Friday July 14, 1922: Djuna Barnes and Edmund Wilson, Jr., came to
dinner to-night and we went to the "Chauve-Souris." ...Djuna tells me
that the publication of "Ulysses" has driven her to literary suicide.
"I shall never write another line," she said, with a graceful gesture of
despair. "Who has the nerve after that? And poor Joyce, what is he
getting out of it, poor devil? Living in wretchedness and poverty, half
blind and tormented day and night by migraine." ...Djuna said that Joyce
is frightfully superstitious. Just before "Ulysses" came out she was
walking with him and his wife in the Bois de Bologne, when a man brushed
by and mumbled something she did not understand. Joyce blanched and
trembled. Djuna asked what was the matter. "That man, whom I have
never seen before," he said, "said to me as he passed, in Latin, 'You
are an abominable writer!' That is a dreadful omen the day before the
publication of my novel."
Burton Rascoe, "A Bookman's Daybook" Horace Liveright NY 1929 p27
(Ulysses was published Feb 2 1922.)
August 1922 "I think I will write a history of the world."
Joyce to HSW, as remembered by HSW to Ellmann in 1955, JJ2
While none can deny that Finnegans Wake is at the very least a locked
box, current opinions vary widely on whether that box can ever be
opened, and, if it were, what we might hope to find inside.
Can it really hold the summa of Joyce's lifelong analysis of human
nature, his "history of the world"? Or might there be, somewhere deep
inside, a coherent fictional narrative... perhaps even Joyce's
detailed autobiography? Or is it just a magnificently twisted
gorgeous Celtic knot?
Does Joyce get the last laugh after Pound's sneer, "nothing short of a
divine vision or a new cure for the clapp can possibly be worth all
the circumambient peripherization"? Or, is FW, finally, resoundingly,
hollow at the core...?
All who would undertake to study this problem must eventually grapple
with FW's vast surviving genetic record-- especially the drafts in the
British Museum, and the workbooks at Buffalo. If Picasso similarly had
dedicated half his adult life to a single painting, the masterpiece of
his career, reworking it obsessively, overcomplicating it
intentionally... by the time it was exhibited it would have accumulated
to a full foot's thickness, with all the layers of revisions!
And the process of analysing its 'genetic record' could involve
reconstructing each layer in sequence, even to the point of
identifying which, in a warehouse full of archived paint-palettes, was
the one he'd used for each patch of color, within each layer, and the
discarded tubes he'd mixed the shade from....
A daunting task, for an incertain prize! But for FW the first stage is
obvious, anyway-- using the guideposts Joyce himself left, in the form
of different-colored crayon exxings, to match all possible workbook
notes to their corresponding draft insertions. Given that nearly all
the source notes have survived, and that most of the text seems derived
from notes, this list ought finally to be about as long as the Wake
itself. But how much will the concrete realization of such a list
actually clarify Joyce's purposes?
If the crayon exxings tell the true story, Joyce finally used far less
than half the notes he'd once judged promising enough to jot down. The
unused notes must shed some light on Joyce's thought processes as well,
but as we venture into this new domain, our task not only grows
quantitatively, but blurs, too, dramatically, into subjectivity and
speculative hypothesis.
Does the note "Robert replenishes his briar" anticipate the cad with a
pipe, to take one real example? Does its use of the name 'Robert' refer
back to Exiles' Robert Hand? We can hardly begin to speculate until
we've traced all references to pipes, and to the name Robert, not just
in the notes, but through the entire body of Joyce's writings! But
again, when this task is done, can we yet be confident that any given
note reflects Joyce's conscious invocation of a motif, and not mere
accidental happenstance?
The genetic study of Finnegans Wake is suspended in such doubts. The
task is enormous, and enormously difficult, the outcome is unknown.
(How like life!)
