NPPF Comm2: Ginkgo

[Don Corathers]

Line 49: shagbark (p 93)

Still maintaining, in these early notes, at least perfunctory attention to
his editorial responsibility to the poet and his work, Kinbote correctly
defines shagbark as a kind of hickory. He then deftly finds a way to fit
Shade into his personal narrative by mentioning a poem that Queen Disa had
sent him.

Jacaranda: pinnate-leaved tropical tree. Perhaps Disa became acquainted with
these trees in the South of France, because it's unlikely she saw any
growing in the Zemblan climate.

Maidenhair: another name for ginkgo.

Hebe's Cup. Hebe (pronounced HEE-be) was the Greek goddess of youth,
daughter of Zeus and Hera, wife of Herakles, cupbearer to the gods.

"The Sacred Tree." Title might be a reference to T.S. Eliot's 1920 book of
essays on criticism, *The Sacred Wood*. Ginkgo biloba, native to China and
Japan and believed to be the oldest surviving seed-bearing plant, is
commonly planted around temples and other religious buildings. The
twin-lobed leaf does in fact resemble a butterfly. In this instance the
butterfly is "ill-spread" presumably because the leaf has begun to dry and
curl. But why is it an "old-fashioned" butterfly?

It might be taken as coincidence, or it might be a matter of interest to the
Shadeans among us, that Kinbote, apparently only concerned with showing us
another example of Shade's poetic facility with trees, has chosen to quote a
work that includes an image that Shade uses frequently in "Pale Fire."

Muscat: any of several cultivated grapes used in making wine-that would be
muscatel-and raisins. (Merriam Webster 10th-don't have easy access to an
OED). Kinbote characteristically ignores Shade's evocation of the color of
the grape and instead sees in the word an image of pursuit.

On the other hand, and it seems like there's always another hand in this
novel, muscat is etymologically related to musk, which my MW10 traces to the
Sanskrit words for mouse (as Kinbote's note suggests) and for testicle (as
it does not).

Kinbote, incidentally, describes a stand of ginkgoes at the end of
Shakespeare Avenue in New Wye. We've been told elsewhere that Shakespeare
Avenue is lined with specimens of every tree mentioned in the canon. Since
the ginkgo wasn't named by Europeans until 1711, and thus was apparently
unknown to Westerners until that time, it seems unlikely that Shakespeare
knew or wrote about the tree. (A concordance search turns up nada for either
ginkgo or maidenhair.) Goethe, however, did:

Ginkgo Biloba
(Translation unattributed)

The leaf of this Eastern tree
Which has been entrusted to my garden
Offers a feast of secret significance,
For the edification of the initiate.

Is it one living thing
That has become divided within itself?
Are these two who have chosen each other,
So that we know them as one?

I think I have found the right answer
To these questions;
Do my songs not make you feel
That I am both one and twain?


In the original German:

Dieses Baums Blatt, der von Osten
Meinem Garten anvertraut,
Gibt geheimen Sinn zu kosten,
Wie's den Wissenden erbaut.

Ist es ein lebendig Wesen,
Das sich in sich selbst getrennt?
Sind es zwei, die sich erlesen,
Daß man sie als eines kennt?

Solche Fragen zu erwidern
Fand ich wohl den rechten Sinn:
Fühlst Du nicht an meinen Liedern,
Daß ich eins und doppelt bin?

D.C.