Pages

1.19.2015

Sodom and Gomorrah IV pp 123-42

p 123 | Don Juan: fictitious character symbolic of libertinism. (Don Juan. (2015). In Encyclopædia Britannica.)
p 123 | Gustave Jean Jacquet (1846-1909), painted genre scenes and society portraits.
,
               
           Is this the portrait of Mme de Surgis?
p 125 | ...married to a Bourbon princess...: this is the only mention of Charlus’s late wife's having been a Bourbon – that is, a member of the family of the family of the Kings of France between 1589 and 1848. (Sturrock)
p 126 | one louis: a gold coin worth twenty francs. (Sturrock)
p 128 | Uncle and Nephew, i.e. Nephew as Uncle, by Friedrich Schiller & L.-B. Picard.
p 129 | Giorgionesque...Giorgione on wiki. Did they mean like this?
Pastoral Concert. Louvre, Paris, which
it now attributes to Titian, c.1509.
p 130 | Scapin is a character in Les Fourberies de Scapin ("Scapin's Deceits"), a 3-act comedy by Molière; the traditional figure of the insolent valet in Italian comedy, imported into France by Molière. (Sturrock).
p 131 | ...send me away with a flea in my ear... a rebuke.
p 132 | Syndicate...
p 132 | Victurnien d'Esgrignon is a character in Balzac's novel Le Cabinet des Antiques.
p 132 | Emile Loubet was president of the Republic from 1899 to 1906, and thus during the time when the Dreyfus case was reopened. He was in favor of a review and reprieved Dreyfus after he had been found guilty for a second time. (Sturrock).
p 133 | definition of aristocrat
p 134 | Prussian blue
p 136 | The Restoration was the period immediately following the fall of Napoleon and the First Empire (Sturrock).
p 136 | deliquescent: becoming liquid or having a tendency to become liquid. Sturrock says: 'Ah! Green ...' ": the line (slightly misquoted) comes from a volume of parodies of Symbolist poetry entitled Deliquescences: Poemes decadents d'André Floupette (1885), written by Gabriel Vicaire and Henri Beauclair. In French, the quote reads, "Ah! Verte, combien verte était mon âme ce jour-la...."
p 140 | Jules, Cardinal Mazarin (1602-61), a great statesman of the 17th-century, founded the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris in 1642, a public library that became part of the Bibliotheque Nationale in 1930. (Sturrock).
p 140 | Athena Hippia (Sturrock: so called because she was supposed to have taught men how to control horses); Pallas Tritogeneia.
p 142 | Assyrian frieze



1.16.2015

Sodom and Gomorrah IV pp 119-23

p 119 | la barbe literally, "the beard," an expression meaning "what a drag.” (Sturrock)
p 119 | sphinxes along arms of chairs; see, for example, here.
p 119 | augural: the art or practice of an augur; divination. 2. the rite or ceremony of an augur. 3. an omen, token, or indication. Mid. Eng · Latin. 1325-75. Signifying the future : ominous, portentous, or auspicious.
p 119 | Pythia, oracle of Delphi.
p 120 | more geometrico: in the geometrical mode (Sturrock).
p120 | sibylline: "having a secret meaning" or "foretelling the future," like a fortune teller whose crystal ball reveals a sibylline message about what will happen. If you can predict this meaning, you may come from a family of psychics — or you may have a background in Greek mythology. Origins in the Greek word Sibulla, meaning "prophetess." Back in Greek & Roman times, a sibyl was a female oracle who delivered cryptic prophecies foretelling the future, often inspired by the deities.
p 120 | grimoire: a textbook of magic.
p 120 | children of Jupiter: Metis=first great spouse of Zeus. Themis=one of the first Delphic oracles. Eurynome=3rd bride of Zeus. See also 12 Olympians in the Greek pantheon.
p 121 | "suave, mari magno” (“how sweet when, on the open sea") are the first words of a passage by the Roman poet Lucretius where he reflects on the comfort of watching from the shore as the lives of others are imperiled by a storm out at sea; memento quia pulvis (“remember thou art dust") are words drawn from Genesis 3:19 and God's promise to Adam: "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Sturrock)
p 121 | punchinello nose 
p 121 | The Valois were the reigning dynasty in France from 1328 to 1589. (Sturrock)
p 123 | camphorate - treat with camphor; subject to a process or treatment, with the aim of readying , improving, or remedying a condition; "process hair," "treat the water so it can be drunk," etc.