Tuesday 17 June 1662

Annotations

• N Stephen Walkley on Fri 17 Jun 2005, 11:30pm

  When you click on Mr Mayland it brings details of Thomas Mallard.

  Are they the same person?

• N A. De Araujo on Fri 17 Jun 2005, 11:47pm

  “and they drank wine:but I forebore all their healths.”
  One day at the time Sam;he is behaving more and more like an Alcoholic trying very hard to be sober.

• N Roboto on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 12:44am

  “to bed betimes by daylight” It is hard to go to sleep in the daylight, but we are very near the longest day of the year.

• N David Ross McIrvine on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 01:16am

  Perhaps Elizabeth was slow to get dressed on Sunday because she was ill? I suppose she’d have someone else dress her even when she was well (or help her dress)?

  david

• N john lauer on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 02:15am

  Just as modern American dictionaries have become descriptive rather than prescriptive, so also have Pepys’s editors-translators confused ‘forbear’ (Sunday) with ‘forebear’ on Tuesday. ‘Forbore’ was and is the meaning intended.

• N daniel on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 03:21am

  “but I forebore all their healths.”

  no wprries, Sam comes around soon enough.

• N Mary on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 07:09am

  “to bed betimes….”

  Depending on the style of the house, early retirement and sleep might have been assisted at this time of year by closing wooden shutters at the windows.

• N Mary on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 07:13am

  Mayland/Mallard.

  L&M gives Maylard as the name in this entry, with Mallard and Maylord as variant forms cited in the Companion volume

• N language hat on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 08:03pm

  “modern American dictionaries have become descriptive rather than prescriptive”

  Excuse me? Has the OED (for instance) become American while I wasn’t looking? *All* scientific/serious dictionaries are descriptive; that’s what they’re for, to describe the language.

  And I have no idea what the dictionaries have to do with whatever you’re trying to say about forebear/forebore. Nobody’s “translating” Pepys; the editors are presenting what he wrote as accurately as they can.

• N Bradford on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 10:31pm

  Exactly what brownie points accrue from early bedtime?

• N Australian Susan on Sun 19 Jun 2005, 07:49am

  Early bedtime
  Having read the next day’s diary entry, perhaps Sam went to bed early because he knew he had a busy day the next day, but was determined to make some time to do serious reading: all these long hours of daylight make this easier in June.

• N Mary on Sun 19 Jun 2005, 08:10am

  Long days, short nights.

  Pepys is possibly just being sensible; he wants a decent night’s sleep before setting about work the following day and recognises that it’s easier to fall asleep at the end of a busy day (even if it is still light) than to sleep on later in bright, morning light. One hour’s sleep before midnight is popularly said to be worth two hours after midnight.

• N GrahamT on Mon 20 Jun 2005, 10:24am

  …we are very near the longest day of the year.
  Because of the 10 days difference between Pepys’ calendar and the actual seasons, The summer solstice/longest day was on his 10/11th June, so he is on the long downward slope to winter. Winter draw(er)s on.

• N Todd Bernhardt on Thu 23 Jun 2005, 11:22pm

  re: dressing Elizabeth

  David asked “I suppose she

• N Jackie on Fri 24 Jun 2005, 06:55pm

  These were the days when requiring servants was seen as absolutely essential to being anywhere above the bottom rungs of society. Nowadays, needing help to get dressed suggests some incapacity on the part of the person being assisted, but in those days, it was a sign of social status.

  There are many activities which Sam has done for him (including the barber shaving him) which a man of his status in society today would be expected to do himself. It’s all to do with sending out the right signals that he’s somebody to be reckoned with.

  The ultimate example of the social pyramid of his day was the ncredible palaver which the King had to go through every night and morning, when careers in Court were made and destroyed by whether or not the King gave them a kind word when they handed him his shirt. King Charles II and Louis XIV spent hours each day in the formal getting dressed for the day and getting put to bed in the view of the Court, ensuring that each person present had an essential task to perform. (Then, of course when they’d finally gone, the King would often then scoot out of bed and nip down a handy corridor to sleep with his mistress).

• N Cumgranissalis on Fri 24 Jun 2005, 07:11pm

  “requiring servants was seen as absolutely…” natures answer to the unemployment problem or over population. All bodies need bread and clothing and housing, then there be little need for programmers, pilots and other make work projects etc..