Friday 30 October 1663
Lay long in bed with my wife, and then up and a while at my office, and so to the Change, and so [home] again, and there I found my wife in a great passion with her mayds. I upstairs to set some things in order in our chamber and wardrobe, and so to dinner upon a good dish of stewed beef, then up again about my business. Then by coach with my wife to the New Exchange, and there bought and paid for several things, and then back, calling at my periwigg-makers, and there showed my wife the periwigg made for me, and she likes it very well, and so to my brother’s, and to buy a pair of boddice for her, and so home, and to my office late, and then home to my wife, purposing to go on to a new lesson in arithmetique with her. So to supper and to bed. The Queen mends apace, but her head still light.
My mind very heavy thinking of my great layings out lately, and what they must still be for clothes, but I hope it is in order to getting of something the more by it, for I perceive how I have hitherto suffered for lack of going as becomes my place.
After a little discourse with my wife upon arithmetique, to bed.
25 Annotations
First Reading
Robert Gertz • Link
"...and there I found my wife in a great passion with her mayds. I upstairs to set some things in order in our chamber and wardrobe, and so to dinner upon a good dish of stewed beef, then up again about my business."
Translation: I sneaked to my study and hid till Bess had calmed.
I know the feeling Sam...And my wife makes a terrific stewed beef.
Robert Gertz • Link
"...and so to my brother's, and to buy a pair of boddice for her..." A fast end to the rift with Tom, Sam. I thought you were never going to buy from him again?
Terry F • Link
Status-check
A cloak, a periwigg and a confession of ambition - "I perceive how I have hitherto suffered for lack of going as becomes my place."
Patricia • Link
"Lay long in bed with my wife....After a little discourse with my wife upon arithmetique, to bed."
The Pepys' prefer to make love in the morning, as we have often read. Perhaps it is because arithmetic before bed would be distinctly non-conducive to romance. In fact, I have read that men who wish to avoid romantic entanglements with a particular woman should discuss math with her as a means of turning her off.
Robert Gertz • Link
"Excellent, my love. You're a natural-born mathematician."
"Really, Sam'l?" Hmmn... "Sam'l?"
"My dearest heart."
"If I can do arithmetique so well...And if what you do is mostly that and writing things down...And if I have, as you've said, some skill in writing..."
"My love?"
"Couldn't I do your job?"
A blinking Sam contemplates the suddenly proffered future...
cum grano salis • Link
Must be putting on some extra girth?"...Then by coach with my wife..." No longer the daily shanks pony trips.
cum grano salis • Link
Famous Boddice maker apprentice be Thomas Paine" ...and to buy a pair of boddice for her, and so home, and to my office late, ..."
Sam, did thee not stay around for the fitting?
OED: boddice bodice Forms: 6-7 bodies, 8-9 boddice, 7- bodice. [A variant of bodies (see BODY n. 6), retaining the earlier sound of final -s, the original phrase being 'a pair of bodies'; even with the spelling bodice the word was formerly (like pence, mice, dice, truce) treated as a plural.]
1. Formerly. a. An inner garment for the upper part of the body, quilted and strengthened with whalebone (worn chiefly by women, but also by men); a corset, stays; freq. called a pair of bodies (bodice) = 'a pair of stays'.
1618 FLETCHER Loyal Subj. II. i. 31 If the bones want setting In her old bodies. a
1637 B. JONSON Elegie lx. (1854) 829 The whale-bone man That quilts those bodies I have leave to span.
1674 GREW Anat. Plants v. §3 A Flower without its Empalement, would hang as uncouth and taudry, as a Lady without her Bodies
2. The upper part of a woman's dress, a tight-fitting outer vest or waistcoat, either made in a piece with the skirt or separate (cf. BODY n.); formerly also, an inner vest worn immediately over the stays.
1566-7 Prec. Treas. in Chalmers Mary (1818)
I. 207 Of ormaise taffatis to lyne the bodies and sclevis of the goune and vellicote.
1625 FLETCHER Fair Maid II. ii. 35 Nothing but her vpper bodies.
Mary • Link
pair of boddice.
Like the later pair of stays, two pieces of reinforced fabric linked and adjusted by laces front and back.
Robert Gertz • Link
Beware the consequences of all this clothing stuff, Bess...
"Say there, who be that little fellow in the neat cloak? Hey, there,you. Yes, you in the cloak there, over here. Hello, handsome." offers hand to kiss.
"Haven't seen you around court, before, you cute little rogue. What's your name?"
"Pepys, my lady Castlemaine. Samuel Pepys." rising. "Clerk of the Acts of His Majesty's..."
"Whatever...Nice cloak and wig, Sam Pepys, I like to see a man who knows how to dress." Eyes up and down. "Why don't you come up and see me sometime when I'm not on duty with His...er Her...Majesty?"
"An honor, my lady." deep bow, attempt to conceal drool...
"You bet your booties...and that periwig, Sam Pepys."
Yes...Money well spent, I should say, Sam nods.
Terry F • Link
Calming a storm with shopping and some attention.
"by coach [!!] with my wife to the New Exchange, and there bought and paid for several things...and so to my brother's, and to buy a pair of boddice for her, and so home, and to....a little discourse with my wife upon arithmetique"
A little of this 'n' that to create "the wonderful quietness of oil on agitated water" - Benjamin Franklin to William Brownrigg, 1773. http://www.chem.brown.edu/chem12/…
.
