Даниэль Дефо - Roxana

sounded : understood.

you may certainly take one another fairly : Neither wilful desertion nor adultery was an adequate ground for divorce. Moreover, Canon 107 of the 1604 canons of the Church of England forbids remarriage after separation or divorce, even of the innocent party. Many Puritan (and some Anglican) divines, however, argued that the innocent party ought to be allowed to sue for divorce and to remarry (as was briefly the case when the Cromwellian Marriage Act of 1653 was in force), and there is evidence that among the Puritans private (i.e., extra-legal) divorce existed and that remarriage took place. In the debate that follows Roxana accurately represents Defoe’s own conservative attitude to divorce and remarriage. See Conjugal Lewdness (1727), pp. 118–19, and cf. Moll Flanders (Penguin Books, 1978), pp. 171–3.

in several Countries abroad : In continental Protestant countries divorce laws were more liberal than in England.

Engine : snare or trap; the means by which the devil operates.

as Rachel did to Jacob : Genesis 30:1–8.

Leaden-Hall : a large London market where meat, poultry, fish, herbs, leather and other goods were sold.

my Assigns : those to whom the money is legally transferred; heirs.

this had thus made a Hole in my Heart : that is, Roxana’s conscience gnaws at her heart, so that she experiences pleasure and misery together.

Travel : travail, labour of childbirth.

Jointure : dower, that is, the annual income which a man at marriage settled on his wife in case she survived him.

Pistoles : Pistole was the popular name for the Spanish gold coin officially called the double escudo. After the marriage of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa in 1660, Spanish pistoles circulated in France, with an exchange rate of ten livres. The name also came to be used, as is probably the case here, of the Louis d’or and of other European gold coins of roughly the same value as the pistole (£0.86). In 1700 3,000 pistoles would have been worth about £2,580.

Conveniences : coaches for hire.

Figure : (social) position.

shagreen : rough, untanned leather, often dyed green.

being : having, intending.

laid out : set down.

Scrutore : escritoire, writing desk.

vapourish Fancy : hysterical imagination. The vapours were thought to be corrupt exhalations which developed in the lower organs, particularly the spleen, and rose to the head, where they had a malign effect upon physical and mental health. See also Introduction.

Mounting : outfit, clothing.

as decently as the Place would permit a Protestant Stranger to be Buried : Even under the terms of the Edict of Nantes (see note 1) Protestant services were not permitted within five leagues of Paris.

Curate: curé ;, parish priest.

St Sulpitius : St-Sulpice, an ancient parish on the left bank of the Seine. The large and imposing church was rebuilt in the first half of the eighteenth century.

the Second-Sight : Defoe was greatly interested in clairvoyance, apparitions, and occult knowledge. His main writings on these subjects are A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs Veal (1705), Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1720), The Political History of the Devil (1726), A System of Magick (1726), and An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727).

12000 Livres : about £734 in 1703, the year of the death of the jeweller.

Bills : bills of exchange.

Amende : reparation, compensation.

the second Bill : In order to insure against loss of the bill of exchange in the mail, the drawer of the bill provided several copies (known as a ‘set’), payment of any one of which cancelled the others. For bills of exchange see note 42.

discover’d : exposed.

a Process in Dower : an action at law for the jointure (or dower). See note 52.

Parliament : the parlement of Paris, the highest court of judicature under the ancien régime , consisting of a close corporation of hereditary lawyers.

saluted : kissed.

a hundred Thousand Livres : well over £6,000.

an Assignment : a negotiable document secured by revenue or property.

Levez vous donc , then arise.

had turn’d off my Weeds : had given up wearing full widow’s mourning.

my Head : ‘Head’ was the general term for a headdress, anything from an indoor cap to an elaborate arrangement of the hair, drawn up over a cushion, powdered and pomaded, and decorated with ribbons and lace.

Au Boir : bring something to drink.

Champaign : In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries champagne generally referred to a well-known, still, red wine (in England often fortified with brandy), rather than to the sparkling white wine, discovered in the late seventeenth century, which we know today.

une Deshabile : a house-dress, or informal morning dress (from the French déshabillé) .

disappoint : deceive, thwart.

When deep Intrigues… the first that spy : untraced.

Humane : human.

In Things we wish… we willingly believe : probably Defoe’s versification of a commonplace idea he had expressed elsewhere in his writings. See Due Preparations for the Plague in Romances and Narratives by Daniel Defoe , ed. George A. Aitken (Dent, 1895), XV, 118, and cf. An Essay upon the Trade to Africa (1711), p. 3.

a Protestant Whore : probably an allusion to Nell Gwynn, Charles II’s popular, and Protestant, mistress. Once when her carriage was surrounded by a hostile mob that took her for her unpopular rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth, Nell Gwynn put her head out of the window and said: ‘Pray, good people, be civil; I am the Protestant whore.’

the Stupidity that my intellectual Part was under : the stupor that affected my rational faculty.

what Lethargick Fumes doz’d the Soul : the fumes or vapours of corrupted humours (see note 60) rising to the head would cloud the understanding and the conscience.