Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

PART FIFTH
 ‘Thy aeriel part . . . body’: George Long’s translation () of the Medi-
tations
of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. This may refer either to Sue, or
Sue and Jude, hampered by society.
 Aldbrickham: Reading.
The same concluding incident
: divorce made 
final. In both cases divorces
had been granted because the husbands, Jude and Phillotson petitioned.
After the Divorce Act of 
 a single act of adultery by a wife was
su
fficient grounds for a husband to divorce her. A wife needed an aggra-
vating cause in addition to adultery––such as bigamy or incest. Arabella
therefore could not have divorced Jude.
 business. Anyhow we are living together . . . sense (,  also): MS
and serial have ‘business, I don’t known that you would have been free if
we had.’
 phantasmal, bodiless creature (also , ): MS and serial have
‘phantasmal, ethereal, bodiless creature’.
Jude fell back
. . . love him: from 
 onwards Jude complains only of
not knowing whether ‘she loved or could love him’. In MS he wanted to
know it was ‘passionately’. This is typical of the altogether simpler ver-
sion of Sue in the original text: such a question becomes impossible to
the later version of a complex, elusive woman.
caught by airy a
ffectations (,  also): MS deletes the blunter
‘caught in a tom-and-she-cat way’.
 or to do the other thing: i.e. ‘live in sin’ (,  also); missing in MS
and serial.
 Stay at home (,  also): in MS Sue directly begs Jude ‘Stay with
me!’
 I do love you: one of the few late changes (in ) indicating strong
feeling on Sue’s part not found in 
 or  (MS page missing). See
note to p. 
 above.
 oneyer: loner, individualist (?).
 Octavia . . . Livia . . . Aspasia . . . Phryne: Octavia, sister of Caesar
Augustus, wife of Mark Antony; Livia, wife of Augustus; Aspasia, mis-
tress of Pericles, and Phryne, model for Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Cnidus,
are all cited here as types of (beautiful) intelligent women from the
ancient world. Jude typically seems to overlook the reputation for
promiscuity of all but Octavia.
 ‘Can you keep . . . fetter’d love . . .’ (,  also): ‘Song’ by Thomas
Campbell (
–). MS and serial spell out the completion: ‘fetter’d
love from dying 
|
In the knot there’s no untying.’
Explanatory Notes


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 Though . . . it seems rather low to do likewise (,  also): in MS
and serial Sue does not promptly seize Arabella’s marriage as an excuse
for not taking the same step.
 Let the day perish . . . conceived: another reference to Job : . See note to
p. 
.
 They are making it easier . . . now: this is not true of Oxford in  where
the earlier opening of scholarships to all instead of only the poorest boys
had made it more di
fficult for the latter to obtain funding. Perhaps Hardy
is alluding to the newer universities founded in the nineteenth century;
or to extramural or ‘extension’ opportunities to attend lectures and
classes provided specially for the working classes.
 Melpomene: the muse of tragedy.
Little
Father Time (
,  also): MS has ‘Ancient’ (deleted).
 “For what man . . . take her”: Deuteronomy : .
 vitty: convenient, fitting.
 house of Atreus: said in Greek legend to be cursed. Its calamities form the
basis of Aeschylus’ trilogy, the Oresteia.
house of
Jeroboam: God says ‘ “I will bring evil upon the house of
Jeroboam” ’ in 
 Kings : .
‘royal-tower’d Thame’
: from Milton’s ‘At a Vacation Exercise’.
 Shapes like . . . multiplied: based on ‘All shapes like mine own self, hid-
eously multiplied’, from Shelley’s The Revolt of Islam (
), a revised
version of Laon and Cythna (see p. 
 above).
 the garland . . . sacrifice: possibly an allusion to ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’
by John Keats (
–): ‘To what green altar, O mysterious priest 
|
Leadst thou that heifer lowing at the skies 
|
And all her silken 
flanks with
garlands drest?’ (stanza 
).
 Stoke-Barehills: Basingstoke.
scot-and-lot freeholder
: freeholder who paid a local tax in relation to the
value of his property––the equivalent of today’s council tax.
 two parts of a single whole: see notes to p.  above and p.  below for
similarities to Wuthering Heights, and also notes to p. 
 and p. .
 returned to Greek joyousness . . . says . . . : the luminary may be Matthew
Arnold (
–) who in his essay ‘Culture and Anarchy’ () praised
Greek civilization for its ‘sweetness and light’, meaning something
like ‘beauty’ and ‘wisdom’. Compare the motto of Oxford University
‘Dominus illuminatio mea’: God is my light.
 However . . . weak: Sue’s perception of the ludicrousness of their position
is not found in MS, but is in 
 and all later texts. It is a bizarre
increase in sophistication.
 Positivists: followers of Auguste Comte (–), who confined all
enquiry to the data of experience and excluded metaphysical speculation.
Explanatory Notes


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Apart from ‘Agnostics’, all the other names cited in this passage refer to
dissenting Christian sects.
 Pugin: Augustus Pugin (–), architect of the Gothic (medieval)
Revival. Wren represents the classical tradition in architecture. Sue’s
distaste is part of her aversion towards the ‘medievalism’ of Christianity.
 Because of a cloud . . . no man!: based on  Corinthians : .
“done that
. . . eyes”: Judges 
: .
 Kennetbridge: Newbury, Berkshire.
 chaw high: ‘are socially affected or ambitious’, extended to mean ‘are
haughty’.
 “Then shall the man . . .  iniquity”: Numbers : .