John Keats Endymion

George Frederick Watts Endymion 1872

Lowry quotes from Keat's poem Endymion during Dana's drunken drift around Dairen in the novel Ultramarine; "Ah sorrow who dost borrow the lustrous passion from a falcon's eye," (Pg.116).

Endymion is a poem by John Keats first published in 1818. It begins with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever". Endymion is written in rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter (also known as heroic couplets). Keats based the poem on the Greek myth of Endymion, the shepherd beloved by the moon goddess Selene. The poem elaborates on the original story and renames Selene "Cynthia" Read more on Wikipedia

Keat's poem may have appealed to Lowry as in the poem  Endymion ventures into the underworld in search of his love corresponding to Dana's search for love in Dairen. Lowry would also have been aware of the coincidence in the name Cynthia being both the name of Endymion's lover but also the name of the woman lusted after by Demerest in Aiken's novel Blue Voyage.

Man, Know Thyself!

The Ancient Greek aphorism Man, Know Thyself was painted on the signboard above the Liverpool Museum of Anatomy which was visited by Lowry circa 1927. Lowry refers to the sign in a letter to Conrad Aiken dated 14th September 1952 (Collected Letters Vol 2 Pg. 597).

The Ancient Greek aphorism "Know thyself" (Greek: γνῶθι σεαυτόν, transliterated: gnōthi seauton; also ... σαυτόν ... sauton with the ε contracted), is one of the Delphic maxims and was inscribed in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi according to the Greek periegetic (travelogue) writer Pausanias (10.24.1).

The maxim, or aphorism, "know thyself" has had a variety of meanings attributed to it in literature. The Suda, a 10th-century encyclopedia of Greek knowledge, says: "the proverb is applied to those whose boasts exceed what they are,"and that "know thyself" is a warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude Wikipedia

The use of the sign at the Anatomy Museum may relate to the use of the aphorism in relation to anatomical fugitive sheets which were illustrations of the human body specially created to display internal organs and structures. The museum contained a variety of exhibits to show the internal organs of the body.

From 1539 onwards the phrase nosce te ipsum and its Latin variants were often used in the anonymous texts written for anatomical fugitive sheets printed in Venice as well as for later anatomical atlases printed throughout Europe. The 1530s fugitive sheets are the first instances in which the phrase was applied to knowledge of the human body attained through dissection.

However, a further clue to the use of the phrase by the Museum are the use of lines in their catalogue from Alexander Pope:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;

These lines are taken from Pope's poem 'Epistle II: Of the Nature and State of Man, With Respect to Himself as an Individual' (1734) which opens with an argument; "The business of Man not to pry into God, but to study himself. His middle nature; his powers and frailties. The limits of his capacity" and also contains the lines:

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man.

We must assume that Joseph Woodhead, the founder of the Museum, was familiar with Pope's poem.

The phrase was also used by Conrad Aiken in his novel Blue Voyage; "Know thyself!" he reflects, 'was the best joke ever perpetrated'. And what was he? A hurricane of maggots which answered to the name of Demerest." (Pg. 16). Lowry would have been struck by the coincidence of the sign with Aiken's use of the phrase.

Mick McGilligan’s Daughter, Mary Anne

Lowry refers to the song Mick McGilligan’s Daughter, Mary Anne in his novel Ultramarine; "Paddy - give us Paddy McGulligan's daughter, Mary Ann." (Pg. 64).

Mick McGilligan’s Daughter, Mary Anne is an anonymous Irish bawdy song, which only exists in print in Louis Tierney’s cleaned-up version:

I’m a gallant Irishman
I’ve a daughter Mary Anne
She’s the sweetest, neatest, colleen in the Isle
Though she can’t now purchase satin
She’s a wonder at bog latin
In a fluent, fascinatin’ sort of style
When she’s sellin’ fruit or fish
Sure, it is her fondest wish
For to capture with her charm some handsome man

Ah! no matter where she goes

Sure, everybody knows

That she’s Mick McGilligan’s daughter Mary Anne

Chorus:

She’s a darlin’, she’s a daisy

And she’s set the city crazy

Though in build, and talk, and manner, like a man

When me precious love draws near

You can hear the people cheer

For Mick McGilligan’s daughter Mary Anne

Alternative chorus:

She’s me darlin’, she’s me daisy

She damn near drives me crazy

She’s got hairs upon her chest like any man

And you know she’s on the rocks

When she’s wearin’ cotton socks

Mick McGilligan’s daughter, Mary Anne

There are eight more verses, which elaborate on the masculine qualities of Mary Anne. This has resonance in Ultramarine, for the underlying theme is that Dana is a ‘nancy’, i.e. effeminate and not a ‘real man’. James Joyce also alludes to this song in Ulysses; this may be a coincidence, but Lowry includes further allusions to Ulysses in Ultramarine, so it seems that he certainly was aware of Joyce’s reference to the song. Another possible influence is Conrad Aiken’s Blue Voyage, Chapter 3, when the gambler sings about a girl who ‘can’t keep her petticoat down’.

This song is not to be confused with another song The Great Big Wheel with another Mary Ann, which Lowry refers to in an untitled poem (Collected Poetry 265.1) and in his film script for Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night (Pg. 223). Lowry stated that he heard The Great Big Wheel from a neighbour; "The song about Mary Ann and the Ferris Wheel was sung for us, out of the blue, on New year's Eve, by one of our neighbours, a Guernsey fisherman of 75, who had come to visit us while we were revising the scene. He did not know what we were writing about. The song was probably written about 1890, is English, forgotten, if ever remembered, and even if ever published, which is doubtful, can be no longer copyright." (Notes on a Screenplay for F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night Pg. 72). This song is a different one to the one written by E. W. Rogers in June 1895, and sung by Arthur Lennard (1867-1954).