poliphilo

Matthew turned up on Sunday with more of his mother's books. I thought we'd had the lot- but we hadn't. Perhaps we have now. They arrived in four black plastic refuse sacks.

I sorted through them yesterday. They're less varied than the last lot- which makes the job easier. Ailz will keep the Katherine Kerrs, I'll keep the books about reincarnation. Neither of us are into vampires or hypnotherapy so almost everything else is up for grabs. My daughter might be interested. There are one or two oddities- for instance a biography of George Borrow and a copy of Decker's Gull's Hornbook.

I'll keep the Dekker. I might even buckle down and read it. I dipped; it's fantastical and slangy. That generation was making the language up as they went along- slinging the bat, joyously, like Laurel and Hardy in a food fight- and if they were Shakespeare their coinages mostly stuck and if they were Dekker they mostly didn't.

What's this about a "cockatrice"? Oh, I see he means "girlfriend". Well, why not...