Thursday 10 May 1666

So up, and to the office, where all the morning. At noon home to dinner and there busy all the afternoon till past six o’clock, and then abroad with my wife by coach, who is now at great ease, her cheeke being broke inward. We took with us Mrs. Turner, who was come to visit my wife just as we were going out. A great deale of tittle tattle discourse to little purpose, I finding her, though in other things a very discreete woman, as very a gossip speaking of her neighbours as any body. Going out towards Hackney by coach for the ayre, the silly coachman carries us to Shoreditch, which was so pleasant a piece of simplicity in him and us, that made us mighty merry. So back again late, it being wondrous hot all the day and night and it lightning exceeding all the way we went and came, but without thunder. Coming home we called at a little ale-house, and had an eele pye, of which my wife eat part and brought home the rest. So being come home we to supper and to bed. This day come our new cook maid Mary, commended by Mrs. Batters.

14 Annotations

First Reading

Australian Susan  •  Link

"...A great deale of tittle tattle discourse to little purpose, ..."

Tsk. Tsk. Sam. Men just don't get female networking, do they?

cgs  •  Link

doggy bag still the way to go.

Waste not, want not

"...which my wife eat part and brought home the rest..."

Ruben  •  Link

"Going out towards Hackney by coach for the ayre, the silly coachman carries us to Shoreditch, which was so pleasant a piece of simplicity in him and us".
??? What was so silly in Shoreditch that was not in Hackney?
H has parks that S lacks? H is residential and S is industrial or worse, an ill known place?

Roger The Weather  •  Link

', it being wondrous hot all the day and night and it lightning exceeding all the way we went and came, but without thunder.'

Sam goes out and about with the missus on a fine day but the taxi driver gets lost.
As you can see May 1666 had an average temperature of 11C, this a little cooler than the average since 1659 (actually the 164th warmest of 350). So, it's gonna cool down a bit, Sam! (No doubt we have to make the most of this fine, warm weather in London before it goes downhill!)

Arborfield  •  Link

The Coachman? London Cabbies are renowned for taking the 'long way around' on the pretext of "... well it's easier this way mate". It seems Sam and the party saw through the excuses! Much merriement ensuing -- but did he pay the correct fare?

Rose Fox  •  Link

I love the way bits of this are being translated onto Twitter. You just know Pepys would have used it. "@Lovett At your house; maid says you're at my place! Text me next time, you know how busy I am."

GrahamT  •  Link

Hackney vs Shoreditch.
Not that much of an error: I go to an evening class in Hackney and the nearest Tube station is in Shoreditch - a 10 minute walk. The driver probably went up Commercial street and Bishopsgate instead of the Whitechapel road ("We miss the road-works and one-way system this way, mate"), but from Pepys' home/office it would be almost the same distance to go through Shoreditch to get to Hackney.
The Whitechapel road was in the countryside then, so maybe it was considered a safer route away from the Moorfield and Finsbury highwaymen. (but why would it make them merry that he took them the more dangerous route?)
By one of those strange coincidences, last time Pepys mentioned Shoreditch, Elizabeth also had a toothache.
(http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…)
Shoreditch is now well known for its pole dancing pubs; I'm sure Pepys' would have been a regular, like the modern city boys, if they had existed then. (cue Robert Gertz)

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"Oranges and lemons are what you need Mrs. P." Mrs Turner notes. "The best are near St. Clemens."

"Sam'l, we owe the butcher three farthings...The one over by St. Martins."

"Pepys! When will you pay me?!"

"Was that Povey...By the old Bailey?"

"Well you've grown rich, Mr. Pepys...So I thought surely Shoreditch." the cabbie notes.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Take care with that abscess, Bess. I'd bet our girl has been indulging in cakes or something while reading her favorite novels...

***
Gee, Sam...Mrs. Turner was a fount of wisdom when she told you what you wanted to hear about Penn and co a short time ago.

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"her cheeke being broken inward"
Dental abscess perforated inside the mouth; what a relief!what a mess!

cgs  •  Link

Poor Elizabeth be raked
by her Pearlie's
upsettin' Sam because of her aked,

Sam dothe writ times many
her agonies of mouth,
at least ten times many.

She be drawn of tooth
on two occasions,

but she thought this time
if drawn, in would leave a gap

now no fore tooth or a molar,
abscess gone poof

must find a tooth from the grave
and have it replanted.

extracted from the diary under tooth.

some entrees have some contacts with tools of the trade , as the wealthier could get good advice rather than rely on a piece of string and the door being slammed shut.

cgs  •  Link

non PC
When men speak listen, when female speaks run.

A tatter did a tittle with her lace but it then lay in tatters.

tittle, n. 1. A small stroke or point in writing or printing. [not it]

2. fig. The smallest or a very small part of something; a minute amount.
2b. to a tittle, with minute exactness, to the smallest particular, to a T.
1607 BEAUMONT Woman Hater III. iii, I'll quote him to a tittle.

tittle tattle

1. Talk, chatter, prattle; esp. empty or trifling talk about trivial matters, petty gossip.
(In quot. a 1529 perh. used advb.)
a1529.....
b. with a and pl. An act or spell of petty talk; an item of small talk or gossip. Now rare or Obs.

1570 T. WILSON tr. Demosth. 47 Every man devising one tittletattle or other, as his own vaine heade imagines.
1639 N. N. tr. Du Bosq's Compl. Woman II. 42, I see many..to give themselves to these tittle tattles of other folks matters.

1699 R. L'ESTRANGE Erasm. Colloq. (1711) 127 The Tittle~tattles of the Nuns.

tattle, n. [low german]
The action of tattling; idle or frivolous talk; chatter, gossip.
a1529

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"A great deale of tittle tattle discourse to little purpose, I finding her, though in other things a very discreete woman, as very a gossip speaking of her neighbours as any body."

But cf. below 21 May 1667, where Pepys reports her gossip without complaint, perhaps because it was critical of the Penns. (L&M note)
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

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