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Utopia

Chapter 17

VII. did. Cf. note on 66 : 12.

71 : 7. such fines and forfeits. Lupton quotes (95) from Gairdner's Henry VII. as a case in point the treat- ment of Sir William Capel, who " was condemned in the sum of £2700 under certain obsolete penal laws, though he was allowed to compound with the king for £1600."
71 : 11. Macarians. Another imaginary people, the name being derived from fiatcdptos, happy, blessed.
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71 : 19. hoarding up so much money. At his death Henry VII. left 44 a hoard of 1,800,000' I. [some $100,000,000 at the present value of money], mainly gathered by injus- tice and oppression." — Gardiner, History of England, 357.
72 : 22. school philosophy. Academic speculation.
73 : 5. civil. This is generally said to mean 44 fitted for the life of citizens," 44 pertaining or adapted to citizens " ; but the personification of philosophy that follows and what is said concerning her good manners make it probable that the secondary meaning of civilis, polite, urbane, was also in More's mind.
73 : 11. Plautus. Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 250 B.C. -184 b.c), one of the best and most prolific Roman comic dramatists. One hundred and thirty plays were attrib- uted to him, of which twenty are extant. All but one of these deal with real life, in which 44 vile bondmen," witty but unscrupulous slaves, are frequently 44 scoffing and trifling."
73 : 14. philosophers' apparel. Cf . note on 2 : 3.
73 : 15. Octavia. A reading tragedy long attributed to Seneca, but certainly not by him, as it refers to the death of Nero.
73 : 16. Seneca disputeth with Nero. In the second act. Cf . note on 21 : 7.
73 : 17. played the dumb person. In addition to the dramatis personae, the plots of the Latin comedies frequently required the appearance of minor characters who had no words to speak. These were termed personae mulae, dumb persons.
73 : 19. gallimaufry. Originally signifying a hash or ragout, this came to mean, as Dibdin quotes (I, 123) from a dictionary of 1622, 44 a confused heap of things together." 44 They have made our English tongue a gallimaufray, or hodgepodge, of all other speeches." — Edward Kirke, Epistle prefixed to Spenser's The Shep- heards Calendar.
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73 : 24. play that as well as you can.
"Act well your part, there all the honor lies."
— Pope, Essay on Man, IV, 194.
74 : 16. Train. That which draws on, hence stratagem, artifice.
"Yet first he cast by treaty and by trains Her to persuade that stubborn fort to yield."
— Spenser, Faerie Queene, I, vi, 3.
74 : 20. not very bad. " Politics are a field where action is one long second-best, and where the choice con- stantly lies between two blunders." — John Morley, On the Study of Literature.
"Doubtless he had an ideal, but it was the ideal of a practical statesman, — to aim at the best, and to take the next best, if he is lucky enough to get even that." — Lowell, Abraham Lincoln, My Study Windows, 164.
76 : 11. the Utopians do in theirs. This, the first men- tion of Utopia save in geographical references, is such as would at once excite the interest of all Platonists. Cf. Introduction, xlviii.
76 : 25. wink at. Shut the eyes to.
"And the times of this ignorance God winked at."
— Acts, xvii, 30.
76 : 5. proclaimed in open houses. A mistranslation of palam in tectis, openly on the housetops. Cf. Luke, xii, 3 : " Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in dark- ness shall be heard in the light ; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops."
76: 11. rule of lead. Hence, one easily bent. Lumby points out (204) that the expression occurs in Aristotle's Ethics, V, 10, 7.
76 : 15. even as much. In his second edition Robynson translated More's tantundem, " even as little."
76 : 19. Mitio saith. " If I provoke or even put up
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with his violence, I shall indeed be as mad as he." — Ter- ence, Adelphi, I, ii, 66.
76 : 19. Terence. Publius Terentius Afer, a Roman freedman, who, though he died at the age of twenty-six (c. 159 b.c), won great and enduring fame as a comic dram- atist. He produced but six plays, all of which are extant.
77 : 13. laid in his neck. Laid to his charge. Cf . 186 : 9.
"O, are you come, Iago? You have done well, That men must lay their murders on your neck."
— Shakspere, Othello, V, ii, 169.
77 : 15. Plato . . . declareth. 44 He who has become a member of this little band [of true philosophers] . . . and has watched the madness of the many, with the full assurance that there is scarcely a person who takes a single judicious step in his public life, . . . keeps quiet and confines himself to his own concerns, like one who takes shelter behind a wall on a stormy day, when the wind is driving before it a hurricane of dust and rain ; and when from his retreat he sees the infection of lawlessness spread- ing over the rest of mankind, he is well content, if he can in any way live his life here untainted in his own person by unrighteousness and unholy deeds." — Plato, Republic, Davies and Vaughan's tr., VI, 496.
78 : 2. as my mind giveth me. As my mind inclineth, as it seems to me. 44 My mind gave me his clothes made a false report of him." — Shakspere, Coriolanus, IV, v, 156.
78 : 3. all the stroke. All the power or influence. 44 They . . . which otherwise have any stroke in the dis- position of such preferments." — Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, V, 81.
78 : 15. had in price. Had in esteem.
4, I have ever lov'd the life removed, And held in idle price to haunt assemblies."
— Shakspere, Measure for Measure, I, in, 8.
79 : 3. hold well with Plato. Agree with Plato. Lup- ton states (106) that Diogenes Laertius, De Vitis Phil-
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osoph., and Aelian, Var. Hist., II, 42, say that Plato re- fused to be the legislator for a great city that the Arcadians and Thebans built because they would not agree to an equality of rights.
80 : 13. by bribes and gifts. Many contemporary com- plaints show that More's picture of the condition of affairs in his day was not too highly colored. His own incor- ruptibility made him conspicuous among the officials of his time. To his son-in-law he said, " If the party will at my hand call for justice, then were it my father stood on the one side, and the devil on the other, his cause being good, the devil should have right." — Roper, 229.
80: 15. to be at any cost or charge. To incur any expenditures. Owing to necessary expenditures connected with his offices, More left Henry's service poorer than when he entered it fourteen years earlier.
80 : 16. occasion. Warrant, ground.
81: 19. which, what place it may have. Which, how it can have a place.
82 : 16. chronicles. Hythloday states later (95 : 21) that the chronicles of Utopia contain the history of 1760 years, from the conquest of the island by Utopus.
83 : 1. about twelve hundred years ago. This would be about 315 a.d., three years after the Emperor Constantino embraced Christianity in consequence of seeing, when on the expedition that led to his overthrowing Maxentius, a cross with a Greek motto that signified " By this con- quer " flaming in the sky at noonday. In 313 he granted Christianity rights at least equal to those of other religions, and in 324 advised all his subjects to embrace it, as he him- self had done.
83 : 3. Romans and Egyptians. Egypt became a Roman province in 30 b.c.
83 : 10. found it out. They knew nothing, however, of Christianity, in which the Utopians were first instructed by Hythloday and his companions. Cf . 189.
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85 : 6. fetching about a circuit or compass. Coming around in a circle. " And from thence we fetched a com- pass, and came to Rhegium." — Acts, xxviii, 13.
85 : 13. nor mounteth not. In early English two nega- tives frequently intensify the negation.
