Guardian 28,412 / Pasquale

94 comments on “Guardian 28,412 / Pasquale”

1. I really enjoyed this puzzle, thanks Pasquale. CLEAR-HEADEDNESS was a wonderfful anagram and I loved the surface for LECHER. My attempted parsing of CROQUET was all over the place so thanks Eileen.

2. “ingenious constructions” indeed. GUILTY in particular… it’s not really an &lit, is it? But I love the way all the parts contribute to the whole.

3. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen
   Quite a variety of clueing; some “guess the answer, then parse” (FOOTHOLD and SUSPECT, for example), but also some “build up from its parts”, such as the 1s. I liked UTOPIA too, but only because I saw More the author.
   Eileen, what’s the reason for the “ices” plural of “ex” words? I’m familiar with “indices” (though “indexes” is becoming more common), but I’ve never seen “ibices” before; sources I’ve found give it as valid, but “ibexes” as more normal.

4. Is not the Latin plural of ibis ibes or ibides, rather than ibices?

5. John Wells @4 – yes, it is but we’re looking for the goat (ibex), not the bird (ibis).

6. Why does the clue for 19d need both “gone” and “abandoned”? One would suffice.

7. LOI was ICONIC because as an erstwhile chemist I dismissed “ionic” because carbon bonds are almost always covalent. Didn’t see Sir Thomas until I came here.
   Thanks to Eileen and the Don.

8. JW@6: one to remove O and one as the anagrind.

9. muffin @3 ‘ices’ is the regular Latin plural ending of third declension nouns ending in ‘ex’.

10. Thanks Eileen. I’ve also confirmed that “ibex” originally derives from Latin.

11. John Wells @6 – I’ve amended the blog to make it clearer, I hope.

12. Oh dear, I had SCENIC for 15a but obviously I couldn’t really parse it. I looked up the plural of ibex and it gave IBEXES which clearly wouldn’t work here but I didn’t know CENTESIMO either although I found it. I didn’t know OTHO. I enjoyed CAMBERED and BEER MUG. Thanks Eileen and Pasquale.

13. Not a new solver, just dim.. forgot More’s Utopia, again! And nho Emperor Otho. I must’ve met Fawcett the activist, at least in a suffrage series, but no bell rang. But yes, all gettable, a nice gentle puzzle. And lire and centesimi I do remember from before the euro. Always liked slough for bog, fits its other, “…of despond”, use. All enjoyable, thanks to the Don and Eileen.

14. .. oh yes ibices as in indices, well ok then…

15. Like Julia @12, I liked CAMBERED and BEER MUG.

    [‘Adverse Camber’ is the Half Man Half Biscuit song that Nigel Blackwell never wrote to go with ‘Soft Verges’ and ‘Keeping Two Chevrons Apart.

    Was Millicent Fawcett one of Charlie’s Angels? Just kidding!

    REDWOODS make me smile, remembering John Redwood and the Welsh National Anthem.]

    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen

16. [On travels to Italy in the 90’s I remember only dealing in thousands of lira, so I presume the CENTESIMO had vanished by then. But I see that Italians now use the word for hundredths of a euro]

17. Enjoyable and I agree gentle for this setter. Admired rhe anagram for CLEAR HEADEDNESS and chuckled at LECHER and UTOPIA once the More penny dropped. Thanks to the Don and Eileen for the excellent blog

18. I remember in a previous crossword, the answer LIBRARIES, was found by joining two overlapping signs: LIBRA and ARIES. I really liked that construction and saw it again today in CAMBERED.

    Really liked FAUCET (that one sprang out), BEER MUG, MOLEST, ICONIC, CROQUET and MOLEST.

    Managed to get FOOTHOLD and worked out there must be an emperor called Otho or Ooth

    Lovely puzzle but there were a few I couldn’t parse.

    Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen

19. When my first one in was TRAMP I did wonder for a very short while whether we would have a parade of Guardian setters’ names. Liked the clue, however obvious, for RIDINGS. I suppose Pasquale could have chosen the first woman to top the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, Philippa Fawcett, for the basis of 8d, but I believe she was quite the opposite of militant, something alliterative beginning with F for her instead…

20. The bottom half was a fairly quick solve with some lovely clauses but the top was a bit trickier and I couldn’t parse some of my guesses. NHO centesimo despite time spent camping in Italy before the euro.
    Thank you Eileen for the parsing, and Pasquale for the crossword.