Bradford • Link
To follow on from Mary's remark---"a pair of boddice," "a pair of stays," and we still say "a pair of pants"---and, for that matter, a pair of scissors or tweezers, where the object (it would seem) is made of two equal but mirror-image parts.
cum salis grano • Link
an aside: bodice be plural in its own rite [ref. OED]
so why the pair, be it the singular be body and not bodouse?
unlike mice,mouse; lice, louse,
any bodie have the reason?
strange, house be not hice either.
Nate • Link
Bradford, your observation that the parts are mirror images is correct - except for scissors which are not mirror images but identical.
language hat • Link
house/mouse
"House" in Old English was hus (with a long u), and the plural was identical to the singular, just as with "word" and many other neuter nouns. So the expected plural, if only sound change were taken into account, would have been "house," but obviously we like to have our plurals marked, so it got regularized with the standard -s. "Mouse," on the other hand, comes from mus, which underwent "i-mutation" in the plural: the Germanic plural was *musiz (again, with long u), and before it disappeared the i of the ending pulled the preceding u forward in the mouth ("fronted" it), making it ü (as the Germans write it), or y (in OE spelling), so the plural was mys, becoming mice by regular sound change. I hope that's comprehensible!
As for why "the singular be body and not bodouse," I'm not sure if that's a joke, but in case it's serious: the plural of body was and is bodies; in this particular context, that plural got spelled bodice -- as the OED says: "A variant of bodies (see BODY n. 6), retaining the earlier sound of final -s, the original phrase being 'a pair of bodies'; even with the spelling bodice the word was formerly (like pence, mice, dice, truce) treated as a plural."
cum salis grano • Link
LH. Most grateful for the explanation, I will look up my Websters more often, before putting fut in muth:
Bradford • Link
Are they really? Everybody go look. Why, bigosh, so they are!---or would be if some pairs didn't have variant handles.
Nate • Link
Some pairs have variant handles.
Just as Newton ignored air resistance I ignored variant handles and so did you. :-)
Second Reading
Louise Hudson • Link
Pepys refers to his wife as "my wife" six times in this short entry. He seldom refers to her by her name. That seems odd to me. He is writing a diary presumably for his own use. Does he think he might forget their relationship? Maybe it was a convention then, but I can't imagine referring to my husband as "my husband" when writing in a private diary . I wouldn't even refer to him as "my husband" to close friends or family members who I know know him as "my husband."
Would anyone here refer to his or her spouse that way in private writings or within the family or with close acquamtences? How we tend to refer to people, depending on our relationship, is very interesting. For instance, when I speak to my brother about his wife or children I don't say, "your wife" or "your son" or "your daughter", I refer to them by their names.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Louise - he writes in French shorthand. Maybe Elizabeth is a difficult outline, and "my wife" is a flowing quick and easy squiggle? It would be in English Pitman.
GrannieAnnie • Link
San Diego Sarah and Louise- Why wouldn't he just put her initial? I've read a lot of 1800s diaries, the small type the Civil War soldiers carried which had little space, and they'd often scribble, "Sent letter to B.H."
(However, when a wife of that era wrote letters to other people she would often refer to her husband more formally as Mr. ___.)
Gerald Berg • Link
Ask any left handed individual; a pair scissors are not mirror images despite being called 'a pair'.
Louise Hudson • Link
Thanks, Sarah. I didn't realize he was writing in shorthand. That might explain it, but as GrannieAnnie says he could have used an initial as so many diarists did. I now wonder if a translators was responsible for turning names or other references to Elizabeth into "my wife."
Sasha Clarkson • Link
The sin of anachronism rears its ugly head again.
Just because one "can't imagine" something, doesn't mean it wasn't so. Whatever the Pepyes called each other in private, (and we have no evidence at all for that), it was the common practice in Pepys' day to refer to ones spouse and other social equals quite formally when using the third person.
This practice continued for another couple of hundred years, as any perusal of the literature of the various times, say Austen and Dickens, would confirm.
Chris Squire UK • Link
‘The wife’ was, until recently, commonly used by working-class British Englishmen; there’s also ‘her indoors’ . . :
‘Brit. colloq. one's wife or girlfriend . . The phrase was popularized by the Thames TV series Minder (1979–93), in which the leading character Arthur Daley habitually referred to his wife as ‘her indoors’.
The series' original writer, Leon Griffiths, app. first heard it used by ‘a taxi-driver drinking companion of his’ (Independent (1992) 16 June 13/6).
1979 L. Griffiths Smaller they Are in Minder (television script, second draft) 10 May 2 That's what her indoors doesn't understand Terry. A young bird keep [sic] you feeling young . . ‘ (OED)
……
Shorthand: http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Bryan • Link
Regarding shorthand and names, this passage from the 'About the text' page clarifies all:
'Pepys wrote the bulk of his diary in a shorthand devised by Thomas Shelton, with only a few words, such as names of people and places, written longhand; shorthand was more widely used by scholars in Pepys’ time than it is today ...'
http://www.pepysdiary.com/about/t…
For example this is the first page of the diary, where the names of several people can be seen:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki…