fend - to make an effort, strive or try to do something; to defend.
Crow: The Story of Confucius, Master Kung 34: 'what is now called the Yellow River... was nameless... It was the river, the only river that required consideration'.
Crow: The Story of Confucius, Master Kung 37: (for Chinese, the sea was) 'a symbol of oblivion. The fact that the brine-laden water... gave them this wonderful salt, which river water could not provide, probably added to the mystery'.
song Brian O'Linn
Crow: The Story of Confucius, Master Kung 34: (for Chinese, China) 'was not a country but the country'
dindin - dinner
bounding - a leaping or springing, esp. in an elastic way
abounding - overflowing or plentiful supply
surly - churlishly ill-humoured; rude and cross; 'gloomily morose' + surely
clovery - like clover or abounding in clover
overarch - to form an arch over
saint + phrase Ireland, isle of saints and sages.
stern - severe, strict, hard, grim, harsh + FDV: It was wont to be wittily wagged by the stern chuckler Mahappy Mahapnot that Lucalizod was the only place in the world where the possible was always the improbable and the improbable the inevitable. This implies a sequentiality of impossible probables improbable possibles but though possibly nobody who has read up his subject probably in Aristotle will applaud the sentiment or sentence for utterly impossible as are all these events they are probably as like those which happened took place as any other which never took place at all are ever likely to be.
chuckler - a worker in leather, cobbler; one who chuckles
mayhap - perhaps, maybe + Mahaffy, Sir John Pentland (b. 1839) - Irish classical scholar, Wilde's mentor, wit, who, according to Mr Atherton, said Dublin was where the possible was the improbable and the improbable was the inevitable.
lutra (l) - otter + lutron (gr) - ransom (pl. = lutra) + lutra (Albanian) - fine, fit.
conservatory - a public institution for special instruction in music and declamation; a school or academy of music.
ultimum aut nullum (l) - last or nothing + ultio aut nullum (l) - revenge or nothing + ultė (Albanian) - low + naltė (Albanian) - high.
madh (Albanian) - big
valley of tears - the world regarded as a place of trouble, sorrow, misery, or weeping + 'This vale of tears' is the world and the suffering that life brings + vaal (Dutch) - faded, sallow, ashen.
verdure - the fresh green colour characteristic of flourishing vegetation; greenness, viridity + verdhė (Albanian) - yellow.
Phoenix park + Phaiton - "Shining One", son of Helios (sun) who drove his father's chariot too near earth and fell to his death, struck by a bolt from Zeus + paiton (Albanian) - car.
tambel (Albanian) - milk
tay - tea; a case, sheath, outer covering + Crow: The Story of Confucius, Master Kung 39: (in ancient China) 'There were no teapots, for tea was a beverage enjoyed by the barbarians living much further south'.
drame - tragicomedy
Ophelia - the name of the heroine of Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Like St Kevin's Cathleen or Nuvoletta, Ophelia drowned herself because of male coldness to her + drainō (Greek) - to desire + trendafille (Albanian) - rose.
proverbial - addicted to the use of proverbs; that has passed into a proverb
phrase the Holy and Undivided Trinity
me kenė (Albanian) - if, seeing that + ken (Hebrew) - yes.
Zot- (ger) - obscenity + Zoti (Albanian) - God + zot (Dutch) - fool + zot (Hebrew) - this, that (feminine).
havermout (Dutch) - oatmeal porridge
to hit the nail on the head - to come at the very point of the matter, to say or do exactly the right thing.
in for - involved in some coming event, etc. from which no escape is possible; finally committed or destined to do or suffer something.
sequentiality - the quality of being sequential (forming a sequence)
possible - that which is possible
grub - to take food, eat
lock - a quantity (usu. a small one) of any article esp. hay or straw; a handful
Aristotle; In a tragic plot Aristotle prefers a sequence of probable impossibles to one of improbable possibles.
go out of ones way - to make a special effort (to do something)
unbiassed - not unduly or improperly influenced or inclined; unprejudiced, impartial + boia (it) - executioner + boje (Albanian) - colour.
amen + Hahn (ger) - rooster + ahn- (ger) - suspect.
