My Life and the Erotic
Hounds of Banba
Three New Sources in
Notebook Z’ch B.03
Robbert-Jan Henkes and
Geert Lernout
I.
VI.B.3.054-056 and 062: Daniel Corkery, The
Hounds of Banba, Dublin, The Talbot Press, 1920,
222 pages [RJH]
Who would have known, who could have guessed,
who could have even remotely considered the possibility that the ‘peace and
quitybus’ of FW 40.32, the ‘as ever
as oft’ of FW 430.13 and the
nonsequitur Q&A of FW 478.28-29
‘Are you in your fatherick, lonely one? ‘The same’, ultimately derive from one
and the same short story, On the Heights,
from the collection The Hounds of Banba by
the Irish writer Daniel Corkery, published in 1920?
Daniel Corkery, or Donal Ó
Corcora (1878-1964) is now best known as the mentor of his
fellow Corkmen, Frank O’Connor and Sean O’Faolain, the ‘second generation of
Irish writers.’ Corkery was a leading figure of the Irish Renaissance, and he
actively participtated in the Irish fight for independence, by deed and word. The Hounds of Banba, his second
collection of short stories, is set in the
Corkery’s best known
works are the novel The Threshold of
Quiet (1917) and The Hidden Ireland
(1924), a history of the rich tradition of Gaelic poetry. His plays The Labour Leader (1919) and The Yellow Bittern (1920) were staged in
the Dublin Abbey Theatre. He is sometimes compared with Joyce: what Joyce does
for
Joyce read The Hounds of Banba around the third week of March 1923. The
seventeen notes he made are to be found on Notebook Z’ch
VI.B.03.054(c)-056(a) and 062(b)-(j). From the second story, On the Heights, nine; from the story Cowards and the story Seumas—I, one each; three from The Aherns, and five from The Price. Not much, quantitavely, but
the quality is not bad at all. They are all suggestive of the Cork environment
and ways of speech, ranging from words taken from the natural world, like
shale, bog myrtle and ash sapling, to (presumably) typical Corkian or Irish
expressions, like ‘ever and always,’ ‘she gave him his answer’, ‘peace and
quietness’, ‘a slip of a boy’, and the word ‘now’ in the sense of ‘in a moment’
(‘Nell will be down now.’). Joyce crossed out and used 11 of the 17 notes, not
including the uncertain items on 062(a) and (b). They ended up in Work in Progress of Finnegans Wake as on this chart:
FW:
|
peace and / quietness |
056(a) |
I.2 |
FW 040.32 |
in the peace and quitybus of a one sure shot bottle |
|
a slip of a boy |
062(f) |
I.2 |
FW 042.29-30 |
slips of young dublinos |
|
Coombe |
054(e) |
I.3 |
FW 073.30 |
up hill and down coombe |
|
Yes - and less |
062(j) |
I.5 |
FW 108.20-21 |
three syllabes less than his own surname (yes, yes,
less!) |
|
[a] broth [of a boy] |
062(g) |
I.8 |
FW 211.15 |
for Jack, the broth of a boy |
|
ever & always |
055(a) |
III.1 |
FW 430.12-13 |
stuck to the sod as ever and oft |
|
Are you —? / The same! |
055(f) |
III.3 |
FW 478.28-29 |
‘Are you in your fatherick, lonely one? §
‘The same.’ |
|
now = fra poco (I) |
062(h) |
* |
– |
– |
Lost in WiP:
|
She gave him his answer |
055(b) |
[I.5] |
[Revered Letter 68] |
[I’d give him his answer!] |
|
ash sapling |
054(i) |
[II.2] |
[FDV 142.10] |
[(or is it an ash sapling)] |
|
a big slob |
055(c) |
[II.4] |
[FDV 211.12] |
[the great big slob] |
* It is hard to locate 062(h) now = fra poco in the Work in Progress manuscripts. There is one suspect ‘now’ in a
manuscript stage in which also other orange-deleted items were inserted,
although these, 020(b-d,) found their place in the Prankquean episode, whereas
this ‘now’ is from the View of Dublin:
MS 47472-33 | +^while it was only ^+now and again+^ in
our rear of our era+^ | JJA 45:119 |
Fair copy (ink) (dated by Joyce 29 November 1926, but some insertions made at a
later date) | I.1.*2/2.*2 | FW 014.23
Two more nows that
could be taken as ‘in a short while’ occur on the following MS pages, but they
don’t come with other orange-deleted materials from the notebook:
? MS 47482a-97v: Now
she comes, a peacefugle, picking here, pecking there — | JJA 44:41 | First draft October-November 1926 | 1B.*0/1D.*0 | FW 011.08
? MS 47482a-70v-71 | Now (he’d ^+for Dolph, Dean of idles+^ venite sine
tute ^+sine mora+^ | JJA 53:18-19 |
Second draft (pencil), July 1926 | FW
287.16
Index of the relevant
emendations to VI.B.3.
