"The Couch of Eros"

Act 1, Scene 1

Septimus reads “The Couch of Eros” (p. 5)

 

Septimus receives the first letter from Chater (“Sir – we have a matter to settle. I wait on you in the gun room. E Chater, Esq.”) and places it in “The Couch of Eros”. (p. 8)

 

Chater inscribes Septimus’s copy of “The Couch of Eros.” (p. 13)

 

Septimus receives note from Mrs. Chater (“My husband has sent to town for pistols. Deny what cannot be proven –for Charity’s sake-I keep my room this day.”) which he places within the pages of “The Couch of Eros.” (p. 18)

 

Act 1, Scene 2

Bernard presents the copy of “The Couch of Eros” with three letters inside, presumed to be addressed to Byron. Bernard explains how the book came to be in his possession – it was in Byron’s library, which was sold in 1816. “The Couch of Eros” was bought by one of Bernard’s ancestors, John Nightingale, a publisher and bookseller. The book was recently re-discovered in the cellar of a country house that was sold to make way for the Channel-Tunnel rail link. (p. 34-35)

 

Act 1, Scene 3

Septimus receives the second letter from Chater (“Sidley Park, April 11th 1809. Sir-I call you a liar, a lecher, a slanderer in the press and a thief of my honour. I wait upon your arrangements for giving me satisfaction as a man and a poet. E. Chater, Esq.”), which he places within the pages of “The Couch of Eros.” (p. 39)

 

Lady Croom takes Septimus’s copy of “The Couch of Eros” for Byron. (p. 44-45)

 

Act 2, Scene 5

As Hannah and Valentine argue with Bernard about the validity of his theory, Bernard asks, “Is it likely that Hodge would have lent Byron the book without first removing the three private letters?” (p. 60). The audience knows this is what happened, because Lady Croom took the book before Septimus could remove the letters. Bernard further asks, “Then why wouldn’t Hodge get them back?” (p. 60) This question is answered in the following scene.

 

Act 2, Scene 6

Upon hearing that Byron left Sidley Park, Septimus asks Jellaby if Byron left a book for him. Jellaby replies that Byron left nothing in his room, thus explaining how Byron came to be in possession of Septimus’s copy of “The Couch of Eros.” (p. 72)

 

Theodolite

Act 1, Scene 1

On the table in the schoolroom during Thomasina’s lesson. (p. 5)

 

Act 1, Scene 2

Taken by Hannah into the garden. (p. 19)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

Hermione is looking for the theodolite for the photograph. Hannah tells Chloe it’s in the hermitage. (p. 95) While looking for the theodolite in the hermitage, Hermione catches Bernard and Chloe having sex, prompting Bernard’s exit. (p. 99)

 

“Am I the first one to have thought of this?”

Act 1, Scene 1

THOMASINA: No, Septimus, a Newtonian. Septimus! Am I the first person to have thought of this?

SEPTIMUS: No.

THOMASINA: I have not said yet.

Thomasina proposes the idea that, using Newton’s laws, a formula could be written to predict future outcomes, i.e. write the equation for the deterministic universe. She does not know that a computer would be necessary to complete such a process. (p. 9-10)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

CHLOE: Valentine, do you think I’m the first person to think this?

VALENTINE: No.

CHLOE: I haven’t said yet.

Chloe’s theory is that the deterministic universe does not exist because of sex. (“The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said. I mean, it’s trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren’t supposed to be part of the plan.”) (p. 77-78)

 

Fermat's Last Thereom

Act 1, Scene 1

Septimus tells Thomasina about Fermat’s note in the Arithmetica, that he had found a proof for his theorem, but that the margin was too small to write it, and that the note wasn’t discovered until after Fermat’s death. Thomasina believes Fermat’s note was a joke, simply meant to drive people mad as they tried to find the proof, (p. 10)

 

Act 1, Scene 4  

Hannah finds a note from Thomasina in her maths primer, inspired by Fermat’s note: “I, Thomasina Coverly, have found a truly wonderful method whereby all the forms of nature must give up their numerical secrets and draw themselves through number alone. This margin being too mean for my purpose, the reader must look elsewhere for the New Geometry of Irregular Forms discovered by Thomasina Coverly.” Like Thomasina did with Fermat, Valentine assumes this is a joke, that she was just playing with numbers and didn’t discover anything. It is possible that Thomasina thought so too. (p. 47)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

After inputting Thomasina’s equations into a computer, Valentine realizes that, in an unintentional, rudimentary way, Thomasina did discover a mathematical equation for creating natural objects.

