Thursday, September 25, 2014

July? 1923: Tristan and Isolde level three?


The handsome sixfoottwo rugger and soccer champion and the belle of Chapelizod in her ocean blue brocade bunnyhugged scrumptiously in the dark behind the chief steward's cabin while with sinister dexterity he alternately rightandlefthandled fore and aft the palpable rugby and association bulbs. She murmurously asked for some but not too much of the best poetry reflecting on the situation her reason being that by the light of the moon of the silvery moon she loved to spoon before her honeymoomoon. He promptly then elocutioned to her in decasyllabic iambic hexameter: Roll on, thou deep and darkblue ocean, roll!

It was a gorgeous sensation he being exactly the right man in the right place and the weather conditions could not possibly have been improved. Her role was to roll on the darkblue ocean roll that rolled on round the round roll Robert Roly rolled round. She gazed while his deepsea peepers gazed O gazed O dazedcrazedgazed into her darkblue rolling ocean eyes.

He then having dephlegmatised his throat uttered as follows from his voicebox:

— Isolde!

By elevation of eyelids that She addressed insinuated desideration of his declaration.

— Isolde, O Isolde, when theeupon I oculise my most inmost Ego most vaguely senses the profundity of multimathematical immaterialities whereby in the pancosmic urge the Allimmanence of That Which Is Itself exteriorates on this here our plane of disunited solid liquid and gaseous bodies in pearlwhite passionpanting intuitions of reunited Selfhood in the higher dimensional Selflessness.

Hear, O hear, all ye caller herrings! Silent be, O Moyle! Milky Way, strew dim light!

She reunited milkymouthily his her and their disunited lips and quick as greased lightning the Breton champion drove the advance messenger of love with one virile tonguethrust past the double line of ivoryclad forwards fullback rightjingbangshot into the goal of her gullet.

Now what do you candidly suppose she, a strapping young Irish princess scaling nine stone twelve in her pelt, cared at that precise physiological moment about tiresome old King Mark, that tiresome old pantaloon in his tiresome old twentytwoandsixpenny shepherd's plaid trousers? Not as much as a pinch of henshit and that's the meanest thing that was ever known. No, on the contrary, if the truth must be told lovingly she lovegulped his pulpous propeller and both together in the most fashionable weather they both went all of a shiveryshaky quiveryquaky mixumgatherum yumyumyum. After which before the traditional ten seconds were up Tristan considerately allowed his farfamed chokegrip to relax and precautiously withdrew the instrument of rational speech from the procathedral of amorous seductiveness.

— I'm so glad to have met you, Tris, she said, awfully bucked by the experience of the love embrace from a notoriety like him who was evidently a notoriety also in the poetry for he never saw an orange but he thought of a porringer and to cut a long story short taking him by and large he meant everything to her just then, being her beau ideal of a true girl friend, handsome musical composer a thoroughbred Pomeranian lapdog, a box of crystallised ginger and may even the Deity Itself

Over them the winged ones screamed their glee, sea hawk, seagul curlew and plover kestrel capercailzie. All the birds of the sea they trolled out rightbold and they heard of the kiss of Tristan and Isolde. So sang sea birds..

— Three caws for for Mister Mark
Sure he hasnt got much of a bark
And sure any he has is all beside the mark.
O Eagle Highflighty would'nt it be a sky of a lark
To see that old busard whooping around in his shirt in the dark
And he hunting about for his speckled trousers in Palmerston park
O moulty Mark
Youre the rummest old rooster ever crawled out of a Noah's ark
And you think you're the cock of the walk.
Fowls up! Tristy's a spry young spark
That'll tread her and wed her and bed her and red her
Without even winking the tale of a feather
And that's how that chap's going to make his money and mark

The Four Waves of Ireland also heard, leaning upon the staves of memory. Four eminently respectable old gentlemen they looked got up in sleek holiday toggery for the occasion grey half tall hat, grey frock coats to match, fathomglasses and soforth, you know, for all the worlds like the fourth viscount Powerscourt at the royal Dublin socities annual horseshow. They had seen their share.. the capture of Sir Arthur Casement in the year 1132, Coronation of Brian by the Danes at Clonmacnois The drowning of poor Mat Keane of Dunlearery the scattering of the flemish armada off the coasts of Galway and Longford, the landing of St Patrick in the year 1798, the dispersal of the French fleet under General Boche in the year 2002. And such was their memory that they had been appointed lectern professors to the four chief seats of learning in Erin, the universities of killorcure, kill-them-all, killeachother, killkelly-on-the-Flure, whither they wirelessed four times weekly lectures in the four modes of history, past, present, absent and future. Saltsea widowers all four they had been many ages before divorced by their respective consorts (with whom they had parted on the best of terms) by a decrees absolute issued by Mrs Justice Smashman in the married male offenders court at bohernabreena, one for inefficiency in backscratching, too for having broken wind from behind without having first made a request in writing on stamped foolscap paper, three for having attempted hunish familiarities after a meal decomposed crab, four on account of the general appearance of his face. Though that was ever so long ago they could still with an effort of memory and by counting carefully the four buttons of the fly of their trousers recall the name of the four beautiful sisters Brinabride who were at the moment touring the United States. Yet were they fettersome and lured by beauty, often would they cling to the sides of the Northwall and Hollyhead boats and the Isle of Man tourist steamers, peering with glaucomatose eyes through the cataractic portholes of honeymoon cabins or saloon ladies toilet apartements. But, when those Jossers aforesaid the Four Waves of Erin, heard the detonation of the osculation which with ostentation Tristan to Isolde gave then lifted they up round Irelands shores the wail of old men's glee:

Highchanted the elderly Waves of Erin, in-four-part Palestrian melody, four for all, all one in glee of grief of loneliness of age but with a bardic licence there being about of birds and stars quite a sufficient number.

This was their wavechant:

A birdless heaven, seadusk and one star,
low in the west
And thou, poor heart, loves image, faint and far.
Rememberest

Her Sea cold eyes and her ?softlifted brow
And fragrant hair,
Falling as through the silence falleth now
Dusk from the air.
A why wilt thou
A why wilt thou remember these.
A why,
Poor heart, repine,
If the dear love she yielded with a sigh

Was never thine!

Isolde, her longfamous lashes butterflykissing his near and farfamous cheek, felt him sweeter than cherry or plum, than candy kisses or Lipton's fruitcake, than the hawthorn valley in the month of May, than the finest music going than lovely sleep.

She murmured:
— My precious since last we parted it seems to me that I have been continually in your company, even when I close my eyes at night. seeing you hearing you, meeting you in different places so that I'm beginning to wonder whether my soul does not take leave of my body in sleep and go to seek you and what is more find you or perhaps ?perchaps this is only a phantasy. Tell me Daniel, my precious darling.

