Selected Stories (97 page)

18
.
heterodox women
: The
hetairai
(companions) of ancient Athens were educated courtesans.

19
.
Vizier
: Chief minister.

20
.
Ladakh
: Area to the north of Kashmir.

21
. Vox Populi
is
Vox Dei: The Voice of the People is the Voice of God.

22
.
Sirkar
: Government.

23
.
Din
: The Faith (cry of excited Moslems).

24
. Hutt: Get out.

25
.
lakh
: A hundred thousand.

26
. bunnias: Merchants.

27
.
It is expedient… people
: John 11:50: ‘… it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not'.

1
.
At the Pit's Mouth
: First published in
Under the Deodars
, 1888; subsequently collected in
Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories
.

2
.
Jean Ingelow
: Nineteenth-century poetess (1820–97), author of ‘The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571', from which these lines are taken.

3
.
Tertium Quid
: Latin phrase meaning ‘a third something'.

4
.
Jakko
: Mountain at Simla.

5
.
Observatory Hill
: Another feature of Simla topography, like Elysium, Summer Hill, etc., mentioned later in the story.

6
.
banian
: Undershirt, singlet.

7
.
ayahs
: Nursemaids.

8
.
Medusa
: One of the Gorgons of Greek mythology – females with snakes for hair, whose gaze turned those who encountered them to stone.

1
.
The Man who would be King
: First published in
The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales
, 1888; subsequently collected in
Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories
.

2
.
The Law, as quoted
: Presumably a principle of Freemasonry.

3
. Backwoodsman: An allusion to the Allahabad
Pioneer
, for which Kipling was now working, having been transferred from the
Civil and Military Gazette
in autumn 1887.

4
.
Residents
: British officials who acted as advisers to the rulers of independent ‘Princely States' which did not come under direct British rule.

5
.
for certain reasons
: The loafer is using Masonic phrases which the narrator, as a fellow-Mason, recognizes.

6
.
Harun-al-Raschid
: Caliph of Baghdad in
The Arabian Nights
.

7
.
Politicals
: Political agents or Residents (see note 4, above).

8
.
Zenana
: Women's quarters where female members of the family were kept in seclusion.

9
.
Mister Gladstone
: The great Liberal Prime Minister, whom Kipling saw as an enemy of Empire.

10
.
Modred's shield
: Modred or Mordred, the nephew of King Arthur, carried a plain black shield.

11
.
Sar
-a-whack: Win a kingdom of their own, as Sir James Brooke had done in Sarawak in 1841.

12
.
Kafiristan
: A remote area of Afghanistan, hardly ever visited by Europeans in the nineteenth and even the twentieth century.

13
.
Roberts' Army
: The British force under Sir Frederick (later Lord) Roberts, VC, in the Second Afghan War of 1878–80.

14
.
Roum
: Constantinople.

15
.
Pir Khan
: Pir is a title of Moslem saints or religious instructors, but the precise reference is unidentified.

16
.
Roos
: Russians.

17
. Huzrut: Respectful form of address.

18
.
Hazar
: Caution (i.e., ‘get ready').

19
.
Martini
: A Martini-Henry rifle.

20
.
Alexander… Semiramis
: Alexander the Great invaded India from the northeast; Semiramis was a mythical queen of Assyria.

21
.
The Craft
: Freemasonry.

22
. jezails: Long Afghan muskets.

23
.
Rajah Brooke
: See note 11, above.

24
.
our 'Fifty-Seven
: Our Indian Mutiny.

25
.
in his habit as he lived
: A quotation from
Hamlet
, Act III, Scene 4: ‘My father, in his habit as he lived!'

26
.
The Son of God… his train
: From a hymn by Bishop Heber (1783–1826). The first line reads ‘The Son of Man' in earlier editions of the story.

1
.
Baa Baa, Black Sheep
: First published in the
Week's News
, 21 December 1888; collected in
Wee Willie Winkie and Other Stories
. This story is based on Kipling's own childhood experiences.

2
.
When I was… place
: Cf.
As You Like It
, Act II, Scene 4: ‘When I was at home I was in a better place'.

3
. ayah: Nursemaid.

4
. hamal: Porter.

5
. Surti: From Surat, on the west coast of India.

6
.
Ranee
: Hindu princess.

7
.
Ghauts
: Hills parallel with the east and west coasts of south India.

8
.
Nassick
: A Hill Station about a hundred miles from Bombay.

9
. Belait: Originally meaning a kingdom or province, this word came to be used for Europe and then England. Hence ‘Blighty' in soldiers' slang.

10
.
Parel
: A suburb of Bombay.

11
.
Apollo Bunder
: The main quay and landing-place at Bombay.

12
.
broom
-gharri: Brougham (type of carriage).

13
.
Sonny, my soul
: ‘Sun of my soul' – the opening words of one verse of John Keble's ‘Evening Hymn'.

14
.
Navarino
: Naval battle of 1827 in which a British fleet under Admiral Codrington, together with French and Russian squadrons, destroyed the Turkish–Egyptian fleet, thus helping to ensure the national independence of Greece.

15
. A. H. Clough: From his poem, ‘Easter Day, Naples, 1849'.

16
. Frank Fairlegh: A novel by Francis E. Smedley (1818–64).

17
.
Tilbury
: A high two-wheeled carriage with a hood.

