Robinson Crusoe (Penguin ed.)
Page 38
25 Lord ha’ mercy upon me: Crusoe refers to the phrases used in Morning and Evening Prayers in the Book of Common Prayer: ‘Lord have mercy upon us; Christ have mercy upon us.’
26 Call on me…glorify me: Psalm 50:15. Crusoe (or Defoe) misquotes slightly the Authorized Version: ‘And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.’ See also p. 125.
27 Can God spread…wilderness?: Psalm 78:19: ‘Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?’ Here and elsewhere Defoe is doubtless quoting Scripture from memory. See also p. 103.
28 crossing and recrossing the Line: One does not gain or lose a day by crossing the Equator, so Defoe may be confusing it with the International Date Line.
29 He is exalted a prince…to give remission: Acts 5:31: ‘Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.’
30 Jesus, thou son of David: The Gospels of Matthew and Luke identify Jesus as belonging to the House of David. Matthew begins: ‘The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham’ (Matthew 1:1).
31 Leaden-hall market: One of the major London food markets in Defoe’s time.
32 I will never…forsake thee: Joshua 1:5, cf. Hebrews 13:5.
33 Solomon…the building of the Temple at Jerusalem: In 1 Kings 5:3–6, Solomon resolves to build the temple in Jerusalem that his father, David, could not because of ‘the wars which were about him on every side’. He recalls that the Lord ‘spake unto David my father, saying, Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build a house unto my name.’ Solomon asks King Hiram of Tyre to send him cedar trees from Lebanon for the building of the temple.
34 hereafter: Here ‘after’ death, from the next life.
35 Father Abraham…gulph fix’d: Refers to Jesus’ parable of the rich man, Dives, and Lazarus the poor beggar, in which the Old Testament patriarch Abraham responds (Luke 16:25–6) to the rich man’s plea from Hell that Lazarus in paradise dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, ‘for I am tormented in this flame’ (16:24).
36 Lust of the flesh…pride of life: 1 John 2:16.
37 particular Providences: That is to say, God’s intervention in particular incidents of Crusoe’s life. Theologians of the time debated whether God could be said to operate in such incidents as well as in the general disposition of events in the world.
38 feeding Elijah by ravens: As God commanded them; see 1 Kings 17:4–6.
39 26 years after: Crusoe’s reckoning is slightly off: he was born in 1632 and shipwrecked in 1659, so he was twenty-seven.
40 shoor: Some editors have suggested that this is a misprint for ‘shoot’; another possibility is ‘sheer off’, a nautical term, ‘to turn aside’.
41 great with young: Pregnant.
42 made a Stoick smile: Stoic, a member of a Greek philosophical school founded by Zeno, c. 300 BC which maintained that wisdom is a matter of cultivating apathy, an indifference to passion and pain and other human feelings and emotions. Crusoe means that even an unfeeling Stoic would have been pleased by his good fortune on his island.
43 checquer work: ‘Chequered’ here means marked by great changes in fortune, unpredictable shifts and fluctuations; thus a pattern of changes.
44 Wait on the Lord…strengthen thy heart: Psalm 27:14. The Authorized Version says ‘be of good courage’.
45 Saul, who complain’d…that God had forsaken him: 1 Samuel 28:15.
46 As if the kingdom of Spain…generous temper in the mind: Crusoe’s evocation of the Spaniards as more cruel than other Europeans in their dealings with the native populations of America is to say the least one-sided and reflects the so-called ‘Black Legend’ that the English and their other imperialist rivals invoked to describe the conduct of the Spaniards in the New World. Conquistadors like Cortez and Pizzaro were ruthless as well as treacherous, and the Spaniards virtually exterminated some native groups, like the Arawaks in the West Indies. But other European colonists and explorers were equally cruel and exploitative in their dealings with the native people, and the English in North America were hardly morally superior to the Spanish in this regard. ‘Bowels of pity’: According to the traditional physiology, the bowels were considered the source of pity and the gentler emotions such as compassion.