VI.B.3.054
(c) above the inch
The Hounds of Banba 20 (from the story On the Heights): And so, instead of taking the comfortable if heavy
road through the Pass of Keimaneigh, I made straight for Coomroe, facing the
great walls of rock that enclose that most impressive of mountain glens. I have
never heard that any other mortal ever pushed a bicycle up the one thousand
eight hundred feet of jagged rock that hangs above the inches there; but I did
it, how I do not know, unless it was the vision of that dogged face in the
motor car that kept me ever pushing on and on and up and up.
(e) Coombe
The Hounds of Banba 20 (from On the
Heights): Feeling it all around me, licking and stroking me, and
remembering how warm it had been in the coom, I knew I was making into a night
of rain; and there are no wetter hills in the whole of Munster.
(f) shale >
(g) bog myrtle
The Hounds of Banba 20 (from On the
Heights): Could I make the Coomahola river before nightfall, was the only
question that would rise up in my mind, as I pushed my bicycle now over the
shale and then through growths of fragrant bog-myrtle.
(h)
tray (sleigh for
/ turf) >
(i)
bash sapling
The Hounds of Banba 21 (from On the
Heights): I bowed my head to it in sheer hopelessness and that action it
was that saved me. Beneath my eyes I saw certain light marks on the ground, not
wheel marks they were not more than two feet six apart, and besides they were
not cut into the ground. I was instantly following them. I knew what they were.
They were the marks of a “tray,” as the peasants of that place call it both in
Irish and English a sort of light sleigh on which they bring down the cut turf
from places in the uplands that are too steep for horse and cart. These marks
meant a house, sooner or later. With the greatest care I kept to them. And soon
I began to come on other signs of human ways and strivings a cairn of stones, a
first effort at a clearance, then a crazy sort of boundary fence, long
abandoned to its own will, then at last two forked stakes in the ground, a
young ash sapling laid across them, closing a gap. I blessed the human touch:
the pious hands of husbandry had made it! Then I struck the path.
VI.B.3.055
(a) rever &
always
The Hounds of Banba 24 (from On the
Heights): But too late, too late. Three dreadful blows were struck on that
partition towards which we were all looking, and an aged but vigorous and
indignant voice cried out above the storm in ringing Irish:
“Am I to be kept always in the dark?
Ever and always! Look at me, and I for the last hour killed with listening to
your foolery and dogs and giggling and the stranger’s voice stunning me; and
’tisn’t worth your while, Shawn, to come in with a little word.”
(b) rShe gave him his answer
The Hounds of Banba 25 (from On the
Heights): Shawn went into him, having first looked despairingly at his
wife, who smiled back encouragingly. I felt I had not fathomed any one of the
three of them.
“He’ll be in his sleep in a moment,”
she said to me in a whisper. “You gave him his answer.” She was more courageous
than the man.
(c) ra big slob
The Hounds of Banba 29-30 (from On
the Heights): I’m sick and tired of him. But look, forgive me the welcome
[29] I gave you: these times there do be men in plain clothes going from house
to house, innocent-looking slobs of men, gathering up information, and that
pair outside, I must be watching them. ’Tisn’t too much I’d tell them.” He
repeated that solemn wink of his.
(d) gravediggers’ strike
The Hounds of Banba 31 (the beginning of the next story, Cowards?): Rossadoon is a promontory on
the Kerry coast. It ends in two blunt points that are not unlike the unshapely
fingers of a giant's hand in a Scandinavian story, only that one of them, that
on the northern side, is bigger in every way than the other, built up of huger
cliffs, and so higher and freer of the winds and the clouds. Yet it was that
northern point that the hardy people of old chose, when Christianity was still
young in the land, to give to God, building their little stone church of four
simple walls upon it, and burying their dead between that little church and the
steep edge of the cliff. Of that early church only fragments of broken walls
remain; hundreds of years must have passed since Mass was last sung there above
the sea ; but the crowded gravestones, many of them too neat, too new, tell us
that the people of Rossadoon lay their dead of to-day with those that died over
a thousand years ago.
Note: Joyce apparently concludes from the
contrast between the old and the new graves that the gravediggers have been on
strike for a thousand years.
(e) (St)
Stephen’s Green
The Hounds of Banba 41 (the beginning of the next story, Seumas—I): When I struck on him he was
shooting through the crowds in Patrick street, his pale, earnest, winsome face
thrust out, his lips parted.
The Hounds of Banba 47: And then, I know not how, we drifted into an
argument on the Church’s inner attitude towards republicanism. We had no facts
to go on, and we found this out for each other after some strenuous hours. I
also found out (he never would) that we were standing on St. Patrick’s bridge,
that a cutting wind was blowing up the river, and that Seumas had been coughing
the whole time. I persuaded him to go to his lodgings in
(f) Are
you —? / The same!
The Hounds of Banba 73 (from the story The Aherns): The house door was open. An old man greeted me: an
oblique rectangle of sharp sunlight fell on the floor, reaching to his
feet.
“ ’Tis,” he said; “you’re at the
right house.”
“And you,” I said, “are Humphrey
Ahern.”
“The same,” he said, cautiously.”
