Georgette Heyer Fans discussion

In Regency Buck, Clorinda is the nickname worth bestows upon Judith. But who was the real Clorinda?
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I just now googled both ClOrinda and,just in case, ClArinda and found that Tasso first used "Clorinda" in Jerusalem Delivered in 1580, and Spenser evidently invented "Clarinda" for The Faerie Queene,published in two parts in 1590 and 1596. One source I looked at commented that they were examples of adding the -inda suffix to existing names. (There's a Dorinda in The Beaux' Stratagem, the play best known for having Lady Bountiful in it.) So "Clarinda" is an expansion of Clara, Latin for bright, and "Clorinda" is evidently an expansion of Chloris, Greek for green. I would suppose that Lord Worth calls Judith Clorinda in allusion to her greenness in London society, although Tasso's Clorinda is a Muslim warrior maiden(!) who falls in love with a Christian knight.

Mary wrote: "I would suppose that Lord Worth calls Judith Clorinda in allusion to her greenness in London society..."

Nice idea, but it doesn't work because he calls her that when he sees her in the country, well before she even gets to London. I think it is clear from the context that he is suggesting that she is bucolic by calling her that, and that is why it annoys her so much.

Curious! I haven't read Regency Buck in a long time, and I thought she didn't even meet him until she and Perry went to London. In view of what Hj has just said, maybe by the time of the Regency those "-inda" names of the Restoration and the 18th century had come to be regarded as old-fashioned and therefore countrified. But being bucolic and being green aren't exactly contradictory!

Mary wrote: "Curious! I haven't read Regency Buck in a long time, and I thought she didn't even meet him until she and Perry went to London. In view of what Hj has just said, maybe by the time of the Regency t..."

I agree that the "inda" ending would have sounded countrified.

Their meetings in the country are the reason that their relationship is so antagonistic for so long. Worth is in the country for a prize-fight. Judith and Perry are on their way to London, expecting to find that their guardian is the same generation as their father (they don't know that their father's friend has died and been succeeded by his son). They have booked rooms at the inn in the town near the fight, but when they arrive the town and inn are full to overflowing with men of all description come for the fight.

Perry hires the only vehicle left to get him to the fight (a ramshackle old gig) and nearly causes a collision with Worth's magnificent horses while ineptly tooling Judith round the lanes. Worth takes them for country bumpkins. Then he comes across Judith alone the following day, when she has gone out for a walk while everyone is away at the fight and takes off her sandal to shake out a stone. He is returning from the fight and insists on rescuing "Beauty in distress", lifting her into his curricle and bestowing a kiss on her, to her fury. She refuses to give him her name, and he christens her Clorinda. When she tells Perry that he has insulted her, Perry wants to issue a challenge to Worth.

Then they get to London and discover that he is their guardian! All this poisons their relationship from the outset, and Judith's lack of trust and defensiveness (and Perry's resentment) are key to the plot.

I googled Clorinda for meaning, too, and it seems to mean praise or beauty in Greek as well as greenery, and renowned beauty in Persian. Beauty seems to fit better to me.

There was also a painting titled Clorinda by Guest, and several characters in plays. Could he be referring to one of them?

Interesting! I'm wondering if Clorinda was a clever double use of the name. I always thought of the name as an old fashioned name, (so it was a dig)but maybe Worth also meant beauty & would assume as a "simple country maid" that Judith wouldn't know that.

Would fit in with his sense of humour!

***Carol*** wrote: "Interesting! I'm wondering if Clorinda was a clever double use of the name. I always thought of the name as an old fashioned name, (so it was a dig)but maybe Worth also meant beauty & would assume ..."

Good point! Even when he realised that she wasn't a simple country maid Worth could still enjoy the double-meaning, because it was probably obscure and required a classical education of the type Judith was unlikely to have had (being female). He could have been praising her even when he was being careful not to do so too extravagantly, as her guardian (as well as teasing her).

... archaeological thread, I know, but somehow I remembered that I came across an explanation of "Clorinda" somewhere. It was this:

'The early Robin Hood is also given a "shepherdess" love interest, in Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage (Child Ballad 149), his sweetheart is "Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses". Clorinda survives in some later stories as an alias of Marian.' (wikipedia)

That would fit in with Worth's finding Judith in the country.

Thanks for that, Sabagrey! The name did evoke pastoral romance to me, but I was thinking Shakespeare, not Robin Hood.