87 : 3. King. This is Robynson's addition : nowhere does More use the word rex in referring to Utopus or any other official of Utopia.
87 : 5. Abraza. The derivation of this name has puz- zled the commentators. Lupton suggests (118) that More " may have intended to express the notion of roughness or ruggedness, as Strabo did by his derivation of the river- name Araxes, ,, or that " possibly, as he calls the name of the river of Amaurote ' Waterless ' (Anydrus), he may have meant something of the same kind by Abraxa, as if * Aj§p€*cros, * not rained upon.' " Collins thinks (185), on the other hand, that " what suggested the word to More was what suggested to him the letters of the Utopian alphabet [which, however, was by Giles (227 : 4)], namely the symbols or gems of the Gnostics,' ' by whom Abraxas, a god, is fre- quently associated in the gems with Mithras, the name given by all the Utopians to the supreme god (188 : 8).
87 : 14. because. So that.
87 : 16. into. Among.
87:23. fifty-four. . .shire-towns. The number in Eng- land and Wales in More's day.
88 : 5. Amaurote. From &fiavp6s t dim, faint, obscure.
88: 10. of the realm. More's word is simply terrae. Utopia is such a confederacy of city states as existed in Hellas ; and the council may be a reminiscence of that of the Amphictyonic League.
88 : 24. by course. In turn.
89 : 1. bondmen. More's expression is duos asscrip- titios seruos, two serfs attached to the soil. Cf. 166 : 1-8. 89:5. phylarch. From 6\apxos, tribal chief . Cf. 96: 20.
89 : 19. occupiers of husbandry. Followers of farming.
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89 : 20. solemn and customably. Regularly.
90 : 4. marvellous policy. Wonderful contrivance. There are several sources whence More may have taken this idea : Pliny stated ( Nat. Hist., X, 54) that artificial incubation was practised by the Egyptians; and the author of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville gives (ch. V) an account of an incubation-house at Cairo.
90 : 16. at a sudden brunt and ... at a dead lift. At a spurt and . . . at a long continued pull.
91 : 13. holy day. The first and the last days of each month were holy days. Cf. 203 : 5.
92 : 2. it skill eth not. It matters not. "As a mad- man's epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are deliver'd." — Shakspere, Twelfth Night, V, 294.
92 : 5. the council-house. Cf . 88 : 5. Apparently only because it contained the council-house was Amaurote considered the chief city of the island : the powers of its officials were in no way superior to those of the officials of the other cities.
92 : 9. foursquare. In general, and even in such details as its bridge, the smaller stream that runs through the city, the walls that surround it on three sides, the dry moat, and the many gardens within the walls, Amaurote is similar to the London of More. Cf. Introduction, lv.
92 : 12. Anyder. From Awdpos, waterless : an appropri- ate name for the principal river in the Land of Nowhere.
92 : 15. twenty-four miles. A mistranslation of More's milibus octoginta, which Burnet renders " about eighty miles."
92 : 19. half a mile broad. The length and breadth of the Anyder differ decidedly from those of the Thames.
92 : 20. ocean sea. Ocean is also used as an adjective in "Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream."
— Milton, Paradise Lost, i, 200.
92 : 21. By all that space. In all that distance.
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92 : 22. a good sort of. A good many.
92 : 24. with a swift tide. The partial damming of the Thames by London Bridge caused a fall of three or four feet when the tide was running, and " shooting the bridge " was attended with so much difficulty and danger that every year persons were drowned while attempting it.
94 : 10. for carriage. For the conveyance of commodi- ties. There were no carriages in the London of either More or Robynson ; the first one seen in the metropolis was a present from the Dutch to Queen Elizabeth.
94 : 24. any man's own. So among the " guardians " in Plato's ideal city, "no one should possess any private prop- erty, if it can possibly be avoided ; secondly, no one should have a dwelling or storehouse into which all who please may not enter." — Republic, Da vies and Vaughan's tr., Ill, 416.
96 :15. King. Cf. note on 87 : 3.
96 : 2. at all adventures. In a haphazard manner.
96 : 4. thatched over with straw. More is here sketch- ing the development of domestic architecture in London. " The low huts, closely packed together, which filled the streets during the Saxon period, were continued well into the thirteenth century. These houses were wholly built of wood, and thatched with straw, or reeds." In 1189, after a disastrous fire, an ordinance was passed that re- quired party walls sixteen feet high of stone and gave special privileges to those that built entirely of stone; and in 1212 this was supplemented by one that prohibited the use of thatch as a roofing material. "Most of the houses consisted of little more than a large shop and an upper room or solar"; but "in the fourteenth century houses were built of two and three storeys." — Wheatley, The Story of London, 35-38.
96 : 13. glass. Though glaziers were sufficiently nu- merous in London to form a gild as early as the time of Edward III., glass windows did not come into general use in the city until about a century after More's time.
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96 : 15. amber. The Latin has succino, in resinous amber. Burnet's translation (75) of the passage is some- what more intelligible : " they use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that is so oiled or gummed that by that means it both lets in the light more freely to them and keeps out the wind the better."
96 : 20. syphogrant. Lupton has put forth (135) the only suggestion as to the derivation of this word and " trani- bore " : " while one of them has a suspicious resemblance to dpavipbpoi, 'bench-eaters/ the first part, at any rate, of the other recalls os, ' a sty.' Can More have been thinking of the Benchers and Steward (Sty-ward) of his old Inn ? . . . It is certain that in his account of the public meals of the Utopians there are reminiscences of his old life at an Inn of Court."
97 : 1. the prince. Note that this " prince " is simply the supreme magistrate of a city. There is no reference to any ruler over the whole people except Utopus, who is nowhere given a title by More.
97 : 8. put up to. Recommended to.
97 : 23. It is death. It is a crime punishable by death.
97 : 25. common election. So among the Gauls, accord- ing to Caesar (De Bello Gallico, VI, 20. Bohn tr., 151), " It is not lawful to speak of the commonwealth, except in council."
98 : 12. the same day. Dibdin says (II, 28) that More borrowed this idea from the usage of the House of Com- mons.
98 : 21. existimation. Esteem, estimation. ." Men's existimation follows us according to the company we keep." — Spectator, No. 456.
99 : 6. brought up. Lupton points out (139) that by confusing educti and educati Robynson has made nonsense of this passage. Burnet's translation (78), though some- what free, gives More's meaning : " from their childhood they are instructed in it, partly by what they learn at school,
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and partly by practice, they being led out often into the fields about the town, where they not only see others at work but are likewise exercised in it themselves."
99 : 12. clothworking. Both in England and Flanders the principal manufacture at this time was the weaving of cloth from English wool. As early as 1100 a.d. the cloth- weavers in London were sufficiently important to have a gild ; but it was not until after Flemish weavers had settled in England during the reign of Edward III. (1327-1377) that English cloths could compete with Flemish in fine- ness. " From this period the export of wool gradually declines, while on the other hand our home manufactures increase, until at length they in turn are exported. In fact, manufactured cloth, and not raw wool, becomes the basis of our national wealth, and finally the export of wool is forbidden altogether, so that we may have the more for the looms at home." — Gibbins, The Industrial History of England, 55.