The Hounds of Banba 76: I was glad to speak of the publican’s part, of
how he had helped me, as with the surety of instinct. I told of my leaving him,
of my thankfulness. They lifted up, looking at one another.
“He’s an uncle of Gregory’s,” the old
man shook his head at his son.
“Your brother?” I said. § “The same,”
he replied quietly.”
(g) +prick the garter
Not found in The Hounds of Banba.
VI.B.3.056
(a) rpeace and quietness
The Hounds of Banba 77 (from The
Aherns): “I declare,” I said, “’tis I will have to mount guard over you.”
“I really thought I heard something
... only for that——”
“If you rise again I’ll go out and
sleep in the shed— I’d have more peace and quietness.”
“But supposing you were caught here
in our house.”
“Lord! The Aherns would never recover
from the shame of it!”
VI.B.3.062
(a) r+any dog’s quantity
? The Hounds of Banba 69 (from The Aherns): “How did you know what I
was?”
He smiled again, lifted himself, and
gave his head the slightest little toss. I knew it at once; but must own that I
had never observed it till then. Our lads use it at the courtsmartial when,
asked if they have anything to say, they reply, as in a formula, “I want to say
that I haven’t a dog’s respect for this court or its findings.” I had never
observed it till then, as I say, and I was quite unaware that it could be
observed in me in my ordinary moments observed, moreover, by a country publican
! He was smiling with a certain shyness in his eyes. I held my hand out to him.
(b) perche ze percolo / (Kevin)
? The Hounds of Banba 76-77 (from The Aherns): I slept with Gregory that
night. Even when we were alone, I sitting on his bed, he smoking the cigarette
I had given him, I couldn’t win him from his reserve. I [76] got in first. His
voice changing a little, he jerked out: “Are you sure there’s no danger?
Couldn’t we mount guard? Jack and myself; ’twould be only a couple of hours
each. He’ll be glad to do so; I know him.”
(c) r+billydoux ^+billydoo+^
Not found in The Hounds of Banba.
(d) Lillis
(
The Hounds of Banba 129 (from the story The Price): Two young men stood suddenly before him. They had come
through Moloney’s stabling yard, leaping over the wall into the little bohereen
that led up to the hillside. He knew them. One was the Casey boy; the other was
the schoolmaster’s son, Sam Lillis. They stopped up suddenly to find him in the
wicket before them. “Oh !” they jerked out, and young Casey turned irresolutely
on his heel, looking to see if anyone else were following. But Sam Lillis gave
a sort of military salute :
“Ciaran,—Ciaran’s after meeting with
an accident.”
(e) r+weekly insult / wages
Not found in The Hounds of Banba.
(f) ra slip of a boy >
(g) r— (broth)
—
The Hounds of Banba 130 (from The
Price): The little crowd were at hand. The old man stepped outside the
wicket the opening was a narrow one and stood helplessly by, bent down like the
bough of an ancient tree.
“Michael,” he said to Michael
Keohane, who, he knew, was captain over them; “ah, Michael, he’s only a boy, a
slip of a boy.”
But Keohane, who for the past few
years had had always more problems to decide upon than he was able to come at,
had acquired a quick and somewhat hard way of answering such questions as took
one no further.
Note: ‘Slip’ can mean ‘a young person of
either sex, esp. one of small and slender build,’ as well as ‘a soft semi-lquid
mass’ or ‘curdled milk’ (OED). Hence
Joyce’s variation ‘broth’.
(h) onow = fra poco / (I)
The Hounds of Banba 131 (from The
Price): But Tom was examining the unconscious face of his brother; his
voice surprised his father.
“ ’Tis true
for him,” he said. “Yesterday he was nearly killed with the piking. I felt
sorry for him myself. Take him by the feet. Nell will be down now.”
? MS 47472-33 | +^while it was only ^+now and
again+^ in our rear of our era+^ | JJA
45:119 | Fair copy (ink) (dated by Joyce 29 November 1926, but some insertions
made at a later date) | I.1.*2/2.*2 | FW
014.23
(i) r+Dev (alera)
Not found in
The Hounds of Banba.
(j) oYes - and less
The Hounds of Banba 140-141 (from The
Price): She heard him laugh; but all the anxiety of the long day swept back
on her at his words. He spoke again:
“Your people won’t be against it?”
“They’re all right; I’ll answer for
them.” [140]
“Could you have a place ready in an
hour’s time?”
“Yes, certainly, in less.”
II. VI.B.3.123-127: Albert Mordell, The
Erotic Motive in Literature, 1919, 250 pages [RJH]
Amazon.com can deliver it in one
day if you want to, because the book is still being reprinted, and it is still
in stock. Not because it is such a good book, but because there’s sex in it. No
pictures though, in my 1919 edition. (I write this on the day that Dutch public
televison will broadcast porn-classic must-have-seen-once Deep Throat.) The Erotic
Motive in Literature is plain reductionist Freudian theorizing about what
writers hide in their writings. The shadows the writers lay, consciously or
unconsciously, over their deeper personal themes and motives, that they can
only express in ‘symbols’, although these symbols might just as well be called
‘euphemisms’.
