ENDNOTES
Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a novel that many critics have explicated over the years. Preparing the notes, I have drawn upon these sources in addition to my own scholarship.
Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. 1998. Edited by Tim Dolin. New York: Penguin, 2003.
______. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Edited by John Paul Riqueline. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998.
______. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Norton Critical Edition. Third edition. Edited by Scott Elledge. New York: W W Norton, 1991.
______. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Oxford World’s Classics. Edited by Juliet Grindle and Simon Gatrell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
______. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. New Wessex edition. Introduction by P. N. Furbank. London: Macmillan, 1974.
______. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Edited by Carl Jefferson Weber. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935.
Pinion, F. B. A Thomas Hardy Dictionary. New York: New York University Press, 1989.
Oxford English Dictionary. Second edition. 20 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Where Hardy uses dialect that requires an explanation, the note supplies only the definition in context rather than the full range of meanings it may contain.
All quotations from the Bible are from the King James Version. All quotations from Shakespeare are from The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.
Title Page
1 (p. 1) Poor wounded name! My bosom as a bed / Shall lodge thee: In this quotation from Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona (1.2.114-115), Julia speaks of a letter from Proteus that she has ripped up in front of her maid, Lucetta, only to cosset the pieces that bear Proteus’ name after Lucetta leaves.
Explanatory Note to the First Edition
1 . (p. 3)
to remember a well-worn sentence of St Jerome’s: If an offence come out of the truth, better it is that the offence come than that the truth be concealed: Though no one has been able to trace this quotation exactly, it likely concerns the views of the Christian scholar Saint Jerome (c.347—c.420) on celibacy versus marriage.
Preface to the Fifth and Later Editions
1 (p. 6)
“As soon as I observe that any one, when judging of poetical representations, considers anything more important than the inner Necessity and Truth, I have done with him”: See the letter dated March 1, 1795, from Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), in
Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, from 1794 to 1805, translated from the third edition of the German, with notes, by L. Dora Schmitz, London: Bell, 1877; vol. 1, p. 58.
2 (p. 6)
Gentility compelled him to excuse the author in words of pity that one cannot be too thankful for:
“He does but give us of his best”: This phrase is from a review by Andrew Lang in
Longman’s Magazine, November 1892.
3 (p. 7)
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; / They kill us for their sport: This is a quotation from Shakespeare’s
King Lear (4.1.36-37).
4 (p. 8)
since the book was first published, some of the critics
who provoked the reply have “gone down into silence”: See the Bible, Psalms 115 :17: “The dead praise not the Lord, / neither any that go down into silence.”
5 (p. 8)
these pages were overlooked, though they were in the original manuscript. They occur in Chapter X: Those pages were reinserted into chapter X, pp. 77-85, regarding Tess’s near fight with Car, the Queen of Spades.
Chapter I
1 (p. 12)
“Don’t you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d‘Urbervilles . . . who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?”: The Battle Abbey Roll is supposedly a roster of those who fought with the Norman duke known as William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066. However, it is really a list of family names, compiled three centuries later, of those who crossed the Channel with William.
2 (p. 12) “
Their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in the time of King Stephen. In the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second’s time . . . in Charles the Second’s reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty”: The Pipe Rolls, or Great Rolls of the Exchequer, were yearly financial accounts begun under King Stephen, who reigned from 1135 to 1154.
King John ruled from 1199 to 1216. The Knights Hospitallers, or Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, were a powerful religious military force during the Crusades. Edward II ruled from 1307 to 1327, during which the Westminster Council pushed for the regular meeting of Parliament. Oliver Cromwell was interregnum ruler of England from 1653 to 1658. Charles II ruled from 1660 to 1685; Hardy invented the Knights of the Royal Oak, mocking the fact that Charles hid in an oak tree after his defeat by Cromwell at the 1651 battle of Worcester.
3 (p. 14)
“chasten yourself with the thought of ‘how are the mighty fallen’”: See the Bible, 2 Samuel 1:19: “The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!”
Chapter II
1 (p. 19)
told of each anxious and experienced one, to whom the years were drawing nigh when she should say, “I have no pleasure in them”: See the Bible, Ecclesiastes 12:1: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.”
2 (p. 22)
the appearance of the third and youngest would hardly have been sufficient to characterize him; there was an uncribbed, uncabined aspect: Compare this line to the language in Shakespeare’s
Macbeth (3.4.24—25): “But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears.”
3 (p. 22)
“besides, we must get through another chapter of A Counterblast to Agnosticism”: In Hardy’s original manuscript, the title used was that of a real book,
Essays and Reviews, by F. Temple et al. (1860), an ecclesiastical document that urged Bible study from a historical perspective.
Chapter III
1 (p. 25)
she saw “the soft torments, the bitter sweets, the pleasing pains, and the agreeable distresses”: The source for this line is unknown, but it is possibly a paraphrase of a line by English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909).
2 (p. 25)
a feminine voice kept time by singing, in a vigorous gallopade, the favourite ditty of “The Spotted Cow”: This song is about a man who says he’ll help a woman find her cow but instead leads her to a woods, where they become lovers.
3 (p. 31)
Some people would like to know whence the poet whose philosophy is in these days deemed as profound and trustworthy as his song is breezy and pure, gets his authority for speaking of “Nature’s holy plan”: See the poem “Lines Written in Early Spring” (lines 21-24), by William Wordsworth (1770-1850): “If this belief from heaven be sent, / If such be Nature’s holy plan, / Have I not reason to lament / What man has made of man?”
Chapter IV
1 (p. 33)
better to drink with Rolliver in a corner of the housetop than with the other landlord in a wide house: See the Bible, Proverbs 21:9: “It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.”
Chapter V
1 (p. 49)
the very possibility of such annexations was unknown to them; who supposed that, though to be well-favoured might be the gift of fortune, a family name came by nature: See Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing (3.3.14—15): “To be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.”
Chapter IX
1 (p. 74)
“I have been watching you from over the wall—sitting
like Im-patience
on a
monument”: Compare Hardy’s line to that of Shakespeare in
Twelfth Night (2.4.98-101): “She pined in thought, / And, with a green and yellow melancholy, / She sat like Patience on a monument, / Smiling at grief.”
2 (p. 75)
He suited the action to the word, and whistled a
line of “Take, O take those lips away”: See Shakespeare’s
Measure for Measure (4.1.1-2): “Take, O, take those lips away, / That so sweetly were forsworn.”
Chapter XI
1 (p. 91)
where was Tess’s
guardian angel?
Where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke: See the Bible, 1 Kings 18:8, where Obadiah prostrates himself before Elijah (the Tishbite), who responds archly: “Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here”; that is, the lord is absent or asleep.
2 . (p. 91)
But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities: See the Bible, Exodus 20:5: “For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”
Chapter XII
1 (p. 95)
she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing: See Shakespeare’s
The Rape
of Lucrece (lines 871-872): “The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing; / What virtue breeds iniquity devours.”
2 (p. 100)
THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH NOT: See the Bible, 2 Peter 2:3: “And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”
3 (p. 101)
THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT
—: This invocation starts the seventh of the Ten Commandments; see the Bible, Exodus 20:14: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
4 (p. 103)
dust and ashes: In the Bible, Genesis 18:27, Abraham states, “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.” See also Job 42:6: “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Chapter XIII
1 (p. 105)
She liked to hear the chanting . . .
and to join in the Morning Hymn: Written by Anglican bishop Thomas Ken (1637-1711), this hymn is also known by its first line, “Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun.”
2 (p. 106)
When the chants came on one of her favourites happened to be chosen among the rest—the old double chant “Langdon”: Richard Langdon (1730-1803) was an English musician and composer. The chant here called “Langdon” is Psalm 102 from the Bible set to music. It begins, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee.”
Chapter XIV
1 (p. 111)
at the present stage of her existence living as a stranger ... though it was no strange land that she was in: See the Bible, Exodus 2:22: “I have been a stranger in a strange land.”
2 (p. 115)
Like all village girls she was well grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and had dutifully studied the histories of Aholah and Aholibah: See the Bible, Ezekiel 23:2-35, for the tale of the prostitutes Aholah and Aholibah, who were punished by God for consorting with the Assyrians.
3 (p. 117)
“Sorrow, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”: In the Bible, Genesis 35:18, Rachel christens her son Benoni, which means “Son of Sorrow”; see also Genesis 3:16, where God decrees, “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.”
Chapter XV
1 (p. 121)
“By experience,”
says Roger Ascham, “we find out a
short way by a
long wandering”: Ascham (1515-1568) was a British scholar known for his educational theory and lucid prose. Here Hardy paraphrases a line from Ascham’s posthumously published and best-known book,
The Scholemaster: “We know by experience itself that it is a marvelous pain to find out but a short way by long wandering.”
2 (p. 121) She—and
how many more—might
have ironically said to God with Saint Augustine: “Thou hast counselled a
better course than Thou hast permitted”: Compare this with the line from Saint Augustine’s Confessions (written at the end of the fourth century; book X, chapter 30): “You commanded me not to commit fornication, and though you did not forbid me to marry, you counselled me to take a better course.
3 (p. 123)
She would be able to look at them, and think not only that d‘Urberville, like Babylon, had fallen: See the Bible, Isaiah 21:9: ”Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” The refrain is echoed elsewhere in the Bible, in Revelation 14:8.
Chapter XVI
1 (p. 128)
The green lea
was speckled as
thickly with them as a
canvas by Van
Alsloot or Sallaert
with burghers: Denis Van Alsloot (1570-1628) and Anthonis Sallaert (c. 1590-1658) were Flemish naturalistic painters who often depicted village scenes.
2 (p. 129)
The Froom waters were clear as the pure River of Life shown to the Evangelist: See the passage concerning Saint John in the Bible, Revelation 22:1: ”And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”
3 (p. 130)
she chanted: ”O ye Sun and Moon ... bless ye the Lord, praise Him and
magnify Him for ever!”: See ”Benedicite,” part of the daily Morning Prayer in
The Book of Common Prayer. 4 (p. 141)
”the last of the old Low Church sort, they tell me—for all about
here be what they call High”: This is a reference to the divisions within the Church of England. The High Church tradition, also known as Anglo-Catholicism, emphasizes ceremony and ecclesiastical authority. The Evangelical, or Low Church, division is concerned more with personal conversion and less with churchly ornamentation. See also p. 210.
Chapter XVIII
1 (p. 142)
his object being to acquire a
practical skill in the various processes of farming, with a
view either to the Colonies: The British custom at this time was for the elder son to inherit the family estate, while any younger sons were often sent off to one of Britain’s colonies to make their way in the world.
2 (p. 144)
Indeed opine / That the Eternal and
Divine / Did, eighteen centuries ago /
In very truth . . . : These lines are from a poem by Robert Browning (1812-1889), ”Easter-Day,” about faith and doubt.
3 (p. 144)
”No, father; I cannot underwrite Article Four”: This reference is to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, concerning the beliefs and practices within the Church of England. Article Four contends that Christ rose from the dead, reassumed bodily form, and ascended to heaven.
4 (p. 144)
”to quote your favourite Epistle to the Hebrews, ‘the
removing of those things that are shaken . . .
which cannot be shaken may remain”’: In the Bible, Hebrews 12:27, Saint Paul says: ”And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”
5 (p. 146)
The conventional farm-folk of his imagination—personified
by the pitiable dummy known as
Hodge: Hodge is a typical name for a rural worker, as John Doe is for a member of the American public; see Hardy’s essay ”The Dorsetshire Labourer” (1883), reprinted in
Thomas Hardy’s
Public Voice, listed in ”For Further Reading.”
6 (p. 146)
The thought of Pascal’s was brought home to him: ”A mesure qu’on a
plus d‘esprit . . .
pas de différence
entre les hommes”: This sentiment is from ”Préface Générale” in Pensées, by French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662): ”The more perceptive one is, the more one finds men original. Ordinary people find no difference among men.”
7 (p. 147)
some mutely Miltonic, some potentially Cromwellian: This phrase echoes lines 59-60 of ”Elegy in a Country Churchyard,” by Thomas Gray (1716-1771): ”Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, / Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.”
8 (p. 147)
men every one of whom walked in his own individual way the road to dusty death: See Shakespeare’s
Macbeth (5.5.22-23): ”And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death.”
Chapter XIX
1 (p. 154)
But how could this admirable and poetic man ever have descended into the Valley
of Humiliation: This phrase is from Pilgrim’s
Progress, part one, by Puritan preacher John Bunyan (1628-1688).
2 . (p. 154)
have felt with the man of Uz—as
she herself had felt two or three years ago—”My
soul chooseth strangling and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I
would not live alway”: See the Bible, Job 7:15-16: ”So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.”
3 (p. 155)
”I’m like the poor
Queen of Sheba
who lived in the Bible. There
is no more spirit in me”: See the Bible, 1 Kings 10:4-5: ”And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon’s wisdom, and the house that he had built, and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord; there was no more spirit in her.”
4 (p. 155)
”I shouldn’t mind learning why—why
the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike”: See, in the Bible, Christ’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44—45): ”But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Chapter XX
1 (p. 160) made
him think of the Resurrection hour. He little thought that the Magdalen might be at
his side: Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection; see the Bible, Mark 16:9: ”Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.” See also Matthew 28:1 and John 20:1.
Chapter XXIII
1 (p. 174) Angel,
in fact, rightly or wrongly . . .
preferred sermons in stones: See Shakespeare’s As You
Like It (2.1.15-17): ”This our life, exempt from public haunt, / Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.”
2 (p. 175)
”A time to embrace, and a
time to refrain from embracing”: See the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:5: ”A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.”
3 (p. 176)
”Three Leahs to get one Rachel,” he whispered: See the Bible, Genesis 29, in which Jacob works seven years to gain the hand of Rachel, only to be given her sister Leah instead. He then pledges to serve another seven years in order to marry Rachel.
Chapter XXIV
1 (p. 183)
He had never before seen a
woman’s lips and teeth which forced upon his mind with such persistent iteration the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with snow: See ”Cherry-Ripe” (also known as ”There Is a Garden in Her Face”), by Thomas Campion (1567-1620), lines 7—10: ”Those cherries fairly do enclose / Of orient pearl a double row, / Which when her lovely laughter shows, / They look like rose-buds filled with snow.”
Chapter XXV
1 (p. 189)
”Crowds of men and
women attired in the usual costumes, /
How curious you are to me!”: Here Hardy quotes from ”Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (line 3), a poem by Walt Whitman (1819-1892).
2 (p. 192)
Four months or so of torturing ecstacy in his society—of
”pleasure girdled about with pain”: See Atalanta in Calydon (lines 1067-1072), by Charles Algernon Swinburne: ”Put moans into the bridal measure / And on the bridal wools a stain: / And circled pain about with pleasure / And girdled pleasure about with pain; / And strewn one marriage-bed with tears and fire / For extreme loathing and supreme desire.”
3 (p. 193)
A spiritual descendant in the direct line of Wycliff, Huss, Luther, Calvin: These men were all church reformers. John Wycliff, also spelled Wycliffe, (c. 1330—1384) was a British theologian who attacked materialism and produced a translation of the Bible known as the Wycliff edition. Jan Huss (c.1370-1415) was a Czech influenced by Wycliff who became an advocate of separation between church and state. Accused of heresy, he was burned at the stake. Martin Luther (1483-1546), a German, authored the famous ninety-five theses that challenged the Roman church and led to the Reformation. John Calvin (1509-1564) was a French Protestant who preached salvation through grace.
4 (p. 194)
He loved Paul of Tarsus, liked St John, hated
St James as
much as
he dared, and regarded with mixed feelings Timothy, Titus, and Philemon: Angel’s father believes in spiritual salvation through grace, as espoused by Saint John, rather than through religious doctrine, as Saint James counsels. Timothy, Titus, and Philemon have mixed opinions about this matter.
5 (p. 194)
He despised the Canons and Rubric, swore by the Articles: The Anglican
Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical were put into law by King James I in 1603. In the Anglican Church, the term Rubric refers to guidelines for the conduct of church services. The Articles refers to the Thirty-Nine Articles to which all Church of England clergy must adhere.
6 (p. 197)
”Farming, of course, means roughing it externally; but high thinking may go with plain living, nevertheless”: See Wordsworth’s sonnet ”Written in London, September, 1802” (lines 9-13): “Rapine, avarice, expense, / This is idolatry; and these we adore: / Plain living and high thinking are no more: / The homely beauty of the good old cause / Is gone.”
Chapter XXVI
1 (p. 199)
“A truly Christian woman, who will be a
help and a
comfort to you in your goings-out
and your comings-in”: See the Bible, Psalm 121:8: “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”
2 (p. 204)
“exclaim against their own succession,” as
Hamlet puts it: See Shakespeare’s
Hamlet (2.2.354-358), in which Hamlet describes child actors so popular that they jeopardize the livelihood of older actors, and thus their own professional future: “Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players,—as it is most like, if their means are no better,—their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession?”
3 (p. 204)
Took for his text the words from St Luke: “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall
be required of thee!”: See the Bible, Luke 12:20, which is part of a tale told by Christ warning against covetousness: “But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”
4 (p. 204)
“Being reviled we bless; being persecuted we suffer it; being defamed we entreat; we are made as
the filth of the world, and as
the off-scouring of all
things unto this day”: See the Bible, 1 Corinthians 4:12-13: “And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.”
5 (p. 205)
“But, after all, one of those poor words of mine may spring up in his heart as a
good seed some day”: See the Bible, Luke 8:5-8, for the parable of the sower. Some of the sower’s seed falls on barren ground, and some on good ground; the seed that falls on good ground springs up and bears fruit.
Chapter XXVII
1 (p. 208)
she regarded him as
Eve at
her second waking might have regarded Adam: See book 5, lines 26ff. of
Paradise Lost, by John Milton (1608-1674).
2 (p. 210)
“Leave thou thy sister . . .
A life that leads melodious days”: See the poem
In Memoriam (stanza 33, lines 5-8), by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), in which the speaker addresses his dead friend Arthur Henry Hallam.
3 (p. 211)
“But whatever he thinks to be his duty, that he’ll do, in season or out of season”: See the Bible, 2 Timothy 4:2: “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.”
Chapter XXVIII
1 (p. 213)
not fully trowing that in the fields and pastures to “sigh gratis”: In
Hamlet (2.2.330), Hamlet talks of recompense for the traveling actors in their roles: “The lover shall not sigh gratis.”
Chapter XXX
1 (p. 230)
She might as
well have agreed at first. The “appetite
for joy” which
pervades all
creation: This phrase may be a link to the poem
Paracelsus (lines 89-94), by Robert Browning: “When Festus learns / That every common pleasure of the world / Affects me as himself; that I have just / As varied appetite for joy derived / From common things; a stake in life, in short / Like his; a stake which rash pursuit of aims / That life affords not, would as soon destroy.”
Chapter XXXI
1 (p. 231)
“Dear Tess,—J”: The letters “J” and “I” were indistinguishable in Britain until the seventeenth century. The appearance of the pronoun I as J persisted for another century after that.
2 (p. 232)
There was hardly a
touch of earth in her love for Clare: See Tennyson’s poem “Lancelot and Elaine” (lines 132—133), where Elaine tells Lancelot: “For who loves me must have a touch of earth; / The low sun makes the colour.”
3 (p. 232)
he was all
that goodness could be—knew all
that a
guide, philosopher, and friend should know: See epistle IV, lines 387-90, in
An Essay on Man, by Alexander Pope (1688-1744): “When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, / Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes, / Shall then this verse to future age pretend / Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?”
4 (p. 235)
“Distinction does not consist in the facile use of a
contemptible set of conventions, but in being numbered among those who are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report”: See the Bible, Philippians 4:8, for Paul’s list of virtues: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Chapter XXXII
1 (p. 247)
“That never would become that wife / That had once done amiss: This is a near-quotation of lines from ”The Boy and the Mantle: A Ballad of King Arthur’s Court,” in Francis James Child’s
English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898).
2 (p. 247)
Suppose this robe should betray her by changing colour, as
her robe had betrayed Queen Guénever: In the Arthurian legends, Queen Guinevere betrays her husband, King Arthur. ”The Boy and the Mantle” tells of how Guinevere’s mantle, or robe, gives away her deception because only an honest person can wear it.
Chapter XXXIII
1 (p. 255)
she felt glorified by an
irradiation not her own, like the angel
whom St John saw in the sun: See the Bible, Revelation 19:17: ”And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God.”
2 (p. 256)
She was conscious of the notion expressed by Friar Laurence: ”These violent delights have violent ends”: See Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet (2.6.9-11), where Friar Laurence warns against intemperate love: ”These violent delights have violent ends, / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, / Which as they kiss consume.”
Chapter XXXIV
1 . (p. 267)
”one must heartily subscribe to these words of Paul: ‘Be
thou an
example—in
word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity’ ”: See the Bible, 1 Timothy 4:12: ”Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”
2 (p. 267)
”‘Integer vitae’, says a
Roman poet, who is strange company for St Paul—‘The man of upright life, from frailties free, / Stands not in need of Moorish spear or bow’”: The Latin phrase
integer vitae means ”wholeness of life.” It comes from book 1, ode 22, line 1, by lyric poet Horace (65-8 B.C.), though here it is translated as ”upright life” to incorporate the idea of ”integrity.”
Chapter XXXV
1 (p. 275)
”Behold, when thy face is made bare. . . .
And the veil of thine head shall be grief, and the crown shall be pain”: See Atalanta in Calydon, the chorus to Althaea (lines 1852-1855), by Charles Algernon Swinburne.
2 (p. 276)
”You were more sinned against than sinning”: In Shakespeare’s
King Lear (3.2.59-60), Lear states: ”I am a man / More sinned against than sinning.”
3 (p. 278)
They had rambled round by a
road which led to the well-known ruins of the Cistercian abbey: This reference is to the Cistercian Abbey of Bindon, built in 1172 in the parish of Wool in Dorset. The Cistercian order was a branch of the Benedictine order, founded in the eleventh century.
4 (p. 279)
It was the face of a
man who was no longer passion’s
slave: See
Hamlet (3.2.71-73), where Hamlet says, ”Give me that man / That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him / In my heart’s core.”
5 (p. 279)
”The little less, and what worlds away!”: This comes from Browning’s ”By the Fire-Side” (stanza 39, line 192).
Chapter XXXVI
1 (p. 287)
nothing that he could say made her unseemly; she sought not her own; was not provoked.... She might just now have been Apostolic Charity herself returned to a
self-seeking modern world: Compare Hardy’s words with Saint Paul’s description of charity in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:4—7: ”Charity ... doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”
2 (p. 288)
”Don’t you think we had better endure the ills we have than fly
to others?”: See Hamlet’s soliloquy (3.1.76-82): ”Who would fardels bear, /To grunt and sweat under a weary life, / But that the dread of something after death, / The undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveller returns, puzzles the will, / And makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of?”
3 (p. 289)
in the words of M. Sully-Prudhomme,
hear a
penal sentence in the fiat, ”You shall
be born”: Sully Prudhomme (pen name of Rene-Francois-Armand Prudhomme, 1839-1907) was a French poet who won the first Nobel Prize for Literature in 1901. ”You shall be born” is a phrase from his poem ”La voeu” (”The Vow,” 1865), with the message that any offspring will be ”condemned by Nature.”
4 (p. 289)
The intuitive heart of woman knoweth not only its own bitterness: See the Bible, Proverbs 14:10: ”The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.”
Chapter XXXVII
1 (p. 296)
during those first few moments in which the brain, like a
Samson shaking himself: See the Bible, Judges 16:20, where Samson wakes after Delilah has cuts his hair: ”And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself.”
2 (p. 300)
”God’s not in his heaven: all’s wrong with the world!”: Compare this to lines 7-8 in ”Morning,” part of Browning’s narrative poem Pippa
Passes: ”God’s in his heaven—/ All’s right with the world!”
Chapter XXXIX
1 (p. 306)
”This is the chief thing: be not perturbed”: This is the message that underlies Meditations, by Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121-180).
