Notes
CHAPTER I
1. 2 Henry VI, III, iii, 12–13 (Grant). The allusion is to the Bishop of
Winchester's raving mad deathbed speech, his words a response to
the announcement that the King is present.
2. Wicklow: A mountainous region on the east coast of southern
Ireland; traditionally a place for fugitives and for those who sought
to prey on the inhabitants of the Dublin area. This is a classic
example of a convention in the Gothic novel: the initial move away
from a centre of culture to an isolated rural area, where beliefs, and
even language, are unfamiliar.
3. shod with felt: Shakespeare, King Lear, IV, vi, 184–5. At the height
of his madness, Lear fantasizes about stealing up on his sons-in-law
and then: 'kill, kill, kill, kill.' In Maturin's context, the hyperbole is
comic.
4. the ghost of Beatrice in the Monk: There is a famous (comic) scene
in the subplot of Lewis's Gothic novel The Monk, in which the ghost
of Beatrice, the Bleeding Nun, gets into Don Raymond's carriage.
5. governante: Housekeeper. The ironically over-polite term broadens
the gap between the name and its bearer.
6. the second square: i.e. of Trinity College.
7. domain: Common word for an estate in southern Ireland, often
spelt 'demesne' after Old French, with strongly feudal overtones.
8. kish: A wickerwork turf-basket.
9. withered Sybil: (1) An ironic reference to a classical prophetess
(e.g. from Virgil's Aeneid); (2) a witch.
10. cottar's hut: A peasant's tied cottage.
11. by spells, and by such daubry as is beyond our element:
Shakespeare, Merrie Wives of Windsor, IV, ii, 176–7.
daubry: Specious or coarse work. Refers to Mistress Ford's maid's
aunt of Braintree, whom the unconscious Falsta is made to
impersonate in order to get him out of the house.
12. ears polite: cf. Pope, Epistle to Burlington:
To rest, the Cushion and soft dean
Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.
Here the context is the Devil, however, rather than Hell.
13. Anglicè: In the English language. An 'aside' to the English reader,
in which the narrator poses as translator and anthropologist. Cf.
Hibernicè speaking: speaking in the Irish language, a few lines below.
The trope (which derives from Scott) reveals Maturin's ambivalence
about his audience.
14. Lord Lyttleton: Thomas Lyttleton, Second Baron (1744–79),
known as the 'wicked Lord', whose dream that he would the in three
days was correct. The tale of the 'poor girl' is untraced; but for the
superstition that the Vampire preys on its own esh and blood see
Byron's 'The Giaour' (1813), in which there is a vivid picture of a
daughter preyed upon by a vampire father.
15. groupe: An arrangement, a posed cluster of objects or people.
The OED gives this as the original sense. Maturin consistently uses
the archaic spelling and older sense: throughout the text, the term
evokes painting.
16. imprimis: In the rst place, originally (assimilated form of 'in
primis').
17. Miss Edgeworth: Maria Edgeworth (1767–1849) published The
Absentee in 1812. To some extent, Maturin is carrying on the
tradition, initiated by Edgeworth, of drawing attention to the
poverty and neglect of Irish estates, taking some of his satirically
comic tone from her most famous novel, Castle Rackrent (1800).
18. slink-veal: The esh of a premature calf.
19. suo periculo: At his own risk (i.e. on oath). Here the author is a
witness. (See Introduction, p. xix, note 16.)
20. the Dean of Killala: Maturin's great-grandfather, Peter, held the
post from 1724 to 1741.
21. potsheen: Raw alcohol, often made illegally from potatoes.
22. veritable Amphitryon: From Molière's comedy of the same name
in which Amphitryon, the foster-father of Hercules, gives a great
dinner. The 'true Amphitryon' is whoever pays for your dinner: the
whiskey, by analogy, justies the food.
23. Don Quixote, Pt II, ch. Ixxiv; the last chapter of the book. The
mention of Sancho's 'little carcase' shows that Maturin is using
Smollett's translation. Cervantes' point is that they have all received
an inheritance from the dying Knight, and this has mitigated the
strength of their mourning: here, they are simply taking advantage
of the situation to raid the dying man's larder.
24. Pythoness: A Prophetess (after the tripod 'pythia' on which they
sit or stand to pronounce). A woman supposed, or professing, to
have a 'familiar spirit' and to utter his words; having the power of
divination, or soothsaying. In 1823, Byron applied this term to the
Delphic Oracle.
25. the Irish præcae: Paid mourners.
26. Sinbad the Sailor: This story occurs in the fourth voyage of
Sinbad. Maturin's most likely source is the version of the Arabian
Nights translated by Antoine Galland, published in Paris (1704–17).
27. arointed: Driven away with an execration. The classic source is
Macbeth, I, iii, 6.
28. boot-jack: A contrivance for pulling o boots.
29. sowl: Person (i.e. dialect: 'soul').
30. in Dogberry's time: Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, III, iii,
10–16.
31. our prayer-books: Protestant Church of Ireland prayer-books –
note the partisan tone of 'our'.
churching of women: A service for the thanksgiving of women after
childbirth, which the illiteracy of the Irish servant makes her think
refers to life after death, because it comes after the burial service.
32. niggers: Niggards, vents or doors in a regrate to economize on
fuel. Hence the term for a miser: niggardly.
33. Madeira: Amber-coloured, fortied wine, resembling sherry,
made in the island of Madeira.
34. a portrait that hung on the wall: The convention in the Gothic
novel of the picture which is alive begins with Walpole's Castle of
Otranto (1764) and carries on in Lewis's The Monk (1796).
35. Robert Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer (1801), Bk II, v.5,10–11.
This poem is an orientalist text, and has a signicant relationship to
the references to the 'Eastern Tales' in the novel, mediating between
the Arabian Nights and the Gothic novel.
36. poor Butler: The poet and prose writer Samuel Butler (1612–80),
who died in penury. He actually made this remark in The Antiquary
(Grant). Maturin's own sensitivity to poverty and betrayal is evident
in the allusion.
37. facies Hippocratica: The appearance of the face immediately
before death, named after Hippocrates, its discoverer.
38. blue chamber of the dwelling: The secret chamber into which the
wife is forbidden to go, where Bluebeard keeps the bodies of his
previous wives. It is not blue in the story: here 'blue' seems to be
shorthand for Bluebeard himself, though it may be linked to the
traditional superstition that candles burn blue when the devil is
present. Charles Perrault's popular tale was available in many
editions by the end of the eighteenth century. This passage shows
that the motif of prohibition and transgression is consciously
transferred to this text from the fairytale.
39. a parish con: One paid for by the parish, a pauper's con.
CHAPTER II
40. Nicolas Rowe, The Fair Penitent, 1703, v, i.
41. pamphlets on the improvement of Ireland: A satirical glance at the
parlous state of contemporary affairs in the aftermath of the Act of
Union (1801).
42. I think he had better not: The ritual prohibition of folktale is
enacted in this phrase.
43. Curiosity…object: Reproof of curiosity is another folktale motif
(from ‘Bluebeard’), grafted in this phrase on to the Sublime. Cf. Ann
Radcliffe’s version of this connection:
But a terror of this nature, as it occupies and expands the mind,
and elevates it to high expectation, is purely sublime, and leads us,
by a kind of fascination, to seek even the object, from which we
appear to shrink.
The Mysteries of Udolpho, ed. B. Dobree and F. Garber, Oxford,
1950, p.248.
44. deposed: Testifed. The narrative purports to be edited testimony
from here on, and thus itself beyond superstition.
45. good people: Fairies.
46. Virgil’s Alecto: Aeneid, vii, 324, 415–20, 445: Alecto, one of the
furies, a monster with ‘black upsprouting vipers’ for hair, who
initiates wars and horror. She appears to Turnus in the guise of the
old woman, Calybe.
47. gossoon: (Anglo-Irish alteration of Fr. garçon): Servant-boy,
lackey.
