Tuesday 20 May 1662
Sir W. Pen and I did a little business at the office, and so home again. Then comes Dean Fuller after we had dined, but I got something for him, and very merry we were for an hour or two, and I am most pleased with his company and goodness. At last parted, and my wife and I by coach to the Opera, and there saw the 2nd part of “The Siege of Rhodes,” but it is not so well done as when Roxalana was there, who, it is said, is now owned by my Lord of Oxford.1 Thence to Tower-wharf, and there took boat, and we all walked to Halfeway House, and there eat and drank, and were pleasant, and so finally home again in the evening, end so good night, this being a very pleasant life that we now lead, and have long done; the Lord be blessed, and make us thankful. But, though I am much against too much spending, yet I do think it best to enjoy some degree of pleasure now that we have health, money, and opportunity, rather than to leave pleasures to old age or poverty, when we cannot have them so properly.
- For note on Mrs. Davenport, who was deceived by a pretended marriage with the Earl of Oxford, see ante. Lord Oxford’s first wife died in 1659. He married, in 1672, his second wife, Diana Kirke, of whom nothing more need be said than that she bore an inappropriate Christian name.
Josh Link to this
"Diana Kirke, of whom nothing more need be said than that she bore an inappropriate Christian name."
---i.e., the Roman goddess of the hunt, and chastity (cf. the Greek's Artemis).
Bradford Link to this
"I do think it best to enjoy some degree of pleasure now that we have health, money, and opportunity, rather than to leave pleasures to old age or poverty, when we cannot have them so properly."
Whitsun is passed, and the vows extended till then expired; but Pepys has not gone on a tear. As yet.
dirk Link to this
"enjoy some degree of pleasure now that we have health, money, and opportunity, rather than ..."
Very sensible point of view, methinks. Workaholics in this hectic 21st c., take note!
Cumgranissalis Link to this
wot be work, ergs they be [lifting one horse one inch];as a misquote from Alice in LaLa land, she doth ask The Royal Queen, where ist me raspberry jam and she doth reply Jam yesterday, Jam temorrer, but there be no jam to day. {I doth think she be thinking of preserves and not about the giant parking lot at the Whitehall}
balance it be;.
A. Hamilton Link to this
Diana Kirke
Temple Diana (Kirke- church).
An inappropriate Christian name, forsooth.
Sometimes conflated with Cynthia, goddess of the moon, cf. Ben Jonson:
Queen, and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep :
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
As for Sam, Ben adds elsewhere:
Time will not be ours for ever :
He at length our good will sever.
Spend not then his gifts in vain.
Suns that set, may rise again:
But if once we lose this light,
'Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys ?
Seize the day.
Cumgranissalis Link to this
Syrus says:
'Frugalis miseria est rumoris boni' Syrus Maxims.
being a Tightwad is misery with a good add agency;
or 'Fortuna vitrea est; tum cum speindet frangitur'
Syrus Maxim
fortune be a wineglass;just when it is most magnificient it goes poof.
Ruben Link to this
From old times and specially after Pepys days University students sing:
Gaudeamus igitur,
Juvenes dum sumus;
Post jucundam juventutem,
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus!
Vita nostra brevis est,
Brevi finietur,
Venit mors velociter,
Rapit nos atrociter,
Nemini parcetur.
Ubi sunt qui ante
Nos in mundo fuere?
etc.
In my rudimentary translation it is something like:
While we are young, lets be merry,
Singing with joy.
After youth's pleasures,
Comes dreadful old age,
And dust will cover us.
Our life is short
and soon will finish,
Death is after us;
She does not pardon,
None will escape it.
Where are those who were
in this world before us?
etc.
I long not only to my past youth but to the voices of my friends, shouting, more than singing, the words of this song, all around me.
Xjy Link to this
Catullus -- yum!