2 (p. 306)
”Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,” said the Nazarene: See Jesus’ words in the Bible, John 14:27: ”Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
3 (p. 309)
Tess had infected her through her maternal sympathies, till she had almost fancied that a
good thing could come out of Nazareth: See the Bible, John 1:46: ”Can there be any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
4 (p. 310)
”Yes, certainly,” said Mrs. Clare. ”The words of King Lemuel”: In the Bible, Proverbs 31:1-31, King Lemuel passes on the advice of his mother, focusing mainly on the value of a good woman.
5 (p. 310) “‘Who
can find a
virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.... Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them ah’ ”: See the Bible, Proverbs 31:10, 15, 17-18, and 27-29. Significantly, verse 11, referring to a husband’s trust in his wife, is omitted.
6 (p. 311)
these sincere simple souls whom he loved so well; who knew neither the world, the flesh, nor the devil in their own hearts: The phrase ”the world, the flesh, and the devil” occurs in
The Litany of The Book of Common Prayer.
Chapter XL
1 (p. 312)
”And Roman Catholicism sin, and sin damnation. Thou art in a
parlous state”: See Touchstone’s speech in Shakespeare’s
As You Like It (3.2): ”Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest good manners; if thou never sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.”
2 (p. 316)
”Do you remember how neatly you used to turn “‘Twas down in Cupid’s Gardens’ and ”The Tailor’s
Breeches’ at
morning milking?”: ” ‘Twas down in Cupid’s Gardens” is a song about Cupid’s Gardens, where a sailor goes to look for a lover. ”The Tailor’s Breeches” is a ballad about a tailor who gets drunk and, to win a woman, trades his breeches for her petticoat, though he is cheated in the end.
3 (p. 318)
Like the prophet on the top of Peor . . .
Tess’s character compelled her to grace: See the Bible, Numbers 23-24, for an account of how King Balak of Moab tried to bribe the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites, but Balaam could not, despite himself, because of God’s will.
Chapter XLI
1 (p. 323)
From that direction of gentility Black Care had come: See Horace’s
Odes (book 3, ode 1, lines 37-39):
Neque / decedit aerata
triremi et / post equitem sedet atra Cura (”nor does black Care quit the brass-bound galley and even takes her seat behind the horseman”).
2 (p. 325)
Tess asked herself; and, thinking of her wasted life, said, ”All
is vanity”: See the Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:2: ”Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
3 (p. 326)
like the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, they ran amuck, and made it their purpose to destroy life: Among the Malays, to run amuck (or amok) is to be overwhelmed by passion and take up arms against everyone. Nineteenth-century British colonials saw such behavior as a form of semi-voluntary insanity.
Chapter XLII
1 (p. 329)
”The maiden’s
mouth is cold / ..... /
Fold over simple fold / Binding her head”: See ”Fragoletta” (lines 41—45), by Charles Algernon Swinburne: ”Ah sweet, the maiden’s mouth is cold, / Her breast-blossoms are simply red, / Her hair mere brown or gold, / Fold over simple fold / Binding her head.”
2 (p. 333)
his wife . . .
made no objection to hiring Tess, on her agreeing to remain till Old Lady-Day: Lady-Day, or the Feast of the Annunciation (celebrating Jesus’ conception), is on March 25, but Old LadyDay refers to April 6, the date on which the Annunciation was celebrated under the Julian calendar, used in Britain until 1752.
Chapter XLIII
1 (p. 338)
The snow had followed the birds from the polar basin as a
white pillar of a cloud: See the Bible, Exodus 13:21: ”And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.”
Chapter XLIV
1 (p. 352)
In jumping at
Publicans and Sinners they would forget that a
word might be said for the worries of Scribes and Pharisees: See the Bible, Mark 2:16: ”And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?” The scribes and Pharisees adhered self-righteously to the law and are therefore less in need of attention than are the publicans and sinners, but are in fact worthier. Similarly, Mr. and Mrs. Clare would have paid more attention to Tess if she had been more obviously dissolute.
2 (p. 353)
”O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you”: See the Bible, Galatians 3:1.
Chapter XLV
1 (p. 360) ”I
felt that, of all
persons in the world whom it was my duty and desire to save from the wrath to come”: See the Bible, Matthew 3:7: ”O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
2 (p. 361)
”I only differ from him on the question of Church and State—the
interpretation of the text, ‘Come
out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord’ ”: See the Bible, 2 Corinthians 6:17: ”Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you.”
3 (p. 361)
”I should receive the first-fruits
of the Spirit”: See the Bible, Romans 8:23: ”And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
4 (p. 361)
”that those who came to scoff sometimes remained to pray”: See lines 179-80 in ”The Deserted Village,” by Oliver Goldsmith (1730?- 1774), describing the village preacher: ”Truth from his lips prevail’ d with double sway, / And fools who came to scoff remain’d to pray.”
