wiki-illiam #107: q8

[dubdobdee]

What:

i: distinguishes armillata?
Birds or beasts termed armillata are "collared" or "GARTERED", viz the
Red-gartered Coot (Fulica armillata) (JW)
ii: title was inaugurated before Agincourt?
Henry V inaugurated the ceremonial role GARTER KING OF ARMS in 1415 (PJ)
iii: else did he end apart from PM, CH and OM?
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, Hon. RA: ie as well as Prime Minister, he was a Knight of the Garter, with the Order or Merit, a Companion of Honour, Territorial Decoration, Privy Counsellor, Deputy Lieutenant, Fellow of the Royal Society, Honorary Membery of the Royal Academy (AT)
iv: action did his inamorata take prior to the duet?
"His inamorata adjusted her GARTER/And lifted her voice in duet" from verse 2 of Flanders & Swann's 'The Hippopotamus Song" (JW via google)
v: did fat-guts command that Harry should use to hang himself?
Falstaff: "Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent GARTERS!" (Henry IV, part 1, Act II, Sc 2) (JW)
vi: function was required of Bertha's garter during the trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back?
In August 1888, Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back in the Patent Motor Car built by her husband Carl: she was an excellent mechanic herself, at one point insulating the worn-through ignition wire with the help of a GARTER (AM)
vii: sartorial feature earned comment from Lear's Fool?
Fool: "Ha, ha, he wears cruel GARTERS; Horses are ty'd by the Heads, Dogs and Bears by th' Neck, Monkeys by th' Loins, and Men by th' Legs" (King Lear Act II Sc1) (PJ)
viii: was dangling from Buckingham's death bed?
"The George and Garter dangling from that bed/Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies", Alexander Pope's 'The Death of the Duke of Buckingham' (KP)
ix: does make some obstruction of the blood?
Malvolio: "Sad, lady! I could be sad: this does make some obstruction in the blood, this CROSS-GARTERING; but what of that?" (Twelfth Night, Act III Sc 4) (DDD)
x: might I have as a threat of punishment?
"I'll have your GUTS FOR GARTERS" (MM and BK)

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Thought (ii) might be Order of the Garter, but the date is surely wrong.
(ix) as a consequence reminded me of Twellth Night: Malvolio gets crossed-gartered to sex up Olivia and something like this is said.
(v), (vii) and possibly (viii) all also seem Shakespeare-related: (vi) less so, but it mentions garters!

So er after all that we don't have much.

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

Shakespeare did Agincourt, too. Henry the something part something?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Agincourt is Henry V, and there are Buckinghams all over the historical plays IIRC

[(Anonymous)]

Google sez Henry V created the office of Garter King of Arms in 1415. The Garter King outranks the Usher of the Black Rod, whose title gave me no end of mirth at the last opening of parliament in NZ. Hur hur, black rod, etc.

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

Gah, LJ has eaten my comment.

Henry V created an office of the Order of the Garter, Garter King of Arms, in 1415. So it was literally created before (tho probably unrelated to) Agincourt.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's definitely "this cross-gartering" that obstructs the blood etc!

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

Lear's fool makes some quip about garters - dogs are chained by the neck and men by the legs. Will have to look up the exact wording, though. School was a long time ago.

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

Act II Sc I:

Fool: Ha, ha, he wears cruel Garters; Horses are ty'd by the Heads, Dogs and Bears by th' Neck, Monkeys by th' Loins, and Men by th' Legs...

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

vi: Mannheim-Pforzheim-Mannheim was something like the First Ever Automobile Trip of Any Distance, and is still commemorated regularly, I believe. Was Mrs Daimler named Bertha, possibly, and her garter used to hold some broken part together??

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

Or as a drive band of some sort?

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

ha turns out it was actually BENZ's wife who was named Bertha, not Daimler's. Close!

(Checked the actual answer as well; neither of us has the exact mechanotechnical explanation down, but both are so close it should not bother us overmuch, I think.)

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

If it is all garter-relaed, surely x is 'I'll have yr guts for....'?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

there is a thing called a garter snake, maybe that's (i)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

armillata in latin names indicates 'collared' or 'gartered', yes. Could be a bird just as easily though.

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

The OM and CH (and maybe PM too?) are honours awarded in Commonwealth countries. If iii refers to them, it might be something to do with Australia or another country that has stopped giving Queen's Honours in favour of local variants. Australia and Canada have, and NZ sort of did but they brought back knighthoods and damehoods a couple of years ago.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

This could also* be the Order of the Garter, in that case -- no longer awarded in the commonwealth at large?

*Well, not also, since (ii) probably isn't the Order of the Garter.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

viii seems to be "the George and Garter" (thanks to Pope)

[thebopkids.livejournal.com]

x: "I'll have your guts for garters", a threat much used by my kind and gentle mother.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Have found iv. via Google. It comes from the second verse of The Hippopotamus Song a.k.a. "Mud, Mud, glorious (Les Gray's) Mud":

The fair hippopotama he aimed to entice
From her seat on that hilltop above
As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice
Came tiptoeing down to her love
Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound
Of the song that they sang when they met
His inamorata adjusted her garter
And lifted her voice in duet

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Have also found v. via Google, correctly guessing first that "fat-guts" = Falstaff.

From Henry IV, part 1, Act 2, Scene 2:

PRINCE HENRY
Out, ye rogue! shall I be your ostler?

FALSTAFF
Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent
garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I think iii might be a reference to Sir Winston Churchill, who accepted all of the honours and royal appointments listed, as well as the Garter, but declined a peerage.