ln 1: "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain"
There are three members in the Waxwing family: Bombycilla cedrorum (Cedar Waxwing or Cedar Bird), Bombycilla garrulous (Bohemian Waxwing), and Bombycilla japonica (Japanese Waxwing).

Some ancient Europeans believed the red spots in the Bohemian waxwing's feathers to be sparks of fire, and considered the bird a bringer of fire. Many European regions considered the bird a harbinger of war, death, disaster, or pestilence. (So "Pale Fire" then begins with a messenger bird.)

There's nothing about the bird itself that should have inspired such a bad rep (just the opposite really). Perhaps the idea of messenger or harbinger came about because the waxwing has an unpredictable migration; it's a roving gypsy bird driven in flocks mainly in a search for food. In German folklore, it's said that seven years must pass before their return (as with locust).

They feed mainly upon berries, notably the juniper (a shrub that has some significance in Pale Fire) in the winter, when lack of food drives them into northern US states, and also upon insects, worms, and flowers. They have an unusual propensity for sharing food; ornithologist Thomas Nuttall recorded observing cedar waxwings passing a berry or a worm from beak to beak along a line of them and then back again. Sharing food also takes place in a mating ritual where the male will offer the female a berry or an insect, the female will take it, hop away, hop back, and return the food, repeating several times until the female finally eats it (then they get busy). They are voracious eaters, and sometimes consume such quantities of overripe fruit that they become intoxicated; John Audubon noted that he would sometimes find them too drunk to fly, and could pick them up and move them in front of his canvas.

They are quiet and gentle birds who nest in pairs and lay white eggs with black spots. The black coloring around their eyes looks like a mask (like a raccoon's, a mask a bandit might wear), and there is a Native American legend concerning how they acquired this mask (for which I can find no internet link at the moment).

Other names for the cedar waxwing include cherry-bird, Canada Robin, and Recollet (to French Canadians due to the resemblance of the color of their crest to the Recollet religious order).

on waxwings
more on waxwings
and more

ln 27-28: "Was he in _Sherlock Holmes_, the fellow whose / Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?"

A manifestation of an important theme in PF, the commingling of art and life, specifically the intrusion of one into the other. Here a character from literature leaves a trail across Shade's image; the footprints left by a pheasant are elevated into art: "Torquated beauty, sublimated grouse" (ln 25), and preserved in literature.

There is no "Case of the Reversed Footprints" from Arthur Conan Doyle, but in The Final Problem (1893), intended to be the last Holmes story, Watson discovers evidence at the top of Reichenbach Falls indicating that Holmes and Moriarty had struggled there and fallen over the edge together, presumably to die at the bottom. In describing the scene where the struggle took place, Watson writes:

"The blackish soil is kept forever soft by the incessant drift of spray, and a bird would leave its tread upon it. Two lines of footmarks were clearly marked along the farther end of the path, both leading away from me. There were none returning." (Doyle, "The Final Problem")

Note the contrast between Shade's white snow and Doyle's blackish soil; note also of course the bird's tread across it.

In 1903 Doyle decided to resurrect Holmes for a new series of stories, the first of which appeared in Collier's as The Adventure of the Empty House. In order to explain his return, Sherlock says to Watson, "Well, then, about that chasm. I had no serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason that I never was in it." He goes on to explain:

"I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety. I read an inexorable purpose in his gray eyes. I exchanged some remarks with him, therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the short note which you afterwards received. I left it with my cigarette-box and my stick, and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels. When I reached the end I stood at bay. He drew no weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me. He knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds, and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went. With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way. Then he struck a rock, bounded off, and splashed into the water."

Watson is incredulous, and says, "But the tracks! [...] I saw, with my own eyes, that two went down the path and none returned." Holmes then describes how it had occurred to him that it would be useful to fake his death and plot to destroy his enemies in secret. In order to leave the scene and create that illusion, he says:

"The cliff is so high that to climb it all was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to make my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks. I might, it is true, have reversed my boots, as I have done on similar occasions, but the sight of three sets of tracks in one direction would certainly have suggested a deception. On the whole, then, it was best that I should risk the climb. It was not a pleasant business, Watson." (Doyle, "The Adventure of the Empty House")

Obviously much of this serves the Shadean internal author theory.... Note also the "inexorable purpose in [Moriarty's] gray eyes." See line 29: "All colors made me happy: even gray." Gray is the color associated with Gradus.

ln 39-40: see pg 79 for Kinbote's variant.

ln 48: "Goldsworth and Wordsmith on its square of green."

