Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0021892, Mon, 1 Aug 2011 13:20:00 -0300

Subject
Re: Don-plus-Quixote anagram
From
Date
Body
Alexey Sklyarenko:Дон Кихот = ход + никто = док/код + Тихон/хитон/Хотин = дно + кит/тик (кот/ток) + ох (их) = охотник + д = похотник + д - п

JM: Cervantes is mentioned by G.K.Chesterton in the last stanza of his poem "Lepanto," a naval battle fought against the Turks in 1571 and the one in which he lost the use of his left hand (but here he is still able to return the sword to its sheath).* In ADA Van receives a pistol shot during a duel after which he lost his special abilities as a maniambulator. I think it has something to do with his omoplates (I don't know where kingly or angelic/demonic wings are attached but it might be on the shoulder-blades)
.

Opening lines:
WHITE founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Last lines:
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Upon which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade...
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
.........................................................................................................................................................................................

*- SKB, in one of his postings observes that "the Russian word rooka can mean both arm and hand... A bullet hit his left arm reducing its mobility, but control of the hand, it seems, was totally lost. In everyday English, we would not refer to Cervantes as ‘one-armed.’ But, effectively, in terms of usage, the term is applicable."

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