Jenny

A new literary quiz at irregular intervals, usually with a theme. This week: Once more our gorgeous Ferret has fearlessly delved the literary sewer-pipes - this time, to find ten Jennies for you to identify. Please, please note: the answer "Jenny" scores nul points. Some of you skulking loafers seem to have forgotten the simple rules! One point for the author. One point for the title of the book (or whatever). And NO BONUS POINTS unless authorised by ME! Got the message, ladies? Good. Oh! Don't rely on any proper names .... Courteous and appreciative comments by your Quizmaster are to be found in [square brackets]. The rest is pure Ferret, apart from the eleventh Jenny, which is at the very end of the Quiz.

The quotations in these quizzes reflect my own tastes - Dead White Males, for the most part (Jane Austen, of course, counts as an honorary DWM). There will never be anything wilfully obscure. If you're the sort of person who sneers at the naïveté of the reviewers in the TLS and New York Review of Books, you'll recognize them at once. I welcome suggestions and insults. You'll find an e-mail tag lying around somewhere. Please put QUIZ in the subject line.

1)

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
    Jumped up from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who loves to get
    Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
    Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
    Jenny kiss'd me.







Answer

2)

    Lizzie finished putting the hair carefully back over the misshapen shoulders, and then lighted a candle. It showed the little parlour to be dingy, but orderly and clean. She stood it on the mantelshelf, remote from the dressmaker's eyes, and then put the room door open, and the house door open, and turned the little low chair and its occupant towards the outer air. It was a sultry night, and this was a fine-weather arrangement when the day's work was done. To complete it, she seated herself in a chair by the side of the little chair, and protectingly drew under her arm the spare hand that crept up to her.
    'This is what your loving Jenny Wren calls the best time in the day and night,' said the person of the house. Her real name was Fanny Cleaver; but she had long ago chosen to bestow upon herself the appellation of Miss Jenny Wren.
    'I have been thinking,' Jenny went on, 'as I sat at work to-day, what a thing it would be, if I should be able to have your company till I am married, or at least courted. Because when I am courted, I shall make Him do some of the things that you do for me. He couldn't brush my hair like you do, or help me up and down stairs like you do, and he couldn't do anything like you do; but he could take my work home, and he could call for orders in his clumsy way. And he shall too. I'll trot him about, I can tell him!'





Answer

3)

I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;
Her coat is of the tabby kind, with tiger stripes and leopard spots.
All day she sits upon the stair or on the steps or on the mat:
She sits and sits and sits and sits - and that's what makes a Gumbie Cat!

But when the day's hustle and bustle is done,
Then the Gumbie Cat's work is but hardly begun.
And when all the family's in bed and asleep,
She tucks up her skirts to the basement to creep.
She is deeply concerned with the ways of the mice -
Their behaviour's not good and their manners not nice;
So when she has got them lined up on the matting,
She teaches them music, crocheting and tatting.






Answer

4)

WELSH-GIT SCHOOLMASTER: What is your genitive case plural, Snot-Nosed Schoolboy?
SNOT-NOSED SCHOOLBOY: Genitive case?
WELSH-GIT SCHOOLMASTER: Ay.
SNOT-NOSED SCHOOLBOY: Genitive: horum, harum, horum.
STEREOTYPICAL COMIC WHORE: Vengeance of Jenny's case; fie on her! Never name her, child, if she be a whore.
WELSH-GIT SCHOOLMASTER: For shame, 'oman.
STEREOTYPICAL COMIC WHORE: You do ill to teach the child such words. He teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves; and to call 'horum'; fie upon you!
WELSH-GIT SCHOOLMASTER: 'Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.
BOURGEOIS HAUSFRAU: Prithee hold thy peace.





Answer

5)

    I was glad to be a morning ghost for it was only during my little vigil by the Cross that I could be seen, and then not by everybody, and after that I was free for the day, and not visible at all, so I might go where I pleased and startle no one. The night ghosts are less fortunate, for, as I once said, the dark shows them up, and it is a sad thing to be feared. Besides for some reason which I do not know most of the night ghosts have sorrows. I had none. My only duty was to sit for half an hour in the morning by the Cross, smiling as the sun came up. This was all due to Robert, my own true love. Thanks to him I was a smiling ghost. None of us can escape a little duty and mine could not have been lighter.





Answer

6)

Jenny, you know the city now.
A child can tell the tale there, how
Some things which are not yet enroll'd
In market-lists are bought and sold
Even till the early Sunday light,
When Saturday night is market-night
Everywhere, be it dry or wet,
And market-night in the Haymarket.
Our learned London children know,
Poor Jenny, all your mirth and woe;
Have seen your lifted silken skirt
Advertize dainties through the dirt;
Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke
On virtue; and have learned your look
When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare
Along the streets alone, and there,
Round the long park, across the bridge,
The cold lamps at the pavement's edge
Wind on together and apart,
A fiery serpent for your heart.





Answer

7)

    "Jenny, all my life I have wanted to do miracles. I have wanted to be holy. I suppose it was ambition or pride or some other unworthy thing. It was not enough for me to conquer the world - I wanted to conquer heaven too. I was so grasping that it was not enough to be the strongest knight - I had to be the best as well. That is the worst of making day-dreams. It is why I tried to keep away from you. I knew that if I was not pure, I could never do miracles. And I did do a miracle, too: a splendid one. I got a girl out of some boiling water, who was enchanted into it. She was called Elaine. Then I lost my power. Now that we are together, I shall never be able to do my miracles any more."