I present below a few dozen notes that illustrate, I think, as clear a
thread of continuity as we can ever hope to find. Each note is assigned
a hypothetical month of origin, according to the chronological scheme I
presented in European Joyce Studies. Deane and Lernout's work with
VI.B.10 and the Irish Times shows that that notebook was filled
consecutively from October 1922 through January 1923. Various
correlations in VI.B.3 suggest its dates are April through June 1923,
implying a whole notebook lost (VI.D.8) that covered the critically
formative months of February and March.
The dating of VI.A (Scribbledehobble) is more problematic, because of
its format as fifty parallel lists of phrases. Fortunately, these lists
show consistent variations in the visible appearance of pen nibs and
inks, that allow them to be correlated quite precisely to each other.
Moreover, a few dozen scattered duplications between the B-series
stenopads and VI.A notes permit an approximate correlation of these
Scribbledehobble 'strata' to real-world dates.
The dates given for B-series notes can thus be considered accurate to
within about two weeks, while the Scribbledehobble notes should be given
a wider berth of plus or minus one month.
By Joyce's own reckoning, Ulysses was finished on October 29, 1921,
and Finnegans Wake begun in October 1922. Circumstantial evidence
suggests that the first notes for FW were jotted in Buffalo workbook
VI.B.10 late in that month-- given Joyce's superstitious reverence for
anniversaries, quite possibly on the 29th itself. Scribble notes in
some dozen categories may pre-date VI.B.10, but we'll probably never
know whether, or which. So we really have no better candidate for
Joyce's first FW note than this:
10.01 "Polyphemous is Ul[ysses]'s shadow" [Note: The reproduction in the
JJA has switched pages 10.01 and 10.02.]
Given the hopelessness of ever finding a convincing explanation for
any of these early notes, it could seem quite presumptuous to imagine
that this singular note might find a special genetic context. But
consider the following reconstructed chronological sequence of shadows,
doppelgangers, and self-encounters, mostly unexxed, from the succeeding
nine months of notes:
October 1922: 10.01 "Polyphemous is Ul's shadow"
Jan '23: 10.92 "kick his reflection (soul) [kick his] shadow [kick
his] form (bed) : L[eopold] B[loom] meets self"
Feb '23: Eumeus 295 "there are 2 sinbads (Ul-Psagg-LB-?WBY)"
Jun '23: Circe 224 "Doppelganger"
Jun '23: 3.129 "2 Tristans (Doppel ganger)"
Jul '23: Exiles2 46 "Trist. meets self"
Jul '23: Exiles2 91 "Tantris is shadow of Tristan (EP)" Ezra Pound
Jul '23: Exiles2 107 "T steps aside + has a look at himself"
The theme of the shadow-twin is entirely familiar from Ulysses,
especially in the Eumeus episode. It's interesting to observe that it's
Tristan, not Mark, who's been chosen by Joyce to fill Bloom's shoes-- no
surviving note offers anything like "Mark meets self" or "Tristan is
shadow of Mark".
Looking forward from this point to the published text of the Wake, there
is surely no clearer exemplification of the shadow-twin theme than HCE's
meeting with the cad. So we can hardly believe our luck in finding this
note from late July:
Circe 262 "unknown beggar comes to bigtimer in day of triumph to tell of
a past betise"
Surely, undoubtedly, Joyce is recalling here the "dreadful omen" of
Feb. 1 1922, in the Bois de Boulogne, quoted at the top of this essay...
with Joyce himself standing in for HCE here, and the beggar recast as
the FW cad. Two other, sequential notes, also from July '23, further
substantiate this evolutionary chain:
Penelope 108-9 "boydobelong (Bois) : mystery of a handsome cad : (cab)"
[There's a pun here on "Mystery of a Hansom Cab", a nineteenth century
bestseller by Fergus Hume. And given its location under Penelope,
"boydobelong" might be Joyce's rendering of Nora's French
pronunciation?]
And then this, from late July or August:
Eolus 131 "what I'm afraid may be said to me I had better say first
myself" which neatly anticipates HCE's stuttered self-defense.