48. the dark banners: Cf. Song of Solomon vi, 10: ‘terrible as an army
with banners’. Turned into a description of the night sky, this
brooding epic simile is used repeatedly throughout the novel.
49. doddered: Having lost their tops or branches, especially through
age and decay.
50. snuffers: A pair of instruments (often cone-shaped, but there is
also a scissors-like variety) for putting out candles.
51. evidence: A witness, i.e. one who gives evidence. The legalistic
nature of the simile is signicant: it runs counter to ‘superstition’.
52. a gentleman…concealments: 1 Henry IV, III, i, 165. Owen
Glendower is the Welsh Wizard and rebel against King Henry IV,
defended in this phrase against the mockery of Hotspur.
53. Dryden calculated, etc.: There is an account of this event in
Scott’s edition of Dryden, 1808, xviii, 207–13 (Grant).
54. ridiculous books of Glanville: Joseph Glanvill (1638–80):
Sadducismus Triumphatus, published 1681. Maturin shows an
Enlightenment contempt for Glanvill’s defence of a belief in
witchcraft.
55. a dramatic writer: Thomas Shadwell (1642-–92) produced The
Lancashire Witches in 1681. In his notes to the play he cites Martin
Anton Delrio (1551–1608) and Johann Weyer--Wierus--(1516–88),
both writers on witchcraft.
CHAPTER III
56. Apparebat eidolon senex: A phantom appeared in the shape of an
old man (Pliny, Letters, VII, xxvii, 5). Pliny's account of the haunting
of a house in Athens, in his letter 'To Sura' about ghosts.
57. Michaelis: John David Michaelis (1717–91), Orientalist and
biblical scholar. His autobiography, Lebenschreibung, was published
in 1793.
58. Tom Coryat: Thomas Coryate (1577-–1617), traveller, who
published Cory-ate's Crudities in 1611.
59. Posada: Inn.
60. not a loop-hole…by: The contrast here is between power and
pleasure (Roman) and sheer power (Moorish). See the motif of the
'loop-hole' in the (Eastern) story of Pyramus and Thisbe in
Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i.
61. a l'outrance: To the point of exaggeration.
62. as Dr Johnson says: On 31 March 1772 (Boswell, Life of Johnson,
1934, ii, 170). But he did not say the Greeks and Romans were
savages.
63. old Christian: Indigenous Spanish Catholic: new Christians (Moors
and Jews, forced to convert) were called 'conversos'.
64. Væ victis: Woe to the conquered (Livy, History, v. xlviii, 9).
65. mock at the perishable monuments: Cf. Shelley, 'Ozymandias', 'Tell
that its sculptor well those passions read/Which yet survive stamped
on these lifeless things/The hand that mocked them, and the heart
that fed…', published in January 1818 by Hunt in The Examiner,
repr. in Rosalind and Helen, 1919. The sonnet was written in
response to an exhibition in London of findings from the tomb of
Ramses II.
66. corse: Corpse (archaic).
67. Here…illegible: The pretence of a corrupted manuscript reflects a
comic and satirical tradition from Cervantes, via Swift's Tale of a
Tub, and Sterne's Tristram Shandy--a book-making joke--here
converted to the convention in the Gothic romance of a found
manuscript which contains 'horror'. Cf. Byron's 'broken tale' The
Giaour (1813), which also uses textual fragmentation in narrating
sensational material.
68. Valentia: Valencia.
69. anathematization: Cursing (from Gr. anathema). But the term
connotes more serious contexts: the curse of God, the formal
handover of a hardened sinner to Satan, heresy and
excommunication.
70. burning a few Moors: Rodriguez Diaz di Vivar (c.1043–99),
known as the Cid (i.e. 'Lord'), the most prestigious military leader
produced by the eleventh century. In May 1094 he conquered
Valencia and burnt the Muslim qadi (magistrate), Ibn Jahhaf, alive.
He subsequently conquered Spain. Note Maturin's sarcastic tone.
71. estrade: Dais, platform. Maturin seems to think it is a canopy.
almohadas: Velvet cushions (Moorish).
72. Saguntum: Sagunto, a town in Valencia, eastern Spain, taken in
219BC by Hannibal, an action which caused the second Punic War.
73. contumacious: Stubbornly perverse, wilful, resistant. There is a
legal sense: a refusal to accept the judgement of a court.
74. the Boy of Bilsdon: A fraudulent witness in a witchcraft trial of
1620 whose cheat was discovered by chance: the woman being
almost condemned. Stanton's blush is for the lack of standards of
truth and rigour in the English legal process.
75. Who…among us---Who-: Cf. Ann Radcliffe, The Italian (1797),
where it is an obsessive pattern. The hooded accusers have
themselves been infiltrated. Maturin also uses this scene in his first
novel, Fatal Revenge, where the diabolic monk, Schemoli, infiltrates
a masquerade.
76. one of the prophets: Jeremiah ix, 21. The expression occurs in
Southey's Thalaba the Destroyer, Bk I, v.36,2–3, which Maturin may
be also remembering: “Woe to Irem! Woe to Ad!/Death is gone up
into her Palaces!'
77. under…water: Maturin echoes M.G. Lewis's cynical picture in the
first scene of The Monk of Spanish Catholicism.
78. all he knew: Note the narrative pretence in the gap which follows
of having omitted confessional matter which was irrelevant.
79. to verify untrue things: Dogberry in Shakespeare, Much Ado About
Nothing, V, i. He actually says 'to verify unjust things', but
Shakespeare's theme, like Maturin's, is the paradoxical nature of
testimony which can defeat time: Providence, in the shape of the
foolish rural constable, by the agency of his folly, brings to light the
essential facts.
80. fædi oculi: Mistake for foedi: with bloodshot eyes (Sallust,
Catiline, xv.5, Loeb trans.). The passage concludes: 'his face and
every glance showed the madman'.
81. The…away: Pope, Essay on Criticism, 540–41.
82. Juvenal (55BC-AD12), the most powerful of the Roman satirists;
modern Puritan: i.e. both in the 1670s and a non-conformist in 1816
(i.e. in manuscript and 'outer frame').
83. Mrs Marshall, the original Roxana in Lee’s Alexander, and the only
virtuous woman then on the stage. She was carried off in the manner
described, by Lord Orrery, who, finding all his solicitations
repelled, had recourse to a sham marriage performed by a servant in
the habit of a clergyman.
84. vi et armis: By force of arms.
85. glass coach: A coach with glass windows (1667).
86. Kynaston: Edward Kynaston (1640-–1706), famous for his
playing of female parts.
87. Lely: Sir Peter Lely (1618–1706) painted a series of famous
portraits of the beauties of Charles II's court.
88. Grammont: Antony Hamilton's Memoires de la Vie du Comte de
Gramont, English translation 1714. A new edition, edited by Sir
Walter Scott, appeared in 1811.
89. Prynne: William Prynne (1600–1669), Puritan pamphleteer
against the theatre.
write down: Record. But also perhaps, figuratively, 'discredit'.
90. n'importe…Nell Gwynne: The Duchess of Portsmouth: Louise
Renee de Querouaille (1649–1734) became mistress to Charles II in
1671 and was made Duchess of Portsmouth in 1673. Nell Gwynne
(1650–87) was her great rival for the King's favours.
91. Dryden…Lee…Otway…Sedley…Rochester: A burst of local colour:
John Dryden (1631–1700), poet and dramatist; Nathaniel Lee
(1653–92), dramatist; Thomas Otway (1652–85), a writer of
tragedies; Charles Sedley (1639–1701), dramatist; and the Earl of
Rochester (1648–80), poet and dramatist.
92. Vide Pope, (copying from Donne).
“Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you,
If once he catch you at your Jesu, Jesu.”
Alexander Pope, The Satires of Dr Donne Versified, IV, 256–7.
93. Vide the Old Bachelor, whose Araminta, wearied by the repetition
of these phrases, forbids her lover to address her in any sentence
commencing with them.