Answer

8)

Und es werden kommen hundert gen Mittag an Land
Und werden in den Schatten treten
Und fangen einen jeglichen aus jeglicher Tür
Und legen ihn in Ketten und bringen vor mir
Und fragen: Welchen sollen wir töten?
Und an diesem Mittag wird es still sein am Hafen
Wenn man fragt, wer wohl sterben muss.
Und dann werden Sie mich sagen hören: Alle!
Und wenn dann der Kopf fällt, sag ich: Hoppla!

Und das Schiff mit acht Segeln
Und mit fünfzig Kanonen
Wird entschwinden mit mir.


And hundreds will come ashore around noon
And will step into the shadows
And will catch anyone in any door
And lay him in chains and bring him before me
And ask: Which one should we kill?
And at that midday it will be quiet at the harbor
When they ask, who has to die.
And then they'll hear me say: All of them!
And when the heads roll, I'll say: Hurray!

And the ship with eight sails
And with fifty cannons
Will disappear with me.





Answer

9)

    As for her cousins, Georgina and Bessie, they called her Creeping Jenny. Mary Anne was so pleased at the name when she first heard it that she was actually betrayed into a confidence: she, too, had seen that her long plait of hair matched the amber flower. But her Cousin Georgina soon put her right about the reason for her nickname. She was a Creeping Jenny because she slipped about the house as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth: you never knew when she was in the room with you. Georgina supposed that Mary Anne wanted to overhear Georgina's secrets. Was that it? Wasn't that it? Bessie had caught her listening, hadn't she now, only last week? Why didn't she answer? Look how red she was getting! Oh, the quiet little thing! Oh it was mean to be as good as Mary Anne! Georgina did hate a Creeping Jenny!





Answer

10)

"Sailorman, I'll give to you
My bright silver penny,
If out to sea you'll sail me
And my dear sister Jenny."

"Get in, young sir, I'll sail ye
And your dear sister Jenny,
But pay she shall her golden locks
Instead of your penny."

They sail away, they sail away,
O fierce the winds blew!
The foam flew in clouds,
And dark the night grew!

And all the wild sea-water
Climbed steep into the boat;
Back to the shore again
Sail they will not.

Drowned is the sailorman,
Drowned is sweet Jenny,
And drowned in the deep sea
A bright silver penny.





Answer

1)
Jenny Kissed Me, Leigh Hunt. The Jenny in question was Jane Carlyle, so it was perhaps less of a pleasure than a surprise. [In vers d'occasion a man is not upon oath. Ferret is almost as unkind to Leigh Hunt as Dickens was when he caricatured - nay, libelled! - him in Bleak House. But on the other hand, someone who knew the Carlyles said that it was a merciful dispensation of Providence that they should have married each other, thereby making only two people miserable instead of four.]


Back to Question 1

2)
Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens. Jenny Wren/Fanny Cleaver, dwarf, and doll's-dressmaker. [As so often is the case when a character is singled out for criticism as unrealistic, "Jenny Wren" was one of the relatively rare Dickens characters who were directly drawn from "real" life.]


Back to Question 2

3)
The Old Gumbie Cat, T.S. Eliot. [Ferret's free gift for this week. Even Phunter will score heavily on this extract.]


Back to Question 3

4)
Merry Wives of Windsor, W. Shaxper. The characters are Sir Hugh, the Welsh school master, Mistress Quickly, little William Page, and Mrs Page. Mistress Quickly, like the audiences for Beyond Our Ken assumes that any word she cannot understand is rude. [Not only Shaxper's worst play, but one of the worst plays ever performed. I must speak up for the happy multitudes who laughed (and still laugh) at Beyond Our Ken and Round The Horne. Among them were (and are) to be found many persons of high understanding; but all understood (and understand) the conventions of the genre.]


Back to Question 4

5)
Faithful Jenny Dove, Eleanor Farjeon. A charming ghost story. [You may say so, dear heart, but I could not possibly comment.]


Back to Question 5

6)
Jenny, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Poor Mr Rossetti's poetic musings as the young woman whom he has hired to entertain him falls soundly and determinedly asleep. And who can blame her? (I hasten to say that it would only have been Jenny's ankles that were being advertised .... but that would have been enough to reduce potential customers to a frenzy of lust.) [That's pretty anklear to me, ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!]


Back to Question 6

7)
The Once and Future King, T.H. White. Poor Lancelot tries to explain himself to Queen Guinevere (Jenny). [This speech seems very real to me. THW must have known (and lusted after) several such small-brained star athletes. He catches the sentimentality and self-worship of the type very well indeed.]


Back to Question 7

8)
Pirate Jenny, Bertolt Brecht, from the Weill/Brecht Threepenny Opera. It was originally supposed to have been sung by the actress playing Jenny Diver, but was mysteriously taken down a tone and re-assigned to the composer’s wife .... [Ten bonus points if you knew the German title of the song, Seeräuberjenny.]


Back to Question 8

9)
The Babylons, Clemence Dane - readers of a sympathetic disposition will be pleased to hear that the two little beasts get their just deserts. [To me, Georgina and Bessie seem the only redeeming features of this vile piffle.]


Back to Question 9

10)
The Silver Penny, Walter de la Mare. A rather disturbing little verse, I think. [Every author dreams of a holocaust consuming the entire reading public, and is sure to allude to these dreams from time to time. Many thanks to our darling Guest Quizmistress, who very definitely is not a creeping Ferret!]

And, finally, here's the most famous Jenny of them all:




Back to Question 10

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Last Updated: 20 November 2009