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Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
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Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses S A M SL O T E , M A R C A . M A M IG O N IA N , AND JOHN TURNER Editorial Committee:
HA R A L D B E C K , A N N E M A R I E D’A R C Y, VINCENT DEANE, JERI JOHNSON, T E R E N C E K I L L E E N , A N D J O H N SI M P S O N
1
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1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Sam Slote, Marc A. Mamigonian, and John Turner 2022 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2022 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2021922783 ISBN 978–0–19–886458–5 Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd., Glasgow Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
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Respectfully dedicated to Don Gifford, Robert J. Seidman, and Weldon Thornton
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Table of Contents Abbreviations List of Figures On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses A Note on Dublin Topography and Toponyms A Note on Irish History since 1800 A Note on Currency A Note on Annotations Past A Note on Editions of Ulysses A Note on Joyce’s Notes and Manuscripts A Note on the Ulysses Schemata A Note on the Title Ulysses A Note on the Present Project and Acknowledgements
1. ‘Telemachus’
ix xiii xv xxxiv xxxiv xxxvi xxxvii xl xlii xliv xlv xlv
1
2. ‘Nestor’
34
3. ‘Proteus’
56
4. ‘Calypso’
104
5. ‘Lotus Eaters’
134
6. ‘Hades’
170
7. ‘Aeolus’
216
8. ‘Lestrygonians’
273
9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’
341
10. ‘Wandering Rocks’
436
11. ‘Sirens’
503
12. ‘Cyclops’
552
13. ‘Nausicaa’
678
14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’
727
15. ‘Circe’
863
16. ‘Eumaeus’
1067
17. ‘Ithaca’
1139
18. ‘Penelope’
1251
Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing of ‘Oxen of the Sun’
1311
Bibliography
1321
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Abbreviations The following is a list of abbreviations for sources that are frequently cited in these annotations. The full bibliography is in the back of the volume. As per scholarly convention, the Gabler edition of Ulysses will be cited by episode + line number. Joyce, James, Ulysses (Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1922); reprint, ed. Jeri Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). ——. Ulysses, ed. Hans Walter Gabler with Wolfhard Steppe and Claus Melchior (London: The Bodley Head, 1993; New York: Random House, 1993). ——. ‘Ulysses’: A Facsimile of the Manuscript, ed. Clive Driver (New York: Octagon, 1975).1 ——. The Joyce Papers 2002, National Library of Ireland.2 Bauerle, Ruth, ed., The James Joyce Songbook (New York: Garland, 1982). Bennett, Douglas, ed., The Encyclopaedia of Dublin, 2nd. ed. (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2005). Bible The Holy Bible [Douay-Rheims] (Baltimore: John Murphy, d). This is the default Bible, others are listed in the full bibliography. Bowen Bowen, Zack, Musical Allusions in the Works of James Joyce (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974). Brewer’s Evans, Ivor H., ed., Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1981). Brewer’s Irish McMahon, Sean and Jo O’Donoghue, eds, Brewer’s Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable (London: Chambers, 2004). Catholic Catholic Encyclopaedia (New York: Robert Appleton, 1907); online, http://www. Encyclopaedia newadvent.org/cathen/index.html Census Census of Ireland 1901/1911, online, www.census.nationalarchives.ie DD Cosgrave, E. MacDowel and Leonard Strangways, Dictionary of Dublin (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers, and Walker, 1895). Dent Dent, R. W., Colloquial Language in ‘Ulysses’ (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1994). DIB McGuire, James and James Quinn, eds., Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); online, http://dib.cambridge.org Dolan Dolan, Terence Patrick, ed., A Dictionary of Hiberno-English, 2nd ed. (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2004). Dubliners Joyce, James, Dubliners, ed. Robert Scholes and A. Walton Litz (New York: Viking Press, 1969). EB11 The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910–11). Bauerle Bennett
1 Because the edition of the Rosenbach Manuscript is unpaginated, references will be made to the manuscript folio number of each individual episode. Since Joyce wrote ‘Ithaca’ alternating between two separate copybooks, these will be distinguished by the colour of the cover, blue or green. 2 The NLI manuscripts from the 2002 Joyce Papers will be cited by the designations used on the NLI website: http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000194606; this follows from The Joyce Papers 2002, compiled by Peter Kenny. All other NLI manuscripts will be cited by their full manuscript number. Pages will be cited by manuscript folio number (recto or verso).
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x Abbreviations EDD
Wright, Joseph, ed., English Dialect Dictionary (London: Oxford University Press, 1970). Ellis Ellis, Peter Berresford, A Dictionary of Irish Mythology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Ellmann Ellmann, Richard, James Joyce, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). Gifford Gifford, Don with Robert J. Seidman, ‘Ulysses’ Annotated, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). Gilbert Gilbert, Stuart, James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ (New York: Vintage, 1955). Grove Grove Music Online, online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic Hyman Hyman, Louis, The Jews of Ireland (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972). Igoe Igoe, Vivien, The Real People of Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ (Dublin: UCD Press, 2016). JJA The James Joyce Archive, ed. Michael Groden et al. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1978–79). JJD Gunn, Ian and Clive Hart, James Joyce’s Dublin (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004). JJMU Budgen, Frank, James Joyce and the Making of ‘Ulysses’ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). JJON James Joyce Online Notes, online, ww.jjon.org NHI A New History of Ireland, eds F. J. Byrne, W. E. Vaughan, Art Cosgrove, J. R. Hill, and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976–2005). Notesheet Phillip F. Herring, ed., Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ Notesheets in the British Museum (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1972). Notesheets will be cited in the format: episode sheet number + line number (as per Herring’s volume). Thus, Oxen 8.70 is line 70 on Oxen notesheet 8. OCPW Joyce, James, Occasional, Critical, and Political Writing, ed. Kevin Barry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). ODEP The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, compiled by William George Smith, 2nd ed., revised by Sir Paul Harvey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948). ODNB The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); online, www.oxforddnb.com ODNR Opie, Iona and Peter Opie, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952). Odyssey Homer, The Odyssey, tr. Richmond Lattimore (New York: Harper, 1975). This is the default translation; others are listed in the full bibliography. OED The Oxford English Dictionary, online, www.oed.com Partridge Beale, Paul, ed., Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang, 8th ed. (London: Routledge, 1984). Portrait Joyce, James, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ed. Chester G. Anderson (New York: Viking Press, 1968). PSW Joyce, James, Poems and Shorter Writings, ed. Richard Ellmann, A. Walton Litz, and John Whittier-Ferguson (London: Faber and Faber, 1991). PWJ Joyce, P. W., English as We Speak it in Ireland (London: Longmans, Green, 1910). Shakespeare Shakespeare, William, Complete Works, ed. W. J. Craig (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1905). This is the default edition; others are listed in the full bibliography. SS Adams, Robert M., Surface and Symbol (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962). Stephen Hero Joyce James, Stephen Hero, eds. Theodore Spencer, John J. Slocum, and Herbert Cahoon (New York: New Directions, 1963). Thom’s Thom’s Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (Dublin: Thom’s, 1904). The 1904 is the default; other years will be specified in the citation. Thornton Thornton, Weldon, Allusions in ‘Ulysses’: An Annotated List (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968). UCSE Joyce, James, Ulysses: A Critical and Synoptic Edition, ed. Hans Walter Gabler with Wolfhard Steppe and Claus Melchior (New York: Garland, 1986).
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Abbreviations xi Databases: BnF Gallica British Library Newspapers British Newspaper Archive British Periodicals Chronicling America Gale Primary Sources The Guardian and the Observer Archive Irish Newspaper Archive Irish Times and the Weekly Irish Times Archive New York Times Archive Times Digital Archive
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List of Figures
0. Dublin city (Eason’s Pocket map of Dublin, c. 1901)
xxxii
1. Sandycove Martello Tower (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
2. Sandycove to Dalkey (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
35
1
3. Sandymount (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
56
4. Eccles Street and Dorset Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
104
5. Westland Row and Great Brunswick Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
134
6.1. Dublin city, from Irishtown to Prospect Cemetery (1 inch OSI map 1900)
170
6.2. Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin (Dublin Cemeteries Committee, 1904)
203
7. Abbey Street and Prince’s Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
216
8. Sackville Street to the National Library (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
274
9. National Library and Museum (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
341
10.1. Dublin city centre (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
436
10.2.1. Mountjoy Square (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
438
10.2.2. Artane (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
448
10.3. St James’s Gate (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
473
10.4. Merrion Square (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
492
10.5. Dublin city, Viceregal cortège (1 inch OSI map 1900)
497
11. Ormond Quay (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
503
12. Stony Batter to Little Britain Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
552
13. Irishtown and Sandymount (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
678
14. National Maternity Hospital and Merrion Square (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
727
15. Monto (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
16. Custom House (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
1067
863
17. Custom House to Eccles Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
1139
18. Gibraltar (from Karl Baedeker, Spain and Portugal: Handbook for Travellers, 1913)
1252
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses Local colour. Work in all you know. Make them accomplices.
(U 9.158)
It is my understanding that Finnegan’s Wake [sic] is a book written by J. Joyce, the author of Ulysses. This book has created quite a controversy, inasmuch as, many books have been written by other individuals trying to explain what it means. from an FBI file on Ezra Pound1 I want translations with copious footnotes, footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers to the top of this or that page so as to leave only the gleam of one textual line between commentary and eternity. Vladimir Nabokov2 Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils.
Samuel Johnson3
The existence of a book such as this would seem to confirm the common supposition— echoed even in FBI files—that Joyce’s Ulysses is a difficult book. After all, this book of annotations has more than twice the word-count of Ulysses and thus would seem to embody Nabokov’s mandate for exhaustive (and exhausting) explication and commentary. Nabokov himself took the matter further: his notes to his translation of Eugene Onegin run to over 900 pages, which is about 700 pages more than the text itself. Annotations—especially when in the monumental form Nabokov archly advocates—might imply some deficiency in the text that they then purport to redress. They imply that either the reader or the text is insufficient, that is insufficient without the help of the notes. Either the reader is insufficiently learned to cope with the text’s allusions, or the text is insufficiently accessible and cannot be trusted on its own. Or perhaps both reader and text are insufficient and it is up to the annotations to make them commensurate. In either case, annotations mediate: they seem to posit difficulties in order to resolve them, thereby allowing the reader to read in peace, or perhaps, to rest in peace, as if all difficulties were eliminated. But that is not the goal of the present exercise. These annotations are not meant to be the last word on anything in the text of Ulysses, nor are they being offered as an indispensable countersign to that text. Put simply, these annotations are a pragmatic response to one important aspect of Joyce’s aesthetic practice. Joyce is a writer of small details, minute particularities: ‘local colour’ (U 9.158), as Stephen phrases it in the ‘Scylla and Charybdis’
1 Quoted in Claire A. Culleton, Joyce and the G-Men, p. 5. 2 Vladimir Nabokov, ‘Problems of Translation: Onegin in English’, p. 143. 3 Samuel Johnson, ‘Preface to Shakespeare’, Selected Poetry and Prose, p. 335.
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xvi On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses episode right before he sets forth his theory about Shakespeare in a disquisition that is itself filled with arcana from Shakespeare and his interpreters. The task of annotating Ulysses is of elucidating all the different hues of this local colour that populate the text of Ulysses. And since, as we believe, identifying and exploring the minute particularities of Joyce’s writing can be a large part of the pleasure of reading Ulysses, it is hoped that this pragmatic response also contributes to the reader’s delight in Ulysses. The phrase that Stephen uses, ‘local colour’, is itself an example of the local colour that Joyce used in constructing his text. While researching and writing ‘Scylla’, Joyce relied on the Danish critic Georg Brandes’s book William Shakespeare: A Critical Study, as well as other studies. The phrase ‘local colour’ is lifted directly from Brandes, who writes of Hamlet: ‘And it quite certain that when, in the first and fifth acts, he makes trumpet-blasts and the firing of the cannon accompany the healths which are drunk, he must have known that this was a specifically Danish custom, and have tried to give his play local colour by introducing it.’4 So, in writing this passage, Joyce, like Stephen, ‘worked in all he knows’, that is, he assembled the text out of all sorts of different little snippets and memes. Annotating the pedigree of this phrase—showing that it was lifted from Brandes—thus indicates one aspect of Joyce’s process of composition, one component of his aesthetics. A quick glance at these annotations will show that Ulysses is a book filled with (among many other things) allusions to Shakespeare, Aristotle, Dante, Aquinas, Elizabethan thieves’ cant, Catholic ritual and theology, Irish histories, Theosophy, Freemasonry, cricket, astronomy, fashion, boxing, heraldry, the symbolism of tattoos, horse racing, advertising slogans, nursery rhymes, superstitions, music-hall songs, and references to Dublin topography precise enough for a city directory. Joyce’s local colours are quite variegated. Annotating Ulysses involves researching relevant facts and not puzzle-solving. Joyce’s most-quoted line is, almost certainly, ‘I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.’5 It is, however, very likely that Joyce never said this. While it is impossible to unequivocally disprove that he did say it, there is more than sufficient reason to doubt the quote’s legitimacy. The provenance of this quotation is Richard Ellmann’s biography of Joyce. Ellmann’s source is a 1956 interview with Jacques Benoist-Méchin.6 In 1921, Benoist-Méchin, then only twenty years old, translated some portions of Ulysses for Valery Larbaud’s talk which introduced Joyce to the French literary public on the eve of Ulysses’s publication. Benoist-Méchin claimed to Ellmann that he had asked Joyce for a copy of the Ulysses schema since he felt that it would help him with his task of translation. Initially, Joyce declined this request and he used that famous line as his rationale for withholding the document. But, eventually, Joyce did give him a copy of the schema and, according to Benoist-Méchin’s account, he was one of the first people to have seen it. There are reasons to doubt Benoist-Méchin’s story. Joyce has a tendency when he makes these kinds of gnomic declaration about his work to say them more than once and to various people. Often these different versions are not verbatim, but are similar enough to be recognisable. This, on the other hand, is the only time Joyce ever said anything about wanting to befuddle academics as a means of ensuring his reputation. And Benoist-Méchin reported this comment to Ellmann some thirty-five years after it had supposedly happened, but it is not just the length of time that matters, it is also what happened during that 4 Georg Brandes, William Shakespeare: A Critical Study, p. 359. 5 Ellmann, p. 521. 6 Ellmann, p. 791 n. 104. Ellmann misspells his name as ‘Benoîst-Méchin’.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xvii interval. The nature of academia, specifically the study of literature at the university level, had changed significantly between 1921—the year Joyce supposedly made this remark— and 1956—the year Benoist-Méchin reported it to Ellmann. In 1921, the canon wars initiated by F. R. Leavis and I. A. Richards (among others) were still very much ongoing affairs and it was very much an open question whether any contemporary literature was worthy of serious academic scrutiny. By 1956, on the other hand, those wars were long settled and Joyce’s place in the canon seemed secure. The point here is that, in 1921, professors would not have been considered the gatekeepers to literary fame by anyone, except perhaps for a few especially conceited professors. Furthermore, the marketplace value of contemporary literary manuscripts was not especially great in the 1950s and so this anecdote works as a neat advertising slogan for Benoist-Méchin, as he was trying to sell the schema Joyce had given him in 1921.7 The most significant reason to doubt Benoist-Méchin is something that Joyceans have ignored even though it is the most prominent fact about the man. Benoist-Méchin was, in Jeffrey Mehlman’s words, ‘France’s exemplary collaborator’ with the Nazis during World War II.8 After the War, he was sentenced to death for his collaborationist activities but this was commuted to 20 years’ imprisonment. His term of imprisonment was eventually reduced and he was released in November 1954,9 shortly before he met Ellmann, who mentions nothing of this in his account of Benoist-Méchin. And so, presenting himself to Ellmann as a trusted confidante of Joyce could be seen as a way to try and rehabilitate his own reputation. Joyce may not have needed professors to ensure his fame, but in 1956, shortly after his release from prison, Benoist-Méchin did. If, then, the goal of annotation is not to answer (unasked) riddles, what are the annotations for? To give an example of what annotations can provide, let us look at a seemingly unexceptional, perhaps even trivial passage in ‘Lestrygonians’: He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window of Yeates and Son, pri cing the fieldglasses. Or will I drop into old Harris’s and have a chat with young Sinclair? (U 8.551–53).
As Joyce plotted out his characters’ movements within Dublin, he relied not just on his memory but also on Thom’s Official Directory for Dublin (as will be discussed in detail further on). And so the details of these two commercial establishments can be confirmed from the pages of Thom’s: Yeates and Son: opticians and manufacturers of mathematical instruments, 2 Grafton Street, at the corner with Nassau Street; and Morris Harris’s jewellery shop further along at 30 Nassau Street.10 So, one level of annotation would simply demonstrate Joyce’s exacting verisimilitude in his representation of Dublin. Bloom thinks about talking with a ‘young Sinclair’ at Harris’s shop. This detail suggests that there is more going on than merely names plucked from a street directory. The ‘young Sinclair’ is either one of Harris’s two grandsons, William Sinclair or his twin brother Henry Morris Sinclair. Their mother, one of Harris’s daughters, had married a Protestant named John Sinclair, but Harris insisted that his grandsons be raised Jewish.11 This is hardly a 7 Benoist-Méchin’s copy of the schema, a carbon-copy typescript, was most recently sold at auction by Sotheby’s in 2018 (English Literature, History, Science, Children’s Books and Illustrations, p. 82). 8 Jeffrey Mehlman, ‘Literature and Collaboration’, p. 970. 9 Pierre Giolitto, Volontaires français sous l’uniforme allemand, pp. 232–35. 10 Thom’s, pp. 2044, 1892. 11 Hyman, p. 148.
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xviii On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses trivial detail and now makes Bloom’s contemplation of a quick chat all the more interesting since Bloom is a lapsed Jew who still retains an awareness of his Jewish pedigree. Furthermore, this is something that Joyce would have known since he met one of the Sinclair brothers through his friend Padraic Colum, who relates this story in his book Our Friend James Joyce: His project was nothing less than the establishment of a daily newspaper in Dublin. [. . .] And this penniless and jobless young man was out to raise that much capital. [. . .] What he wanted me to do was to help him make contacts [. . .] He asked me especially did I know any Jewish people he could go to with the project. [. . .] I had two Jewish friends, intellectuals, Willy and Harry Sinclair, who had an antique shop in Nassau Street. I brought Joyce into the shop and introduced him to one or the other of the brothers. Of course nothing came of it.12
In a letter to his brother Stanislaus, Joyce says that one of the Sinclairs (unspecified which one) lent him money for this never-realised scheme.13 According to Ellmann’s biography, this newspaper venture occupied Joyce in late 1903 and thus while he was still living in Dublin.14 Joyce’s interest in Jewish culture really only emerged after he moved to Trieste, and his knowledge of Dublin Jewry was acquired primarily in a second-hand manner (other than Sinclair, the Dublin Jews named in Ulysses are mostly just names taken from Thom’s). Indeed, the character of Leopold Bloom has more in common with Triestine Jews than Irish ones. As Cormac Ó Gráda writes, ‘Almost certainly, Leopold Bloom owed more to the information gathered by Joyce during his sojourn in Trieste between 1904 and 1915 than to any contacts with Irish Jewry before leaving Dublin at the age of twenty-two.’15 The Sinclair brother Joyce met (whichever one) might well be the only Irish Jew with whom he had significant personal contact before he began writing Ulysses. And so, on the one hand, this mention of ‘young Sinclair’ adds a suggestive detail to the character of Leopold Bloom and, on the other hand, adds a point on the trajectory of the evolution of Joyce’s attitude towards Jewish culture. There is a further wrinkle. William Sinclair’s wife, Cissie Beckett, was Samuel Beckett’s aunt, and the whole Sinclair family was a forceful presence in young Samuel Beckett’s life. Furthermore, the Sinclairs and Harris also appear in Oliver St John Gogarty’s As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, and in a much less flattering light than their brief appearance in Ulysses. Gogarty accused Harris of being a paedophile and of grooming his grandsons to follow in his footsteps; although he never used their names, they would be sufficiently identifiable based on the information given in the book. Outraged at this, William Sinclair insisted on suing Gogarty. As he was on his deathbed, the duty of litigation fell upon Henry Morris, and Beckett was enlisted as a (reluctant) witness. Sinclair won his case against Gogarty and the offending references were omitted from subsequent editions of Gogarty’s book.16 And so this one passage enables a personal link between Joyce and Beckett as well as a possible comparative study of Joyce’s philo- Semitism over and against Gogarty’s
12 Padraic and Mary Colum, Our Friend James Joyce, pp. 55–56. 13 James Joyce, Letters, vol. 2, p. 194 14 Ellmann, p. 140. 15 Cormac Ó Gráda, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce, p. 204. 16 James Knowlson, Damned to Fame, pp. 275–81.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xix anti-Semitism, or, more generally, a comparative study of how Joyce and Gogarty differ in their representations of Dublin and its denizens. Providing some of the information that underlies this passage thus potentially occasions a variety of different interpretive possibil ities (and, of course, ignoring all these possibilities and just moving on in the text is a perfectly viable and acceptable approach). The annotations for this bit of text are designed to convey all this information as briefly as possible: 8.552: old Harris’s Morris Harris (1823–1909) ran a jewellery shop at 30 Nassau Street (Thom’s, p. 1892). 8.553: young Sinclair Either William Sinclair (1882–1937) or his twin brother Henry Morris Sinclair. They were the grandsons of Morris Harris (see previous note). Although their father, John Sinclair, was Protestant, they were raised Jewish at Harris’s insistence (Hyman, pp. 148–49). Through his friend Padraic Colum, Joyce met one of the Sinclair brothers (Mary and Padraic Colum, Our Friend James Joyce, pp. 55–56); and one of them loaned Joyce money (Letters, vol. 2, p. 194). In 1937, Henry Morris Sinclair sued Gogarty for libelling his grandfather in As I Was Going Down Sackville Street. One of the witnesses on Sinclair’s behalf was Samuel Beckett (Irish writer, 1906–89), the nephew of William’s wife Cissie (James Knowlson, Damned to Fame, pp. 275–80).
These two annotations—in common with their companion notes—attempt to briefly collate and concatenate relevant information with the aim of revealing the different dimensions suggested through Joyce’s text (the topographic, the personal, the religious, the cultural, etc.). The aim of these annotations, then, is to explain (or start to explain) vague and confusing features of the text as well as to elucidate small details that can enrich one’s understanding of Ulysses in manifold ways. Joyce’s attention to small details has not always been well received. In a review of A Portrait, H. G. Wells criticised Joyce for his particular mania for local colour: ‘Like Swift and another living Irish writer, Mr. Joyce has a cloacal obsession. He would bring back into the general picture of life aspects which modern drainage and modern decorum have taken out of ordinary intercourse and conversation.’17 Wells is not criticizing Joyce for toilet humour (although such a criticism could certainly be possible), rather he is bemoaning Joyce’s penchant for small, trivial details, the sorts of details that would otherwise—and, according to Wells, should otherwise—be missed and consigned to oblivion. Likewise, Wyndham Lewis was not exactly fond of Joyce’s bricolage: [L]ocal colour is now a thin mixture [. . .] The amount of stuff—unorganized brute material—that the more active principle of drama has to wade through, under the circumstances, slows it down to the pace at which, inevitably, the sluggish tide of the author’s bric-à-brac passes the observer, at the saluting post, or in this case, the reader. It is a suffocating, moeotic expanse of objects, all of them lifeless, the sewage of a Past twenty years old, all neatly arranged in a meticulous sequence.18
17 H. G. Wells, ‘James Joyce’, p. 710. 18 Wyndham Lewis, Time and Western Man, pp. 81, 89.
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xx On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses But what Wells and Lewis miss is the vitality behind Joycean detail—that it allows for what he calls, in Finnegans Wake, an ‘imaginable itinerary through the particular universal’.19 In precisely and accurately delineating the minute and the specific, something larger and more substantial can be occasioned. Frank Budgen suggests this point with his claim that ‘Joyce’s realism verges on the mystical’.20 Some kinds of small detail can be transformative to one’s understanding of the text. In ‘Nausicaa’, the character Gerty MacDowell is well representative of the modern consumer and is obsessed by advertisements and products. Her part of the episode is littered with slogans and brand names, such as Eyebrowleine, Iron Jelloids, Dolly Dyes, and Widow Welch’s female pills. The annotations show that these were all real products and the information provided for all but the last are unsurprising, but perhaps still interesting or amusing gleanings from the Victorian and Edwardian marketplace. For example, the phrases ‘how to be tall increase your height’ (U 13.113–14) were taglines used in advertisements promoting a height-enhancing programme devised by K. Leo Minges, of the Cartilage Company, Rochester, New York. One such ad proudly proclaimed, ‘Mr Minges is to short men and women what the great wizard Edison is to electricity’.21 On a more serious matter, in an article published in the James Joyce Quarterly, April Pelt demonstrates that ‘Widow Welch’s female pills’ was actually the brand name of an abortifacient marketed as a generic medicine for women that only indirectly alluded to its real function in its advertisements. It was sold from 1767 all the way until 1966.22 Knowing this detail allows for a different, more nuanced, understanding of Gerty and allows one to see her not as a passively duped consumer, but rather as someone with, as Pelt argues, agency and a sense of critical acumen. Furthermore, this detail sheds light on the underground history of birth control, which is discussed in Pelt’s article. Ulysses is a work of art, its annotations are a work of scholarship. And so, by definition, annotations alone will never fully comprehend Joyce’s novel: they are simply an aid for the reader to do so. In annotating, we have tried to follow Fritz Senn’s comment that ‘[n]otes should enable interpretations, not predispose them’.23 It is thus not the place of the annotations to offer interpretations of the text, but rather to simply provide information and enable readers to find their own interpretations without predisposing or ordaining them. For these annotations, every effort has been made to keep matters as brief as possible and limited to strictly factual as opposed to interpretive material, although in many cases the line between the factual and the interpretive can be somewhat blurry. Even the mere act of annotating is itself an interpretive gesture, since it presupposes that certain individual items, if not the book-as-a-whole, need to be annotated. Indeed, the granular disposition of the notes creates its own distortions. For example, annotations are an imperfect medium for indicating Joyce’s engagements with writers in ways that cannot be pegged to specific allusions or lexical borrowings. Any definition or explanation provided in the annotations should not be considered definitive since there will always be something more that can be said and all sorts of other associations might suggest themselves to a reader. The annotations are a starting point, not a resting place. So, we suggest that these annotations are here
19 James Joyce Finnegans Wake, p. 260. 20 JJMU, p. 71. 21 The Evening World (New York, NY), 13 Oct. 1903, p. 11, cols e–f. 22 April Pelt, ‘Advertising Agency’, pp. 42–43. 23 Fritz Senn, Inductive Scrutinies, p. 134.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxi to be either consulted or pursued or ignored as the reader sees fit. For a book like Ulysses, annotations are, paradoxically, inevitably necessary and necessarily evitable. Another concern is that with Ulysses, the act of explication can itself be distorting. Consider this line from the first paragraph of ‘Proteus’, the third episode, when Stephen thinks ‘maestro di color che sanno’ (U 3.6–7). In the annotations this is glossed as: ‘Italian, “master among those who know”; the epithet Dante Alighieri applies to Aristotle, meaning that he is the paramount philosopher (Inferno, IV.131). Contemporary Italian uses the word colui instead of color (those).’ This is certainly accurate, but it also perhaps misses the point. However, in the context of the annotations, to say anything more would be to venture away from the informative and stray into the interpretive. In this passage, Stephen is thinking about the nature of perception and specifically the way in which colours are perceived. And so it seems that Joyce is expecting his readers to miss the allusion to Dante and imagine that this line means ‘the master who knows colours’. Fritz Senn writes of this: ‘ “Proteus” is about the treacherous relation between appearance and essence, semblance and reality. The wrong sense of “color” seems to be more vital than the essential one.’24 In other words, with Ulysses, local color can be misleading and being wrong can (sometimes) be half the fun. Annotating Ulysses is a potentially endless task. From the perspective of a first-time reader, annotations can also be somewhat dangerous and distracting. Fritz Senn has remarked that annotations either provide too much information or too little.25 The goal here has been to provide just enough information that is both accurate and useful: the rationale being that the annotations should not overwhelm the reader’s own initiative. We hope that these annotations will be of use to a wide readership, from first-time readers to ‘experts’. For the benefit of first-time readers, we have refrained from divulging advance information (what are called, in today’s vernacular, ‘spoilers’). We should also point out that our emphasis on annotating factual matters means that not everything of interest in the text will have an annotation. Conversely, because they are limited to dispensing matters of fact, our annotations might not always say the most interesting things about the passages they comment upon. Furthermore, the length of an individual annotation is not always commensurate with the importance or difficulty of the matter at hand: sometimes a note needs to be long in order to convey sufficient nuance to be accurate or helpful. Conversely, just because a note is short does not mean that it is trivial. An important corollary to the factual disposition of the notes is that we are rigorous in documenting our sources. On the one hand, this will enable our readers to further pursue the material we document. But, perhaps more importantly, it shows that our annotations do not stand as an independent and hermetically sealed authority, but rather they themselves derive from all sorts of other works. Furthermore, where relevant or otherwise interesting, we quote from our various sources. Just as the text of Ulysses is sewn together from many threads, so too, by necessity, must the annotations be open and its bibliography eclectic. Almost each and every one of these notes is an invitation to further research. For example, every real-life individual named in Ulysses, no matter how minor their role within Joyce’s novel may be, was a real person with a full life independent of their appearance in the novel. By giving sources for our notes, we provide readers with the option of delving into these potential rabbit holes.
24 Senn, Inductive Scrutinies, p. 137. 25 Senn, Inductive Scrutinies, p. 147.
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xxii On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses At this stage, it might be helpful to list some of the main types or categories of information contained herein in order to note some of the individual particularities.
Literary Allusions When speaking of annotations and ‘difficulty’, this would probably be the first category that comes to mind for most people. Certainly, Ulysses contains many references to canonical English literature, some more covert than others. Unsurprisingly, there is an emphasis on Irish literature. But Joyce hardly limits himself to literature in English and makes reference to French, Italian, German, Roman, and Greek literatures. And, on occasion, he also wilfully strays into the demesne of the recondite and counts on his readers’ inability to readily grasp a certain reference. Part of this is Joyce’s attempt to remake and remodel literary history in his own image. Joyce’s relation to the literary traditions of Ireland is complex. Although he chose a life of exile, he did not abandon the literary contexts of his homeland. On the other hand, Joyce is, of course, an international writer and his work is very much influenced by European— particularly French and Italian—literary traditions. When introducing Joyce and Ulysses to the French literary public, Valery Larbaud contextualised Joyce largely in terms of French literary traditions. This was certainly an appropriate strategy considering his audience, and the French influences that Larbaud signals, especially Flaubert, are clearly relevant to Joyce. After an abridged version of Larbaud’s talk was subsequently published in T. S. Eliot’s journal The Criterion,26 Ernest Boyd felt that he needed to counter Larbaud in the revised edition of his book on the Irish Literary Revival. He claimed that Joyce could only be understood in the context of Irish literature and, specifically, the Irish Literary Revival: ‘The fact is, no Irish writer is more Irish than Joyce.’27 This, in turn, prompted a tetchy retort from Larbaud.28 If anything, Larbaud and Boyd are both correct. Indeed, Joyce would not be the only writer associated with the Irish Literary Revival who harboured continental notions. Even in exile and even in disdain, Joyce remains an Irish writer, or, perhaps, as Friedhelm Rathjen put it, ‘not an Irish writer but an ex-Irish writer’.29
‘Stolentelling’ Joyce’s story ‘The Dead’ ends with an indifferent blanket of snow, ‘Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. [. . .] His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.’30 The line about snow being general comes, as it says, from the newspapers, as cited by Mary Jane Morkan earlier in the story, ‘I read this morning in the newspapers that snow is general all over Ireland.’31 And, indeed, the phrase ‘snow is general’ was a standard formula at the time in weather reports; for example, ‘Reports from all parts of the country show that wintry weather and snow are general.’32 Joyce takes a quotidian phrase and, through citation and recontextualisation, gives it a certain poetic charge and force. For those unfamiliar with this phrase’s provenance, it can certainly seem as if it were entirely of Joyce’s creation. Joyce’s invention, however, does not lie within 26 Valery Larbaud, ‘The Ulysses of James Joyce’. 27 Ernest Boyd, Ireland’s Literary Renaissance, p. 405. 28 Valery Larbaud, ‘À propos de James Joyce et de Ulysses’. 29 Friedhelm Rathjen, ‘Silence, Migration, and Cunning’, p. 556. 30 Dubliners, pp. 223–24. 31 Dubliners, p. 211. 32 The Cork Examiner, 14 Jan. 1903, p. 5, col. h.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxiii creating the sentence but rather in its redeployment; that is, Joyce’s is a poetics of citation. Joyce even described himself as ‘a scissors and paste man’ in a letter from 1931 to his friend George Antheil.33 In his citations, Joyce often reconfigures the material and this tension between source and Joyce’s text provides an additional valence. In Ulysses, Joyce’s covert citations and borrowings come from a wide variety of sources, from the obscure to the mundane: from Queen Victoria’s published diaries to numerous advertisements to a Hopalong Cassidy novel to a fetish magazine for transvestites. It is not within the scope of the present volume to comprehensively catalogue all of Joyce’s known borrowings, but we hope to provide a wide enough range in order to help illustrate the variety of Joyce’s aesthetics of ‘stolentelling’.34
Popular Culture Beyond what might be called ‘high-brow’ literature, Joyce makes references throughout Ulysses to more popular forms of cultural production. Part of this stems from what can be considered as Joyce’s realism, that is, his ambition to accurately represent the lives and doings of his characters, many of whom are, mercifully, not like Stephen Dedalus. The intellectual vernacular of most of the characters in Ulysses is built from sources other than Aquinas and Shakespeare. Molly Bloom, we learn, is an avid reader of sensationalist fiction—and is also averse to ‘books with a Molly in them’ (U 18.657–58). And so Ulysses is a catalogue of all sorts of fleeting phenomena popular in Dublin (and elsewhere) in the first decade of the twentieth century: some of these would be familiar, all too familiar, to a con temporary audience (Eugene Sandow, the Bohee Brothers, John Martin-Harvey, Maud Branscombe), but unknown to a later one. This idea of Ulysses as an archive of the ephemeral suggests a more profound reason as to why an engagement with popular culture is so enmeshed within Ulysses. When Joyce was a teenager, he submitted a story to the magazine Titbits, which duly rejected it.35 This is the very magazine Bloom reads on the toilet in the ‘Calypso’ episode. Titbits was the most popular penny-paper of the late nineteenth century, but is now mostly forgotten. It provided an anthology of all sorts of items gleaned from a variety of disparate sources; in a sense it was a kind of precursor to a blog or a news aggregator. David Reed writes of it: By presenting information as discontinuous corpuscular fragments, its ironic contradictions, its diversionary qualities were emphasized. By eliminating the context, connections were ignored and undermined.36
As R. Brandon Kershner notes, it’s almost as if Reed is describing Ulysses here. ‘Ulysses seems to present a baffling flux of unrelated details, thoughts, and activities, a world wholly alien to the Victorian novel’s unified narrative.’37 Titbits in both its form and content is a part of the modern world and, as such, is a part of Joyce’s wide-ranging Modernism. Joyce’s Modernism is not of the élite, even though it may share its fascination with formal experimentation; rather it is a Modernism of the everyday and with all that that includes.
33 James Joyce, Letters, vol. 1, p. 297. 34 Finnegans Wake, p. 424. 35 Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, pp. 105–06. 36 David Reed, The Popular Magazine in Britain and the United States, p. 88. 37 R. Brandon Kershner, The Culture of Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, p. 140.
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xxiv On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses
Languages While Ulysses lacks the linguistic diversity of Finnegans Wake, it is not entirely without various foreign languages. In Ulysses, Joyce makes use of Latin, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Greek, Hungarian, and Irish (and other languages also figure in smaller capacities). Joyce’s use of French creates some difficulties because he uses expressions that are no longer current and have eluded earlier commentators. In other cases—such as with Hebrew, Hungarian, and Irish—his imperfect mastery creates other problems. But perhaps the more significant linguistic obstacle involves Hiberno-English, that is, the dialect of English spoken in Ireland, which is sufficiently distinct from a ‘standard’ British English in both vocabulary and grammar.38 Were one to claim that Finnegans Wake is not written in English, one would meet little resistance, but the claim that none of Joyce’s other major works are written in English would be a bit more controversial. What we mean is that Joyce never writes in British English, rather he consistently writes in Hiberno-English. This extends not merely to reportage of individual characters’ speech, but, rather, to the diegetic voices in Dubliners, A Portrait, and Ulysses, which consistently deploy Hiberno-English idioms and spellings, such as rere for the word rear; as in, ‘He trod the worn steps [. . .] and entered softly by the rere’ (U 5.338–39). Terence Dolan writes that Joyce ‘dismantled English and deconstructed it as a Tower of Babel, with many component parts, led by English and Irish, in the form of Irish-English’.39 We have tried to be especially sensitive to Joyce’s use of Hiberno-English idioms. Beyond Anglicised Irish words and older English words that have remained current in Ireland even as they have vanished from England, Hiberno-English has a repertoire of British English words used in non-standard senses. For Joyce’s use of Hiberno-English we have made extensive use of Dolan’s Dictionary of Hiberno-English as well as Patrick Weston Joyce’s classic English As We Speak It in Ireland.40 P. W. Joyce was a major scholar of Irish language, literature, history, and culture. James Joyce made use of many of his works whilst writing Ulysses. Beyond the matter of specifically Irish idioms, Joyce had a great ear for idiomatic expressions in general and there is a great deal of colloquial language in Ulysses, some of which would not require elaboration for a contemporary reader but would perhaps be unusual or unclear to a twenty-first-century reader. In addition, Joyce often makes use of earlier or unusual senses of seemingly standard words. As a result, many of our annotations are linguistic glosses; indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary is probably the single most cited reference work in this volume. Since many readers of Ulysses are not native English speakers, we have taken a fairly maximalist approach in annotating linguistic matters.
Music Joyce’s texts are alive with the sound of music. An aspiring singer when young, music played a major role throughout his life and thus also throughout his works. Mabel Worthington— one of the pioneers in cataloguing music in Joyce—confessed at the 1973 Joyce Symposium, ‘[s]ometimes I have the sense that every word in Finnegans Wake is a musical allusion’.41 Even if Ulysses does not quite have the same density of musical allusion, each of its episodes
38 Hiberno-English is the preferred term within Ireland, whereas outside Ireland the term Irish English has greater purchase. 39 Terence Dolan, ‘Joyce: Babble or Babel?’, p. 102. 40 John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello posit a distant relation between James Joyce and P. W. Joyce (John Stanislaus Joyce, pp. 11–13). 41 Quoted in Ruth Bauerle, ‘Introduction: Some Notes We Haven’t Heard in Joyce’s Music’, p. 1.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxv is filled with references to music, from popular songs of the time to opera and many genres in between. According to Joyce’s brother Stanislaus’s diary, ‘Jim considers the music-hall, not Poetry, a criticism on life’.42 To annotate Ulysses is to learn a lot about one-hit-wonders of the 1890s and 1900s. In terms of identifying songs and musical allusions, the inevitable space limitations have meant that we have had to exercise some restraint in providing full lyrics to the songs, though we supply sources where readers can find the full lyrics. Although we have not provided links, readers can also find online period or near-period recordings of a great many of the songs mentioned in Ulysses.43 Beyond the references to and the quotations from various songs and pieces of music, Joyce engages with music on a more sophisticated level in terms of trying to think through the rapports between literary and musical arts. As Bloom asks of himself, ‘Words? Music? No: it’s what’s behind’ (U 11.703). Beyond building on the already considerable, but still incomplete, work of identifying the musical allusions in Ulysses, we have tried, where possible, to annotate the ways Joyce tries to represent whatever lies behind. Unfortunately, the granular and fragmentary disposition of annotation very much works against conveying the musicality of Joyce’s text, particularly in the case of the ‘Sirens’ episode: annotations can identify specific allusions and quotations, and so on, but are not effective at communicating more complex and sustained effects.
Religion Buck Mulligan tells Stephen, ‘you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it’s injected the wrong way’ (U 1.209). Certainly, Joyce’s relation to Catholicism is complex and multifa ceted. It does not fall under the purview of these annotations to present an argument about these attitudes—there have been various such studies, with different conclusions, sometimes radically different—but we do explicate the varying orders of Catholic ritual and dogma and theology and philosophy that Joyce refers to and engages with. As Willis McNelly wrote, ‘[i]ncorporated into Ulysses often with absolute accuracy, the devices reveal an intellectualized familiarity with the Missal and Rituale that an average Catholic would not normally attain.’44 Following from Joyce’s upbringing as a Catholic in Ireland in the late nineteenth century, we have adopted as our default Bible the Douay-Rheims translation, which would have been ubiquitous during Joyce’s formative years. We will quote from the King James when Joyce’s phrasing more closely matches that translation (which is typically in the case of biblical phrases that have become proverbial). Beyond Catholicism, the aspects of Bloom’s complex and ambivalent Jewish background are well detailed in the notes. In 1920, Joyce described Ulysses as ‘the epic of two races (Israel and Ireland)’.45 Joyce’s attitude to religion is, typically, multi-perspectival, catholic, and Catholic.
History (Irish) In what is probably the most-quoted line from Ulysses, Stephen proclaims: ‘History [. . .] is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake’ (U 2.377). This hardly means that Ulysses is ahistorical or apolitical. Stephen, much like Joyce, is quite immersed within the minutiae of Irish history and so what he means by this is less a desire towards 42 Stanislaus Joyce, The Complete Dublin Diary, p. 38. 43 See, for example, http://www.james-joyce-music.com/ulysses.html. 44 Willis E. McNelly, ‘Liturgical Deviations in Ulysses’, p. 291. 45 James Joyce, Selected Letters, p. 270.
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xxvi On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses obliviousness and oblivion, but rather a suspicion of the manipulation of the historical record for ideological and didactic purposes. Irish history, much like any history, is the record or story of the distortions of what may have happened. False histories are embedded within Irish history. This makes the task of annotation both necessary and perilous. At one point in ‘Cyclops’, the Citizen indulges in his favourite pastime of excoriating the perfidious English for their mistreatment of Ireland and discusses the cavalier way in which the London Times reported on the Great Famine: ‘the Times rubbed its hands and told the whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as redskins in America’ (U 12.1367–69). While hardly sympathetic to the plight of the Irish during the Great Famine, the Times was not as crude and xenophobic as the Citizen claims. John Simpson—formerly the chief editor of the OED and currently co-editor of the online journal James Joyce Online Notes—uncovered the tangled history behind this matter of the London Times and the Famine. From the 1850s onwards, Irish nationalists manipulated quotations from the Times in order to exaggerate their anti-Irish prejudice and thereby perpetuate anti-English resentment among the Irish. These distorted quotations mutated as they proliferated. For example, on 21 September 1881, the Freeman’s Journal reported: ‘[The Times] was still the relentless enemy of the Irish race as it was when it declared in triumph that a Catholic Celt would soon be as rare in Connemara as a red Indian on the shores of Manhattan.’46 Likewise, writing in 1921, the instinctively anti-British Irish histor ian Seumas MacManus proclaimed: ‘The London Times [. . .] when the exodus was most pitiful, screamed with delight in one of its editorials, “They are going! They are going! The Irish are going with a vengeance. Soon a Celt will be as rare in Ireland as a Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan.” ’47 So, the historical ‘truth’ indignantly claimed by the Citizen, MacManus, and others is a falsehood that has been in circulation for so long that its false status has been forgotten. This obviously has some bearing on ‘Cyclops’, an episode in which Bloom and the Citizen acrimoniously debate the uses and abuses of history. This line about the Times is thus a good example of how we can be oblivious to the complex ities of the historical record to which we appeal for authority. One of the tasks of these annotations is to identify these false histories that are themselves a part of the histories of Ireland.
‘Microhistory’ Because Ulysses is set on a specific date, Joyce made sure to include references to the current events of that specific time. That is, Joyce mined the newspapers of 16 June 1904 in order to furnish his novel with the details of the day: a horrible accident in New York the day before, an anticipated horse race in the afternoon, and so on and so forth. Beyond documenting the grand events, Ulysses records the trivial and the ephemeral, the things of the moment that might not be of great moment. For Joyce, gossip is not that much different from history and from myth. Joyce is meticulous at setting the historical stage—except when he isn’t. Even though he makes great use of newspapers and magazines from June 1904, Ulysses is not without anachronisms, some accidental and some deliberate. For example, there are quite a few items in Ulysses culled from newspapers contemporaneous 46 p. 2, col. e. 47 Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race, p. 610 n. 11.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxvii with when Joyce was writing Ulysses, years after its 1904 setting. An example would be from the headline that Alf Bergan reads in ‘Cyclops’, ‘Black Beast Burned in Omaha, Ga’ (U 12.1324). This report of a lynching in the United States does not come from a Dublin paper of 16 June 1904, but from the London Times of 30 September 1919, and thus contemporan eous with when Joyce was writing this episode. The Times’s column of ‘Imperial and Foreign News’ contains the following entry: ‘At Omaha (Georgia) a mob attempted to hang the Mayor because he endeavoured to prevent the lynching of a negro charged with assaulting a white girl. The negro was hanged and the Court House set on fire.’48 Compounding the anachronism, the Times’s report makes a mistake that Joyce retains: this event did not happen in Omaha, Georgia, which does exist, but Omaha, Nebraska. The New York Times’s coverage adds some details, such as the correct location and the name of the victim and of the mayor: OMAHA, Neb., Monday, Sept. 29. Will Brown, a forty-five-year-old negro, was lynched here last night by a mob of 5,000 after the new $1,000,000 Douglas County Court House here, upon the top floor of which the jail is situated, had been practically destroyed by flames caused by fire bombs thrown into the building from the other side of the street. From six to eight men were killed, probably twenty injured, many negroes dragged from street cars and beaten and thousands of dollars’ damage done by the mob. In the midst of the turmoil an abortive attempt was made to ‘lynch’ Mayor E. P. Smith when he appeared to appeal to the mob.49
This horrific story of sadly typical cruelty is one of the threads that ties the text to its time— in this case the time of its composition—and ties it also, in its familiarity, to our time. The story is anachronistic because it could be happening today.
Dublin Frank Budgen records one of Joyce’s most famous boasts concerning Ulysses: ‘I want [. . .] to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.’50 This boast was, in all likelihood, made after the Easter Rising of 1916, when large parts of Dublin were destroyed. In any case, Joyce’s claim is not literally true: despite its seeming comprehensiveness, Ulysses does not include vast swathes of Dublin. Budgen himself did not take Joyce’s boast at face value, as he notes that a certain narrative minimalism obscures a precise rendering of urban detail. He writes, ‘[h]ouses and interiors are shown us, but as if we entered them as familiars, not as strangers’.51 Because he wrote Ulysses while living in Trieste, Zürich, and Paris, Joyce had to rely on external sources to supplement his memory. Primus inter pares of these sources is the mammoth civil cyclopaedia Thom’s Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, published annually by Alexander Thom & Co. (its successor company folded in 2019). As Clive Hart writes, ‘[t]he Dublin which Joyce recreates is the Dublin of physical 48 p. 5, col. e. 49 New York Times, 29 Sep. 1919, p. 1, col. h. 50 JJMU, p. 69. 51 Ibid.
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xxviii On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses reality, remembered and coloured by his own atypical personality, but it is also the Dublin one may find enshrined, embalmed in the pages of Thom’s—the official, statistical Dublin, the Dublin reduced to objective memory, to street lists, tradesman’s catalogues, census counts.’52 In his obituary of Joyce for the Irish Times, Constantine Curran claimed that ‘Joyce was many things, but he was certainly the last forty volumes of Thom’s Directory thinking aloud’.53 In the brief preface to Thom’s, the editors state that they hope to provide ‘a ready book of reference on almost all subjects of public interest’.54 Both Thom’s and Ulysses aim towards the comprehensive and the commodious in their respective representations of the august Hibernian metropolis. Indeed, in a review of Ulysses when it was first published, George Slocombe called it ‘as large as a telephone directory or a family bible, and with many of the literary and social characteristics of each!’55 Annotations, then, comment upon both these aspects, the directory and the bible (as well as a few others). Dublin is thus represented in Ulysses by proxy through Thom’s. There is direct evidence within the text that Joyce gleaned information from the 1904 edition of Thom’s, as well as, in at least one other instance, a different edition.56 Joyce also inherits errors from Thom’s, further testifying to its mediation between Dublin and Ulysses. For example, James Carlyle was the manager and director of the Irish Times in 1904. In Thom’s Street Directory entry for the Irish Times, his surname is given as Carlisle (p. 1620) and in the Directory of Nobility, Gentry, Merchants, and Traders it is Carlyle (p. 1826), which is the correct form, as can be confirmed in the 1901 census. Unfortunately, Joyce followed the incorrect form (U 8.337). Thom’s is an imperfect record of Dublin; indeed, it presents inconsistent information within its various directories as if there were multiple Dublins, each just ever so slightly different.57 To illustrate how Joyce layers in references to Dublin, it is instructive to compare Ulysses with A Portrait, which is a much less densely annotatable text. In A Portrait, Joyce’s representation of Dublin’s topography was nowhere near as exact and exacting as what he would later do in Ulysses. For example: What birds were they? He stood on the steps of the library to look at them, leaning wear ily on his ashplant. They flew round and round the jutting shoulder of a house in Molesworth Street.58
An annotation for this passage in A Portrait—by Marc Mamigonian and John Turner— notes the locations specified here: Molesworth Street: The National Library stands on Kildare Street, near the corner with Molesworth Street.59 52 JJD, p. 15. 53 The Irish Times, 14 Jan. 1941, p. 6, col. c. 54 Thom’s, p. iv. 55 George Slocombe, ‘The Week in Paris’, Daily Herald (London), 17 Mar. 1922, p. 4. 56 For example, the enumeration of the date in ‘Ithaca’ relies on information from the first page of the 1904 Thom’s (see the notes between U 17.94 and 17.99). Likewise, in ‘Hades’, the description of Thomas H. Dennany as a ‘monumental builder and sculptor’ comes from a post-1904 Thom’s (see note at 6.462). 57 As a tribute to the late Clive Hart, Ian Gunn has made high-quality scans of a 1904 Thom’s directory, as well as other useful material, available online: http://www.riverrun.org.uk/joycetools.html. 58 James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (2014), p. 190. 59 A Portrait, p. 297.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxix Joyce’s description does not mention which building with the ‘jutting shoulder’ on Molesworth Street proved so attractive to the birds, and this is a level of detail that he would almost invariably provide in Ulysses (presumably it is the Freemasons’ Hall at 17–18 Molesworth Street, which stands taller than its neighbours). The Dublin in A Portrait is one that was reconstructed primarily from memory and not one which Joyce was attempting to reproduce in exacting detail. For Ulysses, on the other hand, Joyce’s memory needed some documentary supplement. Consider this passage from the end of ‘Lestrygonians’, where Bloom is walking down Molesworth Street to the National Museum: That girl passing the Stewart institution, head in the air. Look at me. I have them all on. Must be strange not to see her. [. . .] Postoffice. Must answer. Fag today. Send her a postal order two shillings half a crown. Accept my little present. Stationer’s just here too. Wait. Think over it. With a gentle finger he felt ever so slowly the hair combed back above his ears. [. . .] There he goes into Frederick street. Perhaps to Levenston’s dancing academy piano. Might be settling my braces. Walking by Doran’s public house he slid his hand between waistcoat and trousers and, pulling aside his shirt gently, felt a slack fold of his belly (U 8.1125–42; emphasis added).
Thom’s provides details for the following establishments: The Stewart Institution for Imbecile Children and Hospital for Mental Diseases, 40 Molesworth Street (Thom’s, p. 1548). Town Sub-Post office, money order and savings bank office’, 4 Molesworth Street (Thom’s, p. 1547). E. F. Grant & Co.: ‘scriveners, typewriters, law and general stationers’, 1–2 Molesworth Street (Thom’s, p. 1547). Mrs P. M. Levenston’s dancing academy, 35 South Frederick Street, just south of Molesworth Street (Thom’s, pp. 1497, 1931). Michael Doran’s pub, 10 Molesworth Street (Thom’s, p. 1547), on the corner with South Frederick Street.
The specifics of the city are thus intercalated with the more impressionistic rendering of Bloom’s thoughts and actions as he moves about the city. The city is the backdrop to his actions, and, as such, its specifics are continually present throughout the text, as if Ulysses were, much like Slocombe’s description, a novel overlaid on top of a street directory.
The Autobiographical Joyce’s works are autobiographical in that they are filled with elements derived from his own lived experiences, but in complicated, often deflected and tangential, ways. On 31 January 1931, John Stanislaus Joyce wrote to his son,
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xxx On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses My dear Jim I wish you a very happy birthday and also a bright and happy New Year. I wonder do you recollect the old days in Brighton Square, when you were Babie Tuckoo, and I used to take you out in the Square and tell you all about the moo-cow that used to come down from the mountain and take little boys across?60
This letter is very sweet and reveals that the opening scene of A Portrait is intimately autobiographical (it also reveals that Joyce’s father probably never read any of his son’s novels). Joyce took an event from his childhood and fictionalised and transformed it in his representation of Stephen Dedalus’s childhood. But, frequently, Joyce’s use of autobiographical elements is far less direct. An illustration of this point from Ulysses would be when Stephen tells his ‘Parable of the Plums’ in the ‘Aeolus’ episode. After Stephen has told his story, Myles Crawford asks ‘Where did they get the plums’ (U 7.1051–52). The answer is from a girl at the foot of Nelson’s Pillar who was selling plums, eight for a penny. An attentive reader will know where Stephen got the idea for the plum-selling girl. In ‘Hades’, when Bloom’s carriage passes by Nelson’s Pillar, he hears the girl yelling ‘Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny!’ (U 6.294). As this is just around the corner from where the Freeman’s Journal offices are on Prince’s Street, Stephen must have also seen and heard the plum- selling girl on his way there. And so, in constructing his parable, he has taken an element from his recent lived experience to include as part of the story’s ‘local colour’ (and other elements from this story likewise derive from things Stephen has encountered earlier). This is not dissimilar from Joyce’s own aesthetics of local colour: part of the process of working in all he knows is incorporating elements from his own life, but not necessarily in a strictly documentarian, factual fashion. And so, some of the notes will include biographical e lements that are infused into the text, but this is not to say that Ulysses is Joyce’s autobiography. That is, Ulysses cannot be reduced to or simply equated with the various autobiographical elem ents that might be in it—even when these are reliably known, which is not always the case. Rather, the autobiographical (or pseudo-autobiographical) is just one element of, one set of raw ingredients for, Joyce’s ‘allincluding most farraginous chronicle’ (U 14.1412).
Error In ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ Stephen haughtily proclaims, ‘A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery’ (U 9.228–29). This is a particularly shrewd line on Joyce’s part since it absolves him, as the author—and a soi-disant man of genius—of making any mistakes. Since a man of genius makes no mistakes, anything that seems like a mistake in Ulysses must actually be something ingenious that can only be discerned by a suitably astute reader. So, because of this line, Joyce shunts the responsibility for error from the author to the reader by saying, in effect, there are no mistakes in this text, just artistic brilliance that may or may not be properly apprehended (and annotated). This, of course, can drive readers crazy, or at least, a little paranoid. Error and the apprehension—or misapprehension—of error are thus fundamentally enmeshed within Joyce’s aesthetics. Error is also a problem for annotators since Joyce does make mistakes even if it is not always clear where they are or how ‘volitional’ they may be. (This is also very much a problem for editing the text of Ulysses.) We have tried to take a conservative approach and identify errors without necessarily apportioning blame. For example, in the ‘Hades’ episode Bloom sees a herd of cows being led through the city. Bloom had in the past worked for Joseph Cuffe at the cattle market and so he thinks: 60 James Joyce, Letters, vol. 3, p. 212.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxxi Thursday, of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold them about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roastbeef for old England. They buy up all the juicy ones. (U 6.392–94)
Our note for ‘Springers’ reads (and its brevity conceals the amount of time spent researching the matter): 6.392: Springers Springer: not a cow slaughtered for meat, but a cow ‘in calf for dairy purposes’ (Arthur Maltby and Jean Maltby, Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, p. 64); from ‘to spring’: ‘to swell with milk. Also (esp. of a cow): to show signs of giving birth’ (OED). The trade journal Mark Lane Express, routinely lists springers as the most expensive type of milk-cow sold in Ireland (see also note at 6.393), as does Thom’s (p. 752).
Contrary to Bloom’s supposition that springers are sold for meat, they are sold for dairy purposes. This certainly seems like an error on Joyce’s part—and we would say that that is the more likely possibility, especially since Bloom worked for Cuffe’s. But, it is possible to arrive at a reading (albeit forced) that has Joyce know exactly what he’s doing. We learn later in Ulysses that Bloom was fired from Cuffe’s for ‘giving lip to a grazier’ (12.837–38), and perhaps this argument involved springers; in other words, perhaps one might read this error as a portal of discovery. Error is fundamental to Ulysses. Indeed, Sebastian Knowles writes that the errors of Ulysses—the ones Joyce intended and the ones he did not—all taken together ‘reinforce the fact that errors are inevitable, that in a book so concerned with the human such errors are not only forgivable but necessary’.61
General Knowledge And, of course, there’s all the rest. Joyce called Ulysses ‘a kind of encyclopaedia’.62 This is not an empty boast since Ulysses is a potpourri of facts that range, quite literally, from the vastness of the heavens to the dirt at our feet. It is almost as if Ulysses is an encyclopaedia that happens to use not the alphabet as its interface but a narrative of various people in Dublin. Among the sources Joyce consulted while researching and writing Ulysses was the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which, likewise, the annotators have used precisely because, even though its information is invariably dated in some places, it more accurately reflects the epistemological state of Joyce’s time. We also have had to rely on a large number of other sources since, evidently, the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is not sufficiently comprehensive for Ulysses. Ulysses aims towards being ‘Akasic records of all that ever anywhere wherever was’ (U 7.882–83)—fortunately for the annotators, Joyce doesn’t quite succeed in this pan-galactically comprehensive ambit, though it is not for lack of trying. These annotations indicate the ways in which Joyce filled Ulysses with all sorts of information, making it an encyclopaedia of all human knowledge and an encyclopaedia of the everyday and an encyclopaedia of the incomplete, since Ulysses is the sort of encyclopaedia that allows for a whole separate volume of annotations.
61 Sebastian Knowles, The Dublin Helix, pp. 3–4. 62 Joyce, Selected Letters, p. 270.
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xxxii On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses
Map 0 Dublin city (Eason’s Pocket map of Dublin, c. 1901)
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxxiii
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xxxiv On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses
A Note on Dublin Topography and Toponyms The Dublin of 1904 (map 0) was defined by three bodies of water: the River Liffey, which bifurcates the city into a northside and a southside, and the Grand and Royal Canals, which form a ring around the city and set its boundaries. Beyond the canals lie various suburbs, which were, at the time of Ulysses, independently governed townships. The northern inner suburbs lie between the Royal Canal and the River Tolka; the southern inner suburbs lie between the Grand Canal and the River Dodder. In 1900, an Act of Parliament incorpor ated five inner suburbs (four northern and one southern) into the city proper, thereby extending a part of the city’s jurisdiction beyond the canals.63 The city was further expanded after 1904, and many of the surrounding suburbs and villages are now formally within Dublin City. In general, the south-eastern suburbs are more prosperous than their northern counterparts and the urban core. Many Dublin streets have the annoying tendency of changing their name at every major intersection. For example, the wide, commercial thoroughfare that runs from the front of Trinity College to Christ Church Cathedral changes name at various intervals; from east to west: College Green, Dame Street, Cork Hill, Lord Edward Street. Furthermore, many streets are divided into an upper and a lower (with longer streets also benefitting from a middle). These denote proximity to water: on a north-south street, the part closest to the River Liffey in the city centre is lower. Likewise, on an east-west street, the part closest to Dublin Bay is lower. Houses are numbered separately on upper and lower streets. In general, houses are numbered sequentially up one side of the street to its terminus and then continue down the other side (since nothing is ever easy, there are exceptions to this pattern). Other toponymic qualifiers are: East/West, North/South, and Great/Little. Maps and other works are inconsistent as to whether these are prefixes or suffixes. The same sheet of an Ordnance Survey Map might contain both a ‘Lower X Street’ and a ‘Y Street Lower’. Indeed, even today, on Little Britain Street, at the intersection with Halston Street, one street sign says ‘Little Britain Street’ while the one directly across reads ‘Britain Street Little’. We have followed the contemporary convention, which is to use these qualifiers as prefixes, except for East/West, which is used as a suffix (e.g. Upper Baggot Street, Lombard Street West). We note all instances where a street name has been changed, but such changes are few. It is not unusual for an older toponym to remain current long after it has been officially changed, or, likewise, for an establishment to be referred to by the name of an older establishment at that location.
A Note on Irish History since 1800 For readers unfamiliar with the basic parameters of Irish history as it relates to Ulysses, we offer here a brief outline of some broad context.64 (Much in the way of specific information will be provided throughout the annotations.) The Act of Union of 1800 formally subsumed Ireland into the newly created United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland when it took effect on 1 January 1801. This Act was the culmination of centuries of various English incursions into Ireland, and several, typically unsuccessful, countervailing bouts of Irish resistance, most recently an insurrection in 1798, that, while easily defeated, was widespread. Union was not harmonious. While the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 ended many (but not all) of the official discriminations suffered by Catholics, for much of the 63 Thom’s, p. 1335. See also Mary Daly, Dublin: The Deposed Capital, pp. 226–39. 64 As starting points, we recommend the following further reading: F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine; R. F. Foster’s Modern Ireland: 1600–1972; and Ciaran Brady, ed., Interpreting Irish History.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxxv nineteenth century the situation in Ireland remained harsh, with rural Catholics effectively living under quasi-feudal conditions imposed upon them by Irish Protestant landlords. Overall, the Irish economy remained largely stagnant during the nineteenth century. Dublin became an increasingly impoverished city, with many of its finest Georgian houses—originally built as town houses for the Irish Protestant upper classes—reduced to serving as tenements. Resistance to British rule was fractious: besides Daniel O’Connell’s largely constitutional attempts at repealing the Act of Union, there was the more radical Young Ireland movement of the 1840s, which aimed for a comprehensive recrudescence of the Irish nation. The Great Famine of 1845–49 decimated the population of Ireland through starvation, disease, and emigration. For much (but not all) of the Famine, the official British reaction to Irish suffering was calculated inaction. Among various transformations and upheavals during the Famine and its aftermath, a portion of the population became radicalised against British rule. Some members of the Young Ireland movement were behind a failed rebellion in 1848. This, in turn, led to the formation in 1858 of a militant and clandestine organisation known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood (or the Fenians), which was dedicated to the foundation of an independent Irish Republic by any means necessary. The 1870s saw a period of violence in rural areas—known as the Land War—as farmers protested the unfair conditions imposed on them by their landlords, conditions that were further aggravated by a depressed economy and poor harvests. A former Fenian, Michael Davitt, established the Land League in 1879 to campaign for farmers’ rights. This met with some success as, over the following years, legislation was passed that alleviated the immiseration of the Irish rural class. Although from the Irish Protestant landowning class, the parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell became one of Davitt’s allies in the Land League. Following from his advocacy of the Irish farmers, Parnell assumed leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Under his control, the Party became an effective medium in the campaign for Irish autonomy within the British Parliament. The immediate goal was Home Rule, a situation in which Ireland would be self- governed while formally remaining within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Parnell’s success in advancing the cause of Home Rule was such that he was dubbed ‘the Uncrowned King of Ireland’. After the general election of 1885, the IPP held the balance of power in the British parliament and allied itself with the Liberal Party of William Gladstone. In 1886, Gladstone introduced a Home Rule Bill, which he forcefully supported. The Bill was narrowly defeated in the Commons, which led to another election and the Conservatives taking power. This failure did not diminish Parnell’s stature as he continued to campaign for Home Rule. In 1889, Parnell was named as co-respondent in the divorce suit brought by Captain William Henry O’Shea against his English-born wife, Katharine O’Shea. This made public Parnell’s affair with O’Shea, which had been an open secret for ten years. During the ensuing scandal, the IPP was divided into Parnellite and anti-Parnellite factions, with the anti- Parnellite forces mostly prevailing. Parnell himself died in 1891. Gladstone, having become Prime Minister again, advanced a second Home Rule Bill in 1893. This time it passed the House of Commons only to be struck down by the House of Lords. With the failure of the second Home Rule Bill and the IPP divided by the Parnell split, a political solution seemed out of reach for at least the immediate future. And so the energies within Ireland moved away from politics to broader questions about the possibility of an Irish identity and culture distinct from the British. These debates were proteiform and often discordant. These included calls to revive the Irish language, as well as more
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xxxvi On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses practical discussions about revitalising Irish industries. Among the more prominent manifestations was the so-called Irish Literary Revival, with W. B. Yeats, among others, at the forefront, with the establishment of an Irish National Theatre. However, because the momentum was not limited to literary works, it would be fairer to use the more general term now in favour, the Irish Revival.65 A third Home Rule Bill was advanced and passed in May 1914. However, its implementation had to be postponed because of World War I. By this time, more radical forces within Irish nationalism were coming to the fore, and the earlier goal of Home Rule was seen by various factions as insufficient. Instead, a full separation from the United Kingdom, with Ireland an autonomous republic, was now the goal of many. On the other hand, Unionists, many of whom were concentrated in Protestant areas in the north, resisted any and all attempts at Irish Home Rule. During Easter 1916, an armed insurrection took place in Dublin, with the rebels proclaiming Ireland an independent republic. The insurrection was quickly quelled and its leaders executed, but the forces it unleashed led to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and a brief but fractious civil war. In 1949, Ireland finally formally became a republic, with six northern counties remaining within the United Kingdom. While Ulysses takes place in 1904, it was written between 1914 and 1922, a very different phase of Ireland’s struggle for autonomy. And so Joyce’s representation of Dublin 1904 is, at least in part, refracted through that subsequent history.
A Note on Currency The pre-decimal system of pounds, shillings, and pence may seem confusing to those solely reared on decimal currencies, but it does make some degree of sense because a combin ation duodecimal (base 12) and vigesimal (base 20) system is more factorisable than a decimal system. For readers unfamiliar with pre-decimal currency, the basics are: 12 pence (abbreviated as d. for denarius, the name of a low-value Roman coin) to the shilling. 20 shillings to the pound.
Values were expressed in the order pounds/shillings/pence; hence £1 10s. 9d. (or 1/10/9) equals 1 pound, 10 shillings, and 9 pence. Other standard coins were the florin (2 shillings), the half-crown (2/6, that is, 2 shillings and sixpence), and the crown (5 shillings). The farthing, a quarter of a penny, was the lowest value coin in circulation in 1904. The one-pound coin was made of gold and was called a sovereign (the half-sovereign was also gold). While the guinea coin, with a value of 21 shillings, had not been minted since 1814, the guinea was still used to denominate certain upmarket transactions, such as professional fees, horse race purses, real estate, fine clothes, and works of art.66 Monetary equivalents have not been provided since there are many different ways to translate 1904 prices to contemporary figures, and these can yield significantly disparate results. For example, the relative price of a commodity priced at £1 in 1904 would be £108.50 in 2019. This measures the relative value of the currency against the prices of a fixed ‘basket’ of various basic goods and services. However, when other scales are used, 65 See, for example, the anthology Handbook of the Irish Revival, edited by Declan Kiberd and P. J. Mathews. 66 In the United Kingdom, racehorse sales are still denominated in guineas as are the purses of two of the five British Classic Races, the 1,000 Guinea Stakes and the 2,000 Guinea Stakes, both at Newmarket.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxxvii the 1904 pound becomes considerably more expensive in contemporary values: its labour value is £402.20, its income value is £692.70, and its economic power value is £1,174.67 In any case, a single pound in 1904 is a considerable sum of money and so Stephen’s monthly salary teaching at a boys’ school, £3 12s. (U 2.222), is by no means trivial, especially since he is employed only part time. According to a government report on the cost of living throughout the United Kingdom in the first decade of the twentieth century, a skilled labourer working full time in 1904 in Dublin could expect wages of about 35 shillings a week, which works out to a monthly salary of £7. An unskilled labourer could expect about 15 to 18 shillings a week (full-time labour was defined as 54 hours per week).68 For those few occupations that also employed women, a woman could expect to receive about two-thirds of a man’s sal ary.69 The minimum income needed for basic subsistence was defined as 3s. 3d. per week for a single man or £1 per week for a family of four. Because of widespread poverty and chronic under-employment in Dublin, more than a half of all families earned less than this amount.70 The same government report lists the following predominant prices for basic goods in Dublin as of October 1905:71 Tea Sugar (white granulated) Bacon (collar) Eggs Cheese Fresh butter Potatoes Bread Flour (household) Milk Coal
1s. 4d. to 1s. 8d. per pound (0.45 kg) 2d. per pound 5d. to 6d. per pound 10 to 12 for 1s. 8d. per pound 1s. 2d. to 1s. 4d. per pound 2½d. to 3d. per 7 pounds (3.2 kg) 6d. per 4 pounds (1.8 kg) 9d. to 10d. per pound 4d. per quart (1.1 litres) 1s. per cwt (51 kg)
A few additional costs: a single tram fare cost one penny as did a copy of the Freeman’s Journal, a pint of Guinness cost two pence, and the annual rent on the Blooms’ house was £28 (Thom’s, p. 1482). Books were relatively more expensive than today (for various reasons: the Net Book Agreement of 1900 set minimum prices and the paperback revolution inaug urated by Penguin had yet to happen).72 All measurements will be given in the metric system as that is the system in use throughout most of the world.
A Note on Annotations Past This is not the first book to catalogue and explicate references in Ulysses. Stuart Gilbert’s James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, originally published in 1930, was the first full-length book study. Despite offering much insight, Gilbert’s work is dated in many ways, but it also suffers from
67 These figures derive from http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/. Calculating by inflation rates yields a different result: £1 in 1904 = £119.42 in 2019, http://www.inflation.stephenmorley.org. 68 Cost of Living of the Working Classes, p. 560. 69 Cormac Ó Gráda, Ireland: A New Economic History, p. 238. 70 Joseph V. O’Brien, ‘Dear, Dirty Dublin’, p. 167; Mary Daly, Dublin: The Deposed Capital, pp. 77–78. 71 Cost of Living of the Working Classes, p. 563. 72 For a comprehensive listing of prices given in Joyce’s works, see http://www.jjon.org/joyce-s-environs/ joycean-price-guide.
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xxxviii On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses a more intractable problem. In a sense, the explication of Ulysses was not Gilbert’s primary mission, rather, it was a work of ‘critical propaganda’, a scholarly study of the still-censored Ulysses to prove that it was a legitimate work of literature.73 Shortly after Gilbert’s book was published, and perhaps motivated by what he saw in Gilbert’s analysis, Joyce confessed to Beckett, ‘I fear I may have oversystematized Ulysses’.74 Offering a less systematised overview is James Joyce and the Making of ‘Ulysses’, by Joyce’s friend Frank Budgen, an artist with whom Joyce had many discussions whilst writing Ulysses when he was in Zürich during World War I. Clive Hart calls Budgen’s book ‘a happy mixture of clear-sighted expos ition and sympathetic personal understanding’.75 Beyond Gilbert, Budgen, and other early explicators, the post-War years saw a boom in Joyce criticism, with studies moving to the more thematically focused. Matthew Hodgart and Mabel Worthington compiled the first listing of musical references in Joyce’s works. While incomplete and not without error, it was a groundbreaking work. It has since been superseded by books by Zack Bowen and Ruth Bauerle. William Schutte painstakingly uncovered and analysed the Shakespearean references and resonances in his study Joyce and Shakespeare.76 Richard M. Kain was the first Joycean to read Ulysses through Thom’s and other contemporaneous Dublin sources. Although not in Dublin whilst preparing this book, he was aided considerably by Joseph Hanna of the Trinity College library. His book, Fabulous Voyager (first published in 1947), includes as appendices a biographical dictionary of the real people mentioned in Ulysses and a directory of shops and public buildings. Following Kain, Robert Martin Adams’s Surface and Symbol contains a detailed and nuanced analysis of Ulysses in terms of how Joyce handles documentary details; this is a landmark work for unpacking the specific historical detail behind the ‘local colour’ of Ulysses. Clive Hart and Leo Knuth’s A Topographical Guide to James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ continues the work done by Kain and attempts to precisely map out Ulysses onto the cityscape of 1904 Dublin. Hart revised this work substantially with Ian Gunn for 2004’s James Joyce’s Dublin. More recently, Vivian Igoe has produced a significant biographical listing of the ‘real’ people mentioned within Ulysses. This is an invaluable reference work for finding out details of the people not sufficiently ‘dignified’ to merit entries in either the Dictionary of Irish Biography or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. In a different register, R. W. Dent’s Colloquial Language in ‘Ulysses’ is another invaluable reference work, even if its format is somewhat opaque. In addition to these and other book-length works, the James Joyce Quarterly as well as other journals have published many articles that have elucidated all manner of details in Ulysses. More recently, offering tremendous insight and groundbreaking and precise research on a variety of matters, the website James Joyce Online Notes, founded in 2011 and edited by Harald Beck and John Simpson, provides expansive information on some of the material covered briefly in this volume’s annotations. Beyond these specialised surveys, there have been two book-length volumes of annotations: Weldon Thornton’s Allusions in ‘Ulysses’ (originally partially serialised in the James Joyce Quarterly and published in 1968) and Don Gifford and Robert J. Seidman’s Notes for Joyce: An Annotation of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ (1974), revised and retitled as ‘Ulysses’
73 Patrick A. McCarthy, ‘Stuart Gilbert’s Guide to the Perplexed’, p. 25. 74 Ellmann, p. 702. 75 Clive Hart, ‘Introduction’, in JJMU, p. xix. 76 Schutte notes that some preliminary identification of the Shakespearean allusions in Ulysses had been done by B. J. Morse and Arthur Heine (Joyce and Shakespeare, p. 178).
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xxxix Annotated (1988). Both Thornton and Gifford and Seidman’s books build on their predecessors, especially Adams. Likewise, Gifford and Seidman build upon Thornton’s work. Thornton, as his title indicates, focuses only on allusions (whether to literature, music, philosophy, or history), while Gifford and Seidman’s remit is broader and includes foreign languages and matters of geography and topography and so on. If Gifford and Seidman are more comprehensive in scope, Thornton is often more detailed and is considerably better at documenting his sources. While both volumes have been indispens able adjuncts to Joyce studies, they are both out of date and suffer from numerous errors, hence the need for this present volume. Certainly, this volume builds upon the works of our predecessors, never more so than when it diverges from them. We have decided to refrain from indicating mistakes in the earlier volumes of annotation because such critical vituperation would ultimately be unhelpful (and probably uninteresting) to our readers. In places where our annotations differ from Gifford and Seidman’s and Thornton’s, it can be assumed that such differences are considered. Furthermore, by providing our sources, we hope to be as transparent as possible in showing our research and to equip our readers to follow up such issues on their own. In many ways, the history of a text is the history of its misreadings. That is, once an error enters the critical record, it can be difficult to extricate. Writing to Richard Ellmann on 11 December 1952, at the dawn of Joyce studies, Ellsworth Mason complained, ‘[t]here is more disinformation about Joyce than about most anyone.’77 If anything, the amount of disinformation apropos Joyce has only increased since Mason’s letter. Volumes, such as the ones listed above, despite all their positive contributions to Joyce studies, have also, inadvertently, helped perpetuate inaccuracies and misinformation. For example, in 1965, in an art icle published in the James Joyce Quarterly, Fritz Senn proposed that the German words Nacheinander (one-after-another) and Nebeneinander (side-by-side) from the second paragraph in ‘Proteus’ (U 3.13 and 3.15) derive from the aesthetic theories of the German philoso pher Gotthold Lessing, specifically his book Laokoön. This is certainly a plausible supposition, since Lessing and Laokoön are explicitly mentioned in ‘Circe’ (U 15.3609) and A Portrait. A problem, which Senn notes, is that while Lessing uses the term Nebeneinander, he generally prefers Aufeinander over Nacheinander. Senn posits that Joyce might have derived his information from some secondary source which employed the word Nacheinander (and it’s not uncommon for Joyce to get his information from secondary sources).78 Both Thornton and Gifford and Seidman follow from Senn’s gloss, but without noting his qualification (and only Thornton acknowledges Senn). Indeed, Gifford and Seidman quote from an English translation of Laokoön into which they (slyly) interpolate the word Nacheinander, even though it is absent from the German text (on the other hand, the Nebeneinander that he likewise interpolates is in the original text).79 Numerous scholars have followed Gifford and Seidman and claimed that the terminology is unambiguously Lessing’s. Going through one of Joyce’s preparatory notebooks, Wim Van Mierlo has discovered that Lessing was not at all Joyce’s source for ‘Proteus’. Instead, these words came from a book by the anti-Semitic Austrian writer Otto Weininger: ‘Der Raum [. . .] enthält im 77 Quoted in Joseph Kelly, Our Joyce, p. 151. 78 Fritz Senn, ‘Esthetic Theories’, p. 135. 79 The passage in question is ‘deren verschiedene Theile sich nach und nach, in der Folge der Zeit, ereignen’ (Gotthold Lessing, Laokoön, p. 113); this is rendered in the English translation by Edward McCormick, which Gifford and Seidman use as ‘its different parts occurring one after the other in a sequence of time’ (p. 77). McCormick translates ‘nach und nach’ as ‘one after the other’ and that is what fooled Gifford and Seidman into interpolating Nacheinander at that point.
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xl On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses nebeneinander, was nur im zeitlichen Nacheinander erlebt werden kann’ (Space [. . .] contains in juxtaposition [nebeneinander] what can only be experienced in temporal succession [Nacheinander]).80 Joyce copied down this sentence on a notebook page helpfully labelled ‘Weininger’, which contains multiple entries taken from this book.81 And so the standard gloss for these words—starting with Senn and going through Thornton and Gifford and all those who have followed them—has been wrong all these years. As Van Mierlo points out, Laokoön was not necessarily the best fit, since Lessing’s discussion treats poetry and art whereas Stephen is thinking about perception, which is exactly what Weininger is discussing.82 Indeed, while we can now say with certainty that Weininger was Joyce’s immediate source because of the notebook entry, Nacheinander and Nebeneinander are reasonably common terms within German philosophy, independent of Lessing and Weininger: ‘Space is called “das Nebeneinander der Dinge”, the coexistence of things, Time is called “das Nacheinander der Dinge”, the succession of things.’83 The annotators for this present edition have enjoyed several advantages that previous annotators did not have. The historicist turn in Joyce studies—and literary studies more generally—largely postdates the 1988 edition of Gifford and Seidman’s annotations, although they were able to take advantage of some vanguard works from the early 1980s.84 We have benefitted from much recent Joyce scholarship, especially from those critical works that have investigated many of Joyce’s specific material and textual sources and references. But, of course, one big advantage has been the rise of digital culture, which has made much more material accessible and easily searchable than was possible for our predecessors. The digitisation of numerous newspaper archives has greatly facilitated our work, as has the availability of many texts on platforms such as archive.org and the Hathi Trust Digital Library, not to mention the inevitable Google. As beneficial as these new media are, they also propagate much disinformation, which is why we have tended to be conservative with our use of online sources. These (still comparatively new) digital resources have not completely eliminated the need to do ‘old-fashioned’ archival research and this volume would have not been possible without the collections at Trinity College Dublin, the National Library of Ireland, the National Archives of Ireland, and the Zürich James Joyce Foundation. Annotations, unfortunately, perhaps inevitably, perpetuate errors and misreadings. Surveying the ill-informed Dante commentaries of his day, the nineteenth-century German critic Karl Witte observed, ‘Exegesis is pre-eminently the happy hunting ground of caprice and ignorance.’85 What we have tried to do is strip away the misreadings that have accumulated around Joyce without adding our own to the fray. Of course, despite our best efforts, we have almost certainly failed in this and, despite many rounds of checking and cross- checking, there are, unfortunately, doubtlessly, some errors still in this present work. Annotation and error are mutually engendering and mutually perpetuating.
A Note on Editions of Ulysses Because of the difficulties Joyce had in getting Ulysses published, the first edition was published in France by an amateur publisher, using a French printer who did not speak English.
80 Otto Weininger, Über die letzten Dinge, p. 107. 81 NLI II.i.1 f. 15. 82 Wim Van Mierlo, ‘The Subject Notebook’. 83 A. Hamann, editorial note in Gotthold Lessing, Laokoön, p. 258 n. 84 Such as Cheryl Herr, Joyce’s Anatomy of Culture. 85 Karl Witte, Essays on Dante, pp. 311–12.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xli As Joyce was reviewing (and expanding) the various proofs for Ulysses he knew that the text would be flawed, and so the first edition begins with the statement, initialled by its publisher Sylvia Beach but actually written by Joyce: ‘The publisher asks the reader’s indulgence for typographical errors unavoidable in the exceptional circumstances.’ Every subsequent edition that attempted to correct these errors wound up introducing new ones in the process.86 And so, in the 1970s, a German textual scholar named Hans Walter Gabler began the task of editing Ulysses through an examination of the extant manuscripts, in order to identify and emend the errors that seeped into the text during its composition, as well as to expunge the errors that emerged in subsequent editions. Gabler’s text was first published in 1984 as a three-volume edition with a full editorial apparatus; this is called the Critical and Synoptic Edition. A revised version came out in 1986, along with the one-volume edition of the reading text shorn of the editorial apparatus. A further revised version of the reading text came out in 1993. By starting with the manuscripts, Gabler is able to correct all sorts of things that had gone wrong before the first edition was ever published. For example, in ‘Calypso’, Bloom reads in the advertisement for the Agendath Netaim planter’s company that ‘You pay eighty marks’ (U 4.194–95) for a share of land and ‘Can pay ten down and the balance in yearly instalments’ (U 4.198–99). However, the typist for this episode missed the y in ‘eighty’, thereby making the mortgage mathematically incongruous: a total of eight marks or ten down plus a further balance paid annually. On one copy of the typescript, Joyce caught the error and supplied the missing y, but this was not the typescript he sent to the printer, and so the error entered into the first edition and stood as such in all editions until Gabler caught it.87 In total, Gabler made some 5,000 emendations that range from the seemingly small to the major, such as the restoration of passages that were inadvertently lost during the text’s composition. Even the smaller changes, such as ones involving punctuation, have an effect as they influence the pace at which one reads Ulysses. Now, the manuscript record of Ulysses is incomplete and, furthermore, in some cases, the relationship between existing documents is not necessarily clear. Gabler thus conceived an ambitious and theoretically innova tive editorial model to deal with the problems posed by the incomplete archive of Ulysses’s drafts. Because of this incompleteness, it is inevitable that many editorial interventions will be conjectural and thus remain debatable. Indeed, both Gabler’s editorial theories and many of his specific emendations proved to be controversial.88 These annotations are keyed in to the Gabler edition of Ulysses because it is the best iteration of the text of Ulysses presently available. This is not to say that Gabler’s edition is without flaws, some of which are not trivial. Nor is it to say that there could ever be an edition that would be beyond reproach. It is simply to say that, when compared or collated against the other editions of Ulysses currently available, overall the Gabler edition is the 86 These issues are discussed in greater detail than can be provided here in Sam Slote, ‘Ulysses’ in the Plural. 87 UCSE, p. 1894. 88 For example, see the various essays in C. George Sandulescu and Clive Hart, eds, Assessing the 1984 ‘Ulysses’. By far the loudest critic of Gabler’s edition was John Kidd, who assailed Gabler’s work on a variety of fronts, with some charges more substantive than others; see ‘An Inquiry into Ulysses: The Corrected Text’ and ‘Errors of Execution in the 1984 Ulysses’. See also Hans Walter Gabler, ‘A Response To John Kidd, “Errors of Execution in the 1984 Ulysses” ’ and Michael Groden, ‘A Response to John Kidd’s “An Inquiry into Ulysses: The Corrected Text” ’. The Fall 1989 issue of the James Joyce Literary Supplement collects the proceedings of a conference in which Gabler defended his edition against Kidd’s charges. The Summer 1990 issue of Studies in the Novel, edited by Charles Rossman, was a special issue on the problems of editing Ulysses. Groden’s afterword to post-1993 editions of Gabler provides an account of the polemic against Gabler’s edition. See also Geert Lernout, ‘Controversial Editions: Hans Walter Gabler’s Ulysses’ and Julie Sloan Brannon, Who Reads ‘Ulysses’?
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xlii On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses least flawed—and by a large margin. Furthermore, any post-Gabler edition will inevitably be closer to Gabler’s than to any pre-Gabler edition. If we had selected a non-Gabler edition as the reference text, the annotations would have to include commentaries on the many problems that Gabler’s text definitively resolves, such as the business involving the missing y in ‘eighty marks’. By using the Gabler edition, our textual notes need only discuss the more inscrutable editorial problems in the text of Ulysses, the ones that his edition does not definitively resolve and, in some cases, might not ever be resolvable. However, rather than act as impediments to understanding Ulysses, these editorial problems might actually serve as portals of discovery.
A Note on Joyce’s Notes and Manuscripts In James Joyce and the Making of ‘Ulysses’, Frank Budgen gives an account of Joyce’s habit of note-taking: He was always looking and listening for the necessary fact or word; and he was a great believer in his luck. What he needed would come to him. That which he collected would prove useful in its time and place. [. . .] I have seen him collect in the space of a few hours the oddest assortment of material: a parody on the House that Jack Built, the name and action of a poison, the method of caning boys on training ships, the wobbly cessation of a tired unfinished sentence, the nervous tick of a convive turning his glass in inward- turning circles, a Swiss music-hall joke turning on a pun in Swiss dialect, a description of the Fitzsimmons shift. [. . .] As far as concerns the need for tablets [. . .] Joyce was never without them. And they were not library slips, but little writing blocks specially made for the waistcoat pocket. At intervals, alone or in conversation, seated or walking, one of these tablets was produced, and a word or two scribbled on it at lightning speed as ear or memory served his turn. No one knew how all this material was given place in the completed pattern of his work [. . .]. The method of making a multitude of criss-cross notes in pencil was a strange one for a man whose sight was never good.89
Joyce’s method of note-taking was even more complex than Budgen’s description. Joyce would start out with these writing ‘tablets’, or first-order notebooks, in which he would cull a diverse range of material from various different sources. He would then copy this mater ial into other notebooks, where they would be categorised under various headings, either by subject or by Ulysses episode. This copying was thus a way of sorting the different data he was accumulating. Sometimes, a single note-entry might be winnowed across several different generations of notebook or notesheets before being finally added to a draft of Ulysses.90 The notebooks are thus an invaluable document of the practical process of Joyce’s aesthetics of ‘stolentelling’. While only a small fraction of the Ulysses notebooks survive,91 those that are extant can shed light on Ulysses in many different ways. They can be useful in properly identifying Joyce’s specific sources. For example, Van Mierlo’s identification of Weininger, as opposed to Lessing, as Joyce’s source for Nacheinander and Nebeneinander, as discussed above, is only possible because one notebook has quotations lifted from Weininger’s book. Likewise, 89 JJMU, pp. 175–77. 90 See Sam Slote, ‘The Economy of Joyce’s Notetaking’. 91 In January 1921, Joyce estimated, in a letter to Ettore Schmitz, that a briefcase containing his notes weighed almost 5 kg (Letters, vol. 1, p. 154).
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xliii Joyce’s stylistic parodies in ‘Oxen of the Sun’ are identifiable through the extant notesheets for that episode, as was established in work done by Robert Janusko, and later by Gregory Downing and Sarah Davison.92 In writing Ulysses, Joyce made use of several notebooks that were compiled years before he began work on the novel. One of these is the ‘early commonplace book’ (NLI I.ii), an eclectic collection of daily accounts, quotations from his readings, and drafts of various short essays. This notebook dates from January to April 1903, with additional material from November 1904, and further new material from 1912. Joyce harvested notes from this notebook in Stephen Hero, Dubliners, and, eventually, Ulysses. This notebook was part of the cache of documents acquired by the National Library of Ireland in 2002.93 Another early notebook is the ‘Trieste notebook’ (Cornell 25, also called the Alphabetical notebook), which was compiled in 1910. This consists of alphabetically arranged notes on Joyce’s friends and family and various subjects. It was compiled for use in writing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Joyce returned to it for Ulysses.94 An early, but until recently neglected, notebook is the so-called ‘Notes on Business and Commerce’ (Cornell 38, 63). Previously it was thought that these dated from Joyce’s brief career as a bank clerk in Rome from August 1906 to February 1907. Recent work has shown that this notebook was compiled no earlier than 1910/11 and that Joyce made use of it in Ulysses.95 In 1916, Joyce took a variety of notes on Greek, of which he made some small use in Ulysses (Buffalo VIII.A.1, VIII.A.4, and VIII.A.6.a–j).96 Of the various types of Ulysses notebooks that survive, there is only one first-order notebook, that is, a notebook that contains uncategorised material directly lifted from various sources. This is the so-called ‘Zürich notebook’ from 1918 (Buffalo V.2.a, formerly catalogued as Buffalo VIII.A.5).97 The remaining notebooks consist of categorised, second- order notes that contain material copied from first-order notebooks. Only one of these is from relatively early in the composition of Ulysses, the early subject notebook (NLI II.i.1) from 1917.98 The remainder are all from 1921, from when Joyce was finishing his book as well as revising the various galley and page proofs: Buffalo V.2.b (formerly catalogued as Buffalo V.2), NLI II.i.2, NLI II.i.3, and NLI II.i.4.99 Besides these notebooks, a series of large notesheets exist for the later episodes, which consist of entries culled from the earlier notebooks.100 Joyce’s habit of notetaking extended into the composition of Finnegans Wake. In the mid-1930s, Joyce had an amanuensis, Mme France Raphaël, transcribe his earlier Wake notebooks. Inadvertently included in the batch of notebooks he gave her to transcribe was 92 See the headnote in the ‘Oxen of the Sun’ annotations for further information about the ‘Oxen’ notesheets. 93 See Luca Crispi, ‘A Commentary on James Joyce’s National Library of Ireland “Early Commonplace Book” ’. Herbert Gorman, Joyce’s first biographer, had access to this notebook and transcribed small portions of it in his biography (James Joyce, pp. 96–99, 133–35). Until the NLI’s acquisition of this notebook, it was assumed that Gorman’s transcriptions came from two separate notebooks (dubbed the ‘Paris notebook’ and the ‘Pola notebook’) because of the way he presented the material. 94 This notebook is transcribed in Robert Scholes and Richard M. Kain, The Workshop of Dædalus, pp. 92–105. See also Luca Crispi, ‘The Afterlives of Joyce’s Cornell “Alphabetical Notebook” from A Portrait to Ulysses’. 95 See Matthew Hayward, ‘ “Knowing Damn All About Banking Business” ’. 96 See Rodney Wilson Owen, James Joyce and the Beginnings of ‘Ulysses’, pp. 96–104. 97 This notebook is transcribed in Phillip F. Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts for ‘Ulysses’, pp. 11–33. 98 See Van Mierlo, ‘The Subject Notebook’. 99 Buffalo V.2.b is transcribed in Herring, Joyce’s Notes, pp. 55–118. 100 These are all the British Library (MS 49975) and have been transcribed in Phillip F. Herring, Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ Notesheets in the British Museum. For a discussion of the sequence of transference from notebook to notesheet, see Ronan Crowley, ‘ “His Dark Materials” ’.
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xliv On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses one Ulysses notebook that was subsequently lost. On the basis of Raphaël’s transcription and some truly brilliant research, Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon have managed to reconstruct this lost notebook, which was also a first-order notebook and can be dated to late 1917–early 1918.101 Beyond the notebooks, Joyce’s working drafts can be helpful in elucidating certain ambiguities and editorial cruces in the novel. Just as Joyce was an inveterate notetaker, he was a compulsive reviser. Joyce was seemingly incapable of letting a draft pass by without some degree of revision. Indeed, his primary mode of composition seems to be addition. The basic set-up for the composition of Ulysses is that each episode would go through a series of different working drafts before Joyce would prepare the so-called fair copy, which is a holograph draft in a (relatively) neat hand from which a typescript can be prepared. For many writers, the fair copy would be the point at which the composition had stopped, but Joyce would still inflict revisions and additions on the fair copy and the subsequent typescripts and proof pages. As much as one-third of the final text of Ulysses was added on the many rounds of galley and page proofs. Only a small number of working drafts survive and these are held at both the University at Buffalo and the National Library of Ireland (with one at Cornell). The fair copy is called the Rosenbach Manuscript as it is held at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia. One significant editorial problem for Ulysses is that, for some episodes, the Rosenbach is not the actual fair-copy manuscript, but a collateral document that Joyce copied out in haste, and for these episodes the actual fair copy is not extant.102 Beyond the fair copy are the typescripts (mostly at Buffalo), the galley and the page proofs (mostly split between Harvard, Buffalo, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, with some proof pages at Princeton and Yale).103 Many Ulysses manuscripts have been published in facsimile in the James Joyce Archive (1977–78). The Rosenbach Manuscript was published separately in 1975. In 2002, the National Library of Ireland acquired a large batch of previously unknown Ulysses manuscripts, which it has since made available online.104
A Note on the Ulysses Schemata Joyce prepared two schemata for Ulysses, one in 1920 for his friend Carlo Linati, which was made while Joyce was still working on Ulysses. He prepared a second one in late 1921, as the book was nearing completion. This second one is called the ‘Gilbert schema’, since Joyce later gave a copy of this schema to Stuart Gilbert to assist him while writing his study of Ulysses. Both schemata list the dominant symbols, correspondences, styles, and so on particular to each of the novel’s eighteen episodes. Joyce never intended either schema to be published or disseminated, as these were prepared only for his closest friends and associates. Their value should not be considered absolute, since they do imply that Ulysses is a highly programmatic or systematised book, which might not be the case. There are some differences between the two schemata: we will only note discrepancies of time. The episode 101 Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon, The Lost Notebook. Rose and O’Hanlon designate the ‘lost notebook’ VI.D.7; the Raphaël transcription is in Buffalo VI.C.16: 232–74. 102 For the problems of the Rosenbach, see Michael Groden, ‘Ulysses’ in Progress, pp. 208–17. Groden’s book is a pioneering survey of the composition of Ulysses. 103 See Luca Crispi, Joyce’s Creative Process and the Construction of Characters in ‘Ulysses’: Becoming the Blooms. The appendices provide a thorough guide to the full range of preparatory Ulysses manuscripts and documents. 104 See Michael Groden, ‘The National Library of Ireland’s New Joyce Manuscripts’ and Luca Crispi, ‘A First Foray into the National Library of Ireland’s Joyce Manuscripts’.
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On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses xlv headnotes will include information from the Gilbert schema for the categories time, organ, art, colour, symbol, technic, and correspondences (not every episode has every category assigned: the first three episodes lack organs and eight lack a colour).105
A Note on the Title Ulysses Ulysses is the traditional English name for the Greek hero Odysseus, after the later Latin (post-Roman) form of his name. The Classical Latin form is Ulixes. Ulysses is the form preferred by most of the major translators of the Odyssey into English that precede Joyce: George Chapman (1616), Alexander Pope (1725), and Samuel Butler (1900). Samuel Butcher and Andrew Lang are rare exceptions and used Odysseus in their 1879 translation. The book that fired the young Joyce’s imagination on the subject was Charles Lamb’s The Adventures of Ulysses (1808), which retells the central books of The Odyssey for young readers. Lamb’s version inspired Joyce to write about Ulysses when assigned a school essay on the topic ‘My Favourite Hero’.106 In Joyce’s day, in other words, it was common to use the name Ulysses to refer to Homer’s Ithacan king (although Homer’s text is invariably called The Odyssey). This began changing in the twentieth century, and by mid-century the name Ulysses quite often referred to Joyce’s book rather than to Homer’s hero, now more usually dubbed Odysseus. As the traditional English name for the Greek hero, Joyce’s title Ulysses thus clearly signals the indebtedness to Homer, but, by being the Latin form, it also suggests all the various Ulysseses that intervene between Homer and Joyce (for example, Virgil’s, Dante’s, Tennyson’s, and so on).
A Note on the Present Project and Acknowledgements The annotations in this volume derive from those previously published by Alma Press in 2012 (revised in 2015 and again in 2017) as part of their reprint edition of the 1939 printing of the Odyssey Press edition of Ulysses.107 As this is a separate volume containing only annotations, it is considerably more expansive than the back-of-the-book Alma annotations, and is almost three times the size of its immediate predecessor. Besides the addition of thousands of new notes, the Alma annotations have all been thoroughly revised or rewritten, expanded, checked and double-checked, and so on for this edition. For Alma, we would like to acknowledge the work of Alessandro Gallenzi, Alex Middleton, Christian Müller, Elisabetta Minervini, Sheldon Brandt, and Alex Billington of Tetragon Publishing. In turn, the Alma annotations follow from material originally researched and drafted at the James Joyce Research Center at Boston University in the 1990s for an intended but never finished multimedia CD-ROM edition of Ulysses. The authors wish to thank Boston University for granting permission to make use of its material. The James Joyce Research Center’s Director was John Kidd. The principal annotators were Marc A. Mamigonian and John Turner in 1994–1997, followed by Sam Slote in 1997–1998. Additional work at the Joyce Center, including suggesting and/or researching annotations, was done by William Broaddus, Joshua Cohen, James Doyle, Samuel Frederick, Pam Greenberg, Louise Harrison, John Kidd, William Lautzenheiser, Peter Lurie, Jonathan Mulrooney, Chris Rogers, Damon Smith, Richard Sossel, and Ed Upton.
105 Both schemata are reproduced in JJA, vol. 12, pp. 168–75 and in various secondary texts, such as Richard Ellmann, Ulysses on the Liffey, pp. 186 ff. 106 Ellmann, p. 46. 107 The Odyssey Press edition was chosen as the base text for the Alma edition out of historical interest. Many of the notes had to include information about textual errors that were corrected in the Gabler edition.
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xlvi On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses Each of these projects has had a different focus and emphasis. The annotators consider this volume to be the culmination of many years of research into the minute particularities and local colour of Ulysses. For this edition, we would like to thank our Editorial Committee for their heroic work in sifting through our annotations, correcting mistakes, and making valuable suggestions: Harald Beck, Anne Marie D’Arcy, Vincent Deane, Jeri Johnson, Terence Killeen, and John Simpson. This volume is much the better for their efforts. At Oxford University Press, we would especially like to thank Jacqueline Norton for seeing this project through. We would also like to thank Rupert Mann, Henry Clarke, Aimee Wright, Guy Jackson, and Caroline Quinnell. We would also like to thank Cheryl Brant and the typesetters at Straive. We would like to acknowledge the Board of Trinity College Dublin for permission to reprint various maps from the Library’s holdings. We would also like to thank the James Joyce Quarterly for permission to reprint material originally published in that journal. We have benefitted from the advice of many people, and we would like to signal the following for their help and suggestions over the years. First and foremost, we would like to thank Fritz Senn, not just for his invaluable assistance with these annotations but also for his exemplary scholarship and generosity. We would also like to acknowledge the help of: Valérie Bénéjam, William S. Brockman, Tim Conley, Luca Crispi, Ronan Crowley, Paul Ferguson, Finn Fordham, Clive Hart, Frances Ilmberger, Ed Mulhall, Robert Nicholson, Eoin O’Dell, Gerry O’Flaherty, Tim O’Neill, Laura Pelaschiar, Helen Saunders, Alan Shockley, Robert Spoo, Alexander Thorp, and Michelle Witen. Many other people have also contributed to the annotations with suggestions or answers to specific queries and they are acknowledged in the relevant notes. The annotators would like to thank the following for their forbearance these past few years. From Marc: my wife Michelle Oishi and my son Miles Mamigonian. From John: my wife Jennifer and our daughters Charlotte and Stella, my parents Jane and Wesley, and my sister Jean. From Sam: my wife Ivana Milivojevic and my son Leslie Slote and in memory of his namesake, my father, and my mother Lea.
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1. ‘Telemachus’
Map 1 Sandycove Martello Tower (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
Time: 8–9 am Location: Martello Tower, Sandycove Art: Theology Colour: white, gold Symbol: Heir Technic: Narrative (young) Correspondences: Stephen: Telemachus, Hamlet; Buck Mulligan: Antinous; Milkwoman: Mentor Serialised: The Little Review 4.11 (March 1918) Ulysses begins in a Martello Tower—a former military fortification (see note at 1.542)—in Sandycove, a small seaside resort about 12 km south of Dublin (map 1). The Tower sits on Sandycove Point, right at the coast and just by the Forty Foot Hole, a popular bathing place (see note at 1.600). On Bloomsday 1962, the Sandycove Tower was officially opened as the James Joyce Museum. Joyce himself lived at the Tower for less than a week in September 1904 (Ellmann, pp. 171–76) with Oliver St John Gogarty (see note at 1.1) and Richard Samuel Chenevix Trench (see note at 1.49). Gogarty wrote about life in the Tower with Joyce in several of his books, notably Mourning Became Mrs. Spendlove (1948). At the Tower, Joyce, Gogarty, and Trench were visited by the writer William Bulfin (1863–1910), who was on a cycling tour of Ireland. In the book he wrote about the tour, Rambles in Eirinn (1907), he describes his visit: As we were leaving the suburbs behind us my comrade, who knows many different types of Irish people, said casually that there were two men living in a tower down somewhere to the left who were creating a sensation in the neighbourhood. They had,
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2 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES he said, assumed a hostile attitude towards the conventions of denationalisation, and were, thereby, outraging the feelings of the seoinini [shoneens: Anglophilic Irishmen]. He, therefore, suggested that we should pay them a flying visit. There was no necessity to repeat the suggestion, so we turned off to the left at the next crossroads, and were soon climbing a steep ladder which led to the door of the tower. We entered, and found some men of Ireland in possession, with whom we tarried until far on in the morning. One of them had lately returned from a canoeing tour of hundreds of miles through the lakes, rivers, and canals of Ireland [Trench], another was reading for a Trinity College degree, and assiduously wooing the muses [Gogarty], and another was a singer of songs which spring from the deepest currents of life [Joyce]. The returned marine of the canoe was an Oxford student, whose button-hole was adorned by the badge of the Gaelic League—a most strenuous Nationalist he was, with a patriotism, stronger than circumstances, which moved him to pour forth fluent Irish upon every Gael he encountered, in accents blent from the characteristic speech of his alma mater and the rolling blas of Connacht. The poet was a wayward kind of genius, who talked in a captivating manner, with a keen, grim humour, which cut and pierced through a topic in bright, strong flashes worthy of the rapier of Swift. The other poet listened in silence, and when we went on the roof he disposed himself restfully to drink in the glory of the morning. It was very pleasant up there in the glad sunshine and the sweet breath of the sea. We looked out across the bay to Ben Edair of the heroic legends, now called Howth, and wondered how many of the dwellers in the ‘Sunnyview Lodges’ and ‘Elmgrove Villas’, and other respectable homes along the hillside knew aught of Finn and Oisin and Oscar. (pp. 322–23)
Joyce originally planned on including a scene in the Tower in A Portrait, before deciding that the book should end just before Stephen leaves for Paris and not after his return. Five manuscript pages of this unused Portrait episode remain. This episode is set in the Dedalus family kitchen as Stephen remembers his time at the Tower and that part is recognisable as an early version of ‘Telemachus’ (elements from this fragment were also repurposed for other episodes). The Gogarty character is named Doherty and has much of the same dialogue as Mulligan in ‘Telemachus’, including ‘The Song of the Cheerful (but slightly sarcastic) Jesus’ (see note at 1.584–99). See Robert Scholes and Richard Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, pp. 106–08 and JJA, vol. 10, pp. 1217–22.
1.1: Buck
Buck: ‘A gay, dashing fellow; a dandy, fop, “fast” man. Used also as a form of familiar address’; common in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (OED). ‘Among the gentry of the period [late eighteenth-century Ireland] was a class called “Bucks”, whose whole enjoyment and the business of whose life seemed to consist in eccentricity and violence. Many of their names have come down to us. “Buck English”, “Buck Sheehy” [. . .]’ (John Edward Walsh, Ireland Sixty Years Ago, p. 17). ‘ “Buck”, then, seems to be not so much a nickname as an epithet or honorific, and it can evidently only be used with an article as in “the buck” or with his surname as in “Buck Mulligan” ’ (John Turner and Marc A. Mamigonian, ‘Solar Patriot: Oliver St John Gogarty in Ulysses’, p. 636). Gogarty (see the following note) has a poem called ‘The Buck’ (Poems & Plays, pp. 377–78).
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 3
1.1: Mulligan
Malachi ‘Buck’ Mulligan is modelled after Oliver St John Gogarty (1878–1957): surgeon, man of letters, and senator (1922–36). Gogarty studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin (1897–1904) and in 1904 spent two terms at Worcester College, Oxford. Among his books are: As I Was Going Down Sackville Street (1937), Mourning Became Mrs. Spendlove (1948), and It Isn’t This Time of Year At All!: An Unpremeditated Autobiography (1954). Joyce lived with Gogarty and Samuel Trench (see note at 1.49) at the Sandycove Martello Tower (see note at 1.542) for less than a week in September 1904 (Ellmann, pp. 171–76). ‘From the start the two young men felt as much rivalry as friendship for each other; both were interested in medicine as a career, both were ambitious as writers’ (p. 118). ‘Gogarty was often described as the last of the eighteenth-century bucks; he might also be seen as embodying certain aspects of Irishness less popular in the decades around independence than before or since. He retains admirers who believe his art was undervalued, but is best remembered as the model for the irrepressible Buck Mulligan in Joyce’s Ulysses’ (DIB). Gogarty himself was somewhat plump: he described himself as ‘mentally & physically “pinguis” [Latin, fat]’ in a letter to G. K. A. Bell of 27 August 1904 (Many Lines to Thee, p. 29). In A Portrait, Gogarty is recognisable as the ‘stout student’ Goggins (p. 231). John Eglinton (see note at 9.18) noted the accuracy of Joyce’s depiction: ‘Buck Mulligan’s conversation, or rather his vehement and whimsical oratory, is reproduced with such exactness in Ulysses that one is driven to conclude that Joyce even then was “taking notes”; as to Joyce himself, he was exactly like his own hero Stephen Dedalus’ (Irish Literary Portraits, p. 137).
1.2: bowl of lather . . . lay crossed
When approaching the altar to say Mass, the priest carries ‘a chalice in which to consecrate the wine; the paten, or plate for the bread; a purificator, of linen, to cleanse them; a veil of the same material and color as the vestments; and a burse containing a corporal of linen on which to place the chalice and host’ (John Wynne, The Mass, p. iv).
1.2: yellow
‘In the Middle Ages heretics were obliged to wear yellow’ (George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, p. 153).
1.3: ungirdled
During the celebration of Mass, the priest wears an alb, ‘a white linen vestment, with close fitting sleeves, reaching nearly to the ground and secured around the waist by a girdle’ (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 439).
1.5: —Introibo
Joyce had a lifelong aversion to the convention—prevalent with English printers since the early nineteenth century—of placing dialogue within inverted commas, which he called ‘perverted comas’ (Letters, vol. 3, p. 99). Instead, for the stories for Dubliners, he insisted on what he called ‘dialogue between dashes’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 75). Joyce clearly means that dialogue is signalled by dashes (or tirets) at both its start and its end, as is evinced on the surviving holograph manuscripts for Dubliners (see, for example, JJA, vol. 4, p. 335; Elizabeth Bonapfel, ‘Marking Realism in Dubliners’, p. 69). However, the printed editions of Dubliners omitted the closing dashes and so only the opening dash for dialogue subsequently became part of Joyce’s personal style. On the Rosenbach Manuscript, Joyce does not indent paragraphs that begin with
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4 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES dialogue and places the dashes inside the margins. Gabler approximates this format in his edition. In contrast, all editions of Ulysses previous to Gabler follow the convention adopted by the typesetters for the first edition of indenting before the leading dash, which is the normal continental practice (UCSE, p. 1904).
1.5: Introibo ad altare Dei
Introibo ad altare Dei (Latin): ‘I will go in to the altar of God’; from Psalm 42:4 (43:4 in King James); this line, spoken by the priest, begins the Ordinary (main body) of the Latin Mass (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 260). ‘Buck Mulligan here is clearly making fun of the priest by carrying his shaving bowl, with crossed mirror and razor on top, as the priest does the Chalice, covered with the crossed Veil and Burse, when he first comes to the Altar. The way Mulligan wears his yellow, ungirdled dressing gown is in comic imitation of the way the priest looks, vested in the free-flowing Alb and colored Chasuble. Mulligan’s Introibo ad altare Dei [. . .] is, after the sign of the cross, the priest’s first prayer at the foot of the altar’ (Paul L. Briand, Jr, ‘The Catholic Mass in James Joyce’s Ulysses’, p. 313).
1.6–7: called out coarsely
In his Trieste notebook Joyce wrote of Gogarty: ‘His coarseness of speech is not the blasphemy of a romantic [. . .] His coarseness is the mask of his cowardice of spirit’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 98; JJA, vol. 7, p. 125). In the Doherty fragment (see this episode’s headnote), Joyce used these lines more directly than he does in ‘Telemachus’: ‘He had tried to receive coldly these memories of his friend’s boisterous humour, feeling that coarseness of speech was not a blasphemy of the spirit but a coward’s mask’ (Workshop of Dædalus, p. 107; JJA, vol. 10, p. 1219; Luca Crispi, ‘The Afterlives of Joyce’s Cornell “Alphabetical Notebook” ’).
1.8: Kinch!
Kinch was Gogarty’s nickname for Joyce (Stanislaus Joyce, Complete Dublin Diary, pp. 13–14). Presumably this derives from kinchin, a little child (OED). According to Seán Ó Faoláin, Kinch was ‘in imitation of the cutting-sound of a knife’ (Ellmann, p. 131); later, Mulligan calls Stephen, ‘Kinch, the knifeblade’ (1.55).
1.8: jesuit!
The Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, a religious order founded in 1539 by St Ignatius of Loyola (see note at 1.231). ‘The term “Jesuit” (of fifteenth-century origin, meaning one who used too frequently or appropriated the name of Jesus), was first applied to the society in reproach (1544–52), and was never employed by its founder, though members and friends of the society in time accepted the name in its good sense’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Society of Jesus). ‘This Society may be defined, in its original conception and well-avowed object, as a body of highly trained religious men of various degrees, bound by the three personal vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, together with, in some cases, a special vow to the pope’s service, with the object of labouring for the spiritual good of themselves and their neighbours’ (EB11). The Jesuits are particularly renowned for their devotion to providing education. Like Joyce, Stephen was educated primarily at Jesuit-run institutions: Clongowes (see note at 1.311), Belvedere (see note at 10.20–21), and University College Dublin (see notes at 7.503 and 17.144–46); Stephen’s time at these institutions is described in A Portrait. ‘To the sculptor August Suter, who asked him what he retained from his Jesuit education, Joyce replied, “I have learned to arrange things in such a way that they become easy to survey and judge” ’ (Ellmann, p. 27). Gogarty was also educated at a variety of Jesuit-run schools: Mungret College near Limerick, Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, and Clongowes (from 1896 to 1897 and thus after Joyce had left) (DIB). There may be an insult here since Jesuit also means ‘A dissembling person; a prevaricator’ (OED).
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 5
1.9: gunrest
See note at 1.542.
1.10: the tower
See note at 1.542. In the Odyssey, when Athena, in disguise, visits Telemachus in Ithaca, his home, besieged by the suitors, is called a ‘lofty dwelling’ (I.126).
1.11: Stephen Dedalus
Reprised from Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (and its unfinished first version, Stephen Hero). Frank Budgen writes that Joyce emphasised the importance of the final phrase in the earlier novel’s title, ‘as a young man’. ‘At first I thought I understood what he meant, but later it occurred to me that he may have meant one of two things, or both. The emphasis may have indicated that he who wrote the book is no longer that young man, that through time and experience he has become a different person. Or it may have meant that he wrote the book looking backwards at the young man across a space of time as the landscape painter paints distant hills, looking at them through a cube of air-filled space, painting, that is to say, not that which is, but that which appears to be. Perhaps he meant both’ (JJMU, pp. 61–62). Joyce used the pseudonym ‘Stephen Daedalus’ (retaining the ae diphthong which he later discarded) for stories he published in 1904 in The Irish Homestead, later collected in Dubliners (see second note at 2.257). He also signed at least one letter to Gogarty with this name (see note at 1.235). The name combines St Stephen, Christianity’s first martyr (Acts 6:1–8:2) with Daedalus, paganism’s greatest inventor (see note at 1.34) (Ellmann, p. 148).
1.15–16: equine in length . . . pale oak
In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote of Gogarty: ‘He has a horse-like face and hair grained and hued like pale oak’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 97; JJA, vol. 7, p. 124).
1.15: untonsured hair
Tonsure: ‘The shaving of the head or part of it as a religious practice or rite, esp. as a prepar ation to entering the priesthood or a monastic order [. . .] in the Roman Ch. either a circular patch on the crown, as in secular priests, or the whole upper part of the head so as to leave only a fringe or circle of hair’ (OED). Thus, untonsured means an unshaven head of hair.
1.19: Back to barracks
A standard military expression; for example, ‘All soldiers in the town have been ordered back to barracks’ (London Times, 3 July 1911, p. 9, col. f).
1.21: For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine christine
Suggests the priest’s words during the oblation at Mass (the presentation of bread and wine to God in the Eucharist), which quote from Jesus’s words in Matthew 26:26–28: ‘O God, vouchsafe in all things to make blessed, approved, ratified, reasonable and acceptable, that it may become to us the Body of thy most beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. [. . .] Take and drink ye of this: “For this is the chalice of my blood of the new and eternal testament; the mystery of faith; which shall be shed for you, and for many to the remission of sins” ’ (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, pp. 276–77). In the Doherty fragment (see the headnote), Doherty clearly uses the word Christine to refer to the host: ‘And on Sunday I consume the particle. Christine, semel in die [Latin, once a day]’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 107; JJA, vol. 10, p. 1220). Christine also suggests a female name as well as Christeen, little Christ, Christ + -een, a diminutive in Hiberno-English.
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1.21–22: body and soul and blood and ouns
Blood and ’ouns: abbreviation of the oath ‘God’s blood and wounds!’ (Partridge). Lesson 26 of the Maynooth Catechism: ‘Q. What is the Blessed Eucharist? A. The Blessed Eucharist is the sacrament of the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, under the appearances of bread and wine’ (p. 49).
1.26: Chrysostomos
Chrysostomos (Greek): ‘golden- mouthed’; that is, eloquent. (Here, literally, it describes Mulligan’s gold-capped teeth.) This was the epithet of both Dion Chrysostomos, a Greek rhetor ician (c.50–c.117) (EB11), and, more relevant here, St John Chrysostom (c.345–407), a patriarch of Constantinople and Church Father, renowned for his oratory (Catholic Encyclopedia). The ‘St John’ of his name suggests Gogarty’s middle name (pronounced sin-jin), which is also Mulligan’s (see note at 14.1213).
1.26: Two strong shrill whistles
During Mass, a bell is rung during the rite of consecration (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, pp. 277, 300).
1.28–29: Switch off the current
Mulligan means that God (‘old chap’) can turn off the electricity because transubstantiation has now occurred.
1.32: prelate
Prelate: ‘A cleric of high rank and authority, as a bishop, archbishop, or the superior of a religious house or order’ (OED). In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote of Gogarty, ‘The plump shaven face and the sullen oval jowl recall some prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 97; JJA, vol. 7, p. 124).
1.34: Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!
According to Greek and Roman mythology, the primary source being Book VIII of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Daedalus was a great engineer and inventor. He created the labyrinth but was imprisoned for his pains. He then made wings out of wax and feathers, so he and his son Icarus could escape. Icarus did not heed his father’s advice and flew too close to the sun, which melted his wings and caused him to plummet to his death.
1.35: parapet
Parapet: ‘a protection against shot, raised on the top of a wall or rampart’ (OED). Gogarty described the Sandycove tower’s parapet: ‘The parapet is about 6 feet [1.8 m] high but there is a ledge a yard wide which, when one stands on it, enables one to see comfortably over the wall leaning arms on it. One may take sun baths unbeholden all day—if it shines. The view is splendid’ (Many Lines to Thee, p. 30).
1.38: dipped the brush in the bowl
The real-life Haines (Samuel Dermot Chenevix Trench; see note at 1.49) made off with Gogarty’s chryselephantine (gold and ivory) shaving-brush. Gogarty records the matter in a letter of mid- October 1904 to his friend G. K. A. Bell: ‘I went out to Sandycove last night to find that Trench had gone, taking my sacred, chryselephantine shaving-brush with him [. . .] I would not care so much if he had not, by leaving his brush as a substitute, suggested that they were coequal. The only personal extravagance and luxury that I indulge in are summed up in that frond-like brush[.] I have wired to Balliol [Trench’s college] about it. These things make life important!’ (Many Lines to Thee, p. 47).
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 7
1.41: Malachi
Malachi (Hebrew): ‘my messenger’; that is, God’s messenger. The Old Testament prophet Malachi foretells the return of ‘Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord’ (Malachi 4:5). Malachi is not an unusual name in Ireland because of Saint Malachy (1094–1148), Archbishop of Armagh.
1.41: two dactyls
In prosody, a dactyl is a foot consisting of one stressed (or long) syllable followed by two unstressed (or short) syllables (OED). Homeric epic is written in dactylic hexameter, a meter made up of six feet that are either dactyls or spondees (two long syllables) (Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, s.v. Hexameter). The names Malachi and Mulligan are indeed dactyls, as are Oliver and Gogarty.
1.42: Tripping and sunny like the buck himself
Tripping, in heraldry, is used of bucks and stags, meaning ‘Walking, and looking toward the dexter [right] side, with three paws on the ground and one fore-paw raised’ (OED).
1.42–43: We must go to Athens
This was apparently a fixation of Gogarty’s during the time he was living at the Sandycove Martello Tower. From a letter to his friend G. K. A. Bell from October 1904: ‘I shall sail to Athens in a fruit and wine vessel next April’ (Many Lines to Thee, p. 43).
1.43: the aunt
Both of Gogarty’s parents had sisters, but the aunt referred to must be Annie Oliver (1849–1909), one of the sisters of Gogarty’s mother. She was a significant presence in the Gogarty household after the death of Gogarty’s father Henry in 1891 (Harald Beck, JJON).
1.49: Haines
Haines is modelled after Richard Samuel Chenevix Trench (1881–1909), the grandson of Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–86), poet, scholar, and Archbishop of Dublin (1864–84). He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a member of the Oxford Gaelic Society, which was where he met Gogarty. Trench changed his name to Richard Samuel Dermot Chenevix Trench by deedpoll in 1905. He wrote the pamphlet ‘What is the Use of Reviving Irish?’ (1907). He committed suicide in 1909. The character Haines is unambiguously English, but Trench was an Irish Protestant. The family descends from the Reverend James Trench, rector of Clongell, County Meath, who came to Ireland in 1605. ‘They were all engaged in landed property, the church, the army, and the law, as well as intellectual pursuits’ (C. E. F. Trench, ‘Dermot Chenevix Trench and Haines of Ulysses’, p. 44). Joyce’s friend Constantine Curran (see note at 2.256) writes: ‘I can in no way recognize [Trench] in the Haines of Ulysses’ (James Joyce Remembered, p. 68). In pronouncing Chenevix, the x is silent (C. E. F. Trench, p. 46).
1.55: Kinch, the knifeblade See note at 1.8.
1.57: black panther
According to Gogarty, ‘One summer night, when it was too hot to sleep although the door was open, shortly after midnight Trench, who had been dozing, awoke suddenly and screamed, “The black panther!” He produced a revolver and fired two or three shots in the direction of the grate. Then, exhausted, he subsided into sleep. I gently removed the gun. Joyce sat up on his elbow, overcome by consternation. Soon again, as I had guessed he would, Trench awoke and
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8 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES saw the black panther again. “Leave him to me”, I said and shot down all the tin cans on the top of Joyce. This was too much for that sensitive soul who rose, pulled on his frayed trousers and shirt, took his ash plant with the handle at right angles to the shaft, and in silence left the tower forever’ (Mourning Became Mrs. Spendlove, pp. 56–57). Trench’s nightmare was on 14 September (Ellmann, p. 175; Turner and Mamigonian, ‘Solar Patriot’, pp. 643–44).
1.59: woful
Joyce used the archaic spelling of woeful on the Rosenbach Manuscript (f. 3); see 2.64 and note at 2.57 for an additional instance of this spelling.
1.59: funk
Funk: ‘orig. Oxford University. A state of panic, extreme nervousness, agitation, etc.; utter fear or terror’ (OED).
1.62: You saved men from drowning
Gogarty ‘accomplished courageous acts with casual indifference’, such as saving three men from drowning, one of whom was a would-be suicide named Max Harris on 27 July 1901 (Ulick O’Connor, Oliver St John Gogarty, p. 42). Gogarty himself notes that he saved Arthur Griffith (see note at 3.227) from drowning at Bullock Harbour (It Isn’t This Time of Year At All!, pp. 88–89).
1.66: Scutter
Scutter: ‘Diarrhœa, esp. in a horse or cow; the watery excrement of cattle’ (EDD).
1.73: A new art colour
Art colour: a colour produced by combining other colours in printing; the term was popular in the late nineteenth–early twentieth centuries in fashion and commercial art (John Southward, Artistic Printing, pp. 49–53).
1.77–78: Isn’t the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweet mother?
Algy is the English poet and critic Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), one of the touchstone figures for the aesthetes (ODNB). His poem ‘The Triumph of Time’ (1866) contains the phrase Mulligan quotes: ‘I will go back to the great sweet mother, / Mother and lover of men, the sea’ (ll. 257–58). Gogarty quoted this line in a letter to G. K. A. Bell dated 22 July 1904 (Many Lines to Thee, p. 25).
1.78: Epi oinopa ponton
Epi oinopa ponton (Homeric Greek): a famous recurrent formula in Homer’s works, usually translated into English as ‘on the wine-dark sea’ (Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. oinops).
1.79: the Greeks! I must teach you
At Oxford University in the late nineteenth century, various university reformers, such as the Classical scholar Benjamin Jowett (1817–93), sought to establish Hellenism as an alternative value system to Christian theology. Various of his students and followers of his movement used Greek writings to justify male love to such an extent that Hellenic studies, particularly at Oxford, became largely synonymous with homosexuality. ‘On one level of cultural politics, it is clear enough why the homosexual apologists should invoke ancient Greece: the prestige of Greece among educated middle-class Victorians’ (Linda Dowling, Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford, p. 28). See also note at 1.158. Joyce’s knowledge of Ancient Greek was minimal (Ellmann, p. 46).
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 9
1.80: Thalatta! Thalatta!
Thalatta! Thalatta! (Attic Greek): ‘The sea! The sea!’; from Xenophon’s (c.434–355 bc) Anabasis (IV.vii.24); this is the joyful cry of the Ten Thousand (Greek mercenaries) upon finally beholding the sea after their long march. It is the best-known phrase in the Anabasis, traditionally the first lengthy text read by students of ancient Greek. The Homeric Greek word for sea is thalassa (Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon).
1.83: mailboat
The Royal Mail had two mailboats leaving Kingstown Harbour each day, one at 8:15 am and the second at 8:15 pm; on Sundays the second boat left at 3:15 pm (Thom’s, p. 1717). Presumably the mailboat is the source of the ‘strong shrill whistles’ (1.76); ‘the jet of steam in the harbour would have been visible a few seconds before the sound reached the tower’ (Robert Nicholson, The ‘Ulysses’ Guide, p. 19).
1.84: Kingstown
Kingstown is a prosperous coastal township 9.6 km south-east of Dublin and about 1.5 km north-west of the tower. Kingstown Harbour, built between 1817 and 1860, consists of two curved piers, the West and the East. Within the West and East piers sit two short piers, Carlisle Pier and Traders Wharf. Kingstown is now called Dún Laoghaire (pronounced Dunleary) (Bennett, s.v. Dún Laoghaire; J. W. de Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin, p. 136).
1.85: Our mighty mother!
‘Mighty mother’ is a phrase used by A.E. (George Russell, Irish poet and mystic, 1867–1935; see note at 2.257) in various works, such as the poems ‘To One Consecrated’, ‘The Place of Rest’, ‘The Earth Breath’, ‘The Face of Faces’, ‘The Message of John’, ‘In the Womb’, and in the essay ‘Religion and Love’. For example, from ‘In the Womb’: ‘How in her womb the mighty mother moulds / The infant spirit for eternity’ (ll. 11–12; Collected Poems, p. 127). Gogarty’s poem ‘Hymn of Brahma’ is a parody of A.E. and has the line ‘While the Mighty Mother’s Voice said “OM” ’ (Poems & Plays, p. 357). Alexander Pope uses this phrase in the invocation to the Dunciad: ‘The mighty mother, and her son, who brings / The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings, / I sing’.
1.86: grey searching eyes
Gogarty had dark blue eyes (Ulick O’Connor, Oliver St John Gogarty, p. 73). Athena— Odysseus’s counsellor and helper in the Odyssey—is routinely described with the epithet ‘grey-eyed’ (I.80, et passim).
1.90: Someone killed her See note at 15.4173–74.
1.91: You could have knelt down
Stanislaus Joyce describes the scene: ‘When my mother lapsed into unconsciousness and it became apparent that her last moments had come, Uncle John knelt down with all the others and began to pray in a loud voice. Then seeing that neither my brother nor I was praying, he made an angry, peremptory gesture to us to kneel down. Neither of us paid any attention to him; yet even so the scene seems to have burnt itself into my brother’s soul’ (My Brother’s Keeper, pp. 230–31).
1.92: hyperborean
Hyperborean (Greek): ‘beyond the north wind’; that is, distanced, at a remove. In Greek mythology, the Hyperboreans are a race of people from beyond the north wind. From the
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10 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES beginning of Friedrich Nietzsche’s (German philosopher, 1844–1900) The Anti-Christ (1895): ‘Let us look ourselves in the face. We are Hyperboreans,—we are well aware how far off the beaten track we live. [. . .] Beyond the North, beyond ice, beyond death—our lives, our happiness’ (p. 3).
1.97: mummer
Mummer: ‘One who mutters or mumbles’; also a contemptuous term for an actor (OED). According to Gogarty, ‘Mummers’ was Joyce’s ‘name for Yeats’ players in the Irish National Theatre’ (Many Lines to Thee, pp. 11–12).
1.102–05: Silently, in a dream . . . wetted ashes
From Joyce’s Trieste notebook: ‘She came to me silently in a dream after her death: and her wetted body within its loose brown habit gave out a faint odour of wax and rosewood and her breath a faint odour of wetted ashes’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 103; JJA, vol. 7, p. 141).
1.104: brown graveclothes
Joyce’s mother was buried in a brown habit (Ellmann, p. 136). In Ireland at this time, the brown shroud, based on the habit of the Carmelite order, and the scapular of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, was one of several customary burial shrouds (Patricia Lysaght, ‘Old Age, Death and Mourning’, p. 287).
1.112: dogsbody
Dogsbody: ‘A person who is given menial tasks, esp. a junior person in an office’ (OED).
1.113: breeks
Breeks (Hiberno-English and Scottish and various English dialects): trousers or breeches (EDD).
1.116: The mockery of it
In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote of Gogarty: ‘He discovered the vanity of the world and exclaimed “The mockery of it!” ’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 98; JJA, vol. 7, p. 127).
1.117: poxy bowsy
Poxy: infected with pox, i.e. syphilis (OED). Bowsy (Hiberno-English): ‘a disreputable drunkard’; in Dublin ‘the word includes all forms of repellent behaviour, not necessarily referring to drunkenness’ (Dolan).
1.120: I can’t wear them if they are grey
Stephen is strictly following Victorian-era protocols for mourning, which dictated that a child in mourning for a parent wear only black clothes for one year (Pat Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family, p. 301). Stephen’s mother died on or about 23 June 1903 (see note at 17.951–52).
1.126: smokeblue mobile eyes See note at 1.86.
1.127: the Ship
A pub at 5 Lower Abbey Street just off Sackville (O’Connell) Street, in the centre of Dublin north of the Liffey (Thom’s, p. 2010).
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 11
1.128: g.p.i.
Acronym for general paralysis of the insane, ‘a late manifestation of syphilis in which there is inflammation and atrophy of brain tissue, esp. of the frontal and temporal lobes, resulting in a variety of psychiatric and neurological symptoms such as dementia, psychosis, seiz ures, and generalized muscle weakness’ (OED, s.v. paralysis). The acronym had been in use since at least 1892 (s.v. G).
1.128: Dottyville
Dottyville: coined as a nickname for an insane asylum by Phil May (English caricaturist, 1864–1903) in a cartoon in 1897 and popular thereafter (Harald Beck, JJON).
1.128: Connolly Norman
Conolly Norman (1853–1908): Irish psychiatrist and superintendent of Dublin’s Richmond Lunatic Asylum (1886–1908) (DIB). Gogarty studied abnormal psychology under Norman (Gogarty, It Isn’t This Time of Year at All!, p. 92). The name is misspelt as Connolly on the Rosenbach Manuscript (f. 6), the only extant manuscript of this episode in Joyce’s hand, which is why Gabler adopts this form. Previous editions had the correct spelling, which must have appeared on a now-missing typescript (UCSE, p. 1755). The 1901 census confirms the spelling ‘Conolly’, but the misspelt form ‘Connolly’ was commonly used for this man since it is the more usual spelling of this name; for example: ‘The speakers on the occasion will be as follows: [. . .] Connolly Norman, MD, FRCPI’ (Freeman’s Journal, 2 Mar. 1901, p. 5, col. h); the incorrect spelling is also the form used in Gogarty’s book and in Thom’s (pp. 1971, 1996).
1.136: As he and others see me
After Robert Burns’s (Scottish poet, 1759–96) poem ‘To a Louse’: ‘To see oursels as ithers see us!’ (l. 44).
1.138: skivvy’s
Skivvy: a maid servant; typically used in a derogatory fashion (OED).
1.139–40: Lead him not into temptation
From the Lord’s Prayer: ‘And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil’ (Matt. 6:13; also Luke 11:4).
1.140: Ursula
St Ursula: a British saint (pre-fifth century), associated with chastity. The daughter of a Christian king, she was betrothed to a pagan king but, desiring to remain a virgin, she was given a stay of three years, during which time she travelled across Europe with 11,000 virgins as her companions. Ultimately, they were killed by the Huns in Cologne (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. St Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins).
1.143: The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror
Caliban is the ugly savage who serves the wizard Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) wrote in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): ‘The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass’ (Complete Works, p. 17).
1.143: Wilde
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854–1900): Irish writer and playwright. Gogarty much admired Wilde’s intellectual decadence and, in some ways, tried to copy him during
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12 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES his days as a student at Trinity and Oxford (Ulick O’Connor, Oliver St John Gogarty, pp. 27–32). In a 1909 article on Wilde written for a Triestine newspaper, Joyce expresses admir ation for Wilde’s eloquence and wit, but says that ‘[h]e deceived himself by thinking he was the harbinger of the good news of neo-paganism to the suffering people’ (OCPW, p. 151).
1.146: The cracked lookingglass of a servant
From Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Decay of Lying’ (1889): ‘Cyril: I can quite understand your objection to art being treated as a mirror. You think it would reduce genius to the position of a cracked looking glass. But you don’t mean to say that you seriously believe Life imitates Art, that Life in fact is the mirror and Art the reality? Vivian: Certainly I do’ (Complete Works, p. 1082). Also relevant is a line from a letter of 1834 by the Irish writer Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849): ‘It is impossible to draw Ireland as she is now in a book of fiction—realities are too strong, party passions too violent to bear to see, or care to look at their faces in the looking-glass. The people would only break the glass, and curse the fool who held the mirror up to nature’ (Frances Edgeworth, A Memoir of Maria Edgeworth, vol. 3, p. 87). In the Trieste notebook, under the heading ‘Ireland’, Joyce wrote: ‘Irish art is the cracked looking-glass of a servant’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 100 and JJA, vol. 7, p. 134).
1.152: He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his
Lancet: ‘A surgical instrument of various forms usually with two edges and a point like a lance’ (OED). This phrase comes verbatim from the Trieste notebook under the heading ‘Gogarty’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 97; JJA, vol. 7, p. 124).
1.153: cold steel pen
Cold steel: ‘cutting or thrusting weapons’ (OED, s.v. steel).
1.154: oxy
Oxy: as in, from Oxford. Properly, the word means ‘Resembling an ox’ (OED). The only earlier example the OED provides is from George Chapman’s (c.1559–1634) translation of Iliad IV.56: ‘The Oxy sinew close he drewe’.
1.155: touch him for a guinea
To touch: to ask for money (Partridge). According to Gogarty, Joyce once claimed ‘I never borrow anything but guineas now’ (Many Lines to Thee, p. 15). The guinea, although no longer minted as a coin since 1814, was worth one pound and one shilling. It was con sidered a more prestigious sum than the standard pound and, as such, was used to denom inate certain types of financial transactions, such as: professional fees, horse race purses, prices of real estate, fine clothes, and works of art. The coin was originally ‘intended for use in the Guinea trade, and made of gold from Guinea’ in West Africa (OED, s.v. guinea).
1.156: made his tin selling jalap
Tin: money. Jalap: ‘A purgative drug obtained from the tuberous roots of Exogonium (Ipomœa) Purga and some other convolvulaceous plants’ (both OED). In real life, Trench’s father, Frederick Chenevix Trench (1837–94), was a lieutenant-colonel in the 20th Hussars and served as military attaché at St Petersburg from 1881 to 1886 (C. E. F. Trench, ‘Dermot Chenevix Trench and Haines of Ulysses’, p. 41).
1.158: Hellenise it
In Culture and Anarchy (1869), Matthew Arnold (see note at 1.173) posits the Hebraic and the Hellenic as the two modes of the Western temperament: the former is practical, disciplined,
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 13 and dogmatic, whereas the latter disinterested and flexible, full of ‘sweetness and light’ (p. 11, et passim). ‘Now, and for us, it is time to Hellenise, and to praise knowing; for we have Hebraised too much, and have over-valued doing’ (p. 37). Arnold ‘proposed that many of the defects of what he called “the bad civilisation of the English middle class” could be traced to an overdevelopment of the qualities embodied in Hebraism at the expense of those represented by Hellenism’ (ODNB).
1.159: Cranly’s arm
Cranly: Stephen’s friend in chapter 5 of A Portrait, based on Joyce’s friend John Francis Byrne (1880–1960). This is in reference to the following from A Portrait: ‘Stephen felt that his anger had another cause but, feigning patience, touched his [Cranly’s] arm slightly’ (p. 237). ‘Byrne was perhaps the closest friend that Joyce had’ (Igoe, p. 67; Ellmann, p. 64). They first met at Belvedere (see note at 10.20–21) and were also at university together. Byrne lived at 7 Eccles Street from 1908 to 1910. In 1953, he published his memoir, Silent Years.
1.161–62: up your nose
Up your nose: a Hiberno-English expression that denotes ‘smouldering resentment, nursing a grudge, which might be converted into action at any moment’ (John Simpson, JJON).
1.163: Seymour
Robert Francis Seymour (1882–1939): a medical student friend of Gogarty’s from Trinity College (Igoe, p. 272).
1.163: ragging
Rag: University slang, ‘a noisy debate or rowdy celebration, esp. as carried on in defiance of authority or discipline; (also) a boisterous prank or practical joke’ (OED).
1.163–64: Clive Kempthorpe Unknown.
1.166: Palefaces
Paleface: ‘N. Amer. (chiefly derogatory). A white person. Also as a form of address. Chiefly in representations of North American Indian speech’ (OED). Also of relevance, in Medieval Ireland the Pale was the territory that was under the full jurisdiction of the English crown; this consisted of Dublin and its environs (Brewer’s Irish). Thus ‘pale-face’ would be an English person or someone who has adopted English values.
1.167: Break the news to her gently, Aubrey
Perhaps after the title of the song ‘Break the News to Mother’ (1897) by Charles K. Harris (1867–1930), which was popular during the Spanish-American War. In the song, a dying soldier exhorts his companions to tell his mother of his love for her (Bowen, p. 65).
1.169: Ades of Magdalen
Magdalen (pronounced maudlin): a college at Oxford, founded in 1458 (EB11, s.v. Oxford). Ades: unknown. Magdalen was Oscar Wilde’s college (Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, pp. 36–37).
1.170–71: I don’t want to be debagged!
To de-bag: Oxford and (less commonly) Cambridge expression, from c.1890, to remove the bags or trousers of an objectionable student (Partridge).
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1.171: play the giddy ox
To play the giddy ox: to act the fool, to behave in an irresponsible manner (Brewer’s).
1.173: Matthew Arnold’s face
Matthew Arnold (1822–88): English poet and critic. In 1857, he was appointed to the professorship of poetry at Oxford. ‘Arnold’s manner, which was at once both literary and personal, contained elements which the diverse proponents of late nineteenth-century “aestheticism” were to find congenial’ (ODNB).
1.174: grasshalms
Grasshalms: stems or stalks of grass (OED, s.v. haulm).
1.176: To ourselves
A toast, as made by well-fed Oxford narcissists.
1.176: new paganism
New Paganism was a slogan adopted by late nineteenth- century aesthetes (such as Mulligan) and was inspired by Swinburne, Wilde, and Walter Pater (English writer and critic, 1839–94). In his Trieste notebook, among the entries for Gogarty, Joyce wrote ‘The Omphalos was to be the temple of a neo-paganism’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 97; JJA, vol. 7, p. 125). A central thread to the New Paganism was the turn to pre-Christian ideas and iconography as a critique of Christian values (see also note at 1.79). The Catholic writer and critic G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) writes: ‘In this sense Pater may well stand for a substantial summary of the æsthetes, apart from the purely poetical merits of men like Rossetti and Swinburne. [. . .]. These people wanted to see Paganism through Christianity: because it involved the incidental amusement of seeing through Christianity itself ’ (The Victorian Age in Literature, pp. 70–71).
1.176: omphalos
Omphalos (Greek): navel, centre point. The ancient Greeks considered Delphi to be the centre—the omphalos—of the world. The exact centre point, within the temple of Apollo at Delphi, was marked with the conical omphalos stone (Michael Scott, Delphi, pp. 1, 18, 36). In the Doherty fragment (see the headnote), the Doherty/Gogarty character says: ‘Dedalus, we must retire to the tower, you and I. Our lives are precious. I’ll try to touch the aunt. We are the super-artists. Dedalus and Doherty have left Ireland for the Omphalos’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 108; JJA, vol. 10, p. 1220).
1.181: towards the blunt cape of Bray Head
Bray Head is a promontory 241 metres high, 11 km south from the Sandycove tower. They are looking towards Bray Head but not looking at Bray Head because the higher ground closer to Sandycove prevents the Head from being seen from the tower (JJD, p. 87).
1.198–99: whose mother is beastly dead
‘We can deduce that Gogarty really did say this to Joyce from a bitter remark of Joyce’s in a 1907 letter to Stanislaus’ (Turner and Mamigonian, ‘Solar Patriot’, pp. 639–40): ‘The news is that O. G.’s mother is “beastly dead” and that O. G. is very rich’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 206).
1.205–06: the Mater and Richmond
Two Dublin hospitals: the Mater Misericordiae (‘Mother of Mercy’) Hospital is on Eccles Street (Thom’s, p. 1482); see also note at 6.375–76. The Richmond Lunatic Asylum is on North Brunswick Street (p. 1433).
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 15
1.211: Sir Peter Teazle
A character from Richard Sheridan’s (Irish playwright and poet, 1751–1816) The School for Scandal (1777). Teazle is the husband of a young and frivolous wife whose fidelity he tests. Stanislaus Joyce recalled that the doctor attending on his mother during her last illness ‘was a short, spare man with a rather elegant figure and carriage. My mother used to call him “Sir Peter Teazle”, and was annoyed if my Aunt Josephine Murray, who nursed her through her long illness, did not at first understand whom she meant’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 229). His name was Robert J. D. Kenny (see note at 9.826).
1.213: hired mute
Mute: ‘a hired mourner’ (OED).
1.214: Lalouette’s
Lalouette’s: funeral home, 68 Marlborough Street (Thom’s, p. 1925). While their advertisements do not specify that they provide mutes (see the previous note), their ads do boast of ‘Funeral requisites of every description’ (Freeman’s Journal, 18 July 1896, p. 1, col. a).
1.231: Loyola
St Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556): Spanish priest, the founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits; see note at 1.8), and author of the Spiritual Exercises (1533). ‘That he was a strong disciplin arian is true. [. . .] But if he believed in discipline as an educative force, he despised any other motives for action except the love of God and man’ (Catholic Encyclopedia).
1.232: Sassenach
Sassenach (Hiberno-English): a derisive term for an English person; from the Irish word for Saxon (Dolan).
1.235: I’m inconsequent
‘This is a buried joke, evidently, inasmuch as “inconsequent” seems to have been an epithet the young Joyce had for Gogarty. A letter of Joyce’s to Gogarty on 3 June 1904 closes with the words “Adieu then, Inconsequent. (signed) Stephen Daedalus” (Letters, vol. 1, p. 54)’ (Turner and Mamigonian, ‘Solar Patriot’, p. 640). The word inconsequent is synonymous with inconsequential in various senses, here meaning ‘[w]anting in logical sequence of thought or reasoning’ (OED, s.vv. inconsequent; inconsequential). This fits with Mulligan’s ‘mercurial’ nature and his readiness to contradict himself (see notes at 1.517 and 1.518).
1.239–41: And no more turn aside and brood . . . brazen cars
The first three lines of the second stanza of William Butler Yeats’s poem ‘Who Goes With Fergus?’: ‘Who will go drive with Fergus now, / And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade, / And dance upon the level shore? / Young man, lift up your russet brow, / And lift your tender eyelids, maid, / And brood on hopes and fear no more. // And no more turn aside and brood / Upon love’s bitter mystery; / For Fergus rules the brazen cars, / And rules the shadows of the wood, / And the white breast of the dim sea / And all dishevelled wandering stars’ (Poems, p. 39). This short poem was originally included as a song in the second scene of Yeats’s play The Countess Cathleen (1892), but Yeats subsequently extracted it from the play and included it in the 1912 edition of his poems (David A. Ross, Critical Companion to William Butler Yeats, p. 285). Joyce was fond of this poem and composed a setting for it, which he played for his brother George when he was dying of peritonitis (Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, p. 143).
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1.242: Woodshadows
From line 10 of Yeats’s ‘Who Goes With Fergus?’: ‘the shadows of the wood’; see the previous note.
1.244: spurned by lightshod hurrying feet
To spurn: ‘To strike against something with the foot; to trip or stumble’ (OED). Mercury, the messenger of the gods, is traditionally depicted with winged sandals (Brewer’s). One of the functions of his Greek counterpart Hermes is to carry the dead to Hades (EB11). See note at 1.518 and see also 15.4171.
1.244–45: White breast of the dim sea
From the penultimate line of Yeats’s ‘Who Goes With Fergus?’; see note at 1.239–41.
1.245: A hand plucking the harpstrings
At the performance of Yeats’s The Countess Cathleen on 8 May 1899, the song ‘Who Goes with Fergus?’ was chanted to the accompaniment of a harp and violin. While Joyce applauded vigorously, a number of his fellow students caused a commotion by hissing and interrupting the performance (Ronald Schuchard, ‘The Countess Cathleen and the Revival of the Bardic Arts’, pp. 26–28; Ellmann, pp. 66–67). This incident is recalled in A Portrait (p. 226).
1.256: a gaud of amber beads
That is, a rosary. Gaud: ‘One of the larger and more ornamental beads placed between the decades of “aves” in a rosary’ (OED). See note at 3.387.
1.257: Royce
Edward William Royce (1841–1926; real surname Reddall): a leading English pantomime performer, who was very popular in Dublin for many years (Igoe, p. 264). The Evening Herald called his performance in Turko the Terrible (see the following notes): ‘the funniest, the most original, the most delightfully and completely absurd impersonation within our recollection’ (29 Dec. 1892, p. 3, col. g).
1.258: pantomime
Pantomime: ‘a theatrical entertainment, mainly for children, which involves music, topical jokes, and slapstick comedy, and is based on a fairy tale or nursery story, usually staged around Christmas’ (OED). By the late nineteenth century, the pantomime was a popular staple of the Dublin Christmas season. It followed a mostly fixed formula: ‘full of dialogue, music, color, extravagant costume, corny humor, and scenic splendor. At the base of the form was one of perhaps a dozen fairy tales or nursery rhymes [. . .] In practice, however, most pantomimes told the same story—of lovers who seek, against the odds, to be united, despite the initial and long- sustained disapproval of a father or other authority figure’ (Cheryl Herr, Joyce’s Anatomy of Culture, p. 104). Pantomimes also ‘thrived on topical allusions which were generally satiric barbs at the fads and foibles, fashions and politics of the moment’ (p. 108).
1.258: Turko the Terrible
King Turko the Terrible was the first Gaiety Theatre Grand Christmas pantomime, inaugur ating a tradition that continues to this day; its first performance was on 26 December 1873. The songs were by Edwin Hamilton (1849–1919) and the music by T. J. Jackson. Edward Royce (see note at 1.257) directed and played the title role (Freeman’s Journal, 20 Dec. 1873, p. 1, col. a; The Irish Playgoer and Amusement Record, vol. 1, no. 7, Christmas 1899, p. 19). See note at 6.188 for the Gaiety Theatre.
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1.260–62: I am the boy . . . Invisibility
From the chorus of the song ‘Invisibility’ from the pantomime Turko the Terrible, sung by Edward Royce in the role of King Turko: ‘Invisibility you’ll say / Is just the thing for me. / For I am the boy / That can enjoy / Invisibility’ (Ruth Bauerle, ‘Words and Music’, pp. 26–30). Royce subsequently played a character named Captain William McTurco in the 1892–93 Gaiety Christmas pantomime Sindbad the Sailor (see note at 17.422–23), where he reprised this song among other favourites (Evening Herald, 27 Dec. 1892, p. 3, col. f; 29 Dec. 1892, p. 3, cols g–h). In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote under the heading ‘Mother’: ‘The drawer in her deadroom contained perfumed programmes and old feathers. When she was a girl a birdcage hung in the sunny window of her house. When she was a girl she went to the theatre to see the pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed when Old Royce the actor sang: / I am the boy / That can enjoy / Invisibility’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 102; JJA, vol. 7, p. 141).
1.266–67: Her glass of water . . . sacrament
In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote under the heading ‘Mother’: ‘Every Friday she approached the altar and when she came home drank a glass of water before eating’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 103; JJA, vol. 7, pp. 141–2).
1.267–68: A cored apple . . . at the hob
Hob: ‘In a fire-place: the part of the casing having a surface level with the top of the grate. [. . .] the iron-plated sides of a small grate, on which things may be set to warm’ (OED). In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote under the heading ‘Mother’: ‘Sometimes she roasted an apple for herself on the hob’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 103; JJA, vol. 7, p. 142).
1.268–69: Her shapely fingernails reddened . . . lice
In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote under the heading ‘Mother’: ‘Her nails were reddened with the blood of lice’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 103; JJA, vol. 7, p. 142).
1.273–74: On me alone
Echoes Horatio’s words to Hamlet about his father’s ghost: ‘It beckons you to go away with it, / As if it some impartment did desire / To you alone’ (I.iv.58–60).
1.274: ghostcandle
Ghostcandles are set burning around the corpse to keep away ghosts (OED, s.v. ghost).
1.276–77: Liliata rutilantium te confessorum . . . excipiat
(Latin): ‘may the band of shining Confessors, crowned with lilies, encircle thee; may the choir of joyous Virgins receive thee’; from the ‘Ordo Commendationis Animae’ (A Manual of Prayers, pp. 516–17), a prayer said over dying people.
1.278: Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!
Ghoul: ‘An evil spirit supposed (in Muslim countries) to rob graves and prey on human corpses’; in Arabic, ghul (OED).
1.284: mosey
Mosey: idiot or fool (EDD).
1.290–91: Touch him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean See note at 1.155.
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1.293: The school kip
Kip (Hiberno-English): ‘house of ill-fame’ (EDD; Dolan). Mulligan is fond of this word and uses it in a variety of senses.
1.300–05: O, won’t we have a merry time . . . coronation day!
After an English song written in anticipation of Edward VII’s (1841–1910, r. 1901–10) coronation in August 1902: ‘We’ll be merry, / Drinking whisky, wine and sherry, / Let’s all be merry, / On Coronation Day’ (Dana Bentley-Cranch, Edward VII, p. 125).
1.301: whisky
The current standard of using whiskey to denote Irish whiskey and whisky for Scotch whisky (OED) was not consistently applied in Joyce’s day: many Irish papers use the spelling whisky; for example, ‘The Irish Whisky Trade in Belfast’ (Ulster Herald, 22 Aug. 1908, p. 8, col. e).
1.310–11: I carried the boat of incense See note at 12.1677.
1.311: Clongowes
Clongowes Wood College: a Jesuit boys’ school, 32 km from Dublin in Sallins, County Kildare. ‘Founded in 1814, it was the oldest Catholic lay school in Ireland, and, by reputation, the best. Its aim had been the ‘gradual infiltration of the system by highly educated Irish Catholics and [by Joyce’s time] it had already achieved this aim’ (Bruce Bradley, James Joyce’s Schooldays, p. 9). Stephen’s time there is described in chapter 1 of A Portrait. Joyce attended Clongowes from 1888 to 1892 (Ellmann, pp. 27–34).
1.312: A server of a servant
After Noah’s curse on his son Ham, who saw Noah naked and drunk: ‘Cursed be Chanaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren’ (Genesis 9:25). Gogarty wrote of the domestic arrangements at the Tower to Bell on 22 July 1904: ‘I shall furnish the tower with Chippendale sticks: no pictures. The Bard Joyce is to do the house keeping. He is to Watts-Dunton me also’ (Many Lines to Thee, p. 21). One of the Pope’s titles is ‘servus servorum Dei’ (servant of the servants of God).
1.316: barbacan
Barbican: ‘A loophole in the wall of a castle’ (OED). Joyce’s spelling follows the French or Italian: barbacane. The living quarters of the tower are illuminated and ventilated only by two slanted apertures (Richard Ellmann, James Joyce’s Tower, p. 6).
1.323: Janey Mack
Janey Mack (Hiberno-English): one of several euphemisms for Jesus (Dolan).
1.335: Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts
A traditional formula for the Catholic grace before a meal: ‘Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which of thy bounty we are about to receive; through Christ our Lord’ (Patrick Moran, The Catholic Prayer Book, p. 11).
1.342: damn you and your Paris fads
In Ireland, drinking tea without milk, as Stephen proposes doing, would well be considered a ‘travesty’ (Helen O’Connell, “‘Food Values’”, p. 141). The French typically drink tea with lemon.
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 19
1.345: The woman is coming up
Originally, when it was still a military fort, entry to the Martello tower (see note at 1.542) was by a retractable ladder. By 1904, an outside stepladder had been added. The entrance was about 3 metres above the ground (Richard Ellmann, James Joyce’s Tower, p. 6).
1.351: In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti
In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti (Latin): ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. This is the phrase with which the priest begins Mass (Rituale Romanum, p. 30) and is a standard formula in much Christian ritual and prayer.
1.357: When I makes tea I makes tea
After an Irish folk tale in wide circulation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ‘The Ryans behind in C. . . were always inviting the priests back for tea, and one time, they had a streel of a lassie as a servant girl. This lady’s name was Mollo Quinn and Mrs. Ryan drummed into her that morning that Father Charlie would be coming out for tea that evening, so everything was to be in order. ’Twas the first time that since Mollo went in service to the Ryans that they were having such high company. Anyway things went great, and after the tea been all over, and Father Charlie was sitting down at the table Mollo came along to clear the things away. “That was a very nice cup of tea, my good woman”, he says to her in all sincerity. “Ah, Father”, she says, “there’s nothing like a good cup of tea, and when I makes tea I makes tea, and when I makes water I makes water” ’ (Patricia Lysaght, ‘“When I Makes Tea, I Makes Tea” ’, p. 62; Helen O’Connell, “‘Food Values’”, p. 141).
1.357: mother Grogan
Possibly after a character from the anonymous Irish song ‘Ned Grogan’. First verse: ‘Ned Grogan, dear joy, was the son of his mother, / And as like her, it seems, as one pea to another; / But to find out his dad, he was put to the rout, / As many folks wiser have been, joy, no doubt. / To this broth of a boy oft his mother would say, / “When the moon shines, my jewel, be making your hay; / Always ask my advice, when the business is done; / For two heads, sure, you’ll own, are much better than one” ’ (The Hibernian Cabinet, pp. 59–60).
1.361: Mrs Cahill Unknown.
1.361: Begob
Begob (Hiberno-English): a dodge of the curse ‘by God’ (PWJ, p. 69).
1.365–66: Five lines of text . . . fishgods of Dundrum
Dundrum: a village 6.5 km south of Dublin and inland. This possibly refers to A Book of Saints and Wonders According to the Old Writings and the Memory of the People of Ireland by Lady Augusta Gregory (for whom see note at 9.1158–59), which was originally published in a deluxe edition by the Dun Emer Press in September 1906. Dun Emer Press was a small, private press founded by Yeats’s sister Elizabeth (1868–1940) as an offshoot of Dun Emer Industries, a crafts workshop based in Dundrum where her sister Lily (1866–1949) was working (David Ross, Critical Companion to William Butler Yeats, pp. 456–58). Lady Gregory’s book, which is not footnoted, is a collection of folk tales about three Irish saints, Brigit, Colum Cille, and Patrick. One of the stories about Brigit involves ‘a little fish that is seen every seven years, and whoever sees the fish is cured of every disease’ (p. 12). The colophon for the book features a fish by a waterfall under a bell.
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20 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES
1.367: Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind
This line alludes to the colophon of Yeats’s In the Seven Woods, which was published by Dun Emer Press: ‘Here ends In the Seven Woods, written by William Butler Yeats, printed, upon paper made in Ireland, and published by Elizabeth Corbet Yeats at the Dun Emer Press, in the house of Evelyn Gleeson at Dundrum in the county of Dublin, Ireland, finished the sixteenth day of July in the year of the big wind 1903’ (p. 64). The immediate reference to ‘the year of the big wind’ is the huge storm of 26–27 February 1903; the London Times called it ‘a storm more violent than any which the oldest inhabitants can remember’ (2 March 1903, p. 7, col. a). The phrase ‘big wind’ was originally used to refer to the tremendously destructive storm that ravaged Ireland on 6 January 1839 (Shane Leslie, The Irish Tangle for English Readers, p. 111). The Freeman’s Journal stated that the 1903 storm was the most violent since ‘the night of the big wind’ in 1839 (28 Feb. 1903, p. 4, col. h). The ‘weird sisters’—here used to describe Yeats’s sisters, who ran the Dun Emer Press (see the previous note)—is a reference to the witches of Macbeth (I.iii.32).
1.371: Mabinogion
A collection of eleven anonymous medieval Welsh prose tales of mythology and Arthurian romance. These were translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1838–49. The name derives from the Welsh mabinogi, ‘instructions to young bards’ (EB11).
1.371: Upanishads
The Upanishads: speculative mystical scriptures that are regarded as the touchstone of Hindu religion and philosophy (EB11, s.v. Hinduism). In 1896, Charles Johnson, a Dublin Theosophist, translated portions of the Upanishads into English. The Upanishads were influential for the Theosophists (for whom see note at 7.783).
1.382–84: For old Mary Ann . . . petticoats
After a North English rhyme, first recorded in the early nineteenth century, ‘Mary Anne she doesn’t care a damn / She lifts up her petticoats and pittles like a man’ (Bill Griffiths, A Dictionary of North-East Dialect, p. 108; with thanks to Vincent Deane). Gogarty concluded a parody of Keats’s ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’, called ‘On First Looking Into Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis’, with the line, ‘Potent behind a cart with Mary Ann’ (Poems & Plays of Oliver St. John Gogarty, p. 211). Hising: lifting aloft, especially used of raising a sail (OED, s.v. hoise; the spelling hising is unattested by the OED).
1.394: collector of prepuces
Prepuce: foreskin (OED); since God commanded Jewish males to be circumcised (Genesis 17:12), God is the collector of prepuces. Gogarty used the phrase ‘Jehovah who collects foreskins’ in a letter to Joyce dated 13 February 1904 (Turner and Mamigonian, ‘Solar Patriot’, p. 641). Gogarty glossed the word ‘The Connoisseur’ in his parody of the poem ‘To Althea from Prison’ with the explanation ‘Jehovah who collected foreskins’ (Poems & Plays, p. 358).
1.399: tilly
Tilly (Hiberno-English): ‘an additional article or amount unpaid for by the purchaser, as a gift from the vendor’ (OED). P. W. Joyce notes that ‘[m]ilkmen usually give a tilly with the pint or quart’ (PWJ, p. 342). James Joyce’s second book of poetry, Pomes Penyeach (1927), cost a shilling (i.e. twelve pence) and had thirteen poems—twelve, plus one named ‘Tilly’.
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 21
1.400: She praised the goodness of the milk
George Russell (see note at 2.257) wrote an article entitled ‘In Praise of Milk’ for the 6 January 1906 issue of the Irish Homestead: ‘Pure milk is the best all round food anyone could take [. . .] It contains almost every food essential [. . .] We will go so far as to say that if it comes to a matter of food values that the farmer who would exchange threepence worth of milk for sixpence worth of any other kind of food be a loser by the exchange. Here is our country with tuberculosis afflicting its inhabitants like a leprosy almost, a disease which is traceable to bad air and bad food, and for which the cure is good air, and good food which means milk and eggs, and our people sell all and buy inferior stuff like bacon from America, as unhealthy a food as one could well eat’ (George Russell, Selections from the Contributions to the ‘Irish Homestead’, vol. 1, p. 70; Helen O’Connell, “‘Food Values’”, pp. 132–33).
1.403: Silk of the kine and poor old woman
Kine: archaic plural of cow (OED); thus ‘silk of the kine’ means ‘finest of cattle’. ‘Silk of the kine’ is a literal translation of the Irish phrase Síoda na mbó and ‘poor old woman’ translates Sean bhean bhocht (see also note at 1.543–44); both of which are common epithets for Ireland (Brendan O Hehir, A Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 337).
1.405: cuckquean
Cuckquean: a female cuckold (OED).
1.413: bogswamp
Bog, from the Irish bogach, swamp: ‘A characteristic feature of the Irish landscape, especially in the Midlands and in the south-west and west. When the lakes left by the last Ice Age receded and dried up, the vegetation was absorbed into the earth and over time this damp earth, rich in organic matter, built up into layers of peat or bog. Bogs naturally preserve matter [. . .] The bog is a fragile ecosystem with unique flora and fauna, and much Irish bogland has been destroyed by overcutting of turf (peat) for fuel’ (Brewer’s Irish).
1.419: her medicineman
In his Trieste notebook, under the heading Gogarty, Joyce wrote: ‘Dubliners who slighted me esteem him as peasants esteem a bone-setter or the redskins their medicine-man’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 98; JJA, vol. 7, p. 125).
1.421–22: woman’s unclean loins, of man’s flesh . . . serpent’s prey
This derives from two passages from Joseph McCabe’s (English Freethinker, 1867–1955) book The Religion of Woman: An Historical Study (1905): ‘[Augustine] asks himself how this glorious being, as he has described Adam, could be deceived by the clumsy trickery of the serpent. Possibly, he goes on, God created a being of inferior intelligence and will—woman—with a view to the carrying-out of this pre-arranged drama of the Fall’ (pp. 46–47); ‘St. Ambrose does not, indeed, show any deliberate contempt. Woman must be obedient, but not servile, to her husband. In one place he makes an amusing attempt to find a ground for the restriction of her work and education. She is more fitted for bodily work, he says, because “remember that God took a rib out of Adam’s body, not a part of his soul, to make her”. And when he is asked why she must veil herself in the churches, while her husband does not, he answers, because “she was not made to the image of God, like man” ’ (pp. 47–48). In a late Ulysses notebook, Joyce summarised these two passages from McCabe: ‘S. Aug. W inferior deceived by S / S. Amb. veil in church made of Adam’s
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22 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES body not in image of god’ (NLI II.i.3 f. 13r; Ronan Crowley and Geert Lernout, ‘Joseph McCabe in Ulysses’). In the Old Testament, women who have just delivered a baby and women who are menstruating are described as ‘unclean’ (Leviticus 12:2, 12:5, and 15:19–33).
1.427: Is there Gaelic on you?
An over-literal, but incorrect translation of the Irish expression An bhfuil Gaeilge agat? A more accurate, but still over-literal translation would be ‘Is there Irish at you?’ In other words, ‘Do you speak Irish?’ (Brendan O Hehir, A Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 337).
1.428–29: Are you from west, sir?
By the middle of the nineteenth century, English had become the everyday language for most people in Ireland, but in some coastal areas in the west, Irish was still spoken by over 80 percent of the population, many of them Irish monoglots (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 386–89).
1.431–32: he thinks we ought to speak Irish in Ireland
Organisations devoted to promoting the use and revival of the Irish language emerged from the 1870s onwards. These were mostly, but not exclusively, allied with nationalist causes (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 399–401). Trench was an enthusiastic supporter of the revival of the Irish language. He met Gogarty at the weekly meetings of the Oxford Gaelic Society and in 1907 he published a pamphlet entitled What is the Use of Reviving Irish? (C. E. F. Trench, ‘Dermot Chenevix Trench and Haines of Ulysses’, pp. 39–40). In October 1904, Gogarty complained to G. K. A. Bell of ‘Trench’s constant assurances that everyone should learn their countrys [sic] language’ (Many Lines to Thee, p. 43).
1.433: Sure
Sure (Hiberno-English): ‘a common emphatic opening to sentences’ (Dolan).
1.434: a grand language
Grand (Hiberno-English): fine, splendid (Dolan); ‘Used as a general term to express strong admiration, approval, or gratification: magnificent, splendid; excellent; highly enjoyable [. . .] Also in ironic use’ (OED); a common adjective in Hiberno-English.
1.434: them that knows
In Hiberno-English, them is frequently used in place of those (Dolan).
1.442: mornings a pint at twopence
An historically accurate price: in 1905 in Dublin a quart of milk (2 pints or 0.95 litres) cost 4 pence (Cost of Living of the Working Classes, p. 563).
1.444–45: That’s a shilling and one and two is two and two
The milkwoman’s calculations are correct. One pint of milk costs two pence. Gogarty and company have had a pint of milk on seven mornings, which adds up to 14d. or 1s. 2d. They have also had a quart (two pints) on three days, for an additional shilling (3 × 4d.). Thus, the total is ‘two and two’, two shillings and two pence. They have ordered more milk the last three days because of Haines’s arrival.
1.451: a florin
Florin: a silver coin worth two shillings (OED).
1.455–56: Ask nothing more of me . . . I give
The first two lines of Swinburne’s poem ‘The Oblation’ (The Poems, vol. 2, p. 221).
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1.463–64: Heart of my heart . . . your feet
Lines three and four of Swinburne’s ‘The Oblation’.
1.466: stony
From ‘stony-broke’: out of money (Partridge).
1.467–68: Ireland expects that every man this day will do his duty
Modified from ‘The Death of Nelson’, words by S. J. Arnold (1774–1852), music by John Braham (1774–1856): ‘England expects that ev’ry man / This day will do his duty’ (W. H. Woodward, A Book of English Poetry for the Young, p. 72). Mulligan’s quotation matches the song and not Nelson’s actual message to his troops before the battle of Trafalgar (1805): ‘England expects every man to do his duty’ (Robert Southey, Life of Nelson, p. 294; Daniel Karlin, Street Songs, p. 108).
1.469–70: national library
The National Library of Ireland was founded in 1877. Before being taken over by the State, it had been the Royal Dublin Society Library (Bennett). In 1890 the Library moved into its present location on Kildare Street (see note at 8.1174). Once installed in Kildare Street, the Library quickly became a crucial hub for the intelligentsia as well as the more general reading public; ‘its existence can serve as a useful embodiment of the complex dynamics that evolved between education, reading, and national identity in a period of revolutionary change’ (Ben Levitas, ‘Reading and the Irish Revival, 1891–1922’, p. 43).
1.476: All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream
The Gulf Stream is a narrow deep current that flows from the Gulf of Mexico to a point east of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, where it mixes with the Labrador current and becomes what is called the Gulf Stream Drift, which splits into two parts; one heads southwards to the north-western coast of Africa, the other towards Ireland and the Great Britain (EB11, s.vv. Gulf Stream; Atlantic Ocean). In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote: ‘The Irish are washed by the Gulf Stream’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 101; JJA, vol. 7, p. 134).
1.481: Agenbite of inwit
Agenbite of inwit (Middle English): ‘remorse of conscience’. Aȝenbite (Ayenbite) of Inwyt (1340): the title of a moral tract as translated into the Kentish dialect of Middle English by Dan Michel of Northgate from an earlier French work, Le Somme des Vices et des Virtues (1279), by Frère Lorens (or Laurentius Gallus). The Ayenbite of Inwyt was translated into English in 1889 by A. J. Wyatt. Joyce’s spelling—‘Agenbite of inwit’—can be found in earlier sources, such as John Miller Dow Meiklejohn’s A Brief History of the English Language and Literature (vol. 2, p. 278). The substitution of y for g is valid since both letters can be used in place of the Middle English letter ȝ (yogh). Inwit: ‘Conscience; inward sense of right and wrong’ (OED). Ayen is the Middle English form of again (OED, s.vv. Y; again), as in the again-bite of inner knowing (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
1.482: here’s a spot
From Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene in Macbeth (V.i.35) in which, wracked by guilt, she imagines her hands bloodied from the murder of King Duncan.
1.490: Would I make any money by it?
Gogarty recounts Joyce’s wanting him to write to his friend G. K. A. Bell to request payment in exchange for his amusing antics: ‘Dear Sir: My friend Mr. Gogarty informs me that my conduct is to you a source of amusement. As I cannot continue to amuse you without
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24 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES supporting my corporal estate (station?) I take liberty to ask you to forward three guineas’ (Many Lines to Thee, p. 16).
1.491: holdfast
Holdfast: a staple, hook, clamp, or bolt (OED).
1.495: said with coarse vigour See note at 1.6–7.
1.505: To tell you the God’s truth
‘An assertion or statement introduced by the words “to tell God’s truth” is always understood to be weighty and somewhat unexpected, the introductory words being given as a guarantee of its truth’ (PWJ, p. 12).
1.507: the kip
Kip: lodging (Partridge), see also note at 1.293.
1.510: Mulligan is stripped of his garments
After the tenth Station of the Cross: ‘Jesus is stripped of his Garments’ (Patrick Moran, Catholic Prayer Book, p. 372; see Matt. 27:28; John 19:23–24).
1.513: he spoke to them
In his Trieste notebook, Joyce noted Gogarty’s habit of talking to inanimate objects: ‘He addresses lifeless objects and hits them smartly with his cane: the naturalness of the Celtic mind’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 97; JJA, vol. 7, p. 124).
1.517: Do I contradict myself?
From Walt Whitman’s (American poet, 1819–92) ‘Song of Myself ’ (1855, 1892): ‘Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)’ (stanza 51, ll. 6–8).
1.518: Mercurial Malachi
Mercury is the Latin name of the Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the gods (Brewer’s). Mercurial: ‘Of or relating to thieves or tricksters’; but also, ‘having a lively, volatile, or restless nature [. . .] quick-witted, imaginative [. . .] changeable, unpredictable, fickle’ (OED). Malachi: Hebrew, ‘my messenger’ (see note at 1.41).
1.519: Latin quarter hat
Latin quarter or quartier Latin: the area in central Paris around the Sorbonne. ‘Although popularly renowned as the cosmopolitan and bohemian quarter, it derives its name from its ancient fame as a centre of learning when Latin was the common language for the students’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Quarter). The ‘Latin quarter hat’ was broad-brimmed and made of black felt (Robert Wilson, Paris on Parade, p. 195). Joyce was photographed wearing just such a hat in Paris in 1902 (Ellmann, plate VII).
1.527: And going forth he met Butterly
After a line from the Gospels: ‘And going forth, he wept bitterly’ (Matthew 26:75). Gogarty used this phrase in As I Was Going Down Sackville Street: ‘Going forth, I met Butterly, a spruce little barrister with a large red face who always seemed to be leaving in a hurry, though no one knew where he went or where he slept’ (p. 73). This means he is probably Maurice Butterly, for whom see note at 15.1611.
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1.528: ashplant
Ash-plant: ‘A sapling of the ash tree, used as a walking-stick, whip, goad, etc’ (OED). Joyce himself owned such a walking stick (Ellmann, p. 135). Stanislaus Joyce notes of his brother his ‘inevitable ash-plant’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 243). The ash tree is associated with many positive superstitions, such as protection against storm and witchcraft (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions).
1.529: the ladder See note at 1.345.
1.530: huge key
The key to the Martello tower—now on display at the Joyce Museum—is ‘a very large copper key about ten inches [25.4 cm] long’ (Gogarty, Mourning Became Mrs. Spendlove, p. 43).
1.535: leader shoots
Leader shoots: shoots which grow off from the top of the stems of principal branches of plants (OED).
1.536: Down, sir!
‘The word Sir! in English has a great variety of significations. With the appellation of Sir, an Englishman addresses his King, his friend, his foe, his servant, and his dog [. . .] Sir! in a surly tone, [signifies] a box on the ear at your service! To a dog it means a good beating’ (Karl Philipp Moritz, Travels, p. 260; Harald Beck, JJON). Mulligan is talking to the shoots of grass that are in his way; for his habit of speaking to objects, see note at 1.513 above.
1.539: Twelve quid
Actually, the rent was eight pounds; see the following note.
1.540: To the secretary of state for war
Gogarty signed the agreement with ‘His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the War Department’ on 24 July 1904, renting the No. 11 Martello Tower, Sandycove, at £8 per year, paid quarterly (Cyril Pearl, Dublin in Bloomtime, p. 82). ‘Gogarty stayed in the Tower regularly, and continued to occupy it to 1925’ (Nicholson, The ‘Ulysses’ Guide, p. 17).
1.542: Martello
A Martello tower is a circular, squat stone fortification that follows a standard design used by the British military during much of the nineteenth century. In 1804, the British built seventy- four such towers along the coast of Ireland as defence against a possible landing of Napoleonic troops, which ultimately never happened. Nine of these towers were built around Dublin Bay. ‘All were modelled on a tower at Cape Mortella in Corsica, which nine years before had proved surprisingly difficult for British troops to take [. . .] Rather unimaginatively, the same obstacles were now placed in Napoleon’s way along the Channel coast of England and at intervals along the Irish coast’ (Richard Ellmann, James Joyce’s Tower, p. 6). ‘The first floor was the living-quarters for the garrison of 12. The floor below, which was reached by a helical stairway 4 foot (1.2 m) in diameter and contained within the thickness of the wall, was used as the kitchen and for the master gunner’s stores. [. . .] The vaulted stone roof, protected by a parapet, was reached by the helical stairs. It supported guns, probably 18- or 24-pounders, which were mounted on a roller system that enabled them to be aimed in any direction over a wide arc’ (J. W. de Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin, p. 248). The Sandycove tower was one of three towers not decommissioned in 1867; it was finally demilitarised in 1900. Joyce lived in the
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26 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES Sandycove tower with Mulligan and Trench from 9 to 15 September 1904 (Ellmann, pp. 171–76). The tower opened as the Joyce Museum in 1962.
1.543: Billy Pitt
William Pitt, or Pitt the Younger (1759–1806): British Prime Minister (1783–1801 and 1804–06). In 1800, Pitt advocated the Act of Union (see note at 2.270), which was passed with the help of many bribes to corrupt members of the Irish Parliament (Edmund Curtis, A History of Ireland, p. 301). He was Prime Minister when the Martello towers were built. ‘“Billy Pitt’s Folly” was the nickname bestowed on these structures, useless even in their day and now hopelessly antiquated’ (D. A. Chart, The Story of Dublin, p. 300).
1.543–44: when the French were on the sea
The French made four unsuccessful attempts between 1796 and 1798 to liberate Ireland from English rule (NHI, vol. 4, pp. 350–51). Mulligan’s phrase alludes in particular to a ballad from c.1797, ‘The Shan Van Vocht’ (Irish: ‘The Poor Old Woman’, an epithet for Ireland itself), which begins: ‘O the French are on the sea, / Says the Shan Van Vocht; / O the French are on the sea, / Says the Shan Van Vocht; / O the French are in the bay, / They’ll be here without delay, / And the Orange will decay, / Says the Shan Van Vocht’ (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 18).
1.546–47: Thomas Aquinas
St Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–74): Scholastic philosopher and member of the Dominican order. ‘The esteem in which he was held during his life has not been diminished, but rather increased, in the course of the six centuries that have elapsed since his death’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). Aquinas is the major figure in the attempt to effect ‘the full reconciliation of the Aristotelian system with Christian theology [. . .] A great deal of St Thomas’s philosophy is indeed the doctrine of Aristotle, but it is the doctrine of Aristotle re-thought by a powerful mind, not slavishly adopted’ (Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 2, p. 423). In chapter 5 of A Portrait, Stephen relates an aesthetic theory he calls ‘applied Aquinas’ (p. 209). In his satirical broadside ‘The Holy Office’ (1904), Joyce says of himself that he is ‘Steeled in the school of old Aquinas’ (l. 92).
1.550: primrose waistcoat
According to Gogarty, Joyce was ‘envious of my canary-colored waistcoat with the gold buttons’ (Mourning Became Mrs. Spendlove, p. 52).
1.556: Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564–1616): English playwright, poet, and actor. As a young man, Joyce ostentatiously dismissed Shakespeare in favour of Ibsen (see note at 16.52–54). In 1908, he complained to Stanislaus that Hamlet was filled with dramatic blunders (Ellmann, p. 266). As he grew older, his opinion changed considerably. Between November 1912 and February 1913, Joyce gave a series of twelve lectures on Shakespeare and Hamlet at the Società di Minerva in Trieste. These were very well received; unfortunately, the texts are not extant (John McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 192). Frank Budgen told Clive Hart that Nora once said to him, ‘Ah, there’s only one man he’s got to get the better of now, and that’s that Shakespeare!’ (Structure and Motif in ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 163).
1.559: stolewise
That is, hanging down around the neck like the priest’s stole in the Mass. Stole: ‘A vestment consisting of a narrow strip of silk or linen, worn over the shoulders (by deacons over the left shoulder only) and hanging down to the knee or lower’ (OED).
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1.561: Japhet in search of a father!
The title of a novel from 1836 by Captain Frederick Marryat (1792–1848) about an orphan’s ultimately successful search for his father. Japheth was one of Noah’s three sons (Genesis 10:1).
1.567–68: Elsinore. That beetles o’er his base into the sea
The lines are Horatio’s, warning Hamlet against following the Ghost over ‘the cliff / That beetles o’er his base into the sea’ (I.iv.70–71). Beetles: extends out or overhangs (OED).
1.574: The seas’ ruler
This refers to Haines, an Englishman. This phrase alludes in general to Britain’s longstanding naval might and to James Thomson’s song ‘Rule Britannia’ (1740), music by Thomas Arne. In the Odyssey, the enmity of Poseidon—the seas’ god and ruler—against Odysseus is what sets the plot in motion.
1.575: mailboat See note at 1.83.
1.576: Muglins
A ridge of rocks north-east of Dalkey Island at the southern extreme of Dublin Bay (J. W. De Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin, p. 259).
1.584–99: I’m the queerest young fellow . . . goodbye!
From a poem by Gogarty, ‘The Song of the Cheerful (but slightly sarcastic) Jesus’. Joyce here presents an almost unmodified version of the first, second, and final stanzas (Poems & Plays of Oliver St. John Gogarty, pp. 413–14; Ellmann, p. 206). ‘Vincent Cosgrave (“Lynch” in A Portrait and Ulysses [see note at 14.190]) forwarded [this poem] to Joyce around November 1905—thus, it would seem that the song would not have been part of Gogarty’s repertoire when Joyce was at the Tower’ (Turner and Mamigonian, ‘Solar Patriot’, p. 642).
1.585: my father’s a bird
The Holy Spirit is conventionally depicted as a dove (George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, pp. 15–16) and as such could be called Jesus’s father (see Luke 1:35).
1.586: Joseph the joiner
Joiner: ‘a worker in wood who does lighter and more ornamental work than that of a carpenter’ (OED). Both Joseph and Jesus were carpenters (Matthew 13:55; see also Mark 6:3).
1.587: Calvary
Calvary: the hill of Jesus’s crucifixion (Luke 23:33; see also Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22, and John 19:17).
1.590: when I’m making the wine
A reference to Jesus’s miracle of turning water into wine (John 2:1–11).
1.591: drink water and wish it were plain
That is, wish it were plain water instead of urine; there might also be a joke on plain porter (for which see note at 3.152).
1.598: What’s bred in the bone
From the proverb ‘What’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh’, which means that natural inclinations cannot be held back (Brewer’s, s.v. bone).
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28 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES
1.599: Olivet’s breezy
Olivet: the Mount of Olives (OED), a high hill to the east of Jerusalem from which Jesus ascended into heaven (Luke 24:50; Acts 1:12).
1.600: fortyfoot hole
The Forty Foot Hole (also known as the gentleman’s bathing place at Sandycove) is a popular bathing and swimming spot in the Irish Sea, just down the path from the tower. Until 1976, it was reserved for men only (Bennett, s.v. Dún Laoghaire). According to one local legend, the name comes from the Fortieth Foot Regiment, but this is unlikely since they were never stationed in a nearby garrison. The name was in use from at least the mid-nineteenth century, but is probably from earlier. The word hole suggests that it was named by fishermen and not bathers. The figure ‘forty feet’ is not meant as a measurement or estimate of its depth, but rather simply as an indication that it is quite deep. Its actual depth is, on average, 20 feet or 6 metres (Frank Power and Peter Pearson, The Forty Foot, pp. 79–81; with thanks to Robert Nicholson). From an anonymous letter to the Dublin Evening Mail: ‘the “Forty-foot hole”, as the deep water at Sandycove was ungracefully termed, [. . .] is not a “hole”, it is not forty feet deep, nor near it’ (31 March 1876; with thanks to Harald Beck and John Simpson). In a letter of 27 August 1904 to G. K. A. Bell, Gogarty wrote: ‘The sea here is “crystalline” on account of Sandycove being sandless; and the bathing is excellent. I swim 3 or 4 times a day for from ½ to ¾ hours at a stretch’ (Many Lines to Thee, p. 29).
1.601: Mercury’s hat
‘Mercury is represented as a young man with winged hat and winged sandals’ (Brewer’s).
1.612–13: Creation from nothing . . . and a personal God
‘Haines gives a fair description of a general orthodox form of Christian belief, as opposed to not just the atheist or agnostic positions but also to most deist options’ (Geert Lernout, Help My Unbelief, p. 142). While the phrase ‘personal God’ can have a variety of different senses and theological implications, Haines probably means it in the generic sense of a God ‘distinct from the material universe and the human mind’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. The Existence of God). Christian doctrine holds that God is the First Cause and ‘brings the entire substance of a thing into existence from a state of non-existence’, or, creation from nothing (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. creation).
1.615–16: silver case in which twinkled a green stone
Ireland, the Emerald Isle, is the green stone and England is the silver case, after Shakespeare’s phrase for England in Richard II: ‘This precious stone set in the silver sea’ (II.i.46), see also note at 7.236.
1.623: personal God See note at 1.612–13.
1.626: free thought
Freethinking: ‘Independence of thought; spec. the free exercise of reason in matters of religious belief, unconstrained by deference to authority’ (OED). This was the name given to a secular, rationalist, and liberal movement. The term originated with Anthony Collins’s (English philosopher, 1676–1729) controversial A Discourse of Freethinking (1713). By the second half of the nineteenth century, Freethinking was prominent throughout many countries in Europe, especially in England. In Ireland, its influence was minuscule, but this is not to say that there was no criticism of the Church and its political power. Although it may suggest atheism, not all
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 29 practitioners of Freethinking were atheists, but rather were mostly united in challenging the authority and hegemony of the Church (Geert Lernout, Help My Unbelief, pp. 62–90).
1.628–29: My familiar
‘Something which is always with a person’ (OED), from the notion of an attendant spirit.
1.631: Now I eat his salt bread
After Dante’s Paradiso: ‘Thou shalt prove how salt is the taste of another man’s bread’ (XVII.58–59). Brewer’s defines ‘salt bread’ as ‘[t]he bread of affliction or humiliation’ (s.v. salt); but this definition does not appear in any edition after 1900.
1.638: I am the servant of two masters
A translation of the title of an Italian play, Il servitore di due padroni by Carlo Goldoni (Italian dramatist, 1707–93), which is itself a reference to the Sermon on the Mount: ‘No man can serve two masters’ (Matthew 6:24). In Stephen’s case, the English master would be Edward VII (1841–1910, r. 1901–10) and the Italian is Pope Pius X (1835–1914), born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, Pope from 1903 to 1914.
1.651: et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam
Et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam (Latin): ‘and [I believe in] one holy, catholic, and apostolic church’; from the Nicene Creed (after the Council of Nicaea, which met in 325, and subsequently amplified in the Council of Constantinople of 381). The Nicene Creed defined the Son and the Father as consubstantial (of the same being) (Catholic Encyclopedia); see note at 1.658. This particular line was one of the additions and clarifications made to the Creed at the Council of Constantinople (EB11, s.v. creeds). This phrase is part of Palestrina’s Mass for Pope Marcellus (see note at 1.653) and so Stephen would be thinking of these words as sung (Fritz Senn, ‘A Throatful of Additions’, p. 8).
1.653: Symbol of the apostles
Symbol: creed (OED). This is the Apostles’ Creed, which contains the fundamental tenets of Christian belief. This came into use in the Roman Catholic Church in the eleventh century. The creed’s name comes from the convention of associating each of its twelve clauses with one of the twelve apostles (Catholic Encyclopedia). The Apostles’ Creed is similar to, but not identical with, the Nicene Creed. For example, unlike the passage just quoted, the Apostles‘ Creed says simply, ‘sanctam ecclesiam catholicam’. And, unlike the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed does not assert that Jesus is consubstantial. Palestrina’s Mass for Pope Marcellus uses the Nicene Creed, not the Apostles’ Creed.
1.653: the mass for pope Marcellus
Pope Marcellus II (1501–55) died just 21 days after being elected Pope. Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina’s (Italian composer, 1525–94) Missa Papae Marcelli was first performed in 1565, ten years after Marcellus’s death and is the most famous of his 102 masses (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina). It had its first Dublin performance in 1898 at St Theresa’s Church on Clarendon Street (Freeman’s Journal, 22 Sep. 1898, p. 4, col. i). According to Frank Budgen, Joyce said, ‘In writing the Mass for Pope Marcellus [. . .] Palestrina did more than surpass himself as a musician. With that great effort, consciously made, he saved music for the Church’ (JJMU, p. 187). Joyce’s Zürich friends recall that he would sing this while walking in the city (Ellmann, p. 430).
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30 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES
1.654–55: behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church militant
This is the Archangel Michael, ‘one of the principal angels; his name was the war-cry of the good angels in the battle fought in heaven against the enemy and his followers’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). Church militant: ‘the Church on earth considered as warring against the powers of evil’ (OED).
1.656: Photius
Photius (c.820–c.891): appointed patriarch of Constantinople in 857. He was excommunicated by Rome in 863, and in 867 retaliated by excommunicating the Pope. He was later r eadmitted to the Church, only to be excommunicated again. Photius objected to the ‘filioque’ (‘and from the son’) clause of the Nicene Creed, which makes Father and Son equal in power, by claiming that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. Following his lead, the Eastern Church began to separate itself from Rome, culminating in the schism of 1054 (EB11). The Catholic Encyclopedia concludes their entry on him with this judgement: ‘One may perhaps sum up Photius by saying that he was a great man with one blot on his character—his insati able and unscrupulous ambition. But that blot so covers his life that it eclipses everything else and makes him deserve our final judgment as one of the worst enemies the Church of Christ ever had, and the cause of the greatest calamity that ever befell her.’
1.657: brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one
In A Portrait, faced with another ‘comic Irishman’, Stephen thinks ‘[c]an you say with certitude by whom the soul of your race was bartered and its elect betrayed—by the questioner or by the mocker?’ (p. 194).
1.657: Arius
Arius (d. 336): Alexandrian priest and heretic. He held that the distinctive quality of God is to be unbegotten and uncreated. From this he deduced that Jesus, as the Son of the Father, was not truly God, but rather of a similar yet unequal being. The first Council of Nicaea was called in 325 to settle the dispute over Arius’s views. The council formulated the Nicene Creed, which defined the Son and the Father as consubstantial (of the same being), thereby rejecting Arius’s notion that the Son was inferior (EB11).
1.658: consubstantiality
Consubstantiality: the doctrine that the Son, Jesus Christ, is of the same essence and being as God, the Father, as opposed to His having merely a secondary relation to God. Literally the word consubstantial means ‘of one and the same substance or essence’ (OED). Consubstantiality was made official Christian doctrine in the Nicene Creed (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Homoousion).
1.658–59: Valentine, spurning Christ’s terrene body
Valentinus: the most prominent leader of the Gnostic movement in the second century. He denied that Christ could have had a body of flesh (terrene: earthly) and, instead, must be pure spirit (EB11).
1.659: heresiarch
Heresiarch: ‘A leader or founder of a heresy’ (OED). In Gustave Flaubert’s (French writer, 1821–80) Temptation of Saint Antony (1874), Sabellius, Arius, and Valentinus are amongst the heresiarchs who plague Antony (pp. 128–32).
1.659–60: Sabellius who held that the Father was Himself His own Son
Sabellius, probably born in Africa, taught in Rome c.215. His heresy was to claim that the Trinity is but one substance with three modes (thus, his is called the modalist
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 31 heresy). While modalism did not originate with Sabellius, he was its greatest exponent (EB11).
1.661: the stranger
Stranger: ‘One who belongs to another country, a foreigner; chiefly (now exclusively), one who resides in or comes to a country to which he is a foreigner; an alien’ (OED). In Ireland, the expression the stranger can have a strongly negative sense ‘as a particular reference to the English colonizer’ (Ina Ferris, The Romantic National Tale, p. 57).
1.661: Idle mockery
After Matthew 12.36: ‘But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment.’
1.662: weave the wind
That is, to have one’s words and deeds be ineffectual. From John Webster’s (English dramatist, c.1580–c.1634) play The Devil’s Law-Case (1623): ‘Vain the ambition of kings, / Who seek by trophies and dead things / To leave a living name behind, / And weave but nets to catch the wind’ (p. 127). T. S. Eliot uses this expression in his poem ‘Gerontion’ (1919): ‘Vacant shuttles / Weave the wind’ (ll. 29–30).
1.663: Michael’s host
The Archangel Michael’s army. Michael leads the Church in its struggles against heretics and the devil, as in Revelation 12:7: ‘And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels.’
1.665: Zut! Nom de Dieu!
Zut! Nom de Dieu! (French) : ‘Damn! In the name of God!’
1.666–67: I don’t want to see . . . the German jews either
In his little book Der Sieg des Judentums über das Germanentum (The Victory of Judaism over Germanism; 1879), Wilhelm Marr (1819–1904) claimed that the Jews had taken over control of German finance and industry. Marr is credited with coining the term anti-Semitism and his prejudices spread throughout Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Léon Poliakov, The History of Anti- Semitism, vol. 4, pp. 16–18).
1.671: Bullock harbour
Bullock Harbour (also spelt Bulloch) is a small harbour just south and east of the Sandycove Martello tower. The original landing place—built for cross-channel vessels and a local fishing fleet—dates to before the fourteenth century. The current pier was completed in 1819 (J. W. de Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin, pp. 53–54).
1.673: five fathoms out there
Maps of Dublin Bay, especially nautical maps, show a ‘five fathoms line’, that is, the area where the depth is five fathoms. 5 fathoms = 30 feet, or 9.1 metres. ‘The five fathoms line runs from the protecting curve of Howth Head in an undulating line to Dalkey’ (Irish Times, 16 Dec. 1922, p. 9, col. c). Also alludes to The Tempest: ‘Full fathom five thy father lies’ (I.ii.396); see also note at 3.470.
1.673–74: when the tide comes in about one
On 16 June 1904, the high tides in Dublin were at 12:18 am and 12:42 pm (Thom’s, p. 15).
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32 Annotations to James Joyce’s ULYSSES
1.674: It’s nine days today
According to a superstition, ‘Drowned bodies float on the ninth day’ (Edwin and Mona A. Radford, Encyclopedia of Superstitions, p. 106).
1.682: Is the brother with you, Malachi?
Gogarty had two younger brothers: Henry Arthur Hamill Devereux Gogarty (b. 1882) and Richard Howard Aloysius Gogarty (b. 1885). On one of his notesheets, Joyce wrote: ‘Harry Gogarty in Mull[ingar]’ (Notesheet Circe 13.25).
1.683: Westmeath
County Westmeath lies approximately 64 km to the west of Dublin.
1.684: Bannon
Fictional. Joyce might have gotten the name from A. E. Bannon, an acquaintance of his father’s when he was working on the electoral register in Mullingar in 1900 and 1901. ‘Bannon was a local man who had made a name for himself through his work as the district councillor for Mullingar’ (Igoe, p. 21).
1.693–94: crossed himself piously . . . brow and lips and breastbone
Before the reading of the Gospel, the congregation make the sign of the Cross with their thumb over their forehead, lips, and chest (Joseph Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 1, pp. 452–53). The gesture suggests that Mulligan is ceding his role to the priest seen ‘near the spur of the rock’ (1.688) and becomes, albeit mockingly, part of the congregation once again (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
1.698: to stew
To stew: to study hard (OED).
1.698: red Carlisle girl, Lily
Lily’s identity is unknown. Carlisle is not her surname, but rather is in reference to Carlisle Pier in Kingstown (see note at 1.84) (Harald Beck, JJON).
1.700: Spooning
To spoon: to court, in a sentimental or silly fashion (Partridge).
1.700: rotto
Rotto: ‘jocular variant of Rotten’ (OED).
1.701: up the pole
Up the pole: ‘pregnant but unmarried’ (OED).
1.706: Redheaded women buck like goats
From Gogarty’s ‘Medical Students’ Song’: ‘High Church parsons fuck like stoats; / Red- headed women buck like goats; / And all Creation simply gloats / Over Copulation’ (Poems & Plays, ll. 13–16, p. 825).
1.708: I’m the Übermensch
The Übermensch, or ‘superman’ (also translated as ‘overman’), is the subject of Friedrich Nietzsche’s (German philosopher, 1844–1900) Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883–91). According to Nietzsche, the Übermensch is the being who is able to create his own values without reference to a God, ‘one who wants to create over and beyond himself and perishes’ (Thus
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1. ‘Telemachus’ 33 Spoke Zarathustra, p. 177). ‘Nietzsche became the spokesman of the anti-Victorian movement; with him the New Paganism of the 1880s returned with a vengeance’ (Patrick Bridgwater, Nietzsche in Anglosaxony, p. 15). The young Joyce was enamoured of Nietzsche, so much so that he signed at least one letter, in which he asked a friend to lend him one pound, ‘James Overman’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 56).
1.727: He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord
This pseudo-Nietzschean aphorism inverts Proverbs 19:17: ‘He that hath mercy on the poor, lendeth to the Lord: and he will repay him.’
1.727–28: Thus spake Zarathustra
The translated title of Nietzsche’s book Also Sprach Zarathustra. The name Zarathustra is the Greek version of Zoroaster (c.600 bc), the Persian founder of the Zoroastrian religion (EB11, s.v. Zoroaster).
1.731: wild Irish
The name given to ‘the less civilised Irish; formerly, those not subject to English rule’ (OED).
1.732: Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon
From an old Irish proverb that lists various things that are not to be trusted: ‘Smile of a Saxon, / Grinning of curs, / Horn of oxen, / Or hoof of horse’ (‘Erionnach’, The Poets and Poetry of Munster: Second Series, p. xxv; with thanks to Vincent Deane).
1.733: The Ship See note at 1.127.
1.736–38: Liliata rutilantium . . . virginum See note at 1.276–77.
1.739: The priest’s grey nimbus in a niche
This is the elderly swimmer with grey hair, seen earlier getting out of the water, scrambling up by the stones (1.687–91). Nimbus: ‘From the Latin for “cloud”, the technical name for halo, light surrounding the head of a holy figure, or of persons who are renowned for their great piety’ (J. C. J. Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend). Niche: ‘A shallow ornamental recess or hollow set into a wall, usually for the purpose of containing a statue or other decorative object’ (OED). This terminology would be typical of medieval sculpture; for example, ‘St. Barnabas the Apostle, with nimbus, standing in a carved niche with trefoiled arch and crocketed canopy’ (W. G. de Birch, Catalogue of Seals, vol. 1, p. 592; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
1.744: Usurper
Mulligan is listed in the schema as Antinous, one of the more aggressive suitors for Penelope during Odysseus’s absence, who sets in motion a plot to kill Telemachus (Odyssey, IV.845–50).
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2. ‘Nestor’ Time: 10–11 am (9–10 am in the Linati schema) Location: Boys’ school, Dalkey Art: History Colour: brown Symbol: Horse Technic: Catechism (personal) Correspondences: Deasy: Nestor; Sargent: Pisistratus: Helen: Mrs O’Shea Serialised: The Little Review 4.12 (April 1918); The Egoist 6.1 (January–February 1919) The setting of ‘Nestor’ is based on the Clifton School for boys, at Summerfield House, 63 Dalkey Avenue in Dalkey (Thom’s, p. 1674), where Joyce briefly taught at some point in 1904 (Ellmann, pp. 152–53). ‘The distance between the Martello Tower in Sandycove and Mr Deasy’s school in Dalkey Avenue, Dalkey, is almost exactly one mile [1.6 km]. Stephen therefore has time to get there on foot, along Sandycove Avenue East, Breffni Road, Ulverton Road, Dalkey Avenue’ (JJD, p. 28) (map 2). See also note at 2.187.
2.1: Cochrane
Possibly John Gordon Cochrane (1895–1986), the son of Charles Henry Cochrane, a solicitor who lived at Cambridge House, 38 Ulverton Road, Dalkey (Thom’s, p. 1834; Igoe, p. 57).
2.2: Tarentum
A coastal colony in south-east Italy, founded by the Greeks in the eighth century bc. In 281 bc, an embassy from Tarentum was sent to request aid from Pyrrhus (c.318–272 bc), the King of Epirus, against Roman aggression (EB11, s.v. Pyrrhus).
2.7: Fabled by the daughters of memory
In Greek mythology, the daughters of memory are the nine muses, the daughters of the goddess Mnemosyne (Memory) and Zeus. This phrasing comes from William Blake’s (English poet and printmaker, 1757–1827) A Vision of the Last Judgment (1810): ‘Fable or Allegory are a totally distinct & inferior kind of Poetry. Vision or Imagination is a Representation of what Eternally Exists, Really & Unchangeably. Fable or allegory is Formed by the Daughters of Memory. Imagination is Surrounded by the daughters of Inspiration’ (Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 554). Previously, Joyce had used this passage from Blake in his 1902 lecture on James Clarence Mangan (Irish poet, 1804–49) to describe history as being fabled by the daughters of memory: ‘Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality. It speaks of what seems fantastic and unreal to those who have lost the simple intuitions which are the tests of reality; and, as it is often found at war with its age, so it makes no account of history, which is fabled by the daughters of memory, but sets store by every time less than the pulsation of an artery, the time in which its intuitions start forth, holding it equal in its period and value to six thousand years’ (OCPW, p. 59). Joyce’s distinction between history (which he listed as the art of this episode in both schemata) and poetry follows from Aristotle: ‘poetry is something more
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2. ‘Nestor’ 35
Map 2 Sandycove to Dalkey (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); Stephen’s path from the Tower to Summerfield
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36 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars’ (Poetics, 1451b8–10).
2.8–9: A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake’s wings of excess
Combines two of Blake’s ‘Proverbs of Hell’ from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–93): ‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom’ and ‘No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings’ (Complete Poetry and Prose, pp. 35–36).
2.9: ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry
After William Blake’s letter to William Hayley (6 May 1800): ‘every Mortal loss is an immortal gain. The ruins of Time build mansions in Eternity’ (quoted in Arthur Symons, William Blake, p. 11; Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 705).
2.12: Asculum
Asculum (modern Ascoli Picenum) lies 140 km north-east of Rome. In 279 bc, Pyrrhus defeated the Roman army at Asculum, but at so heavy a cost as to ultimately deny him victory in the war. His less than triumphant success led to the phrase ‘Pyrrhic victory’, a victory whose cost far exceeds its benefit (Brewer’s).
2.12: gorescarred
Gore: blood or dirt (OED); both senses are feasible here.
2.14: Another victory like that and we are done for
Plutarch (Greek essayist and biographer, c.ad 46–c.ad 120), in his life of Pyrrhus, records that after the battle of Asculum, ‘Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory, that one other such would utterly undo him’ (Lives, ‘Pyrrhus’, vol. 3, p. 29).
2.18: Armstrong
Ellmann identifies Armstrong as a composite of two different schoolchildren from the Clifton School (see note at 2.187), Cecil Wright and Clifford Ferguson (p. 153). According to the 1901 census, Clifford Ferguson (b. c.1889) lived on the Vico Road in Dalkey; his father Duncan was an accountant. Cecil Wright (b. c.1889) lived on Ulverton Road; his father William was a doctor.
2.18: What was the end of Pyrrhus?
After the battle of Asculum, Pyrrhus continued on as a warrior and empire builder. In 272 bc, Pyrrhus fought against Antigonus II of Macedon in Argos. During a night-time battle, Pyrrhus was hit on the head by a roof tile thrown down at him by an old woman who saw him fighting against her son. As Pyrrhus was knocked off his horse, one of Antigonus’s warriors decapitated him (Plutarch, Lives, ‘Pyrrhus’, vol. 3, pp. 46–47; EB11).
2.20: Comyn Unknown.
2.25: Vico road, Dalkey
Dalkey: an affluent coastal town about 13 km south-east of Dublin (Bennett). It lies about 1.5 km south of the Sandycove Martello Tower. Vico Road is a long, scenic road that follows the coast and lies just south of central Dalkey. Vico is pronounced veye-ko.
2.33: Kingstown pier See note at 1.84.
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2. ‘Nestor’ 37
2.43–44: A jester at the court of his master
In his 1909 article on Oscar Wilde, Joyce wrote: ‘Wilde entered that literary tradition of Irish comic playwrights that stretches from the days of Sheridan and Goldsmith to Bernard Shaw, and became, like them, court jester to the English’ (OCPW, p. 149).
2.48: Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam’s hand
Beldam: an old woman, especially in a derogatory sense, a loathsome old woman (OED); see note at 2.18 for how Pyrrhus was felled by a beldam. According to Pausanias (Greek geographer, c.110–c.180), Pyrrhus was the first Greek to battle with the Romans and his ultimate defeat effectively ‘prevented Athens from measuring her strength with Rome’ (Description of Greece, I.xi, p. 16).
2.48–49: Julius Caesar not been knifed to death
Julius Caesar (c.102–44 bc) was knifed to death by Brutus, Cassius, and a group of conspirators at the senate house in Rome on the ides of March, causing another civil war and leading to the final end of the Republic (EB11).
2.50–51: infinite possibilities they have ousted
According to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, of all the potential states that exist for any single future event, only one can become actual. Once this potential state is actualised, then the other potentials are no longer potential and thus are, as it were, ousted; see note at 2.67.
2.52–53: weave, weaver of the wind See note at 1.662.
2.57: Weep no more
Line 165 from John Milton’s (English poet, 1608–74) poem ‘Lycidas’ (1638), a pastoral elegy for Edward King (1612–37) who drowned in the Irish Sea. King’s father, Sir John King (d. 1637), was Secretary to the government of Ireland under Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I (ODNB). King and Milton were graduates of the same college at Cambridge. After he died, a group of King’s friends organised a volume of memorial verses in his honour. While Milton was probably not a close friend of King’s, he was invited to contribute a poem, which is con sidered pivotal in Milton’s career (J. Martin Evans, ‘Lycidas’, p. 39).
2.58: Talbot Unknown.
2.64–66: Weep no more . . . watery floor
Lines 165–67 from Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ (1638); see note at 2.57.
2.67: It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible
This comes from a note Joyce took in his early commonplace notebook, primarily compiled from 1903 to 1904. Joyce is translating into English a passage from J. Barthélemy-Saint- Hilaire’s French translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: ‘Movement is the actuality of the possible as possible’ (NLI I.ii f. 6v). Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire’s translation is not entirely accurate, and ‘possible’ is slightly misleading: ‘potential’ would be closer to Aristotle’s Greek (Fran O’Rourke, Allwisest Stagyrite, pp. 40–41). W. D. Ross’s translation of this passage: ‘Each kind of thing is divided into the potential and the fulfilled, I call the actuality of the potential as such, movement’ (1065b14–16).
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38 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
2.69: library of Saint Genevieve
The Bibliothèque (library) Sainte-Geneviève is at the Place du Panthéon in Paris. When he was in Paris in 1903, Joyce spent many evenings reading in this library (Ellmann, p. 120).
2.70: By his elbow
‘The long tables in the reading room were placed lengthwise and the students were sitting at them tightly packed’ (Paul van Caspel, ‘Light is the Light of Light’, p. 3).
2.70–71: delicate Siamese
Joyce met a student from Siam (Thailand) named Chown at the Bibliothèque Sainte- Geneviève. ‘[Chown] was studying manuals of military strategy in preparation for a polit ical career in the Far East’ (Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 207).
2.72: glowlamps
Glow-lamp: an incandescent lamp (OED, s.v. glow). In the first years of the twentieth century, the lights in the reading room of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève were gas lamps, not electric (Paul van Caspel, ‘Light is the Light of Light’, p. 3).
2.74: dragon scaly folds
From William Morris’s (English poet and social activist, 1834–96) Earthly Paradise, part 4 (February): ‘A dragon’s scaly folds across the waste’ (vol. 4; p. 308). In Stephen Hero, Stephen read Morris ‘as one would read a thesaurus and made a “garner” of words’ (p. 26; Harald Beck, JJON).
2.74: Thought is the thought of thought
From Aristotle’s Metaphysics: ‘it must be itself that thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking’ (1074b34). ‘Thought is the thought of thought’ is Joyce’s translation of Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire’s translation of the Metaphysics, as recorded in his early commonplace book (NLI I.ii f. 6v; Fran O’Rourke, Allwisest Stagyrite, pp. 42–43).
2.75: The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the form of forms
From Aristotle’s On the Soul: ‘the soul is in a certain way all existing things [. . .] as the hand is a tool of tools, so thought is the form of forms and sense the form of sensible things’ (431b21–432a1). In his notes from Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire’s translation of On the Soul in his early commonplace book, Joyce wrote: ‘The intellectual soul is the form of forms’; ‘The soul is in a manner all that is’ (NLI I.ii f. 2v; Fran O’Rourke, Allwisest Stagyrite, pp. 24–26).
2.78–79: Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves
Line 173 from Milton’s ‘Lycidas’; a reference to Jesus, who walks on water in three of the Gospels (Matt. 14:24–33, Mark 6:47–52, John 6:16–21).
2.86: To Caesar what is Caesar’s, to God what is God’s
When Jesus claims that tribute is due to God alone, the Pharisees hold out a Roman coin bearing Caesar’s image and ask: ‘Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?’ Jesus replies, ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God, the things that are God’s’ (Matthew 22:15–22; also Mark 12:17 and Luke 20:25).
2.88–89: Riddle me, riddle me, randy ro . . . to sow
This riddle has been printed as: ‘Riddle me, riddle me, randybow, / My father gave me seed to sow, / The seed was black and the ground was white. / Riddle me that and I’ll give you a pipe (or, pint). / Answer: Writing a letter’ (Archer Taylor, English Riddles from Oral Tradition, p. 439).
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2.92: Hockey
Although of English origin, ‘Hockey [in America, field hockey] was, and still is, a popular sport in many middle-class Dublin schools’ (Conal Hooper, ‘Sport in Ulysses’, p. 123).
2.102–07: The cock crew . . . heaven
In English as We Speak it in Ireland, P. W. Joyce includes a version of this as an example of a nonsense riddle, that is, a riddle that is not meant to be solved: ‘Riddle me, riddle me right: / What did I see last night? / The wind blew, / The cock crew, / The bells of heaven / Struck eleven. / ’Tis time for my poor sowl to go to heaven. / Answer: the fox burying his mother under a holly tree’ (PWJ, p. 187). P. W. Joyce notes the ‘delightful inconsequence of riddle and answer’ (p. 186).
2.121: lumberroom
Lumber-room: a room for storing unused articles (OED).
2.123: Sargent Unknown.
2.131: Mr Deasy
Garrett Deasy is partly based on Francis Irwin (b. c.1859), who was the headmaster of the Clifton School in Dalkey (see note at 2.187). Irwin was from Ulster (records are inconsistent as to whether he was from County Fermanagh or County Tyrone). He studied at Trinity, where he had an undistinguished career and did not graduate. He joined the Clifton School around 1900 (John Simpson, JJON). Elements of Deasy also derive from Henry N. Blackwood Price (see note at 2.334). The pronunciation of Deasy varies from Deeecy to Deazy (but never Daizy, which would be a stage Irish accent).
2.143: The only true thing in life?
In A Portrait, Cranly says to Stephen: ‘Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not’ (p. 241).
2.143–44: His mother’s prostrate body the fiery Columbanus . . . bestrode
Columbanus (Irish saint, 543–615) left his mother to follow his ministry on the Continent. The King of Burgundy invited him and other Irish monks to come to France and establish monasteries based on the Irish model (Catholic Encyclopedia). Joyce’s immediate source is Joseph McCabe’s (English Freethinker, 1867–1955) book The Religion of Woman: An Historical Study (1905): ‘St. Columban, accordingly, stepped over the prostrate form of his mother as she clung to the door-posts to keep him from the dreaded monastery’ (p. 66; Ronan Crowley and Geert Lernout, ‘Joseph McCabe in Ulysses’). Joyce used the epithet ‘fiery Columbanus’ in his essay ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’ (OCPW, p. 111).
2.154: the field
The area behind the Clifton School was not large enough to accommodate a full-size hockey pitch (100 x 50 yards, 92 x 46 metres). It is consistently described as a ‘field’, which ‘would suggest a make-shift playing area rather than a formal sports field’ (Conal Hooper, ‘Sport in Ulysses’, p. 124).
2.155: morrice
Morrice (or morris, from moorish): ‘A lively traditional English dance performed in formation by a group of dancers in a distinctive costume (usually wearing bells and ribbons and carrying handkerchiefs or sticks, to emphasize the rhythm and movement), often
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40 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses accompanied by a character who generally represents a symbolic or legendary figure (as the Fool, Hobby Horse, Maid Marian, etc.)’ (OED, s.vv. morris dance; morris).
2.157: imps of fancy of the Moors
That is, algebra, from the Arabic, al-jebr wa’l-muqabala. ‘The medieval Arabians invented our system of numeration and developed algebra’ (EB11, s.v. mathematics).
2.158: Averroes
Averroës (1126–98): Spanish-born Muslim philosopher. Averroës wrote commentaries on most of Aristotle’s works and these were of great influence during the Middle Ages. Aquinas’s work on Aristotle follows from Averroës (EB11).
2.158: Moses Maimonides
Moses Maimonides (1135–1204): Jewish philosopher and Talmudic scholar. Like Averroës, he tried to reconcile the teachings of Aristotle with his own religious faith. His most famous work is The Guide for the Perplexed (1190), which was written in Arabic (EB11, s.v. Maimon).
2.159: soul of the world
From the works of Giordano Bruno (Italian philosopher, 1548–1600). Bruno considers the anima del mundo (Italian, ‘soul of the world’) as the unifying principle underlying nature itself. From On Magic (1588): ‘the soul of the world, or the spirit of the universe, which connects and unites everything with everything else’ (‘Cause, Principle and Unity’ and ‘Essays on Magic’, p. 130). In 1903, Joyce wrote a review of J. Lewis MacIntyre’s book on Bruno for the Dublin Daily Express, in which he endorses MacIntyre’s claim that Bruno must be ‘considered the father of what is called modern philosophy’ (OCPW, p. 93). In A Portrait, Stephen argued with his Italian professor about Bruno: ‘He said Bruno was a terrible heretic. I said he was terribly burned’ (p. 249).
2.160: darkness shining in brightness which brightness . . . could not comprehend
Reverses John the Evangelist’s statement about Christ: ‘In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it’ (John 1:4–5).
2.165–66: Amor matris: subjective and objective genitive
Amor matris (Latin): ‘the love of the mother’; the phrase can mean either the love a mother has for her child (subjective genitive) or the love a child has for the mother (objective genitive). See also note at 2.143.
2.187: the schoolhouse
The Clifton School for boys, at Summerfield House, 63 Dalkey Avenue in Dalkey (Thom’s, p. 1674). The building is ‘a large, very rambling house’ (Robert Nicholson, The ‘Ulysses’ Guide, p. 26). The school was founded by Thomas Preston Walsh in 1893. Joyce briefly taught at the Clifton School at some point in 1904 (Ellmann, pp. 152–53), although the evidence for this is all indirect. Gogarty writes that, in connection with his stay at the Martello Tower, ‘Joyce had a job at an adjoining school’ (It Isn’t This Time of Year at All!, p. 69). Some records suggest that the school had moved to much smaller premises on Vico Road in early 1904, but it seems plausible that it remained at Summerfield House through the remainder of the year; in any case, Joyce’s description of the school matches Summerfield House and not the new location (John Simpson, JJON).
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2.190: Halliday Unknown.
2.200–01: As it was in the beginning, is now
The Gloria patri: ‘Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen’ (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 261).
2.201–02: Stuart coins, base treasure of a bog
Copper and brass coins minted in Ireland in the late 1680s by James II (1633–1701, r. 1685–88), a Stuart. The last Catholic monarch to rule Britain and Ireland, James was deposed by Protestants in 1688 and tried to make Ireland his new centre of power. He debased the currency by minting coins from ‘base metals’ (R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 146). Ireland’s bogs naturally preserve matter (see note at 1.413). Over the years, many ancient artefacts have been discovered in bogs, including hoards of old coins (Joe Fenwick, Lost and Found, p. 132). In Irish, these coins are called uim bog (soft copper and thus worthless money), which has been speculated to be the source of the English word humbug (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas, Mr Deasy, and the Nightmare of Partition in Ulysses’, p. 321 n. 99).
2.202: and ever shall be See note at 2.200–01.
2.202: snug in their spooncase
Apostle spoons: ‘Old-fashioned silver spoons, the handles of which end in figures of the Apostles. They were the usual present of sponsors at baptisms’ (OED).
2.203: having preached to all the gentiles
Although Jesus initially admonished his apostles to not preach to the gentiles (Matthew 10:5–6), Peter received a vision, while in the house of Cornelius the gentile, to preach to the gentiles: ‘While Peter was yet speaking these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word. And the faithful of the circumcision, who came with Peter, were astonished, for that the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Gentiles also’ (Acts 10:44–45).
2.213: whelks
Whelk: ‘A marine gastropod mollusc of the genus Buccinum, having a turbinate shell’ (OED).
2.214: cowries
Cowry: a gastropod mollusc. Its shells are used as money in parts of Africa, South East Asia, and the Pacific (OED). Specifically, the cowry, or cypraea moneta, was used as the currency of the African slave trade because of its various attributes: ‘long-lasting, durable, easy to handle, portable, hard to counterfeit, right unit value for market needs, adequate constraints on supply, and little leakage into other uses’ (Jan Hogendorn and Marion Johnson, The Shell Money of the Slave Trade, p. 7; Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas’, p. 321).
2.214: leopard shells
Leopard shell: a shell with black spots (OED). The leopard shell, or conus leopardus, was also used as currency in the slave trade (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas’, p. 321).
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42 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
2.215: scallop of Saint James
Scallop shells are associated with pilgrimage and specifically with pilgrims who visit the shrine of St James the Greater in Compostela, Spain (EB11, s.v. pilgrim).
2.226–27: Symbols too of beauty and of power Shell: money (OED).
2.234: Three nooses round me here
Recalls Stephen’s remark to Davin in A Portrait: ‘When the soul is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets’ (p. 203). There are three nooses because this is Stephen’s third paycheck.
2.238: If youth but knew
An English proverb advocating parsimony: ‘If youth but knew what age would crave, it would both get and save’ (ODEP).
2.239: Put but money in thy purse
In Othello, Iago implores Roderigo to ‘put but money in thy purse’ (I.iii.347).
2.242: He made money
Shakespeare was indeed quite wealthy, thanks to both his theatrical activities in London and his business interests in Stratford. ‘His firm determination to work his way up in the world, combined with the Englishman’s inborn practicality, made him an excellent man of business; and he soon develops such a decided talent for finance as only two other great national writers, probably, have ever possessed—to wit, Holberg and Voltaire’ (Georg Brandes, William Shakespeare: A Critical Study, p. 152). See also note at 9.623–24.
2.246–47: it seems history is to blame Haines’s line in ‘Telemachus’ (1.649).
2.248–49: That on his empire . . . A French Celt said that
Similar phrases have been used to describe the vastness of various empires. The first to express this sentiment apropos the British empire was George Macartney (British diplomat and statesman, 1737–1806) in 1773: ‘this vast empire on which the sun never sets and whose bounds nature has not yet ascertained’ (quoted by Thomas Bartlett, ‘Ireland, Empire, and Union’, p. 72). Stephen’s phrasing is very close to Macartney’s. But, since Macartney was not a French Celt, Deasy is probably referring to the London-based journalist and humourist Max O’Rell (pen-name of Léon Paul Blouët, 1847–1903), who was originally from Brittany and thus was a French Celt. From his book Jonathan and His Continent (1889): ‘An Englishman was one day boasting to a French man of the immensity of the British Empire. “Yes, sir”, he exclaimed to finish up with, “the sun never sets on the English possessions”. “I am not surprised at that”, replied the Frenchman; “the sun is obliged to keep an eye on the rascals” ’ (p. 1; Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas’, pp. 300–02).
2.255: Mulligan, nine pounds
Mulligan refuses to submit to the pretence of lending to Stephen in guineas; see 1.290 and note at 1.155.
2.255: brogues
Brogue: a stout shoe, from the Irish bróg, a handmade shoe with thong stitches (Dolan).
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2.256: Curran
Constantine P. Curran (1883–1972): Joyce’s friend from university and for the remainder of his life. He was a successful lawyer and the author of James Joyce Remembered (1968). In 1904, he lent money to Joyce on several occasions ‘with uncomplaining generosity’ (Ellmann, p. 162). ‘Curran was called to the Bar but never practised and worked instead in the Accountant General’s Office in the Four Courts. From 1946 to 1952 he was registrar of the Supreme Court’ (Igoe, p. 72).
2.256: McCann
McCann was based on Francis Sheehy-Skeffington (1876–1916), a friend of Joyce’s from university. He features in chapter 5 of A Portrait, where his name is spelt MacCann (the inconsistency of spelling is Joyce’s; see also note at 4.108). He was born Francis Skeffington; when he married Hanna Sheehy (1877–1946) in 1903 they both adopted each other’s surnames to become Sheehy-Skeffington. In 1901, he wrote an article for St Stephen’s—his college journal— advocating the equal treatment of women at the university. This was rejected for publication as was Joyce’s contribution, the essay ‘The Day of the Rabblement’. They then published both essays in a booklet at their own expense (Ellmann, pp. 88–89). Sheehy-Skeffington was executed on 26 April 1916 for suspected involvement in that year’s Easter Rising; he was arrested on his way home after having tried to stop the looting in the city (DIB).
2.256: Fred Ryan
Fred Ryan (1876–1913): Irish journalist, playwright, economist, co- editor (with John Eglinton, pseudonym of W. K. Magee) of Dana, a magazine begun in 1904 (see note at 9.322). With Frank Fay he was a founder of the Irish National Theatre (Igoe, p. 268).
2.257: Temple
The hot- headed anarchist in chapter 5 of A Portrait. He is based on John Elwood (1881–1934), a medical student and later a practising physician in his home town of Carrowbehy in County Roscommon (Igoe, p. 290).
2.257: Russell
George William Russell (1867–1935), known by his pseudonym A.E.: a prominent and import ant figure in the Irish Revival. He was deeply involved in mysticism and Theosophy (see note at 7.783); he also worked as a poet, editor, political activist, and economist (DIB). In 1903, Russell encouraged Joyce to submit some of his short stories to the Irish Homestead, a news paper devoted to agricultural issues and with which he was involved (he became its editor in 1905). In total, the Homestead published three stories that would later be collected into Dubliners (Ellmann, pp. 163–64).
2.257: Cousins
James H. Cousins (1873–1956): poet and member of the Irish National Literary Society. A Dublin acquaintance of Joyce’s, with whom he lived briefly in 1904 (Ellmann, p. 178).
2.258: Reynolds
Robert Reynolds (1878–1959): a bicyclist friend of Oliver St John Gogarty (Ulick O’Connor, Oliver St John Gogarty, pp. 26, 42; Igoe, p. 257).
2.258: Koehler
Thomas Goodwin Keohler (1873–1942): Irish poet and journalist. A collection of his poems, Songs of a Devotee, was published in 1906. He refused a loan to Joyce (Ellmann, p. 164).
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44 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Joyce misspelt his name as ‘Koehler’. In 1914, he simplified the spelling of his surname to Keller (Eamonn Finn and John Simpson, JJON).
2.258: Mrs MacKernan
Elizabeth McKernan (née Darragh, 1867–1923): Joyce’s landlady from late March to 31 August 1904 (Ellmann, p. 151; Igoe, p. 188). She lived at 60 Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge (Thom’s, p. 1592). Joyce misspelt her name as MacKernan.
2.262–63: We are a generous people but we must also be just
After the proverb ‘Be just before you are generous’, which was already considered old when it was used in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s (English dramatist, 1751–1816) play The School For Scandal: ‘ROWLEY: Ah! there’s the point! I never will cease dunning you with the old proverb. CHARLES: Be just before you are generous’ (p. 255; Dent).
2.264: I fear those big words
Joyce recycles a phrase he had used in his 1902 review of William Rooney’s (Irish nationalist, journalist, and poet, 1873–1901) Poems and Ballads: ‘And yet he might have written well if he had not suffered from one of those big words which make us so unhappy’ (OCPW, p. 62). Arthur Griffith was so annoyed at Joyce’s review that he sarcastically quoted much of it in an advertisement for Rooney’s book. In the quotation he interpolated ‘patriotism’ as the ‘big word’ (Ellmann, p. 112; United Irishman, 20 Dec. 1902).
2.266: fillibegs
Filibeg: a kilt, from the Irish filleadh beag, which literally means ‘little fold’ (OED).
2.266–67: Albert Edward, prince of Wales
King Edward VII (1841–1910, r. 1901–10): Queen Victoria’s eldest son and heir upon her death in 1901 and thus King in 1904. As Prince of Wales, he was known as Albert Edward (ODNB). There are several photographic portraits of Prince Albert Edward in highland attire; this might be ‘The Prince of Wales in Highland Costume’ by W. and D. Downey, c.1886 (with thanks to Fritz Senn).
2.268: old fogey
Old fogey: ‘A person who is behind the times, who holds antiquated views’ (OED).
2.268: tory
Tory: a conservative, pro-English loyalist. The word derives from the Irish tóraidhe (pursuer). ‘In some Irish Dictionaries, the meaning is given as “a pursued or persecuted person”, hence an “outlaw”, which is not without historical suitability.’ In the seventeenth century, the word tory was used to name ‘the dispossessed Irish, who became outlaws, subsisting by plundering and killing the English settlers and soldiers [. . .] later, often applied to any Irish Papist or Royalist in arms’. The word was subsequently applied (and thus recontextualised) to ‘those who opposed the exclusion of James, Duke of York (a Roman Catholic) from the succession to the Crown’ and this led to the word being used as the nickname for the Conservative Party since that party initially consisted of anti-exclusionists (OED).
2.269: O’Connell’s time
Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847): Irish Catholic political leader. He succeeded in getting Parliament to pass the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829), which repealed many of the Penal Laws, the official discriminations Irish Catholics had suffered since the seventeenth century and which had restricted their rights in all possible spheres of life. For this, he earned the title
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2. ‘Nestor’ 45 ‘the Liberator’. He then won a seat in the Parliament and worked, unsuccessfully, to repeal the Act of Union (see note at 2.270). ‘It is probably fair to say that no other Irish political figure of the nineteenth or early twentieth century (indeed no other Irish figure in any sphere of life) enjoyed such an international reputation as did O’Connell throughout his later public career’ (DIB).
2.269: famine
Starting in 1845, peaking in 1846–47, and lasting for the rest of the 1840s, a fungal disease (phytophthora infestans) decimated the potato crop in Ireland; the potato being the sole staple food for the majority of the Irish people, especially the rural poor in the west. Although the British government’s response in 1845 was initially beneficial (NHI, vol. 5, pp. 276–77), in 1846 the new administration of Lord John Russell (1792–1878, Prime Minister 1846–52, 1865–66) imposed a policy of ‘non-intervention and general passivity’ (p. 299), which aggravated the already dire devastation. Through widespread starvation, disease, and emigration, the population of Ireland decreased dramatically: about one million p eople died as a direct result of the blight and about another million emigrated. The census of 1841 counted 8.2 million people, but by 1851, there were 6.5 million, and by 1911, 4.4 million (R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 323).
2.270: orange lodges
The Orange Order is a Protestant political organisation that was founded in 1795 as a direct consequence of the battle at the Diamond Lodge (see note at 2.273–74). The movement spread rapidly throughout the north, and its main purpose was to keep Ireland under Protestant control. The name derives from William of Orange, the Protestant who succeeded the Catholic James II as King of England. To maintain secrecy, the members joined local lodges. ‘The Orange Order became a significant element in Irish politics, helping with the brutal suppression of the rebellion of 1798 (when there were 470 lodges), but eventually became such an embarrassment to the British authorities that it was suppressed in 1825. It was soon revived with strong support from the Duke of Cumberland, William IV’s brother [. . .] but it dissolved itself in 1836 [. . .] It reappeared in 1845, and greatly increased its membership at the time of the Home Rule agitation of the 1880s’ (Brewer’s Irish).
2.270: repeal of the union
From 1782 to 1799, the Irish parliament had a limited degree of independence from the British parliament (NHI, vol. 4, pp. 267–68). However, the Irish parliament exclusively consisted of Protestants, who were in the minority. Catholic resentment at Protestant control, coupled with a revolutionary fervour inspired by the French Revolution, led to the uprisings of 1798 (pp. 353–62). The rebellion was easily crushed, but the fact that it happened at all was a cause of anxiety for the British. Their solution was the Act of Union in 1800, which established Ireland and Great Britain as a single kingdom, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with Ireland completely subject to the laws of the British parliament. In order to pass the Act, the Irish parliament was forced to vote for its own dismissal, which it did once a sufficient number of its members had been bribed. The Act officially took effect on 1 January 1801 (pp. 362–69). Repeal of the Act of Union then became the leading goal of the full range of Irish patriots; ‘even the Orange order showed great hostility’ to it at the time of its signing because of fears that political union would com promise the modest political autonomy previously enjoyed by the Protestant upper classes (Edmund Curtis, A History of Ireland, p. 349), although, shortly after the Act had passed, the Orange Order became virulently pro-Union.
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2.271–72: prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue
Irish Catholic bishops were enthusiastic supporters of Daniel O’Connell’s drive for Catholic Emancipation. However, because of his liberalism and his advocacy of a secular state, they were less willing to offer their assistance in his campaign to repeal the Act of Union (Denis Gwynn, Daniel O’Connell, p. 83). However, it is an exaggeration to claim he was ‘denounced’ by the Catholic Church (Bernard Share, Slanguage, pp. 23–24).
2.272: You fenians
The Fenian Society (formally known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or IRB) was a secret organisation that aimed to establish Ireland as an independent democratic and secular republic. They believed that Irish independence could only be achieved through terrorism and violence instead of through constitutional means. They were founded by James Stephens (1825–1901) on St Patrick’s Day, 17 March 1858, and were at their most active in the 1860s (Robert Kee, The Green Flag, pp. 308–10). By the 1870s, their influence began to wane precipitously as more moderate campaigns of reform came to prominence (NHI, vol. 5, p. lxi). By 1904, the original Fenians were a spent force (see note at 12.480). Deasy is using the term in a more general sense and is applying it to any Irish Catholic who advocates independence. The name derives from the Fianna, who accompanied the mythical Irish hero Finn MacCool (see note at 12.910).
2.273: Glorious, pious and immortal memory
A Protestant toast to William of Orange (William III, 1650–1702, r. 1689–1702). The Protestant William defeated the deposed Catholic James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, thereby ensuring continued Protestant control over Ireland. The complete toast is: ‘To the glorious, pious and immortal memory of the Great and Good King William III, who saved us from popery, slavery, arbitrary power, brass money and wooden shoes’ (D. A. Chart, The Story of Dublin, p. 264).
2.273–74: The lodge of Diamond . . . behung with corpses of papishes
In the early 1790s, the Protestants began a campaign of driving all Catholics out of Armagh. In turn, the Catholic tenants formed a resistance league, known as the Defenders, who engaged in acts of agrarian violence. Some twenty or more Defenders were massacred at one of their meetings in the Diamond Lodge in Armagh on 21 September 1795 (NHI, vol. 4, p. 347). Papish: Papist, i.e. Catholic (OED). The phrase ‘Armagh the Splendid’ comes from line 13 of James Clarence Mangan’s (Irish poet, 1803–49) translation of ‘Prince Aldfrith’s Itinerary through Ireland’, an Irish poem attributed to Aldfrith, King of Northumbria (685–c.704), who was educated in Ireland (Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 105).
2.275: planters’ covenant
The plantation system began in Ireland in 1557 under the reign of Mary I (1516–58, r. 1553–58) and Elizabeth I (1533–1603, r. 1558–1603). Land was forfeited from the Irish Catholics and given over to the English and Scottish Protestant settlers, known as Planters, to control in a quasi-feudal manner. Plantation further intensified under the reign of James I (1566–1625, r. 1603–25) and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell (1653–58). In 1639, the Planters were forced to take the ‘Black Oath’, a covenant of loyalty to the King accepting him as the head of their church (NHI, vol. 3, p. 268). Plantation was most heavily employed in Ulster. The phrase ‘planters’ covenant’ suggests the Solemn League and Covenant of 1912, in which Ulster Unionists pledged resistance to Home Rule (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas’, p. 310; NHI, vol. 6, p. 135).
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2.275: The black north and true blue bible
True blue: a term ‘specifically applied to the Scottish Presbyterian or Whig party in the 17th c. (the Covenanters having adopted blue as their colour in contradistinction to the royal red)’ (OED, s.v. blue). Much of the population of Ulster is Scottish Presbyterian. Black: in Ireland, a pejorative reference to Protestants and Presbyterians, whose population is concentrated in the north of the island (Bernard Share, Slanguage, pp. 23–24).
2.276: Croppies lie down
Croppy: ‘One who has his hair cropped short; applied esp. to the Irish rebels of 1798, who wore their hair cut very short as a sign of sympathy with the French Revolution’ (OED). The term was widely used to name the rebels of 1798. Many of the executed rebels are buried in a mass grave on the grounds of Royal Barracks (now the Collins Barracks), a principal stronghold of British power since the eighteenth century, in an area dubbed the ‘Croppies’ Acre’ (Brewer’s Irish, s.vv. Croppy; Rebellion of 1798; Croppies’ Acre). ‘Croppies Lie Down’ is a brutal and vitriolic Orange ballad that exists in many forms that date from between 1798 and 1824 (Robert Kee, The Green Flag, pp. 98–99).
2.278: On the spindle side
That is, on the female line of descent (OED).
2.279 sir John Blackwood who voted for the union
Sir John Blackwood (1722–99): a member of the Irish parliament for, variously, Killeigh and Bangor. Deasy is doubly incorrect: Blackwood was actually anti-Union but died on 27 February 1799 before he could cast his vote against the Act of Union (DIB). On the Rosenbach Manuscript, Joyce had Deasy provide a more nearly accurate historical account: ‘I have rebel blood in me too [. . .] I am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted against the union’ (f. 11). When Henry Blackwood Price tried to enlist Joyce to his cause against foot and mouth disease (see notes at 2.321–22 and 2.334), he wrote: ‘Be energetic. Drop your lethargy. Forget Leinster for Ulster. Remember that Sir John Blackwood died in the act of putting on his topboots in order to go to Dublin to vote against the Union’ (Ellmann, pp. 325–26).
2.279–80: We are all Irish, all kings’ sons
George Bernard Shaw’s (Irish playwright and critic, 1856–1950) John Bull’s Other Island (1904) has a similar remark: ‘You’re all descended from the ancient kings: I know that’ (p. 29); as does the story ‘Mosquitos’ (1855) by Llwyvein: ‘all descended from Irish kings’ (p. 375). Before the arrival of the Anglo-Normans (see notes at 2.393 and 14.582–83), ancient Ireland was divided into many petty kingdoms, and so many subsequent Irishmen might plausibly claim a royal ancestor. However, the Deasys would be an exception. The Irish surname Déisi (whence Deasy is derived) was specifically associated with the subject p eoples who pay ‘vassal tribute’ (deisis) to their rulers (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas’, pp. 303–04).
2.282: Per vias rectas
The motto of the Blackwoods of County Down—whom Deasy claims as his ancestors—is Per vias rectas: Latin, through straight roads (Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland, p. 83). This is also the motto of Belvedere College (see note at 10.20–21), which Joyce attended (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas’, p. 316 n. 88).
2.283: topboots
Top-boot: a ‘high boot having a top of white, light-coloured, or brown leather’ (OED).
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48 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
2.283: Ards of Down
The Ards: a narrow and hilly peninsula in Down, one of the counties in Ulster. It is very close to Belfast, the stronghold of the Orange Order. Ard (Irish and Hiberno-English): high (Dolan).
2.284–85: Lal the ral the ra . . . Dublin
From the ballad ‘The Rocky Road to Dublin’ by D. K. Gavan and M. Hobson (John Diprose, Diprose’s New Sixpenny Comic Song Book for 1865, pp. 185–87). The song tells of the adventures of a young Catholic peasant from Connacht who travels to Liverpool via Dublin (Bauerle, pp. 214–16).
2.286: Soft day, sir John
Soft day: ‘a wet day. (A usual salute.)’ (PWJ, p. 331).
2.300: images of vanished horses
In Ireland, at the turn of the twentieth century, horse racing transcended class barriers. ‘At the racecourse, and following its fortunes elsewhere, can be found town and country dwellers, artisans and members of the professions, clergymen and criminals, landlords and tenants, united as one in an almost primeval relationship with the horse’ (Conal Hooper, ‘Sport in Ulysses’, p. 128).
2.301: lord Hastings’ Repulse
Henry Weysford Rawdon- Hastings (1842–68), Marquess of Hastings, owned the filly Repulse, which won the One Thousand Guineas race in Newmarket, England, in 1866. Repulse was a mediocre horse and never won again (Henry Blyth, The Pocket Venus, p. 175).
2.301–02: the duke of Westminster’s Shotover
Hugh Lupus Grosvenor (1825–99), the 1st Duke of Westminster, owned the filly Shotover, which won the Two Thousand Guineas (another Newmarket race) and the Derby race at Epsom Downs in 1882 (The Annual Register, Part II, p. 19).
2.302–03: the duke of Beaufort’s Ceylon, prix de Paris, 1866
Ceylon, owned by Henry Charles Fitzroy Somerset (1824–99), 8th Duke of Beaufort, won the Prix de Paris (the Paris prize, the most prestigious event in the horse-racing season) in 1866 (EB11, s.v. Horse-Racing). In a different sense, Helen of Troy is the ‘prix de Paris’ (see note at 2.391).
2.307: Where Cranly led me to get rich quick
In chapter 5 of A Portrait, Cranly is not present to answer to his name called by the professor, and one of the students wryly suggests the professor should ‘Try Leopardstown’ (p. 191), that is, the racetrack south of Dublin (see note at 15.543).
2.308: mudsplashed brakes
Brake (also spelt break): a large four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage, either open or with a removable cover (OED, s.vv. break; wagonette).
2.309–10: Fair Rebel! Fair Rebel! Even money the favourite: ten to one the field
Fair Rebel won the Curragh Plate on 4 June 1902. The Curragh Racetrack is in County Kildare. The odds on Fair Rebel, the favourite, were even. The purse was 50 sovereigns (Irish Times, 5 June 1902, p. 3, col. e). In horse racing, ‘the field’ is all the horses aside from the favourite (OED).
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2. ‘Nestor’ 49
2.310: Dicers and thimbleriggers
Dicer: a gambler. Thimbleriggers: con artists who run a game played with three thimbles and a pea. Sometimes this con is called ‘the shell game’ (both OED).
2.312: clove of orange
Clove: ‘A natural division or segment of a fruit’ (OED).
2.313: playfield
See note at 2.154.
2.314–15: battling bodies in a medley
Medley: ‘Combat, conflict; fighting, esp. hand-to-hand fighting between two groups of combatants. Also: an instance of this; a war, battle; a tournament; a quarrel’ (OED).
2.316: crawsick
To be crawsick: to be ‘ill in the morning after a drunken bout’ (PWJ, p. 241).
2.321–22: foot and mouth disease
Properly known as aphthous fever, a viral disease that attacks not only cattle, but other livestock and humans. In 1904, there was no good cure for the disease (EB11). There was no epidemic of the disease in Ireland in 1904, but there was an outbreak in 1912, the year Henry Blackwood Price (see note at 2.334) approached Joyce to write an editorial on the matter (Ellmann, pp. 325–27). For many years, it was assumed that an editorial entitled ‘Politics and Cattle Disease’, published in the Freeman’s Journal on 10 September 1912 (p. 7, col. a), was written by Joyce, at Blackwood Price’s request. This appears in Occasional, Critical, and Political Writing, where it is attributed to Joyce (pp. 206–08). Terence Matthews has since convincingly proven that Joyce did not write this particular editorial (‘An Emendation to the Joycean Canon: The Last Hurrah for “Politics and Cattle Disease”’). However, it does seem possible that Joyce did write an earlier, shorter piece for the Freeman’s Journal (6 Sep. 1912, p. 6, col. f): this article is very close to Deasy’s letter in content, but not in tone (Terence Killeen, JJON).
2.325–26: The way of all our old industries
At the time of the Act of Union in 1801, Irish industrial output was proportionately not far removed from English output. However, while English output over the next 50 years quadrupled, Irish output overall remained mostly stagnant. A major cause for this disparity is that Ireland did not much benefit from the continued gains of the Industrial Revolution. However, not all industries suffered equally and the north fared comparatively well (Cormac Ó Gráda, Ireland: A New Economic History, pp. 309–13).
2.326: Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme
To jockey: ‘to cheat or do out of ’ (OED). In the late 1850s, the Galway business community attempted to establish a major transatlantic port in Galway harbour, on Ireland’s western coast. Right from the start, the Atlantic Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company (known as the Galway Line) was beset by problems. On 16 June 1858, a ship called the Indian Empire— making the first trip for the Line—ran aground on the Santa MargueritaRock in Galway Bay, the only obstacle in a harbour 14 km wide. ‘The Galway Mercury (19 June 1858) was convinced that the pilots were bribed by “. . . certain Liverpool interests” to deliberately put the ship on the rocks’ (Timothy Collins, Transatlantic Triumph and Heroic Failure, p. 33).
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50 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses The Galway Line was never really successful and ceased operations in 1864. Although it faced competition from the Cunard and Inman Lines, which operated out of Liverpool, its failure resulted from an ‘over-ambitious and ultimately incompetent management’ (p. 10).
2.327–28: European conflagration. Grain supplies . . . channel
In his 1912 essay ‘The Mirage of the Fisherman of Aran’, Joyce discusses an anonymous booklet, published that year and entitled Galway as a Transatlantic Port, that advocated for the revival of Galway’s harbour: ‘The writer makes a warm appeal to the British admiralty, to the railway societies, to the Chambers of Commerce, to the Irish population. The new port would be a safety valve for England in case of war. From Canada, the granary and warehouse of the United Kingdom, great cargos of grain would enter the Irish port, thus avoiding the dangers of navigation in Saint George’s Channel and the enemy fleets’ (OCPW, p. 203; see also pp. 342–43).
2.328: pluterperfect imperturbability
Pluterperfect: ‘utterly perfect; quintessential’ (OED); the OED’s earliest example is from 1908.
2.329: Cassandra
The daughter of Priam, the King of Troy. She spurned Apollo’s love, so he gave her the gift of prophecy with an attendant curse that no one ever would believe or heed her warnings, one of which foretold the fall of Troy (Brewer’s).
2.329–30: a woman who was no better than she should be
That is, Helen of Troy (see note at 2.391). This phrase is proverbial and is used in Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation: ‘I’m told for certain, she’s no better than she should be’ (p. 122). In his Dictionary, Samuel Johnson defines this phrase as being ‘of slight contempt or irony’ (s.v. should).
2.332: Koch’s preparation
In 1882, Robert Koch (German bacteriologist, 1843–1910) developed an inoculation against anthrax, which attacks sheep, horses, and other livestock as well as humans. At the beginning of the 1900s, his assistants attempted to formulate an inoculation against foot and mouth disease, but they were not entirely successful (EB11, s.v. Robert Koch).
2.332–33: Serum and virus
At the time, these were new methods for developing antitoxins to diseases. Blood serum is taken from an animal that has been inoculated with the virus and then used to immunise humans who, exposed to a weakened dosage of the virus, develop antibodies to combat it and thus form an immunity (EB11, s.v. Pharmacology).
2.333: salted horses
Salted: ‘transitive. To render (an animal) immune by inoculation; intransitive of an animal: to become immune by suffering a disease’ (OED, s.v. salt).
2.333: Rinderpest
Rinderpest: ‘A highly contagious and virulent disease affecting cattle and other ruminants, caused by a morbillivirus and characterized by fever, erosive inflammation of the mouth and gastrointestinal tract, and diarrhoea; also called cattle plague’ (OED).
2.333–34: Emperor’s horses at Mürzsteg, lower Austria
H. N. Blackwood Price (see the following note) writes: ‘Herr E. Boehme [. . .] is now looking after some cases of foot and mouth disease near the Emperor’s shooting lodge at Mürzsteg’ (quoted in Ellmann, p. 327).
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2. ‘Nestor’ 51
2.334: Mr Henry Blackwood Price
Within the reading of Deasy’s letter, Joyce includes the name of the man who actually put him up to the task of propagandising on foot and mouth disease (see note at 2.321–22 and Ellmann, pp. 325–27). Henry Nicholas Blackwood Price (d. 1921) was from Downpatrick in County Down and he was living in Trieste at the same time as Joyce. He worked as the Assistant Manager of the Eastern Telegraph Company. He was also descended from Sir John Blackwood, whom Deasy claims as his own ancestor (see note at 2.279).
2.336–37: Thanking you for the hospitality of your columns
A commonplace, if overly formal phrase used in letters written for magazines or news papers; for example, from a letter by George C. Williamson to The Athenæum: ‘I shall be greatly obliged if you will allow me the hospitality of your columns to announce that I have in preparation a memoir of Lady Anne Clifford’ (20 Nov. 1915, p. 368).
2.346–47: England is in the hands of the jews See note at 1.666–67 and the following note.
2.350–51: Old England is dying
Possibly from the introduction to Thomas Carlyle’s (Scottish philosopher and historian, 1795–1881) Past and Present (1843): ‘England is full of wealth, or multifarious produce, supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying of inanition’ (p. 1). One of the causes of this attrition that Carlyle identifies is the usury of the Jews: ‘every fresh Jew sticking on him like a fresh horseleech, sucking his and our life out; crying continually, Give, give!’ (p. 61).
2.355–56: The harlot’s cry from street to street . . . windingsheet
From William Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’ (c.1804), ll. 115–16 (Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 495).
2.359: A merchant . . . is one who buys cheap and sells dear
Proverbial; ODEP lists its earliest occurrence as being from Thomas Lodge’s (English phys ician and writer, c.1556–1625) 1595 satire A Fig for Momus: ‘Buy cheape, sell deare’ (iii.59).
2.361: They sinned against the light
That is, they sinned against Jesus. John the Baptist ‘was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world’ (John 1:8–9).
2.362: wanderers on the earth
The Jews are called wanderers in part because of the various captivities they have endured. After the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews fled throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia in what is called the Diaspora. More specifically, Deasy’s phrase alludes to the non-biblical Christian story of the Wandering Jew, of which many versions exist. The Wandering Jew, frequently named Ahasuerus, mocked and taunted Christ when he was weighted down by the Cross on the way to Calvary. As punishment, he was condemned to wander the earth until Judgement Day (Brewer’s, s.v. Wandering Jew).
2.364: Paris stock exchange
The Paris stock exchange, or Bourse de commerce, is in central Paris, near the (former) markets at Les Halles. ‘The Bourse, built in imitation of an ancient temple, dates from the first half of the 19th century [. . .] [It] is a centre for transactions in alcohol, wheat, rye and oats, flour, oil and sugar’ (EB11, s.v. Paris).
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52 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
2.365–66: They swarmed loud, uncouth about the temple
From the account of Jesus turning over the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple of Jerusalem: ‘And they came to Jerusalem. And when he was entered into the temple, he began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the chairs of them that sold doves. [. . .] And he taught, saying to them: Is it not written, My house shall be called the house of prayer to all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves’ (Mark 11:15–17; see also Matthew 21:12–13, Luke 19:45–46, John 2:13–16).
2.377: History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake
A possible antecedent for this line is from Karl Marx’s (German philosopher, 1818–83) The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852): ‘The tradition of all the dead gener ations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living’ (p. 15). Another possible antecedent is from Jules Laforgue’s (French poet and writer, 1860–87) ‘Lettres à Mme.?’: ‘History is a garish old nightmare that doesn’t suspect that the best jokes are the most curt’ (Œuvres complètes, vol. 3, p. 279; Robert Spoo, ‘Jules Laforgue and the Nightmare of Stephen Dedalus’).
2.380–81: All human history moves towards . . . the manifestation of God
Follows indirectly from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s (German philosopher, 1770–1831) notion of human history as always moving towards the manifestation of Spirit or Mind: ‘world history is the necessary development, out of the concept of mind’s freedom alone, of the moments of reason and so of the self-consciousness and freedom of mind’ (Philosophy of Right, §342, p. 216).
2.386: A shout in the street
A possible antecedent for this line is biblical: ‘Wisdom preacheth abroad, she uttereth her voice in the streets [. . .] saying: O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge?’ (Proverbs 1:20–22). This is echoed in 1 Henry IV: ‘Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it’ (I.ii.86).
2.390: A woman brought sin into the world
A widely used phrase about Eve’s transgression in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1–6); for example, from Sarah Moore Grimke and Mary S. Parker, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes (1838): ‘I am one of those who always admit, to its fullest extent, the popular charge, that woman brought sin into the world’ (p. 115; with thanks to Harald Beck).
2.391: Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus
According to Greek mythology, at the marriage of Thetis and Peleus, the Goddess Eris (Discord), upset at not having been invited, threw down an apple and said it was intended for ‘the most beautiful’. Unsurprisingly, there were multiple claimants, Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena. The Trojan prince Paris acted as referee and gave the apple to Aphrodite. In return, Aphrodite gave Paris Helen—the wife of Menelaus, a Spartan king—as a reward. After Helen was abducted by Paris, Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon assembled troops to attack Troy. Helen is thus typically blamed for causing the Trojan war, which lasted for ten years (Brewer’s, s.vv. Apple of Discord; Helen; Trojan War).
2.392: the strangers See note at 1.661.
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2. ‘Nestor’ 53
2.393: MacMurrough’s wife and her leman, O’Rourke, prince of Breffni
Leman: ‘A person beloved by one of the opposite sex; a lover or sweetheart; occasionally a husband or wife’ (OED). Deasy’s account confuses the husband with the alleged lover, but otherwise he recapitulates the traditional simplification of the story of the first English incursion into Ireland. In 1152, amidst a series of feuds and shifting alliances between various Irish kings, Dervorgilla (Derbforgaill Ni Máel Sechlainn, 1108–93)—the wife of Tiernan O’Rourke, Prince of Breffni (Tigernán Ua Ruairc, c.1124–72)—was for cibly kidnapped by Diarmuid MacMurrough, King of Leinster (Diarmait Mac Murchada, c.1110–71). She was returned to her husband the following year. In 1167, O’Rourke insisted that Roderick O’Conor (Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, c.1116–98), the High King of Ireland, exact compensation on his behalf from MacMurrough. Since MacMurrough was challenging O’Conor for the High Kingship, O’Conor agreed. O’Conor’s and O’Rourke’s forces subsequently invaded Leinster. Defeated, MacMurrough escaped to England where he sought help from King Henry II (1133–89, r. 1154–89), who allowed a mercenary army of Norman, Welsh, and Flemish soldiers to travel to Ireland in 1169 under Robert Fitz Stephen. This army included Richard de Clare (1130–76), 2nd Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow. This expeditionary force invaded Ireland in 1169, and this, compounded by the arrival of Henry II in 1171 (see note at 14.582–83), made O’Conor’s pos ition as High King increasingly untenable. Concerned that such lords as Strongbow would establish a rival Norman state in the Gaelic territory they conquered, Henry II claimed the lordship of Ireland, while O’Conor finally abdicated in 1183 (NHI, vol. 1, pp. 921–33; vol. 2, pp. 13–28, 66–76). According to the (simplified and inaccurate) version to which Deasy makes reference, Dervorgilla willingly left her husband to elope with MacMurrough, and this love triangle—and not any internecine rivalries between Irish chieftains—motivated MacMurrough’s pleas to Henry II. From Giraldus Cambrensis’s (see note at 12.1251) History of the Conquest of Ireland: ‘For O’Roric, prince of Meath, having gone on an expedition into a distant quarter, left his wife [. . .] in a certain island of Meath during his absence; and she, who had long entertained a passion for Dermitus, took advantage of the absence of her husband, and allowed herself to be ravished, not against her will. [. . .] For as Mark Antony and Troy are witnesses, almost all the greatest evils in the world have arisen from women’ (Historical Works, p. 184). Seumas MacManus follows this line and claims, ‘On Dervorgilla [. . .] is placed the indirect, and on Diarmuid MacMurrough [. . .], the direct, odium of bringing in the English’ (The Story of the Irish Race, p. 321; see also pp. 321–28).
2.394: A woman too brought Parnell low
Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–91): Irish politician. His powerful advocacy of Irish Home Rule through the 1870s and 1880s led him to be dubbed ‘Ireland’s uncrowned king’. In 1889, he was named as co-respondent in the divorce suit brought by Capt. William Henry O’Shea (Irish soldier, 1840–1905; MP, 1880–85, 1886) against his English-born wife, Katharine O’Shea (1846–1921), known as Kitty in the press that excoriated her. She and Parnell had carried on an affair that lasted 10 years, and which had been an open secret. Parnell’s career was ruined in the scandal that ensued and he died shortly afterward (DIB, s.v. C. S. Parnell). Both during and after the public scandal around Parnell’s affair, control of the Irish Parliamentary Party—of which Parnell was leader from 1882 to 1891—was harshly contested between Parnellite and anti-Parnellite factions. ‘The Parnell split tore Ireland apart. With his death, the controversy shifted key but did not abate’ (Frank Callanan, The Parnell Split, p. 2). Parnell’s rise and fall in the 1880s was the dominant political event of Joyce’s childhood and
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54 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Joyce makes reference to Parnell throughout his works, such as in the Christmas dinner scene in A Portrait, where Stephen’s father and uncle argue about Parnell’s downfall with Stephen’s governess (pp. 31–39).
2.397–98: For Ulster will fight . . . right
A phrase made famous by Lord Randolph Churchill (British politician, Winston’s father, 1849–95) in 1886, when he was vigorously campaigning against Home Rule in Ireland (NHI, vol. 6, p. 67). The Protestant population of Ulster was strongly opposed to any form of Home Rule.
2.412: Telegraph
The Evening Telegraph: a Dublin daily (evening) newspaper of four large tabloid pages, published by the Freeman’s Journal, Inc. The last edition is called the ‘last pink’ because it was printed on light pink pages.
2.412: Irish Homestead
The Irish Homestead: a Dublin weekly newspaper concerned mostly with agrarian reform and rural issues. George Russell (see note at 2.257) was a contributor to the paper from the late 1890s and edited it from 1905–23 (DIB). ‘The Irish Homestead was very much an agricultural paper with sections on dairying, bee-keeping, poultry, and co-operative notes’ (Frank Shovlin, The Irish Literary Periodical, p. 14).
2.415: Mr Field, M.P.
William Field (1843–1935): nationalist politician, MP, and the co-founder of the Irish Stockowners’ and Cattle Traders’ Association, which he chaired from the 1880s. ‘He campaigned in parliament for the interests of Irish business, especially the meat and cattle trades’ (DIB). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote, ‘Field M.P. = hero’ (Notesheet Oxen 4.54).
2.416–17: meeting of the cattletraders’ association today at the City Arms hotel
The Irish Stockowners’ and Cattle Traders’ Association met on Thursdays at the City Arms Hotel, Prussia Street (Thom’s, p. 1869); see also note at 8.716 for the City Arms Hotel. 16 June 1904 was a Thursday.
2.425: break a lance with you
Break a lance: ‘enter into competition with’ (OED).
2.429: lions couchant on the pillars
In heraldry, couchant designates an animal lying with its body resting on its legs and its head lifted up (OED). The insignia for the English monarchy are three lions passant guardant (Michael O’Shea, Joyce and Heraldry, p. 162). Passant guardant: ‘Of a four-legged animal: walking (usually towards the dexter) and looking ahead, with three paws on the ground and the dexter forepaw raised. [. . .] with head turned so as to show the full face’ (OED). At Summerfield House, there were stone lions beside the garden steps; for Ulysses, Joyce transplants them to the top of the stone pillars at the gate (Robert Nicholson, The ‘Ulysses’ Guide, p. 26).
2.442: Because she never let them in
The first part of Deasy’s claim paraphrases a statement Daniel O’Connell (see note at 2.269) made in 1829: ‘Ireland [. . .] is the only country that I know of unsullied by any one act of persecution of the Jews’ (Hyman, p. 114). By 1904, such an assertion was no longer accurate. There were anti-Jewish demonstrations in Cork in 1888, which ended only through Charles
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2. ‘Nestor’ 55 Stewart Parnell’s intervention. In Limerick in 1884, some anti‑Semitic protests were prompted when local Jewish merchants refused to close their shops on St Patrick’s Day. In January 1904, there was another outburst of anti-Semitism in Limerick, this time incited by Father Creagh, a Redemptorist (Cormac Ó Grada, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce, pp. 191–95). Michael Davitt (see note at 15.4684) quoted O’Connell’s claim in a letter to the Freeman’s Journal in which he strongly condemned Creagh (18 Jan. 1904, p. 5, col. g; Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘ “Those Jews they said killed the Christian boy” ’). Furthermore, the second part of Deasy’s claim is untrue: there were 3,898 Jews in Ireland at the 1901 census, an increase of 2,119 from 1891 (Thom’s, p. 693).
2.448–49: sun flung spangles, dancing coins
Beyond any symbolism suggested here, this is an entirely natural phenomenon. The ‘checkerwork’ of leaves creates little pinhole cameras that cast images of the sun’s disc (‘coins’) onto the ground and onto Deasy’s shoulders. These discs are ‘dancing’ because of the rust ling of the leaves, which, in turn, jostles the projected images (M. G. J. Minnaert, Light and Color in the Outdoors, pp. 1–2; with thanks to Will Lautzenheiser).
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3. ‘Proteus’
c b
a
Map 3 Sandymount (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); Stephen’s path; a = Leahy’s Terrace; b = Strasburg Terrace’ c = Cock Lake
Time: 11–12 am (10–11 am in the Linati schema) Location: Sandymount Strand Art: Philology Colour: green Symbol: Tide Technic: Monologue (male) Correspondences: Proteus: Primal Matter; Menelaus: Kevin Egan; Megapenthes: The Cocklepicker Serialised: The Little Review 5.1 (May 1918); The Egoist 6.2 (March–April 1919) Stephen spends this episode, as he says, ‘walking into eternity along Sandymount strand’ (3.18–19), a swath of beach just south of the city centre. Enough local landmarks are identified to locate where on the strand Stephen is walking. This particular area was infilled and urbanised in the 1920s (Ian Gunn, JJON) (map 3). In order to get there, Stephen most probably caught the 10:00 train from Bray, which he picked up at Dalkey station at 10:10 and
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3. ‘Proteus’ 57 then arrived at Westland Row station at 10:42. He then sets out along Brunswick Street towards Irishtown, with the initial plan of visiting his aunt Sara (3.61), but instead winds up walking northwards along Sandymount strand (JJD, pp. 28–31; see also note at 6.43).
3.1: Ineluctable modality of the visible
Ineluctable: ‘From which one cannot escape by struggling’ (OED). This word also suggests the shape-shifting Proteus in Book IV of the Odyssey who was wrestled by Menelaus. This also suggests Jacob Boehme’s (see following note) assertion that ’[t]he Being of all beings is a wrestling power’ (The Signature of All Things, p. 91). Modality: ‘A faculty or sense, such as sight, hearing, etc.; a category of sensory perception; a qualitative aspect of such a category’ (OED). The phrase ‘Ineluctable modality of the visible’ thus indicates visual perception as an ineluctable means of perceiving the world as well as the fundamental qualities of visual perception. As is indicated later in this paragraph, Stephen is specifically thinking about Aristotle’s theory of perception (see notes at 3.4 and 3.6–7). For Aristotle, ‘the object of sight is the visible, and what is visible is colour’ (On the Soul, 418a27–30). Thus, for Aristotle, colour is the ineluctable modality of the visible. While colour is the most fundamental property of an object that enables it to be visible, Aristotle adds that colour cannot itself be seen without illumination: ‘it is only in light that the colour of a thing is seen’ (418b3). Furthermore, as indicated later when Stephen closes his eyes (3.10), open eyes are also requisite for visual perception.
3.2: Signatures of all things I am here to read
Signatura Rerum (1621), translated as The Signature of All Things: a treatise by Jacob Boehme (German cobbler and mystic, 1575–1624). According to Boehme, God’s word endures within all earthly things and thus humans are beholden to read or decipher the trace of God’s word, His signature, within the physical objects that surround them: ‘The whole outward visible world with all its being is a signature, or figure of the inward spiritual world; whatever is internally, and however its operation is, so likewise it has its character externally; like as the spirit of each creature sets forth and manifests the internal form of its birth by its body, so does the Eternal Being’ (The Signature of All Things, p. 91). Joyce owned Clifford Bax’s translation from 1912 (Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, p. 102).
3.3: seawrack
Wrack: both fragments of wreckage (especially from a shipwreck) and marine vegetation, such as seaweed, that grows on the seashore (OED).
3.3: the nearing tide
High tide was at 12:42 pm on 16 June (Thom’s, p. 15).
3.4: Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies
Diaphane: ‘A transparent body or substance; a transparency’ (OED). ‘He’ refers to Aristotle, who claims that since colour enables visibility, without colour an object would be transparent, that is, diaphanous. He writes in De Sensu et Sensibili: ‘But what we call transparent [diaphanous] is not something peculiar to air, or water, or any other of the bodies usually called transparent, but is a common nature and power, capable of no separ ate existence of its own, but residing in these, and subsisting likewise in all other bodies in a greater or less degree. As the bodies in which it subsists must have some extreme bounding surface, so too must this. Here, then, we may say that light is a nature inhering in the transparent when the latter is without determinate boundary. But it is manifest
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58 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses that, when the transparent is in determinate bodies, its bounding extreme must be something real; and that colour is just this something we are plainly taught by facts—colour being actually either at the limit, or being itself that limit, in bodies’ (439a19–30). In his early commonplace notebook, a notebook primarily compiled from 1903–04; Joyce wrote: ‘Colour is the limit of the diaphane in any determined body’ (NLI I.ii f. 2v); this comes from Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire’s French translation of De Sensu et Sensibili (Fran O’Rourke, Allwisest Stagyrite, p. 26).
3.5–6: By knocking his sconce against them
Sconce: the skull, the wits; also a lantern (OED); both senses are relevant here. After Samuel Johnson’s (1709–84) rebuttal of George Berkeley (Anglo-Irish philosopher and Bishop of Cloyne, 1685–1753): ‘After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that everything in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied [Berkeley’s] doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, “I refute it thus” ’ (James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, vol. 1, p. 403).
3.6: Bald he was and a millionaire
Of the few reliable biographical facts known about Aristotle, his father, a royal physician, died when he was young, thereby leaving him with a significant inheritance (George Henry Lewes, Aristotle, p. 6). While there are various accounts of his appearance, none mention his hair, or lack thereof (p. 11). Some of his comments could be taken to imply that he was bald: in the Metaphysics, he argues that ‘baldness is not a mutilation’ (1024a27) and in the Generation of Animals he proposes that ‘we should reasonably expect baldness to come about this age upon those who have much semen’ (783b35). Joyce’s phrasing echoes Dante’s description of Manfred: ‘biondo era e bello’ (blond he was, and handsome) (Purgatorio, III.107).
3.6–7: maestro di color che sanno
Maestro di color che sanno (Italian): ‘master among those who know’; the epithet Dante Alighieri applies to Aristotle, meaning that he is the paramount philosopher (Inferno, IV.131). Contemporary Italian uses the word colui instead of color (those). Joyce concluded a negative review of the book Aristotle on Education for the Daily Express on 3 September 1903 with the declaration, ‘it is very useful to give heed to one who has been wisely named “maestro di color che sauno” [sic]’ (OCPW, p. 80).
3.8: adiaphane
Adiaphane: neologism (though the OED does list the adjectival form adiaphanous), un- diaphane, that is, non-transparent or opaque.
3.8–9: If you can put your five fingers through it it is a gate, if not a door
Perhaps after Samuel Johnson’s (helpful) definition of the distinction between a door and a gate in his dictionary (1755): ‘Door is used of houses and gates of cities, or publick buildings, except in the licence of poetry’ (s.v. door).
3.13: Nacheinander
Nacheinander (German): one after another (i.e. succession). Nebeneinander (German): side-by-side (i.e. juxtaposition). That is, visual phenomena are perceived side-by-side
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3. ‘Proteus’ 59 (Nebeneinander) while auditory phenomena are perceived in succession (Nacheinander). Or, as Stephen explained in A Portrait, ‘What is audible is presented in time, what is visible is presented in space’ (p. 212). Joyce took these terms from Otto Weininger’s (see note at 15.1798–99) book Über die letzten Dinge (‘About the final things’, 1912): ‘Der Raum [. . .] enthält im nebeneinander, was nur im zeitlichen Nacheinander erlebt werden kann’ (Space [. . .] contains next to one another what can only be experienced in temporal succession) (p. 107). These are part of the notes Joyce took from this book in the early subject notebook under the heading ‘Weininger’ (NLI II.i.1 f. 15). ‘Weininger gives transcendental value to time and subjective value to space, saying that space is a projection of the ego, a subjective category that places side by side (“nebeneinander”) things that are otherwise experienced as following each other (“nacheinander”)’ (Wim Van Mierlo, ‘The Subject Notebook’). While Weininger was Joyce’s source here, his terminology is not unique: ‘In the language of German philosophy Space is called “das Nebeneinander der Dinge”, the coexistence of things, Time is called “das Nacheinander der Dinge”, the succession of things’ (A. Hamann, editorial note in Gotthold Lessing, Laokoön, p. 258 n.). See also note at 15.3609.
3.14: If I fell over a cliff that beetles o’er his base See note at 1.567–68.
3.15: Nebeneinander See note at 3.13.
3.16: ash sword See note at 1.528.
3.16–17: My two feet in his boots are at the ends of his legs
In ‘Nestor’, Stephen remembered that he owes Mulligan a pair of shoes (2.252) and later in ‘Proteus’ he calls his boots ‘a buck’s castoffs’ (3.446). However, his second-hand trousers did not come from Mulligan (1.113–17). Therefore, the he of ‘his boots’ is not the same as the he of ‘his legs’. On the Rosenbach Manuscript, this line reads, ‘My two feet in his boots are at the ends of my two legs’ (f. 1).
3.17–18: the mallet of Los demiurgos
Demiurgos: in Greek, the creator of the world (in English, demiurge). Los is an important symbolic character in the mystic and poetic mythology of William Blake; he is ‘the expression in this world of the Creative Imagination [. . .] he works as a blacksmith’ (S. Foster Damon, A Blake Dictionary, pp. 246–47). In the Book of Los, he is called ‘the prophet / Of Eternity’ (IV.25–26; Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 94). Los’s tool is a hammer with which he created a globe that is perhaps the earth itself. From his poem Milton: ‘For every Space larger than a red Globule of Mans blood / Is visionary: and is created by the Hammer of Los / And every Space smaller than a Globule of Mans blood opens / Into Eternity of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow’ (Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 127). Joyce refers to this passage in his 1912 lecture on Blake: ‘For him, each space greater than a red drop of human blood was visionary, created by the hammer of Los, while in each space smaller than this we apprehend eternity of which our vegetable world was but a shadow’ (OCPW, p. 181).
3.18–19: Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand
Strand (Hiberno-English): beach (Dolan). Sandymount Strand: a beach just south of the Liffey’s mouth, 4 km from the city centre, about 8 km north of the Martello Tower in Sandycove, and 9.5 km north of the Clifton school in Dalkey. Sandymount Strand ‘is a fine
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60 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses stretch of sand at low tide—a glorious place for a gallop. Cockles are found in great abundance’ (DD, p. 257). Indeed, at low tide, the sands extend out a great distance, which can convey an impression of ‘walking into eternity’. This phrase suggests a passage from Blake’s Milton, in which the poet Milton enters Blake through his left foot: ‘And all this Vegetable World appeard on my left Foot, / As a bright sandal formd immortal of precious stones & gold: / I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro’ Eternity’ (Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 115).
3.19: Wild sea money See note at 2.226–27.
3.19–20: Dominie Deasy kens them a’
Dominie Deasy kens them a’ (Cumbrian (north-west English) dialect): ‘Schoolmaster Deasy knows them all’. To ken: to know. Dominie: schoolmaster (both OED). This phrasing suggests the title of the nineteenth-century ballad ‘D’ye Ken John Peel’ (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
3.21–22: Won’t you come to Sandymount . . . the mare
This seems to be from a song, with perhaps some alteration of the lyrics, but no source has yet been found. Of probable relevance, mare: prostitute (J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, Slang and Its Analogues; Ian MacArthur, ‘Some Notes for Ulysses’, p. 525).
3.23–24: Acatalectic tetrameter of iambs marching
In prosody, a line that consists of four feet is a tetrameter, a foot being a syllable or group of syllables that constitutes the metrical unit in verse. An iamb is a metrical foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Catalectic: a line lacking its final syllable; thus, acatalectic: not lacking its final syllable (all OED). The two lines that Stephen has just recited are definitely not acatalectic iambic tetrameter. The first line could be called catalectic trochaic tetrameter and the second would be catalectic trochaic trimeter (a trochee is a foot that consists of a stressed and an unstressed syllable—the inverse of an iamb). Alternatively, one could call the first line acephalous iambic tetrameter; an acephalous verse lacks its first syllable (Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics). And the second line would then be acephalous iambic trimeter. However, when taken on their own, these two lines seem trochaic rather than iambic. While trochaic meter is rare in literary poetry, it is common in popular forms of verse and in song (s.v. trochaic; with thanks to Tom Walker). Joyce consistently wrote Acatalectic across several drafts (JJA, vol. 12, p. 239; Rosenbach f. 1), but this was altered on a galley proof to A catalectic. On the same proof page, Joyce revised this back to Acatalectic (JJA, vol. 17, p. 45), but the word was changed again to the two-word form on a later proof (JJA, vol. 22, p. 153) and thus appears as such in the first edition. The confusion continued past the publication of the first edition in February 1922. In his holograph list of emendations for the second printing, Joyce indicated that this should be changed back to the one-word form (JJA, vol. 12, p. 177). However, the typescripts of the list of emendations continue the tradition of alternating between the one- and two-word forms (JJA, vol. 12, pp. 189, 192–95), with the net result that the two-word form, A catalectic, was unchanged and remains as such in all editions previous to Gabler. Gabler reverts to the one-word form because that was the last version attested in Joyce’s hand (UCSE, p. 1731). But, in an unpublished letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver, from 3 November 1922, Joyce relented and endorsed the two-word form (David Hayman, ‘What the Unpublished Letters Can Tell Us’, pp. 187–88).
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3.24: deline the mare
To deline: ‘to outline, sketch’ (OED). The phrase ‘deline the mare’ is iambic dimeter (two feet of iambs).
3.26: Basta!
Basta! (Italian): ‘Enough!’
3.27–28: and ever shall be, world without end
From the ending of the lesser doxology, the Gloria patri (see note at 2.200–01).
3.29: Leahy’s terrace
Leahy’s Terrace is a short road that connects Sandymount Road to the beach. There were steps that led down to the beach a short distance from Leahy’s Terrace and St Mary’s, Star of the Sea Church (see note at 13.8).
3.30: Frauenzimmer
Frauenzimmer (German): literally ‘room-women’ or ‘women room’. Originally, it simply meant a room (Zimmer) for women, before being applied to the occupants of such a room, typically servants; ‘the word underwent a deterioration in the nineteenth century. It now has either a derogatory or a facetious ring’ (Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana I’, p. 443).
3.30: shelving shore
A shelving shore is one that shelves or slopes (OED). A possible allusion here to Alexander Pope’s (English poet, 1688–1744) translation of the Odyssey (1726): ‘Where to the seas the shelving shore declin’d and form’d a bay’ (V.564).
3.31–32: like Algy, coming down to our mighty mother
Combines Swinburne’s ‘great sweet mother’ and A.E.’s ‘mighty mother’; see notes at 1.77–78 and 1.85.
3.32: lourdily
Lourdily: sluggishly, dully, stupidly (OED).
3.32: midwife’s bag
Midwife bags of this period generally resembled clasped, leather doctor’s bags (with thanks to Sophie Corser).
3.32: gamp
Gamp: ‘An umbrella, esp. one tied up in a loose, untidy fashion’; named after Mrs Gamp, a midwife in Charles Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit (OED).
3.33: the liberties
The Liberties are a series of distinct districts that, in the Middle Ages, were outside the jurisdiction of the City of Dublin, hence each one being called a ‘Liberty’. Originally, they were under the purview of the Archbishop of Dublin and the Abbey of St Thomas, but after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in the sixteenth century, control of the largest Liberty, that of the Abbey of St Thomas, was granted to William Brabazon, ancestor of the Earls of Meath. By the middle of the nineteenth century, control was formally subsumed into the City of Dublin. In 1904, the Liberties was an impoverished inner-city neighbourhood filled with tenements. The area has narrow streets with numerous lanes and alleys (Bennett).
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62 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
3.33–34: Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe
Relict: ‘The widow of a man’ (OED). Florence and Patrick MacCabe: unknown.
3.34: Bride Street
A street just to the east of St Patrick’s Cathedral and near the Liberties.
3.35: Creation from nothing See note at 1.612–13.
3.37: cords of all link back
In a passage in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (Vulgar Errors, 1646–72) that discusses the question of whether Adam and Eve had navels (see note at 3.41–42), Thomas Browne (English polymath and writer, 1605–82) writes: ‘there is one link and common connexion, one general ligament, and necessary obligation of all whatever unto God. Whereby, although they act themselves at distance, and seem to be at loose, yet do they hold a con tinuity with their Maker’ (V.v, Works, vol. 2, pp. 16–17).
3.37: strandentwining cable
That is, a strand-entwining cable, a cable made from intertwining strands, thereby suggesting the appearance of the umbilical cord.
3.38: Will you be as gods?
From Satan’s temptation of Eve in Genesis 3:5: ‘you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil’.
3.38: Gaze in your omphalos See note at 1.176.
3.39: Edenville
Edenville: the name given to a group of houses off Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, near where the Joyces lived in 1892–93 (Thom’s 1892, p. 1533; Harald Beck, JJON).
3.39: Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one
Aleph and alpha: the first letters of, respectively, the Hebrew and the Greek a lphabets. In Ireland at this time, telephone numbers had three, four, or five digits.
3.41: Adam Kadmon
In Jewish mysticism, Adam Kadmon is the primordial man. The Adam of Genesis (Adam Ha-Rishon) is considered to be the earthly manifestation of Adam Kadmon. The figure of Adam Kadmon was taken up by the Theosophists (see note at 7.783) in their cosmogony ‘as a pure and perfect spiritual being [. . .] The Adam Primus, or Kadmon, the Logos of the Jewish mystics, is the same as the Grecian Prometheus, who seeks to rival with the divine wisdom’ (H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, vol. 1, pp. 297–98).
3.41–42: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel. Gaze. Belly without blemish
Heva: Latin name for Eve. In the Pseudodoxia Epidemica (Vulgar Errors, 1646–72), Thomas Browne (English polymath and writer, 1605–82) criticised painters who depicted Adam and Eve with navels since, lacking a mother, they must have been created without navels: ‘the navel being a part, not precedent, but subsequent unto generation, nativity, or partur ition, it cannot be well imagined at the creation or extraordinary formation of Adam, who immediately issued forth from the artifice of God; nor also that of Eve, who was not solemnly begotten, but suddenly framed’ (V.v, Works, vol. 2, p. 15).
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3.42: buckler of taut vellum
Buckler: ‘a small round shield’ (OED).
3.43–44: whiteheaped corn … standing from everlasting to everlasting
From a childhood vision of Eden in Thomas Traherne’s (English poet and theologian, 1637–74) Centuries of Meditations (unpublished until 1908): ‘The Corn was Orient and Immortal Wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting’ (p. 152). Corn is used in the sense of wheat, its most common sense in British English (OED); see also note at 12.116. The image of a wheaten belly occurs in Song of Songs 7:2 (King James): ‘Thy navel is like a round bowl never wanting cups. Thy belly is like a heap of wheat, set about with lilies.’
3.44: Womb of sin
That is, Eve’s womb, because sin originated through her (Genesis 3:1–6).
3.45: made not begotten
Whereas humans are made by God, Jesus Christ was ‘begotten’ from the Father’s own nature and substance. This phrase reverses the formulation of the Nicene Creed which states that Jesus was ‘Begotten not made’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Nicene Creed).
3.45–46: By them, the man with my voice and my eyes
In the Odyssey, Nestor tells Telemachus that his manner of speaking is like his father’s (III.124) and later Menelaus tells Telemachus that his eyes are like his father’s (IV.150).
3.47: did the coupler’s will
That is, fulfilled God’s dictate to humanity to ‘[i]ncrease and multiply’ (Genesis 1:28).
3.48: He willed me and now may not will me away or ever
According to Aquinas, the soul is ‘incorruptible’ and therefore cannot be annihilated by man or even by God: ‘We must assert that the intellectual principle which we call the human soul is incorruptible. For a thing may be corrupted in two ways—in itself and accidentally. [. . .] For corruption is found only where there is contrariety [. . .] it is impossible for a form to be separated from itself; and therefore it is impossible for a subsistent form to cease to exist’ (Summa Theologica, I, q. 75, a. 6). See also the following note.
3.48–49: A lex eterna stays about Him
Lex eterna (Latin): eternal law. Aquinas writes: ‘the eternal law is nothing else than the type of Divine Wisdom, as directing all actions and movements’ (Summa Theologica, II.1, q. 93, a. 1). Aquinas reconciles the paradox of whether or not God is bound by His law by claiming: ‘God’s will is His very Essence, it is subject neither to the Divine government, nor to the eternal law, but is the same thing as the eternal law’ (II.1, q. 93, a. 4). That is, God is not subject to His law because He is His law. In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote: ‘The dove above [Jesus’] head is the lex eterna which overshadows the mind and will of God’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 101; JJA, vol. 7, p. 136).
3.49–50: divine substance wherein Father and Son are consubstantial See note at 1.658.
3.50: Arius to try conclusions
Arius denied that God and Christ are consubstantial (see note at 1.657). To try conclusions: to test, to engage in a trial of skill (OED). This alludes to a passage in Hamlet. The prince is
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64 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses in his mother’s closet, mocking her for being likely to tell Claudius everything she has learned. With some irony he says to her: ‘Unpeg the basket on the house’s top, / Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, / To try conclusions, in the basket creep, / And break your own neck down’ (III.iv.193–96).
3.51: contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality
A portmanteau word that contains: consubstantiality, transubstantiation, Magnificat (and magnificent and magnify), Jew, and bang. See note at 1.658 for consubstantiality. Transubstantiation is the doctrine of the changing of the substance of the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood at Mass, with only the appearance of the bread and wine remaining (OED). The Magnificat is Mary’s song in Luke 1:46–55, where she thanks God for exalting her. Joyce’s word is one of many variants of a popular American tongue- twister that dates from at least the 1830s, ‘Transmagnificandubandantiality’ (John Simpson, JJON).
3.52: In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last
According to St Athanasius (c.296–373), the bishop of Alexandria and an opponent of Arius, Arius died from an intestinal haemorrhage in a public toilet in Constantinople on the eve of his being reinstated into the Church. ‘Arius [. . .] urged by the necessities of nature withdrew, and suddenly, in the language of Scripture, falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst [Acts 1:18], and immediately expired as he lay, and was deprived both of communion and of his life together’ (Athanasius, Historical Tracts, p. 212). The fact that Athanasius refers to the fate of Judas as described in Acts suggests that his account may well involve an embellishment (Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, pp. 1, 80–81).
3.52: euthanasia
Euthanasia: ‘gentle and easy death’ (OED); probably a play on the name of St Athanasius (see the previous note); with thanks to Fritz Senn.
3.53–54: his throne, widower of a widowed see
Throne: a bishop’s seat; also a toilet. See: the seat of a bishop in his church (both OED). Widowed see: a see that has become vacant (John Simpson, JJON). Arius was a presbyter, not a bishop (Catholic Encyclopedia).
3.54: omophorion
Omophorion: ‘A vestment worn by patriarchs and bishops, corresponding to and resembling the pallium of the Latin Church’ (OED).
3.55: nipping and eager airs
In Hamlet, Horatio says to Hamlet, when they await the ghost outdoors: ‘It is a nipping and an eager air’ (I.iv.2).
3.56–57: The whitemaned seahorses . . . the steeds of Mananaan
Mananaan MacLir: the Irish god of the sea. Like Proteus, he is able to change shape (Ellis). In Ireland, white-crested waves are sometimes called ‘the Horses of Mananaan’ (M. Oldfield Howey, The Horse in Magic and Myth, p. 143).
3.58: The Ship
See note at 1.127.
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3.61: aunt Sara’s
Sara (Sally) Goulding: the wife of Richard (Richie) Goulding, Stephen’s maternal uncle. Sara is based on Joyce’s aunt Josephine Giltrap Murray (1862–1924), with whom Joyce was very close; they corresponded throughout her life (Ellmann, pp. 19–20). The Murrays had six children (a seventh died shortly after birth). They lived at various addresses throughout Dublin (Igoe, p. 125). In 1904, they lived at 103 North Strand Road (Thom’s, p. 1559; Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 231), on the north side of the city (and not near Irishtown).
3.63: Strasburg terrace
Strasburg Terrace, Irishtown (see note at 6.34), is slightly to the north of Leahy’s Terrace.
3.66: costdrawer
Costdrawer: a solicitor’s clerk. Costs: ‘The expenses of litigation, prosecution, or other legal transaction.’ Drawer: one who writes up bills (both OED).
3.66–67: his brother, the cornet player
John Goulding, the brother of Richie Goulding and of Mrs Dedalus (née Goulding); based on Joyce’s uncle John Murray (1856–1910). Joyce’s brother Stanislaus wrote: ‘Pappie calls Uncle John [Murray] “the cornet player” ’ (Complete Dublin Diary, p. 13). Stanislaus also said, ‘The antipathy [towards John Murray] was intensified by my father into a bitter, life-long family feud, which was his raison d’être. With the younger of her brothers [i.e. William Murray] my father’s relations were precarious’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 236).
3.67: Highly respectable gondoliers
‘A highly respectable gondolier’: from Act I of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Gondoliers (1889) (The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, p. 963).
3.67: Walter
The Murrays (the basis for the Gouldings) had two sons: John, called Jim (b. c.1887) and Hubert (b. 1888) (Peter Costello, James Joyce, pp. 326–27; 1901 census).
3.68: Jesus wept
‘Jesus wept’ (John 11:35 in the King James)—the shortest verse in the Bible—from when Jesus approaches Lazarus’s tomb.
3.71: dun
Dun: a debt-collector (OED).
3.71: peer out from a coign of vantage
A coign: a corner or wedge, usually spelt quoin (OED, s.vv. coin; coign; quoin). The phrase ‘coign of vantage’ comes from Macbeth (I.vi.13); although the OED states that the currency of this phrase is due to Sir Walter Scott (Scottish novelist, 1771–1832).
3.76: nuncle Richie
Nuncle: uncle; from King Lear, where the Fool calls Lear ‘Nuncle’ (I.iii.100, et passim). Richie Goulding is based on Joyce’s maternal uncle William Murray (1857–1912) who was a cost-drawer for Collis & Ward, a firm of solicitors (Igoe, p. 125). See also note at 3.61.
3.77: Cleanchested
The adjective clean-chested does not mean a chest free from dirt, but rather, a muscular, well-developed chest. For example, from George Townsend’s (American journalist and
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66 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses novelist, 1841–1914) The Entailed Hat (1884): ‘At the appearance of some Herculean or clean-chested athlete’ (p. 3). This sense is not in the OED, but they do have an analogous construction, clean-limbed, ‘shapely of limb, well-proportioned, lithe’ (with thanks to Harald Beck).
3.78: moiety
Moiety: one half. A fifteenth-century borrowing from the French moitié; the word is rare in modern English, but remains current in legal use (OED).
3.79: Sit down and take a walk
A jocular and cliché invitation; for example, ‘After an interval, devoted to the interchange of pleasantries of a type peculiar to the artisan class, such as “Only standing up seats here”; “Oh, yes lots of room for one—outside”; “Sit down and take a walk, sir” ’ (Among the Clods, p. 308).
3.81: master Goff and master Shapland Tandy
James Goff, esq., and Shapland Morris Tandy: taxing masters of the Consolidated Taxing Office for the Supreme Court (Thom’s, p. 898). Goff lived at 29 Lower Leeson Street (Thom’s, p. 1882), and Tandy lived at Clarinda Park House, Kingstown (Thom’s, p. 2022). Goff is referred to as ‘Master Goff ’ in a list of those in attendance at a debate on the revival of the Irish language held at the Law Students’ Debating Society (Freeman’s Journal, 25 Oct. 1901, p. 5, col. e); for which see notes at 7.792–93 and 7.793.
3.82: Duces Tecum
Duces Tecum (Latin): ‘you shall bring with you’. In English legal use: ‘An order served on a person having in his possession some document which it is desired to have put in evidence, to attend and bring the document with him’ (David Walker, Oxford Companion to the Law, p. 379).
3.82: bogoak
‘Bog-oak is often used for carving and in Ireland the carving of this wood is one of the peasant industries, the work being small but of good quality. Bog-oak is so called from the fact that it is found embedded in the decaying vegetable matter of the bogs, and the oak itself has often entered on the first stage of putrefaction. The wood is hard, close- grained, and brittle, but it is also capable of a very high polish. When ready for sale, it closely resembles ebony’ (Paul N. Hasluck, Cassell’s Wood Carving, p. 17). See note at 1.413 for bog.
3.83: Wilde’s Requiescat
Requiescat (Latin): ‘may she rest’; the title of a poem Oscar Wilde wrote in 1881 for his dead sister Isola (1857–67).
3.87: Crissie
The Murrays (the basis for the Gouldings) had four daughters: Alice (b. 1889), Mary Katheleen (sic), called Katsy (1890–1973), Mabel Florence (1896–1986), and Mary, called May (1899–1961) (Peter Costello, James Joyce, pp. 326–27). Context suggests that the basis for Crissie was either Alice or Katsy; see the following note.
3.88: Lump of love
From the song ‘Irish Hearts for the Ladies’: ‘’Twas stuff ’d too with large lumps of love, sir!’ (J. H. Ogden, Gems of Ould Ireland, p. 80; with thanks to Harald Beck). Ellmann recounts the story of one of Joyce’s visits to the Gouldings from when he was about 13 years old,
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3. ‘Proteus’ 67 which would have been in 1895: ‘One of the children there, a girl of five or six, began to scream and would not stop. [. . .] At last Murray came in and took her up in his arms. In a soothing voice he asked, “Who’s been annoying you? They’re always annoying you. Daddy’s little lump of love. The only bit of sunshine in the house”. [. . .] The story got back to John Joyce, who gladly added it to the repertoire of anecdotes about his wife’s family, and rephrased it as “Daddy’s little lump of dung” ’ (p. 45).
3.90: lithia water
Lithia water: a once-popular type of mineral water, which contains lithium oxide. Starting in the 1880s, American spring bottlers marketed waters containing lithium—even in minute quantities—as ‘lithia waters’ and touted their health benefits. A 1914 report exposed the fact that most such waters contained less than one part per million of lithium. The popularity of bottled lithia water waned soon thereafter (Loring Bullard, Healing Waters, p. 96).
3.90: It lowers
To lower: ‘To decrease the strength of (esp. an alcoholic drink) by adding water or some other liquid’ (OED).
3.92: by the law Harry
By the law Harry: a less blasphemous version of the oath ‘by the Lord’ (Dent). Old Harry: a nickname for Satan (Partridge).
3.95: He has nowhere to put it
Nowhere to put it: the punch-line in several jokes from the late nineteenth century. One such variant: ‘ “What! Didn’t you have a seat for the Jubilee, Mac?” Mac.—“Yes, I had a seat all right, but nowhere to put it” ’ (Fun, 6 July 1897, p. 3). ‘The joke turns, of course, on the fact that the speaker has a perfectly adequate “seat” (posterior, backside), but nowhere adequate to sit it down upon’ (John Simpson, JJON).
3.95: mug
Mug: a fool, a dupe (Partridge).
3.95: chippendale chair
Chippendale: ‘a particular style of light and elegant drawingroom furniture’ (OED); after British furniture maker Thomas Chippendale (1718–79).
3.96: lawdeedaw
Lawdeedaw: pretentious (Partridge, s.v. la-di-da).
3.97: rich of a rasher
Rich of a rasher: bacon fat (Harald Beck, JJON).
3.98: backache pills See note at 11.615.
3.99: All’erta!
All’erta! (Italian): ‘Look out!’ or ‘On guard!’
3.100: He drones bars of Ferrando’s aria di sortita
Aria di sortita (Italian): exit aria; the first aria sung by a leading character in an opera, usually at the end of a scene just before the character leaves the stage (Grove). All’erta is the first
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68 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses word of Ferrando’s aria di sortita in scene 1 of Giuseppe Verdi’s (Italian composer, 1813–1901) Il Trovatore (1852).
3.105–06: You told the Clongowes gentry you had an uncle a judge
‘Nasty Roche had asked: “What is your father?” Stephen had answered: “A gentleman”. Then Nasty Roche had asked: “Is he a magistrate?” ’ (A Portrait, p. 9). For Clongowes, see note at 1.311.
3.107–08: Marsh’s library
Marsh’s Library, on St Patrick’s Close, adjacent to the Cathedral in south-central Dublin. ‘Built in 1701 for Archbishop Narcissus Marsh (1638–1713), it was the first public library in Ireland and one of the earliest in these islands. It is a fine example of an early scholars’ library, with oak bookcases having curved and lettered gables topped by a mitre. There are three wired alcoves or cages where readers were locked in with rare books’ (Bennett). In Stephen Hero, we read that ‘[d]uring his wanderings Stephen came on an old library in the midst of those sluttish streets which are called old Dublin. The library had been founded by Archbishop Marsh and though it was open to the public few people seemed aware of its existence. [. . .] Stephen went there a few times in the week to read old Italian books of the Trecento [. . .] He knew, by instinct, that S. Francis’ love-chains would not hold him very long but the Italian was very quaint. Elias and Joachim also relieved the naïf history. He had found on one of the carts of books near the river an unpublished book containing two stories by W. B. Yeats. One of these stories was called The Tables of the Law and in it was mentioned the fabulous preface which Joachim, abbot of Flora, is said to have prefixed to his Eternal Gospel’ (pp. 176–77). According to the visitors’ book at Marsh’s, Joyce was there on 22 and 23 October 1902. It is possible he visited other times as well, since there is evidence that once readers were known to the Librarian, they were spared from having to sign in (Anne Marie D’Arcy et al., Apocalypse and Exile, p. 4).
3.108: Joachim Abbas
Joachim of Flora (c.1132–1202): Italian mystic abbot. Abbas (Ecclesiastical Latin): abbot. ‘Joachim is regarded as the most influential and innovative commentator on the apocalypse in the Middle Ages [. . .]. For Joachim, the unfolding of historical events through biblical exegesis could be divided into three epochs, or status, corresponding to the three Persons of the Trinity. The first status took the name of the Father, corresponding to the covenant of the law enforced by the Old Testament dispensation, while the Son presided over the second status, corresponding to the grace revealed in the Church in the New Testament. The third status is the eschatological Age of the Holy Spirit [. . .]. This amounts to the fullness of wisdom revealed in Scripture, which will transcend the letter of its meaning as interpreted by the Church, because there will be no need for such institutional discipline in this epoch of universal love. Joachim believed that the religious orders of Western Christendom were the harbingers of the Third Age, which would only begin after a suitably biblical catastrophe. [. . .] Although he was often described as a prophet during his lifetime, Joachim rejected this title, situating his work firmly in the tradition of biblical exegesis’ (Anne Marie D’Arcy et al., Apocalypse and Exile, pp. 18–19). Marsh’s Library holds five books by—or attributed to—Joachim. Because Joachim had been accused of heresy, these books were not in the National Library or at Trinity (p. 60).
3.109: The hundredheaded rabble
This phrase combines Shakespeare’s ‘many-headed multitude’ from Coriolanus (II.iii.18) with the Hundred-handed ones of Greek mythology, the three sons of Uranus, who were
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3. ‘Proteus’ 69 made to keep watch on the Titans, after Zeus had hurled them into Tartarus (Brewer’s), here imagined as a rabble of intellectuals. One of Joyce’s first publications was an essay called ‘The Day of the Rabblement’ (1901), in which he proclaimed that a true artist must stand apart from the whims and tastes of the general public or rabblement. ‘Until he has freed himself from the mean influences about him—sodden enthusiasm and clever insinuation and every flattering influence of vanity and low ambition—no man is an artist at all’ (OCPW, p. 52).
