The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works (65 page)

118
. A small gun or cannon.

119
.
make thy cup
…
element
: Meaning unknown.

120
.
This Pupillonian… whif
: Meaning unknown.

121
. Meaning unknown.

122
.
dog's
…
pot
: Glutton, term of abuse.

123
. ‘A bowl which touches the jack' (NED); here a pun on ‘jack' meaning a drinking vessel.

124
. Swellings.

125
. Reward.

126
. Strong ale.

127
. Poison.

128
. Dregs (and candle end).

129
. A reference to the Dutch as proverbial drunkards.

130
. ‘The man that denies that he has sinned does not sin' (Ovid).

131
. ‘Flee from the people you believe are faithful, and you will be safe' (Ovid).

132
. ‘As many enemies have we at home as we have servants' (Seneca).

133
. ‘A slave is a necessary possession, but not a pleasant one.'

134
. ‘Young hopefuls always reckon to prosper out of ignorance.'

135
. Raise.

136
.
Dumb swans… pies
: Adapted from Sidney's
Astrophel and Stella
, sonnet fifty-four.

137
. e.g. Ovid (
Metamorphoses
, II,
395
–
401
).

138
. A Greek in the Trojan War who could shout as loud as fifty men.

139
. e.g. Cornelius Agrippa (
De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum
).

140
. Lack.

141
.
Embracing… courtesy
: Hazlitt emends to read ‘Embracing envy, guileless courtesy…'

142
. Persuaded the Trojans to take in the wooden horse; used here as typical traitor.

143
. Complain of.

144
.
wraught his bane
: Made the poison that killed him.

145
. ‘Generosity makes servants faithful' (Plautus).

146
. Slavery (i.e. harshness in the master makes mere servitude).

147
. M. suggests Iceland, with which there is some authority to associate this legend.

148
. Also means ‘favours'.

149
. Bankrupt.

150
. Built by Alcathous, with the assistance of Apollo, who rested his lyre on the ‘singing stone'.

151
. ‘Ill-rumour, than which nothing is swifter' (Virgil).

152
. Five years' silence is said to have been required of pupils in the school of Pythagoras.

153
.
Thales Milesius
…
made
: again from Cornelius Agrippa (
De Incertitudine
).

154
. Ruin, destroy (archaic verb ‘lose').

155
. Go sight-seeing.

156
. ‘In the work's peroration'.

157
.
Fismenus
non Nasutus: A character without a nose, and having no sense of smell.

158
. (Perhaps this should read ‘Huic'.) ‘This stinking mouth'; a phrase used in association with the Devil.

159
. ‘The Courtesan'.

160
. Bartholomaeus Sacchi,
fl
.
1475
.

161
. ‘On the Art of Drinking' (V. Obsopaeus,
1536
).

162
. Cicero,
Pro Plancio
(defence of Gnaius Plancius), IV,
9
.

163
. Ovid (Ovidius Naso,
43
B.C.
–
A.D.
17
).

164
.
Amores
, III,
8
,
25
–
6
.

165
. One player throws his counter; another has to throw within a a span of it.

166
. Bookworm.

167
. Gibberish, nonsense.

168
. Schoolboys' textbooks.

169
. The return of wintry conditions late in the season.

170
. Pinchbeck, miser.

171
.
Who like
…
points
: Who takes after his father in everything.

172
. Mischievous creature.

173
. Very near.

174
. Taken out of its grave.

175
. A dashing gallant and a good chap (often used ironically).

176
. Perhaps the actor's name.

177
. M. mentions the possibility that this is a misprint for ‘hair'.

178
. Taking up the sound of the word ‘dispatched', leading to pun on ‘baker', name of the actor who played Vertumnus.

179
. Toad (cf., popular expression ‘a toad in the straw').

180
. Tub for salting and pickling beef.

181
. Trained himself to carry a bull; the story of his eating a whole ox is in Athenaeus,
Deipnosophistae
, X.

182
. N. refers again in margin note to
Lenten Stuff
(‘The Sybarites never would make any banquet under a twelve month's warning').

183
.
city
…
moles
: Thessalia, according to Lyly (M.).

184
.
bid me… beggars
: Emended from ‘a whole fair of beggars bid me'.

185
. Bowing.

186
. Imagines.

187
. A basket for scraps to be distributed among the poor.

188
. Messenger, attendant.

189
. ‘Generosity dies through generosity.'

190
. Cheap hake.

191
. Miser.

192
. Secrecy.

193
. The two verbs would be found on the same page on the standard Latin grammar of the time.

194
. Mild exclamation, common in medieval plays.

195
. Lazy idler.

196
. Finely dressed.

197
. ‘Oh unheard-of reprobate, oh voice of the damned!'

198
. A reference to the fifty sons and fifty daughters of Priam.

199
. Aeolus, keeper of the winds.

200
.
a few rushes
…
tumble
: It is suggested that Backwinter struggles to resist arrest.

201
. Prompt efficiently.

202
. A poem of fourteen lines, more loosely constructed than a sonnet.

203
. M. quotes Henry VIII on Otford House which ‘standeth low and is rheumatic, like unto Croyden, where I could never be without sickness'.

204
. Worn-out clothes.

