torso - the trunk of a statue, without or considered independently of head and limbs; also, the trunk of the human body + Thomas Moore: song: O'Donohue's Mistress: 'Of all the fair months, that round the sun' + "O'Donohue's White Horses" is an Irish phrase for waves on a windy day. According to legend, O'Donohue appears every 7th year on Mayday, on the lakes of Killarney.
glen - a mountain-valley, usually narrow and forming the course of a stream + nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty: 'All the king's horses and all the king's men'.
O'Donough - air toT. Moore's "Song of O'Donohue's Mistress." O'Donohue's white horses are white waves on a windy day.
stitch - a sharp sudden local pain, like that produced by the thrust of a pointed weapon; esp. (now only) an acute spasmodic pain in the intercostal muscles, called more fully a stitch in the side.
mom - mother + song 'You're the cream in my coffee... I'd be lost without you'.
husky - one that is husky (burly, robust) or powerful; an Eskimo of Labrador.
hustings - court of common pleas; the proceedings at a parliamentary election.
lift - to steal
Norsker (Danish) - a Norwegian
torsk (Danish) - cod
poddle - to walk with short, unsteady steps, to toddle + PODDLE RIVER - Flows North into Liffey, underground from Harold's Cross until it emerges from a pipe in the wall of Wellington Quay. Its junction with the Liffey formed the harbour called by the Dan settlers Dubh-linn on Black Pool.
ardour - heat of passion or desire, vehemence, ardent desire
boob - a stupid awkward person, simpleton, dope + Samuel Lover, song: The Angel's Whisper: 'A baby was sleeping, its mother was weeping'.
mower - one who cuts grass, etc., with a scythe; a jester, a mocker
reap - to cut (grain, etc.) with the sickle, esp. in harvest
swish - to move with a swish, a hissing sound + wish
TOMMEN-Y-MUR - Near Festiniog, Wales; site of Roman camp on the Roman road running generally parallel to the shore of Cardigan Bay + Mohr (ger) - moor + melodies from Tommy Moore → Thomas Moore: Irish Melodies.
Braut (ger) - bride + Brautschauer (ger) - man looking for bride.
mimic - 'play-acting', mummery (obs.); mimicry, imitation (rare.)
meg - woman, country girl; penny
pictorial - a journal of which pictures are the main feature
periodical - a magazine or miscellany, the successive numbers of which are published at regular intervals (as weekly, monthly, etc.)
Stationer's Hall - the hall of the Stationer's Company (one of the Livery Companies of the City of London, founded in 1556, comprising booksellers, printers, bookbinders, and dealers in writing materials, etc.), at which a register of copyrights is kept.
Ziegfeld, Flo - American showman who put on the Follies yearly from 1907 to 1931.
homme (fr) - man
faux pas - a false step, fig.; a slip, a trip; an act which compromises one's reputation, esp. a woman's lapse from virtue + faut pas (fr) - must not.
Genesis - the first in order of the books of the Old Testament, containing the account of the creation of the world.
suspended sentence - (Law) a sentence which is imposed but remains in suspense provided that the offender commits no further offence within a stipulated period.
Lord Byron: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
lo - Used to call attention + Thomas Moore: song: As Slow Our Ship.
thunderbolt - Applied to a person noted for violent or destructive action; one who acts with furious and resistless energy.
Smith, Captain John (1579-1631) - president of the English colony in Virginia. His life was saved by Pocahontas.
sauvage = savage - fierce, ferocious, cruel; enraged, furiously angry + LA BELLE SAUVAGE - Famous London coaching inn off Ludgate Hill. Pocahontas stayed there 1616-17 when she came to London with her husband John Rolfe, but the name antedates her visit. Brougham's burlesque "La Belle Sauvage" (about Pocahontas) was performed on the opening night of the Gaiety Theatre (Dublin), 27 Nov 1871.
honteuse (fr) - shameful
welkin - the sky, the firmament; Considered as the abode of the Deity, or of the gods of heathen mythology + velikan (Russian) - giant.
dochka (Russian) - little daughter
Marianne - the name of a Republican Secret Society formed in France after the coup of 1851 to restore a Republican Government; hence a familiar name for the Republican form of Government and, by extension, a personification of the French Republic.