3.109: the cathedral close
A cathedral’s close is ‘the precinct of a cathedral. Hence sometimes = The cathedral clergy’ (OED). Additionally, the narrow, L-shaped road where St Patrick’s Cathedral and Marsh’s Library stand is called St Patrick’s Close.
3.109–10: A hater of his kind ran from them to the wood of madness
This is Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), Anglo-Irish writer and Dean of St Patrick’s (Protestant) Cathedral, Dublin. In 1742, Swift was judged of unsound mind (but not insane). ‘The myth of Swift’s madness was put forward frequently in the nineteenth century [. . .]. It is now known that Swift suffered throughout his life from Ménière’s syndrome, a form of labyrinthine vertigo first diagnosed in 1861 by Prosper Ménière’ (DIB). Yeats writes of Swift in his story ‘The Tables of the Law’ (1897): ‘Jonathan Swift made a soul for the gentlemen of this city by hating his neighbour as himself ’ (The Tables of the Law and the Adoration of the Magi, p. 14). Yeats also discusses Joachim of Flora in this story (pp. 6–13). C. P. Curran notes that Joyce was especially fond of this story, and that it had introduced him to Joachim of Flora (James Joyce Remembered, pp. 28, 30–31). Stephen Hero describes Stephen’s intense interest in both ‘The Tables of the Law’ and ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ (pp. 176–78).
3.111: Houyhnhnm
Houyhnhnms: the intelligent, calm, and rational race of horses in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, part 4 (1726). They contrast with the brutish Yahoos (see note at 12.1353), whom Gulliver had encountered previously.
3.112: Temple
See note at 2.257.
3.112: Foxy Campbell. Lanternjaws
These are two nicknames the boys of Belvedere College gave to their teacher Fr Richard Campbell, S.J. (1854–1945) (Portrait, p. 161; Bruce Bradley, James Joyce’s Schooldays, p. 96). Lantern-jaws: ‘Long thin jaws, giving a hollow appearance to the cheek’ (OED).
3.112: Abbas father
Abbas: Mediaeval Latin, both abbot and father (abbots are referred to as father). Abba: Hebrew, father.
3.113: furious dean
Jonathan Swift, dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral from 1713 until his death in 1745 (DIB).
3.113–14: Descende, calve, ut ne amplius decalveris
Descende, calve, ut ne amplius decalveris (Latin): ‘Go down, bald one, so you do not become more bald’; modified from one of the prophecies attributed to Joachim Abbas: ‘Ascende, calve, ut ne amplius decalveris’ (Come up, bald one, so you do not become more
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70 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses bald). This phrase follows from 2 Kings 2:23 in the Vulgate: ‘Ascende, calve; ascende, calve’. These prophecies, while not written by Joachim, were formerly attributed to him and come from the late thirteenth century within the Franciscan Spiritual tradition known as ‘Joachimite’. Joyce’s probable source is Vaticinia sive prophetiae Abbatis Joachimi et Anselmi Episcopi Marsicani (Venice, 1589), commonly known in English as the ‘Prophecies of Joachim Abbas’. Marsh’s Library (see note at 3.107–08) has a copy. ‘Ascende, calve’ is the first prophecy in a sequence of thirty. This particular prophesy is an indictment of Pope Nicholas III (Gaetano Orsini, c.1220–80, r. 1277–80). This also recalls the schoolboy derogatory nickname for priest, ‘Baldyhead’, as used in A Portrait (p. 52) (Anne Marie D’Arcy et al., Apocalypse and Exile, pp. 22–24). See also the following note. On both the Rosenbach and its preceding working draft, Joyce wrote ‘nimium’ (JJA, vol. 12, p. 243; Rosenbach f. 5), which is the reading found in all editions before Gabler. Gabler follows the reading on the Little Review serialisation: ‘amplius’, which is effectively synonymous and matches the text of the ‘Prophecies of Joachim Abbas’. Presumably, the Little Review text follows from an emendation that Joyce made on a now-missing typescript (UCSE, p. 80).
3.114: A garland of grey hair on his comminated head
To comminate: to threaten with divine vengeance (OED). Joyce combines the description of Pope Nicholas III from the ‘Prophecies of Joachim Abbas’ with Dante’s description of him in the Inferno. Dante excoriates Nicholas III for his nepotism and simony and has him buried head-first in the ground, ‘planted like a post’ (Inferno, XIX.68), his head comminated (as it were) by hell. The Dantean image explains why Joyce inverts the ‘Ascende’ from the ‘Prophecies’ to ‘Descende’ (Anne Marie D’Arcy et al., Apocalypse and Exile, pp. 23–24).
3.115: footpace
Footpace: ‘A raised portion of a floor [. . .] e.g., the step or raised floor on which an altar stands’ (OED).
3.116: monstrance
Monstrance: ‘An open or transparent receptacle, now usually consisting of a holder or lunette set behind a circular pane of glass in a cross of gold or silver, in which the consecrated host is exposed for veneration’ (OED).
3.116: basiliskeyed
Basilisk: ‘A fabulous reptile, also called a cockatrice, alleged to be hatched by a serpent from a cock’s egg; ancient authors stated that its hissing drove away all other serpents, and that its breath, and even its look, was fatal’ (OED).
3.117: altar’s horns
Horn: the outer corners of the altar in some churches (OED). Specifically, it refers to the horns of the altar at Bethel: ‘In his Joachite prophesy, Stephen envisions an older version of himself as the last pope in the Ascende calve series, identified with the great Antichrist. He is the bestia terribilis presiding with basilisk stare over the horns of the altar at Bethel before they fall to the ground in judgment (Amos 3:14), wielding a monstrance as he descends from that altar in commination’ (Anne Marie D’Arcy et al., Apocalypse and Exile, p. 24).
3.117: jackpriests
Jack: ‘often used as a term of reproach’ (W. W. Skeat, Etymological English Dictionary).
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3. ‘Proteus’ 71
3.118: albs
See note at 1.3.
3.118–19: fat of kidneys of wheat
Fat of kidneys of wheat: the finest of the wheat, ‘in allusion to the fat, and esp. the kidney- fat, as the choicest part of an animal, which was therefore offered in sacrifice’ (OED); from Deuteronomy 32:14 (King James), on God’s generosity to Jacob: ‘[Jacob was given] Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Ba-shan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.’
3.121: Dringdring! See note at 1.26.
3.121: pyx
Pyx: ‘The vessel in which the host or consecrated of the sacrament is reserved’ (OED).
3.122: ladychapel
Lady chapel: ‘A chapel dedicated to the Virgin, attached to large churches, generally situated eastward of the high altar’ (OED).
3.122–23: taking housel all to his own cheek
Housel: ‘The consecrated elements of the Eucharist, esp. the bread’ (OED). All to his own cheek: ‘all to himself ’ (Partridge, s.vv. cheek; to one’s own cheek). See note at 5.390.
3.123–24: Dan Occam thought of that, invincible doctor
Dan: an obsolete honorific used in addressing or speaking of members of the religious orders (OED). William of Occam (c.1285–c.1349): English Franciscan schoolman, known chiefly for his axiom that the simplest explanation of phenomena is more cogent than complex ones (‘Occam’s razor’). ‘Invincible Doctor’ was his epithet (EB11). In the Reportatio, Occam addressed the problems as to how, in the Eucharist, Christ can be entirely present on more than one altar at once. ‘Christ’s body, according to Ockham, is definitively present on the altar. Assuming this to be the case, then His body is present as a whole to the many contiguous parts of the host. [. . .] If, then, it is possible for Christ’s body to be wholly present to the whole host and to each contiguous part thereof, it is equally possible for it to be definitively present to many discrete particles of the host and to the thousands of hosts throughout the world’ (Gabriel Buescher, The Eucharistic Teaching of William Ockham, p. 86).
3.124: A misty English morning
After the first line of the 15-stanza The Wiltshire Wedding, a broadside ballad published c.1680: ‘One misty, moisty, morning’ (ODNR, p. 314).
3.124: hypostasis
Hypostasis: ‘A theological term used with reference to the Incarnation to express the revealed truth that in Christ one person subsists in two natures, the Divine and the human. Hypostasis means, literally, that which lies beneath as basis or foundation. Hence it came to be used by the Greek philosophers to denote reality as distinguished from appearances [. . .] Previous to the Council of Nicæa (325) hypostasis was synonymous with ousia [essence, substance], and even St. Augustine (On the Holy Trinity V.8) avers that he sees no difference between them. The distinction in fact was brought about
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72 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses gradually in the course of the controversies to which the Christological heresies gave rise, and was definitively established by the Council of Chalcedon (451), which declared that in Christ the two natures, each retaining its own properties, are united in one subsistence and one person’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. hypostatic union). ‘In his Christology, Occam holds firmly to the hypostatic union, while distinguishing sharply between the two natures. As with Duns Scotus, so here the union consists in a “relation”, the human nature being assumed by the divine. The special result of Christ’s work is to be seen in the institution of and operation of the sacraments’ (The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, s.v. Occam, William of).
3.128: Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint
Echoes John Dryden’s (English poet, 1631–1700) charge against Jonathan Swift: ‘Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet’ (Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets, vol. 3, p. 7).
3.128: Isle of saints
After the Medieval epithet of Ireland, Insula sanctorum et doctorum (usually translated as ‘island of saints and scholars’). ‘In the course of three or four centuries from the time of St. Patrick, Ireland was the most learned country in Europe: and it came to be known by the name now so familiar to us—Insula sanctorum et doctorum, the Island of Saints and Scholars’ (P. W. Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 416). In Trieste in 1907, Joyce delivered a lecture on his home country, ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’ (OCPW, pp. 108–26). Joyce’s preferred form ‘saints and sages’ might derive from Henry Longfellow’s (1807–82) Prelude to Voices of the Night (1839): ‘Old legends of the monkish page, / Traditions of the saint and sage’ (ll. 33–34; Poetical Works, p. 1; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
3.128–29: You were awfully holy, weren’t you?
Refers to young Stephen’s bout with piety in chapter 4 of A Portrait.
3.130–31: You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy widow
Fubsy: ‘Fat and squat’ (OED). Serpentine Avenue is a street in Sandymount, to the south- east of Dublin.
3.131–32: O si, certo!
O si, certo! (Italian): ‘Oh yes, certainly!’
3.133: On the top of the Howth tram
The Hill of Howth (rhymes with both), or Howth Head, is a high promontory extending into Dublin Bay north-east of the city; it is ‘one of the most striking features of north Dublin’s coastline’ (Bennett, s.v. Howth Summit and Village). Howth was accessible from the city centre by tram (Michael Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 62).
3.141: epiphanies
Epiphany: a manifestation or showing forth, from the Greek epiphanein (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary). In Stephen Hero, Stephen defined an epiphany as a ‘sudden spiritual manifestation [. . .]. He believed that it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments’ (p. 211). He also says that he is going to collect ‘many such moments together in a book of epiphanies’ (p. 211). From 1901 to 1904, Joyce wrote as many as seventy-one epiphanies, of which only forty survive. These have been collected posthumously (PSW,
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3. ‘Proteus’ 73 pp. 161–200). Stanislaus Joyce writes: ‘ “Epiphanies” were always brief sketches, hardly ever more than some dozen lines in length, but always very accurately observed and noted, the matter being so slight. The collection served him as a sketchbook serves an artist, or as Stevenson’s notebook served him in the formation of his style’ (My Brother’s Keeper, pp. 134–35). Epiphany was Joyce’s own term while he was writing them (Letters, vol. 2, p. 35). Joyce does not use the term epiphany in A Portrait. Some of the epiphanies provided source material for Stephen Hero and A Portrait. Four of them are incorporated, with modifications, into Ulysses (see notes at 3.209–15, 6.517–20, 13.66–67, and 15.4196 and 15.4203–04).
3.141: green oval leaves
None of the surviving manuscripts of the epiphanies are written on green oval pages (JJA, vol. 7, p. xxiv).
3.143: Alexandria
The greatest library of antiquity, at Alexandria in Egypt, was said by various writers to have had as many as 700,000 volumes. It was established by the Greek emperor Ptolemy I (c.367–c.283 bc), was badly damaged in the fourth century ad at the order of Emperor Theodosius I, and was destroyed by fire in ad 641 following the Arab conquest (EB11, s.vv. Alexandria; Libraries, ancient).
3.144: mahamanvantara
Mahamanvantara (Sanskrit): the lifespan of the progenitor of mankind in Hinduism, known as Brahma. ‘Mahamanvantara, or the 311,040,000,000,000 years during which the Age of Brahma lasts’ (Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 5, p. 493). In his 1904 broadside ‘The Holy Office’, Joyce wrote: ‘Nor make my souls with theirs as one / Till the Mahamanvantara be done’.
3.144: Pico della Mirandola
Pico della Mirandola (1463–94): Renaissance humanist who studied both orthodox and esoteric sciences (such as alchemy and kabbala) and tried to synthesise Christian doctrine with Neo-Platonic philosophy and Jewish mysticism (EB11). In his story ‘The Tables of the Law’ (1897), Yeats mentions ‘the kabalistic heresies of Pico della Mirandola’ (The Tables of the Law and the Adoration of the Magi, p. 9). Walter Pater (English writer and critic, 1839–94) writes of him: ‘And yet to read a page of one of Pico’s forgotten books is like a glance into one of those ancient sepulchres, upon which the wanderer in classical lands has sometimes stumbled, with the old disused ornaments and furniture of a world wholly unlike ours still fresh in them’ (The Renaissance, p. 24).
3.144: Ay, very like a whale
From Hamlet, when the prince manages to convince Polonius to accede to an absurd series of similes for a cloud, culminating with a comparison to a whale (III.ii.393–99). This is in reference Pico’s predilection for using similes. Walter Pater writes: ‘Everywhere there is an unbroken system of correspondences. Every object in the terrestrial world is an analogue, a symbol or counterpart, of some higher reality in the starry heavens, and this again of some law of the angelic life in the world beyond the stars’ (The Renaissance, p. 26).
3.148–49: that on the unnumbered pebbles beats
In King Lear, Edgar, disguised as a beggar, in order to save his blind and suicidal father, misleads him into thinking that Dover cliff is near: ‘The murmuring surge / That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes / Cannot be heard so high’ (IV.vi.20–22).
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74 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
3.149: lost Armada
The Spanish Armada of 1588, after its defeat by English forces, was scattered by storms, and many ships were wrecked on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland (EB11).
3.150: Unwholesome sandflats
At this time, untreated sewage was commonly released into the Liffey and its tributaries, and so these waterways, as well as the coastal areas of Dublin Bay, were highly polluted, filled with sewage and other waste. The problems were compounded by the fact that each incoming tide would drive the effluent matter up-river. As a result, much of the shellfish along the coast was at risk of contamination. The problems persisted until 1906, when the main sewer system was finally completed after many years of planning and development (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 257).
3.151: seafire
Sea-fire: ‘phosphorescence at sea’ (OED, s.v. sea).
3.151: midden
Midden: ‘A dunghill, a dung heap; a refuse heap. Also: a domestic ash-pit’ (OED); for ashpit see note at 18.747.
3.152: porterbottle
Porter beer: a style of dark beer that is lighter than stout. In Ireland, porter is traditionally called plain porter or, simply, plain. Porter was one of the most popular types of beer throughout the nineteenth century, but by the 1920s it was eclipsed by both lighter beers, such as pale ales, and darker ones, such as stout (Garrett Oliver, Oxford Companion to Beer, pp. 661–63). By 1799, Guinness (see note at 5.388) only brewed porter, but by the mid- twentieth century the brand became synonymous with just its stout, which was originally called ‘extra stout porter’ to distinguish it from plain porter (p. 66).
3.153: stogged
Stogged: ‘To be stuck in mud, mire, bog or the like; to be bogged’ (OED).
3.156–57: Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners
Ringsend is a neighbourhood in east-central Dublin, south of the Liffey and alongside the coast. Dublin port is directly across, on the north side of the Liffey (Bennett). Wigwam: ‘A lodge, cabin, tent, or hut of the North American Indian peoples of the region of the Great Lakes and eastward’; ‘Humorously applied to a house or dwelling in general’ (OED).
3.160: Pigeonhouse
An electrical generating station, opened in 1903 on the site of a fortress, where previously there had been ‘a massive wooden house, strongly clamped with iron, to serve as a watch house, store house and place of refuge for such as were forced to land there by stress of weather’, and in which lived a man named John Pidgeon, who lent his name to the place. It is situated on a breakwater jutting into Dublin Bay from the south bank of the Liffey (Weston St John Joyce, The Neighbourhood of Dublin, p. 7).
3.161–62: Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position? . . . Joseph
(French): ‘Who has put you in this wretched condition? —It’s the pigeon, Joseph’; from La Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus, p. 15) by Léo Taxil (see note at 3.167). In the novel, Mary’s pregnancy arouses Joseph’s suspicions. She assures him that she has not been
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3. ‘Proteus’ 75 touched by another man and so he asks how she got pregnant, to which she replies: ‘It’s the pigeon’, that is, the Holy Spirit, which is usually depicted as a dove. The grammar is faulty: the question should read ‘Qui vous a mise dans cette fichue position’ since it is addressed to a woman. However, the mistake is in Taxil’s book (Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana IV’, p. 157).
3.163: Patrice
Patrice Egan is based on Patrice Casey (b. c.1885), one of Joyce’s friends in Paris in 1902 (Ellmann, p. 127) and the son of Joseph Casey (see note at 3.164). Little is known of him, but he did serve in the French army in World War I (John Simpson, JJON).
3.163–64: bar MacMahon
Possibly, le Mac Mahon: a café and bar at 29 Avenue Mac-Mahon in Paris (La Semaine à Paris, 6 Jan. 1933, p. 71). The Avenue Mac-Mahon is one of the avenues that radiates outwards from the Arc de Triomphe at the Place de l’Étoile (now called the Place Charles de Gaulle). The avenue and café are named after Count Marie Edmé Patrice Maurice de MacMahon, a descendant of the Irish Wild Geese (see the following note for the Wild Geese and the note at 12.183 for MacMahon).
3.164: Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris
Wild Geese: originally the name given to the (mostly Catholic) Jacobite aristocrats who fled Ireland after they were dispossessed of their lands in the wake of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 (see note at 2.273). Many sought service in the armies of France and Spain. More generally, the term was applied to Irishmen who served in foreign armies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Around 50,000 left for the continent between 1691 and 1791 (Brewer’s Irish). Kevin Egan is based on Joseph Casey (1846–1911), a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (see note at 2.272), who reported to Ricard O’Sullivan Burke (see note at 3.247). In November 1867, he was arrested for assaulting a police officer while trying to prevent Burke’s arrest in London. He and Burke were subsequently both held in Clerkenwell prison (see note at 3.247–48). In April 1868, Casey was acquitted and he settled in France. He served in the French army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 and thus could be considered a latter- day wild goose (DIB; John Simpson, JJON). John Stanislaus Joyce was friendly with Casey and his brother Patrick (John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, p. 50). When Joyce was in Paris, he often lunched with Casey (Ellmann, p. 125). The first page of Joyce’s early commonplace notebook includes his budget while he was in Paris and lists numerous ‘loans’ from Casey and one from Patrice (NLI I.ii f. 1r).
3.165: lait chaud
Lait chaud (French): hot milk.
3.166: lapin
Lapin (French): rabbit.
3.166: gros lots
Gros lots (French): the jackpot in a lottery; literally ‘great prize’.
3.167: Michelet
Jules Michelet (French historian, 1798–1874): known for his multi-volume, anecdotal History of France; he also wrote La Femme (‘Woman’, 1860), a romantic history of women (EB11).
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3.167: La Vie de Jésus by M. Léo Taxil
Léo Taxil (pseudonym for G. S. Jogand-Pages, 1854–1907): a Jesuit-educated French writer who lost his faith and became one of the foremost advocates of freethinking (see note at 1.626) in France. Taxil’s comic novel La Vie de Jésus (1882) tries to show the absurdities of Christian tradition and doctrine through a burlesque and sacrilegious telling of the life of Jesus. The book’s radical anticlericalism, unsurprisingly, proved controversial. Soon after its publication, Taxil made a very public reconversion back to Catholicism. In 1896, he was granted an audience with the Pope. The following year, he claimed that that his reconversion was an anticlerical hoax, however some conservative Catholics maintained that this retraction was itself a hoax (Geert Lernout, Help My Unbelief, pp. 71–74). See also note at 3.161–62.
3.169–72: C’est tordant, vous savez. . . . Mon père, oui
(French): ‘It’s hilarious you know. Myself, I’m a socialist. I don’t believe in the existence of God. Mustn’t tell this to my father.’ ‘He’s a believer?’ ‘My father, yes.’
3.173: Schluss
Schluss (German): ‘Finish up!’, ‘Close it!’
3.174–75: I want puce gloves
Mulligan’s line from ‘Telemachus’ (1.516).
3.175–76: in the other devil’s name
From Macbeth where the porter, having already asked who’s there ‘i’ the name of / Beelzebub’, repeats his question, ‘Who’s there i’ the other devil’s name’ (II.iii.3–7).
3.176–77: Paysayenn. P.C.N., you know: physiques, chimiques et naturelles
Paysayenn: the French pronunciation of the initials PCN, the standard abbreviation for ‘physiques, chimiques, et naturelles’, physics, chemistry, and biology. This was a year-long course introduced by French universities in 1893 that was designed to give prospective medical students a background in basic science before beginning their formal medical studies (Harry W. Paul, From Knowledge to Power, p. 115). In late 1902, Joyce arrived in Paris ostensibly for the purpose of studying medicine, but once in Paris, this plan was quickly abandoned (Ellmann, pp. 106, 112–13).
3.177: groatsworth
Groatsworth: a small amount (OED).
3.177: mou en civet
Also known as civet de mou de veau: a stew made from the lungs of a calf. ‘Most often lungs are used to provide the principal ingredient or one of the ingredients for inexpensive stews’ (Calvin W. Schwabe, Unmentionable Cuisine, p. 41).
3.177–78: fleshpots of Egypt
Fleshpots: ‘luxuries or advantages regarded with regret or envy’; literally, they are pots for cooking flesh, signifying an abundance of flesh (OED). From Exodus 16:3, where the Israelites regret having left Egypt with Moses: ‘And the children of Israel said to them: Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat over the flesh pots, and ate bread to the full. Why have you brought us into this desert, that you might destroy all the multitude with famine?’
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3. ‘Proteus’ 77
3.179: boul’ Mich’
Parisian expression for the boulevard Saint-Michel, the principal artery of traffic in the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank (Robert Wilson, Paris on Parade, p. 195).
3.182–83: Lui, c’est moi
Lui, c’est moi (French): ‘Him, it’s me’. This might be an allusion to the claim by Louis XIV (1638–1715, r. 1643–1715), ‘L’état c’est moi’ (The state is me).
3.187: Encore deux minutes
Encore deux minutes (French): ‘Another two minutes’.
3.187: Fermé
Fermé (French): closed.
3.193: fiery Columbanus See note at 2.143–44.
3.193: Fiacre
St Fiacre (d. 670): an Irish churchman and hermit who moved to France for religious work, where he was renowned for his exemplary piety. He is the patron saint of gardeners (Catholic Encyclopedia). In ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’, Joyce says: ‘St. Fiacre, to whom there is a commemorative tablet in the church of S. Maturin in Paris, preached to the French and received a sumptuous funeral paid for by the court’ (OCPW, p. 112).
3.193: Scotus
Johannes Scotus (also Scottus) Eriugena (c.815–c.877): an Irish churchman and scholar who, like Columbanus and Fiacre, taught in Paris. The epithet Scotus was given to Scotsmen, Irishmen, and even natives of northern England (Catholic Encyclopedia; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy). In ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’, Joyce says: ‘A pantheist mystic also was Scotus Erigena, rector of the University of Paris, who translated from the Greek books of mystical theology by the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite, patron saint of the nation of France. The translation was the first to introduce to Europe the transcendental systems of the Orient’ (OCPW, pp. 113–14).
3.193: creepystools
Creepystool (or creepiestool) (Scottish): a low stool; sometimes used to denote ‘the stool of repentance’ (OED); perhaps from Robert Burns’s (1759–96) poem ‘The Rantin Dog the Daddie O’t’: ‘When I mount the Creepie-chair, / Wha will sit beside me there’ (ll. 9–10; with thanks to Vincent Deane).
3.194: Euge! Euge!
Euge! Euge! (Latin): ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ or ‘Aha! Aha!’ The Douay typically translated this phrase as ‘It is well, it is well’. These words occur in the Litany of the Saints. These words also appear in the Bible where they are spoken by a mocker whom God is then called upon to chastise: ‘Let them immediately bear their confusion, that say to me: ’T is well, ’t is well’ (Psalms 39:16; 40:15 in the King James).
3.196: Newhaven
A major seaport in East Sussex, on the southern coast of England by the English Channel. The Newhaven to Dieppe line was one of several routes from England to France and, by extension, the European continent (Handbook for Visitors to Paris, p. 1).
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3.196: Comment?
Comment? (French): How? What?
3.196–97: Le Tutu
Le Tutu (French, the ballerina skirt): a weekly satirical magazine, with illustrations, published on Tuesdays in Paris from 1901 to 1903 (Michel Dixmier, Quand le crayon attaque, pp. 102, 104, 170).
3.197: five tattered numbers of Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge
Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge: (French) white pants and red trousers. Joyce made a slight error, the actual title is in the plural: Pantalons blancs et culottes rouges. This was an anthology compilation of issues 31–40 of the Parisian magazine La Vie en culotte rouge (Life in red trousers) and was published in 1903. Joyce thus mistook the individual magazines for this specific compilation (the anthology compilations of earlier issues bore different titles). La Vie en culotte rouge ran from 1902 to 1912. ‘It presented the adventures of amorous military types and their easy-going lady friends. The “Culotte Rouge” refers to the red trousers of the French army uniform of the day’ (John Simpson, JJON).
3.197–98: a blue French telegram
French telegrams consisted of ‘typewritten slips stuck to a folded blue paper’ (The Strand, June 1932, vol. 83, p. 333).
3.199: Nother dying come home father
Joyce clearly wrote ‘Nother’ (JJA, vol. 12, p. 246; Rosenbach f. 8), as in the sort of typographic mistake common with telegrams. The typesetters for the first edition (erroneously) corrected this to ‘Mother’ (JJA, vol. 17, p. 50; vol. 22, p. 158), which is how this word appeared until Gabler’s edition. On Good Friday, 10 April 1903, Joyce received a telegram that said ‘MOTHER DYING COME HOME FATHER’. He left for home the following morning. May Joyce died on 13 August 1903 (Ellmann, p. 128).
3.201–04: Then here’s a health to Mulligan’s aunt . . . famileye
A variation of some lines from the chorus of ‘Matthew Hanigan’s Aunt’ by the Irish poet and songwriter Percy French (1854–1920): ‘So here’s a health to Hanigan’s aunt! / I’ll tell you the reason why, / She always had things dacent / In the Hanigan family’ (Prose, Poems and Parodies, p. 155). The spelling ‘Hannigan’ is Joyce’s.
3.206: south wall
The South Wall: a breakwater which begins at the southern mouth of the Liffey and con tinues out into Dublin Bay (Bennett). See also note at 3.279.
3.208: lemon houses
Many of the houses in Sandymount feature yellow brickwork (Mary Daly, Mona Hearn, Peter Pearson, Dublin’s Victorian Houses, p. 137), which would be accentuated in the morning sun.
3.209–15: Paris rawly waking . . . curled conquistadores
This paragraph combines and reworks elements from Joyce’s Epiphany no. 33, written in 1902–03, with two passages from Giacomo Joyce (1914). Epiphany no. 33, in which Joyce describes prostitutes in Paris: ‘They pass in twos and threes amid the life of the boulevard, walking like people who have leisure in a place lit up for them. They are in the pastry cook’s, chattering, crushing little fabrics of pastry, or seated silently at tables by the café door, or
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3. ‘Proteus’ 79 descending from carriages with a busy stir of garments soft as the voice of an adulterer. They pass in an air of perfumes: under the perfumes their bodies have a warm humid smell. . . . No man has loved them and they have not loved themselves: they have given nothing for all that has been given them’ (PSW, p. 193). From Giacomo Joyce: ‘Trieste is waking rawly: raw sunlight over its huddled browntiled roofs testudoform; a multitude of prostrate bugs await a national deliverance. Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife’s lover’s wife: the busy housewife is astir, sloe-eyed, a saucer of acetic acid in her hand [. . .] In the raw veiled spring morning faint odours float of morning Paris: aniseed, damp sawdust, hot dough of bread: and as I cross the Pont Saint Michel the steelblue waking waters chill my heart’ (PSW, pp. 234–35).
3.209: pith
The pith of a piece of bread is the soft part inside, as opposed to the crust (OED).
3.210: farls of bread
Farl: ‘Originally, the fourth part of a thin cake made either of flour or oatmeal; now applied to a cake of similar kind and size, whether quadrant-shaped or not’ (OED).
3.210: froggreen wormwood
That is, absinthe, a green-coloured, highly alcoholic liqueur derived from wormwood and various other ingredients, such as angelica root. Wormwood is a bitter, aromatic herb properly known as Artemisia Absinthium (EB11, s.vv. absinthe; wormwood). Absinthe ‘appears frequently in accounts of the life of French literary and artistic circles at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century’ (Brewer’s). It was also a reputed hallucinogen (David Earle, ‘ “Green eyes, I see you. Fang, I feel” ’). By 1915, it was banned throughout most of Europe (and unbanned in the 1990s).
3.211: Belluomo
Belluomo (Italian): literally, ‘good-looking man’; in general, ‘a seducer’.
3.212: saucer of acetic acid
Acetic acid: ‘A weak acid which gives vinegar its characteristic taste and pungent smell [. . .] Vinegar is a dilute solution of acetic acid’ (OED). Douches of various astringent solutions, such as acetic acid, have been used as primitive forms of contraception for centuries (Vern Bullogh, Encyclopedia of Birth Control, p. 99).
3.212: Rodot’s
A patisserie operating at the turn of the century, located at 9 boulevard Saint-Michel, Paris, in the Latin Quarter (Bulletin paroissial de Saint-Séverin, Jan. 1914, p. 17). On an early draft of ‘Proteus’, Joyce originally wrote ‘Polidor’s’ and then changed it to ‘Rodot’s’ (JJA, vol. 12, p. 246). Polidor is a restaurant at 41 rue Monsieur le Prince (see note at 9.858), which Joyce frequented when he could afford it (Patricia Hutchins, James Joyce’s World, p. 57).
3.214: chaussons
Chausson (French): a turnover, ‘This name applied particularly to a preparation made with a circle of flaky pastry filled with a mixture, folded over and baked in the over’ (Prosper Montagné, The New Larousse Gastronomique, p. 946).
3.214: pus
Pus (French): pus, yellow liquid.
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3.214: flan breton
A flan similar to custard pie (L. Raymond Talbot, Le Français et sa patrie, p. 40).
3.216 : Noon slumbers
In the Odyssey, the only way to gain knowledge from Proteus was to seize him when he came from the water at midday to sleep in a hollow cavern (IV.400–04).
3.217: fingers smeared with printer’s ink
Joseph Casey, the model for Kevin Egan, worked as a typesetter for the Paris edition of the New York Herald (DIB).
3.217: green fairy
Green fairy (in French, fée verte): absinthe (see note at 3.210).
3.218–19: Un demi setier!
Demi-setier: in early-twentieth-century France, a standard term for a quarter-litre of wine, after the setier, a pre-metric unit of measuring dry and liquid volume (Dictionnaire de l’Académie française).
3.220–21: Il est irlandais . . . Ah, oui!
(French): ‘He’s Irish’ ‘Dutch?’ ‘Not cheese. Two Irishmen, we, Ireland, you know?’ ‘Oh yes!’ Padraic Colum writes that Joyce told him: ‘ “When you say you are Irlandais they think they have misunderstood you, that what you said was Hollandais”. Evidently for Joyce there was humiliation in the fact that his country had lagged so far behind that Europeans had no way of distinguishing Irish people. (But I found myself that the identification of “Irlandais” and “Hollandais” was due to the “r” not being rolled by the speaker.)’ (Our Friend James Joyce, p. 44).
3.221: cheese hollandais
That is, Dutch cheese (in French, fromage hollandais).
3.224: slainte!
Sláinte: the standard Irish toast (pronounced slawn-che), ‘health!’
3.227: Dalcassians
Dalcassians or the Dal Cais: ‘a dynasty that originated in County Limerick and that achieved hegemony in Munster from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, adopting the surname Uí Briain [O’Brien]’ (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Dal Cais).
3.227: Arthur Griffith
Arthur Griffith (1871–1922): Irish journalist and politician. In 1898, he co-founded the rad ical nationalist weekly newspaper the United Irishman, for which he wrote much of the material. On the one hand, he did not believe that the Irish Parliamentary Party’s attempts at securing Irish autonomy through constitutional methods would work. One the other hand, he also remained sceptical about the efficacy of violent agitation against British rule. ‘His approach was didactic and he tried to educate the Irish people in the demands and opportunities of nationalism. [. . .] He advocated a dual monarchy which would link the two islands through the person of a common sovereign, and believed that such a programme could be supported by all nationalists from home rulers to republicans’ (DIB). In 1906, the United Irishman was relaunched and rebranded as Sinn Féin, which was also the
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3. ‘Proteus’ 81 name of the political party inspired by Griffith’s ideas (see also note at 8.458). Joyce wrote to Stanislaus on 6 September 1906: ‘I don’t quite agree with you about [the United Irishman]. In my opinion, it is the only newspaper of any pretensions in Ireland. I believe that its policy would benefit Ireland very much. Of course so far as any intellectual interest is concerned it is hopelessly deaf ’ (Letters, vol. 1, pp. 157–58).
3.227–28: AE, pimander, good shepherd of men
For A.E. (George Russell), see note at 2.257. Russell worked at the Irish Homestead, a paper devoted to agricultural issues (DIB); hence ‘good shepherd’, which is an epithet for Christ: ‘I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me’ (John 10:14). For the Theosophists, of whom Russell was one, Pimander means ‘Man-shepherd’; for an explan ation, see note at 15.2269. Joyce added this phrase on a page proof (JJA, vol. 22, p. 145), but the typesetter missed it and so it was absent from all editions until Gabler’s. Typically, Joyce renders Russell’s pseudonym as ‘A.E.’ (see note at 7.784), but wrote it as ‘A E’ on the page proof where he added this phrase. Since this phrase was missed by the typesetter, Joyce never had a chance to correct the ‘A E’ for consistency.
3.228–29: To yoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our common cause
After Henry V, where Pistol, joining Henry’s effort to claim France, cries: ‘Yokefellows in arms, / Let us to France, like horseleeches, my boys, / To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!’ (II.ii.56–58).
3.229: You’re your father’s son. I know the voice See note at 3.45–46.
3.229: fustian
Fustian: ‘a thick, twilled, cotton cloth with a short pile or nap, usually dyed of an olive, leaden, or other dark colour’ (OED).
3.230–31: M. Drumont, famous journalist
Édouard Adolphe Drumont (1844–1917): French journalist and author of La France juive (‘Jewish France’, 1886), among other anti-Semitic works. In 1890, Drumont ran as a candidate for the French parliament on an openly anti-Semitic platform. Léo Taxil (see note at 3.167) entered the race to oppose Drumont, but withdrew his candidacy shortly before the election. However, Taxil’s stunt almost certainly led to Drumont’s defeat. This affair led to a lengthy feud between Taxil and Drumont, with each attacking the other in print (Grégoire Kauffman, Édouard Drumont, pp. 188–92). Drumont was one of the most prominent voices who insisted on the guilt of Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935), a Jewish French military officer falsely accused of having communicated military secrets to the Germans. Dreyfus was imprisoned on Devil’s Island from 1894. The Dreyfus affair bitterly divided French society for years. He was finally exonerated in 1906 (Brewer’s, s.v. Dreyfusard).
3.232–33: Vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes
‘La vieille ogresse aux dents jaunes’ (French): ‘the old hag with yellow teeth’; Édouard Drumont’s (see previous note) description of Queen Victoria (1819–1901, r. 1837–1901) in his book from 1891, Le Testament d’un antisémite, in a footnote to a passage that is critical of Irish landlordism: ‘This reminds me of a reply made by [the actor] Fréderick Lemaître to
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82 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Queen Victoria. Fréderick had just played in London Le Chiffonnier de Paris and was called to the Queen’s lodge. Feigning pity, the old hag with yellow teeth asked him: “Do you truly have such miserable folk in Paris?” To which he replied with grandiloquence: “Yes madam, they are our Irish” ’ (p. 162 n.; Harald Beck, JJON).
3.233: Maud Gonne
Maud Gonne (1866–1953): Irish nationalist and political activist, of English birth; Yeats’s unrequiting beloved, to the poet she became a symbol for all Ireland. On 2 April 1902, she performed the lead in his play ‘Cathleen Ni Houlihan’. In the 1890s, she and Lucien Millevoye (see following note) were lovers and she had two children by him: a boy who died young and a girl, Iseult Gonne (1895–1954). In 1904, she was in Paris, unhappily married to John MacBride (1865–1916), whom she divorced in 1905 (DIB).
3.233: la Patrie, M. Millevoye
Lucien Millevoye (French journalist and politician, 1850–1918), Maud Gonne’s lover from about 1886 to 1898, was the editor of La Patrie (‘The Fatherland’), a nationalist and anti- Semitic journal. ‘Millevoye combined militarism, irredentism, and disgust with democratic politicians: an authentic fascist stance’ (Elizabeth Cullingford, Yeats, Ireland and Fascism, p. 31). ‘The rampant Anglophobia of French Nationalists contained the seeds of pro-Irish sentiments, which easily blossomed into enthusiastic support of an independent Ireland. [. . .] French anti-Semites also tended to be the loudest Anglophobes, seeing the English and the Jews linked together in centuries of common plotting’ (Robert Lynn Fuller, The Origins of the French Nationalist Movement, pp. 176–77).
3.233–34: Félix Faure, know how he died?
François Félix Faure (1841–99, usually referred to as Félix Faure), President of France (1895–99), died of a stroke and heart failure in the French presidential palace during a sexual liaison with Marguerite Steinheil (1869–1954), his younger mistress, on 16 February 1899. By the end of the month, several of the more sensationalist Parisian papers accused, with some innuendo, a certain ‘Mme S–’ of being responsible for Faure’s death (Benjamin Martin, The Hypocrisy of Justice in the Belle Epoque, pp. 19–20). Faure’s death also inspired some anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Henri Rochefort (1831–1913), a prominent anti- Dreyfus politician, claimed that Steinheil ‘poisoned him in the Elysée, at the instigation of the Jews, who knew that so long as Faure remained President there would be no revision of the Dreyfus affair’ (The Living Age, vol. 278, no. 3608, 30 Aug. 1913, p. 549). See note at 3.230–31 for the Dreyfus case.
3.234: froeken
Frøken or froeken (Swedish): an unmarried woman, a young lady.
3.234: bonne à tout faire
Bonne à tout faire (French): maid of all work. A maid of all work is one ‘who does all kinds of housework’ (OED), that is, is not limited to any single range of household chores.
3.235: Upsala
A university city in Sweden about 64 km north of Stockholm; commonly spelt Uppsala.
3.235–36: Moi faire, she said, tous les messieurs
Moi faire, she said, tous les messieurs (Broken French): ‘Me does . . . all the gentlemen’.
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3.241: peep of day boy’s hat
The Peep of Day Boys (so-called because they attacked at dawn): an anti-Catholic secret society of Ulster Protestants formed in Ireland in about 1785 (NHI, vol. 4, p. 347).
3.241–42: How the head centre got away, authentic version
James Stephens (1825–1901): the co-founder and Head Centre, or leader, of the Fenians (see note at 2.272). Imprisoned in Richmond jail in Dublin in 1865, he escaped from prison through the aid of a Fenian warden. He fled Ireland in 1866 and eventually settled in America (DIB). In an article for the Triestine newspaper Il Piccolo della Sera in 1907, Joyce writes of Stephens’s escape: ‘While the agents and spies were lying in wait at every port in the island watching outgoing ships, he left the capital in a gig, disguised (according to legend) as a bridesmaid with a white crepe veil and orange-blossom’ (OCPW, p. 139). According to Stanislaus Joyce, one evening his father came home drunk with an equally drunk sea captain who claimed to be the one who had liberated Stephens and that Stephens was disguised as a bride during the escape (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 93). Other versions of this legend involving a bridal costume were in circulation, but do not seem to be accurate (OCPW, p. 323 n. 7).
3.243: Malahide
Malahide is a maritime town 14 km north of Dublin on the Irish Sea. In 1904, its population was 649 (Thom’s, p. 1733). According to some accounts, Stephens passed through Malahide on his way to a boat that took him to France when he finally fled Ireland in 1866 (Clarke Irwin, A History of Presbyterianism in Dublin, p. 153).
3.243: Of lost leaders
Possibly after the title of Robert Browning’s (English poet, 1812–89) poem ‘The Lost Leader’, (1845), which laments William Wordsworth’s (English poet, 1770–1850) betrayal of radicalism in favour of Establishment politics when he was pensioned by the government (1842) and made Poet Laureate (1843).
3.245: gossoon
Gossoon (Hiberno-English): a youth; derives from the French garçon (OED).
3.247: colonel Richard Burke
Ricard O’Sullivan Burke (1838–1922): an Irish-American who had been a colonel in the US Army during the Civil War. Shortly after the Civil War, Burke became the head of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (see note at 2.272) in England. He led an effort to free two Fenian leaders from a Manchester prison in September 1867. Though the rescue mission was successful, he was arrested shortly afterward and jailed in Clerkenwell prison along with Joseph Casey (see note at 3.164). He was released in 1872 due to poor health and he returned to America in 1874, where he remained active in Irish Republican political causes (DIB; Patrick Quinlivan and Paul Rose, The Fenians in England, pp. 9–14). Joyce’s misspelling of his name as Richard was common and, for example, can be found in the entry in EB11 on the Fenians.
3.247: tanist of his sept
Tanist: ‘The successor apparent to a Celtic chief, usually the most vigorous adult of his kin, elected during the lifetime of the chief ’; from the Irish word Tánaiste. Sept: ‘a division of a nation or tribe; a clan: originally in reference to Ireland’ (both OED).
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3.247–48: under the walls of Clerkenwell
Fenians attempted to spring Ricard Burke and Joseph Casey from Clerkenwell prison in London on 13 December 1867. Burke had noticed a weak spot in the prison wall and relayed a plan to his associates in the Irish Republican Brotherhood to place an explosive charge at that point, thereby giving him and Casey a chance to escape. However, an informer leaked the plan to the authorities and so Burke and Casey were in their cells, with extra guards on duty, at the time of the explosion. Furthermore, Burke had overestimated the amount of explosive material needed. ‘There was no fog but smoke and dust filled the scene blotting out all details. A hole was blown in the wall but most of the blast effect was across the road. Slum dwellings in Corporation Lane collapsed and fires broke out. Shattered glass and rubble filled the street’ (Patrick Quinlivan and Paul Rose, The Fenians in England, p. 87). The plotters were soon apprehended. In total, six people died and over 100 were injured (pp. 90–91). At the subsequent trial, Casey emerged largely blameless, but Burke was deemed responsible (DIB, s.vv. Joseph Casey; Ricard O’Sullivan Burke).
3.251: Montmartre
Montmartre is a district of north-central Paris which, at the turn of the century, was populated by bohemians and artists (Robert Wilson, Paris on Parade, pp. 262–63).
3.252: rue de la Goutte-d’Or
A street in Montmartre. Joseph Casey, the model for Kevin Egan, lived on this street (Ellmann, p. 125; DIB). Its name means ‘the Drop of Gold’.
3.252: damascened
To damascene: to ornament (OED).
3.254: rue Gît-le-Coeur
A street on Paris’s Left Bank, roughly parallel to the boulevard Saint-Michel. Its name means ‘Here Lies the Heart’.
3.254: canary
Canary: mistress or harlot (Partridge).
3.257: Mon fils
Mon fils (French): my son.
3.257–58: The boys of Kilkenny are stout roaring blades
From ‘The Boys of Kilkenny’, an anonymous Irish ballad. H. Halliday Sparling gives the lyrics to the first stanza as: ‘O the boys of Kilkenny are brave roving blades, / And if ever they meet with the nice little maids, / They’ll kiss them, and coax them, and spend their money free, / Of all the towns in Ireland Kilkenny for me’ (Irish Minstrelsy, p. 480). Blade: ‘A gallant, a free-and-easy fellow, a good fellow’ (OED).
3.258–59: Old Kilkenny
Kilkenny: the county town of County Kilkenny, by the River Nore in south-eastern Ireland. Its name derives from the Irish word for church, Cill, combined with the name of St Cainnech, or Canice (see following note). Because of its strategic location, this town played an important role in Anglo-Irish affairs throughout the Middle Ages. From 1642 to 1648 it served as the capital of Catholic Ireland (Seumas MacManus, Story of the Irish Race, pp. 415–21).
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3.259: saint Canice
Canice (or Cainnech, or St Kenny): Irish saint (d. c.599). He preached in Ireland and undertook a mission with St Columba (Colum Cille) to convert Brude, King of the Picts in Scotland (Brewer’s Irish).
3.259: Strongbow’s castle on the Nore
Richard FitzGilbert de Clare, the Norman-Welsh Earl of Pembroke (d. 1176), popularly known as Strongbow, was a key player in the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1171. Strongbow’s military prowess secured victory for the English during the invasion. In 1172, he built a wooden castle in Kilkenny, near St Canice’s monastery, to command the crossing of the River Nore, which runs through Kilkenny (DIB).
3.259–60: O, O. He takes me, Napper Tandy, by the hand
James Napper Tandy (1740–1803): an Irish nationalist and co- founder of the United Irishmen, the rebel movement of the 1790s. With troops from France, he landed at Donegal in 1798. He then ‘issued a proclamation and became insensibly drunk; carried back to his ship; captured in Hamburg; avoided the death penalty because the manner of his arrest was thought to have contravened international law; liberated through the representation of Napoleon at Amiens, 1802; eulogized in nationalist folklore’ (Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 239 n.). This line comes from ‘The Wearing of the Green’, an Irish street song of the 1798 rebellion, with many different versions: ‘I met with Napper Tandy, / And he took me by the hand, / Saying, How is old Ireland? / And how does she stand? / She’s the most distressful country / That ever yet was seen; / They are hanging men and women / For wearing of the green!’ (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, pp. 515–16).
3.261–62: O, O the boysof Kilkenny
From the ballad ‘The Boys of Kilkenny’ (see note at 3.257–58). The ‘boysof ’ is not an error, rather it indicates the rhythm of how Egan sings this song.
3.264: Remembering thee, O Sion
After Psalm 136:1 (137:1 in the King James), the complaint of the Jews on their exile and captivity in Babylonia: ‘Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when we remembered Sion.’ Sion is the spelling of Zion used in the Douay Bible.
3.266–67: wind of wild air of seeds of brightness
From Virgil’s Georgics: ‘And, soon as the flame has stolen into [the mares’] craving marrow [. . .] they all, with faces turned to the Zephyrs [west winds], stand on a high cliff, and drink in the gentle breezes. Then oft, without any wedlock, pregnant with the wind (a wondrous tale!) they flee over rocks and crags and lowly dales’ (III.271–77).
3.267: Kish lightship
A lighthouse on a boat, anchored on the north end of the Kish Bank in Dublin Bay, about 24 km from Sandymount strand. First put into place in 1811, it was replaced with a perman ent lighthouse in 1965 (New Scientist, 22 July 1965, p. 208).
3.277–78: panthersahib and his pointer
That is, Haines and Mulligan. Sahib: ‘a respectful title used by the natives of India in addressing an Englishman’ (OED). Panther, after Haines’s dream (see note at 1.57). Pointer: ‘Any of several breeds of large gun dog which on scenting game, esp. birds, adopt a distinct ive pose, standing rigid with the muzzle pointed towards the game, often with one foot raised’ (OED).
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3.279: mole of boulders
Mole: a breakwater, from the Latin moles, a great heap (OED). The South Wall was first built starting in 1717, and another wall was built starting in 1735, consisting of ‘a double block wall with an infill of rocks. [. . .] The wall divided the bay for 3 miles [4.8 km] and every vessel had to pass within this boundary’ (Bennett).
3.280: form of forms See note at 2.75.
3.281: in sable silvered, hearing Elsinore’s tempting flood
Combines two phrases from Hamlet. Horatio tells Hamlet of the Ghost’s ‘sable silver’d’ beard (I.ii.242). Later, Horatio warns Hamlet against following the Ghost: ‘What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, / Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff / That beetles o’er his base into the sea, / And there assume some other horrible form, / Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason / And draw you into madness?’ (I.iv.69–74).
3.283: Poolbeg road
‘In 1904 there was no officially named “Poolbeg Road” in Ringsend though the narrow track out from the Pigeonhouse could well be so called’ (JJD, p. 31 n. 27).
3.284: oarweeds
Oarweed: ‘seaweed, esp. that cast ashore and used as manure’ (OED).
3.285: grike
Grike: ‘A crack or slit in rock’ (OED).
3.286: bladderwrack
Bladder-wrack: ‘a species of sea-weed (Fucus vesiculosus), with air bladders in the substance of the fronds’ (OED, s.v. bladder).
3.287: Un coche ensablé
Un coche ensablé (French): A coach stuck in sand. In his essay ‘Le Vrai poète Parisien’ (The True Parisian Poet), Louis Veuillot (see following note) says that Théophile Gautier (see the note after the following note) provides ‘a perfect example of bad writing’ (Les Odeurs de Paris, p. 234). He then warns aspiring young poets to avoid ‘all those superlatives [of Gautier’s] that give a sentence the feel of a coach stuck in sand’ (p. 235).
3.287: Louis Veuillot
Louis Veuillot (1813–83): French journalist and leader of the Ultramontane party, which advocated papal supremacy and resisted all efforts to separate church from state. Veuillot deplored the French Revolution and opposed its supporters among literary Romantics, who were anticlerical (Catholic Encyclopedia). In A Portrait, the director of the Jesuits calls Veuillot one of the greatest French stylists (p. 156).
3.288: Gautier’s
Théophile Gautier (1811–72): French poet and a central figure in the Romantic movement in France in the 1830s and after. His contempt for convention did not endear him to the more religious types in France (see the preceding two notes) (EB11).
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3.291: Sir Lout’s toys
Budgen records a conversation with Joyce about this passage: ‘ “Who are Sir Lout and his family?” I said. “The people who did the rough work at the beginning?” “Yes”, said Joyce. “They were giants right enough, but weak reproductively. Fasolt and Fafnir in [Wagner’s] Das Rheingold are of the same breed, sexually weak as the music tells us. My Sir Lout has rocks in his mouth instead of teeth. He articulates badly” ’ (JJMU, p. 53).
3.292: gigant
Gigant: archaic form of giant (OED).
3.293: steppingstones
A reference to the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim on the north-eastern coast of Ireland. The Giant’s Causeway is a famous natural formation made of some 37,000 polygonal basalt columns stretching some 275 metres along the coast and 152 metres into the sea. According to legend, the giant Finn MacCool (see note at 12.910) built this causeway so he could reach the Isle of Staffa in the Inner Hebrides in Scotland (Brewer’s Irish).
3.293: Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz oldz an Iridzman
After an old Irish folk-tale similar to the nursery rhyme ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. In one version, called ‘Coldfeet and the Queen of Lonesome Island’, the giant, upon discovering Coldfeet, proclaims, ‘I smell the blood of a man from Erin; his liver and lights for my supper to-night, his blood for my morning dram, his jawbones for stepping-stones, his shins for hurleys’ (Jeremiah Curtin, Hero-Tales of Ireland, p. 244; Harald Beck, JJON).
3.295: Lord, is he going to attack me?
In A Portrait, Stephen admits to Cranly, ‘I fear many things: dogs, horses, firearms, the sea, thunderstorms, machinery, the country roads at night’ (p. 243). Likewise, Joyce was afraid of dogs ever since he was bitten by one as a child (Ellmann, p. 26 n.).
3.297–98: The two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes
The proverbial phrase ‘two Marys’ refers to the two women named Mary present at Jesus’s entombment; their precise identities are inconsistent across the Gospels. Mark 15:47: ‘And Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of Joseph, beheld where he was laid’; Matt. 28:1: ‘when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre.’ The Two Marys is also a novel from 1896 by Margaret Olliphant (Scottish novelist, 1828–97). The immediate reference is to Moses’s mother— who is a typological figure of the Virgin Mary—hiding her infant son from the Pharaoh’s scourge in an ark made of bulrushes while his sister Miriam, or Mary (see note at 9.448), watches from afar (Exodus 2:3–4). Marie is also proverbial for a handmaid or ‘female attendant’, after ‘the four Maries’, the four women named Mary who served as attendants to Mary Queen of Scots (EDD) (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
3.298: Peekaboo. I see you
This phrase begins various children’s songs and nursery rhymes and is also used in the game of hide and seek.
3.300: Galleys of the Lochlanns
Lochlanns (Irish): ‘lake dwellers’; the name given to the Norwegians who invaded Ireland starting in the late eighth century (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Vikings). The Lochlanns arrived in fleets, although these were not specifically galleys.
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3.301: Dane vikings
The Irish distinguished between Norwegian and Danish Vikings. ‘The former were Fionnghail (‘fair-haired foreigners’) and greatly feared; the latter were Dúghaill (‘dark- haired foreigners’), and they came in the 10th century’ (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Vikings).
3.301–02: torcs of tomahawks
Torc: ‘A collar, necklace, bracelet, or similar ornament consisting of a twisted narrow band or strip, usually of precious metal, worn especially by the ancient Gauls and Britons’ (OED, s.v. torque). Many English and Celtic torcs are ornamented with hooked ends and balustrades (Henri Hubert, The Rise of the Celts, p. 100); these resemble axes or tomahawks.
3.302–03: when Malachi wore the collar of gold
From Thomas Moore’s (Irish poet, 1779–1852) song ‘Let Erin Remember the Days of Old’: ‘When Malachi wore the collar of gold / Which he won from the proud invader’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 38). Moore, in his notes to this song, quotes from Warner’s History of Ireland: ‘This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively, hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory’ (p. 255). Malachi II (Máel Sechnaill II, 948–1022): King of Meath and High King of all Ireland.
3.303: school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon
Turlehide: ‘A whale, or some species or kind of whale’ (OED s.v. thirlepoll). Thom’s Dublin Annals entry for the year 1331 writes of ‘[a] great famine relieved by a prodigious shoal of fish, called Turlehydes, being cast on shore at the mouth of the Dodder. They were from 30 to 40 feet [9 to 12 metres] long, and so thick that men standing on each side of one of them, could not see those on the other. Upwards of 200 of them were killed by the people’ (p. 2092). The event occurred just where Stephen stands, as the Dodder’s mouth is near the South Wall.
3.304: cagework city
From Walter Harris’s (Irish antiquarian, 1686–1761) description of Dublin houses in the sixteenth century: ‘timber built in the cage work fashion, elegantly enough adorned, and covered with slates, tiles, or shingles’ (History and Antiquities of the City of Dublin, p. 76). Harris’s book was serialised in the Dublin Penny Journal in 1904 (SS, p. 141 n. 8). The full Irish name for Dublin is Baile Átha Cliath, which means ‘town of the hurdle ford’. Hurdle: ‘A portable rectangular frame, originally having horizontal bars interwoven or wattled with withes of hazel, willow, etc.’ (OED).
3.304–05: jerkined dwarfs
Jerkin: ‘Originally: a man’s close-fitting jacket or doublet, often of leather, with or without sleeves and having a short skirt (now chiefly in historical contexts). In later use: a sleeveless blouse or jacket, a waistcoat’ (OED).
3.306: Famine, plague and slaughters
Dublin has endured all three. Besides the famine mentioned in the note at 3.303, the fourteenth century saw outbreaks of the plague. Thom’s Dublin Annals entry for the year 1348 states: ‘A great pestilence raged through many parts of the world, and carried off vast
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3.307: the frozen Liffey
The River Liffey froze in 1338: there was ‘a severe frost from the beginning of December to the beginning of February, in which the Liffey was frozen so hard that the citizens played at foot-ball, and lit fires on the ice’ (Thom’s, p. 2092). The Liffey froze again in 1739 (p. 2096).
3.308: changeling
Changeling: ‘A peevish, sickly child. The notion used to be that the fairies took a healthy child and left in its place one of their starveling elves which never thrived’ (Brewer’s). Such legends were common in Ireland.
3.308–09: I spoke to no-one: none to me
Perhaps after the final couplet of the nursery rhyme ‘There was a jolly miller’: ‘I care for nobody, no! not I, / If nobody cares for me’ (ODNR, p. 308).
3.310–11: Dog of my enemy
After King Lear: ‘Mine enemy’s dog, / Though he had bit me, should have stood that night / Against my fire’ (IV.vii.36–38).
3.311: I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about
Stephen imagines himself as Actaeon, who, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was transformed into a deer and hunted after and killed by his own hounds as punishment for seeing the goddess Diana naked (III.138–257). The phrase ‘bayed about’ and other words in this passage come from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: ‘Let us do so, for we are at the stake, / and bay’d about with many enemies, / And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, / Millions of mischiefs’ (IV.i.48–51). Stephen is also partly surrounded by the Bay of Dublin (Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana I, p. 444). Joyce used a similar image in his 1904 essay ‘A Portrait of the Artist’: ‘Let the pack of enmities come tumbling and sniffing to the highlands after their game. There was his ground and he flung them disdain from flashing antlers’ (PSW, p. 212) and in his broadside poem ‘The Holy Office’ (also from 1904): ‘I stand, the self-doomed, unafraid, / Unfellowed, friendless and alone, / Indifferent as the herring-bone, / Firm as the mountain-ridges where / I flash my antlers on the air’.
3.311: Terribilia meditans
Terribilia meditans (Latin): ‘Meditating terrible things’.
3.312: primrose doublet See note at 1.550.
3.312: fortune’s knave
From Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, where, after Antony’s death, Cleopatra says: ‘Tis paltry to be Caesar. / Not being Fortune, he’s but Fortune’s knave, / A minister of her will’ (V.ii.2–4).
3.313–14: The Bruce’s brother
Edward Bruce (d. 1318): younger brother of Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland (1274–1329, r. 1306–29). In 1315, Edward, emboldened by his brother’s success in securing Scotland’s independence from England, accepted an invitation from some Irish chieftains to free
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3.314: Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight
Lord Thomas Fitzgerald (1513–37): 10th Earl of Kildare; called ‘Silken Thomas’ because his helmet was adorned with silk fringes. In 1534, he publicly denounced Henry VIII’s rule over Ireland and within a few weeks began an active campaign of warfare against English rule. Lacking supplies, his months-long rebellion failed. Thomas and five of his uncles were executed by the English. Traditionally, the cause of his revolt against Henry VIII has been ascribed to his being told the false rumour that his father had been executed; however, the true circumstances are more complex. ‘Historians have advanced two interpretations of the motives behind this defiant act. Some argue that it was a reaction against deliberate Tudor policies of centralisation, directed at over-mighty magnates and encouraged by local humanist-inspired reformers. Others offer a more contingent explanation, interpreting it as a poorly calculated effort on [his father’s] part to force the king into confirming him as lord deputy at a time when the political situation in England and Ireland was particularly delicate and unstable’ (DIB).
3.314–15: Perkin Warbeck, York’s false scion
Perkin Warbeck (c.1474–99): a peasant from Antwerp in Flanders. In 1491, he was the ser vant to a silk merchant in Cork. Because he often wore his master’s silk clothes, he was mistaken for royalty. Such flamboyance caught the attention of some Yorkists. They coaxed him into assuming the role of Richard, Duke of York, son of Edward IV (the younger of the two royal brothers Richard III imprisoned and, reputedly, murdered). In 1497, he landed in Cornwall in an attempt to take the throne but he met with no support and was easily captured by the English troops (EB11).
3.315–16: Lambert Simnel
Simnel (c.1475–c.1534): a Yorkist pretender to the throne of Henry VII. He was the ward of Richard Symonds, a Yorkist conspirator who put him forth as Edward, Earl of Warwick, the ‘rightful heir’ to the throne. On 24 May 1487, he was crowned King Edward VI in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin. That year he invaded England with Irish and German troops, but was captured by Henry’s forces. Since King Henry recognised that Simnel had only been a pawn in this conspiracy, he showed leniency and took him into his own service as a scullion (the lowest ranking domestic servant). He was eventually promoted and became the royal falconer (EB11).
3.316: nans and sutlers
Nans: serving maids. Sutlers: private vendors who supply food to troops (both OED).
3.316: All kings’ sons See note at 2.279–80.
3.317: He saved men from drowning See note at 1.62.
3.318–19: courtiers who mocked Guido in Or san Michele . . . their own house
From a story in Giovanni Boccaccio’s (Italian poet, 1313–75) Decameron about Guido Cavalcanti (Italian poet, c.1250–1300). Cavalcanti’s family lived in Orsanmichele, an area in the centre of Florence named after the garden (Italian, orto) of the San Michele monastery. One day, as he set forth from his home, he found himself by the tombs
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adjacent to the Baptistery of San Giovanni. Seeing him brooding by the tombs, some of his friends began to tease him, ‘Guido, you spurn our company; but supposing you find that God doesn’t exist, what good will it do you?’ Guido replied: ‘Gentlemen, in your own house you may say whatever you like to me.’ They grasp his wit only after he has left: ‘By describing [the abode of the dead] as our house, he wanted to show us that [. . .] all men who are as uncouth and unlettered as ourselves are worse off than the dead’ (Day six, story 9, p. 468).
3.320: abstrusiosities
A neologism that combines abstruse (obscure) and curiosity.
3.321: Natürlich
Natürlich (German): Naturally.
3.322: man that was drowned nine days ago See note at 1.674.
3.322: Maiden’s rock
Maiden’s Rock (more commonly called Maiden Rock) is ‘the most easterly of the chain of islets beyond Dalkey Island’ (D. A. Chart, The Story of Dublin, p. 353). It lies about 275 metres offshore from Dalkey.
3.323–24: I am not a strong swimmer
According to Joyce’s school-friend William Fallon, ‘[i]t may surprise many to know that [Joyce] was an expert swimmer. He was accomplished not only at the breast stroke, but the trudge as well. This was due in a measure to his lean frame and lithe build, but mainly to his determination and practice’ (quoted in Ulick O’Connor, The Joyce We Knew, p. 45).
3.327: shellcocoacoloured
Shell cocoa: ‘the husks of cocoa-beans or the drink made from an infusion of these’ (OED, s.v. shell). There was a cheap and inferior brand of cocoa called Trinidad shell cocoa.
3.335: lowskimming gull
Precisely because it is a coastal city, Dublin is frequented by many varieties of seagull, the most prevalent in Joyce’s time being the black-headed gull, Larus ridibundus (W. J. Williams, ‘Seagulls in the City of Dublin’, p. 79).
3.336–37: On a field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unattired
Heraldic terms. Tenney: orange-brown. Proper: in its natural colours (both OED). Unattired is not a heraldic term as such, but derives from the heraldic term attired, ‘Furnished with horns’ (OED); thus, unattired: without horns, or even, defenceless (Ruth van Phul, ‘The Boast of Heraldry’, p. 400). Trippant: tripping (OED); for which see note at 1.42.
3.339: seamorse
Seamorse: walrus (OED).
3.339: They serpented towards his feet
Suggests the Laocoön scene in Virgil’s Aeneid (II.199–233), where a pair of serpents rush in from the sea to devour Laocoön and his sons after Laocoön had attempted to persuade the Trojans that the wooden horse was suspicious.
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3.340: every ninth
Supposedly, a certain wave in a series is bigger than the previous ones. Although most folklore focuses on the tenth wave, Brewer’s (s.v. Wave. The Tenth Wave) notes that Tennyson claimed the ninth wave is the large one (Idylls of the King, The Coming of Arthur).
3.342: Cocklepickers
‘The strand at Irishtown was at one time noted for its cockles and shrimps, the shrimps being found in great quantities at certain states of the tide, but after the severe winter of 1741 [. . .] they completely disappeared and never returned to this coast. The cockles, however, still remain for those who have the courage to eat them, and occasionally yield a rich harvest to the professional cockle pickers. Going to Sandymount on Sunday to pick cockles was a favourite amusement of the Dublin folk a hundred years ago’ (Weston St John Joyce, The Neighbourhood of Dublin, p. 18).
3.350: the dead dog’s bedraggled fell
To bedraggle: ‘To wet (dress, skirts, or the like) so that they drag, or hang limp and clinging with moisture’. Fell: animal’s skin or hide (both OED).
3.351: moves to one great goal See note at 2.380–81.
3.351: dogsbody See note at 1.112.
3.353: Tatters!
In Dion Boucicault’s (Irish playwright, 1820–90) comedy The Shaughraun (1875), Tatters is the name of the dog that belongs to Conn the Shaughraun.
3.353: Outofthat
P. W. Joyce defines the Hiberno-English expression out of that as meaning stop it! (PWJ, p. 310). On the other hand, the English Dialect Dictionary defines it as meaning immediately. However, both examples cited in EDD suggest that it could simply be an intensifier and need not necessarily literally mean immediately: ‘Go asleep out of that, you bold brat’; ‘Go along out of that, you impudent rascal.’ The phrase is used several times in Ulysses and its meaning depends on context. In some places, as here, it probably means stop it!, in others it acts as an intensifier, and in others as an intensifier along with an expression of derision or disbelief.
3.356: he lolloped
To lollop: ‘To lounge or sprawl; to go with a lounging gait’ (OED).
3.359: The simple pleasures of the poor
A stock phrase; for example, ‘We are speaking more especially now of the simple pleasures of the poor’ (The Saturday Review, 13 Aug. 1870, vol. 30, no. 772, p. 198).
3.360–61: Something he buried there, his grandmother See note at 2.102–07.
3.363: pard
Pard: a panther or leopard (OED).
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3.363: panther
A spurious folk etymology of the word panther construes it as being formed from the Greek pan, all + ther, wild beast; such an analysis ‘gave rise to many fancies and fables’ (OED, s.v. panther). Frank Budgen recounts Joyce’s thoughts on this passage: ‘ “Did you see the point of that bit about the dog?” said Joyce. “He is the mummer among beasts—the Protean animal”. [. . .] “This one mimics the other animals while Stephen is watching him”. [. . .] “There he is”, said Joyce. “Panther: all animals” ’ (JJMU, pp. 53–54). When Menelaus tries to apprehend Proteus, the old man shifts form: ‘First he turned into a great bearded lion, and then to a serpent, then to a leopard, then to a great boar, and he turned into fluid water, to a tree with towering branches, but we held stiffly on to him with enduring spirit’ (Odyssey, IV.456–59). In this passage, it is the dog who has been protean: first a hare (3.334); and then by turns a buck (3.337); a horse (‘forehoofs’, 3.338); a bear (3.345); a wolf (3.346); a calf (3.348); a rooster (‘cocked’, 3.357); a fox (‘Something he buried there’, 3.360–61; see note at 2.102–07); a pig (‘rooted’, 3.361); a pard (3.363); a panther (3.363); and finally a vulture (3.363).
3.363: spousebreach
Spouse-breach: adultery (OED). ‘The lion’s companion is the leopard. What might be the true form of this beast was a dark thing to the old armorist, yet knowing from the report of grave travellers that the leopard was begotten in spouse-breach between the lion and the pard, it was felt that his shape would favour his sire’s’ (EB11, s.v. heraldry; John Simpson, ‘ “And words. They are not in my dictionary”: James Joyce and the OED’, p. 47).
3.366: Haroun al Raschid
Haroun al Raschid (763–809, r. 786–809): the greatest caliph of Baghdad. Many of the Arabian Nights are set in his kingdom and he appears in some of the stories himself. He is famous for walking around the streets of Baghdad in disguise to better know his subjects first-hand (EB11, s.v. Abbasids).
3.366–67: I am almosting it
When asked by Frank Budgen about this word, Joyce replied: ‘That’s all in the Protean character of the thing. Everything changes: land, water, dog, time of day. Parts of speech change, too. Adverb becomes verb’ (JJMU, p. 55).
3.367: That man led me, spoke. I was not afraid.
Stephen’s dream recalls Deuteronomy 26:2–3, where God demands of the Hebrews: ‘Thou shalt take the first of all thy fruits, and put them in a basket, and shalt go to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may be invocated there: And thou shalt go to the priest.’ During their wanderings in the wilderness, the Israelites asked, ‘Who shall give us flesh to eat?’ and they remembered from their time in Egypt, ‘the cucumbers [. . .], and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic’ (Numbers 11:4–5).
3.370: red Egyptians
Egyptian: a humorous word for gipsy (OED).
3.371: turnedup trousers
Turned-up trousers were a common and practical counter-measure taken against the filth and mud endemic to British city streets. ‘It was said that an Englishman abroad could always be recognised by his turned-up trousers, a practice which became second nature’ (Lee Jackson, Dirty Old London, p. 29).
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94 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
3.372–73: the ruffian and his strolling mort
Ruffian: the devil; a rogue; a pimp (Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue). Mort (thieves’ cant): a woman, sometimes with the connotation of harlot (OED). This phrase alludes to the title of the verses Stephen quotes a few lines on, Richard Head’s ‘The Rogue’s Delight in Praise of His Strolling Mort’, for which see the note at 3.381–84.
3.375: his helpmate
From God’s description of Eve: ‘And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him’ (Genesis 2:18 in the King James). The word helpmate likely derives from helpmeet (OED).
3.375: bing awast to Romeville
Sixteenth-century thieves’ cant, ‘Go away to London’ (OED, s.vv. bing; rum). This phrase appears in the seventh stanza of ‘The Rogue’s Delight in Praise of His Strolling Mort’; see note at 3.381–84.
3.377: fancyman
Fancyman: a woman’s sweetheart, but also a pimp (OED).
3.377: two Royal Dublins
That is, two soldiers of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers (established 1881, disbanded 1922): an Irish infantry regiment of the British Army. In 1904, three battalions of the RDF were stationed in Ireland (Arthur Swinson, A Register of the Regiments and Corps of the British Army, pp. 204–05; Thom’s, p. 605e).
3.377: O’Loughlin’s of Blackpitts
J. O’Loughlin: 1 South New-row, which is just off Blackpitts in the Liberties, grocer and spirit merchant (Thom’s, p. 1555; Harald Beck, JJON).
3.378: Buss her
To buss: to kiss (OED).
3.378: wap in rogues’ rum lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell
To wap (thieves’ cant): to copulate. Rum lingo (thieves’ cant): excellent talk (both Partridge). Dimber wapping dell (thieves’ cant): a pretty, love-making wench (OED). The phrase ‘O, my dimber wapping dell’ comes from the seventh stanza of ‘The Rogue’s Delight in Praise of His Strolling Mort’; see note at 3.381–84.
3.379: Fumbally’s lane
Fumbally’s Lane (now called Fumbally Lane) is located off Blackpitts, in the Liberties, south-central Dublin.
3.380: tanyard
This would be the tanyard (or tannery) of Kelly, Dunne and Co. at 26–27 New Row South, around the corner from Fumbally’s Lane (Thom’s, p. 1555).
3.381–84: White thy fambles, red thy gan . . . clip and kiss
Fambles: hands; gan: mouth; quarrons: body; couch a hogshead: lie down to sleep; darkmans: nighttime; clip: to embrace (OED). This is the second verse of the song ‘The Rogue’s Delight in Praise of His Strolling Mort’, which is written in thieves’ cant.
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3. ‘Proteus’ 95 This is found in Richard Head’s The Canting Academy (1673). Head’s translation of this stanza: ‘Thy hand is white and red thy lip / Thy dainty body I will clip. / Let’s down to sleep our selves then lay / Hug in the dark and kiss and play’ (pp. 19–21). Joyce’s immediate source is Heinrich Baumann’s book of London slang, Londinismen (p. lvi; with thanks to Ronan Crowley). Gogarty wrote a parody of this poem, ‘The Maunder’s Praise of His Strolling Mort’ (The Poems & Plays of Oliver St. John Gogarty, p. 602).
3.385: Morose delectation
Morose delectation: a literal translation of the Latin phrase delectatio morosa, ‘the pleasure taken in a sinful thought or imagination without even desiring it’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). This is one of the three internal sins (a sin in the mind as opposed to a sin in action). Thomas Aquinas discusses this sin in Summa Theologica (II.1, q. 31, a. 2; q. 74, a. 6; and q. 88, a. 5).
3.385: tunbelly
A tunbelly: a belly like a tun (a large cask), i.e. a particularly large and round belly. St Thomas Aquinas was so fat that, according to popular legend, a dent had to be cut into his dinner table so that he could be seated (Michael Foss, The Founding of the Jesuits, p. 91).
3.385: frate porcospino
Frate porcospino (Italian): ‘friar porcupine’.
3.386: Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted
To rut: ‘to be under the influence of periodic sexual excitement’ (OED). According to Thomas Aquinas, since sexual intercourse before the Fall was pure and untainted by lust, Adam could not, by definition, suffer from morose delectation (Summa Theologica, II.1, q. 31, a. 2). From Joseph McCabe’s (English Freethinker, 1867–1955) book The Religion of Woman: An Historical Study (1905): ‘St. Thomas, and practically all of the theologians, held (and hold to-day) that the pleasure attaching to procreation was not part of God’s original design, but a direct consequence of sin. A woman was made to kneel outside the church to be “purified” after child-birth before she could again share in the worship’ (p. 70). In a late notebook, Joyce summarised McCabe: ‘S. Thomas held lustful pleasure product of original sins’ (NLI II.i.4 f. 2r; Ronan Crowley and Geert Lernout, ‘Joseph McCabe in Ulysses’).
3.387: marybeads
The most common form of the rosary contains fifty Mary beads and five larger Pater Noster beads. The Mary beads are divided into groups of ten by the Pater Noster beads and each group is called a decade. Thus, a decade consists of one Our Father, ten Hail Marys, and the Glory be to the Father (Alexander Klauder, Catholic Practice at Church and at Home, pp. 228–29).
3.390: my Hamlet hat See note at 3.487–88.
3.391–92: sun’s flaming sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands
‘Trekking to evening lands’ echoes Percy Bysshe Shelley’s (English poet, 1792–1822) verse drama Hellas (1821): ‘Let Freedom and Peace flee far / To a sunnier strand, / And follow Love’s folding star / To the Evening land!’ (ll. 1027–30). The ‘sun’s flaming sword’ refers to the Fall: ‘And he cast out Adam; and placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life’ (Genesis 3:24).
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96 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
3.392–93: She trudges, schlepps, trains, drags, trascines her load
All synonyms. To schlepp (German and Yiddish): to trudge or drag. To train (Anglicised French): to trudge or drag. To trascine (Anglicised Italian): to trudge or drag.
3.394: oinopa ponton, a winedark sea See note at 1.78.
3.395: Behold the handmaid of the moon
After Luke 1:38, where Mary tells the angel ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord’; this is part of the Angelus (see note at 18.1541–42) (Patrick Moran, Catholic Prayer Book, pp. 10–11).
3.395–96: In sleep the wet sign calls her hour, bids her rise
Possibly a reference to Horatio’s description of the moon in Hamlet: ‘the moist star / Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands’ (I.i.118–19).
3.396: ghostcandled See note at 1.274.
3.396–97: Omnis caro ad te veniet
Omnis caro ad te veniet (Latin): ‘all flesh shall come to thee [i.e. God]’ (Psalm 64:3 in the Vulgate and the Douay; 65:2 in the King James). The opening lines of this psalm form part of the entrance chant in the Requiem Mass (Rituale Romanum, p. 248).
3.397–98: He comes, pale vampire . . . her mouth’s kiss
Stephen’s poem is not necessarily original. In part it appears to be freely modified from the last verse of an anonymous poem in Irish, ‘My Grief on the Sea’, as translated by Douglas Hyde (Irish folklorist, poet, dramatist, 1860–1949) in his collection The Love Songs of Connacht: ‘And my love came behind me—/ He came from the South; / His breast to my bosom, / His mouth to my mouth’ (p. 31). Stephen ‘borrows Hyde’s metrical pattern, the idea of someone’s arrival, the “south-mouth” rhyme, and the last line (minus the weak initial syllable that throws off the meter and is in any case redundant), but that is all’ (Robert Adams Day, ‘How Stephen Wrote His Vampire Poem’, p. 186). Various other sources have been proposed for Stephen’s poem. One candidate is the illustration ‘All thy Waves Are Gone over Me’ by William T. Horton (British mystic and illustrator, 1864–1919), from his collection A Book of Images (1898), which had a preface by Yeats. Stephen’s line could well be a caption for Horton’s picture: ‘A man is either swimming or drowning; only his head and part of a shoulder are visible above the water. His shoulder-length black hair falls over one eye; the other glares horribly; his full mouth is grimly set. He is in the trough between two great waves, but two huge wings or sails rise from his shoulders to the top of the picture. They are like the wings of a bat, since each has five ribs; but the foremost ribs seem to be of bamboo, giving the effect of the sails of an Oriental vessel’ (Day, p. 192; Horton, A Book of Images, p. 42). Joyce owned a copy of Horton’s book (Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, p. 112).
3.397: pale vampire
While the modern concept of the vampire derives from Bram Stoker’s (Irish author, 1847–1912) Dracula (1897) and the numerous film adaptations thereof, the basic idea of the vampire as a blood-sucking supernatural being dates to at least the eighteenth century, with various literary examples that pre-date Stoker, such as John William Polidori’s (1795–1821) 1819 work The Vampyre (William Orem, ‘Corpse-Chewers: The Vampire in Ulysses’, p. 59); see also note at
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3. ‘Proteus’ 97 15.1205. But the word also has a more general, non-supernatural sense, which was in common usage in the late nineteenth–early twentieth centuries, ‘A person of a malignant and loathsome character, esp. one who preys ruthlessly upon others; a vile and cruel exactor or extortioner’ (OED).
3.399: Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets
In context, ‘Put a pin in that chap’ is unclear; Partridge defines the expression ‘to put in the pin’ as meaning: to cease doing something, especially an activity of questionable merit. The tablets are the slips of paper taken from the National Library (see note at 3.407). The tablets are an allusion to Hamlet. After encountering the ghost of his father, Hamlet announces that he will write in his ‘tables’ (tablets) about the unrepentant villainy of Claudius: ‘My tables—meet it is I set it down / That one may smile and smile and be a villain’ (I.v.107–08).
3.407: slips from the library counter
According to J. F. Byrne, Joyce used to write poems on the free slips of paper the National Library of Ireland provided to its readers. These were strips of good quality white paper, 19.4 cm long by 18.6 cm wide (Silent Years, p. 64).
3.409–10: darkness shining in the brightness See note at 2.160.
3.410: delta of Cassiopeia
A not very bright star in the lower left of the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia. On 11 November 1572, Tycho Brahe (Danish astronomer, 1546–1601) discovered a supernova shining near the delta of Cassiopeia (EB11, s.v. Cassiopeia); see also note at 9.928–29.
3.410–11: augur’s rod of ash
Stephen imagines that his ashplant cane is a lituus, the rod of a Roman augur. The lituus was a symbol of the augur’s powers and was used to demarcate the templum, the holy area within which the augury would take place (OED). In chapter 5 of A Portrait, Stephen tried to perform augury: ‘The colonnade above him made him think vaguely of an ancient temple and the ashplant on which he leaned wearily of the curved stick of an augur’ (p. 225).
3.414: form of my form? See note at 2.75.
3.416: bishop of Cloyne
George Berkeley (1685–1753): Irish philosopher and Church of Ireland Bishop of Cloyne from 1734 (DIB). Cloyne is a small town in county Cork with a monastery founded by St Colman (c.510–601) (see note at 12.1699–1700).
3.416: veil of the temple
The veil is that of the temple at Jerusalem and serves to divide ‘the holy of holies’ (Exodus 26:33) from the rest of the temple. When Jesus died, ‘the veil of the temple’ was torn by God (Matthew 27:51). In Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley uses a similar expression, ‘the curtain of words’ to designate that which separates humans from truth: ‘In vain do we extend our view into the heavens, and pry into the entrails of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings of learned men, and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity; we need only draw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of knowledge, whose fruit is excellent, and within the reach of our hand’ (§24, p. 22).
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98 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
3.417: shovel hat
Shovel-hat: ‘A stiff broad-brimmed hat, turned up at the sides and projecting with a shovel- like curve in front and behind, worn by some ecclesiastics’ (OED).
3.417: hatched
To hatch: ‘To inlay or overlay (an item, surface, etc.) with narrow strips or lines of a contrasting material; spec. to place strips or sections of gold or silver in or on as ornamentation’ (OED).
3.418: Coloured on a flat: yes, that’s right
Berkeley argued that, rather than seeing objects as such, humans perceive coloured signs which are only subsequently interpreted as physical objects: ‘in a strict sense, I see nothing but light and colours, with their several shades and variations’ (A New Theory of Vision, §130, p. 73).
3.418–19: Flat I see, then think distance
According to Berkeley’s A New Theory of Vision, the eye only perceives objects two- dimensionally (i.e. as if the world were completely flat before the eyes). Distance is then suggested into the field of vision by a habitual mental operation. Distance is thus not seen but thought: ‘distance is in its own nature imperceivable, and yet it is perceived by sight. It remains, therefore, that it be brought into view by means of some other idea that is itself immediately perceived in the act of vision’ (§11, p. 15; with thanks to Kenneth Pearce).
3.420: stereoscope
According to theories of vision more modern than Berkeley’s, the most important factor for the perception of depth and distance is stereoscopic sight, or simultaneous vision with both eyes (EB11, s.v. stereoscope).
3.425–26: ineluctable modality of the ineluctable visuality See note at 3.1.
3.426–27: Hodges Figgis’ window
Hodges, Figgis, and Co.: a bookstore and publisher at 104 Grafton Street, between St Stephen’s Green and Trinity College (Thom’s, p. 1899); now located on Dawson Street.
3.428–29: braided jesse
Jess: ‘a short strap of leather, silk, or other material’ fastened around the legs of a hawk in falconry (OED). Evidently Joyce has in mind here a parasol’s strap.
3.429: Leeson park
Leeson Park: a residential street in Ranelagh, just south of the Grand Canal.
3.429: kickshaws
Kickshaw: ‘Something dainty or elegant, but unsubstantial or comparatively valueless’ (OED).
3.430: Talk that to someone else, Stevie: a pickmeup
Recalls Stephen’s friend Davin from A Portrait who, alone among Stephen’s classmates, addressed him familiarly as ‘Stevie’. Davin tells a long-winded story of a ‘pickmeup’ in A Portrait (pp. 181–83). A pick-me-up is ‘A stimulating liquid [. . .] Hence any person or thing [. . .] with a bracing effect’ and also a ‘chance (esp. if carnal) acquaintance (gen. female)’ (Partridge).
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3.431: curse of God stays
Stays: ‘A laced underbodice, stiffened by the insertion of strips of whale-bone (sometimes of metal or wood) worn by women (sometimes by men) to give shape and support to the figure [. . .] The use of the plural is due to the fact that stays were originally (as they still are usually) made in two pieces laced together’ (OED, s.v. stay).
3.432: apple dumplings
Apple-dumpling shop: a woman’s bosom (Partridge).
3.432: piuttosto
Piuttosto (Italian): rather or somewhat.
3.439–40: Et vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona
Et vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona (Latin): ‘And God saw. And they were very good’; after the Latin Vulgate Bible, at the end of God’s sixth day of creation: ‘viditque Deus cuncta quae fecit et erant valde bona’ (Genesis 1:31); ‘And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good’ in the Douay. Stephen leaves out the phrase ‘cuncta quae fecit’, ‘all the things that he had made’. On the seventh day, God rested (Genesis 2:2).
3.440: Bonjour
Bonjour (French): hello, good day.
3.440–41: Welcome as the flowers in May
‘As welcome as flowers in May’, proverbial (ODEP) and also the title of a song, ‘You’re as Welcome as the Flowers in May’, written by Dan J. Sullivan.
3.442–43: Pan’s hour, the faunal noon
Recalls the dream-like lassitude of several lines from Stéphane Mallarmé’s (French poet, 1842–98) eclogue ‘L’Après-midi d’un faune’ (1865–77, The Afternoon of a Faun): ‘Non, mais l’âme / De paroles vacante et ce corps alourdi / Tard succombent au fier silence de midi’ (No, but the soul / empty of words and its body weightier / Succumbs belatedly to noon’s proud silence) (Œuvres complètes, p. 25, ll. 104–06). According to mythology, ‘Pan’s hour’ is noon, which is when he rests (Ovid, Fasti, IV.751–62); ‘It was dangerous to disturb Pan (Faunus) at midday’ (Fasti, p. 244 n.). Noon is also the hour of Proteus’s rest (see note at 3.216).
3.445: And no more turn aside and brood See note at 1.239–41.
3.447: nebeneinander See note at 3.13.
3.447: rucked
Rucked: creased, wrinkled, rumpled (OED).
3.448: tripudium
Tripudium (Latin): a religious or war dance, literally ‘a triple beat’ (OED).
3.449: Esther Osvalt
Identity unknown, but Esther Osvalt appears in a list of names in Joyce’s notes for Stephen Hero (Scholes and Kain, The Workshop of Dædalus, p. 73; JJA, vol. 7, p. 92). Osvalt is a French surname.
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100 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
3.450: Tiens, quel petit pied!
Tiens, quel petit pied! (French): ‘My, what a small foot!’
3.451: Wilde’s love that dare not speak its name
That is, homosexuality. ‘I am the Love that dare not speak its name’ is the final line of the poem ‘Two Loves’ by Oscar Wilde’s beloved, Lord Alfred Douglas (1870–1945). Under cross-examination at his trial for sodomy and gross indecency in April–May 1895, Wilde was asked by Charles Gill, the prosecuting barrister, to explain this line from Douglas’s poem. After some initial stumbling, he replied: ‘The “Love that dare not speak its name” in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect’ (quoted in Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, p. 435).
3.452: All or not at all
Follows the sentiment of Jesus’s line: ‘He that is not with me, is against me’ (Matthew 12:30); similar catchphrases can be traced back to the sixteenth century in English (Dent).
3.453: Cock lake
Cock Lake (also Cockle Lake): a tidal inlet just off Sandymount strand, near to Stephen’s position (JJD, p. 104). This was originally a small secondary channel of the Liffey that branched to the south of the main stream and flowed to the bay in a torturous course. Its connection to the Liffey was blocked in 1733, leaving it as a lake; ‘it still acts as a feeder from which the rising tide inches its way across the sands’ (J. W. de Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin, p. 82).
3.462: hising up their petticoats See note at 1.382–84.
3.465: Saint Ambrose
Saint Ambrose (c.340–97): bishop of Milan and doctor of the Church. He was particularly known for his zealous defence of the Church against Arianism and paganism (EB11). He was also famous for composing many hymns and for having been the teacher of St Augustine.
3.466: diebus ac noctibus iniurias patiens ingemiscit
Diebus ac noctibus iniurias patiens ingemiscit (Latin): ‘It groans, days and nights, suffering violences’; a paraphrase of Romans 8:22: ‘For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now’; from the Commentary on Paul’s Letters to the Romans, originally ascribed to St Ambrose (Opera Omnia, vol. 2, p. 125). Ambrose’s authorship of this commentary has been contested since the sixteenth century and it is now usually attributed to Ambrosiaster, also known as the Pseudo-Ambrose (EB11, s.v. Ambrosiaster). Joyce’s probable source is Antonio Fogazzaro’s (Italian writer, 1842–1911) Ascensioni umane, where this passage is quoted and attributed to Ambrose (pp. 58–59; with thanks to Harald Beck).
3.467–68: loom of the moon
Suggests Penelope’s loom, on which she wove by day and unwove by night (Odyssey, II.104–05).
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3.470: Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies
Stephen reprises the boatman’s line in ‘Telemachus’ about the drowned man’s corpse at the five fathoms line (see note at 1.673). He combines this with Ariel’s song from Shakespeare’s Tempest: ‘Full fathom five thy father lies, / Of his bones are coral made, / Those are pearls that were his eyes. / Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea change / Into something rich and strange. / Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell’ (I.ii.396–402).
3.470–71: At one he said See note at 1.673–74.
3.471: Found drowned
‘Found Drowned’ is a generic headline used in papers for reports of drownings; for example, ‘FOUND DROWNED Yesterday the body of a woman, named Mary Magee, was found in the Royal Canal, near Newcomen Bridge. Deceased was apparently 35 years of age, and was respectably dressed’ (Irish Times, 9 Jan. 1894, p. 7, col. f).
3.471: High water at Dublin bar
The Bar of Dublin (or Dublin Bar): a submerged sandbank and the sole obstacle to the development of the port of Dublin. Over the years, many attempts, not all successful, were made to mitigate its deleterious impact (John W. de Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin, pp. 23–25). The phrase ‘High Water at Dublin Bar’ derives from the index heading ‘Bar, High Water at [Dublin City]’ in Thom’s (p. xxii).
3.473: bobbing a pace a pace
Recycled from Giacomo Joyce: ‘The lady goes apace, apace, apace’ (PSW, p. 234).
3.474: Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor
Line 167 from John Milton’s poem ‘Lycidas’; see note at 2.57.
3.477–79: God becomes man becomes fish . . . becomes featherbed mountain
‘God becomes man’ is God’s incarnation as Jesus Christ; ‘man becomes fish’ is Christ being symbolised by a fish ‘because he was a fisher of souls for their salvation’ (J. C. J. Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend, s.v. fish); ‘fish becomes barnacle goose’ refers to the medieval legend which held that barnacle geese are the offspring of the barnacles that cling to wet timber (barnacles are shellfish) (Brewer’s); and from geese come the feathers for a featherbed. Barnacle goose: ‘A species of wild goose (Anas leucopsis) nearly allied to the Brent Goose, found in the arctic seas (where alone it breeds), and visiting the British coasts in winter’ (OED). Joyce’s wife was named Nora Barnacle. The Featherbed Mountain lies between the Dublin Mountains and the Wicklow Mountains, south of Dublin (see note at 10.555). This passage echoes Hamlet’s thoughts on the recycling of corpses: ‘Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth we make loam, and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel?’ (V.i.201–07); and also, ‘A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm’ (IV. iii.29–31).
3.482: seachange this, brown eyes saltblue
In a Ulysses notebook, Joyce wrote, ‘saltwater turns eyes brown to blue’ (NLI II.i.3 f. 15r); we have been unable to locate a source for this mistaken belief. See note at 3.470 for seachange.
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3.482: Seadeath, mildest of all deaths
Tiresias tells Odysseus he will die at sea (Odyssey, XI.134), which he calls ‘the gentlest death that may be’ (Butcher and Lang translation, p. 176).
3.483: Old Father Ocean
‘Old father ocean’ is a common phrase; its earliest use is in Lodowick Bryskett’s (1547–1612) poem ‘The Mourning Muse of Thestylis’: ‘Out from amid the waves, by storme then stirr’d to rage / This crie did cause to rise th’ old father Ocean hoare’ (ll. 46–47; A. H. Bullen, Some Longer Elizabethan Poems, p. 289). This poem, an elegy for Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86), was first published anonymously in the volume Colin Clout’s Come Home Againe (1595) along with Edmund Spenser’s (c.1552–99) elegy to Sidney, ‘Astrophel’ (pp. xvii–xix). This phrase also recalls Homer’s epithet for Proteus, ‘the old man of the sea’ (Odyssey, IV.365, et passim).
3.483: Prix de Paris See note at 2.302–03.
3.483: beware of imitations
A longstanding advertising cliché; for example: ‘Cadbury’s cocoa / Absolutely pure and soluble / Beware of imitations’ (Fun, 5 Dec. 1888, p. 246).
3.485: I thirst
Jesus, on the cross, says ‘I thirst’ (John 19:28). In Stephen Hero, Stephen says to Cranly: ‘ “Sitio” [Latin, I thirst] is a classical cry’ (p. 185).
3.486: Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect
The name Lucifer means light-bearer, from the Latin lux, light + ferre, to bear (OED). He fell because of his pride. ‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning?’ (Isa. 14:12); ‘I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven’ (Luke 10:18).
3.486–87: Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum
Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum (Latin): ‘Lucifer, I say, who does not know a fall’; or: ‘The morning star, I say, which does not know a setting’. This plays on both meanings of the name Lucifer (literally light-bearer): the morning-star (Venus) and the Devil. The phrase derives from the Exsultet, St Ambrose’s Holy Saturday prayer. The deacon admires the paschal candle’s flame and says: ‘Flammas eius lucifer matutinus inveniat. Ille, inquam, lucifer qui nescit occasum’ (Let the morning star find it alight, that star which never sets) (Missale Romanum, p. 275).
3.487–88: My cockle hat and staff and hismy sandal shoon
After a song Ophelia sings in her madness: ‘How should I your true love know / From another one? / By his cockle hat and staff / And his sandal shoon’ (Hamlet, IV.v.23–26). The ‘cockle hat and staff ’ invokes an old figure of the lover as a pilgrim. The scallop shell is worn by those who have made the great pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Compostela, Spain. Shoon: the archaic/poetic plural of shoe (OED).
3.488: To evening lands See note at 3.391–92.
3.491: Tuesday will be the longest day
The first day of summer (and, thus, the longest day of the year) in 1904 was Tuesday, 21 June. Sunrise for 21 June 1904 was at 3:33 am and sunset was at 8:29 pm (Thom’s, p. 14).
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3.491–92: Of all the glad new year, mother
From ‘The May Queen’ (1833) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92): ‘You must wake and call me early, call me early mother dear; / Tomorrow’ll be the happiest time of all the glad New-year; / Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day’ (ll. 1–3).
3.492: Lawn Tennyson
Lawn tennis was designed to be played on ordinary lawns, instead of in a purpose-built enclosed court, and is the basis of the game as generally played today (OED). Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the most esteemed poet of his day, but in A Portrait, Stephen professed his dislike for the poet: ‘Tennyson a poet! Why, he’s only a rhymester!’ (p. 80). ‘ “Lawn Tennyson” (or “Lawn Tennison”) had been around since at least 1877, when Judy (the upstart counterpart to Punch) provided caricatures of types of tennis-players “By Our Own Lawn Tennison” (24 October, p. 19)’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
3.493: Già
Già (Italian): already, indeed, yes, of course.
3.493: For the old hag with the yellow teeth See note at 3.232–33.
3.493: Monsieur Drumont See note at 3.230–31.
3.496: Toothless Kinch, the superman See note at 1.708.
3.503: rere regardant
For rere, see note at 5.339. Regardant: looking backward (OED). ‘As rare as the leaping lion is the lion who looks backward over his shoulder. This position is called “regardant” by modern armorists. The old French blazon calls it rere regardant or turnaunte le visage arere, “regardant” alone meaning simply “looking”, and therefore we shall describe it more reasonably in plain English as “looking backward” ’ (EB11, s.v. Heraldry).
3.504: a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees
Cross-tree: ‘Two horizontal cross-timbers supported by the cheeks and trestle-trees at the head of the lower and top masts, to sustain the tops on the lower mast, and to spread the top-gallant rigging at the top mast head; affording also a standing-place for seamen’ (OED). The three crosstree masts recall Jesus, flanked by the thieves atop Calvary: ‘Then were crucified with him two thieves: one on the right hand, and one on the left’ (Matthew 27:38). Brailed means that the sails are hauled by small ropes attached to their edges (OED). Budgen tells how he, a former sailor, attempted to correct Joyce’s misuse of nautical termin ology: ‘ “I sailed on schooners of that sort once and the only word we ever used for the spars to which the sails are bent was ‘yards’. ‘Crosstrees’ were the lighter spars fixed near the lower mast-head. Their function was to give purchase to the topmast standing rigging”. Joyce thought for a moment. “Thank you for pointing it out”, he said. “There’s no sort of criticism I value more than that. But the word ‘crosstrees’ is essential. It comes in later on and I can’t change it. After all, a yard is also a crosstree for the onlooking landlubber” ’ (JJMU, p. 57). The second occurrence of the word crosstree is at 9.496.
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4. ‘Calypso’
a b
d
e
c
Map 4 Eccles Street and Dorset Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = 7 Eccles Street; b = Larry O’Rourke’s; c = Dlugacz (Michael Brunton); d = Cassidy’s; e = St George’s Church
Time: 8–9 am Location: 7 Eccles Street and environs Organ: Kidney Art: Economics Colour: orange Symbol: Nymph Technic: Narrative (mature) Correspondences: Calypso: The Nymph; The Recall: Dlugacz; Ithaca: Zion Serialised: The Little Review 5.2 (June 1918) Ulysses now moves from the suburbs to the city of Dublin, with the Blooms at their home at 7 Eccles Street. Joyce’s friend John Francis Byrne (see note at 1.159) lived at this address from 1908 to 1910; however, Joyce did not initially choose this address to be the Blooms’ home when he began writing Ulysses (see note at 4.235–36). The 1904 Thom’s lists 7 Eccles Street as vacant (p. 1482). However, the 1905 Thom’s lists a W. Finneran as its occupant (p. 1528), and thus he could well have been living there on 16 June 1904, since an edition of Thom’s contains information that was accurate as of late October the previous year (JJD, p. 16). The action of the episode is limited to the Blooms’ house and to Bloom’s brief walk around the corner on Dorset Street—the main thoroughfare in the area—to a butcher’s to buy some kidneys (map 4). Despite its literary fame, the house at 7 Eccles Street was partially demolished in 1967 and fully demolished some years later. The Mater Private Hospital—which opened in
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4. ‘Calypso’ 105 1986—stands on the site of the buildings that were at 1–17 Eccles Street. The door for 7 Eccles Street was saved before demolition and is now at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin (see Ian Gunn, JJON).
4.1: Mr Leopold Bloom
Leopold Bloom is perhaps unique among Joyce’s major characters up until this point in his writing, in that he has no single, clear, real-life model. Joyce’s close friend in Trieste, Ettore Schmitz (1861–1928)—who wrote under the pseudonym Italo Svevo—provided some aspects of Bloom’s background. Like Bloom, he is Jewish and he had a Hungarian grandfather (Ellmann, p. 374). Stanislaus Joyce writes that Joyce ‘needed various details to complete the picture of the central figure, the Jew, Leopold Bloom. It was Italo Svevo that supplied him with much of the information he needed’ (quoted in John McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 90). Another possible Triestine model is Teodoro Mayer (1860–1942), a successful journalist and entrepreneur of Hungarian Jewish extraction (McCourt, pp. 94–95). Another possible partial candidate is Alfred Hunter (1866–1926): Joyce stated that the never-written Dubliners story ‘Ulysses’ would have been about Hunter (Letters, vol. 2, pp. 168, 190, 209). Hunter was an acquaintance of Joyce’s father and an Ulster Presbyterian, who worked as an advertising canvasser and was married to a woman named Marion (Terence Killeen, ‘Myths and Monuments: The Case of Alfred H. Hunter’; Marc A. Mamigonian, ‘Hunter and Gatherers’). In terms of temperament and some other details, Joyce’s friend J. F. Byrne (see notes at 1.159 and 17.84–89) is also a candidate (John Turner, ‘How Does Leopold Bloom Become Ulysses?’). After Ulysses was published, Joyce told Sylvia Beach that Holbrook Jackson (British journalist, 1874–1948) ‘is someone who resembles’ Bloom (Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company, p. 89); there is no evidence that Joyce ever met Jackson. For a detailed analysis of how Joyce constructed the character of Bloom while writing Ulysses, see Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, pp. 85–107.
4.2: thick giblet soup
Giblets: the inner organs of birds (Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 567). According to a recipe for giblet soup that appeared in the Weekly Irish Times on 26 December 1903, it is a winter dish: ‘At this season of the year giblets are easily procured. Take two sets of geese giblets, cleanse them thoroughly by parboiling them for ten minutes, then lay them in cold water for five minutes, after which they should be stewed in a gallon [of water], with carrot, celery, six challots [sic], two onions, each stuck with six cloves, two blades of mace, and a good bunch of savoury herbs. Skim carefully when the soup boils, and let it simmer till the gibbets [sic] are tender, then strain off the stock, wash the giblets, cut the wings into half-inch pieces and the liver and gizzard into small dice. Remove all fat from the stock, thicken it, let it boil well, add salt, cayenne, also the meat, and serve’ (p. 20, cols a–b; John Simpson, JJON).
4.2: nutty gizzards
Gizzard: ‘The second or muscular stomach of birds in which the food is ground, after being mixed with gastric juice in the proventriculus or first stomach’ (OED). Those that like them say that their flavour is ‘nutty’; additionally, the gizzard is itself walnut-shaped (John Simpson, JJON).
4.2: stuffed roast heart
A contemporaneous recipe for roast heart: ‘Required: 1 ox heart; ¼ lb. bread crumbs; 2 oz. dripping or suet; 2 tablespoonfuls milk; 2 onions (previously boiled); ½ teaspoonful powdered
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106 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses sage; ½ teaspoonful salt; ¼ teaspoonful pepper. Lay the heart to soak in cold water and salt to draw out the blood. Clean it well, taking care to remove all the clots of blood. Cut off all the loose flaps and the coarse fat; dry thoroughly. Put the bread crumbs in a basin, rub thoroughly together. Chop the onions finely, add them, the sage, pepper, salt, and milk. Mix well; stuff the heart with this mixture and sew it up. Roast according to general directions, and serve very hot’ (C. E. Guthrie Wright, School Cookery Book, p. 64; John Simpson, JJON).
4.3: crustcrumbs
Crust crumbs: breadcrumbs made from the crust of bread (John Simpson, JJON).
4.3: fried hencods’ roes
‘Female cod (hens) produce what is known as “hard roe”, whereas male cod produce “soft roe” or milt. Both hard and soft cod’s roe can be fried. By specifying “hencod’s roe” Joyce is simply adding an element of precision to his description: Bloom’s preferred fried cod’s roe are the hard roe of the female fish’ (John Simpson, JJON).
4.4: grilled mutton kidneys
According to Jessup Whitehead’s Steward’s Handbook and Guide to Party Catering (1903): ‘Mutton kidneys are a great breakfast speciality in England; grilled kidneys are only prevented from being as universally served as the national eggs and bacon by their dearness; the demand is always greater than the supply, and the price is high, accordingly’ (p. 356; John Simpson, JJON).
4.4–5: faintly scented urine
Typically, prior to cooking, kidneys are soaked in cold, salted water in order to remove the taste and scent of urine (Alison Armstrong, The Joyce of Cooking, p. 48; Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 445).
4.6: Kidneys were in his mind
The use of the preposition in here accords with Hiberno-English—but not British English— usage. In Hiberno-English, ‘IN can be used to refer to a range of meanings that include most notably (a) presence, existence, and location; (b) inherent qualities; and (c) states, expressed reflexively or possessively’ (Jeffrey Kallen, Irish English Volume 2: The Republic of Ireland, p. 171).
4.7: gelid
Gelid: cold or icy (OED).
4.12: hob
See note at 1.267–68.
4.24: pussens
Pussens: a term of endearment for a cat; the OED’s earliest example is from 1866: C. E. L. Riddell’s Race for Wealth: ‘ “Oh! you dear, dear old pussens”—and the child made a dive at the tabby’.
4.26: They understand what we say better than we understand them
This is similar to an idea expressed by Michel de Montaigne (French essayist, 1533–92) in the ‘Apology for Raimond Sebond’ (1568): ‘When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?’ (Essays, vol. 2, p. 282).
4.31: chookchooks
Chook: a chicken or chickens collectively (Partridge).
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4. ‘Calypso’ 107
4.36: Hanlon’s milkman
In 1904, Hanlon was the surname of three different proprietors of registered dairies in Dublin. The nearest to the Blooms’ house on Eccles Street was operated by S. Hanlon, at 26 Lower Dorset Street, with another outlet at Kelly’s Row (Thom’s, p. 2058).
4.40–41: Wonder is it true if you clip them they can’t mouse after
A popular belief of the time held that a cat’s ability to catch a mouse depended on its whis kers; for example, from the story ‘The Cat-Hood of Maurice’ by E. Nesbit: ‘ “I shall catch heaps of mice!” “Think so? You forget that your whiskers are cut off—Maurice cut them” ’ (The Strand Magazine, vol. 34, Dec. 1907, p. 788).
4.44: drouth
Drouth (Hiberno-English): thirst, drought (Dolan).
4.44: Want pure fresh water
In raising chickens, ‘They must have access to plenty of pure water. The quality of the eggs depends upon the quality of the food’ (Derby Mercury, 24 Apr. 1864, p. 6, col. f).
4.45: mutton kidney at Buckley’s
John Buckley: victualler, 48 Upper Dorset Street (Thom’s, p. 1819), a short distance from Bloom’s house.
4.46: pork kidney at Dlugacz’s
Dlugacz’s is the only commercial establishment mentioned in Ulysses that did not exist in Dublin. There was a pork butcher at 55A Upper Dorset Street, near Eccles Street, named Michael Brunton (Thom’s, p. 1479). The novel’s butcher takes his name from Moses Feuerstein Dlugacz (1884–1943), a young Zionist intellectual who taught Hebrew in Trieste and who studied English with Joyce from 1912 to 1915 (Ellmann, p. 308; Hyman, pp. 184–85; John McCourt, The Years of Bloom, pp. 235–37). Pork is not kosher (see note at 4.278).
4.47: then licking the saucer clean
This phrase recalls a line from the nursery rhyme ‘Jack Sprat’: ‘Jack Sprat could eat no fat, / His wife could eat no lean, / And so between them both, you see / They licked the platter clean’ (ODNR, p. 238).
4.47–48: To lap better, all porous holes
From The Cat (1900) by St George Mivart (English biologist, 1827–1900): ‘Imbedded in the areolar tissue of the septum and near the lower surface of the [cat’s] tongue is a spindle- shaped body (formed of fibrous tissue, fat and muscular fibre), connected anteriorly with the mucous membrane of the tongue, and tapering off behind till it is lost in the tissue of the septum. This body is the lytta or “worm”. Its function is unknown, but it is supposed to help the tongue in its lapping action’ (pp. 171–72).
4.50: She
That is, Bloom’s wife Marion (Molly), who is modelled after Joyce’s lifelong companion and (eventually) wife Nora Barnacle (1884–1951). Born in Galway, she was working as a maid at Finn’s Hotel on Leinster Street in Dublin when she met Joyce. They had their first date on 16 June 1904. Nora’s biographer, Brenda Maddox, writes: ‘[t]hat Joyce considered the day he fell in love with Nora the most important day in his life is one of the most agreeable things we know
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108 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses about him. That he modeled the most famous woman in twentieth-century literature on her shows how rich an inspiration she was. The correspondences between Molly’s life and Nora’s are striking. Both have the same “espousal” day: the eighth of October [see note at 17.2276]. Both were in their early thirties (Nora turned thirty as Joyce was beginning the book), and each, not quite sure of precisely how old she was, lopped two years off her age’ (Nora, p. 201). Such a list of correspondences could be easily expanded. ‘Nora Joyce had a similar gift for concentrated, pungent expression, and Joyce delighted in it as much as Bloom did. Like Molly she was anti-intellectual; and like Molly she was attached to her husband without being awestruck’ (Ellmann, p. 376). Some details of Molly derive from other women Joyce knew; for example, Molly’s stage name probably derives from Mary Chance, the wife of one of the friends of Joyce’s father (see note at 5.148). For a detailed analysis of how Joyce constructed the character of Molly Bloom while writing Ulysses, see Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, pp. 108–39. See also Terence Killeen, ‘Marion Hunter Revisited’.
4.50–51: Thin bread and butter
Possibly drawn from a version of the nursery rhyme ‘Little Tommy Tucker’: ‘Little Tommy Tucker, / Sings for his supper: / What shall we give him? / White bread and butter. / How shall he cut it / Without a knife? / How will he be married / Without a wife?’ (ODNR, p. 416).
4.59: brass quoits of the bedstead
Bedstead: the wooden or metal stand on which a bed is raised. Quoit: ‘a heavy, flattened, sharp-edged iron ring, thrown to encircle, or land as near as possible to, an iron peg’ or a similarly shaped disc of stone or metal; originally a flat disc of stone or metal used in throwing contests (both OED). Presumably, quoit would be Bloom’s term for the ornamental discs on the bedstead’s posts. Since these would be affixed by screws, they would jingle if the screws were loose and the bed was moving.
4.60: All the way from Gibraltar
Gibraltar, Molly’s birthplace, is a British colony—less than 5 km in length—just on the southern coast of the Iberian peninsula at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. The main feature is a mountain 429 metres high called the Rock of Gibraltar. Gibraltar was captured by an Anglo-Dutch fleet on behalf of Archduke Charles of Austria, claimant to the Spanish throne, in 1704. It was ceded to Great Britain under Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 and 1714, along with the port of Menorca (EB11, s.vv. Gibraltar; Utrecht, Treaty of).
4.62: short knock
That is, the auctioneer cut short the bidding to Tweedy’s benefit, perhaps because of his military background. From an article on Austrian stud farms: ‘The auction is carried on entirely by the Government with a military auctioneer [. . .] and many a short knock was given when the bidder happened to be an officer’ (The Nineteenth Century, Apr. 1892, vol. 31, p. 667).
4.63: old Tweedy
Molly’s father Brian Cooper Tweedy was in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who, in real life, were stationed in Gibraltar from January 1884 to February 1885 (C. F. Romer and A. E. Mainwaring, The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers, p. 217). In a letter to his aunt Josephine, Joyce said Tweedy was based on Major Malachy Powell (1821–1917), an Irish-born solider who served in the British Army; but in an earlier letter, he wondered
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4. ‘Calypso’ 109 whether Powell was actually a major (Letters, vol. 1, pp. 198, 174). Powell’s ‘rank of “Major” was an honorary one, granted not by the British army but by the Volunteer Military Force in South Australia where he was to serve during the last stage of his career’ (Andrew Tierney, JJON). In 1887, Powell settled in Dublin, where he worked as the ‘Military Correspondent’ for the Freeman’s Journal. On an early draft, Molly’s maiden name was Powell before Joyce changed it to Tweedy (NLI II.ii.1.a: f. 10; Daniel Ferrer, ‘What Song the Sirens Sang’, p. 59).
4.63: Plevna
Plevna (now Pleven), Bulgaria, was the site of four battles in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) that ultimately proved decisive for the war and led to the liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire. Bloom believes that Tweedy served in that campaign, although this is impossible since the British position was neutral at the time (EB11, s.v. Plevna). Bloom has in his library a book that belonged to Tweedy, Hozier’s History of the Russo- Turkish War, which contains an account of Plevna (see notes at 17.1385 and 17.1386).
4.63–64: rose from the ranks
Up until World War I, it was highly unlikely (but not impossible) for a non-commissioned solider to rise up through the ranks into the officer class in the British Army. The Army largely replicated the social stratification of British society, with the officer class consisting almost entirely of the aristocracy, the landed gentry, and, increasingly over the course of the nineteenth century, the middle class. The rank and file was mostly working class (Harold E. Raugh, Jr, The Victorians at War, pp. 250, 277).
4.64–65: make that corner in stamps
Corner: a speculative operation in which all the supply of any commodity—in this case stamps—is purchased, thereby driving up the price (OED).
4.67–68: stickyback pictures
Sticky-back: ‘small photograph with a gummed back’ (OED).
4.68: in the swim
To be ‘in the swim with’: to be in league with (Partridge).
4.69–70: Plasto’s high grade ha
That is, ‘hat’: the label has partly faded away. John Plasto, hatter, 1 Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street), in central Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1987). In a postcard to his mother, sent from Paris in 1903, Joyce requested a hat from Plasto’s, specifying that ‘no other kind’ would do (Letters, vol. 2, p. 40).
4.73: Potato I have
The potato is a keepsake Bloom carries in his pocket, a gift from his mother (15.3513). See also note at 14.1480–81.
4.75: footleaf
Joyce’s term for the bottom part of the building’s front door, which was a hinged flap that runs the full width of the door and is about 10 cm high and in some cases is tilted at a slight angle. This was a common feature on many Georgian houses in Dublin. The door for 7 Eccles Street (now at the James Joyce Centre) has such a flap, which is flush with the door and not angled. Its purpose is to prevent rainwater from collecting between the door and
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110 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses threshold. The generic name for this is a weatherboard (OED), but not all weatherboards are hinged flaps (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
4.77: He crossed to the bright side
‘Bloom’s house, no. 7 Eccles Street, is on the northeast side of the road [. . .] the side oppos ite to his house [is] indeed sunnier on a summer’s morning’ (JJD, p. 32).
4.77–78: avoiding the loose cellarflap of number seventyfive
Cellar-flap: ‘a flap on hinges, level with the surface of the ground, opening into a cellar’ (OED). These cellars would be used for storing coal, and such cellar-flaps are visible in old photographs of Eccles Street (with thanks to Fritz Senn). Joyce’s representation of Dublin is not always accurate. Presumably, Joyce thought that number 75 was directly opposite Bloom’s house, but it was across the street and slightly to the right and therefore the loose cellar-flap is not in his path as he turns left towards Dorset Street (JJD, pp. 32–33). Joyce added this phrase on a page proof after he had made the decision to house the Blooms at 7 Eccles Street (JJA, vol. 22, p. 175); see also note at 4.235–36.
4.78: George’s church
St George’s Church (Church of Ireland) is in Hardwicke Place, just east of the intersection of Eccles Street and Dorset Street. Construction began in 1802. The steeple is modelled after the design of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields in London and is 61 metres high. The clock has eight bells (Bennett).
4.79–80: Black conducts, reflects, (refracts is it?), the heat
Bloom is incorrect: black clothes absorb the light of the sun, thereby producing warmth (G. A. Wentworth and G. A. Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 425).
4.82: Boland’s breadvan
Boland’s, Ltd.: a baking company, 133–36 Capel Street and Grand Canal Quay (Thom’s, p. 1811).
4.82: our daily
A fragment of the phrase ‘Give us this day our daily bread’, from the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13).
4.84–86: set off at dawn . . . never grow a day older technically
Joyce’s source for this is Camille Flammarion’s Astronomy for Amateurs (1903): ‘If we could make the tour of the world in twenty-four hours, starting at midday from some place to go round the globe, and traveling westward with the Sun, we should have him always over our heads. In traveling round the world from West to East, one goes in front of the Sun, and gains by one day; in taking the opposite direction, from East to West, one loses a day’ (p. 236; Ronan Crowley, JJON).
4.85: steal a day’s march
To steal a march: to get a secret advantage or edge on an opponent (ODEP; Dent).
4.87: ranker
Ranker: a soldier in the ranks, or an officer who has risen from the ranks (OED); see note at 4.63–64.
4.89: Turko the terrible See note at 1.258.
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4.91: sherbet
Sherbet: ‘A cooling drink of the East, made of fruit juice and water sweetened, often cooled with snow’, or a European imitation of this, typically made with sherbet powder, ‘A prepar ation of bicarbonate of soda, tartaric acid, sugar, etc., variously flavoured, for making an effervescing drink’ (OED).
4.91: dander
To dander: ‘To walk idly or purposelessly; to stroll, saunter’ (OED).
4.98: dulcimers
Dulcimer: ‘A musical instrument, in which strings of graduated lengths are stretched over a trapezoidal sounding board or box and struck with two hammers held in the hands’ (OED). From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’: ‘A damsel with a dulcimer / In a vision once I saw: / It was an Abyssinian maid / And on the dulcimer she played’ (ll. 37–40).
4.99–100: in the track of the sun
The title of a book Bloom owns; see note at 17.1395.
4.100: Sunburst on the titlepage
Sunburst: ‘A pattern or design having the shape of a stylized representation of the sun and its rays’, but also more specifically, ‘A stylized representation of the sun and its rays as an emblem of Ireland. In Irish mythology, the sunburst was the emblem borne on the standard of the Fianna [see note at 12.910]. It was adopted by various Irish nationalist and republican movements in the 19th cent’ (OED). Not only is there no sunburst on the title page of In the Track of the Sun, but also Bloom’s copy lacks a title page (see note at 17.1395). The title page shows a Japanese woman playing a shamisen, a three-stringed instrument from Japan that resembles a dulcimer.
4.101: Arthur Griffith See note at 3.227.
4.101–02: headpiece over the Freeman leader . . . in the northwest
The headpiece of the Freeman’s Journal (see note at 5.49), the paper where Bloom works, shows a sunburst (see note at 4.100) over the Bank of Ireland in College Green. Since this building had been the seat of the Irish Parliament before the Act of Union of 1800 (see note at 5.305), the image is supposed to symbolise the sun rising over a new dawn of Irish Home Rule. Under the headpiece is the slogan ‘Ireland a Nation’ (for example, Freeman’s Journal, 16 June 1904, p. 4, col. f). However, this symbolism is geographically incongruous, since the sunburst is over the north-west of the building and thus the sun would be setting, not rising. We have been unable to locate an example of Griffith making this specific comment about the Freeman’s Journal, but he was very critical of its moderate nationalism, which he argued made it a vehicle for British rather than Irish interests. He even accused it of keeping ‘Ireland quiet for the English politicians’ (Nationality, 30 June 1917, quoted in Felix Larkin, ‘Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal’, p. 177).
4.103: Ikey
Ikey: alert, wide-awake, artful (Partridge).
4.105: Larry O’Rourke’s
Laurence O’Rourke: grocer and tea, wine and spirit merchant (publican), 72–73 Upper Dorset Street, on the corner of Eccles Street (Thom’s, p. 1980).
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4.106: porter
See note at 3.152.
4.108: M‘Auley’s
Thomas McAuley: grocer and wine merchant (publican), 39 and 82 Lower Dorset Street, just north of Eccles Street (Thom’s, p. 1936). M‘ (or M’) is a convention for representing Mc names (M‘Auley for McAuley); this is how Thom’s represents such names. Joyce initially used the Mc form and only later in the composition of Ulysses did he decide on the M‘ form. He then updated the Mc names on the typescripts, but neglected to update the name McCann in ‘Nestor’ (2.246) (Sam Slote, ‘Correcting Joyce’, p. 58).
4.108: n.g.
N.G.: abbreviation for ‘no good’ or ‘no go’ (Partridge). Bloom’s assessment is fundamentally borne out by Thom’s, which gives a valuation of £50 for O’Rourke’s and only £35 for McAuley’s (pp. 1478, 1479); for valuations, see note at 4.235–36.
4.109–10: tramline along the North Circular from the cattlemarket to the quays
The North Circular Road is a semicircle (matched by the corresponding South Circular Road) with both ends going toward the Liffey, one in west Dublin and the other in East Dublin at the river’s mouth. The North Circular Road was the main thoroughfare that connected the Dublin cattle market, located at the corner of Aughrim Street and the North Circular Road in Stonybatter in north-west Dublin, to the docks at the quays, and so it was used for the weekly driving of cattle (Bennett, s.v. Circular Road, North). ‘As early as 1870, there were complaints of “great inconvenience and danger” arising from the practice. In 1895 and again in 1902, the City Council considered the regulation of cattle traffic, but the police responded that they could not send a policeman to accompany every drove of cattle. [. . .] The traffic problem ended in the early 1960s’ (Liam Clare, ‘The Dublin Cattle Market’, pp. 174–75). The route along the North Circular from the cattle market to the quays is approximately 5 km. Bloom worked at the cattle market from 1893–94 (17.483–86).
4.112–13: my bold Larry
Perhaps after the finale of the anonymous ballad ‘Larry MacHale’: ‘His estates were soon numbered amongst the Incumbered, / Henrietta-street finished bold Larry MacHale’ (Dublin Saturday Magazine, 1 Jan. 1865, vol. 1, no. 16, p. 3).
4.114: curate
Curate: Dublin slang, barman, assistant to the publican (OED; Dolan).
4.114: Simon Dedalus See note at 6.4.
4.115–16: Do you know what I’m going to tell you?
In Ireland, ‘Sometimes an unusual or unexpected statement is introduced in the following manner, the introductory words being usually spoken quickly:—Now do you know what I’m going to tell you—that ragged old chap has £210 in the bank’ (PWJ, p. 13).
4.116–17: The Russians, they’d only be an eight o’clock breakfast for the Japanese
The Russo-Japanese war lasted from February 1904 to September 1905 (EB11). From the start, the Japanese forces proved superior, as was remarked in contemporary newspaper
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4. ‘Calypso’ 113 coverage. From an editorial in the Irish Times: ‘The continued successes of the Japanese are enough to stagger humanity. Where will they end? [. . .] Invulnerable to all appearance on her European borders, Russia has found herself badly wounded on her Asiatic side’ (4 June 1904, p. 12, col. b).
4.119: Dignam
Paddy Dignam: an acquaintance of Bloom’s, whose funeral will be held later in the day; see also note at 5.331.
4.120: Dorset street
One of the main thoroughfares on the north side of Dublin, it was originally called Drumcondra Lane and followed the path of the old highway to the north (Bennett). It is named after Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Duke of Dorset (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 32), after whom Sackville Street is also named (see note at 5.70). It is a matter of longstanding, lively, local debate as to whether the stress is on the first or final syllable of Dor-set.
4.124: Lovely weather
According to the Freeman’s Journal, the actual forecast was for ‘[s]outherly fresh or strong winds, later veering westerly and moderating; with rain generally; some fair intervals’ (16 June 1904, p. 5, col. f). The forecast proved to be accurate: the morning was mostly fine, but an afternoon rainstorm almost forced the cancellation of the bicycle race at Trinity in the afternoon (for which, see note at 5.550) (Irish Times, 17 June, p. 8, col. h). The temperature recorded at 1:30 in the afternoon was 70°F/21°C (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 2, col. e).
4.125: ’Tis all that
’Tis: a commonly-used contraction of ‘It is’ in Hiberno-English (Dolan).
4.127: county Leitrim
A north-central, rural Irish county.
4.127: old man in the cellar
Old man: ‘That part of the beer engine in which the surplus beer collects’ (Partridge); also the dregs of beer left at the bottom of drinkers’ glasses.
4.128: Adam Findlaters
Adam Seaton Findlater, Jr (1855–1911): a successful wine merchant and grocer (pronounced fin-later). Findlater’s main store was located at 29–32 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street, and there were twelve other branches in County Dublin, of which seven were in the city proper (Thom’s, p. 1869). The shop was founded by his great uncle Alexander Findlater (1797–1873). He was managing director of his family’s firm from 1899 until his death in 1911. He was politically ambitious: a liberal unionist, he lobbied for an ‘equity in fiscal relations between Ireland and Britain’ (DIB, s.v. John Findlater).
4.128: Dan Tallons
Daniel Tallon (1836–1908): a prosperous publican, with pubs at 46 South Great George’s Street and 57 Stephen Street (Thom’s, p. 2022). He was Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1 January 1898 to 1900 (DIB).
4.129–30: cross Dublin without passing a pub
According to an 1898 government report, in 1890, the City of Dublin had 1,551 licensed pubs and a population of 249,602 (Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing Laws, vol. 7,
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114 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses p. 214). Some streets had as many as one pub for every seven houses (p. 213). There was also a large number of unlicensed establishments (p. 18). The area of the City of Dublin between the canals is 3,733 acres or 1,510 hectares (Thom’s, p. 1335), so it would indeed be a challenge to cross from one end of the city to the other without passing by a single pub.
4.131: bob
Bob: one shilling (one twentieth of a pound) (OED).
4.132–33: Doing a double shuffle with the town travellers
Double shuffle: a trick or a con (Partridge). Town traveller: a travelling salesman (here, a wholesale liquor salesman) ‘whose operations are confined to the town which is his employer’s place of business’ (OED). Doing a double shuffle, then, involves overcharging for wholesale liquor in league with the travelling salesman.
4.134: tot
To tot: to add or total (OED).
4.134: porter
See note at 3.152.
4.136: Saint Joseph’s National school
Saint Joseph’s National School: 81–84 Upper Dorset Street (Thom’s, p. 1479). The National Schools were state-run and were established to serve the working class and the lower middle class. They were run by the Protestant government, whereas their students were predominantly Catholic. The system was ‘undenominational in theory but denominational in practice’ (Donald H. Akenson, The Irish Education Experiment, p. 224).
4.138: Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin
Three little islands off the west Irish coast of Galway’s Joyce Country region. Inis (frequently Anglicised as Inish) (Irish): island.
4.139: joggerfry
Joggerfry: school slang for Geography (John Simpson, JJON).
4.139: Slieve Bloom
Slieve Bloom Mountains: 89 km west and south-west of Dublin, on the borders of counties Laois (formerly Queen’s County) and Offaly (formerly King’s County) in central Ireland (P. W. Joyce, Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 386). Slieve: from the Irish sliabh: mountain. Bloom: from the Irish Bladhm (Flame) or Bládh (Flower).
4.140: Dlugacz’s window See note at 4.46.
4.141: polonies, black and white
Three types of sausage. Polony: ‘A large dried sausage made originally of a mixture of pork and other meats, partly-cooked’; polony is a variant of Bologna sausage. Black and white are black pudding and white pudding. Black pudding: ‘A large sausage made of blood and suet, sometimes with flour or oatmeal’. White pudding: ‘A large, pale-coloured sausage made from oatmeal and suet, sometimes with pork meat’ (all OED).
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4. ‘Calypso’ 115
4.143: forcemeat
Force-meat: ‘Meat chopped fine, spiced, and highly seasoned, chiefly used for stuffing or as a garnish’ (OED).
4.144: cooked spicy pigs’ blood
Sausages typically, but not exclusively, consist of chopped pork, pigs’ blood, and spices stuffed into a tubular casing, although this basic formula has ‘proved to be so adaptable and successful that sausages have come to take many forms’ (Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 717).
4.147: washingsoda
Washing soda: sodium carbonate, often used on tough stains and as a descaling agent (Mandy O’Brien and Dionna Ford, Homemade Cleaners, p. 36).
4.148: Denny’s sausages
Henry Denny and Sons: a Limerick meat-processing firm, founded in 1820. In an 1885 advertisement in the Freeman’s Journal, they boasted that they were ‘[t]he largest bacon curers in the United Kingdom’ (26 Sep., p. 4, col. d). By 1909, they were claiming to be ‘[t]he largest Bacon Curers in Europe’ (Kerry Evening Star, 25 Nov., p. 4, col. c).
4.148: Woods
Thom’s lists the occupant of 8 Eccles Street, next door to the Blooms, as ‘Mr R. Woods’, but his occupation is not given (pp. 1482, 2043). The 1901 census lists the household as Patrick Woods (1837–1915), carrier, his wife Rose (1847–1916), and daughter Katie. ‘R. Woods’ is, in fact, Rose Woods, who was the owner of the property. She had separated from her husband in 1902, and he was no longer living in Eccles Street in 1904 (John Simpson, JJON).
4.149–50: No followers allowed
No followers allowed: a standard phrase ‘to indicate that female servants were not allowed men friends’ (Geoffrey Leech and Mick Short, Style in Fiction, p. 242; John Simpson, JJON).
4.154–55: model farm at Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias
Tiberias: another name for the sea of Galilee (John 6:1). Kinnereth (spelled Cenereth in the Douay Bible and Chinnereth or Cinneroth in the King James Bible): a fortified city on the south-western side of the lake and a stronghold of the tribe of Naphtali. Its existence is noted in Joshua 19:35 and its destruction is mentioned in 1 Kings 15:20 (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary, s.v. Chinnereth). The Palestine Land Development Company founded a model farm at Kinnereth in June 1908 (Hyman, p. 338). The PLDC was one of several companies that were formed to attract private capital for the commercial development of land in Palestine as part of the Zionist goal of encouraging Jews to move to Palestine and colonise it as a Jewish homeland. The PLDC advertised regularly in Zionist periodicals (M. David Bell, ‘The Search for Agendath Netaim’, p. 251). Joyce’s phrasing echoes a 1917 essay by S. Tolkowsky: ‘the farm of Kinnereth on the shores of Lake Tiberias’ (‘The Jews and the Economic Development of Palestine’, p. 142; Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘ “Those Jews they said killed the Christian boy” ’). There is an anachronism here: the practical colonisation of Palestine—and the establishment of organisations such as the PLDC—did not begin until shortly after the death of Theodore Herzl (1860–1904), the founder of Zionist movement, on 3 July 1904 (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Zionism); see note at 4.192–93. Joyce derived the information on this flyer from announcements for various different Zionist organisations, not just the PLDC; see also notes at 4.156–57, 4.191–92, and 4.194–96.
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4.156: Moses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore (1784–1885): English Jew of Italian origin, a philanthropist who helped the cause of Jews in England and Europe and promoted the cause of Jewish settlement in Palestine (ODNB).
4.156–57: Farmhouse, wall round it, blurred cattle cropping
Crop: ‘Said of animals biting off the tops of plants or herbage in feeding’ (OED). One of the ads for the Palestine Land Development Company (see note at 4.154–55) in the German Zionist weekly newsletter Die Welt includes a halftone reproduction that clearly shows a farmhouse, with a wall around it, and cattle grazing in the foreground. The caption identifies this as their model farm at Kinnereth (Die Welt, 2 Apr. 1909, p. 304; M. David Bell, ‘The Search for Agendath Netaim’, pp. 251–52).
4.159: mornings in the cattlemarket See note at 6.392.
4.176: Brown scapulars
Scapular: ‘an article of devotion composed of two small squares of woollen cloth, fastened together by two strings passing over the shoulders, worn as a badge of affiliation to the religious order which presents it’ (OED). The Brown Scapular is another name for the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, ‘the best known, most celebrated, and most widespread of the small scapulars’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. scapular). The brown scapular is worn perpetually under one’s clothes by chaste members of the laity enrolled in the Brown Scapular Confraternity as a prophylactic against ‘the fires of hell’. In Ireland, the brown scapular was worn by a large number of lay Catholics.
4.178: Eccles lane
Eccles Lane runs parallel to most of the length of Eccles Street on its northern side. The lane connects Dorset Street to the Mater Misericordiae hospital. After 1904, the lane was renamed Stable Lane; part of it remains and is now called Eccles Place.
4.178: They like them sizable
The ‘Dublin policeman was a tall and impressive figure who easily stood out. Men were chosen for their height as much as for their literacy skills or overall health. The height of recruits averaged around five feet nine inches [1.75 m] to six feet [1.83 m]’ (Anastasia Dukova, A History of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, p. 29). See also note at 17.86.
4.179: O please, Mr Policeman, I’m lost in the wood
Perhaps after the title of a song, ‘Oh! Mr. P’liceman, Oh! Oh! Oh!’ (1893), written and composed by E. Andrews and popularised by the music hall performers the Tilley Sisters (Michael Kilgarriff, Sing Us One of the Old Songs, p. 358). The song’s title is combined with the expression ‘lost in the wood’, i.e. confused (Dent). This can also be seen as a reference to the first two lines of Dante’s Inferno: ‘In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost’ (I.1–2).
4.191–92: Agendath Netaim: planters’ company
Agudath Netaim (Hebrew): a society of plantations. Joyce clearly wrote ‘Agendath’ (Rosenbach f. 6), perhaps in error or perhaps deliberately. (If it is a mistake, it is unlikely to derive from a mistranscription from the Hebrew since the literature discussing this organ isation did not render its name in the Hebrew alphabet). This organisation was unrelated to
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4. ‘Calypso’ 117 the model farm at Kinnereth (see note at 4.154–55) and to the PLDC. Agudath Netaim was an organisation that invested in plantations while also offering European Jews the oppor tunity to acquire farming land in Palestine; ‘its aim was to save the prospective settler the initial hardships involved in setting up a farm by itself buying land, developing it, and planting trees for him’ (Hyman, p. 339 n. 194). It was founded in Istanbul in 1905 by Aaron Eisenberg and was the first company to issue stock in Palestine. It was known as the Société Ottomane de Commerce, d’Agriculture et d’Industrie in French, the Palestine Plantation Company in English, and the Gesellschaft der Pflanzer in German, which translates as ‘planters’ company’ (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘ “Those Jews they said killed the Christian boy” ’). An article promoting this organisation appeared in the German Zionist periodical Palästina (May 1907, no. 5, pp. 113–16). This article does not use the phrase ‘Gesellschaft der Pflanzer’, but rather refers to it (somewhat redundantly) as ‘Die Gesellschaft Agudath Netaim’. See also note at 4.194–96.
4.192–93: purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish government
From 1516 until the end of World War I, Palestine was a part of the Ottoman Empire. The First Zionist Congress at Basle in 1897 set forth the goal of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Theodore Herzl (1860–1904), the founder of the movement, established various trusts to purchase land in Palestine in the name of the Jewish people. However, Herzl did not want to begin the active settlement of Palestine until after a formal agreement with the Ottomans had been secured. After Herzl’s death in 1904, the new leaders of the Zionist movement changed course and began the work of the practical colonisation of Palestine by encouraging the formation of various corporations, such as the PLDC, to assist prospective Jewish settlers (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.vv. Zionism; Basle program).
4.194: Jaffa
Jaffa, or Joppa: a port city in Palestine with a fruit-growing industry. Jaffa and its environs was one of the first areas in Palestine to be settled by Zionists. Jaffa was incorporated into the city of Tel Aviv in 1950 and in 1965 its port was closed (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.vv. Jaffa; Zionism).
4.194–96: You pay eighty marks . . . citrons
This information derives from a 1906 article about the Berlin-based Zionist plantation company Pflanzungsverein Palästina in the German Zionist periodical Altneuland (or from a different source about the same company): ‘a Jewish person, who was willing to invest 80 marks, could become the owner of a piece of land of one dunam in Palestine, planted with fruitbearing trees or plants’; a subsequent article listed the crops that could be grown: ‘olives, almonds, grapes, raisins, figs, peaches, apricots, oranges, ethrogs, lemons’ (pp. 377–80; Wolfgang Wicht, ‘ “Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15.” (U 4.199), Once Again’, pp. 801–02). In Palestine itself, the Pflanzungsverein Palästina was sometimes referred to as ‘Agudath Netaim’. While there was no official connection between this Berlin- based company and the Agudath Netaim founded by Aaron Eisenberg (see note at 4.191–92), there was a friendly relationship between them (Hyman, p. 339 n. 194).
4.195: eighty marks
In 1904, the German mark was worth 11½d., that is, half a penny less than one shilling (Thom’s, p. 31).
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4.195: dunam
Dunam: ‘A measure of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and in some countries formerly part of it, varying in size typically between about 900 and 1,300 square metres. In recent use in some places, e.g. Israel, standardized at 1,000 square metres’ (OED).
4.196: citrons
The citron (etrog): ‘A large oval citrus fruit having a rough yellow skin and a thick scented rind used in pickles and preserves, and yielding little juice’ (OED). The citron is part of the ritual during the Jewish holiday Sukkot (see note at 4.210–11) and is, according to some Jewish tradition, the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend, s.v. etrog). See also note at 4.204–05.
4.199: Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W.15
Beginning in 1909, a variety of Zionist firms were based at 34/35 Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.15 (the building itself did not exist until 1908). Agudath Netaim (see note at 4.191–92) was never associated with this address, however. Indeed, it was never based in Berlin. Likewise, Pflanzungsverein Palästina (see note at 4.194–96) was also never associated with this address. The Palestine Land Development Company (see note at 4.154–55) was registered at this address until 1913, at which point it moved to a nearby address at 8 Sächsische Strasse (Wolfgang Wicht, ‘ “Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15.” (U 4.199), Once Again’, pp. 804–06).
4.203: Andrews
Andrews and Co.: tea, coffee, wine, and spirit merchants, 19–22 Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1798).
4.204–05: Citrons too. Wonder is poor Citron still alive in Saint Kevin’s parade
Thom’s lists a J. Citron at 17 St Kevin’s Parade (p. 1589), around the corner from Lombard Street West, which is where Bloom lived c.1892–93, although the precise dates are unclear (Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, p. 190). This neighbourhood, known as ‘Little Jerusalem’, was one of the main Jewish sections of Dublin in 1904. The listing ‘J. Citron’ in Thom’s is a misprint for I[srael] Citron (1875–1950) (Hyman, pp. 168, 329).
4.205: Mastiansky
Thom’s lists P. Mastiansky, a grocer at 16 St Kevin’s Parade (p. 1589), thus, once a neighbour of Bloom’s. The Thom’s entry is a misprint for Phineas Masliansky (b. 1875), also known as Philip, ‘who in 1896 lived at 2 Martin Street, in 1899–1900 at 63 Lombard Street West and from 1901–1906 at 16 St Kevin’s Parade [. . .] A handsome man with a small pointed beard and endowed with a fine singing voice’ (Hyman, p. 189).
4.206: cither
Cither: ‘Any of various plucked stringed instruments similar in form to, or believed to have derived from, the cithara; (in later use) esp. a zither’ (OED).
4.209–10: Moisel told me. Arbutus place: Pleasants street
Arbutus Place is near Bloom’s old address at Lombard Street West. Thom’s lists a ‘M. Moisel’ living at 20 Arbutus Place in 1904 (p. 1415); this is a misprint for N[isan] Moisel (c.1829–1910) (Hyman, p. 168). Pleasants Street is further away, about 900 metres distant to the north and east and is also one of the streets within ‘Little Jerusalem’, albeit at the periphery (Cormac Ó Grada, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce, pp. 104, 109). It was probably a Bloom residence during the early years of their marriage (JJD, p. 122).
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4.210–11: Must be without a flaw
The Jewish holiday Sukkot (Feast of the Tabernacles), which occurs in the seventh month (Tishri) of the Hebrew calendar, is celebrated by taking the four species—palm (lulav), citron (ethrog), myrtle, and willow—and carrying them in procession to the synagogue. ‘The lulav and ethrog, required to be flawless because they symbolize God’s abundant blessings on earth, have inspired various interpretations in Jewish tradition. No expense is spared by strictly observant Jews to obtain the finest ethrog, which suggests the human heart’ (Philip Birnbaum, A Book of Jewish Concepts, p. 311).
4.213: navvies
Navvy: ‘A construction worker; spec. a labourer employed in the construction of (origin ally) a canal, (now freq.) a road, railway’ (OED).
4.215: His back is like that Norwegian captain’s
That is, he is hunchbacked. Joyce’s father, John, and his godfather, Philip McCann, used to tell a joke about a hunchbacked Norwegian captain who ordered a suit from a Dublin tailor. When the suit did not fit properly, the captain upbraided the tailor, telling him he did not know how to sew. The tailor retorted by telling the captain he was impossible to fit because he was so deformed. John Joyce told this story in a particularly humorous way, embellishing and extending it with all manner of farcical details (Ellmann, p. 23). In addition to being mentioned here in Ulysses, this story appears in Finnegans Wake, where it is told at great length (pp. 311–32).
4.216–17: On earth as it is in heaven
From the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’ (Catholic Encyclopedia).
4.219–20: Vulcanic lake, the dead sea
The Dead Sea (also known as the Sea of Sodom, the Sea of Lot, the Salt Sea, the Sea of the Arabah, the Eastern Sea, and the Sea of Death) is a salt-rich lake, 400 metres below sea level, in what was formerly called Palestine. ‘To the quantity of solid matter suspended in its water the Dead Sea owes, beside its saltness, its buoyancy and its poisonous properties. The human body floats on the surface without exertion. Owing principally to the large proportion of chloride and bromide of magnesia no animal life can exist in its water. Fish [. . .] die in a very short time if introduced into the main waters of the lake’ (EB11).
4.221–22: Brimstone . . . the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom
The proper list of the cities of the plain is: Sodom, Gomorrah, Adama, Seboim, and Bala (Zoar) (Genesis 14:2). The inclusion of Edom in this list is Bloom’s mistake. Edom was an ancient kingdom between Moab to the north-east, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east. The Dead Sea is partially located in what was Edom (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary). Edom was another name for Esau (Genesis 25:30), Isaac’s son who squandered his birthright to his brother Jacob and subsequently became father of the Edomites (Genesis 36:9). The story of God punishing Sodom and Gomorrah with destruction by brimstone and fire is told in Genesis 19.
4.223–24: first race
The book of Genesis traces the genealogy of the Israelites back through Noah to Adam, the first man (Genesis 5:1–29). Therefore the Israelites, or Jews, would be the first race. However this first race was not actually born and bred in the land of Israel as Bloom here claims.
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120 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Until the story of Abraham, who migrated to Canaan from Haran, a city in northern Mesopotamia (Genesis 12:1; Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary), all the events in Genesis take place in Babylonia and Assyria.
4.224: Cassidy’s
James Cassidy: wine and spirit merchant, 71 Upper Dorset Street (Thom’s, p. 1829).
4.224: naggin bottle
Naggin: variant of noggin, a quarter-pint (142 ml) or so of liquor (OED).
4.225–26: captivity to captivity See note at 2.362.
4.231: Eccles street
Named after Sir John Eccles, who owned property in the area (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 33) and built between 1750 and 1820, Eccles Street used to be one of the finest Georgian streets in the north side of Dublin, but its grandeur had faded by the time of Ulysses (Bennett). Up until the 1970s, most Dubliners, especially locals to the area, would pronounce its name Ek-less, with the stress on the final syllable (with thanks to Gerry O’Flaherty).
4.232: age crusting him with a salt cloak
Alludes to the Biblical story of Lot’s wife. God permitted Lot and his family to leave Sodom, before He destroyed it, but He ordered them not to look back at the city (Genesis 19:17). ‘And [Lot’s] wife looking behind her, was turned into a statue of salt’ (Genesis 19:26).
4.234: Sandow’s exercises
Eugen Sandow (1867–1925, real name Frederick Muller): an internationally famous strongman and proponent of physical culture, born in Königsberg, East Prussia (ODNB). Sandow staged a vaudeville performance in Dublin from 2 to 14 May 1898 at the Empire Palace, which attracted a large audience. In the advertisements, Sandow was billed as ‘The talk of the civilised world [. . .] The strongest man on Earth. Perfect Embodiment of the Human Form’ (Freeman’s Journal, 2 May 1898, p. 4, col. a). Bloom owns a book by Sandow, Strength and How to Obtain It (see note at 17.1397), which provides a regimen of exercises. See also note at 17.514–15.
4.234: On the hands down
That is, an instruction for a push-up style of exercise. Sandow does not use this expression in his book Strength and How to Obtain It. From a course in physical training for schools: ‘ “On the hands—Down”.—Bend the knees outwards, place the hands flat on the floor a few inches in front of the feet, 12 inches [30.5 cm] apart, fingers to the front, elbows inside the knees’ (The Practical Teacher, July 1903, vol. 24, no. 1, p. 42).
4.235–36: Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only twentyeight
In Ireland at this time, property valuation was not an appraised sale price, but rather, the ‘value of a property were it to be rented for a full year’ and was used for purposes of local taxation (Joseph Byrne, Dictionary of Irish Local History, p. 317). 80 Eccles Street was valued at £17 and was not vacant in 1904, it was occupied by a Mr Timothy McKeon. However, 7 Eccles Street was vacant in 1904 and was valued at £28 (Thom’s, p. 1482). Originally Joyce wrote ‘Number seven still unlet’ (Rosenbach f. 7), which is how the phrase appeared in the
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4. ‘Calypso’ 121 Little Review serialisation, because he had not yet decided to house the Blooms in number 7. On the galley proofs—after he had decided to put the Blooms at 7 Eccles Street—he changed this to ‘Number eighty’ (JJA, vol. 17, p. 68), but neglected to adjust for the different valuation of the two houses.
4.236: Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur
Four Dublin real estate agents: Towers, Fitzgerald and Co., 63 Middle Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 2027); Battersby & Co., 39 Westmoreland Street (p. 1804); North, Jas. H. and Co., 110 Grafton Street and London and Glasgow (p. 1971); MacArthur & Co., 43 Lower Gardiner Street and 79 Talbot Street (p. 1936).
4.240: Berkeley road
Eccles Street terminates at its intersection with Berkeley Road at its north-western end (Thom’s, p. 1482). Bloom is walking up Eccles Street from Dorset Street, at its south- eastern end.
4.241: slim sandals
Suggests the description of Hermes when he is about to tell Calypso to free Odysseus: ‘Immediately he bound upon his feet the fair sandals, golden and immortal’ (Odyssey, V.44–45).
4.244: Mrs Marion Bloom
The fact that the letter is addressed to ‘Mrs Marion Bloom’—as opposed to ‘Mrs Leopold Bloom’—goes against the recommendation of some, but not all contemporaneous manuals of etiquette. For example, Thomas Edie Hill allows for this practice: ‘It is customary to address the married woman by the name which she used on her cards. It is optional with the lady whether she uses her own name. “Mrs Helen E. King”, or that of her husband, “Mrs Chas. M. King” ’ (Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms, p. 81).
4.250: Mullingar
Mullingar: the county town (county capital) of County Westmeath; about 74 km west-north-west of Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1239). In the summer of 1900, John Joyce took James and some of his other children to Mullingar, while he was employed to straighten out some irregularities with the local voting lists (Ellmann, p. 77; Leo Daly, James Joyce and the Mullingar Connection, p. 16). Joyce wrote about this for Stephen Hero (pp. 237–51).
4.277–78: Say they won’t eat pork
Bloom’s belief that cats won’t eat pork—and thus observe the strictures of kosher cuisine— is somewhat idiosyncratic.
4.278: Kosher
Kosher (Hebrew): food that is fit or allowed to be eaten. Jewish dietary laws and restrictions are called Kashrut and derive from the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and have been expanded through oral and rabbinical tradition. Food prepared according to the Kashrut is deemed kosher (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Kashrut).
4.281: new tam
Tam: short for Tam o’Shanter, a soft cap with a flat crown originally worn by Scotsmen but from the late nineteenth century popular, in modified form, among women. The name comes from Robert Burns’s (Scottish poet, 1759–96) poem ‘Tam o’Shanter’ (OED).
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4.281: Mr Coghlan
Milly Bloom’s employer, a (fictional) Mullingar photographer, perhaps based on (the real) Phil Shaw, who had a studio in Earl Street (Leo Daly, James Joyce and the Mullingar Connection, p. 54).
4.281: lough Owel
Lough Owel: a lake just north-west of Mullingar in Westmeath.
4.281–82: Blazes Boylan’s
Hugh ‘Blazes’ Boylan: Molly’s manager, an advertising agent and impresario of singers and prize fighters. The name probably derives from Augustus Boylan (1872–1963), a tenor singer who sang in the 1904 Feis Ceoil, at which Joyce also performed. Boylan sang as one member of a prize-winning quartet (Igoe, pp. 35–36).
4.282: seaside girls
‘Those Lovely Seaside Girls’: a song, with a polka rhythm, written by Harry B. Norris in 1899. The chorus: ‘Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls, / All dimples smiles and curls, your head it simply whirls, / They look all right, complexions pink and white, / They’ve diamond rings and dainty feet, / Golden hair from Regent Street, / Lace and grace and lots of face, those pretty little seaside girls’. Joyce consistently substitutes swirls for whirls in this song (Bauerle, p. 235). The song is in part about the practice of mixed bathing, which was still controversial in 1904 (see note at 15.1701).
4.283–84: moustachecup, sham crown Derby
Moustache cup: ‘a cup with a partial cover to protect the moustache when drinking’ (OED, s.v. moustache). Crown Derby: a proprietary name for high-quality gilt porcelain. Derby porcelain became Crown Derby in 1773, under royal warrant from George III, becoming Royal Crown Derby under royal warrant and title from Queen Victoria in 1890 (F. Brayshaw Gilhespy, Royal Crown Derby China, p. 24). Several Staffordshire companies imitated Crown Derby.
4.287–90: O, Milly Bloom, you are my darling . . . garden
Modified from Samuel Lover (Irish novelist and songwriter, 1787–1868): ‘O Thady Brady you are my darlin’, / You are my looking-glass from night till morning, / I love you better without one fardin’ / Than Brian Gallagher wid house and garden’ (Legends and Stories of Ireland, p. 247). The father of Joyce’s childhood playmate Eileen Vance sent young Joyce a parody of this quatrain (Ellmann, p. 31).
4.290: Katey Keogh
While the name Katey Keogh is stereotypically Irish to the point of cliché, it seems likely that Joyce took it from Catherine Keogh (c.1892–1986), known as ‘Katey’. She was one of the first employees of the Volta Cinema, the first motion picture theatre in Dublin, which was founded at Joyce’s initiative in December 1909 (Vivian Igoe, JJON; see also Ellmann, pp. 300–11).
4.291: professor Goodwin
Goodwin was Molly’s accompanist on the piano from 1888 or 1889 to 1895. See note at 8.185–86. Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian playwright, 1828–1906)—whom Joyce idolised when he was young (see note at 16.52–54)—kept a mirror in the crown of his hat so as to be able to check on his appearance (Jan Kott, The Theater of Essence, p. 60).
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4. ‘Calypso’ 123
4.303: the brasses
Brasses: a brass ornament on a piece of furniture (Century Dictionary), in this case, what Bloom calls the brass quoits (see note at 4.59).
4.305–06: The warmth of her couched body
Couched can mean lying down but it can also mean lying hidden or concealed (OED), which is appropriate, given that in Greek the name Kalupso means ‘she that conceals’ (Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon).
4.314: Là ci darem
Là ci darem la mano (Italian): ‘Then with thy hand in mine’; a famous duet in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756–91) Don Giovanni (1787), Act I, scene 8. Molly is to sing this song in her upcoming musical programme. The song begins when the Don sees a group of peasants and is taken with a woman named Zerlina, whom he woos, even though she is engaged. Ultimately she resists his advances (Bauerle, p. 248).
4.314: J. C. Doyle
John C. Doyle (1866–1939): ‘one of Ireland’s most popular singers’ (Irish Press, 16 Oct. 1939, p. 2, col. e). He won various singing awards and served as the leading baritone at the Carmelite Church on Whitefriar Street. On 27 August 1904, he sang on the same bill as Joyce (see note at 6.222).
4.314: Love’s Old Sweet Song
‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’ (1884), words by G. Clifton Bingham (1859–1913), music by James Lyman Molloy (1837–1909) (Bauerle, p. 241). Another song from Molly’s upcoming musical programme. The words of the song were written by Bingham in 1882 as a poem; the popularity of those verses led the Dublin-born Molloy to set it to music.
Once in the dear, dead days beyond recall, When on the world the mists began to fall, Out of the dreams that rose in happy throng, Low to our hearts, Love sang an old sweet song; And in the dusk where fell the firelight gleam, Softly it wove itself into our dream. [Chorus:] Just a song at twilight, When the lights are low And the flick’ring shadows Softly come and go; Though the heart be weary, Sad the day and long, Still to us at twilight, Comes love’s sweet song, Comes love’s old sweet song. [Second verse:] Even today we hear Love’s song of yore, Deep in our hearts it dwells forevermore; Footsteps may falter, weary grow the way, Still we can hear it, at the close of day;
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124 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
So till the end, when life’s dim shadows fall, Love will be found the sweetest song of all (Bauerle, pp. 242–47).
4.316: flowerwater
Flower-water: ‘distilled water containing the essential oil of flowers’ (OED).
4.327–28: Voglio e non vorrei. Wonder if she pronounces that right: voglio
Voglio e non vorrei (Italian): ‘I want to and I wouldn’t like to’; a misquotation of Zerlina’s response to Don Giovanni’s advances in the duet ‘Là ci darem la mano’ from Mozart’s opera (see note at 4.314). Zerlina’s actual line is ‘Vorrei, e non vorrei’ (I would, and yet I would not). In Italian, the word voglio is pronounced voi-yo (and not vog-lee-oh).
4.329: valance
Valance: a short curtain around the frame of a bedstand (OED).
4.330: orangekeyed chamberpot
The chamber pot bears an orange key-pattern or meander, a pattern popular in Greek art and sculpture. A meander resembles a maze: it is a series of continuous, interlocking lines patterned in rectangular forms (OED, s.vv. key-pattern; meander).
4.331: Show here
‘All through Ireland you will hear show used instead of give or hand (verb), in such phrases as “Show me the knife”, i.e. hand it to me. “Show me the cream, please”, says an Irish gentleman at a London restaurant; and he could not see why his English friends were laughing’ (PWJ, pp. 37–38).
4.333: held by nothandle
An unconventional way of saying that Molly is holding the cup by its body and not by its handle.
4.339: Metempsychosis?
Bloom’s initial definition is correct: metempsychosis means the transmigration of souls, or, more simply, reincarnation (OED). This word does not appear in Amye Reade’s novel Ruby (see note at 4.346). Plato’s Myth of Er, which is at the end of The Republic, postulates a theory of metempsychosis where souls are granted a measure of choice for their next life. Odysseus is given the last choice and ‘gladly’ selects to be reincarnated as ‘an ordinary citizen, who minded his own business’ (Republic, 620c). See also note at 4.376.
4.340: Who’s he when he’s at home?
‘When it’s [or he’s] at home’: ‘A derisive tag implying contempt or incredulity’ (Partridge).
4.343: O, rocks!
Rocks: the testicles; used in expressing derision or annoyance (OED). The OED’s earliest example is Ulysses.
4.345: The first night after the charades. Dolphin’s Barn
Molly and her father lived in Dolphin’s Barn at the time she and Bloom first met (see note at 17.2083). Dolphin’s Barn is a neighbourhood in the south-west of Dublin, by the Grand Canal. The name might derive from a thirteenth-century inn belonging to a family named Dolfyn (Bennett).
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4. ‘Calypso’ 125
4.346: Ruby: the Pride of the Ring
Joyce derives this title and some details from Ruby. A Novel. Founded on the Life of a Circus Girl (1889) by Amye Reade. The eponymous Ruby comes from a broken home and is sold into slavery at the age of 13 to Signor Enrico, a villainous circus master. Although he never molests the girls sexually, he does have a penchant for beating them in the nude as punishment for not performing adequately. The novel ends with Ruby reunited with her father, who has returned from Australia, just as she is dying from injuries sustained during a performance. He then frees one of Ruby’s friends from Enrico’s circus and marries her (Mary Power, ‘The Discovery of Ruby’). The subtitle of Joyce’s novel, ‘The Pride of the Ring’, was a popular title or subtitle for other circus-based novels (Caroline Nobile Gryta, ‘Who is Signor Maffei?’, p. 321).
4.346–47: Illustration. Fierce Italian with carriagewhip
An illustration from the book Ruby. A Novel. The illustrations for Ruby were done by Talbot Hughes. The description of the picture is accurate, however the unclothed girl on the floor is not the eponymous Ruby, as Bloom thinks it is, but rather Victoria Melton, a friend of Ruby’s and fellow circus performer (Victoria is the friend who marries Ruby’s father at the novel’s conclusion). The ‘fierce Italian’ is Signor Enrico. See also the following note.
4.348–49: The monster Maffei . . . with an oath
This line is a slight modification of the caption for the above picture in Ruby. A Novel: ‘ “The monster desisted and threw his victim from him with an oath” Chap. xxxi’. While unnamed in the caption in Reade’s book, the name of the monstrous character is Signor Enrico (Mister Henry), who Joyce renamed Signor Maffei. This is possibly after Francesco Scipione, marchese di Maffei (Italian dramatist, 1675–1755) (Caroline Nobile Gryta, ‘Who is Signor Maffei?’, p. 322).
4.349: Hengler’s
A very popular English circus, run by the Hengler family. It began operation in the mid- nineteenth century (Ruth Manning-Sanders, The English Circus, pp. 84–87). They travelled to Dublin with some frequency: ‘Visitors to the horse show will be pleased to learn that Hengler’s Circus will re-open for a short season to-night. The circus has always been a favourite resort of amusement-seekers in Dublin’ (Irish Daily Independent, 22 Aug. 1898, p. 5, col. b).
4.351: Bone them young
To bone: ‘to lay hold of; to seize and take possession of ’ (OED).
4.355–56: Is she in love with the first fellow all the time?
In terms of the novel Ruby, this question probably refers to Ruby’s mother. The first third of Ruby details the troubled marriage between Ruby’s parents, Cynthia and Jack Hayward.
4.358: Paul de Kock’s
Charles-Paul de Kock (1793–1871): a prolific French novelist. His novels primarily focused on the working classes and the petite bourgeoisie, which, up until then, were not well represented in French literature. Despite being tremendously popular, his works were routinely derided by critics for being bawdry and his name became synonymous with bad writing (Anne O’Neil-Henry, ‘Paul de Kock and the Marketplace of Culture’, pp. 97–98). He was popular in Britain as well and his works were widely translated into English by the mid-nineteenth century; even his more salacious books were available in unexpurgated
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126 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses editions (Juliette Atkinson, ‘The London Library and the Circulation of French Fiction in the 1840s’, pp. 402–03). In his notes for his play Exiles, Joyce writes: ‘A striking instance of the changed point of view of literature towards this subject is Paul de Kock—a descendant surely of Rabelais, Molière [. . .] Salacity, humour, indecency, liveliness were certainly not wanting in the writer yet he produces a long, hesitating, painful story—written also in the first person’ (JJA, vol. 11, pp. 58–59).
4.360: Capel street library
Public Library (City of Dublin): 106 Capel Street, north-central Dublin, Patrick Grogan, librarian (Thom’s, p. 1443). The Public Libraries (Ireland) Act 1855 established public lending libraries on Capel Street and Thomas Street. ‘Only persons resident, or employed in the City, are entitled to borrow books to be read elsewhere than in the Library buildings’ (p. 1368).
4.361: Kearney, my guarantor
Presumably, this is Joseph Kearney, book and music dealer, whose store was just across the street from the library at 14 Capel Street (Thom’s, p. 1916). In order to obtain a reader’s card at the Capel Street Library, one needed to have a property-owner act as a guarantor (Joseph O’Brien, Dear, Dirty Dublin, p. ix).
4.370: Photo Bits
A London penny-weekly magazine, which combined fiction, humorous pieces, and photography. While not overtly pornographic, the photos showed women in ‘provocative poses, smoking, jumping, dancing, fencing, pirouetting, in ways that would show their “lingerie”, legs, bloomers and pants’ (Elisabetta d’Erme, ‘Bloom, the Dandy, the Nymph and the Old Hag’, p. 39). It was published from 1898 to 1914, and from 1902 until 1909 the magazine offered free colour picture supplements twice a year, in the summer and Christmas issues. The Easter issue did not, as claimed here, include such a supplement. Furthermore, Photo Bits never included a picture entitled ‘The Bath of the Nymph’. However many of the pictures that ran in the magazine had similar titles, such as ‘After the Bath’ and ‘Nymphs of the Sea’ (Tess Marsh, ‘Is There More to Photo Bits Than Meets the Eye?’).
4.370: splendid masterpiece in art colours
See note at 1.73 for art colour. This specific slogan appears to be of Joyce’s invention, but Photo Bits did promote their pictures with similar language. From an advertisement in the December 1905 issue: ‘The twelve-colour plate is pronounced by the Press and Public alike to be a Superb Work of Art. Neatly framed, it is a handsome addition to any collection of pictures. Hung in a bedroom it has a warm, cosy effect. Hung anywhere, it cannot fail to delight the eye’ (quoted in Elisabetta d’Erme, ‘Bloom, the Dandy, the Nymph and the Old Hag’, p. 41).
4.376: changed into an animal or a tree
Bloom’s explanation at this point is more appropriate as an example of Ovidian metamorphosis than of metempsychosis. Metamorphosis involves permanent transformations (including people turning into animals or trees and vice versa) or temporary disguises. ‘A cardinal feature of Ovidian metamorphosis is continuity between the person and what he is changed into. [. . .] It is [. . .] a change which preserves, an alteration which maintains identity’ (Joseph B. Solodow, The World of Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’, p. 174). Ovid’s Metamorphoses includes a section with Pythagoras, who advocates a theory of metempsychosis (see note at 4.339): ‘All things are always changing, / But nothing dies. The spirit
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4. ‘Calypso’ 127 comes and goes, / Is housed wherever it wills, shifts residence / From beasts to men, from men to beasts, but always / It keeps on living’ (XV.163–67).
4.383: commode
Commode: ‘A small article of furniture enclosing a chamber utensil; a close-stool’ (OED).
4.397: Papli
Papli: combines the Hungarian term of endearment for a father or grandfather, papi, with the suffix -li. This suffix is common in Hungarian borrowings from German and Austrian dialects (with thanks to Tekla Mecsnóber and Balazs Apor). Bloom’s father was a Jew from Hungary.
4.401: swimming
Swimming: very well; to be ‘in the swim’ is a colloquial expression for being ‘in luck, doing a good business’ (Partridge).
4.401: Mr Coghlan See note at 4.281.
4.402: Fair day
Mullingar had no fairs in the month of June in 1904. 4 July was the closest (Thom’s, p. 41).
4.403: the beef to the heels
‘Beef to the heels, like a Mullingar heifer’: a Hiberno-English expression for a heavyset woman: ‘The plains of Westmeath round Mullingar are noted for fattening cattle’ (PWJ, p. 136).
4.403: lough Owel See note at 4.281.
4.406: Greville Arms
Originally called Wilton’s Hotel, this is a nineteenth-century building in the centre of Mullingar and the town’s main hotel. The hotel was acquired by Fulke Southwell Greville- Nugent (Irish politician, 1821–83) when he purchased the entire town in 1858. He renamed it the Greville Arms Hotel in 1869 shortly after he was created the first Baron Greville. The hotel bears his heraldic symbol (Leo Daly, James Joyce and the Mullingar Connection, p. 47). The hotel is briefly mentioned in Stephen Hero (p. 250).
4.407: Bannon
See note at 1.684.
4.409: those seaside girls See note at 4.282.
4.417: Mrs Thornton in Denzille street
Mary Thornton, a midwife to the Joyce family, delivered four of his siblings. She lived at 19a Denzille Street, near the Holles Street maternity hospital (Ellmann, pp. 373–74, 748 n. 51). Thom’s lists ‘Tenements’ at 18–20 Denzille Street in 1904 (p. 1474).
4.418–19: She knew from the first poor little Rudy wouldn’t live
The Blooms’ son Rudy was born on 29 December 1893 and died on 9 January 1894 (17.2280–81).
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128 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
4.422–23: Row with her at the XL Café
A café and restaurant at 84 Grafton Street in central Dublin (Thom’s, pp. 1507, 2044).
4.423: Saucebox
Saucebox: an impudent or impertinent person (Partridge).
4.425: Twelve and six a week
Milly’s salary is not bad. Eveline in Dubliners earns a little more than half that, 7 shillings per week (p. 38). According to a 1907 report on the wages available for women, working in a shop was one of the better-paid occupations for women. A woman over 18 could ‘earn on average 10s. 6d. a week’ (Edward Cadbury, Cécile Matheson, and George Shann, Women’s Work and Wages, p. 107).
4.426: Musichall stage
Music hall: ‘A public hall or theatre used for musical performances, originally: (a) one used esp. for musical recitals, concerts, and similar productions; and subsequently: (b) a venue for a style of popular entertainment typically consisting of singing, dancing, comedy, and novelty acts; (also) popular entertainment of the type provided in a music hall. [. . .] The popularity of music hall was at its height in England in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and declined after the First World War (1914–18) with the rise of cinema’ (OED). Victorian music hall performances were varied and eclectic, a single night of performances could have highly sentimental songs, broad-humour sketches, novelty acts, and risqué skirt dancing. Because of such dancing, the music hall did have a reputation for salaciousness (Barry J. Faulk, Music Hall and Modernity, p. 12), which would explain Bloom’s antipathy towards his daughter pursuing a career in the music hall.
4.433–34: Anemic a little. Was given milk too long
Anaemic: ‘ill-supplied with blood, or having blood of poor quality’ (OED). ‘Many a case of rhachitis or anaemia owes its origin to the baby being nursed into the second year’ (Abraham Jacobi, Contributions to Paediatrics, vol. 1, p. 338).
4.434: Erin’s King that day round the Kish
The Erin’s King: a sightseeing boat that left from Custom House Quay to a variety of tours around Dublin Bay (C. P. Curran, Under the Receding Wave, p. 22). See note at 3.267 for the Kish lightship. An advertisement in the Freeman’s Journal for 10 June 1897 provides details on the cruise: ‘ERIN’S KING Leaves Custom House Quay TO-MORROW, at 7 30, for a Cruise Round Ireland’s Eye. Fare 1s. On SATURDAY, at 1 30, for a Two Hours’ Cruise in the Bay. Fare 1s. And at 4 30 for a Cruise Round the Kish Lightship. Fare 1s’ (p. 4, col. a).
4.435: Not a bit funky
Funky: afraid, timid, very nervous (Partridge). The point is that Milly, unlike the seaside girls of the song, does not get seasick (Bowen, p. 90). From the third and final verse: ‘The wind begins to blow each girl remarks “how rough today”. / “It’s lovely don’t you know”, and then they sneak away. / And as the yacht keeps rolling with the tide, / You’ll notice hanging o’er the vessel’s side’.
4.437–38: All dimpled cheeks and curls . . . swirls Lyrics from ‘Seaside Girls’; see note at 4.282.
4.439: jarvey
Jarvey: a hackney-cab driver, ‘now frequently applied to the driver of an Irish car’ (OED).
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4.440–41: Pier with lamps, summer evening, band See note at 1.84.
4.452: August bank holiday
By an 1871 statute, the first Monday in August was made a bank holiday in England and Ireland (Thom’s, p. 18).
4.454: M‘Coy
McCoy previously appeared in ‘Grace’ in Dubliners. There we are told that he had been a clerk in the Midland Railway (p. 157). He is based on Charles Chance (1863–1915), a commercial clerk and friend of John Stanislaus Joyce (Igoe, p. 193).
4.463: to fag
To fag: ‘To do something that wearies one; to work hard; to labour, strain, toil’ (OED).
4.463–64: up the stairs to the landing
That is, all the way up to the toilet on the landing. Georgian houses did not initially have indoor toilets; these would have been added later. One solution was adding a cantilevered extension on the back wall off a mid-floor landing. There is no evidence that 7 Eccles Street was equipped with such an extension. ‘The other common solution was to add a “return” at the top of the staircase, and create a toilet in that top space. This was a case of putting a few steps off the top landing, as if creating a continuing stair, and then creating a room’ (Ian Gunn, JJON). The toilet is too small to have a bath (see 18.905).
4.467: Titbits
Tit-Bits from all the most interesting books, periodicals, and contributors in the world: a British weekly tabloid-digest specialising in human interest stories. ‘Acknowledged by many historians and contemporaries to be the most popular penny-paper of the late- nineteenth century, Tit-Bits appeared on the publishing scene on October 22, 1881’ (Kate Jackson, ‘The Tit-Bits Phenomenon’, p. 203). ‘Not only did Tit-Bits specialize in short stories, anecdotes, odd facts, responses to inquiries, and faits-divers, but from the first it also attempted to become an integral part of its readership’s lives, with contests, correspondence, and numerous contributions from readers’ (R. Brandon Kershner, The Culture of Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, p. 134). According to Stanislaus Joyce, Titbits was the only newspaper that John Stanislaus Joyce ‘used to read for general culture’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 106). Titbits ceased publication in 1984.
4.472: the garden
Joyce’s friend J. F. Byrne (see note at 1.159) described the garden of 7 Eccles Street, which was where he lived from 1908–10: ‘There was a yard in the rear as wide as the house and about twenty feet [6.1 metres] deep. In the yard there was a supplementary toilet to the left as you went out; and a garden, which in my time was fairly good, extended behind the yard about two hundred feet [61 metres] to a coachway called Stable Lane’ (Silent Years, p. 155). Eccles Lane had been renamed Stable Lane by the time Byrne had moved to Eccles Street in 1908; see note at 4.178.
4.474: The maid was in the garden
From the nursery rhyme ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’: ‘Sing a song of sixpence, / A pocket full of rye; / Four and twenty blackbirds, / Baked in a pie. // When the pie was opened, / The birds began to sing; / Was not that a dainty dish, / To set before the king? // The king was in his counting-house / Counting out his money; / The queen was in the parlour, / Eating
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130 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses bread and honey. // The maid was in the garden, / Hanging out the clothes. / There came a little blackbird, / And snapped off her nose’ (ODNR, p. 394).
4.476: Scarlet runners
Scarlet runner: ‘a red- or white-flowered climbing bean, Phaseolus coccineus, or its edible pods’ (OED).
4.476: Virginia creepers
Virginia creepers: common climbing plants of the Vitaceae family (OED).
4.477: scabby soil
That is, bad soil. Scabby: ‘Contemptible, mean, vile; stingy, “shabby” ’ (OED).
4.477: liver of sulphur
Liver of sulphur: ‘a substance made by heating potassium and sulphur which consists chiefly of the sulphide, polysulphides, and thiosulphate of potassium, used in metalworking to form patinas and formerly in pharmacy’ (OED).
4.480: oilcakes
Oilcake: husk left by seeds (cottonseed, rapeseed, etc.) pressed for oil; used as fertiliser and for fattening livestock (OED).
4.481: Mulch of dung. Best thing to clean ladies’ kid gloves. Dirty cleans
Up until the early nineteenth century, throughout Britain and Ireland, dung mixed with cold water was sometimes used to clean clothes (the clothes were rinsed thoroughly in fresh water afterwards). However, urine was more commonly used for this (Caroline Davidson, A Woman’s Work is Never Done, p. 142; with thanks to Helen Saunders). Typically, kid gloves would require a more delicate cleaning solution.
4.483–84: That bee or bluebottle here Whitmonday
Whitmonday: the day following Whitsunday (or Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter). In 1904, Whitmonday was 23 May (Thom’s, p. 13). Bloom suffered a bee sting on that day. The bluebottle is a fly (Musca vomitoria) with a large bluish body (OED).
4.486: hanging up on the floor
Hanging up on the floor: a catchphrase from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a ‘humorous way of referring to things left or piled on the floor’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
4.488: Drago’s
Adolphe Drago: Parisian perfumer and hairdresser, at 17 Dawson Street and 36 Henry Street (Thom’s, p. 1472; although on p. 1857, Thom’s lists Mrs Drago, wigmaker and hairdresser, as the proprietor of these addresses).
4.490: Tara street
Tara Street (just south of the Liffey) was the location for the Dublin Corporation Public Baths, Wash Houses, and Public Swimming Baths (Thom’s, p. 1606). William Fallon, a schoolmate of Joyce’s, recalled that Joyce took swimming lessons at the Tara Street Baths (Ulick O’Connor, The Joyce We Knew, p. 46).
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4.490–91: Chap in the paybox there got away James Stephens, they say. O’Brien
John Patrick O’Brien (1846–1925), the superintendent of the Tara Street Baths (Thom’s, p. 1606), did not help the Fenian James Stephens in his escape from Richmond Jail (see note at 3.241–42). Indeed, although two O’Briens were associates of Stephens— William Smith O’Brien (see note at 6.226) and James Francis Xavier O’Brien (see note at 17.1648)—neither was involved in the escape (Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana IV’, p. 158).
4.493: Enthusiast
Enthusiast: ‘One who holds extravagant and visionary religious opinions, or is characterized by ill-regulated fervour of religious emotion’ (OED).
4.494: crazy
Crazy: unsound, frail, shaky (OED).
4.494: jakes
Jakes: outhouse (OED). See note at 4.463–64.
4.498–99: The king was in his countinghouse From ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’; see note at 4.474.
4.500: cuckstool
The outhouse seat. To cuck: ‘to void excrement’ (OED).
4.502: Our prize titbit: Matcham’s Masterstroke
In each issue, Titbits magazine (see note at 4.467) published a ‘Prize Tit-Bit’, a prize-winning, reader-submitted story. The author of this particular piece, Philip Beaufoy, was a successful Titbits contributor (see the following note), but the title comes from Joyce’s own unsuccessful youthful attempt to contribute to Titbits. ‘The plot concerned a man who goes to a masked ball disguised as a prominent Russian diplomat, and when returning home on foot, narrowly escapes assassination at the hands of a Nihilist outside the Russian Embassy. The would-be assassin is arrested, and the masquer, too, as a suspicious character, because in his confusion he forgets about his disguise. But he is rescued by “the laughing witch who is soon to be his bride”, who, hearing of the attempt, at once guesses what has happened and hastens to the police station to identify him’ (Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, pp. 105–06).
4.502–03: Written by Mr Philip Beaufoy, Playgoers’ Club, London
Philip Beaufoy was one of the pseudonyms used by Philip Bergson (1871–1947), a journalist and author and the younger brother of the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) (John Simpson, JJON). He signed his contributions to Tit-Bits as ‘Mr. Philip Beaufoy, Playgoers’ Club, Strand, W.C. [London]’. Beaufoy wrote such stories for Titbits as ‘A Mysterious Post-Card’ (7 Nov. 1903) and ‘For Vera’s Sake’ (1 May 1897).
4.503–04: Payment . . . has been made to the writer
Each ‘Prize Tit-Bit’ was preceded by the announcement: ‘The following has been judged by the Arbitrators to be the best story sent in, and has therefore gained the prize. Payment at the rate of One Guinea per column has been sent to the author’; this was then followed by the name and address of the winning author (Tit-Bits, 27 Oct. 1883, p. 25; Elisabetta d’Erme, ‘Bloom, the Dandy, the Nymph and the Old Hag’, pp. 31–32).
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132 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
4.504–05: Three and a half. Three pounds three. Three pounds thirteen and six
Bloom calculates Beaufoy’s earnings from the story. The story is ‘Three and a half ’ columns long. In order to determine Beaufoy’s take, Bloom will multiply the ‘Three and a half ’ columns by 1 guinea per column. (A guinea is £1 and 1 shilling.) First, he multiplies the three whole columns by 1 guinea: ‘Three pounds three’. Then he adds to this money from the final half-column. Half a guinea is ten shillings and sixpence: thus Bloom concludes ‘Three pounds thirteen and six’. Winning submissions were typically three to five columns long (Elisabetta d’Erme, ‘Bloom, the Dandy, the Nymph and the Old Hag’, p. 31).
4.510: piles
Pile: ‘A haemorrhoid. Usually in plural’ (OED).
4.510: Costive. One tabloid of cascara sagrada
Costive: constipated (OED). Bloom is thinking of a prescription to treat this condition: cascara sagrada (Spanish): literally ‘sacred bark’; a laxative extracted from the bark of the Californian buckthorn tree (OED). The word tabloid was trademarked in 1884 by Burroughs, Wellcome for their concentrated pharmaceutical tablets. Soon after, the word accrued a figurative meaning and was eventually used in reference to single-section newspapers (OED).
4.512: Silly season
Silly season: ‘A period (typically in late summer and early autumn) when newspapers (and other media) often cover trivial material because of a lack of more important news’ (OED).
4.522: Roberts
Possibly an allusion to George Roberts (1873–1953), who co-founded Dublin’s Maunsel & Co. publishing house in 1905 (DIB). As the house’s managing editor, he contracted with Joyce to publish Dubliners but did not make good on his promise. Joyce was so enraged by Roberts’s behaviour that he wrote the bitter broadside ‘Gas from a Burner’ (1912) (Ellmann, p. 336). See also note at 9.301.
4.522: Gretta Conroy
An important character in the Dubliners story ‘The Dead’.
4.526: May’s band
May & Sons: professors of music, pianoforte and music sellers. Their store was at 130 St Stephen’s Green West (Thom’s, p. 1598). All three sons led bands that played at bazaars (among other venues). That of Albert May (1865–1913), the middle brother, was the dominant one in 1904 and is thus the likeliest candidate for the band referred to here (John Simpson, JJON).
4.526: Ponchielli’s dance of the hours
A popular ballet number in Amilcare Ponchielli’s (1834–86) opera La Gioconda (The Joyful Girl, 1876). The Dance of the Hours (Danza delle ore) is often performed on its own and ‘has established itself in the concert hall as an international classic of light music ever since its performance at the Paris Exhibition of 1878’ (Grove). Molly and Boylan first met at a performance of this ballet (13.1011–12).
4.537: wiped himself
Commercial toilet paper was first manufactured in 1857 and the perforated toilet roll first appeared in the 1880s. However, toilet paper was not widely adopted until the 1930s, and
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4. ‘Calypso’ 133 until that time newspaper or other printed materials were commonly used instead (Richard Smyth, Bum Fodder, pp. 38–39, 55–71).
4.542: houghs of the knees
Hough (pronounced hock): ‘The hollow part behind the knee-joint in humans; the adjacent back part of the thigh’ (OED).
4.544: George’s church See note at 4.78.
4.546–48: Heigho! Heigho! . . . Heigho! Heigho!
Bloom hears the church bells of St George’s Church chime the Westminster Quarters: four bells (or the four syllables in two ‘heighhos’) for each quarter hour (Grove, s.v. chimes). It is now 8:45 am, since Bloom says to himself ‘Quarter to’. The Church has eight bells, ranging from 8 cwt (406 kg) to 22 cwt (1,118 kg) (DD, p. 194).
4.549–50: There again: the overtone following through the air. A third
A ‘third’ is a musical interval: a difference in pitch between a keynote and the third note of a particular musical scale, according to the Western system of using major scales as the standard measurement. (C to E, for instance, is a major third.) Any note created by an instrument produces accompanying sounds which are called overtones (or harmonics). Normally, these overtones are not detectable to the untrained ear, but in the case of a bell they can sometimes be heard more easily than the fundamental note which is struck (Grove).
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’
a bc
d e
f
g h
j
i k
o
n
l m
Map 5 Westland Row and Great Brunswick Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); Bloom’s path; a = H. M. Leask (4–15 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay); b = Post Office (18 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay); c = Sailor’s Home (19 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay); d = Brady’s Cottages (off Lime Street); e = Bethel (Salvation Army Hall, between 19 and 20 Lombard Street East); f = J. Nichols (26–31 Lombard Street East); g = Grosvenor Hotel (5 Westland Row); h = Belfast and Oriental Tea Co. (6 Westland Row); i = Post Office (49–50 Westland Row); j = Meade and Sons (153–59 Great Brunswick Street); k = St Andrew’s Church (Westland Row); l = J. Conway (31–32 Westland Row); m = Sweny’s (1 Lincoln Place); n = Lincoln Place Turkish Baths (6–11 Lincoln Place); o = Leinster Street Turkish and Warm Baths (11 Leinster Street)
Time: 10–11 am (9–10 am in the Linati schema) Location: Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Westland Row, Lincoln Place, Leinster Street Organ: The Genitals Art: Botany, Chemistry Symbol: Eucharist
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 135 Technic: Narcissism Correspondences: Lotus Eaters: Cabhorses, Communicants, Soldiers, Eunuchs, Bather, Watchers of Cricket Serialised: The Little Review 5.3 (July 1918) Bloom begins ‘Lotus Eaters’ on the southside of Dublin, on the quays. His path seems to be aimless and circuitous, although he is described as walking ‘soberly’ (5.1). Up until he reaches the post office on Westland Row (see note at 5.53), his trajectory describes the shape of a question mark. After he crosses the road, his path traces out another, smaller question mark by the time he reaches Meade’s timber-yard on Great Brunswick Street (5.230; JJD, p. 35). He then enters All Hallows Church (see note at 5.318) through its rear entrance on South Cumberland Street. After visiting the church, he walks south on Westland Row to Sweny’s chemists on Lincoln Place (see note at 5.463) and, as he leaves, he plans on going to a Turkish bath a short distance away (see notes at 5.502 and 5.549–50) (map 5).
5.1: lorries
Lorry: ‘A long flat wagon without sides running on four low wheels’ (OED).
5.1: sir John Rogerson’s quay
Sir John Rogerson’s Quay is on the south bank of the Liffey and was part of the Dublin docks near the river’s mouth.
5.2: Windmill lane
Windmill lane is an L-shaped road that intersects with Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. Thus, Bloom sees it on his right as he walks eastward.
5.2: Leask’s the linseed crusher
H. M. Leask & Co.: linseed crushers, oil, and linseed cake manufacturers, 14–15 Rogerson’s Quay (Thom’s, p. 1579).
5.2: postal telegraph office
‘Postal Telegraph Office’ and ‘Town Sub-Post Office, Savings Bank, and Money Order Office’: 18 Rogerson’s Quay (Thom’s, p. 1579).
5.3: sailors’ home
The Sailors’ Home and Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society: 19 Rogerson’s Quay (Thom’s, p. 1579).
5.4: Lime street
Bloom has turned right off the quays, proceeding south down Lime Street. Both Lime Street and Windmill Lane run south from Rogerson’s Quay, connecting the quays with Hanover Street East.
5.5: Brady’s cottages
Brady’s Cottages were just off Lime Street (Thom’s, p. 1533). These were infill housing developments, consisting of small cottages little better than shanties, that were found in various small sites throughout the city (Jacinta Prunty, ‘Improving the Urban Environment’, pp. 189–90). Thom’s lists five separate developments in Dublin called Brady’s Cottages (p. 1399).
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136 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
5.5: boy for the skins . . . offal
Offal: ‘residue or waste products’ (OED). The skins are potato skins. It was not uncommon for children from poor families to collect potato skins and other waste matter (the offal) that could be sold as pigfeed (The Reformer, Oct. 1830, vol. 11, no. 130, p. 153; with thanks to Harald Beck and Gerry O’Flaherty). Because of widespread poverty, children frequently took menial jobs to supplement their families’ meagre incomes. The Employment of Children Act 1903 attempted to curb the practice (Joseph O’Brien, Dear Dirty Dublin, pp. 174–77).
5.10: Townsend street
Bloom has turned right off Lime Street onto Hanover Street East, which turns into Townsend Street as it passes Lombard Street East. Once there, Bloom will turn left, proceeding south on Lombard Street.
5.10–11: the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth
Bethel (Hebrew): ‘House of God’; this word was used by some Methodists and Baptists to designate a chapel or meeting house (OED). The building between 19 and 20 Lombard Street East was originally a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and ‘Sailors’ Bethel’ (Thom’s 1892, p. 1446). By 1904, it was a ‘Salvation Army hall’ (Thom’s, p. 1535). In Hebrew, bet means house, which sounds like the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet beth; aleph is the first letter. The arrangement of the windows on the building’s façade suggests a frowning face (with thanks to Gerry O’Flaherty).
5.11: Nichols’ the undertaker
J. and C. Nichols, funeral and job carriage proprietors and undertakers: 26–31 Lombard Street East (Thom’s, p. 1535).
5.12–13: Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged that job for O’Neill’s
To bag: ‘to obtain for oneself, especially anything advantageous’ (Partridge). Corny (Cornelius) Kelleher works for Henry J. O’Neill, a carriage maker and undertaker based at 164 North Strand Road (Thom’s, p. 1978). He is perhaps based on Simon Kerrigan (1855–1936), the manager of H. J. O’Neill (p. 1559), which is located on the same street where Joyce’s Aunt Josephine Murray lived (John Garvin, James Joyce’s Disunited Kingdom, p. 19; Igoe, p. 162). According to the 1901 census, the name Cornelius Kelleher is common in Cork, and so the name might well come from an acquaintance of fellow Corkman John Joyce.
5.14: Police tout
Tout: a spy or informer (OED). Both the Dublin Metropolitan Police and the Royal Irish Constabulary (see note at 12.127) maintained an extensive network of spies and paid informers throughout Irish society to monitor dissent against British colonial rule (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 170–71). See 10.207–26 and 15.4808–58.
5.14–15: with my tooraloom tooraloom tay
From the chorus of the song ‘I Vowed that I Would Never Leave Her; or Tootle Tum, Tootle Tum Tay’ (1873), by Arthur Lloyd (Scottish singer and songwriter, 1839–1904), associated here and elsewhere with Corny Kelleher: ‘Tho’ I vowed I never would leave her, / She turned out a cruel deceiver / Tootle tum, tootle tum, tootle tum, tootle tum / Tootle tum, tootle tum tay’ (this source was discovered by Aida Yared). Lloyd based this song in part on
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 137 the earlier minstrel song ‘Bootle-Tum, Tootle-Tum Tay’ (1862), which has an almost- identical chorus (George Christy, Bones and Banjo Melodist, p. 41). The Lloyd version is the more likely source since Lloyd frequently performed in Dublin (for example, Freeman’s Journal, 11 May 1889, p. 4, col. a).
5.17: Westland row
Lombard Street East becomes Westland Row as the road continues south of Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street, past the eastern side of Trinity College.
5.17–18: Belfast and Oriental Tea Company
The Belfast and Oriental Tea Company, 6 Westland Row (Thom’s, p. 1618).
5.18–19: choice blend
A cliché in advertisements for tea; for example: ‘Finest Teas, Coffee and Cocoa. Choice Blended Teas [. . .] William Molyneaux, wholesale depot, 4 Mitre Street, Aldgate, London, E.C.’ (Kerryman, 20 Aug. 1910, p. 3, col. a).
5.19–20: Must get some from Tom Kernan
Tom Kernan first appears as a character in the story ‘Grace’, from Dubliners. A Protestant who converted to Catholicism in order to marry, Kernan works as a tea salesman for Pulbrook Robertson & Co. (see note at 17.1981–82). In a letter to C. P. Curran dated 14 July 1937, Joyce claimed that Kernan is based on Richard J. Thornton (1851–1903), a commercial traveller and salesman, and neighbour and friend of his father, who lived in North Richmond Street in the 1890s (Letters, vol. 1, p. 393; Igoe, pp. 164–65). Stanislaus Joyce writes that Thornton was fond of drinking and singing and ‘could distinguish blindfold fifteen or twenty different kinds and blends of tea, prepared in little bowl-like cups on a table in his office’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 226).
5.24: high grade ha See note at 4.69–70.
5.31: flowery meads, snaky lianas
Mead: meadow. Lianas: ‘various climbing and twining plants which abound in tropical forests’ (both OED).
5.32: Cinghalese
The Cinghalese (variously spelled: Cingalese, Sinhalese, Singhalese): the largest ethnic group of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka (OED).
5.32: lobbing
To lob: ‘To move heavily or clumsily; to walk along with a slow lumbering movement’ (OED).
5.32: dolce far niente
Dolce far niente (Italian): ‘delightful idleness’, literally ‘sweet doing nothing’ (OED).
5.33: Sleep six months out of twelve
Stephanus of Byzantium (sixth century) wrote in his geographic dictionary Ethnika that Aristotle had claimed, in a work called On Wonderful Things, that the Lotus-Eaters sleep for six months. (He also claimed that the Lotus- Eaters were a Celtic race.) This is
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138 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses inaccurate: Aristotle never wrote a work with this title, and Stephanus was the first writer since Homer to say anything new about the Lotus-Eaters (Denys Page, Folktales in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’, p. 6).
5.34: Flowers of idleness
After the title of Lord Byron’s (English poet, 1788–1824) first published volume of verse, Hours of Idleness (1807).
5.34: Azotes
Azote (French): nitrogen (OED). In English there is no plural for this word. French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (1743–94) called nitrogen azote (after the Greek azoos, no-life) because, unlike oxygen, it was unable to sustain life, even though it makes up most of the atmosphere.
5.35: Hothouse in Botanic gardens
The Botanic Gardens: Botanic Road in Glasnevin in north Dublin. These occupy some 40 acres or 16 hectares (Thom’s, pp. 1697–98). The Gardens were founded in 1795. There are several glasshouses, the largest being the Great Palm House and the Curvilinear Range glasshouse (Bennett).
5.35: Sensitive plants
Sensitive plant: ‘a shrub (Mimosa pudica, or M. sensitiva) possessing a high degree of irrit ability, causing the leaflets of the bipinnate leaves to fold together at the slightest touch’ (OED). Also the title of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), ‘The Sensitive Plant’ (1820).
5.37: cowheel
Cow-heel: ‘The foot of a cow or ox stewed so as to form a jelly’ (OED).
5.38: in the dead sea floating on his back, reading a book
‘Descriptions of travellers floating on their back in the Dead Sea whilst reading a book or a newspaper may be found from at least the mid nineteenth century’ (Harald Beck, JJON). See note at 4.219–20 for the Dead Sea.
5.41–42: It’s a law something like that
Archimedes’s (Greek scientist and inventor, c.287–c.212 bc) law: ‘the excess of bulk occasioned by the introduction of alloy could be measured by putting the crown and an equal weight of gold separately into a vessel filled with water, and observing the difference of overflow’ (EB11).
5.42: Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints, teaching
Erasmus Smith High School, founded in 1870: 40 Harcourt Street (Thom’s, p. 1513); now called, simply, The High School, and, since 1971, located in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar. Bloom was a student there until 1880, when he would have been fourteen years old (see note at 17.1194–95). The date he started is not mentioned. Peter Costello suggests that the name of Bloom’s science teacher at Erasmus Smith High School was taken from James Noy Vance (b. 1842), a pharmacist and friend of the Joyce family. Vance did not teach at Erasmus Smith High School, but members of his extended family attended there (James Joyce, p. 90). Vance’s daughter Eileen was Joyce’s childhood friend, and the Vances appear in A Portrait (p. 2). The Erasmus Smith schools were ‘Protestant, but not exclusively so, in character’
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 139 (T. J. McElligott, Education in Ireland, p. 2). At this time, it was unusual to have any secondary education (p. 95). W. B. Yeats was a student at Erasmus Smith High School from 1881 to 1883 (Terence Brown, W. B. Yeats, p. 26).
5.42–43: The college curriculum
Though the national school system was not originally intended as preparatory to university study, the notion of a college curriculum became more realistic with the establishment of the Intermediate Education Board for Ireland in 1878, which standardised courses of study and included an emphasis on the study of mathematics and the natural sciences (Kevin Sullivan, Joyce Among the Jesuits, pp. 71–72; John Coolahan, Irish Education, pp. 61–65).
5.44–45: Thirtytwo feet per second, per second. Law of falling bodies
32 feet per second squared, or ‘per second, per second’ (9.8 m/s2): the rate at which falling bodies accelerate (G. A. Wentworth and G. A. Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 183).
5.45–46: It’s the force of gravity of the earth is the weight
Weight: the force of the earth’s gravitational pull on an object (OED).
5.49: Freeman
The Freeman’s Journal: a Dublin daily newspaper and where Bloom is employed. ‘The Freeman had been founded in 1763 and was the most significant and successful of the first Dublin newspapers to concentrate on local politics, rather than simply repeating British and international news’ (Felix M. Larkin, ‘Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal’, p. 181). By the mid-nineteenth century, the Freeman’s Journal had become ‘the leading organ of Irish catholic and moderate nationalist opinion’ (NHI, vol. 6, p. 36). The Freeman’s Journal ‘was always moderate and cautious to a fault. Extremists looked upon it with contempt’ (Stephen Brown, The Press in Ireland, p. 36). In 1904, the Freeman’s Journal was still the leading daily newspaper in Dublin, but its fortunes soon changed. Its influence began to wane due to increased competition and a changing socio-political climate and, after years of declining sales, the Freeman’s Journal closed in 1924 (Felix M. Larkin, ‘Ulysses and the Freeman’s Journal’, pp. 21–23). See also note at 12.218–19.
5.49: rolled it lengthwise in a baton
In 1904, an issue of the Freeman’s Journal measured 67 cm square and had eight pages (over the years, its size and page-count varied).
5.51–52: Per second for every second it means
Bloom is distinguishing between acceleration and velocity. Velocity is ‘speed together with the direction of travel’ (OED), or change of distance over time, and acceleration is change of velocity over time (G. A. Wentworth and G. A. Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, pp. 179–80), hence ‘per second for every second’.
5.53: postoffice
The Postal Telegraph Office at 49–50 Westland Row (Thom’s, p. 1619).
5.53: Too late box
The late box, also called the too-late box, is where properly stamped letters may be deposited at the post office outside the normal opening hours. ‘The following is stated to be a copy of what is written over one of the large letter-boxes of the General Post Office in
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140 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Sackville-street, Dublin [see note at 7.15]: “Too Late Box for Letters, Newspapers, &c, Too Late for the Next Despatch” ’ (Cork Examiner, 27 Nov. 1886, p. 5, col. b).
5.58: rag paper
Rag paper: paper made from the pulp of rags (Century Dictionary, s.v. paper); typically used for newspapers because of its low cost.
5.62: Henry Flower Esq
Bloom’s pseudonym recalls the case of Henry Flower (b. 1867), a constable with the Dublin Metropolitan Police, however the connection may be purely coincidental. In August 1900, Flower was accused of the murder of Brigid Gannon, a maid whose body was found in the River Dodder near Herbert Park. Ultimately, Flower was found not guilty, but since his reputation was shattered, he fled Dublin soon after the trial. Some forty years later, a woman named Margaret Clowry, on her deathbed, confessed to the crime and to setting up Flower (John Garvin, James Joyce’s Disunited Kingdom, pp. 53–57).
5.67–68: No, he’s a grenadier
Bloom is looking at a military recruiting poster with pictures of soldiers from different regiments. Major Tweedy, Molly’s father, was in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. The full dress uniforms of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Grenadier Guards were quite similar, with the main differences being the cuffs and hats. The Grenadiers wore bearskin hats with a white plume (EB11, s.v. uniforms).
5.68: royal Dublin fusiliers
The Royal Dublin Fusiliers was one of eight Irish regiments. It was established in 1881 and was disbanded in 1922 upon the establishment of the Irish Free State (Arthur Swinson, A Register of the Regiments and Corps of the British Army, pp. xlii, 204). Fusil: a light musket (OED). The second battalion of the RDF was stationed in Gibraltar from 1884 to 1885 (Cecil Romer and Arthur Mainwaring, The Second Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, p. v).
5.68: Redcoats
Redcoat: a British solider (OED), after the red tunic adopted as battle dress for the British army in the seventeenth century. During the nineteenth century, khaki (see note at 9.133) had become the colour for service, but scarlet remained the colour for the dress uniform of many regiments (EB11, s.v. uniforms).
5.70: Maud Gonne’s letter
During the Boer War (1899–1902), the British government suspended the requirement that soldiers spending the night in Dublin be restricted to their barracks. This led to a deluge of soldiers seeking the company of prostitutes. In response, Maud Gonne (see note at 3.233) and the woman’s organisation she had founded, Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), began a campaign against the British army. Pamphlets were distributed and, on 6 June 1904, the Freeman’s Journal published a letter by Gonne in which she complains of the shame of seeing Irish girls consort in plain sight with obstreperous British soldiers in the heart of Dublin: ‘That it is tolerated in Dublin is one of the most humiliating evidences of foreign rule’ (p. 6, col. h; Foster, Modern Ireland, pp. 449–50).
5.70: O’Connell street
Originally named Sackville Street, this is the wide, main avenue in the centre of Dublin on the north side, running perpendicular from the Liffey and up to Rutland Square (now Parnell
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 141 Square). E. MacDowel Cosgrave and Leonard Strangways’s Dictionary of Dublin (1895) calls it ‘the finest street in Dublin’ (DD, p. 255). In 1874, a monument to Daniel O’Connell (see note at 2.269 for O’Connell and note at 6.249 for the statue) was erected at the southern end of the street and, in 1884, Dublin Corporation voted to change the street’s name to O’Connell Street, but were prevented from doing so by a court injunction the following year (see note at 7.262). Nonetheless, it was unofficially known as ‘O’Connell Street’ by some nationalists and its name was officially changed to O’Connell Street in 1924. The lower end of the street was mostly destroyed during the fighting in the 1916 Easter Rising (Bennett). In Ulysses, Joyce uses the name Sackville Street only once (see note at 17.1557–59). Sackville Street was named after Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Duke of Dorset (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 101).
5.71: Griffith’s paper
Arthur Griffith (see the note at 3.227) co-founded the United Irishman, a nationalist newspaper, in March 1899 (DIB). Griffith, like Maud Gonne (see note at 5.70), was an outspoken critic of the British army.
5.72: army rotten with venereal disease
The British army had the infamous distinction of having one of the highest rates of venereal disease among world armies at the turn of the century (Joseph O’Brien, Dear, Dirty Dublin, p. 118).
5.72: overseas or halfseasover
Halfseasover: ‘half or almost drunk’ (Partridge). Joyce’s wordplay is not original; from John Cartwright’s play The Raft (1798): ‘Holloa—to make him go wid us overseas, I vill soon make him half seas over’. The joke was reprised many times thereafter (John Simpson, JJON).
5.73: Mark time
To mark time: military expression, ‘to march on the spot, without moving forward’ (OED, s.v. mark).
5.73–74: Table: able. Bed: ed
Suggests a military cadence chant, a call-and-answer song used during marching, although one with these lyrics has not been located.
5.74: The King’s own
A regiment in the British army is entitled to be called ‘the King’s own’ if it has received the king’s colours or it has made the king an honorary member and, in general, the term is applied to anything that is to be considered the property of the monarch (OED, s.v. king). More specif ically, this may be in reference to the first battalion of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, which was billeted in Belfast in 1904 (Thom’s, p. 589). In Dublin they would be dubbed ‘The King’s Own Scottish Murderers’ because they opened fire on civilians while attempting to stop some gun smugglers, killing three men and one woman on Bachelor’s Walk on 26 July 1914 (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, p. 867 n. 48).
5.75: A mason, yes
From 1875 until he ascended the throne in 1901, Edward VII (1841–1910) was grand master of English Freemasons (Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia).
5.78–79: Women will pay a lot of heed, I don’t think
I don’t think: ‘Reverses the ironical statement it follows’ (Partridge).
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142 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
5.79–80: the letter the letter
Joyce clearly wrote ‘the letter the letter’ on the Rosenbach Manuscript (f. 3); the second ‘the letter’ was skipped on the now-missing typescript (UCSE, p. 1763) and was thus absent in all editions before Gabler’s.
5.82: M‘Coy
See note at 4.454.
5.86: How’s the body?
How’s the body? (Hiberno-English): ‘How are you—how do you feel?’ (Partridge).
5.93: badge
Badge: ‘any distinctive device, emblem, or mark worn to indicate [. . .] membership of an organization or support for a cause’ (OED).
5.96: Holohan
In Dubliners, Holohan is mentioned in the story ‘Two Gallants’ and appears as a character in ‘A Mother’: ‘Mr Holohan, assistant secretary of the Eire Abu Society had been walking up and down Dublin for nearly a month, with his hands and pockets full of dirty pieces of paper, arranging about the series of concerts. He had a game leg and for this his friends called him Hoppy Holohan’ (p. 136). In a letter to Nora dated 7 August 1909, Joyce writes of ‘a gentleman named Holohan’ who tried to seduce her when she was working as a chambermaid at Finn’s Hotel at the time she first met Joyce (Selected Letters, p. 158).
5.98: outsider
Outsider: a jaunting car, or horse-drawn carriage, in which the passengers sit back-to-back, facing sideways or ‘outside’, not ahead (OED). In order to get into the high seat, a lady would have to expose her ankles.
5.99: the Grosvenor
The Grosvenor, ‘Mitchell and Co. Proprietors’: a hotel at 5 Westland Row (Thom’s, p. 1618).
5.104–05: Handsome is and handsome does
After the proverb ‘handsome is that handsome does’ (ODEP).
5.105–06: Brutus is an honourable man
From Mark Antony’s funeral oration in Julius Caesar (III.ii.98–99).
5.106: take the starch
To take the starch out of: ‘to make fun of, ridicule; to humble; to humiliate; to deflate’ (OED, s.v. starch).
5.107: Bob Doran
Bob Doran appears in the story ‘The Boarding House’ in Dubliners, in which he is forced into a loveless marriage with Polly Mooney; see also note at 12.398–400.
5.107: bends
To be on a bend: to be on a drinking spree (Partridge).
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5.108: Bantam Lyons
Frederick J. ‘Bantam’ Lyons is first mentioned in ‘The Boarding House’ and appears as a character in ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’ in Dubliners. He takes his name from Frederick M. Lyons (1858–1908), who ran a printing works on 6 Ormond Quay (Igoe, pp. 180–81).
5.109: Conway’s
James Conway & Co.: grocers and wine merchants, 31–32 Westland Row (Thom’s, p. 1618).
5.110: Having a wet
Having a wet: having a drink (Brewer’s, s.v. wet).
5.111: vailed eyelids
To vail: to lower (OED). Echoes Gertrude’s admonition to Hamlet: ‘Do not for ever with thy vailed lids / Seek for thy noble father in the dust’ (I.ii.70–71).
5.112: braided drums
That is, the braided ridge along the back of the glove. Drum is used in the sense of the Irish word druim, a ridge, and is used in an expression relevant here, druim na láimhe, the back of the hand (John Simpson, JJON).
5.117: Broadstone
Broadstone: the railway terminus of the Midland Great Western & Royal Canal Railway at the Broadstone in north-west Dublin, off Phibsborough Road (Thom’s, p. 1435). This railway line serviced Galway (pp. 772, 1336).
5.118: foostering
To fooster (Hiberno-English): ‘to bustle about fussily’ (Dolan).
5.119–20: Two strings to her bow
To have a fallback if one’s first plan fails. ‘The allusion is to the custom of the British bowmen carrying a reserve string in case of accident’ (Brewer’s, s.v. bow).
5.128: the Arch
The Arch: a public house located at 32 Henry Street, off Sackville (O’Connell) Street. It is listed in Thom’s as ‘Molloy and O’Reilly, grocers and spirit merchants’ (p. 1517; JJD, p. 98).
5.131: slewed
To slew: to turn about, to swing round (OED).
5.132–33: Paradise and the peri
Peris: ‘delicate, gentle, fairy-like beings of Eastern mythology, begotten by fallen spirits’ (Brewer’s). ‘Paradise and the Peri’: the title of a verse story from Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh, an Oriental Romance (1817), which tells of the Peri lamenting her expulsion from heaven. Line 14 of the poem is possibly of relevance here: ‘One blossom of Heaven out- blooms them all!’ (Poetical Works, p. 394; with thanks to Kiron Ward).
5.133–34: Eustace street
A narrow street in south-central Dublin that runs from the quays down to Dame Street; it is about 800 metres west of Westland Row.
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5.135: Esprit de corps
Esprit de corps (French): ‘spirit of the body’ (as in a body of people), though it is more generally defined as ‘the regard entertained by the members of a body for the honour and interests of the body as a whole, and of each other as belonging to it’ (OED).
5.138: Loop Line bridge
The Loop Line Bridge supports the elevated train that traverses Dublin from the Westland Row Station (now Pearse Station) to the Amiens Street Station (now Connolly Station) over the Liffey. Its official name is the City of Dublin Junction Railway Bridge, and it opened in 1891. It is ‘an unsightly metal box affair covered to this day by advertising slogans’ (Bennett, s.v. Custom House (New)).
5.144–47: What is home without . . . abode of bliss
G. W. Plumtree: potted-meat manufacturer, Southport, England, with its Dublin office at 23 Merchants’ Quay (Thom’s, p. 1543). ‘Potted meat was a means of preserving meat that became more common in the 16th and 17th centuries. The principle was that the prepared meat was cooked thoroughly therefore destroying all the spoilage organisms and then packed into earthenware pots or alternatively cooked in the pots. The cooked meat was pressed down tightly in the pot and then sealed by using melted clarified butter or pigs fat’ (Derrick Rixson, The History of Meat Trading, p. 181). Plumtree never used this exact phrase in their advertisements, but they had other slogans, such as: ‘LADIES . . . / HAVE YOU TRIED / PLUMTREE’S / HOME-POTTED MEATS / FOR SANDWICHES?’ (Cyril Pearl, Dublin in Bloomtime, p. 67). The phrase ‘what is home without. . .’ was a common formula in contemporaneous ads, such as: ‘Home, Sweet Home! What is home without a melodeon. Campbell’s Gold Medal Melodeons’ (Reynold’s Newspaper, 26 Jan. 1896, p. 7, col. b). The phrase ‘abode of bliss’ is a longstanding cliché for paradise (in religious or secular contexts); for example, from A Discourse Shewing that the Yoke of Our Lord Jesus Christ Is Easier than the Yoke of Sin (1718, rev. 1753) by Balthasar Regis: ‘There has always been a world of men, that in leaving this world, are gone very peaceably into the abode of bliss’ (pp. 53–54). Stephen uses this phrase in A Portrait: ‘The particular judgement was over and the soul had passed to the abode of bliss or to the prison or purgatory or had been hurled howling into hell’ (p. 113).
5.148: My missus
Mrs McCoy is mentioned in ‘Grace’ in Dubliners: ‘His wife, who had been a soprano, still taught young children to play the piano at low terms’ (p. 158). Some of the details of Mrs McCoy come from the wife of Charles Chance (see note at 4.454), Mary Chance, a concert singer who performed in the 1890s. Ellmann speculates that her stage name, ‘Madame Marie Tallon’ was the inspiration for Molly Bloom’s stage name, ‘Madame Marion Tweedy’ (Ellmann, p. 375; Igoe, p. 193).
5.149: Valise tack again
From Dubliners: ‘Mr M’Coy had recently made a crusade in search of valises and portmanteaus to enable Mrs M’Coy to fulfil imaginary engagements [to sing] in the country’ (p. 160).
5.149: By the way no harm
By the way (Hiberno-English): pretending (PWJ, p. 38).
5.151: swagger affair
Swagger: ‘Showily or ostentatiously equipped, etc.; smart or fashionable in style, manner, appearance, or behaviour’ (OED).
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5.151–52: Ulster Hall, Belfast
Ulster Hall: a concert hall and meeting room completed in 1862. The hall could seat some 2,000 spectators and accommodate an orchestra of 300 (NHI, vol. 5, p. xxxv). It still stands in Bedford Street in Belfast.
5.154–55: Queen was in her bedroom eating bread and
From the nursery rhyme ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’; see note at 4.474.
5.155: Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens
Court cards: corruption of ‘coat-cards’ (OED), which are jacks, queens, and kings. Although Molly’s cards are laid out ‘by sevens’, she is not playing solitaire, but fortune-telling. The cards, in Bloom’s version, report on the meeting of a dark lady and a fair man. What Bloom remembers here seems to happen after the action depicted in ‘Calypso’. See note at 18.1315.
5.157–61 Love’s . . . lo-ove’s old
See note at 4.314 for ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’. ‘Love’ is hyphenated in the last line to show that the word is ‘sung to more than one note’ (Zack Bowen, ‘Music as Comedy in Ulysses’, p. 33).
5.170–71: drowning case at Sandycove See note at 3.470–71.
5.171: coroner and myself
McCoy is secretary to the Dublin coroner (Dubliners, p. 157).
5.176: Tolloll
Tol-lol: ‘Tolerable, pretty good, pretty well’ (OED).
5.178: Didn’t catch me napping that wheeze
To be caught napping: ‘to suffer some disadvantage while off one’s guard’ (Brewer’s). Wheeze: a trick (Partridge).
5.178: The quick touch
To touch: to take or receive something (especially money) ‘by underhand means’ (OED).
5.178: Soft mark
Mark: a prospective victim of a swindle; thus, a ‘soft mark’ is an easy victim (Partridge).
5.179: I’d like my job
‘I’d like my job’ (Dublin catch-phrase): ‘No, I won’t [be imposed upon]’ (Eamonn Finn, JJON).
5.180: Bob Cowley
See note at 10.884–85.
5.181: Wicklow regatta
An annual event held since 1878 during the August bank holiday in Wicklow, a seaside town 42 km south of Dublin, which features boating and swimming races, various entertainments, and fireworks (Irish Times, 1 July 1890, p. 7, col. e).
5.183: Brunswick street
Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street: a main road that runs parallel to the Liffey, from the northern side of Trinity eastward towards Irishtown. Bloom will turn to the right off Westland Row and head east along Great Brunswick Street.
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5.185: don’t you know
‘We have in Ireland an inveterate habit—from the highest to the lowest—educated and uneducated—of constantly interjecting the words “you know” into our conversation as a mere expletive, without any particular meaning’ (PWJ, p. 135).
5.186: Softsoaping
To soft-soap: ‘to flatter’ (OED).
5.186: Give you the needle
To give the needle: to annoy or irritate (Partridge).
5.188: that smallpox up there
The Freeman’s Journal for 15 June 1904 reported on the intensification of an outbreak of smallpox in Ballymacarrett, the chief industrial centre of Belfast (p. 5, col. c). The outbreak began in October 1903 and lasted into 1905 (Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Ireland for the Year Ended 31st March 1905, p. 505).
5.188: vaccinated again
The smallpox vaccine was the first vaccine to be developed, initially in 1796 and refined over the nineteenth century. The type of vaccine available in the early twentieth century required re-vaccination. At the turn of the twentieth century, vaccination was not as widespread in the United Kingdom as it was, for example, in Germany, which meant that spor adic outbreaks did occur (EB11, s.vv. smallpox; vaccination).
5.190: Your wife and my wife See note at 11.972.
5.191: Wonder is he pimping after me?
To pimp: ‘To mock, insult; to cheat, deceive; to take advantage of ’ or in Hiberno-English, ‘To spy on lovers; to engage in voyeurism’ (OED). Both senses are possible here.
5.193: hoardings
Hoarding: ‘a temporary fence made of boards inclosing a building while in course of erection or repair; often used for posting bills and advertisements; hence, any boarding on which bills are posted’ (OED).
5.193: Cantrell and Cochrane’s Ginger Ale
Cantrell and Cochrane’s: manufacturer of aerated and mineral waters, founded in Belfast in 1852 (now called C & C). In the early twentieth century, they were famous for their club soda and ginger ale, which was marketed as a temperance beverage: ‘Cantrell and Cochrane’s Belfast Ginger Ale Replaces Alcoholic Drinks’ (London Times, 20 June 1905, p. 11, cols e–f). A 1915 advertisement called their ginger ale, ‘The Champagne of Ireland’ (The Rotarian, July 1915, p. 96). Their Dublin base and bottling operations were at 2–11 Nassau Place (Thom’s, p. 2075).
5.194: Clery’s Summer Sale
Clery’s: a large department store at 21–27 Lower Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1833). In 1904, Clery’s summer sale (‘high-class drapery goods in all departments at marvellously low prices’) ended on Saturday 30 July (Irish Times, 29 July 1904, p. 9, cols g–i).
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5.194: Leah tonight
Leah the Forsaken (1862): a play by John Augustín Daly (American writer, 1838–99), based on a previous play, Deborah, written by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal (1821–77), a German-Austrian Jew. In the play, Leah leads a group of wandering Hungarian Jews that encounters anti-Semitic prejudice.
5.194–95: Mrs Bandmann Palmer
Millicent Bandmann- Palmer (1845–1926): popular American actress who settled in England with her German-born husband in 1867 (Igoe, pp. 20–21). She is listed in the 16 June 1904 Freeman’s Journal as performing in Leah at the Gaiety Theatre (p. 4, col. a). In the week of 16 June alone, she was featured in four plays in Dublin, in addition to Leah. Joyce spelt the name without the hyphen.
5.195–96: Hamlet she played last night
Bandmann-Palmer played Hamlet on 15 June in a performance at the Gaiety Theatre that was well reviewed in the 16 June Freeman’s Journal (p. 2, col. g). In the Victorian theatre, it was common for actresses to play male roles (Kerry Powell, Women and Victorian Theatre, p. 27).
5.196: Perhaps he was a woman See note at 9.518–19.
5.197–98: Kate Bateman in that. Outside the Adelphi in London
Kate Bateman (1842–1917), born in Baltimore to a British theatrical family, was a noted actress of her day. She appeared in the title role of a long-running production of John Augustín Daly’s Leah the Forsaken at the Adelphi Theatre, London, that started in October 1863. This production was adapted by John Oxenford specifically for Bateman and ran for a West End record-breaking 211 nights (ODNB, s.v. Hezekiah Bateman). Bloom’s father had been in London before he moved to Dublin (17.1908).
5.198–99: year before I was born: sixtyfive
Bloom was born in 1866. While Leah had its première in 1863, a revival production, also with Kate Bateman and also at the Adelphi, opened in January 1865 (London Times, 3 Jan. 1865, p. 3, col. f).
5.199: And Ristori in Vienna
Adelaide Ristori (1822–1906), known as the Marchessa Capranica del Grillo after her marriage in 1846 to the Marchese: an internationally famous Italian-born actress. Leah (see note at 5.194) was based on an earlier play, Deborah, by Salomon Herrmann Mosenthal (see the following note). Mosenthal had Deborah translated into Italian specifically so Ristori could play the title role in Vienna and elsewhere (Münchener Punsch, 21 Sep. 1856, vol. 9, no. 38, p. 309). Bloom’s father had been in Vienna before he eventually settled in Dublin (17.1908).
5.200: By Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it?
Salomon Hermann Mosenthal (Austrian dramatist, 1821–77) wrote Deborah (1850), the play upon which Leah the Forsaken is based. Bloom is searching for the name of the ori ginal play and incorrectly comes up with ‘Rachel’. Bloom’s error may be due to either or both of two factors: first, that Rachel is the sister of Leah in Genesis 29, or second, by
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5.203: Nathan’s voice! His son’s voice!
This takes place in Augustín Daly’s Leah, the Forsaken, Act III, scene 2 (see note at 5.194). Abraham, an old blind Jewish man, divines the identity of Nathan, a converted Jew who has been trying to conceal his background: ‘I hear a strange voice, and yet not a strange voice [. . .] That voice! I know that voice! There was at Presburg a man whose name was Nathan. He was a singer at the synagogue. It is his voice I hear [. . .] It was said he became a Christian, and went out into the world [. . .] He left his father to die in poverty and misery, since he had forsworn his faith, and the house of his kindred [. . .] I hear the voice of Nathan. (passing his hand over Nathan’s face) And I recognise the features of Nathan [. . .] With my fingers I read thy dead father’s face, for with my fingers I closed his eyes, and nailed down his coffin! Thou art a Jew!’ (Leah the Forsaken, p. 25).
5.211: hazard
Hazard: ‘a cab-stand (in Ireland)’ (OED). There was a hazard near Westland Row on Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street (JJD, p. 112).
5.213: crunching of gilded oats
According to the historian Cassius Dio (155–235), Emperor Caligula (ad 12–41, r. 37–41) fed golden barley to his favourite horse, Incitatus (Roman History, LIX.14). This phrase is possibly suggested by Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Decay of Lying’: ‘Champing his gilded oats, the Hippogriff will stand in our stalls’ (Complete Works, p. 1091; with thanks to He Huang). See also note at 15.1504–05.
5.215: Eldorado
Eldorado or El Dorado (Spanish): ‘the City of Gold’. ‘The name of a fictitious country (according to others a city) abounding in gold, believed by the Spaniards and by Sir W. Raleigh to exist upon the Amazon within the jurisdiction of the governor of Guiana’ (OED).
5.215: Poor jugginses!
Juggins: ‘A simpleton, one easily “taken in” or imposed upon’ (OED).
5.217: doss
Doss: sleep (Partridge).
5.218: guttapercha
Gutta-percha: a type of latex produced from various trees found in the Malayan archipelago. It was put to a variety of uses, including as a waterproofing agent and for the handles of surgical instruments (EB11).
5.222: The lane is safer
The part of South Cumberland Street that passes under the Westland Row Station (now Pearse Station).
5.223: cabman’s shelter
The Cabman’s Shelter and Coffee Stand, Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street between South Cumberland Street and Westland Row (Thom’s, p. 1436).
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5.224: Voglio e non See note at 4.327–28.
5.227–28: Là ci darem la mano . . . la la See note at 4.314.
5.229: Cumberland street
Bloom turns to the right off Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street and heads south onto South Cumberland Street. Cumberland Street runs parallel to Westland Row, and is the location of the back entrance to St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church (see note at 5.318). The front of the church is at 45 and 46 Westland Row (Thom’s, p. 1619).
5.230: Meade’s timberyard
Michael Meade & Son: ‘builders and contractors, sawing, planing, and moulding mills, and joinery works’, 153–159 Great Brunswick Street, at the intersection with South Cumberland Street (Thom’s, p. 1436).
5.230: Piled balks
Balk: ‘A roughly squared beam of timber; sometimes used technically to designate Baltic timber, which is roughly dressed before shipment’ (OED).
5.232: pickeystone
Pickey: Scottish and Hiberno-English dialect for hopscotch; Pickeystone: the stone used in playing hopscotch (both OED).
5.233: shooting the taw with a cunnythumb
Taw: ‘a large choice or fancy marble’ (OED). Cunnythumb: ‘used of the method of shooting a marble by placing it in the middle of the bent forefinger, instead of poising it at the tip of the finger’ (EDD, s.v. cunny).
5.235: Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her
Mohammed ‘had a special liking for cats. Did he not cut the sleeve from his coat when he had to get up for prayer and yet did not want to disturb the cat that was sleeping on the sleeve?’ (Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His Messenger, p. 49).
5.237: mignonette
Mignonette (reseda odorata): a plant native to northern Africa cultivated for its attractive and fragrant greenish-white blossoms. It is also used to refer to a kind of lace (OED).
5.237: Mrs Ellis’s
Mrs Ellis ran the nursery school that Bloom attended as a child (see note at 17.1494–95).
5.239: A yellow flower
In the language of flowers (see note at 5.261), the colour yellow is typically associated with infidelity and other unfavourable qualities (Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, pp. 118–19).
5.257: Martha
Joyce probably took the name Martha from Marthe Fleischmann, a woman with whom he was infatuated when he was living in Zürich. ‘His association with Marthe occupied his mind from December 9, 1918, to March 28, 1919 [. . .], but he was more onlooker than lover’ (Ellmann, p. 450).
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5.261: Language of flowers
While the tradition of associating symbolic meanings to different flowers dates back to the ancient Greeks, the Victorians approached the subject enthusiastically. In the nineteenth century, many dozens of different volumes appeared which codified the meanings of hundreds of flowers, the first being Charlotte de Latour’s (pseudonym for Louise Cortambert) Le Langage des fleurs (1819), which served as a source for many subsequent floral dictionaries. Typically, different authors assign different meanings to the same flower. For example, the lotus was representative of eloquence for both de Latour and Frederic Shoberl, in his book The Language of Flowers; with Illustrative Poetry (1834), whereas it means silence for Henry Philips in Floral Emblems (1825), and Elizabeth Gamble Wirt, in Flora’s Dictionary (1829), considers it a symbol of ‘estranged love’ (Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, pp. 182–83).
5.264–66: Angry tulips with you . . . nightstalk wife Martha’s perfume
Bloom is rewriting Martha’s letter by ascribing different flowers to each emotion indicated in the manner of the ‘language of flowers’ (see the previous note); so anger is the tulip, desire violets, and so on. In terms of standard catalogues, violets stand for modesty, roses represent beauty and love, and the anemone, abandonment or anticipation. Nightstalk may be a phallic pun, but nightshade is both a poison and a symbol for sorcery (Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, pp. 168–69). While language of flower books were popular, there ‘is almost no evidence that people actually used these symbolic lists to communicate, even if the parties agreed upon what book to use for their meanings’ (p. 2).
5.270: Sunday after the rosary
In Irish practice at the time, a parish said the rosary on Sunday evenings at about 7 pm (Catholic Ireland, Dec. 1873, p. 352).
5.279: Flat Dublin voices
The flat Dublin accent is believed to have originated in the Liberties (see note at 3.33), a poor and working-class neighbourhood (Bernard Share, Dublinese, p. 71). An example would be Mr Fitzpatrick’s pronunciation ‘Cometty’ for Committee in the story ‘A Mother’ (Dubliners, p. 139).
5.280: the Coombe
The Coombe is the name of both a street and the impoverished surrounding district in south-central Dublin, just west of St Patrick’s Cathedral and within the Liberties. In the early twentieth century, it was filled with tenements that municipal authorities described as ‘unfit for human habitation’ (Maurice Curtis, The Liberties, p. 52). ‘The name implies a hollow place’ (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 25).
5.281–84: O, Mairy lost the pin of her drawers . . . To keep it up No record of this song outside Ulysses is known to exist.
5.285: her roses
Roses: English and Irish expression, menstruation (Partridge).
5.289: Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere
A painting by Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish painter, 1577–1640) and Jan Breughel the Younger (Flemish painter, 1601–78) in the National Gallery of Ireland: Christ at the House of Martha and Mary (c. 1620). Martha and Mary are the sisters of Lazarus, whom Christ raised from
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 151 the dead (see John 11). The painting illustrates a scene from Luke 10:38–42 and is 63.5 cm high and 61 cm wide. It was acquired by the Gallery in 1901. ‘Christ is seated on the perron of a house, looking towards Martha who stands on his left and who is reproaching her sister Mary for neglecting the household affairs; the latter is seated on the Saviour’s left, with a book on her lap. A table with fruit stands at the side, and through an open door is seen the interior of a kitchen with a man-cook engaged at the dresser. [. . .] On the pavement in front are a monkey, a greyhound, and a variety of small birds and fruit. The background is a richly wooded landscape with deer’ (Catalogue of Pictures in the National Gallery, p. 137).
5.296–97: water out of a well, stonecold like the hole in the wall at Ashtown
The ‘hole in the wall’ is the turnstile entrance to Phoenix Park (see note at 7.633) off Blackhorse Lane (now Avenue) in Ashtown, on the north side of the park. The gate is next to a tavern that was originally called the Black Horse Tavern (whence the street gets its name). In 1904, the tavern was called the Nancy Hands (Thom’s, p. 1742) and it was subsequently renamed the Hole in the Wall (Augustine Dillon Cosgrave, ‘North Dublin City’, p. 8). A well and water hand-pump are right by this pub (Kieran Hickey, Faithful Departed, p. 66).
5.298: trottingmatches
At the time, trotting-pony races were run on the Phoenix Park Race Course (right off the Ashtown Gate) in association with the Dublin Horse Show, an annual event in Ballsbridge, a southern inner suburb of Dublin. In 1904, they were held on Thursday 28 April, and King Edward VII was in attendance (Cork Examiner, 28 Apr. 1904, p. 5, col. f).
5.300: railway arch
Bloom passes beneath the elevated train tracks that cross over South Cumberland Street to Westland Row Station (now Pearse Station).
5.304: Lord Iveagh
Edward Cecil Guinness (1847–1927): son of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness (1798–1868) and largest shareholder in the Guinness Brewery. He was made Baron Iveagh in 1891. He founded the Iveagh Trust in 1903 for the purpose of providing housing for working-class citizens (DIB).
5.304–05: once cashed a sevenfigure cheque
The source of Bloom’s anecdote is unknown, but Lord Iveagh was a shrewd and tremendously wealthy businessman. When he died, his estate was valued at £11 million (DIB).
5.305: bank of Ireland
The Bank of Ireland was established in 1783. After the Act of Union in 1800, the Irish Parliament on College Green lay vacant and shortly thereafter was acquired by the Bank for its headquarters (Bennett, s.v. Bank of Ireland). The building was constructed between 1729 and 1739 and enlarged in 1785 and again in 1794. ‘The most important pieces of monumental grandeur to have survived are the gallery-pavilions facing College Green, together with the old House of Lords and the long passageway enclosing what was the House of Commons. [James] Gandon [the architect for the 1785 expansion] was responsible for the large Corinthian columns and portico at the Westmoreland Street end’ (Bennett, s.v. Parliament House).
5.306: porter
See note at 3.152.
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5.306: lord Ardilaun
Arthur Edward Guinness (1840–1915): Baron Ardilaun and older brother of Lord Iveagh (see note at 5.304). He and his brother were partners in the Guinness brewery. He was a noted philanthropist, conservative politician, and one-time president of the Royal Dublin Society (DIB). It is not known if there is any truth to the story Bloom thinks about here. In a letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver from 1925, Joyce described Arthur Guinness as ‘morose and charitable’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 225).
5.307–12: A million pounds . . . a million barrels all the same
Bloom is trying to calculate how much beer, in imperial measurement, would be worth one million pounds. His calculations start off right: one pint costs two pence. Therefore, one quart (2 pints) is four pence, and one gallon is 16 pence, or 1s. 4d. (Bloom initially thinks a gallon is 2 quarts, but immediately corrects himself to 4 quarts, or 8 pints). The next step is to figure out how much beer is worth £1 (or 20s., hence ‘One and four into twenty’). Bloom is correct: 1s. 4d. is exactly one-fifteenth of £1, therefore £1 buys 15 gallons and so £1 million buys 15 million gallons, not barrels as Bloom at first posits. The beer barrel was officially defined as 36 imperial gallons (Ronald Zupko, A Dictionary of Weights and Measures, p. 25), therefore £1 million is just over 416,666 barrels (and not a million, as he finally guesses), which is just under 68,200,000 litres.
5.318: All Hallows
St Andrew’s (Roman Catholic) Church, also known as All Hallows: 45 and 46 Westland Row (Thom’s, p. 1619). Bloom enters by the rear door on South Cumberland Street. ‘The present church of St Andrew or All Hallows was built 1832–37 [. . .] to a design of James Bolger (Boulger), having a stepped front with two Doric columns supporting a pediment with a sculpture of St Andrew [. . .] There are 49 vaults in the church’ (Bennett, s.v. St Andrew’s (RC)).
5.322–23: the very reverend John Conmee S.J.
John Conmee (1847–1910): a Jesuit priest and Joyce’s teacher at three different schools: first at Clongowes (see note at 1.311), where he served as prefect of studies (1881–85), and then rector (1885–91). He then moved to Belvedere College (see note at 10.20–21), where he was prefect of studies for one year (1891–92). Although he had formally stepped down from Belvedere, he helped arrange for Joyce to attend without fees once he had learned that Joyce’s father could no longer afford Clongowes (Bruce Bradley, James Joyce’s Schooldays, pp. 75, 84). Conmee then moved to University College Dublin, first as prefect of studies and then as dean (1898–1904). In 1898, he was also appointed as superior of St Francis Xavier’s Church in Gardiner Street (DIB). He appears in chapters 1 and 2 of A Portrait.
5.323: saint Peter Claver S.J.
St Peter Claver (c.1581–1654, canonised 1888): a Spanish Jesuit. He left Spain in 1610 to convert and succour African slaves in Colombia as they arrived on slave ships. Claver worked not only for the conversion of slaves, but also for the abolition of the slave trade (Catholic Encyclopedia).
5.323: the African mission
Catholic missionaries were active in Africa throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: ‘it is comforting for the Catholic to see, at the beginning of this twentieth
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 153 century, the heroism with which the missionaries are assailing the Dark Continent’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Africa).
5.323–24: Prayers for the conversion of Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98): four times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He proposed Irish Home Rule bills in 1886 and 1893, both of which were unsuccessful. In 1898, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, William Walsh (see following note), wrote a letter to his diocese suggesting prayers for Gladstone on his deathbed. The letter’s conclusion: ‘Doubtless through this letter it will be the means of obtaining for our venerable benefactor of former years many prayers, and in particular a prayer that God in whom he always trusted may now in his hour of suffering be pleased to send him comfort and relief to lighten his heavy burden, and to give him strength and patience to bear it, in so far as in the designs of Providence it may have to be borne for his greater good’ (David Williamson, William Ewart Gladstone, p. 417). The letter stops short of actually calling for Gladstone’s conversion.
5.325: Dr William J. Walsh. D.D.
William Walsh (1841–1921): Doctor of Divinity and Catholic Archbishop of Dublin (1885–1921). After the defeat of the Home Rule Bill of 1886, Walsh became an outspoken opponent of Parnell (DIB). This opposition increased when news of Parnell’s illicit relationship with Katherine O’Shea became public; see note at 16.1306. In ‘Gas from a Burner’, Joyce satirised Walsh: ‘For everyone knows the Pope can’t belch / Without the consent of Billy Walsh’. And in A Portrait, Simon Dedalus calls him ‘Billy with the lip’ (p. 33).
5.326: Save China’s millions
Since the sixteenth century, the Jesuits have been particularly active in proselytising in China, although other Catholic orders have been present as well (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. The Church in China). Since the 1830s, the phrase ‘China’s millions’ was a cliché in Evangelist literature in reference to the vast population of China that might need Christian salvation (John Simpson, JJON).
5.327: heathen Chinee
From Bret Harte’s (American poet, 1836–1902) poem ‘Plain Language from Truthful James’ (l. 5 et passim).
5.327: Prefer an ounce of opium
Inverts Karl Marx’s famous claim that Religion ‘is the opium of the people’ (‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’, Early Writings, p. 244).
5.327: Celestials
Celestial: this was a humorous term for the Chinese; one of China’s names for itself was ‘the Celestial Empire’ (OED).
5.328: Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum
Buddha (the title of Siddhartha Gautama, c.563–c.483 bc) is not the god of Buddhism, but rather its founder. This statue of the reclining Buddha, in marble with its robes painted gold, was looted from Burma and in 1891 was presented to the National Museum (see note at 8.921–22) by Col. Sir Charles Fitzgerald (Fintan Cullen, Ireland on Show, pp. 33–34). The statue is now held in the National Museum of Ireland: Decorative Arts and History in Collins Barracks.
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154 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
5.329: Josssticks
Joss-stick: ‘a thin cylinder or stick of fragrant tinder mixed with clay, used by the Chinese as incense’ (OED).
5.329–30: Not like Ecce Homo. Crown of thorns and cross
Ecce Homo: Latin, ‘Behold the Man’. Pilate uttered these words to the people when Jesus was brought before him (John 19:5). Matthew (27:29 ff.), Mark (15:16 ff.), and John (19:2 ff.) describe the crown of thorns that was placed on Jesus’s head. A painting of the crucifixion entitled Ecce Homo by the Hungarian artist Michael Munkácsy (1844–1900) was exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin in 1899. Joyce wrote an essay about this painting when he was in college (OCPW, pp. 17–22).
5.330: Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock
According to legend, St Patrick (c.385–c.461), the patron saint of Ireland, used the tripartite leaf of the shamrock to explain the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to the people of Ireland (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. shamrock).
5.331: Martin Cunningham knows him
Martin Cunningham first appears in the story ‘Grace’ in Dubliners, in which he and his friends attempt to stage an intervention to help Tom Kernan curb his drinking. Cunningham is based on Matthew F. Kane (1865–1904), a friend of Joyce’s father, who worked as the principal assistant of the Chief Crown Solicitor’s Department at Dublin Castle. Kane drowned on 10 July 1904 in Dublin Bay off Kingstown, and his funeral was the model for Dignam’s funeral in ‘Hades’ (Costello, James Joyce, p. 228). Finnegans Wake speaks of ‘and then poor Merkin Cornyngwham, the official out of the castle on pension, when he was completely drowned off Erin Isles’ (p. 387); the earliest draft of this passage reads ‘The drowning of poor Mat Keane of Dunlearery’ (NLI MS 41,818 f. 3v).
5.332: getting Molly into the choir
Molly had been in the choir at St Francis Xavier Church, Upper Gardiner Street (Thom’s, p. 1500), near the Blooms’ house, but had to leave because of the papal decree of 22 November 1903, which forbade women from singing in church choirs (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. church music).
5.332–33: Father Farley
Father Charles Farrelly lived with Father Conmee and other priests at the Presbytery of St Francis Xavier Church, Upper Gardiner Street (Thom’s, pp. 1012, 1500, 1868). Farrelly is pronounced Farley.
5.334: bluey specs
Spectacles with blue-tinted lenses were precursors to sunglasses. ‘A light-blue or azure coloured glass is to be preferred for shading the eyes from light [. . .] Colours are also more easily distinguished with blue glasses than with green’ (J. T. Hudson, Spectaclænia, p. 13).
5.339: rere
Rere (Hiberno-English): rear, as in the back of a house; the preferred spelling in Ireland (Dolan).
5.340: sodality
Sodality: ‘in the Roman Catholic Church, a religious guild or brotherhood established for purposes of devotion or mutual help or action; the body of persons forming such a society’ (OED).
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5.341: Who is my neighbour?
In the Gospel of Luke, a lawyer asks Jesus this question after Jesus has told him he must love his neighbour as himself (10:29). Jesus explains what he means by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan.
5.342: Seventh heaven
Seventh heaven: ‘The most exalted level of heaven’ (OED). ‘The belief in the existence of a plurality of heavens, generally seven in number but sometimes more or less, is found widespread in Apocryphal and Oriental writings. [. . .] The same belief was prevalent in Ireland’ (St John D. Seymour, ‘The Seven Heavens in Irish Literature’, p. 18).
5.343: crimson halters round their necks
Halter: a noose or a noose-like piece of leather for harnessing a horse (OED); here used to describe the red ribbons which fastened their sodality medals round their necks (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
5.344–45: holding the thing in his hands
The ‘thing’ is the ciborium: the cup which holds the communion wafers that a priest dispenses to his congregation (OED).
5.345–46: shook a drop or two (are they in water?)
The communion wafers are not in water in the ciborium (see the previous note). Immediately before placing the communion wafer on the communicant’s tongue, the priest may lightly shake the wafer. This is to ensure that any loose particles (which are sacred because they have been consecrated) can be collected on the communion paten (a liturgical plate), which is held by its handle under the communicant’s chin by an altar server (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. 21, pp. 635, 638; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
5.348–49: put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time Latin
The priest recites a standard blessing to each parishioner receiving communion: Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. Amen. (May the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep your soul and bring it to everlasting life. Amen) (Rituale Romanum, p. 110).
5.349–50: Shut your eyes and open your mouth
A Dublin children’s street rhyme: ‘Shut your eyes, / And open your mouth, / And see what God will send you’ (Eilís Brady, All In! All In!, p. 22; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
5.350: Corpus. Body Corpse
Corpus (Latin): body; the root of the English word corpse (OED, s.v. corpse).
5.351: Hospice for the dying
Our Lady’s Hospice for the Dying, in Harold’s Cross (an inner suburb just south of the Grand Canal), kept by the Catholic Sisters of Charity (Thom’s, p. 1704).
5.351–52: They don’t seem to chew it: only swallow it down
‘Do not chew the Sacred Host like common food. [. . .] Try to swallow it as soon as possible’ (Alexander Klauder, Catholic Practice at Church and at Home, p. 73). While never an official stricture, this was a pious practice amongst the laity.
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5.358–59: mazzoth: it’s that sort of bread: unleavened shewbread
Mazzoth (one of several spellings): unleavened bread eaten as part of the Jewish ceremony of Passover (OED). Shewbread is something different: unleavened bread placed upon the golden altar of the Temple, where it was only on ‘show’ for the congregation (see Leviticus 24:5–9, Exodus 25:30). In the Roman Catholic Church, unleavened bread, made from wheat flour and water, is used to make the communion wafers (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 413).
5.360: bread of angels
A translation of the Latin phrase panis angelicus. This is the first line of the penultimate stanza to Aquinas’s hymn ‘Sacris Solemniis’, which is sometimes used as a separate hymn at Benediction (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Sacris Solemniis).
5.361: kind of kingdom of God is within you feel
An allusion to the Gospel of Luke: ‘For lo, the kingdom of God is within you’ (17:21).
5.362: Hokypoky penny a lump
Hokypoky was the name of a cheap ice cream, sold by Italian street vendors, popular in Dublin in the 1870s and 1880s (Harald Beck, JJON). The phrase ‘Hokypoky penny a lump’ derives from their sales cries (Partridge). Hokypoky: deception; derives from hocus-pocus, in their definition of which the OED cites John Tillotson (Archbishop of Canterbury, 1630–94): ‘In all probability those common juggling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of hoc est corpus, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation’.
5.364: Then come out a bit spreeish
Spreeish: slightly intoxicated (OED). The word spree derives from the Irish spraoi, fun, amusement, a drinking bout (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
5.365: Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion
Lourdes: the south-western French town where the Virgin Mary appeared in 1858 to St Bernadette. It is a major Catholic pilgrimage destination. The waters of a spring near the site of the Virgin’s appearance are thought to have healing powers (Catholic Encyclopedia). In Greek mythology, the waters of oblivion would be the River Lethe in Hades, ‘which the souls of the dead are obliged to taste, that they may forget everything said and done when alive’ (Brewer’s).
5.365–66: Knock apparition
The village of Knock is near Claremorris in County Mayo (western Ireland). On 21 August 1879, Mary Beirne and Mary McLoughlin saw apparitions of the Virgin, St Joseph, and St John the Evangelist near their parish church. Since then, it has been a popular pilgrimage destination (Brewer’s Irish).
5.366: statues bleeding
Since the Middle Ages, reports of miracles such as bleeding or weeping statues have been not uncommon and are typically met by a range of reactions ranging from scepticism to credulous wonder (Frank Flinn, Encyclopedia of Catholicism, pp. 113–14).
5.367: Safe in the arms of kingdom come
After a Protestant hymn, ‘Safe in the Arms of Jesus’ (1869), words by Frances Crosby van Alstyne, music by W. H. Doane (Bowen, p. 98). The phrase ‘kingdom come’ is from the Lord’s Prayer.
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5.371–72: Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn’t know what to do to See note at 5.281–84.
5.372: I.N.R.I?
According to the Gospel of John, the sign placed by Pilate’s command at the top of Jesus’s cross bore the inscription ‘INRI’, which stands for, Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (Latin): Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews (John 19:19). The other Evangelists provide different versions of the inscription: Rex Iudaeorum (Mark 15:26); and Hic Est Rex Iudaeorum, This is the King of the Jews (Luke 23:38 and Matthew 27:37). The remark, ‘Iron Nails Ran In’, while hardly canonical, was a mordant Irishism in somewhat common circulation (Eamonn Finn and John Simpson, JJON).
5.372: I.H.S.
IHS: after the first three letters of Jesus’s name in Greek, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, in which the H is the capital form of the Greek letter eta (η), a long e (Catholic Encyclopedia). Molly’s guesses, ‘I have suffered’ or ‘I have sinned’, were quite common (Eamonn Finn and John Simpson, JJON).
5.375: Sunday after the rosary See note at 5.270.
5.376: Dusk and the light behind her
‘She may very well pass for forty-three / In the dusk, with a light behind her’: from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury (1876) (The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, p. 87).
5.378: That fellow that turned queen’s evidence on the invincibles
The Invincibles were a small faction of Fenians, founded in December 1881 for the purpose of assassinating agents of English colonial power. On 6 May 1882, in Phoenix Park (see note at 7.633) near the Viceregal lodge, the Invincibles murdered Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new Chief Secretary of Ireland, and Thomas Henry Burke, his Irish Catholic Undersecretary. This event came to be known as the ‘Phoenix Park Murders’. Invincibles Joe Brady and Tim Kelly performed the killings, while James Carey was a co-conspirator and witness to the murders. The murders ‘horrified England and made Parnell’s constitutional leadership difficult’ (Edmund Curtis, A History of Ireland, p. 328).
5.379: Carey
At the trial of the assassins of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke in February 1883, James Carey (1845–83) a builder, town councillor, and member of the Invincibles, testified against his fellow conspirators (Tom Corfe, The Phoenix Park Murders, pp. 241, 246–47).
5.380: Peter Carey
Peter Carey, a bricklayer, was James Carey’s brother. Though not directly involved in the Phoenix Park plot, he was among those initially accused in the murders, and later gave testimony at the trial (Corfe, The Phoenix Park Murders, pp. 230–31, 242, 255).
5.380: Peter Claver See note at 5.323.
5.381: Denis Carey
Bloom is trying, unsuccessfully for now, to remember James Carey’s first name. There was no Denis Carey involved in the Phoenix Park Murders.
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158 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
5.381: Wife and six children at home
James Carey (see note at 5.379) did have a wife and six children when the Phoenix Park Murders took place in May 1882; a seventh was born later that year (London Times, 20 Feb. 1883, p. 10, col. c).
5.382: crawthumpers
Craw-thumper: ‘one who beats his breast (at confession); applied derisively to Roman Catholic devotees’ (OED). ‘Strike your breast three times when the Priest holds up the Sacred Host turned toward you and says three times the “Domine non sum dignus”. Say likewise each time as you strike your breast the same words in English, “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed” ’ (Klauder, Catholic Practice at Church and at Home, p. 70).
5.386: The priest was rinsing out the chalice
That is, performing the ablutions. Near the end of Mass, the priest washes out the chalice (which had contained consecrated wine) with unconsecrated wine (John J. Wynne, The Mass, p. 25).
5.388: Guinness’s
The Guinness brewery, founded by Arthur Guinness (1725–1803); on 31 December 1759, he signed a 9,000-year lease on a brewery at St James’s Gate, in south-west Dublin, by the Liffey (Brewer’s Irish). By the early twentieth century, ‘the single firm of Guinness accounted for more than two-thirds of total Irish output and was already the largest brewery in Europe’ (NHI, vol. 6, p. 301).
5.388: porter
See note at 3.152.
5.389: Wheatley’s Dublin hop bitters
Wheatley and Bates: hop bitter brewers, 65 Middle Abbey Street and Sheffield (Thom’s, p. 2037). Hop bitters: an alcohol-free beer substitute, ‘a kind of unfermented liquor flavoured with hops’ (OED). Their advert sternly warns: ‘Please note label as sometimes a low- priced and inferior article is substituted for the genuine Wheatley’s hop bitters’ (Freeman’s Journal, 16 June 1904, p. 1, col. c).
5.389: Cantrell and Cochrane’s ginger ale See note at 5.193.
5.390: Doesn’t give them any of it: shew wine: only the other
‘Shew wine’ is a coinage by analogy with shewbread (see note at 5.358–59). That is, wine that is shown to the congregation and consecrated, but drunk only by the priest. Before the reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s, the congregation was not given the consecrated wine at communion.
5.392: cadging
Cadging: an extreme form of begging (Partridge).
5.392–93: Queer the whole atmosphere
To queer: to spoil, to put out of order; a sense in use since the early nineteenth century (OED). Joyce originally wrote ‘Spoil the whole atmosphere’ (Rosenbach f. 11) and changed the word on the now-missing typescript (UCSE, p. 164; with thanks to Fritz Senn).
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 159
5.395: Old Glynn
Joseph Glynn (1834–93): organist at various churches throughout Dublin and a professor of music in many schools and convents (Igoe, pp. 120–21).
5.396: fifty pounds a year
According to a government report, a generic labourer in Dublin in 1905 could expect a wage of up to 18s. per week (Cost of Living of the Working Classes, p. 560), which works out to £46 16s. per annum for full-time work.
5.396–97: in Gardiner street
The Church of St Francis Xavier, Upper Gardiner Street (Thom’s, p. 1500), near Bloom’s house.
5.397–98: Stabat Mater of Rossini
Gioachino Rossini’s (Italian composer, 1792–1868) Stabat Mater (1832–41) for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. The piece takes its name from the opening line of the medieval hymn text Stabat Mater dolorosa (Latin): ‘the grieving Mother was standing’. This piece portrays Mary’s grief while standing at the foot of Jesus’s cross (Grove, s.v. Gioachino Rossini).
5.398: Father Bernard Vaughan’s sermon first. Christ or Pilate?
Father Bernard Vaughan (1847–1922): English Jesuit priest and the younger brother of the Cardinal and Archbishop of Westminster, Herbert Vaughan (1832–1903). He ‘was the closest equivalent within the English catholic church for the kind of larger-than-life preachers that had become prominent in the American evangelical churches’ (Geert Lernout, Help My Unbelief, pp. 70–71). In 1907, he gave a series of sermons denouncing the ills of contemporary society, each one focused on a scene from the Gospels; the third was on Pilate. These were published in 1908 as Society, Sin, and the Saviour (C. C. Martindale, Bernard Vaughan, S.J., p. 90). Joyce followed Vaughan’s career and he served as the model for Father Purdon in ‘Grace’ in Dubliners (Ellmann, p. 133 n.).
5.399: Footdrill stopped
Foot drill: a military marching exercise (OED); in context, the audience members rustling their feet.
5.402: Quis est homo?
Quis est homo? (Latin): ‘Who is the man?’; the beginning of the third stanza of the Stabat Mater (see note at 5.397–98). In Rossini’s version it is arranged as a duet for a soprano and a mezzo-soprano.
5.403–04: Mercadante: seven last words
Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (Italian composer, 1795–1870) wrote a Lenten ora torio Le sette ultime parole di Nostro Signore (The Seven Last Words of Our Lord) (Grove).
5.404: Mozart’s twelfth mass: the Gloria in that
In 1821, the German music publisher N. Simrock published a piece they called ‘Mozart’s Twelfth Mass’. Within a few years, its authenticity was contested. Köchel discredited the attribution in his listing of Mozart’s works and called it ‘decidedly spurious’. It is now generally attributed to Wenzel Müller (1767–1835) (Grove). Despite the controversy, the Gloria portion of the so-called ‘Mozart’s Twelfth Mass’ remained popular. The Gloria (Greater
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160 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Doxology, Gloria in excelsis Deo, Glory be to God on high) is a section of the Mass Ordinary deriving from Luke 2:14.
5.405: Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–94): one of the most famous and prolific composers of the Renaissance (Grove). See note at 1.653.
5.406–07: They had a gay old time while it lasted . . . Green Chartreuse
There is a topical reference here to the expulsion of the monks from the Grande Chartreuse, the head monastery of the Carthusian religious order, on 29 April 1903. This was the most notorious expulsion that followed from the anti-clerical Law of Associations of 1 July 1901, which attempted to curb the influence of religious orders in France (D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, p. 860). Benedictine and Chartreuse: liqueurs associated with monastic religious orders (both OED); Chartreuse is green. The Monastic Day and the Divine Office are prayers chanted at specific times of the day (see also note at 10.184).
5.408: eunuchs in their choir
Castrato: ‘A type of high-voiced male singer, brought about by castrating young boys with promising voices before they reached puberty. It was central to both church music and opera, in countries under Italian influence, throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, and disappeared from Vatican church music only as late as c.1920; it had vanished from opera by 1830. [. . .] The taste for castrato voices arose mainly because in Italy women’s voices were not allowed in church. Of the available substitutes, choirboys were no sooner trained than lost. [. . .] Contemporary accounts speak of uncommon brilliance allied with power, a wide range, a breathing capacity beyond the reach of most normal voices’ (Grove).
5.410–11: Fall into flesh don’t they?
‘Another characteristic of the eunuch [. . .] is the accumulation of adipose [fatty] tissue which is usually though not always present. The muscles become permeated with fat’ (William Graves, Gynecology, p. 52).
5.413: He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar
The closing rites of the Ordinary of the Mass are being described. Before giving the final blessing, the priest kisses the altar and bows to the crucifix (Wynne, The Mass, p. 27).
5.415–16: Stand up at the gospel of course
In the Catholic Mass, the congregation stands during the reading of the Gospel (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, pp. 152–53).
5.417–18: holding the thing out from him
The ‘thing’ is the ciborium, for which see note at 5.344–45.
5.420: O God, our refuge and our strength
The beginning of one of the prayers said after Low Mass (Wynne, The Mass, p. 566).
5.421–22: English. Throw them the bone
Until the Vatican II reforms of the 1960s, the Mass was primarily said in Latin. All the prayers said at the foot of the altar after Mass were said in the local language of the country (Willis E. McNelly, ‘Liturgical Deviations in Ulysses’, p. 296). To throw a person a bone: ‘to give a person a minor or insignificant benefit, reward, compliment’ (OED).
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 161
5.422: How long since your last mass?
The phrase Bloom is (unsuccessfully) trying to remember is: ‘How long since your last confession?’ Immediately before a confession of one’s sins, one must declare how long it has been since the last confession (Ursuline Manual, pp. 134–35).
5.423: Glorious and immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul
From the post-Mass prayer: ‘by the intercession of the glorious and Immaculate Virgin Mary Mother of God, of Saint Joseph her Spouse, of Thy Holy Apostles Peter and Paul’ (Wynne, The Mass, p. 566).
5.425: Confession
‘Confession is a sorrowful declaration of our sins made to a priest in order to obtain forgiveness. [. . .] At confession we must beg the priest’s blessing, say the Confiteor, accuse ourselves of our sins, listen attentively to his instructions, and renew our sorrow when he gives absolution’ (Maynooth Catechism, pp. 22–23). ‘It is a commandment of the Church that all Catholics having the use of reason, confess their sins at least once in the year’ (Klauder, Catholic Practice at Church and at Home, p. 81).
5.428–29: Look down at her ring to find an excuse
A variant on an old proverb, ‘A woman need but look on her apron string to find an excuse’ (ODEP).
5.429: Whispering gallery
Whispering-gallery: ‘a gallery or dome, usually of circular or elliptical plan, in which a whisper or other faint sound at some point can be heard by reflexion at a distant point where the direct sound is inaudible’ (OED). St Paul’s Cathedral in London has a famous whispering gallery under its dome: ‘If you whisper against the wall you can be heard clearly on the opposite side of the gallery over 32 metres away’ (Ben Weinreb, Christopher Hibbert, Julia Keay, and John Keay, The London Encyclopaedia, p. 810).
5.431: Hail Mary and Holy Mary
The ‘Hail Mary’ (in Latin, Ave Maria), ‘the most familiar of all the prayers used by the Universal Church in honour of our Blessed Lady’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). In confession, the priest prescribes a number of Hail Marys (or other prayers such as the Our Father) commensurate with the gravity of the sin. The prayer goes: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen’ (Maynooth Catechism, p. 6). The prayer combines the angelic salutation of Luke 1:28 with St Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary at Luke 1:42.
5.432–33: Salvation army blatant imitation
William Booth (1829–1912), the founder, in 1865, of the Salvation Army used reformed sinners to help recruit others into his ever-expanding church. In an early history of the church, he described this marketing strategy: ‘To attract the people, we invited all the celebrities we knew [. . .]. Men who had been remarkable in wickedness but who, we had reason to believe, were now serving God. We had a morning march, waggons in the hollow of a broken field and meetings all day. We had great crowds of people and souls saved’ (quoted in Roy Hattersley, Blood and Fire, p. 142).
5.434: Squareheaded
Squareheaded: sensible (OED).
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4. ‘Calypso’ 125
4.346: Ruby: the Pride of the Ring
Joyce derives this title and some details from (1889) by Amye Reade. The eponymous Ruby comes from a broken home and is sold into slavery at the age of 13 to Signor Enrico, a villainous circus master. Although he never molests the girls sexually, he does have a penchant for beating them in the nude as punishment for not performing adequately. The novel ends with Ruby reunited with her father, who has returned from Australia, just as she is dying from injuries sustained during a performance. He then frees one of Ruby’s friends from Enrico’s circus and marries her (Mary Power, ‘The Discovery of ’). The subtitle of Joyce’s novel, ‘The Pride of the Ring’, was a popular title or subtitle for other circus-based novels (Caroline Nobile Gryta, ‘Who is Signor Maffei?’, p. 321).
4.346–47: Illustration. Fierce Italian with carriagewhip
An illustration from the book The illustrations for were done by Talbot Hughes. The description of the picture is accurate, however the unclothed girl on the floor is not the eponymous Ruby, as Bloom thinks it is, but rather Victoria Melton, a friend of Ruby’s and fellow circus performer (Victoria is the friend who marries Ruby’s father at the novel’s conclusion). The ‘fierce Italian’ is Signor Enrico. See also the following note.
4.348–49: The monster Maffei . . . with an oath
This line is a slight modification of the caption for the above picture in : ‘ “The monster desisted and threw his victim from him with an oath” Chap. xxxi’. While unnamed in the caption in Reade’s book, the name of the monstrous character is Signor Enrico (Mister Henry), who Joyce renamed Signor Maffei. This is possibly after Francesco Scipione, marchese di Maffei (Italian dramatist, 1675–1755) (Caroline Nobile Gryta, ‘Who is Signor Maffei?’, p. 322).
4.349: Hengler’s
A very popular English circus, run by the Hengler family. It began operation in the mid- nineteenth century (Ruth Manning-Sanders, , pp. 84–87). They travelled to Dublin with some frequency: ‘Visitors to the horse show will be pleased to learn that Hengler’s Circus will re-open for a short season to-night. The circus has always been a favourite resort of amusement-seekers in Dublin’ ( , 22 Aug. 1898, p. 5, col. b).
4.351: Bone them young
To bone: ‘to lay hold of; to seize and take possession of ’ (
).
4.355–56: Is she in love with the first fellow all the time?
In terms of the novel , this question probably refers to Ruby’s mother. The first third of details the troubled marriage between Ruby’s parents, Cynthia and Jack Hayward.
4.358: Paul de Kock’s
Charles-Paul de Kock (1793–1871): a prolific French novelist. His novels primarily focused on the working classes and the petite bourgeoisie, which, up until then, were not well represented in French literature. Despite being tremendously popular, his works were routinely derided by critics for being bawdry and his name became synonymous with bad writing (Anne O’Neil-Henry, ‘Paul de Kock and the Marketplace of Culture’, pp. 97–98). He was popular in Britain as well and his works were widely translated into English by the mid-nineteenth century; even his more salacious books were available in unexpurgated
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 163 15 Palmerston Park, Rathmines and 10 Holmpatrick Terrace, Skerries (Thom’s, p. 1990). Under Prescott’s direction, his firm ‘became one of the most important dye works in Dublin’ (Irish Times, 20 June 1905, p. 6, col. a).
5.460–61: widow in her weeds
Widow’s ‘weeds’: the mourning costume, such as veils and weepers, of a widow (OED).
5.463: Sweny’s in Lincoln place
F. W. Sweny, druggists and dispensing chemists: 1 Lincoln Place (Thom’s, p. 1534). Lincoln Place intersects with Westland Row at its southern end. Frederick William Sweny (1856–1924) ran the shop which was founded by his father Mark (Igoe, pp. 283–84). The name is pronounced Sweny (with one e, rhyming with ‘penny’) and not Sweeny (with two).
5.464: beaconjars
Presumably, a Joycean neologism for the large jars of medicine that used to decorate and advertise chemists’ shops.
5.464–65: Hamilton Long’s
Hamilton, Long & Co., Ltd.: ‘state apothecaries, perfumers, and manufacturers of mineral waters’. They had several shops in the Dublin area, the nearest to Bloom’s current position and the Huguenot churchyard being at 107 Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 1889).
5.465: Huguenot churchyard near there
The Huguenot graveyard is at 10 Merrion Row (Thom’s, p. 1544), about 800 metres south from where Bloom is now. The Huguenots were French Calvinist Protestants. In France, the Edict of Nantes (1598) guaranteed them political and religious freedoms. From the late seventeenth century onward, and especially after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, many Huguenots fled France for Ireland. They settled in Dublin and the Protestant north. In Dublin they formed a thriving community, especially in the weaving industry. The cemetery opened in 1693 and the last interment took place in 1901 (Bennett, s.vv. Huguenot; Huguenot Cemetery, Merrion Row). There is no church associated with the cemetery, but the word churchyard was formerly used to designate just a burial ground (OED).
5.473 Quest for the philosopher’s stone
Philosopher’s stone: ‘The hypothetical substance which, according to the alchemists, would convert all baser metals into gold. [. . .] Mediæval experimenters toiled endlessly in the search, thus laying the foundations of the science of chemistry’ (Brewer’s).
5.477: lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid
Latin abbreviations for chemist’s supplies: Aq. Dist. (Aqua Distillata): distilled water; Fol. Laur. (Folia Laurea): laurel leaves; Te Virid. (Thea Viridis, but Te is attested): green tea. Lilypot: an ornamental jar decorated with a representation of a lily (all OED).
5.478: Doctor Whack
That is, a spanking. From the poem ‘The Picture’ by W. B. Rands (English children’s poet, 1823–82): ‘What was the consequence?—Doctor Whack’ (Lilliput Levee, p. 175).
5.479: Electuary or emulsion
Electuary: ‘a medicinal conserve or paste, consisting of a powder or other ingredient mixed with honey, preserve, or syrup of some kind’ (OED). Emulsion: ‘a milky liquid, consisting
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164 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses of water holding in suspension minute particles of oil or resin by the aid of some albumin ous or gummy material’ (OED).
5.480: Simples
Simples: medicines ‘consisting or composed of one substance, ingredient, or element; uncompounded or unmixed (or nearly so)’ (OED).
5.481: Test: turns blue litmus paper red. Chloroform
‘This is a test to see whether chloroform has decomposed (it hydrolyzes slowly in the presence of moisture and light) into poisonous phosgene and hydrochloric acid’ (Ian MacArthur, ‘Some Notes for Ulysses’, p. 526). See note at 17.626 for chloroform.
5.482: laudanum
Laudanum: ‘The simple alcoholic tincture of opium’ (OED). From the mid-nineteenth century, laudanum was widely available as a ‘cure-all’, either in a solution prepared by a dispensing chemist or as an ingredient in various patent medicines (see note at 15.4470–71). It typically cost about one penny for 20 or 25 drops (Louise Foxcroft, The Making of Addiction, p. 10).
5.482–83: Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough . . . phlegm
Paregoric: ‘A pain-relieving or soothing medicinal preparation, esp. an opiate’; Joyce’s misspelling paragoric is common (OED). Because it contains opium, it could be called a poppy syrup. Medicines containing opium were frequently used as cough syrups (Dan Malleck, When Good Drugs Go Bad, pp. 13, 21–22).
5.488: loofahs
Loofah: ‘The fibrous substance of the pod of the plant Luffa ægyptiaca, used as a sponge or flesh-brush’ (OED).
5.490: Sweet almond oil
Sweet almond oil was used to relieve inflammation of the mucous membranes, but its primary medicinal purpose was as a vehicle for other medicines because of its pleasant taste (Isaac Hayes, The American Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine and Surgery, p. 291).
5.490: tincture of benzoin
Tincture: ‘A solution, usually in a menstruum of alcohol, of some principle used in medicine’. Benzoin: ‘A dry and brittle resinous substance, with a fragrant odour and slightly aromatic taste, obtained from the Styrax benzoin, a tree of Sumatra, Java, etc. It is used in the preparation of benzoic acid, in medicine, and extensively in perfumery’ (both OED).
5.491: orangeflower water
Orange-flower water: ‘an aqueous solution of orange flowers; the fragrant watery distillate left over in the preparation of neroli oil and used for culinary purposes and in perfumery’ (OED).
5.493: white wax
White wax: ‘beeswax refined or bleached to a whitish colour, used esp. in the manufacture of candles and in medicinal preparations’ (OED, s.v. white).
5.496–97: strawberries for the teeth . . . buttermilk
Bloom is thinking of various household remedies. For example, in her New Family Receipt-Book (1810), Maria Eliza Rundell writes that strawberries ‘dissolve the tartareous
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 165 concretions of the teeth’ (p. 338; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON). And, from The Household Guide (1898) by B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nicols: ‘Scotchmen live month after month on oatmeal and buttermilk and a healthier, harder working class of men it would be difficult to find’ (p. 404).
5.497–98: One of the old queen’s sons . . . Leopold
Queen Victoria’s youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany (1853–84), suffered from haemophilia, which led to his death. Haemophilia: ‘A constitutional (usually hereditary) tendency to bleeding, either spontaneously or from very slight injuries’ (OED). ‘Only one skin’: old wives’ explanation for haemophilia (Quarterly Epitome of American Practical Medicine and Surgery, Dec. 1882, vol. 3, p. 519). Most newspapers did not mention the cause of Leopold’s death; the Irish Times merely noted that there are ‘Contradictory reports’ (29 Mar 1884, p. 5, col. a). Shortly after Leopold’s death, the British Medical Journal printed an article on haemophilia that began with this statement: ‘The recent bereavement in the Royal Family will naturally turn the attention of the medical public towards the constitutional affection to which the illustrious deceased was subject’ (5 Apr. 1884, p. 686).
5.500: Peau d’Espagne
Peau d’Espagne (French): literally ‘Spanish leather’. Originally, peau d’espagne was a scented leather of Spain, and thus also referred to a perfume that suggested the aroma of this leather (OED).
5.502: Hammam. Turkish. Massage
Hammam: ‘a Turkish bath’, after hammam, the Arabic word for bath (OED). The Hammam Family Hotel and Turkish Baths stood at 11–12 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1890); however this is distant from Bloom’s present location. There is a Turkish baths establishment close to Bloom; see note at 5.549–50.
5.524: Good morning, have you used Pears’ soap
Pears’ transparent soap, made by Andrew Pears, London. Pears’s son-in-law Thomas J. Barratt inaugurated what was arguably the first modern advertising campaign. ‘Pears positioned his soap to appeal to the English upper class’s desire to lighten their skin color, and hence separate themselves from those who toiled out in the sun. [. . .] Barratt painted “Good Morning! Have you used Pears’ Soap?” on blank spaces all over the British Empire. [. . .] He succeeded to such an extent that it was said that genteel people were b ashful about greeting each other with the “good morning” salutation, lest they be contaminated with his advertising lingo’ (James B. Twitchell, Twenty Ads that Shook the World, pp. 41–42).
5.529: Tight collar he’ll lose his hair
Louis C. Parkes’s The Elements of Health (1895) elaborates this misconception: ‘The compression of the scalp by a hard hat interferes with the circulation of blood through the blood-vessels, and may cause neuralgia or baldness, the nutrition of hair-follicles being affected by the disordered circulation. The constriction of the neck by a tight collar may cause venous congestion (lividity) of the face and head’ (p. 228).
5.530 get shut of him
To get shut of: ‘to be rid of, free from’ (OED).
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166 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
5.532: Ascot. Gold cup
The Gold Cup at Ascot, first run in 1807, is one of the biggest and most prestigious races on the British horse-racing calendar (Wray Vampleu and Joyce Kay, Encyclopedia of British Horse Racing, p. 32). In 1904, the Gold Cup was run on 16 June at 3 pm (Freeman’s Journal, 16 June 1904, p. 7, col. e).
5.532: Half a mo
Half a mo: half a moment (Partridge, s.v. mo).
5.532–33: Maximum the second
Maximum II was a French horse who had won the Gold Cup in 1903 and was racing in the 1904 Gold Cup as well. Prior to the 1904 Gold Cup, he had lost two races and so was not considered a strong prospect (Igoe, p. 321); his odds were 10 to 1 against (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. h).
5.542: Conway’s corner
Conway’s pub (see note at 5.109) was on the corner of Westland Row and Lincoln Place (Thom’s, p. 1618).
5.542: scut
Scut: ‘applied in scorn to a contemptible fellow’ (PWJ, p. 318).
5.545: to put on sixpence
To put on sixpence: to wager negligible amounts of money (OED, s.v. put; Partridge, s.v. sixpenny).
5.546–47: Jack Fleming embezzling . . . Keeps a hotel now
Perhaps related to Jack J. Fleming, who worked with John Stanislaus Joyce as a rates col lector in 1883 (Igoe, p. 110); otherwise unknown.
5.548: Fleshpots of Egypt See note at 3.177–78.
5.549–50: mosque of the baths. Remind you of a mosque
The description of a mosque-like building for the Turkish baths refers to the Turkish Baths at 6–15 Lincoln Place, directly opposite the Lincoln Place gate to Trinity College. ‘The complex was surmounted by a 50 ft [15 m] high onion dome behind which rose an 85 ft [26 m] chimney shaft’ (Frederick O’Dwyer, Lost Dublin, p. 58). This firm had another, less architecturally striking branch at Stephen’s Green. The Lincoln Place branch had closed by 1900, and the building was vacant in 1904 (Thom’s, p. 1534; JJD, p. 36). In 1904, there was an operating Turkish baths establishment near the rear entrance to Trinity, the Leinster Street Turkish and Warm Baths, at 11 Leinster Street (Thom’s, p. 1532) and so this must be Bloom’s destination. A contemporary flyer for the Turkish and Warm Baths reads: ‘The Greatest Luxury of the Day is The Turkish Bath in Establishing Health, Preventing Disease, and in Restoring the Sick, When carefully and skillfully administered, in high range of temperature, and with perfectly pure air’ (with thanks to Fritz Senn).
5.550: College sports today I see
A combination meeting of the Dublin University (Trinity College) Bicycle and Harrier Club was held on the afternoon of 16 June in College Park (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. i).
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 167
5.551–52: cyclist doubled up like a cod in a pot
From the street ballad ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye’, which is about an injured soldier home from the wars: ‘Like a cod you’re doubled up head and tail. / Och! Johnny I hardly knew ye!’ (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 492).
5.554: Something to catch the eye See note at 17.583–84.
5.555: Hornblower
The gate-porter for the Lincoln Place gate of Trinity College. There is no one named Hornblower in either the 1901 or 1911 census, and Trinity College’s archives have no record of a porter with this name. Perhaps this is a nickname made in reference to the porter’s uniform and hat (see note at 10.1264).
5.555: porter’s lodge
The booth for the porter was a small granite building by the gated rear entrance to Trinity College at Lincoln Place. This gate was installed in 1852 and was removed in the 1960s (O’Dwyer, Lost Dublin, p. 59).
5.555–56: Keep him on hands . . . on the nod
On hands (also on hand): ‘Of a person: in one’s power’. On the nod: ‘On credit; free, gratis’ (both OED). Bloom is thinking that he could gain entry into the grounds of Trinity College (see note at 7.801) through the rear gate at Lincoln Place if he cultivates an acquaintance with Hornblower. Entry to Trinity through the front gate was (and is) free and open to the public; however, entry through the old gate at Lincoln Place was normally restricted to those associated with the college. See also 18.1257.
5.558: Cricket weather
Cricket weather: weather amenable for playing cricket: ‘The weather was ideal cricket weather: a scorching sun blazing down from a spotless blue sky, while there was not a breath of wind to disturb its fierce rays’ (Belfast News-Letter, 12 May 1896, p. 5, col. c). Such weather is a rarity in Ireland and Britain. The actual weather in Dublin on 16 June was not cricket weather; see note at 4.124. The cricket grounds at Trinity are near Bloom’s present position by the college’s south gate.
5.559: Over after over. Out
In cricket, an over is a sequence of balls (usually six) bowled by the bowler from one end of the pitch. At the end of one over, the next over starts with a different bowler at the other end of the pitch (OED). An individual batsman can be called ‘out’, that is dismissed, for a variety of different reasons during gameplay.
5.560: Duck for six wickets
Duck: in cricket, when a batsman is out for no score. Wicket: ‘A set of three sticks called stumps, fixed upright in the ground, and surmounted by two small pieces of wood called bails, forming the structure (27 × 8 in. [69 x 20 cm]) at which the bowler aims the ball, and at which (in front and a little to one side of it) the batsman stands to defend it with the bat’ (both OED). By extension, the word wicket is used when the bowling side or a specific bowler has got an individual batsman out. The cricket pitch is 22 yards (20.12 metres) long and has a wicket at each end, between which the batsmen run. While ‘duck for six wickets’ uses cricket terminology, the phrase is neither conceivable nor proper usage because the word duck is not generally used to refer to a whole team’s innings (with thanks to John
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168 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Hallam and Tom Walker). In the Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote that Stephen ‘made duck in cricket’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 94; JJA, vol. 7, p. 115), which does make sense (Stephen made no score).
5.560: Captain Buller
Charles Francis Buller (1846–1906): a prominent Irish-born cricket player for various teams, such as Harrow, Middlesex, and I Zingari (see note at 18.296). Despite never having attained such a rank in the military, ‘he was known as “Captain Buller” at the time of the high-profile society divorce scandal of 1880 in England in which he was cited as co- respondent’ (John Simpson, JJON). The Gabler edition originally had his name as ‘Culler’, but this mistake was corrected for the 1993 printing.
5.560–61: Kildare street club
The Kildare Street Club: 1–3 Kildare Street, near Trinity College Park (Thom’s, p. 1524); it was a fancy Anglo-Irishmen’s club (Bennett). Hitting a ball from the Trinity cricket pitch into Kildare Street is a matter of local legend and has, over the years, been claimed for various cricket players, but not, to our knowledge, for Captain Buller. For example, the Freeman’s Journal for 30 June 1898 reports: ‘It is a debatable point whether R. H. Lambert hit the ball into Nassau Street or not. The Pressmen were too well housed in a special pavilion to pronounce upon it. The ball which was to forward square leg went very high over their tent [. . .] Under these circumstances, if verified, Lambert has broken a thirty years’ record, achieved by A. T. Young, who smashed in the windows of the Kildare street Club when playing for the Gentlemen of Ireland against Marylebone in the ‘Dublin Week” ’ (p. 7, col. e; John Simpson, JJON; Patrick Hone, Cricket in Ireland, p. 52).
5.561: slog to square leg
Slog: ‘a hard hit at cricket’. Square leg: ‘the position in the cricket-field to the left of the batsman and nearly in a line with the wicket’ (both OED).
5.561: Donnybrook fair
A raucous fair held in Donnybrook, a south-eastern suburb of Dublin, in the month of August. The fair dated back to the time of King John’s reign (1199–1216) and was abolished in 1855 (Brewer’s).
5.562: And the skulls we were acracking when M‘Carthy took the floor
From the song ‘Enniscorthy’ (1889), written and composed by Robert Martin, about ‘Demetrius O’Flannigan McCarthy [. . .] the pride of balls and parties and the glory of a wake’. The chorus: ‘Miss Dunne said they did crowd her thin, / Miss Murphy took to powther thin / For fear the boys might say that she was swarthy; / And the sticks they all went whacking, / And the skulls, faith, they were cracking / When McCarthy took the flure in Enniscorthy’ (Bauerle, pp. 13–17). Enniscorthy is a town in County Wexford. According to C. P. Curran, Joyce liked to sing this song (James Joyce Remembered, p. 41).
5.563: Always passing, the stream of life
A slight misquotation from the song ‘In Happy Moments Day by Day’ from the opera Maritana (1845), music by Irishman William Vincent Wallace (1812–65), libretto by Edward Fitzball (1792–1873, real name Edward Ball). The words to ‘In Happy Moments’ are by Alfred Burn. The first stanza: ‘In happy moments day by day, / The sands of life may pass, / In swift but tranquil tide away / From time’s unerring glass. / Yet hopes we used as bright to
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5. ‘Lotus Eaters’ 169 deem, / Remembrance will recall; / Whose pure and whose unfading beam / Is dearer than them all, / Is dearer than them all’ (Bauerle, pp. 265–68).
5.566: This is my body
In the Mass, these words are part of the Consecration, the transubstantiation of bread in the host into Christ’s body: ‘Take, and eat ye all of this. This is my body’ (Wynne, The Mass, p. 18). These are Christ’s words of institution at the Last Supper (Luke 22:19; see also Matthew 26:26 and Mark 14:22).
5.571–72: limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower
According to an anecdote in Thomas Inman’s Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, ‘Whilst attending hospital practice in London, I heard a poor Irishman apostrophise his diseased organ as “You father of thousands” ’ (vol. 1, p. 80). The plant saxifraga sarmentosa, common to Ireland and England, is called the ‘mother of thousands’ (Ellen Eddy Shaw, Garden Flowers of Summer, vol. 2, p. 198).
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6. ‘Hades’
m l k j i
h g f e
d c
b
a
Map 6.1 Dublin city, from Irishtown to Prospect Cemetery (1 inch OSI map 1900); the funeral cortège’s path; a = Newbridge Avenue; b = Tritonville Road/Irishtown Road; c = Watery Lane; d = Great Brunswick Street; e = D’Olier Street; f = Sackville (O’Connell) Street; g = Rutland Square; h = Frederick Street; i = Blessington Street; j = Berkeley Road; k = North Circular Road; l = Phibsborough Road; m = Finglas Road
Time: 11–12 am Location: a funeral cortège that starts from Sandymount and travels through the city centre to Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin Organ: Heart Art: Religion Colour: white, black Symbol: Caretaker Technic: Incubism
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6. ‘Hades’ 171 Correspondences: The 4 Rivers: Dodder, Grand and Royal Canals, Liffey; Sisyphus: Cunningham; Cerberus: Father Coffey; Hades: Caretaker; Hercules: Daniel O’Connell; Elpenor: Dignam; Agamemnon: Parnell; Ajax: Menton Serialised: The Little Review 5.5 (September 1918); The Egoist 6.3 (July 1919) and 6.4 (September 1919) It is a convention of epics to include a voyage to the underworld; Ulysses is no exception, with a trip to the afterlife’s most proximate location within Dublin’s environs, Prospect Cemetery in Glasnevin (see note at 6.486). The cortège leaves from the home of Paddy Dignam, on Newbridge Avenue in Irishtown, an inner south-eastern suburb (see notes at 6.30 and 6.34). As was the custom for funerals in Dublin, the funeral procession travels through the centre of the city on its way to the cemetery (see note at 6.36). To get to the Dignams’ home in time, Bloom would need to travel by tram (see note at 17.1461): the Sandymount Green line has a stop on Nassau Street, near the Leinster Street Turkish and Warm Baths, and another one on Tritonville Road, near the Dignams’ house (see note at 10.1153; JJD, p. 37). The route the carriage takes to Glasnevin is described in precise detail (map 6.1), though the route within the cemetery to Dignam’s burial plot is left a little vague (map 6.2). It does seem that Dignam’s grave is in the vicinity of Matthew Kane’s, whose funeral in July 1904 served as the model for Dignam’s (see note at 5.331; JJD, p. 39).
6.1: Martin Cunningham
For more on Cunningham (and how he is, in a sense, attending his own funeral), see note at 5.331.
6.1–2: first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking carriage
Based on Joyce’s description of the men in the carriage (Cunningham nudges Power (6.250) and Simon Dedalus stretches ‘over across’ (6.44) to catch a glimpse of Stephen), along with the location of the street furniture which the carriage passes, as well as descriptive and conversational hints within the text, Harald Beck and John Simpson propose that the seating arrangement is as follows: in the back, forward-facing seats, Simon Dedalus on the left and Bloom on the right; in the front, rear-facing seats, Power on the left (opposite Dedalus) and Cunningham on the right (opposite Bloom) (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
6.2: Mr Power
Jack Power first appears in the story ‘Grace’ in Dubliners; he is a civilian employed by the Royal Irish Constabulary, an agency charged with the suppression of Irish dissent (see note at 12.127). He is modelled on Tom Devin (see note at 10.1196). Devin worked as an official in Dublin Corporation but, after some disagreement with the town clerk, he was relocated from City Hall to the City Cleansing Department (Ellmann, pp. 704–05; Igoe, p. 82). He lived at 11 North Leinster Street (Thom’s, p. 1850). After hearing of Devin’s death in 1937, Joyce wrote to Alfred Bergan (see note at 8.320), ‘I am sorry to hear your bad news that our old friend Mr Devin is gone [. . .] He comes into Ulysses under the name of “Mr Power” and also into Dubliners’ (Letters, vol. 3, p. 399). Stanislaus Joyce had far less kind words for Devin, describing him as ‘known to be still a consummate whore’ (Complete Dublin Diary, p. 82).
6.4: Simon
That is, Simon Dedalus, Stephen’s father, likewise reprised from A Portrait and based on Joyce’s father John Stanislaus Joyce (1849–1931). Born and raised in Cork, he had multiple careers, few of which were successful. ‘Through political influence he obtained a post in the collector general’s office as a rates collector in Dublin [in 1880]. [. . .] The family were in comfortable
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172 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses circumstances till about 1894, when debts, loans, and difficulties at work led to John Joyce retiring on pension. The fall of John Joyce coincided with the political fall and death of C. S. Parnell, whom John Joyce (and his son) vigorously supported [. . .] Though money was very limited, their homes were respectable enough up to the death of Mrs Joyce on 13 August 1903’ (DIB). After the death of his father, Joyce wrote to Harriet Shaw Weaver: ‘He was the silliest man and yet cruelly shrewd [. . .] I was very fond of him always, being a sinner myself, and even liked his faults. Hundreds of pages and scores of characters in my books came from him. His dry (or rather wet) wit and his expression of face convulsed me often with laughter’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 312). In A Portrait, Stephen described his father as having been ‘a medical student, an oarsman, a tenor, an amateur actor, a shouting politician, a small landlord, a small investor, a drinker, a good fellow, a storyteller, somebody’s secretary, something in a distillery, a tax‑gatherer, a bankrupt, and at present a praiser of his own past’ (p. 241).
6.8: Are we all here now?
In Ireland it is customary to attend the funerals of even passing acquaintances. ‘The attendance of our people at funerals is second only to their attendance at Mass; they love what they call a “fine funeral”. Reasons, social as much as religious, compel them to attend’ (Donal McCarthy, ‘The Funeral Service II’, p. 657). ‘Women did not usually attend upperand middle-class funerals in the early and mid-Victorian periods, on the grounds that allegedly they could not control their feelings’ (Pat Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family, p. 221). This custom did not apply to the working classes or to rural funerals. In Ireland, while on the wane, the custom was still practised through to the early twentieth century (with thanks to Terence Killeen and Gerry O’Flaherty).
6.11: armstrap
‘The arm-strap was a familiar item in horse-drawn carriages, early motor cars, and even railway coaches [. . .] Arm-straps didn’t protect the passenger being thrown forward in the event of an accident, but they helped to prevent the passenger swaying about and knocking into fellow passengers when the carriage or car rocked about on bumpy roads’ (John Simpson, JJON).
6.12: lowered blinds of the avenue
The lowering of the blinds as a token of grief was common practice in Ireland during the funerals of neighbours and loved ones (British Medical Journal, 15 Apr. 1871, p. 409).
6.15: Job seems to suit them
The ceremonial washing, grooming, and clothing of the corpse was typically performed by ‘community members, usually neighbouring women, who were skilled in the preparation of a deceased person for presentation to the living community for the duration of the wake’ (Patricia Lysaght, ‘Old Age, Death and Mourning’, p. 287).
6.15–16: Huggermugger in corners
Huggermugger: secrecy (OED); as in Hamlet, where Claudius says, after Polonius has been buried: ‘And we have done but greenly / In huggermugger to inter him’ (IV.v.83–84).
6.16: Slop about in slipperslappers
Slipper-slopper: wearing loose slippers (OED). Old Mother Slipper Slopper is a character in the fourth verse of nursery rhyme ‘The Fox’ (ODNR, pp. 173–75).
6.17: Mrs Fleming making the bed
Mrs Fleming is the Blooms’ part-time maid. Stanislaus Joyce told Ellmann in an interview that the name comes from a charwoman briefly employed by the Joyce family (Ellmann,
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6. ‘Hades’ 173 p. 373). On the other hand, J. F. Byrne claims that the name came from his cousin Mary Fleming, who lived with him at 7 Eccles Street. ‘Mary did not like Joyce [. . .] And Joyce did not like Mary’ (Silent Years, p. 88).
6.27: number nine
The funeral procession leaves from the Dignams’ house at 9 Newbridge Avenue in Sandymount (see note at 16.1249–50).
6.30: Tritonville road
Tritonville Road runs north from Sandymount to Irishtown, where it becomes Irishtown Road.
6.34: Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street
Irishtown: an inner south-eastern suburb of Dublin, north of Sandymount; so named because in 1454 all citizens of Irish descent were exiled to this area (Bennett). The funeral procession will proceed north-west, roughly parallel to the shore of Dublin Bay, through the city to the cemetery.
6.36: fine old custom
The custom is that a funeral procession will take a route through the centre of the city, thereby giving many a chance to salute the hearse as it passes, by lifting their caps or hats. ‘All day, and particularly on Saturdays and Sundays, the long processions wind up Sackville Street on their way to Glasnevin. Whether it is more people die in Dublin than in other cities, or simply that they die more expensively and with more pomp, I have no idea. But I have never before in my life been in a town where hearses and coffins and mourning coaches were so much in evidence’ (Dublin Explorations and Reflections, p. 39).
6.39: Watery lane
Watery Lane (now Dermot O’Hurley Avenue) runs west from Irishtown Road to the River Dodder.
6.43: Your son and heir
‘This is Stephen Dedalus heading south-east towards the strand. We can now place this incident as being about 11:10 with Paddy Dignam’s funeral cortège having set off from Newbridge avenue just after 11:00. So when we stumble into Stephen’s thoughts at the start of Proteus it is about 11:25 am and he has ventured out across the strand’ (Ian Gunn, JJON). This also explains how Stephen travelled from Dalkey, at the end of ‘Nestor’, to Sandymount Strand in ‘Proteus’ (see the headnote for ‘Proteus’).
6.45–46: the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway
That is, construction work for the sewerage processing plant at Ringsend, which was still being built in 1904. The plant opened in 1907 (JJD, p. 88); see also note at 3.150.
6.49: His fidus Achates!
Fidus Achates (Latin): ‘faithful Achates’; an epithet used in the Aeneid (first at I.118) in reference to Aeneas’s faithful aide, now used to describe a devoted follower (OED). See note at 16.175–76 for an instance of John Joyce quoting from the Aeneid.
6.51: aunt Sally See note at 3.61.
6.52: drunken little costdrawer See notes at 3.66 and 3.76.
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6.52–53: papa’s little lump of dung See note at 3.88.
6.53: wise child that knows her own father
Proverbial (ODEP); also plays on a line from The Merchant of Venice: the clown Launcelot says of his father, the elderly, near-sighted Old Gobbo, ‘It is a wise father that knows his own child’ (II.ii.80).
6.54: Ringsend road
Ringsend Road runs west from the neighbourhood of Ringsend toward Dublin. It crosses the Grand Canal dock and empties onto Great Brunswick Street.
6.54–55: Wallace Bros: the bottleworks
These are two separate firms. Wallace Brothers, Ltd.: steamship owners and coal importers, 13 D’Olier Street, with offices in Kingstown, Monkstown, Dalkey, and Rathmines and this one at 3A Ringsend Road (Thom’s, pp. 1579, 2032). The bottleworks is James Alex King, bottle manufacturer, Ringsend Road (p. 2052).
6.55: Dodder bridge
Dodder Bridge is a stone bridge in Irishtown, where Bridge Street crosses the River Dodder as it flows north to join the River Liffey.
6.56: Goulding, Collis and Ward
The solicitors where Richie Goulding works as a clerk: Collis and Ward, offices at 31 Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1468).
6.57: getting a bit damp
Damp: ‘soft-headed, stupid, foolish’ (Partridge).
6.58: Stamer street
Stamer Street is located in south-central Dublin, near the Grand Canal at Portobello. Fred Gallaher’s (see the following note) brother, Joseph Gallaher (d. 1893) lived at 17 Stamer Street (John Simpson, JJON).
6.58: Ignatius Gallaher
A successful journalist, first seen in the story ‘A Little Cloud’ in Dubliners. Gallaher is based on Fred Gallaher (1854–99), one of the best-known journalists of his time. He was the editor of the Irish newspaper Sport before he moved to London in 1890 (Igoe, pp. 115–16). His family was friendly with Joyce’s (Ellmann, p. 46 n.).
6.60: that backache of his See note at 11.615.
6.60–61: Wife ironing his back
Applying a flat-iron to a stiff back, ‘as hot as the patient can bear it’, was suggested medical practice at this time (Thomas Pickering Pick, Surgery, p. 393). Goulding’s back pain is a result of his having Bright’s disease (see note at 11.615).
6.61: cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs
Bread pills were used as a placebo. ‘The placebo has been gradually transformed from the crude brown bread pill to a tablet of the strictest “up to dateness”, elaborate in flavor to suit
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6. ‘Hades’ 175 finical patients’ (J. John Buzzell, M.D., ‘The Modern Brown Bread Pill’, New York Medical Journal, 1 Oct. 1910, vol. 92, p. 699).
6.64: doubledyed ruffian
Double-dyed: ‘deeply imbued or stained (with guilt, etc.)’ (OED).
6.65: God and His blessed mother
A common Irish-Catholic expression; for example, ‘It is a wonder to everyone here in Cork how she is so much improved, thanks be to God and His Blessed Mother’ (Nation, 5 June 1880, p. 6, col. c).
6.67–68: I’ll tickle his catastrophe
Catastrophe: buttocks, backside (Partridge). From Shakespeare’s 2 Henry IV: ‘Away, you scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!’ (II.i.58).
6.70–71: A counterjumper’s son
Counter-jumper: ‘applied in contempt to a shopman or shopkeeper’s assistant’ (OED).
6.71: Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M‘Swiney’s
Tapes: cloth strips used for tying (OED). Peter Paul McSwiney (c.1810–84): Joyce’s grandmother’s cousin and Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1875 (DIB). In May 1852, he opened a shop on Sackville Street, which in 1883 was sold to M. J. Clery and then renamed Clery’s (see note at 5.194). Ulick O’Connor, Gogarty’s biographer, claims that Gogarty’s father never worked at McSwiney’s store (Ellmann, p. 176 n.).
6.76: Eton suit
The old uniform of the younger boys at Eton College, England, consisting of ‘a short black broadcloth jacket, with an open front and broad lapels, pointed at the back and cut square at the hips’, combined with trousers and a waistcoat (OED).
6.78: Raymond terrace
Raymond Terrace is the stretch of the South Circular Road that runs from street numbers 22–34 (Thom’s, p. 1452) and parallels the north bank of the Grand Canal. The Blooms moved to Raymond Terrace from Lombard Street West some time in early 1893, before March or April, when Rudy was conceived (Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, p. 218).
6.79: cease to do evil
The motto ‘cease to do evil; learn to do well’ (from Isaiah 1:16–17 in the King James) was posted above the entrance to the Richmond Penitentiary on South Circular Road. The jail is located across from Raymond Terrace. It opened in 1813, and in 1892 the structure became part of Wellington Barracks, renamed Griffith Barracks in 1922, and, since 1991, Griffith College (John Dorney, Griffith College Dublin).
6.80: Give us a touch
Touch: ‘Sexual contact or activity, esp. viewed as sinful or corrupting; an instance of sexual touching; an act of physical intimacy’ (OED).
6.82: Greystones
Greystones: a fishing village and seaside resort 29 km south of Dublin and 8 km south of Bray in County Wicklow (A Pictorial and Descriptive Guide to Dublin and the Wicklow Tours, p. 120).
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6.92: yoke
That is, their carriage. Yoke (Hiberno-English): ‘any contrivance or implement; something whose name does not spring immediately to mind’ (Dolan).
6.98: picnic party
In As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, Gogarty provides a quotation in which the word picnic means an occasion of sexual excess: ‘ “Are you coming to the picnic, Mrs Murphy?” “Picnic, me neck! Look at Mary’s belly since the last picnic” ’ (p. 325; Ian MacArthur, ‘Some Notes for Ulysses’, p. 526).
6.109: Did Tom Kernan turn up? See note at 5.19–20.
6.111: Ned Lambert
Edward J. (Ned) Lambert works at a seed and grain establishment in the chapter house of the Cistercian foundation, St Mary’s Abbey (see note at 10.408).
6.111: Hynes
Joe Hynes, a sentimental nationalist and newspaper reporter, first appears in ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’ in Dubliners. He might be based (partly) on Matthew J. Hynes (1866–1948), a librarian in the Chief Secretary’s Office (Igoe, p. 150).
6.120: grand canal
The procession has stopped at Victoria Bridge, which crosses over Dublin’s Grand Canal. The boundaries of Dublin city in 1904 were defined by the Grand Canal in the south and the Royal Canal in the north. The Grand Canal connects Dublin to the rivers Shannon and Barrow. Work began in 1755, and it was opened to cargo boat traffic on 2 February 1779. The Royal Canal connects Dublin to Tarmonbarry, on the Shannon in the north of County Longford. Work began in the 1790s, and it was completed in 1817. The Royal Canal was never able to compete with, first, the Grand Canal and, later, the railways (Bennett, s.v. Canals).
6.121: Gasworks
The Alliance and Consumer Gas Company: 110 Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street (Thom’s, p. 1436).
6.121: Whooping cough they say it cures
‘The custom of taking children suffering from whooping-cough to the gas-works has been reported from different parts of England and the United States [. . .] This was explained as being due to the fact that the air near a gas-works contains pyradin, which is supposed to act as an antiseptic and a germicide’ (Wayland D. Hand, Magical Medicine, p. 276).
6.124: Flaxseed tea
‘The flaxseed tea is very useful in ordinary colds and in disorders of the bowels and kidneys, proving demulcent, emollient, and somewhat nutritive’ (Thomas D. Mitchell, Materia Medica, p. 564).
