The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Oscar Wilde poem written while he was serving two years in prison for homosexual activity (not for bigamy)

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
collection of (quatrains) poems by the Persian astronomer and mathematician Omar Khayyam. Excerpts in the play are from quatrain numbers 12 & 74

Blarney Stone
a stone in Blarney Castle near Cork said to give eloquence and flattery to those who kiss it

bluefish
a voracious food and game fish found in the temperate and tropical waters of the Atlantic and Indian oceans

Boola-Boola
Yale University fight song

Carlyle, Thomas
Scottish historian and political philosopher who attacked social injustice and materialistic attitudes that came out of the Industrial Revolution. Major works included the three-volume French Revolution published in 1837

delirium tremens
loss of mental and physical faculties marked by trembling; often from alcoholism

Eilert Lovborg
character in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler

Heart Bowed Down
Song from an Irish opera The Bohemian Girl (1843)

jag
state of temporary exhilaration; often from drinking alcohol

Kelly pool
variety of 15-ball pool

Kipling, Rudyard
Indian-born English novelist, poet and short-story writer. Excerpt in the play is from The Ladies

Lucretia Georgia
confused reference to Lucretia Borgia who was associated with ambition, incest and murder

Macushla, Mavourneen
from the Irish for dear or darling

Mirabeau, Marat, Robespierre
French revolutionaries

Morgan, Pierpont
(a.k.a. J.P. Morgan) organized the merger between Edison and Thomson House to form General Electric

Nick Carter, Old Cap Collier
characters from popular dime books that often featured violent adventures of their protagonists and were frowned upon as having a corrupting influence on children

piazza
a veranda or porch

piker
one who plays cautiously (cheapskate)

pippin
admirable person or thing

Sachem Club
the "sachem" were the senior members of the Tammany Society, a group that dominated New York City politics throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries

Sandow exerciser
Eugene Sandow, a body builder, who developed his physique using Greek sculpture as a model

Shelley, Percy Bysshe
English poet and a leading figure in the romantic movement with radical political views

Swinburne, Algernon Charles
English poet and critic associated with the Pre-Raphaelities who wrote about physical love and liberty. Excerpts in the play are from Anactoria

tappee
a take on the word "tap"

tumbril
two-wheeled cart used during the French Revolution to carry the condemned to the guillotine

Vesta Victoria
East Coast music hall comedienne. Known for a song Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow

Wilde, Oscar
Irish dramatist, novelist, poet and wit. Excerpts in the play are from Pathea and The Picture of Dorian Gray