He, Hero of tens of serums, Kisser of hundreds, blocker of thousands, ejaculater of myriads, loudly spoke his voice falling in strange ineffectual dropkick, so; in the language of diplomacy

— Pourquoi es-tu entrée dans ma fie, Henritte S, je ?croyais mon âme déjà morte

She lifted her head, her eyes content. For now she knew that she ?is was and not that ginger bitch katiagnes O Halloran.

He, the gentleman, was sadvisaged. First he was rather liable to piles procured by sitting on stone walls and over and above that by medical advice of Dr Codd he had been lowering daily draughts of extract of willow bark to keep off the Hibernian flu. With feverish pallor he beheld the holy ghosts of his undergradual loves, Henriette atop of the haycock, Nenette de l'Eglise behind the taproom, Marie Louise all fun and fleas, tipsy Suzanne catch as catch can, and last but not least the rawboned housekeeper of the local parish priest Ghasthly, he pastloveyed her.

— Smiling Johnny, pleaded she, do you care for me just a little?

Offsong and Partially selfstrangled he replied:

— Lady, I am not worthy. If you but knew. Why were we born in two different places? Wherefore have we met yesterday so to speak? Why this strangulation, this yearning for a bonum arduum as distinguished from a bonum simpliciter? Well away, alas, for death in, with, for and on account of my well beloved I mutely yearn.

— O, can that sobstuff, answered Isolde impatiently after her waiting patiently all through the damned old dinner of burnt loinchops and ignoble potatoes with everybody talking about loinchops and potatoes and the pig's arse and cabbage the day before and the silversides boiled cowbeef of the day before that again with purpletop swedes and equally ignoble potatoes colicflower without a morsel of appetite.

Love she wanted, the ?best obtainable, true new blind bottomless staggerhumanity love at first sight, for which reason she again kissed him and he, being a gentleman, counterkissed because it was his one maxim in life that if a lady, for example, wanted a bite of a piece of Stilton cheese and he happened, for argument' sake, to have a quarter of a pound or so of Stilton cheese in his pocket why he'd just simply put his hand in his pocket, don't you know, and well he'd just give her the cheese, don't you see, to take a bite off. However first and foremost, before testing her triangle to prove whether she was as the newspapers reported a virgo intacta, he asked her whether she had ever indulged in clandestine fornication.

— No, Nein, Never, she ?swore. By the axecleft of my notch! By the hair of my dearest parents! By the inviolable devil of Ben Bulben! By the fresh water pullan herring.

Her mournful embracer pointed to the starry host. By them he bade her swear, them that were and are and shall be the silently strewing, the strikingly shining, the twittingly twinkling, and (as he truly remarked) the lamplights of lovers.

Up they gazed, skyward, while in her ear that loveless lover breathed:

Gaunt in gloom
The pale stars their torches
Enshrouded wave
Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume
Arches on soaring arches,
Night's sindark nave

Seraphim
The pale stars awaken
To service till
In muted gloom each lapses, muted, dim
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thurible

And long and loud
To night's nave upsoaring
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls

— Go away from me instantly, she cried.

— Perfect, he said.

He took leave of her and went before many instants had passed.

— No, come back, she cried. I can't live without you.

— It's important, he said, stopped and circulated at walker's pace in an opposed direction.

[cite]



This long portrayal of T&I radically shifts gear with every paragraph. Is it possible Joyce was thinking of expanding each paragraph into a chapter of its own? In any case we must look for 'reincarnations' of the paragraphs that were trimmed... starting with the four-verse Waves' song that filled those missing paragraphs' spot. (The four verses portray four differentiated 'competitors' to Tristan who bear no resemblance to the immediately-previous descriptions of the Waves. So mightn't it be that they're reincarnated aspects of Tristan, as anticipated below...?)

Based on the handwriting, this has been dated by consensus to April 1923 when Joyce's eyes were being operated on, but correlation of notes via Barger's 'Stratigraphy' suggests July instead


The handsome sixfoottwo rugger and soccer champion and the belle of Chapelizod in her ocean blue brocade

These first paragraphs were known in manuscript, and survived into the final text in barely recognisable form. [more] we should look for echoes of James/Nora and Poldy/Molly in the imagery

"the belle of Chapelizod in her ocean blue brocade" 0-1-0-0010-0-0-10-0-01 (paeons?)
the idealistic description faintly anticipates Mark in the wavesong

Chapelizod in 1906, looking WNW

bunnyhugged scrumptiously in the dark behind the chief steward's cabin while with sinister dexterity he alternately rightandlefthandled fore and aft the palpable rugby and association bulbs.

bunnyhug dance

it's night, they're on deck, the ship has so many passengers it needs several stewards, the chief steward's cabin is somewhere inconspicuous?

"sinister" he's a cad? (like John in the wavesong)
he mauls her rather detachedly? both breasts and both buttocks

the published version also offers "all the birds of the rockbysuckerassousyoceanal sea"

antique rugby ball
colors: blue
measures: sixfoottwo

FW2: "it was dark... when he was... bunnyhugging scrumptious his... belle... behind the chieftainess stewardess's cabin, the... champion... with his sinister dexterity, lightandrufthandling... her ragbags et assaucyetiams, fore and aft... the... sexfutter, handson... that was palpably wrong and bulbubly improper..." (the published version is seen much more explicitly from the Four Waves' pov)


She murmurously asked for some but not too much of the best poetry reflecting on the situation her reason being that by the light of the moon of the silvery moon she loved to spoon before her honeymoomoon.

"murmurously" was a favorite word of bad writers
(her reason for wanting some, or for wanting not too much, or both?)
"reflecting" like still water?
"the situation" (awkward/formal)
By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1909
"loved" is 'want' in the lyrics (the word 'honeymoon' is used vaguely, before and after the description of a wedding)
it's ambiguous whether Isolde is thinking of a honeymoon with Tristan, or Mark?
"spoon" meaning 'court, flirt sentimentally' is first recorded 1831, a back-formation from spoony: 'soft, silly, weak-minded, foolishly sentimental' or from slang spoon: 'simpleton' (1799), a figurative use based on the notion of shallowness(?!)

colors: silvery
measurement motif: some but not too much

FW2: "she murmurously... of the best... reflecting on the situation... by she light of he moon, we longed to be spoon, before her honeyoldloon"


He promptly then elocutioned to her in decasyllabic iambic hexameter: Roll on, thou deep and darkblue ocean, roll!

