Page 141, 2d note.--The meaning seems to be, that strips of gold-foil
were hung up to flutter round and frighten the birds, just as our
farmers hang up strips of tin for scarecrows.
Page 146, line 3. "She kept," &c.--There is something very obscure
here. For the German reads that the old Princess made this comparison
"im Wahne der Verschwisterung" (under the illusion or in a fancy of
relationship). Now Eleonore knew that this was her son Albano; because,
in the letter she wrote to him that day and laid up (see Vol. II. p.
493), she says, "To-day I have seen thee again," &c. May the meaning
be, then, that Eleonore tried to imagine by looking at the children
that Albano might be a relative of hers? Or had Richter forgotten that
Eleonore knew who Albano was, and does the _bonus Homerus dormitat_
here?
Page 157, line 33.--The _cane_; more exactly, the _pike_.
Page 159, line 20.--"Adopt" is rather too strong a word. "Take an
interest in them" is all the original requires.
Page 164, line 4.--We use the phrase "within four walls" as synonymous
with "in a room"; and in this case there would be _three_ rooms or
_twelve_ walls (one of J. P.'s trivial niceties).
Page 168, line 21.--The _fat-eye_ (_exophthalmy_ it was wrongly
rendered in the first editions) means such little _globules_ of fat as
show themselves, for instance, on the surface of _bouilli_, or marrow
boiled down.
Page 169, line 7.--As army-cloth shrinks when wet, so Malt grows thin
and falls away under the soaking of his tears.
Page 176, line 2. "It is a sin," &c.--There is a degree of obscurity in
this sentence arising from the elliptical and allusive style Jean Paul
employs; but the "innocent conditions" seems to mean the extent to
which one may safely go in certain pleasures. Surgeons attend at the
rack to tell how far torture may be carried without producing
death;[216] but no physician is at hand to tell the poor prince how
much he may enjoy without killing himself.
Page 177, line 11.--"Scholar-like"; more properly, _tyro-like_. The
Germans hardly have a word corresponding to our _scholar_ as meaning a
scholarly man. Their _Schüler_ means a _learner_, not one who is
_learned_.
Page 178, line 7.--"Sprinkled him with rose-vinegar"; i. e. gently
rebuked his moral indifference.
Page 178, line 9.--Luigi's father was lying on the coffin-board (or
bier); and L. himself was in that state of stupidity, thick-headedness,
and brazen-facedness which the proverb describes: "Er hat ein Bret vor
dem Kopf."
Page 181, line 28.--"Fire-mounds," or, more exactly, _fire-moles_;
described in the German works as _feuer-rothe Muttermäler_ (fiery-red
marks inherited from a mother).
Page 184, line 7.--"Leading-hounds,"--or pointers, which gives rather
more effect to the surprise produced by saying, after the dash, instead
of _noses_,--_ears_.--The allusion to _le Cain_ of course has a double
meaning, referring not only to the actor, but to the wicked and
murderous brother.
Page 188, line 12.--"Chap-sager," sap-sago,--derived from two words,
meaning _scraped cheese_.
Page 188, line 21.--When children in Germany are set at a little
side-table, they are said to "sitzen am Katz-tische." These expressions
come from the custom of giving the cat a side-bit while the dinner is
going on.--Line 31. The Ephraimite was a coin named after one Ephraim,
a Jew, who alloyed the legal coin of the Empire. The counterfeit was
readily to be detected by suspending the piece in wine, the acid of
which acted upon the spurious element, and turned the metal black.
Page 197, line 2. "TEN PERSECUTIONS."--In allusion, of course, to the
number the Christians are estimated to have suffered under the Roman
Emperor.
Page 203, line 25. "The gossiping letter."--_Gevatter's-brief_
(godfather's letter), a request to her to stand as godmother.
Page 211, line 1.--A _Spanish wall_ means a temporary partition put up
to make two rooms of one.
Page 213, line 27.--"Sun-path," used here in the astronomical sense and
figuratively. "Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy _sunny_ beams!" says
Pyramus.--In line 12 occurs again that peculiar word _fatal_, which
does not bear exactly our sense, but means ugly, disagreeable, &c.
Page 215, line 15.--"He can't count more than five," is a proverb
expressing dulness or stupidity.
Page 217, line 17.--"Conditions"; i. e. apprentices, hires.
Page 218, line 3,--"A box of letters" i. e. a case of type.
Page 219, line 3. The time of the Indiction among the Romans was that
wherein the people were summoned (_indicted_) to pay a certain
tribute.--The Romish or Papal Indiction, which is that used in the
Pope's bull, begins on the first of January.
Page 221, bottom. (_Faro_ is said to derive its name from _Pharaoh_,
whose image was formerly on one of the cards.)--"The banker turns up
the cards from a complete pack, one by one, laying them first to his
right for the bank, and then to his left for the _punter_ (or player,
so called from the Italian _puntare_), till all the cards are dealt
out. The banker wins when the card equal in points to that on which the
stake is set turns up on his right hand, but loses when it is dealt to
the left."
Page 224, line 13. "A round pearl."--_Zahl-perle_ means strictly a
pearl that is counted, not weighed.
Page 225, line 31.--The translator was not sure whether the
abbreviative H. prefixed to these names meant _Heilige_ or _Herrn_; and
he chose the former, merely because the author calls them _disciples_.
Page 242, line 11.--_Hirschfeld_ (erroneously translated _deer-field_)
is a proper name, of a writer quite obsolete now, who lived from 1742
to 1792, and wrote a work on country life. Richter says that Lilar is
not like a page out of Hirschfeld (made to order).
Page 243, line 23.--Of the "wild Germander," old Thomas Johnson says in
his Historie of Plants, 1633, "The floures be of a gallant blew colour,
standing orderlie on the tops of the tender, spriggy spraies."
Page 246, line 3.--Castor and Pollux were brothers of Helen; and,
according to one tradition, _all_ were born at once, being children of
Zeus and Leda. Horace calls them
"Fratres Helenæ, lucida sidera."
Carm. 1. 3.
Page 248, "43^_a_ cycle."--It was apparently an oversight of Jean
Paul's, making _two_ 43d cycles, and it was left so in all the
editions.
Page 252, line 19. "Sad-cloak."--A butterfly called the _Trauermantel_,
or _mourning mantle_.
Page 262, line 26.--_Blazing sea_ is a bold figure. Perhaps _boiling_
would be more appropriate to the outer element, though not to Albano's
inner emotion.
Page 267, line 4.--"Voice" means here _vote_.
Page 272, line 22.--There is a trick of language here, which cannot be
given in translation, but only in explanation. The idea is that Schoppe
was _turning_ (or rather twisting) something similar to what the
children were making; namely, an imaginary nose. Now in English we have
no concise expression for that symbolic art of pressing the thumb to
the nose and stretching the fingers into the air with a whirling
motion, to convey the idea of having outwitted the person pointed at.
The gesture is described very elaborately in one of Marryatt's
novels; and Bon Gualtier, in his parody of Locksley Hall, speaks of
"coffee-milling care and sorrow, with a nose-adapted thumb."
Page 284, line 7.--"Shut up," literally _crooks up_, as a prisoner is
doubled up by fetters.
Page 285, line 9.--The "Charles" referred to is _Charlemagne_.
"Sacramentarian" is strictly the English of _Sacramentierer_; but the
word Schoppe uses is _Sacramenter_, which may mean one who says
_Sacrament_! (a vulgar oath). Or it might be translated here "a poor
curse."
Page 286, second note.--Subscription is called in German
_prænumeration_, because the subscribers are numbered, or the money
counted out, beforehand.
Page 291, line 6.--This does not fully express the ceremony, which
consisted in breaking the helmet in pieces, and flinging them in upon
the coffin.
Page 298, line 17.--"Awaiting his sword," which he had been obliged to
leave behind on entering.
Page 299, line 11. "Paper dragon."--The German name for a child's kite.
Page 301, line 31. Properly rendered, "What will he--you?"--The
mechanic, thinking at first he was addressing one of his own class,
used the familiar "he," then, recognizing his mistake, he changed it to
the more respectful "you."
Page 306, line 9.--"Whipped" is too strong an expression. The meaning
is, that, the punishment having been commuted to a mere grazing of the
neck with a rod (twig), the penitent had died under the stroke by the
effect of imagination;--as is said to have actually occurred in the
case of a beadle at a German university, whom the students, after a
mock-trial, pretended they were going to execute, and, having laid his
head on the block, simply struck it with a sausage, when to their
horror he died of pure fright.
Page 312, line 4.--It was not a chocolate _mill_, but a twirling stick
to stir chocolate.--Line 8. "Support"; i. e. to lay paper on for
writing.
Page 312, line 33.--Richter has, not "Russia," but _Saanen_.
Page 327, line 7.--"Bleeds" _to death_, is the force of the original.
Page 329, line 32. "Just then," &c. Compare a passage in Richter's "New
Year's Night of an Unhappy Man."
Page 335, line 10.--Jordan- or paper-almonds are those of which the
shell is scraped to the thinness of paper.
Page 387, line 15.--The "touching ambiguity" spoken of cannot be
expressed in the English translation. It lies in the fact that Albano's
last three words, _es seines wird_, may mean either "When it becomes
his," or "When his is so"; i. e. my heart will be happy when his is so.
Page 390, line 2.--The "English horsetails" are the _Bobtails_.
Page 391, line 2. "Overstrained image."--Rather the _stretched
pictures_ (as pictures are stretched in framing).
Page 392, line 5.--"Thickness" is a proper name; but the translator has
not been able to learn anything of him, or of the fact here adduced on
his authority.
Page 393, line 18. "To dream and _enjoy_."--Instead of _geniessen_,
some editions have _genesen_, to _get well_.
Page 405, line 12.--The _Schneider's skin_ is the _Schneiderian
membrane_, so called from its discoverer, Conrad Victor Schneider, who
was born in 1610, was Professor of Medicine and Physician to the
Elector, and in 1660 wrote a treatise, "De Catarrhis," in six books,
devoted chiefly to an anatomical description of the cavities of the
nose.
Page 429, line 14.--The literal meaning of this bold figure is, "It
struck epileptically, till they bled, the limbs of the inner man."
Page 436, line 22.--The _time-keeper_ means the _metronome_.
Page 465, line 18.--The "seven pleasure-stations" allude to the
stations in the Catholic Church, which are a series of pictured scenes
in the life of Christ, before which the devotee successively pauses.
They correspond here to the "Point of View, No. 1," "Point of View, No.
2," and so on, which one meets in the neighborhood of certain great
wonders of Nature, such as Niagara Falls.
Page 469, line 7. "The wain."--Query, _Charles's Wain_.
Page 475, line 24. "The golden splendor of the strings of joy."--One
edition has _Der goldene Seiten_- [instead of _Saiten_-] _glanz der
Freude_,--"The golden side-glance of joy."
Page 479, line 16. "The fiery rain," &c.--One edition has _Wagen_
instead of _Regen_,--the fiery _chariot_.