Tuesday 6 August 1661

Annotations

• N daniel on Fri 6 Aug 2004, 11:04pm

  …but lost my labour…

  did his day-laborer skip town or does he refer to something else?

  I like the use of the very germanic “durst”. durfen: german word “may”. durfen: dutch “dare”.

• N A. De Araujo on Fri 6 Aug 2004, 11:16pm

  “which he did never see or hear of before” that is hard to believe considering his morning drafts and very frequent tavern visits.

• N Pedro. on Fri 6 Aug 2004, 11:27pm

  Baldwick (Bagdad), present day Baldock.

  For short history and St.Mary’s Church see…

  http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/baldock.htm

• N cindy b on Fri 6 Aug 2004, 11:48pm

• N Sjoerd on Fri 6 Aug 2004, 11:59pm

  who could discern that I had been drinking….

  What does this mean…Sam has not been brought up to be a drinker…you can imagine father would’nt approve… but dad went along to Goody Gorum’s just the same ?
  Is that daddies “dependant character” or what ?

• N vicente on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 03:34am

  “…but lost my labour..” It be he [my labour] that should doing the work, and he being not Mr Phillips but one one of dogs bodies that should be a cleaning up around the yard, rubbing down and finding oats etc., Most hired hands lack names even now the Kitchen help are faceless and nameless.:. Horses dinae feed themselves or rub themselves down, and Sam now ever the Gent,[esq] and dried out after he be getting a Fen soaking.
  Mumsy, C of E if I do ‘member. Pop most likey more puritanical[strong Fen thinking ] and not be of self indulging school, as most Puritanical thinking men do, more of the Fen thinking, because it not only a moral Issue in the Fens but also very practical one . If one is over the eight, one could be drowned in the Marshy areas and may never be found.
  Sam acquired the taste for abuzzing ‘ead at Coll: [note he was warned by the Tutor] but cannot pass up a good head of ale:

• N dirk on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 04:06am

  durst

  Less than a century ago the old form “dorst” of the verb “durven” (to dare) was still in use in Dutch - with exactly the same meaning and syntax as sam’s usage here.
  

• N vicente on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 05:04am

  “…Before supper I went to see the church, which is a very handsome church, but I find that both here, and every where else that I come, the Quakers do still continue, and rather grow than lessen…”
  see Quakers and Quakerism; Over, a pepy village and Swaverly not far away, were swarming with these out castes many enjoyed the inside of the local nik.. [that is if ye be a Royalist, [Others went to fen way park Boston?]go to America and be treated evenly. remember all these events lead to Thomas Paine and “the right to one’s own opinion even if it is the wrong one” This Is Cromwell country and Republicanism, [the original not the version now in vogue]

• N vicente on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 05:14am

  see: quaker and quakerism
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/1146.php
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/305.php
  

• N vicente on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 05:53am

  It is reported that Mr Pepys did issue a quote for all ages:Well attended courts were still actively managing parish business in the mid 17th century: Samuel Pepys styled the suitors in 1661 ‘a company of country rogues’. (Footnote 8)

  From: British History Online
  Source: Graveley: Local government. A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume IX, A. P. M. Wright & C. P. Lewis (Editors) (1989).
  URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=15466&strquery=pepys
  Date: 07/08/2004
  

• N Mary on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 05:58am

  “lost my labout”

  Cindy B’s interpretation is the correct one. Sam’s labour (the effort of early rising and walking to Phillips’s house in Brampton) was all for nothing because Phillips was away from home. Sam is not complaining about the absence of some common drudge.

• N Mary on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 06:06am

  “who could discern that I had been drinking”

  The normal morning draft of small beer would not have counted as drinking in any pejorative sense. What Father Pepys can both see and hear (Sam’s words) here is that Sam has indulged in a lengthy morning session with a glass or a tankard in his hand.

• N vicente on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 06:20am

  Baldock 25 mile approx. from the house, Poor horse it be wore out.
  Durst: cannot find it in an it a Webster : could have sworn I used to hear it often but? [blue moons ago] I wonder if it be in Fowlers. I durst not find it [otherwise i will be in shock].

• N Mary on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 06:34am

  I durst not

  OED lists ‘durst’ as an archaic form of the past tense of ‘dare’. However, it was certainly in common use in the 1940s and 1950s in parts of NW Kent, though I haven’t heard it much in more recent years.

• N Larry Bunce on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 06:45am

  durst
  The word survived in America into the 20th century, in the backwoods areas.
  The word also appears in the form dursen’t

• N Mary on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 06:57am

  durst.

  Apologies; I should have made it plain that this form of the verb was used in both present and past tenses in informal speech. Larry’s citation of ‘dursen’t’ is also confirmed as being in use in the mid-20th century, NW Kent.

• N Ruben on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 08:04am

  Durst
  from an olde and famous book (I do not have the name of the editor or the publishing year):

  ACTS 7:32 [Saying], I [am] the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold.

  And in “The New American Standard Bible” (ed. A. J. Holman Co., Lippincott Co, Phil & NY, 1973):
  ACTS 7:32 “I AM THE GOD OF YOUR FATHERS, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM AND ISAAC AND JACOB”. And Moses shook with fear and would not venture to look.

  Maybe someone has an old edition and is kind enough to check 7:32?

• N Ruben on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 08:10am

  I remember reading in Somerset Maugham that in every old English house there was at least a Bible and may be some Shakespeare works.
  He concluded that the Bible helped to shape the English language.

• N Mary on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 08:25am

  The King James Bible.

  Authorized (hence it’s description as the Authorized Version or AV) by King James I and VI and published in 1611. It was the new version ‘authorized to be read in churches. It is this version which reads:

  “Then Moses trembled and durst not behold.”

  It was this version of the Bible that was heard in every parish church for the next 300+ years and so it naturally influenced common language and patterns of speech throughout the country.

• N Pedro. on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 09:07am

  A little off topic but, while looking for info on Impington, and as I don’t think we have come across this yet..

  The motto of the Pepys family translated is:-

• N Grahamt on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 11:18am

  Durst and dursen’t
  Still in use in the East Midlands of England. In Nottinghamshire it is often pronounced dost and dostn’t. I’m so used to hearing it, I didn’t realise it was rare.

• N Glyn on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 11:59am

  JFrom “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare (c.1590s?):

  “Cassius: When Caesar lived, he durst not thus have mou’d me

  Brutus: Peace, peace, you durst not so have tempted him

  Cassius: I durst not?!

  Brutus: No

  Cassius: What? durst not tempt him?

  Brutus: For your life you durst not”

• N daniel on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 03:40pm

  excellent quote, Glyn!

• N A. Hamilton on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 05:15pm

  Durst and dursen

• N JWB on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 05:28pm

  re Vinvent “Republicans”
  Durst I rise to state “W” 10th great-grandson of Anne Hutchinson.

• N vicente on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 08:53pm

  I durst say “I doth thank ey, for my addled brain is not completely addled”
  Re:Hutchinson, there may be a genetic connection But :
  Anne Hutchinson -American Jezebel or Woman of Courage?

  http://www.cpcug.org/user/billb/hutch.html
  you are known to be a woman that hath had a great share in the promoting and divulging of those opinions that are the cause of this trouble,
  worth reading:http://www.pragmatism.org/american/docs/hutchinson_trial.htm
  ‘…
  Gov.: You knew that Mr. Wheelwright did preach this sermon and those that countenance him in this do break a law.
  Mrs. H.: What law have I broken?
  Gov.: Why the fifth commandment. …”
  These are some of the problems that Sam tried to resolve and We are even now still ever trying?

• N Robert Gertz on Sat 7 Aug 2004, 11:01pm

  “…but I find that both here, and every where else that I come, the Quakers do still continue, and rather grow than lessen.”

  It’s the 60’s, and those flower children are everywhere…