Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Speckled Band"

Back in September last year, I read Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," and Sherlock Holmes' comment that "Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another" caught my attention.  It seemed to have Biblical precedent, and a few months later, I ran across a very similar passage in Psalm 7 in the NKJV:  "15 He made a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch which he made.  16 His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown."  The pit imagery is the same as that in Holmes' comment, but "His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown" has a more literal analogue in the story, even more than Holmes' "Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent."

Near the end, Holmes deduces that Dr. Grimesby Roylott has been letting a snake into his step-daughter's room in an effort to kill her and prevent her upcoming marriage, which would have a devastating financial effect on him.  When Holmes attacks the snake with a cane, it retreats to Roylott's room and kills him instead.  Holmes and Watson enter his room to find that "Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head."  Roylott's "violent dealing" has literally "return[ed] upon his own head" in the form of the snake.

While there's definitely a similarity between the Psalm and the end of Holmes' adventure, I don't know whether this is just a coincidence or whether Conan Doyle created this situation in such a way that Holmes can draw this Biblical parallel.*

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*A couple of Holmes' comments that I stumbled upon indicate that he does believe in God, which in turn suggests a familiarity with the Bible:  at the end of "The Boscombe Valley Mystery," he says, "God help us!  ...  Why does fate play such tricks with poor helpless worms?  I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words and say, 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes'" and in "The Adventure of the Empty House," he says, "Halfway down I slipped, but by the blessing of God I landed, torn and bleeding, upon the path."  

Viṣṇu Śarma's Panćatantra

I've nearly finished reading Viṣṇu Śarma's Panćatantra (in a translation by Chandra Rajan).  Recently, I read a story that has the same basic events as one of Aesop's fables.  It's necessary to quote at length:

    Once, in a certain city, there lived a Brāhmana named Misery.  By begging for alms, he collected barleymeal and after eating part of it stored the rest in a clay jar which he hung on a peg in the wall.  Placing his cot right under the jar he gazed up at it for hours each night until he fell into a reverie.

    Night after night he created a scenario in his reverie, which went as follows:  'Sometime this jar will become completely filled with barleymeal:  then a famine will strike this land and the barleymeal will fetch a hundred silver coins.  With that money I shall purchase a pair of goats; as goats have kids every six months, I shall soon be able to build up a herd of goats.  With those, I shall purchase a pair of cows whose calves I shall of course sell to purchase some mares.  As the mares start to foal I shall soon acquire a whole lot of horses.  By selling the horses I can amass a great store of gold.  With the gold I shall acquire a mansion with a courtyard and large halls.  Then someone will come to my mansion and offer me his beautiful daughter blessed with all excellences.  A son will be born to us whom I shall name Moonbeams.  When he is old enough to crawl on all fours, I shall be sitting one day in the garden behind the stables with a book in my hand and be lost in contemplation.  Meanwhile, Moonbeams, my boy, will see me sitting there and getting out of his mother's arms, will make for me in his eagerness to ride on my knee; but he will go too near the horses.  This will make me angry and I shall shout to the Brāhmani, his mother, "Hey, you! catch hold of the boy, pick him up."  But being busy with household chores my wife will not hear.  Whereupon I shall rise straight away and give her a good kick on her behind.'

    One night sunk as he was in a deep reverie, Misery let fly a good string kick upwards and caught the jar, smashing it.  All the flour spilled out and fell on poor Misery turning him white all over.

In Aesop's Fables, there's a similar story about a milkmaid (No. 29 in the Barnes & Noble Classics edition, translated by V.S. Vernon Jones):

A farmer's daughter had been out to milk the cows and was returning to the dairy carrying her pail of milk upon her head.  As she walked along, she fell a-musing after this fashion:  "The milk in this pail will provide me with cream, which I will make into butter and take to market to sell.  With the money I will buy a number of eggs, and these, when hatched, will produce chickens, and by and by I shall have quite a large poultry yard.  Then I shall sell some of my fowls, and with the money which they will bring in I will buy myself a new gown, which I shall wear when I go to the fair.  And all the young fellows will admire it, and come and make love to me, but I shall toss my head and have nothing to say to them."  Forgetting all about the pail, and suiting the action to the word, she tossed her head.  Down went the pail, all the milk was spilled, and all her fine castles in the air vanished in a moment!

