The Golden Bowl - Henry James [301]
3. (p. ref) the Apennines. The mountain range which runs down the spine of Italy. In fact both Rome and Florence are on the western side – but then Fanny Assingham’s references are not always exact.
4. (p. ref) Amerigo. The Prince is apparently a descendant of Amerigo Vespucci, whose explorations of the coastline of South America from 1499 to 1502 led him to realize that this was indeed a new continent, and not, as had been previously supposed, part of Asia. Fanny’s view of him as a ‘make-believe discoverer’ was then the general one: it was only in the 1920s and 30s that Vespucci’s achievements were properly recognized by historians.
5. (p. ref) ‘By that sign he’ll conquer.’ An adaptation of the motto of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who before the battle of the Milvian Bridge (312) saw in the sky a vision of a flaming cross bearing the words, ‘In this sign thou shalt conquer.’ He adopted the cross as his emblem and won the battle – and with it, the Empire.
6. (p. ref) You’ve taken part in the sack of cities. Another link between Assingham and Attila the Hun.
Chapter 5
1. (p. ref) on the huge Portland Place staircase. Scenes on staircases are significant in this novel. See, in particular, the long conversation between Fanny Assingham and her husband which occupies the whole of Chapters 10 and 11 of Book Third and which takes place almost entirely on the actual stairs or on the landing. Interestingly, characters are always observed going upstairs, never down.
2. (p. ref) antiquarii. Antique-dealers.
Chapter 6
1. (p. ref) hansom. A two-wheeled hired cab, with room for two passengers. James is always very specific about means of transport, presumably because, as here, he attaches a symbolic significance to them.
2. (p. ref) ‘rot’. Rubbish. Amerigo, like his creator, likes showing off his knowledge of contemporary English slang.
3. (p. ref) grey. A reference to the proverb, ‘At night all cats are grey.’
4. (p. ref) things consular, Napoleonic. Napoleon was created a Consul in 1799, and became Emperor of France in 1804.
5. (p. ref) temples, obelisks, arches. The first French Empire liked to reproduce the artefacts of ancient Egypt and Rome in order to authenticate its own Imperial image.
6. (p. ref) intaglios. Gemstones with an incised design, often of Imperial origin.
7. (p. ref) ricordo. Souvenir.
8. (p. ref) their foreign tongue. Charlotte and the Prince have been talking Italian. We are told in the first chapter that Amerigo finds English convenient ‘for the greatest number of relations’ and that when it came to French ‘there were discriminations, doubtless of the invidious kind, for which that language was the most apt’. Perhaps his present use of Italian seems appropriate to him in a third-rate situation.
9. (p. ref) cara mia. My dear.
10. (p. ref) per bacco! For goodness’ sake!
11. (p. ref) disgraziatamente, signora principessa. Unfortunately, Princess.
12. (p. ref) Che! Not at all! (Later in the novel it emerges that he is Jewish.)
13. (p. ref) Cos’è? What is it?
14. (p. ref) signori miei. Sir and madam.
15. (p. ref) per Dio! For heaven’s sake!
BOOK SECOND
Chapter 1
1. (p. ref) the impersonal whiteness. This could be a veiled reminiscence of the voyage of Gordon Pym (see p. ref).
2. (p. ref) receipt. Recipe.
3. (p. ref) hill of difficulty. The hill encountered by travellers in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
4. (p. ref) brown holland. An unbleached linen fabric used for covering up furniture.
5. (p. ref) piazza. Square.
6. (p. ref) Keats’s sonnet. This is ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’, of which the last lines are:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific – and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise –
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Chapter 2
1. (p. ref) Principino. Little prince.
2. (p. ref) pâte tendre. A play on the literal meaning of the words (tender paste) and their specialized