Even the cad's standard greeting, "How are you today, my fair
gentleman?" is visibly foreshadowed from December on:
Dec: WanderingRocks 1 "How do you? How do you do?"
Dec: 10.50 "How do you do, you damned sneakylooking soaper you think
you're not going to fork out? How do you do, Mr X! You haven't got in
yet I know what you're after nor you won't. I hope you're quite well"
Feb: Eumeus 302 "how do you do (a common phrase in Dublin)"
Jun: Grace 6 "how do you do, Mr Patrick" [already, Tristan and Patrick
are identified!]
So, to our great good fortune, against all odds, enough of a trail seems
to have survived, to allow us to watch the shadow-motif's *evolution*
into the episode with the cad. But can we now further trace the cad's
identity as HCE's son, foreshadowed first in another very early note?
Oct '22: 10.02 "son turned out badly"
This 'generations motif' threads its way nicely among the shadow-twin
notes [newly-mentioned notes are marked "*"]:
Oct: 10.01 "Polyphemous is Ul's shadow"
*Oct: 10.02 "son turned out badly"
*Dec: Circe 44 "afraid you may kill your father"
*Dec: 10.44 "Sororicide, matricide, fratricide, no word for figlicide
(cf Abraham + Cenci"
*Dec: Eolus 51 "said to his father (only lector knows 'tis his father)"
Dec: WanderingRocks 1 "How do you? How do you do?"
Jan: 10.92 "kick his reflection (soul) [kick his] shadow [kick his]
form (bed) : LB meets self"
Feb: Eumeus 295 "there are 2 sinbads (Ul-Psagg-LB-WBY*)"
Feb: Eumeus 302 "how do you do (a common phrase in Dublin)"
*Apr: 3.13 "the son's life repeats the father's. He does not see it.
Make the reader see it Past [illegible- overwritten] Present J---
J--- Future ?" [the "?" is JAJ's]
*Apr: 3.34 "Cork property mortgaged : JSJ when born : JAJ when born"
*May: Cyclops 94 "Clive Holland (O.W.'s son)" Oscar Wilde
*May: 3.108-109 "3 generations to make a gentleman (Guido Cavalcanti)"
Jun: 3.129 "2 Tristans (Doppel ganger)"
Jul: Exiles2 46 "Trist. meets self"
Jul: Exiles2 91 "Tantris is shadow of Tristan (EP)"
Jul: Exiles2 107 "T steps aside + has a look at himself"
Jul: Circe 262 "unknown beggar comes to bigtimer in day of triumph to
tell of a past betise"
So Joyce seems already to be giving serious thought to the puzzle of
familial relationships within this universal history. Notice too that
by the time of the "bigtimer" note in July, the stranger that Barnes
called simply "a man" has become for Joyce a "beggar". The following
note from April may thus indicate Stephen Dedalus, Bloom's spiritual
son, as one aspect of the cad:
3.24 "mendicant orders (SD) introduced 900/1000"
And the early notes dwell at length on the imagery of the foxhunt, and
often also on gunplay. If Joyce was envisioning a peaceful encounter,
of the "How do you do?" variety, he must also have contrasted that to a
violent encounter, the betrayer bringing down the proud stag.
By the end of July, in those Penelope notes we've already seen, the
shadow is clearly taking on the character of the husband's cuckolder, a
Tristan to his Mark:
*Jul: Penelope 103 "like all bad men he looks attractive"
Jul: Penelope 108 "boydobelong (Bois)"
Jul: Penelope 109 "mystery of a handsome cad"
We can hardly be criticized for seeing Molly and Boylan here! In fact,
in the Ulysses notes of 1921, we find:
A2.38 Penelope "asks re BB who is that cad?" unexxed
The adultery motif, another of Joyce's well known idees fixes, is
well represented in the notes, from December on. A small sampling:
Dec: 10.40 "Ulysses rex in partibus goes away to test"
Dec: Eumeus 73 "his place in her affections was usurped by a lodger"
Dec: Circe 41 "Adam 1st cocu: LB yellow (cocu) cocuage"
Jan: Eumeus 185 "exercise rights as a husband"
Feb: Eumeus 201 "lady's affections went astray"
Feb: Eumeus 221-2 "gets playing with other fellow's wife : devil to pay"
Feb: Eumeus 275 "found his wife not at home"
Feb: Circe 139 "will of God be done (cocu)"
Feb: Scylla 19 "Ulysses unlucky Penelope false"
Feb: Scylla 20-21 "wittol (cocu) : ?advocates (adultery)"
As Hayman rightly emphasizes, the archetypal adulterous triangle of
the Tristan legend had been in Joyce's thoughts since November at least:
10.15 "Isolde of Britt - Pen [Isolde of] White hands Calypso"
We must recognize, too, in this image of an adulterous cad, Joyce's
traumatic 1909 encounter with Cosgrave-- another cad bringing gossip of
cuckoldry, a Joycean fusion of Tristan with Bedier's four gossiping
felons. And given that the cad is at some level the adulterer, do we
have in the following note a possible origin for his famous pipe?
Jan: 10.92 "On duty : Robert replenishes his briar"
The association of "Robert" with adultery, in Exiles, seems indeed to
have persisted as well in the early Tristan and Isolde vignette (March
'23), where Tristan is called Robert Roly:
Mar: T&I "...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."
So it appears we can now follow Joyce from Ulysses and Polyphemous, thru
Mark and Tristan, thru Richard and Robert, thru Joyce and the beggar,
thru John Joyce and James, thru Poldy and Boylan, to Tristan and
Tantris, and (no doubt) to Shaun and Shem...
The autobiographical constraints that had characterised all Joyce's fiction before now were now loosened to include all history, with all Irish history especially favored.
Remarkably, as if purified by isolation, the characters in these earliest vignettes have almost no parents, no children, no siblings, no spouses.
The first depiction of Tristan and Isolde is hyperstereotyped, with only the faintest autobiographical echoes in the first section. (Issy has faint traces of Nora, Tristan has traces of Jim and Gogarty and maybe Stannie and others. Bloom and Molly are also hinted.) The abandoned section seems plausibly a parody of JAJ and NB's real relationship problems.
(Why else would T&I open with a somewhat heavyhanded application of a measurement motif, demonstrating phony/shallow 'perfection', except to emphasize that he's illustrating a pure stereotype?)
Roderick O'Connor, as a rare exception, is portrayed neither autobiographically nor historically-- his circular heeltapping is purely Joyce's symbolic dream-imagination as far as we know. (Take as startingpoint any sad drunk drinking any lone other's dregs, then amplify it to everyone else's, then make him the bartender, and then make him a king...) (Maybe Joyce had once watched his father do this???)
(Were Vico and Bruno really shaping Joyce's earliest choices in some way at this point? Where's all the shadow-twin stuff from the notes?)
Kevin is recognisably Stannie, incarnating sterile/cowardly retreat, false purity. Issy's childhood is diverse, but surely has echoes of Nora and Lucia. (The broth joke, remarkably, gets transferred from Issy to Kevineen.) (Kevineen mentions mother and sisters.)
Mamalujo are (barely) AE&co, with wildly exaggerated senility and sterility. Their eventual song is notably fourfold, as JAJ explained to HSW, but their four compasspoints aren't notably viconian. (They have divorced spouses.)
Berkeley and Patrick are maybe James and Stannie or James and any other antagonists. (Ditto, years later, for the Muddest Thick...?!)
HCE and the cad are everybody, universalised...? Starting with Joyce himself in Paris, and Parnell...
The Shem/Shaun brother-duality seems to evolve from a sinful-HCE/virtuous-Tristan generational duality.
If the Letter is an iconic symbol of all books, shouldn't it primarily reflect Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake itself? (why does ALP get to be the lone speaker?)
