"... and she still retained her early propensities, spending the hard earnings of honest Peregil in frippery, and laying the very donkey under requisition for junketing parties into the country on Sundays, and saints’ days, and those innumerable holidays which are rather more numerous in Spain than the days of the week. With all this she was a little of a slattern, something more of a lie-abed, and, above all, a gossip of the first water; neglecting house, household, and everything else, to loiter slipshod in the houses of her gossip neighbors.
He, however, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, accommodates the yoke of matrimony to the submissive neck."
I found that via the OED entry for "lie-abed," which means "One who lies late in bed; a late riser; a sluggard."
ADDED: I had used my idea of the word — "lay-a-bed" — when Meade slept late, and I felt chastened to see it's really "lie-abed," making me look like the sort of ignoramus that doesn't know the "lay"/"lie" distinction. But now, I'm thinking, what about "layabout"? It's not "lieabout," though it refers to someone who lies around — an idler or tramp — and not someone who's placing objects here and there.
In its entry on the word "layabout," the OED cites a meaning of "lay" that is the same as "lie," going back as far as 1300. It advises that that now "it is only dialectal or an illiterate substitute for lie." But: "In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was not apparently regarded as a solecism." Aha!
It was good enough for
Byron ("he"=man, "thou"=ocean):
| His steps are not upon thy paths; thy fields | |
| Are not a spoil for him; thou dost arise | |
| And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields | |
| For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise, | |
| Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, | |
| And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray, | |
| And howling, to his gods, where haply lies | |
| His petty hope in some near port or bay, | |
| And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay. | |
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14 comments:
One of my favorite classical guitar pieces played by the great and incomparably beautiful Thu Le. I’ve corresponded with her. She’ll be performing in my area soon.
Recuerdos de la Alhambra.
I’m looking forward to meeting her and hearing her in person.
I've always like 'first water.'
P. G. Wodehouse used that one quite a bit...
Be careful with your village beauties.
I had forgotten that Washington Irving was capable of such an acid portrait.
The "yoke of matrimony"? You're doing it wrong.
"Slipshod"! Now I have another rabbit hole to spend time in.
'First water' is lovely, but...the lovely image in my head keeps getting sneakily invaded by a different, more body-in-the-morning image.
I visited Granada several years ago - and recall paperback editions of Irvings Tales from the Alhambra - in many languages - were on sale everywhere, or at least everywhere tourists would go.
I think Juliet's nurse says something like "Fie, you slug-a-bed" early in Romeo and Juliet. That's a more potent image than "Lie-a-bed," IMO.
Shouting Thomas, I recently heard a transcription of Recuerdos de la Alhambra for solo viola, based on Ruggiero Ricci's one for solo violin. This one is by Wenting Kang, and it's spectacular.
Washington Irving is one of my favorites.
Speaking of 'first water.' It was the next-in-line for a clean bath or wash, right after the King was done. Not as toney as it sounds, alas.
We use 'slug-a-bed' here.
Slugabed in my Appalachian family.
There's a fine line between ratrtling and brutalizing the castanets.
Washington Irving--the dude could write. Thank you for that. I'm going to have to go back and read some of his stuff.
Thanks for the Thu Le link, ST. New to me, and very fine.
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