Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Bilitis
From: "Stanislav Shvabrin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:02:05 -0400

Dear Dmitri Vladimirovich and the List,

Could it be Claude Debussy?

With every good wish,

Stanislav Shvabrin.

On Jun 7, 2006, at 6:16 PM, NABOKV-L wrote:

> Two comments for Don and List:
>
> A hurried perusal has not yielded the translator's name, but he should
> be advised that (in l'Arbre, "The Tree" verse 3,     line 3) "orteils"
> means "toes," not "heels."
>
> As for the fiftth definition of lips, have no qualms about your
> imagination, Don. The meaning in question appears elsewhere in Nabokov
> (e.g., The Enchanter), and  elsewhere in literature.
>
> Incidentally, I still have somewhere the score of a musical setting of
> les Chansons by a very French composer whose name probably should not
> escape me but does.
>
> Best greetings,
>
> DN
>
>
> Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
> Contact the Editors: mailto:[email-masked],[email-masked]
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> View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
>
>
>
>
>
> From: "Dmitri Nabokov" <[email-masked]>
> Date: June 7, 2006 8:12:47 AM PDT
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Subject: FW: [NABOKV-L] Bilitis.doc
>
>
> Two comments for Don and List:
>
> A hurried perusal has not yielded the translator's name, but he  
> should be advised that (in l'Arbre, "The Tree" verse 3,     line 3)  
> "orteils" means "toes," not "heels."
>
> As for the fiftth definition of lips, have no qualms about your  
> imagination, Don. The meaning in question appears elsewhere in  
> Nabokov (e.g., The Enchanter), and  elsewhere in literature.
>
> Incidentally, I still have somewhere the score of a musical setting  
> of les Chansons by a very French composer whose name probably  
> should not escape me but does.
>
> Best greetings,
>
> DN
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:[email-masked]] On  
> Behalf Of D. Barton Johnson
> Sent: mercredi, 7. juin 2006 03:13
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [NABOKV-L] Bilitis.doc
>
> I thank Mr. Strickland for his informative series of suggestions.   
> I have pursued at least one of them. It follows:
>
>
>
> Don Johnson
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> April 23, 2004
>
>
>
> Nabokovт€™s Ada and Pierre LouУПsт€™ Chansons de Bilitis:
>
> The Tree of Knowledge
>
>
>
>
>
> Pierre LouУПsт€™ 1894 Les Chansons de Bilitis  is one of the  
> classics of the lesbian canon.  The work was something of a  
> mystification since it purported to be the memoir of a sixth  
> century B.C Greek courtesan whose tomb had recently excavated on  
> Cypress.  A prose poem of a hundred and forty-three stanzas in the  
> form of inscriptions on the tomb walls, it recounts Bilitisт€™  
> girlhood as a goatherd in what is now southern Turkey (then  
> Pamphilia) near the Mediterrean. She is early introduced to sex by  
> a newly-married friend and then a young herdsman.  She has an  
> infant whom she deserts at sixteen when she moves to MytilУЈne on  
> the Isle of Lesbos where she is befriended by the poet Sappho and  
> has a ten-year liaison with a beloved but faithless mistress. After  
> a painful break-up, she moves on to Cypress, then a thriving and  
> decadent community where she establishes herself as a wealthy and  
> famed courtesan par excellence, while not forsaking the pleasures  
> afforded by those of her own sex  At forty, she retires and writes  
> her poetic biography  which survives on the walls of her tomb. The  
> entire work, ostensibly translated from the Greek, is the work of  
> Pierre LouУПs (1870-1924), a twenty-three-year-old Parisian who  
> was immersed in the culture of the ancient eastern Mediterranean  
> and went on to even greater, if transient, fame as the author of  
> the equally scandalous novel Aphrodite (1906), a tale of  bisexual  
> courtesan life in Alexandria. He wale dт 
> €™Annunzio, and Oscar Wilde. Les Chansons de Bilitis was a pan- 
> European scandal and became a lushly illustrated, privately printed  
> collectorт€™s item in many languages. There was even a Russian  
> version in 1907. Les Chansons de Bilitis, now mostly forgotten,  
> makes two fleeting, but explicit appearances in Nabokovт€™s  
> ADA т€“ both in connection with lesbianism.
