Have I given away Box I (son and husband
of Loulou, the housekeeper's pet), that old brown dachshund fast asleep on
the sofa? (Speak, Memory, Chapter Five, 2)
In Drugie Berega VN compares Loulou to Jocasta, king
Oedipus's mother and wife: Не помню, одалживал ли я кому
Бокса Первого, любимца ключницы, пережившего свою
Лулу-Иокасту.
Jocasta's first husband (Oedipus's father) was Laius. In
Russian, his name is homonymous with lai, "bark(ing)." One recalls
Hodasevich's Apollinazm:
«На Лая лаем лай! На Лая лаем лаял…
То пёс, то лютый пёс! Поспел, посмел!»
То спел
Нам Демодок, медок в устах тая. И таял,
И Маем Майи маял. Маем
Майи млел.
Ты, Демодок, медок (медовый ток) замедли!
Медовый ток лия —
подли, помедли лить!
Сей страстный, сластный бред душе, душе не вред
ли?
Душе, вдыхая вздох, — паря, не воспарить.
In his alliteration-rich poem Hodasevich
mentions Laius, as well as the blind rhapsodist Demodocos, a
character in the Odyssey. In Homer's poem Argos
is Odysseus' faithful dog who recognizes his master after
twenty years and immediately dies. (Argos
was also the name of one of the 'hellhounds,' the dogs of the underworld,
brother of Cerberus.)
Alexey Sklyarenko