"A Presumption of Death"


The page numbers and excerpts are from the U.S. St. Martin's Press hardcover edition of "A Presumption of Death," copyright 2002 by Jill Paton Walsh and The Trustees of Anthony Fleming, deceased.

Prologue


1 ~ one can't really expect ships to go quickly when they are convoyed about like a school crocodile, so tedious for them

school crocodile: Moving in a line two-abreast. Unless practiced, the line inevitably begins to weave much like a crocodile moves. During the early part of World War II, German submarines were attacking British shipping in the North Atlantic in an attempt to weaken the island's defenses and reduce its food supply. Ships had to travel in packs, or convoys, accompanied by warships.

2 ~ I think you must have been listening to Goering or Goebbels or that Haw Haw man or something

Hermann Goering: (1893-1946) Commander-in-chief of the German Luftwaffe and second-highest ranking man in the Third Reich.
Josef Goebbels: (1897-1945) German propaganda minister.
Lord Haw HawLord Haw-Haw: propaganda broadcaster and Nazi supporter. Away from the microphone, William Joyce (1906-1946) was the son of a naturalized American citizen whose family moved back to England in 1921. He was a supporter of British fascist leader Oswald Mosley and worked for him as director of propaganda and broadcast speaker until 1937, when he set up his own party and called for an alliance with Hitler. Shortly before the war broke out, Joyce made his way to Germany and began working as news reader for the country's English-language service, eventually rising to principle broadcaster and propagandist. The "Haw-Haw" tag was coined by a Daily Express writer for another broadcaster, but Joyce's success at the microphone led him to assume the name and acquire a certain celebrity status as well. A BBC listener report for December 1939 found that two-thirds of the British public listened to Joyce, but didn't seem to take him seriously. He was captured after the war, and although he was never legitimately a British citizen, was tried for treason in London, found guilty and executed.

2 ~ just as Hitler keeps on saying he's going to begin, only he doesn't go: like the people in the "Pirates of Penzance," and Peter says if he waits much longer the audience will refuse to clap and perhaps the Munich bomb was in the nature of a cat-call

only he doesn't go: A reference the song "When the Foeman Bares His Steel," from Act II of "Pirates of Penzance." At its climax, after the police proclaim they're off to fight the pirates, they're praised with a real "blood and thunder" chorus that causes them to loose heart. As they're marching off, in a circle, the major observes, "Yes, forward to the foe, but you don't go!"
(Thanks to Little Oojah for the contribution)

3 ~ She's doing ARP work and looking after her husband

ARP: Air Raid Precautions

Statue of Eros atop Piccadilly Circus4 ~ you can't think how queer Piccadilly Circus looks with Eros gone

Eros: A statue of a winged archer designed as a symbol of Christian charity in honor of the philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury.

4 ~ Peter says we ought to do something constructive in the opposite direction and floodlight the Albert Memorial because the park would be better without it

Albert MemorialAlbert Memorial: England tribute to Queen Victoria's husband in Hyde Park. Depending upon your taste, this is either the crowning achievement of memorial art in the Victorian era, or an overwrought sentimental mish-mash of gingerbread and baroque symbolism wrought in stone. A large statue of Albert is seated in what appears to be a small Gothic cathedral with open walls. The base is decorated with 169 carved figures, some in groups representing the four Continents (Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas) and four Industries (Agriculture, Commerce, Engineering and Manufacturing). During the 1990s, weather and pollution had taken its toll, and demolition was considered as an option before it was decided to restore the monument.

6 ~ I'm afraid the infant cherub with the cricket bat made pique, repique and capot of Denver before he could score half his vocabulary

pique, repique and capot: terms used in scoring various plays in the card game piquet (pronounced PICK-ay).

7 ~ If so, we need an Ibsen to deal with public life

Henrik Ibsen: (1828-1906) Norwegian playwright credited as a founder of modern prose drama

8 ~ River, of thy water will I never drink!

Not traced

8 ~ no wonder we couldn't stand by the Covenant of the League

Covenant of the League: The charter of the League of Nations, an international body formed after World War I with the idealistic goal of eradicating war. In addition to suggesting restrictions on armaments and suggesting that countries obey a 60-day pause before attacking another member nation, the covenant contained this article:

ARTICLE 16

Should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants under Articles 12, 13 or 15, it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between their nationals and the nationals of the covenant-breaking State, and the prevention of all financial, commercial or personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any other State, whether a Member of the League or not.

It shall be the duty of the Council in such case to recommend to the several Governments concerned what effective military, naval or air force the Members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League.

14 ~ all the children and the land-girls have been skating on the village pond, looking like a scene painted by Brueghel

Winter Scene With Skaters and a Bird Trap by Pieter Brueghel

Brueghel: Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638), Dutch painter whose work vividly evokes his times. Two paintings in particular will fit the bill: "Winter Scene with Skaters and a Bird Trap" (above, click on the picture for a larger version) and "Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap"

15 ~ The other big news is that the Anderson shelters have arrived

Anderson shelterAnderson shelters: Small air-raid shelters used by British homeowners during World War II. Named for Home Secretary Sir John Anderson, who devised and promoted the scheme to reduce potential civilian casualties from air raids by dispersing shelters across the country. The Anderson consists of corrugated steel panels sent over a rectangular hole that usually measured ten feet by four feet. Sometimes, the floor was raised to avoid seepage. They were usually outfitted with beds, a table, bookcases, games for the kids, food and water. A more complete description, along with an enlightening story, can be found at the Battle of Britain website.

15 ~ it has a warren of vaulted powerfully ancient-looking undercrofts, which surely must have been part of an abbey before the Reformation

undercrofts: a vaulted chamber under a church

17 ~ But it's all the news there is from our parish pump

parish pump: used as a slang term, it means petty local politics or parochialism (it's also the name of several community newsletters, a blog and a for-profit site that offers material for church newsletters). Before that, the parish pump was the local source of water (pumped from the ground, obviously), and of course the community gathering spot where news and gossip was heard. Jane Austen fans who have read of the Pump House in Bath will understand the connection immediately.

Chapter 1


19 ~ It is through chance that, from among the various individuals of which each of us is composed, one emerges rather than another. Henry de Montherlant, Explicit Mysterium, 1931

Henry de Montherlant: (1896-1972) French novelist and dramatist, known as a moralist, misogynist and antifeminist in life, and after his suicide, a pederast.

20 ~ It's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Chuck him out, the brute!'
But it's 'Saviour of 'is country' when the guns begin to shoot. — Rudyard Kipling

Quoted from "Tommy" by Rudyard Kipling

"Tommy"

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool — you bet that Tommy sees!

20 ~ The notorious land-girls were much in evidence, with their city skills in make-up and nice dresses

land-girls: Volunteers from the Women's Land Army who worked in the fields while the farmers were off fighting the war. In the United Kingdom, by 1944, there were over 80,000 members. The WLA carried on after the war until 1950.

21 ~ As the vicar's wife I am not often pipped at the post with the gossip

pipped at the post: narrowly beaten. Believed to be from horse racing (a pip, being the seed from a fruit, would be a very small margin indeed).

22 ~ 'Dreamshine' ... Under a shining moon,/And to a tender tune ... "We danced the night away,/And at the break of day/We found the world had changed ...

Not traced, although the book notes that the lyrics are quoted with permission of Johnny Greenbay & the Dancehall Flourishers

24 ~ If you are disappointed to miss the last waltz, don't blame me, blame the ARP officer

ARP: Air Raid Precautions. The program was founded in 1935, so by the time German air raids began in 1940, a number of precautions had already been taken.

34 ~ Abide with me; fast falls the eventide

Quoted from an 1847 hymn of the same name by Henry Francis Lyte, set to "Eventide":

Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide:
when other helpers fail and comforts flee,
help of the helpless, O abide with me.

I need thy presence every passing hour;
what but thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's dark sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;
shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;
heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
34 ~ Hitler has only got one ball! / Goering has two but rather small / Himmler, is somewhat simmler, / And Dr Goebbels has no balls at all

This irreverent jingle is sung to the tune of "Col. Bogey March", the whistling march theme heard in "Bridge on the River Kwai." The march was composed by Lt. F.J. Ricketts (1881-1945), a military bandmaster in the Royal Marines. Outside work was discouraged in the military, so the tune was published under the pseudonym Kenneth Alford. Col. Bogey was believed to be an eccentric colonel Ricketts met on the golf course while stationed in Scotland. Before driving, instead of shouting "Fore," the colonel preferred to whistle a descending minor third and Ricketts used that tune to open his march.

37 ~ said Jerry, looking up from a copy of Picture Post, which he had apparently had in his greatcoat pocket

Picture Post: British photojournalism magazine (1938-1957). An immediate success upon its debut, selling about a million copies a week during the war.

Chapter 2


41 ~ No one gossips about other people's secret virtues. Bertrand Russell, On Education, 1926

Not traced

42 ~ But I'm afraid I don't expect him, even if mony a heart would break in twa ... should he no' come back again

Quoted from"Will Ye No Come Back Again?"

Bonnie Charlie's noo awa,'
Safely o'er friendly main,
Mony a heart would break in twa,
Should he ne'er come back again —
Carolina Oliphant: (1766-1845), songwriter. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Scottish songs were moving in her time from the days when "daughters of gentlefolk could bound about waving 'gully knives' and singing 'geld him, lassies, geld him" to something more proper for ladies to sing. Influenced by Robert Burns' work, Oliphant refashioned the old songs, sometimes commenting on contemporary politics and the social life of the gentry. Since her family were heavily involved in Jacobite politics, supporting the house of the Stuarts and opposing the union with England, Oliphant created a number of songs in praise of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

42 ~ I'm glad you're not too oppressed to play the game

In "Busman's Holiday," Lord Peter discovers that Superintendent Kirk was a student of literature ("I like to do a bit o' reading in my off-duty ... I often think as the rowtine of police dooty may tend to narrow a man and make him a bit hard, if you take my meaning."). They began swapping literary tags in the hopes of catching each other out. The only rule was that you couldn't go back to the same source twice ("Here!" said Peter, "that's not fair. You can't have Tennyson twice. Anyway, there it is and what's done — no, I may want Shakespeare later on.") (pp. 109-111)

45 ~ Then I will stand at your right hand

A reference to stanza 29 of Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome":

"Haul down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopped by three.
Now who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?"

(Contributed by Stephen Clark)

50 ~ She said as how you couldn't necessarily trust a body along of ?im wearing a Nar A ef uniform

Nar A ef: The Royal Air Force (known as the RAF).

50 ~ Harriet remembered the Ruddle family's long-lasting grudge against a village policeman who had been replaced some time back.

The grudge, over false accusations in the case of some missing hens belonging to Miss Twitterton, is recounted in "Busman's Honeymoon."

53 ~ Just the same, timeo Danaos, and all that ... beware of the Greeks when they bear gifts ... the cake is a Trojan Horse

The Latin tag is part of a longer quote from Virgil: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis" meaning "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

Chapter 3


61 ~ We're being led to the altar this spring: its flowers will I suppose nod and yellow and redden the garden with the bombs falling — oh, it's a queer sense of suspense being led up to the spring of 1940. — Virginia Woolf, Diary, 8th February, 1940

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941): writer and publisher.

73 ~ Miss Climpson had worked ingeniously for Peter for some years. "Putting questions," he had said, "which a young man could not put without a blush."

A reference to Lord Peter's first description of her in"Unnatural Death":

She is my ears and tongue ... and especially my nose. She asks questions which a young man could not put without a blush. She is the angel that rushes in where fools get a clump on the head. She can smell a rat in the dark. In fact, she is the cat's whiskers. ... Just think. People want questions asked. Whom do they send? A man with large flat feet and a notebook — the sort of man whose private life is conducted in a series of inarticulate grunts. I send a lady with a long, woolly jumper on knitting-needles and jingly things round her neck. Of course she asks questions — everyone expects it. Nobody is surprised. Nobody is alarmed. And so-called superfluity is agreeably and usefully disposed of. One of these days you will put up a statue to me, with an inscription:

"To the Man who Made
Thousands of Superfluous Women
Happy
without Injury to their Modesty
or Exertion to Himself."


74 ~ to read horrible, dirty stories about Jews and priests in that dreadful Stuermer

Stuermer: An anti-Semitic newspaper published in Germany from 1923-1945. Its editor, Julius Streicher, was hanged as a war criminal after World War II.

75 ~ And when one thinks how deeply the nicest Germans have always been attached to their gemutlich (isn't that the word?) Home-life, it seems quite heart-breaking

gemutlich: a congenial, warm, friendly feeling

77 ~ she saw him with Bredon and Polly, playing French cricket on the lawn

French cricket: A variation in which the batter's legs represent the wicket. The legs are placed together and must not move. The bat is used to defend the wicket. The batter is out if he falls over or moves, the legs are hit or if the ball is caught on the fly. Fielders may throw the ball at the batsman from where they catch it. Since the ball may go in any direction, the result may be some awkward positions for the batsman.

Chapter 4


83 ~ Oh, come and live with me my love. — Aelfrida Tillyard, The Garden and the Fire, 1916

Not traced

85 ~ I had a hand and spring off of Mr Puffett last time we had a share-out ... Even my Bert was pleased, and he always wants the trotters

hand and spring: meat from the foreleg of the pig, usually boned and stuffed

trotters: the feet, particularly the meaty long-cut hind feet. An excellent recipe for pig's trotters can be found in "Lobscouse & Spotted Dog," a cookbook by Ann Grossman and Lisa Thomas, inspired by the novels of Patrick O'Brian.

89 ~ And if not that, working hard enough as fire-watchers, or in the WVS to compromise the energy they could give to the household

WVS: Women's Voluntary Service, responsible for dealing with the aftermath of air raids, organizing salvage drives, organize rest centers and canteens. They also made medical supplies from sheets, such as bandages, nursing gowns and pajamas.

97 ~ most particularly of Peter calling her Queen Aholibah

Queen Aholibah: Quoted from Charles Algernon Swinburne's "The Masque of Queen Bersabe," a play about various queens of antiquity and mythology, of whom Aholibah is one.

I am the queen Aholibah.
My lips kissed dumb the word of Ah
Sighed on strange lips grown sick thereby.
God wrought to me my royal bed;
The inner work thereof was red,
The outer work was ivory.
My mouth's heat was the heat of flame
For lust towards the kings that came
With horsemen riding royally.

Chapter 5


105 ~ He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune. — Francis Bacon, 'Of Marriage and Single Life,' Essays, 1625

Quoted from an essay. The complete essay is below:

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that have children, should have greatest care of future times; unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are, who though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinences. Nay, there are some other, that account wife and children, but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride, in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk, Such an one is a great rich man, and another except to it, Yea, but he hath a great charge of children; as if it were an abatement to his riches.

But the most ordinary cause of a single life, is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters, to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives, are of that condition.

A single life doth well with churchmen; for charity will hardly water the ground, where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant, five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly in their hortatives, put men in mind of their wives and children; and I think the despising of marriage amongst the Turks, maketh the vulgar soldier more base.

Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they may be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, vetulam suam praetulit immortalitati.

Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she think her husband wise; which she will never do, if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses.

So as a man may have a quarrel to marry, when he will. But yet he was reputed one of the wise men, that made answer to the question, when a man should marry, - A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

It is often seen that bad husbands, have very good wives; whether it be, that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness, when it comes; or that the wives take a pride in their patience. But this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends' consent; for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.

Chapter 6


123 ~ O had she been a country maid, And I the happy country swain! Robert Burns, "The Lass o' Ballochmyle," 1786

'Twas even-the dewy fields were green,
On every blade the pearls hang;
The zephyr wanton'd round the bean,
And bore its fragrant sweets alang:
In ev'ry glen the mavis sang,
All nature list'ning seem'd the while,
Except where greenwood echoes rang,
Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle.

With careless step I onward stray'd,
My heart rejoic'd in nature's joy,
When, musing in a lonely glade,
A maiden fair I chanc'd to spy:
Her look was like the morning's eye,
Her air like nature's vernal smile:
Perfection whisper'd, passing by,
"Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle!"

Fair is the morn in flowery May,
And sweet is night in autumn mild;
When roving thro' the garden gay,
Or wand'ring in the lonely wild:
But woman, nature's darling child!
There all her charms she does compile;
Even there her other works are foil'd
By the bonie lass o' Ballochmyle.

O, had she been a country maid,
And I the happy country swain,
Tho' shelter'd in the lowest shed
That ever rose on Scotland's plain!
Thro' weary winter's wind and rain,
With joy, with rapture, I would toil;
And nightly to my bosom strain
The bonie lass o' Ballochmyle.

Then pride might climb the slipp'ry steep,
Where frame and honours lofty shine;
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep,
Or downward seek the Indian mine:
Give me the cot below the pine,
To tend the flocks or till the soil;
And ev'ry day have joys divine
With the bonie lass o' Ballochmyle.

Chapter 7


143 ~ I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of numbers Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, 1643

Religio Medici: Although ostensibly a spiritual autobiography, Sir Thomas Browne's work is more interested in arguing for tolerance for all religious practices. A popular success (when it was first published in an unauthorized pirated edition, then revised by Browne for the 1643 edition). The Vatican placed it on its Index Expurgatorius in 1645, and Browne was accused of Popery and atheism.

Chapter 8


159 ~ If thou beest he; but O how fall'n, how changed From him who in the happy realms of light Clothed with transcendent brightness did outshine Myriads, though bright ... John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667

Quoted from the first book, lines 84-87.

160 ~ So she had hedged the visit to the house all about with Eiluned and Hatchard's, in case it pained her.

Hatchard's: A bookstore

161~ The train was packed with men and women in uniform, or with the ubiquitous armbands — WAS, HDV, WRVS, ARW — which stood in for uniforms

WAS: Woman's Army Service; HDV: not traced; WRVS: Woman's Royal Voluntary Service; ARW: air raid warden.

166 ~ Since she is in the Ministry of Instruction and Morale — Dieu sait pourquoi! — I suggested to her that some attempt should be made by that body to instruct the urban population in the science of walking in the dark

Dieu sait pourquoi!: "God knows why"

175 ~ Jack shall have Jill, Nought shall go ill ...
Quoted from "A Midsummer's Night Dream" Act 3, scene 2:

Puck:
On the ground
Sleep sound:
I'll apply
To your eye,
Gentle lover, remedy.

Squeezing the juice on Lysander's eyes

When thou wakest,
Thou takest
True delight
In the sight
Of thy former lady's eye:
And the country proverb known,
That every man should take his own,
In your waking shall be shown:
Jack shall have Jill;
Nought shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.

177 ~ and chase the children into the kitchen to play Ludo

Ludo: a simplified form of Pachisi, or parcheesi, suitable for children, published in 1896 in England. The name is Latin for "I play."

Chapter 9


181 ~ It was a maxim with Foxey — our revered father, gentlemen — 'Always suspect everybody.'

From chapter 66 of Charles Dickens, "The Old Curiousity Shop"

185 ~ I see Mr Harold Nicolson wants to run a series of replies to Haw-Haw

Harold Nicolson (1886-1968): politician and diplomat. At times an author, broadcaster, member of parliament and foreign office official, at the time of PD, he was a minor official in the Ministry of Information who wrote a weekly column for "The Spectator."

185 ~ Do you imagine anything is going to stop the British public from taking cock-shies at an enemy alien?

cockshies: a person taken as the object of criticism; to throw at a target

189 ~ wearing her navy Viyella dress

viyella: a fabric with a twill weave consisting of 45% cotton and 55% wool. It looks like fine flannel and can hold a pleat.

Chapter 10


199 ~ "What's that young sirs? Stole a pig?" "Where are your licences?" said the policeman. Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Pigling Bland, 1913

The complete story

205 ~ We uster catch tiddlers in that when we were boys

tiddlers: a small fish such as a stickleback or minnow

206 ~ his tousled blond hair and flushed plump cheeks reminding her of Mabel Lucie Attwell postcards from before the war

Attwell: Mabel Lucie Attwell (1879-1964) was the British Anne Geddes. Her illustrations of pudgy, red-cheeked toddlers doing extremely cute things — sold on postcards among other ephemera — made her very popular during the 1930s and ?40s. She also illustrated books, greeting cards, gift books, an edition of "Peter Pan and Wendy" at J.M. Barrie's request, posters, calendars and even a comic strip. A set of Mabel Lucie Attwell China was used in the Royal Nursery of infant Prince Charles.

208 ~ My mother said Always look under the bed Before you put the candle out, In case there is A MAN about ...

A music hall song, popularized in part by Nellie Wallace, who would dress up as a frustrated spinster. A more complete version runs:

My mother said always look under the bed,
Before you blow the candle out,
To see if there's a man about.
I always do, but you can make a bet,
It's never been my luck to find a man there yet.


209 ~ Someone called Quisling — may his name be cursed for centuries — had appointed himself head of the Norwegian state and ordered resistance to cease

Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945): Nazi sympathizer. Founded a fascist party "Nasjonal Samling" ("National Unity") in Norway in the 1933, which gained support for a few years before declining due to its militaristic and anti-Semitic policies. Quisling declared himself the head of the government when the Germans invaded in 1940, to the surprise of both Germans and Norwegians. However, he was installed as prime minister in 1942. After the war, he and two other N.S. leaders were executed, many others jailed.

219 ~ If Sir John Simon would only explain how exactly one is to spend hard to win the Economic War

John Simon (1873-1954) was lord chancellor at the time of PD. As chancellor under Neville Chamberlain, he was responsible for the management of the economy and believed that a vibrant economy, according to the DNB, "would represent the nation's ?fourth arm of defence' in any future war." In standard economic theory, the amount of production was dependent on the amount of spending, so if Britons would "spend hard," they would stimulate production and provide jobs.

221 ~ Perhaps, thought Harriet, the poor man was skiving, postponing his return to active duty

skiving: malingering or playing hooky

Chapter 11


223 ~ So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, And Death once dead, there's no more dying then. William Shakespeare, sonnet 146, 1609

Quoted from "Poor Soul, the Centre of my Sinful Earth"

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
[Thrall to] these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more.
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And, Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

226 ~ Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

Quoted from Shakespeare's "Hamlet", Act 1, Scene 4:

Hamlet
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.

Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet

Horatio
He waxes desperate with imagination.

Marcellus
Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

Horatio
Have after. To what issue will this come?

Marcellus
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Horatio
Heaven will direct it.

Marcellus
Nay, let's follow him.

229 ~ And sorrow proud to be advanced so ...

Quoted from "My Lady's Tears" by anonymous. Printed in John Dowland's "Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs"

I saw my Lady weep,
And Sorrow proud to be advanced so
In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.
Her face was full of woe;
But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts
Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.

Sorrow was there made fair,
And Passion wise;
Tears a delightful thing;
Silence beyond all speech, a wisdom rare:
She made her sighs to sing,
And all things with so sweet a sadness move
As made my heart at once both grieve and love.

O fairer than aught else
The world can show, leave off in time to grieve!
Enough, enough: your joyful look excels:
Tears kill the heart, believe.
O strive not to be excellent in woe,
Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow.

230 ~ It was as if the two of them had boarded the "Marie Celeste" alone

Marie Celeste: One of the most famous sea-faring mysteries. The Marie Celeste — credit Arthur Conan Doyle for changing the ship's first name to Marie in his short story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" — was found abandoned at sea halfway between Portugal and the Azores. The ship was waterlogged but seaworthy, its cargo of alcohol untouched. Food and water were aboard, but the ship's papers were missing along with the navigational instruments. The small crew, Captain Briggs, his wife and daughter, were missing. No one knows for certain what happened to the Mary Celeste, but there are plenty of theories, and you can read all about them at the Straight Dope Web site.

233 ~ Peter's name might have been destined to be written in gold in Balliol College chapel

The chapel contains memorials to its alumnus who have died in the wars.

237 ~ The patrol boat went close inshore, and pushed the body overboard, hoping it would be washed up on a handy beach. And it worked. The Germans did react to the phoney orders Brinklow was carrying.

The inspiration for this may have been an actual OSS operation that is recounted in the book "The Man Who Never Was," and as this is my site and this is one of my favorite espionage stories, let me go into tedious detail about it.

With the Allies intending to invade Sicily in July of 1943, a way had to be found to fool the Germans into believing that the target would be Sardinia and then Greece. With the help of pathologist Bernard Spilsbury, a search was made for a body that could have died from a plane crash at sea and washing ashore after several days. Spilsbury explained that a body wearing a life-jacket would probably faint from cold and freeze to death in the water. A bachelor who had died of pneumonia in London was found, and Spilsbury confirmed that it could pass for a man who died of drowning. The parents were contacted and agreed to the plan. The body was dressed as a major of the Royal Marines and given the common name of William Martin. A letter to Sir Harold Alexander, commander of British forces in north Africa, dropping hints about the plan was composed by Sir Archibald Nye, deputy Chief of Imperial General Staff, and typed by his private secretary. A second letter from Lord Louis Mountbatten added details calculated to fool the Germans, and even included a joking reference that, after the assault, Martin by "bring some sardines with him — they are 'on points' here!"

Major Martin was also given papers to indicate a private life. A man who resembled Martin was found, and a pretext was found to take his photo to use for the passport. A War Ministry typist provided two love letters, and Lloyds Bank added one showing him overdrawn on his account. Keys, notebook, cigarettes, bus tickets, theater tickets, and a briefcase attached to his wrist completed the ensemble.

Martin was put into the water off Huelva on the southern Mediterranean coast of Spain on April 29, 1943, and found by a fisherman the next day. The British Consulate in Gibraltar was informed, the briefcase turned over to the vice-counsel in Huelva, a headstone ordered and the body was buried on May 2 in Huelva. The briefcase passes through the hands of several Spanish authorities and winds up in the German Embassy, where the letters are carefully opened, copied, translated, and sent up the chain of command to Hitler's hands (with a note saying that "the authenticity of the captured documents is beyond doubt.").

The operation was a complete success. A German tank division is moved from the south of France to the Peloponnese, and mines were laid in the Aegean Sea. The defenses on Sardinia were strengthened, and defense forces on the south coast of Sicily (where the landing took place) were moved to the western corner. Even weeks after the invasion, the Germans were still working to improve the defenses along the coastline of Greece, preparing for the invasion that never came.

UPDATE: A poster on the Lord Peter e-mail list pointed to an article in the Spring 2005 issue of Scottish Life magazine that mentions a book "The Secrets of H.M.S. Dasher," which identified the man used in the ploy as a Scot named John Melville, whose body became available when the ship he served on blew up in the Clyde Estuary. The family was never told until recently of his role in Operation Mincemeat, and in October, 2004, his daughter, now 64, attended a Royal Navy memorial service aboard the new H.M.S. Dasher.

238 ~ Harriet was looking at a little brick-coloured fibreboard disc on a string stamped with name, number and 'RC.' That's why we didn't see him in church, she thought.

RC: Roman Catholic. Harriet and Peter are, of course, Church of England.

240 ~ I suppose the poor devil got pranged

pranged: crashed

241 ~ Only we've got a game of sardines going out there

sardines: a form of hide-and-seek, played best in a dark house with lots of space. In this variant, one person hides while the rest count to 100. Everybody splits up to find the person, and when found, joins him or her in the hiding place. This continues until the last person has found the group.

Chapter 12


247 ~ Oh, 'tis my delight of a shiny night,
In the season of the year!
"The Lincolnshire Poacher", Anon c. 1776

When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire
Full well I served my master for more than seven years
Till I took up to poaching, as you shall quickly hear
Oh, 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.

As me and my companions were setting of a snare
'Twas then we spied the gamekeeper, for him we did not care
Far we can wrestle and fight, my boys and jump out anywhere
Oh, 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.

As me and my companions were setting four or five
And taking on 'em up again, we caught a hare alive
We took a hare alive my boys, and through the woods did steer
Oh, 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.

I threw him on my shoulder and then we trudged home
We took him to a neighbour's house, and sold him for a crown
We sold him for a crown, my boys, but I did not tell you where
Oh, 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.

Success to ev'ry gentleman that lives in Lincolnshire
Success to every poacher that wants to sell a hare
Bad luck to ev'ry gamekeeper that will not sell his deer
Oh, 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.
247 ~ composing a scene like Millais' "The Boyhood of Raleigh"

Millais' "The Boyhood of Raleigh"



249 ~ The lower plate overlaps the upper one, because she was designed by Mitchell and he was a sea-plane fellow

Reginald Joseph Mitchell (1895-1937): aircraft designer, whose work on military flying boats for Supermarine such as the Sea Eagle, the Scarab, the Swan and the Southampton between the wars established England as a leader in marine aviation. (The "lower plate overlapping the upper plate" feature is characteristic of flying boats who need to keep water from infiltrating the plane upon landing.) Mitchell also built high-speed racing planes for the Schneider flying races; his S6B model won the trophy in 1931 and later set a world speed record of 407.5 mph. Building on these experiences enabled him to create the Spitfire with the help of aerodynamicist Beverley Shenstone. The Spitfire and its subsequent versions proved highly effective as an intercepter. Unfortunately, Mitchell died in 1937 of cancer at the age of 42.

259 ~ A tragedy is a good theory defeated by a fact.

Not traced

Chapter 13


269 ~ And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies ... Shakespeare, King Lear, 1608

Quoted from "King Lear", Act V, Scene 3

King Lear
No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds I' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

270 ~ Aristotle again. You were told that the encounter had happened. What has happened is obviously possible, however unlikely it was that it should happen. Coincidence is history, once it has happened. Poetry, the philosopher tells us, is about what might probably or necessarily occur. The underlying logic of the world.

A reference to "The Poetics". In book 9, Aristotle has this to say about poetry and philosophy:
From what we have said it will be seen that the poet's function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen, i.e. what is possible as being probable or necessary. The distinction between historian and poet is not in the one writing prose and the other verse--you might put the work of Herodotus into verse, and it would still be a species of history; it consists really in this, that the one describes the thing that has been, and the other a kind of thing that might be. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

(Contributed by Stephen Clark)


271 ~ Revenons a ces moutons ... Ces cochons would be more to the point.

Revenons a ces moutons: Quoted from "L'Avocat Patelin" (1704), a French farce by David-Augustin Brueys (1640-1723). In it, a shepherd is charged with stealing sheep. The accuser, a woollen-draper, keeps wandering from the point during the trial, with the judge reminding him constantly "Mais, mon ami, revenons a nos moutons" ("return to the sheep"). As "moutons" means sheep, that accounts for Harriet's rejoinder that "Ces cochons (pigs) would be more to the point."

275 ~ You wouldn't consider Bannockburn by way of Beachy Head?

A reference to a poem in G.K. Chesterton's novel "The Flying Inn," published in 1914.

"Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire.
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
That night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

"I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchmen I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

"His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

"My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green."

(Contributed by Stephen Clark)

277 ~ Reading for the Le Fanu book

Not traced. I believe that while Harriet was casting about for something to do, that someone suggested researching Le Fanu, but I haven't been able to locate the original cite.

279 ~ I have always rather liked the old one hundredth

A hymn based on Psalms 100:

1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

279 ~ What should we rise because 'tis light?

Quoted from "Break of Day" by Donne:

'Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be
O wilt thou therefore rise from me
Why should we rise, because 'tis light
Did we lie down, because 'twas night
Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither
Should in despite of light keep us together.
Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;
If it could speak as well as spy,
This were the worst that it could say —
That being well, I fain would stay,
And that I loved my heart and honour so,
That I would not from her, that had them, go.
Must business thee from hence remove
Oh, that's the worst disease of love!
The poor, the foul, the false, love can
Admit, but not the busied man.
He which hath business, and makes love, doth do
Such wrong as when a married man doth woo.

280 ~ Aristotle ... that pity is occasioned by undeserved misfortunes, and fear by that of one like ourselves?

A reference to Aristotle's "Rhetoric", in which the philosopher considers the definition and nature of pity:
Pity may be defined as a feeling of pain caused by the sight of some evil, destructive or painful, which befalls one who does not deserve it, and which we might expect to befall ourselves or some friend of ours, and moreover to befall us soon.

(Contributed by James Fulford)

281 ~ But when those great words roll over us — man that is born of a woman hath but a short time; all flesh is grass; the places where he was known shall see him no more

man born of woman: Quoted from the 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer's Burial of the Dead, "First Anthem": Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

The prayer is derived from Job 14:1-2

1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.
2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
3 And doth thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee

all flesh is grass: Quoted from Isaiah 40:6:

6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.
8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

places where he was known: Quoted from Job 20:9: "The eye also which saw him shall see him no more; neither shall his place any more behold him."

282 ~ Scene from a marriage: the quotation game between Lord Peter and Harriet

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments: Quoted from Shakespeare's Sonnett 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree:

Quoted from Yeats' "The Lake Island of Innisfree":

I will arise and go now,
And go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there,
Of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there,
A hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there,
For peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning
To where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer,
And noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now,
For always night and day
I hear lake water lapping
With low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway
Or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now: Quoted from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," Act 3, Scene 2:

Antony:
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on;
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii:
Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through:
See what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statua,
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us.
O, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel
The dint of pity: these are gracious drops.
Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold
Our Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors.

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief: Quoted from Gerald Manley Hopkins:

No worst, there is none.
Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing?

Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked "No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief'.
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.
Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there.
Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep.
Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind:
all Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

Go, lovely Rose! Tell here, that wastes her time and me: Quoted from a poem by Edmund Waller (1606-1687):

Go, lovely Rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that 's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired:
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Then die! that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Music hath charms to sooth a savage breast: Quoted from William Congreve

Busie old fool, unruly sunne: Quoted from John Donne

3. The Sunne Rising

Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us
Must to thy motions lovers seasons run
Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide
Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices,
Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call countrey ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time.

Thy beames, so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou thinke
I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Looke, and to morrow late, tell mee,
Whether both the India's of spice and Myne
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee.
Aske for those Kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay.

She is all States, and all Princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes doe but play us; compar'd to this,
All honor's mimique; All wealth alchimie.
Thou sunne art halfe as happy'as wee,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee
To warme the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

So sweet, so smooth, so silvery is thy voice: Quoted from "Upon Julia's Voice" by Robert Herrick

So smooth, so sweet, so silvery, is thy voice
As, could they hear, the damned would make no noise,
But listen to thee (walking in thy chamber)
Melting melodious words to lutes of amber.

Vivre est une chute horizontale: An aphorism by Jean Cocteau meaning "Life is falling sideways"

Chapter 14


285 ~ Where there's a will there's relations

Misquoted from the Book of Proverbs

Not traced

286 ~ A young man I knew at college was a Barnado's boy. He wasn't grateful

Barnado's: A charity founded by Thomas John Barnado that grew into a number of homes that cared for orphans. Scholarships were granted to "Barnado's boys."

288 ~ a dozen Hudsons and an Anson were drawn up on grass

Hudson: A type of British airplane.

Anson: Another type of British airplane.

288 ~ A scatter of tents, and some Nissen huts still under construction

Nissen hut: A prefabricated curved building made of corrugated steel, used in the military. Named for Norman Nissen, (1871-1930), British army officer and mining engineer.

294 ~ She had a pair of secateurs in one hand

secateurs: pruning shears

Chapter 15


299 ~ On your midnight pallet lying ...
A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, 1896

Quoted from poem 40:

XL. On Your Midnight Pallet Lying

On your midnight pallet lying,
Listen, and undo the door:
Lads that waste the light in sighing
In the dark should sigh no more;
Night should ease a lover's sorrow;
Therefore, since I go to-morrow,
Pity me before.

In the land to which I travel,
The far dwelling, let me say!
Once, if here the couch is gravel,
In a kinder bed I lay,
And the breast the darnel smothers
Rested once upon another's
When it was not clay.

301 ~ The mind has mountains — hold them cheap may who ne'er hung there

Quoted from a poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins:

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief-
woe, world sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing-
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked "No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

302 ~ See the coloured counties?

Quoted from A.E. Housman's "A Shropshire Lad"

XXI. Bredon Hill

In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away:
'Come to church, good people;
Good people, come and pray.'
But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer
Among the springing thyme,
'Oh, peal upon our wedding,
And we will hear the chime,
And come to church in time.'

But when the snows at Christmas
On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
And stole out unbeknown
And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.
The bells they sound on Bredon,

And still the steeples hum.
'Come all to church, good people,' —
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.

302 ~ His breath's a vapour, and his life's a span
'Tis glorious misery to be born a man.

Not traced, although a more fuller description can be found on a plaque in the parish of Zennor, near Towednack:

Hope, fear, false-joy, and trouble,
Are these four winds which daily toss this bubble,
His breath's a vapour, and his life's a span;
Tis glorious misery to be born a man.

306 ~ I'm but the son my mother bore,
A simple man and nothing more
But, God of strength and gentleness,
Be pleased to make me nothing less!

Quoted from an anonymous poem, found in January 1942, "Written on a scrap of paper, it fluttered into the hands of a soldier sheltering in a slit trench, during the battle of El Agheila." (Source: "Poems from the Desert: Verses by Members of the Eighth Army," foreword by General Sir Bernard Montgomery)

Stay with me, God - A Soldier's Prayer

Stay with me, God. The night is dark,
The night is cold: my little spark
Of courage dies. The night is long;
Be with me, God, and make me strong

I love a game; I love a fight.
I hate the dark; I love the light.
I love my child; I love my wife.
I am no coward. I love Life,

Life with its change of mood and shade.
I want to live. I'm not afraid,
But me and mine are hard to part;
Oh, unknown God, lift up my heart.

You stilled the waters at Dunkirk
And saved Your Servants. All Your work
Is wonderful, dear God. You strode
Before us down that dreadful road.

We were alone, and hope had fled;
We loved our country and our dead,
And could not shame them; so we stayed
The course, and were not much afraid.

Dear God that nightmare road! And then
That sea! We got there-we were men.
My eyes were blind, my feet were torn,
My soul sang like a bird at dawn!

I knew that death is but a door.
I knew what we were fighting for:
Peace for the kids, our brothers freed,
A kinder world, a cleaner breed.

I'm but the son my mother bore,
A simple man, and nothing more.
But, God of strength and gentleness,
Be pleased to make me nothing less.

Help me, O God, when Death is near
To mock the haggard face of fear,
That when I fall-if fall I must-
My soul may triumph in the Dust.

306 ~ Aet. Sua. 16 ann. ... Carpe Diem

"Died in the 16th year of his age." Carpe diem, a common Latin phrase, does indeed mean "seize the day," with the implication here being that, in wartime Britain, with the reality of daily air raids and the coming struggle against Nazi Germany, it's best to take your pleasure while you can.

(Contributed by James Fulford)

307 ~ You know, Harriet, by the pricking of my thumb

Quote from "Macbeth" Act IV; Scene 1:

Second witch
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!

Enter Macbeth.

312 ~ Chaps pointing out to him that the Duke of Marlborough was famous for not needing to take them off

"His Grace returned from the wars today and pleasured me twice in his top boots"
— Sarah Churchill (1660-1744), Duchess of Marlborough, diary entry.

Chapter 16


317 ~ Many would be cowards if they had courage enough
—Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734): physician and author. "Gnomologia" was a collection of precepts for the benefit of his son.

Chapter 17


335 ~ Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live and act and serve the future hour;
And if, as towards the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope,
and faith's transcendent dower
We feel that we are greater than we know.
—William Wordsworth, The River Duddon, 1820

Quoted from "Valedictory Sonnet to the River Duddon." The River Duddon is in the Lake District, in northwest England below Scotland.

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being pass'd away.—Vain sympathies!
For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish;—be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

347 ~ I ran into an art lesson the other day, with all of them sitting around that copy of Apollo Belvedere that we have in the Long Gallery

Apollo Belvedere: A popular statue of the Greek god. It was believed to have been discovered on an estate belonging to Julius II and by 1523 stood in the Vatican's Belvedere garden.

349 ~ Tell him if he passes the scholarship examination he could get into the Slade and study art

The Slade School of Fine Art: Founded in 1871 by Felix Slade, it was the first school to accept students regardless of gender, race or religious belief, and the first to study fine arts as opposed to teaching art skills useful in the working world.

Chapter 18


355 ~ The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity. — Benjamin Disraeli, "Sybil", 1845

Quoted from the concluding paragraph of Disraeli's novel "Sybil."

355 ~ We raise not a stone and we carve not a line

Quoted from"The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna" by Charles Wolfe. Corunna was a village on the coast of northwest Spain and the site of a battle against Napoleon. Sir John Moore, who commanded the British troops, was mortally wounded. The British Army evacuated from Spain, but later returned in 1809 under Wellington.

The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his core to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot?
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We hurried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light?
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
Bur we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed?
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!
Lightly they'll talk of the sprit that's gone?
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,—
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on?
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun?
That the foe was sullenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raise not a stone,
But we lift him alone with his glory.

359 ~ fix you up a mug of Horlicks ... Would you rather have Bournville

Horlicks malted food drink and Bournville cocoa are still available today. "Horlicks is good for you" was a popular advertising slogan of the day.

362 ~ to send a despatch rider to pick this up and take it to Bletchley

Bletchley Park: An English estate 50 miles northeast of London, was the site where a group of code breakers successfully deciphered top secret German codes.

366 ~ Love is not love which alters where it alteration finds; and, Peter, that would be alteration

Another reference to the sonnet "Let me not to the marriage of true minds", see note 282.

367 ~ You will not change, nor falter, nor repent?

Quotation from the climax in Act 4 of Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound".

371 ~ So we hope it won't take too long for your gallant band of interventionists to succeed, and shut up Lindbergh and people like him who are telling you to stay at home and not get involved. ... perhaps the poor man was unhinged by having his baby kidnaped in that horrible manner

Lindbergh: A reference to Charles Lindbergh, aviator and Nazi sympathizer. In 1932, his 20-month-old son, Charles Lindbergh Jr., was kidnaped and held for ransom. It turned out that he died accidentally the night of the crime, and after the ransom was paid, his decomposed body was found in wooded area 73 days after he disappeared.

"Absolutely Elsewhere"


The page numbers are from "Lord Peter" published by Harper & Row. The excerpts are copyrighted 1972 by Harper & Row.

375 ~ don't go all Eddington on me
Arthur Eddington (1882-1944): a scientist who made important contributions to the theory of general relativity. Among other discoveries, his photographs of the sun during a total eclipse gave the first confirmation of Einstein's theory that gravity will bend the path of light when it passes near a massive star.

Fitzgerald contractions and coefficients of spherical curvature
References to the theory of relativity

385 ~ He's like the Queen of Hearts in Alice -- he never executed nobody, you know
A reference to "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. The Queen would call for people's executions, but none were ever carried out.

"A Melancholy Lay"


By Marjory Fleming


Three Turkeys fair their last have breathed
And now this world for ever leaved
Their father and their mother too
Will sigh and weep as well as you
Mourning for their offspring fair
Whom they did nurse with tender care
Indeed the rats their bones have cranch'd
To Eternity are they launched
Their graceful form and pretty eyes
Their fellow fowls did not despise
A direful death indeed they had
That would put any parent mad
But she was more than usual calm
She did not give a single dam
Here ends this melancholy lay
Farewell poor turkeys I must say

Return to Gaudy Night

"Duns Scotus' Oxford"


By Gerald Manley Hopkins (1918)


Towery city and branchy between towers;
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark-charmèd, rook-racked, river-rounded;
The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country and town did
Once encounter in, here coped and poisèd powers;
Thou hast a base and brickish skirt there, sours
That neighbour-nature thy grey beauty is grounded
Best in; graceless growth, thou hast confounded
Rural rural keeping -- folk, flocks, and flowers.
Yet ah! this air I gather and I release
He lived on; these weeds and waters, these walls are what
He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;
Of realty the rarest-veinèd unraveller; a not
Rivalled insight, be rival Italy or Greece;
Who fired France for Mary without spot.

Back to Gaudy Night

"Henry IV, Part One,"


Act II, Scene 4


PRINCE HENRY: This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. Go, call him forth.

PETO: Falstaff! -- Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.

PRINCE HENRY: Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.

[He searcheth his pockets, and findeth certain papers.]

What hast thou found?

PETO: Nothing but papers, my lord.

PRINCE HENRY: Let's see what they be: read them.

PETO: [Reads] Item, A capon,. . . 2s. 2d.
Item, Sauce,. . . . . 4d.
Item, Sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d.
Item, Anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d.
Item, Bread,. . . . . ob.

PRINCE HENRY: O monstrous! but one half-penny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close; we'll read it at more advantage: there let him sleep till day. I'll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot; and I know his death will be a march of twelve-score. The money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so, good morrow, Peto.

PETO: Good morrow, good my lord.

Their role-playing is interrupted when the sheriff and his night watch arrive at the tavern: they are looking for Falstaff and the others, who, they have learned, robbed the travelers upon the highway early this morning. Hal tells Falstaff to hide and misdirects the sheriff by swearing to him that Falstaff is not there and that he himself will be responsible for finding the thief and turning him over. As the sheriff leaves, Hal finds Falstaff asleep where he was hiding; after picking Falstaff's pockets out of curiosity, the young prince tells Peto that in the morning he will see his father the king, and that all of them must go off to war. He will secure places in the army for all of his companions, and he will place Falstaff in charge of a brigade of foot soldiers -- a pointed joke, since Falstaff can hardly walk without getting out of breath.

Back to the entry

"How All Occasions Do Inform Against Me"


From "Hamlet," Act 4, Scene 4, Line 32


How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

32. occasions, incidents, event. Inform against, generally defined as "show," "betray" (i.e., his tardiness)
39. fust, grow moldy
58. Excitements of, incentives to
61. trick, toy, trifle
62. plot, i.e, of ground

At this point in the play, Hamlet has confronted and killed Claudius and is ordered to go to England. On his way, he comes upon an army led by Fortinbras crossing Denmark on their way to Poland (described by the Captain as "a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name"). In this soliloquy, Hamlet reflects, comparing his inaction in the face of having "a father kill'd, a mother stain'd," while twenty thousand men are off to fight and die "fight for a plot."

It is the last of Hamlet's six soliloquies, and its importance lay in expressing the moment when he has decided to move from being a man of thought to a man of action ("O, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!").

Back to Gaudy Night

"Idea"


By Michael Drayton


XI.

YOU not alone, when you are still alone,
O God, from you that I could private be!
Since you one were, I never since was one;
Since you in me, my self since out of me,
Transported from my self into your being;
Though either distant, present yet to either,
Senseless with too much joy, each other seeing,
And only absent when we are together.
Give me my self and take your self again,
Devise some means but how I may forsake you;
So much is mine that doth with you remain,
That, taking what is mine, with me I take you;
You do bewitch me ; O, that I could fly,
From my self you, or from your own self I!

Back to Gaudy Night

"It's A Great Big Shame"


A Music Hall Song


I've lost my pal, 'e's the best in all the tahn,
But don't you fink 'im dead becos'e ain't;
But since 'e's wed 'e's 'as 'ad ter 'nuckle dahn,
It's enufter wex the temper of a saint!
'E's a brewer's drayman, wiv a leg o' mutton fist,
An' as strong as a bullick or an 'orse;
Yet in 'er 'ands 'e's like a little kid
Oh! I wish as I could get 'im a divorce.

Chorus:
It's a great big shame, an' if she belong'd ter me
I'd let'er know who's who -
Naggin' at a feller wot is six foot free,
And 'er not four foot two!

Oh! They 'adn't been married not a month nor more,
When underneaf'er fumb goes Jim
Isn't it a pity as the likes ov'er
Should put upon the likes of 'im?
Now Jim was class, 'e could sing a decent song,
And at scrappin' 'e won some great renown;
It took two coppers for ter make 'im move along,
And anuvver six to 'old the feller dahn.
But today when I axes would e' come over an'ave some beer.
To the doorstep on tiptoe'e arrives;
"I daren't," says'e "Don't shout, cos she'll 'ear
I've got to clean the winders an' the knives."

Chorus:
On a Sunday morn, wiv a dozen pals or more,
E'd play at pitch and toss along the Lea;
But now she bullies 'im a-scrubbin' o' the floor,
Such a change, well, I never did see.
Wiv a apron on 'im, I twigged 'im on 'is knees
A-rubbin' up the old 'arf stone;
Wot wiv emptyin' the ashes and a-shellin o' the peas
I'm blowed if e' can call 'isself'is own!

Return to Gaudy Night

"Le Mondain" ("The Man of the World")


By Voltaire


Regrettera qui veut le bon vieux temps,
Et l'âge d'or, et le règne d'Astrée,
Et les beaux jours de Saturne et de Rhée,
Et le jardin de nos premiers parents;
Moi je rends grâce à la nature sage

Qui, pour mon bien, m'a fait naître en cet âge

Tant décrié par nos tristes frondeurs:
Ce temps profane est tout fait pour mes moeurs.
J'aime le luxe, et même la mollesse,

Tous les plaisirs, les arts de toute espèce,
La propreté, le goût, les ornements:
Tout honnête homme a de tels sentiments.
Il est bien doux pour mon coeur très immonde
De voir ici l'abondance à la ronde,
Mère des arts et des heureux travaux,
Nous apporter, de sa source féconde,
Et des besoins et des plaisirs nouveaux.
L'or de la terre et les trésors de l'onde,
Leurs habitants et les peuples de l'air,

Tout sert au luxe, aux plaisirs de ce monde.
O le bon temps que ce siècle de fer!
Le superflu, chose très nécessaire,
A réuni l'un et l'autre hémisphère.
Voyez-vous pas ces agiles vaisseaux
Qui, du Texel, de Londres, de Bordeaux,
S'en vont chercher, par un heureux échange,
De nouveaux biens, nés aux sources du Gange,
Tandis qu'au loin, vainqueurs des musulmans,
Nos vins de France enivrent les sultans?

Quand la nature était dans son enfance,
Nos bons aïeux vivaient dans l'ignorance,
Ne connaissant ni le tien ni le mien.
Qu'auraient-ils pu connaître ? ils n'avaient rien.
Ils étaient nus: et c'est chose très claire
Que qui n'a rien n'a nul partage à faire.
Sobres étaient. Ah! je le crois encor:
Martialo n'est point du siècle d'or.
D'un bon vin frais ou la mousse ou la sève
Ne gratta point le triste gosier d'Eve;

La soie et l'or ne brillaient point chez eux.
Admirez-vous pour cela nos aïeux?
Il leur manquait l'industrie et l'aisance:
Est-ce vertu ? c'était pure ignorance.
Quel idiot, s'il avait eu pour lors
Quelque bon lit, aurait couché dehors?
Mon cher Adam, mon gourmand, mon bon père,
Que faisais-tu dans les jardins d'Eden?
Travaillais-tu pour ce sot genre humain?
Caressais-tu madame Eve ma mère?

Avouez-moi que vous aviez tous deux
Les ongles longs, un peu noirs et crasseux,
La chevelure un peu mal ordonnée,
Le teint bruni, la peau bise et tannée.
Sans propreté l'amour le plus heureux
N'est plus amour, c'est un besoin honteux.
Bientôt lassés de leur belle aventure,
Dessous un chêne ils soupent galamment
Avec de l'eau, du millet, et du gland;
Le repas fait, ils dorment sur la dure:

Voilà l'état de la pure nature.
Or maintenant voulez-vous, mes amis,
Savoir un peu, dans nos jours tant maudits,
Soit à Paris, soit dans Londre, ou dans Rome,
Quel est le train des jours d'un honnête homme?
Entrez chez lui: la foule des beaux-arts,
Enfants du goût, se montre à vos regards.
De mille mains l'éclatante industrie
De ces dehors orna la symétrie.
L'heureux pinceau, le superbe dessin
Du doux Corrège et du savant Poussin

Sont encadrés dans l'or d'une bordure;
C'est Bouchardon qui fit cette figure,
Et cet argent fut poli par Germain.
Des Gobelins l'aiguille et la teinture
Dans ces tapis surpassent la peinture.
Tous ces objets sont vingt fois répétés
Dans des trumeaux tout brillants de clartés.
De ce salon je vois par la fenêtre,
Dans des jardins, des myrtes en berceaux;
Je vois jaillir les bondissantes eaux.

Mais du logis j'entends sortir le maître:
Un char commode, avec grâces orné,
Par deux chevaux rapidement traîné,
Paraît aux yeux une maison roulante,
Moitié dorée, et moitié transparente:
Nonchalamment je l'y vois promené;
De deux ressorts la liante souplesse
Sur le pavé le porte avec mollesse
Il court au bain: les parfums les plus doux
Rendent sa peau plus fraîche et plus polie.

Le plaisir presse; il vole au rendez-vous
Chez Camargo, chez Gaussin, chez Julie;
Il est comblé d'amour et de faveurs.
Il faut se rendre à ce palais magique
Où les beaux vers, la danse, la musique,
L'art de tromper les yeux par les couleurs,
L'art plus heureux de séduire les coeurs,
De cent plaisirs font un plaisir unique.
Il va siffler quelque opéra nouveau,
Ou, malgré lui, court admirer Rameau.

Allons souper. Que ces brillants services,
Que ces ragoûts ont pour moi de délices!
Qu'un cuisinier est un mortel divin!
Chloris, Églé, me versent de leur main
D'un vin d'Aï dont la mousse pressée,
De la bouteille avec force élancée,
Comme un éclair fait voler le bouchon;
Il part, on rit; il frappe le plafond.
De ce vin frais l'écume pétillante
De nos Français est l'image brillante.

Le lendemain donne d'autres désirs,
D'autres soupers, et de nouveaux plaisirs.
Or maintenant, monsieur du Télémaque,
Vantez-nous bien votre petite Ithaque,
Votre Salente, et vos murs malheureux,
Où vos Crétois, tristement vertueux,
Pauvres d'effet, et riches d'abstinence,
Manquent de tout pour avoir l'abondance:
J'admire fort votre style flatteur,
Et votre prose, encor qu'un peu traînante;

Mais, mon ami, je consens de grand coeur
D'être fessé dans vos murs de Salente,
Si je vais là pour chercher mon bonheur.
Et vous, jardin de ce premier bonhomme,
Jardin fameux par le diable et la pomme,
C'est bien en vain que, par l'orgueil séduits,
Huet, Calmet, dans leur savante audace,
Du paradis ont recherché la place:
Le paradis terrestre est où je suis.

Back to Gaudy Night

"Leave Me, O Love,
Which Reachest But To Dust"


A Sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney


Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust,
And thou my mind aspire to higher things:
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.

Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might,
To that sweet yoke, where lasting freedoms be:
Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light,
That doth both shine and give us sight to see.

O take fast hold, let that light be thy guide,
In this small course which birth draws out to death,
And think how evil becometh him to slide,
Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.
Then farewell world, thy uttermost I see,
Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me.

Back to Gaudy Night

"On Love"


An Essay by Francis Bacon.


Editor's note: The passage quoted in "Gaudy Night" is highlighted near the end. Paragraphs were introduced for clarity's sake.

The stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is even matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury.

You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons, (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent,) there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love; which shows, that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus Antonius the half partner of the Empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius the Decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous man and inordinate; but the latter was an austere and wise man: and therefore it seems (though rarely,) that love can find entrance, not only into an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept.

It is a poor saying of Epicurus: Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus; as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are,) yet of the eye, which was given him for higher purposes.

It is a strange thing to note the excess of this passion; and how it braves the nature and value of things by this, that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it has been well said, that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatters have intelligence, is a man's self; certainly the lover is more; for there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, that it is impossible to love, and to be wise.

Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved, but to he loved most of all; except the love be reciprocal. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded either with the reciprocal, or with an inward and secret contempt: by how much the more men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things but itself.

As for the other losses, the poet's relation doth well figure them; that he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas: for whosoever esteemeth too much of amourous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom. This passion hath his floods in the very times of weakness, which are, great prosperity and great adversity; though this latter hath been less observed: both which times kindle love, and make it more frequent, and therefore, show it to be the child of folly. They do best, who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter; and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life: for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men that they can no ways be true to their own ends.

I know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think it is, but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man's nature a secret inclination and motion toward love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself toward many, and maketh men to become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometimes in friars.

Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.

Back to Gaudy Night

"Say That Thou Didst Forsake Me For Some Fault"


Sonnet 89 By William Shakespeare


Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence;
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change,
As I'll myself disgrace: knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle and look strange,
Be absent from thy walks, and in my tongue
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
For thee against myself I'll vow debate,
For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.

Back to Gaudy Night

"Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness"


Sonnet 96 by William Shakespeare


Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:
Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort.
As on the finger of a throned queen 5
The basest jewel will be well esteem'd,
So are those errors that in thee are seen
To truths translated and for true things deem'd.
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks translate! 10
How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
But do not so; I love thee in such sort,
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

Back to Gaudy Night

"The Daniel Jazz"


By Vachel Lindsay


Darius the Mede was a king and a wonder.*
His eye was proud, and his voice was thunder.
He kept bad lions in a monstrous den.
He fed up the lions on Christian men.

Daniel was the chief hired man of the land.
He stirred up the jazz in the palace band.
He whitewashed the cellar. He shovelled in the coal.
And Daniel kept a-praying:--"Lord save my soul."

Daniel was the butler, swagger and swell.
He ran up stairs. He answered the bell.
And he would let in whoever came a-calling:--
Saints so holy, scamps so appalling.
"Old man Ahab leaves his card.
Elisha and the bears are a-waiting in the yard.
Here comes Pharaoh and his snakes a-calling.

Here comes Cain and his wife a-calling.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego for tea.
Here comes Jonah and the whale,
And the Sea!
Here comes St. Peter and his fishing pole.

Here comes Judas and his silver a-calling.
Here comes old Beelzebub a-calling."
And Daniel kept a-praying:--"Lord save my soul."
Daniel kept a-praying:--"Lord save my soul."
Daniel kept a-praying:--"Lord save my soul."

His sweetheart and his mother were Christian and meek.
They washed and ironed for Darius every week.
One Thursdy he met them at the door:--
Paid them as usual, but acted sore.

He said:--"Your Daniel is a dead little pigeon.
He's a good hard worker, but he talks religion."
And he showed them Daniel in the lions' cage.
His good old mother cried:--
"Lord save him."
And Daniel's tender sweetheart cried:--
"Lord save him."

And she was a golden lily in the dew.
And she was as sweet as an apple on the tree
And she was as fine as a melon in the corn-field,
Gliding and lovely as a ship on the sea,
Gliding and lovely as a ship on the sea.

And she prayed to the Lord:--
"Send Gabriel. Send Gabriel."

King Darius said to the lions:--
"Bite Daniel. Bite Daniel.
Bite him. Bite him. Bite him!"

Thus roared the lions:--
"We want Daniel, Daniel, Daniel,
We want Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

Here the audience roars

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

And Daniel did not frown,
Daniel did not cry.

He kept on looking at the sky.
And the Lord said to Gabriel:--

The audience sings this with the leader, in the old negro tune.

"Go chain the lions down,
Go chain the lions down.
Go chain the lions down."

And Gabriel chained the lions,
And Gabriel chained the lions,
And Gabriel chained the lions,
And Daniel got out of the den,
And Daniel got out of the den,
And Daniel got out of the den.
And Darius said:--"You're a Chrisitian child,"
Darius said:--"You're a Chrisitian child,"
Darius said:--"You're a Chrisitian child,"
And gave him his job again,
And gave him his job again,
And gave him his job again.

* One contributer to this site wishes us to know that Darius was a Persian and not a Mede, and quotes this:

"I am Dariush, the great king, the king of kings
The king of many countries and many people
The king of this expansive land,
The son of Wishtaspa of Achaemenid,
Persian, the son of a Persian,
'Aryan', from the Aryan race"

From the Darius the Great's Inscription in Naqshe-e-Rostam

So noted.

Back to Gaudy Night

"The Princess: A Medley: O Swallow"


By Alfred Lord Tennyson


O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.

O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And dark and true and tender is the North.

O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.

O were I thou that she might take me in,
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.

Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love,
Delaying as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?

O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown:
Say to her, I do but wanton in the South,
But in the North long since my nest is made.

O tell her, brief is life but love is long,
And brief the sun of summer in the North,
And brief the moon of beauty in the South.

O Swallow, flying from the golden woods,
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine,
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.

Back to Gaudy Night

"Thou Blind Man's Mark,
Thou Fool's Self-Chosen Snare"


A sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney


Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare,
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought;
Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care;
Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought:
Desire, Desire! I have too dearly bought,
With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware;
Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought,
Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare,
But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought,
In vain thou mad'st me to vain things aspire,
In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire,
For Virtue hath this better lesson taught:
Within myself to seek my only hire,
Desiring nought but how to kill Desire.

Back to Gaudy Night

From "Tom Sawyer"


Chapter 9, By Mark Twain


"At half past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual. They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and waited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark. Everything was dismally still. By and by, out of the stillness, little, scarcely preceptible noises begin to emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And now the tiresome chriping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom shudder--it meant that somebody's days were numbered."

Back to Gaudy Night

Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain


By John Keats


Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain,
Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies;
Without that modest softening that enhances
The downcast eye, repentant of the pain
That its mild light creates to heal again: 5
E’en then, elate, my spirit leaps, and prances,
E’en then my soul with exultation dances
For that to love, so long, I’ve dormant lain:
But when I see thee meek, and kind, and tender,
Heavens! how desperately do I adore 10
Thy winning graces;—to be thy defender
I hotly burn—to be a Calidore—
A very Red Cross Knight—a stout Leander—
Might I be loved by thee like these of yore.

Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair; 15
Soft dimpled hands, white neck, and creamy breast,
Are things on which the dazzled senses rest
Till the fond, fixed eyes, forget they stare.
From such fine pictures, heavens! I cannot dare
To turn my admiration, though unpossess’d 20
They be of what is worthy,—though not drest
In lovely modesty, and virtues rare.
Yet these I leave as thoughtless as a lark;
These lures I straight forget—e’en ere I dine,
Or thrice my palate moisten: but when I mark 25
Such charms with mild intelligences shine,
My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.

Ah! who can e’er forget so fair a being?
Who can forget her half retiring sweets? 30
God! she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats
For man’s protection. Surely the All-seeing,
Who joys to see us with his gifts agreeing,
Will never give him pinions, who intreats
Such innocence to ruin,—who vilely cheats 35
A dove-like bosom. In truth there is no freeing
One’s thoughts from such a beauty; when I hear
A lay that once I saw her hand awake,
Her form seems floating palpable, and near;
Had I e’er seen her from an arbour take 40
A dewy flower, oft would that hand appear,
And o’er my eyes the trembling moisture shake.

Back to Gaudy Night

"Gaudy Night"


Excerpts from "Gaudy Night " are copyright 1936 by Dorothy Leigh Sayers Fleming, and renewed 1964 by Anthony Fleming.

Title

The phrase "gaudy night" is unfamiliar to most American readers. My American Heritage dictionary gives this definition: "a feast, especially an annual university dinner." Gaudy is derived from the Old French gaudie, for merriment, which threads itself through history all the way back to the Latin gauidum, enjoyment and merrymaking. (Contributed by Marc van der Poel)

The phrase appears in Shakespeare's "Antonius and Cleopatra" XI,11, 225: "Let's have one other gaudy night: call to me All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more; Let's mock the midnight bell."

Title

Rivers of Knowledge are there, Arts and Sciences flow from thence. Counsell Tables are Horti conclusi, (as it is said in the Canticles) Gardens that are walled in, and they are Fontes signati, Wells that are sealed up; bottomless depths of unsearchable Counsels there.

‑‑ John Donne

No source for this quote was found, so I'll only note that "Horti conclusi" means enclosed garden, and "Fontest signati" sealed wells. The Latin tags are quotations from the Song of Songs 4:12. ("A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.") Note that Harriet repeats these phrases as a way of expressing her fear of the mental states of university women who stayed behind in their horti conclusi.

Author's Note

in aeternum floreant

aeterno: everlasting; floreo: blooming, flourishing

CHAPTER 1


1 ~ Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self‑chosen snare,
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought,
Ban of all evils; cradle of causeless care;
Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought:
Desire! Desire! I have too dearly bought
With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware.
‑‑ Sir Philip Sidney

A sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney

2 ~ Shrewsbury Gaudy

As "gaudy" is not used in the United States as a noun, it should be noted that the old word (from 1582) means ostentatiously or tastelessly ornamented, or, as in the phrase "giving gaudy praise," extravagant. So a gaudy night gives the impression of a party in which everyone dresses up, where taste and restraint are thrown out the window.

3 ~ Miss Patty in the Second‑Year play

Miss Patty: This was a character in "Quality Street" a love story set in England during the Napoleonic Wars by Sir James Barrie that debuted in 1901. The story summary is quite extensive, so here's a link to the Internet Movie Database. It was filmed twice, in 1927 with Marion Davies -- William Randolph Hearst's mistress -- in the title role, and in 1937 with Katharine Hepburn.
(Contributed by Bernie Lobert)

punted up the Cher

Cher: The River Cherwell, which runs on a north‑south course along the east side of the university area.

coffee and parkin

parkin: a cake‑like dessert

Prometheus and Epimetheus had changed their parts

A reference to Greek mythology. Prometheus and Epimetheus were brothers, one as shrewd as the other was clumsy. Zeus asked Hephæstus and Athena to create the source of all evil for men. They responded with Pandora, the first woman, and she was so beautiful that Epimetheus fell with love with her despite Prometheus' warning and took her as wife. Upon her arrival on Earth, she opened the jar and unleashed evil onto the world.

In the Protagoras dialogue, Plato reworked the Pandora myth to defend the statement that civic virtue can be taught. He dropped Pandora from the story and replaced it with a creation myth. Prometheus and Epimetheus were responsible for assigning powers to all the creatures. Epimetheus took on the job, but gave too many to the animals, and had nothing left for man. Prometheus corrected the problem by stealing fire and the arts from Hephæstus and Athena.

8 ~ Scholar; Master of Arts; Domina; Senior Member of this University (statutum est quod Juniores Senioribus debitam et congruam reverentiam tum in privato tum in publico exhibeant)

"It is decreed that Juniors will show to Seniors appropriate and fitting respect both in public and private."
(Translation provided by Monica Connolly)

Domina

Mistress or counsel

10 ~ we are both decently sub‑fusc.

Sub‑fusc: drab or dusky. From the Latin word "subfuscus," meaning dark brown. At Oxford, it describes a formal way of dressing. For men, it would have been a black suit, white shirt, white bow tie with cap and gown, and for women, the same only with black tie, black skirt, gown and ladies' cap. This uniform is still used today for university functions and during exams.
(Contributed by Mary Henely)

14 ~ the conversation naturally passed to biology, Mendelian factors and Brave New World

Mendelian factors: part of the theory of inheritance proposed by Gregor Mendel that established the science of classical genetics. By propagating pea plants, he proposed that each plant determined the characteristics of its progeny by passing down "factors," now known as genes.

Brave New World: a dystopian novel by Aldus Huxley that examined the creation of a state run solely along scientific principles.

15 ~ Carlyle . . . all the old gossip without troubling to verify anything

Thomas Carlyle (1795‑1881): historian and critic. His most famous work is his "History of the French Revolution." After his death, reminiscences published by a friend, based in part on Carlyle's papers, caused a scandal by detailing the marital strife and sexual troubles in Carlyle's marriage.

17 ~ No one can bathe in the same river twice, not even in the Isis.

Isis: One of four headstreams that meet in Oxford to create the Thames River. The quotation is derived from Heraclitus, who wrote, "You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are always flowing upon you." It is an example of the Heraclitian, or ever‑changing, view of the universe, which is discussed below.

20 ~ like illustrations to Pendennis ‑‑ so out of date of them!

"Pendennis" is a novel by William Makepeace Thackery, published in 1848. The reference to illustrations is unknown.

21 ~ Well, I'm like Marjory Fleming's turkey ‑‑ I do not give a single damn for the Old Students' Meeting; I simply must eat and drink.

The story of Marjory Fleming (1803‑1811) is a tale of literary necrophilia. She died young and the diary she kept during the last 18 months of her life achieved a short literary popularity. She also wrote poetry, from which the above quotation is derived.

CHAPTER 2


21 ~ the promise of permanence in a Heraclitean universe

Heraclitus (535‑475 BCE): a Greek philosopher who created the notion of dynamism, which states that the universe is in a state of constant flux, and that much of the stability we perceive is illusionary. Eventually, everything will pass through phases and circle around again: fire changing continually into water, then into earth, earth back into water and then into fire. Our final destruction is inescapable and even the gods cannot avoid this fate.

23 ~ sub‑fusc

Drab or dusky. From the Latin word "subfuscus" meaning dark brown.

33 ~ God made the integers; all else is the work of man

A statement by Leopold Kronecker, the 19th‑century German mathematician. While he added to the theory of equations and higher algebra, he believed that all mathematics can be reduced to arguments involving only the integers and a finite number of steps. He opposed the use of irrational numbers, upper and lower limits and transcendental numbers.

CHAPTER 3


36 ~ They do best who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life; for if it check once with business it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men that they can no ways be true to their own ends. ‑‑ Francis Bacon

Quoted from Bacon's essay "On Love."

42 ~ Mr. A.E.W. Mason

Alfred Edward Woodley Mason: a popular novelist and contemporary of Sayers. He was known particularly for the novel "The Four Feathers" and his series featuring Inspector Hanaud.

43 ~ How all occasions do inform against me!

A line from From "Hamlet," Act IV, Scene iv, Line 32

49 ~ Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury, in whose honour the college had been founded

Little was discovered about Mary, but if she was anything like her mother, she must have been a holy terror. Her mother, Elizabeth Talbot, countess of Shrewsbury, was first married at 12 to Robert Barlow, who died shortly thereafter. She inherited large estates twice more by the same method before marrying, in 1568, George Talbot, 6th earl of Shrewsbury. The next year, they were entrusted with the care of Mary Queen of Scots until 1584. In 1574, she was sent to the tower for three months because her daughter married Charles Stuart, a claimant to the throne, and Queen Elizabeth I was not pleased. She built a number of great mansions, including Hardwick Hall.

50 ~ Like the mother of the Gracchi

This Cornelia (died 100 BCE), a Roman woman renowned for her devotion to her children's education, particularly the tribunes, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Gaius Sempronius Gracchus. Both were involved in attempts to reform the Roman Republic, particularly in redistributing lands from the wealthy landowners to the poor, and both were killed for their efforts. Her letters of advice to her sons exist today.

52 ~ Rubbidge, as Mrs. Gamp would say

Mrs. Gamp: a character in "Martin Chuzzlewit" by Charles Dickens. She inspired the slang word gamp, referring to the large baggy umbrella she habitually carried, as well as a term for a midwife.

54 ~ meditating on (series of Greek symbols)

"On kai me on," translated as "being and not being." Sayers discusses this use in Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" in her book "The Mind of the Maker:"
"It is here that we come up against a bunch of fascinating speculations about the 'on kai me on' ‑‑ being and not being. It is all very well for Marlowe's Faustus to exclaim impatiently, 'Bid oncaymeon farewell', the inquisitive mind find it very difficult to bid farewell to this intriguing subject. (Living Age Books, 1956, p. 99)

Dan Drake discusses Faustus and "on kai me on" in his annotation to "The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Melagar's Will." Look for crossword clue "2. VI."

(Thanks to Marc van der Poel for the translation and Tom Sulyok for tracking down the Sayers' reference.)

CHAPTER 4


55 ~ Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change.
‑‑ William Shakespeare

From Sonnet 89.

"Time is," quoth the Brazen Head; "time was; time is past."

The Brazen Head is a legendary magical item of Eastern origin, a head made of brass capable of speech, and it has inspired a number of tales. The one from which the quote is derived concerns Roger Bacon (1210/14‑after 1292), a philosopher who studied at Oxford. According to the story, Bacon was told that if he heard the head speak, whatever project he was working on at the time would succeed; if not, it would fail. To ensure success, he had his familiar, Miles, watch it while Bacon slept. That night, the head spoke three times: "time is;" "time was;" and "time past." The head then fell and was smashed to pieces.

In "The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay" by Robert Greene (1558‑1592), the story is told with a comic flair. The head was a powerful artifact that took decades to create, and, when properly used, was supposed to encircle England with a powerful force. The clown Miles invokes the head, and it speaks the first two lines. But when the assistant fails to complete the spell properly, a magic hammer appears and destroys the head as it says, "time is past."

56 ~ Vade in pace

Latin: "go in peace"

57 ~ till the coming of the Coqcigrues?

A reference to "Letters to Dead Authors" by Andrew Lang (1844‑1912). Lang was a prolific, now mostly forgotten, author and Greek scholar, who wrote in a number of forms, in this case, imaginary letters to authors. He is best known for reviving the popularity of fairy tales with his multi‑colored titles, beginning with "The Blue Fairy Book" in 1889. He also collaborated with A.E.W. Mason (see 42 reference) in "Parson Kelly" (1899). He also wrote "The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories" which figures into another reference below (see 124 reference).

58 ~ to afficher one's self with him at Ferrara's.

afficher: to show off, from the French for display.

Ferrara: Possibly a fancy restaurant, although whether real or fictional is not known.
(Contributed by Lilah Lohr)

Prospects of the Ottawa Conference

In response to the 1929 stock market crash, Britain went off the gold standard, causing a devaluation of the pound. The conference in 1932 reached agreements establishing import and export rules and tariffs among the Commonwealth nations.
(Contributed by Michael Loo and Lilah Lohr)

62 ~ "You not alone, when you are still alone,
O God, from you that I could private be!"

Quote from "Idea" by Michael Drayton

64 ~ if you intend to be like Caesar's sacrifice

A reference to Act II, Scene 2 of "Julius Caesar," in which his wife and friends argue that he should not go to the Forum that day. A sacrifice is called for, and the augurers (those who read and interpret what they find in the sacrifice) say that he should not go; that, as the servant says, "They could not find a heart within the beast."

Caesar replies:
The gods do this in shame of cowardice;
Caesar should be a beast without a heart,
If he should stay at home to‑day for fear,

(The "beat without a heart" line in the book is probably a mispelling.)
(Contributed by Michael Loo)

71 ~ the scholarship papers blowing about me like leaves in Vallombrosa!

Vallombrosa: A monastery near Florence that appears in "Paradise Lost"; book I, line 302:
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades
High over‑arch'd imbower.

72 ~ Like Lady Athaliah's tower in "Frolic Wind," the home of frustration and perversion and madness? "If thine eye be single, the whole body is full of light"

"Frolic Wind" was a novel published in 1929 by Richard Oke, the pen name of Nigel Stansbury Millett. He was a minor British novelist of the 1930s. (Thanks to Gaslight Digest for providing the information.) The novel is also listed under "gay fiction" at a website (now defunct) that categorized gay fiction. Athaliah is also a Biblical name. She was the only queen to rule Judah (843‑847 BCE) and was noted for killing all of her male rivals to the throne, except for Joash, who killed her. The story is told in 2 Kings. 11: 16.

If thine eye: A quotation from two books. There is Luke 11: 34‑36: "The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light." There is also Matthew 6:22: "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

75 ~ post occasio calva

A Latin phrase attributed to Cato but Wikiquote mentions it was possibly spoken by Dionysius Cato from the 3rd or 4th century A.D. The full phrase is "Fronte capillata, post est Occasio calva" and means "Hairy in front, opportunity is bald behind."
(Contributed by Tom Sulyok)

CHAPTER 5


76 ~ Virginity is a fine picture, as Bonaventure calls it, a blessed thing in itself, and if you will
believe a Papist, meritorious. (Etc.)
-- Robert Burton

Drawn from Memb. 5, Subsection 1 of "The Anatomy of Melancholy" by Robert Burton, (1577–1640), English scholar and vicar at Oxford University. Note that Sayers does not provide the full quotation, which I think causes a bit of confusion. When Burton speaks of "toys," is he referring to the inconveniences? No, he is actually talking about the "embracing, dalliance, kissing, colling" and other pleasures of marriage.

Here is the complete passage, with the excised portions highlighted in italics:
Virginity is a fine picture, as Bonaventure calls it, a blessed thing in itself, and if you will believe a Papist, meritorious. And although there be some inconveniences, irksomeness, solitariness, &c., incident to such persons, want of those comforts, quae, aegro assideat et curet aegrotum, fomentum paret, roget medicum, &c., embracing, dalliance, kissing, colling, &c., those furious motives and wanton pleasures a new-married wife most part enjoys; yet they are but toys in respect, easily to be endured, if conferred to those frequent encumbrances of marriage. Solitariness may be otherwise avoided with mirth, music, good company, business, employment; in a word, Gaudebit minus, et minus dolebit; for their good nights, he shall have good days. And methinks some time or other, amongst so many rich bachelors, a benefactor should be found to build a monastical college for old, decayed, deformed, or discontented maids to live together in, that have lost their first loves, or otherwise miscarried, or else are willing howsoever to lead a single life. The rest I say are toys in respect, and sufficiently recompensed by those innumerable contents and incomparable privileges of virginity.
Bonaventure is St. Bonaventure (1221-1274), a leader of the Franciscans.

(Contributed by James Fulford)

blotted its copybook

Obviously not a good thing. A copybook is what a student writes his homework in, so blotting it ‑‑ say, with a pen that leaks ink ‑‑ is sure to bring a frown of disapproval from headmaster.

94 ~ Lombroso, theories about what murderers look like.

The Italian physician sare Lombroso developed a theory about criminality based on the dubious science of phrenology. He measured the heads of living and executed criminals and compared them to the skulls of apes, prehistoric humans and "primitive" peoples. In "Criminal Man" (1876), he theorized that criminals were victims of atavism, or the reappearance of a inherited trait after an absence.

98 ~ You have contrived to cast the Apple of Discord among us with a vengeance.

Apple of Discord: A story from Greek mythology. Zeus was preparing a wedding banquet for Peleus and Thetis and did not invite Eris. In revenge, she created an apple of pure gold, inscribed it "To The Prettiest One," and rolled it into the hall during the banquet. Athena, Hera and Aphrodite each claimed it and began to fight over it. Zeus directed that an arbitrator be found to settle the issue, and sent them to Paris, a shepherd of Troy.

Athena lacies of Hope

No reference found

115 ~ the Chaucer Folio, the Shakespeare First Quarto, the three Kelmscott Morrises, the autographed copy of "The Man of Property," and the embroidered glove belonging to the Countess of Shrewsbury.

The school's treasures:

Chaucer Folio: This probably the first edition of the Complete Works, printed in 1542 possibly by William Thynne.

Shakespeare First Quarto: A rare edition of the plays. Quarto is a reference to the size of the book, obtained by folding a whole sheet into four leaves.

Kelmscott Morrises: The three Kelmscott Morrises are unidentified, but they are probably from the more than 50 books that the Kelmscott Press printed during the lifetime of William Morris, who founded the press in 1891 in a cottage near Kelmscott House. Long a designer, Morris started the press as a way of expressing his feelings towards the art of craftsmanship that was being lost to industrialization. Influenced by medieval illuminated manuscripts, he designed and printed more then 50 books written by himself and Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Rossetti, Swinburn and medieval authors. Morris designed the typefaces, made the paper and printed the books by hand. They were expensive, but exquisite examples of the bookmaking art, and command high prices today. The finest work was "The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer" illustrated by Burne‑Jones.

"The Man of Property": The first novel in the "Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy, published in 1906. Galsworthy's harsh critique of the upper middle classes is quoted elsewhere. Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize in 1932, a few years before "Gaudy Night" was published.

117 ~ "much learning hath made thee mad"
A reference from the Bible, Acts 26:24. Arrested for blasphemy, Paul defends himself before Herod Agrippa II by telling the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus. (Slight highjack: in the King James Version, he provoked generations of snickers from 13‑year‑old boys by quoting the Lord as telling him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." Of course, he meant pricks as goads, or pointed sticks.)

Ahem, to quote from the Bible:

22 Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come:

23 That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.

24 And as he thus spake for himself, Festus [the governor of Judaea] said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.

25 But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.

120 ~ figured in our battels at the end of term

Battels are bills charged to each Oxford student for their education, lodgings and provisions.

CHAPTER 7


122 ~ O my deare Cloris be not sad,
Nor with these Furies daunted,
But let these female fooles be mad,
With Hellish pride inchanted;
Let not they noble thoughts descend
So low as their affections,
Whom neither counsell can amend,
Nor yet the Gods corrections.
— Michael Drayton

From "The Fourth Nimphall" in "The Muses Elizium" by Michael Drayton. A version can be found at Project Gutenberg.
(Contributed by Tony Morris)

124 ~ the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and the alleged poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury by the Countess of Essex.

The Godfrey reference is to a story from "The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories" by Andrew Lang. The story of Sir Godfrey's murder can be found at Wikipedia.

Sir Thomas Overbury (baptized 1581‑1613) was a poet and essayist in the court of James I. Overbury was secretary and close adviser to Robert Carr, later Viscount Rochester. In 1611, Rochester fell in love with Frances Howard, wife of the Earl of Essex. She secured a divorce and planed to marry Rochester. Fearing a loss of influence over his friend, he tried to persuade Rochester to drop the match, and circulated his poem "A Wife" which was interpreted as an attack on Lady Essex. This angered the king, and Lady Essex' powerful relatives had Overbury imprisoned. She arranged to have him slowly poisoned to death.

Three months later, Rochester, now Earl of Somerset, married Lady Essex. Over the next two years, suspicions were raised over Overbury's death, and in the end, six people were tried, including the Earl and his wife. They were prosecuted by Francis Bacon, and convicted and pardoned by the king, while the others were convicted and executed. Overbury's poem, meanwhile, was published in 1614 and went through several editions. But what was more important, the later editions included witty and satirical prose portraits of Jacobean types that advanced the development of the essay. These were written by John Webster, Cecily Bulstrode, Lady Frances Southwell, Thomas Dekker and John Donne, with a few contributed by Overbury.

126 ~ O les beaux jours que ce siecle de fer

Miss Millbanks is quoting from Voltaire's poem "Le Mondain" ("The Man of the World.") which he wrote in 1736. The French version suggests that she conflated two lines: "Et les beaux jours de Saturne et de Rhée," and "O le bon temps que ce siècle de fer!" If you're interested in more, there is also the BabelFish translation by AltaVista.

Groupists drink cocoa . . . But they are oh! So tender to the failings of others

Groupists ... the failings of others: The Oxford Group, a Christian organization that, like many before and many to follow, emphasized its focus on God and Christ over such things as worship rituals, hierarchies, agendas or leaders. Founded by American missionary Frank Buchman in 1908, the movement emphasized adopting four absolutes -- honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. The "Oxford Group" label came from press acounts of a students' trip to South Africa, and it stuck. The group's beliefs influenced the founders of Alcoholics Anonymnous. Prior to World War II, the group changed its name to Moral Rearmament.

(Contributed by Johanna Kershaw and others)

140 ~ in the somnolent stage of her rake's progress

somnolent: inclined to sleep

Rake's Progress: a series of engravings by William Hogarth that appeared in 1733‑1735, that charted the downfall of a libertine.

143 ~ Not surprising if she goes mad in white linen

mad in white linen: A common phrase. It appears in the stage direction from Sheridan's play "The Critic," in which he writes
"Enter Tilburina [the heroine], stark mad in white satin, and her confidante, stark mad in white linen".
(Contributed by Joanna Lonergan)

CHAPTER 8


144 ~ Tho marking him with melting eyes
A thrilling throbbe from her hart did aryse,
And interrupted all her other speache
With some old sorowe that made a newe breache:
Seeemed shee sawe in the younglings face
The old lineaments of his fathers grace.
— Edmund Spenser

From "The Shepheardes Calender" by Edmund Spenser. A version can be found at Archive.org.
(Contributed by Tony Morris)

148 ~ tristius haud illis monstrum nec saevior ulla pestis et ira deum Stygiis sese extulit undis. Virginei volucrum vultus foedissima ventris proluvies uncaeque manus et pallida semper ora fame.

From Virgil's "Aeneid," lines 214-218

No prodigy
more vile than these, nor plague more pitiless
ere rose by wrath divine from Stygian wave;
birds seem they, but with face like woman-kind;
foul-flowing bellies, hands with crooked claws,
and ghastly lips they have, with hunger pale.

(Contributed by Delores de Manuel)

"His lordship has drunk his bath and gone to bed again"

From Edward Spencer's "Cakes and Ale," a book published in 1913. Subtitled "A Dissertation of Banquets Interspersed with Various Recipes," the above quote is from an old story to describe the effects of good living: "Many sufferers will feel a loathing for any sort of food or drink, except cold water. 'The capting,' observed the soldier-servant to a visitor, "ain't very well this morning, sir; he've just drunk his bath, and gone to bed again."

Google Books has a copy of the book available for reading.

(Contributed by Peter Osborn and others)

149 ~ Dark and true and tender is the North

From "The Princess: A Medley: O Swallow" by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Later, it was set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan.

All quiet on the Western Front

World War I reference. The Western Front was the line of battle between the Germans and the French and English (and later Americans). The phrase, taken from a German Army report (where it was "Im Westen nichts Neues") became the title of an anti‑war novel by Erich Maria Remarque. (Contributed by Marc van der Poel)

155 ~ I expect you want to be very truly run after, like Old Man Kangaroo.

A reference to the "Sing‑Song of Old Man Kangaroo," from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories

156 ~ As Sherlock Holmes said on another occasion: I think we must ask for an amnesty in that direction'

A line from the conclusion of "Silver Blaze":
"You have explained all but one thing," cried the Colonel. "Where was the horse?"

"Ah, it bolted, and was cared for by one of your neighbors. We must have an amnesty in that direction, I think."

160 ~ Have you been approached about debagging Culpepper

Public‑school slang for removing the victim's pants.

from now on, I shall consider nothing but the value of the Thing‑in‑Itself, unmoved by any pressure of public opinion.

Immanuel Kant used this phrase to contrast between an object as it exists and how we perceive it. In very, very simple terms, Kant believed that while we can experience the material world through our sensory perceptions, we cannot come to a complete understanding of it. We do not experience the world passively, we interpret it.

161 ~ Komisarjevsky

Fyodor Fyodorovich Komissarzhevsky (1882‑1954): Russian theatrical director and designer. After studying architecture in Russia and Germany, he directed several plays in St. Petersburg, then produced plays and operas as a director in the imperial and state theaters in Moscow before emigrating to England in 1919. Komissarzhevsky was known for his modernistic treatments of Shakespeare's plays, such as his "Macbeth" (1933), which was performed in 20th‑century dress against a background of aluminum scenery.

Great noise on O.U.D.S. and spends his vacations in Germany I don't know how they contrive to get so worked up about plays. I like a good play, but I don't understand all this stuff about stylistic treatment and planes of vision.

O.U.D.S. Oxford University Dramatic Society. Komissarzhevsky produced "King Lear" for the OUDS in 1927.

fountain statue of Mercury165 ~ drown myself in Mercury

A reference to the fountain statue of Mercury in Christ Church College.
(Contributed by Marc van der Poel)

167 ~ the minute they write d.s.p. after me, Uncle Peter's for it.

Latin "decessit sine prole" or French "decede/decedee sans posterite," died without issue

CHAPTER 9


170 ~ Come hether friend, I am ashamed to hear that what I hear of you . . . You have almost attayned to the age of nyne yeeres, at least eight and a halfe, and seeing that you knowe your dutie, if you neglect it you deserve greater punishment then he which through ignorance doth it not. Think not that the nobilitie of your Ancestors doth free you to doe all that you list, contrary‑wise, it bindeth you more to followe vertue. — Pierre Erondell

Not traced

173 ~ If one's genuinely interested one knows how to be patient, and let time pass, as Queen Elizabeth said.

Not traced

Perhaps that's the meaning of the phrase about genius being eternal patience, which I always thought rather absurd.

"Genius is eternal patience." ~ Michelangelo (found only at one of many "Quote of the Day" inspirational sites)

176 ~ les beaux yeux de la cassette de l'oncle Pierre

"the beautiful eyes of uncle Peter's money box": this a reference to Molières "L'avare" ("The Miser")

VAL RE: Tous mes désirs se sont bornés é jouir de sa vue; et rien de criminel n'a profané la passion que ses beaux yeux m'ont inspirée.

HARPAGON: Les beaux yeux de ma cassette! Il parle d'elle comme un amant d'une maîtresse.

Or, as Altavista's Babelfish put it:

VAL RE: All my desires were restricted to enjoy its sight; and nothing criminal profaned passion that its beautiful eyes inspired to me.

HARPAGON: Beautiful eyes of my cassette! It speaks about it like a lover of a mistress.

"My cassette," eh? All right, maybe it does lose something in the translation.
(Contributed by Marc van der Poel)

Dives dying and being tormented in Hades, from the Church of Ste-Maria-Magdaleine at Vezelay183 ~ I feel like Dives in whats‑his‑name

Dives is the name of the unnamed rich man in the parable of Lazarus found in Luke 16:20. While the poor man Lazarus dies and ascends to heaven, the rich man who ignored Lazarus' suffering dies and is tormented forever in Hades. Why or how the man became named is unknown, but "dives" is the Latin Vulgate word for "wealthy."
(Contributed by Marc van der Poel)

CHAPTER 10


190 ~ Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;
Thou makst faults graces that to thee resort.
— William Shakespeare

From sonnet 96.

196 ~ but she seemed to have gone off into the Ewigkeit

Ewigkeit: German word for perpetuity or eternity

197 ~ Codlin is the friend, not Short

From Dickens' "Old Curiosity Shop," chapter 19. Codlin and Short were Punch-and-Judy men who accompany Little Nell and her grandfather as they roam the country. Codlin had a shrewd suspicion that little Nell and her grandfather were fleeing someone and hoped had absconded, and that a reward would be offered for their discovery. So he tried to make friends with the little girl in the hope of making something of it.

"None of the speakers has much to say in actual hostility to Lord Salisbury's speech, but they all harp upon the theory that Codlin is the friend, not Short." — Newspaper paragraph, Oct. 13th, 1885.

198 ~ as old James Forsyte says, "Nobody ever tells me anything."

A reference to "Man of Property" by John Galsworthy

200 ~ Like the Old Man of Thermopylae — never does anything properly

From "Some Nonsense Limericks by Edward Lear" (1846):
There was an Old Man of Thermopylae,
Who never did anything properly;
But they said, "If you choose
To boil Eggs in your Shoes,
You shall never remain in Thermopylae."

"The portrait of a blinking idiot" (Amazing fellow, Shakespeare. The apt word for all occasions.)

From "The Merchant of Venice." On one of three caskets Portia offers to potential suitors. The Prince of Arragon chose this one.

201 ~ continue to rob Peter to pay all (rather neat thing to say)

According to the "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings," the saying is very old. The earliest written usage is from the 1380s in John Wycliffe's ‘Select English Works.' written in about 1380. The quote also pops up in several different languages. In French, one may "decouvrir saint Pierre pour couvrir saint Paul" (‘Strip Peter to clothe Paul'); in Spanish, to "desnudar a uno santo para vestir a otro" (‘To undress one saint to dress another'); and in German, to "dem Peter nehmen und dem Paul geben." (‘To take from Peter and give to Paul').

203 ~ legged it over the wall like one John Smith

"Legging it" is British slang for running, while "John Smith" implies that he's trying to disappear (John Smith, of course, being a common name).
(Contributed by Tony Morris)

204 ~ One halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack

From Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Part One," Act II, Scene iv. Wimsey also drops a reference to this scene in "The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention."

CHAPTER 11


207 ~ Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust;
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;
— Sir Philip Sidney

Two lines from a sonnet.

219 ~ vanished daily into the Radcliffe Camera . . . in Radcliffe Square the Camera slept like a cat in the sunshine, disturbed only by the occasional visit of a slow-footed don

Radcliffe Camera: One of the most interesting buildings at Oxford, the Radcliffe Camera is a circular library that was built between 1737 and 1749. It is named for Dr. Radcliffe, one of the University's greatest benefactors, who died in 1714 and left £40,000 to build a new library. The Camera now contains two Bodleian reading rooms, and a bookstore beneath the front lawn. So why is it called a camera? Because the word is derived from the Latin for room. (Slight highjack: In law, when the judge holds a proceeding in his private office, it is considered to be held in camera.)

of Agag-feet along the padded floor

This is a reference to 1 Samuel 15-32: "Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately." (Contributed by John Dekker)

220 ~ improbably remote and lovely as the towers of Tir-nan-Og beneath the green sea-rollers

The Land of the Faeries

To that still centre where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis —

Not traced, but as the text says it was created by Harriet, one may assume that DLS wrote it.

221 ~ "Nice little barf-room, Liza — what shall we do with it?"

This story from Punch could not be traced

Here, then, at home, by no more storms distrest,
Stay we our steps — course—flight — hands folded and wings furled.

Again, probably more lines by DLS.

232 ~ As a Tulipant to the Sun (which our herbalists cann Narcissus) when it shines, it is admirandua flos ad radios solis se pandens, a glorious Flower exposing itself; but when the Sun sets, or a tempest comes, it hides itself, pines away, and hath no pleasure left . . . do all Enamoratoes to their Mistress.
— Robert Burton

The mind most effectually works upon the body, producing by his passions and perturbations miraculous alterations, as melancholy, despair, cruel diseases, and sometimes death itself . . . . They that live in fear are never free, resolute, secure, never merry, but in continual pina. . . . It causeth oftimes sudden madness.
— Robert Burton

Both sections are from Burton's "The Anatomy of Melancholy." (Contributed by Marc van der Poel)

236 ~ I have a passion for frowst

frowst: A British word for a hot, stale atmosphere

237 ~ Chuck that perishing old Ducange and Meyer-Lübke or whoever it is and go and play.

Charles du Fresne du Cange (1610–88): French medieval historian and philologist. He is principally known for his glossary of medieval and late Latin. Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke (1861-1936) was a Swiss philologist known for his four-volume grammar of Romance languages and an etymological dictionary.

241 ~ mulier vel meretrix, cujus consortio Christianis prorsus interdictum

No reference found

242 ~ prog him

While I haven't found the source for this bit of slang, I did find this amusing page in which the duties and responsibilities of proctors in the English university system is discussed. Oxford University still has proctors, and though their powers have been greatly reduced, they still skulk about issuing fines to students for prohibited activities such as messy post-exam celebrations. The bulldogs, however, were disbanded in 2003.
(Contributed, with thanks, by "Jo")

Hercules seizing the golden apples, illustration from the Nurnbergische Hesperidesexcept in the Hesperides

The reference comes from Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost," act 4, scene 3, when Berowne — arguing that men should abandon their studies in favor of the pursuit of love — says:
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
As one of his labors, Hercules was ordered to retrieve the golden apples that grew in the Garden of Hesperides. Doing so required that he climb the tree, which was guarded by a fierce dragon.
(Contributed by Kerry Masteller)

245 ~ He was no King Cophetua; she had not to be humbly obliged to him for kindly taking notice of her.

The legend tells that the African King Cophetua refused to marry until he was entranced at the sight of a beautiful beggar woman, whereby he resolved that she shall become his queen. The story was the subject of a painting by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.
Tennyson also told the story in “The Beggar Maid.”
Her arms across her breast she laid;
She was more fair than words can say:
Barefooted came the beggar maid
Before the king Cophetua.
In robe and crown the king stepped down,
To meet and greet her on the way:
‘It is no wonder,’ said the lords,
‘She is more beautiful than day.’
In the end, Cophetua swore a royal oath:
“This beggar maid shall be my queen!”

The story also appears in Shakespeare: “The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon.” Love’s Labour’s Lost, iv. 1.

It's notable that Sayers may have returned to the well of Shakespeare. Three pages before, we have a quote from "Love's Labour Lost." In the same act, we find this couplet, part of a letter that Armado is sending to Rosaline, a peasant girl:
The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua
set eye upon the permicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon,

As Isaac Asimov wrote in his guide to Shakespeare, "he makes comparisons that are flattering to himself, if little likely to delight the girl."

Sayers uses this story again in "Strong Poison."

(Contributed by Lilah Lohr)

258 ~ You might have quoted also from the essay De la Vanité. You remember the passage. Je me suis couché mille fois chez moi, imaginant qu'on me trahirait et assommerait cette nuitlà — his morbid preoccupation with the idea of death and his —"

From Montaigne's "The Essais III", chapter 9.
(Contributed by Sabina Schlee)

259 ~ horti conclusi, fontes signati

From Song of Songs: 4:12 ("A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.") Note the echo of the Donne passage on the title.

ancient dread of Artemis, moon-goddess, virgin-huntress, whose arrows are plagues and death

The Greek goddess of hunting and virginity.
(Contributed by "Jo")

260 ~ a gentleman of Peter's kidney

Obvious a bit of British slang, but what kidneys would have to do with character I'm not sure.

262 ~ felt like Aesop's bat between the birds and beasts

From the fable: "The Bat, the Birds and the Beasts"
A great conflict was about to come off between the Birds and the Beasts. When the two armies were collected together the Bat hesitated which to join. The Birds that passed his perch said: "Come with us"; but he said: "I am a Beast." Later on, some Beasts who were passing underneath him looked up and said: "Come with us"; but he said: "I am a Bird."

Luckily at the last moment peace was made, and no battle took place, so the Bat came to the Birds and wished to join in the rejoicings, but they all turned against him and he had to fly away. He then went to the Beasts, but soon had to beat a retreat, or else they would have torn him to pieces.

"Ah," said the Bat, "I see now. He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends."

Crest of Oriel College, OxfordCrest of Worcester College, Oxford269 ~ Lions of Oriel or the martlets of Worcester

Another Oxford reference. This time, to the coats of arms borne by the collects. The lions appear in Oriel College's coat of arms, and the martlets — a house martin portrayed without feet, used as a crest to indicate the fourth son — appear on Worcester College's coat of arms.
(Contributed by Tom Sulyok)

a betrothed among the tripping stags of Jesus or a brother nourished by the pious pelican of Corpus (pelican pecking at her breast to feed her younguns.

As above, a reference to college coats of arms. The shield of Jesus College is three running stags on a green background, and the emblem of Corpus Christi College (often referred to as Corpus within the university) is a pelican, used in medieval times as a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice.
(Contributed by "Jo," Alexx Kay, and many others)

CHAPTER 14


273 ~ Truce gentle love, a parly now I crave.
Me thinks, ‘tis long since first these wars begun,
Nor thou nor I, the better yet can have:
Bad is the match where neither party won.
I offer free conditions of faire peace,
My hart for hostage, that it shall remaine,
Discharge our forces heere, let malice cease,
So for my pledge, thou give me pledge againe.
— Michael Drayton

From Drayton's sonnet 55, which can be found at Project Gutenberg.
(Contributed by Tony Morris)

273 ~ "The University is a Paradise" — true, but — "then saw I that there was a way to hell even from the gates of Heaven"

"Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven, as well as from the City of Destruction." [Pilgrim's Progress, 131-148]

276 ~ A.L. Smith thought highly of him

A(rthur) L(ionel) Smith: (1850-1924) Historian and Master of Balliol, Wimsey's college, from 1916-1924.
(Contributed by Michael Loo)

279 ~ Ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. . . . but they said: we will not walk there

From Jerimiah 6:16: "Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken."

284 ~ My ear is open like a greedy shark to catch the tunings of the voice divine.

"The crashing conclusion of a sonnet by Keats. True, it is a youthful effort; but there are some things that even youth does not excuse."
— Wimsey

From "Woman! When I behold thee flippant, vain" by Keats.

you have allowed me to spread the tail of vanity before that pair of deserted Ariadnes

tail of vanity: a reference to a peacock's tail, noted for its beautiful plumage. Pliny the Elder noted that peacocks raise their tail feathers when praised, and medieval bestiaries taught that the peacock reminds us not to fall into the sin of pride.

Ariadnes: In Greek mythology, Ariadnes, daughter of King Minos of Crete, gave the Athenian king's son, Theseus, a spool of thread that enabled him to get through the labyrinth to kill the Minotaur. She sailed away with Theseus, but he left her stranded on the island of Naxos.

So, expressed in his unique way, what Lord Peter was doing, was thanking Harriet for allowing him to show off his punting skills before the women waiting for their escorts to take them onto the river.

(Contributed, with grateful thanks, by Lilah Lohr)

286 ~ noble and nude and antique

From "Dolores" by Swinburn:

We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,
Thou art noble and nude and antique;
Libitina thy mother, Priapus
Thy father, a Tuscan and Greek.

CHAPTER 15


289 ~ Do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is: it is so inestimable a jewel that, if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour's slumber, it cannot be bought: of so beautiful a shape is it, that though a man lie with an Empress, his heart cannot beat quiet till he leaves her embracements to be at rest with the other: yea, so greatly indebted are we to this kinsman of death, that we owe the better tributary, half of our life to him: and there is good cause why we should do so: for sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. (Etc.)
— From "The Gull's Hornbook" by Thomas Dekker

(Contributed by Melanie Jones)

291 ~ Praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed

This comes from the play "A Cure for the Heartache" (Act V, Scene 2) by Thomas Morton. The line actually runs "Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed."
(Contributed by John Hughes and his mother)

I was committing the fatal error of theorizing ahead of my data

A Sherlock Holmes reference that appears in several of the stories:
"I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories
to suit facts." from "A Scandal in Bohemia"

"It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts." from "The Adventure of the Second Stain"

296 ~ How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! And, having asked whether Ianthe will wake again and being assured that she will, he proceeds to weave many beautiful thoughts about Ianthe's sleep. From this we may fairly deduce that he (like Henry who kneeled in silence by her couch) felt tenderly towards Ianthe. For another person's sleep is the acid test of our own sentiments. (And on and on and on and a very strange passage it is)

From Percy Bysshe Shelley:
How wonderful is Death!
Death and his brother Sleep.

Queen Mab. i.
Henry Clerval
In Percy Bysshe Shelley's first major poem, Queen Mab (1813), the male friend (and author-surrogate) who awaits the dreaming Ianthe's awakening is named Henry. Clerval is at least partly drawn as a portrait of an idealized Shelley.

297 ~ Harriet, thus cozened into playing Phoebe to the sleeping Endymion,

From Thomas Drayton's "Phoebe and Endymion" (1593) which became a source for Keats' "Endymion."

298 ~ Religio Medici (Thomas Browne)

Certainly there is no happiness within this circle of flesh; nor is it in the opticks of these eyes to behold felicity. The first day of our jubilee is death.

When I am from him, I am dead till I be with him. United souls are not satisfied with embraces, but desire to be truly each other; which being impossible, these desires are infinite, and must proceed without a possibility of satisfaction.

From "Of Affection" by Thomas Browne.
(Contributed by Melanie Jones)

299 ~ And watch you bring that pole up in three

Strictly a guess here, as sites on punting talk more about the correct follow-through after kicking the ball rather than the mechanics of poling a boat. Punting a boat is not an activity for amateurs, except for the amusement of others on the river. Plenty can go wrong, from the punter falling in to digging the pole in too deep and being unable to pull it out, thereby leaving your only means of steerage behind you. The trick seems to lie in keeping your balance, not overdoing it, watching where you go, and setting an easy rhythm. "Bringing it up in three" refers to the moment when you've pushed down the pole as far as you want it to go. You pull the pole out with one hand, bring it up toward you, hand over hand, so that you can push it down again with the proper hand. Failure to do so leads to an awkward motion that looks shabby and could cause catastrophe.

Men of passion but no parts

No reference found

300 ~ Kai Lung, Apuleius

Kai Lung: Ernest Bramah wrote several books about Kai Lung, an itinerant teller of tales in "a China that never was." These tall tales are noted as much for the way they are told as for the content, and are read for pleasure as much as we read P.G. Wodehouse today. (The reference also appears in "Strong Poison")

The perfect Augustan? No; I'm afraid it's at most a balance of opposing forces

Not traced

303 ~ And so-o-o (in saccharine accents), the co-onvent gates closed behind So-o-onia!

Not traced

CHAPTER 16


304 ~ From noise of Scare-fires rest ye free,
From Murders Benedicite.
From all mischances, they may fright
Your pleasing slumbers in the night:
Mercie secure ye all, and keep
The Goblins from ye, while ye sleep.
— Robert Herrick

From "The Bell-Man," of which there are two more lines to the poem: --Past one a clock, and almost two,-- / My masters all, 'Good day to you.'

(Contributed by Alexx Kay, with belated thanks)

311 ~ Vera incessu patuit dean

A reference to Virgil's Aeneid, I.v.603. "She stood revealed, an undoubted goddess in her walk."
(Contributed by Tom Sulyok)

If she bid them, they will go barefoot to Jerusalem, to the great Cham's court, to the East Indies, to fetch her a bird to wear in her hat

From "The Anatomy of Melancholy," by Robert Burton, Part 3, Section 2. (Contributed by John Tucker)

CHAPTER 17


321 ~ He that questioneth much shall learn much, and content much . . .
— Francis Bacon

A quotation from his essay XXXII, "Of Discourse"
(Contributed by Alexx Kay)

King Darius said to the lions: —
Bite Daniel. Bite Daniel.
Bite him. Bite him. Bite him.

And she was as fine as a melon in the corn-field,
Gliding and lovely as a ship upon the sea.

Both are quotations from "The Daniel Jazz," by Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931).

Long before poetry slams turned verse into performance art, Vachel Lindsay was touring the United States with his "Higher Vaudeville," declaiming his poems in what the "Oxford Companion to American Literature" called "a dramatic use of gesture and chant, emphasizing his strong rhythms and syncopation." He would rock on his feet and pump his arms as he shouted and sang his poems. Lindsay dubbed these compositions "the Higher Vaudeville," poems written in "a sort of ragtime manner that deceives them [his audience] into thinking they are at a vaudeville show." Or, as he wrote, "By that very act [the Higher Vaudeville] I persuaded the tired businessman to listen at last. But lo, my tiny reputation as a writer seemed wiped out by my new reputation as an entertainer." He tried to retire from the road, but his poor spending habits and the enthusiastic receptions he received encouraged him to continue until his death.

323 ~ Ye'll no fickle Tammas Yownie

Tammas Yownie: A character from "Huntingtower" (1922) by John Buchan (1875-1940). The sentence comes from chapter 6, in which a Glasgow grocer and his friend venture into the Scottish highlands to meet with members of the Gorbals Die-Hards, a group of poor boys who have formed their own version of a Boy Scout troop:
Presently, as they tramped silently on, they came to the bridge beneath which the peaty waters of the Garple ran in porter-coloured pools and tawny cascades. From a clump of elders on the other side Dougal emerged. A barefoot boy, dressed in much the same parody of a Boy Scout's uniform, but with corduroy shorts instead of a kilt, stood before him at rigid attention. Some command was issued, the child saluted, and trotted back past the travellers with never a look at them. Discipline was strong among the Gorbals Die-Hards; no Chief of Staff ever conversed with his General under a stricter etiquette.

Dougal received the travellers with the condescension of a regular towards civilians.

"They're off their gawrd," he announced. Thomas Yownie has been shadowin' them since skreigh o' day, and he reports that Dobson and Lean followed ye till ye were out o' sight o' the houses, and syne Lean got a spy-glass and watched ye till the road turned in among the trees. That satisfied them, and they're both away back to their jobs. Thomas Yownie's the fell yin. Ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie."

(Contributed by Lilah Lohr)

324 ~ the diplomatic aspects of the Divorce . . . really masterly. Indeed, I felt that, if anything, you had slightly underestimated the pressure brought to bear upon Clement by . . .

Possibly a reference to Henry VIII struggle with the Catholic Church over the divorce question. The Clement could be a reference to Clement VII (1523-1534).

326 ~ We are mortified in nineteenth-century Gothic, lest in our overweening Balliolity we forget God. We pulled down the good to make way for the bad; you, on the contrary, have made the world out of nothing — a more divine procedure

"Balliolity" is a reference to Balliol College, one of Oxford's most prestigious (and, of course, Wimsey's college). Its members have a reputation for self-satisfaction – H. H. Asquith once described them as having "the tranquil consciousness of an effortless superiority". This is what Lord Peter is referring to as “overweening Balliolity”. Many of the college buildings were rebuilt in the Gothic style by Alfred Waterhouse in the late nineteenth century; Lord Peter, apparently, strongly disapproves.
(Contributed by "Jo")

328 ~ The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it — that is at the bottom of the (~+ ) ( + )

The toad beneath the harrow knows where every separate tooth-point goes

From "Pagett, MP," by Rudyard Kipling.

The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each tooth-point goes;
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to the road.

329 ~ the ticking of the Death-watch, which is made by tapping with the jaws and is held to be a love-call.

The beetle has a fondness for seasoned wood, so it's not surprising one found a home in his headboard. As Wimsey states, once at home in its burrow, the male beetle seeks a mate by tapping the wood. The beetle's name is a reference to a folk superstition that suggests that hearing it meant a person's days were numbered. The connection is obvious when you reflect that in an active house, the noise may go unheard, but in the stillness of the sickroom, it becomes apparent.

Mark Twain makes a similar reference in Tom Sawyer, chapter 9.

330 ~ The real tragedy is not the conflict of good with evil but of good with good

Not traced

331 ~ Nobody can prevent the Fall of Troy, but a dull, careful person may manage to smuggle out the Lares and Penates — even at the risk of having the epithet pius tacked to his name

lares and penates: treasured household possessions, from the Latin for two household gods. Lares were fertility gods; Penates gods of the storeroom.

Aeneas introduces himself (510-531): "I am Aeneas, duty-bound (pius), and known above high air of heaven by my fame." Aeneas comes from Troy, looking for Italy as his new fatherland. His mother is a goddess (Venus), and he is a descendant of mighty Jove (the founder of Troy, Dardanus, was one of Jupiter's many sons with females other than Hera). After the fall of Troy, Aeneas escaped from the burning ruins of the city, carrying his father and the household gods (see Lares and Penates) on his shoulders. In the Aeneid, Aeneas' most common epithet is "pius," and Virgil presents him as the exemplar of the Roman virtues of devotion to duty and reverence for the gods.

But epic actions are all fought by the rearguard — at Roncevaux and Thermopylae

The battle at Roncevaux is recounted in "The Song of Roland," about a campaign in Spain, where in 778, a nephew of Charlemagne fought the Saracens in a rearguard action.

The battle at Thermopylae is the more notable action in which, in 480 B.C.E., 300 Spartans under Leonidas fought to the death to keep the Persians under Xerxes from the narrow pass in central Greece. Although the Persians won at Thermopylae and conquered central Greece, they suffered considerable losses in the battle, and most of the Greek troops and ships were able to escape to the Isthmus of Corinth to rejoin the main Greek forces. This battle became celebrated in history and literature as an example of heroic resistance against great odds.

332 ~ Like the lovers in that Stroheim film, we'll go and sit on the sewer

Possibly "Greed," a version of McTeague, Frank Norris' novel, which was released in the 1920s. Early in their relationship, McTeague and Trina take the interurban train out into the countryside. As they're standing at the station, Trina's title card in the shortened MGM version reads, "This the first day it hasn't rained in weeks. I thought it would be nice to go for a walk." In Schmidlin's reconstruction from the shooting script, it reads: "Let's go over and sit on the sewer," and so they do, perching on a manhole cover.

340 ~ Forged Decretals . . . Chatterton . . . Ossian . . . Henry Ireland . . . those Nineteenth-Century Pamphlets the other day

All of these are famous forgeries:

Forged Decretals: Also known as the False Decretals, this collection of partly spurious documents attempted to show that common law gave the bishops the legal right to resist attempts at interference from secular authorities. While they were proved to be mostly fraudulent by the 16th century, they were considered authoritative during the Middle Ages. Since then, the False Decretals have gained their chief fame because they were one of the great forgeries of history. Included in the collection are 60 letters or decrees of popes from Clement I to Melchiades (d. 314), of which 58 are forged; an original essay on the early church and the Council of Nicaea, with canons of 54 councils, of which all canons but one are authentic or were accepted as authentic long before the author's time; and a collection of papal letters from the 4th to 8th cent., Of which the majority are authentic.

Thomas Chatterton (1752-70): English poet who died at the age of 17 by poisoning himself. But he was also a forger. At the age of 12, he composed the "Rowley Poems," claiming they were copies of 15th-century manuscripts. They were not, although they were acclaimed for their vigor and evidence of Chatterton's poetic genius, much that it helped him. He became a hero to the romantic and Pre-Raphaelite poets, several of whom, notably Keats and Coleridge, wrote poems about him.

Ossian: A collection of purportedly ancient poetry that were actually written by James Macpherson (1736-96), a Scottish author. Educated at Aberdeen and Edinburgh, he spent his early years as a schoolmaster. In later life he held a colonial secretaryship in West Florida (1764-66) and was a member of Parliament from 1780 until his death. In 1760, at the insistence of John Home and others, he published "Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland," supposedly his own translations of ancient Gaelic poems. Later, he published translations of two epic poems, Fingal (1761) and Temora (1763), which were represented as the work of a 3rd-century Irish bard named Ossian. A collection, "The Works of Ossian," appeared in 1765. Samuel Johnson and others heatedly challenged the authenticity of the poems. After Macpherson's death, an investigating committee of scholars agreed that he had used some ancient Gaelic poems and traditions, but composed most of the supposedly ancient poetry himself. His prose poems, written in a loose, rhythmical style, filled with supernaturalism and melancholy, influenced powerfully the rising romantic movement in literature, especially German literature.

As a fan of Patrick O'Brian's works, I must point out an extended argument over Ossian authenticity surfaces in "Post Captain," chapter 4.

Henry Ireland (1777-1835): English forger of Shakespearean documents and manuscripts. Besides forging deeds and signatures relating to Shakespeare, Ireland fabricated two plays, "Vortigern and Rowena" (1796) and "Henry II" (both pub. 1799), as the works of Shakespeare. Edmond Malone, however, exposed him, and Ireland later acknowledged the hoax.

Thomas James Wise (1859–1937): English bibliographer and book collector. His famous Ashley Library of rare editions and manuscripts was acquired by the British Museum in 1937. His many bibliographies and catalogs of the works of English literary figures included those on Shelley, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Conrad, Coleridge, and Robert Browning. Wise also privately printed nearly 300 works of English authors, some of which were exposed by John Carter and Graham Pollard as forgeries in "An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets" (1934).

344 ~ ‘The greater the sin the greater the sacrifice — and consequently the greater devotion

And these say: ‘No more now my knight
Or God's knight any longer' — you,
Being than they so much more white,
So much more pure and good and true,

"Will cling to me for ever —

From William Morris' "The Judgment of God." Wimsey comments after reciting this that "William Morris had his moments of being a hundred-percent manly man."

(Contributed by Alexx Kay)

345 ~ sit desolate in the midst, like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers

From the Bible, Isaiah 1:8: "And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city."

348 ~ I have tried if I could reach that great resolution, to be honest without a thought of heaven or hell

From the "Religio Medic," paragraph 47:
I have practised that honest artifice of Seneca, and in my retired and solitary imaginations, to detain me from the foulness of vice, have fancied to my self the presence of my dear and worthiest friends, before whom I should lose my head, rather than be vitious: yet herein I found that there was nought but moral honesty, and this was not be vertuous for His sake Who must reward us at the last. I have tryed if I could reach that great resolution of his, to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell: and indeed I found, upon a natural inclination and inbred loyalty unto virtue, that I could serve her without a livery, yet not in that resolved and venerable way, but that the frailty of my nature, upon an easie temptation, might be induced to forget her.

The Duke drained a dipper of brandy-and-water and became again the perfect English gentleman

A line from ""Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen"," a parody of "Jane Eyre" by Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock. Here is the paragraph in full:
The girl presently descended and was ushered into the library, where she was presented to the Earl. As soon as the Earl's eye fell upon the face of the new governess he started visibly. Where had he seen those lineaments? Where was it? At the races, or the theatre--on a bus--no. Some subtler thread of memory was stirring in his mind. He strode hastily to the sideboard, drained a dipper and a half of brandy, and became again the perfect English gentleman.
(Contributed by Katharine)

349 ~ Caudry — 1918

Caudry is a town approximately 12 kilometers east of Cambrai on the south side of the main road to Le Cateau (N43). Caudry town was the scene of part of the Battle of Le Cateau on the 26th August 1914, and from that date it remained in German hands until the 10th October 1918, when it was captured by the 37th Division. Caudry Old Communal Cemetery contains graves of known and unknown WWI casualties of French, German, British and Russian soldiers.

350 ~ "You know the old song: Naggin' at a feller as is six foot three —" "And her only four foot two"

A pub song popular with Gus Ellen, a music hall performer.

CHAPTER 18


353~ Go tell that witty fellow, my godson, to get home. It is no season to fool it here!
— Queen Elizabeth

From Lytton Strachey's "Elizabeth and Essex," chapter XVI, in reference to Sir John Harington.

Apollo Belvedere, flannel-lessApollo Belvedere in spotless flannels

"Apollo Belvedere" is the name of a marble sculpture of the handsome Greek god of light, youth, and music. It is a Roman copy of a Greek bronze original.

354 ~ a young Sultan inspecting a rather unpromising consignment of Circassian slaves

Not traced

"Oho!" said the Dean. "So that's how the milk got into the coco-nut!"

Not traced

356 ~ I keep myself to myself

A common phrase in England, generally meaning that the person minded his own business. Most often applied to criminals.

Also, from Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson:
Enoch Robinson stared at George Willard, his childlike blue eyes shining in the lamplight. Again he shivered. "I wanted her and all the time I didn't want her," he explained. "Then I began to tell her about my people, about everything that meant anything to me. I tried to keep quiet, to keep myself to myself, but I couldn't. I felt just as I did about opening the door. Sometimes I ached to have her go away and never come back any more."

From "Saving Myself For You" written by Sammy Cahn in 1944:
I've been saving myself for you, just you, no one but you
I've saved my heart in your name
It's for you to claim
Some day

Been behaving myself for you, just you, no one but you
Because you'd never forgive
A kiss I might give
Away

I'll keep myself to myself
And in the long run I'll win
I'll keep myself to myself
Because I know that you've been

Saving your love for me, just me, and come what may
Until we're together
I'm saving myself for you

CHAPTER 19



372 ~ O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excell thee in my rapier, as much as thou didst excel me in carrying gates. I am in love, too.
— William Shakespeare

From "Love's Labor Lost," Act 1, Scene ii.

373 ~ a set of features limned themselves pallidly against the dark background, like Pepper's ghost.

Pepper's ghost is a magical illusion named after John Henry Pepper, a chemistry professor at London Polytechnic Institute. In 1862, a Liverpool civil engineer named Henry Dircks constructed a miniature working model of the effect, and Pepper built the first practical full-size version and exhibited it on stage.

The basic idea is this: a sheet of glass is exhibited on stage, turned at a 45-degree angle. The audience can look through it, but at the same time, they can also see something placed off-stage to the right of the glass, so long as that thing is very well-light. The result is a ghostly image superimposed on the primary image.

That's the basic illusion. Magicians can use this technique to create a unique escape stunt, but that goes beyond the needs of this annotation.

‘The reason no man knows, let it suffice What we behold is censured by our eyes.'

Not traced

"It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin
We wish that one should lose, the other win:
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots like in each respect.
The reason no man knows: let it suffice,
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight,
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?"
— Marlowe, "Hero and Leander"

Not traced.

374 ~ The crystal springs, whose taste illuminates
Refined eyes with an eternal sight,
Like tried silver, run through Paradise
To entertain divine Zenocrate

From Marlowe's "Tamburlaine the Great," Part II; Act II, Scene 4. The Zenocrate in question is Tamburlaine's wife, and the section comes from her deathbed scene.

384 ~ Elizabethian songs.

Not traced.

CHAPTER 20


389 ~ For, to speak in a word, envy is naught else but tristitia de bonis alienis, sorrow for other men's good, be it present, past, or to come: and gaudium de adversis, and joy at their harms. . . . 'Tis a common disease, and almost natural to us, as Tactius holds, to envy another man's prosperity.
-- Robert Burton

From "The Anatomy of Melancholy."

392 ~ Make her a goodly chapilet of azur'd Colombine,
And wreathe about her coronet with sweetest Eglantine,
With roses damask, white, and red, and fairest flower delice,
With Cowslips of Jerusalem, and cloves of paradice.

From "The Shepeard's Garland," a poem by Michael Drayton.
(Contributed by Erskine Fincher)

fix a vacant stare and slay him with your noble birth

From "Lady Clara Vere de Vere," a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
There stands a spectre in your hall:
The guilt of blood is at your door:
You changed a wholesome heart to gall.
You held your course without remorse,
To make him trust his modest worth,
And, last, you fixed a vacant stare,
And slew him with your noble birth.

(Contributed by Erskine Fincher)

drowning it in a butt of malmsey

A reference to George, 1st Duke of Clarence (1446-1478), the younger brother of King Edward IV. During the war of the Roses, he made the mistake of supporting Warwick the Kingmaker against his brother. In 1471, Clarence abandoned Warwick and returned to his brother's side, and while high in the king's favor, his behavior so annoyed the king that he was arrested in 1477, tried for treason, convicted, and executed. It was rumored that, at his request, he was either drowned in his favorite wine or poisoned by it. The true facts are unknown.

393 ~ Mandragorae dederunt odorem

From the Vulgate (Latin) Bible: Song of Songs 7:13: "The mandrakes give a smell and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved."

The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo

From Shakespeare's "Love's Labour 's Lost," Act v. Sc. 2. It is the last telling line in the play, and the reference is to Mercury as the god of eloquence in antithesis to Apollo as the god of music.

401 ~ Is there any left of the house of Saul?

From the Bible, 2nd Samuel 9:1:
And David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan's sake?
There was one survivor, the crippled son of Jonathon, named Mephibosheth. David takes him in care, although it's not clear if he wanted to be kind to him, or to keep an eye on a potential leader of a rebellion. Considering that Mephibosheth is later killed by David, probably the latter.
(Contributed by Laura V. Bond and Juli Thompson)

The Virgin's gone and I am gone; she's gone, she's gone and what shall I do?

From Robert Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." (Contributed by Melanie Jones and Alexx Kay)

402 ~ And all the powerful kings and all the beautiful queens of this world were but as a bed of flowers . . .

Quotation from a sermon by John Donne (1572-1631), as published in "LXXX Sermons" (1640). The complete passage runs:
A day that hath no pridie, nor postridie, yesterday doth not usher it in, nor tomorrow shall not drive it out. Methusalem, with all his hundreds of years, was but a mushroom of a night's growth, to this day, And all the four Monarchies, with all their thousands of years, and all the powerful Kings and all the beautiful Queens of this world, were but as a bed of flowers, some gathered at six, some at seven, some at eight, All in one Morning, in respect of this Day.

408 ~ Thus she there wayted untill eventyde,
Yet living creature none she saw appeare.
And now sad shadows gan the world to hyde
From mortall vew, and wrap in darkness dreare;
Yet nould she d'off her weary armes, for feare
Of secret daunger, ne let sleepe oppresse
Her heauy eyes with natures burdein deare,
But drew her selfe aside in sickernesse,
And her welpointed weapons did about her dresse.
-- Edmund Spenser

This quotation is from the end of the 11th canto of the 3rd book of Spenser's "The Faerie Queene."

(Contributed by Caleb Nelson)

409 ~ domina

Latin for counsel

411 ~ Who goes there? France--Pass, France, and all's well.

The phrase is similar to the Tower of London's Ceremony of the Keys in which the gates are closed, a procedure that has taken place, so the above website claims, for 700 years.

When the party approaches the sentry challenges, "Who goes there?" The Chief Warder answers: "The Keys." "Whose Keys?" the sentry demands. "Queen Elizabeth's Keys." "Pass Queen Elizabeth's Keys. All's well" is the sentry's final rejoinder.
(Contributed by Patty Wadsworth)

414 ~ Fleat Heraclitus an rideat Democritus? in attempting to speak of these Symptoms, shall I laugh with Democritus or weep with Heraclitus? they are so ridiculous and absurd on the one side, so lamentable and tragical on the other

Heraclitus and Democritus were two Greek philosophers and paired off (as "Weeping Heraclitus or laughing Democritus") for their basic attitude towards human follies. Democritus was described as laughing at human weaknesses, but he also advanced the theory that the world was formed by the concourse of atoms. Heraclitus was convinced that man and the world was in a constant change of flux, so nothing lasts.

415 ~ He's getting like the Lord of Burleigh, you know -- walking up and pacing down and so on -- and the responsibility is very wearing. The wind must be in the south-west, for the heavy boom of Tom tolling his hundred-and-one came clearly to her ears as she crossed the Old Quad.

Lord Burleigh is a character in "The Critic" by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The play was a "behind-the-scenes" parody of the production of a tragedy called "The Spanish Armada," and Lord Burleigh is a character in it who is so preoccupied with affairs of state that he cannot speak, but only shakes his head.

417 ~ who envied even the ashy saltness of those dead sea apples

A mythological reference to the Dead Sea apples, also known as Sodom apples. These apple trees, found at the edge of the Dead Sea, were known for bearing wonderful fruit, which turn to ashes and dust when they are plucked. References to them appear in histories by Josephus and Tacitus, as well as these lines from Byron's "Childe Harold," iii, 34:
"Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore,
All ashes to the taste."

the busy brain could very well be "left talking" like the hero of Man and Superman

"Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy" was a play by Bernard Shaw first published in 1903. It is Shaw's argument for the existence of the Life Force as well as a spin on the Don Juan story (in this, the hero, John Tanner is being ruthlessly pursued, with matrimony in mind, by a woman).

Otherwise, one would get the sort of couple one had in Private Lives, who rolled on the floor and hammered one another when they weren't making love, because they (obviously) had no conversational resources.

A reference to "Private Lives," Noel Coward's 1933 play about a former couple meeting after they had remarried.

424 ~ a ‘corpse in the case with a sad, swelled face'

A line from "A Lay of St. Gengulphus," a poem from "The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels" by Thomas Ingoldsby (real name: R. H. Barham). The complete couplet is: "Here's a corpse in the case with a sad swelled face, / And a 'Crowner's Quest' is a queer sort of thing!" Published in magazines and first collected in book form in 1840, the legends are comic and grotesque stories set in medieval times. They were very popular.

With beautiful, golden side-whiskers. I really think you ought to rescue him before his bones start to creak and the spiders spin webs over his eyes

Not traced

CHAPTER 22


425 ~ O no, there is no end: the end is death and madness! As I am never better than when I am mad: then methinks I am a brave fellow; (etc.) -- Ben Jonson

From "The Spanish Tragedy," Act 3, Scene 12. (Contributed by Alexx Kay)

429 ~ Kinder, Kirche, Küche

Old German slogan, later adopted by the Nazis, that woman's realm was children, church, kitchen.

434 ~ Nec saevior ulla pestis

A phrase from Virgil's epic Aeneid poem. The full line, from book 3, verse 214, runs: "Tristius haud illis monstrum, nec saevior ulla Pestis et ira deum Stygiis sese extulit undis:-Diripiunt dapes, contactaque omnia faedant Immundo."

Translated: "Monsters more fierce offended heaven ne'er sent From hell's abyss, for human punishment: -They snatch the meat, defiling all they find."

439 ~ Ita

From the Latin for "yes."

449 ~ History of Prosody

Prosody is the study of versification, how poems are structured

CHAPTER 23


449 ~ The last refuge and surest remedy, to be put in practice in the utmost place, when no other means will take effect, is to let them go together and enjoy one another; potissima cura est ut heros amasia sua potiatur, saith Guianerius . . . (more stuff, including more Latin)
-- Robert Burton

Again, from Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy."

451 ~ Towery City, and branchy between towers,
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmed, lark-charmed,
Rook-racked, river-rounded,
The dapple-eared lily below.

From "Duns Scotus' Oxford" by Gerald Manley Hopkins (1918)

457 ~ Placetne, magistra?
Placet

From the Latin: Do you agree, mistress?

I agree
magistra: Two points need to be made here. First, there is a confusion of definitions -- much like a herd of cattle or a murder of crows -- surrounding the word mistress. For earning an M.A. degree, a man would be entitled to be called master. The closest equivilant for women would be mistress, a word which has other connotations. Second, there seems to be some reference to graduation ceremonies in Britain, in which a ritualized vote is taken as to the worthiness of each student to be awarded a degree. From wikipedia: "First, an official will propose (in Latin) that the graduates be admitted to the relevant degree; a vote is then taken, although, in practice only, one vote will be cast in favor."

In a 1913 letter, Sayers writes about the ceremony, noting that the format called for the vice-chancellor to address the assembled Oxonian doctors:
"in a sing-song little speech, beginning something about 'Does it please you doctors of the University that so-and-so should be admitted to such-and-such a degree -- placet-ne?' and then he took off his cap; then said 'placet' without leaving time for anyone to make an objection if he wanted to, and put it on again."
To quote Alexx Kay's wonderful note to me about this process: "Put all this Oxford background together and those three words in Latin of Peter's proposal and Harriet's acceptance summarize the whole point of the book -- only once he addresses her as his equal, as an Oxford magistra, in a totally Oxonian idiom that belonged to them both as Oxford graduates, does she feel comfortable enough as his equal to accept the proposal. "Placetne magistra?" "Placet" sums up the whole emotional content of the book in 3 words."

I couldn't have said it better.

(Contributed by Johanna Kershaw)

Parkin


A traditional northern English recipe for eating round the bonfire on Guy Fawkes Night (November 5). The below is one of five recipes from Stephanie da Silva's excellent "Recipes Archive" website.

4 oz. plain flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 heaped tsp. ground ginger
3/4 tsp. bicarbonate of soda
8 oz. oatmeal, preferably fine but medium will do
8 oz. black treacle
8 oz. dark brown sugar (such as Dark Muscovado)
3 oz. butter or margarine
1 egg
5 to 6 tbs. milk

Sieve together flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices. Add oatmeal. Melt butter, treacle and sugar in a saucepan and add, with the beaten egg, to the dry ingredients. Stir in the milk to give a fairly soft batter.

Turn into a 9 inch cake tin lined with greaseproof paper or baking parchment. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Turn down to 325 degrees until a knife or skewer, when inserted, comes out clean, at least another 20-30 minutes, possibly more.

Leave overnight before eating.

Return to Gaudy Night

"Plato"


Extract from the Protagoras dialogue by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett


Editor's Note: For clarity's sake, the passage is broken into paragraphs.

Once upon a time there were gods only, and no mortal creatures. But when the time came that these also should be created, the gods fashioned them out of earth and fire and various mixtures of both elements in the interior of the earth; and when they were about to bring them into the light of day, they ordered Prometheus and Epimetheus to equip them, and to distribute to them severally their proper qualities.

Epimetheus said to Prometheus: "Let me distribute, and do you inspect."

This was agreed, and Epimetheus made the distribution. There were some to whom he gave strength without swiftness, while he equipped the weaker with swiftness; some he armed, and others he left unarmed; and devised for the latter some other means of preservation, making some large, and having their size as a protection, and others small, whose nature was to fly in the air or burrow in the ground; this was to be their way of escape. Thus did he compensate them with the view of preventing any race from becoming extinct.

And when he had provided against their destruction by one another, he contrived also a means of protecting them against the seasons of heaven; clothing them with close hair and thick skins sufficient to defend them against the winter cold and able to resist the summer heat, so that they might have a natural bed of their own when they wanted to rest; also he furnished them with hoofs and hair and hard and callous skins under their feet. Then he gave them varieties of food-herb of the soil to some, to others fruits of trees, and to others roots, and to some again he gave other animals as food. And some he made to have few young ones, while those who were their prey were very prolific; and in this manner the race was preserved.

Thus did Epimetheus, who, not being very wise, forgot that he had distributed among the brute animals all the qualities which he had to give-and when he came to man, who was still unprovided, he was terribly perplexed.

Now while he was in this perplexity, Prometheus came to inspect the distribution, and he found that the other animals were suitably furnished, but that man alone was naked and shoeless, and had neither bed nor arms of defence. The appointed hour was approaching when man in his turn was to go forth into the light of day; and Prometheus, not knowing how he could devise his salvation, stole the mechanical arts of Hephaestus and Athene, and fire with them (they could neither have been acquired nor used without fire), and gave them to man.

Thus man had the wisdom necessary to the support of life, but political wisdom he had not; for that was in the keeping of Zeus, and the power of Prometheus did not extend to entering into the citadel of heaven, where Zeus dwelt, who moreover had terrible sentinels; but he did enter by stealth into the common workshop of Athene and Hephaestus, in which they used to practise their favourite arts, and carried off Hephaestus' art of working by fire, and also the art of Athene, and gave them to man. And in this way man was supplied with the means of life. But Prometheus is said to have been afterwards prosecuted for theft, owing to the blunder of Epimetheus.

Now man, having a share of the divine attributes, was at first the only one of the animals who had any gods, because he alone was of their kindred; and he would raise altars and images of them. He was not long in inventing articulate speech and names; and he also constructed houses and clothes and shoes and beds, and drew sustenance from the earth. Thus provided, mankind at first lived dispersed, and there were no cities. But the consequence was that they were destroyed by the wild beasts, for they were utterly weak in comparison of them, and their art was only sufficient to provide them with the means of life, and did not enable them to carry on war against the animals: food they had, but not as yet the art of government, of which the art of war is a part. After a while the desire of self-preservation gathered them into cities; but when they were gathered together, having no art of government, they evil intreated one another, and were again in process of dispersion and destruction.

Zeus feared that the entire race would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation. Hermes asked Zeus how he should impart justice and reverence among men:-Should he distribute them as the arts are distributed; that is to say, to a favoured few only, one skilled individual having enough of medicine or of any other art for many unskilled ones?

"Shall this be the manner in which I am to distribute justice and reverence among men, or shall I give them to all?"

"To all," said Zeus; "I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague of the state."

And this the reason, Socrates, why the Athenians and mankind in general, when the question relates to carpentering or any other mechanical art, allow but a few to share in their deliberations; and when any one else interferes, then, as you say, they object, if he be not of the favoured few; which, as I reply, is very natural. But when they meet to deliberate about political virtue, which proceeds only by way of justice and wisdom, they are patient enough of any man who speaks of them, as is also natural, because they think that every man ought to share in this sort of virtue, and that states could not exist if this were otherwise. I have explained to you, Socrates, the reason of this phenomenon.

Return to Gaudy Night

Selection from "Letters to Dead Authors"


By Andrew Lang


LETTER--To Maitre Francoys Rabelais. Of the coming of the Coqcigrues.

Master,--In the Boreal and Septentrional lands, turned aside from the noonday and the sun, there dwelt of old (as thou knowest, and as Olaus voucheth) a race of men, brave, strong, nimble, and adventurous, who had no other care but to fight and drink. There, by reason of the cold (as Virgil witnesseth), men break wine with axes. To their minds, when once they were dead and gotten to Valhalla, or the place of their Gods, there would be no other pleasure but to swig, tipple, drink, and boose till the coming of that last darkness and Twilight, wherein they, with their deities, should do battle against the enemies of all mankind; which day they rather desired than dreaded.

So chanced it also with Pantagruel and Brother John and their company, after they had once partaken of the secret of the Dive Bouteille. Thereafter they searched no longer; but, abiding at their ease, were merry, frolic, jolly, gay, glad, and wise; only that they always and ever did expect the awful Coming of the Coqcigrues. Now concerning the day of that coming, and the nature of them that should come, they knew nothing; and for his part Panurge was all the more adread, as Aristotle testifieth that men (and Panurge above others) most fear that which they know least. Now it chanced one day, as they sat at meat, with viands rare, dainty, and precious as ever Apicius dreamed of, that there fluttered on the air a faint sound as of sermons, speeches, orations, addresses, discourses, lectures, and the like; whereat Panurge, pricking up his ears, cried, "Methinks this wind bloweth from Midlothian," and so fell a trembling.

Next, to their aural orifices, and the avenues audient of the brain, was borne a very melancholy sound as of harmoniums, hymns, organ-pianos, psalteries, and the like, all playing different airs, in a kind most hateful to the Muses. Then said Panurge, as well as he might for the chattering of his teeth: "May I never drink if here come not the Coqcigrues!" and this saying and prophecy of his was true and inspired. But thereon the others began to mock, flout, and gird at Panurge for his cowardice. "Here am I!" cried Brother John, "well-armed and ready to stand a siege; being entrenched, fortified, hemmed-in and surrounded with great pasties, huge pieces of salted beef, salads, fricassees, hams, tongues, pies, and a wilderness of pleasant little tarts, jellies, pastries, trifles, and fruits of all kinds, and I shall not thirst while I have good wells, founts, springs, and sources of Bordeaux wine, Burgundy, wine of the Champagne country, sack and Canary. A fig for thy Coqcigrues!"

But even as he spoke there ran up suddenly a whole legion, or rather army, of physicians, each armed with laryngoscopes, stethoscopes, horoscopes, microscopes, weighing machines, and such other tools, engines, and arms as they had who, after thy time, persecuted Monsieur de Pourceaugnac! And they all, rushing on Brother John, cried out to him, "Abstain! Abstain!" And one said, "I have well diagnosed thee, and thou art in a fair way to have the gout." "I never did better in my days," said Brother John. "Away with thy meats and drinks!" they cried. And one said, "He must to Royat;" and another, "Hence with him to Aix;" and a third, "Banish him to Wiesbaden;" and a fourth, "Hale him to Gastein;" and yet another, "To Barbouille with him in chains!"

And while others felt his pulse and looked at his tongue, they all wrote prescriptions for him like men mad. "For thy eating," cried he that seemed to be their leader, "No soup!" "No soup!" quoth Brother John; and those cheeks of his, whereat you might have warmed your two hands in the winter solstice, grew white as lilies. "Nay! and no salmon, nor any beef nor mutton! A little chicken by times, pericolo tuo! Nor any game, such as grouse, partridge, pheasant, capercailzie, wild duck; nor any cheese, nor fruit, nor pastry, nor coffee, nor eau de vie; and avoid all sweets. No veal, pork, nor made dishes of any kind." "Then what may I eat?" quoth the good Brother, whose valour had oozed out of the soles of his sandals. "A little cold bacon at breakfast--no eggs," quoth the leader of the strange folk, "and a slice of toast without butter." "And for thy drink"--("What?" gasped Brother John)--"one dessert-spoonful of whisky, with a pint of the water of Apollinaris at luncheon and dinner. No more!" At this Brother John fainted, falling like a great buttress of a hill, such as Taygetus or Erymanthus.

While they were busy with him, others of the frantic folk had built great platforms of wood, whereon they all stood and spoke at once, both men and women. And of these some wore red crosses on their garments, which meaneth "Salvation;" and others wore white crosses, with a little black button of crape, to signify "Purity;" and others bits of blue to mean "Abstinence." While some of these pursued Panurge others did beset Pantagruel; asking him very long questions, whereunto he gave but short answers. Thus they asked:-

Have ye Local Option here?--Pan.: What?

May one man drink if his neighbour be not athirst?--Pan.: Yea!

Have ye Free Education?--Pan.: What?

Must they that have, pay to school them that have not?--Pan.: Nay!

Have ye free land?--Pan.: What?

Have ye taken the land from the farmer, and given it to the tailor
out of work and the candlemaker masterless?--Pan.: Nay!

Have your women folk votes?--Pan.: Bosh!

Have ye got religion?--Pan.: How?

Do you go about the streets at night, brawling, blowing a trumpet before you, and making long prayers?--Pan.: Nay!

Have you manhood suffrage?--Pan.: Eh?

Is Jack as good as his master?--Pan.: Nay!

Have you joined the Arbitration Society?--Pan.: Quoy?

Will you let another kick you, and will you ask his neighbour if you deserve the same?--Pan.: Nay!

Do you eat what you list?--Pan.: Ay!

Do you drink when you are athirst?--Pan.: Ay!

Are you governed by the free expression of the popular will?--Pan.: How?

Are you servants of priests, pulpits, and penny papers?--Pan.: NO!

Now, when they heard these answers of Pantagruel they all fell, some a weeping, some a praying, some a swearing, some an arbitrating, some a lecturing, some a caucussing, some a preaching, some a faith-healing, some a miracle-working, some a hypnotising, some a writing to the daily press; and while they were thus busy, like folk distraught, "reforming the island," Pantagruel burst out a laughing; whereat they were greatly dismayed; for laughter killeth the whole race of Coqcigrues, and they may not endure it.

Then Pantagruel and his company stole aboard a barque that Panurge had ready in the harbour. And having provisioned her well with store of meat and good drink, they set sail for the kingdom of Entelechy, where, having landed, they were kindly entreated; and there abide to this day; drinking of the sweet and eating of the fat, under the protection of that intellectual sphere which hath in all places its centre and nowhere its circumference.

Such was their destiny; there was their end appointed, and thither the Coqcigrues can never come. For all the air of that land is full of laughter, which killeth Coqcigrues; and there aboundeth the herb
Pantagruelion. But for thee, Master Francoys, thou art not well liked in thisland of ours, where the Coqcigrues are abundant, very fierce, cruel, and tyrannical. Yet thou hast thy friends, that meet and drink to thee, and wish thee well wheresoever thou hast found thy grand peut-etre.

Back to Gaudy Night

"Love's Labor Lost"

Act 1, Scene ii

ARMADO. I will hereupon confess I am in love. And as it is base for
a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing
my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from
the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and
ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devis'd curtsy. I
think scorn to sigh; methinks I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort
me, boy; what great men have been in love?
MOTH. Hercules, master.
ARMADO. Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more;
and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.
MOTH. Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great
carriage, for he carried the town gates on his back like a
porter; and he was in love.
ARMADO. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee
in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in
love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?
MOTH. A woman, master.
ARMADO. Of what complexion?
MOTH. Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the
four.
ARMADO. Tell me precisely of what complexion.
MOTH. Of the sea-water green, sir.
ARMADO. Is that one of the four complexions?
MOTH. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.
ARMADO. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers; but to have a love
of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He
surely affected her for her wit.
MOTH. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.
ARMADO. My love is most immaculate white and red.

"Have His Carcase"


The page numbers are from the U.S. Avon paperback edition of "Have His Carcase," copyright 1932 by Dorothy Leigh Sayers Fleming.

Chapter 1


9 ~ The track was slippery with spouting blood
Quoted from "Rodolph" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849). In her letters, Sayers writes that she first encountered Beddoes' poetry as early as 14. She found them "curious and ghastly" and was impressed by their "grimness."

10 ~ Except for an occasional tradesman's van, or a dilapidated Morris, and the intermittent appearance of white smoke from a distant railway-engine, the landscape was as rural and solitary as it might have been two hundred years before

Morris: There were several models of the Morris car on the road at this time, so this 1932 Oxford Bullnose courtesy from Planefacts.co.uk should be considered a representative model.
http://www.planefacts.co.uk
http://planefacts.co.uk/cars/me_to_pl/pages/morrisc1_jpg.htm

10 ~ her luggage was not burdened by skin-creams, insect-lotion, silk frocks, portable electric irons or other impedimenta beloved of the "Hikers' Column"
Not traced, except to note that the sportsperson's need to acquire the latest invention for one's hobby is not a recent invention

10 ~ little else beyond a pocket edition of "Tristram Shandy", a vest-pocket camera, a small first-aid kit and a sandwich lunch.
Tristram Shandy: A novel by Laurence Sterne (1713-68).

13 ~ He must feel like a bannock on a hot griddle
bannock: An unleavened flat bread or biscuit made from oats or barley meal and baked on a griddle.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

13 ~ Schoolmasters don't get off the lead till the end of July
lead: leash, as in dog leash

13 ~ but no doubt Dr. Thorndyke would do so at once
Thorndyke: A detective created by R. Austin Freeman who relied more on science than intuition for his deductions.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

14 ~ Mr. Samuel Weare of Lyons Inn
A murder notorious for its time, immortalized in an 1839 ballad by William Webb:

"His throat they cut from ear to ear,
His brains then punched in;
His name was Mr. William Weare,
Wot lived in Lyon's Inn."

14 ~ she had not reckoned with the horrid halitus of blood
halitus: a smell or stink. "Halitosis," the villain seen in mouthwash commercials, is bad breath.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

15 ~ She conjured up this phantom before her in the suit of rather loud plus-fours with which she was accustomed to invest him, and took counsel with him in spirit
plus-fours: loosely tailored slacks cut 4 inches below the knee. Worn most frequently on golf courses during the 1920s and '30s. The late PGA golfer Payne Stewart favored them.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

15 ~ Bodies reduced to jelly by falling from aeroplanes
A reference probably inspired by the Alfred Loewenstein case. The international tycoon had fallen from his aeroplane into the English Channel on July 4, 1928, under mysterious circumstances. The story is recounted in "The Man Who Fell from the Sky" by William Norris.

15 ~ charred into "unrecognisable lumps" by fire
Sayers is probably referring to at least two notorious murder cases -- the Alfred Rouse and Samuel Furnace cases -- involving men who killed and their bodies set on fire to hide the evidence. One case forms the basis for the Sayers' short story "In the Teeth of the Evidence."

16 ~ No weapon, no suicide -- that was a law of the Medes and Persians
Medes and Persians: The kings in these empires were considered gods, and their laws, therefore, could not be changed. They can be found in the Bible books of Esther / Hadassah.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

Chapter 2


20 ~None sit in doors,
Except the babe, and his forgotten Grandsire,
And such as, out of life, each side to lie
Against the shutter of the grave or womb.

Quoted from Thomas Lovell Beddoes, "The Second Brother" of which no copies online seem to be available.

28 ~ acid drops
Also knowns as antacid tablets or soda mints. Or, hard candy with a sour tang taste.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

Chapter 3


29 ~ "Little and grisly, or bony and big." Death's Jest-Book
Not traced

30 ~ Nautical Almanack
Nautical Almanack: Publication of the British Admiralty containing information used by British sailors to navigate the seas.

30 ~ priority call

31 ~ I've had a trunk-call
trunk-call: A long-distance call.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

33 ~ Edgar Wallace
Wallace (1875-1932): Prolific British crime novelist, writer and playwright. Wikipedia

37 ~ Autres temps, autres maeurs
"Other times, other customs"
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

38 ~ S.A.
Sex appeal

40 ~ Where the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together.
Quoted from Matthew 24:28

24:27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

24:28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

41 ~ Have-His-Carcase Act
There is a mention of this in Charles Kingsley's "The Water Babies" in chapter 8:

And there he found all the wise people instructing mankind in the science of spirit-rapping, while their house was burning over their heads: and when Tom told them of the fire, they held an indignation meeting forthwith, and unanimously determined to hang Tom's dog for coming into their country with gunpowder in his mouth. Tom couldn't help saying that though they did fancy they had carried all the wit away with them out of Lincolnshire two hundred years ago, yet if they had had one such Lincolnshire nobleman among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he would have called for the fire-engines before he hanged other people's dogs. But it was of no use, and the dog was hanged: and Tom couldn't even have his carcase; for they had abolished the have-his-carcase act in that country, for fear lest when rogues fell out, honest men should come by their own.

I'm not sure what kind of connection there is. The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 guaranteed that a person detailed has to be brought before a court of law. Habeas Corpus has been misinterpreted as believing that there has to be a body produced in order for a murder charge to be filed. Perhaps Wimsey is spouting piffle, as usual, which over breakfast would give any woman used to late rising pause to consider a lifetime of this nonsense.


43 ~You know what people are. The minute they see anyone having a peaceful feed they gather in from the four points of the compass and sit down beside one, and the place is like the Corner House in the rush hour
The Corner House: A chain of elaborate restaurants founded in 1909 by the J. Lyons & Co. Each consisted of a four- or five-story building, with usually a food hall on the ground floor and a different restaurant on each floor. This site devoted to the history of J. Lyons says the Houses also offered "hair dressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and a food delivery service to any address in London, twice a day." There were several in London, and spread to Tunbridge Wells, Brighton, Bristol, Gloucester and elsewhere. Changing tastes in food and economic troubles caused the Corner Houses to close in the years after World War II.
(Contributed by Tanya Lees)

45 ~ mufti
Street clothes, worn by a soldier instead of his uniform
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

47 ~ comerlongerme
"come along with me"

52 ~ the only young Endicott was killed in the Salient, poor chap
Salient: The Ypres Salient. During World War I, Allied forces held a salient east of the Belgian city of Ypres that became one of the bloodiest battlegrounds for the rest of the war.

53 ~ Blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured menuphar
From Oscar Wilde's "The Sphinx"
Or did huge Apis from his car
Leap down and lay before your feet
Big blossoms of the honey-sweet,
And honey-coloured nenuphar?

Chapter 5



56 ~ phenacetin
phenacetin: Also known as acetophenetidin, used to ease pain and fever.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

Chapter 6


64 ~ Megatherium scandal
A scandal concocted by DLS. The scandal is also mentioned in passing in "Strong Poison."

Chapter 7



68 ~ entrain ... a merveille ... Que voulez-vous ... Ce pauvre Alexis energy ... a gem ... What would you want? ... that poor Alexis

69 ~ desagrement
unpleasantness

70 ~ N'avez pas peur, je m'en charge

Fear not, I am in charge

(Contributed by Carl Distefano)

70 ~ in Mr. Micawber's phrase, already "provided for"
Quoted from chapter 28 of "David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens.
I also took the opportunity of my holding a candle over the banisters to light them down, when Mr. Micawber was going first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and Traddles was following with the cap, to detain Traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs.

"Traddles," said I, "Mr. Micawber don't mean any harm, poor fellow: but, if I were you, I wouldn't lend him anything."

"My dear Copperfield," returned Traddles, smiling, "I haven't got anything to lend."

"You have got a name, you know," said I.

"Oh! You call THAT something to lend?" returned Traddles, with a thoughtful look.

"Certainly."

"Oh!" said Traddles. "Yes, to be sure! I am very much obliged to you, Copperfield; but - I am afraid I have lent him that already."

"For the bill that is to be a certain investment?" I inquired.

"No," said Traddles. "Not for that one. This is the first I have heard of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely propose that one, on the way home. Mine's another."

"I hope there will be nothing wrong about it," said I.

"I hope not," said Traddles. "I should think not, though, because he told me, only the other day, that it was provided for. That was Mr. Micawber's expression, ‘Provided for.'"

Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing,
I had only time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and
descended. But I was much afraid, when I observed the good-natured
manner in which he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave
Mrs. Micawber his arm, that he would be carried into the Money
Market neck and heels.

(David proved correct, as seen by this note he received at the end of the chapter)

"SIR - for I dare not say my dear Copperfield,

"It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is rushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed.

"The present communication is penned within the personal range (I cannot call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely bordering on intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual is in legal possession of the premises, under a distress for rent. His inventory includes, not only the chattels and effects of every description belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this habitation, but also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, lodger, a member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.

"If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is now "commended" (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips of the undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. Thomas Traddles, for the sum Of 23l 4s 9 1/2d is over due, and is NOT provided for. Also, in the fact that the living responsibilities clinging to the undersigned will, in the course of nature, be increased by the sum of one more helpless victim; whose miserable appearance may be looked for - in round numbers - at the expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months from the present date.

"After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to add, that dust and ashes are for ever scattered

"On
"The
"Head
"Of
"WILKINS MICAWBER."


Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to foresee that he might be expected to recover the blow; but my night's rest was sorely distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of the curate's daughter, who was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and who was such a dear girl, and who would wait for Traddles (ominous praise!) until she was sixty, or any age that could be mentioned.

71 ~ a dog with two tails about it

This is Lord Peter’s twist on a common bit of slang: “as happy as a dog with two tails.” If a dog is happy to wag one tail, he would naturally be twice as happy to have two.
(Contributed by Tony Morris)

72 ~ pour s'amuser ... Que voulez-vous? Ce n'est pas rigolo que d'etre gigolo
for your own amusement ... What would you want?It's not much fun being a giglio.
(Contributed by Nadia Bambridge)

74 ~ Sa maitresse
his mistress
(Contributed by Keith Francis)

Chapter 8



75 ~ designed by H.M. Bateman in a moment of more than ordinary inspiration
Henry Mayo Bateman was a cartoonist for Punch and other publications. http://www.hmbateman.com

Chapter 9


81 ~ The police are quite clear about how Alexis came here, and there doesn't seem to be any doubt about the matter, which is a blessing.
As this was probably written after "Five Red Herrings" -- in which railroad timetables figure heavily -- one wonders if this was DLS' reflection on the matter.

87 ~ if you're not what the Leopard called 'too vulgar big'
'too vulgar big': A phrase found in Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories," specifically "How the Leopard Got Its Spots."
'I'll take spots, then,' said the Leopard; 'but don't make 'em too vulgar-big. I wouldn't look like Giraffe -- not for ever so.'
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

89 ~ It may have been a disguise. They may have been quite plain glass -- I didn't examine them a la Dr. Thorndyke, to see whether they reflected a candle-flame upside-down or right way up
Dr Thorndyke: Long before "CSI," R. Austin Freeman's Dr. John Thorndyke was using his medical knowledge and training to solve cases. "It consists in the interrogation of things rather than persons; of the ascertainment of physical facts which can be made visible to eyes other than his own. And the facts which he seeks tend to be those which are apparent only to the trained eye of the medical practitioner," Freeman wrote.

89 ~ True, O Queen. Live for ever.
Not traced, although variations on this line can be found.

Chapter 10



95 ~ And left him a low, lorn crittur, with all the world contrairy with him.
These words were spoken by Mrs. Gummidge, in chapter 3 of "David Copperfield"
Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had burst into tears in the forenoon, when the fire smoked. 'I am a lone lorn creetur',' were Mrs. Gummidge's words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, 'and everythink goes contrary with me.'
(Contributed by Catherine Carter)

95 ~ that it says in the Bible that the infernal regions, begging your pardon, knows no fury like a woman scorned.
Quoted from William Congreve's "The Mourning Bride". The line runs: "Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.""The Mourning Bride is your usual "king orders beheading of enemy prince upon finding he is secretly married to king's daughter but gets it himself in a case of mistaken identity resulting in another mistaken identity with subsequent suicide by poisoning revolution and reunion of happy lovers" tragedy. The first line of the play is another oft-misquote: "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast."

The theme of women's power to anger when betrayed is an old, old story, going all the way back to the Medea, who took a horrifying revenge when she was betrayed by her lover.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

98 ~ because anybody coming from Lesston Hoe would have seen her and put his crime off to a more convenient season, as Shakespeare says
more convenient season: Inspector Umpelty must be mistaken. The phrase appears in Acts 24:25, when Antonius Felix, the governor of Judea is questioning Paul about accusations laid against him:
And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.
The phrase also appears in Young's Literal Translation of Luke, chapter 4. verse 13, dealing with the temptation of Christ.
And having ended all temptation, the Devil departed from him till a convenient season.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

Chapter 11



102 ~ Three hundred round, golden jimmy o' goblins
jimmy o'goblins: rhyming slang for sovereigns

102 ~ Gladstone sort of collar ... four-in-hand tie ... big green gamp
Gladstone collar: a type of high collar. It originated by an artist named Harry Furniss, who drew Gladstone in this fashion.
four-in-hand tie: the most common way of tying a tie. Probably named for the Four-in-Hand gentlemen's club, whose members began to wear the new style of neckwear and making it fashionable. (The club's name is derived from a carriage with four horses and one driver. Obviously, the owner had to be wealthy enough to afford such an extravagence.)
gamp: an umbrella, named for Mrs. Gamp, a character in “Martin Chuzzlewit” by Charles Dickens, who habitually carried a large, baggy umbrella.

103 ~ Old Abel wasn't averse to a buckshee twenty quid
buckshee: An extra gratuity, derived from the Hindi word baksheesh.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

111 ~ Get 'em to put it in black lettering--you know.
This is not much seen anymore, but newspapers would highlight in bold type certain paragraphs in the middle of a newspaper story.

Chapter 12


115 ~ when Mr. Gubbins, the vicar's warden, had drawn a consolation prize in the Grand National sweep.
Grand National: A horse race that has run annually (except during the world wars and in 1993) since 1839. As a side note, the 1993 race -- the 150th, was canceled after two false starts. The second time, a flag man failed to indicate the false start, and seven horses continued to race.

118 ~ All right, and I hope your rabbit dies.
The rest of the insult runs, "and you can't sell the hutch."

122 ~ What was yours? Martell Three-Star?
Martell is a brand of cognac

122 ~ I hunted pretty regularly with the Quorn and the Pytchley
The Quorn and Pytchley are two hunt clubs founded in the 1770s.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

125 ~ Qu'est-ce que je vous ai dit? L'elan, c'est trouve.
"What did I tell you? The momentum is found."
(Contributed by Laura Dick)

Chapter 13


129 ~ Do you favour the Michael Finsbury method by double entry as in The Wrong Box?
A reference to the story by Robert Louis Stevenson, in which a character attempts to work out a tricky problem on paper:

He entered a place of public entertainment, ordered bread and cheese, and writing materials, and sat down before them heavily. He tried the pen. It was an excellent pen, but what was he to write? 'I have it,' cried Morris. 'Robinson Crusoe and the double columns!' He prepared his paper after that classic model, and began as follows:

Bad.
Good.
1. 1 have lost my uncle's body. 1. But then Pitman has found it.

'Stop a bit,' said Morris. 'I am letting the spirit of antithesis run away with me. Let's start again.'

Bad.
Good.
1. I have lost my uncle's body.
1. But then I no longer require to bury it.
2. I have lost the tontine.
2.But I may still save that if Pitman disposes of the body, and if I can find a physician who will stick at nothing.
3. I have lost the leather business and the rest of my uncle's succession.
3. But not if Pitman gives the body up to the police.

'O, but in that case I go to gaol; I had forgot that,' thought Morris. 'Indeed, I don't know that I had better dwell on that hypothesis at all; it's all very well to talk of facing the worst; but in a case of this kind a man's first duty is to his own nerve. Is there any answer to No. 3? Is there any possible good side to such a beastly bungle? There must be, of course, or where would be the use of this double-entry business? And--by George, I have it!' he exclaimed; 'it's exactly the same as the last!' And he hastily re-wrote the passage:

Bad.
Good.
3. I have lost the leather business and the rest of my uncle's succession.
3. But not if I can find a physician who will stick at nothing.

'This venal doctor seems quite a desideratum,' he reflected. 'I want him first to give me a certificate that my uncle is dead, so that I may get the leather business; and then that he's alive--but here we are again at the incompatible interests!' And he returned to his tabulation:

Bad.
Good.

4. I have almost no money.
4. But there is plenty in the bank.

5. Yes, but I can't get the money in the bank.
5. But--well, that seems unhappily to be the case.

6. I have left the bill for eight hundred pounds in Uncle Joseph's pocket.
6. But if Pitman is only a dishonest man, the presence of this bill may lead him to keep the whole thing dark and throw the body into the New Cut.

7. Yes, but if Pitman is dishonest and finds the bill, he will know who Joseph is, and he may blackmail me.
7. Yes, but if I am right about Uncle Masterman, I can blackmail Michael.

8. But I can't blackmail Michael (which is, besides, a very dangerous thing to do) until I find out.
8. Worse luck!

9. The leather business will soon want money for current expenses, and I have none to give.
9. But the leather business is a sinking ship.

10. Yes, but it's all the ship I have.
10. A fact.

11. John will soon want money, and I have none to give.
11.

12. And the venal doctor will want money down.
12.

13. And if Pitman is dishonest and don't send me to gaol, he will want a
fortune.
13.

'O, this seems to be a very one-sided business,' exclaimed Morris. 'There's not so much in this method as I was led to think.' He crumpled the paper up and threw it down; and then, the next moment, picked it up again and ran it over. 'It seems it's on the financial point that my position is weakest,' he reflected. 'Is there positively no way of raising the wind? In a vast city like this, and surrounded by all the resources of civilization, it seems not to be conceived! Let us have no more precipitation. Is there nothing I can sell? My collection of signet--' But at the thought of scattering these loved treasures the blood leaped into Morris's check. 'I would rather die!' he exclaimed, and, cramming his hat upon his head,
strode forth into the streets.

138 ~ derisory
derisory: expression derision or worthy of derision

138 ~ irruption
irruption: to rush in forceably or violently

138 ~ King Cophetua

The legend tells that the African King Cophetua refused to marry until he was entranced at the sight of a beautiful beggar woman, whereby he resolved that she shall become his queen. The story was the subject of a painting by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

Tennyson also told the story in "The Beggar Maid."
Her arms across her breast she laid;
She was more fair than words can say:
Barefooted came the beggar maid
Before the king Cophetua.
In robe and crown the king stepped down,
To meet and greet her on the way:
'It is no wonder,' said the lords,
'She is more beautiful than day.'
In the end, Cophetua swore a royal oath:
"This beggar maid shall be my queen!"

The story also appears in Shakespeare: "The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon." Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 1.

140 ~ Like Alan Breck, I'm a bonny fighter.
Breck: A character in "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).

In Chapter 7, Stewart is a passenger aboard the "Covenant," in which the kidnapped hero, David, is being held. The ship strikes another boat and picks up the sole survivor, Stewart, who is a passenger hoping to be taken to Scotland. After David hears the captain and crew planning to murder Stewart for his gold, he warns him and they fight off the crew's attack.

The round-house was like a shambles; three were dead inside, another lay in his death agony across the threshold; and there were Alan and I victorious and unhurt.

He came up to me with open arms. "Come to my arms!" he cried, and embraced and kissed me hard upon both cheek. "David," said he, "I love you like a brother. And O, man," he cried in a kind of ecstasy, "am I no a bonny fighter?"

Thereupon he turned to the four enemies, passed his sword clean through each of them, and tumbled them out of doors one after the other. As he did so, he kept humming and singing and whistling to himself, like a man trying to recall an air; only what HE was trying was to make one. All the while, the flush was in his face, and his eyes were as bright as a five-year-old child's with a new toy. And presently he sat down upon the table, sword in hand; the air that he was making all the time began to run a little clearer, and then clearer still; and then out he burst with a great voice into a Gaelic song.

Chapter 14


142 ~ for malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man
Quoted from A.E. Housman's "Terence, This is Stupid Stuff":
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think.

Chapter 15


151 ~ detraque
detraque: upset

152 ~ like in that story, "The Trail of the Purple Python."
A fictional Sexton Blake story made up by DLS

152 ~ " ... and he has a secret house full of steel-lined rooms and luxurious divans and obelisks--"
"Obelisks?"
"Well, you know. Ladies who weren't quite respectable."
obelisks: He meant odalisques: the concubines of the harem.

153 ~ And this young man, so timid, so complaisant, cuts his throat with a big, ugly gash because you turn him down. C'est inoui
C'est inoul: That's unheard of.

154 ~ "Mais si quelqu'un venoit de la part de Cassandre,
Ouvre-luy tost la porte, et ne le fais attendre,
Soudain entre dans ma chambre, et me vien accoustrer."
Quoted from a sonnet by Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585), a cleric in minor orders who wrote poetry inspired by classical culture. Late in life, he fell in love with Cassandra, a lady-in-waiting in the court of Eleanor of Acqutaine. She rejected him, inspiring him to write a series of sonnets, of which this is one.

The lines spoken by Antoine (as translated by James Kirkup)
But should someone come
with news of my Cassandra,
open wide the doors,
and do not keep him waiting:
bring him straight to see me here.

157 ~ emerging victorious with an inclusive charge of two and a half guineas per week, or twelve shillings and find yourself.
inclusive: Meaning that room, board and sometimes laundry was included in the charge. find yourself: Room only.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

159 ~ you'll be marrying the Princess of China, you will, like Aladdin in the Panto.
Pantos are comic plays generally performed around Christmas. They were originally mime shows that appeared after the conclusion of the serious play, but they became popular performances in their own right. Over time, new elements have been added to the plays so that they little resemble their original source materials.

In the case of "Aladdin," the story first appeared on stage in 1788. During the nineteenth century, plays featuring fairy tales became popular and grew into full-length shows featuring speciality acts. "Aladdin" gained oriental elements during this time, when there was a great vogue for anything oriental. His mother was renamed Widow Ching Mustapha, then Twankey for the Chinese green tea by the writer H.J. Bryon. Later, she was given a Chinese laundry and another son called Wishee Washee.

Chapter 16


162 ~ Fishers of men, I fancy
fishers of men: Quoted from Matthew 4:19: And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

163 ~ Alas! Alas! What boots it to repeat.
Quoted from FitzGerald's "The Rubiyacht of Omar Khayyam":
XXXVII
Ah, fill the Cup: -- what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!

166 ~ The shoe hasn't been worn thin by the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'igh road
Quoted from the caption of a Punch cartoon from around 1849. The full caption reads: "It ain't the 'eavy 'auling wot 'urts the orses's 'ooves; hit's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'ighway!"

167 ~When I kiss you, it will be an important event — one of those things which stand out among their surroundings like the first time you tasted li-chee.
li-chee: Small, sun-dried fruit from China that has a hard, scaly outer covering and sweet flesh inside. Also commonly called lichee or litche nut today.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

167 ~ I know two things about the horse and one of them is rather coarse.
A couplet by Naomi Royde-Smith, "Weekend Book" 1928

172 ~ Tramp, tramp along the land they rode, Splash, splash along the sea.
Quoted from Walter Scott's "Lenore":
Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is white, the spur is bright,
The flashing pebbles flee.

172 ~ under a spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands
Quoted from "The Village Smithy" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
Under a spreading chestnut-tree?
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms?
Are strong as iron bands.

173 ~ Mafeking year, that wur
Mafeking: 1900, the year the settlement of Mafeking was relieved during the Boer War.Or, 1898, when the Boers besieged the village.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

174 ~ dealing with the distribution of tenancies and glebe round about that district
tenancies: the holding of an estate or possession of a house. Glebe: a plot of church-owned farmland.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

174 ~ And so to bed.
A common ending to a diary entry by Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)

Chapter 20


209 ~ I'm a most skilful go-between and an accomplished gooseberry.
gooseberry: an unwanted extra person, usually to a courting couple who want to be left alone.

219 ~ He spoke as an Empire Free-Trader and member of the Public Health Committee

223 ~ A contempt for money, Inspector, is the root -- or at any rate, the very definite sign -- of all evil.
A variation on 1 Timothy 6:9-10:
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

225 ~ but failed to detect either the petitio eleuchi, the undistributed middle or the inaccurate major premise which it contrived to combine.
petitio eleuchi: begging the question "using as a premise in an argument something that should be the conclusion."
undistributed middle: The official definition is "The middle term in the premises of a standard form categorical syllogism never refers to all of the members of the category it describes."

226 ~ Pause there, Morocco.
Quoted from Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," Act II, Scene 7
Morocco
Some god direct my judgment! Let me see;
I will survey the inscriptions back again.
What says this leaden casket?
'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'
Must give: for what? for lead? hazard for lead?
This casket threatens. Men that hazard all
Do it in hope of fair advantages:
A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;
I'll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.
What says the silver with her virgin hue?
'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco,
And weigh thy value with an even hand:
If thou be'st rated by thy estimation,
Thou dost deserve enough; and yet enough
May not extend so far as to the lady:
And yet to be afeard of my deserving
Were but a weak disabling of myself.
As much as I deserve! Why, that's the lady:
I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,
In graces and in qualities of breeding;
But more than these, in love I do deserve.
What if I stray'd no further, but chose here?
Let's see once more this saying graved in gold
'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'
Why, that's the lady; all the world desires her;
From the four corners of the earth they come,
To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint:
The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds
Of wide Arabia are as thoroughfares now
For princes to come view fair Portia:
The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar
To stop the foreign spirits, but they come,
As o'er a brook, to see fair Portia.
One of these three contains her heavenly picture.
Is't like that lead contains her? 'Twere damnation
To think so base a thought: it were too gross
To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.
Or shall I think in silver she's immured,
Being ten times undervalued to tried gold?
O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem
Was set in worse than gold. They have in England
A coin that bears the figure of an angel
Stamped in gold, but that's insculp'd upon;
But here an angel in a golden bed
Lies all within. Deliver me the key:
Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!

Chapter 22


229 ~ in Ruritanian fiction
Ruritania is the fictional country in which Anthony Hope's "A Prisoner of Zenda" is set. The book's success spawned a host of imitators.

229 ~ "A Bid for the Throne"
Not found; presumed to be a title concoted by DLS

231 ~ quantity of pantiles
pantiles: Curved roofing tiles, particularly found on churches

231 ~ which adjoins the washes of the 100-foot level

234 ~ representing the Lincoln Imp
Lincoln imp: A stone decoration who inhabits a pillar above the angel choir in Lincoln Cathedral. Several legends are told about this creation of a workman's fancy. The basic story, about the imp sent by Satan to cause trouble only to be petrified by angel, has several more detailed variations. The imp has become an icon of Lincoln, used by businesses and the local football club.

236 ~ second law of thermo-dynamics
One of the fundamental laws of the universie, which states that heat always flows from higher to lower temperature regions, although I believe Wimsey was being, well, whimsical when he says it "holds the universe in its path, and without which time would run backwards like a cinema film wound the wrong way."

There are three laws of thermodynamics, and British scientist and author C.P. Snow created this way of remembering them:
1. You cannot win (that is, you cannot get something for nothing, because matter and energy are conserved).

2. You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases).

3. You cannot get out of the game (because absolute zero is unattainable).

236 ~ "Altars may reel," said Wimsey, "Mr. Thomas may abandon his dress-suit and Mr. Snowden renounce Free Trade, but the second law of thermo-dynamics will endure while memory holds her seat in this distracted globe, by which Hamlet meant his head but which I, with a wider intellectual range, apply to the planet which we have the rapture of inhabiting. ... "
distracted globe: Quoted from "Hamlet", Act I, Scene 5:

Hamlet
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark:

238 ~ Sounds like the tiger who conveyed the young lady of Riga.
A limerick by that prolific writer, Anonymous:
There was a young lady of Riga
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

240 ~ The Vorm is a good Vorm, Sullivan, as Shakespeare says, but he ain't on the market.
Quoted from "Anthony and Cleopatra" Act V, Scene 1:
Clown
Very many, men and women too. I heard of one of
them no longer than yesterday: a very honest woman,
but something given to lie; as a woman should not
do, but in the way of honesty: how she died of the
biting of it, what pain she felt: truly, she makes
a very good report o' the worm; but he that will
believe all that they say, shall never be saved by
half that they do: but this is most fallible, the
worm's an odd worm.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

242 ~ Hollow-cheeked beggar with a voice like Mother Siegel's Syrup.

242 ~ Can't see him in Act V, though. All right for the bit with the citizens. You know. Enter Richard above, reading, between two monks.

The scene about the strawberries -- that's clearly all put on.

But the scene with Buckingham and the clock

All three are references to scenes in "Richard III."

The strawberries scene exemplies one-half of Mr. Sullivan's complaint about Richard being "a wormy, plotting sort of fellow and the other's a bold, bustling sort of chap who chops people's heads off and flies into tempers." It refers to Act III, Scene 4, in which Richard of Gloucester, the future king, schemes during a council meeting:

Gloucester:
My lord of Ely!

Bishop of Ely
My lord?

Gloucester
When I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there
I do beseech you send for some of them.

Bishop of Ely
Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.

Although Ely had submitted to the Richard's House of York -- an extended warring familiy contending with the House of Lancaster for the crown -- his loyalty to the Yorkists was weak and Richard knew it. When Ely returns from his errand, he finds Richard in a rage, accusing several lords -- including Ely -- of plotting against him. He orders their arrest and two were executed on the spot. This breaks the back of the baronial opposition to Richard's grab for the throne.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

243 ~ he made a hit as the dear old silver-haired vicar in Roses Round the Door.
No trace found; presumed a fictional play concocted by DLS

Chapter 24


246 ~ L.C.C. School
London County Council
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

Chapter 25



261 ~ 'Do I look like it? Said the Knave. Which he certainly did not, being made entirely of cardboard.'
Quoted from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll:
The jury all wrote down on their slates, "SHE doesn't believe there's an atom of meaning in it," but none of them attempted to explain the paper.

"If there's no meaning in it," said the King, "that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any. And yet I don't know," he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at them with one eye; "I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. ‘--SAID I COULD NOT SWIM--' you can't swim, can you?" he added, turning to the Knave.

The Knave shook his head sadly. "Do I look like it?" he said. (Which he certainly did NOT, being made entirely of cardboard.)

"All right, so far," said the King, and he went on muttering over the verses to himself: "‘WE KNOW IT TO BE TRUE--' that's the jury, of course-- ‘I GAVE HER ONE, THEY GAVE HIM TWO--' why, that must be what he did with the tarts, you know--'

`But, it goes on ‘THEY ALL RETURNED FROM HIM TO YOU,'" said Alice.

265 ~ Little flower in the crannied wall I pluck you out of the crannies, but, as the poet goes on to say, if I could understand I should know who the guilty man is. But I don't understand.
Quoted from "Flower in the Crannied Wall" by Tennyson.

Chapter 26


274 ~ As he went, he put the whole elaborate structure of his theories together, line by line, and like Euclid, wrote at the bottom of it: WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE

Chapter 27


278 ~ I know he's hoping to get taken on by the Westshire Tigers
Westshire Tigers: A presumably fiction football team (soccer to Americans).

Chapter 30


306 ~ in the crypt of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields
St. Martin's-in-the-Fields: a church in London where worship services have been held for at least 800 years.The crypt has been turned into a cafe.

306 ~ subfusc
Sub‑fusc: drab or dusky. From the Latin word "subfuscus," meaning dark brown. At Oxford, it describes a formal way of dressing. For men, it would have been a black suit, white shirt, white bow tie with cap and gown, and for women, the same only with black tie, black skirt, gown and ladies' cap. This uniform is still used today for university functions and during exams.

306 ~ Edgar Wallace
Wallace (1875-1932): Prolific British crime novelist, writer and playwright.

308 ~ flinging a florin to his driver

A two-shilling coin, worth 24 pence or one-tenth of a pound.
(Contributed by Tony Morris)

309 ~ This room was the exact twin of the first, except that, instead of a male orchestra in evening dress playing "My Canary has Circles under His Eyes," it possessed a female orchestra in blue playing excerpts from "The Gondoliers."
My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes: A popular song of the 1930s, recorded by in quick succession by Debroy Summers, Sophie Tucker, Al Bowlly with The Waldorfians and Lawrence Welk's Novelty Orchestra.
Since making whoopee became all the rage
It's even got to the old birdcage
My canary has circles under his eyes

He used to whistle The Prisoner's Song
Now he does snake-hips the whole day long
My poor canary has circles under his eyes

His only pals are the yellow lark
And just a tiny sparrow
But I am scared when he's in the park
He leaves the straight and narrow

My place is steady, in manners so strict
Yet I've a feeling I'm being tricked
'Cause my canary has circles under his eyes

The Gondoliers: The title of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.

Chapter 31


317 ~ They picked them up and weighed them in their palms; they held them between their fingers, passing inquisitive fingers along the milled edges and over the smooth relief of the gleaming George and Dragon (1930s gold sovereigns)

320 ~ I'll go no more a-sleuthing with you, fair maid. O, now, for ever farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content! Farewell, Othello's occupation's gone. Are you sure about it?
no more a-sleuthing with you, fair maid: A paraphrase from "Maid of Amsterdam" a song by Robert Heywood that first appeared in 1608 in the play "The Rape of Lucrece." It may have originated as a sea chanty.
In Amsterdam there lived a maid
Mark you well what I say!
In Amsterdam there lives a maid,
And this fair maid my trust betrayed.

Chorus
I'll go no more a rovin, with you fair maid.
A roving, A roving, since roving's been my ru-i-in,
I'll go no more a roving, with you fair maid.

Her eyes are like two stars so bright
Mark you well what I say
Her eyes are like two stars so bright,
Her face is fair, her step is light.

Chorus

I asked this fair maid to take a walk,
Mark well what I do say
I asked this maid out for a walk
That we might have some private talk.

Chorus

Then I took this fair maid's lily white hand,
Mark well what I do say
I took this fair maid's lily white hand
In mine as we walked along the strand.

Chorus

Then I put my arm around her waist
Mark well what I do say!
For I put my arm around her waist
And from her lips snatched a kiss in haste!

Chorus

Then a great big Dutchman rammed my bow
Mark well what I do say
For a great big Dutchman rammed my bow,
And said, "Young man, dis bin mein vrow!"

Chorus

Then take warning boys, from me,
Mark well what I do say!
So take a warning, boys, from me,
With other men's wives don't make too free.

Chorus

For if you do you will surely rue
Mark well what I do say!
For if you do you will surely rue
Your act, and find my words come true.


Othello's occupation's gone: Quoted from "Othello", Act III, Scene 3
Othello
I had been happy, if the general camp,
Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dead clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!

322 ~ Seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth.
Quote from Shakespeare's "As You Like It," Act II, Scene 7:

Jaques
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

322 ~ We must stoop to conquer.

A reference to “She Stoops to Conquer,” a comedy by Oliver Goldsmith, first performed in London in 1773.
(Contributed by Tony Morris)

Chapter 32


326 ~ "The Girl who Gave All"

328 ~ morganatic marriage
Marriage between two people from wildly different social classes. To keep the husband's wealth and bloodlines from crossing class barriers, morganatic marriage was institutionalized. The bride would receive a dower, as usual, but would not be eligible for any titles, and any children from this marriage would not inheirit anything. This practice was common in the German states.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin and Alexander Campbell)

image329 ~ Ninon de l'Enclos
Ninon de l'Enclos:French author and patron of the arts (1620-1705) who ran a Paris salon.
(Contributed by Leigh Gerfin)

331 ~ if he could only find the record of somebody's marriage to Perkin Warbeck

Warbeck (c. 1474-1499) claimed that, as Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, he was the rightful king of England. Richard, if you know your Shakespeare, was one of the two princes confined to the Tower of London and alledgedly ordered killed by Richard III. He found some support in Burgendy and landed three times in an attempt to enforce his claim. He was captured and killed in 1499.
(Contributed by Alexander Campbell)

Chapter 33


337 ~ There's the Roger Sheringham method ... there's the Philo Vance method ... There's the Inspector French method ... There's the Thorndyke type of solution

339 ~ Didn't you say you knew of an English novel that had an explanation of the Playfair cipher?"
"Yes -- one of John Rhode's. Why?"

340 ~ Look at Patrick Mahon and the chopper, for instance.
A reference to a notorious 1924 murder case, in which the adulterous Mahon killed his girlfriend Emily Kaye, and tried to dispose of the body by chopping it up, boiling the flesh, burning the head in the fire, breaking up the pieces and scattering them outdoors. Murderfile has the complete, gory details.

340 ~ It would never have done for him simply to disappear like snow upon the desert's dusty face.
Quote from "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"

341 ~ That number-plate was pure bunce for them
bunce: a sudden happening that brings good fortune

348 ~ that it completely busts up and spiflicates the medical evidence
spiflicates: utterly destroys

349 ~ Unlike Mr. Weldon, you can spot the petitio elenchi
Latin for "begging the question"

351 ~ King Death has asses' ears with a vengeance
Quote from "Death's Jest-Book" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849)

"Murder Must Advertise"



The page numbers are from the U.S. Perennial Library paperback edition of "Murder Must Advertise" copyright 1933 by Dorothy Leigh Sayers Fleming, 1961 by Lloyds Bank Ltd., Executor of the Estate of Dorothy L. Sayers.

Chapter 1

1 ~ Dairyfields guard-book

2 ~ Cross between Ralph Lynn and Bertie Wooster >Ralph (pronounced "Rafe") Lynn (1882-1962) was an actor-comedian who specialized in aristocrats.

2 ~ Death, where is thy sting?
From 1 Corinthians 15:55: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

2 ~ A bob? Here's half-a-crown
In England's old currency, a bob equals a shilling, while half-a-crown equals two shillings and 6 pence (as 12 pence equals a shilling, a crown equals five shillings, of course).

3 ~ smoking gaspers and discussing lawn-tennis
gaspers: cigarette

3 ~ Has anybody got two shillings for a florin?florin: a coin equalling two shillings

5 ~ Bredon went to Balliol
And sat at the feet of Gamaliel
And just as he ought
He cared for nought,
And his language was sesquipedalial
Gamaliel: A Pharisee and respected doctor of Law. Paul mentions him in Acts 22:3 as being brought up at his feet "and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers." In Acts 5:34, Gamaliel successfully advises his fellow-members of the Sanhedrin not to execute Peter and the Apostles who preached despite a ban on their activities.

5 ~ two double-faults running

5 ~ hail you all, impale you all, jail you all

6 ~ Gentlemen prefer blondes, but personally I find them both equally seraphic
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is a novel by Anita Loos, made into a movie starring Marilyn Monroe.

7 ~ Derby sweep (Irish derby, that is)

7 ~ like summer-time on BredonA quote from "A Shropshire Lad" by A.E. Housman:

XXI. Bredon Hill

In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away:
'Come to church, good people;
Good people, come and pray.'
But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer
Among the springing thyme,
'Oh, peal upon our wedding,
And we will hear the chime,
And come to church in time.'

But when the snows at Christmas
On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
And stole out unbeknown
And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.
The bells they sound on Bredon,

And still the steeples hum.
'Come all to church, good people,' ---
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.



8 ~ Elliot-Fisher typewriter

9 ~ Tallboy
Dorothy Sayers denied that there was any connection between Tallboy and Talboy.

9 ~ a public place within the meaning of the act

11 ~ Green Pastures ... it suggests Negroes to me ... keep Psalm 23 out of it
"Green Pastures": a play by Marc Connolly based on the stories by white humorist Roark Bradford. In "Ol' Man Adam and his Chillun," on which the Pulitzer Prize-winning play is based, an elderly black Sunday school teacher recasts the Bible stories in words his congregation could understand. "De Lawd" is a Southern black Baptist preacher, heaven a bayou of big cigars and eternal fish fries, Moses a "conjure man" and Noah a ferryboat skipper.
Psalm 23:
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

16 ~ Black holes of CalcuttaA notorious incident in British-India relations. In the traditional story, in 1756, the Nawab of Bengal, Sirai-ud-daulah, attempting to drive the British out of India, attacked Fort William in Calcutta and captured 146 soldiers of the British East India Company. On his orders, the soldiers were crammed into a small cell and left them overnight. The next morning, the guards found 123 of the 146 had died. This enraged the British public, and the East India Company sent a relief force, which deposed the Nawab and put his uncle in place. Said uncle rewarded the British commander of the force and gave the Company the right to tax Mughal lands and lead Mughal troops. The rest, as they say, is history.
But did the Black Hole really happen that way? The Straight Dope site considers the evidence and, as is usual in history, found the answer to be yes and no.

17 ~ What we want in this country is a Mussolini to organize trade conditionsBenito Mussolini, the Facist ruler of Italy.

18 ~ DEATH BREDON, 12A, Great Ormond Street, W.C. 1

Chapter 2

24 ~ IT'S A FAR, FAR BUTTER THINGThe slightly modified line is from "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens, in which Sydney Carton, about to give his life at the guillotine for his friend, delivers this stirring speech:
"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making
expiation for itself and wearing out.
"I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.
"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both.
"I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place-- then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement --and I hear him tell the child my
story, with a tender and a faltering voice.
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, a man would have to have a heart of stone to laugh at Sydney Carton.

24 ~ Whether it's Chelsea buns or jam rollChelsea bun: a pastry filled with fruit and rolled up into a coil

Chapter 3

32 ~ cricket advertisements ... "Lumme, what a Lob!" ... "Yah! that's a Yorker!" ... "Gosh! it's a Googly"These headlines play off common terms used in cricket. A lob is a pitch; a Yorker a pitch that hits the ground directly under the batsman's bat; and a Googly a curve ball that moves sharply toward the batter.
This Web site contains more information on cricket terms.

32 ~ De mortuisThe full quote hinted here is "De mortuis nihil nisi bene," or "Of the dead, say nothing but good."

33 ~ nostalgie de la banlieue ... de la boue

34 ~ Brewer here(Dictionary?)

34 ~ chrononhotonthologos ... aldiborontophoscophornio32 * chronon .... The Tragedy of Chrononhotonthologos:
The most tragical tragedy
that ever was tragediz'd
by any company of tragedians,
by Henry Carey (c1687-1743)

Aldeborontiphoscophornio!
Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?

Henry Carey (c.1687-1743) also wrote, among much else, the words to God
Save The King (or Queen). Chrononhotonthologos was so popular in its day
that the title entered the language, as a synonym for "furious, violent,
demanding, self-centered" (sounds just like Pa Ubu) and appeared in earlier
editions of Roget's Thesaurus, although appears not to have made it into
the OED.

http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/script.htm



34 ~ TorquemadaThe Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, but in this context, it is the pseudonym of Edward Powys Mathers who created 670 crosswords for the Observer newspaper between 1926 and 1939. Drawing on his background as a scholar and linguist, Mathers' crosswords were notorious for their difficult and obscure clues, and accomplishing one was the sign of a learned gentleman (or lady). The example, below, was plucked from a Web site that, unfortunately, did not offer the solution.

Across
1 and 13. It isn't caused by underwriting (10, 5)
10. Crime of Don Alhambra del Bolero (7)
14. and 16 across The too enthusiastic should beware of 1 across and 13 (9)
17. Particle (6)
18. 'Chicken-skin, delicate, white, Painted by -- Vanloo' (5)
19. The saint of sick schoolboys (3)
20. rev. 'I took thee to curse mine enemies,'I said,'and, behold, thou hast
blessed them' (5)
23. Letters of 36 (3)
24. The reformation of a pawnbroker (5)
26 and 27. Of resting bodies (6)
29. rev. Distinct 'haves' in Spenser (3)
31. and 30 I guard the interests of a magazine (8)
32. Grows whiter when turned into a leaf (5)
33. Found in 32 (6)
36. Letters of 23 (3)
39. rev Foreign incubus (5)
41 and 37. Lord Moggeridge's passion (5)
42. rev A belt is (5)
43. Hopped (5)
Down
1. Have you got me? You must be dense (10)
2. I creep and am enough to make a cat smile (8)
3. Napier's blunder (6)
4. One below two below (8)
5. Die-hards have no use for me (9)
6. and 7 'A man of lowly station,/A miserable, grov'ling --- /Besought her
approbation' (4)
6. and 8 Towards the east of Scotland (6)
9. Art which Kenneth Grahame's dragon had to recapture (11)
11. Instrument obtained from damping jute (7)
12. 'I don't know where Dinn may be,' said this kind of a reptile (4)
15 and 16. Letters of 6 and 7 (4)
21. A bat is (6)
22. One of several places in Montparnasse which will provide you with real
tie (7)
25. 'So it is, if thou knew'st our purposes.' 'I see a -- that sees them'
(6)
26. Shaft (6)
28. Hamlet, where rude producers of sleep (5)
35 and 34. Meeting (6)
38 and 40. Stevenson let this get by him (4)

35 ~ pukka

36 ~ Vintage B: extra-secextra-sec: french term meaning extra dry

38 ~ Bright Young PeopleThe nickname coined by the press in the 1920s for a group of people known for their parties, their stunts and their wit. Take the Studio 54 in the 1970s, the jet-set of the 1950s, or Frank Sinatra and the Brat Pack, and you have an idea of what the Bright Young People were up to. They drank and danced, they caroused, they went on scavenger hunts and pogoed up the Mall; they were up for anything and everything. They were the Guinness sisters, Babe Jungman, Tom Driberg, Loelia Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Smith, and their chronicler was Evelyn Waugh, whose "Vile Bodies," published in 1930, became a best-seller, and Waugh the fashionable voice of his generation.

38 ~ Nothing in life became him like the leaving it?Quote from Shakespeare's "Macbeth," Act I, Scene 4, after Macbeth killed the king.

38 ~ For he must be somebody's son.

39 ~ Who dragged whom, how many times, at the wheels of what, round the walls of where?She is thinking of Achilles, the Greek warrior. During the Trojan War, he challenged Hector, a prince of Troy, to a battle. He defeated Hector and dragged his body three times around the city's walls.

40 ~ were turned off at a timeturned off: a form of execution by hanging used before the development of the scaffold and trap door. In this method, the noosed victim stands on a ladder, a horse or a cart and was "turned off" and left to dangle until he died of strangulation.

Chapter 4

47 ~ I should think it would be rather like a muchness. Lewis Carroll, you know.Quoted from chapter 7 of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." During the Mad Hatter's tea party, the Dormouse fell asleep in the midst of telling a story about three sisters who were learning to draw things that began with the letter M:

"The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze, but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: " - that begins with an M, such as mousetraps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness - you know you say things are `much of a muchness` - did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?"

48 ~ I got the bombardon twice.

48 ~ ‘Earth hath not anything to show more fair.'Quote from Wordsworth's "Upon Westminster Bridge"

Earth has not anything to show more fair:Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty:This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky;All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!The river glideth at his own sweet will:Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;And all that mighty heart is lying still!


53 ~ Edgar Wallace

61 ~ pants and singletssinglet: an undershirt or athletic shirt, so called for having only a single layer of cloth

62 ~ shove ha'pennyA tabletop shuffleboard variation played in pubs

62 ~ bran-tubA game where children would plunge their hands into a tub of sawdust in find a prize

62 ~ His costume -- that of a member of the Vehmgericht, with its black cassock and black, eyeleted hood covering the whole head and shoulders -- was easily slipped on over his every-day suit.Vehmgericht: A judicial court that arose in the Holy Roman Empire in the late 12th century and lasted until the 19th century. Everything about it was secret, from its membership to its proceedings. Accusations were made anonymously, and failure to appear at trial was punished by death.

64 ~ amorinoamorino: Italian for Cupid, the god of love

Chapter 5

69 ~ "Who saw him die?" "I, said the fly."Quote from the anonymous children's poem "Cock Robin"
Who killed Cock Robin?  "I," said the Sparrow   "With my bow and arrow,

I killed Cock Robin" Who saw him die?   "I," said the Fly,   "With my little eye,

I saw him die"Who caught his blood?   "I," said the Fish,   "With my little dish, I caught his blood ..."Who'll make his shroud?   "I," said the Beetle,   "With my thread and needle,I'll make his shroud."Who'll dig his grave?   "I," said the Owl,   "With my spade and trowel,I'll dig his grave."Who'll be the parson?   "I," said the Rook,   "With my little book.I'll be the parson."Who'll be the clerk?   "I," said the Lark,   "I'll say Amen in the dark;I'll be the clerk."Who'll be chief mourner?   "I," said the Dove,   "I mourn for my love;I'll be chief mourner."Who'll bear the torch?   "I," said the the Linnet,   "I'll come in a minute,I'll bear the torch."Who'll sing his dirge?   "I," said the Thrush,   "As I sing in the bush I'll sing his dirge."Who'll bear the pall?   "We," said the Wren,    Both the Cock and the Hen;"We'll bear the pall."Who'll carry his coffin?   "I," said the Kite,   "If it be in the night,I'll carry his coffin."Who'll toll the bell?   "I," said the Bull,   "Because I can pull,I'll toll the bell."All the birds of the air    Fell to sighing and sobbing    When they heard the bell toll For poor Cock Robin.71 ~ P.J.'s at 8.30 ack emmaack emma: A.M.

72 ~ safe as housesThere were a number of phrases in use in England: safe as Coutt's (the private bank where the Royal Family stashes its shekiels, very safe indeed!), as a mouse in cheese, as a bank. The origins of the "safe as houses" phrase lies in money. According to Hotten's "A Slang Dictionary," it first appeared in 1859, after investments in railways led to heated speculation, which led to a "bubble," which burst, and which led investors to return to real estate as the investment of choice.

72 ~ locum tenensA place-holder, specifically, a physician or cleric who fills in temporarily for a counterpart.

76 ~ ‘I did it, in the cause of purity.'

78 ~ myrmidonsmyrmidon: a faithful follower. Derived from Greek mythology, they were the people led by Achilles into the Trojan War.

81 ~ Macbeth hath murdered sleepQuote from Shakespeare's "Macbeth," Act II, Scene 2:
Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,Chief nourisher in life's feast,--


Chapter 6

85 ~ Like the old joke, eh? ‘O take a pill! O take a pill! O take a pilgrim home!'

85 ~ with right of free warrenA person with a right of free warren was allowed to take animals within a certain area, such as partridges, woodcocks, foxes, badgers,
martins.

88 ~ glancing at the Greenwich-controlled electric clock-face on the wallAt Greenwich is the Royal Observatory, charged since 1675 with providing the correct time. The reason behind this is rather complicated, involving a chain of events that began with the invention of longitude and the need for sailors to have accurate timepieces in order to locate where they are on the globe. Charles II established the observatory at Greenwich to provide this time, and it has become the standard around the world since.

The Royal Observatory Web site contains much more information about Greenwich time.

89 ~ latest "Sexton Blake"A popular and long-running fictional detective that ran in newspapers and various magazines. Blake was a combination of Sherlock Holmes and the Nancy Drew. Like Holmes, Blake was a brilliant solver of mysteries, and like Nancy, was written by a stable of writers. Unlike Holmes, Blake has no personality to speak of, and was merely a conduit for a series of ripping yarns that involved secret gangs with mysterious names, fisticuffs, obscure poisons, in short, all the stuff that Wodehouse satirized, and which finally pushed its way into worldwide popular culture when Blake was recreated as James Bond.
The Thrilling Detective Web site carries a complete history of the Sexton Blake saga.
92 ~ "The Clue of the Crimson Star," sir. About Sexton Blake; he's a detective, you know, sir. It's a top-hole yarn.

96 ~ assumed his gibusA collapsible silk opera hat, patented in 1837 by Parisian hatmaker Antoine Gibus

Chapter 7

97 ~ Mr. Parker accepted disappointment as philosophically as the gentleman in Browning's poem, who went to the trouble and expense of taking music lessons just in case his lady-love might demand a song with lute obbligato.The reference is from Robert Browning's "One Way of Love"
All June I bound the rose in sheaves.Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves And strow them where Pauline may pass.She will not turn aside?Alas! Let them lie. Suppose they die?The chance was they might take her eye.How many a month I strove to suit These stubborn fingers to the lute!To-day I venture all I know.She will not hear my music? So!Break the string; fold music's wing:Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!My whole life long I learn'd to love.This hour my utmost art I prove And speak my passionùheaven or hell?She will not give me heaven? ‘T is well!Lose who mayùI still can say,Those who win heaven, bless'd are they!

98 ~ L.C.C. regulationLondon County Council

100 ~ bulls of BashanQuoted from Psalm 22:12: "Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round."

106 ~ Phillips Oppenheim, with a touch of Ethel M. Dell and Elinor GlynnE. Phillips Oppenheim styled himself the "prince of storytellers" (From site E. Phillips Oppenheim was born in London, England on October 22nd, 1866. He left school at the age of seventeen to help at his father's leather business. However, a U.S. company bought the business, and Oppenheim was able to pursue his writing career. Writing novels, short stories, magazine articles, translations, and plays, Oppenheim's works
total over 150. Calling himself the "prince of storytellers," he is considered one of the originators of the thriller genre. He wrote some of his novels using the pseudonym "Anthony Partridge." Oppenheim died in 1946.)

Ethel M. Dell: Ethel May Dell was born in a suburb of London, England in
1881. Her father was a clerk in the City of London and she had an older
sister and brother. Her family was middle class and lived a comfortable
life. Ethel was a very shy, quiet girl and was content to be dominated by
her family. Ethel began to write stores while very young and had many of
them were published in popular magazines. Beneath her shy exterior, Ethel
had a passionate heart and most of her stories were stories of passion and
love set in India and other British colonial possessions. They were
considered to be very racy and her cousins would pull out pencils to try
and count up the number of times she used the words; passion, tremble, pant
and thrill.
For several years, Ethel Dell had been working on a novel and between 1910
and 1912, it was rejected by eight publishers. Finally the publisher T.
Fisher Unwin bought the book for their First Novel Library, a series which
introduced a writer's first book. Ethel Dell's book titled The Way of an
Eagle, was published in 1912 and by 1915 it had gone through twenty seven
printings.
The Way of an Eagle is still in print and is very characteristic of Ethel
Dell's novels. There is a very feminine woman, an alpha male to rival any
of Linda Howard's heroes, a setting in India, passion galore liberally
mixed with some surprisingly shocking violence and religious sentiments
sprinkled throughout. The book opens in a fort under siege on the frontier
in India. Muriel Roscoe is the fort commander's daughter. The constant
stress of being under seige has caused her to take refuge in opium.
Muriel's father has chosen Nick Ratcliffe to take care of her and Muriel
does not like him. Nick is big and strong and overpoweringly masculine.
They are forced to flee the fort, have adventures in the desert where Nick
kills a man, and when they reach the garrison town and safety, Nick
proposes to Muriel (they have spent a lot of time together unchaperoned).
Muriel agrees to the marriage, but changes her mind and becomes engaged to
another man who is smooth, suave and polite but lacks Nick's sheer sexual
magnetism. Muriel is not happy and when she sees Nick again she realizes
that he is "the one," but her pride prevents her from telling him. Muriel
does break her engagement and goes back to India where she languishes
around missing Nick dreadfully. Back in India, Nick has seemingly vanished,
but he has disguised himself as a beggar and has been hanging around so he
can keep watch on Muriel. Nick reveals himself when, still disguised as a
beggar, he foils an assassination attempt on a high ranking officer. All of
Muriel's doubts are swept away:
The tumult of her emotions swelled to sudden uproar, thunderous,
all-possessing, overwhelming, so that she gasped and gasped again for
breath. And then all in a moment she knew the conflict was over. She was as
a diver, hurling with headlong velocity from dizzy height into deep waters,
and she rejoiced - she exulted - in that mad rush into depth. With a
quivering laugh she moved. She loosened her convulsive clasp upon his hand,
turned it upwards, and stooping low, she pressed her lips closely,
passionately, lingeringly upon his open palm.
As for Nick, he is quite blunt with Muriel:
"I warn you Muriel, you are putting yourself irrevocably in my power, and
you will never break away again. You may come to loathe me with your whole
soul, but I shall never let you go. Have you realized that? If I take you
now, I take you for all time."
He spoke almost with violence, and, having spoken, drew back from her
abruptly, as though he could not wholly trust himself.
But nothing could dismay her now. She had fought her last battle, had made
the final surrender. Her fear was dead. She stretched out her hands to him
with unfaltering confidence. "Take me then Nick," She said.
Readers adored Ethel M. Dell's novels, critics hated them with a passion,
but she did not care what the critics thought. She considered herself a
good storyteller - nothing more and nothing less. Ethel M. Dell continued
to write novels along the same lines as The Way of an Eagle for a number of
years. She made quite a lot of money, from 20,000 to 30,000 pounds a year,
but remained quiet and almost pathologically shy. Pictures of her are very
rare and she was never interviewed by the press. She married a soldier,
Lieutentant-Colonel Gerald Savage when she was forty years old, and the
marriage was happy. Colonel Savage resigned his commission on his marriage
and Ethel became the support of the family. Ethel's husband devoted himself
to her and fiercely guarded her privacy. For her part Ethel went on
writing, eventually producing about thirty novels and several volumes of
short stories. Her readers remained loyal and the critics simply gave up.
Ethel M. Dell died of cancer when she was fifty eight.
A modern day critic, Nicola Beauman, in her book on women's fiction, A Very
Great Profession has this to say about Ethel M. Dell and The Way of an
Eagle:
Most modern readers will greatly enjoy The Way of an Eagle, for it remains
the best kind of read for anyone wishing to curl up in an armchair...and
wallow unashamedly in a book that is entirely timeless...I love to imagine
my mother and grandmother sobbing over books like this.>

Elinor Glynn: Elinor Glyn was the most flamboyant of these writers. She was
a beautiful woman with red hair and green eyes who was in the news
constantly and courted the press. Unlike Ms Dell and Ms Hull, Elinor really
cared about what the critics said about her books. Elinor Glyn was married
to Clayton Gly, a country squire. They lived a life of ease filled with
parties and travel. But Elinor's passionate heart yearned for a romantic
soul-mate, someone that Clayton Glyn was not. Elinor began to write books
to pass the time. Her first book was The Visits of Elizabeth, a series of
letters from a young debutante. The book was quite popular with critics and
readers and Elinor wrote several others, all of them romantic comedies. In
1903, Queen Draga of Serbia was assassinated, an event that had a profound
effect on Elinor. Several years later, as her marriage was deteriorating,
Elinor took this event and poured out all the romantic longings of her soul
into her best known book Three Weeks.
Three Weeks is the story of Englishman Paul Verdayne, who is sent abroad by
his aristocratic parents to break up an unsuitable love affair (he has
fallen for a parson's daughter). In Lucerne, he meets a mysterious woman
dressed all in black who exudes an hypnotic fascination. Paul and the Lady,
who is a Balkan queen on the run from her degenerate and cruel husband,
begin a passionate affair. She and Paul spend three weeks together where
they make love on tiger skins amid masses of exotic flowers. When the three
weeks are up and the Lady leaves Paul, he faints and is ill for a time.
Months later, Paul receives a message from the Lady that his son has been
born. Still later, Paul finds out that the Lady was killed by her
degenerate husband who was himself killed by the Lady's servants. Paul's
son is now the ruler and the Regent grants Paul permission to go to the
ceremony and see his handsome young son proclaimed King.
Three Weeks is written in a full-blown passionate style dripping with
purple prose. Here is a sample from the book:
The light of all the love in the world seemed to flood the lady's face. She
bent over and kissed him and smoothed his cheek with her velvet cheek, she
moved so that his curly lashes might touch her bare neck, and at last she
slipped from under him and laid his head gently on the pillow. Then a
madness of tender caressing seized her. She purred as a tiger might have
done while she undulated like a snake. She touched him with her
finger-tips, she kissed his throat, his wrists, the palms of his hands, his
eyelids, his hair. Strange subtle kisses, unlike the kisses of women. And
often, between her purrings she murmured love words in some fierce language
of her own, brushing his ears and his eyes with her lips the while.
The critics hated the book. And the public? Sales figures are incomplete,
but it is estimated that Three Weeks sold over five million copies. It
inspired a bit of rhyme:
Would you like to sin
with Elinor Gly
on a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
to err
with her
On some other fur?
Elinor received gifts of tiger skins from several admirers. She was
bewildered by the fuss the critics raised about the "immorality" of Three
Weeks. Elinor, despite her passionate purple-prose writing style, was not
really interested in sex. She thought sex too earthy and animalistic -
downright unromantic in fact. There is lots of kissing, caressing and
writhing around on the tiger skin in the book, but there are no
descriptions of sex. A large part of Three Weeks is devoted to the Lady's
lectures to Paul to be true to his race and heritage, but according to most
critics, an adulterous affair, especially one the author seemed to condone,
was not acceptable subject matter for a novel in 1907.
After Three Weeks was published, Elinor found out that her husband was
practically penniless. She supported the family by her writings for the
rest of her life. Elinor made a lot of money, but was a very poor business
woman and was often in financial straits, especially after her attempt to
start her own movie production company. Elinor Glyn continued to write
books and magazine articles for almost her entire life. She remained in the
public eye and her books were popular with the public (if not with the
critics), for her entire life.



106 ~ He grinned with a wry mouth and went out to keep his date with the one young woman who showed no signs of yielding to himHarriet Vane, of course. This oblique reference is the only mention of her in the entire novel.

Chapter 9

137 ~ Tom, Tom the piper's son Learned to play when he was young, And the only tune that he could play Was: "Over the hills and far away -- Over the hills and a great way off The wind is blowing my top-knot off TOM, THE PIPER'S SON

Tom, he was a piper's son,
He learned to play when he was young,
But all the tunes that he could play
Was, 'Over the hills and far away'.
Over the hills and a great way off.
The wind shall blow my top-knot off.

Tom with his pipe made such a noise,
That he pleased both the girls and boys;
They all danced while he did play,
'Over the hills and far away'.
Over the hills and a great way off,
The wind shall blow my top-knot off.

Tom with his pipe did play with such skill
That those who heard him could never keep still;
As soon as he played they began for to dance,
Even pigs on their hind legs
would after him prance.
Over the hills and a great way off,
The wind shall blow my top-knot off.

As Dolly was milking her cow one day,
Tom took his pipe and began for to play;
So Doll and the cow danced 'The Cheshire Round',
Till the pail was broken and the milk ran on the ground.
Over the hills and a great way off,
The wind shall blow my top-knot off.

He met old Dame Trot with a basket of eggs,
He used his pipe and she used her legs;
She danced about till the eggs were all broke,
She began for to fret, but he laughed at the joke.
Over the hills and a great way off,
The wind shall blow my top-knot off.

The Nursery Rhyme "Tom he was a piper's son" is a poem about the son of a
Scottish Bagpiper. The origins date back to a Celtic legend featuring
Dryads (or tree spirits). Legend goes that the Bagpiper's son, Tom, played
his own pipes whilst he was minding the sheep. He played the same melody
over and over again and the Dryads came out to dance to his tune. Villagers
tried to watch the Dryads but they could never be seen.

137 ~ The terror induced by forests and darkness was called by the Ancients, Panic fear, or the fear of the great god Pan.This essay by Michael Quinion confirms this point:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-pan3.htm

138 ~ He is plunged in the arms of MorpheusMorpheus: the god of dreams in Greek mythology.

138 ~ We needs must love the highest when we see it.Quoted from the Guinevere section of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King":

Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none
Will tell the King I love him though so late?
Now ‘ere he goes to the great Battle? none:
Myself must tell him in that purer life,
But now it were too daring. Ah my God,
What might I not have made of thy fair world,
Had I but loved thy highest creature here?
It was my duty to have loved the highest:
It surely was my profit had I known:
It would have been my pleasure had I seen.
We needs must love the highest when we see it,
Not Lancelot, nor another.'


139 ~ CirceCirce in Greek mythology was an enchantress. She turned Ulysses' crew into animals in Homer's "Odyssey."

141 ~ Rabelaisian, no doubt

144 ~ like the bailiff's daughter of IslingtonQuoted from the folk song of the same name:
There was a youth, and a well belov'd youth,
And he was a esquire's son,
He loved the bailiff's daughter dear,
That lived in Islington.

She was coy, and she would not believe
That he did love her so,
No, nor at any time she would
Any countenance to him show.

But when his friends did understand,
His fond and foolish mind,
They sent him up to fair London,
An apprentice for to bind.

And when he had been seven long years,
And his love he had not seen,
Many a tear have I shed for her sake,
When she little thought of me.

All the maids of Islington
Went forth to sport and play;
All but the bailiff's daughter dear;
She secretly stole away.

She put off her gown of gray,
And put on her puggish attire;
She's up to fair London gone,
Her true-love to require.

As she went along the road,
The weather being hot and dry,
There was she aware of her true-love,
At length come riding by.

She stept to him, as red as any rose,
And took him by the bridle ring;
"I pray you, kind sir, give me one penny,
To ease my weary limb."

"I prithee, sweetheart, canst thou tell me
Where that thou wast born?"
"At Islington, kind sir," said she,
"where I have had many a scorn."

"I prithee, sweetheart, canst thou tell me
Whether thou dost know
The bailiff's daughter of Islington?"
"She's dead, sir, long ago."

"Then will I sell my goodly steed,
My saddle and my bow;
I will into some far country,
Where no man doth me know."

"O stay, O stay, thou goodly youth!
She's alive, she is not dead;
Here she standeth by thy side,
And is ready to be thy bride."


Chapter 10

153 ~ Ah! you must be paying super-taxsuper-tax: A second tax on certain types of income that has already been taxed.

156 ~ And I've heard that there's a decentish sort of place at Winchester, if you're not too particularWinchester: An example of British understatement. Winchester College was founded by in 1382 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester. He also founded New College, at Oxford and the two colleges are still closely connected. Former students include Earl Grey, Lord Sidmouth, Thomas Arnold, Edward Grey and Herbert Fisher.

158 ~ white suede shoes with crocodile vampsvamp: the part of a shoe upper or boot upper covering especially the forepart of the foot and sometimes also extending forward over the toe or backward to the back seam of the upper.

158 ~ once carried his bat out for 52 against Sopo

160 ~ I'm rapidly qualifying to be called a Veteran

161 ~ hole-and-corner fashioneither clandestine or underhanded

162 ~ You're not Jack Hobbs, you knowJack Hobbs (1882-1963) was a notable cricketer.

163 ~ sardonic Gallios

Chapter 11

177 ~ I will turn them out like one John Smith

179 ~ Family is family, though indicated by the border compony (or gobony if you prefer that form of the word) or by the bend or baton sinisterto go with "gules two lions passant guardant with a baton sinister
azure" (text to go with deviceù16)

183 ~ Nun gehn wir wo der Tudelsack, der Tudel, tudel, tudel, tudel, tudelsackWimsey was quoting a duet from Bach's Peasant Cantata, in which two villagers gossip about the new Lord of the Manor, flirt, gossip, complain about taxes, and then head off to the tavern!"

Chapter 13

201 ~ ask Uncle Ugly

208 ~ I know a man's a man for a' that and all the rest of itQuoted from Robert Burns' song:

Is there for honest poverty
That hings his heed and a' that
The coward slave we pass him by
We dare be poor for a' that
For a' that and a' that
Our toils obscure and a' that
The rank is but the guinea's stamp
The mands the gowd for a' that

What tho' on hamely fare we dine
Wear hoddin-gray and a' that
Gie fools their silks and knaves their wine
A mands a man for a' that
For a' that and a' that
Their tinsel show and a' that
The honest man tho' e'er sae poor
Is king o' men for a' that

Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord
Wha struts and stares and a' that
Tho' hundreds worship at his word
He's but a coof for a' that
For a' that and a' that
His riband, star and a' that
The man o' independent mind
He looks and laughs at a' that

A prince can mak a belted knight
A marquis, duke and a' that
But an honest mands aboon his might
Guid faith he mauna fa' that
For a' that and a' that
Their dignities and a' that
The pith o' sense and pride o' worth
Are higher rank than a' that

Then let us pray that come it may
As come it will and a' that
That sense and worth o'er a' the earth
Shall bear the gree and a' that
For a' that and a' that
It's coming yet for a' that
That man to man the warld o'er
Shall brothers be for a' that
For a' that and a' that
It's coming yet for a' that
That man to man the warld o'er
Shall brothers be for a' that


212 ~ to dispose of that skeleton to an anatomist

214 ~ ‘Like Niobe, all Tears' ... ‘Tears, Idle Tears' ... ‘Like Summer Tempest came her Tears' ... ‘Bassanio and Antonio: ‘I know not Why I am so Sad'214 ~ Niobe: Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2:

Hamlet: O! that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew;
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.
Fie on ‘t! O fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on; and yet, within a month,
Let me not think on ‘t: Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears; why she, even she,ù
O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,ùmarried with mine uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O! most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets.
It is not nor it cannot come to good;
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

But who is Niobe? She was the queen of Thebes. The mother of 14 children,
she made the mistake of bragging about them and mocked Leto, the daughter
of the titans Coeus and Phoebe, for having only two children. Unfortunately
for Niobe, Leto's children were Apollo, god of nature, and Artemis, the
goddess of the wild. Leto ordered her children to slay Niobe's children,
and they did. Niobe fled to Mt. Siplyon in Asia Minor, where she turned to
stone. From the rock flowed a stream of endless tears, now called the
Achelous.

Tears, Idle Tears: a poem by Tennyson.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Like Summer tempest
From "The Princess" by Tennyson which begins

Home they brought her warrier dead;
She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry.
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.'

Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrier stept,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee û
Like summer tempest came her tears û
‘Sweet my child, I live for thee.'

I know not why I am so sad
From the opening of Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene 1:

ANTONIO: In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
That I have much ado to know myself.


Chapter 14

216 ~ seduced by the unfortunate example of that incomparable vulgari-sateur, Charles Dickens -- abominably calls a mutual friend.

Chapter 15

226 ~ Everybody suspects an eager desire to curry favour, but rudeness, for some reason, is always accepted as a guarantee of good faith. The only man who ever managed to see through rudeness was St. Augustine, and I don't suppose Milligan reads the Confessions.Probably a reference to this passage from Book V of the "Confessions":
Of Thyself therefore had I now learned, that neither ought any thing to seem to be spoken truly, because eloquently; nor therefore falsely, because the utterance of the lips is inharmonious; nor, again, therefore true, because rudely delivered; nor therefore false, because the language is rich; but that wisdom and folly are as wholesome and unwholesome food; and adorned or unadorned phrases as courtly or country vessels; either kind of meats may be served up in either kind of dishes.


227 ~ credo quia impossible"I believe it because it is impossible"

227 ~ ‘Napoleon of crime'A reference by Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Moriarity.

228 ~ Fear not him that killeth, but him that hath power to cast into hellQuoted from Luke 12:5: "But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him."

229 ~ calcine its clods and set its prisoners freeQuoted from Robert Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (note that calcine means to turn into powder by burning or roasting).

No! penury, inertness and grimace,In some strange sort, were the land's portion."See Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."


234 ~ like the Spanish Fleet, he was not yet in sight

237 ~ an H.T.&V. Latch-key

242 ~ markedly dolichocephalicdolichocephalic: an unusually long head

Chapter 16

252 ~ Had we but world enough and timeQuoted from Andrew Marvell's, "To His Coy Mistress"
Had we but world enough, and time,This coyness, Lady, were no crime We would sit down and think which way To walk and pass our long love's day.Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood,And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews.My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow;An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;Two hundred to adore each breast,But thirty thousand to the rest;An age at least to every part,And the last age should show your heart.For, Lady, you deserve this state,Nor would I love at lower rate.But at my back I always hearTime's winged chariot hurrying near;And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.Thy beauty shall no more be found,Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song: then worms shall try That long preserved virginity,And your quaint honour turn to dust,And into ashes all my lust:The grave's a fine and private place,But none, I think, do there embrace.Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew,And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires,Now let us sport us while we may,And now, like amorous birds of prey,Rather at once our time devourThan languish in his slow-chapt power.Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball,And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life:Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.


Chapter 17

260 ~ "--And Kissed Again with Tears"Quoted from Tennyson's "The Princess":
As through the land at eve we went,
And plucked the ripened ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O we fell out I know not why,
And kissed again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
O there above the little grave,
We kissed again with tears.

262 ~ What's Hecuba's bank-balance to you, or yours to Hecuba?Quoted from "Hamlet", Act 2, Scene 2:
Hamlet
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit And all for nothing,
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant for my cause,
And can say nothing. No, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward
Who calls me villain breaks my pate across
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face
Tweaks me by the nose gives me the lie i' the throat
As deep as to the lungs Who does me this
Ha, 'swounds, I should take it, for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should ha' fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must like a whore unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A stallion! Fie upon't, foh! About, my brains.
Hum --
I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks.
I'll tent him to the quick. If 'a do blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
T' assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this. The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
262 ~ You agree with -- whenever you beat your child, be sure that you do it in anger

263 ~ Bread-and-skillyskilly: thin porridge or gruel

268 ~ Blackfriars subway

268 ~ Cleopatra's Needle

268 ~ "not the first nor the second that presents itself, he thought, with a fleeting recollection of Professor Moriarty. ... air-guns

Chapter 18

278 ~ bread and circuses

279 ~ braces

280 ~ The innings opened briskly. Mr. Barrow, who was rather a showy bat, though temperamental, took the bowling at the factory end of the pitch and cheered the spirits of his side by producing a couple of twos in the first over. Mr. Garrett, canny and cautious, stonewalled perseveringly through five balls of the following over and then cut the leather through the slips for a useful three. A single off the next ball brought the bowling back to Mr. Barrow, who, having started favourably, exhibited a happy superiority complex and settled down to make runs. Mr. Tallboy breathed a sigh of relief. Mr. Barrow, confident and successful, could always be relied upon for some good work; Mr. Barrow, put off his stroke by a narrowly missed catch, or the sun in his eyes, or a figure crossing the screens, was apt to become defeatist and unreliable. The score mounted blithely to thirty. At this point, Brotherhood's captain, seeing that the batsmen had taken the measure of the bowling, took off the man at the factory end and substituted a short, pugnacious-looking person with a scowl, at the sight of whom Mr. Tallboy quaked again.

282 ~ and was bowled as clean as a whistle

282 ~ middle and off

282 ~ requested that a screen might be shifted

283 ~ leg before ... l.b.w.

284 ~ caught at cover-point

284 ~ "Quack, quack," said Mr. Bredon

284 ~ bowled leg-breaks

284 ~ no antics of crease-patting or taking middle

285 ~ to a full-pitch

285 ~ caught at mid-on

287 ~ abode, like Dan, in his breaches

289 ~ opening up wrathful shoulders

293 ~ He smote it as Saul smote the Philistines

Chapter 19

296 ~ You might ride in the Row and fall off

297 ~ It'll be the biggest advertising stunt since the Mustard Club

297 ~ Cenotaph

298 ~ in the middle of Trafalgar Square

300 ~ chevalier d'industrie

302 ~ "Sigh no more, Ladies" ... "Oh, Dry those Tears" ... "Weeping Late and Weeping Early" ... "If You have Tears" ... "O Say, What are You Weeping For?" ... "A Poor Soul Sat Sighing" ... "I Weep, I know not Why" ... "In Silence and in Tears" ... "In that Deep Midnight of the Mind" (Byron) ... "O Say, What arae You Weeping For?" ... "Stale, Flat and Unprofitable"

304 ~ Mister Ramsey MacDonald

Chapter 20

307 ~ Hound of Heaven had got him, so to say, cornered, my lord

"Striding Folly"



400 ~ leaving his queen en prise

en prise: likely to be captured. From the French for "within grasp" or "engaged."

405 ~ "Woman, woman, lovely woman? Meet me by moonlight and all that kind of thing?"

There are plenty of poetry and songs with this theme, so Wimsey's probably not making a direct quotation. However, I did find a ballad, published between 1880 and 1900, called "Meet Me By Moonlight Alone" that might have provided an inspiration.
Meet me by moonlight alone,
And then I will tell you a tale,
Must be told by the moonlight alone,
In the grove at the end of the vale.
You must promise to come for I said
I would show the night flowers their queen;
Nay, turn not away thy sweet head,
'Tis the loveliest ever was seen.
O meet me by moonlight alone.

"Warned of God in a dream"

A reference to Matthew 2:12: "And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way."

A pretty piece of fused and inverted symbolism ... the dead body of a black crow becomes a dead man with a white rook."

In addition to being the name of a chess piece, a rook is also a large bird found in Europe that resembles a crow.

"Like the White Queen's. She, by the way, could believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

A reference to "Alice in Wonderland."

"Let time pass ... for, as a great chessplayer observed, it helps more than reasoning."
"A lady ... who played with living men and mated kings, popes, and emperors."

The lady is Queen Elizabeth I, who, during negotiations with the French in 1580 concerning a possible marriage, wrote:
"You do not forget, mon tres cher, that the greatest cause of delay [in arranging a match] is due to this [agitation by English zealots against a Catholic marriage], that our people ought to congratulate and to applaud. To bring this about I have let time pass, which generally helps more than reasoning."

Harriet Vane quotes this same passage in "Gaudy Night."
I made a very big mistake once,” said Harriet, “as I expect you know. I don’t think that arose out of lack of interest. It seemed at the time the most important thing in the world.”

“And yet you made the mistake. Were you really giving your mind to it, do you think? Your mind? Were you really as cautious and exacting about it as you would be about writing a passage of fine prose?”

“That’s rather a difficult sort of comparison. One can’t, surely, deal with emotional excitements in that detached spirit.”

“Isn’t the writing of good prose an emotional excitement?”

“Yes, of course it is. At least, when you get the thing dead right and know it’s dead right, there’s no excitement like it. It’s marvellous. It makes you feel like God on the Seventh Day--for a bit, anyhow.”

“Well, that’s what I mean. You expend the trouble and you don’t make any mistake--and then you experience the ecstasy. But if there’s any subject in which you’re content with the second-rate, then it isn’t really your subject.”

“You’re dead right,” said Harriet, after a pause. “If one’s genuinely interested one knows how to be patient, and let time pass, as Queen Elizabeth said. Perhaps that’s the meaning of the phrase about genius being eternal patience, which I always thought rather absurd. If you truly want a thing, you don’t snatch; if you snatch, you don’t really want it. Do you suppose that, if you find yourself taking pains about a thing, it’s a proof of its importance to you?”

“I think it is, to a large extent. But the big proof is that the thing comes right, without those fundamental errors. One always makes surface errors, of course. But a fundamental error is a sure sign of not caring. I wish one could teach people nowadays that the doctrine of snatching what one thinks one wants is unsound.”

“I saw six plays in London this winter,” said Harriet, “all preaching the doctrine of snatch. I agree that they left me with the feeling that none of the characters knew what they wanted.”

“No,” said Miss DeVine. “If you are once sure what you do want, you find that everything else goes down before it like grass under a roller–-all other interests, your own and other people’s.”

(Contributed by Mary Butler)

"Strong Poison"


The page numbers are from the paperback edition, Perennial Mystery Library by Harper & Row. Phrases in quotation marks are from Lord Peter's lips except where noted. Excerpts from "Strong Poison" are copyrighted 1958 by Lloyds Bank, Ltd., Executor of the Estate of Dorothy L. Sayers.

8 ~ They all wrote down on their slates, 'She doesn't believe there's an atom of meaning in it.'
From "Alice in Wonderland," p. 126, Alice's Evidence.
(Contributed by Linda Sauer)

17 ~ Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape the old Bailey.
From "Hamlet," with the direction to "escape calumny" instead of the old Bailey.
(Contributed by Linda Sauer)

23 ~ A beast, but a just beast
A reference to Dr. Temple, the headmaster of Rugby school and later archbishop of Canterbury. He followed the academic reforms begun by Arnold at Rugby and was known to cry while flogging pupils.
(Contributed by Linda Sauer)

30 ~ They are coming, my own, my sweet, were it never so airy a tread.
From Book 1, Lines 916-917 of Tennyson's "Maud: A Monodrama"

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead,
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

27 ~ and of course the Slater person, such a scandal
The Dowager was referring to Oscar Slater, who was found guilty of murder in 1909. The judge instructed the jury to find the man guilty as he had no morals. Slater lived with his fiance, a prostitute. The case was much publicized as a miscarriage of justice. (Contributed by Linda Sauer)

31 ~ And he himself has said it, muttered Freddy, and it's greatly to his credit.
From Gilbert & Sullivan's "H.M.S. Pinafore."

34 ~ most notably the Seddon trial
Frederick Henry Seddon was charged with killing his lodger, Eliza Barrow, by arsenic on 14th September 1911. Miss Barrow was a 49-year-old spinster with substantial property, including a cash box containing several hundred pounds in gold. She also had a fear of banks and agreed to let Seddon, who was an officer in an insurance company, to handle her affairs. Shortly after signing over much of her property to Seddon in return for a small annuity and remission of her rent, she fell violently ill.

Eliza Barrow: Arsenic VictimFor several months she was confined to her room with constant diarrhea and vomiting. The stink was so appalling the family was advised to hang sheets drenched in carbolic to keep the smell down. Eventually, she died and the death certificate listed "Epidemic Diarrhea" as the cause.

Seddon's meanness and obstructive behavior proved his undoing. Despite having the money at hand and Barrow's family vault available, Seddon buried her in a pauper's grave and received a commission of 12 shillings from the undertaker. Barrow's cousin, Frank Vonderahes, learned of the death by reading of it in the register section of the local newspaper. He had to work hard to confront Seddon, whose answers to his questions were short and rude.

But Vonderahes learned that, during her final illness, Barrow made a will giving Seddon power of attorney, and Seddon claimed that she did not intend Vonderahes to have any of the money. The box of gold under the bed vanished, although Seddon's clerks later testified they saw him counting out gold and investing it. Seddon's manner enraged Vonderahes enough to go to the police with his suspicions. An exhumation was ordered, and the police found at least two grains of arsenic in Mrs. Barrow.

Henry Seddon: Probable PoisonerSeddon and his wife were arrested and tried. The direct evidence against them was flimsy. The only arsenic tied to the family was in flypaper that they bought instead of carbolic and hung around Mrs. Barrow's bed. But it was Seddon's demeanor in court that convicted him. During his three days giving testimony, he was by turns arrogant, jaunty, extremely self-confident and exhibiting no remorse over the death. While that alone may not have been enough to secure a conviction -- after all, Seddon gained the most by the death, and it would be difficult to tell who else had access to Mrs. Barrow to administer the fatal dose -- the complete lack of remorse shown convinced the jury that if anyone was suited to murder for money, it was Mr. Seddon. The jury took an hour's deliberation to convict him and acquit Mrs. Seddon.

During the trial, several photographs were taken of Mr. Seddon and his wife. One in particular, showing Mr. Justice Bucknill, with black cap on and his chaplain at his side, condemning the prisoner, caused a great sensation upon its publication. It led to a law in 1925 banning photography in the courtroom.

34 ~ like the man with the hollow tooth in the comic song
Not traced

36 ~ twine willow-wreaths for his own tomb-stone
No direct quote was found. In the language of flowers in Victorian times, weeping willow signified mourning, and it was suggested that twining live plants around tombstones would be a reminder of the Resurrection and the life.

39 ~ Like that horrid man who pretended to be a landscape-painter and then embarrassed the unfortunate young woman with the burden of an honour unto which she was not born.
A reference to "The Lord of Burleigh," by Alfred Lord Tennyson, about a man who wooed a peasant lass, only to have her find out after marrying that he's really one of the great lords of the land. She was a good wife and bore him sons, but mourned for her pauper landscape-painter and died young.

39 ~ Such a Victorian attitude, too, for a man with advanced ideas. He for God only, she for God in him, and so on.
A direct quote from Milton's Paradise Lost (Book 4, Line 299) used to describe Adam and Eve. An interesting subtext to note is that this line suggests, among other evidence, a hierarchy: God, man, woman. Adam learned of the prohibition of taking anything from the Tree of Life from God, while Eve learns of it from Adam. Hence, woman should be subordinate to man just as man is to God, and that the way to God is through man. By quoting the phrase, Sayers could be suggesting that, despite his "advanced ideas," Phillip Boyes was a Christian chauvinist at heart, as befitting the son of a parson.

41 ~ wander unchecked through a garden of bright images
"However entrancing it is to wander unchecked through a garden of bright images, are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance?" This line is from "The Story of Hien," a short story found in (as Wimsey correctly surmised) "Kai Lung's Golden Hours." Ernest Bramah wrote several books about Kai Lung, an itinerant teller of tales in "a China that never was." These tall tales are noted as much for the way they are told as for the content, and are read for pleasure as much as we read P.G. Wodehouse today.

45 ~ Some people want to do it for the fun of the thing, like that German female, what's her name, who enjoyed seeing people die.
This may refer to the case of Gesina (or Gesche) M. Gottfried, who in the mid-1800s killed at least 30 people, including her parents, by arsenic intoxication. She worked through her family, starting with her first husband, then following with her parents, her second husband, her brother and most of a family for whom she worked as a housekeeper. She was arrested in 1828, confessed, and was executed. She was the last person executed in Bremen, which one student exchange group uses as part of its tourist brochure.

Another notorious German poisoner was Anna Zwanziger (born 1760), a Bavarian cook, who, according to this Web site: "poisoned two of her employers and numerous of their dinner guests. Suspected, she fled her final job, but not before leaving large amounts of arsenic in the coffee, salt, and sugar jars and a dose in the baby's biscuits."
(Contributed by Marc van der Poel)

45 ~ I have never greatly cared for George Robey, although Charlie Chaplin always makes me laugh.
George Robey (1869-1954) was a major English music-hall star. He also played Falstaff in Laurence Olivier's "Henry V" movie.

up above the world so high, like a tea-tray in the sky
From "Alice In Wonderland:" "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat How I wonder where you're at. Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky."

47 ~ The father is a parson -- slashing trade, that,' as the naughty bully says to the new boy in one of Dean Farrar's books.
This a reference to one of the novels by Frederic William Farrar (1831-1903), known as Dean (I would guess) informally after he became dean of Canterbury in 1895. He wrote a number of books in fiction, philology and theology, including "Eric, or Little by Little" (1858) and "Julian Home: a Tale of College Life" (18th ed., 1905). This particular quote is from chapter 22 of "St. Winifred's":
"You new fellow, what's your father?"

"My father is dead," said Kenrick in a low tone.

"Then what was he?"

"He was curate of Fuzby."

"Curate was he; a slashing trade that," was the brutal reply. "Curate of Fuzby? are you sure it isn't Fusty?"

Kenrick looked at him with a strange glowing of the eyes, which, so far from disconcerting Mackworth, only made him chuckle at the success of his taunt. He determined to exercise the lancet of his tongue again, and let fresh blood if possible.

"Well, glare-eyes! so you didn't like my remark?"

Kenrick made no answer, and Mackworth continued:

"What charity boy has left you his cast-off clothes? May I ask if your jacket was intended to serve also as a looking-glass? and is it the custom in your part of the country not to wear breeches below the knees?"

(Contributed by James Fulford)

48 ~ or some hay. There is nothing like it when you are feeling faint, as the White King truly remarked.
From "Through the Looking Glass," chapter 7: "There's nothing like eating hay when you're faint," he remarked to her, as he munched away. "I should think throwing cold water over you would be better," Alice suggested: " or some sal-volatile." "I didn't say there was nothing better," the King replied. "I said there was nothing like it." Which Alice did not venture to deny.

Arsenic is tomfool stuff to commit suicide with, but it has been done. There was the duc de Praslin, for instance -- if his was suicide.
Charles-Louis Theobald, the Duc de Choiseul-Praslin, killed himself with a dose of arsenic before his arrest in 1847 in Paris on the charge of murdering his wife, Fanny, who had announced plans to seek a divorce over his adulteries. In her bed chamber, he slashed at her throat with a knife and beat her to death with a pistol as she fought back. He claimed innocence, but the presence of bloodstains in his room, and microscopic examination of the pistol told what happened.

49 ~ Oh, well, faint heart never won so much as a scrap of paper.
The original quote -- "never won fair lady" -- appears in "Don Quixote" and was also a line in Gilbert & Sullivan's "Iolanthe."
(Contributed by Linda Sauer)

Even the path of the light is curved -- or so they tell us.
A reference to Einstein's theory of relativity.

50 ~ I now know exactly what Jack Point feels like. I used to think the Yeomen' sentimental tosh, but it is all too true. Would you like to see me dance in motley?
Jack Point is the jester in Gilbert & Sullivans' "Yeomen of the Guard," whose love for Elsie is dashed. At the end, he falls insensible at the feet of the two lovers. More information about the play can be found here.

52 ~ "Mrs. Merdle" the car, so called because, like that celebrated lady, she was averse to "row."
Mrs. Merdle was a character of Dickens whose singular trait can be found in Chapter 3 of "Little Dorritt."

67 ~ Does a livelier iris, winter weather notwithstanding, shine upon the burnished Bunter?
Lord Peter is quoting line 19 from Tennyson's "Locksley Hall."
(Contributed by Linda Sauer)

68 ~ a lordly dish.
From Judges 5:25
(Contributed by Linda Sauer)

two ladies lived in a bower, Binnorie, O Binnorie
From "Binnorie," a old English ballad by Anonymous

69 ~ stab and end the creature -- to the heft!
From Robert Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"

70 ~ No lily on my cheek with anguish moist and fever-dew
From John Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"

I've stopped one, two, three, four earths. What next?
This comes from the practice of foxhunting, in which, just in case the odds on the fox aren't long enough, the serfs and minions from the manor go around blocking up the fox's earths (or burrows) prior to the commencement of the hunt.
(Contributed by Gavrielle Perry)

77 ~ That's waiting, till I've finished editing Phil's books. It's a comfort to have it there to look at, you know. Peaceful. Go out through the ivory gate -- that's classical -- they brought me up on the classics. These people would laugh at a fellow, but you needn't tell them I said it -- funny, the way it sticks -- 'tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore, ulterioris amore' -- what's that bit about the souls thronging thick as leaves in Vallombrosa -- no, that's Milton -- 'amorioris ultore -- ultoriore -- damn it -- poor Phil!
You had to get the long version to catch the flavor of the passage. Vaughan got the "tendebantque" tag right the first time. It's from Virgil's "Aeneid" and it translates as "They were holding their arms outstretched in love toward the further shore." The passage has a rather tragic, romantic flavor to it, apparently, describing the people wishing to cross to the other side to meet their loved ones who have died.

The "souls thronging thick as leaves in Vallombrosa," is from Milton's "Paradise Lost," book 1, line 302.

80 ~ Like the poisoned Athulf in 'Fool's Tragedy,' he could have cried, 'Oh, I am changing, changing, fearfully changing.'
Two references for the price of one. The "Fool's Tragedy" is a long play by the doomed poet, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, who committed suicide in Switzerland in despair. I haven't run across a copy of the play, so I can't tell you more about it, except that it was noted that there are plenty of nasty scenes in it involving death, which would have been just nuts to Mrs. Sayers, who herself was fond of putting naked men in people's baths and other Grand Guignol touches.

The second point cropped up when it was learned that the full title of the play is "Death's Jest-Book, or The Fool's Tragedy." Regular readers of Sayers will recognize the title instantly as a source for some of her chapter headings (e.g., chapter XX in "Unnatural Death")

81 ~ As Jenny Wren said, my back's bad and my leg's queer.
Wren is a character in Charles Dicken's "Our Mutual Friend." The passage can be found in Chapter 5.

82 ~ Marjorie Phelps (the bohemian sculptress who aids Wimsey in his dealings with that sect): I merely proceed on the old Sherlock Holmes basis, that when you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbably, must be true.

Dupin said that before Sherlock. [Wimsey said.]
Dupin: a fictional detective created by Edgar Allan Poe. One wonders if Sayers wasn't righting an old wrong, as Holmes one-ups Dupin in "A Study in Scarlet" for being "a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial." Never mind that Holmes later did the exact same thing to Watson when the good doctor was gazing on the unframed portrait of Beecher and thinking what a waste the Civil War was.

This also reminds me that Doyle was considered to have a photographic memory and scattered literary and Biblical allusions through his works, as was described in "Naked Is The Best Disguise."

85 ~ And you are right and I am right and everything is quite all right.
This is a paraphrase from Pish-Tush's song in "The Mikado."

111 ~ Barbara celarent darii ferio baralipton
This diving into the realm of Aristotelian syllogisms and way beyond my knowledge and possibly my ability to explain this. This phrase really does exist and is a mnemonic device to help remember the names of the four figures regarded as valid in syllogisms. If you remember a little of Aristotelian syllogisms, it is a way of discerning the truth by relating pairs that are true in and of themselves. If two pairs share the same object, then it may follow that the two unrelated pairs are true as well. For example: water is wet; blood is wet; therefore, water may be found in blood.

119 ~ Saying I had served nearly 7 years for Rachel.
Freddy Arbuthnot is referring to the account in Genesis 29: 1-35 that related the travails of Jacob in his attempts to marry Rachel over the objections of her daddy, Laban. Among other tests, Jacob had to wait 7 years before popping the question.

Megatherium Trust
While one did not exist by this name, no doubt there were plenty of financial "bubbles" during the 1920s that, when they crashed, left their investors high and dry. Hmmm, sounds awfully similar to the dot.com boom, doesn't it? Anyway, Megatherium is also the name of an ancient fossil, related possibly to the sloth.

129 ~ Sweeping through the gates
An old hymn that was published in the United States by T.C.O. Kane in 1885 under the title "Songs of Praises." These were also reputed to be Tsar Alexander II's last words.

143 ~ I find the writing of letters a gêne
From the French for torture, discomfort.
(Contributed by Linda Sauer)

163 ~ had been forced so many times to bow down in the House of Rimmon.
Biblical reference from 2 Kings 5:18: "In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon: when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing."

164 ~ from the Psychical Research Society
The Society of Psychical Research was founded in Great Britain in 1882 and became a voice of skeptical reason in dealing with alleged paranormal activities. The U.S. branch was founded in 1885, and both societies exist today.

207 ~ I endeavour to give satisfaction my Lord.
Bunter was, of course, quoting Jeeves, the ever-efficient valet to Bertie Wooster in the P.G. Wodehouse stories, as Wimsey recognized.

208 ~ Hollow, hollow, hollow all delight.
Quotation from Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," lines 30-37. The lines were also quoted in E.C. Bentley's "Trent's Last Case," which Sayers had read and admired.

209 ~ Old Uncle Tom Cobley
Quotation from an English ballad "Widdecombe Fair." According to the song, an old mare was borrowed "That I may ride to Widdecombe Fair / With Phil Lewer, Jan Brewer, Harry Hawkins, Hugh Davy, Philly Whitpot, George Pausley, Dick Wilson, Tom Cobbley and all, Here is Uncle Tom Cobbley and all" Not surprisingly, the gray mare ends up making her will and turning ghastly white at having to convey everyone to the fair.

Oh, how right Diogenes was when he took his lantern to look for an honest typist
A reference to the story from ancient Greece, where Diogenes was looking for an honest man.
(Contributed by Linda Sauer)

210 ~ Who wills the ends, wills the means
Late 17th-century proverb

211 ~ Riddle-me-right, and riddle-me-ree
Possibly from Mother Goose:
Riddle me, riddle me, ree;
A little man in a tree;
A stick in his hand,
A stone in his throat,
If you tell me this riddle
I'll give you a groat.
(Contributed by Linda Sauer)

211 ~ Give me the statutory dressing-gown and ounce of shag, and I will undertake to dispose of this little difficulty for you
dressing-gown, ounce of shag: the obligatory references to Sherlock Holmes, of course. "Shag" is a type of tobacco for his pipe.

211 ~ credo quia impossibile
"I believe it because it is impossible." Attributed to Tertullian, an early Christian apologist. The line is from "De carne Christi" (On the Flesh of Christ) in which he proves that the body of Christ was a real body, taken from Mary in a virginal birth. The complete phrase runs:
Crucifixus est dei filius; non pudet, quia pudendum est.
Et mortuus est dei filius; credibile prorsus est, quia ineptum est.
Et sepultus resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile.

The son of God was crucified; it's not silly, because it must be silly.
And the son of God died; it's absolutely credible, because it's daft.
And the buried rose again; it's certain, because it's impossible.
According to this website, "Credo quia impossibile" (I believe it because it is impossible) is a misquote and is used . . . as evidence of Tertullian's irrationalism. The context is actually that Tertullian is attacking the allegation by heretics that the resurrection is a con-trick designed to fool the gullible. His retort is that con-tricks are designed to be credible by their very nature.

221 ~ Maybrick
Reference to James Maybrick, who died of arsenic poisoning. His wife, Florence, was convicted in a trial renowned for its shabbiness. Maybrick was believed to be an arsenic eater. She was sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment, and she served 15 years before being released.

Valetta - Dixon Mann
Dr. Dixon Mann wrote the noted textbook "Forensic Medicine and Toxicology." Valetta is mentioned in it, but no further details could be found.

225 ~ Mithridates
The king of Pontus, which is located on the Black Sea in north central Turkey. Mithridates VI ruled from 120-63 BCE until his kingdom was conquered by the Romans. The quotation is from A.E. Housman's "Terence, this is stupid stuff," found in "A Shropshire Lad." The end of the poem gives the clue to how the arsenic was administered.
There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast, 60
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more, 65
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat; 70
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told. 75
Mithridates, he died old.

227 ~ King Cophetua stunt
The legend tells that the African King Cophetua refused to marry until he was entranced at the sight of a beautiful beggar woman, whereby he resolved that she shall become his queen. The story was the subject of a painting by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

Tennyson also told the story in "The Beggar Maid."
Her arms across her breast she laid;
She was more fair than words can say:
Barefooted came the beggar maid
Before the king Cophetua.
In robe and crown the king stepped down,
To meet and greet her on the way:
'It is no wonder,' said the lords,
'She is more beautiful than day.'
In the end, Cophetua swore a royal oath:
"This beggar maid shall be my queen!"

The story also appears in Shakespeare: "The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon." Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 1.

"Talboys"


The page numbers are from "Lord Peter" published by Harper & Row. The excerpts are copyrighted 1972 by Harper & Row.

434 ~ You'll have to eat your tea on all fours, like Nebuchadnezzar
In the 4th chapter of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar is presented with a vision in which he "was driven from men, and ate grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the heavens, until his hair had grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws" (verse 33).

The curse is come upon me, cried the Lady of Shalott
A reference to Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem. The lines run:
She left the web, she left the room, She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror cracked from side to side;
'The curse is come upon me,' cried The Lady of Shalott
Here's a very pretty site dedicated to the poem.

450 ~ Mr. Scatterblood . . . Cap'en Teach
Mr. Scatterblood is not identified, but as Teach is most certainly a reference to the notorious pirate, then Mr. Scatterblood could be the name of his first mate. I assume it came from a children's book that readers would be familiar with.

452 ~ Privy Stair
The back stairs in a house that leads to the privy or bathroom.

removed from chancery
Chancery is a court in which justice takes precedence over law, and the slang use of "in chancery" indicates a helpless or hopeless predicament.

"In the Teeth of the Evidence"



358 ~ Maskelyne-and-Devant contraption
A reference to the popular British magicians John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917) and David Devant (1868-1941). Both men had long, distinguished careers, and from 1893 to 1915, formed a profitable partnership.

trail of flex followed it
A power cord

old Winchester man
The doctor was a member of one of the oldest and most prestiguous schools in England.

"pyorrhoea and necrosis of the jaw"
pyorrhea: A discharge of pus, especially from the gums.
necrosis: A medical term meaning the death of tissue or bone.

360 ~ old place when you're in pain, like the dying elephants
A reference to the mythical elephants' graveyard, where legend has the aging beasts go to die. It was a staple of adventure stories set in Africa, because where there are dead elephants, there would also be their ivory tusks, worth a fortune on the market.

361 ~ "not too much of your foul oil of cloves"
oil of cloves: Essential oil derived from the clove plant. It is used in dentistry as an analgaesic.

364 ~ these little saloons
A British word meaning sedan automobile.

Rouse case or no Rouse case
See below for a discussion of the Alfred Rouse case.

369 ~ large injection of hyoscine in the body
hyoscine: A drug derived from the nightshade family of plants. In small amounts, this central nervous system depressant can cause derilium, paralysis and death.

374 ~ He'd studied Rouse and Furnace all right, and profited by their mistakes
Rouse, Furnace: These are two notorious murder cases, both involving killers who set their victim's bodies on fire.

The Alfred Rouse case involved a commercial traveler (aka traveling salesman) whose head wound suffered during World War I apparently turned him into a Lothario, leaving behind more than 80 scorned women and numerous bigamous marriages, paternity suits and bastard children. Paying the legal expenses and support for his illegitimate children caused a severe financial strain, and he decided to fake his death.

He found a vagrant who agreed to go with him on a job. On Nov. 6, 1930, his car, a Morris Minor, was found in the early morning by two men (photo right). Inside was a body charred beyond recognition. Rouse was arrested in London the next day and he concoted a story about picking up the victim, stopping by the side of the road for a piss, and seeing the car burst into flame after the victim lit a cigarette. Rouse was found guilty of murder and hanged on March 10, 1931. The victim's body was never identified.

On Jan. 3, 1933, the body of a man seated in front of a charred desk was found after police had put out a fire in a garden shed in Camden Town. On it was found a note: "Goodbye all. No work. No money. Sam J Furnace." The shed had been rented to Furnace, so it seemed to be a simple case of suicide.

But the coroner examined the body and found that all was not as it seemed. A post office savings book in the name of Walter Spatchett and teeth that were too young for the 42-year-old builder told them that the body was not Furnace. The bullet hole in the back said that it was not suicide.

The manhunt was launched for Furnace, and he was turned in by his brother-in-law after he asked his relative for help. He told police that he decided to fake his suicide after he accidentally shot Spatchett. He never got the opportunity to tell the jury his side of the story. On Jan. 17, 1933, in his cell, he swallowed hydrochloric acid that he had secreted in his overcoat and died the next day.

"The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba"



242 ~ a trifle more point-device than the best taste approves
point-device: An actual, honest-to-God word, meaning scrupulously correct. From the French for "fixed point."

243 ~ Bermondsey
An area of South London in the Southwark borough.

jostled the elbow of a flash person
flash: A show-offy person, particularly in dress.

245 ~ fished out of the river down Rotherhite way
Rotherite: A district in southeast London in the Southwark borough.

246 ~ See that wet, see that dry!
Not traced

bring the slops to this pub
slops: A form of back slang used in England, in which a new word is created by reversing the letters. So, "police" becomes "ecilop," and modified to "slops."

254 ~ There ain't nobody loves me
Not traced

259 ~ "A Barmecide feast, I see"
Barmecide: A word from the Arabian Nights, meaning someone who offers an illusionary advantage or benefit. Named for a prince of the Barmecide family, who pretended to set before the hungry Shacabac food, on which the latter pretended to feast.

264 ~ like Pantaloon at the circus
Pantaloon was a stock character in the Italian Commedia dell'arte

"where I keep my chas and my Froth Blower's cuff-links"
chas: Not traced

Froth Blowers: The Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers first made its appearance in the "Bellona Club" novel.

The Bibulous Business of a Matter of Taste



154 ~ guard's van
The last car of the train, where the guards sit and watch the world go by. In the U.S., it is called the caboose.

Invalides
Les Invalides is a collection of buildings in Paris that include a hospital for war veterans, museums, and tombs of notable French military leaders, led of course, by Napoleon.

premieres
The prime, first-rate car, equivalent to traveling by air in first class.

156 ~ Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest
An early French railway company, also known as L'Ouest or Ouest. Wikipedia has a history of the company.

Grande Vitesse
"Great Speed"

Grande Paresse
"Great Idleness"

lampisterie

Mon Souci
"My Concern"

157 ~ jalousies
shutters

merveilleuse
marval

Directoire
A neoclassical style of dress, furniture, and ornament popular in France during the period of the Directory (1795-99) during the French Revolution.

"The hoist with his own petard touch"
A reference to "Hamlet", Act III, Scene 4: "For 'tis sport to have the engineer/ Hoist with his own petard." A petard is a small, bell-shaped bomb used during seiges against walls. The Straight Dope, that fount of all information, describes further what a petard is and how to be hoisted by it.

158 ~ armoire normande
A tall piece of furniture in which clothing and linens may be stored.

permis de sejour
A residence permit, entitling one to live temporarily in France.

159 ~ "Quite a little boom in Richmonds today"
Not sure.

162 ~ "In vino veritas"
A classical Latin expression: "In wine, there is truth."

163 ~ "Chateau Yquem, 1911 - ah! The queen of white wines, sir, as what's-his-name says."
Wine from the Sauternes region of France. Wikipedia mentions "In a good year, a bottle will only begin to show its qualities after a decade or two of cellaring and with proper care, will keep for a century or more, gradually adding layers of taste and hitherto undetected fruity overtones." The person who tagged the wine with royalty wasn't identified, but it is known that it is a favorite of Queen Elizabeth.

164 ~ consomme marmite
A very strong soup made from beef stock.

confitures
A jam confection or preserve.

165 ~ poulet
chicken

pre-sale
Also known as salt marsh lamb, a highly regarded lamb from the French coast overlooking the English Channel.


"The Entertaining Episode
of the Article in Question"


The page numbers are from "Lord Peter" published by Harper & Row. The excerpts are copyrighted 1972 by Harper & Row.

21 ~ Elephant's Child
From the story by Rudyard Kipling

Woolsack was really stuffed with
To quote from the United Kingdom Parliament's Web site: "The Woolsack is a seat stuffed with wool on which the Lord Chancellor sits. It was introduced by King Edward III and originally stuffed with English wool as a reminder of England's traditional source of wealth - the wool trade - and as a sign of prosperity. Today the Woolsack is stuffed with wool from several countries of the Commonwealth, to symbolise unity."

Chief Engineer at 2LO
2LO was the call letters for one of the world's first radio stations. The first, called Two Emma Toc (2MT), began broadcasting entertainment programs in 1922. Shortly thereafter, 2LO was launched at Marconi House in the Strand, London. When the British Broadcasting Corporation was created, a more powerful transmitter was built and installed in the Selfridges building, to which 2LO was moved.

24 ~ Seidlitz powder
Seidlitz powder is a forerunner of Alka-Seltzer. It is composed of tartaric acid, potassium tartrate and sodium carbonate and fizzes in water. The name comes from a village in Bohemia whose waters are impregnated with magnesium sulphate and carbon dioxide.

Seidlitz powder was widely used. It appears in an entertaining interlude from Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers," and also in this bit of doggerel, alleged to be an epitaph from a cemetery in Burleigh, N.J., circa 1880:
Here lies the body of Mary Ann Lowder
Who burst while drinking a seidlitz powder;
Called from this Earth to her Heavenly rest
She should have waited until it effervesced.
Contes de la Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine (1621-95): French author. He is noted more for his Fables, which included stories drawn from Aesop such as "The Grasshopper and the Ant" and "The Crow and the Fox," what Lord Peter was reading was the "Contes et nouvelles en vers of Jean de La Fontaine." This collection of stories, published in various formats through the poet's life, were considerably more adult than the innocent fables, and ranged from mildly suggestive to explicit. It would have been amusing to look over Lord Peter's shoulder at the Fragonard plates.

image
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806): a French painter who is popularly known for his erotic paintings such as "The Swing," and four canvases representing The Progress of Love. As the reference books do not mention that he was involved in plate-making, I would suggest that the plates in the Contes were based on Fragonard's works.

26 ~ sense went out of society with the House of Lords' veto
To quote again from Parliament's Web site: "In 1909 the Lords rejected the Liberal Government's budget. The Liberals then introduced a bill to end the Lords' power to reject legislation approved by the Commons, which was passed under the threat of a large creation of Liberal peers. The Parliament Act 1911 provided that:

* Money bills approved by the Commons became law if not passed without amendment by the Lords within one month;

* other Public Bills, except one to extend the life of a Parliament, became law without the consent of the Lords, if passed by the Commons in three successive sessions, providing two years elapsed between Second Reading and final passing in the Commons."

Dear Dizzy, I remember so well, when his wife died, how hard we all tried to get him . . . that stupid Bradford woman
"Dizzy" is the nickname of Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), the Conservative statesman and prime minister.

Lady Bradford is a reference to Selina, Countess of Bradford. He seems to have been infatuated with the lady, writing her regularly, sometimes several times a day. This site from the Staffordshire County Council gives an excerpt from a letter that gives you an idea of their correspondence.
(Contributed by Lindsay Marshall.)

30 ~ torrent of apache language
An apache is a member of a Parisian street gang, so presumably Celestine was speaking in the argot of that group.

"The Fantastic Horror
of the Cat in the Bag"


The page numbers are from "Lord Peter" published by Harper & Row. The excerpts are copyrighted 1972 by Harper & Row.

52 ~ o.h.v. Norton
Abbreviation for overhead valves, a modification of a motorcycle's engine proposed by James Norton and produced in 1922. Note that on page 54, when the Scott man says "I suppose that overhead gear of yours makes so much noise, you can't hear anything else," he's throwing a jibe against the o.h.v.

And here's the 1926 Norton.

Scott Flying-Squirrel
Yes, there is such a bike. Since Sayers' story appeared in 1928, let's have a look at the 1927 Squirrel.

Motorcycles were a recent invention, and its development proceeded in much the same way that Apple, IBM, Commodore and Atari battled it out in the 1980s. It was a time when nothing was standardized, which gave ample scope for racing competitions and "feuds" between cyclists arguing with a passion seen today between Macs and PC users (or between "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" fans).

charabanc
An early form of truck. From the French, meaning literally wagon with benches.

53 ~ R.A.C. post
The Royal Automobile Club.
(Contributed by Marc van der Poel)

A.A. man
Short for the Auto Association, a group which is still in operation today. A history of the group can be found at their Web site. Judging by the reference to the "swift glance over the two sets of handlebars to assure himself that the black sheep were not of his flock," I would assume that members of the AA would have their identifying badges there.

traction-engine
An example of one can be found here.

Brooklands
Brooklands: A motor racing track that was used for races and to test cars.

56 ~ Eaton Socon
A parish

57 ~ Finsbury Park
A neighborhood in the Islington section of London.

58 ~ it wasn't a Douglas
A brand of motorcycle.

59 ~ forward the Light Brigade
From Tennyson's poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

"The Fascinating Problem
of Uncle Melagar's Will"


The page numbers are from "Lord Peter" published by Harper & Row. The excerpts are copyrighted 1972 by Harper & Row.

36 ~ endless vortices of the Whirligig school of verse
No such school exists, of course, but Sayers was probably poking fun at vorticism, a movement in English painting that emphasized abstracted machine forms in their works. Two issues of the journal Blast (1914) applied vorticism to the printed word, with contributions from T.S. Eliot, Rebecca West and Ezra Pound. It resurfaced briefly in 1920 as Group X. The deeply conservative Sayers probably would have viewed the various forms of modernism with a jaundiced eye. (Thanks to "Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia" for the summary.)

38 ~ so are the probate and divorce wallahs
A wallah is a man, a chap, or a fellow, usually charged with performing a particular service. The word would be combined with another word to describe someone. Thus, an army chaplain would be called an amen-wallah, a native living in the jungle a jungle-wallah and teetotaler a lemonade-wallah. The word came from India, one of many, like sahib and nabob, that the English language acquired through Great Britain's colonial ventures.

40 ~ an un-Attic thing to have in a house like this
Lord Peter is making a mild pun here. Attic is the Greek dialect spoken in Athens, which one would not expect to find in a house built along the lines of a Roman villa.

impluvium
A very shallow pool that captures rainwater from an opening in the roof. The excess water would drain into a cistern that would be used to water the garden in the rear of the house. The impluvium also offered a way to air-condition the house.

41 ~ cave canem
Latin for "Beware of the dog." The mosiac is based on one found at Pompeii.

rhymed distichs
Two-line poems which do not necessarily have to rhyme. A website at Harvard contains an interesting discussion of them, particularly a series of distiches attributed to Cato that were published by Ben Franklin.

42 ~ Johnny Head-in-Air
A poem by Heinrich Hoffmann (1809-1894) about a boy who, well, always walked around looking up in the air. It was part of a series of poems written by Dr. Hoffmann for the edification and moral education of children.

The complete poem can be found here.

More information can be found here about the works of Dr. Hoffmann.

43 ~ Oh, frabjous day! Calloo! callay!
Lines from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"

And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
A complete version of the poem -- and a discussion of its meaning -- can be found at this website. The essay also contains a discussion of other words Carroll invented, including ‘whiffling,' which readers may recall in "Murder Must Advertise" that Wimsey was the creator of the enormously successful "whiffling round Britain" campaign.

48 ~ the Moor of Venice
A reference to the title character of Shakespeare's "Othello"

page of Roget
A reference to Peter Roget (1779-1869), the inventor of the thesaurus

49 ~ it's Vulgate, that's what it is
A reference to the Vulgate Bible of the early Middle Ages, which was written in Latin. The word "vulgate," from which vulgar is derived, actually means in this sense "common," as in written in a language common to all.

O my dove, that art in the cleft of the rock
The line is from the Canticles, otherwise known as the Song of Songs, chapter 2, verse 14:
"O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely."
black but comely
An appropriate ending to a story based on a verse from the Canticles, for Lord Peter quotes again from that book, chapter 1, verses 5-6: "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me, because I am black; because the sun hath looked upon me . . . "

South African quadruped in six letters, beginning with Q
Perhaps a Quagga?

"The Haunted Policeman"


The page numbers are from "Lord Peter" published by Harper & Row. The excerpts are copyrighted 1972 by Harper & Row.

410 ~ as Mr. Joseph Surface remarked to Lady Teazle, what is troubling you is the consciousness of your own innocence.
From "A School for Scandal," Act 4, Sc. III:
Lady Teaz
Well, well, I'm inclined to believe you. But isn't it provoking, to have the most ill-natured things said of one? And there's my friend Lady Sneerwell has circulated I don't know how many scandalous tales of me, and all without any foundation too; that's what vexes me.

Jos. Surf
Ay, madam, to be sure, that is the provoking circumstance without foundation; yes, yes, there's the mortification, indeed; for when a scandalous story is believed against one, there certainly is no comfort like the consciousness of having deserved it.

412 ~ Pol Roger 1926
A family-owned grande marque Champagne winery in Epernay, France. Grande marque -- meaning "great brand" -- was once a designation meaning it adheres to exacting standards for champagne-making. The Syndicat de Grandes Marques de Champagne disbanded itself in 1997 when it became difficult to agree on what those standards were. The loss of status didn't seem to affect Pol Roger, though. The wine is still made, and you can buy a 3-liter bottle for $239 over the Internet.

420 ~ Holborn Empire
A famous music hall in London.

421 ~ Colney Hatch
A large hospital for the mentally disturbed, situated in North London. It has since been renamed Friern Hospital.

428 ~ Van Hoogstraaten
Samuel van Hoogstraaten (1627-1678) was a Dutch painter known for many optical toys, most particularly his perspective boxes, highly realistic scenes that were viewed through a peephole.

Grace and Lambelet
No idea, but the best guess would be a vaudeville team.

430 ~ Maskelyn and Devant
Great British magicians: John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917) and David Devant (1868-1941).

p.b. policeman
Presumably a "poor bloody" policeman.

"The Image in the Mirror



280 ~ explaining myself to the R.T.O.
R.T.O.: The Route Transportation Officer, whose job it was to monitor the traffic and make sure the soldiers get where they're supposed to go.

281 ~ in the C.C.S. at Ypres
C.C.S.: The Casualty Clearing Station, where the wounded was taken to be assessed medically and sent on down the line.

284 ~ "The Student of Prague"
A silent horror movie, released in 1913, a turn on the Faust tale, in which Balduin sells his soul to the devil to win the love of a countess far above his station. Sayers is clever in tucking in this reference, because when the mysterious Scapinelli convinces Balduin to sign the contract, Scapinelli takes his image from the mirror. He turns this image into a doppelganger, who in turns wreaks havoc on the town. The movie is available on DVD. There is also a 1926 remake available.

285 ~ Dr. Caligari
A reference to "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," (1920) a silent horror movie from Germany. It tells the story of Dr. Caligari, a fairground showman who hypnotizes an innocent villager and turns him into a sleepwalking "zombie" and compels him to carry out fiendish murders. The movie was noted for its heavily stylized sets — heavily influenced by expressionistic painting — its antirealist acting, and evocative subjective camerawork. Two versions of the movie are available:the original and an unusual "remixed" version.

286 ~ gave me a Morgan to run about in
A sports car from the Morgan Motor Co., which is still in business.

291 ~ "No Savidgery"
Not traced. From the context, it seems to refer to a notorious case that led to restrictions on the police during interrogations, in the same way that "Miranda" would be used in the U.S.

292 ~ "Have I been led up the garden"
According to Brewer's, the expression referring to be deceived may have originated at 19th century garden parties, in which swains with an eye for seduction would lead his intended among the rhododendrons, in view of the chaperones, until he could guide her into the rose bushes and risk a prick.

"The animals went in four by four, vive la compagnie"
At times of distraction, Wimsey has a habit of mixing his metaphors. In this case, the former is an old nursery song, about the animals being led into the ark, sung to the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." The second half, roughly translated as "Long live the company," comes from another song.

293 ~ "All, all are gone, the old familiar landmarks"
A reference to a poem by Charles Lamb (1775-1834).
The Old Familiar Faces

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women;
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her --
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood.
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces —

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Not surprisingly for a Sayers reference, murder most foul bubbles underneath this poem. Charles Lamb lived with his parents and his sister, Mary. The father was senile and the mother bedridden, and Mary was caring for them both while making a living with her needlework. On Sept. 22, 1796, in a fit of insanity — what Lamb's biographers surmise was a manic-depressive episode, accelerated by stress — Mary stabbed her mother in the heart. She was saved from hanging by Charles, who agreed to care for Mary the rest of her life, which he did until his death in 1834.

Two years later, while composing "The Old Familiar Faces," Charles began with this stanza, since deleted:
Where are they gone, the old familiar faces?
I had a mother, but she died, and left me,
Died prematurely in a day of horrors --
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
















electric comb
A bit of marketing hogwash from the 1930s. White's Electric Comb promised to invigorate your hair roots if you use it for five minutes twice a day.

295 ~ "‘Wad the gods the giftie gie us' and all that"
A line from the poem "To A Louse" by Robert Burns.
Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her-
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggar's haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rels, snug and tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right,
Till ye've got on it-
The verra tapmost, tow'rin height
O' Miss' bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an' grey as ony groset:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum.

I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss' fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do't?

O Jeany, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin:
Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

Somerset House
A grand government office building, built in the 18th century and occupied at times by the Royal Society, the offices of the Admiralty, Inland Revenue, and, the Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Somerset House also played a role in "Unnatural Death" (see page 22).

296 ~ Michaelmas
The feast of St. Michael, celebrated on Sept. 29. It is treated as a quarter day in England, when quarterly payments on rent or interest is due. Traditionally, renters moved in and out of their places on quarter days as well.

round about the New Cut
A major road in London, in particular the Lambeth and Southwark boroughs. From the 1800s to Wimsey's time, it was known as an impoverished area, and a marketplace used by the very poorest of the poor. It is now known as simply The Cut.

"Chlorryform she said she ‘ad"
Better known as chloroform, a colorless, heavy liquid used as an anesthetic.

"The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey"



302 ~ posada
The Spanish word for hostel or inn

pelota
The Spanish word for handball

308 ~ painted by Sargent in his happiest mood
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), noted portrait and landscape painter. Although an American, he was born in Florence, the son of wealthy parents, and when he wasn't traveling lived in London. "An American born in Italy, educated in France, who looks like a German, speaks like an Englishman, and paints like a Spaniard" is an accurate description of him. His commissioned portaits of the wealthy came to symbolize during the Gilded Age, but he came to hate portrait painting, calling it "a pimp's profession."

I like to think that there's a small jest buried in Sayers' assessment of the Sargent portrait. Sargent favored dramatic poses and darker, richer colors, so that finding one that represented "his happiest mood" was a challenge. This image of Mrs. Hugh Hammersley from the wide-ranging http://www.jssgallery.org site is an acceptable example.

311 ~ a sort of salmis
This is a ragout consisting of roasted game and a mixture of sauce, mushrooms, truffles, wine and bread. Like curry, there are numerous recipes, reflecting regional foods and tastes.

312 ~ no Vivisection Acts to bother one
A general term for a series of laws passed in England that restricts or bans medical experiments on animal or human patients.

319 ~ an engagement with Maskelyn
A reference to the popular British magician John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917).

320 ~ Section of Greek
A bit from Homer's "Iliad" — specifically from Book 2, roughly lines 570-615 — that describes the types of ships and their commanders participating in the war. Here's a sample:
But I shall list the leaders,
commanders of the ships, and all the ships in full.

Peneleus, Leitus, and Arcesilaus
led the Boeotians, with Clonius and Prothoenor.
Their men came from Hyria, rocky Aulis,
Schoenus, Scolus, mountainous Eteonus,
Thespeia, Graia, spacious Mycalassus,
men holding Harma, Eilesiun, Erythrae;
men holding Eleon, Hyle, Peteon.
Ocalea, the well-built fortress Medeon,
Copae, Eutresis, Thisbe, city full of doves;
men from Coronea, grassy Haliartus;
men from Plataea, Glisas, those who held
fortified Lower Thebes and sacred Onchestus,
with Poseidon's splendid grove; men from Arne,
land rich in grapes, Midea, sacred Nisa,
and distant Anthedon. Fifty ships came with these men,
each with one hundred and twenty young Boeotians.

Men from Aspledon and Minyan Orchomenus
were led by Ascalaphus and Ialmenus,
Ares' sons. Astyoche bore them in Actor's house,
Azeus' son, to mighty Ares. She, a modest virgin,
went upstairs, where the god lay with her in secret.
These men brought with them a fleet of thirty ships.

Schedius and Epistrophus, sons of Iphitus,
the son of great-hearted Naubolus,
commanded Phoceans—men from Cyparissus,
rocky Pytho, holy Crisa, Daulis, and Panopeus;
men from Anemorea and Hyampolis;
from around the sacred river Cephissus,
from Lilaea, beside Cephissus' springs.
Forty black ships these two leaders brought with them.
Moving around, as soldiers armed themselves,
they set Phocean ranks by the Boeotians, on their left.

The Locrians were led by swift Ajax, son of Oileus,
the lesser Ajax, not the greater Ajax,
son of Telamon, but a much smaller man.
Though he was short and wore cloth armour,
among all Hellenes and Achaeans he excelle
in fighting with his spear. Locrians came from Cynus,
Opous, Calliarus, Bessa, Scarphe,
lovely Aegeiae, Tarphe, Thronion,
and from around the river Boagrius.
Ajax brought forty black ships of Locrians
living across from sacred Euboea.

321 ~ "Ergo omnis longo solvit se Teucria luctu"
From line 26 of Virgil's "The Aeneid": Therefore, they all set sail from Troy."

"A line notorious for its grave spondaic cadence"
spondaic: A technical term for a unit of rhythm in which each half of a two-syllable word is given the same stress, such as ad hoc, pen knife and heartburn.

"Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore. Poluphloisboio thalasses. Ne plus ultra. Valete. Plaudite."
These lines are from Virgil's "The Aeneid," Book 6, line 314: "Reaching out their hands to the further shore in longing. Along the shores of the loud roaring sea. The highest point. Good-bye. Citizens." The first sentence also appears on page 77 of "Strong Poison," when Ryland Vaughan is contemplating suicide over the death of Philip Boyes.

322 ~ Danse Macabre of Saint-Saens
Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921), the French composer and writer, known for his opera "Samson et Dalila" and the symphonic poem "Danse Macabre" and "Carnaval des Animaux."

325 ~ "trifle too much sensibility, don't you see?"
sensibility: An ability to respond emotionally to a stimulous, especially to the pathetic

327 ~ "devised by the ingenious Mr Devant"
A reference to David Devant (1868-1941), notable English magician. For more than two decades, Devant was a partner to Maskelyne (see note 319, above).

328 ~ "Schubert's ‘Unfinished' is first class for producing an atmosphere of gloom and mystery"
A reference to Franz Schubert's unfinished Symphony No. 8. Wikipedia not only has an entry, but a link to the music.

"But only," he hastened to add, "in a purely Pickwickian sense."
A reference to an incident in chapter 16 of "The Pickwick Papers" in which Pickwick tries to warn the head of a girls' school that one of her charges was planning to elope.
In the midst of the tumult, Mr. Pickwick emerged from his concealment, and presented himself amongst them.

'Ladies--dear ladies,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Oh. he says we're dear,' cried the oldest and ugliest teacher. 'Oh, the wretch!'

'Ladies,' roared Mr. Pickwick, rendered desperate by the danger of his situation. 'Hear me. I am no robber. I want the lady of the house.'

'Oh, what a ferocious monster!' screamed another teacher. 'He wants Miss Tomkins.'

Here there was a general scream.

'Ring the alarm bell, somebody!' cried a dozen voices.

'Don't--don't,' shouted Mr. Pickwick. 'Look at me. Do I look like a robber! My dear ladies--you may bind me hand and leg, or lock me up in a closet, if you like. Only hear what I have got to say--only hear me.'

'How did you come in our garden?' faltered the housemaid.

'Call the lady of the house, and I'll tell her everything,' said Mr. Pickwick, exerting his lungs to the utmost pitch. 'Call her-- only be quiet, and call her, and you shall hear everything .'

It might have been Mr. Pickwick's appearance, or it might have been his manner, or it might have been the temptation-- irresistible to a female mind--of hearing something at present enveloped in mystery, that reduced the more reasonable portion of the establishment (some four individuals) to a state of comparative quiet. By them it was proposed, as a test of Mr. Pickwick's sincerity, that he should immediately submit to personal restraint; and that gentleman having consented to hold a conference with Miss Tomkins, from the interior of a closet in which the day boarders hung their bonnets and sandwich-bags, he at once stepped into it, of his own accord, and was securely locked in. This revived the others; and Miss Tomkins having been brought to, and brought down, the conference began.

'What did you do in my garden, man?' said Miss Tomkins, in a faint voice.

'I came to warn you that one of your young ladies was going to elope to-night,' replied Mr. Pickwick, from the interior of the closet.

'Elope!' exclaimed Miss Tomkins, the three teachers, the thirty boarders, and the five servants. 'Who with?' 'Your friend, Mr. Charles Fitz-Marshall.'