The Old Batchelor: Comedy by William Congreve produced in
1693. The speech belongs to Belinda, not Araminta.
94. Orondates: In La Calprenède's romance, Cassandra, trans, into
English in 1676.
95. Piazza's of Covent Garden: The haunt of prostitutes.
96. cap-a-pee: From head to foot. The archaic phrase is derived from
Hamlet, I, ii, 200, Horatio's description of the ghost of Hamlet's
father. Here it is wittily used to describe classical and neo-classical
theorists of tragedy: Aristotle (384–322BC) and Rene Le Bossu
(1631–89), armed by their authority.
97. templars: Trainee barristers of London's Inner or Middle Temple.
98. tents of Kedar: Song of Solomon i, 5. Puritan jargon for brothels.
99. vizard masks: Often of black velvet, worn by women at this time
when visiting the theatre; but also worn on stage, in 'masking'
scenes. Associated with prostitutes, who masked their pock-marked
faces.
Vizard: Slang for a whore.
100. Tristram Shandy: Laurece Sterne's novel (1759–67). Tristram
swears by his 'great aunt Dinah's old black velvet mask'.
101. orange-women: i.e. who sold oranges in the theatre. Nell Gwynne
was the most famous of them.
102. Vide Southern’s Oroonoko,--I mean the comic part. (Thomas
Southerne's tragedy, produced in 1695. It was based upon Aphra Behn's
novel of the same name.)
103. “A charm, a song, a murder, and a ghost.” (Prologue to Œdipus.)
104. dripping shroud: In Dryden's The Conquest of Granada, Pt II, IV,
iii.
105. the ghost of…Laius: Dryden, Oedipus, III, i.
106. L'Abbe le Blanc: Jean Bernard le Blanc (1707–81), Letters on the
French and English Nations, trans. (1747). Le Blanc helped perpetrate
the French view of English 'tragedy', which was that it was a bloodspattered
form of popular melodrama.
107. the burning of the Pope: Publicly burnt in effigy on Queen
Elizabeth's birthday in 1679–81, at the height of the anti-Popish
agitation (Grant). By 1820, the matter is still much contested,
especially in Ireland: Catholic emancipation is only nine years away,
as Maturin writes.
108. Sir Robert Howard: Dramatist (1626–98).
109. Elkanah Settle: Dramatist (1648–1724). Maturin is using their
choice of Spanish and Moorish subjects as a subtext here, just as he
uses Cervantes.
110. Mobbed…demure: John Gay, The Tea-Table: A Town Eclogue
(Grant). Mobbed: Wearing a mob-cap (i.e. incognito).
111. Alexander: Nathaniel Lee, The Rival Queens, or, The Death of
Alexander the Great, produced in 1677. The actor Charles Hart
played Alexander.
112. Ammon: Amon, Egyptian deity, equivalent of Zeus in the Greek
pantheon, revealed as king of the Gods, identified with the Sun-god,
Re of Heliopolis.
113. the veteran Betterton: Thomas Betterton (1635-–1710), actor and
dramatist. A History of the English Stage was published from his notes
in 1741. His story concerns a production of Lee's The Rival Queens
(Grant). The passage shows how deliberately Maturin uses historical
details to extend his preoccupation with overlaps between art and
life.
114. many…them: This sentence forms a 'seam' between history and
fiction: Stanton is a fictional character seated in a historical
audience--all rise to their feet.
115. airs…heaven: Hamlet, I, iv, 41. The parallel is with Hamlet, face
to face with his father's ghost.
116. like Bruce…History: James Bruce (1730–94) published his
account of the discovery of the Blue Nile in 1790. Edward Gibbon
(1737–94) completed the publication of his History of the Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire in 1788.
117. when…continuation: Note the fiction of 'editing' here. There is
just interruption, no other writing: where the text begins, the
narrative continues.
118. the selfish Frenchman: La Rochefoucauld (1613–80), the favourite
of Swift, whose ethical model is based on self-love. The joke is that
he cannot escape his own model.
119. Bobadil: The braggart in Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour,
first performed in 1598. These pamphlets are an allusion to Swift's
madhouse in Gulliver's Travels (1726), which is a parody of the
Royal Academy; and of his famous satirical pamphlet, A Modest
Proposal (1729). Note the anti-Imperial satire in the account of these
'conversions'.
120. in pontificalibus: In his robes of office.
(10) Vide Cutter of Coleman street.
(11) A fact, related to me by a person who was near committing suicide
in a similar situation, to escape what he called “the excruciating
torture of giddiness.”
CHAPTER IV
121. William Falconer, The Shipwreck, Canto I, 913–14 (Grant).
122. Terror…love, etc.: This passage is typical of the way Maturin uses
observations about the psychology of terror on two levels at once: as
general commentary, and as a form of rhetoric which intensifies
local effects.
123. Cromwell’s death: 3 September 1658.
124. mutatis mutandis: Allowing for differences; an admission of how
grand and baroque is the comparison between the religious divisions
of the historical seventeenth century and the fictional Wicklow
storm.
125. they…head: Shakespeare, King Lear, II, ii, 50--in Lear’s line, ‘they’
are ‘the Great Gods’.
126. spanselled’: Fettered, or hobbled.
127. the secrets…deep’: Hoary: of hair, grey with age. Job xli, 32: ‘He
maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be
hoary.’ This is part of God’s reply to Job. The ‘secrets’ are Maturin’s
own.
128. the jack: A lever that controls the draught of a grate; sometimes
called the ‘smoke-jack’.
129. actual: Used here in the French sense of ‘momentary’.
130. It is…him: An exemplum of the opposite to Pride. Cf. Shelley: ‘I
alit/On a great ship lightning-split,/And speeded hither on the
sigh/Of one who gave an enemy/His plank, then plunged aside to
die.’ Second Spirit’s song, Prometheus Unbound, Act I, 717–22.
131. the compound…good: This reveals an explicit scepticism about
the labels ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in this novel.
132. Fang and Snare: The offcers sent for by Mistress Quickly to
arrest Falsta for the debt he owes her in Shakespeare, II Henry IV,
i, 21.
vice: Grasp, grip. When Falstaff actually appears, this bravado
melts away.
133. He seemed…water: Ps. lxvi, 12. The verse is about people and
everything else being above you--this is the test which God made
for them.
CHAPTER V
134. Don Quixote, Pt I, ch. 25. Sancho Panza means that once a man is
in Hell, he can’t get out, unlike Purgatory. The reference indicates a
connection with the self-conscious comic novel coming up from
Cervantes.
135. defecated: Emptied.
136. the invalids…Spenser: Bards are discussed in A View of the Present
State of Ireland, 1596.
137. gossip’s…ears: Joanna Baillie, Ethwald: a Tragedy, Pt II, Act iv (A
Series of Plays, 1821, ii, 305).
138. vexing…man: Shakespeare, King John, III, iv, 109: Lewis describes
the loss of joy: ‘Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale/Vexing…’, etc.
139. not…Latin: This incident shows how even a good priest keeps the
peasants ignorant of the truth by circumlocution, thus fuelling their
natural tendencies to superstition. The implication is that
Reformation Protestantism associates with ‘candour’. Narrative time
is 1816 and Pro- and Anti-Catholic lobbies are locked in a pitched
propaganda war, fuelled by the prospect of Catholic emancipation.
140. the pale: An allusion to the eastern coastal strip called the Pale
(i.e. palisade, fence) established by the Tudor Protestant colonists of
Ireland, beyond which ‘civilization’ ended. Here the author supplies
the colonial term, while the priest’s language refuses it.
141. exordium: Rhetorical term for the beginning of a speech.
142. with…Melmoth: The relation between reader and text is here renegotiated.
John Melmoth becomes a listener-in-the-text, but one
largely excluded from representation by editorial summary.
143. capa: Cape.
144. a convent…Ex-Jesuits: The Society of Jesus was banned in Spain
in 1757 and from the Spanish Empire in 1767. In 1717, Pope Clement
XIV issued a decree abolishing the Society. In 1814, Pope Pius VII re-
established it.
