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Re: Fw: translation/ Pushkin
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----- Forwarded message from dolinin@wisc.edu -----
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 15:23:36 -0500
From: dolinin <dolinin@wisc.edu>
Reply-To: dolinin <dolinin@wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: Fw: translation/ Pushkin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Congratulations, Jansy (if I may?), you touched upon a very important and
almost unexplored subject: Russian poetry allusions in Shade's "Pale Fire."
Beside the allusion to "The Prophet" you pinpointed there are at least two
other ones to Pushkin: "Father Time, all gray" (cf.: "Iamshchik likhoi,
sedoe vremia") and "consonne / D'appui, Echo's fey child" (cf. Pushkin's
poem "The Rhyme" (1830) in which the nymph Echo gives birth to a "fey
child" Rhyme), one to Tiutchev ("Hebe's Cup") and probably some more I
missed. Together with the obvious allusions to Tolstoy (" Death of Ivan
Il'ich") and Dostoevsky, they form an interesting Russian background in the
seemingly American poem and reveal the presence of the bilingual author.
As for "The Prophet" itself, it refers not to the Revelation but, as
Pushkin scholars demonstrated long time ago, to the Book of Isaiah, 6:
"Above it [Lord's Throne] stood the seraphims: each one had six wings ...
Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand ...
And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and
thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. And I heard the voice of
the Lord ... And he said, Go and tell this people..."
There are other Biblical and non-Biblical sources too, but this one is central.
Alexander Dolinin
At 11:27 AM 9/16/05 -0700, you wrote:
>----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
> Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 07:27:32 -0300
> From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
>Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
> Subject: Fw: translation/ Pushkin
> To: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu
>
>A recording in VN´s voice had been available in the internet. It could
>even have
>been in Zembla. I´m certain others will remember it to offer you the address.
>
>I would like to connect Pushkin´s poem "Prorok" to a line in Pale Fire
>(Canto 2)
> in which VN speaks of a six winged seraph.
>I´ve been working on the "in a glass, darkly" biblical reference and now I
>discovered a whole series of links with Revelations 4.
>Paintings with those "flamingo winged seraphs" can be found in a book:
>"Revelations - Art of the Apocalypse" (Nancy Grubb,Abbeville Press) but
>only if
>one is really looking after them. It is a peculiarity of "seraphs" that one,
>having six wings. Cherubs and Angels have them in a different count... There
>is also a Ieronimusch Bosch Triptych, not the one several scholars studied in
>connection with ADA ( "The Garden of Earthly delights" ) but "The Last
>Judgement" .
>The six winged seraphs of Revelations 4 were there described as "Beasts" and
>interpreted as the Four evangelists ( Lion, Eagle...) or the various tribes of
>Judah.
>
>These four winged beasts, once we know that, are to be seen in Hans Memling´s
>"Saint John the Evangelist on Patmos", but not in "flamingo wings". But in
>various places they are red ( Jacquemart de Hesdin, Psalms of Penitence.
>Christ
>in Majesty, Book of Hours... and that makes sense! Not only "hours" and time,
>but The Majestic Look...)
>Christ in Majesty and the Four Evangelists that is also suggestive is in the
>Westminster Psalter, at the British Library.
>
>Carolyn told me about Pushkin´s poem. She said that the words "six wingued
>seraphs" sounds very beautiful in Russian.
>Could you find it in Russian for me in case I add Pushkin as a reference,
>beside
>the Apocalypse? ( P.Meyer only wrote about "Revelations" indirectly, by Alpha
>and Omega and
>concerning Apocalypse, quoting the word from Wordsworth)
>Jansy
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Carolyn Kunin
>To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
>Sent: Friday, September 16, 2005 3:54 AM
>Subject: translation
>
>
>Box #2 is out of reach without a lot of work, so I found this one on the
>internet (I changed it a little):
>
>The Prophet
>
>Parched with the spirit's thirst, I crossed
>An endless desert sunk in gloom,
>And where the tracks met and I stood lost.
>A six-winged seraph came to me.
>
>Fingers light as dream he laid
>Upon my lids; I opened wide
>My eagle eyes, and gazed around.
>
>He laid his fingers on my ears
>And they with roaring sound were filled:
>The music of the spheres I heard,
>The flight of angels through the skies,
>The beasts that creap beneath the sea,
>The heady uprush of the vine.