>
>
>
>
>
> Soon after that first Ardis summer, Van encounters Adaт€™s  
> boarding-school dorm-mate Cordula de Prey who tells him of Adaт 
> €™s letters raving about her visiting cousin. Ada has mentioned  
> in a letter to Van that one of her school mates is in love with   
> her (158).  Van inspects Cordula closely:
>
>
>
>  He had read somewhere (we might recall the precise title if we  
> tried, not Tiltil, thatт€™s in Blue Beard...) that a man can  
> recognize a Lesbian, young and alone (because a tailored old pair  
> can fool no one), by a combination of three characteristics:  
> slightly trembling hands, a cold-in-the-head voice, and that  
> skidding-in-panic of the eyes if you happen to scan with obvious  
> appraisal such charms as the occasion might force her to show  
> (lovely shoulders, for instance)[1]. Nothing whatever of all that  
> т€œ(yes т€” MytilУЈne, petite isle, by Louis Pierre)т 
> € seemed to apply to Cordula, who wore a т€˜garbotoshт 
> €™ (belted mackintosh) over her terribly unsmart turtle and held  
> both hands deep in her pockets as she challenged his stare (164-165).
>
>
>
>
>
> It takes Van a moment to place the source of the presumed traits of  
> a lesbian т€“ т€œ(yes т€” MytilУЈne, petite isle, by  
> Louis Pierre)т€ [1]. MytilУЈne was the city on the small  
> island of Lesbos where Bilitis knew the poet Sappho. Pierre Louis  
> was the pseudonym of Pierre LouУПs. The name Bilitis is introduced  
> a few page later when it is mentioned en passant that Ada and  
> Lucetteт€™s governess Ida LariviУЈre т€œhad been  
> platonically and irrevocably in love ever since she had seen  
> [Marina] in т€˜Bilitisт€™т€ (194). Nor is this the  
> only lesbian allusion. Cordulaт€™s т€œgarbotoshт€ and  
> stance are those of Greta Garbo in a poster promoting her first  
> talking film-- Eugene Oт€™Neilт€™s Anna Christie.  Garbo  
> was widely rumored to be a lesbian.[2] Vanт€™s first (mis-) 
> recollection (т€œnot Tiltil, thatт€™s in Blue Beardт€  
> come from Maurice Maeterlinckт€™s play Lт€™oiseau bleu  
> (1909) in which the names of the woodcutterт€™s children,  
> Tyltyl and Mytyl, lead him to Sapphoт€™s  MytilУЈne.
>
>
>
> Cordula further fuels Vanт€™s suspicions (and continues the  
> French theme) with her comments that she and Ada are in the  
> Advanced French goup that share a dormitory.  In his next letter  
> Van asks  Ada whether Cordula is the lezbianochka  she had earlier  
> referred to. Van remains suspicious when Ada denies it. The theme  
> is reintensified during durig Van miserable rainy-day visit to  
> Adaт€™s school where their meeting is т€œchaperonedт€  
> by Cordula, again in her Garbo outfit. Van is tormented by his  
> imaginings of their ecstactic т€œtwinned т€Іentwinement,т 
> €І: Corada, Adulaт€ (168). He imagines taking revenge by  
> telling the pair of  the sexual antics of Cordulaт€™s cousin at  
> Riverlane, but contents himself with a literary discussion of  
> Proustт€™s characters, Marcel and Albertine, whose actions make  
> sense only if the reader knows the narrator is т€œa pansyт 
> € т€“ a fatal flaw since authorт€™s life should be  
> extraneous to his art. The lesbian theme is enacted   throughout  
> the novel by Ada and Lucette and echoed here and there in allusions  
> to Adaт€™s and Cordulaт€™s schoolmate, the tribadka  Vanda  
> (!) Broom. Cf. the French tribade defined by the four-volume 1957  
> Emile LittrУЉ  Dictionnaire as a т€œTerme quт€™on  
> УЉvite dт€™employer. Femme qui abuse de son sexe avec une  
> autre femmeт€ (584).