6.124: Scarlatina
Scarlatina: an alternate name for scarlet fever (OED).
6.125: Dogs’ home
The Dogs and Cats’ Home: Grand Canal Quay (Thom’s, p. 1853).
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6. ‘Hades’ 177
6.125: Poor old Athos!
Athos: Bloom’s father’s dog. The name comes from one of the three musketeers in Alexandre Dumas’s (1802–70) novel Les Trois mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers, 1844).
6.126: Thy will be done
From the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:10).
6.142: immense
Immense: ‘Superlatively good, fine, splendid’ (OED).
6.142: Paddy Leonard
A minor character from the story ‘Counterparts’ in Dubliners.
6.145: Ben Dollard’s singing of The Croppy Boy
Ben Dollard is probably based on Christopher Dollard (1839–85), a well-known amateur bass singer in Dublin in the 1880s who performed with John Stanislaus Joyce (Igoe, pp. 87–88). For more on the song ‘The Croppy Boy’, see note at 11.991.
6.150: retrospective arrangement
Tom Kernan’s phrase ‘retrospective arrangement’ recurs throughout Ulysses in various forms: 10.783, 11.798, 14.1044, 15.443, 16.1401, and 17.1903.
6.151: Dan Dawson’s speech?
Based on Charles Dawson (1842–1917): businessman, MP, and civic reformer. His father was a prosperous baker in Limerick, and Dawson expanded the business into Dublin. He served as a Home Rule MP for Carlow (1880–85) and Lord Mayor of Dublin (1882–83). In 1891, he was appointed Comptroller in the Office for the Collection of City Rates (taxes) and Water Rents for the Dublin Corporation, the office he held until his death (DIB). He relinquished ownership of his bakeries upon becoming Comptroller (Irish Times, 19 Mar. 1917, p. 6, col. b). His obituary in the Freeman’s Journal noted his ‘wonderful gift of eloquence’ and his passion for Irish forestry (19 Mar. 1917, p. 3, col. b). There is some evidence that he did have a reputation for being a bombastic speaker; a letter to Dawson printed in The Jarvey, a short-lived humorous paper, stated: ‘Do not take umbrage, Sir, if I venture to say that notwithstanding your very eloquent exordiums and your coruscating perorations, I sometimes fail to follow your reasoning’ (23 Mar. 1889, p. 182; Harald Beck, JJON). See note at 7.243 for his speech, which is at 7.243–49, 7.320–24, and 7.327–28.
6.157: edge of the paper
Death notices in the Freeman’s Journal were printed on the first page, in the leftmost column, beneath notices of births and marriages.
6.158–160: Callan, Coleman, Dignam . . . Urbright
These names are not among the death notices of the actual 16 June 1904 Freeman’s Journal.
6.159: is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne’s?
C. W. Alleyne practised law at 24 Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1468). A lawyer named Mr Alleyne appears in ‘Counterparts’ in Dubliners, where he mentions a partner named Crosbie (Crosbie is not listed in Thom’s). In ‘Counterparts’, an employee named Peake was ‘hounded [. . .] out of the office’ (p. 88).
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178 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
6.161: Thanks to the Little Flower
Little Flower: Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–97), a Carmelite nun who entered the convent of Lisieux at the age of 15 and was known as the Little Flower of Jesus. Accounts of her devotion and piety, published shortly after she died, proved very popular (Catholic Encyclopedia). She was beatified in 1923 and canonised in 1925. She was a typical recipient of gratitude in the Thanksgivings section of the Freeman’s Journal and other Irish papers; for example, ‘my grateful thanks to the Little Flower of Jesus for favour granted after making a Novena and promise of publication—E de M’ (Freeman’s Journal, 6 Dec. 1911, p. 1, col. d). The Freeman’s Journal did not have a Thanksgiving section in their public notices until 1910.
6.162: Month’s mind
Month’s mind: a commemorative requiem mass said one month after a person’s death (OED).
6.164–67: It is now a month since dear Henry fled . . . meet him on high
Typical of the type of verse published in a newspaper’s ‘In Memoriam’ column; for example, the first verse (of twelve): ‘In Memoriam Mrs Ellie Nunan, N.T., Chapeltown. Died Sept. 5th, 1910. She has passed beneath the shadow / From our sight for ever more, / May the Sacred Heart receive her / Kindly on the other shore // [. . .] Ardfert, Sept. 19, 1910’ (Kerry People, 24 Sep. 1910, p. 7, col. a).
6.171: National school. Meade’s yard. The hazard
St Andrew’s Boys’ and Girls’ National School: 114–121 Great Brunswick Street (Thom’s, p. 1436). See note at 5.230 for Meade’s yard and note at 5.211 for the hazard.
6.172: Full as a tick
Full as a tick: ‘Replete (with food and/or drink)’ (Partridge).
6.173: jarvies
Jarvy: ‘A hackney-coachman. Now frequently applied to the driver of an Irish car’ (OED).
6.175: pointsman’s
‘Points’ on a railway or tramtrack are tapered rails that can be re-positioned to direct trains to another set of rails. A pointsman is thus the one who re-positions the points (OED). ‘The pointsmen were frequently boys [. . .], hopefuls for future employment as motormen or conductors’ (Michael Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 70). In this case, the pointsman would have set the points in Great Brunswick Street for a tram to turn into Westland Row or the other way round.
6.176–77: Couldn’t they invent something automatic
The Dublin United Tramways Company (see note at 7.6–7) experimented with electrically controlled automatic track points in 1903 and forty sets of such points were installed by 1904 (Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 70).
6.180: Antient concert rooms
A hall for privately sponsored performances located at 42 Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street, Mrs Gregg, proprietress (Thom’s, p. 1436). Antient: archaic spelling of ancient (OED). This hall, founded in the 1830s, ‘rapidly became the centre of Dublin’s musical life’ (NHI, vol. 6, p. 500). In 1904, the hall comprised ‘about a dozen apartments, three of them capable of accommodating large assemblages’ (Freeman’s Journal, 23 Aug. 1904, p. 6, col. i; John Simpson, JJON).
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6. ‘Hades’ 179
6.180: Nothing on there
Unlike other music venues, the Antient Concert Rooms did not put on shows every night. No performances on 16 June 1904 were advertised or reported (John Simpson, JJON).
6.181: crape armlet
Crape: black silk or imitation silk; often used for mourning. Armlet: ‘A ring or band worn round the arm, typically for ornamentation or as part of a uniform’ (both OED).
6.183: bleak pulpit of saint Mark’s
Saint Mark’s Church on the corner of Mark Street and Great Brunswick (Pearse) Street (Thom’s, pp. 1436, 1538), right next to the Antient Concert Rooms. In September 1899, an outdoor pulpit had been installed in the graveyard in front of the church in order to allow open-air preaching. However, a fierce storm on 3 November destroyed the pulpit, and by 1904 only the foundations remained, hence the ‘bleak pulpit’ seen from the carriage (John Simpson, JJON).
6.183–84: railway bridge
The Loop Line Bridge (see note at 5.138).
6.184: Queen’s theatre
The Queen’s Royal Theatre: 209 Great Brunswick (Pearse) Street (Thom’s, p. 1438). Built in 1844, it was one of three major theatres in Dublin at the time (Bennett) and served as ‘the home of melo-drama’ (DD, p. 266).
6.184: Eugene Stratton
Eugene Stratton: the stage name of Eugene Augustus Ruhlmann (1861–1918), an American blackface music hall performer (Igoe, p. 282). Stratton opened at the Theatre Royal in Dublin on 14 June. The Freeman’s Journal for 16 June 1904 advertises ‘Eugene Stratton, the World Renowned Comedian’ (p. 4, col. b). ‘Across most of the modern period the comic blackface mask, with its broad manic grin, was a staple icon in British popular culture. [. . .] The minstrel show was a major form of music and entertainment in Britain from the 1840s to the 1970s, rather longer than in the United States, where it was equally popular in the nineteenth century but by the mid-twentieth century had largely faded away. Its appeal was felt among all the social classes in British society, as well as across the categories of gender, generation and geographical region. Variant forms of blackface caricature appeared outside the minstrel show, in media as wide-ranging as advertising, postcards, puppet shows, comics and juvenile literature, providing abundant evidence not only of its apparent constancy but also of its cultural acceptability’ (Michael Pickering, Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain, p. xi).
6.185: Mrs Bandmann Palmer See note at 5.194–95.
6.185: Could I go to see Leah tonight See note at 5.194.
6.186: Or the Lily of Killarney?
The Lily of Killarney (1862): a melodramatic operetta based on Dion Boucicault’s (1822–90) play The Colleen Bawn (1860), which is in turn based on Gerald Griffin’s novel The Collegians (1828). The libretto is by Boucicault and John Oxenford (1812–77), with music by
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180 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Sir Julius Benedict (1804–85) (Bowen, p. 103). J. F. Byrne mentions that he saw The Lily of Killarney with Joyce in or around 1902 (Silent Years, p. 65).
6.186: Elster Grimes Opera company
The 16 June 1904 edition of the Irish Times lists the Elster-Grime Grand Opera Company’s performance of The Lily of Killarney at the Queen’s Royal Theatre (p. 4, col. a). Elster-Grime was an English touring opera company that ran from 1900 to 1907 (Paul Rodmell, Opera in the British Isles, p. 134). The mistake in their name is Joyce’s.
6.186–87: Big powerful change
Big powerful change: an advertising slogan used in promoting theatrical performances (John Simpson, JJON). For example, the advertisement for Marie Kendall’s (see note at 10.380–81) appearances at the Empire Palace Theatre in the 16 June 1904 edition of the Irish Times promises ‘Another Big Powerful Change’ (p. 4, col. a).
6.187: Fun on the Bristol
Fun on the Bristol; or, A Night on the Sound: also at the Theatre Royal on 16 June, on a double feature bill with Eugene Stratton (Freeman’s Journal, 16 June 1904, p. 4, col. b). Fun on the Bristol was a popular musical variety work widely performed between 1879 and c.1920 throughout the English-speaking world. It was best known as a vehicle for Irish- American comic female impersonator John F. Sheridan. English-born George Fawcett Rowe (1832–89) is often cited as the author, but there is no known published version of the work, and productions relied on improvisation and incorporated, and sometimes lampooned, contemporary songs and musical styles ranging from minstrelsy to opera (with thanks to Prof. Gillian Rodger, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).
6.188: work a pass for the Gaiety
The Gaiety Theatre: 46–49 South King Street (Thom’s, p. 1528), just off the corner of Grafton Street and St Stephen’s Green. The Gaiety opened in 1871 and was extensively remodelled in the 1890s. It was one of the three principal venues in turn-of-the-century Dublin. It was the venue for plays, operas, and, at Christmas, pantomimes (Bennett). This is where Leah was being performed (see note at 5.194).
6.188–89: stand a drink or two
To stand: to buy a drink for someone (OED).
6.189: As broad as it’s long
As broad as it’s long: ‘it comes to the same thing either way’ (Partridge).
6.191: Plasto’s
Plasto’s hat shop: 1 Great Brunswick Street (Thom’s, p. 1987). See note at 4.69–70.
6.191: Sir Philip Crampton’s memorial fountain bust
Philip Crampton (1777–1858): surgeon general to the British forces in Ireland and surgeon to both George IV and Queen Victoria; he was knighted in 1839. In addition to being a successful surgeon, Crampton ‘was involved with attempts to secure a water supply for Dublin, was elected first president of the Dublin Zoological Society, and obtained the land in the Phoenix Park on which Dublin Zoo was founded [. . .] He was widely popular in society and was nicknamed “The Apollo of Dublin” and “Flourishing Phil” ’ (DIB). The ornate memorial fountain was located at the intersection of D’Olier Street with College
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6. ‘Hades’ 181 Street and Great Brunswick Street. The monument ‘was in the form of a high foliate decor ation with the bust of Crampton amid three swans supported on a trifid plinth with lion masks emitting water to shell basins. [. . .] It collapsed in 1959 and was removed’ (Bennett, s.v. Crampton Memorial). In Finnegans Wake, it is called, appropriately, ‘Crampton’s peartree’ (p. 291). In A Portrait, Stephen asks ‘Is the bust of Sir Philip Crampton lyrical, epical or dramatic?’ (p. 214). The funeral procession turns north from here onto D’Olier Street and heads toward O’Connell Bridge, which crosses the Liffey.
6.196: quiff
Quiff: ‘a curl or lock of hair plastered down on the forehead, esp. as favoured by soldiers’ (OED).
6.198: door of the Red Bank
Burton Bindon’s Red Bank Restaurant: 19–20 D’Olier Street (Thom’s, p. 1476). ‘Near Pooldoody [in County Clare] is the great Burren oyster bed called the Red Bank, where a large establishment is maintained, from which a constant supply of the excellent Red Bank oysters is furnished to the Dublin and other large markets’ (EB11, s.v. Clare).
6.216–17: county Clare
County Clare is in the west of Ireland, to the north-west of the River Shannon.
6.219: Mary Anderson
Mary Anderson (1859–1940): a popular American actress, famous for her performances of Shakespeare as well as for her exceptional beauty. She had a successful stage career from 1875 to 1889. After a gruelling tour of the US, she retired in 1889. At the urging of Father Bernard Vaughan (see note at 5.398), she came out of retirement, briefly, in 1903 to perform for charity in London and in 1904 in Belfast (Mary Power, ‘Molly Bloom and Mary Anderson’, pp. 115–17). The 16 June 1904 edition of The Freeman’s Journal contains a listing for Anderson performing the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet at Ulster Hall in Belfast (p. 4, col. a).
6.221: Louis Werner
Louis Werner (1856–1941): English-born professor of music, organist, and conductor; from 1875 until his death, organist and choirmaster at the Holy Cross Church, Ardoyne, in Belfast (Igoe, p. 304). ‘Herr Louis Werner’ appeared on the same bill with Mary Anderson in the 16 June 1904 Freeman’s Journal as her ‘Conductor and Accompanist’ (p. 4, col. a).
6.222: J. C. Doyle See note at 4.314.
6.222: John MacCormack
John Francis McCormack (1884–1945): a tenor, who would become the greatest Irish singer of the century (DIB); Joyce misspelt his name as MacCormack. On 27 August 1904, Joyce sang on the same bill as J. C. Doyle (see note at 4.314) and John McCormack at the Antient Concert Rooms (Evening Herald, 27 Aug. 1904, p. 4, col. f; Ellmann, p. 168).
6.226: Smith O’Brien
William Smith O’Brien (1803–64): a leader in the Repeal Association, an MP, and a hero of radical anti-British politics. In 1848, he advocated for an armed rising against British rule, which wound up being supremely unsuccessful. He was sentenced to death, but this was
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182 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses commuted and he was eventually pardoned (DIB). His statue was erected in 1870 where Westmoreland and D’Olier Streets cross in front of O’Connell Bridge; it was the first monument in Dublin to commemorate a revolutionary Irish nationalist. In 1929, the statue was moved to Lower O’Connell Street (Bennett, s.v. Statues).
6.227: Must be his deathday
William Smith O’Brien died on 18 June 1864; however, the statue erroneously records the date of death as 16 June 1864 (Richard Davis, Revolutionary Imperialist: William Smith O’Brien, p. vii).
6.228: Farrell’s statue
The sculptor of William Smith O’Brien’s statue was Sir Thomas Farrell (1827–1900), who made many other Dublin statues (DIB).
6.229–30: Oot . . . oot
The old man on the curbstone is selling bootlaces. ‘Oot’—from ‘bootlaces’—is all the men in the carriage can hear him say as they pass by (with thanks to William S. Brockman). ‘By the end of the nineteenth century, the number of itinerant hawkers had been greatly reduced everywhere. [. . .] Those that still wandered were the poorest, near beggars purveying matches and shoelaces, who expected charity rather than sales’ (W. Hamish Fraser, The Coming of the Mass Market, p. 100).
6.232: struck off the rolls
Roll: the ‘official list of those qualified to practice as solicitors’ (OED); hence, struck off the rolls: forbidden from practising as a solicitor.
6.232–34: Hume street . . . Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford
Henry R. Tweedy (1855–1939): Crown solicitor for County Waterford (Thom’s, p. 915), with offices at 13 Hume Street (p. 2029). Molly’s maiden name is Tweedy.
6.234: Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency
After the ‘The Hat Me Father Wore’ by Johnny Patterson (1840–89), who was known as ‘the Rambler of Clare’ (Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, Flowing Tides, p. 73). From the chorus: ‘It’s a relic of old dacency, is the hat me father wore’ (Irish Song Book No. 1).
6.235: Kicked about like snuff at a wake
That is, in abundance. In Ireland ‘snuff was supplied free at wakes; and the people were not sparing of it as they got it for nothing’ (PWJ, p. 139). The expression is used in positive and negative contexts and even as a suggestion of mistreatment (Harald Beck, JJON).
6.236: O’Callaghan on his last legs
After the two-act farce His Last Legs (1839) by American playwright William Bayle Bernard (1807–75). The play’s protagonist, Felix O’Callaghan, has fallen on hard times and is reduced to wearing shabby clothes (Victory Pomeranz, ‘O’Callaghan on His Last Legs’). The line ‘O’Callaghan on his last legs’ enjoyed some currency; for example, ‘I saw a wayfarer, like “O’Callaghan on his last legs”, clinging to a verandah-post, and seeming as though he was “mourning the hopes that left him” ’ (W. M. Finn, Glimpses of North-Eastern Victoria, p. 22; with thanks to Harald Beck).
6.238: Voglio e non vorrei. No. Vorrei e non
Bloom here correctly remembers the line from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. See note at 4.327–28.
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6. ‘Hades’ 183
6.239: Mi trema un poco il
Mi trema un poco il [cor] (Italian): ‘My heart trembles a little’; sung by Zerlina, in her duet (‘La ci darem’) with Don Giovanni in Mozart’s opera. The word cor, which is not given here in the text, means heart, which is the organ of this episode.
6.240: throstle
Throstle: a thrush (OED).
6.247: Crofton
Crofton: a conservative unionist who appears in ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’ in Dubliners; modelled after James Thomas Ambrose Crofton (1838–1907), who worked with John Joyce in the Rates Office in Dublin. He was a member of the Church of Ireland and came from a prominent Dublin family (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, pp. 260–61). He moved to England in 1899 and was living there in 1904. He died in Dublin only two weeks after returning to Ireland (John Simpson, JJON).
6.248: Barmaid in Jury’s
Jury’s: a ‘Commercial and Family Hotel’, 7–8 College Green and 1–4 Anglesea Street, run by Henry J. Jury (Thom’s, p. 1458).
6.248: the Moira
The Moira Hotel: 15 Trinity Street, Mr Peter Nugent, proprietor (Thom’s, p. 1611).
6.249: hugecloaked Liberator’s form
The monument to Daniel O’Connell, also known as the ‘Liberator’ (see note at 2.269), stands at the northern end of Carlisle (O’Connell) Bridge as it leads into Sackville (O’Connell) Street. ‘The monument is in three parts. At the base there are four large winged figures representing victory through Patriotism, Fidelity, Courage, and Eloquence. The base supports a drum surrounded by figures representing O’Connell’s labours. The centre figure is Erin who holds the Act of Catholic Emancipation in her left hand while her right arm is pointing to O’Connell. The monument is topped by O’Connell wearing a draped cloak’ (Bennett, s.vv. Statues, portrait, O’Connell, Daniel).
6.251: tribe of Reuben
Reuben James Dodd (1847–1931): solicitor and insurance agent for the Patriotic Assurance Co. and Mutual Life Assurance Co. of New York, with offices at 34 Upper Ormond Quay and residence at 90 South Circular Road (Thom’s, pp. 1564, 1852). In context, ‘tribe of Reuben’ is an anti-Semitic slur, after Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob and Leah (Genesis 29:32) and head of one of the original twelve tribes of Israel (Numbers 1:5 and 21). The real Reuben Dodd was not Jewish, but Irish Catholic (Hyman, p. 164; 1901 census). In 1893, John Stanislaus Joyce borrowed £400 from Dodd, which he repaid only by selling off the properties in Cork that had been his inheritance; for this, Dodd earned John Joyce’s enduring enmity (John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, pp. 176–82). The name Reuben was sufficiently popular amongst Christians that it would not necessarily imply Jewishness. The 1901 census lists forty-six Protestants named Reuben, ten Catholics, and six Jews (and one with an undeclared religious affiliation).
6.253: Elvery’s elephant house
John W. Elvery and Co., ‘indiarubber and gutta percha manufacturers, lawn tennis and cricket outfitters’, with shops at 46 and 47 Lower Sackville (O’Connell) Street and 18½
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184 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Nassau Street and in Cork and London (Thom’s, p. 1864). Their advertisement in the back of Thom’s bills them as ‘J. W. Elvery & Co., Elephant House’ (advertisements, p. 49). The Sackville Street shop was called Elephant House because it had a statue of an elephant over the main door. ‘Few visitors can pass along O’Connell street and view the shops in the most casual manner without noticing the wonderfully interesting display of fancy goods set forth in Messrs Elvery’s Elephant House’ (Irish Daily Independent, 12 Dec. 1895, p. 6, col. f).
6.256: hasp of his back
Hasp: clasp or buckle (EDD). Simon seems to be using the word metaphorically to describe the bent-over appearance of Dodd’s spine, specifically the part that is curved like a hasp (see 10.891).
6.258: Gray’s statue
Sir John Gray (1816–75): along with his brother, he purchased the Freeman’s Journal in 1841 (and after 1852 became the sole proprietor). Although a Protestant, he supported Catholic causes and put the Freeman’s Journal behind O’Connell’s campaign for the repeal of the Act of Union. His statue stands near the middle of Sackville (O’Connell) Street (DIB). He is commemorated by a statue of white Serravezza marble because of his role in heading the Vartry River Scheme (for which, see note at 17.164–82) (D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 266).
6.264–65: Reuben J and the son
The story is true, although it happened in 1911. The Irish Worker of 2 December 1911, under the headline ‘Half-a-Crown for Saving a Life’, reports that, on 26 August 1911, Reuben J. Dodd’s son (Reuben Jr) jumped into the Liffey, near Butt Bridge, and was saved by a dock worker named Moses Golden, who was rewarded with a paltry sum by the father (p. 1, col. c; Ellmann, pp. 38–39); see also note at 6.286. Reuben J. Dodd Jr (1879–1957) was a student at Belvedere along with Joyce. Dodd Jr ‘late in life would still remember James Joyce as “a disagreeable type” who had brought the family vendetta against the Dodds to school with him’ (Jackson and Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, p. 179).
6.269: There was a girl in the case
The Irish Worker’s account of Reuben Dodd Jr jumping into the Liffey (see the previous note) makes no reference to his motive, which suggests that this was not Joyce’s source for this story.
6.270: Isle of Man
The Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown dependency (see note at 7.150), is located in the Irish Sea, between Ireland’s eastern coast and the north-west coast of England. The island was a popular holiday destination and was served by ferries from Dublin that were run by Thomas Cook and Son (see note at 12.193) (Freeman’s Journal, 5 Sep. 1899, p. 1, col. c).
6.271: hobbledehoy
Hobbledehoy: ‘a clumsy or awkward youth’ (OED).
6.274: Drown Barabbas!
At Christ’s crucifixion, the Jews were given the choice whether to have the thief Barabbas or Jesus released and they asked for Barabbas (Matthew 27:17–21; Mark 15:7–15; Luke 23:18; John 18:40). In Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (1589), the villainous title character, Barabas, is killed in a cauldron of scalding water.
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6. ‘Hades’ 185
6.278: piking it
To pike it: to depart (Partridge).
6.279: chiseller
Chiseller (or chisler): Dublin slang, ‘a hardy child, usually a boy’ (Dolan).
6.286: florin
For florin, see note at 1.451. Joyce ever so slightly understates the reward: the real-life Dodd Sr rewarded Moses Golden, the man who saved his son’s life, with a half-crown, which is two shillings and sixpence (or sixpence more than a florin). In real life, the reward was offered to Golden’s wife, who came to the Dodds several days after the incident to ask for compensation on behalf of her husband, who had to miss several days’ work because he needed to be hospitalised following the rescue (see note at 6.264–65).
6.293: Nelson’s pillar
A 40-metre-high Doric column topped by a 4-metre-tall Portland stone statue of English naval hero Lord Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) stood on Sackville (now O’Connell) Street. Inside the column was a spiral staircase, with 168 steps, that led from street level to an observation platform just below the statue. The pillar was completed in 1809. The admission fee to the top was 3d. (DD, p. 45). On 8 March 1966, breakaway republicans celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising blew up the statue and a portion of the pillar; the remainder was destroyed by the army in a controlled explosion a few days later. The Spire of Light (erected in 2003) stands on its former site (Bennett).
6.307: John Barleycorn
John Barleycorn: whiskey (OED, s.v. barley-corn).
6.308: adelite
Joyce originally wrote ‘puce’ when he added this sentence on a galley-proof page (JJA, vol. 17, p. 210). On a subsequent galley proof, he changed this to ‘adelaide’, a shade of purple (OED), but later, on the same page, changed this to ‘adelite’ (JJA, vol. 17, p. 218), presumably because he thought ‘adelaide’ was a misspelling. But adelite is a different word altogether and is the name of a rare, grey mineral of calcium and magnesium arsenate, which was first discovered in 1891 (Harald Beck, JJON).
6.312: best death
Bloom’s assertion of a sudden death as the ‘best death’ comes as a shock to his companions since their Catholic education would have taught them to fear dying unexpectedly in a state of sin without having the chance to go to confession or if sick receive the sacrament of Extreme Unction (see also note at 10.91–92).
6.316: land agents
Land agents represented the often absentee landlords who owned vast amounts of Ireland. With the land reforms of the late nineteenth century, culminating in the ‘Wyndham’ Act of 1903, which offered economic incentives for land transfer to tenants, the number of land agents drastically dropped (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 96–99).
6.317: temperance hotel
Temperance hotel: a hotel ‘where no intoxicants are sold or provided’ (OED). The Edinburgh Temperance Hotel: 56 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1586). Because of the
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186 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses activism of various temperance organisations (see note at 16.89–90), there were several such hotels in Dublin.
6.317: Falconer’s railway guide
John Falconer: ‘printer, publisher, wholesale stationer, depôt for sale of Irish National school books’, and publisher of the ABC Railway Guide, 53 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1586). Falconer was the printer hired by George Roberts (see note at 9.301) to print Dubliners. He was so offended by Joyce’s writing that he destroyed the typesheets, but, fortunately, Joyce managed to secure a duplicate set beforehand (Ellmann, p. 335).
6.317: civil service college
Maguire’s Civil Service College (a cram- school for British civil service exams) and A. J. G. McGuire and Co., civil service, university, and commercial tutors: 51 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1586).
6.317: Gill’s
M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd., ‘wholesale and retail booksellers, publishers, printers, and bookbinders, depot for religious goods’: 50 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1586); one of the leading Irish publishers of the time (Gillian McIntosh, ‘M. H. Gill, Later Gill and Macmillan’).
6.318: catholic club
The Catholic Commercial Club: 42 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1585).
6.318: industrious blind
The Richmond National Institution for the Industrious Blind: 41 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1585).
6.319: Chummies and slaveys
Chummy: a chimney-sweeper’s boy. Slavey: a maid of all work (both OED); for which see note at 3.234. In context, this seems to refer to soldiers cavorting with prostitutes, as Maud Gonne complained about in her letter to the Freeman’s Journal on 6 June 1904 (see note at 5.70). In its other uses in Ulysses, the word chummy is directly linked with prostitution (8.597 and 16.1041).
6.319–20: Father Mathew
Father Theobald Mathew (1790–1856): Capuchin priest and temperance crusader. In 1838, he founded the Total Abstinence Society (DIB). In 1893, a statue of him was erected on Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Bennett, s.v. Statues, portrait). See note at 16.89–90 for the temperance movements.
6.320: Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart
A foundation stone for a statue of Charles Stuart Parnell (see note at 2.394) was laid at the northern end of Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street on 8 October 1899. The statue was completed in 1907, and the monument was unveiled in 1911 (Bennett, s.v. Statues, portrait). Parnell’s death certificate indicates five days of rheumatic fever, excessive fever, and a weak heart as the causes of his death (Robert Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 4).
6.321: White horses with white frontlet plumes
For the burial of a child, Catholic convention directed that ‘white and not black should be used in token of mourning’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Christian burial).
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6.321–22: Rotunda corner
Past Great Britain (Parnell) Street, Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street continues as Cavendish Row along the eastern side of Rutland (now Parnell) Square. The Rotunda stands at the corner of Great Britain Street and Cavendish Row in Rutland (now Parnell) Square. The building holds, among other things, a maternity hospital, a theatre, and a concert hall (Bennett).
6.323–24: Black for the married . . . Dun for a nun
Piebald: consisting of dark and pale colours. Dun: a dull, greyish brown (both OED). While brown was the most common colour for burial shrouds in Ireland at this time (see note at 1.104), other colours were used—such as black, white, and white with blue trim (Síle de Cléir, Popular Catholicism in 20th Century Ireland, p. 44). The series Bloom imagines is entirely fanciful.
6.327: Burial friendly society pays
A Friendly Society: ‘one of numerous associations, the members of which pay fixed contributions to insure pecuniary help in sickness or old age, and provision for their families in the event of death’ (OED).
6.328: sod of turf
Turf: ‘Peat, cut and saved on the bog and burned for fuel. [. . .] Turf was a staple fuel in rural Ireland for cooking as well as for heat [. . .] It was also brought on barges to Dublin along the Royal Canal from the bogs of the Midlands’ (Brewer’s Irish). Sod: ‘A piece of turf used for fuel’ (OED). See note at 1.413 for bog.
6.332: Rutland square
Rutland (now Parnell) Square: at the top of Sackville (O’Connell) Street.
6.332–33: Rattle his bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns
From the poem ‘The Pauper’s Drive’ by Thomas Noel (1799–1861), which was set to music by Henry Russell in 1839 (ODNB). The poem is about a hearse on its way to a cemetery. These lines are from the poem’s refrain: ‘Rattle his bones over the stones; / He’s only a Pauper, whom nobody owns!’ (Thomas Noel, Rymes and Roundelayes, pp. 200–01).
6.334: In the midst of life
‘In the midst of life we are in death’: from the Anglican service for the burial of the dead. This portion of the service is said by the priest at the grave as the body is being prepared for interment (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 331).
6.335: But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his own life
The Catholic Church considers suicide to be ‘in absolute contradiction to everything that the Christian religion teaches us as to the end and object of life’ (Catholic Encyclopedia).
6.345: Like Shakespeare’s face
This similarity was noted in Dubliners: ‘His friends bowed to his opinions and considered that his face was like Shakespeare’s’ (p. 157). Stanislaus Joyce called Matthew Kane (the original of Martin Cunningham, see note at 5.331) ‘the Green Street Shakespeare’ (Complete Dublin Diary, p. 21).
6.346: Refuse christian burial
Generally, this has been true for most of European Christian history. But an English law from 1824 allowed suicides to be buried in churchyards, albeit only at night and without religious
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188 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses rites. ‘In 1882, suicides were allowed to be buried in daylight hours. Suicides, if of sound mind, may still not be buried with full Anglican rites, a prohibition not laid down directly by canon law, but by rubric in the prayer book’ (Norman St John-Stevas, Life, Death and the Law, p. 233).
6.346–47: They used to drive a stake of wood through his heart in the grave
According to Brewer’s, ‘until 1823, a suicide was buried at the cross-roads with a stake thrust through the body’.
6.348–49: Found in the riverbed clutching rushes
An oblique allusion to Ophelia’s death by drowning: ‘When down her weedy trophies and herself / Fell in the weeping brook’ (Hamlet, IV.vii.173–74). Also alludes to Moses (see note at 3.297–98).
6.350: Setting up house for her
Cunningham’s marital difficulties are described in ‘Grace’: ‘People had great sympathy with him for it was known that he had married an unpresentable woman who was an incurable drunkard. He had set up house for her six times; and each time she had pawned the furniture on him’ (Dubliners, p. 157).
6.351–53: Wear the heart out of a stone, that . . . Shoulder to the wheel
According to the Gilbert schema, Cunningham corresponds to Sisyphus. In the Odyssey, Odysseus sees Sisyphus in the underworld, rolling the boulder up his hill, only to have it roll back down on him each time as he nears the top (XI.593–600).
6.355–57: And they call me the jewel of Asia . . . geisha
From ‘The Jewel of Asia’, a song by James Philip (music) and Harry Greenbank (lyrics), from the operetta The Geisha (1896) (Bauerle, p. 272).
6.358: Rattle his bones See note at 6.332–33.
6.361–62: Boots giving evidence
Boots: ‘A name for the servant in hotels who cleans the boots’ (OED). Bloom’s father owned a hotel (see note at 6.529–30).
6.364: Death by misadventure
Death by misadventure: ‘death caused accidentally, with or without the involvement of an (innocent) second party’ (OED, s.v. misadventure); a formula commonly used on death certificates. In cases of suicide, a ‘coroner can bring a verdict of “death by misadventure”, “accidental death” or “open verdict” and such verdicts are often passed when a coroner seeks to protect relatives’ (Alice Middleton and David I. Williams, ‘The Aftermath of Suicide’, p. 171).
6.365: Nobody owns
From the refrain of ‘The Pauper’s Drive’; see note at 6.332–33.
6.366: Blessington street
Having crossed over Upper Dorset Street, the funeral party is no longer on Frederick Street but on Blessington Street, which is close to Bloom’s house.
6.366: Over the stones
From the refrain of ‘The Pauper’s Drive’; see note at 6.332–33.
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6. ‘Hades’ 189
6.369–70: That will be a great race tomorrow in Germany. The Gordon Bennett
The Gordon Bennett: an annual automobile road race established by the American journalist and racing enthusiast James Gordon Bennett (1841–1918). In 1903, the race was held in Ireland and provided the occasion of the Dubliners story ‘After the Race’. Before the race, Joyce wrote an unsigned article for the Irish Times in which he interviewed one of the drivers (7 Apr. 1903, p. 5, col. e; OCPW, pp. 77–80). In 1904, the Gordon Bennett race took place on 17 June at Homburg, near Frankfurt-am-Main (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 2, cols f–g).
6.372: Berkeley street
The funeral party turns off of Blessington Street and onto Berkeley Street. It will then turn onto Berkeley Road at the intersection with Eccles Street and head north.
6.372: Basin
The north side of the city was supplied by water from the George III Basin in Blessington Street, which opened in 1810, taking water from the Broadstone branch of the Royal Canal (D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 258).
6.373: Has anybody here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy
From the music hall song ‘Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly? (Kelly from the Isle of Man)’ (1909) by Will Letters (d. 1910) and Clarence Wainwright Murphy (d. 1913). The chorus: ‘Has anybody here seen Kelly? / K—E—double L—Y. / Has anybody here seen Kelly? / Find him if you can! / He’s as bad as old Antonio / Left me on my ownio. / Has anybody here seen Kelly? / Kelly from the Isle of Man!’ (Bauerle, p. 276–77).
6.374: Dead March from Saul
The Dead March from Act III of G. F. Handel’s (1685–1759) dramatic oratorio Saul (1738). Until the early twentieth century, the Dead March was standard fare at British military and state funerals (Matthias Range, British Royal and State Funerals, p. 265).
6.374–75: He’s as bad as old Antonio. He left me on my ownio
From the chorus of ‘Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?’ (see note at 6.373); this line refers to the song ‘Oh! Oh! Antonio’, which Murphy had written in 1908 with Dan Lipton (Bauerle, p. 276).
6.375–76: The Mater Misericordiae
In 1904, the Mater Misericordiae was Dublin’s largest hospital (Bennett). It was just up the road from Bloom’s house, at the corner of Eccles Street and Berkeley Road. It was founded in 1861 ‘for the relief of the sick and dying poor’ (Thom’s, p. 1379).
6.377: Our Lady’s Hospice for the dying See note at 5.351.
6.378: Deadhouse handy underneath
Dead-house: ‘a building or room where the dead are kept for a time’ (OED).
6.378: Mrs Riordan
Mrs Riordan: Stephen’s governess and a prominent character from chapter 1 of A Portrait, where she is usually referred to as ‘Dante’. In 1893–94, the Blooms lived at the City Arms Hotel, where she also resided. She is based on Mrs Elizabeth Conway (née Hearn, 1827–96), who acted as governess and teacher to the young James Joyce; see Ellmann, pp. 24–26, 33–44; Peter Costello, James Joyce, pp. 62–65.
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6.381–82: He’s gone over to the lying-in hospital
The National Maternity Hospital, 29–31 Holles Street. Lying-in: in childbed (OED). The ‘he’ is Dr Dixon, who had treated Bloom’s bee sting on 23 May at the Mater Hospital (see note at 4.483–84) and who, by 16 June, had begun working at the Holles Street Hospital.
6.385: drove of branded cattle passed the windows
Thursday was market day (Thom’s, p. 1029): the day when cattle would be herded from the cattle market to the quays along the North Circular Road (16 June 1904 was a Thursday); see note at 4.109–10. In Odysseus’s trip to the underworld, he sees Orion, the hunter, ‘rounding up and driving together / wild animals he himself had killed in the lonely mountains, / holding in his hands a brazen club’ (XI.573–75).
6.385: lowing
To low: ‘Of a cow or other bovine animal: to make its characteristic deep, resonant vocal sound; to moo’ (OED).
6.387: raddled
Raddled: marked with red dye (OED, s.v. raddle).
6.391: out of that See note at 3.353.
6.392: Springers
Springer: not a cow slaughtered for meat, but a cow ‘in calf for dairy purposes’ (Arthur Maltby and Jean Maltby, Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, p. 64); from ‘to spring’: ‘to swell with milk. Also (esp. of a cow): to show signs of giving birth’ (OED). The trade journal Mark Lane Express routinely lists springers as the most expensive type of milk cow sold in Ireland (see also note at 6.393), as does Thom’s (p. 752).
6.392: Cuffe
Joseph Cuffe (1841–1908), with the firm Laurence Cuffe & Sons, sold cattle, corn, and wool at 5 Smithfield (Thom’s, p. 1844), near the cattle market on the North Circular Road. Bloom worked as a clerk for Cuffe from 1893 to 1894 (17.483–86).
6.393: twentyseven quid each
According to the 10 July 1905 Mark Lane Express, ‘The best springers were worth from £18 to £21 each, while other sorts could be bought from £8 to £17’ (p. 54).
6.393: For Liverpool probably
‘Liverpool was Ireland’s most convenient point of access to distribution networks in Britain and overseas: Ireland supplied over 75 per cent of the cattle, pigs, oats, oatmeal, butter, eggs, lard and preserved meats imported coastwise at Liverpool. [. . .] The Anglo-Irish cattle trade was dominated by the Liverpool firm of Cullen and Verdon’ (John Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse, p. 12).
6.393–94: Roastbeef for old England
From the song ‘The Roast Beef of Old England’ (c.1730), written by Richard Leveridge (1670–1758) (Bauerle, p. 279). While cattle farming was lucrative, the Irish cattle trade was very much subservient to English cattle traders, with the result that ‘Ireland was only a food producer for the British agricultural industry, but it had no such industry itself ’ (Owen McGee, Arthur Griffith, p. 248).
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6. ‘Hades’ 191
6.394: fifth quarter
Fifth quarter: in the vocabulary of butchers, the ‘fifth quarter’ is ‘all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns’: as Bloom thinks, ‘Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries, soap, margarine’; from which butchers frequently derive significant earnings (John Simpson, JJON).
6.397: dodge
Dodge: ‘A shifty trick, an artifice to elude or cheat’ (OED).
6.397: dicky meat
Dicky: ‘Of inferior quality, sorry, poor; in bad condition’ (OED).
6.398: Clonsilla
A village about 11 km to the west of Dublin, on the Midland Great Western Railway (Thom’s, pp. 1655–56).
6.400: the corporation
In 1904, the Dublin city government was called Dublin Corporation and was often referred to as simply ‘the Corporation’ or ‘the Corpo’. Following the Municipal Reform Act 1840, the Corporation consisted of the Lord Mayor, 2 Sheriffs, 24 Aldermen, 124 Common Councilmen, 28 Sheriff-Peers, and 96 representatives of the 25 civic guilds, with a Recorder and other subordinate officers. The Lord Mayor is chosen annually from among the Aldermen or Councilmen (Thom’s, p. 1335). Dublin Corporation was renamed Dublin City Council in 2002 (Bennett, s.v. Dublin City Council).
6.400–01: tramline from the parkgate to the quays
The parkgate at the north-eastern entrance to Phoenix Park (see note at 7.633) lies near the cattle market. See also note at 4.109–10.
6.406: municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan
With the opening in 1895 of the Cimitero Musocco, several kilometres beyond the city limits, ‘the Government decided not to make the mourners depend upon carriages, but to construct an electric railway especially for carrying the corpses and the attendants between the city and the cemetery’ (‘Electric Funeral Trains in Milan’, Street Railway Journal, 4 Jan. 1908, vol. 31, no. 1, p. 10). Bloom’s father lived in Milan at some point in the mid-1860s (17.1908), before moving to Ireland.
6.409: Pullman car
The Pullman car was a luxurious sleeping car invented in 1865 by George Mortimer Pullman (1831–97) and Ben Fields for use on American railroads (EB11).
6.416: Dunphy’s
The intersection of Phibsborough Road and the North Circular Road was called Dunphy’s Corner, because a pub there was once owned by a Thomas Dunphy, although in 1904 it was run by John Doyle (Thom’s, p. 1569; JJD, p. 108). It was common custom for mourners to stop at this pub for a drink after the funeral, at the bereaved family’s expense (JJD, p. 39 n. 32). In Stephen Hero, after the funeral of Stephen’s sister Isabel, the mourners stop at Dunphy’s (p. 168).
6.419: Gordon Bennett cup See note at 6.369–70.
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6.422 brown habit See note at 1.104.
6.430–31: Elixir of life
The Irish uisce beatha (frequently Anglicised as usquebaugh) literally means water of life and from it we get the English word whiskey (OED, s.v. usquebaugh).
6.436: Phibsborough road
A north–south road which becomes Prospect Road on the other side of the Royal Canal.
6.438: Crossguns bridge: the royal canal
Crossguns Bridge (also Cross Guns Bridge) carries Phibsborough Road over the Royal Canal. See note at 6.120 for the Royal Canal.
6.439 sluices
Sluice: ‘a dam or embankment, for impounding the water of river, canal, etc., provided with an adjustable gate or gates by which the volume of water is regulated or controlled’ (OED). The locks on the Grand Canal are typically 21 metres long, 4 metres wide, ‘and calculated to pass boats of 60 tons [61,000 kg] from five to two and a half minutes’ (J. Warburton, J. Whitelaw, and Robert Walsh, History of the City of Dublin, vol. 2, p. 1225).
6.439–40: A man stood on his dropping barge
The barge is being lowered on a lock on the canal just west of Crossguns Bridge, hence ‘dropping’. This suggests Charon, who in Greek mythology steers the ferry that carries the spirits of the dead to Hades (Brewer’s).
6.440: turf
See note at 6.328.
6.441: Aboard of the Bugabu
From a song by J. P. Rooney called ‘The Wreck of the Bug-a-boo’, a satirical ballad about the difficulty of navigating a turf barge (The Irish Linnet Songster, p. 3).
6.444–45: Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley
Three towns on the Royal Canal, listed in an eastward progression towards Dublin.
6.446: Hire some old crock, safety
Hire: rent. Crock: a dilapidated bicycle. Safety: safety bicycle, a bicycle with a lower seat, which supposedly offered greater safety for the rider (all OED).
6.446: Wren
P. Wren’s Auction Rooms: 9 Bachelor’s Walk (Thom’s, p. 2044).
6.447–48: James M‘Cann’s hobby to row me o’er the ferry
James McCann (1840–1904): stockbroker, politician, and chairman of the Grand Canal Company; he advocated for the use of the canal as a cheaper alternative to the railroads (DIB). Hobby: hobby-horse, ‘an individual pursuit to which a person is devoted (in the speaker’s opinion) out of proportion to its real importance’ (OED). The phrase ‘to row me o’er the ferry’ derives from the poem Lord Ullin’s Daughter by Thomas Campbell (Scottish poet, 1777–1844): ‘To row us o’er the ferry!’ (l. 4). In this context, the word ferry is used in the sense, ‘A crossing over a river or other stretch of water which is served by a ferry boat’ (OED), and not the ferry boat itself (Terence Killeen, JJON).
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6. ‘Hades’ 193
6.449: To heaven by water
To heaven by water: the phrase dates to the sixteenth century and has been used in a variety of senses. In this context, it means ‘death by drowning’, a well-attested usage, as in ‘Unless they wed, all the world seems awry, and they take poison or go, like Ophelia, “to heaven by water” ’ (Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, May 1886, p. 544; John Simpson, JJON).
6.450: Leixlip, Clonsilla
Two towns to the west of Dublin: Leixlip is on the Liffey and Clonsilla (see note at 6.398) is on the Royal Canal.
6.451: turf from the midland bogs
See note at 6.328 for turf and note at 1.413 for bog.
6.453: Brian Boroimhe house
A pub at 1 Prospect Terrace (now 5 Prospect Road), on the corner, just north of Crossguns Bridge (Thom’s, p. 1700). For Brian Boroimhe, see note at 12.177. The name derives from the legend that the pub stands on the exact site of Brian’s tent at the Battle of Clontarf.
6.454: Fogarty
Fogarty: a grocer in ‘Grace’ from Dubliners; he runs ‘a small shop on Glasnevin Road’ (p. 166). He is based on Patrick Fogarty (1869–1907), a grocer who, by 1902, had a shop at 35 Glengariff Parade, which was near the Joyce family address at that time, 32 Glengariff Parade (Igoe, pp. 111–12).
6.456: Left him weeping, I suppose
In ‘Grace’, ‘there was a small account for groceries unsettled between [Kernan] and Mr Fogarty’ (p. 166).
6.457: Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear
‘Though lost to sight, to memory dear’: A much-quoted line, which was commonly used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on tombstones and mortuary cards. Its earliest use might be in a poem by Ruthven Jenkyns, originally published in 1701 or 1702 (Notes and Queries, 23 Aug. 1873, p. 156). It is also the title of a song from c.1840, with words by George Linley (1798–1865).
6.458: Finglas road
Finglas Road runs along the southern side of Prospect Cemetery, forking north-west from Prospect Road.
6.460: silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands
The funerary statues at Dennany’s (see note at 6.462). Recalls the horde of the dead who greet Odysseus upon his arrival in Hades, after he fills a sacrificial pit with blood: ‘brides, and young unmarried men, and long-suffering elders, / [. . .] / These came swarming around my pit from every direction / with inhuman clamor’ (XI.38–43).
6.461: white silence
From the final line of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s (English poet, 1806–61) sonnet ‘Hiram Powers’s Greek slave’ (1850), a poem about the life-sized sculpture of a naked Greek slave woman by the American sculptor Hiram Powers (1805–73): ‘By thunders of white silence, overthrown’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
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194 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
6.462: Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor
Thomas H. Dennany (c.1840–1910) tombstone manufacturer, Prospect Avenue, Glasnevin, right off Finglas Road (Thom’s, p. 1850). In the 1904 Thom’s, he is listed as a ‘monument builder’; later editions have the form Joyce uses here: ‘monumental builder and sculptor’ (Thom’s 1908, p. 1738; John Simpson, JJON).
6.464: Jimmy Geary, the sexton’s
James W. Geary (1853–1930): sexton of Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin, lived at 18 Oak Terrace, North Circular Road (Thom’s, p. 1878). Sexton: ‘an officer of a parish church whose responsibilities have traditionally included bell-ringing and grave-digging’ (OED).
6.467: Gloomy gardens
Recalls the phrase ‘the Fields of Mourning’ (lugentes campi), used in Virgil’s Aeneid to describe Hades (VI.582).
6.469: where Childs was murdered . . . The last house
On 2 September 1899, Thomas Childs, aged seventy-six, was murdered at his home at 5 Bengal Terrace, Glasnevin. His brother, Samuel, was tried but acquitted of the murder (Adrian Hardiman, Joyce in Court, pp. 131–35). See the following two notes. Childs’s house is not the last house—and thus not contiguous with the cemetery—but rather the fifth house in a terrace of six (JJD, p. 103).
6.470: Seymour Bushe got him off
Seymour Bushe (1853–1922): Irish barrister and, in 1899, senior Crown Counsel for the county and city of Dublin. Bushe successfully defended Samuel Childs of the charge of having murdered his brother Thomas. Joyce attended the trial (Ellmann, p. 91). Samuel Childs was also represented by Timothy Healy (see note at 7.800), whose contributions at the trial were arguably equal to Bushe’s, but, in Ulysses, only Bushe receives the credit (Hardiman, Joyce in Court, pp. 141, 150–51). ‘He was possessed of a brilliant and fascinating eloquence which he displayed even in cases of minor importance—a copiousness of diction and richness of imagery, together with close and connected reasoning’ (J. B. Hall, Random Records, p. 105).
6.473: Only circumstantial
At the start of the Childs trial, the evidence against Samuel Childs seemed strong, albeit circumstantial. The two main points were that Samuel Childs, recently unemployed, was in debt to his brother and, furthermore, he had a key to his brother’s house, with there being no evidence of forceful entry. During the trial, through both careful cross- examination of multiple witnesses and Bushe’s eloquent closing argument (see note at 7.755), the prosecution’s case evaporated. Childs was acquitted after the jury had deliberated for only 25 minutes (Hardiman, Joyce in Court, pp. 131–62). After the trial, the Irish Times proclaimed in an editorial that ‘[t]he evidence in no way justified the charge’ (23 Oct. 1899, p. 4, col. h).
6.474–75: Better for ninetynine guilty to escape . . . wrongfully condemned
This combines Jesus’s claim, ‘I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance’ (Luke 15:7, also Matthew 18:12–14) with Sir William Blackstone’s (British jurist, 1723–80) assertion that ‘it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer’ (Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. 4, p. 352).
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6. ‘Hades’ 195
6.476: Murderer’s ground
After the superstition that the ground where a murder has occurred is doomed to remain infertile and barren (Iona Opie and Peter Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. Murder: earth remains barren). After Cain murders his brother Abel, God curses him: ‘When thou shalt till it, it shall not yield to thee its fruit: a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be upon the earth’ (Genesis 4:12).
6.476–77: Shuttered, tenantless
In 1904, Thomas Childs’s former address, 5 Bengal Terrace, was not tenantless, it was occupied by Richard Moran (Thom’s, p. 1696).
6.477: unweeded garden
From Hamlet’s first soliloquy: ‘’Tis an unweeded garden, / That grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely’ (I.ii.135–37).
6.482: Murder will out
A proverbial phrase with many antecedents, the earliest being Chaucer’s ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ from the Canterbury Tales: ‘Mordre wol out, that se we day by day’ (l. 3052, The Riverside Chaucer, p. 256).
6.486: The high railings of Prospect
Prospect Cemetery: a Catholic cemetery founded in 1832 by Daniel O’Connell in the village of Glasnevin, which is situated to the north-west of the city. The village was amalgamated into the city in 1900 (Bennett, s.v. Glasnevin Cemetery). In 1904, its official name was Prospect Cemetery, although it was frequently called Glasnevin Cemetery (DD, p. 195), which is now its official name. On the side facing Finglas Road, heading west, the cemetery is bound by a high wall up to the Superintendent’s lodge and main entrance. Continuing past the lodge, it is bound by high railings.
6.486–88: Dark poplars, rare white forms . . . white shapes amid the trees
It would seem that this refers to a white poplar (populus alba) or the similar grey poplar (populus canescens), the leaves of which are coated with a white downy fluff called tomentum (Henry John Elwes and Augustine Henry, The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 7, pp. 1777–82), hence the ‘white shapes . . . amid the trees’. These ‘white shapes’ then give way to the tombstones and statues within the cemetery; see the following note. There are some poplars flanking the interior of the cemetery’s perimeter wall, however most of the trees within the cemetery are not poplars: ‘gaze along those alleys formed of mournful yew, and bending ash, and weeping willow, and solemn-coloured fir’ (A Guide through Glasnevin Cemetery, p. 55).
6.488–89: white forms . . . sustaining vain gestures on the air
That is, the various statues of angels in the cemetery, many of which have one hand pointing heavenwards; for example, the statue of an angel holding a cross, on a pedestal on the grave of Michael Meade (1814–86; see note at 12.1889–90) (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
6.490: felly
Felly: the exterior rim of a wheel which is supported by the spokes (OED).
6.501: Simnel cakes
Simnel cake: ‘a rich currant cake, usually eaten on Mid-Lent Sunday in certain districts’ (OED).
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196 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
6.501: Dogbiscuits
This word makes the Simnel cake suggest the ‘honeyed cake of wheat with drugs that bring on sleep’ that the Sibyl tosses at Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the entrance to Hades (Virgil, Aeneid, VI.554–55).
6.505: the boy
Dignam’s son Patsy.
6.507: Finglas
Finglas: a small village about 6.5 km north-west of Prospect Cemetery.
6.510: Got here before us, dead as he is
Alludes to the story of Elpenor, a companion of Odysseus, who died drunk when he fell off Circe’s roof (Odyssey, X.552–60). Elpenor is the first of the shades Odysseus sees in Hades (XI.57–58). In the Gilbert schema, Elpenor corresponds to Dignam.
6.511: skeowways
Skeow-ways (Hiberno-English): crooked, oblique (Dolan, s.v. skew-ways).
6.513: Mount Jerome
Mount Jerome: the Protestant cemetery in Harold’s Cross, an inner suburb south-west of Dublin city (Bennett).
6.517–20: Mourners came out through the gates . . . bloodless and livid
This short paragraph derives from Joyce’s Epiphany 21: ‘Two mourners push on through the crowd. The girl, one hand catching a woman’s skirt, runs in advance. The girl’s face is the face of a fish, discoloured and oblique-eyed; the woman’s face is small and square, the face of a bargainer. The girl, her mouth distorted, looks up at the woman to see if it is time to cry; the woman, settling a flat bonnet, hurries on towards the mortuary chapel’ (PSW, p. 181). This was written after his mother’s funeral in August 1903 (Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, p. 231). The epiphany was reworked and used in Stephen Hero (p. 167) and, finally, here in Ulysses. Because women are present, this is almost certainly a working-class funeral; see note at 6.8.
6.521: mutes
See note at 1.213.
6.529–30: Had the Queen’s hotel in Ennis . . . going to Clare
Ennis: a town in County Clare, 225 km west of Dublin; ‘a queer little town with narrow streets and courts’ (John Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 528). See note at 17.622–32 for the Queen’s Hotel, which Bloom’s father owned at the time of his suicide.
6.534: cardinal’s mausoleum
The tomb of Edward Cardinal MacCabe (1816–85), Archbishop of Dublin (1879–85) and cardinal (1882–85). The mausoleum, designed by George Coppinger Ashlin (1837–1921), is of basilical shape, with a decorated mosaic floor depicting the eagle as symbol of John the Evangelist (Bennett).
6.536: policy was heavily mortgaged
Dignam had used his life assurance policy as security for a desperately needed loan. This greatly compromises his family’s ability to collect insurance now that he has died unexpectedly (Hardiman, Joyce in Court, p. 166).
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6. ‘Hades’ 197
6.537: trying to get the youngster into Artane
Artane is a small village and parish, 4.8 km north of Dublin, in which are located several institutions for destitute children. These were industrial schools, run by religious organisations, that housed not just orphans but also children of widows or of fathers suffering from long-term disability (Mary Daly, Dublin, pp. 95–96). In 2009, the Ryan Report confirmed long-standing rumours that conditions at the industrial schools run by the Christian Brothers were shockingly brutal: ‘Physical, emotional and sexual abuse were systematic there’ (Karen Coleman, Haunting Cries, p. 4).
6.539: try to get one of the girls into Todd’s
Todd, Burns, & Co., Ltd.: ‘silk mercers, linen and woollen drapers, tailors, and boot and shoe and furnishing warehouse &c.’, 17, 18 and 47 Mary Street, and 24–28 Jervis Street (Thom’s, p. 2026). In 1912, Joyce’s sister May worked at Todd, Burns, & Co. (Letters, vol. 2, p. 311 n. 2).
6.546–47: Wise men say. There are more women than men in the world
From the chorus of the song ‘Three Women to Every Man’, by Fred Murray and Fred R. Leigh: ‘Wise men say there are more women than men in the world, / That’s how some girls are single all their lives, / Three women to every man / Oh, girls, say if you can, / Why can’t every man have three wives?’ (Bowen, p. 110).
6.547–48: I hope you’ll soon follow him. For Hindu widows only
A reference to suttee, the practice of Hindu widows throwing themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyres (outlawed in 1829). The word derives from the Sanskrit sati, meaning a virtuous wife (Brewer’s).
6.549: Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died
After the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861, Queen Victoria ‘abandoned herself to the past and to her memories of him with a passionate intensity. She could not forget him: no one else should’ (Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 285). After she died in 1901, the exaggerated expressions of grief she inspired naturally diminished.
6.549–50: Drawn on a guncarriage
Queen Victoria left instructions that her funeral, which was held on 2 February 1901, be a ‘ “Military Funeral” as befitted the “Head of the Army”, with her coffin on a gun carriage drawn by eight horses’ (Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 497).
6.550: Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning
The tomb in which Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, and Victoria’s mother are buried is in the Royal Burial Ground on the Frogmore Estate, part of Windsor Home Park (Helen Rappaport, Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion, p. 153).
6.551–52: All for a shadow. Consort not even a king
Victoria’s husband Albert was prince consort, not king (Rappaport, Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion, p. 14).
6.558: Cork’s own town
Simon Dedalus is originally from Cork, a seaport and manufacturing centre, 260 km south-west of Dublin. ‘Cork’s Own Town’ is a song collected and discussed by Thomas Crofton Croker (1798–1854) in The Popular Songs of Ireland. Croker states that it was first published in the Cork Southern Reporter in 1825 (pp. 165–71).
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198 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
6.559: Cork park races on Easter Monday
An annual series of races on a track in Cork’s public park. In 1904, they were held on Easter Monday, 4 April (Cork Examiner, 5 Apr. 1904, p. 7, cols b–c).
6.560: six and eightpence
Six and eightpence: nickname for a lawyer, because ‘this was a usual fee’ (Partridge).
6.560: Dick Tivy
The 1911 census lists a Richard Tivy (1848–1928), ‘secretary of a public company’, living at 20 Summerhill in Cork City with his wife Maria (Igoe, p. 291).
6.564: get up a whip
Whip: ‘a call or appeal to a number of persons for contributions to a sum or fund’ (OED).
6.568: John Henry Menton
John Henry Menton (1859–1905): a solicitor and commissioner of affidavits, with offices at 27 Bachelor’s Walk; he lived at 3 Cumberland Place, North Circular Road; he was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors in 1884 (Thom’s, pp. 925, 1955).
6.574: mortuary chapel
The mortuary chapel, just inside the main entrance to the cemetery, was designed by J. J. McCarthy. ‘The style of architecture is Romanesque, of that character which is peculiarly Irish’ (A Guide through Glasnevin Cemetery, p. 61). The chapel was dedicated on 29 August 1879 (Freeman’s Journal, 30 Aug. 1879, p. 7, col. b).
6.578–79: I owe three shillings to O’Grady
An allusion to the song ‘I Owe $10 to O’Grady’ (1887) by Harry Kennedy. The song was popular in Dublin as ‘I Owe 10 Shillings to O’Grady’ (The Irish Playgoer and Amusement Record, vol. 1, no. 7, Christmas 1899, p. 11).
6.580: Which end is his head?
‘In bearing the corpse from the house they always, in Ireland, carry it feet foremost. The Romans observed the same custom. [. . .] In Ireland we have often seen people attending a funeral, both Protestants and Roman Catholics, reprimand those who, from accident or ignorance, attempted to bring the body head foremost out of the house’ (The Dublin University Magazine, vol. 10, no. 58, Oct. 1837, p. 449).
6.585: prayingdesks
Praying desk or prayer desk: ‘a stall from which prayers are read in a church’ (OED, s.vv. prayer; praying).
6.585: the font
Font: ‘A receptacle for holy water’ (OED). Stationary fonts are placed at the entrance to churches and are ‘usually made of bronze, marble, granite, or any other solid stone, and [. . .] consist of a small tub or basin sometimes detached or resting on a base or pedicle, sometimes imbedded in the wall or in one of the pillars of the church’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Holy water fonts).
6.589: brass bucket with something in it
Properly, the bucket is an aspersorium, a liturgical vessel for holy water. The ‘something’ is an aspergill, which is used to sprinkle the water over the coffin (OED, s.vv. aspergillum;
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6. ‘Hades’ 199 aspersorium). In ‘Lotus Eaters’, Bloom showed a similar lack of ecclesiastical knowledge when he called the ciborium ‘the thing’ (see note at 5.344–45).
6.591–92: Who’ll read the book? I, said the rook
After the nursery rhyme ‘Who Killed Cock Robin?’: ‘Who’ll be the parson? / I said the Rook / With my little book, / I’ll be the parson’ (ll. 21–24, ODNR, p. 130).
6.595: Father Coffey
The Reverend Francis Coffey (1843–1917): acting chaplain at Glasnevin (the Very Reverend Henry Murphy was the chaplain); he lived at 65 Dalymount on the North Circular Road (Thom’s, pp. 1557, 1934).
6.595: Dominenamine
A jumbled version of the priest’s Latin, In nomine Domini (In the name of the Lord).
6.596: Bully about the muzzle he looks
Bully about the muzzle: ‘too thick and large in the mouth’, an expression of dog fanciers (Partridge). In the schema, Father Coffey is listed as Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards Hades.
6.596: Muscular christian
Muscular Christian: an expression coined about 1857 to ridicule Charles Kingsley’s (1819–75) prescription of physical strength and bodily vigour in the education of young Christians (OED).
6.597: Thou art Peter
From Matthew 16:18, where Jesus renames his apostle Simon: ‘Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’
6.598–99: With a belly on him like a poisoned pup
A belly like a poisoned pup: ‘to be pot-bellied’ (Partridge).
6.601: Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine
Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine (Latin): ‘Do not weigh the deeds of your servant, Lord’; the beginning of the Absolution, which usually follows the Funeral Mass (The Offices of the Old Catholic Prayer-Book, p. 49).
6.602–03: Requiem mass
‘Requiem Masses are masses that are offered for the dead. [. . .] The ceremonies of the Mass of Requiem are the same as those of the so-called “Mass of the Living” with the exception of a few omissions and variations’ (Catholic Encyclopedia).
6.603: Crape weepers
See note at 6.181 for crape. Weeper: a badge of mourning, usually on a man’s sleeve, but also around his hat (OED).
6.603: the altarlist
Altar list: in Irish Catholic practice, the reading of the names of recently deceased parishioners at Sunday Mass in order that prayers may be said for their souls (Myles Ronan, ‘Religious Life in Old Dublin’, p. 106).
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200 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
6.605: Eyes of a toad too. What swells him up that way?
The description of Father Coffey follows, in part, from the description of the unnamed priest officiating at the funeral of Stephen’s sister in Stephen Hero: ‘A priest with a great toad-like belly balanced to one side came out of the sacristy, followed by an altar boy. He read the service rapidly in a croaking voice and shook the aspergill drowsily over the coffin, the boy piping responses at intervals’ (p. 167).
6.609: Mervyn Browne
Mervyn A. Browne (1851–1924): ‘professor of music and organist’, 48 Drumcondra Road (Thom’s, p. 181). He also appears in ‘The Dead’.
6.609: vaults of saint Werburgh’s
An ancient church on Werburgh Street in central southern Dublin, originally built in 1178, but the current church dates to 1719. Twenty-seven vaults below the church still exist from the original edifice (Bennett).
6.610: lovely old organ hundred and fifty
After being gutted by fire in 1754, St Werburgh’s Church was rebuilt. It reopened in 1759 but did not have a new organ until 1767 (Bennett), thereby making its organ close to 150 years old in 1904.
6.612: you’re a doner
Doner: ‘one who is done for, ruined, fated shortly to die’ (Partridge). On the Rosenbach Manuscript, Joyce wrote ‘doner’ (f. 24); this was changed, probably not by Joyce but by a typesetter, to ‘goner’ on a late page proof (JJA, vol. 22, p. 416), which is how this word appeared in the first edition and all editions before Gabler. Goner: ‘Originally: a person who is certain to die very soon. Later more generally: a person who or thing which is or will inevitably soon be dead’ (OED); and thus synonymous with doner. Doner: in common usage in Ireland since the early nineteenth century (Harald Beck, JJON).
6.614: The priest took a stick with a knob at the end See note at 6.589.
6.618: Et ne nos inducas in tentationem
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem (Latin): ‘And lead us not into temptation’; from the Lord’s Prayer and said at a funeral Mass (The Offices of the Old Catholic Prayer-Book, p. 49).
6.623–26: Every mortal day . . . sparrows’ breasts
Suggests the throng of the dead in the Odyssey: ‘and the souls of the perished dead gathered to the place, up out of Erebus, brides and young unmarried men, and long-suffering elders, virgins, tender and with the sorrow of young hearts upon them, and many fighting men killed in battle, stabbed with brazen spears, still carrying their bloody armor upon them’ (XI.39–44).
6.628: In paradisum
In paradisum (Latin): ‘Into paradise’; the beginning of the hymn sung or spoken after the Absolution is completed, while the coffin is carried out of the church to be buried: ‘In Paradisum deducant te Angeli’ (May the angels lead you to Paradise) (The Offices of the Old Catholic Prayer-Book, p. 50).
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6.641: O’Connell circle
Properly, the O’Connell circle is a round area near the centre of Glasnevin; Daniel O’Connell was originally buried here after his death in 1847, but in 1869 his remains were relocated to a crypt in the O’Connell monument, a 51.5m-high copy of an Irish round tower designed by George Petrie (A Guide through Glasnevin Cemetery, p. 47; Bennett, s.v. Glasnevin Cemetery). The O’Connell monument is near the mortuary chapel from which the men have just emerged. The reference here is to this monument, as can be deduced from Mr Power’s glance at ‘the apex of the lofty cone’ (6.642).
6.643–44: But his heart is buried in Rome
Daniel O’Connell died at Genoa in 1847, on the way back from a pilgrimage to Rome. His body was returned to Dublin, but his heart was removed and put in St Agatha’s Church at the Irish College, Rome (DIB).
6.662: Mason, I think
Of Richard Thornton, the model for Tom Kernan (see note at 5.19–20), Stanislaus Joyce writes: ‘He had been a Protestant, but, through his wife and children, whom he maltreated, had unaccountably turned Catholic. I think he was still a Freemason’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 227). For the Freemasons, see note at 8.960.
6.665: the Irish church used in Mount Jerome
That is, the Protestant Church of Ireland. See note at 6.513 for Mount Jerome Cemetery.
6.670: I am the resurrection and the life
The Anglican service for the Burial of the Dead begins with these words from John 11:25, in which Jesus reminds Lazarus’s sister Martha that he has the power to raise her brother again to life (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 327). These words are also recited in the Catholic service, but, at that time, in Latin: ‘Ego sum resurrectio et vita’ (The Offices of the Old Catholic Prayer-Book, p. 51).
6.677–78: That last day idea
That is, the idea of the Resurrection and Judgement. One of the Scriptural texts on which this notion rests is John 6:40: ‘And this is the will of my Father that sent me: that every one who seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day.’
6.678: Come forth, Lazarus!
‘When [Jesus] had said these things, he cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth’ (John 11:43).
6.679: And he came fifth and lost the job
The joke is not original to Joyce. For example, from a speech by Woodrow Wilson (American president, 1856–1924) in 1916: ‘It reminds me of that very quaint saying of the old darky preacher, “The Lord says unto Moses, come forth, and he came fifth and lost the race” ’ (President Wilson’s State Papers and Addresses, p. 180).
6.682: Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure
In Troy measurement (the name probably derives from Troyes, France), which is used primarily for precious metals, 20 pennyweights equals one ounce, and 12 ounces equals 1
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202 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses pound, whereas 16 ounces equals 1 pound in Avoirdupois measurement. (The pennyweight is not a unit in Avoirdupois measurement, only in Troy measure.) One pennyweight is the equivalent of approximately 1.55 grammes. Bloom is mistaking gramme for grain, which is the smallest unit of weight in Troy measurement (gramme is, of course, a metric unit). However, he is doubly mistaken since there are 24—not 12—grains to the pennyweight (EB11).
6.684: A 1
A1: ‘First-class, outstanding’ (OED).
6.686: With your tooraloom tooraloom See note at 5.14–15.
6.696–97: fifteen seventeen golden years ago
Possibly after the title of James Clarence Mangan’s (Irish poet, 1803–49) poem ‘Twenty Golden Years Ago’ (Collected Works, vol. 2, p. 186); although the phrase ‘golden years’ appears elsewhere, such as in the first line of the Victorian parlour ballad ‘The Maid of the Mill’, lyrics by Hamilton Aide and music by Stephen Adams: ‘Golden years ago, in a mill beside the sea, There dwelt a little maiden, who plighted her faith to me’ (The Phono- Bretto, p. 48).
6.697: Mat Dillon’s, in Roundtown
Mathew Dillon (1821–99) was a friend of the Joyce family (Costello, James Joyce, pp. 59–60). Thom’s directories from 1880 to 1895 give his address as Brighton House, Brighton Road, Rathgar (Thom’s 1885, p. 1371), making him a neighbour of the Joyces, who lived at 41 Brighton Square from 1882 to 1884 (Vivien Igoe, James Joyce’s Dublin Houses, p. 171). Roundtown was the older name for Terenure (Thom’s, pp. 1779, 1791), a southern suburb of Dublin.
6.703: Wisdom Hely’s
Hely’s, Ltd.: a Dublin stationer and printer at 27–30 Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1895). The owner and managing director was Charles Wisdom Hely (1856–1929), a well-connected Dublin socialite. Besides being a stationery store and publisher, Hely’s sold a wide range of assorted goods made at its Acme workshop in Dame Court, near the Dame Street shop (John Strachan, ‘Ulysses and the Dublin Advertising Business’, pp. 98–99). Bloom started work at Hely’s when he married Molly in 1888 (see note at 8.158).
6.703: traveller
Traveller: standard abbreviation for a commercial traveller, ‘An agent employed by a commercial firm to travel from place to place showing samples of goods and soliciting custom’ (OED, s.v. traveller).
6.704: coon
Coon: a person in hopeless difficulty (Partridge).
6.710: John O’Connell
John Kileen O’Connell (1845–1925): the superintendent of Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin (Thom’s, p. 1973). ‘O’Connell was a great local wit and his stories of happenings at the burial ground were legion and well known to a wide circle of friends and acquaintances [. . .] Always dressed in a frockcoat (often called a swallow-tail coat) and silk top hat, he cut a
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Map 6.2 Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin (Dublin Cemeteries Committee, 1904)
dash in his lugubrious work place’ (Patricia O’Connell, ‘My Family Connections in Ulysses’, p. 190).
6.717: Mulcahy from the Coombe
According to John O’Connell’s granddaughter, this story was part of his repertoire of graveyard stories and was told with a Dublin intonation and strong expressions (O’Connell, ‘My Family Connections in Ulysses’, p. 189). See note at 5.280 for the Coombe.
6.731: That’s not Mulcahy, says he, whoever done it
According to Patricia O’Connell, her family’s telling of this graveyard story has a further punch line: ‘the other drunk, slightly less inebriated, retorts scornfully “That’s not Mulcahy, that’s Our Saviour” and his friend snaps “Not a bloody bit like Him, either!” ’ (O’Connell, ‘My Family Connections in Ulysses’, p. 189).
6.740–41: Keys: like Keyes’s ad See note at 7.25.
6.741–42: Habeas corpus
Habeas corpus (Latin): you should have the body; ‘A writ issuing out of a court of justice, or awarded by a judge in vacation, requiring the body of a person to be brought before the judge or into the court for the purpose specified in the writ’ (OED).
6.742: Did I write Ballsbridge
Ballsbridge: an upper-middle-class inner suburb in the south-east of Dublin, built and laid out between 1830 and 1860 (Bennett).
6.746: Silver threads among the grey
From the title of a popular song of the late nineteenth century, ‘Silver Threads among the Gold’ (1874), words by Eben E. Rexford and music by Hart Pease Danks (Bowen, pp. 111–12).
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6.750: when churchyards yawn
From Hamlet’s brief soliloquy after his accusatory play, and before he confronts his mother in her chamber about her infidelity to his father: ‘Tis now the very witching time of night, / When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out / Contagion to this world’ (III.ii.406–08).
6.750: Daniel O’Connell See note at 2.269.
6.751–52: queer breedy man
Breedy: ‘breeding readily; prolific’ (OED). In 1832, a woman named Ellen Courtenay alleged that Daniel O’Connell had raped her in 1818 and was the father of her son; she also claimed that he had sired other illegitimate children with numerous women (Patrick M. Geoghegan, King Dan, pp. 179–82).
6.752: like a big giant in the dark
In the schema for this episode, O’Connell is listed as Hercules.
6.752–53: Will o’ the wisp. Gas of graves
The will-o’-the-wisp, or ignis fatuus; a phosphorescent light hovering above marshes, which seems to move as its observer moves (OED). Corpses gradually discharge gases which, after burial, will accumulate in the coffin and will eventually be absorbed by the soil. ‘The gas abounds to a fearful extent in the soil of all crowded burial-grounds’ (The Gardener’s Magazine, Mar. 1843, p. 96). This gas-infused soil would explain the will-o’-the-wisp phenomenon sometimes associated with graveyards (New Scientist, 19 June 1993).
6.757: Whores in Turkish graveyards
In Ottoman Turkey, ‘Prostitutes did not remain within the walls of brothels, [. . .] for they were highly visible in Ottoman public space. [. . .] They operated in a wide range of public spaces, in bekar odaları (unmarried men’s barracks), janissary barracks, shops or workshops such as tanneries, boathouses [. . .] and even in graveyards, leading to the common phrase “mezarlık orospusu” (whore of a graveyard)’ (Ebru Boyar, ‘An Imagined Moral Community’, p. 212; with thanks to Matthew Goldman).
6.758–59: Love among the tombstones
From the title of Robert Browning’s (English poet, 1812–89) poem ‘Love Among the Ruins’ (1855).
6.759: In the midst of death we are in life See note at 6.334.
6.760: Tantalising for the poor dead See note at 6.1010.
6.761: to grig
To grig (Hiberno-English): to irritate, to annoy, tantalise; from the Irish word griog (OED).
6.768: Major Gamble
Major George Francis Gamble (1837–1912): the registrar and secretary of Mount Jerome Cemetery (Protestant) at Harold’s Cross (Thom’s, p. 1877). He did indeed call the cemetery ‘my garden’ (Weekly Irish Times, 15 July 1893, p. 1, col. c).
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6.770: Mastiansky See note at 4.205.
6.770: Botanic gardens See note at 5.35.
6.771: Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy
In general, a reference to the ‘blood accusation’ or ‘blood libel’, based on the belief that Jews murdered Christian children in order to use their blood in rituals. ‘Ritual murder is a general term referring to any sacrificial killing—of either animal or human victim for some designated reason [. . .] Jewish ritual murder, in particular, refers to Jews killing Christians for some alleged religious reason. The blood libel is a subcategory of Jewish ritual murder. Not only is a Christian killed—usually a small child, typically male—but the child’s blood is supposedly utilized in some ritual context, e.g., to mix with the unleavened bread eaten at Passover. One of the first reported cases of ritual murder allegedly carried out by Jews is that of William of Norwich in 1144’ (Alan Dundes, The Blood Libel Legend, p. vii). The reference might be more specific: in April 1903 in the town of Kishinev (now in Moldova, then a part of the Russian Empire), the city’s Jews were accused of murdering a Christian boy named Mikhail Rybachenko. This led to a violent, days-long anti-Jewish pogrom that attracted international condemnation for its ferocity (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘ “Those Jews they said killed the Christian boy” ’).
6.773–74: By carcass of William Wilkinson . . . lately deceased
Prospect Cemetery lists two William Wilkinsons. One died in 1865 at age 16, and another died in 1899 at 6 months. In Stephen Hero, a Mr Wilkinson figures as a friend of Stephen’s family (pp. 159, 168); he was based on a commercial traveller named Richard Hughes, whose family shared a house with the Joyces in 1899 (Jackson and Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, p. 221).
6.780: Deathmoths
That is, the death’s head moth (Acherontia atropos), a moth with a thorax marked like a skull (OED).
6.784–85: Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little seaside gurls See note at 4.282.
6.788–89: Spurgeon went to heaven at 4 a.m. . . . Not arrived yet. Peter
This passage follows from an article by George William Foote (English secularist and journalist, 1850–1915), where Foote mocks the self-certainty of the recently deceased evangelical preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–92) and his acolytes: ‘Writing seven days after his death, Mrs. Spurgeon said “he has now been a week in heaven”. It is natural that she should think so, and we do not wish to rob her of any consolation, nor do we suppose that this article will ever come under her notice. But is it not just possible that Spurgeon has gone to hell?’ (Flowers of Freethought, p. 31; Clive Hart, JJON). For closing time, see note at 9.1105.
6.792: Gravediggers in Hamlet
In Hamlet, two peasants digging Ophelia’s grave indulge in ironic wordplay about death with Hamlet (V.i). The scene is clearly a source for Bloom’s gallows humour in this chapter.
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6.794: De mortuis nil nisi prius
De mortuis nil nisi prius (Latin): ‘Of the dead, [speak] nothing [bad] unless first’. Combines the proverb de mortuis nil nisi bonum (of the dead, [speak] nothing unless good) with nisi prius (unless first), a legal term for a court held for trials of issues of fact before a jury and a judge (OED).
6.803: We come to bury Caesar
From Mark Antony’s speech in Julius Caesar: ‘I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him’ (III.ii.74).
6.803: His ides of March or June
Again, after Julius Caesar: ‘Beware the ides of March’ (I.ii.18). Caesar was killed at the Capitol on the ides (15th) of March. The date of the ides varies from month to month, and in June it is the 13th (Brewer’s), the day Dignam died.
6.805: who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the macintosh?
Galoot: awkward fellow. Macintosh: raincoat (both OED). Joyce used to tease acquaintances by asking them this very question, ‘Who was the man in the mackintosh?’ (Ellmann, p. 516). Various solutions of varying degrees of credibility and ingenuity have been proposed, some of which interpret him symbolically with others construing him as a realistic character within Joyce’s fictionalised representation of Dublin. For example, he has been claimed to be the character Mr Duffy from the Dubliners story ‘A Painful Case’ (John O. Lyons, ‘The Man in the Macintosh’; John Henry Raleigh, ‘Who Was M‘Intosh?’). Gilbert, in his book on Ulysses, proposed that he was the fugitive prophet Theoclymenos from Odyssey XV.223–300 (pp. 172–73), but to Ellmann he claimed he was a disreputable friend of Joyce’s father, named Wetherup (Ellmann, p. 516 n.; see also note at 7.337). Other suggestions have been: Jesus or Death (William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to James Joyce, p. 161); the poet James Clarence Mangan (Michael H. Begnal, ‘The Mystery Man of Ulysses’); Joyce himself (Lynn DeVore, ‘A Final Note on M‘Intosh’; Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature, pp. 316–20); Bloom’s double (Robert Crosman, ‘Who Was M‘Intosh’); ‘a gigantic perambulating condom avoiding life’s deluge’ (Mary Lowe-Evans, Crimes against Fecundity, p. 58); the ghost of Bloom’s father (John Gordon, ‘The M‘Intosh Murder Mystery’); the Y from the Hely’s sandwichboardmen (JJD, pp. 78–79); a figment of Bloom’s imagination (Andrew Borson, ‘Spectral Grandfather?’); the nadir of human misery (Jonathan Bricke Rowan, ‘Who Is M‘Intosh?’); or just a mystery with no solution, Joyce’s ‘deceitful ploy to keep us guessing’ (Phillip Herring, Joyce’s Uncertainty Principle, p. 117).
6.809–10: Only man buries. No, ants too
‘The transport of dead nestmates from the nest is nevertheless one of the most conspicuous and stereotyped patterns of behaviour exhibited by ants. A full description of the behaviour is given by McCook (1879) in his classical monograph on the harvesting ant, Pogonomyrmex barbatus’ (Bert Hölldobler and Edward Wilson, The Ants, p. 296).
6.811: Robinson Crusoe was true to life. Well then Friday buried him
Daniel Defoe’s (English writer, 1660–1731) Robinson Crusoe (1719): Crusoe is marooned on a tropical island and meets a loyal native he names Friday. Crusoe does not die on the island and thus was not buried by Friday. The novel presents itself as Crusoe’s authentic autobiography; from the Preface (written by Defoe): ‘The Editor believes the thing to be a just History of Fact’ (p. 1). According to Budgen, Joyce called Robinson Crusoe ‘the English Ulysses’ (JJMU, p. 186).
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6.813–14: O, poor Robinson Crusoe! . . . do so?
This is probably after the scene in Robinson Crusoe where Crusoe is startled by a voice that he subsequently identifies as his parrot: ‘Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe, poor Robin Crusoe, where are you Robin Crusoe? Where are you? Where have you been’ (p. 142). Joyce’s immediate source may have been Robinson Crusoe, or Man Friday, the Christmas pantomime at the Gaiety Theatre in 1895, by Wilton Jones and J. M. Lowry (Freeman’s Journal, 26 Dec. 1895, p. 4, col. a). In an earlier English pantomime version of Defoe’s novel—Robinson Crusoe: A Burlesque in One Act by T. W. Robertson—the parrot’s line is rendered as: ‘Poor Robinson Crusoe! / Do my ears then deceive me? they do so!’ (Eugene Scribe and T. H. Robertson, An Evening’s Entertainment, p. 79). The Crusoe/do so rhyme originated in a nursery rhyme: ‘Poor old Robinson Crusoe! / Poor old Robinson Crusoe! / They made him a coat, / Of an old nanny goat, / I wonder how they could do so! / With a ring a ting tang, / And a ring a ting tang, / Poor old Robinson Crusoe!’ (ODNR, pp. 373–74).
6.819: Bit of clay from the holy land
‘From antiquity to the present, some Jews desired to be buried in the land of Israel precisely because of this belief that resurrection would occur there first. In fact, the common Jewish burial practice outside the land of Israel of adding some soil from Israel to the casket also derives from this belief ’ (Michael L. Satlow, Curating Judaism, p. 160).
6.819–20: Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one coffin
Archaeological excavations of ancient Jewish sites in Israel have uncovered instances where a mother and small child (infant or foetus) are buried together in the same coffin. But other coffins have been found that contain more than one body (Rachel Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel, p. 93). According to Anna Maria Hall (Irish writer, 1800–81), the practice of burying a mother with her stillborn child also existed in rural Ireland (Stories of the Irish Peasantry, p. 118).
6.821–22: The Irishman’s house is his coffin
Modification of the proverb ‘an Englishman’s house is his castle’ (ODEP).
6.826: Death’s number
In Christian tradition, this superstition is usually traced to the fact that there were thirteen men at the Last Supper (Jesus and the twelve apostles), with Judas being the evil thirteenth (Opie and Tatem, A Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. thirteen). Mary Colum tells the story that one night at the Joyces’, ‘in the middle of the meal, Thomas McGreevy, now head of the National Gallery of Ireland, telephoned to say he was dropping in later with a friend. Joyce fell into consternation; the addition of two more would bring the number of guests up to thirteen. Those present who did not know him well thought it an elaborate joke when he began driving us all frantic searching for an additional guest and at the same time trying to get one of us to go home. But he was serious’ (Our Friend James Joyce, p. 133).
6.829: when we lived in Lombard street west
Lombard Street West: in the heart of a Jewish area known as ‘Little Jerusalem’ in southern Dublin near the Grand Canal (Cormac Ó Gráda, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce, p. 109). The Blooms were living on Lombard Street West in 1892–93 (17.57–59), although the exact dates of their residence there are unclear (Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, p. 190).
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6.831: turned by Mesias
George Robert Mesias: tailor, 5 Eden Quay (Thom’s, p. 955). ‘It was also fairly common practice to have an old suit turned inside out. By this I mean, the tailor would take the old suit completely apart, remove all the stitches and reassemble the suit with the inside of the fabric now on the outside’ (Andrew Laszlo, Footnote to History, p. 71; with thanks to Jorn Barger).
6.834: gravetrestles
Trestle: ‘A support for something, consisting of a short horizontal beam’ (OED).
6.834: Twenty
Presumably this is Bloom concluding his counting of those present at the graveside: the ‘thirteen’ he counted above (Bloom, ‘M‘Intosh’, Simon Dedalus, Martin Cunningham, Jack Power, Ned Lambert, Tom Kernan, Joe Hynes, John Henry Menton, Corny Kelleher, Dignam’s brother-in-law, Patsy Dignam, and John O’Connell) plus the priest and six gravediggers.
6.837: a donkey brayed. Rain
‘If a donkey brays, it is the sign of rain’ (Cora Linn Daniels and C. M. Stevans, Encyclopædia of Superstitions, vol. 2, p. 573).
6.837–38: No such ass. Never see a dead one, they say
P. W. Joyce lists the following Irish proverb: ‘Three things no person ever saw:—a highlander’s kneebuckle, a dead ass, a tinker’s funeral’ (PWJ, p. 111).
6.851–52: Devil in that picture . . . his shirt
The exact illustration Bloom is describing is unknown, but several proximate examples have been found. For example, a late nineteenth-century Bavarian print titled ‘Death of the Sinner’ (with its title given in several languages) shows a dying man in bed, with a priest and kneeling woman on one side and, at the other, a black devil pointing to another black devil who is holding a cloth upon which is printed a picture of a buxom woman (Harald Beck, JJON).
6.852–53: Last act of Lucia. Shall I nevermore behold thee?
Lucia di Lammermoor (1835): an opera by Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) based on Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Bride of Lammermoor (1819). The line Bloom thinks of is not in the opera, but the sentiment can be found in an aria from the final act. Believing that his lover Lucia is unfaithful, Edgardo sings ‘Fra poco a me ricovero / darà negletto avello’ (Before long I will be sheltered by a neglected grave) (William Pencak, ‘The Operatic Ulysses’, p. 20). The chorus of the song ‘Gentle Annie’ (1856) by Stephen Foster (American songwriter, 1826–64) starts with the line ‘Shall we never more behold thee’ (Stephen Collins Foster, Stephen Foster Song Book, p. 35).
6.855: Even Parnell. Ivy day dying out
Ivy Day: the anniversary of Charles Stewart Parnell’s death on 6 October 1891. On 1 October 1892, in anticipation of the first anniversary of Parnell’s death, a reader signing himself ‘The Right Sort’ wrote to The Waterford News and Star to propose a commemoration: ‘The suggestion I would make is that all “Independent” Irishmen at home and abroad should on that day wear a bit of Ivy for two objects:– First to show by the greeness [sic] of the Ivy that Parnell’s memory is and will for ever be green in our minds, and secondly that as Ivy sticks and clings to old ruins we will also stick, cling to and cherish in our hearts, as long as life is in us, the ideas and principles of our “Murdered Chief ” ’ (p. 6, col. b). Below the letter, the
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6. ‘Hades’ 209 paper’s editors proposed that the anniversary be named ‘Ivy Day’, following the model of Primrose Day, the anniversary of the death of Benjamin Disraeli (see note at 15.1845). Following from this suggestion, the Irish Daily Independent on 4 and 5 October carried an ad encouraging Parnellites to wear the ivy in token of their support. This established a trad ition for the subsequent anniversaries, which remained strong for some years, but started to decline by 1900 (Pauric Travers, ‘ “The Thurible as a Weapon of War” ’, pp. 142–50). See also Joyce’s story ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’ in Dubliners.
6.857: We are praying now for the repose of his soul
Catholic doctrine holds that the sufferings of the dead in Purgatory are shortened by prayers offered on their behalf (EB11, s.v. Purgatory).
6.858–59: Out of the fryingpan of life into the fire of purgatory
After the expression ‘Out of the frying-pan into the fire’, proverbial since at least 1514 (ODEP). Purgatory: ‘(Late Lat. purgatorium, from purgare, to purge), according to Catholic doctrine, a state of suffering after death in which the souls of those who die in venial sin, and of those who still owe some debt of temporal punishment for mortal sin, are rendered fit to enter heaven [. . .] Augustine writes (Dulcitii quaestionibus) that “it is not incredible” that imperfect souls will be “saved by some purgatorial fire”, to which they will be subjected for varying lengths of time according to their needs’ (EB11).
6.861: Someone walking over it
There is an old superstition that when you shiver in the sun (i.e. although it is warm), you are anticipating the moment when someone will walk over your grave (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. shudder).
6.861: Callboy’s warning
Call boy: ‘Theatre. A person, typically a boy or young man, whose job is to assist the prompter, and call the actors when they are required on stage’ (OED).
6.862: towards Finglas See note at 6.507.
6.862: the plot I bought See 17.1865–66.
6.866: By jingo
By jingo: ‘a vigorous form of asseveration’ (OED).
6.870: get shut of them See note at 5.530.
6.874: mourners took heart of grace
To take heart of grace: means to pluck up courage (OED).
6.877: the dismal fields See note at 6.467.
6.878: Hynes jotting down . . . the names
See note at 6.111 for Hynes. It was customary for funeral reports in Irish newspapers to list the names of those in attendance and it was generally considered important to be duly recorded (with thanks to Ed Mulhall).
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6.882: you might put down M‘Coy’s name too
See note at 4.454 for McCoy. McCoy asked Bloom to put his name down among the mourners (5.169). It was not unusual for people to be recorded as present at a funeral even if they were not actually there (with thanks to Terence Killeen).
6.885: job in the morgue under Louis Byrne
Dr Louis A. Byrne (1859–1932): city coroner of Dublin; in 1904 he lived at 79 Harcourt Street (Thom’s, pp. 1822, 1349). The Dublin City Morgue is at 3 Store Street (p. 1599).
6.887: died of a Tuesday
In Hiberno-English, especially in Dublin, of is frequently used in place of on (Dolan). The phrase ‘died of a Tuesday’ comes from an anecdote first published in English newspapers in 1825 and widely reprinted for decades thereafter. The story involves the humorous miscommunication between an Irish widow and an English magistrate unfamiliar with the Hiberno-English idiom. He asks her what her husband ‘died of ’, to which she replied, ‘Die of, your honour; he died of a Tuesday’. Frustrated, the magistrate retorts, ‘I don’t mean what day of the week, but what complaint’ (Harald Beck, JJON). A version of this joke appears in H. P. Kelly’s Irish Bulls and Puns (p. 10); Joyce had a copy of this book in his Trieste library (Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, p. 115; with thanks to Armağan Ekici).
6.887: Got the run
To get the run: to be fired (Partridge).
6.887–88: Levanted with the cash of a few ads To levant: ‘to steal away, to “bolt” ’ (OED).
6.888: Charley, you’re my darling
From ‘Charlie Is My Darling’, a Scottish folk song in honour of Charles Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie, 1720–88, Jacobite pretender to the throne), words by Lady Nairne (1766–1845) (Charles Rogers, Life and Songs of the Baroness Nairne, pp. 203–04). McCoy’s first name is Charles.
6.900: Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell See note at 6.373.
6.900: Become invisible
‘By some coincidence, what the name Hades etymologically means is “invisible”. Joyce knew it, for in what has been called the Zürich notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.a), he jotted down: “Hades a idein / un seen (maker of)” ’ (Fritz Senn, ‘Invisible Strandentwining’, p. 103; Phillip Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts for ‘Ulysses’, p. 27; JJA, vol. 12, p. 156).
6.919: chief ’s grave
The ‘chief ’ is Parnell. He is buried opposite the chapel at Prospect Cemetery. ‘No tombstone has been erected. It is surrounded by iron railings, and almost covered by artificial wreaths and crosses’ (A Pictorial and Descriptive Guide to Dublin and the Wicklow Tours, p. 90). In 1940, Parnell’s grave and that of his mother were finally marked with a massive boulder of unhewn Wicklow granite, inscribed only with the word ‘PARNELL’ (Travers, ‘ “The Thurible as a Weapon of War” ’, p. 141).
6.923: Some say he is not in that grave at all
Since Parnell’s corpse was never displayed at his wake, a multitude of rumours spread to the effect that the coffin had actually been full of stones and that Parnell had not died but had fled
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6. ‘Hades’ 211 Ireland (John Henry Raleigh, ‘On the Way Home to Ithaca’, p. 40). The British journal The Genealogical Magazine notes the existence of these rumours: ‘Even so recent an historic figure as Mr. Parnell has become a sleeping hero of Irish faith. The belief originated in the widespread incredulity concerning his death at Brighton. Those who saw his dead body were so few that his actual decease was questioned. Many of Mr. Parnell’s political disciples and his relatives became strongly possessed of the idea that the report was a strategic move. Some, indeed, have so strengthened themselves in this belief that they declare they have since seen Mr. Parnell alive and in the flesh. Little wonder, therefore, that the fanciful Irish peasant firmly asserts that the death was a ruse, and that when the fitting moment comes Mr. Parnell will emerge from the shadow of his empty grave to give Ireland her independence’ (May 1904, vol. 8, no. 85, p. 125).
6.930: old Ireland’s hearts and hands
The title of a song by Richard F. Harvey (Bowen, pp. 115–16).
6.931: Pray for the repose of the soul of See note at 6.857.
6.933: All souls’ day
All Souls’ Day: ‘The commemoration of all the faithful departed is celebrated by the Church on 2 November, or, if this be a Sunday or a solemnity, on 3 November. [. . .] The theological basis for the feast is the doctrine that the souls which, on departing from the body, are not perfectly cleansed from venial sins, or have not fully atoned for past transgressions, are debarred from the Beatific Vision, and that the faithful on earth can help them by prayers, almsdeeds and especially by the sacrifice of the Mass’ (Catholic Encyclopedia).
6.933–34: Twentyseventh I’ll be at his grave
The date of Rudolph Bloom’s death was 27 June (17.623).
6.939: cork lino
Lino, short for linoleum: a type of floor-cloth, patented by F. Walton in 1860 and 1863, that consists of canvas, oxidised linseed oil, ground cork, and various gummy and resinous matters, and, as needed, pigments (EB11, s.v. floorcloth; OED, s.vv. lino, linoleum).
6.939: I paid five shillings in the pound
Typically, creditors would accept a payment of ‘five shillings in the pound’ (i.e. 25 per cent) of any outstanding debts from those who have declared bankruptcy (Ellis James Davis, Whose Fault?, p. 113).
6.940: Irish stew
‘Irish stew is a celebrated Irish dish, yet its composition is a matter of dispute. Purists maintain that the only acceptable and traditional ingredients are neck mutton chops or kid, potatoes, onions, and water. Others would add such items as carrots, turnips, and pearl barley; but the purists maintain that they spoil the true flavour of the dish. The ingredients are simmered slowly for up to two hours [. . .] It seems that Irish stew was recognized as a national dish as early as about 1800’ (Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, pp. 418–19).
6.940–41: Eulogy in a country churchyard . . . Campbell
After Thomas Gray’s (1716–71) poem ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ (1751). ‘Mistaking “elegy” for “eulogy” in the title of Gray’s celebrated poem [. . .] seems to have been a source of amusement from at least 1870’ (Harald Beck, JJON). Bloom’s erroneous
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212 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses guesses for the authorship are William Wordsworth (1770–1850) and Thomas Campbell (1777–1844), a Scottish poet.
6.942: Old Dr Murren’s Dr Murren is unknown.
6.943: God’s acre
God’s acre: a graveyard (OED).
6.945: Church Times
A weekly Anglo-Catholic magazine established in London in 1863, which ran until 1900. It carried personal ads (Waterloo Directory). Anglo-Catholicism was a movement founded in 1833 that advocated for the ‘revival of Catholic doctrine and observance in the Church of England’ (OED).
6.948: Immortelles
Immortelles (French): immortals; the name of ‘various flowers of composite texture which retain their texture after being dried’ (OED).
6.950: alderman Hooper
John Hooper (1846–97): an alderman of the Cork Corporation, for the south ward (1883–90) and an MP for Cork County South East 1885–89. Before entering politics, he worked for the Freeman’s Journal (DIB). ‘At the height of the agrarian militancy of the Plan of Campaign, John Hooper was detained along with several sitting nationalists’ (D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 286 n. 55).
6.951: catapults
Catapults: slingshots made from a forked stick and an elastic band (OED).
6.953: broken chainies
Tautological since chainies means ‘pieces of broken china’ (OED, s.v. China).
6.954: The Sacred Heart that is: showing it
The Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–90; canonised in 1920), the Beloved Disciple of the Sacred Heart, saw visions of Jesus taking his heart and placing it in hers. Her devotion helped establish the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart and the Litany of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic devotion (Catholic Encyclopedia).
6.954: Heart on his sleeve
In representations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Jesus’s heart is shown on the outside of his body, on his chest. To have one’s heart on one’s sleeve is proverbial for having the secrets of one’s heart on display for general show (Brewer’s).
6.957–59: Would birds come then and peck . . . Apollo that was
According to legend, Zeuxis (fifth century bc) painted grapes so realistically that birds tried to eat them (EB11, s.v. Zeuxis). This also suggests an old Italian tongue-twister: ‘Apelle, figlio di Apollo, / Fece una palla di pelle di pollo, / E tutti i pesci vennero a galla / Per mangiare la palla di pelle di pollo / Fatta da Apelle, figlio di Apollo’ (Apelle, the son of Apollo, made a ball of chicken skin and all the fish came to the surface to eat the ball of chicken skin, made by Apelle, the son of Apollo). Joyce referred to this tongue-twister in a letter to his daughter Lucia dated 15 September 1935 (Letters, vol. 1, p. 383) (with thanks to Fritz Senn).
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6. ‘Hades’ 213
6.960: How many!
Echoes Dante’s Inferno, ‘And I looked and saw a whirling banner which ran so fast that it seemed as if it could never make a stand, and behind it came so long a train of people that I should never have believed death had undone so many’ (III.53–57).
6.960–61: Faithful departed
This common phrase—meaning deceased Catholics of good faith (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Faithful)—is found on tombstones, in the Requiem Mass, in liturgies of the dead, and in meditations on the Stations of the Holy Cross (Patrick Moran, Catholic Prayer Book, p. 347 et passim).
6.961: As you are now so once were we
This is a conventional formula in epitaphs, common in Ireland and elsewhere. For example, from the tombstone of a man and wife, who died in 1803 in East Portlemouth, Devon: ‘As you are now so once were we / As we are now so will you be’ (Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 1897, p. 214)
6.974: old stager
Old stager: ‘a veteran, an old hand. Also occasionally of animals’ (OED).
6.977–78: Robert Emery. Robert Emmet
There is no Robert Emery buried at Glasnevin. Robert Emmet (1778–1803): United Irishman who, inspired by the successful revolutions in America and France, led a group of rebels against Dublin Castle in the summer of 1803 to continue the work of the failed rebellions of 1798. The plot to seize the Castle failed, and Emmet was captured and executed. The location of his final resting place has never been established. ‘Despite the abject failure of his rebellion, Robert Emmet quickly gained a place in the pantheon of Irish nationalist heroes’ (DIB). See also note at 10.769–70.
6.982: what’s cheese? Corpse of milk
While there is a great variety of cheeses, cheese, at its most basic, is milk plus bacteria (Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 163) and thus could be said to be milk gone bad just as a corpse is, as Bloom thinks, ‘meat gone bad’.
6.983: Voyages in China . . . Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse
Voyages in China is a book on Bloom’s bookshelf. According to Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China during the years 1844–1846, a possible model for this book, ‘The Chinese say they perceive also a peculiar odour in a European’ (quoted in Susan Bazargan, ‘Searching for Voyages in China by Viator’); see note at 17.1379.
6.984: Cremation better. Priests dead against it
Christianity traditionally discouraged cremation, which was associated with pagan beliefs, but cremation was not officially opposed by the Catholic Church until the late nineteenth century (Catholic Encyclopedia). Beginning in 1963 it was permitted, subject to certain conditions.
6.984: Devilling for the other firm
Bloom’s joke depends on the definition of to devil: ‘To carry out research or other professional work in the name of someone else, esp. a lawyer or author, who receives the credit or remuneration or both’ (OED).
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214 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
6.985: Dutch oven
Dutch oven: ‘a large pot heated by surrounding it with fuel, and placing hot coals on the lid; a cooking utensil made of sheet-metal, placed in front of a grate and heated by radiation and by reflection from the back of the chamber’ (OED, s.v. Dutch).
6.985–86: Time of the plague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them
Major outbreaks of the bubonic plague struck Europe in the 1340s and London in 1664–65, and localised outbreaks of lesser severity struck in other years. During the outbreak of the 1660s, quicklime was poured over the mass graves in order to prevent further contagion (A. Lloyd Moote and Dorothy C. Moote, The Great Plague, p. 141).
6.986: Ashes to ashes
From the Burial of the Dead in the Book of Common Prayer: ‘we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ (p. 331).
6.987: Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds
The Parsees (or Parsis): a religious sect in India which follows the Zoroastrian faith. They traditionally dispose of corpses by placing them atop circular towers where they fall prey to vultures that devour them. The name for a Parsee tower for the dead is a ‘tower of silence’ (OED, s.v. silence). Frederick Diodati Thompson’s book In the Track of the Sun— which Bloom owns (see note at 17.1395)—has a picture of a Tower of Silence in Bombay (p. 156).
6.988: Drowning they say is the pleasantest See note at 3.482.
6.989–90: Can’t bury in the air. Out of a flying machine
In their 15 January 1919 issue, the journal The Aeroplane published a letter entitled ‘Sky Burial for Pilots’ by Mrs Alec-Tweedie, which proposed that airmen be ‘buried’ in the air just as sailors are buried at sea. In order to accomplish this, the dead airmen would be cremated first and their ashes scattered to the wind from a plane. The editors of the journal did not take her suggestion too seriously (vol. 16, no. 2, p. 307). Joyce added this passage on a galley proof dated 11 August 1921 (JJA, vol. 17, p. 253). While this proposal was not utterly implausible when Joyce wrote this line, it would have been highly unlikely in June 1904, less than one year after the Wright brothers’ first flight (with thanks to Harald Beck).
6.993: Saltwhite
Earlier, Stephen used this adjective twice to describe the drowned man (1.677, 3.472).
6.995: The gates glimmered in front
Suggests Aeneas’s exit from Hades in The Aeneid: ‘There are two gates of Sleep: the one is said / to be of horn, through it an easy exit / is given to true Shades; the other is made / of polished ivory, perfect, glittering, / but through that way the Spirits send false dreams / into the world above’ (VI.893–96). Aeneas leaves through the ivory gate.
6.997: Mrs Sinico’s funeral
Mrs Sinico’s life and death (quasi-suicidal, hit by a train) is told in ‘A Painful Case’ in Dubliners. See notes at 17.947–48 and 17.1453–54 for the date of the funeral.
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6. ‘Hades’ 215
6.997: The love that kills
From the novel The Love that Kills (1867) by G. W. Wills (Irish writer and painter, 1828–91), which takes place in the background of the potato famine (Andrew Bennett, Suicide Century, p. 87).
6.1002: I do not like that other world she wrote From Martha Clifford’s letter (5.245).
6.1004: this innings
Innings: ‘The time during which a person, party, principle, etc. is in possession or in power; a term of, or opportunity for, activity of any kind; a turn’ (OED).
6.1008–09: Mat Dillon’s long ago
Bloom first met Molly at Mat Dillon’s; see also note at 6.697.
6.1010: Tantalus glasses
Tantalus: ‘A stand containing usually three cut-glass decanters which, though apparently free, cannot be withdrawn until the grooved bar which engages the stoppers is raised’ (OED); thus, Tantalus glasses would be the cut-glass drinking glasses sometimes included with such sets, which were common features in Victorian middle-class drawing rooms. The name comes from Homer’s Tantalus, who was cursed with thirst and surrounded by water which receded each time he tried to drink from it (Odyssey, XI.582–87).
6.1010: Got his rag out
To get one’s rag out: to grow angry (Partridge).
6.1011–12: I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of mine: the bias
In lawn bowling, a player wins by being closest to the targeted ball, the ‘jack’. The ball (bowl) is made with an uneven weight which allows it to travel in an arc, so that one can ‘sail inside’ one’s opponent’s bowl and land nearer the jack. ‘Bias’ refers to the ball’s oblique line of motion (OED).
6.1013: Floey Dillon
Floey Dillon: one of Mat Dillon’s six daughters; see note at 13.1106–07.
6.1015: dinge
Dinge: ‘A broadish dint or depression on a surface caused by a knock or blow’ (OED).
6.1019: Menton
Joyce lists Menton as Ajax in his schema. Ajax, who had fought with Odysseus over Achilles’s armour, snubs Odysseus in the underworld (Odyssey, XI.543–67).
6.1027: chapfallen
Chapfallen: ‘with the chap or lower jaw hanging down, as an effect of extreme exhaustion or debility, of a wound received, or esp. of death’ (OED). Hamlet uses this word in his observations on Yorick’s skull: ‘Where be your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen?’ (V.i.185–88).
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7. ‘Aeolus’
a
d b
c
Map 7 Abbey Street and Prince’s Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = offices of the Freeman’s Journal and Evening Telegraph (4–8 North Prince’s Street); b = The Oval (78 Middle Abbey Street); c = J. Dillon (25 Bachelor’s Walk); d = J. G. Mooney and Co. (1 Lower Abbey Street)
Time: 12–1 pm Location: the offices of The Freeman’s Journal, 4–8 North Prince’s Street Organ: Lungs Art: Rhetoric Colour: red Symbol: Editor Technic: Enthymemic Correspondences: Aeolus: Crawford; Incest: Journalism; Floating Island: Press Serialised: The Little Review 5.6 (October 1918) The ‘headlines’ (or ‘headings’) were absent from this episode when it was first published in The Little Review in 1918. Joyce inserted them into the text in 1921 as part of a fundamental reworking of the episode at the first stage of the galley proofs. On subsequent proofs, Joyce added more headlines. There are a total of sixty-three headlines, more than half of which are from the first tranche of additions (see Michael Groden, ‘Ulysses’ in Progress, pp. 101–14). On the proofs, the headlines were all entered by Joyce in red ink. He was clear that the headlines were to be set in large and bold type. The only comments he made to the printer about their size were to request even larger (JJA, vol. 18, p. 46) and darker (JJA, vol. 23, p. 37) type. See also note at 7.32. Besides the headlines, because the Art of this episode is Rhetoric, this episode is filled with figures of speech. With its abundance of rhetorical figures, ‘Aeolus’ could be read as a manual of rhetoric. Gilbert provides a brief sample list of some of rhetorical figures used in the episode (pp. 194–98). Different manuals of rhetoric provide different (and sometimes
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 217 radically different) definitions of the figures of speech. This is why we have refrained from identifying these figures of speech, with just a few exceptions. A few examples: ‘IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS’ (7.1–2) is an example of a metaphor: ‘A figure of speech in which a name or descriptive word or phrase is transferred to an object or action different from, but analogous to, that to which it is literally applicable’ (OED). ‘THE CROZIER AND THE PEN’ (7.61) is an example of metonymy: ‘the action of substituting for a word or phrase denoting an object, action, institution, etc., a word or phrase denoting a property or something associated with it’ (OED), in this case the crozier stands in for an archbishop and the pen stands in for an editor. Typically, after the customary post-funeral drink at Dunphy’s (see note at 6.416), the funeral coaches would return the mourners to the centre of town (JJD, p. 39). This is probably how Bloom so quickly gets to the offices of the Freeman’s Journal, at 4–8 North Prince’s Street, just off Sackville (O’Connell) Street (see note at 7.27). Practically all the buildings between Prince’s and Middle Abbey Street—including the offices of the Freeman’s Journal and the Evening Telegraph—were destroyed by British incendiary bombs during the fighting in the Easter Rising of 1916 (Harald Beck, ‘ “Aeolus”—A Sightseeing Tour’, p. 132). During the episode, Bloom leaves the offices of the Freeman’s Journal to go to Dillon’s auction rooms on Bachelor’s Walk (see notes at 7.412 and 7.430) via William’s Row (see note at 7.963) (map 7). Joyce visited the offices of the Freeman’s Journal and Evening Telegraph several times towards the end of his 1909 visit to Dublin (Ellmann, p. 288).
7.3: Nelson’s pillar See note at 6.293.
7.3: trams
Nelson’s Pillar (see note at 6.293) was the central terminus for many tramlines in Dublin’s extensive network. Electrification of the system began in the late 1890s and was completed by January 1901 (Michael Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, pp. 38–39). After years of decline, the tram network ceased operation in 1949 (pp. 130–31).
7.4: Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey
Three coastal Dublin suburbs, south of the city and all serviced by the same tramline. Blackrock is 8 km south-east of central Dublin, Kingstown (where the pier stands) is 9.7 km, and Dalkey (where Stephen taught school) is 13 km. The Dalkey line, via Blackrock and Kingstown, which originated at the south side of Nelson’s Pillar, was the busiest tramline (Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, pp. 62, 68, 71; S. A. O. Fitzpatrick, Dublin, pp. 346–47).
7.4: Clonskea
Clonskea (also spelled Clonskeagh): a village 4.8 km south-south-east of central Dublin, on the River Dodder. It was the terminal stop for one of the tramlines that originated at the south side of Nelson’s Pillar (Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 62; Fitzpatrick, Dublin, p. 346).
7.4: Rathgar and Terenure
Rathgar is 4.5 km south of central Dublin, between Rathmines, to its north-east, and Terenure (formerly Roundtown), to its south-west. Rathgar and Terenure were serviced by the same line. The Terenure line was billed as going via Rathmines, although it serviced
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218 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses both Rathmines and Rathgar. It originated at the south side of Nelson’s Pillar (Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 62; Fitzpatrick, Dublin, p. 348).
7.5: Palmerston park and upper Rathmines
Rathmines is an inner suburb 3.2 km south of Nelson’s Pillar. Palmerston Park (not to be confused with the town of the same name 8 km west of Dublin centre) is a street and, unsurprisingly, a park in Upper Rathmines. Palmerston Park was the terminal stop for a tramline that originated at the south side of Nelson’s Pillar (Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 70; Fitzpatrick, Dublin, p. 348–49).
7.5: Sandymount Green
Sandymount Green is near the beach where Stephen walked in ‘Proteus’ and where Bloom will walk in ‘Nausicaa’. Sandymount Green is the terminal stop of one of two Sandymount lines, both of which originated at the south side of Nelson’s Pillar (Fitzpatrick, Dublin, p. 349).
7.5: Rathmines
The Terenure line (see note at 7.4) branches off at the foot of Rathgar Road in Rathmines: one branch terminates in Terenure, and the other goes through Upper Rathmines to the Dodder near Milltown, a suburb 3.5 km south of the city centre (Fitzpatrick, Dublin, p. 348). This branch opened on 27 January 1905 (Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 69).
7.6: Ringsend and Sandymount tower
Ringsend lies on the southern side of the mouth of the Liffey; the Martello tower in Sandymount is about 800 metres from Sandymount Green on Strand Road, Sandymount (Thom’s, p. 1784); this is not the Martello tower in Sandycove (see note at 1.542). The second Sandymount line that originated at the south side of Nelson’s Pillar went to the Sandymount Tower via Ringsend (Fitzpatrick, Dublin, p. 349).
7.6: Harold’s Cross
A neighbourhood 3.6 km south-west of the General Post Office, on the Grand Canal. This line did not originate at Nelson’s Pillar: it went from Drumcondra (in the north) to Harold’s Cross (and thence to Rathfarnham). It stopped at Sackville Street, near Nelson’s Pillar (Fitzpatrick, Dublin, p. 347).
7.6–7: Dublin United Tramway Company’s
Dublin United Tramways Company: 9 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1859); established in 1881 (Bennett). Joyce rendered ‘Tramways’ as ‘Tramway’, which was ‘a common colloquialism’ (Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 69).
7.7: timekeeper
Trams ‘were sent off from the Pillar by a timekeeper or dispatcher [. . .] [He] ordered departures by calling out destinations rather than motorman’s names or car fleet numbers.’ In 1904, the timekeeper was Richard Delaney, who was known as ‘the Captain’. He was renowned for his prodigious memory and is reputed to have never needed to consult a timetable (Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 68).
7.15: general post office
The General Post Office: on Sackville (O’Connell) Street between North Prince’s Street and Henry Street. Nelson’s Pillar stood in Sackville Street in front of the GPO. A grand and
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 219 imposing building with Ionic columns and pilasters in the Graeco-Roman style, it was built between 1814 and 1818. Much of it was destroyed during the Easter Week rising of 1916, when it served as the rebels’ base; it was restored by 1924 (Bennett).
7.16: vermilion mailcars
Vermilion: bright red or scarlet (OED). Post delivery vehicles are of this colour in the United Kingdom.
7.17: E. R.
Initials of ‘Edward Rex’: King Edward VII (1841–1910, r. 1901–10). British postal delivery vehicles and postboxes all bear the initials and cypher of the reigning monarch.
7.21: draymen
Dray: a low cart without sides used by brewers (OED); therefore, draymen: operators of such carts.
7.21–22: Prince’s stores
A lavish pub next door to the offices of the Freeman’s Journal at 3 North Prince’s Street. The Freeman’s Journal had its offices at 4–8 North Prince’s Street (Thom’s, p. 1573). The dull- thudding barrels would have come up from the ‘very commodious and dry [cellarage], extending under arched vaults beneath Prince’s street’ (Freeman’s Journal, 4 June 1891, p. 8, cols a–b; Harald Beck, JJON).
7.22: float
Float: ‘a low-bodied, crank axled cart, used for carrying heavy articles, live stock, etc’ (OED).
7.25: Red Murray
Joyce’s maternal uncle, John Murray (1856–1910), was nicknamed ‘Red’. He worked in the accounts department of the Freeman’s Journal (Ellmann, p. 19). John Murray is also the basis of Stephen’s uncle John (see note at 3.66–67).
7.25: Alexander Keyes
Alexander Keyes (1853–1931): a grocer and publican in Dublin, with various addresses over the years. The Trades Directory in Thom’s lists his shop’s address as 5–6 Ballsbridge (Thom’s, p. 2066). ‘By 1904 this address may have nevertheless been out of date, since Keyes is not to be found in either the street list or the alphabetical list for 1904. In 1905 he turns up again, at 31 Highfield Road, Rathgar’ (JJD, p. 114). Thom’s ‘County Dublin Directory’ lists the proprietor of 5–6 Ballsbridge as ‘Fagan Bros. Grocers, wine and spirit merchants’ (p. 1635). Keyes, it so happens, served on the jury for Childs’s murder trial (see note at 6.469).
7.27: Telegraph office
The Evening Telegraph was owned by the same company as the Freeman’s Journal: Freeman’s Journal, Ltd. Its offices were at 83 Middle Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1409). This was in the same building complex as the offices of the Freeman’s Journal on North Prince’s Street, but the entrance to the Telegraph’s offices were on the Abbey Street side (Beck, ‘ “Aeolus”—A Sightseeing Tour’, pp. 136, 139).
7.28: Ruttledge’s office
Wilson Ormsby Ruttledge (1853–1918): business manager of the Freeman’s Journal (Igoe, p. 267).
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220 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.28–30: Davy Stephens . . . king’s courier
Davy Stephens (1845–1925), a renowned local character, ran a newsstand near the Kingstown mailboat for nearly 50 years. He sold papers to Edward VII on his arrival in Ireland in 1903. In his autobiography, he claimed that he also sold papers to ‘monarchs, princes, potentates, viceroys, all grades of the aristocracy, Lord Chancellors, Prime Ministers, Commanders-in-Chief, Cardinals, Archbishops [. . .] artists, authors, jockeys, prizefighters, aeronauts, tight and slack rope-walkers, and dancers [. . .] and “long” and “short drop” hangmen’ (quoted in Cyril Pearl, Dublin in Bloomtime, p. 49). ‘With his long locks and weather-beaten complexion and his sou’wester, Davy is a familiar figure to every traveller by the Kingstown and Holyhead Mail route’ (The Penny Illustrated Paper, 10 June 1905, vol. 88, no. 2298, p. 366). Sou’wester: ‘A large waterproof hat or cap, originally made of oilskin, with a broad rim’ (OED). He lived at 27 Upper George’s Street, in Kingstown (Thom’s, p. 1723).
7.32: Scissors and paste
Scissors and paste: ‘Involving or involved in the taking of (esp. written) material from one source to use in another’ (OED). Scissors and Paste was the name of one of the newspapers run by Arthur Griffith (see note at 3.227) from 1914 to 1915, after Sinn Féin and its successor Eire-Ireland had been suppressed by British authorities. This journal may have been a model or inspiration for the ‘headlines’ in ‘Aeolus’. Padraic Colum describes it: ‘In this sheet the headlines of British, Irish, American and Continental newspapers were combined and juxtaposed in a way that gave comment on the course of events that was far from being the official line. It was a witty way of circumventing the censorship and the public relished it’ (quoted in Francis Phelan, ‘A Source for the Headlines of “Aeolus”?’, p. 146). Joyce added this reference to ‘Scissors and paste’ on the same round of galley proofs to which he first added the headlines of this episode (JJA, vol. 18, p. 3; see also the headnote for ‘Aeolus’).
7.33: I’ll go through the printingworks
Bloom and Murray are discussing Keyes’s ad in the public office of the Freeman’s Journal, which Bloom leaves through a counter flap and a side door towards the print shop (Beck, ‘ “Aeolus”—A Sightseeing Tour’, p. 135).
7.34: par
Par: journalistic truncation of ‘paragraph’ (OED).
7.38: WILLIAM BRAYDEN, ESQUIRE, OF OAKLANDS
William Henry Brayden (1865–1933): barrister and editor of the Freeman’s Journal from 1892 to 1916. He was born in Armagh to a Protestant family, but he converted to Catholicism in the early 1880s. ‘Despite the remarkable achievement of becoming editor so young, it was Brayden’s unhappy lot to preside over the Freeman during a period of relentless decline in its fortunes and prestige’ (DIB). He lived at Oaklands, Serpentine Avenue, Sandymount (Thom’s, p. 1815). The form ‘William Brayden, esquire, of Oaklands’ follows the Scottish custom, as opposed to the English, which would be ‘William Brayden of Oaklands, esquire’ (OED, s.v. esquire), presumably because Brayden was from Armagh, which has a high concentration of Scottish Presbyterians. While it does not seem that he was of Scottish ancestry, he was born in Scotch Street, Armagh (Eric Villiers, ‘Connecting with Ulysses’, p. 8).
7.52–53: Mary, Martha See note at 5.289.
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 221
7.53: Mario the tenor
Giovanni Matteo Mario, Cavaliere de Candia (1810–83): internationally famous Italian tenor. He frequently played Lionel in von Flotow’s Martha (see following note), but it was not one of his signature roles (Grove). The picture of Mario on the cover of the score of the English translation of Martha has him looking very Christlike (Ulrich Schneider, Die Funktion der Zitate im ‘Ulysses’, p. 107).
7.58: Martha
Martha, oder der Markt von Richmond (Martha, or the Richmond Fair): a light romantic opera (1847) with music by Friedrich von Flotow (1812–83) and libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm von Riese. The male protagonist (and Martha’s beleaguered lover) is named Lionel (Bowen, p. 117). The opera was written in German and was translated into English (and other languages, such as Italian); see also note at 11.587.
7.59–60: Co-ome thou lost one . . . dear one!
From Lionel’s aria M’appari (in the German original, ‘Ach! So fromm, ach so traut’) in Martha, where he is singing to his lost love. ‘Come’ is hyphenated to show that the word is ‘sung to more than one note’ (Zack Bowen, ‘Music as Comedy in Ulysses’, p. 33).
7.62: His grace phoned down twice
His grace: Archbishop William Walsh of Dublin (see note at 5.325). Walsh had a contentious relationship with the Freeman’s Journal. In the aftermath of the ‘Parnell split’ in the Irish Parliamentary Party, the anti-Parnellite newspaper the National Press merged with the larger, Parnellite Freeman’s Journal. Thomas Sexton (1847–1932), originally a member of the board of the National Press, became the chairman of the merged company, which osten sibly became the organ of the anti-Parnellite nationalists. However, the anti-Parnellites were themselves fractious, and Sexton, as chairman of the Freeman’s Journal, was at the centre of these squabbles. Walsh, a forceful voice on the anti-Parnellite side (see note at 16.1306), often feuded with Sexton (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 83–84; Thomas Morrissey, William J. Walsh, pp. 199–209).
7.75: Nannetti’s
Joseph Patrick Nannetti (1851–1915): the foreman printer of the Freeman’s Journal; born in Ireland of Italian descent. From 1900 to 1906, he was a Dublin city councillor for the Rotunda Ward and an MP for the College Green Division from 1900 until his death. In 1904, he lived at 19 Hardwicke Street (Thom’s, p. 416f). He was Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1906 to 1908 (DIB). Nannetti was not in Dublin on 16 June 1904; see note at 12.850.
7.76: Hynes
See note at 6.111.
7.83: that old grey rat
The ‘obese grey rat’ that Bloom saw near the end of ‘Hades’ (6.973).
7.87–88: Member for College green See note at 7.75.
7.88: workaday worker
The Saturday edition of the Evening Telegraph ran a regular column titled ‘The Work-a-Day World’ signed by ‘a Work-a-Day Worker’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
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222 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.89–90: stale news in the official gazette
The Dublin Gazette was the official organ of the British government in Ireland. Since 1851, it had been published by Alexander Thom & Co. ‘under the Authority of His Majesty’s Stationery Office’. It was published twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and thus would not always contain the latest news. It contained official announcements as well as bankruptcy notices (Séan Murphy, ‘300 Years of Irish Gazetteering’, p. 12). Their offices were at 87–89 Middle Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 845).
7.90: Queen Anne is dead
Queen Anne is dead: a cliché for any news reported long after it was already common knowledge (Partridge).
7.91–92: Demesne situate in the townland of Rosenallis, barony of Tinnahinch
Demesne: legal term for an estate held by its owner (not rented). Situate: legalistic way of saying situated (OED). Townland: ‘The smallest and most enduring land division of the county (which it preceded) [. . .] There are over 60,000 townlands in Ireland’ (Joseph Byrne, Dictionary of Local Irish History, p. 310). Barony: a land division consisting of several townships (p. 32). Rosenallis: a town just off the eastern end of the Slieve Bloom Mountains in County Laois, about 80 km west- south-west of Dublin. Tinnahinch: a barony within County Laois.
7.93: jennets exported from Ballina
Jennet: a female donkey (Betsy Hutchins and Paul Hutchins, The Definitive Donkey, p. 5), although formerly the term could also refer to the offspring of a stallion and a female donkey, which is also called a hinny (Galveston Daily News, 12 May 1895, p. 2, col. d). Ballina: a port in County Mayo, on the west coast. Because of the boggy terrain in Ballina, ‘donkeys, rather than horses, are employed for the carrying of turf or any other marketable produce’ (The English Household Magazine, Aug. 1883, vol. 4, no. 8, p. 268).
7.94: Nature notes
The full name of the Weekly Freeman was the Weekly Freeman and Irish Agriculturalist; it contained ‘a full page of agricultural news, comment, and instructions’ (Patrick F. Tally, The Growth of the Dublin Weekly Press, p. 520).
7.94: Cartoons
The Weekly Freeman included distinctive cartoons, distributed as free supplements; these ‘addressed political themes with great immediacy, though not always humorously’ (Felix M. Larkin, ‘ “Green Shoots” of the New Journalism’, p. 44).
7.94: Phil Blake’s weekly Pat and Bull story
Phil Blake (1869–1918) drew satirical political cartoons for the Weekly Freeman from 1898 to 1905 (Igoe, p. 30). ‘Pat and Bull’ is not the actual title of any of his cartoons, rather it is a commentary on their content: Pat (or Paddy), the stereotypical Irishman versus John Bull, the stereotypical Englishman (see note at 16.1774–75). The phrase ‘Pat and Bull story’ also alludes to the ‘cock and bull story’, a phrase which is referenced in the final line of Lawrence Sterne’s (Anglo-Irish novelist, 1713–68) Tristram Shandy (p. 457). On 8 January 1901, Blake sang ‘Save Me Not’ at the Antient Concert Rooms on the same bill as Joyce, who played the villain in Mary Sheehy’s play Cupid’s Confidante (Ellmann, p. 93).
7.94–95: Uncle Toby’s page for tiny tots
The Weekly Freeman ran a popular column for children called ‘Uncle Remus to his Nieces and Nephews’, which contained quizzes, stories, and other diversions. The column’s first
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 223 author was the poet Rose Kavanagh; after her death in 1891, it was continued by Hester Sigerson (Heidi Hansson, ‘The Book of Gilly’, p. 51). The name Remus comes from the fictional narrator of Joel Chandler Harris’s (1848–1908) collection of African-American folktales, first published in 1880. Prior to being taken up by the Weekly Freeman, ‘Uncle Remus’ was a popular name for children’s columns in American newspapers. The change of name here is possibly in reference to Uncle Toby, a prominent character in Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.
7.95: Country bumpkin’s queries
The Weekly Freeman ran a section entitled ‘Our Letter Box’, which offered advice to puzzled readers.
7.97: M.A.P.
Acronym for Mainly About People, a penny weekly gossip magazine edited by Thomas Power O’Connor (see note at 7.687) that ran from 1898 to 1911 (Waterloo Directory).
7.98–100: Double marriage of sisters . . . Cuprani too, printer
Menotti Vincent (Tony) Caprani (c.1869–1932): a member of the printer’s union of the Freeman’s Journal in the early 1900s. He and his brother, second-generation Italian emigrants, married sisters named O’Connor in a double wedding (Vincent Caprani, ‘The Grandfather Knew Him’, p. 87). Joyce misspelt his name when he added the name to the typescript (JJA, vol. 12, p. 287).
7.100: More Irish than the Irish
After the well-worn Latin phrase Hiberniores ipsis Hibernis, which was coined in the eighteenth century (Art Cosgrove, ‘Hiberniores ipsis Hibernis’, pp. 1–6). The concept, but not the phrase itself, is earlier and comes from John Lynch’s (Irish historian and priest, c.1599–1677) work Cambrensis Eversus. As opposed to Giraldus Cambrensis’s (see note at 12.1251) valorisation of the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman invaders (see notes at 2.393 and 14.581), Lynch argued that the descendants of the Anglo-Normans thoroughly assimilated into Irish life: ‘the English, who hoped to make a conquest of the Irish, were by them perfectly and absolutely conquered [. . .] For the English not only forgot the English language, but scorned the use thereof, and became mere Irish [meri Hiberni evaserint] in language, surnames, dress, and in all their manners’ (vol. 1, p. 233). Joyce uses this phrase in his essay ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’: ‘It was the Protestants, who had now become Hibernicis ipsis Hibernior, more Irish than the Irish themselves, that were inciting the Irish Catholics to oppose the Calvinist and Lutheran fanatics from across the water’ (OCPW, p. 115).
7.101: threefour time
Waltz time (Grove, s.v. Valse à deux temps).
7.104: Monkeydoodle
Monkey-doodle: ‘Foolish, meddling, mischievous’ (OED).
7.106: Soon be calling him my lord mayor
This prediction came true: Nannetti was elected Lord Mayor in 1906–07 and again in 1907–08 (DIB).
7.106: Long John
Long John Fanning: the sub-sheriff of Dublin, described in ‘Grace’ in Dubliners as ‘the registration agent and mayor maker of the city’ (p. 172). In Ireland, the sheriff is the
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224 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses ‘senior law officer of a county [and is] responsible for carrying out the directions of the central administration. He received and implemented royal writs, collected and accounted for crown revenue at the exchequer and presided over the assizes. Most of the work was actually done by a sub-sheriff ’ (Joseph Byrne, Dictionary of Irish Local History, p. 284). The sub-sheriff in 1904 was John Clancy (Thom’s, pp. 1347, 1831). Clancy (1845–1915) was a neighbour of the Joyces when they lived at 13 North Richmond Street, from late 1894 to 1898 (Ellmann, p. 43). Stanislaus Joyce wrote of John Clancy: ‘There is one [of his father’s friends], too, Mr. John Clancy, Sub-Sheriff, whom I also dislike very thoroughly. He is regarded with mild awe, chiefly I fancy because of his height [. . .] He has the appearance, the walk, the bossing manner, and the intellect of a policeman [. . .] Pappie boasts when he is drunk “O! John Clancy has a wish for me! He’d do a fellow a good turn!” but I think his real idea about him is something like mine’ (Complete Dublin Diary, p. 78).
7.113–14: If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch
Gilbert calls this sentence an example of an enthymeme (p. 194), which is also the technic Joyce gave for this episode as a whole (p. 177). Enthymeme: ‘A deductive argument having a proposition that is not explicitly stated; esp. a syllogism with an unstated premise [. . .] The argument, All cats are mammals; therefore all lions are mammals, is an enthymeme because the minor premise, All lions are cats, is left unstated’ (OED). In the Rhetoric, Aristotle calls the enthymeme ‘the substance of rhetorical persuasion’ (1354a 14–15). More specifically, according to Aristotle’s definition, an enthymeme is a type of logical inference which has more than one premise (one of which may be implied rather than explicitly stated) and which is applied in contexts where conclusive proof is absent. As such, the enthymeme is a more ‘relaxed’ form of the syllogism in logic, where the premises are certain (M. F. Burnyeat, ‘Enthymeme’, pp. 96–99). Definitions that postdate Aristotle are looser and emphasise a performative dimension between speaker and audience. ‘The persuasive speaker asks his listeners to provide various parts of his syllogism. As they provide them, the audience constructs the proofs by which it is persuaded’ (Phillip Tomkins, ‘James Joyce and the Enthymeme’, p. 201). In this instance, Bloom is trying to persuade Hynes to return the money he had previously lent him. By saying ‘if you want to draw money’ (the initial premise), Bloom is trying to get Hynes to acknowledge the unstated and implied minor premise, in order to repay me. The logical consequence of these two premises is that you should go to the cashier now. Of course, Hynes would like to avoid repaying Bloom and so the perform ance fails to persuade him towards this action.
7.119: Meagher’s
Meagher’s: a pub at 4 North Earl Street (Thom’s, p. 1954), on the north side of the Liffey and about 400 metres from the Freeman’s Journal offices.
7.131: alpaca
Wool made from the alpaca, ‘A domesticated South American member of the camel family, Vicugna pacos, resembling a small woolly llama and now widely kept for its fine woolly hair’ (OED). Many clothes sold under the name alpaca contained little, if any, alpaca wool (Century Dictionary).
7.142: Two crossed keys here
Two crossed keys are the symbol of the House of Keys, the lower house of the Manx Parliament (see note at 7.150). Crossed keys are also a symbol of the papacy, following Matthew 16:18–19. The advertisement Bloom describes derives from an advertisement John
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 225 Stanislaus Joyce commissioned during his brief, unsuccessful stint as an ad canvasser. The Evening Telegraph for 21 March 1896 ran an ad for James Cassidy’s pub on 128 Capel Street, which had been previously owned by Alexander Keyes (see note at 7.25). To signify that he was the successor to Keyes, Cassidy’s ad included an image of two crossed keys, which was itself recycled from an earlier ad for Keyes (John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, pp. 191–93).
7.143: tea, wine and spirit merchant
Tea, wine, and spirit merchant: one of the phrases used in Thom’s to designate an establishment licenced to sell alcohol; although other formulations are used as well, such as ‘wine and spirit merchant’. For example, ‘Callan, Michael, tea, wine and spirit merchant’, 1 Fleet Street (Thom’s, p. 1492).
7.145: round the top in leaded
Leaded type means that the spaces between the lines of type have been increased by the insertion of thin strips of lead type-metal (F. J. M. Wijnekus and E. F. P. H. Wijnekus, Dictionary of the Printing and Allied Industries, pp. 348–49).
7.150: Manx parliament
The Isle of Man became a self-governing British Crown dependency in 1765, but never became part of the United Kingdom. In contrast to Ireland after the Act of Union of 1800, they retained their medieval parliament or Tynwald—including the elected lower house or House of Keys—which retained control over customs and excise and thus enjoyed a high level of autonomy. Since the Isle of Man was under Irish rule in the early Middle Ages, and its language and people strongly associated with Ireland (see note at 12.907), their independence of British government, if not the Crown, was taken as one of the possible models for the Home Rule movement in Ireland (EB11; Erskine Childers, The Framework of Home Rule, p. 288; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
7.152: that voglio
See note at 4.327–28.
7.155: Kilkenny
Kilkenny: a county and city on the River Nore in south-east Ireland (Thom’s, p. 1162). Keyes had no businesses in Kilkenny.
7.166–70: spellingbee conundrum . . . symmetry
In 1862, the Earl of Carlisle proposed the following sentence as the spelling-bee conundrum Bloom here remembers: ‘ “It is agreeable to see the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of a peeled pear” This sentence was submitted to the thirteen persons present all of whom transcribed it on slips of paper, when it was found that two of the whole number had spelt each and every word correctly’ (Belfast News-letter, 26 August 1862, p. 3, col. a). Variations of this conundrum were reprinted in various newspapers for years thereafter (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.173: phiz
Phiz: face, derived from physiognomy (OED).
7.174: the first machine
‘The Freeman’s Journal used the Liverpool-built “Victory” web newspaper machine, with folding apparatus’ (Beck, ‘ “Aeolus”—A Sightseeing Tour’, p. 137). For typesetting, the
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226 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Freeman’s Journal used both linotype and monotype machines (Sangam MacDuff, ‘The Self-Reflexive Text of “Aeolus” ’, p. 162 n. 13).
7.175: flyboard
Fly-board (also called delivery table): ‘Table on a press or cutting or folding machine on which the printed, cut, or folded sheets are piled automatically’ (Wijnekus and Wijnekus, Dictionary of the Printing and Allied Industries, p. 184).
7.175: quirefolded
Quire: ‘A set of four sheets of parchment or paper folded in two so as to form eight leaves’ (OED). In 1904, the Freeman’s Journal had eight pages (see note at 5.49) and thus would be quire-folded.
7.181: archbishop’s letter
Neither the Evening Telegraph for 16 June 1904 nor the Freeman’s Journal for 17 June carries a letter by William Walsh (see notes at 5.325 and 7.62). Walsh wrote letters to various newspapers (which were often reprinted by other papers) on a variety of different subjects. One subject which did engage him at this time was the ‘University Question’: the establishment of a degree-granting body for Catholic students that was on a par with the Protestant-run Trinity College (Morrissey, William J. Walsh, pp. 210–37); see also note at 7.503. See, for example, his letter to the Irish Independent (11 Apr. 1906, p. 6, col. d).
7.185: Monks
Most probably, Edward Monks (1850–1941); listed in the 1901 census as a ‘Printer— Compositor’ with a residence at 13 Margaret Place (Thom’s, p. 1538; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
7.185: castingbox
Casting box: ‘Cast-iron box, in which the matrix is set for casting stereotypes’ (Wijnekus and Wijnekus, Dictionary of the Printing and Allied Industries, p. 110).
7.193: August: good idea: horseshow month. Ballsbridge
The horse show, sponsored by the Royal Dublin Society (founded 1731) and held on its Ballsbridge property, was the high point of Dublin’s social life. The show is usually held in early August; in 1904, it took place on 23–26 August (Thom’s, p. 885).
7.195: A DAYFATHER
Dayfather: though the word is otherwise unattested, it must mean the shop steward or foreman of the staff in the printing office. The term follows from the expression ‘father of the chapel’, where the word chapel is used in the sense of ‘an association of journeymen [printers]’ (Brewer’s, s.v. chapel).
7.199: found drowned See note at 1.674.
7.201: Daughter working the machine in the parlour
The 1911 census records that Monks’s daughter Catherine (b. c.1883) worked as a typist, so, presumably, the ‘machine’ is the typewriter (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
7.201–02: Plain Jane, no damn nonsense
Plain Jane (and no nonsense): ‘a woman who, especially if plain looking, is staid and cap able and unassuming’ (Partridge).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 227
7.203: THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER
The feast of Passover commemorates the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. This headline echoes the New Testament: ‘And it was the preparation of the passover’ (John 19:14 in the King James).
7.204–05: neatly distributing type. Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it
The typesetter is not composing or reading text: he is distributing type. To distribute type: ‘To put back each letter and space into its proper compartment in the case or each matrix into its magazine of the slug composing machine’ (Wijnekus and Wijnekus, Dictionary of the Printing and Allied Industries, p. 199). ‘The accuracy and celerity with which this is effected are quite astonishing; the man seems to shower the letters into the case. A clever compositor can distribute 5,000 letters per hour into their respective boxes. Here again, is a dual process—the mind and the fingers curiously assist one another in the operation; for the former has to follow the order of the letters in the word by reading it, and to select the box into which each shall be dropped, while the latter has to separate one letter from another, taking care that only one letter is dropped at a time’ (John Southward, Type-Composing Machines, p. 12).
7.206: mangiD kcirtaP
On the printing surface, the words themselves are set in mirror image: right to left—as is the case with Hebrew—but also with each individual letter reversed (MacDuff, ‘The Self-Reflexive Text of “Aeolus” ’, p. 163 n. 18). When proofreading type, the type is read upside-down, and thus, left to right (with thanks to Fritz Senn).
7.206: his hagadah book
Haggadah (Hebrew): Passover story. The Haggadah is the name of the book that contains the text of the service for Passover, known as the Seder, and tells of the story of the exodus from Egypt. Typically, it is lavishly illustrated. ‘Its purpose is to enable each family to tell the story of the redemption from Egypt as commanded in the Pentateuch (Exod. 13:8). The Haggadah is made up in the main of biblical selections about the Exodus, Psalms of praise, Rabbinic homilies, hymns, and children’s songs which are sung at the end of the meal. It has instructions about the ritual eating of matzah and maror, and about the drinking of the Four Cups of wine. Among its contents are some of the best-known and best-loved images and themes of Jewish literature’ (Alan Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend). Joyce’s spelling ‘hagadah’ is a common variant spelling in English (OED).
7.206–07: reading backwards with his finger to me
Hebrew is read from right to left, or, from the perspective of a Roman script such as English, ‘backwards’. When reading from the Torah in public, a pointer in the shape of a hand with an outstretched index finger is used to mark one’s place in the text. This is because it is forbidden to touch the scroll with one’s bare hands. The pointer is called a yad, which is Hebrew for hand (Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend, s.v. yad).
7.207: Pessach
Pessach (Hebrew): Passover.
7.207: Next year in Jerusalem
This phrase concludes the Seder on Passover eve, expressing the desire of the participants to return to the Holy Land (Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Blackwell Dictionary of Judaica).
7.208–09: that brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of bondage
A misquotation of Exodus 20:2: ‘I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’ This phrase is repeated in the Seder services: ‘By the
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228 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage’ (The Union Haggadah, p. 22).
7.209: alleluia
Alleluia: the Latin transliteration of the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Hallelujah, which means ‘Praise the Lord’ (OED). The word appears frequently in the Haggadah.
7.209: Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu
Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu (Hebrew): ‘Hear, oh Israel: the Lord (is) our God’; an incomplete version of the Hebrew sentence Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord’ (Deuteronomy 6:4). This is the opening phrase of the Shema (‘Hear’), ‘a central prayer of the Jewish liturgy, incorporating a confession of faith. It is recited in the evening and morning’ (Cohn-Sherbok, Blackwell Dictionary of Judaica). Shema is pronounced shma.
7.209–10: No, that’s the other
Bloom correctly remembers that recitation of the Shema is not part of the Seder.
7.210: Then the twelve brothers, Jacob’s sons
The Seder performed on the second night of Passover includes a catechism of thirteen questions and answers; the twelfth is about the twelve tribes of Israel, who are all descended from Jacob’s (renamed Israel) twelve sons (The Union Haggadah, pp. 86–90).
7.210–13: And then the lamb and the cat . . . kills the cat
After the chant called the Chad Gadya (‘One Little Goat’), which closes the second Seder. In Bloom’s version, the Angel of Death ultimately emerges victorious rather than God (The Union Haggadah, pp. 94–100). The second and third verses: ‘Then came the cat / And ate the kid / My father bought / For two zuzim / An only kid! An only kid! // Then came the dog / And bit the cat / That ate the kid / My father bought / For two zuzim / An only kid! An only kid!’ (p. 94).
7.213–14: Justice it means but it’s everybody eating everyone else
The Chad Gadya ‘is generally assumed by Jewish and Christian scholars to symbolize the doctrine of retaliation, technically called “jus talionis” ’ (George Alexander Kohut, Some Passover Rhymes and Their Parallels, p. 1).
7.217–18: the gallery on the landing
The gallery connected the printing works to the offices of the Evening Telegraph next door on the Abbey Street end of the building (Beck, ‘ “Aeolus”—A Sightseeing Tour’, pp. 138–39).
7.219–20: Same as Citron’s house. Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four
In real life, Citron’s address was 17 St Kevin’s Parade, not 28; see note at 4.204–05. The Irish phone directory for 1904 does not list a number for Alexander Keyes (SS, p. 174). See also note at 3.39 for Dublin telephone numbers.
7.224: Thom’s next door
Alexander Thom & Co., publishers of Thom’s Official Directory, the Dublin Gazette, etc., with offices at 87–89 Middle Abbey Street, next but one to the Freeman’s Journal (Thom’s, p. 1409). Bloom probably worked there in or around 1886. In the 1830s, Alexander Thom (1801–79) acquired ‘the government printing contracts for the Irish administration which had been lost to London in the wake of the Union’ (DIB).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 229
7.226: Citronlemon?
See note at 4.196 for the citron (etrog).
7.233–34: Ned Lambert See note at 6.111.
7.236: ERIN, GREEN GEM OF THE SILVER SEA
Joyce combines various metaphoric descriptions of Ireland. From Thomas Moore’s song ‘Let Erin Remember the Days of Old’ (see also note at 3.302–03), ‘the emerald gem of the western world’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 38). From John Philpot Curran’s (see note at 7.740) ‘Cuisle Mo Chroidhe’ (pulse of my heart), ‘Dear Erin, how sweetly thy green bosom rises! / An emerald set in the ring of the sea!’ (ll. 1–2). From Ina Coolbrith’s (American poet, 1841–1928) ‘Tom Moore’ (1911): ‘Green gem of the ocean’. And, from Richard II, ‘This precious stone [i.e., England] set in the silver sea’ (II.i.46; see note at 1.615–16) (John Simpson, JJON).
7.237: The ghost walks
The ghost walks: ‘there is money for salaries’, used especially in journalistic and theatrical contexts (Partridge). This derives comes from Horatio’s request to the Ghost in Hamlet: ‘if thou hast uphoarded in thy life / Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, / For which they say, you spirits oft walk in death, / Speak of it’ (I.i.139–42).
7.237: professor MacHugh
Professor MacHugh is based on Hugh Aloysius McNeill (1866–1935), a frequently unemployed scholar, who liked to pass his days at the offices of the Evening Telegraph (Ellmann, p. 289). Starting in 1888, he began a period of intermittent teaching at University College Dublin, where ‘he was at first accorded the title of “Professor”, but soon lost that distinction. However, he continued to use the title in academic contexts, and in due course his journalist friends and others used it familiarly when speaking or writing of him’ (John Simpson, JJON).
7.243: Or again note
While Dawson’s (see note at 6.151) speech as presented in Ulysses appears to be of Joyce’s invention, its tone and bombast echoes a speech Dawson gave on ‘Present and Possible Irish Industries’ in Limerick in April 1904 and which the Freeman’s Journal printed in full. From its beginning: ‘Who is there in this land, high or low, rich or poor, cleric or layman of every Church who would disassociate themselves from this movement? Other platforms have their peculiar aims and varied attractions and their infinite variety adds a charm to life, but the platform of the Industrial Association embraces them all, and will weld all their energies into one united and irresistible organization to promote existing industries, to create new ones, to search for and develop the boundless resources which a beneficent Providence has spread around on every side—resources which lie buried in the fertile womb of the earth, in the fields and mountains, in the rapid rivers, in the fathomless seas which wash our coasts, in the forces of Nature, lately replenished by the discovery of that enchained giant of electricity, the motor of many industries already, and the destined source of countless industries which will ere long awake the silent streets of town and village, and fill the air with the hum of industry all over the land’ (7 Apr. 1904, p. 7, col. a; Harald Beck, JJON).
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230 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.244: tumbling waters
A clichéd collocation; for example, ‘the mighty mass of tumbling waters’ (The Ladies’ Companion and Literary Expositor, Sep. 1841, vol. 15, p. 251).
7.245: gentlest zephyrs
A poetic cliché; for example, ‘The gentlest zephyrs still would creep, / Warm o’er it, from the west’ (Thomas Kibble Hervey, Poems, p. 85).
7.246–47: pensive bosom
Another poetic cliché; for example, ‘That in the Muse’s pensive bosom wakes / Sweet recollections’ (William Drummond, Clontarf, p. 9).
7.250: Changing his drink
To change drink: a common expression, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, used in the context of speech-making and reporting, meaning to drastically change style and tone. In this case, it refers to the disjunction between Dawson’s normally factual style (see note at 6.151) and the overblown sentimental mode of his speech (John Simpson, JJON).
7.254: And Xenophon looked upon Marathon
After Lord Byron’s lyric ‘The Isles of Greece’ from Don Juan (1821, p. 509): ‘The mountains look on Marathon—/ And Marathon looks on the sea’ (III.701–2). In 490 bc, Marathon, on the coast near Athens, was the site of a major battle, where the Athenians beat the Persians. Xenophon (c.434–c.354 bc): a Greek soldier and historian. While he participated in Greek campaigns against Persia as a mercenary, he did not write about the battle at Marathon, which pre-dates his military career (EB11).
7.260: Bladderbags
Bladderbags: an elaborated version of bladder in the sense of ‘An inflated pretentious man: “a wind-bag” ’ (OED). In the Odyssey, Aeolus helps Odysseus in his voyages by putting all unfavourable winds into a sealed bag made from the hide of an ox (X.19–27).
7.262: Old Chatterton, the vicechancellor
Hedges Eyre Chatterton (1819–1910): a distinguished barrister and MP who became Queen’s Counsel (1858), Solicitor-General for Ireland (1866), Attorney-General (1867), and Vice- Chancellor of Ireland (1867). In 1904, he lived at Newpark, Blackrock (Thom’s, p. 267). ‘In 1885 he granted an injunction sought by ratepayers in Sackville Street, Dublin, against the Dublin corporation, preventing a change of the name of the street to O’Connell Street, a change which was not finally effected until 1924’ (ODNB); see also note at 5.70.
7.263: Subleader for his death written
Sub-leader: ‘A secondary leader [leading article] in a newspaper’ (OED). When Chatterton (see previous note) died in 1910, the Freeman’s Journal only ran an obituary, however the Irish Times ran an appreciation in addition to their obituary (31 Aug., p. 7, cols f–g), making it a sub-leader. Since this appeared the day after his death, it must have been written in advance, which would be common practice for prominent individuals (Terence Killeen, JJON).
7.264–65: Johnny, make room for your uncle
Tommy, make room for your uncle: a catch-phrase ‘addressed to the younger man (men) in a group’, after a popular song from about 1883 (Partridge).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 231
7.266: gale days
Gale days: days on which payments of rent or instalments must be paid (OED).
7.270: fragment of Cicero’s
Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106–43 bc): a politician and Roman orator. Cicero insisted that, above all else, the chief requirements for oratory are clarity and correctness, with elegance restrained to just what is sufficient to please the specific audience: ‘The acceptable kind of oratory is when it is not too decorative and polished, if the words contain authority and weight’ (De Partitione Oratoria, VI.20; Cicero, vol. 2, p. 327).
7.276: Dan Dawson’s See note at 6.151.
7.282: J. J. O’Molloy
Probably based on the barrister John O’Mahony (1870–1904). O’Mahony was renowned for his eloquence. He ‘worked for a while on the staff of the Dublin Evening Herald, and his professional training as a lawyer developed alongside his literary interests’ (Harald Beck, JJON). C. P. Curran called him ‘brilliant and short-lived’ (James Joyce Remembered, p. 61).
7.292: Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be
Bloom’s appraisal of O’Molloy echoes a line used by the Irish Times in their obituary of John O’Mahony: ‘He was one of the most promising juniors of the Irish Bar’ (29 Nov. 1904, p. 5, col. e).
7.293: hectic flush
Hectic flush: reddening of the cheeks associated with hectic fever, ‘one of the concomitants of pulmonary consumption [tuberculosis]. It is not, however peculiar to that disease. [. . .] The most marked increase [in fever] is usually in the evening; at which time the face is observed to be suffused with a circumscribed flush, which has been called the “hectic flush” or “glow” ’ (Robley Dunglison, The Practice of Medicine, vol. 2, pp. 468–69). John O’Mahony died of chronic heart disease on 28 November 1904 (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.293: finis
Finis (Latin): ‘the ending’ or ‘finish’; Anglicised since at least the sixteenth century (OED).
7.300: Lenehan
Lenehan first appeared as one of Joyce’s ‘Two Gallants’ in Dubliners: ‘Most people con sidered Lenehan a leech but, in spite of this reputation, his adroitness and eloquence had prevented his friends from forming any general policy against him’ (p. 44). Joyce took his name from Matt Linehan (1868–1939), a reporter for the Irish Times, but his personality is based on Michael Hart (1859–98), a sports journalist and friend of John Stanislaus Joyce (Ellmann, p. 365; Igoe, pp. 136–37 and 173). ‘Mick Hart’s puns and word-play were very familiar to his acquaintances’ (John Simpson, JJON). Ellmann quotes a fine bit of doggerel by Hart: ‘One day I asked a pint on tick / From Mr. Darden, who / In lordly accents told me / ’Twas a thing he didn’t do. // In Fanning’s I owed threepence, / In Bergin’s one and four, / In McGuire’s only sixpence / For they wouldn’t give me more. // When makes [halfpennies] is gone and nothing’s left / To shove into the pawn, / I ramble up to Stephen’s Green / And gaze upon Ardilaun’ (p. 366 n.). (The statue of Arthur Guinness, Lord Ardilaun, stands in the park, for he landscaped Stephen’s Green.)
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7.302: pink pages See note at 2.412.
7.303–04: Debts of honour
Debt of honour: ‘a debt that cannot be legally enforced, but depends for its validity on the honour of the debtor; usually applied to debts incurred through gambling’ (OED).
7.304: Reaping the whirlwind
This phrase derives from the Book of Hosea, on the price Israel shall pay for its sins: ‘For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind’ (Hosea 8:7 in the King James).
7.304–05: D. and T. Fitzgerald
David and Thomas Fitzgerald: solicitors with offices at 20 St Andrew’s Street, in central Dublin. The senior partner was Thomas Fitzgerald, Justice of the Peace, Crown Solicitor for counties Donegal and Londonderry/Derry, commissioner for oaths. David Fitzgerald was a county court judge (Thom’s, pp. 1870–71).
7.305–06: Their wigs . . . Glasnevin
Wigs in the United Kingdom were once used to designate the different classes and professions, but over time the practice has dwindled and now exists only in the courts and a few select governmental positions (EB11, s.v. wig). Grey matter: a pseudo-scientific expression for the brain since parts of the brain consist of a greyish tissue (Brewer’s). Seeing the externalisation of a bodily organ reminds Bloom of the statue of the Sacred Heart he saw in the cemetery in ‘Hades’ (see both notes at 6.954).
7.307: Express
The Daily Express: a Dublin newspaper which operated from 1851 to 1921. The Express was conservative in politics and, in general, anti-Home Rule, but it did call for the development of the Irish economy (Terence Brown, The Irish Times, p. 9). Its offices were at 38–40 Parliament Street (Thom’s, pp. 1357, 1566). Joyce wrote several reviews for the Express in 1902 and 1903 (Ellmann, pp. 112, 121, 127, 138–39).
7.307: Gabriel Conroy
The protagonist of ‘The Dead’ in Dubliners; ‘he wrote a literary column every Wednesday in The Daily Express’ (p. 188). Bloom had thought about Gabriel’s wife, Gretta, in ‘Calypso’ (see note at 4.522).
7.307: Myles Crawford
Crawford is based on Patrick J. Meade (1858–1928), who, in 1909, when Joyce visited Dublin, became the editor of the Evening Telegraph; in 1904 he was only the sub-editor (Ellmann, pp. 288–89). ‘Described as a large, kind man with red hair, a red face and a short temper, he dressed flamboyantly and sported a flower in his buttonhole’ (Igoe, p. 68).
7.308: the Independent
Founded in 1891 and originally called the Irish Daily Independent, this began as a pro- Parnellite newspaper. In 1900, the paper was acquired by William Martin Murphy (1845–1919), a conservative, anti-Parnellite nationalist from County Cork. On 2 January 1905, he relaunched it as the Irish Independent, which took a more populist tone than its predecessor (DIB, s.v. William Martin Murphy).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 233
7.309–10: Hot and cold in the same breath
To blow hot and cold means to be inconsistent and/or irresolute. ‘The allusion is to the fable of a traveller who was entertained by a satyr. Being cold the traveller blew his fingers to warm them, and afterwards blew his hot broth to cool it. The satyr, in great indignation, turned him out of doors, because he blew both hot and cold with the same breath’ (Brewer’s).
7.311: Go for one another baldheaded
An expression which recalls times when men wore wigs, and would cast them off during a fistfight, argument, or crisis, thus indicating intense engagement (Partridge, s.v. bald-headed).
7.315: windbag
See note at 7.399–400.
7.316: to bathe our souls
To bathe our souls: a cliché common to Christian writing; for example, ‘Let us bathe our souls in the Precious Blood’ (Our Lady’s Retreat, p. 157).
7.322: bosky grove
Bosky: ‘covered with bushes’ (OED). The collocation ‘bosky grove’ was common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; for example, ‘The nightingales that the while / Poured forth from every bosky grove’ (Eleanor Darby, Legends of Many Lands, p. 230).
7.325: The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet
That is, Dawson’s speech is so formulaic that a Shakespearean reference to moonlight is expected. Indeed, Dawson’s following line derives from Hamlet: ‘But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, / Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill’ (I.i.166–67).
7.326: HIS NATIVE DORIC
Doric: ‘The broad, hard dialect spoken by the natives of Doris, in Greece. Hence any broad rustic dialect, and especially that of Scotland, of which Robert Burns’s verses are a notable example’ (Brewer’s).
7.328: silver effulgence
Effulgent: ‘Shining forth brilliantly; sending forth intense light; resplendent, radiant’ (OED). The collocation ‘silver effulgence’ was a common cliché; for example, ‘the calm moonlight threw its silver effulgence on a complete desert’ (Elizabeth Murray, Sixteen Years and Artist’s Life in Morocco, p. 239; with thanks to Harald Beck).
7.329: shite and onions!
This expression was a favourite of Joyce’s father (Jackson and Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, p. 224), a play on the phrase ‘tripe and onions’. Joyce used it in his satirical poem ‘Gas from a Burner’ (l. 55).
7.332: welshcombed
Welsh comb: ‘The thumb and four fingers’ (Partridge).
7.336: Doughy Daw!
A reference to Dawson’s having been a baker; see note at 6.151.
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7.337: WETHERUP
William Weatherup (c.1832–95) worked with Joyce’s father in the Office of the Collector- General of Rates. He also ran a grocery and spirits business in Blackrock, for which he faced occasional legal entanglements. The misspelling ‘Wetherup’ turned up occasionally in newspapers and registers (John Simpson, JJON).
7.338–39: it goes down like hot cake
That is, very rapidly, after the expression ‘to sell like hot cakes’, meaning to sell very rapidly (Brewer’s, s.v. Hot).
7.340: Daughter
Dawson (see note at 6.151) had four sons but no daughters (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.341: inland revenue office
Inland revenue: income from taxes, excise, stamp duties, etc. (OED, s.v. inland). The Inland Revenue Office was in the Custom House (Thom’s, p. 842).
7.341: the motor
Motor: abbreviation of motor car, automobile (OED, s.vv. motor; motor car). In the first years of the twentieth century, automobiles in Ireland were restricted to the wealthy. But their popularity quickly increased: in 1912 there were 2,688 automobiles registered in all of Ireland (NHI, vol. 6, p. 340).
7.348: the sham squire
Sham squire: the epithet given to Francis Higgins (c.1745–1802), a Dublin adventurer and, eventually, publisher. In 1766, pretending to be of the gentry, he married Maryanne Archer, the daughter of a prosperous merchant. The following year, he was arrested for assaulting his mother- in- law, and at the trial the presiding judge dubbed him a ‘sham squire’. After his release from prison, he held various jobs and by 1783 had acquired ownership of the Freeman’s Journal. In the 1790s, he was a government informant and provided significant information to the authorities about the activities of Dublin Catholics and various dissident groups, such as the United Irishmen (DIB). See also note at 10.789.
7.350: Getonouthat See note at 3.353.
7.359: North Cork militia!
The North Cork Militia: a paramilitary outfit allied to the English Crown, first raised, by government levy, in 1793 and abolished in 1881 (J. Douglas Mercer, Record of the North Cork Regiment, pp. 6, 128). During the rebellion of 1798, they were infamous for their use of cruel tortures against captured rebels (Edward Hay, History of the Irish Insurrection of 1798, pp. 105–06).
7.359–60: We won every time!
Not quite true. Since the North Cork Militia did not consist of professional soldiers, its military record is mixed and it suffered various routs during the rebellion of 1798, but it would be an exaggeration to say that it was defeated in every battle it fought in (Mercer, Record of the North Cork Regiment, p. 6).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 235
7.360: North Cork and Spanish officers!
Unclear. Apparently, Crawford is referring to the Battle of the Monongahela River (see the following note), which was not a battle between soldiers affiliated with the North Cork Militia and the Spanish army, but rather between British troops, initially dispatched from Cork, and French soldiers.
7.363: In Ohio!
In July 1755, during the Seven Years’ War, a British contingent of troops commanded by General Edward Braddock (British general, c.1695–1755) was routed by a coalition of French and Native American troops at the Battle of the Monongahela River in the Ohio Territory (in what is now Pennsylvania). While Braddock’s forces did not include any soldiers from the North Cork Militia, which did not even exist until almost 40 years later (see note at 7.359), his troops first embarked for America from Cork in January 1755 (Ronald D. Martin, ‘Confrontation at the Monongahela’, p. 145; EB11, s.v. Edward Braddock). As for why Crawford would be obsessed with a connection between Cork and Ohio, the man upon whom he is based, Patrick Meade (see note at 7.307), began his journalistic career in Cork and had a brother who lived in Ohio in the 1890s (John Simpson, JJON).
7.366: Incipient jigs
An incipient jig would be a jig caused by an extrinsic source; a reference to delirium tremens, the jitteriness and mental imbalance suffered by alcoholics during withdrawal.
7.367–68: My Ohio!
The refrain ‘Ohio, my Ohio’ was used in a number of songs in the late nineteenth century. One of them, by Joseph Herbert Larimore of Westerville, Ohio, was based on the Civil War song ‘My Maryland’, which was itself set to the tune of ‘O Tannenbaum’ and thus Larimore’s song is a likely candidate, as it renders the word Ohio as a ‘perfect cretic’, for which see the following note (John Simpson, JJON).
7.369: A perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long
Cretic: ‘a metrical foot consisting of one short syllable between two long’; normally, the word Ohio would be an amphibrach, one long syllable between two short (both OED).
7.370: O, HARP EOLIAN
An Aeolian harp: ‘a stringed instrument adapted to produce musical sounds on exposure to a current of air’ (OED); named after the wind-god Aeolus. The Aeolian harp featured in the verse of Coleridge and Shelley.
7.383: Is that Canada swindle case on today?
A Dublin man, James Wought, using various aliases, was accused of selling worthless tickets to Canada for £1 (which was considerably less than the standard fare). This case was reported in the Dublin Evening Telegraph on 16 June 1904 (p. 3, col. b), as well as in other papers. The paper reports that ‘the accused was again remanded’. According to a subsequent article in the Irish Times, a Jewish man named Zelic Bloom, of Lower Clanbrassil Street, served as a witness on behalf of one of the victims of the swindle (17 June 1904, p. 3, col. c). A 1902 advertisement for the Anchor Line steamships to Canada and the United States lists the price of a third-class ticket as £5 10s. (Ulster Herald, 22 Nov. 1902, p. 1, col. a).
7.385: Twentyeight. No. Twenty. Double four, yes
In order to telephone Keyes, Bloom has to call a central operator and request the number to be called (direct dialling was not possible in Ireland in 1904). ‘The phrase “No twenty…” is
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236 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses his correction of the operator’s erroneous repetition of, say, “Thirty-eight” or “Ninety- eight” for Keyes’s number, 2844, which Bloom had accurately remembered and correctly requested’ (R. J. Schork, ‘Kennst Du das Haus Citrons, Bloom?’, pp. 406–08); see also note at 7.219–20. From an article in the Irish Times about the various miscommunications that arise through the use of central operators: ‘Politeness is at all times a very estimable quality in the use of the telephone, but it appears that the repetition of the word “please” is very liable at times to be misunderstood for an additional number, hence when a subscriber asks for, say, No. 40, and adds the word “please”, the operator frequently mistakes the request for No. 403’ (15 May 1900, p. 6, col. h).
7.387: Sport’s tissues
Sport: a weekly penny paper sold on Saturdays by the Freeman’s Journal, Ltd. In add ition to the weekly paper, they sold the more expensive tissues, which came out multiple times per week. These contained up-to-date betting information culled by scouts at racecourses and stables and were so-called because they were printed on tissue paper. Sport sold for 1d. an issue, but with the tissues it cost as much as 3s. per week (John Simpson, JJON).
7.388: dead cert
Cert: sporting slang for certainty, often used, as here, in the phrase ‘dead cert’ (Partridge).
7.388–89: Sceptre with O. Madden up
A jockey named O. Madden rode the horse Sceptre in the Ascot Gold Cup Race on 16 June (see note at 5.532). The odds for Sceptre were seven to four against, and the horse was tipped to win the race in the Freeman’s Journal that day (p. 7, col. b). Sceptre was ‘one of the greatest fillies in history’, but was past her peak in 1904 (Igoe, pp. 322–23).
7.399–400: There’s a hurricane blowing
That is, there is an ominous portent. Recalls Odysseus’s crew greedily opening Aeolus’s bag of wind, thereby letting loose violent storms: ‘they opened the bag and the winds all burst out. Suddenly the storm caught them away and swept them over the water weeping, away from their own country’ (Odyssey, X.47–49).
7.403: Pat Farrell Unknown.
7.412: auction rooms
Dillon’s auction rooms, 25 Bachelor’s Walk, just west of O’Connell Bridge on the north side of the Liffey (Thom’s, p. 1420).
7.417: Pardon, monsieur
Pardon, monsieur (French): ‘Excuse me, sir’.
7.422: The accumulation of the anno Domini
Anno Domini (Latin): ‘in the year of our lord’; used to express ‘the passage of the years’ (Partridge).
7.427–28: We are the boys of Wexford . . . heart and hand
From the Irish ballad ‘The Boys of Wexford’ by Robert Dwyer Joyce (Irish physician and poet, 1830–83). The song celebrates the victory of the boys of Wexford over North Cork Militia during the 1798 Rebellion (see note at 2.276). According to the song, after securing
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 237 victory, the Wexford boys succumbed to alcohol. Chorus: ‘We are the boys of Wexford / Who fought with heart and hand, / To burst in twain the galling chain / And free our native land’ (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, pp. 55–57).
7.430: Bachelor’s walk
Bachelor’s Walk is the first quay west of O’Connell Bridge on the north side of the Liffey. According to C. T. McCreedy, the name comes from a property owner named Batchelor (Dublin Street Names, p. 5). D. A. Chart offers a different explanation: it was ‘once the favourite promenade of the “Bachelors” or young men of the neighbourhood. It received its name, doubtless, at a period when it was a pleasant seaward-running road below the city proper’ (The Story of Dublin, p. 275). Dillon’s auction rooms (see note at 7.412) on Bachelor’s Walk are just a short walk south from the offices of the Freeman’s Journal.
7.435: Begone! He said. The world is before you
Possibly suggests the eviction of Adam and Eve, as recounted at the end of John Milton’s (English poet, 1608–74) Paradise Lost: ‘The world was all before them, where to choose / Their place of rest, and Providence their guide’ (XII.646–47). However, the phrase ‘the world is before you’ is common enough that this need not be a specific allusion to Milton (Dent).
7.440: crossblind
Cross-blind: a blind, often ornamented with silk or other fabric, permanently attached to the base of a window, thereby preventing passers-by from looking in, while allowing those inside to look out (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.447: hue and cry
Hue and cry: ‘a cry of alarm or opposition; outcry’ (OED).
7.448: spaugs
Spaug (Hiberno-English): ‘a big clumsy foot’ (PWJ, p. 331).
7.448–49: small nines
That is, Bloom’s shoe size. Size nine in the UK barleycorn scale (⅓ inch or 0.85 cm) is well within the expected range for a man of Bloom’s height (see note at 17.86). In European measurement, he is a size 40, and in US measurement, size 9.5. And so calling his feet ‘small nines’ would be another way of saying that he is clumsy. In a late notebook, Joyce wrote ‘LB’s boots small nines’ (NLI II.i.4 f. 23; Harald Beck, JJON).
7.449: Steal upon larks
‘Steal upon larks’: according to Padraic Colum, this is a nickname for a ‘slow and cautious character’ (My Irish Year, p. 86; Harald Beck, JJON).
7.450: mazurka
Mazurka: ‘A lively country dance in triple time for couples, originating in Poland in the 16th cent., in which the dancers characteristically tap their heels or stamp their feet on the accented beat’ (OED).
7.455: the Oval
The Oval: a pub at 78 Middle Abbey Street, near the Freeman’s Journal office (Thom’s, p. 1409).
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7.456: Paddy Hooper
Patrick Hooper (1873–1931): London correspondent for the Freeman’s Journal from the late 1890s until 1916, when he returned to Dublin to become the paper’s editor, a position he held until the paper ceased publication in 1924 (Igoe, p. 145). His father was John Hooper (see note at 6.950).
7.456: Jack Hall
Jack B. Hall (1851–1931): a well-known Dublin journalist for the Freeman’s Journal and the Evening Telegraph. He was the first reporter to have a story in print about the Phoenix Park Murders (Igoe, pp. 133–34). In 1904, he lived at 30 Castlewood Avenue in Rathmines (Thom’s, p. 1888). In 1928, he published his memoirs, Random Records of a Reporter.
7.461: He’s pretty well on
Pretty well on: intoxicated (Partridge).
7.464: THE CALUMET OF PEACE
Calumet: the Native American peace pipe (OED).
7.471–72: ’Twas rank and fame that tempted thee . . . thy heart
From an aria in Act III of the opera The Rose of Castile (1857) by Michael William Balfe (Anglo- Irish composer, 1808–70): ‘’Twas rank and fame that tempted thee, / ’Twas empire charmed thy heart; / But love was wealth, the world to me, / Then, false one, let us part’ (Bauerle, p. 281). ‘Elvira, the Queen of Leon [in Spain] is to be married to the brother of the King of Castile. Elvira, under the impression that the brother, Don Sebastian, has disguised himself as a muleteer, disguises herself as a peasant to meet the muleteer. There is a cast of fumbling conspirators who attempt to use the queen to serve their own ends. Assuming her to be a peasant girl, they re-disguise her as the queen. In the end she is happily united with the muleteer, who turns out to be not Don Sebastian but the King of Castile himself ’ (Bowen, p. 123).
7.478: Imperium romanum
Imperium romanum (Latin): ‘the Roman Empire’.
7.479: British or Brixton
In his article ‘The Irish Literary Renaissance and the Irish Language’, George Moore (see note at 9.273–74) claims that ‘To girdle the world with Brixton is England’s ultimate destiny’ (New Ireland Review, Apr. 1900, p. 70). That is, British aspiration tends towards a dreary middle-class suburb (as Brixton then was). The following year, in an interview, he claimed that he felt that the ‘British Empire’ was synonymous with the ‘Brixton Empire’: ‘This empire of vulgarity, and greed, and materialism, and hypocrisy that is crawling round the whole world, throttling other races and nationalities—all for their own good, of course!—and reducing everything to one machine-made Brixton pattern’ (The Critic, July 1901, p. 48; Harald Beck, JJON).
7.483: THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME
From Edgar Allan Poe’s (American poet, 1809–49) poem ‘To Helen’ (1831, revised 1845): ‘the glory that was Greece / And the grandeur that was Rome’.
7.487: He extended elocutionary arms
Many manuals of elocution stressed the importance of supplementing speech with bodily gestures. From Allen Griffith’s Lessons in Elocution: ‘All action should be graceful in
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 239 mechanism, and definite in expressiveness. Either arm must move with grace to the extent of half a circle, vertically or horizontally’ (p. 17; with thanks to Fritz Senn).
7.489: Cloacae: sewers
Cloaca (plural, cloacae) (Latin): sewer. By the first century ad, if not earlier, most cities of the Roman world were equipped with cesspits and sewers that serviced public latrines (Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy, pp. 3–4). See also note at 7.493.
7.490–91: It is meet to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah
Meet: suitable (OED). In Matthew 17:4, after Peter, James, and John are taken by Jesus to witness his transfiguration, Peter says: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.’
7.493 (on our shore he never set it)
The Romans limited their involvement in Ireland to trade, and never attempted to domin ate it militarily. However, Agricola (40–93 ad), the general responsible for the Roman conquest of Britain, claimed that ‘with one legion and a suitable force of auxiliaries Ireland could be conquered and held in subjugation’ (Tacitus, Agricola, p. 27). See also note at 12.1251.
7.493: cloacal obsession
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) used this phrase in his review of A Portrait: ‘Like Swift and another living Irish writer, Mr. Joyce has a cloacal obsession. He would bring back into the general picture of life aspects which modern drainage and modern decorum have taken out of ordinary intercourse and conversation’ (Nation, 24 Feb. 1917, p. 710). Joyce countered Wells’s charge to Budgen: ‘Cloacal obsession! [. . .] Why it’s Wells’s countrymen who build water-closets wherever they go’ (JJMU, p. 106).
7.497: first chapter of Guinness’s
Multiple anecdotes and jokes in circulation in Dublin in the 1890s and later elevate Guinness’s brewery (at St James’s Gate) to Biblical stature; for example: ‘A resident in Dublin informed me that at the time of the Great Exhibition in that city, he entertained a number of visitors, among whom was an old Presbyterian minister, who liked to prowl about the city by himself. On returning home one evening, his host found him reading the Bible, and the minister exclaimed: “I can’t make it out at all; I have read Genesis xxx. twice over, and am none the wiser!” He then explained that a large proportion of the shops in Dublin had “Genesis xxx” inscribed on them. Owing to his short- sightedness, he had mistaken Guinness’s triple X, for Genesis xxx’ (Notes and Queries, 16 May 1896, p. 398; John Simpson, JJON).
7.499: nature’s gentleman
The title of a poem by Eliza Cook (English poet, 1818–89).
7.500: Roman law
Modern English law and legal practice derive from Roman law in multiple ways. ‘The English adoption of Roman law was not an act of legislation, but a long process of custom. It was found necessary to supply the defects of the Common Law, which having expended its best energies in developing the feudal system, showed no symptoms toward creating an original commercial and movable property law. Use was therefore made of the Roman law,
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240 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses a complete system of law at hand ready for service’ (Charles Sherman, Roman Law in the Modern World, vol. 1, p. 360).
7.501: Pontius Pilate is its prophet
Pontius Pilate: the Roman prefect of Judea from 26–36 ad; famous for his involvement in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The formula of MacHugh’s remark sounds similar to the Islamic profession of faith: ‘There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet.’
7.502: that story about chief baron Palles
Christopher Palles (1831–1920): Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, the highest judge in the Court of Exchequer, a tax court and division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland (Thom’s, p. 1982). The anecdote alluded to here is unknown. Palles was, from 1890, a member of the University Senate of the Royal University (see the following note) (Irish Times, 24 May 1890, p. 5, col. e) and thus he would have attended many formal university dinners.
7.503: royal university
Dublin’s Royal University, on Earlsfort Place (Thom’s, p. 1481), founded in 1879, did not offer courses, but administered exams and bestowed degrees. Its students took their courses at a variety of institutions, such as University College Dublin (which did not have a royal charter and thus could not confer degrees). The Royal University was created as an alternative for ‘Catholic students who had attained the required standards to have an academic qualification without being obliged to attend Trinity College Dublin’ (Bennett, s.v. Catholic University of Ireland). The Irish Universities Act of 1908 established the National University of Ireland, which superseded the Royal University as the degree-conferring body for UCD. Joyce’s BA was from the Royal University and his coursework was undertaken at the Jesuit-run UCD from 1898 to 1902 (Kevin Sullivan, Joyce among the Jesuits, pp. 148–91).
7.505: Mr O’Madden Burke
O’Madden Burke: a Freeman’s Journal reviewer in ‘A Mother’ from Dubliners, where he is described as ‘a suave, elderly man who balanced his imposing body, when at rest, upon a large silk umbrella. His magniloquent western name was the moral umbrella upon which he balanced the fine problem of his finances. He was widely respected’ (p. 145). He is based on William O’Leary Curtis (1863–1923), a journalist Joyce mentioned in his broadside poem ‘Gas from a Burner’ (l. 52) (Igoe, pp. 40–41).
7.505: Donegal tweed
‘A handwoven tweed industry developed in County Donegal from the 1880s and these textiles became the best-known type of Irish tweed. The historian David Jenkins states that the cloths produced were “made from coarse local wool in plain weave with contrasting colours in warp and weft and little bits of uncarded wool spun into the yarn to give distinctive effects” ’ (Fiona Anderson, Tweed, pp. 17–18). In December 1909, Joyce became the Trieste agent for the Dublin Woollen Company; some of the tweed he sold was from Donegal (Ellmann, pp. 303, 305). Letters and invoices from this period show that Joyce had some success in this venture (John McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 176).
7.507: Entrez, mes enfants!
Entrez mes enfants! (French): ‘Come in, my children!’
7.511: governor
Governor: father (OED).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 241
7.521: The old pelters
Pelter: ‘a paltry or peddling person’ (OED).
7.521: Was he short taken?
To be taken short: ‘to have an urgent need to urinate or defecate’ (OED, s.v. short).
7.522–25: On swift sail flaming . . . mouth
The poem Stephen wrote on the paper torn from Deasy’s letter in ‘Proteus’; see note at 3.397–98.
7.529: SHINDY
Shindy: ‘A spree, merrymaking’ or ‘A row, commotion’ (OED).
7.533: old tartar
Tartar: ‘a savage, irritable, or excessively severe person [. . .] when applied to a woman it denotes a vixen or shrew’ (Brewer’s).
7.535: Star and Garter
A hotel at 16 D’Olier Street, between Trinity College and the Liffey (Thom’s, p. 2016).
7.536: A woman brought sin into the world See note at 2.390.
7.536–37: For Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years the Greeks See note at 2.391.
7.537: O’Rourke, prince of Breffni See note at 2.393.
7.539: a grass one
Grass widower: a married man who does not live with his wife (OED). In real life, Francis Irwin, the model for Deasy (see note at 2.131) was a bachelor who lived with his sister Anna Jane (Ellmann, p. 153; John Simpson, JJON).
7.540: Emperor’s horses
From Deasy’s letter; see note at 2.333–34.
7.540: Habsburg
The Habsburgs (or Hapsburgs): the ruling house of Austria from 1282 to 1918 and, prior to its abolition in 1806, the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1904, Francis Joseph I (1830–1916, r. 1848–1916) was emperor (EB11).
7.540–41: An Irishman saved his life on the ramparts of Vienna
Maximilian Karl Lamoral Graf O’Donnell von Tyrconnell (1812–95): aide-de-camp to Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria. Born in Austria, he was a descendant of the O’Donnells, ‘the exceedingly ancient and very illustrious race, the chiefs of Donegal, and dynasts of the former Tyrconnell, in Ireland’ (Bernard Burke, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire, p. 409). On 18 February 1853, the Emperor was assaulted by a Hungarian nationalist named János Libényi on the ramparts of Vienna. O’Donnell intervened and subdued the attacker, thereby saving the Emperor’s life (Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, p. 87). Tirconnell and Tyrconnell are variant spellings of the Irish name Tír Chonaill.
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242 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.542–43: Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrian fieldmarshal now
On 31 August 1903, King Edward VII appointed Emperor Francis Joseph as a field marshal in the British Army in the hopes of forging a closer alliance. On 8 June 1904, Francis Joseph reciprocated by sending Archduke Francis Ferdinand (1863–1914), his son and heir, to London to appoint Edward as a field marshal in the Austrian Army (Sidney Lee, Edward VII, vol. 2, p. 261).
7.543: Wild geese
See note at 3.164 for the Wild Geese. The O’Donnell clan, from which Maximilian Karl Lamoral Graf O’Donnell von Tyrconnell (see note at 7.540–41) descended, left Ireland as part of ‘The Flight of the Earls’ in 1607 (R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 44).
7.546: Saving princes is a thankyou job
That is, saving princes is an unpleasant task that offers a paltry reward, such as a mere ‘thank you’ (Dent). In point of fact, Maximilian Karl Lamoral Graf O’Donnell von Tyrconnell (see note at 7.540–41) was well rewarded for saving the life of the Emperor of Austria: ‘Every reigning monarch sent him a decoration of some kind in appreciation of his act’ (Manchester Times, 11 Nov. 1892, p. 4, col. d).
7.549: A Hungarian it was See note at 7.540–41.
7.555: blatant
Blatant: ‘Noisy; offensively or vulgarly clamorous; bellowing’ (OED). Simon Dedalus uses the word in a similar fashion in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.690).
7.551: LOST CAUSES
A standard expression about Ireland: S. A. O. Fitzpatrick writes: ‘Ireland, “home of lost causes” ’ (Dublin: A Historical and Topographical Account, p. 45; Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana IV’, p. 159).
7.556: time is money
This proverbial expression can be traced back to Aristotle’s disciple Theophrastus (c.372– c.287 bc) (ODEP). Since it is used here in reference to the English, it might be an allusion to Victor Hugo’s (French writer, 1802–85) Les Misérables (1862): ‘Take away time is money, and what is left of England?’ (p. 578).
7.557: Domine! Lord! Domine (Latin): Lord.
7.557–58: Lord Jesus? Lord Salisbury?
In English, as in Latin, Lord can either be a divine title or a worldly one. Lord Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne- Cecil (1830–1903): third Marquess of Salisbury. A Conservative MP from 1853 and Prime Minister in 1885–86, 1886–92, and 1895–1902. Salisbury was avidly opposed to Irish Home Rule (ODNB).
7.558: A sofa in a westend club
Gentleman’s clubs in London are typically located in grand buildings in the West End. At the turn of the twentieth century, there were more than 200 such clubs, each with its own specific character, based on the political affiliations or occupations or cultural tastes of its members (Anthony Lejeune, The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London, pp. 7–8, 15). Lord Salisbury
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 243 was connected with two notorious West End scandals of the late 1880s: in 1889, his brother- in-law Lord Galloway was reported to have engaged in sexual misconduct with young women (Morris B. Kaplan, Sodom on the Thames, p. 179); and Salisbury was accused of helping Lord Somerset, the central figure in the Cleveland Street homosexual brothel scandal, to flee the country and thus avoid prosecution (The Constitutional Year Book for 1891, p. 251). Salisbury himself hated the clubs and only went rarely and reluctantly (Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury’s World, p. 22).
7.559: KYRIE ELEISON!
Kyrie Eleison (Greek): ‘Lord have mercy’. ‘This is called the Minor Litany. Kyrie Eleison, Lord have mercy on us; Christie Eleison, Christ have mercy on us. It is repeated in all nine times—thrice to each person of the most Blessed Trinity. The Greek is used because it is perhaps a more ancient liturgic tongue than the Latin’ (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 292).
7.562: Kyrios!
Kyrios (Greek): lord or guardian.
7.562–63: The vowels the Semite and the Saxon know not
Greek has seven vowels, two more than English and Hebrew (although in Hebrew, vowel sounds are indicated by diacritical marks and not letters). Specifically, MacHugh refers to the Greek upsilon in the word Kyrios, which has no direct equivalent in either English or Hebrew (it is transliterated with either a u or a y).
7.566: the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar
The battle of Trafalgar was fought on 21 October 1805, off the south-west coast of Spain. Led by Admiral Nelson, the (Protestant) British fleet crushed the (primarily Catholic) French and (avowedly Catholic) Spanish. With this defeat, Irish hopes of liberation by the French were decisively extinguished: ‘By the time of the Battle of Trafalgar Napoleon had abandoned invasion plans for Ireland’ (G. R. Sloan, The Geopolitics of Anglo-Irish Relations in the Twentieth Century, p. 113).
7.567: imperium
Imperium (Latin): command, control, supremacy, power, empire.
7.567–68: that went under with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami
Aegospotami is the site of the climactic battle in 405 bc of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 bc). This marked the eclipse of Athenian civilisation at the hands of the Spartans (EB11, s.vv. Peloponnesian War; Aegospotami).
7.568–69: Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt . . . Greece
According to popular legend, before going to war against Rome, an oracle is said to have told him: ‘I say, Pyrrhus, that you the Romans can conquer’ which could be interpreted as meaning either that Pyrrhus could conquer the Romans or that the Romans can conquer him (Brewer’s). See also notes at 2.12 and 2.48.
7.572: They went forth to battle
From the title of a poem in Yeats’s 1893 collection The Rose: ‘They went forth to the Battle, but they always fell’. This poem was subsequently revised and retitled ‘The Rose of Battle’ (A. Norman Jeffares, A Commentary on the Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, p. 31). The ori gin al title derives from the epigraph to Matthew Arnold’s Study of Celtic Literature
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244 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses (1867)—‘They went forth to the war, but they always fell’ (p. 1)—which Arnold attributes to the Irish mythological hero Ossian. James Macpherson’s (Scottish poet, 1736–96) Poems of Ossian (see note at 12.1129) has a similar line: ‘Cormul went forth to the strife [. . .] He went forth, but he fell’ (p. 406).
7.574–75: Owing to a brick received in the latter half of the matinée Matinée (French): morning. See note at 2.18.
7.582: I can’t see the Joe Miller
Joe Miller: a joke, especially a tired one; after Joseph Miller (1684–1738), a comedian (OED).
7.583: In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says
Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86–34 bc): Roman historian and politician who sided with Caesar against Pompey and the old Roman aristocracy. ‘On the whole the verdict of antiquity was favourable to Sallust as an historian. He struck out for himself practically a new line in literature, his predecessors having been little better than mere dry-as-dust chroniclers, whereas he endeavoured to explain the Connexion and meaning of events, and was a successful delineator of character’ (EB11). Mulligan’s joke about MacHugh implies that he is living in the past, which brings to his mind the remark which Stephen took offence to: ‘O, it’s only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead’ (1.198–99).
7.589: Mr O’Madden Burke’s sphinx face reriddled
The association between the sphinx and riddles comes from the Oedipus saga. Because Oedipus correctly solved the sphinx’s riddle, he was proclaimed king of Thebes (Brewer’s, s.v. Sphinx).
7.591: The Rose of Castile
See note at 7.471–72 for The Rose of Castile. Lenehan’s joke dates back to the book The Boy’s Handy Book of Sports, Pastimes, Games and Amusements (pp. 372, 374) from 1863, which is only six years after the opera’s premiere. Variant forms were in circulation for many years thereafter (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.591: wheeze?
Wheeze: a joke (OED).
7.594: a strong weakness
Strong weakness: a well-worn catchphrase (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.599: communards
Communards: adherents of the revolutionary Commune which governed Paris from March to May 1871, from the departure of the Germans after the Franco-Prussian War until the French government managed to reassert itself (Brewer’s).
7.600: blown up the Bastile
On 14 July 1789, the prison known as the Bastille St-Antoine was liberated and demolished by a mob of Parisians, in protest at their subjugation by the French royalty and aristocracy. This event set in motion the French Revolution (Brewer’s, s.v. Bastille). Bastile is an English variant of the French word bastille, which means a fortified tower (OED). Joyce clearly wrote ‘Bastile’ (Rosenbach f. 18), but a scribal mark on the typescript supplied the second l to conform to the French spelling (JJA, vol. 12, p. 294), a reading which remained in all editions until Gabler’s.
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 245
7.601: Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland
General Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikoff (or Bobrikov, 1857–1904), the oppressive Russian Governor General of Finland, was mortally wounded in Helsinki on the morning of 16 June 1904 by Eugen Schauman, a nationalist Finnish aristocrat (he died the following day). The role of the Russian Governor General in Finland was analogous to that of the British Lord Lieutenant in Ireland (for which see note at 8.1162). Bobrikoff was shot at 11:00 am, Helsinki time, or 8:35 am, Dublin time. The story was reported in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph (p. 3, col. g). As with ‘Bastile’ (see the previous note), Joyce here used an unconventional spelling on the Rosenbach: ‘Finnland’ (f. 18). The typist typed ‘Finland’ instead (JJA, vol. 12, p. 294); Gabler rejects the Rosenbach’s reading, presumably because the spelling ‘Finnland’ is not attested in English.
7.604: OMNIUM GATHERUM
Omnium Gatherum: ‘Dog-Latin for a gathering or collection of all sorts of persons and things; a miscellaneous gathering together without regard to suitability or order’ (Brewer’s).
7.606: The turf
The turf: the world of horse-racing (OED).
7.612: a fresh of breath air
A witticism first coined by Fred Leslie (English music hall performer, 1855–92) (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.612–13: I caught a cold in the park. The gate was open
The joke (such as it is) of catching a cold from an open gate dates from as far back as 1838 (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.617: In the lexicon of youth
‘In the lexicon of youth, which Fate reserves / For a bright manhood, there is no such word / As—fail!’, from Act II, scene 2 of Richelieu (1838), a drama by Baron Lytton, or Edward Bulwer-Lytton (English writer and statesman, 1803–73) (p. 39).
7.618: See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer
From A Portrait, when Father Dolan accuses Stephen of falsely trying to get out of having to work: ‘Out here, Dedalus. Lazy little schemer. I see schemer in your face’ (p. 50).
7.619–20: Great nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory
On 17 January 1904, Michael Davitt (see note at 15.4684) and other nationalist leaders gave speeches at a large gathering at the hill of Knockaroo, in the parish of Borris-in-Ossory, Queen’s County (now County Laois), in support of reforming landholding legislation and of establishing a Catholic university that would be on a par with Trinity (see also note at 7.181). This was the third such gathering at Knockaroo since a tenant farmer named Malachi Kelly had been evicted in 1880 (Freeman’s Journal, 18 Jan. 1904, p. 6, cols d–g).
7.620: All balls
All balls: nonsense (Partridge). Partridge notes that ‘all balls’ was held to be obscene in February 1929 but had become permissible in print by 1931.
7.620: Bulldosing
Bulldosing: bullying, intimidating (OED).
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246 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.622: Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M‘Carthy
John McCarthy (1857–1901): famous sports reporter for the Freeman’s Journal, renowned for his wit. He wrote under the name Jacques (pronounced Jakes) McCarthy (SS, p. 216; Igoe, pp. 191–92).
7.625: pressgang
Press-gang: a group of men employed to coerce sailors into naval service (OED), though here a jocular reference to the newspaper business.
7.626: THE GREAT GALLAHER See note at 6.58.
7.629: on the shaughraun
To be on the shaughraun (Hiberno-English): ‘to be out of employment and wandering idly about looking for work’ (PWJ, p. 320).
7.629: billiardmarking
Billiard-marker: ‘a person who marks the “points” made by each player, and keeps account of the progress of the game’ (OED).
7.629: the Clarence
The Clarence Commercial Hotel: 6–7 Wellington Quay, on the southern bank of the Liffey in central Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1615).
7.632: That was in eightyone, sixth of May, before you were born
Many of the facts around the Phoenix Park Murders (see note at 5.378) are ambiguous; the date of the murders, however, is not: 6 May 1882, not 1881 as Crawford here claims. Like Joyce, Stephen was born in 1882, although the date is never specified (see note at 17.447–48). If, like Joyce, his birthday was 2 February, then the murders would have occurred after he was born.
7.633: Phoenix park
‘This spacious and beautiful park, open at all times to the citizens, lies to the west of the city on the north bank of the Liffey, it is seven miles [11.26 km] in circumference, contains 1760 acres [712 hectares], of which 1,360 [550] are open, and has seven entrances with gates and lodges. The name is derived from the manor house of Fion-uiske (clear water)’ (DD, p. 238).
7.635: New York World
The New York World—a daily morning paper, founded in 1860—supported Irish independence, but condemned the Phoenix Park Murders and other acts of violence against British colonial rule. It even offered a reward for any information that led to the capture of the Phoenix Park murderers. There was initially a widespread belief among British officials that the plot had originated with Irish Americans in New York City, and this was reflected in the coverage in New York newspapers (Jonathan Gantt, Irish Terrorism in the Atlantic Community, pp. 120–21, 125). In 1883, the New York World was purchased by Joseph Pulitzer (American newspaper publisher, 1847–1911), after which it quickly became a leading example of sensationalistic journalism, but this post-dates its coverage of the Phoenix Park Murders (George Juergens, Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World, pp. 43–92).
7.639–40: Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean, Joe Brady and the rest of them
All the people named here—Kelly, Kavanagh, Joe Brady—were involved in the Phoenix Park Murders. Joe Brady (1857–83) and Tim Kelly (1863–83) were the killers, and Michael (or Myles) Kavanagh (1860–99) was their getaway driver (Tom Corfe, The Phoenix Park Murders, pp. 185–90).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 247
7.640: Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car
James ‘Skin-the-Goat’ Fitzharris (1843–1910) drove a second, decoy getaway car, which carried the conspirators Daniel Curley, Michael Fagan, and Joseph Hanlon (Corfe, Phoenix Park Murders, p. 189). Fitzharris, a cab driver by trade, drove directly from Phoenix Park to the centre of town. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was paroled after 15 years (in 1902). ‘It was said that he was [nicknamed “Skin-the-goat”] after killing a goat with his clasp knife when he saw it eating straw out of his horse’s collar’ (DIB). Tom Corfe calls Fitzharris ‘an ugly, whiskery, jaunty, picturesque figure in a shabby black overcoat, a jarvey’s waistcoat, and a red neckerchief ’ (Phoenix Park Murders, p. 256).
7.642: cabman’s shelter
Upon his release from prison, Skin-the-Goat became the nightwatchman (see note at 7.646) for a cabman’s shelter for the Dublin Corporation (DIB); see also note at 16.8.
7.642: Butt bridge
At the time, this was the last bridge over the Liffey near its mouth. Named after Isaac Butt (for whom see note at 7.707), the original Butt Bridge was completed in 1879 and replaced in 1932 (Bennett, p. 26). The bridge is right next to the Loop Line Bridge (see note at 5.138), although they are distinct structures.
7.642: Holohan See note at 5.96.
7.644: Hop and carry one, is it?
After the expression ‘dot and carry one’: ‘A person with a wooden or a shorter or a limping leg’ (Partridge). This follows from the expression used in elementary arithmetic of setting down units and carrying over the tens to the next column or denomination (Thomas Sadler, A Complete System of Practical Arithmetic, p. 25).
7.645: Gumley
William Gumley (1849–1920): a nightwatchman for the Dublin Corporation. ‘In 1904 he was living at 13 Fountenoy Street [. . .]. He was a neighbour of John Stanislaus Joyce who was living at 44 Fountenoy Street in 1905’ (Igoe, p. 130).
7.646: night watchman
Most nightwatchmen were stationed in sentry boxes. ‘Numerous contemporary and modern accounts continued to depict the night watchmen as old, infirm, completely unfit for the job, and always prepared to allow a prisoner to escape on the production of a half-a- crown’ (Anastasia Dukova, A History of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, pp. 47–48).
7.652: Weekly Freeman of 17 March
17 March is St Patrick’s Day, the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland. In 1882, the year the Phoenix Park Murders actually took place, St Patrick’s Day fell on a Friday. In 1881, the year Crawford claims it occurred, it fell on a Thursday. In either case this is a problem, since the Weekly Freeman was published on Saturdays.
7.654: Bransome’s coffee
Branson’s Coffee Extract: a kind of instant coffee syrup, manufactured in London. Joyce clearly wrote ‘Bransome’ (Rosenbach f. 20), but since the brand was widely advertised, the error is probably Crawford’s (Harald Beck, JJON).
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248 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.657: A DISTANT VOICE
The word telephone literally means ‘a distant voice’ in Greek: tele (afar) + phone (sound, voice) (OED).
7.659: B is parkgate
Park Gate is the south-east gate of Phoenix Park; it is one of the principal entrances to the park and the one nearest to the city centre. It was marked by four circular limestone piers and three iron vehicular gates and pedestrian entrances. These were built in 1811, removed in 1932, and re-erected in the late 1980s (Christine Casey, Dublin, p. 309).
7.661: T is viceregal lodge. C is where murder took place
The Lord Lieutenant’s house, in the northern part of the park. The viceregal lodge is now the house of the Irish President (and is now called the Áras an Uachtaráin). The murders took place a short distance from the viceregal lodge on the main road (Corfe, Phoenix Park Murders, p. 189). The spot is marked by a small memorial, a cross etched in the grass by the side of the road.
7.661–62: K is Knockmaroon gate
The westernmost gate of Phoenix Park.
7.667: route Skin-the-Goat drove the car for an alibi
According to Crawford, Gallaher cabled to New York the plan of Skin-the-Goat’s decoy route by superimposing a map of Dublin over a newspaper advertisement, using the advert to mark the key junctures of the routes. On the basis of Crawford’s account, it is not clear how such a scheme would actually work unless the New York office had a map of Dublin at the corresponding scale. Furthermore, the information about this route was not known until the trial of the Invincibles in 1883.
7.667–68: Inchicore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh
This was actually the route taken by Michael Kavanagh’s carriage, the getaway car for the murderers, and not Skin-the-Goat’s decoy car, which drove directly into the city centre. Inchicore is in south-west Dublin. Roundtown is the older name of Terenure, which lies south-west of Dublin. Windy Arbour is east of Terenure. From there, the getaway car drove north towards Palmerston Park and Ranelagh, in south-east Dublin (Corfe, Phoenix Park Murders, pp. 185–90, 230–59).
7.669: X is Davy’s publichouse in upper Leeson street
Kavanagh’s carload of Invincibles did stop to celebrate their achievement at J. and T. Davy’s pub: 110A–111 Upper Leeson Street (Thom’s, p. 1531), just south of the Grand Canal and on the way to Ranelagh (Corfe, Phoenix Park Murders, p. 190).
7.672: X is Davy’s publichouse
On the Rosenbach Manuscript, Joyce originally wrote, in both places, that the name of the pub at point ‘X’ was ‘Burke’s publichouse in Baggot street’ (f. 20). On the typescript, Joyce changed the first mention of this pub (at 7.669) to Davy’s in Upper Leeson Street (see the previous note), but he left this second instance unchanged (JJA, vol. 12, p. 296). Therefore, in all editions previous to Gabler, there is an inconsistency of the pub named at point X. Gabler emended the second instance from ‘Burke’s to ‘Davy’s’, thereby eliminating the inconsistency (UCSE, p. 284). However, considering Crawford’s lack of sobriety and the fact that he has just been interrupted, it is entirely possible that he would have mixed up the
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 249 pub names, especially since the name Burke’s recalls the name of one of the victims of the Phoenix Park Murders, Thomas Henry Burke (see note at 5.378). In any case, there is a Burke’s pub on Baggot Street, Daniel Burke and Co. at 50 Lower Baggot Street (Thom’s, p. 1819), which is only 750 metres distant from Davy’s on Upper Leeson Street.
7.678: Nightmare from which you will never awake See note at 2.377.
7.679: Dick Adams
Richard Adams (1846–1908): journalist for the Cork Examiner and the Freeman’s Journal (1868–1873), barrister on the Munster circuit (1873–1894), and, since 1894, County Court Judge for Limerick (Stephen Ball, Dublin Castle and the First Home Rule Crisis, p. 95), the position he held in 1904 (Thom’s, p. 904).
7.680: the Lord ever put the breath of life in
‘Breath of life’: from the King James Bible account of the creation of Adam: ‘And the Lord God [. . .] breathed into his face the breath of life’ (Genesis 2:7).
7.683: Madam, I’m Adam. And Able was I ere I saw Elba
Two famous palindromes. The first tells us how Adam presumably introduced himself to Eve; the second tells of Napoleon’s thoughts during his first exile, to Elba, the island between Italy and Corsica where he was kept from 1814 until his escape in 1815 (EB11, s.v. Napoleon I). Both palindromes can be found in William T. Dobson’s 1880 book Literary Frivolities (p. 217), although they are clearly older.
7.684: Old Woman of Prince’s street
The Freeman’s Journal—whose offices had an entrance on 4–8 Prince’s Street (Thom’s, p. 1573)— was nicknamed either ‘The Old Woman of Prince’s Street’ or, less disparagingly, ‘The Old Lady of Prince’s Street’. This is probably modelled after ‘The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’, an old nickname for the Bank of England (John Simpson, JJON). The Freeman’s Journal did not score any journalistic scoops in its coverage of the trials for the Phoenix Park Murders, but it did publish something that had an effect on the trial (see note at 7.685–86).
7.685: weeping and gnashing of teeth
Jesus said: ‘But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (Matthew 8:12, see also Matthew 13:42, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, Luke 13:28).
7.685–86: Out of an advertisement
Crawford’s story about Gallaher using an advertisement in the Weekly Freeman to surreptitiously transmit information to New York is fictitious. But, the Freeman’s Journal did publish an advertisement that had an effect on the trial of the Phoenix Park Murders. A key witness, Michael Glynn, was located through an advertisement placed in the Freeman’s Journal. Glynn was a master builder and he recognised James Carey (see note at 5.378) in the park on the evening of the murders as one of his former employees (Corfe, Phoenix Park Murders, p. 246).
7.686: Gregor Grey
Gregor Grey (c.1850–1920): an artist who, in 1904, lived at 1 Lower Sherrard Street, Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1886). He had a ‘reputation as a close and earnest student of nature’ (Irish Times,
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250 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses 30 Mar. 1904, p. 6, col. e; Igoe, p. 129). There is no evidence that he ever worked for the Freeman’s Journal.
7.687: Paddy Hooper See note at 7.456.
7.687: Tay Pay
Tay Pay: the nickname of Thomas Power O’Connor (1848–1929), an Irish journalist and politician. Tay Pay mimics a strong Irish pronunciation of T. P. After working for several Dublin papers, in 1870 O’Connor emigrated to England, where he founded and edited several London papers and magazines. He served as a pro-Home Rule MP for Liverpool from 1885 until his death (DIB). O’Connor was so well-known that his nickname is included in Partridge’s dictionary of slang. In 1900, during a visit to London, Joyce contacted O’Connor for a journalistic job, but was turned down as he was too young (Ellmann, p. 77).
7.687: Star
The Star: an English paper founded by Thomas Power O’Connor in 1888 (DIB, s.v. Thomas Power O’Connor).
7.688: Blumenfeld
Ralph David Blumenfeld (1864–1948): an American-born journalist who served as the editor of the London Daily Mail (1900–02) and the London Daily Express (1902–32). He introduced the practice of the large, attention-grabbing headline to British journalism (ODNB).
7.689: Pyatt!
Félix Pyat (1810–89): a French journalist and revolutionary. He was involved with the Paris Commune of 1871 (see note at 7.599) and edited two virulently insurrectionist papers (EB11). The spelling mistake is Joyce’s.
7.690–91: The father of scare journalism . . . the brother-in-law of Chris Callinan
That is, Ignatius Gallaher is both the father of scare journalism and the brother-in-law of Chris Callinan (thus this sentence is not about two separate individuals, one the father of scare journalism, the other Callinan’s brother-in-law). Gilbert identifies this as an example of the rhetorical figure zeugma (p. 197): ‘A figure by which a single word is made to refer to two or more words in the sentence [. . .]; e.g., the use of the same predicate, without repetition, with two or more subjects’ (OED). Christopher Callanan (1844–1909): ‘a Dublin journalist famous for his gaffes, bloopers and Irish bulls’ (SS, p. 216). The misspelling is Joyce’s. Callanan was Fred Gallaher’s—the model for Ignatius Gallaher (see note at 6.58)—brother- in-law (Igoe, p. 47).
7.698: the invincibles See note at 5.378.
7.698–99: some hawkers were up before the recorder
The Freeman’s Journal for 9 June 1904 reports that some hawkers were brought into Police Court (not to the Recorder, Sir Frederick Falkiner) for selling postcards commemorating the Invincibles: ‘In the Northern Police Court yesterday, before Mr. D. Mahoney, Divisional Magistrate, a number of licensed hawkers—namely, Elizabeth Reddington, James Kelly, Mary Kelly, John Hasley, Mary Leary, Joseph Leary, and John Pluce—were prosecuted by
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 251 the Commissioners of Public Works for hawking wares in the Phoenix Park in places forbidden by public notice. Mr. O’Shaughnessy, K.C. (instructed by Mr. W. H. Lane, solicitor), appeared for the Commissioners, and said that under the 14th and 15th Vic., and the Statutes incorporated with it, the Commissioners of Public Works had complete control and management of the Phoenix Park. There occurred in the year 1882 a fearful tragedy in the Phoenix Park, and from that period on it had been the desire of every class and every creed in this country that that tragedy should pass into history, if not entirely lost sight of. These defendants, notwithstanding repeated warnings, congregated around the scene of the crime of many years ago, and every foreigner who came to Ireland was stopped there to be sold mementoes of that tragedy’ (p. 2, col. j).
7.700: Lady Dudley
Lady Dudley (née Rachel Gurney, 1867–1920): wife to William Humble Ward, Earl of Dudley (1867–1932), the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1902–06); for whom see note at 8.1162. They were married in 1891 and had four children (Thom’s, p. 301). The newspaper account of the ‘hawkers’ does not mention her.
7.701–02: that cyclone last year
The great storm on 26–27 February 1903 (see note at 1.367) caused extensive damage throughout Dublin. Phoenix Park was especially hard hit: over a thousand trees were destroyed. ‘The general aspect of the Park suggests a battlefield in which the rival powers were wind and wood. The army of the wind has swept in triumph over it, and left the wood maimed and disabled and cast prone. The braver and statelier the tree, the greater was the fury of its fall’ (Weekly Irish Times, 28 Feb. 1903, p. 13, col. b).
7.703: Joe Brady
One of the two murderers; see note at 7.639–40.
7.703: Number One
Number One: the code-name for Patrick Joseph Percy Tynan (1852–1936), who claimed to give orders to the Invincibles. Tom Corfe dismisses Tynan’s importance in the plot, ‘He was, he admits, a late comer to the Invincible organisation, brought in only after the Dublin plot was well under way’ (Phoenix Park Murders, p. 136).
7.703: Skin-the-Goat See note at 7.640.
7.705: in the hook and eye department
That is, inconsequential. The OED quotes Charles Reade’s Hard Cash (1862) using this phrase in a similarly dismissive sense: ‘My ladies did not [. . .] care a hook and eye about it’ (s.v. hook).
7.707: Whiteside
James Whiteside (1804–76): lawyer, politician, and the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland after 1866. He was a conservative, anti-democratic Protestant. As a lawyer, he successfully defended Daniel O’Connell in 1844, after which he was recognised as the leading figure of the Irish bar (DIB).
7.707: Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt (1813–79): an MP, a lawyer, scholar, and writer. He was one of the founding forces that established the Home Rule movement as a structured political programme in the
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252 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses 1870s. In 1877, Parnell ousted Butt from the leadership of the Home Rule Confederation (DIB). An effusive editorial in the Freeman’s Journal on the occasion of his death called him ‘the greatest of Irish lawyers, the most cultured of Irish scholars, the orator whose words were gold’ (6 May 1879, p. 4, col. g).
7.707: silvertongued O’Hagan
Thomas O’Hagan (1812–85): politician and lawyer. The first Catholic to be made Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1868–74, 1880–81), O’Hagan was made a peer in 1870. He advocated, not always successfully, for Catholic causes (DIB). In their obituary, the Freeman’s Journal wrote: ‘The chief sources of his power as an orator were undoubtedly his charming delivery, richness and rapidity of thought, and the grace and elegance of his sentences [. . .] Polished in the extreme, his language was, however, never turgid or bombastic’ (2 Feb. 1885, p. 5, col. c).
7.708: Only in the halfpenny place!
Ha’penny place (Hiberno-English): ‘A colloquialism meaning “an inferior place”, deriving from the low value of a ha’penny (halfpenny) coin’ (Brewer’s Irish).
7.715: drouth
See note at 4.44.
7.715–16: Rhymes: two men dressed the same, looking the same, two by two
This image derives from the 29th canto of Dante’s Purgatorio. In that canto, Dante beholds the pageant of divine revelation, at the end of which are two old men, looking the same but not dressed the same: ‘Behind the whole group I have described I saw two old men, different in dress, but alike in grave and dignified bearing; the one showed himself of the household of Hippocrates whom nature made for the creatures she holds dearest, the other showed the opposite care, with a sword so bright and sharp that on the far side of the river it put me in fear’ (XXIX.133–41). Unlike Stephen’s rhymes, Dante’s rhymes are not ‘two by two’, but rather in terza rima (see note at 7.720).
7.717–19: la tua pace . . . si tace
Excerpts from Dante’s Inferno V.92–94. The passage is redacted in order to emphasise the rhyme and cadence of Dante’s lines. The full verse, with the lines Stephen cites italicised: ‘O, living creature gracious and friendly, who goest through the murky air visiting us who stained the world with blood, if the King of the universe were our friend we would pray to Him for thy peace, since thou hast pity of our evil plight. Of that which thou art pleased to hear and speak we will hear and speak with you while the wind is quiet, as it is here.’ In this canto, Dante has entered the second circle of hell, where the lustful are punished. He asks one of the suffering to tell her story. Francesca da Rimini approaches him and tells of her adulterous love for Paolo, her husband’s brother. In the passage that Stephen contemplates, she is saying that ‘Divine Providence may cause the wind to “be silent” for the special bene fit of the wayfaring Dante, so that he may hear of this sinful and tragic love’ (Charles S. Singleton, The Divine Comedy: Inferno: Commentary, p. 83).
7.720: He saw them three by three, approaching girls
Stephen describes Dante’s use of rhyme as girls approaching ‘three by three’; Dante’s terza rima is a triple rhyme set in three-line stanzas (ABA, BCB, CDC, etc.). ‘Terza rima is a fundamental constituent of the Commedia both thematically, because of its Trinitarian associations, and structurally’ (Richard Lansing, The Dante Encyclopedia, p. 808). The
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 253 image of three colourful girls derives from Dante’s Purgatorio: ‘Three ladies come dancing in a round at the right wheel, one so red that she would hardly have been noted in the fire, another as if the flesh and bones had been of emerald, the third seeming new-fallen snow; and they seemed to be led, now by the white, now by the red, and from this one’s song the others took their movement fast and slow’ (XXIX.121–31).
7.721: per l’aer perso in mauve, in purple
Per l’aer perso (Italian): ‘Through the dark air’; from Dante’s Inferno, V.89. In his earlier work Il Convivio, Dante writes: ‘Perse is a color composed of purple and black, but black predominates’ (IV.20).
7.721–22: quella pacifica oriafiamma, in gold of oriflamme
Quella pacifica oriafiamma (Italian): ‘That peaceful oriflamme’; from Dante’s Paradiso XXXI.127. Oriflamme: ‘The ancient royal banner of France, coloured purple-azure and gold. It was split into five points, and sometimes bore upon it a saltire wavy, from the centre of which golden rays diverged’ (J. W. Mollet, Illustrated Dictionary of Antique Art and Archaeology). Later oriflamme flags were fiery red.
7.722–23: But I old men . . . underdarkneath the night
Stephen compares his rhymes to the old men that follow the dancing ladies in the pageant at the end of the Purgatorio (see notes at 7.715–16 and 7.720). Unlike Dante’s old men, Stephen’s are dressed the same.
7.722: di rimirar fè più ardenti
Di rimirar fè più ardenti (Italian): ‘More eager in their gazing’; from Dante’s Paradiso XXXI.142.
7.726: SUFFICIENT FOR THE DAY
From Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount: ‘Be not therefore solicitous for to morrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof ’ (Matthew 6:34).
7.727: gage
Gage: ‘A pledge (usually a glove thrown on the ground) of a person’s appearance to do battle in support of his assertions. Hence, a challenge’ (OED).
7.730: third profession
That is, law, the other two learned professions being divinity and medicine.
7.730–31: your Cork legs are running away with you
Evidently, Crawford is from Cork. The reference here is to a ballad called ‘The Cork Leg’ about a Dutchman, Mynheer Von Clam, who, after an amputation, needs an artificial leg. Unfortunately for him, his new cork leg won’t stop walking and continues walking even after Von Clam has died (Richardson’s Choice Songster for 1836, p. 26).
7.731: Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan (1746–1820): Irish lawyer, orator, and MP. Under the Constitution of 1782, he secured a degree of freedom that the Irish parliament had not enjoyed for almost three centuries. In his honour, the new parliament was called ‘Grattan’s Parliament’. However, this ended with the Act of Union of 1800 (see note at 2.270), which formally dissolved the Irish parliament (DIB).
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254 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.731: Flood
Henry Flood (1732–91): Irish orator and politician. Like Grattan, Flood worked for Irish interests against English control over Ireland. However, he and Grattan were bitter rivals (DIB).
7.731: Demosthenes
Demosthenes (c.383–322 bc): Greek orator and statesman. ‘Demosthenes united and elevated whatever had been best in earlier masters of the Greek idiom’ (EB11). Thomas Leland’s (Irish classicist and professor at Trinity, 1722–85) translation of Demosthenes (1754–70) ‘provided a model for the Anglo-Irish tradition of parliamentary speaking as practised by Edmund Burke, Henry Grattan, John Philpot Curran, and others of his students in accordance with the idea of exalted style’ (Robert Welch, The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, p. 306).
7.732: Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (1729–97): philosopher, essayist, and one of the greatest parliamentary orators of his time. He was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity, but spent most of his career in England. ‘Burke’s role in the development of British and Irish politics in the second half of the eighteenth century was enormous. [. . .] His intimate connection with Ireland provided a basis for a critique of British and imperial politics which was fundamental to his thought’ (DIB).
7.732–33: his Chapelizod boss, Harmsworth
Alfred C. Harmsworth (1865–1922): Irish publisher and editor; born in the west Dublin suburb of Chapelizod. In 1894, Harmsworth purchased the London Evening News and in 1896 he started the hugely successful and influential London Daily Mail (DIB).
7.733: farthing press
Farthing press: a typically pejorative name given to cheap and sensationalistic journalism. The farthing is a quarter of a penny (OED), the lowest-value coin in circulation in 1904.
7.733–34: his American cousin of the Bowery guttersheet
Our American Cousin (1858), by Tom Taylor (1817–80), was the play that Abraham Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated in 1865. Here used to allude to Harmworth’s ‘American cousin’—that is, associate—the American newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer (see note at 7.635). The Bowery is an avenue in downtown Manhattan; in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was ‘infamous as a place of squalor, alcoholism, and wretchedness’ (Kenneth T. Jackson, Encyclopedia of New York City, p. 131).
7.734: Paddy Kelly’s Budget
A weekly Dublin paper that ran from November 1832 to June 1859, subtitled ‘A pennyworth of fun’ (Waterloo Directory); it was ‘a topical journal with a tendency to vulgarity’ (B. P. Bowen, ‘Dublin Humorous Periodicals of the 19th Century’, p. 3).
7.734: Pue’s Occurrences
One of the first daily newspapers in Ireland, Pue’s Occurrences was first published on Christmas Day 1703 by Richard Pue (d. 1758), owner of Dick’s Coffee House. Publication continued until 1792 (Richard Robert Madden, History of Irish Periodical Literature, vol. 1, pp. 226–28).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 255
7.734–35: our watchful friend The Skibbereen Eagle
The Skibbereen Eagle was a weekly newspaper published in Skibbereen, County Cork and was founded in 1857 (it ran under multiple names but Skibbereen Eagle is widely used). In the 1890s, they published several articles in which they claimed to be ‘keeping their eye on the Czar of Russia’. Such warnings earned the paper widespread notoriety and ridicule. The phrase actually originated with the Cork Chronicle in the 1820s, but, over the years, the credit migrated to the Eagle and, by the 1890s, the Eagle enthusiastically took to using the phrase as a way of attracting publicity (Matthew Potter, ‘Keeping an Eye on the Tsar’). One such instance is in an 1892 article about the visit of General Lord Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833–1913; Irish-born British Army field marshal) to Cork: ‘The Eagle willingly joins the hero of many fights in keeping a close watch on the “Emperor of Russia” and as the Eagle’s eye can see afar, and fearlessly pierce into many dark places, it will ever be on the alert to give warning to our brave defender’ (3 Sep. 1892, p. 2, col. f; Sam Slote, ‘ “And That’s Another Reason that I Left Old Skibbereen” ’).
7.735–36: forensic eloquence
Forensics (or judicial) is one of the three branches of rhetoric according to Aristotle (the other two are deliberative and epideictic, or praise). Its focus is the proving or disproving of events that have happened in the past and, as such, is primarily associated with courts of law (Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1358b).
7.736: Whiteside See note at 7.707.
7.736: Sufficient for the day is the newspaper thereof See note at 7.726.
7.738: Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper
Henry Flood (see note at 7.731) did work for the Freeman’s Journal from its earliest days. Grattan (see note at 7.731) never worked for the paper but he has been erroneously associated with it (Madden, History of Irish Periodical Literature, vol. 2, pp. 375–76).
7.739: Irish volunteers
A militia formed first in Belfast in 1778 with private funds to prevent the French from mounting a successful invasion of Ireland. By 1780, the Volunteers became a national mil itia with some 100,000 (predominantly Protestant) soldiers. After the threat of invasion receded, the Volunteers agitated against the exploitation of the Irish by English trade interests (NHI, vol. 4, p. 222–30).
7.739: Established 1763
The Freeman’s Journal was founded in 1763 by John Grant, William Braddell, and Edward Tandy, all merchants (Madden, History of Irish Periodical Literature, vol. 2, pp. 373–74).
7.739: Dr Lucas
Charles Lucas (1713–71): Irish physician and politician. Henry Grattan said he ‘laid the groundwork of Irish liberty’. Lucas contributed to the Freeman’s Journal from its inception, often under the byline ‘A Citizen’ or ‘Civis’. He is erroneously credited with having created the paper as a vehicle for advocating his political views (Madden, History of Irish Periodical Literature, vol. 2, pp. 373–74).
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256 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.740: John Philpot Curran
John Philpot Curran (1750–1817): Irish orator, barrister, and politician. He defended various patriotic political prisoners of the 1790s. ‘In the courtroom he established himself as the leading defender of the United Irishmen, and was later described as being the barrister most obnoxious to the government. [. . .] A passionate reformer committed to catholic relief and constitutional change, he may sometimes have stood on the line of what was constitutional, though he never crossed it. Proud and occasionally ill tempered, he excelled at oratory. In 1789 he was described as having a “clear, distinct and well tuned voice”, an “elegant and nervous” language, an “exhaustless stream [. . .] of luminous phrases, poetical allusions, and the most lively turns of fancy” ’ (DIB).
7.741: Bushe K. C.
Seymour Bushe (see note at 6.470) was made King’s Counsel in early 1904 (The Law Times, 13 Feb. 1904, vol. 116, p. 338).
7.743: Kendal Bushe
Charles Kendal Bushe (1767–1843): MP, Chief Justice, and Seymour Bushe’s father. ‘As a judge, his eloquence, courtesy, and integrity were widely admired’ (DIB).
7.744: He would have been on the bench long ago
As a young barrister, Seymour Bushe eloped with the Honourable Catherine Maude Brooke, the estranged wife of Gerard Brooke, a wealthy Dubliner. In 1886, Brooke successfully sued Bushe for substantial damages. This litigation so damaged Bushe’s legal career in Dublin that he eventually left for London in 1904 (Adrian Hardiman, Joyce in Court, pp. 96–97).
7.748: It was in that case of fratricide, the Childs murder case See notes at 6.470 and 6.473.
7.750: And in the porches of mine ear did pour
From the Ghost telling Hamlet how he came to die at the hand of his brother Claudius: ‘Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, / With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, / And in the porches of mine ears did pour / The leperous distilment’ (I.v.61–64).
7.752: beast with two backs
‘The beast with two backs’: Iago’s name for sexual intercourse (Othello, I.i.117).
7.754: ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM
Italia, Magistra Artium (Latin): ‘Italy, Mistress of the Arts’.
7.755–56: He spoke on the law of evidence . . . lex talonis
In his defence of Samuel Childs, Bushe contrasted English and Irish legal procedures for presenting evidence: the former would have allowed him to call Mrs Samuel Childs to test ify on behalf of her husband, whereas the latter forbade this. He did not speak about Mosaic law and Roman law. The Mosaic code, an ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ (Exodus 21:24), can be characterised as a lex talionis (Latin, the law of retaliation). The Roman law code differed from the Jewish in that it standardised punishments and forbade retaliation. The Evening Telegraph of 21 October 1899 prints the closing arguments and Bushe’s speech (p. 5, cols g and h and p. 6, col. a). In an editorial, the Irish Times notes that Bushe’s speech was ‘worthy of the Irish Bar’s best days’ (23 Oct. 1899, p. 4, col. h). See also note at 6.473.
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 257
7.756–57: the Moses of Michelangelo in the Vatican
Michelangelo Buonarroti’s (1475–1564) famous statue of Moses for the tomb of Julius II (1513–16) stands in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, not in the Vatican (EB11, s.v. Michelangelo).
7.762: Messenger . . . lit his cigar
Presumably this is Lenehan lighting O’Molloy’s cigarette (here called a cigar): elsewhere in the episode Lenehan readily lights other people’s cigarettes (7.465–66 and 7.778). The epithet ‘Messenger’ might be after the style of Dickens. For example, in Bleak House Lady Dedlock’s various footmen are called ‘Mercury’ (p. 23 et passim). See also the following note.
7.763–65: I have often thought . . . both our lives
This unusual intrusion seems to mimic the style of a nineteenth-century Bildungsroman, such as Dickens’s David Copperfield; for example, ‘There has been a time since when I have wondered whether, if the life before her could have been revealed to me at a glance. . .’ (p. 48; Robert Spoo, James Joyce and the Language of History, p. 82).
7.768: frozen music
The aphoristic characterisation of architecture as ‘frozen music’ was a well-worn cliché in the nineteenth century (Thomas Grey, ‘Metaphorical Modes in Nineteenth Century Music Criticism’, p. 95). The idea was first postulated by the German philosopher Friedrich W. J. Schelling (1775–1854), who claimed that architecture is ‘music in space [. . .] solidified music’ (The Philosophy of Art, §107, p. 165). However, the aphorism owes its currency to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), who wrote: ‘A noble philosopher spoke of architecture as frozen music’ (The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe, p. 174).
7.768: horned and terrible
Exodus 34:30 reads in the Douay: ‘And Aaron and the children of Israel seeing the face of Moses horned, were afraid to come near’. Likewise, the Moses of Michelangelo (see note at 7.756–57) has horns on his head. This follows from a translation error in the Vulgate. The Hebrew word qaran can mean either ‘sent forth beams’ or ‘sent forth horns’; the Vulgate (and thus the Douay) chose the latter. The King James chose the former: ‘the skin of his face shone’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Moses).
7.768–69: the human form divine
From William Blake’s ‘The Divine Image’, from Songs of Innocence and of Experience: ‘And love, the human form divine, / And Peace, the human dress. / Then every man, of every clime, / That prays in his distress, / Prays to the human form divine, Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace’ (ll. 11–16, Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 13). The phrase and concept appear elsewhere in Blake’s works: in ‘A Divine Image’ (l. 3, Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 32); ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ (p. 522); Milton (p. 131); and The Four Zoas (p. 395).
7.769–71: which, if aught . . . deserves to live
In his early commonplace book, under a series of notes labelled ‘For Dubliners’, Joyce copied a portion of Bushe’s speech, which he modified here: ‘which, if anything that the hand of man has wrought of noble and inspiring and beautiful deserves to live deserves to live’ (NLI I.ii f. 20r.).
7.774: divine afflatus
Afflatus: ‘miraculous communication of supernatural knowledge’; from the Latin, a breathing upon (OED).
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258 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.780: muchibus thankibus
Muchibus thankibus (Dog Latin): with many thanks. Third and fourth declension Latin nouns have dative and ablative plural endings in –ibus.
7.782: Professor Magennis
William Magennis (1869–1946), MA: a professor of philosophy at University College Dublin from 1889 (Thom’s, p. 858; Igoe, p. 196). Magennis praised one of Joyce’s Intermediate Examination essays but found fault with Joyce’s college address on Ibsen in 1900 (Ellmann, pp. 56, 73). Magennis’s criticisms of this address, as well as the objections of other professors, are rendered in Stephen Hero (pp. 103–04).
7.783: that hermetic crowd
That is, the Theosophists. The word theosophy means a ‘system of speculation which bases the knowledge of nature upon that of the divine nature’ (OED) and was adopted as the name of a movement founded by Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in 1875 (see note at 7.784). Theosophy weaves together different religions to propound a weird, vast, esoteric theological cosmology. Many of the key figures associated with the Irish Revival—such as Yeats and A.E.—were fascinated by Theosophy. The Dublin Lodge of the Theosophical Society was founded in 1886. Writing in 1916, Ernest Boyd (Irish writer, 1887–1946) claimed that ‘the Dublin Lodge of the Theosophical Society was as vital a factor in the evolution of Anglo-Irish literature as the publication of Standish O’Grady’s History of Ireland, the two events being complementary to any complete understanding of the literature of the Revival’ (Ireland’s Literary Renaissance, pp. 214–15). According to Stanislaus Joyce, Joyce ‘did, indeed, toy with theosophy as a kind of interim religion [. . .] On the whole, however, I think his serious interest in theosophy lapsed very quickly’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 140).
7.783–84: opal hush poets
A derisive term for some poets of the Irish Revival; after line 7 of the poem ‘Grey’ by Alberta Victoria Montgomery, an acolyte of A.E.: ‘The opal hush lies on the cloud bars bright’. This poem was published in the Christmas 1903 issue of The Irish Homestead (p. 21). Under his pseudonym ‘Imaal’, J. J. O’Toole chided Montgomery for this expression: ‘I don’t quite know what an “opal hush” may be, but I feel sure the writer must have felt “Celtic” through and through after writing the mystic words’ (Leader, 19 Dec. 1903, p. 281; Vincent Deane, ‘Joyce, Moranism, and the Opal Hush Poets’, pp. 72–73).
7.784: A.E. the mastermystic
George Russell (see note at 2.257) chose this pseudonym as an abbreviation for ‘Æon’, which in Theosophy means ‘an emanation from Deity, and the medium of its expression’ (Powis Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 4). However, typesetters frequently misunderstood Æ and rendered this as A.E., which is the form Joyce uses. ‘He himself preferred the joined form and was annoyed that printers persistently divided it, but eventually he fell into the habit of the separated letters for his own signature. The name “George William Russell” came to signify for him his superficial, personal self, a transient creation of this life, while “AE” represented the Logos incarnated in human form, his immortal self ’ (Henry Summerfield, That Myriad-Minded Man, pp. 30–31).
7.784: That Blavatsky woman started it
Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–91): Russian mystic and writer. In 1875, she co- founded the Theosophical Society in New York, as a means of propagating her interest in
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 259 occult phenomena and esoteric doctrines. She wrote many of the key books on Theosophy, such as Isis Unveiled (1876) (EB11). ‘Although she was unmasked relatively quickly as a charlatan, she acquired a following among intellectuals and artists’ (Geert Lernout, Help My Unbelief, p. 90).
7.785–86: A.E. has been telling some yankee interviewer that . . . him
This Yankee, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornelius Weygandt, recounted this incident in his book Irish Plays and Playwrights (1913). Russell told Weygandt about being accosted by Joyce (whom he doesn’t name) on a street corner near his home, in the summer of 1902: ‘ “A.E.” soon found the boy an exquisite who thought the literary movement was becoming vulgarized through so many people becoming interested in it. Finally the boy turned questioner and found that “A.E.” was seeking the Absolute. Having found this out, he again sighed, this time regretfully, and said decidedly that “A.E.” could not be his Messiah, as he abhorred the Absolute above everything else. He was infected with Pater’s Relative, said Mr. Russell, “which has fallen like a blight on all English literature”. So the boy—he was not yet twenty one—went out into the night with, I suppose, another of his idols fallen’ (p. 121). In October 1902, Russell arranged for Joyce to meet Yeats, writing to him: ‘The first spectre of the new generation has appeared. His name is Joyce. I have suffered from him and I would like you to suffer’ (Ellmann, p. 100).
7.786–87: planes of consciousness
The Theosophists believed that there were seven planes of consciousness, each divided into seven and each of those divisions divided into seven again. ‘The different terene planes— physical, astral mental, etc.—are objectively conceived as substance at various rates of vibration, or—which is the same thing—of different densities. Subjectively conceived, a plane denotes a certain range or extent of consciousness’ (Powis Hoult, A Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 101).
7.792–93: The finest display of oratory . . . John F. Taylor
John Francis Taylor (1853–1902): a celebrated Irish barrister, orator, and journalist. Yeats thought Taylor was the finest orator he had ever heard. On 24 October 1901, Taylor delivered a speech advocating the revival of the Irish language (DIB). Ellmann claims, without corrob oration, that Joyce attended this debate (Ellmann, p. 91). In 1924, Sylvia Beach arranged to produce and sell a recording of Joyce reading a passage from Ulysses, and the passage Joyce chose was Taylor’s speech because he claimed that it was the only passage in Ulysses that is ‘ “declamatory” and therefore suitable for recital’ (Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company, p. 171). The recording covers the recital of Taylor’s speech (7.828–69); see also note at 7.842–44.
7.793: college historical society
The Trinity College Historical Society (see note at 8.465). Taylor delivered his speech advocating the revival of the Irish language to the Law Students’ Debating Society (Freeman’s Journal, 25 Oct. 1901, p. 5, col. f), which is not in Trinity College; instead it is at King’s Inns on Henrietta Street. King’s Inns is the oldest institution of legal study in Ireland. The Society meets on Mondays during the school year ‘for the discussion of legal, historical, and social questions’ (Thom’s, p. 890).
7.794: Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal
Gerald Fitzgibbon (1837–1909): from 1878, the Lord Justice of Appeal. Conservative, Protestant, and Unionist, he was Commissioner of National Education from 1884 to 1889
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260 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses and National Commissioner, Educational Endowments, Ireland from 1885 to 1897. ‘Fitzgibbon was a dominant figure in Irish legal circles for more than a generation. His powers of persuasion as a barrister were formidable and he was well known for his success in virtually every case he took in the Irish courts’ (DIB).
7.796: revival of the Irish tongue
The Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge), established in 1893 by Douglas Hyde (see note at 9.94) and others, aimed to revive the Irish language as an attempt to forge an Irish identity distinct from the English (Brewer’s Irish); see also note at 1.431–32. ‘While it is true that the primary aim of preserving Irish as the everyday language of the Gaeltacht areas was not achieved, it is an undoubted fact that through its activities the league was instrumental in spreading a new consciousness of national distinctiveness throughout the country’ (NHI, vol. 6, p. 403).
7.800: Tim Healy
Timothy Michael Healy (1855–1931): Irish nationalist politician. Originally Parnell’s chief aide, he became one of the leaders of the anti-Parnellite faction of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the wake of the O’Shea scandal (see note at 2.394). Along with Seymour Bushe, Healy was one of Samuel Childs’s defence lawyers (see notes at 6.470 and 6.473) (DIB). In 1891, Joyce, then only nine years old, wrote a poem denouncing Healy’s betrayal of Parnell. John Joyce had this poem printed under the title ‘Et Tu, Healy’ for distribution amongst his friends (Ellmann, p. 33). No complete copy survives, but fragments as remembered by Joyce and by Stanislaus are printed in Poems and Shorter Writings (p. 71).
7.801: Trinity college estates commission
Trinity College Dublin, founded by royal charter in 1591, the oldest university in Ireland. 1591 is the year of its founding under the Julian calendar, which then prevailed in Ireland and Great Britain; under the Gregorian calendar, the year of its foundation is 1592 (R. B. McDowell and D. A. Webb, Trinity College Dublin, p. 516 n. 3). The front gate of the College is situated directly across from the Bank of Ireland in College Green. ‘By 1900 [. . .] Trinity was denounced on all sides not only as irredeemably Protestant but as “anti- national”, a preserve of the wealthy ascendancy’ (p. 364). Trinity was a substantial land owner and derived much of its income from rents, but land reform dictated that large landholdings be broken up and sold to tenant farmers. The Estates Commission was thus charged with ensuring that Trinity could still derive its necessary income while fulfilling its legal mandate to divest its properties. On 9 June 1904, Fitzgibbon and Healy were appointed by the Lord Lieutenant to a Commission to report on the relations between Trinity College and its tenants (London Times, 15 June 1904, p. 11, col. e).
7.802: He is sitting with a sweet thing . . . in a child’s frock
The object of Crawford’s insinuation is unclear. In 1879, Fitzgibbon became the governor of the Masonic Girls School in Dublin, to which he also donated a fund for a laboratory (ODNB). However, there is no record of any allegation of impropriety.
7.805–06: I will not say the vials of his wrath
From Revelation 16:1: ‘And I heard a great voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels: Go, and pour out the seven vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.’
7.806: the proud man’s contumely
Contumely: ‘scornful rudeness’ (OED). From Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy: ‘The oppressor's wrong, the proud man’s contumely’ (III.i.71).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 261
7.807–08: It was then a new movement. We were weak, therefore worthless
The opening address at the Law Students’ Debating Society debate on the revival of the Irish language addressed the status of the Gaelic League. Stephen L. Devitt, the Society’s auditor, noted that the ‘Gaelic League was founded some eight years ago. Dr Hyde, when giving evidence before the Intermediate Commission, spoke as the representative of seventy branches, and to-day the number of branches is over two hundred’ (Freeman’s Journal, 25 Oct. 1901, p. 5, col. f). However, despite such apparent strength, the League ‘was never, indeed, more than a very small pressure group and its numbers, even after twenty years of growth, remained small’ (NHI, vol. 6, p. 104).
7.813: ferial
The tonus ferialis, or ferial tone, is one of the toni orationum, the intonations of the voice used in the different parts of the sacred offices and liturgy. It is an uninterrupted monotone used for ordinary weekday prayers (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.814: from a sickbed
From an account of Taylor’s debate at the Law Students’ Debating Society: ‘After his conventional fireworks Mr Taylor rose. He had been very ill, and had come straight from his bed, and without food. He began with some difficulty, but the power increased as he went on’ (The Manchester Guardian, 14 Nov. 1902, p. 10, col. f); see also note at 7.869.
7.823–24: Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, his words were these
Taylor’s speech has been printed, but not precisely as it was delivered; see note at 7.869.
7.833: youthful Moses
The Book of Exodus tells the story of the young Moses, who was hidden in the bulrushes by his mother (2:3) so as not to be killed by the pharaoh, who had condemned all the Israelite male children to death (1:22). He was found and raised by the pharaoh’s daughter (2:10). Taylor’s allusion is incorrect: Moses was not youthful when he renounced his Egyptian ‘heritage’ by killing a violent Egyptian soldier (2:11–15). Taylor develops an analogy between Israel and Ireland as spirited victims of their oppressors, Egypt and England.
7.835–36: And let our crooked smokes
From the closing speech of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline: ‘Laud we the gods, / And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils / From our blest altars. Publish we this peace / To all our subjects’ (V.v.476–79).
7.841: FROM THE FATHERS
That is, from the Fathers of the Church—here, St Augustine.
7.842–44: It was revealed to me that those things are good . . . saint Augustine
After the opening sentence of Book 7, chapter 12 in St Augustine’s Confessions: ‘It was made manifest to me that beings that suffer corruption are nevertheless good’ (p. 172). This brief passage along with the phrases ‘Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand at it yourself?’ (7.836–37) are included in the recording Joyce made of Taylor’s speech (see note at 7.792–93). For these passages, Joyce employs a flat, inexpressive voice, which is utterly different from his reading of Taylor’s speech. Frank Budgen writes of Joyce reading aloud to him from ‘Proteus’: ‘He began to read the episode from the beginning in a smooth, easy way, without emphasis, which is his normal manner of reading the unspoken thoughts
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262 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses of his personages. Emphasis and the normal speaking voice too much suggest the normal spoken word’ (JJMU, p. 49).
7.847–48: galleys, trireme and quadrireme
Trireme and quadrireme: vessels used by the Greeks and Romans, with three and four tiers of oarsmen, respectively (remus: Latin, oar) (both OED). The Egyptians of Moses’s time (c.1200 bc) would not have had such sophisticated vessels.
7.852: Child, man, effigy
The three ages of Moses, from child to man to Michelangelo’s statue (see note at 7.756–57), which Taylor called ‘that stony effigy’ (7.768).
7.853: By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes See note at 3.297–98.
7.853–54: a man supple in combat
Moses did kill an Egyptian who was brutalising a Jewish worker (Exodus 2:11–12) and he is likened to a general, ‘And Moses forthwith said: Arm of you men to fight, who may take the revenge of the Lord on the Madianites’ (Numbers 31:3). However, it is Joshua, not Moses, who was renowned for physical combat.
7.854: stonehorned See note at 7.768.
7.855: local and obscure idol
Nineteenth-century biblical scholarship tended to the conclusion that Jewish monotheism originated with clans that lived near Mount Sinai and that the Hebrew God ‘Yahweh was primitively a nature god’ (EB11, s.v. Jehovah).
7.856: Isis and Osiris
Both are prominent gods of ancient Egypt. Isis is a nature goddess and Osiris, her husband and brother, is lord of the underworld and of resurrection (both Brewer’s).
7.856: Horus and Ammon Ra
Horus: a major god for the ancient Egyptians, originally a sky-god and sun-god and associated with the King himself (Brewer’s). Ammon Ra: the king of the gods of ancient Egypt (Brewer’s, s.v. Amen-Ra).
7.864–65: he would never have brought the chosen people . . . bondage See note at 7.208–09.
7.865–66: nor followed the pillar of the cloud by day
During the Israelites’ escape from Egypt, ‘And the Lord went before them to shew the way by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire: that he might be the guide of their journey at both times. There never failed the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, before the people’ (Exodus 13:21–22).
7.866–67: He would never have spoken . . . on Sinai’s mountaintop
In Exodus 19–20, Moses speaks with God on the summit of Sinai where God gives Moses the Ten Commandments. Also, it was on Sinai (called Horeb) that God spoke to Moses from out of the burning bush and told him that he would lead Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 3).
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7.867–69: come down with the light of inspiration . . . the tables of the law
That is, coming down from Mount Sinai, bearing the ten commandments and the other laws enumerated in Exodus 20–31. For the ‘light of inspiration’: ‘when Moses came down from mount Sinai [. . .] the skin of his face shone’ (Exodus 34:29 in the King James; see note at 7.768). For the tables: ‘And Moses returned from the mount, carrying the two tables of the testimony in his hand, written on both sides, And made by the work of God: the writing also of God was graven in the tables’ (Exodus 32:15–16).
7.869: language of the outlaw
The Language of the Outlaw: the title of a pamphlet published anonymously by Roger Casement (for whom, see note at 12.1545) in 1904 or 1905 that contains a modified version of the text of Taylor’s speech that had been originally published in the Manchester Guardian (14 Nov. 1902, p. 10, col. f). This served as Joyce’s primary source for Taylor’s speech in Ulysses (Abby Bender, ‘The Language of the Outlaw: A Clarification’). The debate and Taylor’s speech were covered at length in the Freeman’s Journal (25 Oct. 1901, p. 5, cols e–g). Yeats’s account of Taylor’s speech in his autobiography is at variance with the one Casement published (Autobiographies, pp. 101, 192–93).
7.873: And yet he died without having entered the land of promise
Deuteronomy 34 describes Moses’s ultimate fate. He went alone up to Mount Pisgah and saw the promised land from that height, but he was forbidden by God to enter Israel.
7.880: Gone with the wind
This phrase, later used by Margaret Mitchell as her book’s title, is from line 13 of Ernest Dowson’s (1867–1900) poem ‘Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae’ (I am not the man I was under the sway of the good Cynara): ‘I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind / Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, / Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind’ (Poems, p. 28).
7.880: Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings
Hosts: multitudes (OED). In 1843, between March and October, Daniel O’Connell (see note at 2.269), as part of his campaign to repeal the Act of Union, held a total of thirty-one ‘monster meetings’ throughout Ireland. The largest—in Cork on 21 May—had an audience estimated at half a million (Patrick Geoghegan, Liberator, pp. 133–39). The Hill of Tara, in County Meath, is traditionally associated with the high kings of Ireland. It is also, sup posedly, where St Patrick defeated the druids in a series of contests. It was also a battleground in the 1798 rebellion. On 15 August 1843, it was the site of one of the largest of Daniel O’Connell’s ‘monster meetings’ (pp. 153–55). Mullaghmast, in County Kildare, 35 km south-west of Dublin, was the site of a massacre of Irish chieftains during the reign of Elizabeth I. On 1 October, O’Connell held one of his largest meetings there (pp. 160–61).
7.881: Miles of ears of porches
A mangled allusion to the Ghost of King Hamlet’s line, ‘And in the porches of mine ears did pour’ (I.v.63; see note at 7.750). The Rosenbach draft reads ‘miles of ears’ (f. 26) and the typescript ‘miles of ears of porches’ (JJA, vol. 12, p. 299). Since the Rosenbach was not the draft from which the typescript was prepared, a likely possibility is that Joyce added the phrase ‘of porches’ on the now-missing fair copy with a mark for it to be inserted before ‘of ears’, but the typist made a mistake and inserted it after, thereby creating a solecism and distorting the Shakespearean allusion (John Turner, ‘ “Miles of porches of ears” ’, p. 980).
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264 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.882–83: Akasic records of all that ever anywhere wherever was
Akasic: from the Sanskrit akasa, ether, atmosphere (OED). ‘Âkâsa is described by Mme Blavatsky as “primordial substance”. [. . .] From this all the lower (or more outward) manifestations [. . .] proceed’ (Hoult, A Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 6). Thus, the Akasic records are the record of everything: ‘In the great memory cells of the Universe are stored away the records of all that has gone before—those who have access to the records may read’ (William Walker Atkinson, Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism, p. 106).
7.883: Love and laud him
From the closing speech of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline; see note at 7.835–36.
7.885: may I suggest that the house do now adjourn
‘That this House do now adjourn’: a formula used at the end of debates in the British parliament and other legislative bodies; for example, ‘Motion made, and Question proposed, “That this House do now adjourn”.—(Mr Disraeli)’ (Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 20 July 1871, p. 23).
7.887: French compliment
A French compliment: an invitation tendered without an expectation of its being accepted (Dent).
7.892: Mooney’s
J. G. Mooney & Co., wine and spirit merchants: 1 Lower Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1959). This is a short walk away from the offices of the Freeman’s Journal, on the other side of O’Connell Street, and just doors away from the Ship, where Stephen was to have met Mulligan (see note at 1.127).
7.894: strong waters
Strong water: ‘A strong alcoholic drink, an intoxicating spirit. Also in pl. and sing. as a mass noun’ (OED).
7.898: Lay on, Macduff!
From Macbeth’s last words before being killed by Macduff (V.viii.33).
7.910: Fuit Ilium!
Fuit Ilium (Latin): ‘Ilium was’ (i.e., it is no more); from Virgil’s Aeneid (II.325).
7.910: windy Troy
From Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘Ulysses’ (1842). Ulysses says he has ‘drunk delight with my peers, / Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy’ (ll. 16–17).
7.910–11: Kingdoms of this world
According to Jesus, ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ (John 18:36).
7.911: The masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today
Fellaheen: peasants (OED). The epithet ‘The masters of the Mediterranean’ has been applied to numerous naval powers, from various historical periods, from the Egyptians to the Phoenicians to the Greeks to the Romans to the Venetians to the Ottomans and so on. The point thus being that all empires eventually fade and are superseded. For example, ‘Geneseric [King of the Vandals, 389–477] [. . .] was creating a huge Vandal Empire, and
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 265 was master of the Mediterranean—that prize for which ancient nations had once so fiercely struggled’ (Mary Parmele, A Short History of Rome and Italy, p. 111).
7.916: left along Abbey street
Abbey Street runs along the southern side of the Freeman’s Journal offices on North Prince’s Street. The men walk east to Mooney’s, which is just on the other side of O’Connell Street at 1 Lower Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1407).
7.921: DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN
This phrase—which recurs throughout Joyce’s works—has been widely attributed to Lady Sydney Morgan (c.1783–1859), an Irish poet and novelist best known for her novel The Wild Irish Girl (1806). For example, Edward McMahon writes: ‘the capital celebrated by Sydney Morgan as the most car-driving [i.e. a horse-drawn carriage], tea-drinking city in the universe—“dear, dirty Dublin” ’ (Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine, Dec. 1860, no. 6, p. 289). While she never used this precise phrase, she did use a similar expression in her Memoirs when she called Dublin ‘our own dear but dirty little home’ (vol. 2, p. 283). The specific phrase originates in Charles Lever’s (Irish novelist, 1806–72) Confessions of Harry Lorrequer (1839): ‘Dear, dirty Dublin—“Io te salute”—how many excellent things may be said of thee’ (p. 87; Dent; John Simpson, JJON).
7.922: Dubliners
The title of Joyce’s collection of short stories, written between 1904 and 1907 and published in 1914. In 1904, as he was beginning work on the first stories, he wrote to C. P. Curran: ‘I am writing a series of epliclets—ten—for a paper. I have written one. I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 55). The word epiclets—that is, mini-epics—was originally mistranscribed as epicleti (Wolfhard Steppe, ‘The Merry Greeks’, pp. 603–05).
7.923: vestals
Vestal: a virgin (OED). In ancient Rome, the priestesses of Vesta, the goddess of fire and the hearth. Originally there were four but later there were as many as seven. The Vestal virgins tended the sacred fire in the Aedes Vestae (Temple of Vesta) (EB11).
7.924: Fumbally’s lane See note at 3.379.
7.928–29: Akasic records. Quicker, darlint!
Akasic records: see note at 7.882–83. Darlint (Hiberno-English): darling; for example, from Anna Maria Hall’s (1800–81) Lights and Shadows of Irish Life: ‘There, darlint, I’ll not tell’ (vol. 2, p. 72).
7.930: Let there be life
After Genesis 1:3 in the King James: ‘And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.’
7.931: Nelson’s pillar See note at 6.293.
7.933–34: threepenny bits and sixpences . . . and one and seven in coppers
The women have two shillings and threepence in silver coins (the ‘threepenny bits and sixpences’) and one shilling and seven pence in copper coins (‘the pennies’), for a total of
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266 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses three shillings and ten pence. On the basis of this information, it is possible to estimate the disposition of their coinage: 19 copper coins (19 d. = 1s. 7d.) and five, six, or seven silver coins (assuming they have multiple sixpence coins). On the Rosenbach draft, Joyce origin ally wrote ‘a sixpence’ but then emended to ‘sixpences’ on the same document, although the sequence of revisions is not perfectly clear (f. 28; UCSE, p. 302). The typist typed ‘a sixpence’ (JJA, vol. 12, p. 300), a reading which remained in all editions previous to Gabler. Gabler reverts to the other form found on the Rosenbach. However, if they have only one sixpence, then it is possible to calculate the exact number of silver coins they have: eight (one sixpence plus seven threepence coins = 27 d. = 2s. 3d.).
7.937: Wise virgins
Jesus tells the parable of the wise virgins and foolish virgins in Matthew (25:1–13); the wise virgins are those who come fully prepared, and bring oil with their lamps, while the foolish ones bring only their lamps.
7.938: LIFE ON THE RAW
On the raw: ‘roughing it’ (Partridge, s.v. raw).
7.939: brawn
Brawn: the ‘flesh of a boar (or swine), collared, boiled, and pickled or potted’ (OED).
7.939: panloaf
Pan-loaf: ‘A loaf baked in a pan or tin, having a hard, smooth crust; a tin-loaf. Also: bread in the form of such a loaf ’ (OED).
7.940: the north city diningrooms . . . Miss Kate Collins
Kate Collins ran the North City Dining Rooms, 11 Marlborough Street, parallel to Sackville Street (Thom’s, p. 1539) and near Nelson’s Pillar.
7.941–42: four and twenty ripe plums from a girl at the foot of Nelson’s pillar
In ‘Hades’, when the carriage with Bloom en route to Dignam’s funeral passed by Nelson’s Pillar, they overheard one such fruit vendor selling eight plums for one penny (6.294). Therefore, twenty-four plums would cost the women a total of threepence.
7.948: Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe
Thom’s lists a Mrs Kearns, pawnbroker at 7 North Great George Street and 13 Summer Hill and another at 23 Lower Mount Street (p. 1916). For Mrs Florence MacCabe, see note at 3.33–34.
7.949: Lourdes water See note at 5.365.
7.950: passionist father
A passionist: ‘a member of “The Congregation of the Discalced [Barefoot] Clerks of the most Holy Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ” ’ (OED).
7.951: crubeen
Crubeen (Hiberno-English): ‘a delicacy made from boiled pig’s trotters’ (Dolan).
7.951: double X
‘In designations of brands of ale, stout, or porter, XX or double X denotes a medium quality, XXX or treble X the strongest quality’ (OED).
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7.952: Antithesis
Antithesis: in Rhetoric, ‘An opposition or contrast of ideas, expressed by [. . .] words which are the opposites of, or strongly contrasted with, each other’ (OED).
7.957: aureoling
Aureole: ‘the celestial crown worn by a martyr, virgin, or doctor [of the church]’ (OED).
7.962: RETURN OF BLOOM
After Odysseus’s men foolishly opened Aeolus’s bag of wind (see note at 7.399–400), Odysseus was forced to make a return trip to Aeolus’s island where he received a frosty welcome (Odyssey, X.54–75). Bloom is returning to the offices of the Freeman’s Journal on the Abbey Street side of the building, the entrance for which was at 84 Middle Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1409).
7.963: Mr Bloom, breathless
Bloom has taken a shortcut from Dillon’s on Bachelor’s Walk (see notes at 7.412 and 7.430): rather than go all the way to O’Connell Street, he turned up William’s Row, a passageway parallel to O’Connell Street (Beck, ‘ “Aeolus”—A Sightseeing Tour’, p. 139).
7.964: Irish Catholic and Dublin Penny Journal
The Irish Catholic and Dublin Penny Journal: two weekly newspapers, published on Thursdays and printed by Nation Printing, 90 Middle Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1409). These offices are quite close to the Abbey Street side of the offices of the Freeman’s Journal.
7.969: Terrible tragedy in Rathmines! A child bit by a bellows!
An article in the Irish Independent for 16 January 1908, on newsboys, notes that some have the habit of yelling out manufactured and ridiculous headlines: ‘Could anything be more sensational than “Horrible accident in Rathmines—Child bit by a bellows” ’ (p. 4, col. e) (John Simpson, JJON).
7.975–76: Kilkenny People
The Kilkenny People: a Parnellite weekly newspaper, published on Saturdays, and founded in 1892 by P. J. O’Keefe and Edward T. Keane (1867–1945) (Thom’s, p. 1279; DIB, s.v. Edward Keane). See also note at 7.155 for Kilkenny.
7.976: national library See note at 1.469–70.
7.976: House of keys
See notes at 7.142 and 7.150.
7.980: K. M. A.
Abbreviation of Crawford’s curse, ‘Kiss my arse’; see the following note.
7.981: kiss my arse
Partridge calls this phrase a ‘contemptuous dismissive, from “time immemorial’ ”. According to Ellmann, ‘Mead was never guilty of either profanity or obscenity’ (p. 289).
7.983: Look out for squalls
Squall: a disturbance or a commotion as well as a strong gust of wind (OED). The OED states that the warning ‘Look out for squalls’ is a nautical expression. This suggests the
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268 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses ferocious winds freed from Aeolus’s bag of wind that sent Odysseus back to Aeolus’s island (Odyssey, X.46–55).
7.984: yachting cap
Joyce retains a detail of Lenehan’s outfit from ‘Two Gallants’: ‘[Lenehan] was squat and ruddy. A yachting cap was shoved far back from his forehead’ (Dubliners, p. 49).
7.984: on the cadge
Cadge: the practice of begging money (Partridge).
7.984: blarney
Blarney: a village near Cork and an expression for ‘Smoothly flattering or cajoling talk’ (OED).
7.987: What was he doing in Irishtown?
For Irishtown, see note at 6.34. Bloom saw Stephen in Irishtown at 6.39–40.
7.990: K. M. R. I. A.
Abbreviation of Crawford’s curse, ‘Kiss my royal Irish arse’. John Wyse Power, the real life counterpart of John Wyse Nolan (see note at 8.950–51), was known for this particular bit of profanity around the offices of the Evening Telegraph (Ellmann, p. 289). The initials MRIA stand for Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a prestigious organisation of s cholars from all academic disciplines, incorporated in 1786 ‘for promoting the study of science, politics, polite literature, and antiquities’; its headquarters are at 19 Dawson Street (Thom’s, p. 886).
7.995: RAISING THE WIND
To raise the wind: to raise money (OED).
7.996: Nulla bona
Nulla bona (Latin): No goods. ‘The return made (by a sheriff or other officer) upon an execution for debt when the party has no goods to be seized’ (OED).
7.997: I’ve been through the hoop myself
To go through the hoop: ‘to pass the Insolvent Debtors’ court’ (Partridge).
7.997: back a bill
To back a bill: to countersign a warrant or to endorse a bill, or cheque (OED).
7.1006: WADDLER
Waddler: someone who walks ‘in short steps, swaying alternately from one leg to the other, as is done by a stout short-legged person’ (OED).
7.1008–09: Out for the waxies’ Dargle
Waxy: cobbler. Waxy’s Dargle: ‘a poor person’s (represented by a cobbler) holiday. As such a person could not afford to travel to the actual Dargle river in Co. Wicklow.’ The expression’s prominence is due to a popular ballad called ‘The Waxies’ Dargle’: ‘Says my oul’ wan [wife] to your oul’ wan, / Will you come to the Waxies’ Dargle? / Says your oul’ wan to my oul’ wan, / Sure I haven’t got a fardel’ (Dolan).
7.1011: Rathmines’ blue dome
The Church of Mary Immaculate Refuge of Sinners, on Rathmines Road, about 2.5 km south-east of Nelson’s Pillar. The original saucer-shaped copper dome burnt down in a fire
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 269 on 26 January 1920. It was replaced by a ‘dome of grandiose proportions’ (Constantine Curran, ‘Patrick Byrne: Architect’, p. 200). Blue: blue vitriol, sulphate of copper (OED, s.vv. blue; vitriol).
7.1012: Adam and Eve’s
Adam and Eve’s Church (officially named the Church of the Immaculate Conception): a Franciscan church on Merchant’s Quay on the south bank of the Liffey (Thom’s, p. 1543). It lies about 800 metres south-west of Nelson’s Pillar. The current church was built in 1832. The original structure was taken down after the suppression of the monasteries under Henry VIII. ‘Thenceforth the Franciscan Friars had a precarious life in the city of Dublin until about the year 1615, when they rented a small back house at the rere of an old tavern in Cook Street, then known as the sign of Adam and Eve [. . .] the priests or friars of the Cook Street Convent, to evade the laws that were against them, said their Masses at such hours on Sundays as would not conflict with the hours at which Protestants assembled at their respective churches, and usually had some confidential person placed at the entrance door, who would not allow any person to pass into the private chapel except those whom he knew to be Roman Catholics, and all such persons had, as a pass or countersign, to use the expression, “I am going to Adam and Eve”. Hence the name still applies to the Franciscan Church till the present day’ (James Collins, Life in Old Dublin, pp. 111–12).
7.1012: saint Laurence O’Toole’s
A Catholic church built in 1832 in Seville Place, about 1.5 km to the east of Nelson’s Pillar (Thom’s, p. 1591). St Laurence O’Toole (1132–80) is the patron saint of Dublin.
7.1015–16: We’re in the archdiocese here
In other words, mind your language. The archbishop of Dublin, William Walsh, was currently feuding with the publisher of the Freeman’s Journal (see note at 7.62).
7.1018: onehandled adulterer
That is, Lord Nelson (1758–1805), whose right arm was amputated after receiving a wound during the blockade of Cadiz (1797). The statue of Nelson atop the pillar depicted him with his armless right sleeve tucked into the breast of his tunic, thus forming a ‘handle’. Nelson carried on an indiscreet affair with Lady Emma Hamilton (c.1765–1815), the young wife of Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803), the British envoy to the Kingdom of Naples (EB11).
7.1021: DAMES DONATE
After Jesus’s parable of the sower and the seed. ‘Behold the sower went forth to sow. And whilst he soweth some fell by the way side [. . .] And other some fell upon stony ground, where they had not much earth: and they sprung up immediately, because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up they were scorched: and because they had not root, they withered away. And others fell among thorns: and the thorns grew up and choked them. And others fell upon good ground: and they brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold’ (Matthew 13:3–8).
7.1022: SPEEDPILLS
‘Speedpill’ was in use since at least 1911 in newspaper coverage of baseball to describe an especially fast pitch, or fastball (Harald Beck, JJON).
7.1022: AEROLITHS
Aerolith: a meteorite, that is, a stone falling from the skies (OED).
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270 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.1032–34: SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN . . . CHAMP
Antisthenes is the sophist in question, who argued for Penelope’s superiority over Helen (see the following note). Helen was the queen of Sparta, and Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, was the queen of Ithaca. Pen is champ suggests the aphorism ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’
7.1035: Antisthenes
Antisthenes (c.440–c.370 bc): a pupil of both Socrates and Gorgias (see the following note) and founder of the Cynic school. Diogenes Laertius lists among his writings a work called ‘Of Helen and Penelope’, but it has not survived in any form (Lives of Eminent Philosophers, VI.17). MacHugh’s claim is thus speculative: that Antisthenes would have argued that Penelope’s loyalty to Odysseus made her more beautiful than Helen. In his Zürich notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.a), Joyce wrote, ‘Antisthenes placed P above Helen’ (Phillip Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 16; JJA, vol. 12, p. 138). Joyce derived this proposition from W. H. Roscher’s Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie: ‘Ihre Tugenden wurden überdies gefeiert in besonderen Lobschriften, so angeblich von Isokrates [. . .]; wahrscheinlich lief auch Antisthenes’ verlorene Schrift [. . .] auf eine Verherrlichung der treuen Gattin des Odysseus hinaus, die bisweilen sogar wegen ihrer Schönheit über Helena gestellt wird’ (Her [Penelope’s] virtues were celebrated, reportedly, by Isocrates, for example [. . .]; probably Antisthenes’s lost work [. . .] also glorified Ulysses’s faithful wife whose beauty was sometimes said to exceed Helen’s) (vol. 3, p. 1907; quoted in Michael Groden, ‘Ulysses’ in Progress, pp. 91–92).
7.1035–36: Gorgias, the sophist
Gorgias (c.482–c.375 bc): one of the most important and influential orators and sophists of his day. Plato criticises him in the dialogue called the Gorgias. Little of his work has survived. For Gorgias, language was a morally neutral tool that could be made to do anything by a suitably cunning orator. ‘It was subversive stuff, both morally and epistemologically, for the conviction that men could be persuaded of anything went naturally with [. . .] the nihilism of Gorgias’s treatise On Nature or the Non-existent’ (W. K. C. Guthrie, The Sophists, p. 25; see also pp. 269–74).
7.1038: palm of beauty
Palm: an honour, a prize for first place (OED). In Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, Helen uses this phrase when speaking to Paris: ‘Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty / Gives us more palm in beauty than we have / Yea, overshines ourself ’ (III.i.171; Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana IV’, p. 162).
7.1039: Argive Helen
Argive (Greek) (OED): usually she is called Helen of Troy, after the polity into which she was kidnapped.
7.1040: Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich
Penelope Rich (née Devereux, 1563–1607): English noblewoman and one of Queen Elizabeth’s maids of honour. Unhappily married to Lord Rich, she won the love of Sir Philip Sidney, who dedicated a collection of sonnets to her, Astrophel and Stella (1591). After 1594, she maintained an overt affair with Lord Mountjoy. They married in 1605, after the Riches divorced (ODNB). This phrase follows from Gerald Massey’s Shakespeare’s Sonnets Never Before Interpreted: ‘Poor Lady Rich! Her fate was full of contrast as the moral mixture of her nature, or the outward show of her twilight beauty’ (p. 408).
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7. ‘Aeolus’ 271
7.1042: CENTRAL!
Central: a telephone exchange (OED); or, in this case, the central point of the Dublin tram network on O’Connell Street.
7.1043: eight lines
There were six lines of parallel tracks in Sackville (O’Connell) Street, not eight (Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 69).
7.1046: Donnybrook
Donnybrook: a village 3.2 km south of central Dublin. The Donnybrook to Phoenix Park line stopped at Sackville Street, near Nelson’s Pillar (Fitzpatrick, Dublin, p. 347). All the other tramlines listed here are mentioned in the notes for 7.4–7.6.
7.1047: becalmed in short circuit
In 1904, the Dublin United Tramways Company had only two coal-powered electric plants, which were unable to consistently generate sufficient power for all the tramlines, so black- outs were common. A new plant was built in 1906 (Handbook to the City of Dublin, pp. 397–400). To becalm: to make still; to deprive (a ship) of wind (OED); hence an image of what happens when the winds disappear.
7.1047: Hackney cars
Hackney (also Hackney car, Hackney cab, Hackney coach): ‘A four-wheeled coach for hire, typically drawn by two horses and with seating for six passengers’ (OED, s.v. Hackney coach).
7.1047: cabs
Cab: abbreviation of cabriolet, and applied to ‘a public carriage with two or four wheels, drawn by one horse, and seating two or four persons, of which various types are used in different towns’ (OED, s.vv. cab; cabriolet).
7.1048: broughams
Brougham: ‘A one-horse closed carriage, with two or four wheels, for two or four persons’ (OED).
7.1053–54: VIRGILIAN, SAYS PEDAGOGUE . . . OLD MAN MOSES
Virgilian because MacHugh’s (a pedagogue) suggested title derives from Virgil (see the following note). On the other hand, the title Stephen (a ‘sophomore’) chooses refers to Moses (see note at 7.1057). ‘Old Man Moses’ is an old song ‘about a degraded flower salesman with a red nose who spends his time smelling flowers while he is alive, and when he dies spends eternity smelling the roots’ (Bowen, p. 126).
7.1056: deus nobis haec otia fecit
Deus nobis haec otia fecit (Latin): ‘it is a god who wrought for us this rest’; from Virgil’s Eclogues (I.6).
7.1057: A Pisgah Sight of Palestine
Pisgah: the mountain from whose top Moses saw the promised land of Israel-Palestine (Deuteronomy 34:1; see also note at 7.873); Phasga in the Douay. Stephen’s title comes from Thomas Fuller’s (English historian, 1608–61) book A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine and the Confines Thereof with the History of the Old and New Testament Acted Thereon (1650).
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272 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
7.1057–58: The Parable of the Plums
Parables, indirect stories, were Jesus’s primary means of instruction. See Jesus’s Parable of the mustard seed as an example (Matthew 13:31–32, Mark 4:30–32, and Luke 13:18–19).
7.1061: Moses and the promised land
Israel is the ‘promised land’: ‘And when you have entered into the land which the Lord will give you as he hath promised, you shall observe these ceremonies’ (Exodus 12:25; see also Genesis 12:7). Moses led the Israelites to the promised land of Israel, but he himself was not allowed to enter (see note at 7.873).
7.1063: HORATIO IS CYNOSURE
Horatio: Lord Horatio Nelson. Cynosure: centre of interest (OED).
7.1067: sir John Gray’s pavement island See note at 6.258.
7.1070–71: ANNE WIMBLES . . . WANGLES
Stuart Gilbert defines the word wimbles as an example of a hapax legomenon (p. 198): ‘A word or form of which only one instance is recorded in a literature or an author’ (OED). The OED lists several meanings for wimble: to pierce a hole, to penetrate. It also provides some examples of wimbling used as an adjectival modifier for kissing; from R. Herrick Hesperides: ‘Those lips please me which are plac’t Close, but not too strictly lac’t: Yeilding I wo’d have them; yet Not a wimbling Tongue admit’. Perhaps, as Gifford suggests, wimbles means ‘to act giddy or confused’, after the Norwegian word vimmel (giddy). To wangle: to go unsteadily, to totter (OED).
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ Time: 1–2 pm Location: Central Dublin, from the offices of the Freeman’s Journal to the National Museum on Kildare Street, via Davy Byrne’s pub on Duke Street Organ: Esophagus Art: Architecture Symbol: Constables Technic: Peristaltic Correspondences: Antiphates: Hunger; The Decoy: Food; Lestrygonians: Teeth Serialised: The Little Review 5.9 (January 1919) and 5.10–11 (February–March 1919) In this lunch-time episode, Bloom’s trajectory in the city centre parallels the gastrointes tinal tract. From the offices of the Freeman’s Journal on Prince’s Street to Sackville (O’Connell) Street is the gullet; down Sackville (O’Connell) Street to O’Connell Bridge, the throat; down Westmoreland Street, past the front gate of Trinity College in College Green, and down Grafton Street as far as Duke Street, the stomach; down Duke Street—where he eventually settles on Davy Byrne’s for his lunch (see note at 8.697)—and Dawson Street, and then all the way down Molesworth Street to Kildare Street, the intestines. It is thus as if Bloom were a particle of food ingested, digested, and excreted by Dublin (see Aida Yared, ‘Eating and Digesting “Lestrygonians” ’). In 1988, fourteen commemorative pavement plaques were placed at various points along Bloom’s trajectory in this episode (map 8); these were sponsored by Cantrell and Cochrane (see note at 5.193).
8.1: Pineapple rock
Rock: ‘a hard confection of candied sugar’ (OED).
8.1: lemon platt
Lemon platt: ‘a flat sugar-stick, flavoured with lemon’ (OED).
8.2: christian brother
Founded in 1802, the Christian Brothers of Ireland were the first Irish order of men formally approved by a charter from Rome. At the time of their founding, it was illegal for a Catholic to receive a Catholic education. ‘The schools of the Irish Christian Brothers are of many types, representing divers phases of educational work, primary, secondary and industrial, with orphanages and schools for the deaf and dumb. These various institutions are nearly all equipped with laboratories for the practical teaching of physical and chemical science, and in many cases with workshops for manual training. Their secondary schools and colleges crown the educational edifices, affording to clever boys, irrespective of their position in life, an opportunity of pursuing a course of higher studies which would be otherwise entirely denied them’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Christian Brothers of Ireland).
8.3–4: Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King
Comfit: ‘sweetmeat made of some fruit, root, etc. preserved with sugar’ (OED). See also note at 8.6.
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a
b c
d
e f
g
h
i j
k
l
Map 8 Sackville Street to the National Library (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = Sackville (O’Connell) Street; b = Ballast Office (Westmoreland Street); c = Westmoreland Street; d = statue of Thomas Moore (College Street); e = Provost’s House (1 Grafton Street); f = Yeates and Son (2 Grafton Street); g = Davy Byrne’s (21 Duke Street); h = Burton Hotel (18 Duke Street); i = Rev. Connellan’s bookstore (51B Dawson Street); j = Molesworth Street; k = National Library (Kildare Street); l = National Museum (Kildare Street)
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 275
8.4: God. Save. Our.
From the first line of the national anthem of the United Kingdom: ‘God Save our gracious King [or Queen]’. The anthem is of uncertain authorship, but it has been attributed to John Bull (see note at 16.1769). The title comes from 1 Samuel 10:24: ‘And Samuel said to all the people: Surely you see him whom the Lord hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people. And all the people cried and said: God save the king’ (Brewer’s, s.v. National Anthem). The periods after each word indicate pauses, which suggests that Bloom is thinking this line as it would be sung (Bowen, p. 127).
8.4: jujubes
Jujube: ‘A lozenge, made of gum-arabic, gelatin, etc., flavoured with, or in imitation of, the [jujube] fruit [from plants of various species of Zizyphus]’ (OED). Edward VII was indeed fond of sweets and jujubes; from the Dublin Daily Express: ‘The King is a baby in his love for sweets [. . .] He had crimson jujubes yesterday, and gave one to Lady Nemo’s poodle just to see it make faces!’ (13 August 1906, quoted by John Simpson, JJON).
8.5: Y.M.C.A.
Young Men’s Christian Association, founded in London in 1844; the YMCA had a library with reading rooms at 43 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 2045). The YMCA defined their mission as, ‘the extension of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ among young men, and the development of their spiritual life and mental powers’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Partnership).
8.6: Graham Lemon’s
Lemon and Co: ‘comfit manufacturers to the King’, 49 Lower Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1929). Their entry in Thom’s street directory is more expansive but had not been updated since the death of Queen Victoria: ‘wholesale confection, lozenge, and comfit manufacturers to the Queen’ (p. 1584). Lemon’s had used their royal warrant of appointment in their advertising since the 1850s (John Simpson, JJON). The shop was originally called Graham Lemon (Thom’s 1883, p. 1470); Graham Lemon died in 1886 (The Irish Reports, vol. 1, p. 417). Bloom has left the offices of the Freeman’s Journal and is now walking south down Sackville (O’Connell) Street.
8.6: throwaway
Throwaway: ‘a printed sheet or work not intended for preservation after it has been read’ (OED).
8.9: Blood of the Lamb
From the Book of Revelation: ‘These are they who are come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb [i.e. Christ]. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple: and he, that sitteth on the throne, shall dwell over them. They shall no more hunger nor thirst, neither shall the sun fall on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall rule them, and shall lead them to the fountains of the waters of life, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes’ (7:14–17). This was the scriptural basis for the revival hymn ‘Washed in the Blood’, text by T. C. O’Kane, music by the Reverend Elisha A. Hoffman (Bauerle, p. 289).
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276 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
8.11: hymen
Hymen: marriage, and also ‘The virginal membrane, a fold of mucous membrane stretched across and partially closing the external orifice of the vagina’ (OED).
8.12: foundation of a building See note at 8.13–14.
8.12: kidney burntoffering
In certain ancient Jewish rituals, kidneys of certain animals were ‘burnt on an altar as the wellbeing, purification, and reparation, and priestly consecration offerings’ (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary).
8.13: druids’ altars
In pre-Christian Ireland, the druids were an élite and educated class. Although there are no extant records of druidic ritual, ‘it is speculated that they may have engaged in human sacrifice’ (Brewer’s Irish).
8.13: Elijah is coming
From the last two verses of the Book of Malachi, which are the basis of the Judeo-Christian belief that the prophet Elijah (Elias in the Douay) will return before the Day of Judgement to announce the coming of the Messiah: ‘Behold I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers: lest I come, and strike the earth with anathema’ (4:5–6). See also the following note.
8.13–14: John Alexander Dowie, restorer of the church in Zion, is coming
John Alexander Dowie (1847–1907): Scottish-born evangelist who proclaimed himself ‘Elijah the Restorer’. In 1888, he moved to the United States and in 1896, he established ‘The Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion’, with himself as ‘First Apostle’. In 1900, he began raising funds for his 2,400-hectare Zion City outside of Chicago, which would include a mammoth concrete and steel temple. Dowie preached a prosperity theology that advocated abstinence from alcohol and pork as well as prayer-healing. By 1904, the bank he established to raise funds for Zion City, which was little more than a Ponzi scheme, was low on funds. This led him to visit Europe from 11 to 18 June 1904, to convert more depositors (Jonathan Morse, ‘The Picture Odyssey of Ben Bloom Elijah’, p. 669). While he did not visit Ireland, the Freeman’s Journal noted that his trip to London ‘does not seem to have been a triumphal success’ (14 June 1904, p. 4, col. h). He claimed that the world would end in the summer of 1904. He died in 1907, ‘broken in health and unmistakably insane’ (EB11).
8.16: All heartily welcome
From Polite Conversation, by Jonathan Swift (1667–1745): ‘Well, you are all heartily welcome, as I may say’ (p. 132).
8.17: Torry and Alexander
Reuben Archer Torrey (1856–1928) and Charles McCallon Alexander (1867–1920): American evangelists. They conducted a joint mission to Dublin in March 1904 (Irish Times, 28 March 1904, p. 7, col. c). In 1902–03, Torrey ‘preached in nearly every part of the English speaking world, and with Charles McCallon Alexander [. . .] conducted revival services in Great Britain in 1903–1905’ (EB11). The misspelling of Torrey’s name is Joyce’s.
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8.17: Polygamy
In April 1906, the members of Zion City denounced Dowie, charging him with misusing funds, polygamy, ‘and other grave offences’ (Rolix Harlan, John Alexander Dowie, p. 24).
8.18–19: that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous crucifix
Irish newspapers at the turn of the century carried various advertisements for luminous crucifixes, although none were from Birmingham. The most elaborate advertisement is from M. Chapman and Company, 8 Mortimer Street, London: ‘Every Catholic should be in possession of a Luminous Crucifix. They are eminently calculated to inspire devotion, and to speak to the heart by night as by day. [. . .] You see the Sacred Figure directly you enter a room’ (Irish Independent, 13 Nov. 1916, p. 6, col. c). (The use of directly in the ad accords with Hiberno- English usage.)
8.20: Pepper’s ghost idea
The Original Pepper’s Ghost And Spectral Opera Company was run by an Englishman, John Pepper (1821–1900), who used mirrors, lighting, costumes, and props to create the illusion of ghosts on stage (Allardyce Nicoll, A History of English Drama, vol. 4, p. 42). Pepper’s company frequently played in Dublin, at the Rotunda (see note at 6.321–22) and other venues (see, for example, Freeman’s Journal, 21 Oct. 1895, p. 2, col. b).
8.20: Iron nails ran in See note at 5.372.
8.21–26: Phosphorous . . . Very good for the brain
‘A curious notion concerning fish diet is widely prevalent. It is supposed to supply special brain food. [. . .] The popular fallacy seems to be based on a series of other fallacies. First, that there is something very spiritual in phosphorous; second, that phosphorous is a special and exclusive constituent of the brain; and third, that fish contain more phosphorous than other food materials. [. . .] The fact is that the chemical element named phosphorous has nothing whatever to do with the phosphorescence of fishes’ (W. Mattieu Williams, ‘Science Notes’, The Gentleman’s Magazine, Sep. 1883, vol. 255, no. 1833, pp. 306–07).
8.24: Malaga raisins
Malaga, a province in Andalusia, Spain, is noted for its raisins: ‘large quantities of grapes and raisins, oranges and lemons, figs and almonds, are annually exported’ (EB11, s.v. Malaga).
8.27–28: Butler’s monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor’s walk
George Butler’s ‘Monument house, musical instrument warehouse’: 34 Bachelor’s Walk (Thom’s, p. 1851), on the north quay of the Liffey, at O’Connell Bridge. Butler’s is the last house on Bachelor’s Walk listed in Thom’s street directory before the junction with O’Connell Street (p. 1421). However, the corner was actually occupied by 56 Lower O’Connell Street (JJD, p. 102). Butler’s is near the O’Connell statue, hence its being called ‘monument house’.
8.28: Dedalus’ daughter
Of Simon’s various daughters, this is Dilly (see 10.643–45 and note at 10.233).
8.28: Dillon’s auctionrooms
Joseph Dillon: auctioneer, 25 Bachelor’s Walk, near the Monument House corner (Thom’s, p. 1851).
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278 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
8.30: Lobbing
See note at 5.32.
8.31: Fifteen children he had
In A Portrait, when asked how many children his mother had, Stephen replied, ‘Nine or ten [. . .] Some died’ (p. 241). In a letter to Nora of 29 August 1904, Joyce wrote, ‘We were seventeen in family’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 48). Stanislaus Joyce wrote in 1903: ‘Mother had seventeen children of whom nine are now living’ (Complete Dublin Diary, p. 10). Joyce’s mother had ten children who lived past the first year (one, George, died in 1902 at the age of 15). At least three additional children died soon after birth and, counting stillbirths and miscarriages, there may have been as many as sixteen or seventeen pregnancies in total (John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, pp. vi–vii, 158).
8.32–33: priest won’t give the poor woman the confession, the absolution
According the Apostolicae Sedis Moderationi, a papal bull of Pius IX (reigned 1846–78), the Church decrees excommunication ‘against all who seek to procure abortion, if their action produces the effect. Penalties must always be strictly interpreted’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. abortion). In 2016, Pope Francis granted all Catholic priests the right to give absolution to those seeking reconciliation after an abortion. See also note at 14.215.
8.33: Increase and multiply
From God’s command to ‘Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it’ (Genesis 1:28).
8.33–34: Eat you out of house and home
From Shakespeare’s 2 Henry IV: ‘He hath eaten me out of house and home’ (II.i.80); variants of this expression date back to at least 1410 (ODEP).
8.34–35: Living on the fat of the land
In gratitude for preventing a famine in Egypt, Pharaoh rewards Joseph: ‘I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat of the fat of the land’ (Genesis 45:18 in the King James).
8.35: butteries and larders
Both the buttery and the larder are rooms for storing food and provisions (OED); see also note at 17.1547.
8.35–36: black fast Yom Kippur
Black fast: ‘a very severe fast’ (OED). Yom Kippur: Hebrew, ‘Day of Atonement’, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Jewish law forbids work on Yom Kippur and worshippers abstain from all food, drink, and sexual activity (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
8.36: Crossbuns
Crossbun: ‘a bun indented with a cross, commonly eaten on Good Friday’ (OED).
8.36: collation
Collation: in Catholic usage, ‘A light repast made in lieu of supper on fasting days’ (OED).
8.38: £. s. d.
That is, pounds, shillings, and pence, used as a catch-phrase for money in general (OED, s.v. L.S.D.).
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8.39: All for number one
Plays on the slogan for Bass beer; see note at 8.121.
8.39: Watching his water
To watch one’s water: ‘to keep a strict watch on any one’s actions’ (Partridge). ‘The origin of the expression lies in the former medical practice of uroscopy, or examining the patient’s water for evidence of disease’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
8.39–40: Bring your own bread and butter
Bring your own bread and butter: a line from a song of which there are numerous variants; such as: ‘Will you come to the wedding? / Will you come? / Bring your own bread-and- butter, / And your own tea-and-sugar, / And we’ll all pay a penny for the Rum’ (Matthew Phipps Shiel, The Lord of the Sea, p. 417).
8.41: flitters
Flitters (always plural): fragments, torn pieces, tatters (OED).
8.41–42: Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes
‘Differences in the pattern of food consumption by social class were substantial [. . .] Unsurprisingly, households at the top of the social scale consumed significantly more fruit, milk and cream, meat and fish and eggs than the general average. Other groups of food increased in relative importance as income declined. The maximum consumption of cheap high carbohydrate food, such as white bread, potatoes and oatmeal, and margarine and prepared fish was in the lowest income groups’ (Ian Gazeley, Poverty in Britain, p. 163). The excessive reliance on potatoes for sustenance was one of the conditions that enabled the devastation during the potato famine (see note at 2.269).
8.42–43: Proof of the pudding
After the expression, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’; ‘an old proverb meaning that performance is the true test, not appearances, promises, etc.; just as the best test of a pudding is to eat it, not just to look at it’ (Brewer’s, s.v. pudding). A version of this expression appears in Swift’s Polite Conversation: ‘the Proof of the Pudden is in the Eating’ (p. 137).
8.44: O’Connell bridge
Originally named Carlisle Bridge, this crosses the Liffey and connects Westmoreland Street on the south side with Sackville (O’Connell) Street on the north. It was widened and renamed O’Connell Bridge in 1880 (Bennett).
8.44–45: puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet. Brewery barge
From Guinness’s brewery, south of the Liffey in western Dublin, stout would be moved by barge to the docks in eastern Dublin. ‘The brewery barges [. . .] had hinged funnels which were let down when they passed under a low bridge, releasing the “puffball” ’ (Robert Nicholson, The ‘Ulysses’ Guide, p. 152).
8.45: export stout
Guinness Export Stout (today called Foreign Extra Stout) was first brewed in 1801; it has a higher alcohol content, which makes it more amenable to retaining its characteristics during travel, hence ‘export stout’ (Garrett Oliver, Oxford Companion to Beer, pp. 66, 479–80). See also note at 3.152.
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8.46: get a pass through Hancock to see the brewery
Guinness’s Brewery, founded by Arthur Guinness and first opened at St James Gate in 1759, is on 16 hectares of a south-western section of Dublin called Lowsie Hill, fronting on Thomas Street (Bennett; see also note at 5.388). Hancock is unknown.
8.47: porter
See note at 3.152.
8.49: Drink till they puke again like christians
Dublin’s Jewish community tended to view the Dubliners’ tendency to drink with disdain; as can be seen in this street rhyme from Dublin’s Little Jerusalem: ‘ “Two pennies, two pennies”, the Christian did shout / “For a bottle of porter or Guinness’s stout; / My wife’s got no shawl and my kids have no shoes, / But I must have my money, I must have my booze” ’ (Dermot Keogh, Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland, p. 64; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
8.52: gulls
See note at 3.335.
8.52–53: Reuben J’s son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage
For the story of Reuben J. Dodd’s son, see note at 6.264–65. Dublin’s sewage system was not complete until 1906 (see note at 3.150).
8.53–54: One and eightpence too much
Simon Dedalus’s wry comment after hearing the story of Reuben Dodd Jr being rescued from the Liffey (6.291 and see notes at 6.264–65 and 6.286).
8.57–58: Elijah thirtytwo feet per sec is com See note at 5.44–45.
8.60: Erin’s King See note at 4.434.
8.62–63: The hungry famished gull . . . waters dull
Bloom’s ‘poem’ recalls elements from one of Lord Byron’s better known lyrics: ‘Adieu, adieu! My native shore / Fades o’er the waters blue’ (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, canto I, after stanza XIII, ll. 118–19; Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana I’, p. 446).
8.64–65: Shakespeare has no rhymes
‘In Shakspere’s early comedies there is a very large proportion of rhymed verse. [. . .] In Shakspere’s latest plays there is little or no rhyme. [. . .] And we can perceive that Shakspere deliberately employs rhyme for certain definite purposes’ (Edward Dowden, Shakspere, p. 44).
8.67–68: Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit . . . earth
A misquotation from Hamlet: ‘I am thy father’s spirit, / Doomed for a certain term to walk the night’ (I.v.9–10).
8.71: Australians they must be this time of year
In the early twentieth century, Australia and New Zealand were the primary source of apples in the United Kingdom from March through September (Irish Independent, 19 Sep. 1908, p. 4, col. d).
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8.74–75: Banbury cakes
Banbury cake: a type of flat cake made of light, flaky pastry with a crisp top and filled with butter, chopped peel, dried fruit, sugar, and mixed spice; originally from Banbury in Oxfordshire (Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 60).
8.76–77: The gulls swooped silently . . . pouncing on prey
Recalls the feeding frenzy of the Lestrygonians in the Odyssey: ‘They speared them like fish, and carried them away for their joyless feasting’ (X.123–24). This passage also might be suggested by The Common Objects of the Sea Shore, by J. G. Wood, a book which was in Joyce’s Trieste library: ‘If a piece of bread or biscuit be thrown from a boat, it remains but a very short time on the surface of the water before it is carried off by a gull, although previously not a bird was visible. But if a number of gulls are flying about, and a piece of paper or white wood be thrown into the water, there is not a gull who will even stoop towards it, although to the human eye the bread and the paper appear identical’ (p. 2; Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, pp. 8–9, 133).
8.79: Manna
In Exodus 16, the children of Israel complain to Moses and Aaron that they should have stayed in Egypt, where at least they had food. God answers their complaint by leaving divine nourishment, called manna in the King James (Manhu in the Douay), with the morning dew (16:11–12).
8.80: Anna Liffey
Anna: from the Irish abhainn, ‘the common appellative in the spoken language for a river’ (P. W. Joyce, Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 461).
8.81–82: Wonder what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them
From Robinson Crusoe’s journal of his first months shipwrecked on the island: ‘On one of these three Days I kill’d a large Bird that was good to eat, but I know not what to call it’ (Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, p. 73). According to the text of the Hebrew Bible, swans do not appear in the list of unclean, and thus prohibited, birds (Leviticus 11:13–19 and Deuteronomy 14:11–18), which is unsurprising since swans are not native to the Middle East. However, following from the Septuagint (Greek translation), many (but not all) English translations, including both the Douay and the King James, list swans at Leviticus 11:18 (Janet Kear, Man and Wildfowl, pp. 258–59).
8.84: They spread foot and mouth disease too
Birds, as well as other animals such as dogs and cats, were long suspected to be carriers of foot and mouth disease (Irish Examiner, 21 Nov. 1912, p. 4, col. g). Contemporary research shows that birds are probably not transmitters of the disease. See also note at 2.321–22.
8.86: Eat pig like pig
After the proverbial expression ‘eat like a pig’, that is, eat in a slovenly fashion (Dent). According to Jewish dietary laws, pork is forbidden because pigs are ‘unclean’ (Leviticus 11:8).
8.90–92: Kino’s . . . Trousers
J. C. Kino: a London clothier with an outlet in Dublin at 12 College Green (Thom’s, p. 1924).
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8.94: It’s always flowing in a stream, never the same
The idea that water is never the same because it is ever-flowing derives from one of the sayings of Heraclitus (pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, c.535–c.475 bc): ‘As they step into the same rivers, different and still different waters flow upon them’ (Fragments, p. 17); and proverbial ever since. See also note at 5.563.
8.97: greenhouses
Greenhouses: public urinals in Dublin, so-called because they were painted green (Dolan).
8.97–98: Dr Hy Franks
‘Hy Franks’ was one of the pseudonyms of Adam J. Farlow (b. 1852), who ran a chemist’s shop on 14 Berkeley Road (Thom’s 1889, p. 1866), which was around the corner from Eccles Street, in the 1880s and 1890s. He used the name Hy (Henry) Franks on various purported medications and cure- alls that he sold, such as ‘Dr H. Franks’s Nerve Specific’ and Zilloflorabalm. He advertised these widely in newspapers and on handbills throughout Dublin. In 1893, he was arrested and convicted on a ‘a charge of endeavouring to procure a lady for immoral purposes’ (British Medical Journal, 23 Dec. 1893, p. 1413, col. b). The ensuing scandal led to the loss of his business (John Simpson, ‘Will the Real Dr Hy Franks Please Stand Up?’). Advertisements for cures for venereal disease were illegal in Dublin at this time (Joseph O’Brien, Dear, Dirty Dublin, p. 116).
8.98: cost him a red Red: a penny (OED).
8.98: Maginni the dancing master
Denis J. Maginni (1846–1915): dance instructor, who lived at 32 North Great George’s Street, which he used as his dancing academy (Thom’s, p. 1948). He was renowned in Dublin for his flamboyant eccentricity (Ellmann, p. 365). His changed his name from Maginn to lend it some Continental flair (John Garby and Deirdre O’Connor, Dublin, p. 48; Igoe, p. 197). In 1996, his former house on North Great George’s Street was officially opened as the James Joyce Centre.
8.100: on the q.t.
On the q.t.: ‘with complete secrecy. “Q.T.” Stands for “quiet” ’ (Brewer’s).
8.101: POST NO BILLS
‘The notice Post no Bills was coined in mid-nineteenth-century England to prevent the hangers of illegal placards from littering London’s otherwise dreary streets. By law, the Post No Bills notice had to appear approximately every four feet [1.2 m] along a wall or hoarding for it to be considered a placard-free surface, but even the threat of fine or arrest didn’t daunt the erstwhile posterist in the performance of his duty’ (Steven Heller, Design Literacy, p. 35).
8.101: dose burning him
Dose: venereal infection (Partridge).
8.109: Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time
Time ball: ‘A ball moving on a vertical rod or pole, placed in some prominent elevated position, for the purpose of indicating mean time, which it does by dropping at a certain moment each day’ (OED). The Ballast Office, the headquarters for the supervision of
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 283 Dublin Harbour, is at the southern end of O’Connell Bridge, at the intersection of Westmoreland Street and Aston Quay. The bronze time ball atop the building would be lowered at 1:00 pm GMT for the benefit of passing ships, so their chronometers could be set. However, Dublin time was 25 minutes behind GMT. In 1880, the Definition of Time Act established GMT as the legal time in Great Britain and Dublin Mean Time as the legal time in Ireland. DMT was the time defined by Dunsink Observatory (see note at 8.571–72), hence Dunsink time (Vanessa Ogle, The Global Transformation of Time, p. 70). The Ballast Office also has a clock, which shows DMT (Henry A. Gilligan, A History of the Port of Dublin, pp. 85–87). From Bloom’s current position, he cannot see the clock. The Ballast Office was built in 1802, remodelled and expanded in 1864 and 1866, and demolished in 1979. The façade of the building that currently stands on its former site is modelled after the original (Bennett, s.v. Westmoreland Street).
8.110: Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball’s
Sir Robert Stawell Ball (1840–1913): Andrews professor of astronomy at Trinity College and Astronomer Royal of Ireland from 1874 to 1892. He was knighted in 1886. In 1892, he was appointed Lowndean professor of astronomy at Cambridge (DIB). He wrote a number of books, including The Story of the Heavens (1885), which Bloom owns (see note at 17.1373). In his time at Dunsink Observatory, Sir Robert Ball did a great deal of work on the parallax of stars (see the following note): ‘He was very enthusiastic about this parallax work for some years before trouble with his eyesight obliged him to give it up [. . .] he hurried up to Dublin and out to Dunsink whenever a very promising, clear evening occurred, in order not to spoil the parallax observations by leaving a gap of two months’ (Robert Ball, Reminiscences and Letters of Sir Robert Ball, p. 106).
8.110: Parallax
Parallax: ‘Difference or change in the apparent position or direction of an object as seen from two different points; (Astron.) such a difference or change in the position of a celestial object as seen from different points on the earth’s surface or from opposite points in the earth’s orbit around the sun’ (OED). Measurements of the parallax of celestial objects can be used to calculate their distances (Robert Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], pp. 443–48).
8.111–12: Par it’s Greek: parallel, parallax
Parallax derives from the Greek Parallaxis, ‘change, alteration, alternation’; the prefix is para(alongside), which it shares with parallel (OED, s.vv. parallax; parallel; para-).
8.112: Met him pike hoses
Molly’s mispronunciation of metempsychosis; see note at 4.339.
8.119: big Ben
Ben Dollard’s (see note at 6.145) nickname is after the nickname for the famous hour-bell in the clock tower (St Stephen’s tower) of the English Parliament building. The 13,200 kg bell was installed in 1858. The name comes from Sir Benjamin Hall, Chief Commissioner of Works when the clock was built. The entire clock tower itself is now usually called Big Ben as well (Brewer’s).
8.120–21: Get outside of a baron of beef
To get outside of: ‘to eat or drink, generally a considerable and specified amount’ (Partridge). Baron: ‘a joint consisting of two sirloins left uncut at the backbone’ (OED).