21. That must be the otho’ emperor then!

    I agree with Eileen’s summary. I also thought the anagram for CLEAR-HEADEDNESS was great. My first thought with Millicent was Martin – I must watch too much television! IB. is short for ibid. , which is short for ibidem … well, I knew ibid. anyway. Another tick went to CLAMBERED.

    Thanks Pasquale for the fun and Eileen for the unravelling.

22. I didn’t know the IBICES version of the plural of ibex (it seems it can also be ibexes), but it was readily gettable from the wordplay and the analogy with indices. Apart from that, no unfamiliar words – unusual for Pasquale!

    Interesting that DEMESNE and domain have both similar pronunciations and meanings. Apparently they both come from Latin dominus but by different routes.

    Many thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

23. A rare occasion when I solved the long anagrams quickly, so a gentler solve than it might have been. Like others I enjoyed CAMBERED, and LECHER. We seem to be seeing a lot of fools in Belgian ports recently. I imagine RIDING isn’t new, but it was for me, so I liked that, too.

24. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. On the thick side of slow today and that took ages with much head-scratching! Back to the coffee for me…

    No real problems – just not firing on all (any?) cylinders this morning.

    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

25. Good puzzle, not one of Pasquale’s trickiest, as others have commented. He usually slips in one or two unusual words, but this time only the less common plural of ibex made an appearance (outside of Cruciverbia IBICES might be considered pedantic, like ‘octopodes’) [muffin@3: ‘indexes’ and ‘indices’ tend to be used in different contexts – the former for alphabetical lists and the latter for numerical values]. And I suppose DEMESNE isn’t a word you’d have cause to use down the pub.

    Splendid long anagram and plenty of other good clues – I particularly liked UTOPIA, CAMBERED and GUILTY. I knew Otho from Suetonius, but he is easily forgotten, being the shortest serving of the three briefly reigning emperors in the power struggle between Nero’s death and the rise of Vespasian.

    Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.

26. I tried to think of other “-ices” plural but could only come up with matrices and codices, though I like the idea of celebrities wearing two Rolices and former partners being ices.

27. Started with a flourish, with PATTER at 1a, then couldn’t justify it so carried on and enjoyed the rest. Rarely finish a Pasquale, so happy enough . . .

28. Quite difficult, but enjoyed most of it. I solved the bottim half first. Could not finish.

    Favourites: BEER MUG, SUSPECT, UTOPIA.

    Did not parse RIDING,SATIRE.

    Failed and could not parse IBICES, FAUCET – never heard of Millicent Fawcett.

    New: CAMBERED.

    Thanks, P+E.

29. I found this quite tricky but helped by the excellent long anagrams. SPLOTCH is such a lovely word and I also liked CAMBERED, THICKSET and LECHER. I walked past Thomas More’s statue in Cheyne Walk yesterday, so I’m sure that helped. I think I’ve seen TWERPS clued this way before.

    Ta Pasquale & Eileen for the elucidation.

30. Very nice, particularly BUBBLE-AND-SQUEAK, FAUCET and UTOPIA. Re TRAMP: I thought ‘walk, parking vehicle first’ meant that a ‘v’ was in the middle of a word for ‘walk’, but it wasn’t to be.

    Petert @ 26: “former partners being ices” – !

31. Coincidentally, come to think of it, I also passed Sylvia Pankhurst’s house which is about 100 yards from More’s statue, as is Turner’s rather than CONSTABLE’s. Apologies for being so boring 🙂

32. Did not get CENTESIMO (unknown) because I could only think of IBEXES for 4a and nho the Latin-derived plural.

    I had THICKEST instead of THICKSET for a while, and SCENIC for 15a (I’m no chemist, and Auriga’s experience suggests it might not have helped anyway). The alleged &lit for GUILTY doesn’t work for me, though I constructed it successfully. The LECHER &lit works a lot better.

    But I liked the two long anagrams and the Spooner, and CAMBERED and FAUCET and UTOPIA.

    Many of my older friends and relatives enthuse about bubble-and-squeak: can’t see the appeal myself.

33. Petert @26, narthices.

34. And cortices and apices. And now I feel the hay fever coming on again — where did I put the Kleenices?

35. Always on the lookout for odd words fairly clued with Pasquale so it’s a bit, um, odd when there aren’t any. CENTESIMO excepted: and that’s not entirely fairly clued because those not in the know (like me) have to decide between the correct answer and the just-about plausible ‘centemiso’. A minor slip from Pasquale’s normal high standards.