"elocutioned" is Joyce's original verbing, hinting Tristan took lessons (Bloom-like?) (a classic elocution lesson goes 'Round and round the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran')

Byron's pentameter will be lengthened by 'and damp' towards Homer's (dactylic) hexameter

"sixfoottwo... hexameter" ie 6 feet

colors: blue
measures:  decasyllabic iambic hexameter

(the waves of the rolling ocean will shortly be personified)

very faint echo of Luke's wave-verse: "when your beau gets his glut of cold meat and hot soldiering"

FW2: "Rolando's deepen darblun Ossian roll... her dullokbloon rodolling olosheen eyenbowls"


It was a gorgeous sensation he being exactly the right man in the right place and the weather conditions could not possibly have been improved.

measurement motif: golden mean?

FW2: "it was just too gorgeous [...] onasmuck as their withers conditions could not possibly have been improved upon"


Her role was to roll on the darkblue ocean roll that rolled on round the round roll Robert Roly rolled round.

this reads like an elocution exercise

the sea's motion is pleasant, her emotion amplifies it

"Robert Hand" was the villain of Joyce's "Exiles" (Richard was the Joyce-hero)

'Roly' is a minor character in Anstey's novel "Vice Versa" which Joyce starred in c1898. (Edward Rose had adapted it in 1883 but I can't find it to confirm Roly's role)

(whoever RR is, is he rolling around some kind of "roll"?)

Joyce later annotated these Issy-sentences as hypotaxis, in contrast to T's parataxis.

cf Roderick O'Conor's "heeltapping round his own right royal round rollicking table"
there might also be an echo of Kevin's concentric circles: Issy-on-ocean around Robert, around the mysterious "round roll"
and is Issy already in a riverwatercycle?

FW2: "their role was to rule the round roll that Rollo and Rullo rolled round"


She gazed while his deepsea peepers gazed O gazed O dazedcrazedgazed into her darkblue rolling ocean eyes.

the lightness of "peepers" clashes with her drama? (the 'Jeepers Creepers' lyric wasn't till 1938)
"gazed... gazed... gazed... gazed" (hypnotic)
it's "dazedcrazedgazed" not 'dazecrazegazed' (much harder to pronounce, and somewhat more insulting: s/he's dazed and crazed?)

colors: darkblue
"rolling... eyes" is an emotionally expressive gesture, slightly odd here

faint echo of Mark's romanticism?

FW2: "his deepseepeepers gazed and sazed and dazecrazemazed into her dullokbloon rodolling olosheen eyenbowls"


He then having dephlegmatised his throat uttered as follows from his voicebox:
— Isolde!


"voicebox" (elocution lessons again)

at the end of Act 1 (scene 5) of Wagner, T&I, on board a ship, unwittingly drink a love potion, and repeatedly sing each other's names: [vid]

FW2: "after having prealably dephlegmatised his gutterful of throatyfrogs"


By elevation of eyelids that She addressed insinuated desideration of his declaration.

(wasn't she already gazing into his eyes?)
U18: "and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again"

multiple "-ation" endings would later come to signal the presence of the 12 (boring) citizens [fweet-61]

FW2: "the dear invoked to the coolun dare by a palpebrows lift left no doubt in his minder"


— Isolde, O Isolde, when theeupon I oculise my most inmost Ego most vaguely senses the profundity of multimathematical immaterialities

Joyce labelled this speech "Parataxis"
the echoes of Theosophy, and "vaguely", suggest AE

FW2: "orhowwhen theeuponthus... eysolt of binnoculises memostinmust egotum sabcunsciously senses upers the deprofundity of multimathematical immaterialities"


whereby in the pancosmic urge the Allimmanence of That Which Is Itself exteriorates on this here our plane of disunited solid liquid and gaseous bodies in pearlwhite passionpanting intuitions of reunited Selfhood in the higher dimensional Selflessness.

"pancosmic urge" Joyce's original phrase
'cosmic urge' since 1903 a widely ridiculed mystical phrase
"exteriorates" minor philosophical cant
cf? VI.A Cyclops "this place = here"

(it sounds like he's trying and failing to sublimate an orgasm)
is this his inauthentic speech like Nora's copybook below? does it reflect some phase in Joyce's immaturity?

colors: white

cf? VI.B3.131 (Jun?): "Pop in shirtsleeves makes political lovespeech"

FW2: "wherebejubers in the pancosmic urge the allimmanence of that which Itself is Itself... exteriorises on this ourherenow plane in disunited solod, likeward and gushious bodies with... perilwhitened passionpanting... intuitions of reunited selfdom... in the higherdiminsional selfless Allself"


Hear, O hear, all ye caller herrings! Silent be, O Moyle! Milky Way, strew dim light!

♬ Caller Herring lyrics
Silent, oh Moyle, be the roar of thy water

(so can we locate their ship in the Straits of Moyle?)

simultaneously sublime, with hints of semen (strewing moyles of milky herring)

FW2: "(hear, O hear, Caller Errin!)... (science, say!)... (murky whey, abstrews adim!)"


She reunited milkymouthily his her and their disunited lips and quick as greased lightning the Breton champion drove the advance messenger of love with one virile tonguethrust past the double line of ivoryclad forwards fullback rightjingbangshot into the goal of her gullet.

"reunited" means it's not their 1st kiss
"Milky Way... milkymouthily"
has she been drinking milk? (childish innocence)
"greased lightning"
"double line" = top line plus bottom line
"fullback" is normally a noun, but here an adverb?
VI.A Exiles2 (June?!) "kicks halfback through goalposts"
('jing' makes it sound like a toy/table game)
U10: "the whole jingbang lot"

colors: ivory (white)

this is thematically pretty close to John's wave-verse

FW2: "she renulited their disunited, with ripy lepes to ropy lopes... when, as quick as greased pigskin, Amoricas Champias, with one aragan throast, druve the massive of virilvigtoury flshpst the bothlines of forwards (Eburnea's down, boys!) rightjingbangshot into the goal of her gullet."


Now what do you candidly suppose she, a strapping young Irish princess scaling nine stone twelve in her pelt, cared at that precise physiological moment about tiresome old King Mark, that tiresome old pantaloon

138 pounds (ten stone = 140)

can we confidently equate Mark with ROC? (why no specific overlaps???)

