The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Penguin Classics)

by Laurence Sterne

  CHAPTER I

  1. Stilton to Stamford: Two towns, separated by twelve miles, on the post road from London to York and Edinburgh.

  2. Shall we… pace: As Work (342, n. 1) notes, following John Ferriar, the first diligent searcher into Sterne’s sources (Illustrations of Sterne (1798)), this is a ‘characteristic example of Sterne’s roguishness’, since his attack on plagiarists is plagiarized from Burton’s introduction: ‘As Apothecaries we make new mixtures everie day, poure out of one vessell into another’ and ‘but we weave the same web still, twist the same rope again and again’. Gene Washington (Scriblerian 23 (1991)) points to the myth of Ocnus behind the second image: Ocnus’s wife spends all he earns, so that in hell he endlessly plaits a rope which a she-ass continually eats; a myth of useless work.

  3. Who made… Aristotle: Sterne continues his game with Burton by echoing the opening paragraph of Anatomy . The phrase Sterne attributesto Aristotle, Burton attributes to Plato. Zoroaster is the name given to several cloudy figures of the pre-Hellenistic period; one book (Sterne provides the title in Greek) ascribed to the name was On Nature . St John Chrysostom (c. 354–407), important figure in the Greek Orthodox Church, used the concept of the Shekinah (Hebrew for the dwelling-place of God), but not the word. How Sterne came to know this is unknown; it is not in Burton. For Moses, see Genesis 1:26–27.

  4. Horace… occasion: In Epistles, I.xix.19–20: ‘O you mimics, you slavish herd! How often your pother has stirred my spleen, how often my mirth!’

  5. farcy: OED cites this passage as its first example of this disease of animals, especially horses, being applied to men – the ‘catachresis’, or misuse, that Tristram alludes to; a pun can be assumed in view of ‘farcical’ in the next phrase.

  6. shag-rag and bob-tail: Contemptuous term for a number of persons of various sorts and conditions, perhaps borrowed from Rabelais.

  7. in mort main: Under posthumous control; perpetual possession.

  8. Tartufs: Tartuffe, the sanctimonious hypocrite in Molière’s comedy of that name (1664).

  9. queen of Navarre: Margaret of Valois (1552–1615), first wife of Henry IV, King of France and Navarre; first noted by William Jackson, The Four Ages (1798), who found Rebours and La Fosseuse named as members of her court in Bayle’s Dictionary . Bayle characterizes Margaret as ‘a princess of infinitely more wit and beauty than virtue’, and Sterne may have had access to one or more of the scandalous accounts published about her. The identification of this queen with Margaret of Angoulême, author of the Heptameron, is incorrect.

  10. St. Antony… Bridget: For St Antony and St Ursula, see nn. 21, 22 to IV.S.T. St Francis (1181–1226), St Dominick (1170–1221), and St Bennet, i.e. Benedict (c. 480– c. 550) founded the three monastical orders that bear their names. St Basil (c. 330–79) established the rules by which monasteries of the Eastern Orthodox Church were run. For St Bridget, see n. 1 to III.xxiv.

  11. lady Baussiere rode on: Sterne parodies an episode in Burton, 3.1.3.3, in which a person rides on impervious to cries for charity, and even ignores the ‘Host’ (communion bread).

  12. order of mercy: Order of Our Lady of Mercy, founded in Spain in 1218 to solicit funds for ransoming Christians during the Crusades.

  13. The best… combinations: Cf. A Tale of a Tub, sect. VII, where Swift comments on ‘that highly celebrated Talent among the Modern Wits, of deducing Similitudes, Allusions, and Applications, very Surprizing, Agreeable, and Apposite, from the Pudenda of either Sex, together with their proper Uses’.

  14. curate of d’Estella: Diego d’Estella (c. 1524–78), Franciscan from Navarre and author of Contempt of the World and the Vanities Thereof, which went through numerous English editions during the seventeenth century. Near its conclusion is a chapter entitled ‘Against idle wordes’, parts of which, attacking ‘ribauld speeches’, may be apropos. Just as likely, however, Sterne may be using the name as a pseudonym for himself, based on an etymology he offers, in part, in ASJ: Sterne = starn (starling) = star = stella; he may have used the name as early as 1739–40, during his courtship of Elizabeth, although the letter cited in evidence has a disputed date; see Cash, EMY, 81, n. 3.

  15. trouse: Work (348, n. 7) suggests ‘close-fitting, short breeches’, but Sterne may have intended the long trousers worn by soldiers and artisans in lieu of the more common knee breeches.

  CHAPTER II

  1. PATRIOT: Possibly a political allusion, with the ‘Scotch horse’ representing Lord Bute and the Patriot as Pitt, who had lost office as part of the political changes surrounding the death of George II in 1760.