>
>
>
> The above, more or less explicit allusions to Pierre LouУПsт 
> €™ Chansons de Bilitis do not exhaust its presence in Ada,  
> although we now enter upon more slippery ground. Let us call this  
> new theme т€œThe Tree of Knowledge.т€
>
>
>
>
>
> For the big picnic on Adaт€™s twelfth birthday and Idaт€™s  
> forty-second jour de fУЊte, the child was permitted to wear her  
> lolita т€І, a rather long, but very airy and ample, black skirt  
> т€І. .
> She had stepped into it, naked, т€І and pulled it on with a  
> brisk jiggle of the hips which provoked her governessт€™s  
> familiar rebuke: mais ne te trУЉmousse pas comme УЇa quand tu  
> mets ta jupe! Une petite fille de bonne maison, etc. Per contra,  
> the omission of panties was ignored by Ida LariviУЈre, a bosomy  
> woman of great and repulsive beauty (in nothing but corset and  
> gartered stockings at the moment) who was not above making secret  
> concessions to the heat of the dog-days herself; but in tender  
> Adaт€™s case the practice had deprecable effects. The child  
> tried to assuage the rash in the soft arch, with all its  
> accompaniment of sticky, itchy, not altogether unpleasurable  
> sensations, by tightly straddling the cool limb of a Shattal apple  
> tree, much to Vanт€™s disgust as we shall see more than once.  
> т€І.Neither hygiene, nor sophistication of taste, were, as Van  
> kept observing, typical of the Ardis household (I-13 77-78).
>
>
>
> A few days later find the children climbing the shattal tree at the  
> bottom of the garden (I-15, pp. 94-95)
>
>
>
> Her bare foot slipped, and the two panting youngsters tangled  
> ignominiously among the branches, in a shower of drupes and leaves,  
> clutching at each other, and the next moment, as they regained a  
> semblance of balance, his expressionless face and cropped head were  
> between her legs and a last fruit fell with a thud т€” the  
> dropped dot of an inverted exclamation point. She was wearing his  
> wristwatch and a cotton frock.
>    (т€˜Remember?т€™
>    т€˜Yes, of course, I remember: you kissed me here, on the  
> inside т€”т€™
>     т€˜And you started to strangle me with those devilish knees  
> of yours т€”т€™
>     т€˜I was seeking some sort of support.т€™)
>     That might have been true, but according to a later  
> (considerably later!) version they were still in the tree, and  
> still glowing, when Van removed a silk thread of larva web from his  
> lip and remarked that such negligence of attire was a form of  
> hysteria.
>     т€˜Well,т€™ answered Ada, straddling her favorite  
> limb, т€˜as we all know byow, Mlle La RiviУЈre de Diamants has  
> nothing against a hysterical little girlт€™s not wearing  
> pantalets during lт€™ardeur de la canicule.т€™
>     т€˜I refuse to share the ardor of your little canicule with  
> an apple tree.т€™
>
>     т€˜It is really the Tree of Knowledge т€” this specimen  
> was imported last summer т€І from the Eden National Park т€І
>
>
>
> For a detailed exegesis, I refer the reader to Brian Boydт€™s  
> т€œAnnotations to Ada 15: Part I Chapter 15т€ in issue 44  
> of The Nabokovian (65ff). For our purposes, it suffices to remark  
> two things. The identification of the Edenic shattal as the т 
> €œTree of Knowledge,т€ i.e., carnal knowledge, and of Adaт 
> €™s slip (with its т€œlip-to-lipsт€  consequences) as  
> т€œThe Fall.т€ Pay particular note to the first excerpt in  
> which Ada arouses herself by rubbing her genitalia against the tree  
> branch.  Van is not yet on the scene.