99 : 13. masonry. During the fifteenth century there was great activity in building in England. " All over the country there are still parish churches to be seen which were built at this time ; " and " the general revival of the use of bricks ... led to the erection of the first country houses that at all deserve the name, and to the first intro- duction of chimneys into farm-houses." — W. J. Corbett, Traill's Social England, II, 534, 536.
99 : 17. of one fashion. An indirect criticism of the extravagances of dress and the frequent changes of fash- ion that followed the accession of the splendor-loving Henry VIII. These culminated at the " Field of the Cloth of Gold," 1540, when " such was the insane desire to outshine each other felt by the English and French nobility . . ., that they mortgaged and sold their estates to gratify their vanity, and changed their extravagantly- splendid dresses twice each day during the meeting." — Fairholt, Costume in England, 239. Cf. note on 42 : 11.
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99 : 23. maketh their own. This is somewhat of the nature of a lament for " the good old times." Before the reign of Henry VII. cloth- weaving had been principally a cottage or domestic industry ; but during the latter part of the fifteenth century " manufactures were slowly and surely transferred to various villages, and in several in- dustries a kind of modern factory system can be traced at this time. . . . The germs of the modern system were there ; . . . a system of congregated labor organized upon a capitalistic basis by one man — the organizer, head, and owner of the industrial village — the master clothier." — Gibbins, The Industrial History of England, 66.
100 : 23. continual work. By law the working-day for laborers and artificers in the England of More's time was from five in the morning to between seven and eight in the evening, from the middle of March to the middle of September, and from daybreak to nightfall during the rest of the year.
101 : 4. six . . . hours to work. Lupton quotes (145) Marx to show that 44 this is the estimate of the time neces- sary for labor formed by many modern socialists."
101 : 10. give to sleep. More himself gave but four or five hours to sleep, rising at two, — two hours earlier than he makes the Utopians rise. Cf . 10 : 24.
101 : 25. rise not in. Aspire not to.
102 : 9. foolish and pernicious games. More carried out these ideas in his own home. As chancellor he was obliged to have a number of retainers, but these he did not allowjto idle away any time. 44 He divided his garden into portions, to each of which he assigned one of his men as its cultivator. Some learnt to sing, others to play on the organ ; but he absolutely forbade games of cards or dice, even to the young gentlemen in his house." — Bridgett, 139. Cf . 42 : 16.
102: 11. the battle of numbers. More's manner of referring to this suggests that it was a well-known game
T
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of his time, a mere allusion to which would be sufficient for his readers. It may have been 44 the philosopher's game," the invention of which was attributed to Pythag- oras. This had been revived by Claud. Bruxer, who in 1514 published an explanation of it. Strutt says (Sports and Pastimes of the English People, Hone's ed., 413) of it, 44 It is called a 4 number fight/ because in it men fight and strive together by the art of counting or number- ing how one may take his adversary's king and erect a triumph upon the deficiency of his calculations."
102: 13. vices fight with virtues. The full account of this game that More gives suggests, on the other hand, that it was not well known. Probably it was his own invention.
102 : 22. sleight. Cleverness, cunning, as in 44 sleight of hand."
103 : 12. be idle. Lumby notes (209) the greater vigor of the Latin, stertunt, are snoring.
103 : 14. religious men, as they call them. I.e., men withdrawn from the world to devote themselves to a specifically religious life. The 44 as they call them " suggests what was true in More's time, that many of them led lives that were far from being religious in the ordinary sense of the word.
103 : 25. money beareth all the swing. A literal trans- lation of More's Latin is, where we measure everything by money. Cf. note on 78 : 3.
104 : 4. so few. Only so many.
105 : 15. handy occupation. Manual labor.
105:19. barzanes. Lupton says (148), 44 More de- scribes the Utopian language as being, with the exception of 4 divers signs and tokens of the Greek,' 4 in all other points not much unlike the Persian tongue.' . . . The choice of Barzanes for the name of a chief ruler is in accord- ance with this." Collins thinks (197) that the name was probably suggested to More by that of a king mentioned by Diodorus Siculus or that of a satrap named by Arrian ;
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but it is more probable that More got the suggestion for the name from Mithrobarzanes, the " wise and wonderful Chaldean " that conducted Menippus, in Lucian's dia- logue with that name, to the under-world. This was one of the dialogues of Lucian that More translated from the Greek into Latin in 1505. Cf. Introduction, xv, 7.
106 : 20. adamus. The title given by More is ademus. By his substitution Robynson obscures one of More's characteristic touches, the derivation of ademus being from a, without, and drjfws, people.
106 : 3. asketh. Demands, requires.
"The wrastling for this worlde axeth a fall."
— Chaucer, Balade of Good CounseU.
106 : 16. in a good stay. Fixed.
107 : 1. Now, sir. More has simply lam.
107 : 15. nothing passed for. This indirect criticism of the predilections and practices of the upper class of England has somewhat of the nature of the cry " Patronize home industry " ; for in More's time, " the English could not weave fine cloths " and " English cloths were mostly sent to be fulled and dyed in the Netherlands ; and indeed we cannot consider dyeing as a really English industry till the days of James I." — Gibbins, Industry in England, 125, 131.
107 : 22. happed. Wrapped, covered. " Lord, what these weathers are cold, and I am ill happed." — Second Shepherds 1 Play of the Towneley Cycle, 1. t>
108: 19. occupying and entertainment. Business and intercourse.
108 : 21. families. The remainder of the sentence shows that More used familia in a sense similar to the Roman. " Generation alone was not the foundation of the ancient family. . . . Nor is the family principle natural affec- tion. . . . The ancient family was a religious rather than a natural association." — de Coulanges, The Ancient City, Bk. II, ch. I.
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109 : 5. father. " Thanks to the domestic religion, the family was a small organized body; a little society, which had its chief and its government. . . . The very name by which he is called — pater — contains in itsefr some curious information. ... It contained in itself not the idea of paternity, but that of power, authority, majestic dignity." — de Coulanges, The Ancient City, Bk. II, ch. VIII.
109 : 12. children of the age of fourteen years or there- about. This is Robynson's translation of the single word puberes, " by which," says Lupton (154), " More no doubt simply meant * adults,' as he meant * children ' by im- puberes." Burnet translates, (89) "No family may have less than ten and more than sixteen persons in it, but there can be no determined number for the children under age.
109 : 23. the next land. The nearest portion of the continent.
110 : 22. pestilent plague. Plague and fire were the two great dreads of the Londoners. There were two kinds of " plague " in the England of More's time : " the black death," which first appeared in 1348 and did not finally disappear until 1680; and "the sweating sickness," which first appeared in 1485. As there was an epidemic of the first in 1513 and one of the second in 1508, the sub- ject would be fresh in More's mind when he wrote this in 1516. A year later his daughter Margaret was attacked by " the sweating sickness " and barely escaped death. Cf. Roper, 221.
110 : 23. their own foreign towns. A clumsy trans- lation of colonia.
112 : 1. meat-markets. Meat formerly meant any kind of food. " And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb . . . ; to you it shall be for meat." — Genesis, i, 29.
112 : 24. number of their halls. I.e., number of per- sons in the thirty families eating in their respective halls.