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8.121: number one Bass
The red triangle logo for Bass Pale Ale is called ‘number one’ because it was the first trademark registered in the United Kingdom, on 1 January 1876 (Michael Jackson, The English Pub, p. 75). The brewery was founded in 1777 by William Bass (1717–87) in Burton upon Trent.
8.123: A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen
Sandwich-board men bearing advertisements were very common throughout big-city streets in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen turies. ‘The advertising handbooks of the day attest that many advertisers felt the practice was outmoded but found it profitable and chose to continue it while taking care to avoid picturing sandwich-board men in their printed matter’ (Thomas Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England, p. 144).
8.125: we have sinned: we have suffered See note at 5.372.
8.126: H.E.L.Y.S. Wisdom Hely’s See note at 6.703.
8.128–29: Three bob a day
Bob: 1 shilling (see note at 4.131). Fifteen shillings a week is at the lower end of wages in Dublin for an unskilled labourer (Cost of Living of the Working Classes, p. 560).
8.130: skilly
Skilly: ‘a kind of thin, watery porridge, gruel, or soup, commonly made from oatmeal, and used especially in prisons and workhouses’ (OED).
8.130: Boyl: no: M‘Glade’s
B. McGlade: ‘advertising agent, poster painter, and street advertiser’, offices at 42 Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1408); and thus a business rival to (the fictitious) Boylan. McGlade’s ‘specialities were street spectacle and poster novelties, rather than handling the press advertisements which were the bread and butter of a Boylanesque advertising agency’ (John Strachan, ‘Ulysses and the Dublin Advertising Business’, p. 103).
8.132: showcart
‘Sometime in the 1830s an enterprising advertiser hit upon the idea of parading big mock-ups of commodities around in carts, and by the 1840s the streets of London were clogged with the effigies of things [. . .] these huge mock-ups removed the commodity from the pandemonium of the hoarding, swelled it to fantastic proportions, and put it on parade’ (Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England, p. 48). By 1904, ‘travelling showcarts were hackneyed promotional gimmicks’ (Mark Osteen, The Economy of ‘Ulysses’, p. 134).
8.135–36: Have a finger in the pie
Have a finger in the pie: proverbial, ‘to have a part or share in the doing of something’ (OED, s.v. pie). After Shakespeare’s Henry VIII: ‘The devil speed him! No man’s pie is freed / From his ambitious finger’ (I.i.52–53).
8.136: Curiosity. Pillar of salt
Lot’s wife ignores God’s command not to look back upon Sodom as it is being destroyed and is turned into ‘a pillar of salt’ as punishment (Genesis 19:26 in the King James; see also note at 4.232).
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8.139: Plumtree’s potted under the obituaries
The actual Freeman’s Journal for 16 June 1904 did not have an advertisement for Plumtree’s potted meat (see note at 5.144–47) under the obituaries (p. 1, col. a), or, indeed, anywhere in the paper.
8.141–42: only reliable inkeraser Kansell A fictitious product.
8.142: Hely’s Ltd, 85 Dame street
Hely’s was located at 27–30 Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1468; see note at 6.703). In 1904, Dame Street stopped at number 82 (Thom’s, p. 1470). The wide, commercial thoroughfare that runs from the front of Trinity to Christ Church Cathedral changes name at various intervals; from east to west: College Green, Dame Street, Cork Hill, Lord Edward Street.
8.142: ruck
Ruck: ‘The undistinguished crowd or general run (of persons and things)’ (OED).
8.143–44: Tranquilla convent
Tranquilla Convent was next to Rathmines Castle on Upper Rathmines Road, between numbers 52 and 53 (Thom’s, p. 1774).
8.148: Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
A solemn, liturgical feast dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus; it takes place either on 16 July or (rarely) on the first Sunday thereafter. It celebrates the approval of the rule of the Carmelite Order on Mount Carmel in Syria during the twelfth century, and the apparition of Mary to St Simon Stock on 16 July 1251 (Catholic Encyclopedia).
8.152: My heart’s broke eating dripping
Dripping: ‘the melted fat that drips from roasting meat, which when cold is used like butter’ (OED). Dripping can be used in place of butter in many recipes and is usually about half the price (‘Learning to Cook with the Poor’, All the Year Round, 16 Dec. 1876, p. 333).
8.153–54: Pat Claffey, the pawnbroker’s daughter
Pat Claffey (1825–96) had been a successful pawnbroker at 65 Amiens Street, with a residence at St Mary’s, Merrion Avenue, in Blackrock (Thom’s 1880, pp. 1338, 1618). Three of his daughters became Dominican nuns. Bloom is probably thinking of Margaret Claffey (b. 1862) who, according to both the 1901 and the 1911 censuses, lived at the Dominican Convent at 18 Eccles Street. Joyce’s sister Margaret (‘Poppie’) attended the Eccles Street Dominican school (John Simpson, JJON).
8.154: It was a nun they say invented barbed wire
Barbed wire was invented and patented almost simultaneously in 1867–68 by three American men, none of whom were nuns: Lucien B. Smith, William B. Hunt, and Michael Kelly. Its original intended purpose was to confine cattle in the great plains of the United States (EB11). The source—if any—of Bloom’s mistaken belief is unknown.
8.155: Westmoreland street
South of O’Connell Bridge, the road splits into Westmoreland Street and D’Olier Street. Westmoreland Street continues south to the front gate of Trinity College and College Green. It is named after John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmoreland and Lord Lieutenant from 1790 to 1794 (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 141).
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8.156: Rover cycleshop
The Rover Cycle Co., W. G. Wilkinson, manager: 23 Westmoreland Street (Thom’s, p. 1620).
8.156: Those races are on today See note at 5.550.
8.156–57: Year Phil Gilligan died
The fictional Gilligan died in 1894, the year of the fire at Arnott’s (see note at 8.159) and see note at 17.1252–53 for a little more detail on Gilligan’s death. Joyce might have got the name from Philip Gilligan (1843–1901), who owned the Oval Bar on Abbey Street (see note at 7.455) (Igoe, pp. 118–19).
8.157: We were in Lombard street west
The exact dates of the Blooms’ residence at Lombard Street West are unclear: they were living there in 1892–93 (see note at 6.829), but it seems that they were living elsewhere in 1894 (see note at 6.78), the year Phil Gilligan died.
8.157: was in Thom’s
This means that Bloom was working at Thom’s (see note at 7.224) in 1894.
8.158: Got the job in Wisdom Hely’s . . . Six years. Ten years ago
See note at 6.703 for Hely’s. Bloom married Molly in 1888 (17.1640), which was six years before 1894, and 1894 is ten years before 1904.
8.159: big fire at Arnott’s
On 4 May 1894, the block of buildings that extend from Henry Street to Prince’s Street— which were owned by Arnott’s, a large department store—was completely destroyed by fire (Thom’s, p. 2105). Thom’s lists Arnott’s as ‘Arnott & Co. (limited), wholesale and retail drapers, carpet, curtain, and general warehousemen, upholsterers, and cabinet makers, 11 to 15 Henry street’ (p. 1799).
8.159–60: Val Dillon was lord mayor
Valentine Blake Dillon (1847–1904): Dublin’s Lord Mayor, 1894–1895 (Thom’s, p. 1398). He was a solicitor and had been an advisor to Parnell. He died on 31 March 1904 (Igoe, p. 84). ‘[Dillon] was a man of splendid physique and great courage, and in case of a police raid or baton charge, he would move to the front of the crowd to remonstrate with the officer in charge and put rioters and others aside as if they were children’ (Freeman’s Journal, 1 Apr. 1904, p. 6, col. f).
8.160: The Glencree dinner
The annual fund-raising dinner for the St Kevin’s Reformatory, a reformatory school for Catholic boys located in Glencree, County Wicklow, 16 km south of Dublin and known as the Glencree Reformatory. In 1904 it was managed by Reverend John O’Carroll (Thom’s, p. 839). The specific dinner Bloom is thinking of took place in 1894 (Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, p. 243). From A Pictorial and Descriptive Guide to Dublin (1919): ‘Till about eighty years ago the Reformatory was used as military barracks; the road leading to it was made after the rising of 1798, to prevent any succeeding rebels utilizing the fastnesses of the Wicklow mountains, but in 1859 the buildings were put to their present use’ (p. 128).
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8.160: Alderman Robert O’Reilly
Robert O’Reilly (1834–1915): ‘merchant tailor and outfitter’, 8 Parliament Street (Thom’s, p. 1565). He served on various municipal boards and committees and was an alderman for the South City Ward from 1891 to 1911 (Igoe, pp. 239–40).
8.161–62: lapping it for the inner alderman
Inner man: jocular for stomach or appetite (Partridge).
8.162–63: For what we have already . . . make us
After the generic grace before meals, ‘For what we are about to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful’ (Eric Partridge, Dictionary of Catch Phrases).
8.163: Milly was a kiddy then Milly was born on 15 June 1889.
8.164: Mantailored
Man-tailored: ‘designating women’s clothes tailored in the style of men’s clothes’ (OED, s.v. man).
8.166: choir picnic at the Sugarloaf
The Sugar Loaf is properly two mountains, the Great Sugar Loaf (506 metres) and Little Sugar Loaf (341 metres), located about 23 km to the south-east of Dublin (John Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 306). Molly was in the choir at St Francis Xavier Church in Upper Gardiner Street for an unspecified length of time before she was dismissed.
8.169: Rabbitpie
Isabella Beeton’s The Book of Household Management lists as the ingredients: ‘1 rabbit, a few slices of ham, salt and white pepper to taste, 2 blades of pounded mace, ½ teaspoonful of grated nutmeg, a few forcemeat balls, 3 hard-boiled eggs, ½ pint of gravy, puff crust’. Additionally, ‘The liver of the rabbit may be boiled, minced, and mixed with the forcemeat balls, when the flavour is liked’ (p. 489).
8.171: Dockrell’s
Thomas Dockrell & Sons: ‘contractors, window glass, oil, colour, cement, and wallpaper dealers, ironmongers, decorators, shop fitters, house, land, and estate agents, auctioneers, and valuators’, 47–49 Lower Stephen Street, at the corner with South Great George’s Street, south-central Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1852).
8.171: one and ninepence a dozen
This would be very cheap wallpaper. Adverts for Dockrell’s wallpaper do not list prices, but 2d. a roll (or 2s. a dozen) is the cheapest price listed in other firms’ ads; for example, ‘You can’t get paper that you can hang less [sic] than 2d. A ROLL—you’ll get a better kind if you pay a lot more. I have every kind at every price [. . .] Hester Cavanagh, 14 Arran Quay, Dublin’ (Irish Independent, 12 Jan. 1909, p. 1, col. e).
8.174: daguerreotype atelier
Daguerreotype: ‘one of the earliest photographic processes, first published by Daguerre of Paris in 1839’ (OED). The photo studio was owned by a relative of Bloom’s father (see note at 17.1876–77).
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8.176: Stream of life See note at 5.563.
8.177–78: Stopped in Citron’s saint Kevin’s parade See note at 4.204–05.
8.178: Pendennis?
The name Bloom is trying to remember is Penrose; see note at 8.1114. This name might be prompted by The History of Pendennis (1850), a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray.
8.180: the dayfather’s name See note at 7.195.
8.181: Bartell d’Arcy
Bartell D’Arcy, a tenor, appears in ‘The Dead’ in Dubliners; he is described as being ‘a dark- complexioned young man with a smart moustache’ (p. 199). He is based on Bartholomew McCarthy (1840–1926), an eminent tenor in Dublin’s flourishing amateur musical scene between 1871 and 1893. He sang with John Stanislaus Joyce on at least three occasions (Harald Beck, JJON).
8.183: Winds that blow from the south
The first line of the refrain of ‘Whisper, and I Shall Hear’ (1891), words by G. Hubi Newcombe, music by M. Piccolomini: ‘Borne on the breeze away! O winds that blow from the south’ (New Library World, 1960, vol. 61, p. 239).
8.184–85: that lodge meeting on about those lottery tickets
Selling lottery tickets for foreign lotteries was illegal at this time. Bloom was summonsed in 1893 or 1894 for selling tickets for a Hungarian lottery, but ‘he had a friend in court’ (12.776), a member of the Masonic Lodge, and thus avoided prosecution. The lodge meeting prob ably would have been held at the Freemasons’ Hall on Molesworth Street (see note at 8.1151), near the Mansion House in Dawson Street, the site of Goodwin’s concert. The 16 June 1904 Illustrated Irish Weekly Independent and Nation has a story of a printer pros ecuted in London for selling tickets for ‘The Privileged Royal Hungarian Lottery’ (p. 4, col. g); Joyce changed the name of this to ‘The Royal and Privileged Hungarian Lottery’.
8.185–86: Goodwin’s concert in the . . . oakroom of the Mansion house
Molly’s accompanist on the piano is based on William G. Goodwin (1839–92), a well-known teacher of music in several Dublin schools and organist at St Peter’s Church in Phibsborough. He was a friend of John Stanislaus Joyce and they occasionally performed together (Igoe, p. 123). The Mansion House on Dawson Street is the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin. The Round Room (or supper room) and the Oak Room are used for civic entertainments (D. A. Chart, Story of Dublin, pp. 243–44).
8.187: High school See note at 5.42.
8.189–90: Positively last appearance on any stage
A standard phrase used in advertising a performer’s final stage appearance (Dent).
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8.190: May be for months and may be for never
Modified from a line from the song ‘Kathleen Mavourneen’ (Kathleen Darling), music by Frederick Nicholls Crouch: ‘It may be for years, and it may be forever’. The lyrics are usually attributed to a Mrs Crawford, ‘although whether this was Mrs Annie Barry Crawford, an English poet, or Julia Crawford, the composer’s County Cavan-born wife, is not clear’ (William H. A. Williams, ’Twas Only an Irishman’s Dream, p. 41). In Hiberno-English usage, payment by instalments is called the ‘Kathleen Mavourneen system’ because ‘It may be for years and it may be forever’ that one has to pay (Partridge).
8.191–92: Corner of Harcourt road
The corner of Harcourt Road and Harcourt Street, which runs south from St Stephen’s Green. This is just south of Bloom’s high school (see note at 5.42). Bloom is recollecting his trip from the Freemasons’ Hall in Molesworth Street to his home, then at Lombard Street West.
8.197: busk of her stays
Busk: ‘A strip of wood, whalebone, steel, or other rigid material attached vertically to the front section of a corset so as to stiffen and support it’ (OED). See note at 3.431 for stays.
8.203: Mrs Breen
Josie Breen (née Powell) was in the same social circle as the youthful Leopold and Molly. She and Bloom once had a flirtatious relationship before they each got married. She is based on Mary Josephine Powell (née Gallagher, b. 1878), who married Charles Powell, who was the second son of Malachy Powell, who served as the model for Molly’s father, Major Tweedy (see note at 4.63) (Igoe, p. 250). She was known as Josie Powell (Andrew Tierney, JJON).
8.204: those times
Those times: these times, nowadays. Those is used in the sense of the plural of this, a sense it had c.825–1340, after which time it shifted into the plural of the demonstrative pronoun that, the sense it currently has (OED).
8.211: on the baker’s list
On the baker’s list: ‘I am well and have recovered my appetite’ (PWJ, p. 109).
8.216: Turn up like a bad penny
Bad penny: ‘a ne’er do well [. . .] one who, having failed, returns as he went’ (Partridge).
8.221–24: Your funeral’s tomorrow . . . Diddlediddle
Combines two different songs. The first line is an approximation from ‘His Funeral’s Tomorrow’, a light musical hall song by Felix McGlennon about the death of a bellicose drunkard: ‘And his funeral’s tomorrow, my poor heart aches with sorrow’. The second is a modification from the Scottish ballad ‘Comin’ through the Rye’: ‘If a body meet a body / Comin thro’ the Rye, / If a body kiss a body, / Need a body cry?’ The ‘diddles’ match the tune of ‘Comin’ through the Rye’ (Bowen, pp. 129–30).
8.229: don’t be talking
A common Hiberno-English exclamation (Dolan, s.v. be).
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8.229: He’s a caution to rattlesnakes
A caution to snakes: ‘(something) very surprising, odd, eccentric, or unusual’ (Partridge).
8.230: He has me heartscalded
To be heart-scalded (Hiberno-English): to experience ‘a great vexation or mortification’ (PWJ, p. 273).
8.232: mockturtle
Mock turtle soup: ‘a soup made in imitation of turtle soup, usually from a calf ’s head’ (OED). Up until the twentieth century, turtle and turtle soup were popular but expensive, which led to cheaper imitation dishes (Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 756).
8.232: jampuffs
Jam-puff: a triangular, light pastry with a jam filling (OED, s.v. puff; jam).
8.232: rolypoly
Roly-poly: ‘A pudding made of a sheet of suet pastry covered with jam or fruit, formed into a roll, and steamed or baked’ (OED).
8.233: Harrison’s
Harrison and Co.: confectioners, 29 Westmoreland Street (Thom’s, p. 1620).
8.234–35: Demerara sugar
Demerara: ‘a region of Guyana, used to designate a kind of (raw) cane-sugar’ (OED).
8.235: arab
Arab: ‘A homeless child or young person living on the streets’ (OED).
8.237–38: Penny dinner. Knife and fork chained to the table
Free breakfasts for the poor were organised by the Christian Union building at 12 Lower Abbey Street (Thom’s, pp. 1408, 1831). ‘This Society gives free breakfasts to the poor every Sunday morning, and penny and half penny‑dinners during the winter months—an annual average of 60,000 meals; also free Christmas and New Year’s dinners, free teas, treats for waifs &c’ (p. 1387).
8.242: barging
To barge (Hiberno-English): ‘scolding in an abusive manner’ (EDD).
8.245: new moon
The new moon appeared above Dublin on Monday, 13 June 1904, at 8:45 pm (Thom’s, p. 14). A popular superstition has it that moonlight causes madness (Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions).
8.252: Indiges
The meaning is unclear: Bloom’s thought is cut off by Mrs Breen. The word indiges suggests indigestion. In Latin, indiges means needy, indigent.
8.253: ace of spades
The ace of spades portends bad luck and death (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. cards, unlucky).
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8.258: U.P.: up
‘U.P., the spelling pronunciation of UP adverb, = over, finished, beyond remedy’ (OED, s.vv. U; u.p.). Partridge gives a citation from 1823 and the term can be found in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist: ‘It’s all U.P. there, [. . .] if she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised’ (quoted in the OED). Joyce used the expression in this sense in a letter to Valery Larbaud of 17 October 1928: ‘Apparently I have completely overworked myself and if I don’t get back sight to read it is all U-P up’ (Letters, vol. 3, p. 182). Furthermore, the expressions ‘u.p.’ and ‘u.p. up’ were in wide use in the late nineteenth–early twentieth centuries (John Simpson, JJON).
8.262: Mr Menton’s office See note at 6.568.
8.271: mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny
Three common soups in the United Kingdom and Ireland. See note at 8.232 for mockturtle. Oxtail soup contains oxtails, onions, butter or beef dripping, flour, beef stock, fresh thyme, bay leaves, cloves, cumin, lemon juice, carrots, and ground black pepper (Alison Armstrong, The Joyce of Cooking, p. 18). Mulligatawny is an Indian curry soup consisting of lean ham or bacon, carrots, leeks, bay leaves, parsley, celery, fresh thyme, shallots, tomatoes, apples, garlic cloves, cloves, butter, zest of lemon, flour, mutton broth, cardamom pods, white pepper, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, curry powder, heavy cream, and cooked rice, salted to taste (p. 19).
8.273: Josie Powell
Josie Breen’s maiden name (see note at 8.203).
8.274: In Luke Doyle’s long ago, Dolphin’s barn, the charades
Luke Doyle is the friend who held charades parties that the Blooms attended in the late 1880s when they were courting (see note at 4.345). The real Luke Doyle (1827–85), a building surveyor, was a friend of John Stanislaus Joyce (Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 60). He lived at 1 Camac Place, Dolphin’s Barn (Thom’s 1874, p. 1787).
8.277: Mina Purefoy
The fictitious Mrs Wilhemina (Mina) Purefoy and her husband Theodore are friends of the Blooms. Joyce may have taken her last name from Richard Dancer Purefoy (1847–1919), a prominent Dublin obstetrician and one-time Master of the Rotunda Lying-in Hospital (Thom’s, pp. 880, 1991). The name also suggests a reference to the knight Sansfoy (‘faithless’) in Edmund Spenser’s (c.1552–1599) The Faerie Queene (1590–96), who is killed by the Redcrosse Knight (I.36); thus Purefoy means ‘pure faith’.
8.278–79: Philip Beaufoy I was thinking . . . masterstroke See notes at 4.502 and 4.502–03.
8.281–82: lying-in hospital in Holles street
Lying- in: ‘in childbed’ (OED). The National Maternity Hospital, 29–31 Holles Street (Thom’s, p. 1519). This hospital, opened as a Catholic charity in March 1894, was created to care for poor Dublin women in childbirth. It was originally called the South Dublin Lying-in Hospital and was renamed the National Maternity Hospital in 1903, upon receiving a Royal Charter (Bennett, s.v. National Maternity Hospital); see also note at 14.41–42. In 1904, the hospital occupied three buildings on Holles Street. A considerably expanded and
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292 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses modernised hospital that overlooked Merrion Square was completed in 1938 (Tony Farmar, Holles Street, p. 89).
8.282: Dr Horne
Andrew J. Horne (1856–1924): one of the masters of the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street (Thom’s, p. 1519). ‘In 1894, as a founder member, first joint master, and ex officio governor of the National Maternity Hospital, Holles St., Dublin, he was, from its beginning, largely responsible for the management of the hospital. He was influential in preventing the hospital from becoming an exclusively catholic institution, when in 1894 he supported the admission of medical students and trainee midwives of all denominations [. . .] Horne never read Ulysses, and (according to his son Andrew Horne) had thrown Joyce out of the hospital when he was found trespassing on the privacy of the maternity ward’ (DIB).
8.282: three days bad now
Bad: unwell, suffering, in pain (OED); in context, Mina Purefoy has been in labour for three days now.
8.296: a heavystringed glass That is, a monocle.
8.302: Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell
Gogarty gives the name of this character as ‘James Boyle Tisdell Burke Stewart Fitzsimmons Farrell’ and describes him as ‘chief of those eccentric and genial characters [Dublin] never fails to produce in every generation’ (As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, p. 1). His real name was James Henry Farrell (b. 1851), and he was widely known as Endymion. According to his own account, in January 1874 he fell down a ladder into a vault at Power’s distillery, where he was then employed (Freeman’s Journal, 16 May 1887, p. 2, col. i). This resulted in permanent brain damage and, as compensation, he was awarded a pension of £26 per annum. His eccentric attire and behaviour made him well-known throughout Dublin. ‘At first glance it was only a dignified gentleman under an umbrella, but was there not something unusual about his attire? There was. A flat-brimmed and very glossy hard felt hat and a “morning coat”, as the tailors call it, of exquisite cut and fit, though not usually seen together, hardly prepared one for the immaculate white flannel compromise between cricket trousers and riding breeches coming just below the knee—we have never seen anything like these since. Black silk stockings and shiny “pumps” completed the ensemble. A cigar of the largest size and the rich gold mountings of the umbrella were details. It was our first sight of one of Dublin’s characters—“Endymion”, as he came to be affectionately known in later years’ (Irish Times, 31 Aug. 1926, p. 4, col. f). ‘The accident had a devastating effect on Farrell. He lost his job and his principal means of support, but in addition he suffered progressive mental deterioration [. . .] characterized not so much by mild eccentricity but obsessive delusion’ (John Simpson, ‘Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell’, p. 90).
8.304: Denis
Josie Powell Breen’s husband, Denis. Thom’s lists a Denis Breen as the owner of the Leinster Billiard Rooms at 53B Rathmines Road (p. 1815), but it is unclear whether the Denis Breen of Ulysses is based on this man or on any other real-life figure.
8.310: Harrison’s See note at 8.233.
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8.311: Blown in from the bay
One who has blown in: ‘a newcomer, esp. one still unaccepted’ (Partridge).
8.314: Meshuggah
Meshuggah: ‘mad, crazy, stupid’, from the Yiddish meshuge, which in turn is from the Hebrew mĕšugga (OED).
8.314: Off his chump
That is, out of his senses. Chump: head (OED).
8.316: tight skullpiece, the dangling stickumbrelladustcoat
Gogarty’s description of Farrell (see note at 8.302): ‘He wore a tail-coat over white cricket trousers which were caught in at the ankles by a pair of cuffs. A cuff-like collar sloped upwards to keep erect a little sandy head, crowned by a black bowler some sizes too small [. . .] Under his left arm he carried two sabres in shining scabbards of patent leather. His right hand grasped a hunting crop such as whippers-in use for hounds’ (As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, p. 1).
8.318: mosey
See note at 1.284.
8.320: Alf Bergan
Alf Bergan (1879–1947). ‘Small in stature and known as a practical joker, he was an assistant to the sub-sheriff of Dublin [. . .] He was a close friend of both Joyce and his father’ (Igoe, p. 27). In 1904, he lived at 141 Clonliffe Road (Thom’s, p. 1807). An appreciation in the Irish Times from shortly after he died stated: ‘There never was a more typical Dubliner [. . .] Bergan had a flow of language—vituperative, caustic, penetrating, but always witty—which flooded the room in which he was. [. . .] I have a suspicion that Joyce owed at least something to Bergan’s vocabulary, which was racy of the streets of Dublin’ (3 Jan. 1948, p. 7, cols g–h).
8.320 Richie Goulding See note at 3.76.
8.321: Scotch house
The Scotch House: a pub at 6 & 7 Burgh Quay, at the corner with Hawkins Street. The pub was run by James Weir & Co., Ltd. (Thom’s, p. 1439). It is not called the ‘Scotch House’ in Thom’s but was billed as such on its façade (JJD, p. 53). It is referred to in the Dubliners story ‘Counterparts’ (p. 90).
8.322: a feast for the gods
After Julius Caesar: ‘Let’s carve him, as a Dish fit for the Gods’ (II.i.173).
8.323: Irish Times
The morning paper that Bloom used to place the ad that began his correspondence with Martha Clifford. Its offices were at 31 Westmoreland Street (Thom’s, p. 1620), which Bloom passes as he heads south. The Irish Times was launched in 1859. It was ‘protestant- conservative’ and, after 1871, anti-Home Rule (NHI, vol. 6, p. 6). The ‘Times had what would today be called a superior demographic in comparison to the Freeman’s Journal. As the paper of social standing it was more in keeping with Bloom’s claim to be a “gentleman” engaged in literary work’ (David Spurr, ‘Classified Advertising in Joyce’, pp. 78–79).
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8.326–27: Wanted, smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work
Bloom’s ad for a typist, through which he ‘met’ Martha Clifford. Besides meaning intelligent, the word smart has other meanings that hint at Bloom’s true motivations for placing such an advertisement: ‘Forward, impudent; cheeky, pert’ (OED). In the early twentieth century, typing was a job almost exclusively taken by young women (Randy Hobson and Teresa Sullivan, The Social Organisation of Work, p. 312).
8.330–31: Lizzie Twigg
Elizabeth Ann Twigg (1882–1933): poetess. Born in India to Irish parents, she moved to Limerick with her father in 1890. She remained primarily in Limerick, although she lived in Dublin briefly. She published poems in the United Irishman and the Irish Rosary under the name Lizzie Twigg. A collection of her poems, entitled Songs and Poems, was published in 1904 (Igoe, pp. 295–96).
8.334: Best paper by long chalks for a small ad
By long chalks: ‘in a great degree, by far’ (OED). It was cheaper to place a small advertisement in the Irish Times than in the Freeman’s Journal. For a small ad, the Freeman’s Journal set a minimum of 45 words at 2s. 6d., with an additional 6d. for every nine words beyond that (16 June 1904, p. 1, col. a). In contrast, the Irish Times charged a halfpenny per word with a minimum charge of 6d. (16 June 1904, p. 2, col. a); thus ads could be as short as 12 words. Assuming Bloom’s ad read ‘Wanted, smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work. Apply to Henry Flower, c/o P.O. Westland Row, City’, it would have cost him 9½ d. to place it in the Irish Times. See also note at 8.323.
8.334: Got the provinces now
Bloom’s assessment that the Irish Times dominates the provincial market is incorrect, or, at the very least, anachronistic. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Freeman’s Journal was the only Dublin newspaper that enjoyed a wide circulation outside the capital. Indeed, the Times’s advertisements ‘reflect a largely Dublin-based, middle- and upper-middle-class readership’ (Terence Brown, The Irish Times, p. 9). But, with the emergence of the rebranded, populist Irish Independent in 1905 (see note at 7.308), the Times began to court the provincial market more aggressively (p. 76).
8.335: Cook and general, exc. cuisine, housemaid kept
Bloom’s imagined classified advertisement for a cook and general servant. ‘Housemaid kept’ means that a housemaid is already in employment. Bloom’s ad is mostly typical. For example: ‘Wanted. Good Plain Cook: Protestant: kitchenmaid kept’ (Irish Times, 1 Aug. 1904, p. 2, col. b). In a small ad, the phrase ‘exc. cuisine’ means excellent food, although Bloom seems to think it means excellent kitchen (in French, cuisine means both kitchen and cooking). This phrase is found in ads for hotels or rooms to let and not situations vacant ads (such as the one Bloom imagines). For example: ‘Paying guests—First class Board and Residence, excellent cuisine, most liberal table, fine lofty rooms’ (Irish Times, 27 July 1904, p. 10, col. e).
8.336: Resp.
Resp.: respectable (OED).
8.337: James Carlisle
James Carlyle (1839–1907): manager and director of the Irish Times in 1904. Thom’s lists him as ‘Carlisle’ in the street directory listing for the Irish Times (p. 1620) and ‘Carlyle’ in the directory
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8.337: Six and a half percent dividend
The 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph reports that the dividend of shares in the Irish Times was 5 7/16% (p. 4, col. c).
8.338: Coates’s shares
When thread manufacturers James and Peter Coats of Paisley, Scotland merged with their major competitors, Clark & Co, in 1896, they formed a lucrative monopoly, causing stock dividends to surge (EB11, s.v. Paisley). Joyce misspelt their name as ‘Coates’.
8.338: Ca’canny
Ca’canny: ‘to go cautiously, quietly, gently, carefully, warily’; from the Scottish word can, ‘knowledge, skill’ (OED, s.v. canny).
8.338: old Scotch hunks Hunks: a miser (OED).
8.339: vicereine
Vicereine: the wife of a Viceroy (OED). Lady Dudley was the Vicereine in Ireland in 1904 (see note at 7.700).
8.339: Irish Field
The Irish Field: a Dublin weekly racing newspaper, published each Saturday from Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1357). It was purchased by the Irish Times in July 1903 (Freeman’s Journal, 11 June 1904, p. 4, cols e and f).
8.340: Lady Mountcashel
Edward George Augustus Harcourt Moore (1829–1915), 6th Earl Mount-Cashell and Baron Kelsworth (Thom’s, p. 416b). According to Thom’s, he had no wife in 1904.
8.341: Ward Union staghounds
The Ward Union Staghounds: a ‘celebrated’ fox hunt in County Meath, near Dublin (Rawdon B. Lee, A History and Description of the Modern Dogs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1, p. 118). The staghound ‘is neither more nor less than a foxhound’ (p. 109).
8.341: enlargement
Enlargement: in fox hunting, the moment when the fox which is to be pursued is let go from its cage (OED).
8.341: Rathoath
Ratoath is a town in County Meath, 40 km north-west of Dublin (Rathoath is a variant spelling). The Ward Union Staghounds were (until 1979) headquartered in the nearby town of Ashbourne (Lee, A History and Description of the Modern Dogs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1, p. 118).
8.342: Uneatable fox
In Act I of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance (1893), Lord Illingworth quips that fox hunting is ‘the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’ (Complete Works, p. 471).
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8.342: Pothunters
Pothunter: ‘a sportsman who shoots anything he comes across, having more regard to filling his bag than to the rules which regulate the sport’ (OED).
8.343: Weightcarrying huntress
Weightcarrier: ‘a horse that can carry a heavy rider’ (OED).
8.344: pillion
Pillion: ‘A kind of saddle, esp. a woman’s light saddle’ (OED).
8.344: not for Joe
The title of a popular American song of the 1850s, words and music by Arthur Lloyd (Scottish singer and songwriter, 1839–1904) (Sigmund Spaeth, Read ’Em and Weep, p. 47).
8.346: while you’d say knife
In before you could say knife: proverbial, ‘very quickly, swiftly, or suddenly’ (Partridge, s.v. knife).
8.347: the Grosvenor See note at 5.99.
8.348: fivebarred gate
Bar-gate: a barrier gate (OED). In this instance, the term means a high gate, at least 1.5 metres high, over which a horse leaps.
8.350: Mrs Miriam Dandrade
Identity unknown. No one of that name appears in Thom’s or the 1901 census. The name might come from the internationally famous Portuguese tenor Francisco D’Andrade (1859–1921) (Grove).
8.351: Shelbourne hotel
The Shelbourne Hotel: Dublin’s grandest and most élite hotel, at the corner of Kildare Street and the north side of St Stephen’s Green (Thom’s, p. 2009). Elizabeth Bowen (Irish writer, 1899–1973) wrote a book on the Shelbourne (1951) in which she states: ‘We Irish, I would go on to say, take a certain pride in the hotel’s fabulousness, and the manner with which it stands up to travellers from every part of the world’ (p. 5).
8.351–52: Didn’t take a feather out of her
To not take a feather: to not be bothered at all (Dent).
8.352: clotheshorse
Clothes-horse: ‘An upright wooden frame standing upon legs, with horizontal bars on which clothes are hung out to dry or air’; also ‘A person whose main function is or appears to be to wear or show off clothes’ (OED); both senses could be appropriate here.
8.353: Stubbs the park ranger
Henry G. Stubbs (1840–1908), ‘overseer, Board of Public Works’ (i.e. park ranger), The Cottage, Phoenix Park (Thom’s 1901, p. 1663). He retired in 1901 (Igoe, p. 282). In 1904, this post was held by P. McInnes (Thom’s, p. 1744).
8.353: Whelan of the Express
Identity unknown; possibly Michael Whelan (b. c.1863), who is listed as a ‘newspaper machinist’ on the 1901 census. For the Daily Express, see note at 7.307.
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8.358: Method in his madness
Polonius, from Hamlet: ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in it’ (II.ii.207). The name ‘Methodism’ for the Church originally established by John Wesley (English theologian, 1703–91), his brother Charles (1707–88), and their friend George Whitefield (1714–70) was originally applied in derision of Wesley’s doctrines (Catholic Encyclopedia; EB11). See also note at 8.277 on the name Purefoy.
8.359: educational dairy
Educational Dairy Produce’s shops served health foods and temperance drinks. Thom’s lists Produce Stores, Ltd., at 9 Upper Baggot Street, with branches at 10 Nassau Street, 19 Merrion Row, and 10–11 Castle Markets (p. 1990).
8.361–62: Theodore’s cousin
Theodore Purefoy’s cousin Mortimer Edward Purefoy works in the Treasury Remembrancer’s office in Dublin Castle (see note at 14.1335–36). The character is fictional.
8.362: Dublin Castle
In 1904, Dublin Castle, just off Cork Hill and Dame Street, housed the main offices of the British Government in Ireland. It served as the seat of power for the British Crown in Ireland, as well as a jail for the Royal Irish Constabulary (see note at 12.127). It was ori ginally built as a military fortress by King John in 1215 and is one of the oldest buildings in Dublin (Bennett). Also located at the Castle were such government agencies as the Office of Works, the Chief Secretary’s offices, the Chapel Royal, the Record Tower, the Viceregal apartments, and the General Prisons Board, among others (Thom’s, p. 1445). ‘The wits of the Opposition mocked at the figure of Justice that adorns the Cork Hill gate, finding a certain appropriateness in the circumstance that she is represented with her face to the viceroy and her back to the people’ (Chart, Story of Dublin, pp. 144–45).
8.362: tony
Tony: ‘Having a high or fashionable tone; high-toned, stylish’ (OED).
8.362: Hardy annuals
Hardy annual: in common Hiberno-English parlance, someone who is rarely sick, especially good at surviving winter; mainly used of young children and especially old people (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy); after the botanic expression, ‘a herbaceous plant with a perennial rootstock that can withstand frost; (fig.) something which recurs continually or at regular intervals’ (OED; Harald Beck, JJON).
8.363: the Three Jolly Topers
The Jolly Toper: a pub at Cardiff ’s Bridge, Finglas, by the River Tolka, north of Dublin (Freeman’s Journal, 5 Apr. 1902, p. 4, col. d; Thom’s, p. 1743). Toper: ‘a hard drinker; a drunkard’ (OED). There is an old Irish air called ‘The Three Jolly Topers’ (P. W. Joyce, Old Irish Folk Music and Songs, p. 131).
8.364: squallers
Squaller: ‘one who squalls or screams; especially a young child’ (OED).
8.366: t.t’s
T.T: a teetotaller (OED).
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8.366: Dog in the manger
A dog in the manger: ‘a mean-spirited individual who will not use what is wanted by another, nor yet let the other have it to use; one who prevents another enjoying something without any benefit to himself ’ (Brewer’s).
8.368: Fleet street crossing
Fleet Street, a short and narrow street, intersects with Westmoreland Street and runs east to D’Olier Street.
8.369: Rowe’s
Andrew Rowe’s pub: 2 South Great George’s Street, a short walk south and west from where Bloom is standing (Thom’s, p. 2001). The National Library is about the same distance to the south and east.
8.369: national library See note at 1.469–70.
8.370: Burton
The Burton Hotel and Billiard Rooms (and restaurant): 18 Duke Street (Thom’s, p. 1821). Duke Street runs between Grafton and Dawson Streets.
8.371: Bolton’s Westmoreland house
‘Westmoreland House, Bolton, William, and Co. grocers, tea, wine, and spirit merchants and Italian warehousemen’: 35–36 Westmoreland Street (Thom’s, p. 1620).
8.371–72: Tea. I forgot to tap Tom Kernan See note at 5.19–20.
8.374: vinegared handkerchief
A traditional remedy. For example, Jean-Paul Marat (French doctor and revolutionary, 1743–93) ‘was subject to headaches which caused him to cover his head with a handkerchief soaked in vinegar, and it is thus covered that we see him in many of his caricatures’ (W. F. von Zelinski, ‘Jean Paul Marat’, The American Journal of Clinical Medicine, vol. 29, Feb. 1922, p. 112).
8.378: Twilight sleep idea: queen Victoria
Twilight-sleep: ‘a state of semi-consciousness produced by injection of scopolamine and morphia in which a woman can undergo childbirth with comparatively little pain’ (Brewer’s). A chloroform anaesthetic was used on Queen Victoria during the birth of Prince Leopold in April 1853 (Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria, pp. 216–17).
8.379: Nine she had
Queen Victoria had nine children: four sons and five daughters (EB11).
8.379: A good layer
Good layer: a standard phrase used to describe a productive hen; for example, from a listing of livestock for sale: ‘Black Minorca, pure Abbot and Carey Strain, good layers, large Eggs’ (Freeman’s Journal, 18 Feb. 1892, p. 1, col. e).
8.379: Old woman that lived in a shoe
From the nursery rhyme: ‘There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, / She had so many children she didn’t know what to do’ (ll. 1–2, ODNR, p. 434).
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8.380: Suppose he was consumptive
Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, died of typhoid fever, not tuberculosis of the lungs (consumption), in December 1861 (Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 278).
8.381–82: the pensive bosom of the silver effulgence From Dan Dawson’s speech (7.246–47 and 7.328).
8.382: Flapdoodle
Flapdoodle: ‘empty talk; transparent nonsense’ (Partridge).
8.383–86: give every child born five quid . . . ten and a bit
£5 invested at five per cent interest, annually compounded, would be worth approximately £13 18s. in 21 years. Bloom’s own figure, ‘ten and a bit’, is slightly low because it does not take into account that interest earned increases with the principal (Osteen, The Economy of ‘Ulysses’, p. 105).
8.391–92: Molly and Mrs Moisel
Nisan Moisel was a neighbour of the Blooms when they lived at Lombard Street West (see note at 4.209–10). The wife of Nisan’s son Elyah, Basseh Moisel (née Hodess) gave birth to a daughter, Rebecca Ita, on 28 June 1889, 13 days after Milly was born (Hyman, p. 190).
8.392: Mothers’ meeting
Mothers’ meeting: ‘a regular meeting of mothers connected with a parish or congregation, for the purpose of receiving instruction and advice, or for social contact’ (OED).
8.392: Phthisis retires for the time being, then returns
Phthisis: pulmonary tuberculosis (OED). It can lie dormant for up to a year before striking. Through the early twentieth century, phthisis (and mortality therefrom) was more prevalent in Ireland relative to other European countries due to malnutrition, overcrowding, and lack of sufficient healthcare facilities (Sir Arthur Newsholme, The Last Thirty Years in Public Health, pp. 127–29).
8.394: Old Mrs Thornton was a jolly old soul
Mrs Thornton was the Blooms’ midwife (see note at 4.417), here placed in the nursery rhyme ‘Old King Cole was a merry old soul’ (ODNR, p. 134).
8.396: old Tom Wall’s son
Thomas J. Wall, KC (1837–1910): chief divisional magistrate of the Dublin Police District; he lived at 26 Longford Terrace, Monkstown (Thom’s, p. 2032).
8.397: Snuffy Dr Murren
See note at 6.942 for Dr Murren. Snuffy: drunk (OED).
8.401: Irish house of parliament
The Bank of Ireland in College Green occupies the building that had been the Irish House of Parliament; see note at 4.101–02.
8.404: Apjohn
See note at 17.51.
8.404: Owen Goldberg
Goldberg was one of Bloom’s childhood playmates; possibly related to Marcus Goldberg (1850–1936), at 31 Harcourt Street (Thom’s, p. 1513), close to Erasmus Smith High School.
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8.404: Goose green
Goosegreen was a small village just to the north of Drumcondra and is now fully incorpor ated into Dublin proper (Bennett, s.v. Drumcondra).
8.405: Mackerel
Besides being a fish, mackerel is ‘one who ministers to sexual debauchery; a bawd, pimp, procurer or procuress’ (OED).
8.406: A squad of constables debouched from College street
College Street crosses Westmoreland Street, 280 metres south of the Liffey. The B Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police is housed at the College Street station, 5 College Street (Thom’s, p. 1459), at the eastern end of College Street, where it narrows and turns into Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street. To debouch: ‘To issue from a narrow or confined place’ (OED).
8.409: Policeman’s lot is oft a happy one
Inverts the sentiment expressed in a song from Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance (1880): ‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one’ (The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, p. 321). In terms of the working conditions for the Dublin Metropolitan Police, Gilbert and Sullivan were more accurate than Bloom: the maximum pay after 15 years’ service was only 30 shillings per week and the minimum was 20, which was barely more than the average salary of an unskilled labourer (Anastasia Dukova, A History of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, p. 100).
8.413: Prepare to meet cavalry
A standard command given to infantrymen in battle to assume a position preparatory to a cavalry attack. ‘Commanding officers are always making their men rush into squares and prepare to receive cavalry, and as so much is made of this, the soldiers are naturally led to look upon the approach of cavalry with awe, and to believe that they must rush into square to avoid annihilation’ (Sir Thomas Seaton, From Cadet to Colonel, vol. 2, p. 145).
8.414: He crossed under Tommy Moore’s roguish finger
Thomas Moore (1779–1852): Irish writer, poet, and musician. In 1808, he published Irish Melodies, a collection of his lyrics set to a series of traditional Irish tunes, which became very popular. ‘Moore’s posthumous reputation as a Georgian sentimentalist, which endures to the present day, has almost wholly eclipsed the true nature of his achievement in music and letters, to say nothing of his fame as a political satirist and his monumental undertakings in biography, poetry, fiction, and history’ (DIB). The statue of Moore stands on an island on College Street, just to the north of Trinity College. There used to be a public men’s toilet beneath it, hence ‘meeting of the waters’ (see the following note). Moore’s statue holds up the right index finger. The phrase ‘roguish finger’ also alludes to a tongue-in-cheek article by Francis Mahony (Irish humourist and journalist, 1804–66), ‘Rogueries of Tom Moore’ (1834), which asserted that some of Moore’s most popular songs were copied from French and Latin sources (The Reliques of Father Prout, vol. 1, pp. 211–64).
8.415: meeting of the waters
‘The Meeting of the Waters’: a song in Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies (pp. 16–17). The poem is about the Avoca Valley in County Wicklow, where the rivers Avonbeg and Avonmore come together to form the Avoca (p. 253).
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 301
8.416–17: There is not in this wide world a vallee
After the first line from Thomas Moore’s song ‘The Meeting of the Waters’: ‘There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 16).
8.417: Julia Morkan’s
Julia and Kate Morkan, two sisters, were music teachers and the hostesses of the dinner party which is the main setting for ‘The Dead’ in Dubliners. They are based on Joyce’s great- aunts Julia Lyons (née Flynn, 1829–1905) and Ellen Callinan (née Flynn, d. 1909) and they lived at 15 Usher’s Island (Ellmann, p. 245; Igoe, pp. 212–13).
8.418: Michael Balfe’s
Michael William Balfe (1808–70): Dublin-born singer, violinist, conductor, and a composer of six operas, including The Rose of Castile (see note at 7.471–72) and The Bohemian Girl (see note at 11.659) (DIB).
8.419–20: Jack Power could a tale unfold
From the ghost’s words to Hamlet: ‘I could a tale unfold whose lightest word / Would harrow up thy soul’ (I.v.15–16). For Jack Power, see note at 6.2.
8.420: G man
‘The G Division was purely investigative, consisted of plain-clothes detectives and was unique to the DMP’ (Dukova, A History of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, p. 59). They were based at 3–4 Exchange Court, near Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1488).
8.421: lagged
To lag: to arrest (Partridge).
8.421: bridewell
Bridewell: a generic term for a jail, after a London jail by that name (OED). The Dublin ‘Metropolitan Police Courts and Bridewell’ were located at 27–61 Chancery Street (Thom’s, p. 1446).
8.422: hornies
Horny: a policeman (OED).
8.423–24: day Joe Chamberlain was given his degree in Trinity
Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914): a member of Gladstone’s government who defected in 1886 to form the Liberal Unionist Party over his opposition to Home Rule in Ireland. After uniting his party with the Conservatives, he was made secretary for the colonies in 1895 and, as such, was associated with the Boer War (R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, pp. 421–22). Chamberlain was extremely unpopular in Ireland when he was given an honorary degree by Trinity College on 18 December 1899. A large and raucous rally protesting the conferral of the degree and championing the Boer cause was held the previous day at Beresford Place, across the Liffey from Trinity (Freeman’s Journal, 18 Dec. 1899, p. 6, cols f–i). ‘The Boer War at the beginning of the century focused much moderate Irish opinion into an anti-imperial mould, and provided a mobilizing “cause” against the government’ (Foster, Modern Ireland, pp. 433, 444).
8.425: Abbey street
Abbey Street is parallel to, and just north of, the Liffey, in central Dublin. Abbey Street feeds into Beresford Place. The anti-Chamberlain protest spilled out onto Abbey Street,
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302 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses where there were various altercations with the police. At one point, a tussle ensued between a protestor, carrying a Transvaal flag, and horse-mounted police officers, who eventually managed to seize the flag. ‘In these manoeuvres, it is sad to relate, a police horse fell, and its rider came to the ground. He quickly regained his position against jeering remarks’ (Freeman’s Journal, 18 Dec. 1899, p. 6, col. g).
8.426: Manning’s
T. J. Manning’s pub: 41 Upper Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1951).
8.426: souped
To be souped: to be brought to grief (OED).
8.428–29: Trinity jibs . . . Looking for trouble
Jib: first-year undergraduate student of Trinity College (Partridge). Bloom (or Joyce) is conflating the anti-Chamberlain protest on the day before his degree was conferred with the Trinity student-led counter-protest on the day of the conferral: ‘a batch of Trinity Boys, who were apparently determined to cheer Mr Chamberlain with news of a victory, attacked the Mansion House [see note at 8.185–86], removed the city flag, tore it in shreds, beat the caretakers and knocked down a lady’ (Freeman’s Journal, 19 Dec. 1899, p. 6, col. b).
8.429–30: Dixon who dressed that sting for me in the Mater
Dixon appeared in A Portrait as a fellow student of Stephen’s at the university. The name might come from Joseph Francis Dixon (b. 1870). Thom’s lists him as a Registered Medical Practitioner with an address at 12 Conyngham Road (p. 872). This Dixon does not seem to be affiliated with the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, which is just up the road from Bloom’s house (see note at 6.375–76). Bloom was stung by a bee on 23 May (see note at 4.483–84).
8.430: in Holles street
That is, at the National Maternity Hospital, 29–31 Holles Street; see note at 8.281–82.
8.431: Wheels within wheels
Wheels within wheels: proverbial, ‘a complexity of forces or influences’ (ODEP); derived from Ezekiel’s vision of heaven (Ezekiel 1:16 and 10:9).
8.432: Give me in charge
To give in charge: ‘to hand over a person to the charge of a policeman’ (Brewer’s, s.v. charge).
8.434: Up the Boers!
Up: ‘to improve, to “boost”’ (OED). At the protest against Chamberlain receiving a degree from Trinity (see note at 8.423–24) on 17 December, the day before the conferral, the crowd was ‘groaning Chamberlain and cheering for the Boers’ (Freeman’s Journal, 18 Dec. 1899, p. 6, col. g).
8.435: Three cheers for De Wet!
Christiaan Rudolph De Wet (1854–1922): a Boer (Afrikaner) general who led forces from the Orange Free State, an independent Boer state in southern Africa, during the Boer War. With the defeat of the Boer forces, De Wet reluctantly signed the Peace of Vereening (31 May 1902), which ended the Boer War and returned the Orange Free State to British colonial rule (EB11). According to the Irish Times’s report of the protest, the cry was ‘Three cheers for Krager [sic]’ (18 Dec. 1899, p. 3, col. g). ‘Krager’ is Stephanus Johannes Paulus
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 303 Kruger (President of Transvaal, 1825–1904; see note at 18.394–95); his name was occasionally rendered mistakenly as ‘Krager’.
8.436: We’ll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree
After ‘John Brown’s Body’, a pro-Union American Civil War song; the line in question is ‘We’ll hang Jeff Davis to a sourapple tree!’ (John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, p. 49). For Joe Chamberlain, see note at 8.423–24. The Jeff Davis of the song is Jefferson Davis (1808–89), the president of the short-lived Confederate States of America (EB11).
8.437: Vinegar hill
A hill at Enniscorthy, County Wexford, where the Wexford United Irishmen were based during the 1798 Rebellion, when they lost to the English on 21 June of that year in a major defeat that crippled the insurrection (Edward Hay, History of the Irish Insurrection of 1798, pp. 249–53). The battle at Vinegar Hill is mentioned in the ballad ‘The Boys of Wexford’ (see note at 7.427–28).
8.438: Butter exchange band
A musical band from Cork sponsored, since 1878, by the Cork Butter Exchange, a dairy guild. The reference is not to the protests surrounding the conferral of an honorary degree on Chamberlain, but rather to a different urban altercation. ‘By the turn of the century, Cork’s nationalist politics had become an intramural affair. Rekindling many of the rivalries from the Parnell split, neighbourhood bands allied themselves with the two main constitutional political parties [. . .] During the long feud, politically aligned marching bands served as shock troops, often spearheading mob assaults on rival party crowds’ (John Borgonovo, ‘Brass Bands in Cork’, p. 36).
8.438–39: Few years’ time half of them magistrates and civil servants
It is unclear if Bloom is referring to the Trinity students or to the pro-Boer nationalists, or, indeed, to both. That is, no matter what their sectarian leanings, the protestors on both sides might eventually desert political activism in favour of professional advancement. As members of the Protestant upper classes, the Trinity students would expect to take presti gious jobs in the law or the civil service upon graduation. Over the course of the nineteenth century, similar prospects started to extend to an emerging Irish Catholic middle class. ‘The British political system and its Irish extension, despite its considerable democratic element, still accorded a major role to property and especially to landed interest. In Ireland this meant in practice a continuing imbalance in favour of protestants in the administration of justice, in government, and in public employment, at both national and local levels. At the local level the balance was partly restored—but only partly—by the stipendiary magistrates and by the assistant barristers’ (NHI, vol. 5, p. 385).
8.440: whether on the scaffold high
From the chorus of ‘God Save Ireland’, by Timothy Daniel Sullivan (Irish politician and journalist 1827–1914): ‘ “God Save Ireland”, said the heroes; / “God save Ireland”, said they all: / “Whether on the scaffold high, or the battle-field we die, / O what matter, when for Erin dear we fall!” ’ (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 9). Sullivan wrote this song a few days after the execution of the ‘Manchester Martyrs’, three Fenians who had murdered a police officer. This song ‘quickly became the unofficial national anthem of nationalist Ireland’ (DIB, s.v. Timothy Daniel Sullivan).
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8.441–42: Harvey Duff
The name of a police agent who disguises himself as a peasant in Irish-American playwright Dion Boucicault’s (1822–90) The Shaughraun (1874).
8.442–43: Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on the invincibles
In ‘Lotus Eaters’, Bloom tried unsuccessfully to remember James Carey’s first name. Carey was one of the Invincibles and he testified against his fellow conspirators. Peter was his brother, and Denis was Bloom’s incorrect guess for James’s first name. See notes at 5.378, 5.379, 5.380, and 5.381. Blow the gaff: confess or inform (Partridge, Dictionary of the Underworld).
8.443: Member of the corporation too
As a Dublin town councillor, James Carey (see note at 5.379) was a member of Dublin Corporation. ‘The calling of Carey as a witness created a sensation [. . .] Knowing him, as nearly everyone in Court had done as a Town Councillor and a citizen of repute [. . .] there was something indescribable in the effect his presence produced’ (J. B. Hall, Random Records, p. 179).
8.444: secret service pay from the castle
As the government’s key witness against the Invincibles, James Carey was vilified after the trial and it was suspected that he was a paid informant for Dublin Castle (see note at 8.362). He and his family had to receive police protection and were eventually shipped overseas as discretely as possible (Tom Corfe, The Phoenix Park Murders, pp. 247, 258).
8.446: slaveys
See note at 6.319.
8.446: twig
To twig: ‘to become aware of by seeing; to perceive, discern, catch sight of; to recognise’ (OED).
8.446: Squarepushing
Square-pushing: military expression, being romantic with a young woman (OED).
8.449: Peeping Tom
A Peeping Tom: a lewd man who espies naked women (Brewer’s), see also note at 12.197.
8.449: Decoy duck
Decoy-duck: ‘a person who entices another into danger or mischief ’ (OED).
8.454: There are great times coming, Mary. Wait till you see.
After the song ‘There’s a Good Time Coming’ by Henry Russell (1813–1900). Chorus: ‘There’s a good time coming, boys, / A good time coming, / Wait a little longer’. The song is ‘about the end of war and the ensuing good time of eternal grace’ (Bowen, p. 134).
8.457: James Stephens’ idea was best. He knew them
For Stephens, see note at 3.241–42. Stephens organised the Irish Republican Brotherhood into a network of cells or circles, each with ten people, one of whom was its leader or c entre. Each member would only have contact with the centre who, in turn, reported to a Division Centre who, in turn, reported to the eleven-member Central Council. This structure was devised to
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 305 mitigate the damage of betrayal, since any one member’s knowledge of the group’s plans would be limited. Stephens’s precautions proved inadequate during the failed 1867 uprising, which was undermined by leaks from the organisation (Foster, Modern Ireland, pp. 392–93).
8.458: Sinn Fein
Sinn féin: Irish, literally, ‘We ourselves’, but frequently rendered into English as ‘Ourselves alone’. Since the mid-nineteenth century, this phrase had been used as a rallying cry and slogan by various Irish nationalists (see note at 12.523), such as James Stephens and the Fenians (see note at 2.272). At the first annual convention of the National Council on 28 November 1905, Arthur Griffith (see note at 3.227) used ‘Sinn Féin’ to name ‘the policy of political and economic self-reliance that he had been preaching since the turn of the century’ (NHI, vol. 6, p. 115). In 1906, Griffith’s newspaper the United Irishman was re-established under the name Sinn Féin (DIB, s.v. Arthur Griffith). This paper was not the official organ of the political party which became known as the Sinn Féin League, which was formed in 1907, when Griffith’s National Council merged with a rival nationalist organisation from Ulster, led by Bulmer Hobson (1883–1969), called the Dungannon clubs. Máire de Bhuitléir (Mary Ellen Butler, 1873–1920), a cousin of Edward Carson (Irish unionist politician, 1854–1935), originally suggested the name ‘Sinn Féin’ to Griffith (Michael Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party, pp. 20–25).
8.458–59: Back out you get the knife. . . . The firing squad
The Irish Republican Brotherhood was one of several nationalist organisations whose members were subject to murder by a vigilance committee should they inform authorities of the organisation’s plans (Corfe, Phoenix Park Murders, p. 151). Should they stay in, though, they were subject to the British firing squad. Hidden hand: ‘secret or occult influence, especially of a malignant character’ (OED); after Tom Taylor’s play The Hidden Hand (1870). The specific reference is to a political cartoon in Punch from after the Phoenix Park Murders by Tenniel. The cartoon is captioned ‘The Hidden Hand’ and depicts a masked Fenian anarchist receiving a bag of gold from a mysterious hand stretched from behind a curtain (3 March 1883, vol. 84, p. 103; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy). On the previous page, there is an anonymous poem called ‘The Hidden Hand’, which begins: ‘As the coiled snake strikes from the jungle’s shade, / In the wood’s dim shimmering unbetrayed; / As the lightning flames from the sable cloud, / And leaves no track on the night’s black shroud, / So comes—the curse of a troubled land—/ The Hidden Hand’ (p. 102).
8.459–60: Turnkey’s daughter got him out of Richmond
Stephens was able to escape Richmond Prison because of two warders, John Breslin and Daniel Byrne, who were part of the Fenian network (Shane Kenna, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, p. 62); see also note at 3.241–42.
8.460: Lusk
Lusk: a coastal village 18 km from Dublin from which Stephens and his party escaped Ireland. Their boat landed in Scotland, whence they travelled to London and then France and America. In London, the escapees stayed at the Palace Hotel, which was directly oppos ite Buckingham Palace (James Stephens, Chief Organizer of the Irish Republic, p. 90).
8.461: Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–82): Italian nationalist hero. Garibaldi was involved in various military campaigns against Austrian forces in Italy and united the fragmented Italian states
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306 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1860 after a long and difficult campaign. ‘After the fall of Rome [in 1849] he left the city at the head of 4000 volunteers, with the idea of joining the defenders of Venice, and started on that wonderful retreat through central Italy pursued by the armies of France, Austria, Spain and Naples. By his consummate generalship and the matchless endurance of his men the pursuers were evaded and San Marino reached’ (EB11).
8.463: squareheaded
Square-headed: level-headed, sensible (OED).
8.463–64: no go in him for the mob. Or gas about our lovely land
Go: dash, energy, vigour (OED). To gas: to ‘talk idly or for talking’s sake; boast unduly or arrogantly’ (Partridge). Griffith was a reluctant politician because he was well aware that he lacked popular appeal (Padraic Colum, Arthur Griffith, p. 139).
8.464: Gammon and spinach
Gammon and spinach: ‘nonsense; humbug; deceit’ (Partridge).
8.464: Dublin Bakery Company’s tearoom
The Dublin Bread Company: 27 Stephen Street, and with restaurants at 3-4 Stephen’s Green North, 33 Dame Street, the National Library (Kildare Street), and 6–7 Lower Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1858). Joyce’s mistake in their name was not uncommon; for example: ‘Tyre, who is an employee of the Dublin Bakery Company, Stephen street’ (Freeman’s Journal, 22 Feb. 1895, p. 7, col. i).
8.465: Debating societies
The College Historical Society (‘The Hist’) at Trinity, founded in 1770, is the oldest debating society in Ireland and Great Britain. It ‘was established to provide a platform for those who wanted to obtain practical knowledge of how to speak and act in public fora’ (Claudia Wiesner, Taru Haapla, Kari Palonen, Debates, Rhetoric and Political Action, p. 155). Along with the University Philosophical Society (‘The Phil’) at Trinity, and the University College Literary and Historical Society (‘The L and H’) at UCD, these debating societies were centres of political and intellectual debate (NHI, vol. 6, p. 563).
8.466–67: That the language question . . . economic question
Dublin Corporation ‘was increasingly used as a debating chamber for nationalist grievances’ (Séamas Ó Maitiú, Dublin’s Suburban Towns, p. 67; quoted in Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, pp. 261–62). That is, it was more frequently used to debate matters like the revival of the Irish language, rather than matters of practical urban planning and management.
8.468: Michaelmas goose
Michaelmas goose: A roast goose is the traditional Michaelmas (29 September) meal in Britain and Ireland and is thought to bring good luck (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. goose, eaten on Michaelmas Day).
8.469: apron
The apron of a goose is ‘the skin covering the belly, which is cut to get at the stuffing’ (OED).
8.470–71: Penny roll and a walk with the band
After the mordant expression, common in the latter half of the nineteenth century, that because of poverty and unemployment an Irishman’s breakfast consists of nothing more
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 307 than ‘a walk with the band’, that is, listening to the band of the Royal Fusiliers (or another regiment) as they relieved the guard at 11:00 am in the yard of Dublin Castle (Harald Beck, JJON).
8.472: show us over See note at 4.331.
8.473–74: Home Rule sun rising up in the northwest See note at 4.101–02.
8.476: Trinity’s surly front
Surly: ‘masterful, imperious; haughty, arrogant’ (OED). The front gate of Trinity College opens out onto College Green which turns into Dame Street. Originally built as part of the redevelopment of College’s Front Square in the 1750s, a large, imposing wooden door was installed into the Georgian façade in 1848 (R. B. McDowell and D. A. Webb, Trinity College Dublin, pp. 50, 200).
8.479: mooching about
To mooch: ‘to loiter aimlessly; to dawdle in a bored or listless manner; to slouch. Frequently with about, along, around, off’ (OED).
8.483: washed in the blood of the lamb See note at 8.9.
8.487: notice to quit
Notice to quit: ‘Danger of dying, esp. from ill-health’ (Partridge).
8.490: Built on bread and onions
According to Herodotus (Greek historian, fifth century bc), the slaves who built the pyramids were paid in onions, radishes, and leeks, as well as bread and clothes (The Histories, II.125, p. 132), which proverbially has come down as meaning wages of bread and onions (R. J. Schork, Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce, p. 25).
8.490: Slaves Chinese wall. Babylon
The Great Wall of China, built between the third and fifteenth centuries as a fortification against foreign aggression, stretches for some 2,400 km. ‘The building of the wall was a sufficiently simple affair, not to be compared with the task of building the pyramids of Egypt’ (EB11, s.v. China). The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the ancient wonders of the world, now destroyed, ‘consisted, we are told, of a garden of trees and flowers, built on the topmost of a series of arches some 75 ft. [23 metres] high’ (s.v. Babylon).
8.490–91: Big stones left. Round towers
‘In connexion with many of the ancient churches there were round towers of stone from 60 to 150 feet [18 to 46 m] high, and from 13 to 20 feet [4 to 6 m] in external diameter at the base: the top was conical. [. . .] About eighty round towers still remain, of which about twenty are perfect: the rest are more or less imperfect. [. . .] They were erected at various times from about the beginning of the ninth to the thirteenth century’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 362). By ‘big stones’, Bloom may have in mind the various pillar-stones marked with Ogham inscriptions (see note at 17.772–73) that predate the arrival of Christianity in Ireland (pp. 396–401).
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8.491: sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt
Jerry-built: ‘Built unsubstantially of bad materials; built to sell but not to last’ (OED). The extension of city boundaries after 1900 led to the construction of low-density working class accommodation in previously undeveloped suburban areas of Kilmainham, Drumcondra, Clontarf, and other neighbourhoods (Mary Daly, Dublin: The Deposed Capital, p. 305). Developments for the very poor tended to be of low quality (p. 302); see also the following note.
8.491–92: Kerwan’s mushroom houses built of breeze
Mushroom hall: a ‘hastily-built house’ (EDD). Breeze: small cinders and cinder-dust (OED); a cheaper alternative to bricks. This might be in reference to the Dublin Artisans’ Dwellings Company’s (see note at 8.709) development on Kirwan Street in the Stonybatter neighbourhood on the northside (Thom’s, p. 1528). (Kerwan is an alternative spelling of the name.) However, Bloom’s judgement is unfair: the Kirwan Street houses are high-quality and made of brick; these were the DADC’s first development and were built in 1893 (Christine Casey, Dublin, p. 270; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy). Other housing developments for the working classes were made of breeze and some were poorly built. According to a report for the Board of Works about a proposed scheme off the North Strand Road: ‘The living rooms contain no light but what comes in over the doors; no bedroom has a fireplace; they are too low and the facing of Tullamore bricks would not stand the weather’ (quoted in O’Brien, Dear, Dirty Dublin, p. 25).
8.496: Provost’s house. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon
At Trinity College, the Provost is the senior administrative officer (OED). The Trinity Provost’s house is at 1 Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 1505), at the corner with Nassau Street. The Provost’s house is the only residential address on Grafton Street and lies behind a tall stone wall; it ‘is a grand and eccentric stone-fronted townhouse [. . .] [that] has the air of a nobleman’s palace rather than the residence of a senior academic’ (Casey, Dublin, p. 392). The Reverend George Salmon, D.D. (1819–1904): Regius professor of divinity and Provost of Trinity from 1888 until his death on 22 January 1904 (DIB). Since Salmon died so early in the year, he is still listed as Provost in Thom’s (pp. 852, 2005). He was succeeded by Anthony Traill (1838–1914), who was the actual Provost on 16 June 1904. Tinned: wealthy (Partridge, s.v. tin). Salmon’s total annual emoluments as Provost (salary plus housing etc.) exceeded £1,000 per annum (McDowell and Webb, Trinity College Dublin, p. 513). When he died, he left a personal estate valued at £27,200 (Freeman’s Journal, 20 Apr. 1904, p. 6, col. f).
8.498: Nature abhors a vacuum
Proverbial (ODEP). ‘The fact that water will rise in a tube, when the air is removed from the tube, was known in ancient times [. . .] But the explanation was not known; it was simply said that “nature abhors a vacuum” ’ (G. A. Wentworth and G. A. Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 72; Yi Jean Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 643).
8.500: Walter Sexton’s window
Walter Sexton, ‘goldsmith, jeweller, silversmith, and watchmaker’: 118 Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 2008). This goldsmith was across the street from the statue of Oliver Goldsmith by the front gate of Trinity (see note at 10.339) and diagonally across from the Provost’s house.
8.500: John Howard Parnell
John Howard Parnell (1843–1923): Charles Stewart Parnell’s older brother. J. H. Parnell was MP for South Meath from 1895 to 1900; he had previously run for parliament,
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 309 unsuccessfully, two times (DIB). In 1904, he was Dublin’s city marshal and registrar of pawnbrokers, a largely honorary position, with offices at 3 Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1349).
8.504–05: Must be a corporation meeting today
There is a meeting of the Dublin Corporation later in the day, at which the city marshal is expected to attend (see note at 10.1007).
8.506: Charley Kavanagh
Charles Kavanagh (1851–94): Dublin city marshal from 1891 until his death in June 1894 (Igoe, p. 161). On the Rosenbach manuscript, Joyce wrote ‘Charley Boulger’ (f. 12), a name which appears on all extant manuscripts (and all editions prior to Gabler) except for the serialisation in the Little Review, where the name is ‘Kavanagh’. This must have been used on the now-missing copy of the typescript that was sent to the Little Review (UCSE, pp. 346–47), whereas the copy of the typescript used to set the first edition reads ‘Boulger’ (JJA, vol. 12, p. 311). Gabler adopts the name Kavanagh because there was no Dublin city marshal named Boulger, whereas there was one named Charles Kavanagh.
8.507: cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved
Both ‘cocked, powdered, and shaved’ and ‘puffed, powdered, and shaved’ were standard phrases in the nineteenth century used to deride the fastidious and ornate fashions favoured by dandies (John Simpson, JJON).
8.508: Poached eyes on ghost
A pun on ‘poached eggs on toast’ based on the German word for egg, Ei.
8.510: D.B.C. . . . play chess there
The Dublin Bread Company; see note at 8.464. The branch at 33 Dame Street had a room for chess players. J. F. Byrne (see note at 1.159) recounts that, starting in around 1896, he used to play chess regularly against John Howard Parnell in the Dublin Bread Company, while Joyce, who knew nothing of chess, watched and grumbled (Silent Years, pp. 41–43).
8.513: All a bit touched
Touched: slightly insane (Partridge).
8.513: Mad Fanny
Fanny Isabel Parnell (1848–82): poet and one of Parnell’s sisters. Her poetry was often informed by her political inclinations. In 1880, she wrote a twenty-three-page pamphlet to explain Irish events to an American audience, The Hovels of Ireland (DIB).
8.513: Mrs Dickinson
Emily Parnell Dickinson (1841–1918): one of Parnell’s sisters. She married Captain Arthur Dickinson, a military officer with a drinking problem. ‘Her sister-in-law, John Parnell’s wife, describes Emily’s mind as “somewhat deranged” in later years’ (Robert Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 611).
8.514: Bolt upright like surgeon M‘Ardle
John Stephen McArdle (1859–1928): surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin; he lived at 7 Upper Merrion Street (Thom’s, pp. 876, 1936). ‘A popular surgeon, he sat bolt upright when he travelled through the city in his doctor’s brougham’ (Igoe, p. 189).
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8.515: David Sheehy beat him for south Meath
In 1903, David Sheehy (1844–1932) defeated John Howard Parnell in a parliamentary by- election for South Meath. ‘During the Parnell split (December 1890) he took the anti- Parnellite side, arguing that, for the sake of the rural tenantry, it was important that the liberal alliance be maintained at all costs’ (DIB). In his youth, Joyce and his family were friendly with Sheehy and his family (Ellmann, pp. 51–53). A fictionalised version of the Sheehys appear as the Daniels family in Stephen Hero.
8.515: Apply for the Chiltern Hundreds
Because MPs are technically forbidden from resigning, the mechanism by which they can vacate their seat is to apply for the position of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, a now- obsolete job. Since MPs cannot hold another paid office in government, their seat is then freed (EB11).
8.516: retire into public life
To retire into public life: to retire from one’s job while remaining in or entering the public eye; the expression was common in the nineteenth century, especially when applied to politicians who remained in the news even after leaving office (John Simpson, JJON).
8.516–17: The patriot’s banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park
In Stephen Hero, Simon upbraids Stephen for his laziness: ‘Can’t you go in for something definite, some good appointment in a government office [. . .]. Unless, perhaps, you would prefer to be a loafer eating orange-peels and sleeping in the Park’ (p. 217). This is in reference to ‘Children’s Day’, 7 April 1900, when many firms donated food to children at a ceremony in Phoenix Park, in honour of Queen Victoria’s visit (see note at 8.710). Among the food provided was a donation of 2,500 oranges from Mr Hamilton Drummond (Michael McCarthy, Five Years in Ireland, p. 484). The choice of oranges is a dig at Unionism (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘ “Eating Orangepeels in the Park” ’, p. 166).
8.520–22: Of the twoheaded octopus . . . Scotch accent
In the late nineteenth century, various writers used the figure of a monstrous octopus to propagandise against the perceived conspiracies of both Freemasonry (see note at 8.960) and Judaism. The head ‘upon which the ends of the world have forgotten to come’ would be Judaism—which does not believe in Christ as herald to the end of the world—and the one with a ‘Scotch accent’ would be the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. While here attributed to George Russell (A.E.), this line appears to be of Joyce’s invention (D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, pp. 863–65).
8.523–24: Beard and bicycle
George Russell (A.E.) wore a formidable ‘great russet beard’ (John Eglinton, A Memoir of AE, p. 75). In the springtime, he was known for setting off in the mornings on his bicycle (p. 50).
8.526: Coming events cast their shadows before
From ‘Lochiel’s Warning’ (1802), a ballad by Thomas Campbell (Scottish poet, 1777–1844). A Scottish wizard warns the Lochiel (the head of Clan Cameron) not to go into battle on behalf of Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720–88), the Pretender. The wizard says: ‘’Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, / And coming events cast their shadows before’ (Poetical Works, p. 87).
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8.527: That might be Lizzie Twigg
See note at 8.330–31 for Lizzie Twigg. Padraic Colum claims that ‘Bloom mistakenly identifies Susan Mitchell as Lizzie Twigg, because Joyce’s description (“Her stockings are loose over her ankles” [8.542]) more closely fits Miss Mitchell, who worked in The Irish Homestead with Russell, than it does the fastidious Lizzie’ (Zack Bowen, ‘Lizzie Twigg: Gone but Not Forgotten’, p. 369). For Susan Mitchell, see note at 9.306–07.
8.527–28: A.E.: what does that mean? See note at 7.784.
8.528: Albert Edward
Albert Edward: the baptismal name of King Edward VII (EB11).
8.528: Arthur Edmund
For Arthur Edward Guinness see note at 5.306.
8.533: homespun
In 1914, an American visitor described Russell’s appearance: ‘tall, broad-shouldered, heavy- set, and dressed in a baggy suit of brown homespun’ (Henry Summerfield, That Myriad- Minded Man, pp. 170–71).
8.534: Coming from the vegetarian
Vegetarianism was encouraged within the Theosophical movement although, other than for a year in his twenties, Russell was not a strict vegetarian (Summerfield, That Myriad- Minded Man, p. 35). The nearest vegetarian restaurant was The McCaughey Restaurant at 3–4 College Street, where he had a table reserved regularly (JJD, p. 41).
8.535–36: eyes of that cow will pursue you through all eternity
Theosophist Annie Besant, among others, wrote on the dangerous spiritual effects of killing animals for food: ‘The comparatively few creatures that are allowed to die in peace and quietness are lost in the vast hordes of the murdered, and from the currents set up by these there rain down influences from the astral world on the human and animal races which drive them yet farther apart and engender “instinctive” distrust and fear on the one side and lust of inflicting cruelty on the other’ (The Ancient Wisdom, p. 84). In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, because Pythagoras believes in reincarnation (see note at 4.376), he preaches against eating meat: ‘when you taste / The flesh of slaughtered cattle, you are eating / Your fellow-workers’ (XV.140–42).
8.537–38: Bad as a bloater
Bloater: a cow with bloat, ‘a disease of livestock characterised by an accumulation of gases in the stomach’ (OED).
8.539: nutsteak
Nutsteak: ‘a portion of meat substitute made from nuts and shaped like a steak’ (OED).
8.539: Nutarians. Fruitarians
Nutarian: ‘a vegetarian whose diet is based on nut products’. Fruitarian: ‘one who lives on fruit’ (both OED).
8.540: They cook in soda
‘The young cook, earnest and observant, but having as yet much to learn, discovers that a nugget of soda promotes the cooking of vegetables in respect of their colour and
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312 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses tenderness. But she is likely to attribute to the soda a greater virtue than it possesses, for it may be safely said that every grain used beyond what is essential to correct the hardness of the water will have a mischievous effect’ (Sutton and Sons, The Art of Preparing Vegetables for the Table, p. 5).
8.543: Those literary ethereal people . . . symbolistic
Perhaps Bloom’s terms derive from William Collins’s (English poet, 1721–59) poem ‘Ode to Evening’: ‘O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun / Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, / With brede ethereal wove, / O’erhang his wavy bed’ (ll. 5–8; with thanks to Fritz Senn).
8.546: Irish stew See note at 6.940.
8.549–50: The dreamy . . . waters dull See note at 8.62–63.
8.551: Nassau street corner
Nassau Street intersects Grafton Street and runs along the southern boundary of Trinity College.
8.552: Yeates and Son
Yeates and Son: opticians and manufacturers of mathematical instruments for the university and the Dublin Port and Docks Board, 2 Grafton Street, at the corner with Nassau Street (Thom’s, p. 2044). According to a Christmas advertisement: ‘Messrs Yeates and Son are well known as manufacturing opticians, the firm having been established so far back as 1728. There will be found at their premises, No. 2 Grafton street, a very large assortment of goods, for which the firm has made a great reputation, such as telescopes, marine glasses, race and opera glasses, lorgnettes, and the famous prismatic fieldglasses’ (Irish Times, 19 Dec. 1911, p. 9, col. c).
8.552: old Harris’s
Morris Harris (1823–1909) ran a jewellery shop at 30 Nassau Street (Thom’s, p. 1892).
8.553: young Sinclair
Either William Sinclair (1882–1937) or his twin brother Henry Morris Sinclair. They were the grandsons of Morris Harris (see previous note). Although their father, John Sinclair, was Protestant, they were raised Jewish at Harris’s insistence (Hyman, pp. 148–49). Through his friend Padraic Colum, Joyce met one of the Sinclair brothers (Mary and Padraic Colum, Our Friend James Joyce, pp. 55–56); and one of them loaned Joyce money (Letters, vol. 2, p. 194). In 1937, Henry Morris Sinclair sued Gogarty for libelling his grandfather in As I Was Going Down Sackville Street. One of the witnesses on Sinclair’s behalf was Samuel Beckett (Irish writer, 1906–89), the nephew of William’s wife Cissie (James Knowlson, Damned to Fame, pp. 275–80).
8.554: Goerz lenses
G. P. Goerz: German optical manufacturers known for their cameras, camera lenses, and binoculars; founded in Berlin in 1886 (John Hannavy, Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, pp. 596–98).
8.555–56: Germans making their way everywhere . . . Undercutting
The increasing German industrial might at the turn of the twentieth century had more to do with practical policies than price undercutting. ‘Already at the turn of the century
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 313 Germany was the first to build an industrial core that would become typical of twentieth- century Europe [. . .] Coal, iron, and steel formed the real engine from the late nineteenth century [. . .] On the solid foundation of these basic industries, Germany successfully challenged Britain’s leading position and created one of the world’s strongest engineering industries [. . .] Superb science and technology education helped to build a labor force that formed the bedrock of shipbuilding and other engineering branches, which doubled employment and tripled output between 1890 and 1913’ (Ivan T. Berend, An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe, pp. 27–28).
8.558–59: Last year travelling to Ennis See note at 6.529–30.
8.560: Limerick junction
A major railway junction between the Dublin–Cork mainline and the Limerick–Waterford line. The junction is not in Limerick but located in an otherwise desolate field in County Tipperary, 5 km from Tipperary town (Brewer’s Irish). A train from Dublin to Ennis would require a transfer at Limerick junction; the junction is 198 km south-west of Dublin and 77 km south-east of Ennis.
8.560–61: a little watch up there on the roof
There was a long-standing Dublin rumour that there was a small watch on the roof of the Bank of Ireland in College Green (see note at 4.101–02). The rumour started because some customers at Yeates and Son (see note at 8.552) would test out spyglasses and binoculars by looking in the general direction of the Bank, which is 200 metres away, and a portion of which is in a direct line-of-sight (with thanks to Gerry O’Flaherty).
8.562: irides
Irides: the irises of the eyes (OED, s.v. iris).
8.566–67: Must be the focus where the rays cross
‘The rays from the star fall upon the object-glass at the end of the telescope, and on passing through they become refracted into a converging beam, so that all intersect at the focus’ (Ball, The Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 11).
8.568: sunspots when we were in Lombard street
In January 1894, sunspots were at the peak of their 11-year cycle (Ball, The Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 41). Ball associates sunspots with ‘violent disturbances on the surface of the sun’ (p. 58).
8.569–70: There will be a total eclipse this year: autumn some time
‘A total Eclipse of the Sun, September 9, 1904, invisible at Dublin’ (Thom’s, p. 2).
8.571: that ball falls at Greenwich time
Bloom now corrects himself; see note at 8.109.
8.571–72: It’s the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink
Dunsink Observatory, built in 1785, part of Trinity College, is north-west of Phoenix Park. It is furnished with several telescopes and other instruments. ‘The clocks in the Port and Docks office, Westmoreland-street, and in the New Buildings, Trinity College, are controlled by an electric current transmitted each second by the meantime clock at the Observatory’ (Thom’s, p. 887).
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8.573: first Saturday of the month
The Dunsink Observatory was open to the public on the first Saturday of each month (Thom’s, p. 887).
8.573–74: professor Joly . . . his family
Charles Jasper Joly (1864–1906): in 1904 he was the director of the Dunsink Observatory as well as Astronomer Royal of Ireland and Andrews professor of astronomy at Trinity College (Thom’s, p. 887), the position held by Robert Ball until 1892 (see note at 8.110). His father, John Swift Joly, was a rector. His great-grandfather Jean Jasper Joly (1740–1823) ‘had emigrated from France to Britain; he arrived in Dublin (1769) as financial secretary to the duke of Leinster in the mid eighteenth century, was later appointed keeper of the house of lords in Ireland’ (DIB).
8.577: Cap in hand goes through the land
A translation of the German proverb, ‘Mit dem Hute in der Hand kommt man durchs ganze Land’, that is, servile politeness is one way to advance (Dent; Joan Rockwell, Fact in Fiction, p. 24).
8.582–83: Gas: then solid: then world: then cold: then dead shell
Pierre Simon, marquis de Laplace’s (French astronomer, 1749–1827) nebular hypothesis of the universe: the sun was the centre of a rotating nebula of materials which were in different stages of condensation, contraction, and cooling. Gaseous material from the nebula concentrated into solid forms, such as planets. Eventually, these would ultimately cool to the point where life would cease to exist (EB11, s.v. Nebular theory).
8.584: new moon See note at 8.245.
8.586: la maison Claire
La Maison Claire: ‘Court Dressmaker’, 4 Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 1505).
8.587: full moon
The moon was full at 8:29 am on Sunday 29 May 1904 (Thom’s, p. 14).
8.588–89: Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon
The River Tolka runs along the northern edge of Dublin and flows into Dublin Bay at Annesley Bridge at Fairview, though now between the East Wall and Clontarf due to land reclamation.
8.589–90: The young May moon . . . la-amp is gleaming, love
From Thomas Moore’s song ‘The Young May Moon’: ‘ “The young May moon is beaming, love, / The glow-worm’s lamp is gleaming, love’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 84). Lamp is hyphenated to show that the word is ‘sung to more than one note’ (Zack Bowen, ‘Music as Comedy in Ulysses’, p. 33).
8.593: Adam court
Adam Court: a narrow street off Grafton Street.
8.595: Bob Doran’s See note at 5.107.
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8.595: bottle shoulders
Rudyard Kipling (English writer, 1865–1936) used this expression in his American Notes (1891): ‘At least, I heard a little rat of a creature with hock-bottle shoulders explaining that a man from Chicago could pull the eye-teeth of a Californian in business’ (p. 44).
8.595: annual bend
Bend: a drinking binge (Partridge).
8.596–97: cherchez la femme
Cherchez la femme (French): ‘look for the woman’; used figuratively to mean that a woman must be the cause or fault (Dent); although here the literal meaning also applies.
8.597: the Coombe See note at 5.280.
8.597: chummies and streetwalkers See note at 6.319.
8.598: sober as a judge
EDD defines the phrase ‘sober as a judge’ as meaning slightly tipsy, although here it does seem to mean completely sober.
8.599: Sloping
To slope: ‘to wander aimlessly, to move in a slovenly manner’ (OED).
8.599: the Empire
The Empire Buffet: 1–3 Adam Court, off Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 1410).
8.600: Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre
Pat Kinsella (1845–1906): popular Irish comedian, actor, and variety artist. The building that houses the Empire Buffet at 1–3 Adam Court used to be the Harp Musical Hall, a popular Dublin cabaret and drinking spot owned by Kinsella (Igoe, p. 166). ‘Pat was Dublin-born, jovial, wholly at home by the Liffeyside where he rapidly became Dublin’s Comic Character number one. [. . .] He knew the temper of the Dublin street, quick humorous, cynical’ (Eugene Watters and Matthew Murtagh, Infinite Variety, p. 29). Kinsella closed the Harp in 1893 due to depression following the sudden death of his son (p. 140). Bernard Duffy describes the atmosphere of the Harp in his novel Oriel (1918): ‘At one end of the theatre there was a small stage, and, at the other, a big bar in which two very golden-haired barmaids served refreshments with wonderful celerity. The stalls were sparsely filled, and the proprietor, a jovial man in a blue suit and a yachting cap, moved about the house chatting with his patrons, while his mouth performed strange tricks with a big cigar’ (p. 196).
8.600–01: before Whitbred ran the Queen’s
James W. Whitbread (1847–1916): English-born manager of the Queen’s Royal Theatre on Great Brunswick Street (Thom’s, p. 1433). He held this position from 1884 until 1907 (Stephen Watt, Joyce, O’Casey, and the Irish Popular Theater, p. 50). Among the Queen’s most popular productions were plays by Dion Boucicault (see note at 8.601–02) and Whitbread. ‘Whitbread kept the heart of Ireland alive or helped to keep the heart of Ireland alive, when things nationally were at a very low ebb’ (Seamus de Búrca, ‘The Queen’s Royal Theatre’, p. 15). Joyce misspelt his name.
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8.601: Broth of a boy
Broth of a boy: ‘a real, an essential boy [. . .] the essence of manhood’ (Partridge).
8.601: Dion Boucicault business
Dion Boucicault (1820–90): Irish-American actor, director, and playwright. His plays were Irish in theme, almost to the point of caricature. Born in Dublin, he moved to America in 1872. ‘His unpredictable career left a legacy of over 150 plays and such innovations as the matinée and the sensational scene. The first person to give attention to ensemble playing, he is responsible for much of what is now considered the accepted art of modern theatre direction’ (DIB).
8.601–02: with his harvestmoon face in a poky bonnet
Poky bonnet: a ‘bonnet with a projecting brim’ (OED, s.v. poke-bonnet); the specific connection to Kinsella is unclear. ‘Harvest-moon face’ was a jocular expression from the mid- nineteenth century used to describe a blazing red face, since the harvest moon appears red, low down near the horizon (John Simpson, JJON). Pat Kinsella had a ‘rubicund face’ (Eugene Watters and Matthew Murtagh, Infinite Variety, p. 29). ‘Pat’s greatest creation was Conn in Boucicault’s The Shaughraun’ (p. 140).
8.602: Three Purty Maids from School
‘Three Little Maids from School’: a song sung by Yum-Yum, Peep-Bo, and Pitti-Sing (with a chorus) in Act I of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado (1885) (The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, p. 647).
8.603: Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts
Drag performances were a common feature in music hall shows (Roger Baker, Drag, pp. 167–68).
8.604–05: More power, Pat
From ‘more power to your elbow’, a catch-phrase of Hiberno-English origin intended to give encouragement (Partridge).
8.605–06: Take off that white hat
The Dublin gallery was notorious for ‘the extreme personality of its remarks’ (Frank Hudson, ‘Humours of the Dublin Gallery’, p. 56). ‘Take off that white hat’ was a catchphrase primarily associated with the Queen’s Theatre: ‘An old fellow wearing a white hat entered the latter portion of the [Queen’s Theatre] one night. Why a white hat is such an eyesore to Dublin playgoers I cannot imagine, but so it is. “Take off that white hat!” “Who shot the donkey?” and other remarks of a like nature greeted the stranger’ (p. 57). The linked expressions ‘Who stole the donkey’ and ‘Take of that white hat’ were common street cries in the mid-nineteenth century and not limited to Dublin. J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley explain that, in 1864 in London, a man wearing a white hat was charged with stealing a donkey whose hide was presumably used to make that hat (Slang and Its Analogues, s.v. Donkey).
8.606: His parboiled eyes
Parboiled: ‘Partially cooked by boiling (also fig.). Formerly also: thoroughly boiled’ (OED); that is, bloodshot from drunkenness.
8.606: Where is he now?
Kinsella moved to Liverpool in the early 1900s, where he died from ‘excessive drinking’ on 30 April 1906 (Igoe, p. 166).
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8.606–07: The harp that once did starve us all
After the title of Thomas Moore’s song ‘The Harp that Once Through Tara’s Halls’: ‘The harp that once through Tara’s halls / The soul of music shed, / Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls / As if that soul were fled, / So sleeps the pride of former days, / So glory’s thrill is o’er, / And hearts that once beat high for praise, / Now feel the pulse no more’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 13). According to Bernard Duffy’s novel Oriel (1918), one evening at the Harp, when Moore’s song began to be performed, Kinsella emerged and started to sing ‘ “The Harp that wants to starve us all”, and had to respond to six encores before the audience would consent to disperse’ (p. 197).
8.608–09: Twentyeight I was. She twentythree
Bloom was born between February and May 1866 (see note at 5.198–99). Molly was born 8 September 1870 (17.2275–76). Thus they left Lombard Street West in the summer of 1894.
8.610: Could never like it again after Rudy Rudy died on 9 January 1894 (17.2281).
8.614: Grafton street gay with housed awnings
‘Grafton-street is the great shopping street of Dublin’ (DD, p. 7). It leads from Trinity College to the north-western corner of St Stephen’s Green. Housed: covered (OED). Contemporary photographs show that most Grafton Street shops had awnings, many of which had patterns or logos (Cyril Pearl, Dublin in Bloomtime, pp. 20–21).
8.615: silkdames and dowagers
From A Midsummer Night’s Dream: ‘She lingers my desires, / Like to a step-dame, or a dowager’ (I.i.4–5).
8.616: causeway
Causeway: a cobblestone road (OED).
8.617: chawbacon
Chawbacon: ‘a yokel’ (Partridge).
8.617–18: All the beef to the heels See note at 4.403.
8.620: Brown Thomas
Brown, Thomas & Co.: ‘silk mercers, milliners, costumiers, mantle makers, and general drapers’, 15–17 Grafton Street and 5–7 Duke Street (Thom’s, p. 1505). One of the fanciest shops in Dublin.
8.622–23: The huguenots brought that here
See note at 5.465 for the Huguenots. ‘In Dublin they took up their abode in the Liberties around S. Patrick’s Cathedral, and speedily established thriving industries, such as silk, velvet, and ribbon wearing. The beautiful material known as Irish poplin was introduced by them, and many of the technical terms still used in the trade [. . .] reveal their origin’ (DD, p. 202).
8.623–24: Lacaus esant tara tara. Great chorus that . . . bom bom bom
Bloom is singing a chorus from the end of Act IV, scene 5 of the opera Les Huguenots (1836) by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864), a work that defined the genre of French Grand Opéra.
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318 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Linguistic prejudice resulted in many French and German operas being performed in Italian translation in English-speaking territories. The Italian phrase which Bloom’s singing distorts is ‘La causa è santa’, ‘The cause is holy’. This phrase is first intoned in a stirring melody sung by the Count of St Bris, which gathers force as the chorus takes it up. Bloom is undoubtedly remembering its final use in the rabble-rousing tutti that ends scene 5. The purpose of the phrase is to justify the murder of the Huguenots. The version half-remembered by Bloom is from the libretto published in 1890 by the well-known Italian music publishing house Ricordi (other translations are different). From the chorus: ‘Feriam! feriam! feriam! [. . .] Anátema gridiam! [. . .] La causa è santa’ (p. 44; with thanks to Vincent Deane).
8.623–24: Must be washed in rainwater
Rainwater was often recommended for washing clothes: ‘Save all the rainwater you can get for washing clothes. Scarcely any soap is then required’ (Leinster Express, 18 May 1918, p. 3, col. f).
8.629: Junejulyaugseptember eighth
8 September is Molly’s birthday (see note at 17.2275–76).
8.630: Women won’t pick up pins. Say it cuts lo
Bloom mixes up two superstitions: a knife cuts love and a pin repairs that cut. ‘It is unlucky to present a knife, scissars [sic], razor, or any sharp or cutting instrument, to one’s mistress or friend, as they are apt to cut love and friendship. To avoid the ill effects . . . a pin, a farthing, or some trifling recompense, must be taken’ (Grose’s Provincial Glossary, cited in Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. Knife as present).
8.635: Jaffa
See note at 4.194.
8.635–36: Agendath Netaim See note at 4.191–92.
8.638–39: Perfume of embraces . . . craved to adore
Joyce claimed to Frank Budgen that it took him an entire day to write these two sentences: ‘I have the words already. What I am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence. There is an order in every way appropriate. I think I have it [. . .] You can see for yourself in how many different ways they might be arranged’ (JJMU, p. 20). The earliest extant version of this passage (which is not its first draft appearance) is slightly different: ‘Perfumes of embraces assailed him. His hungered flesh obscurely, mutely craved to adore’ (Rosenbach f. 15). Since the typescript version is identical to the final version (JJA, vol. 12, p. 313), there must have been some intermediate draft stage (UCSE, p. 1736).
8.640: Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton
Duke Street is a short street that runs between Grafton Street and Dawson Street. Bloom turns east on Duke Street to the Burton (see note at 8.370).
8.641: Combridge’s corner
Combridge & Co.: ‘picture depot, print sellers, and picture frame makers, artists and colourmen’, 20 Grafton Street at the intersection with Duke Street (Thom’s, p. 1505).
8.662: See ourselves as others see us See note at 1.136.
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8.662–63: Hungry man is an angry man Proverbial since 1659 (ODEP).
8.663–65: That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoem . . . Boyne
The poem is ‘The Burial of King Cormac’ by the Irish poet Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810–86), which tells of Cormac choking: ‘Till, where at meat the monarch sate, / Amid the revel and the wine, / He choked upon the food he ate, / At Sletty southward of the Boyne’ (ll. 17–20). This poem was included in the 1893 edition of Thomas Lyster’s (see note at 9.1) Select Poetry for Young Students (pp. 91–97), a set text for the teaching of English literature in Irish schools. Cormac Mac Art is the legendary king who unified Ireland. According to some legends, he was the first person in Ireland to convert to Christianity. He died c.266, about 150 years before St Patrick arrived in Ireland. Cormac was not the last pagan High King. It seems that Bloom has confused him with the fifth-century High King Lóegaire mac Néill, who was the last pagan High King. He was defeated by St Patrick at Mullaghmast (see note at 7.880) and, as a result, converted to Christianity (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas’, pp. 304–06). ‘The historicity of Cormac is doubtful, though some claim that memories of an early historical ruler (possibly a Laigin or Érainn king) may underlie his legend. Nonetheless, it seems clear that Cormac, as the central character of a group of tales in the Cycle of the Kings, is essentially a literary creation’ (DIB).
8.666: galoptious
Galoptious (also spelled galumptious or goluptious): delightful, luscious (OED, s.v. goluptious).
8.674: tootles
Tootle (Hiberno-English): ‘nursery word for a child’s tooth’ (EDD).
8.675: Look on this picture then on that
After Hamlet, when the prince tells Gertrude, ‘Look here, upon this picture, and on this’ (III.iv.53).
8.676: Scoffing
To scoff: ‘to eat voraciously’ (OED).
8.683: Good stroke
To give a good stroke: ‘to contribute largely, go far to effect some result’ (OED, s.v. stroke).
8.684–85: Born with a silver knife in his mouth
Modifies the proverb, ‘born with a silver spoon in his mouth’, that is, ‘born to good luck; born with hereditary wealth’ (Brewer’s).
8.687–88: Rock, the head bailiff
Patrick Rock (1848–1933): bailiff at the Head Sherriff ’s office (Igoe, p. 263). Rock is an ironic name for a bailiff since ‘Captain Rock’ was a generic nickname adopted by nineteenth- century land-reform rebels who harassed and killed bailiffs for evicting poor tenants. This nom de guerre inspired Thomas Moore’s novel Memoirs of Captain Rock (1824).
8.690: foodlift
Food lift: ‘a small lift for carrying food, crockery, etc., between the floors of a building’ (OED).
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8.692: Table talk
Table talk: ‘small talk, chit-chat, familiar conversation’ (Brewer’s).
8.693: Unchster Bunk
Garbled version of the Munster and Leinster Bank. Headquartered in Cork, the bank’s Dublin office was at 7, 8, and 9 Dame Street, with branches in Lower Baggot Street, Lower Sackville (O’Connell) Street, and Phibsborough Road (Thom’s, p. 1031).
8.697: Davy Byrne’s
David Byrne (1861–1938): wine and spirit merchant, 21 Duke Street (Thom’s, p. 1480). Byrne bought the pub in 1889. ‘ “Davy Byrne” was one of the outstanding characters of his time. He was the proprietor and presiding genius of that hostelry, Davy Byrne’s, of Duke street, whose name and fame have been sung by Irishmen not only in Dublin, but in realms abroad. [. . .] “Davy” had a way with him; he could listen to a good story and cap it with a better one. He had a wonderful faculty for winning and retaining friendships. His house in Duke street was an informal club where men met to exchange and air their views. Social distinctions were forgotten. The professor and the professional man rubbed shoulders with the artisan’ (Irish Times, 12 Sep. 1938, p. 2, col. e).
8.701: Gobstuff
Gob: ‘a large mouthful of food, esp. of raw, coarse, or fat meat’, or the mouth itself (OED). In Irish, gob means a beak or mouth.
8.705: porringers and tommycans
Porringer: ‘a small basin or similar vessel of metal, earthenware, or wood, from which soup, broth, porridge, children’s food, etc., is eaten’. Tommy-can: a lunch-can (both OED).
8.706–07: every mother’s son
Every mother’s son: ‘absolutely everyone’ (Partridge); from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I.ii.80).
8.707: don’t talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity See note at 8.713.
8.708–09: Ailesbury road, Clyde road
Two affluent streets in south-east suburban Dublin, in Pembroke Township.
8.709: artisans’ dwellings, north Dublin union
The Dublin Artisans’ Dwellings Company was founded in 1876 to create housing on a non- charitable basis for the better-off working poor, those with relatively high incomes and fixed employment (Mary Daly, Dublin: The Deposed Capital, p. 297). ‘By 1907 there were 2,961 dwellings, housing 2,884 families (the number of individuals housed being 13,330) [. . .] Each house had a water supply, a yard and water closet’ (Bennett). The North Dublin Poor Law Union Workhouse: North Brunswick Street, in north-western Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1433); see note at 16.945.
8.710: gingerbread coach
Gingerbread: ‘showy, tawdry’ (OED). The Lord Mayor of Dublin has an especially lavish state coach, built in the late eighteenth century ‘in order to show that Dublin could produce as fine work as London’ (Bennett).
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8.710: old queen in a bathchair
In her old age, Queen Victoria would travel in a bathchair, ‘a large chair on wheels for invalids’ (OED). Hers was built by Cheverton in the Isle of Wight in 1893 (Philip Sumner, Carriages to the End of the Nineteenth Century, p. 12).
8.710: My plate’s empty
Bloom is remembering an event from Queen Victoria’s last visit to Dublin, which was on 4–26 April 1900. ‘The 7th of April was what was called the Children’s Day, and a vast concourse of children, to the number of 50,000, from the city and the country, assembled in the Phoenix Park to see the Queen, and to be seen by Her Majesty’ (Michael McCarthy, Five Years in Ireland, p. 482). The Lord Mayor and other dignitaries were present and many firms donated food for the festivities, although this was derided in some quarters as ‘souperism’ (pp. 483–86), that is, exchanging food for conversion to Protestantism, or, at the very least, Unionism (D’Arcy, ‘ “Eating Orangepeels in the Park” ’, p. 165). See also note at 8.1071.
8.711: incorporated drinkingcup
Incorporated: ‘Formally constituted as a corporation’ (OED, s.v. incorporate), in this case the Dublin Corporation (see note at 6.400). This is in reference to the three civic cups of Dublin and, in particular, the vermeil cup presented to Queen Victoria during her visit to Dublin in 1900 and inscribed ‘The Citizens of Dublin / a Memento of Her Majesty’s Visit to the Viceregal Lodge April 1900’ (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 269).
8.711: Like sir Philip Crampton’s fountain
Bloom equates Victoria’s cup (see the previous note) with the drinking cups chained to Crampton’s fountain (see note at 6.191), which are less grand ‘incorporated drinkingcups’.
8.713: Father O’Flynn would make hares of them all
From the ballad ‘Father O’Flynn’ by Alfred Percival Graves (1846–1931), arranged by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. ‘Talk of your Provost and Fellows of Trinity, / Far renowned for Greek and Latinity, / Gad and the divils and all at Divinity, / Father O’Flynn would make hares of them all!’ (Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 466). To make a hare of: to show the ignor ance of (Partridge).
8.714: as big as the Phoenix park
Phoenix Park extends to 712 hectares; see note at 7.633.
8.715: flitches
Flitch: ‘a side of an animal, now only a hog, salted and cured’ (OED).
8.716: City Arms hotel
The City Arms Hotel: a hotel run by Elizabeth O’Dowd, 55 Prussia Street (Thom’s, pp. 1831, 1975). The Blooms lived there from 1893 to 1894, when Bloom was working at Cuffe’s, near the cattle market (see note at 6.392). The City Arms Hotel is about 1.2 km distant from Cuffe’s. The building was originally a grand eighteenth-century townhouse and now serves as the Saor-Ollscoil na hÉireann (Free University of Ireland) (Casey, Dublin, pp. 268–69).
8.716–17: table d’hôte
Table d’hôte (French): ‘host’s table’; ‘A shared table for diners at a hotel, restaurant, tavern, etc., at which a set menu is served at a stated time’ (OED).
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8.717: Soup, joint and sweet
That is, a three-course meal. Joint: a portion of meat consisting of one or more bones (OED), thus, the main course.
8.719: feeding on tabloids
That is, feeding on tablets; the word tabloid was originally a trademark for pills (OED).
8.723: cattlemarket See note at 6.392.
8.724: Staggering bob
Staggering Bob: a very young calf for slaughter (OED). The OED entry cites Arthur Young’s A Tour in Ireland (1776): ‘Vast numbers of calves are killed at two or three days old for an execrable veal they call staggering bob, I suppose from the animal not being old enough to stand steady on its legs.’
8.724–25: Bubble and squeak
Bubble and squeak: boiled potatoes and cabbage; ‘They first bubbled in water when boiled, and afterwards hissed or squeaked in the frying pan’ (Brewer’s).
8.725: lights
Lights: lungs, ‘now only applied to the lungs of beasts (sheep, pigs, bullocks), used as food (chiefly for cats and dogs)’ (OED).
8.726: Rawhead and bloody bones
Rawhead and Bloody-bones: ‘A bogy at one time the terror of children’ (Brewer’s).
8.728: Top and lashers going out
Top and lashers: butcher’s expression for both ends of an animal, head and tail (Dent).
8.729: they prescribe for decline
Decline: ‘any disease in which the bodily strength gradually fails’ (OED).
8.729: Blood always needed
A slight exaggeration: many, but not all types of sausage contain blood (Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 717); see also note at 4.144.
8.730: Famished ghosts
This probably refers to the souls of Hades whom Odysseus confronts in the Odyssey. The ghosts yearn to drink the sacrificial blood Odysseus has spilled to attract Tiresias. Odysseus must fend off the ghosts until Tiresias appears and takes the first drink (XI.42–50).
8.732–33: Stands a drink See note at 6.188–89.
8.736: Shandygaff?
Shandygaff: ‘a drink composed of a mixture of beer and ginger beer’ (OED).
8.737: Nosey Flynn said from his nook
Nosey Flynn appeared in ‘Counterparts’ in Dubliners: ‘Nosey Flynn was sitting up in his usual corner of Davy Byrne’s’ (p. 89).
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8.742: Ham and his descendants musterred and bred there
Ham: the son of Noah who saw his father naked and drunk (Genesis 9:20–21); Noah subsequently condemned him and his progeny (Genesis 9:25). From William John Fitzpatrick’s Memoirs of Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin (1864): ‘Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred’ (vol. 1, p. 271; with thanks to Harald Beck).
8.743–44: Plumtree’s potted meat? . . . Under the obituary notices they stuck it See notes at 5.144–47 and 8.139.
8.744: up a plumtree
Modified from the expression ‘up a tree’: ‘Cornered; done for; in a serious difficulty’ (Partridge).
8.745–46: White missionary too salty
Multiple nineteenth-century accounts claim that cannibals find the flesh of white men to be too salty. For example, from the Irish Times: ‘I have been told that the blacks cannot endure a white man’s flesh. They say that it tastes very salty, and is highly flavoured with tobacco’ (30 June 1859, p. 4, col. f; Harald Beck, JJON).
8.748–49: There was a right . . . Mr MacTrigger Source unknown.
8.751: Kosher
See note at 4.278.
8.751: No meat and milk together
Jewish dietary laws preclude mixing milk and meat; this regulation derives from Exodus 34:26: ‘Thou shalt not boil a kid in the milk of his dam.’
8.751–52: Hygiene that was what they call now
Some of the rules of Jewish dietary laws—such as those against eating carrion eaters—do seem to be motivated by reasons of health and hygiene, but hygiene is not the principal reason behind these laws. Jewish dietary practices ‘are part of a pattern of living in which following one commandment leads to following another—a system whose ultimate goal is to infuse life with a sense of holiness, a reverence for all living things’ (Kerry M. Olitzky and Daniel Judson, Jewish Ritual, p. 22).
8.752: Yom kippur fast spring cleaning of inside
Yom Kippur (see note at 8.35–36) is in the autumn, not the spring, but since it is a day of fasting it could be considered a ‘spring cleaning of inside’.
8.754: Slaughter of innocents
The slaughter of the innocents resulted from Herod’s attempt to kill the Christ child. Unable to locate Christ, he ordered the executions of all children in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16–18). Christ survived because an angel warned Joseph.
8.754: Eat, drink and be merry
From Ecclesiastes 8:15, but also proverbial (ODEP).
8.754: casual wards
Casual ward: a home for temporary relief for the needy and poor (OED).
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8.755: Cheese digests all but itself. Mity cheese
Mity: infested with mites. The cheese mite: ‘the minute arachnid (Acarus domesticus) that infests old cheese’ (both OED). The pun ‘mity cheese’—which plays on the common collocation ‘mighty cheese’—dates back to the 1850s: ‘Cheese is a mity elf, / Digesting all things but itself ’ (Russell Thacher Trall, The New Hydropathic Cook-Book, p. 107; Harald Beck, JJON). The point about cheese digesting itself is even older, dating back to at least the sixteenth century, and appears in Swift’s Polite Conversation: ‘They say, Cheese digests every thing but itself ’ (p. 160). Unfamiliar with the rare adjective mity, Joyce’s French typesetters changed the word—thereby destroying the pun—to ‘mighty’ on a galley proof (JJA, vol. 18, p. 125), which is how this word appeared until Gabler’s edition.
8.759: cool as a cucumber
Cool as a cucumber: ‘perfectly composed’ (Brewer’s). Swift uses a variation of this proverb ial saying in Polite Conversation: ‘Cowcombers are cold in the third Degree’ (p. 137).
8.761–62: God made food, the devil the cooks
This expression dates back at least to the English poet John Taylor (1580–1653): ‘God sends meat, and the Devil sends the cooks’ (ODEP). Swift uses a variant of the phrase in Polite Conversation: ‘Well, God sends Meat, but the Devil sends Cooks’ (p. 152).
8.762: Devilled crab
Devilled: ‘Of food, esp. meat or nuts: prepared with spicy seasonings or condiments such as pepper, paprika, or mustard, and (often) grilled or fried’ (OED).
8.767: those times See note at 8.204.
8.771: a big tour
Something of an exaggeration since only one concert is scheduled: Belfast on 25 June (5.151–52).
8.774: curate
See note at 4.114.
8.778–79: His five hundred . . . lives
Completes the limerick from 8.748–49.
8.789: hanched
To hanch: ‘to snatch, snap at, or bite with violent or noisy action of the jaws; said of large dogs, wild beasts, cannibals, or greedy men’ (OED).
8.790: bilious clock
That is, the face of the clock has yellowed from smoke; ‘a yellowish tinge in the “white” of the eye is often called a bilious colour’ (Nature, 22 Oct. 1885, p. 604; with thanks to Harald Beck).
8.800: Jack Mooney
Jack Mooney appears in ‘The Boarding House’ in Dubliners. He is the brother of Polly Mooney, whom Bob Doran (see note at 5.107) is forced to marry.
8.800–01: that boxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier
Again: against (OED). For Myler Keogh and the boxing match, see note at 10.1133–34.
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8.801–02: Portobello barracks
Portobello Barracks, in Rathmines, in south suburban Dublin, houses the South Dublin Division of the Dublin Military District (Thom’s, p. 848); it is now called the Cathal Brugha Barracks.
8.802: kipper
Kipper: ‘a person, especially a young or small person, a child’ (OED).
8.802: down in county Carlow
Carlow: a small agricultural county, about 80 km to the south of Dublin. ‘The pasture land is of excellent quality, and generally occupied as dairy farms, the butter made in this county maintaining a high reputation in the Dublin market’ (EB11).
8.807: hairy
Hairy: clever, capable, cunning (EDD; Dent).
8.809–10: tuckstitched shirtsleeves
A tuck-stitch is a type of stitch that creates a raised pattern in the garment (OED, s.v. tuck). Shirt-sleeve: not wearing a jacket (OED).
8.810: Herring’s blush
Unclear; perhaps a play on the figurative expression ‘red herring’: ‘A clue or piece of information which is or is intended to be misleading, or is a distraction from the real question.’ Alternately, it might refer to the literal meaning of red herring, dried, smoked herring that turns red during the curing process (both OED), which then might be a reference to a ruddy visage.
8.811: Whose smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete
Bloom tries to remember a line from the song ‘In Happy Moments Day by Day’: ‘Whose smile upon each feature plays / With truthfulness replete’; see note at 5.563.
8.811–12: Too much fat on the parsnips
After the proverb ‘Fair (or fine) words butter no parsnips’ (ODEP).
8.813: himself and pepper on him
Unknown; perhaps meant as a form of emphasis.
8.814: Gold cup See note at 5.532.
8.820: Not logwood that
‘The alleged use of logwood in colouring spurious or adulterated port wine was at one time a frequent subject of jocular allusion’. Logwood: ‘The heartwood of an American tree (Hæmatoxylon Campechianum) used in dyeing’ (both OED).
8.826–27: Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits . . . on the premises
The legal designation for a pub, as used in legislation: ‘licensed for the Sale of Beer, Wine, or Spirituous Liquors by Retail to be consumed on the Premises’ (The Statutes at Large of the United Kingdom, vol. 24, p. 819). Synge used this phrase in Act I of The Playboy of the Western World (p. 103).
8.827: Heads I win tails you lose
A cliché meaning ‘I win no matter what’, dating back to at least the seventeenth century (Partridge, Dictionary of Catch Phrases, s.v. cross I win piles you lose).
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8.829–30: He’s giving Sceptre today See note at 7.388–89.
8.830–31: Zinfandel’s the favourite . . . won at Epsom
The 16 June 1904 Freeman’s Journal predicted Zinfandel to win the Gold Cup (p. 6, col. j). Zinfandel, with Mornington Cannon as jockey (see following note), won the Coronation Cup at Epsom Downs on 2 June and Sceptre placed second (Freeman’s Journal, 3 June 1904, p. 7, col. c; SS, p. 175). Zinfandel’s owner was Thomas Evelyn Ellis (1880–1946), 8th Baron Howard de Walden (Igoe, p. 324), succeeding to his father’s title on 3 November 1899 (Thom’s, p. 359).
8.831: Morny Cannon
Mornington ‘Morny’ Cannon (1873–1962): a successful English jockey who won a number of major races. For the 1904 Gold Cup, he rode Zinfandel. His father, also a jockey, named him after the horse he rode to victory on the day his son was born (Igoe, p. 49).
8.831: seven to one against Saint Amant a fortnight before
The Derby, run at Epsom on 1 June, was won by Saint Amant, who was favoured 5 to 1 over John O’Gaunt (Freeman’s Journal, 2 June 1904, p. 7, cols e–f; SS, p. 175).
8.838: Rothschild’s filly
Saint Amant was a colt, not a filly, and was owned by Leopold de Rothschild (see note at 15.1848). Saint Amant was sired by Saint Frusquin, his mother was Lady Loverule. Rothschild’s colours were blue and yellow (Freeman’s Journal, 2 June 1904, p. 7, cols e–f; SS, p. 175).
8.839: John O’Gaunt
John O’Gaunt was a horse which, with Saint Amant, ran in the Epsom Derby on 2 June 1904. Sir John Thursby owned the horse. On the eve of the Derby, John O’Gaunt’s odds were listed as 5 to 1 against (Freeman’s Journal, 2 June 1904, p. 7, cols e–f; SS, p. 175).
8.840–41: down the flutes
Flute: a groove (OED); in context, the ridges along the side of a pint-glass (and not a flute glass, as is used for champagne).
8.845: Fool and his money
From the proverb ‘A fool and his money are soon parted’, proverbial since 1573 (ODEP).
8.847–48: Old Mrs Riordan with the rumbling stomach
According to A Portrait, Mrs Riordan, or Dante (see note at 6.378), suffered from indigestion: ‘And when Dante made that noise after dinner and then put her hand to her mouth: that was heartburn’ (p. 11).
8.848: City Arms hotel See note at 8.716.
8.860: Johnny Magories
Johnny Magorey (Hiberno-English): ‘the fruit of the dog rose’ (PWJ, p. 278).
8.863: Bleibtreustrasse
The street address of the Palestine Land Development Company; see notes at 4.191–92 and 4.199.
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8.865: Who found them out
In the second part of Swift’s Polite Conversation, Col. Atwit says, ‘He was a bold Man, that first eat an Oyster’ (p. 130). ‘Prehistoric middens composed of infinite quantities of mollusc shells are witness to the importance of the oyster (and its cousins) to human diet from the first’ (Davidson, Oxford Companion to Food, p. 581).
8.865: sewage they feed on
The pollution of Dublin’s coastal waters by sewerage (see note at 3.150) meant that local oysters were often contaminated; ‘the oyster beds at Clontarf were especially polluted’ (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 257).
8.865–66: Fizz and Red bank oysters . . . Red Bank
Fizz: champagne (OED), a traditional drink with oysters. Oysters are supposed to be aphrodisiacal (Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 26). Red Bank oysters come from the Burren oyster bed near Pooldoody in County Clare (EB11, s.v. Clare). In ‘Hades’, Bloom saw Boylan in the doorway of Burton Bindon’s Red Bank Restaurant; see note at 6.198.
8.867: Was he oysters old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed
After Alexander Pope’s modernisation of a line from Chaucer’s ‘The Merchant’s Tale’. Pope’s version: ‘One caution yet is needful to be told, / To guide your choice; this wife must not be old: / There goes a saying, and ’twas shrewdly said, / Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed’ (ll. 99–102, The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, vol. 1, pp. 127–28). Chaucer’s ori ginal: ‘Oold fissh, and yong flessh wolde I have fayn’ (l. 1418, The Riverside Chaucer, p. 156); and proverbial as ‘old fish and young flesh do feed men best’ (ODEP).
8.868: June has no ar no oysters
From the proverb ‘Never eat an oyster unless there’s an R in the month’: ‘Good advice which limits the eating of native oysters to the months from September to April, the normal marketing time’ (Brewer’s, s.v. oysters).
8.869: Jugged hare
Jugged hare: ‘hare stewed with wine and seasoning, properly in a jug or a jar’ (Brewer’s).
8.869: First catch your hare
A stock joke about the first step of cooking, from at least the thirteenth century (ODEP; Brewer’s).
8.869–70: Chinese eating eggs fifty years old, blue and green again
According to Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China during the years 1844–1846, the Chinese palate ‘only recognises eggs when hard boiled, and much prefers them in advanced age’ (quoted in Susan Bazargan, ‘Searching for Voyages in China by Viator’); see note at 17.1379.
8.871: That archduke Leopold was it
Leopold von Bayern (1821–1912): Prince Regent of Bavaria from 1872 until his death in 1912; see the following note.
8.872: Otto one of those Habsburgs
Otto I (1848–1916). On the death of his older brother, Ludwig II, in 1886, Otto became king of Bavaria; however, he never actively reigned because he had been declared insane in 1875
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328 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses (Ludwig’s profligacy led to speculation that he was insane as well). Instead, Otto’s uncle, Leopold von Bayern, served as prince regent. Leopold was succeeded by his son Ludwig in 1912. In 1913, Ludwig deposed Otto (Greg King, The Mad King, pp. 18–21, 253). Otto was a Wittlesbach, not a Habsburg, although the Habsburg emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph I, did have a nephew named Otto.
8.874: rock oil and flour
Rock oil: petroleum (OED). An entry in a late Ulysses notebook provides some context: ‘Milly ate raw flour & paraffin oil’ (NLI II.i.3 f. 5r).
8.875–76: Half the catch of oysters they throw back in . . . keep up the price
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the price of oysters increased significantly as demand grew. In particular, by the late nineteenth century, supply began to wane as existing oyster beds were suffering from overfishing. To compensate for this, the Sea Fisheries Act compelled dredgermen to throw back into the water all oysters smaller than 2 inches (5 cm) in order to mitigate against further depletion (Reports from the Select Committee on Oyster Fisheries p. 77). And so, while it is true that oysters were thrown back into the sea, this was not as part of a conspiracy to artificially inflate prices.
8.876–77: Hock in green glasses
Hock: ‘the wine called in German Hochheimer, produced at Hochheim on the Main; hence commercially extended to other German white wines’ (OED). Hock is conventionally served in stained glasses to avoid being spoiled by light.
8.878: Crème de la crème
Crème de la crème (French): cream of the cream, idiomatic for ‘the very best’ (Brewer’s).
8.880: Royal sturgeon
Sturgeon was classed as a royal fish by Edward II (1284–1327, r. 1307–27). The other royal fish are whales and dolphins (despite their status as mammals). ‘If caught near the coast they are property of the Crown’ (Brewer’s).
8.880–81: high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons . . . from his ex
In this mock statement, the sheriff gives the victualler William Coffey of 10 Arran Quay and 25 Cuffe Street (Thom’s, pp. 1416, 1466) the right to hunt venison in the forests of the Lord Lieutenant (‘his ex[cellency]’).
8.882: Master of the Rolls’ kitchen area
The Master of the Rolls was the president of the chancery division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland. The Right Honourable Sir Andrew Marshall Porter (1837–1919, Master of Rolls of Ireland 1883–1907) lived at 42 Merrion Square East (Thom’s, p. 1544). The kitchen at Porter’s house was below street level and thus visible from the street.
8.882–83: Whitehatted chef like a rabbi
On high holidays, the Hazzan (the cantor who leads the congregation) wears a large, white puffy hat that resembles a chef ’s toque. While technically not rabbis, Hazzanim are often considered clergy (Leo Landman, The Cantor, p. 19).
8.883: Combustible duck
Duck coated with brandy and then set on fire just before serving, as in several French recipes for a flambé (Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 312).
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 329
8.883: Curly cabbage à la duchesse de Parme
Curly winter cabbage, chopped and served in a mixture of melted butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and flour; covered with a creamy sauce of cheese, cream, and nutmeg (Armstrong, The Joyce of Cooking, p. 32).
8.884–85: too many drugs spoil the broth
Modifies the proverb ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’ (ODEP).
8.885–86: Edwards’ desiccated soup
A brand of inexpensive dehydrated soup manufactured by Frederick King and Co. in London and Belfast. According to a testimonial in an advertisement, ‘It is always fresh when made, stands warming up again, and does not show any scum or fat on its surface’ (All the Year Round, 16 Oct. 1886, vol. 39, p. 266).
8.886: Geese stuffed silly for them
Geese are force fed to fatten their liver and produce a pâté called foie gras (French, fat liver). ‘The enlarged liver has been counted a delicacy since classical times’ (Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 318).
8.886–87: Do ptake some ptarmigan
Ptarmigan (the p is silent): ‘A grouse, Lagopus mutus, which lives on rocky slopes and tundra in subarctic and boreal areas of the northern hemisphere, and at high altitudes in the Scottish Highlands’ (OED).
8.889: lemon sole
Lemon sole: ‘The name of this flatfish has nothing to do with the lemon but is from Fr[ench] limande, a flat board, though it may also be from Lat[in] limus, mud, the fish being essentially a bottom fish’ (Brewer’s).
8.889: miss Dubedat?
Marie Du Bédat (née Martha Jane Du Bédat, b. 1860): a renowned Irish singer, often referred to as ‘the Irish nightingale’. At the start of her career, in the early 1880s, she did not use her first name in publicity materials. Thom’s lists ‘Misses Du Bedat’ as residing in the Wilmount House, Killiney (p. 1858). However, this is a different Du Bédat clan, Rosa Elizabeth and her sister Mary Rosa (John Simpson, JJON). Both Du Bédat families were of Huguenot extraction; see note at 5.465 for the Huguenots.
8.890: Killiney
Killiney: a coastal village 14 km south of Dublin and south of neighbouring Dalkey (John Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 306).
8.890: Du, de la
Du, de la: basic rules of French grammar for saying ‘of the’: De (of) and le (the, masculine) always contract to du, while de la (the, feminine) does not contract.
8.891: Micky Hanlon of Moore street
M. and P. Hanlon: ‘fishmongers and ice merchants’, 20–21 Moore Street (Thom’s, p. 1549). Hanlon’s was one of the buildings associated with the final siege of the rebels of the 1916 Easter Rising. After they abandoned their position at the General Post Office, the rebels retreated to several buildings on Moore Street and the final surrender came from their makeshift headquarters at 16 Moore Street on 29 April (Derek Molyneux and Darren Kelly,
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330 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses When the Clock Struck in 1916, pp. 271–76). In some accounts, Hanlon’s is incorrectly named as the occupant of 16 Moore Street.
8.894: Moooikill A Aitcha Ha
That is, in a very strong County Louth accent, Michael, A, H, A (as in starting to spell Hanlon). Michael Hanlon was from Omeath, County Louth. A typical Irish pronunciation of the letter h is haitch and Louth and Monaghan people famously stutter over their haitches (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
8.894: ignorant as a kish of brogues
That is, very stupid (i.e. as stupid as a batch of inanimate objects, which are specifically stereotypically Irish). Kish of brogues: a basket of shoes. Kish (from the Irish cís): a ‘large wickerwork basket used in Ireland chiefly for carrying turf ’ (OED). Brogue: a stout shoe, from the Irish bróga (Dolan). ‘Kish of brogues’ and ‘as ignorant as a kish of brogues’ are Hiberno-English expressions (Dent; Dolan, s.v. kish).
8.900: Howth
See note at 3.133.
8.901–02: The bay purple by the Lion’s head . . . Yellowgreen towards Sutton
The Lion’s Head and Drumleck are scenic points on Howth’s coastline. The Lion’s Head faces south-east and Drumleck faces south. At Drumleck, ‘the rocky shore presents the most singular and fantastic forms, indented by fissures and caves’ (Joseph Huband Smith, A Day at Howth, p. 31). Sutton is a village on the narrow strip of land that connects Howth to the mainland. The variations in colour would be due to different water depths: deep off Lion’s Head, shallower off Drumleck Point, and very shallow in the tidal pools off Sutton.
8.902–03: buried cities
According to legend, Aidín (or Étaín)—the wife of Finn MacCool’s (see note at 12.910) grandson Oscar—is buried in a mound marked by a cromlech at the Hill of Howth, which is known in Irish as Beann Eadair, the peak of Étaín (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Aidín).
8.907: seedcake
Seedcake: ‘A cake flavoured with caraway seeds and more or less sweetened’ (OED).
8.911: Ben Howth
Ben (or Beinn) (Irish): peak. Ben Howth is the peak of the Howth peninsula, reaching to 170 metres (Huband Smith, A Day at Howth, p. 21).
8.911: rhododendrons
D. A. Chart writes that the rhododendrons on Howth ‘have been planted along the bottom and up the precipitous sides of a little glen, so that as the visitor rounds the corner of the avenue, which forms the approach, the massed colour of countless blooms bursts suddenly on him from below’ (The Story of Dublin, p. 343).
8.920: Shapely goddesses: Venus, Juno
Venus is the Roman name of Aphrodite and Juno the Roman name of Hera, who along with Athena all claimed to be the most beautiful goddess. The Trojan prince Paris was asked to adjudicate this dispute (see note at 2.391).
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 331
8.921–22: library museum standing in the round hall, naked goddesses
The National Library (see note at 1.469–70) and the National Museum are matching buildings on either side of Leinster House on Kildare Street. The Museum was founded in 1876 (Bennett). In 1904, its lobby, a round hall, contained at least seventy-seven plaster reproductions of famous Greek statues of gods and goddesses. It was common practice in nineteenth-century museums to display classical statuary in the entrance area. Often these were plaster reproductions. The Museum’s collection of plaster statues was dispersed in the 1920s and 1930s (Fintan Cullen, ‘Museum with those Goddesses’).
8.924: Pygmalion and Galatea
Book X of Ovid’s Metamorphoses tells of how Pygmalion fell in love with a statue he had made named Galatea. After she was brought to life by Venus, they were married. W. S. Gilbert wrote a play named Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), which was performed at Dublin’s Queen’s Theatre in 1891 (Freeman’s Journal, 24 Nov. 1891, p. 6, col. g).
8.926: tanner
Tanner: sixpence (OED).
8.927: Allsop
Samuel Allsopp & Sons: a British brewer based in Burton upon Trent, with Dublin offices at 30 Bachelor’s Walk (Thom’s, pp. 1420, 1797). The spelling mistake in the name was made on the typescript (JJA, vol. 12, p. 317).
8.927: Nectar
In the Odyssey, Calypso feeds Hermes with ambrosia and nectar, the food and drink of the gods (V.92–94).
8.927: drinking electricity
Joyce ‘did not care for red wine, which he said was “beefsteak”, and greatly preferred white, which was “electricity” ’ (Ellmann, p. 455).
8.929–30: food, chyle, blood, dung, earth, food
Chyle: ‘The white milky fluid formed by the action of the pancreatic juice and the bile on the chyme, and contained in the lymphatics of the intestine’ (OED). This passage derives from Giordano Bruno’s (1548–1600) Cause, Principle, and Unity (1584): ‘Do you not see that what was seed becomes stalk, what was stalk becomes an ear of wheat, what was an ear becomes bread, what was bread turns to chyle, from chyle to blood, from blood to seed, from seed to embryo, and then to man, corpse, earth, stone, or something else, in succession, involving all natural forms?’ (p. 57).
8.934: A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and walked
From Tennyson’s poem ‘Ulysses’: ‘I cannot rest from travel; I will drink / Life to the lees’ (ll. 5–6).
8.934–35: to men they gave themselves
That is, the goddesses who have had sexual relations with mortal men, such as Calypso and Circe, who both slept with Odysseus, and Thetis who slept with Achilles’s father Peleus.
8.936: enjoyed her, to the yard
The meaning of the phrase ‘to the yard’ is unclear and depends on which clause it applies to. If it refers to the start of the sentence, ‘A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees
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332 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses and walked…’ then it yard means toilet, a sense it has in the Ulster dialect (Bernard Share, Slanguage). If it refers to the clause that immediately precedes it, ‘a youth enjoyed her’, then yard means penis (OED).
8.939: Isn’t he in the insurance line?
Bloom used to work for David Drimmie’s insurance office; see note at 13.845.
8.950–51: that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan’s wife has in Henry street
John Wyse Nolan is based on John Wyse Power (1859–1926), a journalist and friend of Joyce’s father. His wife, Jennie Wyse Power (née O’Toole, 1858–1941), was the owner and manager of the Irish Farm Produce Company (Costello, James Joyce, p. 191; Igoe, pp. 225–26). This was located at 21 Henry Street (Thom’s, p. 1517).
8.952: Plovers on toast
Plover: ‘Any of various small to medium-sized, short-billed, gregarious birds of the cosmopolitan family Charadriidae, esp. of the genus Charadrius, typically feeding beside water but sometimes frequenting grassland, tundra, and mountains’ (OED). Roast plover on toast was a common dish of the era (Janet Mackenzie Hill, The Book of Entrées, p. 259).
8.955–56: You can make bacon of that
That is, ‘You can be sure of that’; from the expression ‘bring home the bacon’ (OED, Partridge), bring home money.
8.960: He’s in the craft
The craft: ‘the brotherhood of Freemasons’ (OED). The Freemasons are a fraternal organ isation with elaborate secret rituals. ‘Freemasonry in its modern form, as a body with no trade connexions, began to flourish in the 17th century’ (Brewer’s). Many of the most influential Protestant Dubliners would have been Freemasons. In 1904, there were forty different Masonic lodges active in Dublin, with varying degrees of exclusivity and prestige. Although organisationally distinct, all these lodges used the Masonic hall on Molesworth Street (see note at 8.1151). Masonic iconography has appropriated Jewish letters and symbols, which would be one reason why Flynn assumes Bloom is a Mason. ‘Although converted Jews, or Christians of Jewish descent, could in theory be invited to be members, in reality there is little to suggest this was the case’ (D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, p. 870; see pp. 868–70). Likewise, many Catholics imagined the Freemasons to be perpetrators of an ‘international conspiracy to defile “mother Church” ’, perhaps acting in concert with a Jewish cabal (p. 876); see also note at 8.520–22.
8.961–62: Ancient free and accepted order . . . Light, life and love, by God
After a proper name for the Freemasons, the Free and Accepted Masons. The phrase ‘light of love’ was proverbial in Dublin lodges since the eighteenth century (D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, p. 868 n. 55). ‘Masonry at all times carried the torch of liberty and of thought; carried always the light of love and universal tolerance to all Mankind’ (Freemason, 1892, vol. 29, p. 67; Harald Beck, JJON).
8.972: do be doing
‘In the Irish language (but not in English) there is what is called the consuetudinal tense, i.e. denoting habitual action or existence. It is a very convenient tense, so much so that the Irish, feeling the want of it in their English, have created one by use of the word do with be’ (PWJ, p. 86).
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8.973: master mason
‘By the Edwardian era, Irish Freemasonry encompassed the six orders extant today. Blue Badge or Craft Masonry consists of the three degrees of Entered Apprentice Mason, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason, as determined by the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The degrees of Mark Master Mason, the Passing of the Veils ceremony and the Royal Arch degree, which constitute the completion of Craft Masonry in Ireland, are governed by the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter’ (D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, p. 869).
8.973–74: That was one of the saint Legers of Doneraile
According to Irish legend, the first woman to be initiated into the Freemasons was Elizabeth Aldworth (c.1693–1773), daughter of Arthur St Leger, first Viscount Doneraile. When she was about 20, she was supposedly caught spying on a meeting of a Masonic order. According to one version of the legend, she hid herself in a clockcase in the lodge meeting room. ‘However, she was unable to endure her hiding place and screamed, was discovered by the lodge members, and was then and there initiated’ (John Harty, ‘The Woman Who Hid Inside a Clock’, p. 567; Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia). This story was widely circulated and was probably made famous by the play The Clock-case, or Female Curiosity (1777) (Harald Beck, JJON).
8.982: He’s a safe man
Safe: ‘Mentally or morally sound or sane’ (OED).
8.988: Nothing in black and white
Throughout much of medieval Europe, Jews were forbidden from entering into legal contract with Christians (Max Weber, General Economic History, p. 359). Therefore, the claim that Jews are forbidden from signing legal contracts is not the result of a stricture internal to Judaism, but rather an example of past anti-Semitism.
8.989: Tom Rochford
Thomas Rochford (1857–1934): engineer and municipal employee. He lived at 2 Howth View, Sandymount (Thom’s, pp. 1781, 1999). He was an acquaintance of Joyce’s father (Jackson and Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, p. 335).
8.994: Who’s standing? See note at 6.188–89.
8.997: stone ginger
Stone ginger: a non-alcoholic temperance drink, ‘ginger beer contained in stoneware bottles’ (OED).
8.1000: How is the main drainage?
Besides being a comment on Rochford’s indigestion, this alludes to an escapade of his, which won him renown throughout Dublin. On the afternoon of 6 May 1905, a workman named John Fleming entered a manhole at the corner of Hawkins Street and Burgh Quay to repair a burst sewer pipe. He was almost immediately overpowered by a rush of sewer gas. He was followed by numerous rescuers, including Rochford, all of whom also succumbed to the gas. Fleming and a policeman named Patrick Edward Sheahan died (SS, pp. 92–94; Irish Independent, 8 May 1905, p. 4. cols a–d). Rochford’s eyes were affected by the gas and he suffered numerous abrasions during the rescue. He told a reporter: ‘I did
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334 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses something; I don’t know what, and I was overcome myself ’ (p. 4, col. c). This question also works as an allusion to Dublin’s attempts to secure a working sewage system to improve the city hygiene, pursuant to the 1878 Public Health Act; for which see note at 3.150.
8.1007: Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg
Whiskey was used for an antiseptic; thus, to suck whisky off a sore leg is to do anything for a drink (Dent). For the spelling whisky, see note at 1.301.
8.1008: the Gold cup. A dead snip
Snip: a ‘good tip’ (Partridge). For the Gold Cup, see note at 5.532.
8.1013: Breadsoda is very good
Breadsoda: sodium bicarbonate, ‘used largely for domestic purposes; baking or cooking soda’ (OED, s.v. soda). ‘Sodium bicarbonate is one of our most useful gastric sedatives and antacids’ (EB11, s.v. sodium). The term bread soda was in use: ‘If the pain attacks several teeth at once, acidity is almost certainly the cause; and the cure is as follows:– Put a pinch of bicarbonate of soda (bread soda) in the mouth’ (Irish Examiner, 3 Oct. 1903, p. 9, col. b).
8.1025: Jamesons
Irish whiskey made by John Jameson & Sons, 49–50 Bow Street, 6–20 Smithfield, stores at 14–16 New Church Street, Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1911).
8.1028: Dawson street
Dawson Street runs parallel to Grafton Street and connects Nassau Street to St Stephen’s Green. Bloom is now heading to the National Library and the National Museum, via Dawson and Molesworth Streets.
8.1029–30: Then with those Röntgen rays searchlight you could
In 1895, the German physicist Wilhelm Konrad von Röntgen (1845–1923) discovered X-rays (EB11), which are sometimes called ‘Röntgen Rays’. In 1896, The Lancet described X-rays as ‘The Searchlight of Photography’ (The Lancet, 11 Jan. 1896, p. 112; with thanks to Harald Beck). Bloom speculates that the progress of food through the body could be traced with an X-ray machine if the food were green.
8.1031: Duke lane
Duke Lane intersects Duke Street on Bloom’s way from Davy Byrne’s to Dawson Street.
8.1034: Ruminants . . . Their upper jaw they move
Untrue. Cows have eight incisors in their lower jaw and none in their upper jaw and chew primarily by moving the lower, not upper jaw (William Youatt, Cattle, p. 2).
8.1035: that invention of his See note at 10.466.
8.1040: Don Giovanni, a cenar teco
Don Giovanni, a cenar teco (Italian): ‘Don Giovanni, [you have invited me] to dine with you’; from Act 2 of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
8.1042: Who distilled first?
Distillation goes back to ancient times: ‘Zosimus of Panopolis, a voluminous writer of the 5th century ad, speaks of the distillation of a “divine water” or “panacea” ’ (EB11).
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8.1043: in the blues
Blues: ‘Feelings of melancholy, sadness, or depression’ (OED).
8.1043: Dutch courage
Dutch courage: ‘courage brought about by drink’ (Partridge).
8.1043: Kilkenny People See note at 7.975–76.
8.1045: closestools
Close-stool: ‘A piece of furniture enclosing a chamber pot, typically a type of chair or small chest having a lid concealing a seat with a hole used in the same way as a toilet’ (OED).
8.1045–46: William Miller, plumber
William Miller: plumber and sanitary contractor, 17 Duke Street (Thom’s, p. 1480).
8.1052: What does that teco mean?
Teco (Italian): ‘with you’; see note at 8.1040.
8.1059: If I get Billy Prescott’s ad
Presumably Bloom means ‘if I get Billy Prescott’s ad renewed’, because Prescott’s ad already appears prominently in the 16 June Freeman’s Journal: ‘IMPORTANT. LACE CURTAINS are now very carefully cleaned and finished with our New Dust resisting process. By this System they keep clean longer than if done in the old way. In Three Days. 1/- Per Pair. Prescott’s Dye Works’ (p. 1, col. b). For Prescott see note at 5.460.
8.1060: On the pig’s back
On the pig’s back (Hiberno-English): ‘in luck’s way’ (Partridge).
8.1064–65: Brighton, Margate
Brighton and Margate: English seaside resorts. Joyce had once envisioned such a tour for himself; see note at 16.1765.
8.1065–66: Those lovely seaside girls See note at 4.282.
8.1066: John Long’s
P. J. Long: grocer and wine merchant, 52 Dawson Street (Thom’s, p. 1473).
8.1069: turned at Gray’s confectioner’s window
Katherine Gray: confectioner, 13 Duke Street (Thom’s, p. 1480). Bloom turns right at the intersection of Duke Street and Dawson Street and then proceeds south on Dawson Street. Gray’s was not at the corner; Joyce makes the mistake because Thom’s lists Gray’s as the last address on Duke Street before the intersection with Dawson Street, however the corner was actually occupied by a pub with the address of 51C Dawson Street (JJD, p. 111).
8.1070: the reverend Thomas Connellan’s bookstore
The Revd Thomas Connellan (1854–1917), of Elmgrove, Blackrock, ran a bookshop at 51B Dawson Street (Thom’s, pp. 1473, 1837). Connellan hailed from County Sligo and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1880. In 1887, he dramatically exited the priesthood by faking his own death through a staged drowning in Lough Ree on the River Shannon, near the town of
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336 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Athlone. He became a born-again Christian and, after a short stay in London, he returned to Dublin to proselytise against Catholicism (Luke Gibbons, Joyce’s Ghosts, pp. 191–97).
8.1070–71: Why I left the church of Rome
Why I Left the Church of Rome: a pamphlet of thirty pages (1883) by the Reverend Charles Pascal Telesphore Chiniquy (1809–99). Chiniquy was Canadian and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1833, but he converted to Presbyterianism in 1858 and spent the rest of his life engaged in vitriolic anti-Catholic diatribes (Geert Lernout, Help My Unbelief, p. 58), of which this pamphlet is but one example (see also note at 15.2548).
8.1071: Birds’ nest women run him
Bird’s nest: a Protestant-run orphanage and home for destitute children, which, was in effect, a proselytising centre dedicated to the conversion of Catholics. These homes and schools were founded by Ellen Smyly (1815–1901) in 1859. Only one institution with this name remained in 1904, but previously there had been more: ‘Birds’ Nest institution’, 19–20 York Street, Kingstown, which shared its address with a Presbyterian church (Thom’s, p. 1731). ‘Bloom’s contention that these women run Connellan gives us an acute sense of the debt that the apostate, “fair-haired priest of Athlone” owed to the Irish Church Missions’ (D’Arcy, ‘ “Eating Orangepeels in the Park” ’, p. 164).
8.1071–73: They say they used to give pauper children soup . . . blight
At the height of the famine of the 1840s, soup kitchens were set up to feed the poor. Many of these were run by Protestant groups, at least some of which proselytised, thereby effect ively exchanging food for religious conversion (Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 329).
8.1073: Society over the way papa went to for the conversion of poor jews
The Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, 45 Molesworth Street (Thom’s, p. 2015).
8.1080: Molesworth street
Molesworth Street runs perpendicular to Dawson Street, to the south of Duke Street. It leads directly from Dawson Street to the National Library and Museum on Kildare Street.
8.1083: Drago’s
See note at 4.488.
8.1085: drouth See note at 4.44.
8.1088: South Frederick street
South Frederick Street intersects Molesworth Street and runs to Nassau Street.
8.1100: Behind a bull: in front of a horse
After the proverb ‘Take heed of an ox before, of a horse behind, of a monk on all sides’ (ODEP).
8.1114: Penrose!
Bloom remembers the name he could not recall at 8.178. See also note at 18.573.
8.1119: Molly’s birthday See note at 8.629.
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8.1120: Dark men they call them
Dark (Hiberno-English): blind (Dolan).
8.1126: Stewart institution
‘Stewart Institution for Imbecile Children and Hospital for Mental Diseases’, 40 Molesworth Street (Thom’s, p. 1548).
8.1132: Fag today
Fag: ‘A tiring or unwelcome task; hard work, toil, drudgery. Also: exhaustion, fatigue’ (OED).
8.1132: Postoffice
This post office is at 4 Molesworth Street: a ‘Town Sub-Post office, money order and savings bank office’, Mrs A. Redmond, sub-postmistress (Thom’s, p. 1547).
8.1132: postal order
Postal order: ‘a form of money order issued by a post office for the payment of a specified sum to a named payee at any post office’ (OED, s.v. postal).
8.1133: Stationer’s
E. F. Grant & Co.: ‘scriveners, typewriters, law and general stationers’, 1–2 Molesworth Street (Thom’s, p. 1547).
8.1139: Levenston’s dancing academy piano
Mrs P. M. Levenston’s dancing academy, 35 South Frederick Street, just north of Molesworth Street. Also at the same address were Mr P. M. Levenston, professor of music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and Miss K. Levenston, teacher of pianoforte (Thom’s, pp. 1497, 1931).
8.1140: Doran’s publichouse
Michael Doran’s pub, 10 Molesworth Street (Thom’s, p. 1547), on the corner with South Frederick Street.
8.1146–47: women and children . . . burned and drowned in New York
Bean-feast: ‘any festive occasion’ (OED). On 15 June 1904, a steam-ship named the General Slocum caught fire and sank in the East River in New York City, killing 1,030 people, mainly women and children. Many of those on board were taking part in the annual Sunday School excursion of the St Mark’s German Lutheran Church. ‘The disaster is the most appalling that has ever occurred in New York Harbour, and the fact that the victims were almost entirely of tender age, or women, renders it absolutely distressing’ (Freeman’s Journal, 16 June 1904, p. 5, col. f).
8.1147: Holocaust
Holocaust: ‘A sacrifice wholly consumed by fire; a whole burnt offering’ (OED). This word was used in the Evening Telegraph’s coverage of the General Slocum disaster, but not in any of the reports that appeared in the morning newspapers (such as the Freeman’s Journal): ‘As usual, on such occasions some difficulty is experienced in ascertaining the exact number of the victims of the disaster on the East River [. . .] But it was as surely a holocaust as that overwhelming calamity in the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago in the winter holiday season’ (16 June 1904, p. 2, col. c).
8.1147–48: Karma they call that transmigration for sins
Karma: ‘the sum of a person’s actions in one of his successive states of existence’, which ‘is regarded as determining his fate in the next’ (OED). See note at 4.339.
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8.1148: Met him pike hoses See note at 4.339.
8.1151: Sir Frederick Falkiner
Sir Frederick Falkiner (1831–1908): the Recorder (the highest ranking judicial officer) in Dublin, from 1876 to 1905 (Thom’s, p. 1349). ‘A conservative by nature, he held strongly imperialist views’ (DIB). There ‘is no evidence in the archives of the Grand Lodge to suggest that Falkiner was ever a member’ (D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo- Maçonnerie’, p. 872).
8.1151: freemasons’ hall
The Freemasons’ Hall: 17–18 Molesworth Street (Thom’s, pp. 1547, 1875). ‘It has a fine porch and three stories of Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian design leading up to a pediment in the tympanum of which are masonic emblems’ (DD, p. 219).
8.1551–52: Solemn as Troy
A reference to the most Reverend John Thomas Troy (1739–1823), Catholic archbishop of Dublin, and not to the ancient city Troy. Troy condemned the rebellion of 1798 and, on 22 June 1798, he excommunicated Catholic rebels ‘in the most solemn, formal and explicit manner’ (An Address from the Roman Catholic Nobility, Clergy & Gentry of Ireland, p. 81). If in public Troy’s views were loyalist—which is the occasion for the comparison with Falkiner—in private he was more circumspect (DIB).
8.1152: Earlsfort terrace
Sir Frederick Falkiner lived at 4 Earlsfort Terrace, near St Stephen’s Green (Thom’s, p. 1866).
8.1153: Tales of the bench and assizes and annals of the bluecoat school
Assize: ordinance, regulation (OED). Falkiner served as the chairman of the board of the Dublin Blue Coat School (founded in 1669), otherwise known as King’s Hospital (DIB, s.v. Frederick Falkiner; Bennett, s.v. King’s Hospital). He wrote a history of this school: The Foundation of the Hospital and Free School of King Charles II, Oxmantown, Dublin, commonly called the Blue Coat School (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers, and Walker, 1906). The word hospital is used in the now-obsolete sense of ‘A charitable institution for the education and maintenance of the young’. Likewise, a blue coat school is a charity school, so-called because students used to wear blue coats (both OED).
8.1156: recorder’s court
‘The Recorder’s court is held monthly. At this court various offences and misdemeanours are tried, and actions are brought for debt by civil-bill process’ (The Picture of Dublin, p. 128).
8.1158: Sends them to the rightabout
To send one to the right about: ‘to clear him off, send him packing’ (Brewer’s).
8.1158: Reuben J.
For Reuben J. Dodd, see note at 6.251. For the (fictitious) case Bloom is thinking of, see 12.1100–03.
8.1159: strawcalling
Probably an Anglicisation of the phonetically similar Irish strácáil, dragging, toiling, doing heavy work (Dolan; Patrick Dineen, Irish-English Dictionary). Under stráic, Dineen (see
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8. ‘Lestrygonians’ 339 note at 9.967) gives, as one of its various meanings, ‘a stroke (with a cane)’, a sense which probably emerged as a corruption from the English word stroke. Thus, strawcalling would mean something like a whipping or a tongue-lashing (with thanks to Eoin Mac Cárthaigh, Harald Beck, and Eamonn Finn).
8.1160: topers
See note at 8.363.
8.1160: Bear with a sore paw
After the proverbial phrase ‘As sulky as a bear with a sore head’, which is used to describe someone who is cross or irritated. Variants with ‘sore paw’ and other analogues are attested (Dent).
8.1162: Mirus bazaar
The Mirus Bazaar (also called the Mirus Fete) was held in Ballsbridge, a south-eastern inner suburb west of Sandymount, to raise funds for Mercer’s hospital. The Bazaar did not open on 16 June, but on 31 May 1904 (Freeman’s Journal, 1 June 1904, p. 6, col. d; SS, p. 7). According to a promotional flyer, the bazaar featured ‘Beautiful Italian Scenery, The Stalls from Nearly Every County in Ireland, The Limerick Faction Fight, The Spanish Bull Fight, Children’s Fancy Dances and Palace Ball Room, Café Chantant, Cigar Divan, Alhambra, Tea Gardens, Refreshment Room, Ice Cream Bower and Dining Hall, Tableaux Vivants’ (Pearl, Dublin in Bloomtime, p. 45).
8.1162: His Excellency the lord lieutenant
William Humble Ward (1867–1932): Earl of Dudley and Viscount Ednam, Lord Lieutenant (Viceroy) of Ireland (Thom’s, p. 301). ‘In August 1902 he was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. He was extravagant, travelled widely and entertained lavishly. He hosted two successful royal visits. His term in Ireland ended in December 1905’ (Igoe, p. 92). The Lord Lieutenant is the chief governor and senior crown official in Ireland, although from the nineteenth century onwards the position was largely ceremonial, and the Chief Secretary was effectively the top government official (Joseph Byrne, Dictionary of Irish Local History, p. 187). While he did open the Mirus Bazaar (see the previous note), he did not arrive in a grand cavalcade through Dublin (SS, p. 7).
8.1163: Mercer’s hospital
A hospital endowed by Mary Mercer and incorporated by Parliament in 1734: 1–2 Lower Mercer Street (Thom’s, p. 1543), at the junction with South King Street, St Stephen’s Street, and South William Street, and just west of St Stephen’s Green.
8.1163–64: The Messiah was first given for that
G. F. Handel’s (German, later British composer, 1685–1759) Messiah had its world première, with Handel at the podium, in Dublin at the Music Hall, Fishamble Street on 13 April 1742. The performance was for the benefit of Mercer’s Hospital, among other charities (Bennett, s.v. Music Hall, New).
8.1165: Ballsbridge. Drop in on Keyes See note at 7.25.
8.1167: Kildare street. First I must. Library
Molesworth Street ends at Kildare Street. At the intersection, the library is to the left and the museum to the right.
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8.1168: Turnedup trousers See note at 3.371.
8.1169: quopped
To quop: ‘to beat, throb, palpitate’ (OED).
8.1174: Sir Thomas Deane designed
The National Library and National Museum were designed by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane (1828–99) and his son, Sir Thomas Manly Deane (1851–1933). Both buildings were completed in 1890. ‘The National Library and National Museum are matching buildings on either side of Leinster House’ (Bennett, s.v. National Library of Ireland). Sir Thomas Newenham Deane is himself the son of another Irish architect, Sir Thomas Deane (1792–1871) (DIB).
8.1180–81: Sir Thomas Deane was the Greek architecture
While Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and Sir Thomas Manly Deane primarily worked in the Gothic Revival style of architecture, their design for the National Library and the National Museum is in an eclectic, Renaissance style (Casey, Dublin, p. 479).
8.1184: Agendath Netaim See note at 4.191–92.
8.1189: Potato
See note at 4.73.
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’
Map 9 National Library and Museum (25 inch OSI map 1907/9)
Time: 2–3 pm Location: the National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street Organ: Brain Art: Literature Symbol: Stratford, London Technic: Dialectic Correspondences: Rock: Aristotle, Dogma, Stratford; Whirlpool: Plato, Mysticism, London; Ulysses: Socrates, Jesus, Shakespeare Serialised: The Little Review 5.12 (April 1919) and 6.1 (May 1919) The action of this episode is almost entirely indoors, at the National Library on Kildare Street (see note at 1.469–70), with most of it within the librarian’s office (see notes at 9.573–74 and 9.592) (map 9). The interior today is not greatly changed from 1904. In this episode, Joyce names three writers whose books on Shakespeare he relied on for background information: Georg Brandes’s William Shakespeare: A Critical Study (see note at 9.418), Sidney Lee’s A Life of William Shakespeare (see note at 9.419–20), and Frank Harris’s The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life-Story (see note at 9.440). Joyce used Lee’s biography extensively—but not exclusively—for a chronology of Shakespeare’s life that he compiled at some point before writing ‘Scylla’ (Richard M. Kain, ‘Joyce’s Shakespeare Chronology’; JJA, vol. 12, pp. 323–48). In his book Irish Literary Portraits, John Eglinton (see note at 9.18) writes: ‘in the interview of the much-enduring Stephen with the officials of the National Library, the present writer experiences a twinge of recollection of things actually said’ (p. 148).
9.1: quaker librarian
Thomas William Lyster (1855–1922): head librarian of the National Library (1895–1920). Lyster translated Heinrich Düntzer’s Life of Goethe (1883) and edited the annual English Poems for Young Students (DIB). He was not a Quaker: on the 1901 census, Lyster indicated his religion as Church of Ireland. William Magee (see note at 9.18) suggests that Joyce called Lyster a Quaker because he would wear a broad-rimmed black hat—like those associated with the Quakers—to cover his bald head (Patricia Hutchins, James Joyce’s World, pp. 50–51). ‘Lyster was often involved in controversy. For example, the nationalist news paper The Leader objected to his lecturing to a Catholic body because he was a Protestant,
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342 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses while the Irish Protestant complained that the National Library had failed to acquire some notable anti-Catholic literature’ (Igoe, p. 181). Stanislaus Joyce recalls that Lyster praised the eighteen-year-old James Joyce upon the publication of his essay ‘Ibsen’s New Drama’ in the Fortnightly Review (1900): ‘I see, Mr. Joyce, that you are a true man of letters’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 205).
9.2: Wilhelm Meister
In Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (1749–1832) Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Travels (1796), Wilhelm translates, interprets, and performs in Hamlet (Part I, Book IV, ch. 13–Book V, ch. 12). Meister takes some liberties with his adaptation: ‘I am convinced that Shakespeare would have done it himself like this if his genius had not been directed so much to the main aim and had not been led astray’ (p. 225).
9.3–4: hesitating soul taking arms . . . conflicting doubts
After Wilhelm Meister’s judgement of Hamlet: ‘A fine, pure, noble, most highly moral person, lacking the sensuous strength that makes a hero, collapses beneath a burden that he can neither bear nor throw off; all duty is sacred to him, but this obligation is too heavy’ (p. 186). In relaying Meister’s judgement, Lyster uses phrases from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy: ‘Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them’ (III.i.57–60).
9.5: sinkapace forward on neatsleather creaking
In Twelfth Night, Sir Toby Belch mentions a dance called the ‘sink-a-pace’ (I.iii.139); in Much Ado about Nothing, it is spelt ‘cinquepace’ (II.i.78), a ‘kind of lively dance, the steps of which are supposed to be based on the number five’ (C. T. Onions, A Shakespeare Glossary, p. 36). Neat’s leather: ‘leather made from cowhide’ (OED). At the beginning of Julius Caesar, a cobbler says, ‘As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork’ (I.i.29–30). Neat’s leather also occurs in The Tempest: ‘he’s a / present for any emperor that ever trod on neat’s leather’ (II.ii.72–73).
9.9–10: The beautiful ineffectual dreamer
After Matthew Arnold’s (see note at 1.173) characterisation of Percy Bysshe Shelley in his review of Edward Dowden’s (see note at 9.727) 1886 biography of Shelley: ‘a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain’ (Essays in Criticism: Second Series, p. 252). Arnold uses the same sentence about Shelley in his essay on Byron (p. 204).
9.11: Goethe’s judgments
‘In Goethe’s novel Hamlet is reborn as a sentimental melancholy man devoid of political agency’ (Vike Martina Plock, ‘Why Goethe’s Hamlet Mattered to Joyce’, p. 94). See note at 9.3–4.
9.12: corantoed
Coranto (or courant): a dance of the Elizabethan period and later (OED); see Twelfth Night (I.iii.136).
9.16: Monsieur de la Palice
Jacques de la Palice (1470–1525): French nobleman and military officer. When he died heroically in his army’s defeat at Pavia (1525), his troops said: ‘Un quart d’heure avant sa mort il était en vie’ (Fifteen minutes before his death he was alive) (Charles Longuet, La
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 343 Dynastie des La Palisse, p. 12); while meant as praise, the line became known as a statement of the obvious. (‘La Palice’ is how the man spelt his name, ‘La Palisse’ is the modern spelling.)
9.18: medicals
Medical: a medical student (OED).
9.18: John Eglinton
Pseudonym of William Kirkpatrick Magee (1868–1961): essayist and assistant librarian of the National Library (1904–22). He co-founded, with Fred Ryan (see note at 2.256), the influential but short-lived literary magazine Dana (see note at 9.322). He was an active participant in the debates around and within the Irish Revival and advocated in favour of the Anglo-Irish dimension of Irish identity. In 1922, unwilling to live in an independent Ireland, he moved to Wales. He died unmarried in 1961 (DIB).
9.19: to write Paradise Lost at your dictation
John Milton (1608–74) began writing his epic poem Paradise Lost in or around 1658. As he had become completely blind in 1652, this was written through dictation to various amanuenses. Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 in 10 books; a second edition with 12 books was published in 1674 (EB11).
9.19: The Sorrows of Satan
The Sorrows of Satan (1897): a very popular English novel by Marie Corelli (pseudonym of Mary MacKay, 1855–1924). It could be considered the first best-seller, although it certainly was not the first book to sell in massive quantities. It was ignored if not derided by most literary critics. ‘The story tantalizingly combined a semi-sacred theme with prurient descriptions of the vices of the rich’ (ODNB, s.v. Mary MacKay). In a letter dated 28 February 1905, Joyce told his brother Stanislaus that he had read this book (Letters, vol. 2, p. 82).
9.22–26: First he tickled her . . . Jolly old medi
No source has been located for this vulgar rhyme. J. B. Lyons speculates that Joyce learned this from his medical student friends (James Joyce and Medicine, p. 79). It is certainly not unlike some of Gogarty’s lewder poems—such as ‘Medical Dick and Medical Davy’ (Gogarty, Poems & Plays, p. 435; see note at 9.908–09) and ‘Medical Students’ Song’ (p. 825; see note at 1.706)—but, if it is one of his poems, it is not included in Jeffares’s edition of his poetry.
9.27–28: Seven is dear to the mystic mind
Seven: ‘A mystic or sacred number; it is composed of four and three, which among the Pythagoreans were, and from time immemorial have been, accounted lucky numbers. Among the Babylonians, Egyptians, and other ancient peoples there were seven sacred planets; and the Hebrew verb to swear means literally “to come under the influence of seven things” ’ (Brewer’s).
9.28: The shining seven WB calls them
William Butler Yeats used the phrase ‘The Shining Seven’ in ‘A Cradle Song’ (1901, l. 7): a reference to the number of planets known to the ancient Greeks. Yeats’s earlier version of the line reads ‘The old planets seven’; for versions published after 1925, he revised the line again to ‘The Sailing Seven’ (W. B. Yeats, The Variorum Edition of the Poems, p. 118).
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9.29: his rufous skull
Rufous: brownish red (OED). George Moore described Eglinton (Magee) as ‘a thin small man with dark red hair growing stiffly over a small skull’ (Ave, p. 162).
9.30: ollav
Ollav (or ollave) (ancient Irish): a sage, a scholar (OED); ‘the title of the highest degree in any art or profession’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 442).
9.31: sizar’s laugh of Trinity
Sizar: a student at Trinity College, typically from a family of limited means, who receives financial assistance in exchange for performing various chores in college (OED). Eglinton (Magee) was admitted as a sizar to Trinity (ODNB).
9.32–33: Orchestral Satan, weeping many a rood . . . angels weep
The first two lines combine two passages from Book I of Milton’s Paradise Lost: ‘Thus Satan [. . .] Lay floating many a rood’ (ll. 192, 186) and ‘Thrice he assayd, and thrice in spite of scorn, / Tears such as angels weep, burst forth’ (ll. 619–20). Rood: a unit of measurement of both land and wine; also a crucifix (OED).
9.34: Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta
Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta (Italian): ‘and he made a trumpet of his rear [farted]’; this is how Barbariccia, a demon, replies to his minions in Dante’s Inferno (XXI.139).
9.36: Cranly’s eleven true Wicklowmen
J. F. Byrne (the original of Cranly; see note at 1.159)—whose family came from County Wicklow—said that he could find twelve men of resolution from Wicklow who could save Ireland (Ellmann, pp. 366–67). This also echoes Parnell’s ‘Wicklow eleven’. As a young man, he earned a reputation for stubbornness captaining a cricket team from Wicklow. According to the Pall Mall Budget, ‘In later years Mr Parnell used to use the Irish party much as he used the Wicklow eleven’ (quoted in R. Barry O’Brien, The Life of Charles Stewart Parnell, vol. 1, pp. 52–53; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
9.36–37: Gaptoothed Kathleen . . . the stranger in her house
After Yeats’s play Cathleen Ni Houlihan (1902), where the Poor Old Woman says she has ‘Too many strangers in the house’ and that ‘My land that was taken from me. [. . .] My four beautiful green fields’ (Yeats, The Plays, p. 88). These fields represent the four Irish provinces: Ulster, Leinster, Connacht, and Munster; the stranger is England (see note at 1.661).
9.37–38: And one more to hail him: ave, rabbi
Ave, rabbi: from Matthew 26:49 in the Vulgate, when Judas identifies Jesus to his Roman captors. ‘Hail, Rabbi’ in the Douay and ‘Hail, master’ in the King James.
9.38: the Tinahely twelve
Tinahely: a market town in County Wicklow. During the 1798 rebellion, on 20 May, ‘the Tinahely magistrate, Mr Morton, ordered eleven men out of their houses in the village and accused them of having been sworn into the United army. They all denied it. Two were “well flogged”, in Morton’s words “the others looking on”, and soon they all confessed to the plot and showed where they hidden their pikes’ (Thomas Pakenham, The Year of Liberty, p. 144; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
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9.38–39: In the shadow of the glen he cooees for them
In the Shadow of the Glen (1903): a play by John Millington Synge (1871–1909) set in County Wicklow. Cooee: onomatopoeic for a kind of call Australian aborigines use (OED).
9.45: I admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry
From Ben Jonson’s (1572–1637) recollections of Shakespeare in Timber: or Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter (1620): ‘I lov’d the man, and doe honour his memory (on this side Idolatry) as much as any’ (Works, vol. 8, p. 584).
9.47: whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex
Various possibilities for the original of Hamlet have been proposed over the years. Besides Shakespeare himself, the case for James I was advocated by William Preston Johnson (1831–99) in The Prototype of Hamlet and Other Shakespearian Problems: ‘In King James we may find the prototype of Hamlet [. . .] Some twenty years ago I observed the striking points of likeness in the murder of Darnley to the plot of Hamlet, and the resemblance of James and Hamlet in character, and supposed the discovery was original with me. I subsequently found, however, that nearly a century ago, the Rev. Mr. Plumptre had pointed out some of the more obvious of these parallelisms’ (p. 180). Another common proposed original for Hamlet is Robert Devereux (1567–1601), 2nd Earl of Essex and former favourite of Elizabeth I: ‘Shakespeare [. . .] made its chief hero and central figure, Robert Earl of Essex, in the character of a Danish prince, Hamlet, and that he assigned to this fictional and unreal person many of the actual attributes and peculiarities, the general idiosyncrasy, temper, and popularly known characteristics of that unhappy nobleman’ (‘Who Was the Lord Hamlet?’, Every Month, Dec. 1864, vol. 1, no. 9, pp. 146–47).
9.48: historicity of Jesus
The authenticity of the story of Jesus’s life as transmitted by the Gospels was challenged— and not without controversy—in the nineteenth century as various scholars attempted to present an historically objective account of Jesus’s life. The first was David Friedrich Strauss’s Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, 1835–36), which proposed rational explanations for the supernatural aspects of Jesus’s life. Likewise, Ernest Renan’s La Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus, 1863; see note at 9.394) explored Christ’s psychology (see Geert Lernout, Help My Unbelief, pp. 36–37).
9.49: formless spiritual essences
One of George Russell’s (A.E.) pet phrases; from ‘Religion and Love’ (1904): ‘Spirituality is the power of apprehending formless spiritual essences, of seeing the eternal in the transitory, and in the things which are seen the unseen things of which they are the shadow’ (p. 47).
9.50: Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau (1826–98): French symbolist painter of mythological and biblical subjects (EB11).
9.51: Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822): English Romantic poet.
9.52–53: Plato’s world of ideas
‘Plato, when he speaks of Ideas or Forms, is referring to the objective content or reference of our universal concepts. In our universal concepts we apprehend objective essences, and
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346 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses it is to these objective essences that Plato applied the term “Ideas”. [. . .] Plato’s way of speaking about the Ideas clearly supposes that they exist in a sphere apart’ (Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 1, pp. 165–66).
9.54: A.E. has been telling some yankee interviewer See note at 7.785–86.
9.56: The schoolmen were schoolboys first
Perhaps after Eglinton’s essay ‘The Breaking of the Ice’: ‘But we are men conversing with men when we read Sophocles and Horace, while we have to conjure up our own past selves when we read Augustine and the Angelic Schoolman (or, to keep up the metaphor, schoolboy), Thomas Aquinas’ (Dana, May 1904, no. 1, p. 14).
9.57: Aristotle was once Plato’s schoolboy
Aristotle (384–322 bc) studied at Plato’s Academy from 367 until Plato’s death in 347 (EB11, s.v. Aristotle).
9.61: Formless spiritual. Father, Word and Holy Breath
See note at 9.49 for ‘Formless spiritual’. ‘Father, Word and Holy Breath’ plays on the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit). The notion of Jesus as Word goes back to the first verse of John’s Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1:1). The English word spirit derives from the Latin spiritus, which means both breath and animating principle, the ‘breath of life’ (OED).
9.61–62: Allfather, the heavenly man
All-father: ‘The father of all, the universal father; a name given to various supreme gods, esp. when considered as creator or progenitor of the human race’ (OED). In Irish myth ology, Dagda (also known as the Eochaidh Ollathair) is the father of the gods (Ellis).
9.62: Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful
Hiesos Kristos: a ‘mystic garble’ of Iesous Christos, the Greek for Jesus Christ (Brendan O Hehir and Dillon, Classical Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 544). Of possible relevance, huesos (Spanish): bones. The literal meaning of the Greek word Christos is Anointed One (OED). For the Theosophists, Christos is ‘that principle of our inner nature which develops in us into the Spiritual Ego’ (Powis Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 34). The phrase ‘magician of the beautiful’ comes from the conclusion of A.E.’s essay ‘Meditation’: ‘We dream of [God] as Beauty and the Magician of the Beautiful appears everywhere at Its miraculous art, and the multitudinous lovely creatures of Its thought are busy moulding nature and life in their image, and all are hurrying, hurrying to the Golden World’ (The Candle of Vision, p. 26).
9.62–63: the Logos who suffers in us
Logos (Ancient Greek): word; as in Jesus Christ, ‘And the Word was made flesh’ (John 1:14).
9.63–64: I am the fire upon the altar. I am the sacrificial butter
From a translation of the Bhagavad Gita by the Theosophist William Quan Judge (see note at 9.65): ‘I am the sacrifice and the sacrificial rite; I am the libation offered to ancestors, and the spices; I am the sacred formula and the fire; I am the food and the sacrificial butter’ (p. 66). A.E.’s poem ‘Dawn’ includes the phrase ‘Fire on the Altar’ (l. 3).
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9.65: Dunlop
Daniel Nicol Dunlop (1868–1935): Scottish entrepreneur and Theosophist. Upon moving to Dublin he befriended A.E. and Yeats and joined the Irish Theosophical Society. In 1892, he founded the journal the Irish Theosophist, for which he wrote under the pseudonym Aretas. He moved to the United States in 1896 (Igoe, pp. 93–94).
9.65: Judge
William Quan Judge (1851–96): born in Dublin, he founded the Theosophical Society in New York with Henry Steel Olcott and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in 1875. When Blavatsky died in 1891, a conflict broke out between Judge and Olcott and Annie Besant (1847–1933) over the leadership of the movement, resulting in a schism (René Guénon, Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion, pp. 145–49).
9.65: noblest Roman of them all
From Marc Antony’s speech for Brutus at the end of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (V.v.68).
9.65: Arval
Arval: ‘The Arval Brothers or Fraternity [. . .] were among the old Romans, a sort of Priests, in number twelve, who [. . .] were appointed Arbitrators or Judges to decide controversies concerning Landmarks, and bounds of the field’ (T. Blount, Glossographia, cited in OED). In an article called ‘The Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry’, Mme Blavatsky writes: ‘At the Ambarvales, the festivals in honour of Ceres the Arval (the assistant of the High Priest) clad in pure white, placing on the hostia (sacrificial heap) a cake of corn, water and wine, tasted the wine of libation and gave to all others to taste’ (Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine, 15 May 1889, vol. 4, no. 21, p. 236). Otherwise, the word seems to have no significance to the Theosophists.
9.65–66: Name Ineffable
In Jewish tradition, pronunciation of the name of God is prohibited (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia); see also note at 17.1900–01.
9.66: K. H.
That is Koot Hoomi (frequently referred to as simply K. H., since the Theosophists have a tendency to name people by their initials): one of the Mahatmas (see note at 9.281), or foundational inspirations and spiritual guides, for the Theosophical Society. Blavatsky claimed he lived in a small house in Tibet (The Theosophical Forum, May 1936, p. 345). ‘He was the supposed author of letters which materialized magically when needed to clarify points of doctrine and confound unbelievers, but when pressure on H. P. B. to produce him grew too great, she contrived a dummy with the help of Mme. Coulomb to represent his astral body. Mme. Coulomb later exposed the trickery’ (Ralph Jenkins, ‘Theosophy in “Scylla and Charybdis” ’, p. 39).
9.67: Brothers of the great white lodge
‘All these similarities [between all the world’s religions] point to a single source, and that is the Brotherhood of the White Lodge, the Hierarchy of Adepts who watch over and guide the evolution of humanity’ (Annie Besant, Ancient Wisdom, p. 42). Elsewhere, Besant states that the Great White Lodge, or Tibetan brotherhood, was the inspiration for the Theosophical Society (p. 72).
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348 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.68–69: The Christ with the bridesister . . . repentant sophia
In her book Esoteric Christianity, the Theosophist Annie Besant summarises the Pistis Sophia, a gnostic text from the late third to early fourth centuries: Christ taught His dis ciples ‘of Sophia the Wisdom, and of her fall into matter in her attempt to rise unto the Highest, and of her cries to the Light in which she had trusted, and of the sending of Jesus to redeem her from chaos, and of her crowning with His light and leading forth from bondage’ (pp. 138–39). ‘In some Gnostic systems, the Holy Spirit is the feminine principle as Wisdom, Sophia the Celestial Virgin [. . .]. In her fallen, lower form, trapped in matter, Sophia is Prunicos (“licentious”) the whore’ (Dannis Shanahan, ‘The Eucharistic Aesthetics of the Passion’, p. 379).
9.69: plane of buddhi
The plane of buddhi: ‘a state of bliss in which each is himself, with a clearness and vivid intensity which cannot be approached on lower planes, and yet in which each feels himself to include all others, to be one with them, inseparate and inseparable’ (Besant, Ancient Wisdom, p. 197).
9.70: O.P. must work off bad karma first
O.P. would stand for ‘ordinary person’ in the Theosophists’ penchant for using initials. For karma, see note at 8.1147–48.
9.70–71: Mrs Cooper Oakley
Isabel Cooper-Oakley (1854–1914): a London businesswoman and ‘one of Mme Blavatsky’s first disciples’ (Guénon, Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion, p. 181). She was the author of a biography of the Count of St Germain (French adventurer and philosopher, c.1691–1784), a figure the Theosophists saw as a precursor to Blavatsky (pp. 180–81).
9.71: H. P. B.’s elemental
H. P. B.: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky; see note at 7.784. Elemental: ‘A comprehensive term for any semi-conscious or conscious non-human being or natural energy manifesting on the etheric or astral planes’ (Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 46). This comes from an essay by Annie Besant entitled ‘In the Twilight’, that was published in the May 1910 issue of the journal The Theosophist: ‘There was not much room in the house, so Mrs. Oakley and I shared a large attic-like room. After we had retired, a great grey eye appeared to us in turn; it came, floated over the beds and glared at us, first to my bed, then to hers, and then vanished. [. . .] We spoke to H. P. B. next morning about these rather disconcerting experiences, but could get no explanation from her. She was only playing little tricks on us with her favorite elemental. She also used to keep a little elemental under her writing-table to guard her papers in her absence, and she always knew if any one had been there looking at them. On one occasion it hemmed some towels for her, as the President-Founder has related in the Old Diary Leaves. It took very long stitches, but it sewed better than she could at any rate’ (p. 1099; Wim Van Mierlo, ‘The Subject Notebook’).
9.72: O, fie! Out on’t!
After Hamlet’s ‘Fie on’t! ah fie!’ (I.ii.135) and ‘Fie upon’t! Foh! About, my brain!’ (II.ii.617). Fie: ‘an exclamation indicating that what is reproved is dirty or indecent’ (Brewer’s). Out on’t: a variant of ‘out on’, an exclamation expressing abhorrence or reproach (OED).
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9.72: Pfuiteufel!
In German, Pfui Teufel (usually as two words) is an expression of disgust. Pfui (German): ‘for shame’; teufel (German): devil.
9.74: Mr Best
Richard Irvine Best (1872–1959): assistant librarian (1904–23) and later head librarian (1924–40) of the National Library. In addition to his work at the Library, Best was a prolific writer and scholar of Celtic philology and literature (DIB). The two assistant librarians, Eglinton (see note at 9.18) and Best, would normally work on different shifts (Harald Beck, JJON).
9.76–77: Hamlet’s musings about the afterlife
In the ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy, Hamlet, like Plato in the Myth of Er in book X of the Republic, postulates an afterlife free from cares (III.i.64–69). In distinction, Aristotle envisioned death as being a complete termination since the individual soul cannot exist without a body (On the Soul, 414a).
9.79: waxing wroth
Wroth: ‘Deep anger or resentment; wrath, rage, or fury; ire’. To wax: to increase in intensity (both OED). The collocation ‘waxing wroth’ was common in the nineteenth century; for example, ‘At last the judge, waxing wroth, inquired, “is this ship’s name Ellen or Helen?” ’ (Weekly Irish Times, 3 Sep. 1881, p. 3, col. i).
9.80–81: it makes my blood boil to hear anyone compare Aristotle with Plato
John Eglinton was a Platonist, as Gogarty attests in a letter of late June 1904 to his friend G. K. A. Bell, writing of ‘a talk with a Platonic friend (W. K. Magee) unsphering and reinsphering the Spirit of Plato’ (Gogarty, Many Lines to Thee, p. 7).
9.82–83: banished me from his commonwealth?
‘Plato’s interest is primarily ethical: he objects to the way the poets speak about the gods, and the way in which they portray immoral characters, etc. In so far as the poets are to be admitted at all into the ideal State, they must set themselves to produce examples of good moral character, but, in general epic and dramatic poetry will be banished from the State, while lyric poetry will be allowed only under the strict supervision of the State authorities’ (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 1, p. 227). Stephen’s phrase derives from Sir Philip Sidney’s (1554–86) Defence of Poesy: ‘Plato banished them [poets] out of his commonwealth’ (p. 102).
9.84–85: Horseness is the whatness of allhorse
A refutation of Plato’s theory of forms. Antisthenes (see note at 7.1035) reputedly said to Plato, ‘I see a horse, but I don’t see horseness’ (W. K. C. Guthrie, The Sophists, p. 214). For Aristotle, universals do not exist independently (as forms do in Plato) but, rather, are the whatness (scholastic quidditas) of the members of a genus. ‘[The universal] is real in the individual: it is not transcendent, if considered in its objective reality, but immanent, the concrete universal [. . .] Thus individual horses perish, whereas the nature of horses remains the same (specifically, though not numerically) in the succession of horses’ (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 1, p. 303).
9.85: Streams of tendency and eons they worship
The phrase ‘stream of tendency’ comes from Wordsworth’s dramatic poem The Excursion (1814): ‘Fresh power to commune with the invisible world, / And hear the mighty stream of
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350 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses tendency / Uttering, for elevation of our thought, / A clear sonorous voice, inaudible / To the vast multitude’ (IX.86–90). The OED notes: ‘Wordsworth’s expression stream of tendency (quot. 1814) is often mentioned with ridicule by writers of the first half of the 19th cent. It was subsequently in common use’ (s.v. stream). Joyce also used this phrase in Stephen Hero (p. 48). Matthew Arnold also appropriated this phrase: ‘God is simply the stream of tendency by which all things fulfil the law of their being’ (Literature and Dogma, p. 41). The Theosophist Annie Besant (1847–1933) misquotes Arnold in her short book On the Nature and the Existence of God (1875), which predates her involvement with Theosophy: ‘In studying history I also see the upward tendency of the race, and note that current which Mr Matthew Arnold has called “the stream of tendency, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness” ’ (p. 28). Besant has conflated the above quotation from Literature and Dogma with a different phrase from elsewhere in Arnold’s book where he calls the conception of God ‘the not ourselves which makes for righteousness’ (p. 40, et passim). Eon alludes to both the Theosophists’ idea of Æon and to George Russell’s pseudonym A.E. (see note at 7.784).
9.85–86: God: noise in the street: very peripatetic
See note at 2.386. Peripatetic refers to Aristotle’s method of teaching while walking in a peripatos (place for walking) in the Lyceum outside of Athens (OED).
9.86: Space: what you damn well have to see See note at 3.1.
9.86–87: Through spaces smaller than red globules of man’s blood See note at 3.17–18.
9.88: Blake’s buttocks
Perhaps a reference to William Blake’s illustration to the title page of his Milton: a rear view of a naked man walking towards distant clouds and smoke.
9.89: Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past
According to Aristotle, time is experienced only as the motion of the future draining into the past: ‘we apprehend time only when we have marked motion, marking it by before and after; and it is only when we have perceived before and after in motion that we say time has elapsed’ (Physics, 219a22–25).
9.93: Jubainville’s book
In 1903, Richard Best translated and annotated Marie Henri d’Arbois de Jubainville’s (French historian and philologist, 1827–1910) Le Cycle mythologique irlandais as The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology. In his translator’s preface, Best says that he decided to undertake the translation because ‘I saw on all sides there was an eagerness and growing desire to know something about the ancient Gods of Ireland, and the mythic races who are said to have peopled the island and fought and perished on it long ago; and this book of Monsieur d’Arbois seemed to me the fullest and best yet written on the subject’ (p. iv).
9.93–94: don’t you know See note at 5.185.
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9.94: Hyde’s
Douglas Hyde (1860–1949), also known by his Irish pseudonym An Craoibhin Aoibhinn (Little Sweet Branch): Irish folklorist, poet, dramatist, politician, and a major figure in the Irish Revival (DIB). He was a co-founder of the Gaelic League (see note at 7.796).
9.94: Lovesongs of Connacht
Hyde’s The Love Songs of Connacht (1893) was a collection of Irish poems along with Hyde’s translations into English (both literal and poetic translations). This collection had a great impact on Yeats, Lady Gregory, and Synge. See also note at 3.397–98. A revised, limited edition was published in April 1904 by the Dun Emer Press, for which see note at 1.365–66. Presumably, the copy Haines has purchased is not the Dun Emer edition since it only includes Hyde’s English translations and not the Irish originals.
9.95: Gill’s
See note at 6.317.
9.96–99: Bound thee forth, my booklet, quick . . . unlovely English
The first stanza of a poem by Douglas Hyde, written for the purpose of illustrating the Irish metrical form deibhidhe, a bardic form out of use since the seventeenth or eighteenth century, which employs seven-syllable lines that end alternately in monosyllabic and disyllabic words (Douglas Hyde, The Story of Early Gaelic Literature, pp. 173–74).
9.101: Penitent thief
Alludes to the repentant thief on the cross who asks Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom’ (Luke 23:42).
9.102: An emerald set in the ring of the sea See note at 7.236.
9.103: auric egg
Blavatsky claims that sentient life originates out of the ‘egg-shaped sphere of aura, which [. . .] corresponds to the substance of the germ-cell or ovum’ (The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2, p. 117). The aura is a sometimes visible emanation of karma, the outward manifestation of one’s inner life.
9.105–06: a peasant’s heart on the hillside
From the opening of a short essay on the Battle of Vinegar Hill (see note at 8.437) by ‘a Tyrone Peasant’: ‘There are few, if any, of the green hills of “holy Ireland” which awaken sadder or brighter memories in the Irish peasant’s heart than that gentle hillside whose name stands at the top of this paper’ (The Shamrock, 28 Oct. 1871, p. 58).
9.108: sixshilling novel
Throughout the nineteenth century, the standard format for publishing novels in the United Kingdom was in three volumes (sometimes called the ‘triple-decker’). By the 1890s, the threevolume format yielded in favour of the six-shilling novel, which for many years became the fixed price for popular novels, although reprint editions sold for sixpence. One correspondent for The Bookman in 1896 called the six-shilling novel ‘one of the most popular ventures ever recorded in trade annals’ (quoted in Troy J. Bassett and Christina M. Walter, ‘Booksellers and Bestsellers’, p. 221).
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352 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.108–09: France produces the finest flower of corruption in Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–98): French symbolist poet. Remy de Gourmont (French poet and critic, 1858–1915) writes: ‘Abruptly, about 1885, the idea of decadence entered French literature. After serving to glorify or to ridicule a whole group of poets, it had perched as it were, upon a single head. Stéphane Mallarmé was the prince of this ironical, almost injurious realm’ (Decadence, p. 139). The phrase ‘the flower of corruption’ derives from an earlier French symbolist poet, Charles Baudelaire (1821–67), who wrote a collection of poems called Les Fleurs du mal (1857), usually translated as The Flowers of Evil.
9.109–10: poor of heart
Combines two of Jesus’s Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [. . .] Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God’ (Matthew 5:3, 8).
9.110: Homer’s Phaeacians
At the end of Book V of the Odyssey, Odysseus is washed ashore on the island of the Phaeacians after he leaves Calypso’s island and his ship is wrecked. The Phaeacians, ruled by their king Alkinoös (Nausicaa’s father), live in tranquillity and bliss.
9.113: Stephen MacKenna
Stephen MacKenna (1872–1934): Irish journalist and nationalist, best known for his translation of Plotinus’s Enneads. From 1896 to 1907, he lived in Paris where he worked for various different newspapers (DIB). According to Horace Reynolds (American literary critic, 1896–1965), MacKenna was friendly with Joyce during his stay in Paris in 1903 (New York Times Book Review, 17 Oct. 1937, p. 10, col. b). Likewise, in a letter to Joyce dated 5 June 1935, E. R. Dodds (Irish scholar, 1893–1979) indicates that the two men knew each other (Catherine Fahy, The James Joyce–Paul Léon Papers, p. 92; with thanks to Harald Beck).
9.113–14: The one about Hamlet
Mallarmé’s letter-essay ‘Hamlet et Fortinbras’ (an addendum to his 1886 essay on Hamlet) first appeared in the Revue Blanche on 15 July 1896. It is not, as Best says, a prose poem.
9.114: il se promène, lisant au livre de lui-même
Il se promène, lisant au livre de lui-même (French): ‘he wanders, reading the book of himself ’; from Mallarmé’s ‘Hamlet et Fortinbras’ (Œuvres complètes, vol. 2, p. 275).
9.118–20: Hamlet . . . Le Distrait
French, ‘Hamlet, or the Distracted One’; in ‘Hamlet et Fortinbras’ (Mallarmé, p. 274). Mallarmé gives this as the title of a provincial production of Hamlet. Le Distrait is also the title of a 1697 comedy by Jean-François Regnard (1655–1709), the English translation of which was titled The Absentminded Lover.
9.121: Pièce de Shakespeare
Pièce de Shakespeare (French): ‘play by Shakespeare’ or ‘piece of Shakespeare’; from Mallarmé’s ‘Hamlet et Fortinbras’ (Œuvres complètes, vol. 2, p. 275).
9.125: absentminded beggar
‘The Absent-Minded Beggar’ (1899): a propagandistic, fund-raising Boer War song, words by Rudyard Kipling (English author, 1865–1936), set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Because of Kipling’s poem, ‘absent-minded beggar’ became a nickname for a soldier (Partridge).
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9.129: Sumptuous and stagnant exaggeration of murder
From Mallarmé’s ‘Hamlet and Fortinbras’: ‘cette somptueuse et stagnante exagération de meurtre’ (Œuvres complètes, vol. 2, p. 275); used to describe Hamlet’s bloody final scene.
9.130: A deathsman of the soul Robert Greene called him
In A Groat’s Worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance (1592), playwright and didactic pamphleteer Robert Greene (c.1558–92) attacked Shakespeare vigorously, calling him ‘an upstart Crow’ (George Saintsbury, Elizabethan and Jacobean Pamphlets, p. 157). In this pamphlet he calls lust, not Shakespeare, ‘the deathsman of the soule’ (p. 158).
9.131: a butcher’s son
According to John Aubrey (English antiquary, 1626–97)—who assembled a collection of biographical vignettes about his contemporaries that was not published until 1898— Shakespeare’s father John was a butcher (Brief Lives, vol. 2, pp. 225–26). However, surviving records reveal that John Shakespeare was a glove manufacturer and merchant. ‘He had large transactions in wool, and also dealt, as occasion offered, in corn and other commod ities. Aubrey’s statement that he was a butcher seems to mean no more than that he himself fattened and killed the animals whose skins he used in his trade. But in those days the different occupations in a small English country town were not at all strictly discriminated; the man who produced the raw material would generally work it up as well’ (Brandes, William Shakespeare: A Critical Study, p. 6).
9.131: wielding the sledded poleaxe
After a description of Hamlet’s father, spoken by Horatio: ‘He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice’ (I.i.63). This line is the probably the most difficult editorial crux in the text of Hamlet and is still a matter of debate. The First Quarto reads ‘sleaded pollax’, the Second Quarto ‘sledded Polacks’, and the First Folio ‘sledded Pollax’, with later Folios introducing further variants (and some subsequent editions propose novel solutions). The immediate ambiguity is whether Horatio is describing King Hamlet wielding a weapon (a poleaxe) or brutally vanquishing a Polish enemy (a Pollack). The meaning of sledded is likewise unclear and contentious (Hamlet: the New Variorum Edition, vol. 1, pp. 11–12 n. 63). A. W. Verity writes in his edition of Hamlet, which Joyce owned: ‘A wholly different view of the passage is that we should read “the sledded pole-axe” and interpret “the pole-axe weighted with a sledge or hammer at the back” ’ (The Tragedy of Hamlet, p. 287). Verity ultimately discounts this interpretation. ‘Despite Verity’s caveat, weighted butcher axes did exist in Shakespeare’s time, as well as in Stephen’s, and the phrase “sledded poleaxe” found in some editions of Hamlet certainly suits Stephen’s rhetorical intentions’ (Robert Janusko, JJON). Most editions contemporaneous to Joyce, along with most recent editions, prefer ‘sledded Pollacks’, but John Jowett, who edited Hamlet for The New Oxford Shakespeare, endorses poleaxe and states that ‘the sense of being headed with a large hammer’ is the most plausible for sledded (vol. 1, pp. 1120, see also pp. 1119–20 and p. 1139 n. 1.62).
9.132: Nine lives are taken off for his father’s one
Counting Fortinbras, who is killed by King Hamlet in a duel before the play begins, nine lives are taken in Hamlet; the other deaths are Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and Hamlet.
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354 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.132–33: Our Father who art in purgatory
A twist on the opening line of The Lord’s Prayer, from Matthew 6:9: ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven’; used here in reference to King Hamlet (I.iv.10–13). See note at 6.858–59 for Purgatory.
9.133: Khaki Hamlets don’t hesitate to shoot
Khaki: from the Urdu, which has its roots in Persian, ‘dull brownish yellow; drab’; from the mid-nineteenth century, the colour of service uniforms in the British Army; ‘used in reference to the South African [Boer] War [. . .] and the war spirit in England at the time’ (OED). See notes at 12.874 and 12.877 for ‘don’t hesitate to shoot’.
9.133–34: bloodboltered shambles in act five
Blood-boltered: ‘clotted or clogged with blood’ (OED). Shakespeare used the word only in Macbeth (IV.i.123): ‘For the blood-bolter’d Banquo smiles upon me’. With four deaths, Act V of Hamlet is particularly bloody.
9.134–35: concentration camp sung by Mr Swinburne
Swinburne’s sonnet ‘On the Death of Colonel Benson’ was first published in the Saturday Review on 9 November 1901 (p. 584). The following week, the magazine published two letters complaining about Swinburne’s apparent support for the British practice of setting up camps for Boer civilians—women and children included—and also published Swinburne’s reply to one of the letters (Saturday Review, 16 Nov. 1901, pp. 621–22). Starting in August 1900, the British Army established what they initially called refugee camps to gather Boer civilians whose land and farms had been destroyed during the war. As the number of camps and inmates grew, conditions in the camps became harsher and more punitive, which prompted protests in England. After 1901, these were called concentration camps (Dan Stone, Concentration Camps, pp. 15–19).
9.137–38: Whelps and dams of murderous foes whom none . . . spared
From Swinburne’s ‘On the Death of Colonel Benson’: ‘Toward whelps and dams of murderous foes, whom none / Save we had spared or feared to starve and slay’ (ll. 7–8). Whelps and dams: contemptuous for children and women, since both terms typically refer to animals (OED). These lines in particular drew criticism. Duncan McVarish writes in his letter to the Saturday Review (see the previous note): ‘Possibly I may mistake your meaning when I construe your reference to the “whelps and dams of murderous foes whom none save we had spared or feared to starve and slay” as a rebuke to the British nation for not shooting and starving the wives and children of our foes in South Africa. I hope I am mistaken’ (16 Nov. 1901, p. 621). Swinburne, in his reply to McVarish, indignantly writes: ‘I congratulate my countrymen on their superior humanity, and you “construe” my congratulations “as a rebuke”!’ (p. 621).
9.139: Between the Saxon smile and yankee yawp
Yawp: a harsh, hoarse, or querulous cry, especially of a bird (OED). Alludes to Walt Whitman’s (1819–92) ‘Song of Myself ’ (1855, 1892): ‘I too am untranslatable, / I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world’ (stanza 52, ll. 2–3). See also note at 1.732.
9.139–40: The devil and the deep sea
To be caught between the devil and the deep sea is proverbial for being, ‘Between Scylla and Charybdis; between two evils or alternatives, to be in a hazardous or precarious position’ (Brewer’s).
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9.142: behoof
Behoof: ‘use, benefit, advantage’ (OED); the word appears once in Shakespeare, in 2 Henry VI (IV.vii.74).
9.142–43: Like the fat boy in Pickwick he wants to make our flesh creep
Joe, the fat boy from Charles Dickens’s Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836–37), prefaces his story about Mr Tupman’s (one of the Pickwickians) kissing Rachel Wardle’s hand with the phrase ‘I wants to make your flesh creep’ (p. 67). The allusion to the fat boy in Pickwick in reference to Shakespeare was first made by George Bernard Shaw in ‘The Quintessence of Ibsenism’: ‘the fact remains that Shakespear survives by what he has in common with Ibsen [. . .] whilst the older Hamlets, who never had any Ibsenist hesitations [. . .] and stick hard to the theatrical school of the fat boy in Pickwick (“I wants to make your flesh creep”), are as dead as John Shakespear’s mutton’ (Shaw on Shakespeare, p. 249; Andrew Gibson, Joyce’s Revenge, p. 75 n. 74).
9.144: List! List! O list!
List: listen (OED); from King Hamlet’s ghost (I.v.22–25).
9.149–50: as far from Stratford as corrupt Paris lies from virgin Dublin
Stratford, Shakespeare’s birthplace, is 120 km to the north-west of London and Dublin is about 770 km distant from Paris. In Shakespeare’s day, a trip from Stratford to London would take four to five days (John Hales, Essays and Notes on Shakespeare, p. 1). In the early twentieth century, a trip from Dublin to Paris could take about one whole day: about eight hours to London via Holyhead (DD, pp. 1–2) and then an average of 15 hours to Paris via Newhaven and Dieppe, although faster routes were available (Handbook for Visitors to Paris, p. 6); see also note at 9.953.
9.150: from limbo patrum
Limbo patrum (Latin): from the limbo of the fathers, or the place ‘of the just that died before Christ’s coming’ (OED). In Henry VIII, limbo patrum is used jokingly to refer to jail: ‘I have some of ’em [rioters] in Limbo Patrum, and there they / are like to dance these three days’ (V.iv.66–67).
9.150–51: returning to the world that has forgotten him
Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1582. In or around 1585, he left Stratford for London; ‘although he was never wholly estranged from his family, he saw little of wife or children for eleven years’ (Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare, p. 27).
9.154: It is this hour of a day in mid June
‘The time of beginning was three o’clock punctually, and the performance went straight on, uninterrupted by entr’actes. It lasted, as a rule, for only two hours or two hours and a half ’ (Brandes, William Shakespeare: A Critical Study, p. 101).
9.155: The flag is up on the playhouse by the bankside
‘The days of performance at these theatres were announced by the hoisting of a flag on the roof ’ (Brandes, p. 101). The Bankside, where the Globe was located, is on the south bank of the Thames, between the Blackfriars and Waterloo bridges, at Southwark.
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9.155–56: The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden
‘Close to the Globe Theatre lay the Bear Garden, the rank smell from which greeted the nostrils even before it came in sight. The famous bear Sackerson, who is mentioned in The Merry Wives of Windsor [I.i.306], now and then broke his chain and put female theatre goers shrieking with fright’ (Brandes, p. 101). Paris Garden: the bear garden at Bankside, Southwark (OED).
9.156: Canvasclimbers
Canvas-climber: a sailor (Brewer’s); Shakespeare uses this word in Pericles (IV.i.62).
9.157: Drake
Sir Francis Drake (c.1540–96): English sailor, soldier, and politician, the first Englishman to sail around the globe (1577–80). He was vice-admiral of the English fleet that crushed the Spanish Armada (1588) (EB11).
9.157: chew their sausages among the groundlings
Groundling: ‘a frequenter of the “ground” or pit of a theatre; hence, a spectator (reader, etc.) of average or inferior tastes, an uncritical or unrefined person’ (OED). The Globe Theatre had vendors who sold sausages and ale to the groundlings (Brandes, p. 105).
9.158: Local colour
‘Local Colour in Hamlet’ is the heading for a page in a chapter on Hamlet in Brandes’s book: ‘And it is quite certain that when, in the first and fifth acts, he makes trumpetblasts and the firing of the cannon accompany the healths which are drunk, he must have known that this was a specifically Danish custom, and have tried to give his play local colour by introducing it’ (p. 359).
9.159: Shakespeare has left the huguenot’s house in Silver street
According to documents discovered by Charles W. Wallace, in 1598–1604 Shakespeare lived at 13 Silver Street, London, in a house owned by the Huguenot, Christopher Mountjoy (‘New Shakespeare Discoveries’, pp. 489–510).
9.160: swanmews
Swan-mews: coops for fattening or breeding swans (OED, s.v. mew).
9.161–62: pen chivying her game of cygnets
Pen: a female swan. To chivvy: to pursue (both OED).
9.161: swan of Avon
Ben Jonson (1572–1637) called Shakespeare the ‘Sweet Swan of Avon’ in line 71 of ‘To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr William Shakespeare’, a poem prefatory to the First Folio (1623). (Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon.) ‘The phrases which have grown hackneyed in the modern cult of Shakespeare—“Sweet Swan of Auon”, “gentle Shakespeare”— if not of [Jonson’s] coinage, owe their currency largely to his use’ (Jonson, Works, vol. 2, p. 377).
9.163: Composition of place
A concept from Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises (1548): ‘The First Prelude is a composition, seeing the place’ (‘The First Exercise’, p. 36). In A Portrait, Father Arnall says: ‘This morning we
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 357 endeavoured, in our reflection upon hell, to make what our holy founder calls in his book of spiritual exercises, the composition of place’ (p. 127).
9.163: Ignatius Loyola See note at 1.231.
9.163: make haste to help me!
‘O Lord, make haste to help me!’ (Psalm 69:2; 70:1 in the King James).
9.164: A player comes on under the shadow
Under the shadow: Elizabethan stage term, the area of the theatre which was partly covered by ‘a penthouse or roof over the stage’ (OED, s.v. shadow).
9.165: castoff mail of a court buck
The Ghost is in full armour, as noted is by Horatio (I.i.60 and I.ii.226–29). According to Brandes, acting companies bought their own costumes (p. 104). Earlier, Stephen’s footwear (which Mulligan gave him) was called ‘his broadtoed boots, a buck’s castoffs’ (3.446).
9.165: wellset man with a bass voice
According to Frank Harris, Shakespeare was ‘probably of middle height, or below it, and pudgy’ (The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life-Story, p. 268). Harris also claims, contrary to Stephen’s assertion, that Shakespeare spoke in ‘a high tenor voice’ (p. 367).
9.166: a king and no king
The title of a tragicomedy by Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) and John Fletcher (1579–1625) from 1611. According to Brandes, ‘Shakespeare might find reminiscences of his own work’ in this play (p. 599).
9.166: the player is Shakespeare
According to Sidney Lee, Nicholas Rowe (English writer and editor of Shakespeare, 1674–1718) claimed that Shakespeare played ‘the Ghost in his own Hamlet’ (A Life of William Shakespeare, p. 44).
9.167: all the years of his life which were not vanity
In the Book of Ecclesiastes: ‘Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. What hath a man more of all his labour, that he taketh under the sun? One gener ation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth standeth for ever’ (1:2–4) By the end of Ecclesiastes, however, he realises that the single thing that makes life worth living is God (12:13–14).
9.168: Burbage
Richard Burbage (1568–1619): a celebrated actor in Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men: ‘he excelled in the tragedies, notably Othello, Hamlet, and King Lear; he also had a great success in the ever-popular Richard III’ (ODNB). According to Sidney Lee, he won great acclaim for his portrayal of Hamlet (A Life of William Shakespeare, p. 230).
9.169: beyond the rack of cerecloth
Cerecloth: ‘cloth smeared or impregnated with wax or some glutinous matter: used for wrapping a dead body in; a waxed winding-sheet or a winding-sheet in general’ (OED). In
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358 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses the Elizabethan theatre, a stage background of clouds would consist of pieces of cloth on boards that are manipulated by pulleys (Karl J. Holzknecht, The Backgrounds of Shakespeare’s Plays, p. 153). The word rack also means ‘A mass of cloud moving quickly’ (OED); Shakespeare uses this word in this sense in Hamlet, ‘A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still’ (II.ii.506). And so ‘rack of cerecloth’ has a double meaning: cerecloth on a rack (a frame) simulating a rack (fast-moving clouds).
9.170: Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit
The line is ‘I am thy father’s spirit’ (I.v.9); see also note at 8.67–68.
9.171: bidding him list See note at 9.144.
9.172: Hamnet Shakespeare
Hamnet Shakespeare, William’s only son, was born on 2 February 1585 (with his twin sister, Judith) and died eleven and a half years later, on 11 August 1596 in Stratford (Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare, pp. 27, 194). While Stephen’s birthday is never specified, Joyce’s is 2 February.
9.174–75: in the vesture of buried Denmark
Vesture: ‘a garment or vestment’ (OED). The Ghost appears in the armour ‘In which the majesty of buried Denmark / Did sometimes march’ (I.i.48–49).
9.179–80: your mother is the guilty queen
In Hamlet, Queen Gertrude, marries the man who murdered her husband, his brother Claudius.
9.180: Ann Shakespeare, born Hathaway
Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway Shakespeare (c.1556–1623). Her name is more usually spelt ‘Anne’, but the spelling ‘Ann’ is also used.
9.183: Art thou there, truepenny?
When the Ghost echoes Hamlet’s demand that Horatio and Marcellus keep silent, Hamlet replies: ‘Ah, ha, boy! say’st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?’ (I.v.150). Truepenny: ‘a trusty person, an honest fellow (compared to a coin of genuine metal)’ (OED).
9.186: As for living our servants can do that for us, Villiers de l’Isle has said
From Philippe Auguste de Villiers de l’Isle Adam’s (French writer, 1838–89) play Axël (1890): ‘Vivre? les serviteurs feront cela pour nous’ (Live? our servants will do that for us) (p. 283). Yeats used this line as the epigraph to The Secret Rose (1897), which was dedicated to A.E. (p. 80).
9.187: greenroom gossip
Green room: ‘A room in a theatre or studio in which performers can relax when they are off stage. Also in extended use: the people who use such a room’ (OED).
9.190–91: Flow over them with your waves . . . MacLir
Modified from a chant in A.E.’s play Deirdre, which was first performed on 2 April 1902: ‘Let the Faed Fia fall, / Mananaun MacLir / Let thy waters rise, / Mananaun MacLir / Let the earth fail / Beneath their feet, / Let thy waves flow over them, / Mananaun: / Lord of
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 359 Ocean!’ (p. 49). For Mananaan MacLir, see note at 3.56–57; A.E. uses the spelling ‘Mananaun’ throughout his play. At the first performance, A.E. played the role of the druid Cathvah and performed these lines himself from offstage (John Eglinton, A Memoir of AE, p. 54). George Moore wrote of his performance, ‘All I know for certain is that none will ever forget the emphasis he gave to the syllables Man-aan-nawn MacLeer’ (Salve, p. 137).
9.192: sirrah
Sirrah: ‘a term of address used to men or boys, expressing contempt, reprimand, or assumption of authority on the part of the speaker’ (OED). The term occurs frequently in Shakespeare’s works.
9.192: the pound he lent you
In ‘Nestor’, Stephen estimated his debt to Russell as one guinea, £1 1s. (2.257).
9.194: noble
Noble: ‘a former English gold coin, first minted by Edward III [r. 1327–77], usually valued at 6s. 8d.’ (OED).
9.195: Georgina Johnson’s
Evidently, a prostitute, but it is unknown whether she is actual or fictional.
9.196: Agenbite of inwit See note at 1.481.
9.202: I paid my way See 2.251.
9.203: He’s from beyant Boyne water. The northeast corner
Beyant: the Ulster (the north-east corner of Ireland) pronunciation of beyond. A.E.—who was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, in Ulster—spoke ‘with a decided Ulster accent’ (Eglinton, A Memoir of AE, p. 183). Boyne water: the Boyne River. In 1690, the Protestant forces of William III (of Orange) defeated the Catholic, largely Irish forces of the deposed James II at the Battle of the Boyne, which turned the tide against James’s attempt to regain the throne and led to the Protestant Ascendency in Ireland (Brewer’s Irish). The Boyne River marked medieval boundaries of Ulster before the Faughart Conference of 1596 (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas’, p. 324).
9.207: Buzz. Buzz.
Hamlet’s mocking response to Polonius’s old news that the players have arrived at Elsinore (II. ii.412); ‘Said in the Variorum Shakespeare edition of Hamlet (1803) to have been a common exclamation (of impatience or contempt) when any one was telling a well-known story’ (OED).
9.208: But I, entelechy, form of forms
Entelechy: ‘the condition in which a potentiality has become an actuality’ (OED). From Aristotle’s On the Soul: ‘If, then, we have to give a general formula applicable to all kinds of soul, we must describe it as an actuality [entelechy] of the first kind of a natural organized body’ (412b4–6). In his early commonplace book, Joyce wrote the following in his notes from Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire’s translation of On the Soul: ‘The soul is the first entelechy of a naturally organic body’ (NLI I.ii. f. 2; Fran O’Rourke, Allwisest Stagyrite, pp. 7–8). ‘[I]t is
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360 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses clear that Aristotle does not uphold the Platonic dualism in the De Anima, for he makes the soul to be the entelechy of the body, so the two form one substance’ (Copleston A History of Philosophy, vol. 1, p. 329). See also note at 2.75.
9.210: I that sinned and prayed and fasted
Refers to Stephen’s period of intense religious fervour, after his youthful brushes with lust and sin, as described in A Portrait from the end of chapter 2 to the beginning of chapter 4.
9.211: A child Conmee saved from pandies
Pandy: ‘A stroke on the palm of the hand with a tawse, ruler, or rod, given as a punishment to children in schools’ (OED). In A Portrait, after Stephen is falsely accused of trying to get out of work by Father Dolan (see also note at 7.618), he sees Father Conmee, the rector of the college, who assures him that the matter will be taken care of (p. 57).
9.217: She died, Stephen retorted, sixtyseven years after she was born
Anne Hathaway died, at the age of 67, on 6 August 1623 (Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare, p. 289).
9.219: she laid pennies on his eyes
After the custom of placing coins on a corpse’s eyes to prevent them from opening again (Richard Webster, Encyclopedia of Superstitions, p. 67).
9.221–22: The sheeted mirror . . . bronzelidded
Among the customs in Ireland after an individual has died: the dead person’s eyes are closed by a relative and any mirrors in the house are covered (Patricia Lysaght, ‘Old Age, Death and Mourning’, p. 287). For bronzelidded, see the previous note.
9.222–23: Liliata rutilantium See note at 1.736–38.
9.225: tangled glowworm of his lamp
After Thomas Moore’s ‘The Young May Moon’, which begins: ‘The young May moon is beaming, love, / The glow-worm’s lamp is gleaming, love’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 84).
9.234: Xanthippe
Xanthippe: Socrates’s wife; her name has become ‘proverbial for a conjugal scold’ (Brewer’s). Shakespeare mentions her in The Taming of the Shrew: ‘Be she as foul [. . .] / As Socrates’ Xanthippe’ (I.ii.69–71).
9.235–36: from his mother how to bring thoughts into the world
Socrates’s mother, Phaenarete, was a midwife (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 1, p. 96). In the Theaetetus, Socrates likens himself to a midwife: ‘My art of midwifery is in general like theirs; the only difference is that my [. . .] concern is not with the body but with the soul that is in travail of birth’ (Plato, Collected Dialogues, tr. F. M. Cornford, 150c).
9.236: Myrto
Diogenes Laertius records several different accounts of Socrates’s marriages: according to Aristotle, Socrates’s first wife was Xanthippe and his second wife was Myrto. Other accounts say Myrto was his first wife (Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, II.26).
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9.236: (absit nomen!)
Absit nomen! (Latin): ‘let her name be absent!’; plays on absit omen, a standard Latin expression meaning ‘may an (evil) omen be absent’.
9.237: Socratididion’s
A diminutive or affectionate form of the name Socrates. Socrates is called by this name in Aristophanes’s The Clouds (l. 223, The Comedies, vol. 2, p. 32).
9.237: Epipsychidion
The title of one of Shelley’s most famous poems (1821), in which he proposes that an ideal marriage is one in which souls coexist in perfect harmony. The most common translation of the title is ‘about a little soul’.
9.238: caudlelectures
To caudle: ‘to talk over, lecture (a husband)’ (OED); from Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures by Douglas Jerrold (English journalist, 1803–57) a popular domestic comedy serialised in Punch magazine in 1845 (ODNB).
9.239: archons of Sinn Fein
Archon: ‘the chief magistrate, and, after the time of Solon, one of the nine chief magistrates of the Athenian republic’ (OED), the body which condemned Socrates to death for corrupting the young. For Sinn Féin, see note at 8.458.
9.239: naggin of hemlock
For naggin see note at 4.224. Hemlock: ‘The common name of Conium maculatum, a poisonous umbelliferous plant’ (OED). Socrates was put to death by hemlock, as is recounted in Plato’s Phaedo.
9.243: baldpink lollard costard
‘George says that the National Library has two domes, the second being the bald head of its librarian, Lyster’ (Gogarty, As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, p. 13). Lollards: followers of John Wycliffe (c.1328–84), a religious reformer and the first translator of the entire Bible into English. They could be considered proto-Protestants: ‘Lollards condemned transubstantiation, indulgences, clerical celibacy, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and the temporal possessions of the church’ (Brewer’s). Costard: ‘a kind of apple of large size [. . .] applied humorously or derisively to the head’ (OED).
9.245: good groatsworth of wit
After the title of Robert Greene’s work containing an attack on Shakespeare: A Groat’s Worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance (1592); see note at 9.130. A groat: a very small sum, after an old coin, worth four pence, that ceased to be minted in 1662 (OED).
9.246: He carried a memory in his wallet
Memory: a memento (OED). After Ulysses’s assertion in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida about fading memories: ‘Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, / Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, / A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes’ (III.iii.145–46).
9.246: Romeville See note at 3.375.
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362 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.246–47: The Girl I left behind me
A popular Irish ballad, with many versions, dating back to at least 1660 (Bowen, p. 145).
9.247: If the earthquake did not time it
After Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis: ‘As when the wind, imprisoned in the ground, / Struggling for passage, earth’s foundation shakes, / Which with cold terror doth men’s minds confound’ (ll. 1046–48). Although there was an earthquake in England in 1580, ‘no scholar [. . .] attempts to fix the date [of the poem] by Shakespeare’s reference to the earthquake’ (William Schutte, Joyce and Shakespeare, p. 177). Venus and Adonis is the first published work unambiguously attributed to Shakespeare. He ‘is generally thought to have written the poem some time after June of 1592, when the theatres closed because of plague’ (New Oxford Shakespeare, vol. 1, p. 83). Brandes dates it a little earlier, at 1590–91 (p. 55).
9.248: poor Wat, sitting in his form, the cry of hounds
Wat: a hare (OED). Form: ‘a nest or lair in which a hare crouches’ (OED). From Venus and Adonis: ‘By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, / Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, / To hearken if his foes pursue him still, / Anon their loud alarums he doth hear’ (ll. 697–700). The phrase ‘sitting in his form’ comes from Thomas Mall’s The History of the Martyrs Epitomised (1747): ‘Admirable that a Hare, so often hunted with so many Packs of Dogs, should die at last quietly sitting in his Form’ (vol. 1, p. 268; with thanks to Harald Beck).
9.248–49: studded bridle
From Venus and Adonis: ‘The studded bridle on a ragged bough’ (l. 37).
9.249: her blue windows
That is, Venus’s eyes, from Venus and Adonis: ‘Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth’ (l. 482).
9.249–50: Venus and Adonis, lay in the bedchamber … light-of-love in London
‘Contemporaries aver that [Venus and Adonis] lay on the table of every light woman in London’ (Brandes, p. 56). Light: ‘wanton, unchaste’; light-of-love: ‘a woman capricious or inconstant in love; also in more unfavourable sense, a wanton, a harlot’ (both OED). The term is used in a humorous exchange in Much Ado About Nothing: ‘Clap’s into “Light o’ love”; that goes without a / burden: do you sing it, and I'll dance it’ (III.iv.39).
9.250–51: Is Katharine the shrew illfavoured? … young and beautiful
After The Taming of the Shrew: Hortensio chides his friend Petruchio, who is looking for a wealthy woman to marry: ‘Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee / And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favoured wife?’ (I.ii.59–60). He later reveals to Petruchio that Katharina is ‘with wealth enough and young and beauteous’ (I.ii.86). Ill-favoured: ‘having a bad or unpleasing appearance’ (OED).
9.252: passionate pilgrim
‘In 1599 William Jaggard, a none too scrupulous publisher, issued a poetic anthology which he entitled “The Passionate Pilgrim, by W. Shakespeare”. The volume opened with two sonnets by Shakespeare which were not previously in print, and there followed three poems drawn from the already published “Love’s Labour’s Lost”; but the bulk of the volume was by Richard Barnfield and others’ (Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare, pp. 188–89).
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9.253: doxy
Doxy: a mistress or kept woman (Partridge).
9.253: Warwickshire
The English county where Stratford is located.
9.254: he left her and gained the world of men
After Robert Browning’s (1812–89) ‘Meeting At Night; Parting At Morning’ (1845): ‘And straight was a path of gold for him, / And the need of a world of men for me’ (ll. 15–16).
9.254: his boywomen
In the Renaissance theatre, there were no female actors. Younger women were played by boys whose voices had not yet broken and older women were played by men (Paul Kuritz, The Making of Theatre History, p. 194).
9.256: He was chosen
‘It was [Anne Hathaway’s] family that hurried on the marriage [. . .]. This haste is less surprising when we find that the first child, a daughter named Susanna, was born May 1583, only five months and three weeks after the wedding’ (Brandes, p. 10).
9.256–57: If others have their will Ann hath a way
After the proverb, ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’ (ODEP). Shakespeare puns on his name ‘will’ in his sonnets (see note at 9.923). The pun on Anne Hathaway goes back at least to Charles Dibdin’s (1745–1814) ‘A Love Dittie’ in his novel Hannah Hewit; or, the Female Crusoe (1792): ‘That to be heaven Ann hath a way; / She hath a way, / Ann Hathaway—To be heaven’s self Ann hath a way’ (quoted in Schutte, p. 62 n. 5).
9.257: By cock, she was to blame
From Ophelia’s song in Hamlet: ‘By Gis and by Saint Charity, / Alack, and fie for shame! / Young men will do’t, if they come to’t; / By cock, they are to blame. / Quoth she, before you tumbled me, / You promised me to wed. / So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun, / An thou hadst not come to my bed’ (IV.v.59–66).
9.257: comether
Comether (Hiberno-English): used ‘to denote a sort of spell brought about by coaxing, wheedling, making love, &c’ (PWJ, p. 97).
9.258: sweet and twentysix
After the expression ‘sweet and twenty’ from the clown’s song in Twelfth Night (II.iii.52). Anne Hathaway was twenty-six when she married the eighteen-year-old Shakespeare (Lee, p. 19).
9.258: greyeyed goddess
In Venus and Adonis, Venus describes her eyes as ‘grey and bright and quick in turning’ (l. 140). This does not contradict her ‘blue windows’, or eyes (see note at 9.249), since in Elizabethan English ‘grey eyes’ referred to ‘blue eyes’ (OED, s.v. grey). See also note at 1.86.
9.258: boy Adonis
Adonis, a mortal, is called ‘the tender boy’ (l. 32) in Venus and Adonis.
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364 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.259: stooping to conquer
After Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops To Conquer; or, the Mistakes of a Night (1773).
9.259: as prologue to the swelling act
From Macbeth: ‘As happy prologues to the swelling act’ (I.iii.128).
9.259–60: boldfaced Stratford wench who tumbles
To tumble: to overpower and also a euphemism for sexual intercourse (OED); from Ophelia’s lewd song in Hamlet (IV.v.63). Of Shakespeare’s seduction by Anne Hathaway, Frank Harris writes: ‘I, too, Shakespeare tells us practically, was wooed by an older woman against my will’ (p. 368).
9.263: his new book
That is, the ‘new, large, clean, bright’ notebook Best had when he entered (9.75).
9.266–67: Between the acres of the rye . . . would lie
From the Page’s song in As You Like It (V.iii.23–25). Stephen had previously alluded to a ‘cornfield’ (9.260), but Best retorts that it should be a ‘ryefield’ (9.263) since the song refers to ‘acres of the rye’. However, ‘cornfield’ does occur earlier in the Page’s song: ‘That o’er the green cornfield did pass / In the spring time’ (V.iii.19–20).
9.268: Paris: the wellpleased pleaser See 3.215.
9.269–70: A tall figure in bearded homespun . . . unveiled its cooperative watch
This is George Russell (A.E.). A running joke in George Moore’s memoir Salve (1912) involves A.E. frequently checking his watch: ‘Æ took out his watch, and said that he must be getting back to his office’ (p. 14; and also at pp. 21, 29, 39). ‘Cooperative’ alludes to Russell’s demeanour and his active promotion of farming cooperatives. See also note at 8.533.
9.271: Homestead See note at 2.412.
9.273–74: Shall we see you at Moore’s tonight?
George Moore (1852–1933): Irish poet, novelist, and dramatist. He studied in Paris as a young man and, on his return to Dublin, became an important part of the Irish Revival. He lived at 4 Ely Place (Thom’s, p. 1485). ‘Moore is recognised as a superb prose stylist, and a writer who brought a European breadth of understanding to the formative phase of modern Irish literature, in the 1890s and the early twentieth century. His commitment to his art was a total one, and rewriting was the most important part of the work for him. His art was based on a reverence for life itself and for people, and a source of his comedy is his sense of the absurdity of those whose estimation of themselves exceeds what the reality can allow. He was a major influence on modern literature, and James Joyce held him in the highest esteem, sending a wreath to his cremation in 1933’ (DIB). Joyce’s later opinion of Moore was favourable, but his youthful one was harsh and critical: in 1905 he called Moore’s 1903 collection of short stories The Untilled Field (1903), ‘silly, wretched’ and ‘dull and flat, indeed: and ill written’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 111). Moore customarily had guests by his house on Sundays, not on Thursdays (Eglinton, A Memoir of AE, p. 70). While Gogarty was a
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 365 frequent guest at Moore’s evenings, Joyce was never invited. Moore dismissed Joyce’s poems and Joyce, in turn, affected indifference (Ellmann, p. 135).
9.274: Piper is coming
William J. Stanton Pyper (1868–1941): a journalist for the United Irishman (under the pseudonym Lugh), a Gaelic enthusiast, a Theosophist, and a friend of John Eglinton (Igoe, pp. 252–53). Joyce misspelt his name.
9.276: Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper
After the tongue-twister nursery rhyme: ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper’ (ODNR, p. 347).
9.277: Thursday. We have our meeting
On Thursday evenings, from 1900 to 1904, the Hermetic Society met in a room in Dawson Chambers, a group of offices at 12 Dawson Street (Thom’s, p. 1472). In ‘May 1900 Russell had founded a Hermetic Society (not to be confused with its namesake of 1885) for the dissatisfied members of the Dublin Lodge of the Theosophical Society’ (Peter Kuch, Yeats and A.E., p. 269 n. 123). See also note at 9.282.
9.279: Yogibogeybox in Dawson chambers
Stanislaus Joyce writes that Gogarty used the word box for ‘any kind of public establishment’ and he called the Hermetic Society hall the ‘ghost-box’ (The Complete Dublin Diary, p. 88). Since the late nineteenth century, the word yogi-bogi was used as a derisive reference to Theosophists and others of mystic or ascetic inclinations (John Simpson, JJON). One evening in 1904, Joyce and Gogarty raided the rooms of the Hermetic Society in Dawson Chambers and lightly vandalised the premises. Gogarty left behind a pair of women’s drawers and a note saying ‘I never did it’ bearing Eglinton’s (forged) signature (Ellmann, p. 174).
9.279: Isis Unveiled
The title of the first major text of the Theosophist movement (1877), written by Mme Blavatsky, although it is largely plagiarised from other works of occultism (James D. Hart, The Oxford Companion to American Literature, pp. 71–72). Its subtitle is ‘A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology’.
9.279: Pali book
Pali is one of the languages of India. Many of the early, seminal Buddhist texts are written in Pali (EB11). In Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky claims that Pali was the original language and that myths were first conceived in Pali before they were disseminated into what became diffuse ancient cultures (vol. 2, p. 555). In the Trieste notebook, under the heading ‘Dedalus (Stephen)’, Joyce wrote, ‘He pawned a Pali book’ (Robert Scholes and Richard Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 95; JJA, vol. 7, p. 117).
9.280: umbrel umbershoot
Umbrel: umbrella. Umbershoot, from bumbershoot: umbrella (both OED).
9.281: Aztec logos
According to Blavatsky, ‘a perfect identity of the rites, ceremonies, traditions, and even the names of the deities [exists] among the Mexicans and ancient Babylonians and Egyptians’
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366 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses (Isis Unveiled, vol. 1, p. 557) and ‘there is a logos in every mythos or a groundwork of truth in every fiction’ (p. 560). Thus, ‘Aztec logos’ refers to a Theosophist version of the Word, or eternal truth (after the Greek logos, which means word).
9.281: astral levels
‘The name that, from the starry or translucent nature of its substance, has from time immemorial, been given to the kingdom next above (or within) the physical. The astral is the region of the play of all feeling and desire of the human soul, whether incarnate or excarnate, and the region where, or the state in which, it becomes conscious of the passing away of the physical body’ (Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theological Terms, p. 15).
9.281: oversoul
In his essay ‘The Over-Soul’, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) calls it, ‘that Unity [. . .] within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other (Essays and Lectures, pp. 385–86).
9.281: mahamahatma
A Sanskrit compound word, built out of maha (great) and mahatma (great soul), thus meaning, ‘great, great soul’. Hoult defines a Mahatma as ‘One who has attained nirvana, or liberation, but retains his physical body for the purpose of helping forward the progress of humanity’ (Dictionary of Theosophical Terms, p. 78). Blavatsky used the word Mahatma to designate her own teachers.
9.282: chelaship
Chela: ‘in esoteric Buddhism, a novice qualifying himself for initiation’ (OED). Chelaship is thus a kind of spiritual apprenticeship.
9.282: ringroundabout him
After the nursery rhyme ‘Ring-a-ring o’roses’ (ODNR, pp. 364–65). In his unfinished memoirs, George Roberts (see note at 9.301) writes of A.E.’s Hermetic Society, ‘I won’t attempt to define its objects, which were manifold. I think perhaps its main object was that A.E. required the stimulus of an audience when he was composing his weekly article for the Irish Homestead’ (Irish Times, 13 July 1955, p. 5, col. g).
9.283: Louis H. Victory
Louis H. Victory (1870–1947): Irish poet and essayist; his poems were collected in Imaginations in the Dust (1903). He also wrote a book on Shakespeare, The Higher Teaching of Shakespeare (1896) (Igoe, p. 299).
9.283: T. Caulfield Irwin
Thomas Caulfield Irwin (1823–92): Irish poet and writer; he wrote one volume of prose and at least seven of poetry (Igoe, pp. 152–53).
9.283: Lotus ladies tend them i’the eyes
This phrase derives from Antony and Cleopatra: ‘So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes’ (II.ii.212). In Hindu mythology the Apsaras are ‘guardians of the forest, rivers, and fertility [. . .] They [. . .] exude the fragrance of the lotus. Apsaras are paradoxical in nature, erotic as well as eternal virgins’ (Madhu Bazaz Wangu, Images of Indian Goddesses, p. 38).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 367
9.284: pineal glands aglow
Theosophists believed the pineal gland to be a vestige of a third eye which was capable of seeing transcendentally that could be ‘reactivated’ through esoteric methods (Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theological Terms, p. 99).
9.284: Buddh under plantain
Siddhartha Gotama (Buddha) achieved enlightenment meditating under the Bodhi tree in Buddh Gaya (also called Bodh Gaya), which lies about 10 km south of Gaya city in Bengal (EB11, s.v. Gaya). The Bodhi tree is not of the genus plantain.
9.285: Gulfer of souls, engulfer
To gulf: to swallow up in a whirlpool (OED); suggests the sea-monster Charybdis, that ‘sucks down the black water’ (Odyssey, XII.104).
9.285–86: Hesouls, shesouls, shoals of souls. Engulfed with wailing . . . bewail
After the tongue twister, ‘She sells sea shells by the seashore’. Also echoes Dante’s description of the underworld as a ‘hellish storm, never resting’ (Inferno, V.31), full of ‘shrieks, weeping and lamentation’ (V.35). In Theosophy, a shell is ‘a name given to Kama-Rupa [the vehicle of desire and passion], from which the higher principles have withdrawn’ (Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 129).
9.287–88: In quintessential triviality . . . dwelt
After the first two lines of Louis H. Victory’s (see note at 9.283) poem ‘Soul-Perturbating Mimicry’: ‘In quintessential triviality / Of flesh, for four fleet years, a she-soul dwelt’ (Imaginations in the Dust, vol. 1, pp. 132–33). ‘Joyce has mildly misquoted to conceal the fact that the poem describes a child’ (SS, p. 142).
9.290–91: Mr Russell, rumour has it, is gathering together a sheaf . . . verses
George Russell edited the collection New Songs; a Lyric Selection (1904), which included works by several poets, but not Joyce. Russell’s foreword offers the poems as representative of ‘a new mood in Irish verse’ (p. 5). Contrary to the claim here that it features ‘our younger poets’ verses’, only two of the poets featured in the collection—Colum and Starkey (see notes at 9.301)—are of the same generation as Joyce, the rest are closer to Russell’s age (37 in 1904). Furthermore, ‘Joyce here commits a slight anachronism, since New Songs had already been published in early March’ (Richard M. Kain, Susan L. Mitchell, p. 29). Gogarty, likewise not included, reviewed New Songs for the inaugural issue of Dana (May 1904, p. 32).
9.295: caubeen
Caubeen (Hiberno-English): a shabby old hat, from the Irish cáibín (PWJ, p. 338). The caubeen was a typical attribute of the nineteenth-century caricature of the Paddy (Lewis Perry Curtis, Apes and Angels, p. 45).
9.296: My casque and sword
After Troilus and Cressida: ‘Were it a casque composed by Vulcan’s skill, / My sword should bite it’ (V.ii.170–71). Casque: ‘A piece of armour to cover the head; a helmet’ (OED). The specific phrase ‘casque and sword’ is a proverbial chivalric attribute of nineteenth-century medievalism and originates in a poem by Matthew ‘Monk’ Lewis (1775–1818), ‘Sir Agilthorn’, which was made
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368 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses popular by its publication in Walter Scott’s anthology Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: ‘Oh! see, she brings his casque and sword!’ (l. 19; vol. 3, p. 341; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
9.296–97: Touch lightly with two index fingers
From Aristotle’s Problems: ‘Why is it that an object which is held between two crossed fingers appears to be two? Is it because we touch it at two sense-organs? For when we hold the hand in its natural position we cannot touch an object with the outer sides of the two fingers’ (Complete Works, tr. E. S. Forster, 965a36–39).
9.297–98: Necessity is that in virtue . . . that one can be otherwise
From Aristotle’s Metaphysics: ‘We say that that which cannot be otherwise is necessarily so’ (1015a34–35).
9.298: Argal
Argal: ‘Perversion of Latin ergo, “therefore”; hence, a clumsy piece of reasoning’ (OED); the gravedigger in Hamlet uses the word several times in trying to prove that Ophelia’s death was not a suicide (V.i.9–20).
9.301: Young Colum
Padraic Colum (1881–1972): Irish playwright, poet, novelist, and a friend of Joyce. Five of his poems were included in Russell’s anthology (DIB). Along with his wife Mary (née Maguire, 1884–1957), they wrote Our Friend James Joyce (1958). As a young man, Joyce considered Colum a rival and refers to him in his broadside poem ‘Gas from a Burner’ as ‘Patrick What-do-you-Colm’ (the name Colm is pronounced collum).
9.301: Starkey
James Sullivan Starkey (1879–1958): Irish editor and poet, who later changed his name to Seumas O’Sullivan. Five of his poems were included in Russell’s anthology (DIB).
9.301: George Roberts
George Roberts (1873–1953): a Dublin literary aspirant and publisher. Four of his poems were included in Russell’s anthology. He was a founding member of the Irish National Theatre Society and served as its first secretary. Besides acting in some of their early productions, he dealt with various of its business aspects, such as securing funding and a permanent venue (DIB). See also note at 4.522.
9.302: Longworth will give it a good puff in the Express
Ernest Victor Longworth (1874–1935): barrister and editor of the Unionist Daily Express (1901–04) (Igoe, p. 176). Joyce himself wrote several reviews for the Express (see notes at 7.307 and 9.1158–59).
9.303: Colum’s Drover
Padraic Colum’s poem ‘A Drover’, included in Russell’s anthology New Songs (p. 42).
9.304: Yeats
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939): Irish poet and dramatist, a leading figure of the Irish Revival and a co-founder in 1899 of the Irish Literary Theatre (DIB). Joyce met Yeats for the first time in 1902. Yeats tried to be helpful both then and later (for example, in 1913 Yeats put Joyce in touch with Ezra Pound, who was instrumental in getting A Portrait and Ulysses published). However,
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 369 Joyce, as a young man, despite admiring much of the older poet’s work, did not always reciprocate in kind (Ellmann, pp. 98–103, 349–50). According to Stanislaus, ‘He had read everything that Yeats had written in prose or verse, so far as it was procurable, and considered him, with Mangan, the only Irish poet worthy of that high title’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 112).
9.304–05: his line: As in wild earth a Grecian vase
The last line of Padraic Colum’s poem ‘A Portrait’, the lead poem in Russell’s anthology New Songs (p. 9), originally published in the United Irishman, 1 November 1902. For its republication in a 1907 collection of Colum’s verse, the poem was retitled after its original subtitle, ‘A Poor Scholar of the “Forties” ’ (Sanford Sternlicht, Padraic Colum, p. 46).
9.306–07: Miss Mitchell’s joke about Moore and Martyn
Susan Mitchell (1866–1926): Irish essayist, poet, and, from 1901, associate editor of the Irish Homestead. ‘Displaying a ready wit and a natural ability for writing, she wrote many essays and book reviews, and became lifelong friends with George Russell, (AE) who valued her writing highly. [. . .] A popular and well known figure in Irish literary circles [. . .] she had a wicked sense of humour, and [. . .] satirised Moore’s pomposity’ (DIB). She made a joke about the mismatched friends George Moore (see note at 9.273–74) and art patron Edward Martyn (1859–1923) to the effect that Moore was Martyn’s ‘wild oats’ (Kain, Susan L. Mitchell, p. 22). Ulysses is the first reference in print to this joke (with thanks to Ronan Crowley).
9.308–09: They remind one of don Quixote and Sancho Panza
Sancho Panza, the squat, pragmatic pig farmer, who served as bemused squire to the mad gentleman turned knight-errant, Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’s (Spanish writer, c.1547–1616) Don Quixote (1605, 1615).
9.309: Our national epic has yet to be written, Dr Sigerson says
George Sigerson (1838–1925): Irish physician, poet, man of letters, and senator (DIB). This statement misrepresents Sigerson’s claims. In a lecture on the history of Irish literature that was delivered to the Irish Literary Society in 1892, he stated that ancient Irish literature, while as majestic as any ancient epic, is distinct and unrelated to any Classical norms. ‘That Epic stands alone, nor should we desire to have ideas cast in the same mould. [. . .] Our ancient literature must be judged by itself, on its intrinsic merits as the articulate expression of independent humanity’ (‘Irish Literature’, p. 69). He goes on to argue that contemporary Irish literature needs to recapture this protean, independent vitality: ‘Irish literature is of many blends, not the product of one race but of several. [. . .] We possess a unique treasure in that ancient literature which grew up from a cultured people, self-centred, independent of Roman discipline’ (p. 109). ‘Yet out of the Dead Past speaks still the Living Voice. So, to-day, we may be illumined by the light of a star which perished a thousand years ago’ (p. 111). ‘If our nation is to live, it must live by the energy of intellect, and be prepared to take its place in competition with all other peoples. [. . .] And remember that while wealth of thought is a country’s treasure, literature is its articulate voice, by which it commands the reverence or calls for the contempt of the living and of the coming nations of the earth’ (p. 114). Elsewhere, Sigerson claimed that the great Irish epic had already been written: ‘The influence of the ancient Irish on the Continent began in the works of Sedulius, whose “Carmen Paschale”, published in the fifth century, is the first great Christian Epic worthy of the name. Though he adopted the Latin forms of verse, he infused into them certain characters which reveal the Gael’ (Bards of the Gael and Gall, p. 29); Sigerson’s
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370 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses translation of the Carmen Paschale was published in 1922. In an article for Eglinton’s journal Dana (see note at 9.322), Robert Wilson Lynd (Irish journalist and essayist, 1879–1949) follows from some of Sigerson’s points and more explicitly calls for an Irish national epic: ‘There is one question which will scarcely be settled among us until Ireland has taken her place among the comfortable and great nations. This is the question, How far, and in what sense, ought literature to be a distinctively national affair?’ (Dana, 12 Apr. 1905, p. 371; Friedhelm Rathjen, ‘Molly through the Garden’, p. 110).
9.310–11: A knight of the rueful countenance here in Dublin. With a saffron kilt?
The Knight of the Rueful Countenance: an epithet given to Don Quixote by Sancha Panza (Cervantes, Don Quixote, I.19, p. 132). In his essay ‘Irish Books’ (1911), John Eglinton makes reference to Don Quixote in order to express his scepticism towards the sentimentalised Celtic nostalgia of the Irish Revival: ‘If a masterpiece should still come of this literary movement we need not be surprised if it appears by a kind of accident and in some unexpected quarter, and we have a fancy that appearances in modern Ireland point to a writer of the type of Cervantes rather than to an idealising poet or romance writer. A hero as loveable as the Great Knight of the Rueful Countenance might be conceived, who in some back street of Dublin had addled his brains with brooding over Ireland’s wrongs [. . .] We can conceive of him issuing forth, fresh-hearted as a child at the age of fifty, with glib and saffron-coloured kilt, to realise and expose the ideals of present-day Ireland’ (Anglo-Irish Essays, pp. 87–88). The image of the saffron kilt derives from a speech made by Edmund Edward Fournier d’Albe (1868–1933), an assistant lecturer in physics at the Royal College of Science, in which he advocated the wearing of saffron kilts and plaids as an expression of national pride. C. P. Curran writes that he and his friends then duly mocked d’Albe as ‘the inventor of the particoloured, druidical Pan-Celts’ (James Joyce Remembered, pp. 16–17).
9.311: O’Neill Russell?
Thomas O’Neill Russell (1828–1908): author and founder member of the Gaelic League (see note at 7.796). However, unlike the mainstream of the Gaelic League, which favoured the vernacular language, Russell’s preference was for classical Irish. ‘His adherence to classical literary Gaelic was rigorous to the point of being elitist and pedantic’ (DIB).
9.311: O, yes, he must speak the grand old tongue
In his essay ‘Irish Books’, Eglinton lightly mocks the fetishisation of the Irish language in his image of an Irish Don Quixote: ‘What scenes might not be devised at village inns arising out of his refusal to parley with landlords in any but his own few words of Gaelic speech’ (Anglo-Irish Essays, p. 88).
9.312: And his Dulcinea?
Dulcinea del Toboso: the name Don Quixote conjures up for the woman he serves, ‘her name is Dulcinea, her country El Toboso, a village of La Mancha, her rank must be at least that of a princess, since she is my queen and lady, and her beauty superhuman, since all the impossible and fanciful attributes of beauty which the poets apply to their ladies are verified in her’ (I.13, p. 82). Later, he identifies Dulcinea as Aldonza Lorenzo, a peasant girl (I.25, pp. 197–98). Eglinton describes her Irish equivalent in his essay ‘Irish Books’: ‘His Dulcinea would be—who but Kathleen ni Houlihan herself, who really is no more like what she is taken for than the maiden of Toboso, but who, in the addled masculine brain of the Irish idealist, is a sort of wraith materialising itself on the eve of chimerical
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 371 insurrections—an old woman (God save the mark!), not a friendly and buxom wench’ (Anglo-Irish Essays, p. 88).
9.312: James Stephens
James Stephens (c.1880–1950): Irish writer and contributor to the United Irishman (DIB); not James Stephens, the Fenian (see note at 3.241–42). Joyce described Stephens to Stanislaus as ‘my rival’ and their first meeting, in Dublin in 1912, was tense. But, by the late 1920s, when Joyce was in Paris, they became friendly and Joyce even proposed that Stephens finish Finnegans Wake (Ellmann, pp. 333–34, 591–93). In a 1917 postscript to his essay ‘Irish Books’, Eglinton states that in the six years since he first wrote the essay, promising new work has been published by both Stephens and Joyce (Anglo-Irish Essays, p. 89).
9.314: Cordelia. Cordoglio
Cordelia: the youngest of King Lear’s daughters, whose scrupulous honesty will not permit her to make an ostentatious display of affection towards her father. Cordoglio (Italian): deep sorrow.
9.314: Lir’s loneliest daughter
A play on ‘Lear’s loneliest daughter’, that is Cordelia. This phrase ‘Lir’s lonely daughter’ comes from Thomas Moore’s ‘The Song of Fionnuala’ (l. 3, Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 39). In Irish mythology, the ocean-god Lir’s daughter Fionnuala is transformed into a swan by Aeife, her jealous foster mother (Ellis, s.v. Fionnuala).
9.315: Nookshotten
Nook-shotten: ‘Having many corners, angles, or projections; having an irregular form’ (OED). From Henry V: ‘that nook-shotten isle of Albion’ (III.v.14).
9.315: French polish
French polish: ‘A spirit-based solution of shellac, gum arabic, etc., which, with repeated applications, produces a deep gloss on a wooden surface’ (OED).
9.317: give the letter to Mr Norman
Harry Felix Norman (1868–1947): editor of the Irish Homestead from 1899 until 1905 when George Russell (see note at 2.257) replaced him (Igoe, p. 227). In 1904, he was the secretary of the Hermetic Society (see note at 9.277) (Thom’s, p. 1472). The letter is Deasy’s.
9.321: God ild you
God ’ild you: ‘God yield you,’ that is, ‘God reward you’ (OED, s.vv. God; yield); ‘used in returning thanks’ (Onions, A Shakespeare Glossary, p. 94). Touchstone, a clown, uses this phrase twice in As You Like It (III.iii.74–75 and V.iv.56) and Ophelia uses it once in Hamlet (IV.v.41).
9.321: The pigs’ paper See note at 2.412.
9.322: Synge
John Millington Synge (1871–1909): one of Ireland’s foremost dramatists (DIB). Joyce met Synge in Paris in 1902 (see note at 9.576–77). Synge let Joyce read his play Riders to the Sea (1904) in manuscript: Joyce’s initial reaction was unfavourable to the point of hostile. But over the years—and especially after Synge’s death—Joyce’s attitude to both Synge and Riders
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372 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses mellowed. He translated it into Italian and in 1918 mounted a production of that play in Zürich (Ellmann, pp. 123–25, 167, 440).
9.322: Dana
Dana: a Dublin magazine edited by John Eglinton and Fred Ryan, which ran from May 1904 to April 1905. It was subtitled ‘A Magazine of Independent Thought’. During its short run it became ‘Ireland’s finest and most intellectually ambitious journal’ (Frank Shovlin, The Irish Literary Periodical, p. 2) by challenging the orthodoxies of the Irish Revival in advocating for a greater cosmopolitanism. Dana published a poem by Joyce (see note at 9.1081), but rejected his essay ‘A Portrait of the Artist’ (Ellmann, p. 147).
9.323: The Gaelic league wants something in Irish
The Gaelic League (see note at 7.796) published a weekly newspaper in Irish, An Claidheamh Soluis (The Sword of Light), which printed literary works as well as cultural commentary in English and Irish. There were also several other Irish-language journals published at this time (Philip O’Leary, The Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival, pp. 8–9).
9.324: Starkey
See note at 9.301.
9.330: chopine
Chopine: ‘A kind of shoe raised above the ground by means of a cork sole or the like; worn about 1600 in Spain and Italy, esp. at Venice, where they were monstrously exaggerated. There is little or no evidence of their use in England (except on the stage); but they have been treated by Sir Walter Scott, and others after him, as parts of English costume in the 17th cent.’ (OED). Hamlet uses the word when addressing an actor who plays women’s roles (II.ii.455).
9.332–33: Courtesy or an inward light?
Inward light: a phrase the Society of Friends (Quakers) have long used for the personal, inner experience of God’s truth. Quakers are ‘taught to believe that the inward light of each individual man was the only true guide for his conduct’ (EB11, s.v. Friends, Society of).
9.337–38: Christfox in leather trews, hiding, a runaway . . . hue and cry
Stephen’s thoughts combine details from the journal of George Fox (1624–91)—the founder of the Quakers, the religion incorrectly ascribed to Lyster (see note at 9.1)—with details from Shakespeare’s life and works. ‘The term “Christfox” alludes to three different aspects of Fox: his generally messianic nature and ministry [. . .]; his heretical belief that man on earth can achieve a Christlike perfection; and the accusations brought against him that he claimed himself to be Christ’ (F. L. Radford, ‘The Quaker in the Library’, p. 443). In his journal, Fox relates how he was called ‘the man in leathern breeches’ (George Fox: An Autobiography, p. 139). Trews: ‘closefitting trousers or breeches combined with stockings’ (OED). While Fox was hounded by various authorities who opposed his preaching, he rarely fled from prosecution and so the word runaway is instead perhaps apt for Shakespeare (Radford, p. 444). The phrase ‘hue and cry’ comes from The Merry Wives of Windsor (IV.v.86); see note at 7.447.
9.338: Knowing no vixen
Vixen: a female fox and ‘An ill-tempered quarrelsome woman’ (OED). George Fox was unmarried until the age of 45 (George Fox, p. 468–69).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 373
9.338: walking lonely in the chase
After Fox’s journals: ‘I kept myself retired to my chamber, and often walked solitary in the Chase to wait upon the Lord’ (George Fox, p. 69).
9.339: tender people
‘ “Tender” is one of George Fox’s favourite words. [. . .] It means that the persons to whom it is applied are religiously inclined, serious, and earnest in their search for spiritual realities’ (George Fox, p. 70 n. 8). He uses this word when describing how he met one of his earliest followers in Nottinghamshire in 1647, ‘I met with a tender people, and a very tender woman, whose name was Elizabeth Hooton’ (pp. 78–79).
9.339: whore of Babylon
The whore of Babylon, a figure for Rome, appears in Revelation 17–19 and was often invoked by Puritans as an emblem of the Roman Catholic Church, which they felt had become corrupt and evil. In his journals, Fox relates a story of how he successfully converted a woman in Swarthmore Hall: ‘I cast my eye upon her, and said, “Thou hast been an harlot” [. . .]. This woman came afterwards to be convinced of God’s truth’ (George Fox, pp. 185–86).
9.339: ladies of justices
George Fox’s wife, Margaret Fell, was the widow of Judge Fell of Swarthmoor Hall, Lancashire. Fox’s journal lists two other judges’ wives who became his followers (Radford, ‘The Quaker in the Library’, pp. 445–46).
9.339–40: bully tapsters’ wives
Bully: jolly, admirable (OED). Fox’s journal includes multiple references to various innkeepers’ wives who were kind to him and receptive to his teachings (Radford, p. 446). Shakespeare is alleged to have sired poet laureate Sir William Davenant (1606–68) after sleeping with a woman who was the wife of an innkeeper (i.e. ‘tapster’) named John D’Avenant (Brandes, p. 196).
9.340: Fox and geese
Fox and Geese is both a board game and a children’s playground game (Iona and Peter Opie, Children’s Games in Street and Playground, pp. 83, 132, 311). George Fox describes an encounter with adherents of an unusual religious sect: ‘I met with a sort of people that held women have no souls, (adding in a light manner), No more than a goose’ (George Fox, p. 77). Goose is also pejorative for ‘a foolish person’ (OED).
9.340: New Place
In 1594, Shakespeare purchased New Place (then already a century old), the largest house in Stratford-on-Avon at that time. When he retired from the theatre in London 1611, he finally settled in New Place (Lee, pp. 200–01, 275).
9.341: once as sweet, as fresh as cinnamon, now her leaves falling
From an old Irish song, ‘My love she was born in the north countrie’; the last stanza: ‘My love is as sweet as the cinnamon tree; / She clings to me close as the bark to the tree; / But the leaves they will wither, the roots will decay, / And fair maidens’ beauty will soon fade away’ (Bauerle, p. 53). Joyce sang this song in the Feis Ceoil singing competition on 22 August 1904, with Nora in the audience (p. 52). Stephen sings this song in Stephen Hero (p. 155).
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374 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.342: frighted of the narrow grave and unforgiven
When he returned to Stratford in around 1612, Shakespeare found Anne Hathaway ‘desperately pious and puritanical’ (Brandes, p. 671). Frighted: scared away (OED, s.v. fright). Shakespeare uses thus word several times; for example, ‘frighted with false fire’ (Hamlet, III.ii.255).
9.345–46: warm and brooding air
After Hamlet: ‘a nipping and an eager air’ (I.ii.4).
9.347: vestal’s lamp
See notes at 7.923 and 7.937.
9.348–49: what Caesar would have lived to do had he believed the soothsayer
In Julius Caesar, Caesar ignores the soothsayer’s warning to ‘Beware the Ides of March’ (I.ii.17).
9.349–50: possibilities of the possible as possible See note at 2.67.
9.350–51: what name Achilles bore when he lived among women
Achilles’s mother, Thetis, disguised him as a girl and hid him among the daughters of King Lycomedes of Skyros in order to save him from the Trojan war, where she knew he would die. This legend only exists in post-Homeric accounts, the longest being the (incomplete) Achilleid by Statius (Roman poet, c.45–c.96) (ll. 198–396). According to Suetonius (Roman historian, d. 126), the emperor Tiberius (42 bc–37 ad, r. 14–37) used to ponder various questions from his reading of mythology: ‘ “who was Hecuba’s mother?” “What was the name of Achilles among the maidens?” “What were the Sirens in the habit of singing?” ’ (Suetonius: The Lives of the Caesars, vol. 1, p. 393). In Hydriotaphia: Urn-Burial (1658), Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82) writes, ‘What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture’ (Works, vol. 3, p. 42).
9.353: Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned
Thoth: the ancient Egyptian god of learning, wisdom, and magic and the inventor of the arts and sciences. He is portrayed with the head of an ibis, a long-billed bird similar to the stork, and his head crowned with an upturned, crescent moon (Brewer’s).
9.353–54: And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest
From John F. Taylor’s speech advocating the revival of the Irish language (7.838); for details of the speech, see notes at 7.792–93 and 7.869.
9.354–55: In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks
From Richard Jefferies’s (English naturalist writer, 1848–87) The Story of My Heart: My Autobiography (1883): ‘Remember Nineveh and the cult of the fir-cone, the turbaned and bearded bulls of stone, the lion hunt, the painted chambers loaded with tile books, the lore of the arrow-headed writing’ (p. 93). The tilebooks are Assyrian clay tablets marked with cuneiform inscriptions (Alistair Stead, ‘Of Tilebooks and Mesial Grooves’, p. 3; the source was discovered by Harald Beck). See also note at 9.615.
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 375
9.360: We know nothing but that he lived and suffered
‘It has become the fashion to say, not without some show of justice, that we know next to nothing of Shakespeare’s life. [. . .] On the other hand, enthusiastic and indefatigable research has gradually brought to light a great number of indubitable facts, which furnish us with points of departure and of guidance for an outline of the poet’s life’ (Brandes, p. 3).
9.360–61: Others abide our question
The first line from Matthew Arnold’s sonnet ‘Shakespeare’ (1849).
9.362: Hamlet is so personal, isn’t it?
Brandes writes that ‘there are in Hamlet more direct utterances of the poet’s inmost spiritual life than in any of his earlier works’ (p. 366).
9.366–67: Ta an bad ar an tir. Taim in mo shagart
Tá an bád ar an tír. Táim i mo shagart (Irish): ‘The boat is on the land. I am a priest’ (Brendan O Hehir, Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 339). Joyce wrote this passage out in the Gaelic script, except for ‘in mo’, which he wrote in Roman script (Rosenbach f. 11). The ‘in mo’ is incorrect, the correct form is ‘i mo’. This mistake shows some knowledge of Irish since in is mistakenly taken from the plural conjugation. The typist typed ‘imo’ (JJA, vol. 12, p. 356), perhaps as a mistake or perhaps following a partial correction made by Joyce; this is the form that appeared in the first edition. The Reverend Eugene O’Growney’s (see note at 12.179–80) language primer Revised Simple Lessons in Irish includes the sentence ‘The boat is on the land’ as a sample sentence in English to be translated into Irish (Part I, p. 19); another sample sentence for translation is ‘A young, tall priest. The bard is young’ (p. 17) (with thanks to Eoin Mac Cárthaigh). In Stephen Hero, Stephen ‘bought the O’Growney’s primers published by the Gaelic league’ (p. 56).
9.367: Put beurla on it
Beurla (Béarla) (Irish): the English language. ‘Put beurla on it’ is a literal translation of the Irish chuir Béarla air, ‘translate it into English’ (O Hehir, Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 340). This is also a pun with the French word beurre, butter.
9.368: littlejohn
‘Littlejohn’ was George Moore’s name for John Eglinton (Vale, p. 260), taken from the name of one of Robin Hood’s band. ‘Little John’ is also the literal translation of the Irish and Hiberno-English term of disparagement shoneen (see note at 12.680).
9.372: Bear with me
From Marc Antony’s speech at the funeral of Julius Caesar (III.ii.105).
9.374–75: A basilisk. E quando vede l’uomo l’attosca. Messer Brunetto
E quando vede l’uomo l’attosca (Italian): ‘And when [the basilisk (see note at 3.116)] sees a man, it poisons him’; paraphrased from Il Tesoro di Brunetto Latini, an Italian translation, traditionally ascribed to Bono Giamboni, of Li Livres dou Tresor by Brunetto Latini (c.1210– c.1295): ‘Basilischio [. . .] col suo vedere attosca l’uomo quando lo vede’ (The basilisk [. . .] with its glance poisons the man who sees it) (Tesoro, vol. 2, pp. 137–38; James Robinson, Joyce’s Dante, p. 113). Latini, a friend of Dante, wrote this work, a compendium of medieval lore, in French during his exile from Florence between 1260 and 1267 (Robinson, pp. 112–13).
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9.375: I thank thee for that word
From Gratiano’s taunting of Shylock at the end of the trial scene in Merchant of Venice: ‘A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel,/ I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word’ (IV.i.335–36).
9.376: mother Dana
In Irish mythology, Dana is the mother goddess (Ellis).
9.377–78: so does the artist weave and unweave his image
Recalls a passage from A.E.’s poem ‘Dana’: ‘And I weave / My spells at evening’ (ll. 9–10). Also suggests the tapestry that Penelope, in the Odyssey, weaves by day and unweaves by night to keep the suitors at bay.
9.378: mole on my right breast
In Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, Iachimo hides in Imogen’s bedroom and, when she is asleep, notes the mole on her left breast: ‘On her left breast / A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops / I’ the bottom of a cowslip’ (II.ii.37–39).
9.381–82: instant of imagination, when the mind, Shelley says, is a fading coal
In ‘A Defence of Poetry’ (1821), Shelley writes: ‘the mind in creation is a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness’ (Shelley’s Poetry and Prose, pp. 503–04). Joyce previously cited this passage in his 1902 essay on James Clarence Mangan (OCPW, p. 57) and in A Portrait (p. 213).
9.383–85: So in the future, the sister of the past . . . shall be
After ‘A Cypress Grove’, an essay William Drummond (see next note) added to the second edition of his collection of poems Flowers of Sion (1630): ‘If thou dost complain that there shall be a time in which thou shalt not be, why dost thou not too grieve that there was a time in which thou wast not, and so that thou art not as old as that enlifening planet of time? [. . .] that will be after us which long, long ere we were was’ (A Cypress Grove, pp. 28–29).
9.386: Drummond of Hawthornden
William Drummond (1585–1649): Scottish poet, second Laird of Hawthornden, which is near Edinburgh (EB11).
9.387: I feel Hamlet quite young
In Act V, the gravedigger says that he began his vocation on ‘that very day that young Hamlet was born’ (V.i.160) and then elaborates that he has worked for ‘thirty years’ (V.i.176), therefore implying that Hamlet is 30. This line specifying ‘thirty years’ is in the Second Quarto and First Folio but does not appear in the earlier First Quarto. This textual discrepancy has triggered a debate about Hamlet’s age, especially since the earlier scenes in the play create ‘the impression of his youth’ (Hamlet: the New Variorum Edition, vol. 1, p. 391; see pp. 391–94). William Minto writes that ‘A proper conception of Hamlet’s age is essential to the understanding of the play’ (quoted at p. 392). Brandes argues that this crux—along with other variants between the Quarto and Folio—shows that Shakespeare had originally intended Hamlet to be young only to subsequently revise this earlier conception: ‘But as Shakespeare worked on at his drama, and came to deposit in Hamlet’s mind, as in a treasury, more and more of his own life-wisdom, of his own experience, and of his own keen and virile wit, he saw that early youth was too slight a
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 377 framework to support this intellectual weight, and gave Hamlet the age of ripening manhood’ (p. 369; see pp. 367–69).
9.390: Has the wrong sow by the lug
To have the wrong sow by the lug: to ‘hit upon the wrong thing’ (Brewer’s, s.v. sow). Lug: ear (OED).
9.391: That mole is the last to go
After Hamlet, when Hamlet says, awaiting the appearance of the ghost: ‘So, oft it chances in particular men, / That for some vicious mole of nature in them, / As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty / [. . .] / Shall in the general censure take corruption / From that particular fault’ (I.iv.23–36).
9.392: mow
Mow: a grimace, especially a scornful one (OED); Hamlet uses this word when he discusses ‘those that would make mows’ at his uncle the king (II.ii.82).
9.394: Renan
Ernest Renan (1823–92): French philosopher and historian of religion. He wrote an adaptation of The Tempest called Caliban; in his introduction he called Shakespeare ‘l’historien de l’éternité’ (the historian of eternity) (p. ii).
9.396: The spirit of reconciliation
Over his career, Shakespeare moved from writing comedies and tragedies to dark tragedies in the early 1600s, but in his later plays (1608–11) he returned to sunnier romances. Of these, Harris writes that Shakespeare ‘made up his mind to let the dead past bury its dead; he would try to forget and live sanely’ (p. 336).
9.401: hell of time
From Shakespeare’s sonnet 120: ‘For if you were by my unkindness shaken, / As I by yours, y’have passed a hell of time’ (ll. 5–6).
9.403–04: Tried, like another Ulysses, Pericles, prince of Tyre?
Ulysses appears as a character in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, one of Shakespeare’s later plays, as is Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Brandes writes: ‘Pericles is a romantic Ulysses, a far-travelled, sorely tried, much-enduring man, who has, little by little, lost all that was dear to him’ (p. 585).
9.405: Head, redconecapped, buffeted brineblinded
This description retells part of Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre, where Pericles is tossed about on the sea: ‘Thou God of this vast, rebuke these surges, / Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou, that hast / Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, / Having call’d them from the deep! O, still / Thy deafening, dreadful thunders; gently quench / Thy nimble, sulphurous flashes!’ (III.i.1–6). According to Plutarch, Pericles’s head was disproportionately large, which is why he is always depicted with a helmet (Lives, vol. 1, p. 321). This also alludes to the Odyssey where Odysseus navigates between the dangers of Scylla and Charybdis (XII.234–61), blinded by the brine of the sea. When referring to Odysseus, the red cone cap would be the conical pileus cap, which is often depicted as being red (C. Brian Rose and Gareth Darbyshire, The Golden Age of King Midas, pp. 41–42; with thanks to Anne Marie
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9.406: A child, a girl placed in his arms, Marina
In Pericles, Marina, Pericles’s daughter, is born during a storm at sea: ‘Here is a thing too young for such a place, / Who, if it conceit, would die, as I / Am like to do. Take in your arms this piece / Of your dead queen’ (III.i.15–18).
9.407: bypaths of apocrypha
The authorship of Pericles is contested: it was first published in a manifestly corrupt Quarto (1609) and was not included in the First Folio. The prevailing view is that the first two acts were written primarily by George Wilkins (c.1576–1618) and the remainder primarily by Shakespeare, with possibly additional collaborators (Brandes, pp. 579–81; see also New Oxford Shakespeare, vol. 1, pp. 1346–51). See also notes at 9.418 and 9.419–20.
9.408–09: The highroads are dreary but they lead to the town
After Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s comment that Shakespeare kept to ‘the regular high road of human affections’ (Coleridge’s Shakespeare Criticism, p. 228).
9.410: Good Bacon: gone musty
Francis Bacon (English philosopher, 1561–1626) ‘turned consciously against Aristotelianism and [. . .] did so not in favour of Platonism or of theosophy but in the name of scientific and technical advancement in the service of man. The value and justification of knowledge, according to Francis Bacon, consists above all in its practical application and utility; its true function is to extend the dominion of the human race, the reign of man over nature’ (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 293).
9.410: Shakespeare Bacon’s wild oats
‘In 1856 a Mr William Smith issued a privately-printed letter to Lord Ellesmere, in which he puts forth the opinion that William Shakespeare was, by reason of his birth, his upbringing, and his lack of culture, incapable of writing the plays attributed to him. They must have been the work of a man educated to the highest point by study, travel, knowledge of books and men—a man like Francis Bacon, the greatest Englishman of his time. Bacon had kept his authorship secret [. . .] and he used the actor Shakespeare as a man of straw’ (Brandes, p. 88). Brandes calls this theory ‘far-fetched’. For ‘wild oats’, see note at 9.306–07.
9.411: Cypherjugglers
Ignatius Donnelly (American politician and essayist, 1831–1901) tried to prove that Bacon hid his authorship of Shakespeare’s plays in a complex network of ciphers throughout the plays. He wrote two books on the subject: (the inordinately long) The Great Cryptogram: Francis Bacon’s Cipher in the So-Called Shakespeare Plays (1888) and (the mercifully shorter) The Cipher in the Plays and on the Tombstone (1900). ‘[Bacon] believed the cipher, which he had so laboriously inserted in the Plays, would be found out’ (The Great Cryptogram, p. 258). Likewise, Delia Bacon (American writer, 1811–59) claimed to have ‘discovered in Bacon’s letters the key to a cipher which would [prove Bacon’s authorship]; but unfortunately she became insane before she imparted this key to the world’ (Brandes, p. 89).
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9.412: Mummed in names
Mummed: ‘silence, especially if connoting a refusal to speak’ (Partridge). Both Magee and Russell wrote under pen-names: ‘John Eglinton’ and ‘A.E.’, respectively.
9.412: A.E., eon See note at 7.784.
9.412: Magee, John Eglinton See note at 9.18.
9.413: East of the sun, west of the moon: Tir na n-og
‘East o’ the Sun, and West o’ the Moon’ is a Norse folktale, originally collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (1841–44) and first translated into English by G. W. Dasent (Popular Tales from the Norse, pp. 25–40). It tells of a peasant girl who is tasked with finding a castle east of the sun and west of the moon in order to free her beloved prince from his evil step-mother’s curse. Tír na nÓg (Irish, land of the (forever) young): in Irish mythology, the strongest and most desirable otherworld, ‘where gods and fortunate mortals remain eternally young and live in perfect amity’ (Brewer’s Irish).
9.415–17: How many miles to Dublin? . . . candlelight?
Modified from the nursery rhyme ‘How many miles to Babylon?’ There are numerous versions, many of which substitute other cities for Babylon (ODNR, pp. 63–64).
9.418: Mr Brandes accepts it . . . as the first play of the closing period
‘Let us anticipate the works yet to be written—Pericles, Cymbeline, Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. In this splendid period of his life’s young September, his dramatic activity, bearing about it the clear transparent atmosphere of early autumn, is more richly varied now than it has ever been’ (Brandes, p. 572). Georg Brandes (1842–1927): Danish literary critic. ‘Joyce had a lifelong admiration for Brandes. On 6 January 1919, he wrote to him saying he had had his publisher send him a second copy of A Portrait, the first having gone astray’ (Ellmann, p. 230 n.).
9.419–20: What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus . . . say of it?
Lee writes: ‘Shakespeare contributed only acts III and V and parts of IV [of Pericles], which together form a self-contained whole, and do not combine satisfactorily with the remaining scenes’ (p. 251). Sidney Lee (English writer and critic, 1859–1926) was born Solomon Lazarus Lee and changed his name to Sidney Lee in 1890. He was from a Jewish family but was not a practising Jew as an adult (ODNB).
9.421: Marina, Stephen said, a child of a storm
Pericles’s daughter Marina was born in a storm at sea (see note at 9.406). Marina comes from the Latin mare: the sea.
9.421: Miranda, a wonder
Miranda is Prospero’s daughter in The Tempest. When Ferdinand, whom she will eventually marry, first sees her, he exclaims: ‘O you wonder!’ (I.ii.426). Miranda comes from the Latin miranda: she who ought to be admired or wondered at.
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9.421–22: Perdita, that which was lost
Perdita, Leontes’ and Hermione’s daughter, is lost and then found in The Winter’s Tale. Perdita is from the Latin perdere: to lose. Brandes links Marina, Miranda, and Perdita as ‘girlish and forsaken creatures [who] are lost and found again, suffer grievous wrongs, and are in no case cherished as they deserve; but their charm, purity, and nobility of nature triumph over everything’ (p. 572).
9.422: What was lost is given back to him: his daughter’s child
Shakespeare’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1608, the daughter of Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna, who married Dr John Hall of Stratford (Lee, p. 275). The year 1608 is approximately the date of the beginning of the period of the last plays.
9.423: My dearest wife, Pericles says, was like this maid
Pericles says this when reunited with Marina, whom he does not yet recognise as his daughter: ‘My dearest wife was like this maid, and such a one / My daughter might have been’ (V.i.108–09).
9.423: Will any man love the daughter if he has not loved the mother?
‘It has long been inferred, from the fact that he made her his heiress, that Susanna was Shakespeare’s favourite daughter’ (Brandes, p. 677).
9.425: gan murmur
Gan: began (OED, s.v. gin). From William Cowper’s (English poet, 1731–1800) The Task (1785): ‘The ladies first / ’Gan murmur’ (I.70–71). Shakespeare uses the contraction multiple times, but never with murmur; for example, Coriolanus: ‘the din of war gan pierce / His ready sense’ (II.ii.111–12).
9.425–26: L’art d’être grandp…
L’art d’être grandpère (French): the art of being a grandfather; the title of a book of children’s poems (1877) by Victor Hugo (1802–85).
9.427–31: Will he not see reborn . . . concupiscimus
Stephen’s statement ‘Love, yes. Word known to all men’ (9.429–30) appears to answer a question he had asked of himself in ‘Proteus’: ‘What is that word known to all men?’ (3.435). These two short paragraphs in ‘Scylla’ were absent from all editions until Gabler’s. Gabler restored them on the basis that they were present on the Rosenbach Manuscript (f. 13), but not the typescript (JJA, vol. 12, p. 357). The Rosenbach draft for ‘Scylla’ precedes the typescript, but is most probably not the manuscript from which the typescript was prepared. If this is the case, the typescript’s possible immediate holograph precursor is missing and so the Rosenbach is the sole reliable witness to the text at this specific stage of its development. The absence of this passage on the typescript could be explained as being either the typist’s accidental eyeskip from the first to the second italicised phrase (UCSE, p. 1738; Hans Walter Gabler, ‘Ulysses: A Demonstration’) or Joyce’s deliberate deletion of this passage on the missing intermediate draft. Gabler’s restoration is controversial and has been challenged (see Gabler et al., ‘The Love Word’, pp. 17–18; Jean Kimball, ‘Love and Death in Ulysses’ and ‘Love in the Kidd Era: An Afterword’). The subsequent discovery of an earlier ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ holograph manuscript—which does contain the ‘Love, yes’ passage—does not fully resolve the matter (NLI II.ii.2.b/B: f. 14; Michael Groden, ‘The National Library of Ireland’s New Joyce Manuscripts’, p. 13).
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9.430–31: Amor vero aliquid alicui . . . et ea quae concupiscimus
Redacted quotation from Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles. In the original Latin, this passage reads, ‘amor vero aliquid alicui vult; hoc enim amare dicimur, cui aliquod bonum volumus secundum modum praedictum; unde et ea quae concupiscimus [. . .]’ (I.91, p. 58). In translation, with the words Stephen thinks in italics: ‘whereas love wills something to someone, since we are said to love that to which we will some good, in the way aforesaid. Hence when we want a thing [. . .]’ ‘In brief, what Stephen has done is to extract from two sentences in the paragraph enough text to state Aristotle’s standard definition of love or friendship—“love wills something good to someone”—which Aquinas cites [. . .] as well as Aquinas’ point [. . .] about the twofold object of love. [. . .] Aquinas is [. . .] distinguishing between [. . .] the someone for whom we will good (who may even be ourselves) and the something willed, which, properly speaking, we desire rather than love’ (Kimball, ‘Love in the Kidd Era: An Afterword’, p. 374).
9.439–40: Mr George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950): Irish playwright who published commentaries on Shakespeare in the Saturday Review, which he served as its drama critic (1894–98) (DIB).
9.440: Mr Frank Harris
Frank Harris (1856–1931): Irish writer and editor of the Saturday Review (1894–99) (ODNB). His book The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life-Story (1909) grew out of a series of art icles he wrote on Shakespeare for the Saturday Review in 1898.
9.441: Saturday Review
A general interest periodical which discussed literature, politics, science and the arts. Founded in 1855 and based in London, it ran until 1938. ‘This journal became the period’s main resource for advanced literary opinion’ (Waterloo Directory).
9.442: he too draws for us . . . the dark lady of the sonnets
Frank Harris conjectures that Shakespeare had fallen in love with Mary Fitton—whom he identifies as the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets—and sent a friend, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (1580–1630), to act as an agent to plead his love (see also note at 9.523–24). The plan backfired when Fitton fell in love with Pembroke, leaving Shakespeare doubly despondent (Harris, p. 202). Brandes denies that Shakespeare’s relationship with Fitton was the occasion of the sonnets, but does agree with Harris that it was an unhappy one (p. 279). George Bernard Shaw’s play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets (1910) depicts an unhappy relationship between Shakespeare and the Dark Lady, whom he identifies as Fitton in the play, but he refutes this identification in his preface (Francis’s First Play and the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, p. 109).
9.445: our notions of what ought not to have been
A reference to the idea that some of Shakespeare’s sonnets are homoerotic (see notes at 9.732 and 9.733).
9.446–47: auk’s egg, prize of their fray
Auk: ‘Any bird of the family Alcidæ of diving birds, predominantly black, white, or grey in colour, inhabiting mainly the colder parts of the northern oceans and characterized by short wings, tail, and legs, and webbed feet. The auks include the guillemot, puffin, razor-bill, little auk, and the extinct and flightless great auk’ (OED). ‘A special interest attaches to the great auk (Alca impennis), owing to its recent extinction and the value of its eggs to collectors’ (EB11).
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9.448: He thous and thees her with grave husbandwords. Dost love, Miriam?
The practice of addressing others as thee or thou was cultivated by Quakers. ‘At this period [late seventeenth century] “thee” and “thou” were terms used in addressing inferiors, the common people and servants’ (Charles Frederick Holder, The Quakers in Great Britain and America, p. 512). The name Mary derives from the Hebrew name Miriam (Mirvam) (OED, s.v. Mary).
9.451–52: Beware of what you wish for in youth . . . middle life
From Goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth): ‘The wishes of youth are garnered in age’ (vol. 1, p. 191).
9.452: buonaroba
Buonaroba (Italian): ‘a commonplace thing’; in Elizabethan English, bona-roba: a harlot, especially a showy one (Partridge); used in this sense in 2 Henry IV III.ii.26.
9.452–53: bay where all men ride
From Shakespeare’s sonnet 137: ‘If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks, / Be anchored in the bay where all men ride’ (ll. 5–6). Harris quotes this line while upholding Mary Fitton as the ‘Dark Lady of the Sonnets’ in a series of quotes which point to her wantonness (p. 213). He also quotes line 10 of the same sonnet—‘the wide world’s common place’—which Stephen renders in Italian as ‘buonaroba’ (see previous note).
9.453: maid of honour with a scandalous girlhood
‘Mary Fitton became a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth in 1595 at the age of seventeen [. . .] it is fairly certain that she had already been married at the age of sixteen; the union was probably not entirely valid, but the mere fact [. . .] shows that even as a girl Mistress Fitton was no shrinking, timid, modest maiden’ (Harris, p. 213).
9.453: lordling
Lordling: ‘a little or puny lord; often in contemptuous sense’ (OED). William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, inherited his title in 1601 (ODNB), and until that time could not properly have been styled a Lord, but could have been disparaged as a lordling.
9.454: lord of language
From Tennyson’s poem ‘To Virgil’ (l. 5); also in Wilde’s ‘De Profundis’ (1897): ‘I, once a lord of language, have no words in which to express my anguish and my shame’ (Oscar Wilde, Complete Works, p. 1010).
9.455: coistrel
Coistrel: ‘Used as a term of reproach or contempt: knave, base fellow, low varlet’ (OED). Shakespeare spells it ‘coystril’, and uses it in Twelfth Night (I.iii.43) and in Pericles (IV.vi.176).
9.455: had written Romeo and Juliet
Frank Harris claimed this play was written in 1597, after Shakespeare had fallen in love with Mary Fitton, but before she and William Herbert had begun their affair. Harris speculates that the character of Rosalind, Romeo’s love interest prior to Juliet, is based on Fitton (p. 214). The title page of the first Quarto (1597) states that the play was performed between 22 July 1596 and 17 April 1597, so it must have been written before July 1596 (New Oxford Shakespeare, vol. 1, p. 667).
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9.455–56: Belief in himself has been untimely killed
After Macduff ’s description of himself as being ‘from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripp’d’ (Macbeth, V.vii.15–16), that is, born in a Caesarean birth. Shakespeare’s biographers tend to see Anne Hathaway as an essentially negative influence on Shakespeare’s life, and Harris was perhaps the most vehement. He writes that ‘she must have injured him, poisoned his life with her jealous nagging’ (p. 363).
9.456: He was overborne in a cornfield first (ryefield, I should say)
After Ophelia’s song in Hamlet: ‘Quoth she, before you tumbled me, / You promised me to wed’ (IV.v.63–64). For the ryefield, see note at 9.266–67.
9.458: game of laugh and lie down
From the seventeenth-century song ‘The Art of Loving’, collected in Richard Head’s The Canting Academy (see note at 3.381–84): ‘She’l smile and she’l frown, / She’l laugh and lie down, / At every turn you must tend her’ (p. 180). ‘Laugh-and-lay-down’ was also the name of a common card game played during the Elizabethan era (OED, s.v. laugh).
9.458: dongiovannism
‘It was his [Shakespeare’s] ungovernable sensuality which drove him in youth to his untimely marriage; it was his ungovernable sensuality, too, which in his maturity led him to worship Mary Fitton, and threw him into those twelve years of bondage to earthy, coarse service which he regretted so bitterly when the passion-fever had burned itself out’ (Harris, p. 383).
9.459–60: The tusk of the boar has wounded him there where love lies ableeding
Combines the subtitle of Beaumont and Fletcher’s play Philaster (1609), Love Lies Ableeding, with a passage from Venus and Adonis: ‘And, being open’d, threw unwilling light / Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench’d / In his soft flank (ll. 1051–53). Also, Odysseus had been gored in the thigh by a boar he had hunted in his youth (Odyssey, XIX.388–467).
9.460–61: If the shrew is worsted
To worst: to defeat (OED). In The Taming of the Shrew, Katherine (the shrew) is tamed by a series of humiliations perpetrated by her betrothed, Petruchio.
9.461: woman’s invisible weapon
According to King Lear, woman’s visible weapon is tears: ‘And let not women’s weapons, water drops, / Stain my man’s cheeks!’ (II.iv.279–80).
9.463–64: darkening even his own understanding of himself
From the Maynooth Catechism’s definition of original sin, for which see note at 9.1008–09.
9.464: whirlpool
Suggests the sea-monster Charybdis, that ‘sucks down the black water’ (Odyssey, XII.104).
9.465: They list. And in the porches of their ears I pour After the ghost in Hamlet; see notes at 9.144 and 7.750.
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9.468: manner of their quell
Quell: slaughter (OED); used by Lady Macbeth: ‘who shall bear the guilt / Of our great quell?’ (I.vii.71–72). Both King Hamlet and King Duncan (in Macbeth) are murdered in their sleep.
9.469–70: the beast with two backs that urged it See note at 7.752.
9.471–72: his lean unlovely English See note at 9.96–99.
9.473: what he would but would not
Recalls the line from the duet ‘Là ci darem la mano’ in Don Giovanni: ‘Vorrei e non vorrei’ (I would, and yet I would not); see note at 4.327–28.
9.473–74: Lucrece’s bluecircled ivory globes
From Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece: ‘Her breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue’ (l. 407).
9.474: Imogen’s breast, bare, with its mole cinquespotted Cinquespotted: having five spots (OED). See note at 9.378.
9.474: He goes back, weary of the creation he has piled up
‘The truth is, that the passions of lust and jealousy and rage had at length worn out Shakespeare’s strength, and after trying in vain to win serenity in “The Tempest”, he crept home to Stratford to die’ (Harris, p. 404). In contrast, Brandes proposes that Shakespeare was fulfilled when he retired to Stratford (p. 672).
9.478: His beaver is up
Beaver: ‘The lower portion of the face-guard of a helmet, when worn with a visor; but occasionally serving the purposes of both’ (OED). In Hamlet, Horatio tells Hamlet that the ghost is geared for battle: ‘O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up’ (I.ii.230).
9.479: Elsinore’s rocks or what you will, the sea’s voice
Combines the subtitle of Twelfth Night, ‘Or What You Will’, with the castle at Elsinore from Hamlet (see also notes at 1.567–68 and 3.281).
9.481: son consubstantial with the father See note at 1.658.
9.483: Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?
‘And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord’ (1 Kings 21:20 in the King James).
9.484: Entr’acte
Entr’acte (French): ‘between the acts’, or the musical skit performed during this interlude (OED).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 385
9.487: gaseous vertebrate
From the English translation of Ernst Haeckel’s (German biologist and philosopher, 1834–1919) Die Welträthsel (1899, translated 1900): ‘Nevertheless, the psychic activity of this “pure spirit” remains just the same as that of the anthropomorphic God. In reality, even this immaterial spirit is not conceived to be incorporeal, but merely invisible, gaseous. We thus arrive at the paradoxical conception of God as a gaseous vertebrate’ (The Riddle of the Universe, p. 288). The expression ‘gaseous vertebrate’ as a description of the Christian God subsequently became something of a catch-phrase among Freethinkers (Alistair Stead, ‘The Gaseous Vertebrate Unriddled’, p. 3; Lernout, Help My Unbelief, pp. 157–58).
9.489: Primrosevested See note at 1.550.
9.490: bauble
Bauble: ‘A baton or stick, surmounted by a fantastically carved head with asses’ ears, carried by the Court Fool or jester of former days as a mock emblem of office’ (OED).
9.491: Was Du verlachst wirst Du noch dienen
Was Du verlachst, dem wirst Du noch dienen (German): ‘What you mock, you will serve’, which is a translation into German of a traditional Russian saying, ‘Chemu posmeyesh’sya, tomu posluzhish’. Joyce’s source is a German translation of Ivan Turgenev’s (Russian writer, 1818–83) essay ‘Hamlet and Don Quixote’, in which he divides all humanity into two basic character types, the Hamlet type and the Don Quixote type: ‘wenn mit Recht gesagt wird “Was du verlachst, dem wirst du noch dienen”, so kann man hinzufügen: wen du verspottest, dem hast du verziehen, den kannst du sogar noch liebgewinnen’ (when it is rightly said, ‘What you mock, you will serve’, you can add: who you mock, you forgive and even love) (Ausgewählte Werke, vol. 12, p. 329). Joyce originally wrote the German phrase correctly (NLI II.ii.2b f. 15v), but when he re-added it onto the first galley proof, he accidentally omitted the relative pronoun dem, thereby making the line ungrammatical (JJA, vol. 18, p. 179). The mistake appears to have been made by Joyce’s son Giorgio when he copied the phrase—minus the dem—into a late Ulysses notebook (NLI II.i.3 f. 6r) (this source was discovered by Ronan Crowley; with thanks to Sarah Smyth for clarification of the Russian).
9.492: Brood of mockers See note at 1.657.
9.492: Photius
See note at 1.656.
9.492: pseudo Malachi
The prefix pseudo denotes dubious authenticity and even ‘a false apostle or teacher; a hypocrite or pretender’ (OED). Besides being a comment about Mulligan, this is probably also a reference to the prophecies attributed to Saint Malachy (1094–1148) in Arnold Wion’s history of Benedictism, Lignum Vitae (1595), which was reproduced in Thomas Messingham’s history of Irish saints, Florilegium insulae sanctorum, seu vitae et actae sanctorum Hiberniae (1686). ‘These prophesies consist of 111 Latin epithets, purportedly identifying every pope from the twelfth century to the coming of the angelic pope at the end of days’ (D’Arcy et al., Apocalypse and Exile, p. 15). This would make Wion a ‘pseudo-Malachi’.
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386 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.492: Johann Most
Johann Most (1846–1906): German-American publisher and anarchist. His newspaper Die Freiheit (Freedom) courted controversy by lauding the Phoenix Park murders and other acts of political violence and terrorism (Niall Whelehan, The Dynamiters, p. 285).
9.493–99: He Who Himself begot, middler . . . dead already
After a passage in an article by Johann Most, originally published in Die Freiheit and republished in 1902 as a pamphlet, Deistic Pestilence. This parodies the Apostles’ Creed (see note at 1.653). Most calls God ‘A divine charlatan who created himself through the Holy Ghost, and then sent himself as mediator between himself and others, and who, held in contempt and derided by his enemies, was nailed to a cross, like a bat to a barndoor; who was buried, arose from the dead, descended to Hell, ascended to Heaven, and since then for eighteen-hundred years has been sitting at his own right hand to judge the living and the dead when the living cease to exist’ (quoted in Lernout, Help My Unbelief, pp. 160–61).
9.494: Agenbuyer
Agenbuyer: redeemer; from againbuy, to buy back, to ransom (OED); see also note at 1.481.
9.496: crosstree
The crucifix upon which Jesus was hanged. See note at 3.504.
9.500: Glo-o-ri-a in ex-cel-sis De-o
Gloria in excelsis Deo (Latin): ‘Glory be to God in the highest’; the opening words of the Great Doxology of the Mass, which are taken from the hymn of the angelic host as Christ’s birth is announced to the shepherds at Bethlehem (Luke 2:14). It is sung after the Kyrie on Sundays in Ordinary Time (outside of Lent and Advent), during the octaves of Easter and Christmas, and on solemnities and feasts (Joseph Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 1, pp. 346–49). The music is here given as it is sung from the Roman Gradual in plainchant notation, written on a four-line staff.
9.501–02: He lifts hands. Veils fall . . . bells acquiring
Describes the action of the celebrant of the Mass as he intones the Gloria: as he says the opening words, he separates the hands, extends them, lifts them to shoulder height, joins them, bows his head at the word Deo, and with hands still joined, he bows his head several more times, before making the sign of the cross at the final words, cum Sancto Spiritu, before laying his hands on the altar (Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 1, pp. 348–59). Acquiring is a play on quiring and quire is itself a variant spelling of choir (OED), so ‘bells acquiring’ are bells ringing; see also note at 3.121.
9.510–11: The chap that writes like Synge
Gogarty tells the story that, at a gathering of the Irish theatre, ‘Yeats exclaimed in admiration of a scene he was reading: “Aeschylus!” “What does he mean?” Colum whispered, amazed. “Synge, who is like Aeschylus” [Gogarty replied]. “But who is Aeschylus?” [Colum asked] “The man who is like Synge!” [Gogarty replied]’ (As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, p. 303).
9.514: D.B.C.
The Dublin Bread Company; see note at 8.464.
9.514: Gill’s
See note at 6.317.
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 387
9.514: Hyde’s Lovesongs of Connacht See note at 9.94.
9.517–18: I hear that an actress played Hamlet . . . last night in Dublin See notes at 5.194–95 and 5.195–96.
9.518–19: Vining held that the prince was a woman
In his book The Mystery of Hamlet; An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem (1881), Edward Payson Vining (American writer, 1847–1920) proposes that Hamlet suffers from a debilitating excess of ‘feminine peculiarities’ (p. 62), as if he were a woman. ‘It is not even claimed that Shakespeare ever fully intended to represent Hamlet as indeed a woman. It is claimed that in the gradual evolution of the feminine element in Hamlet’s character the time arrived when it occurred to the dramatist that so might a woman act and feel, if educated from infancy to play a prince’s part, and that thereafter the changes in the character and in the play were all in the direction of a development of this idea’ (p. 59).
9.519–20: Has no-one made him out to be an Irishman? Judge Barton . . . clues
Sir Dunbar Plunket Barton (1853–1937), a judge of the Irish High Court of Justice (from 1900), was a Shakespeare enthusiast (DIB). Chapter 5 of his book Links Between Ireland and Shakespeare (1919) is devoted to the question of whether ‘the story of Hamlet originally came from Ireland’ (p. 22). His answer is a qualified ‘no’, but he notes that ‘the name of Hamlet appears in literature for the first time in the Annals of the Four Masters’ (p. 24) and that ‘the ghosts of the Gael bear a striking resemblance to the ghost in Hamlet’ (p. 29). Chapter 41 is titled ‘The Celt in Shakespeare’ and starts with the claim that Shakespeare’s imagination bears the ‘marks of Celtic literature’ (p. 227).
9.520–21: He swears (His Highness not His Lordship) by saint Patrick
That is, Hamlet (‘His Highness’) not Sir Dunbar (‘His Lordship’) swears by St Patrick. After Horatio says, ‘There’s no offence, my lord’, Hamlet replies, ‘Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio’ (I.v.135–36).
9.523–24: That Portrait of Mr W. H. . . . a man all hues
The first edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets is dedicated to a ‘Mr W. H.’ (Brandes, p. 266; Lee, p. 96), the identity of whom has been a subject of much debate. Brandes writes that the most likely candidate is William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (1580–1630) (Brandes, pp. 267–69). Oscar Wilde, in The Portrait of Mr. W. H. (1889), extravagantly proposes that Shakespeare’s sonnets were love poems addressed to a young actor named Willie Hughes. In Wilde’s text, the theory was proposed by a character named Cyril Graham. ‘He was Will, or as he preferred to call him, Willie Hughes. The Christian name [Graham] found of course in the punning sonnets, CXXXV and CXLIII; the surname was, according to him, hidden in the seventh line of Sonnet XX’ (Complete Works, p. 308). Line 7 of sonnet 20, and the key to this theory: ‘A man in hue, all “hues” in his controlling’; see note at 9.923 for sonnets 135 and 143. Wilde’s conceit about Willie Hughes originated with Thomas Tyrwhitt (English politician and critic, 1730–86), whose proposition had been revived by C. Elliot Browne in a letter to the Athenaeum (30 Aug. 1873, p. 277; Samuel Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives, pp. 319–20).
9.526: Or Hughie Wills? Mr William Himself
Hughie Wills is a pun on ‘Who He Wills’, which alludes to the subtitle of Twelfth Night, ‘or What You Will’. According to Wilde, ‘a German commentator called Barnstorff, [. . .]
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388 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses insisted that Mr. W. H. was no less a person than “Mr. William Himself ” ’ (Complete Works, p. 307). Wilde is referring to Diedrich Barnstorff ’s Schlüssel zu Shakspeare’s Sonnetten (1860, translated 1862, Key to Shakespeare’s Sonnets). ‘This odd Schlüssel provoked howls of derision from scholars in England and on the Continent; scholars whose own views were often not much less far-fetched’ (Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives, p. 319).
9.531: ephebe
Ephebe: a Greek youth of 18 to 20 (OED). ‘In the ancient world the ideal beloved was not a “boy” but an “ephebe” ’ (Rictor Norton, Myth of the Modern Homosexual, p. 90).
9.532: Tame essence of Wilde
The 25 June 1881 issue of Punch published a cartoon of Wilde as a sunflower with the following verse caption: ‘Aesthete of aesthetes! / What’s in a name? / The poet is Wilde, / But his poetry’s tame’ (vol. 80, p. 298).
9.533: usquebaugh See note at 6.430–31.
9.536: plump of pressmen
Plump: ‘A group of people’ (OED).
9.536: Humour wet and dry
According to medieval physiology, illness was due to an imbalance of one of the four bodily ‘humours’ (fluids): blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. These humours are categorised in terms of heat and moisture: blood is hot and wet, phlegm is cold and wet, black bile is cold and dry, and yellow bile is hot and dry (EB11, s.v. humour). In his broadside poem ‘Gas from a Burner’, Joyce writes scornfully of ‘Irish humour, wet and dry’ (l. 19).
9.537: five wits
‘Common sense, imagination, fantasy, estimation and memory; in general, the faculties of the mind; also an alternative expression for the five senses’ (Brewer’s, s.v. five wits). Mercutio refers to his five wits in Romeo and Juliet: ‘Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five’ (II.iv.71–73).
9.537: youth’s proud livery
From Shakespeare’s sonnet 2: ‘When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, / And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, / Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, / Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held’ (ll. 1–4).
9.538: Lineaments of gratified desire
From William Blake’s poem ‘The Question Answered’: ‘What is it women do in men require / The lineaments of Gratified Desire’ (ll. 3–4, Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 474).
9.539: There be many mo
From the Elizabethan lute song ‘Farewell, dear love’ (c.1600): ‘Farewell, dear love, since thou wilt needs be gone, / Mine eyes do show my life is almost done. / Nay, I will never die, / So long as I can spy. / There may be many moe / Though that she do go. / There may be many moe, I fear not. / Why then, let her go, I care not’ (ll. 1–8, E. H. Fellowes, English
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 389 Madrigal Verse, p. 494; Alistair Stead, ‘ “There Be Many Mo” ’, p. 3; the source was dis covered by Harald Beck).
9.539–40: Jove, a cool ruttime send them
After Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor: ‘Send me a cool rut time, Jove’ (V.v.15). Rut: ‘the recurring sexual excitement of the male deer’ (OED).
9.541: Eve. Naked wheatbellied sin. A snake coils her, fang in’s kiss See notes at 3.41–42 and 3.43–44.
9.542–43: The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious
It is an open question as to whether Wilde believed in the Willie Hughes theory he propounded in The Portrait of Mr W. H. (see note at 9.523–24). ‘Wilde’s destructive minion Lord Alfred Douglas [. . .] long afterwards wrote a volume in advocacy, The True History of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1933). Yet Wilde drew back from total commitment. In The Portrait of Mr W. H. he chooses a species of fiction rather than the essay form [. . .] “You must believe in Willie Hughes”, Wilde once said after a recital that left his audience deeply impressed; then added, “I almost do myself ” ’ (Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives, p. 322).
9.548: A papal bull
Bull: ‘A papal or episcopal edict or mandate’; the name comes from the leaden seal attached to papal edicts; in Latin, bulla (OED).
9.550–51: The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy . . . thing done
After George Meredith’s (1828–1909) novel The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859): ‘ “Sentimentalists”, says the Pilgrim’s Scrip, “are they who seek to enjoy, without incurring the Immense Debtorship for a thing done” ’ (p. 178). The quotation follows the revised form from the 1875 edition of the novel and not the 1859 first edition.
9.552: kips
Kip: a brothel (Partridge); see also note at 1.293.
9.552: College Green
The Post Office branch and telegraph office at 29 College Green, west of the Trinity College main gate (Thom’s, p. 1459).
9.552–53: The aunt is going to call on your unsubstantial father
See note at 1.43 for the aunt. In real life, Gogarty’s mother expressed concern about Joyce’s corrupting influence on her son. In a letter to Tom Kettle—one of Joyce and Gogarty’s friends—dated 30 December 1903—she called Joyce ‘a bad Catholic who spent a great deal of time with Oliver last winter before I discovered he was, or pretended to be, an Agnostic, so I forbade him to call here any more’ (Terence Killeen, JJON).
9.554: The Ship, lower Abbey street See note at 1.127.
9.556: keened
To keen (Hiberno-English): ‘to utter the keen, of Irish lamentation for the dead; to wail or lament bitterly [. . .] to lament in a shrill wailing tone’ (OED).
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390 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.557: querulous brogue
Querulous: complaining, peevish (OED). Brogue: ‘The Irish way of speaking English’, from the Irish barróg, speech impediment (Dolan).
9.558: It’s what I’m telling you, mister honey, it’s queer and sick we were
A parody of the Aran Island dialect. In Hiberno-English, particularly in Ulster, ‘Queer and’ is an intensifier, therefore ‘queer and sick’ means ‘very sick’ (PWJ, p. 309). From Act II of Synge’s Playboy of the Western World: ‘Let you not take it badly, mister honey’ (p. 123).
9.560: gallus potion would rouse a friar
Gallus (Hiberno-English): wild, mischievous, horrid, excellent. Synge uses this word (spelt as ‘gallous’) in Act III of The Playboy of the Western World (Dolan). Perhaps also relevant is a dialect use of the word gallows as an adjective meaning ‘excellent’ (OED).
9.561: Connery’s
The Ship Hotel at 5 Abbey Street Lower was owned by W. and E. Connery (Thom’s, p. 2010); see note at 1.127.
9.564: mavrone
Mavrone (Hiberno-English): alas (Dolan).
9.565: tongues out a yard long
With one’s tongue hanging out: ‘with great thirst or (fig.) eager expectation’ (OED, s.v. tongue). A yard long: an intensifier for rhetorical or hyperbolic effect (OED; Dent).
9.566: drouthy
Drouthy: thirsty, often as in addicted to alcohol (OED); see also note at 4.44.
9.566: do be
See note at 8.972.
9.566: pussful
Pus (Hiberno-English): mouth; ‘always used in dialect in an offensive or contemptuous sense’ (PWJ, p. 309).
9.569: tramper Synge
Tramper: one who walks extensively, a wanderer; from tramp, ‘a long, tiring, or toilsome walk or march; a trudge; a walking excursion’ (OED, s.v. tramp). Synge called himself a tramper because of his fondness for taking long walks in the Irish countryside. In various letters to his fiancée Maire O’Neill, he signed himself ‘Your old Tramper’ (J. M. Synge and Maire O’Neill, Letters to Molly, pp. 41, 52, et passim). The word occurs twice in The Playboy of the Western World (1907) and once at the end of The Tinker’s Wedding (1907).