>
>
>
> Nowт€”what might this have to do with  LouУПsт€™ Les  
> Chansons de Bilitis?  The image of a young girl masturbating again  
> a tree limb is not a frequent one in world literature but, as it  
> happens, it is precisely the scene that opens The Songs of Bilitis.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I
> L'ARBRE
>
>  Je me suis dУЉvУЊtue pour monter У  un arbre;
>  mes cuisses nues embrassaient l'УЉcorce lisse
>  et humide; mes sandales marchaient sur les
>  branches.
>
>  Tout en haut, mais encore sous les feuilles
>  et У  l'ombre de la chaleur, je me suis mise У
>  cheval sur une fourche УЉcartУЉe en balanУЇant
>  mes pieds dans le vide.
>
>  Il avait plu.  Des gouttes d'eau tombaient et
>  coulaient sur ma peau.  Mes mains УЉtaient
>  tachУЉes de mousse, et mes orteils УЉtaient
>  rouges, У  cause des fleurs УЉcrasУЉes.
>
>  Je sentais le bel arbre vivre quand le vent
>  passait au travers; alors je serrais mes
>  jambes davantage et j'appliquais mes lУЈvres
>  ouvertes sur la nuque chevelue d'un rameau.
>
>
> THE TREE
>
> I undressed to climb a tree; my naked thighs embraced the smooth  
> and humid bark; my sandals climbed upon the branches.
> High up, but still beneath the leaves and shaded from the heat, I  
> straddled a wide-spread fork and swung my feet into the void.
> It had rained. Drops of water fell and flowed upon my skin. My  
> hands were soiled with moss and my heels were reddened by the  
> crushed blossoms.
> I felt the lovely tree living when the wind passed through it; so I  
> locked my legs tighter, and crushed my open lips to the hairy nape  
> of a bough.
>
>
>
> Lest the reader think I have an overactive imagination, please note  
> that the next chapter but one (in which they first kiss) opens with  
> a double entendre:
>
>
>
>
> The hugest dictionary in the library said under Lip: т€˜Either  
> of a pair of fleshy folds surrounding an orifice.т€™
> Mileyshiy Emile, as Ada called Monsieur LittrУЉ, spoke thus: т 
> €˜Partie extУЉrieure et charnue qui forme le contour de la  
> bouche... Les deux bords dт€™une plaie simpleт€™ (we  
> simply speak with our wounds; wounds procreate) т€˜...Cт 
> €™est le membre qui lУЈche.т€™ Dearest Emile!
>
> Nabokovт€™s choice from т€œthe hugest dictionary,т€  
> (Merriam-Webster II) is in fact the fifth among the definitions.  
> The first locates т€œlipsт€  at the opening of the mouth.  
> English т€œlipsт€ and the French т€œlУЈvresт€  
> refer to both the upper and lower orifices and presumably are  
> cognate with the Latin labium, pl. labia.  Also perhaps of note is  
> that Adaт€™s shattal tree is from Edenic Asia Minor as is  
> Bilitis herself. Their positions astraddle the branch leave no  
> doubt about which lips are intended. They are, by the way, about  
> the same age.
>
>
>
> Ada is not the first Nabokov work to cite Les Chansons de Bilitis.  