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113 : 1. cured in the hospitals. Cared for in the hos- pitals. 44 Except the law give a child a guardian only for his goods and his lands, discharging him of the cure and safekeeping of his body." — More, Richard III., 37.
113 : 3. four hospitals. The London of More's time was quite well provided with hospitals. The principal ones, — St. Bartholomew's, St. Thomas's, St. Mary Spital, and St. Mary Bethlehem (for insane persons), — and the leper houses were, as were the hospitals in Utopia, outside the city walls. Elsing Spital was just inside the walls, but this was an asylum for the blind. Cf . Besant, Mediae- val London.
113 : 7. too throng and strait. Too crowded or confined. The hospitals of More's time left much to be desired in arrangement and management ; and this passage by impli- cation criticizes their treatment of the sick. Of St. Bartholomew's, the principal one, Besant writes (Med. Lond., II, 251): 44 As the patients were brought in, they were put to bed — two, four, even eight in one bed — without any regard to the kind of disease from which they suffered, so that in case of contagion or infection the other occupants of the bed were certain to catch it."
113: 23. the bishop. In the last chapter, Of Religions in Utopia, it is stated that the bishop is the 44 chief head of the priests" (199 : 9) ; but nothing more is told concerning him. Apparently he was merely a city official, and there was no archbishop.
114 : 4. set hours of dinner and supper. From what has been said before (101 : 5), these were noon for dinner and five o'clock for supper. But cf. note on 117 : 7.
114 : 4. the whole syphogranty or ward. More prob- ably derived this idea from Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus: 44 Desirous to complete the conquest of luxury, and extermi- nate the love of riches, he introduced . . . the use of public tables, where all were to eat in common of the same meat." — Plutarch's Lives, Langhorne's tr., I, 134.
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114 : 9. to his own house. By the law of Lycurgus, no one was permitted to eat at home.
114: 12. a point of small honesty. Somewhat dis- honorable.
114 : 18. by course. In turn.
115 : 22. serve at the tables. More himself, when a boy, served at the table of Cardinal Morton. Cf. Intro- duction, xi, 19. Of the Squire who was among the Can- terbury pilgrims, Chaucer says,
"Curteis he was, lqwely, and servysable, And carf biiorn his fader at the table."
— Prologue, 99.
115 : 23. they stand by with marvellous silence. Ap- parently this was the way that English children received their meals in More's day ; for a manuscript of about 1500 entitled Symon's Lesson of Wisdom for all Manner Children contains the following advice :
"Look thou be courteous standing at meat, And that men giveth thee, take and eat. And look thou neither cry nor crave, Saying, ' That and that would I have ! ' But stand thou still before the board, And look thou speak no loud word."
— Edith Rickert, The Bdbees' Book, 123.
116 : 4. overthwart the over end. Across the upper end. The table of the benchers is so placed in an Inn of Court.
116 : 6. four at a mess. Dibdin points out (II, 58) that this is a reminiscence of More's life at an Inn of Court, where the students always dine " four at a mess." In Lacedaemon, " There were fifteen persons to a table, or a few more or less."
116 : 7. if there be a church standing in that syphogranty. That there were two hundred sypnogrants was stated
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earlier (97 : 2), while later (199 : 1) we are told that the number of churches in each city was but thirteen.
116 : 8. the priest and his wife. That the clergy in Utopia are permitted to marry is noteworthy, as it was the requirement of celibacy that kept More himself from becoming a priest. Cf. Introduction, xiii, 10. In his con- troversy with the Protestants, however, he opposed the marriage of the clergy.
116 : 24. if there be . . . served alike. This clause, which Robynson failed to translate, is supplied from Burnet.
117 : 4. reading. This was the practice in More's own household, as stated by his great-grandson : " He used to have one read daily at his table, which being ended he would ask of some of them how they understood such and such a place. ,, — Cresacre More, Life of Sir Thomas More, 103.
117 : 17 Their dinners be very short, but their suppers be somewhat longer. More's Latin is Prandia breuius- cula sunt, coenae largiores. Of these the coena, which in Rome came at four or five o'clock, was much the more important meal, so that a more accurate translation would be, their luncheons are quite brief, but their dinners are longer. In sixteenth century England the principal meal of the day was at noon, or earlier, and hence Robyn- son translated as he did. Cf. De Quincey, Casuistry of Roman Meals.
117 : 21. music. More was very fond of music. While at Oxford he learned to play the viol and the flute, and he had not only his wife and children but even his retainers learn to play some instrument.
117 : 21. banquets. Desserts. " There were all the dainties, not only of the season, but of what art could add, venison, plain solid meat, fowl, bak'd and boil'd meats, banquet, in exceeding plenty and exquisitely dress'd." — Evelyn, Diary, Oct. 27, 1685.
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117 : 22. conceits nor junkets. This is a double trans- lation of bellaria, sweetmeats. Conceits were fancy con- fectionery ; junkets, cream cheeses or cakes.
"With stories told of many a feat, How faery Mab the junkets eat."
— Milton, U Allegro, 101.
117 : 25. maketh for. Contributes to.
118 : 7. as from whom. As they are those from whom.
118 : Title. Discussed. More's title for this chapter is simply De Peregrinatione Utopiensium; but, as usual, he considers in the chapter much not covered by the title.
118 : 12. some profitable let. Some good reason for preventing them.
118 : 14. their prince's letters. Another indication that the prince was merely the chief magistrate of the city.
118 : 16. their return. Lycurgus was even stricter : " He would not permit all that desired it to go abroad and see other countries, lest they should contract foreign manners, gain traces of a life of little discipline, and of a different form of government." — Plutarch's Lives, Langhorne's tr., I, 155.
119 : 5. gently entertained of. Kindly treated by.
119 : 21. the bounds of his own city. It has been said (88 : 14) that the bounds of each city extend at least twenty- miles on each side of it ; though how this could be when some of the cities are but twenty-four miles apart (88 : 2) is not apparent.
120: 11. as I said. Cf. 88 : 5.
120 : 15. the lack ... is performed. The want . . . is made up.
"The confessour heere, for his worthynesse, Shal parfourne up the number of his covent."
— Chaucer, Summoner's Tale, 2260. 121 : 2. uncertainty of the next year's proof. Uncer- tainty as to what next year's crop may prove to be.
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121 : 13. iron. This, when More wrote and for a cen- tury and a half afterwards, was an import of England. 121 : 17. at a day. At a set time.
121 : 20. of the whole city. In mediaeval England "the town itself (communitas) was the organ by which pay- ments to or from the merchant of another place might be adjusted." — Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce, I, 208.
121 : 23. of the private debtors. I.e., the city that was obligated collected the debts from the individuals for whom it was responsible.
122 : 3. no right nor conscience. A literal translation of the Latin is simply, they do not think it right.
122:11. strange soldiers. Foreign soldiers. Cf. 176- 179 for a detailed account of their hiring mercenaries and rewarding treason among their enemies.
122 : 19. shall not be believed. Note the artistic effect of thus having Hythloday forestall his hearers' incredulity ; and how much the touch adds to the verisi- militude.
122 : 25. guise and trade. Manner and custom.
"To doon obsequies as was tho the gyse."
— Chaucer, Knight's Tale, 993.
123 : 2. indifferent esteemer. Impartial judge.
