Monday 28 May 1660

Annotations

• N A. De Araujo on Wed 28 May 2003, 11:48pm. Flag this

  “At night I had a strange dream of-myself” very confusing!was it a wet dream? after all he had been away from Elisabeth for a while! but then why the pain? after effects of the surgery he had two years before?

• N Eric Walla on Wed 28 May 2003, 11:54pm. Flag this

  “A strange dream of—myself …”

  Yes, an interesting turn of phrase. Are there subconscious torments in the Pepys soul? Does he perhaps feel the strain of rising in rank so quickly, and on the back of an as-yet-shaky Restoration?

  Or did he just dream he went out on deck and forgot to put on his trousers?

• N language hat on Wed 28 May 2003, 11:59pm

  “A strange dream of — myself “:
  This sounds like a clear case of bowdlerization. Come on, L&M readers, give us the R-rated version!

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 29 May 2003, 12:06am. Flag this

  At night I had a strange dream of bepissing myself, which I really did, and having kicked my clothes off, I got cold; and found myself all muck wet in the morning, and had a great deal of pain in making water which made me very melancholy
  Per L&M. Another case of Mr Wheatley at work. Note that within the same sentence he indicates deletion both with a long dash (for “bepissing”) and a long dash (for “in making water”). Ah, consistency. I think the much-muck translation made be a matter of interpretation.
  

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 29 May 2003, 12:10am. Flag this

  Missed several other L&M differences in the same passage:
  This night I had a strange dream of bepissing myself, which I really did, and having kicked the clothes off, I got cold and found myself all muck-wet in the morning, and had a great deal of pain in making water which made me very melancholy
  sorry about that …
  

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 29 May 2003, 12:21am. Flag this

  Where would we be without L&M?
  This passage is obviously almost incomprehensible with the deletions. The full text is very real and quite haunting. It is also quite wonderfully understated. For the first time that I can remember he doesn’t fully reveal to the diary the nature of his feelings. An obvious surmise is a fear of the stone’s return. Less obviously it may be a worry about some form of sexually transmitted disease.
  

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 29 May 2003, 03:37am

  I received in the Captain’s cabin, for my share, sixty ducats
  L&M etimates the value at 27L. Given the information elsewhere in their glossary (Ducket(t), Ducat: Spanish gold or silver coin worth 9s. 4d. and 3s. 6d. respectively) these must have been gold ducats. Note that SP was promised 30L just 2 days ago and doesn’t seem to feel he’s been shorted.

• N Brian McMullen on Thu 29 May 2003, 04:06pm. Flag this

  Being a ‘fellow of the stones’ the first thing that comes to mind is a recurrence of SP’s urinary problems. If this were to happen to me I would be very melancholy as well! As to the possibility of a transmitted disease has SP given any indication that he has found sexual favor from other than his wife? I remember the reference to the Dutch lady from last week but nothing else.

• N Sam P on Thu 29 May 2003, 04:07pm. Flag this

  60 ducats or £30…. obviously just a highly variable or vague exchange rate!

• N Glyn on Thu 29 May 2003, 06:41pm. Flag this

  (Sam P? I suspect that that’s an alias.)

  Surely he is justifiably concerned that it might be a symptom of something serious to do with his old wound. But look at his irregular sleep pattern again: yesterday he went to bed late, was woken at 2am and then got up at 5am for a busy day’s work.

  With apologies to any younger readers for raising this, but would languagehat or any other expert explain if there is any difference in meaning between “be-p…ing myself” and simply “p…ing myself” – presumably there is. But I’d be beholden to you if you would tell me what it is.

  And what exactly does the prefix “be-“ mean in English words – it seems to appear in a lot of medieval words but to be becoming more rare. I suspect that it is similar to suffixes such as “monger” (i.e. “seller) which are part of older words (fishmonger, costermonger) but not used to create new ones – you wouldn’t say computermonger or itmonger, for instance.

