van Alsoot or Sallaert Seventeenth century Flemish painters of village life.
psalter a version of the Psalms for use in religious services; here, Tess is thinking of the psalm that is part of the “Invitatory and Psalter” of the Daily Morning Prayer in The Book of Common Prayer.
phlegmatic hard to rouse to action; specif., sluggish; dull; apathetic; calm; cool; stolid.
milchers animals that give milk.
Olympian shapes the shapes of the Greek gods, who lived on Mount Olympus.
“pinner” (dialect) a pinafore or apron with a bib.
cowcumber (dialect) cucumber.
interlocutor a person taking part in a conversation or dialogue.
vicissitudes unpredictable changes or variations that keep occurring in life, fortune, etc.; shifting circumstances; ups and downs.
kex (dialect) a dry, hollow plant stem.
nott cows (dialect) cows without horns.
stave a set of verses, or lines, of a song or poem; stanza.
tranters (dialect) carriers; hawkers.
leads milk pans made of lead.
wrings cheese processes.
“to take Orders” to become an ordained minister.
redemptive theolatry the worship of a god that promises redemption, as in Christianity.
thimble-riggers cheaters or swindlers.
Article Four the fourth of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England asserts the literal resurrection of Christ from the dead.
Hodge a familiar term for an agricultural laborer in England; shortened form of Roger.
thought of Pascal’s translated it means: “To the same degree as one has intelligence, one notices that many individuals possess distinctive qualities. People of an ordinary kind do not notice the differences between individuals.” From the Pensees of Blaise Pascal (1602–1674), French philosopher and mathematician.
“some mutely Miltonic, some potentially Cromwellian” an allusion to Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (lines 59–60).
dusty death a phrase from Macbeth 5.5.23.
apple-booth apple blossom.
Valley of Humiliation from Part I (1678) and Part II (1684) of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
man of Uz Job.
“My soul chooseth strangling …” Job 7:15–16.
Peter the Great Peter I (1672–1725); czar of Russia (1682–1725). Before becoming Emperor of Russia, Peter studied shipbuilding.
Queen of Sheba queen who visited King Solomon to investigate his reputed wisdom: 1 Kings 10:1–13; here, a reference to the Queen’s dispirited feeling after she experiences the wisdom and wealth of Solomon (1 Kings 10:3–5).
“shine on the just and the unjust alike” an echo of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:45).
niaseries nonsense, foolish thought (from French).
convenances social conventions (from French).
Magdalene Mary Magdalene was a fallen woman. Christ’s appearance to her after his Resurrection occurs in Mark 16.
Artemis, Demeter goddesses associated with chastity, but the former also connected with hunting and both understood in the early anthropology of Hardy’s time as fertility goddesses.
barton barnyard.
