The Dream (Oxford World's Classics), page 31
160 holy viaticum: the Eucharist administered to a person near death.
aspergillum: an implement for sprinkling holy water, taking the form of a brush or a hollow metal ball pierced with holes and attached to a shaft.
161 rochet: ‘An alb [see note to p. 102], only shorter and with tighter sleeves’ (GT ), reserved usually for bishops and abbots.
161 ritual: a book such as the Rituale Romanum (‘Roman ritual’), or another regional variant, containing rites of the Catholic Church.
‘Pax … ea’: ‘Peace be to this house.’ ‘And to all who dwell in it.’ These Latin phrases, and those that follow in this chapter, appear in the liturgy of extreme unction, a sacrament in which a sick or dying person is anointed with holy oils.
164 ‘Asperges me … dealbabor’: ‘You shall sprinkle me with hyssop, Lord, and I shall be cleansed; you shall wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow’ (incorporated into the liturgy from Psalm 51:7). Hyssop is a shrub mentioned in the Bible, whose twigs were used for sprinkling water or blood in rites of purification (Exodus 12:22, Numbers 19:18, etc.).
165 ‘Exaudi nos’: ‘Hear us’, the opening words of a prayer that calls on God to send down an angel from heaven to protect those present.
‘Credo in unum Deum’: ‘I believe in one God’, the first words of the Nicene Creed.
Kyrie eleisons: The Greek words Kyrie eleison (‘Lord have mercy’) also feature in the rite of extreme unction.
166 ‘Per istam … visum deliquisti’: ‘By this holy unction, and through his great mercy, may the Lord forgive you whatever sins you have committed through the sense of sight.’ Somewhat similar scenes of extreme unction occur in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856) and Sainte-Beuve’s Pleasure (1834), in which those authors also describe sins associated with the different senses. In his notes, Zola remarks on the ironic distance between Angélique’s limited experiences and the sins she is accused of here (Paris, BNF, nouv. acq. fr, MS 10324, f. 224). The same rite features in Zola’s later novels Lourdes (1894) and Rome (1896).
‘Per istam … auditum deliquisti’: ‘By this holy unction, and through his great mercy, may the Lord forgive you whatever sins you have committed through the sense of hearing.’
167 ‘Per istam … odoratum deliquisti’: ‘By this holy unction, and through his great mercy, may the Lord forgive you whatever sins you have committed through the sense of smell.’
‘Per istam … gustum deliquisti’: ‘By this holy unction, and through his great mercy, may the Lord forgive you whatever sins you have committed through the sense of taste.’
168 ‘Per istam … tactum deliquisti’: ‘By this holy unction, and through his great mercy, may the Lord forgive you whatever sins you have committed through the sense of touch.’
169 figures of donors: in religious artworks of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, those who commissioned or paid for the works were sometimes depicted as observers of the events unfolding in the image.
‘Accipe … saeculorum’: ‘Receive this burning light, and retain your anointing, so that when the Lord shall come to judgment, you may meet him with all the saints, and live for ever and ever.’ The placing of the lit candle in the dying person’s hands is intended to mirror the baptismal ceremony. These lines, adapted from that ceremony, may be appended to the liturgy of extreme unction as a means of reminding the dying person of his or her baptismal innocence.
175 English point: after the English parliament prohibited the import of fine Flemish lace in 1662, merchants smuggled it into the country from markets in Brussels. They then exported some of their stock to France under the name point d’Angleterre (‘English point’), where the new name caught on, and the old one, point de Bruxelles (‘Brussels point’), fell out of use (F. B. Palliser, A History of Lace, 2nd edn (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1875), 93).
177 ‘Ego … Sancti’: ‘I join you in matrimony, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’
‘Benedic … hunc’: ‘Bless, Lord, this ring.’
179 the Epistle side: the side of the church on which the Epistle is read, to the right of the altar, from the point of view of the congregation in the nave; the Gospel side is on the left.
Emile Zola, The Dream (Oxford World's Classics)
