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Fw: Query: rozy / beryozy
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----- Original Message -----
From: Sergey Karpukhin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 8:51 PM
Subject: Re: Query: rozy / beryozy
Beryozy is singular genitive (of a birch-tree). *Of* apparently requires a noun in the genitive case.
The rhyme rozy/beryozy is vaguely remindful of the parodic morozy/rozy from Eugene Onegin (Canto 4, XLII).
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 12:13 PM
Subject: Query: rozy / beryozy
At the end of ADA, Part I, chapter 38 Van offers his translation of a quatrain"
Lights in the rooms were going out.
Breathed fragrantly the rozy.
We sat together in the shade
Of a wide-branched beryozy
Ada remarks that "birch" (beryorzy) is what leaves the translator in "the lurch" -- referring to Van's inability to find a good English translation for beryozy (birches) that rhymes with "roses." Something is funny since 'the" would have worked as well as "a." (Rozy / beryozy is a hack rhyme in Russian.)
What puzzles me is the indefinite article "a" in the last line. Beryozy is plural, not singlular.
Any ideas what's going on here? A lapse in proof reading?
Also, does any one know whether Konstantin Romanov wrote the quatrain in question?