Sartor Resartus (Oxford World's Classics) (43 page)

Wandering Jew
: legendary figure; having refused Christ permission to rest at his house while carrying the Cross, he was condemned to wander until Judgement Day.

Allgemeine Zeitung
: ‘Universal Gazette.’

Wahngasse
: ‘Fantasy-lane.’

Orte … Airts
: points of the compass.

speculum or watch-tower
: presumably an error.
Speculum
is Latin for mirror;
specula
for watch-tower.

Schlosskirche
: ‘Castle church.’

Ach, mein Lieber
: ‘Ah, my dear sir.’

Boötes … Hunting Dogs
: northern constellations;
Boötes
: a man with a crook.

coverlid
: ‘coverlet’ in later editions.

Rouge-et-Noir
: a card game played at a table with red and black compartments.

Rabenstein
: raven’s stone; the gallows.

mein Werther
: literary for ‘my good friend’; after Goethe’s
The Sorrows of Young Werther
(1774).

Blücher Boots
: half-boots named after the Prussian general Gebhard von Blücher.

Erdbebungen
: literally ‘earth-vibrations’; changed to the standard ‘
Erdbeben
’ in later editions.

Das glaub’ ich
: ‘I believe that.’

Pedro Garcia’s … Bag of Doubloons
: in an anecdote told in the preface to Lesage’s
Gil Blas
(1715–35), two students chance upon a stone bearing the inscription ‘Here lies interred the soul of…
Pedro Garcia’. One of them laughs at what he takes to be a joke. The other digs beneath the stone and finds a bag containing a hundred pieces of gold and a card appointing the finder the heir of Pedro Garcia. Lesage advises the reader to keep this story in mind in reading the adventures of Gil Blas and not to miss the moral concealed beneath the surface of the narrative.

Baptist … wild honey
: John the Baptist; Matthew 3: 4.

remote echo
: ‘echo’ in later editions.

Chancery suitors
: those petitioning the court of the Lord Chancellor, until 1873 the second highest court in England.

Seven Sleepers
: seven Christian youths of Ephesus who were said to have slept in a cave for nearly two hundred years, thus escaping the persecutions of the third and fourth centuries.

Esprit des Lois … Esprit de Coutumes … Esprit de Costumes
: ‘Spirit of the Laws … Spirit of Customs … Spirit of Costumes.’

Cause-and-effect Philosophy
: allusion to British empirical thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Adam-Kadmon
: ‘the first man’, a cabbalistic term.

Nifl and Muspel … of the antique North
: i.e. of Scandinavian mythology.

Orbis Pictus
: ‘The World in Pictures’, an illustrated school-book by Amos Comenius, was published in Nuremberg in 1658;
Orbis Vestitus
: ‘The World in Clothes’.

King Nibelung
: hero of a German epic of the Middle Ages; twelve days should be four.

chlamides … philibegs … Gallia Braccata … fardingales
: short cloaks worn by Greek soldiers; kilts; Gauls wearing breeches; farthingales (hooped petticoats).

Liverpool Steam-carriages
: the second English railway, between Liverpool and Manchester, had been opened in 1830.

Teusinke
: a bell-shaped girdle.

Faust’s Mantle
: in Goethe’s
Faust
, part I (1808), Faust is carried through the air on a mantle provided by Mephistopheles (scene iv).

the Apostle’s Dream
: Acts 10: 9–18.

too, must we
: ‘also, we have to’ in later editions.

Fortunate Islands
: in Greek mythology, islands to which heroes passed without suffering death.

Cogito ergo sum
: ‘I think, therefore I am’; the famous phrase of René Descartes, in his
Discours de la méthode
(1637).

Moscow Retreats
: Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow in 1812.

the Sphinx’s secret
: the Sphinx, a fabulous monster, put to death all who could not answer her riddle: ‘what animal walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?’ When Oedipus gave the correct answer—man—the Sphinx killed herself.

the Living
: ‘Living’ in later editions.

In Being’s floods … seest Him by
: Goethe’s
Faust
, 1. i. 501–9.

a forked straddling animal with bandy legs
:
The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus
(1741), ch. 11; by Swift and his fellow Scriblerians.

a Buck, or Blood, or Macaroni, or Incroyable, or Dandy
: as used here, more or less synonymous terms for modish young men.