145. the whole house…masquerade: Evidently metaphorical. But Jesuit
education emphasized theatrical representation as an educational
technique. This is a structural comparison--cf. the narrative of
Stanton, in which another closed institution--the madhouse--was
represented as a kind of theatre.
146. hypocrite: From Gr. ypokritos: actor.
147. casuists: Logic-choppers, sophists; those who apply ethical and
theological rules to cases of conscience. Casuistry is traditionally
the sign of Jesuitism from a popular Protestant point of view.
148. Esau: Gen. xxvii, 37–8. The quotation is a mixture of the two
verses. Esau was the brother of Isaac and the analogy between them
and the Monçada brothers is an apt one. Later, Juan Monçada uses
the same analogy.
149. sap: The digging of a covered trench.
150. like…Saul: 1 Sam. xxviii, 14. Saul goes to consult the Witch of
Endor who raises the ghost of Samuel out of the earth: the incident
is a traditional reference point for Gothic horror.
151. Fiat voluntas tua: Have it your own way.
152. the still…there: 1 Kings xix, 12. Elijah confronts God in the
wilderness and he is not in the earthquake, nor the fire--but after
the fire ‘a still small voice’ is there.
153. What…truth-: John xviii, 38: Pontius Pilate’s rhetorical question
is traditionally a symptom of his lack of moral commitment. But the
point of the analogy is the vista of ambiguity that opens out as soon
as we interrogate our own emotions.
154. partizan: Footsoldier.
party: A member of a confederacy, one who has taken sides.
155. supplicating…grace: God’s free gift to man, who, though born in
sin, may obtain grace through prayer; here represented in
monastery jargon.
156. dissimulation…dissimulation: Cf. William Blake’s lyric, ‘The
Poison Tree’: ‘I was angry with my friend/I told my wrath/My wrath
did end.’ Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789–94).
157. the whirlwind…angel: For the figure of the Destroying Angel, see
i Chron. xxi, 1. For the wind, see Acts ii, 2. The first reviewers
seized on this passage as a particularly contemptible exaggeration.
158. FIX…IMPRESSION’: i.e. in the wax. A sinister piece of Jesuitical
code. Here the text exposes the blackmail of ‘the future state’.
159. John Buffa, Travels through the Empire of Morocco, 1810.
Anachronism prepense: i.e. ‘deliberate anachronism’ in citing Buffa.
The note confirms Maturin’s desire to ‘break the frame’ of Scott’s
historical romance, plausibility, etc. But in fact, since Monçada is
telling this Tale in 1816, there is no literal anachronism (Hayter).
160. chaunt: Chant, i.e. plainsong. The archaism combined with
sarcastic emphasis also suggests an actual item from an affected,
sing-song mode of speech.
161. Sacrifice of jephtha: Handel’s oratorio Jephthah, first performed in
1752. An appropriate choice: a brigand-hero of Israel who avenged
injustices to the Israelites, at the cost of having to sacrifice his
daughter to Yahweh.
162. auto de fe: Act of faith. Refers to the act of passing judgement by
the Inquisition, and, then, by transfer, to the process of punishment:
those convicted of heresy were burnt alive in a public place.
163. deceitful…wicked: Jer. xvii, 9: ‘the heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked: who can know it-’
164. My son…bore you: Shakespeare, Coriolanus, V, iii, 120ff. The
speech is a paraphrase of Volumnia’s plea to her son, Coriolanus, to
leave Rome in peace.
165. My life…tide: The beginning of a subtext of mechanism and
automatism, a special version of ‘artificiality’. Cf. Diderot, La
Réligieuse (1760: repr. Paris, Livre de poche, 1983), p.46: ‘J’étais
presque réduite à l’état d’un automate!’ (‘I was almost reduced to
the condition of an automaton!’), which is the probable source.
166. the Simorgh in the Eastern fable: Simurgh, the monstrous bird of
Persian fable, possessed of reason and the power of speech in every
language, and of immense age. Maturin may be thinking of William
Beckford’s Vathek (1789), which mentions it and has a footnote,
based on Tales from Inatulla (1768), apparently the fable referred to.
167. toils: Traps, snares, nets.
168. turning-box: A device, usually set in a wall, for collecting outside
offerings.
169. you…senses: This passage reflects later eighteenth-century
debate after the sceptical intervention of philosopher David Hume
170. Pope Sixtus: Probably Sixtus V, the unanimously elected
successor to Gregory XIII on 5 April 1585, who was the Papal State’s
only choice, not because he was suspected of imbecility, but because
various parties had objections to all the other potential candidates.
171. Ebrietas: Ebriety, drunkenness.
172. Satana…Satana: Get thee behind me, Satan. Matt, xvi, 23.
apage: From Gr. ypage. Christ says this to Peter, who thinks he can
avoid going into Jerusalem and being crucified.
173. Murillo: The Spanish painter Bartolomé Estebân Murillo (1617–
82), famous for picturesque rustic scenes involving saintly females
and beggar boys, whose eyes are invariably raised to heaven. After
the 1650s, Murillo assumed the grand manner of baroque
portraiture, which had become fashionable at the Spanish court.
174. mad Orestes: Greek tragic hero, maddened by the Furies as
a punishment for parricide. This is a portmanteau comparison
between Greek tragedy, painting (‘groupe’) and sculpture, which
makes of the young man a kind of baroque saint.
175. simplicity...corruiption: Vide Madame Genlis’s “Julien Delmour.”:
Mme de Genlis (1746–1830), an Enlightenment author, published her
novel Les Parvenus, ou les Amours de Julien Delmour, in 1819.
176. There…externals: The traditional Protestant Reformation
objection to Catholic ritual--it deadens the conscience and results
in a merely external form of obeisance.
177. kissing the crucifix: i.e. the cross, together with the effigy of the
suffering Christ upon it. Protestants regard the icon and the action
with revulsion, as ritualistic: they use the unadorned Cross, a
symbol only.
178. Francis Xavier: St Francis Xavier (1506–52), a Basque, one of the
original founders of the Society of Jesus, the second-in-command to
Ignatius Loyola and his right-hand man on the Eastern missions. The
Portuguese Inquisition in Goa (1561) was established according to
his instructions.
179. odour of sanctity: A sweet balsamic odour stated to have been
exhaled by the bodies of eminent saints at their death. Hence:
‘reputation for holiness’, often used ironically.
180. the moon…brightness: Job xxxi, 26.
181. Scire…timeri: They wish to know the family secrets, and so to be
feared (Juvenal, Satires, iii, 113). Juvenal, the Roman, on Greeks: a
nation of play-actors who make it their business to blackmail their
way into the Roman family and debauch its members. The analogy
is with the Jesuits.
182. defaced page: now the brother Juan writes to the Spaniard
Alonzo Monçada within the latter’s oral tale to Melmoth, which in
its turn has been written down for its reader. Hence, the textual
asterisks are the visual equivalents both of an orally reported
narrative, and the defaced manuscript on which it is based.
183. Jacob…victim: This links to the earlier allusion made by Alonzo
to himself as Esau--the two brothers independently use the same
biblical ‘figure’ to describe themselves.
184. in ordine ad spiritualia: In the ranks of the spiritual.
CHAPTER VI
185.Afar do the spirits keep me aloof, the phantoms of men that have
done with toils', Homer (Iliad, xxiii, 72). The spirit of Patroclus
appears to Achilles in a dream and seeks for a swift funeral so that
he can enter Hades properly. The analogy is with the spiritual limbo,
into which the young Monçada is compelled to enter.
186. equivocation: Make ambiguous answers; another traditional sign of
Jesuitry. Having sworn no allegiance to earthly princes, the Jesuits
are not compelled to tell the truth under oath. Cf. Shakespeare, Mac-
beth, II, iii, which contains several allusions to equivocations in
the trial of the Jesuit Father Garnet, one of the arch conspirators
in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The idea of Jesuit equivocation is a
traditional source of horror in the Gothic romance. (Cf. Ann Rad-
cliffe, The Italian.) Here, the narrator, Alonzo Monçada, uses the
technique against the Jesuits themselves; but the Director, an ex-
Jesuit, recognizes it. Maturin thus doubles the force of his
propaganda point.
