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'Brother, how tedious you can be, on occasion. I did hear some cries of "Jolly rogers - jolly rogers - we shall roger them." But in parenthesis, Jack, tell me about this word roger. I have often heard it aboard, but can make out no clear nautical signification.'
'Oh, it is no sea-term. They use it ashore much more than we do - a low cant expression meaning to swive or couple with.'
Stephen considered for a moment and then said, 'So roger joins bugger and that even coarser word; and they are all used in defiance and contempt, as though to an enemy; which seems to show a curious light on the lover's subjacent emotions. Conquest, rape, subjugation: have women a private language of the same nature, I wonder?"
Jack said, 'In some parts of the West Country rams are called Roger, as cats are called Puss; and of course that is their duty; though which came first, the deed or the doer, the goose or the egg, I am not learned enough to tell.'
'Would it not be the owl, at all?'
'Never in life, my poor Stephen. Who ever heard of a golden owl?

Why is it the duty of the rams to be called Roger, and of cats to be called Puss?

ozfille

Quote from The Far Side of the World, Chapter Eight -

He had gone on to think about ways of making fire when Stephen said, 'And these things being so, I became convinced that the large rounded object about the size of a moderate turtle but more lumpish there on the strand to your right, where the water is lapping it, could not be a boulder. No, I have more than half persuaded myself that it is an enormous piece of ambergris, washed up by the sea.'

'Have you not been to look at it?'

'I have not. The association of rarity, wealth and so on instantly brought that unfortunate brass box to my mind, the most unwelcome box from the Danaë packet which is now aboard the Surprise; and as recollection came to me, so I grew perfectly convinced, as by a revelation, that rats or cockroaches or book-worms or various moulds were eating its contents, to our utter ruin - eating them with tropical avidity, a million of money. The thought fairly cut my legs from under me, and I have sat here ever since.'

'It is a thousand to one we shall never have any need of the brass box, nor of the ambergris unless it can be eaten,' said Jack to himself. 'And if th weather goes on breaking up like this - if it really comes on to blow and Surprise is driven a great way to leeward, then it is ten thousand to one or more, much more.' But aloud, giving Stephen a hand up, he said, 'Let us go and have a look. If it is ambergris, we are made men: we have but to go to the nearest dealer and change it for its weight in gold, ha,ha, ha!'

It was not ambergris: it was a piece of crystalline limestone, mottled and in part translucent, and it fairly stupefied Maturin. 'How can such things be?' he asked, gazing out into the offing. 'There is no question of glaciers, icebergs ... How can such things possibly come about? There is the boat. I have it,' he cried. 'This rock was brought tangled in the roots of a tree, a great tree swept away by some remote flood or tornado, cast up the Dear knows how many thousands miles drifting, and here decaying, leaving its incorruptible burden. Come, Jack, help me turn it - see,' he cried with a shining face as it heaved over, 'in these fractuosities there are still traces of my roots. What a discovery!'

'What did you mean when you said boat?'

'Why, our boat, of course. The big one, the launch, come to fetch us, as you always said it would. Lord, Jack,' he said, looking up with an entirely different expression, 'how in God's name shall I ever face them at all?'

A perfect representation of the way both of these men's minds work in completely different ways and yet work so well together.

Stephen measures things in 'turtle sizes' and falls easily into the depths of despair by the sight of an object setting off reflections that cause him to sink into a slough of despondency, unable to move but then his emotions are rapidly reversed into a high state of excitement and joy when he believes he has hit on the perfect explanation for the presence of a geological oddity. So excited that the arrival of the rescue boat seems to be barely worth a mention. Then sinks back into a funk almost immediately when he realises how difficult and embarrassing it will be to face his saviours in the rescue boat. No wonder he needs laudanum to dampen down the volatility of his emotions.

