References for the novel Summer Half, by Angela Thirkell.
‘Relusions’ for the Hamish Hamilton Uniform edition 1949 and the Penguin 1951 edition.
Compiled by Hazel Bell.
Chapter 1
15 18 impavidum ferient ruinae – If the world should break and fall on him, it would strike him fearless. Satires Book III, ode iii, line 7 of Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC).
15 19 Young Woodley – a 1925 play by John Van Druten about a schoolboy at a public school who falls in love with his headmaster’s wife.
22 Lemon Upon Running Powers -Sir Ernest John Hutchings Lemon, OBE (1884 – 1954) was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.
26 His face is all bubukles and whelks and knobs – Henry V Act 3 scene 6, Shakespeare.
Chapter 2
47 Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel – 1586 – 1646, was a prominent art collector.
48 Damon and Pythias – were examples of close friends in Greek legend.
53 The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women – a 1558 tract by John Knox.
54 Hellenic cruise – presumably teachers were particularly likely to go on these (discounts offered, perhaps, if they gave lectures?).
Chapter 3
43 57 If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing – Bible, Leviticus chapter 20 verse 21 contains a list of forbidden relationships and activities. Junior masters are not mentioned,
crank schools – a number of experimental schools were established before the First World War. A.S Neill’s Summerhill School was founded in 1921, and Bertrand and Dora Russell opened Beacon Hill School in 1927. They became identified as leading practioners of experimental education, advocating freedom for children.
60 The Ides of March – a day on the Roman calendar that corresponds to 15 March. Caesar is warned “Beware the Ides of March”.
– Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Act I scene 2.
61 Aeschylus – c. 525/524 – 456/455 BC, was an ancient Greek tragedian.
62 The Lodore Falls – are near the Grange end of Derwentwater, Cumbria. Robert Southey’s poem for children ‘The Cataract of Lodore‘ consists almost entirely of verbs such as “curling and whirling and purling and twirling.”
63 O. T. C. – Officers’ Training Corps, popular – indeed almost compulsory – in English public schools in the 1930s
64 “She never told her love” – Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Act 2 scene 4.
65 “your adversary the devil – as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Bible, 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 8.
66 Gaius Julius Caesar – 102-44 BC In his commentary De Bello Gallico he employs the device of oratio obliqua (indirect speech).
67 Mount Athos – a mountain and peninsula in northeastern Greece.
70 Watch therefore – for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come: Bible, St Matthew chapter 24 verse 42.
71 Vittorio da Mantua – an invention of AT’s.
Van Gogh and Gauguin were separate persons – though admittedly of similar dates. Paul Gauguin, 1848-1903, French painter. Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890, Dutch painter.
72 Blancmange – (`white food’) is a sweet dessert commonly made with milk or cream and sugar thickened with gelatin.
75 The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women – a 1558 tract by John Knox. See also **
Art Nouveau – an international style that was most popular between 1890 and 1910. It was inspired by natural forms and structures, particularly the curved lines of plants and flowers.
76 Harold Clayton Lloyd, Senior – (1893 –1971) was a bespectacled actor most famous for his silent comedy films.
77 Matlock – the county town of Derbyshire, called ‘Little Switzerland’ by Lord Byron.
78 “Parting is such sweet sorrow… – that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.” Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Act 2 scene 2.
80 Hugh Drummond and Carl Petersen [should be Peterson]- rivals in Sapper (Herman Cyril McNeile)’s novel Bulldog Drummond (1920).
Chapter 4
84 “Othello’s occupation’s gone” – Shakespeare, Othello Act 3 scene 3.
85 I crave fit disposition for my wife – Due reference of place, and exhibition; With such accommodation, and besort, As levels with her breeding.” – Othello Act I sc. 3.
86 The phrase “catharsis of pity and terror” – coined by Aristotle, 384-322 BC (not Aristophanes!) as a description of the value of classical Greek drama.
87 The coronation of King Edward VII – was arranged for 26 June 1902, but had to be postponed as Edward succumbed to appendicitis. The coronation finally took place on 9 August of that year.
89 “Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know.” – Twelfth Night Act II scene 3.
90 Alma mater – (Latin: alma “nourishing/kind”, mater “mother”) is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, or a song or hymn associated with that school.
91 “Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, The Rapids are near and the daylight’s past!” – from “A Canadian Boat Song” by Thomas Moore.
93 Horace – Quintus Horatius Flaccus – 65-8 BC, Roman satirist.
Joseph Addison – 1672-1719, English essayist
Alexander Pope – 1688-1744, English poet and critic.
95 Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy” – from Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth.
97 Crabbed age and youth cannot live together”– by Shakespeare, included in The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599.
98 “I sent thee late a rosy wreath” – from To Celia by Ben Jonson (1573-1637).
Chapter 5
99 Horace, Odes III,v ends –“onga negotia / diiudicata lite relinqueret, / tendens Venafranos in agros / aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum.” -These last two words, being place names, do not need to be translated.
Lucina title of the Roman goddess Juno – as patroness of child-bearing.
102 Gorgio – Romany for a person who is not a gypsy
“Belle made no answer. Her eyes were turned in the direction of the winding path which led from the bottom of the hollow, where we were seated, to the plain above. ‘Gorgio shunella,’ she said at length, in a low voice. ‘Pure Rommany,’ said I; ‘where?’ I added, in a whisper.” From Lavengro; the Scholar, the Gipsey, the Priest by George Borrow, 1851.
103 “The Scholar-Gypsy” – by Matthew Arnold, 1853.
Mrs. Hearne in Lavengro attempts to poison Borrow – showing a gypsy antipathy to a gorgio.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek? / Yea, beds for all who come – ‘Uphill’, poem by Christina Rossetti.
