• chapter list

[38-40]   [44-46]

Chapter 41
Mrs. Bold Confides Her Sorrow to Her Friend Miss Stanhope

Pegasus
In this allusion, Bertie Stanhope is being likened to the mythological winged horse Pegasus, which was famous in ancient Greek mythology for aiding humans in difficult situations, particularly Bellerophon in his adventures. Charlotte Stanhope plans on making her brother, Bertie, the Pegasus who will help Eleanor out of her present social predicament. Mr. Slope has just asked Eleanor to marry him and she refused; however, they had ridden together in the same carriage on the way to the Thorne's party, and Eleanor certainly doesn't want to have to ride home with him in the same vehicle. Bertie is going to help arrange another ride home for Eleanor, and in Charlotte's plan, will himself ride home in a carriage with her.
http://www.bartleby.com/181/163.html  [MD]

Be-sirened
This is a reference to the Sirens in Book 3 of Homer's Odyssey.  The Sirens are creatures with beautiful voices, but they attempt to call men to their ruin and own deaths. Madeline Stanhope is very Siren-like by the fact that she likes to flirt with multiple men, drawing them in, and then when they have fallen in love, dropping them and letting them crash by themselves. This is precisely what she has already done to Mr. Slope and is now doing to Mr. Arabin as well.  [MD]

Mount Ida, Juno, and the offspring of Venus
This is a reference to a beauty contest (held on Mount Ida) between Minerva, Juno, and Venus, of which Paris was the judge. He chose Venus as the most beautiful, making the other two goddesses his enemies in the process; however, he only did this in order to have Venus help him seize Helen as his wife, thereby beginning the Trojan War. Juno continues to persecute Venus' offspring, Aeneas, after the Trojan War has ended.  Mr. Slope proposes to Madeline Stanhope that if she had been at this contest, she would have been judged by Paris to be the most beautiful woman of them all, even triumphing over Venus. This flirtation, however, seems to be much too over-the-top for Madeline Stanhope, who respects the less aggressive approach of Mr. Arabin much more than she does that of Mr. Slope.  Madeline ultimately helps Mr. Arabin marry his true love, Eleanor Bold, while she helps bring about the downfall of Mr.Slope, who was trying too hard to win her over.
http://www.bartleby.com/181/271.html  [MD]

Chapter 42
Ullathorne Sports--Act III

Libations
Usually refers to wine or other drink poured upon the ground to honour a god or gods, but can be used jokingly to refer to alcoholic drinking in general.  Trollope is using libations here as just a humorous expression for drinking; the men's libations had been "moderate" and thus they weren't drunk or rowdy. 
OED  [JM]

Auditor
Latin auditor, listener or student.  Bertie is engaged in talking to a younger man about his travels, and teaching him to smoke cigars; thus the youth is both listener and student to Bertie.  [JM]

Hymeneals
From Latin hymenaeus, "belonging to wedlock, marriage".  Hymen was a god charged with presiding over weddings.  Bertie is thinking more about his work as a sculptor in Italy than about the marriage to Eleanor which Charlotte is trying to arrange for him.
OED
The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology  [JM & RR]

A dead lady with a Grecian nose, a bandeau, and an intricate lace veil
Bertie Stanhope is mocking the nature of any sculpting commissions he might take in Barchester, saying that at best he would end up making a tomb for some clergyman's wife in a faux-Greek style of sculpture, posthumously attributing her a large, straight nose and pulled-back hair as seen on Grecian sculptures.  [JM]

As Dannecker put Ariadne on her lion
A contemporary work of sculpture featuring nude Ariadne riding on a large feline, sculpted by Johann Heinrich von Dannecker.  Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos.  She agreed to help the hero Theseus get through the labyrinth of the Minotaur, and sailed with him from her home island of Crete.  Rather than sailing all the way back to Athens with him, however, she was left on an island part-way there, to marry the god Dionysus; varying myths have it that either Theseus abandoned her or was commanded to leave her for the god.  Dionysus arrived in his panther-drawn chariot to take her as his bride; thus Ariadne is depicted sometimes as riding on a lion or panther.  Bertie Stanhope is flirtatiously offering to sculpt Eleanor in her pony-drawn carriage like Ariadne riding the lion, but since he is as half-hearted about his sculpting business as he is about any other sort of real work this is just an elaborate (and empty) sort of compliment. 
The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology  [JM]

Converting 'tuum' into 'meum'
Latin, "your thing" and "my thing" respectively.  Eleanor has just realized that her friends the Stanhopes were scheming against her fortune, and is made aware for the first time that her money has the ability to attract untrustworthy individuals.  [JM]

Chapter 43
Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful are Made Happy
Mr Slope is Encouraged by the Press

Detur digniori
A Latin phrase meaning "Let it be given to the more worthy."  The phrase occurs in the context of Mr. Harding and Mr. Quiverful's competing claims to the appointment at Hiram's Hospital.  He explains, "There were fourteen of them--fourteen of them living--as Mrs. Quiverful had so powerfully urged in the presence of the bishop's wife. As long as promotion cometh from any human source, whether north or south, east or west, will not such a claim as this hold good, in spite of all our examination tests, detur digniori's and optimist tendencies?  It is fervently to be hoped that it may. Till we can become divine we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower."  As much as the English ideal might be that promotions should go to the more worthy, in the case of Mr. Quiverful, need seems as fair a qualification for promotion as any, in Trollope's opinion. 
http://latin-phrases.co.uk/dictionary/d  [TH]

Terra firma 
Terra firma is a Latin phrase meaning "solid dry land."  Terra firma can also refer to a landed estate.
OED  [TH]

Hiram Redivivus
Redivivus is an English word with its origins in Latin.  Redivivus is based upon the Latin adjective meaning "alive again."  Hiram Redivivus simply means that the hospital will be fully operational again.
OED  [TH]

Greek play bishops
Editing a Greek play could put a clergyman in line for an appointment as bishop. 
Robin Gilmour's note in the Penguin edition of Barchester Towers.

Virago
Virago is a Latin term meaning "female warrior."  In English this term means "bold or impudent woman."  It can also be used as a synonym for a scold, that is, a woman with offensive language or who has a habit of scolding her neighbors.  Mr. Slope now considers Eleanor a virago because of her reaction to his marriage proposal.
OED [TH & RR]

[38-40]   [44-46]

• home

• chapter list