As You Like It II.7.158: (of man's sixth age) 'lean and slipper'd pantaloon'
Pantaloon

in his tiresome old twentytwoandsixpenny shepherd's plaid trousers? Not as much as a pinch of henshit and that's the meanest thing that was ever known.

is shepherd's plaid stylish (eg houndstooth) or clownish? (i can see this as Issy revising-downward an earlier favorable judgment)




measures: nine stone twelve, twentytwoandsixpenny, pinch
$150 pants today sounds expensive?
along with cooking instructions like 'pinch of salt' we find 'pinch of snuff'
this is very reminiscent of the Mark-verse: "Yerra, why would she bide with Sir Sloomysides or the grogram grey barnacle gander?"

cf ROC: "all the rest of the notmuchers that he didn't care the royal spit out of his ostensible mouth about"

cf Berkeley around this time dismissing Leary's rainbow costume as a salad of greens

FW2: "And now... a strapping fine young... Irish prisscess... such and such paddock weight, in her madapolam smock... for one psocoldlogical moment... With that so tiresome old milkless a ram... the tiresome old... beaver, in his tiresome old twentysixandsixpenny sheopards plods drowsers... The mainest thing ever!"


No, on the contrary, if the truth must be told lovingly she lovegulped his pulpous propeller and both together in the most fashionable weather they both went all of a shiveryshaky quiveryquaky mixumgatherum yumyumyum.

"truth must be told" is more common than 'truth should be told' but less than 'truth be told'
"pulpous" = soft, pulpy
"propellor" cf "drove the advance messenger of love with one virile tonguethrust"
"fashionable weather" (normally you'd expect the best weather to be the most fashionable, but eg decadents might prefer gloom. fashions and weather both change frequently.)
"both... both"
shivery-shaky was a phrase, quivery-quaky not so much

cf John-verse? "Grand goosegreasing we had entirely with an allnight eiderdown bed picnic to follow"

cf U167: "Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy."

means the same as:
U130: "OMNIUM GATHERUM"

FW2: "No... if the whole stole stale misbetold, whoever the gulpable, and whatever the pulpous was, the twooned togethered, and giving the mhost phassionable wheathers, they were doing a lally a lolly a dither a duther one lelly two dather three lilly four dother."


After which before the traditional ten seconds were up Tristan considerately allowed his farfamed chokegrip to relax and precautiously withdrew the instrument of rational speech from the procathedral of amorous seductiveness.

chokeholds in wrestling cause unconsciousness in about ten seconds
measures:  ten seconds
below we'll get "her longfamous lashes butterflykissing his near and farfamous cheek"
precaution
already as he withdraws it, his tongue becomes again an intellectual thing
St Mary's in Dublin is the bestknown procathedral [wiki]

cf Luke-verse? "Wisha, won't you agree now"

FW2: "And it was a fiveful moment for the poor old timetellers ticktacking, to tenk the count. Till the spark that plugged spared the chokee he gripped and (volatile volupty... plipping out of her chapellledeosy..."


— I'm so glad to have met you, Tris, she said, awfully bucked by the experience of the love embrace from a notoriety like him who was evidently a notoriety also in the poetry for he never saw an orange but he thought of a porringer

"bucked" = bucked up?
colors: orange
porringer
song: 'What is the rhyme for porringer?'


(i'm hearing Nora's earliest, illformed attraction to minor Dublin notoriety JAJ)

cf John-verse? "you're the most likable lad that's come my ways yet"


and to cut a long story short taking him by and large he meant everything to her just then, being her beau ideal of a true girl friend,

'make' (US) is more common than "cut" (UK)
VI.A Words (July?!) "by & large"
"beau ideal" = perfect beauty (French noun-adj) but also 19thC English; ideal beau
cf U336: "No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous love at her feet"


handsome musical composer a thoroughbred Pomeranian lapdog, a box of crystallised ginger and may even the Deity Itself


eg Mendelssohn



"the Deity itself" was a phrase in 19thC thought; cf T's "the Allimmanence of That Which Is Itself"

FW2: "her bleaueyedeal of a girl's friend, neither bigugly nor smallnice, meaning pretty much everything to her then"


[ms]
over them the winged ones screamed their glee, sea hawk, seagul curlew and plover kestrel capercailzie.

(Nora's spelling and punct)

would any birds be out at midnight?




seahawk = osprey [call]

laughing gulls mp3

gull

curlew [song]

plover rhymes with lover [call]


kestrel [call]


capercailzie = woodgrouse [mating call]

All the birds of the sea they trolled out rightbold and they heard of the kiss of Tristan and Isolde. So sang sea birds..


'All the birds of the air'
"trolled" = sang freely (plus hideous trolls)
"rightbold" puns on 'ribald'?
"heard of" or just 'heard'?
cf? VI.A Scylla (March?) "God sees rut from above"

it looks like Joyce told Nora to use a colon, which he explained as two dots? (she seems to have trouble with apostrophes too)

FW2: "That song sang seaswans. The winging ones, overhoved, shrillglee-screaming. Seahawk, seagull, curlew and plover, kestrel and capercailzie. All the birds of the sea they trolled out rightbold when they smacked the big kuss of Trustan with Usolde."

in Malory's Tristan, sir Dinadan composes an insulting song about Mark [ebook] and has it performed for him [ebook]

the following song, almost unchanged, became the opening of II.4 some 16 years later, followed by the preceding paragraph about the birds listening to the kiss (also almost unchanged), followed by a description of the Waves also listening to the kiss:

— Three caws for for Mister Mark
Sure he hasnt got much of a bark
And sure any he has is all beside the mark.
O Eagle Highflighty would'nt it be a sky of a lark
To see that old busard whooping around in his shirt in the dark
And he hunting about for his speckled trousers in Palmerston park


cf VI.A Exiles2 (Aug?) "3 crops for Mark and bonhomie sinistre"

"Eagle Highflighty" changed to "Wreneagle Almighty" in subsequent drafts, a very unusual instance of a pun being replaced by its source-word

more birds: eagle, lark/skylark, busard, whooping crane?, speckled-back plover?, rooster, cock, fowl

skylark
cf U68: "Singing with his eyes shut. Corny. Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark."

HCE's sin in the park must be anticipated here, along with Parnell's interrupted adultery? how do they jump from Mark's impotent cuckoldry to a sexual trespass??
Palmerston Park

O moulty Mark
Youre the rummest old rooster ever crawled out of a Noah's ark
And you think you're the cock of the walk:
Fowls up! Tristan's a spry young spark
That'll tread her and wed her and bed her and red her
Without even winking the tale of a feather
And that's how that chap's going to make his money and mark


birds-etc moult seasonally (shed layers)
"rummest" = best or strangest
birds were sent out from Noah's ark to find land [wakpd]
"cock of the walk" phrase since 18thC
"Fowls up!" (no comma, so cf 'the jig is up'?)

