Subject
Re: Sybil and Sylvia (a bird in the hand)
From
Date
Body
Carolyn Kunin wrote: "In an attempt to persuade Jansy that Sybil and Sylvia are in fact the same person, I checked the dictionary and discovered two interesting things - > the correct spelling is Sibyl so the Sybil spelling may be a clue
indicating a relation to Sylvia - - sybl = sylv, "b" & "v" being variants of each other in some languages..."
Adding a few non-sibilating tidbits and reminders:
1. Humbert Humbert writes in "Lolita":
"I was born in 1910, in Paris. My father was a gentle... His father and two grandfathers had sold wine, jewels and silk, respectively... My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) ...My mother's elder sister, Sybil, whom a cousin of my father's had married and then neglected....Aunt Sybil had pink-rimmed azure eyes and ...
2. In "Pale Fire" we find that Charles the Beloved saw Queen Disa for the first time on July 5 ( lots of birthdays...) and whe find that Disa is compared to Sybil, on page 207 ( Disa at thirty and Sybil as painted in PF) .
3. We have the Delphic Sybil that was mentioned by T.S.Eliot ( another indirect link with Pale Fire) and her fortune-telling by reading from "leaves" is also mentioned by Gerard Manley Hopkins ( Spelt from Sybil's Leaves).
4. This Sybil-seer has a very sad story because, like Aun Maud's "leaf-sarcophagus", she was granted eternal life by Apollo, but not eternal youth...Therefore, she kept shrinking for ever and had to be kept inside a bottle where she hung from a thread ( that's how I remember it, haven't checked again).
5. Wikipedia brings:In antiquity, the oracular seeresses of the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean were referred to by the Greek term "sibyls".
NB: In modern times, when "Sibyl" is adopted for a woman's name, the conventional spelling is "Sybil".
6. Concepts ( still from Wikipedia): A "Sybil attack" is the use of stolen or forged multiple identities for defeating a reputation system. Sybil also refers to a type of card flourisinhing in which a deck of cards is split into "packets" and manipulated.
Jansy
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
indicating a relation to Sylvia - - sybl = sylv, "b" & "v" being variants of each other in some languages..."
Adding a few non-sibilating tidbits and reminders:
1. Humbert Humbert writes in "Lolita":
"I was born in 1910, in Paris. My father was a gentle... His father and two grandfathers had sold wine, jewels and silk, respectively... My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) ...My mother's elder sister, Sybil, whom a cousin of my father's had married and then neglected....Aunt Sybil had pink-rimmed azure eyes and ...
2. In "Pale Fire" we find that Charles the Beloved saw Queen Disa for the first time on July 5 ( lots of birthdays...) and whe find that Disa is compared to Sybil, on page 207 ( Disa at thirty and Sybil as painted in PF) .
3. We have the Delphic Sybil that was mentioned by T.S.Eliot ( another indirect link with Pale Fire) and her fortune-telling by reading from "leaves" is also mentioned by Gerard Manley Hopkins ( Spelt from Sybil's Leaves).
4. This Sybil-seer has a very sad story because, like Aun Maud's "leaf-sarcophagus", she was granted eternal life by Apollo, but not eternal youth...Therefore, she kept shrinking for ever and had to be kept inside a bottle where she hung from a thread ( that's how I remember it, haven't checked again).
5. Wikipedia brings:In antiquity, the oracular seeresses of the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean were referred to by the Greek term "sibyls".
NB: In modern times, when "Sibyl" is adopted for a woman's name, the conventional spelling is "Sybil".
6. Concepts ( still from Wikipedia): A "Sybil attack" is the use of stolen or forged multiple identities for defeating a reputation system. Sybil also refers to a type of card flourisinhing in which a deck of cards is split into "packets" and manipulated.
Jansy
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm