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Monday 9 September 1661

To the Privy Seal in the morning, but my Lord did not come, so I went with Captain Morrice at his desire into the King’s Privy Kitchen to Mr. Sayres, the Master Cook, and there we had a good slice of beef or two to our breakfast, and from thence he took us into the wine cellar where, by my troth, we were very merry, and I drank too much wine, and all along had great and particular kindness from Mr. Sayres, but I drank so much wine that I was not fit for business, and therefore at noon I went and walked in Westminster Hall a while, and thence to Salisbury Court play house, where was acted the first time “‘Tis pity Shee’s a Whore,” a simple play and ill acted, only it was my fortune to sit by a most pretty and most ingenious lady, which pleased me much. Thence home, and found Sir Williams both and much more company gone to the Dolphin to drink the 30s. that we got the other day of Sir W. Pen about his tankard. Here was Sir R. Slingsby, Holmes, Captn. Allen, Mr. Turner, his wife and daughter, my Lady Batten, and Mrs. Martha, &c., and an excellent company of fiddlers; so we exceeding merry till late; and then we begun to tell Sir W. Pen the business, but he had been drinking to-day, and so is almost gone, that we could not make him understand it, which caused us more sport. But so much the better, for I believe when he do come to understand it he will be angry, he has so talked of the business himself and the letter up and down that he will be ashamed to be found abused in it. So home and to bed.

10 Sep 1661 8 Sep 1661

Temperature: 13°C / 55°F (Sep 1661 avg.)

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  • Fate steps in, no work to do , so easily temped, ‘tis the beefs fault it was salty, so wine be necessary [17C chips smiths] then out he goes, lo and behold a vision, and words of suggestion to entertain “…only it was my fortune to sit by a most pretty and most ingenious lady, which pleased me much…” pretty I understand??? but ingenious, naw that is veddy interesting. Oh! Sam what did she get you to do that you are affeared to put to pen. [“… pleased me much…”]
    then the topping off at Sir Wm: Penns expense. wow! what a monday, Tis best to relax after all that tension at the Sanctory, A new maid to break in, is so very demanding and passifying a wife on the war path. I wonder if he tells Eliza about the “…simple play and ill acted….” not worth wasteing a crown on.?

  • “ingenuous”

    suppose by this word it implies that her conversation was agreeable, or something else?

    and what pray tell, is a “trost”?

  • or troth?

    oops

  • “Tis pity shee’s a Whore”
    I remember watching an off Broadway play quite a while ago in spanish: “Lastima que sea Puta”
    I wonder if it is the same play; the title is exactly the same.

  • Tis Pity She’s a Whore - by John Ford, first performance 1633. Still regularly performed, in print and available from amazon (.co.uk and .com)

  • If you read the songs of period,
    they are today only for the rugger crowd, banned from modern company,
    the gents and ladies were more earthy then,unlike today, it had wit and flow, not raw, untreated. Read Rochester or or other poets or ditties of the period. Not for the sensitive.
    Then one’s imagination would fly to venus.
    It could be acase of
    ‘Quoniam aemulari non licet, numc invides.’ Plautes, Miles Gloriousus , 839
    otherwise ‘Since you cannot copy our plesures, you begrudge them.

  • basic :English poet and dramatist John Ford often wrote about taboo subjects and the deep human emotions that accompanied them. His most famous play, “Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1633), concerns the incestuous relationship between Giovanni and his sister, Annabella. In the following excerpt Annabella’s husband, Soranzo, plots revenge against the couple after learning that Annabella is pregnant with her brother’s child. But Giovanni takes matters into his own hands, with tragic results.
    http://au.encarta.msn.com/sidebar_1741576333/Excerpt_from_%E2%80%99Tis_Pity_She’s_a_Whore.html

  • “…into the wine cellar where, by my troth, we were very merry…”
    Said with gusto; and wouldn’t that be an experience—set loose in the King’s wine cellar! I suppose he will rue and regret and feel guilty.

  • Perhaps “ingenious lady” might be understood as the lady being young and freshly attractive in the manner of an ingenue.

  • Lets see…Sam got bombed at breakfast in the royal wine cellar, spent the day at a play cause he was “unfit for business” and then joined the Navy Office gang to get plastered all afternoon and well into night…

    Good to know the Royal Navy is in such capable hands…

    Are there any openings at that office?

    Hmmn…So, Lady Batten and Martha joined the merry crew roasting poor Sir Will P at the Dolphin?…Interesting lady all around, our Lady B.

    Sam, you jerk…Go get Beth and let her in on the fun…Though perhaps our boy is letting his residual Puritanism show here. Lady Batten of infamous rep and Mr. Turner’s wife and their daughters may grace such wild goings-on but not his wife. Not to mention it might be a tad rough company for Bethie…

  • ingenious or ingenuous: “clever, intelligence; OED notes ‘ingenuous’ as a customary 17th-cent. misuse for ‘ingenious’”
    —-Large Glossary, L&M Companion

  • — but this time Sam did (properly) use ‘ingenious’.

  • googled “Tis Pity She’s a Whore” and find nice poster in http://www.amrep.org/posters/pityP.html

  • you may buy John Ford’s play in Spanish:
    “La lastima que sea una puta”
    or in French “Dommage que ce soit une putain” on Internet.

  • I see that 350 years later a woman still may become a whore, that means the lowest in society, by the same (sexual) act that does not get any special name for her brother.
    The following disgression is only for Spanish readers:
    Zorro: Espadachin Justiciero
    Zorra: Puta
    Perro: Mejor amigo del hombre
    Perra: Puta
    Aventurero: Osado, valiente, arriesgado.
    Aventurera: Puta
    Ambicioso: Visionario, Energico, con metas
    Ambiciosa: Puta
    Cualquier: Fulano, Mengano, Zutano
    Cualquiera: Puta
    Regalado: Participio del verbo regalar
    Regalada: Puta
    Callejero: De la calle, urbano.
    Callejera: Puta
    Hombrezuelo: Hombrecillo, minimo, pequeno
    Mujerzuela: Puta
    Hombre publico: Personaje prominente. Funcionario publico.
    Mujer publica: Puta
    Hombre de la vida: Hombre de gran experiencia.
    Mujer de la vida: Puta
    Atorrante: Adj. que indica simpatia y viveza.
    Atorranta: Puta
    Rapido: Inteligente, despierto.
    Rapida: Puta
    Puto: Homosexual
    Puta: Puta
    and some more:
    PATRIMONIO: Conjunto de bienes.
    MATRIMONIO: Conjunto de males.
    HEROE: Idolo.
    HEROINA: Droga.
    DON JUAN: Hombre en todo su sentido.
    DONA JUANA: La mujer de la limpieza.

  • Troth.

    Without resorting to weightlifting the OED off the shelf, my Collins Little Gem gives troth as “fidelity, truth”. I take “..by my troth..” to be a common exclamation along the lines of “.. to be honest..”

  • Ingenious.

    A bit of a digression, but the word “Ingenious” is supposed to be the root of the English word “Engineer”, as someone who solves problems (and hence implying intelligence). Not, as is commonly supposed, someone who fixes the plumbing or greases a steam train. A perenially contentious issue for those of us who are professional engineers.

  • Troth:
    “Semper fidelis”.
    In German “Bleibtreu”.
    Maybe “treu” is from the same rooth as “troth”.

  • ” by my troth”

    A slightly old-fashioned modern English equivalent would be “Upon my word”.

  • Ingenious.

    OED category II, example 5: well born or well bred. Perhaps Sam is saying that the young lady gave every indication of enjoying high social standing. Pretty manners, fine dress etc.?

  • Lovable Sam.
    Yesterday: “troubled in mind to think how much of late I have addicted myself to expense and pleasure… I pray God give me grace to begin now to look after my business”. Today: the morning in the royal wine cellar, followed by a series of merry diversions from business for the rest of the day!

  • Thank God Sam is not a courtier ,where let us hope a gentleman can hold his liguor.

  • Ruben’s poster… is it by Tamara de Lempicka? Looks like it. (Off subject, sorry)

    And the king’s wine… were vintages extant in those days? Or was this just ordinary stuff?

  • to Roger Arbor:
    I agree with you. If you live in London you may check at the Royal Academy where last May there was an exhibition of her work. By the way, she was involved in the women’s part of humanity liberation.

  • continue Vicente:
    Here we have a man: Sam P, who likes to pick in garden’s not his own, at a play where someone else is having the same forbidden pleasures. That after his wife met with a feathery man. How could he like the play?

  • “Not to mention it might be a tad rough company for Bethie”

    I found my Lady Batten and her daughter to look something askew upon my wife, because my wife do not buckle to them, and is not solicitous for their acquaintance, which I am not troubled at at all.

    http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1661/08/25/index.php

  • professional engineers-Ingenious-to engineer.
    So many doth think she be in troth be good, but she should know that the playhouse be so friendly to un-attached, so why does she subject ‘erself to just a wink and a nod and is without an escort in a notorious sin joint, so spelled out by the ‘out group’ the pure in minds.[Puritans that be out, for being straight laced and uptight] Sorry! [not OED category II,in the opinion of my sinful non puritan mind ,the place was banned to the other end of the spectrum the RC Priests. The teatro being a place for frank speech.]. She was entertaining by engineering under the covers or shearing an Apple maybe or just lines that be in the play. Sam has not yet put down his thoughts, in Espanol.

  • troth

    cf John Donne, The Good Morrow:

    “I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I
    Did, till we loved ? were we not wean’d
    till then ?”

    http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/goodmorrow.htm

  • Ruben
    Lastima que sea verdad
    Tis a pity it is all true
    but the times they are achanging

  • ‘Tis Pity —

    Samuel’s reference stirs memories of my days as a drama critic, 30 years ago, when my newspaper bowdlerized the title to “‘Tis Pity She’s Bad”!

  • “were vintages extant in those days?”

    See the Wine background section:
    http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/309.php

    Short answer: No, vintages as we think of them are a creation of the next century, when modern corks and bottles develop. In Sam’s day, wine didn’t last, and you just drank the latest available (as is still the best idea with most white wines).

  • “drank so much wine I was not fit for business”
    So much for yesterday’s vows of moderation …

  • ingenious
    I think in this context “clever” is the best rendering — he enjoyed her banter.

  • I believe when he do come to understand it he will be angry, he has so talked of the business himself and the letter up and down that he will be ashamed to be found abused in it.

    Interesting that Sam evidently sees more shame for Penn in being gulled than in his and Batten’s actions in gulling him.

  • Jenny D: a great point.

  • troth

    1. Belief; faith; fidelity
    Bid her alight And her troth plight. —Shak.

    2. Truth; verity; veracity
    by my troth. —Shak.
    In troth, thou art able to instruct gray hairs. —Addison.

    3. Betrothal.

    Source:
    Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    ? 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

    [Middle English trouthe, trothe, variant of treuthe, from Old English treowth, truth. Indo-European Root: deru-]

    Source:
    The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
    ? 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

  • It’s not as if Sam didn’t at least try to get some business done. He did try to get some Privy Seal business done, but found that the necessary people weren’t there.

    Perhaps he’s not the only one slacking.

  • I found it rather hilarious that they finally let Sir William Penn know about the prank they played on him, but he was too drunk to understand what they were saying.

    I wonder how long it will take him to realize what they were saying to him.

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