123 : 14. under iron. Inferior to iron.
124:1. as the people is ever foolishly imagining.
More did not mean the Utopians specifically, as this sug- gests; as people ever foolishly imagine, better gives his meaning.
124 : 14. from ours . . . discrepant. With ours . . . at variance.
124 : 16. them that be wise. Robynson has made nonsense of this passage. The meaning of More's Latin is, and in this respect incredible except to those who know it by experience.
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125 : 2. chains of gold. It is " the irony of fate " that the portraits of the writer of this represent him wear- ing a heavy chain of gold. This was, however, an obliga- tion of the dignity of knighthood.
125 : 8. altogether at once. Lupton suggests (176) that Robynson took More's word, semel, once for all, for simul, together. Apparently he translated it twice, once as simul and once as semel.
125 : 22. cast away nuts. Lupton notes (177) that this is " rather a Latin proverb than an English one " for putting away childish things.
126 : 2. Anemolians. Derived from dw/i^Xwj, windy, this is an appropriate name for such braggarts as these people evidently were. The account of the reception of their ambassadors was probably suggested by that in Lucian's Nigrinus of the Athenians' treatment of a vulgar rich man who tried to dazzle them by ostentatious display. — Cf . Fowler, The Works of Lucian, I, 16.
126 : 5. those three citizens. Cf . 88 : 6.
127 : 3. aiglets. Pendants. Fairholt in his Costume in England, 408, defines them as, " The tags or metal shea th- ings of the points, so constantly used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to tie different portions of the dress."
127 : 13. how proudly . . . advanced themselves. All this translates More's quo pacto cristas erexerint, how they plumed themselves.
128 : 7. lubber. Clumsy, stupid fellow.
129: 11. of the own nature. Of its own nature. Its was not used as the possessive of it in Robynson's time. It is used but once in the Authorized Version of the Bible (1611) and but seventeen times in Shakspere's works.
130 : 6. niggish penny-fathers. Niggardly misers.
"Illiterate hinds, rude boors, and hoary penny-fathers."
— Middleton, Father Hubberd's Tales, Dyce's ed. of Middleton's Works, V, 601.
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130 : 20. both men and women. As in Plato's ideal state. Cf. Republic, V, 452. More's own daughters were given the same education as his son. Bridgett quotes (114) Erasmus as writing of More, 44 he has reared his whole family in excellent studies — a new example, but one which is likely to be much imitated, unless I am mis- taken, so successful has it been ; " and states (138), 44 The fame of his learned daughters became European, . . . and was so great in England that in 1529 . . . they were invited by the king to hold a kind of philosophical tourna- ment in his presence."
130 : 25. perfect and sure. Lupton suggests (184) that when he wrote this More was thinking of the then undeveloped capacity of English.
131 : 9. geometry. The 44 guardians " in Plato's ideal state were to be educated in music, gymnastic, arithmetic, plane and solid geometry, astronomy, harmonics, and dialectic. Cf. Republic, Bks. Ill and VII.
131: 12. clerks. Scholars. Clericus originally signi- fied a priest, but as learning in the Middle Ages was con- fined almost entirely to those connected with the church, it came to connote educated, and in course of time the connotation supplanted the denotation.
"Fraunceys Petrak, the lauriat poete, Highte this clerk whos rhetorik sweete Enlumyned al Ytaille of poetrie."
— Chaucer, The Clerk's Prologue, 31.
131 : 13. gone beyond them. Said ironically, of course. It was the logical subtleties and the barren speculations of media val education that 44 the New Learning," of which More was one of the foremost representatives in England, was striving to supplant.
131 : 16. the Small Logicals. The Parva Logicalia of Petrus Hispanus, which 44 contains sundry additions to the text of Aristotle in the form of dissertations on sup-
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positio, ampliatio, restrictio, exponible propositions, and other subtleties, more ingenious than useful." — Mansel, quoted by Lupton, 185.
131 : 18. second intentions. The Century Dictionary defines first intention, in logic, as " a general conception obtained by abstraction from the ideas or images of sen- sible objects," as " man, animal, thing;*" second intention as " a general conception obtained by reflection and ab- straction applied to first intentions as objects," as " the concepts of a genus, of a species, of a specific difference, and of an accident."
131 : 20. man himself in common. Man in the ab- stract; the general concept man. This, however, is a first intention rather than a second.
131 : 24. the heavenly spheres. More himself was much interested in astronomy, and after he had entered the service of Henry VIII. the king delighted to talk with him on the subject. " Otherwhiles would he in the night have him up into his leads [i.e., on the roof], there to consider with him the diversities, courses, motions, and other opera- tions of the stars and planets." — Roper, 209.
132 : 3. the other stars. More, of course, believed in the geocentric theory of our universe, according to which the sun and moon were planets. Copernicus' epoch- making work was not published until 1543. Over a cen- tury later Milton seems uncertain as to which is the correct conception : he adopts the older as the basis of his Para- dise Lost, but makes Raphael suggest the newer to Adam (Bk. VIII) as a possibility.
132 : 5. amities and dissensions of the planets. Astro- logical terms. In several of More's epigrams he ridiculed astrology and astrologers.
132 : 19. manners and virtues. I.e., moral philos- ophy, or ethics.
132 : 24. They reason of virtue and pleasure. The discussion that follows is full of reminiscences of Cicero's
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De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, only the most important of which are pointed out.
133 : 3. them which defend pleasure. I.e., the Epi- cureans.
133 : 7. their grave, sharp, bitter, and rigorous religion.
By inserting " their," for which there is no equivalent in the Latin, Robynson has given this a specific application not intended by More. Burnet better conveys (113) M ore's meaning: " they make use of arguments even from reli- gion, notwithstanding its severity and roughness, for the support of that opinion, that is so indulgent to pleasure."
133 : 16. to our evil deeds punishments. Cf. Cicero, De Finibus, Bk. I : "If some people of wealth and interest fancy themselves sufficiently fenced against prose- cution and disturbance from men, yet there's the dread of a deity which they cannot elude." — Collier's tr., 35.
133 : 25. the less pleasure should not be a let or hin- drance to the bigger. Cf . Cicero, De Finibus, Bk. I : " Lesser satisfactions are to be quitted for the obtaining of greater." — Collier's tr., 26.
134 : 2. grief, and sorrow. Cf . Cicero, De Finibus, Bk. I : " Usually . . . some one phantom or other of pleasure enchants us ; we yield ourselves prisoners to our own desires and lose all apprehensions of the consequences ; and so for the love perhaps of a poor insignificant satis- faction ... we run ourselves into diseases, distresses, and disgraces ; . . . while they who contrive and regulate their pleasures in such a manner that no subsequent incon- veniences attend them . . . receive always double interest for any pleasure they quit." — Collier's tr., 33.
134: 9. now, sir. As before (107 : 1), there is nothing in the Latin to correspond to " sir."
134: 11. that pleasure that is good and honest. Cf. Cicero, De Finibus, Bk. II : " Epicurus elsewhere changes his note, and says as you do, that there's no living a life of pleasure but for him that lives up to the rules of
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ingenuity and virtue. And what's living up to the rules of ingenuity and virtue ? Why, the same thing as living a life of pleasure." — Collier's tr., 92.
