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Fwd: RE: Re choice of the name "Ada"
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Alexeys observations are very interesting.
Pushkins wonderful poem "Proserpina" ("Ada gordaya tsaritsa...") might have
more connections to Ada.
By the way, Ad there is not really the later (Christian) Hell.
It is Greek underworld, the place of shadows, where Styx flows.
The pround queen Proserpina (Greek Persephone), a daughter of Zeus and Demeter
(the earth goddess), was in fact a victim of a bad joke by Aphrodite (Venus) who
dared her son Eros to shoot his arrow into the heart of Pluto (Hades).
Later, Aphrodite gave the baby Adonis to Persephone who raised him in Hades;
then Adonis became Aphrodites lover (see Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis")
[..Demeter (=Terra)/Demonia?, Ada/Adonis?...Adonis/Venus?..]
Proserpina (Persephone) is a recurrent theme in the best Russian poetry, all
very relevant to "Ada" themes.
There is wonderful Mandelstams ...Nemnogo solntsa i nemnogo myoda,/kak nam
veleli pchyoly Persefony (...a little honey, a little sun,/in obedience to
Persephone's bees); and his another famous V Petropole prekrasnom my
umryom,/gde vlastvuet nad nami Prozerpina.../( "...we will die in beautiful
Petropolis/where Proserpina rules over us").
There is also Khodasevichs Vot yabloka dve polovinki:/Tebe, Persefona, i
mne (here are two halves of an apple:/For you, Persephone, and for me).
Beyond Russia, she was also very popular. Tennyson wrote Demeter and
Persephone; Swinburne wrote Hymn to Proserpine("hou hast conquered, O pale
Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;/We have drunken of things
Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death."); and Oscar Wilde in The Garden of
Eros even used both Greek and Roman names: Which should be trodden by
Persephone/When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!... And I will sing how
sad Proserpina/Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed
But who is the young man, Proserpina's lover, in Pushkin/Parnys poem -- is it
the poet himself?
Victor Fet
----- End forwarded message -----
Pushkins wonderful poem "Proserpina" ("Ada gordaya tsaritsa...") might have
more connections to Ada.
By the way, Ad there is not really the later (Christian) Hell.
It is Greek underworld, the place of shadows, where Styx flows.
The pround queen Proserpina (Greek Persephone), a daughter of Zeus and Demeter
(the earth goddess), was in fact a victim of a bad joke by Aphrodite (Venus) who
dared her son Eros to shoot his arrow into the heart of Pluto (Hades).
Later, Aphrodite gave the baby Adonis to Persephone who raised him in Hades;
then Adonis became Aphrodites lover (see Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis")
[..Demeter (=Terra)/Demonia?, Ada/Adonis?...Adonis/Venus?..]
Proserpina (Persephone) is a recurrent theme in the best Russian poetry, all
very relevant to "Ada" themes.
There is wonderful Mandelstams ...Nemnogo solntsa i nemnogo myoda,/kak nam
veleli pchyoly Persefony (...a little honey, a little sun,/in obedience to
Persephone's bees); and his another famous V Petropole prekrasnom my
umryom,/gde vlastvuet nad nami Prozerpina.../( "...we will die in beautiful
Petropolis/where Proserpina rules over us").
There is also Khodasevichs Vot yabloka dve polovinki:/Tebe, Persefona, i
mne (here are two halves of an apple:/For you, Persephone, and for me).
Beyond Russia, she was also very popular. Tennyson wrote Demeter and
Persephone; Swinburne wrote Hymn to Proserpine("hou hast conquered, O pale
Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;/We have drunken of things
Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death."); and Oscar Wilde in The Garden of
Eros even used both Greek and Roman names: Which should be trodden by
Persephone/When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!... And I will sing how
sad Proserpina/Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed
But who is the young man, Proserpina's lover, in Pushkin/Parnys poem -- is it
the poet himself?
Victor Fet
----- End forwarded message -----