9.570: Glasthule
Glasthule: part of Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire). At this time Synge lived at 31 Crossthwaite Park West (near, but not in Glasthule) with his family. Thom’s lists Mrs Kathleen Synge, his mother, at this address (p. 1721). In 1904, but after 16 June, he moved into an apartment in Rathmines, at 15 Maxwell Road (David M. Kiely, John Millington Synge, p. 135).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 391
9.570: pampooties
Pampooties: ‘shoes of undressed cow-skin sewn together and tied across the instep, formerly worn in the Aran Islands (the term is not used locally [. . .])’ (Dolan). Synge mentions them frequently in his journal The Aran Islands (1907): ‘Michael walks so fast when I am out with him that I cannot pick my steps, and the sharp-edged fossils which abound in the limestone have cut my shoes to pieces. The family held a consultation on them last night, and in the end it was decided to make me a pair of pampooties, which I have been wearing today among the rocks. They consist simply of a piece of raw cowskin, with the hair outside, laced over the toe and round the heel with two ends of fishing-line that work round and are tied above the instep’ (p. 21).
9.573–74: laughing to the dark eavesdropping ceiling
Eaves: ‘The edge of the roof of a building’ (OED). ‘The two offices of the chief librarian and his assistants (Eglinton and Best normally were on different shifts) were next to each other and connected by a door in the partition wall between them—“eavesdropping” because it did not reach the ceiling—as any visitor can still see today’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
9.576–77: hash of lights in rue Saint André des Arts
Lights: lungs, when used as food (OED); thus, hash of lights: a cheap stew. Herbert Gorman recounts that when Joyce was in Paris in 1902, he met with Synge on several occasions ‘in the humble bistro-restaurant in the Rue Saint-André-des-Arts [. . .]. Synge would thrust his dark crude face across the table and talk volubly, his subject always being literature. He was dogmatic in his convictions, argumentative to the point of rudeness and inclined to lose his temper’ (James Joyce, p. 101).
9.577: palabras
Palabras (Spanish): words; its use here is related to the English palaver: ‘unnecessary, profuse or idle talk’ (OED). In Much Ado About Nothing, Dogberry, a virtuoso at malapropism, admonishes his partner Verges as follows: ‘Comparisons are odorous: palabras, neighbour Verges’ (III.v.15–16).
9.578: Oisin with Patrick
Yeats’s early poem The Wanderings of Oisin (1889) is a dialogue between the legendary poet-hero Oisín (Irish: faun), or Ossian (see note at 12.1129), and St Patrick, with Oisín being the main speaker, recounting his life and adventures with other ancient heroes. The poem ends with Oisín resisting Patrick’s entreaties to convert to Christianity, saying that he would rather remain with his compatriots, even in Hell: ‘I will go to Caoilte, and Conan, and Bran, Sceolan, Lomair, / And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or at feast’ (ll. 223–24; Poems, p. 391). ‘As he remembers in Autobiographies, [Yeats] had hoped to create a new sacred book that would re-consecrate Irish myth and nationhood and restore unity of culture’ (David A. Ross, Critical Companion to William Butler Yeats, pp. 279–80). The idea of a dialogue between Oisín and St Patrick was not original to Yeats: there are numerous examples of such in older Irish poetry (pp. 280–81).
9.578: Clamart woods
Clamart: a town 8.7 km south-west of Paris adjacent to a forest. Jean de la Fontaine (French poet and fabulist, 1621–95) describes the forest of Clamart: ‘If the god Pan, or Faunus, / Prince of the wood / Ever has set a throne up, / That will be the model’ (Journey from Paris to the Limousin, p. 30).
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392 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.579: C’est vendredi saint!
C’est vendredi saint! (French): ‘It is Good Friday!’
9.580: I met a fool i’ the forest From As You Like It (II.vii.12).
9.582–83: So Mr Justice Madden . . . hunting terms
In The Diary of Master William Silence: A Study of Shakespeare and of Elizabethan Sport (1897), the Right Honourable Dodgson Hamilton Madden (Irish Unionist politician and judge, 1840–1928) presented a study of hunting and field sports in Shakespeare’s works in an imaginative fashion. Madden pretends to have discovered the journal of a Master William Silence and the conceit of Madden’s book is that this William Silence is a pseudonym for Shakespeare himself (pp. 6–7). This (fictitious) journal recounts hunting adventures in Gloucestershire. Madden’s aim is to show how ‘a description of the various incidents of the chase might serve to illustrate and to connect the scattered passages in which Shakespeare has recorded his recollections of the harbouring, the unharbouring, the hunting, the baying, and the breaking up of the hart’ (p. vi). Madden was Judge of the High Court of Justice of Ireland from 1892 and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College from 1895 (DIB).
9.586–87: Kilkenny People See note at 7.975–76.
9.592: galliard
Galliard: ‘a quick and lively dance in triple time’ (OED). In Twelfth Night, Sir Toby Belch says “Why dost thou not go to church in a galliard and come home in a coranto? (I.iii.136).
9.592: In the daylit corridor
According to Padraic Colum, ‘The librarians had their offices along a corridor one entered from behind the counter’ (‘Dublin’s Library and Joyce’s Ulysses’, New Republic, 16 May 1955, p. 3). The librarian’s office could be entered through either a door behind the counter in the reading room or the corridor, which leads to the book stacks. Bloom is waiting in front of the window in the corridor and thus appears in silhouette (Harald Beck, JJON).
9.594: broadbrim
Broad-brim: nickname for a Quaker (Partridge), after the broad-brimmed hats they wore.
9.598–99: Northern Whig, Cork Examiner, Enniscorthy Guardian
The Northern Whig was a daily regional paper published in Belfast from 1824 to 1963 (Hugh Oram, The Newspaper Book, pp. 291–92). The Cork Examiner was also a daily and was founded in 1841 (it was rebranded as The Examiner on 29 March 1996 and as The Irish Examiner on 12 April 2000). Enniscorthy is about 32 km from the sea in County Wexford; the Guardian was published there on Saturdays and was founded in 1889 (Oram, p. 344).
9.599: Evans
Thomas Henry Evans (1863–1942): attendant at the National Library; in 1904, he was the senior library assistant (Igoe, pp. 98–99).
9.605: sheeny
Sheeny: derogatory term for a Jew (Partridge).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 393
9.607: Ikey Moses
Ikey Moses: derogatory term for a Jew (Partridge).
9.609: Jehovah, collector of prepuces, is no more See note at 1.394.
9.610: foamborn Aphrodite
Aphrodite was conceived when Cronus rebelled against his father, Uranus, and cut off his genitals, which fell into the ocean. The genitals created a white foam in the sea, from which Aphrodite was born (Hesiod, Theogony, ll. 188–92). ‘Foamborn’ is the standard translation of aphrogenea, Hesiod’s epithet for Aphrodite (Theogony, l. 195).
9.612: Life of life, thy lips enkindle
From Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound (1820): ‘Life of Life, thy lips enkindle / With their love the breath between them; / And thy smiles before they dwindle / make the cold air fire; then screen them / In those looks, where whoso gazes / Faints, entangled in their maze’ (II.v.48–53).
9.614: I fear me
Shakespeare uses this phrase several times; for example, in Richard III: ‘I fear me both are false’ (I.ii.213).
9.614–15: Greeker than the Greeks
That is, Mulligan is accusing Bloom of being homosexual (see note at 1.79). Gogarty uses this line in his poem ‘The Isles of Greece’: ‘You are Greeker than the Greeks’ (Poems & Plays, p. 206, l. 62); and also in ‘To a Sailor’, an earlier version of that poem (p. 404, l. 62).
9.615: pale Galilean
From Swinburne’s poem ‘Hymn to Proserpine’ (l. 35). Galilean: ‘used by pagans as a contemptuous designation for Christ, and hence of Christians’ (OED).
9.615: mesial groove
Mesial: ‘pertaining to, situated in, or directed towards the middle line of the body’ (OED); hence, mesial groove: midline of the buttocks. Joyce might have got this line from Richard Jefferies’s The Story of My Heart (see note at 9.354–55): ‘Juno’s wide back and mesial groove’ (p. 80; Alistair Stead, ‘Of Tilebooks and Mesial Grooves’, p. 3). This line is also quoted in Edward Thomas’s biography of Jefferies (Richard Jefferies: His Life and Work, p. 195). Joyce owned a copy of this book in his Trieste library (Ellmann, Consciousness of Joyce, p. 130; John Simpson, JJON).
9.616: Venus Kallipyge
Kallipyge (Greek): ‘beautiful buttocks’. Among the statues in the rotunda of the National Museum (see note at 8.921–22) at this time was a copy of the Venus of Praxiteles, a sculpture of the goddess from the fourth century bc which shows her naked buttocks (Valérie Bénéjam, ‘Stephen and the Venus of Praxiteles’, pp. 64–66). This statue is also mentioned in Stephen’s discussion of aesthetics in A Portrait (p. 205). There is another ancient Greek statue called the Venus Callipygos (EB11, s.v. Aphrodite).
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9.616–17: The god pursuing the maiden hid
From a chorus in Swinburne’s verse play Atalanta in Calydon (1865): ‘The god pursuing, the maiden hid’ (p. 19). Joyce omitted the comma in Swinburne’s line.
9.620: patient Griselda
An epithet for a patient and virtuous woman; from Chaucer’s ‘Clerk’s Tale’, the plot of which derives from Petrarch via Boccaccio (Brewer’s, s.v. Griselda).
9.620: Penelope stay-at-home
Penelope in the Odyssey, would be an example of a ‘patient Griselda’ as she waited twenty years for her husband to return.
9.621: Antisthenes, pupil of Gorgias See notes at 7.1035 and 7.1035–36.
9.622: Kyrios Menelaus’ brooddam, Argive Helen
Kyrios (Greek): lord (see note at 7.562) Menelaus, prince of Sparta, was Helen’s husband. Brood: offspring. Dam: female parent, usually used with contempt when applied to a human. Hence Menelaus’s brooddam would be Helen, the mother of his children. Argive: Greek (all OED).
9.622: wooden mare of Troy
The Wooden Horse of Troy, also known as the Trojan Horse, was part of a plan devised by Odysseus to end the Trojan war. The Greeks pretended to abandon their siege of Troy and made a gigantic wooden horse which they claimed was a gift to the gods to secure a safe passage home. The Trojans, believing this ruse, dragged the horse into their city and were surprised to find therein Greek warriors who then set fire to Troy and captured back the adulterous Helen for Menelaus (Brewer’s, s.v. Wooden Horse of Troy). In the Odyssey, the Phaiakians’ blind muse Demodokos sings the story of the Trojan Horse (VIII.499–520); but the most extensive classical account of this story is in Book II of Virgil’s Aeneid.
9.623–25: Twenty years he lived in London . . . lord chancellor of Ireland
Most biographies place Shakespeare in London from c.1585 to 1613 (Lee, pp. 26–27, 276), so more than twenty years. Odysseus, on the other hand, did spend twenty years away from home: ten at war in Troy and another ten to get back to Ithaca. Shakespeare’s annual salary, according to Harris, was more than £600, which he claims would be ‘nearly five thousand a year of our money’ (p. 377). In 1904, the salary of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland was £8,000 per annum, but, after ‘heated controversy’ it was reduced to £6,000 per annum in 1908 (The Law Times, 1 March 1924, vol. 157, p. 175). In 1904, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland was Edward Gibson, Lord Ashbourne (1837–1913), first appointed in 1885 (Thom’s, p. 225).
9.626: art of feudalism, as Walt Whitman called it, is the art of surfeit
In ‘Notes on British Literature’, Whitman writes: ‘He is not only the tally of feudalism, but I should say Shakespeare is incarnated, uncompromising feudalism, in literature’ (Complete Writings, vol. 5, p. 276). And in ‘A Thought on Shakspere’ he writes: ‘The inward and outward characteristics of Shakspere are his vast and rich variety of persons and themes, with his wondrous delineation of each and all—not only limitless funds of verbal and pictorial resource, but great excess, superfœtation—mannerism, like a fine, aristocratic perfume, holding a touch of
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 395 musk (Euphues, his mark)—with boundless sumptuousness and adornment, real velvet and gems, not shoddy nor paste—but a good deal of bombast and fustian’ (vol. 3, p. 125).
9.626–28: Hot herringpies, green mugs of sack . . . ringocandies
Elizabethan sweets and delicacies, some of which are mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays. Sack: ‘A general name for a class of white wines formerly imported from Spain and the Canaries’ (OED). In As You Like It, Touchstone says ‘honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar’ (III.iii.31); Marchpane (marzipan) is mentioned in Romeo and Juliet (I.v.9); Ringocandy: a sweetened root considered to act as an aphrodisiac; it is not mentioned in Shakespeare’s works as such, but its cognate, eryngoes (OED, s.vv. ringocandy; eryngo), is mentioned in The Merry Wives of Windsor: ‘Let the sky rain potatoes; / let it thunder to the tune of Green-sleeves, / hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes’ (V.v.18–20).
9.628–29: Sir Walter Raleigh, when they arrested him . . . stays
According to Brandes, Sir Walter Raleigh’s (English explorer and poet, 1552–1618) ‘dress was always splendid, and he loved, like a Persian Shah or Indian Rajah of our day, to cover himself with the most precious jewels. When he was arrested in 1603 [on charges of treason against the newly installed King James I], he had gems to the value of £4,000 (about £20,000 in modern money) on his breast’ (pp. 416–17). He was imprisoned in the Tower of London for 13 years (p. 416). In 1904, 1 French franc was equivalent to 9½ d. (Thom’s, p. 31), so £20,000 would be 504,000 francs.
9.629: stays
See note at 3.431.
9.630: The gombeen woman Eliza Tudor had underlinen enough
Gombeen (Hiberno-English): a usurer, a loan-shark (Dolan). ‘Eliza Tudor’, that is, Queen Elizabeth I. Under her reign, land was forcibly seized from Irish Catholics and given over to English and Scottish Protestant settlers. ‘In all its circumstances—the creation and taking advantage of opportunity, the utilisation of the resources of state, the disregard of the natives—it epitomised the Tudor achievement in Ireland’ (NHI, vol. 3, p. 114). Stephen’s comment about underlinen is in reference to Elizabeth’s measly gift of ‘a couple of torn shifts’ to Mary Queen of Scots, sent after Mary’s flight from Langside when her wardrobe lacked any ‘ordinary clean linen’ (Francis Jacox, Shakespearean Diversions, p. 389; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
9.630–31: her of Sheba
The Biblical Queen of Sheba’s proverbial wealth and admiration of wealth (King Solomon’s) is mentioned at 1 Kings 10:2 and 2 Chronicles 9:1.
9.631–32: between conjugial love and its chaste delights and scortatory love
From the title of one of Emanuel Swedenborg’s (Swedish mystic, 1688–1772) books, Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugial Love: after which follow the pleasures of Insanity concerning Scortatory Love (1794). Scortatory: ‘Pertaining to, or consisting in, fornication or lewdness’ (OED). Conjugial: ‘Used by Swedenborg and his followers instead of conjugal adj., to distinguish their special notion of the marriage relation’ (OED). ‘We must distinctly separ ate Conjugial Love from the passion we share with animals—separate them and unite them. Conjugial Love is essentially mental; it is the passion of Woman’s mind for Man’s
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396 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Mind—a passion purely spiritual and exclusively human; but Marriage commencing in the Mind descends into the Body, and is there consummated in carnal delight’ (William White, Emanuel Swedenborg, p. 530).
9.633–37: Manningham’s story of the burgher’s wife . . . Richard III
The only surviving anecdote about Shakespeare’s personal life by a contemporary is recorded in a diary entry of John Manningham (English lawyer, 1575–1622) dated 13 March 1602. After performing as Richard III, Richard Burbage (see note at 9.168) was approached by a woman in the audience who asked that he visit her, but use the name Richard III. ‘Upon a tyme when Burbidge played Rich 3 there was a Citizen grone soe farr in liking with him, that before shee went from the play shee appointed him to come that night vnto hir by the name of Ri: the 3. Shakespeare ouerhearing their conclusion went before, [and] was intertained and . . . ere Burbidge came. Then message being brought that Richard the 3d was at the dore, Shakespeare caused returne to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard the 3. Shakespeare’s name was William’ (quoted in full in Brandes, p. 196; and recounted in Lee, p. 274 and Harris, p. 374).
9.635: more ado about nothing
A play on the title Much Ado about Nothing.
9.635: took the cow by the horns
After the proverb ‘To take the bull by the horns’ (ODEP); also alludes to the traditional representation of cuckolds as having horns (Brewer’s).
9.636: knocking at the gate
After Act II, scene 3 in Macbeth, in which a drunken porter drowsily responds to a series of loud knocks at the gate of Macbeth’s castle.
9.636: capon’s
Capon: a castrated rooster, thus by extension to humans, a eunuch (OED).
9.637–38: gay lakin, mistress Fitton
Lakin: ‘an oath, meaning “By our Ladykin”, or Little lady, where little does not refer to size, but is equivalent to dear’ (Brewer’s). Gay: ‘women leading a harlot’s life’ (Partridge). For Mary Fitton, see note at 9.442.
9.638: mount and cry O
After Posthumus’s lament in Cymbeline: ‘This yellow Iachimo, in an hour,—was’t not?—/ Or les,—at first: perchance he spoke not, but, / Like a full-acorn’d boar, a German one, / Cried “O!” and mounted, found no opposition / But what he looked for should oppose and she / Should from encounter guard’ (II.v.13–19).
9.638: birdsnies
Birdsnies: a contraction of ‘bird’s eye’, used as a term of endearment (OED).
9.638–39: lady Penelope Rich
For Penelope Rich, see note at 7.1040. Gerald Massey argued that Rich was the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets (Shakespeare’s Sonnets Never Before Interpreted, pp. 347–52).
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9.639–40: punks of the bankside, a penny a time
Punk: a prostitute (OED). The Bankside: the area by the southside of the Thames that runs around the old theatre district in London. Since the reign of Henry II (1133–89, r. 1154–89), prostitution was tolerated on the Bankside, with the result that the area was teeming with brothels (Melissa Ditmore, Encyclopedia of Prostitution, vol. 1, p. 256).
9.641: Cours la Reine
The Cours la Reine (‘queen’s walk’) runs alongside the Seine in Paris, on the right bank near the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. For many years, at night-time, this street was notorious for its prostitutes (Pierre Dufour, Mémoires curieux sur l’histoire des mœurs et de la prostitution, p. 225).
9.641–42 : Encore vingt sous. Nous ferons de petites cochonneries . . . veux ?
Encore vingt sous. Nous ferons de petites cochonneries. Minette? Tu veux ? (French): ‘Another twenty sous [1 franc]. Let’s do a little something naughty. Pussy? Want some?’ In 1904, 1 French franc = 9½d. (Thom’s, p. 31). Faire (la) minette (French): have cunnilingus.
9.643: sir William Davenant of Oxford’s mother See note at 9.339–40.
9.644: her cup of canary for every cockcanary
After Twelfth Night when Sir Toby says to Sir Andrew: ‘O knight, thou lackest a cup of canary’ (I.iii.85). Canary: a light sweet wine made in the Canary Islands (OED).
9.646: Blessed Margaret Mary Anycock!
After Marguerite Marie Alacoque; see note at 6.954.
9.647: Harry of six wives’ daughter
That is, Elizabeth I, daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (his second queen consort).
9.647–48: other lady friends from neighbour seats as Lawn Tennyson
From the Prologue to Tennyson’s The Princess; A Medley (1847): ‘And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, / And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends / From neighbour seats’ (ll. 96–98) For Lawn Tennyson, see note at 3.492.
9.651: Do and do
In Macbeth one witch responds to another’s question: ‘I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do’ (I.iii.10).
9.651: Thing done
See note at 9.550–51.
9.651–52: In a rosery of Fetter lane of Gerard, herbalist, he walks
John Gerard (c.1545–1612): a herbalist who cultivated a garden by Fetter Lane in central London; he grew more than just roses in this garden, which he describes in his 1597 book The Herball (ODNB). In A Day with William Shakespeare (1913)—a fictionalised and imaginative account of a day in Shakespeare’s life written for a wide, popular audience— Maurice Clare (pseudonym of May Byron, 1861–1936) mentions that Gerard’s garden was
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398 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses across the street from Shakespeare’s London lodgings. Clare depicts Shakespeare and Gerard as friends strolling among the roses talking about fruit: ‘Moving meditatively along Holborn, he presently encountered his old friend Gerard the botanist, whose Herball had been published two years before,—who stood at the head of his profession for knowledge and achievement. He lived in Holborn, where he had not only a fine gardenground, but a fruit-ground in Fetter Lane, which he superintended for the surgical society of which he was a member. “Well met, Will!” said the grave and reverend herbalist, “no other man in London would I more gladly welcome: for that thou hast a most worthy apprehension of the seemliness of plants and herbs. Country blood, country blood, good sir! Come, now, into my poor enclosure and let me regale thee with new and marvellous things. . . . What! it is but eight o’ the clock! The paltry playhouse shall not claim thee yet awhile. What are all Euripides his dramas, in comparison with that wherewith I shall rejoice thine eyes?” ’ (pp. 15–16; Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, pp. 59–61).
9.652: greyedauburn
In A Day with William Shakespeare, Maurice Clare describes Shakespeare as ‘ “a handsome, wellshap’d man”, in the words of his friend Aubrey,—his eyes light hazel, his hair and beard auburn’ (p. 2). John Aubrey (1626–97) writes that Shakespeare was ‘a handsome, well shap’t man: very good company, and of a very readie and pleasant smooth witt’ (Brief Lives, vol. 2, p. 226). ‘The bust of him in Stratford Church was coloured; it gave him light hazel eyes, and auburn hair and beard’ (Harris, p. 366; similarly, Lee, p. 286).
9.652: An azured harebell like her veins
After Cymbeline (IV.ii.222). Harebell: either the wild hyacinth (scillanutans) or the roundleaved bell flower (Campanula rotundifola); both of these flowers are also called bluebell (OED).
9.652–53: Lids of Juno’s eyes, violets
After The Winter’s Tale: ‘The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, / But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes’ (IV.iv.120–21).
9.656: Whom do you suspect?
The punch line of a joke, which begins with a man telling a friend that his young wife is pregnant (Gifford).
9.658: But the court wanton spurned him for a lord See note at 9.442.
9.658: his dearmylove
From Sonnet 13: ‘Dear my love, you know / You had a father: let your son say so’ (ll. 13–14).
9.659: Love that dare not speak its name See note at 3.451.
9.660–61: As an Englishman . . . he loved a lord
Frank Harris wrote that ‘Shakespeare loved a lord with a passionate admiration, and when he paints himself it is usually as a duke or prince’ (p. 230). The expression ‘An Englishman loves a lord’ is proverbial since 1909 (ODEP). In his essay ‘Thomas Moore as Theologian’, Eglinton writes: ‘ “Tom dearly loves a lord”, said his friend Byron’ (AngloIrish Essays, p. 71).
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9.662: Old wall where sudden lizards flash. At Charenton I watched them
Charenton: a town south-east of Paris, near the meeting of the Seine and the Marne, known for its lunatic asylum (EB11, s.v. Charenton-le-pont).
9.664: uneared wombs
From Shakespeare’s sonnet 3: ‘For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb / Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?’ (ll. 5–6). Uneared: ‘Unplowed, untilled’ (OED).
9.664: the holy office an ostler does for the stallion
Ostler: ‘A man who attends to horses at an inn; a stableman, a groom’ (OED). The implication here is that Shakespeare (the ostler) provides a mistress (Mary Fitton, the mare) for the Earl of Pembroke (the stallion); see also note at 9.747–48. ‘The Holy Office is better known as the Congregation of the Universal Inquisition. Its functions at present are to watch over matters connected with faith and to examine into the suspected tenets of persons or books’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Assessor of the Holy Office). It is now known as Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. ‘The Holy Office’ is also the title of a satiric poem Joyce wrote in 1904.
9.665: Maybe, like Socrates, he had a midwife to mother
On Socrates’s mother and wife see notes at 9.234 and 9.235–36. There is no reason to think that Mary Arden, Shakespeare’s mother, was a midwife. Brandes reports that she was the daughter of Robert Arden, ‘a well-to-do yeoman’ (p. 6).
9.666: But she, the giglot wanton, did not break a bedvow
Giglot: ‘A lewd, wanton woman’ (OED); Shakespeare used the word in 1 Henry VI when Joan of Arc is called ‘a giglot wench’ (IV.vii.41). Sonnet 152 reads: ‘In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn, / But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing. / In act thy bedvow broke and new faith torn / In vowing new hate after new love bearing’ (ll. 1–4).
9.672: fifth scene of Hamlet
That is, Act I, scene 5, when the ghost relates Gertrude’s infidelity to Hamlet (I.v.41–48).
9.673–74: no mention of her during the thirtyfour years between . . . buried him
Lee writes that Shakespeare did in fact mention his wife during their 34 years of marriage, ‘as the borrower at an unascertained date (evidently before 1595) of forty shillings from Thomas Whittington, who had formerly been her father’s shepherd’ (p. 194).
9.675: Mary, her goodman John
John Shakespeare, the playwright’s father, died in 1601. Mary (née Arden) Shakespeare died in 1608 (Lee, pp. 211, 275). Good man: husband (OED).
9.675–76: Ann, her poor dear Willun
Anne Hathaway died in 1623, Shakespeare in 1616 (Lee, pp. 281, 289).
9.677: Joan, her four brothers
Joan Hart (née Shakespeare) had four brothers, Edmund, Richard, Gilbert, and William— all of whom she survived (except, perhaps, Gilbert, whose death date is unknown). She died in 1646 at the age of 88 (Lee, pp. 11, 291).
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9.677: Judith, her husband and all her sons
Judith, Shakespeare’s youngest daughter, outlived her husband, sons and sister, dying in 1662 at the age of 77 (Lee, pp. 289–90).
9.677–78: Susan, her husband too
Shakespeare’s older daughter, Susanna, died in 1649. Her husband, Dr John Hall, died in 1635 (Lee, p. 290).
9.678: Susan’s daughter Elizabeth
Susanna Hall’s daughter Elizabeth was Shakespeare’s ‘last surviving descendant’. In 1626 she married her first husband, Thomas Nash, and after he died she married John Barnard. She died in 1670 without any children (Lee, p. 291).
9.679: wed her second, having killed her first
In Hamlet, the queen in Hamlet’s play says: ‘None wed the second but who killed the first’ (III.ii.190).
9.680–81: she had to borrow forty shillings from her father’s shepherd See note at 9.673–74.
9.682: swansong
Shakespeare was called the Swan of Avon by Ben Jonson; see note at 9.161. Here the phrase refers to Shakespeare’s will. Swan-song: ‘the last work of a poet or musician, composed shortly before his death; hence, any final performance, action, or effort’ (OED, s.v. swan).
9.686: She was entitled to her widow’s dower
When drafting his will, Shakespeare attempted to have his wife’s dowry revoked; ‘he had barred her dower in the case of his latest purchase of freehold estate, viz. the house at Blackfriars’ (Lee, p. 283).
9.687–88: His legal knowledge was great Our judges tell us
‘Our judges’: Judge Barton (see note at 9.519–20) and Justice Madden (see note at 9.582–83). Barton’s book on the subject of Shakespeare’s legal knowledge, Links Between Shakespeare and the Law, was published in 1929, this collects articles that had been published earlier. Madden’s character William Silence—who he claims is Shakespeare himself—‘had been brought up at Oxford, and was a member of one of the Inns of Court’ (The Diary of Master Silence, p. 6).
9.689: fleers
To fleer: ‘To laugh mockingly or scornfully; to smile or grin contemptuously; hence, to gibe, jeer, sneer’ (OED); it appears a number of times in Shakespeare, for instance in Much Ado About Nothing (V.i.58): ‘Tush, tush, man; never fleer and jest at me’.
9.691: And therefore he left out her name
Anne Hathaway is not included in the first draft of Shakespeare’s will, but only in the final copy (see the following note). His daughter Susana inherited the bulk of his property; other beneficiaries were his other daughter Judith, Susana’s daughter Elizabeth, his sister Joan, his ‘cronies at Stratford’, William Reynolds, Anthony Nash, John Nash, and Hamnet Sadler, and the actors Heminges, Burbage, and Condell (Lee, pp. 284–85).
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9.698: Secondbest
‘The name of Shakespeare’s wife was omitted from the first draft of his will, but by an interlineation in the final draft she received his second best bed with its furniture’ (Lee, pp. 282–83).
9.700: Punkt
Punkt (German): point, indicating a halt to discussion or sentence.
9.708: Pretty countryfolk See note at 9.266–67.
9.709: our peasant plays
‘Many of the audiences [at the Abbey Theatre], only a generation removed from the land, looked to the Irish peasant as a symbol of their lost identity. [. . .] A national theatre must be popular, and the peasant play met the requirements of that demand’ (Brenna Katz Clark, The Emergence of the Irish Peasant Play at the Abbey Theatre, p. 94).
9.710: He was a rich country gentleman
Shakespeare’s father, reportedly with the help of his son, was granted a coat of arms in 1599 (see note at 9.925). The playwright owned the largest house in Stratford—New Place—and other holdings in Stratford and London, where he had a house in Blackfriars (also known as Ireland Yard). He also owned shares in the Globe Theatre (Lee, pp. 273–77).
9.712: a bill promoter
Shakespeare was a ‘bill promoter’ in the sense that he promoted the shows (‘bills’) at the Globe, but this could also refer to Shakespeare’s litigiousness with regard to his real estate holdings (Lee, pp. 273–77) or to his self-promotion.
9.716: Separatio a mensa et a thalamo
Separatio a mensa et a thalamo (Latin): ‘separation from board and bedchamber’; signifies a legal separation but not a divorce, the only option available in Elizabethan England (Peter Kuch, Irish Divorce / Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, p. 54).
9.718: Antiquity mentions famous beds
In the Odyssey, when Odysseus returns home in disguise, he proves his identity to Penelope by describing how he constructed their wedding-bed out of a still rooted tree (XXIII.181–206).
9.720: Antiquity mentions that Stagyrite schoolurchin and bald heathen sage
Aristotle was born in Stagira. Diogenes Laertius has recorded Aristotle’s will, which freed and endowed some slaves, left money for a statue of his mother, requested burial with his wife, Pythias, and provided that his mistress, Herpyllis, be given use of one of his houses (Lives of Eminent Philosophers, V.11–16). See also note at 3.6.
9.723–24: don’t forget Nell Gwynn Herpyllis
Nell Gwynn (c.1650–87): English actress and Charles II’s mistress. Charles’s dying request is recorded as ‘Do not, do not let poor Nelly starve’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Dying Sayings). Herpyllis of Stagira: Aristotle’s mistress (EB11, s.v. Aristotle).
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9.726: He died dead drunk
According to a diary entry of John Ward (1629–81), rector of Stratford, Shakespeare died of a fever after a drinking binge with Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson (Harris, p. 403; Brandes, p. 685; Lee, p. 280).
9.726–27: A quart of ale is a dish for a king
From Autolycus’s song ‘When daffodils begin to peer’ in The Winter’s Tale (IV.iii.8).
9.727: Dowden
Edward Dowden (1843–1913): in 1867 he was appointed to the newly created chair of English literature at Trinity College, a position he held until his death. He established a reputation as an internationally respected literary critic with the publication of Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (1875). This was followed by a collection of his own poems (1876) as well as by other studies of various authors, including a renowned biog raphy of Shelley. ‘Dowden developed a deep hostility to Irish nationalism, and perhaps as a consequence was unable to view the Irish literary revival as anything other than repugnantly provincial and opposed to the European and English cultural traditions which he had admired all his life’ (DIB). Dowden lived at Highfield House, Highfield Road, Rathgar (Thom’s, p. 1760). Dowden claims that ‘the spirit of Protestantism [. . .] animates and breathes through his [Shakespeare’s] writing’ (Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art, p. 38).
9.729: William Shakespeare and company, limited
While the first edition of Ulysses was published by Shakespeare and Company, a bookshop in Paris, Joyce wrote this line on a manuscript dated New Year’s Eve 1918 while he was still living in Zürich (Rosenbach ff. 22, 37). This was 18 months before he moved to Paris and met Sylvia Beach, the proprietor of Shakespeare and Company, which opened on 19 November 1919 (Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company, p. 20).
9.729: The people’s William
Prime Minister William Gladstone was known as ‘The People’s William’, in recognition of his popularity in England (David Williamson, William Ewart Gladstone, p. 267). This epithet is here used in reference to Dowden’s characterisation of Shakespeare: ‘Shakspere’s representation of the people is by no means harsh or ungenial. He does not discover in them heroic virtues; he does not think a crowd of citizens is invariably very wise, patient, or temperate; and he has a certain aversion, quite under control however, to the sweaty caps, and grimy hands, and stinking breath of garlic-eaters and men of occupation. Nevertheless, Shakspere recognises that the heart of the people is sound; their feelings are generally right, but their view of facts is perverted by interests, by passions, by stupidity’ (Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art, pp. 324–25).
9.731: suspired amorously
To suspire: to utter with a sigh (OED). Shakespeare used this word several times; for example, ‘Did he suspire, that light and weightless down’ (2 Henry IV, IV.iii.164). However, the collocation ‘suspired amorously’ derives from Swinburne’s poem ‘Hermaphroditus’: ‘Their breath is fire upon the amorous air, / Fire in thine eyes and where thy lips suspire’ (ll. 9–10; Lernout, JJON).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 403
9.732: charge of pederasty
The homoeroticism of many of the sonnets has led to speculation that Shakespeare was homosexual or bisexual. For example, sonnet 20 is addressed to ‘the master-mistress of my passion’ (l. 2). Writing about this sonnet, George Steevens (English Shakespearean scholar, 1736–1800) claimed that ‘it is impossible to read this fulsome panegyrick, addressed to a male object, without an equal mixture of disgust and indignation’ (quoted in Michael Keevak, Sexual Shakespeare, p. 32). See also the note at 9.523.
9.733: All we can say is that life ran very high in those days
The opening line of Dowden’s Shakspere (1877), a shorter study intended for students: ‘In the closing years of the sixteenth century the life of England ran high’ (p. 5). While not made in reference to questions of Shakespeare’s sexuality, this sentence echoes Edmond Malone’s (Irish Shakespearean scholar, 1741–1812) rebuttal to Steevens’s complaint about the homoeroticism of some of Shakespeare’s sonnets (see previous note): ‘such addresses to men, however indelicate, were customary in our author’s time’ (quoted in Keevak, Sexual Shakespeare, p. 32).
9.735: sense of beauty leads us astray
During his unsuccessful libel suit against the Marquis of Queensberry, Wilde said that ‘a sense of beauty [. . .] is the highest sense of which a human being is capable’ (quoted in H. Montgomery Hyde, The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, p. 124). Also of possible relevance, from Edward Young’s (1683–1765) Night Thoughts (1742): ‘Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray’ (Night 6, l. 278, p. 136; Erlene Stetson, ‘Literary Talk’, p. 179).
9.738: The doctor can tell us what those words mean
That is, Edward Dowden, known throughout Dublin academic circles as Dr Dowden. Eglinton studied under Dowden while a student at Trinity (Harald Beck, JJON).
9.738–39: You cannot eat your cake and have it
Proverbial (ODEP). ‘The proverb may have been one of Eglinton’s favorites [. . .] or else he may have used it to make a didactic point on a personal occasion, for Joyce refers to it in a letter to Stanislaus in early March 1917: “I laughed at Eglinton and his cake but I fear I have eaten nearly all mine” (Letters, vol. 2, p. 219)’ (Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana III, p. 93).
9.740: Will they wrest from us, from me the palm of beauty? See note at 7.1038.
9.741–42: He drew Shylock out of his own long pocket
‘Shakespeare was attracted by the idea of making a real man and a real Jew out of this intolerable demon [Barabas, from Marlowe’s Jew of Malta]. It took effect upon his mind because it was at that moment preoccupied with the ideas of acquisition, property, moneymaking, wealth’ (Brandes, p. 151).
9.742: son of a maltjobber and moneylender
Jobber: a wholesaler (OED). Shakespeare’s father John is believed to have once worked in the malt trade (Brandes, p. 6; Lee, p. 4; Harris, p. 352). He also lent money to the town of Stratford (Lee, p. 6).
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404 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.743–44: ten tods of corn hoarded in the famine riots
Tod: ‘a load, either generally, or of a definite weight’ (OED). Shakespeare owned stores of corn during the corn famine of 1598 and is believed to have loaned money (Lee, pp. 201, 203).
9.744–45: divers of worship mentioned by Chettle Falstaff
Divers: various, several (OED); thus, divers of worship: various important people. Henry Chettle (c.1560–c.1607): London printer and playwright and allegedly the original for Falstaff. He published Greene’s Groat’s Worth of Wit, which contained an attack on Shakespeare (see note at 9.130). Chettle subsequently apologised for this in his book Kind-Hart’s Dreame (1592): ‘Divers of worship have reported his uprightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that aprooves his Art’ (quoted in Brandes, p. 19).
9.745–46: sued a fellowplayer
Shakespeare sued Stratfordian Philip Rogers (an apothecary, not an actor) for £1 15s. 10d. owed for a purchase of malt (Brandes, p. 155; Lee, p. 213).
9.746–47: pound of flesh
The payment demanded by Shylock of Antonio in Merchant of Venice (III.iii.36, et passim).
9.747–48: Aubrey’s ostler and callboy
Ostler: ‘stableman or groom at an inn’ (see also note at 9.664). Callboy: a prompter’s attend ant (both OED). John Aubrey (1626–97) states that before moving to London, Shakespeare ‘exercised his father’s trade’ and worked as a butcher (see note at 9.131). He makes no mention of Shakespeare being either an ostler or a callboy (Brief Lives, vol. 2, p. 226). Lee notes that, according to the Lives of the Poets (1753), Shakespeare’s ‘original connection with the playhouse was as holder of the horses of visitors outside the doors’ (Lee, p. 34), i.e. an ostler. Brandes notes another rumour, that Shakespeare’s ‘first office in the theatre was that of prompter’s attendant’ (Brandes, p. 13), i.e. a call boy (see note at 6.861).
9.748: grist to his mill
To bring grist to one’s mill: ‘To bring business to one’s hands; to be a source of profit or advantage’ (OED, s.v. grist).
9.749–50: the queen’s leech Lopez
Leech: both physician and parasitical person (OED). Lee claims that Shylock was inspired by Roderigo Lopez, the Queen’s Jewish physician, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered in June 1594 for allegedly plotting with Spanish agents to poison the Queen (p. 71). For sheeny, see note at 9.605.
9.751–52: the coming to the throne of a Scotch philosophaster
Philosophaster: ‘a smatterer or pretender in philosophy’ (OED). James I (1566–1625) was interested in witchcraft and even wrote a book on the subject in 1597; he actively promoted the trial and execution of witches. Brandes connects the supernatural elements of Macbeth and Hamlet with James’s fascination with the subject (p. 424).
9.752: lost armada is his jeer in Love’s Labour Lost
Don Adriano de Armado, from Love’s Labour’s Lost, the Elizabethan stereotype of Spanish vanity, gets his name from the Spanish Armada, the fleet which disastrously attempted to invade England in 1588 (Lee, pp. 52–53).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 405
9.754: Mafeking enthusiasm
Mafeking enthusiasm: ‘extravagant and boisterous celebration of an event, especially on an occasion of national rejoicing’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Mafficking); derived from the extraordinary scenes of rejoicing in London on 18 May 1900 over the successful defence of Mafeking, under siege by the Boers for 217 days during the Boer War.
9.754–55: Warwickshire jesuits . . . have a porter’s theory of equivocation
Henry Garnet, a Warwickshire Jesuit (1555–1606), was a conspirator in Guy Fawkes’s Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605 (see note at 10.442). At his trial, Garnet presented a ‘doctrine of equivocation’, which Lee suggests is alluded to in the Porter’s scene in Macbeth (II.iii.10–14; Lee, p. 247).
9.755–57: Sea Venture comes home . . . our American cousin
The Tempest has long been believed to have been inspired by accounts from the survivors of the Sea-Adventure, lost at sea in the Bermudas in 1609; Lee calls the ship ‘Sea Venture’ (p. 261). Caliban is here dubbed ‘Patsy’ after the nineteenth-century stage caricatures of Irish immigrants. For Renan, see note at 9.394; for Our American Cousin, see note at 7.733–34.
9.757: sugared sonnets follow Sidney’s
In 1598, Francis Meres (1565–1647) coined the phrase ‘sugared sonnets’ for Shakespeare’s poems (Lee, p. 93). Shakespeare’s sonnets ‘follow Sidney’s’ since they were written by 1598 (published 1609), while Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella sonnet sequence was written in the early 1580s (published 1591). Shakespeare also follows Sidney in matters of form: ‘The thoughts and words of the sonnets of Daniel, Drayton, Watson, Barnabe, Constable, and Sidney were assimilated by Shakespeare in his poems’ (Lee, p. 113).
9.757–59: fay Elizabeth, otherwise carroty Bess . . . Windsor
Fay: fairy (OED). Spenser created an allegorical rendition of red-haired (‘carroty’) Elizabeth I in The Faerie Queene (1590–96). Supposedly she enjoyed coarse humour, hence ‘gross virgin’. According to various sources, she requested Shakespeare to write The Merry Wives of Windsor because she wanted to see Falstaff in love (Harris, p. 154).
9.759: meinherr from Almany
Meinherr: a German man. Almany: Germany (both OED).
9.760: the buckbasket
Buck-basket: a washing-tub (OED); Shakespeare uses the term in The Merry Wives of Windsor (III.iii.2, et passim).
9.762: Mingo, minxi, mictum, mingere
The four principal parts of the Latin verb mingere (to urinate): mingo, first person singular present active indicative (I urinate); minxi, first person singular perfect active indicative (I have urinated); mictum, nominative singular neuter perfect passive participle ([it has been] urinated); mingere: present active infinitive.
9.763: Prove that he was a jew
As with most aspects of Shakespeare’s life, his religious convictions have been subject to speculation, with no definite conclusion. In the late seventeenth century, Richard Davies, chaplain of Corpus Christi College claimed, without elaboration, that Shakespeare ‘dyed a
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406 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses papist’ (quoted in Graham Holderness, Nine Lives of William Shakespeare, p. 164). Shakespeare’s father John was ‘identified in a government report as “recusant”, that is a Catholic who refused to attend the services of the Church of England’ (p. 166). However, this does not conclusively prove that John Shakespeare was indeed a Catholic, nor does it establish that William Shakespeare was a Catholic himself. Modern scholarship largely agrees with Lee’s assessment: ‘What [Shakespeare’s religious] opinions were, we have neither the means nor the warrant for discussing’ (p. 282).
9.763–64: Your dean of studies holds he was a holy Roman
In a two-part article published in the New Ireland Review (Dec. 1897 and Jan. 1898), Father Joseph Darlington, S.J. (1850–1939)—dean of studies at University College Dublin (see note at 17.144–46)—argued that Shakespeare was a Catholic, or at least had Catholic leanings. His central claim is that only a Catholic background could explain how an uneducated man from the provinces could write such brilliant plays: ‘In the plays of Shakspere we have an example of the Catholic mind contemplating the human race, not after death, but before it; as human life develops itself and plays its part in every shape of virtue and vice, honour and dishonour, in the theatre of the world’ (‘The Catholicity of Shakspere’s Plays’, II, p. 309). Darlington’s theory about Shakespeare being Catholic is also mentioned in Stephen Hero (p. 25). C. P. Curran writes of Darlington: ‘He was a full-blooded Aristotelian revelling in definitions and distinctions. His approach to Hamlet through Aristotle and Aquinas has for me a particular flavour as when in a characteristic excursion he attributed Hamlet’s introspection, hesitations and dubiety to his Wittenberg training’ (Under the Receding Wave, p. 80).
9.765: Sufflaminandus sum
Sufflaminandus sum (Latin): ‘I ought to be stopped’; from Ben Jonson’s comment in Timber: or, Discoveries Made Upon Man and Matter (1641): ‘Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature, had an excellent phantsie, brave notions, and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow’d with that facility, that some-time it was necessary he should be stop’d. Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too’ (Works, vol. 8, p. 584).
9.766: made in Germany
Made in Germany: a stock phrase for cheap or valueless (Partridge). Shakespeare’s popularity in Germany was such that it frequently veered into the realm of cultural appropriation. From Henry Arthur Jones’s Shakespeare and Germany (1916): ‘From other German sources we learn that Shakespeare is essentially a German in his ideas and his conception of human affairs; that if he were alive he would be enthusiastically pro-German in his sympathies’ (p. 3).
9.766–67: French polisher See note at 9.315.
9.767: Italian scandals
Many of Shakespeare’s sources and his settings are Italian (The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello, to name but three).
9.768: A myriadminded man
In the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge writes that his own work could not surpass ‘the greatest genius, that perhaps human nature has yet produced, our myriad-minded Shakespeare’ (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, p. 320).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 407
9.770–71: Amplius. In societate humana . . . multos
Amplius. In societate humana . . . multos (Latin): ‘Moreover, in human society it is most necessary that there be friendship among many people’; from Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles (III.125.5, p. 261). The next sentence: ‘Multiplicatur autem amicitia inter homines dum personae extraneae per matrimonia colligantur’ (But friendship is increased among men when unrelated persons are bound together by matrimony).
9.773: Ora pro nobis
Ora pro nobis (Latin): ‘Pray for us’; a phrase that occurs in various prayers, such as the Kyrie eleison (Rituale Romanum, p. 135).
9.775: Pogue mahone! Acushla machree!
Pogue mahone (Irish) (pog mo thóin): ‘kiss my arse’. Acushla machree (Irish): (a chuisle mo chroí), ‘pulse of my heart’; also the title of a poem by John Philpott Curran, for which see notes at 7.236 and 7.740.
9.775–76: It’s destroyed we are from this day! It’s destroyed we are surely!
From Synge’s Riders to the Sea (ll. 237–38; The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays, p. 9), first performed on 25 February 1904 at Dublin’s Molesworth Hall.
9.778: Saint Thomas . . . gorbellied works
Gorbellied: ‘having a protuberant belly; corpulent’ (OED); a joke on both the length of Aquinas’s Summa Theologica and Aquinas’s excessive girth (see note at 3.385). For Aquinas’s view of incest, see note at 9.770–71.
9.780: the new Viennese school Mr Magee spoke of
Possibly a reference to Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) or, more likely, to Freud’s colleague Otto Rank (1884–1939), whose book Incest Motif in Poetry and Saga (1912) has two chapters devoted to themes of incest in Shakespeare’s works.
9.783–84: Jews . . . are of all races the most given to intermarriage
Though prohibited in Judaism by Talmudic law, intermarriage was, and continues to be, quite common. ‘Intermarriage was rare before the Emancipation of Jewry, but increased in the nineteenth century with the establishment of civil marriages’ (Blackwell Dictionary of Judaica).
9.784–85: The christian laws which built up the hoards of the jews
Canon law—encapsulated in the Decretum of Gratian (twelfth century, but in use by canonists until 19 May 1918), and various church councils—prohibited the practice of lending money at interest (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. usury). ‘The Jews, though excluded from agriculture, found a source of income in certain urban trades as medicine, which they could supplement by lending to poor Christians in the towns. The Jews play only a minor role [. . .] because, in the parts of Europe where the circulation of money was most active, they were replaced at a fairly early stage [. . .] by Christians, and then expelled from much of Europe [. . .]. We see that the image of the Jew as money-grubber was based less on reality, though small-scale Jewish moneylenders did exist, than on a fantasy prefiguring the anti-Semitism of the nineteenth century’ (Jacques Le Goff, Money and the Middle Ages, p. 62).
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408 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.785–86: as for the lollards, storm was shelter
For Lollard, see note at 9.243. From the Reverend William Henry Summers’s (1850–1906) Lollards of the Chiltern Hills (1906): ‘One reason for the cessation of persecution referred to in the last chapter was probably the growing weakness of the House of Lancaster. The losses in France, the rebellion of Cade in 1450 (when there is no mention of religious grievances), and above all the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses in 1455, might all tend to make its supporters feel it impolitic to add to the number of its enemies. As Fuller beautifully says of the Lollards, “The very storm was their shelter” ’ (p. 65; Harald Beck, JJON).
9.786: bound their affections too with hoops of steel
In Hamlet, Polonius’s parting advice to Laertes includes the injunction, ‘Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, / Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel’ (I.iii.62–63).
9.787: old Nobodaddy
William Blake’s poem ‘To Nobodaddy’: ‘Why art thou silent & invisible / Father of Jealousy / Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds / From every searching Eye? // Why darkness & obscurity / In all thy words & laws, / That none dare eat the fruit but from / The wily serpents jaws? / Or is it because Secrecy gains females loud applause’ (Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 471). His poem ‘Let the Brothels of Paris be opened’ mentions ‘old Nobodaddy aloft’ (l. 13, p. 499).
9.788: leet
Leet: a court held by the lord of a manor (OED).
9.790: sir smile neighbour
From The Winter’s Tale, where the jealous Leontes speculates about the common predicament of men who have been betrayed by their wives: ‘his pond fish’d by his next neighbour, by / Sir Smile, his neighbour’ (I.ii.195–96).
9.790–91: shall covet his ox or his wife or his manservant
From the last of the Ten Commandments, as given at Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5:21.
9.792: jennyass
Jennyass: ‘a she ass’ (Partridge).
9.792: antiphoned
Antiphone: answer (OED).
9.793: Gentle Will
After Ben Jonson’s phrase ‘Gentle Shakespeare’, which is used in two dedicatory poems to the First Folio, ‘To the Reader’ and ‘To the Memory of my Beloved’; see note at 9.161.
9.797: Requiescat! See note at 3.83.
9.798–99: What of all the will to do? . . . long ago The first two lines of A.E.’s poem ‘Sung on a By-Way’.
9.800–01: mobled queen
Mobled: with face muffled (OED); one of the actors uses this phrase to describe Hecuba, Priam’s wife, in Hamlet (II.ii.524).
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9.801–02: rare as a motorcar is now See note at 7.341.
9.802–03: In old age she takes up with gospellers
Gospeller: a pejorative term for an evangelical (or in this case, Puritan) preacher (OED); see also note at 9.342.
9.803–04: one stayed at New Place . . . the town council paid for
For sack, see note at 9.626–28. A 1614 entry in the Stratford municipal accounts records: ‘Item, for one quart of sack and one quart of clarett wine given to a preacher at the New Place, XX d’ (Brandes, p. 679).
9.804–05: it skills not to ask
It skills not to ask: it’s no use to ask (OED, s.v. skill).
9.806–07: loosing her nightly waters
After Romeo and Juliet: ‘Which with sweet water nightly I will dew’ (V.iii.14).
9.807: jordan
Jordan: a chamber pot (OED).
9.807–09: Hooks and Eyes for Believers’ Breeches . . . Sneeze
Both these titles derive from an article about Octave Delepierre’s (Belgian lawyer, writer, antiquary, 1804–79) book Histoire littéraire des fous (1860, History of the Literature of Lunatics) that was published in the Irish Daily Independent on 15 June 1904: ‘The number of works on theology and religious subjects written by known lunatics is immense. A mere catalogue of the titles of these books would occupy many pages. The very names of the volumes are often absurdly fantastical, such as “Hooks and Eyes for Believers’ Breeches” and “The Spiritual Snuffbox to make the Most Devout Souls Sneeze” ’ (p. 4, col. h; SS, p. 127). In his book, Delepierre identifies the first as a sermon by someone named Baxter published in England and the second as a French book, La Tabatière spirituelle pour fair éternuer les âmes dévotes (p. 20).
9.809–10: Agenbite of inwit: remorse of conscience See note at 1.481.
9.810: It is an age of exhausted whoredom groping for its god
Brandes characterises the Jacobean court as ‘vicious throughout. [. . .] Even the elder Disraeli, James’s principal admirer and apologist, acknowledges that the morals of the Court were appalling, and that these courtiers, who passed their days in absolute idleness and preposterous luxury, were stained by infamous vices’ (p. 488).
9.811: inquit Eglintonus Chronolologos
Mock Greek/Latin. Inquit: Latin, says. Chronologos: Greek, time recorder or chronologer.
9.812–13: a man’s worst enemies shall be those of his own house and family
After William Blake’s preface to chapter 2 of Jerusalem, titled ‘To the Jews’: ‘A mans worst enemies are those / Of his own house & family’ (ll. 81–82, Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 173). Blake’s lines, in turn, derive from the Bible: Jesus said, ‘And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household’ (Matthew 10:36 and Luke 12:52–53).
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410 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.815–16: fat knight
Sir John Falstaff ’s girth is referred to many times in Shakespeare, but he is called by this epithet only twice: in King Henry IV (IV.vii.48) and Merry Wives of Windsor (IV.ii.25).
9.817: deny thy kindred
After Romeo and Juliet: ‘O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father and refuse thy name’ (II.iii.33–34).
9.817: unco guid
Unco guid: ‘those who are professedly strict in matters of morals and religion’ (OED, s.v. unco).
9.817–18: Shy, supping with the godless, he sneaks the cup
In 1 Henry IV, Falstaff, in mock-seriousness, complains that ‘villainous company’ (III.iii.9)— Prince Hal and his cohorts—has kept him from going to church. He then calls the Prince a ‘sneak-up’ (III.iii.98), which the OED defines as: ‘A mean, servile, or cringing person; a sneak; a shirk’. Many editions of this play, from the first Folio onwards, erroneously read ‘sneak-cup’. ‘The later reading is due to a worn e type in Quarto, which at first sight seems to read sneakcup’ (C. J. Sisson, New Readings in Shakespeare, vol. 2, pp. 35–36; Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana II’, p. 243).
9.818: sire in Ultonian Antrim
Ultonian: a person from Ulster. Antrim: a county in north-east Ulster. Off the coast of Antrim is the Island Magee, Magee being Eglinton’s real name. However, Magee’s immediate family was from Dublin (DIB).
9.819: quarter days
Quarter days: the traditional dates which begin the quarters of the year, on which rents and so forth would be due. ‘In England and Ireland the quarter-days are Lady Day (March 25), Midsummer Day (June 24), Michaelmas (Sept. 29), and Christmas (Dec. 25)’ (OED).
9.820: Give me my Wordsworth
Eglinton wrote about Wordsworth at length in his first publication Two Essays on the Remnant (1895). ‘Magee’s sense of the mystic is unusual for a revival writer of the 1890s in that it owes more, as Ernest Boyd suggested, to Wordsworth than to the then influential theosophist, Madame Blavatsky’ (DIB).
9.820–21: Magee Mor Matthew
Mor (Irish): senior. Magee’s father was an Irish Protestant clergyman and superintendent of the Dublin city mission (DIB). Matthew is a figure of an old schoolmaster who recurs in some of William Wordsworth’s early works, such as ‘Expostulation and Reply’ (1798): ‘One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, / When life was sweet I knew not why. / To me my good friend Matthew spake, / And thus I made reply’ (ll. 13–16).
9.821: rugged rough rugheaded kern
Rugheaded: covered with thick hair (OED). Kern: ‘a light-armed Irish soldier; one of the poorer classes among the “wild Irish”, from whom such soldiers were drawn’; also ‘a rustic, peasant, boor’ (OED). From Richard II: ‘Now for our Irish wars: / We must supplant those rough rugheaded kerns’ (II.i.155–56).
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9.821: in strossers
Strossers: trousers (OED); from Henry V: ‘you rode, like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait strossers’ (III.vii.56–57).
9.822: codpiece
Codpiece: ‘a bagged appendage to the front of the closefitting hose or breeches worn by men from the 15th to the 17th century’ (OED).
9.822: nether stocks
Netherstock: ‘A stocking’ (OED); used in 1 Henry IV (II.iv.129) and King Lear (II.iv.11).
9.822: clauber of ten forests
Clauber: variant of clabber, mud (OED, s.v. clabber). After a line from scene 1 of the 1895 version of Yeats’s play The Countess Cathleen: ‘Though the dead leaves and clauber of four forests / Cling to my footsole’ (The Variorum Edition of the Plays of W. B. Yeats, p. 12).
9.822–23: wand of wilding in his hand
Wilding: ‘a wild apple or apple-tree; a crab-apple or crab-tree’ (OED). After the last stanza of Wordsworth’s ‘Two April Mornings’ (1799, 1800): ‘Matthew is in his grave, yet now, / Methinks I see him stand, / As at that moment, with a bough / Of wilding in his hand’ (ll. 57–60).
9.826: Dr Bob Kenny
Doctor Robert J. D. Kenny, 30 Rutland Square West. Kenny was a surgeon at the North Dublin Union Hospital, an extension of the North Dublin Poor Law Union (Thom’s, pp. 875, 1360, 1921). He was a friend of John Stanislaus Joyce and attended Joyce’s mother during her final illness (Costello, James Joyce, p. 210).
9.829: He wrote the play in the months that followed his father’s death
Hamlet was officially registered on 26 July 1602. Shakespeare’s father, John, died on 8 September 1601. As Brandes puts it, Shakespeare’s father died, and ‘in the same year Hamlet began to take shape in Shakespeare’s imagination’ (p. 341).
9.830: two marriageable daughters
That is, Susanna (born 1583, married in 1607) and Judith (born 1585, married 1616).
9.831: nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita (Italian): ‘In the middle of the journey of our life’; the opening line from Dante’s Inferno (I.1). Following from the Bible, Dante measured a human lifetime as 70 years (Psalms 89:10; 90:10 in the King James), making the midway point 35 years, which was his age in 1300, the year in which the Divine Comedy is set. Shakespeare was 37 in 1601.
9.832: beardless undergraduate from Wittenberg
Hamlet was a student at the University of Wittenberg (I.ii.13 et passim). On the question of Hamlet’s age, see note at 9.387. Darlington (see note at 9.763–64) claims that Hamlet’s indecision stems from his education at Wittenberg, a hotbed of Platonism. ‘In contrast to the philosophy of Wittenberg embodied in the character of Hamlet, Shakspere forcibly brings out and emphasizes with utmost reverence the opposite teaching’ (‘The Catholicity of Shakspere’s Plays’, II, p. 308). For Darlington, this ‘opposite teaching’ is Aristotle’s, as embodied in the teachings of Aquinas that are foundational for Catholicism.
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412 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.833: his seventyyear old mother
It is not known when Mary Shakespeare was born, but as she was married in 1557 (Lee, p. 7), it is logical that she would have been at least sixty in 1601.
9.833–34: The corpse of John Shakespeare does not walk the night See note at 8.67–68.
9.834–35: From hour to hour it rots and rots
Jaques, in As You Like It: ‘And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, / And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; / And thereby hangs a tale’ (I.vii.26–28).
9.836–37: Boccaccio’s Calandrino . . . felt himself with child
Calandrino is a gullible character from Boccaccio’s Decameron, where he is fooled into believing that he is pregnant and is cured of his ‘condition’ at great cost (Day 9, story 3, pp. 658–62).
9.838: apostolic succession
Apostolical succession: ‘an uninterrupted transmission of spiritual authority through a succession of bishops from the apostles downward’ (OED, s.v., apostolical).
9.838–39: from only begetter to only begotten
Shakespeare’s sonnets are dedicated ‘To the onlie begetter of these ensuing sonnets’ (Lee, p. 96); Lee explains that in this context, ‘begetter’ means ‘obtainer or procurer’ (the OED records that the earliest sense of beget is ‘to obtain’). See also note at 9.523–24 for the problematic dedication to the sonnets. According to the Nicene Creed (see note at 3.45), Jesus Christ is ‘the only begotten Son of God’ (Catholic Encyclopedia).
9.840: On that mystery . . . the cunning Italian intellect
The doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception—that she was conceived and born ‘exempt from all stain of original sin’—was made official dogma by Pope Pius IX, an Italian, in 1854 in the apostolic constitution, Ineffabilis Deus (8 December 1854) (Catholic Encyclopedia).
9.842–43: Amor matris, subjective and objective genitive . . . in life See notes at 2.143 and 2.165–66.
9.844: Paternity may be a legal fiction
Telemachus makes a similar claim in the Odyssey: ‘Nobody really knows his own father’ (I.216). Joyce wrote his brother Stanislaus on 18 September 1905: ‘I think a child should be allowed to take his father’s or mother’s name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 108). Legal fiction: ‘an assumption that something is true even though it may be untrue, made esp. in judicial reasoning to develop the law’ (OED, s.v. legal). ‘Generally, a legal fiction is a false assumption of fact made by a court, as the basis of resolving a legal issue. Its purpose is to reconcile a specific legal result with an established rule of law’ (Christopher Gray, The Philosophy of Law, p. 300).
9.844–45: Who is the father of any son . . . love him or he any son?
After Hamlet’s soliloquy on the dangers of portraying emotion falsely: ‘What’s Hecuba to him, or he to her, / That he should weep for her?’ (II.ii.553–54).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 413
9.848: Amplius. Adhuc. Iterum. Postea.
The Latin words amplius (moreover), adhuc (again), item (also), and praeterea (further) are formulaic transitional words that appear in Aquinas’s works. In Summa Contra Gentiles, all four words are used as single-word sentences at the beginning of a paragraph to highlight the contours of the argument (see note at 9.770–71 for an example). Joyce seems to have confused item with iterum (again) and praeterea with postea (afterwards).
9.852–53: loves that dare not speak their name See note at 3.451.
9.854: queens with prize bulls
In book VIII of the Metamorphoses, Ovid tells how Daedalus (see note at 1.34) made a hollow wooden cow so Pasiphaë could copulate with the wild bull that Zeus had provided for her husband, King Minos II. She gave birth to the Minotaur (half-man, half-bull). Minos then had Daedalus construct the labyrinth in which to trap the Minotaur.
9.858: rue Monsieur le Prince
A street in the Latin Quarter in Paris.
9.862: Sabellius, the African See note at 1.659–60.
9.862: subtlest heresiarch of all the beasts of the field
After Genesis 3:1 in the King James: ‘Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.’
9.863: The bulldog of Aquin
Thomas Aquinas, sometimes called Thomas of Aquin. Aquinas was a Dominican, Domini canes, Hounds of the Lord (Brewer’s, s.v Dominicans). In the Summa Theologica, he argues against Sabellius several times: ‘To avoid the heresy of Sabellius, we must shun the term “singularity”, lest we take away the communicability of the divine essence’ (I, q. 31, a. 2).
9.866: Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare
An amalgam of various people who have been proposed as the ‘true’ authors of Shakespeare’s works: Roger Manners (1576–1612), 5th Earl of Rutland; Sir Francis Bacon (see note at 9.410); Henry Wriothesley (1573–1624), 3rd Earl of Southampton; and Shakespeare himself. ‘Burkhard Herrman (writing under the name Peter Alvor) first proposed in 1906 that Rutland wrote the comedies, Southampton the tragedies and histories (James Shapiro, Contested Will, p. 311).
9.866–67: another poet of the same name in the comedy of errors
The plot of The Comedy of Errors hinges on confusions of identity between long-lost twins, both named Antipholus, and their twin servants, both named Dromio.
9.870–71: nature, as Mr Magee understands her, abhors perfection
Eglinton (Magee) wrote: ‘Nature abhors perfection. Things perfect in their way, whether manners, poetry, painting, scientific methods, philosophical systems, architecture, ritual, are only so by getting into some backwater or shoal out of eternal currents, where life has ceased to circulate’ (Pebbles from a Brook, p. 45). See also note at 8.498.
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414 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.873: through the twisted eglantine
Eglantine: ‘sweet briar’ (OED). After Milton’s poem ‘L’Allegro’ (1645), when the morning lark greets the speaker, ‘Through [. . .] the twisted Eglantine’ (ll. 47–48).
9.875: Himself his own father See note at 1.659–60.
9.876: I have an unborn child in my brain. Pallas Athena!
Zeus gave birth to Pallas Athena (Odysseus’s patron, Greek goddess of wisdom) from his forehead (Brewer’s, s.v. Minerva).
9.876–77: The play’s the thing! From Hamlet (II.ii.633).
9.877: Let me parturiate!
To parturiate: ‘To bring forth young; to bear fruit’ (OED).
9.879–80: his mother’s name lives in the forest of Arden
Shakespeare’s mother’s maiden name was Arden (Lee, p. 7), and As You Like It is set in the pastoral forest of Arden. There is a forest of Arden in Warwickshire (EB11).
9.880: Her death brought from him the scene with Volumnia in Coriolanus
Coriolanus was written about 1608 and Mary Arden, Shakespeare’s mother, died on 9 September that year. Volumnia dies in Coriolanus V.iii after persuading her son not to conquer Rome for the Volsces. Brandes connects May Shakespeare’s death with Volumnia (p. 532; also Harris, p. 353).
9.881: His boyson’s death is the deathscene of young Arthur in King John
Hamnet Shakespeare’s death at age 11 in August 1596 roughly corresponds to the accepted dating of King John. Brandes parallels the pathos of Arthur’s death in the play and the death of Shakespeare’s only son (pp. 140–49).
9.882: Hamlet, the black prince, is Hamnet Shakespeare
Although Hamlet’s grief over the death of his father caused him to clothe himself in black, he is never called ‘the black prince’; this was the epithet of Edward (1330–76), the eldest son of Edward III (1312–77, r. 1327–77) (EB11, s.v. Edward III).
9.882–83: Who the girls in The Tempest, in Pericles, in Winter’s Tale are we know
‘It was probably his [Shakespeare’s] daughter who led him back from the brink of the grave. [. . .] Judith became a symbol for him, and he lent her the ethereal grace of abstract beauty. In “Pericles” she is Marina: in “The Winter’s Tale” Perdita; in “The Tempest” Miranda’ (Harris, pp. 336–37). See also note at 9.421–22.
9.883–84: Who Cleopatra, fleshpot of Egypt, and Cressid and Venus . . . guess
For fleshpot of Egypt, see note at 3.177–78. In Shakespeare’s works, Cleopatra, Cressida, and Venus are all seductive temptresses.
9.890: They list See note at 9.144.
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 415
9.892: Come, mess
Mess: a group of four (OED): in this case, Mulligan, Lyster, Best, and Eglinton. Shakespeare uses this expression in Love’s Labour’s Lost (IV.iii.214) and 3 Henry VI: ‘Where are your mess of sons’ (I.iv.73); the four sons being Edward, George, Richard, and Edmund, Earl of Rutland (three of whom have names similar to Shakespeare’s three brothers; see the following note).
9.894: Gilbert, Edmund, Richard
William Shakespeare’s three brothers: Gilbert (b. 1566), Edmund (1580–1607), and Richard (1574–1613) (Lee, p. 11).
9.895: nowt
Nowt (regional English, chiefly from the Midlands, northern England, and Northern Ireland): nothing (OED).
9.895: Maister Gatherer
Maister: archaic spelling of master. Gatherer: the ticket vendor at a theatre (both OED).
9.896: Mass
Mass: ‘frequently employed in oaths’ (Partridge).
9.897: wrastling play wud a man on’s back
In imitation of a Warwickshire accent. After a story, first recorded by William Oldys (1696–1761) in Biographia Britannica, that Shakespeare’s brother Gilbert had gone to London and saw William appear in As You Like It, which contains a wrestling scene (I.ii). Gilbert maintained that he saw his brother in the role of Adam (on a man’s back), not of Orlando, who carries Adam on his back (Lee, p. 45).
9.897: playhouse sausage See note at 9.157.
9.901: What’s in a name?
Juliet’s comment to Romeo upon learning he is a Montague (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.43).
9.907: piano, diminuendo
These are both musical terms, from the Italian. Piano: soft. Diminuendo: an instruction to the performer to gradually reduce the volume of the instrument or voice (both Grove).
9.908–09: Then outspoke medical Dick . . . medical Davy
From Gogarty’s lewd poem ‘Medical Dick and Medical Davy’, which was included in a letter to Joyce from 1902 or 1903 and is dedicated to ‘James Augustine Joyce Scorner of Mediocrity and Scourger of the Rabblement’, an epithet inspired by Joyce’s 1901 essay ‘The Day of the Rabblement’ (Gogarty, Poems & Plays, p. 435). The ballad contrasts Medical Dick and his ‘bloody big prick’ with Medical Davy’s ‘buckets of gravy’ (i.e. sperm). Medical Dick and Medical Davy also appear in Gogarty’s play Blight (Turner and Mamigonian, ‘Solar Patriot’, p. 646).
9.911–12: In his trinity of black Wills, the villain shakebags . . . Lear
That is, Shakespeare’s three most villainous characters: Iago is the villain of Othello; ‘Richard Crookback’ is Richard III; Edmund is the treacherous bastard son of Gloucester in King
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416 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Lear. The anonymous Arden of Feversham (1592, variously attributed to Shakespeare, whether in whole or part) includes two killers named Black Will and Shakebag (Macdonald P. Jackson, Determining the Shakespeare Canon, p. 12). Shakebag has since become proverbial for a scoundrel (OED).
9.913–14: being written while his brother Edmund lay dying in Southwark
That ‘last play’ is King Lear, which was first performed on 26 December 1606 (as is stated on the title page of the quartos). Edmund Shakespeare (who died at twenty-eight) was buried on 31 December 1607 (Lee, pp. 249, 292). The length of his illness, however, is unknown.
9.919: a tempo
A tempo: a musical instruction which indicates a return to the original tempo after an alteration has occurred (Grove).
9.919: But he that filches from me my good name Said by Iago in Othello (III.iii.159).
9.921: stringendo
Stringendo: a musical term which indicates an acceleration of the tempo (Grove).
9.921: He has hidden his own name, a fair name, William
There are several characters named William in Shakespeare’s works, but none are of any great importance. There is, however, the exchange alluded to here in As You Like It, when Touchstone calls the clown William’s name ‘A fair name’ (V.i.25). Williams appear in 1 and 2 Henry VI, The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, and 2 Henry IV.
9.922: a super here
Super: supernumerary, a theatrical term for a non-speaking role (OED).
9.923: in the sonnets where there is Will in overplus
From Shakespeare’s sonnet 135: ‘Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will, / And Will to boot, and Will in over-plus’ (ll. 1–2). The pun on ‘Will’ (desire, penis) is also used in sonnet 136: ‘Make but my name thy love, and love that still, / And then thou lovest me, for my name is “Will” ’ (ll. 13–14) and sonnet 143: ‘So will I pray that thou mayst have thy “Will”, / If thou turn back, and my loud crying still’ (ll. 13–14).
9.924: Like John o’Gaunt his name is dear to him
In Richard II, John of Gaunt (Richard’s uncle), puns on his name (II.i.73–83).
9.925: coat and crest he toadied for
In 1596, John Shakespeare applied for a coat of arms based on claims of dubious merit. This was finally awarded in 1599. Presumably, this was done at William’s behest (Harris, pp. 378–79; Brandes, pp. 152–53).
9.925: on a bend sable a spear or steeled argent
A description of the Shakespeare family’s coat of arms: ‘Gould on a bend sable a sphere of the first, the point steeled proper, and for creast or cognizance, a faulcon, his wings displayed argent, standing on a wreathe of his coullors, supporting a speare gould, steled as
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 417 aforesaid’ (Brandes, p. 153; Lee, p. 196). It bore the motto Non sans droict (Not Without Right). The spear was gold, on a black band diagonally crossing a gold shield. Shakespeare’s friend and rival Ben Jonson lampooned his pretence: ‘In Every Man Out of his Humour (1599) [Jonson] introduced a wealthy rustic named Sogliardo who obtained a grant of arms which included a boar’s head, whereupon Puntarvolo suggested the motto should be Not without mustard’ (C. W. Scott-Giles, Shakespeare’s Heraldry, p. 32; quoted in O’Shea, James Joyce and Heraldry, p. 34).
9.926: honorificabilitudinitatibus
The longest Latin word, ‘with heaped up honours’; it appears in Love’s Labour’s Lost: ‘I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: Thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon’ (V.i.42–44). In his notably loony explanation of Shakespeare’s ‘real identity’, Bacon Is Shakespeare (1910), Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence devotes the entire tenth chapter to explaining that this word reveals Bacon as Shakespeare (and, presumably, vice versa). Indeed, as Durning-Lawrence demonstrates, when one rearranges the twenty-seven letters of this word, one can produce the Latin sentence ‘Hi Ludi F. Baconis Nati Tuiti Orbi’ (These plays F. Bacon’s offspring are preserved for the world) (p. 93). This anagrammatic evidence, in addition to some insane numerology, ‘provides an evidence which absolutely compels belief ’ that Bacon is the artist formerly known as Shakespeare (p. 98).
9.926–27: greatest shakescene in the country
From Robert Greene’s attack on Shakespeare in his Groats-worth of Witte (see note at 9.130): ‘in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie’ (Saintsbury, Elizabethan and Jacobean Pamphlets, p. 157).
9.927: What’s in a name? See note at 9.901.
9.928–29: A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at his birth
Day star: ‘A star or planet that is visible in the morning; spec. (with the) the planet Venus when visible in the east before sunrise’ (OED, s.vv. day star; morning star). Firedrake: a fiery meteor (OED). On 11 November 1572, Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) discovered a supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia—which is shaped like a ‘W’. Delta is a star at its lower left. The supernova eventually became bright enough to be seen during daylight, only to gradually diminish in brightness and it disappeared after about 18 months (EB11, s.vv. Brahe, Tycho; Cassiopeia).
9.932: eastward of the bear
Ursa Major; ursa is Latin for bear (female). Cassiopeia lies to the east of Ursa Major.
9.934: Shottery
Anne Hathaway lived in Shottery, Warwickshire, before marrying Shakespeare. Shottery and Stratford were connected by a series of paths through various fields (Lee, p. 20).
9.934: and from her arms
Perhaps from the song ‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’, by J. L. Hatton: ‘For time doth tear me from thine arms’ (Bauerle, pp. 362–65).
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418 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.936: Don’t tell them he was nine years old when it was quenched
Tycho’s supernova, which Stephen claims was Shakespeare’s birth star, appeared in 1572 and faded in 1573, when Shakespeare, who was born in 1564, was nine years old (EB11, s.v. Cassiopeia).
9.938: Wait to be wooed and won
From 1 Henry VI, Suffolk to Regnier: ‘Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king; / Whom I with pain have woo’d and won thereto’ (V.iii.137–38).
9.938: meacock
Meacock: an effeminate man (OED); used in Taming of the Shrew (II.i.315).
9.939: Autontimorumenos
Autontimorumenos (Near-Greek): ‘self-tormentor’. Properly, this would be Heauton Timorumenos, which is the title of a play by the Latin comic playwright Terence (c.185–159 bc), adapted from an earlier play of the same name by the Greek writer Menander (c.342–292 bc). Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) has a poem entitled ‘L’Héautontimorouménos’ in his collection Les Fleurs du mal (1857).
9.939: Bous Stephanoumenos
Bous Stephanoumenos (Greek): ‘Garlanded Ox’. Stephen’s classmates use this phrase to hail him in A Portrait (p. 168).
9.939–40: Where’s your configuration?
Configuration: ‘Relative position, apparent or actual, of the planets or other celestial bodies’ (OED).
9.940: Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even
The Opies record ‘Stephen, Stephen, cut the loaf even’ as a doggerel rhyme on the name (Opie and Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, p. 160).
9.940–41: S.D.: sua donna. Già: di lui. Gelindo risolve di non amar S.D.
S.D.: sua donna. Già: di lui. Gelindo risolve di non amar S.D. (Italian): ‘S. D.: his lady. Formerly: his. Gelindo resolves not to love S. D.’ Gelindo is a male Italian name and ‘S. D.’ is a standard Italian abbreviation for sua donna (his lady), typically used in libretti. After the title of the song ‘Gelindo risolve di non amare la traditrice’ (Gelindo resolves not to love the traitor), from the opera Lo Scrigno Armonico (The Harmonic Jewel-Box, c.1648) by Stefano Pesori (Italian composer, d. 1675) (Oscar Chilesotti, Biblioteca di rartià musicali, vol. 3, p. 69; Harald Beck and Alistair Stead, ‘Resolving “Risolve” ’, p. 3).
9.944: pillar of the cloud by day See note at 7.865–66.
9.947: Stephanos, my crown. My sword
Stephanos (Greek): a crown or garland (as in a poet’s laurels). Stephen’s ‘sword’ is his ashplant.
9.952: Fabulous artificer. The hawklike man
That is Daedalus, whom Stephen called ‘the hawklike man’ in A Portrait (p. 225); see also note at 1.34.
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 419
9.953: Newhaven-Dieppe, steerage passenger. Paris and back
Steerage: ‘The part of a passenger ship allotted to those passengers who travel at the cheapest rate’ (OED). A third class round-trip ticket from London to Paris via Newhaven and Dieppe typically cost 28 shillings (London Times, 9 Apr. 1900, p. 15, col. a). When Joyce left for Paris in 1902, he travelled via Holyhead to London and then Newhaven and Dieppe (Letters, vol. 1, p. 53).
9.953: Lapwing. Icarus
Lapwing: a bird of the plover family (OED). Among the ancients, the lapwing had a reputation for wily deceit from its trick of feigning injury to lure an intruder away. But, more relevant here is its reputation for foolishness which follows from the tendency of lapwing chicks to try to get about before they are fully hatched. Horatio makes reference to this in Hamlet when the foolish Osric claps his hat on his head: ‘This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head’ (V.ii.183; Robert Adams Day, ‘Joyce, Stoom, King Mark’, p. 215). According to Ovid, Daedalus’s nephew Talus became a lapwing (Metamorphoses, VIII.252–59). For Icarus, see note at 1.34.
9.954: Pater, ait.
Pater, ait (Latin): ‘Father, he cries’. This echoes the version of the Daedalus and Icarus story that Ovid tells in the Art of Love: ‘Decidit, atque cadens “pater o pater auferor” inquit, / Clauserunt virides ora loquentis aquae’ (‘Father!’ he cried as he fell, ‘Oh father, father, I’m falling!’ / Till the green of the wave closed on the agonized cry) (II.91–92).
9.954: Seabedabbled
After ‘dewbedabbled’ in Venus and Adonis (l. 703).
9.954: fallen, weltering
In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan and the other fallen angels are thrown ‘welt’ring’ onto the burning lake of hell following their expulsion from Paradise (I.78). Also, Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast has the lines: ‘Fallen, fallen, fallen,/ Fallen from his High Estate/ And weltring in his Blood’ (ll. 71–73).
9.956: that brother motive, don’t you know, we find also in the old Irish myths
The motif of a third brother who finds success is common in folklore and in Irish mythologies; for an example, ‘The Well of D’yerree-in-Dowan’ in Douglas Hyde’s Beside the Fire (pp. 129–41).
9.958–59: In Grimm too . . . the sleeping beauty
While Grimm’s tales contain quite a few parables of three brothers (‘The Three Brothers’ and ‘The Crystal Ball’ are two examples), the brother motif does not figure in ‘Sleeping Beauty’.
9.960: Best brothers
Richard Best had no brothers; perhaps a reference to Edwin and J. Paterson Best, solicitors, at 24 South Frederick Street (Thom’s, p. 1808).
9.961: springhalted
Springhalt: ‘A condition in horses characterized by involuntary flexion of the hind leg or legs’ (OED). The OED cites Shakespeare’s Henry VIII: ‘They have all new legs, and lame
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420 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses ones; one would take it / That never saw ’em pace before, the spavin / Or springhalt reign’d among ’em’ (I.iii.11–13; with thanks to Harald Beck).
9.967: Father Dineen
Patrick Stephen Dinneen (1860–1934): writer and lexicographer. He left the Jesuit order in 1900, but remained in the priesthood. After leaving the Jesuits, he devoted himself to Irish scholarship. The first edition of his Irish-English dictionary was published in 1904 and the second, much expanded, edition appeared in 1927; this remained the standard Irish-English dictionary until 1977. ‘For many years, he was a permanent fixture in the National Library’ (DIB). The misspelling is Joyce’s.
9.968: Swiftly rectly creaking
Rectly: Joycean neologism, combines directly with the Latin rectus, upright.
9.973: two noble kinsmen
Two Noble Kinsmen (c.1613) was credited to ‘the memorable worthies of their time, Mr John Fletcher and Mr William Shakespeare, gentlemen’ on the title-page of its first publication in 1634 (Lee, p. 268). Fletcher (1579–1625) was Shakespeare’s successor as principal playwright at the Globe Theatre (p. 267).
9.973: nuncle Richie See note at 3.76.
9.977: Where is your brother? Apothecaries’ hall
Joyce’s younger brother, John Stanislaus Joyce, junior (1884–1955)—known as Stanislaus. Stanislaus worked as a clerk at Apothecaries’ Hall, located at 40 Mary Street (Thom’s, p. 1541). He quit this job in January 1904 (Ellmann, p. 144). Stanislaus appears as Maurice in Stephen Hero, where he is a prominent character, but he only makes a tiny appearance in A Portrait (pp. 71–72). The question ‘where is your brother?’ is the question God asks Cain after the murder of Abel (Genesis 4:9). In the introduction to My Brother’s Keeper, Stanislaus’s memoir of his life with his brother, Ellmann writes that Stanislaus ‘was among the first to recognize James Joyce’s genius, but he found his character “very difficult” and his later work a waste. In spite of these reservations, he lived a life that was largely shaped for him by his brother’s’ (p. 15).
9.977–78: My whetstone. Him, then Cranly, Mulligan: now these
Whetstone: ‘a shaped stone used for giving a smooth edge to cutting tools’ (OED). Stanislaus Joyce writes of his brother, ‘He has used me, I fancy, as a butcher uses his steel to sharpen his knife’ (The Complete Dublin Diary, p. 20). Joyce wrote in his Trieste notebook under the heading ‘Dedalus (Stephen)’: ‘He looked in vain for some poet of the people among his generation to be his whetstone’ (Scholes and Kain, The Workshop of Dædalus, p. 95; JJA, vol. 7, p. 116).
9.981: voice of Esau. My kingdom for a drink
Jacob, the youngest son of Isaac, stole the paternal blessing that was due to the eldest son by disguising himself as Esau. Isaac, who was blind, said, ‘The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob; but the hands are the hands of Esau’ (Genesis 27:22). Earlier, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for some food because he was famished from working in the field (Genesis
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 421 25:27–34). Joyce, here, inverts the two sons and adds a reference to Richard III’s famous line ‘My kingdom for a horse!’ (V.iv.13).
9.983: chronicles from which he took the stuff of his plays
Shakespeare drew material for many of his historical plays—as well as for the tragedies King Lear and Macbeth—from Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587) (Brandes, pp. 305–06).
9.985–86: Richard, a whoreson crookback, misbegotten . . . merry widow
Whoreson: bastard, villain (OED). Richard III, a hunchback, romances Anne, who is in mourning over her husband (Edward of Lancaster, Prince of Wales) and her father-in-law (Henry VI), both of whom died because of Richard and his family. Richard wonders, ‘Was ever woman in this humour woo’d? / Was ever woman in this humour won?’ (I.ii.228–29). For ‘what’s in a name?’ see note at 9.901.
9.987: Richard the conqueror, third brother, came after William the conquered Richard III was the third of three brothers (EB11); see also note at 9.633–37.
9.989–90: angel of the world
From Cymbeline: ‘That angel of the world, doth make distinction / Of place ’tween high and low’ (IV.ii.248–49).
9.990–92: Why is the underplot of King Lear in which Edmund figures . . . history?
In King Lear’s subplot, Edmund, Gloucester’s bastard son, deceives his father into spurning his worthy brother Edgar and brings about Gloucester’s ruin and blindness. Although the historical aspects of the tragedy come from Holinshed’s Chronicles, the subplot is borrowed from Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (1580, rev. 1590). Brandes insists on the Celtic origins of Lear (p. 452).
9.991: spatchcocked
To spatchcock: ‘to add to, or modify, by interpolation’ (OED).
9.994: George Meredith
George Meredith (1828–1909): English novelist and poet (ODNB). See also note at 9.550–51.
9.995: Que voulez-vous? Moore would say
Que voulez-vous? (French): ‘What do you want?’ George Moore lived in Paris in the 1870s and was known for embellishing his conversations with French words and phrases; see note at 9.1098–99.
9.995: Bohemia on the seacoast
In The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare mentions a shoreline of Bohemia (III.iii.1, et passim). This geographical anomaly, much debated in Shakespeare criticism, follows from his source, Robert Greene’s Pandosto (1588) (Brandes, p. 636).
9.996: makes Ulysses quote Aristotle
In Troilus and Cressida, Ulysses tells Achilles that he is reading a book in which the author ‘expressly proves / That no man is the lord of any thing’ (III.iii.114–15). His summary follows from Aristotle’s account of sensation in On the Soul (417a1–6). Elsewhere in Troilus and Cressida, Hector admits he is citing Aristotle (II.ii.166).
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422 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.999: what the poor are not, always with him
Inverts Jesus’s dictum: ‘For the poor you have always with you: but me you have not always’ (Matthew 26:11; and similarly Mark 14:7 and John 12:8).
9.1001–02: from The Two Gentlemen of Verona onward . . . his book
Both The Two Gentleman of Verona and The Tempest involve banishment. The precise date of the former is uncertain, but it is one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, while The Tempest is one of his last. Prospero, following his reconciliation with king Alonso of Naples and the end of his banishment says, ‘I’ll break my staff, / Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, / And deeper than did ever plummet sound / I’ll drown my book’ (V.i.54–57).
9.1003–04: protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe
Dramatic terms used to describe the structure of a play. Protasis (Greek, a stretching forward): introduction of characters and argument; epitasis (Greek, a further stretching): the main action is developed; catastasis (Greek, a settling): the height of the action; catastrophe (Greek, an overthrowing): the over-turning, the unravelling (all OED).
9.1005–06: Susan, chip of the old block, is accused of adultery
‘On July 15, 1613, Mrs. Hall [Susanna Shakespeare] preferred, with her father’s assistance, a charge of slander against one Lane in the ecclesiastical court at Worcester; the defendant, who had apparently charged the lady with illicit relations with one Ralph Smith, did not appear and was excommunicated’ (Lee, p. 275).
9.1007–08: The words are those of . . . Maynooth
Maynooth, 23 km north of Dublin, is home to the leading Catholic seminary in Ireland (Brewer’s Irish). The Maynooth Catechism, produced by the first Synod of Maynooth in 1875, was especially prevalent in Ireland (Dolan, s.v. Catechism).
9.1008–09: An original sin and, like original sin . . . he too has sinned
From the Maynooth Catechism: ‘Q. What other particular effects follow from the sin of our first parents? A. Our whole nature was corrupted by the sin of our first parents—it darkened our understanding, weakened our will, and left in us a strong inclination to evil’ (p. 13). And: ‘We were all made partakers of the sin and punishment of our first parents, as we should be all sharers in their innocence and happiness, if they had been obedient to God’ (p. 13). The catechism also cites: ‘Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned’ (Romans 5:12).
9.1010–11: petrified on his tombstone . . . bones are not to be laid
Shakespeare’s tombstone reads: ‘Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare, / To digg the dust encloased heare! / Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones, / And curst be he yt moves these bones’ (Harris, p. 362). Anne is buried next to him in a separate grave. Four bones (Hiberno-English): body (PWJ, p. 127).
9.1011: Age has not withered it
After Enobarbus’s description of Cleopatra, from Antony and Cleopatra: ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety’ (II.ii.240–41).
9.1012–15: It is in infinite variety everywhere . . . have not read
That is, the themes of fraternal betrayal, adultery, and banishment. In Much Ado About Nothing, Claudio’s traitorous brother Don John dupes him into believing that his betrothed,
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 423 Hero, is unfaithful. In As You Like It, the Duke and Orlando both suffer banishment because of their usurping brothers. In The Tempest, Prospero is banished through the efforts of his brother Antonio, the Duke of Milan. In Measure for Measure, the sin revolves around Angelo’s indecent proposal to Isabella. Hamlet exhibits all these themes in overplus.
9.1018–19: He is all in all
Hamlet says of his dead father: ‘He was a man, take him for all in all, / I shall not look upon his like again’ (I.ii.187–88).
9.1021: In Cymbeline, in Othello he is bawd and cuckold
Bawd: ‘One employed in pandering to sexual debauchery; a procurer or procuress; orig. in a more general sense, and in the majority of passages masculine, a “go-between”, a pander; since c1700 only feminine, and applied to a procuress, or a woman keeping a place of prostitution’ (OED). The plots of both Cymbeline and Othello hinge on jealousy and suspicions of infidelity.
9.1022–23: like José he kills the real Carmen
In a jealous fury, Don José kills the unfaithful Carmen after she leaves him for the toreador Escamillo, in George Bizet’s opera Carmen (1875). Throughout the play, Don José has idealised Carmen, and the realisation of her true nature drives him to this act of murder.
9.1023: hornmad Iago
Horn-mad: ‘mad with rage’ or more specifically, ‘mad with rage at having been made a cuckold’ (OED). The word is used several times in Shakespeare, but not in Othello: Merry Wives of Windsor (III.v.128) and The Comedy of Errors (II.i.56).
9.1025: Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuck Mulligan clucked lewdly. O word of fear!
From Spring’s song in Love’s Labour’s Lost: ‘The cuckoo then, on every tree, / Mocks married men; for thus sings he, / Cuckoo; / Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear, / Unpleasing to a married ear!’ (V.ii.906–10). The cuckoo is associated with adultery because of the female bird’s habit of depositing its eggs in other birds’ nests; cuckold is a variant form of cuckoo (OED).
9.1028–29: Dumas fils . . . Shakespeare has created most
Fils (French): son. Père (French): father. There were two Alexandre Dumas: the father (1802–70) and his illegitimate son (1824–95). The father wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo and the son wrote La Dame aux camélias, or Camille (the basis of Verdi’s La Traviata). The father, Dumas père, wrote of Shakespeare that he was the poet ‘qui a le plus créé après Dieu’ (who, after God, had created the most) (Souvenirs dramatiques, vol. 1, p. 52).
9.1030: Man delights him not nor woman neither
After Hamlet’s description of himself: ‘Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so’ (II.ii.321–22).
9.1032: man and boy
From the First Gravedigger’s comment ‘I have been here, man and boy, thirty years’ (V.i.161–62); see also note at 9.387.
9.1032–33: his journey of life ended See note at 9.831.
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424 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.1033: he plants his mulberrytree
‘[Shakespeare] had planted the famous mulberry-tree with his own hand, and it stood until the Rev. Francis Gastrell, who owned New Place in 1756, cut it down in a fit of exasperation with the crowds who requested admission to see it’ (Brandes, p. 681).
9.1033–34: The motion is ended
After Juliet in Romeo and Juliet: ‘Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here; / And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!’ (III.ii.59–60).
9.1039: Lizzie, grandpa’s lump of love
Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare’s only granddaughter (1608–1670) (Lee, p. 275). For ‘lump of love’, see also note at 3.88.
9.1039: nuncle Richie See note at 3.76.
9.1040: where the bad niggers go
Inverts the chorus of Steven Foster’s (1826–64) song ‘Old Uncle Ned’ (1848): ‘Den lay down de shubble and de hoe, / Hang up de fiddle and de bow, / No more hard work for poor old Ned, / He’s gone whar de good niggers go’ (Stephen Foster Song Book, pp. 104–07).
9.1041: Strong curtain
Strong curtain: a line that ends an act or scene in a suspenseful way in order to build anticipation for the next act or scene (Marjorie Boulton, The Anatomy of Drama, p. 79).
9.1042–44: Maeterlinck says: If Socrates . . . will tend
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949): Belgian poet and playwright. From La Sagesse et la destinée (1899): ‘If Judas go forth to-night, it is towards Judas his steps will tend, nor will chance for betrayal be lacking; but let Socrates open his door, he shall find Socrates asleep on the threshold before him, and there will be occasion for wisdom’ (Wisdom and Destiny, p. 31). In a letter to Stanislaus, Joyce called Maeterlinck ‘the most Belgian of Shakespeares’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 212). This follows the claim that Maeterlink is ‘le Shakespeare belge’ (the Belgian Shakespeare), which is widely attributed to the French novelist and critic Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917). In a review of Maeterlinck’s first play La Princesse Maleine, Mirbeau said that it was comparable to Shakespeare’s works (Le Figaro, 24 Aug. 1890, p.1, col. a). However, his review does not use the phrase ‘le Shakespeare belge’.
9.1047–48: (He gave us light first and the sun two days later)
God created light on the first day (Genesis 1:3) and the sun and moon on the fourth (Genesis 1:14–19).
9.1049: dio boia
Dio boia (Italian): ‘hangman god’; a common curse in ‘Florence and the surrounding countryside to vehemently affirm the truth of an opinion one holds’ (Kevin Beary, Florentine Locutions, p. 86).
9.1051–52: economy of heaven, foretold by Hamlet, there are no more marriages
Hamlet tells Ophelia: ‘I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are’ (III.i.154–57). Also relevant is Jesus’s statement, ‘For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven’ (Matthew 22:30).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 425
9.1052: androgynous angel
‘Jesus says of the angels that they do not marry (Matthew 22:30), and it is the standard Christian view that they are pure spirits without bodies (Hebrews 1:14; compare with Luke 24:39). That would seem to imply that angels are neither male nor female. Nevertheless, the portrayal of angels in early Christian iconography is exclusively male. [. . .] The Renaissance saw not only the representation of angels like children (putti) but also an increasing tendency towards portraying angels as androgynous or effeminate’ (David Albert Jones, Angels: A Very Short Introduction, p. 30).
9.1053: Eureka!
Eureka: Greek, I have found it. Archimedes (Greek scientist and inventor, c.287–c.212 bc) cried ‘Eureka!’ when he stepped into his bath and, displacing a volume of water, recognised a method for determining specific gravity (Brewer’s), thereby discovering the ‘law’ that is named after him (see note at 5.41–42).
9.1056: The Lord has spoken to Malachi
The opening verse of the Book of Malachi: ‘The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by the hand of Malachias’ (Malachi 1:1).
9.1058: slips from the counter See note at 3.407.
9.1059: douce
Douce: sweet, pleasant (OED).
9.1060: The rest shall keep as they are
Hamlet to Ophelia: ‘I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are’ (III.i.154–57).
9.1062–63: they fingerponder nightly . . . The Taming of the Shrew
In his essay ‘The Three Stages of Shakespeare’, Swinburne castigated the New Shakspere Society for excessive pedantry. Among other things, he called them ‘learned and laborious men, who can only hear with their fingers’ (The Fortnightly Review, 1 May 1875, vol. 17, no. 101, p. 614) and ‘a whole tribe of finger-counters and figure-casters’ (p. 617). The New Shakspere Society only managed to publish some plays as part of their plan to produce a full, old-spelling edition of Shakespeare’s works (The Taming of the Shrew was not one of them). Their methodologies included mathematically informed metrical analysis (Andrew Murphy, Shakespeare in Print, pp. 209–10, 368). Variorum: a scholarly edition of an author’s work with notes from commentators or editors; some, but not all, such editions include variant readings from manuscripts or earlier editions (OED).
9.1065: French triangle
French triangle: ‘an arrangement in which three people live together, usually consisting of a husband, his wife, and the lover of one of these’ (OED).
9.1069: Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote
Wilde wrote several quasi-Platonic dialogues, such as ‘The Decay of Lying’ and ‘The Critic As Artist’ (both 1891). In the latter, the character Gilbert comments on the dialogue form: ‘Dialogue, certainty, that wonderful literary form which, from Plato to [. . .] that grand old pagan in whom Carlyle took such delight, the creative critics of the world have always
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426 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses employed, can never lose for the thinker its attraction as a mode of expression. By its means he can both reveal and conceal himself, and give form to every fancy, and reality to every mood. By its means he can exhibit the object from each point of view, and show it to us in the round, as a sculptor shows us things’ (Complete Works, p. 1143).
9.1072–73: Dowden believes . . . in Hamlet but will say no more
Dowden (see note at 9.727) says of Hamlet: ‘Shakespeare created it a mystery, and therefore it is forever suggestive, and never wholly explicable [. . .]. The obscurity itself is a vital part of the work of art which deals not with a problem, but with a life’ (Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art, pp. 126–27).
9.1073–74: Herr Bleibtreu, the man Piper met . . . that Rutland theory
Carl Bleibtreu: German writer and critic, 1859–1928. In the introduction to his 1907 play Der wahre Shakespeare (The True Shakespeare), he proposed that Shakespeare was Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland (1576–1612); see also note at 9.866. He followed this up with his 1909 book Die Lösung der Shakespeare-Frage (The Solution of the Shakespeare Question) and, again, with his 1923 book Shakespeares Geheimnis (Shakespeare’s Secret) (James Shapiro, Contested Will, p. 311). Joyce knew Bleibtreu when both were living in Zürich during the War (Ellmann, p. 411). For Piper, see note at 9.274.
9.1075: hidden in the Stratford monument
Charles F. Steel notes that some of the adherents of the cipher theory (see note at 9.411) of Bacon’s authorship ‘go to Shakespeare’s grave to find evidence of Bacon’s work. If such testimony were to be found in an epitaph, how much more reasonable it would be to look for it at Bacon’s tomb!’ (Is there Any Resemblance between Shakespeare and Bacon?, p. 53).
9.1075: present duke
In 1904, the 7th Duke of Rutland (it became a dukedom in 1703) and the descendant of Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland, was James Robert Manners (1818–1906), MP (ODNB).
9.1078: I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief
When healing a boy possessed by a ‘dumb spirit’, Jesus said, ‘If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: I do believe, Lord: help my unbelief ’ (Mark 9:22–23).
9.1079: Egomen
Ego men (Ancient Greek): ‘I especially’ (ego: ‘I’; men is an intensifier). In English, egomen is ‘A monastic functionary in the Greek Church’ (OED; Lernout, Help My Unbelief, p. 164).
9.1081: only contributor to Dana who asks for pieces of silver
The August 1904 issue of Dana, the journal edited by Eglinton, contained a poem by Joyce (‘My love is in a light attire’; poem 7 in Chamber Music, PSW, p. 19). Eglinton later wrote that Joyce ‘was the only one to receive remuneration’ for a contribution to Dana (Irish Literary Portraits, p. 135). Judas was paid 30 pieces of silver for betraying Christ (Matthew 26:14).
9.1084: Fraidrine. Two pieces of silver he lent me Fraidrine: Fred Ryan; see note at 2.256.
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 427
9.1088–89: upper Mecklenburgh street
In 1888, Mecklenburgh Street was renamed Tyrone Street, although the old name persisted. Lower Tyrone Street was one of the main thoroughfares of Dublin’s red-light district (see note at 15.1), but Upper Tyrone Street, adjacent to the Pro-Cathedral (see note at 12.933), was ‘in the main respectable, inhabited by hard-working decent folk’ (John Finegan, The Story of Monto, p. 7). In 1911, Lower Tyrone Street was renamed Railway Street and Upper Tyrone Street renamed Waterford Street (which no longer exists). ‘Renaming streets associated with prostitution was a relatively common occurrence’ (Maria Luddy, Prostitution and Irish Society, p. 26).
9.1089–90: Summa contra Gentiles
St Thomas Aquinas’s Summa de Veritate Catholicae Fidei Contra Gentiles (On the Truth of the Catholic Faith against the Heathens), often abbreviated to Summa Contra Gentiles; cited at 9.430–31 and at 9.770–71. ‘This work, written at Rome, 1261–64, was composed at the request of St. Raymond of Pennafort, who desired to have a philosophical exposition and defence of the Christian Faith, to be used against the Jews and Moors in Spain. It is a perfect model of patient and sound apologetics, showing that no demonstrated truth (science) is opposed to revealed truth (faith)’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Aquinas). Stanislaus Joyce reports that Joyce ‘spoke to Gogarty of his intention to write an essay and call it “Contra Gentiles”. A short time afterwards Gogarty produced an essay with that title, and showed it to my brother. Jim read the essay, and then turned down and creased and neatly tore off the top of the page that bore the title’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 238). Gogarty has a different story about this essay in his account of their stay at the Martello Tower: ‘Thus we lived in privacy and profanity. I could take it easy on the roof, for I shunned work; Joyce could remain downstairs forever reading and rereading his Contra Gentiles, an early essay against everybody’ (Mourning Became Mrs Spendlove, p. 50).
9.1090–91: Fresh Nelly and Rosalie, the coalquay whore
Fresh Nellie appears in some of Gogarty’s lewd poems about Dublin’s red-light district, such as ‘The Old Woman of Beare’ (Poems & Plays, pp. 435–36), ‘The Hay Hotel’ (pp. 454–55), ‘The Old Pianist’ (pp. 456–59), and ‘The Days when we were Young’ (p. 460). Rosalie the Coal-Quay Whore appears in other poems, as yet unpublished (p. xxvi). Stanislaus records that Gogarty knew a prostitute named Nellie who admired Joyce’s singing voice (Complete Dublin Diary, p. 26).
9.1093: wandering Aengus of the birds
Combines the title of Yeats’s poem ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’ (1899) with the phrase ‘Aengus of the birds’ (l. 101) from his poem ‘The Old Age of Queen Maeve’ (1903). According to Irish mythology, Áengus is the Irish god of love. ‘He was of beautiful appearance and four birds, representing his kisses, always hovered around his head’ (Ellis). Gogarty used to call Joyce ‘Wandering Ængus’ (Turner and Mamigonian, ‘Solar Patriot’, p. 647).
9.1094–95: orts and offals
Orts and offals: two names for scraps of refuse and or uneatable meat (both OED).
9.1098–99: Notre ami Moore says Malachi Mulligan must be there
Notre ami (French): ‘our friend’. An allusion to Edward Martyn’s (see note at 9.306–07) joking attack on Moore and his habit of using French phrases: ‘Mon ami Moore yearns to be le génie de l’amitié [master of friendship], but unfortunately he can never be looked upon as
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428 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses a friend. For he suffers from [. . .] a perennial condition of mental diarrhoea’ (quoted in Edward Gwynn, Edward Martyn and the Irish Revival, p. 33).
9.1100: flaunted his slip
That is, the ‘slip of paper’ upon which Mulligan began to write his obscene playlet (9.1057).
9.1101: French letters
French letter: a condom (Partridge). In England, contraceptives were widely available by 1904. However, Catholic Ireland imposed tight restrictions. Some Dublin shops sold contraceptives in a clandestine manner. The only other option would be to obtain birth control materials from England (Tara Prescott, ‘ “Guttapercha Things” ’, p. 22).
9.1105: Swill till eleven
In 1904, the legally mandated weekday closing time for pubs in the United Kingdom, including Ireland, was 11 pm (John Greenaway, Drink and British Politics since 1830, p. 32).
9.1105: Irish nights entertainment
The collection of Arabic stories known as the Arabian Nights (or One Thousand and One Nights) was also known as The Arabian Nights Entertainment, after a pirated, anonymous translation of 1706 (see also note at 16.1680–81). The popularity of this was such that the phrase ‘nights entertainment’ was used in conjunction with many nationalities over the next 200 years. The phrase ‘Irish nights entertainment’ dates from at least the mid-nineteenth century and refers to an evening gathering of song and dance, instrumental music, or dramatic performance and recitation. By the late nineteenth century, the expression was often used derisively, since Irish nights entertainments were ‘considered tedious and predictable’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
9.1106: Lubber
Lubber: ‘a big, clumsy, stupid fellow; especially one who lives in idleness; a lout’ (OED).
9.1109: I gall his kibe
To gall: ‘to make sore by chafing or rubbing’ (OED). Kibe: a sore brought on by cold weather on the heel (OED). After Hamlet: ‘he age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near to the courtier, he galls his kibe’ (V.i.151–53).
9.1110: all amort
Amort: ‘in the state or act of death; lifeless, inanimate [. . .] spiritless, dejected’ (OED); this phrase occurs in The Taming of the Shrew (IV.iii.36) and 1 Henry VI (III.ii.124).
9.1110–11: jester, a wellkempt head
‘Wellkempt’ alludes to William Kempe (d. c.1603), a famous dancer and comic actor in Shakespeare’s acting troupe (EB11).
9.1011–12: out of the vaulted cell into a shattering daylight
That is, out of the small librarian’s office and into the Library’s large reading room. ‘It is nearly 50 feet [15 metres] high in the centre, and is lit by a large central dome and side windows high in the walls’ (F. J. Burgoyne, Library Construction, p. 153).
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 429
9.1115–16: In the readers’ book Cashel Boyle . . . Tisdall Farrell
See note at 8.302 for Farrell. In As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, Gogarty describes seeing Farrell’s signature in the National Library’s readers’ book ‘spreading fully in purple pencil across a page’ (p. 13).
9.1116: parafes his polysyllables
To paraf (usually spelled paraph): ‘to sign, especially with initials’; as a noun, a paraph: ‘a flourish made after a signature, originally as a kind of precaution against forgery’ (OED).
9.1117: priesteen
Priesteen: a little priest, used in either affection or contempt. In Hiberno-English the suffix -een is a diminutive (Dolan, s.vv. -een; priesteen). The priest with whom Lyster is speaking is Father Dinneen, (see note at 9.967).
9.1121: A pleased bottom
A reference to the foolish Bottom the Weaver in Midsummer Night’s Dream, who had an ass’s head. On a notesheet Joyce wrote ‘Clery “a pleased bottom” (B. Mull)’ (Notesheet Oxen 5.36), which links this to the woman known as E. C. in A Portrait (Emma Clery in Stephen Hero). In A Portrait, Stephen feels pangs of jealousy as he sees her at the library talking to a priest and later to Cranly (pp. 215–16).
9.1122: turnstile
The reading room at the National Library had both an entrance and an exit turnstile (Harald Beck, JJON). These were removed in February 1924 (National Library of Ireland Report 1924–25, p. 5).
9.1124: curving balustrade
The oversized green marble balustrade curves dramatically as it leads to the library’s reading room.
9.1124: smoothsliding Mincius
The Mincius is a river in Lombardy, near which Virgil was born. Stephen’s phrase comes from Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ (l. 86), for which see note at 2.57.
9.1125: Puck Mulligan
Puck is an impish sprite and servant to Oberon, the fairy king, in Midsummer Night’s Dream. Acting on Oberon’s orders, Puck turns Bottom’s head into the head of an ass (see note at 9.1121).
9.1125: trolling
Trolling: ‘singing in the manner of a round, or in a jovial style’ (OED).
9.1126–27: John Eglinton, my jo, John, . . . wed a wife?
Jo: sweetheart (OED). A parody of Robert Burns’s (Scottish poet, 1759–96) ‘John Anderson My Jo, John’ (1789). Eglinton died unmarried (DIB). Joyce called him ‘the horrible virgin’ (Stanislaus Joyce, Complete Dublin Diary, p. 14). Joyce wrote a longer version of this poem (PSW, p. 111) and Gogarty began his poem ‘Lack of Knowledge’ with the line ‘John Eglinton, my jo, John’ (Poems & Plays, p. 359).
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430 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
9.1129: O, the chinless Chinaman! Chin Chon Eg Lin Ton
After the title of the song ‘Chin Chin Chinaman’, from The Geisha (for which see note at 6.355–57) (Bauerle, p. 339). A drawing of Eglinton from July 1905 by John B. Yeats (Irish artist, 1839–1922) shows him to have a perfectly normal chin (Alf MacLochlainn, ‘Those Young Men . . .’, p. 8).
9.1130: playbox
That is, the theatre. See note at 9.279.
9.1130: plumbers’ hall
The local name for the Mechanics’ Institute, located at 27 Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1408). It was used for Irish classes and the building also served as a music hall and as a city morgue. In the summer of 1904, the building was renovated, and it opened on 27 December as the Abbey Theatre, the home of the Irish National Theatre (Bennett, s.v. Abbey Theatre).
9.1130–31: Our players are creating a new art for Europe
In 1904, Yeats wrote about his aspirations for the Irish National Theatre: ‘a new language of expression would help to awaken a new attitude in writers themselves’ (‘First Principles’, The Irish Dramatic Movement, p. 64).
9.1131: M. Maeterlinck See note at 9.1042–44.
9.1134: whipping lousy Lucy gave him
Refers to a story that Shakespeare fled to London after being prosecuted, whipped, and perhaps imprisoned by Sir Thomas Lucy for poaching deer on his land in Stratford. The phrase ‘lowsie Lucy’ comes from a ballad that has been ascribed to Shakespeare, although its provenance is unclear (Lee, p. 29; Brandes, pp. 10–11; Harris, p. 354–55).
9.1135: femme de trente ans
Femme de trente ans (French): ‘a thirty year old woman’; idiomatically, this signifies a woman of the world; also the title of a novel from 1831 by Honoré de Balzac (French novelist, 1799–1850).
9.1137: Afterwit
Afterwit: ‘wisdom after the event, that comes too late’; and ‘recognition of former folly, practical repentance’ (OED).
9.1139: minion of pleasure, Phedo’s toyable fair hair
After sonnet 126: ‘Yet fear her [Time], O thou minion of her pleasure’ (l. 9). In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates plays with Phaedo’s curly hair and implies that Phaedo’s arguments are as immature as his curls: ‘So [Socrates] laid his hand on my head and gathered up the curls on my neck—he never missed a chance of teasing me about my curls’ (Collected Dialogues, tr. Hugh Tredennick, 89b).
9.1141: Longworth and M‘Curdy Atkinson
See note at 9.302 for Longworth. F. McCurdy Atkinson (1878–1973): a Dublin literary figure and part of George Moore’s circle (Igoe, p. 18) and a contemporary of Gogarty’s at Trinity (Gogarty, Poems & Plays, p. 734).
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9.1142: Puck Mulligan footed featly
Featly: elegantly (OED); after Ariel in The Tempest: ‘Foot it featly here and there’ (I.ii.380).
9.1143–52: I hardly hear the purlieu cry . . . all they were worth
Mulligan’s poem burlesques the introductory stanza of William Butler Yeats’s ‘Baile and Ailinn’ (1903): ‘I hardly hear the curlew cry, / Nor the grey rush when the wind is high, / Before my thoughts begin to run / On the heir of Ulad, Buan’s son, / Baile, who had the honey mouth; / And that mild woman of the south, / Aillinn, who was King Lugaid’s heir. / Their love was never drowned in care / Of this or that thing, nor grew cold / Because their bodies had grown old. / Being forbid to marry on earth, / They blossomed to immortal mirth’ (ll. 1–12; Poems, p. 403). Purlieu: ‘a mean, squalid, or disreputable street or quarter’ (OED).
9.1144: Tommy
Tommy: ‘familiar form of Thomas Atkins, as a name for the typical soldier in the British Army’ (OED).
9.1147: The same that had the wooden leg
In his poem ‘A Letter to Starkey from Dresden’, Gogarty alludes to McCurdy Atkinson (see note at 9.1141) having a prosthetic leg: ‘But chivalrous McCurdy lame / Who wore the buskin, not the sock’ (Poems & Plays, p. 391; with thanks to Harald Beck).
9.1148: fillibeg
See note at 2.266.
9.1149: drouth
See note at 4.44.
9.1153: Know thyself
Know thyself: one of the maxims inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi; Socrates uses this phrase on numerous occasions (Brewer’s); also a joke on know as meaning ‘To be sexually intimate with’ (OED).
9.1155: mummer See note at 1.97.
9.1155–56: Synge has left off wearing black to be like nature
Synge’s biographers do not record a change of fashion at this time. ‘Synge was always very plainly dressed, wearing a celluloid collar and heavy boots, and generally muffled up in a white neckerchief and a long black cape, while his broad-brimmed slouch hat made him look like a Czech or Méridional student’ (Maurice Bourgeois, John Millington Synge and the Irish Theatre, p. 33).
9.1158–59: what you wrote about that old hake Gregory
Lady Augusta Gregory (1852–1932): writer, playwright, and folklorist; ‘the foremost enabler of the Irish literary revival’ (DIB). Joyce reviewed Lady Gregory’s book Poets and Dreamers in the 26 March 1903 edition of the Daily Express (OCPW, pp. 74–76). She had recommended Joyce for the position and he gave the book an uncomplimentary review (Ellmann, p. 121). Hake: ‘a grasping discontented person’ (OED).
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9.1160: slate
To slate: ‘to criticise (a book or author) severely; to castigate’ (OED).
9.1161: the Yeats touch
This derives from the unused Doherty fragment from A Portrait (see the headnote to ‘Telemachus’): ‘Did you notice Yeats’s new touch with the hands up. It’s the Roman salute. Salve! Pip, pip!’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 108 and JJA, vol. 10, p. 1220; A. Walton Litz, The Art of James Joyce, p. 133). See also note at 9.1164.
9.1162: mopping
Mopping: ‘The action or an act of grimacing; a grimace’ (OED). Edgar uses this word in King Lear: ‘mopping and mowing’ (IV.i.62).
9.1164: most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time
Lady Gregory was Yeats’s friend and patron. In his preface to her 1902 book Cuchulain of Muirthemne: the Story of the Red Branch of Ulster, Yeats wrote: ‘I think this book is the best that has come out of Ireland in my time. Perhaps I should say that it is the best book that has ever come out of Ireland’ (p. vii).
9.1165: One thinks of Homer
While Yeats compares Lady Gregory’s book (see previous note) favourably to other epics, he does not mention Homer. This phrase comes from Matthew Arnold: ‘One thinks of Homer; this is the sort of praise which is given to Homer, and justly given’ (‘The Study of Poetry’, Essays in Criticism: Second Series, p. 15).
9.1168: pillared Moorish hall
The entrance hall for the National Library—the Rotunda—features an Ionic colonnade. ‘A decidedly non-Irish theme was also echoed in the mosaic flooring of both the circular entrance hall and the rectangular Centre Court [. . .]. In the entrance hall, the floor is given over to astrology, with the signs of the zodiac decorating the central circle while the floor of the Centre Court is a hymn to Greco-Roman antiquity’ (Fintan Cullen, Ireland on Show, p. 26).
9.1168–69: Gone the nine men’s morrice with caps of indices
Titania to Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: ‘The nine men’s morris is filled up with mud’ (II.i.98). ‘The old English game of “nine men’s morris” [. . .] was practised in my native place [Limerick] when I was a boy. We played it on a diagram of three squares one within another, connected by certain straight lines, each player having nine counters’ (PWJ, p. 294). For morris, see note at 2.155.
9.1170: Buck Mulligan read his tablet
That is, the paper on which Mulligan wrote his playlet (9.1058). In ‘Proteus’, Stephen called the Library’s slips ‘My tablets’ (see note at 3.399). Also suggests Moses, descending from Mount Sinai, with the tables of the law (see note at 7.867–69).
9.1171: Everyman His Own Wife
The title parodies Elizabethan and Jacobean drama titles such as Ben Jonson’s Every Man In His Own Humour (1598) and also plays with Stephen’s line ‘androgynous angel, being a wife unto himself ’ (9.1052). This formula was also popular for the title of various practical selfhelp guides, such as Thomas Mawe and J. Abercrombie, Everyman His Own Gardener and
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9. ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ 433 Francis Clater and D. McTaggart, Everyman His Own Horse and Cow Doctor. See also note at 14.107.
9.1177: patch’s
Patch: ‘a domestic fool; a fool or foolish person generally; a clown, dolt, booby’ (OED).
9.1179: marcato
Marcato (Italian): marked, pronounced; usually as a musical direction to play with a marked accent on strong beats, not smoothly (OED).
9.1181: TOBY TOSTOFF (a ruined Pole)
According to Stuart Gilbert, ‘the “ruined Pole” and most of his companions were known to Oxford men of the period’ (p. 224 n). ‘Toby Tostoff ’ derives from the expression ‘to toss off ’, to masturbate (OED).
9.1182: CRAB (a bushranger)
Bushrangers: nineteenth-century bandits in the bush country of Australia (Partridge).
9.1185: MEDICAL DICK . . . MEDICAL DAVY See note at 9.908–09.
9.1186: MOTHER GROGAN (a watercarrier) See note at 1.357.
9.1187–89: FRESH NELLY . . . ROSALIE See note at 9.1090–91.
9.1192: O, the night in the Camden hall
Camden Hall—a makeshift theatre in a storehouse behind a grocery shop at 34 Lower Camden Street—served as the first home to the Irish National Theatre Society before it moved into the Abbey Theatre in late 1904 (see note at 9.1130). The ‘entrance to the Camden Street Theatre was through a narrow passageway often obstructed by egg-crates and beef carcasses’ (Robert Welch, The Abbey Theatre 1899–1999, p. 21). Joyce was a regular presence at rehearsals there. Going to one such rehearsal, on the evening of 20 June 1904, he was so drunk that he passed out in the passageway that led to the theatre. One of the actresses walked over Joyce’s prostrate body. She then informed Frank and William Fay, the theatre’s directors, of the problem and after they attempted to evict Joyce, he started banging on the door of the theatre with his ashplant and yelled, ‘Open the door at once, Fay. You can’t keep us out of your bawdy house. We know you’ (Ellmann, pp. 160–61). Joyce later wrote a poem about this drunken escapade: ‘But I angered those brothers, the Fays, / Whose ways are conventional ways, / For I lay in my urine / While ladies so pure in / White petticoats ravished my gaze’ (PSW, p. 113).
9.1192: daughters of Erin
The Daughters of Erin: a socialist and nationalist women’s group that existed from 1900 to 1911 (the name comes from the Irish Inghinidhe na hÉireann). Leaders included Maud Gonne, Jenny Wyse Power, and Annie Egan (NHI, vol. 6, p. 167). See also note at 5.70.
9.1199–1200: If Socrates leave his house today, if Judas go forth tonight See note at 9.1042–44.
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9.1202: Seas between
Suggests the ‘narrow strait’ between Scylla and Charybdis (Odyssey, XII.234).
9.1206: Here I watched the birds for augury. Aengus of the birds
In A Portrait, Stephen stood on the steps of the library watching the birds: ‘What birds were they? He stood on the steps of the library to look at them, leaning wearily on his ashplant’ (p. 224). For ‘Aengus of the birds’, see note at 9.1093.
9.1209: wandering jew
See note at 2.362 for the Wandering Jew. Gogarty was quite forceful in expressing anti-Semitic opinions. For example, in late 1906 he wrote a series of three articles for Griffith’s Sinn Fein under the title ‘Ugly England’ which were laced with anti-Semitic invective: ‘I don’t hate the English [. . .] I can smell a Jew, though, and in Ireland there’s something rotten’ (Sinn Fein, 1 Dec. 1906, p. 8; Marilyn Reizbaum, James Joyce’s Judaic Other, p. 36). Joyce called Gogarty’s articles ‘stupid drivel’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 200).
9.1210: He looked upon you to lust after you
After the Sermon on the Mount: ‘whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart’ (Matthew 5:27–28).
9.1210–11: I fear thee, ancient mariner
From Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798). The Wedding-Guest says to the Ancient Mariner: ‘I fear thee, ancient mariner! [. . .] I fear thee and thy glittering eye’ (ll. 224, 228).
9.1212: Manner of Oxenford
Oxenford: Middle English form of Oxford, from the Anglo-Saxon Oxnaford, ‘ford of oxen’ (OED, s.v. Oxford). See also note at 1.79.
9.1213: Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge
The ‘bridge’ is the top portion of the front gate to Leinster House on Kildare Street, which is adjacent to the National Library. The sun’s rays are likened to the spokes of the wheel of a wheelbarrow (note suggested by Harald Beck).
9.1214: step of a pard
See note at 3.363 for pard. In ‘Aeolus’, Bloom’s gait was described as awkward (see note at 7.448–49).
9.1215: portcullis barbs
That is, the cast-iron grillwork of the arch over the Kildare Street entrance to the National Library. Portcullis: ‘a strong and heavy frame or grating, formed of vertical and horizontal bars of wood or iron’. Barb: ‘A sharp process curving back from the point of a piercing weapon (e.g. an arrow or spear [. . .])’ (both OED).
9.1218: Kind air
After Cymbeline: ‘The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter, / Which we call mollis aer, and mollis aer / We term it mulier, which mulier I divine / Is this most constant wife’ (V.v.444–47; William York Tindall, Reader’s Guide to James Joyce, p. 177). Mollis aer (Latin): gentle air. Mulier (Latin): woman, wife.
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9.1218: coigns of houses
Coign: ‘A corner-stone; a projecting corner or angle of a building’ (OED). That is, the corners of the row of houses on Molesworth Street, across from the Library’s entrance. See also note at 3.71.
9.1221: Cease to strive
Possibly in reference to the motto of Tennyson’s version of Ulysses: ‘To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’ (‘Ulysses’, l. 70).
9.1221: Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline
At the conclusion of Cymbeline, the soothsayer offers a prophecy of peace for Britain (V.v.437–45).
9.1221: hierophantic
Hierophant: ‘an expounder of sacred mysteries’ (OED).
9.1223–25: Laud we the gods . . . bless’d altars
The first lines of the closing speech of Cymbeline, spoken by the king (V.v.477–79); Stephen thought of these lines in ‘Aeolus’ (see note at 7.835–36). The play ends with peace made between Rome and England.
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ Time: 2.55–4 pm (listed as 3–4 pm in both schemata) Location: throughout Dublin Organ: Blood Art: Mechanics Symbol: Citizens Technic: Labyrinth Correspondences: Bosphorus: Liffey; European bank: Viceroy; Asiatic bank: Conmee; Symplegades: Groups of citizens Serialised: The Little Review 6.2 (June 1919) and 6.3 (July 1919); The Egoist 6.5 (December 1919) ‘Wandering Rocks’ is the episode with the most tenuous connection to The Odyssey, and that is precisely its point. When warning Odysseus of dangers such as the Sirens and Scylla and Charybdis, Circe also mentions roving rocks that almost killed Jason of the Argonauts (XII.59–72). Thus it is an adventure from a different epic. Likewise, ‘Wandering Rocks’
C
H
E Map 10.1 Dublin city centre (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); A = Unit 6, Stephen and Artifoni (front gate of Trinity College); B = Unit 7, Miss Dunne (D’Olier Street); C = Unit 8, Ned Lambert, Rev. Hugh C. Love (Chapterhouse of Mary’s Abbey, Meetinghouse Lane); D = Unit 9, Lenehan, McCoy, Tom Rochford (Crampton Court); E = Unit 10, Bloom (Joshua Strong’s bookshop, 26 Wellington Quay); F = Unit 11, Simon and Dilly (Dillon’s, 25 Bachelor’s Walk); G = Unit 13, Stephen and Dilly (Clohissey’s bookstore, 10–11 Bedford Row); H = Unit 14, Simon and Father Cowley (Reddy’s antiques, 19 Lower Ormond Quay); I = Unit 15, Martin Cunningham et al. (Dublin Castle courtyard); J = Unit 16, Mulligan and Haines (DBC, 31 Dame Street); K = Unit 18, Patrick Dignam (Mangan’s, 1–2 William St.); a = Merchant’s Arch
D
I
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 437 presents multiple small scenes featuring various Dubliners moving about the city: the other Ulysseses of the day. The episode is divided into nineteen units, most of which contain interruptions or interpolations from action that is occurring elsewhere in Dublin, but at the same time. Many, but not all, of the interpolations feature characters from other units within the episode. The first instance of an interpolation is the paragraph with Maginni that interrupts the account of Conmee’s trip towards Artane (10.56–60). Conmee is at Mountjoy Square (10.58) and passes by a woman, identified at Mrs McGuinness (10.61–62). Maginni is at Dignam Court, which is about 800 metres distant from Conmee’s position, where he passes by Lady Maxwell. Because Conmee left the Presbytery on Upper Gardiner Street at 2:55, he would be at Mountjoy Square at 3:01, which is also, thus, the time that Maginni is at Dignam Court. Therefore, through the interpolations, the actions of all the characters in this episode can be temporally correlated with each other. Frank Budgen writes: ‘Joyce wrote the Wandering Rocks with a map of Dublin before him on which were traced in red ink the paths of the Earl of Dudley and Father Conmee. He calculated to a minute the time necessary for his characters to cover a given distance of the city’ (JJMU, pp. 124–25). Walking through Dublin and timing out each character’s path, Clive Hart determined that the spatio-temporal interrelationships in the episode all work out properly with respect to each other and to the topography of Dublin (Hart, ‘Wandering Rocks’, pp. 199–219; see also JJD, pp. 45–60). We indicate each of the episode’s units and
F
B G
a
A J
K
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a
b
Map 10.2.1 Mountjoy Square (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); Unit 1, Conmee; a = Presbytery (Upper Gardiner Street); b = Free Church (Great Charles Street); c = Christian Brothers’ School (North Richmond Street); d = St Joseph’s Church (Portland Row); e = Aldborough House (Portland Row); f = W. Gallagher (North Strand Row); g = R. Grogan, D. Bergin, W. Youkstetter (North Strand Row); h = Newcomen Bridge
interpolations. We follow from Hart’s table for the timings (JJD, pp. 58–59), although we have adjusted the timing for Bloom’s unit. Hart also identified what he calls ‘traps’ for the reader, which include nomenclatural ambiguities (such as using multiple names for the same landmark) and the use of words in unusual senses as if to mislead (pp. 195–99).
10.1–205: Unit 1 (2:55–3:29)
Father Conmee Conmee begins at the Presbytery on Upper Gardiner Street (see note at 10.2) and walks to the tram stop at Newcomen Bridge (see notes at 10.107 and 10.108–09) (map 10.2.1).
10.1: The superior, the very reverend John Conmee S.J.
Superior: ‘Designating the head of a religious order, congregation, community, or institution’ (OED). In 1904, Conmee (see note at 5.322–23) was the superior of St Francis Xavier’s Church on Upper Gardiner Street (Thom’s, p. 1366). The epithet ‘the Very Reverend’ signifies the status of a dean, one responsible for the education of younger members of the clergy or of the faith (OED).
10.1–2: reset his smooth watch Reset: replace (OED).
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c
d
h
e
g f
10.2: presbytery steps
Presbytery: a priest’s house or parsonage (OED); the steps of Conmee’s house, next to St Francis Xavier’s Church, Upper Gardiner Street (Thom’s, p. 1500). St Francis Xavier Church was built between 1829 and 1832 and stands at the north end of Upper Gardiner Street (Bennett, s.v. Gardiner).
10.3: Artane
See note at 6.537.
10.4: Vere dignum et iustum est
Vere dignum et iustum est (Latin): ‘It is truly right and fitting’. In the Mass, this phrase opens the Preface, the first part of the Eucharistic Prayer, just before the Sanctus (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 273).
10.4: Brother Swan
The Reverend Brother William A. Swan (1834–1911): director of the O’Brien Institute for Destitute Children, run by the Roman Catholic Christian Brothers (see note at 8.2), in Artane, north-east of Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1633). The O’Brien Institute was an industrial school (see note at 6.537).
10.5–6: Good practical catholic: useful at mission time
Martin Cunningham’s practical Catholicism is demonstrated in ‘Grace’, in Dubliners (see note at 5.331). Mission Time refers to the renewal of commitment to the church, during Lent. Missions were organised on a parish basis and consisted of a recitation of the rosary followed by a sermon and benediction. The sermons at missions consisted of the teachings and doctrines of the Church, whereas in retreats they would be based on the Ten Commandments. Missions usually lasted a week (with thanks to Gerry O’Flaherty and Anne Marie D’Arcy).
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10.8–9: convent of the sisters of charity
The Sisters of Charity Convent was located next door to St Francis Xavier church at 76 Upper Gardiner Street (Thom’s, p. 1500); St Francis Xavier priests served as its chaplains. Up until the 1970s, there was a sign on the building’s exterior that read, ‘For the sick and the poor’ (with thanks to Fritz Senn).
10.12: Mountjoy square
A square in north-east Dublin, less than 200 metres from Father Conmee’s presbytery house at St Francis Xavier’s church on Gardiner Street.
10.14–16: cardinal Wolsey’s words . . . old days
Thomas Wolsey (c.1473–1530): Roman Catholic cardinal and Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII from 1515. After opposing Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, he was arrested in 1530 on charges of treason. His last words have been variously reported. Other than using the word abandoned instead of forsaken, the version Conmee quotes is identical to one version in circulation in the nineteenth century (e.g., Charlotte M. Yonge, Young Folks’ History of England, p. 212). Shakespeare, in Henry VIII, gives Wolsey’s last words as: ‘Had I but served God with half the zeal / I served my king, he would not in mine age / Have left me naked to mine enemies’ (III.ii.455–57).
10.17: wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P.
Bessie Sheehy (née McCoy, 1847–1918): wife of David Sheehy, for whom see note at 8.515. The Sheehy family lived nearby at 2 Belvedere Place (Thom’s, p. 1425).
10.19–20: He would go to Buxton probably for the waters
Buxton: a town in Derbyshire, England, renowned for the health-provoking effects of its waters. ‘The Buxton season extends from June to October, and during that period it is visited by thousands’ (EB11). See also note at 10.39.
10.20–21: And her boys, were they getting on well at Belvedere?
Belvedere College, 5–6 Great Denmark Street, Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1474): a Jesuit-run day school for boys, established in 1841. Belvedere is about 450 metres south-west of Mountjoy Square. After his father could no longer afford the tuition at Clongowes (see note at 1.311), Joyce attended Belvedere from 1893 to 1898. Belvedere’s academic and social standing was almost on a par with Clongowes (Bruce Bradley, James Joyce’s Schooldays, pp. 91–92; see also note at 5.322–23). The Sheehys’ two sons, Richard and Eugene, were classmates of Joyce. Richard graduated with Joyce in 1898 and Eugene graduated the following year (Ellmann, pp. 35–36). Stephen’s time at Belvedere is related in chapters 2, 3, and 4 of A Portrait.
10.22: house was still sitting
In 1904, the British parliament was in session from 2 February (London Times, 3 Feb. 1904, p. 7, col. a).
10.24: Father Bernard Vaughan See note at 5.398.
10.31: mantilla inkshining in the sun
Mantilla: ‘a large veil worn over a woman’s head, and covering the shoulders’ (OED).
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10.32: arecanut paste
Areca nut: the seed of Areca Catechu palm, which, when chewed, turns the teeth black and saliva red (OED). Although it discoloured the teeth, it was effective at preserving teeth from decay and was a constituent of many toothpastes and tooth-powders in the latter half of the nineteenth century (Peter Reichart, ‘Toothpastes Containing Betel Nut’, pp. 65–68). Many brands of toothpaste advertised themselves as containing ‘areca nut’: ‘The enamel of the teeth—By using Cracroft’s Areca Nut Tooth Paste this Delicate Coating becomes Sound, White, and Polished as the Finest Ivory’ (Cork Examiner, 10 Dec. 1872, p. 1, col. e).
10.35: Pilate! Wy don’t you old back that owlin mob?
In a series of sermons given in east London in April and May 1911, Father Vaughan adopted a cockney accent and dialect for dramatic effect (C. C. Martindale, Bernard Vaughan, S.J., pp. 140–42).
10.38: Of good family too would one think it? Welsh, were they not?
Father Vaughan was born at the Vaughan family estate, Courtfield in Herefordshire, England. His mother Eliza was from the Rolls family, who were substantial landowners in and around Monmouth in South Wales (Martindale, Bernard Vaughan, S.J., p. 5).
10.39: lest he forget
After Deuteronomy 4:9 in the King James: ‘Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen.’
10.39: father provincial
The authority to whom Conmee was accountable, the provincial of the Jesuits in Ireland, who would, in turn, report back to Rome. In 1904, the Father Provincial was Father Kenney. In July 1896, Kenney wrote to Rome requesting permission on Conmee’s behalf to visit the baths in Buxton (Bradley, James Joyce’s Schooldays, p. 86).
10.41: little house
The building adjacent to the main building of Belvedere was used as its primary school and was known as ‘the little house’ (Bradley, James Joyce’s Schooldays, p. 91).
10.43: Jack Sohan
Perhaps related to John Sohan, pawnbroker, at 38 Townsend Street in Dublin (Thom’s, p. 2015).
10.43: Ger. Gallaher
Gerald Gallaher (1889–1946): the younger brother of Joyce’s childhood friend, Brendan Gallaher (Ellmann, p. 46 n.). Their father Fred was the model for Ignatius Gallaher (see note at 6.58). The real Gerald Gallaher, unlike his counterpart in Ulysses, did not attend Belvedere (John Simpson, JJON).
10.44: Brunny Lynam
Bernard Malachi Lynam (1880–1945): a schoolmate of Joyce’s at University College (SS, p. 15; Igoe, p. 179).
10.47: Fitzgibbon street
On the north-east corner of Mountjoy Square, running north-east. From 1893 to 1894, the Joyces lived at 14 Fitzgibbon Street (Vivien Igoe, James Joyce’s Dublin Houses, p. 48), their first address in Dublin proper and ‘the last of their good addresses’ (Ellmann, p. 35).
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10.56–60: Mr Denis J. Maginni . . . Dignam’s court Interpolation
10.56: Mr Denis J. Maginni, professor of dancing, &c.
The wording of Maginni’s title comes directly from Thom’s: ‘Maginni, D. J. professor of dancing, &c.’ (p. 1948); see also note at 8.98.
10.56–57: slate frockcoat
Slate: a blueish-grey colour. Frock coat: ‘A double-breasted coat with skirts extending almost to the knees, which are not cut away but of the same length in front as behind’ (both OED).
10.59: lady Maxwell
Lady Maxwell lived at 37 North Great George’s Street, off Great Britain (now Parnell) Street (Thom’s, pp. 1504, 1954), and was one of Maginni’s neighbours. Her name was Annie Maxwell (née Quill, 1839–1914); her husband Patrick (1817–97), a solicitor, was knighted in 1887 (Igoe, p. 203).
10.60: Dignam’s court
About 800 metres south-west of Father Conmee’s position in Mountjoy Square, Dignam’s Court is off Great Britain (now Parnell) Street, very near the intersection with North Great George’s Street (Thom’s, p. 1434). It is now called Parnell Place (JJD, p. 106).
10.61: Mrs M‘Guinness
Ellen McGuinness ran a pawnshop at 39 Upper Gardiner Street, and lived next door at number 38 (Thom’s, p. 1500).
10.65: Mary, queen of Scots
Mary Stuart (1542–87): daughter of King James V and Mary of Guise. Her Catholicism brought her into conflict with Elizabeth I and Protestant forces in Scotland. Due to these conflicts, she abdicated the throne in 1567 in favour of her son, James VI, later James I of England. She was beheaded in 1587 (EB11).
10.68: Great Charles Street
Great Charles Street connects the south-east corner of Mountjoy Square to Richmond Place and the North Circular Road.
10.69: shutup free church
The Free Church is a Church of Ireland chapel, located at 45 Great Charles Street (Thom’s, p. 1448). Unlike a Catholic church, a Protestant church was not always open for prayer.
10.69–70: reverend T. R. Greene B.A. will (D.V.) speak
Reverend Thomas Robert Greene (1847–1914): the minister in charge of the Free Church on Great Charles Street (Thom’s, p. 1448). D.V. is an acronym for Deo volente: Latin, ‘God willing’.
10.71: Invincible ignorance
‘Ignorance is said to be invincible when a person is unable to rid himself of it notwithstanding the employment of moral diligence, that is, such as under the circumstances is, morally
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 443 speaking, possible and obligatory’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. ignorance). For a liberal Catholic, the concept of invincible ignorance would allow a devout Protestant to be saved even without converting to Catholicism. For many years, this remained a point of controversy within the Catholic Church (Geert Lernout, Help My Unbelief, pp. 165–66).
10.72: according to their lights
According to their lights: ‘according to the capacity [they have] for forming opinions’ (Brewer’s, s.v. lights). Lights: ‘pieces of information or instruction’ (OED).
10.73–74: North Circular road
North Circular Road (see note at 4.109–10) runs from Phoenix Park in the west of the city to north-east Dublin, where it turns into Richmond Place and Portland Row.
10.74: tramline
See note at 4.109–10.
10.76: Richmond street
Richmond Street branches off from the North Circular Road at Richmond Place and is a dead-end street. After living at Fitzgibbon Street (see note at 10.47), the Joyces moved to Richmond Street (see notes at 7.106 and 17.143).
10.78: Christian brother boys
The Christian Brothers’ (see note at 8.2) school on North Richmond Street (Thom’s, p. 1578). After Joyce’s father could no longer afford Clongowes (see note at 1.311) and before Conmee arranged for Joyce to attend Belvedere (see notes at 10.20–21 and 5.322–23), Joyce attended this Christian Brothers’ school (Ellmann, p. 35), which is called O’Connell’s Christian Brothers’ school and was founded in 1829. This school is not mentioned at all in A Portrait and otherwise is only briefly mentioned in Joyce’s works as is the case here, in Stephen Hero (p. 70), and in the Dubliners story ‘Araby’ (p. 29).
10.79–80: Saint Joseph’s church, Portland row. For aged and virtuous females
Father Conmee passes, in succession, St Joseph’s Church (Roman Catholic) and St Joseph’s Asylum for Aged and Virtuous Females, at 4–8 Portland Row (Thom’s, p. 1572).
10.83–84: Near Aldborough house Father Conmee … spendthrift nobleman
Aldborough House, in Aldborough Place, just off Portland Row, was the last of the great eighteenth-century Dublin houses. It was erected in 1796 as a private residence for Edward Augustus Stratford (1734–1801), the Earl of Aldborough, at a cost of £40,000 (Bennett). After his father died in 1777, he invested heavily in properties in London and Dublin. ‘In later life he was gout-ridden, cantankerous, and embroiled in numerous legal wrangles’ (DIB, s.v. John Stratford).
10.84: And now it was an office or something
In 1904, Aldborough House contained a ‘Stores Branch General Post Office’ and ‘Surveyor’s Department, General Post Office’ (Thom’s, p. 1411).
10.85: North Strand road
North Strand Road is a continuation of Amiens Street, running to the north-east from Portland Row towards Mud Island (for which see note at 10.114).
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10.86: Mr William Gallagher
William Gallagher: ‘purveyor, grocer, coal and corn merchant’, 4 North Strand Road (Thom’s, p. 1558). He was the father of Mary Josephine Powell (née Gallagher, b. 1878), who served as the model for Josie Breen (see note at 8.203).
10.88: cools of butter
Cool: ‘a tub of butter, usually of 28 lb. [13 kg], but sometimes of other sizes’ (OED).
10.89: Grogan’s the Tobacconist
R. Grogan: tobacconist, 16 North Strand Road (Thom’s, p. 1558).
10.90: dreadful catastrophe in New York See note at 8.1146–47.
10.91–92: Unfortunate people to die like … perfect contrition
From a Catholic’s perspective, the victims of the General Slocum disaster were ‘unprepared’ because they died without having a final chance to go to confession. Perfect contrition arises from a love of God, whereas imperfect contrition has other motivations, such as a fear of hell. Various Church Fathers and theologians have argued that an act of perfect contrition alone is sufficient and obviates the need of the sacrament of confession before dying, which is what Conmee implies here. However, there is ‘no real unanimity’ as to what would constitute such an act of perfect contrition (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. contrition).
10.93: Daniel Bergin’s publichouse
Located at 17 North Strand Road and 46 Amiens Street, Daniel L. Bergin proprietor (Thom’s, p. 1558).
10.96: H. J. O’Neill’s funeral establishment See note at 5.12–13.
10.97: Corny Kelleher See note at 5.12–13.
10.99: Youkstetter’s, the porkbutcher’s
William Youkstetter: pork butcher, 21 North Strand Road (Thom’s, p. 1558).
10.101: Charleville Mall
Charleville Mall runs parallel to the Royal Canal between North Strand Road and Summerhill Parade.
10.101–2: a turfbarge, a towhorse with pendent head
Previously seen at 6.439–42 as the funeral cortège crossed the Royal Canal.
10.104–06: the providence of the creator . . . houses of poor people See note at 6.328 for turf and note at 1.413 for bog.
10.107: On Newcomen bridge
Newcomen Bridge carries the North Strand Road across the Royal Canal.
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10.107–08: saint Francis Xavier’s church See note at 10.2.
10.108–09: outward bound tram
The tram Conmee boards runs from Nelson’s Pillar to Dollymount, a coastal area within the suburb of Clontarf, about 5.6 km north-east of the centre of Dublin. Trams left Nelson’s Pillar for Dollymount every five minutes (Thom’s, p. 1661).
10.110–11: the reverend Nicholas Dudley C.C. of saint Agatha’s church
Reverend J. D. Dudley and Reverend P. A. Butterly were the curates of St Agatha’s (Roman Catholic) Church, William Street, north of the North Strand Road (Thom’s, p. 1624). C.C.: Catholic curate.
10.114: Mud Island
‘The settlement at Mud Island, or Crinan as it was known in Irish, occurred after the Ulster Plantation in 1605. Having been dispossessed of their homes, three MacDonnell brothers fled southwards to Dublin, where one of them settled on a barren wasteland area by the sea on the north of the river Liffey. As the years passed by, a colony of mud houses was established in the vicinity. At the time of its colonisation, Mud Island lay off the sloblands along the estuary of the Liffey, and was probably accessible on foot at low water. The Irish Builder describes it as being situated “between the Royal Canal and the river Tolka on the north and south, and bounded east and west by the North Strand and the Ballybough Road, but we think we may with some degree of truth affirm that it received its name from its low marshy situation, and from being at one time at no distant date under the influence of the sea” ’ (Noelle Dowling and Aran O’Reilly, Mud Island, p. 18; The Irish Builder, 15 July 1870, p. 1163).
10.118: ivy church
The North Strand Episcopal Church, 61 North Strand Road, the Reverend John Connell, incumbent (Thom’s, p. 1559). Called the ivy church because of the ivy which used to grow on its walls (JJD, p. 113).
10.118: ticket inspector
‘Fare evasion was the most frequent reason for legal action by the DUTC [Dublin United Tramways Company]. A passenger who initially managed to evade the conductor but was subsequently challenged was usually given a chance to pay the fare. Others brazened it out or tried to ridicule the conductors and inspectors. These are the ones who usually ended up in court’ (Michael Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 64).
10.133: Annesley bridge
Annesley Bridge carries the North Strand Road across the Tolka River in Fairview. Past the river, North Strand Road continues as Annesley Road.
10.139: bless you, my child
‘Bless you my child’: a phrase used by the priest in the confessional.
10.141: Mr Eugene Stratton See note at 6.184.
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10.144: his sermon on saint Peter Claver S.J. and the African mission
In ‘Lotus Eaters’, Bloom saw a sign advertising Conmee’s forthcoming sermon on St Peter Claver; see note at 5.323.
10.147: like a thief in the night
After St Paul’s description of Christ’s second coming: ‘For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord shall so come, as a thief in the night’ (1 Thessalonians 5:2). The metaphor also appears elsewhere in the New Testament (2 Peter 3:10, Revelation 3:3, 16:15).
10.147–48: That book by the Belgian jesuit, Le Nombre des Élus
The full title is Le Rigorisme, la question du nombre des élus et la doctrine du salut (Rigorism, The Question of the Number of the Chosen and the Doctrine of Salvation; Brussels, 1898), by Father Auguste Castelein S.J. (Belgian priest, 1840–1922). Rigorism held that salvation is only possible within the Church; Castelein took the opposing, liberal, view that all souls in the state of grace can be saved (Lernout, Help My Unbelief, pp. 166–67). Rigorism had its origin in the contentious papal bull, Unam sanctam (18 November 1302) which stated: ‘Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus’ (outside of the Church, there is no salvation) (Catholic Encyclopedia).
10.149: human souls created by God in His Own likeness
‘Man is made to God’s likeness in his soul’ (Maynooth Catechism, p. 8); see also note at 1.421–22.
10.150: (D.V.)
See note at 10.69–70.
10.153: Howth road
Howth Road runs from Fairview north-east towards the Howth peninsula.
10.155: Malahide road
Malahide Road runs north from Fairview up to Malahide through Artane. While they do not intersect, both Howth Road and Malahide Road branch off from Marino Crescent. Conmee alights from the tram at the junction of Howth and Malahide Roads and walks northwards along the Malahide Road towards Artane (map 10.2.2).
10.156: The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide
From the first two lines of ‘The Bridal of Malahide’, by Gerald Griffin (Irish writer, 1803–40), which tells the story of Maud Plunkett’s marriage to the son of Lord Galtrim and the sad events that unfold: ‘The joy-bells are ringing / In gay Malahide’ (Edward Hayes, The Ballads of Ireland, vol. 1, pp. 115–17); see note at 10.158. Griffin spent the last two years of his life at the Christian Brothers order at North Richmond Street (see note at 10.78) (DIB).
10.156: Lord Talbot de Malahide
‘The Talbots were one of the most important Old English families of the Pale, and he held extensive lands in Kildare’ (DIB, s.v. Sir William Talbot). In 1476, Edward IV made the Talbots hereditary Lord Admirals of Malahide as well as of the waters along its coast.
10.158: she was maid, wife and widow in one day
Maud Plunkett’s first husband, Sir Walter Hussey, the Baron of Galtrim, ‘was killed on their wedding day by a raiding party in the village’ (Bennett, s.v. Malahide). After this she
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 447 married twice more; her third husband was Sir Richard Talbot (d. 1329). Conmee’s line follows from ‘The Bridal of Malahide’: ‘She sinks on the meadow in one morning-tide, / A wife and a widow, a maid and a bride!’ (Hayes, The Ballads of Ireland, vol. 1, p. 117).
10.159: townlands See note at 7.91–92.
10.160: barony
See note at 7.91–92.
10.161–62: Old Times in the Barony
The title of a booklet by Father Conmee (Dublin: Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, 1900). His book ‘is an idiosyncratic but heartfelt meditation on a traditional rural world in the vicinity of “Luainford,” the author’s designation for Athlone. Conmee depicts this forgotten locality in idyllic terms as a self-sufficient feudal economy, an epitome of Celtic civilization, and an organic community undisturbed by class divisions’ (Anne Fogarty, ‘States of Memory: Reading History in “Wandering Rocks” ’, p. 69).
10.163: Mary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of Belvedere
Mary Rochfort (1720–c.1780), eldest daughter of Richard, the third Viscount Molesworth, married Colonel Robert Rochfort (1708–74), 1st Earl of Belvedere, in 1736. She was his second wife (DIB, s.v. George Rochfort). Soon after they married, Rochfort accused her of committing adultery with his brother, Arthur Rochfort. As punishment, he imprisoned her for seventeen years on the Rochfort estate, near Lough Ennel in County Westmeath. The building that houses Belvedere College on Great Denmark Street was originally built as the townhouse for George Augustus Rochfort, the 2nd Earl of Belvedere (D. A. Chart, The Story of Dublin, pp. 325–26). In 1921, Joyce wrote to Father Charles Doyle, S.J. of Belvedere College for details about this story (Letters, vol. 3, pp. 49–50).
10.164–65: lough Ennel
Lough Ennell (also spelt Ennel), also called Belvidere (Belvedere) Lake: in County Westmeath, some 80 km west of Dublin (John Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 46).
10.167: not her confessor
Members of the Church of Ireland, such as Mary Rochfort, can confess their sins privately to a priest, although this is a less common practice than it is in Roman Catholicism (EB11, s.v. confession). Doctrinal differences aside, Conmee’s view is that confession can be reluctant: ‘She would half confess if she had not all sinned’.
10.168: eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris
Eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris (Latin): ‘ejaculation of semen within the woman’s natural organ’.
10.174: Don John Conmee
Don: an obsolete honorific used in addressing or speaking of members of the religious orders (OED, s.vv. don; dan; see also note at 3.123–24); also ‘A head, fellow or tutor of a college’ (OED). The name ‘Don John’ also suggests Don Juan as well as Don John, a villainous character in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
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b
a
Map 10.2.2 Artane (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = Howth Road Junction; b = Lychgate off Malahide Road, which leads to the O’Brien Institute
10.176–77: beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit clusters
Beeswax used to be used to polish floors, walls, and furniture (Isabella Beeton, Book of Household Management, p. 994). The interiors of the grand, Georgian houses of Dublin were ornamented with stucco decoration, such as fruit clusters. ‘About 1750 rococo triumphed. In the decorative field the artist’s fancy ranges free. Brightness falls from the air. Gods, mortals
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 449 and allegories; a multitude of natural forms, of birds, flowers and foliage [. . .] spread over our walls and ceilings transcending the rigid forms and borders of the earlier period, their graceful asymmetry controlled only by the exquisite taste of the designer’ (C. P. Curran, Dublin Decorative Plasterwork, p. 21). In particular, the stucco work at Belvedere House, by Michael Stapleton (1747–1801), is among the finest in Ireland (pp. 84–86).
10.180: lychgate
A lychgate: ‘the roofed gateway to a churchyard under which the corpse is set down, to await the clergyman’s arrival’ (OED, s.v. lichgate); from the Middle English lich, meaning body or corpse. This matches Stanislaus Joyce’s description of the road that branches off the Malahide Road and leads to the O’Brien Institute (see note at 10.4): ‘This is the road, the Malahide Rd. I know it well now that I see it. There are high broken hedges on both sides of it, and a few trees. Where the road branches, an irregular dwelling-house with an orchard about it sidles to an arm, and before, parting the bifurcation, is an old gate entrance’ (Complete Dublin Diary, p. 172; Eamonn Finn and Harald Beck, JJON).
10.182: Moutonner
Moutonner (French): a verb used to describe a sky filled with small, puffy clouds.
10.184: reading his office
That is, the Divine Office: ‘an authorised form of divine service or worship [. . .] the daily service of the Roman breviary, comprising psalms, collects, and lections for the several canonical hours, which vary with the day’ (OED).
10.185: Rathcoffey
Rathcoffey: a small village and the property of Rathcoffey Castle in County Kildare, which is approximately 3.2 km north-east of Clongowes College.
10.186: Clongowes
See note at 1.311 for Clongowes. Conmee had been prefect of studies there from 1881 to 1885 (see note at 5.322–23).
10.187: boys’ lines
The three lines were the subdivisions of the Clongowes boys. The third line was composed of boys under age 13, the second line from 13 to 15, and the first line from 15 to 18 (Sullivan, Joyce Among the Jesuits, pp. 30–31).
10.189: rededged breviary
Breviary: ‘In the Roman Catholic Church, the book containing the “Divine Office” for each day, which those who are in orders are bound to recite’. Edge: on a book, ‘One of the three surfaces left uncovered by the binding’ (both OED). Breviaries are typically bound in leather and have red page-ends.
10.191: Nones
Nones: one of the four little canonical hours for prayer according to the Divine Office; nones is the third division of the day and runs from 12:00 to 3:00. The prayer should be said at 3:00 (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.vv. Canonical Hours; None).
10.191: lady Maxwell See note at 10.59.
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10.193: Pater and Ave
Pater (Latin): father; the term for the Pater Noster or Lord’s Prayer. Ave (Latin): hail; the Ave Maria or Hail Mary. The Nones begins with ‘Pater. Ave Maria’ (Breviarii Romani, p. 76).
10.194: Deus in adiutorium
The phrase in Latin continues with ‘meum intende’: ‘O God, come to my assistance; from Psalm 69:2 (70:2 in the King James), part of the Nones (Breviarii Romani, p. 76).
10.196–98: Res in Beati immaculati . . . tuae
Psalm 118 (119 in the King James) begins: ‘Beati immaculati in via: qui ambulant in lege Domini’ (Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord). Res or resh (not to be confused with Latin res: ‘thing’): the Hebrew letter for section 20 of that prayer. Conmee is reading the last verse of the twentieth section (designated as Res) of Psalm 118: ‘Principium verborum tuorum veritas: in eternum omnia iudicia iustitiae tuae’ (The beginning of thy words is truth: all the judgements of thy justice are for ever) (Psalm 118:160; Breviarii Romani, p. 78).
10.204–05: Sin: . . . formidavit cor meum
Sin (or shin): the Hebrew letter used to demarcate section 21 of Psalm 118 (119 in the King James), which immediately follows the above. The Latin translates: ‘Princes have persecuted me without cause: and my heart hath been in awe of thy words’ (Psalm 118:161; Breviarii Romani, p. 78).
10.207–26: Unit 2 (3:14–3:17)
Corny Kelleher O’Neill’s funeral establishment (see note at 5.12–13), on North Strand Road by Newcomen Bridge (map 10.2.1).
10.208: drooping eye
In ‘Hades’, Simon mentioned Corny’s ‘squint’ (6.93).
10.213–14: Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge
For Newcomen Bridge, see note at 10.107. ‘Although Conmee is some distance away, Corny Kelleher would nevertheless have had no difficulty is seeing him board the tram, had he taken the trouble to look. This passage, which belongs on the fringes of the same narrative and topographical context, is not therefore strictly speaking an interpolation’ (JJD, p. 48).
10.217: Constable 57C
The Dublin Metropolitan Police was organised into divisions. The C division police station was stationed in Store Street, north of the Liffey and east of the centre of town (Thom’s, p. 851), which is about 1 km away from Newcomen Bridge. Igoe identifies Constable 57C as John Broderick (b. 1870) (p. 63).
10.217: to pass the time of day
To pass the time of day: ‘to exchange greetings, pleasantries, or casual remarks; to spend time chatting, usually briefly’ (OED, s.v. time).
10.220: It’s very close
Close: of the weather, ‘stifling, without free circulation; the opposite of fresh’ (OED).
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10.222–23: a generous white arm . . . coin Interpolation
10.225: I seen that particular party
In Hiberno-English, I seen often takes the place of both the past (I saw) and perfect (I have seen) forms of the verb (Jeffrey Kallen, Irish English Volume 2: The Republic of Ireland, p. 114). In the Dubliners story ‘The Boarding House’, Bob Doran thinks of Polly Mooney: ‘She was a little vulgar; sometimes she said I seen and If I had’ve known’ (p. 66; with thanks to Terence Killeen).
10.228–56: Unit 3 (3:13–3:16)
One-legged sailor The one-legged sailor walks from Upper Gardiner Street to Eccles Street (map 4).
10.228: MacConnell’s corner
Pharmacist Andrew MacConnell’s shop was at 112 Lower Dorset Street, where it crosses Eccles Street (Thom’s, p. 1478). MacConnell’s is the last address listed in Thom’s street directory before the junction with Eccles Street (p. 1421). However, the corner was actually occupied by 1 Eccles Street (JJD, p. 117).
10.229: Rabaiotti’s icecream car
Antonio Rabaiotti (b. 1879)—Elm View, 62A Madras Place on the North Circular Road (Thom’s, p. 1557)—owned a flotilla of ice cream carts (Igoe, p. 256).
10.230: Larry O’Rourke See note at 4.105.
10.232: For England
From ‘The Death of Nelson’, words by S. J. Arnold (1774–1852), music by John Braham (1774–1856): ‘Now long enough I’ve liv’d! / In honour’s cause my life was pass’d, / In honour’s cause I fall at last, / For England, home, and beauty’ (W. H. Woodward, A Book of English Poetry for the Young, p. 71).
10.233: Katey and Boody Dedalus
Two of Stephen’s sisters. Two more sisters will appear in this episode: Maggy and Dilly. (Joyce had a total of six sisters.) ‘According to family sources, it seems likely that Boody was based on Joyce’s sister Mary Kathleen [1890–1966], and Maggy was based on Margaret Alice (Poppie) [1884–1964]’ (Igoe, p. 78). Katey, Boody, and Maggy (spelt Maggie), but not Dilly, appear in A Portrait (p. 174).
10.235: home and beauty See note at 10.232.
10.236–37: J. J. O’Molloy’s . . . a visitor Interpolation
10.236: J. J. O’Molloy’s See note at 7.282.
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10.236: Mr Lambert See note at 6.111.
10.258–97: Unit 4 (3:25–3:26)
Katey and Boody Dedalus The Dedalus family’s home address is unspecified. In June 1904, the Joyce family lived at 7 St Peter’s Terrace (now St Peter’s Road), off the Cabra Road, in Phibsborough (see note at 15.4884). This is less than 1 km away from Eccles Street (JJD, p. 48).
10.258: closesteaming
Close: ‘enclosed place’ (OED).
10.260: put in
To put in: ‘To put in pawn, to pawn’ (OED).
10.261: Maggy
See note at 10.233.
10.261–62: rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds
‘The large pot Maggy washes the shirts in was a typical item used for laundry [. . .] Laundry was often done in the kitchen at this time [. . .] It is not explicitly stated that the girls are washing shirts for money, but this is a reasonable supposition’ (Helen Saunders, ‘ “Dirty Cleans”: Laundry in Ulysses’, p. 119).
10.264–65: Father Conmee . . . stubble Interpolation
10.267: M‘Guinness’s See note at 10.61.
10.269: Bad cess to her big face!
Bad cess to you (Hiberno-English): ‘bad luck to you’ (Dolan).
10.280: Sister Mary Patrick
One of the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity, whose convent was at 76 Upper Gardiner Street (Thom’s, p. 1500).
10.281–82: The lacquey . . . Barang! Interpolation
10.288: Dilly
See note at 10.233.
10.281: The lacquey rang his bell
Lacquey: variant spelling of lackey, an obsequious servant (OED).
10.291: Our father who art not in heaven
Inverts The Lord’s Prayer, from Matthew 6:9: ‘Our father, who art in heaven’. See also note at 9.132–33.
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10.294–97: A skiff . . . George’s quay Interpolation
10.294–95: crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the Liffey See notes at 8.6 for throwaway and 8.13 for ‘Elijah is coming’.
10.295: Loopline bridge See note at 5.138.
10.295: shooting the rapids
The outgoing (eastward) tide increases the current in the Liffey’s estuary, making it run somewhat rapidly, but rapids it certainly is not. High tide on 16 June 1904 was at 12:18 am and 12:42 pm (Thom’s, p. 15).
10.297: Customhouse old dock and George’s quay
The New Custom House, completed in 1791, is a monumental structure on the Liffey’s north bank, just east of the Loop Line Bridge. It houses the administrative functions associated with naval commerce. This was built to replace the Old Custom House on Wellington Quay (Bennett, s.vv. Custom House (New); Custom House (Old)). George’s Quay is across the river from the New Custom House.
10.299–336: Unit 5 (3:05–3:12)
Blazes Boylan Thornton’s florist, 63 Grafton Street (see note at 10.299) (map 8).
10.299: Thornton’s
James Thornton’s: ‘fruiterer and florist to His Majesty the King, His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, and His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, Knight of the Garter’, 63 Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 2025).
10.304: game ball
Game ball (Hiberno-English): good; used mainly in Dublin (Dolan).
10.310: H.E.L.Y.’S filed before him, tallwhitehatted See note at 6.703.
10.310: past Tangier lane
Tangier Lane intersects Grafton Street between numbers 61 and 62 Grafton Street; Thornton’s is at no. 63 (Thom’s, p. 1506). The sandwichmen are headed south towards St Stephen’s Green, at which point they will turn around and go back as they came.
10.315–16: A darkbacked figure . . . hawker’s cart Interpolation
10.315: Merchants’ arch
Merchants’ Arch is an arched laneway that connects Temple Bar to Wellington Quay, directly opposite the Ha’penny Bridge (see note at 10.532), on the Liffey’s south bank, east of Grattan Bridge, where the Old Custom House was located. The Arch is a part of Merchants’ Hall, a nineteenth-century guildhall (Christine Casey, Dublin, p. 445). Its name is rendered variously as Merchants’ Arch or Merchant’s Arch.
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10.316: hawker’s cart
According to J. F. Byrne, ‘there was no cart in the Arch; the books were on shelves’ (Silent Years, p. 19); see also note at 10.594.
10.322: Send it at once
That is, send it by tram, ‘a regular way of sending parcels in Dublin at the time. The cost would have been 2d.’ (JJD, p. 49).
10.322: It’s for an invalid See note at 17.306
10.327: pullet
Pullet: ‘A young or inexperienced person (in early use spec. a young woman)’ (OED).
10.338–66: Unit 6 (3:22–3:24)
Stephen Dedalus and Almidano Artifoni Just at the front gate of Trinity College at College Green (map 10.1).
10.338: Ma!
Ma! (Italian): ‘But hold on!’
10.338: Almidano Artifoni
The character of Artifoni is based on Joyce’s Italian instructor in Dublin, Father Charles Ghezzi, S.J. (Ellmann, p. 60). His name in Ulysses comes from the sympathetic administrator of the Berlitz School in Trieste, who helped Joyce secure a job in Pola in 1904 (pp. 185–86). Previously, Joyce used the name Artifoni for Stephen’s Italian teacher in Stephen Hero (p. 169), but not in A Portrait.
10.339: Goldsmith’s knobby poll
Oliver Goldsmith (1728–74): Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, and poet. He graduated from Trinity College in 1749 (DIB) and a bronze statue of him stands by the front gate to the college. Poll: human head (OED); although it may also allude to David Garrick’s (English actor and playwright, 1717–79) poem ‘Impromptu Epitaph on Oliver Goldsmith’: ‘Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, / Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll’ (where poll refers to a parrot) (William Black, Goldsmith, p. 153).
10.341: Palefaces See note at 1.166.
10.341: frankly
Frankly: ‘Freely; unrestrictedly, without restraint or constraint’ (OED).
10.342–43: Trinity to the blind columned porch of the bank of Ireland
Trinity College and the Bank of Ireland face each other. The architect James Gandon (1743–1823) admired the colonnaded piazza of the Bank of Ireland for its ‘deep recesses and imposing masses of shadow’ (quoted in Casey, Dublin, p. 382); hence its description here as blind: ‘Enveloped in darkness; dark, obscure’ (OED).
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10.344–47: Anch’io ho avuto di queste idee . . . si sacrifica
(Italian): ‘I also had the same idea when I was young like you. But then I’m convinced that the world is beastly. It’s a shame. Because your voice . . . might be a source of income, come now. But instead, you’re sacrificing yourself.’
10.348: Sacrifizio incruento
Sacrifizio incruento (Italian): ‘Bloodless sacrifice’; ‘an allusion to the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass’ (Leo Knuth, quoted in Paul Van Caspel, Bloomers on the Liffey, p. 15).
10.350–51: Speriamo . . . rifletta
(Italian): ‘Let us hope . . . But, listen to me. Think about it’.
10.352: By the stern stone hand of Grattan
A bronze statue of Henry Grattan (see note at 7.731) stands opposite the Bank of Ireland, which up until 1800 housed the old Irish Parliament (see note at 5.305). The statue was erected in 1874 and ‘shows Grattan in a dramatic stance with his hand raised, addressing the House where he had spoken so often’ (Bennett, s.v. Statues, portrait). Stone: ‘As a type of motionlessness or fixity’ (OED).
10.352–53: Inchicore tram unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band
Inchicore lies on the western outskirts of Dublin and is south of Phoenix Park, on the other side of the Liffey. The Richmond Barracks is in Inchicore. To straggle: ‘spec. of a soldier: To wander from the line of march, stray from one’s company’ (OED). Highland soldiers, known for their continued use of Gaelic speech, are from Scotland (EB11). The Evening Telegraph for 16 June 1904 reported that the band of the Second Seaforth Highlanders performed in College Park for the bicycle races at Trinity (p. 3, col. i); see note at 5.550.
10.354: Ci rifletterò
Ci rifletterò (Italian): ‘I’ll think about it’.
10.355: Ma, sul serio, eh?
Ma, sul serio, eh? (Italian): ‘But take it seriously, okay?’
10.357: Dalkey See note at 2.25.
10.358–59: Eccolo . . . Addio, caro
(Italian): ‘Here it is [the tram]. Come see me, and think about it. Goodbye, good fellow.’
10.361–62: Arrivederla, maestro . . . E grazie (Italian): ‘Goodbye, teacher . . . and thanks’.
10.362: Di che? . . . belle cose!
(Italian): ‘For what? . . . Excuse me, eh? All the best!’
10.365: rout of barekneed gillies
Rout: a group of people. Gillie: an aide to a Highland chief and, by extension, a synonym for a Scotsman (both OED); see note at 10.352–53.
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10.365: smuggling implements of music
Implement: synonym of instrument (OED); these are being smuggled into Trinity in the sense that they are concealed within their carrying cases or hidden under the capes of the regimental performers.
10.368–96: Unit 7 (3:08–3:12)
Miss Dunne The address of Boylan’s office is unspecified, but in ‘Circe’ there is a suggestion that it is on D’Olier Street (see note at 15.3030–31).
10.368: Miss Dunne Blazes Boylan’s typist.
10.368: Capel street library See note at 4.360.
10.368: The Woman in White
The title of a novel (1860) by Wilkie Collins (English writer, 1824–89); this novel was tremendously popular and is the ‘generally accepted starting point for sensational fiction’ (John Sutherland, Victorian Fiction, p. 28).
10.371: Is he in love with that one, Marion?
Marian Halcombe: one of the major characters in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. Although unattractive, she is very intelligent. The misspelling as ‘Marion’ is Joyce’s. The ‘he’ in Miss Dunne’s question is the character Count Fosco. Marian is fascinated with Fosco from his first appearance. In chapter 10, Fosco appends a note in Marian’s diary in which he confesses his admiration of her (Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White, p. 343). On this basis, it might be inferred that this is the point in the novel that Miss Dunne has just reached (Mary Power, ‘Why Miss Dunne Was Reading The Woman in White’, p. 239).
10.372: Mary Cecil Haye
Mary Cecil Hay (c.1840–86): an English novelist of light romantic fiction; many of her novels are set in Cornwall (ODNB). Joyce misspelt her name.
10.373–74: The disk shot down the groove, wobbled . . . six Interpolation
10.376: 16 June 1904
The evening of 16 June 1904 was when Joyce had his first date with Nora Barnacle, the woman with whom he eloped to the continent and, eventually, married. They first met on Nassau Street on 10 June. ‘To set Ulysses on this date was Joyce’s most eloquent if indirect tribute to Nora’ (Ellmann, p. 156).
10.377–79: Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen . . . they had come Interpolation
10.377: Monypeny’s corner
R. W. Monypeny: ‘designer and embroiderer of art needlework, Berlin wool, and white wood depot, establishment’, 52–53 Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 1506), across from the north- west corner of St Stephen’s Green.
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10.378: slab where Wolfe Tone’s statue was not
Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–98): co-founder of the United Irishman, a group of radical nationalists that cut across sectarian lines. Tone was arrested in 1798 and committed suicide while in jail. He is widely regarded as the father of Irish republicanism (DIB). On 15 August 1898, a foundation stone was laid on the north-west corner of St Stephen’s Green, across from Grafton Street, to serve as the base for a statue of Wolfe Tone. This event is recalled in A Portrait (p. 184). Ultimately, the statue was never built because the fundraising fell embarrassingly short of what was needed. In 1907, at the same location, a memorial arch was dedicated to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who died during the Boer War (R. F. Foster, ‘Remembering 1798’, p. 82). In 1967, a new statue of Tone was erected in the north-east corner of the Green (Bennett, s.v. St Stephen’s Green).
10.380–81: Marie Kendall, charming soubrette
Marie Kendall (1873–1964): English music-hall performer and comedienne, known for her male impersonations (Roy Busby, British Music Hall, p. 90). The 16 June 1904 edition of the Freeman’s Journal lists ‘The Great Marie Kendal [sic]’ performing that night at the Empire Palace Theatre (p. 4, col. a). Soubrette: ‘A maid-servant or lady’s maid as a character in a play or opera, usually one of a pert, coquettish, or intriguing character; an actress or singer taking such a part. In extended use, a woman playing a role or roles in light entertainment, e.g. on television or at a seaside variety show, with implications of pertness, coquetry, intrigue, etc.’ (OED). The collocation ‘charming soubrette’ was commonly used (John Simpson, JJON).
10.383–84: the band tonight
On most evenings in the summer (except for Saturdays), there would be evening concerts at the bandstand on the East Pier at Kingstown (see note at 2.33) (Derek Stanley, South Dublin, p. 51).
10.384–85: a concertina skirt like Susy Nagle’s
Susanna (Susie) Nagle (b. 1871): ran a dressmaking shop in Dublin from 1893 to 1901. She retired from the business shortly after she married Felix O’Hanlon. A concertina skirt has clustered pleats, which can be easily kicked up for effect while dancing (John Simpson, JJON).
10.385: Shannon Unknown.
10.385: boatclub swells
Thom’s lists two yacht clubs in Kingstown, the Royal Irish Yacht Club and the Royal St George Yacht Club (p. 1359).
10.391–92: Twentyseven and six. I’ll tell him. Yes: one, seven, six
That is, 27 shillings and 6 pence or 1 pound, 7 shillings, and 6 pence. This is, possibly, Molly’s concert fee.
10.394: That gentleman from Sport
That is, Lenehan; see note at 7.387 for Sport.
10.395: he’ll be in the Ormond at four
The Ormond Hotel: 8 Upper Ormond Quay, owned by Mrs de Massey (Thom’s, p. 1563).
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10.398–463: Unit 8 (3:14–3:30)
Ned Lambert, Reverend Hugh C. Love, J. J. O’Molloy The old chapter house of St Mary’s Abbey (see note at 10.408), just off Capel Street (map 10.1).
10.399: Ned Lambert See note at 6.111.
10.399: Crotty
Leslie Crotty (1853–1903): an Irish-born baritone singer who sang with the Carl Rosa English Opera Company, which frequently performed in the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin (Igoe, p. 69).
10.400: Ringabella and Crosshaven
Ringabella Bay is just south of Cork harbour. Crosshaven is a small maritime town along the Owenboy estuary in Cork harbour. Lambert and O’Molloy are both Corkmen.
10.401: Hello, Jack, is that yourself?
Is that yourself?: a common Hiberno-English salutation (PWJ, p. 25). For J. J. O’Molloy, see note at 7.282.
10.403: vesta
Vesta: a wax match (OED).
10.408: council chamber of saint Mary’s abbey
The old chapter house of St Mary’s Abbey, a short and narrow street off Capel Street, is all that remains of a once large and thriving church and Cistercian monastic complex dating to the twelfth century (Bennett). In 1904, the remains of this structure were used by Alexander & Co., seed merchants, to store grain (Thom’s, p. 1540).
10.408–09: where Silken Thomas proclaimed himself a rebel in 1534
On 11 June 1534, Silken Thomas (see note at 3.314) renounced his allegiance to Henry VIII at a meeting of the Irish Council in the chapter house of St Mary’s Abbey. This act set off his failed rebellion (DIB).
10.410: O’Madden Burke See note at 7.505.
10.411: The old bank of Ireland
The Bank of Ireland first opened in 1783 in St Mary’s Abbey before moving in 1803 into the Irish Parliament building in College Green, vacant since the Act of Union of 1800 (Bennett).
10.412–13: original jews’ temple . . . Adelaide road
Dublin’s first synagogue met for the first time in Crane Lane, ‘possibly as early as 1663’ (Bennett, s.v. Crane Lane). In the years that followed, several short-lived smaller syn agogues were established in Dublin. In 1836, the Dublin congregation moved to 12 Mary’s Abbey, near the ruins of the old abbey. This synagogue closed in 1892 and was replaced by a new synagogue on Adelaide Road, the first purpose-built synagogue in Ireland (Hyman, pp. 105, 196–98). Therefore, the former synagogue at St Mary’s Abbey was not the ‘original jews’ temple’ in Dublin.
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10.415: He rode down through Dame walk
According to the Annals of Ireland, Silken Thomas launched his attack from ‘the mansion of the earls of Kildare, in Thomas-court, Dublin, on the 11th of June, 1534, and marched through the city to Dames-gate, accompanied by seven score horsemen in their coats of mail, with waving plumes in their helmets, and bearing silken banners; they crossed the river [Poddle] and proceeded to St Mary’s Abbey, where the council, according to his appointment, waited his coming, and attended by many of his armed followers he rushed into the council chambers’ (pp. 404–05 n. 2).
10.425: From a long face . . . chessboard Interpolation
10.433–34: With J. J. O’Molloy he came forth slowly into Mary’s abbey
That is, the street named St Mary’s Abbey, rather than the church abbey itself. The street runs parallel to the Liffey, on the north side, in central Dublin.
10.434: floats
Float: ‘A low-bodied, crank-axled cart’ (OED).
10.434–35: carob and palmnut meal
Carob and palm-nut meal are common constituents of cattle feed (Lewis S. Ware, Cattle Feeding, p. 278).
10.435: O’Connor, Wexford
Presumably O’Connor is the name of the moving company to which the floats belonged, and they were located in Wexford town, south of Dublin on the eastern shore of Ireland. Possibly this was Michael O’Connor, Provision Warehouse, 101 North Main Street, Wexford (Wexford County Guide and Directory, p. 126).
10.437–38: The reverend Hugh C. Love . . . Saint Michael’s, Sallins
Both Rathcoffey and Sallins are villages in County Kildare. Rathcoffey is about 32 km west of Dublin. Sallins is about 33 km south-west of Dublin and 10 km south of Rathcoffey. It seems the fictional Love is from Rathcoffey, but presently employed at St Michael’s Anglican Church in Sallins. The real Hugh Coffey Love (1871–1948), a friend of the Joyces, was a civil servant, not a clergyman (Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 140).
10.439: Fitzgeralds
The Fitzgeralds are descended from Maurice fitz Gerald (c.1110–76), ‘one of the early leaders of the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland and [. . .] ancestor both of the earls of Kildare and of the earls of Desmond’ (DIB). There have been numerous prominent Fitzgeralds throughout the course of Irish history (Edward MacLysaght, Irish Families, p. 142). Silken Thomas (see note at 3.314) is of this noble family.
10.440–41: The young woman . . . twig Interpolation
10.442: gunpowder plot
When King James I reversed his position of toleration towards Catholics, a plot was hatched to explode twenty barrels of gunpowder under the Parliament building when the king and
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460 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses royal family would be there to open Parliament on 5 November 1605. The plot was leaked and the conspirators, including Guy Fawkes (1570–1606), were executed (EB11).
10.444–45: earl of Kildare after he set fire to Cashel cathedral
Gerald Fitzgerald (c.1456–1513), 8th Earl of Kildare (grandfather of Silken Thomas) had a feud with Archbishop Creagh, which led Fitzgerald to set fire to Cashel Cathedral (about 217 km south-west of Dublin) in 1495. When he was brought before King Henry VII to answer for his offence, he responded, ‘I would never have done it, had it not been told me that the archbishop was within it’ (Thomas Wright, The History of Ireland, vol. 1, p. 267).
10.447–48: That was the great earl, the Fitzgerald Mor
In Irish, Gerald Fitzgerald’s name is Gearóid Mór. Mór (Irish): great.
10.449: Geraldines
Geraldine: an alternate term for the Fitzgerald family (see note at 10.439).
10.465–583: Unit 9 (3:08–3:15)
Tom Rochford, Lenehan, McCoy, Nosey Flynn From Crampton Court, between Dame and Essex Streets (see note at 10.491), to Grattan Bridge, via Dame Street, Sycamore Street, Essex Street East, Temple Bar, Merchants’ Arch, and Wellington Quay (map 10.1).
10.464: Tom Rochford See note at 8.989.
10.466: Turn Now On
Turn: ‘a public appearance on the stage, preceding or following others’ (OED). In 1909, Rochford was granted a patent for a device for music hall theatres that indicates which act was currently onstage (‘turn now on’) as well as which acts were over (‘turns over’). This was for the benefit of latecomers since it was common for the order of acts to differ from what was listed in the programme. From Rochford’s patent application, dated 19 December 1908: ‘My invention consists in providing on each side of the stage, where the numbers are now usually displayed, an opening showing a number (to which it refers) on the programme, indicating what artiste or turn is next to be performed. When this particular turn is done the number that indicated it, passes or rolls on and falls down into a grooved frame, with suitable spaces or openings in it, these openings are over each other, or vertical, and the numbers as they fall down, show in a vertical line, each number so placed, denotes that the artiste or turn bearing the same number opposite it on the programme is over or has performed. This forms a record or register of each performance one after the other as they occur until the whole entertainment is gone through or concluded’ (quoted in Eamonn Finn, ‘Rochford’s Invention Turns Up’, p. 1).
10.467: Say it’s turn six
From Rochford’s patent application (see the previous note): ‘As a rule the first item is No. 1 the overture and for example the next that comes on, is say, No. 6’ (quoted in Finn, ‘Rochford’s Invention Turns Up’, p. 1).
10.468: He slid it into the left slot
In Rochford’s diagrams for his patent application (see note at 10.466), the slot into which the circular boxes were introduced was on the left (Finn, ‘Rochford’s Invention Turns Up’, p. 1).
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10.470–75: Lawyers of the past . . . amplitude Interpolation
10.470: Lawyers of the past
The Round Hall in the Four Courts (see note at 10.625–26) is ‘festooned with statues of former luminaries of the legal profession’ (Adrian Hardiman, Joyce in Court, p. 103).
10.471: Nisi Prius court
Nisi prius (Latin): unless first; ‘The hearing of civil causes by the judges in the Assize Court or (in later Brit. use) Crown Court’ (OED).
10.471: Richie Goulding See note at 3.76.
10.472: costsbag
The briefcase of Richie Goulding, a solicitor’s clerk (or costdrawer) and Stephen’s uncle.
10.472: Goulding, Collis and Ward See note at 6.56.
10.477: Leverage, see?
In Rochford’s invention (see note at 10.466), the ‘ “Turn Now On” numbers when done are released by the trigger or lever by an attendant, and roll on and down into the spaces for “Turns Over” ’ (Finn, ‘Rochford’s Invention Turns Up’, p. 1).
10.479: Nosey Flynn See note at 8.737.
10.486: M‘Coy
See note at 4.454.
10.491: Crampton court
Crampton Court connects Dame Street to Essex Street, in the centre of Dublin. It is right next to the Empire Palace Theatre. 16 Crampton Court—which housed the Empire billiard hall (Thom’s, p. 1464)—would be the only building in this area capacious enough to house Rochford’s invention (Harald Beck, JJON).
10.492: He’s a hero See note at 8.1000.
10.495: Dan Lowry’s musichall
Dan Lowrey (1823–97; the spelling mistake is Joyce’s): the owner of a popular music hall on Dame Street. When he opened it in December 1879, it was called the Star of Erin Music Hall. From the start, Lowrey designed it as a music hall that would avoid the louche associations of such venues by appealing to a wide audience (Eugene Watters and Matthew Murtagh, Infinite Variety, p. 23). He renamed it Dan Lowrey’s Music Hall in 1881. When Lowrey died in 1897, the new owners enlarged and renamed the establishment the Empire Palace Theatre (pp. 21, 45). In 1923, it was renamed the Olympia Theatre. It is located at 72 Dame Street, between Sycamore Street and Crampton Court. In addition
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10.495–96: Marie Kendall, charming soubrette See note at 10.380–81.
10.497: Sycamore street
Sycamore Street is just to the east of Crampton Court and runs north-south between Dame Street and Essex Street East. Lenehan and McCoy turn onto Dame Street and walk east towards Sycamore, which they take north.
10.500: booky’s vest
That is, a garishly coloured vest as bookies stereotypically dress in loud clothes. From the novel Richard Temple (1912) by Patrick O’Brian: ‘a dreadfully vulgar man in a screaming bookie’s suit’ (p. 34).
10.504: the Dolphin
The Dolphin, at 9 Sycamore Street, at the corner with Essex Street East, was a public house over which the staff of the Dolphin Hotel lived. The Hotel itself was at 45–48 Essex Street East (Thom’s, pp. 1487, 1603). Essex Street East becomes Temple Bar as it crosses Eustace Street going east, onto which Lenehan and McCoy turn after reaching the end of Sycamore.
10.505: for Jervis street
That is, the ambulance was going to the Jervis Street Hospital and Charitable Infirmary, at 14–20 Jervis Street (Thom’s, p. 1522), run by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy.
10.506: Lynam’s
The 1901 census lists one bookmaker with the surname Lynam, Richard Lynam (b. c.1872), of 90 Lower Gardiner Street. In the 1911 census, his younger brothers, Denis (b. c.1878) and Patrick (b. c.1886), were also listed as bookmakers. The family owned the building at 2 Lower Fownes Street, a short street that runs from Temple Bar up to the Liffey. This is ‘likely to be the address at which Lenehan sought Throwaway’s starting price, while M‘Coy waited back in Temple Bar. Once Lenehan had rejoined M‘Coy they then proceeded a few more yards down Temple Bar before turning up the Merchants’ Arch passageway through to the quays’. ‘Richard was a large man. He was a leading light of the Dublin boxing fraternity in the 1890s [. . .] Both he and his brother Denis were well-known figures in the underworld of Joyce’s Dublin’ (John Simpson, JJON).
10.507: Sceptre’s starting price See note at 7.388–89.
10.508: Marcus Tertius Moses’ sombre office
Marcus Tertius Moses (d. 1917): wholesale tea merchant, 30 Essex Street East (Thom’s, p. 1487). Office: ‘In extended use: the place in which a person is usually to be found’ (OED). Moses was also a politician and magistrate and served on the board of directors of several Dublin charities (Igoe, p. 214).
10.509: O’Neill’s clock
Tea and wine merchant J. J. O’Neill was located at 29 Essex Street East, across the street from Moses’s office (Thom’s, p.1487).
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10.510: After three
The Gold Cup Race was scheduled to run that day in England at 3:00 pm GMT (Freeman’s Journal, 16 June 1904, p. 7, col. e). Since Dublin is on Dunsink time, which is 25 minutes behind GMT (see note at 8.109), the race started at 2:35 Dublin time and thus the race is now over. However, the results would not reach Dublin by telegraph until 4:00, therefore Dublin bookies would still be able to place bets.
10.511: O. Madden, Lenehan said See note at 7.388–89.
10.511: And a game filly she is
In 1900, Sceptre, a daughter of Persimmon and Ornament, was sold for 10,000 guineas, the highest purchase price of the time (EB11, s.v. horse racing).
10.512: Temple bar
Essex Street East, as it heads east, becomes Temple Bar at the intersection with Eustace Street. The street is named after William Temple (1555–1627), a fellow of King’s College and Provost of Trinity College, whose mansion and gardens where formerly on this site (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 132).
10.513–14: Fellow might damn easy get a nasty fall there
The Dubliners story ‘Grace’ begins with Kernan’s drunken tumble down the stairs of a pub: ‘Two gentlemen who were in the lavatory at the time tried to lift him up: but he was quite helpless. He lay curled up at the foot of the stairs down which he had fallen’ (p. 150). Later, it is discovered that ‘a minute piece of the tongue seemed to have been bitten off ’ (p. 153).
10.515–16: The gates . . . cavalcade Interpolation
10.515–16: gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the viceregal cavalcade
That is, the drive in Phoenix Park. This is the beginning of the viceregal cavalcade, from the Viceregal Lodge (see note at 7.661) in the Park to Pembroke township south-east of the city, where the Mirus Bazaar is being held; see both notes at 8.1162.
10.520: They went up the steps and under Merchants’ arch
Lenehan and McCoy turn off Temple Bar and go through Merchants’ Arch (see note at 10.315) to reach Wellington Quay and the south bank of the Liffey. While there are five steps down from the Arch to Wellington Quay, there was only one step up on the other side, from Temple Bar to Merchant’s Arch (Flora Mitchell, Vanishing Dublin, p. 59); the step has since been paved over.
10.521: hawker’s cart See note at 10.594.
10.524: the Bloom is on the Rye
From the song ‘When the Bloom Is on the Rye’ (a.k.a. ‘My Pretty Jane’) words by Edward Fitzball (real name Edward Ball, 1792–1873) and music by Sir Henry Bishop (1786–1855). This song about spring romance was very popular. ‘Rye is the earliest ripening grain crop [. . .] It therefore seems a natural association for late spring dalliance’ (Bauerle, p. 352). The
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10.526: old one
Old one (Hiberno-English): old woman (Dent).
10.526: Liffey street
Liffey Street runs north-south on the north side of the Liffey, beginning at Wellington Bridge, which crosses the river from the south bank where Lenehan and McCoy are now.
10.532: They crossed to the metal bridge
Properly known as Wellington Bridge or Liffey Bridge and more commonly referred to as the Ha’penny Bridge (after the toll that was levied until 1919). Cast in iron, it is used only by pedestrians and crosses over the river in the centre of Dublin (Bennett). On the Ordnance Survey Map, it is called Metal Bridge (map 10.1). Lenehan and McCoy have not crossed over the bridge, but have approached it (‘crossed to the metal bridge’) and then turned west along Wellington Quay, staying on the same side of the river.
10.532: Wellington quay
Wellington Quay lies on the Liffey’s south side between Wellington and Grattan Bridges.
10.534–35: Master Patrick . . . porksteaks Interpolation
10.534: Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam
Joyce’s full name was James Augustine Aloysius Joyce. At his confirmation, Joyce ‘took for his saint’s name Aloysius, the patron of youth and a nobleman who resigned his titles for the sake of his calling’ (Ellmann, p. 30). See note at 12.1704–05 for St Aloysius.
10.534: Mangan’s, late Fehrenbach’s
P. Mangan’s pork butcher’s shop: 1–2 South William Street (Thom’s, p. 1622), at the intersection with Wicklow Street, about 500 metres south of Wellington Quay. Late: ‘That was recently [. . .] but is not now’ (OED). Joyce seems to have mixed up the former occupant. The 1901 Thom’s lists the pork butcher at 1–2 South William Street as being Thomas Gribben (p. 1551). Bernard Ferenbach (Joyce misspelt his name) was a pork butcher directly across the street at 68 South William Street (Thom’s 1901, p. 1551), but this had closed by 1903, since the 1904 Thom’s lists that property as vacant (p. 1623). So, technically, it should be: Mangan’s, late Gribben’s. There is some irony in associating Ferenbach’s with another butcher since, in their advertisements, Ferenbach proclaimed, ‘No connection with any other house in the trade’ (Irish Times, 17 Sep. 1901, p. 1, col. c).
10.536: Glencree reformatory See note at 8.160.
10.537: Boiled shirt affair
Boiled shirt: ‘a white shirt, or more usually a dress shirt’ (Brewer’s); therefore, a boiled shirt affair is a formal affair.
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10.538: Val Dillon
See note at 8.159–60.
10.538: sir Charles Cameron
Sir Charles Alexander Cameron (1830–1921): Chief Medical Officer of Health and Public Analyst for Dublin; his address was 51 Pembroke Road (Thom’s, p. 259; John Smurth waite, JJON).
10.538: Dan Dawson See note at 6.151.
10.539: Bartell D’Arcy See note at 8.181.
10.539: Benjamin Dollard See note at 6.145.
10.542–43: A card . . . Eccles street Interpolation
10.543: 7 Eccles street
See the headnote for ‘Calypso’.
10.545: Delahunt of Camden street
Joseph and Sylvester Delahunt: tea, wine, and spirit merchants at 42 and 92 Lower Camden Street (Thom’s, p. 1440). In 1893, Joseph Delahunt enlarged and renovated his premises to make it one of the fancier pubs and groceries in Dublin: ‘The shop is well ventilated and well lighted, while the fittings, erected on the newest and most improved plan, are excellently adapted for the most effective display of wares. The front portion of the shop is reserved for the grocery business, while at the back is a splendid public bar’ (Saturday Herald, 25 Feb. 1893, p. 4, col. f).
10.547: curaçoa
Curaçao: ‘A liqueur consisting of spirits flavoured with the peel of bitter oranges, and sweetened’; curaçao is the proper Spanish spelling, but curaçoa is a common misspelling in English (OED). Joyce wrote this without the cedilla (Rosenbach f. 18). Gabler emends based on an ambiguous mark on the typescript as well as the conventional English spelling (JJA, vol. 13, p. 17; UCSE, pp. 502–03, 1740).
10.546: bottlewasher
Bottle-washer: ‘one who looks after affairs, a factotum’ (OED).
10.553: it was blue o’clock the morning
Blue o’clock: two o’clock, ‘probably never very popular, and certainly not true rhyming slang’ (Julian Franklyn, A Dictionary of Rhyming Slang).
10.555: Featherbed Mountain
The Featherbeds: not a mountain as such, but elevated moorlands between the Dublin Mountains and the Wicklow Mountains in County Wicklow (Guide to Ireland, p. 34); often
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466 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses referred to as the Featherbed Mountain or Featherbed Mountains or Featherbed Pass (now more often called the Featherbed Forest).
10.555: Chris Callinan See note at 7.690–01.
10.556: car
This is an Irish outside carriage, or jaunting car; see note at 5.98.
10.557: Lo, the early beam of morning
A quartet (not a duet), from the opera The Siege of Rochelle (1835), by Michael William Balfe (1808–70), libretto by Edward Fitzball (real name Edward Ball, 1792–1873) (Bowen, p. 156).
10.561: cubit
Cubit: a unit of measurement of about the length of a man’s forearm (OED).
10.568: great bear See note at 9.932.
10.569: Hercules
Hercules: a constellation in the northern hemisphere that is supposed to represent a man kneeling on his right knee (Robert Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 420).
10.569: dragon
Draco (Latin, dragon): a constellation in the northern hemisphere (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 493).
10.571: weeshy
Weeshy (Hiberno-English): ‘very small’ (OED; Dolan).
10.582: common or garden
Common or garden: ‘a jocular substitute for “common”, “ordinary” ’ (OED, s.v. common).
10.582–83: touch of the artist about old Bloom
While this does seem to be a sincerely meant compliment, there is a potential disparaging overtone to Lenehan’s remark because in Hiberno-English the word artist also carries a derogatory sense: ‘A person who practises artifice, deception, cunning, etc.; a schemer, rogue’ (OED). In As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, Gogarty uses this word apropos Joyce: ‘ “A great artist!” he exclaimed, using “artist” in the sense it has in Dublin of a quaint fellow or a great cod’ (p. 299).
10.585–641: Unit 10 (3:28–3:33)
Bloom Joshua Strong’s bookshop, 26 Wellington Quay (see note at 10.594) (map 10.1).
10.585–86: The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk
The Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk (1836): a best-selling purported exposé of the shocking behaviour of nuns at the Hôtel Dieu in Montréal by Maria Monk, who claimed to have escaped from this nunnery. The book was actually written by two anti-Catholic ministers,
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 467 J. J. Slocum and George Bourne. The book continued to be sold even after it had been exposed as fraudulent (Susan Griffin, ‘Awful Disclosures’, pp. 95–96). Later editions were illustrated and were aimed at prurient rather than anti-Catholic audiences (Jennifer Burns Levin, ‘How Joyce Acquired the “Stale Smut of Clubmen” ’, p. 261).
10.586: Aristotle’s Masterpiece
Aristotle’s Masterpiece—not actually by Aristotle—is a much-reprinted seventeenth-century sex manual and midwifery textbook. ‘The best example of the popular works of sexuality was Aristotle’s Masterpiece, the anonymously authored compendium of information that drew from Nicholas Culpeper [see note at 14.1235], Albertus Magnus, and common folklore. The first editions appeared in the late seventeenth century, and there were more editions of it in the eighteenth century than of any other medical text. Over time it was viewed by the respectable as being in increasingly bad taste. In fact, it changed very little and, if anything, became more modest in its anatomical descriptions. It would come to appear vulgar, however, because it crystallised and maintained what were in effect late seventeenth- century beliefs about sexuality’ (Angus McLaren, ‘The Pleasures of Procreation’, p. 329). Many editions were also published in the nineteenth century by a variety of different clandestine publishers.
10.586–87: Plates: . . . like livers of slaughtered cows
An edition of Aristotle’s Masterpiece published by John Smith of Tooly Street, London, c.1855 has six colour plates. ‘The plates depicting the gestation of the fetus [. . .] are done in bright orange and clearly suggest something like a vivisected cow’ (Stephen E. Soud, ‘Blood-Red Wombs and Monstrous Births’, p. 197). See also note at 14.977.
10.589–90: Mrs Purefoy See note at 8.277.
10.591–92: Tales of the Ghetto by Leopold von Sacher Masoch
This is the collection of stories Judengeschichten (Jewish stories) by Leopold von Sacher- Masoch (Austrian writer, of Ukrainian Galician extraction, 1835–95), first published as a collection in German in 1878, with a sequel in 1881, and translated into English as Jewish Tales in 1894. The title as given here matches the Italian translation of this work, Scene del ghetto, which Joyce owned (Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, p. 126). While Sacher-Masoch was most famous as a pornographer (and the source of the word masochism), these stories belong to the genre of the ghetto tale (Ghettogeschichten), sentimentalised, romantic stories of Jewish life written for an audience of Jews and non-Jews alike. Unlike most authors of such stories, Sacher-Masoch was not Jewish (David Biale, ‘Masochism and Philosemitism’, pp. 306–07). These stories were not immune from elements from his other writings: ‘most (although by no means all) of his Jewish stories are obsessed with Jewish women and many of them permeated with masochistic motifs such as his fetish with furs’ (p. 312).
10.594: shopman
In the previous unit, Lenehan and McCoy saw Bloom at a hawker’s bookcart at Merchants’ Arch (10.520). In ‘Ithaca’ we learn that Bloom went along Bedford Row, Merchants’ Arch, and Wellington Quay during his book hunt (17.2048–49) and so he is not necessarily still at Merchants’ Arch. Indeed, correlating the historical record with various hints in the text— such as the salesman being called a ‘shopman’—Bloom is now in a bookshop on Wellington
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468 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Quay. According to J. F. Byrne, ‘Josh Strong was the name of the man who owned the bookshop, and he was a Jew. In the little window of the shop the passersby on Wellington Quay could see a few selected books which had been hung in the window with their pages spread at some illustrations with popular appeal [. . .] And hanging prominently in the window with its pages open at a colored illustration of a fecund uterus, was a small, thick book called Aristotle’s Masterpiece’ (Silent Years, pp. 18–19). By 1904, Joshua Strong had ceased trading, but earlier editions of Thom’s list him as a ‘foreign bookseller and librarian’ at 26 Wellington Quay (Thom’s 1897, p. 1531), which was a small area partitioned off from Aaron Figatner’s shop at the same address (see note at 11.149). ‘Josh was a real “card”—a veritable oddity even among owners of second-hand bookshops in Dublin—and he didn’t seem to care about anything or anybody. [. . .] Josh had an elder bearded brother who ran a bookshop, situated about a furlong [201 metres] to the east, in Merchants’ Arch. [. . .] This older Strong was a different kind of person from the younger. Generally he was taciturn, and when he did speak he spoke softly. Also, he did not feature the species of literature Josh most liked to peddle’ (Silent Years, p. 19). Earlier editions of Thom’s show that the elder Strong was named John and list him with a bookshop at 15 Temple Bar and a stall at Merchants’ Arch (Thom’s 1897, p. 1874), which is where Bloom had been previously. By 1904, John Strong’s business had been taken over by Francis Fitzgerald (Thom’s, p. 1606; JJD, p. 52). The only bookseller on Bedford Row, the first street named on Bloom’s book hunt, is Malachi Clohisey (see notes at 10.830 and 10.831).
10.599–600: On O’Connell bridge . . . &c. Interpolation
10.599: On O’Connell bridge See note at 8.44.
10.600: Mr Denis J. Maginni, professor of dancing &c. See note at 10.56.
10.601: Fair Tyrants by James Lovebirch
There does not seem to be a book by James Lovebirch with the title Fair Tyrants, but Lovebirch (probably a pseudonym) was a French author who wrote sado-masochistic novels which depicted scenes of flagellation. His most famous novel was Les Cinq fessées de Suzette (1910), which was translated into English in 1925 as The Flagellation of Suzette. Among his other novels are: L’Avatar de Lucette (1913), Peggy Briggs (1913), and Au bon vieux temps (1922); all were published in Paris by the Librairie Artistique et Edition Parisienne Réunies (Stephen Watt, ‘ “Nothing for a Woman in That” ’, pp. 76–77). See also note at 18.494–95.
10.606: Sweets of Sin
Joyce may have got the title of this work from Life’s Sweetest Sin, an anonymous novel advertised in issues of Photo Bits (see note at 4.370) in the first half of 1909 (Levin, ‘How Joyce Acquired the “Stale Smut of Clubmen” ’, pp. 263–64). In preaching, the phrase ‘sweets of sin’ is a generic condemnation of worldly corruption. For example, from Donald Sutherland’s A Caution against Seduction (1812): ‘it is truly astonishing, that a professed believer in scripture should venture to taste the sweets of sin, were they a thousand fold more delicious, than they are’ (p. 5).
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 469
10.607: He read where his finger pointed
Bloom is (inadvertently) practising a type of divination known as sortes Biblicae: ‘Place the hand on the Bible, say a fervent prayer, slip your finger into the Bible without looking, and let the finger stop when you feel the urge. The answer will be found in that chapter’ (Brian Malley, ‘The Bible in North American Folklore’, p. 64).
10.612: deshabille
Deshabille: ‘A garment worn in undress: a dress or costume of a negligible style’ (OED).
10.616: embonpoint
Embonpoint: ‘plumpness, well- nourished appearance of body: in complimentary or euphemistic sense’ (OED); from the French en bon point (in good condition).
10.623: Sulphur dung of lions
In the Trieste notebook, under the heading ‘Lust’, Joyce wrote ‘The reek of lions’ (Robert Scholes and Richard M. Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 102; JJA, vol. 7, p. 140).
10.625–31: An elderly female . . . Corporation Interpolation
10.625–26: the building of the courts of chancery
Properly known as the Four Courts, which houses the high courts of Ireland; on Inns Quay on the north bank of the Liffey. The domed and columned structure is one of Dublin’s most striking buildings (Bennett).
10.627: case in lunacy of Potterton
The Freeman’s Journal for 16 June 1904 lists under ‘Law Notices This Day’ the cases mentioned here: ‘High Court of Justice. Chancery Division. Lord Chancellor—In Lunacy— Before the Registrar—11:30 o’clock—Courtenay of unsound mind, ex parte; [. . .] Potterton’ (p. 2, col. d). Potterton is Robert Potterton (1823–1901). He was declared insane in 1880 and the hearing on 16 June 1904, three years after his death, was most probably held in order to satisfy the Court that his debts have been discharged; ‘ “the elderly female no more young” who had witnessed the case is likely to have attended the formal summons of the party or parties to the case, and to have heard or even contributed to vouching [i.e. assuring the court of the accuracy of] the account. The proceedings are likely to have been routine and very dull’ (Homan Potterton, JJON).
10.627–31: in the admiralty division . . . Guarantee Corporation
Also from the Freeman’s Journal’s listing of ‘Law Notices This Day’ for 16 June 1904: ‘King’s Bench Division—Admiralty—1:30 o’clock—Ex Parte Motions. Summons—The Owners of the Lady Cairns v the Owners of the Barque of Mona’ (p. 2, col. e). Under ‘Yesterday. Court of Appeal’ it lists: ‘Litigation About A Policy. Re: Arbitration Between Harvey and The Ocean Accident And Guarantee Corporation, Limited [. . .] The Court reserved judgment’ (col. a).
10.643–716: Unit 11 (3:22–3:26)
Dilly Dedalus and Simon Dedalus Dillon’s auction rooms, 25 Bachelor’s Walk (see note at 7.412) (map 10.1).
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10.643: Dillon’s auctionrooms See note at 7.412.
10.645: Dilly
See note at 10.233.
10.651–53: Bang . . . library Interpolation
10.651: Bang of the lastlap bell
The bell is from the bicycle race in College Park (see note at 5.550). The Evening Telegraph for 16 June 1904 reports the order of finish: ‘Half-Mile Bicycle Handicap—J. A. Jackson, 10 yds., 1; W. H. T. Gahan, sch., 2. Also completed—T. W. Fitzgerald, 30; A. Henderson, 50. Time 1 min. 16 secs. Second heat—W. E. Wylie, 20 yds., 1; A. Munro, 35 yds., 2. Also completed—T. C. Furlong, sch. Won by three lengths. Time, 1 min. 17 secs’ (p. 3, col. i).
10.654–55: Williams’s row
Williams’s Row: runs between Bachelor’s Walk (along the Liffey) and Middle Abbey Street. Williams’s Row intersects Bachelor’s Walk no. 31, a few houses down from Dillon’s auction rooms no. 25 (Thom’s, p. 1420).
10.658: your uncle John the cornetplayer See note at 3.66–67.
10.673–74: Mr Kernan . . . James’s street Interpolation
10.674: James’s street
James’s Street leads past the north side of the Guinness Brewery in western Dublin.
10.675: Scotch house
See note at 8.321. Dilly’s question may indicate that she did not see her father until after he turned the corner from Williams’s Row, since Scotch House is on the south side of the Liffey and Simon is coming from the north (JJD, p. 53).
10.690: blatant
See note at 7.555.
10.697: I’m going to show you a little trick, Mr Dedalus said
According to Stanislaus Joyce, John Joyce would preface threats to his small children with the line ‘I’ll show you a little trick’ (Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, p. 235).
10.697–98: I’ll leave you all where Jesus left the jews
That is, at best, in purgatory until the final conversion, and cursed on earth in the meantime. Prayers are said every Good Friday for the final conversion of the ‘faithless’ Jews. This is another one of John Joyce’s pet phrases (Ellmann, p. 144). Lady Gregory (see note at 9.1158–59) uses a similar phrase in her play Workhouse Yard (1908): ‘I will leave you there the same as God left the Jews!’ (Collected Plays, vol. 1, p. 104).
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10.699: Jack Power See note at 6.2.
10.703: O’Connell street See note at 5.70.
10.709–10: The viceregal cavalcade . . . Parkgate Interpolation
10.709–10: out of Parkgate See note at 7.659.
10.716: Is it little sister Monica!
St Monica’s Widows’ Almshouse, ‘under care of the Sisters of Charity’: 35–38 Belvedere Place in north-eastern Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1425).
10.718–98: Unit 12 (3:26–3:30)
Tom Kernan From the intersection of Bow Lane and James’s Street (see note at 10.718), to the Liffey via James’s and Watling Streets (map 10.3).
10.718: From the sundial towards James’s Gate walked Mr Kernan
The ‘sundial’ is actually an obelisk of fluted stone, with a drinking fountain at its base, a stone block a quarter of the way up, and oval sundials high up on each face. This was built in 1790 and stands on James’s Street at the intersection with Bow Lane. It is typically referred to as either ‘the Fountain’ or ‘the Obelisk’ (Casey, Dublin, p. 663). Kernan is walking east along James’s Street. St James’s Gate occupies the block on the north side of James’s Street as it heads east and turns into Thomas Street.
10.719: Pulbrook Robertson
The tea firm Kernan works for (see notes at 5.19–20 and 17.1981–82).
10.720: Shackleton’s offices
George Shackleton and Sons: flour millers and corn merchants, 35 James’s Street (Thom’s, p. 1521).
10.721: Mr Crimmins
William C. Crimmins (1863–1926) had tea, wine, and spirits shops at 28 James’s Street and 61 Pimlico (Thom’s, p. 1843). Crimmins was a graduate of Trinity College and a Poor Law Guardian, an administrator of the Poor Relief Act of 1838, which attempted to alleviate poverty through workhouses (see note at 16.945) (Igoe, p. 68).
10.725–26: Terrible affair that General Slocum explosion See note at 8.1146–47.
10.726: A thousand casualties
The initial estimate of casualties in the General Slocum disaster was 500 (Freeman’s Journal, 16 June 1904, p. 5, col. f); this was revised later in the day to 1,000 (col. g).
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10.726–27: heartrending scenes
The subhead ‘heartrending scenes’ appeared in the Daily Express’s account of the General Slocum disaster on 16 June 1904 (Stephen Donovan, ‘ “Short but to the Point” ’, p. 535).
10.727: Men trampling down women and children
The Freeman’s Journal account of the General Slocum disaster includes the following two sub-headlines: ‘WOMEN TRAMPLED TO DEATH’ and ‘CHILDREN THROWN OVER- BOARD’ (16 June 1904, p. 5, col. f).
10.729: Not a single lifeboat . . . firehose all burst
The General Slocum was poorly maintained (see also the following note). The Freeman’s Journal account states: ‘No attempt was made to lower the lifeboats [. . .] The lifebelts on board were lashed to the ceilings, and could only be reached by tall people. Thus very few of the children were able to obtain any [. . .] Survivors allege that the lifebelts were rotten and the fire-hose decayed’ (16 June 1904, p. 5, col. f).
10.731: Palm oil
Palm oil: bribes, or rather money for bribes, fees, etc. (Brewer’s). In their coverage of the General Slocum disaster, the London Times quoted the New York Evening Post: ‘The responsibility for the hundreds of lives sacrificed lies at the door of the Government steamboat inspectors who declared that the General Slocum was properly provided with fire and life-saving apparatus. In the face of this false declaration look at the facts.’ The Times then continues coverage with their own commentary: ‘I suppose by this time the meaning of the American word “graft” is known in London. It was “graft” which was responsible for yesterday’s appalling accident’ (17 June 1904, p. 5, col. f).
10.738–39: Dress does it. Nothing like a dressy appearance
In ‘Grace’, in Dubliners, we are told of Kernan’s penchant for fancy dress: ‘He had never been seen in the city without a silk hat of some decency and a pair of gaiters. By grace of these two articles of clothing, he said, a man could always pass muster’ (p. 154).
10.740–41: Hello, Simon . . . stopping Interpolation
10.743: Peter Kennedy, hairdresser
Peter Kennedy’s hairdresser shop: 48 James’s Street (Thom’s, p. 1521).
10.743–44: Scott of Dawson street
This is possibly William Scott & Co.: ‘military and merchant tailors, riding breeches, and habit makers’, but his shop’s address is 2 Lower Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1582), not Dawson Street. In the list of tailors in Thom’s traders’ directory, Scott’s name appears directly beneath the entry for A. Robinson of 11 Dawson Street (p. 2084), which is one possible explanation as to why Joyce gave Scott a Dawson Street address. Another possibility is that Kernan is not thinking of a tailor here, but instead is thinking of Albert Scott, a commission agent with an office at 9 Dawson Street (p. 1472). ‘Perhaps Kernan thinks that the coat makes him look as smart as his better placed colleague’ (JJD, p. 127).
10.744: Neary
Edward Neary: tailor for soldiers and sailors, 15 Anne Street South (Thom’s, p. 1414).
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10.745: Kildare street club toff
Toff: a name ‘given by the lower classes to a person who is stylishly dressed’ (OED). For the Kildare Street Club, see note at 5.560–61.
10.746: John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian bank
Hibernian Bank: 23–27 College Green (Thom’s p. 1458), managing director John Mulligan (p. 1029).
10.747: Carlisle bridge
The original name of O’Connell Bridge (see note at 8.44); named after Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748–1825), who was viceroy just before the bridge was first built in 1790 (Bennett, s.v. Bridges).
10.748: Knight of the road
Knight of the road: a commercial traveller (OED).
10.750–51: The cup that cheers but not inebriates, as the old saying has it
In Siris (1744), George Berkeley writes that tar-water (used medicinally in the eighteenth century) is ‘of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution as to
h g i
f
e a b
c
d
Map 10.3 St James’s Gate (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); Tom Kernan; a = sundial/obelisk (junction of James’s Street and Bow Lane West); b = W. C. Crimmins (27–28 James’s Street); c = G. Shackleton and Sons (35 James’s Street); d = P. Kennedy (48 James’s Street); e = Guinness’s waiting room (1 Watling Street); f = Dublin Distillers’ Co. (21–32 Watling Street); g = Bloody Bridge (Victoria and Albert Bridge); h = King’s Bridge; i = Kingsbridge Station
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474 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate’ (pp. 100–01). In The Task (1785), William Cowper (English poet, 1731–1800) adapted Berkeley’s description of tar-water to tea: ‘the cups / That cheer but not inebriate’ (IV.39–40).
10.752–54: North wall . . . coming Interpolation
10.752: North wall and sir John Rogerson’s quay
The last two quays on the Liffey, on its north and south banks, where it empties into Dublin Bay; see also note at 5.1.
10.753: sailing westward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway
For the throwaway, see notes at 8.6 and 8.13. Sailed: assailed (OED). The throwaway is now travelling westward, even though the Liffey flows east to the sea, because the ferry’s wake has temporarily reversed (‘assailed’) its momentum.
10.756: Returned Indian officer
Considering the Irish climate, it was reasonable to assume that a man with a sunburn is an army officer returned home after having served in India or a similar such location. The redness (‘high colour’) of Kernan’s face is, however, due to drink.
10.757–58: Is that Lambert’s brother over the way, Sam? See note at 6.111 for Ned Lambert.
10.764: Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered
Robert Emmet (see note at 6.977–78) was beheaded, not drawn and quartered, after being hanged. The execution took place outside St Catherine’s Church, on the south side of Thomas Street (Richard Robert Madden, Life and Times of Robert Emmet, pp. 228–29). Kernan is heading towards Thomas Street, which continues James Street eastward towards the city centre.
10.765: Dogs licking the blood off the street
An hour after Emmet’s execution, ‘a woman who lived nearby saw dogs lapping [Emmet’s blood] up’ (Helen Landreth, The Pursuit of Robert Emmet, p. 352).
10.765: lord lieutenant’s wife
Kernan embellishes the story of Emmet’s execution by making the eyewitness Elizabeth Yorke, wife of Philip Yorke (1757–1834), 3rd Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1801 to 1806 (ODNB, s.v. Philip Yorke).
10.766: noddy
Noddy: ‘a light two-wheeled hackney-carriage’ (OED).
10.767–68: Great topers. Fourbottle men
See note at 8.363 for toper. Three-bottle: ‘applied to one who can drink three bottles of wine at a sitting’ (OED, s.v. three); thus a four-bottle man would be able to drink four. Emmet’s assault of Dublin Castle in 1803 was beset by all manner of problems; as he wrote later, ‘There was failure in all, plan, preparation and men’ (quoted in Robert Kee, The Green Flag, p. 166). In terms of the failure in men, some of his troops were drunk (p. 165).
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10.769–70: saint Michan’s? Or no, there was a midnight burial in Glasnevin
The location of Emmet’s grave is unknown. Glasnevin is where Paddy Dignam was buried (see note at 6.486). St Michan’s Church is on Church Street near the Four Courts (Thom’s, pp. 1362, 1451). Both Glasnevin and Saint Michan’s have been rumoured as his resting place and both have been discounted as such (David Quaid, Robert Emmet: His Birth-place and Burial, pp. 93–95).
10.773–74: Watling street by the corner of Guinness’s visitors’ waitingroom
The visitors’ waiting room was at the corner of James’s Street and Watling Street (1 Watling Street and 87 James Street) at the south-east corner of the Guinness Brewery (Thom’s, p. 1614).
10.774–75: Dublin Distillers Company’s stores
The Dublin Distillers Company’s distillery stores: 21–32 Watling Street (Thom’s, p. 1615).
10.775: outside car
Outsider: another name for a jaunting car (OED), for which see note at 10.556.
10.776–77: Tipperary bosthoon
Bosthoon (Hiberno-English): ‘idle, foolish, brainless, good-for-nothing’ (Dolan). Kernan used this word in ‘Grace’ in Dubliners (p. 160).
10.778–80: Denis Breen . . . Ward Interpolation
10.778–79: John Henry Menton’s office See note at 6.568.
10.780: Messrs Collis and Ward See note at 6.56.
10.781: Island street
Island Street runs parallel to the Liffey on the south side, immediately east of Guinness’s Brewery. It is named after its proximity to Usher’s Island.
10.781: Times of the troubles
That is, the Rebellion of 1798, in which mostly republican insurgents rose up against the forces of the British crown, which in turn led to the Act of Union, for which see note at 2.270. The Troubles: ‘Any of various rebellions, civil wars, and periods of conflict in Ireland, spec. in 1919–23 and (in Northern Ireland) from the late 1960s until the “Good Friday” Agreement of 10 April 1998’ (OED).
10.782: those reminiscences of sir Jonah Barrington
Sir Jonah Barrington (c.1756–1834): the author of Personal Sketches of His Own Time (three volumes, 1827–32) and Historic Memoirs of Ireland (two volumes, 1809 and 1833). Besides being a historian, Barrington was also a judge and an MP who opposed the Act of Union. ‘His writings, though not always reliable, are highly entertaining and give a vivid picture of the political intrigue, larger-than-life characters, and boisterous social life of Georgian Ireland’ (DIB).
10.783: a kind of retrospective arrangement See note at 6.150.
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10.784: Gaming at Daly’s
Daly’s was a club on the north side of College Green, built in 1790, but closed in 1823. It was connected to Parliament by a private way and was renowned for ‘Dicing, duelling, high play, and heavy drinking’ (Chart, Story of Dublin, p. 206).
10.785–86: lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped … behind Moira house
Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763–98): a member of the Irish Parliament who became a leading member of the United Irishmen, a group committed to the overthrow of British rule. The Dublin revolt was planned for 23 May 1798, but Henry Charles Sirr (1764–1841), the town major of Dublin, set out to capture Fitzgerald. On 17 May, Sirr attempted to capture Fitzgerald at Watling Street (where Kernan is walking), but Fitzgerald escaped. He was captured the following day and died in prison on 1 June of wounds inflicted by Sirr (NHI, vol. 4, p. 354). Moira House was on Usher’s Quay. It had been the property of Francis Rowden, Earl of Moira, who gave sanctuary there to Fitzgerald’s wife Pamela while he was on the run in 1798. In 1826, the building was converted into the Mendicity Institute, an organisation to relieve poverty. This is the function it served in 1904. The building was demolished in 1962 (Bennett, s.v. quays).
10.788: Fine dashing young noblemen
Many of the key figures in the rebellion of 1798—such as Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Wolfe Tone, and Robert Emmet—were upper-class Protestants.
10.789: that sham squire
The ‘sham squire’ was Francis Higgins; for whom see note at 7.348. Informants in Higgins’s employ told him the whereabouts of Lord Edward Fitzgerald in May 1798, which led to Fitzgerald’s arrest and a reward of £1,000 for Higgins (DIB, s.v. Francis Higgins).
10.790: They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that is: Ingram
From ‘The Memory of the Dead’ (1843), a poem by John Kells Ingram (1823–1907) about the rebels of 1798: ‘They rose in dark and evil days, / To right their native land’ (ll. 33–34; Sonnets and Other Poems, pp. 104–06). Writing about this poem in 1900, Ingram states that the poem was written in ‘the early period of the so-called Young Irelanders, whose policy though deficient in sanity, was inspired by nobler feelings’ (p. 6).
10.793: At the siege of Ross did my father fall
From the song ‘The Croppy Boy’; see note at 11.991. New Ross, in County Wexford, was the site of a major battle, on 5 June 1798, between a large force of poorly armed Wexford rebels (nicknamed Croppy Boys; see note at 2.276) and a small but well-armed British force who eventually won (Kee, The Green Flag, pp. 117–18).
10.794: cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay
Pembroke Quay, on the northern side of the Liffey, is across from Kernan, who is in Watling Street. This is now called Ellis Quay.
10.800–80: Unit 13 (3:30–3:38)
Stephen Dedalus, Dilly Dedalus After meeting Artifoni by the front gate of Trinity College in unit 6, Stephen walks up Westmoreland Street, turns onto Fleet Street, and then turns onto Bedford Row where he runs into his sister Dilly at a bookshop (see notes at 10.830 and 10.831) (map 10.1).
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 477
10.801: prove
To prove: to test the genuineness of an object (OED).
10.804: winedark stones
After the Homeric epithet ‘wine-dark sea’; see note at 1.78.
10.805: Born all in the dark wormy earth
Recalls Milton’s description of Mammon’s crew mining for gold: ‘And with impious hands / Rifl’d the bowels of their mother Earth / For treasures better hid’ (Paradise Lost, I.686–88); see also note at 2.160.
10.821: Old Russell
Thomas Russell: lapidary and gem cutter, Fleet Street, just south of the Liffey near O’Connell Bridge (Thom’s, p. 1494).
10.813–14: Grandfather ape gloating on a stolen hoard
Suggests a passage from Yeats’s ‘The Eaters of Precious Stones’ from The Celtic Twilight (1893): ‘One day I saw faintly an immense pit of blackness, round which went a circular parapet, and on this parapet sat innumerable apes eating precious stones out of the palms of their hands’ (p. 167).
10.815–16: brainsick words of sophists: Antisthenes See note at 7.1035.
10.816–17: Orient and immortal wheat standing … to everlasting See note at 3.43–44.
10.818–20: Two old women . . . rolled Interpolation
10.818: whiff of the briny
The briny: a jocular expression for the sea (OED). Dent lists a few examples of the phrase ‘whiff of the briny’; ‘I’m off for a “whiff of the briny” at the naval review’ (Punch, 26 June 1897, p. 320).
10.818–19: through Irishtown along London bridge road
For Irishtown, see note at 6.34. These are the ‘midwives’ Stephen saw in ‘Proteus’ (3.29). London Bridge Road is one of the main roads in Irishtown, just north of Sandymount.
10.820: a midwife’s bag in which eleven cockles rolled
Since a midwife’s bag (see note at 3.32) is leather, it would probably not be used for carrying cockles (with thanks to Sophie Corser).
10.821: dynamos
‘The dynamo is a machine which converts mechanical energy into the energy of an electric current’ (G. A. Wentworth and G. A. Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 336; Yi Jean Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 652).
10.821–22: the powerhouse
At 49–56 Fleet Street, east of Thomas Russell’s lapidary shop, was the Dublin Corporation Electric Light Station (Thom’s, p. 1494).
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478 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
10.822–23: Throb always without you and the throb always within
Echoes a passage from The Mettle of the Pasture by James Lane Allen (1849–1925) that Joyce quoted in his review of that novel for the Daily Express on 17 September 1903: ‘Our wills may indeed reach the length of our arms, or as far as our voices can penetrate space; but without us and within us moves one universe that saves us or ruins us only for its own purposes’ (p. 125; quoted in OCPW, p. 83).
10.824: Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I
Suggests the two treacherous sea-lane obstacles Odysseus confronts, Scylla and Charybdis, although only Charybdis is a whirlpool.
10.826: Bawd
See note at 9.1021.
10.828: Very large and wonderful and keeps famous time
Stephen is walking by William Walsh’s clockmaking shop at 1 Bedford Row (Thom’s, p. 1424).
10.828–29: You say right, sir. A Monday morning. ’Twas so, indeed
From Hamlet: ‘You say right, sir: o’ Monday morning; ’twas so indeed’ (II.ii.415–16).
10.830: down Bedford row
Bedford Row runs north-south between Aston Quay, on the Liffey’s south bank, and Fleet Street, just to the west of O’Connell Bridge.
10.831: Clohissey’s window
Malachi Clohisey ran a bookstore at 10–11 Bedford Row (Thom’s, pp. 1424, 1833). Joyce originally spelt his name ‘Clohisey’ (Rosenbach f. 27) after the 1904 Thom’s, but on a page proof changed this to ‘Clohissey’ (JJA, vol. 18, p. 272), the more usual spelling for this name. However, the 1901 census corroborates the spelling in the 1904 Thom’s as ‘Clohisey’. This bookstore is also mentioned on ‘The Dead’, where it is named ‘O’Clohissey’s’ (p. 188).
10.831–32: a faded 1860 print of Heenan boxing Sayers
An international boxing championship match held in Farnborough, England on 7 April 1860 between the reigning champion, Englishman Tom Sayers (1826–65), and the challenger, the American J. C. Heenan (1833–73). The fight lasted over two hours and was ultimately declared a draw; it was so brutal and bloody that it led to a ban on bare-knuckle boxing in England (EB11, s.v. pugilism). While there were multiple illustrations of this fight, the print on display can be identified as a photogravure lithograph entitled ‘The International Contest between Heenan and Sayers’ (William Sayers, ‘ “A faded 1860 print of Heenan boxing Sayers” ’, pp. 283–86).
10.832: square hats
Square hat: a top hat, a tall, flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hat (Livery, p. 21).
10.838: The Irish Beekeeper
Irish Beekeepers’ Journal, the journal of the Irish Beekeeper’s Association, published at 15 Crow Street (Thom’s, p. 1465). In the autumn of 1903, Joyce had a post as assistant editor of The Irish Beekeepers’ Journal, which lasted less than one day (Costello, James Joyce, p. 217).
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 479
10.838–39: Life and Miracles of the Curé of Ars
After the title of the book Life of the Curé d’Ars by the Abbé Alfred Monnin (London: Burns and Lambert, 1862), translated from Le Curé d’Ars (Paris: C. Douniol, 1861). The phrase ‘Life and Miracles’ is normally reserved for the lives of saints, but the curé (chief parish priest) of Ars, Jean-Baptiste Marie Vianney (1786–1859), was not beatified until January 1905; he was proclaimed ‘venerable’ in 1874. He was canonised on 3 May 1925 (Catholic Encyclopedia). However, devotion to him was widespread in Ireland at the turn of the century.
10.839: Pocket Guide to Killarney
Killarney: ‘A justly acclaimed lakeside beauty spot in Co. Kerry. [. . .] Killarney has been a tourist spot since the late 18th century, becoming especially popular after the coming of the railway, and the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861’ (Brewer’s Irish). Several guides were in print for prospective visitors, such as the forty-one-page A New Guide to the Scenery of Killarney (Dublin: Nicholas Walsh, 1834), but no listing for this specific title can be found.
10.841–42: Stephano Dedalo, alumno optimo, palmam ferenti
Stephano Dedalo, alumno optimo, palmam ferenti (Latin): ‘To Stephen Dedalus, the best student, bearing the palm’. This formula was used on the bookplates awarded to prize- winning students at Belvedere (Bradley, James Joyce’s Schooldays, p. 145 n. 38).
10.842–43: Father Conmee . . . vespers Interpolation
10.842–43: the hamlet of Donnycarney
Donnycarney is 4.8 km north of central Dublin and 1 km north of Artane on the Malahide Road. Conmee has now walked past the road that branches off towards O’Brien’s Institute (see notes at 10.4 and 10.180) and is still walking northwards on the Malahide Road. This suggests that his actual destination is not O’Brien’s Institute, but instead the Artane Industrial School, in Artane Castle, which is run by the Christian Brothers (see also note at 6.537). Its director is the Reverend P. O. Ryan (Thom’s, p. 1633; Eamonn Finn and Harald Beck, JJON). See map 10.1.2.
10.843: murmuring vespers
Vespers are one of the four great canonical hours (see notes at 10.184 and 10.191) and are said at evening (Catholic Encyclopedia).
10.844–45: Eighth and ninth book of Moses. Secret of all secrets
The Pentateuch has just five books, although over the years other ‘lost’ books have been proposed and propagated. The copy here corresponds, although not exactly, to a German book: Achtes und neuntes Buch Mosis, oder der egyptische Hausschatz, das Geheimnis aller Geheimnisse (Eighth and ninth book of Moses, or the Egyptian house treasure, the secret of all secrets), published in Dresden in the mid-nineteenth century (Viktor Link, ‘Ulysses and the Eighth and Ninth Book of Moses’, pp. 199–203). In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pseudo-Cabbalistic, supernumerary Moses books proved popular (and contentious) in Germany and Austro-Hungary (Owen Davies, Grimoires, pp. 247–49).
10.845: Seal of King David
The shield of David or magen David, two superimposed triangles forming a six-pointed star, has been a symbol of Judaism since at least the seventeenth century (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
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480 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
10.849: Se el yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen.
From the fourth (of nine) charms in the ‘charms of St Ignatius’ chapter of the Eighth and Ninth Book of Moses: ‘Sel el yilo in nebrakada Femininum! / Amo me solo!’ The phrase ‘Sanktus! Amen’ seems to have been taken from the preceding charm: ‘In deo nebrakada malada, / Sanktus—Sanktus! Amen’ (Link, ‘Ulysses and the Eighth and Ninth Book of Moses’, pp. 201–02). The phrase is described as a formula that can be used to win the love of a woman, and defies translation as a whole. ‘Sel el yilo’ suggests the Spanish cielo, heaven; Nebrakada seems to be a magical word akin to Abracadabra; ‘Femininum’ is the German noun for feminine; ‘Amor me solo’ is close to the Spanish ama me sólo, love me only (‘amo me sólo’ actually means ‘I love only me’); Sanktus is close to the Latin sanctus, holy.
10.850–51: Charms and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter Salanka
From the full title of the ‘charms of St Ignatius’ chapter of the Eighth and Ninth Book of Moses: ‘Zauberformeln des heiligen Ignatius. Entdeckt und der ganzen Menschheit zu Nutz und Frommen zugänglich gemacht vom Pater Salanka, Prior eines beruhmten spanischen Trappistenklosters’ (‘Magic formulas of the holy Ignatius. Discovered and made accessible for all mankind’s use and profit by Pater Salanka, prior of a famous Spanish cloister’). Joyce mistranscribed ‘Pater [Father] Salanka’ as ‘Peter Salanka’ (Link, ‘Ulysses and the Eighth and Ninth Book of Moses’, p. 201).
10.852–53: Joachim’s. Down, baldynoddle, or we’ll wool your wool
After the Latin phrase given in ‘Proteus’: ‘Descende, calve, ut ne amplius decalveris’ (3.113–14), ‘Go down, bald one, so you do not become more bald’. Noddle: the head (OED). See also note at 3.113–14.
10.858: Stuart face of nonesuch Charles
Charles I (1600–49, r. 1625–49): of the house of Stuart. His conflict with parliament led to the English Civil War (1642–51) (ODNB). Nonesuch: ‘An unparalleled person or thing’ (OED, s.v. nonsuch). The reference however is to Nonsuch Palace, originally built by Henry VIII, but associated with Charles I and his French-born wife Henrietta Maria (1609–69). The 1896 novel A Pearl of the Realm: a Story of Nonsuch Palace in the Reign of Charles I by Anna L. Glynn recounts Charles and Henrietta’s unhappy marriage (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
10.860: pinchbeck
Pinchbeck: ‘of deceptive appearance and small value’ (OED).
10.861: Dan Kelly’s Unknown.
10.867–68: Chardenal’s French primer
C. A. Chardenal, The Standard French Primer (London: Hachette, 1877): the most basic of several French manuals by Chardenal, which remained popular through the early twentieth century. Joyce originally wrote ‘Bué’s French primer’ (Rosenbach f. 28), for Henri Bué’s Illustrated French Primer, which is ‘intended for very young children’ (Catalogue of Standard and Popular Works for the Study of European Languages, p. 3). Chardenal’s is more rigorous: ‘M. Chardenal wants his pupils to work not only by day, but by night if possible’ (p. 5). Joyce made the change to Chardenal on the first galley proof (JJA, vol. 18, p. 273).
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 481
10.875: Agenbite See note at 1.481.
10.882–954: Unit 14 (3:28–3:30)
Simon Dedalus, Father Cowley Outside Reddy’s antiques, 19 Ormond Quay (see note at 10.884). This is about 700 metres to the east of Dillon’s auction rooms where Simon was in unit 11 (map 10.1).
10.884: Reddy and Daughter’s
Richard Reddy: antique dealer, 19 Lower Ormond Quay (Thom’s, p. 1563). For the 1904 Thom’s, the business name did not include the daughter—this was added in for the 1908 directory, which coincided with the move to the larger premises next door, at 20 Lower Ormond Quay (Thom’s 1908, p. 2090; JJD, p. 124).
10.884–85: Father Cowley brushed his moustache
Bob Cowley is consistently referred to by the narrator as ‘Father Cowley’ although he does not seem to be a priest (although perhaps he is a defrocked priest), since a priest would probably not have a moustache and would be addressed as ‘Father’ rather than by his first name. The Catholic Encyclopedia says this on the subject of priests and facial hair: ‘There are still many ordinances of episcopal synods which deal with the subject, but the point upon which stress is laid is that the clergy “should not seem to be aping the fashions of military folk” or wearing flowing beards like goats (hircorum et caprarum more), or allowing the hair on their upper lip to impede their drinking of the chalice. This last has always been accounted a solid reason in favour of the practice of shaving’ (s.v. beard).
10.886: What’s the best news? A standard greeting (Dent).
10.890: gombeen See note at 9.630.
10.892: Reuben of that ilk
Reuben J. Dodd; see note at 6.251.
10.893: long John
Long John Fanning, the sub-sheriff of Dublin; see note at 7.106.
10.897: bockedy
Bockedy (also spelled bockady) (Hiberno-English): lame, defective (PWJ, p. 218).
10.899: metal bridge
Metal Bridge is just east of where Dedalus and Cowley now stand; see note at 10.532.
10.901: loose blue cutaway
Cutaway: a type of coat, in particular ‘having the skirt cut back in a slope or curve, as contrasted with a frock-coat’ (OED).
10.901: square hat See note at 10.832.
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482 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
10.901: slops
Slops: loose trousers (OED).
10.916: jewman
Jewman: a derogatory term, here applied to a tailor because that profession was associated with Jews. By the early twentieth century, Jewish firms had come to dominate non-handicraft tailoring in the United Kingdom (S. P. Dobbs, The Clothing Workers of Great Britain, p. 15).
10.918: basso profondo
Basso profondo: ‘A deep bass voice, having a compass of about two octaves above the D below the bass stave’ (OED).
10.919–20: Cashel Boyle . . . club Interpolation
10.919: Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell See note at 8.302.
10.920: Kildare street club See note at 5.560–61.
10.928–31: The reverend . . . hurdles Interpolation
10.929: James and Charles Kennedy’s, rectifiers
James and Charles Kennedy: wholesale liquor dealers, 31–32 Mary’s Abbey and 150–151 Capel Street (Thom’s, p. 1540). To rectify liquor is 1) to refine it by a repeated distillation, 2) to raise its strength to a required level, 3) to flavour it some way after it has been made (OED). Hugh C. Love has turned south out of St Mary’s Abbey and is walking down Capel Street toward the Liffey.
10.930: Geraldines
Love is writing a book about the Fitzgeralds; see notes at 10.439 and 10.449.
10.930–31: towards the Tholsel beyond the ford of hurdles
The Tholsel (Irish, ‘toll collector’s hut’) was the old city hall, built around 1311 on Skinner’s Row opposite Christ Church Cathedral on the south side of the Liffey. In 1676, the medieval building was demolished and replaced with a new one, which was, in turn, demolished in 1809, at which point the city hall moved to its location at Cork Hill, which is nearby (Bennett; JJD, p. 129). ‘Ford of hurdles’ is a translation of the Irish áth cliath; the Irish name for Dublin is Baile Átha Cliath, Town of the Ford of Hurdles. There used to be a bridge, or ford, over the Liffey at Dublin made of wicker hurdles, which, into the seventeenth century, was the only foot passage across the river. It stood where Whitworth Bridge (renamed Father Mathew Bridge; see note at 10.1184) stands (P. W. Joyce, Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, pp. 45–46). Thus, the Tholsel and the ford of hurdles are artefacts of Dublin’s past, no longer extant in 1904.
10.934: subsheriff ’s office
The City of Dublin Sheriff ’s offices were located at 30 Upper Ormond Quay (Thom’s, p. 1564), about 400 metres west up the quayside from where Cowley, Dedalus, and Dollard now stand.
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 483
10.935: Rock
See note at 8.687–88.
10.935: Lobengula
Lobengula (c.1833–94): king of the Matabele (a Zulu people) 1870–94; he died in battle fighting against British colonial incursions (EB11, s.v. Rhodesia).
10.936: Lynchehaun
James Lynchehaun (c.1858–c.1937). In 1894, on Achill Island (off the western coast), Lynchehaun tried to kill Agnes MacDonnell, the English-born woman he worked for. The local peasantry helped him hide from capture, but in 1895 he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. He fled to America where authorities refused to extradite him. He is the model for the character Christy in Synge’s Playboy of the Western World (1907) (DIB).
10.936–37: I saw John Henry Menton casually in the Bodega just now
The Bodega Co. (limited), ‘wine and spirit merchants and importers’: located in the Commercial Buildings, 41A Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1460). Casually: by chance (OED).
10.938: on the right lay
Lay: plan (OED); therefore, ‘on the lay’: on the right track.
10.942: shraums
Shraum (Hiberno-English): ‘A mucous deposit’; from the Irish sream: phlegm (OED).
10.943: distrained
To distrain: ‘to constrain or force (a person) by the seizure and detention of a chattel or thing, to perform some obligation (as to pay money owed by him)’ (OED).
10.946: The landlord has the prior claim
Under the law in Ireland, the landlord indeed had priority over any third party, in this case Reuben Dodd, the moneylender. So Dodd’s writ against Cowley has no legal standing and is thus worthless (Andrew Gibson, ‘ “Nobody Owns” ’, p. 129).
10.946–47: 29 Windsor avenue
The Joyces lived at 29 Windsor Avenue (in Fairview, north-eastern Dublin) from 1898–99. John Joyce paid only a quarter of the rent but, like Cowley, took advantage of a legal fault in the lease and was able to stay on until eviction proceedings were taken. The house was owned by the mother of Hugh C. Love (Costello, James Joyce, p. 140); see note at 10.437–38.
10.950: Barabbas See note at 6.274.
10.950–51: he can put that writ where Jacko put the nuts
Put it where the monkey put the nuts: a late 19th century exclamation of coarse dismissal, ‘i.e., shove it up your arse!’ (Jonathon Green, Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang). Jacko: generic name for a monkey (OED, s.v. jocko).
10.956–1041: Unit 15 (3:26–3:40)
Martin Cunningham, Mr Power, John Wyse Nolan
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484 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses From Dublin Castle (see note at 8.362) to Kavanagh’s bar (see note at 10.982), 27 Parliament Street, via Cork Hill (see note at 10.969) and Parliament Street (map 10.1).
10.956: Martin Cunningham See note at 5.331.
10.957: Castleyard gate
The Cork Hill entrance to Dublin Castle (see note at 8.362), where Mr Power, Mr Cunningham and John Wyse Nolan work.
10.960: the waiting jarvey See note at 4.439.
10.961: towards Lord Edward street
Lord Edward Street is just north of Castleyard Gate. Cunningham, Power, and Nolan will walk past it on their way to Kavanagh’s bar at 27 Parliament Street.
10.962–63: Bronze . . . hotel Interpolation
10.962: Bronze by gold See note at 11.64.
10.963: Ormond hotel See note at 10.395.
10.966: Mr Power suggested See note at 6.2.
10.967: Boyd
This is probably John Boyd (1867–1932), who was a colleague of Matthew Kane, the model for Matthew Cunningham (see note at 5.331), at the State Solicitor’s Office in Dublin Castle. Like Kane, Boyd was friendly with John Stanislaus Joyce (Igoe, p. 35).
10.967: Touch me not
To touch: to ask for money (Partridge); see note at 1.155. This phrase, with a different meaning, occurs in the gospels: ‘Touch me not. For I am not yet ascended to my Father’ (John 20:17).
10.968: John Wyse Nolan See note at 8.950–51.
10.969: Cork hill
Dame Street becomes Cork Hill for the stretch in front of Dublin Castle and then becomes Lord Edward Street. It is named after the 1st Earl of Cork who had a mansion at this site known as Cork House, which, after his death, was used for government offices (McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 26; Bennett).
10.970: On the steps of the City hall Councillor Nannetti
The Dublin city hall is next door to the Castle and on the men’s path to Lord Edward Street. See note at 7.75 for Nannetti. This is not necessarily an interpolation since it is happening so close to the Castle.
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10.971: Alderman Cowley
There is no such person in either Thom’s list of the members of the Dublin Corporation or in its index of Nobility, Gentry, Merchants, and Traders.
10.971: Councillor Abraham Lyon
Abraham Lyon was sitting on the Dublin City Council for Clontarf West Ward in the 1903–04 term (Thom’s, p. 1347).
10.972: The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange street
Upper Exchange Street runs from Cork Hill down towards Essex Street, where it becomes Lower Exchange Street. The ‘castle car’ is a carriage that is at the disposal of the Castle’s civil servants (Paul Van Caspel, ‘Annotations to the Annotations of Annotations’, p. 12).
10.973–74: Mail office
The Dublin Evening Mail, Daily Express, and Weekly Warder had offices at 38–40 Parliament Street (Thom’s, p. 1566).
10.980: there is much kindness in the jew
From the Merchant of Venice: Antonio’s line to Shylock when he agrees to lend Antonio money at the hazard of the loss of a pound of flesh if he fails to repay on time (I.iii.154).
10.982: Jimmy Henry
James J. Henry (1855–1916): the assistant town clerk of Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1896).
10.982: Kavanagh’s
James Kavanagh, tea, wine, and spirit merchant: 27 Parliament Street, at its corner with Essex Gate and at 42 Wentworth Place (Thom’s, p. 1566).
10.984–85: Outside la Maison Claire . . . liberties Interpolation
10.984: Outside la Maison Claire See note at 8.586.
10.984–85: Jack Mooney’s brother-in-law That is, Bob Doran; see note at 5.107.
10.985: the liberties See note at 3.33.
10.987: shower of hail suit
Shower of hail: a type of pattern used in dresses and suits that features regularly clustered spots (The World of Fashion, 1 Feb. 1838, vol. 15, no. 167, p. 36).
10.988: Micky Anderson’s watches
Michael Anderson’s watchmaking shop: 30 Parliament Street, just before Kavanagh’s winerooms (Thom’s, p. 1566).
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486 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
10.1001–02: large Henry Clay
Henry Clay: a cigar brand named after an American politician and two-time presidential candidate (1777–1852) (OED).
10.1004: conscript fathers . . . peaceful deliberations
A translation of the Latin phrase Patres Conscripti: the name given to the Roman Senate, and thus, by extension, to any legislative body (OED, s.v. conscript), such as here the executives of the Dublin Corporation. The term was routinely used in newspaper coverage; for example: ‘The Conscript Fathers of the Irish capital should not continue to adhere to a silly prejudice’ (Freeman’s Journal, 30 June 1866, p. 3, col. c; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON). By the late nineteenth century, the Corporation was ‘increasingly dominated by Catholic representatives due to the extension of the municipal franchise [. . .] One of the principal objections raised by the township commissioners to the Corporation was the amount of time these novi homines devoted to political debate, as opposed to civic administration’ (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 261). Such debates are what Fanning is alluding to with the sardonic remark ‘peaceful deliberations’. See also note at 8.466–67.
10.1006: Hell open to christians
The Italian Jesuit Giovanni Pietro Pinamonti (1632–1703) wrote the tract L’inferno aperto al Cristiano perche non v’entri (Bologna: 1688), published in English as Hell Opened to Christians; To Caution Them from Entering into It (Derby: Richardson and Son, 1844). This text was widely used in Christian sermonising. The sermons which so terrified Stephen in the third chapter of A Portrait derive from this book (James R. Thrane, ‘Joyce’s Sermon on Hell: Its Source and Its Backgrounds’).
10.1007: damned Irish language See note at 8.466–67.
10.1007: Where was the marshal
John Howard Parnell is the City Marshal (see note at 8.500); he was notorious for never attending the Dublin Corporation meetings (with thanks to Gerry O’Flaherty).
10.1008–09: old Barlow the macebearer
John Barlow (1822–1912): ‘Mace Bearer and Officer of Commons’ (Thom’s, p. 1349). The macebearer carries the mace or emblem of authority before the Lord Mayor in official processions. Barlow was first elected macebearer in 1866 (Igoe, p. 22).
10.1010: Hutchinson, the lord mayor
Joseph Hutchinson (1852–1928): Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1904–1905 (Thom’s 1905, pp. 1387, 1442).
10.1010: Llandudno
Llandudno: a seaside resort in north Wales. There is no record that the Lord Mayor was in Wales on or around 16 June 1904.
10.1011: Lorcan Sherlock
Lorcan Sherlock (1874–1945): the Secretary of the Dublin Corporation (Thom’s, p. 1347) and later the Lord Mayor (1912–15) (Igoe, pp. 274–75).
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10.1011: locum tenens
Locum tenens (Latin): person who holds the place of another; a temporary substitute (OED).
10.1034–35: Parliament street
Parliament Street runs north from Dame Street, slightly to the west of Dublin Castle, and goes towards the quays where it connects with Grattan Bridge.
10.1043–99: Unit 16 (3:23–3:31)
Mulligan and Haines Dublin Bread Company (see notes at 8.464 and 8.510), 33 Dame Street (south side) (map 10.1).
10.1046–47: a longfaced man … on a chessboard John Howard Parnell; see note at 8.510.
10.1050: translated a white bishop
To translate: to transfer, to move; also, ‘to remove a bishop from one see to another, or a bishop’s seat from one place to another’ (OED; Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana IV’, pp. 164–65).
10.1054: mélange
Mélange (French): mixture. A café mélange has coffee, milk, water, whipped cream, and castor sugar (OED). This would have been a standard item on the menu at the DBC (JJD, p. 53).
10.1058: D. B. C.
See notes at 8.464 and 8.510.
10.1060: newbought book
Haines’s ‘newbought book’ is Douglas Hyde’s Love Songs of Connaught; see note at 9.94.
10.1061–62: Shakespeare . . . lost their balance
Alludes to, among other works of Shakespeareana, Justice Madden’s imaginative pseudo- autobiography of Shakespeare, The Diary of Master William Silence: A Study of Shakespeare and of Elizabethan Sport (see note at 9.582–83). The heading for the last page of chapter 1 in his book is ‘A Happy Hunting Ground’ (p. 11).
10.1063–64: The onelegged sailor . . . expects Interpolation
10.1063: 14 Nelson street
Nelson Street intersects Eccles Street at its midway point and runs south-south-east. 14 Nelson Street was the address of a private hotel, Mary McManus, proprietor (Thom’s, p. 1555). As might be expected, Nelson Street is named after Admiral Horatio Nelson (McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 72).
10.1064: England expects
From ‘The Death of Nelson’; see note at 10.232.
10.1065: primrose waistcoat See note at 1.550.
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488 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
10.1066–67: Wandering Aengus See note at 9.1093.
10.1068: idée fixe
Idée fixe (French): ‘fixed idea’; an obsession (OED).
10.1072: They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell
In the third chapter of A Portrait, Stephen is subjected to a long and horrifying sermon on hell at a retreat for schoolboys; see also notes at 10.1006 and 9.735. This line is probably after Yeats’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan: ‘Her trouble has put her wits astray’ (The Plays, p. 89).
10.1072–73: He will never capture the Attic note
That is, the spirit of fifth century bc Athens, its golden age.
10.1073: note of Swinburne
In poems such as ‘Hymn to Proserpine’ (1866), Swinburne laments the passing of the Greek gods, whom he saw as vital and sensuous, and their substitution by ‘barren’ (l. 17) Christian ideals.
10.1073–74: white death and the ruddy birth
Line 34 from Swinburne’s poem ‘Genesis’ (1871): ‘One thing the white death and the ruddy birth’.
10.1074: He can never be a poet See note at 3.128.
10.1078: professor Pokorny of Vienna
Professor Julius Pokorny (1887–1970): a Prague-born Austrian scholar and lecturer on Celtic philology at the University of Vienna from 1914–21, and a professor of Celtic philology at the University of Berlin from 1921. In 1904, Pokorny was only 17; he earned his doctorate in 1910 (Igoe, p. 248).
10.1082: no trace of hell in ancient Irish myth
In 1917, Pokorny published an essay in which he claimed in a footnote that ‘Die Irische heidnische Religion kennt keine Hölle’ (The Irish heathen religion knows no hell) (‘Perlen der irischen Literatur’, p. 343 n.). Joyce wrote down this quote in German in an early Ulysses notebook (NLI II.i.1 f. 8v; Pól Ó Dochartaigh, ‘The Source of Hell: Professor Pokorny of Vienna in Ulysses’, p. 827). There is an other-world in ancient Irish myth, Tír na nÓg, but it is not analogous to the Christian notion of Hell (see note at 9.413).
10.1089–90: He is going to write something in ten years
Joyce began writing Ulysses in 1914. When Gogarty introduced Joyce to Trench (the model for Haines), he announced, ‘This is the man who intends to write a novel in fifteen years’ (Ellmann, p. 172).
10.1096–99: Elijah . . . bricks Interpolation
10.1097–98: beyond new Wapping street past Benson’s ferry
New Wapping Street runs north-south from the North Wall Quay, on the Liffey’s north bank near the river’s mouth. Thom’s lists no Benson’s Ferry, but there is a Benson Street
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 489 on the south side of the Liffey, slightly to the east of New Wapping Street. The 1912 Ordnance Survey map shows one ferry crossing to the east of Benson Street and another to the west of New Wapping Street. Presumably this is not a large ferry boat, but rather a large rowing boat (JJD, p. 48).
10.1098–99: threemasted schooner Rosevean from Bridgwater with bricks
The Freeman’s Journal for 16 June 1904, under ‘Shipping News’, reported the arrival of this ship on 15 June, ‘Rosevean, from Bridgwater, with bricks’ (p. 3, col. i). Bath bricks were manufactured solely at Bridgwater, about 240 km north of London (EB11, s.v. Bridgwater). This is the ship Stephen saw at the end of ‘Proteus’; see note at 3.504.
10.1101–20: Unit 17 (3:30–3:46)
Artifoni, Cashel Boyle, blind stripling The straight line from Nassau Street to Clare Street to Merrion Square North to Lower Mount Street. Artifoni is walking along the north side of Merrion Square heading towards Lower Mount Street, which runs east from the north-east corner of the square. Farrell and the blind stripling are also headed in this direction, although Farrell will reverse his course (map 10.4).
10.1101: past Holles street
Holles Street runs north from the north-east corner of Merrion Square, in the south-east section of Dublin.
10.1101: Sewell’s yard
James Walter Sewell and Son and James Simpson operated a horse stable and livery establishment at 60 Lower Mount Street (Thom’s, p. 1550).
10.1102: Cashel Boyle . . . stickumbrelladustcoat See notes at 8.302 and 8.316.
10.1103–04: Mr Law Smith’s house
Philip H. Law Smith, M.A., LL.D. (1863–1920): barrister with offices at 14 Clare Street (Thom’s, p. 1455).
10.1104: Merrion square
One of the finest squares of Georgian Dublin, with a park at its centre; laid out in 1752 and, over the years, home to many prominent people, such as Oscar Wilde, Daniel O’Connell, W. B. Yeats, and George Russell. The park was closed to the public until 1974 (Bennett). ‘The north side is mostly occupied by Doctors’ (DD, p. 223).
10.1105: College Park
College Park is the cricket ground in Trinity College; it lies at the eastern end of the campus and its south-eastern corner is a short distance away from Merrion Square.
10.1107: Mr Louis Werner’s cheerful windows
Louis Werner (1860–1936): an ophthalmic surgeon who worked at Mater Misericordiae Hospital and Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital and had a consulting room at 31 Merrion Square North (Thom’s, p. 1544). He is not the same Louis Werner mentioned in ‘Hades’; see note at 6.221. The windows of his consulting room at Merrion Square were adorned with stained glass windows (Kenny’s Bookshop and Art Galleries 75 Years, p. 16).
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10.1109: corner of Wilde’s
In June 1855, Oscar Wilde and his parents, Sir William and Lady Wilde, moved into the large house at 1 Merrion Square, at the north-west corner of the square (Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, p. 18). In 1904, the house was occupied by Charles H. Dowling, a dental surgeon (Thom’s, p. 1544).
10.1109–10: Elijah’s name announced on the Metropolitan hall
The announcement is a poster for John Alexander Dowie; see note at 8.13–14. The Metropolitan Hall is on Lower Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1408), on the other side of the river. The poster is, instead, on the Merrion Hall Church, an Evangelical church on the corner of Lower Merrion Street and Denzille Street, around the corner from Merrion Square (p. 1545).
10.1110–11: pleasance of duke’s lawn
Pleasance: a pleasure ground attached to a mansion (OED). Duke’s Lawn: the lawn at the back side of Leinster House, facing Merrion Square. Leinster House was originally built in 1745 as the home for James Fitzgerald (1722–73), 20th Earl of Kildare and 1st Duke of Leinster. In 1904, it housed the Royal Dublin Society; since 1924, it has served as the seat of the Irish Parliament (Bennett).
10.1113: Coactus volui
Coactus volui (Latin): ‘having been forced, I was willing’. From Justinian’s (483–565) Digest of Roman law: ‘Si metu coactus adii hereditatem, puto me heredem effici, quia quamvis si liberum esset noluissem, tamen coactus volui’ (‘If I have been forced by fear to accept a legacy, I judge that I am made a legatee, because, although I would not have been willing had it been freely offered, nevertheless, having been forced, I was willing’) (IV.2.21.5; R. J. Schork, ‘Joyce and Justinian’, p. 77). According to Gogarty, Farrell (see note at 8.302) quoted Latin phrases (As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, pp. 10, 275).
10.1114: Clare street
Clare Street connects Leinster Street with Merrion Square.
10.1115: Mr Bloom’s dental windows
Marcus J. Bloom (b. 1861): dental surgeon on call at Maynooth College and at one time a lecturer at St Vincent’s Hospital. His office was at 2 Clare Street (Thom’s, p. 1810). His father was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism on marriage (Hyman, p. 139). He is unrelated to (the fictional) Bloom.
10.1116: brushed rudely from its angle a slender tapping cane
Farrell was apparently not a friendly man. Gogarty writes: ‘Then there is the fact that Endymion, the madman, likes only me’ (Mourning Became Mrs. Spendlove, p. 52).
10.1117: thewless
Thewless: ‘Without energy, inert, spiritless’ (OED).
10.1119: You’re blinder nor I am, you bitch’s bastard
Nor: than (OED). After Deuteronomy 27:18: ‘Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of his way’.
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10.1122–74: Unit 18 (3:35–3:38)
Patsy Dignam From Mangan’s porkbutcher (see note at 10.543), 1–2 South William Street to Nassau Street via Wicklow and Grafton Streets (map 10.1).
10.1122: Ruggy O’Donohoe’s
M. O’Donohoe: proprietor of the International Bar at 23 Wicklow Street (Thom’s, pp. 1622, 1975), on the corner of Wicklow Street and St Andrew Street. Ruggy is presumably his nickname.
10.1123: Mangan’s, late Fehrenbach’s See note at 10.534.
10.1124: Wicklow street
Wicklow Street intersects Grafton Street at a right angle from the west. After turning north onto Grafton Street, Dignam turns east-south-east onto Nassau Street, and then toward his home in Sandymount.
10.1125–26: Mrs Stoer and Mrs Quigley and Mrs MacDowell
Thom’s lists two Stoers living Sandymount: John Stoer, Esq., 15 New Grove Avenue and F. H. Stoer, 83 Tritonville Road (Thom’s, p. 2018). Mrs Mary MacDowell lived at 10 Greenfield, Claremont Road, Sandymount (p. 1780; Igoe, p. 185). The 1901 census lists a Mary Quigley (and family) nearby on Strand Street in Irishtown.
10.1127: uncle Barney
Paddy Dignam’s brother-in-law is named Bernard Corrigan; see note at 16.1256.
10.1128: Tunney’s
William J. Tunney: grocer, 8 Bridge Street in Ringsend (south of the Liffey’s mouth) and at 10 Haddington Road, in Ballsbridge (Thom’s, p. 2028).
10.1128: cottage fruitcake
Cottage cake: a cake made with dough, butter, sugar, currants, plums, and mixed spice (Alexis Soyer, The Modern Housewife, p. 394).
10.1130: Wicklow lane
Wicklow Lane is a small street off the western end of Wicklow Street.
10.1130: Madame Doyle, court dress milliner
Madame Doyle: ‘court dress and millinery warerooms’, 33 Wicklow Street (Thom’s, p. 1622). Court-dress: ‘The costume worn by those who attend at Court, and on other state occasions’ (OED).
10.1131–32: puckers stripped to their pelts
Pucker: a boxer; from the Irish poc: a sharp, sudden blow (OED).
10.1132: putting up their props
That is, getting ready to fight; props: arms (Partridge).
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492 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
10.1133–34: Myler Keogh, Dublin’s pet lamb, will meet sergeantmajor Bennett
Myler Keogh (1867–1916): Dublin-born boxer and the middle-weight champion of Ireland between 1893 and 1898. His real name was Myles, but he used the name Myler for fights. Keogh’s career had ended by 1904; Joyce evidently confused him for another fighter with a similar name. The fight mentioned here was the second round of a civil and military tournament held at the Earlsfort Terrace Rink on 29 April 1904. This venue was frequently used for matches between British soldiers and local civilian boxers. The civilian was J. McKeogh, but his name was erroneously reported in the press, with one variant being ‘M. Keogh’ (Freeman’s Journal, 29 Apr. 1904, p. 7, col. j), which probably explains the confusion. The soldier in this match was named Garry, a private in the British army from the 6th Dragoons. Joyce substitutes Garry’s name with that of Andrew Percy Bennett (1866–1943), the British consul-general in Zürich during Joyce’s time there in World War I (Ellmann, p. 426); see note at 15.48 for details. McKeogh knocked out Garry in the third round (Freeman’s Journal, 30 Apr. 1904, p. 7, col. j; John Simpson, ‘Myler Keogh, Dublin’s Pet Lamb’, p. 1). For an account of the match see note at 12.960. Pet and lamb are both ring-names in boxing, although there appears to be no example of these two nicknames being used together. From the 1820s onwards, pet was used to designate a ‘favourite boxer’ (OED) and lamb is used ironically in reference to a boxer’s aggression (John Simpson, JJON).
10.1134: Portobello bruiser
See note at 8.801–02 for the Portobello Barracks. Bruiser is another common ring-name in boxing; from Pierce Egan’s Boxiana: ‘a bruiser of notoriety in Ireland’ (vol. 1, p. 239).
e
d c
b a
Map 10.4 Merrion Square (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); Artifoni and Farrell; a = Sewell, Son, and Simpson (3- Lower Mount Street); b = Louis Werner (31 Merrion Square North); c = Wilde’s House (1 Merrion Square North); d = Merrion Hall (Lower Merrion Street); e = M. Bloom, dentist (2 Clare Street)
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10.1134–35: purse of fifty sovereigns
There is no record of the purse of the McKeogh vs. Garry match, but £50 seems unlikely as the prize for an exhibition match. Keogh did win a purse of £50, which was considered substantial, for at least one of his earlier matches (Kerry Sentinel, 16 Oct. 1901, p. 3, col. e).
10.1136–37: Two bar entrance, soldiers half price
Bar: Dublin slang, one shilling (Richard Wall, Anglo-Irish Dialect Glossary for Joyce’s Works; Dent).
10.1137: do a bunk on
To do a bunk: to sneak off (Partridge).
10.1141–42: Marie Kendall, charming soubrette See note at 10.380–81.
10.1142–43: mots that do be in the packets of fags
That is, young Dignam has seen a picture of Marie Kendall on a picture card that came in a cigarette pack. Mot (Hiberno-English): a girl, a female companion (Dolan); see also note at 3.372–73. For does be, see note at 8.972.
10.1143: Stoer
See note at 10.1125–26.
10.1145–46: best pucker going for strength was Fitzsimmons
Robert Fitzsimmons (1862–1917): an English heavyweight boxer; in 1897, he became world champion when he knocked out J. J. Corbett (see next note) by hitting him in the solar plexus. In 1899, Fitzsimmons lost to American James J. Jeffries (1875–1953) (Igoe, pp. 108–09). For pucker, see note at 10.1131–32.
10.1147–49: best pucker for science was Jem Corbett before . . . dodging and all
Science: ‘Knowledge acquired by study; acquaintance with or mastery of any department of learning’ (OED). James John ‘Gentleman Jim’ Corbett (1866–1933): American boxer, won the heavyweight championship in 1892, but lost it to Robert Fitzsimmons in 1897 (Igoe, p. 64).
10.1151: pair of kicks
Kicks: shoes (Partridge).
10.1153: No Sandymount tram
The tramline to Sandymount Green (see note at 7.5) has a stop on Nassau Street. In Sandymount it stops at Tritonville Road, which is close to Dignam’s house at Newbridge Avenue (S. A. O. Fitzpatrick, Dublin: A Historical and Topographical Account, p. 349).
10.1169: butty
Butty: ‘difficult, awkward’ (Dolan).
10.1173: purgatory
See note at 6.858–59.
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494 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
10.1173–74: Father Conroy
Reverend Ber. Conroy: curate at Mary, Star of the Sea, in Sandymount on Leahy’s Terrace; his residence was 5 Leahy’s Terrace (Thom’s, p. 1837).
10.1176–1282: Unit 19 (3:14–3:57)
Viceroy’s cavalcade The Viceregal Lodge, Phoenix Park (see note at 7.661) to Mirus Bazaar, Ballsbridge (see note at 8.1162), via Dublin city centre (map 10.5).
10.1176: William Humble, earl of Dudley, and lady Dudley
Properly, the name of the lord lieutenant is William Humble Ward, Earl of Dudley (see note at 8.1162). Lady Dudley (see note at 7.700) did not attend the Mirus Bazaar (which actually opened on 31 May 1904), since she was at home in the late stages of pregnancy (SS, p. 7).
10.1177: lieutenantcolonel Heseltine
Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Heseltine (1869–1923): one of the ‘Extra’ Aides-de-Camp to Lord Dudley (Thom’s, p. 833). Heseltine did not accompany the Lord Lieutenant to the opening of the Mirus Bazaar, which was on 31 May (see both notes at 8.1162). But, on 16 June 1904, Heseltine did accompany the Lord Lieutenant on a trip to County Clare (SS, p. 219; Irish Daily Independent, p. 5, col. f).
10.1178–79: the honourable Mrs Paget, Miss de Courcy
Neither of these women accompanied the Lord Lieutenant to the opening of the Mirus Bazaar. Their names echo Sir John de Courcy, a Norman hero in the twelfth-century invasion of Ireland and Henry William Paget (1768–1854), Earl of Anglesey and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1828–29, 1830–33) (SS, p. 220 n).
10.1179: the honourable Gerald Ward, A.D.C.
ADC: Aide-de-Camp (OED). Lieutenant the Honourable Gerald Ernest Francis Ward (1877–1914) was the Lord Lieutenant’s youngest brother and served as one of his aides-de- camp (Thom’s, p. 833). Like Heseltine (see note at 10.1177), Ward did not accompany the Lord Lieutenant to the opening of the Mirus Bazaar on 31 May, but did accompany him on the trip to Clare on 16 June (SS, p. 219; Irish Daily Independent, p. 5, col. f).
10.1181: Kingsbridge
Kingsbridge (now the Seán Huston Bridge), across the Liffey, is a little to the east of Park Gate.
10.1183: Bloody bridge
Bloody Bridge was originally built in 1674 over the Liffey just east of the recently erected Blue Coat Hospital, near the current site of the Guinness Brewery at St James’s Gate; its successor bridge was opened in 1861 and called the Victoria and Albert Bridge. In 1939, it was renamed the Rory O’More Bridge (Bennett, s.v. Rory O’More Bridge); see also note at 16.1104. It lies about 650 metres east of Kingsbridge.
10.1184: Queen’s and Whitworth bridges
Queen’s Bridge (now the Liam Mellows Bridge) and Whitworth Bridge (now Father Mathew Bridge), are at the western and eastern ends, respectively, of Arran Quay. Queen’s
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10. ‘Wandering Rocks’ 495 Bridge, the oldest of the bridges crossing the Liffey (Bennett), is about 290 metres east of Bloody Bridge and Whitworth Bridge is 400 metres east of that.
10.1185–86: Mr Dudley White, B.L., M.A.
Dudley White, Bachelor of Law and Master of Arts: barrister, 29 Kildare Street (Thom’s, p. 2038).
10.1186: Arran Quay
On the north bank of the Liffey, west of central Dublin, between Queen’s Bridge (now Liam Mellows Bridge) and Whitworth Bridge (now Father Mathew Bridge).
10.1186: Mrs M. E. White’s, the pawnbroker’s
Mrs M. E. White: pawnbroker, 32 Arran Quay (Thom’s, p. 1416).
10.1188: Phibsborough
Phibsborough: a neighbourhood just north of the North Circular Road and south of Glasnevin. Phibsborough is about 2 km distant from Arran Quay.
10.1189: a triple change of tram
Travelling from Arran Quay to Phibsborough by tram would require three trams and, thus, two changes. ‘The first tram, either the Parkgate and Ballybough line or O’Connell Bridge and Parkgate Street line, would take him along the north quays to Capel Street; the second, the College Green and Drumcondra tram, up Capel Street, Bolton Street, and Upper Dorset Street as far as the corner of Blessington Street; the third to his destination via the Donnybrook and Phoenix Park line along Blessington Street, Berkeley Road, and North Circular Road. [. . .] The real point of Mr White’s problem is that the area bounded by the northern quays, Capel, Bolton and Dorset Streets, North Circular Road, and Phoenix Park, is the largest in the centre of Dublin to have had no tram service running through it’ (JJD, pp. 56–57).
10.1190: Smithfield, Constitution hill and Broadstone terminus
Smithfield runs north from Arran Quay to King Street, which runs east to Upper Church Street, turning into Constitution Hill, running north towards Phibsborough. Broadstone terminus is about 400 metres north on Constitution Hill, which after Broadstone terminus becomes Phibsborough Road; see also note at 5.117.
10.1190–91: Four Courts See note at 10.625–26.
10.1191: costsbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward See note at 6.56.
10.1192: Richmond bridge
Richmond Bridge (now O’Donovan Rossa Bridge) connects Winetavern Street south of the Liffey with Chancery Place on the north side; it lies about 290 metres east of Whitworth Bridge.
10.1193: Reuben J. Dodd, solicitor, agent for the Patriotic Insurance Company See note at 6.251.
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10.1195: King’s windows
William King: printer and law stationer, 36 Upper Ormond Quay (Thom’s, p. 1564).
10.1196: Wood quay
Wood Quay is on the Liffey’s south bank, across the river from Upper Ormond Quay’s western section.
10.1196: Tom Devan’s office
The real-life Tom Devin (1865–1937), a friend of John Stanislaus Joyce, was the model for the fictional Jack Power (see note at 6.2). The misspelling is Joyce’s.
10.1196: Poddle river
The Poddle River runs into the Liffey from beneath Wellington Quay, not Wood Quay, which is where Devin’s office at the City Cleansing Department is located (Thom’s, p. 1625). This relocation is fortuitous since ‘The Poddle had long since become a sewer’ (JJD, p. 123). The two quays are about 350 metres apart.
10.1197: tongue of liquid sewage
Tongue: ‘A narrow strip of land, running into the sea, or between two branches of a river, or two other lands; also a projecting horizontal point or spit of ice in the sea, a narrow inlet of water running into the land, etc.’ (OED). ‘For Dubliners, the Poddle has been associated with the monolithic Tongue at Kimmage for over four hundred years’ (D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 256). However, this particular ‘tongue of sewage’ is not the Tongue of Kimmage.
10.1197: crossblind See note at 7.440.
10.1198: Ormond Hotel See note at 10.395.
10.1200: the greenhouse See note at 8.97.
10.1202: Cahill’s corner
Timothy Cahill: pub and grocer, 8 Lower Liffey Street, at the corner of Lotts (Thom’s, p. 1533).
10.1203–04: lords deputies … of yore rich advowsons
Lord Deputy: an archaic title for the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (OED, s.v. deputy). Benignant: ‘Cherishing or exhibiting kindly feeling towards inferiors or dependants’ (OED). Advowson: ‘the “patronage” of an ecclesiastical office or religious house; the right of presentation to a benefice or living’ (OED).
10.1204: Grattan bridge
Named after the Irish lawyer, orator, and politician Henry Grattan (see note at 7.731), Grattan Bridge (opened in 1874) is the first bridge to the east of Richmond Bridge (Bennett, s.v. Bridges).
10.1205–06: Roger Greene’s office
Roger Greene: solicitor, ‘11 Wellington Quay, and Rathkeale’ (Thom’s, p. 1886).
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10.1206: Dollard’s big red printinghouse
Dollard: ‘Printing House (limited), account book manufacturer’, 1–2 Essex Quay, factory at 2–5 Wellington Quay, and stores at 4–5 Essex Street (Thom’s, p. 1853). This is not the Dollard who is mentioned elsewhere in Ulysses (see note at 6.145). Dollard’s building on Wellington Quay has a red brick front.
10.1206: Gerty MacDowell Fictitious.
10.1207: carrying the Catesby’s cork lino letters
Catesby’s Cork Lino was a low-cost linoleum flooring produced by Catesby & Sons, 64–67 Tottenham Court Road and 4, 6, 8, and 12 Goodge Street, London. The firm achieved success and widespread fame in the 1890s after its adoption of American-style methods of credit, mail order sales, and promotion, in particular its innovative and popular print advertisements, ‘Catesby’s Drolleries’. According to the firm’s founder Edward Catesby, ‘The daily paper is the best medium for business in our line—that is to say, furniture, clothing, and especially Cork Lino, of which we sell more than any other firm in London. Our firm is built on advertising’ (‘How One John Bull Woke Up’, The Review of Reviews, 15 Dec. 1902, vol. 26, pp. 644–45). See note at 6.939 for lino.
a
b c
d e
f
g
hi j k
m
l n o
p q
r s
t u
Map 10.5 Dublin city, Viceregal cortège (1 inch OSI map 1900); a = Viceregal Lodge, Phoenix Park; b = Park gate; c = King’s Bridge; d = Pembroke Quay; e = Bloody Bridge (Victoria and Albert Bridge); f = Arran Quay; g = Four Courts; h = Ormond Hotel; i = Grattan Bridge; j = Parliament Street; k = Dame Street/College Green; l = Ponsonby’s Corner ; m = Grafton Street; n = Nassau Street; o = Leinster Street; p = Merrion Square North; q = Lower Mount Street; r = Grand Canal; s = Haddington Road; t = Lansdowne Road; u = Royal Dublin Society, Ballsbridge
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498 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
10.1209: Spring’s
Spring and Sons: ‘coal factors and carriers and house agents, furniture warehouse, etc.’, 11 Upper Granby Row and 15–18 Upper Dorset Street (Thom’s, p. 2016).
10.1211: Lundy Foot’s
Lundy Foot and Co.: ‘wholesale tobacco and snuff manufacturers’, 26 Parliament Street and 73 Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1934). Grattan Bridge empties directly into Parliament Street and the cavalcade turns east from there onto Dame Street.
10.1211–12: Kavanagh’s winerooms See note at 10.982.
10.1214: G.C.V.O.
GCVO: Grand Cross of the Victorian Order (Thom’s, p. 525). The Earl of Dudley (the Viceroy) was inducted into this order in 1903 (p. 301).
10.1214: Micky Anderson’s See note at 10.988.
10.1215: Henry and James’s
Henry & James: clothiers, 1–3 Parliament Street, 82 Dame Street, and 43 South Great George’s Street (Thom’s, p. 1896). Henry & James was on the corner of Dame Street and Parliament Street. The cavalcade turns the corner and heads east on Dame Street towards Trinity.
10.1216: Henry, dernier cri James
Dernier cri (French): ‘the last word’ or ‘the latest word’. Possibly an allusion to Henry James (American novelist, 1843–1916).
10.1217: Dame gate
During the medieval era, when Dublin was surrounded by a defensive wall, Dame Gate was the easternmost gate for the city. It stood near the present Dame Street, east of where it crosses with Parliament Street (Chart, Story of Dublin, p. 211). Also called the Gate of St Mary, the gate was taken down in 1698 (McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 29).
10.1220: A charming soubrette, great Marie Kendall See note at 10.380–81.
10.1222: lieutenantcolonel H. G. Heseltine
See note at 10.1177 for Heseltine. The mistake in Heseltine’s initials is Joyce’s.
10.1227: Fownes’s street
Fownes’s Street intersects Dame Street from the north, just before it becomes College Green.
10.1230: Commercial Buildings
Commercial Buildings: 41A Dame Street, where it converges with Trinity Street and College Green. The building extended from Dame Street back to Cope Street (Thom’s, p. 1460).
10.1231: hunter watch
Hunter watch: a sports watch with a metal case over the dial (OED).
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10.1232: King Billy’s horse
An equestrian statue of King William III, William of Orange (1650–1702, r. 1689–1702). This was erected on 1 July 1701, the eleventh anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, at which the Protestant William crushed the deposed Catholic James II. As a sign of Protestant triumphalism, the statue was much reviled and, over the years, was subjected to various acts of vandalism before being blown up in 1929 (Chart, Story of Dublin, pp. 202–04).
10.1236: Ponsonby’s corner
Edward Ponsonby: ‘law and general bookseller, Government agent and contractor’, 116 Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 1988). Ponsonby’s was near the corner of Grafton Street and College Green, across from the front gate of Trinity, which is where the cavalcade turns south onto Grafton, then east onto Nassau Street.
10.1236–37: a jaded white flagon H. halted and four tallhatted white flagons
Jaded: exhausted (OED). Since the sandwichmen are all wearing white and have white hats, they resemble big bottles (flagons) with the hats as bottlenecks.
10.1238–39: Opposite Pigott’s music warerooms
Piggot and Co.: musical instrument merchants and music publishers, 112 Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 1988).
10.1241: provost’s wall
The Trinity Provost’s house (see note at 8.496) stands behind a wall that runs from the College’s west front to its south along Grafton and Nassau Streets.
10.1241–42: socks with skyblue clocks
This mixes and alters two lines from ‘Those Lovely Seaside Girls’ (see note at 4.282): ‘The boys observe the latest thing in socks, / They learn the time by looking at the clocks’. Clock: ‘An ornamental pattern in silk thread worked on the side of a stocking’ (OED). The clock over the front gate to Trinity College has a blue face.
10.1242: My girl’s a Yorkshire girl
The title of a popular song from 1908 by C. W. Murphy (1875–1913) and Dan Lipton (1873–1935). The song has a ‘whirling tempo and suggestive drumbeat’ (Bauerle, p. 349). The word Yorkshire is perhaps used ‘in reference to the boorishness, cunning, sharpness, or trickery attributed to Yorkshire people’ (OED). Two fellows were talking about Their girls, girls, girls, Sweethearts they left behind— Sweethearts for whom they pined— One said, My little shy lass Has a waist so trim and small— Grey are her eyes so bright, But best of all— [Chorus:] My girl’s a Yorkshire girl, Yorkshire through and through. My girl’s a Yorkshire girl,
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500 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Eh! by gum, she’s a champion! Though she’s a fact’ry lass, And wears no fancy clothes I’ve a sort of Yorkshire Relish for my little Yorkshire Rose. When the first finished singing In praise of Rose, Rose, Rose— Poor Number Two looked vexed, Saying in tones perplexed My lass works in a factory too, And also has eyes of grey Her name is Rose as well, And strange to say— To a cottage in Yorkshire they hied To Rose, Rose, Rose Meaning to make it clear Which was the boy most dear. Rose, their Rose didn’t answer the bell, But her husband did instead. Loudly he said to them As off, off they fled. (Bauerle, pp. 349–51)
10.1248: programme of music which was being discoursed
To discourse: ‘To utter, give forth (musical sounds)’ (OED). The word was used in the context of musical performance in newspaper reportage; for example, ‘the St John’s Brass and Reed Band was in attendance, and discoursed a delightful programme’ (Irish Examiner, 7 Apr. 1913, p. 9, col. d).
10.1249: College park See note at 10.1105.
10.1251–57: But though she’s a factory lass . . . Baraabum From ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
10.1255: Yorkshire relish
Yorkshire relish: the brand name of a piquant condiment—‘sale unprecedented in the history of sauces’—manufactured by Goodall, Backhouse, and Co., Leeds (Penny Illustrated Paper, 19 Feb. 1898, p. 125). The phrase was also used as a term of approbation: ‘Well, I take it, the first Spring Holiday of the year gives a kind of Yorkshire Relish to our Good Friday and Easter Monday outings’ (Penny Illustrated Paper, 12 Apr. 1884, p. 237).
10.1258–60: M. C. Greene, H. Thrift, T. M. Percy, C. Scaife . . . W. C. Haggard
Names of bicyclists competing in the bicycle race in College Park (see note at 5.550). Different racers were listed earlier (see note at 10.651). Joyce derived these names from the account of the race in the Evening Telegraph for 16 June 1904; although he made a few mistakes with names: C. M. Greene (not M. C.), J. B. Jones (not Jeffs), G. N. Murphy (not Morphy), and C. Adderley (not Adderly) (p. 3, col. i). The Gabler edition originally had Thrift’s name as ‘Shrift’, but this mistake was corrected for the 1993 printing.
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10.1260: Finn’s hotel
Finn’s Hotel: a private hotel and restaurant run by M. and R. Finn at 1–2 Leinster Street (Thom’s, p. 1531), alongside College Park. Nora Barnacle was working there at the time she and James Joyce met, in June of 1904 (Ellmann, p. 156).
10.1262–63: Mr M. E. Solomons … the Austro-Hungarian viceconsulate
Maurice Elias Solomon (1832–1922): Austro-Hungarian vice-consulate, 19 Nassau Street; he is also listed as an optician, manufacturer of spectacles, mathematical, and hearing instruments (Thom’s, p. 1554).
10.1264: Trinity’s postern
Postern: a back entrance (OED); this is Trinity’s gate at Lincoln Place, at the south-east end of the campus.
10.1264: Hornblower See note at 5.555.
10.1264: tallyho cap
Foxhunters cry ‘Tally-ho!’ when they spy their prey (OED). Until 1978, the uniform for the porters at Trinity included a black peak cap, like those worn by foxhunters, and a frocked tailed coat (Sunday Independent, 22 Jan. 1978, p. 22, col. d). Oliver Gogarty refers to the Trinity ‘porters in black velvet hunting caps’ (Tumbling in the Hay, p. 6).
10.1265: Merrion square See note at 10.1104.
10.1268–69: Mirus bazaar See note at 8.1162.
10.1269: Mercer’s hospital See note at 8.1163.
10.1270: Lower Mount street
Lower Mount Street runs east from the north-east corner of Merrion Square.
10.1271: Broadbent’s
J. S. Broadbent: fruit seller, 2 Lower Mount Street (Thom’s, p. 1550).
10.1271: a pedestrian in a brown macintosh See note at 6.805.
10.1273: Royal Canal bridge
Lower Mount Street leads to the Grand Canal and not the Royal Canal. The Royal Canal is in the north of Dublin and the Grand Canal is in the south. The bridge that leads from Lower Mount Street is McKenny’s Bridge (also known as the Mount Street Bridge). It was the site of a battle during the 1916 Easter Rising. See note at 6.120.
10.1273: Mr Eugene Stratton See note at 6.184.
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10.1274: Pembroke township
The Pembroke township is south-east of Dublin, beyond the Grand Canal and contains Ballsbridge, Beggar’s Bush, Donnybrook, Irishtown, Ringsend, and Sandymount (Thom’s, pp. 1635, 1677, 1710, 1777, 1780). Apart from Irishtown and Ringsend, it was a highly affluent area and was known as ‘Dublin’s premier township’ (D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 265). Pembroke township was incorporated into the City of Dublin in 1932 (Bennett, s.v. Ballsbridge).
10.1274–75: Haddington road corner
Past the Grand Canal, Lower Mount Street leads into Northumberland Road, upon which the cavalcade is travelling. Haddington Road intersects Northumberland just south of the Canal.
10.1276–77: the lord mayor and lady mayoress without his golden chain
The two older women from ‘Proteus’ see the cavalcade and mistake the Viceroy for the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor—and not the Lord Lieutenant—typically wears a gold chain on ceremonial occasions (see note at 15.1379). The Lord Mayor is not in Dublin today (see note at 10.1010).
10.1277–78: Northumberland and Lansdowne roads
Lansdowne Road intersects Northumberland Road at about midway between the Grand Canal and the Royal Dublin Society Showgrounds in Ballsbridge, where the bazaar is being held. Editions previous to Gabler read ‘Landsdowne Road’. This passage was added on a now-missing typescript page and first appears in this incorrect spelling on a galley proof (JJA, vol. 18, p. 242). Gabler emends to the correct spelling.
10.1279–81: house said to have been admired by the late queen . . . 1849
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Dublin from 6 to 10 August 1849. The royal couple approached Dublin from the south-west. But the Freeman’s Journal for 7 August 1849, despite its detailed account of her arrival, says nothing about the Queen admiring a house on her progress to the city (p. 3, cols a–c). This visit took place towards the end of the Famine (see note at 2.269). ‘Despite the professed sympathy of the Queen with Irish suffering she was spared the unpalatable horrors of a country barely recovering from a devastating famine’ (Margarita Cappock, ‘The Royal Visits to Dublin’, p. 96).
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11. ‘Sirens’
g j i h
cb a
k
d f
e
Map 11 Ormond Quay (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = B. Wine (35 Wellington Quay); b = D. Moulang (31 Wellington Quay); c = J. Carroll (29 Wellington Quay); d = A. Bassi (14 Wellington Quay); e = P. Ceppi and Sons (8–9 Wellington Quay); f = Clarence Hotel (6–7 Wellington Quay); g = Teresa Daly (1 Upper Ormond Quay); h = Ormond Hotel (8 Upper Ormond Quay); i = J. M. Barry and Co. (12 Upper Ormond Quay); j = L. Marks (16 Upper Ormond Quay); l = Post office (34 Upper Ormond Quay)
Time: 4–5 pm Location: The Ormond Hotel (Upper Ormond Quay) and environs Organ: Ear Art: Music Symbol: Barmaids Technic: Fuga per canonem Correspondences: Sirens: barmaids; Isle: Bar Serialised: The Little Review 6.4 (August 1919) and 6.5 (September 1919) As its name implies, ‘Sirens’ is the musical episode of Ulysses. While Ulysses in general is replete with songs and musical allusions, the ‘Sirens’ episode is filled with references to music and features three set-piece performances: ‘Love and War’ (11.528–52), ‘M’appari’ (11.663–753), and ‘The Croppy Boy’ (11.1005–141). In addition to the overt references to music, the episode is written in such a way as to suggest all sorts of musical effects through repetitions, alliterations, onomatopoeia, and so on. Furthermore, there is a larger musical structure to the episode. In a letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver dated 6 August 1919, Joyce wrote that the parts of the episode ‘are all the eight regular parts of a fuga per canonem’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 129). The definitions of fugue and fuga per canonem have changed over the centuries, but the basic definition for a fugue is a musical composition that uses
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504 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses counterpoint. Likewise, a fuga per canonem uses counterpoint according to a set pattern, although the type of pattern has itself been subject to evolution and change over the years (Grove). On the front cover verso of one of the workbooks in which Joyce drafted ‘Sirens’, he wrote a list of the eight parts of the fuga per canonem (NLI II.ii.3); ‘the components of the list coincide with the major developments that the fugue was undergoing at the end of the nineteenth century’ (Michelle Witen, James Joyce and Absolute Music, p. 129). Specifically, according to Witen, Joyce’s list designates a double fugue, that is a fugue with two subjects, a soggetto and a contrasoggetto, that first appear separately and then in counterpoint to each other. The episode then develops as a series of various counterpoints in various combinations. For a full explanation of how the double fugue works in ‘Sirens’, see Witen, pp. 126–63. For a different way of looking at the musical structures of this episode, see Sebastian Knowles’s At Fault (pp. 137–72). Besides the musical effects, the narrative voice has something of a personality and con tinues from ‘Wandering Rocks’ the tendency towards the misleading; for example, by implying that Bloom is in the Ormond when he is on the other side of the Liffey (11.84–88). Additionally, the narrative voice will echo various passages from elsewhere in the novel, such as 11.519–20, which recapitulates the first paragraph of ‘Calypso’. These kinds of techniques will increase in subsequent episodes. When we first see Bloom in this episode, he is walking by Daniel Moulang’s shop on Wellington Quay (see note at 11.86), a short distance from the bookshop in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (see note at 10.594). This is about 400 metres distant from the Ormond Hotel, which is on the other side of the river. Bloom then heads westward along the Quay and crosses over at Grattan Bridge (see note at 11.229) and then towards the hotel. The layout of the Ormond as described in Ulysses was not the layout that existed in 1904 (see note at 11.357–58). After Bloom leaves the Ormond, he heads westward along Ormond Quay to the post office at no. 34 (see note at 11.1142–43), pausing by Lionel Marks’s antique shop at no. 16 (see note at 11.1261) for some brief, private business (map 11).
11.1: Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing
The first fifty-nine paragraphs of this musically inflected episode function like the expos ition to a fugue. ‘The exposition of a fugue is the opening section in which the voices enter one by one, each stating the principal theme, or Subject, of the fugue, followed by the Countersubject if present’ (Grove; Witen, James Joyce and Absolute Music, p. 166 n. 31). That is, this opening section consists of a succession of short, often abbreviated or syncopated quotes from elsewhere in the episode, mostly in order, and thus serves as a listing of the various themes and motifs from the episode (see note at 11.633). This particular line is a shortened version of the first line of the episode proper, ‘Bronze by gold, miss Douce’s head by miss Kennedy’s head, over the crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing steel’ (11.64–65); this line was also anticipated in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.962–63 and 10.1197–99).
11.2: Imperthnthn thnthnthn From 11.100.
11.3: Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips From 11.192–93.
11.4: Horrid! And gold flushed more From 11.183–84.
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11.5: A husky fifenote blew From 11.217–18.
11.6: Blew. Blue bloom is on the From 11.230–31.
11.7: Goldpinnacled hair
From 11.166–67, 11.178, 11.547, and 11.662.
11.8: A jumping rose on satiny breasts of satin, rose of Castile From 11.181 and 11.329.
11.9: Trilling, trilling: Idolores From 11.225–26.
11.10: Peep! Who’s in the . . . peepofgold? From 11.242.
11.11: Tink cried to bronze in pity From 11.286.
11.12: And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call From 11.313.
11.13: Decoy. Soft word. But look: the bright stars fade. Notes chirruping answer From 11.320–23.
11.14: O rose! Castile. The morn is breaking From 11.322 and 11.329.
11.15: Jingle jingle jaunted jingling
The motif associated with Boylan which appears, in various forms, at 11.245, 11.290, 11.304, 11.330, 11.456, 11.458, 11.498, 11.524, 11.579, 11.606, 11.640, 11.687, 11.762, 11.812, 11.869, and 11.883–84.
11.16: Coin rang. Clock clacked From 11.371 and 11.381.
11.17–18: Avowal. Sonnez. I could. Rebound of garter . . . Sweetheart, goodbye! Condenses action at 11.401–25.
11.19: Jingle. Bloo From 11.456–57.
11.20: Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum From 11.528–36.
11.21: A sail! A veil awave upon the waves From 11.590–91.
11.22: Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now From 11.629–32.
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11.23: Horn. Hawhorn From 11.526–27.
11.24: When first he saw. Alas! From 11.665.
11.25: Full tup. Full throb From 11.707–09.
11.26: Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring From 11.732–34.
11.27: Martha! Come! From 11.735–41.
11.28: Clapclop. Clipclap. Clappyclap From 11.756–57.
11.29: Goodgod henev erheard inall From 11.780.
11.30: Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up From 11.822–23.
11.31: A moonlit nightcall: far, far From 11.855.
11.32: I feel so sad. P. S. So lonely blooming
From 11.894 and adds in a reference to the second line of Thomas Moore’s ‘’Tis the Last Rose of Summer’, ‘Left blooming alone’ (see note at 11.1176).
11.33: Listen! From 11.925.
11.34–35: The spiked and winding cold seahorn . . . plash and silent roar From 11.923–36.
11.36: Pearls: when she. Liszt’s rhapsodies. Hissss From 11.983–84.
11.37: You don’t? From 11.814.
11.38: Did not: no, no: believe: Lidlyd. With a cock with a carra From 11.815–20, 11.987–88, and 11.1048.
11.39: Black. Deepsounding. Do, Ben, do From 11.993 and 11.998–99.
11.40: Wait while you wait. Hee hee. Wait while you hee From 11.916–19.
11.41: But wait! From 11.1005.
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11.42: Low in dark middle earth. Embedded ore From 11.1005–06.
11.43: Naminedamine. Preacher is he From 11.1032–34.
11.44: All gone. All fallen From 11.1063.
11.45: Tiny, her tremulous fernfoils of maidenhair From 11.1108.
11.46: Amen! He gnashed in fury From 11.1120.
11.47: Fro. To, fro. A baton cool protruding From 11.1113–16.
11.48: Bronzelydia by Minagold From 11.1213.
11.49: By bronze, by gold, in oceangreen of shadow. Bloom. Old Bloom Combines 11.230 and 11.465.
11.50: One rapped, one tapped, with a carra, with a cock From 11.1118–19.
11.51: Pray for him! Pray, good people! From 11.1139–40.
11.52: His gouty fingers nakkering From 11.1152.
11.53: Big Benaben. Big Benben From 11.1154.
11.54: Last rose Castile of summer left bloom I feel so sad alone
From 11.1136, 11.1254, and 11.1271; mixes Thomas Moore’s ‘’Tis the Last Rose of Summer’ (see note at 11.1176) with The Rose of Castile (see note at 7.471–72).
11.55: Pwee! Little wind piped wee From 11.1203.
11.56–57: True men. Lid Ker Cow De and Doll . . . with tschunk From 11.1269–72 and 11.1280.
11.58: Fff! Oo!
From 11.1247 and 11.1288.
11.59: Where bronze from anear? Where gold from afar? Where hoofs? From 11.1269 and 11.112.
11.60: Rrrpr. Kraa. Kraandl From 11.1288 and 11.1290.
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11.61: Then not till then. My eppripfftaph. Be pfrwritt From 11.1289–91.
11.62: Done
From 11.1294.
11.64: Bronze by gold, Miss Douce’s head by Miss Kennedy’s head
Miss Lydia Douce (who has bronze-coloured hair) and Miss Mina Kennedy (whose hair is gold) are looking out the window of the Ormond Hotel (see note at 10.395), where they work as barmaids. Joyce probably got their names from Ellen Dowse (d. 1951) and Mary Kennedy, the manageress and housekeeper, respectively, of the Bailey Restaurant in Duke Street. On the earliest extant draft of ‘Sirens’, Joyce spelt the name Douce as ‘Douse’ (NLI II.ii.1.a: f. 1; John Simpson, JJON).
11.65: crossblind See note at 7.440.
11.67: his ex
That is, his excellency: the Viceroy or Lord Lieutenant, William Humble Ward, Earl of Dudley. See note at 8.1162.
11.67: eau de Nil
Eau de Nil: French, literally ‘Nile-water’; ‘a pale green colour supposed to resemble that of the Nile’ (OED, s.v. eau).
11.70: fellow in the tall silk
This is the Honourable Gerald Ward (see note at 10.1179), the only man in the second carriage of the cavalcade.
11.77: He’s killed looking back
Perhaps an allusion to the story of the legendary musician and poet Orpheus. (On the Linati schema, but not the Gilbert schema, Joyce listed Orpheus as one of this episode’s allusions.) When Orpheus’s wife Eurydice was killed, he travelled to the underworld to rescue her. His music persuaded Hades and Persephone to permit him to retrieve Eurydice, but on the one condition that, as they were leaving, he could not turn back to look at her: ‘he must not, till he passed Avernus, / Turn back his gaze, or the gift would be in vain’ (Ovid, Metamorphoses X.51–52). Unfortunately, he could not help but turn back and his gaze killed her a second time.
11.79: O wept!
A euphemistic dodge for ‘Jesus wept’ (see note at 3.68).
11.86: went by Moulang’s pipes
Daniel Moulang: jeweller and pipe importer, 31 Wellington Quay (Thom’s, p. 1616). Wellington Quay is on the south bank of the Liffey and is about 350 metres to the east of the Ormond Hotel, which is on the north bank. Bloom is walking west towards Grattan Bridge.
11.86–87: sweets of sin See note at 10.606.
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11. ‘Sirens’ 509
11.87: by Wine’s antiques
Bernard Wine’s: antique and jewellery store, 35 Wellington Quay (Thom’s, p. 1616). Wine’s antiques is listed in the wrong order; travelling eastward Bloom passes by, in order, Wine’s, Moulang’s, then Carroll’s. This may be ‘an attempt to create a verbal equivalent of musical inversion’ (JJD, pp. 60–61).
11.87–88: by Carroll’s dusky battered plate
John Carroll: ‘watchmaker and jeweller and dealer in old plate’, 29 Wellington Quay (Thom’s, p. 1616). Plate: ‘Gold or silver vessels and utensils’, or, more generally, vessels and utensils made of other materials (OED).
11.89: boots
See note at 6.361–62.