In both stories, a single asset is imagined to be sold and multiplied into ever greater possessions, but then the dreamer, caught up in his or her vision, does something that results in the loss of the one tangible good on which the whole dream is based.

Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy

I recently finished re-reading The Hunger Games trilogy (I've read it four times now).  At some point, I want to do a more in-depth study of the books, but for now, here are some minor points I noticed.

The Hunger Games

In Chapter 26, Katniss deduces some of the layout of the Training Center:  "It's a relief to be alone with Cinna, to feel his protective arm around my shoulders as he guides me away from the cameras, down a few passages and to an elevator that leads to the lobby of the Training Center.  The hospital then is far underground, even beneath the gym where the tributes practiced tying knots and throwing spears." (p. 352).  This also works metaphorically as an indication of the hospital's lesser importance; the Capitol is more concerned with training children to fight each other than with healing them afterwards.

Catching Fire

Near the beginning of Chapter 6, Katniss lists the foods and drinks at the Capitol party:  "Countless cheeses, breads, vegetables, sweets, waterfalls of wine, and streams of spirits that flicker with flames" (p. 77).  As if to mirror the extravagance of the Capitol, part of her description alliterates:  "waterfalls of wine, and streams of spirits that flicker with flames."

Mockingjay

In Chapter 4, Katniss comments on her shoes:  "Mine don't fit right anyway, since in the spirit of waste-not-want-not that rules 13, I was issued a pair someone had outgrown.  Apparently, one of us walks funny, because they're broken in all wrong." (p. 52).  This, too, can be understood more metaphorically as Katniss's not fitting in to District 13.  Earlier in the book, she even admits this, although it's just a small example:  "once I moved into Compartment 307 with my mother and sister, I was expected to get with the program [the schedules printed on her arm every day].  Except for showing up for meals, though, I pretty much ignore the words on my arm." (p. 18).

Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron

I've nearly finished reading The Decameron.  This is the third time I've read it but the first time reading this particular translation (by Richard Aldington).  Recently, I read the third story of the tenth day.  Here's the summary that precedes the tale:

Mitridanes envies the generosity of Nathan and sets out to kill him.  Nathan receives Mitridanes without making himself known, informs him how he may be killed, [and] meets him in a wood as arranged, to the shame of Mitridanes, who becomes his friend.

After reading the story, I realized that Nathan's name is significant.  As Nathan explains to Mitridanes, "Since I have been of age and desirous to do the same thing that you have undertaken, nobody ever entered my house whom I did not endeavour to satisfy as far as I could in anything he asked of me.  You came wanting my life.  I did not want you to be the only person who ever went away from here without receiving what he asked for, so when I heard you ask for it I immediately determined to give it to you."  Nathan's defining feature is his generosity in giving to others (even to the point of giving his own life to Mitridanes), and his name reflects this since it's derived from the Hebrew verb נָתַן, which means "to give."

Les Misérables, Part One, Book Five, Chapter III

I'm still (slowly) reading Les Misérables, the first time for this particular translation and an unabridged edition.  Recently, I read Chapter III ("Sums Deposited with Laffitte") of Part One, Book Five.  This chapter contains one of my favorite lines, but I was a bit disappointed with how it's rendered in this translation:  "Books are remote but reliable friends."  I much prefer the other translation I read, where this line is "Books are cold but sure friends."  I lookt up the original French (which I got as a free e-book years ago) and found that it's "les livres sont des amis froids et sûrs."  I would translate this as "books are cold and sure friends."  "Et" is usually translated "and," but apparently both translators felt that the context permitted a more adversative conjunction.

A couple weeks after I read this, I was still thinking about the original French sentence, and I realized that there's assonance between "livres" and "amis" and that this emphasizes this type of clause.  "Livres" ("books") is the subject nominative, and "amis" ("friends") is the predicate nominative.  Both words have the same semantic weight, so to speak (nouns on opposite sides of a copulative verb), and the assonance between them indicates this balanced relationship.