  2. Sanson’s: Nicolas Sanson (1600–1667), cartographer to Louis XIV.

  3. Nevers: The pun is perhaps too obvious.

  4. When Agrippina… work: Cf. Burton, 2.3.5: ‘as Tacitus [reported] of Agrippina, not able to moderate her passions. So when she heard her sonne was slaine, she abruptly broke off her work, changed countenance and colour, tore her haire, and fell a roaring down right…’ This borrowing from Burton’s chapter, ‘Against sorrow for death of friends… &c.’, begins the sustained collection of borrowed sentiments from which Walter creates his oration; Burton is the dominant source, but Bacon, Joseph Hall and Montaigne are also pilfered. Ferriar was the first to note many of these debts.

  CHAPTER III

  1. ’Tis… Barnard: Sterne borrows from Burton, 2.3.1.1, who stops ‘to collect and gleane a few remedies, and comfortable speeches out of our best Orators, Philosophers, Divines, and fathers of the Church…’ In sermon 15, ‘Job’s expostulation with his wife’, Sterne strongly endorses the notion that Christian consolations for death far surpass those of the ancients, the primary ‘moral’ of this chapter as well.

  Sterne picked names selectively from Burton’s much longer list: Jerome Cardan (1501–76), Italian physician, the most famous of his era; Budaeus, i.e. Guillaume Budé (1468–1540), highly regarded French classicist; and Petrarch (1304–74), the most important Italian poet after Dante, singled out for his sonnets on the death of Laura or his posthumous De Contemptu Mundi . For Stella, i.e. Diego d’Estella, see n. 14 to V.i. St Austin, i.e. Augustine (354–430); St Cyprian (d. 258), Bishop of Carthage; and St Barnard, i.e. Bernard (1091–1153), are major ecclesiastics.

  2. who affirms… children: Burton, 2.3.5, quoting Plutarch.

  3. Seneca… channel: Sterne is positive about the attribution to Seneca (the Elder) on Burton’s authority.

  4. David… death: Cf. Burton, 1.2.4.7 and 2.3.5. The mingling of classical figures (Antinous, favourite of the emperor Hadrian) with biblical (David and Absalom; see 2 Samuel 18:33–19:4) and mythological (Niobe weeps for her children even after being turned to stone) is Burton’s doing, but Sterne turns to another section for the death of Socrates to complete the hodgepodge.

  5. neither wept… Germans: Cf. Burton, 2.3.5: ‘The Italians most part sleep away care and grief… ; Danes, Dutchmen, Polanders and Bohemians drink it down…’

  6. When Tully… me: Sterne again combines two separate parts of Anatomy to produce his paragraph, 1.2.4.7 and 2.3.5. The reference to Pliny is to Letters; to Cicero, either Tusculan Disputations or Letters to Atticus.

  7. A blessing… him: Tristram’s calculus owes much to William Wollaston, The Religion of Nature Delineated (1722): ‘When pleasures and pains are equal, they mutually destroy each other: when the one exceeds, the excess gives the true quantity of pleasure or pain . For nine degrees of pleasure, less by nine degrees of pain, are equal to nothing: but nine degrees of one, less by three degrees of the other, give six of the former net and true .’ The last phrase, ‘as it never…’, may be helped by emending to ‘as if it never…’

  8. Attic salt: ‘Refined, delicate, poignant wit’ (OED, citing this passage). Cf. Sterne’s distinction between the ‘bitterness’ and ‘saltness’ of wit in sermon 18, quoted in n. 11 to III.xx.

  9. ’Tis an… die: Verbatim borrowing from Burton, 2.3.5.

  10. If my son… with us: Cf. Joseph Hall, Epistles (1624): �
��If they could not have dyed, it had been worthy of wonder; not at all, that they are dead… Lo, all Princes and Monarchs daunce with us in the same ring.’

  11. tombs… horizon: Sterne begins an extensive borrowing from Burton, 2.3.5; the original letter was from the Roman statesman Servius Sulpicius Rufus (d. 43 BC) to Cicero on the death of his daughter. Sterne almost certainly knew that Scarron’s parody of Sulpicius had been singled out by Warburton in his ‘Dedication to Free Thinkers’ (Divine Legation of Moses) to reinforce his argument against Shaftes-bury’s theory of ‘ridicule as the test of truth’. The most ‘natural and humane Reflexion’ could be turned to ridicule, Warburton noted, disapprovingly. Swift, too, wrote a parody of Sulpicius’s letter, his short poem ‘Shall I repine’.

  12. evolutions: Cf. Chambers: ‘in the art of war… a term applied to the diverse figures, turns, and motions, made by a body of soldiers’.

