Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 16:24:54 -0500

From: Jesse T Sheidlower jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PANIX.COM

Subject: Re: sea change





It's an allusion to Shakespeare's Tempest: "Full fathom five thy

father lies;/Of his bones are coral made:/Those are pearls that

were his eyes:/Nothing of him that doth fade,/But doth suffer a

sea-change/Into something rich and strange." (I.ii)



Here it means 'a change brought about by the sea', but it's

now used to mean 'any major transformation'.

Monkmag writes:



I also remember a similar line spoken by Daedalus in Joyce's Ulysses, which

probably refers back to the earlier Tempest reference.



"A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all

deaths known to man. Old Father Ocean. Prix de Paris: beware of

imitations. Just you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely."



A few paragraphs earlier, he riffs on some of the "full fathom five"

stuff.



Jesse Sheidlower

jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]panix.com