"spark" = buck
"tread" = fuck (out of chronological order?)
colors: red
"red her" = take her virginity
"tale" (maybe Nora's misspelling?)
"money" (Tristan get rich by cuckolding Mark?)

tread-wed-bed-red = the Four??? Matt-Mark-Luke-John? (but it predates the wavesong)

FW2: "Three quarks for Muster Mark! Sure he hasn't got much of a bark And sure any he has it's all beside the mark. But, O Wreneagle Almighty, wouldn't un be a sky of a larkTo see that old buzzard whooping about for uns shirt in the dark And he hunting round for uns speckled trousers around by Palmerstown Park? Hohohoho, moulty Mark! You're the rummest old rooster ever flopped out of a Noah's ark And you think you're cock of the wark. Fowls, up! Tristy's the spry young spark That'll tread her and wed her and bed her and red her Without even winking the tail of a feather And that's how that chap's going to make his money and mark!"




The Four Waves of Ireland also heard, leaning upon the staves of memory.

"also heard" this critical transition was deleted when Mamalujo was broken out as a separate vignette: so in the first level the birds heard (and sang) ("All the birds of the sea they trolled out rightbold and they heard of the kiss"), and the Waves also heard (and will also chant)

(they have no names yet, but surely they already correspond to the four provinces, which Joyce was probably exploiting in U-Scylla)
cf VI.A Personal "3 waves of I = Thoth, Ruri, Cleeva"
if they're really in the Strait of Moyle, maybe Tuath/Thoth dominates?

'(leaning on) the staff of memory' is a phrase


Four [???] eminently respectable old gentlemen they looked got up in sleek holiday toggery for the occasion grey half tall hat, gre frock coats to match, fathomglasses and soforth, you know,

is "sleek holiday toggery" ironic? cf Mark's expensive plaid pants, above
"holiday toggery for the occasion" what occasion? the kiss??

half tall top hat
VI.B3.112 (May?) "Pop's tall hat"
frock coat
colors: grey
measures: fathom (6ft)
"fathomglasses" = maybe pseudoscience supposedly for looking into the depths of the sea, or the depths of the world? or like Barkeley's revelation, also around this time? (fathometers were real)

cf?? The Tempest V.1.55 'But this rough magic I here abjure, and, when I have required Some heavenly music, which even now I do, To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book.'

"soforth" seems to have been an acceptable alternate spelling


for all the worlds like the fourth viscount Powerscourt at the royal Dublin socities annual horseshow.

4th Viscount (d1809) sold Powerscourt House, built by his father
the horseshow only dates to 1864
the 7th Viscount died in June 1904 aged 67

cf Luke-verse? "A power of highsteppers"

FW2: "the four maaster waves of Erin [...] bespectable with their grey half a tall hat and tailormade frock coat and after that they had their fathomglasses... just now like the old Merquus of Pawerschoof... going to the tailturn horseshow"


[ms]
They had seen their share.. the capture of Sir Arthur Casement in the year 1132, Coronation of Brian by the Danes at Clonmacnois

Sir Roger Casement was captured in 1916 (just 7yrs earlier, remarkably)
47yo in 1911

birth of a mystery-motif
Brian Boru crowned 1002 AD (maybe even at Clonmacnoise monastery??)

The drowning of poor Mat Keane of Dunlearery the scattering of the flemish armada off the coasts of Galway and Longford,

"Mat Keane of Dunlearery" maybe Nora's spelling? she probably never met Mat Kane, but knew of him from Joyce. he drowned off Dunleary in 1904
Mat Kane aka Martin Cunningham

1901
the Spanish Armada was scattered by bad weather off the west coast between Antrim and Kerry in 1588

U196: "The lost armada is his jeer in Love's Labour Lost." (Don Adriano de Armado, a fantastical Spaniard)

Annals of the Four Masters, II, 1171-3: 'The Age of Christ, 1169... The fleet of the Flemings came from England in the army of Mac Murchadha, i.e. Diarmaid, to contest the kingdom of Leinster for him' (actually the Norman landing near Bannow, County Wexford)

the landing of St Patrick in the year 1798, the dispersal of the French fleet under General Boche in the year 2002.

Patrick's landing is traditionally dated to 432 AD, maybe at Wicklow

Admiral Nelson died defeating Napoleon's French Navy (under the Frenchman Villeneuve) at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (Ireland's Martello towers were built to repel Napoleon)

'boche' was French slang for cabbagehead, applied especially to Germans after 1870

cf draft of Luke-verse? "Ten million men died ten in a ditch"

"1132... 1798... 2002" (1900 is halfway between the last two; 1798-1132=666)

FW2: "the official landing of Lady Jales Casemate, in the year of the flood 1132 S.O.S., and the christening of Queen Baltersby... and then poor Merkin Cornyngwham... when he was completely drowned... the Flemish armada, all scattered... at about eleven thirtytwo... off the coast of Cominghome and Saint Patrick... and then there was the Frankish floot... under Motham-general Bonaboche..."


And such was their memory that they had been appointed lectern professors to the four chief seats of learning in Erin, the universities of killorcure, kill-them-all, killeachother, killkelly-on-the-Flure,

"such was their memory" this claim is dropped!
"had been appointed" implies they currently hold this post (also dropped)
neither "lectern professors" nor 'lecture professors' is a thing
"four chief seats" (current rankings would include Dublin (Trinity and UCD), Cork, Galway, Limerick, Maynooth, Waterford, Dundalk, Sligo, not to mention Belfast and Ulster)
'cill' is Irish for church (some words that start 'Kil-') Kilkenny almost has a university, and Kildare sort of does (not Killarney nor Kilmarnock)


whither they wirelessed four times weekly lectures in the four modes of history, past, present, absent and future.

"wirelessed" was a fairly common verb before 1940
"four times weekly" (can we guess which day they took off? Friday? Wednesday?)
by definition, only "past" history is legitimate, but "future" and "present" are sometimes acceptable ("absent" is a swerve into the surreal: maybe cf 'alternate history'?)

FW2: "And then again they used to give the... lectures... in the four... grandest colleges... of Erryn, of Killorcure and Killthemall and Killeachother and Killkelly-on-the-Flure... the past and present... and present and absent and past and present and perfect..."


