Sunday 4 October 1663

(Lord’s day). Up and to church, my house being miserably overflooded with rayne last night, which makes me almost mad. At home to dinner with my wife, and so to talk, and to church again, and so home, and all the evening most pleasantly passed the time in good discourse of our fortune and family till supper, and so to bed, in some pain below, through cold got.

19 Annotations

First Reading

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"At home to dinner with my wife, and so to talk, and to church again, and so home, and all the evening most pleasantly passed the time in good discourse of our fortune and family till supper, and so to bed, in some pain below, through cold got."

But for the previous night's aggravating rain and today's bit of cold a delightful day remembering the climb up with Bess. Apparently however badly she gets on with some servants and her in-laws, our Bess can be a most pleasant lady to spend time with.

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

re: miserably overflooded

As opposed to simply being miserably flooded, I suppose ...

I wonder what he means when he speaks of the house being flooded ... is rain coming in through the roof? Is the basement (and thus -- *gulp* -- house of office) getting flooded? Except for on 29 Sept, I don't remember him describing any fixes or the specific cleanup required after such flooding. Does anyone else?

TerryF  •  Link

29th September - "Then in the evening, towards night, it fell to thunder, lighten, and rain so violently that my house was all afloat, and I in all the rain up to the gutters [I assume at the roofline], and there dabbled in the rain and wet half an hour, enough to have killed a man." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Todd, I bet on a leaky roof and channels in the walls that likely flood all floors, the basement and the house of office.

in aqua  •  Link

His skyway escape to the star lit night, be a nice way for waters to cascade to exit out of doors traipsing down the the recently upgraded stairway. Windows be not double glazed or even have a glass sealant of putty, so if the wind be driving the rain up the seething street, would find a resting spot on his parque floors, another source of frustration be the leaded eaves where rayne can seep under the boards and tumble down the walls.
He needs some tarpaulins [ not old salts, the for mopping up ] to cover his roof.

in aqua  •  Link

for the Dabbler OED has some interesting additions.
did some dabbling and so this be the result:
dabble noun not used till 1871
The act of dabbling; that which dabbles

1871 R. ELLIS Catullus lxiii. 7 While still the gory dabble did anew the soil pollute.
1. trans. To wet by splashing, as in running through a puddle or wading about in shallow water, or by pressing against wet shrubs, or the like; to move anything to and fro in water; hence to wet in a casual way; to disfigure or soil with splashes of any liquid; to bespatter, besprinkle, bedabble. Said of the personal agent, or the liquid medium

to dabble :1. trans. To wet by splashing, as in running through a puddle or wading about in shallow water, or by pressing against wet shrubs, or the like; to move anything to and fro in water; hence to wet in a casual way; to disfigure or soil with splashes of any liquid; to bespatter, besprinkle, bedabble. Said of the personal agent, or the liquid medium

1604 MIDDLETON Witch II. iii. 3 We must take heed we ride through all the puddles..that your safeguard there May be most probably dabbled.
a1656 USSHER Ann. vi. (1658) 570 The Country being woody they were daily dabled with the fall of snow from the trees.
2. intr. To move (with feet or hands, or the bill) in shallow water, liquid mud, etc., so as to cause some splashing; to play about in shallow water, to paddle.

1626 J. PORY in Ellis Orig. Lett. I. 331 They..made her to dable in the durte on a foul morning from Somersett House to St. James.
a1661 FULLER Worthies (1840) III. 135 Ducklings, which..naturally delight to dabble in the water.
3. fig. To employ oneself in a dilettante way in (any business or pursuit) without going deeply or seriously into it; to work off and on at, as a matter of whim or fancy. Const. in (with, at, etc.).

1625 B. JONSON Staple of N. II. i, Let him still dabble in poetry.
b. To meddle, tamper with; to interfere in.
1660 R. COKE Justice Vind. 7 He has bound himself up from dabling with the Grounds of Obedience and Government.
4. To move up and down in a playful, trifling manner, like one dabbling in water. Obs.
a1688 VILLIERS (Dk. Buckhm.) Poems (1775) 169 I'll dabble up and down, and take the air.
Dab noun
[f. DAB v.1, both being found c. 1300.]
[Daub] lots of meanings
1. a. A blow of somewhat sharp and abrupt character.
b. A blow from a bird's beak, or with the corner or point of anything which scarcely or only slightly penetrates; a thrust as if aiming to strike or stab; an aimed blow.
c. dial. A slight blow with the back of the hand or the like, a box, a slap. 1300
2 a nice flat fish [Plaice like]
3;Appears before 1700; frequently referred to as school slang: origin unknown.
Conjectures have been offered as to its being a corruption of adept, and of dapper, but without any other evidence than appears in the general likeness and use of the words. It is possible that it is a derivative of DAB v.]
One skilful or proficient atof, in) anything; an expert, an adept.
a bed 1812
then This and the accompanying n. DAB1 appear about
1300; there is nothing similar in OE.
Middle and early modern Dutch had a verb dabben, according to Oudemans, ‘to pinch, knead, fumble, dabble’: cf. Ger. tappen to grope, fumble (with the hands, as in the dark); but it is not clear that there is any connexion between this and the English word. Rather does the latter appear to be of independent onomatop to dab nebs: to kiss.
1630 DEKKER 2nd Pt. Hon. Whore IV. ii, Let me alone for dabbing them o' th' neck
many meanings then
[Cf. DABBY and DABBLE.]
? To be wet and dabbled, to hang like wet clothes.
Dabbling: ppl That dabbles.
1661 LOVELL Hist. Anim. & Min. 518 In dabbleing weather and autumne.