47 national: Crusoe reasons that the cannibal community or nation as a whole is responsible for the crime of cannibalism and not any particular individual among them.
48 that I shall not discuss: The syntax here is confusing. Crusoe means that these ‘secret intimations’ may or may not come from God; he won’t discuss that because he’s not sure where they originate. But they prove, he then says, that spirits communicate with humans (‘those embody’d’).
49 tinderbox…wild-fire in the pan: Crusoe has made a container for starting a fire from part of one of his flintlock muskets (the pan is a small cavity near the lock of the musket) and put in a highly flammable substance.
50 had just been to be kill’d: Was just about to be killed.
51 law to themselves: ‘For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves (Romans 2:14).
52 clay in the hand of the potter…form’d me thus: Romans 9:20–21, and cf. Jeremiah 18:6 and Isaiah 45:9.
53 Caribbees: Caribs and the Arawaks were the native peoples inhabiting the Caribbean islands and the coast of Venezuela.
54 St. Martha: City in Colombia.
55 worship’d instead of God, and as God: Crusoe rehearses an old idea going back to the early Fathers of the Church that idolatrous and pagan worship was inspired by the devil and that the pagan gods were in fact devils.
56 first cause: Philosophical term for God the creator of the universe.
57 a consuming fire: Crusoe’s discourse here and throughout his conversion discourse with Friday echoes the Bible, e.g. Deuteronomy 4:24.
58 workers of iniquity: A common biblical phrase for sinners. See, for example, Job 31:3, 34:8; Psalms 5:5, 6:8; Luke 13:27.
59 tread him down…fiery darts: More biblical echoes, from Romans 16:20 and Ephesians 6:16.
60 reserv’d for the judgment…everlasting fire: More biblical echoes, from 2 Peter 2:4, Matthew 25:41 and Revelation 20:1.
61 new covenant: More biblical echoes, this a phrase St Paul uses: ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah’ (Hebrews 8:8). See also Hebrews 8:13, 12:24.
62 foot stool of God’s throne: ‘But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool’ (Matthew 5:34–5).
63 seed of Abraham: Common biblical phrase for the Jewish nation. Crusoe is quoting St Paul: ‘For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham’ (Hebrews 2:16).
64 lost sheep of the House of Israel: Jesus instructs his disciples to preach to the Jews: ‘But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matthew 10:6).
65 to know whom is life eternal: Echoes several Gospel texts, especially John 17:3 (‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent’).
66 leading us into all truth: ‘Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth’ (John 16:13).
67 children of Israel…bread in the wilderness: Exodus 16:2–3.
68 Alicant: Alicante, city in southeastern Spain; it is a seaport on the Mediterranean Sea.
69 whipp’d and pickl’d: Salt and vinegar were rubbed into the wounds on the back after a sailor’s whipping, both to heighten the pain and to promote healing.
70 River of Lisbon: Tagus.
71 to 38892 Cruisadoes: All the 1719 editions leave this figure blank. In the early twentieth century, the Defoe scholar Wil
liam P. Trent estimated the value of Crusoe’s fortune in cruisados as 38,892, and most editions of the novel have used that number.
72 the latter end of Job…the beginning: Job 42:12. Tested by God, Job endures many afflictions, and at the end of his story is rewarded with even greater riches than he enjoyed before.
73 master…estate of lands in England: Crusoe’s estate is substantial, the equivalent in cash and lands to what a member of the lower gentry in early-eighteenth-century England would have possessed.
74 Start near Torbay: Start Point in Devonshire, on the English Channel.
75 Groyne: Corruption of La Coruña, a port in northwestern Spain.
76 Pampeluna: Pamplona, capital of the Spanish province of Navarre.
77 Old Castile: Central province of Spain.
78 Fontarabia: Spanish port on the Bay of Biscay.
79 Languedoc: Province in southern France.
80 Gascoign: Gascony, a province in southwestern France.