Joyce read only two chapters,
chapter XI, Sexual Symbolism in
Literature, and Chapter XIV, a Psychoanalytic
Study of Edgar Allan Poe. As the notes indicate, Joyce was looking for a
sexually charged vocabulary (symbolic/euphemistical) for the rendez-vous between Tristan and Isolde,
still very much on his mind in this opening phase of his planned History of the
World. Joyce even probes the possibility of having Issy’s dreams analyzed by
Jung (063a), and this thought may have sparked his idea to look for
psychoanalytic literature.
Does this new Book at the Wake mean that Joyce was
interested in psychoanalysis? Only in so far as he could gather useful words
and phrases. He only read or took notes from two chapters, Chapter XI, Sexual Symbolism in Literature and Chapter XVI, Psychoanalytic Study of Edgar Allan Poe,
and that last one halfheartedly, it seems, because the notes are not in
chronological order, indicating that he skimmed through it from middle to end to beginning. Of the 250 pages of
The Erotic Motive, Joyce actually
read 39 pages, that is 15 percent, so if we take that ratio as indicative of
his interest in the field, the answer to the original question must be: hardly
at all. But dream-interpreting he was interested in, from his Zürich days with
Frank Budgen on. Interestingly, Joyce only starts taking notes from this
chapter when Mordell, in part III of the chapter, is discussing anxiety dreams
of Chaucer and Ovid. From the very start it is clear that Joyce’s reading was
utilitarian as well as ironical. His note ‘Is — her libido’ on 123(e) for
instance was triggered by a passage in which Mordell explains the symbol of the
boar in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.
Troilus dreams of Diomede in the form of a boar, and Mordell, dutifully
following Freud, interprets this as an anxiety dream: Troilus fears that
Diomede will win Criseyde. “The fear that he experienced at day, that his
sweetheart would be lost to him—the anxiety that his libido would be repressed, become an anxiety dream in which the boar is
the symbol of his rival.” The joke, due to the clumsy way of saying (and the
muddled way of thinking), is that the reader pictures Troilus, Terry Jones-like
in his role of pepperpot or of Martin Luther, exclaiming: ‘Oh! I’m so scared my
libido will be repressed!’
Quite a few notes on page 122
and 123 give the impression of being inspired by Joyce’s jouissance of his lecture
of Mordell. Phrases such as ‘serial dreams,’ ‘Been here before,’ and even a
fundamental notion as ‘Mum - letterwriter’ may very well be occasioned by the
subject matter. But Joyce doesn’t forget his quest. He is explicitly looking for
erotically charged metaphors, and when Mordell becomes too boring, he forges
such words himself, sexualizing Mordell’s phrases currente calamo (in this context I should say ‘on the fly’), doing
consciously what Mordell says writers do unconsciously. Examples are ‘Biggest
possible’ and ‘showed kindness to’ – triggered by Mordell’s ‘one of the
greatest love poems’ and ‘embracing and kissing.’
Joyce also notices that Mordell
is very fond of the words ‘fact’ and ‘it shows’, especially when there are no
facts, and nothing is shown. The less a critic/psychoanalist shows or proves,
the more he will be inclined to stress that what he writes are facts that show
something. Hence Joyce’s notes on 124(e) and (f), ‘complained of the fact’ and
‘the fact remains.’
In every language, every word can be taken to imply something obscene, and English is no worse than Dutch. Mordell quotes from scholarly works with lists of double entendres, and Joyce makes a small selection with words like ‘breadscoop,’ ‘sootpole,’ ‘beerkeg’ and ‘fire drill.’ Others are suggested by the context, like ‘ready rainroof (parapluie),’ ‘he keyed her’ and ‘(Trist) his acorn’. ‘To key’ happens to be the Italian terminus vulgaris (‘chiavare’) for the symbolical intent of Mordell’s ‘stuffing a cork in a bottle, or putting bread in the oven, or inserting a key in the lock,’ that is to If You See Kay, and probably Tristan’s ‘acorn’ is a symbolical rendering of the glans penis, mixing the Italian words for acorn (la ghianda) and gland (la ghiandola). Curiously, in Dutch the word for acorn and the anatomical extremity under discussion is the same, ‘eikel,’ although this term is more often used in a depreciative sense, to denote, curiously enough, what the English would call an ‘asshole’.
Intriguing is 126(c) ‘Pop &
Mum wrangle / re a road’, in which Joyce apparently equates Dr. Freud and Dr.
Jung with two arguing parents (or ‘marents’, 130c), two years after his famous
sneer about ‘a certain Doctor Jung (the Swiss Tweedledum who is not to be
confused with the Viennese Tweedledee, Dr Freud)’ (letter to Harriet Weaver, 24
June 1921). Possibly the note has a different, as yet unidentified source, but
I found this connection very convincing.
Index of the relevant
emendations to VI.B.3.
VI.B.3.122
(a) Review of new /
Irish Dante
? The
Erotic Motive 193:
We can still feel with Sappho and the Troubadours, whereas we find our
intellect in-sulted by some of the religious ideas versified by Dante and
Milton; although the passages describing secular emotions win our admiration.
