This Tuesday in class, Dr. Sexson put the following words (transcribed by Hazel from a supposed ghost) on the board:
pada ata lane pad not ogo old wart alan ther tale feur far rant lant tal told
He asked us to decipher the message, if indeed there was a message before class today. Throughout the period, I continued to stare at the words, trying in vain to divine some pattern. I was, as Kinbote, mystified as to the meaning. Of course, like him, I could make out the words "war" "talant" "her" and "arrant" (the last of which could refer to one line from Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, "The moon's an arrant thief"). We all know this play, Timon of Athens, recurs quite frequently both in Zembla and in the exiled Charles "Kinbote"s new homeland. Could there possibly be a hint here to the thievery inherent in Kinbote's actions? After all, he is now in hiding after having stolen Shade's final masterpiece. The circumstances of John's death alone seem open to question and interpretation.
After following these and similar threads for some time, I hit a wall. Finally, I resorted to googling the words, in effect, I begged to be told how the trick worked. I found it confirmed an offhand notation I had written in my book.
This site highlights the pattern, just as in my book I had found the first part of it by circling, in a row:
pada ata lane
As the site shows, this is but the beginning of the pattern:
pada ata lane pad not ogo old wart alan ther tale feur far rant lant tal told
Atalanta....over and over. The name alone refers to the Atalanta of Greek myth and Ovid's Metamorphoses. Atalanta also, as I found in this article on Brian Boyd's interpretation of Pale Fire, refers to the Atalanta butterfly, this Red Admirable as it is often called, who hovers before John Shade and Kinbote, just before Shade's imminent death. The reference, so early in the notes in connection to Hazel, leads one to believe that this is the foreshadowing of her death, her immortality the soul (psyche) of the butterfly.
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