Sacre du Printemps – The Rite of Spring, ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky. After a riot at the first performance, in Paris in 1913, the title was translated for French audiences.
Throughout this episode, Swan and Morland are engaged in intellectual showing-off.
105 The Carmen Saeculare – a hymn in Sapphic meter written by Horace. See also p.124 below.
110 “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?” – Matthew 7.9.
112 “Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing; Can I unmoved see thee dying On a log Expiring frog!” – from Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.
117 The story goes that Sir Walter Raleigh laid his cloak over a mud puddle – to keep Queen Elizabeth I from getting her feet wet.
Chapter 6
123 Odi et amo (I hate where I love) – a poem by Catullus, a Latin poet c.84-54 BC.
Ah what avails the sceptred race – / Ah what the form divine! / What every virtue, every grace! / Rose Aylmer, all were thine. / Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes / May weep, but never see, / A night of memories and of sighs / I consecrate to thee. “Rose Aylmer” by Walter Savage Landor.
125 Parnassus – mountain range of Greece, sacred to Apollo and the Muses.
126 Lesbia – beloved of Catullus, to whom he addresses his poems.
“still loves where he can’t like”- see odi et amo, p.123
“Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face.” – 2 Kings 9.30
The Eighth Eclogue of Virgil – 70-19 BC.
129 syrup of figs – a laxative at that time administered to boarding school pupils.
133 Edward Gibbon – 1737-94, wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Greta Garbo – film actress, 1905-90.
134 “Aha!” cried the old gentleman – …“I see her now; I see her now! My love, my life, my bride, my peerless beauty. She is come at last — at last — and all is gas and gaiters!” – from Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens.
141 In Act IV scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar – Brutus quarrels with Cassius and is confronted by the ghost of Caesar.
The character Lydia – appears in Horace’s Odes, 3.19.15.
142 Francis Beaumont, playwright – 1584-1616
John Fletcher – playwright, 1579-1625
John Milton – poet, 1608-74
The Phoenix and the Turtle – an allegorical elegy ascribed to Shakespeare included in Love’s Martyr, 1601.
143 Exegi monumentum aere perennius – I have created a monument more lasting than bronze. – from Horace, Odes 3.30.
Horace – (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC)
[Gaius] Julius Caesar – 102-44 BC
Virgil – (Publius Vergilius Maro), 70-19 BC
Marcus Tullius Cicero – 106-43 BC.
145 Major Pendennis – in The History of Pendennis by W. M. Thackeray.
150 “I made him clean my corps uniform” – O. T. C. – Officers’ Training Corps. See above p. **
151 For when my outward action doth demonstrate – / The native act and figure of my heart / In compliment extern, ’tis not long after / But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve / For daws to peck at. – Othello Act I scene 1.
154 “When the sixth hour was come – there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.” – Mark 15.33.
Chapter 7
155 Vehmgericht – a tribunal in Germany during the Middle Ages, in connection with a secret organisation under sanction of the emperor for the enforcement of justice.
The Ku Klux Klan – in the United States in the mid-19th century advocated extremist reactionary currents.
Sydney Carton – in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
157 Byzantine empires – had associations known as demes, which supported the different factions under which competitors in games took part. The only teams with any influence were the Blues and Greens.
160 Sophocles – Greek tragic poet, c.406-406 BC.
165 “Our Polly is a sad slut -/ Nor heeds what we have taught her. / I wonder any man alive / Will ever rear a daughter!”
– from The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay, 1728.
Sartor Resartus – by Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881.
166 The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion – the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation.
167 “Mr. Lorimer, to whom the word University had only two meanings in English” – that is, “Oxford” and “Cambridge”.
Chapter 8
171 “Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag and Smile, Smile, Smile” – a World War I marching song.
173 The Whore of Babylon – a female figure and also place of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation.
175 “in his quality of universal uncle” – Universal Aunts, “The Original Home Assistance Provider”, was established in London in 1921.
183 Woodstock – a novel by Sir Walter Scott, 1826.
Chapter 9
193 “Oh, who will smoke my meerschaum pipe – / When I am far away?”
– from “Meerschaum Pipe”, from Students’ Songs, ed. W. H. Hills, 1880.
Long John Silver and seaman Tom – characters in Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883.
194 Valkyrie theme from Die Walküre – by Richard Wagner, 1870.
196 The Middle and Inner Temple – two of the four Inns of Court, or Honourable Societies of Barristers. The area was originally owned by the Knights Templar.
207 For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey – / This pleasing anxious being e’er resigned, / Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, / Nor cast one longing ling’ring look behind? – from Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 1751.
Chapter 10
211 Dumas writes of a frog called Mlle Camargo – in “Le Capitaine Pamphile”, a conte/short story, published 1839.
Chapter 11
234 Ophelia returns Hamlet’s letters to him – in Hamlet Act III scene 1, saying: “My lord, I have remembrances of yours, / That I have longèd long to redeliver. / I pray you now receive them.” p. 241 Robert Browning, 1812-80.
243 King Richard II – 1367-99.
Richard Hannay – hero of several stories by John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, 1875-1940.
245 The Vanity of Human Wishes – poem by Dr Johnson, 1749.
250 Yet I will but say what mere friends say – / Or only a thought stronger; / I will hold your hand but as long as all may, / Or so very little longer!
– from Browning’s poem, “The Lost Mistress”.
Silas Wegg – a character in Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend who sells ballads and reads to Mr. Boffin.
251 I poured down his throat our last measure of wine – / Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) / Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. – last lines of “How they brought the good news to Ghent to Aix” by Robert Browning.
252 Hymen, O Hymenaeus, Hymen, hither, O Hymenaeus! – from Catullus 62.
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