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Almost as a side-note, I'll add this:  the entire sentence (describing Jean Valjean in the guise of Monsieur Madeleine) is "He loved books; books are remote but reliable friends," and this provides a direct contrast with Javert, described two chapters later (in Chapter V. "Dim Flashes of Lightning on the Horizon"):  "In his rare spare time, although he hated books, he would read...."

Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia"

On 1 January, I started re-reading (for the first time) The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes, which contains facsimiles of thirty-seven Holmes stories and The Hound of the Baskervilles as they originally appeared in The Strand magazine.  As I was reading the second part of "A Scandal in Bohemia," I discovered that Watson is not a very reliable narrator.

As Irene Adler's carriage arrives at Briony Lodge, Watson describes how "a fierce quarrel broke out [between loafers trying to earn a bit of money by opening the door for her], which was increased by the two guardsmen, who took sides with one of the loungers, and by the scissors grinder, who was equally hot upon the other side... Holmes dashed into the crowed to protect the lady; but, just as he reached her, he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood running freely down his face."

After the rest of Holmes' plan had been carried out and he has located the photograph that the King of Bohemia had hired him to retrieve, he returns to Watson and explains some of the particulars of his plan:

"The matter was perfectly simple.  You, of course, saw that everyone in the street was an accomplice.  They were all engaged for the evening."

"I guessed as much."

"Then, when the row broke out, I had a little moist red paint in the palm of my hand.  I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my face, and became a piteous spectacle.  It is an old trick."

"That also I could fathom."

In his description above, Watson writes that "the blood [was] running freely down his face," yet here he claims that he knew all along that it was merely red paint.  Either he's lying to Holmes and trying to save face (apparently not willing to admit that he, a medical doctor, mistook red paint for blood), or he purposely misled his readers earlier in an effort to sensationalize his account.

Edward FitzGerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

One of the books I've been reading lately is Edward FitzGerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.  Recently, I finished the actual Rubáiyát, but I still have about half a book's worth of notes and "critical responses" to wade through.  I noticed one minor point though, and I thought I would note that, at least.

In the introduction, FitzGerald explains that "The original Rubáiyát... are independent Stanzas, consisting each of four Lines of equal, though varied, Prosody, sometimes all rhyming, but oftener (as here attempted) the third line suspending the Cadence by which the last atones with the former Two."  Basically, the usual rhyme scheme is AABA.

In the first edition (which is what my copy follows), stanza LXIII, located amongst a string of stanzas about clay pots, reads:

None answer'd this; but after Silence spake

A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:

"They sneer at me for leaning all awry;

What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"

The AABA rhyme scheme emphasizes the incongruity of that "awry."  The other lines all rhyme with each other ("spake," "Make," and "shake"), but the third line stands out in the same way that this particular pot is ostracized because of its form.

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

I recently finished reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in The Norton Introduction to Literature (fifth edition).  I noticed a detail in Act II, Scene 2 that may be significant.  After Puck applies love-in-idleness to Lysander's eyes, Helena notices him and says, "Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake," and Lysander replies, "And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake" (II.ii.102-103).  This section of the play is written in verse, so it's not unusual that Lysander's line rhymes with Helena's, but I think it may be significant that the resulting couplet is formed by two characters.  Helena is the first living thing that Lysander sees when he wakes up, and because of the love-in-idleness, he becomes enamored with her.  That his first line after waking rhymes with hers indicates his desire to be with her.  He complements her poetically in the same way that he wants to complement her romantically.

I feel I must admit, though, that earlier in this scene, a line of Demetrius's dialogue rhymes with a line of Helena's.  She says, "O wilt thou darkling leave me?  Do not so," and he replies, "Stay, on thy peril!  I alone will go" (II.ii.86-87).  Because Demetrius is not at all interested in Helena, however, this instance of rhyming dialogue between two characters doesn't carry this extra meaning.

Edward Johnson's "Poem for Thomas Hooker"

Near the end of last year, I started reading the Heath Anthology of American Literature again, after having set it aside for four years.  Recently, I've been reading a section titled "A Selection of Seventeenth-Century Poetry."  One of the poems is "Poem for Thomas Hooker" by Edward Johnson.  I noticed a slew of Biblical allusions (appropriate since Hooker was a "Puritan preacher and theologian"), and since the anthology doesn't cite any of them, I thought I'd note them here.