  
  

• N Nix on Thu 29 May 2003, 06:54pm. Flag this

  I’m no languagehat, but a quick check of OED gives the following as one of several uses of the prefix “be-” (bepiss is about two-thirds of the way down):

  “4. Making verbs transitive, by adding a prepositional relation: primarily “about,” as in BE-SPEAK, speak about (or for, to), BE-MOAN, moan about (or over); which sense can usually be detected under the various against, at, for, to, on, upon, over, by, etc. required by modern idiom: {dag}bebark, to bark around or at; {dag}becack, to deposit ordure on; bechatter, to environ with chattering, etc.; {dag}bechirm, to chirm (as birds) around; {dag}bechirp, to chirp about; beclang, beclatter; {dag}becrave (OE. becrafian), to crave for; becrawl, to crawl all over; becroak, to croak round or at; {dag}becry, to cry at, accuse; bedin, to fill with din or noise; bedribble, to dribble upon (e.g. as a dog); bedrivel; bedrizzle; {dag}bedwell, to dwell in or around; {dag}befleet, to flow round; {dag}befret, to fret or gnaw away; befuddle, to make stupid with tippling; begaze, to gaze at; {dag}beglide, to slip away from, escape; {dag}beglitter, to irradiate; begroan, to groan at; {dag}begruntle, to make uneasy; behoot, to hoot at; bejuggle, to get over by jugglery, to cheat; {dag}belag, to make to lag; {dag}beleap, to leap on, “cover”; {dag}bemew, {dag}bemoult, to mew or moult upon; bemurmur, to murmur at or against; {dag}bemute (of birds), to mute or drop dung on; beparse, to plague with parsing; bepiss, to piss on, wet with urine; bepreach, to preach at; bereason, to reason with, overcome by reasoning; {dag}bireme, to cry out upon; beride (OE. ber?dan), to ride beside, to override; {dag}berow, to row round; {dag}bescumber, to scumber on; beshine (OE. besc?nan), to shine on; beshit(e (OE. besc?tan) = becack (Obs. in polite use, but common in ME. and early mod.E. literature); beshout, to shout at, applaud; {dag}beshriek, to shriek at; {dag}besigh, to sigh for; {dag}besmell, to smell out; besmile, to smile on; {dag}bespew, to spew on; bestare, to stare at, to make staring; bestraddle, to straddle across, bestride; bestream, to stream over; beswarm, to swarm over; {dag}beswelter; beswim, to swim upon; bethunder; {dag}betipple, to muddle by tippling; betravel, to travel over, to overrun with travellers: bevomit, to vomit all over; bewhisper, to whisper to; bewhistle, to whistle round.”

  The usage examples of bepiss in this entry are:

  “1481 CAXTON Reynard (Arb.) 6 There he hath *be-pyssed my chyldren where as they laye. 1658 FORD Witch of Edm. IV. i, Ready to bepiss themselves with laughing. 1764 T. BRIDGES Homer Travest. (1797) II. 16 Ye all bepiss’d yourselves for fear.”

• N language hat on Fri 30 May 2003, 04:22am. Flag this

  Well done, Nix.
  Yes, in this case it basically transitivizes the verb; the same happens with (be)shit.

• N Jenny Doughty on Fri 30 May 2003, 11:51am. Flag this

  Regarding the ‘be’ form of a verb - about the only contemporary example I can think of is to ‘bespeak’ something, and that is quite archaic now and seems only to live on in the form of a ‘bespoke’ suit. Am I right in thinking this verb form is connected with our linguistic heritage from Anglo-Saxon?

• N Tina on Fri 30 May 2003, 02:25pm. Flag this

  How about beholden?…
  As in “he doesn’t want to feel beholden to anyone over this”.

• N Jenny Doughty on Sat 31 May 2003, 04:32am. Flag this

  Hmm - didn’t think that one through, did I? Should have used a dictionary…

• N sorry on Sat 31 May 2003, 05:58am. Flag this

  no wonder the bard had to ask “to be…”

• N jamie yeager on Thu 26 Feb 2004, 09:16pm. Flag this

  These ducats and the earlier 30 pounds
  These ducats, at about 27 pounds value, and the earlier 30 pounds, mean Sam has more than doubled his last reported net worth of 40 pounds by his service on this voyage alone…

• N Linda Camidge on Fri 28 May 2010, 07:59pm. Flag this

  Just in case jenny Doughty is still out there, I think Anglo-Saxon equivalent is the prefix “ge”, with a hard “g” so a simialr sound

• N Jenny Doughty on Sat 29 May 2010, 01:30am. Flag this

  Jenny Doughty is still out here, so thank you Linda.

• N language hat on Sat 29 May 2010, 03:49pm. Flag this

  I don’t know what Linda means by “hard g,” but the g in the ge- prefix was pronounced like y, which is why it’s disappeared. Also, it wasn’t the “equivalent” of be-, they were two different Old English prefixes, with different meanings.

• N Mary on Sat 29 May 2010, 04:49pm. Flag this

  OE, ME, ModE prefixes.

  Many thanks, LH. You’re absolutely right, but I’m feeling far too jet-lagged to ferret through Campbell, Mitchell and Dobson to provide germane examples.