Ivanhoe

CHAPTER XVI

1 (p. 167) epigraph: The lines are from Thomas Parnell’s The Hermit (1729; lines 1-6).

2 . (p. 174) Shadrach … King of the Saracens: The king here is Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon; in the Bible, the brothers Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walk untouched through the fire in Daniel 3. The English came to apply the term “Saracen” to any Muslim rather than specifically to the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula, its original Greek designation.

3 (p. 177) scissors … scimitar of Goliath: In the biblical account, Delilah emasculates Samson by cutting off his hair while he slept (Judges 16:19); Jael nails a tent-peg through the head of Sisera, also sleeping (Judges 4:21); and Goliath’s scimitar fails to defend him from a slingshot to the head delivered by the boy David (1 Samuel 17:40-51).

4 (p. 178) make the harp-strings tinkle: [Author’s note] The Jolly Hermit. All readers, however slightly acquainted with black letter, must recognise in the clerk of Copmanhurst, Friar Tuck, the buxom confessor of Robin Hood’s gang, the curtal friar of Fountain’s Abbey.