Here's the poem:

Come, Hooker, come forth of thy native soile:

    Christ, I will run, sayes Hooker, thou hast set

My feet at large, here spend thy last dayes toile;

    Thy Rhetorick shall peoples affections whet.

Thy Golden Tongue, and Pen Christ caus'd to be

    The blazing of his golden truths profound,

Thou sorry worme its Christ wrought this in thee;

    What Christ hath wrought must needs be very sound.

Then looke on Hookers workes, they follow him

    To Grave, this worthy resteth there a while:

Die shall he not that hath Christs warrier bin;

    Much lesse Christ Truth, cleer'd by his peoples toile.

Thou Angell bright, by Christ for light now made,

    Throughout the World as seasoning salt to be,

Although in dust thy body mouldering fade;

    Thy Head's in Heaven, and hath a crown for thee.

"Christ, I will run, sayes Hooker, thou hast set / My feet at large" seems to be a reference to Isaiah 52:7:  "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'"  The same idea also appears in Romans 10:15:  "And how are they to preach unless they are sent?  As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"  The poem may also incorporate Hebrews 12:1 ("let us run with endurance the race that is set before us").

"Thou sorry worme" bears some resemblance to Psalm 22:6:  "But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people."

"Thou Angell bright, by Christ for light now made, / Throughout the World as seasoning salt to be" contains two elements from the Sermon on the Mount.  In successive verses (13 and 14) in Matthew 5, Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth" and "You are the light of the world."

The lines "Although in dust thy body mouldering fade; / Thy Head's in Heaven, and hath a crown for thee" include multiple allusions.  "Although in dust thy body mouldering fade" could refer either to "for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" in Genesis 3:19 or the similar "All are from the dust, and to dust all return" in Ecclesiastes 3:20.  As in the poem ("Thy Head's in Heaven"), Christ is called "the head" in 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Ephesians 5:23.  The "crown for thee" could refer either to Revelation 2:10 ("Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life") or James 1:12 ("Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him").

Les Misérables, Part One, Book One, Chapter IV

On 1 January, I started re-reading Les Misérables but in a different edition from what I've read before; this is a different translation (by Julie Rose) and unabridged.  I recently read Chapter IV of Book One, Part One (getting through the introduction took some time), and I realized that some of Monsieur Myriel's behavior has Biblical precedent.

The narrator explains:

A tragic event occurred in Digne.  A man had been condemned to death for murder.  It was some poor unfortunate who was not quite literate, but not completely illiterate; he had been a tumbler working the fairs as well as a public letter-writer.  The trial was the talk of the town.  The day before the date set for the condemned man's execution, the prison chaplain got sick.  A priest was needed to attend the prisoner in his last moments, so they went for the local curé.  Apparently this curé refused, saying, "That's not my problem.  Not my job.  Besides, I don't want anything to do with that circus monkey.  I'm sick, too.  And anyway, it's not my place." 

When the bishop [Monsieur Myriel] was told of this response he said, "The reverend father is right.  It's not his place, it's mine." 

And with that, he sped off to the jail, rushed to the cell of the "circus monkey," called him by his name, took his hand and talked to him.

Monsieur Myriel's "call[ing] him by his name" is a significant detail.  The primary purpose may be simply to illustrate the contrast between Monsieur Myriel and the curé (one is compassionate where the other is rudely dismissive), but there's also an echo of the Good Shepherd discourse from John 10, specifically part of verse 3:  the shepherd "calls his own sheep by name."  Myriel cares for the man in the same way that the Good Shepherd cares for his sheep.

That Myriel goes to visit the man in prison at all is also an example of the behavior that Jesus commends in Matthew 25, where He describes the final judgement and says, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world... [for] I was in prison and you came to me."

Later in the chapter, the narrator explains that "Widowed or orphaned families didn't have to ask, he [Myriel] came of his own accord."  Here again, Myriel follows examples from the Bible.  In the Old Testament, the widowed and orphaned are often mentioned as those who need to be cared for.  Psalm 146:9 says that the LORD "upholds the widow and the fatherless."  In the New Testament, James writes that "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this:  to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (James 1:27).  This is exactly what Monsieur Myriel does.