Saturday 2 August 1662
Up early, and got me ready in my riding clothes, and so to the office, and there wrote letters to my father and wife against night, and then to the business of my office, which being done, I took boat with Will, and down to Greenwich, where Captain Cocke not being at home I was vexed, and went to walk in the Park till he come thither to me: and Will’s forgetting to bring my boots in the boat did also vex me, for I was forced to send the boat back again for them. I to Captain Cocke’s along with him to dinner, where I find his lady still pretty, but not so good a humour as I thought she was. We had a plain, good dinner, and I see they do live very frugally. I eat among other fruit much mulberrys, a thing I have not eat of these many years, since I used to be at Ashted, at my cozen Pepys’s. After dinner we to boat, and had a pleasant passage down to Gravesend, but it was nine o’clock before we got thither, so that we were in great doubt what to do, whether to stay there or no; and the rather because I was afeard to ride, because of my pain … [in my cods – L&M]; but at the Swan, finding Mr. Hemson and Lieutenant Carteret of the Foresight come to meet me, I borrowed Mr. Hemson’s horse, and he took another, and so we rode to Rochester in the dark, and there at the Crown Mr. Gregory, Barrow, and others staid to meet me. So after a glass of wine, we to our barge, that was ready for me, to the Hill-house, where we soon went to bed, before we slept I telling upon discourse Captain Cocke the manner of my being cut of the stone, which pleased him much. So to sleep.
22 Annotations
First Reading
Robert Gertz • Link
"I find his lady still pretty, but not so good a humour as I thought she was." Wasn't she rather out of humour the last time he visited?
"We had a plain, good dinner, and I see they do live very frugally."
Taking notes for Bess, Sam?
"I telling upon discourse Captain Cocke the manner of my being cut of the stone, which pleased him much."
Hmmn...
"Did he tell you the stone cut story, again, love?" Mrs Cocke eyes her hubs sympathetically...
"Lord, yes..." Cocke sighs. "And will no doubt show the blasted thing to me again the next time I visit."
Busy day for our boy, in any case...
Terry F. • Link
Robert, was Cocke pleased at the telling, or the pain, or the possible en-tail (sterility of the teller) of the tale?
Hmmm. Yes: some trinket.
A. De Araujo • Link
"the manner of my being cut of the stone,which pleased him much"
No wonder all those TV shows about doctors and hospitals are so popular!
Terry F. • Link
Ahhh, 'tis the gory details.
Terry F. • Link
Why the details of public hangings, drawings, and quarterings are retold.
Australian Susan • Link
Will and the boots
Does this show Will not liking to being used as "the boy" as Wayneman is at Brampton? I can imagine much muttering and flouncing about with his cloak flung over his shoulders again on Will's part.
Robert Gertz • Link
Sounds positively Freudian about Will to me, Susan. I think you're right on the money.
But I'd bet he'd put the cloak back about him before reaching Master Pepys.
Interesting how subdued our Capt. Cocke becomes round his ever out of humor Missus. No swearing, no drunkeness. I suspect our gallant Navy man to be thoroughly...
What, dear? Pardon me, guys the Missus demands...er wants something.
Terry F. • Link
Ah! the pleasure of a bed-time horror-story: "we soon went to bed, before we slept I telling [as we talked]...the manner of my being cut of the stone, which pleased [Captain Cocke] much. So to sleep."
When they were 9 and 11, they in bed, I read [by torch] E.A. Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," dramatizing it as much as I could, as I suppose S.P. did his story, which pleased my sons Sam (!) and Alan so much that they remember it now, at 29 and 27.
Robert Gertz • Link
Oh now we have got to put all our heads together sometime and tell the stone cut story as Sam would've told it to Cocke a'la Terry's horror tale...
"The very heavens were angry that day, my friend!"
Robert Gertz • Link
Course, to be serious a mo', I'm sure Sam's tale would have been both enthralling and precise...And it's a pity we don't have his personal account, though Tomalin does a terrific job.
Robert Gertz • Link
Zounds, I completely let it pass me by! A letter to Bess from Sam!
Dang, if only...
Cumgranissalis • Link
Oh wot a life! sleep on a truckle, help the old man on with his footwear, take the pummelstone to his stuble, polish his boots and still wants me to carry boots, wot they be they on his feet, pattens?
Poor Will has not got his papers, certificate of merit or his freedom to go and write bills of laden at another office, "Oh! Mistress where be thou, beat me, so that I can break my apprenticeship, and leave Samuell Pepis to carry his own boots,
Oh! that darn parchment, freedom to find a new Master" .
Girls very rarely had any choices, only when they could charm Papa, to get an education.
liberties taken from p173 [Chapter 11] of restoration London by Liza Picard
Mary • Link
"wrote letters"
Annotators have noted on several occasions that Pepys never refers to his wife by name. We tend to refer familiarly to this couple as Sam/Samuel and Elizabeth (even Beth or Bess) but it's quite probable that they simply addressed one another as 'Husband' and 'Wife.' In public, as also in situations of displeasure, they may have used the full address of 'Mr. Pepys/Mrs. Pepys'; at other timess "Sir/Madam."
Tony Eldridge • Link
Gravesend to Rochester.
A distance of around 11 miles in the dark on rough roads. It must have been well after midnight when they arrived. I wonder if Will had to carry a lantern?
A. De Araujo • Link
Well Mary he couldn't call her"mum"!perhaps the "little woman" or "wifey"!
Terry F. • Link
"About forms of personal address in Sam's time"
To the pepysdiary@smartgroups.com I queried: "I wrote "Sam's" without hesitation. How would he have been called and by whom? I take it his servants and equals (whoever they be) would have called him Mr. Pepys (as he refers to Mr. Moore). Would anyone have called him Sam? Samuel? Sammy? Sam'l?"
Martha Rosen replied: "A quick look at Daniel Defoe's "Moll Flanders" (on line at Project Gutenberg) finds a man addressed as Robin by his brother. The two of them discuss a woman whom they refer to as "Mrs. Betty". It suggests that first names were used only by those very close to you, with Mrs. Elizabeth or Mr. Samuel intermediate before Madam and Sir. (Would Mrs. and Mr. be pronounced as mistress and master?)"
I replied: "Thank you, Martha: Old-timers in the American South (here [in western KY], for example) say "MIZruss," listed in competent dictionaries as "dial." and clearly a turn on "mistress," which is where the "r" in "MISS-uz" [Mrs.] comes from. "Mrs. Betty" and "Mr. John" are also in use among old-timers. Of course the shock to them is to be called by their first name only by those who work in doctors' offices.
We here do use "Ma'am" and "Sir" -- as did my parents, descended from
Southerners. I would not be surprised if, in the 17c, Mrs. and Mr. were pronounced as
mistress and master, as you suggest."
On a farm 12 miles WSW of Hannibal, MO (speaking of "Mark Twain"), my paternal grandmother (who always carried white gloves "into town" ) addressed her husband (16 years her senior) as "Mr. Paul," as did the neighbors, and he her "L'uEYEzie" (for Louise). To her we (offspring of her 12 children) learned to say, when addressed, "Yes'm," or, for emphasis [PRN], "yes, MA'AM!"
Dave Bell • Link
Gravesend to Rochester: what was the phase of the moon?
Cumgranissalis • Link
Until I being indoctrinated by the modern American forms of Address:
by peers, Last name only, by the betters it be last name except when in for chastisement, then me olde title be used as well. Most of my school chums, I still don't remember their christian names,[friends would be limited to a small number that would use the inimate name givern by parents] only last or nick names. Family, usually christian although other names unmentionable could be used on the correct occasion.
I dothe beleive Sam be rarely used, except on intmate occasions on the swan down pillow, Even his amours it would be "Mr. Pepis what be you a doing".
The Diary gives the hints, Lessers be given names or diminuitives on good days, on bad days it be blank.
Us moderns have taken liberties with the all the characters,if we behave thus in 17C, would be keel hauled.
Pedro • Link
" I eat among other fruit much mulberrys, a thing I have not eat of these many years,"
Mulberries are extremely juicy and have a refreshing, subacid, saccharine taste...
Shakespeare is said to have taken it from the Mulberry garden of James I, and planted it in his garden at New Place, Stratford-on-Avon, in 1609. This also was a Black Mulberry, 'cultivated for its fruit, which is very wholesome and palatable; and not for its leaves, which are but little esteemed for Silkworms.'
http://www.botanical.com/botanica…
Robert Gertz • Link
"Three o'clock of the morning...
I awake full of you...Sweet and incomparable Bess I kiss you on your breast, lower, lower. But send me no kisses in return for t'will make my blood burn.
Do not forget to send my fondest greetings to dear Lady Jemina and the children.
Your loving "pricklouse"..."
And now you know where Napoleon got it from...
Araucaria • Link
Modern cultivation of mulberries:
At a local farmer's market a year or two back, one farmer told me that they plant mulberries to lure birds away from the cash crop -- they ripen at the same time but are more abundant. So abundant that there was still enough to harvest and sell along with the more marketable fruit.
Second Reading
john • Link
"I was afeard to ride, because of my paine in my cods" (L&M) I do not think that they rode two-point then, probably because their stirrups were so far ahead of the girth (as one sees from paintings of the day).