Chapter XLVI
1 (p. 371)
”But I thought that our marriage might be a
sanctification for us both. ‘The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband’ ”: See the Bible, 1 Corinthians 7:13-14: ”And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.” Though the counsel is for wives not to abandon faithless husbands, the next verse mentions departing, as Angel has.
2 (p. 374)
”I believe in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount”: See the Bible, Matthew 5:7, where Christ addresses his followers from the top of a mountain and tells them, ”Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”
3 (p. 375)
she gave another, which might possibly have been paralleled in many a work of the pedigree ranging from the Dictionnaire Philosophique to
Huxley’s Essays: Voltaire (1694-1778), a French writer and critic of Christianity, wrote the Dictionnaire. T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) was an English scientist who popularized Charles Darwin’s theories and coined the word
agnosticism. Hardy’s reference here to Huxley was added in a later edition: Tess was first published in 1891, but Huxley’s nine-volume
Collected Essays did not begin to appear until 1893.
4 (p. 376)
”I do believe I ought to preach it, but like the devils
I believe and tremble”: See the Bible, James 2:19: ”Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”
5 (p. 376)
”I thought I worshipped on the mountains, but I find I still serve in the groves: Jehovah is linked to mountains, Baal to groves. See the Bible, 2 Kings 17:9-10, which describes how the Israelites “did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God,” setting up graven images in the groves.
6 (p. 377)
“am I, indeed, one of those ‘servants of corruption’ who, ‘after
they have escaped the pollutions of the world, are again entangled therein and overcome‘—
whose latter end is worse than their beginning?”: See the Bible, 2 Peter 2:19-20: “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.”
7 (p. 377)
“You temptress, Tess; you dear damned witch of Babylon”: This reference is to the Whore of Babylon, the evil city in the Bible; see the Bible, Revelation 17:5: “And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”
Chapter XLVII
1 (p. 380)
The isolation of his manner and colour lent him the appearance of a creature from Tophet: See the Bible, Jeremiah 7:31: “And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire.” Tophet is therefore linked to hell.
2 (p. 382)
“Lord love ’ee, neither court-paying, nor preaching, nor the seven thunders”: See the reference to a mighty angel in the Bible, Revelation 10:3: “And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.”
3 (p. 384)
“Among them I should have stood like Hymenaeus
and Alexander, who were delivered over to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme”: See the Bible, 1 Timothy 1:19-20, where Paul mentions to Timothy the importance of “holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.”
4 . (p. 384)
“I believe that if the bachelor apostle, whose deputy I thought I was, had been tempted by such a
pretty face, he would have let go the plough for her sake as I do!”: The apostle Paul was unmarried. In the Bible, Luke 9:62, Jesus declares: “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
5 (p. 386)
“The words of the stem prophet Hosea that I used to read.... ‘And she shall follow after her lover . . .
for then was it better with me than now!’ ”: See the Bible, Hosea 2:7.
Chapter XLVIII
1 (p. 389)
the long red elevator like a Jacob’s
ladder, on which a
perpetual stream of threshed straw ascended: See Jacob’s dream in the Bible, Genesis 28:12: “And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.”
2 (p. 393)
“But if I break down by falling into some fearful snare, my last state will be worse than my first”: See the Bible, Matthew 12:45, 2 Peter 2:20, and Luke 11:26: All concern sinners who mistakenly believe they are now beyond temptation.
Chapter XLIX
1 (p. 395)
mourned over this treatment of him as
Abraham might have mourned over the doomed Isaac while they went up the hill together: See the Bible, Genesis 22:1-14, in which God directs Abraham to sacrifice his son on an altar as a test of faith.
2 (p. 398)
But the reasoning is somewhat musty: See Hamlet (act 3, scene 2): “Ay, sir, but ‘While the grass grows’—the proverb is something musty.”
3 (p. 399)
what still abode in such a
woman as
Tess outvalued the freshness of her fellows. Was not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer: See the Bible, Judges 8:2. The Israelites score a military victory over the Midianites, and the Ephraimites want to be a part of that victory, but the general of the Israelites, Gideon, tells them that taking care of the remains is no less a part of the battle—that is, that the gleaning, or after-pickings, is no less important than the vintage, or wine, itself.
4 (p. 399)
Clare had seemed to like “Cupid’s Gardens,”
“I have parks, I have hounds,”
and “The break o’
the day”; and had seemed not to care for “The Tailor’s Breeches,” and “Such a
beauty I did grow,” excellent ditties as
they were: For “Cupid’s Gardens” and “The Tailor’s Breeches,” see note 2 to chapter XL. The lyric “I have parks ...” is from “The Farmer’s Toast.” For “The break o’ the day,” see note 5, directly below The source of “Such a beauty I did grow” is unknown.
5 (p. 399)
“Arise, arise, arise! / And pick your love a posy . . .
So early in the May-time / At the break o’ the day!”: These lines are from “The break o’ the day,” a traditional ballad.