Saltsea widowers all four they had been many ages before divorced by their respective [?waves]{consorts} (with whom they had parted on the best of terms)

(alludes to marriage but not birth or death)

by analogy with 'grass widow' a sea widower should be a man at sea whose wife has returned to land (cf Mark, ROC, HCE)

'waves'?
"parted on the best of terms" cf ALP's letter


by a decrees absolute issued by Mrs Justice Smashman in the married male offenders court at bohernabreena,

cf U16.1491: 'nisi was made absolute' (Parnell divorce case)

here's a ?unique colloquial use of 'Smash, man!' (the passage will later be dominated by puns on 'lemon squash')

"married male offenders" = HCE
'juvenile offenders court' was a thing
"male offenders" was a thing

Bohernabreena parish (bother na brúine = road of the fairy hostel; pronunced bornabreena) Dublin county

FW2: "saltwater widowers [...] they were all summarily divorced, four years before, or so they say, by their dear poor shehusbands... but still they parted... on the best of terms... By decree absolute... Mrs Dowager Justice Squelchman... at the Married Male Familyman's Auctioneers' court in Arrahnacuddle."


one for inefficiency in backscraching, too for having broken wind from behind without having first made a request in writing on stamped foolscap paper.

VI.A Eolus (July?) "scratch my back & I'll scratch yours" (so he was fired for not being corrupt enough?)
"too" is as likely Nora's mishearing as James's pun
"stamped foolscap" again suggests pointless red tape


three for having attempted hunish familiarities after a meal decompsed crab, four on account of the general appearance of his face.

'huns' can mean Protestants as well as Germans or barbarians in general (but 'bad crab' just sounds like desperate excusemaking)
"general appearance of his face" gets dropped altogether as if it never really fit a pattern (what four-pattern could this have been? back/behind/stomach/face?? four provinces?)

face/back/butt/arms???
cf? wavesong: paternal-poetic-domestic-sexist

FW2: " Poor Johnny... because he was so slow to borstel her schoon for her... instead of backscratching her... proper... And poor Mark... because he forgot himself, making wind and water... and because he forgot to remembore to sign... a writing in request to hersute herself, on stamped brownanoleum... and too there was poor Dion... because... he attempted... some hunnish familiarities, after eten... a bad crab..."


Though that was ever so long ago they could still with an effort of memory and by counting carefully the four buttons of the fly of their trousers recall the name

is there a psychological truth behind this supposed memory-trick? could it hint of past exhibitionism, as if counting the buttons reminds them of a time when they were left unbuttoned?
cf U80: "Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the time? Women enjoy it. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there's a (whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. Glimpses of the moon. Annoyed if you don't. Why didn't you tell me before. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn't farther south." (they count them to be extra careful)


of the four beautiful sisters Brinabride who were at [p] the moment touring the United States.

"four beautiful sisters" Maud Gonne? Yeats' sisters? Yeats himself? other performers?
"Brinabride" [fweet-7] usually associated with Parnell's "When you sell, get my price"
(so when their brine-brides are away, the waves are sea widowers?)
'at present'?

FW2: "four (up) beautful sister misters... and there they were always counting... the lovely mother-of-periwinkle buttons, according to the lapper part of their anachronism... and after that there now she was... the beautfour sisters, and that was her mudhen republican name... and they used to be getting up from under"


[ms]
Yet were they fettersome and lured by beauty, often would they cling to the sides of the Northwall and Hollyhead boats and the Isle of Man tourist steamers,

"fettersome" is a real rare word, but it's odd here (and will be dropped altogether, never recycled): who do they fetter?
"Time has branded them and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite possibilities they have ousted." U25

(besides waves, what clings to ships' sides? seaweed? barnacles?)

do they choose these boats because they're most likely to reward voyeurism? honeymooners and "saloon ladies" (was voyeurism from Dublin quays possible?)


peering with glaucomatose [?] eyes through the cataractic portholes of honeymoon cabins or saloon ladies toilet apartements.

"peering" at this point they're eye-centric, not ear/listening
ladies' saloon = 'a fine, spacious apartment, which is fitted up and upholstered in a tasteful manner'
'appartements' is correct in French, German, etc

waves splashing salt on ships seems valid, but it's a big leap to voyeurism (again anticipating one of HCE's rumored sins in the park)
and aren't old men a lot less likely to pursue active voyeurism?

cf Mark-verse? "In her curragh of shells of daughter of pearl and her silverymoonblue mantle round her"

FW2: "spraining their ears, luistening and listening to the oceans of kissening, with their eyes glistening"
FW2: "they had their night tentacles and there they used to be... around the waists of the ships... the steamships and the women-o'-war... and their pair of green eyes and peering in... through the steamy windows, into the honeymoon cabins... and the saloon ladies' madorn toilet chambers... and rub off the salty catara off a windows and... listening... to see all the hunnishmooners and the firstclass ladies..."


But, when those Jossers aforesaid the Four Waves of Erin, heard the detonation of the osculation which with ostentation Tristan to Isolde gave then lifted they up round Irelands shores the wail of old men's glee:

the "-tion" endings anticipate the Twelve
"detonation" explosive/bomb/volcano? (the 1883 eruption of Karakatoa was heard 3000 miles away)
cf VI.A Chamber "T's whisper heard in Pekin"
T gave kiss to I
"round Irelands shores" not just around ship


Highchanted the elderly Waves of Erin, in-four-part Palestrian melody, four for all, all one in glee of grief of loneliness of age but with a bardic licence there being about of birds and stars quite a sufficient number

Emerson used the phrase 'high chant' once, poetically, in 1838, referring to Jesus's speech (maybe cited by Dublin theosophists?)
'palaestra' = ancient Greek wrestling-school?!?
"melody" = unison not harmony? (Yeats and AE, surely)
cf? VI.A Scylla (July?) "AE Lurgan (Armagh) 1867 Aet 56, WBY 58 GBS 67. GM 71. (1923)" Russell (Ulster), Yeats (Connacht), GB Shaw (Leinster), G Moore (Connacht) no Munster?
"grief of loneliness of age" the final wavesong would instead be active
"bardic licence" poetic license, because Joyce is recycling a poem with no birds and only one star


This was their [way] wavechant:

(probably just Nora's typo)

one version of the following poem (other versions of which which date back to 1914) appears in Pomes Penyeach as "Tutto è sciolto" ('All is lost now') [info] Ellmann sees it as Joyce regretting his failure to seduce Amalia Popper:


A birdless heaven, seadusk and one star,
low in the west
And thou, poor heart, loves image, faint and far.
Rememberest


mustn't this be the Waves sympathising with Mark, who's mourning his loss of Isolde to Tristan? (thou/thine vs Her/she)
or are they feeling sorry for themselves?


Her Sea cold eyes and her ?softlifted brow
And fragrant hair,
Falling as through the silence falleth now
Dusk from the air.


A why wilt thou



[ms]
A why wilt thou remember these.
A why,
Poor heart, repine,
If the dear love she yielded with a sigh

Was never thine!


