Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Alan Moore's Jerusalem: Book 3: Vernall's Inquest: Round the Bend: Line 10.

Line 10: "Not a dripple Nora drop was she aloud."

Non-Lucy-Lips Version: "Not a dribble nor a drop was she allowed."
I mean, obviously, right?! Who am I helping with these translations?!

"a dripple"
Changing "dribble" to "dripple" isn't much of a mind-blowing moment here, Alan. I can only suspect that it's to evoke the idea that Nora's breast milk would be more like "ripple wine" (which should exist in the same space of time as this moment in Lucia's life as I think this is sometime in the 70s or so). Perhaps the sense is that Lucia's mother (and let's include her father as well) were a bit more concerned with partying than raising a family. Nora proclaimed in letters that James drank too much but does that mean Nora didn't? I don't know! I'm sure she drank enough with him when they were young parents.

"Nora"
Nora Barnacle, Lucia's mother.

"aloud"
"Audibly; not silently or in a whisper." Does this suggest Lucia always made herself heard? Or did Nora prevent Lucia from being heard? Being that the sentence begins with a negative, it feels like "being heard" is something Nora kept Lucia from being. Nora not listening to her daughter would fit this statement when combined with the previous sentence in which Lucia was denied her mother's teat. Perhaps less as an act of withholding and simply that Nora simply did not (or would not) "hear" her daughter's cries for nourishment and attention.

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