CK: unnumbered years ago, say 3 to 4, I suggested to this List a possible nod by VN to Browning’s How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. Long before I had encountered Pale Fire, I had suggested in UNIX Review the obvious mathematical version: How they brought the Good News from X to Y.
See http://www.bartleby.com/246/644.html
I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I gallop’d, Dirck gallop’d, we gallop’d all three;
“Good speed !” cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
“Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 5
And into the midnight we gallop’d abreast.
It rattles on breathlessly like this for 9 more stanzas with the same, relentlessly-rhyming tetrametric iambic sextets! Familiar?
Only in prosodic structure, of course, but lacking Shadean subtleties. Browning’s ride, though, has a puzzle beyond PF’s Cantos. We never get to know what the Good News was that saved Aix, or why the mad rush so costly in man- and horse-power?
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 24/02/2010 18:38, "Carolyn Kunin" <chaiselongue@EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
On Feb 24, 2010, at 7:13 AM, Matthew Roth wrote:
My favorite: how "Retake, retake" (487) turns round to become "skaters" in line 489. Almost as if JS is trying to rewind the scene.
Dear Matt,
V.N./envy and numbed/Edmund are good mirrorisms in the letter poem, but PF's retake, retake and skaters is very interesting indeed. The context is the concluding stanzas of Canto II:
"Midnight," you said. What's midnight to the young?
And suddenly a festive blaze was flung
Across five cedars, snow patches showed,
And a patrol car on our bumpy road
Came to a crunching stop. Retake, retake!
[cf "retake the falling snow" which opens the second stanza of Canto I]
People have thought she tried to cross the lake
At Lochan Neck where zesty skaters crossed
From Exe to Wye on days of special frost.
The crossing of the zesty skaters, "from [x] to [y]," suggests something I admit I can't put my finger on. Crossing is a kind of reversal, of course. Should we reverse y and x? Could zesty skaters be an anagram in Russian (Alexey)?
and what are days of special frost?* The crunching stop - - could this refer to Kinbote's first near-collision with Shade and Sybil in car? Have we discussed "Lochan Neck"? What does it mean to "cross Lochan Neck"? The crossed/frost rhyme is wonderful and may have some significance of which we are currently ignorant.
"Reverse the falling snow" seems initially to mean reverse time (to undo Hazel's death presumably), but could there be another meaning? And why five cedars (another fire anagram)? Fire and frost? Does snow = nows? Les neiges d'antan?
Very interesting - - and intriguing.
NY Lora C
* "sPEcIAL FRost" does contain "pale fir[e]" but not sure if that's the intention. Is a cedar a fir?