"repine" = regret

Isolde yields to Tristan, not to Mark or the Waves?

cf romantic 'thou' Mark-verse?

now, having switched from T&I's pov for the kiss, to the birds' pov w/song, to the Waves' pov with chant, we switch back to T&I (with Mark now excluded):

Isolde, her longfamous lashes butterflykissing his near and farfamous cheek, felt him sweeter than cherry or plum, than candy kisses or Lipton's fruitcake,

"longfamous... near and farfamous" echoes "rightandlefthandled fore and aft, on and offside" and also "the four modes of history, past, present, absent and future"


proverb: 'stolen fruit is sweetest'

the candy references are continued from "taking him by and large he meant everything to her just then, being her beau ideal of a true girl friend, handsome musical composer a thoroughbred Pomeranian lapdog, a box of crystallised ginger and may even the Deity Itself" (similarly hasty-sounding? maybe symmetrical reflection?)

colors: plum?

1930 ad (not Lipton's)


than the hawthorn valley in the month of May, than the finest music going than lovely sleep.

'In about mid-May, the hedgerows and fields of Ireland come alive'
"hawthorn valley" maybe Yeats' Sligo?
"finest music going" George Meredith on gunfire, 1864
(is she nodding off... after sex??)

cf later: "— How gentlemanlike am I, Issy. I never hurt the feelings of another?
— And, ?Tris, what a sweet nature is mine, is not it?"

the materialism might echo the Matt-verse


She murmured:
— My precious since last we parted it seems to me that I have been continually in your company, even when I close my eyes [?to s] at night. seeing you hearing you, meeting you in different places so that I'm beginning to wonder whether my soul does not take leave of my body in sleep and go to seek you and what is more find you or [perhaps] ?maychaps this is only a phantasy. Tell me Daniel, my precious darling.


This is not quite exactly Nora's 1904 copybook letter, presumably dictated to her with her permission?!: (differences highlighted) “it seems to me that I am always in your company under every possible variety of circumstances talking to you walking with you meeting you suddenly in different places until I am beginning to wonder if my spirit takes leave of my body in sleep and goes to seek you, and what is more find you or perhaps this is nothing but a fantasy.”
(since no one has found the copybook, isn't it likelier this was original to NB? is JAJ slightly misremembering it rather than purposely tweaking it?)

or could "Daniel" here be a random name the purported copybook had used? ((in "Stephen Hero" the Sheehys are called the 'Daniel's))

maybe Daniel in the History of Susanna in the Apocrypha? Daniel defends Susanna when the two elders whose advances she has refused try to revenge themselves by accusing her of adultery. Daniel questions
them separately and develops conflicts in their testimony so that they are condemned and Susanna is exonerated.

or Daniel O'Connell???

the romanticism slightly fits the Mark-verse

cf "Isolde, O Isolde, when theeupon I oculise my most inmost Ego most vaguely senses the profundity of multimathematical immaterialities whereby in the pancosmic urge the Allimmanence of That Which Is Itself exteriorates on this here our plane of disunited solid liquid and gaseous bodies in pearlwhite passionpanting intuitions of reunited Selfhood in the higher dimensional Selflessness."


He, Hero of tens of serums, Kisser of hundreds, blocker of thousands, ejaculater of myriads loudly spoke his voice falling in strange ineffectual dropkick, so;


measures:  tens, hundreds, thousands, myriads
how can you be the hero of a serum? (eg blood serum)
hundreds of serums or hundreds of girls?
blocker/ejaculator of sperm?

cf U83: "the limp father of thousands"

"loudly... voice falling" contradiction?
Nathaniel Hawthorne: 'The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape'
"strange ineffectual dropkick" ????
"dropkick" later became a wrestling move, but here must mean soccer 


in the language of diplomacy
— Pourquoi es-tu entrée dans ma fie, Henritte S, je ?croyais mon âme déjà morte


"language of diplomacy" French

dans ma vie
he also calls her by the wrong name?
VI.A Exiles2 (July?) "Henriette (cf Trist-Renan)" (Renan's 12yr-older sister inspired 'Vie de Jesus')

Henriette Renan
cf?? FW176.07 "Henressy"
FW447.08 "for Henrietta's sake"
Henrietta Street, Dublin [map] [wiki]
Henriette Sontag 19thC soprano d1854

(perhaps when we understand Stephen Dedalus better, this morbid impulse will make more sense?)

((might this egotism have been substituted by the Matt-verse or John-verse in the final song?))


[ms]
She lifted her head, her eyes content. For now she knew that she it was and not that ginger bitch katiagnes O Halloran.

"she it was"
cf Lilith, Maggies
"Katiagnes" is an unknown name, but Ireland had plenty of female O'Halloran's around Joyce's age
U-Circe: "Moses begat Noah and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O'Halloran and O'Halloran begat Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath..."


He, the gentleman, was sadvisaged. First he was rather liable to piles procured by sitting on stone walls and over and above that by medical advice of Dr Codd he had been lowering daily draughts of extract of willow bark to keep off the Hibernian flu.

existential angst now blamed on health
why did he sit on stone walls?
the Mookse sits on a stone too
"sadvisaged... advice"
a Dr Codd was 40yo in 1901
'codding' = joking
"lowering" = swallowing???
pronounced 'draFts'
willow bark extract  = aspirin, more or less pure

still marketed

the name 'Hibernia' might have meant 'wintry'
'The Spanish [or 'Iberian'] flu killed a total of 10,651 people in Ireland during 1918.' [cite]

cf Luke-verse?? "as your own nursetender" (also Bloom?)


With feverish pallor he beheld the holy ghosts of his undergradual loves, Henriette atop of the haycock, Nenette de l'Eglise behind the taproom, Marie Louise all fun and fleas, tipsy Suzanne catch as catch can, and last but not least the rawboned housekeeper of the local parish priest ?Ghasthly, he pastloveyed her.

"undergradual loves" their names are all French (cf Brittany/Armorica, Hamlet?)
cf "Henritte S" above: he's just absentmindedly used the name of a former lover, Henriette, for her?


"behind the chief steward's cabin... behind the taproom" ("behind the taproom" more likely inside than out?)
"Eglise... Louise... fleas" (Eglise will be changed)

Ghusthly?
cf VI.A Circe "looking ghastly... ghastly" Eumeus "ghastly"
Byron uses 'ghasthly'

pasteurised???
eyed her like a past love?
(two verbs, no conjunction?)

((might this sexual bragging have been substituted by the John-verse in the final song?))


— Smiling Johnny, pleaded she, do you care for me just a little?

"Smiling Johnny" Reid was a Canadian outlaw of the 1920s
(too early for MmlJohnny)
"Robert Roly... Tris... Daniel... Johnny"

didn't she just convince herself he does care?