Haupt- und Staats-Action … Pickleherring-Farce
: stock German tragedy and comedy of the seventeenth century.

the tables … are dissolved
: Horace,
Satires
, 11. i. 86.

infandum! infandum!
: ‘unspeakable, unspeakable.’

Bed of Justice
: the
Lit de Justice
was the throne upon which the King of France sat when he attended Parliament, at which time he would compel the registration of his edicts.

benefit of clergy
: the right of the clergy to be tried by an ecclesiastical court; later extended to anyone who could read.

Yorick Sterne’s words
: words in Laurence Sterne’s
Tristram Shandy
(1760–7), v. vii.

Descendentalism
: a coinage, to express the antithesis of Transcendentalism.

Shekinah
: Talmudic name for the symbol of the divine presence.

Charlemagne-Mantle
: the magnificent robe of the Emperor Charlemagne (c.742–814), said to be preserved at St Peter’s, Rome.

the wisest of this age
: Goethe; the quotation is from
Wilhelm Meister’s Travels
, ch. x.

in partibus infidelium
: ‘in the country of the unbelievers.’

the Arabian Tale
: ‘The Greek King and Douban the Physician’, in the
Arabian Nights
.

the Mechanics’ Institute
: college for working-men, founded in Glasgow (1823) and in London (1824).

Old-Roman geese
: the alarm given by disturbed geese is said to have saved the Capitol from capture when attacked by the Gauls in 390
BC.

Armer Teufel
: ‘Poor devil’.

Hebrew Psalmist … God is there
: Psalms 139: 9–10.

too
: ‘thyself in later editions.

Attention a Stretching-to
: the literal meaning of the Latin verb
attendere
is ‘to stretch [the neck] towards’.

Goethe … remarked
: in
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
(1795-6), 11. iv.

Old-Clothes Jewry
: humorous allusion to the Old Jewry, a street in London, formerly a ghetto.

sympathetic-ink
: invisible ink, made visible by heating.

verehrtester Herr Herausgeber
: ‘most esteemed Mr. Editor.’

stand
: ‘will stand’ in later editions.

cursiv-schrift
: running handwriting in which the characters are joined.

Sibylline leaves
: in Virgil’s
Aeneid
, the Cumaean sibyl writes her oracles on leaves to be blown to the wind and thus lost.

P.P. Clerk of this Parish
: an allusion to Pope and Gay’s
Memoirs of P. P. Clerk of this Parish
(1728), which parodies self-important memoirs such as Bishop Burnet’s
History of his Own Time
.

Entepfuhl
: duck-pond.

Desdemona … Othello: Othello
, 1. iii. 128–68.

least
: ‘heart’ in later editions.

camisade
: night attack.

Pitt Diamond
: brought from India by Thomas Pitt, it was sold to the French Regent in 1817, becoming one of the crown jewels of France.

Friedrichs
: Prussian gold coins.

Walter Shandy … Names
: the pet theory of Walter Shandy, Tristram’s father;
Tristram Shandy
, 1. xix.

Gneschen
: ‘little Diogenes’; a diminutive formed from the last syllable of Diogenes’ name.

Arnauld … rest in
: remark made by Antoine Arnauld (1612–94), French philosopher and theologian, in response to a friend who had expressed a desire for tranquillity.

Kuhbach
: Cow-brook.

pengun
: pop-gun, formed from the barrel of a quill pen.

double-barrelled Game-preserver
: ironic term for the aristocracy, with their love of game-shooting; cf. the epitaph at the end of 11. iv.

Incredible
: ‘Incalculable’ in later editions.

Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell … the World
: from Tell’s soliloquy as he awaits the Austrian Tyrant Gessler, whom he has resolved to kill;
Wilhelm Tell
(1804), iv. iii. 58.

Prospero’s Island
: in Shakespeare’s
The Tempest
.

Hindoo character
: i.e. meditative, contemplative, patient, etc.

Gymnasium
: grammar school, at which classics and literature are taught.

Hinterschlag
: ‘Slap-behind.’

boundless
: ‘bottomless’ in later editions.

nowise
: ‘never or seldom’ in later editions.