    The big anagram for CLEAR-HEADEDNESS was a cracker.

36. Petert @26: ices may or may not be of different sices

37. .. and sirices for a bit of sting…

38. Ronald @19: this isn’t the first time I’ve entered TRAMP as a solution and wondered the same as you. Has there ever been a puzzle based on setters’ monikers?

    Fiona Anne @18: if there wasn’t an Emperor called Ooth then there should have been!

    Like Julia, I had an unparsed SCENIC for a while and, like Mr Aphid, PATTER seemed a perfectly decent answer to 1a which caused a need for a rethink later. I have exactly the same list of ticks as AlanC: SPLOTCH, CAMBERED, THICKSET and LECHER but would nominate CLEAR HEADEDNESS over all of them as my COTD for that lovely anagram/surface combo. (The second of my ticks actually prompts my personal earworm for today, Gong’s magnificent Camembert Electrique album.)

    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen

39. … long pause… Gervase @36, absy brill !

40. Thanks as ever to the setter and to Eileen.

    Re. 12A – ‘thickset’ meaning ‘closely planted’ – a bell was rung, alas, and it has led to much rummaging and cursing in Chateau Catflap this morning. Many years ago I spent an improbable amount of my time in research libraries reading early gothic novels, of most of which I now retain not the foggiest recollection. However, I did use a passage from Louisa Stanhope’s 1819 novel, ‘The Festival of Mona’ as a handout to my students to illustrate the kinds of cliches and stylistic excesses that could characterise such publications. The works of Ms Stanhope are unknown to Project Gutenberg, so I have had to fish a photocopy out of a dusty place (the garage) and then transcribe by hand this extract: really, I think almost any passage in the Stanhope oeuvre could have illustrated the point, so I am not now sure why this particular moment was selected – but it may amuse fellow-commentators. Our hero is called Xavier:

    “The door yielded; he darted forwards; he found himself tangled amidst briers and blossoming shrubs; yet he broke from the thraldom; he sprung across the beds and the pathways; he pierced into a THICKSET copse-wood; he beheld a woman struggling in the grasp of a man: one blow felled the dastard at his feet; and then he would have assured, but the woman fled. He pursued; he spoke of protection and comfort; the female paused; he saw her totter – he saw her sink upon the earth; he stooped – he raised her! Holy heaven! It was Sigrida! Her face, her hands, wan and cold as marble; her bosom heaving in convulsive agony.”

41. PostMark @38

    I thought there had been a puzzle around setters’ names but all I can find just now is an Indy puzzle by Serpent (his 100th) last December which had a Nina of the names of four setters who had encouraged him.

    (Digging a little deeper, I’ve just found a Maskarade Bank Holiday special featuring thirty (!) Guardian setters’ names.)

42. P.S. – Correction: they’re not all Guardian setters.

43. Spooner’s catflap @40 – many thanks for that and for taking so much trouble!

44. I’m in the “bottom half easy, top half difficult” group – especially the NE. The long anagrams were excellent, especially 9a. NHO this Millicent (like Robi @21, I could only think of Martin). I particularly liked ICONIC and the RIDINGS. Thanks, Pasquale and Eileen.

45. Eileen@41 trust you to dig that little bit deeper to uncover Maskarade’s Guardian multisetters puzzle! Many thanks for that….

46. [Further to the subject of -ex plurals, some slime moulds live much of the time as single celled organisms, but under certain conditions they aggregate to form a multicellular structure which differentiates to form a fruiting body. This structure is called a grex (Latin for ‘herd’), the plural of which is greges and not grices. Are there any other Latin words which form their oblique cases in this way? Help, please Eileen!]

47. …even if I’ve not properly studied the exact text of your message, that they weren’t all Guardian setters…

48. …rex pl reges, of course

49. [Gervase @46: like rex/reges?
    …and unlike tex-mex/tices-mices]

50. You beat me to it with rex / reges, Gervase. On the same lines, of course, there’s lex / leges. Grex does not behave in the same way as ibex because gr is not a syllable.

51. Thanks for the blog , I think most people enjoyed this more than me. Too many tired old crossword setting cliches for my taste. If I see MORE WORK one more time ….

52. The field of play for croquet is called a court, is it not? Anyway, for 16D, I parsed the court game CROQUET as R (queen) in COQUET (a man who flirts, and thus, quite possibly, a womaniser). Can’t fault Eileen’s parsing though.