While in comparison Jack is supremely practical in his way of thinking and at the same time so solicitous of his friend's state of mind he humours him by encouraging him to check out the lumpish rock to see whether they have become made men. He completely ignores Stephen's theories concerning the provenance of the 'lump of limestone' and focuses entirely on Stephen's throwaway line about the 'boat'. Jack the calm and practical one, trying to protect and support his friend as always.

esteven

You ease my mind: but tell me, Jack - for I see that in spite of a
sleepless night you are eager to be up and about, inspecting booms, gunwales, lifts...Pray tell me when you are inclined to sit down quietly and talk about the less physical aspects of our affair.'
Jack looked at him thoughtfully, revolving the less physical aspects...
(chapter 6)

esteven

Here is one quote I am trying to find. Maybe someone can help? It is from someone's default icon. Unfortunately she does not know from which book it is:

and the soared up and away, up, joining, separating, twisting, the one answering the other, rising into their native air

I vaguely remember it but really do not wish to wait for the new read to discover it again.

Anyone?

ETA: Thanks to

heather_mist and

feroxargentea here is the wonderfully complete excerpt:

'Where did you get this?' he asked.
'I picked it up in a pawnshop near the Sally-Port. It cost twelve and six.'
'You were not cheated, my dear. I like its tone extremely warm, mellow. You are a great judge of a fiddle, to be sure. Come, come, there is not a moment to lose; I make my rounds at seven bells. One, two, three,' he cried, tapping his foot, and the cabin was filled with the opening movement of Boccherini's Corelli sonata, a glorious texture of sound, the violin sending up brilliant jets through the 'cello's involutions, and they soared up and away from the grind of pumps, the tireless barking, the problems of command, up, the one answering the other, joining, separating, twining, rising into their native air.
(chapter 7)

sharpiefan

Current Mood: geeky

"Good morning, Oakes," he said to the Marine sentry at his door, and "Good morning, gentlemen," as he stepped onto the quarterdeck. In the general chorus of "Good morning, sir," hats flew off and immediately afterwards a dozen waistcoats partly vanished under close-buttoned coats.

And:

The Marines were already drawn up far aft, near the taffrail. The midshipmen inspected the hands in their divisions, tried to make them stand up straight and soldierly and stop talking and then reported to the lieutenants and the master; the lieutenants and the master inspected them again, tried to make them stop staring about and hitching up their trousers and reported that the men were 'present, properly dressed and clean' to Mowett, who stepped across the deck to Captain Aubrey, took off his hat and said, "All the officers have reported, sir."

"Then we will go round the ship, Mr Mowett," said Jack and turned aft, to where the Marines were standing as straight as ramrods in their scarlet coats: their cross-belts were brilliant with pipeclay, their muskets and sidearms shone again, their hair was powdered to a turn, their leather stocks were as tight as stocks could well be and allow a little circulation of the blood; and although awnings had been rigged, the eastern sun, not yet as its height, beat on their backs with shocking force. They might not be beautiful, but they were certainly suffering. Accompanied by Howard, his sword drawn, and by Mowett, he passed along the rows of faces, many of them nameless to him even now and all of them impersonal, gazing out beyond him, wholly without expression.

"Very creditable, Mr Howard," said Jack. "I believe you may dismiss your men now. They may put on their duck jackets and wait quietly under the forecastle until church."

And:

When the barge was a little nearer he said to the Marine sentry, "Trollope, hail that boat."

The Marine was on the point of saying, "But it's our own barge, sir," when a glazed, disciplined look came over his face: he shut his mouth, drew a deep breath and called, "The boat ahoy."

All (unless I mistake myself) from Chapter Nine of The Far Side of the World

esteven

...If I did not continually check him, he would have a mutiny on his hands, a very ugly mutiny indeed.'
Jack paused, absently cut Stephen another slice of pineapple, and passed it over.
Stephen acknowledged it with a bob of his head but said nothing. It was very unusual for Jack to speak in this way: the flow was not to be interrupted.

