created this otzyvayushchiysya kalamburom (smacking of a pun) terror before the smell of sulfuric pitch, Le grand Peut-Etre:
Люди, переставшие верить в бога, но продолжающие трепетать чёрта... Это они создали на языке тысячелетней иронии этот отзывающийся каламбуром ужас перед запахом серной смолы - Le grand Peut-Etre. Для меня peut-etre - не только бог, но это всё, хотя это и не ответ, и не успокоение…
The characters in Slovo include Buy Tur Vsevolod (Wild Bull Vsevolod, Igor's brother), and Vseslav, the Prince of Polotsk and magician who at night prowled in the guise of a wolf and from Kiev, prowling, reached, before the cocks crew, Tmutorokan (a medieval principality of Kievan Rus and trading town that controlled the Cimmerian Bosporus, the passage from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov). The three main characters in Pale Fire, the poet Shade, his commentator Kinbote (Charles Xavier Vseslav of Zembla) and his murderer Gradus, seem to represent three different aspects of one and the same person whose "real" name is Vsevolod Botkin. An American scholar of Russian descent, Professor 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.
Btw., at the end of Rasskazy o Pushkine ("Stories about Pushkin," 1838) Shevyryov says that in the spring of 1836, when he saw Pushkin for the last time, Pushkin told him about his studies in the field of The Song of Igor's Campaign:
После сего раз Шевырев видел Пушкина весною 1836 года; он останавливался у Нащокина, в Дегтярном переулке. В это посещение он сообщил Шевыреву, что занимается «Словом о полку Игореве», и сказал между прочим свое объяснение первых слов. Последнее свидание было в доме Шевырева; за ужином он превосходно читал русские песни.