FullReads

See where Timon’s servants stand in the only patch of sunlight in that black and bitter story:

Enter Flavius, with two or three SERVANTS.

1 Serv.: Hear you, master steward, where’s our master?
Are we undone? cast off? nothing remaining?

Flav.: Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you?
Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,
I am as poor as you.

1 Serv.: Such a house broke!
So noble a master fall’n! All gone! and not
One friend to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him!

2 Serv.: As we do turn our backs
From our companion thrown into his grave,
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick’d; and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,
With his disease of all-shunn’d poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone. More of our fellows.

Enter other Servants

Flav.: All broken implements of a ruin’d house.

3 Serv.: Yet do our hearts wear Timon’s livery;
That see I by our faces; we are fellows still,
Serving alike in sorrow: leak’d is our bark,
And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,
Hearing the surges threat; we must all part
Into this sea of air.

Flav.: Good fellows all,
The latest of my wealth I’ll share amongst you.
Wherever we shall meet, for Timon’s sake
Let’s yet be fellows; let’s shake our heads, and say,
As ’twere a knell unto our master’s fortunes,
“We have seen better days.” Let each take some.
(Giving them money.)
Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more:
Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.

[THE END]

Notes on Australianisms. Based on my own speech over the years, with some checking in the dictionaries. Not all of these are peculiar to Australian slang, but are important in Lawson’s stories, and carry overtones.

barrackers: people who cheer for a sporting team, etc. boko: crazy.

bushman/bushwoman: someone who lives an isolated existence, far from cities, “in the bush”, “outback”. (today: “bushy”. In New Zealand it is a timber getter. Lawson was sacked from a forestry job in New Zealand, “because he wasn’t a bushman” 🙂

bushranger: an Australian “highwayman”, who lived in the ‘bush’– scrub–and attacked and robbed, especially gold carrying coaches and banks. Romanticised as anti-authoritarian Robin Hood figures– cf. Ned Kelly–but usually very violent. US use was very different (more = explorer), though some lexicographers think the word (along with “bush” in this sense) was borrowed from the US…

churchyarder: Sounding as if dying–ready for the churchyard = cemetery

cobber: mate, friend. Used to be derived from Hebrew chaver via Yiddish. General opinion now seems to be that it entered the language too early for that–and an English etymology is preferred.

fiver: a five pound (sterling) note (or “bill”)

fossick: pick out gold, in a fairly desultory fashion. In old “mullock” heaps or crvices in rocks.

jackaroo: (Jack + kangaroo; sometimes jackeroo)–someone, in early days a new immigrant from England, learning to work on a sheep/cattle station (U.S. “ranch”.)

kiddy: young child. “kid” plus ubiquitous Australia “-y” or “-ie” nobbler: a drink, esp. of spirits overlanding: driving (or, “droving”, cattle from pasture to market or railhead.

pannikin: a metal mug.

Pipeclay: or Eurunderee, Where Lawson spent much of his early life (including his three years of school…

Poley: name for s hornless (or dehorned) cow.

skillion(-room): A “lean-to”, a room built up against the back of some other building, with separate roof.

sliprails: portion of a fence where the rails are lossely fitted so that they may be removed from one side and animal let through.

smoke-ho: a short break from, esp., heavy physical work, and those who wish to can smoke.

sov.: sovereign, gold coin worth one pound sterling

splosh: money

Sqinny: nickname for someone with a squint.

Stousher: nickname for someone often in a fight (or “stoush”)

swagman (swaggy): Generally, anyone who is walking in the “outback” with a swag. (See “The Romance of the Swag”.) Lawson also restricts it at times to those whom he considers to be tramps, not looking for work but for “handouts” (i.e., “bums” in US. In view of the Great Depression, 1890->, perhaps unfairly. In 1892 it was reckoned 1/3 men were out of work)