 

Gazebo/Hermitage

The site of various illicit affairs:

Act 1, Scene 1

Septimus admits to making love to Mrs. Chater in the gazebo. (p. 10)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

Chloe’s mother catches her and Bernard having sex in the hermitage. (p. 99)

 

“The Maid of Turkey” Review

Act 1, Scene 1

Chater wonders aloud who slandered his poem “The Maid of Turkey” in the Piccadilly Recreation, quoting “would not give it to his dog for dinner were it covered in bread sauce and stuffed with chestnuts.” (p. 12)

 

Act 1, Scene 2

While arguing with Hannah about Byron’s presence at Sidley Park, Bernard makes the off-handed comment, “But you were looking for something else! It’s not going to jump out at you like, ‘Lord Byron remarked wittily at breakfast.’” (p. 36)

 

Act 1, Scene 3

Thomasina tells Septimus that at breakfast this morning, Byron quoted Septimus’s review of “The Maid of Turkey” in front of Chater, using the same passage about not giving the book to his dog for dinner, thus outing Septimus as the slanderer to Chater. (p. 40)

 

Horace Walpole

Act 1, Scene 1

Lady Croom mistakenly references the Gothic author. (p. 17)

 

Act 1, Scene 4

Bernard gives the present-day Lady Croom a first edition Horace Walpole. (p. 55)

 

The Sidley Park hermit

Act 1, Scene 1

Thomasina draws a hermit into Noakes’s sketch of the hermitage. (p. 18)

 

Act 1, Scene 2

Hannah shows Bernard the sketch book with the drawing of the hermit, presuming that it was drawn from life and added after the hermitage was built. (p. 29)

 

Hannah also shows Bernard the Peacock essay from Cornhill Magazine that first made her aware of the hermit, calling him “a savant among idiots, a sage of lunacy.” Hannah tells Bernard that when the hermit died, the hermitage was found stacked with pages covered with cabalistic proofs. (p. 30-31)

 

Act 1, Scene 4

During their discussion of iterated algorithms, Valentine tells Hannah that the only thing stopping someone from doing the algorithms by hand is that you would need a ton of time and paper, and be insane. (p. 56)

 

 

Bernard gives Hannah a magazine, “The Peaks Traveller and Gazetteer,” from 1832 that mentions the hermit, as well as his tortoise, Plautus. (p. 68) 

 

Valentine joins Hannah in looking at the magazine, and tells Hannah that the proofs the hermit was working on were related to the second law of thermodynamics. Hannah also finds the hermit’s date of birth in the magazine, and notes that it is the same year as Septimus Hodge’s, but that she still has no proof the men are one and the same. (p. 69-70)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

Thomasina draws a sketch of Septimus petting Plautus, which she gives to Septimus, who then gives it to Augustus. (p. 91-92)

 

Gus gives Hannah the sketch “Septimus holding Plautus,” providing the final link she needs for Septimus and the Sidley Park hermit. (p. 101)

 

Computer analysis to prove authorship

Act 1, Scene 2

Bernard reminds Valentine that they met before at a seminar. One of Valentine’s colleagues was able to prove, through mathematical analysis, that an unattributed short story by D.H. Lawrence was not, in fact, written by the author. (p. 23)

 

Act 2, Scene 5

During the argument about Bernard’s lecture, Valentine points out that computer analysis of the two Chater reviews show that they are not a good fit with Byron’s other reviews. (p. 64)

 

Ezra Chater the poet vs. Ezra Chater the botanist

Act 1, Scene 2

When Bernard first describes his theory about the Byron-Chater duel to Hannah, he tells her that the only other Chater in the British Library database is a botanist who described a dwarf dahlia in Martinique, and died there after being bitten by a monkey. (p. 26)

 

Act 2, Scene 6

Lady Croom tells Septimus that the Chaters, along with Captain Brice, are making for the West Indies, where Chater will play at being a botanist while Mrs. Chater and Captain Brice carry on an affair. (p. 75)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

As Hannah reads through Lady Croom’s garden books in the present, Lady Croom admires the dwarf dahlia on display in the schoolroom, explaining that Mr. Chater was bitten by a monkey and died, and that Mrs. Chater married Captain Brice. (p. 87)

 

Hannah informs Bernard of her discovery, that the poet Ezra Chater was the same person as the botanist Ezra Chater who discovered the dwarf dahlia, meaning he was not killed by Byron in a duel at Sidley Park, thus disproving Bernard’s theory. (p. 93)

 

Relationship between Septimus and Byron

Act 1, Scene 2

Bernard asks Hannah where Septimus went to college. When she tells him that he attended Trinity, Bernard makes the connection that Septimus and Byron were at college together, giving him proof that Byron had a connection to Sidley Park. Hannah jokes that they must have also played cricket at Harrow together. (p. 36)

 

Act 1, Scene 3

While giving Thomasina her Latin lesson, Septimus remarks, “At Harrow I was better at this than Lord Byron.” (p.43)

 

Dancing

Act 1, Scene 2

Chloe tells Hannah that she will invite Bernard to the part for her, to which Hannah replies, “I don’t dance.” (p. 37)

 

Act 2, Scene 5

Bernard tells Hannah he is coming back for the dance, to which Hannah (who thinks he is coming as her date) replies, “I don’t dance.” (p. 67)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

Gus invites Hannah to dance. She accepts. (p. 101)

 

Apple

Act 1, Scene 2

Gus gives Hannah a fresh-picked apple as a sign of affection. (p. 38)

 

Act 1, Scene 3

Septimus eats some of the apple, sharing it with Plautus. (p. 4)

Thomasina decides to plot the apple leaf and deduce its equation to support her theory that all nature can be written in numbers. (p. 41)

 

Act 1, Scene 4

Hannah picks up the apple leaf from the table, and asks Valentine if someone could draw the leaf using iterated algorithms. He answers that yes, you could, proving Thomasina’s theory was accurate. (p. 51)

 

Thomasina’s lesson book

Act 1, Scene 3

When Thomasina bemoans all that was lost when the library at Alexandria burned, Septimus comforts her, saying, “You should no more grieve for the rest than for a buckle lost from your first shoe, or for your lesson book which will be lost when you are old. We shed as we pick up, like travelers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it.” (p. 42)

 

Act 1, Scene 4

While looking at Thomasina’s lesson book, Hannah ponders why it was saved, contradicting Septimus’s prediction that the lesson book would be lost to antiquity. (p. 48)

 

Bernard insists that the Byron-Chater duel happened, and the story has just been lost to the ages, saying, “It dropped from sight but we will write it again,” supporting Septimus’s theory that nothing has been written that can’t (or won’t) eventually be re-written. (p. 54)

 

Septimus was the one who cuckolded Chater

Act 1, Scene 1

It is revealed that Septimus gave “The Maid of Turkey” a negative review, cuckolded Chater, and still managed to get Chater to call him his friend. (p.13)

 

Act 2, Scene 5

Bernard dismisses Hannah’s theory: “Is it likely that the man Chater calls his friend Septimus Hodge is the same man who screwed his wife and kicked the shit out of his last book?” (p. 61)

 

Septimus’s connection to the Piccadilly Recreation

Act 2, Scene 5

Bernard defends his theory that Byron had more of a connection to the Piccadilly Recreation than Septimus did. (p. 61)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

Bernard’s assumption is proved unfounded, when Septimus tells Augustus that his older brother is an editor for the Piccadilly Recreation. (p. 92)

 

The lost Byron letter

Act 2, Scene 5

Bernard posits that there was a lost letter from Byron to Septimus that confirms his theory that must have been lost or possibly burned. (p. 61)

 

Act 2, Scene 6

We see that Byron did in fact write a letter to Septimus, that he burns, unread, at Lady Croom’s insistence.  (p. 75)

 

Ink Study by Henry Fuseli

Act 2, Scene 5

Bernard insults Hannah by telling her the drawing of Byron and Caroline Lamb by Henry Fuseli used for her book’s jacket is not really of Byron and Lamb. (p. 66)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

Lady Croom and Septimus tell Thomasina that when they saw Byron at the Royal Academy with Caroline, they were being sketched by Henry Fuseli. (p. 89)

 

Thomasina’s discovery

Act 2, Scene 5

Hannah asks Valentine if the hermit’s equations related to the second law of thermodynamics had anything to do with the equations in Thomasina’s lesson book. Valentine denies that Thomasina actually discovered anything. (p. 69)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

After Septimus shows her the essay from the Scientific Academy, Thomasina draws her diagram demonstrating the “heat equation.” (p. 91)

 

Septimus and Valentine study Thomasina’s diagram, realizing that she understood that the universe will continually lose its heat until it grows cold and time stops. (p. 98)

 

Sex disrupts the deterministic universe

Act 2, Scene 6

Lady Croom notes, “It is a defect of God’s humour that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them.” (p. 75)

 

Act 2, Scene 7

Chloe theorizes that sex is what throws off the deterministic universe: “The only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren’t supposed to be part of the plan.” (p. 77)

 

The play includes several examples of these sort of relationships, including:

Septimus and Mrs. Chater

Septimus and Lady Croom

Thomasina and Septimus

Lady Croom and Byron

Mrs. Chater and Byron

Mrs. Chater and Captain Brice

Valentine and Hannah

Gus and Hannah

Bernard and Hannah

Chloe and Bernard

 

Thomasina’s death

Act 2, Scene 7:   Hannah tells Valentine that Thomasina died in a fire the night before her seventeenth birthday. (p. 80)

 

                        Septimus gives Thomasina her waltzing lesson (and kiss) on the eve of her 17th birthday.  (p. 101)