NPPF: Commentary 5 (notes) Lines 433-434

[jbor]

on 25/10/03 8:20 AM, Jasper Fidget wrote:

> Phrynia and Timandra, Mistresses to Alcibiades.  Timon calls them harlots,
> whores, and sluts, and they agree that they'll "do anything for gold"
> (IV:iii).  I think the reference is both sexual and scholarly for Kinbote,
> as he's mixed (or confused) the two elsewhere.  I doubt they stand in for
> two real women in Charles' life though.

I agree. In the dream Phrynia is "prickly-chinned" and Timandra has a "boom
under her apron", somewhat pointedly (sorry) confirming their transvestism.
It's as though they're male actors playing female roles, as per the
conventions of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre.

But there's something quite exaggerated in Kinbote's elaborate protestations
of his "dream-love" for Disa. It's almost as if he's trying to compete with
Shade's mawkish tribute to Sybil (lines 247-292). It reminds me a little of
that battle of hyperboles enacted between Hamlet and Laertes beside and in
Ophelia's grave.

best

ps. Apologies to Jasper for requoting the Housman poem. I hadn't yet looked
at his supplementary notes to bekah's excellent summaries and comments.