(Even Bloom's adventures in Ulysses were seriously constrained by the requirements of the Homeric parallel, filtered through Joyce's 1904 experiences. An artificial intelligence given the same constraints could have generated a very similar solution. But what could possibly lead it to ROC?!? ...Take a topmost-er, and reduce him to the lowest imaginable point? And T&I: take the most perfect romantic stereotype...)
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
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
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?)
gill = noggin = 4 oz fluid measuring cup ('naggin' is Irish for noggin?? 'gill' sometimes 8oz)
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.)
So anyhow after that to wind up that long to be chronicled get together day, the anniversary of his first holy communion, after that same barbecue beanfeast was all over poor old hospitable King Roderick O'Conor, the paramount chief polemarch and last preelectric king of all Ireland who was anything you say yourself between fiftyfour and fiftyfive years of age at the time after the socalled last free supper he greatly gave in his umbrageous house of the hundred bottles 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 preeminent king of all Ireland, the whilom joky old top that went before him in the dienasty King Art MacMurrough Kavanagh of the leather leggings, now of parts unknown, God guard his generous soul that put a poached fowl in the poor man's pot before he took to his pallyass with the weeping eczema for better and worse until he went and died nevertheless the year the sugar was scarce and himself down to three cows that was meat and drink and dogs and washing to him 'tis good cause we have to remember it anyhow wait till I tell you what did he do poor old Roderick O'Conor Rex the auspicious waterproof monarch of all Ireland when he found himself all alone by himself in his grand old historic pile after all of them had all gone off with themselves as best they could on footback in extended order a tree's length from the longest way out down the switchbackward road, the unimportant Parthalonians with the mouldy Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danaan googs and all the rest of the notmuchers that he didn't care the royal spit out of his ostensible mouth about well what do you think he did, sir, but faix he just went heeltapping through the winespilth and weevily popcorks that were kneedeep round his own right royal round rollicking topers' table with his old Roderick Random pullon hat at a cant on him, the body, you'd pity him, the way the world is, poor he, the heart of Midleinster and the supereminent lord of them all, overwhelmed as he was with black ruin like a sponge out of water and singing all to himself through his old tears starkened by the most regal belches I've a terrible errible lot todo today todo toderribleday well what did he go and do at all His Most Exuberant Majesty King Roderick O'Conor but arrah bedamnbut he finalised by lowering his woolly throat with the wonderful midnight thirst was on him as keen as mustard and leave it if he didn't suck up sure enough like a Trojan in some particular cases with the assistance of his venerated tongue whatever surplus rotgut sorra much was left by the lazy lousers of maltknights and beerchurls in the different bottoms of the various different replenquished drinking utensils left there behind them on the premises, by the departed honourable homegoers and other slygrogging suburbanites such as it was no matter whether it was chateaubottled Guinness's or Phoenix brewery stout it was or John Jameson and Sons or Roob Coccola or for the matter of that O'Connell's famous old Dublin ale that he wanted like hell as a fallback of several different quantities and qualities amounting in all to I should say considerably more than the better part of a gill or naggin of imperial dry or liquid measure. [cite]
So anyhow after that to wind up that long to be chronicled get together day, the anniversary of his first holy communion, after that same barbecue beanfeast was all over
"after that... after that" (after what?)
VI.B10.59i: "a get-together evg" evening
"first holy communion" around age 8yo (someone suggested this may allude to Napoleon c1779?)