205
. Give him practice and confidence.

206
. A children's game, also called slatter-pouch.

207
.
pigmy
…
cranes
: Herodotus describes the pigmies and cranes as being in a perpetual state of war, therefore embassies would sometimes be necessary.

208
. ‘Nobody knows all hours' (Pliny).

209
. ‘Be good to your friends, and bring them good fortune (Virgil).

210
. Club-foot.

211
. See pp.
165
,
191
.

212
. ‘Farewell, spectators'.

213
. ‘I am a barbarian here, for nobody understands me' (Ovid).

1
.
bill of parcels
: List, catalogue.

2
. Tablet for writing memoranda or inscriptions.

3
. ‘The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it' (
Proverbs
,
30
,
17
).

4
. Ovid,
Remedia Amoris
,
516
.

5
. Horace,
Epistolae
, i,
16
,
62
.

6
. Called, named.

7
. Desires, chooses.

8
. An untraced allusion (Seleucus was one of Alexander's generals).

9
. At his disposal.

10
. Cheat (as at cards or dice).

11
. Small insect, possibly here gnat.

12
. Familiar spirits, devils.

13
. ‘A vermiform cartilage under the tongue, believed to be a parasite' (M.).

14
. King of Rome (
673
–
42
B.C.
) (There is no reference in Livy or Pliny to his trembling.)

15
. cf. Falstaff on Poins: ‘His wit as thick as Tewksbury mustard'
2
Henry IV
, II, iv,
240
.

16
. Mahomet was said to feed a dove by the ear and to receive from the dove God's secrets in return.

17
. Mixed, like this material woven of coarse wool and flax.

18
.
rare
…
studies
: Studies of a recondite character.

19
. Head cold, catarrh.

20
. Nothing is so like.

21
. Made, derived.

22
. Thrown into disorder, confusion.

23
. Rushing ahead, headlong.

24
. Completely, exactly.

25
. A jumble, a mixture; literally a hash or stew made of odds and ends.

26
. Ideas, thoughts.

27
. Black sanctus; noisy discordant singing.

28
. ‘Accepting, I suppose, her identification with Hecate' (M.).

29
. Spiritual powers.

30
. Ostrich.

31
. Captured.

32
. The Dead Sea, Asphaltites.

33
.
Qui va là?

34
. Thought to be an abode of lost souls, because of the ‘lamenting' noise made by the ice in the sea near-by.

35
. Pinned to a wheel for the attempted rape of Hera.

36
. Tityus, son of Earth, condemned, also for attempted rape, to have his liver pecked perpetually by vultures.

37
. A proverbial trickster, condemned to roll a boulder up a hill.

38
. Served the gods with the flesh of his son at a banquet, and was condemned to perpetual hunger and thirst.

39
. Favour.

40
. M. suggests ‘old'.

41
.
a riding snarl
: A slip-knot.

42
. Lake Vetter or Wetter in Sweden.

43
. Aetna.

44
. Enamel.

45
. Inkstand.

46
.
against
…
Mounsier
: In readiness for the arrival in England of the Duke of Anjou, a suitor of the Queen, in
1581
.

47
. Make noisy conversation.

48
. Paganism.

49
. Change, transference.

50
. The high-priest of Troy who, believing that the city was doomed, defected to the Greeks.

51
. Tricking, deceptive.

52
. Accused.

53
. Deceitful.

54
. Surface, pile, of material.

55
. Gibberish.

56
.
skirts and outshifts
: Suburbs, outskirts.

57
.
merchant and chapmanable
: Saleable, marketable.

58
. News, reputation.

59
. Eating house.

60
. The ‘astronomer's staff' for taking the altitude of the sun.

61
. Author of
Materia Medica
(first or second century
A
.
D
.).

62
. Famous Greek physician (
c
.
460
–
377
B.C.
).

63
. Confides in.

64
. Speaks contemptuously of.

65
. Paracelsus (
c
.
1490
–
1541
) extended the study of minerals in medical use.

66
. Proven remedies.

67
. Tittle est amen. Words given at the end of the alphabet in horn-books, or reading manuals, i.e. the conclusion.

68
. Cannot tolerate.

69
. A jot, the smallest amount.

70
. Once upon a time.

71
. A Trojan captain.

72
. A giant, killed by Corineus.

73
. A rowdy from Queenhithe, (a rough neighbourhood).

74
. Knavery.

75
.
To make
…
bolt
: To make something definite.

76
. Mumbling, droning.

77
. Toothless mumbling.

78
. A rattler or empty talker.

79
. Wrinkled and entwined.

80
. Conclude, gather.

81
. Zopyrus, a quack physiognomist.

82
.
seek not
…
bulrush
: Don't go looking for trouble.

83
. Possibly a mistake for ‘Capias Utligatum', ‘a writ directing the arrest of an outlaw' (M.).

84
. Beautiful valley in Thessaly.

85
. William Camden (
1551
–
1623
), antiquary and historian. His
Britannia
was first published in
1586
.

86
. Sir George Carey

87
. Accuse, prosecute.

88
. Worthy, deserving.

89
. ‘Are you called Carey [Carus = dear] because that is what you are?'

90
. ‘After all my companions are gone, I will remember you, oh Carus.'