(b) serial dreams >
(c) rBeen here before / (to I)
? The
Erotic Motive 182-183: Nietzsche understood that the romantic life of our ancestors and their
ways of thinking were repeated by [182] us in our dreams. He wrote in his Human All Too Human, Vol. i, pp. 23-26:
“The perfect distinctions of all dreams
representations, which pre-suppose absolute
faith in their reality, recall the conditions that apper-tain to
primitive man, in whom hallucination was ex-traordinarily frequent, and
sometime simultaneously seized entire communities, entire nations. Therefore,
in sleep and in dreams we once more carry out the task of early humanity. ... I
hold, that as man now still reasons in dreams, so men reasoned also when awake
through thousands of years; the first cause which oc-curred to the mind to
explain anything that required an explanation, was sufficient and stood for
truth . . . this ancient element in human nature still manifests itself in our
dreams, for it is the foundation upon which the higher reason has developed and
still develops in every individual; the dream carries us back into the remote
conditions of human culture, and provides a ready means of understanding them
better. Dream- thinking is now so easy to us because during immense periods of
human development we have been so well drilled in this form of fantastic and
cheap explanation, by means of the first agreeable notions. In so far, dreaming
is a recreation of the brain, which by day has to satisfy the stern demands of
thought, as they are laid down by the higher culture.”
(d) +sleep between [buttered] back cloths
Not found in The
Erotic Motive.
(e) rvoiced
The
Erotic Motive 185: If we have overthrown the authority
of our fathers or experienced a painful love repression because we were
hampered by social laws, if we have broken with our religious friends or been
crushed by some moneyed powers, we may become of a revolutionary trend of mind
and hence prefer writers with radical opinions. In our time there have arisen a
number of geniuses who voiced such opinions ; having experienced repressions on
account of the customs of society, they sang and wrote of those repressions and
attacked those customs.
(f) Ul not a Homer
? The
Erotic Motive 193: Those poets live who have been most personal. The Roman poets,
Horace, Catullus, Titullus, Propertius, Ovid, Lucretius, were personal. Even
the Æneid reveals the soul of Virgil in the story of Æneas and
Dido.
(g) idiosyncrasy
The
Erotic Motive 189: Literary historians and
philosophers have accounted for the various changes in literary taste fairly
satisfactorily, although they have often omitted from their investigations the
factor of the personal experiences and idiosyncrasies of the author, and have
emphasised too strongly the importance of the predominant ideas of the age.
(h) thunderstorms /
(pigs)
Not found in The Erotic Motive.
VI.B.3.123
(e) rIs — her libido
The Erotic Motive 160-161: Chaucer throughout his works attacks the
theory that dreams may be interpreted,
but he gives us a true sym- [160] bolical interpretation in this poem. He also
here recorded unconsciously some of his own past griefs in love. Freud taught
that anxiety dreams were due to the repression of the libido being converted
into fear. We also know from anthropology that the boar was a sexual symbol. In
the poem Diomede appears to Troilus as a boar, also, because Troilus had heard
the story of Meleager and the boar and of the ancestry of Diomede. Even though
he had forgotten the tale, if he did, since he was reminded of it by his
sister, it was still present in his unconscious. His anxiety was due to the
fear that Diomede had really won Criseyde. The fear that he experienced at day,
that his sweetheart would be lost to him—the anxiety that his libido would be repressed, become an anxiety
dream in which the boar is the symbol of his rival.
VI.B.3.124
(a) rBiggest possible
>
(b) rshowed kindness
The Erotic Motive 160: In Chaucer’s Troilus
and Criseyde, one of the greatest love poems ever written and probably a
greater work of art than any of the Canterbury
Tales, there is a true symbolic interpretation of an anxiety dream. Troilus
was pining for his love, Criseyde, who had been led back by Diomede to the
Greeks in exchange for Antenor. Troilus dreamt that he saw a boar asleep in the
sun and that Criseyde was embracing and kissing it.
(c) reveled
in the / beauty of—
The Erotic Motive 164-165: When Wordsworth sang of [164] the beauties
of nature he was voicing a cry for satisfied love which he did not have up to
his thirtieth year, when he married.
(d) r(Is) love of
nature
The Erotic Motive 164: I do not believe that nature worship idea in
literature has been yet fully analysed. Critics have refused to see the exact
meaning of the expression “love of nature.” The poets themselves have told us
that they saw in nature lessons of moral improvement and inspirations for
humanitarianism.
(e) rcomplained of
the / fact
The Erotic
Motive 161: The sexual symbolic interpretation shows that Freud’s most
unpopular idea was known among the Romans. It happened that Ovid’s mistress did
prove unfaithful to him and he complained of the fact.
(f) bthe fact remains
The Erotic Motive 164: Granting that this is so, the fact still remains
that there is much left unsaid by the poets. Some of them recognised the real
significance of their love for nature when they told us how they were inspired
by her to love, or were reminded of their lack of love.