53. I always struggle with Pasquale, it seems, and getting an interrupted sleep last night didn’t help. Too much information? Just leading up to saying that several people found the bottom half easier than the top, but I had a large blank space in the SW until suddenly the brain fog dispersed and ICONIC, CLOSE-UP and the emperor OTHO appeared. Last one in was FAUCET, having coincidentally solved a clue whose answer was SPIGOT recently. I liked THICKSET and CAMBERED, and have been enjoying the clever wordplay below the line regarding Latin plurals. (I have been known to complain about anagrams for obscure words, but the -SIMO ending is surely familiar enough to make 6d a fair clue, pace Trailman @35.)

    Thanks to setter, blogger and others.

54. Eileen@41 There’s another coincidence,but that would be a spoiler.

55. [Eileen @41: just popping in to acknowledge your efforts. I do recall that Serpent now you mention it. Thanks for digging out the Maskerade – I don’t tend to do those so, even with the obvious and unavoidable spoiler, I may go back and give that a try for the fun of it.]

56. Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen for the excellent blog.
    Agree with Eileen that this was a gentle solve with fair clueing and great surfaces. Just a little eyebrow raise at REHEARS. I suppose it must be a word but I’ve never heard it used.
    We enjoyed our bubble and squeak only yesterday. Always the traditional follow up to Christmas / Easter roast chez nous!

57. Loved the puzzle, great blog.

    I had no problem with ibices because I’m used to using indices in the mathematical context for e.g. the quantities indicated by sub/superscripts. On the other hand, I use indexes for the back-of-the-textbook listings and search engine tables. Never said I was consistent …

58. Thanks both,
    Most people seem to have enjoyed this, as did I.
    [If Eileen has not had b&s since she was a child, what does she do with her left over cabbage and potatoes?]

59. No time to read above comments. Just to say thanks to Eileen for careful explanations and added info (eg rood and AD 69).

    PS Enjoyed today’s fair puzzle

60. trishincharente @56. REHEAR is in Chambers, but only in the sense of retrying a court case. I suppose Pasquale is being a bit cheeky, but has probably excused himself by the question mark at the end of the clue.

61. It’s hard not to admire a Pasquale puzzle. It’s like following a very, very precisely-drawn roadmap.

    With some setters I admit to occasionally cheating using the ‘Check’ button for more obtuse clues. With Pasquale it’s never necessary: you always know when you’ve arrived.

62. Thank you SH@60. I always forget to remember the legal sense of to hear, and it comes up a lot in crosswords!
    However, in this case (no pun intended) as the definition is PICKS UP AGAIN, that to me points more to the other type of hearing, in spite of the question mark.

63. That was my initial thought too, but I tend towards the position that a question mark can excuse almost anything. I think of it as having the same function as the road sign that means “watch out!” (which is actually an exclamation mark, but never mind).

64. Doug431@52 I too got to CROQUET via COQUET and R – though I agree that CT, Q and ROUÉ is probably the intended and more elegant path. I also arrived at THICK SET at first simply because it could describe a dense group, even though the rest of the wordplay meant that there was a lot more going on. And DEMESNE as a piece of land seemed to me to be an “abandoned” term in these post-feudal times.
    (It explains why in a maths exam you are often required to “show your working” rather than simply come up with the right answer!)

65. [Eileen @41 again: that was a fun solve. Helped by knowing what I was looking for though the theme was somewhat hard to miss! 30, as you said, in the solutions and another 36 mentioned in the clues! I certainly got more than I proverbially asked for. Thanks, once more, for digging it out.]

66. essexboy @49, I assume you are from the English county? There are also Essices in many US states.

67. As usual I agree with Eileen in finding this crossword gentle with meticulous cluing but again I was undone by a lack of knowledge — IBICES as the plural of IBEX, OTHO as a Roman Emperor, Millicent Fawcett, and the word LOUGH itself. Those aside I enjoyed this immensely especially CLEAR-HEADEDNESS with its
    remarkable anagram and apt surface. GUILTY was a high on my list with another good surface. Favourites also included TWERPS and DESPAIR. Thanks to both.