Ben Johnson:
Suns that set, may rise again:
But if once we lose this light,
Xjy Link to this
Roxalana [...], who [...] is now owned by my Lord of Oxford.1
The highlight of today's entry -- along with the anti-puritan pro-fat-cat sentiment of "spend it while you can still enjoy it". What fascinates me is the bald declaration that a woman is owned by a man. No reflections, no moralizing. I think this easy remark leads naturally on to the concluding fat-cat reflection. "This world is a filthy stye, and, hey! I'm a fat little porker in it with my very own growing puddle of shit to wallow in... "
And since we're all poetic today:
So follow me follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow
In glorious mud.
A. Hamilton Link to this
Hobbes of poetry
Tasty, British & short?
A. Hamilton Link to this
A nation in search of the golden mean:
King to Parliament May 19:
I cannot but observe to you, that the whole Nation seems to Me a little corrupted in their Excess of Living. Sure all Men spend much more, in their Cloaths, in their Diet, in all their Expences, than they have used to do. I hope it hath only been the Excess of Joy, after so long Sufferings, that hath transported us to these other Excesses. But let us take Heed, that the Continuance of them doth not indeed corrupt our Natures. I do believe I have been faulty that Way Myself: I promise you, I will reform; and if you will join with Me in your several Capacities, We shall by Our Examples do more Good, both in City and Country, than any new Laws would do.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?com....
From Vincent hier
Sam today:
But, though I am much against too much spending, yet I do think it best to enjoy some degree of pleasure now that we have health, money, and opportunity, rather than to leave pleasures to old age or poverty, when we cannot have them so properly.
Robert Gertz Link to this
"...owned by..." Given the note about deception through false marriage, I'm inclined to think Pepys is repeating a bit of what he considers very juicy backstage gossip about Mrs. Davenport and Oxford. Further I get the sense he means the lady is in total thrall to the Earl, believing his little game, etc. Though it is a time when many people are "owned", quite literally, male as well as female.
I wonder who else went to Halfeway House, Sam? It seemed like such a nice connubial outing for you and Bethie till you said "we all walked..."
***
"Siege of Rhodes, Part II." No doubt the "Star Wars" blockbuster of its day...
An evil Sultan bent on conquest and conversion...A mighty war fleet and army of heathen troopers bearing down on our heros...
"Infidel English dog...I am your father..."
"Use the power of the Faith, my son...It will forever guide you."
"Now we have the secret of Greek fire, our battle fleet is the ultimate power in the Mediterranean..." Crew of heathen troopers chortle...
"My son, only a fully trained Knight of the Order can hope to defeat our traitorious former lord and his Sultan..."
"Sir, I must protest at being made a galley slave. I am a fully trained valet and my counterpart here is a gentleman's server. I...OW!...Please put that scimitar away, sir!"
And don't forget those fantastic special effects...
I wonder if some enterprising fellow put out a line of "Siege of Rhodes, II" dolls...
***
Pedro Link to this
Diana Kirke.
Picture by Lely.
http://www.dmca.yale.edu/bacpoe/eden/exhibition...
Lush countess banned from tube for bare bosom.
http://www.studio-international.co.uk/capsules/...
A. Hamilton Link to this
Portrait of Diana Kirke
As my two-year-old son said on seeing Houdon's Diana toute nue, "Yummy!"
prosodiacal note
The 11-syllable line of Sappho & Catullus is imitated by Swinburne ("In the month of the long decline of roses/I, beholding the summer dead before me") and Tennyson ("Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem/All composed in a metre of Catullus") -- both pems titled "Hendecasyllabics" --
but not Jonson, whose beautiful 7-syllable line (with an occasional weak 8th) became a standard meter for elegiac verse in English ("Earth, receive an honored guest/William Yeats is laid to rest" -- Auden), perhaps following Jonson himself (" Underneath this stone doth lie/As much beauty as could die"). I don't know that this line has its own name, but it could be called, I suppose, a heptasyllabic.
Jesse Link to this
"...she bore an inappropriate Christian name.
Robert Gertz Link to this
Obviously Ms. Kirke was somewhat smarter and/or experienced with the aristocracy and the world than poor Mrs. Davenport...
