5 (p. 215) Orion: This constellation is named after the mythological giant and hunter Orion and is easily recognizable by the three stars, called jewels, in his belt; Sirrus, his star-dog (see page 215), lies at his feet.
6 (p. 216) Balzac: French author Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) wrote more than ninety novels. His style is both melodramatic and tough-minded, realistic and extravagant.
7 (p. 223) Liberty’s: Founded in 1875 and still a prominent London department store, in the late nineteenth century Liberty’s had a great influence on fashion and the development of Art Nouveau. The shop solicited original designs from freelance artists.
8 (p. 227) King Alfred burned the cakes: Alfred the Great (849-899), the first man to be thought of as the King of England, protected the island from Danish invasion. The legend of the cakes was first recorded in the eleventh century. After a skirmish with the Danes, the King takes refuge in a cowherd’s hut. Left to watch the baking, Alfred is harshly scolded when he lets the cakes burn.
9 (p. 227) Solomon’s baby: In a biblical legend, 1 Kings 3:16-28, two women fight for possession of the same baby. When wise King Solomon suggests that they split the baby down the middle and each take half, the real mother objects to the idea and says, “Oh my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it.” Solomon gives her the child.
10 (p. 229) Ce matin ... est si clair: The translation of this French passage is: “This morning the birds woke me. It was still dark out. But the small window in my room was pale, and then, yellow, and all the birds of the forest broke out into a lively and resounding song. The entire dawn quivered. I had dreamed of you. Do you also watch the sun rise? The birds wake me up practically every morning, and there is always a hint of terror in the cry of the thrushes. It is so clear—”
11 (p. 230) Baudelaire’s “Le Balcon”: Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1821-1867) published only one volume of poetry, Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), but is considered to be one of the greatest French poets of the nineteenth century. With Stephane Mallarme and Paul Verlaine, he was a so-called Decadent and infamous for his fascination with lust, decay, and perversity. “Le Balcon” is a sexually charged poem included in Les Fleurs du Mal.
12 (p. 230) “Behold her singing ... like a nun”: The quotations are from the Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850)-the first is from “The Solitary Reaper” (1807), the second from an untitled sonnet (1807). “Fair Ines” is a poem by Thomas Hood (1799-1845). The contrast between the poetry that draws Paul (Baudelaire and Verlaine) is in stark contrast to the poetry that “nourished [Miriam’s] heart.”
13 (p. 230) “Tu te rappelleras la beaute des caresses”: This passage, from Baudelaire’s “Le Balcon,” translates from the French as “You will remember the beauty of caressing.” See also note 11 above.
14 (p. 233) Herbert Spencer: A British philosopher and social scientist (1820-1903), Spencer applied the theory of evolution to human society.
Chapter 9: Defeat of Miriam
1 (p. 239) Primitive Metbodist Cbapel: This breakaway sect of the Methodist church was known for hell-fire preaching and an affinity for and with the working class. D. H. Lawrence’s wife, Frieda Lawrence Ravagli, wrote of their time in Germany in 1912, “On some evenings he [D. H. Lawrence] would be so gay and act a whole revival meeting for me, as in the chapel of his home town. There was the revivalist parson. He would work his congregation up to a frenzy; then, licking his finger to turn the imaginary pages of the book of Judgment and suddenly darting a finger at some sinner in the congregation; ‘Is your name written in the book?’ he would shout.”
2 (p. 245) He had come back ... was his mother: D. H. Lawrence wrote to the poet Rachel Annand Taylor in December 1910, “There has been a kind of bond between me and my mother. We have loved each other, almost with a husband and wife love, as well as filial and maternal. We knew each other by instinct. I think this peculiar fusion of soul never comes twice in a life-time-it doesn’t seem natural.”
3 (p. 246) “Tartarin de Tarascon”: This novel by the French writer Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) was published in 1872. Daudet also wrote a well-known collection of short stories, Lettres de mon Moulin (1872). See also note 4 in chapter 10.
4 (p. 249) Circe: Circe is a sorceress in Homer’s Odyssey. When Odysseus sends twenty-three men ashore to explore Circe’s island, she turns all but one of them into swine.
5 (p. 249) Tippoo: The family game-cock is named for Tippoo Sahib, the Sultan of Mysore (1782-1799) and an enemy of the British in India.
6 (p. 249) Renan “Vie de Jesus” stage: The French scholar Ernest Renan (1823- 1892) was studying for the priesthood when he lost his faith due to the influence of German philosophy and biblical scholarship. He later became a relativist. His book The Life of Jesus (1863), the first volume of The History of the Origins of Christianity, explored the origins of Christianity from the standpoints of history, biography, and psychology.
“It requires a lot of pain and courage to come to discover one’s own creed...,” D. H. Lawrence wrote in a letter to Ada Lawrence Clark in April 1911. “It is a fine thing to establish one’s own religion in one’s heart, not to be dependant on tradition and second hand ideals.”
7 (p. 251) St. john ... the verse: The reference is to one of the four gospels in the Bible. The verse Paul cites is John 16:21, in which Jesus tells his disciples that their grief upon his death will turn to joy upon his resurrection. The King James Version of the Bible translates the verse, “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.”
8 (p. 253) Margaret Bonford’s meeting: This is a fictionalized name, based on Margaret Bondfield (1873-1953), a trade-union leader and the first female member of the House of Commons and Britain’s first female cabinet minister. Bondfield advocated women’s suffrage and a number of other feminist causes and also promoted the rights of shop workers.
9 (p. 254) ‘Nevermore’: This is a reference to “The Raven” (1845), a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.
10 (p. 256) Deirdre or Iseult: Both are heroines in Irish legends and appear as well in similar medieval tales from throughout the British Isles and other parts of northern Europe. Deirdre is the ill-fated heroine of “The Sons of Usnach,” which is considered the greatest of early Irish love legends. Iseult appears in “Sir