68. I managed to complete the 14 answers in the bottom half whilst the top was blank. Not sure I have done that before. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

69. Exactly the opposite of my solve, Paul8hours @68!

70. Nearly the same for me, Paul8hours – bottom full, with only CLEAR-HEADEDNESS in the top half for some time.

71. [Hi Ian SW3 @66 – yes, you assumed right, but thanks for pointing out the other Essices. I’ve just had a look – 18 Essices in the US! 13 towns (including, curiously, one in Middlesex County in Connecticut – perhaps not far from Valentine?) and 5 counties. Also Essex Township and Essexville in Michigan. And lest we forget our Canuck friends, there’s also Essex, Ontario.

    I gather there are also currently a couple of Sussices residing in California.

    Incidentally, I’ve always wondered about the absence of Nossex. We have Essex, Sussex, the historic/cricketing county of Middlesex, and the old kingdom of Wessex. Why no Nossex? (Although there was ‘Nossex please, we’re British!’ – at least not without durices.)]

    My apologies for failing to thank Pasquale and Eileen earlier. I enjoyed this very much, especially LOUGH, which reminded me of the 11 different ways of pronouncing OUGH, or 12 if we include Scots.

72. essexboy @71: Nossex please, we’re Angles, not Saxons! (Mercians, to be exact)

73. Really enjoyed this. I had the pleasure of working with Pasquale for a couple of years and love to see the little maths and science and editing references in his puzzles.

74. …and should the plural of Tex-Mex be either Teges-Meges or Tex-Mices?

75. I’d never known what BUBBLE AND SQUEAK was, it was some kind of British exotica like Weetabix and I thought might be stew of some sort. Your link, Eileen, wants permission to use geographic location and seems to ask for more personal details than I want to part with, so I googled it elsewhere and now I’m enlightened. Who’d a thunk it was all veggies?

    Thanks for explaining CROQUET, Eileen. I didn’t like my parsing, which was the same as Doug431’s @52, to put R (Queen) in COQUET (a male coquette who is successful with lots of women?) Never thought of ROUE, even if it does look like a man on wheels.

    I’d always assumed that a RIDING was defined by the distance somebody could ride. Now I know it’s “thirding,” one of three areas. That inspired me to find out what ridings are in Ontario, which I knew had them too — they’re electoral districts and there’s a lot more than three.

    CLEAR HEADEDNESS = (He’s declared sane)* is magnificent!

    Auriga@7 IONIC is “a type of chemical bond,” and then carbon comes into it.

    I can’t believe anybody ever says or writes “Ibices.” Do neurotics have complices? Some Latin plurals survive into common usage and most just don’t.

    OTHO looked so Germanic I thought he must be a Roman Emperor of the Holy kind. What’s a nice Roman boy doing with a name like that?

    It took me a while of reading British fiction to register “tap” as a Britishism, because it can be used for faucet here without raising much comment, but what’s even more British is “the sound of the taps,” which here wouldn’t be the sound of the faucets but the sound of the water. Curious stylistic subtlety.

    Eileen@41 I think I’ve given up on Maskarade monsters, including last weekend’s, but I did enjoy the setter one.

76. [Thanks Gervase @72/74; on googling I find I’m not the first to ask ‘Why no Nossex?’ This answer on quora.com suggests it could have been the East Angles who ‘over-printed’ the North Saxons, if they ever existed. In any case, as you say it seems we have the Angles to thank for the de-sexification. Re Tex-mices, cue flashback to Pixie and Dixie, and I hate meeces!]

77. Essexboy reminds me that there are not only Essices in both our countries but Middlesices. Yes, Essex CT isn’t far from Hartford, but I’ve never been there, though now that I know its Number One restaurant is Porky Pete’s BBQ I may have to give it a try. Looking it up, I find that it’s one of the few towns in the US to have been attacked by a foreign country — yours — in 1814. Just practice for burning down the White House, I suppose. One historian has called the event the Pearl Harbor of that war.

78. [Peterte@26. Thanks, I suppose… You had me laughing out loud, which isn’t the ideal behaviour when you have a cracked rib… And just for the record we’re trying a new wrinkle on bubble and squeak tonight, with blue spuds (“prunelles”)… should be colourful!]

79. I also went for the R in COQUET parsing for CROQUET. I wonder if Pasquale carefully crafted the clue to work either way, especially with COQUET being described as “obsolete” in Collins – a word right up Pasquale’s street presumably.
    My major stumbling block was putting CENTIMOES for 6, a centimo being a currency unit in various South American countries I think the plural may not have an E though. CAMBERED put me back on track.
    I’ve not heard of Millicent Fawcett, so that went in from definition alone. I agree that “militant” seems a bit harsh, but I suppose the alliteration is irresistible.
    Entertaining puzz. Thanks, Paz… and Eileen.