VI.B.3.125
(a) one
can enjoy art / two –– nature
The Erotic Motive 165: The poet was using symbols, such as trees and
daisies, whose glory he sang when he meant he wished he had love. Some things
can be enjoyed alone, though not altogether, such as food, plays, pictures,
reading, music, lectures, etc. It is the great distinction of nature that she
inspires human love and also provokes sadness.
(b) Cynewulf’s
(c) Fred
Tupper – Riddles / of the
(d) breadscoop
>
(e) sootpole
(negro) >
(f) rbeerkeg >
(g) ready
rainroof (parapluie)
The Erotic Motive 166-167: There is no better proof that common
objects, when possible, were formerly assigned sexual associations, than the
obscene riddles of the Exeter Book. This work is largely attributed to the
second great English poet Cynewulf in the eighth century. Certain riddles are
propounded which reek with lewd suggestions, and the answer is supposed to be
some object innocent in itself; it is apparent, however, from the questions and
descriptions given that the interest in this object is because it is sexually
symbolical. Thus the answers meant for the 26th, 45th, 46th, 55th, 63rd and
64th riddles of the Exeter Book are leek, key, dough, churn, poker and beaker,
respectively. The reader will note thus how [166] these objects had a sexual
symbolic meaning for our ancestors. Professor Frederic Tupper in his scholarly
work The Riddles of the Exeter Book
says: “By far the most numerous of all riddles of lapsing or varying solutions
are those distinctly popular and unrefined problems whose sole excuse for being
(or lack of excuse) lies in double meaning and coarse suggestion, and the
reason for this uncertainty of answer is at once apparent. The formally stated
solution is so overshadowed by the obscene subject implictly presented in each
limited motive of the riddle, that little attention is paid to the aptness of
this. It is after all only a pretence, not the chief concern of the jest.” He
quotes from another scholar, Wossidlo, a number of other objects than those
suggested in the Exeter Book, which in other riddle books were invested with
sexual symbolism. These are spinning wheel, kettle and pike, yarn and weaver,
frying-pan and hare, soot-pole, butcher, bosom, fish on the hook, trunk-key,
beer-keg, stocking, mower in grass, butter-cask and bread-scoop.
Freud is apparently correct when he
stated that familiar objects of our day like umbrellas and machinery are given
a sexual significance by our dreams unconsciously.
(h) (Trist)
his acorn >
(i) he
keyed her >
(j) fire-drill
The Erotic Motive 168: He [Man, in former times] saw the life producing
principle at work everywhere, and he found symbols for it in the phenomena of
nature, in the sun, moon, water, forest, garden, field, trees, roses; in
animals like the serpent, the horse, the bull, the fish, the goat, the dove; in
implements like the arrow, the sword, the plough. Common objects assumed for
him suggestive meanings. He saw a means of coining new expressions for generative
acts and objects; he found associations when he used the fire-drill drilling in
the hollow of the wood, or when he threw wood upon the fire. In later time he
coined new symbolical terms suggested by such acts of his as stuffing a cork in
a bottle, or putting bread in the oven, or inserting a key in the lock.
VI.B.3.126
(a) tree
bisexual / m form fem gend >
(b) rlove embrace
The Erotic Motive 170: The embrace of the lovers is described
symbolically by means of the tree symbol. It is known that the tree was
formerly used to represent both sexes. “The bisexual symbolic character of the
tree,” says Jung in his Psychology of the
Unconscious (P. 248), “is intimated by the fact that in Latin trees have a
masculine termination and a feminine gender.” The lover in the Song of Songs calls his beloved a tree
and says he will climb up to the palm tree and take hold of the branches; his
beloved’s breasts will be as clusters of the vine and the smell of her
countenance like apples.
[...] Higher criticism has recognised
the fact that the poem is a love poem. This is also proved by the fact that
from time immemorial it has been the practice of orthodox Hebrews to read it on
the Sabbath eve, which is the time for love embrace among them.
(c) Pop
& Mum wrangle / re a road
The Erotic Motive 170 (the beginning of the next part (VI), immediately
following the previous quotation): Psychoanalysis has gone far, indeed, in
seeing sex symbolism in many objects and ceremonies and allegories where it was
least expected to exist. Freud and Jung, though they differ in their views
here, see in many symbols concealed incestuous wishes. They have dealt with the
subject in Totem and Taboo and The Phychology [sic] of the Unconscious, respectively. I have
no intention of going into the differences between their theories.
(d) bComes the
question
The Erotic Motive 228 (about Edgar Allan Poe): Now comes a question
that has always puzzled his critics: Why was the poet so occupied with the
subject of death of fair ladies or of depicting a man bereaved by the death of
his love.
(e) he
drank
The Erotic Motive 231: He [Poe’s creation, Roger Usher] also, like Poe,
was no doubt thrice disappointed in love, and probably also drank. His symptoms
were such as afflict neurotics.
(f) rmy libido (Is)
Note: See the quotation at 123(e). Other,
closeby instances of ‘libido’:
The Erotic Motive 229: All this shows the strong infantile influences
on Poe in damming up of his libido.
