-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [NABOKV-L] L'Envoi
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 17:20:24 -0400
From: Fet, Victor <fet@marshall.edu>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
References: <000801c6d4e1$f5ff09a0$6501a8c0@jansy01>

Whether related or not, but much closer than troubadoure's times, the term "L'envoi" ("posylka" in Russian translation) is very famously featured as Rostand's (1897; I: 4) Cyrano de Bergerac fights while composing a ballad:

"Cyrano (récitant comme une leçon). La ballade, donc, se compose de trois 
Couplets de huit vers...

Le vicomte (piétinant). Oh!

Cyrano (continuant). Et d'un envoi de quatre."

Cyrano's  "At the envoi's end, I touch!" ("À la fin de l'envoi, je touche") is well known to theatre-going Russians in classical translation of Schepkina-Kupernik ("I ya popal v konce posylki!").  

It somehow reminds me of Nabokov's "The rhyme is the line's birthday, as you know" ("An Evening of Russian Poetry").

Furthering analogies with sad deaths of Lensky, Pushkin, Lermontov, etc. we Russians always cheer for Cyrano, a rare poet who could defend himself.

Victor Fet





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