80. phitonelly @79 and others – I’m finding your parsing of CROQUET quite persuasive. I’d never come across the masculine form COQUET, so it didn’t enter my head (roué = womaniser / ladies’ man is such a crossword staple) but my rather old edition of Collins has it – ‘a gallant’ – but not denoted as obsolete.
    It’s not often that two parsings seem to be equally valid. Pasquale has been known to drop in here from time to time – but not recently, I think. I’d be interested to know what he thought of this one.

    I’m glad that the puzzle has gone down so well – many thanks for all your comments. (I’m sad that Millicent Fawcett is not more widely known. There was quite a fight to get her statue – see my link in the blog.)

81. Thanks for all the nice comments — I am glad this one went down so well

    1) Perhaps Hypatia would tell me who they are — I am intrigued to learn that a secret ex-colleague solves my puzzles
    2) Q in ROUE in Ct was my intention for CROQUET

    Pasquale

82. Many thanks, Pasquale – it’s always much appreciated when setters drop in.

83. Yes, thanks, Pasquale. 16 is a very nice example of a clue that legitimately parses in two distinct ways. The Wiki entry has: “Croquet is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls… in a grass playing court“. So the definition could quite reasonably be “court game” in the 2nd version of the parsing.

84. Yes, “court” can be used for the area in which croquet is played, but “lawn” is more usual.

85. [As the Secretary of a croquet club, I can confirm that we use ‘court’ and ‘lawn’ more or less interchangably. Little known fact: a croquet court is twice the size of a tennis court, which is why the All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon was so easily able to convert to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club – a little better known for the former sport than the latter.]

86. I took the definition of 15a to be “Portraying an image of a type” with the wordplay being the “… chemical bond involving carbon”. Isn’t Iconic not just an image but a representative image?

87. A very late comment in regards to plurals ending …ICES. There’s one that is quite common but for which the singular is virtually unknown – AUSPICES, singular auspex – which apparently derives from the Latin for bird watcher. Who knew?

88. phitonelly@87: That IS interesting – now to work it into a conversation…..

89. Hi phitonelly and Alphalpha

    Well, since you know that we see all comments on our blogs, I have to answer, don’t I?

    I did know the Latin auspex (one who observes the flight of birds and then predicts the future) but I didn’t expect to see it in an English dictionary. Chambers gives it only as the derivation of ‘auspice(s)’ but it’s in my SOED. Similarly, a haruspex (plural haruspices – also in SOED) was a soothsayer who practised divination by examining the entrails of sacrificial animals. There’s one in ‘Julius Caesar’ – ‘Beware the Ides of March!’.

90. Hi, Eileen. I enjoy all those little nuggets of information, so thanks for haruspex, which I’ve never heard of until now. I must try to remember it along with auspex. Those Romans sure did a lot of seering!
    Apologies for causing you to work overtime. Perhaps Gaufrid can give you time and a half? 😉

91. Hi again, phitonelly – I’m delighted that you saw my rather late response.

    No apology necessary – it’s quite literally a labour of love. 😉

92. Hi, Eileen —
    I saw it too, Sometimes I go back and look at puzzles a day or two old. There’s long been a game of hidden plurals, but “auspex” is my first acquaintance with a hidden singular, though I was dimly acquainted with his or her gut-watching colleague. Is there actually a haruspex in Julius Caesar pointing at the calendar? The text just says “soothsayer.”

93. Hi Valentine, if you’re still there.

    The translation of haruspex is ‘soothsayer’, who warns Caesar ‘Beware the Ides of March’ in Act I Scene 2.
    In Act II Scene 2, when Calpurnia tells Caesar of the ‘horrid sights’ there have been during the night, Caesar asks a servant, ‘What say the augurers?’. The servant replies,
    ‘They would not have you to stir forth today,
    Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,
    They could not find a heart within the beast’.
    Caesar:
    ‘The gods do this in shame of cowardice:
    Caesar should be a beast without a heart
    If he should stay at home today for fear.’

94. Well, that’s definitively haruspical. I just looked at the confrontation scene, where the soothsayer just says the famous five words several times. Didn’t think to consult Calpurnia. She was right; Thanks, Eileen, for doing my work for me.

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