Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (90 page)

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Authors: George Bernard Shaw

BOOK: Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

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American novelist (0856- I898).

Reference to
The Doctor,
a painting by Sir Luke Fildes ( 1844-1927), based on the death of his son, that depicts a doctor keeping watch at the bedside of a sick child.

For lack of a better (French).

Infections of the finger or toe.

Staying in musty rooms.

Former name of Hawaii.

Superstitious practice using magic and spells.

Martyr (272?—205) during the reign of Roman emperor Diocletian; in Naples, a phial thought to contain his dried blood is said to liquefy each year.

The writings of Russian biologist Ilya Metchnikoff ( 1845-I 9 16) include
Immunity in Infectious Diseases
(1905)
and The Nature of Man (1903).

London public-health board established in I867 that operated, among other things, specialist hospitals for infectious diseases and tuberculosis.

Medicinal syrup derived from the squill plant, a bulbous herb.

hus Feste gloats over Malvolio’s humiliation in Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night
(act 5,cene I ) .

Hypothetical substance thought to be released through burning, a theory disproved by French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (1743- 1794).

In Molière’s play
The Imaginary Invalid
(1673) a doctor who disdains such new fangled theories as circulation of the blood.

Sixteenth-century German alchemist and physician.

Tall mirror that covers the wall space between two windows.

Transversely corded fabric.

Chandelier with gas burners.

Having a projecting breastbone.

Abbreviated version of the Latin phrase
infra dignitatem,
which means “beneath one’s dignity.”

Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Term for winning a backgammon game before the opponent removes any pieces from the board, thereby earning double points.

Nut-shaped mass of tissue.

Poisonous bacteria that can cause food poisoning.

Appearing moral, but being immoral (see the Bible, Matthew 23:27, KJV).

Specialist.

Quotation from Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism,” this time accurate (see footnote to page 196).

B.B.’s memory of the laws of Medes and Persians from the Bible (see Daniel 6:8-15) fails, so he improvises.

Informal marriage certificate.

Life-size dummy with movable limbs.

Lamp that burns volatile liquid fuel such as alcohol, sometimes in conjunction with a container, for heating substances.

Heavy brownish silk fabric.

Meaning “pay up”; a term derived from a mining practice of payment by gold dust.

Maid in charge of the room where liqueurs and cakes are stored.

Does not represent any particular religion.

Indignation; resentment.

Scottish novelist and dramatist J.M. Barrie, best known for his character Peter Pan, was a friend of Shaw;
Better Dead
(1887) is his first novel.

Proverbial saying that derives from English author Francis Bacon’s essay “On Boldness” (from
Essays,
1625).

No license is required to practice journalism.

Street in London where professional photographers had their shops.

Quotation from the Bible, Psalm 73:4-5 (KJV).

Of the dead [say] nothing but good (Latin).

Expensive shopping area in London.

Quotation from “The Latest Decalogue,” by English poet Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861).

English philologist and mathematician (1814-1890); an advocate of spelling reform.

Italian singer (1817—1895) who taught French in England and advocated a phonetic alphabet.

Institute founded in 1887 to conduct research into resources and raw materials of the British Empire, and to make the growing Empire understandable to the British people.

Reference to
A Manual of Current Shorthand
(1892).

Named after its inventor, Sir Isaac Pitman (1813-1897).

Amalthaea, the Sibyl of Cumae, was a legendary prophetess of ancient Rome who destroyed six of nine prophetic books when the Roman king refused to pay for them.

Robert Bridges, poet laureate of England (1913-1930) and author of
Milton’s Prosody
(1893), practiced spelling reform.

The valet who passes as a nobleman in Victor Hugo’s 1838 verse drama of the same name.

That is, “Two bunches of violets trod in the mud.”

Shaw later revised this phrase to “a romantic figure.”

Sixpence coin (slang).

Having turned them up due to the rain.

Detective.

That is, with soliciting for prostitution.

Police informant.

Slang expression equivalent to “damn me”; probably from “blind me.”

Hanwell County Asylum for the insane.

That is, worried and chased.

Working-class district of London; a slum area in the mid to late 1800s.

Peevish, or ill-natured.

Relating to the Pharisees, a sect often portrayed in the Bible as hypocritical.

Lamp chimneys are glass tubes around the wick of an oil lamp that keep the flame steady; flames in the tube that resonate to the human voice are called “singing flames.”

Used in the earliest phonographs as a medium for recording and replaying sound.

