Artu Tree Tattoo

Melville, Typee, [18.136]. “The tattooing on his back in particular attracted my attention. The artist employed must indeed have excelled in his profession. Traced along the course of the spine was accurately delineated the slender, tapering, and diamond-checkered shaft of the beautiful ‘artu’ tree. Branching from the stem on either side, and disposed alternately, were the graceful branches drooping with leaves all correctly drawn, and elaborately finished. This piece of tattooing was the best specimen of the Fine Arts I had yet seen in Typee.”

Oak and Vine

Came across, in Sotweed Factor, another passage to add to the list of Elm and Ivy quotes (although it does not actually involve elm or ivy, but just conveys a similar sense):

He endeavored to push her aside in order to get at the cowering poet, but she clung to him like a vine upon an oak, so that he could only hobble across the parlor.

Book 3, chapter 14.

Myrtles, Junipers and Gum Stump in “The Unhappy End of Mynheer Wilhelm Tick”

Sotweed Factor, book 2, chapter 29, pages 417-420. Grove of junipers is where Katy formerly once met secretly Willi and Peter. Grove of myrtles is where Katy currently secretly meets with Charlie. (Peter hides in Junipers, Katy hides in myrtles) Gum stump is where Wihelm rests upon having a heart attack and where the victorious Kate, wanting to be taken, is instead murdered by Charlie. The bodies are gathered about the stump which sits in the middle of a path that runs through the woods behind the house.

Juniper: “Peter could go down to the end of the path that runs through the woods behind the house, and hide himself in the junipers where you were wont to swive Miss Katy in the old days.” “Peter hath Katy to himself in the junipers and may do his list with her ere he doth her in.” “send Katy down to Peter, and then tell Wilhelm they are swiving in the junipers” (Charley to Willi). “Charley took a shortcut through the marshes to the juniper grove where Peter waited, knife in hand.” “She had seen Peter do down the path to the juniper trees and had even heard Charley urging him to rape before he slew.”

Myrtles: “Their [Charley and Katy's] trysting-place was a thick clump of myrtles some distance down the path behind the house: hither it was that she would slip away any hour of theh day or night when she heard her lover’s signal –a high-pitched yelp like that of a fox or an indian cur; here it was that she would linger while he caroused with the brothers, and wait for him to find pretext to join her; here it was she lay this fateful evening, and watched the scheme unfold”; “it was scarcely necessary for Charley to tell her, when immediately afterwards he joined her in the myrtles, that their conspiracy was under way.” “old wilhelm had come as far as the myrtles, brandishing his pistols and puffing with fatigue.” “the sound of the shot had brought Peter hurrying from the junipers” “Katy had insisted that they do then and there on the gum stump what they were wont to do secluded in the myrtles”

Stump: “Willi told me ye were swiving Katy from stump to stump” (Wilhelm to Peter);

Rosebush: “Why should he walk a mile into the woods to piss, when for years he hath been doing it in the rosebush?”

Gum stump: “in fact, such a toll had his emotions and exertions taken on him, he suddenly stopped still, clutched his heart, and sat down on a gum stump in the middle of the path.” “she would not leave without mounting the gum stump about which they lay and dancing, for Charley’s benefit, the same dance that had served poor Wilhelm for love-making” “and not content to profane the dead by her dance alone, Katy had insisted that they do then and there on the gum stump what they were wont to do secluded in the myrtles, and had whooped and yelped throught, Indian-fashion” “And when she instantly let out the signal cry, he fetched up his knife.” (”murdered her then and there”)

Fig Link?

–Marcus Antony is mentioned only twice by name in Shakespeare plays that don’t feature him as a character: once in Macbeth, once in Henry 5.

–In the Henry 5 mention, Fluellan compares Pistol to Marcus Antony for his courage in battle, but, not many lines after, Pistol is informed of Bardolph’s fate, and makes sour mentions of figs to Fluellan ["Figo for the friendship", the "fig of Spain!"]

–It should be noted that it in every play in which Pistol appears, he mentions figs. Figs are a part of his idiom.

–Figs, meanwhile, figure prominently in Antony and Cleopatra, the play that most prominently features Marc Antony: the asps by which Cleopatra will take her own life are hidden in a bowl of figs; and, earlier in the play, Charmian alludes to or foreshadows this when she says “I love long life better than figs”.

-Final piece of information: exterior sources attest that Spanish and Italian plotters were known for using poisoned figs to assassinate their victims. They also attest that figs have a derogatory sexual meaning (”cunt”).

Question: Is there a link between Antony, Pistol, and Figs?

–I would not know what to make of such a link and the only reasons I know of to suspect its existence are the thin ones I have given: the scarcity of Marcus Antony mentions in plays in which he does not appear; the coincidence that, after one of these mentions, figs are mentioned; and that, in the play that most has to do with Antony, figs play a central role.

Tamarisk in Iliad, basic points

The four mentions of tamarisk in Homer (all in Iliad): [6.37-50]; [10.465-468]; [21.17-26];[21.342-355].

–Each time the tamarisk is mentioned it is involved in a scene of supplication — a solider is captured and seen pleading for his life.

–In each of the four mentions it is a Trojan who is the supplicant, and an Achaian being supplicated, never the other way.

–In three of the four mentions it is a single Trojan supplicating two Achaians.

–In at least three of the four mentions there seems an underlying ambiguity as to how the scene will turn out — will the supplicant be treated mercifully?

–In three of the four mentions mercy is denied to the Trojan supplicant, resulting in his execution.

*
How the fourth mention of the tamarisk fits in with the others would require some additional explanation. But the two principal differences are:

– the Trojans and Achaians in this sequence are immortals (Hera, Hephaistos and Xanthos).

– the supplicant’s plea is granted (Hera tells Hephaistos to leave Xanthos alone.)