  13. Mitylenæ: Typical of his practice as a borrower, Sterne adds one city to Sulpicius’s roll-call: Mytilene, chief city of Lesbos, home of Sappho.

  14. Zant: Island in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Greece; in Walter’s day it was owned by Venice and served for trade with Turkey and the East. ‘Archipelago’ had specific reference in the century to the Aegean Sea.

  15. wandering Jew: The Jew who, according to legend, taunted Christ on his way to Calvary and was condemned to wander the earth until Judgment Day.

  16. Labour… life: Cf. Burton, 2.3.2: ‘And therefore with good discretion, Iovianus Pontanus caused this short sentence to be engraven on his tombe in Naples: Labour, sorrow, grief, sickness, want and woe, to serve proud masters, bear that superstitious yoke, and bury your dearest friends, &c. are the sawces of our life.’

  17. My son is dead: Throughout Walter’s oration, Sterne may have had in mind Gargantua’s lament over his wife’s death (II.3): ‘My wife is dead, well, by G——… I shall not raise her again by my crying: she is well; she is in paradise at least… What tho’ she be dead, must not we also die? The same debt… hangs over our heads; nature will require it of us, and we must all of us, some day, taste of the same sauce.’

  18. ’tis a shame… anchor: Burton, 2.3.5, attributes the sentence to Seneca.

  19. He is got… world: Cf. Burton, 2.3.5: ‘he had risen, saith Plutarch, from the midst of a feast, before he was drunk… . Why dost thou lament my death… ? what misfortune is befalne me? Is it because I am not bald… ? The Thracians wept still when a child was born, feasted and made mirth when any man was buried…’ Plutarch is quoted from Moralia; the second sentence is from Lucian, ‘On Funerals’; the third, from Herodotus, Persian Wars.

  20. Death opens… after it: From Bacon’s ‘Of Death’.

  21. Shew me… liberty: Cf. Hall, Epistles: ‘Shew mee ever any man that knew what life was, and was loth to leave it. I will shew you a prisoner that would dwell in his Goale [sic ], a slave that likes to be chained to his Galley.’

  22. Is it not… life: Cf. Burton, 2.3.5: ‘Is it not much better not to hunger at all then to eat: not to thirst then to drink to satisfie thirst: not to be cold then to put on clothes to drive away cold? You had more neede rejoyce that I am freed from diseases, agues, cares,… love…’ The sentiment is from Lucian, ‘On Funerals’.

  23. a galled… afresh: Cf. Burton, 2.3.5: ‘thou dost him great injury to desire his longer life. Wilt thou have him crased & sickly still, like a tired traveller that comes wearie to his Inne, beginne his journey afresh…’

  24. There is… bed: Sterne combines Bacon, ‘Of Death’: ‘Groanes and Convulsions, and a discoloured Face, and Friends weeping, and Blackes, and Obsequies, and the like, shew Death Terrible’ with Montaigne, ‘Of Experience’: ‘Death is more abject, more languishing and painful in Bed than in Battle’; cf. the index heading for this passage: ‘Death is more glorious in a Battle than in a Bed’. Cf. Trim’s similar sentiment, p. 329.

  25. mutes: Professional attendants at a funeral; hired mourners. Walter’s list is traditional; cf. John Gay, Trivia, III.231–2: ‘Why is the Herse with’Scutcheons blazon’d round, / And with the nodding Plume of Ostrich crown’d?’

  26. when we are… not: Cf. Burton, 2.3.5: ‘When we are, death is not, but when death is, then we are not…’ Burton cites Seneca; the more likely source is Epicurus or Cicero.

  27. For this… wife: Sterne takes his examples from Bacon’s ‘Of Death’; all five figures were Roman emperors. The jest of Vespasianus (9–79) was ‘I think I’m becoming a god.’ Galba (c. 3 bc–ad 69) told his assassins: ‘Strike, if it be for the good of the Roman people.’ Septimius Severus (146–211) died while asking his attendants to make haste if anything was left for him to do; Sterne miscopied or plays with Bacon’s ‘in dispatch’. Tiberius (42 bc–ad 37) pretended continued strength and health while dying. And Augustus Caesar (63 bc–ad 14) died asking his wife, Livia, not to forget the days of their marriage.

  In a letter a few weeks before his death, Sterne wrote: ‘But I brave evils.—et quand Je serai mort, on mettra mon nom dans le liste de ces Heros, qui sont Morts en plaisantant [and when I shall have died, my name will be placed in the list of those heroes who have died in jest].’