VI.B10.101d: "barbecue — feast whole roasting"
FW2: "So anyhow... after that to wind up that longtobechronicled gettogether... day... the anniversary of his finst homy commulion, after that same barbecue beanfeast was all over"
poor old hospitable King Roderick O'Conor, the paramount chief polemarch and last preelectric king of all Ireland who was anything you say yourself between fiftyfour and fiftyfive years of age at the time
VI.A Cyclops "hospitality"
VI.B3.04c (Apr-May?): 'hospitable'
VI.B10.117a: 'paramount chief'
polemarch: the title of an officer in ancient Greece
"preelectric" usually refers to 19thC streetlights or telegraph
FW2: "poor old hospitable... King Roderick O'Conor, the paramount chief polemarch and last preelectric king of all Ireland, who was anything you say yourself between fiftyodd and fiftyeven years of age at the time"
after the socalled last free supper he greatly gave in his umbrageous house of the hundred bottles
"umbrageous" can mean 'shady' or 'inclined to take umbrage'
raw umber
VI.A Eolus "house of the hundred bottles"
VI.A Sisters "the story of the house of the 100 bottles" (any guesses what story? the '99 bottles' song was much later)
Conn of the Hundred Battles: Irish high king
cf FW028: " there's already a big rody ram lad at random on the premises of his haunt of the hungred bordles" (nb Roderick Random, too)
FW2: "after the socalled last supper he greatly gave... in his umbrageous house of the hundred bottles"
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 preeminent king of all Ireland, the whilom joky old top that went before him in the dienasty
"for the jolly good reason" (1904/1911 formula)
"whilom" = formerly (joky)
VI.B10.76l: "jokey old man" (cf? 'Cicero describes Quintus Mucius the augur as ioculator senex, 'a jokey old man')
VI.B.10.16k: "Old Top"
VI.A Oxen "old top" 1920s slang
"dienasty" clumsy early wakese, rejected
FW2: "...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 preeminent king of all Ireland, the whilom joky old top that went before him in the Taharan dynasty,"
King Art MacMurrough Kavanagh of the leather leggings, now of parts unknown, God guard his generous soul that put a poached fowl in the poor man's pot before he took to his pallyass
VI.B10.53i: "Muircearteach of the Leather Coats"
Muircheartach (or Murtagh) of the leather cloaks: 10th century Irish high king who fought against the Danes (so named for furnishing his soldiers with loose leather mantles to protect them against the weather during a winter expedition)
coats → "leggings" (FW's preoccupation with pants and pantslessness?)
"now of parts unknown" (legal formula?)
VI.B10.29i: "God guard his generous soul" (source article referred to Michael Collins)
"poached" = cooked or stolen
VI.B10.90f: "Fr[ench]. King to put a fowl in every man's pot"
"the poor man's pot" (ie "poor old" ROC?)
with the weeping eczema for better and worse until he went and died nevertheless the year the sugar was scarce and himself down to three cows that was meat and drink and dogs and washing to him 'tis good cause we have to remember it
"weeping eczema" infected by scratching [yuk]
wedding ceremony: 'for better and for worse'
VI.B10.30g: "She died the year the sugar was scarce"
VI.B10.29p: "& I down to 3 pigs"
VI.B10.40e: "'dorgs' — meat drink & washing" (Sterne is referring to Frenchwomen's love of maypoles!?) (("dorgs" = 'dogs' in dialect? maybe dogs could wash plates by licking??))
VI.B10.30i: "'tis why I remember it"
several of these notes, and several more used in other passages, came from a single newspaper column, 'Our Ladies' Letter' in the Leader for 11 Nov 1922: 'They'll be running all right for trains when I'll have my hands full again, I'll bet you... What harm, but I down to three pigs and them same near fat!... even father... except that he stays in bed a day now and then, you wouldn't notice he was giving... Like that, only the way the trains are, I'd be tempted to go up to ye... "What year was it the sugar was scarce?" says Kitty, "because that was the year she died. 'Tis why I remember it. She had a half-stone of it ahide in the clock."... for fear people would think we had money; the way the world is, aweenoch, you wouldn't be safe... Mrs Joe was out last Sunday, and if you heard her about the military weddings! The officers "with their surcingles!" that kill her... You heard — or did you — Mary Rose of the bog was married. He's a general or something... How did they manage it, says you... Like that, I suppose 'tis short now till we'll have women labourers in the Government... Did you get anything for the winter? 'Twould perish the Danes here for the past week... I'm ashamed of the little bit of butter, but the post wouldn't take any more and there's no use sending it by train'
FW2: "King Arth Mockmorrow Koughenough of the leathered leggions, now of parts unknown (God guard his generous... soul!), that put a poached fowl in the poor man's pot before he took to his pallyass with the weeping eczema for better and worse until he went under the grass quilt on us nevertheless the year the sugar was scarce... and himself down to three cows that was meat and drink and dogs and washing to him, 'tis good cause we have to remember it,"
anyhow wait till I tell you what did he do poor old Roderick O'Conor Rex the auspicious waterproof monarch of all Ireland when he found himself all alone by himself in his grand old historic pile
"auspicious" (alluding to Vico?)