The Erotic Motive 231: Poe had himself suffered from a damming of the
libido.
(g) John
Hopkins Univ
The Erotic Motive 224-225: A poem [224] by Poe was only recently
unearthed by Prof. J. C. French, of
III. VI.B.3.134-136: Mrs. Patrick Campbell (Beatrice Stella
Cornwallis-West), My Life and Some
Letters, 1922, 360 pages [GL]
[introduction forthcoming]
Index of the relevant
emendations to VI.B.3.
(e) rIs gave her / jupon to beggar
My Life and Some Letters 5: A caravan, with my
grandfather and grandmother, their children mounted on Arab horses! This
picture was probably fixed in my childish mind by the following anecdote. My
aunts, whilst riding, found a poor woman who had just given birth to a child by
the roadside; not knowing what to do, they slipped off their petticoats and
left them with her, to the dismay of the their mother when they returned to the
caravan.
Note: F. Jupon.
Petticoat. See 144(g).
Not located in
MS/FW
(f) they pray / before F --
My Life and Some Letters 7: My aunt Theresa, a
light-hearted, merry girl, married an English lawyer, who piously on his
wedding night knelt on the bed to pray. The gay Theresa, irritated by prayers
said in such a way at such a time, pushed him off the bed onto the floor. Her
wedding night was spent in tears ….
Note: See VI.A.721.35.
(g) rbird feed from //
(a) rher lips, paint / her feet
My Life and Some Letters 7: Svoboda was always painting my Aunt Stella;
especially her feet, which were very lovely. The marriage was not happy;
Svoboda was intensely jealous. Aunt Stella had a bird, which she used to feed
from her lips. One day this infuriated Svoboda, who, in a fit of jealousy,
wrung the bird’s neck before her eyes….
MS 47478-299,
MT of insert: May the bridies feed the sweetnesses no more
^+moremirror+^ mornings from my ^+lisp–+^lips, Pipette | JJA 52:256 | 1934-7 | II.2§5.2|-/7.3|- | FDV 156n64
(b) othey call her B—
My Life and Some Letters 18-19: The house was full of children. These cousins
of mine I fancy had been spoiled by ayahs—we were a strange medley of bickering
brats, and ((18)) someone called me the “Ugly Duckling,” and ugly I believed I
was.
MS 47472-151,
TsILA: A railway barmaid’s view ^+(they call her Spilltears Ruth)+^ | JJA 45:190 | 1927 | I.3§1.3/2.3/3.3
| FW 059.36-060.01
(c) rphoto leaning / on a pillar
MS 47478-299,
MT of insert: her picture photo leaning against her Piggott’s piano | JJA 52:256 | 1934-7 | II.2§5.2|-/7.3|-
| FDV 156n64
(d) rlower part of / face
My Life and Some Letters 11: [quotation from a letter by
Hildegarde, an American cousin] “[…] I
am glad you could see a little resemblance to mother in my picture. I have
always thought the lower part of my face was like her. I am 5 ft. 5 in. in
height. Was mother as tall? …”
Not located in
MS/FW
(e) rIs climbs tree
My Life and Some Letters 19: There were happy
days spent in the garden of Tulse Dale Lodge; my favourite amusement was to sit
alone, high up in a tree, talking to myself and to the leaves—they were little
people to me—and my friends.
MS 47478-299,
MT of insert: the many’s the times I climbed the trees | JJA 52:256 | 1934-7 | II.2§5.2|-/7.3|- | [FDV 156n64]
Note: FDV reads ‘the many’s the times I climbed the
tries’.
(e)
treefeller
My Life and Some Letters 19-20: There was a day, too, when I sat on a gate
watch-[19] ing Mr. Gladstone, who was profoundly interested in the workings of
a newly invented steam saw for cutting down trees.
(a) rW faint when / T— enters
My Life and Some Letters 23-24 Miss Bailey—“Aunt
Kate,” as I afterwards called her—attracted me strangely. She was an old
spinster lady nearly seventy years of age—I was not yet fifteen—the tallest and
thinnest person I had ever see, with a very yellow wrinkled face and an austere
manner. But in her youth she had been an intimate of Lord Byron and Tom Moore.
She ((24)) had seen ladies swoon with excitement when
Lord Byron appeared at a party!
MS 47478-300,
EM: Boaster! That women faint around when you enter! | JJA 52:257 | 1934-7 | II.2§5.2|-/7.3|- | FDV 156n64
(b) rIs could lisp
My Life and Some Letters 30: There were the
Urquhart girls, cousins of the Giffords, their father was a vicar at
MS 47478-299,
ILA: May the bridies feed the sweetnesses no more ^+moremirror+^
mornings from my ^+lisp–+^lips, Pipette | JJA
52:256 | 1934-7 | II.2§5.2|-/7.3|- | FDV
156n64
(c) rin front (theat) >
MS 47483-152,
ILA: So now ^+theated with Hag at the oilthar ^+oilthan+^+^ | JJA 57:242 | Apr-May 1926 | III§1A.6//2A.6/2B.4/2C.6
| FW 461.28-9 [PATRICK HORGAN]
(d) rprompt corner
My Life and Some Letters 62-3: Ben Greet told me
that the parts of the boy and girl were to be played by two members of the
company, who knew their rôles, but
that I must [62] play the nun—that I was to make a nun’s dress out of the some
black cloth and white linen with safety-pins at once, and that he would say the words loudly from the prompt corner. All I had to do was to open
and shut my mouth, hold up my hands in horror until the dance at the end, in
which the nun joins. I did so, and it was
a success. / Mr Pinero was in front. Years afterwards I asked him if he had
noticed anything odd about the performance, and he said “No.”