Goldsworth: the value of gold, see "Golconda" page 17; Judge Goldsworth, whose home Kinbote rents and who Jack Grey intends to shoot.

Goldsmith: "a worker in gold, a manufacturer of gold articles, (formerly acting also as a banker)" (OED 5th Ed.); Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), Irish writer of novels, poetry, plays, and essays.

Goldwin Smith Hall: where VN had his office at Cornell, a university known for its Wordsworth collection.

Wordsmith: a skilled user or maker of words (OED 5th Ed.), from "smith", A person who works in iron or other metals; esp. a blacksmith. Also, a skilled worker in other arts or crafts. Freq. as 2nd elem. of comb. blacksmith, goldsmith, locksmith, silversmith, wordsmith, etc. (OED 5th Ed.)

Wordsworth: William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English Romantic poet whose work was inspired by the Lake District where he spent most of his life.

square of green: chess; and green is Gerald Emerald's color (just saying is all).

ln 55-56: "White butterflies turn lavender as they / Pass through its shade": The inverse of Kinbote's "black butterflies" (pg 15).

ln 62: "Of the stiff vane so often visited": see Nabokov's "The Vane Sisters". From Boyd: "the ghosts of two dead women waylay the narrator's attention through tricks of light and shade, and without his realizing, guide his actions and words, even as he expresses explicitly the hopelessness of his attempt to discern some glimpse of the sisters beyond death." (Boyd, The Magic of Artistic Discovery, 138)

ln 70: see pg 99 for Kinbote's "in the draft" addendum.

ln 79: see pg 107 for Kinbote's variant.

ln 98: "On Chapman's Homer, thumbtacked to the door.":
George Chapman translated The Odyssey (1614-16); John Keats wrote On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer (1816); Ben Chapman played for the Red Sox (1937-1938), and hit a total of 13 home runs.

ln: 99-100: "My God died young. Theolatry I found / Degrading, and its premises, unsound.": Nietzsche?

ln 102: "How fully I felt nature glued to me":
echoes from Tintern Abbey (I think so anyway). Note the sweep of literary history here: Homer -> Keats -> Worsworth -> Shade. Also c.f. Keith's Shocking Theory.

ln 108: "Twinned Iris":
(OED) "A rainbow, esp. (freq. Iris) personified; a many-coloured refraction of light from drops of water; a rainbow-like or iridescent appearance; a coloured halo; a combination of brilliant colours."

(OED) "Photography & Cinematography. In full iris diaphragm. An adjustable diaphragm of thin overlapping plates for regulating the size of a control hole, esp. for admitting light to a lens or lens system." (i.e. another spiral....)

Iris, goddess of the rainbow and messenger of Olympus; see Note to 130 for Iris Acht and a slew of twinning.

ln 1, ln 131:
I think VN had a lot of fun with the numbers of the poem, since he could count on them being the same in any edition (unlike page numbers). Many numbers in the Commentary are linked to line numbers in more ways than as cross-references.

From hacking with the numbers in Note to Line 130, I find something possibly interesting on ln 131 (the reprise "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain"). In K's Commentary, the numbers 1888 and 1881 become visually important: 1888 as an infinite series beyond a fixed point (wall infinity infinity infinity), i.e. the future; and 1881 as infinity between two fixed barriers (wall infinity infinity wall), i.e. life. But then the number 3 also takes on some more significance as 1/2 infinity -- 3 as visually half of 8. So the number 131, as in line 131, becomes 1/2 infinity between two fixed points (wall 1/2infinity wall).

Maybe it's worth remembering that the window is attached to a house. There is a good deal of personal involvement with this house for Shade: he has lived his entire life there, grew up in it, brought his new wife to it, his newborn baby, wrote poetry upstairs, and while sitting there learned that his daughter was gone. It is in a way a container for his life -- the external equivalent of himself -- and a record of that life (in slight parallel to the poem). The window offers a view into his house -- his memory -- and through the window his house projects the objects of his life to the world outside (as the poet offers up his memories through verse). Inside and outside of the house are joined by the transparent mirror window, the surface of mortality and his memory reflecting an illusory continuance of life beyond death, a false symbol as later with the fountain / mountain.

Isn't PF in some ways about the ultimate failure of symbols, and the greater promise of patterns for pointing beyond nature and the self? If the transparent mirror window is intended for use as a symbol that the poet can use in order to transcend space, time, mortality, etc, it's only half capable of the task, an illusion, a failure. The mirror is a vicious circle where Shade can only ultimately see himself and never beyond it -- it's a cage linked to memory. So 1/2 infinity = the illusion of infinity from the perspective of a being trapped in life.