134 : 14. virtue ; whereto only they that be of the con- trary opinion do attribute felicity. Virtue ; to which alone they or the contrary opinion (i.e., the Stoics) attribute felicity. Cf. Cicero, De Finibus, Bk. I : " There are some people abroad that, widely mistaking the intendment and scope of nature, affirm that virtue and glory claim that denomination [the summum bonum] ; an absurdity from which Epicurus, if they'd lend him an ear, would easily free them." — Collier's tr., 30.
134 : 15. a life ordered according to nature. The Latin is, secundum naturam uiuere. Cf. Cicero, De Finibus, Bk. IV : " The moral end of the Peripatetics, . . . they defined . . . compendiously, Secundum naturam vivere, To follow nature's rule of life ; this was their summum bonum. . . . Living according to nature, ... it [an ani- mal] should be happy in, if not all, yet the most and the best of those circumstances which are agreeable to nature." — Collier's tr., 231, 232.
134 : 22. that we be, and that we be in possibility to attain felicity. That we exist and are able to attain happiness.
134 : 24. out of care in joy and mirth. Free from care in joy and mirth. Cf . Cicero, De Finibus, Bk. I : " A life of jollity and pleasure is the summum bonum, the last and completest good, into which all others must be resolved and itself into none." — Collier's tr., 30.
135 : 3. labors, watchings, and fastings. Lupton points out (191) that Robynson's English contains an allusion, that is not in More's Latin, to 2 Cor., vi, 5.
136 : 2. prescript of nature. The dictates of nature.
136 : 22. wealth. Well-being. Note that the composi- tion has changed from exposition to exhortation: Hyth- loday is not here merely stating the opinions of the Uto- pians or striving to justify them, he is urging their adoption.
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137 : 21. Appetite they join to nature. Lupton suggests (194) that the meaning of this rather obscure passage is, 44 4 they add, with good reason, the appetite (or inclina- tion) of 'Nature/ without which many things might be taken for pleasures, which were not really so."
138 : 8. taken place. Become fixed.
138 : 25. coarse-spun thread. A similar idea is ex- pressed in the Cynicus of Lucian, a Latin translation of which More published ten years before the publication of the Utopia. "Clothing — what is that for? protection too, I think." 44 Yes." ... 44 Embroidered clothes have no more warmth in them than others. . . . The old cloak, the shaggy hair, the whole get-up that you ridicule has this effect : it enables me to live a quiet life.'! — Fowler, The Works of Lucian, IV, 173, 177, 180.
139 : 2. as though the one did pass the other by nature and not by their mistaking, avaunce themselves. As though the one surpassed the other intrinsically and not merely by their erroneous judgment, give themselves airs.
139 : 15. for the opinion of nobility. Because they con- sider themselves of noble birth.
139 : 19. rich (for now nobility is nothing else). The Wars of the Roses 44 were carried on almost exclusively by the barons and their retainers " and 44 had the ultimate effect of causing the feudal aristocracy to destroy itself in a suicidal conflict." Many of the nobles that escaped death were impoverished, and followed the example of Henry VII. by endeavoring to recoup their fortunes by enlarging and developing their estates and indulging in mercantile speculations. Hence the complaints made about the enclosures of commons and the giving up of agri- culture for the more profitable sheep-raising.
139 : 22. of one hair. In the slightest respect.
140 : 10. a right stone. A genuine stone. If Bridgett is right (443) in identifying More with the 44 namesake " of Folly that, according to Erasmus' Moriae Encomium,
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presented his bride with false jewels, More made a practical application of his ideas. " Now, I ask," writes Erasmus, " what difference did it make to the young lady, since she fed her eyes and mind on the glass with just as much de- light as if it were diamond, and cherished her rubbish as if it were the rarest treasure? "
140 : 18. Or of them. I.e., Or what shall I say (cf . 1. 14) of them.
142 : 2. as we said before. More wrote supra diximus, as we said above. Apparently the second part of the Uto- pia was originally written as an independent essay or treatise; and when More concluded to put it into the mouth of a traveller as an account of the manners and customs of a people that he had visited, he did not make all the necessary changes ; hence the editorial " we."
143 : 9. the good life past. From both of his editions Robynson has unaccountably omitted the conclusion of More's sentence, which is supplied in the text from Bur- net's translation.
144 : 3. if it be not letted nor assaulted with no grief. If it be not hindered or attacked by pain.
144 : 9. as you would say. There is nothing to corre- spond to this in the Latin.
144:21. by some outward motion. By neglecting to translate the nisi, except, before this, Robynson obscures M ore's meaning.
145 : 2. it maketh nothing to this matter. It does not pertain to the matter, it makes no difference.
145 : 13. as ye would say. Again an addition by Robyn- son.
145 : 17. the pristinate strength. Its pristine, or former, strength.
146 : 20. the own wealth. Its own well-being. 145 : 22. waking. Being awake.
145 : 23. he that is not? Cf. 44 the Physician's Aphor- ism," with which Carlyle begins his essay Characteristics:
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" the healthy know not of their health, but only the sick."
145 : 25. the sleeping sickness. More wrote lethargus, which in his second edition Robynson translated "leth- argy." The "sleeping sickness" is a disease confined al- most exclusively to the negroes of western Africa, of which Robynson may have read in travellers' accounts. Several of the expeditions to the New World, among them Ves- pucci's of 1501, which remained there two days, touched at Ethiopia before sailing across the Atlantic.
146 : 18. careful griefs. Pains full of care.
146 : 19. sealing. Putting an end to, stopping. Pos- sibly a misprint for "healing."
148 : 19. to punish himself. When a young man, More lived for some time among the Carthusians and subjected himself to their discipline, fasting and scourging himself. This passage reads as if a condemnation of such austerities that his more mature judgment considers useless. But, on the other hand, to the end of his life he wore a hair shirt next his skin. Cf. Roper, 234.
149 : 1. sentence. Judgment, decision.
"My sentence is for open war."
— Milton, Paradise Lost, II, 51.
149 : 7. we have taken upon us. More again uses the editorial plural. Cf. note on 142 : 2.
149 : 8. lores and ordinances. Opinions and laws. The single Latin word thus translated is instituta.
149 : 8. not to defend them. This is noteworthy, as showing More's attitude towards his work : Utopia is in some respects an ideal government; it is not in all re- spects his ideal of a government. Cf. 216 : 15 and Intro- duction, liii.
_ 149 : 9. I believe. Robynson follows the Latin in hanging the number.
149 : 23. exploited and furnished. A double rendering of administrata, performed, u
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150 : 13. heard me speak. A literal translation of what More wrote is, when they had heard from us ; and the clause in parentheses is impersonal. Throughout this passage Robynson makes Hythloday's personality too prominent.
150 : 18. read. The technical term for oral instruction in the medieval universities, and still similarly used in many European universities.
151 : 10. if the book were not false. If the text were not faulty.
151 : 18. magistrates. The derivations of these, so far as they have been determined, have been given as the names occur.
151 : 18. of me. More too uses the singular, ex me.
151 : 19. my fourth voyage. The "my" is Robynson's addition. A literal translation of the Latin is, on the fourth voyage; i.e., on Vespucci's fourth voyage, which was Hythloday's third. Cf. 21 : 12.