  CHAPTER IV

  1. Cornelius Gallus: Sterne borrows the anecdote from Montaigne, ‘That to study philosophy, is to learn to die’: ‘And betwixt the very Thighs of Women, Cornelius Gallus, the Prætor…’ is Montaigne’s terse description of the untimely incident, chronicled by Pliny. Cf. p. 381, where Le Fever tells of his wife’s death in his arms and Toby remembers a ‘circumstance his modesty omitted’.

  CHAPTER V

  1. listening slave: The well-known classical statue Arrotino (‘Whetter’) in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

  2. as Rapin… church: This is one of two overt allusions in TS to Paul Rapin de Thoyras’s L’Histoire d’Angleterre (see n. 1 to II.i). Rapin de Thoyras (1661–1725) has a separate entry on church history at the end of many sections.

  CHAPTER VI

  1. upon the tapis: An absorption of the French idiom sur le tapis (‘on the table[cloth]’), i.e. under discussion.

  CHAPTER VII

  1. Well might Locke… words: As indeed Locke did, Essay, III.9.

  2. Now as… eloquence: Possibly an allusion to Thomas Sheridan (1719–88), who wrote and lectured extensively on oratory during the 1750s and 1760s, and made similarly grandiose claims.

  3. I said… confess: An important idea in Sterne; his language here is echoed in sermon 43 [‘Efficacy of prayer’]:

  in the present state we are in, we find such a strong sympathy and union between our souls and bodies, that the one cannot be touched or sensibly affected, without producing some corresponding emotion in the other.— Nature has assigned a different look, tone of voice, and gesture, peculiar to every passion and affection we are subject to; and, therefore, to argue against this strict correspondence which is held between our souls and bodies,—is disputing against the frame and mechanism of human nature.—We are not angels, but men cloathed with bodies, and, in some measure, governed by our imaginations, that we have need of all these external helps which nature has made the interpreters of our thoughts.

  For ‘seven senses’, see n. 18 to II.xix.

  4. the eye: In philosophy’s various orderings of the senses, primacy has almost always been awarded to either sight or touch. Barbati, i.e. bearded ones, philosophers or goats; a classicism.

  CHAPTER VIII

  1. green-gowns, and old hats: ‘To give a green-gown’ is to ‘tumble a woman on the grass’ (Partridge, Dictionary), as in Robert Herrick’s ‘Corrina’s going a Maying’: ‘Many a green-gown has been given; / Many a kisse, both odde and even.’ Partridge also has an entry for old hat: ‘The female pudend… Because frequently felt.’ Cf. VIII.x: ‘the affair of an old hat cock’d— and a cock’d old hat’.

  CHAPTER IX

  1. Are we… corruption: Sterne has Trim echo the Order for the Burial of the Dead from the Book of Common Prayer, made up of several scriptural passa
ges – e.g. Psalm 90:5–6, Job 14:1–2, Isaiah 40:6–8 (1 Peter 1:24) and 1 Corinthians 15, especially 15:42: ‘So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption.’

  2. pumkin for his head: The man impervious to love, according to Burton, 3.2.1.2, ‘is not a man but a block, a very stone… he hath a gourd for his head, a pepon for his heart…’ The entire paragraph contains an idea central to Sterne’s thought: ‘there is nothing unmixt in this world’ (ASJ).

  CHAPTER X

  1. In battle… this: Cf. Montaigne, ‘That to study philosophy, is to learn to die’: ‘I have often consider’d with myself whence it should proceed, that in War, the Image of Death… appear[s] less dreadful than at Home…’

  2. in hot… felt: Cf. Bacon, ‘On Death’: ‘He that dies in an earnest Pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot Bloud; who, for the time, scarce feeles the Hurt…’

  3. And could… nature: Sterne returns to Montaigne: ‘if a Man could by any Means avoid it, tho’ by creeping under a Calf’s Skin, I am one that should not be ashamed of the Shift…’

  CHAPTER XI

  1. I Am… Nile: Sterne taps into a hoary tradition that Nile mud spontaneously generates life forms; see, e.g., Dryden, All for Love, V.i.153–6.

  CHAPTER XII

  1. her curiosity: Cf. VIII.xxxv.

  2. oration of Socrates: Sterne did not go to Plato’s Apology for his account, but to Montaigne’s version in ‘Of Physiognomy’, interweaving it with the famous soliloquy in Hamlet, III.i.55ff.

  3. Life of Socrates: John Gilbert Cooper’s scholarly Life of Socrates (1749) was written primarily to prove that Socrates believed in the immortality of the soul, confuting a major contention in Warburton’s Divine Legation. Cooper also attacked Warburton’s comments on Scarron’s parody of Sulpicius (see n. 11 to V.iii), criticizing the Bishop’s failure to distinguish between true ridicule and its abuse. A typical Warburtonian paper-war ensued; Sterne’s allusion here, and in VIII.xxvi, may have this quarrel in mind.