Offsong & Partially selfstrangled he replied:
— Lady, I am not worthy. If you but knew. Why were we born in two different places? Wherefore have we met yesterday so to speak?


"offsong" seems to mean 'not himself' or out of tune
"selfstrangled" usually meant suicide by hanging, but was sometimes used poetically/ metaphorically
"If you but knew" (Joyce warning Nora??)
"Why were we born in two different places?" (Ireland and Brittany. he feels fate is unfair?)
elaborating on her copybook thoughts? (Mark-verse??)
"met yesterday" love-potion?


Why this strangulation, this yearning for a bonum arduum as distinguished from a bonum simpliciter? Well away, alas, for death in, with, for and on account of my well beloved I mutely yearn.

Tristan's self-destructive ego likes a chance to complain
"Well away, alas... well beloved" ??
"In muted gloom each lapses, muted, dim... mutely yearn"

Joyce never expressed this sort of decadence, did he? but Wagner's T&I did


[ms]
— O, can that sobstuff, answered Isolde impatiently after her waiting patiently all through the damned old dinner of burnt loinchops and ignoble potatoes with everybody talking about loinchops and potatoes and the pig's arse and cabbage the day before and the silversides boiled cowbeef of the day before that again with purpletop swedes and equally ignoble [potatoes] colicflower without a morsel of appetite.

is this Nora more than Isolde?
was it tonight's dinner onboard their ship, with Tristan among the bores?
isn't it a glimpse of her future too, whether with T or Mark or anyone?

VI.A Personal "can that sobstuff, T whinges"
cf U-Lestrygonians?
oxnoble potatoes
in a pig's arse
silversides
purpletop swede turnips
"colicflower" may instead be the phonetic "colieflower"

colors: silver, purple

cf domesticity of Luke-verse, material pride of Matt-verse


Love she wanted, the ?best obtainable, true new blind bottomless staggerhumanity love at first sight, for which reason she again kissed him and he, being a gentleman, counterkissed

true love
"new" (she's bored!)
love is blind
'bottomless love' seems always to refer to religion
the Boer War and WW1 were described as staggering humanity
"again kissed"
he's just being polite?!?


because it was his one maxim in life that if a lady, for example, wanted a bite of a piece of Stilton cheese and he happened, for argument' sake, to have a quarter of a pound or so of Stilton cheese in his pocket why he'd just simply put his hand in his pocket, don't you know, and well he'd just give her the cheese, don't you see, to take a bite off.

"his one maxim" (surely not!)
"for example" so the maxim is something like 'do unto others' or 'be kind to your neighbor' (vs 'to thine own self be true'?)
measures: quarter of a pound (~2-inch cube)

Blue Stilton

cf later: "the way he was always sticking his finger into his trousers pocket and then sticking it into his eye like a baby"

in U-Scylla, Best repeatedly says "don't you know"

"give her the cheese... to take a bite off" sounds a little naughty
but he's claiming his motives are purely gentlemanly

((might this domesticity have been substituted by the Luke verse in the final song?))


However first & foremost, before testing her triangle to prove whether she was as the newspapers reported a virgo intacta, he asked her whether she had ever indulged in clandestine fornication.

jump cut!? testing for himself before proposing, or for Mark?
did the newspapers ever concern themselves this way, eg with a royal wedding where there might be reason to doubt? (certainly with a court case...?) the phrasing is legalistic

cf Muddest1 "Then carefully lift up the apron of our A.L.P. until its apex below is where a navel ought to be. Waaaaaa. Tch! And there's your first of all equilittoral triangles."

cf John-verse? "no damn lout'll come courting thee'


— No, Nein, Never, she ?swore. By the axecleft of my notch! By the hair of my dearest parents! By the inviolable devil of Ben Bulben! By the fresh water pullan herring.

cf? VI.A Exiles2 (May?) "Fluchende [swearing] Frau as long as my hole looks down?"
cf? 'another notch in his belt'
cf? 'not by the hair of my chinny chin chin'
'It is even unsafe to swear by the hair of one's own head, since this oath too is binding.' (would parents' then be less binding??)

usually only virtues are called "inviolable"
"devil of Ben Bulben"  cf Yeats
cf "Hear, O hear, all ye caller herrings!" above

freshwater pollan herring from Lough Neagh
'pulla' is Latin for hen [fweet-8]

here the new discoveries include a faircopy of known material:

Her mournful embracer pointed to the starry host. By them he bade her swear, them that were and are and shall be the silently strewing, the strikingly shining, the twittingly twinkling, and (as he truly remarked) the lamplights of lovers.
Up they gazed, skyward, while in her ear that loveless lover breathed:


"mournful embracer" = "Sir Sloomysides" in Mark-verse?
"starry host" Bible cliche
in the opening section the stars go unmentioned, until the Wave-chant, where again they reflect Isolde's inconstancy...?

cf romantic Mark-verse
"loveless lover" might be James' self-critique?


Gaunt in gloom
The pale stars their torches
Enshrouded wave
Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume
Arches on soaring arches,
Night's sindark nave


"Nights' "?


Seraphim
The pale stars awaken
To service till
In [muted]{moonless} gloom each lapses, muted, dim
Raised when she has & shaken
Her thurible


"I mutely yearn... muted... muted"?
cf "sir sloomysides"?


And long and loud
To night's nave upsoaring
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls


"As long"?
(surely the "k" in starknell is silent?)

Night Piece

thurible
why would he ask her to swear by these dismal stars?? Joyce's obsession with Nora's virginity seems pretty petty nowadays


— Go away from me instantly, she cried.
— Perfect, he said.


VI.B3.1 "Trist—Go away from me you/ (she goes) O come back"
James and Nora??? poetry criticism?

the faircopy will say "Perfect, he said, you bloody bitch."


He took leave of her and went before many instants had passed.
— No, come back, she cried. I can't live without you.
— It's important, he said, stopped and circulated at walker's pace in an opposed direction.


measurement motif: many instants
VI.B3.1 "to circulate (Trist)"
the faircopy says "It is perfect"
what could he have been referring to, as perfect or important? her virginity? the poem?

"walker's pace" (this might suggest a horse, but i don't find it)
cf U85: "At walking pace." (funeral horses)
"opposed direction" he'd been circulating in one direction (getting neither farther nor closer?) and now switches?

cf ROC1: "he just went heeltapping round his own right royal round rollicking table... in strict order of rotation"




1 comment:

  1. I'd like your comments on this sentence: "they were doing a lally a lolly a dither a duther one lelly two dather three lilly four dother." on FW 396 25-26 and whether it is an allusion to the Tristan and Isolde relation and your level 3. Many Thanks.

    ReplyDelete