161 : 20. a pretty fardel. A fairly large bundle.
"A pretty while these pretty creatures stand."
— Shakspbrb, Lucrece, 1233.
" There lies such secrets in this fardel and box, which none must know but the King." — Shakspere, Winter's Tale, IV, iv, 782.
151 : 23. Theophrastus' Of Plants. Theophrastus, a Greek philosopher and naturalist (370 b.c-288 b.c), whose best-known work is the Characters, wrote at least two works concerning plants.
152 : 3. tore them in pieces. Lupton thinks (215) that this bit of verisimilitude is derived from some personal experience that More had from the tricks of his own pet monkey.
152 : 4. Lascaris. Constantine Lascaris was a Greek scholar who settled in Italy some time after 1453. His Greek grammar, which was published at Milan in 1476, is the first book printed in Greek.
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152 : 4. Theodoras. A Greek scholar (1398-1478), whose Greek grammar, which was considered by the Renaissance scholars as the best, was first printed, by Aldus at Venice, in 1495.
152 : 5. Hesychius. A Greek grammarian, who flour- ished in Alexandria in the fourth or sixth century a.d. He compiled a dictionary that was printed by Aldus in 1514. As Hythloday could not have carried this with him on a voyage that began in 1503, More either made a slip here or knew an earlier edition than any now extant.
152 : 6. Dioscorides. Apparently another slip by More, for the only Dioscorides mentioned by bibliographers was not the compiler of a dictionary but the author of Greek medical works, which were published by Aldus in 1499. He flourished in the first or second century a.d. His book was one of those that Chaucer's Doctour of Phisyk knew well. Cf. Prologue, 430.
152 : 6. Plutarch. A Greek historian and philosopher of the first century a.d., whose Lives of the Greeks and Romans has been called " one of the most valuable relics of Greek literature."
152 : 7. Lucian. A rhetorician, satirist, and humorist (c. 125-200 a.d.). Though he was a native of Syria, his Attic prose is pronounced by Jebb " the best that had been written for four hundred years." Some of his dialogues were published by Aldus in 1503. More published in 1506 a Latin translation of three of his dialogues. Cf. Introduction, xv.
152:9. Aldus. Aldus Manutius (c. 1450-1515), an Italian scholar and printer, who about 1490 established at Venice a press that became noted not less for the accu- racy of the editions of the Greek and Roman authors that it put forth than for the mechanical execution of the vol- umes. The works of the poets named were printed by him in the- following years: Aristophanes, '1498 ; Homer, 1504 ; Euripides, 1503 ; and Sophocles, 1502. The omis-
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sion of Aeschylus from the list is explained by the fact that Aldus did not publish an edition of his dramas until three years after More wrote. On the other hand, More again slips by making Hythloday carry with him a book, the Homer, that did not appear until after he had left Europe. Cf . note on 162 : 5.
152:11. Thucydides, Herodotus, and Herodian. The histories of both Thucydides and Herodotus were printed by Aldus in 1502. Herodian was a Greek historian (c. 170-c. 240 a.d.), who settled in Italy, and wrote a history of Rome from 180 to 238 a.d. The first edition of his work was published in 1503, by Aldus.
152: 11. Tricius Apinatus. Lupton states (216) that this name is " evidently formed [by More] from the ' apinae tricaeque ' of Martial, xiv. i. 7." Apina and Trica were two towns in Apulia captured by Diomede, that were so small that their names " passed into a proverb for anything trivial — mere bagatelles." The name Tricius Apinatus means, therefore, trivial trifler; and should be compared with that of Hythloday himself. Cf. note on 20 : 25.
152: 13. Hippocrates. A Greek physician (c. 460- 377 b.c), " the father of medicine," whose works were first printed in 1526. Eighty-seven treatises have been ascribed to him, but many of them are spurious. Among the genuine is "the Hippocratic oath," which is still ad- ministered to the students of some medical colleges on their graduation.
152 : 13. Galen's " Microtechne." Galen (c. 130-c. 200 a.d. ). was a Greek philosopher and writer on medicine, of whose numerous works eighty-three that are considered genuine are extant. The Microtechne, or little art, so called to distinguish it from his larger work, the Megalo- techne, was the principal text-book in the mediaBval medical schools. It was first printed in 1490. Both ' ' Ypocras ' * and " Galyen " are among the writers on medicine -that Chau- cer's Doctour of Phisyk " wel knew." Cf. Prologue, 431.
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153 : 6. marveller at. Admirer of. 153 : 15. science of imprinting and the craft of making paper. A knowledge of paper-making, without which the invention of printing would have been of far less value, was introduced into Europe from the Orient as early as the fifth century ; but died out in the eighth or ninth. It was revived in the eleventh, and paper fine enough to be used for manuscripts was made in the twelfth. Printing from movable types was invented at Strasburg about 1440 ; but the earliest extant specimen was printed at Mainz in 1454.
153 : 17. Aldus. Lupton suggests (218) that Aldus was particularly in More's mind because he died in the very year in which this portion of the Utopia was written. Cf . note on 162 : 9.
153 : 20. plainly declare. Saying somewhat about rather than explaining it, is the meaning of the Latin. 153 : 24. in reeds. On reeds; i.e., on papyrus. 154 : 24. ure the feat. Use the art. 154 : 24. of sailing. In several political poems of the fifteenth century complaint is made " that English mer-
to the discouragement of native shipping ; and under Henry VII. " the export trade was chiefly in the hands of foreigners." That king, however, by the passage of navi- gation laws (for instance, one that limited the trade between England and the south of France " to goods carried in English ships and manned by English sailors "), laid the foundation of England's maritime preeminence. Up to 1539, Henry VIII. did not adhere to his father's policy, but suspended the navigation laws to suit his own private interests. This passage is, therefore, an indirect criti- cism of his acts and policy. Cf. Traill, Social England, 11,559,746; III, 157.
166: Title. Divers Other Matters. More's title is simply De Servis; but Robynson's better indicates the miscellaneous nature of the chapter.
chants
commodities in foreign bottoms,
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155 : 12. gramercy. A corruption of the French grand merci, great thanks, that is common in Elizabethan lit- erature.
155 : 16. so godly. In such a godly manner.
156 : 8. let nothing at all pass. Neglect nothing.
156: 17. overliving his own death. I.e., outliving his real life. More thus forcibly expresses the idea that the real man dies when his usefulness ends. Cf. Ichabod, in which Whittier, because it seemed to him that Webster had compromised with the slave-owners, wrote of him two years before his death,
156 : 25. rid out of it. Freed from it. 157 : 8. die in their sleep. More's Latin indicates more active agency than this suggests: a literal transla- tion is, having been put to sleep, they are released.
157: 11. an honorable death. Robynson connects two clauses that are not in the same sentence in the original
in this way upon persuasion is considered honorable ; but, on the other hand, he that, etc.
