Dimber wapping dell

Дата публикации: Jun 14, 2020 10:6:56 AM

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from J.Joyce Ulysses

... Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the ruffian and his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand and shellgrit crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face her hair trailed. Behind her lord, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. When night hides her body's flaws calling under her brown shawl from an archway where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in O'Loughlin's of Blackpitts. Buss her, wap in rogues' rum lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell! A shefiend's whiteness under her rancid rags. Fumbally's lane that night: the tanyard smells.

White thy fambles, red thy gan

And thy quarrons dainty is.

Couch a hogshead with me then.

In the darkmans clip and kiss.

Imagining the cant of gypsies in Proteus, Stephen mulls some language he has encountered in Richard Head's The Canting Academy (London, 1673), a work which sought to document and translate the "thieves' cant" or "rogues' cant" of the 17th century English criminal underclass. All of the unfamiliar language in the paragraph beginning with the "red Egyptians," as well as the quatrain that follows, comes from a song that Head reproduced in his book, "The Rogue's Delight in Praise of his Strolling Mort." Part of the sexy quatrain returns to accost Cissy Caffrey in Circe.

A "strolling mort" is a travelling woman, i.e. a grown female gypsy. Head describes the type thus: "Strowling-Morts are such as pretend to be Widdows, travelling about from County to County, making laces upon [st]aves, as Beggars tape, or the like; they are subtil Queans, hard-hearted, light-fingered, hypocritical and dissembling, and very dangerous to meet, if any Ruffler or Rogue be in their company".

The phrase "bing awast to Romeville" means "Go away to London." The word Rome (or rum, which Stephen uses later in calling the rogues' cant "rum lingo") means good, excellent, top-notch. Any evocation of the city of Rome appears to be coincidental, though felicitous in this novel which associates the Roman and the British empires.

To "wap" is to make love, to fuck, and a "dimber wapping dell" is a pretty girl who is fond of that activity. ("Buss" is not cant at all, but a good archaic English word for "kiss" used occasionally by Spenser and Shakespeare.)

Here is the text of the complete poem. Stephen recalls the entire second stanza, and parts of the final one.

The Rogue's Delight in Praise of his Strolling Mort

Richard Head was an Irish native who came to England as a boy, attended Oxford for a time (until poverty forced him to leave), and lived much of his adult life in London. His novel The English Rogue, a picaresque adventure inspired by Spanish models, sold brilliantly in five editions in the 1660s, and someone (perhaps the author, perhaps not) added three more volumes of adventures in the 1670s. The book probably influenced Defoe's Moll Flanders.

Словарь воровского арго из романа XVII века The English Rogue by Richard Head, ему слово

... The first Inventor of Canting, as I am informed, was Hanged about four score years since: such Gibberish was never heard of before; since which time, there hath not been wanting such, who have taken pains in the pollishing, refining, and augmenting that Language of the Devils Imps. It is a confused invention of words; for its Dialect I cannot find to be grounded on any certain Rules; and no wonder since the Founders and Practicers thereof, are the chief Fathers and Nourishers of Disorder. Yet even out of that Irregularity a man may observe some kind of form, and some words do retain something of Scholarship, as Togeman, a Gown, from Toga; Pannam, from Panis Bread; Cosan, Caseus, Cheese. The monosyllable Cheat; we use as a Relative, as Nab, a Head; Nab-cheat, a Hat, &c. Cove or Cuffin is in general terms a Man; but by adding bien, which signifies good or well, or Quire, which is wicked or Knavish; you make the word Cove signifie an Honest man, or a Justice of Peace. Pardon the expression, for they call a Justice Quier Cuffin; that is to say, as before mentioned, a wicked, knavish, or foolish man. To conclude, I shall here insert this little Canting Vocabulary Alphabetically,

Avtem Mort A married Woman

Abram Naked

Abram Cove A Tatter demallion

Autem A Church

Bughar A Cur

Bouse Drink

Bousing Ken An Ale-house

Borde A Shilling

Boung A Purse

Bien Good or well

Benshiply Very well

Benar Better

Bing To go

Bing a waste To go away

Bube The Pox

Bufe A Dog

Bleating cheat A Sheep

Belly cheat An Apron

Betty An Instrument to break a door

Bite the Peter or Roger Steal the Portmantle or Cloak-bag.