(chapter nine)

:D

esteven

'I should like that of all things. And yet, brother, in spite of this striking success, you look sad and worn and anxious. I do not wish to force the least confidence and if my words are as indiscreet as I fear they may be I shall not resent a civil evasion. But your violin, which has sustained me all these weeks from the stern-gallery, speaks pianpianissimo and always in D minor. Has the poor ship a hidden leak that cannot be come at? Must she perish?'
Jack gazed at him for a long considering moment and said, 'Sad: yes, I have never liked leading from behind...

(chapter nine)

Why, oh why do I always melt into a delighted puddle when I read scenes like this?

esteven

Shall we finish the port?'
'Gule, or gluttony, is a beastish sin,' said Stephen. 'But without sin there can be no forgiveness. Would there be any of the Gibraltar walnuts left, at all?'
'If Killick has not blown out his kite with them, there should be plenty in this locker. Yes. Half a sack. Forgiveness,' he said thoughtfully, cracking six together in his massive hand.

(chapter five)

I am certain Jack is cracking some of these walnuts for Stephen. :D

esteven

They most delighted in the Halleluiah Chorus, and often, when Jack walked forward to lend his powerful bass, they would go through it twice, so that the deck vibrated again and he sang away in the midst of that great volume of true ordered sound, his heart lifted high.
But most of his musical pleasure was on a less heroic scale, and he took it much farther aft, in his great cabin with Stephen, the 'cello singing deep in its conversation with the violin, sometimes plain and direct, sometimes immensely intricate, but always profoundly satisfying in the Scarlatti, Hummel and Cherubini that they knew very well, more tentative and still exploratory as they felt their way far into the manuscript pieces that Jack had bought from London Bach's young man.
'I beg pardon,' said Stephen, as a lee-lurch made him slur his C sharp into a quarter-tone lower than a lugubrious B. They played on to the end of the coda, and after the moment's triumphant silence, the tension dying, he laid his bow on the table, his 'cello on a locker, and observed, 'I am afraid I played worse than usual, with the floor bounding about in this irregular, uneasy fashion. It is my belief we have turned round, and are now facing the billows.'
'Perhaps we have,' said Jack.

(chapter 5)

Since Jack and Stephen love making music together, I can never get enough of those scenes where they delight in tha activity. How I would love to hear Jack in the chorus. :D

sharpiefan

Current Mood: geeky

The sun-baked decks leaked abominably and the Surprise (though bowling along so cheerfully) echoed with the sound of drips right down to the orlop and the hold itself, wetting all the storerooms, except the tin-lined bread-room, all the cabins and all the hanging beds within these cabins; and even before the evening sun went down in its abrupt, tropical fashion, the hot imprisoned air was filled with the smell of mould: mould, blue or green or sometimes a mottled grey, growing on books, clothes, shoes, marine specimens, portable soup, and of course the great beams under which everybody slept and against which everybody except the Captain banged his head from time to time. This was not because Jack Aubrey was more dwarfish than the rest - indeed he stood rather more than six feet tall - but because his cabin had more clearance. Or rather his cabins, since he had three: the coach, to larboard, which included the lower part of the mizzen mast and a thirty-two pounder carronade and in which he had his meals unless there were more than four or five guests; his sleeping place to starboard; and then right aft the noble great cabin, stretching clean across the ship and lit by the splendid inwardly-sloping, seven-light stern-window, the airiest, lightest place in the ship, Killick's kingdom, perpetually scoured, swabbed, scraped and polished, smelling of beeswax, fresh sea-water and clean paint.

"Perhaps we might have some music tonight?" suggested Stephen, coming up from his fetid dog-hole.

esteven

Two weevils crept from the crumbs. 'You see those weevils, Stephen?' asked Jack solemnly.
'I do.' 'Which would you choose?' 'There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.'
'But suppose you had to choose?'
'Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.'
'There I have you,' cried Jack. 'You are bit -- you are completely dished. Don't you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha, ha, ha, ha!'