187. æras: Eras.
188. Had…desire: The story was published in the Spectator, No. 447.
189. commutation: Substitution.
190. Providence: The doctrine of the Divine ordering of the affairs of
the world, a key factor in the plotting of this novel because it
opposes itself to 'chance'. The universal rule, however, is that the
individual (including the Wanderer himself) never has access to the
pattern at times of 'choice', but only retrospectively.
191. railing…railing: 1 Peter iii, 9. An address from Peter to the
'strangers' of Asia Minor, pleading with them in their marriages to
be as 'all of one mind', not 'rendering evil for evil'. The comparison
is around the theme of domestic harmony.
192. Ex uno disce omnes: From one, judge of all. Virgil, Aeneid, ii, 65–6.
The phrase belongs to Aeneas who warns his listeners in advance:
'Hear now the treachery of the Greeks and from one, learn the
wickedness of all.' The one is Sinon, the youth who convinced the
Trojans to accept him, and then opened the gates to let the Greeks
in.
193. Apage Satana: Get thee behind me, Satan. Matt, xvi, 23.
194. Agag…is past: 1 Samuel xv, 32: King of the Amalekites, Agag is
'unfortunate' because, after saying this, he was hewn to pieces by
Samuel.
195. Johan Lorenz von Mosheim (1694-–1755), An Ecclesiastical
History, 1765. Vide Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History for the truth
of this part of the narrative. I have suppressed circumstances in the
original too horrible for modern ears.
196. evanition: (Fr. evanouir) disappearance, hence as here: 'fainting'.
197. This expression is not exaggerated. In the dreams of sorcery, or
of imposture, the evil spirit was supposed to perform a mass in derision;
in Beaumont and Fletcher: i.e. The Mad Lover, IV, i: 'Let's sing him
a black Santis, then let's all howl/In our own beastly voices…'
198. We do not venture to guess at the horrors of this whisper, but
every one conversant with ecclesiastical history knows, that Tetzel
offered indulgences in Germany, even on the condition that the sin-
ner had been guilty of the impossible crime of violating the mother
of God.: John Tetzel (1465–1519), the German Dominican whose
sale of indulgences triggered Luther's Reformation.
199. I was…vessel: Traditionally the sailors turn on the 'Jonah' figure
as a scapegoat. Cf. Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner, ii, 91–6 and 141–2.
200. The Almighty…literally: An almost slapstick joke that releases
tension for a moment.
201. Mithridate: Universal antidote against poison and infections
(named after the legendary immunity to disease of Mithridates the
Great); a name for opium. Laudanum': The alcoholic tincture of
opium.
202. In Catholic…flames: This sudden comment (from Alonzo to his
interlocutor, John Melmoth) draws us back to 1816 and the
question for Maturin's audience in 1820 of Catholic emancipation.
The example of the theatre of hell is from the last act of Mozart's
Don Giovanni, which was first performed in 1787, in which the ghost
of the Commendatore comes to dine and drags Don Giovanni in
Faustian fashion down into the raging gulf below the stage.
203. diabole te adjuro: Devil, I bind you under a curse.
204. de novo: From the start, afresh.
CHAPTER VII
205. Pandere…mersas: To unfold secrets buried in the depths and
darkness of the earth (Virgil, Aeneid, vi, 267). Virgil speaks and asks
for permission from the Gods of Hades to narrate the horrors of the
underworld.
206. I'll shew…Butts-: Shakespeare, Henry VIII, V, ii, 20–21: the 'sight'
is Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, waiting his turn like other
common suitors to approach the table of the Privy Council and be
told that he is committed to the Tower.
207. despair…diary: Another memorable observation about the rhetoric
of the Gothic novel, which is often founded on diaries and
manuscripts and the apparatus of recording experience.
208. all…forgotten: Gen. xli, 30: Joseph interprets the Pharaoh's dream:
'and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt'.
209. light…darkness: Job x, 22: Job's description of his own death-
in-life.
210. My…Jew: The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1480.
Jews were given a choice of baptism or banishment from Spain by
Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. In 1502, it was the turn of the
Moors. Jews are assimilated as ‘conversos', but lead a secret,
underground life.
211. am as good…mountains: Don Quixote, Pt II, Ch. xlviii. Dona
Rodriguez, the Duchess's waiting woman, describes her former
husband to Don Quixote.
212. agremens: Fr. agrements: ornaments.
213. the…Sacrifice: i.e. God's sacrifice of his only Son, and
Christ's voluntary sacrifice of himself.
214. re-act Penelope's web: Homer, Odyssey, XIX, 137–55. Penelope,
wife of Odysseus, who, in order to gain time for him to return,
imposed the condition on her suitors that they could not ask for her
hand until she had finished weaving the shroud of her father-in-law,
Laertes. At night, she unwove what she had done in the day, gaining
three years this way until betrayed by her waiting-women.
215. on the ‘qui vive': On the alert.
216. If I…there: Ps. cxxxix, 8–9. God searches for David, who seeks
to escape from him.
217. a branded Cain: Abel is Cain's brother, whom he slew, for which
act he was branded by God and became an outcast, doomed to wander.
The story is a source for the legend of the Wandering Jew; here, it
foreshadows the predicament of Melmoth the Wanderer, and connects it
with the story of the two brothers.
218. like…mechanism: Here this running conceit refers to the transfer
of moral responsibility.
219. Pentecost: Festival of the Christian Church, which celebrates the
Gift of Tongues, observed on the seventh Sunday after Easter, in
commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit, upon the disciples
(Acts ii); Whitsunday.
CHAPTER VIII
220. Ye monks, etc.: Not traced.
221. like witnesses: The analogy is derived from accounts of the
procedure of the Inquisition, in which the accused is assumed to be
guilty until proved innocent, unlike the presumption of the English
Common Law, which is the reverse. It is also an image of the
individual cut off from the face of God.
222. rictus Sardonicus: Facial symptoms resembling those of laughter,
after which death occurred. This is the deathshead grimace: the
Gothic heart of the novel, repeated on the living faces of its
characters.
223. eastern tale: ‘The History of Chec Chahabeddin', in Turkish Tales,
by Chec Zade, English translation, 1708. A résumé of the story is
given in the Spectator, 94, Monday, 18 June 1711, which is probably
Maturin's source.
224. Moore's: John Moore (1729–1802) first brought out A View of
Society and Manners in France, Switzerland and Germany in 1779,
with a continuation about Italy in 1781 (Grant).
225. cranched: Gnashed, crunched (i.e. more violent than ‘gritted').
226. a blue mist: A traditional sign that the devil is near.
227. noctuary: A nightly record, just as a diary is a daily one. The
sentence is another pithy psychological ‘axiom' of terror.
228. travellers: The most famous is Giovanni Belzoni (1778–1823), an
Italian ex-circus strong-man, who looted the Valley of the Kings for
his English masters and exhibited some of his finds in London, in
response to which Shelley composed the sonnet ‘Ozymandias', the
Greek name of Ramses II. Belzoni was the first to enter the Pyramid
of Khafra at Ghiza. He returned to England in 1819 and his Narrative
of the Operations and Recent Discoveries Within the Pyramids, Temples,
Tombs, and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia, 2 vols., 1820, contains a
description of getting stuck in a narrow passage inside the pyramid.
But without the fantasy of dismemberment.
229. whom…for ever: Heb. xii, 18: ‘For ye are not come unto the
mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto
blackness, and darkness, and tempest.’
230. Perhaps…extremity: This impressive disquisition on Silence
draws upon idolatry and blasphemy for its metaphorical inversions.
CHAPTER IX
231. irrepealable: Incapable of being repealed, irrevocable.