Budge One that steals Cloaks

Bulk and File The Pick-pocket and his mate

Cokir A Lyar

Cove A Man

Cuffin

Cuffin-Quire A Justice of Peace

Cramprings Bolt or Shackles

Chats The Gallows

Canke Dumb

Crackmans Hedges

Calle A Cloak

Togeman

Joseph

Couch To lye or sleep

Couch a Hogshead To go to sleep

Commission A Shirt

Mish

Cackling cheat A Chicken

Cassan Cheese

Crash To kill

Crashing cheats Teeth

Cloy To steal

Cut To speak

Cut bien whids To speak well

Cut quire whids To speak evilly

Confeck Counterfeit

Cannakin The Plague

Cly the Jerk To be whipt

Clapperdogeon A Beggar born

Culle A Sap-headed Fellow

Dimber Pretty

Damber Rascal

Drawers Stockings

Duds Goods

Deusea-vile The Country

Dommerar A Mad-man

Darkmans Night or evening

Doxie A Wench

Dell

Dock To fuck

Wap

Deuswins Two pence

Dup To enter.

Earnest A part

As tip me my Earnest Give me my part or share

Frummagem Choakt

Filch A Staff

Ferme A Hole

Fambles Hands

Famble chears Rings or Gloves

Fib To beat

Flag A Groat

Fogus Tobacco or Smoke

Fencing Cully One that receives stollen goods

Glymmer Fire

Glaziers Eyes

Grannam Corn

Gentry-Mort A Gallant Wench

Gan A Lip

Gage A Pot or Pipe

Grunting cheat A Sucking Pig

Giger A Door

Gybe Any Writing or Pass

Glazyer One that goes in at the windows

Gilt A Pick-lock

Harmanbeck A Constable

Harmans The Stocks

Heave a Booth To rob an House

Half bord Six pence

Hearts ease A twenty shillings piece

Jocky A Flayl, or mans Privities

Jague A Ditch

Jarke A Seal

Ken An House

Kinchin Little

Knapper of Knappers A Sheep-stealer

Kinchin Cove A little man

Kate A Pick-lock

Loure Money

Lightmans Morning or Day

Lib To tumble

Libben An house to lie in

Lage Water

Libedge A Bed

Lullabie-cheat A Childe

Lap Pottage

Lurries All manner of Cloaths

Maunder To Beg

Maunders Beggers

Margery Prater An Hen

Mill To steal

Make An half-penny

Mynt Gold

Muffling cheat A Napkin

Mumpers Gentile Beggars

Milken One that Breaks houses

Munns The Face

Nab An head

Nab-cheat An Hat

Nab ⎨ To take or cheat

Palliard One whose Father is a Beggar born

Paplar Milk-Pottage

Prats Thighs

Prigg To Ride

Peckidge Meat

Pannam Bread

Plant To lay or hide

Prigging Riding

Prancer An Horse

Prating cheat A Tongue

Peake Any Lace

Pike on the Leen Run as fast as you can

Perry Fearful

Peter A Portmantua

Prigger of Prancers An Horse-stealer

Pad The Highway-man

Plant your whids Have a care what you say

Quarron A Body

Quacking cheat A Duck

Quier Wicked or Roguish

Quier-Ken A Prison

Quier-Mort A Pocky Jade

Quier-Cove A Rogue

Romboyle A Ward or watch

Rome Gallant

Rome-vile London

Rome-Mort A Gallant Girl

Ruffin The Devil

Roger A Cloak-bagg

Ridge-cully A Goldsmith

Ruffler An over-grown Rogue

Ruffe peck Bacon

Rod-shanke A Mallard

Rom-pad The High-way

Rome-padders High-way-men

Rome-Culle A Rich Coxcomb

Swagg A Shop

Sundge One that lies under the bed to rob the house

Shop-lift One that steals out of shops # вошло в современный язык

Stampers The shooes

Stock-drawers Stockings

Stamps Legs

Scoure To wear

Skew A Dish

Slate A Sheet

Strommel Straw or Hair

Skepper A Barn

Stow your whids Be wary

Stalling-Ken A Brokers House, or an House to receive stollen goods

Smelling cheat A Garden

Solomon The Mass

Tour To look out

Tout his muns Look in his face

Track up the Dancers Go up the Stayres

The Cul Snylches The Man eyes you

Tip the Cole to Adam Tyler Give what money you pocket-pickt to the next party, presently

Tip the Mish Give the Shirt

Tib o’ th’ Buttery A Goose

Tip To give # вошло в современный язык to tip smb - to give a small present of money to smb

The Mort tipt me a wink The Whore gave me a wink

Trine Tyburn

Trining Hanging

Tick-Rome A License

Tres wins Three pence

Win A Penny

Wicher Cully A Silver-smith

Yarum Milk

This much for a taste: I think it not worth my pains to insert all those Canting words which are used; it is enough that I have here divulged what words are most in use. Having now deserted this Tawny Crew; I resolved to betake my self to a new Trade; which you shall understand in this following Discourse.