11.92: transposed
To transpose: to move. While not used in this sense here, transpose is also a musical term, ‘to alter the key of ’ (OED).
11.93: lithia crate
That is, a crate of lithia water, for which see note at 3.90.
11.98: Mrs de Massey
Nora de Massey (d. 1935) was the owner of the Ormond Hotel in 1904 (Thom’s, p. 1563); she had purchased the hotel in 1899 (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.105: a yard long See note at 9.565.
11.108–09: They cowered under their reef of counter
The word reef suggests the Sirens’ island in the Odyssey, which is called ‘their flowery meadow’ (XI.159).
11.110–11: black satin, two and nine a yard
An advertisement in the Freeman’s Journal of 18 June 1904 for the Henry Street Warehouse Company’s Summer Sale lists black silk satins ranging in price from 1s. 3d. per yard (0.91 metres) to 3s. 11d. per yard, depending on quality (p. 7, col. d).
11.116–17: borax with the cherry laurel water
A combination of borax, cherry laurel water, and glycerine (sometimes with other ingredients) was commonly recommended as a homemade remedy for sunburn. For example, ‘For light freckles, borax and rosewater is an excellent preparation’ (Evening Herald, 12 May 1909, p. 5, col. d).
11.121: And leave it to my hands
In context, this means: trust my hands to reveal my suntan. The substitution of leave it to my for trust my was a Hiberno-English locution; for example: ‘And will they lave it to my oath?’ (The Catholic Layman, 15 May 1857, p. 55; with thanks to Eamonn Finn and Harald Beck).
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11.125: Boyd’s
Possibly Boileau and Boyd, chemist, at 46 Mary Street (Thom’s, p. 1541), about 500 metres from the Ormond. However, since Miss Kennedy lives in the northern suburb of Drumcondra (see note at 11.517–18), this could also be James Boyd, chemist, 21 Grattan Parade, Drumcondra (Thom’s, p. 1813).
11.129–30: plugged both two ears
In order to pass by the Sirens unharmed, Odysseus commanded his sailors to plug their ears with wax in order to not hear their tempting song (Odyssey, XII.47–49).
11.131: No, don’t, she cried See note at 11.1201.
11.139: Antient concert rooms See note at 6.180.
11.141–42: cocking her bronze head . . . ruffling her nosewings
These birdlike actions suggest the mythical Sirens. According to non-Homeric ancient Greek sources, the Sirens were part woman, part bird (Brewer’s).
11.144–45: like a snout in quest
That is, like a hunting hound’s nose on the trail of prey.
11.146: goggle eye
Goggle-eye: a squint (OED).
11.148: And your other eye!
The other eye: a catchphrase used to imply various possible innuendos, popular in the music hall theatre of the 1890s and popularised by Marie Lloyd (Matilda Alice Victoria Wood, 1870–1922), a coquettish star of the music hall, with her song ‘Then You Wink the Other Eye’. The ‘Art of the Other Eye’ is ‘communicated to the innocuous words by shrugs, stoppages, leers, nods, short laughs, lazy glances, the Marie Lloyd smile. [. . .] [Lloyd] may be said to have invented the Art of the Other Eye’ (Eugene Watters and Matthew Murtagh, Infinite Variety, pp. 147, 149; Erlene Stetson, ‘Literary Talk’, p. 180).
11.149: Aaron Figatner’s
Aaron Figatner (1853–1922): ‘jeweller, diamond setter, &c.’, 26 Wellington Quay (Thom’s, p. 1616), on the south side of the Liffey. J. F. Byrne writes: ‘He had the reputation of being well versed in Oriental languages. I was told he had lectured in these languages in Trinity College, but this I never verified. He always wore a black hat, frock coat, flamboyant waistcoat with a gold chain like a hawser, and spats. Somewhere around 1894 he was married to a young Irish girl, daughter of the caretaker of the local Workmen’s Club on Wellington Quay’ (Silent Years, p. 19).
11.150: Prosper Loré’s huguenot name
Prosper Loré: wholesale hat manufacturer, 22 Wellington Quay (Thom’s, p. 1616). While Loré (d. 1873) was French, he was not a Huguenot (see note at 5.465), but Roman Catholic (William J. Fitzpatrick, History of the Dublin Catholic Cemeteries, p. 47). By reputation, his firm was ‘one of the oldest as well as the leading hat manufacturers in Dublin’ (The Industries of Dublin, p. 47).
11.151: Bassi’s blessed virgins
Aurelio Bassi: picture frame and statue maker, 14 Wellington Quay (Thom’s, p. 1616).
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11.151–52: Bluerobed, white under
From the sixteenth century onwards, the general rule in depictions of the Virgin Mary was that she would be ‘attired in airy blue and white’ (John Gough Clay, The Virgin Mary and the Traditions of Painters, p. 249).
11.152: come to me
From Elisabeth’s greeting to Mary and, thus, part of the Rosary: ‘And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’ (Luke 1:43).
11.152: God they believe she is: or goddess
A plausible blunder for a non-Catholic. Mary is not a god (nor a goddess). The Catholic Church holds that she was conceived immaculately, without the taint of original sin which afflicts the rest of humanity (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Immaculate Conception), but she is not worshipped as worship is accorded only to God. See also note at 9.840.
11.154: rakes of fellows
Rake: ‘A man of loose habits and immoral character’ (OED); also relevant, rake (Hiberno- English): ‘a large quantity’ (Dolan).
11.166: napecomb
The word nape-comb appears to be Joyce’s coinage; the usual word for this is a back-comb: ‘an ornamental comb worn at the back of the head’ (OED).
11.175: ringing in changes
To ring the changes: to repeat the same idea in different ways, after a term in bell-ringing (Brewer’s). Literally, this means to go through all of the possible permutations when ringing a set of diatonically tuned bells.
11.185: Cantwell’s offices
Cantwell and McDonald: ‘wholesale wine and whiskey merchants and rectifying distillers’, 12 Wellington Quay (Thom’s, p. 1615). Bloom is now only about 220 metres distant from the Ormond Hotel but is still on the other side of the Liffey.
11.185: Greaseabloom
With a strong Irish pronunciation, ‘grease is pronounced grace’ (PWJ, p. 137).
11.185: Ceppi’s virgins
Peter Ceppi & Sons: ‘picture frame and looking glass factory, and statuary makers’, 8–9 Wellington Quay (Thom’s, p. 1615). They made statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
11.186–87: Nannetti’s father hawked those things about, wheedling at doors as I
According to the parliamentary biography for Joseph Patrick Nannetti (see note at 7.75) in Thom’s, Joseph Nannetti, senior, was a sculptor and modeller (p. 416f). His name was Giuseppe (Joseph, d. 1853) (Harald Beck, JJON). Bloom is making reference to when he was a door-to-door salesman (see note at 17.53–54).
11.189: The Clarence
The Clarence Commercial Hotel Co.: 6–7 Wellington Quay and 2 Essex Street (Thom’s, p. 1615).
11.189: Dolphin
See note at 10.504.
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11.192–93: Chips, picking chips off one of his rocky thumbnails
That is, Simon removing brittle bits of his rocky thumbnail as he enters the Ormond.
11.197: Rostrevor
Rostrevor, in County Down, is a resort 90 km north of Dublin and about 80 km south of Belfast on the shore of Carlingford Lough, an inlet of the Irish sea (John Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 88).
11.198: holy show
To be a holy show (Hiberno-English): to look ridiculous (PWJ, p. 275).
11.204: I don’t think See note at 5.78–79.
11.207: simple Simon
From the nursery rhyme ‘Simple Simon Met a Pieman’ (ODNR, p. 385).
11.208: doaty
Doaty (also dote, dotey) (Hiberno-English): a term of endearment for a child (Dolan, s.v. dote).
11.212: Jingle
Jingle: ‘A noise such as is made by small bells’ and also ‘A covered two-wheeled car used in Cornwall, the south of Ireland’ (OED).
11.214–15: Cantrell and Cochrane’s See note at 5.193.
11.216: whisky
For the spelling whisky, see note at 1.301.
11.217–18: He blew through the flue two husky fifenotes
Fife: a small flute (OED); here, Simon’s pipe as he blows through it to clear it out before filling it.
11.219: Mourne mountains
Rostrevor, where Miss Douce has been spending her holidays, is at the foot of the Mourne mountains, in County Down, north of Dublin in Ulster (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 80). Suggests the Percy French (1854–1920) song ‘The Mountains of Mourne’ (Prose, Poems and Parodies, pp. 3–4).
11.222: her maidenhair, her mermaid’s
Maidenhair: ‘the name of certain ferns having fine hair-like stalks and delicate fronds’ (OED). The ‘mermaid’s’ is, presumably, Simon’s pipe tobacco. Mermaid’s hair: ‘any of various filamentous seaweeds’ (OED). Tobacco is (obviously) not marine vegetation, but pipe tobacco is filamentous. Maidenhair had also been used as a euphemism for pubic hair since at least 1908 (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON). Of possible relevance, Mermaid was a brand of cigar advertised in the mid-nineteenth century as being ‘manufactured from the finest Vuelta Abajo tobacco’. This brand name suggests the Homeric Sirens.
11.225: trilling
To trill: ‘To sing with vibratory effect; to sing a trill or shake, to “shake”; of a voice, etc.: To sound with tremulous vibration’ (OED).
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11.226: O, Idolores queen of the eastern seas!
From the chorus of the song ‘The Shade of the Palm’ in the popular operetta Florodora (1899), composed by Leslie Stuart (British composer, 1863–1928), with book by Owen Hall (pseudonym for James Davis, Irish-born writer and solicitor, 1853–1907), and lyrics by E. Boyd-Jones and Paul Rubens. The actual line in the song is ‘Oh, my Dolores, Queen of the Eastern sea’. The setting of the operetta is a south Pacific island where the heroine, Dolores, falls in love with Frank Abercoed, a disguised nobleman, who sings (the first stanza): There is a garden fair, Set in an Eastern sea, There is a maid keeping her tryst with me In the shade of the palm, With a lover’s delight, Where ’tis ever the golden day, Or a silvery night; How can I leave her alone in this dream of sweet Arcadia? How can I part from her for lands away? In this valley of Eden, Fairest isle of the sea, Oh, my beloved, bid me to stay In the fair land of Eden, Bid me belov’d to stay. (Bowen, pp. 162–63; Bauerle, pp. 357–61)
11.227: Mr Lidwell
John George Lidwell (1864–1919): solicitor, with offices at 4 Capel Street (Thom’s, p. 1931). A longstanding friend of Joyce’s father; from 1909 onwards, Lidwell gave him casual employment as a messenger and scrivener (John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, p. 307). Lidwell was engaged by Joyce in his early, unsuccessful attempts to get Dubliners published; at one point in 1912, they met at the bar in the Ormond Hotel to discuss matters (Ellmann, p. 330).
11.229: Essex bridge
Essex Bridge was the name of the original bridge on the site of Grattan Bridge (see note at 10.1204). Grattan Bridge is still referred to as Essex Bridge (Bennett, s.v. Bridges).
11.230: Daly’s
Teresa Daly’s tobacco shop: 1 Upper Ormond Quay, just on the other side of the Grattan (Essex) Bridge (Thom’s, p. 1563).
11.230–31: Blue bloom is on the rye See note at 10.524.
11.241: sandwichbell
That is, a bell-glass: ‘A bell-shaped glass vessel used to cover objects which require protection from variations of the atmosphere, dust, and influences of like character’ (Century Dictionary). In this case, it covers the sandwiches.
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11.243: overtures
Overture: ‘An approach or proposal, originally of a formal nature, made to someone with the aim of opening negotiations or establishing a relationship. Frequently in plural’; also ‘Music. An orchestral piece of varying form and dimensions, forming the opening or introduction to an opera, oratorio, or other extended composition, and often containing themes from the body of the work or otherwise indicating the character of it. Also: a similar orchestral piece, usually of descriptive or programmatic character’ (OED).
11.243–44: To mind her stops
Stop: a punctuation mark (as in the book Miss Kennedy is reading); and also ‘the closing of a finger-hole or ventage in the tube of a wind instrument so as to alter the pitch’ (OED). Also relevant, in Hamlet, the Prince states to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: ‘You would play / upon me; you would seem to know my stops; / you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; / you would sound me from / my lowest note to the top of my compass’ (III.iii.355–59).
11.247: solfa fable
Sol-fa: the system of singing the notes of the major scale: ‘do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do’ (OED). The sol-fa system is one of the easiest ways of teaching various musical scales and intervals. Therefore, a ‘solfa fable’ would be a fable told in monosyllables like sol-fa.
11.247: plappering
To plapper: to make sounds with the lips (OED).
11.248–49: Ah fox met ah stork . . . upp ah bone
This combines two of Aesop’s fables, the fable of the wolf and the crane and the fable of the fox and the stork. In the former, the wolf promises to reward the crane if the crane will remove a bone stuck in the wolf ’s throat. After the crane has done this and asks for his reward, the wolf retorts ‘ “You ungrateful thing! Your head was in my mouth and you got it out intact, and now you stipulate that I am to pay you a bonus” ’ (Babrius and Phaedrus, Fables, p. 201). In the latter, the fox invites the stork over for dinner but serves thin soup on a slab of flat marble, making it impossible for the stork to eat. In retaliation, the stork invites the fox for dinner but serves solid food in a jar with a neck that is too narrow (pp. 221–23).
11.263–64: In Mooney’s en ville and in Mooney’s sur mer
En ville (French): in the city. Sur mer (French): by the sea. There are two different pubs called Mooney’s. For Mooney’s en ville, see note at 7.892. Mooney’s sur mer, run by Gerald Mooney, is a short distance away from the other Mooney’s, at 3 Lower Eden Quay, along the Liffey (Thom’s, p. 1960). These are the first two stops on Stephen’s pub crawl; he would have been there in-between ‘Aeolus’ and ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ (JJD, p. 79).
11.264: rhino
Rhino: money (OED).
11.265: the labour of his muse
The phrase ‘labours of his muse’ (typically in the plural) is a cliché of long standing. For example, from George Daniel’s (1789–1864) The Modern Dunciad (1814): ‘Athirst for fame, which Magazines, Reviews, / Too coy, deny the labours of his Muse’ (p. 22). This claim is not true: Stephen was paid for teaching at Mr Deasy’s school (2.222).
11.267–68: Hugh MacHugh See note at 7.237.
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11.268: Dublin’s most brilliant scribe and editor
That is (with some sarcasm), Myles Crawford, for whom see note at 7.307.
11.268–69: that minstrel boy of the wild wet west
‘The Minstrel Boy’: a song by Thomas Moore about a young boy who goes off to war; ‘The Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone, / In the ranks of death you’ll find him’ (ll. 1–2; Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 99). The west of Ireland is even rainier than the east coast. Lenehan’s line also alludes to the ballad ‘The Men of the West’ by William Rooney (Irish nationalist and journalist, 1873–1901): (Chorus) ‘I give you the gallant Old West, boys, / Where rallied our bravest and best / When Ireland lay broken and bleeding; / Hurrah for the men of the West!’ (Bowen, p. 164).
11.269–70: the O’Madden Burke
See note at 7.505 for O’Madden Burke. In Ireland, there are certain ‘Chiefs of the Name’ who, as heads of important families, have their surname preceded by the article the (Edward MacLysaght, Irish Families, p. 124).
11.273: faraway mourning mountain eye See note at 11.219.
11.275: saloon
Saloon: ‘A large apartment or hall, esp. in a hotel or other place of public resort, adapted for assemblies, entertainments, exhibitions’ (OED). In the Ormond Hotel, the saloon was a room behind the bar that was used for musical performances, whether planned or impromptu (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.277–78: smoking concert
Smoking concert: a social event ‘at which smoking takes place or is allowed’ (OED).
11.285: God’s curse on bitch’s bastard
From the blind piano tuner’s curse on Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.1119–20).
11.286: diner’s bell
The bell to call the waiter.
11.287: bothered Pat
Bothered (Hiberno-English): ‘deaf or partially deaf ’ (PWJ, p. 221).
11.291: the coffin (coffin?)
Coffin: ‘a chest, case, casket, box’ (OED); here referring to the case of the piano. Joyce used this word in this way in Giacomo Joyce: ‘A long black piano: coffin of music’ (PSW, p. 241).
11.292: oblique triple (piano!) wires
In a modern piano, most notes have three strings each (Alfred Dolge, Pianos and their Makers, p. 55). In a modern grand piano, the bass strings are set on a separate bridge that rests above and at a slight angle (and thus oblique) to the main soundboard (pp. 63–64).
11.295–96: when I was in Wisdom Hely’s See note at 6.703.
11.296: Daly’s
See note at 11.230.
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11.297: pin cuts lo See note at 8.630.
11.298: language of flow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is
Daisies signify innocence in most of the guides to the language of flowers (Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, p. 176).
11.300–01: Smoke mermaids, coolest whiff of all
Both the name for this brand of cigarettes and the slogan appear to be of Joyce’s invention; but see also note at 11.222.
11.302: jaunting car See note at 10.556.
11.304: Jingling on supple rubbers it jaunted See note at 11.212.
11.309–10: Bloo smi qui go. Ternoon
That is, Bloom smiled quick to go. Good afternoon (his muttered greeting to the shop girl).
11.310: Think you’re the only pebble on the beach?
Proverbial for ‘do you think you’re the only desirable man (or woman) around?’ (Partridge, s.v. pebble).
11.313: a call came, long in dying
That is, the tuning-fork: ‘A small steel instrument (invented in 1711 by John Shore) consisting of a stem with two stout flat prongs which on being caused to vibrate produce a definite musical note of constant pitch, thus serving as a standard for tuning musical instruments’ (OED). ‘When a fork is struck and held in the air its sound is faint and, for a short time, at least one high partial tone is clearly heard; but if the stem is pressed down on a table, or other wooden surface of some size, the fork’s note becomes much louder, while the high partial tone fades out at once’ (Grove).
11.320: The bright stars fade
Simon Dedalus plays on the piano (but does not sing) the song ‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’, lyrics by Jane Williams (1806–85) and music by John L. Hatton (1809–86). The bright stars fade, the morn is breaking, The dew drops pearl each bud and leaf, And I from thee my leave am taking, With bliss too brief, with bliss too brief, with bliss too brief. How sinks my heart with fond alarms, The tear is hiding in mine eye, For time doth thrust me from thine arms; Goodbye, sweetheart, goodbye. The sun is up, the lark is soaring, Loud swells the song of chanticleer; The levret bounds o’er earth’s soft flooring, Yet I am here, yet I am here, yet I am here. For since night’s gems from heaven did fade,
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11. ‘Sirens’ 517 And morn to floral lips doth hie, I could not leave thee tho’ I said, Goodbye, sweetheart, goodbye. (Bauerle, pp. 362–65)
11.322: the morn is breaking
The second half of the first line of the song ‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’; see the previous note.
11.323: duodene
Duodene: ‘a group of twelve notes having certain fixed relations of pitch, in a proposed scheme for obtaining exact intonation on a keyboard instrument’ (OED). ‘The sheet music for the song [“Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye”] opens with two sextuplets (groups of six notes equal to four of the original note-values) in the left-hand part, making up simple broken C major chords. Duodene can therefore be regarded as referring to a barful of sextuplets. The pianist is obviously playfully enhancing the otherwise plodding accompaniment by playing sextuplets in the treble, suggestive of the soaring lark and pearling dewdrops’ (John Simpson, JJON).
11.327: The dewdrops pearl
The beginning of the second line of ‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’; see note at 11.320.
11.329: rose of Castile See note at 7.471–72.
11.331: fretted
To be fretted: to be worried; also suggests fret, ‘In musical instruments, like the guitar [. . .] a ridge of wood, metal, etc. placed on the fingerboard, to regulate the fingering’ (OED).
11.333: Did she fall or was she pushed?
Did she fall or was she pushed: ‘A catch phrase applied to a girl “in trouble” or shouted at an old-style actress in a melodrama’ (Partridge). The catchphrase was very popular in the 1890s and was also the title of a music hall song by Joe Lawrence (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.335: Ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies
From Oliver Goldsmith’s (1728–74) She Stoops to Conquer (1773): ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no fibs’ (III.110; Works, vol. 2, p. 46)—and proverbial since (ODEP).
11.340: See the conquering hero comes
The beginning of a poem by Thomas Morell (1703–84), which was used by George Friedrich Handel (1685–1759) in the oratorios Judas Maccabaeus (1747) and Joshua (1748): ‘See, the conquering hero comes! / Sound the trumpets, beat the drums’ (Bauerle, p. 392; Bowen, pp. 167–68).
11.343: Richie Goulding’s legal bag See note at 3.76.
11.344: And I from thee
The beginning of the third line of ‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’; see note at 11.320.
11.350: Glass of bitter
Bitter: ‘The British have been using the word bitter to describe pale ales since the early 19th century’ (Garrett Oliver, Oxford Companion to Beer, p. 129).
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11.351: Wire in yet?
That is, the telegraph with the results of the Ascot Gold Cup race, due to arrive in Dublin about 4:00 pm; see note at 10.510.
11.353: Cowley’s red lugs See note at 9.390 for lug.
11.353: sheriff ’s office See note at 10.934.
11.357–58: Diningroom . . . See, not be seen
In 1904, the Ormond Hotel occupied just the building at 8 Upper Ormond Quay (Thom’s, p. 1563) and the ground floor contained only a bar and saloon (see note at 11.275). In October 1905, Mrs Nora de Massey—the hotel’s owner—purchased 9 Upper Ormond Quay next door in order to expand her hotel. After the renovations, the ground floor contained, in addition to the bar and saloon at no. 8, a kitchen and restaurant at no. 9. The hotel was further expanded and completely renovated in 1932 (and was demolished in 2018). The layout of the Ormond as described in Ulysses, with Bloom sitting at a table in the restaurant from where he can spy on the bar without being seen, only existed in-between the renovations of 1905 and those of 1932. Bloom and Richie enter the Ormond through the door at no. 9, and thus out of sight from the bar. Joyce had been to the hotel in 1912 (see note at 11.227) and was probably unaware of the earlier renovations (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.368: Fine goods in small parcels
An Irish proverb ‘in praise or mitigation’ of petite women and diminutive men (PWJ, p. 110).
11.374: Sceptre will win See note at 7.388–89.
11.378: Idolores. The eastern seas See note at 11.226.
11.383: Fair one of Egypt teased and sorted
After the song ‘The Shade of the Palm’ (for which see note at 11.226), which has the line, ‘Fair one of Eden look to the West for me’.
11.390: Goulding, Collis, Ward See note at 6.56.
11.390: Bloom by ryebloom
Echoes the title of the song ‘When the Bloom is on the Rye’, for which see note at 10.524.
11.394: skyblue bow
At the end of ‘Wandering Rocks’, Boylan’s neckwear is called a ‘skyblue tie’ (10.1243–44). The word bow also suggests the stringed rod used to play musical instruments of the violin class.
11.396: to Flora’s lips did hie
Modified from the second verse of ‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’ (see note at 11.320): ‘For since night’s gems from heaven did fade, / And morn to floral lips doth hie’. To hie: to go quickly (OED).
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11.402: I could not leave thee
From the second verse of ‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’; see note at 11.320.
11.403: Afterwits See note at 9.1137.
11.404: Sonnez la cloche!
Sonnez la cloche! (French): ‘Ring the bell!’
11.407: lost chord
‘The Lost Chord’: a poem by Adelaide A. Procter (1825–64), which was later set to music by Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). Seated at an organ, the poem’s persona idly strikes a chord: ‘It linked all perplexed meanings / Into one perfect peace, / And trembled away into silence / As if it were loth to cease’ (ll. 17–30; Complete Works, p. 228).
11.415: No sawdust there
In the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, some theatrical performers would wear pads made out of sawdust to enhance their appearance on stage. Women typically used them on their legs and men on their legs and shoulders. By saying ‘No sawdust there’, Lenehan is implying that Miss Douce is not wearing such a prosthesis and that the elastic garter has snapped against her skin (Aida Yared, ‘No Sawdust There’, p. 3).
11.418: the essence of vulgarity
From Ralph Waldo Emerson’s The Conduct of Life: ‘What is vulgar, and the essence of all vulgarity, but the avarice of reward?’ (p. 143).
11.425: Sweetheart, goodbye!
The ending of the song ‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’, when the singer decides to stay rather than leave: ‘I could not leave thee tho’ I said, / Goodbye, sweetheart, goodbye’; see note at 11.320 for the full lyrics.
11.429: Tom Rochford
For Rochford see note at 8.989, for his invention see note at 10.466.
11.432: Got the horn or what?
To have or get the horn: to have an erection (Partridge).
11.435: How do you do, Mr Dollard? See note at 6.145.
11.438: long fellow
That is, Long John Fanning; see note at 7.106.
11.438–39: Judas Iscariot’s
That is, the solicitor Reuben J. Dodd (see note at 6.251), who is said to be Jewish (in Ulysses, but not in real life) and is here associated with the disciple who betrays Christ (John 18:2–3).
11.444: Power for Richie
That is, a glass of John Power & Son’s Irish whiskey, offices at 98–103 and 109 Thomas Street, distilleries at 4–12 John’s Lane West and elsewhere in Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1989).
11.446: Refracts (is it?) heat See note at 4.79–80.
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11.449: Begone, dull care
‘Begone, dull care!’: an anonymous seventeenth-century drinking song. The first two lines: ‘Begone, dull care! I prithee begone from me! / Begone, dull care! Thou and I shall never agree!’ (Charles Mackay, The Book of English Songs, p. 121).
11.459: Love and War
‘Love and War’: a duet (not solo) between the lover, a tenor or soprano, and the warrior, a bass; written by T. Cooke (Bowen, pp. 170–71; Bauerle, pp. 366–77).
11.460: crossblind See note at 7.440.
11.465: eau de Nil See note at 11.67.
11.468: Collard grand
Collard and Collard: an English manufacturer of moderately priced grand pianos (Grove).
11.470: A symposium all his own
Symposium: ‘A drinking-party; a convivial meeting for drinking, conversation, and intellectual entertainment’ (OED).
11.471: crotchety old fellow
Plays on the musical term crotchet: ‘A symbol for a note of half the value of a minim, made in the form of a stem with a round (formerly lozenge-shaped) black head; a note of this value’ (OED; with thanks to Harald Beck).
11.473: wedding garment
Wedding garment: A formal outfit ‘appropriate to, or customarily worn at, a wedding’ (OED).
11.478: lost chord See note at 11.407.
11.485: I knew he was on the rocks
On the rocks: ‘without means or money’ (Partridge, s.v. rocks). This refers to the time when the Blooms were living on Holles Street, in 1895–96 (see note at 17.860) and Bloom was unemployed.
11.486: coffee palace
The Dublin Coffee Palace Hotel and Restaurant: the main location was at 6 Townsend Street, just south of the Liffey, with a branch at 35 Northwall Quay, on the northern docks of the Liffey (Thom’s, pp. 1560, 1609). Both were operated by the Dublin Total Abstinence Society. ‘The Coffee Palace is the centre of numerous branches of work “to promote the moral and social well-being of the community without distinction of creed or politics” ’ (DD, p. 73).
11.487: gave me the wheeze
Wheeze: a tip, a piece of information (Partridge); see also note at 5.178.
11.488: Holles street See note at 11.493.
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11.489: Keogh’s
Possibly James Keogh, 32 Upper Erne Street (Thom’s, p. 1486). Past Denzille Street, Holles Street continues as Upper Erne Street, so this Keogh would have been a neighbour to the Blooms when they lived at Holles Street.
11.493: Merrion square style
The houses in Merrion Square were stylish and their residents wealthy (see note at 10.1104). The Blooms lived in Holles Street in 1895–96 (see note at 17.860). Holles Street runs north from the north-east corner of Merrion Square. Despite its proximity to this wealthy neighbourhood, the street included many poor residents. A number of the buildings were tenements (Thom’s, p. 1519).
11.493: court dresses See note at 10.1130.
11.496–97: left off clothes of all descriptions
Left-off clothes: second-hand clothes (OED, s.v. leave). The phrase was widely used in advertisements at the end of the nineteenth century. Also widely used was the joke about the effect of removing the hyphen (as here): ‘in the interests of decency, we protest against the coolness of a certain tradesman who advertises daily that he “has left off clothes of every description” ’ (Frank Leslie’s Pleasant Hours, 1873, vol. 13, p. 476; John Simpson, JJON).
11.500: met him pike hoses
Molly’s mispronunciation of metempsychosis; see note at 4.339.
11.500: Paul de Kock See note at 4.358.
11.507: Daughter of the regiment
Molly was raised in a British garrison in Gibraltar. This phrase refers to Gaetano Donizetti’s (1797–1848) opera, La Figlia del Reggimento (1840), ‘The Daughter of the Regiment’ (Bowen, p. 169). The Freeman’s Journal for 16 June 1904 announces that this opera will be performed by the Elster-Grime Grand Opera Company at the Queen’s Royal Theatre the following night (p. 4, col. a).
11.508: drummajor
Drum-major: ‘the first or chief drummer in a regimental band’ (OED). Simon claims that Brian Tweedy, Molly’s father, was a drum-major in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers (see note at 4.63), which is a much less prestigious position than a major. There may also be a reference to The Drum Major’s Daughter (1879), an adaption by Jacques Offenbach (1819–80) of Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment (see previous note).
11.512: Buccinator muscle
Buccinator: ‘a flat thin muscle which forms the wall of the cheek’ (OED). In his Trieste notebook, Joyce recorded the following about his father: ‘He cannot keep his pipe alight as the buccinator muscle is weak’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 103; JJA, vol. 7, p. 145).
11.512–13: My Irish Molly, O
After the title of the anonymous Irish street ballad ‘Irish Molly O’, which has the line, ‘And all for the sake of my Irish Molly O!’ (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, pp. 186–87); although there are other songs with this title (Bowen, pp. 169–70).
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522 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
11.517–18: 4 Lismore terrace, Drumcondra
In 1904, the actual resident of this address was William Molony (Thom’s, p. 1682). Lismore Terrace branches off of Botanic Avenue in Drumcondra, about 1.2 km north of the North Circular Road.
11.518: Idolores, a queen, Dolores See note at 11.226.
11.520: nutty gizzards, fried cods’ roes See notes at 4.2 and 4.3.
11.521: Richie Goulding, Collis, Ward See note at 6.56.
11.524: Bachelor’s walk See note at 7.430.
11.530: When love absorbs my ardent soul
The opening line of the duet ‘Love and War’, for which see note at 11.459.
11.531: roofpanes
The saloon (see note at 11.275) was a one-storey room directly behind the Ormond bar. The saloon was illuminated by a skylight of up to 4.6 square metres (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.532: War! War! cried Father Cowley. You’re the warrior
The opening line from the duet ‘Love and War’ is delivered by the lover, which is a tenor’s part, whereas Dollard has just sung it in the bass voice range of the warrior (Bowen, p. 171); however, in some editions of the song, the lover-tenor’s words are also printed for the soldier-bass (Bauerle, p. 366).
11.533: your landlord
Father Cowley’s landlord is Reverend Hugh C. Love; see note at 10.437–38.
11.533–34: Love or money
Not for love or money: ‘unobtainable, either for payment or for entreaties; under no circumstances’ (Brewer’s).
11.536: Sure
See note at 1.433.
11.536: burst the tympanum of her ear
Tympanum: the ear drum (OED). Dollard has been singing very loudly because ‘when basses are called upon to sing in their top register, in this case up to a high G, they are often able to sing the higher notes only by increasing their volume’ (Zack Bowen, ‘And the Music Goes Round and Round’, p. 138).
11.541: Amoroso ma non troppo
Amoroso ma non troppo (Italian): ‘Lovingly, but not overly so’; instructions to a musician at the beginning of a musical score as to how to perform the piece (Grove, s.v. amoroso).
11.547: Independent See note at 7.308.
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11. ‘Sirens’ 523
11.551–52: my ardent soul . . . morrow
The opening lines from ‘Love and War’: ‘While Love absorbs my ardent soul, / I think not of the morrow’; see note at 11.459.
11.569–70: the Burton See note at 8.370.
11.574: shapers
Shaper (Hiberno-English): a show-off (Dolan, s.v. shape).
11.576: Night we were in the box See note at 11.1050.
11.576: grampus
Grampus: a small, dolphin-like whale, ‘remarkable for the spouting or blowing that accompanies their movements’ (OED).
11.578: jiggedy jiggedy
Suggests the jig, a lively dance, with vigorous up and down movements, associated with, but not restricted to Ireland (OED; Grove).
11.580–81: Girl touched it. Poop of a lovely
After Antony and Cleopatra: ‘The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, / Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold’ (II.iii.196–97).
11.581: Golden ship. Erin.
That is, the Erin’s King; see note at 4.434.
11.581–82: The harp that once or twice
The song ‘The Harp that Once Through Tara’s Halls’ by Thomas Moore (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 13); also mentioned at 8.606–07.
11.582: Ben Howth, the rhododendrons See both notes at 8.911.
11.587: M’appari
‘M’appari’ (Italian, ‘Seemed to me’): an aria sung by the character Lionel in Flotow’s opera Martha, for which see note at 7.58. In this song, Lionel bewails the absence of his beloved Martha (who is actually a noblewoman, Lady Harriet, in disguise). In the German original, the aria is called ‘Ach! So fromm, ach so traut’. The English translation—from which Simon will eventually sing—was by Charles Jeffrys (Bowen, pp. 178–79; Bauerle, pp. 398–403). On the score for Jeffrys’s translation, the title is given as ‘Martha, O Return Love!’, with the Italian (but not the German) as a subtitle: ‘M’appari—tutt’ amor’. According to Stanislaus, John Joyce sang M’appari ‘very well’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 65). Jeffrys’s translation: When first I saw that form endearing; Sorrow from me seem’d to depart: Each graceful look, each word so cheering Charmed my eye and won my heart. Full of hope, and all delighted, None could feel more blest than I;
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524 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses All on Earth I then could wish for Was near her to live and die: But alas! ’Twas idle dreaming, And the dream too soon hath flown; Not one ray of hope is gleaming; I am lost, yes I am lost for she is gone. Martha, Martha, I am sighing; I am weeping still, for thee; Come thou lost one, Come thou dear one, Thou alone can’st comfort me: Ah Martha return! Come to me! (Bauerle, p. 399)
11.590: A Last Farewell
The title of a song by John Willis: ‘Farewell, base world, thy sins oppress me, / With footsteps fleet I haste away, / Where foes or friends no more distress me ; / My spirit’s higher call obey’ (Bowen, p. 173).
11.590–92: A headland, a ship . . . wind around her
The painted seascape hangs on the stage behind the piano at the back of the saloon (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.594–95: M’appari tutt’amor: . . . l’incontr
The opening lines of the Italian version of ‘M’appari’: ‘When all love appeared to me, my glance encountered . . .’ (Bowen, p. 173).
11.599: Ah, sure, my dancing days are done
From the third verse of the Irish anti-war song ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye’: ‘Where are the legs with which you run Hur-roo! Hur-roo! / When you went for to carry a gun / Indeed your dancing days are done / Faith Johnny I hardly know ye!’ (Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, pp. 491–93).
11.602: Play it in the original. One flat
The aria ‘M’appari’ is in F major, which has one flat. Simon had been trying to sing the song in a lower key in order to make it easier to sing (Bowen, p. 174).
11.606: Graham Lemon’s pineapple rock
Blazes Boylan has changed his direction, turning north by a confectioner, Lemon & Co. on Sackville Street; see note at 8.6.
11.606: Elvery’s elephant See note at 6.253.
11.610: Sonnambula
Sonnambula (Italian): sleepwalker; the title of an 1831 opera by Vincenzo Bellini (1801–35) (Bowen, p. 174).
11.611: Joe Maas
Joseph Maas (1847–86): a famous English lyric tenor who began by singing in the choir of Rochester Cathedral. He spent a good part of his career as a leading tenor of the Carl Rosa
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11. ‘Sirens’ 525 Company, which frequently toured in Dublin. ‘His beautiful voice and finished style more than compensating for his poor acting’ (EB11).
11.611: M‘Guckin
Barton McGuckin (1852–1913): a native Dubliner and famous tenor who started as a choirboy at Armagh Cathedral. McGuckin was featured as the principal tenor of the Carl Rosa Opera Company and toured widely (DIB). According to an interview with John Stanislaus Joyce that Joyce arranged in the 1920s, a friend reported to John Joyce that ‘McGuckin heard you [John Stanislaus] singing at a concert in the Antient Concert rooms and said you had the best tenor voice in Ireland’ (‘An Interview with John Stanislaus Joyce’, p. 165); this anecdote also appears in Herbert Gorman’s biography of Joyce (James Joyce, p. 10). While the authenticity of this interview with Joyce’s father has been questioned, ‘it does look, given the evidence of Gorman’s citation, that this is most likely the authentic voice of John Stanislaus Joyce’ (Terence Killeen, ‘An Irishman’s Diary’, Irish Times, 16 Apr. 2013, p. 15, col. g).
11.615: Backache he. Bright’s bright eye
Bright’s disease (named after Dr Richard Bright, 1789–1858): ‘A generic term including several forms of acute and chronic disease of the kidney usually associated with albumen in the urine’ (OED). ‘The symptoms are usually of a severe character. Pain in the back, vomiting and febrile disturbance commonly usher in the attack’ (EB11). Alcohol exacerbates the condition. The phrase ‘Bright’s bright eye’ was used in medical textbooks of the day since one of its symptoms was a ‘shiny condition of the front of the eyeball’, from Alexander Haig’s Uric Acid (1904), which was in Joyce’s Trieste library (pp. 58–59; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON). The real-life model for Richie Goulding, Joyce’s uncle William Murray (see note at 3.76), was afflicted with syphilis, not Bright’s disease (Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 307).
11.615–16: Paying the piper
Proverbial, ‘He who pays the piper may call the tune’ (ODEP).
11.616: Pills, pounded bread See note at 6.61.
11.617: Down among the dead men
The title and chorus of a drinking song, with lyrics by John Dyer (1700–58), ‘which reminds us that after death there is no more drinking’ (Bowen, p. 174).
11.617: Kidney pie. Sweets to the
After a passage from Hamlet, in which Gertrude lays flowers in Ophelia’s grave: ‘Sweets to the sweet: farewell!’ (V.ii.266).
11.618: Not making much hand of it
To make a hand of it: ‘to turn something to account; to profit by it’ (Partridge).
11.619: Vartry water
See note at 17.164–82 for an account of Dublin’s water supply from the Vartry River in County Wicklow.
11.619: Fecking
Fecking (Hiberno-English): stealing (Dolan, s.v. feck).
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11.621: Screwed
Screwed: inebriated (Partridge).
11.623–24: In the gods of the old Royal
The gods: the upper tier of seats in a theatre (OED, s.v. god). The original Theatre Royal in Hawkins Street, built in 1821, was destroyed by fire on 9 February 1880, when Bloom would have been about 14 years old. In 1886, the owner, Michael Gunn, opened Leinster Hall in Hawkins Street, which closed in 1897, only to reopen later the same year as the new Theatre Royal (Bennett).
11.624: little Peake
Possibly the same Peake from ‘Counterparts’ in Dubliners who was mentioned in ‘Hades’; see note at 6.159.
11.627: But want a good memory
Proverbial, after Quintilian (Roman rhetorician, c.35–c.100): ‘A liar ought to have a good memory’ (Institutes of Oratory, IV.ii.91).
11.629: All is lost now
Richie Goulding begins whistling Elvino’s tenor aria, Tutto è sciolto (All is lost) from La Sonnambula (for which see note at 11.610). Elvino sings this when he incorrectly assumes that his fiancée Amina is being unfaithful to him when he sees her sleepwalking into another man’s bedroom (Bowen, p. 175). Joyce used the title ‘Tutto è sciolto’ for a poem written in Trieste in 1914 and collected in Pomes Penyeach (PSW, p. 55).
11.630: A low incipient note
‘The first “low incipient note”, murmuring the word all from the song is the dotted half note of the first measure of the solo’ (Bowen, p. 175).
11.630: banshee
Banshee: anglicised from the Irish bean-sídhe, a type of female fairy who will ‘wail under the windows of a house where one of the inmates is about to die’ (OED).
11.633: Blackbird
‘The notes of the blackbird are rich and full, but monotonous as compared with those of the song-thrush’ (EB11).
11.633: hawthorn valley
The Furze of Phoenix Park, in the south-west portion of the park by Knockmaroon Gate, is ‘a deep hollow lined on either side with furze bushes and innumerable hawthorn trees’ (D. A. Chart, The Story of Dublin, p. 314).
11.633: motives
Motive (or motif or leitmotif): ‘A short musical idea, melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, or any combination of these three. A motif may be of any size, and is most commonly regarded as the shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase that still maintains its identity as an idea [. . .] Taken in its totality—a combination of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic elements—the motif is the building-block of polyphonic structures’ (Grove).
11.634–35: Echo. How sweet the answer
From the opening of ‘Echo’ by Thomas Moore: ‘How sweet the answer echo makes / To music at night’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 165).
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11. ‘Sirens’ 527
11.638–39: In sleep she went to him. Innocence in the moon See note at 11.629.
11.640: Call name. Touch water
After the common, but incorrect, assumption that a sleepwalker might awaken if they hear their name or if their hand is immersed in water (Clete A. Kushida, Encyclopedia of Sleep, vol. 4, pp. 152–53).
11.644: Still harping on his daughter
From Hamlet: the prince, toying with Polonius, makes veiled, indecent references to Ophelia, prompting the self-deluded old man to remark, ‘Still harping on my daughter’ (II.ii.188). And (obviously) a harp is a musical instrument.
11.644–45: Wise child that knows her father See note at 6.53.
11.648: Crosseyed Walter sir I did sir See 3.67–69 and see note at 3.67.
11.659: heart bowed down
The song ‘The Heart Bowed Down’, from Act II of the opera, The Bohemian Girl (1843), text by Englishman Alfred Bunn (1796–1860) and music by Irishman Michael William Balfe (1808–70): ‘The heart bow’d down by weight of woe, / To weakest hopes will cling; / To thought and impulse while they flow, / That can no comfort bring, / That can, that can no comfort bring’ (Bowen, pp. 177–78).
11.661: in cool glaucous eau de Nil
Glaucous: ‘Of a dull or pale green colour passing into greyish blue’ (OED). For eau de Nil, see note at 11.67.
11.665: When first I saw that form endearing
The first line from the English adaptation of Lionel’s aria ‘M’appari’; see note at 11.587.
11.668: Braintipped
Brain-tipped: ‘a state in which the brain has tipped from reality towards delusion or delirium’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.673: Sorrow from me seemed to depart
The second line from Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’; see note at 11.587.
11.675–76: whatdoyoucallthem dulcimers
In ‘Calypso’, Bloom imagined ‘A girl playing one of those instruments what do you call them: dulcimers’ (4.97–98). See also note at 4.98. The running of the words together (‘whatdoyoucallthem’) recalls the effect accelerando: ‘a gradual increase of speed’ (OED; Jon D. Green, ‘The Sounds of Silence in “Sirens” ’, p. 491).
11.681: love’s old sweet song See note at 4.314.
11.683: skein
Skein: ‘A quantity of thread or yarn, wound to a certain length upon a reel, and usually put up in a kind of loose knot’ (OED).
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528 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
11.684: troubled, double, fourfold, in octave
Bloom’s winding and unwinding of the elastic band matches ‘what is happening in the musical accompaniment in measures 34–42: a slightly faster tempo on four beat rhythms per measure with octave intervals in the left hand and four-note chord clusters in the right’ (Green, ‘The Sounds of Silence in “Sirens” ’, p. 497).
11.684: gyved them fast
Gyve: ‘a shackle’; to gyve: ‘to fasten with, or as with, a gyve; to fetter, shackle’ (OED). This suggests Odysseus who ordered his men to bind him to the mast of his ship in order that he could hear the Sirens’ song safely: ‘they then bound me hand and foot in the fast ship’ (Odyssey, XII.178).
11.685: Full of hope and all delighted
The fifth line of Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’; see note at 11.587.
11.686: Tenors get women by the score
Plays on two senses of the word score, ‘A musical composition with its distribution of parts’ and ‘A group or set of twenty’ (OED). According to Stanislaus, ‘The only voice that had any sense of meaning in it for [James Joyce] was a tenor’ (quoted in John McCourt, ‘Joyce’s Trieste: Città Musicalissima’, p. 42).
11.687: My head it simply
The phrases ‘My head it simply’ and ‘Your head it simply swurls’ are from the song ‘Those Lovely Seaside Girls’, for which see note at 4.282.
11.687–88: He can’t sing for tall hats
Tall hats: those wearing tall (or top) hats, i.e. high society.
11.688–89: What perfume . . . I want to know
From the postscript to Martha Clifford’s letter: ‘Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to know’ (5.258).
11.691: Phial of cachous, kissing comfits
Cachou: ‘a sweetmeat, generally in the form of a pill, made of cashew nut, extract of liquorice, etc. used by tobacco smokers to sweeten the breath’ (OED). For comfit, see note at 8.3–4.
11.692: Hands felt for the opulent
A phrase from Sweets of Sin; see note at 10.606.
11.694: But alas, ’twas idle dreaming
The ninth line of Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’; see note at 11.587.
11.695: Cork air
Simon Dedalus, like John Joyce, hails from Cork (Ellmann, p. 14).
11.695: brogue
See note at 9.557.
11.696: Singing wrong words
There are many different printed versions of Jeffrys’s translation of ‘M’appari’ (see note at 11.587), which have many textual variations and errors. Simon appears to be singing correctly from the edition that is reprinted in Bauerle (pp. 399–403), so presumably
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11. ‘Sirens’ 529 Bloom is thinking of a different edition of this translation (Sebastian Knowles, ‘That Form Endearing’, p. 232 n. 9); see also note at 11.724.
11.699–700: Jenny Lind soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half pint of cream
Jenny Lind (1820–87): internationally famous Swedish soprano (Grove). Isabella Beeton’s The Book of Household Management contains a recipe for Soup à la Cantatrice (Professional Singer’s Soup) that has been ‘partaken of by the principal singers of the day, including the celebrated Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind, and, as they have always avowed, with considerable advantage to the voice, in singing’ (p. 63). The recipe here mostly matches Beeton’s: Beeton specifies egg yolks and adds sugar and seasoning and, optional, a bay leaf. In October 1921, a syndicated newspaper column entitled ‘A Physician’ reported: ‘A food much used by singers is the so-called “Jenny Lind Soup”. This is very bland and does not alter the voice’ (Daily Mail, 13 Oct. 1921). Joyce added this phrase on a page proof in late 1921 (JJA, vol. 24, p. 207; John Simpson, JJON).
11.701: That’s the chat
Chat: ‘the subject under discussion; the point’; also the ‘female pudend’ (both Partridge). Given the sexual imagery of this passage, the second meaning is also viable. Dent records a number of examples of this phrase from the nineteenth century in contexts that don’t fully clarify its meaning (Dent, pp. 277–78).
11.706–07: Tipping her tepping her tapping her topping her. Tup
To tup: northern English and Scottish dialect, ‘of the ram; to copulate with (the ewe)’. Top is similar in meaning and etymologically related, but rare. To tip: ‘to intoxicate’ and ‘to cause to fall or tumble’. Tep: an obsolete form of tap, which in turn can be ‘a Scottish dialect form of top’ (all OED).
11.710: ray of hope
From the 11th line of Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’: ‘Not one ray of hope is gleaming’; see note at 11.587.
11.722: Drago’s
See note at 4.488.
11.722–23: Still hear it better here . . . though further
A note Joyce took explains why Bloom, from his position in the restaurant, can better hear the singing now that the singers have decamped from the bar to the saloon: ‘hear it better here than in the bar, though further, trams outside’ (NLI II.i.4 f. 6). ‘The reference here is to the trams outside on Ormond quay, which ran to Phoenix Park and (convenient for the hotel) Kingsbridge Station’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.724: Each graceful look
From the 15th line of Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’: ‘Each graceful look, each word so cheering’; see note at 11.587. The word graceful in Jeffrys’s translation is often misprinted in various editions of the score (Knowles, ‘That Form Endearing’, p. 232 n. 9); see also note at 11.696.
11.725: First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon’s in Terenure
Previously Bloom had thought that the first time he met Molly was at Luke Doyle’s house in Dolphin’s Barn, where there was a game of charades (see notes at 4.345 and 8.274). Mat Dillon is a different friend of the Blooms, also associated with their courtship (see note at 6.697). The claim here that the first night was at Dillon’s in Terenure contradicts the earlier claim that the first night was at Doyle’s in Dolphin’s Barn. ‘The textual history of these
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530 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses scenes indicates that it was James Joyce himself who was imprecise about these facts in the novel, and this narrative inconsistency will always be a part of the novel’ (Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, p. 140; see pp. 140–47).
11.729: Charmed my eye
From the 16th line of Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’: ‘Charm’d my eye and won my heart’; see note at 11.587.
11.730: Waiting
‘Waiting’, by Ellen H. Flagg and Harrison Millard, was a popular romantic song from 1867 (Bowen, p. 184).
11.733: in old Madrid
A reference to the song ‘In Old Madrid’, words by G. Clifton Bingham, composed by Henry Trotère. Like ‘M’appari’, this song is about lost love (Bauerle, pp. 407–13).
11.734: Dolores shedolores
After a line from the song ‘The Shade of the Palm’ in the operetta Floradora, which Miss Douce sang earlier; see note at 11.226.
11.734: At me. Luring. Ah, alluring
Bloom is recalling and imitating the ornamented notes in Molly’s singing. Ornamentation: the practice of embellishing musical works through variation, whether indicated by the composer or improvised by the performer (Grove, s.v. ornaments). The ‘Ah’ before ‘a-lluring’ suggests the effect of appoggiatura: ‘A grace-note or passing tone prefixed as a support to an essential note of a melody’ (OED; Green, ‘The Sounds of Silence in “Sirens” ’, p. 491).
11.735: Martha! Ah, Martha!
From the 17th line of Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’: ‘Martha, Martha, I am sighing’; see note at 11.587.
11.740–41: Co-ome, thou lost one! . . . dear one
The 19th and 20th lines of Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’; see note at 11.587. ‘Come’ is hyphenated in the last line to show that the word is ‘sung to more than one note’ (Zack Bowen, ‘Music as Comedy in Ulysses’, p. 33).
11.742: chestnote
Chest-note: ‘a note produced in the lowest register of the voice’ (OED, s.v. chest).
11.744: Come!
From the 22nd and final line of Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’: ‘Ah Martha return! Come to me!’; see note at 11.587. This cry is drawn out over the next several lines because there is a pause (fermata) over this note, a high B flat, in the sheet music (Bowen, p. 168).
11.745: soar silver orb it leaped serene
The ‘soar silver orb’ describes the notation of the high B flat which Simon is singing: on the score this note is several lines above the staff, as if it were soaring. ‘The length and content of the description between “Come! ” and “To me! ” indicate the duration of the pause as well as the quality of Simon’s high B flat as the note combines with the lyrics and description to give the passage overtones of an orgasm’ (Bowen, p. 186).
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11. ‘Sirens’ 531
11.748: effulgence symbolistic, high, of the etherial bosom
From Dan Dawson’s speech; see note at 7.328. See also 8.543: ‘Those literary etherial people they all are. Dreamy, cloudy, symbolistic.’
11.751: To me!
The conclusion of Lionel’s aria, ‘M’appari’; see note at 11.587.
11.752: Siopold!
A combination of the names Simon, Lionel, and Leopold.
11.761–62: monuments of sir John Gray, Horatio . . . Theobald Mathew
The narrative now momentarily follows Boylan’s journey north towards Eccles Street. The monuments listed here all stand in Sackville (O’Connell) Street: for the statue of Sir John Gray, see note at 6.258, for Nelson’s pillar see note at 6.293 (and for ‘onehandled’ see note at 7.1018). For Father Mathew see note at 6.319–20.
11.763: Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la
Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la. (French): ‘Bell. Ring the. Bell. Ring the’; see also note at 11.404.
11.764: the Rotunda, Rutland square See note at 6.321–22.
11.770: disserving
To disserve: ‘to remove the “service” from (a table)’ (OED).
11.772–73: Seven days in jail . . . like a garden thrush
Stanislaus Joyce recalled that John Joyce’s friend John Kelly (Mr Casey in A Portrait), who served prison time for his revolutionary activities, once remarked to John Joyce after going to the opera with him: ‘Do you mind what I’m telling you, John. If you got three months in jail, you’d sing any of those fellows off the stage’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 37).
11.776: sang dumb
To sing dumb: ‘to be silent, hold one’s peace’ (OED, s.v. dumb; with thanks to Harald Beck).
11.779–80: Si sang’ Twas rank and fame See note at 7.471–72.
11.789: We never speak as we pass by
‘We Never Speak As We Pass By’ (1882): a song by Frank Egerton; ‘a minstrel ballad sung by a cuckolded husband’ (Bowen, p. 188).
11.789–90: Rift in the lute
After the song ‘The Rift in the Lute’ in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859) and since then proverbial for the start of bad relations between people (Brewer’s).
11.795: ungyved
See note at 11.684.
11.797: Barraclough’s
Arthur Barraclough (1839–1905): professor of singing, 24 Lower Pembroke Street (Thom’s, p. 1803).
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11.798: retrospective sort of arrangement See note at 6.150.
11.802: Thou lost one
From ‘M’appari’; see note at 11.582.
11.804: Outtohelloutofthat See note at 3.353.
11.805: that rat’s tail wriggling
The ‘obese grey rat’ that Bloom saw near the end of ‘Hades’ (6.973).
11.805–06: Corpus paradisum
Corpus (Latin): body; as Bloom remembered in ‘Lotus Eaters’, it is also the root of the English word corpse (see note at 5.350). Paradisum (Latin): ‘[into] paradise’. The terms are taken from two different Roman Catholic rites. ‘Corpus’ is said by the priest in the rite of communion: ‘Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi’ (The body of our Lord, Jesus Christ) (The Offices of the Old Catholic Prayer-Book, p. 25). Paradisum comes from the recessional of the Mass of the Dead, as was performed at Dignam’s funeral (see note at 6.628).
11.806: Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup
The ‘croaker’ is Father Coffey, who presided over Paddy Dignam’s interment (see notes at 6.595 and 6.605). Corncrake: ‘a name (originally Scottish) of the bird also called Landrail [. . .] it lives concealed among the standing corn and the grass of the hayfields, whence its harsh grating voice may be heard’ (OED). For ‘belly like a poisoned pup’, see note at 6.598–99.
11.809: wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevy
Bloom is imitating the effect of a trill (see also note at 11.225): ‘A tremulous utterance of a note or notes, as a “grace” or ornament’ (OED; Green, ‘The Sounds of Silence in “Sirens” ’, p. 491).
11.809: un comb:’d
Bloom is imitating the effect of a fermata: ‘A pause of unspecified length; the sign indicating such a pause’ (OED). The word is printed ‘according to the pronunciation schema for singers’ (Green, ‘The Sounds of Silence in “Sirens” ’, p. 491).
11.812: Jingle into Dorset street
Boylan’s movements have taken him north along Sackville (O’Connell) Street, which leads into Rutland (now Parnell) Square East and then North Frederick Street. At the end of North Frederick Street, the cab turns right onto Lower Dorset Street, which leads to Eccles Street.
11.822: A pad
Pad: a pad of blotting paper (OED).
11.828: Grandest number in the whole opera See 3.100–01.
11.830–31: Two multiplied by two divided by half is twice one
In terms of arithmetic, this proposition is (obviously) incorrect since 2 x 2 ÷ ½ = 8. However, in terms of music there is a logic here since 8 indicates an octave, which is ‘The note which lies at an interval of seven degrees of the scale above or (occas.) below a given note, and is produced by oscillations of twice or half the frequency respectively’ (OED), or,
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11. ‘Sirens’ 533 in a sense, ‘twice one’ (with thanks to Michelle Witen). On the Rosenbach, Joyce originally wrote: ‘Two plus two multiplied by half. Two is twice one’ (f. 28), which is mathematically correct. On the same draft, he changed it to: ‘Two multiplied by two divided by half ’, which yields the mathematically incongruous result.
11.831: chords
Chord: ‘The simultaneous sounding of two or more notes’ (Grove).
11.833: symmetry under a cemetery wall See note at 7.166–70.
11.844: Blumenlied
Blumenlied: German, ‘flower song’; this is used as a title for many different German songs and poems, the most famous being Gustav Lange’s (German composer, 1830–89) piano piece (op. 39, 1867) by that name. It is a standard ‘second- or third-year piano solo’ (Bowen, p. 190).
11.845: night I came home, the girl
A notebook entry explains this cryptic statement: ‘bought Blumenlied for Milly found her playing it when home from whore’ (NLI II.i.4 f. 6r.); Joyce’s handwriting is unclear and the entry might be ‘Molly’ instead of ‘Milly’.
11.846: stables near Cecilia street
These stables are at 5–6 Cecilia Street, which runs from Temple Bar to Fownes’s Street, on the south side of Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1446). These are all narrow streets.
11.850: Ringabella, Crosshaven See note at 10.400.
11.850: barcaroles
Barcarole: ‘a song sung by Venetian barcaruoli [boatmen] as they row their gondolas’ (OED).
11.851: Queenstown harbour
Queenstown (now called Cobh) is a port located on the south side of Great Island in Cork harbour (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, pp. 432–33).
11.852: those earthquake hats
Earthquake hat: a hat made of straw from quaking grass, a grass of the genus Briza, famous for trembling in the breeze (OED, s.v. quaking-grass). From an article about Italian sailors: ‘In their scrupulously white jackets and trousers, and in their smart straw hats, they look rather like the well-got-up crew of a yacht than the sailors of a royal navy’ (All the Year Round, 12 July 1862, vol. 7, no. 168, p. 426).
11.856: edge of his Freeman See note at 6.157.
11.856: your other eye See note at 11.148.
11.857: Callan, Coleman . . . Patrick See note at 6.158.
11.858: Heigho! Heigho! See note at 4.546–48.
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534 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
11.859: cute as a rat
Cute: acute, shrewd (OED); used derisively in the phrase ‘cute as a rat’. Mrs (Anna Maria) Hall (Irish writer, 1800–81) uses this phrase in Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, &c. (1841–43): ‘And ould Oliver looked round, and there ’cute as a rat sits the little Cluricaune’ (vol. 3, p. 33).
11.860: Greek ees
Bloom disguises his handwriting by using an e shaped like the Greek letter epsilon (ε) rather than the Roman e. Joyce adopted this stratagem of legerdemain in his correspondence with Marthe Fleischmann, a woman with whom he was infatuated during his time in Zürich (Ellmann, p. 449); see note at 5.257.
11.866–68: Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the gulls . . . two and six
Bloom is tallying up some of his expenditures of the day. He gave five shillings to Martin Cunningham for the Dignam family (10.974); he expects to spend approximately two shillings ‘here’ at the Ormond; he spent a penny on the Banbury cakes he fed the seagulls (8.74–75); and he spent seven pence on lunch at Davy Byrne’s (8.776). He estimates that these expenditures add up to ‘about’ eight shillings (actually 7s. 8d.), so he decides he can spare a half-crown (two shillings and sixpence) for Martha. This provisional budget misses some of Bloom’s expenses so far this day, such as the pork kidney, the bath, a tramfare, his newspaper, the book renewal, and the notepaper and envelopes (see notes between 17.1455 and 17.1468).
11.867: Elijah is com See note at 8.13.
11.868: p.o. two and six
P.O.: postal [money] order; see note at 8.1132.
11.870: O, Mairy lost the string of her See note at 5.281–84.
11.871–72: Other world . . . exhaust
Phrases from Martha’s letter: ‘I called you naughty boy because I do not like that other world’ (5.244–45) and ‘do not deny my request before my patience are exhausted’ (5.253–54).
11.877: Sauce for the gander
From the proverb, ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander’: ‘The same principle applies in both cases; what is fitting for the husband should be fitting for the wife’ (Brewer’s).
11.878–79: driver Barton James . . . Donnybrook
James Barton: Rose Cottage, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook (Thom’s, p. 1679). He is not listed among the ‘Carriage, Cab, and Car Proprietors’ (p. 2054). He supposedly kept pony traps and an unnumbered hackney cab for private hire (Irish Times, 5 July 1958, p. 8, col. b). See note at 7.1047 for hackney.
11.881: George Robert Mesias . . . Eden quay See note at 6.831.
11.882–83: John Plasto . . . hatter See note at 4.69–70.
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11. ‘Sirens’ 535
11.884: Dlugacz’ porkshop See note at 4.46.
11.884: Agendath
See note at 4.191–92.
11.887: Town traveller
Town traveller: a travelling salesman ‘whose operations are confined to the town which is his employer’s place of business’ (OED).
11.890: Intermezzo
‘An intermezzo is a lyrical piece, often for piano, that occurs within a larger work; more appropriately, it is also an entr’acte “performed in segments between the acts of a larger work”, usually involving a pantomime, and concluding with a dance piece, preferably a minuet’ (Witen, James Joyce and Absolute Music, p. 147; the quote is from Grove).
11.890–94: The rum tum tum . . . So lonely. Dee
‘Bloom is writing the postscript to his letter to Martha Clifford in time with the music he hears Cowley playing in the background: “The rúm / tum túm. / How wíll / you pún? / You pú / nish mé? . . . La lá / la réé . . . La lá / la réé / I féél / so sád / to dáy / La réé. / So lóne / ly. Déé” ’ (Paul van Caspel, ‘Annotations to the Annotations of Annotations’, p. 12).
11.891: Crooked skirt swinging, whack by
Bloom remembers his next door neighbour’s maid that he saw in Dlugacz’s butcher’s shop and whom he pictured beating a carpet out on the clothesline: ‘The crooked skirt swinging whack by whack by whack’ (4.164).
11.893: Why minor sad
‘Music that is perceived as sad by people in Western cultures is typically slow and in a minor key. It may tend to be low in pitch and have quite a narrow pitch range, as well as containing relatively smooth articulation and a small dynamic range. One of the reasons that these acoustic cues communicate sadness to the listener is because of their similarity to prosodic speech cues that similarly signify sadness. Due to the physiological changes that occur with the experience of sadness, vocal expressions of sadness do tend to be relatively, slow, soft, low in pitch and with a somewhat slurred articulation. Thus, the listener generally perceives mimicry of these features in music, even in non- vocal music, as an expression of sadness’ (Sandra Garrido, Why Are We Attracted to Sad Music, p. 254).
11.893: sad tail
Tail: ‘In musical notation, the line proceeding from the head of a note; the stem’ (OED).
11.896: Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited
This is a fictional firm; Bloom is copying names from the obituary section of the Freeman’s Journal that he is holding; see note at 6.158.
11.898–900: c/o P.O. . . . Dublin
‘Town sub-post office, money order and savings bank office—William Coleman, subpostmaster’, 32 Dolphin’s Barn Lane (Thom’s, p. 1476). The street is now called Dolphin Barn Street, located in south-west Dublin just north of the South Circular Road.
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536 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
11.901: prize titbit See note at 4.502.
11.904–05: Music hath charms Shakespeare said
This line is frequently attributed to Shakespeare, but it is actually from William Congreve’s (1670–1729) play The Mourning Bride (1697): ‘Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, / To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak’ (I.i.1).
11.905: Quotations every day in the year
Calendars that offered daily quotations from Shakespeare’s works were common and popular in the nineteenth century (William Schutte, Joyce and Shakespeare, p. 126 n. 7).
11.905: To be or not to be
The opening of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy (III.i.56). ‘This soliloquy by Prince Hamlet stands as one of Shakespeare’s most celebrated speeches. From the time it was first heard on Elizabethan stages, it has been imitated, translated, venerated, and parodied’ (Douglas Bruster, To Be or Not to Be, p. 5).
11.907: In Gerard’s rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyedauburn
This passage is unusual: it repeats Stephen’s mental paraphrase from Maurice Clare’s A Day with William Shakespeare; see notes at 9.651–52 and 9.652.
11.909: Postoffice lower down
The post office at 34 Upper Ormond Quay (Thom’s, p. 1564), just west of the Ormond hotel.
11.910: Barney Kiernan’s I promised to meet them
Bloom is to meet Martin Cunningham at Barney Kiernan’s pub on Little Britain Street (see note at 12.58), whence they will go to Dignam’s house to see after his widow and children.
11.911: House of mourning
That is, Paddy Dignam’s house. The phrase ‘House of mourning’ comes from the Bible: ‘For thus saith the Lord, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people’ (Jeremiah 16:5; see also Ecclesiastes 7:2).
11.911: Deaf beetle
Deaf as a beetle: ‘extremely deaf ’ (Partridge).
11.927: How Walter Bapty lost his voice
Walter Bapty (1850–1915): ‘professor of singing’, 22 Upper Pembroke Street (Thom’s, p. 1802). He served as the Senior Vicar Choral for St Patrick’s Cathedral. ‘As a singer alike of recitative and melody he had few equals—not by reason of his voice, which was not powerful— but of the poetic beauty of his phrasing’ (Irish Times, 3 Apr. 1915, p. 6, col. d). ‘Bapty lost his voice in the early 1900s but after a lengthy period abroad under medical supervision it returned’ (Igoe, p. 22).
11.939: Lovely seaside girls See note at 4.282.
11.943: yashmak
Yashmak: ‘The double veil concealing the part of the face below the eyes, worn by Muslim women in public’ (OED). There was a musical comedy from 1897 called The Yashmak, written by Cecil Raleigh, with Sir S. Hicks and N. Lambelet.
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11. ‘Sirens’ 537
11.946: Well, it’s a sea. Corpuscle islands
Alludes to Phineas Fletcher’s (1582–1650) poem The Purple Island; or, The Isle of Man (1633), which describes the human body in allegorical terms. The poem was written before the discovery of blood corpuscles (which occurred in 1658; see note at 17.1063–64), but Fletcher does describe blood as being like a river irrigating the various parts of the body: ‘Nor is there any part in all this land, / But is a little isle: for thousand brooks / In azure channels glide on silver sand’ (canto 9, ll. 1–3, p. 18). An earlier draft directly named Fletcher’s poem: ‘Blood is a sea, a sea with purple islands’ (JJA, vol. 13, p. 39).
11.949: What are the wild waves saying?
‘What Are the Wild Waves Saying?’ (1848) was the title of a popular song by J. E. Carpenter, with music by Stephen Ralph Glover (The Times, 23 Nov. 1848, p. 2, col. b). The song is a duet between a brother and sister and was inspired by a scene in Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son (1848). Early in the novel, when Paul talks to his sister Florence about the emotions he feels by the sea, he asks, ‘I want to know what it says [. . .] The sea, Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?’ (p. 79). Later, the chapter in which Paul dies is titled ‘What the Waves were always saying’. The exact phrase ‘what are the wild waves saying’ originated with the song, not the novel, and proved to be a popular catchphrase, used in various advertisements from the 1850s onwards. The proximate source for its usage here is probably an advertisement for the cure-all patent medicine Beecham’s pills: the ad shows two bathing beauties walking along the beach, one of them holding a conch to her ear. One is clearly older and is bending over the younger as in conversation. Hovering above their heads is the catchphrase ‘What are the wild waves saying?’ and underneath, in answer, ‘Try Beecham’s Pills!’ (Paul van Caspel, ‘The Wild Waves’, p. 4).
11.952: By Larry O’Rourke’s, by Larry, bold Larry O’ See notes at 4.105 and 4.112–13.
11.961–62: One: one, one . . . one, three, four
Bob Cowley is playing the minuet from Mozart’s Don Giovanni on the piano. Bloom is not, as it might seem, counting out the beat to the music. He counts out ‘the step and motions of the dancers rather than harmonic variations, time values, or stresses in the dance’ (Bowen, p. 192).
11.965: Ruttledge’s door: ee creaking See note at 7.28.
11.965: Minuet of Don Giovanni
The minuet occurs in the finale to Act I of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The Don attempts to seduce Zerlina during the course of the minuet, which takes place in a ballroom of his palace (Bowen, pp. 192–93).
11.967: Peasants outside
In Act I, scene 3 of Don Giovanni, the Don comes upon a gathering of peasants on a village green, one of whom, the maid Zerlina, catches his fancy. He decides to invite all of the peasants to his palace for a party. Later, at the palace (I.v), the Don’s servant Leporello tries to distract Masetto, Zerlina’s peasant fiancé during the minuet, so the Don can employ his seductive wiles on Zerlina (Bowen, p. 193). See also note at 4.314.
11.967: Green starving faces eating dockleaves
Dockleaves: the young leaves of the dock plant, one of ‘various species of [. . .] coarse weedy herbs with thickened rootstock’ (OED); these can be used as herbs, but those of the mature
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538 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses plant are largely indigestible. This is an image of famine and was used in reference to the Great Famine of the 1840s as well as an earlier famine of 1741: ‘Want and misery in every face, the rich unable, almost as they were unwilling, to relieve the poor; the roads spread with dead and dying bodies; mankind of the colour of the docks and nettles which they fed on’ (The Groans of Ireland, p. 3; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
11.968: Look: look, look, look, look, look: you look at us
This sentence recreates the rhythmic pattern of another portion of the minuet from Act I, scene 5 of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Bowen, pp. 192–93).
11.972: M‘Coy valise. My wife and your wife
See notes at 5.148 and 5.149. The first two lines of the fifth verse of the American folksong ‘The Gray Goose’ is ‘And my wife and your wife / They give a feather-pickin’’ (Jerry Silverman, The Animal Songbook, p. 29).
11.973–74: They can’t manage men’s intervals
Interval: ‘the difference of pitch between two musical sounds or notes, either successive (in melody) or simultaneous (in harmony)’ (OED). Bloom’s point here is that women cannot switch from one vocal register to another as well as men. This is untrue, at least for a trained singer (with thanks to Michelle Witen).
11.975: Molly in quis est homo: Mercadante
Quis est homo (Latin): Who is the Man; the beginning of the third stanza of the Stabat Mater by Rossini, which Bloom remembered as part of Molly’s repertoire (see notes at 5.397–98 and 5.402). Giuseppe Mercadante did not compose a version of the medieval hymn Stabat Mater, but he did compose Le sette ultime parole di Nostro (see note at 5.403–04), another one of the sacred pieces sung by Molly, as remembered by Bloom in ‘Lotus Eaters’ (5.394–404; Vincent Deane, JJON).
11.977: jig
See note at 11.578.
11.977: Dandy tan shoe of dandy Boylan
Recalls the nursery rhyme sometimes given as: ‘Handy-spandy, Jack-a-Dandy, / Loves plum cake and sugar candy; / He bought some at a grocer’s shop, / And out he came, hop, hop, hop, hop’ (ODNR, p. 232). Jack-a-dandy: ‘a little fop, a petty dandy, an insignificant little fellow’ (Partridge).
11.977–78: socks skyblue clocks See note at 10.1241–42.
11.979: Chamber music
Chamber music: ‘music written for small instrumental ensemble, with one player to a part, and intended for performance either in private, in a domestic environment with or without listeners, or in public in a small concert hall before an audience of limited size’ (Grove). Chamber Music is also the title of Joyce’s first book, a thin volume of thirty-six poems, first published in 1907, although the poems were written in 1901–04. In 1904, Gogarty introduced Joyce to a woman named Jenny and they spent an afternoon at her house drinking beer, while Joyce read from his collection of poems. Jenny ‘was pleased enough by this entertainment, but had to interrupt to withdraw behind a screen to a chamber pot. As the two men listened, Gogarty cried out, “There’s a critic for you!” Joyce had already accepted the title of Chamber Music which Stanislaus had suggested; and
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11. ‘Sirens’ 539 when Stanislaus heard the story from him, he remarked, “You can take it as a favorable omen” ’ (Ellmann, p. 154).
11.981–83: Empty vessels make most noise . . . falling water
‘Empty vessels make the greatest sound’, proverbial since 1579 (ODEP). Bloom is fusing three scientific principles: the law of acoustics which states that the pitch produced by a vessel is altered by adding (or removing) liquid, Archimedes’ law of specific gravity (see note at 5.41–42), and the law of falling bodies, first established by Galileo Galilei, who found that the velocity of a falling body increases in proportion to the time it has been falling and not to its weight (EB11, s.vv. Sound; Galileo Galilei).
11.983: those rhapsodies of Liszt’s, Hungarian, gipsyeyed
Franz Liszt (Hungarian composer, 1811–86) wrote nineteen Hungarian rhapsodies for piano. These were inspired by Romani (or as it was then called, gypsy) music and not by native Hungarian music (Grove).
11.986–87: Paul de Kock See note at 4.358.
11.987: a cock carracarracarra cock
Gilbert sees here an allusion to the caracara bird; he quotes from the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon’s (1707–88) book Histoire naturelle des oiseaux: ‘His neck and plumage are of a fine gleaming blue, as picturesque as peacock’s feathers; his back is brownish-grey, his wings and tail, which are rather short, are black. When this bird is domesticated, he behaves as if he were the master in the house. Easily tamed, he grows so familiar in his ways that he will tap at the door with his beak to gain admittance’ (de Buffon, Œuvres, vol. 11, p. 296; Gilbert, p. 255 n. 1).
11.990: Qui sdegno
Que sdegno (Italian): ‘here’s indignation’; the opening of the Italian version of the bass aria ‘In diesen heil’gen Hallen’ (German, ‘Within these hallowed halls’) in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1791), Act II, scene 3. This is ‘a song of peace and the banishment of strife’ (Bowen, p. 194).
11.991: The Croppy Boy
‘The Croppy Boy’: a song by Carroll Malone (pseudonym of Irish poet William B. McBurney, c.1844–c.1892). Croppy: nickname for Wexford rebels of 1798 who wore their hair close- cropped in the manner of French revolutionaries (see also notes at 2.276 and 10.793). The song tells of a ‘croppy’ who is treacherously slain by a loyalist captain disguised as a priest to whom the Croppy Boy went to confess his sins. Ben Dollard’s rendition of this song is discussed in ‘Hades’ (see note at 6.145). Joyce performed ‘The Croppy Boy’ at a concert on 27 August 1904 at the Antient Concert Rooms and it remained part of his personal repertoire of songs (Ellmann, p. 168). (There is another song called ‘The Croppy Boy’, an anonymous ballad.) In 1934, Joyce provided the lyrics and singing instructions to his son Giorgio: ‘It is a pure and noble musical poem, profoundly sincere and dramatic. When you sing it, be sure to hold the balance equal between the captain and the young man. The last stanza is sung on a solemn and impersonal note [. . .] This is not a patriotic song like Wearing of the Green [see note at 3.259–60]’ (Letters, vol. 3, pp. 335–36).
11.991: Our native Doric See note at 7.326.
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540 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
11.992: Good men and true
From the first line of ‘The Croppy Boy’. First verse: ‘Good men and true! in this house who dwell, / To a stranger bouchal [Irish, ‘boy’] I pray you tell / Is the priest at home? or may he be seen? / I would speak a word with Father Green’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70).
11.996: What key? Six sharps?
F-sharp major indeed has six sharps.
11.997: F sharp major
The sheet-music for ‘The Croppy Boy’ indicates that its key signature is A major, which has three sharps (Bauerle, p. 269). However, since it is a ballad, it could be played in any key the singer wishes.
11.1001: on for a razzle backache spree
Razzle-dazzle: ‘riotous jollity or intoxication’ (OED); see also note at 11.615.
11.1004: waiting Patty come home
From the song ‘Waiting’; see note at 11.730.
11.1005: lugugugubrious
Perhaps imitates a sostenuto: ‘To be sung or played in a sustained manner’ (OED; Green, ‘The Sounds of Silence in “Sirens” ’, p. 491).
11.1005–06: In a cave of the dark middle earth . . . Lumpmusic
Alludes to the beginning of Richard Wagner’s (German operatic composer, 1813–83) opera, Das Rheingold (1853–54), where three Rhine-maidens guard the powerful Rhine gold, from which an all-powerful ring can be created by the one who renounces love. The Nibelung dwarf Alberich, whose romantic advances are rejected by the Rhine-maidens, renounces love and steals the Rhine gold. ‘The “dark”, “lugubrious” chords in the first scene of Rheingold anticipate the appearance of Alberich’ (Timothy Martin, Joyce and Wagner, p. 245 n. 12).
11.1009: The priest he sought, with him would he speak a word
Paraphrases the first verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’; for which see note at 11.992.
11.1012–13: Big ships’ chandler’s business he did once
Ship-chandler: ‘A dealer who supplies ships with necessary stores’ (OED). It is uncertain if Bloom’s description of Ben Dollard’s financial ruin is drawn from real life. Courts of Bankruptcy newspaper reports from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century reveal multiple cases of ship chandlers being declared bankrupt, however most of these were in Belfast or Cork. One of the few Dublin-based bankrupt ship chandlers was J. A. Crosby (Freeman’s Journal, 7 Feb. 1885, p. 6, col. h).
11.1014–15: Now in the Iveagh home. Cubicle number so and so
The Iveagh House, later called the Iveagh Hostel: a hostel for single men on Bride Road, near St Patrick’s Cathedral. It contained 508 cubicles, with each one measuring 2.3 m x 1.5 m. The building also contained various facilities such as a dining room and reading room. It was completed in 1905. Rents were low: 7d. per night or 3s. 6d. per week (F. H. A. Aalen, The Iveagh Trust; Thom’s 1912, p. 1486). In September 1912, which was during the time of Joyce’s final visit to Dublin, his brother Charles wrote to Stanislaus to state that their father, John Stanislaus, was no longer living at the Iveagh House; however, it is possible that he confused the Iveagh House with the Ivy Hotel, a north-side lodging house (Jackson and Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, p. 333).
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11. ‘Sirens’ 541
11.1015: Number one Bass See note at 8.121.
11.1016–17: The priest’s at home . . . The holy father
Paraphrases the second verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘The Priest’s at home, boy, and may be seen; / ’Tis easy speaking with Father Green; / But you must wait, till I go and see / If the holy father alone may be’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70).
11.1019: Hushaby. Lullaby. Die, dog. Little dog, die.
From the Dublin children’s song ‘Die, die, little dog die’: ‘Die, die, little dog die. / Die for the sake of / Your grandmother’s eye. / With a high swing, / And a low swing, / And a swing/ To get off of your / Swing, swong, sway’ (Eilís Brady, All In! All In!, p. 11).
11.1020–22: the youth had entered a lonely hall . . . sitting to shrive
Paraphrases the third verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘The youth has entered an empty hall—/ What a lonely sound has his light footfall! / And the gloomy chamber’s chill and bare, / With a vested Priest in a lonely chair’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70). To shrive: ‘To perform the office of a confessor’ (OED). The word shrive appears in the ninth verse (see note at 11.1097–99).
11.1023–24: Answers poets’ picture puzzle
Answers: a successful weekly magazine published by the Irish publisher Alfred Harmsworth (see note at 7.732–33). It regularly ran a variety of puzzles that offered prizes ranging from £1 to £5 (R. B. Kershner, The Culture of Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, pp. 130–31). John Joyce had a passion for entering puzzle contests (Ellmann, p. 69). From 1888 to 1889, it ran under the title Answers to Correspondents; it then changed its name to Answers: A Weekly Journal of Instructions and Jokes, which ran from 1889 to 1955 (Waterloo Directory).
11.1024–25: Bird sitting hatching in a nest. Lay of the last minstrel
‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ (1802–05): a poem by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832).
11.1032–33: in nomine Domini, in God’s name . . . mea culpa
Paraphrases the fourth verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘The youth has knelt to tell his sins. / Nomine Dei the youth begins; / At mea culpa he beats his breast, / And in broken murmurs he speaks the rest’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70). In nomine Domini: Latin, in the Lord’s name; the song has, instead, nomine Dei: in God’s name. Mea culpa (Latin): ‘Through my own fault’; a stock-phrase used in the confessional.
11.1035–36: Chap in the mortuary, coffin or coffey
The Reverend Francis Coffey, who presided over Dignam’s funeral; see note at 6.595.
11.1036: corpusnomine
A Latinate word of Bloom’s own invention; it combines corpus (body) with nomine (name).
11.1036: that rat
The ‘obese grey rat’ that Bloom saw near the end of ‘Hades’ (6.973).
11.1040–43: Since Easter he had cursed three times . . . not prayed
Paraphrases the sixth verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’ (with the blind piano tuner’s curse interpolated within): ‘I cursed three times since last Easter day—/ At Mass-time once I went to play; / I passed the churchyard one day in haste, / And forgot to pray for my mother’s rest’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70).
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11.1041: You bitch’s bast
From the blind piano tuner’s curse on Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.1119–20).
11.1045: dab
Dab: ‘an expert, an adept’ (OED).
11.1047: to titivate
To titivate: ‘to make small alterations or additions to one’s toilet, etc. so as to add to one’s attractions’ (OED).
11.1050: Night Michael Gunn gave us the box
Michael Gunn (1840–1901): co-manager of the Gaiety Theatre (see note at 6.188), 1871–1901, with his brother John (Igoe, pp. 130–31).
11.1050–51: Shah of Persia . . . in curtain too
The Shah of Persia, Nasr-ed-Din Shah (1831–96, r. 1848–96), visited England in 1873, 1879, and 1889 (EB11, s.v. Persia). These visits were extensively covered in the press and eventually occasioned a number of apocryphal (and Orientalist) stories, with variants, such as those Bloom remembers here. ‘I am told when the Shah of Persia was in England, and was attending one of the great concerts in London, in the Albert Hall, he was asked what part he liked the best, and he said “he liked best all that tuning of the instruments before the concert began” ’ (Reverend James Vaughan, Sermons to Children, p. 110). And: ‘Her Majesty, with a salutary dread of the consequences of lodging oriental princes in royal palaces—the Shah, it will be remembered, used to wipe his nose upon the costly curtains of Buckingham Palace—farmed out her guest at Dorchester House’ (Review of Reviews, June 1895, p. 500, quoted by Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
11.1051: home sweet home
The title of a famous song from 1823, words by John Howard Payne and music by Henry Rowley Bishop (Bowen, p. 198).
11.1055: music hath jaws See note at 11.904–05.
11.1055: Goodwin’s See note at 8.185–86.
11.1058: Told her what Spinoza says in that book of poor papa’s
Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza (1632–77): Dutch-Jewish philosopher. Bloom owns the book Thoughts From Spinoza (see note at 17.1372); see also note at 18.1115.
11.1059: dresscircle
Dress-circle: ‘in a theatre, usually the gallery next above the floor’ (OED).
11.1061–62: God made the country man the tune
After the proverb, ‘God made the country, and man made the town’, from William Cowper’s 1785 work The Task (I.749; ODEP).
11.1063–65: All gone. All fallen . . . name and race
Paraphrases the fifth verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘At the siege of Ross did my father fall; / And at Gorey my loving brothers all. / I alone am left of my name and race; / I will go to
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11. ‘Sirens’ 543 Wexford and take their place’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70). For the siege of New Ross, see note at 10.793. Interpolated into this paraphrase is a reference to another patriotic ballad, ‘The Boys of Wexford’ (see note at 7.427–28).
11.1068: He bore no hate
Paraphrases the line ‘I bear no hate against living thing’ from the seventh verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘I bear no hate against living thing; / But I love my country above the King. / Now, Father, bless me, and let me go / To die if God has ordained it so’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70).
11.1070: Big Ben his voice unfolded
Echoes the Ghost’s declaration to Hamlet, ‘I could a tale unfold’ (I.v.15) and his command to ‘lend thy serious hearing / To what I shall unfold’ (I.v.5–6).
11.1072: My country above the king
Paraphrases the line ‘I love my country above the king’ from the seventh verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’; see note at 11.1068.
11.1072–73: Who fears to speak of nineteen four?
After John Kells Ingram’s ‘The Memory of the Dead’ (see note at 10.790), which opens: ‘Who fears to speak of ninety-eight?’, substituting the current year, 1904, for 1798, the year of the rebellion which serves as the occasion for ‘The Croppy Boy’.
11.1074: Bless me, father, Dollard the croppy cried. Bless me and let me go
Approximates the end of the seventh verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘Now, Father! bless me, and let me go / To die, if God has ordained it so’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70). The words in italics are slightly different from the printed lyrics and do not fit with the rhythm of the song (Bowen, p. 200).
11.1076–77: Got up to kill: on eighteen bob a week
Got up to kill: the same as ‘dressed to kill’, meaning ‘to dress ultra- smartly’ (Partridge). According to a 1907 study on the wages available for women, the maximum salary for a barmaid was 18 shillings a week, with the average being 8s. 8d. per week (Edward Cadbury, Cécile Matheson, and George Shann, Women’s Work and Wages, p. 330).
11.1077: Fellows shell out the dibs Dibs: money (OED).
11.1077: Want to keep your weathereye open Weather eye: a lookout or a close watch (OED).
11.1077–78: Those girls, those lovely See note at 4.282.
11.1079: Chickabiddy’s
Chickabiddy: ‘A nursery formation on chick or chicken; hence a term of endearment to young children’ (OED).
11.1078: By the sad sea waves
From Sir Julius Benedict’s (1804–85) opera The Bride of Venice (1843): ‘By the sad sea waves / I listen while they moan / A lament o’er graves / Of hope and pleasure gone’ (Bowen, p. 200).
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544 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
11.1081–83: The false priest rustling soldier from his cassock . . . Yeoman cap
Paraphrases the eighth verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘The priest said nought, but a rustling noise / Made the youth look above in wild surprise; / The robes were off, and in scarlet there / Sat a yeoman captain with fiery glare’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70). Yeomanry: volunteer cavalrymen in the British army (EB11). In Ireland, the yeomanry was largely Protestant and ‘was perceived by radicals as an armed expression of conservative domination’ (R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 275).
11.1090–91: Gold in your pocket, brass in your face
A proverbial phrase meaning ‘wealthy, but stern’. This dates back to the seventeenth century and is based on the earlier expression ‘brazen-faced’, which denotes hardened emotions (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.1092: songs without words
Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words) is the title of a group of forty-eight piano pieces by Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47). Also relevant, perhaps, is a line from George du Maurier’s (Franco-British artist and author, 1834–96) Trilby (1895): ‘songs without words are the best’ (p. 423).
11.1092: Molly, that hurdygurdy boy
Hurdy-gurdy: ‘applied popularly to any instrument having a droning sound and played by turning a handle, as the barrel organ’ (OED). According to Frank Budgen, Molly’s uncanny ability to understand the hurdy-gurdy boy is analogous to the musical sense of perfect pitch, the innate ability of a listener to identify sounds in the musical scale (JJMU, pp. 138–39).
11.1093–94: Understand animals too that way. Solomon did
‘As Holy Scripture tells us, the wise King Solomon, the son of David “spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes” (1 Kings 4:33). A slight misreading of this text, which very probably is the oldest record of a biological lecture, has given rise to the charming legend that the king was able to talk the language of animals, which was hidden from all other men’ (Konrad Lorenz, King Solomon’s Ring, p. xvi).
11.1097–99: With hoarse rude fury the yeoman cursed . . . your last
Paraphrases the ninth verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’ (with the blind piano tuner’s curse interpolated within): ‘With fiery glare and with fury hoarse, / Instead of blessing, he breathed a curse; / ’Twas a good thought, boy, to come here and shrive; / For one short hour is your time to live’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70). For shrive, see note at 11.1020–22.
11.1105–06: On yonder river
From the first line of the 10th verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘Upon yon river three tenders float’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70). Tender: ‘a vessel commissioned to attend men-of-war, chiefly for supplying provisions and munitions of war, also for conveying intelligence dispatches’ (OED).
11.1106: (her heaving embon)
A fragmentary image from the book Sweets of Sin; see note at 10.616.
11.1108: And all the tiny tiny fernfoils trembled of maidenhair
Fernfoils: the leaves of a fern plant (OED). See note at 11.222 for maidenhair.
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11.1109: The bright stars fade
From the song ‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’; see note at 11.320.
11.1109: O rose! Castile See note at 7.471–72.
11.1120: I hold this house. Amen. He gnashed in fury. Traitors swing
Paraphrases the remainder of the 10th verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’ (see note at 11.1105–06 for the first line): ‘The Priest’s in one, if he isn’t shot; / We hold his house for our Lord the King, / And—“Amen”, say I—may all traitors swing!’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70).
11.1126: O’er ryehigh blue
Alludes to the song ‘When the Bloom Is On the Rye’; see note at 10.524.
11.1131–32: At Geneva barrack that young man died . . . his body laid
Paraphrases the first half of the 11th and final verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘At Geneva barrack that young man died, / And at Passage they have his body laid’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70). Geneva Barrack, on Waterford harbour, was a former army recruitment depot that was converted into a prison for rebels during and after the uprisings of 1798 (Thomas Cloney, A Personal Narrative of 1798, p. 126). Passage East is the name of a village on the west bank of Waterford harbour, near the Barrack.
11.1132: Dolor! O, he dolores!
Dolor (Latin and Spanish): pain, distress, grief, tribulation, affliction; alludes to the ‘Shade of the Palm’, a song in the operetta Floradora; see note at 11.226.
11.1139–41: Pray for him . . . He was the croppy boy
Paraphrases the conclusion of ‘The Croppy Boy’ (see note at 11.1131–32 for the first half of this verse): ‘Good people who live in peace and joy, / Breathe a prayer and a tear for the Croppy Boy’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70).
11.1142–43: Bloom in the Ormond hallway
Bloom had entered the Ormond through the door to the restaurant at 9 Upper Ormond Quay, thereby avoiding the bar (see note at 11.357–58). He is now leaving by walking through the bar to the adjacent hallway that leads to the door at no. 8, which is the easternmost entrance to the hotel. This creates a small detour since he is heading westward to the post-office at 34 Upper Ormond Quay (see note at 11.909) (Harald Beck, JJON).
11.1150: Lablache
Luigi Lablache (1794–1858): a bass-baritone with an even two-octave range from E to E and the ability to sing both traditional comic parts and the serious roles of Romantic opera. He was born in Italy to a French father and a mother of Irish descent. From 1834, he divided his time between Paris and London. In London, he taught singing to Princess (later Queen) Victoria (ODNB).
11.1152–53: nakkering castagnettes
Knacker: ‘Something that makes a sharp cracking noise; spec. a castanet’. Castanet (also castagnette): ‘An instrument consisting of a small concave shell of ivory or hard wood, used by the Spanish, Moors, and others, to produce a rattling sound as an accompaniment to
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546 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses dancing; a pair of them, fastened to the thumb, are held in the palm of the hand, and struck with the middle finger’ (both OED).
11.1154: Big Benaben Dollard See note at 8.119.
11.1158: rubicund
Rubicund: ‘reddish, flushed, highly coloured, especially as the result of good living’ (OED).
11.1160: Ben machree
Machree (Hiberno-English): my dear (Dolan).
11.1161: adipose tissue Adipose: fatty (OED).
11.1164: rift in the lute See note at 11.789–90.
11.1164: Goulding, Collis, Ward See note at 6.56.
11.1176: The last rose of summer
‘’Tis the Last Rose of Summer’: the title of a song by Thomas Moore, which Flotow uses (uncredited) in Martha (for which see note at 11.587). Disguised as a chambermaid named Martha, Lady Harriet sings this song to Lionel: ‘’Tis the Last Rose of Summer / Left blooming alone; / All her favourite companions / Are faded and gone; / No flower of her kindred; / No rose bud is nigh, / To reflect back her blushes, / Or give sigh for sigh’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 95).
11.1180: Postoffice near Reuben J’s
Both Reuben J. Dodd’s office and a sub- post office, money order and savings bank office were at 34 Upper Ormond Quay (Thom’s, p. 1564). For Reuben J. Dodd, see note at 6.251.
11.1181: one and eightpence too
Simon Dedalus’s wry comment after hearing the story of Reuben Dodd Jr being rescued from the Liffey (6.291 and see notes at 6.264–65 and 6.286).
11.1181: Get shut of it See note at 5.530.
11.1181: Greek street
Bloom is planning his route to Barney Kiernan’s pub (see note at 11.910): west along Ormond Quay to the post office at number 34, north up Chancery Place to Chancery Street, west to Greek Street, north to Mary’s Lane, east to Lower Green Street, and north to Barney Kiernan’s pub on Little Britain Street.
11.1183–84: Her hand that rocks the cradle . . . That rules the world
After the refrain of the poem ‘What Rules the World’, a poem by William Ross Wallace (American poet, 1819–81) that celebrates motherhood: ‘For the hand that rocks the cradle /
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11. ‘Sirens’ 547 Is the hand that rules the world’ (Elizabeth Hough Sechrist, Poems for Red Letter Days, p. 120). For Ben Howth, see note at 8.911.
11.1187: Lionelleopold
Combines Leopold with Lionel from ‘M’appari’; see note at 11.752.
11.1191–92: Better give way only half way the way of a man with a maid
After Proverbs 30:18–19 in the King James: ‘There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid’. Also suggests The Way of a Man With a Maid, an anonymous work of pornography from c.1908 (see note at 11.1201).
11.1193: Not lose a demisemiquaver
Demisemiquaver: a quaver is an eighth-note (or half a crochet) and a demisemiquaver is a quarter of that, thus a 32nd note (Grove). The preceding sentence is an example of a demisemiquaver in action: ‘give way’ is the demi (dividing in two), ‘half way’ is the semi (half of the demi), and ‘the way’ is the quaver (with thanks to Michelle Witen).
11.1197: Organ in Gardiner street. Old Glynn fifty quid a year See notes at 5.395 and 5.396–97.
11.1198: cockloft
Cockloft: ‘A small upper loft; a small apartment under the very ridge of the roof to which the access is usually by a ladder” (OED). In this context, it refers to the organ loft at St Francis Xavier’s Church.
11.1198–99: Seated all day at the organ
After the first lines of ‘The Lost Chord’ (for which see note at 11.407): ‘Seated one day at the organ, / I was weary and ill at ease’.
11.1199: Maunder
To maunder: ‘To ramble or wander in one’s talk [. . .] to act in a dreamy, idle, or inconsequent manner’ (OED); also a reference to John Henry Maunder (1858–1920), a composer of church music.
11.1201: no don’t she cried
The phrase ‘ “No don’t”, she cried’, with variations, recurs throughout the pornographic novel The Way of a Man With a Maid (see also note at 11.1191–92); for example, ‘She cried “No, no, oh! don’t”, struggling desperately to get free’ (A Man with a Maid, p. 65).
11.1210: Simonlionel first I saw
From the first line of ‘M’appari’, see note at 11.665.
11.1220–21: last sardine of summer See note at 11.1176.
11.1224: Barry’s
J. M. Barry & Co.: ‘merchant tailors and outfitters’, 12 Upper Ormond Quay (Thom’s, p. 1563).
11.1124: That wonderworker See note at 17.1820–21.
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11.1225: Twentyfour solicitors in that one house
Thom’s lists twenty-four different solicitors’ offices at 12 Upper Ormond Quay in 1904 (pp. 1563–64).
11.1227: Goulding, Collis, Ward See note at 6.56.
11.1228–29: the chap that wallops . . . Mickey Rooney’s band
A reference to the comic song ‘Mickey Rooney’s Band’ (1878) by John F. Mitchell (The Era, 3 Feb. 1878, p. 20, col. c). ‘In the song, performed initially by a single performer, it appears that the band-leader introduces his band, who respond by playing short bursts of their instruments’ (John Simpson, JJON).
11.1231: Asses’ skins
Drums are made by using animal skins, such as those of an ass, stretched across a frame (EB11).
11.1233: yashmak or I mean kismet. Fate
For yashmak, see note at 11.943. Kismet: destiny, fate; from the Turkish kismet (OED).
11.1235: Daly’s
See note at 11.230.
11.1235: mermaid See note at 11.222.
11.1236: coolest whiff of all See note at 11.300–01.
11.1239: Lombard street west See note at 6.829.
11.1240: Cloche. Sonnez la!
Cloche. Sonnez la! (French): ‘Bell. Ring the!’ See note at 11.404.
11.1242: Sweep!
To sweep: ‘to chimneysweep’ (Partridge).
11.1242: All is lost now
The English title of ‘Tutto è sciolto’; see note at 11.629.
11.1243: bumbailiff
Bumbailiff: ‘a contemptuous synonym of bailiff [. . .] the bailiff that is close at the debtor’s back, or that catches him in the rear’ (OED).
11.1243: Long John. Waken the dead
From the hunting song ‘John Peel’ (c.1820), words by John Woodcock Graves: ‘Peel’s view hal-loo would awaken the dead’ (Bowen, p. 207). For Long John Fanning, see note at 7.106.
11.1244: Poor little nominedomine
That is, ‘Poor little Paddy Dignam’; for nominedomine; see note at 11.1032–33.
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11.1245: da capo
Da capo: Musical term, ‘from the head’; an indication that ‘there is to be a recapitulation of the whole or part of the first section’ (Grove).
11.1248: shah of Persia See note at 11.1050–51.
11.1248: Breathe a prayer, drop a tear See note at 11.1139–41.
11.1249: bit of a natural
Natural: ‘a born idiot; one on whom education can make no impression’ (Brewer’s).
11.1249: not to see a yeoman cap See note at 11.1081–83 for yeoman.
11.1252: A frowsy whore
Frowsy: ill-smelling (OED).
11.1253–54: When first he saw that form endearing From the first line of ‘M’appari’; see note at 11.665.
11.1254: Horn
See note at 11.432.
11.1256: decked
To deck: ‘to vanquish, silence, or non-plus, especially in argument’ (Partridge).
11.1256–57: Stout lady does be with you in the brown costume
That is Molly Bloom (see note at 18.470–71). For does be, see note at 8.972.
11.1257: Put you off your stroke
To put someone off their stroke: ‘to offend, to disconcert; to cause a person to lose interest in or enthusiasm for something’ (OED).
11.1258: we’d never, well hardly ever
After Act I (reprised in Act II) of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor (1878): ‘CAPT.: I am never known to quail / At the fury of a gale, / And I’m never, never sick at sea! CREW: What, never? CAPT.: No, never! CREW: What, never? CAPT.: Well, hardly ever!’ (The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, p. 197).
11.1258–59: Too dear too near to home sweet home See note at 11.1051.
11.1259: Face like dip
Dip: abbreviation of diphtheria (Partridge). Diphtheria is an infectious disease of the throat and often turns the face ‘pale and leaden’ (EB11).
11.1261: Lionel Marks’s antique saleshop window
Lionel Marks: ‘antique dealer, watchmaker, jeweller, and picture frame maker’, 16 Upper Ormond Quay (Thom’s, p. 1564).
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11.1266: Swedish razor
Swedish razors were highly esteemed because of the sophisticated steel industry in Sweden. According to an 1889 advert for W. Russell, 1 South Anne Street, Dublin, Swedish razors were sold for between 1s. and 5s. 6d. (Nationalist and Leinster Times, 28 Dec. 1889, p. 8, col. d).
11.1269–70: they chinked their clinking glasses
After the chorus of ‘The Thirty-two Counties’, a patriotic drinking song by T. D. Sullivan: ‘Then clink, glasses, clink, ’tis a toast we all must drink, / And let every voice come in at the chorus. / For Ireland is our home, and wherever we may roam / We’ll be true to the dear land that bore us’ (Bowen, pp. 209–10).
11.1271: last rose of summer See note at 11.1176.
11.1271: rose of Castile See note at 7.471–72.
11.1271: First
A first is the tonic note, that is, the first note in a scale (Grove).
11.1271: Lid . . . Doll
Suggests the musical effect diminution, ‘a melodic figure that replaces a long note with notes of shorter value’ (Grove).
11.1271: a fifth
The fifth here is Ben Dollard. A fifth is also a musical term for the fifth tone in a scale, also called the ‘dominant’ (Grove).
11.1272: Lidwell . . . Dollard
Suggests the musical effect augmentation, an increase in the time value of a note (Grove).
11.1273: A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall
After a line from the third verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’: ‘The youth has entered an empty hall’ (Bauerle, pp. 269–70; see note at 11.1020–22). Here, it refers to the blind piano tuner.
11.1275: Robert Emmet’s last words
Refers to the speech Robert Emmet (for whom see note at 6.977–78) supposedly delivered at his trial after he was found guilty and before the death sentence was passed on 19 September 1803 (and thus not his actual last words). There are multiple versions of the speech, and its authenticity and accuracy are ambiguous: ‘It is now impossible to say with any certainty which version is closer to what Emmet actually said, to decide whether officialdom omitted or posthumous piety invented the concluding patriotic defiance [. . .] Emmet’s speech enshrines a myth of nationalist defiance and has become part of a tradition which is more important than anything Emmet ever did or said himself ’ (R. N. C. Vance, ‘Robert Emmet’s Speech from the Dock’, p. 190). Most versions agree on the final paragraph: ‘Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dares now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace: my memory be left in oblivion and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the
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11. ‘Sirens’ 551 nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done’ (quoted in Patrick Geoghegan, Robert Emmet, pp. 253–54).
11.1275: Seven last words. Of Meyerbeer that is
There are a number of musical works entitled ‘Seven Last Words’, however none are by Giacomo Meyerbeer (see note at 8.623–24). The one Bloom is thinking of is by Giuseppe Mercadante (see note at 5.403–04), who Bloom thought of earlier in ‘Sirens’ (see note at 11.975).
11.1276: True men like you men
After John Kells Ingram’s poem ‘The Memory of the Dead’ (see note at 10.790): ‘But a true man, like you, man, / Will fill your glass with us’ (ll. 7–8).
11.1284: When my country takes her place among From Emmet’s last speech; see note at 11.1275.
11.1289–94: Nations of the earth . . . Done
The italicised portions come from Emmet’s last speech; see note at 11.1275.
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12. ‘Cyclops’ Time: 5–6 pm Location: Barney Kiernan’s pub (8–10 Little Britain Street) and environs Organ: Muscle Art: Politics Symbol: Fenian Technic: Gigantism Correspondences: Noman: I; Stake: cigar; Challenge: apotheosis Serialised: The Little Review 6.7 (November 1919), 6.8 (December 1919), and 6.9 (January 1920) The narrator for ‘Cyclops’ is unnamed, although he is identifiable as a certain type: garrulous, quarrelsome, and fond of drink. Elsewhere in Ulysses he is referred to as the ‘Nameless One’ (see notes at 15.1143 and 15.4339). Joyce likened him to Thersites, a mean-spirited Greek warrior in the Iliad. Thersites also appears in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. According to Stanislaus Joyce, the idea for having a Thersites-like character be the narrator for ‘Cyclops’ came to Joyce while watching a German production of Troilus and Cressida in Zürich (Ellmann, p. 459 n.). Interpolated within the Nameless One’s narration are various stylised burlesques that parody a variety of literary and journalistic conventions, most, but not all, of which are associated with the Irish Revival. This episode is also notable for its extensive lists (e.g., 12.176–99), a feature of later episodes in Ulysses and also Finnegans Wake. This follows from the convention of epics to include catalogues, such as the catalogue of ships in the Iliad (II.494–759), which lists the diverse Achaean contingent in the siege of Troy (see Fritz Senn, ‘Entering the Lists’).
Map 12 Stony Batter to Little Britain Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = Arbour Hill; b = Stony Batter; c = Chicken Lane (Arbour Place); d = Linenhall Barracks; e = Police station, C division (25 Green Street); f = Police station, D division (11 Green Street); g = Court House; h = St Michan’s Park; i = Barney Kiernan’s (8–10 Little Britain Street); j = Donohoe and Smyth (4–5 Little Green Street)
c b a
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 553 The episode begins with the Nameless One running into Joe Hynes at the intersection of Stonybatter and Arbour Hill (see notes at 12.2 and 12.4) in the western end of Dublin. They then walk to Barney Kiernan’s pub on Little Britain Street (see notes at 11.910 and 12.58), about 1.2 km to the east. Barney Kiernan’s is about 450 metres distant from the Ormond Hotel (map 12).
12.1: passing the time of day
See note at 10.217; in this case the expression is used to mean killing time.
12.1: old Troy of the D.M.P.
Denis Troy (1853–1943), DMP, 14 Arbour Hill (Thom’s, p. 1415). DMP: the Dublin Metropolitan Police. The DMP was distinct from the Royal Irish Constabulary (see note at 12.127), which operated in the rest of the country. Unlike the RIC, the DMP was not charged with curbing dissent since its mission was urban policing. ‘The duties of the Dublin policeman at times did have a political aspect to them, which inevitably contributed to suspicion and resentment amongst much of the Dublin citizenry’ (Anastasia Dukova, A History of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, p. 39).
12.2: Arbour hill
A street on the western end of Dublin, north of and roughly parallel to the Liffey and about 800 metres east of Phoenix Park. Arbour Hill runs by the Royal Barracks (now the Collins Barracks, which serves as the Museum of Decorative Arts and History) and Croppies’ Acre, where many rebels of 1798 are buried (see note at 2.276). Robert Emmet (see note at 6.977–78) wrote a lament about Croppies’ Acre entitled ‘Arbour Hill’. Later, many of the rebels of the 1916 Easter Rising were also buried there, coffinless, in quicklime (Hugh Staples, ‘ “Composition of Place” ’, pp. 393–94).
12.2–3: sweep came along and he near drove his gear into my eye
Suggests Odysseus blinding the Cyclops with a burning log (Odyssey, IX.382–86).
d
e f g i
h j
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12.3–4: let him have the weight of my tongue
To give the weight of one’s tongue: to chastise or scold someone (Dent).
12.4: Stony Batter
Stony Batter (also Stonybatter or Stoneybatter): a street that leads into Dublin from the north and, by extension, the surrounding neighbourhood on the north side of Dublin. Arbour Hill terminates at Stonybatter at its eastern end. The word batter is an Anglicisation of the Irish word bóthar, road, and refers to the original Irish name of this street when it was the main thoroughfare to Dublin from the west and north-west, Bothar-na-gloch, road of the stones (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 128).
12.5: Joe Hynes See note at 6.111.
12.8: Soot’s luck
This specific expression has not been located outside Ulysses. It is probably related to the expression ‘sweep’s luck’, which is associated with the superstition that seeing a chimney sweep ensures good luck (Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. chimney sweep, meeting). Of course, in this context, it would be used ironically.
12.14: garrison church at the corner of Chicken Lane
A Garrison Church associated with the Military Prison was at the intersection of Arbour Hill and Chicken Lane (Thom’s, p. 1415). Chicken Lane is an L-shaped road between Stonybatter and Arbour Hill. It was officially renamed Arbour Place before 1886, but both names are listed in the 1904 Thom’s (pp. 1399–1400); on the 1864 Ordnance Survey map its name is given as Chicken Lane and on the 1886 map it is Arbour Place, a name which is still in use.
12.15: wrinkle
Wrinkle: a tip, a piece of information (Partridge).
12.16: said he had a farm
That is, the ‘bloody big foxy thief ’ claimed he had an income-producing farm, and, on the strength of this, he was allowed to borrow tea and sugar from Moses Herzog.
12.16: county Down
Down: a county in the province of Ulster, on the Irish Sea.
12.17: hop-of-my-thumb
Hop of my thumb: a dwarf (Partridge).
12.17–18: Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury street
M. Herzog: 13 St Kevin’s Parade (Thom’s, p. 1589), about 650 metres from Heytesbury Street in the Jewish district in south-central Dublin. The 1901 census lists him as Isaac Herzog and indicates ‘Traveller pedlar’ as his occupation. Herzog was ‘a one-eyed bachelor who left for South Africa in 1908 [. . .] and traded as an itinerant grocer’ (Hyman, p. 329 n. 6). He ‘was a compulsive drinker [. . .] and was notorious for slipping out of St Kevin Parade’s synagogue for a drink during the protracted services of the High Festivals’ (p. 186). The majority of male Jewish immigrants to Ireland after 1880 were employed as peddlers (Cormac Ó Gráda, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce, pp. 47–61).
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12.19: Circumcised?
That is, Jewish (see note at 1.394).
12.20: A bit off the top
In context, yes, he is circumcised and thus Jewish. Beyond the anti-Semitism, this is further disparaging since ‘A little bit off the top’ means ‘slightly crazy’ (Partridge, s.v. top).
12.20: plumber named Geraghty
Michael E. Geraghty (1864–1905): 29 Arbour Hill, at the intersection with Chicken Lane and across from the Garrison Church (Thom’s, p. 1415). According to the 1901 census, he was a labourer.
12.21: hanging on to his taw
On his taw: ‘on the look out for some opportunity to pounce on him to punish him’ (EDD).
12.23: lay
Lay: ‘An occupation, esp. if criminal; a “line”; a trick’ (Partridge).
12.24: How are the mighty fallen!
From 2 Samuel 1:19, 25 in the King James; and proverbial.
12.25–26: the most notorious day robber you’d meet in a day’s walk
That is, as you would ever meet. P. W. Joyce records the following Hiberno-English expression, ‘I have as brave a set of sons as you’d find in a day’s walk’ (PWJ, p. 228). ‘Day robber’ is a particularly Dublin expression, common at the time and thereafter (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.29: trading without a licence
Merchants were legally required to pay an annual £2 ‘Hawker’s Licence’ (Thom’s, p. 44). Since Herzog is unlicensed, he is susceptible to prosecution or bribery.
12.30–31: getting his shirt out
To get his shirt out: to lose his temper (OED, s.v. shirt).
12.33–36: For nonperishable goods . . . city of Dublin
Joyce derived the basic parameters of this sentence from an article in the London Times, but he changed the specific details: ‘At Limerick Quarter Sessions this evening [. . .] plaintiff, Max J. Blond, a Jew, sued to recover for goods supplied to one James Rahilly. The claim was listed for hearing at last sessions, but adjourned owing to the friction between the Jews in the city and a section of the population’ (1 June 1904, p. 10, col. e). Joyce recorded this in the so-called ‘lost notebook’ (Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon, The Lost Notebook, p. 23).
12.33–36: Moses Herzog . . . 29 Arbour Hill
The addresses of both Herzog and Geraghty as given in Thom’s; see notes at 12.17–18 and 12.20.
12.37: videlicet
Videlicet (Legal Latin): ‘That is to say; namely; to wit’ (OED).
12.38–40: first choice tea and three shillings . . . pound avoirdupois
Avoirdupois: ‘The standard system of weights used, in Great Britain, for all goods except the precious metals, precious stones, and medicines’; one pound avoirdupois is defined as
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556 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses 7,000 grains divided into 16 ounces (OED); see also note at 6.682. The tea must certainly be of high quality since a government report listed the prevailing price of tea in Dublin as of October 1905 as ranging from 1s. 4d. to 1s. 8d. per pound. Likewise, the price of the sugar is slightly inflated since the same report lists the price of white granulated sugar at 2d. per pound (Cost of Living of the Working Classes, p. 563).
12.41: one pound five shillings and sixpence
At 3s. per pound, five pounds (2.26 kg) of tea costs 15 shillings. At 3d. per pound, three stones of sugar costs 10s. 6d. (one stone equals 14 pounds or 6.35 kg). Thus the total cost is 25s. 6d. or £1 5s. 6d.
12.52: t.t.
See note at 8.366.
12.55: John of God’s
St John of God Private Lunatic Asylum, located in Stillorgan Castle, Stillorgan, 9 km south of Dublin (Thom’s, p. 2004).
12.57: Whisky
For the spelling whisky, see note at 1.301.
12.58: Barney Kiernan’s
Barney Kiernan’s pub at 8–10 Little Britain Street (Thom’s, pp. 1434, 1923) is about 1.2 km to the east from the corner of Stonybatter and Arbour Hill. ‘At the turn of the century, Barney Kiernan’s pub was one of Dublin’s most prosperous pubs [. . .] The proximity of Green Street Courthouse meant a very large clientele drawn from those associated in one way or another with the law [. . .] So many legal cases were settled in Barney Kiernan’s that its alternative title was “the court of appeal” ’ (Roger McHugh, ‘The Passing of Barney Kiernan’s’, pp. 11–12). The pub was dark and low-ceilinged and was adorned with memorabilia associated with history and crime (p. 13); see note at 12.499. Kiernan’s business declined with the transfer of much legal business from Green Street to the Four Courts in 1920 (p. 13). Kiernan’s finally closed in the 1940s (Irish Times, 29 Oct. 1959, p. 8, cols e–f).
12.58: the citizen
Based on Michael Cusack (1847–1906): a champion shot-putter and a co-founder, in 1884, of the Gaelic Athletic Association, which advocated the playing of Irish games (hurling, handball, etc.) instead of English ones (cricket, field hockey, etc.). Although he played cricket and rugby as a young man, by 1882 he had turned against such sports, seeing them as corrupting alien influences. He was a native Irish speaker and was affiliated with various Irish language associations. ‘Pugnacious, boastful, and a heavy drinker, he styled himself “Citizen Cusack” and, with his bushy beard, frock coat, broad-brimmed hat, and blackthorn stick, was a conspicuous Dublin character’ (DIB). In early drafts, Joyce included the name Cusack (JJA, vol. 13, p. 109). Joyce met him, briefly, through his friend George Clancy (Ellmann, p. 61). He appears in Stephen Hero, where he is also anonymised: ‘A very stout black-bearded citizen who always wore a wideawake hat and a long bright green muffler was a constant figure at these meetings [. . .] He had the voice of an ox and he could be heard at a great distance, criticising, denouncing and scoffing’ (p. 61). He is also briefly mentioned in A Portrait: ‘Davin had sat at the feet of Michael Cusack, the Gael’ (p. 180). There might also be here an allusion to the chauvinistic, jingoistic, and dyspeptic character
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 557 Régimbart from Gustave Flaubert’s (French writer, 1821–80) Sentimental Education (1869), who is referred to throughout as ‘The Citizen’; for example, ‘The Citizen would give vent to some fresh grievance he had against the Crown’ (p. 221; see Scarlett Baron, Strandentwining Cable, pp. 183–91).
12.59: mavourneen’s
Mavourneen (Hiberno-English): ‘my love’; from the Irish mo mhúirnín (Dolan).
12.60: meeting in the City Arms See note at 2.416–17.
12.63: the hard word
The hard word: ‘a tip, a bit of secret information’ (PWJ, p. 272).
12.64: Linenhall barracks
Joe Hynes and the narrator walk east along North King Street towards Barney Kiernan’s. The Linen Hall, off North King Street, was built by the government in 1728, originally to serve in the production of Irish linen. As trade declined, the military leased the premises and took over the entire hall in 1867 (Bennett).
12.64–65: back of the courthouse
Joe Hynes and the narrator turn south off North King Street and turn onto Halston Street which takes them past the back of the city courthouse at 26 Green Street, for which see note at 12.1121.
12.68: In Inisfail the fair
From James Clarence Mangan’s (Irish poet, 1803–49) translation into English quatrains of ‘Prince Aldfrith’s Itinerary through Ireland’, an Irish poem attributed to Aldfrith, king of Northumbria (685–c.704), who was educated in Ireland: ‘I found in Inisfail the fair, / In Ireland, while in exile there’ (ll. 1–2, Collected Works, vol. 3, pp. 105–07). Inisfail: a poetic name for Ireland, Island of destiny; from the Irish words Inis, island and Fál, the stone of destiny kept at Tara (p. 437 n. 1). Joyce quotes the first stanza, but not in Mangan’s translation, in ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’ (p. 113).
12.68: land of holy Michan
Barney Kiernan’s pub lies in the parish of St Michan’s Church (Church of Ireland). The church itself stands in Old Church Street, west of the Four Courts (Thom’s, pp. 1362, 1451). St Michan’s parish encompasses a large area of the central inner city on the north side of the Liffey. In the early twentieth century, this parish was one of the poorest and most congested neighbourhoods in Dublin and consisted of ‘row after row of condemned dwellings, third class tenements and expanses of dereliction’ (Jacinta Prunty, Dublin Slums, p. 274).
12.69: watchtower
The 30-metre high steeple of St Michan’s church dates from the twelfth century and is older than the rest of the building. ‘It is lofty and almost black with age. The battlements at the top and the small windows at the sides show that, like most Irish churches, it was intended to be defensible in case of need [. . .] The ascent of the tower, though long and rendered somewhat unpleasant by pigeons, is rewarded by a very fine view of Dublin’ (D. A. Chart, Story of Dublin, pp. 281–82).
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12.69–70: There sleep the mighty dead as in life they slept
The vaults underneath St Michan’s hold the remains of many ancient bodies that are remarkably well-preserved, probably due to the dryness of the walls. Even the corpses’ faces remain distinguishable (Chart, Story of Dublin, pp. 283–84).
12.71: gurnard
Gurnard: a sea fish distinguished by ‘a large spiny head with mailed cheeks and three free pectoral rays’ (OED).
12.72: roach
Roach: small freshwater fish of the carp family (OED).
12.72: gibbed haddock
To gib: ‘To disembowel (fish)’ (OED).
12.72: grilse
Grilse: young salmon during the first year of its return to the river from the sea (OED).
12.72: dab
Dab: a small flat fish resembling a flounder, common to sandy areas on the British coast (OED).
12.76: wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar
In Ecclesiastes 24:17–19, Wisdom figures herself in various trees: ‘I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus [Lebanon] [. . .] and as a plane tree by the water in the streets, was I exalted.’ Joyce quotes this passage in A Portrait (p. 105). The plane tree and the sycamore are identical in Ireland. The Lebanon cedar and the eucalyptus (of Australia) do not grow in Ireland.
12.78–79: Lovely maidens sit in close proximity That is, the fishwives of Mary’s Lane.
12.79: lovely trees
These would be the cast-iron columns inside the Dublin Fruit and Vegetable Market (see note at 12.87), under which the fish traders pitched their stalls (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.81: crans
Cran: ‘A measure of capacity for fresh herrings as caught [. . .] (about 750 fish)’ (OED).
12.81: drafts of eels
Draft: ‘A measure of weight of eels, equal to 20 lbs [9 kg]’ (OED, s.v. draught).
12.83: from Eblana to Slievemargy
After line 46 of Mangan’s translation of Aldfrith (see note at 12.68): ‘From Dublin to Slewmargy’s peak’. Eblana: an Irish place referred to by Ptolemy (second century ad); it is traditionally assumed to be the site of what became Dublin (P. W. Joyce, Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 79). Slievemargy: a mountain in County Laois, about 100 km south-west of Dublin (Mangan, Works, vol. 3, p. 438 n. 46).
12.84: unfettered Munster
From lines 25–26 of Mangan’s translation of Aldfrith: ‘I found in Munster, unfettered of any / Kings, and queens, and poets’. Munster: the south-western province of Ireland.
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12.84: Connacht the just
From line 29 of Mangan’s translation of Aldfrith: ‘I found in Connaught the just’. Connacht (or Connaught): the north-western province of Ireland.
12.85: smooth sleek Leinster
After line 45 of Mangan’s translation of Aldfrith: ‘I found in Leinster the smooth and sleek’. Leinster: the south-eastern province of Ireland, of which Dublin is a part.
12.85: Cruachan’s land
From lines 32–35 of Mangan’s translation of Aldfrith: ‘I found in Connaught the just, redundance / Of riches, milk in lavish abundance; / Hospitality, vigour, fame / In Cruachan’s land of heroic name’. Cruachan: ‘Croghan was the Royal palace of Connaught, hence the province was frequently called by the poets, “the Country of Croghan” ’ (Mangan, Works, vol. 3, p. 437 n. 32).
12.85: Armagh the splendid
From lines 13–14 of Mangan’s translation of Aldfrith: ‘I also found in Armagh the splendid, / Meekness, wisdom, and prudence blended’. Armagh: the great city of ancient Ireland, a centre of learning and of the Irish Church established by St Patrick (Mangan, Works, vol. 3, p. 437 n. 13).
12.86: noble district of Boyle
From line 41 of Mangan’s translation of Aldfrith: ‘I found in the noble district of Boyle’. Boyle: an unremarkable town, famed for its twelfth to thirteenth-century abbey (in ruins), in Connaught north-west of Dublin (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 301).
12.86: sons of kings See note at 2.279–80.
12.87: shining palace whose crystal glittering roof
The Dublin Fruit and Vegetable Market, also called the city markets, about 150 metres from Barney Kiernan’s, at 4–33 St Michan’s Street (Thom’s, p. 1590). The wholesale fruit and vegetable market opened in 1892, and the adjacent fish market opened in 1897 (Bennett, s.v. Fish, fruit, and vegetable market). The market has 6,000 m2 of internal space. ‘The exterior of the complex is impressive: It has several classically inspired gateways, including an ornate main entrance on Mary’s Lane that is flanked by two sets of giant limestone Corinthian columns. [. . .] The main framework of the roof is constructed from the same iron used in the interior of the building; the rest is glass glazing. [. . .] Although the market was built in Ireland and was largely designed to sell Irish produce, it was in many respects a quintessentially British building’ (Samantha Martin- McAuliffe, ‘Feeding Dublin’, pp. 243–47). This word crystal also suggests the mammoth iron and glass Crystal Palace built in 1851 for the Great Exhibition of that year in London (EB11).
12.89: all herds and fatlings and firstfruits of that land
After the style of the Old Testament: ‘And the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of thy work, whatsoever thou hast sown in the field’ (Exodus 23:16); ‘And Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the flocks of sheep and of the herds, and the garments and the rams, and all that was beautiful’ (1 Samuel 15:9).
12.90: O’Connell Fitzsimon
H. O’Connell Fitzsimon: ‘Superintendent of Food Market’ (Thom’s, p. 1349).
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12.91: foison
Foison: ‘a plentiful supply’ (OED).
12.92: flaskets
Flasket: ‘a long shallow basket’ (OED).
12.92: floats
See note at 10.434.
12.92–93: Rangoon beans
Rangoon beans (also known as Burma beans or Paigya beans) were imported from Burma for use in cattle feed. There was some concern that the beans led to cattle poisoning because, when raw, they can produce small quantities of prussic (hydrocyanic) acid (Wyndham R. Dunstan and Thomas A. Henry, ‘Cyanogenesis in Plants. Part III’, p. 292). These were not sold in the Dublin Fruit and Vegetable Market, but rather in the grain market at Smithfield (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.93: strikes of tomatoes
Strike: a round wicker basket used for tomatoes with a net weight of 12 pounds (5.44 kg) (The Outlook for Canadian Tomatoes in Great Britain, p. 3). The strike was originally an old English dry measure, with a value ranging from one-half bushel (4.7 gallons or 17.6 litres) to 4 bushels (37 gallons, 141 litres) (OED).
12.93: drills of Swedes
Drill: Literally, a row in which seeds have been sown—but, by extension, the reaped crop of a row. Swede: ‘A large variety of turnip with yellow flesh, Brassica campestris’ (both OED).
12.94: Tallies
Tally: ‘In market gardening, five dozen’ (OED).
12.95: pearls of the earth
Presumably a pearl onion, ‘a kind of very small white onion’ (OED, s.v. pearl).
12.95: punnets
Punnet: ‘A small light shallow container (originally made from strips or chips of wood) used esp. for strawberries, raspberries, mushrooms, and similar produce’ (OED).
12.96: fat vetches
Vetch: ‘Any of numerous leguminous plants of the genus Vicia, typically having numerous elongated leaflets in opposite pairs; esp. V. sativa, typically cultivated as a source of food for livestock and as a nitrogen-fixing crop’. Fat: ‘Full of stimulating elements, rich’ (both OED).
12.96: bere
Bere (Old English): barley (OED, s.vv. barley; bear).
12.97: pomellated apples
Pomellated: Joycean neologism, after the Italian pomellato, dappled. Also suggests the French word pomme, apple.
12.97: chips
Chip: used as an abbreviation of chip basket, ‘a basket made of strips of thin wood roughly interwoven or joined, used chiefly for packing fruit for the market’ (OED, s.v. chip).
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12.97: sieves
Sieve: ‘a kind of basket used chiefly for market produce’ (OED).
12.98: pelurious
Pelurious: Joyce’s neologism for furry; from the word pelure, fur (OED, s.v. pelure).
12.99: canes
Cane: ‘the stem of the Raspberry’ (OED).
12.101: hill and dale robber
Hill and dale: a scam ‘as practised by “con men” and their like’ (Partridge).
12.102: bellwethers
Bell-whether: ‘The leading sheep of a flock, on whose neck a bell is hung’ (OED).
12.103: stubble geese
Stubble geese: adult geese fed on wheat stubble (OED).
12.104: roaring mares
Roaring: ‘A disease of horses, causing them to make a loud noise when breathing under exertion’ (OED).
12.104: polled calves
Polled calves: hornless calves (OED).
12.104: longwools
Long-wool: a long-woolled sheep (OED).
12.104: storesheep
Store-sheep: sheep kept for fattening and eventually sale as mutton, not for wool (OED, s.v. store).
12.105: Cuffe’s
See note at 6.392.
12.105: springers See note at 6.392.
12.105: culls
Cull: an animal picked out of the herd for fattening, as they are too old or too inferior to be used for breeding (OED).
12.105: sowpigs
Sowpig: spayed sow (OED).
12.107: polly
Polly: variant of polled (see note at 12.104).
12.107–08: premiated milchcows
To premiate: to award a prize. Milch: ‘The capacity or condition of giving milk’ (both OED).
12.108: beeves
Beeves: poetic plural form for beef cattle (OED).
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12.111: Lusk and Rush and Carrickmines
Lusk: a village about 22 km north of Dublin. Rush: a small seaside town, 6 km east of Lusk. Carrickmines: a rural area 15 km south-east of Dublin.
12.111: from the streamy vales of Thomond
From James MacPherson’s (Scottish poet and politician, 1736–96) Poems of Ossian: ‘He comes, like a storm along the streamy vale!’ (p. 276). Thomond: an ancient kingdom of northern Munster (Brewer’s Irish); see also note at 12.1308–10.
12.112: M‘Gillicuddy’s reeks
McGillicuddy’s Reeks: Ireland’s highest mountain range, in County Kerry, in south-west Ireland (Brewer’s Irish). Reek (Hiberno-English): a hill or mountain (OED).
12.112: lordly Shannon
The Shannon is the longest river in Ireland and Great Britain (360 km). It flows through central Ireland and off to the west, emptying into the Atlantic at the Shannon Estuary in County Limerick. The adjective ‘lordly’ was applied to it by John Mitchel (Irish author and nationalist, 1815–75) in his Jail Journal (1854). While discussing the River Shannon in Tasmania and his lifelong love of rivers, he mentions ‘its lordly namesake river, in Erin of the Streams’ (p. 258).
12.113–14: gentle declivities of the place of the race of Kiar
In Irish mythology, Kiar—one of the offspring of Fergus MacRoi (see note at 12.1127)—‘conquered and gave name to Kerry (Ciarriadhe)’ (Martin A. O’Brennan, Ancient Ireland, p. 154). Declivity: ‘Downward slope or inclination (of a hill, etc.)’ (OED). ‘There is nothing finer off the coasts of Europe than the cliffs which bound the shores of Kerry, Clare, Achill and Donegal Bay’ (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 5).
12.115: farmer’s firkins
Firkin: ‘A small cask for liquids, fish, butter, etc.’ (OED).
12.115: targets of lamb
Target: ‘the neck and breast of lamb as a joint; the fore-quarter without the shoulder’ (OED).
12.116: crannocks of corn
Crannock: a dry measure formerly used in Ireland; after the Irish word crannóc, a basket. Properly, corn denotes all the cereals: wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize, rice, etc. Locally, when used without qualification, it usually refers to the leading crop of the district; hence in most of England corn typically means wheat, whereas in northern England, Scotland, and Ireland it typically means oats, and in the United States, maize (which is also called Indian corn or corn meal or Indian meal), although now the American usage has come to be dominant (OED, s.vv. crannock; corn). In the Dublin grain market, the crannock was specifically used as a measure for wheat and is equivalent to 4 bushels (141 litres), although in other contexts its value varied. As with the Rangoon beans (see note at 12.92–93), these were sold at the grain market in Smithfield, not the Dublin Fruit and Vegetable Market (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.116: great hundreds
Great hundred: 120 (OED, s.v. great).
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12.116–17: the agate with the dun
Agate: ‘of a dark, variegated colour’. Dun: ‘Of a dull or dingy brown colour; spec. of a dull greyish-brown colour, typical of the coats of donkeys, mice, and numerous other animals’ (both OED).
12.120: Garryowen
Garryowen: a famous, prize- winning Irish red setter, born in 1876, and owned by James J. Giltrap, a founder member of the Irish Red Setter Club and father to Joyce’s aunt Josephine (Igoe, pp. 117–18). Such was Garryowen’s fame that Spillane’s, a Limerick-based tobacco manufacturer, named its plug tobacco after him. ‘The logo for the brand shows him resplendent in the collar decorated with some of his prize medals’ (Judith Miller, Miller’s Collectibles, p. 12). The name Garryowen comes from the Irish Garraí Eoin, the Garden of Eoin, which also lends its name to a suburb of Limerick (P. W. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 230). This suburb is immortalised in a fighting song. The chorus: ‘Instead of Spa we’ll drink brown ale, / And pay the reckoning on the nail, / No man for debt shall go to gaol / From Garryowen in glory’ (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 478). Of possible relevance, Garryowen was also the pseudonym adopted by a writer for D. P. Moran’s nationalist journal The Leader (see note at 12.221–22), who concluded a note on the Irish bricklaying industry with a variation on Randolph Churchill’s cry against Home Rule (see note at 2.397–98): ‘Let Ireland build up her industries, which she can only do by the strong will, stout hearts, and willing hands of her people, and as sure as the sun rises in the heavens, when there is a country worth fighting for, Ireland will fight and Ireland will be right’ (The Leader, 16 Mar. 1901, p. 39; with thanks to Josh Newman).
12.122: gloryhole
Glory-hole: a small, solitary place—a criminal’s cell, a soldier’s dugout (Partridge).
12.122: cruiskeen lawn
Cruiskeen lawn (Hiberno-English): ‘a full jug (of whiskey)’, from the Irish crúiscín lán, full jug (Dolan); also the title of a traditional Irish love song to whiskey (Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, pp. 485–86).
12.124: grouse
Grouse: a grumble (Partridge).
12.125: corporal work of mercy
The seven corporal works of mercy are: to feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty; to clothe the naked; to harbour the harbourless; to visit the sick; to ransom the captive; to bury the dead (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. corporal and spiritual works of mercy).
12.127: constabulary man
A member of the Royal Irish Constabulary. ‘An armed body, available for upholding the constitutional order when required, the RIC was expected to provide the authorities in Dublin Castle with reliable information on the state of the country’ (NHI, vol. 6, p. xlv). By the early twentieth century, the RIC was both ‘a standing army and the most expensive police force in the world’ (p. 169).
12.127: Santry
Santry: a village about 6.5 km north of central Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1785).
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12.127: blue paper
Blue paper: a summons (Partridge, s.v. fly blue paper).
12.129: Stand and deliver
Stand and deliver: a highwayman’s order to his victim (OED); here used in the sense of buying drinks for others, for which see note at 6.188–89.
12.133: What’s your opinion of the times
The ribbon societies—secret societies that agitated against Protestant landlords (see note at 15.3993)—used various passphrases so members could identify themselves to each other. One such passphrase was, ‘What is your opinion of the times?’ (Kerron Ó Luain, ‘The Ribbon Societies of Counties Louth and Armagh’, p. 129).
12.134: Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill
Rapparee (Hiberno-English): outlaw (Dolan). Initially the name given to Catholic landlords dispossessed by Cromwell (and thus synonymous with tory; see note at 2.268); later applied to seventeenth-century agrarian outlaws who attacked Williamite (Protestant) interests (Brewer’s Irish). ‘The Irish Rapparees’ is a ballad by Charles Gavin Duffy. ‘Rory of the hill’: after Rory O’More (see note at 12.216), this was the pseudonym adopted by various letter-writers in the 1880s who protested to landlords for land reform (W. E. Vaughan, Landlords and Tenants, pp. 152–53). It is also the title of a poem about peasant rebels by Charles Kickham (1830–82).
12.134: begob
See note at 1.361.
12.140: Russians wish to tyrannise See note at 4.116–17.
12.141: Arrah
Arrah (Hiberno-English): now, but, really; ‘a phrase to indicate that a situation is not to be taken too seriously’ (Dolan).
12.141: codding
To cod: ‘To hoax, to take a “rise” out of ’ (OED).
12.146: Ditto MacAnaspey
A Dublin catchphrase, particularly in pub talk, meaning ‘the same again’. According to Dublin legend, two busts of the same individual went up for auction. The first was by a distinguished sculptor and the second by Patrick and Thomas McAnaspie (c.1807–77), stucco plasterers based on Great Brunswick Street. The catalogue entry for the first was detailed and effusive, the second simply read ‘Ditto McAnaspie’ (with thanks to Gerry O’Flaherty; John Simpson, JJON). Shortly after he married Nora in 1931, Joyce used this expression in a letter to Stanislaus, ‘With best Xmas wishes to Mr and Mrs Joyce from Mr and Mrs Ditto MacAnaspey’ (Letters, vol. 3, p. 222).
12.148: a chara
A chara (Irish and Hiberno-English): ‘my friend’; used as a formal salutation or, as here, a jocular affectation of Irish.
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12.148: towser
Towser: ‘a common name for a large dog, such as was used to bait bears or bulls’ (OED).
12.151: round tower See note at 8.490–91.
12.158: mountain gorse (Ulex Europeus)
Gorse: ‘The prickly shrub Ulex europæus; common furze or whin’ (OED).
12.161: tear and a smile
After the title and first line of Thomas Moore’s ‘Erin, the Tear and the Smile in Thine Eyes’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 5).
12.165: hale reverberations of his formidable heart thundered
Modelled after Standish O’Grady’s (Irish author and historian, 1846–1928) description of Cú Chulainn (see note at 12.176): ‘like the sound of a mighty drum his heart beats’ (History of Ireland, p. 232; Andrew Gibson, Joyce’s Revenge, p. 120).
12.168: long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to the knees
P. W. Joyce, in his Social History of Ancient Ireland, describes various articles of ancient Irish dress: ‘A large cloak, generally without sleeves, varying in length, but commonly covering the whole person from the shoulders down. [. . .] The long cloak assumed many shapes: sometimes it was a formless mantle down to the knees; but more often it was a loose though shaped cloak reaching to the ankles. This last was so generally worn by men of out-door life that it was considered characteristic of the Irish. [. . .] its material was according to the rank or means of the wearer’ (vol. 2, pp. 193–94; Helen Saunders, ‘On National Dress’). This ancient cloak was made from wool or cloth, never leather, which was used for other garments. Leather jerkins were worn by Irish chieftains and soldiers from the sixteenth century onward (Mairead Dunlevy, Dress in Ireland, p. 57).
12.170: trews
Trews: ‘Close-fitting trousers, or breeches combined with stockings, formerly worn by Irishmen and Scottish Highlanders, and still by certain Scottish regiments’ (OED). From P. W. Joyce’s Social History of Ancient Ireland, on dress: ‘Leggings of cloth, or of thin soft leather, were worn, probably as an accompaniment to the kilt’ (vol. 2, p. 209).
12.169: loose kilt . . . girdle
‘The kilt—commonly falling to the knees—is very frequently met with on the figures of manuscripts, shrines, and crosses, so that it must have been very much worn both by ecclesiastics and laymen’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 2, p. 203). ‘A girdle or belt (Ir. criss) was commonly worn round the waist, inside the outer loose mantle, and it was often made in such a way as to serve as a pocket for carrying small articles’ (vol. 2, p. 212).
12.171: Balbriggan
Balbriggan is a maritime town, 32 km north of Dublin. ‘The manufacture of fine stockings, well known for the last century as “Balbriggan hosiery” is carried on extensively’ (Thom’s, p. 1633).
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12.172: lichen purple
‘Purple cloaks, purple flowers, and purple colour in general, are very often mentioned in Irish writings [. . .]. Purple dyestuff was obtained from a species of lichen’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 2, p. 361; Saunders, ‘On National Dress’).
12.172–73: brogues . . . same beast
See note at 2.255 for brogue. ‘The bróg was very often made of untanned hide, or only half tanned, free from hair, and retaining softness and pliability like the raw hide [. . .] The whole shoe was stitched together with thongs cut from the same hide’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 2, pp. 216–18).
12.173–74: From his girdle hung a row of seastones
‘The girdles of chiefs and other high-class people were often elaborately ornamented’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 2, p. 212).
12.176: Cuchulin
Cuchulin (also spelled Cuchulain and Cú Chulainn), the ‘Hound of Culann’: the most prominent heroic figure in Irish mythology, with his legends gathered in the Ulster Cycle of heroic tales (Ellis). ‘Cuchulain is the central figure in a cycle of plays that are themselves at the center of Yeats’s dramatic canon’ (David A. Ross, Critical Companion to William Butler Yeats, p. 453).
12.176–77: Conn of hundred battles
Conn Cetchathach (Conn of the Hundred Battles): King of Ireland c.200 ad. ‘In Conn, from whom Connacht gets its name, we have the first of the line of the High Kings of Ireland, the Dal Cuinn or “Race of Conn”, who lasted until 1022 and gave Ireland a centre of national unity’ (Edmund Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 3).
12.177: Niall of nine hostages
Niall of the Nine Hostages: High King of Ireland, 380–405. ‘The time of Niall is a remark able one for Irish unity, the Ruin and reshaping of Roman Britain, and the first coming of the Christian faith to Erin’ (Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 5).
12.177: Brian of Kincora
Brian of Kincora (Brian Boroimhe or Brian Boru, 926–1014): King of Munster from c.978 and High King of Ireland from c.1002. On Good Friday 1014, his forces won a significant victory over Hiberno-Norse confederacy armies at the Battle of Clontarf, at the River Tolka near Annesley Bridge (2.5 km from central Dublin). But after the battle he was killed in his tent by Brodir of Mann, a leader of one of the factions allied against Boru (Curtis, History of Ireland, pp. 25–26).
12.177: the ardri Malachi
Ardri (Irish): High King. Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill or Malachi II (948–1022) was, with Brian of Kincora, decisive in freeing Ireland from the yoke of Danish invasion (Brewer’s Irish). See also note at 3.302–03.
12.177–78: Art MacMurragh
Either Art MacMurrough (d. 1362), King of Leinster (1347–62), or, more likely, his second son, Art Mór MacMurrough Kavanagh (1357–c.1417), King of Leinster (1377–1417). The elder MacMurrough waged various skirmishes against English settlements, but his son won more renown for both uniting other Irish chieftains and for lessening Richard II’s hold over
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 567 eastern Ireland (both DIB). Art Mór MacMurrough was ‘the greatest of Donal’s [Domhnall Caomhánach mac Murchada; King of Leinster, 1140–75] descendants and of the medieval chiefs of Ireland the one who most ruined the English colony’ (Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 106).
12.178: Shane O’Neill
Shane O’Neill (c.1530–67): After murdering his elder brother, he was recognised by Elizabeth I as The O’Neill and thus supreme authority in Tyrone. He challenged ‘the entire Tudor strategy of aristocratic “surrender and regrant”, revealing the insuperable difficulties involved in transforming Gaelic lords into English nobles’ (DIB). He was involved in numerous internecine conflicts with various other Ulster chiefs and was finally murdered by his enemies the MacDonnells. ‘Shane was the most uncompromising opponent of English rule in Ireland that had yet appeared’ (Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 160).
12.178: Father John Murphy
Father Murphy (1753–98): one of the military leaders of the 1798 rebellion in the south (DIB).
12.178: Owen Roe
Owen Roe O’Neill (c.1590–1649) supported the embattled Charles I in Ireland and, though very effective, was unable to prevent the subjugation of the Irish Catholics by Cromwell’s forces (DIB).
12.178–79: Patrick Sarsfield
Sarsfield (d. 1693), 1st Earl of Lucan: Irish military leader who supported the Catholic James II in his unsuccessful campaign to retain the crown against William III. After the defeat of the Jacobite forces, Sarsfield led the Wild Geese, the Irish soldiers who went into exile in France (see note at 3.164). He died in battle serving in the French army soon thereafter (NHI, vol. 3, pp. 506–07). ‘Sarsfield’s military reputation rests as much on the adulation of some of his followers and the myth-making of later nationalist writers as on his actual achievements’ (DIB).
12.179: Red Hugh O’Donnell
O’Donnell (c.1572–1602): Lord of Tyrconnell. He amassed national support for a rebellion against English rule, which lasted from 1593 to 1603. Despite some early victories, the rebellion was ultimately unsuccessful; ‘the whole romance of his story has attracted Irish hearts to him through centuries since his death’ (Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race, p. 393).
12.179: Red Jim MacDermott
Red Jim MacDermott: a notorious and much-despised Dublin-born covert agent working for the British who infiltrated the Fenians in the 1880s, thereby undermining numerous Fenian cells (Michael Davitt, The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, pp. 428–34; Joyce had a copy of this book in his Trieste library: Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, p. 106).
12.179–80: Soggarth Eoghan O’Growney
Father Eugene O’Growney (1863–99): Irish language scholar, professor of Irish at Maynooth College, and one of the founding members of the Gaelic League. He was the author of the very popular primer Simple Lessons in Irish (1894–1901) (DIB). Soggarth (Hiberno-English): priest (OED).
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12.180: Michael Dwyer
Michael Dwyer (1771–1826): a rebel of 1798 who for five years thereafter evaded all attempts by the British to capture him. On 17 December 1803, he surrendered voluntarily and was deported to Australia, where he eventually became chief constable of Liverpool, a town near Sydney (DIB).
12.180: Francy Higgins
Francis Higgins (c.1745–1802); see note at 7.348. Higgins used his position as owner of the Freeman’s Journal to denounce enemies of the government, especially the United Irishman (DIB); see note at 10.789.
12.180: Henry Joy M‘Cracken
Henry Joy McCracken (1767–98): commander-in-chief of the United Irish army of the north. On 7 June 1798, he led the United Irishmen at the battle of Antrim, at which his troops were beaten. McCracken was arrested and executed (DIB).
12.181: Goliath
Goliath: the Philistine giant whom David killed with a slingshot (1 Samuel 17:49–51).
12.181: Horace Wheatley
Horace Wheatley (1850–1923): an English-born Irish music-hall singer and performer. ‘He was in his day the most popular of Irish comedians, and he appeared for many years as the Dame in Gaiety pantomimes, where he was a big attraction’ (Irish Independent, 5 Nov. 1923, p. 4, col. g).
12.181: Thomas Conneff
Thomas Conneff (Irish-born runner, 1867–1912): after a successful career in Ireland, he emigrated to the United States in 1888 where he set the world record for the one-mile [1.6 km] run in 1895 (John Simpson, JJON).
12.181: Peg Woffington
Margaret (‘Peg’) Woffington (c.1720–60): a Dublin waif who went on to become a star actress in London. ‘Regarded as one of the finest actresses of her day, comfortable in tragic or comic roles, she won much praise for her striking figure, beauty, wit, and spirit’ (DIB).
12.181–82: the Village Blacksmith
‘The Village Blacksmith’: a poem from 1840 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American poet, 1807–82).
12.182: Captain Moonlight
‘Captain Moonlight’ was the overall name for small secret agrarian societies agitating on behalf of tenant farmers during the struggles for land reform in the early 1880s. The name was to make it seem as if their deeds were the acts of one individual. These societies were unaligned with the Land League (Robert Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 390).
12.182: Captain Boycott
Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott (1832–97): a land agent, originally from England, from whose name the word boycott derives. After serving in the army, he became an agent for Lord Erne, who owned 4,900 hectares in County Mayo (ODNB). ‘The term dates from 1880, when such methods were used by the Irish Land League under Parnell, who advocated
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 569 that anyone taking over a farm from an evicted tenant should be “isolated from his kind as if he were a leper of old”. This treatment was first used against Captain Boycott’ (Brewer’s).
12.182: Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321): Florentine poet, author of the Divine Comedy (EB11). Dante was a significant artistic influence on Joyce. In Stephen Hero, Stephen calls Dante, ‘the lofty upholder of beauty, the greatest of Italian poets’ (p. 92).
12.183: Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (1451–1506): Italian navigator and explorer. According to Joyce, Columbus ‘is venerated by posterity because he was the last to discover America’ (OCPW, p. 203).
12.183: S. Fursa
Saint Fursa (or Fursey or Fursaeus, d. c.650): Irish saint who founded monasteries in Ireland, England, and France (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. St Fursey). In his essay ‘The Mirage of the Fisherman of Aran’, Joyce called Fursa’s text A Vision a precursor to Dante’s Divine Comedy (OCPW, p. 203), a claim which probably derives from C. S. Boswell’s book An Irish Precursor of Dante (1908) (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.183: S. Brendan
St Brendan (484–577): Irish monk. ‘St. Brendan belongs to that glorious period in the history of Ireland when the island in the first glow of its conversion to Christianity sent forth its earliest messengers of the Faith to the continent and to the regions of the sea. It is, therefore, perhaps possible that the legends, current in the ninth and committed to writing in the eleventh century, have for foundation an actual sea-voyage the destination of which cannot however be determined. These adventures were called the “Navigatio Brendani”, the Voyage or Wandering of St. Brendan, but there is no historical proof of this journey. Brendan is said to have sailed in search of a fabled Paradise with a company of monks, the number of which is variously stated as from 18 to 150. After a long voyage of seven years they reached the “Terra Repromissionis”, or Paradise, a most beautiful land with luxuriant vegetation’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). In his essay ‘The Mirage of the Fisherman of Aran’, Joyce alludes to the belief that Brendan’s ‘Terra Repromissionis’ is America (OCPW, p. 203).
12.183: Marshal MacMahon
Count Marie Edmé Patrice Maurice de MacMahon (1808–93): a descendant of a family that fled Ireland after the Battle of the Boyne, and thus one of the Irish Wild Geese (see note at 3.164). After a distinguished military career, he served as President of the Third Republic (1873–79). ‘A fine, tall, soldierly man, of a thoroughly Irish type, in private life MacMahon was universally esteemed as generous and honourable; as a soldier he was brave and able, without decided military genius; as a politician he was patriotic and well-intentioned, but devoid of any real capacity for statecraft’ (EB11).
12.184: Charlemagne
Charlemagne (742–814): King of the Franks (768–814) and Holy Roman Emperor (800–14) (EB11).
12.184: Theobald Wolfe Tone See note at 10.378.
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12.184: the Mother of the Maccabees
Along with her seven children, the mother of the Maccabees was martyred (168 bc) by the Syrian king Antiochus IV for not converting from Judaism to the pagan Greek faith (2 Maccabees 7:1).
12.184–85: the Last of the Mohicans
The Last of the Mohicans (1826): a novel by James Fenimore Cooper (American writer, 1789–1851) set during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), which is known in America as the French and Indian War.
12.185: the Rose of Castile See note at 7.471–72.
12.185: the Man for Galway
‘The Man for Galway’: a poem by Charles Lever (1806–72).
12.185–86: The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo
In 1891, Charles Deville Wells (1841–1922) won great fame and fortune by depleting the reserves (‘breaking the bank’) of the casino at Monte Carlo multiple times over the course of several visits. In later years, he was arrested for various frauds (Robin Quinn, The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo). Fred Gilbert (1850–1903) wrote a popular song about this called ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’ (1891).
12.186: The Man in the Gap
‘The Man in the Gap’ (Hiberno-English): ‘the man who courageously and successfully defends any cause or any position’ (PWJ, p. 182), after the watchman who would lie in wait in a ford, or ‘gap of danger’, to defend ancient Celtic tribes from invasion. Also a term used to describe the goalkeeper in the game of hurling.
12.186–87: The Woman Who Didn’t
The Woman Who Did (1895): a novel about free love (see note at 15.1693) by Grant Allen (Canadian writer, 1848–99).
12.187: Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (1706–90): American statesman, essayist, and scientist (EB11).
12.187: Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821): French general (of Corsican birth), Emperor of the French (1804–15) (EB11).
12.187: John L. Sullivan
John L. Sullivan (1858–1918): Irish-American prize-fighter and world heavyweight champion 1882–92 (EB11, s.v. pugilism).
12.188: Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII (69–30 bc): last Pharaoh of Egypt (Ptolemaic dynasty), of Greek descent (EB11).
12.188: Savourneen Deelish
Savourneen Deelish (Irish): ‘And my faithful sweetheart’; the title of a song by George Colman (1762–1836).
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12.188: Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (c.100–44 bc): Roman general, historian, and statesman (EB11).
12.188: Paracelsus
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (c.1493–1541), called Paracelsus: physician, alchemist, and mystic (EB11, s.v. Paracelsus).
12.188–89: sir Thomas Lipton
Thomas Lipton (1850–1931): successful tea merchant; born in Scotland to Irish parents who fled Ireland because of the potato famine (ODNB).
12.189: William Tell
The story of William Tell being forced to shoot an apple off his son’s head by a tyrannical Austrian bailiff and then leading his people to freedom with an uprising on 1 January 1308 is ‘bound up with the legendary history of the origin of the Swiss Confederation’ (EB11).
12.189: Michelangelo Hayes
Michael Angelo Hayes (1820–77): Irish painter and caricaturist. He was noted for his sporting and military paintings. He served as Dublin City Marshal from 1867 until his death (DIB). In all editions previous to Gabler, this name was split into two entries by a comma: ‘Michelangelo, Hayes’; the comma was erroneously added by a typesetter after the final proof pages (UCSE, pp. 640, 1790; Sam Slote, ‘Correcting Joyce’, p. 64).
12.189: Muhammad
Muhammad (c.570–632): the founder of Islam. His teachings and revelations are set down in the Qur’an (EB11, s.v. Mahommedan Religion).
12.189–90: the Bride of Lammermoor
The Bride of Lammermoor (1819): a novel by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832).
12.190: Peter the Hermit
Peter the Hermit (d. 1115): priest of Amiens and preacher of the First Crusade (EB11).
12.190: Peter the Packer
Peter the Packer: nickname of Lord Peter O’Brien of Kilfenora (1842–1914), Crown Counsel and, from 1889, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. In 1883, he was the senior crown prosecutor; ‘it was during this period that O’Brien became a particular target of the nationalist press and attracted the nickname “Peter the Packer” for his skill in excluding nationalists from juries in agrarian trials’ (DIB).
12.190: Dark Rosaleen
Dark Rosaleen: a personification of Ireland in an anonymous Gaelic song translated by several poets, including James Clarence Mangan (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Róisín Dubh).
12.190–91: Patrick W. Shakespeare
Combines Shakespeare’s name with that of Patrick Weston Joyce (1827–1913), the Irish scholar and author of such works as English As We Speak It In Ireland (1910).
12.191: Brian Confucius
After Confucius (c.551–c.479 bc), ‘the famous sage of China’ (EB11).
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12.191: Murtagh Gutenberg
Murtagh: an Irish surname, from muircheartach, navigator (Edward MacLysaght, The Surnames of Ireland, p. 231). Johannes Gutenberg (1397–1468): inventor of movable type (EB11).
12.191–92: Patricio Velasquez
After the Spanish artist Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660) (EB11).
12.192: Captain Nemo
Captain Nemo: protagonist of Jules Verne’s (French author, 1828–1905) Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870). Nemo (Latin): ‘no-one’, the Greek word for which, outis, is the name Odysseus (cunningly) gave to the Cyclops (Odyssey, IX.364).
12.192: Tristan and Isolde
In an ancient romance, Isolde was an Irish princess. Tristan came to escort her to Britain where she was to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, but the pair drank a magic potion that caused them to fall in love with each other. Many different versions of this story exist from the twelfth century onwards, including an opera by Wagner (Brewer’s, s.v. Tristram).
12.192: the first Prince of Wales
There is some ambiguity as to who would be considered the ‘first’ Prince of Wales. With the Treaty of Montgomery (1267), Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (Llywelyn the Last, c.1223–82) was the first Welsh chieftain to be formally recognised by that title, although his father Dafydd (c.1212–46) had previously claimed it. After Llywelyn’s defeat by Edward I (1239–1307, r. 1272–1307) in the war of 1277 and his death five years later, the title lay dormant until Edward claimed it for his Welsh-born son, the future Edward II (1284–1327, r. 1307–27), in 1301. This inaugurated the custom of conferring the title Prince of Wales on the eldest son of the British monarch, thereby making Edward II the first to hold this title in that capacity (J. E. Lloyd, A History of Wales, pp. 27–30).
12.193: Thomas Cook and Son
Thomas Cook and Son: one of the first travel agencies, established by Thomas Cook (1808–92) and his son John (1834–99) (ODNB).
12.193: the Bold Soldier Boy
After a poem by Samuel Lover (Irish poet and songwriter, 1797–1868), ‘The Bowld Sojer Boy’.
12.193: Arrah na Pogue
Arrah na Pogue (ara na bpóg) (Irish): ‘one who likes to kiss’; the title of a popular play from 1864 by Dion Boucicault (see note at 8.601).
12.193–94: Dick Turpin
Dick Turpin (1706–39): an infamous English highwayman whose story is told in the ballad ‘Turpin Hero’ (EB11).
12.194: Ludwig Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): a German composer of some renown (EB11).
12.194: the Colleen Bawn
Colleen bawn (Hiberno-English): ‘blond girl’; the title of a play by Dion Boucicault, The Colleen Bawn or, The Brides of Garryowen (1860); see also note at 6.186.
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12.194: Waddler Healy
John Healy (1841–1918), archbishop of Tuam. Dr Walter McDonald, one of Healy’s colleagues, called him ‘tall, blonde, rough, strongly built, though inclined to waddle in his gait’ (quoted in SS, p. 154).
12.194–95: Angus the Culdee
The Culdees (Irish: céile dé, servant of God): an order of Scottish-Irish monks, founded in the eighth century (OED). Angus (or Aengus fl. 800) was a member of the order famous for writing the Feliré, or Festology of the Saints (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.195: Dolly Mount
Dollymount: a north-eastern, coastal Dublin suburb.
12.195: Sidney Parade
Sydney Parade: a street in Merrion village, 4.8 km south-east of central Dublin.
12.195: Ben Howth See note at 8.911.
12.195: Valentine Greatrakes
Valentine Greatrakes (1629–83): an Irishman who claimed to be able to cure people by his touch, from which he became known as ‘the Stroker’ (EB11, s.vv. faith healing; hypnotism).
12.196: Adam and Eve
In the book of Genesis, the original man and woman, cast out of the Garden of Eden after eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Also, the name of a church by the Liffey; see note at 7.1012.
12.196: Arthur Wellesley
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (1769–1852): Anglo-Irish military hero who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1828–30) (EB11); see also note at 12.1460.
12.196: Boss Croker
Richard ‘Boss’ Croker (1841–1922): Irish-born American politician. In 1846, his family emigrated from Cork to the United States, where he eventually became the leader of New York City’s Tammany Hall machine, then the heart of political corruption in New York. After amassing a great personal fortune, he retired to Ireland in 1903 where he became a successful horse-trainer (DIB).
12.196: Herodotus
Herodotus (c.484–c.425 bc): the first of the Greek historians, known for his history of the Persian Wars (EB11).
12.196–97: Jack the Giantkiller
From the children’s story of the farmer’s son who rid King Arthur’s Britain of giants (Brewer’s).
12.197: Gautama Buddha See note at 5.328.
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12.197: Lady Godiva
Lady Godiva (fl. 1040–1080): the Earl of Mercia’s wife, who rode through the streets of Coventry naked to convince her husband to reduce his oppressive tax rates. Peeping Tom the Tailor was the only townsperson who looked, and he was struck blind (Brewer’s, s.v. Peeping Tom).
12.197: The Lily of Killarney See note at 6.186.
12.197–98: Balor of the Evil Eye
Balor: in Irish mythology, a god of death and leader of the Fomorians, a gigantic race of evil sea peoples. His one eye had a gaze so malevolent it could kill (Ellis).
12.198: the Queen of Sheba
The Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon and found that his wisdom exceeded the reports she had heard (1 Kings 10; 2 Chronicles 9).
12.198: Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle
Acky and Joe Nagle: two brothers who ran a pub, John Joachim (‘Acky’) Nagle and James Joseph Nagle, J. J. Nagle and Co., ‘wine and spirit merchants’, 9 Cathedral Street and 25 Earl Street North (Thom’s, p. 1968).
12.198–99: Alessandro Volta
Count Alessandro Volta (1745–1827): Italian physicist and inventor. Among other things, he invented the battery. The volt, the basic unit for measuring electricity, is named after him (EB11). In 1909, Joyce opened the first cinema in Dublin and named it the Volta (Ellmann, pp. 300–11).
12.199: Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa
Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa (1831–1915): known as ‘Dynamite Rossa’, a Fenian activist. In 1865, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years’ penal servitude. He was freed in 1871 on condition that he leave Ireland. He went to the United States, where he edited The United Irishman. After he died in New York, his body was repatriated and he was buried at Glasnevin in August 1915. Patrick Pearse’s graveside oration is traditionally seen as one of the sparks of the 1916 Easter Rising (DIB; R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 477).
12.199: Don Philip O’Sullivan Beare
Don Philip O’Sullivan Beare (1590–1660): Irish writer and soldier; he is the nephew of Domhnall Cam Ó Súileabháin Bhéara, an ally of Hugh O’Donnell (see note at 12.179). After the Irish defeat at the battle of Kinsale, he was sent to Spain. He served in the Spanish fleet and was an advisor to the Spanish crown. He is the author of Historiae Catholicae Iberniae Compendium (1621), ‘one of the key polemical works of Irish political thought published in the early modern period. His intention was to provide catholic dissidents at home and abroad with an interpretation of Irish history and of their contemporary difficulties’ (DIB).
12.200: couched spear of acuminated granite
Couched: ‘Laid or lying down’. Acuminated: sharpened (both OED).
12.201: a savage animal of the canine tribe
Irish mythological heroes are typically accompanied by dogs: ‘The heroic age of Ireland is, in fact, the age of the Hounds; and surely no nobler and more touching type of the heroic
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 575 temper could be selected than this magnanimous brute. [. . .] The hounds of the third century of our era, the age of the Fenian heroes, are dogs—the comrades of the warriors’ (Standish O’Grady, History of Ireland, p. 187).
12.206: standing
See note at 6.188–89.
12.211–12: prudent member gave me the wheeze
That is, Bloom. Member: a person, from the phrase ‘member of the community’ (Partridge). For wheeze, see note at 11.487. For the incident Hynes is referring to, see 7.113–18.
12.213–14: Pill lane and Greek street
Pill Lane (which by 1904 had been renamed Chancery Street) is on the south side of the Dublin Fruit, Vegetable, and Fish Market, while Greek Street is on the west side (Thom’s, pp. 1446, 1509).
12.214: cod’s eye
That is, eyes wide open, taking in everything, like the bulging eyes of a cod. For example: ‘Frederick’s cod-eye, that could review his whole army at once, was so important a feature that we endeavoured to forget it’ (Arnold’s Magazine of the Fine Arts, Jan. 1833, vol. 1, no. 3, p. 238).
12.215: Michan’s land See note at 12.68.
12.215: bedight in sable armour
Bedight: wearing (OED). Sable armour: Bloom’s black mourning suit.
12.216: the son of Rory
Rory O’More (d. 1655): one of the leaders of the 1641 rebellion, referred to as ‘the son of Rory Caoch’ in the Annals of Ireland (p. 497).
12.218: old woman of Prince’s street See note at 7.684.
12.218–19: the subsidised organ
Anachronistic. From the 1890s onwards, the fortunes of the Freeman’s Journal declined because of increased competition, which became worse after 1905 with the launch of the rebranded Irish Independent (see note at 7.308). By 1912, it was no longer a viable commercial endeavour, so the Irish Parliamentary Party—which was long supported by the constitutionally moderate Freeman’s Journal—intervened. ‘The Freeman was subsequently run by a small group of party stalwarts and was subsidised from party sources’; for this it was derided by Griffith and Sinn Féin as ‘the passive—even supine—organ of the IPP’ (Felix M. Larkin, ‘Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal’, p. 179).
12.219: The pledgebound party on the floor of the house
After the 1885 general election, Parnell, restoring a practice of the 1850s, secured signed pledges from all his MPs to unite as a block and vote with the party. However, this proved insufficient for the successful passage of a Home Rule bill (NHI, vol. 6, p. 54; see also note at 17.1789–90). The song ‘God Save Ireland’ (see note at 8.440) includes the phrase ‘the party on the floor’.
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12.220: The Irish Independent
Slight anachronism. In 1904, this paper was called The Irish Daily Independent; it was rebranded The Irish Independent in January 1905; see note at 7.308.
12.221–22: Listen to the births and deaths in the Irish for all Ireland Independent
The tenor of the Citizen’s critique of the Irish Independent recalls an article in D. P. Moran’s (Irish journalist, 1869–1936) weekly nationalist paper The Leader (founded in 1900). Moran was a fierce and militant advocate of ‘Irish Ireland’, that is of an Irish identity that is exclusively and proudly Gaelic and Catholic (Willard Potts, Joyce and the Two Irelands, pp. 27–47). In an article entitled ‘The “Freeman” in the Dock’, signed ‘A Priest’, the author, with great indignation and sarcasm, takes two pages from the 18 February 1901 issue of the Freeman’s Journal and lists all the references to non-Irish matters in this supposedly nationalist organ. For example, he notes that all twenty-three paragraphs on the leader page of that issue of the Freeman’s Journal (p. 4, cols d–e) concern foreign news: ‘No. 1 records the death of Sir H. Watson at Sheffield—devoting to it two lines. No. 2 records the demise of Xavier Segur, Recorder of Oldham, at Liverpool—3 lines. [. . .] Is all this sufficiently cosmopolitan for the readers of the Freeman?’ (Leader, 9 March 1901, p. 23). The author then calls this foreign news ‘doses of Anglicising poisons that are being thus daily inoculated into their national being. [. . .] Moreover, all this twaddle is served out to us on imported paper of foreign manufacture, of a sort of inferior tissue material’ (p. 24).
12.225–26: Gordon, Barnfield crescent . . . Redmayne of a son
From the Births column of the Irish Daily Independent, 16 June 1904. The Citizen summarises two of the five births listed, all five of which were in England: ‘GORDON—June 11, 1904, at 3 Barnfield Crescent, Exeter, the wife of W. Gordon, MD, FRCP, of a son’ and ‘REDMAYNE—June 12, 1904, at Iffley, St.- Anne’s- on- the- Sea, the wife of William T. Redmayne, of a son’ (p. 1, col. a).
12.226–30: Wright and Flint: Vincent and Gillett to Rotha . . . dean of Worcester
From the Marriages column of the Irish Daily Independent, 16 June 1904. Of five weddings listed, only one took place in Ireland and the rest were in England. The Citizen summarises three of the English weddings (in the paper, the name ‘Playwood’ is ‘Haywood’): ‘WRIGHT and FLINT—June 14, 1904, at the parish church, Marlow, by the Rev. J. H. Light. Sidney William, only son of Sidney Havell Wright, of Thames Bank, Marlow, to Maud, youngest daughter of Samuel Flint, of Shelley House, Marlow’; ‘VINCENT and GILLETT—June 9, 1904, at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, by the Rev. T. B. F. Campbell, Edward Vincent, third son of Thomas Vincent, Whinburgh, Norfolk, to Rotha Marion Gillett, younger daughter of Rosa and the late George Alfred Gillett, 179 Clapham road, Stockwell’; ‘HAYWOOD and RIDSDALE—June 8, 1904, at St. Jude’s, Kensington, by the Very Rev. Dr. Forrest, Dean of Worcester, assisted by the Rev. W. H. Bliss, Vicar of Kew, Charles Burt Haywood, only surviving son of the late Thos. Burt Haywood and of Mrs. Haywood, of Woodhatch, Reigate, to Gladys Muriel, only daughter of Alfred Ridsdale, of Hatherley House, Kew gardens’ (p. 1, col. a).
12.230–32: Deaths. Bristow, at Whitehall lane, London . . . Moat house, Chepstow
From the Deaths column of the Irish Daily Independent, 16 June 1904. The Citizen reads six of the thirteen entries, picking only English mortalities (in the paper, Bristow’s address is Whitehorse Lane, not Whitehall Lane): ‘BRISTOW—June 11, 1904, at “Fernleigh”, Whitehorse lane, Thorntoll Heath, London, John Gosling Bristow’; ‘CANN—June 12, 1904,
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 577 at Manor road, Stoke Newington, Emma, daughter of the late W. A. Cann, of gastritis and heart disease’; ‘COCKBURN—June 10, 1904, at The Moat House, Chepstow, after a short illness, Frances Mary Cockburn in the 60th year of her age’; ‘DIMSEY—June 13, 1904, at 4 Crouch Hall road, Crouch End, Martha Elizabeth, the wife of David Griffiths Dimsey, late of the Admiralty’; ‘MILLER—June 14, 1904, at Northumberland Park, Tottenham, Sophia Miller, widow of the late Thomas Miller, of Edmonton, aged 85’; ‘WELSH—June 12, 1904, at 35 Canning street, Liverpool, Isabella Helen, eldest daughter of the late Alexander Welsh’ (p. 1, col. a).
12.233: I know that fellow
The name Cockburn is properly pronounced co-burn.
12.236–37: my brown son
My brown son: a Hiberno-English catchphrase and term of endearment (John Simpson, JJON).
12.237: Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber
William Martin Murphy (1844–1919) bought the Irish Daily Independent in 1904 (see note at 7.308). He was born in Derrymihan, near Castletownbere, Co. Cork and his father, Denis William Murphy, was a building contractor. He was educated at Bantry national school and Belvedere College (DIB). Jobber: ‘a hack; a journeyman, a dabbler’ (OED).
12.238–39: Thanks be to God they had the start of us
A pious expression saying, in effect, that the dead are happier for having reached heaven before us (Dent).
12.242: don’t be talking See note at 8.229.
12.246: an elder of noble gait and countenance
From The Taming of the Shrew: ‘In gait and countenance surely like a father’ (IV.ii.67).
12.247: peerless lineage
Presumably a pun between peerless (unequalled) and peer-less (lacking a noble title) (with thanks to Harald Beck).
12.249: Alf Bergan See note at 8.320.
12.250: snug
Snug: a small, semi-private room in a pub (OED); a typical feature in Irish pubs. In some pubs, women would only be allowed to drink in the snug (Kevin Corrigan Kearns, Dublin Pub Life and Lore, p. 180).
12.251: Bob Doran See note at 5.107.
12.253: pantaloon Denis Breen
Pantaloon: ‘a Venetian character in the 16th-century Italian comedy, a lean and foolish old man dressed in loose trousers and slippers’ (Brewer’s). See note at 8.304 for Denis Breen.
12.254: oxter
Oxter: the armpit or the underside of the upper arm (OED).
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12.258: U. p.: up See note at 8.258.
12.261: Libel action . . . ten thousand pounds
£10,000 is an extravagant amount for damages in a libel case: the maximum amount awarded in this period is typically £5,000 (e.g., Freeman’s Journal, 20 Jan. 1911, p. 4, col. d), with most awards being for much less.
12.265: Bi i dho husht
Bi i dho husht (Irish): ‘Be quiet!’
12.268: Collis and Ward’s See note at 6.56.
12.270: process
Process: a legal suit; or a ‘writ by which a person or thing is brought into court for litigation’ (OED).
12.271: Green Street to look for a G man
There were two police stations on Green Street, around the corner from Barney Kiernan’s on Little Britain Street: a C division branch at 26 Green Street and a D division across the street at 11 Green Street (Thom’s, p. 1509). Unlike the other divisions, which were geographical designations, the G division was entirely different (see note at 8.420).
12.272: When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy?
See note at 7.106 for Long John Fanning. Mountjoy Prison is just north of North Circular Road and west of Phibsborough Road in Dublin (Thom’s, p. 839). There is no record of any prisoner on death row in Dublin on 16 June 1904. Alf Bergan was an assistant to John Clancy, the model for Fanning (Ellmann, p. 43).
12.274: pony
Pony: ‘A small glass or measure of alcohol’ (OED).
12.280: Terence O’Ryan
The barman shares his name with T. O’Ryan, the curate of St James’s’ Street Presbytery (Thom’s, pp. 995, 1016). This might be because of a joke on the word curate, which means an assistant priest and also, in the Dublin vernacular, an assistant barman (see note at 4.114).
12.281–82: noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun
Edward Cecil Guinness (1847–1927), Lord Iveagh, and Arthur Edward Guinness (1840–1915), Lord Ardilaun: the Guinness brothers (but not twins); see also notes at 5.304 and 5.306. Bung: ‘A brewer, or landlord of a public house. Also, the brewing interest (as in politics)’ (OED). D. P. Moran used this word (and also ‘Mr Bung’ and ‘King Bung’) as a recurrent derogatory epithet for the Irish drinks industry in the Leader. For example, he calls the three enemies Irish nationalists need to defeat, ‘Mr Bung, Mr Bigot and Mr Shoneen’ (Leader, 25 Feb. 1905, p. 10). ‘Mr Bigot’ is one of his epithets for Protestants (Deirdre Toomey, ‘Moran’s Collar’, p. 45); see note at 12.680 for shoneen. He also used Bung in specific reference to Lord Ardilaun: ‘The leading article in Lord Bung-Ardilaun’s Mail declared [. . .]’ (Leader, 12 Nov. 1904, p. 1).
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12.282–83: sons of deathless Leda
That is, Castor and Pollux, the twin sons of Leda and Zeus. Leda is called ‘deathless’ because she was deified as the goddess Nemesis after the birth of her children (Brewer’s).
12.287: to the manner born
From Hamlet: ‘But to my mind, though I am native here / And to the manner born, it is a custom / More honour’d in the breach than the observance’ (I.iv.14–16).
12.291–92: testoon of costliest bronze
Testoon: a name applied to various European coins over the ages (OED). Here, applied to the penny, which is, in Victorian and Edwardian coinage, the highest denomination in bronze.
12.293: regal port
Port: ‘Bearing, deportment, or carriage, esp. dignified or stately bearing; demeanour or manner. Now arch. and rare’ (OED).
12.293: scion of the house of Brunswick
Queen Victoria was the last monarch of the House of Hanover, which began in 1714 when George I (1660–1727, r. 1714–27) assumed the throne of Great Britain, based on a claim of descent from James I. Before becoming sovereign in Great Britain, George I was heir to the Hanoverian possessions of the House of Brunswick, so the House of Hanover is an offshoot of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg (EB11, s.vv. George I; Hanover).
12.294–96: Her Most Excellent Majesty . . . Empress of India
This title was Victoria’s in all respects but one: the phrase ‘and of the British dominions beyond the sea’ was not used in British royal titles until the coronation of Edward VII in 1902 (Sidney Lee, King Edward VII, vol. 2, pp. 7–8). Joyce is likely to have got hold of this form of address from his copy of the 1904 Thom’s where it appears, applied to Edward (p. 103).
12.298–99: from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof . . . ethiop
From Psalm 49:1 (50:1 in the King James): ‘The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken: and he hath called the earth. From the rising of the sun, to the going down thereof.’ Also alludes to the notion that the sun never sets on the British empire (see note at 2.248–49). Ethiop: generic term for black Africans (OED).
12.303: rhino
Rhino: money (Partridge).
12.304: Hangmen’s letters See note at 12.425.
13.305: wisps of letters and envelopes
Wisp (Hiberno-English): ‘Anything carelessly bundled together, or thrown in a heap’; also ‘A term of contempt for anything old or worn out’ (EDD).
12.307: codding
Codding: fooling around (Partridge).
12.308: Honest injun
Honest injun: no kidding (Partridge).
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12.311: bit of a dust
Dust: a row, a fight (Partridge).
12.312: porter’s
See note at 3.152.
12.313: Willy Murray
William Murray: Joyce’s maternal uncle and the basis of Richie Goulding (see note at 3.76).
12.313: those times See note at 8.204.
12.314: Capel Street
A north-south street in Dublin, west of Sackville (O’Connell) Street. Little Britain Street (the location of Barney Kiernan’s) intersects Capel Street.
12.323: I’m after seeing him
That is, ‘I’ve just seen him’; this is a common construction in Hiberno-English and follows from the absence of a direct equivalent to the verb have in Irish, so past tenses are formed by combining the verb to be with the preposition after (Dolan).
12.323–24: plain as a pikestaff
Plain as a pikestaff: very clear, beyond argument (Partridge).
12.326: God between us and harm
‘The Lord between us and harm’ and ‘the Lord preserve us’: ‘both very common exclam ations in case of danger’ (PWJ, p. 195).
12.332–33: They took the liberty of burying him this morning anyhow
According to Ellmann, one morning John Stanislaus Joyce ‘read from the Freeman’s Journal the obituary notice of a friend, Mrs. Cassidy. May Joyce was shocked and cried out, “Oh! Don’t tell me that Mrs. Cassidy is dead”. “Well, I don’t quite know about that”, replied John Joyce, eyeing his wife solemnly through his monocle, “but someone has taken the liberty of burying her”. James burst into laughter, repeated the joke later to his schoolmates, and still later to the readers of Ulysses’ (p. 44). The joke is not entirely original to John Joyce; from Swift’s Polite Conversation: ‘COL. ATWIT: But, is it certain, that Sir John Blunderbuz is dead at last? LORD SPARKISH: Yes; or else he’s sadly wrong’d, for they have bury’d him’ (p. 77).
12.335: debt of nature
From Archibald McDonald’s Some of Ossian’s Lesser Poems Rendered into Verse (1805): ‘Thou must at length the debt of nature pay’ (p. 283; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON). McDonald’s book is a versification of Macpherson’s Poems of Ossian, for which see note at 12.1129.
12.339: tantras
Tantra (Sanskrit): ‘the important’ or ‘the essential’; the name of a Hindu book of mystical teachings and ritual instruction. In Theosophy, tantras refer to mystical formulas when put into action (Powis Hoult, Dictionary of Theosophical Terms, p. 141).
12.341: etheric double
In Theosophy, the etheric double is a spiritual counterpart of the dense physical body, which it pervades and sustains (Hoult, Dictionary of Theosophical Terms, p. 48).
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12.341: jivic rays
In Hindu philosophy, the jiva is the soul, the vital principle (OED).
12.343: pituitary body
The Theosophists believed that the pituitary body controls bodily growth and that it is also the interface of soul and body, by means of which clairvoyant experiences are transmitted to the brain (Hoult, Dictionary of Theosophical Terms, p. 101).
12.346: on the path of prālāyā or return
Pralaya: a Sanskrit word generally used for the Hindu concept (adopted by Theosophists) of the destruction or dissolution of the world, or the time when the world retreats before being refashioned in a new geologic or spiritual era (Hoult, Dictionary of Theosophical Terms, p. 105). Joyce added the macrons over pralaya on a page proof (JJA, vol. 25, p. 20), after he had added macrons over a series of fake Sanskrit words on an earlier proof (see note at 12.354). This word has short vowels and does not take macrons.
12.347: certain bloodthirsty entities on the lower astral levels
This refers to the Hindu notion of the difficulty besetting the soul’s efforts to evolve to a more pure, less earthbound state of being. See note at 9.281.
12.348: the great divide beyond
The great divide: ‘the boundary between life and death’ (OED).
12.349: he had seen as in a glass darkly
From Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in the King James: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known’ (13:12).
12.350: atmic development
Atmâ (and Atman) (Sanskrit): the One Spirit, or the universal principle of life (OED). Or, as the Theosophists interpret, ‘the highest principle in man [. . .] the Higher Self ’ (Hoult, Dictionary of Theosophical Terms, p. 17). Thus, ‘atmic development’ would be the evolution of the soul, over a succession of lifetimes, towards this highest self.
12.354: tālāfānā, ālāvātār, hātākāldā, wātāklāsāt
Mock-Sanskrit transliterations of telephone, elevator, hot and cold, watercloset. Joyce added the macrons over every a on a page proof (JJA, vol. 25, p. 10); these were the first words in this passage to which Joyce added macrons. On a later proof page, he left a note to the printer that these should be in the style of transcriptions of Hindu words (p. 20).
12.355: volupcy
Volupcy: after volupty: pleasure (OED, s.v. volupty). The word—and the similar volupsy— pre-date Joyce’s use (John Simpson, JJON).
12.358: wrong side of Māyā
Mâyâ (Sanskrit): illusion; ‘In its widest sense, Mâyâ, being the principle of form or limitation, may be said to include all manifestation, and so we have to go beyond manifestation to escape from it; but the word is generally used in a relative sense for phenomena or objective appearances that are created by the mind’ (Hoult, Dictionary of Theosophical
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582 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Terms, p. 83). Thus, to be on the ‘wrong side of Mâyâ’ is to be in error, to be stuck in the lower world of illusion. Joyce added the macrons for Mâyâ on a page proof (JJA, vol. 25, p. 20).
12.359: devanic circles
Deva (Sanskrit): ‘shining one’ or ‘god’. The Hindus and the Theosophists use the term very broadly, to designate ‘almost any being functioning on planes higher than the physical, whether concerned with human evolution or not’ (Hoult, Dictionary of Theosophical Terms, p. 37). Thus, to be in ‘devanic circles’ is to be on a higher spiritual plane, among higher beings.
12.359–60: Mars and Jupiter were out for mischief . . . where the ram has power
That is, the astrological conjunction of Mars and Jupiter in the constellation Aries (the ram) produces a bad omen.
12.362: We greet you, friends of earth, who are still in the body
The phrases ‘friend of earth’ and ‘in the body’ (or ‘still in the body’) ‘were conventional spiritualist and theosophist expressions describing those who had not yet passed over to the spiritual side through death’ (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
12.362: C. K.
That is, Corny Kelleher, who oversaw Dignam’s funeral for H. J. O’Neill’s funeral home. (The Theosophists were fond of using only initials.)
12.368: commode See note at 4.383.
12.368: return room
Return room: ‘a mezzanine room at the turn of a flight of stairs’ (OED).
12.369: sent to Cullen’s to be soled
M. Cullen: ‘military bootmaker’, 56 Mary Street (Thom’s, p. 1541).
12.375: Banba
Banba: ‘a triune goddess—Banba, Fotla, and Éire—representing the spirit of Ireland’ (Ellis). Banba was the preferred epithet of Ireland for Standish O’Grady (Irish historian, 1848–1928), who wrote: ‘A writer of to-day will employ Erin where the bards used Banba’ (History of Ireland, p. 174).
12.379: point duty
Point duty: a policeman’s traffic detail (OED).
12.381: physog
Physog: the face (Partridge).
12.381: slidder
That is, slither in a thick Dublin accent.
12.382: bawways
Baw-ways (Hiberno-English): askew (OED).
12.384: poll
See note at 10.339.
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 583
12.386: Who said Christ is good?
As revealed in ‘The Boarding House’, Bob Doran habitually lapses into atheism while drinking: ‘As a young man he had sown his wild oats, of course; he had boasted of his free- thinking and denied the existence of God to his companions in public-houses. But that was all passed and done with. . . nearly’ (Dubliners, p. 66).
12.397: The tear is bloody near your eye
After Thomas Moore’s ‘Erin, the Tear and the Smile in Thine Eyes’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 5), and a proverbial Dublin expression (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.398–400: Mooney, the bumbailiff ’s daughter . . . stravaging about the landings
Recapitulates the action of the Dubliners story ‘The Boarding House’, where Mrs Mooney forces Bob Doran, one of her tenants, to marry her daughter Polly. Polly’s father is a ‘sheriff ’s man’ (p. 61), or bumbailiff (see note at 11.1243). Kip: a boarding house (OED). Hardwicke Street is in north-east Dublin, near Eccles Street. To stravage: to wander about aimlessly (OED, s.v. stravaig).
12.405–06: extinction of that beam of heaven
From Hugh Blair’s (Scottish minister and author, 1718–1800) ‘Critical Dissertation’ to James MacPherson’s (Scottish poet and politician, 1736–96) Poems of Ossian (see note at 12.1129): ‘But the poet’s art is not yet exhausted. The fall of this noble young warrior, or, in Ossian’s style, the extinction of this beam of heaven, could not be rendered too interesting and affected’ (p. 91).
12.407: skeezing
Skeezing: peering, glancing obliquely (OED).
12.410: Bloom slopes in with his cod’s eye See note at 12.214.
12.412: O, Christ M‘Keown
Anglicisation of Críost, m’ochón: Irish, ‘Christ, my sorrow’.
12.419: painful case
The title of one of the stories in Dubliners.
12.419–20: i hanged Joe Gann
Joseph Gann was the name of a British consular official in Zürich with whom Joyce had unpleasant dealings; see note at 15.48 for details.
12.420: Bootle jail
Bootle is a small coastal town near Liverpool.
12.422: Arthur Chace for fowl murder of Jessie Tilsit
Unknown. ‘Foul murder’ and ‘foully murdered’ were common collocations in British and Irish newspaper reportage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; for example: ‘Everybody was by now convinced that the old man had been foully murdered for the money he was carrying’ (Penny Illustrated Paper, 20 Apr. 1912, p. 492).
12.422–23: Pentonville prison
Pentonville prison, Caledonian Road, Islington, London (opened 1842). Following the clos ure of Newgate Prison, the gallows were moved to Pentonville in 1902, which became the
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584 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses site of numerous executions, including that of Roger Casement (see note at 12.1545) (Mitchel Roth, Prisons and Prison Systems, p. 207).
12.425: Billington
James Billington (1847–1901): a prolific English hangman; originally a barber. In 1899, he wrote to Alf Bergan—in his capacity as assistant to the sub-sheriff—to offer his services as an executioner whilst on vacation in Ireland, in terms similar to this letter (Ellmann, p. 43). His offer was accepted and he executed three people. The Weekly Freeman noted that ‘[m]any years have passed since so many executions took place within a few days in this country. We trust that when he leaves our shores, Billington will not be summoned back again for the rest of his life’ (14 Jan. 1899, quoted in Igoe, p. 29).
12.425: Toad Smith
Smith was a consular official along with Joseph Gann (see note at 12.419–20); Joyce referred to him as ‘the toad’ (Ellmann, pp. 458–59); see note at 15.48 for details.
12.430: H. Rumbold
Sir Horace Rumbold (1869–1941): the British ambassador to Switzerland at the time Joyce lived in Zürich and thus in charge of Gann and Smith (Ellmann, pp. 426–28, 440–47, 458); see note at 15.48 for details.
12.431: Master Barber
Until 1745, barber and surgeon were synonymous (OED).
12.438: prime stinkers
Stinker: ‘a rank cigar’ (OED).
12.441: the black country
Black country: ‘an area of the West Midlands of England which, esp. in the 19th cent., was blackened by the smoke and dust of the coal and iron trades there’ (OED; s.v. black). Liverpool, where Rumbold hails from, is not in the West Midlands. However, the word might be used in the Hiberno-English sense as a pejorative for Protestants and Presbyterians (see note at 2.275).
12.447: Erebus
Erebus: ‘in Greek mythology, the son of Chaos and brother of Night; hence darkness personified. His name was given to the gloomy underground cavern through which the Shades had to walk in their passage to Hades’ (Brewer’s).
12.448: for I will on nowise suffer it
Nowise: ‘In no way or manner; not at all’ (OED).
12.451: codology
Codology (Hiberno-English): ‘the business of fooling someone by a pretence or misrepresentation; leg-pulling, stringing them along, telling tall stories’; a common expression from the late nineteenth century (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
12.452–53: I’m told those Jewies does have a sort of queer odour
The idea that Jews exude a specific smell—dubbed the foetor judaïcus—is a staple of anti- Semitic prejudice. The ‘mephitic odors attributed to [the Jews] are so violent that they have
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 585 persisted through the ages and even in our own time incited German scholars to investigate the nature and origins of the foetor judaïcus’ (Léon Poliakov, The History of Anti- Semitism, vol. 1, p. 142). ‘Let us note further that there must have been, at the origin of this belief, a kind of association between Jewish impiety and infidelity and stench, to which were opposed the celestial aromas of the true piety’ (p. 143 n. 14). The foetor judaïcus has also been linked to the myth that Jewish men menstruate (Irven Resnick, ‘Medieval Roots of the Myth of Jewish Male Menses’, p. 244).
12.459: God’s truth See note at 1.505.
12.460: Kilmainham
Kilmainham Jail, Inchicore Road, in west Dublin. Although there had been a jail in the Kilmainham area as far back as 1210, the modern prison first opened in 1796 and was enlarged in 1857. After the failed insurrection of 1798, the cells were filled with political prisoners. Many subsequent revolutionaries and republicans were either imprisoned or executed there, including the leaders of the Easter Week rising of 1916. It closed in 1924 (Bennett).
12.460: Joe Brady, the invincible
Joe Brady (c.1857–83), one of the Invincibles directly involved in the Phoenix Park Murders (see note at 5.378), was hanged at Kilmainham on 14 May 1883 (DIB).
12.463: Ruling passion strong in death
From Alexander Pope’s (1688–1744) Moral Essays (1731–35): ‘And you! brave Cobham, to the latest breath / Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death: / Such in those moments as in all the past, / “Oh, save my Country, Heav’n!” shall be your last’ (I.262–65).
12.464–65: It’s only a natural phenomenon
‘The lumbar cord reflex center, which mediates both erection and ejaculation, is under the influence of [. . .] the cerebral cortex. This would explain erections immediately following a hanging when inhibitory impulses have been suddenly severed’ (H. L. P. Resnik, quoted in Jeffrey Meyers, ‘Erotic Hangings in “Cyclops” ’, p. 346).
12.466: jawbreakers
Jaw-breaker: ‘A word hard to pronounce; a word of many syllables’ (OED).
12.468: Luitpold Blumenduft
Luitpold Blumenduft (German): Leopold Flower-aroma.
12.474: corpora cavernosa
Corpora cavernosa (Latin): ‘cavernous entities’; the tissue in the penis that expands when engorged with blood.
12.478: philoprogenitive
Philoprogenitive: ‘favouring the production of offspring’ (OED).
12.478: in articulo mortis per diminutionem capitis
In articulo mortis per diminutionem capitis (Latin): ‘at the point of death by decrease of the head’; but since diminutio capitis also means ‘forfeiture of civil rights’, this phrase also means ‘at the point of death through forfeiture of civil rights’.
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12.480: the invincibles See note at 5.378.
12.480: the old guard
Presumably the early leaders of the Fenian Society: James Stephens (1825–1901), John O’Leary (1830–1907), Charles Joseph Kickham (1826–82), and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa (1831–1915). ‘By 1900, the Fenian and “physical force” element seemed completely out of the picture’ (Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 337).
12.481: the men of sixtyseven
The Fenians mounted an armed insurrection against British rule in February and March 1867 with various engagements across the country. Due to poor planning, these were quickly and easily suppressed by the British, and the perpetrators were soon imprisoned. The leaders did issue a proclamation in which they proclaimed themselves the leaders of the provisional government of the Irish Republic (Kee, The Green Flag, pp. 330–40).
12.481: who fears to speak of ninetyeight
The Rebellion of 1798 and the opening line of John Kells Ingram’s ‘The Memory of the Dead’; see notes at 10.790 and 11.1072–73.
12.483: drumhead courtmartial
Drumhead courtmartial: a courtmartial ‘held in haste in the field to punish on the spot; from the onetime custom of holding it round the big drum’ (Brewer’s).
12.483–84: a new Ireland and a new this, that and the other
From The Leader: ‘The popular thing all over Ireland is to shout about Nationality, about Ireland a Nation, immortal spirit of this and that and the other thing, but absolutely to refuse to come to close quarters. If you ask—What do all these things stand for? everyone is silent’ (29 Sep. 1900, p. 65; with thanks to Josh Newman).
12.487: standing Alf a half one
That is, buying Alf Bergan a half pint; see note at 6.188–89.
12.494: give you the bloody pip
To give the pip: to depress or annoy (Partridge).
12.495: Jacob’s tin
W. and R. Jacob & Co.: ‘biscuit manufacturers’, offices: 28–30 Bishop Street; factory and stores: 5–12 Peter’s Row, 19–21, 26–39, 50 Bishop Street, and 10–14 Peter Street (Thom’s, p. 1911). Founded in Waterford in 1850 by William Beale Jacob and his brother Robert, the firm moved to Dublin in 1852, where it soon became one of the largest businesses within the city (Séamas Ó Maitiú, W. and R. Jacob, pp. 17–20). ‘Boxes and tins of Jacob’s Biscuits commonly carried such symbols as the Union Jack or redcoated soldiers’ (Mark Osteen, The Economy of ‘Ulysses’, p. 277 n. 19).
12.496: he golloped it down like old boots
To gollop: to swallow greedily or hastily (OED). Old Boots: the devil; to do something ‘like old boots’: to do that thing vigorously (Partridge, s.vv. old boots; like old boots).
12.496–97: tongue hanging out . . . a yard long See note at 9.565.
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 587
12.499: brothers Sheares
The brothers Henry Sheares (c.1755–98) and John Sheares (c.1766–98) were members of the United Irishmen who were executed in 1798 for their role in the rebellion of that year. They walked hand-in-hand to the gallows. They are buried in the crypt of St Michan’s church (DIB). Among the memorabilia on display at Barney Kiernan’s was a piece of rope that had bound the Sheares brothers as well as the glass of the hangman who hanged them ‘and sundry other hangmen’s glasses’ (McHugh, ‘The Passing of Barney Kiernan’s’, p. 13).
12.499: Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill
Rather than suffer execution, Wolfe Tone (see note at 10.378) died of a self-inflicted wound at the old Provost Marshal’s prison, on Arbour Hill (DIB), which is the street where this chapter began (see note at 12.2).
12.499–500: Robert Emmet and die for your country See note at 6.977–78.
12.500–01: the Tommy Moore touch . . . she’s far from the land
Thomas Moore wrote a sentimental song about Robert Emmet’s grieving fiancée Sarah Curran (1782–1808), ‘She Is Far From the Land’: ‘She Is Far From the Land where her young hero sleeps, / And lovers are around her, sighing: / But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, / For her heart in his grave is lying’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 80, ll. 1–4). See also note at 12.658–59 for Curran’s fate after Emmet’s execution.
12.502: knockmedown cigar
Suggests the burning log Odysseus uses to blind the Cyclops (Odyssey, IX.382–86).
12.504: the City Arms See note at 8.716.
12.504: pisser Burke
Andrew ‘Pisser’ Burke is fictitious, but the nickname comes from ‘Pisser’ Duffy, ‘a little red- headed rough- neck’ with whom Stanislaus had a fist- fight when the Joyces lived in Drumcondra around 1894 (Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, pp. 72–73).
12.505: an old one
That is, Mrs Riordan; see note at 6.378.
12.505: loodheramaun
Loodheramaun (liúdramán) (Hiberno-English): a big, lazy man (Dolan).
12.506: mollycoddle
Mollycoddle: ‘A man who performs a woman’s domestic duties’ (OED, s.v. mollycot).
12.507: bézique
Bézique: ‘a game of cards, in which the name “Bezique” is applied to the occurrence in one hand of the knave of diamonds and queen of spades’ (OED). The accent was commonly used on this word in English.
12.507: wampum
Wampum: cylindrical beads used as money by Native Americans (OED).
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12.508: of a Friday See note at 6.887.
12.508: thumping her craw See note at 5.382.
12.510: by the holy farmer
That is, ‘by the holy father (i.e., the Pope)’, a ‘low Dublin oath’ (Partridge).
12.510: never cried crack
To cry crack: to give in or desist in doing something (OED, s.v. crack).
12.511–12: by herrings
A Hiberno-English euphemism for ‘by heavens’ (PWJ, p. 69).
12.513: Mrs O’Dowd
Elizabeth O’Dowd (listed as Miss, not Mrs) owned the City Arms Hotel (Thom’s, p. 2069).
12.516: Power’s after, the blender’s, round in Cope street
John T. Power’s wholesale spirits business, 18 Cope Street, in the centre of Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1462).
12.517: footless
Footless: drunk (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
12.519: The memory of the dead See note at 10.790.
12.523: Sinn Fein! says the citizen. Sinn fein amhain!
Sinn Féin . . . Sinn Féin Amháin! (Irish): ‘We ourselves! . . . We ourselves alone!’ Since the mid-nineteenth century this phrase was used as a rallying cry and slogan by various Irish nationalists and appears in several songs and poems, such as Reverend John Sheridan’s ballad ‘Sinn Fein’, with its chorus, ‘List that grand refrain, / A nation once again—/ Raise up that banner our right to maintain, / Ireland is calling you, be to your country true, / Ireland a Nation, Ireland a Nation, Ireland a Nation, / Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein’. And Brian O’Higgins’s ‘Sinn Fein Amain’, with its chorus, ‘On for a nation’s right; on to that noble fight; / Leap from your sleep at the call of the dawn; / Win back your own again, tear off the Thraldom chain; / On, on, the war-cry is Sinn Fein Amain’ (Bauerle, pp. 452–53). See also note at 8.458.
12.523–24: The friends we love are by our side and the foes we hate before us
From Thomas Moore’s ‘Where Is the Slave?’: ‘We tread the land that bore us, / Her green flag glitters o’er us, / The friends we’ve tried / Are by our side, / And the foe we hate before us’ (ll. 18–22, Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 118).
12.533–34: assembled multitude . . . five hundred thousand persons
This number recalls the mass of people assembled for Daniel O’Connell’s monster meetings in 1843 which were organised to press for repeal of the Act of Union (see note at 7.880).
12.536: the York Street brass and reed band
The York Street Brass and Reed Band was associated with the Dublin Total Abstinence League and Workmen’s Club, 41 York Street (Thom’s, p. 1626). The organisation was founded in 1872 and closed in 1918. It was intensely nationalist and pro- Parnellite. The club’s
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 589 ‘members maintained that good temperance men could also be good Nationalists’ (Freeman’s Journal, 3 July 1918, p. 3, col. d); see also note at 12.692 for temperance movements in Ireland.
12.539: Speranza’s plaintive muse
Speranza: the pseudonym of Lady Wilde (née Jane Francisca Elgee, c.1821–96), Oscar Wilde’s mother and a member of the Young Ireland literary and revolutionary movement. She was a prominent poet and folklorist (DIB). ‘Her intense nationalism during the 1840s was driven by the sight of Irish bodies dying of starvation and the romantic patriotism of Thomas Davis’ verse. Her answer to Irish immiseration was rebellion’ (Jarlath Killeen, The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, p. 87).
12.542–43: The Night before Larry was Stretched
The title of an eighteenth-century Irish ballad about the raucous scene in a jail cell on the eve of the eponymous Larry’s execution as his friends pay him a final visit (Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, pp. 475–77).
12.546: real Irish fun without vulgarity
After the expression ‘funny without being vulgar’, much in use—without being applied to specifically Irish matters—at the turn of the twentieth century (Dent).
12.547: Male and Female Foundling hospital
No such hospital is listed in Thom’s. Most homes for destitute children were single-sex, but Thom’s lists one mixed-sex, Catholic institution, St Brigid’s Orphanage at 46 Eccles Street (p. 1374) and one such Protestant institution, the Protestant Orphan Society, with headquarters at 28 Molesworth Street (p. 1373).
12.549–50: Little Sisters of the Poor
Little Sisters of the Poor, ‘Sisters of Charity, Home for Aged, St. Patrick’s house’, South Circular Road, Kilmainham (Thom’s, p. 1932).
12.554: Friends of the Emerald Isle
This group is of Joyce’s invention, but this phrase was in use as an epithet for Hibernophiles; for example, ‘Last evening nearly one hundred of the Irish resident in Liverpool, and friends of the Emerald Isle, celebrated the anniversary of St Patrick, by dining together at the Angel Hotel, Dale-street’ (Freeman’s Journal, 20 Mar. 1845, p. 4, col. a).
12.556: Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone
Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone (Italian): ‘Commander Kissykissy Quitewellverywell’. Baci: kiss. Benino: quite well. Benone: very well.
12.558: Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant
Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant (French): ‘Mister Peterpaul Littledandy’. Petit: little. Épatant: dandy.
12.559: Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff
Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff (Pseudo- Russian): ‘Grand Duke Vladimir Pocket-handkerchief ’.
12.560: von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler
Von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler (German): literally, ‘from the Dickbath-Testicularvalley’; this follows the generic name-form of an ancient noble German family. Schwanz: tail, penis (obscene). Bad: bath or spa. Hoden: testicle. Tal: valley.
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 587
12.499: brothers Sheares
The brothers Henry Sheares (c.1755–98) and John Sheares (c.1766–98) were members of the United Irishmen who were executed in 1798 for their role in the rebellion of that year. They walked hand-in-hand to the gallows. They are buried in the crypt of St Michan’s church (DIB). Among the memorabilia on display at Barney Kiernan’s was a piece of rope that had bound the Sheares brothers as well as the glass of the hangman who hanged them ‘and sundry other hangmen’s glasses’ (McHugh, ‘The Passing of Barney Kiernan’s’, p. 13).
12.499: Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill
Rather than suffer execution, Wolfe Tone (see note at 10.378) died of a self-inflicted wound at the old Provost Marshal’s prison, on Arbour Hill (DIB), which is the street where this chapter began (see note at 12.2).
12.499–500: Robert Emmet and die for your country See note at 6.977–78.
12.500–01: the Tommy Moore touch . . . she’s far from the land
Thomas Moore wrote a sentimental song about Robert Emmet’s grieving fiancée Sarah Curran (1782–1808), ‘She Is Far From the Land’: ‘She Is Far From the Land where her young hero sleeps, / And lovers are around her, sighing: / But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, / For her heart in his grave is lying’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 80, ll. 1–4). See also note at 12.658–59 for Curran’s fate after Emmet’s execution.
12.502: knockmedown cigar
Suggests the burning log Odysseus uses to blind the Cyclops (Odyssey, IX.382–86).
12.504: the City Arms See note at 8.716.
12.504: pisser Burke
Andrew ‘Pisser’ Burke is fictitious, but the nickname comes from ‘Pisser’ Duffy, ‘a little red- headed rough- neck’ with whom Stanislaus had a fist- fight when the Joyces lived in Drumcondra around 1894 (Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, pp. 72–73).
12.505: an old one
That is, Mrs Riordan; see note at 6.378.
12.505: loodheramaun
Loodheramaun (liúdramán) (Hiberno-English): a big, lazy man (Dolan).
12.506: mollycoddle
Mollycoddle: ‘A man who performs a woman’s domestic duties’ (OED, s.v. mollycot).
12.507: bézique
Bézique: ‘a game of cards, in which the name “Bezique” is applied to the occurrence in one hand of the knave of diamonds and queen of spades’ (OED). The accent was commonly used on this word in English.
12.507: wampum
Wampum: cylindrical beads used as money by Native Americans (OED).
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 591 Andrew Merry, a pseudonym for Mildred Darby (London: Grant Richards, 1903; with thanks to Harald Beck).
12.565–66: Goosepond Přhklštř Kratchinabritchisitch
Combines various Slavic languages. ‘Goosepond’ suggests the Russian Gospodin, Mister. With its lack of vowels, ‘Přhklštř’ suggests a (non- existent) Czech word. ‘Kratch inabritchisitch’: suggests a Russian word and phonetically suggests the English words ‘Crack in his britches itch’. On a page proof, Joyce requested the addition of carons (an inverted circumflex accent used in various Slavic languages) to the word ‘Prhklstr’ (JJA, vol. 25, p. 102), but these were not added until Gabler’s edition.
12.566: Borus Hupinkoff
Borus Hupinkoff (Pseudo-Russian): Boris Whooping-cough. The name also echoes Boris Gudunov (c.1551–1605), Regent (1584–98) and eventually Czar (1598–1605) of all the Russias (EB11). He is the eponymous character in a play by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799–1837), which was written in 1826, but was not performed until 1831 because of censorship, and an opera from 1874 by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–81). Joyce added this name to the list in a note he wrote to the printer in January 1922; the printer wrote on the note ‘trop tard’ (too late) (JJA, vol. 25, p. 103) and the name remained unincluded until Gabler’s edition (UCSE, p. 662).
12.566–67: Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli
Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli- Steuerli (Pseudo- German): Mister Whorehouse-director-president Hans Chuechli-Steurli. Hurhaus, while comprehensible to a German speaker, is not properly a German word; it plays off kurhaus, which means sanitorium. Chuechli (Swiss-German): little cakes (the guttural ch makes this a difficult word for non- German speakers to pronounce). Steuern (German): taxes; -li is a common diminutive in Swiss German (with thanks to Fritz Senn).
12.567–69: Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatorium . . . Ueberallgemein
The title exaggerates the German language’s facility for coining lengthy, even cumbersome compound words. ‘Kriegfried suggests Siegfried and means ‘War-peace’. Ueberallgemein literally means ‘Over-universal’, and is used to describe a distribution of plants or animals over a wide area. Here, it suggests the old German national anthem, ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles’ (Germany, Germany over Everything), the words of which were written to a Haydn melody in 1841 by A. H. Hoffman von Falersleben (1798–1874).
12.573: F.O.T.E.I.
Friends of the Emerald Isle; see note at 12.554.
12.573: whether the eighth or the ninth of March
St Patrick’s birth date (as well as its location) is not known. His death date is traditionally celebrated on March 17. Samuel Lover referred to a debate over the precise date in ‘The Birth of St Patrick’: ‘Boys, don’t be fightin’ for eight or for nine, / Don’t always be dividin’— but sometimes combine’ (Poetical Works, p. 172). In other words, the date we celebrate was achieved by combining the eighth and ninth: the seventeenth.
12.575: blunderbusses
Blunderbuss: ‘A short gun with a large bore, firing many balls or slugs, and capable of doing execution within a limited range without exact aim’ (OED).
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12.575: stinkpots
Stink-pot: ‘A hand missile charged with combustibles emitting a suffocating smoke’ (OED).
12.576: knuckleduster
Knuckle-duster: ‘A metal instrument made to cover the knuckles, so as to protect them from injury in striking, and at the same time to add force to a blow given with the fist thus covered’ (OED). Also known as brass knuckles.
12.577–79: The baby policeman, Constable MacFadden . . . Booterstown
Booterstown: a small village about 6.4 km south- east of Dublin and the site of a Metropolitan Police Station (Thom’s, p. 1644). The ‘baby policeman’s’ absurd height (nine feet, 2.74 metres) pokes fun at the Dublin police height requirements (see note at 4.178). In ‘An Interview with John Stanislaus Joyce’ (see note at 11.611), Joyce’s father recalls a friend he calls the Baby Policeman: ‘He was only 6 feet 5 inches [1.96 m] in height. And he was a dam [sic] decent fellow too, and he used be [sic] generally on duty at the end of Grafton Street, outside Trinity College’ (p. 166). Igoe identifies two policemen named MacFadden, but both are under 6 foot/1.8 metres in height (p. 185).
12.586: Avvocato Pagamimi
Avvocato (Italian): lawyer. Pagamimi (Italian): literally, ‘Pay-me-me’; a play on the name of Niccolò Paganini (Italian violinist, 1782–1840).
12.587: thirtytwo pockets
The Commendatore’s thirty-two pockets correspond to Ireland’s thirty-two counties.
12.593: Gladiolus Cruentus
Gladiolus Cruentus (Latin): ‘bloodstained little sword’.
12.600–01: hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, chinchin, polla kronia . . . evviva
Toasts or exclamations from various languages. Hoch (German): high or noble. Banzai (Japanese): ‘10,000 years’ (a war cry). Éljen (Hungarian): ‘may he live a long life’. Zivio (Serbo- Croatian): ‘long life’. Chinchin (Anglo-Chinese): hello. Polla kronia (Modern Greek): ‘long life’. Hiphip: an English cheer. Vive (French): ‘live’. Allah (Arabic): God. Eviva (Italian): ‘live’.
12.603: eunuch Catalani
See note at 5.408 for castrato. No castrato by the name of Catalani is known. Perhaps a reference to the soprano Angelica Catalani (1780–1849), one of the greatest prima donnas of the early nineteenth century. ‘Her voice impressed many musical critics of the time because of its range and power, and she was one of the people who put the castrati out of business’ (John Louis DiGaetani, An Invitation to the Opera, p. 136).
12.607: revolution of Rienzi
In 1347 in Rome, Cola di Rienzi (or Rienzo, c.1313–54) led a popular and bloodless uprising that deposed the city’s ruling aristocracy. He hoped to restore the city’s former glory by establishing an Italian federation centred on Rome, but his erratic temperament led to him being killed (EB11).
12.619: quartering knife, the various finely tempered disembowelling appliances
Robert Emmet, on whose execution this sketch is loosely based, was hanged and then beheaded, not drawn and quartered; see note at 10.764. The bodies of the Sheares brothers
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 593 (see note at 12.499) were cut up after they were hanged (R. R. Madden, The United Irishmen, vol. 4, p. 325).
12.620–21: Messrs John Round and Sons, Sheffield
John Round and Son: silver and electro-plate manufacturer of high-quality hollowware, flatware, and cutlery, Tudor Works, Sheffield, founded in 1847 (The Watchmaker, Jeweller, and Silversmith, 1 Oct. 1889, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 85). The mistake in their name is Joyce’s.
12.622: blind intestine
This is, the cæcum, or blind gut, ‘the first part of the large intestine, so called because it is prolonged behind the opening of the ilium into a cul-de-sac’ (OED).
12.623–24: the most precious blood of the most precious victim
The phrase ‘most precious blood’ is typically used to refer to Christ’s blood; for example, in the Prayer of the Most Precious Blood: ‘Most Precious Blood of life eternal! price and ransom of the world! the soul’s drink and the soul’s bath [. . .] Who will not bless this Blood of value infinite? who not burn for love of Jesus who shed it all for us?’ (Ambrose St John, The Raccolta, p. 96).
12.625: amalgamated cats’ and dogs’ home See note at 6.125.
12.634: aliquot parts
Aliquot parts: parts ‘contained in another a certain number of times without leaving any remainder’ (OED). Such a division as described here is impossible. ‘The aliquot parts for 12, for example, would be 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. The only example on record of an object being divided into its aliquot parts is, therefore, the miracle of the loaves and the fishes’ (Ray Mines and Reed Way Dasenbrock, ‘ “Nought Nowhere Was Never Reached” ’, p. 26).
12.634–35: sick and indigent roomkeepers’ association
The Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society: 2 Palace Street (Thom’s, p. 1565), right by Dublin Castle. Founded in 1790, it is Dublin’s oldest private charity. ‘Its aim is to prevent pauperism by encouraging the industrious, and by promptly assisting those in temporary distress through no fault of their own’ (p. 1383).
12.635–36: nec and non plus ultra
Nec plus ultra (Latin): ‘and not farther beyond’. Non plus ultra (Latin): ‘not farther beyond’.
12.638: launched into eternity
To launch into eternity: ‘to put to death’ (OED, s.v. launch). After an account of Emmet’s execution by Michael MacDonagh, published in The Eclectic Magazine in November 1903: ‘the condemned youth was to stand to be launched into eternity’ (3rd series, vol. 10, no. 5, p. 682; cited in Dent).
12.640: Sheila, my own
Shiela-ni-Gara (or Sheela na Guire): a personification of Ireland as represented in numerous poems and ballads, such as ‘Sheela na Guire’, which is a translation of an Irish song from the time of the Jacobite uprising of the mid-1740s by John D’Alton (James Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy, vol. 2, p. 138).
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12.645: hurling match
Hurling (or hurley): an Irish field sport played with a stick with a broad blade (called a hurley). ‘It is the oldest game played in Ireland’ and dates to at least as far back as the thirteenth century (Brewer’s Irish).
12.646: Clonturk park
Clonturk Park is in Drumcondra, a suburb north of Dublin, near the River Tolka (DD, p. 183). Its fields were used for Gaelic football and hurling matches, which often attracted riotous hooligans (Dónall Ó Luanaigh, ‘Glimpses of Drumcondra’, p. 190).
12.647: Anna Liffey See note at 8.80.
12.650–51: That monster audience
Recalls Daniel O’Connell’s ‘monster meetings’; see notes at 7.880 and 12.523–24.
12.656–57: making frank use of their handkerchiefs
After the poem ‘The Brothers: Henry and John Sheares’ (see note at 12.499) by Speranza (see note at 12.539), which describes the spectators at the Sheares’ trial ‘sobbing [. . .] And the strongest men can hardly see for weeping’ (ll. 10–11).
12.658–59: handsome young Oxford graduate
Emmet’s fiancée Sarah Curran (1782–1808) married Captain Henry Sturgeon in 1806, three years after Emmet’s execution. Sturgeon (1781–1814) was a member of the Royal Army Staff Corps; he was not a graduate of Oxford but of the Royal Military Academy and served his country during the Napoleonic Wars (R. R. Madden, Life and Times of Robert Emmet, pp. 215–19). Curran’s marriage to Sturgeon was, predictably, not well regarded by Irish nationalists. Justin Huntly McCarthy (1830–1912) writes: ‘It is melancholy to have to record the fact that the betrothed wife of Robert Emmet was not entirely faithful to his memory. She married, at the instance, it is said, of her friends, and did not long survive her marriage’ (Ireland since the Union, p. 74; quoted in Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana II’, p. 245).
12.669–70: provostmarshal, lieutenant-colonel . . . Tomlinson
A fictitious name, but the name Maxwell is likely an allusion to General Sir John Grenfell Maxwell (1859–1929), who was appointed military governor over Ireland in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising. He presided over the secret tribunals that ordered the execution of the leaders of the rebellion (ODNB; with thanks to Colm Tóibín). The name ffrenchmullan is probably in jocular reference to St Laurence ffrench-Mullen, a Royal Navy surgeon and a supporter of Parnell. His daughter, Madeleine ffrench-Mullen (1880–1944) was a prominent nationalist and social advocate. She was friends with Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington (see note at 2.256) and served in the Citizen’s Army during the 1916 Easter Rising (DIB, s.v. Madeleine ffrench-Mullen).
12.671–72: blown a considerable number of sepoys . . . cannonmouth
Sepoys: Indian troops trained by and serving the British (OED). In 1764, the first sepoy mutiny ‘was quelled by Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, who ordered 24 of the ringleaders to be blown from guns—an old Mughal punishment’ (William Wilson Hunter, The Indian Empire, p. 386). This punishment was reprised during the sepoy mutiny of 1857–58 (Christopher Hibbert, The Great Mutiny, pp. 124–25).
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12.673: a furtive tear
After the Italian Una furtiva lagrima, the title of an aria sung by the tenor in Act II, scene 2 of Gaetano Donizetti’s (1797–1848) opera L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love, 1832).
12.676: God blimey
God blimey (Cockney swear): ‘God blind me’ (Partridge).
12.676: clinker
Clinker: ‘a person or thing of excellence’ (Partridge).
12.678: mashtub
Mashtub: used in the process of brewing, ‘a tub in which malt is mashed’ (OED); used here to derogatively refer to one’s wife.
12.678: Limehouse
A slum in east London. ‘The activities of a few opium users and inveterate gamblers were sensationally reported by the press’ (Ben Weinreb et al., The London Encyclopaedia, p. 484).
12.679: the corporation meeting
That is the meeting of the Dublin Corporation held earlier that day; see 10.1004–07.
12.680: shoneens
Shoneen (Hiberno-English): ‘a person more interested in English language and customs than Irish ones’; a diminutive of ‘Seon (variant of Sean), John (as a typical English name: cf. John Bull [see note at 16.1774–75])’ (Dolan); thus shoneen literally translates as ‘little Sean’ or ‘little John’. Shoneen was a recurrent epithet D. P. Moran (Irish nationalist and journalist, 1869–1936) used to disparage any Irish citizen he deemed to be insufficiently nationalist, ‘which implicated most Irish nationalists, indeed it would seem, most Irish people’ (Toomey, ‘Moran’s Collar’, p. 45).
12.683: Gaelic league See note at 7.796.
12.683: antitreating league
In February 1902, St Patrick’s Anti-Treating League was founded with the goal of eliminating the practice of providing rounds of drinks at a pub (treating). This was seen as a way of reducing public drinking without going so far as to promote total abstinence (‘The Anti-Treating League’, The Irish Times, 4 Oct. 1902, p. 5, col. e). ‘The campaign was driven by the fear that “treating” discouraged moderation. A man entering a pub for one or two drinks was, if drawn into a round, bound by honour to continue drinking until he could reciprocate—and might then be tempted to remain until other members of the group had stood drinks in turn’ (Katherine Mullin, ‘James Joyce, Drink, and the Rounds System’, p. 312).
12.684: drink, the curse of Ireland
The phrase was so common as to be almost proverbial during the nineteenth century; for example, from Anna Maria (Mrs S. C.) Hall’s (Irish novelist, 1800–81) Lights and Shadows of Irish Life (1838): ‘during the same period he must not taste whiskey, which Margaret, like all sensible women, considered the curse of Ireland’ (vol. 1, p. 27).
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12.687–88: she could get up on a truss of hay
A variation on the lyrics of ‘The Low Back’d Car’ by Samuel Lover: ‘When first I saw sweet Peggy, / ’Twas on a market day; / A low back’d car she drove, and sat / Upon a truss of hay’ (Bauerle, pp. 457–59).
12.688: Maureen Lay
Maureen Lay: an Anglicisation of the Irish Máirín lé, a term of endearment that literally means: Maureen affection (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.689: Ballyhooly blue ribbon badge
The Blue Ribbon was the name of an international temperance movement in the late nineteenth century; its members would wear a blue ribbon badge to signify total abstinence from alcohol (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Temperance Movements). The song ‘The Ballyhooly Blue Ribbon Army’ is about a phoney temperance group from Ballyhooly, a small village in north County Cork (Kurt Gänzl, The British Musical Theatre, vol. 1, p. 300). Ballyhooly was ‘notorious for its faction fights, so that it has passed into a proverb’ (PWJ, p. 213).
12.690: colleen bawns See note at 12.194.
12.691: flahoolagh
Flahoolagh (in Irish, flaithiúlach): a Hiberno-English term meaning ‘generous (often used ironically)’ (Dolan).
12.692: don’t be talking See note at 8.229.
12.692: Ireland sober is Ireland free
A much-used (and much-derided) slogan from the Irish temperance movement that links alcoholism in Ireland with British subjugation and, likewise, sobriety with independence; for example, it appears on a message to Irish voters sponsored by the Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance (Freeman’s Journal, 13 July 1895, p. 8, col. a). Various temperance organisations in Ireland—such as the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart, founded in 1899 by Father Theobald Mathew (see note at 6.319–20)—advocated abstinence as both a spiritual and patriotic duty (Elizabeth Malcolm, Ireland Sober is Ireland Free, p. 316). Joyce parodied the slogan in Finnegans Wake: ‘Ireland sober is Ireland stiff ’ (p. 214).
12.693: gougers
Gouger: an aggressive lout (Dolan).
12.694: the tune the old cow died of
In Ireland, ‘Very bad slow music is described as the tune the old cow died of’ (PWJ, p. 124).
12.694: sky pilots
Sky pilots: clergymen, especially those assigned to military units (OED).
12.697: howandever
Howandever (Hiberno-English): however (Dolan).
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12.704: What’s on you
What’s on you (Hiberno-English): ‘What is the matter with you?’; a translation of the Irish Cad tá ort? (Brendan O Hehir, Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 344).
12.708: pro bono publico
Pro bono publico (Latin): ‘for the public good’.
12.710: drouth
See note at 4.44.
12.713: and their name is legion
After Mark 5:9: ‘My name is Legion, [. . .] for we are many.’
12.714: cynanthropy
Cynanthropy: ‘A species of madness in which a man imagines himself to be a dog’ (OED); however, here, the opposite seems to be the case.
12.722: ranns
Rann: ‘A piece of Irish verse; a stanza’; in Irish the word means stanza, partition (OED).
12.723–24: delightful lovesongs
Alludes to Douglas Hyde’s The Love Songs of Connacht; see note at 9.94.
12.725: Little Sweet Branch
Douglas Hyde (see note at 9.94) went by the Irish pseudonym An Craoibhín Aoibhinn (DIB), which translates as Little Sweet Branch.
12.726: D. O. C.
During this period, contributors to newspapers and periodicals frequently were identified only by their initials.
12.729: Raftery
Antoine Ó Raifteirí (Antony Raftery, 1799–1835): a blind poet from County Mayo, whose work was championed by Douglas Hyde and Lady Gregory. Hyde translated his poems from the Irish (DIB). Joyce wrote of him: ‘Raftery, though he be the last of the great bardic procession, has much of the bardic tradition about him’ (OCPW, p. 75).
12.729: Donal MacConsidine
In The Love Songs of Connacht, Hyde writes of ‘that fine Irish scholar, Donal Mac Consadine, from Ennis, in the County Clare’ (p. 11). Donal Mac Consadine (also known as Daniel Considine, d. 1877) was a scribe and collector of folklore from Ennis who provided Hyde with some of the poems for his collection (Eilís Ní Dheá, ‘Na Consaidínigh, Grafnóirí na hInse sa 19ú haois’, p. 73).
12.734–35: alliterative and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh englyn
Isosyllabic: a metrical system in which the syllables are of equal length (OED). Englyn: one of the three classes of ‘strict metres’ in Welsh poetry. The most popular variety of the englyn is a quatrain of thirty syllables distributed 10-6-7-7, possessing one end rhyme on the seventh or eighth syllable of the first line, and with key syllables linked within lines by internal rhymes or alliteration (Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics).
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12.742: dry Thursdays A pun with thirst-days.
12.747: Lowry’s lights See note at 10.495.
12.751: a chara
See note at 12.148.
12.752: not as green as he’s cabbagelooking
Green as he’s cabbage-looking: not as much of a fool as he seems (Partridge, s.v. green).
12.753: old Giltrap’s
See notes at 12.120 and 13.83.
12.754: ratepayers and corporators
Ratepayer: one who pays taxes (OED, s.v. rate). Corporator: ‘A member of a corporation, esp. of a municipal corporation’ (OED); the term was used to refer to the members of the Dublin Corporation (see note at 6.400). For example, an article in the Freeman’s Journal about a contentious Corporation proposal bears the headline ‘Only Twelve Corporators Do their Duty to Citizens’ (24 Jan. 1923, p. 6, col. a).
12.757: Could a swim duck?
Inverts the phrase ‘would a duck swim?’, which is used as an answer made by ‘a person who is offered anything he is very willing to take’ (PWJ, p. 13). The inverted form, ‘can a swim duck?’ was popular among New York comedians in the 1880s (Harald Beck, JJON).
12.764: under the act the mortgagee can’t recover on the policy
Dignam had used his life insurance policy as security for a desperately needed loan (see note at 6.536). Bloom, however, is aware of a legal technicality that might benefit Dignam’s family (Bloom used to work for an insurance agent; see note at 8.939). According to the Policies of Assurance Act 1867, ‘an assignment of a policy of life assurance did not confer on the assignee any right to sue on the policy until a written notice of the assignment had been given to the insurance company’ (Adrian Hardiman, Joyce in Court, p. 105).
12.765: old Shylock is landed
Shylock: the hard-bargaining, Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice; and thus proverbial for an extortionate usurer or an anti-Semitic slur for a Jew in general (OED).
12.773: Bridgeman
The agent to whom Dignam mortgaged his life assurance policy (see notes at 6.536 and 12.764).
12.777: royal Hungarian privileged lottery See note at 8.184–85.
12.778: commend me to an israelite
To commend: ‘To give in trust or charge, deliver to one's care or keeping; to commit, entrust’ (OED). The phrase ‘commend me to . . .’ is common in Shakespeare, but never towards an Israelite; for example, ‘Commend me to your daughter’ (Romeo and Juliet, III.iv.9).
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12.785: Shake hands, brother. You’re a rogue and I’m another
A popular, jocular greeting in Ireland since the nineteenth century. For example: ‘I see the Chartists and Nationalists have shaken hands—this reminds me of the phrase, “shake hands brother, you are a — and I’m another”!’ (Freeman’s Journal, 27 Nov. 1849, p. 4, col. a); the word rogue has been diplomatically redacted (John Simpson, JJON).
12.801: lagged
To lag: to send to prison or, alternately, to arrest a criminal (OED).
12.801: Paddy Leonard See note at 6.142.
12.801–02: the bobby, 14A
A policeman from the A Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police force. This division was stationed in Upper Kevin Street, near the Liberties (Thom’s, p. 1523).
12.802: shebeen
Shebeen (Hiberno-English): an unlicensed liquor-house (Dolan), where alcohol could be purchased and consumed outside the legally sanctioned hours.
12.802: Bride street See note at 3.34.
12.802–03: closing time
Closing time was 11:00 pm; see note at 9.1105.
12.803: shawls
Shawl: a working-class woman or prostitute (Partridge).
12.803: bully
Bully: a pimp (Partridge).
12.803: porter
See note at 3.152.
12.804: Joseph Manuo
Unknown. The Rosenbach Manuscript is ambiguous and reads either ‘Manno’ or ‘Manuo’ (f. 27). The typist typed ‘Manno’, which Joyce emended to ‘Manuo’ (JJA, vol. 13, p. 150). Paul van Caspel argues that ‘Manno’ makes more sense, since it suggests an Anglophone spelling of a French surname such as ‘Manot’ or ‘Maneau’ (‘Annotations to the Annotations of Annotations’, p. 13).
12.805: talking against the Catholic religion See note at 12.386.
12.805–06: Adam and Eve’s See note at 7.1012.
12.807: smugging
Smugging: ‘toying amorously in secret’ (EDD). In A Portrait, at Clongowes Stephen hears about some boys caught ‘Smugging’ in the square one night (p. 42).
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12.816: if he didn’t patch up the pot
In this specific context, this means that, under the circumstances, Bob should make amends by marrying Polly. In ‘Grace’ in Dubliners, a similar expression is used to refer to a trip to a religious retreat: ‘we’re all going to wash the pot’ (p. 163). Likewise, Dent provides several examples from Irish fiction post-Ulysses that use analogous constructions (but not this exact phrase) of cleaning or mending kitchenware to denote going to confession or undertaking some act of repentance or contrition. For example, from Sean O’Faolain’s ‘Unholy Living and Half Dying’ (1947): ‘With Easter coming on now I suppose we’ll have to get the ould skillet cleaned again’ (Stories, p. 218).
12.819: Slan leat
Slán leat (Irish): ‘Health be with you’; this expression is traditionally used as a farewell.
12.823: Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty
That is, Long John Fanning (see note at 7.106). John Clancy, the actual sub-sheriff in 1904 and the model for Fanning, was elected Alderman for Clontarf ’s east ward in 1914 and was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin the following year, but died on 29 January 1915, only six days after his election (Bennett, s.v. Civic Regalia).
12.825: Nannan
That is, Joseph Patrick Nannetti; see note at 7.75.
12.825: mimber
A typical British parody of the Irish pronunciation of member.
12.827–28: William Field, M.P. See note at 2.415.
12.829: Hairy Iopas
A character in Virgil’s Aeneid: ‘crinitus Iopas’, long-haired Iopas, a poet in Dido’s palace (I.740–46). Field’s hair was notable: ‘In the 1870s Field adopted the style of dress which he maintained for the rest of his life—shoulder-length hair, a black broad-brimmed hat, and a long black coat. This eccentric appearance made him instantly recognisable and frequently caricatured’ (DIB, s.v. William Field).
12.829–30: the darling of all countries and the idol of his own
After Byron’s dedication to Thomas Moore in his narrative poem The Corsair (1814): ‘the poet of all circles—and the idol of his own’ (p. xi; with thanks to Fritz Senn).
12.832–33: sending them all to the rightabout
To send to the rightabout: ‘to dismiss or turn away unceremoniously’ (OED).
12.833–34: sheepdip for the scab
Scab: an itchy skin disease common in sheep (OED). Sheep-dip: a poisonous substance used to bathe sheep ‘for the purpose of killing the vermin and cleansing the skin’ (OED, s.v. dip).
12.834: hoose drench for coughing calves
Hoose: a disease affecting the lungs of cattle which makes them cough and wheeze. Drench: a dose of medicine administered forcibly to an animal (both OED).
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12.834–35: guaranteed remedy for timber tongue
Timber tongue: a common name, along with ‘lumpy jaw’, for the ray-fungus, ‘the presence of which, in cattle, constitutes the disease actinomycosis’ (OED).
12.835: knacker’s yard
Knacker: someone who buys old or broken horses and slaughters them for their hides, hooves, and meat (OED). The Dublin Corporation Abattoir and Dead Market is on the North Circular Road (Thom’s, p. 1557), adjacent to the cattle market.
12.836–37: here’s my head and my heels are coming
A variant of ‘here’s my head, my arse is coming’: a remark made of a person who is walking with his head sloped forward (Partridge; Harald Beck, JJON).
12.837–38: Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot for giving lip to a grazier
See note at 6.392 for Joseph Cuffe. To give the order of the boot: ‘To “kick out”, dismiss, sack’ (OED, s.v. boot). Grazier: ‘One who grazes or feeds cattle for the market’ (OED).
12.838: Teach your grandmother how to milk ducks
To teach your grandmother (or mother) to milk ducks: to tell someone how to do something they already know, that is, to waste their time. The expression was common in Ireland, although its use extended to elsewhere in the English-speaking world (John Simpson, JJON).
12.841: old cod’s eye
That is, Bloom; see note at 12.214.
12.846–49: Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook . . . Klook Klook
This specific rhyme appears to be of Joyce’s invention, but there are various similar nursery rhymes. For example: ‘Chook, chook, chook, chook, chook, / Good morning, Mrs. Hen. / How many chickens have you got? / Madam, I’ve got ten. / Four of them are yellow, / And four of them are brown, / The nicest in town. / Chook, chook, chook, chook, chook, / Cock- a-doodle-doo’ (ODNR, p. 202).
12.850: Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London
A story in the 16 June 1904 edition of the Evening Telegraph places Nannetti in London at 2:00 pm that day, speaking in Parliament to question the ban on the playing of Irish sports in Phoenix Park. Joyce moves the speech to the following day. ‘MR NANNETTI asked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that while the game of polo was allowed to be played in that part of the Phoenix Park known as the Nine Acres the members of the Slough-na h-Eireann are not allowed to play Gaelic games there, and, if so, will he state whether the Commissioners have authority to prohibit games played by most of the young men in Dublin, seeing that the Phoenix Park belongs to the citizens of Dublin? The CHIEF SECRETARY said the present arrangement was for the general convenience of the public, and however great the grievance there should be some give and take. The present arrangement was, he believed, for the greater convenience of the greater number’ (p. 3, col. b).
12.854: by the mailboat See note at 1.83.
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12.859: The Sluagh na h-Eireann
The Sluagh na h-Eireann (Irish): ‘The Host (i.e. army) of Ireland’; a nationalist organisation that convinced Nannetti to question Parliament on the issue of the ban on Irish games in Phoenix Park; see note at 12.850. The question was actually asked by Thomas O’Donnell (Irish politician, 1871–1943; MP, 1900–18), who accompanied Nannetti: ‘I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland [. . .] why the members of Sluagh na Heireann, most of whom are school boys, are prevented from playing native games in the Nine Acres’ (Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 30 June 1904, p. 232).
12.860: Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat)
A fictitious parliamentarian. The Conacre system was a practice of ‘letting land in patches for a short period’ for high rents to poorer neighbours (PWJ, p. 238). Multifarnham (or Multyfarnham): a village in the county of Westmeath, about 11 km north-west of Mullingar. Nat: abbreviation for the Irish National Party. The 27th Parliament of 1900 had two representatives from Country Westmeath: Patrick James Kennedy and Donal Sullivan, both of the National Party (Thom’s, p. 129).
12.861: Shillelagh
Shillelagh: a barony in County Wicklow. There were two MPs from Wicklow, one for East Wicklow and one for West (Thom’s, p. 130), with none specified for Shillelagh itself.
12.865: Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con)
Allfours: alludes to Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930), eventually Earl Balfour, Prime Minister in 1902–05. Born in Scotland, he served in a Conservative (i.e. ‘Con.’) cabinet as Chief Secretary for Ireland (1887–91). For Tam o’Shanter, see note at 4.281.
12.869: Mr Orelli (Montenotte. Nat)
Orelli: homophone for ‘oh really’ and the name O’Reilly. Montenotte: an affluent suburb outside the city of Cork. Nat: the Irish National Party. In 1904, County Cork was represented by nine MPs, all from the National Party (Thom’s, p. 128), none named O’Reilly.
12.874: Mitchelstown telegram
On 9 September 1887, two local MPs who supported the Irish tenants in their campaign of resistance against their landlords were ordered to appear before magistrates in Mitchelstown, a town in County Cork. They refused to appear and, instead, a large, angry crowd assembled. Chief Secretary Arthur Balfour ordered the Royal Irish Constabulary ‘to take a hard line against all such agrarian disorder, and on this occasion police fired into the crowd, killing three people and wounding others’ (Brewer’s Irish). See also note at 12.877.
12.876: I must have notice of that question
I must have notice of that question: a stock-phrase in the British parliament used to cut off debate by requiring the speaker to formally submit a request for such debate; latterly used to simply say, ‘I don’t wish to reply’ (Partridge, A Dictionary of Catch Phrases).
12.877: Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.)
Buncombe: ‘Political speaking or action not from conviction’, from when a representative from Buncombe County, North Carolina would not relent from giving a speech in Congress, ‘declaring that the people of his district expected it, and that he was bound to make a speech for Buncombe’ (OED). Ind: Independent Party.
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12.877: Don’t hesitate to shoot
Captain Plunkett was the commander of the police force that fired on the crowd at Mitchelstown in 1887. He ordered his men, ‘Don’t hesitate to shoot if necessary’; a telegram with this command was read to the British parliament where it was met with ‘indecent joy’ (Émile Boutmy, The English People, pp. 294–95). Stephen used this phrase in ‘Scyla’ (9.133).
12.880: the man . . . that made the Gaelic sports revival See note at 12.58.
12.881: The man that got away James Stephens
While Michael Cusack (the model for the Citizen) was a Fenian, it is unlikely that he played any part in James Stephens’s escape (see note at 3.241–42). Indeed, Cusack was only 18 in 1865, the year of Stephens’s great escape.
12.881–82: The champion of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot
In 1904, the record for a 16-pound (7.26 kg) shot was 14.68 metres and was set by Denis Horgan (1871–1922) in Queenstown, County Cork in 1897. Cusack’s own record was good, but he never managed to exceed 12 metres (Michael Cusack, ‘Athletes I Have Met’, Irish Times, 18 July 1903, p. 16, cols c–d). There is an allusion to the Odyssey here: the Cyclops broke off a mountain top and hurled it at Odysseus as he escaped his island (IX.480–86).
12.884: Na bacleis
Ná bac leis (Irish): ‘Don’t bother with it’.
12.889: shoneen
See note at 12.680.
12.890: hurley
See note at 12.645.
12.890: putting the stone
An athletic event which differs from putting the shot in that several stones of different weights are used, with a total accumulated distance deciding the outcome (Sean Egan, Celts and their Games and Pastimes, p. 40).
12.890: racy of the soil
Racy of the soil: characteristic of a certain country or people, chiefly used with reference to Ireland (OED). The phrase ‘racy of the soil’ was used by Archbishop Thomas Croke (1824–1902) in the letter he sent Michael Cusack in December 1884 in which he accepted the invitation to become the first patron of the Gaelic Athletic Association: ‘field sports as lawn tennis, polo, croquet, cricket and the like—very excellent [. . .] in their way, still not racy of the soil, but rather alien, on the contrary to it, as are, indeed, for the most part, the men and women who first imported and still continue to patronize them’ (quoted in David Greene, ‘Michael Cusack and the Rise of the G.A.A.’, pp. 79–80).
12.891: a nation once again
The title of a ballad by Thomas Osborne Davis (Irish nationalist and poet, 1814–45) also used as a line in the chorus of the song ‘Sinn Fein’ (see note at 12.523). First verse of Davis’s song: ‘When boyhood’s fire was in my blood, / I read of ancient freemen, / For Greece and Rome who bravely stood, / Three hundred men and three men, / And then I prayed I yet
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604 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses might see / Our fetters rent in twain, / And Ireland, long a province, be / A nation once again!’ (Thomas Davis, Poems, p. 73).
12.897–98: Brian O’Ciarnain’s in Sraid na Bretaine Bheag
Brian O’Ciarnain’s in Sraid na Bretaine Bheag (Irish): ‘Barney Kiernan’s in Little Britain Street’. The Irish name for Wales—An Bhreatain Bheag—literally means ‘little Britain’. ‘Dublin street names began to be diplayed bilingually in 1901’ (Joep Leerssen, ‘Cúchulain in the General Post Office’, p. 146).
12.898–99: Sluagh na h-Eireann See note at 12.859.
12.900: ancient Greece and ancient Rome
After line 3 of Thomas Davis’s ‘A Nation Once Again’ (see note at 12.891).
12.907: Panceltic
Edmund Edward Fournier d’Albe (see note at 9.310–11) was a passionate advocate of for ging a Pan-Celtic movement that incorporated the five Celtic nations, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, and the Isle of Man, with Ireland at the centre. In October 1900, he helped establish the Celtic Association in Dublin, and he edited the Association’s official organ, Celtia: A Pan-Celtic Monthly Magazine from 1901 to 1904 and again in 1907. Between 1901 and 1907, the Celtic Association held three Pan-Celtic Congresses (Kaori Nagai, ‘Race, the Modern and Irish Revivalism’, pp. 59–62).
12.910: Finn MacCool
Finn MacCool: a legendary Irish hero, poet, and warrior. One of the greatest heroes in Irish myth. He led a band of heroes called the Fianna—the source of the Fenians’ name (Ellis, s.v. Fionn).
12.915: bumper house
Bumper: ‘Theatr. slang. A crowded “house” at a theatre’ (OED).
12.916: Thomas Osborne Davis’ evergreen verses
In the editor’s introduction to the 1857 edition of Thomas Davis’s poems (see note at 12.891), Thomas Wallis compares Davis’s poetry to ‘wild flowers springing from the mould in the clefts of a giant oak’ (p. xviii). Evergreen: ‘Always fresh, never-failing, enduring’ (OED).
12.919: Caruso-Garibaldi
Combines the famous Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) with Giuseppe Garibaldi, for whom see note at 8.461.
12.924–25: many prominent members of the clergy
‘Although Protestants of various denominations remained an active minority in the ranks of the Irish-Ireland movement, there is considerable evidence to support the perception that the Catholic church dominated the language movement: members of the Catholic hierarchy spoke frequently and favourably at Gaelic League functions; revivalists paid very close attention to the minutest signs of clerical support for their cause; and many Catholic priests and nuns were prominent in the League, particularly at the branch level. But [. . .] clerical engagement with the revival was subjected to critical review, especially when priests acted as social gatekeepers’ (Timothy McMahon, Grand Opportunity, p. 34).
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12.927–28: the very rev. William Delany, S.J., L.L.D.
William Delany (1835–1924), Society of Jesuits, Doctor of Laws: president of University College Dublin, 1883–1909 (DIB). See note at 10.1 for Very Reverend. He appears in Stephen Hero as the Very Reverend Dr Dillon (p. 77; Kevin Sullivan, Joyce among the Jesuits, p. 199).
12.928: the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D.
Gerald Molloy (1834–1906), Doctor of Divinity: rector of the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin, 1883–1906 (DIB). The epithet ‘the Right Reverend’ signifies a rank of bishop, but Molloy is listed in Thom’s as a Presbyter Prebend (a church elder on stipend) in the Diocese of Dublin (p. 995).
12.928–29: the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C.S. Sp.
Patrick Fidelis Kavanagh (c.1834–1918): author of poetry and history; his best-known work is the History of the Rebellion of 1798 (1874) (DIB). CS Sp.: Congregatio Sancti Spiritus (Congregation of the Holy Spirit, known as the Holy Ghost Fathers in Ireland); however Kavanagh belonged to the OFM, or Order of Friars Minor (a branch of the Franciscans) (Freeman’s Journal, 18 Dec. 1918, p. 3, col. d).
12.929: the rev. T. Waters, C.C.
Thomas Watters: one of three curates at St John the Baptist Church, 35 Newtown Avenue, Blackrock (Thom’s, pp. 1641, 2035). Thom’s spells his name both as Waters and as Watters (pp. 996, 1017), the latter being the form that appears in the 1901 census.
12.929: the rev. John M. Ivers, P.P.
J. Michael Ivers: curate (and not parish priest) at St Paul’s Roman Catholic Church on Arran Quay, in Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.929–30: the rev. P. J. Cleary, O.S.F.
The Very Reverend P. J. Cleary, Order of St Francis: vicar of the Church of the Immaculate Conception (‘Adam and Eve’s’), Merchant’s Quay (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.930: the rev. L. J. Hickey, O.P.
The Very Reverend Louis J. Hickey, member of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans): provincial (chief) of St Saviour’s Dominican Priory, Dominick Street (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.930–31: the very rev. Fr. Nicholas, O.S.F.C.
Friar Nicholas, Order of St Francis Capuchin: vicar of the Franciscan Capuchin Monastery of St Mary of the Angels, Church Street (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.931: the very rev. B. Gorman, O.D.C.
Bernard Gorman, Order of Discalced (barefoot) Carmelites: provincial (chief) of the Discalced Carmelites Friary, Clarendon Street (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.931–32: the rev. T. Maher, S.J.
Thomas Maher, Society of Jesus: member of the Church of St Francis Xavier, Upper Gardiner Street (Thom’s, p. 1366); this is Conmee’s parish.
12.932: the very rev. James Murphy, S.J.
James Murphy, Society of Jesus: the principal (chief) of the Church of St Francis Xavier, Upper Gardiner Street (Thom’s, p. 1366); Conmee is the superior of this parish and replaced Murphy as provincial in 1905 (DIB).
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12.932–33: the rev. John Lavery, V.F.
John Lavery: Fathers of the Congregation of the Mission, St Peter’s Church, Phibsborough (Thom’s, pp. 1366, 1742). VF: Vicar Forane: an experienced priest appointed by a bishop to limited charge of a parish within his diocese (OED, s.v. vicar). Lavery is not described as a vicar forane in Thom’s.
12.933: the very rev. William Doherty, D.D.
W. J. Doherty, Doctor of Divinity: curate, St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Marlborough Street (Thom’s, pp. 1366, 1539). A Pro-Cathedral is a church used as a substitute for a cathedral (OED).
12.933: the rev. Peter Fagan, O.M.
OM: Order of Minims; see note at 12.1685. Thom’s lists a Patrick J. Fagan as a priest in the parish of Kells in County Meath (Thom’s, p. 1012).
12.934: the rev. T. Brangan, O.S.A.
Thomas Brangan, Order of St Augustine: the Augustinian Friary Chapel of St Augustine and St John, 89–93 Thomas Street (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.934: the rev. J. Flavin, C.C.
J. Flavin: curate, St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Marlborough Street in Dublin (Thom’s, pp. 1366, 1539).
12.934–35: the rev. M. A. Hackett, C.C.
Martin Hackett: parish priest, St Margaret’s Church, Finglas, a suburb and parish north of Dublin (Thom’s, pp. 996, 1012). Thom’s lists Hackett as a parish priest (pp) and not a curate (cc).
12.935: the rev. W. Hurley, C.C.
Walter Hurley: curate, St James’s Church, James Street (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.935–36: the rt rev. Mgr M‘Manus, V.G.
Monsignor Myles McManus: vicar general, canon, and parish priest, St Catherine’s Roman Catholic Church, Meath Street (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.936: the rev. B. R. Slattery, O.M.I.
OMI: Oblate Fathers of Mary Immaculate (OED, s.v. o). Perhaps Stephen Slattery of the parish of Killaloe in the Diocese of Kinnety in County Clare (Thom’s, p. 1017).
12.936: the very rev. M. D. Scally, P.P.
Michael D. Scally: parish priest at St Nicholas’s Church, Francis Street (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.936–37: the rev. F. T. Purcell, O.P.
T. F. Purcell, Order of Preachers (Dominicans): St Saviour’s Dominican Priory, Dominick Street (Thom’s, p. 1366).
12.937: the very rev. Timothy canon Gorman, P.P.
Timothy Gorman: parish priest, Saints Michael and John’s Church, Exchange Street (Thom’s, p. 1366). Canon: ‘a cleric attached to a cathedral’ (Frank Flinn, Encyclopedia of Catholicism, p. 122).
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12.937–38: the rev. J. Flanagan, C.C.
John Flanagan: curate, St Mary’s Pro- Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Marlborough Street (Thom’s, pp. 1366, 1539).
12.938: P. Fay
Possibly taken from P. & A. Fay & Sons, cattle salesmen, 36 North Smithfield Street (Thom’s, p. 1868), but the 1901 census lists multiple Dublin-based male Fays with the initial P.
12.938: T. Quirke
Possibly taken from Thomas G. Quirk, LLD, solicitor: offices at 15 South Frederick Street and residence in Abbeyview, Dalkey (Thom’s, p. 1992). The 1901 census lists another Thomas Quirk, an engineer, and his son Thomas, a plumber aged 23, at 46 Moore Street, Dublin.
12.939: Keogh-Bennett See note at 10.1133–34.
12.947: on the beer
On the beer: lower-class catchphrase for being on a drinking spree (Partridge).
12.947–48: run up the odds
To run up: to increase or augment (OED, s.v. run). Evidently, Percy Bennet was favoured to win the fight. Blazes Boylan, who was betting on Keogh, raised the odds against his man by spreading the rumour that Keogh was on a drinking spree (see previous note). Thus, when Keogh won the match, Boylan won more money on his bet because of the increased odds.
12.948: and he swatting all the time
To swat: ‘to work hard at one’s studies’, a variant of swot (OED); that is, to train for the fight.
12.949: The traitor’s son
The claim is that Myler Keogh (see note at 10.1133–34) was the son of William Keogh (1817–78), judge and the only Irish Catholic Conservative MP. While he campaigned for Catholic rights, William Keogh remained a staunch Unionist. His appointment as Solicitor General of Ireland in 1852 was met with ‘righteous consternation among Irish nationalists’ (DIB). In reality, Myler Keogh was the son of James Keogh, a Donnybrook sawmill labourer and part-time boxer (John Simpson, ‘Myler Keogh, Dublin’s Pet Lamb’, p. 1).
12.951: True for you
True for you (Hiberno-English): ‘you are right’; translation of the Irish is fíor duit (Dolan).
12.955: dusted the floor
To dust: to beat, thrash (OED). Boxing rings in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centur ies were covered in sawdust (Pierce Egan, Boxiana, vol. 3, p. 264).
12.955: Heenan and Sayers See note at 10.831–32.
12.956: Handed him the father and mother of a beating
The father of a beating: a Hiberno-English expression for an especially savage beating (PWJ, p. 198).
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12.957: kipper
See note at 8.802.
12.958: one last puck in the wind
For puck, see note at 10.1131–32. Wind: ‘That part of the body in front of the stomach a blow upon which takes away the breath by checking the action of the diaphragm’ (OED). From Pierce Egan’s Boxiana: ‘he met with such a stopper right in the wind’ (vol. 2, p. 129).
12.958: Queensberry rules
These rules attempted to civilise the sport of boxing. Named after John Sholto Douglas, the Marquess of Queensberry (1844–1900), they were formulated in 1865–66 and were formally adopted in 1892. Among other things, these mandated boxing gloves and a set number of rounds of three minutes each (David Scott, The Art and Aesthetics of Boxing, pp. 20–21).
12.960: a historic and hefty battle
The account of the match in the Freeman’s Journal is somewhat more subdued: ‘J. Keogh (Dublin) beat Private Garry (6th Dragoons). The former had the advantage in reach, and though Garry attacked for the first half minute Keogh had the best of the exchanges, and towards the close of the round Garry was in trouble. In the second round Garry did better but Keogh landed several times on the body and early in the third round knocked Garry out with a right hand punch on the mark’ (30 Apr. 1904, p. 7, col. j). The Freeman’s Journal incorrectly identified the Irish boxer as ‘J. Keogh’; his real name was J. McKeogh (see note at 10.1133–34).
12.961: purse of fifty sovereigns See note at 10.1134–35.
12.964–65: had tapped some lively claret
To tap one’s claret: to make one’s nose bleed (Partridge, s.v. tap). A typical expression from eighteenth and early nineteenth-century boxing reportage; from Pierce Egan’s Boxiana: ‘Belcher, by a sharp hit, made the claret fly copiously from his opponent’ (vol. 1, p. 130).
12.965: receivergeneral
Another typical boxing expression; from Egan’s Boxiana: ‘It was evident McDermot was doomed to be a Receiver-General’ (vol. 2, p. 356).
12.966: the pet’s
See note at 10.1133–34.
12.969: The redcoat See note at 5.68.
12.971: The men came to handigrips
Handigrip (Hiberno-English variant of handgrip): ‘An act of grasping or seizing with the hand, esp. when fighting; a grip, a grasp. Now chiefly in phrases, as to come to handgrips’ (OED, s.vv. handigrip; handgrip).
12.972: on the ropes
On the ropes: ‘forced against the ropes by an opponent’s attack; fig. near defeat; in a difficult situation or poor condition’. Another cliché in boxing reportage; from Egan’s Boxiana: ‘another pully-haully encounter took place on the ropes’ (vol. 3, p. 346).
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12.975–76: knocking out the fistic Eblanite in jigtime
Fistic: pugilistic (OED). Eblanite: Dubliner; that is, someone from Eblana, an ancient settlement believed to be on the site of Dublin (see note at 12.83). Jigtime: a short space of time (OED, s.v. jig).
12.978: Pucking Percy
For puck, see note at 10.1131–32.
12.978: the pet
See note at 10.1133–34.
12.982: flooring
Flooring: in boxing, to knock down (OED, s.v. floor). Another typical boxing expression; from Egan’s Boxiana: ‘Flooring often occurred during the fight’ (vol. 3, p. 548).
12.983: Portobello
See note at 8.801–02.
12.983: bruiser
See note at 10.1134.
12.984: Ole Pfotts Wettstein
After Dr Georg Wettstein: a lawyer and the Norwegian vice-consul in Zürich; he represented Henry Carr in his protracted legal conflict with Joyce in 1918–19 (Ellmann, pp. 440, 452); see note at 15.48 for details of this conflict. Pfotz: cunt (J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, Slang and Its Analogues).
12.985: Santry
See note at 12.127.
12.993: bright particular star
From All’s Well That Ends Well: ‘That I should love a bright particular star’ (I.i.97).
12.996: says I to myself, says I
From Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri (1882). In Act I, the Lord Chancellor sings: ‘When I went to the bar as a very young man, / (Said I to myself— said I) / I’ll work on a new and original plan / (Said I to myself—said I)’ (The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, p. 457).
12.996–97: That explains the milk . . . the absence of hair
‘The milk in the cocoanut’: a popular catchphrase from the mid-nineteenth century for ‘a puzzling fact or circumstance, or the explanation of this’ (OED). Later variants append the phrase ‘but not the hair outside’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
12.997–98: tootle on the flute
After the first line of the chorus from the song ‘Phil The Fluter’s Ball’ by Percy French: ‘With the toot of the flute’ (Prose, Poems and Parodies, p. 6).
12.998: Dirty Dan the dodger’s son off Island bridge
Boylan’s father Daniel apparently made a great deal of money selling the same horses more than once to the British army during the Boer War. Island Bridge (or Islandbridge): a
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610 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses neighbourhood about 3 km to the west of central Dublin, just south of Phoenix Park (Bennett).
12.1000: poor and water rate
Poor rate and public water rate: two of the various levies on Dublin’s property owners, controlled by the Dublin Corporation (Thom’s, p. 1345). ‘In England the term [rate] is specially applied to the levying of public money contributions for local purposes, as distinguished from the “taxes” raised for what are treated as general state purposes [. . .] The earliest rate levied in England was that for poor relief, and of the great variety of rates now existing, the majority are based on the poor rate and levied with it’ (EB11, s.v. Rate). For the poor rate, see note at 16.945.
12.1002: ’Twixt me and you Caddareesh
Caddareesh: probably after the Irish cad arís, what again; and made in reference to Boylan’s father’s habit of saying ‘Whatwhat’ (with thanks to Vincent Deane). This was a favourite saying of Joyce’s father (Ellmann, p. 22).
12.1003: Calpe’s rocky mount
Calpe: the Roman name for Gibraltar (EB11, s.v. Gibraltar).
12.1004: loquat and almond
Loquat: ‘The fruit of Eriobotrya japonica, a native of China and Japan, introduced into southern Europe, India, and Australia’ (OED). Loquats and almonds are among the many forms of tropical vegetation that flourish on Gibraltar (EB11).
12.1005: The gardens of Alameda
Alameda: ‘A public walk or promenade with a row of trees on each side’ (OED); there is an Alameda Garden on Gibraltar; see also note at 18.643–44.
12.1005: garths
Garth: ‘a small piece of enclosed ground [. . .] used as a yard, garden, or paddock’ (OED).
12.1008: one of the clan of the O’Molloy’s That is, J. J. O’Molloy; see note at 7.282.
12.1010: prince and heir of the noble line of Lambert That is, Ned Lambert; see note at 6.111.
12.1015: Save you kindly
God save you kindly: as here, a standard reply to the salutation ‘God save you’ (Dent).
12.1023: Stubbs’s
Stubbs’ Mercantile Offices: ‘Weekly Gazette, Commercial Inquiries and Debt Recovery’, 1 College Street (Thom’s, p. 2020). According to their advertisement in Thom’s, their gazette provides a list of creditors (i.e. debtors) that is ‘absolutely indispensable to Traders’ (Thom’s, Advertisements, p. 45).
12.1024: flash toffs
Flash: dashing, ostentatious, swaggering. Toff: a name ‘given by the lower classes to a person who is stylishly dressed [. . .] hence, one of the well to do’ (both OED).
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12.1026: Cummins of Francis street
M. Cummins’s: pawnbroker, 125 Francis Street and other branches in Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1845).
12.1028: the pop
To pop: to pawn (Partridge); thus ‘the pop’: the pawnbroker’s.
12.1029: come home by weeping cross
To come home by the weeping cross: ‘to suffer grievous disappointment or failure’ (OED, s.v. weeping cross).
12.1031: U. p: up See note at 8.258.
12.1033: right go wrong
Right go wrong (Hiberno-English): earnestly, persistently (Séamas Moylan, The Language of Kilkenny, p. 218).
12.1039: so help you Jimmy Johnson
‘So help me Jimmy Johnson’: a catchphrase in use from the early twentieth century. For example, from ‘An Unreported Rehearsal’ by ‘Imaal’ (pseudonym of J. J. O’Toole), a satire about provincials putting on a production of Yeats’s play The Shadowy Waters: ‘So help me Jimmy Johnson if ever I heard such fellows’ (The Leader, 6 Dec. 1902, p. 243).
12.1040: nasturtiums
Nasturtium: a genus of plant that includes the watercress (OED); here used as a substitution for aspersion, which is a common Dublin malapropism (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1041–42: Whatever statement you make . . . in evidence against you
At this time, in England and Ireland, when a prisoner is presented before a magistrate, after the charges have been read, the accused is offered an opportunity to reply. The Justice of the Peace uses this formula—or something similar—as a caution: ‘Having heard the evidence, do you wish to say anything to answer to the charge? You are not obliged to say anything unless you desire to do so, but whatever you may say will be taken down in writing, and may be given in evidence against you upon your trial’ (John Pitt Taylor, The Law of Evidence, vol. 1, p. 713).
12.1043–44: compos mentis
Compos mentis (Legal Latin): ‘sane of mind’.
12.1045: balmy
Balmy: variant of barmy, insane (Partridge).
12.1046–47: he has to get his hat on with a shoehorn
A common expression, since the mid-nineteenth century, suggesting mental deficiency, that is, a head swollen by drink and/or stupidity (Harald Beck, JJON).
12.1048–49: the truth of libel is no defence to an indictment . . . law
In a case of criminal libel, such an assertion is true, but the matter at hand is a civil case and ‘Truth is a full defence to a civil action for defamation’ (Hardiman, Joyce in Court, p. 107).
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612 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses In Joyce’s notes on business and commerce, he wrote, ‘Belief in truth no excuse in libel action’ (JJA, vol. 3, p. 616), which he derived from Lawrence Duckworth’s The Law Relating to Trade: even if ‘a writer has a bonâ fide belief that he is publishing what is true, that is no answer to an action for libel’ (p. 81; Matthew Hayward, ‘ “Knowing Damn All About Banking Business” ’, pp. 505–06).
12.1055–56: A fellow that’s neither fish nor flesh
Neither fish nor flesh: proverbial for a confusing mixture, often with a sexual connotation (ODEP).
12.1058: pishogue
Pishogue (Hiberno-English): a charm, a fairy; from the Irish piseog (OED). In context this is not what is meant; ‘the word is surely a variant on the Irish word piteog, defined by Dineen [see note at 9.967] as “an effeminate person” ’ (Vincent Deane, ‘Looking after the Sense’, p. 384).
12.1062: Cruelty to animals
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 1824 (EB11, s.v. cruelty). Dent notes that the Society became something of a recurrent punchline in Punch magazine, as in the issue of 20 September 1899: ‘If there is any Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ (p. 133). The Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was located on 36 Westmoreland Street (Thom’s, p. 1393).
12.1064: cockahoop
Cockahoop: ‘crowing with elation [. . .] boastfully and loudly triumphant’ (OED).
12.1065: pewopener to the pope
Pew opener: an usher who seats churchgoers in their pews (OED). Pew openers are specific to the Anglican Church with the introduction of box pews during the Elizabethan period. Catholic churches did not have pew openers (K. S. Inglis, Churches and the Working Classes in Victorian England, pp. 129–30).
12.1066: smashall sweeney’s moustaches
Smashall Sweeney: the name of a Connemara bumpkin in William Hamilton Maxwell’s (Scottish-Irish novelist, 1792–1850) Wild Sports of the West (vol. 2, pp. 202–03).
12.1066–67: signior Brini
The name of Breen’s kinsman, the pew opener, has been given an Italian sheen the better to suit his Vatican employment. Signior is a variant English spelling of the Italian signor (OED, s.v. signor).
12.1067: Summerhill
Great Britain (now Parnell) Street becomes Summerhill as it continues past Gardiner Street to the north-east.
12.1067: papal Zouave to the Holy Father
Zouave: an infantry corps in the French army, created in Algeria in 1831. The Papal Zouaves: a volunteer unit formed in 1860 by Christophe de Lamoricière (French general, 1806–65) to help defend the papal states during Pope Pius IX’s struggle against incursions of the newly formed Kingdom of Italy (EB11).
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12.1068: Moss street
Moss Street: a slum area in 1904; it ran from Townsend Street to George’s Quay on the south bank of the Liffey (Thom’s, p. 1550).
12.1069: two pair back
Two pair back: a back room on the second floor (OED, s.v. back).
12.1072: Sadgrove v. Hole
An actual libel case, tried in the Court of Appeal in London in 1901. The pivotal issue was whether a postcard constituted publication or was privileged communication between the defendant and a third party. At the trial, the judge held that the postcard was not privileged and the jury awarded a verdict for the plaintiff, Sadgrove, of £5. However, the defendant, Hole, won on an appeal. Because the plaintiff was not referred to by name in the offending postcard, the judge ruled that ‘The mere fact of communication being written on a postcard was not evidence of malice, if it did not refer to an individual’ (London Times, 9 March 1901, p. 17, col. a). In a subsequent article, the Times noted that if the original verdict had stood, it ‘would be an encouragement to every litigious-minded person to try his luck’ (11 Mar. 1901, p. 9, col. d). The Freeman’s Journal on 5 November 1903 reported on another libel case that involved a postcard, McKettrick v. Kiernan. In this case the judge ‘held it was plain that the post-card was sufficiently damaging to McKettrick [. . .] to entitle him to say that the post-card was a libel’ (p. 2, col. d).
12.1074: Six and eightpence, please See note at 6.560.
12.1075: do that much itself
Itself (Hiberno-English): even; the Irish word féin means both even and itself (PWJ, pp. 36–37).
12.1081: oxter
See note at 12.254.
12.1081: wall eye
Wall eye: squint (OED). See 6.93 and note at 10.208.
12.1083: secondhand coffin
Second-hand coffin: anything that is deemed old and useless (Dent).
12.1084: that Canada swindle case See note at 7.383.
12.1086–88: bottlenosed fraternity . . . bob
Bottlenosed: having a long nose (OED); bottlenosed fraternity: pejorative Dublin slang for Jews (with thanks to Gerry O’Flaherty). The accused in the Canada swindle case, James Wought, employed a number of Jewish-sounding aliases, such as Sparks and Saphero. Many of his victims were Jewish (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. b). A bob is a shilling (OED), thus 20 bob is £1, which is what Wought charged his victims (see note at 7.383).
12.1088–89: Do you see any green in the white of my eye?
To see anything green in (one’s) eye: ‘to detect any signs of gullibility’ (OED, s.v. green).
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12.1089: barney
Barney: ‘Humbug, cheating’ (OED).
12.1090: skivvies See note at 1.138.
12.1090: badhachs
Badhach (Hiberno- English): ‘burly, robust countryman; clumsy fellow’ (Dolan, s.v. bodach).
12.1090: county Meath
County Meath: an agricultural region north-west of County Dublin.
12.1090–91: and his own kidney too
Kidney: ‘Temperament, nature, constitution, disposition; hence, kind, sort, class’ (OED).
12.1091: Zaretsky
Benjamin Zaretsky, of 32 Union Street, Leeds, was the first victim to level charges in the Canada swindle case (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. b).
12.1095: Recorder
In 1904, the Recorder—the highest-ranking judicial officer—was Sir Frederick Falkiner (see note at 8.1151). Falkiner twice made anti-Semitic comments in court; see note at 15.1167–68. The Canada swindle case was actually heard at the Southern Divisional Police Court before Earnest Godwin Swifte, a police magistrate (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. b; Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, p. 873).
12.1096: you can cod him up to the two eyes
To cod: to fool or dupe (Partridge). Up to the two eyes: a variant of ‘up to the eyes’, to the limit (OED).
12.1100: Reuben J
That is Reuben J. Dodd; see note at 6.251. The case described here is fictitious.
12.1100: in the dock
That is, facing criminal charges, from dock: ‘The enclosure in a criminal court in which the prisoner is placed at his trial’ (OED).
12.1101: Gumley See note at 7.645.
12.1102: Butt bridge See note at 7.642.
12.1103: taking off
To take off: ‘To mimic, parody, mock’ (Partridge).
12.1111: month of the oxeyed goddess
In the Iliad, Hera is frequently given the epithet ‘ox-eyed’ (I.568); Juno is the Roman equivalent of Hera, hence her month is June.
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12.1112: third week after the feastday of the Holy and Undivided Trinity
In 1904, this fell on Sunday, 29 May (Thom’s, p. 1). Thus, in 1904, 16 June was indeed the third week after the feast day of the Trinity. However, ‘the Catholic Church never uses Trinity Sunday as a base to measure liturgical time. Pentecost is the base to be used in this instance’ (Willis E. McNelly, ‘Liturgical Divisions in Ulysses’, pp. 293–94).
12.1113: daughter of the skies
From James MacPherson’s (Scottish poet and politician, 1736–96) Poems of Ossian: ‘Connal mounts the cars of gems. They stretch their shields, like darkened moon, the daughter of the starry skies, when she moves, a dun circle through heaven, and dreadful change expected by men’ (p. 288; Ronan Crowley, JJON).
12.1113: virgin moon being then in her first quarter See note at 8.245.
12.1115: master Courtenay
Colonel Arthur H. Courtenay (1852–1927): master of the High Court of Justice in Ireland, King’s Bench Division (Thom’s, p. 899).
12.1115: rede
Rede: ‘an act of deliberation’ (OED).
12.1116: master Justice Andrews
William Drennan Andrews (1832–1924): judge of the Probate and Matrimonial Causes, King’s Bench Division (Thom’s, p. 899).
12.1119: Jacob Halliday
Jacob Halliday: proprietor of a grocery, tea, wine, and spirit shop, 38A Main Street, Blackrock (Thom’s, p. 1889).
12.1120: Livingstone Unknown.
12.1121: solemn court of Green street
The courthouse at 26 Green Street housed the Sessions House, the Civil Bill Court, and the Office of the Clerk of the Crown and Peace for the County and City of Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1509). The courthouse was built in 1792–97 and was the location of the trials of Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, and, later, various Fenian leaders (Bennett, s.v. Green Street).
12.1121: sir Frederick the Falconer
This is Sir Frederick Falkiner; see note at 8.1151. Falkiner and Falconer are different spellings of the same English name.
12.1122–23: law of the brehons
Brehon laws: a thorough and complex system of law that originated in pre-Christian Ireland and remained extant in Ireland through to the seventeenth century. Breithem is the Old Irish word for judge (Brewer’s Irish; EB11; Dolan).
12.1124–25: high sinhedrim
Sanhedrim (or Sanhedrin): ‘The name applied to the highest court of justice and supreme council at Jerusalem, and in a wider sense also to lower courts of justice’ (OED).
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12.1125: twelve tribes of Iar
Iar (Irish): west or distant; thus a name for Ireland. Iar is also the name of one of Mileadh’s three sons, who stands in Irish legend as the remote Milesian (Greek) ancestor of the Irish royal clans (Ellis, s.vv. Ir; Milesius). There are twelve tribes of Israel (Genesis 49). In his History of Ireland, Geoffrey Keating begins the section on the branching of the sons of Mileadh by noting: ‘Some seanchas [chroniclers] assert that there are in Ireland twelve tribes of the Saorchlanna or true nobility of the Gaels’ (vol. 4, p. 81; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1126: Patrick
St Patrick (c.ad 387–c.460): one of Ireland’s three patron saints.
12.1126: Hugh
Hugh is an Anglicisation of the Irish name Aodh (in Old Irish, Áed). In context, this would be Áed mac Garaid, a member of the Fianna (Ellis; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1126: Owen
Eógan Mór of the Eóganacht or Mug Nuadat, a king of Munster who fought against Conn Cetchathach and forced Conn to split Ireland in two; he then ruled the southern half (Ellis).
12.1127: Conn
See note at 12.176–77.
12.1127: Oscar
Oscar: son of Ossian (or Oisín) and grandson of Finn MacCool. Although he was a clumsy child, he became the fiercest warrior of Finn’s band of heroes, the Fianna (Ellis).
12.1127: Fergus
Fergus mac Róich: after Cú Chulainn (see note at 12.176), Fergus was the greatest fighter among the Ulster heroes; indeed, he was one of Cú Chulainn’s teachers (Ellis).
12.1128: Finn
See note at 12.910.
12.1128: Dermot
Diarmaid ua Duibhne, Diarmaid of the love spot, which made him irresistible to women. A member of the Fianna, he is most famous for eloping with Gráinne, the daughter of the High King Cormac Mac Airt (Ellis).
12.1128: Cormac
See note at 8.663–65.
12.1129: Kevin
St Kevin (d. 618): a missionary saint who founded a monastery at Glendalough (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1129: Caolte
Caolte (or Caoilte mac Rónáin): one of the most renowned heroes of the Fianna (Ellis, s.v. Caílte).
12.1129: Ossian
Ossian is an Anglicisation of the name Oisín (Irish: faun), who was the legendary bard of the Fianna. He was Finn MacCool’s son and Oscar’s father. The Fenian Cycle of poems is also
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 617 referred to as the Ossianic Cycle (Ellis). In 1760, the Scottish poet and politician James Macpherson (1736–96) first published Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and Translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language, which was republished as The Works of Ossian in 1765. These were not translations of the actual Ossianic Cycle, but rather creative reconstructions of Gaelic myths and themes, reworked for contemporary sensibilities. Despite being criticised and debunked by various scholars, these proved to be tremendously popular throughout Europe (George Sampson, Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, p. 446). Editions from 1765 onward included Hugh Blair’s (Scottish minister and author, 1718–1800) ‘Critical Dissertation’, which defended Macpherson’s work from charges of forgery. Matthew Arnold (see note at 1.173) was an admirer, despite the allegations against Macpherson: ‘Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, spurious, in the book, as large as you please [. . .] But there will still be left in the book a residue with the very soul of the Celtic genius in it’ (The Study of Celtic Literature, p. 128).
12.1130: twelve good men and true Proverbial for a jury (Dent).
12.1131–32: by Him who died on rood Rood: Old and Middle English, cross.
12.1137: donjon keep
Donjon keep: ‘orig. poet. (now rare) the great tower or keep of a castle’; both donjon and keep are effectively synonymous, the fortified stronghold within a castle (OED, s.vv. donjon; keep). The OED cites Walter Scott’s Marmion: ‘The battled towers, the Donjon Keep’.
12.1139: ne bail ne mainprise
Neither bail nor mainprise: a medieval legal formula for denial of release on bail. Mainprise: ‘A word used originally of the process of delivering a person to sureties or pledges (mainpernors) who undertook to produce him again at a future time. A man could be mainperned in cases where trial was inapplicable. The writ of mainprise was a writ to the sheriff requiring him to take sureties for a prisoner’s appearance’ (David Walker, Oxford Companion to the Law, pp. 797–98).
12.1139: preferred a charge
To prefer a charge: to bring an indictment before a court for consideration (OED, s.v. prefer).
12.1146: do the devil and all
The devil and all: ‘the whole confounded lot; a huge amount or degree of (esp. something troublesome). Sometimes [. . .] the worst thing conceivable; something awful. Also occasionally in positive sense: something excellent, admirable, or impressive. In later use chiefly Irish English’ (OED, s.v. devil).
12.1151: no more strangers in our house See notes at 1.661 and 9.36–37.
12.1157–58: adulteress and her paramour . . . robbers here See note at 2.393.
12.1159: Decree nisi
Nisi (Latin): unless. A decree nisi is a decree granted by a court that takes effect on a specified date unless cause for revoking it is presented before that date (Brewer’s).
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12.1165: Police Gazette
Published in New York and founded in 1846, the National Police Gazette mixed sensationalistic stories of the lewd escapades of the upper classes alongside softcore pornography and extensive coverage of sport—especially boxing. ‘Over the years, the weekly Gazette has delighted historians as a chronicler of debauchery’ (Guy Reel, ‘The National Police Gazette’ and the Making of the Modern American Man, p. 1).
12.1166: in all her warpaint
War-paint: ‘One’s best clothes and finery’ (OED).
12.1169: Secrets for enlarging your private parts
The classified advertisements in the Police Gazette in the 1880s and 1890s ‘included the imploring headlines “Weak Men Made Strong”, “Manhood Restored”, and “Certain Parts of the Body Enlarged” ’ (Reel, ‘The National Police Gazette’ and the Making of the Modern American Man, p. 201).
12.1170–71: Norman W. Tupper . . . officer Taylor
Joyce here copies almost verbatim the caption under the picture that accompanies a story from the 16 September 1893 issue of the National Police Gazette: ‘Norman W. Tupper, a wealthy Chicago contractor, finds his young and pretty wife seated on the lap of Officer Taylor’ (p. 5; John Simpson, JJON).
12.1172: fancyman See note at 3.377.
12.1174: trick of the loop
Trick of the loop (or ‘prick at the loop’): ‘a cheating game practised at fairs by gypsies and sharpers’ (OED); here used to mean sexual intercourse.
12.1176: There’s hair
In context, pubic hair is visible. The catchphrase ‘There’s hair!’, with variants, was popular throughout the United Kingdom in the early twentieth century (Partridge, Dictionary of Catch Phrases). The phrase was also a regularly used punch line in Punch (Dent).
12.1178: John Wyse Nolan See note at 8.950–51.
12.1178: Leneha See note at 7.300.
12.1181: those tinkers
Tinker: vagabond or thief (OED).
12.1181: caucus meeting See note at 8.504–05.
12.1185–86: the most obedient city, second of the realm
The motto of the city of Dublin, as represented on the city’s coat of arms, is ‘Obedientia Civium Urbis Felicitas’ (The citizens’ obedience is the city’s happiness) (Bennett, s.v. Armorials of the City). The third edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1797) called Dublin the ‘Second city in His Majesty’s dominions’ (quoted in Joseph O’Brien, Dear Dirty
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 619 Dublin, p. 3), a label which endured through the nineteenth century, although Edinburgh and York were also plausible claimants to such a title. Furthermore, by the end of the nineteenth century, Dublin was no longer even the largest city in Ireland: that honour having been taken by Belfast (Mary Daly, Dublin: The Deposed Capital, p. 2).
12.1186: tholsel
See note at 10.930–31.
12.1189: seadivided Gael
From the poem ‘Salutation to the Celts’ by Thomas D’Arcy McGee (Irish-Canadian polit ician and poet, 1825–68): ‘Hail to our Celtic brethren wherever they may be, / In the far woods of Oregon or o’er the Atlantic sea—/ [. . .] / One in name and in fame / Are the sea- divided Gaels’ (ll. 1–2, 5–6; Poems, p. 135; with thanks to Fritz Senn).
12.1191: Sassenachs See note at 1.232.
12.1191: patois
Patois (French): dialect. In England, the word is sometimes used pejoratively to describe any kind of coarse or provincial form of speech (OED).
12.1192: doing the toff See note at 12.1024.
12.1193–94: Nelson policy, putting your blind eye to the telescope
On 2 April 1801, Horatio Nelson, then a vice-admiral in the British fleet, was ordered to retreat during a battle with the Danish fleet at Copenhagen. He disobeyed the order, saying, ‘ “I have only one eye—I have a right to be blind sometimes”: and then, putting the glass to his blind eye [. . .] he exclaimed, “I really do not see the signal!” ’ (Robert Southey, Life of Nelson, p. 221). His insubordination led to victory.
12.1194: drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach a nation
In January 1919, the newly elected delegation of Sinn Féin MPs refused to take their seats in Westminster and instead assembled in Dublin, thereby following the plan that Arthur Griffith had initially proposed in 1902 as part of his Hungarian policy (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 106, 240; see also note at 12.1574). Once assembled in Dublin, the Sinn Féin MPs issued a declar ation of independence and demanded that Ireland should confront Britain at an inter national conference ‘in order that the civilised world, having judged between English wrong and Irish right, may guarantee to Ireland its permanent support for the maintenance of her national independence’ (Dáil Éireann proceedings, quoted in NHI, vol. 6, p. 240). ‘This, however, was a fantasy world that had little or no connection with reality [. . .] Nothing came, or ever looked like coming, out of the appeal to free nations’ (pp. 240–41).
12.1197: Their syphilisation See note at 5.72.
12.1197–99: The curse of a goodfornothing God . . . whores’ gets
The Citizen’s curse derives from a series of jocular notes between Joyce and Nora. On a verso page of an early draft of ‘Cyclops’ Joyce wrote to Nora, ‘You lend me 10 or 5 francs so that I can pay for the whisky which I have just stood you. If not, be damned’ (NLI I.ii.4 f. 1v).
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620 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses On a subsequent verso page, several pages later, Nora wrote her reply, ‘In response to yours of todays [sic] date I regret that owing to presence of previous engagement the maximum sum is not possible. I shall however be pleased to advance you 5 francs on the same terms as before’ (f. 4v). Below this, Joyce replied, ‘The curse of a lopsided God light sideways on your inebriated and unbalanced personality. Yours affectionately, JJ’ (f. 4v). Joyce then repurposed this reply into the Citizen’s invective, which was written in the copybook that continues this draft (JJA, vol. 13, p. 103; Michael Groden, ‘Joyce at Work on “Cyclops” ’, p. 238).
12.1198: thicklugged
Thicklugged: someone with large, thick ears (see note at 9.390).
12.1199: sons of whores’ gets Get: a bastard (OED).
12.1200: Any civilisation they have they stole from us
Various Irish nationalists have advanced similar claims. For example, in an article published in the 15 September 1900 issue of An Claidheamh Soluis (The Sword of Light), the official journal of the Gaelic League, Father Patrick Forde claimed that the greatest English poets drew inspiration and instruction from Irish sources: ‘What note from the Celtic lyre reached the ear of Spenser in his Kilcoman retreat, what gentle breathings Shakespeare heard in London, where the oldest bards were found when the Irish Chieftains visited the court of Elizabeth, what sweet music Tennyson learned from the old Celtic legends and reproduced in his “Idylls of a King”?’ (quoted in Philip O’Leary, The Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival, p. 64).
12.1205: cabinet d’aisance
Cabinet d’aisance (French): ‘water closet’.
12.1207: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
From Thomas Gray’s (1716–71) ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ (l. 55).
12.1209: Conspuez les anglais! Perfide Albion!
Conspuez les anglais! Perfide Albion! (French): ‘Spit on the English! Perfidious England!’ The phrase ‘perfide Albion’ has a long pedigree: it ‘is often traced back to a mid-17th-century sermon by Bossuet, where the phrase “la perfide Angleterre” is used, he is referring to England’s adoption of Protestantism [. . .] Its popular currency stems from its wide use in the Napoleonic recruiting drive of 1813’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Albion).
12.1211: medher
Medher (also meadar) (Hiberno- English and Irish): a squared, wooden ceremonial drinking-vessel with two or four handles (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ireland, vol. 2, p. 75).
12.1211–12: his tribal slogan Lamh Dearg Abu
Lámh Dearg Abú (Irish): ‘Red Hand to Victory’; the battle-cry of the O’Neill clan of County Tyrone in the province of Ulster (PWJ, p. 179). The Red Hand was part of the heraldic bearings of the O’Neills and was subsequently incorporated into the arms of the province of Ulster (Brewer’s Irish). From 1912 onwards, starting as part of the protests against the third Home Rule Bill, the Red Hand of Ulster was widely used in Unionist and Loyalist
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 621 iconography (John Strachan and Claire Nally, Advertising, Literature and Print Culture in Ireland, pp. 142–46). Slogan: ‘A war-cry or battle cry; spec. one of those formerly employed by Scottish Highlanders or Borderers, or by the native Irish, usually consisting of a personal surname or the name of a gathering-place’ (OED).
12.1213: rulers of the waves
An allusion to the refrain of ‘Ode: Rule Britannia’ (1740) by James Thomson (1700–48): ‘Rule, Britannia, Britannia rule the waves’ (Bowen, p. 220).
12.1216: found a tanner See note at 8.926.
12.1217: Gold cup See note at 5.532.
12.1219: Throwaway, says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider
The Gold Cup was won by a horse named Throwaway whose starting price was 20 to 1 against. The subheading in the Evening Telegraph’s account of the race was ‘The Outsider Wins’ (16 June 1904, p. 3, cols h–i). Throwaway was born in 1899 and his career as a racehorse lasted from 1901 to 1905 (Igoe, p. 323).
12.1219–20: And the rest nowhere
After the ‘exultant declaration made by Captain Dennis O’Kelly at Epsom, May 3, 1769, after his horse had outdistanced the field: “Eclipse first, the rest nowhere” ’ (Annals of Sporting, I.271, quoted in Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana IV’, p. 166).
12.1221: Bass’s mare
The mare Sceptre (see notes at 7.388–89 and 10.511) was owned by William Arthur Hamar Bass (1879–1952) (Igoe, pp. 322–23); see also note at 14.1161–62.
12.1224–25: Zinfandel that Mr Flynn gave me. Lord Howard de Walden’s See note at 8.830–31.
12.1227: talking about bunions
After a line from the play Lord Dundreary Married and Settled (1864) by Edward Askew Sothern (English comic actor, 1826–81): ‘Speaking of bunions [. . .] how is your mother?’ The line soon became a catchphrase as an amusing device to change the topic in conversation (John Simpson, JJON).
12.1227–28: Frailty, thy name is Sceptre
After Hamlet’s comment on his mother’s hasty remarriage: ‘Frailty, thy name is woman!’ (I.ii.146).
12.1230: on the nod
On the nod: on credit. ‘To get a thing on the nod is to get it without paying for it at the time. The phrase is from the auction room’, where you nod your head and pay later (Brewer’s).
12.1231: Old mother Hubbard went to the cupboard
The first two lines from ‘Old Mother Hubbard’, a nursery rhyme composed around 1804 by Sarah Catherine Martin (1768–1826) (ODNR, pp. 317–21).
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12.1233–34: only for the other dog
J. F. Byrne reports the following expression among betting folk, ‘She’d have won the money only for the other dog’ (Silent Years, p. 20). The catchphrase was also in use in contexts outside betting (Harald Beck, JJON).
12.1237–38: the mote in others’ eyes but they can’t see the beam in their own
After Jesus’s the Sermon on the Mount: ‘And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?’ (Matthew 7:3).
12.1239: Raimeis
Ráiméis (Irish and Hiberno-English): foolish, nonsensical talk; from raiméis (Irish): medieval romance of the fantastical kind (Dolan; PWJ, p. 310). This word was part of the stock vocabulary of D. P. Moran’s nationalist weekly paper the Leader and was used to label ‘all that with which Moran was in disagreement’ (Toomey, ‘Moran’s Collar’, p. 45). For example, the 7 May 1904 issue characterises the tone of the journal Dana as ‘very shallow and cheap “superiority” which conceited young men affect by talking raimeis against the Church’ (p. 162; quoted in Vincent Deane, ‘Joyce, Moranism, and the Opal Hush Poets’, p. 71).
12.1239–40: There’s no-one as blind as the fellow that won’t see
From Swift’s Polite Conversation: ‘there’s none so blind as they that won’t see’ (p. 174).
12.1240–41: our missing twenty millions of Irish . . . instead of four
At a speech in Newry in January 1901, John Dillon (Irish nationalist and politician, 1851–1927; MP, 1880–83, 1885–1918) claimed that Ireland and the Irish Parliamentary Party can count on its mighty diaspora for support in its struggle against British rule: ‘we go there [the House of Commons] as the representatives of a mighty nation scattered by oppression and conquest throughout the globe, but numbering its people by many millions, certainly not less than twenty millions’ (Freeman’s Journal, 31 Jan. 1901, p. 6, col. a). D. P. Moran chastised Dillon for such rhetoric: ‘Nothing can get out of the heads of men like Mr Dillon that there are twenty millions of Irish people abroad. It is a very absurd idea, and the repetition of it from numberless platforms does a great amount of harm to our green people. The strength and hope of Ireland is with the people in Ireland’ (The Leader, 9 Feb. 1901, p. 381; with thanks to Josh Newman).
12.1241: our lost tribes
In the immediate context, the Citizen is referring to the ‘lost tribes’ of Ireland, those that have fled over the years. Of the original twelve tribes of Israel, the ten tribes that comprised the northern kingdom of Samaria were lost to Assyrian aggression in the eighth century bc (2 Kings 17:6). The fall of Samaria and the disappearance of the Ten Lost Tribes was interpreted as punishment for disobedience towards God. See also note at 12.1125.
12.1241–42: And our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world!
By the end of the nineteenth century, the Irish economy, which remained largely untouched by the Industrial Revolution, was almost entirely subordinated to the British market and was limited mainly to livestock and agriculture. ‘Textiles offer a supreme example of the consequences of British competition and domestic inefficiencies combined for the survival of small-scale, unmechanised production. Woollen and to an even greater extent cotton manufacturing had gone to the wall when faced with cheap, mass-produced and standardised British cloth’ (NHI, vol. 5, p. lviii). See also note at 2.325–26.
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 623
12.1242–43: our wool that was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal
While there is some evidence of Irish trade with Rome (see note at 12.1251), trade involving wool was a later development. According to a study on ‘Irish wool and woollens’ (1882) signed ‘S. A.’, the Irish wool trade in Europe was extensive from the Middle Ages onwards. Indeed, Irish wool was much prized in Italy in Dante’s time. However, English mercantilist legislation from 1699 to 1779 nearly destroyed the Irish woollen industry (Arts and Industries in Ireland, pp. 41–43). In The Philosophy of Irish Ireland (1905), D. P. Moran writes: ‘you will meet men every day who will ask you how in the world could Ireland be prosperous considering England stole our woollen industry from us some hundreds of years ago’ (p. 2; Emer Nolan, James Joyce and Nationalism, p. 51). Joyce also makes reference to this in ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’: ‘English laws destroyed the industries of the country, notably the woollen one’ (OCPW, p. 119). Juvenal (c.ad 60–c.140): Roman satirical poet (EB11).
12.1243–44: our flax and our damask from the looms of Antrim
Flax, from which linen is woven, is cultivated mostly in County Antrim in the north-east section of Ireland. Damask: ‘A twilled linen fabric richly figured in the weaving with designs which show up by opposite reflexions of light from the surface; used chiefly for table-linen’ (OED). The flax and linen industries in Ireland were effectively founded by Scottish and English settlers, who were concentrated predominantly in the north. By the mid-seventeenth century, these industries had already gained international renown (Eric Kerridge, Textile Manufactures in Early Modern England, p. 122).
12.1244: Limerick lace
Limerick lace was handmade, and its production flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was eventually replaced by machine- made varieties (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 304–5).
12.1244–45: our white flint glass down there by Ballybough
Flint-glass: ‘A pure lustrous glass, now made from a composition of lead oxide, sand, and alkali; originally made with ground flint or pebble as the siliceous ingredient’ (OED). Ballybough: a small village north of Dublin that, by the turn of the twentieth century, had become part of the larger suburb of Fairview. It was formerly the site of ‘a white flint glass manufactory’ (John D’Alton, The History of the County of Dublin, p. 54).
12.1245–46: our Huguenot poplin that we have since Jacquard de Lyon
Joseph Marie Jacquard of Lyons (1752–1834) invented a loom that permitted individual weavers to make complex patterns in materials like poplin (EB11). See also notes at 8.622–23 and 5.465.
12.1246: our Foxford tweeds
The Providence Woollen Mills, Foxford, County Mayo was founded in May 1892, by Mother Agnes Morrogh Bernard of the Sisters of Charity, to relieve poverty in the district. She was assisted by a Protestant Freemason, John Charles Smith, who ran the Caledon Mills in County Tyrone (Kit Ó Céirín and Cyril Ó Céirín, Women of Ireland, p. 160). In 1905, while living in Trieste, Joyce tried but failed to obtain a concession to sell Foxford tweed in Trieste (Ellmann, p. 199). A later plan to sell Irish tweeds in Trieste was more successful (see note at 7.505).
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624 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
12.1246–47: ivory raised point from the Carmelite convent in New Ross
Raised point: a variety of lace in which the designs stand out from the rest of the cloth (OED, s.v. Raised). New Ross, the site of the thirteenth-century Parish Church of St Mary, is a small town by the Barrow River in County Wexford. The nuns at the Carmelite convent in New Ross started making raised needlepoint lace in the early nineteenth century. This soon became world renowned (Ernest Lefébure, Embroidery and Lace, pp. 251–53). Ivory raised means that the needle is made of ivory (p. 3).
12.1248–49: Greek merchants that came through the pillars of Hercules
According to P. W. Joyce, ancient Ireland was visited by seagoing traders, including Phoenicians and Greeks. The fair of Carman was an ancient Irish event occurring once every three years in Wexford. Among its three markets, there was ‘a market of foreigners selling articles of gold and silver [. . .] gold ornaments and noble clothes’ (Social History of Ireland, vol. 2, pp. 430–31). The Pillars of Hercules are the rocks at the ocean entrance to the Mediterranean Sea; on the European side lies Gibraltar (EB11).
12.1249: Gibraltar now grabbed by the foe of mankind See note at 4.60.
12.1251: Tacitus
Cornelius Tacitus (Roman historian and orator, c.ad 55–c.117) mentions Ireland in the 24th section of his biography of Agricola (ad 40–93), his father-in-law and the general responsible for the Roman conquest of Britain. Tacitus writes that Ireland ‘resembles Britain in soil and climate, and in the character and customs of its inhabitants; through trade and traders we are tolerably well acquainted with the approaches to it and with its harbours’ (Agricola, p. 27).
12.1251: Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek astronomer, second century ad) gave ‘a description of Ireland much more accurate than that which he has left us of Great Britain’ (P .W. Joyce, Social History of Ireland, vol. 2, p. 429).
12.1251: Giraldus Cambrensis
Cambro-Norman chronicler Giraldus Cambrensis, also known as Gerald de Barri and Gerald of Wales (c.1146–c.1220), recorded the history of Ireland in two works, Topographica Hibernica (Topography of Ireland) and Expugnatio Hibernica (Conquest of Ireland). Both works are laced with ‘anti-Irish prejudice’ (NHI, vol. 1, p. 936).
12.1252: Connemara marble
Connemara, in western Galway, is the source of the only true marble in Ireland. It contains the mineral serpentine, which lends it a greenish hue of varying intensity. It is used primarily for ornamentation and for making small decorative items rather than as a building material (Mary Mulvihill, Ingenious Ireland, p. 312).
12.1252: silver from Tipperary
The discovery of a profitable means of separating silver from lead enabled a booming silver mining industry in County Tipperary, but this was never the major silver-producing region in Ireland (Joseph Holdsworth, Geology, Minerals, Mines and Soils of Ireland, p. 70).
12.1253: hobbies
Hobby: a ‘small or middle-sized horse’ (OED), believed to be native to Ireland.
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12.1253: king Philip of Spain
In 1553, Philip II of Spain negotiated with the Irish for permission to fish near the Irish coast, for an annual fee of £1,000 payable to the Irish Treasury (Richard Bagwell, Ireland Under the Tudors, vol. 3, p. 447).
12.1255: yellowjohns
Yellowjohn: a literal translation of the Irish Seán Buidhe, a derogatory epithet originally applied to the Orangemen and later, more generally, to the various Protestant sects in Ireland (see note at 2.270) (O Hehir, Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 345). ‘There is no word expressive of orange in the Irish language. Accordingly, when the hated Dutchman introduced his orange symbol, the Irish were at a nonplus. And, therefore, when a Jacobite song was composed abusing John Orangeman, they had to call him SHAUN BUIE, which signifies YELLOW Jack’ (Caesar Otway, A Tour in Connacht, pp. 374–75).
12.1256: beds of the Barrow and Shannon
The Shannon and Barrow rivers course through the swamps and bogs in the middle of Ireland, the former for about 360 km, the latter for half that length. Parts of the Shannon were drained in the middle of the nineteenth century to aid navigation and create new peat bogs (NHI, vol. 5, p. 550).
12.1257: acres of marsh and bog See note at 1.413.
12.1258: As treeless as Portugal
‘In Ireland the Land Purchase Act [of 1903], unfortunately, has led to the denudation of whole districts of trees. Landowners about to sell to tenant farmers first sold all the trees to timber merchants’ (The Indian Forester, 1908, vol. 34, p. 248). By the end of World War I, ‘less than half of one percent of Ireland was covered by forest’ (George Frank Mitchell and Michael Ryan, Reading the Irish Landscape, p. 340). On the other hand, Portugal is far from treeless; its entry in EB11 notes that ‘[t]here are many fine tracts of forest’ and lists many species of trees that thrive there.
12.1258: Heligoland
Heligoland (or, in German, Helgoland) comprises two small, rocky and sandy islands, 45 km from the German mainland. A British possession since 1807, they were ceded to Germany in 1890 (EB11).
12.1260–61: a report of lord Castletown’s
‘An official committee chaired by the Right Honourable Lord Castletown of Upper Ossory produced a report and recommendation for “a national scheme of afforestation” in 1908’ (Katherine O’Callaghan, ‘Deforestation and Its Cultural Resonances’, p. 101 n. 5). In an editorial, the Irish Times endorsed the report’s findings as a practicable and necessary way to revitalise Irish forests, the timber industry, and the Irish economy. ‘Something should be done to place the salient facts of the Report in the hands of Irishmen interested in timber- growing. It is far too able and too instructive a document to be relegated to the shelf of a Government office and forgotten’ (16 June 1908, p. 4, col. g).
