NPPF - Preliminary - Title

[Kevin Troy]

On Mon, 7 Jul 2003, Jasper Fidget wrote:
> As the text suggests (repeatedly), the title _Pale Fire_ may come from
> Shakespeare's _Timon of Athens_  4:3, line 423:
> [snip]

Later on, Paul said of Prof. Botkin:
> ...I do honestly believe that the first and
> immediate association many readers of Pale Fire will have is
>
> When he himself might his quietus make/ With a bare bodkin . .
>
> Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1
>
> [snip]
>
> Incidentally there's another place in Shakespeare where the words 'pale'
> and 'fire' occur in the same line. (I read somewhere)

The other place is _Hamlet_, I, v, end of the ghost's speech (l. 89-91):

	The glow-worm shows the matin to be near
	And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
	Adieu, adieu, adieu.  Remember me.

Notably, "pale" is a transitive verb here, not an adjective as in Timon's
harrangue or in Kinbote's usage in the Foreward.

In 1930, Nabokov tranlated several passages from Hamlet and published them
in a Russian emigre paper in Berlin.  They include the ghost's speech and
Hamlet's III, i soliloquoy.  Based on this, Kinbote's Index's gloss of
"Botkin" as a "Danish stilletto," and other evidence, Priscilla Meyer
claims in _Find What the Sailor Has Hidden_ (Wesleyan U. Press, 1988) that
"Shade's 'Pale Fire' may come from _Timon_, but Nabokov's _Pale Fire_
comes from _Hamlet_" (page 113).  Chris Ackerly, writing in _Nabokov
Studies_ ("Pale Fire:  Three Notes Toward a Thetic Solution," Nab. Studies
vol.  2, 1995), explores this further, noting Shade's conspicuous (in this
light, at least) _lack_ of allusion to _Hamlet_ in "Pale Fire" the poem.

I will post more about this when we get to the Commentary -- hard to say
when it's appropriate to post things for this GR, because we are dealing
with a hypertext novel here.

Cheers,
Kevin T.