Zähdarm
: ‘Tough-gut.’

Frisch zu, Bruder
: ‘Get on with it, brother.’

Soul … Stomach
: the suggestion that ‘soul’ and ‘stomach’ are related in Finnish is a hoax.

Scottish Brassmith’s Idea
: the steam-engine, invented by a Scot, James Watt (1736–1819).

gin-horse
: horse used for working a gin, a machine for raising ore in a mine.

words of Ancient Pistol
: in Shakespeare’s
Merry Wives of Windsor
, 11. ii. 2.

Examen Rigorosum … Auscultator
: final law examination in a German university;
Auscultator
: a student lawyer, who has passed his first examination.

ever Life for the Living
: ‘always life for a living one’ in later editions.

Herr Teufelsdröckh … eingeladen
: ‘Mr Teufelsdröckh is cordially invited by the Countess on Thursday to an aesthetic tea.’

unison
: ‘harmony’ in later editions.

Bübchen
: ‘small boys’, not ‘young gentlemen’.

Holy Alliance of Sovereigns
: league formed by the sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in 1815.

Sir Hudibras’s sword … hack
:
Hudibras
, 1. i. 361–2.

Hic Jacet … sub dato
: ‘Here lies Philip Zähdarm, surnamed the Great, Count of Zähdarm, of the Imperial Council, Knight of the Golden Fleece, the Anklet, and the Black Vulture. Who during his sublunary existence destroyed with lead five thousand partridges and openly turned into dung, through himself and his servants, quadrupeds and bipeds, not without tumult in the process, ten thousand million pounds of assorted food. He now rests from labour, his works following him. If you seek his monument, look at the dung-heap. He made his first kill on earth [date]; his last [date].’ The penultimate sentence alludes to the inscription on the tomb at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, of its architect, Sir Christopher Wren: ‘Si monumentum requiris, circumspice’ (If you seek his monument, look around you).

herring-busses
: small boats used in the herring-fishery.

Calypso-Island
: the nymph Calypso detained Ulysses for seven years on the island of Ogygia;
Odyssey
, 1. v.

St. Martin’s Summer
: fine weather in November; St Martin’s day is 11 November.

Petrarchan and Werterean
: in the style of the Italian poet Petrarch (1304–74), famous for his love lyrics; and of Goethe’s sentimental novel,
The Sorrows of Young Werther
.

Waldschloss … absolved … Relatio ex Actis
: ‘Forest-castle’; ‘graduated’; ‘official reports’.

ahnungsvoll
: ‘full of foreboding.’ In later editions this is mistakenly changed to
ahndungsvoll
(full of revenge).

Archimedes-lever
: alluding to the famous saying on leverage by Archimedes (287–212
BC
), Greek mathematician: ‘Give me a place to stand and I will move the world.’

Satanic Poetry
: term used by Southey in 1821 to characterize the poetry of Byron, Shelley, and others.

suit
: ‘suit thee’ in later editions.

Du Himmel
: ‘Good Heavens.’

Richter’s words … Night
: passage from the end of Richter’s
Quintus Fixlein
(1796).

Fortunatus’ Hat
: legendary folk hero, whose wishing hat transports him wherever he desires.

Lover’s Leap
: a cliff in western Greece, from which Sappho is said to have plunged to her death for love of Phaon.

The end of Man … Thought
: adapted from Aristotle’s
Ethics
, 1. iii.

rugged … names her
:
Philoctetes
,
1.
391.

new
: ‘mad’ in later editions.

Profit-and-Loss Philosophy
: Utilitarianism.

Prometheus Vinctus
: Prometheus Bound, the title of a play by Aeschylus. In Greek mythology Prometheus, having endowed mankind with the gift of fire stolen from heaven, was punished by Zeus, who chained him to a rock and sent a vulture to chew his liver.

even
: ‘ever’ in later editions.

recks
: ‘boots’ in later editions.

Stècle de Louis Quinze
: the century of Louis XV, King of France from 1715 to 1774, the age of rationalism and scepticism.

Lubberland
: ‘land of sluggards’; a favourite word of Carlyle’s.

Milton says … misery
:
Paradise Lost
, 1. 57.

have often
: ‘often’ in later editions.