12.1262: giant ash of Galway
Ashes were one of seven ‘Chieftain trees’ which it was sacrilegious to harm (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ireland, vol. 2, p. 286). In A Practical Treatise on Planting and the
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626 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Management of Woods and Coppices (1794), Samuel Hayes describes a giant ash in Duniry, County Galway (p. 137). This tree was dead by the early nineteenth century (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1262–63: chieftain elm of Kildare . . . and an acre of foliage
Confuses two trees, an oak and an elm. Kildare derives from the Irish Cilldara, ‘Cell of the oak’; that is, the place where St Brigid established a monastery by a great oak tree. While the oak tree was a ‘Chieftain’ tree, one of the seven which it was sacrilegious to harm (P. W. Joyce, Social History, vol. 2, p. 286), the elm was not. Bole: the trunk of a tree (OED). In A Practical Treatise on Planting and the Management of Woods and Coppices (1794), Samuel Hayes describes a giant elm tree near St Wolstan’s Abbey in County Kildare, which ‘was perhaps the finest tree of its species in the world’. Its trunk’s circumference was measured to be 36 feet 6 inches or 11.12 metres. It was uprooted by a violent storm in 1776 (pp. 135–36; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1264: the fair hills of Eire, O
A song with Irish lyrics written by Donough MacConmara (d. c.1810), translated by James Clarence Mangan; Lines 13 and 14 read: ‘Her woods are tall and straight, grove rising over grove; / Trees flourish, in her glens below and on her heights above’ (Mangan, Works, vol. 4, p. 145).
12.1265: Europe has its eyes on you
Echoes a sentiment recorded in Sir Jonah Barrington’s (see note at 10.782) Personal Sketches: ‘Nothing can better show the high opinion entertained by the Irish of their own import ance, and particularly by that celebrated body called the corporation of Dublin, than the following incident. Mr Willis, a leather-breechesmaker in Dame-street, and a famous orator at the corporation meetings, holding forth one day [. . .] discoursed as follows:– “This, my friends, is a subject neither trifling nor obscure: the character of our corporation is at stake on your decision!—recollect”, continued he, “recollect, brother freemen, that the eyes of all Europe are upon us!” ’ (vol. 1, p. 140).
12.1266: The fashionable international world attended en masse
The catalogue of trees—presented as the newspaper listing of those in attendance at a wedding—follows from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (X.90–105), Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls (ll. 176–82), and Spenser’s Faerie Queene (I.8–9).
12.1268: Irish National Foresters
The Irish National Foresters’ Benefit Society: an ostensibly apolitical organisation which was actually devoted to nationalist and Catholic causes (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 679–80). Its general secretary in 1904 was Joseph Hutchinson. Their offices were at 9 Merchant’s Quay, with branches at 41 Rutland Square West and 107 Talbot Street (Thom’s, p. 1909).
12.1269: Lady Sylvester Elmshade
Sylvester: ‘Belonging to or found in woods; sylvan, rustic’ (OED, s.vv. sylvester; sylvestrian).
12.1269: Mrs Barbara Lovebirch
James Lovebirch is mentioned in ‘Wandering Rocks’; see note at 10.601.
12.1269: Mrs Poll Ash
Polling: trimming so as to enhance the density of growth of foliage at the head, or poll (OED, s.v. poll). ‘As ugly as Poll Ash’ was a Dublin catchphrase (with thanks to Gerry O’Flaherty).
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12.1270: Miss Daphne Bays
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Daphne, while being chased by Apollo, asks the gods for help and is changed into a laurel tree, which thereafter was associated with Apollo (I.454–583); laurel leaves are called bay leaves (OED).
12.1270: Miss Dorothy Canebrake
Cane-brake: ‘a genus of grasses, Arundinaria, allied to the bamboo’ (OED, s.v. cane).
12.1270–71: Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees
Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees (née Ethel Mary Eyre, 1885–1970). Her husband, Clyde Twelvetrees (1865–1956), was a prominent musician in Dublin. Thom’s lists him as a professor of music and a member of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, residing at Grosvenor Terrace, Monkstown (p. 2079). The Freeman’s Journal for 16 June 1904 lists him as performing on the cello in a musical programme at Ulster Hall in Belfast (p. 4, col. a).
12.1271: Mrs Rowan Greene
Rowan: ‘The European mountain ash’ (OED). See note at 1.528.
12.1271: Mrs Helen Vinegadding
To gad: to go around visiting friends and gossiping (Partridge); gadabout: a housewife addicted to this activity (Partridge, s.v. gadabout). This name alludes to Milton’s ‘Lycidas’: ‘With wild thyme and the gadding Vine o’ergrown’ (l. 40).
12.1271–72: Miss Virginia Creeper See note at 4.476.
12.1272: Miss Gladys Beech
Possibly in reference to Sylvia Beach (1887–1962), the owner of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris and the publisher of the first edition of Ulysses (Ellmann, pp. 488–89, et passim). This name was among a cluster added on a galley proof dated 8 October 1921 (JJA, vol. 19, p. 186) and thus well after Beach had agreed to publish Ulysses.
12.1272: Miss Olive Garth
The olive leaf or branch represents peace (Brewer’s). For garth, see note at 12.1005.
12.1272–73: Miss Blanche Maple
White maple: ‘Any of several North American maples, esp. the silver maple, Acer saccharinum, the undersides of the leaves of which are whitish. Also: pale sapwood from any species of maple’ (OED).
12.1273: Mrs Maud Mahogany
Maud: an old woman, a hag (OED). The wood from the mahogany is ‘is traditionally much valued for cabinetmaking, being hard and fine-grained and taking a high polish’ (OED).
12.1274: Miss Bee Honeysuckle
After the music-hall standard ‘The Honeysuckle and the Bee’ (1901), words by Albert H. Fitz and music by William H. Penn (Jerry Silverman, British and American Victorian Vocal Varieties, pp. 21–23).
12.1274–75: Miss O Mimosa San
A character from the operetta The Geisha (1896); see note at 6.355–57.
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12.1275–76: Miss Timidity Aspenall
Aspen: ‘Tremulous, quivering; quaking, timorous’ (OED).
12.1276–77: Mrs Gloriana Palme
Chaucer’s The Parliament of Fowls mentions ‘the victor palm’ (l. 182). Gloriana is the queen of Spenser’s Faerie Queene. In ‘A Letter of the Authors’ Spenser writes, ‘In that Faery Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceiue the most excellent and glorious person of our soueraine the Queene’ (The Faerie Queene, p. 16).
12.1277: Mrs Arabella Blackwood See note at 2.334.
12.1277–78: Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis
‘The strength, hardness, and durability of the timber, as well as the longevity of the tree, have given the oak a special significance to Englishmen, hence its name the Monarch of the Forest’ (Brewer’s). Regis: belonging to the king (OED, s.v. regius).
12.1279–80: M‘Conifer of the Glands
Gland: acorn (OED), from the Latin glans, acorn. A number of prominent Irishmen have the epithet ‘of the Glens’, such as James MacDonnell, lord of the Glens (d. 1565) and Red Hugh O’Donnell (see note at 12.179), known as O’Donnell of the Glens.
12.1283: bretelles
Bretelles (French): straps.
12.1284–85: Miss Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce Conifer
Spruce: ‘trim, neat, dapper’ (OED). Conifer: ‘A plant belonging to the Coniferæ, a large and important order of gymnospermous exogens, comprising trees (mostly evergreen) bearing cones’ (OED).
12.1288: Senhor Enrique Flor
Senhor Enrique Flor (Portuguese): ‘Mr Henry Flower’, Bloom’s alias.
12.1290: Woodman, spare that tree
A song by George P. Morris and Henry Russell: ‘Woodman, spare that tree! / Touch not a single bough; / In youth it sheltered me, / And I’ll protect it now’ (ll. 1–4; Bowen, p. 221).
12.1291–92: church of Saint Fiacre in Horto
For St Fiacre, see note at 3.193. He is the patron saint of gardeners (J. C. J. Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend). In Horto (Latin): ‘in the garden’. Saint Fiacre ‘retired to a hermitage on the banks of the Nore of which the townland Kilfiachra, or Kilfera, County Kilkenny [where he] lived a life of great mortification, in prayer, fast, vigil, and the manual labour of the garden’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). ‘That Saint Fiacre’s church should be singled out for a ceremony which includes no fewer than 32 women, as against only the groom and the bride’s father, may be an act of retribution, for the saint was very strict in “excluding women from his own enclosure” ’ (Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana IV’, p. 168; the quotation is from Donald Attwater, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints).
12.1292: papal blessing
Officially called an Apostolic Blessing by Parchment, a benediction granted by the papal Almoner in recognition of a contribution to the Pope’s charitable works. These were
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 629 instigated by Leo XIII (r. 1878–1903), and proved to be a popular gift at Catholic weddings (Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Encyclopedia, p. 744).
12.1293: hazelnuts
In Cormac’s Glossary, a ninth-century encyclopaedic dictionary, there is an entry for caill crínmon, ‘hazels of scientific composition’. From an annotation in a nineteenth-century edition produced by the Irish Archæological and Celtic Society: ‘The ancient Irish poets believed that there were fountains at the heads of the chief rivers of Ireland, over which grew nine hazels, that those hazels produced at certain times beautiful red nuts which fell on the surface of the water, that the salmon of the rovers came up and ate them, that the eating of them was the cause of the red spots on the salmon’s belly, that whoever would catch and eat one of the salmon would be endued with the sublimest poetic intellect’ (p. 35).
12.1293: bayleaves
Bay leaves come from laurel trees. See note at 12.1270.
12.1293: catkins of willow
Catkin: ‘A unisexual inflorescence [. . .] as in the willow, birch, poplar, pine, hazel’ (OED).
12.1293: ivytod
Ivy-tod: ivy bush (OED). Ivy is associated with the Greek god of wine and mirth, Dionysus or Bacchus, and is believed to prevent drunkenness. In Christian lore it symbolises eternal life because it remains continually green (Brewer’s).
12.1294: hollyberries
Holly is traditionally used to decorate homes and churches at Christmas-time (Brewer’s).
12.1294: mistletoe sprigs
Mistletoe was used by the druids in their ceremonies. In large doses it is toxic, but is reputed to have some medicinal attributes. Supposedly Christ’s cross was made from wood from the mistletoe tree. And, of course, there is the English Christmas-time tradition—dating back to at least the seventeenth century—of kissing under the mistletoe. ‘The correct procedure, now seldom observed, is that a man should pluck a berry when he kisses a girl under the mistletoe, and when the last berry is gone there should be no more kissing’ (all Brewer’s).
12.1294: quicken shoots
Quicken: the rowan or mountain ash (OED).
12.1296–97: our trade with Spain and the French
Before the invasion of Ireland by Anglo-Normans in 1169, trade between Ireland and the continent was extensive, especially after the advent of the Vikings at the end of the eighth century (NHI, vol. 1, pp. 295–300).
12.1298: Spanish ale in Galway
The medieval port of Galway ‘had links not only with England [. . .] but also with Flanders, France, Spain, and Portugal, importing wine in exchange for cattle hides and fish procured from local magnates in exchange for salt and luxury goods’ (Seán Duffy, Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia, p. 386). In Joyce’s essay ‘The City of the Tribes’ (1912), he describes the trade of medieval Galway: ‘Almost all the wine imported into the United Kingdom from Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands, and Italy passed through this port’
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630 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses (OCPW, p. 198). From James Clarence Mangan’s poem ‘Dark Rosaleen’: ‘And Spanish ale shall give you hope, / My Dark Rosaleen! / My own Rosaleen!’ (ll. 7–10, Works, vol. 3, p. 167).
12.1298: winedark waterway See note at 1.78.
12.1302–03: Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Blacksod Bay, Ventry . . . Killybegs
Queenstown harbour is near Cork (see note at 11.851). Kinsale harbour is 29 km south of Cork harbour; Blacksod Bay, which is in County Mayo, about 105 km north of Galway Bay. In his study of Irish ports, Anthony Marmion claims that while Blacksod Bay might be the best natural harbour on the west coast, its distance from the east coast makes it an impractical port and, as such, it was never developed (The Ancient and Modern History of the Maritime Ports of Ireland, p. 440). Ventry is a small fishing village, just north of Dingle Bay in County Kerry. Killybegs, on the Atlantic coast in County Donegal, north-west Ireland, is a large fishing port and had been ‘one of the principal Irish seaports, and is still deserving of being such from its fine and safe harbour’ (p. 422). In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Cork was the largest trading port, followed by Dublin, Kinsale, Belfast, and Galway (NHI, vol. 3, p. 444). However, by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the main coastal ports were at Cork and Waterford (NHI, vol. 4, pp. 259–60).
12.1304: the Galway Lynches
Galway was known as ‘the city of tribes’ and ‘The most famous of all the tribes was that of the Lynches’ (OCPW, p. 199). In Ireland, the surname Lynch is either of Irish origin (Ó Loingsigh) or Norman (de Lench); the Galway Lynches are Norman (Edward MacLysaght, Irish Families, p. 213).
12.1304: the Cavan O’Reillys
O’Reilly is one of the most common surnames in Ireland, most of whom descend from a powerful and influential family in County Cavan, a rural county north-west from Dublin, in the centre of Ireland in Ulster province (MacLysaght, Irish Families, p. 255).
12.1304: the O’Kennedys of Dublin
The O’Kennedys were originally from Glenomra, near Killaloe in County Clare and then settled in Ormond, a duchy in County Kilkenny. The name is common throughout Ireland, especially in counties Antrim and Tipperary (MacLysaght, Irish Families, p. 198).
12.1305–06: when the earl of Desmond . . . the emperor Charles the Fifth
A Norman-Irish lord, James fitz Maurice Fitzgerald (c.1500–29), the 11th Earl of Desmond, ‘had grandiose plans for allying with foreign powers to secure his authority in Munster and remove the English administration [. . .] he contacted the emperor Charles V for aid against Henry VIII. The emperor was initially interested and sent his chaplain, Gonzalo Fernandez, to Desmond as an envoy in 1529’ (DIB).
12.1307: breasting the waves
To breast: ‘To apply or oppose the breast to (waves, wind, a steep ascent); to stem, face, meet in full opposition’ (OED).
12.1308–10: Henry Tudor’s harps . . . three sons of Milesius
Supposedly the ‘Sacred Banner of the Milesians’, which represented a dead serpent and the rod of Moses. This is the oldest flag in Ireland (A. M. Sullivan, The Story of Ireland, p. 12).
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 631 However, the flag the Citizen is referring to, ‘three crowns on a blue field’, was a later development: it was the coat of arms granted to Ireland by Richard II and subsequently adopted as the flag for the whole country. Henry VIII replaced this flag with a gold harp on a blue field. Subsequently, the three crowns on a field of blue became the flag and coat of arms for the province of Munster, which is divided into Desmond in the south and Thomond in the north (Canon ffrench, ‘The Arms of Ireland and Celtic Tribal Heraldry’, pp. 245–46).
12.1311: Moya
Moya (or maryah) (Hiberno-English): ‘allegedly (added to a term or statement to question its truth or to scorn it)’; from the Irish mar dhea, ‘as it were’ (Dolan, s.v. maryah).
12.1311–12: All wind and piss like a tanyard cat
All wind and piss: a contemptuous catchphrase for a braggart (Partridge). Partridge notes the modifier ‘like a barber’s cat’.
12.1312: Cows in Connacht have long horns
From an Irish proverb: ‘Mór-thaidhbhseach iad adharca na mbó tar lear’ (Far-off cows have long horns); that is, the farther away the cow is, the easier it is to imagine it has admirable qualities (Thomas F. O’Rahilly, A Miscellany of Irish Proverbs, p. 33). Connaught is about 200 km distant from Dublin.
12.1314: Shanagolden
A town 29 km west of Limerick and 193 km south-west of Dublin city centre.
12.1314: Molly Maguires
Originally a nationalist group founded in 1843 to terrorise landlords and rent collectors during the land-reform disputes of the period. The name ‘Molly’ derives from their tactic of wearing women’s clothes as a disguise. This name was adopted by an Irish- American secret society which terrorised miners in Pennsylvania between 1854 and 1877 (Brewer’s).
12.1315–16: for grabbing the holding of an evicted tenant
During the land wars of the 1870s, rent strikes were organised to protest and, if possible, to prevent the eviction of tenants. When this failed, protestors tried to block the seizure of property that followed eviction. If control were maintained over the evicted man’s property and livestock, the landlord’s profits would be reduced, providing a bargaining chip to aid the evicted (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 43–44).
12.1318: An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion See note at 11.1081–83 for yeoman.
12.1319: a hands up
Since 1862, the label for Allsopp’s ale (see note at 8.927) featured a raised right hand that closely resembles the Red Hand of Ulster (see note at 12.1211–12). However, the similarity is coincidental; ‘the open hand was a common sign at inns, indicating that their ale was in good condition’ (Ian Webster, Ind Coope & Samuel Allsopp Breweries, p. 22).
12.1324: Black Beast Burned in Omaha, Ga.
On 30 September 1919, the London Times contained the following item within the column on ‘Imperial and Foreign News’: ‘At Omaha (Georgia) a mob attempted to hang the Mayor because he endeavoured to prevent the lynching of a negro charged with assaulting a white
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632 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses girl. The negro was hanged and the Court House set on fire’ (p. 5, col. e). This did not happen in Omaha, Georgia, which does exist, but Omaha, Nebraska. The victim’s name was Will Brown (New York Times, 29 Sep. 1919, p. 1, col. h).
12.1325: Deadwood Dicks
Deadwood Dick: ‘perhaps the quintessential dime novel hero’, introduced in 1877 by Edward L. Wheeler (American writer, c.1854–85) and the subject of thirty-three novels that remained popular for decades after their initial publication. ‘Dick’s continuing attempts to reform and forsake the outlaw life form a tenuous theme throughout the saga [. . .] The most pervasive theme is persecution and revenge’ (J. Randolph Cox, The Dime Novel Companion, pp. 73–74).
12.1325–26: firing at a Sambo . . . bonfire under him
Sambo: a racist term, associated with the nursery story ‘Little Black Sambo’ (Partridge). This description is modelled after the illustration ‘Hanging a Negro in Clarkson Street’ by Thomas Nast (American political cartoonist, 1840–1902), originally published in Harper’s Weekly (1 Aug. 1863), and much reprinted thereafter. This depicted an event during the New York Draft Riots of 13–15 July 1863, in which many Irish immigrants in New York took to the streets in violent protest against new conscription laws to resupply the Unionist forces fighting in the American Civil War. ‘A crowd of rioters in Clarkson Street, in pursuit of a negro, who in self-defence had fired on some rowdies, met an inoffensive colored man returning from a bakery with a loaf of bread under his arm. They instantly set upon and beat him and, after nearly killing him, hung him up to a lamp-post. His body was left suspended for several hours. A fire was made underneath him and he was literally roasted as he hung, the mob revelling in their demoniac act’ (J. T. Headley, Pen and Pencil Sketches of the Great Riots, pp. 274–75). The victim was later identified by his widow as William Jones. Nast’s picture also features various men in floppy hats firing rifles at the body (p. 192; this source was discovered by Taura Napier).
12.1329: the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at bay
From the patriotic song ‘The Lads in Navy Blue’: ‘It is the Navy, the British Navy / That keeps our foes at bay. / Our old song, Britannia rules the waves, / We still can sing to-day’ (Christopher Pulling, They Were Singing, p. 82). See also note at 12.1347.
12.1332: A fellow writes that calls himself Disgusted One
In 1904, John Gordon Swift MacNeill (1849–1926), MP from Donegal, criticised corporal punishment in the British Navy in Parliament. This prompted George Bernard Shaw to write a letter to the London Times condemning the practice, which concluded: ‘In short, there are certain practices which, however expedient they may be, are instinctively barred by the humanity of the highest races; and corporal punishment is one of them. I should blush to offer a lady or a gentleman more reasons for my disgust at it. Yours truly, G. Bernard Shaw’ (London Times, 14 June 1904, p. 11, col. f).
12.1338: A rump and dozen
Sir Jonah Barrington (see note at 10.782) records an incident in which John Claudius Beresford (Irish banker and and politician, 1766–1846; MP, 1790–1804, 1806–11) threatened a man with a flogging for voting against him in a parliamentary election: ‘ “I’ll lay you a rump and dozen”, exclaimed Beresford, “on the matter!” ’ (Personal Sketches, vol. 1, p. 163; Fritz Senn, ‘ “A Rump and Dozen” ’, pp. 4–5). The expression ‘rump and a dozen’ was an
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 633 eighteenth-century abbreviation for ‘a rump of beef and a dozen of stout’ (Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. rump). Conservative and anti-Catholic, Beresford took an active role in hunting down rebels during the 1798 rebellion (DIB).
12.1338–39: sir John Beresford
While John Claudius Beresford (see previous note) came from a noble family, he never held a title. He was effectively contemporaneous with the Irish- born Sir John Beresford (c.1768–1844), admiral of the British Navy and MP for several constituencies in England between 1809 and 1837 (ODNB).
12.1342: ’Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance
From Hamlet: ‘it is a custom / More honour’d in the breach than the observance’ (I.iv.15–16).
12.1345: meila murder
Meila murder (also míle murder or meela murder) (Hiberno-English): a thousand murders; combines the Irish míle, a thousand, and the English murder; also used as an expression for trouble (Dolan, s.v. mile murder).
12.1347: fellows that never will be slaves
After James Thomson’s ‘Ode: Rule Britannia’: ‘Rule, Britannia, Britannia rule the waves, / Britons never will be slaves’; see also note at 12.1213.
12.1347–48: only hereditary chamber on the face of God’s earth
Not quite true: Britain’s House of Lords has never exclusively consisted of hereditary peers since clergy are also included. Likewise, there are other hereditary legislative bodies. ‘In some European monarchies, for example, Hungary before the First World War and France from 1815 to 1848, remnants of estate representation were retained by the creation of upper houses composed largely of the hereditary peerage’ (Richard Rose, International Handbook of Elections, p. 97).
12.1349: cottonball barons
Cotton-ball: a derisive name for a Lancashire operative (EDD), which may not apply here, but the word is clearly used in a derisory context. When he was a civil servant, John Stanislaus Joyce ‘was obliged to attend certain functions at Dublin Castle. On one occasion there was a masquerade ball, and for a lark he went dressed as a British officer. The jarvey who drove him in a cab to the castle was expecting a tip befitting his passenger’s rank, but John Joyce gave him the minimum. “Holy Jaysus”, said the jarvey, “and I thought I had a real officer!” “And so you have, my man”, said John Joyce, refusing to be intimidated. “I have”, said the jarvey, looking at the coin in his fist, “a cotton-ball one” ’ (Ellmann, p. 21).
12.1351: On which the sun never rises See note at 2.248–49.
12.1353: yahoos
Yahoos: beasts with human bodies in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, part 4; Thus, a yahoo is a crude person (Brewer’s).
12.1354–59: They believe in rod . . . living and be paid
Parodies the Apostles’ Creed (see also note at 1.653): ‘I believe in one God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. Who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. Suffered under
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634 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell; the third day He rose again. He ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father. From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Apostles’ Creed).
12.1355: Jacky Tar
Jack Tar: sailor (Partridge).
12.1361: if you put force against force
From the third verse of the song ‘The Bold Fenian Men’ by John Scanlan: ‘Let the tyrants come forth, we’ll put force against force / Our pen is the sword and our voice is the cannon’ (Pádraig Breathnach, Songs of the Gael, Fourth Series, p. 165).
12.1362: porter
See note at 3.152.
12.1363: downface
To downface (Hiberno-English): ‘to persist boldly in an assertion (whether true or not)’ (PWJ, p. 250).
12.1364–65: our greater Ireland beyond the sea
Most of those who left Ireland during the famine years emigrated to America: ‘Emigration to America set in with a vast and steady flow [. . .] and continuing for the next sixty years kept the population at home in a state of decline and made a greater Ireland in America’ (Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 318).
12.1365–66: the black ’47
1847 was the worst year of the famine, which began in 1845 when potato blight destroyed Ireland’s principal crop (MacManus, Story of the Irish Race, p. 602). See also note at 2.269.
12.1366: shielings
Shieling: a small hut ‘of rough construction erected on or near a piece of pasture’ (OED).
12.1367: batteringram
Between 1849 and 1882, over half a million people were forcibly evicted from their homes so the landlords could consolidate their lands. In most cases, the tenants’ homes were destroyed (Davitt, The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, pp. 100–1). In his lecture ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’, Joyce wrote of England’s rule over Ireland: ‘She was as cruel as she was cunning: her weapons were, and still are, the battering-ram, the club, and the noose’ (OCPW, p. 119). See also note at 16.606.
12.1367–69: the Times rubbed its hands . . . as redskins in America
The Times’s actual coverage of the famine was not as xenophobic as the Citizen claims. From the 1850s onwards, Irish nationalists manipulated quotations from the Times in order to exaggerate their anti-Irish prejudice and thereby perpetuate anti-English resentment among the Irish. These fake quotations mutated over the years in their various recountings. For example, from the Freeman’s Journal: ‘[The Times] was still the relentless enemy of the Irish race as it was when it declared in triumph that a Catholic Celt would soon be as rare in Connemara as a red Indian on the shores of Manhattan’ (21 Sep. 1881, p. 2, col. e; John Simpson, JJON).
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12.1369: Even the grand Turk sent us his piastres
Piastre: a small Turkish coin worth 1/100 of a Turkish pound (OED). According to one contemporary source, the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid contributed £1,000 to aid Ireland and was said to have intended a gift of ten times that amount plus provisions, but did not do so in order not to embarrass Queen Victoria (Charles Mackay, The Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel, vol. 4, p. 4).
12.1369–71: But the Sassenach tried to starve the nation . . . Rio de Janeiro
‘Testimony is as unanimous and proof as clear as to the abundance of the grain crop [during 1847] as they are to the failure of the potato crop [. . .]. John Mitchel quotes the case of the Captain who saw a vessel laden with Irish corn at the Port of Rio de Janeiro’ (T. P. O’Connor, Gladstone, Parnell and the Great Irish Struggle, p. 366).
12.1372: Twenty thousand of them died in the coffinships
During 1847, passage to Canada for emigrants escaping the Famine was on unregistered and brutally cramped ships, dubbed ‘coffin ships’. ‘The fetid holds provided a congenital breeding ground for lice-borne fever bacilli, and “ship fever” ravaged the famine-weakened emigrants both during and after the voyage. Of nearly 100,000 emigrants who embarked for Quebec in 1847 over one-sixth died on board ship, in the hospital at Grosse Isle, or elsewhere in Canada East or West while still under official scrutiny [. . .] The lingering nightmare of the coffin ships did not impede emigration’ (NHI, vol. 5, p. 582). Passage to destinations other than Canada was considerably safer.
12.1373: the land of the free
From the American national anthem ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ (Bowen, p. 222).
12.1373: the land of bondage See note at 7.208–09.
12.1374–75: sons of Granuaile
Granuaile (or Gráinne Mhaol): the Irish form of Grace O’Malley (c.1530–c.1603), ‘queen of Clare Island and Clew Bay, a famous commander of war galleys, who was said to be “for forty years the stay of all rebellions in the west” ’ (Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 170); see also note at 16.558.
12.1375: Kathleen ni Houlihan
Kathleen ni Houlihan: a traditional symbol of Ireland personified as a woman (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Cathleen Ní Houlihan). See also note at 9.36–37.
12.1377–78: Since the poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea See note at 1.543–44.
12.1378: landed at Killala
On 22 August 1798, 1,019 French soldiers under General Humbert disembarked at Kilcummin, on Killala Bay in County Mayo, expecting to connect with rebellious Irish forces. By this time, however, the Irish rebellion had been largely put down and the French were soon defeated (Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 296).
12.1379–80: We fought for the royal Stuarts . . . betrayed us
After being deposed in 1688, following a brief reign of three years, and replaced by the ‘glorious revolution’ of William of Orange, the Catholic Stuart James II tried to reclaim the
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636 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses throne of England in 1689. The Irish supported him with arms but were defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and James went into exile in France. In his wake, the Irish aristocracy that had supported his cause ‘became an inconspicuous and timid minority in its own country’ (Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 234).
12.1380–81: Remember Limerick and the broken treatystone
The Treaty of Limerick of October 1691 put to an end the war that began with James II’s failed attempt to reclaim the throne. It provided for tolerance for the Catholics and allowed Irish Catholic soldiers to go into exile abroad. However, when the Irish parliament, composed entirely of Irish Protestants, ratified the treaty in 1697, they repealed many of the concessions granted to the Catholics. This was followed by the enactment of various discriminatory laws known as the Penal Laws, which effectively nullified the treaty (Curtis, History of Ireland, pp. 236–42). ‘Catholics regarded the penal laws of William and Anne as a breach of faith, and Limerick is traditionally referred to as the city of the “broken treaty” ’ (NHI, vol. 3, p. 507). The treaty was reportedly signed on a slab of limestone, now called the ‘treaty stone’, which was mounted on a plinth in 1865 to commemorate the broken treaty (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Limerick, Treaty of).
12.1381–82: We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the wild geese See note at 3.164.
12.1382: Fontenoy
The battle of Fontenoy: a major engagement in the War of Austrian Succession in 1745 in which the Irish Brigade, consisting of ‘Wild Geese’ and their descendants, fought successfully for the French against combined forces from England, Holland, and Hanover (MacManus, Story of the Irish Race, p. 475).
12.1382: Sarsfield
See note at 12.178–79.
12.1382–83: O’Donnell, duke of Tetuan in Spain
Leopold O’Donnell (1809–67): Duke of Tetuan, a descendent of one of the Wild Geese who left Ireland in 1690. He was a general in Spain and its Prime Minister in 1856, again in 1858–1863, and yet again in 1865–1866 (EB11, s.v. Henry Joseph O’Donnell).
12.1383–84: Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria Theresa
John Wyse Nolan has confused Ulysses Browne of Camus (d. 1731) with his son Maximilian Ulysses, Count von Browne, Baron of Camus and Mountany (1705–57). The father was an Irish exile of 1690 who served in the Austrian imperial service and was made a count in 1716. His son had a distinguished military career and was made a field marshal in the Austrian army, under Maria Theresa, in 1753 (EB11, s.v. Maximilian Ulysses Browne).
12.1387: entente cordial
Entente cordiale: French, ‘cordial understanding’; a term used for the agreement the French and British reached on 8 April 1904, resolving much of the competitive tension between these nations (Brewer’s).
12.1387–88: Tay Pay’s dinnerparty with perfidious Albion
Tay Pay: the nickname of Thomas Power O’Connor (see note at 7.687); after having lived in London for so long, he acquired an English accent, which attracted the scorn of some Irish nationalists (DIB). See note at 12.1209 for ‘perfidious Albion’.
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12.1389: Conspuez les français
Conspuez les français (French): ‘Spit on the French’; see note at 12.1209.
12.1390–92: Prooshians and the Hanoverians . . . flatulent old bitch that’s dead
Prooshians: Prussians. The former kingdom of Hanover became part of Prussia in 1866 (EB11, s.v. Hanover). Since 1714, the British monarchy descends from the House of Hanover, when George I assumed the throne (see note at 12.293). ‘The German lad’ is Prince Albert (of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha), who became prince consort when he married his first cousin Victoria (‘the flatulent old bitch that’s dead’), who was of German parentage, but was born in England (EB11, s.vv. George I; Victoria).
12.1394: winkers
Winkers: eyelashes or eyelids (OED). Photographs of Queen Victoria show that she had heavy-lidded eyes.
12.1395: jorum of mountain dew and her coachman
Jorum: ‘a large drinking-bowl or vessel’. Mountain dew: scotch whiskey (both OED). After the death of Prince Albert, a Scotsman, John Brown (1826–83), became Victoria’s devoted, long-time attendant and reputed lover (Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria, pp. 321–22).
12.1397: Ehren on the Rhine
A ballad by Americans Cobb and Hutchinson about the final leave-taking of a soldier and his love (Bowen, p. 223).
12.1397–98: come where the boose is cheaper
The title of a song, lyrics by E. W. Rogers and music by A. E. Durandeau, from around 1890 (John Simpson, JJON). ‘There is a story told of the late Queen Victoria who, it was said, once asked an official of Buckingham Palace to inquire the name of a tune that was being played by the Guards’ band outside. The official made the inquiries and returned to Her Majesty not without embarrassment, for her command demanded obedience and he was compelled to say: “Madame, Come where the booze is cheaper” ’ (Clarence Winchester, Let’s Look at London, quoted in Max Décharné, Vulgar Tongues, p. 184).
12.1399: Edward the peacemaker
That is, Edward VII of the United Kingdom. The French gave him this name (le roi pacificateur) following the entente cordiale of 1904 (Edward Legge, King Edward in His True Colours, p. 68). For entente cordiale see note at 12.1387.
12.1400–01: more pox than pax
The ‘pox’ would be Edward’s venereal disease; he was treated for gonorrhoea, which he contracted from one of his (many) mistresses (R. D. Catterall, The Venereal Diseases, p. 144). Pax (Latin): peace.
12.1401: Edward Guelph-Wettin
Guelph: the ancestral name of the Hanover dynasty. Wettin: the ancestral name of the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, of which Prince Albert was a member. Victoria dropped the name Guelph in 1840 when she married Albert. The American humour magazine Life ‘used both “Mrs Guelph” and “Mrs Wettin” as cognomens for the queen as a witty way to deemphasize her royal title’ (Jerold Savory and Patricia Marks, The Smiling Muse, p. 25). See also note at 12.1390–92.
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12.1402–03: priests and bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth
Edward VII was known for his fondness for horse racing. In July 1903, during a visit to Ireland, he was enthusiastically welcomed at St Patrick College, Maynooth (the Catholic seminary). The priests put on display a picture of the King’s derby winner, its frame festooned with ribbons of his racing colours (Sidney Lee, Edward VII, vol. 2, pp. 167–68).
12.1403: His Satanic Majesty’s
‘His Satanic Majesty’—as a title for Satan and a perversion of ‘His Britannic Majesty’— appears in Samuel Richardson’s (English novelist, 1689–1761) Clarissa (1751), where Lovelace, the villain of the novel, writes to a friend of Clarissa’s attempts to change his ways: ‘To be sure, Jack, she means to do great despite to his satanic majesty in her hopes of reforming me’ (vol. 2, p. 469).
12.1404–05: earl of Dublin
Victoria conferred this title on Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII), in September 1849 (Michael O’Shea, James Joyce and Heraldry, p. 71).
12.1412: May your shadow never grow less
‘When students have made certain progress in the black arts, they are compelled to run through a subterranean hall with the devil after them. If they run so fast that the devil can only catch their shadow, or part of it, they become first-rate magicians, but lose either all or part of their shadow. Therefore, the expression referred to above means, May you escape wholly and entirely from the clutches of the foul fiend’ (Brewer’s).
12.1415: dunducketymudcoloured
Dunduckity (Hiberno-English): ‘a dull colour’, ‘A contemptuous term for a nondescript colour’ (Dolan).
12.1424–25: I’m a nation for I’m living in the same place for the past five years
During the time Joyce was writing ‘Cyclops’ whilst living in Zürich, he often discussed political theory with his friend Ottocaro Weiss. ‘One day, talking about the nature of the state, Weiss quoted some eminent authority to the effect that three elements are necessary to constitute a state: a people, a territory, and sovereignty. Joyce kept bringing up examples of smaller and smaller states, until he got Weiss to agree that a state could be only one person. He stepped on a chair, which he said was his territory, and declared, “Then I’m a state” ’ (Ellmann, p. 463).
12.1430: What is your nation
A common theme of much anti-S emitism in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was that Jews could never be loyal citizens of the countries they inhabit. For example, from an article in the United Irishman: ‘The Jew has at heart no country but the Promised Land. He forms a nation apart wherever he goes. He may be a German citizen today, and a British subject to-morrow. He is always a Jew Nationalist bound by the most solemn obligations and the fiercest hopes to the achievement of National Restoration and Revenge’ (29 July 1899, p. 1).
12.1433: Red bank oyster
That is, a great gob of spit, but otherwise an oyster from the west of Ireland; see note at 8.865–66.
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12.1434: After you with the push
After you with the push: a catchphrase from the early twentieth century, originally from London, ‘addressed with ironic politeness to one who has roughly brushed past’ (Partridge).
12.1439–40: Solomon of Droma . . . Ballymote
Solam (or Solomon) Ó Droma, Magnus (or Manus) Ó Duigenan, and Robertus Mac Sithigh were the three scribes who assembled The Book of Ballymote (1391) out of selections from many older books in Ballymote, County Sligo, in the north-west of Ireland. The book was written ‘in the house of Tomaltoch mac Tadg [. . .] mac Donogh’, who commissioned it (Robert Atkinson, The Book of Ballymote, p. 1).
12.1443–46: four evangelists in turn . . . Carrantuohill
The four evangelists are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Their evangelical symbols (after Revelation 4:7) are a winged man with a pen or a book, a winged lion, a winged ox, and an eagle, respectively. The four masters are Michael O’Clery, a Franciscan, and three laymen, Conaire O’Clery, Cucoigcriche O’Clery, and Fearfeasa O’Mulchonry, who compiled the Annála Ríoghachta Éireann (Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland), also called Annála na gCeithre Máistrí (Annals of the Fours Masters), between 1632 and 1636 in a Franciscan friary on the Drowes River, County Donegal. Carrantuohill, in County Kerry is the highest mountain in Ireland, at 1,041 metres (Brewer’s Irish, s.vv. Annals of the Four Masters; Carrantuohill).
12.1444: bogoak See note at 3.82.
12.1447: emunctory field
Emunctory: ‘of or pertaining to the blowing of the nose’ (OED); thus the ‘emunctory field’ is the handkerchief.
12.1447: duns
Duns (or doons): hill fortresses, found in Ireland and Scotland (OED).
12.1447: raths
Raths: circular forts enclosed by an earthen wall. They are usually constructed on hills (OED).
12.1448: cromlechs
Cromlech: structures ‘of prehistoric age consisting of a large flat or flattish unhewn stone resting horizontally on three or more stones set upright’, found throughout Ireland (OED).
12.1448: grianauns
Grianaun: from the Irish grianán, a kind of sunroom.
12.1448: seats of learning
Throughout the Middle Ages, Ireland did indeed hold a reputation for learning and scholarship throughout Europe (NHI, vol. 1, pp. 394–97). From Joyce’s 1907 lecture ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’: ‘It seems unquestionable that Ireland then was an enormous seminary where students from different lands used to meet, so great was its reputation as teacher of spiritual matters’ (OCPW, p. 108).
12.1448: maledictive stones
‘A Pagan practice, in use among the Lusitanian as well as the Insular Celts [. . .]. They are round stones, of various sizes, and arranged in such order as that they cannot be easily
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640 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses reckoned at all. These stones are turned and [. . .] their order changed by the inhabitants on certain occasions, when they visit the shrine to wish good or evil to their neighbours’ (Samuel Ferguson, Lays of the Western Gael, pp. 239–40). This definition is from Ferguson’s note to lines 13–16 of his poem ‘The Burial of King Cormac’ (see note at 8.663–65): ‘They loosed their curse against the king; / They cursed him in his flesh and bones; / And daily in their mystic ring / They turn’d the maledictive stones’ (p. 54; Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Dindsenchas’, p. 300; Terence Killeen, JJON).
12.1449–50: Sligo illuminators See note at 12.1439–40.
12.1450–51: the time of the Barmecides
Title of a poem by Irish poet James Clarence Mangan, in which an old Persian hero recalls his youthful adventures and companions (Works, vol. 2, p. 168). The Barmecides: a powerful Persian family of the eighth century, more properly rendered as Barmakids (EB11).
12.1451: Glendalough
Located in County Wicklow, Glendalough is called ‘the Valley of the Two Lakes’ and has several ancient monastic ruins (Brewer’s Irish).
12.1451: lovely lakes of Killarney See note at 10.839.
12.1451–52: ruins of Clonmacnois
One of the most important and the largest monastic centres in ancient Ireland, built close to the geographic centre of the country on the east bank of the Shannon River. Built in the sixth century, it was pillaged repeatedly by Vikings between 834 and 1163, then raided by the Anglo-Normans in 1179, and finally destroyed in 1552 by the English (Brewer’s Irish).
12.1452: Cong Abbey
Located at Cong, a village on the border between Mayo and Galway, the Abbey was built in the late twelfth century on the site of a church established by St Fechin of Fore in the seventh century (William Wilde, Lough Corrib, pp. 164–66).
12.1452: Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins
Glen Inagh (‘ivy glen’): a lengthy valley in County Galway, which is bounded on the western side by the Twelve Pins of Bennebeola and by the Maamturk Mountains on the eastern side (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, pp. 256–57).
12.1452: Ireland’s Eye
Located about 1.5 km north of Howth in the Irish sea, Ireland’s Eye is a small island that is home to the ruins of the chapel of the ancient Irish recluse St Nessan (Chart, Story of Dublin, p. 340).
12.1453: Green Hills of Tallaght
The Hills of Tallaght are to the south and the west of Dublin and served as a resort area for the gentry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 36).
12.1453: Croagh Patrick
Located in County Mayo, near the coast, this 760-metre-tall mountain is known as the place where St Patrick spent Lent fasting and praying. Croagh: crag (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Reek, the).
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12.1453–54: brewery of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited) See note at 5.388.
12.1454: Lough Neagh’s banks
Lough Neagh, in Ulster, is the largest lake in Ireland at 396 km2 (Brewer’s Irish).
12.1454–55: vale of Ovoca
The vale of Ovoca (or Avoca) is located in county Wicklow, where the rivers Avonbeg and Avonmore meet (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, pp. 314–15). See also note at 8.415.
12.1455: Isolde’s tower
Isolde’s Tower: a medieval round tower that once formed one of the small keeps that guarded Dublin city wall. It stood on the site of Lower Exchange Street and was destroyed in the seventeenth century. Its remains were found in the early 1990s (Peter Harbison, Ancient Irish Monuments, p. 66). It is supposedly associated with the Isolde of Tristan and Isolde (see note at 12.192).
12.1455: Mapas obelisk
This obelisk on top of Killiney Hill in Dún Laoghaire, south-west of Dublin, was built by John Mapas, a local landowner, in 1741 ‘to give employment during a famine’ (DD, p. 207; Bennett, s.v. Killiney and Ballybrack).
12.1455: Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital
The hospital, located on Lower Grand Canal Street (Thom’s, p. 1442), ‘was founded under a will of Sir Patrick Dun, a Scottish doctor who practiced in Dublin. It was moved from Essex Quay in 1808 to the present site at Grand Canal Street’ (Bennett, s.v. Grand Canal Street).
12.1455–56: Cape Clear
Cape Clear, on the south side of Clear Island (in the Atlantic off County Cork), is the southernmost point in Ireland aside from the lighthouse at Fastnet Rock, 6.4 km to the south-west of Clear (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 449).
12.1456: the glen of Aherlow
This valley was formed by the River Aherlow and is 12.9 km long and 1.2 km wide. It is the primary pass between County Cork and County Tipperary and lies near the town of Tipperary (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 360).
12.1456: Lynch’s castle
Lynch’s Castle, on the corner of Shop Street and Abbeygate Street in Galway was the residence of the Galway Lynches (see note at 12.1304). In his 1912 essay on Galway, Joyce relates ‘the most tragic event in the city’s history’: in 1493, James Lynch FitzStephen hanged his own son from the window of his castle because his son had killed a visiting Spanish dignitary whom FitzStephen had sworn to protect (OCPW, pp. 199–200).
12.1456: Scotch house See note at 8.321.
12.1456–57: Rathdown Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown
Loughlinstown, a townland (see note at 7.91–92) 14 km south-east of Dublin, was home to the Rathdown Union Workhouse (it is now a village): ‘On the brow of the hill stands the
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642 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Rathdown Union Workhouse, very prettily and most salubriously situated on a site of eight acres, erected in 1841 at an expense of £6,000’ (Thom’s, p. 1731).
12.1457: Tullamore jail
Tullamore, the county town of County Offaly, is located on the bog of Allen (an area that spans portions of counties Kildare, Meath, and Offaly; see note at 12.1460–61). Tullamore Jail opened in 1830. Over the years, various Irish nationalist campaigners endured imprisonment there; it was notorious for ‘brutal and unjustifiable treatment’ (Edmund Dwyer Gray et al., The Treatment of Political Prisoners in Ireland, p. 54).
12.1457: Castleconnel rapids
Found at a broad and rocky spot on the River Shannon in central Ireland, the rapids are often called the Falls of Doonas, a name which comes from the Irish Dun-easa, ‘the fortress of the cataract’ (P. W. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 459). Castleconnel is a corrupt Irish spelling of ‘castle of the O’Connings, not of the O’Connells as the present form of the name would indicate’ (p. 49).
12.1458: Kilballymacshonakill
The name Kilballymacshonakill (‘Church of the Townland of the Son of the Old Church’) probably derives from the stereotypical, albeit fictional, village of Killballymactaggart (‘Church of the Townland of the Son of the Priest’), which succumbs to revolutionary fervour in in the anti-Home Rule and anti-Land League novel Norah Moriarty; or, Revelations of Modern Irish Life (1886) by Anne Margaret Rowan (1844–1913), writing under the pseudonym of ‘Amos Reade’. Shonakill—and variants such as Shankill and Sheankill—is a common element in townland or village names and means ‘Old Church’ (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1458: cross at Monasterboice
Monasterboice is a monastic site in County Louth, 56 km north-west of Dublin. ‘It includes a round tower, the remains of churches, and, most notably, one of the most perfect surviving high crosses, the 10th-century Cross of Muiredach [. . .] There is another high cross, called the “Tall Cross”, and a third in the monastery’s graveyard’ (Brewer’s Irish).
12.1458: Jury’s Hotel
Jury’s: ‘Commercial and Family Hotel’, 7–8 College Green and 1–4 Anglesea Street, Dublin and run by Henry J. Jury (Thom’s, p. 1458).
12.1458–59: S. Patrick’s Purgatory
Saint Patrick’s Purgatory: a cave on Station Island in Lough Derg, County Donegal in which St Patrick is believed to have fasted for forty days and have experienced a vision of purgatory. In the 1650s, Cromwell sealed the cave (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Lough Dearg).
12.1459: Salmon Leap
Salmon Leap: a waterfall on the Liffey, just west of Dublin, where the fish leap up. Near the waterfall is the village of Leixlip, a Danish name from the old Norse Laxhlaup, salmon leap (P. W. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 109).
12.1459: Maynooth college refectory
St Patrick’s College, Maynooth is the ‘National Seminary for Ireland’, established as the Royal College of St Patrick in 1795, and a pontifical university since 1899. It is commonly known as just Maynooth (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Maynooth). Refectory: a college’s dining hall (OED). See also note at 12.1402–03.
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12.1459: Curley’s hole
A treacherous swimming place found on the coast, north of Dublin, at Dollymount near the Bull Wall, and marked with warning notices. The name ‘is believed to derive from that of one of its first victims. However, the notices sometimes caused difficulties in that there was not one “hole” but several and their position was not constant’ (Henry Gilligan, History of the Port of Dublin, p. 95). Joyce mentioned this hole in his broadside poem ‘Gas from a Burner’ (l. 62).
12.1460: three birthplaces of the first duke of Wellington
The newspaper announcement of the birth of Arthur Wellesley, who was to become the 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) stated he was born in his family’s Dublin residence, Mornington House, 6 Merrion Street (now 24 Upper Merrion Street). On the other hand, Burke’s Peerage claimed that, instead, he was born in the family’s ancestral seat, Dangan Castle, Summerhill, County Meath. During his lifetime, ‘in Dublin it was a generally received opinion that his Grace was born in a house that formerly stood on the site of the late Royal Irish Academy House, in Grafton Street’ (R. R. Madden, The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington, vol. 3, p. 14 n.). Other contenders have been named, but the family’s Merrion Street house is the likeliest candidate.
12.1460: rock of Cashel
Located in County Tipperary, this 60-metre-high rock stands out in the middle of a large plain. At the top is Cormac’s small Romanesque chapel, consecrated in 1134, as well as a tower, a stone cross, and the ruins of a medieval cathedral (Brewer’s Irish).
12.1460–61: bog of Allen
The bog of Allen is near the centre of Ireland, between the rivers Liffey and Shannon, and it spans portions of counties Kildare, Meath, and Offaly (P. W. Joyce, The Geography of the Counties of Ireland, p. 16). See note at 1.413 for bog.
12.1461: Henry Street Warehouse
Henry-Street Warehouse Co.: ‘outfitters, silk mercers, and haberdashers’, 59–62 Henry Street and 1–5 and 36–39 Denmark Street (Thom’s, p. 1896).
12.1461: Fingal’s Cave
Located in Scotland, Fingal’s cave is the largest of the seven caves found on the island of Staffa, part of the Inner Hebrides (EB11, s.v. Staffa). Fingal: the alternative name for Finn MacCool (see note at 12.910), which was used by the Scottish poet James Macpherson (1736–96); see note at 12.1129.
12.1465: Show us over the drink See note at 4.331.
12.1471–72: sold by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle
Jews were not slaves in Morocco in 1904, but they ‘were ill-treated, confined to Mellahs, compelled to wear distinctive black clothing, etc., and were periodically subjected to fanat ical attacks of violence’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Morocco). Mellah: ‘A Jewish quarter in a Moroccan town or city’ (OED).
12.1473: Are you talking about the new Jerusalem?
In the Bible, the phrase ‘the new Jerusalem’ is used to describe the Christian vision of heaven in Revelation 21 and 22: ‘And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming
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644 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband’ (Revelation 21:2). This phrase was also used by Christians to describe the Zionist project of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine; however the Zionists themselves did not use this term (Nira Yuval-Davis, ‘Conclusion’, p. 188).
12.1476: softnosed bullet
Soft-nosed or dum-dum bullet: a kind of hollow-nosed, expanding bullet developed in the late nineteenth century and used by the British in the Boer War; outlawed (but not altogether eliminated) by the 1899 Hague Conference on armaments and warfare (EB11, s.v. dum-dum).
12.1486: round to the court See note at 12.1121.
12.1489: new apostle to the gentiles
After Paul’s letter to the Romans: ‘For I say to you, Gentiles: as long indeed as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I will honour my ministry’ (Romans 11:13).
12.1490: Love your neighbours
Jesus’s two great commandments are: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself ’ (Matthew 22:37–39).
12.1491: Beggar my neighbour
Beggar my neighbour: a children’s card game. To beggar: ‘to impoverish’ (OED); also a euphemism for ‘to bugger’ (Partridge).
12.1492: moya
See note at 12.1311.
12.1493–94: Constable 14A loves Mary Kelly See note at 12.801–02.
12.1494: Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle See note at 13.79 and 13.130.
12.1495: Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow
Alludes to the Li Chi (or Li Ji, The Book of Rites), one of the five sacred books of Confucianism. Han: the dynasty that reigned during China’s Golden Age (206 bc–ad 220) (EB11, s.v. Confucius). Cha: Mandarin, tea. Pu: a unit of measurement equal to 1.8 metres. Chow: a dog of Chinese breed and, by extension, food in general, after the Chinese practice of eating dogs; also a derogatory term for a Chinese person (OED).
12.1496: Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant
Jumbo, an African elephant, was acquired by the Royal Zoological Gardens in London in 1865. In 1882, he was purchased with much fanfare by P. T. Barnum (American showman, 1810–91) and shipped to the United States, where he was exhibited as ‘the world’s largest elephant’. He died in 1885. Alice was another African elephant in the London zoo, who ‘the press and public insisted on sentimentally pairing with Jumbo, but toward whom he
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 645 showed no love at all and often menaced with “angry and violent conduct” ’ (A. H. Saxon, P. T. Barnum, p. 293). There was a popular song of the day about Alice being distraught at Jumbo’s departure: ‘Jumbo said to Alice: / “I love you”, / Alice said to Jumbo: / “I don’t believe you do; / For if you really loved me, / As you say you do, / You’d never go to Yankee Town / And leave me in the zoo” ’ (quoted in Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, p. 32).
12.1496–97: Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle
Verschoyle is the surname of the various Irish families descended from Willem and Henrick Verschuijl, Huguenot brothers who emigrated to Ireland from the Netherlands in the early seventeenth century. Joyce might be specifically referring here to Charles Verschoyle (1848–1927) and his wife Sarah (1851–1926), who in 1901 lived at 56 Benburb Street (Virginia Mason, Gens Van Der Scuylen, p. 216; with thanks to David Simms).
12.1497: turnedin eye
That is, she has a squint. Joyce’s daughter Lucia had a squint from childhood, which was corrected by surgery in 1930 (Brenda Maddox, Nora, p. 264).
12.1497–98: the man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead See note at 6.805.
12.1499: Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor See note at 12.1170–71.
12.1502: your very good health and song
A Hiberno-English toast. For example, from Charles Lever’s (1806–72) Charles O’Malley: The Irish Dragon: ‘this is like the thing; and, Mr Free, you are beginning to feel easy and comfortable; pass the jug: your very good health and song’ (vol. 2, p. 42).
12.1506: canters
Canter: ‘criminals and vagabonds’ (Partridge).
12.1507: sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides
In 1649, Cromwell and his troops (ironsides) massacred nearly 3,000 men as well as uncounted women and children as part of his pacification campaign in Ireland, following the end of the English Civil War. In his despatch to the House of Commons, Cromwell reported: ‘It has pleased God to bless our endeavour at Drogheda. . . the enemy were about 3,000 strong in the town. I believe we put to sword the whole number [. . .]. This hath been a marvellous great mercy’ (Seumas MacManus, Story of the Irish Race, p. 425). This also echoes Father John Creagh’s (see note at 2.442) second anti-Semitic sermon to the Mens’ Confraternity in Mount St Alphonsus, Limerick, on the evening of 18 January 1904: ‘If the Jews are allowed to go on as they have been doing in a short time we will be their absolute slaves, and slavery to them is worse than slavery to which Cromwell condemned the poor Irish who were shipped to the Barbadoes’ (quoted in Dermot Keogh and Andrew McCarthy, Limerick Boycott, p. 54; Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘ “Those Jews they said killed the Christian boy” ’).
12.1509–10: that skit in the United Irishman today about . . . England
Arthur Griffith’s United Irishman ran parodic sketches of this kind, although this particular one is of Joyce’s invention (John Nash, ‘Newspapers and Imperialism in Ulysses’, p. 189).
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12.1515: His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta
Not a Zulu, but a leader (‘Alake’) from the western Nigerian province of Abeokuta. The Alake did visit England in the spring and summer of 1904. On 30 May, he had an audience with King Edward VII (Ajayi Kolawole Ajisafe, History of Abeokuta, p. 99). See also note at 12.1523.
12.1515–16: Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs
The office of the Captain and Gold Stick of His Majesty’s Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms was held by the Right Honourable Baron Belper in 1904 (Thom’s, p. 106). Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs is, apparently, fictitious.
12.1518: partook of luncheon
Joyce took this phrase from Queen Victoria’s published diary, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868): ‘We walked down the ranks of the Highlanders, and then partook of luncheon’ (p. 21; Ronan Crowley, ‘The Queen is Not a Subject’, p. 201; NLI II.i.2 f. 6v).
12.1520: the reverend Ananias Praisegod Barebones
Praisegod Barebones (or Barbon or Barebone) (c.1596–1679): English millenarian preacher, tanner, and member of Cromwell’s 1653 Parliament, which was nicknamed ‘Barebones Parliament’ (ODNB). Ananias may allude to either the Puritan preacher in Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist (1610) or to the Jewish high priest Ananias who ‘commanded them that stood by [St Paul] to smite him on the mouth’ (Acts 23:1–5).
12.1521: Massa
Massa: ‘Master. Chiefly in representations of African-American, Caribbean, and Australian Aboriginal speech. Also as a respectful form of address [. . .] In later use typically highlighting offensive expectations or stereotypes of black servility, referring back to the era of slavery’ (OED).
12.1523: illuminated bible
During his visit, the Alake spoke at a reception given by the committee of the Church Missionary Society, where he remarked that Queen Victoria had sent a Bible to his father some years before: ‘The Alake spoke at some length, and at the close his secretary informed the committee of the tenor of his remarks. He said it was a red letter day in his life to meet the committee, for the history of Abeokuta was closely bound up with that of the C. M. S. His father, who was the Alake nearly 60 years ago, gave the land on which the church in the Ake township of Abeokuta was built, and he had had the honour of laying the foundation-stone of the present church, built as a memorial of the missionaries Townsend and Wood. In Townsend’s time his father had sent a letter to Queen Victoria, and through Lord Chichester the Queen had sent him back two bound volumes of the Word of God, saying that that book was the secret of England’s greatness’ (London Times, 15 June 1904, p. 10, col. b). Furthermore, perhaps to demonstrate his own goodwill towards the Alake, ‘On the eve of [the Alake’s] departure he received a handsome Bible, a present from King Edward VII’ (Ajisafe, History of Abeokuta, p. 99).
12.1525: great squaw Victoria
Squaw: ‘Applied by Indians to white women’ (OED).
12.1527: firstshot usquebaugh
See note at 6.430–31 for usquebaugh. First shot (also foreshot): in whiskey distilling, ‘the first spirit which comes over into the condenser’ (OED, s.vv. first; foreshot). The foreshot is
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 647 discarded because it contains poisonous and highly volatile compounds such as ethyl acet ate (Inge Russell and Graham Stewart, Whisky Technology, Production and Marketing, p. 167).
12.1527: Black and White
A brand of (blended) Scotch whisky; originally called Buchanan’s Special. It was the whisky served at the bar in the House of Commons, where it was referred to as ‘Black and White’ after its distinctive dark bottle and white label. It was officially rebranded as such in 1902 (Charles MacLean, Whiskey, p. 123).
12.1530: Cottonopolis
Cottonopolis: a nickname for Manchester, England, the centre of the British cotton industry (Partridge).
12.1534–35: Wonder did he put that bible to the same use as I would
Obviously meant as some kind of joking innuendo, this line suggests—even if not deliberately on Lambert’s part—the differences between the Protestant and Catholic Bibles and the respective attitudes thereto. The texts of the Protestant and Catholic Bibles differ in the order and number of books in the Old Testament (the Protestant Bible relegates some books to the Apocrypha). But beyond the differences of text, Protestant denominations value the Bible differently. ‘The earliest Protestants agreed that the message of salvation was taught authoritatively in the Christian Scriptures which, they held, had been obscured by the corruptions of Roman Catholicism. In 1638, the Englishman William Chillingworth published a polemical work aimed at Roman Catholics in which he boldly proclaimed, “the BIBLE, I say, the BIBLE only, is the religion of Protestants” ’ (Mark A. Noll, Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction, p. 6). In distinction, Catholicism assumes an authority to the Church itself: ‘we can say that the New Testament comes from the believing community—the Church—and not vice versa’ (Lawrence Cunningham, An Introduction to Catholicism, p. 137).
12.1539: Shanganagh. It’s only initialled: P
Articles in the United Irishman were typically credited to various pseudonyms, which in some cases were just initials. ‘Shanganagh’ (an Irish toponym) was one of several pseudonyms Griffith used throughout his career and his best-known (Colum Kenny, The Enigma of Arthur Griffith, p. 140). In 1906, Joyce sent Stanislaus a copy of the 4 August issue of Sinn Féin in which he marked two paragraphs in a parodic sketch by Griffith that was signed ‘Shanganagh’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 147).
12.1540: Trade follows the flag
A political proverb justifying colonialism, current around the turn of the twentieth century. For example, from J. E. T. Rogers’s Economic Interpretation of History (1888): ‘The English [. . .] began to build up a new colonial empire [. . .] under a new [. . .] maxim, that trade follows the flag’ (quoted in ODEP).
12.1542: if they’re any worse than those Belgians in the Congo
In ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’, Joyce compared the British treatment of Ireland with Belgium’s rapacious colonial exploitation of the Congo: ‘A conqueror cannot be amateurish and what England did in Ireland over the centuries is no different from what the Belgians are doing today in the Congo Free State, and what the Nipponese dwarfs will be doing tomorrow in some other lands. She inflamed the factions and took possession of the wealth’ (OCPW, p. 119).
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12.1545: Casement, says the citizen. He’s an Irishman
Irishman Sir Roger Casement (1864–1916), the British consul in the Congo, was ordered to investigate reports of atrocities committed by Belgian colonialists in Congolese rubber plantations. His report, which was published as a government white paper in February 1904, meticulously documented systematic exploitation of the native population, torture, and murder. As a result, various reforms were implemented. He was knighted in 1911 for his service, although by this time he was becoming more radical in terms of his support for an independent Ireland. Casement resigned from the Foreign Service in 1913. He was executed in 1916 for high treason after negotiating with Germany to provide military support for the Irish rebels during the Easter Rising (DIB). ‘Although Casement was internationally famous by 1904 for his Congo reports, he was not particularly famous for being Irish. In fact, much to his personal frustration, Casement was often mistaken for being English despite his growing involvement with Irish causes’ (Patrick Mullen, The Poor Bugger’s Tool, p. 99).
12.1547: red rubber
Rubber harvested from the Belgian Congo was dubbed ‘red rubber’ because, as one report had it, ‘This rubber traffic is steeped in blood’ (quoted in E. D. Morel, Red Rubber, p. 54).
12.1550: blind
Blind: a pretence or false pretext (OED).
12.1550–51: He had a few bob on Throwaway
At the end of ‘Lotus Eaters’, Bantam Lyons asked Bloom for his newspaper so he could look up some information about the then-forthcoming Gold Cup. Bloom said, ‘You can keep it [. . .] I was just going to throw it away’ (5.531, 5.534), which Lyons interpreted as a tip to bet on Throwaway (see note at 12.1219). This is why Lenehan and the others believe that Bloom has won a tidy sum of money. Because it is expected that a person who has won money betting on a horse race should share the wealth and stand a round, Bloom has earned the ire of those in the pub for not having done so (see 12.435–37) (Katherine Mullin, ‘James Joyce, Drink, and the Rounds System’, p. 311); but, of course, Bloom has not won any money nor does he have any reason to suspect that anyone might believe that he has.
12.1551: shekels
Shekel: money (generally); after ‘the chief silver coin of the Hebrews’ (OED).
12.1552: that whiteeyed kaffir
The stage name of G. H. Chirgwin (1854–1922), a British music-hall entertainer who performed in blackface with a white diamond painted about the eye. He was popular in Dublin (Cheryl Herr, Joyce’s Anatomy of Culture, p. 157). Kaffir: a disparaging word for any black African (OED).
12.1555: only I put him off it
In ‘Aeolus’, Lenehan had proclaimed Sceptre a ‘dead cert’, that is, a sure thing (see note at 7.388–89).
12.1559: Show us the entrance out
The oxymoron ‘entrance out’ was used as a cliché example of the speech of the naïve Irishman since the mid-nineteenth century (Harald Beck, JJON).
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12.1561: Goodbye Ireland I’m going to Gort
Gort: a village in Western Ireland in County Galway. In his travelogue The Irish Sketch Book (1863), William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) has this to say about Gort: ‘It is a regularly- built little place, with a square and street; but it looked as if it wondered how the deuce it got into the midst of such a desolate country, and seemed to bore itself there considerably. It had nothing to do, and no society’ (p. 151).
12.1562: pumpship
To pump ship: to urinate (Partridge).
12.1565: Slattery’s
Slattery’s: a public house, 15 Suffolk Street (Thom’s, p. 2012).
12.1569: vamoose
To vamoose (American-English slang): to leave; from the Spanish vamos, we go (Partridge).
12.1571–72: Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos
A common anti-Semitic trope was to compare Jews to cuckoos. For example, in La France juive, Édouard Drumont (see note at 3.230–31) wrote: ‘Le véritable emblème du Juif c’est le vilain oiseau qui s’installe cyniquement dans le nid construit par les autres’ (vol. 1, p. 33) (The true emblem for the Jew is the evil bird that cynically moves into a nest built by other birds; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1573: dingdong
Ding-dong: ‘in good earnest’ (OED).
12.1574: Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith
Not quite true. Griffith’s policy for Irish self-sufficiency (see notes at 3.227 and 8.458) was inspired by the model of cultural and economic resistance and parliamentary non- cooperation set by Ferenc Deák (Hungarian statesman, 1803–76) that eventually made Hungary an autonomous entity within the Austro-Hungarian empire. Starting in January 1904, Griffith published a series of articles entitled ‘The Resurrection of Hungary’ in the United Irishman that advocated his Hungarian model; these were collected into a pamphlet with that title later that year. His Hungarian policy was the direct forerunner of his Sinn Féin policy, which was launched on 28 November 1905 (Kee, The Green Flag, pp. 450–52). Thus, calling Griffith’s policy ‘Sinn Féin’ is anachronistic. Since Bloom is of Hungarian and Jewish extraction, Nolan assumes he inspired Griffith’s thinking. Hugh Kenner claims there had been a rumour that Griffith had ‘a Jewish adviser-ghostwriter’ (Kenner, ‘Ulysses’, p. 133), however we have been unable to substantiate the existence of such a rumour. Griffith’s paper, the United Irishman, expressed anti-Semitic sentiments; for example: ‘The Jew in Ireland is in every respect an economic evil [. . .] and he remains among us, ever and always an alien’ (23 Apr. 1904, p. 1; Marilyn Reizbaum, James Joyce’s Judaic Other, pp. 39–45; see also the note at 12.1430).
12.1575–77: all kinds of jerrymandering . . . Irish industries
A misleading account of Griffith’s Hungarian model for Irish autonomy. While Griffith advocated various non-violent tactics of economic and political resistance to British rule (see the previous note), he never endorsed fraud or profiteering (F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine, pp. 251–53). Jerrymander: ‘a method of arranging election districts so that the political party making the arrangement will be enabled to elect a greater number of
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650 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses representatives than they could on a fair system, and more than they should have in proportion to their numerical strength’ (OED, s.v. gerrymander).
12.1577: Robbing Peter to pay Paul
Proverbial for an ineffective and quasi-fraudulent attempt to cover one’s debts by shifting funds from one place to another (ODEP).
12.1577–78: puts the bloody kybosh on it
To put the kybosh (or kibosh) on it: to spoil it (Partridge, s.v. kibosh).
12.1579: God save Ireland See note at 8.440.
12.1580: argol bargol
Argol bargol: quibbling (Partridge); from the Irish argáil, argument (O Hehir, Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 347). Also after Hamlet; see note at 9.298.
12.1581: Methusalem Bloom
That is, Bloom’s father, Rudolph (Virag) Bloom. Methusaleh is the longest-lived character in the Old Testament and died at the age of 969 years (Genesis 5:27); Mathusala in the Douay. Methusalem is a colloquial corruption of his name (Partridge).
12.1581: bagman
Bagman: a depreciatory term for a travelling salesman (OED).
12.1582: prussic acid
Prussic acid: a poison, also known as hydrogen cyanide (OED, s.v. prussic).
12.1584: note of hand
A note of hand: a promissory note (OED, s.v. note).
12.1585: Lanty MacHale’s goat that’d go . . . with every one
After a proverbial expression that more commonly features a dog: ‘A person who is too complaisant—over anxious to please everyone—is “like Lanna Mochree’s dog—he will go a part of the road with everyone” ’ (PWJ, p. 108). Joyce uses this expression in Stephen Hero: ‘Protestant Orthodoxy is like Lanty McHale’s dog: it goes a bit of the road with everybody’ (p. 112).
12.1589: Crofter or Crofton See note at 6.247.
12.1590: orangeman Blackburne does have on the registration
That is, Crofton was employed by the collector general but is now pensioned from that job and evidently works for R. T. Blackburne (1857–1922), secretary to Dublin County Council (Thom’s, p. 1809).
12.1594: palfreys
Palfrey: a riding horse, as opposed to a war horse or work horse (OED).
12.1598: tabard
Tabard: ‘a short surcoat open at the sides and having short sleeves, worn by a knight over his armour’ (OED).
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12.1599: good den
Good den: obsolete form of ‘good evening’ (OED, s.v. good even).
12.1602: Lackaday
Lackaday: ‘Shame or reproach to the day’ (OED).
12.1605: Master Taptun
Tun: a large barrel for storing liquor (OED).
12.1607: An you be
An: archaic form of if (OED); thus ‘if you be’.
12.1611: trencherman
Trencherman: ‘one who has a hearty appetite’ (OED).
12.1614: collops
Collops: slices of meat (OED).
12.1615: saddle of veal
A saddle of veal consists of the two loins plus the conjoining vertebrae (OED).
12.1615: widgeon
Widgeon: a wild duck (OED).
12.1616: bason
Bason: obsolete variant spelling of basin, in the (also) obsolete sense of a bowl for food (OED).
12.1616: medlar tansy
Medlar: a fruit of the tree of the same name, resembling a small brown apple. Tansy: a kind of pudding, flavoured with the bitter taste of the tansy plant (both OED).
12.1616–17: old Rhenish
Rhenish: Rhine wine (OED).
12.1620: quotha
Quotha: from ‘quoth he’, an obsolete phrase used sarcastically to doubt the veracity of someone’s statement (OED).
12.1624: Bloom and the Sinn Fein See note at 12.1574.
12.1628–30: why can’t a jew love his country . . . which country it is
See note at 12.1430. This exchange derives from a passage in Giacomo Joyce, which recounts Joyce’s infatuation with Amelia Popper, a young Italian Jewish woman to whom he was giving English lessons: ‘She [Amelia Popper] thinks the Italian gentlemen were right to haul Ettore Albini, the critic of the Secolo, from the stalls when they played the Royal March. She heard that at supper. Ay. They love their country when they are quite sure which country it is’ (PSW, p. 234). Albini, who in fact wrote for the Roman socialist paper Avanti!, was expelled from a performance at La Scala on 17 December 1911 for refusing to stand during the playing of the national anthem (p. 288 n. 36).
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12.1631: swaddler
Swaddler: ‘A nickname for a Methodist, esp. a Methodist preacher, in Ireland; now, for Protestants in general’ (OED).
12.1633: Who is Junius?
Junius: the pseudonym of the author of a series of vitriolic letters attacking George III and his Tory ministers for corruption, which appeared in the London Public Advertiser from 1769 until 1772. Speculation as to his identity began soon after the first letter was published. Numerous possibilities have been proposed over the years. Contemporary scholarship has identified Sir Philip Francis (English politician, 1740–1818) as the likeliest candidate (ODNB, s.v. Junius). On Joyce’s matriculation exam in the summer of 1899—the examination set after the first year at university (see note at 17.553–54)—the composition assignment was to write a short essay on one of three topics, one of which was ‘Junius’ (Neil R. Davison, ‘Joyce’s Matriculation Examination’, p. 402).
12.1634: Orangeman or presbyterian
Crofton (see note at 6.247) was not a Presbyterian; he was a member of the Church of Ireland (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 260).
12.1635: He’s a perverted jew
Pervert (Hiberno-English): ‘a person who converted from Catholicism to Protestantism’ (Dolan); also, ‘to turn (a person) away from a religious belief regarded as true, to one held to be false’ (OED, s.v. pervert).
12.1636: according to the Hungarian system See note at 12.1574.
12.1638: Isn’t he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? No: see note at 10.1115.
12.1639: His name was Virag Virág (Hungarian): flower.
12.1640: deedpoll
Deed-poll: a deed—that is, a legal document—‘made and executed by one party only; so called because the paper or parchment is “polled” or cut even, not indented’ (OED).
12.1642–43: Island of saints and sages! See note at 3.128.
12.1644–45: they’re still waiting for their redeemer . . . so are we
That is, the Jews are waiting for their Messiah or saviour to come: ‘After the exile the prophetic vision of the universal establishment of God’s kingdom was associated with the ingathering of Israel under a scion of David’s house, who would be the Lord’s anointed’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Messiah). Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah foretold by Jewish scripture: the Greek word christos is a translation of the Hebrew Messiah, the anointed (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Messiah). The New Testament foretells of the Second Coming of Christ as Judge of the world: ‘Because he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in equity, by the man whom he hath appointed; giving faith to all, by raising him up from the dead’ (Acts 17:31).
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12.1646–47: every male that’s born they think it may be their Messiah
While Jews await the appearance of their Messiah, there is no Jewish tradition that encourages Jewish parents to hope that their child, if male, might be the Messiah.
12.1649: Expecting every moment will be his next
An expression that dates back to at least 1867 (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
12.1651: south city markets
The South City Market, in south-central Dublin, is a shopping arcade that connects South Great George’s Street to Drury Street just south of Exchequer Street. The arcade was built in 1892 on the site of an older market (Thom’s, p. 1502; Bennett).
12.1652: Neave’s food
Baby food manufactured by Josiah R. Neave & Co., Fordingbridge, England (The Strand, vol. 26, Dec. 1903, p. lvi).
12.1653: En ventre sa mère
En ventre sa mère (Legal French): ‘in his mother’s belly’.
12.1655: did he ever put it out of sight
Context suggests an innuendo for sexual intercourse, thereby impugning Bloom’s masculinity.
12.1657: And who does he suspect? See note at 9.656.
12.1658: there’s many a true word spoken in jest
Proverbial (ODEP); and used in Swift’s Polite Conversation: ‘Very likely; for they say, many a true Word’s spoke in Jest’ (p. 125).
12.1658–59: mixed middlings
Mixed middling: Hiberno-English expression of mild disparagement, roughly equivalent to the phrase ‘fair-to-average’; for example, from a review in the Freeman’s Journal of an issue of the magazine Blackwood: ‘The other contents, both prose and verse, are mixed middling. To quote a Scottish proverb—each is “like Sandy’s car, little good wi’ it, little ill wi’ it” ’ (8 Dec. 1845, p. 2, col. e). Here, its sense is clearly more vituperative and is used in such a way as to demean Bloom’s masculinity.
12.1660: like a totty with her courses
Totty: ‘A girl or woman’. Courses: menstrual discharge (both OED); see note at 12.452–53.
12.1660–61: Do you know what I’m telling you? See note at 4.115–16.
12.1662: sloping
Sloping: ‘making off, running or slinking away’ (OED).
12.1666: wolf in sheep’s clothing
An ancient proverbial expression for one who conceals his true nature (Brewer’s). In Aesop’s fable, ‘The Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing’, the disguise is the wolf ’s undoing as he is killed by a hungry shepherd (Babrius and Phaedrus, Fables, p. 513). From Matthew 7:15: ‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’
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12.1667: Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God See note at 2.362.
12.1669: J. J. and S.
John Jameson and Sons, distillers of whiskey; see note at 8.1025.
12.1671: Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar
Ballykinlar: a town on Dundrum Bay, in County Down. As with the uncertainty with Patrick’s date of birth (see note at 12.573), accounts differ as to where he landed when he began his mission in Ireland. The location most commonly cited is the mouth of the Vartry River in County Wicklow (MacManus, Story of the Irish Race, p. 112 n.), but there are other contenders. A tract from 1858 claims that ‘[t]he inhabitants of the parish of Ballykinlar [. . .] point out a nook in Middle Ballykinlar [. . .] as the place of St Patrick’s arrival’ (J. W. Hanna, ‘An Inquiry into the True Landing Place of St Patrick in Ulster’, p. 13).
12.1676: sacring bell
The sacring bell: ‘A small bell rung at the elevation of the host’ (OED).
12.1676: crucifer
The crucifer carries the cross at the head of the procession (OED).
12.1677: thurifers
The thurifer carries the thurible (or censer), the vessel which contains incense that burns during the Mass (OED).
12.1677: boatbearers
The boatbearer carries the boat, the vessel which contains the incense before it is blessed and transferred to the thurible (OED, s.v. boat).
12.1677: readers
Reader: ‘An ecclesiastic belonging to one of the minor orders, whose duty originally consisted in reading the “lessons” ’ (OED, s.vv. reader; lector).
12.1677: ostiarii
The lowest of the minor orders of the church: ostiarii (from the Latin ostium, door) are ushers or doorkeepers (OED, s.v. ostiary).
12.1678: mitred
That is, wearing mitres, conical headdresses worn by bishops and certain other high- ranking ecclesiastics ‘as a mark of exceptional dignity’ (OED).
12.1678: guardians
Guardian: ‘The superior of a Franciscan convent’ (OED).
12.1679: monks of Benedict of Spoleto
That is, the Benedictine monks, or black monks, an order based on the monastic rule formulated by St Benedict of Nursia (c.480–543), a town near the city of Spoleto in Perugia, Italy. The Benedictine rule eventually became the chief monastic rule in the West (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.vv. the Benedictine Order; Rule of St Benedict).
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12.1679: Carthusians
The Carthusian order was founded by St Bruno (c.1030–1101) in 1084 at La Grande Chartreuse in France. This order emphasises solitude and silence (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1680: Camaldolesi
A joint order of hermits and cenobites (those who live communally) founded by St Romuald (c.950–1027) in 1012 (Catholic Encylopedia, s.v. Camaldolese).
12.1680: Cistercians
Founded in 1098 by St Robert of Molesme (c.1027–1111), Stephen Harding (c.1060–1134), and Alberic (d. 1109) at the Abbey of Cîteaux in Dijon for ‘the exact observance of the Rule of St. Benedict’ (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1680: Olivetans
An eremitic branch of the Benedictine order (that is, an order composed of hermits), founded by St Bernard Tolemei (1272–1348) at Monte Oliveto, 24 km south of Siena, in Italy, in 1319 (EB11).
12.1680: Oratorians
A secular congregation of ‘priests living together under temporary vows and free to leave at will’; founded by St Philip Neri, in 1575 (EB11, s.v. monks).
12.1680: Vallombrosans
An ascetic order of monks, nuns and laypeople, the Vallombrosian order was founded about 1038 by St John Gualbert (985–1073) near Vallombrosa, 32 km east of Florence (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1681: friars of Augustine
A mendicant order (that is, an order of friars who live on alms) following the Rule of St Augustine (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. friar).
12.1681: Brigittines
The Brigittine order was founded in 1343 by St Bridgit (c.1303–73), a Swedish princess (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1681: Premonstratensians
Also known as Norbertines; founded in 1120 by St Norbert at Prémontré, France, the order follows a modified version of the Rule of St Augustine (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Premonstratensian Canons).
12.1681: Servi
The Servants of Mary, or Servites, was founded in Cafaggio, Italy, in 1233 by seven cloth merchants. Servites live a monastic life according to the Rule of St Augustine (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Order of Servites).
12.1682: Trinitarians
Founded by St John de Matha (1160–1213) and St Felix of Valois (1127–1212) in 1198, the Order of the Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives follows the Rule of St Augustine (Catholic Encyclopedia).
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12.1682: children of Peter Nolasco
The Order of Our Lady of Mercy (de Mercede), or Mercedarians, was founded by St Peter Nolasco (1189–c.1256) in Spain in 1218. The order, which followed the Rule of St Augustine, helped ransom Christians caught by the Moors during the crusades (EB11).
12.1682–84: Carmel mount the children of Elijah prophet . . . and other
The Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, established c.1200; some of its earliest followers believed the order to have been founded by the prophet Elijah. They were given their formula by the patriarch of Jerusalem, St Albert, between 1206 and 1214. These strictures were later relaxed by Innocent IV (Pope 1243–54) and Eugenius IV (Pope 1431–47). These modifications were rejected by Carmelite reformers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, John of Soreth, John of the Cross, and Teresa of Avila. This led to the order being split into two halves: the ‘discalced’ (without shoes), who strictly adhered to St Albert’s rule (following the reforms of St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross), and the ‘calced’ (with shoes), who followed the relaxed rule as established by Eugenius (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1684: friars, brown and grey
Grey Friars: a common name for the Franciscan order (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Friar). Various different orders wear brown habits, so ‘brown friar’ does not necessarily designate a specific order.
12.1684: sons of poor Francis
The Franciscans, Order of Friars Minor (of Lesser Brothers), founded by St Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) in 1209, began out of a desire to return to the ways of the early Church, but as it evolved it became more powerful as an order and its strictures became looser (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1685: capuchins
An offshoot of the Franciscans founded in 1525 and dedicated to reviving the original austerity of the order. The name comes from the Italian word capuccino (‘cowl’) (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1685: cordeliers
Cordeliers: cord-wearers. ‘Franciscan Observantists of “brethren of more strict observance” are called Cordeliers in France on account of their girdles of knotted cord’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Cordelier).
12.1685: minimes
The Order of Minims (Ordo Minimorum Eremitarum) was established by St Francis of Paola (c.1438–1507) in 1470. Their name, taken from Matthew 25:40, suggests their humility: ‘Quamdiu fecistis uni ex his fratribus meis minimis, mihi fecisti’ in the Vulgate; and, in the Douay: ‘as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Minimi).
12.1685: observants
The Observants (also known as the Order of Friars Minor) are one of the three Franciscan First Orders, the original Franciscans, and were founded in 1209 when ‘St Francis obtained from Innocent III an unwritten approbation of the simple rule he had composed for the guidance of his first companions’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Franciscan order).
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12.1685: daughters of Clara
That is, the Poor Clares, a religious order of women. The Poor Clares were founded as an order of nuns in 1212 by St Clare of Assisi (1194–1253) and St Francis of Assisi as a female counterpart to St Francis’s Order of Friars Minor (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Poor Clares).
12.1686: sons of Dominic, the friars preachers
The Dominicans (Order of Preachers) were founded by St Dominic (1170–1221) in 1216. Their work focuses on preaching, education, missions, and parish ministry (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1686: sons of Vincent
Members of the Congregation of St Vincent de Paul (or Vincentians). The order was founded in 1625 by St Vincent de Paul (1576–1660) for the relief of the poor (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1687: monks of S. Wolstan
St Wolstan, or Wulfstan (c.1012–95), was the bishop of Worcester and the last Saxon bishop of England. He is not responsible for founding a religious order but he was involved in the suppression of the slave trade between England and Ireland (EB11, s.v. Wulfstan, St). In 1202, a priory was established in honour of his canonisation; it is located between Celbridge and Leixlip, County Kildare (Mervyn Archdall, Monasticon Hibernicum, vol. 2, p. 291; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1687: Ignatius his children
That is, the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits, founded by St Ignatius Loyola; see note at 1.231.
12.1687–88: confraternity of the christian brothers
The Christian Brothers were founded in 1802 by Irishman Edmund Ignatius Rice (1762–1844); see note at 8.2.
12.1689: S. Cyr
St Cyr (also Quiricus or Cirycus): a child martyr, killed at the age of three along with his mother, St Julitta around ad 304 at Tarsus in Asia Minor. His feast day is 16 June (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Sts Quiricus and Julitta).
12.1689–90: S. Isidore Arator
St Isidore Arator (1070–1130): the patron saint of Madrid and of peasants and farmers (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. St Isidore the Labourer).
12.1690: S. James the Less
Also called ‘the Just’ and ‘the Younger’, St James was one of the twelve apostles and is sometimes identified with the James who is described in Matthew as one of Jesus’s ‘brethren’ (13:55). Many Protestants interpret this literally, whereas Catholics hold that James was Jesus’s cousin (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. The brethren of the Lord).
12.1690: S. Phocas of Sinope
This could be one of two men who are often confused as the same person: a second-century bishop of Sinope (on the Black Sea), tortured and martyred under Emperor Trajan; or Phocas the gardener, also of Sinope, beheaded by Roman soldiers in ad 303 (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Sinope).
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12.1690–91: S. Julian Hospitator
Otherwise known as Julian the Hospitaller. It is unclear if he actually existed. He is the patron saint of travellers and wandering minstrels (Alban Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. 1, pp. 314–16).
12.1691: S. Felix de Cantalice
Saint Felix (1513–87), born in the small village of Cantalicio, north-east of the city of Rieti, 68 km north-east of Rome. He became a Capuchin monk at age 30 and spent some 40 years begging in Rome (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1691: S. Simon Stylites
Also called Simon or Simeon of the Pillar (‘stylites’ is from the Greek for pillar, stulos), born in ad 390 in Syria, he achieved fame for a 37-year penance atop an 18-metre-high pillar, about a metre wide, thereby inaugurating a long and storied tradition of stylitoe, or pillar- hermits (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1691–92: S. Stephen Protomartyr
St Stephen was the first Christian martyr (hence ‘protomartyr’). His death by stoning is described in Acts 6–7. Greek-educated and Jewish by birth, Stephen was, at the time of his death, one of the leaders of the early Christian Church (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1692: S. John of God
St John of God (1495–1550): founder of the Order of the Brothers Hospitallers after having served in the army (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1692: S. Ferreol
Two saints are named Ferreol (or Ferreolus): one was a Roman officer martyred in France in c.212, along with his brother Ferrutio, when their Christianity was discovered. Their feast day is 16 June (Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. 2, p. 552). A different St Ferreol (553–81) was bishop of Nîmes (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Nîmes).
12.1692: S. Leugarde
St Lutgardis of Aywières (1182–1246): a Cistercian saint and native of Tongeren in Flanders, who died on 16 June 1246. She is regarded as one of the most important mystics of the thirteenth century (Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. 2, pp. 557–58).
12.1692–93: S. Theodotus
St Theodotus of Ancyra was executed ad c.303 by the Emperor Diocletian for recovering and burying the bodies of seven martyred virgins (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1693: S. Vulmar
Also known as St Wulmar (d. c.700): he founded a monastery near Calais, called Samer (Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. 3, pp. 154–55).
12.1693: S. Richard
Possibly Richard de Wyche (c.1197–1253), known for his devotion and scholarship. An earl ier Richard (d. 720) left his native Hampshire with his family to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but he died at Lucca in Italy (both Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1693: S. Vincent de Paul See note at 12.1686.
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12.1693–94: S. Martin of Todi
The last Pope to be venerated as a martyr, St Martin of Todi (d. 655) struggled against the Monothelite heresy (which asserted that Christ had two natures but one will), which was supported by Byzantine emperor Constans II, who had him imprisoned (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1694: S. Martin of Tours
St Martin of Tours: fourth-century saint, born in present-day Hungary. He was made bishop of Tours, France in ad 371. Under his leadership, the practice of monasticism was solidified in western Europe (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1694: S. Alfred
Perhaps Alfridus (also Altfried and Alfredus, 798–874), Bishop of Hildesheim (Berend Wispelwey, Biographical Index of the Middle Ages, vol. 1, p. 45). Acclaimed a saint since the Middle Ages, he was finally officially canonised in 1965 (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1694: S. Joseph
The most important of the many St Josephs is the husband of the Virgin Mary and Patron Saint of the Universal Church (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1694–95: S. Denis
Several saints are named Denis (or its cognate Dionysius); the most significant are: St Denis (d. c.ad 275), the first bishop of Paris and a patron saint of France; St Dionysius the Areopagite, whose conversion by St Paul is described in Acts 17:34; and St Dionysius of Alexandria, the third-century Patriarch of Alexandria and Pope (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.vv. St Denis; Pope St Dionysius).
12.1695: S. Cornelius
The most famous St Cornelius was the third-century Pope who struggled against the Anti-Pope Novatian, defending the Church’s right to forgive repentant apostates (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1695: S. Leopold
St Leopold of Austria (1073–1136, called ‘the Good’ or ‘the Pious’): the grandson of Holy Roman Emperor Henry III and the patron saint of Austria (Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. 4, p. 350).
12.1695: S. Bernard
There are several saints named Bernard, but the most famous is St Bernard of Clairvaux (c.1090–1153), an influential Cistercian. He founded the Abbey of Clairvaux and many other monasteries (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1695: S. Terence
St Terentianus (or Terentius): bishop of Todi, in central Italy, martyred under Emperor Diocletian (ad 245–313) (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Todi).
12.1696: S. Edward
Possibly St Edward the Martyr (c.962–979), King of England, or Edward the Confessor (c.1003–66), also King of England (both Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1696: S. Owen Caniculus
Not actually a saint. Canicula (Latin): ‘small dog’.
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12.1696–98: S. Anonymous and S. Eponymous and . . . S. Synonymous
Not actually saints. Paronymous: a linguistic term applied to words that have the same root (OED).
12.1698: S. Laurence O’Toole See note at 7.1012.
112.1698–99: S. James of Dingle and Compostella
One of the most venerated of the saints, St James the Greater, was the first of the twelve apostles to die for his faith, being executed by King Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem around ad 44. The shrine to James in Compostella was one of the most frequented sites for pilgrimages during the Middle Ages (Catholic Encyclopedia). Dingle is the name of the northernmost peninsula in County Kerry as well as the busy market town on its coast. On Main Street in Dingle is the Church of St James, which ‘is said to have been formerly built at the charge of the Spaniards’ (William W. Seward, Topographia Hibernica, s.v. Dingle)
12.1699: S. Columcille and S. Columba
Two names for the same sixth-century saint (521–597) who founded several monasteries in Ireland before travelling to Scotland and establishing the famous monastery on the island of Iona. Columba (‘Dove’) is the Latin form of his name, which in Ireland tends to be used by Protestants (e.g., in St Columb’s Cathedral in Derry/Londonderry). Amongst Catholics, he is known by the Irish version of his name, Colum Cille (‘Dove of the Church’) or, as Joyce has it, Columcille. Along with St Patrick and St Brigid, he is a patron saint of Ireland (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. St Columba; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1699: S. Celestine
St Celestine I, a fifth-century Pope (ad 422–32), was responsible for dispatching Palladius (St Patrick’s predecessor) on a mission to Ireland. He battled during his papacy against the Pelagian heresy, which denied that mankind was tainted with Adam’s sin, thereby denying the Catholic doctrine of original sin (Catholic Encyclopedia). See also note at 17.34–35.
12.1699–1700: S. Colman
Many saints of this name are connected with Ireland, the best known of which are: St Colman (b. c.ad 450), founder and patron of the See of Dromore and one of St Patrick’s earliest disciples; St Colman Mac Lenine (c.510–601), founder and patron of the See of Cloyne and called by his contemporaries ‘the Royal Bard of Munster’; St Colman of Kilmacduagh (c.560–632) a hermit who founded two churches; and St Colman of Templeshambo (d. c.595), whose monastery is known as Temple Sean Bothe (all Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1700: S. Kevin See note at 12.1129.
12.1700: S. Brendan See note at 12.183.
12.1700: S. Frigidian
Saint Frigidian (d. 588), also known as Fridianus and in Italy as St Frediano: bishop of Lucca and ‘son of Ultonius, King of Ireland, or perhaps a king of Ulster’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Lucca).
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12.1700: S. Senan
There are several Irish saints of this name. The best known is St Senan (c.488–560), who founded several monastic churches in Ireland, including one on Scattery Island (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1700–01: S. Fachtna
St Fachtna (sixth century): he founded a monastery at Rosscarbery, County Cork, which later gave rise to the School of Ross, one of Ireland’s foremost Christian schools (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. School of Ross).
12.1701: S. Columbanus See note at 2.143–44.
12.1701: S. Gall
Born in Ireland in the middle of the sixth century, St Gall was one of the twelve disciples who accompanied St Columbanus to the continent (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1701: S. Fursey
Also known as St Fursa or Fursaeus; see note at 12.183.
12.1701: S. Fintan
There are several Irish saints of this name: St Fintan (c.524–c.594), the founder of the monastery at Clonenagh, County Laois; St Fintan (d. 634), who founded a celebrated abbey at Taghmon in what is now County Wexford (both Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1701–2: S. Fiacre See note at 3.193.
12.1702: S. John Nepomuc
St John of Nepomuk (c.1340–93): a patron saint of Bohemia (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1702: S. Thomas Aquinas See note at 1.546–47.
12.1702–03: S. Ives of Brittany
St Ives (or Ivo, 1253–1303): a Breton lawyer renowned for his charity and his fee-less defence of the poor (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1703: S. Michan
Beyond the fact that one of Dublin’s most famous churches is named after him (see note at 10.769–70), little is known of St Michan’s life other than the supposition that he was a bishop, perhaps an abbot, of Danish descent (Thomas Walsh, History of the Irish Hierarchy, p. 646; Pádraig Ó Riain, A Dictionary of Irish Saints, p. 455).
12.1703: S. Herman-Joseph
Blessed Herman-Joseph (1150–1241): a German Premonstratensian mystic who was named Joseph (after the father of Jesus) for his pious and blameless life (Catholic Encyclopedia). Like Altfried (see note at 12.1694), he had been acclaimed a saint since the Middle Ages. He was officially canonised in 1958 (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
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12.1704–05: the three patrons of holy youth . . . S. John Berchmans
St Aloysius Gonzaga, St Stanislaus Kostka, and St John Berchmans are the three patron saints of holy youth. St Aloysius Gonzaga (1568–91), a young Jesuit, was known for his purity and chastity. Aloysius was one of Joyce’s middle names (Ellmann, p. 30). Against the wishes of his father, John Kostka, senator of Poland, Stanislaus (1550–68) walked all the way from Vienna, where he attended the college of the Jesuits, to Rome in order to join this order. Feeble and sickly from an early age, he died within nine months of reaching his destination. St John Berchmans (1599–1621) was a Jesuit from Diest in Brabant, Belgium. He was canonised in 1888 (all Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1705: Gervasius
Gervasius (d. c.ad 165) and his brother Protasius were martyrs in Milan (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1705: Servasius
St Servatius (d. ad 384), also known as St Servais: bishop of Tongeren, in Flanders, sup posedly Armenian by birth (Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. 2, p. 297).
12.1705: Bonifacius
Of the many saints who bear the name St Bonifacius (or Boniface), the most important was born Winfrid (d. 755) in Crediton, Devonshire, England. He changed his name to Boniface when he became a missionary to Germania. He was martyred in Frisia in 754 and was buried in Fulda. He is the patron saint of Germania and Devon (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1705: S. Bride
Also called St Brigid (c.451–c.525): a patron saint of Ireland. Said to have been baptised by Patrick, she founded the convent of Kildare, the first religious house for women in Ireland, and other convents. As with Patrick, much legend surrounds her life (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1706: S. Kieran
There are two famous Irish saints with this name: St Kieran, the sixth-century abbot who established the abbey at Clonmacnoise, and St Kieran, the first bishop of Ossory (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1706: S. Canice of Kilkenny See note at 3.259.
12.1706: S. Jarlath of Tuam
Saint Jarlath (c.445–540): the founder of the archdiocese of Tuam in Galway (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1706–07: S. Finbarr
The most famous of the five Irish saints of this name is St Finbarr (c.550–c.623), who is the patron saint of Cork since he established its first diocese (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1707: S. Pappin of Ballymun
In 1904, Ballymun was one of the most northerly townlands in the rural parish of Santry, which lies to the north of Dublin. ‘The most famous name associated with Santry Parish and Ballymun is that of St. Pappin. He was the son of Aengus McNathfraid, the first Christian King of Munster and the brother of saints Colman, Folloman, Jernoe, and Naal. St. Pappin is believed to have flourished in the fifth and sixth centuries. It is thought that St.
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 663 Pappin, and probably his brother, St. Folloman founded the parish of Santry, sometime in the sixth century. The feast of St. Pappin was celebrated on 31st July at Poppintree’ (Robert Somerville-Woodward, Ballymun, A History, p. 6).
12.1707: Brother Aloysius Pacificus
Aloysius: a Latin variant of the French name Louis. Pacificus (Latin): peaceful. Not an actual saint; see also note at 10.534.
12.1708: Brother Louis Bellicosus
Bellicosus (Latin): bellicose. Not an actual saint.
12.1708: saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo
St Rose of Lima (1586–1617) is the patron saint of Lima, Peru. St Rose of Viterbo (1235–52) is remembered for her vocal denunciation of emperor Frederick II after he was excommunicated (both Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1708–09: S. Martha of Bethany
St Martha: one of Lazarus’s sisters; see note at 5.289.
12.1709: S. Mary of Egypt
St Mary of Egypt (c.344–c.421): an Alexandrian prostitute who experienced a mystical conversion when she attempted to enter the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1709: S. Lucy
‘According to the traditional story, [St Lucy] was born of rich and noble parents about the year 283. Her father was of Roman origin, but his early death left her dependent upon her mother, whose name, Eutychia, seems to indicate that she came of Greek stock. Like so many of the early martyrs, Lucy had consecrated her virginity to God, and she hoped to devote all her worldly goods to the service of the poor.’ She was martyred in Sicily in 303 (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1709: S. Brigid See note at 12.1705.
12.1709–10: S. Attracta
St Attracta (or Araght): a contemporary of St Patrick, she founded churches in Galway and Sligo (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1710: S. Dympna
St Dympna (or Dymphna): a seventh-century Irish martyr, she was the beautiful daughter of a pagan king who had incestuous designs on her after the death of her Christian mother. A Christian herself, Dympna’s refusal to indulge her father’s lust forced her to flee to Gheel, near Antwerp. She was found by her father who murdered both her and the priest who had advised and escorted her (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1710: S. Ita
St Ita (c.475–570): known as ‘Brigid of Munster’, she founded a church in Limerick (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1710: S. Marion Calpensis
Calpensis (Latin): ‘of Gibraltar’. Not an actual saint; rather a reference to Molly.
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12.1711: Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus
The epithet ‘Blessed’ is reserved for those who have undergone the ceremony of beatification. Thérèse of Lisieux (see note at 6.161) was beatified in 1923 and canonised in 1925 (McNelly, ‘Liturgical Deviations in Ulysses’, p. 294).
12.1711: S. Barbara
St Barbara: martyred either at Nicomedia in Asia Minor or at Heliopolis in Egypt for refusing to recant her faith; most probably legendary (Catholic Encyclopedia).
12.1711: S. Scholastica
St Scholastica (d. 543): St Benedict’s sister, traditionally believed to be his twin, and to be the first nun of the Benedictine order (Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. 1, pp. 292–93).
12.1712: Ursula with eleven thousand virgins See note at 1.140.
12.1712–13: nimbi and aureoles and gloriae
Symbols used in religious art to signify the holiness of the subject or subjects. Nimbus (pl. nimbi): the bright gold disc surrounding the head of a holy person. Aureole: ‘the celestial crown worn by a martyr, virgin, or doctor [of the church]’. Glory (pl. gloriae): ‘the circle of light represented as surrounding the head, or the whole figure, of the Saviour, the Virgin, or one of the Saints’ (all OED).
12.1713: palms
Palms were pagan symbols of victory ‘adopted by the Early Christians to signify the triumph over death of their saints and martyrs’ (Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend).
12.1713: harps
The harp is both the traditional symbol of Ireland and the instrument associated with angels and the heavenly host. It is also associated with the Book of Psalms and King David. By one explanation, its association with Ireland stems from an early Irish king named David, who borrowed it from his biblical namesake to use ‘as his badge’ (Brewer’s, s.v. harp).
12.1713: swords
The sword is an ‘attribute of saints who were beheaded or who had swords thrust into them’ (Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend).
12.1713–14: olive crowns
Olive branches and olive crowns (or wreaths) are symbols of peace (OED). The Archangel Gabriel carries an olive branch in his hand to signify the coming of Christ, the Prince of Peace (Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend, s.v. Olive branch).
12.1715: blessed symbols of their efficacies
Many of the individual items listed here are associated with more than one saint. And, conversely, individual saints have multiple symbols. An additional problem is that, unsurprisingly, different authorities attest different symbols to individual saints, which is why the annotators will cite from one source in annotating this list: F. C. Husenbeth’s Emblems of Saints (1882).
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12.1715: inkhorns
The inkhorn is a symbol associated with St Herman Joseph and St Matthew (Husenbeth, p. 296)
12.1715: arrows
Arrows are associated most famously with St Sebastian, but also with many other saints, such as St Giles, St Romulus, St Augustine, St Ursula, and St Otho (Husenbeth, p. 234).
12.1715: loaves
Loaves are associated with, among others, St Cuthbert (Husenbeth, p. 55), St Godfrey of Cappenberg (p. 95), and St Mary of Egypt (p. 145).
12.1715: cruses
Cruse: pot, jar, bottle (OED). Jugs are associated with St Vincent, St Romanus, and St Elizabeth of Portugal (Husenbeth, p. 297).
12.1715: fetters
Fetters are common symbols of martyrdom and are associated with St Leonard, St Quintin, and St Egwin (Husenbeth, p. 279).
12.1715: axes
Axes are associated with, among others, St Anastasius, St Matthew, St Boniface, and St Rufus (Husenbeth, pp. 235–36).
12.1715: trees
Trees are associated with many saints and in a variety of capacities; such as St Etheldreda, ‘Asleep, tree blossoming above her’ (Husenbeth, p. 73), or, in a more gruesome fashion, St Amphibalus, ‘Bound to a tree by his bowels, and scourged’ (p. 12).
12.1715: bridges
Bridges are associated with, among others, St John of Nepomuk and saints Crispin and Crispinian (Husenbeth, p. 247).
12.1716: babes in a bathtub
One of the symbols associated with St Nicholas is ‘three children in a tub’ (Husenbeth, p. 154).
12.1716: shells
Shells are associated with St James the Greater and St Felix (Husenbeth, p. 331).
12.1716: wallets
Wallet: ‘A bag for holding provisions, clothing, books, etc., esp. on a journey either on foot or on horseback; a pilgrim’s scrip, a knapsack, a pedlar's pack, or the like’ (OED). Wallets are associated with St Thomas of Villanova, St John the Almoner, St Macarius of Alexandria, St Felix of Cantalicio, and St Jerome (Husenbeth, p. 351).
12.1716: shears
Shears are associated with St Fortunatus, St Agatha, St Macra, and saints Cosmas and Damian (Husenbeth, p. 331).
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12.1716: keys
Keys are associated with many saints, such as, among others, St Peter, St Sitha, St Benno, St Riquier, St James the Great, and the Blessed Virgin Mary (Husenbeth, pp. 297–98).
12.1716: dragons
Dragons are associated with many saints, such as, among others, St George (the patron saint of England), St Michael, St Sylvester, St Romanus, and St Longinus (Husenbeth, pp. 274–75).
12.1716: lilies
A single lily is a symbol associated with multiple saints, but Husenbeth lists only St Angelus as having as his symbol lilies, in the plural (pp. 302–03).
12.1716: buckshot
Buckshot is not, as such, a symbol traditionally associated with saints. See note at 16.1583.
12.1717: beards
St Wilgefortis, St Paula Barbata, and St Galla all have as their symbols a beard obtained through prayer (Husenbeth, p. 240).
12.1717: hogs
Husenbeth does not list hogs, but St Emilion has as a symbol a boar (p. 243) and St Cyr has, as one of his, a wild boar (p. 353).
12.1717: lamps
Lamps are associated with St Macarius, St Lucy, St Hiltrudis, St Nilus the Younger, and St Francis (Husenbeth, p. 300).
12.1717: bellows
St Genevieve has as one of her symbols a bellows held by the devil (Husenbeth, p. 241).
12.1717: beehives
The beehive is associated with St Ambrose, St Bernard, and St John Chrysostomos (for whom see note at 1.26) (Husenbeth, p. 240).
12.1717: soupladle
A soup-ladle, as such, is not a symbol traditionally associated with any saint. The closest equivalent is St Augustine, who has as one of his symbols a spoon held by a nearby child (Husenbeth, p. 335).
12.1717: stars
Stars (in the plural) are associated with St John Nepomuk, St Hugh of Grenoble, and St Mederic (Husenbeth, p. 338).
12.1717: snakes
Serpents are associated with multiple saints, such as, for example, St Patrick, St Didymus, St Hilary of Poitiers, St Hilary of Arles, St Thecla, and St Magnus (Husenbeth, p. 330).
12.1717: anvils
Anvils are associated with St Adrian, St Eligius, St Bacculus, St Apelles, and St Galmier (Husenbeth, p. 232).
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12.1718: boxes of vaseline
Vaseline (boxed or unboxed) is not traditionally associated with any saint. A box of (unspecified) ointment is associated with St Mary Magdalen, St Joanna, and St Joseph of Arimathea (Husenbeth, p. 310). Vaseline: a greasy substance used as an ointment or lubricant; a proprietary term, introduced by R. A. Chesebrough in 1872. The name is formed from: German wasser (water) + Greek elaion (oil) + the suffix -ine (OED; EB11).
12.1718: bells
A single bell is associated with multiple saints, such as, for example, St Benedict and St Paul de Leon. Two bells are associated with St Anthony (Husenbeth, p. 241).
12.1718: crutches
St Bardo has as his symbol a tomb ‘with cripples and crutches round it’ (Husenbeth, p. 28).
12.1718: forceps
Forceps are not traditionally associated with any saint, however saints Cosmas and Damian have as one of their symbols a ‘medical apparatus or surgical instruments’ (Husenbeth, p. 54).
12.1718: stags’ horns
St Eustachius has as one of his symbols a stag with a crucifix between its horns. Otherwise, multiple saints are associated with stags, but without mention of their horns (Husenbeth, pp. 336–37).
12.1718: watertight boots
Watertight boots are not traditionally linked with any saints, however the saints associated with walking on water might plausibly appreciate such a modern contrivance: St Aldegondes, St Conrad, and St Juvenal (Husenbeth, p. 351).
12.1719: hawks
Hawks are associated with St Julian Hospitator, St Quirinus, and St Bavo (Husenbeth, p. 289).
12.1719: millstones
Millstones are associated with multiple saints, such as, for example, St Aurea, St Christina, St Quirinus, and St Vincent (Husenbeth, p. 306).
12.1719: eyes on a dish
Eyes on a dish are associated with St Lucy (Husenbeth, p. 133).
12.1719: wax candles
St Caesarius has as one his symbols a wax taper (Husenbeth, p. 352); otherwise, St Beatrix is associated with a candle (p. 249).
12.1719: aspergills
Aspergill: the special brush used to sprinkle holy water (OED, s.v. aspergillum); see note at 6.589. It is associated with, among others, St Benedict, St Conrad, and St Robert of Knaresborough, who uses it to threaten the (doubtlessly terrified) devil (Husenbeth, p. 235).
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12.1719: unicorns
A crouched unicorn is associated with St Justina (Husenbeth, p. 348).
12.1720–21: by Nelson’s Pillar Henry Street . . . Little Britain Street
Implies a processional starting at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Marlborough Street (Thom’s, pp. 1366, 1539), travelling west to Nelson’s pillar, and ultim ately to Barney Kiernan’s on Little Britain Street.
12.1721–22: the introit in Epiphania Domini which beginneth Surge, illuminare
‘The Introit (Introitus) of the Mass is the fragment of a psalm with its antiphon sung while the celebrant and ministers enter the church and approach the altar’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). The Introit for the Mass for the Epiphany of Our Lord (Epiphania Domini) begins: ‘Ecce advenit dominator Dominus’ (Behold, he comes, the Lord and Conqueror). The lesson for that day (January 6), from Isaiah 60:1–6, begins: ‘Surge, illuminare, Hierusalem, usque ad thus deferentes, et laudem Domino annuntiantes’ (Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee) (60:1; William G. Henderson, Missale ad usum Percelebris Ecclesiae Herfordensis, p. 27).
12.1722–23: the gradual Omnes which saith de Saba venient
Gradual: ‘an antiphon sung between the Epistle and the Gospel’ (OED). The gradual appointed for the Mass for the Epiphany begins ‘Omnes de Saba venient, aurum et thus deferentes, et laudem Domino annuntiantes’ (all they from Saba [Sheba] shall come, bringing gold and frankincense: and shewing forth praise to the Lord); from Isaiah 60:6 (Henderson, Missale ad usum Percelebris Ecclesiae Herfordensis, p. 27).
12.1723–25: divers wonders such as casting out devils . . . blind
Various miracles performed by Christ. See Matthew 9:32–34, Mark 5:1–20, and Luke 8:26–39 for the casting out of the devils. See John 11:1–44 for the best-known account of Christ raising the dead, the story of Lazarus. See Matthew 14:13–21, Mark 6:34–44, Luke 9:12–17, and John 6:1–14 for Christ multiplying the fishes. There are many instances in the Gospels of Christ healing the halt (crippled) and the blind, for example Matthew 9:1–18, 9:27–31, and 20:29–34.
12.1725: discovering various articles which had been mislaid
St Antony of Padua is famed for this type of minor, but helpful, miracle (Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend, s.v. Antony of Padua).
12.1726: fulfilling the scriptures See note at 14.1577.
12.1726–27: beneath a canopy of cloth of gold
In such processions, the Sacred Host is carried beneath a baldacchino, a kind of ornate canopy of gold, silver, or white cloth draped over a rectangular framework and supported by four, six, or eight high-ranking laymen carrying staves. The highest-ranking clergyman in the procession walks under the baldacchino (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Canopy).
12.1727: Father O’Flynn See note at 8.713.
12.1728: Malachi See note at 1.41.
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12.1728: Patrick See note at 5.330.
12.1730–31: licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits . . . on the premises See note at 8.826–27.
12.1731–35: the celebrant blessed the house . . . blessed water
A version of the ceremonial cleansing of a building that is to be consecrated—here a church, in light of the ecclesiastical nature of the architectural details. Mullioned windows are divided by vertical bars. Groynes: low walls built as a barrier against the sea. Arrises: mouldings created by the meeting of two straight or curved surfaces at an angle. Capitals: the heads of pillars or columns. Engrailed: means with ornamented edges (all OED). The ritual of consecrating a church involves hallowing the building and its contents with an anointing oil called chrism (Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 308).
12.1735–36: that God might bless that house
This translates, approximately, the closing lines of a prayer, the Alia Benedictio Domus (Another Blessing for a House) (Rituale Romanum, p. 283).
12.1740–43: Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini . . . spiritu tuo
(Latin): ‘Our assistance is in the name of the Lord. / Who made heaven and earth. / The Lord be with you. / And with thy spirit’. This formula is spoken by the celebrant and the congregation at the beginning of many prayers, including the Benedictio ad Omnia, an all- purpose blessing (Rituale Romanum, p. 456). However, this blessing would not be used to consecrate a church (McNelly, ‘Liturgical Deviations in Ulysses’, p. 296).
12.1746–50: Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur . . . Dominum nostrum
This concludes the Benedictio ad Omnia: ‘God, by whose word all things are sanctified, pour forth your blessing upon these things you have created, and make it that whoever should use them (following your law and your will, with thanksgiving) through the invocation of your most holy name, you being his creator, may be possessed of health of body and safety of soul, through Christ our Lord’ (Rituale Romanum, p. 456).
12.1753: John Jameson See note at 8.1025.
12.1573: And butter for fish
After the proverb, ‘That is for that, and butter’s for fish’, used ‘when a thing fits nicely what it was design’d for’ (ODEP).
12.1760: scut
See note at 5.542.
12.1760: Stand us a drink itself
See note at 6.188–89 for the expression ‘stand a drink’ and see note at 12.1075 for the Hiberno-English use of itself. And see note at 12.1550–51 for why Bloom is expected to stand a drink.
12.1761: Cute as a shithouse rat See note at 11.859.
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12.1764: seeing it was looking blue
To get into a blue: ‘to become involved in a fight’ (Partridge, s.vv. blue; get into a blue).
12.1770: jaunting car See note at 5.98.
12.1772: golden poop See note at 11.580–81.
12.1774: spinnaker
Spinnaker: a large ‘three-cornered sail carried by racing-yachts, boomed out at right angles to the vessel’s side, opposite to the mainsail, and used in running before the wind’ (OED).
12.1774–75: larboard . . . starboard
Larboard: left. Starboard: right (both OED).
12.1776–80: as doth the cunning wheelwright . . . ladies fair
This extended simile recalls the epic simile, also called the Homeric simile since it is a typ ical feature in Homeric epic: ‘a lengthy comparison between two highly complex objects, or relations [. . .] used by Homer for contrast or digression, as well as for thematic amplification’ (Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, s.v. simile). For example, ‘As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity. / The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber / burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning. / So one generation of men will grow while another dies’ (Iliad, VI.146–49).
12.1779: hosting
Hosting: in Ireland, a military expedition; in general, the raising of an army or host (OED).
12.1781: the undying sisters
After Charles Merivale’s translation of the Iliad (1869): ‘Would thou hadst dwelt with nymphs divine, / The deathless sisters of the brine’ (XVIII.88–89; with thanks to Harald Beck).
12.1785: dropsy
Dropsy: another name for oedema, a condition characterised by a build-up of fluid and swelling (OED).
12.1785: curse of Cromwell
P. W. Joyce writes that Irish people habitually invoke the curse of Cromwell on anyone to whom they bear strong animosity, because of the cruelties he inflicted on the land (PWJ, p. 166). See note at 12.1507 for an account of some of Cromwell’s cruelties in Ireland.
12.1785: bell, book and candle
‘The popular phrase for ceremonial excommunication in the Roman Catholic Church’ (Brewer’s).
12.1787: leprechaun
Leprechaun: from the Irish leipreachán, little man (Hehir, Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’ p. 347). Here, in reference to the diminutive Alf Bergan.
12.1792: Arrah
See note at 12.141.
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12.1793: sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse
Joyce used this expression in a letter to Frank Budgen dated 3 January 1920: ‘Not a soul to talk to about Bloom. Lent two chapters to one or two people but they know as much about it as the parliamentary side of my arse’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 134). This line was already in ‘Cyclops’ when Joyce wrote this letter to Budgen (Rosenbach f. 56); the Rosenbach fair copy was written between September and October 1919 (Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, p. 304).
12.1795: porter
See note at 3.152.
12.1798: to whisht
To whisht: to be silent, to shut up (PWJ, p. 349).
12.1801: If the man in the moon was a jew, jew, jew
After the racist American song ‘If the Man in the Moon Were a Coon’ (1905), by Fred Fisher (Bowen, p. 225).
12.1802: Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!
Brian O’Nolan (Irish writer and civil servant, 1911–66; also known as Flann O’Brien) commended Joyce’s ear for dialogue by noting that the second mister is ‘quintessentially a piece of Dublinese’ (John Ryan, Remembering How We Stood, p. 128; with thanks to Terence Killeen).
12.1804: Mendelssohn
Either the German composer Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809–47) or his grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), a German-Jewish philosopher who emphasised cultural assimilation. Moses Mendelssohn’s son, Felix’s father, added the surname Bartholdy when he converted to Christianity (both EB11).
12.1804: Karl Marx
Karl Marx (1818–83): German philosopher and founder of modern socialism. Although he was born to Jewish parents (who nonetheless had him baptised when he was six), he renounced all religions (ODNB). He concludes his essay ‘On the Jewish Question’ (1844) with the statement, ‘The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism’ (Early Writings, p. 241).
12.1804: Mercadante
Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (see note at 5.403–04) was not Jewish but an Italian Catholic (Grove). In ‘Sirens’, Bloom incorrectly attributed Mercadante’s ‘Seven Last Words of Our Lord’ to Giacomo Meyerbeer (see note at 11.1275), who was Jewish.
12.1804: Spinoza
Although born to a Jewish family, Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated on 27 July 1656 and thereafter used the Latin version of his Hebrew first name, Benedictus instead of Baruch (both mean blessed) (EB11). See also note at 11.1058.
12.1811: jewman
See note at 10.916.
12.1812: biscuitbox See note at 12.495.
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12.1816: Nagyaságos uram Lipóti Virag
Nagyaságos uram Lipóti Virag (Mangled Hungarian): ‘My Lord Leopold Flower’; the correct word order is Virág Lipót nagyságos uram (Tekla Mecsnóber, ‘ “Inbursts of maggyer” ’, p. 103).
12.1817: Messrs Alexander Thom’s, printers to His Majesty See note at 7.224.
12.1818: Százharminczborjúgulyás-Dugulás
Százharminczborjúgulyás-Dugulás (Hungarian): ‘blockage [i.e. constipation] caused by 130 portions of veal goulash’ (Mecsnóber, ‘ “Inbursts of maggyer” ’, p. 98).
12.1819: éclat
Éclat: ‘Brilliancy, radiance, dazzling effect’; from the French (OED).
12.1820–21: An illuminated scroll of ancient Irish vellum
The description of this commemorative certificate recalls the freedom casket presented to Queen Victoria by the Corporation on her visit to Dublin on 4 April 1900: ‘The Town Clerk then read the address, which was enclosed in a golden casket of ancient Celtic design, and rested on a cushion of green silk, trimmed with gold border and tassels’ (Michael McCarthy, Five Years in Ireland, p. 478; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
12.1822: phenomenologist
Phenomenology: ‘The metaphysical study or theory of phenomena in general (as distinct from that of being)’ (OED). The ‘term emerged in the 18th century, in the writings of Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–77) and Kant, to denote the description of consciousness and experience in abstraction from consideration of its intentional content. [. . .] The term in the 20th century is associated with the work and school of Husserl’ (Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, pp. 358–59).
12.1825: Messrs Jacob agus Jacob
Agus (Irish): and. For Jacob and Jacob, see note at 12.495.
12.1828: Come Back to Erin
A sentimental song was composed by ‘Claribel’, the pseudonym of the Englishwoman Charlotte Allington Barnard (1830–69) (Bauerle, p. 473).
12.1828: Rakóczsy’s March
Composed by Miklos Scholl in 1809. Francis Rákóczy II (1676–1735) ‘was a leader in the Hungarian resurrection and the march titled after him became famous after Liszt used it as a part of his recital tour in Hungary in 1838’ (Bowen, p. 226). Joyce neglected the accent on the a in Rákóczy.
12.1829: the four seas
That is, the four bodies of water that surround Ireland: the Irish Sea to the east, the North Channel to the north-east, St George’s Channel to the south-east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.
12.1830: Hill of Howth See note at 3.133.
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12. ‘Cyclops’ 673
12.1830: Three Rock Mountain
Located in south County Dublin and part of the Dublin mountains, it rises to 444 metres (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 324).
12.1830: Sugarloaf See note at 8.166.
12.1830–31: Bray Head See note at 1.181.
12.1831: mountains of Mourne See note at 11.219.
12.1831: the Galtees
A chain of mountains located in counties Limerick, Tipperary, and Cork, in south-western Ireland (EB11, s.v. Limerick).
12.1831: the Ox
The Ox Mountains: a mountain range in County Sligo in western Ireland (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 278).
12.1831: Donegal
There are several different mountain ranges and highland areas in County Donegal, in the north-west of Ireland. While none is specifically called the Donegal Mountains, the term is used to collectively refer to the different mountain ranges: ‘Northward is a perfect sea of Donegal mountains, reaching as far as Slieve Snaght and Errigal’ (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 216).
12.1832: Sperrin peaks
Mountains located on the coast of northern Ireland, in County Londonderry/Derry (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, pp. 120–21).
12.1832: the Nagles and the Bograghs
The Nagles and the Boggeragh Mountains: two mountain ranges in County Cork (P. W. Joyce, The Geography of the Counties of Ireland, p. 78). Bogragh is an alternative spelling.
12.1832: Connemara hills
The Connemara Hills lie on the west coast of Ireland, in County Galway (P. W. Joyce, The Geography of the Counties of Ireland, p. 6).
12.1832–33: reeks of M‘Gillicuddy See note at 12.112.
12.1833: Slieve Aughty
The Slieve Aughty Mountains stand in western Ireland in counties Galway and Clare (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 236).
12.1833: Slieve Bernagh
Slieve Bernagh (532 metres) is one of a pair of red sandstone mountains in County Clare, western Ireland (EB11, s.v. Clare).
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674 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
12.1833: Slieve Bloom See note at 4.139.
12.1835: Cambrian and Caledonian hills
Cambria: the Medieval Latin name for Wales. Caledonia: the Roman name for Northern Britain, including but not just limited to Scotland (EB11, s.vv. Cambria; Caledonia).
12.1839: Ballast office See note at 8.109.
12.1839: Custom house See note at 10.297.
12.1840: Pigeonhouse See note at 3.160.
12.1841: Poolbeg Light
The Poolbeg Lighthouse stands at the very end of the breakwater which runs from the southern bank of the Liffey at its mouth about 3.5 km east into Dublin Bay. It was designed by John Smith in 1761 and completed in 1768. Its name derives from the Celtic Pill Beag, little pool (Bennett, s.v. Poolbeg Street).
12.1841: Visszontlátásra, kedvés barátom! Visszontlátásra!
Visszontlátásra, kedvés barátom! Visszontlátásra! (Hungarian): ‘See you again, my dear friend! See you again!’; an informal farewell. The Hungarian is slightly incorrect, properly it should be: Viszontlátásra, kedves barátom! (Tekla Mecsnóber, ‘ “Inbursts of maggyer” ’, p. 103).
12.1845–46: Queen’s royal theatre See note at 6.184.
12.1853: made a swipe and let fly
Recalls the Cyclops hurling a mountain- top at Odysseus as he escapes (see note at 12.881–82).
12.1855: county Longford
County Longford lies about 120 km west of Dublin city centre.
12.1859: observatory of Dunsink See note at 8.571–72.
12.1859–60: fifth grade of Mercalli’s scale
Giuseppe Mercalli’s (Italian geologist, 1850–1914) twelve-grade scale measures damage to people and structures while the eight-grade Richter scale measures the actual magnitude of the shocks. A fifth-grade earthquake on the Mercalli scale would cause only moderate damage (EB11, s.v. Earthquake).
12.1861: earthquake of 1534
There was an earthquake in Ireland in 1534; the event is listed in Thom’s ‘Dublin Annals’ (p. 2093).
12.1862: rebellion of Silken Thomas See note at 3.314.
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12.1863–64: Inn’s Quay ward and parish of Saint Michan
Barney Kiernan’s lies in Inn’s Quay ward and St Michan’s parish. The two overlap, but have different functions; the former is a municipal division used for electoral purposes, the latter, a civic parish, is used for census and taxation purposes.
12.1864–65: surface of fortyone acres . . . perch
One rood (or rod): ‘A unit of length used esp. for land, fences, walls, etc., originally the same as a rod [. . .], 16½ feet (approx. 5.03 metres), but in later use usually either seven or eight yards (approx. 6.4 and 7.3 m)’. Perch: ‘a measure of length used esp. for land, fences, walls, etc., varying locally but later standardized at 5 ½ yards, 16 ½ ft (approx. 5.03 m)’; also used as a measure of area equivalent to one square perch (30¼ square yards, or approx. 25.3 m2). The pole is equivalent to the perch (all OED).
12.1865: palace of justice See note at 12.1121.
12.1866: that noble edifice itself See note at 12.1075.
12.1872: Mr George Fottrell
George Fottrell: the Clerk of the Crown and Peace, Sessions House, 26 Green Street (Thom’s, p. 1509).
12.1875: sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin See note at 8.1151.
12.1877: the giant’s causeway See note at 3.293.
12.1878–79: Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale
‘The narrow far-projecting Old Head of Kinsale [in County Cork] has been tunnelled through by the waves, in one place: whence the recess on the eastern side of it is called Holeopen Bay’ (Mary Francis Cusack, A History of the City and County of Cork, p. 444).
12.1884: missa pro defunctis
Missa pro defunctis (Latin): ‘Mass for the dead’.
12.1889–90: Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great Brunswick Street
Michael Meade and Son: ‘builders, steam sawing, planing, and moulding mills, and merchants’, 153–59 Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street (Thom’s, p. 1954).
12.1890–91: Messrs T. and C. Martin . . . North Wall
T. & C. Martin, Ltd.: merchants and manufacturers, 77–80 and 90 North Wall, 5 Fish Street, and 27–30 Upper Sheriff Street (Thom’s, p. 1952).
12.1891–92: the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry
Although the first battalion of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (Thom’s, p. 592) was stationed in Ireland ‘with monotonous regularity’, it was in South Africa in 1904 (Robert Goldsmith, The Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, pp. 49, 122).
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676 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
12.1892: H.R.H.
His Royal Highness.
12.1893–96: sir Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson . . . F.R.C.S.I
See note at 6.741–42 for Habeas corpus. The individual is fictitious, but, with one exception, all of the abbreviations are real. KG: Knight of the Garter. KP: Knight of the Order of St Patrick. KT: Knight of the Thistle. PC: Privy Councillor. KCB: Knight Commander of the Bath. MP: Member of Parliament. JP: Justice of the Peace. MB: Medicinae Baccalaureus (Bachelor of Medicine). DSO: Distinguished Service Order. SOD: sod, sodomite, as a term of abuse or contempt (OED). MFH: Master of Fox Hounds. MRIA: Member of the Royal Irish Academy (see note at 7.990). BL: Bachelor of Laws or Bachelor of Letters. Mus. Doc.: Doctor of Music. PLG: Poor Law Guardian. FTCD: Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. FRUI: Fellow of the Royal University of Ireland. FRCPI: Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. FRCSI: Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. It is extremely unlikely that any one individual could accumulate all these titles.
12.1897: all your born puff
Puff: breath, life (EDD). EDD cites the following example: ‘Ah nev-ur seyd sich u thingg in au mahy baurn puf ’.
12.1907–08: lugs back See note at 9.390.
12.1910–12: When, lo, there came . . . in the chariot
After 2 Kings 2:11–12: ‘And as they went on, walking and talking together, behold a fiery chariot, and fiery horses parted them both asunder: and Elias [Elijah] went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Eliseus [Elisha] saw him, and cried: My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the driver thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own garments, and rent them in two pieces.’ See also note at 8.13.
12.1912–13: clothed upon in the glory of the brightness . . . as of the sun
After Matthew 17:1–3 in the King James: ‘And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him’ (the Douay has ‘garments’ rather than ‘raiment’).
12.1913: fair as the moon and terrible
After Song of Solomon 6:9: ‘Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?’
12.1914–15: And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: Elijah! Elijah! See note at 12.1910–12.
12.1915: And He answered with a main cry: Abba! Adonai!
A main cry: a strong, vigorous cry (OED, s.v. main). Abba: Hebrew, Father. Adonai: Hebrew, Lord, God. Although Elijah does not cry out at the moment of his ascent to heaven, his servant Elisha does cry out the words ‘Avi! Avi! Rechev Yisrael u’farashav’ (My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the driver thereof) (2 Kings 2:12).
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12.1916: ben Bloom Elijah Ben (Hebrew): ‘son of ’.
12.1917–18: Donohoe’s in Little Green street
Donohoe and Smyth’s: pub, 4–5 Little Green Street, which intersects Little Britain Street from the south (Thom’s, p. 1509).
12.1918: like a shot off a shovel
Like a shot off a shovel: very fast; originally an American catchphrase from the nineteenth century; for example, ‘Of course, the grain goes down like shot off a shovel’ (Cottonwood Report [Cottonwood, Idaho], 4 Aug. 1893, p. 3, col. a). This was one of John Stanislaus Joyce’s favourite catchphrases (Ellmann, p. 22).
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13. ‘Nausicaa’
c
b a d
Map 13 Irishtown and Sandymount (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = St Mary’s Star of the Sea Church; b = Priest’s house (3 Leahy’s Terrace); c = steps of Leahy’s Terrace; d = the Dignams, 9 Newbridge Avenue
Time: 8–9 pm Location: Sandymount Strand, by Leahy’s Terrace Organ: Eye, Nose Art: Painting Colour: grey, blue Symbol: Virgin Technic: Tumescence, detumescence Correspondences: Nausicaa: Nymph; Phaeacia: Star of the Sea Serialised: The Little Review 6.11 (April 1920), 7.1 (May–June 1920) and 7.2 (July– August 1920) After the events of ‘Cyclops’, Bloom, Cunningham, and the others travelled to Irishtown by carriage. They went to the Dignam household to help with the estate and some issues around Dignam’s insurance policy (see 6.564–66 and notes at 6.536 and 12.764). After the business is done, Bloom does not return to the city with Cunningham and the others and instead walks to the strand. The action of this episode is mostly on Sandymount Strand by Leahy’s Terrace (see note at 3.29), which is about 350 metres from the Dignams’ house and is in the vicinity of Stephen’s walk along the strand in ‘Proteus’ (map 13). The first half of the episode owes much to the sentimental tone of Maria Cummins’s immensely popular 1854 novel The Lamplighter (see note at 13.633–34), whose protagonist is called Gerty. Joyce
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 679 wrote to Frank Budgen on 3 January 1920 that ‘Nausicaa’ ‘is written in a namby-pamby jammy marmalady drawersy (alto là!) style with effects of incense, mariolatry, masturbation, stewed cockles, painter’s palette, chitchat, circumlocutions, etc., etc. Not so long as the others’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 135).
13.2: the sun was setting
On 16 June 1904, sunset was at 8:27 pm in Dublin (Thom’s, p. 14).
13.4: Howth
See note at 3.133.
13.5: Sandymount shore
At the start of ‘Proteus’, Stephen is roughly near where the action of ‘Nausicaa’ takes place and then heads north towards Irishtown (JJD, p. 31). See also note at 3.18–19 for Sandymount.
13.8: Mary, star of the sea
The Roman Catholic Church, Mary’s, Star of the Sea, Sandymount Road, near the junction with Leahy’s Terrace (see note at 3.29) at the opposite end from the sea wall (Thom’s, p. 1781). An epithet of Mary is stella maris (Latin): star of the sea (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. The name of Mary).
13.10: Many a time and oft
From The Merchant of Venice (I.iii.107).
13.12: beside the sparkling waves
On 16 June, the high tides in Dublin were at 12:18 am and 12:42 pm (Thom’s, p. 15), so at sunset it would be low tide and thus in fact the sand would extend out a great distance.
13.12: Cissy Caffrey
Joyce took the surname from his former neighbours, the Caffrey family, who lived at 6 Richmond Parade; the Joyces lived one street away at 13 North Richmond Street from c.1895/1896 to 1897 (Igoe, p. 46; see also note at 17.143).
13.13: Edy Boardman
As with Cissy Caffrey, Joyce took the surname from his former neighbours, the Boardman family, who lived at 1 North Richmond Street; the Joyces lived across the street at no. 13. The family consisted of John (b. 1845) and his wife Mary (b. 1849) and their six children, Mary (b. 1870), Katherine (b. 1874), Elizabeth (b. 1881), Edward (b. 1883), Eleanor (b. 1885), and Francis (b. 1888) (Igoe, p. 33).
13.13: pushcar
Pushcar (Hiberno-English): a pram or pushchair (OED, s.v. push-).
13.15: H. M. S. Belleisle
There were three different ships in the Royal Navy named the HMS Belleisle. This is most probably the third, which was commissioned in 1878 and served for fourteen years as a coastguard ship at Kingstown (see note at 1.84). In 1900, she was fitted out as a target ship and, after suffering extensive damage during a test in 1903, was sold for scrap to Germany (Oscar Parkes, British Battleships, p. 271).
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680 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.20: happy as the day was long
Proverbial; originally ‘merry as the day was long’ from c.1595, then ‘happy’ from 1705 onwards (ODEP; Dent).
13.24: plucks
Pluck (Hiberno-English): cheek (Dolan, s.v. pluc).
13.30: little sufferers
Little sufferer: a common collocation for a child in distress, medically or spiritually; often used in advertisements, such as, ‘get a bottle of “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup”. It will relieve the poor little sufferer immediately’ (Freeman’s Journal, 18 Oct. 1864, p. 3, col. e).
13.32: scatty
Unclear. To scat: to break into pieces (OED); thus scatty might mean ‘broken off ’. While Joyce clearly wrote ‘scatty’ (JJA, vol. 19, p. 238), perhaps he meant scutty, stumpy (EDD, s.v. scut; suggested by Harald Beck).
13.32: golden syrup
A popular sweetening agent in the United Kingdom, used as an ingredient in biscuits and cakes and as a topping on pancakes, porridge, and various puddings. It is obtained as the by-product of boiling down sugar-cane syrup in refining sugar (Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 355).
13.34: dote
See note at 11.208.
13.35: Flora MacFlimsy sort
From the poem ‘Nothing to Wear’ (1857) by the American William Allen Butler (1825–1902), which satirises the vain Miss McFlimsey who has a vast wardrobe yet still complains she has ‘nothing to wear’: ‘Miss Flora McFlimsey, of Madison Square, / Has made three separate journeys to Paris’ (Poems, p. 69, ll. 1–2). Flora is described as having ‘blue eyes’ (l. 79) and ‘virginal lips’ (l. 84). ‘In illustrated editions of the poem and the children’s book series inspired by it, Flora is universally depicted as a petite white blonde’ (Casey Lawrence, ‘Cissy Caffrey as Radicalized and Sexualized Other’, p. 108). Joyce misspelt McFlimsey as MacFlimsy.
13.37: cherryripe red lips
A familiar poetic image, used, for example, by Thomas Campion (English composer, 1567–1620) in his Fourth Book of Airs: ‘There is a garden in her face / [. . .] / There cherries grow, where none may buy / Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry’ (Poetical Works, p. 108). It also occurs in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when Demetrius says to Helen, ‘Oh, how ripe in show / Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!’ (III.ii.139–40).
13.42: the golden rule
Golden rule: ‘Of inestimable utility; often spec. with reference to the precept, “whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12)’ (OED, s.v. golden).
13.42: apple of discord See note at 2.391.
13.43: right go wrong See note at 12.1033.
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13.44–45: Martello tower
See note at 1.542 for the history of the Martello towers. This is the tower in Sandymount (see note at 7.6), not the one in Sandycove, which is featured in ‘Telemachus’.
13.46–47: every little Irishman’s house is his castle
After the proverb ‘an Englishman’s house is his castle’ (ODEP); see also note at 6.821–22.
13.56: man-o’-war top
Man o’ war: ‘Designating (a part of) a child’s sailor suit’ (OED).
13.56: unmentionables
Unmentionables: trousers (Partridge).
13.58: smart little suit
In the early twentieth century, the words smart and smartness were widely used catchwords in advertisements for women’s clothes: ‘Striking in point of frequency of use and variety of reference’ (Carl A. Naether, Advertising to Women, p. 77; Matthew Hayward, ‘ “But Who Was Gerty?” ’, p. 100).
13.63: bold
Bold (Hiberno-English): naughty, mischievous (Dolan).
13.65: What’s your name? Butter and cream?
From a traditional Dublin rhyme, typically spoken by a parent or older sibling to amuse younger children: ‘What’s your name? / Butter and cream [pronounced crame], All the way / From Dirty Lane’ (Eilís Brady, All In! All In!, p. 7).
13.66–67: Tell us who is your sweetheart . . . your sweetheart?
This conversation derives from Joyce’s epiphany 38, an exchange between a baby boy and two young women: ‘The Little Male Child—(at the garden gate). .Na. .o. The First Young Lady—(half kneeling, takes his hand)—Well, is Mabie your sweetheart? The Little Male Child—Na. .o. The Second Young Lady—(bending over him, looks up)—Who is your sweetheart?’ (PSW, p. 198).
13.75: motherwit
Mother wit: ‘A person’s native or natural wit; common sense’ (OED).
13.79: Gerty MacDowell
Fictitious; seen in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.1206) and her mother is a friend of the Dignams (see note at 10.1125–26).
13.80–81: as fair a specimen . . . wish to see
A common cliché; for example, from Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet (1889), the first Sherlock Holmes adventure: ‘and left her as fair a specimen of American girlhood as could be found in the whole Pacific slope’ (p. 108).
13.83: more a Giltrap than a MacDowell
Gerty is the granddaughter of Old Giltrap, the owner of the Irish setter Garryowen (see note at 12.120). The name comes from James J. Giltrap (1832–99), a law agent and the father of Joyce’s Aunt Josephine Murray, née Giltrap (Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 30).
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682 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.84: iron jelloids
Iron jelloids: a gelatine lozenge containing iron, manufactured by The Jelloid Company, 205 City Road, London. One of their slogans was ‘enrich the blood—restore energy’ (London Times, 16 July 1915, p. 5, cols b–c).
13.85–86: Widow Welch’s female pills
A patent medicine manufactured by C. and G. Kearsley of Waterloo Road, London between 1767 and 1966. (Other chemists appropriated the name for their own concoctions.) It was an abortifacient that indirectly alluded to its function in advertisements; for example, from an advertisement in the back of John Painter’s 1879 book Ethnology (also used elsewhere), which warns against taking inferior imitations: ‘These Pills, so long and justly celebrated for their peculiar Virtues, are strongly recommended to the Notice of every Lady [. . .] as a safe and available Medicine, in effectually removing Obstructions, and relieving all other inconveniences to which the Female Frame is liable’ (p. 160; April Pelt, ‘Advertising Agency’, pp. 42–43). Widow Welch’s pills were one of many patent medicines listed in a 1907 article on ‘secret remedies’ for women: ‘These preparations are put forward ostensibly for the relief and cure of painful and deficient menstruation, but in the majority of instances more or less obvious hints are given that they will be of service in averting unwelcome pregnancies, and it is impossible to doubt that they are very largely taken with this object’ (‘The Composition of Certain Secret Remedies’, British Medical Journal, 7 Dec. 1907, p. 1653). Welch’s pills’ active ingredients were dried sulphate of iron, precipitated sulphur, powdered liquorice, and powdered turmeric; the cost in 1907 was 1s. 1½d. for a box of 20 pills (p. 1654). ‘It seems clear that in the latter half of the nineteenth century preparations of iron were taken with a view to inducing abortion’ (P. S. Brown, ‘Female Pills and the Reputation of Iron as an Abortifacient’, p. 301).
13.86–87: that tired feeling
An advertising slogan first used for Hood’s Sarsaparilla in 1882, before being applied to other products. Starting in 1895, Hood’s advertised in the Freeman’s Journal (Harald Beck, JJON). This exact slogan was never used for Widow Welch’s pills, but some of Kearsley’s ads espoused a similar sentiment: ‘Kearsley’s Widow Welch’s Female Pills are the acknowledged remedy for Female complaints [. . .] restore a healthy hue to the complexion, in place of the deathly pallor so distressing to witness’ (Cork Examiner, 7 Feb. 1888, p. 1, col. c).
13.87–88: almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity
One of the epithets for the Virgin Mary is ‘Tower of Ivory’ (J. C. J. Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend). She is called this in the sixteenth-century Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Litany of Loreto (Ambrose St John, The Raccolta, p. 158), for which see note at 13.287–89).
13.88: Cupid’s bow
Cupid’s bow: the upper lip, which resembles Cupid’s double-curved bow (OED); after Shakespeare’s ‘Venus and Adonis’: ‘by Cupid’s bow she doth protest’ (l. 581).
13.89: Greekly perfect
Perhaps after a line from chapter 29 of Maria Cummins’s The Lamplighter (see note at 13.633–34): ‘Paint to your imagination a youth, fresh and beautiful as a sunbeam, straight as an arrow—a perfect Apollo’ (p. 255).
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13.90: queen of ointments
This could refer to a number of different skincare products. Several different British and Irish products billed themselves as ‘The King of Ointments’, such as Leech Ointment (Derry Journal, 27 Sep. 1907, p. 6). Alternatively, this might be in reference to a well-known French skin cream, ‘La Reine des Crèmes’ (The Queen of Creams): ‘Elle donne au teint une idéale fraîcheur’ (It gives the complexion a perfect youthfulness) (Le Journal, 4 May 1909, p. 3, col. f). This was also available in the United Kingdom and United States (with thanks to John Simpson).
13.91: wear kid gloves in bed
‘Keep your nails neatly cut and short [. . .] Grease them and your hands, after thorough washing, at night, and put on a loose pair of old white kid gloves in bed’ (Girl’s Own Annual, 1897, p. 768; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
13.92: Bertha Supple
The 1901 census lists a Bertha Supple (b. c.1879) living at 74 South Circular Road.
13.93: black out
‘Little girls who have quarrelled and consequently are “not speaking” say they are black out with each other’ (Brady, All In! All In!, pp. 20–21).
13.93: at daggers drawn
‘At great enmity, as if with daggers drawn and ready to rush on each other’ (Brewer’s).
13.97: queenly hauteur
The Virgin Mary is repeatedly addressed as ‘Queen’ in the sixteenth-century Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Litany of Loreto (see note at 13.287–89). Hauteur: ‘loftiness of manner or bearing’ (OED); also the title of chapter 30 of The Lamplighter (see note at 13.633–34). The phrase ‘queenly hauteur’ was common in nineteenth-century sentimental novels; for example, from Mrs Gore’s The Diamond and the Pearl (1849): ‘Lady De Hauteford was a woman who affected queenly hauteur’ (vol. 3, p. 71).
13.103: pay their devoirs
Devoirs: ‘dutiful respects’ (OED).
13.104: the love that might have been
Perhaps after the famous lines from American poet John Greenleaf Whittier’s (1807–92) ‘Maud Muller’: ‘For of all sad words of tongue or pen, / The saddest are these: “It might have been!” ’ (ll. 105–06; Poems, p. 260).
13.108: bluest Irish blue
This expression precedes Joyce; for example, from Billy Buttons by Norman Macleod: ‘looking kindly from her fine Irish blue eyes’ (Every Saturday, 4 Jan. 1868, vol. 5, no. 105, p. 16).
13.109–10: Madame Vera Verity, directress of . . . the Princess Novelette
Princess’s Novelettes: a London weekly published between 1886 and 1904, and renamed Princess’s Novels from 1904 to 1906 (Lise Sanders, Consuming Fantasies, p. 248). Each issue contained at least one complete story. ‘Such stories were typically bookended by ads for patent medicines and articles of fashion [. . .] The fictions included in the novelettes presented an astonishing array of characters to their reading audience, perhaps with the
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13.111–12: eyebrowleine . . . haunting expression to the eyes
Eyebrowlin: a brand of eyebrow liner, produced by Jean Binet & Co., 34 Strand, London, W.C. According to an advertisement, ‘It is used by leaders of fashion. “Eyebrowlin” produces that fascinating expression which is becoming to ladies’ (Lloyd’s Weekly News, 29 Oct. 1916, p. 11; Harald Beck, JJON).
13.112: leaders of fashion
A cliché going back to at least the early nineteenth century. An article in the Freeman’s Journal on 21 July 1873 entitled ‘A Leader of Fashion’ notes with some sarcasm that this phrase was used in an advertisement disguised as an article in an unnamed American newspaper: ‘A lady who has for the last five years been a leader of fashion in New York [. . .] stated [. . .] that the only article in existence which imparts beauty and lustre to the complexion [. . .] is Hagan’s Magnolia Balm’ (p. 4, col. d).
13.113: blushing scientifically cured
Magazines of this period included advertisements for products that promised to cure blushing; for example: ‘Blushing Cured in 7 Days. My System of Nerve Culture cures the awkward and inconvenient habit of Blushing. [. . .] E. S. Dean, Ltd., 12 All Saints Rd, St. Annes-on-Sea’ (The Quiver, Dec. 1918, p. xxvii).
13.113–14: how to be tall increase your height
K. Leo Minges, of the Cartilage Company, Rochester, New York used these taglines in advertisements promoting his height-enhancing programme: ‘How to grow tall. A startling discovery that will revolutionize the physical condition of mankind’ (Evening Star (Washington, DC), 19 Nov. 1905, p. 23, col. c). ‘Increase your height from two to five inches. Our free book tells you how—this startling discovery will revolutionize the physical condition of man and woman [. . .] Mr Minges is to short men and women what the great wizard Edison is to electricity’ (The Evening World (New York, NY), 13 Oct. 1903, p. 11, cols e–f). Minges was arrested for fraud in 1913 (Norwich Bulletin, 23 June 1913, p. 1, col. f).
13.114: you have a beautiful face but your nose
‘You have a beautiful face but your nose?’ was the tagline for an advertisement for a ‘nose- shaper’, a metal contraption that attaches over the nose with straps and which is worn at night. It was manufactured and sold by a M. Trility, ‘Face Specialist’, Binghamton, New York. This was advertised in various American newspapers from c.1915 onwards (e.g., The Menace (Aurora, MO), 29 Dec. 1917, p. 3, cols f–g; with thanks to Andy Boroson and Aida Yared).
13.115: Mrs Dignam
Paddy Dignam’s widow. The Dignam house is at 9 Newbridge Avenue (see note at 16.1249–50), about 600 metres from the part of Sandymount Strand where Gerty is sitting.
13.116: crowning glory
Crowning glory: ‘the best or most notable feature of something’ or, as here, humorous for ‘a person’s hair’ (OED).
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13.117–18: She had cut it that very morning on account of the new moon
‘It is good to cut the hair at the new moon and by the light of the moon itself; but never should the hair be cut on Friday, for it is the most unlucky day of all the year’ (Lady Wilde, Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland, p. 63). The new moon appeared on Monday, 13 June (Thom’s, p. 14).
13.119: Thursday for wealth
According to the old rhyme about the significance of cutting hair and nails on certain days, Tuesday is for wealth and Thursday is ‘for a new pair of shoes’ (Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. nail and hair cutting, rhyme); variants of the rhyme exist where Thursday is the propitious day for wealth (John Simpson, JJON).
13.128: all the freshness of a young May morning
Joyce derived this phrase from Beatrice Harraden’s (1864–1936) novel The Guiding Thread (1916): ‘Joan who had now come out of her rapture, laughed a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a May morning’ (p. 49; Harald Beck, JJON).
13.130: nose was out of joint
‘To put one’s nose out of joint is to supplant a person in another’s good graces’ (Brewer’s).
13.131: London bridge road See note at 10.818–19.
13.132: studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate
In other words, he is studying for the ‘intermediate’, a series of competitive exams set by the Intermediate Education Board of Ireland for students at secondary (intermediate) level. A good result on these exams leads to a substantial cash prize or ‘exhibition’ (Kevin Sullivan, Joyce Among the Jesuits, pp. 71–72). Since Reggy Wylie would appear to be taking the Senior Grade of the intermediate, he must be 17–18 years old. See also note at 17.551–52.
13.134–35: his brother W. E. Wylie who was racing in the bicycle races
William Evelyn Wylie (1881–1964): one of the racers in the Half-Mile Bicycle Handicap; see note at 10.651. Wylie was born in Dublin and studied law at Trinity College, where he graduated in 1904. He was a distinguished cyclist and a friend of Gogarty’s. During the 1916 Easter Rising, he was captain of the Trinity College Militia, which defended the college from the rebels. He was a prosecutor at the military tribunals subsequent to the rebellion (John Simpson, JJON; Igoe, p. 310; DIB). According to the 1901 census, he did not have a younger brother.
13.135–36: Trinity college university
There is no such entity as ‘Trinity College University’. Rather, Trinity College is the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin. See note at 7.801.
13.138–39: They were protestants in his family
In general, the Catholic Church opposed mixed marriage, that is a marriage with a non- Catholic (Alexander Klauder, Catholic Practice, p. 119). Mixed Protestant-Catholic weddings were an especially delicate problem in Ireland. The Ne temere decree of 1908 stipulated that the children of mixed marriages had to be raised as Catholics (NHI, vol. 6, p. 119). W. E. Wylie’s father, Robert Beatty Wylie, was a Presbyterian clergyman (Igoe, p. 310) and Presbyterians were especially averse to mixed marriages.
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13.148–49: votary of Dame Fashion
Votary: a devout worshipper, originally but not exclusively in the sense of religious devotion (OED). The expression is not original to Joyce: ‘catch any votary of Dame Fashion tying herself to it’ (Bit & Spur, 1906, vol. 2, no. 1, p. 84).
13.149: just a might
Might: a possibility; as in an abbreviation of might-be or might-have-been (OED; Dent).
13.150: electric blue
Electric blue: ‘steely or brilliant shade of light blue’ (OED, s.v. electric); frequently used in reference to fabrics. That’s the colour of Gerty’s blouse.
13.150: dolly dyes
A brand of trade-marked dyes sold for use at home, manufactured by William Edge and Sons Ltd, Bolton, Lancashire (The Penny Illustrated Paper, 11 June 1898, p. 384).
13.151: the Lady’s Pictorial
The Lady’s Pictorial, published each Thursday in London; it ran from 1881 to 1921. It ‘stressed its special merits as a “First Class medium for all advertisements appealing to Ladies” ’ and ‘was the first of the breed [. . .] of middle-class women’s magazines’ (Waterloo Directory).
13.152: smart vee opening See note at 13.58.
13.154: sit
Sit: ‘The manner in which an article of dress, or some part of one, is disposed or fits the person’ (OED).
13.154–55: threequarter skirt cut to the stride
A three-quarter skirt refers either to the skirt’s length or width (in which case, the skirt extends to three-quarters of a circle width when laid flat). In the early twentieth century, the term was used in both senses, although in Ireland it more usually refers to length. If it refers to length, then Gerty is exposing her feet; if width, then more of her legs would be visible (with thanks to Helen Saunders and Anne Marie D’Arcy). Stride: a tailor’s term for the amount of movement possible in a garment; for a definition, the OED quotes J. Beresford’s Miseries of Human Life (1807): ‘A pair of pantaloons so constructed with regard to what taylors [sic] call the stride, as to limit you to 3 or 4 inches [7.6 or 10.2 cm] per step’.
13.156: love of a hat
Love of a hat: a common term of endearment for a hat; for example, from Henry James’s (American novelist, 1843–1916) What Maisie Knew (1897), ‘A love of a hat—in my luggage. [. . .] It’s the most gorgeous blue’ (p. 203).
13.156: wideleaved nigger straw
Wide-leaved (also wide-leafed): ‘(a) having a wide leaf or leaves; (b) (of a hat) broad- brimmed’ (OED, s.v. wide); the first sense is the likely one since wideleaved modifies nigger straw. Nigger: ‘A dark brown colour’ (OED). The collocation was in use in reference to hats: ‘The bride [. . .] wore a fur-trimmed gown of light fawn cloth with a nigger straw toque’ (London Times, 12 Feb. 1921, p. 13, col. b).
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13.157: underbrim
Underbrim: ‘The underside of the brim of a hat; a trimming or lining attached to this’ (OED).
13.158: Tuesday week
That is, a week ago Tuesday, 7 June.
13.159: Clery’s
See note at 5.194.
13.159: the very it
That is, the very thing: ‘the thing exactly suitable or requisite’ (OED, s.v. very; Dent).
13.160: seven fingers
Finger: ‘a measure of length used by needlewomen; it is 4½ inches [11.5 cm]’ (F. Jackson, quoted in OED, s.v. finger). As a unit of measurement, the finger is associated with other lengths, but this one is specifically for cloth; although, as the OED notes, the various senses are ‘[i]n some contexts not readily distinguishable’.
13.164: take the shine out of
To take the shine out of: ‘To put (someone) in the shade; to excel’ (Partridge).
13.166: a five
In the UK barleycorn scale of shoe measurement, women’s shoe sizes typically run from size 2 to size 9.5. A woman’s size 5 (European size 38 and American size 7) is on the border between small and medium.
13.167: ash, oak or elm
Context suggests a proverbial expression of finality (Dent).
13.167: smart buckle See note at 13.58.
13.170: highspliced heels
In hosiery, a spliced heel is a heel with double thickness of fabric and in a high-spliced heel, the double-thickness extends upwards at the back (Mary Brooks Picken, A Dictionary of Costume and Fashion, pp. 180, 318).
13.174: dinky
Dinky: ‘Neat, spruce; small and dainty’ (Partridge).
13.175: each set slotted with different coloured ribbons
Slotting: ‘The action of threading through a hole or slot. Also, ornamentation with threading’ (OED).
13.176: blued them
That is, to use blue, ‘A blue powder used to combat yellowing, and hence preserve the whiteness of garments and fabrics in laundering, by adding a slight tint of blue’ (OED).
13.177: brickbat
Brickbat: ‘A piece or fragment of a brick; properly, [. . .] less than one half of its length’ (OED).
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13.179: blue for luck
Blue is associated with the Virgin Mary (see note at 11.152–53). The notion of blue being ‘a lucky colour too for a bride’ is reflected in the instructive bridal rhyme, ‘Something old, something new, / Something borrowed, something blue, / And a silver sixpence in her shoe’.
13.181: green she wore that day week brought grief
Green is an unlucky colour (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions).
13.182: intermediate exhibition See note at 13.132.
13.184: slipped up the old pair on her inside out
From the superstition that accidentally putting on clothes inside-out can be good luck (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions). In most Christian nations, Friday is regarded as an unlucky day because it was the day of Christ’s crucifixion, so most good-luck omens are reversed on Fridays.
13.187: of a Friday See note at 6.887.
13.192–93: You are lovely, Gerty, it said
After the magic mirror in Grimms’ fairy tale ‘Snow White’: ‘You, O Queen, are the fairest in the land’ (J. L. K. and W. K. Grimm, Grimms’ Tales, p. 184).
13.196: T.C.D.
The standard abbreviation for Trinity College Dublin.
13.196–97: the one who married an older brother
The rules of etiquette dictate a distinct form of address for eldest sons and their spouses, as opposed to their younger siblings and their spouses, but this rule only applies to royalty and the nobility (Eliza Cheadle, Manners of Modern Society, pp. 60–61).
13.197–98: fashionable intelligence
The title of the fashion or society page in a newspaper or magazine. The Freeman’s Journal ran such a column, but irregularly; it covered the activities of the royal family and the nobility.
13.201: Stoers’
See note at 10.1125–26.
13.201: he was still in short trousers
While there would have been certain differences between the social classes, in general it would be expected that boys would wear only short trousers until around the age of 12 or 13, at which point they would transition to long trousers (Laura Ugolini, Men and Menswear, p. 32).
13.207: a man among men
Originally from Samuel Valentine Cole’s (American poet and president of Wheaton College, 1851–1925) poem ‘Abraham Lincoln’: ‘Who lived as a man among men his days, / And belongs to the ages now’ (ll. 47–48, The Great Grey King, p. 9); now proverbial.
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13.208: waiting, always waiting to be asked Echoes the song ‘Waiting’; see note at 11.730.
13.208: it was leap year too
According to tradition, ‘it is an old saying that during leap year the ladies propose [marriage], and, if not accepted, claim a silk gown’ (Brewer’s). 1904 was the first leap year of the twentieth century.
13.209: prince charming
Prince Charming released Snow White from the spell cast on her by her evil stepmother in the Grimms’ ‘Snow White’.
13.216: for riches for poor, in sickness in health
A slight misquotation of part of the wedding vows: ‘from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part’ (Klauder, Catholic Practice, p. 126).
13.225: queen Ann’s pudding
Usually spelt ‘Queen Anne’s Pudding’: a mixture of grated bread, chopped apples, sugar, currants, butter, eggs, nutmeg, lemon peel, and candied lemon and orange (Henry Southgate, Things a Lady Would Like to Know, p. 200).
13.225: golden opinions
‘I have brought / Golden opinions from all sorts of people’ (Macbeth, I.vii.32–33).
13.232–33: grandpapa Giltrap’s lovely dog Garryowen See note at 12.120.
13.234: Clery’s
See note at 5.194.
13.234: jumble sales
Jumble sale: ‘a sale of miscellaneous cheap or second-hand articles’ (OED).
13.240: brekky
Brekky: breakfast (OED).
13.244: knickerbockers
Knickerbockers: ‘Loose-fitting breeches, gathered in at the knee, and worn by boys, sportsmen, and others who require a freer use of their limbs’ (OED).
13.247: wigs on the green
Wigs on the green (Hiberno-English): a fight (PWJ, p. 350).
13.250: he was out of pinnies
That is, he is old enough to wear boy’s clothes as opposed to a baby’s pinafore. In general, this transition would happen at around the age of four or five (Ugolini, Men and Menswear, p. 32).
13.255: in full career
In full career: at full speed (OED, s.v. career).
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13.256: Anything for a quiet life
The title of a comical play (c.1617, printed 1657) by Thomas Middleton (English playwright and poet, c.1570–1627).
13.258–59: here’s the lord mayor, here’s his two horses . . . chinchopper chin
A version of a children’s rhyming game: ‘Here sits the Lord Mayor [touch forehead] / Here sit his two men [touch eyes] / Here sits the cockadoodle [touch one cheek] / Here sits the hen [touch the other cheek] / Here sit the little chickens [touch tip of the nose] / Here they run in [touch the mouth] / Chin chopper, chin chopper, chin chopper chin [chuck under the chin]’ (ODNR, p. 279). See note at 8.710 for gingerbread carriage.
13.260: as cross as two sticks
As cross as two sticks: ‘Very peevish or annoyed’ (Partridge).
13.269: as quick as I’d look at him
As quick as look at you (or him, etc.): immediately (OED).
13.270: golliwog curls
Golliwog: ‘a black-faced grotesquely dressed (male) doll with a shock of fuzzy hair’ (OED).
13.274–75: pay a visit to the Miss White
Miss White (Hiberno-English): a chamberpot (OED).
13.275: Cissycums
The suffix -cums is a diminutive and term of endearment modelled after tootsiecums, a whimsical expression of tootsy, foot or sweetheart (OED, s.vv. tootsicum, tootsy; with thanks to Harald Beck).
13.276: dressed up in her father’s suit and hat
As a young girl in Galway, Nora would, along with her friend Mary O’Holleran, ‘dress up in men’s clothes, hair tucked under a man’s cap and explore the streets of Galway and Eyre Square’ (Brenda Maddox, Nora, p. 18).
13.276–77: burned cork moustache
Burnt cork was typically used for blackface make-up in minstrel shows (Stanley White, ‘The Burnt Cork Illusion of the 1920’s in America’, p. 532; Lawrence, ‘Cissy Caffrey as Radicalized and Sexualized Other’, p. 119).
13.277: Tritonville road
A main road which runs north-south from Sandymount to Irishtown.
13.277: smoking a cigarette
Up through the late nineteenth century, it was considered unrespectable across most social classes for women to smoke cigarettes, in private as well as in public. However, this convention began to wane, slowly, from the early twentieth century onwards (Matthew Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture, pp. 138–40). See also note at 18.290.
13.280: too sweet to be wholesome
A Hiberno-English expression: ‘A man who has an excess of smooth plausible talk is “too sweet to be wholesome” ’ (PWJ, p. 117).
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13.283: missioner
‘In modern use chiefly: a person engaged in religious or humanitarian outreach in his or her own country; spec. a person (usually a diocesan official) who conducts or is in charge of a parochial mission’ (OED).
13.283: the reverend John Hughes S.J.
Father Hughes lived at the Presbytery House of St Francis Xavier in Upper Gardiner Street, where Father John Conmee was the Superior of the house (Thom’s, p. 1500).
13.283–84: rosary, sermon and benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament
The Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament ‘is ordinarily an afternoon or evening devotion and consists in the singing of certain hymns, or litanies, or canticles, before the Blessed Sacrament, which is exposed upon the altar in a monstrance and is surrounded with lights. At the end, the priest, his shoulders enveloped in a humeral veil, takes the monstrance into his hands and with it makes the sign of the cross (hence the name Benediction) in silence over the kneeling congregation’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). The order of Rosary, Sermon, Benediction, and the Litany is a perfectly ordinary evening’s activity in an Irish Catholic church, although in other countries it would not be the same (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
13.286: simple fane
Fane: a temple; from the Latin fanum (OED). The phrase ‘simple fane’ is a common collocation; for example, the last stanza of the poem ‘The Simple Church’ by Mrs M. Howland: ‘And smiling on the simple fane, / His gracious presence owns / As kings, and priests, and sons of God, / These meek yet noble ones’ (The Ladies’ Repository, May 1849, p. 160).
13.287: the immaculate
That is, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
13.287–89: the litany of Our Lady of Loreto . . . virgin of virgins
The sixteenth-century Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Litany of Loreto (from the Latin lauretum, grove of laurel trees) is one of the most famous invocations of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is commonly recited immediately after the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. It consists of a 10-line opening that invokes the Trinity, a 49-line appeal to the Virgin Mary under her various titles and concluding prayers and antiphon. The main part begins: ‘Holy Mary, Holy Mother of God, Holy Virgin of Virgins’ (Catholic Encyclopedia; St John, The Raccolta, p. 158).
13.291: taking the pledge
That is, pledging to abstain from drinking alcohol. The earliest temperance movements began in the early nineteenth century and were ‘supported especially by religious sentiment’; these encouraged their members to take a pledge to refrain from drinking alcohol (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Temperance Movements). In Ireland, the Pledge is associated with the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association (see note at 12.692 and also note at 16.89–90).
13.291–92: those powders the drink habit cured in Pearson’s Weekly
Pearson’s Weekly: a popular magazine published in London with a cost of one penny. Founded in 1890 as a competitor to Titbits (see note at 4.467), it published serialised novels as well as sensationalistic stories laced with ‘moral instruction’. It also included
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13.293–94: in a brown study
Brown study: ‘A state of mental abstraction or musing’ (OED).
13.301: man who lifts his hand to a woman save in the way of kindness
After John Tobin’s (1770–1804) play The Honey Moon (1804): ‘The man that lays his hand upon a woman / Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch / Who ’twere gross flattery to name a coward’ (II.i).
13.303–04: Virgin most powerful, Virgin most merciful
Two of the Virgin Mary’s epithets, from the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Litany of Loreto (St John, The Raccolta, p. 158); see note at 13.287–89.
13.306: Sandymount green
A small park at the southern end of Sandymount Road, about 700 metres away from Gerty’s present position.
13.308: screwed
Screwed: intoxicated (Partridge).
13.310: palpable case of Doctor Fell
A case of Dr Fell: disliking someone without knowing why; after Dr John Fell (1625–86), Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, and later Bishop of Oxford. Fell’s fame (and the origin of the allusion here) derives from a witticism of author Thomas Brown (1663–1704), whom, when a student at Oxford, Fell threatened with expulsion unless he could provide a spontaneous adaption of Martial’s epigram ‘Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare; / Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te’. Brown’s response was ‘I do not like thee, Dr. Fell, / The reason why I cannot tell; / But this I know, I know full well: / I do not like thee, Dr. Fell’ (Brewer’s).
13.311–12: With all his faults she loved him still
Inversion of the title of the song ‘With All Her Faults I Love Her Still’ (1888), by Monroe H. Rosenfeld (Bowen, p. 227).
13.312: Tell me, Mary, how to woo thee
The title of a popular song by G. A. Hodson (Bowen, p. 227).
13.313: My love and cottage near Rochelle
From the refrain of an aria in Act II of The Siege of Rochelle (1835), by Michael William Balfe, libretto by Edward Fitzball: ‘When I beheld the anchor weigh’d, / And with the shore thine image fade, / I deem’d each wave a bounding sea / That bore me still from love and thee; / I watched alone the sun decline, / And envied beams on thee to shine, / While anguish panted ’neath her spell, / My love and cottage near Rochelle’ (Bowen, p. 227).
13.314: Lazenby’s salad dressing
Lazenby’s salad cream: a prepared salad dressing manufactured by F. Lazenby & Son, Ltd., 18 Trinity Street, London. From an advert: ‘by means of which the Finest Salad imaginable is produced’ (Manchester Guardian, 6 July 1906, p. 5, cols f–g).
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13.314–15: The moon hath raised
‘The Moon Hath Raised Her Lamp Above’: a song from The Lily of Killarney (1862), for which see note at 6.186.
13.317: Charley . . . and Tom Presumably Gerty’s brothers.
13.318: Patsy and Freddy Dignam Two of the Dignam children.
13.318: a group taken
That is, a group photograph.
13.323: Catesby’s cork lino See note at 10.1207.
13.326: ministering angel
In Hamlet, Laertes describes his sister Ophelia as ‘A ministering angel shall my sister be’ (V.i.264). ‘The Ministering Angel’ is the title of chapter 15 of The Lamplighter (see note at 13.633–34).
13.328: menthol cone
Used for the relief of headaches, a menthol cone consists of a ‘conical piece of mixed menthol and spermaceti, which is rubbed on the place affected’ (OED).
13.331: turned off the gas at the main
‘When not in use, it is the safest plan to turn off the gas at the main to prevent its escape through leaks in pipe or burner’ (Marie Marshall, The Home Guide, p. 422).
13.333: chlorate of lime
‘A handy disinfectant for household use is made of chlorate of lime moistened with vinegar and water in equal parts’ (Ulster Herald, 10 Apr. 1909, p. 3, col. a).
13.333: Mr Tunney the grocer’s See note at 10.1128.
13.334: christmas almanac
Christmas almanac: ‘An annual table, or (more usually) a book of tables, containing a calendar of months and days, with astronomical data and calculations, ecclesiastical and other anniversaries, and other information, including astrological and meteorological forecasts’ (OED, s.v. almanac).
13.334: halcyon days
Proverbial for a time of happiness and peace (Brewer’s).
13.341: her own arms that were white
In the Odyssey, Nausicaa is described as having ‘white arms’ (VI.101).
13.342–43: Walker’s pronouncing dictionary
John Walker (English lexicographer, 1732–1807) first published his Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language in 1791. It aimed to provide definitive
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13.343–44: about the halcyon days what they meant
From Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary: ‘HALCYON = hǎl’-ce-ǒn, 147: s. and a. The king- fisher or alcedo, a bird said to lay her eggs in nests on rocks near the sea during the calm weather in winter, and to have a continuance of the calm while she incubates:–adj. An epithet originally applied to seven days before and seven days after the winter solstice, if they were quite calm; hence, calm, quiet, peaceful, undisturbed, happy’ (B. H. Smart, Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary; with thanks to Fritz Senn).
13.349–50: the gentleman in black . . . intercepted the ball
Echoes the scene in the Odyssey when Nausicaa and her handmaidens discover Odysseus while they are playing with a ball: ‘Now the princess threw the ball toward one handmaiden, / and missed the girl, and the ball went into the swirling water, / and they all cried out aloud, and noble Odysseus wakened / and sat up and began pondering in his heart and his spirit’ (VI.115–18).
13.359: If you fail try again
After English writer William E. Hickson’s (1803–70) instructional verse, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, / Try, try again’; and proverbial ever since (Dent).
13.364: shingle
Shingle: ‘A beach or other tract covered with loose roundish pebbles’ (OED).
13.368–70: and the face . . . saddest she had ever seen
After Beatrice Harraden’s (1864–1936) novel The Guiding Thread (1916): ‘she saw that his face was strangely drawn and tired’ (p. 21; Harald Beck, JJON).
13.372–73: her who was conceived without stain of original sin See note at 9.840.
13.373–74: spiritual vessel, pray for us . . . mystical rose
These are all epithets of the Virgin Mary from the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Litany of Loreto; see note at 13.287–89.
13.375: toilers for their daily bread
From the Lord’s Prayer’s, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). The phrase was commonly used as a name for the poor: ‘You all know much is wrong in human society. None can feel this more than the Toilers for their daily bread’ (Charles Casey, Philitis, p. 10).
13.375–76: erred and wandered
This suggests ‘erred and strayed’, which is a familiar phrase in the General Confession in the Anglican/Episcopal Church; for example, from a morning prayer: ‘Almighty and most merciful Father; We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep’ (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 4).
13.377–78: what the great saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary
The prayer called ‘Memorare’ is sometimes incorrectly attributed to St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153; see note at 12.1695) because a different Bernard, Claude Bernard (1588–1641) helped popularise it (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Claude Bernard). The prayer itself was
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 695 composed in the late fifteenth century: ‘Remember, Mary, tenderest-hearted Virgin, how from of old the ear hath never heard that he who ran to thee for thy refuge, implored thy help, and sought thy prayers, was forsaken of God. Virgin of virgins, Mother, emboldened by this confidence I fly to thee, to thee I come, and in thy presence I a weeping sinner stand. Mother of the Word Incarnate, O cast not away my prayer; but in thy pity hear and answer. Amen’ (St John, Raccolta, p. 196).
13.395: holy saint Denis
While Saint Denis is the patron saint of France (see note at 12.1694–95), the exclamation ‘Holy Saint Denis!’ was not uncommon in Ireland. For example, from Isaac Butt’s (see note at 7.707) Irish Life (1840): ‘by the holy St Denis of France I’ll take my bible oath that she ate more than any four persons at the table’ (vol. 1, p. 272; Harald Beck, JJON).
13.395: possing wet
That is, soaking wet; to poss: ‘to splash, or tramp with splashing, in wet mud or water’ (OED).
13.400: soothering him
To soother (Hiberno-English): to ‘cajole, flatter’ (Dolan).
13.401: geegee
Gee-gee: a horse; originally a child’s word (OED).
13.401: puffpuff
Puff-puff: ‘The sound of repeated puffing by a steam engine; (esp. in children’s language) a steam locomotive or steam train’ (OED).
13.405: out of that See note at 3.353.
13.409: Bailey light on Howth
The Baily lighthouse is on the southern tip of the Hill of Howth (Thom’s, p. 1707). Ever since the ninth century, warning beacons have been placed on Howth Head; the present Baily lighthouse began operation in 1814 (J. W. de Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin, p. 17). Joyce’s misspelling of its name as ‘Bailey’ was common, for example, the headline ‘The Bailey Lighthouse’ (Freeman’s Journal, 27 May 1913, p. 4, col. f).
13.417: Martin Harvey
Sir John Martin-Harvey (1863–1944): popular and successful English actor and theatrical producer, noted for his good looks as well as for his acting and managerial prowess. He was knighted in 1921 (ODNB). He frequently played in Dublin, where he was so highly regarded that he was invited to lecture at Trinity College. In 1906, he met with the leading lights of the Irish Revival, including Yeats, Synge, and Lady Gregory (Stephen Watt, Joyce, O’Casey, and the Irish Popular Theater, p. 134). Joyce spelt the name without the hyphen.
13.418: Winny Rippingham
The only Rippinghams listed in the 1901 census are Joseph (b. c.1846) and Ellen Rippingham (b. c.1851) of Galway City. They lived on Lower Abbeygate Street, which is 150 metres away from the house Nora Barnacle’s family moved to in 1899, 8 Bowling Green, which was her last address in Galway before moving to Dublin (Vivien Igoe, James Joyce’s Dublin Houses, pp. 104–05).
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696 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.419: to always dress the same on account of a play
Thornton suggests that this is after the popular sentimental comedy Two Roses (1870), by James Albery (English dramatist, 1838–99), in which the two sister heroines, the eponymous roses, Lotty and Ida, dress alike. The stage directions at their first entrance: ‘They are both dressed in light summer costume, almost exactly alike, nothing costly, but everything made with great taste and daintily trimmed’ (p. 6). The play was a long- running hit in Dublin and London in 1870 and 1871 (Freeman’s Journal, 8 May 1871, p. 1, col. a).
13.420: retroussé
Retroussé (French): turned up. An article on the ‘significance of the nose’ declares that a Roman nose denotes an ‘enterprising, business-like character; a long nose is a sign of good sense; [. . .] a nez retroussé signifies a spirit of mischief, wit, and dash’ (Irish Examiner, 1 Feb. 1896, p. 10, col. a).
13.432: more sinned against than sinning
From King Lear, when Lear, raging on the heath, declares: ‘I am a man / More sinn’d against than sinning’ (III.ii.59–60).
13.436–37: those cyclists showing off
In 1904, it was still scandalous for women to ride bicycles; see note at 18.290.
13.438–39: the memory of the past
From the song ‘There Is a Flower That Bloometh’, from the opera Maritana (1845), for which see note at 5.563.
13.442: Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. Ora pro nobis
From the Litany of Our Lady of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Litany of Loreto: ‘Refuge of sinners, / Comforter of the afflicted, / [. . .] / Ora pro nobis’ (St John, The Raccolta, p. 159); see note at 13.287–89. Ora pro nobis (Latin): ‘Pray for us.’ ‘Comfort In Affliction’ is the title of chapter 3 of Maria Cummins’s The Lamplighter (see note at 13.633–34). (The first several American editions of Cummins’s book lack chapter titles, but follow the same chapter divisions as the British edition. Later American editions have chapter titles but different chapter arrangements; the American chapter 2 is called ‘Comfort and Affliction’.)
13.442–45: Well has it been said that whosoever prays to her . . . own heart
This follows from, but only roughly, a prayer included in The Raccolta (a collection of prayers authorised by the Vatican), ‘Chaplet of the Seven Dolours’, in which the seven dolours (sorrows) of Mary are contemplated (St John, The Raccolta, pp. 208–13). Mary’s seven dolours are: ‘at the prophecy of Simeon; at the flight into Egypt; having lost the Holy Child at Jerusalem; meeting Jesus on his way to Calvary; standing at the foot of the Cross; Jesus being taken from the Cross; at the burial of Christ’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Feasts of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary).
13.447–48: blue banners of the blessed Virgin’s sodality
See note at 5.340 for sodality. This would be the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founded in 1563; ‘a peculiar aim of the Sodalities of the Blessed Virgin Mary is, by means of the true veneration of the Blessed Virgin, to build up and renew the whole inner man in order to render him capable of and zealous for all works of spiritual love and charity’
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 697 (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. sodality). Joyce was admitted to the Belvedere College Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary in December 1895 and in September of the following year, he was chosen prefect or head (Ellmann, p. 47).
13.448: Father Conroy See note at 10.1173–74.
13.448: Canon O’Hanlon
The Very Reverend John Canon O’Hanlon (1821–1905) was the parish priest at St Mary’s, Star of the Sea in Sandymount (Thom’s, p. 997). He lived at 3 Leahy’s Terrace (p. 1781). He is the author of the nine-volume The Lives of the Irish Saints, published in 1875 after thirty years of work (Igoe, p. 236).
13.451–52: Dominican nun in their white habit
The habit of Dominican nuns is a ‘white tunic, with black cloak and hood, and a leathern girdle’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Order of Preachers). The nearest Dominican convent is Muckross Park, Marlborough Road, Donnybrook (Thom’s, p. 1679).
13.452: novena of Saint Dominic
The novena to St Dominic, who is particularly known for his devotion to Mary and the rosary, is a nine-day devotion culminating in the celebration of his feast day on 4 August (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. St Dominic).
13.458–49: Our Blessed Lady herself said to the archangel Gabriel . . . Thy Word
Mary, accepting the Archangel Gabriel’s orders during the Annunciation, says, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to thy word’ (Luke 1:38).
13.460: ruched
Ruched: trimmed with a pleat or ruffle (OED).
13.464: the forty hours’ adoration
In the Forty Hours’ Adoration (or Prayer), the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for forty hours during which prayers take place. The forty hours approximates the amount of time Christ spent in the tomb after the Crucifixion (Catholic Encyclopaedia).
13.465: illuminated views
Illuminated: ‘Adorned with brilliant colours, metallic pigments, etc.’ (OED).
13.471: tide might come in on them
The tide turned around 7:00 pm and would be high again at 1:06 am on the next day (Thom’s, p. 15); see note at 13.12.
13.476: thingamerry
Thingamerry: a term for something whose name cannot be recalled (Partridge).
13.478: throw her hat at it
To cast one’s cap at: to show indifference to, to give up for lost (OED, s.v. cap).
13.481: she was a forward piece
Piece: ‘A woman or girl; in later use usually derogatory, with connotation of a woman regarded as a sexual object’ (OED)
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698 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.485–86: high crooked French heels See note at 15.3119.
13.486: Tableau!
Tableau (French): picture, painting, scene; in English used as an interjection, ‘drawing attention to a dramatic scene or situation’ (OED).
13.489: Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs . . . of all saints
‘Queen of Angels, Queen of Patriarchs, Queen of Prophets [. . .] Queen of all Saints’: from the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Litany of Loreto (St John, The Raccolta, p. 159); see note at 13.287–89.
13.491: thurible
See note at 12.1677.
13.491: censed the Blessed Sacrament
The censing of the Blessed Sacrament (the consecrated host) is a part of the Rite of the Benediction (St John, The Raccolta, pp. 117–18).
13.498: Tantum ergo
The Tantum ergo: a hymn used in the Rite of the Benediction after the Sacrament is exposed (see note at 13.283–84) (John Wynne, The Mass, p. 549).
13.499: tantumer gosa cramen tum
A mangled version of the first line of the Tantum ergo: ‘Tantum ergo Sacramentum’ (So great a sacrament therefore . . .) (Wynne, The Mass, p. 549).
13.499–500: Three and eleven she paid
An ad for a sale at Kellett’s of 19–21 South Great George Street (Thom’s, p. 1917) lists a regular price for black and tan pure silk stockings as 3s. 11d. and a sale price of only 2s. (Irish Times, 15 June 1906, p. 8, col. e).
13.500: Sparrow’s of George’s street
Sparrow & Co.: clothing store, 16 South Great George’s Street (Thom’s, p. 2015).
13.501: Easter
In 1904, Easter Sunday was 3 April (Thom’s, p. 1).
13.501: brack
Brack: a flaw in fabric (OED).
13.506: her hat anyhow on
Anyhow: ‘Indifferently; badly’ (Partridge).
13.506: streel
Streel: (Hiberno-English): ‘untidy person, usually female’ (Dolan).
13.518: she had raised the devil in him
After Beatrice Harraden’s (1864–1936) novel The Guiding Thread (1916): ‘and Horace was again relegated to that unimportant remoteness, sense of which had roused the devil in him’ (p. 58; Harald Beck, JJON).
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 699
13.520: glorious rose
The rose is a symbol of the Virgin, as in her epithet ‘Mystical Rose’ in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Litany of Loreto (St John, The Raccolta, p. 159); see note at 13.287–89.
13.530: the mischief
Mischief: euphemism for the devil (OED).
13.530: out of that See note at 3.353.
13.532: half past kissing time, time to kiss again
Half-past kissing time and time to kiss again: ‘A low catch phrase reply to a female asking a man the time’. The phrase comes from a popular song by G. Anthony (Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Catch Phrases).
13.535–36: by his conundrum
Conundrum: ‘A thing that one is puzzled to name’ (OED).
13.547–48: after eight because the sun was set See note at 13.2.
13.551: waterworks
Waterworks: colloquial euphemism for the urinary organs (Partridge).
13.552: second verse of the Tantum ergo See note at 13.498.
13.561: stays
See note at 3.431.
13.564: literally worshipping at her shrine
The use of the word literally as an intensifier—and thus in a sense that can be directly opposite to its literal meaning—dates back to the mid-eighteenth century and became increasingly common in the nineteenth century (OED).
13.572: cope
Cope: ‘A vestment of silk or other material resembling a long cloak made of a semicircular piece of cloth, worn by ecclesiastics in processions, also at Vespers, and on some other occasions’ (OED).
13.574: Panem de coelo praestitisti eis
From the Rite of the Benediction (see note at 13.283–84): ‘Thou gavest them bread from heaven.’ In the Benediction service, this line immediately follows the hymn Tantum ergo (Wynne, The Mass, p. 550).
13.575–76: pay them back in their own coin
To pay any one in his own coin: ‘to treat him as he has treated others’ (OED, s.v. coin).
13.590: I can throw my cap at who I like because it’s leap year
For a woman to ‘set her cap’ at a man: to try to catch him for a sweetheart; the idea is that women wear their most flattering caps for the men they love (Brewer’s, s.v. cap). See also note at 13.208.
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700 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.592: ringdove
Ring-dove: ‘The wood pigeon, Columba palumbus, which has a white neck patch on each side of the neck, appearing to form a partial ring’ (OED).
13.600: towering rage
From Clarence E. Mulford’s (American writer, 1883–1956) novel Bar-20 Days: ‘ “Ahoy, men!” roared the captain in a towering rage’ (p. 37; Harald Beck, JJON).
13.601: kinnatt
Kinnatt (Hiberno-English): ‘a sly, tricky youth; [. . .] “a smart Alec” ’ (Dolan, s.vv. canatt; kinatt).
13.604: put that in their pipe and smoke it
Put that in your pipe and smoke it: ‘accept or put up with what has been said or done, even if it is unwelcome’ (OED, s.v. pipe).
13.607: sandman
Sandman: ‘in nursery language, a personification of sleep or sleepiness’ (OED).
13.608: billy winks
That is, sleep; possibly from the children’s nursery rhyme, ‘Wee Willie Winkie’: ‘Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town, / Upstairs and downstairs in his night-gown, / Rapping at the window, crying through the lock, / Are the children all in bed, for now it’s eight o’clock?’ (ODNR, p. 424).
13.609: ducky
Ducky: a term of endearment (OED).
13.613: Puddeny pie
Suggests the nursery rhyme: ‘Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie’ (ODNR, p. 185). The variant ‘puddeny pie’ is well attested (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON) and is the usual version in Ireland (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
13.614: contretemps
Contretemps (French): an inopportune occurrence (literally, against-time); Anglicised since the early nineteenth century (OED).
13.614: in two twos
In two twos: ‘in a very short time; directly, immediately’ (OED).
13.617–18: catch it while it was flying
To catch it while it flies: a slogan used in advertising from the late nineteenth century onwards to call attention to limited time offers (John Simpson, JJON).
13.621: the veil that Father Conroy put round him round his shoulders
This is the humeral (shoulder) veil: ‘an oblong vestment of silk worn round the shoulders in various rites and enveloping the hands when holding sacred vessels’ (OED). Its primary use is during the Benediction to cover the priest’s hands so they do not come into direct contact with the monstrance (Catholic Encyclopedia).
13.624–25: the last glimpse of Erin
After Thomas Moore’s song ‘Tho’ the Last Glimpse of Erin With Sorrow I See’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 7).
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 701
13.625: those evening bells
From Thomas Moore’s poem ‘Those Evening Bells’ (Poetical Works, p. 267).
13.630: presbyterian church
The Presbyterian church at the corner of Tritonville Road and Sandymount Road (Thom’s, p. 1785), just around the corner from the Catholic Star of the Sea church.
13.631: Tritonville avenue
A small street just inland from the shore.
13.632: freewheel
Free wheel: ‘A driving wheel of a bicycle which is able to revolve freely with the pedals at rest’ (OED).
13.633–34: The Lamplighter by Miss Cummins . . . and other tales
Maria Susanna Cummins’s (American writer, 1827–66) sentimental, melodramatic, and highly popular novel The Lamplighter (1854) features a heroine named Gerty Flint. The novel tells of how Gerty learns to control her early rebelliousness. Through self-sacrificing benevolence, she overcomes the stigma of her impoverished youth and finds true love. Mabel Vaughan (1857) was another of Cummins’s novels (Kimberly Devlin, ‘The Romance Heroine Exposed’).
13.636: confession album
Confession album (or confession book): ‘a book of questions to be answered on personal likes and dislikes; also a book in which a visitor records a favourite poem, etc.’ (OED). In this ‘specialized form of Victorian printed, published autograph album [. . .] confession- writers not only inscribed their autographs, but answered a series of questions about personal traits, tastes, and opinions’ (Samantha Matthews, ‘Psychological Crystal Palace? Late Victorian Confession Albums’, p. 125).
13.639: child of Mary badge
The Children of Mary is the name given to the members of the Sodalities of the Blessed Virgin Mary (see note at 13.447–48). Their badge (see note at 5.93) incorporates the design of the miraculous medal, which ‘consists of an oval shape bearing on one side an image of the Mother of God standing on a globe with rays of light coming from her hands’ (Dolan, s.v. Children of Mary).
13.640: whiterose scent
‘The Rose has often been described as the Queen of Flowers. It is certainly second to none in its popularity amongst manufactured perfumes, and the well known “Essence of White Rose” is always a favourite with ladies’ (Ernest Parr, The Raw Materials of Perfumery, p. 18)
13.640: eyebrowleine See note at 13.111–12.
13.640: alabaster pouncetbox
Pouncet-box: ‘a small box with a perforated lid, used for holding perfumes’ (OED).
13.642–43: Hely’s of Dame Street See note at 6.703.
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702 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.645: potherbs
Pot-herb: ‘Any plant having leaves that are cooked and eaten as a vegetable. In later use also: any herb used to flavour food’ (OED).
13.645–46: Art thou real, my ideal? it was called by Louis J. Walsh, Magherafelt
Louis Walsh (author and district judge, 1880–1942) was at university with Joyce and considered himself a rival in literary circles. ‘Art thou real, my ideal’ was a poem he had written, the first stanza of which Joyce had previously quoted in Stephen Hero, where Stephen called them ‘tawdry lines’: ‘Art thou real, my Ideal? / Wilt thou ever come to me / In the soft and gentle twilight / With your baby on your knee’ (p. 83). ‘Known in youth as “the boy orator”, he wrote several books of no consequence’ (Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, p. 170 n.). After Irish independence, he became a district justice in Donegal. He was a staunchly conservative Irish nationalist and supported literary censorship. He was born and raised in Maghera, a town in County Londonderry/Derry (DIB); Magherafelt is a small town, also in County Londonderry/Derry, 13 km to the south.
13.651: Dalkey hill
Dalkey Hill, in Dalkey (see note at 2.25), lies along the coast and presents a view of the Irish Sea (P. W. Joyce, The Geography of the Counties of Ireland, p. 94).
13.653: Love laughs at locksmiths
The title of a play from 1803 by George Colman (1762–1836) and since then proverb ial (ODEP).
13.657–59: some tragedy like the nobleman . . . madhouse
Perhaps in reference to Mary Rochfort, the second wife of Colonel Robert Rochfort, who had her imprisoned on his estate for 17 years (see note at 10.163); otherwise, unknown.
13.659: cruel only to be kind
From Hamlet (III.iv.178) and since then proverbial.
13.662: accommodation walk beside the Dodder
Accommodation walk: a prostitute’s promenade (OED, s.v. accommodation house). This would probably be the path by the Dodder River in Irishtown near the Beggar’s Bush military barracks.
13.667: from the days beyond recall
After the lyrics to ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’; see note at 4.314.
13.669: old love was waiting, waiting
Alludes to the song ‘Waiting’; see note at 11.730.
13.670–71: She would follow, her dream of love
Perhaps an allusion to ‘Love’s Young Dream’ by Thomas Moore (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 64).
13.675: Laudate Dominum omnes gentes
Laudate Dominum omnes gentes (Latin): ‘O praise the Lord, all ye nations’; the opening line of Psalm 116 (117 in the King James). This psalm is sung at the end of Benediction (Wynne, The Mass, p. 550); see note at 13.283–84.
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 703
13.686: bazaar fireworks
These are the fireworks of the Mirus Bazaar (see note at 8.1162). The fairground was in Ballsbridge, about 1.5 km inland from the girls’ location on Sandymount Strand. According to a promotional flyer, the bazaar had fireworks on the evenings of 1 June and 4 June, but not 16 June (Cyril Pearl, Dublin in Bloomtime, p. 45). Since sunset was at 8:27 (see note at 13.2) and the episode ends at 9:00 (see note at 13.1289–91), it is still too light outside for fireworks (with thanks to Dan Schiff).
13.688: rossies
Rossie (Hiberno-English): ‘A spirited, outspoken, or independent woman’; from the Irish rásaí, ‘vagrant, gossip, traveller woman, hussy’ (OED).
13.690–91: light broke in upon him
From Clarence E. Mulford’s (American writer, 1883–1956) novel Bar-20 Days: ‘A light broke in on him then and he wondered how soon it would be his turn to pay tribute to Neptune’ (p. 34; Harald Beck, JJON).
13.703: Congested Districts Board
The Congested Districts Board was a governmental body set up in 1890 by Arthur Balfour (1848–1930), then the Chief Secretary for Ireland, to relieve poverty in the west and the remoter parts of the south of Ireland. It was part of the Conservative Party policy of ‘killing Home Rule with kindness’, that is, providing some degree of social amelioration in order to weaken support for Home Rule. The Board continued operating until 1923, shortly after Irish independence. Overall, its success was limited since it was more concerned with the ownership of land than with its proper cultivation (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 87–89).
13.704: skirtdancers
Skirt dancing: ‘a form of ballet dancing in which the steps are accompanied by the manipulation of long flowing skirts or drapery’ (OED, s.v. skirt). Skirt dancing was closely associated with the Gaiety Theatre (see note at 6.188) (Reginald St-Johnston, A History of Dancing, p. 117).
13.704: highkickers
High kick: ‘A kick which finishes with the leg raised high, esp. one performed simultan eously by a row of dancers and repeated by raising each leg in turn’ (OED).
13.708–09: Besides there was absolution . . . before being married
Gerty is wrong, mortal sins, such as pre-marital sex, are not ineligible for absolution: they can be expiated through contrite confession, and subsequent penance. Venial sins do not require confession and ‘can be remitted by prayer, contrition, fervent communion, and other pious works’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. sin).
13.724: nainsook knickers
Nainsook: a type of soft Indian cotton; from the Hundi word nainsukh, ‘eyes’ delight’ (OED). The 24 January 1906 Irish Independent carried an advertisement for a sale at Switzer’s which lists ‘Ladies’ Nainsook Knickers, Trimmed Lace, 1s. 9d. per pair’ (p. 8, cols d–f; John Simpson, JJON).
13.724–25: the fabric that caresses the skin
An advertising slogan in use from the late nineteenth century, but originally in reference to soap: ‘Congo soap. Is as soft and sweet as a caress to the skin’ (Globe, 8 July 1890, p. 4). By the early twentieth century, it was being used for clothes: ‘Underwear that’s a caress to the
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704 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses skin’ (Bolton Evening News, 21 Mar. 1904, p. 2); and later, ‘The garment that caresses the skin’ (The Bucks Herald, 20 Nov. 1920, p. 9; with thanks to John Simpson).
13.725: pettiwidth
Pettiwidth: an abbreviation of petticoat width, that is, the lengths by which petticoat fabric was sold. ‘Petticoat width’ was a standard term in advertisements (John Simpson, JJON).
13.737: Roman candle
‘Roman candles are straight cylindrical cases filled with layers of composition and stars alternately. These stars are simply balls of some special composition, usually containing metallic filings, made up with gum and spirits of wine, cut to the required size and shape, dusted with gunpowder and dried. They are discharged like blazing bullets several feet into the air, and produce a beautiful effect, which may be enhanced by packing stars of differently coloured fire in one case’ (EB11, s.v. fireworks).
13.748: an infinite store of mercy
A stock phrase in Christian writing; for example, from one of the sermons of James Ussher (Archbishop of Armagh, 1581–1656): ‘here is such an infinite store of mercy’ (Works, vol. 13, p. 432; with thanks to Harald Beck).
13.749: erred and sinned and wandered See note at 13.375–76.
13.752–53: little bats don’t tell
Inverts the proverb (and switches the animal) ‘A little bird told me’ (Dent).
13.772: she limped away
Marthe Fleischmann, a woman with whom Joyce was infatuated when he was living in Zürich, had a slight limp (Ellmann, p. 448); see note at 5.257.
13.774: cut of her jib
The cut of his/her jib: ‘one’s personal appearance, countenance, or look’ (OED).
13.780: Tranquilla convent See note at 8.143–44.
13.781: rock oil
See note at 8.874.
13.781: Sister?
Bloom thought of a nun at Tranquilla convent whose name he could not remember in ‘Lestrygonians’ (8.145).
13.787: her silly I will punish you letter
From Martha Clifford’s letter: ‘I do wish I could punish you for that’ (5.244).
13.787–88: that tramdriver this morning In ‘Lotus Eaters’ (5.131–32).
13.788: That gouger M‘Coy
See note at 4.454 for McCoy and note at 12.693 for gouger.
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 705
13.788–89: And his wife engagement in the country valise See note at 5.149.
13.792: Catch em alive, O
Catch ’em (all) alive-o!: ‘A catch phrase of circa 1850–80. Originally a fisherman’s phrase, but by 1853, if not a year or two earlier, it had a tremendous vogue. Its intent was to raise a smile, its meaning almost null’; also low slang for the female genitalia (Partridge).
13.793: wellfilled hose
Well-filled hose is a stock phrase for attractive legs; for example, ‘the usual variety of light singing and solid dancing, [. . .] of neat French bottines and well-filled hose’ (Boston Daily Advertiser, 20 June 1882, p. 5, col. a).
13.794: Mutoscope pictures in Capel street
The mutoscope, invented by Herman Casler (American inventor, 1867–1939) and patented in 1894, was a device used for the viewing of primitive motion pictures ‘by looking through an aperture and turning a handle at the side of the instrument’ (OED). Mutoscopes quickly acquired an unsavoury reputation, as they were most often used to show short films of women in various states of undress. Coin-operated mutoscopes with lewd films were set up in a parlour on Parliament Street, just south of the river from Capel Street (Katherine Mullin, James Joyce, Sexuality and Social Purity, pp. 145–48).
13.794–95: Peeping Tom. Willy’s hat and what the girls did with it
Peeping Tom is not only a description of the men watching the mutoscope pictures but also the title of a mutoscope film from c.1901 that features women undressing. It was produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. ‘What the Girls did with Willie’s Hat’ (1897) was the title of another one of their productions, which featured women in skirts kicking a hat, thereby exposing their underwear. Both films were denounced in the British parliament in 1900 and 1901 by social purity MPs, as examples of moral torpor (Mullin, pp. 146–77). See also note at 8.449.
13.796: deshabille See note at 10.612.
13.800–01: turnedup trousers See note at 3.371.
13.801: He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we met . . . his what? of jet
After the first four lines of a popular Victorian song, ‘She Wore a Wreath of Roses the Night When First We Met’, written by Thomas Haynes Bayly (English poet and lyricist, 1797–1839) with music by Joseph Philip Knight (English composer, 1812–87): ‘She wore a wreath of roses the night when first we met / Her lovely face was smiling beneath her curls of jet’ (The Irish Melodist, p. 99). The song was much parodied; as an example, here is an Oxford parody: ‘He wore grey worsted stockings that term when first we met, / His trousers had no straps—his high-lows had no jet’ (New Sporting Magazine, Jan. 1846, p. 54).
13.803: O Mairy lost the pin of her See note at 5.281–84.
13.804: Dressed to the nines
Dressed to the nines: dressed perfectly, admirably (Partridge).
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706 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.805: on the track of the secret
Echoes the title of the book In the Track of the Sun; see note at 4.99–100.
13.805–06: Mary, Martha See note at 5.289.
13.806: No reasonable offer refused
An advertising catchphrase, typically used in closing-down sales; for example: ‘Last weeks of sale. Everything in these premises must be sold before 3rd week in January. No reasonable offer refused [. . .] Percival Jones, 43 Grafton Street’ (Irish Independent, 6 Jan. 1912, p. 1, col. c).
13.808: on spec
On spec: ‘on the chance of obtaining some advantage, gaining some profit, etc.’ (OED).
13.813: Barbed wire See note at 8.154.
13.815: Tableau!
See note at 13.486.
13.825: Wonder if it’s bad to go with them then
Jewish law prohibits not just sex but any physical interaction with menstruating women: ‘The woman, who at the return of the month, hath her issue of blood, shall be separated seven days. Every one that toucheth her, shall be unclean until the evening’ (Leviticus 15:19–20; see also 15:21–33 for even further proscriptions).
13.826–27: Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about . . . garden
A typical—if idiosyncratic—rendering of some of the superstitions concerning menstruating women. This follows from Pliny the Elder’s (Roman scientist, 23–79) claims that, ‘[o]n the approach of a woman in this state, must [wine still undergoing fermentation] will become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts wither away, garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits. Her very look, even, will dim the brightness of mirrors, blunt the edge of steel, and take away the polish from ivory’ (Natural History, VII.xiii, vol. 2, p. 151).
13.827–28: if the flower withers she wears she’s a flirt
According to Frederic Shoberl, in his book The Language of Flowers; with Illustrative Poetry (1834), a withered rose denotes ‘fleeting beauty’ (Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, p. 192); other floral dictionaries do not assign a meaning to a withered rose.
13.832–33: Kiss in the dark and never tell
‘Kiss and tell’: from Act II, scene 10 of William Congreve’s (1670–1729) Love for Love (1695) and proverbial since.
13.834: bearsgrease
In the nineteenth century, bear’s grease was a popular ingredient in hair pomades, although many brands did not actually contain the expensive grease (John Strachan, Advertising and Satirical Culture in the Romantic Period, pp. 213–17).
13.834–35: dexter optic
Dexter (Latin): right; thus, dexter optic: right eye.
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 707
13.835: To aid gentleman in literary See note at 8.326–27.
13.837: Beauty and the beast
Beauty and the beast: ‘A handsome woman with an uncouth or uncomely male companion’; after the fairy tale (Brewer’s).
13.840: Ten bob I got for Molly’s combings
In 1913, the Freeman’s Journal reported on the sale of women’s hair clippings in Paris: ‘The hair was supposed to be rather wonderful, and, by the way, attracted many men, not a few of whom made purchases—explicable only on the supposition that they were hair dressers [. . .] The women who part from their crowning glory must be but poorly rewarded for their sacrifice. One imagines that their poverty must be extreme before the poor price that is offered can be any temptation’ (12 Sep. 1913, p. 9, col. e). Ten bob = 10 shillings, which is not a poor price.
13.841: on the rocks in Holles street See notes at 11.485 and 11.493.
13.843: Bold hand: Mrs Marion
Boylan’s letter to Molly (4.244–45 and 4.311).
13.845: Drimmie’s
David Drimmie & Sons: ‘English and Scottish Law Life and Phoenix Fire Offices, and National Guarantee and Suretyship Association (ltd.)’, 41 Lower Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1857). Bloom worked for Drimmie’s in 1896–97 (see note at 18.1113), although the exact dates of his tenure there remain unclear.
13.847: Shark liver oil
Before the advent of petroleum-based products, various animal oils were used as lubricants. Shark liver oil was used as a lubricant in the tanning and textile industries, but not as a lubricant for watches and other delicate machinery. For these, the preferred oils were dolphin body oil and porpoise body oil (EB11, s.v. oils).
13.857: Nell Gwynn See note at 9.723–24.
13.857: Mrs Bracegirdle
Anne Bracegirdle (c.1663–1748): noted English actress, associated with the comedies of William Congreve (English poet and playwright, 1670–1729). Although she received bequests from admirers, she maintained a reputation for modesty. One of her admirers, Anthony Aston, ‘suggested that her chaste behaviour had financial rewards’ (ODNB).
13.857: Maud Branscombe
Maud Branscombe (fl. 1875–1910): a famously beautiful actress. During the height of her career in the 1870s, she was the most photographed woman in the world. She performed in Dublin in the 1880s (Igoe, p. 38). She retired from acting in the late 1880s to spend time with her husband, Alexander Gunn, whom she divorced in 1895 on the grounds of physical violence. He made no counter-allegations of infidelity (Lloyd’s Illustrated Newspaper, 3 Feb. 1895, p. 4).
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708 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.858: Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered with pensive bosom
From Dan Dawson’s speech, as recounted in ‘Aeolus’: ‘or ’neath the shadows cast o’er its pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of the forest’ (7.246–47) and ‘the glowing orb of the moon shine forth to irradiate her silver effulgence’ (7.327–28).
13.861: Cider that was
Bloom had some cider with his meal in ‘Sirens’ (11.447), which he found to be gassy (11.1180).
13.862: Lacaus esant taratara
Bloom is singing La causa è santa, tara tara; see note at 8.623–24.
13.865: in a cart
In a cart: in trouble (Partridge).
13.866–67: the Appian way
The Appian Way: a main thoroughfare connecting the southside suburb of Ranelagh to Upper Leeson Street (Thom’s, p. 1415).
13.867: Mrs Clinch
Joyce possibly got the name from Mary Clinch (née Powell, 1865–1962), the daughter of Malachi Powell, the model for Major Tweedy (see note at 4.63) and the sister-in-law to Fred Gallaher, the model for Ignatius Gallaher (Ellmann, p. 46 n.); see notes at 6.58 and 18.1068. According to the 1901 census, she lived at 47 Leinster Road in Rathmines, which is less than 2 km to the west of the Appian Way.
13.868: Meath street
Meath Street is one of the main streets in the Liberties, in south-central Dublin.
13.876: Chap in the Burton today spitting back gumchewed gristle
See 8.659–60 for the man spitting back gristle and see note at 8.370 for the Burton.
13.877: French letter See note at 9.1101.
13.878: I don’t think See note at 5.78–79.
13.882: the whole hog
The whole hog: ‘The greatest possible or desirable amount, degree, extent, etc.’ (OED).
13.889: lieutenant Mulvey
Harry Mulvey was Molly’s first boyfriend. She knew him in Gibraltar, where he was a lieutenant in the garrison. Joyce took the name from William Mulvagh (1881–1952), a boyfriend of Nora’s from when she lived in Galway (Costello, James Joyce, p. 248). Joyce spelt his name ‘Willy Mulvey’ (Ellmann, pp. 158–59); Mulvey is a common variant of Mulvagh.
13.889–90: under the Moorish wall beside the gardens
The Moorish Wall (see note at 18.769–70) and the Alameda Gardens (see note at 18.643–44) are two landmarks in Gibraltar, where Molly grew up. They are not adjacent, but rather are about 1.5 km distant: the wall is at the northern end of the peninsula and the Gardens are approximately in the middle.
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 709
13.891: Glencree dinner See note at 8.160.
13.892: Featherbed mountain See note at 10.555.
13.893: Val Dillon
See note at 8.159–60.
13.895: Up like a rocket, down like a stick
A cliché, after Thomas Paine’s (1737–1809) attack in 1792 on Edmund Burke’s waning enthusiasm for the American revolution: ‘The final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a rocket, he fell like a stick’ (Letter to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation, p. 4).
13.897: the ways of the world
After The Way of the World (1700), a comedy by William Congreve (1670–1729).
13.900: Jammet’s
Michel and François Jammet: proprietors of the Burlington hotel and restaurant (also called Jammet’s), 26–27 St Andrew Street (Thom’s, p. 1911). The Jammet brothers purchased the hotel and restaurant in 1900 and it was, at the time, the only French restaurant in Dublin (Bennett).
13.901–2: Say prunes and prisms
From Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit: ‘The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism, are all very good words for the lips especially prunes and prism’ (p. 408; Brewer’s, s.v. Nimini-pimini).
13.903: Onlookers see most of the game
Proverbial, listed in the ODEP as ‘Lookers-on see more than the players (most of the game)’.
13.906: Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls See note at 4.282.
13.909: Wilkins in the high school
This is almost certainly based on a bit of Dublin gossip involving a boy named Maurice Wilkins (b. c.1886). Wilkins explained his appearance in Ulysses in a letter to his niece: ‘About 1902 or 1903 I got into trouble for performing athletic exercises in my bedroom quite late at night with the gaslight turned on & the blinds or curtains not properly drawn. [. . .] My mother got a courteous note from a lady in one of the houses on the opposite side [. . .] no doubt there was gossip, and as my nickname at school was also “Billy” you can easily see how a spicy tale got around’ (quoted in Helen Saunders, ‘Maurice Wilkins and Ulysses’, p. 115). Wilkins’s father was William Wilkins (1853–1912), a poet and, in 1904, the headmaster of Erasmus Smith High School (Thom’s, p. 2040), which Bloom attended until c.1880 (see note at 5.42). It is possible that Joyce (or Bloom) has confused the father with the son.
13.914: Cuffe street
Cuffe Street runs westwards from the south-west corner of St Stephen’s Green.
13.916: Roger Greene’s See note at 10.1205–06.
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710 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.917: understandings
Understandings: the legs (Partridge).
13.921: Prescott’s, by the way that ad I must See notes at 5.460 and 8.1059.
13.926–27: just before we left Lombard street west See note at 6.829.
13.927–28: Ways of the world See note at 13.897.
13.928: Young student
From Milly’s letter, Bannon (4.406); see also note at 4.407.
13.928: Straight on her pins
Pins: legs (OED). The expression ‘straight on his/her pins’ is usually used in reference to dogs; for example, ‘a thoroughly straight-on-his-pins beagle’ (The Country, 12 Apr. 1877, p. 355; with thanks to Harald Beck).
13.931: Rumpled stockings See 8.542 and note at 8.527.
13.931: Or the one in Grafton street See 8.616.
13.931–32: Beef to the heel See note at 4.403.
13.933: monkey puzzle rocket
Monkey puzzle: ‘The name given to a Chilean pine, whose twisted and prickly branches puzzle even a monkey to climb’ (Brewer’s). Here applied to fireworks that ‘pierce the sky in all directions with rushing lines of fire’ (EB11, s.v. fireworks).
13.936: She smelt an onion
Unclear. Dent proposes that this means she is about to cry. From All’s Well that Ends Well: ‘Mine eyes smell onions. I shall weep anon’ (V.iii.320); and proverbial (ODEP). But there seems to be the possibility of some sexual connotation here as well (see 10.622).
13.939–40: For this relief much thanks. In Hamlet, that is
After Francisco’s line to Barnardo in Hamlet, when the latter relieves him from guard duty at Elsinore for the night: ‘For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold, / And I am sick at heart’ (I.i.8–9). Used as a catchphrase since the nineteenth century (Partridge, Dictionary of Catch Phrases).
13.942: Your head it simply swirls
From ‘Those Lovely Seaside Girls’; see note at 4.282.
13.945–46: the address Dolphin’s barn a blind
See note at 12.1550 for blind. That is, Martha’s address could be just as legitimate as Henry Flower’s.
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13.947–48: Her maiden name was Jemina Brown . . . Irishtown
The name ‘Jemina Brown’ comes from the music hall song ‘Jemima Brown, or the Queen of the Sewing Machine’ by Harry Clifton, but the lyrics here derive from the chorus of the minstrel song ‘Hunkey Dorum, We Are the Boys’: ‘Her maiden name she said was Brown, / And she lived with her mother in Camden Town’ (Ulrich Schneider, ‘ “A Rollicking Rattling Song of the Halls” ’, pp. 94–96). Joyce clearly wrote ‘Jemina’ on the Rosenbach draft (f. 45) and a typist typed ‘Jemima’ instead (JJA, vol. 13, pp. 261, 288). See note at 6.34 for Irishtown, which is to the north of Bloom’s present position.
13.951: Every bullet has its billet
Proverbial for, ‘Nothing happens by chance and no act is altogether without effect’ (Brewer’s, s.v. bullet), after a sea shanty from 1815 (Bowen, p. 234).
13.953: potwalloping
Pot-walloping: performance of menial household tasks (OED, s.v. potwalloper).
13.954–55: and papa’s pants will soon fit Willy
After the American nonsense song ‘Looking Through the Knothole’, also known as ‘Go Get the Ax’: ‘Mama’s teeth will soon fit Nelly; / Don’t stick pins in the baby’s belly’. ‘Bloom’s line in the passage above is another of the infinite number of versions of the song’ (Bowen, p. 235).
13.955: fullers’ earth
Fuller’s earth: a hydrous silicate of alumina, used for cleaning cloth (OED). According to an advertisement for Matthews’s Purified Fullers’ Earth, it ‘is invaluable for protecting the skin and preserving the complexion from cold winds, redness, roughness, &c. [. . .] purified specially for the nursery and toilet’ (with thanks to Fritz Senn).
13.956: washing corpse See note at 6.15.
13.957: not even closed at first
The two fontanelles (soft spots) on the top of a newborn infant’s skull that only fully close in the second year (EB11, s.v. skull).
13.959–60: Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital
For Beaufoy, see note at 4.502–03; for Purefoy, see note at 8.277; for the hospital, see note at 8.281–82.
13.960: nurse Callan
A nurse at the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street and a former neighbour of the Blooms; fictional.
13.961: the Coffee Palace See note at 11.486.
13.961: doctor O’Hare
Dr John O’Hare (1877–1907): Assistant Master of the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street. He graduated from University College in 1902 and was one of Joyce’s classmates (Peter Costello, ‘James Joyce, Ulysses, and the National Maternity Hospital’, p. 213).
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712 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.963–64: Mrs Duggan told me in the City Arms
Thom’s lists a Mr Joseph Duggan at 35 Prussia Street (p. 1574), near the City Arms hotel, where the Blooms lived in 1893–94; see note at 8.716. He was unmarried, and lived with his sister Anna Maria (Igoe, p. 93).
13.968: knock spots off them
To knock spots off: to defeat utterly (Partridge).
13.969–70: Hands felt for the opulent
From the Sweets of Sin (see note at 10.606).
13.975–76: height of a shilling in coppers
Copper: a penny or halfpenny coin (OED). With twelve pence to a shilling, a stack of a shilling’s worth of coppers would not be tall.
13.976: As God made them he matched them
Presumably a variation of the proverb ‘Marriages are made in heaven’, from 1580 (ODEP); a common expression in Ireland.
13.978–79: Marry in May and repent in December
Combines the proverb ‘marry in May, repent alway’ with the cliché of a May/December romance (both ODEP), that is the match of a young woman with a much older man.
13.979: Well the foreskin is not back
This passage makes clear that Bloom has not been circumcised in accordance with Jewish practice.
13.984: Wristwatches are always going wrong
Wristwatches were first invented in 1868 but only as jewellery for women. The word wristwatch did not become popular in English until 1910, and such watches themselves only became popular after World War I (Luchien Karsten, Globalization and Time, p. 241).
13.986: Cat’s away, the mice will play Proverbial (ODEP).
13.986–87: I remember looking in Pill lane See note at 12.213–14.
13.990: ghesabo
Gazebo (Hiberno-English): ‘a ramshackle house; any tall object’ (Dolan); this spelling appears to be unique to Ulysses.
13.990: Magnetic needle tells you what’s going on in the sun, the stars
In The Story of the Heavens, Robert Ball writes how sunspot activity can induce radical fluctuations on magnets: ‘there is a connection of some sort between solar phenomena and terrestrial magnetism. A time of maximum sun-spots is a time of great magnetic activity’ ([1900], p. 42).
13.991–92: Little piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork
The needle on a magnet is a ‘little piece of steel iron’ that has been magnetised. It is attracted to any other piece of metal, such as a fork (G. A. Wentworth and G. A. Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, pp. 262–63).
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 713
13.1000: horse show See note at 7.193.
13.1000–01: when the painters were in Lombard street west See note at 6.829.
13.1001: How Giuglini began
Antonio Giuglini (1827–65): a renowned Italian tenor who was very popular in Dublin. His career ended in 1864, due to the onset of insanity (Igoe, pp. 119–20). He did not start out as a house painter, as Bloom’s thoughts imply, but his singing career was the result of happenstance. At first, he was studying for the priesthood and sang in his church’s choir in Fermo. His excellence as a singer was soon noticed. He then joined the orchestra of the Fermo Theatre. One evening, he took the place of the principal tenor who had fallen ill, for which he won great acclaim. This was only the first of ‘a series of brilliant successes’ (Benjamin Lumley, Reminiscences of the Opera, p. 406).
13.1004–05: can’t kick the beam
Brewer’s defines to kick the beam as ‘To be of light weight; to be of inferior consequence. When one pan of a pair of scales is lighter than the other, it flies upwards and is said to “kick the beam” [of the scales]’. However, in context, Bloom seems to be using the expression differently: the idea of one scale tipping or flying upward is carried over to imply sexual climax, which is an idiosyncratic usage.
13.1008: far away on the pillow
After the poem ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna’ (1817) by Charles Wolfe (Irish poet and clergyman, 1791–1823): ‘We thought, as we hollow’d his narrow bed, / And smooth’d down his lonely pillow, / That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head, / And we far away on the billow’ (ll. 17–20). This was a standard poem for schoolboys in England and Ireland in the nineteenth century. ‘It would have been a predictable slip of the tongue for a faltering schoolboy to repeat the word “pillow” from the second line to the gleeful laughter of his classmates’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
13.1010–11: Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her with a little jessamine mixed
Opoponax (also spelled opopanax): a perfume of gum-resin obtained from the plant Balsamodendron Kataf (OED). Jessamine: a variant of jasmine (OED). ‘Opoponax has long been a name for perfumers to conjure with, and its popular perfume will probably still enjoy a very long life. [. . .] The name of opoponax as applied to a perfume was clearly ori ginally given to a product that was not true opoponax at all’ (Parr, The Raw Materials of Perfumery, p. 48).
13.1011: Her high notes and her low notes See note at 18.276–77.
13.1012: dance of the hours See note at 4.526.
13.1013–14: Good conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too See note at 4.79–80.
13.1018: Cinghalese this morning See note at 5.32.
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714 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.1023: Stays
See note at 3.431.
13.1027: Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something
Synthetic perfumes were produced from the middle of the nineteenth century. Compounds of ethers or esters were common ingredients; ‘For example the methyl and ethyl ethers [. . .] have the odour of neroli’ (EB11, s.v. perfumery).
13.1028: Muskrat
Musk: ‘a perfume obtained from the strong-smelling substance secreted in a gland by the musk- deer, and hence applied to other animals, and also to plants, possessing a similar odour’ (EB11).
13.1032: hogo
Hogo: ‘A strong and unpleasant smell’ (OED).
13.1034–35: Cigary gloves Long John had on his desk See note at 7.106.
13.1038–39: The tree of forbidden priest
After the tree of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 2:17 and 3:1–6).
13.1045–46: Dislike carrying bottles like that hag this morning See 4.224–25.
13.1046: Hynes might have paid me
In ‘Aeolus’, Hynes (see note at 6.111) managed to avoid repaying the three shillings he had from Bloom three weeks earlier (7.113–19).
13.1047: Meagher’s See note at 7.119.
13.1047: if he works that paragraph
In ‘Cyclops’, Bloom asked Hynes to try to convince the newspaper editor to run a brief story (‘paragraph’) promoting his client Alexander Keyes (12.1143–46).
13.1049: Two and nine
In ‘Lotus Eaters’, the lotion that Bloom ordered cost 2s. 9d. (5.507); together with fourpence for the soap, the total came to 3s. 1d (5.513). Bloom bought these on credit and still has not returned to Sweny’s to pay for them.
13.1053: Blown in from the bay See note at 8.311.
13.1056: government sit
Sit: abbreviation of situation, as in a job (OED).
13.1057: like those newsboys today See 7.440–49.
13.1058: See ourselves as others see us See note at 1.136.
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 715
13.1060: prize titbit story
See notes at 4.467 and 4.502.
13.1061–62: that fellow . . . brown macintosh See note at 6.805.
13.1062: Corns on his kismet
That is, ‘Corns on his feet’. This is a play on words not unlike Cockney rhyming slang: kismet means fate which is nearly homophonous with a strong Irish pronunciation of the word feet. According to a letter published in the amusing anecdote section of the Blackburn Weekly Standard in 1895, an Irish housemaid was overheard complaining ‘I have the most tirrible korns on my kismet!’ (Eamonn Finn, JJON).
13.1063: Whistle brings rain they say
After the superstition that whistling (specifically at sea) can bring on winds and stormy weather (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. whistling at sea).
13.1064–65: Old Betty’s joints are on the rack
Line 12 of the poem ‘Signs of Rain’ by Dr Edward Jenner (English physician and scientist, 1749–1823): ‘The hollow winds begin to blow, / The clods look black, the glass is low, / Hark! How the chairs and tables crack; / Old Betty’s joints are on the rack’ (ll. 1–2, 11–12, John Baron, The Life of Edward Jenner, vol. 1, p. 23).
13.1065–66: Mother Shipton’s prophecy . . . they fly in the twinkling
Mother (Ursula) Shipton: semi-legendary prophetess supposed to have lived in England during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Prophecie of Mother Shipton, a tract published in 1641, is the first recorded example of her ‘work’ and many other works attributed to her have followed since (Brewer’s). The prophecy that Bloom thinks of here comes from an edition from 1881: ‘Around the world thoughts shall fly / In the twinkling of an eye’ (William H. Harrison, Mother Shipton Investigated, p. 12). This makes it seem as though she had predicted the telegraph, which was invented in 1837, hundreds of years after she supposedly lived, but, strangely enough, almost fifty years before this particular prophecy was published (Paul K. Saint-Amour, Tense Future, pp. 238–39).
13.1066–67: The royal reader
Mother Shipton was a ‘royal reader’ in that she ‘read’ the fate of royal personages. The Royal Readers were anthology compilations of various short texts used to cultivate reading skills in students. These were published by Thomas Nelson & Sons of London and were widely used in state-funded schools throughout the United Kingdom (John Feather, A History of British Publishing, p. 116).
13.1068: Howth. Bailey light See note at 13.409.
13.1069: Wreckers
Wrecker: ‘One who causes shipwreck, exp. for purposes of plunder by showing luring lights or false signals’ or ‘A person engaged in salving wrecked or endangered vessels or cargo; a salvager’ (OED).
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13.1069: Grace Darling
Grace Darling (1815–42): the daughter of William Darling, the lighthouse keeper on Longstone, one of the Farne Islands (off the coast of Northumberland in England). She and her father gained fame for rescuing passengers of the steamer Forfarshire, wrecked near the lighthouse on 7 September 1838 (Brewer’s). Wordsworth commemorated her in his poem ‘Grace Darling’, written upon her death. The poem was included in the fifth Royal Reader, published in 1876 (pp. 41–44).
13.1070: cyclists: lightingup time
Lighting up time: the time lamplighters went around lighting the street lamps (OED, s.v. lighting). On 16 June 1904, lighting up time was 9:27 pm (Irish Daily Independent, p. 4, col. c).
13.1074: Best time to spray plants too in the shade after the sun
A column on window gardening in the Belfast Newsletter recommends that plants be shaded when watering since ‘the sun upon their sides would prove injurious to the young roots, and would greatly injure the plant; and if in bloom, and exposed to the sun, the flowers would soon fade and drop’ (23 Feb. 1853, p. 4, col. e).
13.1075: Red rays are longest
Red rays do have the longest wavelengths of the spectrum of visible light, 0.0007 nm (EB11, s.v. light).
13.1075–76: Roygbiv Vance taught us: red . . . violet
Roygbiv: a well-known mnemonic for the colours of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. For Vance see note at 5.42.
13.1076: Venus?
The evening star on 16 June 1904 was not Venus but Saturn (Thom’s, p. 14).
13.1077: Two. When three it’s night
After the Jewish custom that night-time begins when three stars are visible: ‘If only one star it is yet day; if two stars, it is twilight; three stars, it is night’ (The Babylonian Talmud, vol. 1, p. 61).
13.1078: Looks like a phantom ship
The Phantom Ship (1839) by Frederick Marryat (English naval officer and novelist, 1792–1848) is one version of the legend of the Flying Dutchman, ‘a spectre-ship popularly believed to haunt the waters around the Cape of Good Hope’ (EB11).
13.1079: Land of the setting sun this
‘We have only to assume that at a certain period Ireland was called tír or inis fodlo i.e. “the land of the setting sun” ’ (Micheál Ó Briain, ‘Hibernica’, p. 333; with thanks to Harald Beck).
13.1079: Homerule sun setting in the southeast See note at 4.101–02.
13.1080: My native land, goodnight
From a lyric that appears in canto I of Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1823): ‘Yon sun that sets upon the sea / We follow in his flight; / Farewell a while to him and thee, / My native Land—Good Night!’ (I.122–25).
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 717
13.1081–82: white fluxions
Fluxion or flux: a morbid or excessive discharge (OED, s.vv. fluxion; flux). According to Aristotle’s Masterpiece (see note at 10.586), ‘if the matter of the flux [vaginal discharge] be white, the cause is either in the stomach or the reins [kidneys] [. . .] The cause also may be in the reins being overheated whereby the spermatical causes may be moistness of the air, eating of corrupt meats, anger, grief, slothfulness, immoderate sleeping, costiveness in the body’ (p. 76).
13.1083: Might get piles myself
According to a medical textbook from 1871, haemorrhoids (piles) can be caused by ‘sitting upon hard seats, excessive venery or self-abuse’ (Henry Hartshorne, Essentials of the Principles and Practice of Medicine, p. 212).
13.1089–90: sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes
Jerusalem artichoke: ‘A species of sunflower, Helianthus tuberosus, native to North America and widely cultivated for its edible, knobby, tuberous roots, which somewhat resemble the globe artichoke in flavour’ (OED, s.v. artichoke).
13.1090: Nightstock
Nightstock (or night- scented stock): ‘either of two plants of the family Brassicaceae (Cruciferae), Hesperis tristis and (now chiefly) Matthiola longipetala subsp. bicornis, with flowers which are scentless by day but strongly fragrant at night’ (OED, s.vv. night; night-scented).
13.1091: Mat Dillon’s garden See note at 6.697.
13.1093: Ye crags and peaks I’m with you once again
From William Tell (1825), a play by the Irish- born writer James Sheridan Knowles (1784–1862): ‘Ye crags and peaks, I’m with you once again!’ (I.ii.1).
13.1098: rhododendrons See note at 8.911.
13.1098–99: He gets the plums and I the plumstones
Plum: ‘Old slang for a very large sum of money (properly £100,000), or for its possession. Nowadays, the figurative use of the word means the very best part of anything, the prize, the “pick of the basket”, a windfall’ (Brewer’s).
13.1104–05: Nothing new under the sun
From Ecclesiastes 1:9 in the King James, and proverbial: ‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.’
13.1105–06: Are you not happy . . . Naughty darling From Martha’s letter (5.246–47).
13.1106: At Dolphin’s barn charades in Luke Doyle’s house
Bloom recalled playing charades at Luke Doyle’s house in Dolphin’s Barn in ‘Calypso’ and ‘Lestrygonians’ (see notes at 4.345 and 8.274). See note at 11.725 for the inconsistency about the chronology of the Blooms’ courtship. Joyce was an avid player of charades. ‘At charades, the favorite game of the [Sheehys’] household, Joyce could be depended upon to do or say
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718 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses something ingenious. Asked to represent the word sunset, he sat in a rounded arm chair with just the top of his head showing over its top’ (Ellmann, p. 53).
13.1106–07: Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters
On 14 October 1921, Joyce wrote to his aunt Josephine to ask for any information about ‘Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters, Tina, Floey, Atty, Sara, Nannie and Mamie, especially the last, the cigarette smoker and Spanish type’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 174). Dillon actually had eight daughters in all—Tina, Beatrice (Attie), Florence (Floey), Maimie, Louy, Hetty, Sara, and Nannie—and one son, Arthur Mathew (Igoe, pp. 83–84).
13.1108: the old major
That is, Molly’s father, Brian Tweedy (see note at 4.63). In ‘Sirens’ he is called a Drum- major, a significantly less prestigious position; see note at 11.508.
13.1112: Rip van Winkle we played
In Washington Irving’s (1783–1859) story ‘Rip Van Winkle’, the eponymous Rip sleeps for 20 years and wakes to find that his wife is dead and his house in ruins.
13.1112: Henny Doyle’s overcoat
Presumably a relative of Luke and Caroline Doyle.
13.1115: Sleepy Hollow
Bloom confuses ‘Rip Van Winkle’ with ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’, another story by Washington Irving. This story tells of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. Sleepy Hollow is a village in Westchester County, New York and ‘Rip Van Winkle’ is set in the (nearby) Catskill Mountains.
13.1115: All changed. Forgotten
After Rip Van Winkle awakens and returns to his village, he finds that his dog has forgotten him and that the village has changed: ‘every thing’s changed, and I’m changed’ (Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book, p. 45).
13.1116: His gun rusty from the dew
Right when Rip Van Winkle wakes up, ‘He looked around for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock wormeaten’ (Irving, The Sketch- Book, p. 41).
13.1118: Metempsychosis See note at 4.339.
13.1118–19: They believed you could be changed . . . Weeping willow
The myth of Phaëthon includes the change of his sisters, the Heliades, into poplar trees while they grieve over their brother’s death (Ovid, Metamorphoses, II.340–66). Properly, the Heliades suffered not metempsychosis (reincarnation), but metamorphosis; see note at 4.376.
13.1121: odour of sanctity
In the Middle Ages, the phrase ‘odour of sanctity’ was used for ‘a sweet and delightful odour’ ‘given off by the bodies of saintly persons at their death’ (Brewer’s).
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 719
13.1122: Mass
This is not Mass, but rather the refrain of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Litany of Loreto, which generally follows the Rite of Benediction (see note at 13.283–84) according to Irish tradition.
13.1122: Pray for us
See note at 13.373–74.
13.1123: Good idea the repetition. Same thing with ads
By 1904, this was already an old idea; from the Irish Weekly Advertiser in March 1863: ‘If you see a man affluent in the commercial world, his name has become familiar to the Public by the FREQUENCY AND FORCE OF HIS ADVERTISEMENTS’ (quoted in John Strachan, ‘Ulysses and the Dublin Advertising Business’, p. 96).
13.1125–26: mistake in the valuation when I was in Thom’s. Twentyeight it is
Bloom remembers a mistake in the valuation of one of the two rectories (3–5 Leahy Terrace) adjoining St Mary’s, Star of the Sea church, when he worked for Alexander Thom & Co. The valuation for each house is listed at £28 in the 1904 Thom’s (p. 1781), which is also the value listed in the 1886 Thom’s (Thom’s 1886, p. 1618) as well as all the years in-between. Therefore, Joyce imputes a mistake that Thom’s did not make. See note at 4.235–36 for property valuation.
13.1126: Two houses they have
Refers to the two houses provided by the Church for the priests of St Mary’s, Star of the Sea church: one at 5 Leahy’s Terrace for Fathers Bernard Smith and Bernard Conroy, the other at 3 Leahy’s Terrace for Canon O’Hanlon (Thom’s, p. 1781). In each parish, the parish priest had a house of his own and the curates shared another.
13.1126–27: Gabriel Conroy’s brother is curate
Bernard Conroy was one of the curates of St Mary’s, Star of the Sea church (see note at 10.1173–74). In ‘The Dead’ in Dubliners, we are told that Gabriel Conroy (see note at 7.307) has a brother Constantine who is ‘senior curate in Balbriggan’ (p. 187).
13.1129–30: bird in drouth got water . . . by throwing in pebbles
From Aesop’s fable ‘The Crow and the Pitcher’, which tells of a thirsty crow who drops pebbles in a jar to raise the level of the shallow water therein until the water was high enough for him to drink (Babrius and Phaedrus, Fables, pp. 493–94). For drouth, see note at 4.44.
13.1132: Colours depend on the light you see
Essentially accurate: colour is a function of the wavelength of light; different wavelengths occasion different colours (EB11, s.v. colour).
13.1132–33: Stare the sun for example . . . at a shoe see a blotch blob
Alludes to the long-standing belief that eagles can look directly at the sun. William Blake refers to this in his poetic dialogue King Edward the Third: ‘The Eagle, that doth gaze upon the sun’ (iii.116; Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 430). Bloom mixes this idea with the sensation of an after-image, that is, the amorphous impression retained by the retina of a bright object after having turned away from it (EB11, s.v. vision).
13.1136: City Arms See note at 8.716.
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13.1138–39: Glass flashing . . . the burning glass
Bloom has in mind a story that the Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes saved Syracuse from Roman invasion by igniting the hulls of Roman ships with sunlight, which he focused and reflected in mirrors. ‘This has been discredited because it is not mentioned by Polybius, Livy or Plutarch’ (EB11, s.v. Archimedes).
13.1139: Then the heather goes on fire
The heather and gorse on Howth make the area especially susceptible to fire. Writing to the Evening Herald, a P. D. Lalor complained about a recent outbreak and stated that the ‘destruction of heather and gorse has reached a stage where the united action of all well- disposed people must intervene to stamp out a state of affairs which might eventuate in an irreparable loss to the general public’ (9 Aug. 1913, p. 5, col. g).
13.1142: Archimedes. I have it!
Bloom’s ‘Eureka’ moment; see note at 13.1132–33; also see notes at 5.41–42 and 9.1053.
13.1143–44: bee last week See note at 4.483–84.
13.1149–50: Faugh a ballagh. Out of that
Faugh a ballagh: Anglicisation of Fág a’ bealach (Irish): ‘Clear the way’. This phrase was the battle cry of the Royal Irish Fusiliers as well as the motto of the Goughs (see note at 15.795); it is also the title of a song by the Irishman Charles Gavan Duffy (1816–1903) glorifying the achievements of the Fourth Dragoon Guard (Bowen, p. 236). Bloom’s supposition that the Hiberno-English expression ‘out of that’—in the sense of ‘stop it!’ (see note at 3.353)— derives from fág a’ bealach is plausible although unattested.
13.1151: pitched about like snuff at a wake See note at 6.235.
13.1151: when the stormy winds do blow
From the sea shanty ‘The Mermaid’, which dates from at least the early nineteenth century, with several versions: ‘For the raging seas did roar, / And the stormy winds did blow, / While we jolly sailor-boys were up unto the top, / And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below, / And the land-lubbers lying down below’ (Bowen, p. 236).
13.1154: till Johnny comes marching home again
‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again’: the title of a popular marching song of the Union Army in the American Civil War, by Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore (1829–92) (Bowen, pp. 237–38). The song is based on the Irish anti-war song ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye’ (see note at 11.599).
13.1156: The anchor’s weighed
The title of a sea song (1810), music by John Braham (1774–1856), lyrics by S. J. Arnold (1774–1852), that tells of a departing sailor promising fidelity to his sweetheart as he leaves: ‘The anchor’s weigh’d, The anchor’s weigh’d, farewell! Farewell! Remember me’ (Bowen, pp. 238–39).
13.1156: with a scapular or a medal on him
For scapular, see note at 4.176. Catholic sailors often wear scapulars to symbolise a saint’s protective presence. ‘Since the revival of religious feeling in France, very many officers of
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 721 the navy [. . .] have begun to besiege the confessionals, some asking for the scapular’ (Alphonse Balleydier, Tales of Naval and Military Life, p. 4). The medal is probably the Miraculous Medal because it is associated with Mary, who is Stella Maris, or Star of the Sea (see note at 13.8).
13.1157–58: And the tephilim . . . poor papa’s father had on his door
The word Bloom is trying to think of is mezuzah: ‘A piece of parchment inscribed on one side with the required Pentateuchal texts and on the other with the divine name Shaddai, enclosed in a container and attached to the doorpost of a Jewish house in fulfilment of religious law’ (OED). Tephilim: ‘A small leathern box containing four texts of Scripture, Deut. vi.4–9, xi.113–21, Ex. xiii.1–10, 11–16, written in Hebrew letters on vellum and, by a literal interpretation of the passages, worn by Jews during morning prayer on all days except the sabbath, as a reminder of the obligation to keep the law’ (OED).
13.1158–59: That brought us out of the land . . . of bondage See note at 7.208–09.
13.1160–62: Hanging on to a plank . . . catch hold of him
Recalls how Odysseus was able to survive the onslaught of Poseidon’s waves thanks to a veil given to him by Ino: ‘now Odysseus / sat astride one beam, like a man riding horseback, / and stripped off the clothing which the divine Kalypso had given him, / and rapidly tied the veil of Ino around his chest’ (Odyssey, V.370–74). He then manages to reach the island of the Phaiakians, where Nausicaa is princess. His nibs: ‘the person mentioned’ (Partridge); thus, ‘the last of his nibs’: ‘the last of him’.
13.1164: Davy Jones’ locker
Davy Jones’s locker: ‘the deep, a watery grave’ (ODEP); Davy Jones: the spirit or devil of the sea (Partridge).
13.1165: old cockalorum
Cockalorum: ‘a very confident little man’ (Partridge).
13.1166–67: Mirus bazaar in search of funds for Mercer’s hospital See note at 8.1162.
13.1168–69: The shepherd’s hour: the hour of folding: hour of tryst
Folding: to put sheep in a holding pen or fold (OED). In French, ‘the hour of the shepherd’, ‘L’heure du berger’, is an expression that refers to a propitious time for a tryst.
13.1170: nine o’clock postman
There was no 9:00 pm postal delivery service in Dublin; delivery times were 7:00 am, noon, 2:20, 6:10, and 8:00 pm, with only one delivery, at 7:00 am, on Sundays (Thom’s, p. 1049).
13.1171: glowworm’s lamp at his belt gleaming See note at 9.225.
13.1172: Among the five young trees
In February 1920, when he was working on ‘Nausicaa’, Joyce wrote to his Aunt Josephine Murray in Dublin: ‘I want that information about the Star of the Sea Church, has it ivy on its seafront, are there trees in Leahy’s terrace at the side or near, if so, what, are there steps leading down to the beach?’ (Selected Letters, p. 248).
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13.1172: linstock
A linstock (or lintstock): ‘A staff about three feet [1 metre] long, having a pointed foot to stick in the deck or ground, and a forked head to hold a lighted match’ (OED, s.v. lintstock).
13.1173: Leahy’s terrace See note at 3.29.
13.1174–75: Evening Telegraph, stop press edition! Result of the Gold Cup races!
See note at 7.27 for the Evening Telegraph and notes at 5.532 and 12.1219 for the Gold Cup and the (much-awaited) result. Stop-press edition: an issue of a newspaper or a particular column containing late news inserted after printing has begun (OED, s.v. stop).
13.1175–76: Dignam’s house a boy ran out and called
Dignam’s house is at 9 Newbridge Avenue in Sandymount (see note at 16.1249–50) and is not visible from Bloom’s present location. The boy is probably Dignam’s son Patsy.
13.1178: rhododendrons See note at 8.911.
13.1180–81: Kish bank the anchored lightship See note at 3.267.
13.1182–83: Irish Lights board
The Commissioners of Irish Lights: offices in the Carlisle Building, D’Olier Street, Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1350). The Irish Lights board maintained lighthouses throughout the country.
13.1183: Coastguards
Great Britain and Ireland developed the coastguard over the course of the nineteenth century to ‘suppress smuggling, aid shipwrecked vessels, and serve as a reserve to the navy. The coastguard was originally designed to prevent smuggling’ (EB11, s.v. coastguard). After 1857, the coastguard was under the control of the British admiralty, and its members were recruited from the navy.
13.1183: Rocket
In the 19th century, the British Coastguard developed a system that used a small rocket to launch a rescue line with a grappling hook from a rescue ship to a ship in distress. These were in use up until World War II (A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Rockets and Missiles, pp. 22–23).
13.1183–84: breeches buoy
Breeches buoy: a life ring attached to a short pair of canvas pants (‘breeches’). This is in turn attached by a travelling block to a thick rope and so can be used to transport people off a shipwreck to safety (Dennis Noble, The U.S. Coast Guard, p. 19).
13.1184: and lifeboat
Typically, news reports of maritime rescues from this period mentioned the rocket, the breeches buoy (see the preceding two notes), and the lifeboat. For example: ‘Sunday the schooner RTB, of Par, Cornwall, was observed to be in difficulties off Aldeburgh, and the lifeboat was being got ready, when several young men gallantly established communication between the ship and shore by means of a rope. The rocket apparatus was also upon the scene. The crew of the vessel numbering four, jumped over the side in the breeches buoy, and willing hands helped them ashore’ (Irish Examiner, 1 Jan. 1901, p. 5, col. f).
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 723
13.1184–85: Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in the Erin’s King
See note at 4.434.
13.1188: funk
See note at 4.435.
13.1190: Crumlin
In 1904, Crumlin was a village about 5.8 km south-west of central Dublin, just south of the seventh lock of the Grand Canal at Bluebell.
13.1190–91: Babes in the wood
Babes in the wood: proverbial for trusting, gullible types; after the story of a villainous uncle who plots to kill his little nephew and niece (Brewer’s, s.vv. Babes; Children). In the 1798 rebellion, the insurgents who assembled in the wood of Kilaughrim were nicknamed ‘the babes of the wood’ (Edward Hay, History of the Irish Insurrection of 1798, p. 343).
13.1194: Calomel purge
Calomel: a chloride of mercury; used as a laxative (EB11).
13.1198: Dearest Papli See note at 4.397.
13.1199: stays
See note at 3.431.
13.1204–05: Gibraltar. Looking from Buena Vista. O’Hara’s tower
Buena Vista Point is located on the south-west coast of the Gibraltar peninsula. O’Hara’s Tower, no longer extant, was an overlook on Sugar Loaf Hill. Buena Vista and O’Hara’s Tower are about 800 metres apart on opposite sides of Gibraltar, the south-west and south- east, respectively (EB11, s.v. Gibraltar).
13.1205: Old Barbary ape that gobbled all his family
Barbary ape: ‘a tailless monkey inhabiting Algeria, Morocco, and the rock of Gibraltar (where it may have been introduced) [. . .]. This monkey, Macacus inuus, is light yellowish- brown above and yellowish-white below, with the naked part of the face flesh-coloured. It is entirely terrestrial in habits, at least on Gibraltar, and goes about in droves’ (EB11). See note at 18.784.
13.1206: Sundown, gunfire for the men to cross the lines
Life on Gibraltar was regulated by gunfire: ‘Everything goes by military rule; even the hours of the day are announced by “gunfire”; the morning gun gives the exact minute at which the soldiers are to turn out of their beds, and the last evening gun the minute at which they are to “turn in” ’ (Henry Field, Gibraltar, p. 30). Elsewhere, Field writes: ‘At half-past five the evening gun from the top of the Rock boomed over land and sea, and with a few minutes’ grace for the last straggler, the gates of the double line of fortifications were closed for the night’ (p. 9).
13.1208–09: Buenas noches, señorita. El hombre ama la muchacha hermosa
Buenas noches, señorita. El hombre ama la muchacha hermosa: (Spanish): ‘Good evening, miss. The man loves the pretty young lady.’
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13.1212–13: Leah, Lily of Killarney
For Leah see note at 5.194, for Lily of Killarney see note at 6.186. Both performances began at 8:00 pm (Freeman’s Journal, 16 June 1904, p. 4, col. a).
13.1213–14: Call to the hospital to see. Hope she’s over
That is, Bloom hopes that Mrs Purefoy has successfully delivered her child (see note at 8.277).
13.1223: The sister of the wife of the wild man of Borneo has just come to town
After the song ‘The Wild Man From Borneo Has Just Come To Town’ (c.1890), which builds in a progressive structure. The third verse begins with ‘The child of the wife of the wild man of Borneo’; the sister of the eponymous wild man is not in the original song (Bowen, p. 240).
13.1224–25: Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he kissed the cow
After a proverb used in Swift’s Polite Conversation: ‘Why, everyone as they like; as the good woman said, when she kiss’d her Cow’ (p. 56).
13.1225: But Dignam’s put the boots on it
To put the boot on: ‘To kick a prostrate foe’ (Partridge); that is, going to Paddy Dignam’s house to talk to his widow about Dignam’s insurance policy has put the finishing touches to an already bad day.
13.1226: Houses of mourning See note at 11.911.
13.1227: those Scottish widows
The Scottish Widows’ Fund (Mutual) Life Assurance Society, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, with five agents in Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1908). The Scottish Widows Assurance Society ‘was and still is regarded as impeccably sound’ (Peter Kuch, Irish Divorce/Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, p. 186).
13.1229: Cramer’s
Cramer, Wood, & Co.: pianoforte gallery and music warehouse, 4–5 Westmoreland Street (Thom’s, p. 1842).
13.1230: Her widow’s mite
In the gospel of Mark, Jesus remarks on the relative generosity of the poor widow who contributed two mites—a small amount—to the temple treasury: ‘And there came a certain poor widow, and she cast in two mites, which make a farthing’ (Mark 12:42; see also Luke 21:1–4).
13.1232–33: O’Connor wife and five children poisoned . . . The sewage
On the evening of 30 June 1890, James O’Connor (Irish journalist, 1836–1910) returned home to find his family poisoned by contaminated mussels. They lived at Seapoint Avenue, in Monkstown, which is 9 km south of Dublin and about 6 km south of Bloom’s present location in Sandymount. O’Connor’s wife Mary and four of their daughters died almost immediately; the daughters were Annie (13), Aileen (11), Kathleen (7), and Norah (5). A fifth daughter, Moya (9), and a servant girl, Eliza Casey, were also poisoned, but recovered (Freeman’s Journal, 1 July 1890, p. 5, col. a). The funeral captivated the whole city; the Freeman’s Journal lists John Stanislaus Joyce as in attendance (4 July 1890, p. 5, col. g). At the inquest it was noted that sewage ran into the pond where the family had collected the
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13. ‘Nausicaa’ 725 mussels (2 July 1890, p. 5, col. a; Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 284 n. 31). See also note at 3.150.
13.1234–35: platter face
Platter face: ‘a broad, round, flat face’ (OED).
13.1237: Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow we die See note at 8.754.
13.1239: U.p.: up See note at 8.258.
13.1240–41: Dreamt last night? . . . Turkish See note at 15.297–98.
13.1241: Wore the breeches. Suppose she does
Wear the breeches: ‘(Of women) to usurp a husband’s authority’ (Partridge).
13.1242–43: Nannetti’s gone. Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now
Councillor Nannetti and William Field, MP are on the mailboat for Holyhead, their ultim ate destination being London; see note at 12.850. The second, and last, mailboat of the day, operated by the Dublin Steam Packet Company, left Kingstown Harbour at 8:15 pm (Thom’s, pp. 1353, 1717). The mailboat trip took three to four hours. An express train connected Holyhead to London (DD, p. 1).
13.1243–44: that ad of Keyes’s. Work Hynes and Crawford See note at 7.25 and note at 13.1047.
13.1251: Bread cast on the waters
‘Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days’ (Ecclesiastes 11:1 in the King James).
13.1254–55: Must come back. Murderers do
After the proverb that murderers return to the scenes of their crimes (Dent).
13.1262–63: What is the meaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy From Martha’s letter (5.244–45).
13.1267–68: No fear of big vessels coming up here. Except Guinness’s barges
Dublin Bay is shallow (Henry Gilligan, A History of the Port of Dublin, p. 2) and, furthermore, the tide is out at this time (see note at 13.12).
13.1268: Round the Kish in eighty days
After the title of Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days (1872); see also note at 3.267.
13.1274–75: Liverpool boat long gone
Steamships left Dublin for Liverpool daily at noon and at 8:00 pm (Thom’s, p. 1353).
13.1275: Belfast
Blazes Boylan will be bringing Molly to Belfast for her concert there on 25 June; see note at 5.151–52.
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726 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
13.1276: I won’t go. Race there, race back to Ennis See note at 6.529–30.
13.1276–77: Just close my eyes a moment. Won’t sleep though
When Odysseus lands on the island of the Phaiakians, just before he meets Nausicaa, Athena lets him rest and sleep: ‘Athene / shed a sleep on his eyes so as most quickly to quit him, / by veiling his eyes, from the exhaustion of his hard labors’ (Odyssey, V.491–93).
13.1279: bracegirdle See note at 13.857.
13.1280: Grace darling See note at 13.1069.
13.1280–81: met him pike hoses See notes at 4.339 and 8.112.
13.1281–82: frillies for Raoul . . . embon
From Sweets of Sin; see note at 10.606. The phrase ‘perfume your wife’ comes from Martha’s letter (5.258).
13.1282: señorita
See note at 13.1208.
13.1282: Mulvey See note at 13.889
13.1282: breadvan Winkle See note at 13.1112.
13.1283: Agendath See note at 4.191–92.
13.1283–84: her next year in drawers return next in her next her next See note at 7.207.
13.1289–91: Cuckoo
Cuckoo: both cuckold and fool (Partridge); see also note at 9.1025. The clock is sounding one bell for each hour, hence nine o’clock.
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’
e
d
c
b
a
Map 14 National Maternity Hospital and Merrion Square (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = National Maternity Hospital (29–31 Holles Street); b = J. Burke (17 Holles Street); c = Denzille Lane; d = Merrion Hall; e = Westland Row Station
Time: 10–11 pm Location: National Maternity Hospital (29–31 Holles Street) Organ: Womb Art: Medicine Colour: white Symbol: Mothers Technic: Embryonic development Correspondences: Trinacria: Hospital; Lampetie, Phaethusa: Nurses; Helios: Horne; Oxen: Fertility; Crime: Fraud Serialised: The Little Review 7.3 (September–December 1920)
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728 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses The ‘Oxen of the Sun’ episode presents a specific challenge to reader and annotator alike, in that its narrative is conveyed through a series of burlesques that (apparently) trace out a genealogy of English prose styles from their beginnings in Latinate and Saxon forms to the contemporary. Joyce explained this in a letter to Frank Budgen from March 1920: Am working hard at Oxen of the Sun, the idea being the crime committed against fecund ity by sterilizing the act of coition. Scene, lying-in hospital. Technique: a nineparted epi sode without divisions introduced by a Sallustian-Tacitean prelude (the unfertilized ovum), then by way of earliest English alliterative and monosyllabic and Anglo-Saxon (‘Before born the babe had bliss. Within the womb he won worship’. ‘Bloom dull dreamy heard: in held hat stony staring’) then by way of Mandeville (‘there came forth a scholar of medicine that men clepen &c’) then Malory’s Morte d’Arthur (‘but that franklin Lenehan was prompt ever to pour them so that at the least way mirth should not lack’) then the Elizabethan ‘chronicle style’ (‘about that present time young Stephen filled all cups’), then a passage solemn, as of Milton, Taylor, Hooker, followed by a choppy Latin- gossipy bit, style of Burton-Browne, then a passage Bunyanesque (‘the reason was that in the way he fell in with a certain whore whose name she said is Bird in the hand’) after a diarystyle bit Pepys-Evelyn (‘Bloom sitting snug with a party of wags, among them Dixon jun., Ja. Lynch, Doc. Madden and Stephen D. for a languor he had before and was now better, he having dreamed tonight a strange fancy and Mistress Purefoy there to be delivered, poor body, two days past her time and the midwives hard put to it, God send her quick issue’) and so on through Defoe-Swift and Steele-Addison-Sterne and Landor- Pater-Newman until it ends in a frightful jumble of Pidgin English, nigger English, Cockney, Irish, Bowery slang and broken doggerel. This progression is also linked back at each part subtly with some foregoing episode of the day and, besides this, with the nat ural stages of development in the embryo and the periods of faunal evolution in general. The double-thudding Anglo-Saxon motive recurs from time to time (‘Loth to move from Horne’s house’) to give the sense of the hoofs of oxen. Bloom is the spermatozoon, the hospital the womb, the nurse the ovum, Stephen the embryo. How’s that for high? (Letters, vol. 1, pp. 138–39).
This description was a basically accurate assessment of how the episode was structured on the drafts from this particular time in March 1920, but Joyce’s subsequent revisions blur the divisions between the stylistic imitations. No single paragraph in the final text of ‘Oxen’ is restricted to just one authorial source; indeed, many paragraphs contain echoes of mul tiple, historically distant authors. Therefore, the episode’s stylistic imitations are neither as linear nor as discrete as the letter to Budgen implies (see Sarah Davison, ‘Joyce’s Incorporation of Literary Sources in “Oxen of the Sun” ’ and also Ronan Crowley, ‘Earmarking “Oxen of the Sun” ’). We will identify the broad stylistic divisions, but these are meant only as a general and imprecise guide to the styles of this episode. Where possible and relevant, our naming of the broad categories will follow from Joyce’s letter above. In addition, we will identify selected individual, specific lexical borrowings; these will show that the stylistic imitations are not as strictly regimented as the broad divisions might imply. Joyce’s notesheets for ‘Oxen’ are invaluable in documenting his sources, thereby permitting identification (although much work still remains to be done in terms of identifying Joyce’s sources). These notesheets show that he relied extensively, but not exclusively, upon various
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 729 anthologies of English literature as he was preparing this episode, such as: George Saintsbury’s History of English Prose Rhythm, William Peacock’s English Prose from Mandeville to Ruskin, A. F. Murison’s Selections from the Best English Authors, and Annie Barnett and Lucy Dale’s An Anthology of English Prose (see Robert Janusko, The Sources and Structures of James Joyce’s ‘Oxen’; Gregory M. Downing, ‘Joyce’s “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheets’; and Phillip Herring, Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ Notesheets in the British Museum, pp. 162–264). In addition to these anthologies, Joyce also harvested many individual words and locutions from three etymological surveys written by Richard Samuel Chenevix Trench’s (see note at 1.49) grandfather, Richard Chenevix Trench (Anglo-Irish archbishop and poet, 1807–86): On the Study of Words, English Past and Present, and A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from their Present (see Downing, ‘Richard Chenevix Trench and Joyce’s Historical Survey of Words’ and Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’). While the notesheets can help identify specific texts Joyce used, via the various anthologies, this does not necessarily mean that in every instance Joyce is overtly citing from that text. Rather, it simply means that the text happened to provide Joyce with a lex ical formulation he could use. ‘Throughout “Oxen”, Joyce tends to assimilate period spell ing to the general spelling conventions of Ulysses as a whole, expressing a “period” feel with period diction and phrasing and attitudes rather than through period orthography’ (Gregory Downing, ‘Joyce’s “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheets’). Both the opening (14.1–70) and closing sections (14.1440–1591) are extremely dense and are possibly the most difficult parts of Ulysses, although for different reasons. Since annota tion on its own is insufficient for these sections, we will provide paraphrases and commen tary in the Appendix. The National Maternity Hospital is on Holles Street, around the corner from Merrion Square (see note at 8.281–82). To get back to town, Bloom travelled by tram (see note at 17.1469): the Sandymount Green line (see note at 10.1153) has a stop at Tritonville Road, near the Dignams’ house, and another at North Merrion Square, near the hospital (S. A. O. Fitzpatrick, Dublin: A Historical and Topographical Account, p. 349). After leaving the hospital, the entourage goes to Burke’s pub, at the corner of Holles and Denzille Streets (see note at 14.1391). After the pub closes, they walk along Denzille Lane (see note at 14.1446) (map 14).
14.1–6: Invocation 14.1: Deshil Holles Eamus
Deshil Holles Eamus: ‘Let us go rightward to Holles Street.’ Deshil: Anglicisation of the Irish deasil, ‘towards the right [. . .] in the same direction as the hands of a clock, or the apparent course of the sun (a practice held auspicious by the Celts)’ (OED). According to P. W. Joyce, turning rightward was a ritual gesture to attract good fortune and an act of consecration when repeated three times (A Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 301). Holles: after Holles Street, location of the National Maternity Hospital (see note at 8.281–82). ‘Deashil Holles’ also echoes the name Denzil Holles (1599–1679), Earl of Clare, after whom Holles Street is named (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 51). Eamus (Latin): ‘Let us go’. Triple incantations were associated with Druidism, and connected to childbirth. From John Smith, Galic Antiquities (1780): ‘The ceremony of deas-iul is still used on many occasions in the Highlands of Scotland. Women with child go thrice in this direction round some chapels to procure an easy delivery’ (p. 38; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
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730 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.2–4: Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and . . . wombfruit
Stuart Gilbert describes this as ‘an invocation to the Sun, Helios, personified by Sir Andrew Horne, the head of the Lying-in Hospital [from 1894–1908], the ‘House of Horne’’ (p. 296). For Horne, see note at 8.282. Quickening: the stage of pregnancy at which the child first shows signs of life. Fruit: an embryo, foetus; also progeny (both OED). ‘Wombfruit’ is an example of a kenning, a common feature in Old English poetry, a two-word circumlocution for an ordinary noun by means of a condensed simile (Thomas Gardner, ‘The Old English Kenning’, p. 109).
14.5–6: Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! . . . hoopsa!
Stuart Gilbert describes this as ‘the triumphant cry of the midwife as, elevating the new born, she acclaims its sex’ (p. 296).
14.7–59: ‘Sallustian-Tacitean prelude’, as if poorly translated from the Latin 14.10–11: high mind’s ornament
Part of the complexity of this paragraph stems from the excessive use of ornamentation, which is signalled by the use of this word here. In rhetoric, ornamentation describes embel lishment and flourish and, as such, is the quality of an extravagant and ornate style (Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics).
14.15: proliferant
Proliferant: prolific, life-giving; from the post-Classical Latin prolifer and after the French proliférant (OED, s.v. proliferent). Joyce’s use is the first listed by the OED.
14.16: omnipollent
Omnipollent: all-powerful; pollent, from the Latin pollere, ‘to be strong’ (OED, s.v. pollent).
14.19: lutulent
Lutulent: ‘Muddy, turbid’ (OED); here with the figurative sense of ‘moral decay’.
14.20–21: no nature’s boon can contend against the bounty of increase
In keeping with the tenor of this passage, this phrase uncritically endorses the ‘bounty’ of population increase. Ironically, the phrasing here is suggestive of Thomas Robert Malthus’s (English economist, 1766–1834) An Essay of the Principle of Population (1798): ‘Population, when unchecked, increases in geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second’ (p. 71). He further claimed that periodic famines were one means of keeping population growth in check: ‘Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature’ (p. 118). See also note at 14.1415.
14.23: semblables
Semblable: a person similar to oneself, one’s peer (OED).
14.25: inverecund
Inverecund: immodest, shameless, from the Latin inverecundus. The OED only has a listing for its contrary, verecund, ‘Modest, bashful; shy, coy’ (OED, s.v. verecund).
14.29–30: that evangel simultaneously command . . . prophecy of abundance
Evangel: ‘A doctrine or principle (pertaining e.g. to politics, social reform, or morals) [. . .]. Sometimes with some notion of the etymological sense “good news” ’ (OED); in this case
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 731 God’s command and promise to Adam and Eve, ‘Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it’ (Genesis 1:28 and 9:7).
14.35: the art of medicine shall have been highly honoured
Ireland has a long history of excellence in the field of medicine, dating back to medieval times. After a visit to Ireland in 1640, Van Helmot, the great Dutch chemist, wrote that ‘[t]he Irish nobility have in every family a domestic physician, who has a tract of land free for his remuneration, and who is appointed not on account of the amount of learning he brings away in his head from colleges, but because he can cure disorders. These doctors obtain their medical knowledge chiefly from books belonging to particular families left them by their ancestors, in which are laid down the symptoms of the various diseases with the remedies annexed: which are remedies vernacular—the productions of their own coun try. Accordingly the Irish are better managed in sickness than the Italians, who have a phys ician in every village’ (quoted in P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 600).
14.36: hostels
Hostel: derives from the medieval Latin hospitale, ‘place of reception for guests’ (OED, s.vv. hostel; hospital).
14.36: leperyards
That is, leper asylums. Lepers were segregated in houses or colonies in order to prevent the spread of infection. Due to the proliferation of leprosy in the Middle Ages, virtually every major town in France, Spain, Germany, and England had a leper house. By the fifteenth century, the spread of the disease diminished and by the start of the twentieth century, it was practically gone from Europe. ‘At one time there were at least 95 religious hospitals for lepers in Great Britain and 14 in Ireland’ (EB11, s.v. leprosy).
14.36: sweating chambers
Sweating house: effectively similar to a sauna, used for curing diseases in ancient Ireland. ‘They are small houses, entirely of stone, from five to seven feet [1.5 to 2.1 metres] long inside, with a low little door through which one must creep: always placed remote from habitations: and near by is commonly a pool or tank of water. They were used in this way. A great fire of turf was kindled inside till the house became heated like an oven; after which the embers were swept out and vapour was produced by throwing water on the hot stones. Then the person, wrapping himself in a blanket, crept in and sat down on a bench of sods, after which the door was closed up. He remained there an hour or so till he was in profuse perspiration; and then creeping out plunged right into the cold water, after emer ging from which he was well rubbed till he became warm. After several baths at intervals of some days he usually got cured’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, pp. 625–26).
14.37: O’Shiels
The O’Shiels were a well-known medical family in Ireland, acting as hereditary physicians to the Mac Mahons of Oriel and the MacCoughlins of Devlin. The Book of the O’Shiels, transcribed in 1657, consists of a systematic treatment of the medicinal properties of herbs (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 607).
14.37: O’Hickeys
The O’Hickeys were a prominent family of physicians serving the O’Briens of Thomond. The Book of the O’Hickeys is an Irish translation of a medieval Latin medical treatise,
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732 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Lilium Medicinae. ‘The manuscript was at one time greatly celebrated among Irish doctors’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 606).
14.37: O’Lees
The O’Lees were a prominent family of physicians serving the O’Flahertys of Connacht. The Book of the O’Lees is ‘a complete system of medicine’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 607).
14.37: sedulously
Sedulously: diligently, attentively (OED).
14.39: trembling withering
‘Palsy was known by the descriptive name crith-lám, “trembling of the hands” [. . .] St. Camin of Inis-Celtra died in 653 of teine-buirr, “fire of swelling’’—St. Anthony’s fire or erysipelas—which withered away all his body, so that his bones fell asunder as they laid him in the grave’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 614).
14.39–40: loose boyconnell flux
Loose flux: diarrhoea; ‘Diarrhœa was called in Irish buinnech, i.e. “flux”, from buinne, “wave or stream” ’ (P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 1, p. 614). Boy-connell is the Anglicisation of the Irish Buide-Connaill (literally, yellow stubble), the name given to the plague that ravaged Ireland in the sixth and seventh centuries (p. 610).
14.41–42: plan was by them adopted
In 1745, to combat the high mortality rate for women and infants, Dublin’s first lying-in hospital was founded on George’s Lane. In 1757, this was moved to the Rotunda. The sec ond such facility was the Coombe Lying-in Hospital, which was first established in 1826. The National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street opened in 1894 (Bennett, s.vv. Rotunda Hospital; Coombe Lying-in Hospital; National Maternity Hospital).
14.44: congrued
To congrue: to agree, to accord (OED).
14.45: all accident possibility
The word accident is used as an adjective (accidental), a use attested by the OED, though rare after the early seventeenth century.
14.49: valiantly
Valiantly here is used in the sense of the Latin verb valeo, to have physical strength, vigour, or health (Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary).
14.52: all not to can be
From Francis Bacon’s (1561–1626) Essays: ‘the best condition is not to will, the Second not to Can’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 63; Robert Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 258; Notesheet Oxen 4.123).
14.52–53: they had received eternity gods mortals generation
This echoes a note Joyce took in his early commonplace notebook: ‘The most natural act for living beings which are complete is to produce other beings like themselves and thereby to participate as far as they may in the eternal and divine’ (NLI I.ii: f. 2r). This is Joyce’s translation of a passage from a French translation of Aristotle’s On the Soul by
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 733 Barthélémy-Saint-Hilaire, Psychologie d’Aristote. Traité de l’âme (415a27–415b1; Fran O’Rourke, Allwisest Stagyrite, p. 7). Years later in a conversation with Louis Gillet (French critic, 1876–1943), Joyce said ‘I can’t understand households without children. I see some with dogs, gimcracks. Why are they alive? To leave nothing behind, not to survive your self—how sad!’ (quoted in Ellmann, p. 204 n.).
14.54: hoving
To hove: ‘To swell, inflate, puff up or out’ (OED).
14.54: parturient
Parturient: about to give birth, in labour (OED).
14.60–70: Old English 14.67: sejunct
Sejunct: separate or distinct (OED).
14.67: tumescence
Tumescence: ‘A becoming tumid, swelling up’ (OED), a word often applied to volcanoes.
14.69: reproductitive
This unusual spelling appears to be unique to Joyce; this form appears on both the Rosenbach (f. 4) and the typescript (JJA, vol. 14, p. 172), which is why Gabler does not emend (UCSE, p. 1745).
14.70: to lie in
To lie in: to deliver a child (OED, s.v. lie).
14.71–106: Old English, Aelfric 14.71–72: at night’s oncoming
From Aelfric’s (c.955–c.1010) Life of St Cuthbert: ‘at night to the sea’ (quoted in Saintsbury, History of English Prose, p. 33; Robert Janusko, JJON; Notesheet Oxen 13.15).
14.72–73: Of Israel’s folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared See note at 2.362.
14.73: ruth
Ruth: ‘The quality of being compassionate; the feeling of sorrow for another; compassion, pity’ (OED); derived from the Old English hreow, pity (W. W. Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary).
14.73: till
Till: ‘As far as’ (OED).
14.74: Of that house A. Horne is lord See note at 8.282.
14.74: Seventy beds keeps he there
The National Maternity Hospital had sixty-nine beds; ‘there were 1,500 midwifery cases treated during the past year [1903], and over 4,000 attendances at the Dispensary’ (Thom’s, p. 1381).
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734 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.74–75: teeming mothers
From Izaak Walton’s (1593–1683) The Compleat Angler: ‘the teeming earth’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 72; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 113; Notesheet Oxen 4.107).
14.75: to thole and bring forth bairns
To thole: to wait patiently, to forbear, to endure. Bairns: children (both OED). Thole derives from the Old English tholian and bairn from the Old English bearn, literally, that which is born (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary).
14.75–76: so God’s angel to Mary quoth
The Archangel Gabriel announced to Mary, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. [. . .] Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus’ (Luke 1:28, 30–31).
14.76: tway
Tway: two (OED); from the Old English twegen (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary). From Aelfric’s (c.955–c.1010) Life of St Cuthbert: ‘twey seals’ (quoted in Saintsbury, History of English Prose, p. 33; Robert Janusko, JJON; Notesheet Oxen 13.18).
14.76: white sisters
White Sister: ‘a nun belonging to an order which wears a white habit’ (OED). In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, when the two daughters of the Sun appear at Phaethon’s tomb, they are described as ‘candida’ (II.349), which can be translated as ‘shining white’ (R. J. Schork, Latin and Roman Culture in Joyce, p. 164).
14.78: bedthanes
That is, the nurses; thane (Old English): attendant or servant (OED).
14.80: eft
Eft (Old English): then (Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary).
14.81: swire ywimpled
Swire: neck, from the Old English sweora (OED). Ywimpled: Old English, covered with a wimple. Wimple (a type of head garment) comes from the Old English wimpel and in Old English the prefix ge- (modernised as y-) denotes with; thus ywimpled, with a wimple (OED, s.vv. wimple; y-). From Aelfric’s (c.955–c.1010) Life of St Cuthbert: ‘up to his swire’ (quoted in Saintsbury, History of English Prose, p. 33; Robert Janusko, JJON).
14.81: levin
Levin (Middle English): a flash of lightning (OED).
14.82: welkin
Welkin: the sky or the heavens (OED); derived from the Old English wolcen, cloud (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary). From Richard Chenevix Trench’s English Past and Present (p. 158; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, p. 181).
14.83: fordo
To fordo: to kill; derived from the Old English fordon (OED).
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 735
14.83: rood
Rood: cross; derived from the Old English, rode (OED).
14.84: rathe
Rathe: quickly, rapidly (OED); derived from the Old English hræth, quick (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary).
14.84–85: infare under her thatch
To infare: to enter; derived from the Old English infaran (OED). From Aelfric’s (c.955– c.1010) Life of St Cuthbert: ‘Lord, not am I worthy that thou infare under my thatch’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 32; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 94).
14.85: her will wotting worthful
To wot: to know (OED); it is cognate with wit, both of which are derived from the Old English witan, to know (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary).
14.86: On her stow
Stow (Old English): a place (OED). From ‘Ethelbald’s Grant to the Bishop of Worcester’: ‘in the stow that men hight’ (quoted in Saintsbury, History of English Prose, p. 16; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 94). In this context, it refers to the fact that Nurse Callan and the Blooms were neighbours nine years earlier, in 1895 (see notes at 13.960 and 14.121).
14.87–88: over land and seafloor nine years had long outwandered
Odysseus spent ten years in the Trojan War and another ten years wandering, trying to get back home to Ithaca.
14.88: townhithe
Hithe: a port or haven (OED); from the Old English hyth (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary). From ‘Ethelbald’s Grant to the Bishop of Worcester’: ‘in London town-hithe’ (quoted in Saintsbury, History of English Prose, p. 17; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 94; Notesheet Oxen 13.37).
14.90: allowed
Allow is used in the sense of approve (Richard Chenevix Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, pp. 5–6; Gregory Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 60).
14.93: eyes then ongot
To onget: to catch the sense of; in context, to see. After the Old English ongitan, to acquire, to recognise (OED, s.v. anget).
14.93: weeds swart
Weed: an article of clothing; from the Old English woede. Swart: black; from the Old English sweart (both OED).
14.94: adread
Adread (Middle English): afraid (OED). From The Voiage and Travails of Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘he wolde ben a drade for to beholde it’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 1; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 258; Notesheet Oxen 7.125).
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14.94: O’Hare Doctor See note at 13.961.
14.95: grameful
Grameful is not listed in the OED, but it must mean full of grief, sorrow; from the Old English grama, grief, sorrow (OED, s.v. grame).
14.96–97: that him so heavied
To heavy: to burden, oppress; from the Old English hefigian (OED). From Sir Thomas Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘It shall so heavy me at their departing’ (quoted in A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 192; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, p. 94; Notesheet Oxen 2.68).
14.97: ruthful
See note at 14.73.
14.98: algate sore
Algate: always; derived from the Old English alle gate, every way (OED).
14.99–100: masspriest to be shriven, holy housel . . . to his limbs
Shriven: confessed, absolved (OED). For housel, see note at 3.122–23. The ‘sick men’s oil’ is the oil used in the sacrament of extreme unction, in which the priest anoints the dying person (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Extreme Unction). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘For thei wil first schryven him’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 1; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, pp. 258–59; Notesheet Oxen 7.126).
14.101: nun
The word nun continues the religious description of the nurses with ‘ywimpled’ and ‘white sisters’. The post-Classical Latin word nonna, dating from the fourth century, means nun, but it was sometimes extended to mean wet nurse (OED).
14.102: he was died in Mona island
Mona Island was formerly the name of Anglesey, an island near Holyhead off north- western Wales (EB11). O’Hare did not die there, but at his home in Newry after contracting typhoid (Peter Costello, ‘James Joyce, Ulysses, and the National Maternity Hospital’, p. 213). See also note at 13.961 for O’Hare.
14.102: bellycrab
That is, stomach cancer. Crab: a malignant growth (OED). The ‘father of medicine’ Hippocrates (c.460–c.370 bc) called the disease karkinos (Greek, crab) because ‘the swollen veins surrounding the part affected bore a resemblance to the limbs of a crab’ (OED, s.v. carcinoma). The word bellycrab is an example of a kenning (see note at 14.2–4).
14.103: Childermas
Childermas: the festival observed on 28 December to commemorate those who died in Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents (Matthew 2:16). In Old English, Cilda-mæssæ (OED).
14.105: wanhope
Wanhope: hopelessness or despair (OED); in Middle English, ‘The theological error or sin of insufficient faith in God’s mercy’ (Middle English Dictionary).
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14.107–66: Middle English, Mandeville 14.107: everyman
The Summonyng of Everyman (c.1485), better known simply as Everyman: an anonymous Middle English translation of a Dutch morality play, Elckerlijc (c.1470) which uses prosopo poeia (personification allegory) to universalise Christian struggles in the person of its non descript, archetypal protagonist, Everyman, who, as the name suggests, is supposed to represent every (Christian) man. The play’s prologue states: ‘Here beginneth a treatise how the High Father of Heaven sendeth Death to summon every creature to come and give account of their lives in this world, and is in the manner of a moral play’ (p. 1).
14.108: every man that is born of woman
Echoes Job 14:1, ‘Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries’; and also the witches’ prophecy in Macbeth, ‘none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth’ (IV.i.81–82).
14.108–09: as he came naked forth from his mother’s womb
Echoes Job 1:21: ‘Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.’ Also Ecclesiastes 5:14: ‘As he came forth naked from his mother’s womb, so shall he return, and shall take nothing away with him of his labour.’
14.114: in throes
Throe: spasm or convulsion, especially those of childbirth; derived from the Middle English throwe (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary).
14.114: unneth
Unneth (Middle English): ‘Not easily; (only) with difficulty; scarcely, hardly’ (OED, s.v. uneath). From Raphael Holinshed’s (1529–80) History of Scotland: ‘there remained unneth anything upon him save skin and bone’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 29). Peacock glosses unneth as ‘Scarcely, hardly’.
14.117: for because she knew
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘And for because I have slain these knights’ (quoted in A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 196; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, p. 97; Notesheet Oxen 2.86).
14.118: that time was had lived nigh that house
See notes at 11.493 and 17.860 for when the Blooms lived on Holles Street, near the National Maternity Hospital (‘nigh that house’). See also note at 14.124.
14.121: nine twelve bloodflows That is, nine years.
14.123: the door of the castle
That is, the door to the medical students’ common room. According to the floor plans of the hospital, this was the large room at the rear on the ground floor of 31 Holles Street. In addition to the common room, medical students had accommodation at the hospital. ‘The rooms in Holles Street Hospital, therefore, came to be a convenient meeting place for the (mostly medical) students centred around Gogarty. It allowed for relatively comfortable
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738 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses and cheap evening drinking before they visited the kips on the other side of the river later at night’ (Aidan Collins, JJON).
14.124: nighed
To nigh (in Middle English, nygh or nighe): to draw near (OED). From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘there should no man nigh them’ (A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 192; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, p. 92; Notesheet Oxen 2.57).
14.124: mickle
Mickle: great or large (OED); from the Middle English mikel (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary). From Aelfric’s (c.955–c.1010) Life of St Cuthbert: ‘mickle humility’ (quoted in Saintsbury, History of English Prose, p. 32; Robert Janusko, JJON).
14.124: meat
Meat (in Middle English, mete): food of any kind, be it animal flesh or otherwise (OED).
14.125: learningknight
Dixon (see note at 8.429–30) is an intern or junior medical officer, hence ‘learningknight’.
14.125: yclept
Yclept (Middle English): named or called (OED). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘men clept him Gatholonabes’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 4; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 101; Notesheet Oxen 7.102).
14.125: Dixon
See note at 8.429–30.
14.126: couth
Couth: known; from the Middle English uncouth, unknown (OED).
14.126: sithen
Sithen: thereupon, afterwards, subsequently (OED). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘And it is not long gone, sithen’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 5; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 102; Notesheet Oxen 7.100).
14.126: it had happed that
To hap: to happen (OED). From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘it happed me’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 10; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 105; Notesheet Oxen 7.36).
14.126–27: they had had ado
To have ado with: to have dealings with (OED, s.v. ado). From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘He hath ado with a knyght of yours that hyght Egglame’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 7; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 259; Notesheet Oxen 7.48).
14.127: the house of misericord
That is, the Mater Misericordiae Hospital; see note at 6.375–76. Misercord: an abbreviation of the Latin misericordia, tender-heartedness, pity, compassion, mercy (OED).
14.129: he was sore wounded See note at 4.483–84.
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14.129–30: a spear . . . was smitten him
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘a spear wherewith he was smitten him’ (quoted in A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, pp. 191–92; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, pp. 93–94; Notesheet Oxen 2.66).
14.130: he did do make
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘he did do make letters’ (quoted in A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 191; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, pp. 92–93; Notesheet Oxen 2.58).
14.131: volatile salt
Volatile salt: ‘Ammonium carbonate, esp. an aromatic solution of this used as a restorative in fainting fits’; in French, sal volatile, the name by which it is known in English (OED, s.v. sal volatile).
14.131: chrism
Chrism: a mixture of olive oil and balsam used in sacramental anointments in the Church (Catholic Encyclopedia); from the Greek chrisma, an unguent (OED).
14.131: as much as he might suffice
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘ “he might suffice” (= it might suffice him)’ (quoted in A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 191; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, pp. 93–94; Notesheet Oxen 2.65).
14.134: man of cautels and a subtile
Cautel (Middle English): caution; but also ruse, trick, stratagem (Middle English Dictionary). Subtile: crafty, cunning, sly, treacherous (OED). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘he was full of cautels and subtle deceits’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 4); also ‘his subtle deceits and false cautels’ (p. 5; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 102; Notesheet Oxen 7.99). In the first line of the Odyssey, Odysseus is called polutropos, which Richmond Lattimore translates more or less literally as ‘the man of many ways’, that is, the man who is well-travelled, shifty, versatile, wily (Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon). William Cowper (1731–1800) translates polutropos as ‘the man [. . .] for shrewdness famed’.
14.134: avis
Avis (Middle English): opinion, judgement (Middle English Dictionary). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘But that myghte not ben to myn avys’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 2; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 259; Notesheet Oxen 7.123).
14.134: repreved
To repreve (Middle English): to deliver a rebuke (Middle English Dictionary, s.v. repreven). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘they should be repreved’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 2; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 101; Notesheet Oxen 7.145).
14.135–36: she trowed well that the traveller had said thing that was false
To trow (Middle English): to believe (Middle English Dictionary). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘he trowed that they had said sooth’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 1; Janusko, Sources and Structures, pp. 100–01; Notesheet Oxen 7.110). The second part comes from Geoffrey Chaucer’s (c.1340–1400) ‘Parson’s Tale’ from the Canterbury Tales: ‘thyng
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740 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses that is fals’ (l. 505, The Riverside Chaucer, p. 304; quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 5; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 260; Notesheet Oxen 7.117).
14.136–37: not hear say nay nor do
From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘ne of the Cristene men nouther’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 1). ‘Joyce seems to have used this [quote] for the “ne. . . nor” pairing’ (Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 260; Notesheet Oxen 7.124).
14.137: mandement
Mandement (Middle English): commandment (Middle English Dictionary, s.v. maunde ment). From John Wyclif ’s (1324–84) Sermons: ‘I passed never thy mandement’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 7; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 103).
14.137: contrarious to his list
List: will or desire (Middle English Dictionary). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘con trarious to his list’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 5; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 102; Notesheet Oxen 7.96).
14.139–40: many marches environing
From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘environing, that is to say, going about, unto his own marches’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 3; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 101; Notesheet Oxen 7.109).
14.140: venery
Venerie: the sport of hunting or the pursuit of sexual gratification, that is, under the sway of Venus, the goddess of love (Middle English Dictionary); these two senses are etymo logically unrelated, but either is feasible within the context. Chaucer plays with both senses in his description of the Monk from the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales: ‘An outridere, that lovede venerie’ (l. 166, The Riverside Chaucer, p. 26; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
14.144: swinking
To swink (Middle English): to engage in physical labour (Middle English Dictionary). In Chaucer’s ‘The Reeve’s Tale’, the word is also suggestive of sexual exertion: ‘Myn heed is toty of my swynk to-nyght’ (l. 4253; The Riverside Chaucer, p. 83; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
14.147: Mahound
Mahound: ‘A god imagined in the Middle Ages to be worshipped by Muslims’; a corruption of the name Mohammad (OED).
14.147: out of seasand and the air
Glass has long been made from the kind of silicates found naturally in sand. The raw mater ials are melted into a molten substance which is then blown and shaped (EB11).
14.148: he blases in to them
To blaze: to blow, to puff; blase is a variant (OED).
14.148–49: And full fair cheer . . . ne richer
From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘a full fair castle and a strong in a mountain, so strong and so noble, that no man could devise a fairer ne stronger’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 4; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 101; Notesheet Oxen 7.104–05). Ne: or (OED).
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14.149: wight
Wight: ‘A living being in general’; from the Old English wiht (OED). From R. C. Trench, On the Study of Words (pp. 174–75; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, p. 180; Notesheet Oxen 13.28).
14.150: moved by craft
Craft: occult art, magic (OED). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘moved by craft’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 4; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 102; Notesheet Oxen 7.107).
14.150–51: strange fishes withouten heads
That is, tinned sardines in olive oil. Withouten (Middle English): without (Middle English Dictionary). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘and so wee passed that perilous vale with outen perile and with outen encombrance’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 3; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 260; Notesheet Oxen 7.129).
14.151: misbelieving men nie
To nie: to deny; the form nie is not attested by the OED but the English verb nay derives from the Middle French word nier, to deny (s.v. nay). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘mysbelevynge men’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 1).
14.151: possible thing
From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘that was possible thing’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 3; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 101; Notesheet Oxen 7.116).
14.152: nathless
Nathless: nevertheless (OED).
14.152: oily water
From Edward Fitzgerald (English poet and writer, 1809–83), ‘Sea Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast’: ‘The oil skin, or “oily”, which covers the fisherman’s berm or bosom, and reaches to the “petticoats” of the same material, covering the lower man’ (Poetical and Prose Writings, vol. 6, p. 207; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.3).
14.153: fatness that therein is
From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘the thresoure [treasure] that there is’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 1; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 260; Notesheet Oxen 7.123).
14.155–56: wheatkidneys out of Chaldee
That is, bread. Chaldee, or Chaldaea: an area in southern Mesopotamia inhabited by the Semitic Chaldeans. In the Book of Daniel, the word Chaldaean is used in two senses: as a name for the Babylonians and also as a name for a class of magicians (EB11, s.v. Chaldaea). In context, Chaldee refers both to the ancient art of brewing beer (developed in the Middle East) and the aura of magic. For ‘wheat kidneys’, see note at 3.118–19.
14.157–58: serpents there to entwine themselves
That is, the hop vines, from which beer is made. The leafy cone or flower of the hop vine (the ‘scales’) are used to flavour and aromatise the beer (EB11, s.vv. beer; hop).
14.159: brewage
From Milton’s (1608–74) ‘Areopagitica’: ‘some well spic’t bruage’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 139; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 260; Notesheet Oxen 7.06).
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742 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.160: let pour
From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘And he had let mure all the mountain about’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 4; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 101). Mure: imprison (OED). On the notesheet where Joyce copied this line, he wrote: ‘And he let pour (mure) all the mountain about’ (Notesheet Oxen 7.103).
14.160: childe
Childe (Middle English): a young man of noble birth (OED).
14.161: halp
Halp (Middle English): helped (OED). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘but evere more God of his grace halp us’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 3; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 260; Notesheet Oxen 7.129).
14.161: every each
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘and every each of them’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 8; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 103; Notesheet Oxen 7.13).
14.161–62: And childe Leopold did up his beaver
After Horatio’s description of King Hamlet’s ghost, dressed as if geared for battle: ‘he wore his beaver up’ (Hamlet, I.ii.229); see note at 9.478. In context here, beaver is a variant of the Middle English bever, a drink (OED, s.vv. beaver; bever). See note at 14.160 for childe.
14.162: for to pleasure him
From Thomas North’s (c.1535–1601) translation of Plutarch’s Lives: ‘now can nothing help nor pleasure thee’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 34; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 109; Notesheet Oxen 3.106).
14.162: apertly
Apertly (Middle English): openly or plainly (OED). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘yet apertly seen’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 5; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 102; Notesheet Oxen 7.101).
14.163: never drank no manner of mead
From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘drink never no wine’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 2; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 101; Notesheet Oxen 7.144).
14.165: nist not
Nist: a contraction of ne wist (Middle English): ‘knew not’ (OED). In Middle English a double negative is a reinforced negative. A. T. Martin explains: ‘ne is joined [. . .] to “wist”, as “he nist not what to do” ’ (Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 195; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, pp. 99–100; Notesheet Oxen 2.101).
14.166: Thanked be Almighty God
From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘Thanked be alle myghty Godd’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 3; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 260).
14.167–276: Malory, Berners, More, Elyot, Wyclif 14.167: This meanwhile
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘This meanwhile came a messenger’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 8; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 103; Notesheet Oxen 7.12).
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14.168: alther liege Lord
Alther: of all. Liege: lord or superior (both OED). Thus, ‘alther liege Lord’: ‘most superior Lord of all’. In Old English and Middle English, alther is placed before the noun it modifies. From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘our alther liege lord’ (quoted in A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 193; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, p. 98; Notesheet Oxen 2.93).
14.168: leave their wassailing
Wassailing (Middle English): ‘carousing, riotous festivity’ (OED, s.v. wassailing; wassail). From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘Leave thys mornynge and wepyng, sayd the kyng’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 7; Notesheet Oxen 7.51). ‘Arthur here reproves Sir Bedwere’s weeping for the recent death of his brother; Nurse Callan, on the other hand, upbraids the students for their behaviour during the labor of Mina Purefoy’ (Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 261).
14.168–69: there was above one quick with child
Quick with child: ‘said of a female in the stage of pregnancy at which the motion of the foetus is felt’ (OED); see note at 14.2–4. From Daniel Defoe’s (1660–1731) Moll Flanders (1722): ‘my Mother pleaded her Belly, and being found quick with Child, she was respited for about seven Months’ (p. 8; Davison, ‘ “The True-Born Englishman” and the Irish Bull’, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 6.7). According to the floor plans for Holles Street Hospital, the Labour Ward was on the first floor, directly above the students’ common room (Aidan Collins, JJON).
14.169: whose time hied fast
To hie: to strive, exert oneself, pant; also to hasten (OED). From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘my tyme hyeth fast’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 8; Notesheet Oxen 7.52). ‘Arthur refers to his approaching death, Nurse Callan to the impending birth’ (Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 261).
14.169–70: Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘Sir Galahad heard in the leaves cry on high’ (quoted in A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 191; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, p. 92; Notesheet Oxen 2.55).
14.171–72: I marvel, said he, that it be not come or now
Or: before (OED). From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘I merveylle, sayd Arthur, that the knight wold not speke’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 7; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 261; Notesheet Oxen 7.47).
14.172: dureth
To dure: to last, continue in existence (OED). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘that dureth nyghe a 4 myle’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 1; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 261; Notesheet Oxen 7.122).
14.172: ware
Ware: cognizant, informed, conscious (OED).
14.172–73: franklin that hight Lenehan
Franklin: a freeholder (one who owns his own property); from the Middle English frankelein, a free citizen and property owner (OED; Middle English Dictionary). The word is applied
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744 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses allusively to a liberal host after Chaucer’s General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales where the Franklin’s gracious hospitality is noted (ll. 339–40; The Riverside Chaucer, p. 29). Hight: was named (OED). From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘a knight that hight Naram’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 9; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 104; Notesheet Oxen 7.23).
14.173: the tother
The tother: the others (OED, s.v. tother). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘any of the tother’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 5; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 102; Notesheet Oxen 7.142).
14.174: one emprise
Emprise (Middle English): an undertaking or enterprise, especially one of a heroic or chiv alrous nature (Middle English Dictionary). Bloom and Lenehan work for the same employer, the Freeman’s Journal.
14.174: eke
Eke (Middle English): ‘in addition’ or ‘besides’ (OED).
14.175–76: But, said he, or it be long too she will bring forth
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘but, or it be long too, he shall do me homage’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 8; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 103; Notesheet Oxen 7.20).
14.178: Expecting each moment to be her next
Lenehan reprises his quip from 12.1649, ‘Expecting every moment will be his next’.
14.179: that stood tofore him
To’fore: in front of; in the sight of (OED). Combines two excerpts from Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘a knight that stood afore him’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 11; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 105; Notesheet Oxen 7.37). And: ‘tofore the incarnation of our Lord’ (quoted in A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 197; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, pp. 96–97; Notesheet Oxen 2.82).
14.180: said he, fully delectably
From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘sung full delectably’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 4; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 101; Notesheet Oxen 7.140).
14.180–81: quaffed as far as he might
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘he threw the sword as far into the water as he might’ (quoted in Saintsbury, History of English Prose, p. 86; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 95; Notesheet Oxen 7.55).
14.181: to their both’s health
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘to our both’s destruction’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 10; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 104; Notesheet Oxen 7.34).
14.181: a passing good man
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘a passing good man of his body’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 9; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 104; Notesheet Oxen 7.24).
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 745
14.183–84: the kindest that ever laid husbandly hand under hen
After the Lancelot dirge in Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘and thou were the truest lover of a synful man that ever loved woman; and thou were the kyndest man that ever strake with swerde; and thou were the godelyest persone that ever cam emonge prees of knyghtes; and thou was the mekest man and the gentyllest that ever ete in halle emonge ladyes’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 10; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, pp. 261–62). See also 12.845.
14.184–85: very truest knight of the world one
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘the worthiest knight of the world one’ (quoted in A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 192; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, p. 98; Notesheet Oxen 2.92).
14.185: minion service
‘Once no more than darling or dearling (mignon). It is quite a superaddition of later times that the “minion” is an unworthy object, on whom an excessive fondness is bestowed’ (R. C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, p. 178; Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 62). In context, the phrase is similar to yeoman service; see note at 14.686.
14.187: Now let us speak of
From Lord Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart’s Chronicles: ‘Now lette us speke of the knyghtes that were within the citye’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 19; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 262; Notesheet Oxen 3.53–54).
14.187–88: to the intent to be drunken
After Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘to the intent to be made free’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 15; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 106; Notesheet Oxen 3.41–42).
14.189: that is to wit
From Sir Thomas More’s (1478–1535) The History of King Richard III: ‘that is to wit, on the Friday’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 18; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 107; Notesheet Oxen 3.68).
14.189: saint Mary Merciable’s
That is, the Mater Misericordiae Hospital; see note at 6.375–76. Merciable: merciful, com passionate (OED).
14.190: Lynch
Lynch, who appeared in A Portrait, is based on Vincent Cosgrave (1877–1926), a close friend of Joyce’s from their days at Belvedere and University College. Cosgrave spent time in medical school but never completed his studies. He lived in Dublin for some years, and in 1926 was found drowned in the Thames, apparently a suicide (Ellmann, p. 63). In August 1909, while Joyce was back in Dublin, trying unsuccessfully to get Dubliners published, Cosgrave informed Joyce that he and Nora had carried on an affair in 1904 at the same time that she and Joyce were courting. This story made Joyce furious with jealousy and severely eroded his trust in his wife. Ultimately, thanks to the calm intervention of J. F. Byrne (Cranly), Joyce was convinced of Nora’s innocence and Cosgrave’s lie (Ellmann, pp. 279–81); see also notes at 15.4730 and 18.1176.
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746 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.190: Madden
William Madden is based on Thomas J. Madden (1880–1927), a classmate of Joyce’s at University College. He was the first person to use the Irish form of his name on the staff registers at the Holles Street hospital, where he was employed from 1 July to 5 September 1903 (Costello, ‘Ulysses, and the National Maternity Hospital’, pp. 214–15).
14.191: Alba Longa
Alba: the Irish name for Scotland (OED, s.v. Albanian). Alba Longa: an ancient Italian city, the oldest in Latium, 19 km south-east of Rome.
14.191: Crotthers
Based on Robert Crothers (1879–1940), a Scottish-born and educated doctor who worked at the Holles Street hospital from 26 August to 12 September 1903 (Costello, ‘Ulysses, and the National Maternity Hospital’, pp. 214–15). Joyce spelt his name as Crotthers.
14.192: mien of a frere
Mien: bearing (OED). Frere (Middle English): friar (OED, s.v. friar).
14.193: clepen
To clepe: to call (OED). Clepen is the plural form.
14.193: Punch Costello
Based on Francis Xavier Costello (1881–1948), a Dublin doctor and an in-law of Sir Andrew Horne. Costello attended Belvedere College (Costello, ‘Ulysses, and the National Maternity Hospital’, p. 215). In Ireland, the primary stress is on the first syllable rather than on the second: COS-tell-o.
14.193: all long of a mastery of him erewhile gested
To gest: to entertain, to spin out a tale (OED, s.v. guest). Long of: ‘long upon, a variety of “long on” meaning on “account of ” ’ (A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 196; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, p. 97; Notesheet Oxen 2.87).
14.194: reserved young Stephen
Reserved: with the exception of (OED). From Sir Thomas Elyot’s (c.1490–1546) The Gouvernor: ‘reserved the chief justice’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 24; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 108; Notesheet Oxen 3.72–73). Peacock has a note explaining the meaning of reserved.
14.195: demanded still of more mead
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘they demanded ever for the king’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 17; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 107; Notesheet Oxen 3.48).
14.196: he promised to have come
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘I promised in my mind to have gone’ (quoted in Saintsbury, History of English Prose, p. 96; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 96; Notesheet Oxen 3.63).
14.196–97: such as intended to no goodness said how he had broke his avow
Avow: vow (OED). From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘such as intended to no goodness said how he said truth’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 15; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 106; Notesheet Oxen 3.43).
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 747
14.199: becalmed
From Sir Walter Raleigh’s (1552–1618) A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of Azores: ‘becalmed his sails’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 36; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 110; Notesheet Oxen 3.92).
14.199–200: longest wanderings
From R. C. Trench’s (1807–86) On the Study of Words: ‘The etymology of a word exercises an unconscious influence upon its uses, oftentimes makes itself felt when least expected, so that a word, after seeming to have forgotten, will after longest wanderings return to it again’ (p. 274; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, pp. 171, 176).
14.200: they feasted him for that time in the honourablest manner
From Thomas North’s (c.1535–1601) translation of Plutarch’s Lives: ‘So he feasted him for that time, and entertained him in the honourablest manner he could’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 34; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 110; Notesheet Oxen 3.107).
14.201: Ruth red him
That is, pity guided him. Red: a form of the verb to rede, to guide or govern (OED). See note at 14.73 for ruth.
14.202–03: aresouns each gen other
That is, disputations with one another. Aresouns: variant of areason, examination or interroga tion (OED, s.v. areason). Gen: against; from the Middle English word geyn (OED, s.v. gain).
14.204: put such case
From Robert Burton’s (1577–1640) Anatomy of Melancholy: ‘Or put case, they escape’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 91; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 263; Notesheet Oxen 4.163).
14.205: Eblana
Eblana: Dublin; see note at 12.83.
14.206: now was trespassed out of this world
To trepass [sic] this life: to die (OED, s.v. trespass). After Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘as soon as I am trespassed out of this world’ (quoted in Saintsbury, Prose Rhythm, p. 96; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 96; Notesheet Oxen 3.63–64).
14.206–07: the self night next before her death
After More’s (1478–1535) The History of King Richard III: ‘For the self night next before his death, the lord Stanley sent a secret trusty messenger unto him at midnight in all the haste’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 20; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 107; Notesheet Oxen 3.70–71).
