So anyhow to wind up after the whole beanfeast was all over poor old King Roderick O'Conor the last king of all Ireland who was anything you like between fiftyfour and fiftyfive years of age at the time after the socalled last supper he gave or at least he wasn't actually the last king of all Ireland for the time being because he was still such as he was the king of all Ireland after the last king of all Ireland Art MacMurrough Kavanagh who was king of all Ireland before he was anyhow what did he do King Roderick O'Conor the respected king of all Ireland at the time after they were all of them gone when he was all by himself but he just went heeltapping round his own right royal round rollicking table and faith he sucked up sure enough like a Trojan in some particular cases with the assistance of his venerated tongue one after the other in strict order of rotation whatever happened to be left in the different bottoms of the various drinking utensils left there behind them by the departed honourable guests such as it was either Guiness's or Phoenix Brewery Stout or John Jameson and Sons or for that matter O'Connell's Dublin ale as a fallback of several different quantities amounting in all to I should say considerably more than the better part of a gill or naggin of imperial dry and liquid measure. [source] [FDV]
Ellmann: On March 11, 1923, he announced to Miss Weaver, "Yesterday I wrote two pages— the first I have written since the final Yes of Ulysses. Having found a pen, with some difficulty I copied them out in a large handwriting on a double sheet of foolscap so that I could read them. II lupo perde il pelo ma non il vizio, the Italians say. The wolf may lose his skin but not his vice or the leopard cannot change his spots." (the phrasing-- copied them out-- suggests he first 'wrote' them in his head)
So anyhow to wind up after the whole beanfeast was all over
"to wind up" = 'last' paragraph of FW written first? (is this 'death' in the viconian birth-marriage-death cycle?)
wind/fire/flood/earthquake?
U174: "All those women and children excursion beanfeast burned and drowned in New York. Holocaust."
a feast of beans is a feast in name only
there's a longwinded unnamed narrator who presumably echoes ROC's own speakingstyle
FW2: "So anyhow... to wind up... after that... beanfeast was all over"
poor old King Roderick O'Conor the last king of all Ireland who was anything you like between fiftyfour and fiftyfive years of age at the time
"poor old" (just in retrospect, or at the time?)
last High King of Ireland from 1166 to 1198 (1183?), before the Norman invasion [wiki] [Annals of Ulster] [Giraldus Cambrensis] 1198-54=1144
the 1901 census has 15k O'Connors and only 78 O'Conors (FW keeps the latter spelling)
"all Ireland" includes the north
"anything you like" ie birthyear known, birthday not known
the historian's audience can fill in the blanks (cf? U24: "From a hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers, leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear.")
Joyce wouldn't turn 55 until 1937, but on Bloomsday 1904 his father was about to turn 55 (4 July 1904). Bloom would have turned 55 in 1921.
FW2: "poor old... King Roderick O'Conor, the... last... king of all Ireland, who was anything you say yourself between fiftyodd and fiftyeven years of age at the time"
after the socalled last supper he gave or at least he wasn't actually the last king of all Ireland for the time being because he was still such as he was the king of all Ireland
"socalled last supper" (ROC = Jesus)
he couldn't know he'd be remembered as the last
(did he know he'd never give another supper?)
FW2: "after the socalled last supper he greatly gave... or at least he wasn't actually the then last king of all Ireland for the time being for the jolly good reason that he was still such as he was the eminent king of all Ireland himself"
after the last king of all Ireland Art MacMurrough Kavanagh who was king of all Ireland before he was
Art MacMurrough Kavanagh: 14th century king of Leinster (a descendant of Diarmaid MacMurrough) d1416 (so this is simply/intentionally wrong?)
also handicapped politician d1889
VI.B10.54f (Dec22): "Mac Murrough Kavanagh"
the 1901 census has 8000 Kavanaghs
FW2: "after the last... preeminent king of all Ireland... that went before him in the Taharan dynasty, King Arth Mockmorrow Koughenough..."
anyhow what did he do King Roderick O'Conor the respected king of all Ireland at the time
"respected"
FW2: "anyhow... what did he do, poor old Roderick O'Conor Rex, the auspicious waterproof monarch of all Ireland,"
after they were all of them gone when he was all by himself but he just went heeltapping round his own right royal round rollicking table
(maybe cf Bloom after Stephen leaves, U-17)
a 'heel-tap' was a layer in a shoe-heel, and by analogy apparently the dregs of a drinkingglass (so used by Peacock and Shelley). (as a verb it could mean an audience's restive drumming called "footdrill" in Ulysses, or the Spanish zapateo dance) (those dregs were also the origin of 'here's mud in your eye')
is he circling the drain? (cf?? PoA1: "Once he had washed his hands in the lavatory of the Wicklow Hotel and his father pulled the stopper up by the chain after and the dirty water went down through the hole in the basin. And when it had all gone down slowly the hole in the basin had made a sound like that: suck.")
maybe: "a right-down regular, Regular, regular, Regular Royal Queen!" G&S ♬
"rollicking" = he liked to party
FW2: "when he found himself all alone by himself... after all of them had all gone... but, faix, he just went heeltapping... round his own right royal round rollicking topers' table..."
and faith he sucked up sure enough like a Trojan in some particular cases with the assistance of his venerated tongue one after the other in strict order of rotation whatever happened to be left in the different bottoms of the various drinking utensils left there behind them by the departed honourable guests such as it was
"like a Trojan" only goes back to c1850, split between 'work', 'eat', 'drink' and 'bear [something]' (cf Italian troia = sow?)
"poor old... respected... venerated"
"in strict order of rotation" (why is this specified??)
"departed honourable guests" (not betrayers... yet? cf Brutus was an honorable man)
"such as it was" ("it" = whatever happened to be left)
FW2: "well, what did he go and do... but... suck up, sure enough, like a Trojan, in some particular cases with the assistance of his venerated tongue, whatever surplus rotgut... was left by the lazy lousers in the different bottoms of the various... drinking utensils left there behind them... by that... family of departed honourable homegoers, such as it was,"
either Guiness's or Phoenix Brewery Stout or John Jameson and Sons or for that matter O'Connell's Dublin ale
earliest dates: Guinness 1759, Jameson 1780, O'Connell 1831, Phoenix pre-1831?
FW2: "no matter whether it was... Guinness's or Phoenix brewery stout... or John Jameson and Sons... or, for the matter of that, O'Connell's famous old Dublin ale..."
as a fallback of several different quantities amounting in all to I should say considerably more than the better part of a gill or naggin of imperial dry and liquid measure.
"fallback" (anticipating he'll shortly collapse?)
"considerably more than the better part" (so still less than 4oz?)
 |
| a 'shot' is ~1.5oz |
measurement motif
FW2: "as a fallback, of several different quantities... amounting in all to, I should say, considerably more than the better part of a gill or naggin of imperial dry and liquid measure..."
does this image of a publican drinking up the dregs have any literary or historical precedent? does his circular path, as his "guests" depart centrifugally, carry some deep symbolic weight? is JAJ remembering his father's poverty and alcoholism?
(The fact that the guests leave deals a first deadly blow to the "Finn's Hotel" hypothesis! As do the anachronisms... though there's no particular neologisms/dream-puns yet.)
[Chrisp] [Deppman]
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