Cumgranissalis Link to this
The puritanical view,the protesting, view, the catholic [world] view, the epistle view,the methodic view, Chauvinistic view [Calvin? F chauvin]
Oh! how the flesh doth excite the mind.
Oh! Syrus :
" Omnes qui occulte peccant, peccant ocius"
Those that sin secretly, do so more swiftly.
thanks for the portrait
Cumgranissalis Link to this
Look up De Vere [ http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclopedia/4209/ ]
for how the family genes doth function or be it nurture?
Louis Link to this
A. Hamilton: to be pedantic, the meter you describe is trochaic heptasyllabic: "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick"---"Into something rich and strange" ("Tempest")---"Music, when soft voices die" (Shelley)---and seems reserved for brief lyrics, often on the "carpe diem" theme Pepys has today evoked in so many of us.
A. De Araujo Link to this
"portrait of Diana"
A. Hamilton,was your son still breastfeeding?
john lauer Link to this
erg
The erg is the standard unit of energy in the centimeter-gram-second (cgs) or small-unit metric system. It is an amount of energy equivalent to that expended by a force of one dyne acting over a distance of one centimeter.
It has been suggested that 1 erg is approximately the amount of energy required for a mosquito to take off.
Australian Susan Link to this
Nudity
To expose one breast at that time was naughty, but two was OK. Not sure why.
Robert Gertz's comment on the "we all" - I took that to mean Sam, Elizabeth and "my boy" as well as perhaps Jane, who is the boy's e;der sister and has been invluded in outings before. Maybe it is just the Pepyses and Wayneman. Maybe Will Hewer included in party?
A. Hamilton Link to this
son still breastfeeding?
Yep. On seeing another female nude statue, the Greek Slave by Hiram Powers, he declared, "Mommy." She was charmed.
Ruben Link to this
To expose one breast at that time was naughty, but two was OK.
Two breasts are nudity, but they only show a bare body. For this reason I do not like Goya's Maja Desnuda. Two breasts may suggest a lot of things, but there is something rude in showing a bare body in our society. But if the lady is more sophisticated but wants to show her flowering body or suggest that below the garments there is more to be seen, or enjoyed, or use for whatever Nature intended, one breast is enough.
This portrait of her was intended to show someone from the aristocracy, in private, the "goods" promised to the beholder, of course for promiscuous intentions.
Some hundred and 50 years later, the same bare breast, this time in public exposure, became the simbol of whatever the Republique Francaise could offer to nurture its citizens. A much better use for the same suggestive breast. The symbol is still with us, as it will probably be as long as we are mammals.
A. De Araujo Link to this
"one breast"
one of Janet Jackson's breasts was "accidentally" exposed some months ago;it caused such an uproar that it almost caused the end of live TV!Plus
Grahamt Link to this
I do think it best to enjoy some degree of pleasure now... :
Sam was only following his scriptures - Isiah 22:13
"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die."
Cumgranissalis Link to this
'tis said many ways
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/01/06/
Bibamus, moriendum est. Let us drink, death is inevitable. Seneca Rhetor,
Controversiae
http://search.earthlink.net/search?q=Bibamus%2C...
google gets 72 hits
dirk Link to this
"one of Janet Jackson
Xjy Link to this
hendecasyllabics and heptasyllabics
No way I would call characterize a heptasyllabic like Johnson's as a "swirling polka"! I was contrasting the verses presenting the same idea, not identifying.
However, Shelley's "music, when soft voices die" is not your stomping goblin trochaic heptasyllabic. More Horatian -- tum ti tum tum / tum ti tum -- and swirling -- Verdi, not Beethoven or Sousa.
The specimen hendecasyllabics of Swinburne and Tennyson aren't much cop, though. Of the two, T gets the rhythm better.
Xjy Link to this
hendecasyllabics and heptasyllabics
PS Make that "stompin' goblin heptasyll" :-)