(chapter 2)
Oh ha, ha, ha, ha!
In the movie RC got Jack completely right there!

heather_mist

" ‘And he gave me these diamonds,' she said, unclasping the necklace and tossing it on the couch, where it blazed and glittered like a phosphorescent wake. 'They were his mother's, and he had them reset. The big one in the middle is called the Begum. I suppose it is disgraceful to admit that they had an influence on me, but they did. Perhaps most women like diamonds.' "
The Fortune of War. Ch 6.

(The necklace) was a splendid bauble, so splendid that its central stone had a name, the Nabob or the Mogul or something of that kind;… suddenly the name of Diana's came to mind: it was the Blue Peter, a pear shaped stone of a most surprising colour, like a pale, pale sapphire but with much more life and fire. An impious sailor had taken it from a temple in the time of Aurangzeb and it had kept the name he gave it ever since, a name that Stephen particularly liked, for not only had it a fine round sound, but it was also that of one of the few flags he could recognise with certainty, the flag that ships flew when they were about to set sail, and it had the pleasing associations of fresh departure, new regions, new creatures of the world, new lives, perhaps new life.
The Surgeon's Mate Ch 3.

" 'You are much attached to those diamonds, Villiers,' [Stephen] said kindly.
'Yes, I am. I truly love them,' she said. 'Above all the Blue Peter.' She detached the pendant stone and put it into his hand, where it lay, strangely heavy, sending out countless prismatic flashes at the slightest movement. 'I don't give a damn where they come from,' she went on, raising her chin. 'I love them passionately. I should not part with them for anything on earth and I shall certainly be buried in them. You will remember that, Stephen? If things don't go well in the autumn, I am to be buried in them. I may rely on you?'
‘Certainly you may.’ "
The Surgeon's Mate Ch 5

"Stephen looked secretly at the stone again: he had rarely seen so true an azure; and the gold rim echoed the golden specks within the stone quite admirably. But a most unwelcome comparison welled up in his mind.
Diana had possessed an extraordinary blue diamond - she was buried with it - a blue of an entirely different nature, of course, but he felt the familiar chill grip him, the sort of frigid indifference to virtually everything; and he welcomed the opening door."
The Hundred Days Ch 7

As we see from the above, when we first meet the riviere of diamonds which Johnson gave Diana the large central stone had an Indian name, but by the next book POB had rechristened it to the much more appropriate Blue Peter. It is appropriate in another way in that the word 'peter' means stone, so quite literally the Blue Peter is 'the Blue Stone'.

Diana has always been able to rely on Stephen - even to honouring her age old wish to be buried with her diamonds...

esteven

After a while Stephen said, ‘So if you were ordered to sea, brother, I collect you would not rage and curse, as being snatched away from domestic felicity-the felicity, I mean, of a parent guiding his daughters’ first interesting steps?’
‘I should kiss the messenger.’ said Jack.
‘This I had supposed for some time now.’ murmured Stephen.

(chapter 1)

...and then Jack did...kiss Stephen, that is ;D

sharpiefan

Current Mood: cheerful

'Killick, Killick there: what's amiss?'

'Which it's your scraper, sir, your number one scraper. The wombat's got at it.'

'Then take it away from him, for God's sake.'

'I dursen't, sir,' said Killick. 'For fear of tearing the lace.'

'Now, sir,' cried the Captain, striding into the great cabin, a tall, imposing figure. 'Now, sir,' - addressing the wombat, one of the numerous body of marsupials brought into the ship by her surgeon, a natural philosopher - 'give it up directly, d'ye hear me, there?'

The wombat stared him straight in the eye, drew a length of gold lace from its mouth, and then deliberately sucked it in again.

'Pass the word for Dr Maturin,' said the Captain, looking angrily at the wombat: and a moment later, 'Come now, Stephen, this is coming it pretty high: your brute is eating my hat.'