MS 47482b-62v,
LPA: in the rere on the run ^+from his prompt corner+^ | JJA 58:004 | probably Nov-Dec 1924 | III§3A.*1 | FW 475.29
(e) base kit
Note: 135(e)-136(a) form a
short military list of military terms.
My Life and Some Letters 396: [letter from Mrs
Patrick Campbell’s son]: “Darling, will
you have the photograph films, which I think are in that box of mine, developed
and printed? Al the stuff is what is called ‘Bse Kit,’ or stuff we cannot be
burdened with out here, and I sent it on to you to take charge of.
(f) delight (shells)
My Life and Some Letters 388: [letter from Mrs
PC’s son]: The mortars
are fine, and we fire a shell about the size of
(g)
Note:
My Life and Some Letters 396: [letter from Mrs
PC’s son]]: The things you sent me are fine, and I don’t get wet feet now. / My
dug-out is in a trench called ‘
(h) rthe visional / area
My Life and Some Letters 388: [from an official
report about Mrs PC’s son]: Using the personnel of the Mortar Battery, and with
the help of the N.C.O.’s from the Divisional Signal Company (R.E.’s), he laid
out 13 mine fields in the di-[383]visional area, protecting the withdrawal of
troops from the line.
MS 47471b-1v: overflow meeting ^+fully filling the visional area+^ | !231200 | I.2§2.*0 | FW 042.21-2
(i) in the field
My Life and Some Letters 394: [from a letter of
Mrs PC’s son]: Your sweet letter has just arrived. You don’t know how it cheers
one up to get letters from those one loves. / I am sending you my ‘Cross’
registered. I do hpe it doesn’t get lost. There is no opportunity of wearing it
out here in the field, and I wear the bit of ribbon on my left breast.
(a) rconvert torpedos / into electrical /
contact land / mines by tins / of ammonia, lashed / to sides of aerial /
torpedoes trip / wiring to contact [pieces] into electric batteries
My Life and Some Letters 383: [from an offical
report about Mrs PC’s son]: Prior to the “evacuation,” acting under orders of
the Divisional General, he invented a means of converting the remainder of the
large “Dumezil” torpedoes, into electrical contact land mines, by means of tins
of ammonal, lashed to the sides of aerial torpedoes, and trip wires to contact
pieces into electric batteries.
MS 47471b-22v,
LPA: a landmine ^+exploded from a bombing post of 1400 feet in his aerial
torpedo contacted with the expectant minefield by tins of ammonia lashed to her
sides and ^+fused to+^ trip wires playing ^+down+^ into the ground
battery fuseboxes+^ | JJA 46:012 |
I.4§1A.*1c. Nov 1923 | FW 077.07-11
(b) rminefield
My Life and Some Letters 384: [from an offical
report about Mrs PC’s son]: The mine fields started from the between the firing
line and support line and covering the whole front, continued down to the Eski
line (or final reserve line).
MS 47471b-22v,
LPA: a landmine ^+exploded from a bombing post of 1400 feet in his aerial
torpedo contacted with the expectant minefield by tins of ammonia lashed to her
sides and ^+fused to+^ trip wires playing ^+down+^ into the ground
battery fuseboxes+^ | JJA 46:012 |
I.4§1A.*1 | Nov 1923 | FW 077.08
(c) rbombing post
>
MS 47471b-22v,
LPA: a landmine ^+exploded from a bombing post of 1400 feet in his aerial
torpedo contacted with the expectant minefield by tins of ammonia lashed to her
sides and ^+fused to+^ trip wires playing ^+down+^ into the ground
battery fuseboxes+^ | JJA 46:012 |
I.4§1A.*1 | Nov 1923 | FW 077.05
(b)
strong point >>
(a) all units of / brigade, keeping /
touch for Brigadier
My Life and Some Letters 384-5: [from an offical
report about Mrs PC’s son]: He was practically in trenches all the time. He put
up a “box barrage” with the Stokes Battery in two successful raids in enemy
trenches. Took part in the operation north of Ancre on November 13th,
14th, 15th. / Ordered by Brigadier down from bombing post
in German strong point to conduct two tanks up; assaulted strong point with
tanks at 6:10 a. m. on November [384] 14th, and in one hour took
position, and with officers and crews of tanks rounded up nearly 400 prisoners,
including seven officers, after which, until relieved on November 15th
at 4 P.M., acted as General Brigade liaison officer, keeping touch for Brigadier
with all units of brigade.