NPPF: Some Notes for p. 171-174

[Jasper Fidget]

Trying to catch up after a brief flirtation with a different obsession....

p. 171
"Irondell"

Hirondelle is French for swallow (another bird that is, from the family
Hirundinidae).  The name "swallow" comes (by way of the Old Saxon swala)
from the Old Norse "svale," which sort of means "cheer up," and which a bird
of this sort (according to Danish folklore) cried to Christ while on the
cross.  The swallow is the harbinger of summer, and (according to English
folklore) said to be good luck if it flies into your home.  Another common
superstition held by farmers is that disturbing a swallow's nest will result
in a poor harvest (Kinbote should have heeded that one).

The proximity to the King Alfred reference suggests another of the King's
translations: in Bede's _Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation_, one
of King Eadwine's counselors, in reference to the old religion, describes
life as a swallow (or sparrow depending on translation) that flies into a
house from a winter's storm through one door and then back out through
another, living only for the "twinkling of an eye and a moment of time" and
unaware of "what goes before or what comes after."

http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/Bede_Miller.pdf
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book2.html

In that same work, the word Swallow turns up in reference to the river where
the bishop Paulinus baptized the people of the Deira province.


p. 171
"Canadian stock"

The Canadian Zone of Appalachia (see p. 169).


p. 171-172

"she used to call me 'an elephantine tick; a king-sized botfly; a macaco
worm; the monstrous parasite of a genius'."

King-sized botfly linking Kinbote to Botkin, as well as a tick and a
parasite.  The macaco worm is the parasitic larva of the South American
botfly.  The Index has under Botkin: "king-bot, maggot of extinct fly that
once bred in mammoths and is thought to have hastened their phylogenetic
end."


p. 172
"/Van/homrigh, /Es/ther"

Esther Vanhomrigh (1690-1723), who was infatuated with Swift, but who
rejected her.  She was said to have died of a broken heart.  Swift called
her Vanessa; and the quote on p. 172 is from Swift's "Cadenus and Vanessa"
(1713), in which he describes his feelings for her (excerpted):

The goddess thus pronounced her doom,
When, lo, Vanessa in her bloom,
Advanced like Atalanta's star,
But rarely seen, and seen from far:
In a new world with caution stepped,
Watched all the company she kept,
Well knowing from the books she read
What dangerous paths young virgins tread;

http://www.hertford.ox.ac.uk/alumni/swift.htm
http://www.literatureclassics.com/etexts/476/6746/

See also "Vanessa Van Ness," the "fat, powdered" mother of Annabel Leigh in
_Lolita_.


p. 172
"[A] recognizable figure of [The Red Admiral] is borne in the escutcheon of
The Dukes of Payn"

Charles' wife Disa is the Duchess of Payn (see p. 173).  Thus a link between
Disa and Esther Vanhomrigh, casting Charles as Jonathan Swift (I can hear
him rolling in his grave), reinforced on p. 173: "I notice a whiff of Swift
in some of my notes."


p. 172
"Michaelmas Daisies"

/Aster novi-belgii/, introduced to Britain from North America in the early
1700's.  "They continue blooming until autumn and provide late-flying
butterflies such as peacocks and small tortoiseshells with a good source of
nectar." 

Sept. 29th is "St. Michaelmas Day."  This saint was the "warrior saint of
all angels."

http://www.uksafari.com/michaelmas.htm


p. 173
"/fou rire/"

Impish (or insane) laughter.


p. 173
"rough alderkings who burned for boys"

Add to the set of alder references (p. 116, etc).  Alderking = Erlkönig; I
suppose "burn[ing] for boys" is one way of reading Goethe's poem....


p. 173
"wanted him to do what an earlier and even more reluctant Charles had done:
take a night off and lawfully engender an heir"

Charles II of England never managed to produce a "lawful" heir, causing a
multitude of problems toward the end of the 17th century.


p. 173
"He saw nineteen-year-old Disa for the first time [...] at a masked ball"

Romeo and Juliet.


p. 173
"She had come in male dress, as a Tirolese boy"

Explaining why Charles was interested in the first place.  The Zemblan
gender swapping persists with "two guardsmen disguised as flowergirls" in
the same paragraph.

p. 173
"fackeltanz"

German: "torch dance"

Note the proximity of "fireworks" and "pale upturned faces"


p. 173-174
"He procrastinated for almost two years but [...] finally gave in [to
marriage]."

I find it interesting that there is no mention of any courtship, much like
in the biographies of kings where they are suddenly wed to some princess of
another nation.  But see p. 174 where Kinbote refers to Shade's
"embarrassing intimacies."


p. 174
"smug alderkings"

Add *another* alder reference.  In connection with the previous one, it
seems the alderkings are Charles' buddies, with whom he "burns for boys"
(perhaps the Zemblan equivalent of "chasing skirts"?).


p. 174
"I like my name: Shade, /Ombre/, almost "man" / In Spanish . . ."

Another _Lolita_ reference: Ombre = HH.  (I may have posted this before.)
Shade in Latin is "umbra", close to "Humbert", as is "hombre", Spanish for
man.  

"Ombre" is also a 17th century card game.


Jasper Fidget