"waterproof" (HCE will wear a rubberised inverness; Jarl van Hoother's kids will fight/play on an oilcloth flure/tearsheet/watercloth)
cf 'lips that touch water will never touch mine'?
"when he found himself all alone by himself" interesting redundancy
"grand old [man]" came to refer mainly to Gladstone
pile = a large impressive building (formal or humorous)
FW2: "...anyhow wait till I tell you what did he do, poor old Roderick O'Conor Rex, the auspicious waterproof monarch of all Ireland, when he found himself all alone by himself in his grand old handwedown pile"
after all of them had all gone off with themselves as best they could on footback in extended order a tree's length from the longest way out down the switchbackward road,
"by himself... with themselves"
"as best they could" too drunk to walk straight?
"footback" (real word) cf horseback
"extended order" opposite of 'close order' in military drills [manual]
(measurement motif)
"the longest way out" why not the shortest? dreading home/wives? (cf Supertramp's Take the Long Way Home)
normally implying steep hillside
cf Hill of Tara (way too small)
FW2: "after all of them had all gone off with themselves... as best they cud, on footback... in extended order, a tree's length from the longest way out, down the switchbackward... route..."
the unimportant Parthalonians with the mouldy Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danaan googs and all the rest of the notmuchers that he didn't care the royal spit out of his ostensible mouth about
Parthalonians, Firbolgs, Tuatha de Danaan = earliest Irish invaders (spelled correctly!?) but why no-one later? these are supposedly his friends/allies but he's contemptuous of them (for abandoning him?)
"mouldy" Irish slang for drunk
"googs" probably from Irish guag (capricious person)
"auspicious... ostensible"
how can a mouth be ostensible? is there another hidden mouth? or is it a fancy way of saying 'wide'???
FW2: "the unimportant Parthalonians with the mouldy Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danaan googs... and all the rest of the notmuchers... that he didn't care the royal spit out of his ostensible mouth about"
well what do you think he did, sir, but faix he just went heeltapping through the winespilth and weevily popcorks that were kneedeep round his own right royal round rollicking topers' table with his old Roderick Random pullon hat at a cant on him,
Roderick Random (1748): 'my hat very much resembled a barber's basin, in the shallowness of the crown and narrowness of the brim' [ebook]
VI.A Words (Dec?) "pull on hat"
Quixote (1605) wore an actual barber's basin as a helmet
FW2: "well, what do you think he did, sir, but, faix, he just went heeltapping through the winespilth and weevily popcorks that were kneedeep round his own right royal round rollicking topers' table, with his old Roderick Random pullon hat at a... cant on him"
the body, you'd pity him, the way the world is, poor he, the heart of Midleinster and the supereminent lord of them all, overwhelmed as he was with black ruin
VI.B10.75p: 'the mother, you'd pity her"
VI.B10.30k: "the way the world is"
'The Heart of Midlothian' Walter Scott [wiki]
"Midleinster" is a real term for the Meath/Tara region
"supereminent" (replaced historically by pre-eminent)
a gin shop that sells 'Blue Ruin'
like a sponge out of water and singing all to himself through his old tears starkened by the most regal belches I've a terrible errible lot todo today todo toderribleday
VI.A Eumeus "smiling all through"
"old tears" phrase used by Byron and Fiona Macleod/William Sharp
VI.A Words "starkened"
VI.B25.162d: "decorated by most regal of belches"
"most regal of" (versatile phrase)
"I've a Terrible Lot to Do Today" was some kind of tagline or song for the fellow on the left on stage
FW2: "...the body you'd pity him, the way the world is, poor he, the heart of Midleinster and the supereminent lord of them all, overwhelmed as he was with black ruin like a sponge out of water... and thrumming through all to himself... through his old tears... starkened by the most regal of belches... I've a terrible errible lot todue todie todue tootorribleday,"
well what did he go and do at all His Most Exuberant Majesty King Roderick O'Conor but arrah bedamnbut he finalised by lowering his woolly throat with the wonderful midnight thirst was on him as keen as mustard and leave it if he didn't suck up sure enough like a Trojan in some particular cases with the assistance of his venerated tongue
the phrase "go and do" is most commonly attributed to Jesus
Blake: 'Exuberance is beauty.'