'So he is, too,' said Dr Maturin. 'But do not be so perturbed, Jack; it will do him no harm at all, at all. His digestive processes -'

At this point the wombat dropped the hat, shuffled rapidly across the deck and swarmed up into Dr Maturin's arms, peering at close range into his face with a look of deep affection.

'Well, I can keep it under my arm, together with my reports,' said the Captain, picking up a bundle of papers and carefully fitting them round his gold-laced hat to conceal the tear.

Fortune of War, Chapter One

esteven

'It is the price that has to be paid,' he reflected. 'And by God it's worth it.' As the words formed in his mind so the look of profound happiness, of contained delight, formed once more upon his shining face. Yet as he walked off to his meeting at the Crown - to his meeting with an equal -there was a little greater eagerness in his step than the mere Lieutenant Aubrey would have shown.

(chapter 1)

Just after Jack has reflected on the fact that he will be very much alone, being “them” and no longer “us”, the last sentence of the chapter holds the solution to his dilemma.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

sharpiefan

Current Mood: giggly

Jack was of a sanguine temperament; he liked most people and he was surprised when they did not like him. This readiness to be pleased had been damaged of recent years, but it remained intact as far as horses, dogs and sloths were concerned; it wounded him to see tears come into the creature's eyes when he walked into the cabin, and he laid himself out to be agreeable. As they ran down to Rio he sat with it at odd moments, addressing it in Portuguese, more or less, and feeding it with offerings that it sometimes ate, sometimes allowed to drool slowly from its mouth; but it was not until they were approaching Capricorn, with Rio no great distance on the starboard bow, that he found it respond.

The weather had freshened almost to coldness, for the wind was coming more easterly, from the chilly currents between Tristan and the Cape; the sloth was amazed by the change; it shunned the deck and spent its time below. Jack was in his cabin, pricking the chart with less satisfaction than he could have wished: progress, slow, headwinds by night - unaccountable headwinds by night - and sipping a glass of grog; Stephen was in the mizzen-top teaching Bonden to write and scanning the sea for his first albatross. The sloth sneezed and looking up, Jack caught its gaze fixed on him; its inverted face had an expression of anxiety and concern. 'Try a piece of this, old cock,' he said, dipping his cake in the grog and proffering the sop. 'It might put a little heart into you.' The sloth sighed, closed its eye, but gently absorbed the piece, and sighed again.

Some minutes later he felt a touch on his knee: the sloth had silently climbed down and it was standing there, its beady eyes looking up into his face, bright with expectation. More cake, more grog: growing confidence and esteem...

'In this bucket,' said Stephen, walking into the cabin, 'in this small bucket, now, I have the population of Dublin, London and Paris combined: these animalculae - what is the matter with the sloth?' It was curled on Jack's knee, breathing heavily: its bowl and Jack's glass stood empty on the table. Stephen picked it up, peered into its affable, bleary face, shook it, and hung it upon its rope. It seized hold with one fore and one hind foot, letting the others dangle limp, and went to sleep.

Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt the sloth, and cried, 'Jack, you have debauched my sloth.'

(HMS Surprise - not sure of the exact chapter as I don't have the book to hand and am copy/pasting from an entry I posted a while back in my own journal. :( )

esteven

The bosun's cat dropped through the open skylight: it was a lean young cat of indifferent character, somewhat whorish, and it at once began rubbing itself against their legs, purring.
'That reminds me,' said Jack, absently pulling its tail, 'Hollar is going to ask you for a really good name, a classical name that will reflect credit on the ship. He thinks Puss or Tib is low.'
'The only possible name for a bosun's cat is Scourge,' said Stephen.
Understanding dawned on Captain Aubrey quite fast, and his great fruity laugh boomed out, setting the larboard watch on the grin as far forward as the break of the forecastle. 'Oh Lord,' he said, wiping his bright blue eyes at last, 'how I wish I had said that. Get away, you silly beast,' - this to the cat, which had now crawled up his breast and was rubbing its whiskers against his face, its eyes closed in a foolish ecstasy
'Killick, Killick there. Remove the bosun's cat: take it back to his cabin. Killick, do you know its name?'
Killick detected the slight tremble in his Captain's voice, and since for once he was feeling relatively benign he said No, he did not.
'Its name is Scourge,' said Jack, bursting out again. 'Scourge is the name of the bosun's cat, oh ha, ha, ha, ha!'