18
. Cometh up as a Flower: A novel by RhodaBroughton (1840–1920).

19
.
Journeys end… know
: See
Twelfth Night
, Act II, Scene 3.

20
. hubshi: Negro.

21
. tout court: Just that.

1
.
The Head of the District
: First published in
Macmillan's Magazine
and New York
Tribune
, January 1890; collected in
Life's Handicap
, 1891.

2
.
Man that is born… hill
: Cf. Job 14:1: ‘Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.'

3
.
the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys
: Probably Lord Ripon, Viceroy from 1880 to 1884, whose Liberal policies endeared him to Indians but antagonized the Anglo-Indian community.

4
.
the Knight of the Drawn Sword
: The Commander-in-Chief (India) or the Military Member of Council.

5
. peshbundi: Stratagem.

6
.
civilians
: Members of the Indian Civil Service.

7
.
his sisters and his cousins and his aunts
: Cf. Gilbert and Sullivan's
HMS Pinafore
.

8
.
screw-gun
: Light artillery piece for mountain warfare, which could be dismantled, carried by mule and then re-assembled.

9
.
Ghazis
: Fanatical Moslem warriors.

10
.
Jehannum
: Hell.

11
.
Akbar
: Mogul emperor of the sixteenth century.

12
.
Belooch Beshaklis
: A fictional regiment.

13
.
Tommy Dodd
: An innocent gambling game played at charity fêtes, with a pun here on roulette.

1
.
The Courting of Dinah Shadd
: First published in
Macmillan's Magazine
and
Harper's Weekly
, March 1890; collected in
Life's Handicap
.

2
.
Nordenfeldts
: Machine-guns.

3
.
Eblis
: The devil, in Moslem mythology.

4
.
lushin
': Drinking.

5
.
Wolseley was quite wrong
: Lord Wolseley, previously Sir Garnet Wolseley (1833–1913), was one of Britain's foremost generals. In the
Soldier's Pocket Book for Field Service
(1869) he had described war correspondents as ‘those newly invented curses to armies, who eat the rations of fighting men and do no work at all'.

6
.
the opinion of Polonius
: Cf. his advice to Laertes in
Hamlet
Act I, Scene 3: ‘Beware/Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,/Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.'

7
.
Black Tyrone
: A fictional Irish regiment.

8
.
in another place
: See ‘The Solid Muldoon' in
Soldiers Three and Other Stories
.

9
.
plastrons on his epigastrons
: Cloth facings on his midriff.

10
. dah: Burmese sword.

11
.
C.B.
: ‘Confined to barracks' (Kipling).

12
.
lost my tip
: Failed, ‘came a cropper'.

13
.
when he went mad with the home-sickness
: See ‘The Madness of Private Ortheris' in
Plain Tales from the Hills
.

14
.
Prometheus
: A Titan chained to a rock, in Greek mythology, with vultures tearing out his liver, as punishment for his stealing fire from heaven for the benefit of mankind.

1
.
The Man Who Was
: First published in
Macmillan's Magazine
and
Harper's Weekly
, April 1890; collected in
Life's Handicap
.

2
.
White Hussars
: A fictional regiment said to be based on the 9th Lancers.

3
.
Black Tyrone
: A fictional Irish regiment.

4
.
sotnia
: Squadron.

5
.
Lushkar Light Horse
: Another fictional regiment.

6
.
Punjab Frontier Force
: Irregular force under the control of the Punjab Government for policing the Frontier.

7
.
sambhur, nilghai, markhor
: Large stag, great antelope, wild goat.

8
.
dinner-slips
: Long white strips of cloth.

9
. Shabash: Well done.

10
.
Ressaidar
: Indian subaltern of irregular cavalry.

11
.
Boot and saddle
: Trumpet signal to cavalry to mount.

12
.
the pit whence he was digged
: Cf. Isaiah 51:1.

13
.
before Sebastopol
: In the siege of Sebastopol in the Crimean War of 1854–6.

1
.
Without Benefit of Clergy
: First published in
Macmillan's Magazine
and
Harper's Weekly
, June 1890; collected in
Life's Handicap
. The phrase ‘benefit of clergy' refers to the right of clerics in the Middle Ages to be tried in special ecclesiastical courts, but Kipling uses it here to indicate that the lovers have gone through no church ceremony of marriage, nor have they any protection from fate or the consequences of their actions.

2
.
Sheikh Badl
: Badl was a Rajput hero of the fourteenth century.

3
. log: People.

4
. Ya illah!: O God!

5
. Tobah: penitence; an exclamation of strong negation (sc. ‘No – shame!').

6
. sitar: Indian guitar.

7
.
Rajah Rasalu: A
king in Sialkot in the third and fourth centuries, about whom legends abound.

8
.
scald-head
: One infected with ringworm; a term of general opprobrium.

9
. janee: Beloved.

10
.
burning-ghaut
: Place by a river for pyres for the dead.

1
.
On Greenhow Hill
: First published in
Harper's Weekly
, 23 August 1890; collected in
Life's Handicap
.

2
. Rivals: by Kipling's mother, Alice Kipling.

3
.
Aurangabadis
: Fictional Indian regiment.

4
.
tewed up
: Tied up, mixed up.

5
.
Lotharius
: Lothario, the proverbial heartless libertine, from Nicholas Rowe's
The Fair Penitent
(1703).

6
.
sumph
: Sump, the lowest part of a mine.