157 : 17. eighteen years old. This is the age pre- scribed by Aristotle in his Politics (VII, 16). More's own daughter, Margaret, was two years younger than this when she married William Roper, in 1521. 157 : 20. whether it be. Whichever it be. 158: 14. disallowed it as foolish. Condemned it as foolish. It is noteworthy that it is Hythloday and his companions that find fault with the custom ; but just as More, in the first part of the work, gets the worse of every argument with Hythloday, so here Hythloday has no answer to make to the defence of their custom by the
. . . From those great eyes
The soul has fled : When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead ! "
and mistranslates. More's
For men to die
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Utopians. Bacon refers to this passage in his New Atlantis, and proposes a substitute for the obnoxious cus- tom.
158 : 23. reckless. Careless, negligent.
"A monk whan he is recchelees Is likned til a fissh that is waterlees."
— Chaucer, Prologue, 179.
160: 10. withal. With. Not uncommon in Eliza- bethan English at the end of a sentence.
160: 14. be divorced. In The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, Milton too contended that incompatibility of temper should be by itself sufficient ground for divorce.
160 : 20. next way to break love. Nearest (quickest) way to diminish affection.
161 : 11. eftsoons. Again. The word is compounded of eft, again, and soon ; and usually means soon again, or simply soon; but More's idea is that a second offence is punishable by death.
161 : 13. by any law. As bondage has already been said to be the punishment for certain offences, and death for others, More evidently meant this to apply, as the context suggests, only to acts of incontinence by unmar- ried persons.
161 : 19. open punishment. Public punishment. 44 Where- fore if Demetrius, and the craftsmen which are with him, have a matter against any man, the law is open, and there are deputies : let them implead one another." — Acts, xix, 38.
161 : 20. maketh much for. Contributes much to.
161 : 22. incommodity. Inconvenience, discomfort ; but here implying rather penalty.
162 : 3. they fear other. They frighten others.
"This aspect of mine Hath fear'd the valiant."
— Shakspere, Merchant of Venice, II, i, 8.
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162 : 4. kick. Resist.
"But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked."
— Deuteronomy, xxxii, 15.
162 : 18. deed itself. In Fancy's Show-Box Hawthorne debates whether the soul may contract stains of guilt, "in all their depth and flagrancy, from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon, but which, physi- cally, have never had existence ; " and concludes that " it is not until the crime is accomplished that guilt clinches its gripe upon the guilty heart, and claims it for its own."
162 : 21. fools. More himself kept at least two do- mestic fools, at different times, the mor,e famous of whom, Henry Patenson, appears in Holbein's picture of More's family.
163 : 2. tuition. Care — the original meaning of the word. " Nobles of the land were appointed, as the king's nearest friends, to the tuition of his own royal person." — More, Richard III., 24.
163 : 18. honest conditions and lowliness. Honorable character and respectful demeanor.
164 : 14. cap of maintenance. A symbol of dignity or estate carried before English sovereigns at their coronation.
164 : 18. instruct and institute. Taught and trained.
164 : 20. innumerable books of laws. Dibdin, writing in 1808, says (II, 155) that "Viner, sixty years ago, wrote an abridgment of the common and statute laws of England in twenty-four folio volumes ! "
165 : 2. proctors and sergeants at the law. Collins states (226), " A proctor . . . was a person who performed the duties of an attorney or solicitor in the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts in England. . . . The serjeant- at-law was formerly the highest degree of barrister, ranking next to the judge. . . . This distinction was entirely hon- orary, merely giving precedence over ordinary barristers."
165 : 7. circumstance of words. Circumlocution.
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165 : 12. children. People. " This is a rebellious peo- ple, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord." — Isaiah, xxx, 9.
166 : 23. by bribes. Cf. note on 80 : 13.
167 : 3. affection. Partiality. Roper states (229) that after More became chancellor one of his sons-in-law humorously complained that whereas when Wolsey was chancellor his servants got great gain from suitors to the cardinal, he himself, though he had married one of More's daughters, could find none, because More 44 was so ready himself to hear every man, poor or rich, and kept no doors shut from them." 44 He would for no respect digress from justice as it well appeared by a plain example of an- other of his sons-in-law, called Master Heron. For when he, having a matter before him in the chancery, and pre- suming too much on his favor, would by him in no wise be persuaded to agree to any indifferent order, then made he in conclusion a flat decree against him."
167 : 3. take place. Have a place.
167 : 4. break justice. Break down, or diminish, jus- tice. Cf. 44 break love," 160 : 20.
167 : 20. here in Europa. What follows is, of course, ironical. In the years immediately preceding the writing of the Utopia More could have found many instances of bad faith on the part of princes and prelates in the keep- ing of treaties; and a few years later Machiavelli enun- ciated as a principle, 44 A Prince that is wise and prudent cannot nor ought not to keep his parole, when the keeping of it is to his prejudice, and the causes for which he prom- ised removed." — The Prince, XVIII.
167 : 24. great bishops. As before (13 : 5) Robynson seems to shrink from translating More's pontifices, popes.
168: 5. they think well. They (i.e., the bishops) think rightly.
168 : 7. faithful. I.e., they are called Christians because they hold the faith of Christ.
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168: 14. the sooner it is broken. Not, of course, by the Utopians, for Hythloday has just said that they make no leagues ; but by their neighbors, whose bad faith was a chief factor in causing the feeling of the Utopians against leagues.
168 : 24. with a shameful death. In the Latin, furca, by the cross.
168 : 24. even very they. Even the very persons.
169 : 8. run at rovers. Run at random. Dibdin states (II, 308) that " this is a technical term in archery, and means shooting at random."
169 : 13. there. I.e., in the countries near Utopia.
169 : 13. evil keepers. Poor observers.
169 : 18. was very evil begun. Was in its very origin bad, — for the reason that follows.
170 : 2. as far forth. Inasmuch as. This passage is evidently a reference to the frequent forays in " the Bate- able ground," the border between England and Scotland.
170 : 16. against glory. Contrary to true glory.
170 : 20. be to seek in the feat of arms. Be found lacking in the knowledge of the use of weapons.
171 : 4. not ever. Not always.
171 : 9. probable. I.e., one that may be supported, a just one.
171 : 9. the contrary part. The opposing side. 171 : 14. much more mortally. With much greater fierceness.
171 : 19. Nephelogetes. Dwellers in cloud-land. Coined by More from ve 4\ri, cloud, and yy, land.
171 : 20. Alaopolitanes. Dwellers in the city of the blind. Another coinage by More ; this time from d\a6s, blind, and t6\is, city.
172 : 14. be wiped beside their goods. Be deprived of their goods.
"From my succession wipe me, father."
— Shakspere, Winter's Tale, IV, iv, 490.
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173 : 4. neither in his life, rieither in his living. Neither in life itself nor in his livelihood.
174 : 7. moved battle. Made war.
174 : 12. set forward. Promote.
175 : 6. they. I.e., their enemies.
175 : 13. So that. " This should not be so worded as to express a consequence. The Latin is Tarn facile, etc., ' so easily are men incited by gifts to any deed whatever.' " — Lupton, 249.
175 : 15. keep no measure. Set no bounds.
176 : 16. debate and dissension. " He must be dull in- deed who does not perceive that Utopia when following out these principles, is removed but a few miles from the ^Dglish Channel, and that a practice which seems the more odious in these upright and wise Utopians was ten- fold more unjustifiable in those who, professing the doc- trines of Christ, never scrupled to employ the same means against their own enemies. Were the intrigues of Henry