Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0011886, Fri, 16 Sep 2005 11:27:59 -0700

Subject
Fw: translation/ Pushkin
Date
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----- 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




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