> The protagonist of Podvig (Glory) Nabokovт€™s fourth novel  
> (1932) flees revolutionary Russia aboard a freighter. Seventeen- 
> year-old Martin is seduced by a flamboyant Petersburg society  
> poetess.  After their arrival in Athens, Alla presents him with  
> Pierre LouУПsт€™ Chansons de Bilitis т€œin the cheap  
> edition illustrated with the naked forms of adolescents, from which  
> she would read to him, meaningfully pronouncing the French, in the  
> early evening on the Acropolis, the most appropriate place, one  
> might sayт€ (30).  (ааЛаЛаА т€І аПаО аПб 
> €ieаЗаДe аВбŠ аб„аИаНб‹, аПаОаДаАб 
> €аИаЛаА аЕаМбƒ "аŸeбаНаИ а‘аИаЛаИб 
> ‚аИббŠ", аДаЕбˆаЕаВаОаЕ  
> аИаЗаДаАаНiаЕ, аИаЛаЛбŽбб‚б€аИб 
> €аОаВаАаНаНаОаЕ б„аИаГбƒб€аАаМаИ  
> аГаОаЛб‹б…бŠ аПаОаДб€аОбб 
> ‚аКаОаВбŠ, [38] аИ б‡аИб‚аАаЛаА  
> аЕаМбƒ аВбаЛбƒб…бŠ, аВб‹б 
> €аАаЗаИб‚аЕаЛбŒаНаО аПб 
> €аОаИаЗаНаОбб б„б 
> €аАаНб†бƒаЗбаКiб баЛаОаВаА,  
> аПаОаДаВаЕб‡аЕб€бŠ, аНаА ааКб 
> €аОаПаОаЛe, аНаА баАаМаОаМбŠ, б 
> ‚аАаКбŠ баКаАаЗаАб‚бŒ, аПаОаДб… 
> аОаДбб‰аЕаМбŠ аМeбб‚e). The low opinion of  
> the thirty-year-old Nabokov of Les Chansons de Bilitis is evident.  
> But perhaps it had once been otherwise.
>
>
>
> One of Adaт€™s themes is the Ardis library from which Van  
> filches erotic reading material for himself and Ada, whose access  
> is strictly regulated. Nabokov has remarked that between the ages  
> of ten and fifteen in St. Petersbburg he probably read  more   
> fiction and poetryт€”English, Russian, and French -- than in  
> any other five-year period in my lifeт€ (SO-42). The Nabokov  
> family library has long since been dispersed but its printed  
> catalogue survives: Sistematicheskii katalog Biblioteki Vladimira  
> Dmitrievicha Nabokova. (S-Peterburg: Tovarishchestvo  
> Xudozhestvennoi Pechati, 1904). Item numbers 372 & 373 are т 
> €œLouys,  P.  Aphrodite. Paris, 1901т€ and т€œLouys, P.  
> Les Chansons de Bilitis, Paris MDCCCXCVIIIт€ (1898).
>
>
>
> * Be it noted that Vanт€™s three infallible characteristics for  
> recognizing lesbians are to be found in LouУПsт€™ novella  
> where short hair and skimpy bosoms are the typifying traits.
>
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson, Editor NABOKV-L
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> [1]  Be it noted that Les Chansons do not, in fact, remark these  
> features.
>
> [2] For details, see my NABOKV-L note т€œAda & Garboт€ of  
> August 30, 2003.
>
> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
>
> Contact the Editors
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read  
> by both co-editors.
>
> Visit Zembla
>
> View Nabokv-L Policies
>
> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
>
> Contact the Editors
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read  
> by both co-editors.
>
> Visit Zembla
>
> View Nabokv-L Policies
>
> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
>
> Contact the Editors
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read  
> by both co-editors.
>
> Visit Zembla
>
> View Nabokv-L Policies
>
>
>
>
> 4
>
>
>
> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
>
> Contact the Editors
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read  
> by both co-editors.
>
> Visit Zembla
>
> View Nabokv-L Policies
>
> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
>
> Contact the Editors
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read  
> by both co-editors.
>
> Visit Zembla
>
> View Nabokv-L Policies
>
> Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
>
> Contact the Editors
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read  
> by both co-editors.
>
> Visit Zembla
>
> View Nabokv-L Policies
>
> <Header>

Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:[email-masked],[email-masked]
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Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:[email-masked],[email-masked]
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm