The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works (69 page)

106
. Giving a first name.

107
. Famous orator and financial administrator in Athens,
c
.
330
B.C.

108
. Blood-relations or close friends.

109
.
Poundage
…
lurched
: ‘Some contribution to the poor-rate or possibly to a special fund appropriated to the relief of those whose ships had met with disaster' (M.'s suggestion).

110
. Norwich had twenty-four aldermen and forty-eight members of the Common Council.

111
. By which ways and means.

112
. Beginning (of speech or exposition).

113
. St Bartholomew's Day,
24
August.

114
. This was in
1578
.

115
. Denes, sandy coastland.

116
. Wander.

117
. Sea of Asaph.

118
. Powder.

119
. This was in
1589
.

120
. Cadiz, the expedition of
1596
.

121
. Dunkirk pirates.

122
. ‘The word ordinarily meant “passage” or “passage-money”' (M.).

123
. Rent.

124
. Be equal to.

125
.
By the proportion
…
image of it
: ‘This seems to make no sense, Cadiz was taken by the Spaniards in April
1596
, and retaken for the French by the Earl of Essex on
21
June of the same year. But it does not seem there was any surprise' (M.).

126
. Flap or fold.

127
. Broad.

128
. Virginia, the native term for which was Wingandecoa.

129
. A gambling term (to ‘vic' was to wager) (M.).

130
. Long series.

131
. The nave of St Paul's, a popular meeting place.

132
. Writing materials.

133
. NED suggests time to draw in the haking, a special kind of fishing net.

134
. Name for the Persian monarch.

135
. Richard Hakluyt (
1554
–
1616
) first published
The Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation
in
1589
.

136
. Those born under Mercury were supposed to possess an aptitude for commerce (M.).

137
. William Harborne (d.
1617
), first English ambassador to Turkey.

138
. Here means successful.

139
. Richly.

140
. Ensign.

141
. With raised shoulders.

142
. Swaggering.

143
. Gold coins.

144
. Gromwell seed, symbolizing profit.

145
.
Overthwart ledging
: System of protective cross-bars.

146
.
Gives
…
to
: Will not admit the superiority of.

147
. Cloaks.

148
. Magistrates (in Sparta).

149
. The London aldermen, or possibly sheriffs.

150
. ‘New Troy', i.e. London.

151
. Imperator.

152
. A mountain range in the neighbourhood of Troy, covered with woods and said, by the poets, to have been frequented by the gods during the Trojan war.

153
. A squall.

154
. Beaten, knocked (past tense of ‘ding').

155
. Cookery.

156
. Aromatic wood used in cooking and medicine.

157
. ‘A cooke they hadde with hem for the nones. To boille the chiknes with the marybones And poudre marchant tart and galingale' (
Canterbury Tales
, Prologue,
381
).

158
. Eulogizes.

159
. Banquets or perhaps delicacies.

160
. Roll.

161
. To the thing itself.

162
.
The Battle of Frogs and Mice
.

163
. Slippers (often high-heeled).

164
.
1511
–
36
, a Dutch poet.

165
. Used by Dante in
De vulgari eloquentia
and b earlier writers.

166
. Panacea, or supposed remedy for all ills.

167
. Tree from the West Indies; its wood is used in medicine.

168
. Clysters, commonly an enema.

169
. Treacles, compounds used as remedies for many diseases.

170
. Another general medicine, the name deriving from Mithridates VI of Pontus, supposedly proof against all poisons.

171
. Antimony, metallic substance used in alchemy.

172
. Later.

173
. Writers of the horn (i.e. the arts of cuckoldry). (See noe on this passage: Introduction pp.
41
–
2
.)

174
. Do not hesitate to.

175
. ‘In frequent use' (M. gives references to
Gammer Gurton's Needle
and
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
).

176
.
Imprimié aujourd
'
hui
.

177
. (?) Advantageousness.

178
. Gonorrhoea.

179
.
Poco, a poco
: Little by little (the gradual efects of venereal diseases).

180
. Game played with a balloon.

181
. Panada is a dish in which a basin of boiled bread is flavoured with sugar, fruit or spices.

182
. (?) Beggars with faked diseases or infirmities, or perhaps a reference to the popular song ‘Calino costure me' (F.P.W.).

183
. A halberd.

184
. Milk, butter, curds and cheese.

185
. F.P.W. suggests read ‘zeal'.

186
. Makes up a set of rhyming verses.

187
. Mops for cleaning ovens.

188
. A reference to Sir John Davies's
Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing
,
1596
.

189
. ‘A chamber utensil enclosed in a stool or box' (NED).

190
. Privies.

191
. Said to have published an
Enconium of Tuftmockados
in
1582
.

192
. M. suggests ‘fussing'.

193
. Pudding boiled in a bag.

194
. A Swiss (thought of as especially credulous).

195
. Heads or helmets.

196
. Good metal.

197
. ‘So many heads, so many opinions'.

198
. Toys, like tops, for spinning (metaphorically: fancy, farfetched ideas).

199
. Meaning uncertain, but cf.
Strange News
: ‘Turlery ginkes, in a light foot jig, libels in commendation of little wit very loftily' (M. Vol. I,
296
). Also Harvey's description of
SN
as ‘a Turlery-ginks of conceit' (M. Vol. IV,
178
).