'MY friend! I don't know any such person.'

'Well, Mr. Jingle, then.'

'I never heard the name in my life.'

'Then, I have been deceived, and deluded,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'I have been the victim of a conspiracy--a foul and base conspiracy. Send to the Angel, my dear ma'am, if you don't believe me. Send to the Angel for Mr. Pickwick's manservant, I implore you, ma'am.'

'He must be respectable--he keeps a manservant,' said Miss Tomkins to the writing and ciphering governess.

'It's my opinion, Miss Tomkins,' said the writing and ciphering governess, 'that his manservant keeps him, I think he's a madman, Miss Tomkins, and the other's his keeper.'

'I think you are very right, Miss Gwynn,' responded Miss Tomkins. 'Let two of the servants repair to the Angel, and let the others remain here, to protect us.'

So two of the servants were despatched to the Angel in search of Mr. Samuel Weller; and the remaining three stopped behind to protect Miss Tomkins, and the three teachers, and the thirty boarders. And Mr. Pickwick sat down in the closet, beneath a grove of sandwich-bags, and awaited the return of the messengers, with all the philosophy and fortitude he could summon to his aid.

An hour and a half elapsed before they came back, and when they did come, Mr. Pickwick recognised, in addition to the voice of Mr. Samuel Weller, two other voices, the tones of which struck familiarly on his ear; but whose they were, he could not for the life of him call to mind.

A very brief conversation ensued. The door was unlocked. Mr. Pickwick stepped out of the closet, and found himself in the presence of the whole establishment of Westgate House, Mr Samuel Weller, and--old Wardle, and his destined son-in-law, Mr. Trundle!

'My dear friend,' said Mr. Pickwick, running forward and grasping Wardle's hand, 'my dear friend, pray, for Heaven's sake, explain to this lady the unfortunate and dreadful situation in which I am placed. You must have heard it from my servant; say, at all events, my dear fellow, that I am neither a robber nor a madman.'

'I have said so, my dear friend. I have said so already,' replied Mr. Wardle, shaking the right hand of his friend, while Mr. Trundle shook the left.
"Let's toddle round to the Holborn Empire, and see what George Robey can do for us."
Holborn Empire: A 2,000-seat theater in London. It was bombed during the May 1941 blitz, but survived until its demolition in 1960.

Robey: George Robey (1869-1954) was a comedian, known for his incredible energy, his line of patter that verge into, but never achieved, smuttiness, and his comic songs. By 1930, he had been performing on music-hall stages for nearly 40 years. Sayers also invokes his name in "Strong Poison" and "The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club."

"The Necklace of Pearls"



347 ~ diagrammatic furniture
diagrammatic furntiure: A descriptive word that refers not to any particular style, but modernistic furniture that is stark and probably very uncomfortable.

cracker mottoes
Crackers are a type of Christmas treat, consisting of a small cylinder wrapped at each end. Pulling the ends causes a little bit of gunpowder to go off (hence the name "cracker"), and revealing a small gift inside. At one time, it would be a piece of paper with a motto, saying, joke or bit of doggeral. Over time, these were replaced by small gifts, such as paper crowns and noisemakers.

Fortnum & Mason
A department store in England, which would be like calling the Taj Mahal a cottage. After all, what American department store had an "Expeditions" section that supplied 60 tins of quail in foie gras and four dozen bottles of champagne to the 1922 Everest expedition. Archaeologist Howard Carter had F&M's wine boxes on hand to store antiquities from King Tut's tomb. In addition to the usual department store fare, F&M also sell expensive hampers filled with a variety of comestibles to suit every occasion.

"Charades" and "Clumps" and "Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral"
All three are party games involving guessing the name of a chosen object or phrase, of which clumps might be the least known. In it, everyone is divided up into two teams and sent to different parts of the room. One person from each team get together to pick an object and return to their team. Each member in turn asks questions which can only be answered yes or no. The trick to this game is that each clump tries to be as quiet as possible to keep the other clump from overhearing. The winning side adds the player from the other clump to their side, two more people are picked and a new game begins. The game ends when everyone is reunited.

348 ~ "Dumb Crambo"
A rhyming game in which one player thinks of a word and gives a word that rhymes with it. The players guess, not by suggesting the word, but describing it. For example, the first player (choosing "fold") says, "I know a word that rhymes with gold." Someone says "Is it ancient?" The first player says, "No, it is not old." "Is it chilly?" "No, it is not cold." In Dumb Crambo, the guessers have to perform the word, much as in charades.

349 ~ the new planet Pluto
Pluto: While its existence had been predicted by astronomer Percival Lowell, it was Clyde Tombaugh, hired by the Lowell Observatory's directors to fulfill Lowell's quest, who discovered the planet in 1930. Ironically, Tombaugh had also discovered that the observations Lowell had based his predictions on were completely erroneous. Nevertheless, Lowell got the glory, and Tombaugh was relegated to the dustbin of history.

354 ~ what Jane Austen liked to call "expensive and dissipated"
Wimsey is thinking of a scene in chapter 31 of "Sense and Sensibility":
"Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "could it be — could Willoughby!"—

"The first news that reached me of her," he continued, "came in a letter from herself, last October. It was forwarded to me from Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party to Whitwell; and this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly, which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to every body, and which I believe gave offence to some.Little did Mr. Willoughby imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in breaking up the party,that I was called away to the relief of one whom he had made poor and miserable; but HAD he known it, what would it have availed? Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of your sister? No, he had already done that, which no man who CAN feel for another would do. He had left the girl whose youth and innocence he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He had left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor relieved her."

"This is beyond every thing!" exclaimed Elinor.

"His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than both."

frequently present at Epsom and Newmarket
Both are horse racing tracks of some repute.

second housemaid
A servant who ranks low the hierarchy of the country house, below both the housekeeper (the highest-ranking female servant) and the first housemaid.

under-footman
A junior servant, at about the same rank as the second housemaid, who works at the direction of the butler.

356 ~ George having bet the other two ten shillings to a tanner
tanner: A pre-decimal currency coin worth six pennies. Since a shilling was worth 1/20th of a pound, in essence, George Comphrey was offering Lavinia Prescott and Richard Dennison half a pound to spare change that he'd beat them. No wonder they worked like demons.

"The Piscatorial Farce
of the Stolen Stomach"


The page numbers are from "Lord Peter" published by Harper & Row. The excerpts are copyrighted 1972 by Harper & Row.

191 ~ How about a bit of brekker?
Slang for breakfast.

193 ~ pushed him off among the Sassenachs
An ancient derogatory term for the English that was derived from the Gaelic word for Saxon. The word is still used today but in a jocular way. This headline was found on the BBC News Web site about Scottish soccer fans' support for the English World Cup team: "Tartan Army goes soft on Sassenachs."

(Contributed by Mary Butler)

Writer to the Signet
A solicitor who works at the Supreme Court of Scotland.

201 ~ manuscript of Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Roman poet, born around 84 BCE and died possibly around 54 BCE. He's known primarily for his love poetry.

conducting a knock-out
An auction scam. Before the event, members of a bidding ring hold a private sale, known as the knockout, to decide who will buy the object that the ring has secured. The difference between the price realized in this private sale and the price paid by the ring in the public auction is divided, on the basis of a linear sharing rule, among the members. These side-payments provide an incentive for the ring members to bid higher than they would have in an identical public auction. As a consequence, neither the realized price in the private sale nor the total payments of the winner are unbiased estimates of the price the item would have fetched in the public auction in the absence of collusion.

202 ~ missal
From the Latin word Missa meaning Mass, this the book which contains the prayers said by the priest at the altar as well as all that is officially read or sung in connection with the offering of the holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the ecclesiastical year.

206 ~ Potts fracture
Lord Peter was in error. A Potts fracture is a general name for a variety of fractures and fracture-dislocations around the ankle, not the knee.

208 ~ patella
A small rounded moveable bone situation in a tendon in front of the knee joint. Also known as the kneecap


"The Queen's Square"



329 ~ "You Jack o' Di'monds, you Jack o' Di'monds . . . I know you of old . . . You rob my pocket, yes, you rob-a my pocket, you rob my pocket of silver and go-ho-hold"
"Jack of Diamonds":A 19th century American folk song, with the melody based on the Scottish song "Farewell to Tarwathie."
"Jack of Diamonds"

This common gambling lyric, in an uncommon form, as learned from an old record by Jules Verne Allen.

Jack of Diamonds, Jack of Diamonds, I know you of old
You've robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.

It's whiskey you villain, you've been my down-fall
You've kicked me, you've cuffed me but I love you for all.

Oh baby oh baby I've told you before
You make me a pallet I'll lay on the floor.

Your parents don't like me they say I'm too poor,
They say I'm not worthy to enter your door.

They say I drink whiskey but my money's my own,
And if they don't like me they can leave me alone.

It's beefsteak when I'm hungry rye whiskey when I'm dry
Greenbacks when I'm hard-up and heaven when I die.

Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry,
If I can't get rye whiskey I surely will die.

Oh baby oh baby I've told you before
To make me a pallet, I'll lay on the floor.

I'll build me a castle on yonder mountain high
Where my true love can see me as she goes riding by.

Where my true love can see me and help me to mourn
For I'm just a young cowboy and a long way from home.

If the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck
I would dive to the bottom to get one sweet sup.

But the ocean ain't whiskey and I ain't no duck,
So I'll play Jack of Diamonds and try to change my luck.

Oh baby oh baby I've told you before
To make me a pallet I'll lay on the floor.

I've rambled I've gambled all my money away
So it's on the old cow-trail now Molly I must stay.

It's on the old cow-trail now Molly I must roam
For I'm just a young cowboy and a long way from home.

Jack of diamonds, Jack of diamonds, I know you of old,
You've robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.

Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry
If I don't get rye whiskey I know I must die.

Oh baby oh baby I've told you before,
To make me a shake down I'll lay on the floor.
"Five-seventeen-six"
In today's currency, 5 pounds, 17 shillings and 6 pence would be worth a little more than 2 pounds.


330 ~ It cuts out all those wearisome pierrots and columbines
Pierrots and columbines are stock characters from pantomime and the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, and common figures at 1920s English costume parties. In "Murder Must Advertise," Wimsey eschewed these characters in favor of Harlequin.

333 ~ looking like Casabianca
Casabianca: A character in the Felicia Hemans' poem, based on an incident during the Battle of the Nile, about the boy who "stood upon the burning deck," awaiting the order to abandon ship from his father, the ship captain. In the poem, first published in 1826, the boy did not know that his father was dead, yet stayed true to his post and perished, leading to great debate among students: either Casabianca exhibited great bravery, courage and faithfulness to duty, or was a right prat for letting himself get burnt up.
Casabianca

The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though child-like form.

The flames rolled on–he would not go
Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud–'say, Father, say
If yet my task is done?'
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

'Speak, father!' once again he cried,
'If I may yet be gone!'
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
In still yet brave despair.

And shouted but once more aloud,
'My father! must I stay?'
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound–
The boy–oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea!–

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part–
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.
The waits will begin at two o'clock . . . Sir Roger and the waits -- quite medieval . . . and a Yule log in the hall
the waits: A tradition, especially popular at Christmas, for musicians to band together and sing outside peoples' doors in hopes of a warming drink or a tip. Abuse of this practice, from the sometimes late hour or terrible din of half-drunk or competent musicians, led some towns to ban the waits.
Sir Roger: A dance — full name Sir Roger de Coverly — that's similiar to the Virginia reel, in which men and women face off in two lines and individuals pair off to dance in the center. As you can imagine, this is a dreadfully simple explanation.
Yule log: A Christmas tradition in which a green log is lit and made burning throughout the season. When the log is burnt, shards from it are saved to light next year's log. Possibly derived from pagan traditions, the Yule log has been updated; now, in some cities, you can watch the Yule log burning on television, or you can buy a DVD for your own traditional Christmas celebrations.

334 ~ "White King and Queen, Badminton and Diabolo"
Diabolo: A toy similar to a yo-yo in which a modified cylinder is balanced on a cord with a stick at each end. It's trickier to learn than a yo-yo, and offers a wider array of tricks.

"My love," sighed Wimsey, "was clad in the black velvet, and I myself in cramoisie"
A line from the ballad "Jaime Douglas." This version is from the "Home Book of Verse" by Burton Egbert Stevenson.
FORSAKEN

O waly waly up the bank,
And waly waly down the brae,
And waly waly yon burn-side
Where I and my Love wont to gae!
I leaned my back unto an aik,
I thought it was a trusty tree;
But first it bowed, and syne it brak,
Sae my true Love did lichtly me.

O waly waly, but love be bonny
A little while when it is new;
But when 'tis auld, it waxeth cauld
And fades awa' like morning dew.
O wherefore should I busk my head?
Or wherefore should I kame my hair?
For my true Love has me forsook,
And says he'll never loe me mair.

Now Arthur-seat sall be my bed;
The sheets shall ne'er be pressed by me:
Saint Anton's well sall be my drink,
Since my true Love has forsaken me.
Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw
And shake the green leaves aff the tree?
O gentle Death, when wilt thou come?
For of my life I am wearie.

'Tis not the frost, that freezes fell,
Nor blawing snaw's inclemencie;
'Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry,
But my Love's heart grown cauld to me.
When we cam in by Glasgow town
We were a comely sight to see;
My Love was clad in black velvet.
And I mysel in cramasie.

But had I wist, before I kissed,
That love had been sae ill to win;
I had locked my heart in a case of gowd
And pinned it with a siller pin.
And, O! if my young babe were born,
And sat upon the nurse's knee,
And I mysel were dead and gane,
And the green grass growing over me!
335 ~ "Bezique," said Wimsey; "double Bezique"
Wimsey is riffing off the card suits that meet during the dance. Bezique is a trick-taking game similar to piquet and pinochle. Winning the queen of spades and the jack of diamonds means you've taken a Bezique for 40 points. Capturing two of each earns you double Bezique and 500 ponts.

340 ~ Bring me flesh and bring me wine
A line from the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas."

343 ~ tipping it into the hypo
A tray containing either sodium hyposulfite or sodium thiosulfate. Dipping a photo print into this liquid causes the image to be fixed to the paper.

obviate halation
This phrase means that Bunter wants to prevent a blurring or spreading of light around the bright areas of a print. Halation is caused by light passing through the emulsion being reflected into the print from the back of the plate.

"The Undignified Drama
of the Bone of Contention"


The numbers are from "Lord Peter" published by Harper & Row. The excerpts are copyrighted 1972 by Harper & Row.

82 ~ The house is entailed, of course, and so is the estate
Entailing means that conditions are set on the house and estate and limits how it may be used and sold. These conditions are passed down through inheiritance, so a son who gets his father's house and property may be prohibited from selling it, breaking up the land, or putting it to certain uses. This can pose serious problems should the son be financially unable to keep up appearances.

He's something in the City -- a director of a company -- connected with silk stockings
The city, of course, meaning London.

86 ~ Blue pill and black draught
I picked this phrase up reading the Napoleonic War novels of Patrick O'Brian. Naval surgeons used "blue pill and black draught" (last word pronounced draft) to treat a wide variety of illnesses. Most of the time, it was a placebo, with the pills made out of colored chalk, and the draught from a collection of various potions, flavored with nasty-tasting herbs like hellebore. From the sailor's point of view, the worst the medicine tasted, the more effective it was.

we know there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy
A popular reference from "Hamlet."

88 ~ with God all things are possible
From the Bible, Matthew 19:26: "With men this impossible, but with God all things are possible."

94 ~ we are permitted Reservation
At the end of Communion in a Catholic, Episcopal or Anglican church, any leftover conscrecated wafers must be properly disposed of (usually by the priest eating them). Reservation allows the church to keep Sacrament in the chapel outside of the service to be given to the sick or for emergency use.

miserere seats
Translation: mercy seats. Generally a hinged seat against which a standing person may lean. Can be used by older monks to get through the service, or by the choir.

99 ~ between the shoe and the frog
The American Heritage dictionary identified the frog as "a wedge-shaped, horny prominence in the sole of a horse' hoof."

104 ~ was that some Kensitite people had been stealing the wafers
An anti-Papal group notorious for demonstrations and acts of vandalism.

106 ~ the vicar, in cassock and biretta
The cassock is an ankle-length garment with close-fitting waist and sleeves, worn over the robe. The biretta is a stiff square cap with three or four ridges across the crown. Wore mostly by Roman Catholic clergy. Its presence on an Anglican vicar is another indication of just how High Church the vicar, Hancock, liked to carry things.

114 ~ Maskelyn-and-Devant stunts
Popular British magicians: John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917) and David Devant (1868-1941).

115 ~ Turn again, Whittington
A phrase from an old folk tale. It is the story of Dick Whittington who, along with his cat, goes to seek his fortune in London. He becomes disappointed with his lot, however, and decides to return home, but as he does, church bells ring out, telling him:
Turn again, Whittington,
Thou worthy citizen,
Turn again Whittington,
Lord Mayor of London!

He changes his mind, returns to London, and the prophecy comes true. There are plenty of variations on this story, including one told in pantomime. Since Web s come and go, I would suggest typing in "turn again Whittington" and see what you get.

116-117 ~ Have a gasper? . . . vestas from his pocket
Slang for cigarettes and matches. The origin of "gasper" could be inferred from the smoker's need to gasp for air. Vesta might be derived from the Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth, whose temple contained the sacred fire tended by the vestal virgins.

119 ~ Foxe's Book of Martyrs
John Foxe's famous work, first published in 1563 and subtitled "A History of the Lives, Sufferings and Triumphant Deaths of the Early Christian and Protestant Martyrs." It was a notable work that instructed, in English, the populace on early church history, warts and all.

Pilgrim's Progress, with a most alarming picture of Apollyon straddling over the whole breadth of the way, which gave me many nightmares
John Bunyan's allegory, first published in parts in 1678 and 1684. It tells of a dream by the author in which Christian goes on a spiritual journey through places like the Slough of Despond, the House Beautiful, the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Vanity Fair to reach the Celestial City. One of the creatures Christian meets is Apollyon, also known as "The Destroyer" and the angel of the bottomless pit (see Revelations 9:11). As a side note, according to the "Oxford Dictionary of the Bible," "the name Apollyon is construed as an attack not only on the Greek god Apollo, but on the persecuting emperor Domitian, who regarded himself as Apollo on earth."

John Boccace "The Dance of the Machabree"
Much to Wimsey's disgust, Haviland was mangling Giovanni Boccaccio's "The Dance of the Macabre."

Et ego in Arcadia
From the Latin for "here I am in Arcadia." Arcadia is a rustic, peaceful and simple place, derived from an ancient Greek region. A more complete discussion of what Arcadia means, and how its meaning has changed through the ages, can be found here.

120 ~ not half as gruesome as old Harrison Ainsworth
William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882): a once-popular writer of historical romances. Some of his more popular works included "Rookwood" (1834) which introduced the legendary highwayman Dick Turpin, and "Jack Sheppard" (1839) in which the notorious thief and house-breaker was pursued by a thief-taker. Ainsworth wrote nearly 60 books, edited numerous magazines and was a friend of Charles Dickens.

the Nuremberg Chronicle
A history of the world, starting with the Creation, and first published in 1493. It was printed using moveable type, and illustrated with 645 woodcuts (some used repeatedly, so you'll count 1,809 prints in the book). Some woodcuts are assumed to be by Albrecht Dürer, then an apprentice artist.















121 ~ absorbed in an ancient book of Farriery
The practice of shoeing horses

126 ~ Look for the men in buckram, my dear sir, look for the men in buckram!
A reference to Falstaff's ability to inflate the number of men attacking him during his telling of a story in Act II, Scene IV of Shakespeare's "King Henry IV, Part One." A reference to this scene also crops up in "Gaudy Night."

131 ~ éclaircissement
French word for explanation

"The Unpleasantness

at the Bellona Club"


The page numbers are from the Avon paperback edition. Quotations are considered to be from Lord Peter unless otherwise noted. Excerpts from "The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club" are copyrighted 1928 by Dorothy Leigh Sayers Fleming. All material unless otherwise noted is copyrighted by Bill Peschel.

Title ~ the Bellona Club
So, what is a Bellona anyway? It is the name for the Roman Goddess of war, either the wife or sister of Mars, and an appropriate name for a story set in a club in which so many of its members were veterans.

6 ~ (From the "Who's Who" entry on Lord Peter) "The Murderer's Vade-Mecum"
The phrase is from the Latin for "go with me," and refers to a useful book that one carries around constantly. In "Unnatural Death" (p. 145), Wimsey threatens "You wait till I publish my epoch-making work: 'The Murderer's Vade-Mecum" or 101 Ways of Causing Sudden Death.' "
(Contributed by Tom Sulyok)

Arms: Sable, 3 mice courant, argent; crest, a domestic cat couched as to spring, proper; motto: As my Whimsy takes me
As I learned from my time spent in the Society for Creative Anachronism (a medieval re-creation group), coats of arms have to be described by words to ensure that they are represented properly, and that they don't conflict with someone else's arms. So precise terms were developed to describe, and since the French were largely responsible for this, French words were used.

Commonly, the background color is described first, so "sable" tells you that the shield is on a black background. The "3 mice courant, argent" means that they are running to the left (courant) and to be colored silver (argent). Crest means the area above the shield, and the cat is described in English, and portrayed (proper), or colored naturally. Mottos are portrayed below the shield, on a banner.
(Contributed by Fred Vanner, as well as Joshua Mackay-Smith, David Smith and others)

Chapter 1


7 ~ I wish to God Jerry had put me out with the rest of 'em
"Jerry" is slang for the Germans and a reference to the recent unpleasantness of 1914-1918, otherwise known as World War I.

remembrance-day
The holiday held on November 11 to mark the end of WWI. "Armistice night" five paragraphs down is another name for the same holiday. As the generation that marched off to "It's A Long Way to Tipperary" died off and the need to remember them disappeared, the holiday mutated into the more general Remembrance Day.

(Correction supplied by Alexander Campbell)

Hill 60
A noted battlefield in France during World War I. A low ridge, only 150 feet high and 250 yards long, it acquired its name because of its height in meters was marked as such on British maps. The hill had been captured by the Germans on 10th December 1914, and the British immediately began digging tunnels underneath, planting charges to be set off coordinated with an attack.

At 7 p.m. on April 17, 1915, the plungers were pressed and the resulting explosion sent debris almost 300 feet up and 300 yards in all direction. One British soldier who peered over the top of the trench was killed. The German lines were bombarded. The charge threw the Germans off the hill, but they successfully counterattacked that night. The battle continued until the 20th, when the Germans gave up.

The hill has been preserved as a monument and it's possible today to eat lunch at the summit.

Cenotaph, London8 ~ marching past the Cenotaph once a year
The Cenotaph is the war memorial in London, built in 1919.

amateur Moriarity
A reference, of course, to Sherlock Holmes' master villain.

9 ~ Majuba
A notable battle from the first Boer War, in which British forces were routed attempting to capture Majuba, a steep hill. "Remember Majuba" was the rallying cry during the second war.

Chapter 2


10 ~ neurathenia
"A condition characterized by general lassitude, irritability, lack of concentration, worry, and hypochondria. The term was introduced into psychiatry in 1869 by G. M. Beard, an American neurologist. Used by Freud to describe a fundamental disorder in mental functioning, the term was incorrectly applied to almost any psychoneurosis and has been largely abandoned." (Quoted from The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.)

12 ~ Guy Fawkes procession
Victorian-era illustration of Guy Fawkes procession
Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes
'Twas his intent
To blow up the King and the Parliament
Three score barrels of powder below
Poor old England to overthrow
By God's providence he was catched
With a dark lantern and burning match.

Guy Fawkes night, the fifth of November, is still celebrated in England. While the means differ from place to place, generally, there are bonfires, races and parades with fireworks. An effigy of Fawkes is usually bourne through the streets before being set on fire.

Chapter 3


13 ~ Justinian . . . "delicate in workmanship and not always equally so in subject."
The Justinian referred to here may be one of the two Roman emperors. While I haven't been able to trace the manuscript, Sayers hints that its subject matter might be a bit racy, appropriate reading for a bachelor like Wimsey.

the Cockburn '80 always tastes a lot better in company
The "priceless old port," of course, from a house established in 1815 and still bottled and sold today (a 1904 was found online that sells for $495). The Trichinopoly reference is to not just a type of cigar, but one that was mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes stories such as "A Study in Scarlet."

16 ~ Don't lets harrow our feelings
"Harrow" means to break up, as with a plow. Wimsey here understands what Mr. Murbles was getting at, and was asking him not do get themselves worked up over it.

18 ~ see a display of fireworks at the Crystal Palace or some such place -- it may have been Hampstead Heath or the White City
Not traced..

22 ~ Begone dull care
A line from a traditional English ballad. It has not been traced farther back than the reign of James II.

23 ~ a melody of Parry's formed itself . . . 'For man worketh in a vain shadow . . . he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them."
Parry is probably a reference to Hubert Parry (1848-1918), an English composer who held positions at Oxford and at the Royal College of Music.

From Psalm 39:6:

6 Surely every man walketh in a vain show:
surely they are disquieted in vain:
he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.

7 And now, Lord, what wait I for?
My hope is in thee.

Chapter 4


23 ~ malacca
Rattan, named for the town in western Malaysia.

Kyd's portrait of Sam Weller25 ~ Sam Weller face
A comic character from Charles Dickens' "Pickwick Papers," known for his cunning and colorful speech. He appeared first as a bootblack and became Pickwick's servant, using his wits to help his master. When Pickwick is sent to prison, Weller gets himself arrested for debt so he can share Pickwick's fate.

Chapter 5


31 ~ au contraire as the man said in the Bay of Biscay when they asked if he had dined
Bay of Biscay: The bay is located off the west coast of France.

prim and point-device
Well, well, this one's still in my American Heritage dictionary. Prim, of course, means straight-laced, even prudish, and point-device is from the French a point devis for a fixed moment, it means scrupulously correct or neat.

31 ~ no pyro stains . . . prefer metol-quinol for the purpose of development
In photography, there was a process of trial-and-error to determine the best way to develop pictures. Pyro (pyrogallol) was one of the earliest, discovered in 1850 and still in use during Wimsey's time. However, Bunter preferred metol-aminophenol, a later invention discovered in 1891. It wasn't until the 1930s and '40s, when the most popular developing agents ascorbic acid (also known as vitamin C) and phenidone were discovered.

Chapter 6


35 ~ at sixes and sevens
Slang term for being in a state of confusion. The phrase may have been derived from an ancient dice game and was first recorded in the 14th century. It's theorized that it was derived from a game called hazard, and that the expression may have been "at fives and sixes," they being the hardest numbers to shoot for. At some point, the numbers shifted, perhaps because the sum of six and seven is 13, very unlucky.

41 ~ Froth-Blower's anthem
Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers cardsThe Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers was a popular service club during the 1920s, sort of like the Rotary and Lions and Elks, only centered around the more convivial activities in a pub. They held dances, raised money and performed good works for charities.

You might get a sense of how they saw themselves from this quotation in their handbook, in which they described themselves as:
"A sociable and law abiding fraternity of absorptive Britons who sedately consume and quietly enjoy with commendable regularity and frequention the truly British malted beverage as did their forbears and as Brittons ever will, and be damned to all pussyfoot hornswogglers from overseas and including low brows, teetotalers and MP`s and not excluding nosey parkers, mock religious busy bodies and suburban fool hens all of which are structurally solid bone from the chin up."


44 ~ I get you, Steve
A catch-phrase of some kind, possibly derived from the music-hall stage or a play; source unknown.

Chapter 7


46 ~ Marsh's test for arsenic
James Marsh (1789-1846) developed this test for detecting arsenic, which turns the compound into a brown stain when heated.

48 ~ all according to Cocker
A reference to Edward Cocker (1631-1676), an engraver, teacher and writer of poetry and textbooks. His most famous book was "Cocker's Arithmetic," which ran to more than 100 editions and created the phrase "according to Cocker," meaning absolutely correct.

A more completely biography can be found here.

52 ~ Aunt Judit of 'Rosie's Weekly Bits'
Not traced, although you can guess from the context that Wimsey is referring to a precursor of "Dear Abby" or Ann Landers.

Chapter 8


60 ~ operator didn't happen to notice the bloke . . . an automatic box
This may get a little complicated.

Phone service in England, as in the U.S., was built on the exchange system. A network of phones was created. That's one exchange, and all the phone numbers began with the name of the exchange, such as Wigmore 2450. To make a phone call, you had to find a store or post office that offered the service (advertised with a sign such as "You may telephone from HERE"). There, you gave the clerk tuppence and number you wanted to call. If the call was to a different exchange, the operator would have to connect the exchanges via switchboard and complete the circuit.

By 1901, telephone Kiosks were installed that allowed the caller to access the exchange operator directly. The coinbox had gongs that rang as the coins were dropped in, telling the operator that the fee had been paid.

By 1912, stroenger exchanges were first installed, allowing callers to reach phones directly, so long as both phones were on the same exchange. This is the "automatic box" that plays so great a role in the Bellona Club story. In fact, the stroenger exchange was installed on Wigmore Street in 1922, right in the middle of the novel's important locations. Sayers took advantage of this then-up-to-date information to allow for the untraceable call.

(Contributed by Justin Pentecost, with thanks)

63 ~ behaving like a sweep
Not traced.

Roland of the combination . . . Parker was the Oliver
One of the Paladins of Charlemagne. In history, he was Hrodland, count of the Breton marches, who died when his king's rearguard was ambushed in the Pyrenees after a successful invasion of northern Spain. "The Song of Roland" transformed him into an epic hero, a model of knighthood for the new era of the Crusades. Oliver was Roland's best friend and brother-in-law.

Chapter 9


75 ~ ghastly hole at Carency
One of the many World War I battlefields.

76 ~ face that launched a thousand ships
A reference to Helen of Troy. The phrase first appeared in Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus":
"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss."

Chapter 10


81 ~ improving the submerged tenth
the submerged tenth: The tenth part of society in most need of help. The proletariat, the riff-raff, the rabble.

82 ~ over the mews
mews: the stables.

Chapter 11


87 ~ viscera
According to the American Heritage dictionary: "The soft internal organs of the body, especially those contained within the abdominal and thoracic cavities." In the case of poor General Fentiman, they're referring to his stomach and intestines.

brekker
Slang for breakfast

89 ~ perdrix aux choux
French for partridge with cabbages.

bottle of Chambertin
A wine from France's Burgundy region.

Chapter 12


91 ~ Cheshire Cat
The famous cat from "Alice in Wonderland," who grinned and grinned and slowly vanished until only the grin was left.

93 ~ Flanders poppy
On the battlefields of World War I, after they had been torn up by shell and shot, these red flowers were usually the first to appear. The sight inspired a Canadian doctor, Lt. Col. John McCrae, to write "In Flander's Field (McCrae died in the war). This, in turn, inspired some charities to start selling poppies to wear in the gentlemen's lapels, as a way of raising money and to remember the dead.

96 ~ Morpheus hover over your couch and bless your slumbers
Morpheus is the god of dreams in Ovid's "Metamorphoses."

Chapter 13


97 ~ two minutes silence
It was ordered by King George V that at 11 o'clock on Armistice Day, two minutes of silence would be observed to mark the end of World War I.

98 ~ No more spirit in him than the Queen of Sheba
A reference to I Kings 10:5:
1 And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions.

2 And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart.

3 And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not.

4 And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built,

5 And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord; there was no more spirit in her.

99 ~ set the springe for his woodcock
From Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3. Ophelia tells her father, Polonius, that Hamlet has been courting her, and he responds
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire.

Shakespeare's audience knew that woodcocks were stupid birds, easily trapped. So Polonius is warning his daughter that the boy uses pretty words of love, but does not really mean them.
(Contributed by Heather Hadlock)

100 ~ chaste silver tray
This phrase caught my attention. After all, the tray was obviously not celibate, and I hope it was "innocent of unlawful sexual intercourse." A look at the dictionary shows that "chaste" means "severely simple in design and execution."

102 ~ cast nasturtiums
A form of rhyming slang, a pun on aspersions.

written on a P.L.M. express
A letter specially delivered from someone riding the Paris-Lyon-Marseille express.

103 ~ Fainter by day but always in the night blood-red, and sliding down the blackened marsh, blood-red.
A quotation from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Holy Grail."

104 ~ clouds of formalin
A synonym for formaldehyde.

ductless glands . . . more up-to-date than vitamins
From Gray's Anatomy. Apparently, they are considered spiritually important by some groups like the Rosicrucians.

a mackintosh sheet
A type of hospital sheet that is made of rubberized cloth.

infernal thurifer
In the Christian church, the thurifer is an acolyte who carries a thurible, a small censor swung on a chain.

105 ~ Palmer and Cook's stomach
Dr. William PalmerA reference to an incident in the case of behind this Web site believe him to be innocent).

The stomach reference comes from the story of the inquest on Cook, which was terribly done. Of the two men who conducted the autopsy, one was a medical student, the other a doctor's assistant who had never performed a post-mortem before. Palmer's behavior at the autopsy might charitably be called strange rather than suspicious. While the stomach was being opened, Palmer pushed forward, and the resulting collision among the specialists caused some of the stomach contents to spill into the body. Palmer then took away the jars containing the stomach contents, and when they were found to be missing, was asked to return them. A post-boy responsible for helping to transport the jars to the hospital said that Palmer offered him ten pounds if he would dump the contents.

Chapter 14


107 ~ Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings
A quotation from Shakespeare's "Cymbeline."

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent
From John Henry Newman's (1801-1890) hymn "The Pillar of Cloud."

110 ~ not altogether the clean potato
English slang for someone who's not free of guilt, who admits he has a bad reputation.

Chapter 15


113 ~ Aristotle . . . he says, you know, that one should always prefer the probably impossible to the improbable possible.
A quotation from the philosopher's "The Poetics," paragraph 10.5.

114 ~ nux vomica
A tree native to southeast Asia that bears poisonous seeds used in strychine and brucine.

117 ~ You can trust your father
Sounds like a catch-phrase, source unknown.

I'll make a Martha of myself
In Luke 10:38, Jesus visits the house of Martha. While she bustles about her chores, her sister, Mary, sat herself at the Lord's feet to listen. According to the Revised English Bible:
40. Now Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to get on with the work by myself? Tell her to come and give me a hand.'
41. But the Lord answered, 'Martha, Martha, you are fretting and fussing about so many things;
42. only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen what is best; it shall not be taken away from her.'

There is a joke that says there's a verse 43 that reads "And then Martha thrust the duster into the Lord's hands, saying, 'Fret I may, but dust never sleeps, and someone has to keep the place clean. Get to work.'"

118 ~ captured Sabine maiden
What is it about Sabine maidens that make them the object of so many artists' fantasies? The art world is full of pictures of Sabines being captured, raped or being displayed on the auction block in far insufficient clothing. The historical Sabines were the people who lived in central Italy. They were conquered and assimilated by the Romans in 290 B.C.E. According to Plutarch biography of Romulus, the founder of Rome ordered their capture at a festival to restock the city.

Chapter 16


121 ~ Dr. Voronoff, you know, those marvelous old sheep
A reference to Dr. Serge Voronoff, a notable figure of his time, now forgotten. Voronoff conducted numerous studies on transplanting organs on animals. He treated wounded soldiers with bone grafts from primates and fetal membrances to replace burned skin. He believed he discovered ways to reverse the aging process using transplants from animals. He tested his theories on goats, sheep and bulls (hence the "marvelous old sheep" remark), and then tested on old men using chimpanzee testes. More than 45 doctors experimented with 2,000 transplants, and it was discovered that, while the process worked, the effect didn't last long and retransplantation was needed.

Voronoff married several times (his second wife was an heiress who financed his work), and at 75 married a 21-year-old woman who stayed with him until his death in the United States in 1951.

123 ~ the parable of the swept and garnished houses
From the book of Matthew:
12:43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
12:44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
12:45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits
more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

Chapter 17


139 ~ judgment of Paris
Ruben's "Judgment of Paris"
A story from Greek mythology. Zeus was preparing a wedding banquet for Peleus and Thetis and did not invite Eris. In revenge, she created an apple of pure gold, inscribed it "To The Prettiest One," and rolled it into the hall during the banquet. Athena, Hera and Aphrodite each claimed it, and Zeus ordered that someone be found to settle the issue. Paris was chosen due to the virtue of being the handsomest man in the world. The result was a mythological beauty contest. As you can see from Peter Paul Rubens interpretation of the story, Hera promised him greatness, Athene warlike prowess and Aphrodite the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. This won the apple, Paris chose Helen, and the result was the Trojan War and a line of condoms.

Chapter 18


140 ~ Supposing she gave the old boy digitalin in his B and S, ......
B and S: A brandy and soda.
(Contributed by Alexander Campbell)

141 ~ Like the lady in Maeterlinck who's running around the table while her husband tries to polish her off with a hatchet.
A rather long way to make a point. Maurice Maeterlinck was a Belgian author who won the 1911 Nobel Prize for literature. The lady is Melisande, from "Pélleas et Mélisande," an event-free Symbolist drama, in which, no matter what absurd events happen, she repeats the understatement "Je suis pas heureuse" ("I am not happy"). The play is the source of Debussy's opera of the same name (1902).
(Contributed by Heather Hadlock)

144 ~ As George Robey says this getting up from my warm bed and going into the cold night air doesn't suit me
While I'm unsure where the reference comes from, George Robey (1869-1954) was a major English music-hall star, so one may assume that it's a reference to a song of his. He also played Falstaff in Laurence Olivier's "Henry V" movie. Sayers also invokes his name in "Strong Poison" and "The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey."

150 ~ smashed up his family with a beetle -- a pavior he was
A beetle is a tool considing of a heavy weight, usually of wood, attached to a handle. It's used as a hammer to drive in wedges and pegs, or for crushing and flattening various items. A pavior is a man who lays paving stones, which is why the unfortunate man who smashed his family into jelly "came to have a beetle in the house."

(Contributed by Alexander Campbell)

where Ronnie True went to with his little toys and all
Ronald TrueRonnie True was a murderer. True was something of a bad boy throughout his life, and it didn't help matters that in 1915, he joined the Royal Flying Corps, crashed his plane several times, and was invalided the next year carrying a severe addiction for morphia. He traveled to the United States, Mexico, Cuba and then back home, picking up and dropping a wife along the way. He sought treatment for his addiction, was hired and fired from several jobs, then turned to forgery to support his habit. Somewhere along the line, he turned into a nut case, who believed that there was another Ronald True who