232. You, Sir…countries: Monçada has evidently forgotten the storm in
which he arrived. Ireland tends to be wet, and Wicklow, as the
descriptions of its stormy night skies suggest, can be wild. The joke
tends to remind us of the layering of the text, by halting the
narrative and breaking the frame.
233. sleep for ever: Source unidentified. But the point is clear: such a
sleep excludes the resurrection and is heretical. Cf. the sub-Pauline
cliché on Victorian (nonconformist) tombstones: ‘who fell asleep in
Jesus’, which coyly evades the heresy.
234. small but indispensable refreshment: Gen. xxv, 34. Esau sold his
birthright to Jacob for ‘a mess of pottage’ and thus despised his
birthright. The allusion acts as an unfortunate echo of the
Wanderer’s Faustian ‘transaction’.
235. me ipso teste: Lit. ‘with myself as witness’. The author poses as
an editor of Alonzo Monçada’s oral account: but this corroboration has
the opposite effect to the one apparently intended: it breaks, rather
than confirming, the narrative, drawing our attention to the printed
text.
236. An old man…in him: The allusion is to Lady Macbeth’s hair-raising
line: ‘Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much
blood in him.’ Shakespeare, Macbeth, V, i, 39–40.
237. as the beasts that perish: Ps. xlix, 12. The Psalm is a consolatory
warning that riches (and honour) ultimately make no difference,
that without a sense of God we shall perish like the beasts. Here the
allusion suggests that to deny your consciousness is to be reduced to
that situation before death.
238. Phalaris: Died c. 554BC, the tyrant of Acragas (modern
Agrigento). He is alleged to have roasted his victims alive in a
bronze bull, their shrieks representing the animal’s bellowing.
239. Emotions are my events: A witty condensation which sums up the
rhetoric of the Gothic novel from Ann Radcliffe’s version of the
Burkean sublime (see above, Chapter II, note 4) to Edgar Allan Poe’s
‘objectless yet intolerable horror’ (William Wilson, 1839). Now the
Parricide takes over the role of Narrator of the oral tale, telling it to
Monçada as listener, who is recounting it to John Melmoth as
listener.
240. the dignified depravity of an informer: Another oxymoronic but
morally acute psychological description. (See intro. pp. xxvi-xxviii.)
241. amateurs: i.e. ‘connoisseurs’. Sadistic voyeurism, linked to a lust
for power.
242. Charlevoix: Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682–1761),
History of Paraguay, 1756 (English translation, 2 vols., 1769), Vol. I,
22: ‘The Indians say that they engender in the same way with land-
animals, and that the males often attack women as it is pretended
monkeys do in some countries…’ Then follows the reported
confession of an Indian woman to one Father Montaya, that one of
these animals attacked her sexually while she was sleeping by a
river. The lurid, horrified tone is Maturin’s: it is ostensibly part of an
analogy for the emotions caused (in a narrow, superstitious mind)
by the transgression of conventual rules. But its effect is not to
harness horror so much as to create it in another direction. Cf.
Matthew Lewis’s horror story about a giant boa-constrictor, ‘The
Anaconda’.
243: ineffable: Unspeakable, inexpressible. Ironic because usually used
to describe God, or God’s gift of grace.
244. the horns of the altar: 1 Kings i, 50.
245. confidence: The mental attitude of relying on a person, firm trust,
faith. But also, boldness, assurance. The expression combines ‘trust’
and the role of ‘one who entrusts’, i.e. narrates.
246. The force…tale: Here the act of narration is placed on the same
level as the survival of the character.
247. hateful…another: Titus iii, 3. The epistle is from Paul to his son,
Titus, whom he has left in Crete, exhorting him to practise and
preach good works. The phrase is a confession that Paul himself, in
his previous life before his conversion, was (like the rest of the
community) full of ‘malice and envy’.
248. induration: Hardening.
249. Here is no hope: Dante, Divina Commedia, Inferno: III, 9: ‘All Hope
abandon, ye who enter here.’
250. Madame Sevigné (1626–96). Her letters (published in 1726) to
her daughter, Françoise Marguerite, the Comtesse de Grignan,
written without specific literary intention, became the model for the
epistolary novel.
251. clamp me…hours: ‘Clap’ (Grant). Here for a moment the
Parricide drops into the hearty cynicism of an English seventeenth-
century cavalier about romantic love, then settles into the position
of a fetishistic voyeur of suffering.
252. couch: (From Fr. se coucher) go to bed, make love. Love is an
appetite which, under certain circumstances, literally consumes
itself, so the analogy is between eating and lovemaking: ‘couch’
nastily condenses the two. It also seems to suggest ‘crouch’.
253. barter a descended Venus: A striking phrase. Venus does not
normally ‘descend’ like Jove, and offer her love to mortals. But
Homer describes in Iliad, III, for example, how Menelaus, the
husband of Helen, would have defeated Paris in single combat but
for the intervention of the goddess, Aphrodite. Maturin perhaps has
in mind the tale of Cupid and Psyche in the Greek romance of
Apuleius, The Golden Ass.
254. Zeno…Burgersdicius: Not Zeno of Elea, but Zeno (fourth century
BC), the first of the Stoics. Francis Burgersdyck (1590–1629),
Professor of Logic at Leyden. The point is that one cannot
philosophize away physical needs. Love here is like the Marquis de
Sade’s analysis of it: ultimately reducible to a question of power.
255. ascititious: (From Lat. adscisco-ere) supplemental, i.e. redundant.
The OED says the more common form is ‘adscititious’, but records a
use of this archaic form in Sir Walter Scott, which is possibly where
Maturin found it.
256. Trembling: The story is handed back to Monçada at this point.
257. I would have…brightness: Job xxxi, 26. Maturin has run another
phrase into the Job quotation, the original of which reads: ‘If I
beheld the sun when it shines, or the moon walking in darkness.’
The point about Job is that he has not committed idolatry: the sun
and moon, he is saying, do not secretly remind him of his gold and
silver. So the general sense is accurate to the biblical original.
258. Sir W. Scott, Marmion, Canto II, xxiv. These are the executioners
of Constance Beverley, prepared to wall her up, alive, deep under
Whitby Abbey. The analogy is with Monçada's imprisonment in the
Inquisition.
259. You…images: Another paradorical literary denial of fiction, in
which narrative is presented as testimony, and therefore as 'facts
instead of images'.
260. All of the free-standing lines of Latin poetry on p. 423 are taken
from Virgil, Aeneid, ii.
Heu…venis-: 'How greatly changed, alas, from what he seemed –
From what shores, Hector, long-awaited, have you come-' (Virgil,
Aeneid, ii, 274, 282–3--Grant). Aeneas is confronted by the ghost of
Hector in the ruins of Troy. Slightly adapted: the original reads:
quantum mutatus ab illo/Hectore qui redit exuvias indutus Achilli:
How changed from that Hector who returns after donning the spoils
of Achilles.
Heu fuge: 'Ah, flee' (ibid., ii, 289): Hector urges Aeneas to flee
from the flames, because 'all claims are paid'.
Venit…tempus: 'the final day has come and the inevitable hour'
(ibid., ii, 324). Panthus runs frantic to the doors of Aeneas's house.
Proximus ardet Ucalegon: 'the house of his [Deiphobus's]
neighbour Ucalegon is ablaze' (Virgil, Aeneid, ii, 311–12): Aeneas
looks out over the rooftops of burning Troy, seeing Anchises', his
father's house, and that of Deiphobus's neighbour, Ucalegon--all in
flames.
261. vox stridula: 'Creaking voice' (Seneca, Epistles, lvi, 2). Seneca lives
above a bath-house, and hears constantly below the shrill, selfregarding
tones of the hair-plucker.
262. the Upas: (Malay: 'poison') Antiaris toxicaria: tree which exudes
poison if an incision is made. In the eighteenth century tales were
current that the tree destroyed all animals with in a fifteen-mile
radius, but there was no truth in them. Cf. Blake's lyric, 'The Poison
Tree'.
263. Bermudez de Belmonte, El Diablo Predicador, y Mayor Contrario
Amigo, 1624 (Grant).