(chapter 3)

Scourge must be the only animal that loves Jack. :D

esteven

' We have laid down the island as exactly my God, what is that monstrous thing?'
'It is a tortoise, my dear. The great land-tortoise of the world: a new genus. He is unknown to science, and in comparison of him, your giants of Rodriguez and Aldabra are inconsiderable reptiles. He must weight a ton. I do not know that I have ever been so happy. I am in such spirits, Jack! How you will ever get him aboard,I cannot tell; but nothing is impossible to the Navy.'
'Must we get him aboard?'
'Oh, no question about it. He is to immortalise your name. This is Testudo aubreii for all eternity; when the I hero of the Nile is forgotten, Captain Aubrey will live on in his tortoise.
There's glory for you.'
'Why, I am much obliged, Stephen, I am sure. I suppose we might parbuckle him down the beach.

(chapter 11)

Testudo aubreii just has to put in an appearance at

where_away

esteven

On a walk of this kind in the Mediterranean islands he usually saw tortoises, which he did not dislike at all - far from it - but they seemed rare on Gozo, and it was not until he had been going for some time that he heard a curious tock-tock-tock and he saw a small one running, positively running across the road, perched high on its legs; it was being pursued by a larger tortoise, who, catching it up, butted it three times in quick succession: it was the clap of the shells that produced the tock-tock-tock. 'Tyranny,' said Jack, meaning to intervene: but either the last blows had subdued the smaller tortoise - a female ? or she felt that she had shown all the reluctance that was called for; in any case she stopped. The male covered her, and maintaining himself precariously on her domed back with his ancient folded leathery legs
he raised his face to the sun, stretched up his neck, opened his mouth wide and uttered the strangest dying cry.
'Bless me,' said Jack, 'I had no notion . . . how I wish Stephen were here.' Unwilling to disturb them, he fetched a cast quite round the pair and walked on, trying to recall some lines of Shakespeare that had to do not exactly with tortoises but with wrens...

(chapter 2)

This charming scene has it all: tortoises, Jack yearning for Stephen and sex. ;D

heather_mist

"'Come, let me have your pistols. I thought as much: what's this?'
'A teratoma,' said Stephen sulkily.
'What's a teratoma?' asked Jack, holding the object in his hand. 'A kind of grenado?'
'It is an inward wen, a tumour: we find them, occasionally, in the abdominal cavity. sometimes they contain long black, hair, sometimes a set of teeth: this has both hair and teeth. It belonged to a Mr Elkins of the City, an eminent cheese-monger. I prize it much.'
'By God,' cried Jack, thrusting it back into the holster and wiping his hand vehemently upon the horse, 'I do wish you would leave people's bellies alone. So you have no pistols at all, I collect?'
'If you wish to be so absolute, no I have not.' "

Post Captain, Chapter Three

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Ram and Puss

Confirmation about where & when Stephen discovered a lump of 'ambergris'

Less physical aspects

joining, separating, twining, rising into their native air

Jack and the Marines

Slicing Pineapples for Stephen

pianpianissimo

Cracking Walnuts

Halleluiah Chorus and musical pleasure on a less heroic scale

The (possibly not so) dear Surprise

The lesser of two weevils

Diana and The Blue Peter

I should kiss the messenger

A wombat and a hat

"Us", "Them" and a meeting with an equal

One debauched sloth

Scourge, the bosun's cat

Testudo Aubreii for all eternity

Tortoises are having it away and Jack gives them room to manoeuvre

A teratoma, but no pistols

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