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"John Eglinton looked in the tangled glowworm of his lamp. - The world believes that Shakespeare made a mistake, he said, and got out of it as quickly and as best he could. - Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery." (U9.225) |
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"What useful discovery did Socrates learn from Xanthippe? - Dialectic, Stephen answered: and from his mother how to bring thoughts into the world. What he learnt from his other wife Myrto (absit nomen!), Socratididion's Epipsychidion, no man, not a woman, will ever know." (U9.233) Xanthippe was the wife of Socrates. There are more stories than facts about her. She is believed to have been much younger than the philosopher, perhaps by as much as forty years. She was famed for her sharp tongue and is said to have been the only person to ever have beaten Socrates in a discussion. |
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"But neither the midwife's lore nor the caudlectures saved him from the archons of Sinn Fein and their naggin of hemlock." (U9.237) 'Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures' was a series of 'lectures' by journalist Douglas William Jerrold (1803 - 1857), serialised in Punch (where Jerrold worked) then published in book form in 1846. Jerrod, the son of an actor-manager, spent some time in the navy as an apprentice printer, then became a playwright and journalist. He was a contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. Job Caudle, the 'hero' of the book, is a Victorian shopkeeper whose wife finds she can only talk to him without interruption when he is falling asleep. After she dies, Caudle finds himself unable to sleep on his own, and resolves to exorcise his wife's memory by writing down her 'lectures' for the edification of others. |
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"- But Ann Hathaway? Mr Best's quiet voice said forgetfully. Yes, we seem to be forgetting her as Shakespeare himself forgot her. His look went from brooder's beard to carper's skull, to remind, to chide them not unkindly, then to the baldpink lollard costard, guiltless though maligned." (U9.240) |
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"- He had a good groatsworth of wit, Stephen said, and no truant memory. He carried a memory in his wallet as he trudged to Romeville whistling The girl I left behind me." (U9.245) |
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"Is Katharine the shrew illfavoured? Hortensio calls her young and beautiful. Do you think the writer of Antony and Cleopatra, a passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the back of his head that he chose the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie withal? Good: he left her and gained the world of men. But his boywomen are the women of a boy. Their life, thought, speech are lent them by males. He chose badly? He was chosen, it seems to me." (U9.250) |
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"If others have their will Ann hath a way. By cock, she was to blame. She put the comether on him, sweet and twentysix. The greyeyed goddess who bends over the boy Adonis, stooping to conquer, as prologue to the swelling act, is a boldfaced Stratford wench who tumbles in a cornfield a lover younger than herself." (U9.256) |
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"And my turn? When? Come! - Ryefield, Mr Best said brightly, gladly, raising his new book, gladly, brightly." (U9.261) |
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"- Are you going? John Eglinton's active eyebrows asked. Shall we see you at Moore's tonight? Piper is coming. - Piper! Mr Best piped. Is Piper back? Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper. - I don't know if I can. Thursday. We have our meeting. If I can get away in time." (U9.273) |
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"Stephen looked down on a wide headless caubeen, hung on his ashplanthandle over his knee. My casque and sword. Touch lightly with two index fingers. Aristotle's experiment. One or two? Necessity is that in virtue of which it is impossible that one can be otherwise. Argal, one hat is one hat. Listen." (U12.295) |
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"Did you hear Miss Mitchell's joke about Moore and Martyn? That Moore is Martyn's wild oats? Awfully clever, isn't it?" (U9.306) (Image courtesy of the ZJJF) |
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"Cordelia. Cordoglio. Lir's loneliest daughter. Nookshotten. Now your best French polish. - Thank you very much, Mr Russell, Stephen said, rising. If you will be so kind as to give the letter to Mr Norman... - O, yes. If he considers it important it will go in. We have so much correspondence. - I understand, Stephen said. Thanks. Good ild you. The pigs' paper. Bullockbefriending." (U9.314) |
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"- Is it your view, then, that she was not faithful to the poet? Alarmed face asks me. Why did he come? Courtesy or an inward light? - Where there is a reconciliation, Stephen said, there must have been first a sundering. - Yes." (U9.331) |
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"Christfox in leather trews, hiding, a runaway in blighted treeforks from hue and cry. Knowing no vixen, walking lonely in the chase. Women he won to him, tender people, a whore of Babylon, ladies of justices, bully tapsters' wives. Fox and geese." (U9.337) |
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"And in New Place a slack dishonoured body that once was comely, once as sweet, as fresh as cinnamon, now her leaves falling, all, bare, frighted of the narrow grave and unforgiven." (U9.340) In early 1597, Shakespeare bought 'New Place,' the second biggest house in Stratford (one of the purchase documents survives), and may have done some renovations to it. |