TerryF  •  Link

What good are leads, if the seams aren't caulked adequately if at all.

One would think that the Navy Board would have at their beck and call skilled workment from the yards who would know how to seal housing as they would a ship. Some redecoration! More concern about wainscoating than about coating the outer surfaces of the house.

TerryF  •  Link

in aqua, link that very nice etymology to 29 September.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Punctuation

I was wondering if the "below"here refers to the pain or the going to bed: in other words did Sam have pain in the nether regions or did he have to go to bed in the old chamber below the new one (presumably now wet). I think the original shorthand lacks punctuation and paragraphing, doesn't it? So it could be ambiguous. Or Sam could have nephritis.

Mary  •  Link

Omission.

This version of the text for Sunday omits Pepys' later interpolation: [My great fitt of the Collique]. We shall hear more of the pain below.

Mary  •  Link

That omission.

Apologies: I should have mentioned that the interpolation is shown in the L&M text.

martin  •  Link

The spelling of 'rayne' is interesting - to me at least. There's a village near me called Rayne, and I've always wondered whether it meant that or not. More likely than I thought.

language hat  •  Link

Rayne:
The earliest spelling of the village name is Hraegenan (with an a-e ligature); the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names says "possibly '(place at) the shelter or eminence' OE *hraegene." No relation to "rain," which is OE regn.

Ivo  •  Link

"Westron wynde when wyll thow blow? The smalle rayne downe can rayne, can rayne.
Cryst! Yf my love were in my armys, and I Yn my bed a-gayne."

(15th century love song, attributed to King Henry VIII)

Second Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

A fine welcome to the new cook-maid. I was wondering why there was no mention of cleaning up. My guess is that there was so much water in the basement, no real cleanup was possible until it subsides. Just the drying of things ... for instance, I understand they stored carpets on the dining room table when not in use, so perhaps flooding and wet floors were more common than we may imagine. It is England, after all.

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Will's a young adult, wanting - needing - more independence, but also still in need of guidance.

I remember the worries I gave my parents at that age!

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Oops - my last comment should have been for yesterday's entry.

StanB  •  Link

Off topic but today Sir Robert Foster (1589–1663) died, An interesting chap He was an ardent royalist, is supposed to have defended Ship Money and billeting of troops, and joined king Charles I of England at Oxford At the Restoration he was at once restored to the bench, 31 May 1660, and, having shown zeal on the trials of the regicides, was presently (21 October 1660) appointed to the chief-justiceship of the King's Bench,
I wonder if Sam had any dealings with him especially regarding the Ship Money Act ? Although i suspect this may be slightly earlier than Sam
More on him here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"and so to bed, in some pain below, through cold got."

L&M: The entries for 5-13 October constitute one of the best-documented attacks of flatulence in history. Flatulence was fashionable then, as now, as an explanation of symptoms which it has nothing to do with. Burton gave over 50 remedies to 'expel' or 'resolve' wind or 'flatuous melancholy': Anat. of melancholy (ed. Shilletto), ii. 300-2. Pepys was particularly subject to it, and in 1677 when he wrote a survey of his health he put it second only to his eye-trouble. 'From the furthermost of of my memory backward,' he then wrote, '(both before I [was] cutt [of] the stone and since) to this day I have been Subject upon all Cold, especially taken in my feet on an empty Stomach to have the same paines in my Bowels and Bladder and stoppage of Urine, and almost in the same degree, as what the stone itselfe gave me. And this soe certaine, and orderly, that I never have a fitt thereof but I can assigne the time and occasion of it, as alsoe of its Cure, namely; soe soone (and not before) as I can breake wind behind in a plentiful degree . . . . The preventions which I use ... are the keeping of my feet warme and my stomach full.[']: Rawl. A 185, f.210rv; printed Bryant, ii. 409-10.

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