original sin - hereditary sin inherited from sinful choice of the first man of the human race + FDV: About that hen, first. Midwinter was in the offing when a poorly clad Shiverer, a the mere merest bantling, observed a cold fowl behaving strangely on the fatal dump at the spot called the orangery when in the course of its deeper demolition it unexpectedly threw up certain fragments of orange peel, the remnant of an outdoor meal of some unknown sunseeker illico in a mistridden past. What child but little Kevin would ever in such a scene in such despondful weather in the desponful atmosphere of such biting cold have found a motive for future sainthood saintity by euchring the discovery of the Ardagh chalice by another innocent on the seasands near the scene of the massacre of most of the jacobiters.
midwinter - the middle of the winter
kuur (Dutch) - cure (noun); also, whim, vice or trick + kura (Slovenian) - hen.
in the offing - about to happen
Primavera (Italian) - Spring (season) + prandverė (Albanian) - spring.
pril (Dutch) - (very) early + Prill (Albanian) - April.
kishė (Albanian) - church
sweet song + sahat (Albanian) - hour + song Love's Old Sweet Song.
shiverer - one that shivers
mere - nothing short of (what is expressed by the n.); absolute, entire, sheer, perfect
bantling - a young or small child, a brat
fowl - a domestic cock or hen
midden - a dunghill, manure-heap, refuse-heap
chip - anything worthless or trifling
kopron (gr) - dung
dump - a pile or heap of refuse or other matter 'dumped' or thrown down.
orangery - a place appropriated to the cultivation of orange-trees; spec. a structure or building in which orange-trees are reared and kept, where the climate does not allow them to be cultivated in the open.
a busmans holiday - a holiday in which one does the same thing as one does at work.
limon - a fine sandy soil; lemon + limon (fr) - mud + limen (l) - threshold.
throw up - to produce or provide
orangepeel - the rind of an orange, esp. when separated from the pulp.
sunseeker - one seeking a sunny place for a holiday or to live in
illico (l) - there, than; in that place, on the spot + all
priestridden - managed or controlled by a priest or priests
Strandlooper - a member of a people, related to the Bushmen and Hottentots, living on the southern shores of S. Africa from prehistoric times until the present millennium; a vagrant + strandlooper (Dutch) - beach-walker; a collective name for the various kinds of sandpiper, stint, dunlin, knot and sanderling.
peepy - drowsy, sleepy; characterized by peeping
despond - depression or dejection of spirits through loss of resolution or hope.
trouver (fr) - to find
strate = strete - street + street (Anglo-Irish) - backyard (Anglo-Irish Pronunciation: strate) + In Acts 9:11, the Lord says to Ananias, "Arise, and go to the street which is called Straight," (to restore Saul's sight). "The Street which is called Straight" is the motto of C T M'Cready's Dublin Street Names.
strete (obs) - estreat, extract, a true copy of an original
saintity (obs) - sanctity
euchre - a game at cards, of American origin, played by 2, 3, or 4 persons, with a pack of 32 cards (the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 of each suit being rejected). A player may, if he pleases, 'pass' or decline to play, but if he undertakes to play, and fails to take 3 tricks, he or his side is said to be 'euchred' and the other side gains two points. The highest cards at Euchre are the knave of trumps and the other knave of the same colour; the other cards used rank as in whist. There are various modifications of the game, as Railroad Euchre, played with the usual 32 cards and an extra blank card called 'the joker', or 'imperial trump', which is superior to all; (v.) - At euchre: To gain the advantage over (an adversary) by his failure to take three tricks: Hence transf. to outwit, 'do', 'best'.
Ardagh Chalice - large, two-handled silver cup, decorated with gold, gilt bronze, and enamel, one of the best-known examples of Irish ecclesiastical metalwork. It was discovered in 1868, together with a small bronze cup and four brooches, in a potato field in Ardagh, County Limerick, Ireland + (notebook 1923): 'child (found chalice in potatofield)' → Flood: Ireland, Its Saints and Scholars 112: 'A child playing on the sea-shore near Drogheda found the Tara Brooch, and a boy digging potatoes near the old Rath of Ardagh in Limerick found the Ardagh Chalice' + Joyce's note: 'Ardagh Chalice (two handled)' → Flood: Ireland, Its Saints and Scholars 112: 'The Ardagh Chalice is an almost unique example of the two-handled chalice used in the earliest Christian time'.
heily - haughty, proud; highly + holy + heilig (German) - heilig (Dutch) - holy.
whilst - while
clamour - to make a clamour; to shout, or utter loud and continued cries or calls; to raise an outcry for; to seek, demand, or call importunately for, or to do a thing [(notebook 1924): 'pious clamour'].
wheedle - to entice or persuade by soft flattering words