2 years ago

140

Why did she love him? Curious fool, be still!
Is human love the growth of human will?
To her he might be gentleness!

LORD BYRON.

----

This chapter marks the half-way point! And if you add it up, including this chapter, we're up to 9 hours of audio. Oof.

Bladud: legendary king of the Britons ("king of the who?") who allegedly founded the city of Bath. Unfortunately, the pronunciation is not entirely clear. On the plus side, that means you can't absolutely say I pronounced it wrong, but it is likely that I didn't get it right either. We'll never know!

The Pump Room is a restaurant in Bath built in 1706 and which pumps water from the nearby hot springs into the dining room

fag-end here is not a cigarette butt, but an inferior and useless remnant of something

megrim: depression

After Augustus' monologue about his being depressed, there is a footnote in the midst of that on the phrase "poetical character": Vide Moore's "Life of Byron," in which it is satisfactorily shown that if a man fast forty-eight hours, then eat three lobsters, and drink Heaven knows how many bottles of claret; if, when he wake the next morning, he sees himself abused as a demon by half the periodicals of the country,-if, in a word, he be broken in his health, irregular in his habits, unfortunate in his affairs, unhappy in his home, and if then he should be so extremely eccentric as to be low-spirited and misanthropical, the low spirits and the misanthropy are by no means to be attributed to the above agreeable circumstances, but, God wot, to the "poetical character"!

And then after Clifford goes off on the topic of repenting, there is a footnote in the text: The author need not, he hopes, observe that these sentiments are Mr. Paul Clifford's, not his.

I'm not sure who the Liston that Augustus is compared to is supposed to be. There are quite a few notable Lisons of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that are an option: Henry Liston (1771–1836), Scottish minister and inventor; John Liston (c. 1776 – 1846), English comedian; Robert Liston (1794–1847), Scottish surgeon; Robert Liston (1742–1836), British diplomat; Robert Liston (1730–1796), Scottish clergyman. If you have a thought on which one is most likely, leave a comment below making the case!

Gowland's lotions also appear in the writings of Jane Austen! Was it a real product during this time period? I don't know. If you do, please comment below.

"Full fathom five" is a phrase deriving from a verse passage in The Tempest by William Shakespeare known as Ariel's Song. The spirit Ariel addresses Prince Ferdinand after a shipwreck to tell him about the supposed drowning of his father in water about 5 fathoms (30 feet; 9 metres) deep and the physical metamorphosis that follows.

Foot note from the author on Alcidonis: See Marmontel's pretty tale of "Les Quatres Flacons."

licentiate: the holder of a certificate of competence to practice a certain profession, typically that of a medical doctor

Baiae was an ancient Roman town situated on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples. It was a fashionable resort for centuries in antiquity, particularly towards the end of the Roman Republic. It was notorious for its hedonistic offerings and the attendant rumours of corruption and scandal.

equivoke: an expression capable of having more than one meaning; a pun

roquelaire: a knee-length cloak worn especially in the 18th and 19th centuries

Author's footnote on the Cymon reference: See Dryden's poem of “Cymon and Iphigenia.”

The picture used is "View of Bath, England, from the hills." from the Boston Public Library, taken from The Iliad and the Odyssey, translated by Alexander Pope, 1809. Used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

It seems entirely too remarkable a coincidence for a painting like this to exist given it perfectly matches the time and place of the story, it seems more likely that the author saw this painting and it inspired him to use Bath as a setting in the story. Or maybe Bulwer-Lytton just really like Jane Austen's works? Hmm...

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7735/7735-h/7735-h.htm#link2HCH0018

I once had a deeply romantic relationship, not so much in the details described in this chapter, but at least in the spirit described, and it went on for some years. Sadly for me, it did not work out in the end, but this chapter really struck a chord deep within me.

Loading comments...