>
>Then like a lover kissing me,
>He tore at and removed my tongue
>Fluent in lies and vanity;
>Then tore my fainting lips apart
>And, with his right hand steeped in blood,
>He armed me with a serpent's dart.
>
>With his bright sword then he split my breast;
>And tore from thence the pulsing heart;
>A glowing livid coal he thrust
>Into the empty place where once it beat.
>
>I lay there in that desert, dead,
>And God called out to me and said:
>'Arise my prophet, and hear, and see,
>And by those who have turned aside from me,
>Let my works be seen and heard
>And with thy fiery words set them aflame.'
>
>1827
>
>
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
>Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.10.12/75 - Release Date: 17/8/2005
>
>----- End forwarded message -----
>Dear Don
>
>A recording in VN´s voice had been available in the internet. It could
>even have been in Zembla. I´m certain others will remember it to offer you
>the address.
>
>I would like to connect Pushkin´s poem "Prorok" to a line in Pale Fire
>(Canto 2) in which VN speaks of a six winged seraph.
>I´ve been working on the "in a glass, darkly" biblical reference and now I
>discovered a whole series of links with Revelations 4.
>Paintings with those "flamingo winged seraphs" can be found in a book:
>"Revelations - Art of the Apocalypse" (Nancy Grubb,Abbeville Press) but
>only if one is really looking after them. It is a peculiarity of
>"seraphs" that one, having six wings. Cherubs and Angels have them in a
>different count... There is also a Ieronimusch Bosch Triptych, not the
>one several scholars studied in connection with ADA ( "The Garden of
>Earthly delights" ) but "The Last Judgement" .
>The six winged seraphs of Revelations 4 were there described as "Beasts"
>and interpreted as the Four evangelists ( Lion, Eagle...) or the various
>tribes of Judah.
>
>These four winged beasts, once we know that, are to be seen in Hans
>Memling´s "Saint John the Evangelist on Patmos", but not in "flamingo
>wings". But in various places they are red ( Jacquemart de Hesdin, Psalms
>of Penitence. Christ in Majesty, Book of Hours... and that makes sense!
>Not only "hours" and time, but The Majestic Look...)
>Christ in Majesty and the Four Evangelists that is also suggestive is in
>the Westminster Psalter, at the British Library.
>
>Carolyn told me about Pushkin´s poem. She said that the words "six wingued
>seraphs" sounds very beautiful in Russian.
>Could you find it in Russian for me in case I add Pushkin as a reference,
>beside the Apocalypse? ( P.Meyer only wrote about
>"Revelations" indirectly, by Alpha and Omega and
>concerning Apocalypse, quoting the word from Wordsworth)
>Jansy
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:chaiselongue@earthlink.net>Carolyn Kunin
>To: <mailto:jansy@aetern.us>Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
>Sent: Friday, September 16, 2005 3:54 AM
>Subject: translation
>
>Box #2 is out of reach without a lot of work, so I found this one on the
>internet (I changed it a little):
>
>The Prophet
>
>Parched with the spirit's thirst, I crossed
>An endless desert sunk in gloom,
>And where the tracks met and I stood lost.
>A six-winged seraph came to me.
>
>Fingers light as dream he laid
>Upon my lids; I opened wide
>My eagle eyes, and gazed around.
>
>He laid his fingers on my ears
>And they with roaring sound were filled:
>The music of the spheres I heard,
>The flight of angels through the skies,
>The beasts that creap beneath the sea,
>The heady uprush of the vine.
>
>Then like a lover kissing me,
>He tore at and removed my tongue
>Fluent in lies and vanity;
>Then tore my fainting lips apart
>And, with his right hand steeped in blood,
>He armed me with a serpent's dart.
>
>With his bright sword then he split my breast;
>And tore from thence the pulsing heart;
>A glowing livid coal he thrust
>Into the empty place where once it beat.
>
>I lay there in that desert, dead,
>And God called out to me and said:
>'Arise my prophet, and hear, and see,
>And by those who have turned aside from me,
>Let my works be seen and heard
>And with thy fiery words set them aflame.'
>
>1827
>
>
>
>
>----------
>Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
>Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.10.12/75 - Release Date: 17/8/2005
----- End forwarded message -----