Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0011887, Fri, 16 Sep 2005 11:29:12 -0700

Subject
Fw: found another biblical reference
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----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 07:43:12 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Subject: Fw: found another biblical reference
To: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>

Re: found another biblical referencePale Fire, Canto 2, lines 220/232

So why join in the vulgar laughter? Why
Scorn a hereafter none can verify:
The turk´s delight, the future lyres, the talks
With Socrates and Proust in cypress walks,
The seraph with his six flamingo wings,
And Flemish hells with porcupines and things?
It isn´t that we dream too wild a dream:
The trouble is we do not make it seem
Sufficiently unlikely; for the most
We can think up is a domestic ghost.

How ludicrous these efforts to translate
Into one´s private tongue a public fate!
......

( John Shade, not Saint John, seems to be aware of a prophetic vision which he
can only translate using domestic ghosts... Revelations speaks of the prophetic
tongue and St.Paul´s Epistle "in a glass, darkly" also mentions tongues and the
question of "Translation"...)

I wish I could find a big reproduction of Bosch´s " Last Judgement Triptych" (
and its "Flemish Hell" ) to observe how the seraphs were pictured in it. The
flamingo winged ones, as I observed, are more clear in "The Majestic Look" of
illustrated New Testament on Christ in his throne.

You worked with Bosch and the paintings mentioned in ADA in your book you
mentioned once. How may I order a copy?

Best wishes,
Jansy

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