"A Vintage from Atlantis" by Clark Ashton Smith

11 months ago
19

Yarrr! Some pirate-speak, but from a time before the Hollywood movies imprinted a set of tropes and stereotypes in the public mind about what pirate-speak should be.

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging" - this is Proverbs 20:1, specifically the King James Version. The more modern translation seems to be "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler"

Barnaby Dwale appears to be a made up person? Certainly google doesn't know anything about him, so if he's real, he must be extremely obscure. But most likely just made up.

dubloons: a two-escudo gold coin, weighing 6.766 grams of 22-karat gold. Originally worth 4 Spanish dollars or 32 reales. The value of that much gold of that quality as of the date of this recording (Jun 13, 2023) would be 57.7577 USD per gram, so 6.766 grams * $57.7577 = $390.79. That's €362.27. Just the raw gold value alone is not bad for a coin!

The West Indies is a collective term for all the islands of the Caribbean (the Antilles), plus the Lucayan Archipelago (i.e. the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands)

Caribbees: an old name for the Lesser Antilles, which are all the smaller Caribbean islands from Anguilla and the Virgin Islands in the north to Grenada and Trinidad & Tobago in the south

chancre: a primary sore or ulcer at the site of entry of a pathogen, especially : the initial lesion of syphilis

coistrel: rogue, scoundrel, knave

bedlamite: lunatic

Falernus and Cecuba: actual real places which actually really produced wine, dating back to classical Greece, being located in or near Latium.

Rechabite: a member of a family group in ancient Israel that lived in tents rather than in houses and abstained from drinking wine. Or more generally, anyone who does not drink wine. There seems to be some disagreement between reliable sources on the pronunciation of the 'ch'.

reprobation: disapproval, blame, or censure

midge: a small two-winged fly that is often seen in swarms near water or marshy areas where it breeds. Also a slang term for a small or short person.

'sblood: we saw this used a lot in "Paul Clifford" and I never bothered to look it up since it's obviously just an interjection of some sort, but I decided to give it a look up now to see what exactly it is referring to. Shortened from God's blood. Primarily in the Middle Ages and up to the early modern era and to a rare extent today, people would curse on God/Christ's body parts rather than breaking the second commandment (not to use the Lord's name in vain oaths). In this case, the exclamation refers to Christ's blood shed during the crucifixion and the Eucharist under the form of wine.

slumgullion: no, not the stew, but the muddy slurry left behind after washing gold through a sluice. Slum is an old word for slime, and gullion meaning mud or cesspit

pannikin: small metal drinking cup

ribaldry: amusingly coarse or irreverent talk or behavior

calenture: feverish delirium supposedly caused by the heat in the tropics

causey: causeway, a raised way across wet ground or water

The picture used is an illustration from "Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts" by Frank R. Stockton, from either 1897, 1898, or 1926, I'm not sure exactly, but regardless, well out of copyright no matter which it ends up being.

To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/234/a-vintage-from-atlantis

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