Fingal - Finn's name in Macpherson's Ossian poems. Fingal is a Scottish hero who comes to Ireland and fights the Danes. The Irish called certain Norse invaders, fingal or fingall, meaning "fair stranger" + Thom's Directory of Ireland/Dublin: says people living north of Howth 'popularly known as Fingallians'.
egg - to provoke or goad to action, incite, encourage
stock exchange - group of people organized to provide an auction market among themselves.
dutiful - rendering the services, attention, and regard that are due
customs - the duties levied upon imports as a branch of the public revenue + CUSTOM HOUSE - One of Dub's great Georgian buildings, the CH fronts the Liffey (CH Quay). Built 1781-1791, it was burned in May 1921 during the Troubles (levelling of all customs by blazes), later restored. Among other pieces of sculpture, there are carved stone heads over the doorways, representing Irish rivers - all male except for that of Anna Liffey. Joyce kept a picture of the Liffey head in his Paris flat.
miction - urination + mission
pick me up - something that stimulates or restores, tonic + Charles Dickens: 'The Pickwick Papers'.
peter - penis, a prison cell
nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty: 'had a great fall'
pimp - one who provides means and opportunities for unlawful sexual intercourse.
measly - poor, contemptible, of little value
lice - pl. of louse + 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' + lice (fr. slang) - prostitutes.
Fokes Family - Vokes Family, performers in music-halls and pantomimes, noted for agility and good humor.
spread eagle - a representation of an eagle with wings raised and legs extended (heraldic); a person secured with the arms and legs stretched out esp. in order to be flogged + SPREAD EAGLE - An 18th-century corset shop in the Coombe + Peter: Dublin Fragments, Social and Historic 154: 'in the Coombe, under "The Spread Eagle", ladies might obtain corsets of their liking'.
loosen - to undo, unfasten (bonds, a knot, or the like). Now usually: To render looser or less tight, to relax, slacken; Transf. and fig.: Now only in the phrase to loosen (a person's) tongue, and in certain poetical or rhetorical uses (? after Shelley).
corset + curses + cursitor (Slang) - pettifogging attorney.
Maggie (Slang) - whore + strap (Slang) - fuck + magistrates
Alesha Popovich, a hero of the Kiev epic cycle, Mr Skrabanek says + Popo (ger) - buttocks + fett (ger) - fat.
Hawkeye or Natty Bumpo - hero of Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, which include The Last of the Mohicans.
cotch = catch
See Naples and then die
als het U belieft (Dutch) - if it pleases you, I beg you
felon - villany, wickedness, baseness (obs.)
renter - to sow Cloth after a particular manner, to fine-draw + reenter
vuggy - rel. to vug (a small cavity in rock lined with cristaline layer of different composition from the surrounding rock), full of cavities + Earwicker
nursery rhyme This is the house that Jack built: 'that ate the malt'
neuter - neutral, sexless, neither active or passive + Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727) - English natural philosopher, author of the Principia and Universal Arithmetic.
Brahm - the supreme god of post vedic Hindu mythology
taulke = talk
nibble - to take little bites, to eat or feed in this fashion; the act or fact of nibbling, an instance of this, esp. on the part of a fish at a bait + proverb An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
bowel + James Joyce: A Portrait II: 'Uncle Charles... would seize... three or four American apples and thrust them generously into his grandnephew's hand... and say: - Take them, sir. Do you hear me, sir? They're good for your bowels' + (notebook 1924): '*A* apples for bowels'.
airy - lively, merry, gay; light, delicate
Berber - a name given by the Arabs to the aboriginal people west and south of Egypt
Blut (ger) - blood
amy - friend, a lover
porter - a kind of beer, of a dark brown colour and bitterish taste + water
huffy - puffed up with pride, conceit, or self-esteem; haughty, arrogant.
to chip bread - to pare it by cutting away the crust (obs.) + ead - the same.
brace - a pair, a couple
umbella (l) - umbrella
hoved (Danish) - head
festoon - a chain or garland of flowers, leaves, etc., suspended in a curved form between two points.
call on - to allure, incite, to encourage the growth of; bring on