264. the devil…stage: Here the devil's hypocrisy, in crossing himself,
is presented as a joke about representation--the actor has forgotten he
is acting but in that moment unconsciously represents the true
nature of the character he is playing.
265. men…hearts: Maturin, for a number of reasons, did not obtain
preferment in the Irish Church. Cf. Swift's division of the Irish clergy
in the earlier eighteenth century into two types, the successful and
obsequious Crusodes ('Drip-nose'); and the cheerful Eugenio
('Benign') who is denied a fellowship because he 'has been found
dancing'. Maturin was a Eugenio--one of the few things we know
about him is that he liked dancing. See Swift, The Intelligencer, Nos.
IV and V, 1728.
266. earthly…devilish: James iii, 15. Refers to 'this wisdom', the ear-
thly product of strife and despair, the opposite of peace and heavenly
wisdom.
267. king's evidence…them: This remarkable passage analyses the
contradictions of a spiritual power-system run by God in terms of a
law-court in the name of the king.
268. in ancient story…pursuit: To help Jason to escape from her father,
Aëetes, after Jason had stolen the golden fleece, Medea tore her
brother, Absyrtus, into pieces and strewed them in the path of
Aëetes.
CHAPTER XI
269. Shakespeare, II Henry VI, III, iii, 14. Beaufort's speech in ex-
tremis, as he lies dying, in raving mad despair. The scene is used as a
model.
270. Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, V, i, 90: Adriana's speech about
the accusations of the Abbess, when asked why she doesn't defend
herself: 'She did betray me to my own reproof.' The analogy is with
the interrogatory techniques of the Inquisition.
271. a…wild…absence: The conventional impossibility of the Wan-
derer's position: being outside History, and yet present within it
as an eye-witness.
272. Henriette: Henrietta Maria (1609–69), queen consort of Charles I.
273. the death of the Duchesse d'Orleans: Philippe II, Duke of Or-
léans (1640–1701), and brother of Louis XIV, married Henrietta of
England as his first wife in 1661. She died in 1670, amidst
suspicions that she had been poisoned. Her funeral oration was
delivered by Bossuet (1627–1704), not by the Jesuit Louis
Bourdaloue (1622–1704). One hundred and ninety-three sermons of
Bourdaloue, edited by J. Bretonneau, came out between 1702 and
1734, which included 'Sur le jugement dernier' and 'Sur la mort'.
274. the wife of James II: Mary of Modena (1658–1718).
275. thought it scorn: Esther iii, 6. Mordechai did not bow down to
Haman, and the King then knew that he was a Jew: this is the King's
ominous thought--that he scorned to lay hands on only one
individual: instead, he set about destroying all the Jews in the
territory of Ahasuerus.
276. The incident is actually related in Letters Writ By a Turkish
Spy, Bk III, Letter iii (Grant). Jew and Turk have become conflated in
Maturin's mind, perhaps because of their 'underground' status, their
popular association with secrecy.
277. the belief…state: Reflects the idea of a 'future state' (i.e.
life after death) as part of the fundamental tenets of Christianity.
The remark is thus doubly blasphemous.
278. enemy of mankind: Traditional euphemism for Satan.
279. You…supreme: 'Cell' is ambiguous: holy, and prison-like.
Here language is conceived of as an instrument to mould thought.
Supreme: Suprema, the Council of the Spanish Inquisition.
280. through…St Dominic: The conjunction is sarcastic. St Dominic,
the founder of the Dominican order, members of which are often
referred to, punningly, as 'domini canes': 'the dogs of the Lord',
because of their inquisitorial zeal in hunting down heretics.
281. all…Goa: The Spanish Inquisition was founded in 1480 under
Ferdinand and Isabella. St Francis Xavier (1506–52) laid the
foundations, and after his death the Portuguese Inquisition at Goa
in Western India was established in 1561.
282. Al-Araf: See The Koran, Ch. VII. Here the Muslim concept of a
'cuspid state', a kind of limbo between heaven and hell, is used
satirically to oppose two less preferred options: the Inquisition and
the Infernal Spirit. But the idea is of some importance in this novel
as a whole. The probable source is a note to Southey's Thalaba the
Destroyer, BkXIII, v. 30, 11–13:
Araf is a place between the Paradise and the Hell of the
Mohammedans; some deem it a veil of separation, some a strong
wall. Others hold it to be a Purgatory, in which those believers will
remain, whose good and evil works have been so equal, that they
were neither virtuous enough to enter Paradise, nor guilty enough
to be condemned to the fire of Hell. From whence they see the glory
of the blessed, and are near enough to congratulate them; but their
ardent desire to partake the same happiness becomes a great pain…
Saadi says that Araf appears a Hell to the happy, and a Paradise to
the damned--d'Herbelot.
For an elaborate commentary on the idea, possibly taken from
Maturin, see Poe's earliest poem, 'Al-Araaf', and the notes to it
written by Poe.
283. san benitos: Penitential robes which the Inquisition made those
who were convicted of heresy wear.
284. fuego revolto: Flames reversed, intimating that the criminal is not
to be burned.
285. Elizabeth of France (1545–68): The wife of Philip II of Spain. The
'I believe' here suggests an editorial intervention rather than Alonzo
Monçada, who would probably know it. The 'young Jewess' is a
propaganda example of an oppressed religion.
286. Misericordia por amor di Dios: Pity, for the love of God.
287. Appius Claudius (c.307–280BC): In 280BC, blind and at an
advanced age, he addressed the Roman Senate and persuaded them
to reject the peace proposals of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, over which
they were undecided.
blessing his loss of sight: This was a rhetorical ploy. He went on to
say: 'I regret I did not lose my hearing also, for never did I expect
to see or hear deliberations of this kind from you.' The incident is
recorded in Appian, Roman History, 'The Samnite History', X, 2.
288. that…mankind: Fernando Valdes, Cardinal-Archbishop of Seville
and Grand Inquisitor, is reported to have quoted this parallel when
advising Philip II of Spain to execute his son, Don Carlos.
289. Salvator Rosa: The Neapolitan painter (1615–73), beloved of
Ann Radcliffe, specializing in sublime landscapes. The point is the
assimilation of the description of the event to the painterly, so that
it becomes a 'wildly painted picture of the last day'.
290. Alcaide: Governor of a jail.
291. king of Spain: Charles IV (1748–1819). He abdicated in favour of
Napoleon in 1808.
292. spicula: Sharp
293. Orate pro anima: Pray for the soul of…(in this case, Juan
Monçada).
CHAPTER XII
294. Juravi…gero: 'My tongue has sworn; the mind I have has sworn
no oath' (Cicero, De Officiis, III, xxix, 108). The quotation applies to
the Jew's denial of his own religion and his adoption of Christianity,
under the eye of the Inquisition.
295. James Shirley, St Patrick for Ireland, 1640.
296. Samaritan points: The Samaritans preserved the Pentateuch as the
basis of their religion. In biblical texts, points and commas are used
to mark the middle and end of verses by the Hebrew Masioretes
(Scholars)--indications of which verse, word, and letter marked the
centre of the text, so future emendation could be detected.
297. Quilibet postea paterfamilias…etc.': 'Then some head of the
household comes forward first into the centre bearing a cock before
him in his hands. He then approaches the expiation and strikes the
cock three times on his own head accompanying each blow with
these words, 'Let this cock be a substitute for me, etc.” Then placing
his hands on the cock he slays it at once' (Grant). The ceremony is
the Jewish ceremony of expiation.
298. every where…against: Acts xxviii, 22. The phrase, used to Paul by
the Jews of Rome about the early Christians, often refers to
Protestant dissenters, by analogy.
299. an Israelite…his sentiments: Rom. ix, 4–5. The next words are:
'Christ came, who is over all.'
300. two Messias: The Qumran sect held a doctrine--found also in late
Jewish sects--of a messianic pair: a priestly Messiah of the House of
Aaron (the brother of Moses) and a royal Messiah of the House of
David. The 'anointed ones' were not thought of as saviours, as in
late Christian thought--but rather as ideal leaders.
301. Statim…gallum': At once he slays the cock. He quotes the
instructions as he performs the action.
302. oubliettes: Dungeons (from Fr. oublier, to forget)--i.e. a place
where one is forgotten.
303. Suprema: Normally used to denote the Council of the Inquisition,
here used as a singular, denoting the head of the council.
304. εν-ιoνιω-νικa: By this, Conquer. Emperor Constantine,
on his way to invade Italy in AD312, had a sudden vision of a cross
in the mist and these words beneath. Early Christians put it on their
shields.
305. This circumstance occurred in Ireland 1797, after the murder of
the unfortunate William Hamilton (1755–97), naturalist and antiquary,
murdered at Sharon, Donegal. The officer was answered, on inquiring
what was that heap of mud at his horse’s feet,--‘The man you came
for.’
306. Regulus: Marcus Attilus Regulus in his second consulship was
taken prisoner by Hamilcar in the first Punic War (255BC). He was
returned to Rome on parole, sworn to return to Carthage if certain
noble prisoners were not returned to the Carthaginians. He returned
voluntarily and was put to exquisite torture. See Cicero, De Officiis,
III, XXVI. Maturin's source for the details of his torture is probably
Dio, History of Rome, I, XI, 431 and 439.
307. Lord Kilwarden: Arthur Wolfe, Viscount Kilwarden (1739–1803),
Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, was murdered by the rebels in the
course of Robert Emmett's insurrection. In the year 1803, when
Emmett’s insurrection broke out in Dublin --(the fact from which
this account is drawn was related to me by an eye–witness)--Lord
Kilwarden, in passing through Thomas Street, was dragged from his
carriage, and murdered in the most horrid manner. Pike after pike
was thrust through his body, till at last he was nailed to a door, and
called out to his murderers to ‘put him out of his pain.’ At this mo-
ment, a shoemaker, who lodged in the garret of an opposite house,
was drawn to the window by the horrible cries he heard. He stood
at the window, gasping with horror, his wife attempting vainly to drag
him away. He saw the last blow struck--he heard the last groan ut-
tered, as the sufferer cried, ‘put me out of pain,’ while sixty pikes
were thrusting at him. The man stood at his window as if nailed to it;
and when dragged from it, became--an idiot for life.
308. Oh, Father Abraham…are!: Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, I, iii,
160. Shylock's irony at the distrust between Bassanio and Antonio.
309. children of Belial: Deut. xiii, 13. The issue is once again that of
worshipping false Gods.
310. the matter of the wife of the Benjamite: Judges xix, 22: The sons of
Belial surround the house of the Benjamite in Gibeah and beat on
the door, concerned at the fact that he has taken in an Israelite and
his wife. When the wife is shown to them, they abuse her repeatedly
all night until in the morning she lies on the threshold dying. The
biblical text is about racial hatred and oppression. Maturin's figure
of Rebekah here is a potential victim, and the biblical analogy
allows a rather cold current to run beneath the comedy of Maturin's
text.
311. the black blood of Grenada: Granada was the last Moorish
stronghold, which fell in 1492. This is also the year in which
Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews, or forced them to convert.
CHAPTER XIII
312. Thalaba the Destroyer, Book IX, 35, 1–2.
313. Cheops: IV dynasty king of Egypt (c.2600BC) who built the largest
of the Pyramids. His tomb is at the heart of the Pyramid, at the end
of long and complicated passages.
314. Samson: Judges xiii-xvi.
315. Nazarene: A follower of Jesus of Nazareth, a Christian.
316. Adonijah: Self-appointed successor to David, dispossessed of the
Kingdom by Solomon, David's official heir.
317. peep and mutter: Isaiah viii, 19.
318. leach: Leech, a physician, one who practises the healing art.
319. in the language…earth: Cf. Gen. i, 1–3.
CHAPTER XIV
320. Unde…merentur: 'Why should they fear the anger of the Gods,
who deserve their favour-' (untraced).
321. Aer…longevitatem: 'The shutting out of draughts contributes to
longevity' (not identified).
322. the silver cord…abated: Eccl. xii, 6.
323. behold…off: Isaiah xxxiii, 17.
324. a power: i.e. the Wanderer.
325. the sons of Dominick: i.e. the Dominicans, who, along with the
Franciscans, staffed the Inquisition.
326. Behold…safety: Ps. xii, 5: 'I will set him in safety from him that
puffeth at him.'
327. Written mountains, i.e. rocks inscribed with characters rec-
ordative of some remarkable event, are well known to every oriental
traveller. I think it is in the notes of Dr Coke, on the book of
Exodus, that I have met with the circumstance alluded to above. A
rock near the Red Sea is said once to have borne the inscription,
'Israel hath passed the flood.'
328. being…alive: The link between embedded narrative and frame tale
is portrayed as a kind of resurrection.
329. the manuscript I was to copy: This changes the relation between
Moncada, John Melmoth, and the reader, because we are no longer
simply 'overhearing' an oral tale. Moncada 'hears' the story through
reading, and through having re-written, the manuscript which we
read.
330. Hoogly: The Hooghly River in West Bengal State, India, provides
access to Calcutta from the Bay of Bengal, and is an arm of the
Ganges. At Calcutta, it is regarded as holy, and many Indians
commit their dead to its banks and waters.
331. the black goddess Seeva: i.e. Siva: a Hindu god, not a goddess, of
nature and destruction, one of whose three faces appears more
female than the others.(Vide Thomas Maurice, Indian Antiquities, 1806.)
332. tufaun: Typhoon.
333. Juggernaut: Jaggernath, an image of Vishnu.
334. Haree: Hara, the universal destroyer, mate to Durga, with whom
he was worshipped in bloody orgiastic rites.
335. The Cupid of the Indian mythology.
336. The Indian Apollo.
337. voluntary humility: Col. ii, 18: Again the theme is idolatry; St
Paul warns the Colossians: 'Let no man beguile you of your reward
in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels…'
338. setons: A thread, or piece of tape, drawn through a fold of skin
so as to maintain an issue for discharges or drawn through a sinus
or cavity to prevent it from healing up.
339. Flora: The Goddess of the Spring, in, for example, Botticelli's
Primavera, whose garments have flowers worked into them. The
analogy is with the garlanded Vishnu.
340. Solomon…them: Matt, vi, 28-9. Christ's words.
341. paradise of leaves: Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer, Bk VI, v.20,
11. 26-7.
342. bombex: Bombax, raw silk. A tree which cocoons its seeds in
silky fibre (i.e. OED gives bombax, a corruption of 'bombyx': the
silkworm).
343. sounds and sweet airs: Shakespeare, The Tempest, III, ii, 135-6.
Caliban's magical description of the isle.
344. Paria: Pariah, untouchable, member of the lowest Hindu caste.
345. Brahma: Hindu god of creation.
346. purdah: the curtain behind which women are concealed.
347. Nawaub: Indian governor.
348. Mahadeva: A title of the god Siva.
349. tinging: Tingeing, colouring. Being pure, the water does not
'colour' their feet.
350. Elephanta: An island off Bombay on the west coast of the Indian
subcontinent which contains a magnificent temple of Shiva and
several important sculptures, including one of the marriage of Shiva
and Parvati, in which Shiva appears an androgynous young man;
the great sculpture of the three heads of Shiva in the temple of
Elephanta also contains one head - probably the south-facing one -
which appears threatening.
351. Bengalese islands: The Bay of Bengal is on the east coast of the
subcontinent. It is not clear which islands the text refers to: the
nearest group, which includes Nicobar, are at least 1,500 miles
away.
352. loxia: A kind of crossbill which makes a hanging nest.
353. From the fire-flies being so often found in the nest of the loxia,
the Indians imagine he illuminates his nest with them. It is more likely
they are the food of his young.
354. the white goddess: i.e. they have made a goddess who is not in
their own image.