200
. With grace and favour.

201
. Adornment, embellishment.

202
. Circumlocutions.

203
. ‘Keeping to the point'.

204
. ‘Woe to the Golden Fleece'.

205
. Ingratiating.

206
. Greedy folk.

207
. Grains of paradise, an African spice.

208
. Eisenburg in Hungary (?) (M.)

209
. Crushed or pressed in the curd.

210
. Dried in an oast or kiln.

211
. Meaning unknown.

212
. Penny.

213
. Leather-coated labourer.

214
. Morsel.

215
. Smoking.

216
.
merchant and chapmanable
: Saleable.

217
. Inspector.

218
. Scaly.

219
. Glass.

220
. Valuables.

221
. Title used by Roman Emperors.

222
. (?) Sooty, dirty.

223
.
no ho
: No stopping.

224
. Put them in difficulties.

225
. Shovels.

226
. M. suggests should read
‘abnuo'
: ‘I do not disagree'.

227
.
give
…
washing
: Submit to insult.

228
. Sprat-catchers.

229
. Rendezvous.

230
.
ethiope pitchboards
: ‘Fanciful name for a ship' (NED).

231
. Sale by auction, or public sale.

232
. Here probably meaning Iceland (see Virgil,
Georgics
I,
30
).

233
. ‘Yerk' could mean stitch, lash out, beat, jerk, push, pull. Basic sense here probably ‘to capture'.

234
. The ling is a kind of codfish found in northern seas. Further meaning untraced.

235
. Large cod used for salting.

236
. Curly-tailed.

237
. A dog, usually a mongrel.

238
. Icelandic lapdog.

239
. Throw of five and one at dice, i.e. ‘a good throw', ‘a good way'.

240
. Speeding.

241
. An arrow.

242
. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
, X,
654
–
5
; and Virgil,
Aeneid
, VIII,
808
–
11
(M.).

243
. Refuse of flax, hemp, etc. (M.).

244
. A young gentleman.

245
. Swiftest.

246
. Hindrances.

247
. Music or a dance.

248
. After John Hunyade (c.
1400
–
56
), hero of wars against the Turks.

249
.
clowns
…
shoes
: Peasants, boors.

250
. Joints of meat from the animals' backbones.

251
. Skewers.

252
. Domingo was a name for a drunkard; Rufus is the red herring.

253
. A magician in Peele's
Old Wives' Tale
.

254
. Munch.

255
. Bezoar, antidote for poisons.

256
. For drawing liquor.

257
. Conjunctivitis, common in Attica. Pericles called Aegina the eyesore of the Piraeus (Aristotle,
Rhet
. III,
10
).

258
. Form of service in use before publication of the English
Prayer Book
.

259
. Lucre (after a character in
Three Ladies of London
by R. Wilson).

260
. ‘Like a thousand'.

261
. Strutted.

262
.
buskined braves
: Swaggering style.

263
.
Circe's Heypass and Repass
: Magician's hocus pocus.

264
. Eloquent.

265
. Sixteenth-century Italian author of the standard work on mythology.

266
. St Ulrich, on whose day fish were offered in churches.

267
. Contradicts us.

268
. Zeno of Citium illustrated a point of argument by opening and closing his fist, and Zeno of Elea argued the unreality of motion.

269
. Sinew, clench.

270
. Close-fisted, grasping folk.

271
. Warriors who took Troy.

272
. Hospital.

273
. Greatness.

274
. Reckon up.

275
. The figure of the cross was commonly placed at the beginning of the alphabet in the hornbooks.

276
. The ‘bull's hide' of ground purchased by Dido when she fled from Tyre to Carthage (
Aeneid
, I,
367
–
8
).

277
. County palatine, dignitaries attached to the Crown, such as the Earl of Chester and the Duke of Lancaster.

278
. Pregnant, productive.

279
. Small fishing boat.

280
. Small barrel.

281
. Strengthen (by engrafting feathers).

282
. Pale blue.

283
. Spurring on (rowel: the extremity of the spur).

284
. Hackluyt refers to a ruthless ‘Tartar prince called Murse Smille',
Principal Navigations
,
1589
.

285
. Unsurpassed, peerless.

286
. Inhabitants.

287
. Presumably an error, probably ‘intestine', internal.

288
. Greet with a gift as token of good will.

289
. ‘What they got in the bridle, they lost in the saddle.'

290
. Clasps, brooches.

291
. Recompense.

292
. Finely tempered swords of Bilbao.

293
. Owner of Pegasus, slayer of the Chimera.

294
. By London Bridge, a centre for proclamations.

295
. The form in which a sheriff reported his inability to make a required arrest, the man not being within his jurisdiction or bailiwick.

296
. Jocks, lads.

297
. Supposedly because the highlanders' legs were reddened by exposure.

298
. Cutting, tearing.

299
. Once upon a time (in those days).

300
. Robert the Bruce.

301
. Grief (
deuil
).

302
. Short-swords.

303
. Innocent.

304
. Win applause.

305
. Flock, shoal.

306
. On earth, as opposed to ‘the upper air' which was unaffected by storms.