The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [301]
—Anonymous
This particular poem is what’s known as a “macaronic”; a type of light verse popular in the eighteenth century8 and later, in which Latin words or phrases are mixed with English to produce a comic effect, either by reason of Latin false cognates (Latin words that sound like English words, but mean something quite different) or by reference to Latin grammar, as in this example. Popular among the upper classes, as it showed off a person’s wit, as well as his (or her) education.
Several members of the Literary Forum discovered or recalled bits of macaronics, which they helpfully quoted to me; this one was both complete, and most apropos, so I chose it for Jamie.
[Drums, p. 279]
How many strawberries grow in the salt sea; how many ships sail in the forest?
—from “The Fause Bride,” a medieval Scottish ballad. My friend Jack Whyte (my authority on Scottish ballads)9 tells me that this particular line rates as perhaps the oldest riddle in Scottish literature, and is from the Northeast of Scotland—“Fraser territory,” he says.10
[Drums, p. 776]
From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.
—from a traditional sea-chanty
[Drums, p. 778]
Farewell to you all, ye fair Spanish ladies.
—traditional sea-chanty
MISCELLANEOUS QUOTATIONS
[Voyager, p. 511]
He created a desert and called it peace.
Though later repeated by one of the Duke of Cumberland’s contemporaries, in reference to his “pacification” of the Highlands after Culloden, this quotation is originally from the Roman historian Tacitus, and reads (in translation), “Where they make a desert, they call it peace.”
—“Agricola,” Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. c. 56-c. 120)
[Voyager, p. 519] Hawk for a handsaw…
“I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
—from Hamlet, William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
[Voyager]
After a war, first come the corbies, and then the lawyers, to pick the bones. —Anonymous (which merely means I don’t know who said it)
[Voyager, p. 586]
Law is a bottomless pit.
—Dr. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735) This is not a quote per se, but rather the title of a book, Law Is a Bottomless Pit, published by Dr. Arbuthnot in 1712—and likely well known to Ned Gowan.
[Drums, p. 726]
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! —Monty Python
For trivia buffs: Brianna may be stretching a point slightly; I believe Monty Python’s television show began in 1967 or 1968, but I didn’t bother trying to find out precisely when the show that contains the Spanish Inquisition skit aired. We’ll just assume she saw it, all right?
[Voyager, p. 620]
Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest… “Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
—from Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
[Drums, p. 429]
How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?
—Hamlet, William Shakespeare
MISCELLANEOUS QUOTES AND NOTES
“Romances”
Following the publication of Voyager, I had letters from some readers amused by the parallels of Claire’s and Jamie’s reading matter—that Claire should be reading a modern romance novel (The Impetuous Piéate)11 on pages 255—256, while Jamie was reading what they assumed to be the eighteenth-century equivalent. In fact, what Jamie is reading is Fanny Hill: Memoir of a Woman of Pleasure, a fairly notable piece of eighteenth-century pornography by John Cleland, published in 1747.12 (Jamie does in fact read “romances,” too—he recounts stories from The Adventures of Roderick Random and The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling to his men at Ardsmuir, and later discusses Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (which is somewhat closer to a modern-day romance, in terms of its subject matter)* with Lord John Grey—but he is likely reading Fanny Hill for purposes other than mental diversion).
In another place (Voyager, pp. 80-81), Jamie is shown reading what appears from the excerpts to be Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, a popular—and in the circumstances, rather prophetic—tale of shipwreck and adventure.