Chapter L
1 (p. 402)
The harts that had been hunted here, the witches that had been pricked and ducked: During this era, testing a witch involved pricking any boil found, in case it proved to be an extra nipple for nursing imps, and ducking the suspect in water. It was believed that witches float, presumably because they have rejected baptism and therefore water rejects them.
2 (p. 406) “‘Empress,
the way is ready,
and not long, / . . . ‘Lead then,’ said
Eve”: See the lines Eve speaks to Satan, the serpent, in Milton’s Paradise Lost (book 9, lines 625-631): “To whom the wily Adder, blithe and glad. / Empress, the way is ready, and not long, / Beyond a row of myrtles, on a flat, / Fast by a fountain, one small thicket past / Of blowing myrrh and balm. If thou accept / My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon.’ / ‘Lead, then,’ said Eve. He, leading, swiftly rowled / In tangles, and made intricate seem straight, / To mischief swift.”
Chapter LI
1 (p. 416)
“Here we suffer grief and pain: / Here we meet to part again; / In
Heaven we part no more”: These lines are from a hymn called “Joyful,” also known as “Heaven Anticipated,” by Thomas Bilby, from
The Infant Teachers’ Assistant (1832).
2 (p. 417)
“Not in utter nakedness / But trailing clouds of glory do we come”: See Wordsworth’s poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” (lines 59-66): “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: / The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, / Hath had elsewhere its setting, / And cometh from afar: / Not in entire forgetfulness, / And not in utter nakedness, / But trailing clouds of glory do we come / From God, who is our home.”
Chapter LII
1 (p. 419)
The groundwork of the arrangement was the family dresser, which . . .
stood importantly in front, over the tails of the shaft-horses, in its erect and natural position, like some Ark of the Covenant: The Ark of the Covenant is the gold-plated sacred wooden box in which the Israelites kept the two stone tablets listing the Ten Commandments, among other items. See the Bible, Exodus 25:10-22.
2 (p. 424)
The old order changeth:
See Morte d‘Arthur (lines 240-243), by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), where King Arthur says: “The old order changeth, yielding place to new, / And God fulfils Himself in many ways, / Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.” Significantly, the next line reads, “Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?”
Chapter LIII
1 (p. 431)
“like a
good many others who lead obscure agricultural lives
in our villages,
and are dubbed ‘sons of the soil!’ ”: This is the English title of the novel
Les Paysans, by French author Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850).
2 (p. 432)
His had been a
love “which alters when it alteration finds”: See Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 (lines 1-4): “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove.”
3 (p. 432)
he had seen the virtual Faustina in the literal Cornelia, a spiritual Lucretia in a
corporeal Phryne: The contrasts are between sexual license and restraint: Annia Galeria Faustina (died A.D. 140?), wife and cousin of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, was notorious for her sexual promiscuity, and her daughter, known as Annia Galeria Faustina the Younger (A.D. 125?-176), married to Marcus Aurelius, had an equally licentious reputation. On the other hand, Cornelia Africana, the daughter of Scipio Africanus the Younger, born in the second century B.C., became a maternal ideal in Rome by marrying Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, raising twelve children, and refusing to remarry after her husband died. Ancient Roman heroine Lucretia (Lucrece), the wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, known for her chastity, killed herself after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius. Phryne was a famous prostitute in ancient Athens, as well as a model for artists, including Praxiteles.
4 (p. 432)
the woman taken and set in the midst as
one deserving to be stoned: Stoning was the biblical penalty for adultery; see, for instance, John 8:3.
5 (p. 432)
the wife of Uriah being made a
queen: See the Bible, 2 Samuel 11, for the account of how Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, committed adultery with King David, who then had Uriah killed.
Chapter LIV
1 (p. 435)
the histories of these were but as a
tale told by an idiot: See Shakespeare’s
Macbeth (5.5.24—28): “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more: it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.”
2 (p. 436) HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN: See the Bible, 2 Samuel 1:19 : “The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!”
Chapter LV
1 (p. 439)
Yet the exotic had grown here, suddenly as
the prophet’s
gourd: See the Bible, Jonah 4:6: “And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief.” The gourd sprang up to give shade as Jonah sat outside Nineveh, displeased that God had passed over the city when he had said he would destroy it.
Chapter LVIII
1 (p. 461)
Like a greater
than himself, to the critical question at
the critical time he did not answer: Compare this sentence to the passage found in the Bible, Matthew 26:62-63: “And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace.” See also Matthew 27:11-14.
Chapter LIX
1 (p. 465)
“Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess: See the play
Prometheus Bound (1.169), by classical Greek dramatist Aeschylus (c.525—c.456 B.C.): “The president / Of heaven’s high parliament / Shall need me yet to show / What new conspiracy with privy blow / Attempts his sceptre and his kingly seat.”
2 (p. 465)
As soon as
they had strength they arose, joined hands again,
and went on: Compare this line to that in
Paradise Lost (book 12, lines 648-649), by John Milton (1608-1674): “They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow / Through Eden took their solitary way.”