'bedamn but' is good Irish English
cf T&I: "by medical advice of Dr Codd he had been lowering daily draughts of extract of willow bark to keep off the Hibernian flu"
woolly outside = bearded; woolly inside = thirsty?
"wonderful... thirst"
"midnight thirst" is not a phrase (can we take this time-of-day literally?)
"as keen as mustard" goes back to 1672
FW2: "well, what did he go and do at all His Most Exuberant Majesty King Roderick O'Conor but, arrah bedamnbut, he finalised by lowering his woolly throat with the wonderful midnight thirst was on him, as keen as mustard... and, wishawishawish, leave it... if he didn't... suck up, sure enough, like a Trojan, in some particular cases with the assistance of his venerated tongue,"
whatever surplus rotgut sorra much was left by the lazy lousers of maltknights and beerchurls in the different bottoms of the various different replenquished drinking utensils left there behind them on the premises, by the departed honourable homegoers and other slygrogging suburbanites such as it was
"sorra much" Irish phrase incl in Lover's Rory O'More
louser = Dublin slang, one who louses things up
Knights of Malta = Hospitallers (cf "hospitable" above)
knight/churl = highclass/lowclass; malt/beer ditto?
"replenquished" one of the earliest instances of wakese
"slygrogging" = bootlegging
why "suburbanites"?
FW2: "whatever surplus rotgut, sorra much, was left by the lazy lousers in the different bottoms of the various different replenquished drinking utensils left there behind them on the premises by that whole... family of departed honourable homegoers, such as it was,"
relocated: "after the socalled last supper he greatly gave those maltknights and beerchurls in his umbrageous house of the hundred bottles... the unimportant Parthalonians with the mouldy Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danaan googs... and all the rest of the notmuchers and other slygrogging suburbanites that he didn't care the royal spit out of his ostensible mouth about"
no matter whether it was chateaubottled Guinness's or Phoenix brewery stout it was or John Jameson and Sons or Roob Coccola or for the matter of that O'Connell's famous old Dublin ale that he wanted like hell as a fallback of several different quantities and qualities amounting in all to I should say considerably more than the better part of a gill or naggin of imperial dry or liquid measure.
VI.B10.45c: "chateau-bottled"
FW2 restores the 2nd 'n' in "Guinness's"
VI.A-Painful "Roob-Coccola" drunken slurring of rootbeer and coca-cola?
"that he wanted like hell"
FW2: "...no matter whether it was chateaubottled Guinness's or Phoenix brewery stout it was or John Jameson and Sons or Roob Coccola or, for the matter of that, O'Connell's famous old Dublin ale that he wanted like hell... as a fallback, of several different quantities and qualities amounting in all to, I should say, considerably more than the better part of a gill or naggin of imperial dry and liquid measure"
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.
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
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.
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"
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!
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
(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.
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
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?
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)
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
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"
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 circumstancestalking 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?
"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')
(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)
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?
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)
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
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?)
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"