Portraits engraved on copper or steel; Higgins prefers their austerity to voluptuous color.

System of phonetic notation devised by English phonetician Henry Sweet (1845-1912).

Astonished; this Latinate word suits Higgins, who is a Milton aficionado (see note 7 for this play).

Pejorative word for a woman, ranging in meaning from a pert (saucy, or forward) woman to a prostitute.

Woman who wears a skirt that is dirty from being dragged over wet ground and who searches the street for usable things.

Strong scouring soap with a wrapper bearing the image of a monkey looking into a mirror.

London department store.

Off his head; crazy.

Crazy people.

Garbage man (sanitation worker).

Old-fashioned term for an immoral scoundrel.

Quotation from Milton’s “Il Penseroso”: “Sweet Bird that shunn‘st the noise of folly, / Most musicall, most melancholy!” (lines 61-62).

Manual laborer; ditch-digger.

Artists’ quarter in London.

English landscape painter (1851-1882), whose best-known work, “The Minister’s Garden,” was exhibited in 1878 at the Grosvenor Gallery in London.

After the English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), who painted medieval religious and fantasy subjects.

Particular day reserved for casual visits from acquaintances.

That is, “How do you do?”

Area of low pressure.

Objectionable males.

Offensively dirty and badly behaved.

Crew’s quarters in a ship’s bow.

Loose-fitting jacket for wear when relaxing at home.

Love letter with a crest embossed on it; Pickering is speaking ironically.

Higgins is repeating a well-known saying by English theologian and logician Richard Whately (1787-1863).

Allusion to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel
Frankenstein,
in which Dr. Frankenstein refers to the monster he creates as the “creature.”

Fireplace.

Jargon; insincere speech.

Resentment; indignation.

Slang for “ran away.”

Fellow; rascal.

Parody of “Rockefeller”; John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) was an American industrialist and philanthropist.

That is, get money out of me.

Church where wealthy people married.

Horse-drawn closed carriage with the driver outside in front.

Higgins is explicitly identifying himself with Milton (see note 7 for this play).

Eleanor Gwynne (1650-1687), English actress and mistress of King Charles II.

Slang for a member of the upper class whose clothes indicate his status.

Condition of marriage whereby a widow can draw income from her husband’s estate.

New Testament book that recounts the proselytizing travels of Saints Peter and Paul.

Richard Porson (1759-1808) and Richard Bentley (1662-1742) were noted English classical scholars; Bentley, as Milton’s first editor, foolishly rewrote lines in
Paradise Lost.

Lucius Cornelius Balbus (first century B.C.), Julius Caesar’s chief of engineers.

Air of superiority; pretentiousness.

John Scott Haldane (1860-1936), Scottish writer and physiologist.

One who believes evolution has direction and purpose; a follower of French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941) or Shaw.

Collection of essays published in 1902.

Reference to
Back to Methuselah
(1921), a cycle of five plays by Shaw that revisit the themes of evolution and human destiny.

Composers of symphonic poems, such as Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908).

Like the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792—1822), Shaw was a vegetarian.

Gum disease.

Opening from the stomach into the intestine.

Eponymous hero of Henrik Ibsen’s Faustian verse drama of 1867.

Abnormal physical or emotional sensitivity.

As a warning to others; literally, “to encourage others” (French).

Socialist leader Jean Jaurès, who defended Alfred Dreyfus (accused of treason), was assassinated by a fanatical patriot on July 13, 1914.

Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) served twice as premier of France.

James Keir Hardie (1856-1915), first leader of the Labour Party in Parliament.

That’s war (French).

Russian-style (French).

Ideally.

Shaw uses the third-century B.C. Greek geometrician and engineer to symbolize reason.

Carmagnoles are songs and dances popular during the French Revolution; cor roberries (usually “corroborees”) are Australian Aborigine festivities with songs and dances.

Near quotation of Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar
(act 3, scene 1).

Allusion to the Bible, Ezekiel 18:2.

Military drill in which soldiers arrange themselves into files four deep.

Promising young intellectual and Fabian socialist who was killed in 1916.

Brutal criminal in Charles Dickens’s novel
Oliver Twist
(1837-1838).

The manager is American theatrical producer Charles Frohman (1860-1915)
;
the author is Charles Klein, who co-wrote the 1910 farce
Potash and Perlmutter.

Irish art dealer (1875-1915); director of the National Gallery of Ireland.

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