14.207: leeches and pothecaries
Leech: a doctor. Pothecary: variant form of apothecary (both OED).
14.207–09: And they said farther . . . wherefore that they . . . imagination
The structure of the sentence comes from Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘These unhappy peoples of these said countries began to stir, because they said they were kept
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748 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses in great servage, and in the beginning of the world, they said, there were no bondsmen, where fore they maintained that none ought to be bond’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 14; Janusko, Sources and Structures, pp. 105–06; Notesheet Oxen 3.38–39). Incorporates Genesis 1:1: ‘In the beginning God created heaven, and earth’ and Genesis 3:16 when God punishes Eve: ‘in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children’. The phrase ‘of this imagination’ also comes from Berners’s translation of Froissart (Peacock, p. 15; Janusko, p. 106; Notesheet Oxen 3.36–37).
14.210: affirmed how young Madden had said truth
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘affirming how John Ball said truth’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 16; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 106; Notesheet Oxen 3.44).
14.210–11: he had conscience to let her die
That is, he did not wish to let her die. Conscience: ‘scruple; compunction’ (OED). After Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘but the bishop had conscience to let him die’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 16; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 106; Notesheet Oxen 3.45).
14.211: were in doubt that
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘the good lady was in great doubt lest’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 17; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 107; Notesheet Oxen 3.49–50).
14.211–12: the world was now right evil governed
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘England was right evil governed’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 16; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 106; Notesheet Oxen 3.45).
14.212: as it was never other
From More’s (1478–1535) The History of King Richard III: ‘as it was never other’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 19; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 107; Notesheet Oxen 3.70).
14.212: howbeit
Howbeit: ‘However it may be; be that as it may; neverthess’ (OED). From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘Howbeit, God kept her’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 17; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 107; Notesheet Oxen 3.46).
14.212–13: mean people
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘many of the mean people’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 15; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 106; Notesheet Oxen 3.40).
14.213–14: but the law nor his judges did provide no remedy
In the United Kingdom, the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 criminalised abor tion. ‘The act was passed at a time when therapeutic abortions were unheard of, due essentially to the unavailability of anaesthesia and frequency of mortal infections. There were no exceptions in the Act, such as treatment made necessary to protect the life or health of the mother’ (David W. Meyers, The Human Body and the Law, pp. 25–26). The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 allowed for the preservation of the mother’s life in some limited circumstances (pp. 26–27). This passage follows after Berners’s translation
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 749 of Froissart: ‘This rebellion was well known in the king’s court, or any of these people began to stir out of their houses; but the king nor his council did provide no remedy’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 18; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 107; Notesheet Oxen 3.51).
14.214: A redress God grant
From Hugh Latimer’s (c.1470–1555) Sermons: ‘A redress God grant’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 67; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 119).
14.214: That was scant said but
Scant: ‘hardly, scarcely; barely’ (OED). From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘Thys was scant done but’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 15; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 263; Notesheet Oxen 3.57).
14.214–15: all cried with one acclaim
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘Then they all cryed with one voyce’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 16; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 263; Notesheet Oxen 3.58).
14.215: wife should live and the babe to die
The Catholic Church has a long-standing opposition to abortion. No official canonical policy prohibiting abortion was made until the nineteenth century, although proscriptive dicta date back to the fourth century and to several papal encyclicals after the prohibitions by the coun cils of Lerida and Brega in the sixth century. The Holy Office issued a series of rulings (in 1869, 1889, 1895, 1898, and 1902) that emphatically and unambiguously prohibit abortion even when the mother’s life was at stake (the one exception is if the foetus were to accidentally die during a surgical intervention to save the mother). ‘The teachings of the Catholic Church admit of no doubt on the subject’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. abortion). See also note at 8.32–33.
14.219: showed all the whole affair
From Elyot’s (c.1490–1546) The Gouvernor: ‘showed to the King all the whole affair’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 25; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 108; Notesheet Oxen 3.76).
14.220: rede of palmer and bedesman
Rede: counsel or advice. Palmer: a pilgrim; ‘esp. one returned from the Holy Land (trad itionally carrying a palm branch or palm leaf as a mark of his or her pilgrimage)’. Bedesman: variant of beadsman, a man of prayer (all OED).
14.221: Saint Ultan of Arbraccan
Saint Ultan of Ardbraccan (d. ad 657): an Irish bishop known for his kindness to poor and orphaned children (Catholic Encyclopedia). Ardbraccan in County Meath (the spelling mistake is Joyce’s), was founded by St Brecan. According to local legend, during a plague- induced famine, ‘Ultan collected all the orphan babes he could find, and brought them to his monastery. He procured a great number of cows’ teats, and filling them with milk, he put them in the children’s mouths with his own hands, and thus contrived to feed the little creatures’ (P. W. Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. 2, p. 527).
14.221–22: would not let her death
Let: hinder or stop (OED); from Middle English letten and Old English lettan (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary).
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750 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.223: Stephen had these words following
From Elyot’s (c.1490–1546) The Gouvernor: ‘had to the prince these words following’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 25; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 108; Notesheet Oxen 3.74).
14.223: Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk
Murmur: ‘The expression of discontent or anger in subdued tones’ (OED). After Geoffrey Chaucer’s (c.1340–1400) ‘Parson’s Tale’ from the Canterbury Tales: ‘Murmure eek is ofte amonges servauntz that grucchen whan hir sovereyns bidden hem doon leveful thynges’ (l. 505, The Riverside Chaucer, p. 304; quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 5; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 263; Notesheet Oxen 7.118).
14.224–25: the one in limbo gloom, the other in purgefire
In other words, the unbaptised child would go to limbo, the place of natural happiness for the unbaptised dead (Catholic Encyclopaedia), while the mother would probably go to purgatory.
14.225: gramercy
Gramercy: contraction of ‘[God] grant us mercy’ (OED). ‘Gramercy, said Sir Launcelot’ (A. T. Martin, Selections from Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, p. 132; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, p. 99; Notesheet Oxen 2.99).
14.225–26: Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise
That is, the possible children never even conceived due to the use of contraceptives. See also note at 2.50–51.
14.226: sin against the Holy Ghost
In the nineteenth century, artificial contraception was widely considered to be ‘a sin against the Holy Ghost’ (Barbara Brookes, Abortion in England, p. 4). Brewer’s notes that the sin against the Holy Ghost ‘has been interpreted as the wilful denouncing as evil that which is manifestly good, thus revealing a state of heart beyond the divine influence’.
14.230: and the best word he could have of him
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘and so they brought him to the princes presence, who beheld him right fersly and felly, and the beste worde that he could have of him was, how he woulde have his heed striken of ’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 19; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 263; Notesheet Oxen 3.59).
14.230–31: he would ever dishonest a woman
To dishonest: ‘To violate the honour or chastity of; to defile’ (OED). After St John Fisher’s (1469–1535) Commentary on the Seven Penitential Psalms: ‘A wariness of herself she had alway to eschew every thing that might dishonest any noble woman’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 99; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 96; Notesheet Oxen 3.65).
14.231: wife or maid or leman
See note at 2.393 for leman. For ‘Oxen’, Joyce derived the word from Raphael Holinshed’s (1529–80) History of Scotland: ‘his leman’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 29; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 108; Notesheet Oxen 3.119).
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 751
14.232: it so fortuned him
From John Florio’s (1553–1625) translation of Montaigne’s Essays: ‘it so fortuned’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 52; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 111; Notesheet Oxen 3.100).
14.232: delivered of his spleen of lustihead
Spleen: impulse or sudden passion. Lustihead: lustfulness or libidinousness (both OED). From Raphael Holinshed’s (1529–80) History of Scotland: ‘delivered of his languor’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 30; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 108; Notesheet Oxen 3.124).
14.233–34: the unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn
From Gogarty’s ‘Medical Students’ Song’: ‘The Unicorn, it appears, / Can only get a horn in a thousand years; / But when he does, he makes up for arrears—/ So here’s to Copulation’ (Poems & Plays, ll. 9–12, p. 825).
14.234: the other
The other, in older English usage, could be a plural, meaning the others, the rest, the remaining ones (OED).
14.235: pricked forward with their jibes
From Thomas North’s (c.1535–1601) translation of Plutarch’s Lives: ‘pricked forward with desire’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 33; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 109; Notesheet Oxen 3.115).
14.235: malice him
To malice: to malign (OED). From Thomas North’s (c.1535–1601) translation of Plutarch’s Lives: ‘Tullus did more malice and envy him’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 32; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 109; Notesheet Oxen 3.116).
14.236: saint Foutinus
St Foutin: a corruption of the name St Pothinus (ad 87–177), the first bishop of Lyons, which combines the saint’s name with the profanity foutre (French, to fuck). Throughout southern France, Pothinus was popularly known by this name. Saint Foutin of Varages was venerated in Provence as a kind of priapic fertility god, with rituals that incorporated pagan elements (Jacques-Antoine Dulaure, Histoire abrégée de différens cultes, vol. 2, pp. 267–69). He is mentioned in The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel (1534) by François Rabelais (c.1494–c.1553) (Elizabeth A. Chesney, The Rabelais Encyclopedia, p. 218).
14.236: engines
Engine: the penis (OED).
14.236–37: able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to do
After Raphael Holinshed’s (1529–80) History of Scotland: ‘It was said that the king [. . .] was delivered of his langour, and slept that night without any sweat breaking forth on him at all, and the next day, being restored to his strength, was able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to do’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 30; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 108; Notesheet Oxen 3.124).
14.238: jocundly
Jocundly: cheerfully (OED). From Thomas North’s (c.1535–1601) translation of Plutarch’s Lives: ‘went home so jocundly’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 30; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 109; Notesheet Oxen 3.127).
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752 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.238: never durst laugh
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘she never durst tarry’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 17; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 107; Notesheet Oxen 3.47).
14.239: bewray
To bewray: to disclose or reveal (OED). From Thomas North’s (c.1535–1601) translation of Plutarch’s Lives: ‘I must of necessity bewray myself ’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 33; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 109; Notesheet Oxen 3.117).
14.241: orgulous
Orgulous: proud or haughty (OED). From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘they reputed him right orgulous’ (quoted in Saintsbury, History of English Prose, p. 94 n.; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 96; Notesheet Oxen 3.56).
14.242: law of canons
Law of canons: canon law or ecclesiastical law, as established by papal decrees and the stat utes of councils (OED).
14.242–43: Lilith, patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by . . . brightness
Lilith: Hebrew, ‘night-hag’; a female demon in Jewish folklore, believed to have been Adam’s first wife. ‘She tries to kill all new-born children’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia). Within certain Jewish legends, this Lilith has been conflated with a separate Babylonian wind spirit also named Lilith (Louis Ginzburg, Legends of the Jews, vol. 5, pp. 87–88). For ‘wind of seeds of brightness’, see note at 3.266–67.
14.243–44: potency of vampires mouth to mouth
From the poem Stephen composed in ‘Proteus’; see note at 3.397–98.
14.244: as Virgilius saith, by the influence of the occident See note at 3.266–67.
14.244–45: by the reek of moonflower
Moonflower: either the oxeye daisy (Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum) or the night bloom ing tropical plant Ipomea Bonanox (OED). A recurrent element in folk tales is that a woman resorts to magical remedies in order to conceive, such as eating a special food or even a flower (Anne Duggan, Donald Haase, and Helen Callow, Folktales and Fairy Tales, p. 667).
14.245–46: she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, effectu secuto Effectu secuto: Latin, ‘the accomplishment having followed’.
14.246–47: opinions of Averroes and Moses Maimonides
In his medical treatise Colliget, Averroës (see note at 2.158) relates a case history of a woman impregnated in a bath with the semen of a man who was bathing in the same water (vol. 2, ch. 10). ‘From the famous Colliget, the legend found its way into the writings of physicians from the Occident who devoted several chapters thereto’ (Julius Preuss, Biblical and Talmudic Medicine, p. 464). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘chap frigs in bath: she conceives’ (Notesheet Oxen 4.74). Maimonides (see note at 2.158) does not discuss a case like this.
14.247–48: how at the end of the second month a human soul was infused
According to Aristotle, in Generation of Animals, the human soul is present in potential at conception and only comes into being as the foetus develops (736b5–20). Later readers of
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 753 Aristotle interpreted him to mean that for a male the soul comes into being after forty days of development and for a female after eighty. ‘[Though] the opinion of Aristotle, or similar specu lations, regarding the time when the rational soul is infused into the embryo, were practically accepted for many centuries still it was always held by the Church that he who destroyed what was to be a man was guilty of destroying a human life’ (Catholic Encyclopaedia, s.v. abortion).
14.248: our holy mother
That is, the Roman Catholic Church, as represented by the Virgin Mary.
14.249–50: mother which was but a dam . . . by canon
Dam: ‘Mother (human): usually in contempt’ (OED). See notes at 8.32–33 and 14.215. From Sir Philip Sidney’s (1554–86) The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia: ‘while the prettie lambes, with bleating oratorie, craved the dames comfort’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 58; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 264; Notesheet Oxen 3.78). Beastly is used in the sense of naturally (R. C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, p. 26; Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 60).
14.250–51: he that holdeth the fisherman’s seal
That is, the Pope. The ‘fisherman’s seal’ is the ring worn by the pope, which portrays ‘the device of St. Peter fishing from a boat’ (Brewer’s). Peter—the first Pope—had been a fisher man and Jesus said to him and his brother, ‘Come ye after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men’ (Matthew 4:19).
14.251–52: even that blessed Peter on which rock . . . all ages founded
The name Peter comes from the Greek word petros, which means rock (Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon). This translates the Aramaic nickname Capha, which also means rock (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary); see note at 6.597.
14.252: All they bachelors
They can, as here, mean the. The original meaning of bachelor is ‘A young knight, not old enough, or having too few vassals, to display his own banner, and who therefore followed the banner of another; a novice in arms’ (both OED).
14.253: so jeopard her person
To jeopard: ‘to place in danger or jeopardy’ (OED). After Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘they marveilled that he would jeoparde his persone so alone’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 7; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 264; Notesheet Oxen 7.50).
14.255: as his wont was
From Aelfric’s (c.955–c.1010) Life of St Cuthbert: ‘Then did Cuthbert as his wont was’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 33; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 94; Notesheet Oxen 13.17).
14.255: as it was informed him
From Berners’s (c.1467–1532) translation of Froissart: ‘as it was enfourmend me’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 19; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 264; Notesheet Oxen 3.55).
14.257: seldomseen an accident
From John Florio’s (1553–1625) translation of Montaigne’s Essays: ‘seldom-seen an accident’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 53; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 111; Notesheet Oxen 3.103).
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754 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.258: That is truth
From Malory’s (c.1415–71) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘That is truth, said king Arthur’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 13; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 105; Notesheet Oxen 7.40).
14.258–59: deliverly he scaped their questions
Deliverly: nimbly or cleverly (OED). From Richard Hakluyt’s (1553–1616) The Second Voyage of Frobisher: ‘they deliverly escaped’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 46; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 111; Notesheet Oxen 3.97).
14.260: Which hearing young Stephen was a marvellous glad man
From Thomas North’s (c.1535–1601) translation of Plutarch’s Lives: ‘hearing what he said, was a marvellous glad man’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 34; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 110; Notesheet Oxen 3.110).
14.261: he who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord See note at 1.727.
14.262–63: that he was now in that taking it appeared eftsoons
Eftsoons: ‘soon after’ (OED). After Thomas North’s (c.1535–1601) translation of Plutarch’s Lives: ‘Now that Martius was even in the taking, it appeared true soon’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 31; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 109; Notesheet Oxen 3.112–13). North’s text has ‘true soon’; Joyce initially wrote this as ‘right soon’ on the notesheet, but crossed this out and emended to ‘eftsoon’.
14.264: passing grave maugre his word
Passing: ‘very’. Grave: ‘Serious, not mirthful or jocular’. Maugre: ‘in spite of ’ (all OED). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘maugre his head’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 65).
14.267: on live
On live: a variant form of alive (OED).
14.268: so dark is destiny
From Sir Henry Wotton’s (1568–1639) Reliquiæ Wottonianæ: ‘and as for any single man’s assault, he took himself to be in no danger. So dark is Destiny’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 78; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 264; Notesheet Oxen 4.153).
14.269: evil hap
From Thomas North’s (c.1535–1601) translation of Plutarch’s Lives: ‘temper his evil hap’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 31; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 109; Notesheet Oxen 3.127).
14.269: corselet
Corselet: a garment which covers the trunk of the body, but not the arms and legs (OED).
14.270: akeled
To akele: to cool or make cool (OED, s.v. akele).
14.271: about the midst of the winter
From Raphael Holinshed’s (1529–80) History of Scotland: ‘about the midst of the night’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 29; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 108; Notesheet Oxen 3.120).
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14.273: shut up in sorrow
From Sir Philip Sidney’s (1554–86) The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia: ‘which speeches, though they had not a lively entrance to his senses, shut up in sorrow, yet, like one halfe asleep, he tooke hold of much of the matters spoken unto him’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 57; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 264; Notesheet Oxen 3.78).
14.273: forepassed happiness
Forepassed: previously passed (OED). From Sir Walter Raleigh’s (1552–1618) History of the World: ‘It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man know him selfe [. . .] yea, even to hate their forepassed happinesse’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 44; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 264; Notesheet Oxen 3.81–82).
14.274: a son of such gentle courage
Gentle: noble (OED). From Elyot’s (c.1490–1546) The Gouvernor: ‘And their first letters to be painted or lymned in pleasaunte manner: wherein children of gentle courage have muche delectation’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 25; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 265).
14.274: accounted him
From Sir Fulke Greville’s (1554–1628) Life of Philip Sidney: ‘The Universities abroad, and at home, accompted him a general Maecenas of Learning’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 53; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 265; Notesheet Oxen 3.87).
14.274: of real parts
Of real parts: of genuine ability or capacity (OED, s.v. parts). From Greville’s (1554–1628) Life of Philip Sidney: ‘whosoever had any reall parts’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 53; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 265; Notesheet Oxen 3.87).
14.276: murdered his goods with whores
From John Wyclif ’s (c.1328–84) Sermons: ‘This thy son hath murthered his goods with hoo ris’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 62; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 95; also in Peacock, English Prose, p. 7; Janusko, p. 103; Notesheet Oxen 7.114). In Jesus’s parable of the Prodigal Son, the son’s brother complains to the father that he has ‘devoured his substance with harlots’ (Luke 15:30).
14.277–333: Elizabethan ‘chronicle style’ 14.277: Stephen filled all cups that stood empty
This suggests that Stephen has paid for all the drinks here, just as he has been doing all day (see also note at 14.286–87). In an early draft for ‘Oxen’, Joyce sketched out various possi bilities for the seating arrangement at the table; in all of them, Stephen sits at the head of the table. In the final plan, starting at the bottom and moving clockwise: SD, Bloom, Madden, Costello, Crotthers, (the opposite end from Stephen is vacant), Lynch, Bannon, Dixon, Gogarty (Joyce uses the name Gogarty in this diagram, not Mulligan), Lenehan (NLI II.ii.5.a f. 6v). According to a nurse who worked at the hospital slightly after 1904, the common room had a table capable of seating fifteen people (Costello, ‘Ulysses, and the National Maternity Hospital’, p. 211).
14.278: there remained but little mo See note at 9.539.
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756 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.279: still plied it very busily
From Raphael Holinshed’s (1529–80) History of Scotland: ‘still basted the image with a cer tain liquor very busily’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 29; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 108; Notesheet Oxen 3.121).
14.280–81: vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray
Vicar of Christ: one of the Pope’s titles, as Christ’s earthly representative (Brewer’s). ‘The Vicar of Bray’: a seventeenth-century song about an unscrupulous vicar who swears alle giance to whichever Church or king happens to be in power (Bauerle, pp. 485–86); appar ently based on Simon Aleyn (or Allen) (c.1540–88), Vicar of Bray (not the Bray south of Dublin, but an English village in Berkshire), alleged to have been ‘twice a papist and twice a Protestant’ (OED, s.v. vicar).
14.281–82: Now drink we, quod he, of this mazer
Quod: Middle English form of quoth, said (OED, s.v. quoth). Mazer: a wooden cup or bowl (OED). Parodies the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, which inform the Eucharist: ‘Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body. And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins’ (Matthew 26:26–28).
14.282: parcel of my body
From Richard Hakluyt’s (c.1553–1616) Voyages: ‘Within the ship that was drowned there was parcel of our house that was to be erected for them’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 49; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 265; Notesheet Oxen 3.83).
14.283–84: Leave ye fraction of bread to them that live by bread alone
Fraction of bread: the breaking of the Eucharist during Holy Communion (OED, s.v. frac tion). After Matthew 4:4 in the King James: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’
14.286: coins of the tribute
That is, Stephen’s payment from Mr Deasy; see also note at 2.86.
14.286: goldsmiths’ notes
Goldsmiths’ notes: paper money since ‘Down to the 18th c. these tradesmen acted as bank ers’ (OED, s.v. goldsmith).
14.286–87: two pound nineteen shilling . . . for a song which he writ
Stephen, it seems, told the same story earlier to Lenehan—that he had made his money from selling a poem (see note at 11.265). Stephen was paid his monthly wages of £3 12s. by Mr Deasy in ‘Nestor’ (2.222), but he also began the day with an unspecified amount of money since he was able to pay Mulligan two pennies for a pint of milk in ‘Telemachus’ (1.724). In ‘Scylla’, he estimated that he spent ‘a few shillings’ (9.535) in the pubs following the gathering in ‘Aeolus’. His other confirmed expenses are: a train from Dalkey (see note at 6.43) which cost 4d. and the telegram to Mulligan, which would cost 1s. If Stephen is now left with £2 19s., then he has apparently already spent at least 13 shillings, most of which would thus seem to be on drink for himself and others (Harald Beck and Clive Hart, ‘Stephen’s Budget’, p. 3). For the itinerary of Stephen’s pub crawl, see the note at 11.263–64 and both notes at 15.2519.
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14.289: were then these as followeth
From Raleigh’s (1552–1618) A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of Azores: ‘were these as followeth’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 35; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 110; Notesheet Oxen 3.105).
14.289: Know all men
From Thomas de Quincey’s (1785–1859) Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822): ‘Know all men by these presents, that I [. . .] am a licensed opium-eater’ (p. 6; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 15.02).
14.289–90: time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions See note at 2.9.
14.291–92: rose upon the rood of time
‘To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time’: the title of the first poem in Yeats’s collection The Rose (1893).
14.292–94: In woman’s womb word is made flesh but . . . pass away
After John 1:14: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’. And Matthew 24:35 in the King James: ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away’ (repeated at Mark 13:31 and Luke 21:33). See also note at 3.48.
14.294: Omnis caro ad te veniet See note at 3.396–97.
14.294–95: No question but her name
From Owen Feltham’s (c.1602–1677) A Brief Character of the Low Countries: ‘No question but a true emblem’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 76; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 114; Notesheet Oxen 4.109).
14.295–96: aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer, Healer and Herd
That is, put the body of our redeemer, healer and shepherd, within her womb. Aventry: after enventrer: French, ‘to put within the womb’. Corse: a living body or a corpse. For Agenbuyer, see note at 9.494. Herd: keeper of a flock (all OED). From Malory’s (c.1415–1471) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘they aventryd their spears’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 9; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 104; Notesheet Oxen 7.28).
14.296: our mighty mother See note at 1.85.
14.296: mother most venerable
‘Virgin most venerable’: one of the Virgin Mary’s epithets from the Litany of Our Lady of Loreto; see note at 13.287–89.
14.297: Bernardus saith aptly that she hath an omnipotentiam deiparae supplicem
Omnipotentiam deiparae supplicem (Latin): ‘omnipotent intercession of the Mother of God’. Here Joyce refers to the theological concept of the ‘omnipotence of intercession’ (omnipotentia supplex) of Mary after her Assumption. Although this concept is tradition ally ascribed to Bernard of Clairvaux, the precise formulation is not found in his works (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
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758 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.298–99: she is the second Eve and she won us, saith Augustine . . . our grandam
Grandam: female ancestor (OED). The idea of Mary as a second—and more holy—Eve is common to many Church fathers such as Augustine (354–430). The specific text Stephen seems to be referring to is not by Augustine but, rather, by Pseudo-Augustine (although it was attributed to Augustine through the nineteenth century). He claims that, through grace, Mary becomes the mother of the living: ‘Mary is filled by grace and Eve is emptied of guilt. The curse of Eve is transformed into the blessing of Mary. [. . .] Eve is the authoress of sin. Mary the authoress of merit’ (quoted in David L. Jeffrey, A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, p. 252). Grandam: from Charles Lamb’s (1775–1834) Essays of Elia: ‘a traditionary great-uncle or grandame’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 279; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 124; Notesheet Oxen 13.02).
14.300: successive anastomosis of navelcords
Anastomosis: ‘Intercommunication between two vessels, channels, or distinct branches of any kind, by a connecting cross branch’ (OED); this recalls an image Stephen thought of in ‘Proteus’; see note at 3.37.
14.301: seed, bread and generation for a penny pippin
Seed, bread, and generation: proverbial in Ireland for everyone (PWJ, p. 133). Pippin: ‘any of numerous fine-flavoured varieties of dessert apple’ (OED).
14.302: was but creature of her creature
Creature: both ‘creator’ and ‘that which is created’ (OED). Mary (as child of God) was the creation of her creator, but the use of ‘creature’ in two senses implies that she also (as mother of Christ) could almost be called the creator of her creation.
14.303: vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio
Vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio (Italian): ‘Virgin mother, daughter of thy son’; from Dante’s Paradiso (XXXIII.1), spoken by St Bernard in his prayer to Mary on behalf of Dante. The contradictions—virgin and mother, daughter and mother—all show ‘the inconceivable miracle of the Word made flesh, the incarnation of Deity’ (Charles S. Singleton, The Divine Comedy: Paradiso: Commentary, p. 560).
14.304: Peter Piscator
Piscator (Latin): fisherman; thus the apostle Peter, who was a fisherman before joining Christ. Peter three times denied knowing Christ (Matthew 26:69–75).
14.304–05: in the house that Jack built
The house that Jack built: a prison (Partridge); and the title of a nursery rhyme (Brewer’s).
14.305–06: Joseph the Joiner patron of . . . unhappy marriages
See note at 1.586 for Joseph the Joiner. The reference is to Joseph’s suspicions about being cuckolded by Mary. Demise: a ‘devolution of sovereignty’ (OED); since Joseph in effect abdicated to God the sovereignty over Mary he should have acquired with marriage. Matthew 1:18–21 tells of this demise: ‘behold the angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost’ (Matthew 1:20).
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14.306–07: parce que M. Léo Taxil nous a dit qui l’avait mise . . . ventre de Dieu
Parce que M. Léo Taxil nous a dit qui l’avait mise . . . ventre de Dieu (French): ‘because Mr Léo Taxil has told us that the one who put her in this wretched position was the damned pigeon, bowels of God!’; see notes at 3.161–62 and 3.167.
14.307–08: Entweder transsubstantiality oder consubstantiality . . . subsubstantiality
Entweder (German): either. Oder (German): or. Transsubstantiality, after transubstanti ation, the doctrine which states that the bread and wine of the Eucharist become the body and blood of Christ while still maintaining the appearance of bread and wine (OED). See note at 1.658 for consubstantiality. Subsubstantiality is a jocular nonce word for what Christ most definitely is not.
14.309–10: A pregnancy without joy, he said, a birth without pangs
A reference to the Virgin Birth of Christ, which states that Mary’s pregnancy was untainted by the lust usually associated with sexual relations (Catholic Encyclopedia). See also note at 14.298–99.
14.310–11: body without blemish, a belly without bigness
In Luke, Mary is described as being ‘great with child’ (Luke 2:5). See also note at 3.41–42. From Greville’s (1554–1628) Life of Philip Sidney: ‘Or what Herald blaze their Arms without a blemish’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 55; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 265; Notesheet Oxen 3.80).
14.312: withstand, withsay
To withstand: to oppose. To withsay: to deny, contradict, renounce (both OED).
14.313: dinged
From John Milton’s (1608–74) ‘Areopagitica’: ‘every acute reader [. . .] will be ready with these like words to ding the book a quoit’s distance from him’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 175; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 119; Notesheet Oxen 11.88). Murison glosses ding: ‘strike, push, fling, dash, hurl’ (p. 180 n.).
14.314: Staboo Stabella
From Gogarty’s lewd poem ‘Staboo, Stabella’: ‘Landlord, landlord, have you good wine? / Staboo, staboo! / Landlord, landlord, have you good wine? / Staboo! / Landlord, landlord, have you good wine / To suit a soldier from the Rhine’ (ll. 1–6; The Poems & Plays of Oliver St. John Gogarty, pp. 828–30). The poem then relates how this soldier from the Rhine impregnates the innkeeper’s daughter.
14.314–15: in pod
In pod: pregnant (Partridge).
14.315: Almany
Almany: after the French word for Germany, Allemagne (OED, s.v. Almanie).
14.317: The first three months she was not well, Staboo
This line does not appear in the version of ‘Staboo, Stabella’ that is printed in The Poems & Plays of Oliver St. John Gogarty.
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760 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.318: nurse Quigley
There is no record of a Nurse Quigley at the Holles Street hospital. According to the 1901 census, there was a nurse named Mary Quigley (b. c.1878) at the Royal City of Dublin Hospital on Upper Baggot Street, which is not far from Holles Street.
14.318: angerly
Angerly: angrily (OED). From Shakespeare’s King John: ‘Nor look upon the iron angerly’ (VI.i.93; quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 135; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 119; Notesheet Oxen 11.84).
14.318: hist
Hist: an interjection used to command attention and to urge silence (OED).
14.319: nor was it not meet
From Shakespeare’s Henry V: ‘No; nor is it not meet he should’ (IV.i.154; quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 66; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 265; Notesheet Oxen 4.129).
14.319: as she remembered them
From John Donne’s (1573–1631) Sermons: ‘never remember him that such a soule there is’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 85; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 265; Notesheet Oxen 4.159).
14.319–20: being her mind was to have all orderly
From Sir Thomas Overbury’s (1581–1613) Characters: ‘being her mind is to do well’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 68; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 113; Notesheet Oxen 4.104).
14.320: against lord Andrew came
Against: ‘in anticipation of ’ (OED). Lord Andrew: Sir Andrew Horne (see note at 8.282). From Robert Burton’s (1576–1640) Anatomy of Melancholy: ‘against her sweetheart comes’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 67; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 112; Notesheet Oxen 4.102).
14.320: jealous
Jealous: ‘suspiciously careful or watchful’ (OED). From Greville’s (1554–1628) Life of Sir Philip Sidney: ‘nor gave that sound party occasion to be jealous’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 54; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 266; Notesheet Oxen 3.87).
14.321: gasteful
Gasteful: dreadful (OED, s.v. ghastful).
14.321: shorten the honour of her guard
From Raleigh’s (1552–1618) A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of Azores: ‘shorten the honour of their nation’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 39; Janusko, Sources and Structures, pp. 110–11; Notesheet Oxen 3.94).
14.321–22: an ancient and a sad matron
Sad is used in the sense of earnest, serious (R. C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, p. 243; Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 62). From Elyot’s (c.1490–1546) The Boke Named the Governour: ‘After that a childe is come to seuen yeres of age, I holde it expedient that he be taken from the company of women: sauynge that he may haue, one yere, or two
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14.322: of a sedate look and christian walking
From John Milton’s (1608–74) ‘Areopagitica’: ‘stagger them out of their catechism and Christian walking’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 178; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 119; Notesheet Oxen 11.31).
14.323: dun
Dun: dark-coloured (OED).
14.323: megrims
Megrims: ‘low spirits’ (OED). From a note in Murison’s Selections from the Best English Authors: ‘ “planet-struck” was one of the headings of the bills of mortality, along with “apoplexy and meagrim” ’ (p. 155 n.; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, pp. 119–20; Notesheet Oxen 11.86).
14.323–24: nor did her hortative want of it effect
That is, nor did her appeal lack of its effect. Hortative: ‘an address intended to exhort or encourage’. It: its. In some regional English dialects, it can function as a possessive adjec tive, that is, as equivalent to its; for example, ‘It had it head bit off ’ (King Lear, I.iv.211) (both OED). From Sir Francis Bacon’s (1561–1626) Essays: ‘For Souldiers, I find the Generals com monly, in their Hortatives, put Men in the minde of their Wives and Children’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, 61; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 265; Notesheet Oxen 4.122).
14.324: incontinently
From Edmund Spenser’s (c.1552–99) The Faerie Queene: ‘Upon the place they come incon tinent’ (VI.viii.5; quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 101; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 11.68). In a note, Murison glosses incontinent: ‘immediately, forthwith’ (p. 103 n.).
14.324: embraided
Embraided: reproached or upbraided (OED). From Elyot’s (c.1490–1546) The Boke Named the Governour: ‘when he was of his enimies embrayded, and called a schoole master, he aunswered them’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 26; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 266; Notesheet Oxen 3.83).
14.325: reclaimed
To reclaim: to speak out or protest against (OED).
14.325–26: civil rudeness . . . menace of blandishments
‘Civil rudeness’ and ‘menace of blandishments’ are both oxymoronic. The word ‘blandish ments’ comes from John Florio’s (1553–1625) translation of Montaigne’s Essays (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 53; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 111; Notesheet Oxen 3.100).
14.326: chode
Chode: the past tense of to chide, to express disapproval, to reprove (OED).
14.326: murrain
Murrain: pestilence or plague in general and also a disease in cattle (OED).
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762 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.327: what a devil
From Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV: ‘What, Hal? How now, mad Wag! what a Devill dost thou in Warwickshire?’ (IV.ii.45–46; quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 72; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 266; Notesheet Oxen 4.139).
14.327–29: thou chuff . . . thou abortion thou
Chuff: ‘a rude coarse churlish fellow’ (OED). ‘Thou got in the peasestraw’ implies a lowly birth; pease: ‘a type of something of very small value or importance’ (OED). Losel: a worth less person (OED). Chitterling: diminutive of ‘chit’, a contemptuous term that refers to one ‘no better than a child’ (OED, s.vv. chitterling; chit). Dykedropt: someone born in a dyke. This string of insults recalls the exchanges between Falstaff and Prince Hal throughout 1 Henry IV; for example: ‘thou claybrained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow- catch’ (II.iv.236–37). The word puny comes from Milton’s ‘Areopagitica’: ‘appear in print like a puny’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 175; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 11.31). Murison glosses puny: ‘minor, infant, youngster’ (p. 180 n.).
14.329: out of that See note at 3.353.
14.330: sir Leopold that had for his cognisance
From More’s (1478–1535) The History of King Richard III: ‘the Protector gave the boar for his cognizance’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 21; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 107; Notesheet Oxen 3.72).
14.331: margerain gentle
Marjoram gentle (margerain is a variant spelling): sweet marjoram, an aromatic herb (OED, s.v. marjoram). Marjoram has been used for a variety of medicinal purposes and was a general tonic right up to the nineteenth century (D. C. Watts, Elsevier’s Dictionary of Plant Lore, p. 243). This phrase appears in John Skelton’s (c.1463–1529) ‘To Mastres Margery Wentworthe’: ‘With margerain jentyll, / The flowre of goodlyhede, / Embrowdred in the mantill / Is of your maydenhede’ (ll. 1–4, Complete English Poems, p. 337). Wentworth was part of the sewing group embroidering a laurel garland to celebrate one of Skelton’s laureateships (p. 506).
14.334–366: Milton, Taylor, Hooker 14.334–35: Mary in Eccles
That is, the Mater Misericordiae (Mother of Mercy) Hospital in Eccles Street; see note at 6.375–76.
14.335: goodly grinning
From Spenser’s (c.1552–99) The Faerie Queene: ‘And gently grinning, shew a semblance glad’ (I.xi.7; quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 101; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 11.71). Joyce originally wrote ‘gently grinning’ (Rosenbach f. 15) and changed this to ‘goodly grinning’ on a now-missing typescript (UCSE, p. 844).
14.335: what was the reason why
From Joseph Addison’s (1672–1719) ‘The Vision of Mirzah’: ‘ “What is the reason”, said I’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 163; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 117; Notesheet Oxen 15.134).
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14.336: cided
In a footnote, Murison explains that Elizabethan authors frequently elided the first syllable in many words: ‘ “cause” for “because”, “cide” for “decide” ’ (Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 179 n.; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 11.32).
14.336: friar’s vows
After the three vows espoused by monks and friars: obedience to the Church, chastity, and voluntary poverty (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. religious life).
14.337–38: Master Lenehan at this made return
From Joseph Glanvill’s (1636–80) Reflections on Drollery and Atheism: ‘Thus, Sir, to the objections of others, which you have gathered, and to your own queries I make this return’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 204; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 266; Notesheet Oxen 8.17).
14.339: he heard hereof counted
To count: to recount (OED). From Sir John Mandeville (14th c.): ‘I have heard counted’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 2; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 101; Notesheet Oxen 7.108).
14.340: confiding female
Confiding: trusting (OED, s.v. confide).
14.340–41: they all intershowed it too
To enter-show: ‘to show to one another’ (OED). Joyce’s spelling is not attested. From John Florio’s (c.1553–1625) translation of Montaigne’s Essays: ‘each endeavoured to enter-shew one another’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 53; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 111; Notesheet Oxen 3.101).
14.342: clean contrary
From Richard Hooker’s (1554–1600) Ecclesiastical Polity: ‘whether it resemble unto us the same state wherein our minds already are, or a clean contrary’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 109; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 11.73).
14.342: suppose
Suppose: supposition; belief, notion, opinion (OED).
14.343: mirth grew in them
From Addison’s (1672–1719) ‘The Vision of Mirzah’: ‘Gladness grew in me’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 165; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 15.136).
14.343–44: his curious rite of wedlock . . . deflowering of spouses
The ius primae noctis (right of the first night) was an old custom in certain societies that involved a priest initiating the bride in sexuality immediately before her wedding (Edward Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, vol. 1, p. 166). Among the Sakalava of Madagascar, it was common for girls to be deflowered before marriage (vol. 1, p. 181). The ius primae noctis is also known as the droit du seigneur. On a notesheet, Joyce wrote ‘Priests deflower virgins, Madagascar’ (Notesheet Oxen 4.82).
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764 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.346: nard
Nard: an aromatic balsam or ointment used in religious ceremonies (OED).
14.347: kyries
See note at 7.559.
14.347–48: Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium
Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium (Latin): ‘So that the mystery of the sex of every body may be renewed’. The phrase ‘corporis mysterium’ comes from the ‘Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium’, a famous hymn written by Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi: ‘Pange, lingua, gloriosi corporis mysterium’ (Tell, tongue, the glorious body’s mystery) (Catholic Encyclopedia).
14.348–49: much admirable
From John Lyly’s (1553–1606) Euphues: ‘All things being much admirable’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 78; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 122; Notesheet Oxen 11.21).
14.349: hymen minim
That is, a marriage song. Hymen: the Greek god of marriage, used as a term for marriage itself. Minim: a musical note of the least measure, thus, in this case, a small or light poem (both OED). From Spenser’s (c.1552–99) The Faerie Queene: ‘To make one minim of thy poor handmaid’ (VI.xxviii.6; quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 107; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 122; Notesheet Oxen 11.17). Murison glosses minim as a ‘very little song’ (p. 107 n.).
14.349–50: Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont . . . Maid’s Tragedy
Francis Beaumont (c.1584–1616) and John Fletcher (1579–1625): two of the most famous playwrights of the Jacobean stage. They wrote many plays together, including The Maid’s Tragedy (c.1610), the plot of which involves a king marrying off his lover to another in order to conceal their affair.
14.351: To bed, to bed
From a song in Act I, scene 2 of Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Maid’s Tragedy: ‘To bed, to bed, come Hymen, lead the Bride, / And lay her by her husband’s side: / Bring in the virgins every one / That grieve to lie alone; / That they may kiss, while they may say, a maid, / To morrow t’will be other kiss’d and said: / Hesperus be long a shining, / Whilst these lovers are a twining’ (p. 28).
14.351: burden
Burden: the refrain or chorus of a song (OED).
14.352: accompanable concent
Accompanable: sociable, companionable (OED). Murison glosses concent as ‘harmony, blending of sounds’ (p. 79 n.). The word accompanable comes from Sir Philip Sidney’s (1554–86) The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia: ‘accompanable solitarinesse’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 58; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 267; Notesheet Oxen 3.81). Also alludes to the Beaumont and Fletcher song (see note at 14.351). The word concent comes from John Lyly’s (1553–1606) Euphues: ‘they follow not the sound so much as the concent’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 77; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 122; Notesheet Oxen 11.23).
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14.352: virginals
Virginal: a musical instrument resembling a spinet, common in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but also ‘of or pertaining to a virgin or virgins’ (both OED). The word comes from Pepys’s (1633–1703) Diary: ‘there was a pair of Virginalls in it’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 127; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 115; Notesheet Oxen 2.35).
14.352: epithalame
Epithalame: Anglicisation of epithalamium, a nuptial song or poem honouring the bride and groom (OED).
14.353: mollificative
Mollificative: that makes soft or supple (OED).
14.353: suadency
Suadency: persuasiveness; from the Middle French suasion and the Latin suasionem, to persuade; presumably of Joycean coinage.
14.353–54: odoriferous flambeaus of the paranymphs
Odoriferous flambeaus: fragrant candles or torches. Paranymph: either the best man or bridesmaid, from the Greek meaning ‘alongside the bride’ (OED).
14.354: quadrupedal proscenium
That is, the ‘fourfooted stage’, or the marriage bed, on which some of the action in Fletcher and Beaumont’s play takes place.
14.356: Beau Mount and Letcher
Puns on the names Beaumont and Fletcher, the first after the Latin name for the female pudendum, the Mons Veneris (Mount of Venus).
15.357: by my troth
From Shakespeare’s King Henry V: ‘By my troth, I will speake my conscience of the King’ (IV.i.112; quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 67; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 267; Notesheet Oxen 4.130).
14.358: they had but the one doxy between them
See note at 9.253 for doxy. According to an account in John Aubrey’s Brief Lives (see note at 9.131), Beaumont and Fletcher ‘lived together on the Banke side, not far from the Playhouse, both bachelors; lay together; had one Wench in the house between them’ (vol. 1, p. 96). Fletcher was, however, married. Aubrey’s line derives from a line in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair (1614): ‘I say between you, you haue both but one Drabbe [whore]’ (V.iv.248; Works, vol. 6, p. 129).
14.359: stews
Stew: a brothel (OED).
14.359: to make shift with
To make shift: ‘To do one’s best with (inferior means), to be content with, put up with’ (OED, s.v. shift). From Sir Henry Wotton’s (1568–1639) Reliquiæ Wottonianæ: ‘This done, he made shift, partly, as it is said, on Horseback, and partly on foot’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 77; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 267; Notesheet
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766 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Oxen 4.151). Wotton uses the expression in a different sense, ‘To attain one’s end by contriv ance or effort’ (OED, s.v. shift).
14.359: delights amorous
From Sir Thomas Overbury’s (1581–1613) Characters: ‘The flight of hawkes and chase of wilde beasts, either of them are delights noble’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 96; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 267; Notesheet Oxen 4.116).
14.359–60: life ran very high in those days
Echoes the opening line of Edward Dowden’s Shakspere; see note at 9.733.
14.360: custom of the country
The Custom of the Country (c.1628): a play by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger (1583–1640). John Dryden (English poet and playwright, 1631–1700) states that ‘[t]here is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher’s, called The Custom of the Country, than in all ours together’ (Essays, vol. 2, p. 273). The play concerns the practice of droit du seigneur, a feudal lord claiming conjugal rights with one of his subjects.
14.360–62: Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that . . . friend
After Jesus in John 15:12–13: ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’
14.362: Go thou and do likewise
After Christ tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, he says to the lawyer to whom he has been talking, ‘Go, and do likewise’ (Luke 10:37 in the King James). See also note at 5.341.
14.362–63: Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra See note at 1.727–28.
14.363: regius professor
Regius professor: ‘a professor appointed to a university chair founded by a monarch’ (OED, s.v. regius). Regius (Latin): royal.
14.363: French letters See note at 9.1101.
14.364: Oxtail
That is, Oxford University.
14.364–65: nor breathed there ever that man to . . . more beholden
From John Selden’s (1584–1654) Table Talk: ‘There never breathed that Person to whom Mankind was more beholden’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 71; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 113; Notesheet Oxen 4.105–06).
14.365: Bring a stranger within thy tower See note at 1.661.
14.365–66: thou wilt have the secondbest bed
In It Isn’t This Time of Year at All, Oliver Gogarty writes: ‘Joyce was greatly impressed by what he took for Trench’s Eton and Oxford accent. With formal courtesy he gave him his bed at the right-hand side of the entrance door and slept in a bed under the shelf which ran round the room’ (p. 96). For Shakespeare’s second-best bed, see note at 9.698.
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14.366: Orate, fratres, pro memetipso
Orate, fratres, pro memetipso (Latin): ‘My brethren, pray for me myself ’; this echoes a prayer spoken by the celebrant at the end of the Offertory in the Catholic Mass: ‘Orate, fratres, ut meum ac vestrum sacrificium acceptabile fiat apud Deum Patrem omnipotentem’ (Brethren, pray that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Father almighty) (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 273). The Nestorians use a form of this prayer that is closer, ‘My brethren, pray for me’ (Catholic Encyclopaedia, s.v. Orate Fratres), however it lacks the intensifier on the personal pronoun and it would not be spoken in Latin.
14.367–80: ‘choppy Latin-gossipy bit’ 14.367: Remember, Erin, thy generations and thy days of old
Combines the title of Thomas Moore’s song ‘Let Erin Remember the Days of Old’ (see note at 3.302–03) with Moses’ song in Deuteronomy 32:7, ‘Remember the days of old, think upon every generation’.
14.368–69: broughtedst in a stranger to my gates
The image of the ‘stranger within the gates’ occurs in Exodus 20:10: ‘But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates’ (also Deuteronomy 17:15). See also note at 1.661 for the stranger.
14.369–70: to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum
Jeshurun (Hebrew): righteous, upright; a poetical name for Israel (the spelling ‘Jeshurum’ is Joyce’s mistake). After Deuteronomy 32:15 in the King James: ‘But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation’. Jeshurun: ‘a poetic title in Hebrew for the people of Israel’ (Paul Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary); this name is not used in the Douay.
14.370: Therefore hast thou sinned against my light
Echoes Lamentations 5:7–8: ‘Our fathers have sinned, and are not: and we have borne their iniquities. Servants have ruled over us: there was none to redeem us out of their hand.’ See also notes at 1.312 and 2.361.
14.371: Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian
Echoes the Song of Solomon 6:12: ‘Return, return, O Sulamitess: return, return that we may behold thee’. For ‘Clan Milly’ and ‘Milesian’, see note at 12.1308–10.
14.372: this abomination before me
The word abomination occurs frequently in the Old Testament, but this phrase occurs only once: ‘And they were lifted up, and committed abominations before me: and I took them away as thou hast seen’ (Ezekiel 16:50).
14.373: merchant of jalaps Haines; see note at 1.156.
14.373–74: didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian of dark speech
Refers to the conquering of Israel by Rome and India (actually Persia). Palestine was con quered by Pompey in 63 bc and subsequently ruled by Roman governors. The Book of
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768 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Esther describes the rule of the Persian king Ahasuerus (Xerxes)—‘who reigned from India to Ethiopia’ (1:1)—who agrees to Haman’s plan of destroying the Jews.
14.375: luxuriously
Luxuriously is used in the sense of lustfully (R. C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, p. 167; Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 61).
14.375–76: Look forth now, my people . . . Pisgah
Echoes two passages from Deuteronomy. One is the voice of God: ‘Go up into this mountain Abarim, (that is to say, of passages,) unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab over against Jericho: and see the land of Chanaan, which I will deliver to the children of Israel to possess, and die thou in the mountain’ (32:49). The other: ‘Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab upon mount Nebo, to the top of Phasga [Pisgah] over against Jericho: and the Lord shewed him all the land of Galaad as far as Dan’ (34:1). See also notes at 7.873 and 7.1057. Horeb: Mount Sinai (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary).
14.376–77: the Horns of Hatten
Horns of Hattin (Joyce’s spelling, Hatten, is attested but rare): a prominent hill (and extinct volcano) about 8 km west of the Sea of Galilee. The Crusaders identified it, without any real justification, as the Mount of the Beatitudes. The remains of a settlement on its peak have been identified as either the Adamah (Joshua 19:36) or Madon (Joshua 11:1, 12:19) (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary).
14.377: land flowing with milk and money
This twist on the Biblical phrase is not original to Joyce; for example, ‘that land of milk and money—London!’ (Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Mar. 1836, vol. 39, no. 245, p. 377). The Promised Land is called ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ (Exodus 33:3 in the King James and elsewhere in the Old Testament). The Venerable Bede (English monk and historian, 672–735) wrote that Ireland ‘abounds in milk and honey’ (Ecclesiastical History, p. 6).
14.380–428: Browne 14.380: kiss of ashes See 1.272.
14.380: tenebrosity of the interior
Tenebrosity of the interior: inner darkness or despair. Tenebrosity: darkness, from the Latin tenebrae (OED).
14.381: the septuagint
The Septuagint: the earliest extant Koine Greek translation of the Old Testament and the canon of the Old Testament for the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Protestant and Evangelical Christians, from the Reformers onward, accept the shorter Old Testament canon, thirty-nine books, from the Hebrew Palestinian Canon, which is also used by Jews (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary; Catholic Encyclopedia; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
14.382–83: Orient from on high Which brake hell’s gates . . . foraneous
Orient: Jesus; after Oriens (Latin: rising), a scriptural title of the Messiah: ‘Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us’ (Luke
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 769 1:78). According to the Apostles’ Creed (see note at 1.653), Christ descended into hell following the crucifixion, and on the third day rose from the dead. According to the apocr yphal Gospel of Nicodemus, ‘the brazen gates were broken, and the iron bars were crushed, and all the dead that were bound were loosed from their bonds’ (Charles F. Horne, Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, vol. 14, p. 377). Foraneous: ‘of the market-place, court of justice’ (OED). Also echoes Psalm 106:16 (107:16 in the King James): ‘Because he hath broken gates of brass’. The word brake appears multiple times in Malory’s Morte d’Artur (Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘Joyce and Malory’, p. 96; Notesheet Oxen 2.79).
14.383–84: Assuefaction minorates atrocities
Assuefaction: becoming accustomed to something. Minorates: ‘diminishes or lessens the impact of ’ (both OED). From Sir Thomas Browne’s (1605–82) Christian Morals: ‘assuefac tion unto anything minorates’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose, p. 199; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 97; Notesheet Oxen 11.64). Saintsbury praises this passage for ‘the splen dour of Browne’s idiosyncrasy’ even as he admits that it exhibits the author’s fondness for long, Latinate words (p. 199).
14.384: as Tully saith of his darling Stoics
Tully: Marcus Tullius Cicero (see note at 7.270); he studied under various Stoics (EB11). From his Tusculan Disputations: ‘This anticipation therefore of the future mitigates the approach of evils whose coming one has long foreseen’ (III.14).
14.384–85: Hamlet his father showeth the prince no blister of combustion
The Ghost is not allowed to tell Hamlet details of the burning fires of purgatory: ‘But that I am forbid / To tell the secrets of my prison house, / I could a tale unfold whose lightest word / Would harrow up thy soul’ (Hamlet, I.v.13–16).
14.385: adiaphane
For adiaphane, see note at 3.8. This sentence seems to say that darkness (adiaphane) is the ‘where and how’ of the soul before birth and after death, but in the noon of life it is a ter rible thing.
14.385–86: noon of life
Echoes the famous opening of Dante’s Inferno: ‘Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita’ (In the middle of the journey of our life) (I.1); see note at 9.831. Also echoes the noonday devil of Psalms: ‘Of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark: of invasion, or of the noonday devil’ (90:6; 91:6 in the King James).
14.387: ubi and quomodo
Ubi and quomodo (Latin): where and how.
14.387–88: ends and ultimates of all things accord in some mean and measure
After Aristotle’s Physics: ‘action for an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature’ (tr. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, 199a7). Janusko suggests a passage from Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici: ‘There is therefore some other hand that twines the thread of life than that of Nature; we are not onely ignorant in Antipathies and occult qualities; our ends are as obscure as our beginnings; the line of our days is drawn by night, and the various effects therein by a pensil [sic] that is invisible; wherein though we confess our ignorance, I am sure we do not err if we say it is the hand of
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770 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses God’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 125; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 267).
14.391: minishing and ablation
Minishing: diminishing. Ablation: removal (both OED).
14.392–93: The aged sisters draw us into life . . . they bend
Combines the midwife with the woman who dresses the corpse, thereby suggesting two of the three Fates of Greek and Roman mythology, Clotho and Atropos, who control, respect ively, birth and death. The remaining Fate, Lachesis, who is not directly figured here, over sees life (Brewer’s).
14.393: batten, sport, clip
To batten: to eat, often with the implication of gluttony. To sport: to amuse oneself (both OED). For clip (‘to embrace’); see note at 3.381–84.
14.393: clasp, sunder
Recalls ‘Proteus’: ‘They clasped and sundered, did the coupler’s will’ (3.47).
14.394–95: First saved from water of old Nile . . . fasciated wattles See note at 3.297–98. To fasciate: to bind together (OED).
14.395: at last the cavity of a mountain, an occulted sepulchre
After Moses’ burial, ‘in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day’ (Deuteronomy 34:1).
14.396: conclamation
Conclamation: ‘A shout of approval or disapproval’ (OED).
14.396: ossifrage
Ossifrage: ‘A bird of prey reputed to break bones by dropping them from a great height (usually identified with the lammergeier or bearded vulture’ (OED).
14.397: ubicity of his tumulus
Ubicity: a nonce word meaning whereness, or location, from the Latin ubi (where) + the adjectival suffix ‑icity (‘ness’). Tumulus: ‘ancient sepulchral mound’ (OED); see note at 14.395.
14.398: Tophet
Also called Gehinnom, Tophet was an Old Testament place of unfettered evil in the Valley of Hinnom, which later became the Jewish place of punishment analogous to hell (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia). In Jeremiah, God says: ‘Behold I will bring an affliction upon this place [. . .] Because they have forsaken me, and have profaned this place: and have sacrificed therein to strange gods [. . .] And I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and shall hiss because of all the plagues thereof ’ (Jeremiah 19:3–4, 8).
14.398: Edenville See note at 3.39.
14.401: mainly
Mainly: eagerly or vehemently (OED). From Christopher Marlowe’s (1564–93) Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1: ‘as might mainly bear’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 771 Authors, p. 88) or Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV: ‘These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me’ (II.iv.82; quoted in Murison, p. 129; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 122; Notesheet Oxen 11.73).
14.401: Étienne chanson
Étienne chanson (French): ‘Stephen song’. On the Rosenbach manuscript, there is a comma between Étienne and chanson (f. 18), which makes it clearer that this is an injunction to Stephen to sing. The comma is absent on the typescript (JJA, vol. 14, p. 178).
14.402: wisdom hath built herself a house
‘Wisdom hath built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars’ (Proverbs 9:1).
14.403: crystal palace of the Creator
That is, the world, God’s creation, with an allusion to the Crystal Palace in London (see note at 12.87).
14.403: applepie order
Applepie order: ‘perfect order, impeccable precision’ (Partridge).
14.404: penny for him who finds the pea
After the kind of invitation made by a con-artist running a shell game (or thimblerigging), in which a pea or ball is placed under one of usually three shells or cups, which are then rearranged. The set-up is designed so that the mark will always lose once the bets become sufficiently large (Michael Benson, Cons and Frauds, pp. 21–23).
14.405–07: Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack . . . Jackjohn’s bivouac
After ‘The Domicile Erected by John’ (1857), a parody of the rhyme ‘The House that Jack Built’ (see note at 14.304–05). There are several versions of the parody. Joyce’s is very close to one published in Charles Carroll Bombaugh’s Gleanings for the Curious from the Harvest Fields of Literature (1860); Bombaugh has ‘plethoric’ instead of ‘refluent’ and ‘Ivan’s’ instead of ‘Jackjohn’s’ (p. 212). Dedal: skilful, cunning (from R. C. Trench, On the Study of Words, p. 161; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, p. 179; Notesheet Oxen 7.66). Refluent: flowing back, reflowing. Cirque: a circular space or amphitheatre. Bivouac: ‘a camping out of troops’ (all OED).
14.408: noise in the street See note at 2.386.
14.409: Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler
Thor: Norse god of thunder; he possessed a magic hammer which returned to him after he threw it (Brewer’s; Journey into Mystery, no. 83, Aug. 1963, p. 5).
14.410: hist
Hist: incited or enjoined (OED).
14.411: witwanton
To wit-wanton: ‘to indulge in wanton wit’ (OED, s.v. wit). This curious word comes from Thomas Fuller’s (see note at 7.1057) The Holy and Profane State: ‘more dangerous it is to wit wanton it with the majesty of God’ (as quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 80; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 114; Notesheet Oxen 2.140).
14.411: hellprate
Prate: chatter, prattle (OED); thus hellprate, blasphemy or impious speech.
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772 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.411: paganry
Paganry: paganism (OED). From Richard Hakluyt’s (1553–1616) The Second Voyage of Frobisher: ‘paganry and infidelity’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 48; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 111; Notesheet Oxen 3.98).
14.412: doughty
Doughty: valiant, brave (OED).
14.413: pitch
Pitch: acme (OED). From Christopher Marlowe’s (1564–93) Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1: ‘his manly pitch’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 88; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 11.76).
14.413: haught
Haught: haughty or boastful (OED).
14.414: plucked down
From John Lyly’s (1553–1606) Euphues: ‘until he be pluckt down, there can be no friendship’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 78; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 11.79).
14.414: his heart shook
Stephen fears thunder, as did Joyce (see A Portrait, p. 243, Ellmann, p. 25).
14.415: tasted the rumour of that storm
Rumour: loud noise or din (OED). From Richard Hakluyt’s (1553–1616) The Second Voyage of Frobisher: ‘we tasted cold storm’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 45; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 111; Notesheet Oxen 3.102).
14.416: Punch Costello fell hard again to his yale
Yale: variant of ale (OED). From a footnote in Murison’s Selections from the Best English Authors: ‘yale (ale)’ (p. 123 n.; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 11.84). See also Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy: ‘fell hard to his book’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 88; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 268; Notesheet Oxen 4.161).
14.417–18: a word and a blow
A word and a blow: ‘a brief utterance of anger or defiance, followed immediately by the deliv ery of a blow [. . .] hence in reference to prompt or sudden action of any kind’ (OED). From John Bunyan’s (1628–88) Pilgrim’s Progress (1678): ‘So soon as the Man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow’ (p. 89; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 134; Notesheet Oxen 4.167).
14.418: colour
Colour: pretext, reason, excuse (OED).
14.418–19: an old Nobodaddy
An: archaic word for ‘if ’ (OED). For ‘Nobodaddy’, see note at 9.787.
14.419: muchwhat indifferent
Muchwhat: ‘pretty much’. Indifferent: ‘not mattering either way’ (both OED). The phrase muchwhat indifferent comes from Thomas More’s (English philosopher, author, statesman,
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 773 1478–1535) History of King Richard III: ‘Frende and foo was muche what indifferent, where his aduauntage grew, he spared no mans deathe’ (p. 6; not in Peacock).
14.420: dye his desperation
Combines Sir Henry Wotton’s (1568–1639) Reliquiæ Wottonianæ: ‘edged his desperation’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 77) with Sir Thomas Overbury’s (1581–1613) Characters: ‘and dyes the more contentedly’ (Barnett and Dale, p. 97; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 268; Notesheet Oxen 4.26).
14.425: to slumber his great fear
From Sir Henry Wotton’s (1568–1639) Reliquiæ Wottonianæ: ‘to slumber his conscience’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 77; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 268; Notesheet Oxen 4.148).
14.425–26: no other thing
From Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent con gregation of vapours’ (II.ii.299–300, quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 70; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 268; Notesheet Oxen 4.136).
14.427: look you
From Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the same soliloquy as the previous note: ‘this most excellent canopy, the Ayre, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament’ (II.ii.302–03, quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 70; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 268; Notesheet Oxen 4.135).
14.426–27: discharge of fluid from the thunderhead
Until Michael Faraday (English scientist, 1791–1867) conclusively proved otherwise, scien tists believed that electricity was a fluid. In 1841, Faraday wrote: ‘Some writers have described curved flashes of lightning, the electric fluid having parted from the clouds, gone obliquely downwards to the sea, and then turned upwards to the clouds again: this effect I have occasionally seen, and have always found it to be merely the illuminated edge of a cloud’ (Experimental Researches in Electricity, vol. 2, p. 278). Joyce’s immediate source, though, appears to be Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1658): ‘And this is the rea son [. . .] of those terrible cracks and affrighting noises of heaven; that is, the nitrous and sulphureous exhalations, set on fire in the clouds; whereupon requiring a larger place, they force out their way, not only with the breaking of the cloud, but the laceration of the air about it. When if the matter be spirituous, and the cloud compact, the noise is great and terrible: if the cloud be thin, and the Materials weak, the eruption is languid, ending in coruscations and flashes without noise’ (II.5, Works, vol. 1, p. 178).
14.429–73: Bunyan 14.436: Bringforth
Bringforth: recalls God’s punishment of Eve, ‘in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children’ (Genesis 3:16).
14.442–43: which Phenomenon has commanded them to do by the book Law See note at 14.29–30.
14.443: wotted
See note at 14.85.
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774 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.444: Believe-on-Me
That is, the kingdom of heaven as represented by Jesus; for example, John 1:12 mentions ‘them that believe in his name’. From Bunyan’s (1628–88) Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘to whom his doings, and the worthiness of them should be imputed, if I believed on him’ (p. 170; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 135).
14.445: behoves to
To behove to: to belong to (OED).
14.445–46: no death and no birth neither wiving nor mothering
After Christ’s description of conditions after the Resurrection: ‘For when they shall rise again from the dead, they shall neither marry, nor be married, but are as the angels in heaven’ (Mark 12:25 and see Luke 20:35); see also note at 9.1051–52.
14.449: eyepleasing exterior
From Sir Philip Sidney’s (1554–86) The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia: ‘all sorts of eye- pleasing flowers’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 57; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 268; Notesheet Oxen 3.78).
14.450: Bird-in-the-Hand
After the proverbial expression ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’. Bunyan (1628–88) cites this proverb in Pilgrim’s Progress (p. 39; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 133). Bird: prostitute (Partridge).
14.451–52: Ho, you pretty man, turn aside hither . . . brave place
Combines two sentences from Bunyan’s (1628–88) Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘Ho, turn aside hither, and I will shew you a thing’ (p. 131) and ‘he seems to be a very pretty man’ (p. 96; Janusko, Sources and Structures, pp. 134–35; Notesheet Oxen 4.38).
14.453: Two-in-the-Bush See note at 14.450.
14.455: Manse
From Henry Hallam’s (1777–1859) View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages: ‘Several manses composed a march’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 296; Downing, ‘Joyce’s “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheets’; Notesheet Oxen 2.49).
14.459–60: nought else but notion
Notion: ‘Imagination, fancy’ (OED). From Bunyan’s (1628–88) Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘because I knew not that you had ought else but notion’ (p. 103; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 135; Notesheet Oxen 4.121).
14.461: ticed
Ticed: enticed (OED, s.v. tice). From Johan Earle’s (c.1601–65) Micro-Cosmographie: ‘and tice him on’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 75; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 113; Notesheet Oxen 4.108).
14.463: Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek by Jowl
Pickaback: ‘On the back and shoulders of another person, animal’, i.e. piggyback. Topsyturvy: upside-down or ‘in a reversed condition’. Shameface: bashful. Cheek by jowl: close together, side by side (all OED). In context, these ‘four tickets’ would appear to refer to four sexual positions.
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14.464: foul plague Allpox
Pox: ‘Syphilis. Frequently with distinguishing word, as French, great pox, etc.’ (OED).
14.465: shield of oxengut
That is, a condom. Before the advent of rubber condoms in the mid-nineteenth century, condoms were made from the intestines of various animals, such as cow, goat, sheep, and lamb. Animal skin condoms remained popular after the introduction of rubber preserva tives because they were cheaper (Aine Collier, The Humble Little Condom, pp. 117, 136).
14.468: Mr Cavil
To cavil: ‘to object, dispute, or find fault unfairly or without good reason’ (OED). Context and process of elimination suggests this is Lynch.
14.468: Mr Sometimes Godly
Madden, earlier described as ‘being godly certain whiles’ (14.423).
14.468: Mr Ape Swillale
Costello, who is frequently described as being apelike, for example, ‘a curse of God ape’ (14.330).
14.468–69: Mr False Franklin
Lenehan, earlier called ‘a franklin that hight Lenehan’ (14.172–73).
14.469–70: Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer
Stephen and Leopold Bloom, earlier called, respectively, ‘young Boasthard’ and ‘Calmer’ (14.429).
14.471: grievous rage
From Bunyan’s (1628–88) Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘Then Apollyon broke out into a grievous rage’ (p. 72; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 134; Notesheet Oxen 4.13).
14.472: spill their souls
From Bunyan’s (1628–88) Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘here will I spill thy soul’ (p. 72; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 134; Notesheet Oxen 4.14).
14.472: spillings
That is, non-reproductive forms of sexual activity. Genesis 38:8–10: ‘Juda, therefore said to Onan his son: Go in to thy brother’s wife and marry her, that thou mayst raise seed to thy brother. He knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother’s wife, spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother’s name. And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing.’
14.473: brenningly biddeth
Brenningly: burningly; after bren: Middle English, burn (OED, s.v. burn).
14.474–528: Pepys, Evelyn 14.474: apoplexy
Gerty MacDowell stated that Paddy Dignam died of a stroke (13.316). In modern medical usage, apoplexy and stroke are synonymous, although formerly the term apoplexy covered what are now known to be a wider range of afflictions (Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennett, The Oxford Companion to the Body, s.v. apoplexy). In ‘Circe’, Paddy Dignam’s spirit claims
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776 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses that ‘the wall of the heart hypertrophied’ (15.1232), which is a leading cause of stroke (s.v. stroke).
14.475: hard drought See note at 4.44.
14.475–76: a bargeman coming in . . . with turf
Previously seen in ‘Hades’ (6.439–42) as the funeral cortège crossed the Royal Canal and also in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.101–02).
14.476: fifty mile or thereabout
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Robinson Crusoe: ‘In about three mile, or thereabout’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 208; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 269; Notesheet Oxen 1.01).
14.476: the seed won’t sprout
From George Savile, Marquess of Halifax’s (1633–95) Character of a Trimmer: ‘like seed in the ground ready to sprout up on the first shower’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 117; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 114; Notesheet Oxen 2.52).
14.476–77: fields athirst . . . stunk mightily
After Samuel Pepys’s (1633–1703) Diary: ‘look very ill, and in a sick dress, and stunk might ily’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 123; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 115; Notesheet Oxen 2.43–44). The word sadcoloured comes from Izaak Walton’s (1593–1683) The Compleat Angler: ‘a brown or sad-coloured heifer’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 118; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 269; Notesheet Oxen 4.32).
14.477: quags and tofts
Quag: marsh or bog. Toft: a homestead (both OED). From Henry Hallam’s (1777–1859) View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages: ‘the toft or homestead of a more genuine English dialect’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 296; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 125; Notesheet Oxen 19.33).
14.478: young quicks
Quick: ‘A weed; esp. couch grass’ (OED).
14.478: clean consumed
From Raphael Holinshed’s (1529–80) History of Scotland: ‘clean consumed’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 30; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 108; Notesheet Oxen 3.122).
14.480–81: dry flag and faggots that would catch at first fire
Flag: grass. Faggots: twigs (both OED). After George Savile, Marquess of Halifax’s (1633–95) Character of a Trimmer: ‘like dry flag prepared to catch at the first fire’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 117; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 114; Notesheet Oxen 2.48).
14.481–82: for aught they knew
From Samuel Pepys’s (1633–1703) Diary: ‘and so home, and there find my guests, who were Mr. Wood and his wife Barbary Shelden, and also Mr. Moone; she mighty fine, and her husband, for aught I see, a likely man’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 126; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 115; Notesheet Oxen 2.37).
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14.482–83: big wind of last February a year that did havoc the land so pitifully
The destructive storm that hit Ireland on 26–27 February 1903; see also notes at 1.366–67 and 7.701–02.
14.483: by and by
By and by: right away (R. C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, pp. 37–38; Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 60).
14.484: wind sitting in the west
From Izaak Walton’s (1593–1683) The Compleat Angler: ‘Next to that, the west wind is believed to be the best [. . .] let the wind sit in what corner it will and do its worst’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 119; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 269; Notesheet Oxen 4.35).
14.484–85: swollen clouds . . . poring up at them
After a passage in Defoe’s (1660–1731) A Journal of the Plague Year: ‘And no wonder, if they who were poring continually at the clouds saw shapes and figures’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 130; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 116; Notesheet Oxen 1.06). The phrase ‘as the night increased’ comes from Raleigh’s (1552–1618) A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of Azores: ‘as the day increased’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 38; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 110; Notesheet Oxen 3.94–95).
14.487: a brace of shakes
From John Evelyn’s (1620–1706) Diary: ‘a brace of bullets’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 158; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 269; Notesheet Oxen 8.14).
14.488: smoking shower
From Izaak Walton’s (1593–1683) The Compleat Angler: ‘and by the clouds, if I mistake not, we shall presently have a smoaking showre’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 119; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, pp. 269–70; Notesheet Oxen 4.34).
14.488–89: making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief
That is, covering their straw hats (‘straws’) with handkerchiefs or other fabric to protect them from the rain. Clout: cloth or rag (OED).
14.489: kirtles catched up
Kirtle: ‘A skirt or outer petticoat’ (OED). From William Dunbar (Scottish poet, 1459–1520) ‘The Golden Targe’: ‘An hundred ladies, lusty in to weeds, / As fresh as floweris that in May up spreads, / In kirtles green’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 46; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 11.06). Combined with a passage from Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s (1583–1648) Autobiography: ‘I catched cold’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 106; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 270; Notesheet Oxen 4.30).
14.490–91: In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke’s lawn, thence through . . . Holles street
The path taken by Mulligan from George Moore’s house party at 4 Ely Place to the Holles Street hospital. Ely Place is 400 metres from Merrion Square. Duke’s Lawn is at Leinster House, west of Merrion Square. Holles Street runs north-south from the north side of Merrion Square.
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778 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.492: fiacre
Fiacre (French): a hackney cab (OED). From Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey: ‘a few who humbly wait for a fiacre’ (p. 218).
14.493–94: the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon’s door
See note at 7.794 for Fitzgibbon, who lived at 10 North Merrion Square (Thom’s, p. 1871).
14.494–95: (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the college lands)
Fitzgibbon and Healy (see note at 7.800) were both on the Trinity College Estates Commission (see note at 7.801).
14.496–97: (that was a papish but is now, folk say, a good Williamite)
George Moore was formerly a Catholic, but he struggled with belief for many years and, in 1903, proclaimed himself an adherent of Protestantism (DIB). Williamite: a supporter of the Protestant William III against the Catholic James II (OED).
14.497: Alec. Bannon
On the Rosenbach Manuscript, Joyce wrote ‘Al. Bannon’ (f. 22), which is compatible with Pepys’s method of abbreviating names. The typist typed in ‘Alec. Bannon’ (JJA, vol. 14, p. 179), but the name Alec does not properly take a full stop at the end (John Turner, ‘ “Miles of porches of ears” ’, p. 982). See note at 1.684 for Bannon and see note at 14.1537 for another confusion with his name.
14.498: dance cloaks of Kendal green
Kendal green: green cloth manufactured in Kendal, Westmoreland, in north- west England (OED).
14.500: Saint Swithin
Saint Swithin (d. 862): Bishop of Winchester; his feast day is 15 July. Tradition says that if it rains on that day, there will be inclement weather for the forty days following—and that if the weather is pleasant, the next forty days will be as well (J. C. J. Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend).
14.500: what in the earth
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘I knew not what in the Earth to do with my self ’ (vol. 1, p. 59; Downing, ‘Joyce’s “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheets’; Notesheet Oxen 1.30).
14.501–02: crush a cup of wine
From Romeo and Juliet: ‘I pray, come and crush a cup of wine’ (I.ii.80).
14.502: skittish heifer
Heifer: woman (Partridge); in this case, Milly. From Samuel Pepys’s (1633–1703) Diary: ‘Monmouth is the most skittish leaping gallant’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 122; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 115; Notesheet Oxen 2.32).
14.502: big of her age
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘I was now near fifteen years old, I was not big of my age’ (vol. 1, p. 27; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 136; Notesheet Oxen 1.31).
14.503: beef to the heel See note at 4.403.
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14.503: poured with rain
Joyce took this phrase from Queen Victoria’s published diary, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868): ‘We [. . .] proceed to Loch Lomond, where a steamer was waiting for us; but it poured with rain most hopelessly’ (p. 271; Ronan Crowley, ‘The Queen is Not a Subject’, p. 201; NLI II.i.2 f. 7r).
14.505: covey of wags
Covey: ‘A family, party, or set (of persons or things)’ (OED). Wag: ‘Any one ludicrously mis chievous; a merry droll’ (Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, as cited by the OED). From Jonathan Swift’s (1667–1745) Tale of a Tub: ‘the votaries not flying in coveys, but sorted into couples’ (Works, vol. 11, p. 285; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 15.64).
14.505: likely brangling fellows
Brangling: noisy or quarrelsome (OED); from R. C. Trench’s English Past and Present (p. 177; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, p. 180; Notesheet Oxen 8.18). The phrase comes from Pepys’s (1633–1703) Diary: ‘a likely man’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 126; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 115; Notesheet Oxen 2.39).
14.505–06: scholar of my lady of Mercy
That is, Dixon, who is a junior medical officer undergoing training at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital (see note at 8.429–30). From Richard Hakluyt’s (1553–1616) The Second Voyage of Frobisher: ‘a gentleman of my Lord of Warwick’s’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 42; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 111; Notesheet Oxen 3.93).
14.508–09: having dreamed tonight . . . Turkey trunks See note at 15.297–98.
14.509: his dame Mrs Moll
After the collocation ‘dame Venus’, of which there are two separate examples in Murison’s Selections from the Best English Authors. From William Dunbar’s (c.1459–c.1530) ‘The Goldin Terge’: ‘And to dame Venus, lovis [sic] mighty queen’ (p. 47). From Spenser’s (c.1552–99) The Faerie Queene: ‘Sometimes dame Venus self he seems to see’ (VI.xvi.6, p. 103; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 11.08).
14.510: those in ken
In ken: in the know, from to ken, to know (Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary). From John Evelyn’s (1620–1706) Diary: ‘they stand in ken of one another like to our beacons’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 158; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 270; Notesheet Oxen 8.70).
14.511: pleading her belly
According to English law, a pregnant woman convicted of a crime could ‘plead the belly’ and be granted a reprieve until the birth of the child. In practice, this wound up being a general reprieve rather than a deferral of punishment (John L. McMullan, The Canting Crew, p. 47). In Mina Purefoy’s case, it is used in a more general sense of ‘pleading for help on the grounds of her pregnancy’. After Daniel Defoe’s (1660–1731) Moll Flanders (1722): ‘my Mother pleaded her Belly, and being found quick with Child, she was respited for about seven Months’ (p. 8).
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780 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.511: on the stools
That is, in labour. ‘And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live’ (Exodus 1:16 in the King James).
14.514: bullyboy
That is, darling boy. Bully: ‘A term of endearment and familiarity, orig. applied to either sex: sweetheart, darling’ (OED).
14.516: Lady day
Lady day: ‘a day kept in celebration of some event in the life of the Virgin Mary’ (OED). Historically, the term could be used of 25 March (Annunciation), 15 August (Assumption), 8 September (Nativity), and 8 December (Conception of the Virgin). In Ireland, it means the Feast of the Assumption, 15 August (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
14.516: bit off her last chick’s nails
Follows the superstition that it is bad luck to cut the nails of a child of under one year old with scissors (Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. nails and hair, cutting: babies). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Cut nails after 1 year else thief with teeth’ (Notesheet Oxen 8.100).
14.517–18: the king’s bible
That is, the King James Version of the Bible, which Mr Purefoy, raised Methodist, would certainly own.
14.518: methodist but takes the sacrament
Sacrament: ‘the common name for certain solemn ceremonies or religious acts belonging to the institutions of the Christian church’ (OED). The Catholic Church recognises seven sacraments whereas Methodism, like most Protestant denominations, recognises only two, baptism and holy communion, the latter of which is meant here(Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Methodism; Sacrament).
14.519: Bullock harbour
Bullock Harbour (see note at 1.671) has a long-standing reputation as a fishing harbour (John de Courcy, Ireland’s Sea Fisheries, p. 45).
14.520: dapping on the sound
To dap: to fish by ‘letting the bait dip and bob lightly on the water’ (OED).
14.520: heavybraked reel
In a fishing rod, the brake ‘adjusts the rate at which the spool slows down as the line pres sure decreases during the cast’ (Jake Bussolini, Jake’s Fishing Facts, p. 92).
14.520: punt . . . trailing
Punt: ‘A flat-bottomed shallow boat, square at both ends’, used for fishing. To trail: ‘To fish by trailing a bait from a moving boat’ (both OED).
14.523–24: prognostication of Malachi’s almanac
See note at 9.492 for the prophecies of Pseudo-Malachi.
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14.524–25: Mr Russell has done a prophetical charm . . . Hindustanish
The ‘farmer’s gazette’ is the Irish Homestead (see note at 2.412), which George Russell edited. The ‘prophetical charm . . . out of the Hindustanish’ refers to Russell’s interest in Theosophy and Eastern mysticism.
14.526: fetch without bottom of reason
Fetch: an apparition (Partridge). Bottom: basis or foundation (OED).
14.528: queerities
Queerity: an oddity, a peculiarity (OED). From Richard Steele (1672–1729): ‘That no Person whatsoever shall be admitted without a visible Quearity in his Aspect, or peculiar Cast of Countenance’ (Addison and Steele, The Spectator, vol. 1, p. 54; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 14.61).
14.529–80: Defoe 14.530: letter was in that night’s gazette
That is, Deasy’s letter (2.321–30), which Stephen delivered to the offices of the Freeman’s Journal (7.530–31).
14.531–32: on Stephen’s persuasion
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘Well, upon the persuasions of this lad’ (vol. 1, p. 27; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 137; Notesheet Oxen 1.34).
14.533: mighty brisk
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘Will was mighty brisk’ (vol. 1, p. 107; Downing, ‘Joyce’s “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheets’; Notesheet Oxen 1.45).
14.534: merryandrew
Merryandrew: a buffoon or clown, with the added connotation of being a quack, after Andrew Borde, Henry VIII’s eccentric personal physician (Brewer’s). From Defoe’s (1660–1731) ‘A Quack Doctor’: ‘slipping off his great coat, in an instant rose up a complete merry-andrew’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 132; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 116; Notesheet Oxen 1.11).
14.534: honest pickle
Pickle: a person constantly causing trouble; also for a wild youth or young man (Partridge). From Defoe’s (1660–1731) ‘A Quack Doctor’: ‘though honest pickle with a world of grimace and gesticulation endeavoured to move my gaiety, I began to be very fearful of where the metamorphosis might end’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 132; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 116; Notesheet Oxen 1.12).
14.535: mean in fortunes
From Sir Henry Wotton’s (1568–1639) Reliquiæ Wottonianæ: ‘There was a younger brother of mean fortunes’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 76; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 270; Notesheet Oxen 4.147).
14.536: hankered about
That is, hung around or loitered about (OED, s.v. hanker). Defoe (1660–1731) uses the term in Colonel Jack: ‘we hankered about in Castle-alley, and in Swithin’s-alley’ (vol. 1, p. 65; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 137; Notesheet Oxen 1.25).
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14.537: crimps, ostlers
Crimps: swindlers or cheaters (OED). For ostlers, see note at 9.664. From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘crimps, and the masters of coal ships’ (vol. 1, p. 65; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 137; Notesheet Oxen 1.41).
14.537: Paul’s men
Paul’s men: idlers or swindlers, after St Paul’s Cathedral in London which used to be a prime location for swindlers (OED, s.v. Paul).
14.537: runners
Runners: money collectors for a bookie (Partridge).
14.537: flatcaps
Flatcaps: nickname for citizens of London, but especially for London apprentices, after the popularity of the low, flat-crowned hats from Henry VIII’s time (OED).
14.537: waistcoateers
Waistcoateers: prostitutes, from the seventeenth century (OED).
14.537–38: ladies of the bagnio
That is, prostitutes; bagnio: formerly referring to a Turkish bath, came to be a term for brothel (OED). Defoe (1660–1731) uses the word in Colonel Jack: ‘warm as the dressing- room of a bagnio’ (vol. 1, p. 23; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 136).
14.538–39: chanceable catchpole or a tipstaff
Chanceable: non-essential, subsidiary. Catchpole: a tax collector, bailiff, or debt collector. Tipstaff: a sheriff ’s officer or bailiff (all OED). From R. C. Trench’s (1807–86) On the Study of Words: ‘ “catchpole”, a word in Wiclif ’s time of no dishonour at all, was abundantly tinged with this scorn and contempt’ (p. 117; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, p. 172; Notesheet Oxen 3.34).
14.539: broad day
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘as it was hardly broad day’ (vol. 1, p. 66; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 137; Notesheet Oxen 1.41).
14.540: sackpossets
Sackposset: a drink made from sack (a white wine imported from Spain and popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), sugar, hot milk, spices, and raw eggs (OED, s.vv. sack; posset). From Jonathan Swift’s (1667–1745) Tale of a Tub: ‘it is a sack-posset, wherein the deeper you go, you will find it the sweeter’ (Works, vol. 11, p. 70; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 15.61).
14.540: ordinary
Ordinary: a regular daily meal served at a fixed price in a restaurant or tavern (OED).
14.540: boilingcook’s
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘So we went to a boiling cook’s in Rosemary-Lane’ (vol. 1, p. 21; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 136; Notesheet Oxen 1.29).
14.541: broken victuals
Broken victuals: fragments of food left after a meal (OED, s.v. broken). From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘we got victuals easily enough’ (vol. 1, p. 10; and multiple times thereafter; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 136; Notesheet Oxen 1.28).
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14.542: tester
Tester: sixpence (OED). From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘throw me a tester, some times a shilling’ (vol. 1, p. 23; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 136); also in Defoe’s ‘A Quack Doctor’: ‘offering health and immortality to sale for the price of a tester’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 133; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 116; Notesheet Oxen 1.11).
14.542–43: he could always bring himself off with his tongue
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘I passed among my comrades for a bold, resolute boy [. . .]. However, I many times brought myself off with my tongue, where my hands would not have been sufficient’ (vol. 1, p. 7; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 136; Notesheet Oxen 1.23).
15.543: punk
Punk: ‘a prostitute, strumpet, harlot’ (OED). From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘there was in it only a gentleman and a punk that he had picked up’ (vol. 1, p. 102; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 137; Notesheet Oxen 1.44).
15.543–44: every mother’s son of them
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) ‘A Quack Doctor’: ‘every mother’s son of us would be in our graves’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 134; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 116; Notesheet Oxen 1.15).
15.544: burst their sides
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) ‘A Quack Doctor’: ‘You’d have burst your sides’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 133; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 116; Notesheet Oxen 1.14).
14.547: plague
That is, foot and mouth disease; see note at 2.321–22.
14.548: bully beef
Bully beef: pickled or tinned beef (OED).
14.548: There’s as good fish in this tin as ever came out of it
After the proverbial phrase, ‘There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it’ (ODEP, s.v. fish), which is to say, ‘there is plenty more where that came from’.
14.549: sprats
Sprats: small sea fish, Clupea Sprattus, similar to herring or sardines (OED).
14.549–50: which he had eyed wishly in the meantime and found the place
Wishly: intently (OED). Combines phrases from two different works by Daniel Defoe (1660–1731). From Colonel Jack: ‘which he had eyed wishly in the meantime’ (vol. 1, p. 40; Janusko, Sources and Structure, p. 137; Notesheet Oxen 1.33). From Moll Flanders: ‘One time they particularly propos’d Robbing a Watchmaker of 3 Gold Watches, which they had Ey’d in the Day time, and found the Place where he laid them’ (p. 209; Davison, ‘ “The True- Born Englishman” and the Irish Bull’, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 6.97–98).
14.551: the chief design of his embassy
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) ‘A Quack Doctor’: ‘he began to open the design of his embassy’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 133; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 116; Notesheet Oxen 1.13).
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784 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.551: sharpset
Sharpset: ‘eager or keen for food, very hungry’ (OED).
14.551: Mort aux vaches
French, ‘Death to the police’ (literally, ‘death to the cows’). La vache (French slang): the police. Mort aux vaches! ‘is a motto often found tattooed on malefactors’ bodies’ (Albert Barrère, Argot and Slang, p. 469). The literal meaning of ‘death to the cows’ suggests a paral lel with the Oxen of the Sun who are slaughtered by Odysseus’s men.
14.554: donought
Do-naught: ‘A person who does nothing, an idler, a do-nothing’ (OED).
14.555: headborough
Headborough: a petty constable (OED). From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘the con stable and the headborough’ (vol. 1, p. 114; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 137; Notesheet Oxen 2.01).
14.557: he took the bit between his teeth
Proverbial for ‘to be obstinately selfwilled’, because when the horse has the bit between his teeth the driver can no longer control it (Brewer’s).
14.558: justiciary and parish beadle
Justiciary: a judge or magistrate. Parish beadle: ‘a parish constable’ (both OED). From Oliver Goldsmith’s (Anglo-Irish writer, 1728–74) essay ‘A Reverie at the Boar’s Head Tavern, Eastcheap’: ‘yet I soon died for want of a drop of something comfortable, and fairly left my body to the care of the beadle’ (Works, vol. 5, p. 236; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 14.62).
14.559: sutler or a welsher
Welsher: ‘A bookmaker at a race meeting who takes money for a bet, but absconds or refuses to pay after a loss’ (OED). For sutler, see note at 3.316.
14.560: bearpit
Bearpit: an arena for bearbaiting, wherein dogs are set on a bear that is chained to a stake (OED).
14.560: cocking main
Cocking main: a ‘match fought between two cocks’ (OED, s.v. cock-fighting).
14.561: ocean sea
From Richard Hakluyt’s (c.1553–1616) Voyages: ‘pass thorow the ocean sea’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 51; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 270; Notesheet Oxen 3.85).
14.561: romany folk
Romani (also Roma): ‘a widely dispersed ethnic group, found mainly in Europe and North and South America, tracing its origins to South Asia’ (OED).
14.562: favour of moonlight
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Story of Inkle and Yarico’: ‘or by the favour of moon light’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 152; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 117; Notesheet Oxen 15.132).
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14.562: fecking
Stealing; see note at 11.619.
14.567: this day morning
From Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV: ‘there be four of us here have ta’en a thousand pound this day morning’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 128; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 124; Notesheet Oxen 11.85).
14.568: Liverpool boats See note at 6.393.
14.569: springers See note at 6.392.
14.569: hoggets
Hoggets: yearling sheep (OED).
14.570: wether wools
Wether: a ram, particularly one that has been castrated. Wether wool: ‘the fleece obtained from the second or any subsequent shearing of a sheep’ (both OED).
14.570–71: actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe See note at 6.392.
14.571: drove his trade
From Daniel Defoe’s (1660–1731) Moll Flanders (1722): ‘I found she drove something of the old Trade still’ (p. 197; Davison, ‘ “The True-Born Englishman” and the Irish Bull’, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 6.21).
14.571–72: meadow auctions
Meadow auctions: sale of farmland by auction. These would be advertised in the news papers; for example, ‘Meadow Auctions: Tomorrow (Friday) 29th June at 2:30 sharp, at Little Lissen Hall, near Swords, for Dr M‘Carthy and Patrick M‘Court, 60 acres of prime 1st, 2nd and 3rd Crop, in suitable divisions’ (Freeman’s Journal, 28 June 1900, p. 8, col. a).
14.572: Mr Gavin Low’s yard in Prussia street
Gavin Low: ‘livestock agent, cattle and sheep salesman, stock auctioneer and valuator, and land agent’, 47–53 Prussia Street (Thom’s, p. 1933).
14.572–73: I question with you there
From Bunyan’s (1628–88) Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘began to question with him’ (p. 69; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 133; Notesheet Oxen 4.10).
14.573: the hoose or the timber tongue
Two cattle diseases; see notes at 12.834 and 12.834–35.
14.574: a little moved but very handsomely
From Daniel Defoe’s (1660–1731) Moll Flanders (1722): ‘The Constable told him, a little mov’d, but very handsomely, I know my Duty’ (pp. 242–43; Davison, ‘ “The True-Born Englishman” and the Irish Bull’, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 6.53).
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14.575: emperor’s chief tailtickler
That is, the Austrian veterinary surgeon whom Mr Deasy is trying to persuade to come to Ireland; see note at 2.333–34.
14.576: Doctor Rinderpest
See note at 2.333. Rinder is the German word for cattle or oxen.
14.577: bolus or two of physic
Bolus: large pill. Physic: medicinal concoction (both OED).
14.578: Mr Vincent
That is, Vincent Lynch; see note at 14.190.
14.578: plain dealing
Plain dealing: ‘honesty, candour, straightforwardness’ (OED). From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘I love plain dealing’ (vol. 1, p. 243; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 138; Notesheet Oxen 1.36).
14.579: horns of a dilemma
Dilemma or the horns of a dilemma: ‘A difficult choice in which the alternatives appear equally distasteful or undesirable. “Lemma” means an assumption, a thing taken for granted [. . .] “Dilemma” is a double lemma, a two-edged sword, called by the schoolmen argumentum cornutum, or a bull which will toss you whichever horn you lay hold upon’ (Brewer’s). See also the following note.
14.579: bull that’s Irish
Irish bull: ‘a statement which is manifestly self-contradictory or inconsistent, esp. to humorous effect’ (OED, s.v. Irish). Asked what an Irish bull is, Trinity professor, and later Provost, J. P. Mahaffy (1839–1919) replied, ‘An Irish bull, madam, is always pregnant’ (quoted in Ulick O’Connor, Oliver St John Gogarty, p. 30). Joyce’s specific reference is to a cartoon by Tenniel for Punch magazine entitled ‘Taking the (Irish) Bull by the Horns’ (vol. 58, 26 Feb. 1870, p. 79). This shows Prime Minister Gladstone grabbing a bull by both horns. One horn is labelled ‘Landlord’ and the other ‘Tenant’. The bull itself is labelled ‘Irish Land Question’. This is in ref erence to his Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, which attempted to ameliorate the many grievances between landlords and tenants (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 268–70; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
14.580–650: Swift 14.580: Irish by name and irish by nature
For ‘irish by nature’, perhaps this pejorative definition of Irish is meant: ‘paradoxical; illogical or apparently so’ (OED). After Jonathan Swift’s (1667–1745) Polite Conversation: ‘she’s nice by Name, and nice by Nature’ (p. 104; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 140; Notesheet Oxen 8.104).
14.581: purling
To purl: ‘to flow with a swirling motion and a murmuring sound; to gurgle’ (OED).
14.581: An Irish bull in an English chinashop See note at 14.579.
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14.581–82: I conceive you, says Mr Dixon
To conceive: to understand (OED); see also J. P. Mahaffy’s Irish bull in the note at 14.579. In this section, Dixon is the only character referred to by his surname—indeed, we are nowhere told his first name.
14.582–83: that same bull that was sent to our island by farmer Nicholas
Bull: a papal edict (OED). The papal bull in question is Laudabiliter (1155), supposedly decreed by Pope Adrian IV (Nicholas Breakspear, the only English Pope, d. 1159, Pope 1154–59). This granted political control of Ireland to Henry II (r. 1154–89). The authenticity of this bull has long been questioned (see Anne J. Duggan, ‘The Making of a Myth: Giraldus Cambrensis, Laudabiliter, and Henry II’s Lordship of Ireland’). Indeed, there is no evidence that Henry II actually made any use of the bull Laudabiliter when he came to Ireland in 1171 (NHI, vol. 2, p. 89). Furthermore, when he came, ‘it was not as a conqueror: the majority of Irish kings submitted readily to him’ (p. 1). The linking of the invasion to Laudabiliter was made almost 20 years later, by Giraldus Cambrensis (see note at 12.1251) in his History of the Conquest of Ireland (1189), where he claims that the bull instructed Henry ‘to teach the truths of the christian faith to a rude and unlettered people, and to root out the weeds of wickedness from the field of the Lord’ (Historical Works, p. 261). Although an Anglo-Norman force had invaded Ireland in 1169 (see note at 2.393), this was only a limited incursion; properly speaking, the English dominion over Ireland began in 1171 (NHI, vol. 2, p. 1).
14.583: emerald ring
According to John of Salisbury (c.1115–80), in 1155 Pope Adrian IV gave Henry II a golden ring adorned with an emerald, as a gesture signifying Henry’s right to take over Ireland (Edmund Curtis, History of Ireland, p. 49).
14.586: cloth of gold
Cloth of gold: ‘a tissue consisting of threads, wires or strips of gold, generally interwoven with silk or wool’ (OED).
14. 586–87: sweet smoky breath
Suggests the use of incense at church.
14.589–90: farmer Nicholas that was a eunuch
That is, Nicholas Breakspear, Pope Adrian IV (see note at 14.582–83), who, as a priest, is under the vow of celibacy. The Second Lateran Council of 1139 forbade priests from marry ing, which up until that time had been possible (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Second Lateran Council). Breakspear became Pope in 1154.
14.591–92: my cousin german
Cousin german: a first cousin or, figuratively, ‘A person or thing closely related or allied to another’ (OED). In context, this refers to Henry II’s German family: his mother, Matilda (1102–64) was first married to the Holy Roman Emperor, the German-born Henry V (1086–1125) (EB11). Also a reference to the German ancestry of the current royal family (see note at 12.1390–92).
14.592: the lord Harry
King Henry II of England; see note at 14.582–83.
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14.593: slapped his posteriors
From Swift’s Tale of a Tub: ‘He would stand in the turning of a street, and, calling to those who passed by, would cry to one, Worthy sir, do me the honour of a good slap in the chaps; to another, Honest friend, pray favour me with a handsome kick on the arse’ (Works, vol. 11, p. 186; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 1.52).
14.594–95: he taught him a trick worth two of the other
After the proverbial phrase ‘A trick worth two of that’ (ODEP); the earliest recorded usage is from 1 Henry IV: ‘Nay, by God, soft; I know a trick worth two of that, i’ faith’ (II.i.37).
14.596–97: whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse
That is, go to confession (see note at 5.425). Cow-house: a house where cows are stabled (OED), though here the confessional.
14.598–99: four fields of all Ireland
The four provinces of Ireland: Connacht, Leinster, Ulster, and Munster.
14.600: point shift
That is, a chemise (shift) with points or holes, to which hose could be attached. Hose tied to shirts was a common English fashion in the fourteenth century. The Statutes of Kilkenny (1367) enjoined that the English living in Ireland must adhere to their own dress and cus tom and not adopt any Irish customs (Anna Maria Hall, Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, &c., vol. 2, p. 14; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
14.600: tippet
Tippet: a shoulder cape, usually made of fur (OED).
14.601: clipped his forelock
Amongst the Irish customs forbidden to the English by the Statutes of Kilkenny (1367) was the glib, ‘A thick mass of matted hair on the forehead and over the eyes, formerly worn by the Irish’ (OED; Hall, Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, &c., vol. 2, p. 14; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
14.601: spermacetic oil
Spermaceti oil: the waxy material from the head of a sperm whale and other whales, used in the coronation of English kings and queens (OED). Joyce’s spelling ‘spermacetic’ is rare but not unique; from Amelia Buckley’s (1840–1929) The Winners in Life’s Race (1883): ‘the huge Sperm Whale, eighty feet long, with [. . .] more than a ton of spermacetic oil in its forehead’ (p. 325).
14.603: doss
To doss: to sleep; also ‘To push with the horns, as a bull’ (OED).
14.604: father of the faithful That is, a Catholic priest.
14.606: cozening
To cozen: to beguile or cheat (OED). From Johan Earle’s (c.1601–65) Micro-Cosmographie: ‘Beggars cozen him’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 76; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 113; Notesheet Oxen 4.109). Also in R. C. Trench’s English Past and Present (p. 231; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, p. 180).
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14.614–15: Roscommon or the wilds of Connemara or a husbandman in Sligo
County Roscommon is in west-central Ireland. Connemara is a mountainous district on the western coast of Ireland in County Galway. Sligo is a city and a county in north-western Ireland.
14.619: lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks
Old Nick: the devil (Partridge). This passage on Irish bulls starts off with Henry II of England and Nicholas Breakspear (Pope Adrian IV), but as it progresses, Harry and Nicholas come to stand for the English monarchy and the papacy in general. This may refer to Henry VIII’s (1491–1547, r. 1509–47) unsuccessful attempt to persuade Pope Clement VII to grant him a divorce from Catharine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn.
14.620: old whoremaster that kept seven trulls
That is, the Pope. ‘The Whore of Babylon, from Revelation 17, plays an almost ubiquitous role in British rhetoric of anti-Catholicism, linked so closely to the Roman Catholic Church that her name provided a ready shorthand for the perceived evils of Rome’ (Laura M. Stevens, ‘Healing a Whorish Heart’, p. 71). Revelation 17:5 reads: ‘And on her forehead a name was written: A mystery; Babylon the great, the mother of the fornications, and the abominations of the earth.’ Trull: a prostitute (OED). The number seven plays a recurrent role in Revelation, for instance: ‘And there came one of the seven angels, who had the seven vials, and spoke with me, saying: Come, I will shew thee the condemnation of the great harlot, who sitteth upon many waters’ (Revelation 17:1).
14.622: pizzle
Pizzle: the penis, especially that of a bull (Partridge).
16.626–27: picking up a blackthumbed chapbook
Perhaps in reference to Henry VIII’s defence of the Roman Catholic Church against Martin Luther’s attacks, Assertio Septem Sacramentorum adversus Martinus Lutherus, from 1521. This short book was a bestseller in England and abroad, and as reward the Pope conferred upon Henry the title ‘Fidei Defensor’ (Defender of the Faith) by papal bull on 11 October 1521 (Alison Weir, Henry VIII, pp. 236–37). It was only later that Henry turned against the pope.
14.628: lefthanded descendant
A left-handed, or morganatic, marriage was one ‘in which a man of high rank marries a wife of lower rank, but neither the wife nor any children of the marriage have any claim to the possessions or title of the husband’ (OED, s.vv. left-handed, morganatic).
14.628: famous champion bull of the Romans That is, Peter, from whom all the popes ‘descend’.
14.628: Bos Bovum
Bos Bovum (Latin): ‘A bull among bulls’.
14.629: bog Latin
Bog Latin: spurious or phony Latin, possibly a corruption of Dog Latin (Partridge); also suggests Latin spoken in Ireland.
14.630–32: lord Harry . . . new name
As part of the first step of the breach with Rome and the subjugation of the Church in England to the throne, in 1531, Henry VIII declared himself ‘Protector and Supreme Head
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14.634: bulls’ language
That is, Church Latin, the language of papal bulls and other official business of the church.
14.635: first personal pronoun
The first-person singular pronoun in Latin is ego. The OED notes that the sense of ego as ‘self-esteem, egotism, self-importance’ dates back at least to 1891.
14.639: an arse and a shirt
A literal translation of the Italian expression ‘culo e camicia’, used to imply close familiarity between two people (Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, s.v. culo). An analogous expression exists in French (‘cul et chemise’), but the Italian is older and follows from Boccaccio’s Decameron (Day four, story 2): ‘che non toccava il cul la camiscia’ (the arse did not touch the shirt) (p. 354; with thanks to Claudio Sansone).
14.640: ungrate women
Ungrate: unpleasant, disagreeable, ungrateful (OED). From Swift’s Tale of a Tub: ‘the base detracting world would not then have dared to report that something is amiss, that his brain hath undergone an unlucky shake; which even his brother modernists themselves, like ungrates, do whisper so loud, that it reaches up to the very garret I am now writing in’ (Works, vol. 11, p. 160; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 1.53).
14.641: wherry raft
Wherry: a kind of light barge, usually used to transport goods on a river (OED).
14.642: yards
Yard: nautical term for a spar which is attached to a mast and supports a sail (OED).
14.643: sprang their luff
To spring one’s luff: to bring the head of the ship closer to the wind (OED, s.v. luff). After Raleigh’s (1552–1618) A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of Azores: ‘the mari ners term it, sprang their luff ’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 36; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 110; Notesheet Oxen 3.91).
14.643: heaved to
To heave to: ‘to bring the ship to a standstill by setting the sails so as to counteract each other’ (OED).
14.643: spread three sheets in the wind
A nautical term but also a euphemism for being drunk (Partridge).
14.644: ported her helm
That is, turned the ship’s helm toward port, causing the vessel to turn to starboard (OED, s.v. port).
14.645: gave three times three
Three times three: three cheers (OED, s.v. three).
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14.645: let the bullgine run
Bullgine: a steam engine that propels a ship (OED). Cecil Sharp’s English Folk-Chanteys quotes a sea chantey that begins, ‘We’ll run from night till morning. / O run, let the bullgine run’ (p. 16).
14.646: bumboat
Bumboat: ‘a small boat used to carry provisions to, and remove refuse from, ships lying at anchor in a harbour [. . .] Bumboats have frequently been associated with illicit activities, such as theft, smuggling, and prostitution’ (OED).
14.646: to recover the main of America
To recover: ‘To get to, reach, arrive at (a place or position)’; this sense was common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Main: mainland (both OED). For main, the OED cites Richard Steele (1672–1729): ‘the Achilles, in some Distress, put into a Creek on the Main of America’ (Addison and Steele, The Spectator, vol. 1, p. 36). The first part of the phrase derives from Raleigh’s (1552–1618) A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of Azores: ‘recovered England’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 35; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 110; Notesheet Oxen 3.104). Between 1876 and 1921, 84 per cent of all Irish emigrants had the United States as their destination (R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, pp. 355–56).
14.649–50: Pope Peter’s but a pissabed . . . a’ that
Pissabed: bed-wetter (OED). Combines Robert Burns’s ‘Song—For a’ that and a’ that’ (1795) with the children’s rhyme ‘Piss a bed’. From Burns’s poem: ‘The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, / The Man’s the gowd for a’ that // What tho’ on hamely fare we dine, / Wear hoddin- gray, an’ a’ that / Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, / A Man’s a Man for a’ that’ (ll. 7–12). The rhyme ‘Piss a bed’ was recorded in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book (1744), the earliest extant collection of nursery rhymes, although this particular one was frequently omitted from later such anthologies: ‘Piss a bed, / Piss a bed, / Barley Butt, / Your bum is so heavy, / You can’t get up’ (p. 34; William S. Baring-Gould and Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose, p. 35).
14.651–737: Steele, Addison 14.652: apologue
Apologue: ‘An allegorical story intended to convey a useful lesson; a moral fable. (Applied more especially to a story in which the actors or speakers are taken from the brute creation or from inanimate nature.)’ (OED).
14.653–54: Alec Bannon See note at 4.407.
14.654–55: to buy a colour or a cornetcy in the fencibles
That is, to buy a commission in the army, which was possible until 1872 (Sally Mitchell, Daily Life in Victorian England, p. 277). Colour: a flag that identifies a military unit (OED). Cornet: the lowly officer who carried the colour (OED). Fencibles: ‘companies of regular troops of horse and foot, raised for home service [. . .] for special emergencies’ (Brewer’s). From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘sufficient to buy colours in any regiment’ (vol. 1, p. 171; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 138).
14.659: Mr Quinnell’s
George Quinnell: printer, 45 Fleet Street (Thom’s, p. 1493).
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792 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.660: Incubator
Incubator: breeder, author, source (OED).
14.660: Lambay Island
Lambay Island is located 19 km north-east of Dublin and about 8 km offshore. ‘Lambay is almost as desolate as Ireland’s Eye. It is practically abandoned to rabbits and seabirds’ (D. A. Chart, Story of Dublin, p. 341).
14.662–63: sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc
Richard Steele (Irish writer and politician, 1672–1729) used characters with suggestive names in his satirical stories and essays for The Tatler, such as ‘Ephraim Bedstaff ’ (The Tatler, vol. 1, p. 181), ‘Rebecca Midriffe’ (vol. 4, p. 109), and ‘Elizabeth Gimcrack’ (vol. 4, p. 136). Fopling: a petty, foolish person. Popinjay: ‘a shallow, vain, or conceited person’. Milksop: ‘A feeble, timid, or ineffectual person, esp. a man or boy who is indecisive, effem in ate, or lacking in courage’. Quidnunc: an inquisitive person (all OED). The name ‘Popinjay’ comes from Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV: ‘To be so pestered with a popinjay’ (I.iii.49; quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 113; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 125; Notesheet Oxen 11.75).
14.664–65: good my friend
From Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘what have you, my good friends’ (II.ii.239–40, quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 69; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 271; Notesheet Oxen 4.134).
14.666: ’Tis as cheap sitting as standing
From Jonathan Swift’s (1667–1745) Polite Conversation: ‘sit while you stay; ’tis as cheap sit ting, as standing’ (p. 60).
14.666–67: accepted of the invitation
After David Hume’s (1711–76) My Own Life: ‘I accepted of it’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 199; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 13.73).
14.668: led into this thought
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Mr Bickerstaff Visits a Friend’ in The Tatler: ‘I am led into this thought by a visit I made’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 226; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 271; Notesheet Oxen 15.49).
14.670: parsimony of the balance
This seems to refer to the stinginess of withholding oneself.
14.671–72: defects congenital or from proclivities acquired
One example would be syphilis, which can be either inherited or acquired (EB11, s.v. ven ereal diseases).
14.673: dearest pledges
Pledge: ‘A child, esp. one considered as a token or evidence of mutual love and duty between parents’ (OED). From Sir Francis Bacon’s (1561–1626) Essays: ‘Yet it were great Reason, that those that have Children should have greatest care of future times; unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 61; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’ p. 271; Notesheet Oxen 4.120).
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14.673–74: so many agreeable females
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Dick Estcourt: In Memoriam’: ‘loss of so agreeable a man’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 146; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 117; Notesheet Oxen 15.123).
14.674: jointures
Jointure: dowry (OED).
14.674: bonzes
Bonze: ‘A term applied by Europeans to the Buddhist clergy of Japan, and sometimes of China’ (OED); and Gogarty’s nickname for Catholic priests (Stanislaus Joyce, Complete Dublin Diary, p. 88).
14.674–75: who hide their flambeau under a bushel
After the Sermon on the Mount: ‘You are the light of the world. A city seated on a moun tain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house’ (Matthew 5:14–15).
14.676: some unaccountable muskin
Muskin: a ‘chap, fellow, man, especially if odd’; almost always preceded by unaccountable (Partridge). The phrase originates with William Cowper’s (1731–1800) essay ‘On Conversation’: ‘Those who call a man a cabbage, an odd fish, an unaccountable muskin, should never come into company without an interpreter’ (The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper, vol. 5, p. 26; quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 241; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 13.98).
14.677: inestimable jewel
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Mr Bickerstaff Visits a Friend’ in the Tatler: ‘Oh! She is an inestimable jewel’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 228; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 271; Notesheet Oxen 15.56).
14.679: inconvenient
Inconvenient (as noun): misfortune, mishap (OED).
14.680: latent heat
Latent heat: in physics, the heat required to turn a solid into a liquid or a vapour, or to turn a liquid into a vapour (OED).
14.682: purchase in fee simple
Fee simple: ‘An estate in land, etc. belonging to the owner and his heirs for ever, without limitation to any particular class of heirs. in fee-simple: in absolute possession’ (OED). From Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Declaration to the English Nation: ‘The fee-simple is in US’ (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 88; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 147; Notesheet Oxen 16.49).
14.682: freehold
A freehold is an estate held in fee simple (i.e., in perpetuity, without limitation) or for term of life (OED).
14.682–83: Lambay island from its holder, lord Talbot de Malahide
James Talbot (1805–83) inherited the title Lord Talbot de Malahide in 1850 (DIB); see also note at 10.156. He sold Lambay Island to Count Considine in 1881 (Tom O’Shea, The Talbots and Malahide Castle, p. 62). In 1904, Richard Wogan Talbot (1846–1921) held the title.
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794 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.683–84: Tory gentleman of note much in favour with our ascendancy party
See note at 2.268 for Tory. ‘The years between the treaty of Limerick [1691] and the act of union [1801] were the classic age of protestant ascendancy, when the families that had acquired land in the seventeenth century, and those who became assimilated to them by joining the established church, enjoyed a virtual monopoly of political, social, and territor ial power. The basis of that ascendancy was established during the reigns of William and Anne by a series of penal laws designed to keep catholics in a state of powerless subordina tion’ (NHI, vol. 4, p. 1).
14.684–85: national fertilising farm
Mulligan’s project echoes the goals of eugenics, the purportedly scientific effort to engin eer superior human beings through selective breeding. The term was coined by Francis Galton (1822–1911), a cousin of Charles Darwin. He begins his book Hereditary Genius (1869) with the claim that ‘it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations’ (p. 1). While not all advocates of eugenics were racist, there was a compatibility between the eugenic ideal of breeding and racialist classification. ‘Racism—in that era racial differences were identified with variations not only in skin color but in ethnic identity—was a feature of both British and American eugenics’ (Daniel Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, p. 74).
14.685: Omphalos See note at 1.176.
14.685–86: obelisk hewn and erected after the fashion of Egypt
Egyptian obelisks were ‘usually raised on pedestals of cubical form resting on one or two steps, and were set up in pairs in front of the entrance of temples’ (EB11).
14.686: yeoman services
The yeomen are, historically, the freeholders of small plots. The expression yeoman service means ‘Effectual service, characterized by hard and steady work. The reference is to the service of yeomen in the English armies of former days’ (Brewer’s).
14.687: fecundation
Fecundation: impregnation (OED).
14.687: soever
From Alexander Pope’s (1688–1744) ‘On Dedications’: ‘in what places soever’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 169; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 13.84).
14.688: fulfilling the functions of her natural
Natural: the genitals (OED). From Jonathan Swift’s (1667–1745) Tale of a Tub: ‘However, I thought it fairer dealing to offer the whole work in its naturals’ (Works, vol. 11, p. 39; Downing, ‘Joyce’s “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheets’; Notesheet Oxen 1.47).
14.693–94: savoury tubercles and fish and coneys
Tuber: ‘An underground structure consisting of a solid thickened portion or outgrowth of a stem or rhizome, of a more or less rounded form, and bearing “eyes” or buds from which new plants may arise; a familiar example is the potato’; tubercle: a small tuber. Coney: rab bit (all OED). See also note at 14.660.
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14.694–95: the flesh of these latter prolific rodents being highly recommended
That is, rabbit meat is recommended because it would increase fertility since rabbits are stereotypically prodigious breeders.
14.696: capsicum chilies
Capsicum chilies: The hot, pungent seed pods from capsicum plants, such as the common annual capsicum or Guinea Pepper, used in making Cayenne pepper (OED, s.v. capsicum).
14.697: asseveration
Asseveration: ‘solemn declaration, emphatic assertion’ (OED).
14.697: in a trice
From Maria Edgeworth’s (Irish writer, 1767–1849) Ennui: ‘He was in his seat in a trice’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 251; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 13.81).
14.697–98: put off from his hat
From Thomas Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches: ‘put off his hat, and spake’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 389; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 125; Notesheet Oxen 20.50).
14.699: mending their pace
From Addison’s (1672–1719) essay ‘Sir Roger at the Play’: ‘I observed two or three lusty black men that followed me half way up Fleetstreet, and mended their pace behind me, in proportion as I put on to get away from them’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, An Anthology of English Prose, p. 220; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 271; Notesheet Oxen 15.42).
14.700–01: smallclothes of a hodden grey
Small-clothes: breeches or kneebreeches. Hodden grey: coarse woollen cloth made without dye and thus retaining a natural grey colour (all OED). The phrase ‘hodden grey’ was popu larised by Allan Ramsay in The Gentle Shepard, a Scots pastoral comedy (1725) and appears in line 10 of Robert Burns’s poem ‘For A’ That and A’ That’ (see note at 14.649–50).
14.701: piebald
From Joseph Addison (1672–1719) in the Spectator: ‘pleased to hear of a piebald horse’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Literature, p. 224; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 271; Notesheet Oxen 15.44).
14.703: excepted to it
To except to: to make objection to (OED). From Francis Bacon’s (1561–1626) Essays: ‘perhaps they have heard some talk, “Such an one is a great rich Man”, and another except to it, “Yea, but he hath a great charge of Children” ’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Literature, p. 61; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 272; Notesheet Oxen 4.121).
14.704: carry coals to Newcastle
Proverbial for an unnecessary task since Newcastle is home to many coal mines (Dent).
14.705: made court to
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Dick Estcourt: In Memoriam’: ‘made his court to one part’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 146; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 117; Notesheet Oxen 15.124).
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796 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.705–06: as it dwelt upon his memory
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Story of Inkle and Yarico’: ‘as it dwells upon my mem ory’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 151; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 117; Notesheet Oxen 15.129).
14.707–10: Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites . . . anteponunt
(Latin): ‘Such and so great is the depravity of this age, O fellow citizens, that our mothers of families greatly prefer the wanton titillations of some one or another half-male barbarian to the massive testicles and sky-high erections of Roman centurions.’ This passage is of Joyce’s inven tion and is in a Ciceronian style. Properly, anteponunt should read anteponant (Schork, Latin and Roman Culture in Joyce, pp. 33–38). The word libici is not a Latin word. On the earliest extant draft of this passage, Joyce wrote ‘Libyici’ (JJA, vol. 14, p. 46), which is very close to the word Libyci, Libyan. Within the context of this passage, this word sets up a cultural contrast with Romanorum, and so Schork proposes translating it as ‘barbarian’ (p. 37). See also ‘Libyan eunuch’ at 15.2573.
14.711: suitable to their stomach
From Addison’s (1672–1719) ‘The Vision of Mirzah’: ‘suitable to the relishes’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 166; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 15.137). Joyce originally wrote ‘suitable to their relish’ (Rosenbach f. 31) and changed this to ‘stomach’ on a now-missing typescript (UCSE, p. 868).
14.713–14: a proper man of person
Person: ‘A man or woman of high rank, distinction, or importance’ (OED); thus a man of person is a man of distinction. From Robert Burton’s (1576–1640) Anatomy of Melancholy: ‘This Cymon was a fool, a proper man of person’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 66; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 112; Notesheet Oxen 4.99).
14.714: this talkative
From John Bunyan’s (1628–88) Pilgrim’s Progress, the character Talkative, who, as the name implies, talks about faith at great length, but does not practise it: ‘This Talkative is not aware of, he thinks that hearing and saying will make a good Christian, and thus he deceiveth his own Soul’ (p. 98; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 135; Notesheet Oxen 4.172).
14.714: applied himself to his dress
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Mr Bickerstaff Visits a Friend’ in The Tatler: ‘applying herself to me’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 228; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 272; Notesheet Oxen 15.58).
14.715: animadversions
Animadversion: ‘A criticism, comment, observation, or remark’ (OED). For Mulligan’s (and Gogarty’s) habit of speaking to inanimate objects, see note at 1.513.
14.717: The young gentleman, his friend
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Mr Bickerstaff Visits a Friend’ in The Tatler: ‘Upon which the gentleman, my friend’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 226; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 272; Notesheet Oxen 15.51).
14.720: those loaves and fishes
Jesus fed a crowd of ‘five thousand men, besides women and children’ (Matthew 14:21) with just ‘five loaves, and two fishes’ (Matthew 14:17; see Mark 6:38, Luke 9:13, and John 6:9).
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14.722: Who, upon his offer
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Story of Inkle and Yarico’: ‘who, upon my entrance’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 150; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 117; Notesheet Oxen 15.127).
14.722–23: preserving his proper distance
From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Dick Estcourt: In Memoriam’: ‘still preserving the dis tance his circumstances obliged him to’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 149; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 117; Notesheet Oxen 15.126).
14.725: here he fetched a deep sigh
From Addison’s (1672–1719) ‘The Vision of Mirzah’: ‘I here fetched a deep sigh’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 165; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 15.135).
14.727: incipient ventripotence
That is, Mulligan is starting to get plump (see note at 1.1). Ventripotent: big-bellied (OED).
14.728: rallied
To rally: to tease (OED).
14.728–30: ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle . . . wolf in the stomach
The anti-Semitic Mulligan has asked Bloom if he is at the hospital in need of professional assistance (i.e. is he pregnant?). Dixon turns the tables here, teasing Mulligan by asking him whether his (Mulligan’s) plumpness is due to a ‘male womb’ or hunger. Ovoblastic: a pseudo- medical nonce word meaning ‘Of or relating to an egg cell’. Utricle: ‘A small cul-de-sac in the prostatic portion of the urethra in man’ (both OED), here described as a ‘male womb’ analo gous to the female uterus. Joyce probably derived this from Giulio Valenti’s Lezioni Elementari di Embriologia (see note at 14.1236): ‘nel maschio [. . .] i condotti di Wolff acquisitano molto importanza. L’estremità inferiore resta a costituire l’otricolo prostatico od utero masculino’ (In males [. . .] the Wolffian ducts become very important. The lower parts remain to constitute the utriculus prostaticus or male womb) (p. 179; Udo Benzenhöfer, ‘Joyce and Embryology’, p. 610). The phrase ‘wolf in the stomach’ refers to the Wolffian ducts (tubes through which bodily fluids are conveyed (OED)) as mentioned in Valenti’s book, and also suggests a pro verbial description for hunger, ‘a growing boy has a wolf in his belly’ (ODEP).
14.729: Mr Austin Meldon
Austin S. Meldon (1844–1904), FRCSI (Fellow Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland), LKQCPI (Licentiate King’s and Queen’s College of Physicians, Ireland) (Thom’s, p. 878). Meldon was also ex-president RCPI (Royal College of Physicians of Ireland) and senior surgeon to Jervis Street Hospital. He lived at 15 North Merrion Square (p. 1955). ‘Dr Meldon was famously obese [. . .] we all knew Dublin’s joke about Dr Meldon getting out from a fly [carriage]—a greater miracle than Jonah’s emergence from the belly of the whale’ (C. P. Curran, Under the Receding Wave, p. 18).
14.731: smalls
Small: ‘Designating the relatively narrow part of the digestive tube that lies between the stomach and the colon, and (esp. in early use) each of the three sections of this (duodenum, jejunum, or ileum); esp. in small bowel(s) small gut(s), small intestine(s))’ (OED, s.v. small).
14.732: Mother Grogan See note at 1.357.
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798 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.733: ’tis pity she’s a trollop
After the title of ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1633), a play by John Ford (c.1586–c.1655).
14.734: There’s a belly that never bore a bastard
Here’s a belly never reared a bastard: an Anglo-Irish catchphrase of the mid-nineteenth century to early twentieth century, meaning a boaster (Partridge, Dictionary of Catch Phrases).
14.736: larum
Larum: ‘A call to arms [. . .] any sound to warn of danger’ (OED). From Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Story of Inkle and Yarico’: ‘thanked him till the larum ceased of itself ’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 150; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 117; Notesheet Oxen 15.128).
14.738–98: Sterne 14.738: little fume of a fellow
From Laurence Sterne’s (1713–68) Sentimental Journey: ‘the Notary’s wife was a little fume of a woman’ (p. 208). Fume: ‘one who is apt to get angry’ (OED).
14.742: cordial waters
Cordial water: alcoholic spirits (OED, s.v. cordial).
14.746–47: Mais bien sûr . . . compliments
Mais bien sûr . . . et mille compliments (French): ‘But of course . . . and a thousand compli ments’. The use of French in this paragraph echoes Sterne’s penchant for peppering his Sentimental Journey with choice soupçons from that language. For example, from the excerpt in Peacock’s anthology: ‘I had but three sous left: so I gave one simply pour l’amour de Dieu, which was the footing on which it was begg’d—The poor woman had a dislocated hip [. . .] Mon cher et tres-charitable Monsieur.—There’s no opposing this, said I. My Lord Anglois; the very sound was worth the money’ (Peacock, English Prose, p. 207; Sentimental Journey, pp. 79–80).
14.754: silk riband
Riband: ribbon (OED). The OED cites Richard Steele (1672–1729): ‘She has stolen the Colour of her Ribbands from another’ (Addison and Steele, The Spectator, vol. 1, p. 15).
14.758: tucker
Tucker: a piece of lace worn by women at the top of the bodice or about the neck (OED).
14.758: coquette cap
This is the hat Bloom gave Milly for her birthday (‘feastday’) and which she mentions in her letter: ‘Everyone says I’m quite the belle in my new tam’ (4.399).
14.759: artless disorder
After Robert Herrick’s (1591–1674) poem ‘Delight in Disorder’ (1648), ‘A sweet disorder in the dress / Kindles in clothes a wantonness’ (Poetical Works, vol. 1, p. 37).
14.763: amiable
Amiable is used in the sense of lovable (R. C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, pp. 6–7; Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 60).
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14.771: sublunary
Sublunary: beneath the moon; terrestrial; subordinate, inferior (OED). From Swift’s Tale of a Tub: ‘the transitory state of all sublunary things’ (Works, vol. 11, p. 70; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 15.60).
14.774: beshrew me
Beshrew me: an exclamation equivalent to ‘curse me’, but often used humorously or play fully (OED, s.v. beshrew).
14.776: marchand de capotes
Marchand de capotes (French): ‘condom vendor’. In French, capote anglaise (literally, English overcoat) is slang for a condom; compare with the English expression for a con dom, ‘French letter’ (see note at 9.1101).
14.776: Monsieur Poyntz
There were two merchants with this name and both were ‘marchand de capotes’ in the sense of ‘overcoat vendor’. Benjamin Poyntz & Co.: ‘hosiers, glovers, and colonial outfitters’, 105–106 Grafton Street (Thom’s, pp. 1989, 2069); Samuel Robert Poyntz: ‘indiarubber ware house and water proofer’, 20 Clare Street (p. 1989). Gogarty wrote a poem about the latter Poyntz: ‘Gogarty’s lines to Poyntz—a purveyor of preventatives—/ And this my pardonable pride / Saves Erin from infanticide / Guttapercha coffin maker / Antenatal undertaker’ (quoted in James Carens, ‘Some Points on Poyntz and Related Matters’, p. 345).
14.777: livre
The livre (‘pound’): a French coin eventually replaced by the franc, which is of equivalent value (OED).
14.778: Le Fécondateur
Le Fécondateur (French): ‘The Fertiliser’.
14.780: avec lui
Avec lui (French): ‘with him’; see note at 9.1098–99.
14.781: Cape Horn
Cape Horn: the vagina, because it is the southernmost tip of a woman’s torso (Max Décharné, Vulgar Tongues, p. 108).
14.781: ventre biche
Ventre biche (French; more usually ventre de biche): literally ‘deer’s belly’, but in use as an exclamation of excitement, something like ‘what the devil?!’
14.783: sans blague
Sans blague (French): ‘all joking aside’ (literally, ‘without joke’).
14.785: clumsy things
That is, condoms. Clumsy is used in the sense of ‘stiff, rigid, contacted with cold’ (R. C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, p. 53; Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 61).
14.785: sou
Sou: a French coin, twenty of them made up a livre. Proverbially, a sou is a worthless amount (Partridge).
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800 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.785: umbrella
In context, umbrella here is used to mean a contraceptive diaphragm; the OED lists as one of the meanings of umbrella, ‘A structure resembling in shape an outspread umbrella, or serving for protection against something’.
14.786: fairy mushroom
Fairy mushroom: a toadstool (OED); here a reference to the shape of a diaphragm.
14.788: ark of salvation
After Genesis 6–8, where Noah builds an ark to save representatives of each species from the flood. In context, the ark of salvation is a condom.
14.790: dame Nature See note at 14.509.
14.792: il y a deux choses
Il y a deux choses (French): ‘there are two matters’.
14.795: tilbury
Tilbury: a ‘twowheeled horse carriage or gig, without top or cover. It was designed by John Tilbury of London in the early 19th century’ (Brewer’s). From R. C. Trench, On the Study of Words (p. 159; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, p. 179).
14.797: the first is a bath— . . . cut short a discourse
Laurence Sterne’s works are replete with unfinished dialogue and sentences cut short—and interrupted—by dashes. From one of the examples from Tristram Shandy cited in Peacock’s anthology: ‘It was an eye—But I shall be in love with myself, if I say another word about it’ (Peacock, English Prose, p. 206; Tristram Shandy, p. 409). Joyce mostly avoids dashes in Ulysses, except to indicate the start of dialogue (see note at 1.5). This particular dash is thus a rare exception. Joyce wrote this dash on multiple drafts (JJA, vol. 14, p. 107; Rosenbach f. 35); unfortunately the typist misread it and typed in an ellipsis instead (JJA, vol. 14, p. 184), which is what appeared in all editions up until Gabler’s.
14.799–879: Goldsmith 14.804: not less severe than beautiful
From Oliver Goldsmith’s story ‘Asem the Man-Hater’: ‘not less severe than beautiful’ (Works, vol. 5, p. 222; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 146; Notesheet Oxen 14.66).
14.806: fuddled
Fuddled: intoxicated (OED).
14.807: I’ll be sworn
From Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV: ‘No, Ile be sworne’ (IV.ii.65, quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 72; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 273; Notesheet Oxen 4.140).
14.808: Gad’s bud
Gad’s bud: ‘God’s body’; an eighteenth-century curse (Partridge; OED).
14.810: Demme
Demme: an eighteenth-century variant of ‘damn’ (Partridge).
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14.810: Doctor O’Gargle Not a real doctor.
14.812: Lawksamercy
Lawksamercy: ‘lord have mercy’ (Partridge, s.v. Lawk).
14.813: primrose vest See note at 1.550.
14.815–16: Father Cantekissem Not a real priest.
14.816: pot of four
Four-ale: an amount of beer or spirits that costs four pence for a quart (OED, s.v. four).
14.817: in the family way
In the family way: pregnant (OED, s.v. family).
14.817–18: white swelling
To have a white swelling: to be pregnant (Partridge).
14.821: put a period to the sufferings
To put a period to: to bring to an end (OED). From Goldsmith’s story ‘Asem the Man- Hater’: ‘put a period to his anxiety’ (Works, vol. 5, p. 218; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 146; Notesheet Oxen 14.59).
14.821: enceinte
Enceinte (French): pregnant.
14.822: laudable fortitude
From Richard Steele (1672–1729): ‘Since our Persons are not of our own Making, when they are such as appear Defective or Uncomely, it is, methinks, an honest and laudable Fortitude to dare to be Ugly’ (Addison and Steele, The Spectator, vol. 1, p. 52; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 14.58).
14.823: I want patience
Want is used in the earlier sense of lacking and not in the sense of desiring (OED; Skeat, English Etymological Dictionary). From Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World, when the Chinese philoso pher Lien Chi Altangi is informed that in England the practice is that the husband is punished when the wife is unfaithful: ‘I want patience [. . .] What! Are there no private chatisements for the wife; no schools of penitence to show her folly; no blows for such delinquents?’ (Works, vol. 3, pp. 152–53; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 69).
14.826–27: a cloud of witnesses
‘And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us’ (Hebrews 12:1). Goldsmith uses the phrase in his essay ‘A Reverie at the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap’: ‘There was no resisting such a cloud of witnesses’ (Works, vol. 5, p. 239; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 146; Notesheet Oxen 14.62).
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802 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.827: exercitations
Exercitations: duties or faculties, as of one’s profession (OED). Goldsmith uses the word in his description of Louis XV: ‘His health, thank Heaven! Is still pretty well; nor is he in the least unfit, as was reported, for any kind of royal exercitation’ (Works, vol. 3, p. 110; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 70).
14.828: byword
Byword: an object of scorn or contempt (OED).
14.830: lustre of her own sex
After Oliver Goldsmith’s essay ‘The History of Hypatia’: ‘Such was the end of Hypatia, the glory of her own sex and the astonishment of ours’ (Works, vol. 5, p. 52; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 14.106–07).
14.835: he saluted those present on the by
On the by: in passing (OED, s.v. by). From Ben Jonson’s (1573–1637) Discoveries: ‘They who have but saluted her on the by’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 80; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 273; Notesheet Oxen 4.154).
14.839–40: he swore a round hand
That is, he swore strongly or vehemently. Round: ‘bold, arrant, downright; not toned down in any way’ (OED).
14.840–41: Stap my vitals
Stap my vitals: ‘a silly Curse’ of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Partridge).
14.842: to honour thy father and thy mother
The fifth of the Ten Commandments that God gives to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:12; see also Deuteronomy 5:16).
14.843: rolypoly See note at 8.232.
14.843: hasty pudding
Hasty pudding: ‘A pudding made of flour stirred in boiling milk or water to the consistency of a thick batter; in some parts applied to a similar preparation of oatmeal (usually called “porridge”)’ (OED).
14.846: impudent mocks
From Daniel Defoe’s (1660–1731) Moll Flanders (1722): ‘the Maids made their impudent Mocks upon that’ (p. 285; Davison, ‘ “The True-Born Englishman” and the Irish Bull’, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 6.102).
14.848: sparks
Sparks: young men of foppish and affected character (OED).
14.848: extravagancies
From Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield’s (1694–1773) ‘On Passion’: ‘their extravagancy’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 173; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 13.91).
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14.848–49: overgrown children
From Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield’s (1694–1773) ‘On Passion’: ‘They are, in short, overgrown children, and continue so in the most advanced age’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 174; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 119; Notesheet Oxen 13.99).
14.849: their tumultuary discussions
Tumultuary: disorderly, haphazard (OED). From Edward Gibbon’s (1737–94) Decline of the Roman Empire: ‘By their tumultuary election’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 245; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 13.79).
14.850: testiness
From Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield’s (1694–1773) ‘On Passion’: ‘hurries them into testiness’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 174; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 13.97).
14.850: mots
Mots (French): words.
14.851: intellects
Intellects (in plural): mental faculties, wits (OED).
14.851: resiled
To resile: to recoil (OED). From David Hume’s (1711–76) My Own Life: ‘resiled from their excessive civilities’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 200; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 13.74).
14.852: strong animal spirits
From Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterton’s (1694–1773) ‘On Passion’: ‘People of strong animal spirits, warm constitutions, and a cold genius [. . .] are most irascible animals’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 174; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 119; Notesheet Oxen 13.100–01).
14.852–53: spoke in their behalf
From Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield’s (1694–1773) ‘On Passion’: ‘It is said in their behalf ’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 172; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 13.89).
14.854: nauseated the wretch
To nauseate: to loathe or abhor (OED). From Daniel Defoe’s (1660–1731) Moll Flanders (1722): ‘I began to Nauseate the Man more’ (p. 278; Davison, ‘ “The True-Born Englishman” and the Irish Bull’, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 6.99).
14.854–55: a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity
Crop-eared: having the ears cropped (as a punishment). Gibbosity: the quality of being a hunchback (both OED); taken from Richard Steele (1672–1729): ‘That a singular Regard be had, upon Examination, to the Gibbosity of the Gentlemen that offer themselves, as Founder’s Kinsmen’ (Addison and Steele, The Spectator, vol. 1, p. 54; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 14.61). This description of Costello recalls various descrip tions of Richard III from Shakespeare’s play, such as: ‘But thou art neither like thy sire nor
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804 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses thy dam; / But like a foul misshapen stigmatic, / Mark’d by the destinies to be avoided, / As venom toads, or lizards’ dreadful stings’ (II.ii.135–38; see also V.vi.67–71).
14.855–56: thrust like a crookback . . . into the world
From Thomas More’s (1478–1535) History of King Richard the Third: ‘Richard, the third son, [. . .] was in wit and courage equal with either of them, in body and prowess far under them both, little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard-favoured of visage, and such as in states called warly, in other men otherwise, he was malicious, wrathful, envious, and from afore his birth ever forward. It is for truth reported that [. . .] he came into the world with the feet forward [. . .] and (as the fame runneth) also not untoothed’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 54; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 126; Notesheet Oxen 11.06–07).
14.858: missing link of creation’s chain
In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin (1809–82) writes: ‘it appears to me, in the plainest manner, that man is descended from some lower form, notwithstanding that connecting- links have not hitherto been discovered’ (p. 185). From Gilbert White’s (1720–93) Natural History of Selborne: ‘link in the chain of beings’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 201; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 13.50).
14.858–59: the late ingenious Mr Darwin
Charles Darwin (1809–82): English scientist and originator of the theory of natural selec tion and pioneer of evolutionary biology. After his death, Darwin and his theories remained controversial and were attached to any number of discourses: ‘naturalism, materialism, or evolutionary philosophy. It stood for competition and co-operation, liberation and subor dination, progress and pessimism, war and peace. Its politics could be liberal, socialist, or conservative, its religion atheistic or orthodox. At the turn of the twentieth century European social scientists, then American, began using “social Darwinism” as a shorthand for biological theories that impinged on their professional domain’ (ODNB). From Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield’s (1694–1773) ‘On Passion’: ‘the late ingenious Doctor Monro’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 173; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 119; Notesheet Oxen 13.93–94).
14.859: middle span of our allotted years
From Psalm 89:10 (90:10 in the King James), man’s allotted number of years is seventy: ‘The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years’. Bloom was born in 1866 and is thirty-eight years old in 1904, a bit past the middle span. See also note at 9.831.
14.860: through the thousand vicissitudes of existence
From Samuel Johnson’s (1709–84) ‘On Wasting Time’: ‘through a thousand vicissitudes of tumult and tranquillity’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 187; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 13.107).
14.862: rising choler
Choler: anger; one of the four cardinal humours which, in ancient and medieval physi ology and medicine, were believed to determine the health and temperament of an indi vidual. Choler was ‘identified as bile (or as present within bile) and described as hot and dry in nature, and supposed when predominant to cause irritability or irascibility of tem per’ (OED, s.v. choler; humour). From Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield’s
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 805 (1694–1773) ‘On Passion’: ‘The moment they felt their choler rising’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 172; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 13.87).
14.862: by intercepting them
From Samuel Johnson’s (1709–84) ‘On Wasting Time’: ‘by intercepting the sunshine’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 187; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 13.106).
14.862–63: with the readiest precaution
From Gilbert White’s (1720–93) ‘Natural History of Selborne: ‘Yet he is, as Mr Pope says of his lord, “Much too wise to walk into a well:” and has so much discernment as not to fall down a haha; but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 218; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 122; Notesheet Oxen 13.62).
14.864–65: tolerable and but tolerable
From David Hume’s (Scottish philosopher, 1711–76) My Own Life: ‘But I was callous against the impressions of public folly, and continued very peaceably and contentedly in my retreat at Edinburgh, to finish, in two volumes, the more early part of the English History, which I gave to the public in 1761, with tolerable, and but tolerable success’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 199; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 13.71).
14.865: create themselves wits
From Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield’s (1694–1773) ‘On Passion’: ‘create themselves gentlemen’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 175; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 13.102).
14.866: he never did hold with
From Charles Lamb’s (1775–1834) Essays of Elia: ‘I hold with the Persian’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 278; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 124; Notesheet Oxen 13.08).
14.867: herit
To herit: to inherit (OED).
14.868: having lost all forbearance, can lose no more
From Samuel Johnson’s (1709–84) ‘On Wasting Time’: ‘having lost all, we can lose no more’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 187; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 13.108). In Johnson’s text, this passage appears right after the passage at 14.860.
14.869: the sharp antidote of experience
From Edmund Burke’s (1729–97) Reflections on the Revolution in France: ‘that she [Marie Antoinette] should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 237; Janusko, Sources and Structures, pp. 123; Notesheet Oxen 13.95).
14.870: a precipitate and inglorious retreat
After Samuel Johnson’s (1709–84) ‘A Garret and Its Tenants’: ‘the first tenant was a tailor, of whom nothing is remembered but that he complained of his room for want of light; and having lodged in it a month [. . .] was forced to make a precipitate retreat from this quarter of the town’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 184; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 119; Notesheet Oxen 13.89).
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806 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.871: mows of dotards
Mow: jest, prank. Dotard: fool (both OED). From Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield’s (1694–1773) ‘On Passion’: ‘the peevish dotard’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 173; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 119; Notesheet Oxen 13.92).
14.872: gruntlings
Gruntling (as a noun): grumbling, murmuring (OED).
14.873–74: to pretermit humanity
To pretermit: to disregard or overlook intentionally (OED).
14.874: soever
See note at 14.687.
14.875: lawful occasions
From Daniel Defoe’s (1660–1731) Moll Flanders (1722): ‘when she was about her lawful Occasion’ (p. 245; Davison, ‘ “The True-Born Englishman” and the Irish Bull’, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 6.54).
14.876: he had reckoned upon a speedy delivery
After David Hume’s (1711–76) My Own Life: ‘I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 200; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 13.75). Hume is referring to a ‘mortal and incurable’ disease of the bowels.
14.878: auspicated
To auspicate: ‘to predict’ (OED). From Edmund Burke’s (1729–97) ‘Nature of England’s Hold on her Colonies’: ‘we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 236; Janusko, Sources and Structures, pp. 122–23; Notesheet Oxen 13.86).
14.879: bounty of the Supreme Being
From Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke’s (English politician and political philoso pher, 1678–1751) ‘Letter to Windham’: ‘will of the Supreme Being’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 258; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 98; Notesheet Oxen 14.128).
14.880–904: 18th century essayists 14.880: he broke his mind
To break one’s mind: to reveal what is in one’s mind (OED, s.v. break). From Robert Southey’s (1774–1843) The Doctor: ‘He broke his mind to me this morning’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 264; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 124; Notesheet Oxen 13.112).
14.880–81: to express his notion of the thing
From Alexander Pope’s (1688–1744) ‘On Dedications’: ‘To express my notion of the thing in a word’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 168; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 118; Notesheet Oxen 13.86).
14.881–82: his opinion (who ought not perchance to express one)
After David Hume’s (1711–76) My Own Life: ‘in my own opinion (who ought not to judge on that subject)’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 197; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 13.69).
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14.882: genius
Genius: ‘a person’s characteristic disposition; natural inclination; temperament’ (OED).
14.883: freshest news
From Samuel Johnson’s (1709–84) ‘On Wasting Time’: ‘tell the freshest news’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 188; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 120; Notesheet Oxen 13.88).
14.886: Ephesian matron
Ephesus: an ancient Ionian city on the western shores of Asia Minor. The reference is to Petronius’s (d. ad 66) Satyricon, in which a grieving Ephesian widow’s despair over her hus band’s death is matched only by the speed with which she redirects her affections towards an attractive young soldier. The immediate source is Richard Steele’s (1672–1729) ‘Story of Inkle and Yarico’: ‘the celebrated story of the Ephesian Matron’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 150; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 117; Notesheet Oxen 15.128).
14.886: I must acquaint you
From William Cowper’s (1731–1800) essay ‘On Conversation’: ‘but as I must acquaint them’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 242; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 13.77).
14.887–88: clapping on the table . . . emphasis
From Robert Southey’s (1774–1843) The Doctor: ‘clapping his hands so as to produce a sonorous token of satisfaction’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 265; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 124; Notesheet Oxen 13.115–16).
14.888: old Glory Allelujurum
‘Glory Hallelujah’: a common enthusiastic refrain at revival meetings in American evan gelical churches from the 1850s, here used in reference to Mr Purefoy, a Methodist. American dialectal variations include Allelujurum and Hallelujeram (John Simpson, JJON).
14.889: dundrearies
Dundreary: ‘long side whiskers worn without a beard’ (OED); named after Lord Dundreary, a character in Our American Cousin (see note at 7.733–34).
14.889: preferring through his nose a request to have word
That is, submitting a request (with a nasal voice). To prefer: to submit (OED). From David Hume’s (1711–76) My Own Life: ‘never having preferred a request to one great man’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 199; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 13.72).
14.891: burst anon
From Sir Walter Scott’s (1771–1832) Ivanhoe: ‘it would burst anon’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 252; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 123; Notesheet Oxen 13.82).
14.891: ’Slife
’Slife: an oath, abridgment of ‘God’s life’ (Partridge).
14.891: I’ll be round with you
Round: ‘Of behaviour, attitude, etc.: open, honest; spec. (of speech) plain, clear, straightfor ward’ (OED). From Shakespeare’s Henry V: ‘Your reproofe is something too round’ (IV.i.256; quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Literature; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 273; Notesheet Oxen 4.133).
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808 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.893: All fell to praising of it
From Joseph Addison’s (1672–1719) ‘Sir Roger at the Play’: ‘fell a praising the Widow’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Literature, p. 222; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 273; Notesheet Oxen 15.43).
14.894: another than her conjugial
The spelling ‘conjugial’ (as opposed to conjugal) follows Emanuel Swedenborg; see note at 9.631–32.
14.895: the man in the gap See note at 12.186.
14.895: clerk in orders
Clerk in orders: a licensed clergyman in the Anglican Church (Century Dictionary).
14.895: linkboy (virtuous)
A linkboy: a boy who carries a link (a torch of tow and pitch) to light passengers through the streets. Virtuous: powerful (both OED).
14.896–97: Singular, communed the guest with himself
From Sir Walter Scott’s (1771–1832) Ivanhoe: ‘Singular, he again muttered to himself ’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 259; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 124; Notesheet Oxen 13.112–13).
14.897: wonderfully unequal faculty of metempsychosis
See note at 4.339 for metempsychosis. Unequal: disproportionate, excessive (OED). From Gilbert White’s (1720–93) Natural History of Selborne: ‘Thus is instinct a most wonderfully unequal faculty’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 215; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 122; Notesheet Oxen 13.59).
14.898: puerperal dormitory
Puerperal: ‘following childbirth’ (OED).
14.900: a pinch of time
Pinch: a very small quantity (OED). From Samuel Pepys’s (1633–1703) Diary: ‘the most use ful man at such a pinch of time as this’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 197; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 273; Notesheet Oxen 8.01).
14.901–02: most men anywise eminent
After David Hume’s (1711–76) My Own Life: ‘most men anywise eminent have found reason to complain of calumny’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 201; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 121; Notesheet Oxen 13.85).
14.904: birds of a feather laugh together
After the proverb, ‘Birds of a feather flock together’ (ODEP).
14.905–41: Junius 14.906–07: this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince . . . civil rights
Jews were expelled by royal decree from England and Ireland on 18 July 1290. Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the open practice of Judaism was prohibited (Hyman, pp. 5–7). Cromwell and, later, Charles II permitted Jews to immigrate in order to serve as a
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 809 buffer against the Catholic population (p. 11). The readmission of Jews to Britain and Ireland over the next few centuries was gradual and not without tension. A naturalisation bill allowing citizenship to Jews who had lived for three years in Great Britain and Ireland was passed in 1753, but, after country-wide agitation, was repealed several months later. In 1783, the Irish parliament passed a bill that allowed naturalisation to all foreigners except Jews. That bill was finally repealed in 1816, at which time Jews were finally allowed citizen ship (pp. 48–50). ‘Gracious prince’ is from Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Address to the King (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 256; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 150; Notesheet Oxen 16.44).
14.907: lord paramount
From Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Letter to the Duke of Grafton: ‘Sir James Lowther lord paramount’ (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 142; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 147; Notesheet Oxen 16.03).
14.909: recent war
That is, the Boer War (1899–1902).
14.910: granados
Granados: variant of grenades, explosive metal shells (OED).
14.910–11: discharge his piece
From Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Letter from the Reverend Mr Horne: ‘he would discharge his piece’ (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 380; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 151; Notesheet Oxen 16.41).
14.911: tenant at will
Tenant at will: a tenant with no lease, thus a tenant only at the will of the landlord (OED).
14.912: the security of his four per cents
His four per cents: investments that have a four per cent yield; see note at 17.1864–65. From Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Letter to the Public Advertiser: ‘reducing all the four per cents at once’ (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 299; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 150; Notesheet Oxen 16.54).
14.920: objurgations
Objurgation: a sharp or severe rebuke, scolding (OED).
14.921: pelican in his piety
The pelican is a symbol of the sacrifice of Christ and the blood of the Redeemer offered to the faithful, after the medieval legend that the pelican kills its young and brings them back to life after three days by opening its breast and sprinkling them with its own blood (Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend).
14.924: tutelary angel
That is, guardian angel. Tutelary: ‘Of supernatural powers: Having the position of pro tector, guardian, or patron; esp. protecting or watching over a particular person, place, or thing’ (OED). The OED quotes Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici: ‘I could easily beleeve, that [. . .] particular persons have their Tutelary and Guardian Angels’ (this is not in the excerpt from Religio Medici that appears in Barnett and Dale’s Anthology of English Prose).
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14.925: Hagar, the Egyptian
The Egyptian handmaiden of Abraham and Sarah, who gives birth to Abraham’s first son Ishmael with Sarah’s consent because she (Sarah) cannot conceive (Genesis 16:1–4). After Sarah gives birth to Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael are cast out into the wilderness (21:14).
14.925: question of the grazing lands See note at 12.837–38.
14.926: peevish asperity
From Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Letter to the Public Advertiser: ‘a peevish asperity’ (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 287; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 150; Notesheet Oxen 16.52).
14.927: couched in terms
From Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Letter from the Reverend Mr Horne: ‘I would couch it in terms’ (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 384; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 151; Notesheet Oxen 16.47).
14.931: balm of Gilead
After Jeremiah 8:22, where the question is asked, ‘Is there no balm in Gilead?’ The phrase ‘Balm of Gilead’ is proverbial for consolation (Brewer’s).
14.932: apothegms
Apothegms (also spelled apophthegms): short sayings expressing truths (OED).
14.933 unfledged profligates
Unfledged: ‘Of persons: Immature, inexperienced, undeveloped in knowledge’ (OED). From Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Letter XXX: ‘The unfledged race of ensigns, who infest our streets’ (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 243; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 149).
14.933: practice consist better with
From Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Letter to the Printer of the Public Advertiser: ‘arguments consist better with’ (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 164; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 148; Notesheet Oxen 16.19).
14.935: some faded beauty
From Junius’s (see note at 12.1633) Letter to the Duke of Grafton: ‘in the arms of faded beauty’ (Letters of Junius, vol. 1, p. 148; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 147; Notesheet Oxen 16.06).
14.940: quondam
Quondam (Latin): former; Anglicised from the sixteenth century (OED).
14.942–1009: Gibbon 14.943: the Sublime Porte
Sublime Porte (from the French la Sublime Porte, the sublime gate): ‘The court or palace of the Ottoman sultan at Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). Hence: the Ottoman govern ment’ (OED). ‘A quay, on which were mounted several large pieces of artillery, ran along outside the whole length of the seawall, which, as well as the citywall, was pierced with a number of gates, but one only was in general use. This was the great gate of the Seraglio, the Babì Haumayun or Imperial Gate, that “Sublime Porte” from which the Ottoman Government derives the name by which it is best known. Piled up on one side, just
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 811 without this gate, were pyramids of heads, trophies of victory over Greek and Serbian rebels, as ghastly as the skulls that once bleached upon London Bridge over Temple Bar’ (Stanley Lane-Poole, The Story of Turkey, pp. 268–69).
14.948: privy council
Privy council: ‘The private counsellors of the sovereign’ (OED).
14.950: licence
Licence: ‘disregard of law or propriety’ (OED).
14.951: abigail
Abigail: a lady’s maid, from the character Abigail, a maid in Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Scornful Lady (1616) (Partridge).
14.952: a strife of tongues
From Psalm 31:20 in the King James: ‘Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.’
14.956: uterine brothers
Uterine brothers: brothers that have the same mother, but not the same father (OED).
14.956–57: the Caesarean section
Caesarean section: ‘the delivery of a child by cutting through the walls of the abdomen when delivery cannot take place in the natural way, as was done in the case of Julius Cæsar’ (OED). Andrew Horne (see note at 8.282) pioneered the use of Caesarean delivery in Ireland (Tony Farmar, Holles Street, pp. 30–31).
14.957–58: posthumity with respect to the father and . . . the mother
A posthumous child is one whose father died during the pregnancy (OED). Posthumity (a nonce word) with respect to the mother is undefined by the OED. Apparently, the idea is that the mother died during the pregnancy (as opposed to while giving birth)—perhaps like Macduff who was from his mother’s womb ‘untimely ripped’ (Macbeth, V.vii.45).
14.958–60: fratricidal case known as the Childs Murder . . . wrongfully accused See notes at 6.469, 6.470, and 6.473.
14.960: rights of primogeniture
Primogeniture: the principle under which the eldest son inherits the estate of the father to the exclusion of younger siblings (OED).
14.961: king’s bounty touching twins and triplets
King’s bounty: ‘a grant made by the sovereign of his royal bounty to those of his subjects whose wives are delivered of three or more children at a birth’ (EB11, s.v. bounty).
14.962: acardiac foetus in foetu
Acardiac: ‘Without a heart’ (OED). Foetus in foetu (Latin): foetus in a foetus; a birth defect in which an infant is inside the body of another infant (now commonly called foetal inclu sion) (Barton Cooke Hirst and George A. Piersol, Human Monstrosities, vol. 1, p. 49).
14.963: aprosopia
Aprosopia: the absence or improper development of the face (OED).
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812 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.963: agnathia
Agnathia: ‘the complete absence of the mandible’ (Roger E. Stevenson and Judith Hall, Human Malformations, p. 287).
14.963: certain chinless Chinamen
In ‘Scylla’, Mulligan called Eglinton ‘the chinless Chinaman’ (see note at 9.1129).
14.964–65: defective reunion of the maxillary knobs along the medial line That is, a misalignment of the upper and lower jaw bones.
14.966: twilight sleep See note at 8.378.
14.967: gravidancy
Gravidancy: pregnancy (OED, s.v. gravidate).
14.967–68: pressure on the vein
Possibly taken from Aristotle’s Masterpiece (for which see note at 10.586): ‘Some have asked the reason why women bring forth their children with so much pain? I answer, the sense of feeling is distributed to the whole body by the nerves; and the mouth of the womb being so strait [narrow] that it must of necessity be dilated at the time of the woman’s delivery, the dilating thereof stretches the nerves, and from thence comes the pain’ (p. 165).
14.968–69: the premature relentment of the amniotic fluid . . . to the matrix
Relentment: softening or dissolution. Sepsis: putrefaction. Matrix: the womb (all OED). The amniotic fluid cushions the developing foetus within the amnion or amniotic sac and pro tects it against infection. Premature discharge of the fluid leads to sepsis and perinatal mor tality (Christine A. Gleason and Sherin Devaskar, Avery’s Diseases of the Newborn, p. 538).
14.969–70: artificial insemination by means of syringes
In 1776, John Hunter (British surgeon, 1728–93) supervised the first successful artificial insemination of a human. A warm syringe was used to impregnate a woman with her hus band’s sperm. The operation worked, but because Hunter feared criticism from moralists, it was only reported in 1799, twenty-three years after the operation and six years after Hunter’s death (Angus McLaren, ‘The Pleasures of Procreation’, p. 323).
14.970–71: involution of the womb consequent upon the menopause
From Aristotle’s Masterpiece, under the entry ‘Of the Falling of the Womb’: ‘This is another evil effect of the womb, which is both troublesome, and also a hindrance to conception. Sometimes the womb falleth to the middle of the thighs, nay, almost to the knees, and it may be known then by its hanging out [. . .] but the place [of the womb] is changed when is drawn another way, or when the ligaments are loose, and it falls down by its own weight. It is drawn on one side when the menses are hindered from flowing’ (p. 224).
14.972–73: that distressing . . . Brandenburghers Sturzgeburt
This refers to a seventeenth- century German book on midwifery, Die Chur- Brandenburgische Hoff-Wehe-Mutter, das ist ein höchst nöthiger Unterricht von schweren und unrecht stehenden Geburten, in einem Gespräche vorgestellet (The Court Midwife to the Electorate of Brandenburg presents a highly necessary instruction on complicated birth and unusual positions of the child, in the form of a dialogue), by Justine Siegemund, the
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 813 most famous midwife of her era. In chapter 9, Siegemund describes a controversial method to accelerate delivery in prolonged labours by either turning the woman upside-down or precipitating her from a table. Siegemund uses the word Stürzung (fall, drop) to describe this procedure. The word Sturzgeburt (‘fall birth’) means a birth in which the baby is injured by falling to the ground; the word itself is of nineteenth-century coinage and thus postdates Siegemund. Either Joyce was confused about the proper terminology or he derived his information from a separate source (this procedure does not appear in Giulio Valenti’s book; see note at 14.1236). Since this is in reference to Purefoy’s extended labour, the refer ence has to be to Siegemund’s procedure (Benzenhöfer, ‘What the Brandenburghers Called Sturzgeburt’, p. 3; with thanks to Harald Beck).
14.973–75: recorded instances of multiseminal . . . consanguineous parents
Multi-seminal: more than one sperm. Twikindled: presumably, two sperm (in that, figura tively the sperm are ‘kindling’ for the ovum). The usual term for fertilisation with more than one sperm is polyspermy. Polyspermy is common in some birds and reptiles, but is impos sible in humans (Frank J. Longo, Fertilization, p. 84). Catamenia: menstrual discharge (OED); hence ‘births conceived during the catamenic period’: conception occurring during men struation, which is not at all abnormal. Consanguineous: related by blood (OED). Aristotle’s Masterpiece claims (erroneously) that ‘if it happens that they come together when the wom an’s menses are flowing, and notwithstanding proceed to the act of copulation, which is both unclean and unnatural, the issue of such copulation does often prove monstrous, as a just punishment for doing what nature forbids’ (pp. 28–29). These other specific examples are not in Aristotle’s Masterpiece, which tends towards the more fantastic in its accounts of monstrous or abnormal births (see notes at 14.987 and 14.1002–03).
14.976: human nativity
Nativity: birth (OED). From Sir Thomas Browne’s (1605–82) Urn Burial: ‘his nativity’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 185; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 97; Notesheet Oxen 11.107).
14.976: Aristotle has classified in his masterpiece See note at 10.585.
14.977: chromolithographic illustrations
Chromolithograph: ‘A picture printed in colours from stone’ (OED). Chromolithography was invented in the 1830s and by the 1850s it had gained such wide currency as a printing technique that it was used for low-budget books, such as Aristotle’s Masterpiece. Numerous editions from the 1850s employ chromolithography (Stephen E. Soud, ‘Blood-Red Wombs and Monstrous Births’, pp. 195–96).
14.979–81: forbidding to a gravid woman to step . . . her creature
Aristotle’s Masterpiece offers the following advice for pregnant (gravid) women in the ninth month of gestation: ‘Let her take heed of stooping, and neither sit too much, nor lie on her sides; neither ought she to bend herself much, lest the child be unfolded in the umbilical ligament, by which means it often perisheth’ (p. 139).
14.981–83: injunction upon her in the event . . . that part of her person
‘As soon as a woman knows (or has reason to believe) she hath conceived [. . .]. Let her also abstain from every venery [sexual indulgence], (to which, after conception, she has
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814 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
usually no great inclination), lest there be a mole or superfœtation’ (Aristotle’s Masterpiece, p. 135).
14.984: harelip, breastmole, supernumerary digits
Hare lip: ‘Fissure of the upper lip, caused by the arrest of development in the upper lip or jaw; so called from the resemblance to the cleft lip of a hare’ (OED). See notes at 9.378 and 9.474 for breast mole. Supernumerary digits: extra fingers or toes. ‘The most common supernumerary digits are an extra fifth finger, an extra thumb, and extra fifth toe and an extra great toe’ (Dennis Weiner, Pediatric Orthopedics, p. 40).
14.985: negro’s inkle
Negro’s inkle: unknown; an inkle is a ‘kind of linen tape’ (OED). Of possible relevance here is ingleberry: Hiberno-English variant of angleberry, ‘A rounded, fleshy growth with an uneven surface on the skin of cattle, horses, etc.; a warty excrescence, a papilloma’ (OED, s.v. angleberry).
14.985: strawberry mark and portwine stain
Strawberry mark: a birthmark that resembles a strawberry (OED, s.v. strawberry). Port wine stain (or port wine mark): a flat red or purple birthmark, typically on the face or head (OED, s.v. port wine).
14.986–87: swineheaded (the case of Madame Grissel Steevens . . . forgotten)
Miss Grissel Steevens (1653–1746): sister of the Dublin physician Richard Steevens (c.1654–1710). When her brother died, he left her his estate, with the provision that she in turn leave it to establish a hospital after her death. But she founded Steevens’ Hospital without delay in 1710. ‘The people believed that she had a face so like the snout of a pig that for shame she durst not let it be seen. [. . .] Grissel, whose portrait is still to be seen in the hospital boardroom, had a face, heavy and masculine, it is true, but in no wise piggish’ (Chart, Story of Dublin, pp. 273–74).
14.987: doghaired infants
Aristotle’s Masterpiece includes an engraving of a boy covered with hair like a dog. The accompanying text reads: ‘It was covered over with hair like a beast. That which rendered it more frightful, was, that its navel was in the place where his nose should have been; and its mouth was in the chin. It was of the male kind, and was born in France, in the year 1597 in a town called Arles, in Province, and lived a few days, frightening all that beheld it’ (p. 26).
14.988: plasmic memory
Plasm: ‘a mould or matrix in which something is formed’ (OED). ‘Plasmic memory’ (or ‘plasmatic memory’) is a phrase associated with Lamarckism, a pre-Darwinian theory of evolution, which proposed that an organism can pass on to its offspring characteristics acquired during its own lifetime. Paul Kammerer (Austrian biologist, 1880–1926), one of its advocates, explains: ‘What memory, habit, practice, adaptation is in the life of the indi vidual, is called inheritance in the life of the species [. . .] The conception of the universal, plasmic memory lends itself to frequent misunderstandings. This conception somehow plays with the idea as if mental memories were retained by the living substance, just as
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 815 conscious memories are retained by the cerebral cortex [. . .] In this way, the plasma of every cell is accorded some sort of a universal intelligence’ (The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics, pp. 251–52). Kammerer’s point is that while an individual organism’s acquired characteristics might be inherited, he is arguing against the ‘Psycho-Lamarckists’, who claim that an individual’s memories are also inheritable.
14.989: Caledonian
That is, Crotthers. Caledonian (Scottish): after the Romans’ name for northern Britain, Caledonia (OED).
14.989–90: metaphysical traditions of the land he stood for
That is, Scottish School of Common Sense, a school of philosophy founded by Thomas Reid (1710–96) in response to and reaction against the empiricism of David Hume (Scottish philosopher, 1711–76). Later adherents (all Scottish) were: James Beattie (1735–1803), Dugald Stewart (1753–1828), Sir William Hamilton (1788–1856), and James McCosh (1811–94). Reid and his followers emphasised the importance of common, practical, and empirical principles, that is, common sense (Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy vol. 5, pp. 364–94).
14.994: avouchment
Avouchment: assertion (OED).
14.994–96: Minotaur which the genius of the elegant Latin poet . . . Metamorphoses See note at 9.854.
14.998: pleasantry
From Edward Gibbon’s (1737–94) Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: ‘with some pleas antry’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 282; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 99; Notesheet Oxen 16.42–43).
14.999–1000: postulating as the supremest . . . a nice clean old man
In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote that Gogarty ‘was in quest of a cupric [coppered, thus, rich] woman or a clean old man’ (Robert Scholes and Richard M. Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 98; JJA, vol. 7, p. 126).
14.1002–03: juridical and theological dilemma in the event of one . . . the other
Aristotle’s Masterpiece mentions a case in which one Siamese twin predeceased the other (a medical impossibility): ‘in the reign of Henry III, there was a woman was delivered of a child, having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were joined at the backside; the heads were so placed that they looked contrary ways [. . .] It lived several years, but one outlived the other three years, carrying the dead one (for there was no parting them), till it fainted with the burden, and more with the stench of the dead carcase’ (pp. 27–28).
14.1007: in obedience to an inward voice
Perhaps from Joseph Conrad’s (Polish-British writer, 1857–1924) Lord Jim (1900): ‘pushing out into the unknown in obedience to an inward voice’ (p. 227; with thanks to Harald Beck).
14.1008–09: the ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man . . . joined
In Matthew 19:3–6, Jesus is asked by the Pharisees whether it is lawful for a husband to divorce his wife. Jesus replies: ‘What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder’ (19:6).
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816 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1010–37: Le Fanu and the gothic novel 14.1013: portfolio full of Celtic literature
In ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ Mr Best said that Haines had gone to buy a copy of Douglas Hyde’s Lovesongs of Connacht; see note at 9.94.
14.1016: eldritch
Eldritch: ‘weird, ghostly, unnatural, frightful, hideous’ (OED).
14.1016: history is to blame
Haines’s line in ‘Telemachus’ (1.649).
14.1017: the murderer of Samuel Childs See note at 6.469.
14.1018: This is the appearance is on me
A literal translation of the Irish Seo é an chuma atá orm, ‘This is the condition I am in’ (Brendan O Hehir, A Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 348).
14.1018–19: Tare and ages
Tare and ages (Hiberno-English): the tears (either from the eyes or torn flesh) and agues of Christ (Dolan).
14.1020: with my share of songs
A literal translation of the Irish lem’ chuid amhrán, ‘with such songs as I know’ (O Hehir, A Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 349).
14.1021: soulth
Soulth: ‘ghost, apparition’, from the Irish samhailt (PWJ, p. 331).
14.1021: bullawurrus
Bullaworrus: ‘a spectral bull “with fire blazing from his eyes, mouth, and nose”, that guards buried treasure by night’ (PWJ, p. 227).
14.1021–22: My hell, and Ireland’s, is in this life See note at 10.1082.
14.1023: Erse language
Erse: either the Irish language or the Scottish Gaelic language, or both. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, it was used to refer primarily to Scottish Gaelic; in later use, it sometimes exclusively referred to Irish (OED).
14.1024: camping out
When Joyce was staying at the Martello tower in 1904, he, Gogarty, and Trench were visited by the writer William Bulfin (1863–1910), who was on a cycling tour of Ireland (see the headnote to ‘Telemachus’). In the book he wrote about the tour, Rambles in Eirinn, he notes that Trench ‘had lately returned from a canoeing tour of hundreds of miles through the lakes, rivers, and canals of Ireland’ (p. 323).
14.1025: The black panther! See note at 1.57.
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 817
14.1027: Westland Row station
Westland Row Station (now Pearse Station) is the nearest railway station to the hospital; it is at the northern end of Westland Row, off the north-east corner of Trinity, about 550 metres from the hospital. The second-to-last train to Sandycove left Westland Row at 11:25 pm (JJD, p. 66).
14.1028: Tears gushed from the eyes of the dissipated host That is, George Moore’s; see note at 9.273–74.
14.1028–29: The seer raised his hand . . . The vendetta of Mananaun!
The seer is George William Russell (A.E.), who was among the guests at Moore’s party, which Mulligan is here describing. ‘The vendetta of Mananaan!’ suggests A.E.’s play Deirdre (see notes at 9.190–91 and 3.56–57). While this exact line does not appear in the play, Joyce here adopts A.E.’s spelling ‘Mananaun’, which he does not use elsewhere in Ulysses. In the context of A.E.’s play, ‘the “vendetta” is Mananaan urging Mongan to retrieve Ulster from Fiachna the black’ (Deborah Tannen Paterakis, ‘Mananaan MacLir in Ulysses’, p. 34).
14.1029: The sage
This is John Eglinton; see note at 9.18.
14.1029–30: Lex talionis See note at 7.755–56.
14.1030–31: The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without . . . thing done See note at 9.550–51.
14.1032: Haines was the third brother See note at 9.956.
14.1034: For this relief much thanks See note at 13.939–40.
14.1035: lonely house by the graveyard is uninhabited
After the title of Sheridan Le Fanu’s (1814–73) novel, The House by the Churchyard (1863). See also note at 6.476–77.
14.1037: Murderer’s ground See note at 6.476.
14.1038–77: Lamb 14.1041: chewing the cud
From Bunyan’s (1628–88) Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘cheweth the Cud’ (pp. 98–99; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 135; Notesheet Oxen 4.37).
14.1042–43: modest substance in the funds See note at 17.1864–65.
14.1044: retrospective arrangement See note at 6.150.
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818 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1047: Clanbrassil street
Bloom’s childhood residence was 52 Clanbrassil Street (see note at 17.1869).
14.1047: the high school See note at 5.42.
14.1049: hard hat
Hard hat: a hat made from stiffened felt, a bowler (OED).
14.1049–50: a year or so gone over . . . a fullfledged traveller for the family firm
That is, Bloom worked as a travelling salesman for his family’s firm; this would have begun in 1881, which is one year after he left high school (see note at 17.1194–95). In ‘Cyclops’, we learn that before owning the Queen’s Hotel in Ennis, Bloom’s father was a moneylender and sold jewellery (12.1582–84).
14.1055: baisemoins
Baisemains: compliments; from the French, ‘kiss on the hands’ (OED). Joyce consistently spelt this word ‘baisemoins’ across several drafts (JJA, vol. 14, p. 127; Rosenbach f. 45). On a page proof, he wrote a note in the margin to the typesetter to insist on this spelling (JJA, vol. 25, p. 348).
14.1057: Jacob’s pipe
Jacob pipe: a type of pipe from the late nineteenth century; the bowl was a bust of a bearded man. ‘According to the Revue des Traditions Populaires (May 1893, p. 270) “la pipe Jacob” was very popular in the Latin Quarter of Paris, and in Belgium’ (John Simpson, JJON).
14.1063: The wise father knows his own child See note at 6.53.
14.1064: Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores there
Upper Hatch Street runs between Earlsfort Terrace and Harcourt Street and lies on the southern side of the block that contains the Royal University (now the National Concert Hall). The bonded stores are W. & A. Gilbey, limited, distillers, across from the college at 2 Upper Hatch Street (Thom’s, p. 1515).
14.1065: child of shame
From Defoe’s (1660–1731) Colonel Jack: ‘son of shame’ (vol. 1, p. 3; twice on the same page; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 136; Notesheet Oxen 1.19).
14.1067: new royal university
The offices of the Royal University of Ireland were on Earlsfort Terrace, at the corner with Hatch Street (Thom’s, pp. 1481, 2001). See note at 7.503.
14.1068: Bridie Kelly
Unknown to all but Bloom.
14.1070: and in an instant (fiat!) light shall flood the world
Fiat! (Latin): ‘Let it be done!’ In English, fiat: decree (OED). Genesis 1:3 in the Vulgate reads ‘dixitque Deus fiat lux et facta est lux’, which the King James renders as ‘and God said: Let there be light, and there was light’.
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 819
14.1076: No son of thy loins is by thee
There are many possible Biblical allusions here, but the most likely is to a statement of Solomon: ‘And the Lord said to David my father: [. . .] Nevertheless thou shalt not build me a house, but thy son, that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build a house to my name’ (1 Kings 8:18–19).
14.1078–1109: De Quincey 14.1079–85: silently the soul . . . apprehensive skull
Elements in this passage derive from Joyce’s Giacomo Joyce: ‘Grey eve lowering on wide sagegreen pasturelands, shedding silently dusk and dew. She follows her mother with ungainly grace, the mare leading her filly foal. Grey twilight moulds softly the slim and shapely haunches, the meek supple tendonous neck, the fine-boned skull’ (PSW, p. 231). Apprehensive is used in the sense of aware (R. C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, pp. 10–11; Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 60).
14.1086: Agendath is a waste land
See 4.219–29 and see note at 4.191–92 for Agendath.
14.1086: screechowls
Screechowl: an English translation of the Hebrew Lilith, for whom see note at 14.242–43. In the King James Version of Isaiah 34:14, the wasteland that follows God’s judgement of Israel is said to be inhabited by the ‘screechowl’. In the Douay Bible, this is translated as ‘Lamia’, while the Revised Standard renders it as ‘night hag’.
14.1086: sandblind upupa
Sandblind: ‘dimsighted’ (OED). Upupa: the Latin name of the Hoopoe bird in English, so named for its cry, ‘up up’ (OED, s.vv. upupa; hoopoe).
14.1088: ghosts of beasts
After Odysseus’s men kill the cattle of the sun god Helios in the Odyssey, they are haunted by the dead animals (XII.393–96); see also note at 8.535–36.
14.1089: Huuh! Parallax stalks behind and goads them
For parallax, see note at 8.110. The phrasing suggests a line from the end of Yeats’s play The Countess Cathleen: ‘The years like great black oxen tread the world, / And God the herds man goads them on behind’ (The Plays, p. 63). In ‘Hades’ a drover called out ‘Huuuh!’ as he goaded cattle (6.390).
14.1089–90: lancinating lightnings of whose brow are scorpions
Lancinating: acute, piercing or darting (OED). From Thomas de Quincey’s (1785–1859) Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822): ‘In both, there are at times what surgeons call “lancinating” pangs—keen, glancing, arrowy radiations of anguish’ (p. 4 n.; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 15.13). In the Book of Revelation, the fifth angel sounds his trumpet and a huge bottomless pit opens, from which locusts are loosed on the earth. These locusts are compared to scorpions (9:5–7).
14.1090–91: bulls of Bashan and of Babylon
Bashan: a region of south Syria, known for its fat bulls and sheep. ‘Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a
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820 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses ravening and roaring lion’ (Psalm 22:12–13 in the King James; the Douay (21:13–14) does not mention Bashan; see also Ezekiel 39:18). Babylon, located along the Euphrates River in ancient Mesopotamia, was the ancient enemy of the Jewish people. Jeremiah calls upon Israel to rebel against the Babylonians: ‘Slay all of her bullocks; let them go down to the slaughter: woe unto them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation’ (Jeremiah 50:27 in the King James).
14.1092: Lacus Mortis
Lacus Mortis (Latin): ‘lake of the dead’. The Romans’ name for the Dead Sea was Mare Mortuum (dead sea).
14.1092: zodiacal host
That is, the host of different animals represented by constellations in the zodiac.
14.1095: murderers of the sun
By slaughtering or murdering the oxen in Book XII of Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus’s men earn the wrath of the sun-god, Helios.
14.1097–99: the equine portent . . . over the house of Virgo
The ‘equine portent’ is the constellation Pegasus, the winged horse. House: in astrology, ‘a sign of the zodiac considered as a seat of greater influence of a particular planet’ (OED). Gilbert claims that Virgo is the zodiacal sign which governs the womb (p. 308 n.), which it does, at least according to some astrological texts (Laurel Means, Medieval Lunar Astrology, p. 298). Pegasus and Virgo would both be visible over Dublin at this time of night, between 10:00 and 11:00 pm, on a June evening: Pegasus is just rising, barely over the horizon, while Virgo is setting (Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion, The Monthly Sky Guide, p. 30).
14.1099–1100: wonder of metempsychosis See note at 4.339.
14.1100: everlasting bride, harbinger of the daystar
See note at 9.928–29 for day star. On 17 June, Venus rose at about 3:00 am and would thus be the day star (Thom’s, p. 14). This phrase recalls the types of epithets used for the Virgin Mary in the Litany of Loreto; see note at 13.287–89.
14.1101: Martha, thou lost one, Millicent
From Lionel’s aria M’appari in Martha; see note at 7.58.
14.1103: Pleiades
The Pleiades (or Seven Sisters): a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus (Robert Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 416). These would rise at about 3:00 am.
14.1103: the penultimate antelucan hour
Antelucan: the hours just before dawn (OED). Dawn on 17 June 1904 was 3:33 am (Thom’s, p. 14).
14.1105: starborn flesh
From Giacomo Joyce: ‘Coiling approach of starborn flesh’ (PSW, p. 240).
14.1106: currents of cold interstellar wind See note at 17.263.
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 821
14.1106: winding, coiling, simply swirling
Echoes ‘your head it simply swirls’ from ‘Those Lovely Seaside Girls’; see note at 4.282. See note at 14.1105 for coiling.
14.1108–09: Alpha, a ruby and triangled sign upon . . . Taurus
Alpha Tauri, or Aldebaran, is a red giant star that forms a triangle with two other stars to make the bull’s forehead in the constellation Taurus (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], pp. 418–19). Alpha: ‘The chief star in a constellation, the letters of the Greek alphabet being used for the first 24 stars in succession’ (OED). The red triangle is the logo on the label of a bottle of Bass Pale Ale; see note at 8.121. This is the first indication, confirmed at 14.1164, that Bloom in his reverie is staring at the label of a bottle of Bass Pale Ale.
14.1110–73: Landor 14.1110: Francis
Francis is Punch Costello (see note at 14.193).
14.1111: Conmee’s time
See note at 5.322–23 for Conmee.
14.1111: Glaucon
One of Socrates’s principal interlocutors in Plato’s Republic.
14.1111: Alcibiades
Alcibiades (c.450–404 bc): a military commander and Athenian statesman (EB11). He appears in Plato’s Symposium, where he is a drunken and boisterous participant. Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) wrote a dialogue between Alcibiades and Xenophon in his collection Imaginary Conversations (1824–29).
14.1112: Pisistratus
Pisistratus (c.605–527 bc): a powerful but benevolent Athenian ruler. He was a kinsman of Solon’s (c.638–c.558 bc), the Athenian lawmaker whose constitution he largely kept intact (EB11). Landor wrote a dialogue between Pisistratus and Solon for his Imaginary Conversations.
14.1112–13: You have spoken of the past and its phantoms
From Landor’s (1775–1864) Imaginary Conversations: ‘You have spoken first of courage’ (vol. 1, p. 226; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 153; Notesheet Oxen 19.07). And from Matthew Arnold’s poem ‘Separation’ (1855): ‘Dead be the past and its phantoms to me!’ (l. 12).
14.1114: Lethe
In Greek mythology, one of the four rivers in Hades. The word means forgetfulness (Brewer’s).
14.1114: will not the poor ghosts troop to my call?
After Book XI of the Odyssey, in which Odysseus is able to communicate with the ghosts of the dead in Hades.
14.1115: Who supposes it?
From Landor’s (1775–1864) Imaginary Conversations: ‘Who supposes it? Whatever is mild and kindly is there’ (vol. 4, p. 53; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 19.02).
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822 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1115: Bous Stephanoumenos ‘Garlanded ox’; see note at 9.939.
14.1116: lord and giver of their life
From the Nicene Creed (see note at 1.651): ‘the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son’ (Catholic Encyclopedia).
14.1116: gadding
Gadding: ‘wandering, straggling’ (OED).
14.1116–17: coronal of vineleaves
Coronal: ‘A wreath of flowers or leaves for the head; a garland’ (OED). The Roman god of wine, Bacchus (Dionysius in Greek), is traditionally depicted as wearing a garland of vine leaves (Otto Seemann, The Mythology of Greece and Rome, p. 121).
14.1119: capful of light odes
This refers to the lyric poems which would appear in Chamber Music; see note at 11.979.
14.1123: He could not leave his mother an orphan
After a much-circulated joke: ‘An Irishman received a challenge to fight a duel, but declined. On being asked the reason, “Och”, said Pat, “would you have me leave his mother an orphan?” ’ (H. P. Kelly, Irish Bulls and Puns, p. 103). Joyce had a copy of this book in his Trieste library (Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, p. 115; with thanks to Armağan Ekici).
14.1125: his recent loss
Stephen’s mother was interred on 26 June 1903 (see note at 17.951–52).
14.1127: whim of the rider’s name
Madden the medical bet on Sceptre because the jockey’s name was O. Madden; see note at 7.388–89.
14.1128–30: The flag fell and, huuh! . . . all hearts were beating
Lenehan’s account of the race is at variance from what was reported in the Evening Telegraph, which placed Throwaway in front right from the start except for a period close to the finish when Sceptre temporarily managed to lead: ‘Throwaway set fair pace to Sceptre, with Maximum II last, till fairly in the line for home, when Sceptre slightly headed Throwaway, and Zinfandel took close order with him. Throwaway, however, stayed on, and won cleverly at the finish by a length; three parts of a length divided second and third’ (16 June 1904, p. 3, col. h).
14.1129: ran out freshly
Freshly: fiercely, eagerly (OED). From Malory’s (c.1415–1471) Le Morte d’Artur: ‘so they rode freshly’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 14; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 105; Notesheet Oxen 7.42).
14.1130: Phyllis
Phyllis is a conventional name in pastoral poetry. The exclamation ‘Juno . . . I am undone’ might suggest the Phyllis who was married to and abandoned by Demophon. In Ovid’s Heroides, Phyllis exclaims to Demophon, ‘by Juno, the kindly ward of the bridal bed’ (II.41).
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 823
14.1132: drew level
Joyce derived this expression from an article in the 17 April 1920 Freeman’s Journal on the previous day’s racing at Derby: ‘before another furlong had drawn level [. . .] At the distance Rigolo challenged but Natuminor drew away, to win by two lengths’ (p. 3, col. b; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.94–95).
14.1133: All was lost now See note at 11.629.
14.1135: sugarplums
Sugarplum: ‘A small round or oval sweetmeat, made of boiled sugar and variously flavoured and coloured’ (OED).
14.1136: whip
Whip: ‘One who wields a driving-whip; a driver of horses, a coachman’ (OED).
14.1137: W. Lane. Four winners yesterday and three today
William Lane (1883–1920) finished first in four races at the Ascot Meeting on 15 June 1904: the Biennial Stakes, the Coronation Stakes, the Fern Hill Stakes, and the Triennial Stakes (Freeman’s Journal, 16 June 1904, p. 7, col. d). On 16 June, he finished first in three races: the Gold Cup (on Throwaway), the New Stakes, and the St James’s Place Stakes (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. h). Lane was a successful and well-regarded jockey. Unfortunately, on 20 September 1904, he suffered a fall at Lingfield which ended his career. He rode many victorious horses and ‘the victory of Throwaway will probably stand out as Lane’s most important success’ (Baily’s Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, June 1905, vol. 83, no. 544, p. 488).
14.1138–39: victory in a hack canter
‘Since a canter is relatively slow, a horse which wins very easily is said to win in a canter, in a common canter, or even in a hack canter. A hack canter is the slowest type of canter, little more than a trot’ (Gerald Hammond, The Language of Horse Racing, pp. 40–41). The Evening Telegraph (and other papers) reported that Throwaway won ‘in a canter’ (p. 3, col. h).
14.1139: as was the ancient wont
From John Milton’s Letter on Education: ‘as was the Roman wont’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Literature, p. 134; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 274; Notesheet Oxen 7.10).
14.1140–41: She is not the filly that she was
In June 1904, Sceptre (foaled in April 1899) was a mare, not a filly (a filly is five years or younger), so, in a sense, she was not the filly that she was.
14.1143: Lalage
Lalage: a woman’s name in Horace’s Odes: ‘Soon Lalage will rush to encounter her mate head on’ (II.v.16 and see I.xxii). Coleridge’s poem ‘Names’ begins: ‘I ask’d my fair one happy day, / What I should call her in my lay; / By what sweet name from Rome or Greece; / Lalage, Neaera, Chloris, / Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris / Arethusa or Lucrece’.
14.1148: buns with Corinth fruit
That is, currant buns (Brewer’s, s.v. currant).
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824 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1148: Periplepomenos
Suggests the Greek noun periplous (‘circumnavigation’), but extrapolated into the form of a participle (with thanks to John Dillon and Fritz Senn).
14.1153: in your ear
From Landor’s (1775–1864) Imaginary Conversations: ‘let me whisper it in your ear—do I lean too hard?’ (vol. 5, p. 82; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 19.48).
14.1154: Conmee himself!
Vincent Cosgrave (the model for Lynch; see note at 14.190) attended Belvedere College with Joyce under Conmee 1892–95 (Bruce Bradley, James Joyce’s Schooldays, p. 98). The incident recounted here happened in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.199–202).
14.1155: brevier book
That is, a breviary book; see note at 10.184.
14.1156: Glycera or Chloe
Traditional names for classical beauties. The painter Pausias (fourth century bc) had a mis tress named Glycera, as did Greek comic playwright Menander (c.342–c.293 bc). Daphnis and Chloë is a Greek pastoral romance by Longus (second century ad).
14.1157–58: slight disorder in her dress See note at 14.759.
14.1161–62: Bass’s mare perhaps this draught of his
Sceptre was owned by William Arthur Hamar Bass (1879–1952), who was the nephew of Michael Arthur Bass, Baron Burton (1837–1909), the director of the brewery Messrs. Bass & Co., Ltd., of Burton upon Trent, England (Igoe, pp. 322–23).
14.1162: propensely
Propensely: readily, favourably (OED). From Landor’s (1775–1864) Imaginary Conversations: ‘Those are the worst of suicides, who voluntarily and propensely stab or suffocate their fame’ (vol. 5, p. 62; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 19.34).
14.1165–66: painful perhaps . . . as to be born
After Thomas de Quincey’s (1785–1859) Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822): ‘Lord Bacon conjectures that it may be as painful to be born as to die’ (p. 282; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 19.19).
14.1167: gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods
This language parodies the Theosophists, in particular George Russell, whose name A.E. derives from ‘Æon’ (see note at 7.784). In The Candle of Vision, A.E. writes: ‘I would choose some mental object, an abstraction of form, and strive to hold my mind fixed on it in unwavering concentration, so that not for a moment, not for an instant, would the con centration slacken’ (p. 21).
14.1168: Theosophos
Stephen here personifies Theosophy into the character Theosophos in his parody of Theosophical language.
14.1169: karmic law See note at 8.1147–48.
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 825
14.1170–73: an orangefiery shipload . . . second constellation
This passage derives from The Inner Life (1910) by the Theosophist C. W. Leadbeater: ‘It was the members of this orange-coloured ship-load from planet A of the lunar chain who declined these lowly vehicles, while the golden-coloured egos from globe B and the rose- coloured group from globe C accepted the conditions, entered into the vehicles and ful filled their destiny’ (p. 258; the source was discovered by Ronan Crowley). For the Theosophists, the lunar chain is the third planetary chain. ‘The first three of these globes [the planetary chains]—generally known as A, B, and C—form a descending arc, the dens est physical matter of the descent being reached in the fourth globe, D, of which our earth is an instance’ (Powis Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 101). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Lords of Moon members of orange coloured shipload from planet A of lunar chain declined to assume the etheric doubles which men incarnated by the rosy ones from C. incarnated by the golden haired egos from planet B & the rosy ones from C’ (Notesheet Oxen 6.69–73, copied from NLI II.i.1 f. 7v). For etheric doubles, see note at 12.341. The constellation Taurus is the second house of the zodiac, its brightest star is the red giant Aldebaran; see note at 14.1108–09.
14.1174–97: In the style of the ‘Eumaeus’ episode 14.1180–81: in the wrong shop
To come to the wrong shop: to come ‘to the wrong person or place to get what one requires’ (Partridge, s.v. shop, come or go to the wrong).
14.1182–83: number one Bass bottled by Messrs Bass and Co at Burton-on-Trent The logo for Bass beer is a red triangle; see note at 8.121.
14.1188: the turf
The turf: the world of horseracing (OED); as well as that of prostitution (Partridge). Both senses are feasible here.
14.1198–1222: Macaulay 14.1203–04: A gallant scene in truth it made
After Gilbert White’s (1720–93) Natural History of Selborne. In talking about a hunt, White recalls, ‘the stop-dogs were permitted to pursue, and a most gallant scene ensued’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 211; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 122; Notesheet Oxen 13.55).
14.1205–06: the Mull of Galloway
The Mull of Galloway is a cape jutting into the North Channel at the south-western-most extremity of Scotland. It lies to the west of Luce Bay (EB11, s.v. Wigtownshire).
14.1211: salted cowhide
From Thomas Macaulay (1800–59): ‘salted hides’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 373; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 100; Notesheet Oxen 19.133).
14.1212: primrose elegance See note at 1.550.
14.1213: Malachi Roland St John Mulligan
Mulligan’s full name includes a reference to the name of his prototype, Oliver St John Gogarty. The name Roland suggests Oliver through the expression ‘a Roland for an Oliver’, which means ‘a blow for a blow, tit for tat. The exploits of these two Paladins are so similar
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826 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses that it is difficult to keep them distinct. What Roland did Oliver did, and what Oliver did Roland did’ (Brewer’s). Oliver and Roland are two characters from the anonymous epic poem La Chanson de Roland (c.1100).
14.1217: flippant prognosticator, fresh from the hippodrome That is, Lenehan. Hippodrome: a horse-racing track (OED).
14.1221–22: the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come
James Lafayette: photographer, 30 Westmoreland Street (Thom’s, pp. 1620, 1925). Real name: James Stack Lauder (1853–1923). The phrase ‘inspired pencil’ is in reference to the work of a photographic retoucher (Ronan Crowley, JJON). Lafayette was renowned for his hand- coloured images. In 1887, he was granted a Royal Warrant as ‘Photographer to Her Majesty at Dublin’, which led to greater commercial success (John Hannavy, Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, p. 813). In earlier usage, pencil and paint brush were syn onymous (R. C. Trench, A Select Glossary of English Words, p. 202; Downing, ‘Historical Survey of Words’, p. 62).
14.1223–1309: 19th century scientific writing 14.1224: transcendentalism
Transcendentalism: ‘Literary, religious and philosophical movement originating in New England in the mid 1830s and remaining influential until the 1860s. The philosophy behind transcendentalism was an eclectic mix of English Romanticism (especially as mediated by William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle), anti- rationality, anti-Puritanism, the mysticism of Emanuel Swedenborg, and aspects of Eastern philosophies. The term transcendentalism, which was actually coined by those who ridiculed the movement for its dreamy abstractions, derives from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who wrote of the need to transcend reason alone for a t rue understanding of reality. The central beliefs of transcendentalism were in unity between nature and God, the presence of God in each individual, and the potential per fectibility of humans’ (Stephen Matterson, American Literature: The Essential Glossary, pp. 222–23).
14.1224: (Div. Scep.)
Abbreviation of Divinitatis Scepticus (Latin): Doubter of Divinity (Brendan O Hehir and John Dillon, A Classical Lexicon to ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 568).
14.1228: facts that cannot be blinked
To blink: ‘To shut the eyes to; to evade, shirk, pass by, ignore’. The OED cites George Eliot’s (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, English novelist, 1819–80) Adam Bede (1859): ‘It was no use blinking the fact now’ (p. 126).
14.1230–31: (Pubb. Canv.)
Abbreviation of canvasser of publications, that is, an advertising agent.
14.1231–33: the view of Empedocles of Trinacria . . . birth of males
Empedocles (c.495–c.435 bc): pre-Socratic philosopher from Trinacria (Sicily). Trinacria is the island in Homer’s Odyssey where Odysseus’s men slaughter the sacred oxen (Book XII). According to Aristotle, this view was actually that of Empedocles’s teacher Anaxagoras
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 827 (c.500–c.428 bc), who held that ‘the male embryo is in the right of the uterus, the female in the left. Others, as Empedocles, say that the differentiation takes place in the uterus’ (Generation of Animals, 764a1). Joyce’s immediate source may have been this passage in Aristotle’s Masterpiece, which follows from (the actual) Aristotle: ‘In the cavity of the womb there are two cells or receptacles for human seed, divided by a line running through the midst of it. In the right side of the cavity, by reason of the heat of the liver, males are con ceived; and in the left side, by the coldness of the spleen, females. Most of our moderns hold the above as an infallible truth, yet Hippocrates holds it but in general: “For in whom (saith he) the spermatic vessels on the right side comes from the reins, and the spermatic vessels on the left side from the hollow vein, in them males are conceived in the left side, and females in the right”. Well, therefore, may I conclude with the saying of Empedocles, “Such sometimes is in the power of the seed, that the male may be conceived in the left side, as well as the right” ’ (pp. 63–64; Soud, ‘Blood-Red Wombs and Monstrous Births’, p. 200). This particular passage is absent from many editions of Aristotle’s Masterpiece.
14.1233–34: or are the too long neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms . . . factors
Nemasperms: spermatozoa (OED). The OED posits that Joyce coined the word, but the word is originally Italian (nemaspermi), with examples in English that precede Joyce, such as Leonardo Bianchi’s A Text-Book of Psychiatry (tr. 1906): ‘it is immaterial whether the cause has its seat in the ovum or the poisoned nemasperm’ (p. 422). This passage derives from Aristotle: ‘The semen of the male differs in that it contains a principle within itself of such a kind as to set up movements also in the embryo and to concoct thoroughly the ultimate nourishment, whereas the secretion of the female contains material alone. If, then, the male element prevails it draws the female element into itself, but if it is prevailed over it changes into the opposite [female] or is destroyed’ (Generation of Animals, 766b).
14.1235: Culpepper
English physician Nicholas Culpeper (1616–54) wrote books on several aspects of the prac tice of medicine, including: The English Physician (1648) and A Directory for Midwives: or a Guide for Women in their Conception, Bearing, and Suckling Their Children (1651) (ODNB). The spelling mistake is Joyce’s. Culpeper’s works were a likely source for Aristotle’s Masterpiece (see note at 10.586).
14.1235: Spallanzani
Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–99): Italian naturalist. His studies focused on bodily functions and fertilisation and on disproving notions of spontaneous generation (EB11).
14.1236: Blumenbach
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840): German naturalist and scholar of comparative anatomy. In his work De generis humani varietate nativa (1775), translated into English in 1865 as On the Natural Varieties of Mankind, he outlined the study of physical anthropol ogy and classified human beings into five racial types, based on the size of their cra nium (EB11).
14.1236: Lusk
American William Thompson Lusk (1838–97): professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Bellevue Hospital Medical College from 1871 until his death. He was the author of The Science and Art of Midwifery, a standard text on its subject all over the world (Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University, June 1897, pp. 464–65).
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828 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1236: Hertwig
Oscar Hertwig (1849–1922): German embryologist, who, in 1875, established that fertilisa tion takes place only when the nuclei of male and female sex cells come together (Clara Pinto-Correia, The Ovary of Eve, p. 302).
14.1236: Leopold
Christian Gerhard Leopold (1846–1911): German embryologist. His Short Guide to the Examination of Lying-In Women was translated into English by William F. Wilson (London: Henry Kimpton, 1894).
14.1236: Valenti
Giulio Valenti (b. 1860): Italian embryologist; author of Lezioni Elementari di Embriologia (1893). This was one of Joyce’s main sources of embryology for this episode (Benzenhöfer, ‘Joyce and Embryology’, p. 608).
14.1238: nisus formativus of the nemasperm
See 14.1233–34 for nemasperm. Nisus formativus (Latin): ‘formative tendency’; the Latin word nisus means effort, and is used specifically to name the muscular contractions used to expel water or a foetus from the body. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (see note at 14.1236) used the term nisus formativus to name what he conceived as ‘the source of all generation, nutrition, and reproduction, in each organised kingdom’ (The Institutions of Physiology, p. 19). And, in terms of its specific operation: ‘We therefore think it very probable that those fluids which, during a successful coition, are thrown into the cavity of the uterus, require a certain period for becoming intimately mixed, acted upon, and matured; that, after this preparatory stage, the nisus formativus is excited in them, vivifying and shaping the hith erto shapeless spermatic matter partly into the beautiful containing ovum and partly into the containing embryo’ (pp. 376–77).
14.1239: happily chosen position, succubitus felix, of the passive element
Happily: fortunately (OED). The Latin succubitus felix (having lain fruitfully/fortunately under) is a masculine passive participle, although, in context, the feminine seems to be expected (since it seems to qualify ‘of the passive element’). This could be explained by con struing it as being in apposition, grammatically, to ‘happily chosen position’ (i.e. for concep tion), with the masculine Latin noun positus (position) implied. In the Generation of Animals, Aristotle writes: ‘whenever one thing is made from two of which one is active and the other passive, the active agent does not exist in that which is made [. . .] the female, as female is pas sive, and the male, as male, is active, and the principle of movement comes from him’ (720b10).
14.1243: (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.)
Abbreviation of Hygeae et Eugenicae Doctor (Latin): Doctor of Health and Eugenics; or Hygieinae et Eugenicae Doctor, Doctor of Hygiene and Eugenics (O Hehir and Dillon, A Classical Lexicon to ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 568).
14.1248: exposed scorbutic cardrivers
Scorbutic: infected by scurvy, ‘a disease characterized by general debility of the body, extreme tenderness of the gums, foul breath, subcutaneous eruptions and pains in the limbs’ (OED, s.vv. scurvy; scorbutic). In the mid-nineteenth century, a minority of doctors, such as Jean-Antoine Villemin, proposed that scurvy was contagious, but by the 1890s it was well established that it was caused by a deficiency of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in the diet (Kenneth J. Carpenter, The History of Scurvy and Vitamin C, pp. 127–28).
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 829
14.1249: unfructified duennas
Duenna: Anglicised spelling of the Spanish word dueña (also the eleventh-century spelling in Spain), married lady or mistress (OED). Thus, unfructified duennas: married women who have not been made fruitful, in the sense of giving birth to children.
14.1251: Kalipedia
Kalipedia (Greek neologism): education concerning the beautiful: kalos, beauty + paideia, education.
14.1253: plastercast reproductions of the classical statues See note at 8.921–22.
14.1257: (Disc. Bacc.)
Abbreviation of Disciplinae Baccalaureus (Latin): Bachelor of Discipline; or Discipulus Bacchi, Disciple of Bacchus (O Hehir and Dillon, A Classical Lexicon to ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 568).
14.1268: (Bacc. Arith.)
Abbreviation of Baccalaureus Arithmetici (Latin): Bachelor of Arithmetic (O Hehir and Dillon, A Classical Lexicon to ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 568).
14.1276–77: must certainly, in the poet’s words, give us pause
That is, Shakespeare’s words, from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy: ‘For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, / Must give us pause’ (III.i.66–68).
14.1278: cogent reasons
From Henry Hallam’s (1777–1859) View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages: ‘Reasons equally cogent’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 294; Janusko, Sources and Structure, p. 125; Notesheet Oxen 19.32).
14.1279: morbous
Morbous: ‘Of, relating to, or causing disease; diseased’ (OED).
14.1285: the survival of the fittest
This phrase—which describes the process of natural selection as defined in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution—was coined by Herbert Spencer (English philosopher, biologist, soci ologist, 1820–1903): ‘this survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest’ (Principles of Biology, vol. 1, p. 444).
14.1286: (Div. Scep.) See note at 14.1224.
14.1287: deglute
To deglute: ‘to chew’ (OED).
14.1288: pluterperfect imperturbability From Deasy’s letter; see note at 2.328.
14.1289: cancrenous
Cancrenous: suggests cancerous, but also suggests the word cancrenated, affected with gan grene, which derives from the Italian cancrenare (OED, s.v. cancrenated).
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830 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1291: chlorotic
Chlorotic: afflicted with chlorosis, ‘A disorder believed to occur almost exclusively in young, virginal women soon after puberty, characterized by a greenish pallor of the skin, cessation or irregularity of menstruation, and weakness, often accompanied by pica or other disturbance of appetite; an instance or case of this. Also called green sickness. Now hist. As a medical diagnosis chlorosis disappeared quite abruptly in the early part of the 20th cent. Modern medical writers have most commonly identified it as a form of iron- deficiency anaemia with a profoundly reduced haemoglobin level, thought to result from combined dietary iron and protein deficiency’ (OED).
14.1291–92: innocent collation of a staggering bob See note at 8.724.
14.1296–97: can scarcely distinguish an acid from an alkali
Stephen (like Joyce) attempted, unsuccessfully, to pursue medical studies; see note at 3.176–77.
14.1300: (Pubb. Canv.) See note at 14.1230–31.
14.1302–03: Dr A. Horne (Lic. in Midw., F.K.Q.C.P.I.)
Dr Andrew Horne (see note at 8.282), ‘Licentiate in Midwifery’ and ‘Fellow, King’s and Queen’s College of Physicians, Ireland’ (Thom’s pp. 868, 875).
14.1307: a pretty sight it is to see
From William Makepeace Thackeray’s (1811–63) Henry Esmond: ‘A pretty sight it was to see’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 352; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 128; Notesheet Oxen 19.109).
14.1310–1343: Dickens 14.1311: accouchement
Accouchement (French): child-delivery.
14.1311: a weary weary while
From Dickens’s David Copperfield: ‘I am so used to it in feeling, that I cannot count the time. It is really not long, in weeks or months; but, in my usage and experience, it is a weary, weary while’ (p. 769; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 154; Notesheet Oxen 20.15).
14.1313: She had fought the good fight
‘Fight the good fight’: proverbial phrase derived from Paul’s letters to Timothy: ‘Fight the good fight of faith’ (1 Timothy 6:12) and ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith’ (2 Timothy 4:7).
14.1315: Reverently
From William Makepeace Thackeray’s (1811–63) Henry Esmond: ‘kneeling reverently before the sacred book’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 352; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 128; Notesheet Oxen 19.108).
14.1319: Universal Husband
The phrase ‘universal husband’ was in wide use in theological writings to refer to God; for example, ‘So there is no marriage in heaven, and yet heaven is one marriage, and its happiness
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 831 is represented by a marriage festival,—God himself being the universal husband, and all the redeemed being to him as one endeared wife’ (The Dawn, 1 June 1861, vol. 1, no. 6, p. 119).
14.1320: Doady
Doady: a term of endearment used for David Copperfield by his first wife Dora (Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, p. 608 et passim; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 154; Notesheet Oxen 20.11).
14.1323: whirligig of years
From Twelfth Night: ‘And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges’ (V.i.385).
14.1324–25: Ulster bank, College Green branch
Ulster Bank, Ltd.: headquartered on Waring Street, Belfast, with numerous branches across Ireland, including five in the Dublin area. This one was at 32–33 College Green (Thom’s, pp. 1031, 2029).
14.1325–26: it may never be again
From Dickens’s David Copperfield: ‘Oh, Jip! It may be, never again!’ (p. 774; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 155; Notesheet Oxen 20.32).
14.1326: that faroff time of the roses
From the poem ‘The Time of the Roses’ (1837) by James Clarence Mangan (1803–49): ‘Youth is a flower of early decay, / And Pleasure a monarch that Age deposes, / When past, at last, the Time of the Roses’ (ll. 22–24; Collected Works, vol. 1, p. 371).
14.1326–27: with the old shake of her pretty head
From Dickens’s David Copperfield: ‘with the old shake of her curls’ (p. 772; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 154; Notesheet Oxen 20.30).
14.1332: lord Bobs of Waterford and Candahar
That is, Lord Frederick Sleigh Roberts of Kandahar and Waterford (1832–1914). He was appointed Field Marshal in 1895 and, in 1899, Commander in Chief of the British Army. Asked to reverse losses in the Boer War, he succeeded, for which he was made an earl. During his time in India he was nicknamed ‘Sir Bobs’ (ODNB). Joyce’s spelling ‘Candahar’ follows from Roberts’s entry in Thom’s (p. 445).
14.1335–36: Treasury Remembrancer’s office, Dublin Castle
The listing for the Treasury Remembrancer’s Office, Dublin Castle in Thom’s does not show anyone with the forenames Mortimer Edward among its officers (p. 834). This office col lected non-tax debts.
14.1336: father Cronion
That is, Father Time. However, this confuses Cronos with Cronion. The name of the Greek god Cronos derives from chronos, time. Cronion, on the other hand, is another name for Zeus, who was the son of Cronos. Cronos was the youngest of the Titans (descendants of Gaia and Uranus). He overthrew his father and was, in turn, overthrown by his sons, Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon (Brewer’s, s.v. Titans).
14.1339: dout the light
To dout: to extinguish (OED). From Josuah Sylvester’s (English poet, 1563–1618) Tobacco Battered (1617): ‘First, in the intellect it douts the light’ (quoted in Charles Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, p. 397; with thanks to Harald Beck).
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832 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1340 read in the Sacred Book See note at 14.1315.
14.1340–41: and so with a tranquil heart to bed, to rest
Diarist Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) ended many of his entries with the phrase ‘And so to bed’; for example, for the entry dated 15 October 1662, ‘So to bed, very hot and feverish by being weary; but ere morning the fever was over’ (The Diary of Samuel Pepys, vol. 3, p. 225).
14.1341–42: You too have fought the good fight See note at 14.1313.
14.1343: Well done, thou good and faithful servant!
From the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:23), said by the master to the servant who uses his talents (coins) wisely.
14.1344–55: Newman 14.1350: timbrel and harp
Timbrel: ‘a hand-carried percussion instrument, popularly used by women, and forbidden in the Temple. [. . .] Usually reflecting joyous occasions’ and frequently mentioned in the Old Testament (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary). From John Henry Cardinal Newman’s (1801–90) sermon ‘Purity and Love’: ‘They take the timbrel and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ’ (Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, p. 75). Joyce regarded Newman very highly as a writer, stating that ‘where all the authors are par odied, Newman alone is rendered pure, in the grave beauty of his style. Besides, I needed that fulcrum to hold up the rest’ (Willard Potts, Portraits of the Artist in Exile, p. 217; Robert Janusko, ‘Grave Beauty: Newman in “Oxen” ’).
14.1352: when he is now filled with wine
From Newman’s sermon ‘Neglect of Divine Calls and Warnings’: ‘In his proud feast, when he was now filled with wine, he sent for the gold and silver vessels which belonged to the Temple at Jerusalem, and had been brought to Babylon on the taking of the holy city’ (Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, p. 28).
14.1352: not to insult over him
From Edward Hyde’s (1609–74) History of the Great Rebellion: ‘ministers came presently to insult over him’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 83; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 114; Notesheet Oxen 2.144).
14.1356–78: Pater 14.1359: A scene disengages itself
That is, when Bloom ‘first’ met Molly, at Mat Dillon’s in Roundtown/Terenure; see note at 11.725.
14.1363: wellremembered
From Walter Pater’s (1839–94) Marius the Epicurean (1885): ‘Last of all walked the high priest; the people kneeling as he passed to kiss his hand, in which were those well- remembered roses’ (vol. 1, p. 107; Janusko, JJON; Notesheet Oxen 20.73).
14.1363: grove of
From Pater’s (1839–94) Marius the Epicurean: ‘And lo! a grove of mighty trees’ (vol. 1, p. 66; Janusko, JJON; Notesheet Oxen 20.80).
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 833
14.1363: Roundtown See note at 6.697.
14.1364: with much real
From Pater’s (1839–94) Marius the Epicurean: ‘For indeed all Rome was ready to burst into gaiety again, as it awaited with much real affection, hopeful and animated, the return of its emperor’ (vol. 1, p. 177; Janusko, JJON; Notesheet Oxen 20.82).
14.1365: sward
Sward: ‘The surface or upper layer of ground usually covered with herbage’ (OED).
14.1368: Floey, Atty, Tiny See note at 13.1106–07.
14.1369: Our Lady of the Cherries
La Madonna delle Ciliegie (The Madonna of the Cherries): a painting by Titian (Italian painter, c.1488–1576) of the Virgin Mary feeding cherries to the infant Jesus (Loren Partridge, Art of Renaissance Venice, p. 192).
14.1369: comely
From Pater’s (1839–94) Marius the Epicurean: ‘that privileged world of comely usage to which he belonged’ (vol. 1, p. 169; Janusko, JJON; Notesheet Oxen 20.79).
14.1371: A lad of four or five
That is, Stephen Dedalus, as is confirmed in ‘Ithaca’ (17.467–70), where it is stated that Stephen was then five. And so, Bloom, Molly, and Stephen all met for the first time in the same place (see note at 11.725; Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, pp. 150–52).
14.1371: linseywoolsey
Linsey-woolsey: fabric made of a mixture of wool and flax, ‘now, a dress material of coarse inferior wool, woven upon a cotton warp’ (OED).
14.1375: must needs
From Pater’s (1839–94) Marius the Epicurean: ‘On the other hand, the world of perfected sensation, intelligence, emotion, is so close to us, and so attractive, that the most visionary of spirits must needs represent the world unseen in colours, and under a form really bor rowed from it’ (vol. 1, p. 148, also p. 167; Janusko, JJON; Notesheet Oxen 20.78).
14.1376: piazzetta
Piazzetta (Italian): small piazza; in context, the veranda.
14.1378: alles Vergängliche
Alles Vergängliche (German): ‘All that is changeable’; the first line of the Chorus Mysticus’s speech that closes Goethe’s Faust, Part II (p. 344).
14.1379–90: Ruskin 14.1381: Nothing, as it seems, there of rash or violent
From John Ruskin’s (1819–1900) Modern Painters: ‘Nothing, as it seems, there of notable goodness or beauty’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 412; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 126; Notesheet Oxen 20.46).
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834 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1383: a crib in Bethlehem of Juda long ago
The gospel of Luke describes the birth of Jesus in a manger in the village of Bethlehem in the region of Judea, with angels and shepherds in attendance (2:1–20).
14.1384: serried stormclouds
From Ruskin’s (1819–1900) Modern Painters: ‘in thunder- blue serration’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 399; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 100; Notesheet Oxen 20.61).
14.1390: utterance of the Word See note at 9.61.
14.1391–1439: Carlyle 14.1391: Burke’s!
John Burke’s pub: 17 Holles Street (Thom’s, p. 1819), at the corner with Denzille Street (now Fenian Street).
14.1391–92: a tag and bobtail
Rag, tag, and bobtail: a motley group drawn from the common herd or rabble (OED, s.v. bobtail).
14.1392: welsher See note at 14.559.
14.1392–93: punctual Bloom
From Thomas Carlyle’s (1795–1881) edition of Oliver Cromwell’s letters and speeches: ‘Though punctual Bulstrode and certain others are there’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 388; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 127; Notesheet Oxen 20.51).
14.1393: bilbos
Bilbo: ‘a finely tempered Spanish blade, at Bilbao’ (R. C. Trench, On the Study of Words, p. 157; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, p. 179; Notesheet Oxen 9.14).
14.1394: Zermatt alpenstocks
Zermatt: a Swiss resort village near the Matterhorn.
14.1394: dedale
Dedale: from the name Daedalus (see note at 1.34). The typical Anglicisation of his name is spelt daedal and means a maze or labyrinth. Joyce’s spelling follows from the French ver sion of Daedalus’s name, dédale, which also means maze and is commonly used. The OED gives one example in English of the French spelling, from H. G. Wells’s (1866–1946) Mr Britling Sees It Through (1916): ‘The rocks, he said, were not a means of getting from place to place, they were a dédale’ (OED, s.vv. daedal; dédale).
14.1395: noble every student there
From Thomas Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Past and Present: ‘noble every soldier in it’ (p. 305; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 155; Notesheet Oxen 20.71).
14.1397: placentation ended
Placentation: ‘the formation and disposition of the placenta in the uterus’ (OED).
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 835
14.1397–98: They hark him on
From William Makepeace Thackeray’s (1811–63) Henry Esmond: ‘harking his bloody war- dogs on’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 354; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 128; Notesheet Oxen 19.111).
14.1398: tumultuously
From Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881): ‘tumultuously eddy’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 367; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 99; Notesheet Oxen 19.91).
14.1398–99: off for a minute’s race
After Ruskin’s (1819–1900) Modern Painters: ‘Thames shores within three minutes’ race’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 399; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 100; Notesheet Oxen 20.64).
14.1400: giving them sharp language
From Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881): ‘giving him and others very sharp language’ (quoted in Murison, Selections from the Best English Authors, p. 391; Janusko, ‘Yet Another Anthology’, p. 127; Notesheet Oxen 20.52).
14.1402: Doctor Diet and Doctor Quiet
Superlative physicians from Swift’s (1667–1745) Polite Conversation: ‘And the best Doctors in the World are Doctor Dyet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman’ (p. 151).
14.1403–04: told its tale
Joyce derived this expression from an article in the 17 April 1920 Freeman’s Journal on a horse race at Leopardstown: ‘the going told its tale where many of the runners were concerned’ (p. 3, col. c; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.97).
14.1404: motherwit
Motherwit: common sense, native wit (OED). From John Gibson Lockhart’s (1793–1854) Life of Sir Walter Scott: ‘involuntary glances of mother-wit’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 324; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 126; Notesheet Oxen 19.98).
14.1407: raindew moisture
From Thomas Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Sartor Resartus: ‘blessed dew- moisture’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 338; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 127; Notesheet Oxen 19.120).
14.1407–08: life essence celestial
From Thomas Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Sartor Resartus: ‘celestial Life-essence’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 336; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 127; Notesheet Oxen 19.117).
14.1408: Dublin stone there
From Thomas Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Past and Present: ‘on Portland-stone there’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 337; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 127; Notesheet Oxen 19.119).
14.1408: coelum
Coelum (or caelum) (Latin): the sky, heaven, or climate.
14.1409: scintillant circumambient cessile air
Scintillant: sparkling. Circumambient: encompassing. Cessile: ‘Yielding (applied only to the air [. . .])’ (all OED).
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836 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1410: doughty
Doughty: able, valiant, worthy (OED).
14.1412: chaffering
Chaffering: bandying words about, haggling over price, talking with idle speech (OED). From Thomas Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Sartor Resartus: ‘such a church-repairing, and chaffer ing, and organing, and other racketing’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 331; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 126; Notesheet Oxen 19.85).
14.1412: allincluding
From Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Sartor Resartus: ‘one continuous all-including Case’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 331; Janusko, Sources and Structures, pp. 126–27; Notesheet Oxen 19.86).
14.1412: farraginous
Farraginous: ‘Miscellaneous, indiscriminate, “hotchpotch” ’ (OED).
14.1412–13: In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility
From Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Sartor Resartus: ‘in thee too lay a god-created Form’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 333; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 127; Notesheet Oxen 19.89).
14.1414: Cleave to her
From Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Sartor Resartus: ‘cleave thou to that’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 336; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 127; Notesheet Oxen 19.118).
14.1415: bandog
Bandog: a dog tied up either as a watchdog, or because it is excessively ferocious (OED).
14.1415: Malthusiasts
Malthusiasts: combines enthusiasts and Malthusians, adherents of the theories of Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834); see note at 14.20–21. Joyce did not invent this word; from ‘A Wedding’: ‘As I am no Malthusiast, I always take an interest in seeing young couples “made happy” ’ (The Moral Reformer, Mar. 1833, vol. 3, no. 3, p. 84). Malthus’s theories have been applied to the Irish Famine (see note at 2.269) since the pre-Famine population was growing at an unsustainable rate (Cormac Ó Gráda, The Great Irish Famine, pp. 32–38). His theories have even been used—albeit simply and reductively—to justify the British government’s inaction in the face of the devastation (Andrew Gibson, Joyce’s Revenge, pp. 152–56).
14.1416: drooping
From William Hazlitt’s (1778–1830) Essays: ‘like his drooping weight of thought’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 302; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 125; Notesheet Oxen 19.50).
14.1416: bemoiled
Bemoiled: covered in dirt or mire (OED).
14.1418: homer of ripe wheat
Homer: a Biblical dry measure equal to about 400 litres, often confused with the much smaller Biblical measure omer, which is equal to about 2.3 litres (OED). From Milton’s ‘Areopagitica’:
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 837 ‘that omer which was every man’s daily portion of manna’ (quoted in Barnett and Dale, Anthology of English Prose, p. 135; Janusko, ‘Another Anthology’, p. 274; Notesheet Oxen 7.08).
14.1419: thy fleece is drenched
In the Bible, Gideon’s drenched fleece shows that God has chosen him to save Israel from its enemies, the Midianites (Judges 6:36–38). It is also a symbol of fertility: ‘Exegetes inter preted the dew that fell upon Gideon’s fleece in Judges 6:36-40, yet allowed the surrounding earth to remain dry, as a type of the Incarnation, or, more particularly, Mary’s womb’ (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘The Middle English Lyric’, p. 308).
14.1419: Darby Dullman there with his Joan
Darby and Joan: ‘a jocose appellation for an attached husband and wife who are “all in all to each other”, especially in advanced years and in humble life’ (OED, s.v. Darby).
14.1420: canting jay
To cant: to sing (OED); thus a ‘canting jay’ is a singing bird.
14.1422–23: Herod’s slaughter of the innocents See note at 8.754.
14.1425: quinsy
Quinsy: tonsillitis (OED). From R. C. Trench, On the Study of Words (p. 232; Davison, ‘Trenchant Criticism’, p. 179).
14.1426: floating kidney
Floating kidney: a kidney condition in which the kidney is loose and moves freely around the abdomen; caused by injury or pregnancy (EB11, s.v. Kidney diseases).
14.1426: Derbyshire neck
Derbyshire neck: goiter (Brewer’s).
14.1427: threnes
Threne: a lamentation or dirge, formerly used specifically for the Lamentations of Jeremiah (OED).
14.1427: trentals
Trental: a set of thirty requiem masses; figuratively, an elegy or dirge (OED).
14.1428: jeremies
Jeremiad: ‘A lamentation; a writing or speech in a strain of grief or distress; a doleful com plaint; a complaining tirade; a lugubrious effusion’; ‘in reference to the “Lamentations of Jeremiah” in the Old Testament’. In French, Jérémie (OED).
14.1428: defunctive music
Defunctive music: ‘funereal music’; from Shakespeare’s ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’: ‘Let the priest in surplice white, / That defunctive music can [knows], / Be the death divining swan, / Lest the requiem lack his right’ (ll. 48–50).
14.1430: Thou sawest thy America
The use of ‘America’ as a nickname for a beloved comes from John Donne’s ‘Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going to Bed’: ‘O my America, my new found land’ (l. 27; Complete English Poems, p. 125).
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838 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1431: transpontine bison
Transpontine: on the other side of the ocean, usually the Atlantic (OED).
14.1431: Zarathustra See note at 1.727–28.
14.1431–32: Deine Kuh Trübsal melkest Du. Nun trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters
Deine Kuh Trübsal melkest Du. Nun trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters (German): ‘You milked your cow, melancholy. Now you drink her udder’s sweet milk.’ Properly, it should read melktest, not melkest. From Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra I.5, ‘On Enjoying and Suffering the Passions’: ‘Aus deinen Giften brautest du dir deinen Balsam; deine Kuh Trübsal melktest du—nun trinkst du die süße Milch ihres Euters’ (Out of your poisons you brewed your balsam. You milked your cow, melancholy; now you drink the sweet milk of her udder) (p. 149; Harald Beck, quoted in Downing, ‘Joyce’s “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheets’). Joyce copied this into a notesheet with the erroneous ‘melkest’ (Notesheet Oxen 2.28). Nietzsche’s works—especially Thus Spoke Zarathustra (see note at 1.708)—were frequently compared with Thomas Carlyle’s, since Carlyle ‘expressed the idea that mankind could and would culminate in a series of Übermenschen: heroes, geniuses, saints, and other figures’ (Rüdiger Safranski, Nietzsche, p. 263).
14.1433: displodes
To displode: to discharge with explosive violence (OED). From Jonathan Swift’s (1667–1745) Tale of a Tub: ‘disploding it among the sectaries in all nations’ (Works, vol. 11, p. 148; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 3.01).
14.1434: the milk of human kin
Plays on Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy in which she suspects her husband lacks a murderous instinct: ‘It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way’ (I.v.119).
14.1435: rutilant
Rutilant: ‘glowing, shining, gleaming, glittering’ (OED).
14.1436–37: the honeymilk of Canaan’s land See note at 14.377.
14.1438: bonnyclaber
Bonnyclaber (Hiberno-English): sour, thick milk that can be used for churning (Dolan).
14.1439: Pap!
Pap: a woman’s breast or ‘Semi-liquid food, such as that considered suitable for babies or invalids, usually made from bread, meal, etc., moistened with water or milk’ (OED); both senses are feasible here.
14.1439: Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum!
Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum! (Latin): ‘By the goddesses Partula and Pertunda, now let us drink!’ Partula is a Roman goddess mentioned by Tertullian (early Christian theologian, c.160–c.230) in his Treatise on the Soul, where he claims that the Romans believed her ‘to manage and direct parturition [childbirth]’ (Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, The Anti-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, p. 217). Pertunda supposedly governed the break ing of the hymen at the loss of virginity. In The City of God, Augustine mocks the Roman pantheon and when it comes to Pertunda he remarks: ‘She should blush for shame and take
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 839 herself off! Let the bridegroom have something to do for himself!’ (VI.9, p. 246). Nunc est bibendum (Now let the drinking begin!): the much-quoted opening of Horace’s Ode I.37.
14.1440–1590: ‘frightful jumble’ 14.1440: buster
Buster: a drinking spree (Partridge); from Heinrich Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 22; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.90). Baumann’s book is a guide to London slang and cant for German readers; Joyce mined the 1902 edition for examples of dialect to use in the closing section of this episode (see also Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’).
14.1440: armstrong, hollering down the street
Armstrong: arm-in-arm (EDD). From Fitzgerald, ‘Sea Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast’: ‘Arm in arm, “they came hallorin’ down the street armstrong’ ” (Poetical and Prose Writings, vol. 6, p. 207; Harald Beck, JJON; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.2).
14.1440–41: Bonafides. Where you slep las nigh?
According to Irish law, a ‘bonafide traveller’ could be served alcohol after closing time (see note at 9.1105). The legal definition of a ‘bonafide traveller’ is someone who ‘came at least three miles [4.8 km] by the shortest route from wherever he slept the night before’ (Dolan)—hence the question ‘Where you slep las nigh?’. Slep: London dialect abbreviation of slept (Baumann, Londinismen, p. xxv; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.60).
14.1441: Timothy of the battered naggin
For naggin, see note at 4.224. ‘The Knight of the Battered Naggin’ was the nickname of Sir Timothy O’Brien, who ran an inn near St Patrick’s Cathedral in the early nineteenth century: ‘The worthy baronet appears to have been an eccentric character in his way, and among a cer tain class of his customers (before he resigned his retail for a wholesale store) he was invariably known as “The Knight of the Battered Naggin” [. . .] This cognomen of Sir Tim had reference to the dilapidated conditions of his pewter measures by means of which, his customers asserted, the niggard landlord saved a goodly amount of the precious liquor’ (Patrick Joseph McCall, In the Shadow of St Patrick’s, p. 26; Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana IV’, pp. 171–73).
14.1441: Like ole Billyo
Like Billy-ho: ‘with great vigour or speed’; Billy-o: the Devil (Partridge); from Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 6; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.84).
14.1442: brollies or gumboots in the fambly
Brolly: stereotypically English abbreviation of umbrella (OED); from Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 19; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.88). Gumboots: galoshes made of India rubber (OED). Fambly: Cockney pronunciation for family (Partridge).
14.1442–43: Where the Henry Nevil’s sawbones and ole clo
Henry Meville: rhyming slang, the Devil (Partridge). Sawbones: a surgeon (OED). Clo (Cockney slang): clothes, from a cry of street vendors: ‘clo! old clo!’ (Partridge). Here, ‘saw bones’ is Dr Dixon and ‘ole clo’ is Stephen, who is wearing second-hand clothes.
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840 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1443: Sorra one o me knows
Sorra (Hiberno-English): ‘used to express absence or emphatic negative’ (Dolan). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Not a one of me knows’ (Notesheet Oxen 8.55); thus an emphatic way of saying ‘I don’t know’. From Lady Gregory’s Spreading the News: ‘Not a one of me knows. The last time I saw them, Jack Smith was standing there’ (p. 14).
14.1444: ribbon counter
Ribbon: alcoholic spirits (Partridge); thus the ribbon counter is Burke’s.
14.1444: All serene
From Bret Harte’s (American writer, 1836–1902) Tales of the West: ‘ “All serene” replied Stumpy’ (p. 50; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.24). Stanislaus Joyce notes that ‘All serene’ was a favorite saying of maternal uncle William O’Connell’s, the Uncle Charles of A Portrait (My Brother’s Keeper, pp. 15–16).
14.1444–45: the drunken minister
That is, Stephen who is wearing all black clothes and a soft hat. In Ireland, the word minister is used only of Protestant clergymen (PWJ, p. 295). According to Stanislaus Joyce, one night at the end of a drinking spree, Joyce was being led about by his friends and, seeing his hat, some street urchins hollered ‘Yurah, come and look at the drunken Protestan’ minister. Did ye ever see the like? He’s blind to Jaysus’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 244).
14.1445–46: Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius
Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius (Latin): ‘May almighty God bless you, Father and Son’; this blessing, from the Dismissal of the Mass, should properly conclude with ‘et Spiritus Sanctus’ (and the Holy Spirit) (Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 286). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘SD drunk black greeted by arabs O.G. imparts the papal benediction. SD salutes the urchins, himself in them’ (Notesheet Oxen 8.47–49).
14.1446: A make, mister
Make: a halfpenny (Partridge).
14.1446: The Denzille lane boys
That is, street urchins on Denzille Lane, which the group passes on their way from Holles Street to Burke’s pub. Denzille Lane is almost directly across from the hospital’s main entrance on Holles Street. Many of its houses are tenements (Thom’s, p. 1474).
14.1447: Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of the bleeding limelight Isaacs here is used as an epithet for a Jew (that is, Bloom).
14.1448: Lou heap good. Allee samee dis bunch
Lou: a drunken, slurred you. Heap: very ‘in the representation of the speech of the North American Indians’ (OED). Allee samee: pidgin English for ‘all the same’ (Partridge). Combines passages from two different short stories in Thomas Burke’s (British author, 1886–1945) Limehouse Nights: ‘Oh, lou’ll have evelything beautiful, all same English lady’ (p. 50; Notesheet Oxen 17.34) and ‘Sung Dee be heap good sailor’ (p. 184; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.36). Bunch comes from Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 21; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.89).
14.1449: En avant, mes enfants!
En avant, mes enfants! (French): ‘Onward, my children!’
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 841
14.1450: Thence they advanced five parasangs
Parasang: ‘A unit of length used in ancient Persia, originally the distance travelled in an hour and usually reckoned to be approx. 6 km’ (OED). Xenophon (whom Mulligan quoted at 1.80) uses parasangs as a unit of measurement throughout Anabasis (for example, I.ii.1).
14.1450: Slattery’s mounted foot
‘Shlathery’s [sic] Mounted Fut’: a comic song by Percy French about hard-drinking Irish ‘soldiers’ searching for beer (Prose, Poems and Parodies, pp. 135–37).
14.1451: Parson Steve, apostates’ creed!
That is, recite a parody of the Apostles’ Creed (for which see note at 1.653). We are given this parody of the Apostles’ Creed in ‘Scylla’; see note at 9.493–99. Apostate: ‘One who abjures or forsakes his religious faith, or abandons his moral allegiance’ (OED).
14.1452: Abaft there!
Abaft: ‘Chiefly Naut. To or towards the rear; backward’ (OED). From Joseph Crosby Lincoln’s (American writer, 1870–1944) Cap’n Eri: ‘Git her talkin’ abaft the mains’ (p. 7; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.37).
14.1453: Chuckingout time
Closing time in Dublin pubs was 11 pm; see note at 9.1105.
14.1453: What’s on you?
What’s on you? (Hiberno-English): what ails you?, what’s the matter with you?; a literal translation of Cad tá ort? (O Hehir, A Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 344).
14.1453: Ma mère m’a mariée
Ma mère m’a mariée (French): ‘My mother has married me’; the title of a traditional French chanson grivoise (bawdy song) that dates from at least the early eighteenth century. There are many distinct variations, but the common point is of the shenanigans that ensue after the mother has married off her daughter to a bridegroom (depending on the version, an old man, a young man, a lawyer, etc.). The reference here might be specifically to a version from 1898–99 by Raphael May, music by H. Neuzillet, since this was popular in the first years of the twentieth century (Aida Yared, JJON).
14.1453–54: British Beatitudes See note at 14.1459–60.
14.1454: Ratamplatan digidi boumboum
The second line of each verse of ‘Ma mère m’a mariée’ is a string of nonsense words, sung in a nasal tone, with the mouth closed, followed by ‘bon, bon’ (good, good). The first verse of the Raphael May version: ‘Ma mère m’a mariée / Hun hun hun la ri ra, bon, bon / Ma mère m’a mariée / Au fils d’un avocat / A oua, oua, oua / Au fils d’un avocat’ (My mother has married me / Hun hun hun la ri ra, bon, bon / My mother has married me / To the son of a lawyer / A oua, oua, oua / To the son of a lawyer) (Aida Yared, JJON).
14.1454–55: To be printed and bound . . . by two designing females See note at 1.365–66.
14.1456: art shades See note at 1.73.
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842 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
14.1456–57: Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my time See note at 9.1164.
14.1457: Silentium!
Silentium! (Latin): ‘Silence!’
14.1457: Tention That is, attention.
14.1458–59: Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are (atitudes!) parching
After the chorus of ‘Tramp, tramp, tramp’, an American Civil War song by George F. Root, which was popular in Ireland possibly because so many Irish exiles fought as soldiers in that war: ‘Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching, / Oh, cheer up, comrades, they will come, / And beneath the starry flag we shall breathe the air again, / Of freedom in our own beloved home’ (Bauerle, p. 297). Attitudes: posture, pose (OED), but here with one t because of beatitudes.
14.1459–60: Beer, beef, business, bibles . . . and bishops
These are the eight ‘British Beatitudes’ (14.1453–54), as opposed to Jesus’s eight Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–11). Combines various stereotypes about the English: their love of beer, roast beef, and business acumen (see, for example, note at 2.242). The Protestant church privileges the Bible more than the Catholic church (see note at 12.1534–35). The bulldog has long been associated as emblematic of the tenacity of the British spirit; as exemplified in the popular nineteenth-century song ‘Sons of the Sea, All British Born’, which has the line ‘Boys of the bulldog breed’ (Brewer’s). Britain’s status as the pre-eminent world power in the nineteenth century depended on its naval might (J. R. Hill., The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy, p. 161). Buggery plays off the stereotype of the prevalence of homosexual ity in English public schools. Finally, the Anglican church is founded on a hierarchy of bishops ungoverned by a pope.
14.1460–61: Whether on the scaffold high . . . Irelandear
From the song ‘God Save Ireland’ (see note at 8.440), sung to the tune of ‘Tramp, tramp, tramp’.
14.1462: Thunderation
Thunderation: ‘Used as a vague expletive or intensive’; originally American and from the mid-nineteenth century (OED). From Crosby Lincoln’s (American writer, 1870–1944) Cap’n Eri: ‘Thunderation! Hold Still!’ (p. 307; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 20.58).
14.1462: durnd
From Crosby Lincoln’s (American writer, 1870–1944) Cap’n Eri: ‘liter’ry tone be durned’ (p. 143; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 20.02).
14.1462: millingtary
Combines military with milling, which means a beating (Partridge).
14.1462–63: Bishops boosebox
Boosebox: the bar; Mulligan (like Gogarty) is fond of the word box (see note at 9.279).
14.1463: Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking
Rugger: rugby. Scrum: ‘A confused, noisy throng (at a social function or the like)’, after the rugby term, which is short for scrimmage: ‘Originally, a confused struggle in which
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 843 the players on either side endeavour to force their opponents and the ball towards the opposite goal; now, an ordered formation in which the two sets of forwards pack them selves together with their heads down and endeavour by pushing to work their oppon ents off the ball and break away with it or heel it out’ (OED, s.vv. scrum; scrimmage). Touch: in rugby, ‘The area beyond the boundaries at either side of the field of play, in which the ball is considered out of play’. Kicking the ball into touch can be used as a tac tic to gain ground, although it would interrupt the flow of the game. To kick into touch: ‘to make inoperative or irrelevant; to dismiss, reject, or invalidate’ (OED, s.v. touch). From Baumann’s Londinismen: ‘scrum = scrimmage’ (p. 199; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.32).
14.1464: tootsies
Tootises: feet. Heinrich Baumann calls this an example of ‘High-Life Slang’ (Londinismen, p. 255; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.32).
14.1465: Query
Joyce got this word from Fitzgerald’s ‘Sea Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast’: ‘Query Kittywake?’ and ‘Query a form of loggy?’ (Poetical and Prose Writings, vol. 6, p. 219; Harald Beck, JJON; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.8).
14.1465: Who’s astanding this here do?
To stand drinks: to pay for drinks (Partridge); the question is thus: who’s buying the drinks.
14.1465: damnall
Damn all: nothing (Partridge)
14.1466: Bet to the ropes
Bet: dialect variant of beaten; but also, in context, in reference to having lost money on a bet. ‘Beat to the ropes’ is a typical boxing phrase; for example, ‘Sam beat his opponent to the ropes with considerable ease’ (Pierce Egan, Boxiana, vol. 1, p. 328; Vincent Deane, JJON). Joyce recorded this phrase on Notesheet Oxen 12.19.
14.1466: Me nantee saltee
Me nantee saltee (Parlyaree): ‘I haven’t a penny’; Parlyaree, based on Italian, was the late nineteenth-century lingua franca of showmen and costermongers (Partridge).
14.1466: a red
See note at 8.98.
14.1467: Yours? . . . Übermensch. Dittoh
See note at 1.708 for Übermensch. In context, this means that after almost everyone in the party has said they have no money, Stephen asks Mulligan, ‘Yours’—i.e. what will you have. The rest of the party then sees that Stephen is standing drinks for all and order the same (‘Dittoh’). Thus, Stephen is paying for everyone’s drinks.
14.1467–68: Five number ones
That is, Number One Bass Pale Ale; see note at 8.121.
14.1468: Ginger cordial. Chase me, the cabby’s caudle
Ginger cordial: ‘a liqueur made from raisins, ginger, lemon rinds, ginger and water, occa sionally strengthened with whisky or brandy’. Caudle: ‘A warm drink consisting of thin
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844 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses gruel, mixed with wine or ale, sweetened and spiced, given chiefly to sick people, esp. women in childbed’ (both OED).
14.1469: Stimulate the caloric
Caloric: heat, particularly with reference to ‘an elastic fluid, to which the phenomena of heat were formerly attributed’ (OED).
14.1469: Winding of his ticker
Ticker: watch (OED). Similarly, Bloom drew out his watch when ordering at Davy Byrne’s in ‘Lestrygonians’ (8.979) and his watch stopped in the afternoon (13.547).
14.1469–70: Stopped short never to go again when the old
From ‘Grandfather’s Clock’ (1875), an American song by Henry C. Work: ‘But it stopped short never to go again / When the old man died’ (Bowen, p. 247). In ‘Nausicaa’, Bloom discovered that his watch had stopped: ‘Funny my watch stopped at half past four’ (13.846–47).
14.1470: savvy?
Savvy?: Do you understand? (OED).
14.1470: Caramba!
Caramba: a Spanish exclamation used to express astonishment.
14.1470–71: an eggnog or a prairie oyster
Prairie oyster: ‘A raw egg seasoned and placed with the yolk unbroken in vinegar, spirits, etc., esp. as consumed to relieve the effects of alcohol’ (OED).
14.1471: Enemy?
Enemy: time; since time is the quintessential mortal enemy (Partridge).
14.1471: Avuncular’s got my timepiece
Avuncular: humorous slang for a pawnbroker (OED). That is, the speaker doesn’t know the time because his watch is at the pawnshop. Avuncular also means a relative (Baumann, Londinismen, p. 6; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.82).
14.1471: Ten to
That is, it is now 10:50, ten minutes before the pubs’ closing time of 11 o’clock (see note at 9.1105).
14.1472: Pos fact
That is, ‘positive fact’. Partridge notes that pos meaning positive can be found in Swift’s Polite Conversation.
14.1472: Got bet be a boomblebee whenever he was settin sleepin in hes bit garten King Hamlet was killed whilst ‘sleeping within the orchard’ (I.v.59). Bit: small (EDD). Garter: garden. See also note at 4.483–84.
14.1474: the Mater
See note at 6.375–76.
14.1474: Buckled he is
Buckled: married (Partridge); from Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 20; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.87).
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 845
14.1474: dona
Dona: colloquial English for a lady; from the Italian dònna and the Spanish doña (Partridge).
14.1474: sartin I do
Sartin: that is, certain. From Crosby Lincoln’s (American writer, 1870–1944) Cap’n Eri: ‘Sartin I do’ (p. 13; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.38).
14.1474–75: Full of a dure
Dure: Irish pronunciation of door. ‘That’s a fine doorful of a woman’ (Hiberno-English): a large, tall woman (PWJ, p. 137).
14.1475: dishybilly
That is, déshabillé; see note at 10.612.
14.1475: Peels off a credit
That is, she is very attractive when undressed (déshabillé).
14.1475: lovekin
Lovekin, variant of lovekins: ‘A lover, a sweetheart. Frequently as an affectionate form of address’ (OED).
14.1476: lean kine
In Genesis 41:3 in the King James, the Pharaoh dreams that ‘seven other kine [cows] came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed’. Joseph explains to him that the seven lean cows represent seven years of famine. See note at 1.403.
14.1476: Pull down the blind, love
The title and refrain of a song by Charles McCarthy (Peterson’s Magazine, May 1876, vol. 69, no. 5, n.p.).
14.1476–77: Two Ardilauns. Same here
That is, pints of Guinness. A total of three have been ordered: two ‘Ardilauns’ plus one (‘Same here’). The expression comes from Baron Ardilaun, Arthur Edward Guinness, co-owner of the Guinness Brewery; see note at 5.306.
14.1477: Look slippery
Look slippery (more commonly, look slippy): be nimble, be quick (OED, s.vv. slippery; slippy).
14.1477: Five, seven, nine. Fine!
Since there are ten people drinking, this may be a count of the drinks which have been ordered: five bottles of Bass (see note at 14.1467–68), seven, these five plus the ginger cor dial (see note at 14.1468) and the absinthe (see 14.1470), nine (all of the above plus the first two Guinnesses), Fine (all of the above plus the tenth drink, the third Guinness; see note at 14.1476–77).
14.1478: mincepies
Mincepies (rhyming slang): eyes (Partridge).
14.1478–79: take me to rests and her anker of rum
‘Take me to rests’ and ‘anker of rum’: rhyming slang, breasts and bum. Anker: ‘A measure of wine and spirits, used in Holland, North Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. It varies in different countries; that of Rotterdam, formerly also used in England, contains 10 old
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846 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses wine gallons or 8⅓ imperial gallons [37.7 litres]’ (all OED). From Thomas Macaulay (1800–59): ‘ankers of brandy’ (quoted in Saintsbury, English Prose Rhythm, p. 373; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 100; Notesheet Oxen 19.58).
14.1479–80: Your starving eyes and allbeplastered neck . . . O gluepot
After a joke from 1829 and much recirculated since. An Irish gentleman woos an English lady with a short verse that his uneducated servant overhears and then uses to woo that lady’s maid. Unfortunately, the servant somewhat mangles the verse. The gentleman’s poem: ‘Your alabaster neck, / And sweet glowing eyes, / Set my heart on fire, / Oh, Cupid!’ The servant’s: ‘Your yellow plaister neck, /And sweet rolling eyes, / Sets my heart on fire, / Oh, Glue-pot!’ (The Cabinet of Instruction, Literature, and Amusement, 24 Oct. 1829; Harald Beck, JJON).
14.1480–81: Spud again the rheumatiz?
Bloom’s potato; see note at 4.73. In their Dictionary of Superstitions, Iona Opie and Moira Tatem provide several examples of the belief that carrying a potato in the trousers will cure rheumatism; for example, from Harland and Wilkinson’s Lancashire Legends (1873): ‘Those who suffer from rheumatic pains are advised to carry small potatoes in their pockets, which are held not only to cure, but to prevent the return of the disease’ (s.v. Potato cures rheumatism).
14.1481: I vear thee beest a gert vool
That is, ‘I fear you are a great fool’. Gert: regional pronunciation of great in the west of England (OED, s.v. gurt).
14.1482: Back fro Lapland?
Lapland: the female genitalia, also the society of women (Partridge). Thus, Lapland is the maternity hospital. From Swift’s Tale of a Tub: ‘that polite nation of Laplanders are, beyond all doubt, a most authentic branch’ (Works, vol. 11, p. 152; Janusko, ‘Further Oxcavations’; Notesheet Oxen 3.04).
14.1482–83: Your corporosity sagaciating O K?
How is your corporosity sagaciating? (US dialect): a humorous greeting. As their earliest example of this phrase, the OED cites the Journal of American Folklore, 1890, vol. 3: ‘How does your corporosity sagatiate?’ (s.vv. corporosity; sagaciate). Joyce heard this expression from his acquaintance, the American artist Myron Nutting (1890–1972) (Ellmann, p. 519).
14.1483 squaws and papooses
Squaw: woman. Papoose: child; both are approximations of Native American words (OED).
14.1483–84: Womanbody after going on the straw?
That is, ‘The woman has just given birth?’ Woman body (Hiberno-English): woman (OED). In the straw: in childbirth (Partridge). For the Hiberno-English use of after, see note at 12.323.
14.1484: There’s hair See note at 12.1176.
14.1484–85: Ours the white death and the ruddy birth See note at 10.1073–74.
14.1486: Mummer’s wire. Cribbed out of Meredith
Stephen’s telegram to Mulligan, which was a quotation from George Meredith (see note at 9.550–51). On one draft for this passage, Joyce had Mulligan specify that it was George
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14. ‘Oxen of the Sun’ 847 Moore who had realised that Stephen was quoting from Meredith. First Joyce wrote ‘Cribbed out of Meredith, Moore says’; then, on the same draft, he revised this to ‘Cribbed out of Meredith, Moore decked [see note at 11.1256] you’ (JJA, vol. 14, p. 136). Mulligan had attended George Moore’s salon earlier in the evening (see note at 9.273–74). Moore wrote a novel called A Mummer’s Wife (1885) (Harald Beck, JJON). For mummer, see note at 1.97.
14.1486: orchidised
Orchidised: from orchitis, inflammation of the testicles (OED), a symptom of venereal dis ease. In early 1904, Joyce wrote Gogarty for medical advice concerning some unspecified venereal infection. The correspondence does not permit a conclusive identification of what the infection was: at the very least it seems to have been gonorrhoea or some form of ven ereal urethritis (Erik Schneider, ‘ “A Grievous Distemper” ’, p. 453; J. B. Lyons, James Joyce and Medicine, pp. 59–60).
14.1486: polycimical
Polycimical: neologism, lice-infested; poly- (many) + cimices (bed-bugs) (both OED).
14.1487: Aunty mine’s writing Pa Kinch See note at 9.552–53.
14.1489: Collar the leather
Collar: in sports, seize. Leather: in football or cricket, the ball (OED). Thus, collar the leather: seize the ball. In context, grab the drink.
14.1489: nappy
Nappy: ale (OED).
14.1489–90: Jock braw Hielentman’s your barleybree
Jock: a Scotsman (Partridge). Braw (Scottish dialect): ‘brave’ (OED). Hielentman: after the Scottish pronunciation of Highlandman (a Scotsman). Barleybree (Scottish dialect): strong ale (OED, s.v. barley). Combines portions of two different poems by Robert Burns. From the chorus of ‘The Jolly Beggars’: ‘Sing, hey, my braw John Highlandman!’; and from the chorus of ‘Willie Brew’d a Peck of Maut’: ‘We are na fou [drunk], / We’re nae that fou, / But just a drappie in our e’e; / The cock may craw, the day may daw, / And ay we’ll taste the barley bree’.
14.1490–91: Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot boil!
Lum (Scottish dialect): chimney. Kail (Scottish dialect): a broth made from kale (both OED). This phrase means, ‘Long may your chimney smoke and your soup-pot boil’, that is, ‘long may you live’.
14.1491: Here’s to us
Earlier, Stephen pictured Mulligan’s narcissistic toast ‘To ourselves’ (1.176).
14.1491: How’s that?
While the question is asked in its usual sense, as an exclamation it has a specific meaning in cricket, ‘an appeal to the umpire to give his decision whether a batsman is “out” or not’ (OED).
14.1491: Leg before wicket
‘Leg before wicket’ is rhyming slang for ‘that’s the ticket’, that is, everything’s fine (Partridge). Leg before wicket: in cricket, ‘a mode of dismissal in which the batsman is judged to have
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848 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses obstructed, with the leg (or another part of the body) rather than the bat, a ball which would otherwise have hit the wicket’ (OED); thus in jocular response to the previous question.
14.1492: sitinems
Sitin’ems: trousers (Partridge).
14.1492: peppe
Joyce clearly wrote ‘peppe’ (Rosenbach f. 62), as an abbreviation of pepper. Pepper in beer is a reputed cure for flatulence (E. R. Gent, The Experienc’d Farrier, p. 410).
14.1493: Catch aholt
From Crosby Lincoln’s (American writer, 1870–1944) Cap’n Eri: ‘ “Catch a-holt now”, com manded Captain Eri’ (p. 354; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 20.01).
14.1493: Caraway seed
Caraway seeds, the OED notes, are carminative, that is, they expel flatulence. Of possible rele vance, caraway seeds were long reputed to be sexual stimulants (Jennifer Evans, Fertility and Medicine in Early Modern England, p. 47; Ian MacArthur, ‘Some Notes for Ulysses’, p. 531).
14.1493: Twig? Shrieks of silence
To twig: to recognise, to discern (OED). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Caraway seed to carry away (Lenehan)’ (Notesheet Cyclops 2.21). That is, Lenehan is the perpetrator of this pun. He asks if his auditor understands (‘Twig?’), but he is met with shrieks of silence. ‘Shrieks of silence’ was a familiar catchphrase, which seems to have originated with the variety stage. From the Music Hall and Theatre Review: ‘You should hear the audience keeping quiet. Shrieks of silence, and rounds of drinks’ (29 June 1894; John Simpson, JJON).
14.1493–94: Every cove to his gentry mort
Cove (thieves’ cant): fellow (OED). Gentry mort: woman (OED); see also note at 3.372–73.
14.1494: Venus Pandemos
Pandemos (Ancient Greek): ‘belonging to all the people’. Venus (Aphrodite) Pandemos is the vulgar, lustful aspect of Love as opposed to Aphrodite Ourania (‘Heavenly’), the spirit ual aspect of Love (EB11, s.v. Aphrodite).
14.1494: Les petites femmes
Les petites femmes (French): ‘the little women’.
14.1494–95: Bold bad girl from the town of Mullingar That is, Milly.
14.1495: axing at her
That is, asking about her. Axing (Hiberno-English): asking (Dolan, s.v. ax). In numerous regional dialects, at takes on the meaning of about (EDD).
14.1495–96: Hauding Sara by the wame
Wame (Scottish dialect): belly; also womb (OED); thus, ‘holding Sara by the belly’. This is line 15 from Robert Burns’s poem ‘Ken ye ought o’ Captain Grose?’
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14.1496: On the road to Malahide
Combines ‘The Bridal of Malahide’ (see note at 10.156) with a line from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ (1892): ‘On the road to Mandalay’. See 10.199–202.
14.1496–97: If she who seduced me had left but the name
After the first line of Thomas Moore’s song ‘When He, Who Adores Thee’: ‘When he, who adores thee, has left but the name’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 23).
14.1497: Machree, Macruiskeen
Machree, Macruiskeen (Irish): ‘my heart’s [love is] my little jug’; after the chorus of ‘The Cruiskeen Lawn’; see note at 12.122.
14.1498: Smutty Moll for a mattress jig
Moll: a prostitute. Moll Peatley’s gig: copulation (both Partridge).
14.1498: And a pull alltogether
An old oarsmen’s chant: ‘A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together’, in use from at least the early nineteenth century (Dent).
14.1498: Ex!
Ex! (or trink ex!) (German): ‘Bottoms up!’, ‘Drink up!’
14.1499: Waiting
The bartender is waiting for his money. On a notesheet, Joyce wrote ‘S.D. forgets to pay’ (Notesheet Oxen 7.76).
14.1499: Most deciduously
Deciduously: jocular combination of decidedly with deciduous (falling off or shed at a par ticular season (OED)). This expression predates Ulysses, for example: ‘Most deciduously it do!’ (Life, 23 Oct. 1913, vol. 62, no. 1617, p. 694).
14.1500: shiners
Shiners: money, coins (Partridge).
14.1500: Underconstumble?
Underconstumble: jocular colloquialism for understand (Partridge).
14.1501: chink ad lib.
Chink: money, especially coin-money. Ad lib: abbreviates ad libitum, as much as one likes (both Partridge). From Baumann’s Londinismen: ‘ad lib’ (p. 2) and ‘got any chink? hast du Moneten?’ (p. xxix; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.17).
14.1501: Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn
That is, in a strong Scottish accent, ‘I saw nearly three pounds on him a while ago which he said was his’; see note at 14.286–87. From Crosby Lincoln’s (American writer, 1870–1944) Cap’n Eri: ‘ “I see it on the top of the clock a spell ago,” said Captain Perez’ (p. 3; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’). ‘Hisn’ comes from Baumann’s Londinismen: ‘hisn = his’ (p. xxvi; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.62).
14.1502: oof
Oof: money; after the Yiddish expression ooftish, popular in London in the late nineteenth century, which derives from the German auf Tische (properly auf dem Tische), ‘on the table’,
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850 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses ‘because one refused to play cards for money unless the cash were on the table’ (Partridge, s.v. oof). While not recorded on an extant notesheet, ooftish is in Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 126).
14.1502–03: Two bar and a wing
Two shillings and a penny; which is the price for the round of drinks. For bar see note at 10.1136–37. Wing (variant of win) (Dublin slang): penny (Partridge, s.v. win). The round consisted of five bottles of Bass, three pints of Guinness, one ginger cordial, and one absinthe (see note at 14.1477). There seems to be a mistake in the calculation (presumably Joyce’s). The standard price for a pint of Guinness was 2d. According to a list of bar prices, a bottle of Bass’s ale cost 3d. (Irish Examiner, 15 Oct. 1887, p. 2, col. c), which makes a total of 21d. or 1s. 9d. for the beer. While we have been unable to locate the price of either a ginger cordial or an absinthe, a glass of spirits would typically cost between 4d. and 7d. and a gin gerbeer cost 2d. So, the total should be more than 2s. 1d.
14.1503: Frenchy bilks
Bilks: swindlers, cheaters (Partridge); from Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 12; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.83).
14.1504: coon
Coon: American English racist word for a black person; this expression reached the United Kingdom by about 1890 (Partridge).
14.1505: Gawds teruth
That is, ‘God’s truth’; see note at 1.505
14.1505: We are nae fou. We’re nae tha fou
Fou (Scottish dialect): drunk (OED); from the chorus of Robert Burns’s ‘Willie Brew’d a Peck of Maut’ (see note at 14.1489–90).
14.1506: Au reservoir, mossoo
After the French, Au revoir monsieur: Goodbye, sir.
14.1507: speakeasy
Speakeasy: ‘A shop or bar where alcoholic liquor is sold illegally’ (OED); probably also used in a double sense of speak easy, that is, quietly.
14.1507: Tight. I shee you, shir
Tight: drunk (OED). From Bret Harte’s (American writer, 1836–1902) Tales of the West: ‘Abner hasn’t been tight since last ’lection’ (p. 112; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.29).
14.1508: Bantam, two days teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine
Tee-tee: teetotaller. To bowse: to drink (EDD, s.v. booze). Nowt (northern English dialect): nothing (OED). In ‘Lestrygonians’, Bantam Lyons ordered a stone ginger, a non-alcoholic drink (see note at 8.997). After the first line of the third verse of the anonymous Irish song ‘The Rakes of Mallow’: ‘One time nought but claret drinking’ (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 483).
14.1508: Garn!
Garn: ‘Go on’ (Partridge).
14.1508: glint
Glint: a look (Partridge).
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14.1509: Gum, I’m jiggered
The mild oath ‘by Gum’ (a euphemism for ‘by God’) dates from the early nineteenth cen tury. I’m jiggered: I’m damned, no kidding (both Partridge).
14.1509: And been to barber he have
In ‘Lotus Eaters’, Bloom observed that Lyons ‘Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove!’ (5.521).
14.1509: Too full for words
Too full for words: plays on the expression too funny for words; colloquial from c.1913 (Partridge).
14.1510: How come you so?
From Crosby Lincoln’s (American writer, 1870–1944) Cap’n Eri: ‘Well, one evenin’ Labe was comin’ home pretty how-come-you-so’ (p. 223; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 20.99).
14.1510: Rose of Castile See note at 7.471–72.
14.1512: Gemini
Gemini: an oath expressing surprise, originally from the seventeenth century (Partridge).
14.1512: The colleen bawn. My colleen bawn See note at 12.194.
14.1513: O, cheese it!
Cheese it!: ‘Be quiet!’ (Partridge)
14.1513: blurry Dutch oven
Blurry: slurring euphemism for bloody (Partridge). Dutch oven: boxers’ slang, the mouth (Partridge); from Baumann’s Londinismen (p. cx; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.81).
14.1513–14: Had the winner till I tipped him a dead cert
That is, Bantam Lyons was about to bet on the winner (Throwaway) until Lenehan advised him to bet on Sceptre, which he had proclaimed a ‘dead cert’ (that is, a sure thing) in ‘Aeolus’ (see notes at 7.388, 7.388–89, and 12.1550–51). From Baumann’s Londinismen: ‘cert “that’s a dead ~” ’ (p. 27; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.15).
14.1514–17: The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand . . . Gospeltrue
Joyce rendered this passage to Georg Goyert, his German translator, as ‘the devil take the head of S. H. [Stephen Hand] who gave me (the name of) the good for nothing little horse (i.e. which did not win Gold Cup)’ (quoted in Alan Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 194). He added that a man named Stephen Hand performed a swin dle as described here: ‘S. H. met a telegram boy who was bringing a private racing telegram from the stable of the celebrated English brewer Bass to the police depot in Dublin to a friend there to back B’s horse Sceptre for the Cup. S. H. gives boy 4 pence, opens the tele gram over steam (grahamising), recloses it and sends the boy on with it, backs Sceptre to win and loses. (This really happened and his name was Stephen Hand though it was not the Gold Cup)’ (p. 194). This is almost certainly Stephen Joseph Hand (1873–1924), a registra tion agent for the Irish Nationalist Party and a long-term employee of the Town Clerk’s department in the Dublin Corporation. He had many acquaintances in common with Joyce and Joyce’s father (John Simpson, JJON).
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14.1514: The ruffin cly the nab
Ruffin: the Devil or a fiend. To cly: to take. Nab: the head (all Partridge). ‘The ruffin cly the nab of the Harmanbeck’ is the first line of the song ‘The Beggars Curse’ in Richard Head’s The Canting Academy (p. 14). Harman beck (thieves’ cant): constable (Partridge). Stephen thought of another song from this book in ‘Proteus’ (see note at 3.381–84). Heinrich Baumann quotes this song in Londinismen (p. xliv; with thanks to Ronan Crowley).
14.1515: jady coppaleen
Jady: ‘Of a horse: Like a jade; tricky, jadish’ (OED); Joyce got this word from an article in the 17 April 1920 Freeman’s Journal on the previous day’s horseracing at Derby: ‘but I fear that Mapledurham must be termed jady, as she had every chance to win and was well treated’ (p. 3, col. b; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.96). Coppaleen (Hiberno-English): horse (Dolan, s.vv. capall; coppaleen).
14.1515–16: big bug Bass
Big bug: an important person (Partridge). Bass was the owner of Sceptre; see note at 14.1161–62 and the preceding note.
14.1516: joey
Joey: a fourpenny piece (Partridge).
14.1516: grahamise
To grahamise: to open a letter illicitly (here, to steam it open); after Sir James Graham (1792–1861), the Home Secretary, who had the Italian revolutionary Giuseppi Mazzini’s let ters opened in such a manner in 1844 as they came into the postal service’s hands (OED).
14.1516–17: Mare on form hot order
The first half of the telegram from Bass’s stable; the horse in question is Sceptre. Joyce derived this expression from an article in the 17 April 1920 Freeman’s Journal on a horse race at Leopardstown: ‘it was on his reputation of the long ago that he was such a scream ingly hot order yesterday’ (p. 3, col. c; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.100).
14.1517: Guinea to a goosegog
The second half of the telegram from Bass’s stable. Goose-gog: gooseberry (Partridge, s.v. goose-gob). Guinea to a gooseberry: long odds (Partridge). See note at 7.388–89.
14.1517: Tell a cram
Cram: a lie (Partridge; OED). The jocular expression tell a cram for telegram dates to shortly after the invention of telegraphy in the 1850s (Harald Beck, JJON). From Baumann’s Londinismen (p. cxiii; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.79).
14.1518: chokeechokee
Chokee (or chokey): prison (Partridge). From Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 29; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.31).
14.1519: harman beck See note at 14.1514.
14.1520: O, lust, our refuge and our strength See notes at 5.420 and 5.443–47.
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14.1521–22: Come ahome, our Bantam
Echoes the title and chorus of the American domestic contrition song ‘Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?’ (1902) by Hughie Cannon (see note at 18.1282–83).
14.1522: Horryvar, mong vioo
Parodies the pronunciation of the French Au revoir, mon vieux (Goodbye, old man). From Fitzgerald, ‘Sea Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast’: ‘ “Horrywaur!” Of the latter I could get no explanation, until one day it flashed upon me when I saw sailing out the fleet, the “Au Revoir” ’ (Poetical and Prose Writings, vol. 6, p. 218; Harald Beck, JJON; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.8).
14.1522: cowslips for hersel
Cowslip: (Primula veris), also called the primrose, a yellow-petalled spring wild-flower (OED). Herself (Hiberno- English): ‘the woman of the house’ (Dolan). In Baumann’s Londinismen, cowslip is listed as theatre slang (p. 38; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.32).
14.1523: thon colt
Thon (Hiberno-English): that (PWJ, p. 82). That colt is Throwaway.
14.1523: Jannock
Jannock (Lancashire dialect): honest (Partridge).
14.1523–24: Of John Thomas, her spouse
Continues from 14.1520 the parody of the post-Mass prayer, ‘of Saint Joseph her [Mary’s] spouse’ (John J. Wynne, The Mass, p. 566); see also note at 5.423. John Thomas: the penis (Partridge).
14.1524: No fake, old man Leo
See 5.534 for Lyons’s misunderstanding.
14.1524: honest injun
Honest injun: Honestly (Partridge).
14.1525: holy friar
Holy friar: rhyming slang, ‘bloody liar’ (Partridge; Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 197).
14.1525: Vyfor you no me tell
Vyfor you no me tell: Mock Yiddish.
14.1526: sheeny nachez
In his notes for his German translator, Joyce glossed ‘sheeny nachez’ as ‘jew thing’, ‘just what you’d expect a jew to do’ (Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 196). But Joyce seems to be not quite correct; sheeny (Jew) is a racist word of English ori gin (see note at 9.605). But nachez is Yiddish for ‘psychological reward or gratification’ (Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish, p. 257).
14.1526: misha mishinnah
The Mishnah is the Jewish legal codification of the Oral Law given to Moses on Mount Sinai (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia), but here the general sense seems to be, ‘I’ll be
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854 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses damned’. In notes for his German translator (see note at 14.1514–17), Joyce glossed this pair of words as meaning ‘a bad violent and unprepared for death or end’ (quoted in Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 196).
14.1527: Through yerd our lord, Amen
Concludes the parody of the post-Mass prayer: ‘Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen’ (Wynne, The Mass, p. 567). Yerd (Old English): penis (OED, s.v. yard). Joyce glossed this parody in his notes for his German translator (Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 197).
14.1528: you’re going it some
To go it: ‘To move or proceed at great speed; to engage vigorously or enthusiastically in some specified or implied activity’ (OED, s.v. go).
14.1528: bluggy
Bluggy: jocular pronunciation of bloody (Partridge).
14.1529: splendiferous stander
That is, someone who will buy drinks; see note at 6.188–89.
14.1529–30: one stooder of most extreme poverty That is, the impoverished recipient of a free drink.
14.1531–32: Landlord, landlord have you good wine, staboo? See note at 14.314.
14.1532: Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree
To pree: ‘To sample by tasting; to taste, partake of ’ (OED); from Robert Burns’s ‘Willie Brewed a Peck o’ Maut’ (see note at 14.1489–90): ‘And Rab and Allen came to pree’. In his notes for his German translator (see note at 14.1514–17), Joyce writes that pree is ‘Scotch for: examine and taste whisky’ (quoted in Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 197). This is correct, though pree need not refer only to whiskey (OED).
14.1532–33: Cut and come again
Cut and come again: ‘Take a cut from the joint, and come for another if you like it’ (Brewer’s). From John Gibson Lockhart’s (1793–1854) Life of Sir Walter Scott: ‘that he might cut and come again with the bolder knife’ (quoted in Peacock, English Prose, p. 328; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 126; Notesheet Oxen 19.103).
14.1533: Right. Boniface!
Boniface: a country innkeeper (Partridge). Here perhaps with a play on the military march ing command ‘Right about face!’
14.1533–34: Nos omnes biberimus viridum . . . posterioria nostria
Nos omnes biberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posterioria nostria (Latin): ‘We shall all have drunk the green poison [absinthe]—let the devil take our backsides.’ Properly, it should be posteriora nostra (our backsides), but Joyce wrote the incorrect form posterioria nostria (Rosenbach f. 64).
14.1534: Closingtime, gents See note at 9.1105.
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14.1534–35: Rome boose for the Bloom toff
Rome bouse: wine (bouse and boose are variant spellings of booze); from Baumann’s Londinismen (p. xli; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.77). Toff: ‘An appellation given by the lower classes to a person who is stylishly dressed or who has a smart appearance’ (OED).
14.1535: I hear you say onions
Unclear; possibly an expression of incredulity.
14.1535: Cadges
To cadge: to beg (Partridge).
14.1535–36: Photo’s papli
That is, Bloom. Bannon calls Milly ‘Photo girl’ (1.685) and papli is what Milly calls her father (see note at 4.397).
14.1536: Slide
To slide: to decamp (Partridge).
14.1536: Bonsoir la compagnie
Bonsoir la compagnie (French): ‘Goodnight everybody’. The title of a song from 1896 by Constance Maud (1857–1929), words from a poem by Gabriel Charles de L’Attaignant (1697–1779), translated by Edwin Arnold (1832–1904) (John Simpson, JJON). Bannon leaves to avoid an encounter with Milly’s father, Bloom.
14.1537: And snares of the poxfiend
Parodies a line from the post-Mass prayer: ‘be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil’ (Wynne, The Mass, p. 567). See note at 5.443–47 for Joyce’s parody of this prayer.
14.1537: Namby Amby?
Namby Amby: a play on namby-pamby, a phrase meaning ‘affected and effeminate’ (Partridge). At an earlier point in this episode (14.653), Bannon’s first name was initially Ambrose, but Joyce changed it to Alec on the typescript (JJA, vol. 14, p. 143). For this line, Joyce originally wrote ‘Where’s the buck and Amby Bannon’ and changed ‘Amby Bannon’ to ‘Namby Amby’ on the same typescript (JJA, vol. 14, p. 137); thereby preserving a relic of his original first name (Robert Janusko, ‘From Seymour to Amby to Bannon and Out’, p. 396). See also 14.497.
14.1538: Skunked?
To skunk: ‘To betray; leave in the lurch’ (Partridge). The noun skunk appears various times in Bret Harte’s (1836–1902) Tales of the West (pp. 80, 145–46; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.26).
14.1538: Leg bail
To give leg bail: to escape custody on foot (Partridge).
14.1538: Aweel, ye maun e’en gang yer gates
Aweel, ye maun e’en gang yer gates (Scottish dialect): well, you must go your way. Aweel (Scottish dialect): well. Maun (Scottish dialect): must. Gang (Scottish dialect): go (all OED). Gate: way (EDD).
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14.1539–40: frend tuk bungalo kee
That is, Mulligan, who has the key to the Martello tower (see 1.721).
14.1540: Crickey
Crikey (crickey is a variant spelling): a typically upper-class British exclamation of surprise (OED). From Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 40; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.66).
14.1541: sprung
Sprung: drunk (Partridge).
14.1541–42: Tarnally dog gone my shins . . . puttiest longbreak yet
Combines two passages from Bret Harte’s (American writer, 1836–1902) Tales of the West: ‘Eternally dog-gone my skin ef this aint the puttiest chance yet’ (p. 149; Notesheet Oxen 17.92) and ‘God bless him for the bestest, sweetest boy that lives’ (p. 120; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.31). Long vacation: summer vacation (OED). Trinity College did not end its spring classes until 21 June 1904, thus after the date of Ulysses (Thom’s, p. 853).
14.1542: curate
See note at 4.114.
14.1542: cookies
Cookie: ‘In Scotland the usual name for a baker’s plain bun’ (OED).
14.1542: Cot’s plood
Cod’s plood: jocular for ‘God’s blood’; several examples can be found, such as the play Patient Grissel (1603) by Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and William Haughton: ‘Cod’s plood! You call her gluttons?’ (p. 22).
14.1543: prandypalls
That is, brandy balls, a type of sweet, but here probably a euphemism for balls, that is, testicles.
14.1543: pite of sheeses That is, bite of cheese.
14.1543–45: Thrust syphilis down to hell . . . Who wander through the world
From Joyce’s parody of the conclusion of a post-Mass prayer (see note at 5.443–47 for the parody): ‘Thou Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust down to hell Satan and the wicked spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls’ (Wynne, The Mass, p. 567).
14.1545: À la vôtre!
À la vôtre! (French): ‘To yours!’ (a toast).
14.1546: Golly
From Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 77; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.90).
14.1546: whatten tunket’s
Whatten (Scottish and north English dialect): what kind of, what. Tunket: hell, as in ‘what the hell’ (both OED). From Crosby Lincoln’s (American writer, 1870–1944) Cap’n Eri: ‘Where in tunket is my terbacker?’ (p. 3; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.35).
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14.1546: yon guy in the mackintosh
See note at 6.805 for the man in the macintosh. Yon: that (OED). The word guy originally meant ‘A person of grotesque appearance, esp. with reference to dress; a “fright” ’. The later sense, man, is originally American, but this usage had reached the United Kingdom by the 1860s and was in common use in the early twentieth century (OED). Either sense is appropriate here.
14.1546: Dusty Rhodes
Dusty Rhodes: a generic nickname given to a comic tramp figure in American newspapers and comic strips from the 1890s and, occasionally, in the British magazine Chips (John Simpson, JJON).
14.1547: Jubilee mutton
‘During Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1897 mutton was distributed among some of the poor of Dublin in order I suppose to make them more kindly to English rule. When she visited Dublin later the crowds used to chant, “Here she is! What has she got? Jubilee mutton [i.e., not very much]” ’ (Daniel Weiss, ‘The End of the ‘Oxen of the Sun’’, p. 13).
14.1547: Bovril
Bovril: ‘The proprietary name of a concentrated essence of beef, invented in 1889 by J. Lawson Johnston’ (OED). It was widely advertised as healthy: ‘Bovril is strength, and strength is precisely what is wanted to fortify the system against infection, or to pilot a patient through an attack to a speedy recovery’ (The Saturday Review, 2 Apr. 1898, vol. 85, no. 2214, p. 475).
14.1548: D’ye ken bare socks?
To ken (Scottish dialect): to see (OED); after the song ‘John Peel’, words by John W. Graves: ‘D’ye ken John Peel with his coat so gray’.
14.1548–49: Seedy cuss in the Richmond?
For the Richmond, see note at 1.205–06, Cuss: a person (Partridge). From Bret Harte’s (American writer, 1836–1902) Tales of the West: ‘The d–d little cuss!’ (p. 49; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.21). Evidently, one of the medical students has treated the man in the macintosh at the Richmond Lunatic Asylum. Seedy comes from Baumann’s Londinismen: ‘seedy and washed out’ (p. xii; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.57).
14.1549: Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis
On an ‘Oxen’ notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Chap thinks he has swallowed fly, deposit of lead in penis’ (Notesheet Oxen 5.65). Spanish fly is an aphrodisiac (see note at 15.2432–33).
14.1550 trumpery insanity
Trumpery insanity: a late-nineteenth-century catchphrase for ‘temporary insanity’, which was used in verdicts of suicide in the nineteenth century (Partridge). From Baumann’s Londinismen (p. cxiii; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.80).
14.1550: Bartle the Bread
Joyce told his German translator, ‘Bartle the Bread = B who delivers or eats the bread usually’ (Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 195). At the end of ‘Wandering Rocks’, the man in the mackintosh was seen ‘eating dry bread’ (10.1272). On a notesheet, Joyce
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858 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses wrote ‘Meredith the Bread’ (Notesheet Oxen 17.15), which is from John Oswald Francis’s (Welsh dramatist, 1882–1956) play Change: ‘There’s Willie Meredith now, son of Meredith the Bread. Wears a box-hat every Sunday, so they do say’ (p. 102; Harald Beck, JJON).
14.1551: cit
Cit: citizen (Partridge).
14.1551: Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all forlorn
After the nursery rhyme ‘The House that Jack Built’, which begins: ‘This is the man, all tat tered and torn, / That kissed the maiden all forlorn’ (ODNR, p. 230).
14.1552: Slung her hook
To sling one’s hook: to run away and, by extension, to die (Partridge).
14.1552–53: Walking Mackintosh of lonely canyon
As Gifford points out, this is in the style of a Wild West story title.
14.1553: Tuck
To tuck: ‘To consume, swallow (food or drink)’ (OED).
14.1553: Schedule time
That is, the scheduled closing time of 11:00.
14.1553: Nix for the hornies
That is, watch out for the police. Nix: a warning of someone’s approach (Partridge); from Baumann’s Londinismen (p. 22; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.90). See note at 8.422 for horny.
14.1554: runefal
The speaker here could be either Lenehan or Stephen. Lenehan likes ingratiating wordplay: runefal/funeral. As for Stephen, Joyce wrote on a notesheet: ‘SD. laugh at funerals’ (Notesheet Oxen 5.56).
14.1554: passed in his checks
To pass in one’s checks: to die (Partridge). From Bret Harte’s (American writer, 1836–1902) Tales of the West: ‘Beneath this tree / lies the body / of / John Oakhurst. / Who [. . .] / Handed in his Checks / on the 7th December 1850’ (p. 77; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.25).
14.1555: Ludamassy!
That is, Lord have mercy!
14.1558: Tiens, tiens
Tiens, tiens (French): ‘Well, well’.
14.1558: but it is well sad, that, my faith, yes
Joyce told his German translator that in this sentence ‘[t]he English is quite unconvincing and meant to be so’ (Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 199).
14.1558–59: O get, rev on a gradient one in nine
See note at 6.369–70 for the Gordon Bennett race. Get: go away!, as in an abbreviation of get out! (Partridge, s.v. get). To rev: to run or accelerate quickly (OED). Gradient: amount
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14.1559: Live axle drives are souped
Souped: placed into difficulties (OED). That is, Jenatzy—one of the racers in the Gordon Bennett (see the following note)—will beat (‘lick’) one of his competitors, who has a live axle drive (that is, a chainless drive). Live axle drives were new at this time (EB11, s.v. motor vehicles).
14.1560: Jenatzy licks him
Camille Jenatzy (1868–1913), a Belgian, won the 1903 Gordon-Bennett, which was held in Ireland (see note at 6.369–70). The 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph closes its main article on the race by listing Jenatzy and Baron de Caters as the drivers best positioned to win among the strong field of nineteen drivers (p. 2, col. g). In fact, the 1904 race (held in Germany on 17 June) was won by the French driver Léon Théry. Jenatzy came in second and the Baron third (Irish Times, 18 June 1904, p. 7, cols f–h).
14.1560: Jappies? High angle fire
‘High-angle fire is the fire from guns, howitzers and mortars at all angles of elevation exceeding 15°’ (Joseph Sladen, Principles of Gunnery, p. 3). An 1891 review in The Quarterly Review noted that ‘the Russians seem to place more dependence on high-angle fire’ (Apr. 1891, vol. 172, no. 344, p. 371). The term was frequently used in newspaper coverage of the Russo-Japanese War; for example, ‘The Russian artillery at Kiulien-cheng again opened with high-angle fire on Wiju, Kurito, and Seikoda to the south’ (Weekly Irish Times, 7 May 1904, p. 13, col. b).
14.1560: inyah
Inyah (or inah) (Hiberno-English): ‘a satirical expression of dissent or disbelief ’ (PWJ, p. 277).
14.1561: war specials
Press reports on the Russo- Japanese war of 1904–05 often carried the byline ‘Press Association War Special’; see note at 16.1240 for an example. On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Jap ship sunk by Russian war correspondents’ (Notesheet Oxen 8.111).
14.1565: We’re nae tha fou See note at 14.1505.
14.1565: The Leith police dismisseth us
From the tongue-twister children’s rhyme: ‘The Leith police dismisseth us, / I’m thankful, sir, to say. / The Leith police dismisseth us; / They thought we ought to stay’ (Baring-Gould and Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose, p. 284). Joyce told his German translator that this tongue-twister is a phrase police officers use to test the sobriety of drunkards (Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 199). Leith is the name of Edinburgh’s port area.
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14.1566: Ware hawks for the chap puking
Ware hawk: a warning that a police officer (a ‘hawk’) is near (Partridge, s.v. hawk); alterna tively, this could mean ‘watch out for the chap who’s throwing up’.
14.1566–67: his abominable regions A pun with abdominal regions.
14.1567–68: Mona, my thrue love. Yook. Mona, my own love. Ook
From the song ‘Mona, My Own Love’ by Weatherly and Adams. The first verse: ‘Mona, my own love, Mona my true love, / Art thou not mine thro’ the long years to be? / By the bright stars above thee, / I love thee, I love thee, / Live for thee, die for thee, only for thee. / Oh, Mona, Mona, my own love, / Art thou not mine thro’ the long years to be?’ (The Phono-Bretto, p. 106).
14.1569: Shut your obstropolos
Obstropolos: jocular for obstreperous (Partridge, s.v. obstreperlous), that is noisy or, by extension, a noisy mouth.
14.1570: Brigade
That is, the Fire Brigade.
14.1570: Mount street way
The group turns back down Holles Street towards the hospital at the other end and in the general direction of Mount Street.
14.1572: Denzille lane
Denzille Lane bisects Holles Street and connects to Denzille (now Fenian) Street, which leads to Westland Row and Westland Row Station (now Pearse Station). It would have been slightly quicker to turn directly on to Denzille Street from Burke’s pub, but the detour is not major.
14.1573: We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is
After the 18th stanza of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s (1828–82) poem ‘The Blessed Damozel’ (1850): ‘ “We two”, she said, “will seek the groves / Where the lady Mary is” ’. For kips, see note at 9.552.
14.1574: Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis
Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis (Latin): ‘They [the prostitutes] will rejoice in their beds’; after Psalm 149:5: ‘Exultabunt sancti in gloria laetabuntur in cubilibus suis’ (The saints shall rejoice in glory: they shall be joyful in their beds).
14.1575: who the sooty hell’s the johnny
From Thomas Carlyle’s (1795–1881) Past and Present: ‘Sooty Hell of mutiny and savagery’ (p. 305; Janusko, Sources and Structures, p. 155; Notesheet Oxen 20.70). Johnny: fellow, guy (OED).
14.1575: black duds
According to Baumann’s Londinismen, duds refers to clothes (p. xl; Chrissie Van Mierlo, ‘ “Oxen of the Sun” Notesheet 17’; Notesheet Oxen 17.76).
14.1575–76: Sinned against the light See note at 2.361.
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14.1576–77: that day is at hand when he shall come to judge the world by fire
Images of the Christian Last Judgement include an apocalypse of purging fire; for example, ‘But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up’ (2 Peter 3:10).
14.1577: Ut implerentur scripturae
From the Vulgate: ‘ut implerentur scripturae prophetarum’ (Matthew 26:56); ‘that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled’ in the Douay and the King James.
14.1578: Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical Davy See note at 9.908–09.
14.1579: excrement yellow
Lynch uses the word yellow as a curse-word, something which Stephen commends him for in A Portrait (p. 204). In a letter to Damaso Alonso, the Spanish translator of A Portrait, Joyce wrote ‘The word yellow [. . .] is his [Lynch’s] personal substitution for the more san guine hued adjective, bloody’ (Letters, vol. 3, p. 130).
14.1579: on the Merrion hall
The Merrion Hall, an Evangelical church on the corner of Lower Merrion Street and Denzille (now Fenian) Street (Thom’s, p. 1545), en route to Westland Row. See also note at 10.1109–10.
14.1580: Elijah is coming See note at 8.13.
14.1580: Washed in the Blood of the Lamb See note at 8.9.
14.1580–84: Come on, you winefizzling, bullnecked . . . triple extract of infamy!
While this is similar in tone to some of Dowie’s sermons, this portion of evangelical sermon ising comes from William Ashley ‘Billy’ Sunday (American preacher, temperance advocate, and baseball player, 1862–1935). During the period 1915–17, his sermons consistently used a sequence of words that are almost identical to this passage. From a 1915 sermon in Kansas City: ‘Come on, you forces of iniquity; [. . .] come on, you traducers; come on, you triple extract of infamy; come on, you assassins of character; come on, you sponsors of harlotry; come on, you defamers of God and enemies of the church; come on, you bull-necked, bettle- browed [sic], hog-jowled, peanut-brained, weasel-eyed four-flushers, false alarms and excess baggage’ (Edwardsville, Illinois Intelligencer, 5 May 1915). Although Joyce used the correct form ‘beetlebrowed’ in all ‘Oxen’ drafts, he retained the mistake ‘bettle-browed’ in a notesheet (Notesheet Cyclops 8.71), which suggests that this paper, or a specific reprint thereof, was his source (Peter Gilliver, ‘Billy Sunday’, p. 134; Alistair Stead, ‘A Sunday Outing’, p. 3). In his review of Ulysses, Shane Leslie (Anglo-Irish diplomat and writer, 1885–1971) noted that this passage ‘seems taken literally from one of Mr Billy Sunday’s sermons’ (Quarterly Review, Oct. 1922, vol. 238, p. 224; with thanks to Harald Beck). The expression ‘beetle brows’ is in Romeo and Juliet (I.iv.32). Four-flusher: a braggart or cheat; originally from poker (Partridge).
14.1584: Alexander J. Christ Dowie See note at 8.13–14.
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14.1586: nickel dime bumshow
Nickel dime: insignificant (OED). Bum: inferior (Partridge). So, the Deity is not some insignificant, inferior show. From Crosby Lincoln’s (American writer, 1870–1944) Cap’n Eri, the title of the final chapter is ‘Dime-Show Bus’ness’ (p. 376; Davison, ‘Oxtail Soup’; Notesheet Oxen 17.28).
14.1589: diddle
Diddle: swindle (OED).
14.1589–90: Not half
Not half: an exclamation of emphatic assent (Partridge).
14.1590: with a punch in it
A cliché used in advertising and elsewhere; for example, ‘An American explaining every thing to a group of his compatriots broke the silence with the comment, “A picture with a punch in it!” ’ (The Times, 4 May 1915, p. 11, col. e).
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15. ‘Circe’
hi g
j
a f
c b e d
Map 15 Monto (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = Amiens Street Station; b = P. Gillen (64 Talbot Street); c = A. Rabiotti (65 Talbot Street); d = W. Olhausen (72 Talbot Street); e = T. Cormack (74 Talbot Street); f = O’Beirne Brothers (62 Mabbot Street); g = Faithful Place; h = Mrs Annie Mack (85 Lower Mecklenburgh Street); i = Bella Cohen (82 Lower Mecklenburgh Street); j = Magdalen Asylum (63–71 Lower Gloucester Street, 68–80 Lower Mecklenburgh Street)
Time: 12–1 am (11 pm–12 am in the Linati schema) Location: Bella Cohen’s brothel (Lower Mecklenburgh Street) and environs Organ: Locomotor apparatus Art: Magic Symbol: Whore Technic: Hallucination Correspondences: Circe: Bella As is immediately evident, the episode takes the form of a stage-play, albeit one that would be difficult to stage. In this, it has two direct precedents: Goethe’s Faust and Flaubert’s Temptation of St Antony, both of which are alluded to within the episode. ‘Circe’ takes place within the Dublin’s notorious red-light district, which Joyce calls ‘nighttown’ (see note at 15.1). ‘It was a rough place where “dog ate dog”; dockers, railwaymen, coalmen, carters, domestics, factory workers and all sorts lived side by side in a melting pot of tenements,
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864 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses with pubs and brothels on every side of them, and the police dared not enter’ (Maurice Curtis, To Hell or Monto, p. 118). The combination of squalor and sexual fantasy in close proximity makes it a suitable location for the mixture of realism and hallucination that characterises this episode (Joyce listed its technic as hallucination on the Gilbert schema). Many events from elsewhere in Ulysses are recapitulated or otherwise referenced in ‘Circe’. Indeed, more so than any other episode, ‘Circe’ shows that ‘virtually every notable occurrence, every word of significance in Ulysses is “remembered” by the text and becomes available to the characters—not only to the character who originally experienced the event, but [also] to other characters and to the various, often limited, narrative voices in the novel. Thus, the text of Ulysses becomes a sort of Akasic memory “of all that ever anywhere wherever was” (7.882–83)’ (John Rickard, Joyce’s Book of Memory, p. 108). In terms of more pragmatic matters, Bloom and Stephen arrive in Monto separately because of a confusion on the train from Westland Row Station to Amiens Street Station (see note at 15.636) (map 15).
15.1: Mabbot street
Mabbot Street (now James Joyce Street) runs north-south off Talbot Street and is about 400 metres west from the Amiens Street rail terminal (now Connolly Station), north of the Liffey in east central Dublin.
15.1: nighttown
Nighttown: Joyce’s name for Dublin’s red-light district. At the time, Dubliners called it Monto (or also the Kips, the Digs, or the Village), after Montgomery (now Foley) Street, one of the area’s main thoroughfares. The neighbourhood consisted of tenements and Georgian houses in various states of disrepair alongside respectable working-class dwellings. ‘Montgomery Street and adjacent areas continued to attract considerable notice as the “worst sink of iniquity in the British Isles” ’ (O’Brien, Dear Dirty Dublin, p. 193). The brothel area extended to approximately 0.65 km2 and included Lower Mecklenburgh Street (renamed Lower Tyrone Street in 1888, but in 1904 both names were current; see note at 9.1088–89) and its adjoining streets and lanes: Montgomery Street, Mabbot Street, Beaver Street, Purdon Street, Elliott Place, Faithful Place, Uxbridge, and Nickleby (John Finegan, The Story of Monto, pp. 5–9). At the turn of the twentieth century, Monto was home to well over 100 brothels, ranging from the expensive and fancy (see note at 15.370) to the cheap and tawdry. Likewise, the clientele came from all social strata. Monto was especially popular with British soldiers based in Dublin’s main barracks (see note at 5.70). Monto was also popular with sailors, who would come from the docks nearby. Although there were occasional attempts to curtail or eliminate prostitution in the area, the police largely tolerated such activities as long as they were restricted to the confines of this specific neighbourhood. The area was finally cleaned up in 1925, shortly after independence, following an extensive police operation (pp. 18–28).
15.2: tramsiding
Siding: ‘A short length of railway track connected to an adjacent through line (often at one end only), used for storing and shunting rolling stock and for enabling trains on the same line to pass each other; a similar line on a tramway’ (OED). The tramline for the Dollymount and Clontarf Tramway ran along Talbot Street, which intersects Mabbot Street. ‘It may be that the tramsiding is a passing point for express trams on the Howth service. Slower trams would have to pull in to the passing point allowing the express tram to overtake’ (David Foley, The Bloomsday Trams, p. 15).
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15.3: will-o’-the wisps
Will-o’-the wisp: the giddy flame that guides Faust and Mephistopheles to the ‘Walpurgis Night’ (Witches’ Sabbath) in Goethe’s Faust, Part I (I.31). In nature, the will-o’-the wisp, or ignis fatuus, is a phosphorescent light hovering above marshes, which seems to move as its observer moves (OED).
15.5: Rabaiotti’s halted ice gondola See note at 10.229.
15.9: call and answer
The children are playing a ‘Call and Answer’ singing game. This type of singing game is a variant of the ring game in which a group of children form a ring around one child who is in the middle. The middle child chooses one of the children in the ring and calls to him or her. The child who has been selected answers back, then joins the chooser in the centre, while the rest of the children dance around them and sing a verse from the song (Iona and Peter Opie, The Singing Game, pp. 321–22).
15.15: Saint Vitus’ dance
St Vitus’s dance (or chorea): a sickness of the nervous system characterised by involuntary, jerky movements of all or part of the body. It usually strikes children (OED, s.v. chorea).
15.15–16: A chain of children’s hands imprisons him
The game of ‘Call and Answer’ has now become a chain or ring game. The most famous example of such a game is ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’ where a group of children dance around a circle in a chain (Iona and Peter Opie, The Singing Game, pp. 220–22).
15.18: Kithogue!
Kithogue (Hiberno- English): a left- handed person, an awkward person (Dolan, s.vv. kithogue; ciotóg).
15.24: Ghaghahest
On a ‘Circe’ notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘light from the ?west’ (Notesheet Circe 2.119). Evidently, then, ‘Ghaghahest’ is a mangled version of ‘In the west’. That is, the sun (the great light) is now off in the west, having set several hours earlier.
15.28: totting
To tot: ‘To pick anything saleable from a dustbin’ (OED).
15.35: navvy
See note at 4.213.
15.36: two night watch See note at 15.674.
15.40: a slut
Street prostitutes ‘were by this time diseased and their days working as prostitutes (or even staying alive) were numbered’ (Curtis, To Hell or Monto, p. 179). See also note at 15.4383.
15.40: tatts
Tatt: ‘a tangle, matted tuft or lock of wool or hair’ (OED, s.v. tat).
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15.41: scrofulous
Scrofula: ‘tuberculosis infection of the lymph nodes of the neck’; also called king’s evil (OED, s.v. scrofula; king’s evil). Contagious diseases such as tuberculosis were rampant throughout Dublin, especially in the tenements of the poorest neighbourhoods, such as Monto. ‘Overcrowding and poor hygiene meant that disease was everywhere. Infant mortality was alarmingly high’ (Curtis, To Hell or Monto, p. 153).
15.44–47: I gave it to Molly . . . The leg of the duck See note at 15.56–59.
15.48: Private Carr
Joyce took the name of this character from Henry Wilfred Carr (1894–1962), a soldier in the Canadian Black Watch regiment who was given a job at the British consulate in Zürich after being wounded in World War I. In April 1918, Joyce cast Carr as Algernon Moncrieff in a production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest that was put on by the English Players, a theatrical company Joyce founded. Carr subsequently complained to the British consulate about his low pay. Joyce then initiated a lawsuit against Carr, which, in turn, triggered a year-long spree of suits and counter-suits between Carr and Joyce. The net result was that Joyce only prevailed in some of the verdicts. During these legal actions, Joyce’s opprobrium spread to include others involved in the affair, such as Compton (see the following note), Gann (see note at 12.419–20), Smith (see note at 12.425), Andrew Percy Bennett, the consul-general (see note at 10.1133–34), and even Sir Horace Rumbold, the British ambassador to Switzerland (see note at 12.430), all of whom lend their names to characters in Ulysses (Ellmann, pp. 426–28, 440–47, 456–59). The contretemps between Carr and Joyce served as the background for Tom Stoppard’s play Travesties (1974).
15.48: Private Compton
Joyce took this name from Harry Compton, an actor who appeared in numerous productions put on by Joyce’s theatrical company, the English Players. Otherwise, nothing else is known of him (William Brockman and Sabrina Alonso, JJON).
15.49: oxters
See note at 12.254.
15.51: virago
Virago: a man-like woman (OED).
15.53: Signs on you
Sign’s on it (Hiberno-English): ‘used to express the result or effect or proof of any proceeding’ (PWJ, p. 323); in effect, it means ‘sure enough’.
15.53: hairy arse
Hairy arse: ‘No longer young [. . .] Mature and hirsute and virile’; colloquial since the late nineteenth century (Partridge).
15.53: More power
More power to your elbow (Hiberno- English): a catchphrase of encouragement (Partridge).
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15.53: the Cavan girl
See note at 12.1304 for County Cavan. ‘The girls and women who worked for the madams in the brothels and on the streets were in many cases country girls fallen on hard times in the city’ (Curtis, To Hell or Monto, p. 177).
15.55: Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet
Cootehill and Belturbet are small towns in County Cavan. Cavan is the county town of County Cavan (Thom’s, p. 1100).
15.56–59: I gave it to Nelly . . . The leg of the duck
After a vulgar street rhyme, perhaps of Galway origin: ‘The leg of the duck, the leg of the duck, / I gave it to Nelly to stick in her belly, / The leg of the duck, the leg of the duck’. ‘In the refrain: the leg of the duck, the penis, from its shape; by implication used as a dildo’ (Vance Randolph, Blow the Candle Out, vol. 2, p. 598).
15.63: redcoats
Redcoat: British soldier (OED).
15.65: parson
In Ireland, parson has come to mean only a Protestant clergyman (PWJ, p. 300).
15.70–72: She has it, she got it . . . The leg of the duck Continued from 15.56–59.
15.74: introit for paschal time
Paschal tide: the fifty- day period from Easter Sunday to the Pentecost (Catholic Encyclopedia). ‘In Paschal time two Alleluias are added to the antiphon’ of the introit (entrance-prayer; see note at 12.1721–22) (s.v. introit). In one of his limericks, ‘The Virginal Kip-ranger’, Gogarty writes, ‘There is a young fellow named Joyce / Who possesseth a sweet tenor voice, / He goes to the Kips / With a psalm on his lips / And biddeth the harlots rejoice’ (Poems & Plays, p. 351).
15.77: Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia
Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia (Latin): ‘I saw water flowing out from the right side of the temple. Alleluia.’ This is the beginning of the Eastertide antiphon Vidi aquam from the Latin Mass (Rituale Romanum, p. 280). It refers to Ezekiel 47:2.
15.78: elderly bawd See note at 9.1021.
15.84: (altius aliquantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista
(Altius aliquantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista (Latin): ‘(a little bit higher) And all those to whom that water came [were saved]’; this continues the quotation from the antiphon Vidi aquam (Rituale Romanum, p. 280).
15.86–87: Trinity medicals . . . All prick and no pence
‘A number of students, principally medical students, frequented Monto nightly after hos pital duty, usually to observe the assignations from back parlours. The students were not expected to pay the much-inflated prices demanded for drink from the more affluent customers’ (Finegan, The Story of Monto, p. 6).
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868 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.91: I seen you See note at 10.225.
15.91: Faithful place
Faithful Place: a short street that runs off Purdon Street and is parallel to and to the east of Mabbot Street. Thom’s lists most of its houses as tenements (p. 1489). It no longer exists. The earliest extant draft of ‘Circe’ sets the opening at Faithful Place rather than at Mabbot Street (Phillip Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 211; JJA, vol. 14, p. 203).
15.92: squarepusher
Squarepusher: a boyfriend (OED).
15.93: You never seen me See note at 10.225.
15.94: Stag
Stag (Hiberno- English): ‘a cold- hearted unfeeling selfish woman’ (PWJ, p. 334). Alternatively, the OED lists as one of its meanings, ‘An informer’. Either sense is plausible.
15.96: Kilbride, the enginedriver, and lancecorporal Oliphant
In the earliest surviving draft of the Dubliners story ‘A Painful Case’, the original name for ‘P. Dunne, railway porter’ (Dubliners, p. 110) was ‘P. Kilbride, railway porter’ (JJA, vol. 4, p. 117). The 1901 census lists a railway man named Peter Kilbride (b. c.1852). Oliphant is unknown.
15.98: (triumphaliter) Salvi facti sunt
(Triumphaliter) Salvi facti sunt (Latin): ‘(triumphantly) were saved’; this continues the quotation from the antiphon Vidi aquam (see notes at 15.77 and 15.84).
15.105–06: So that gesture, not music not odour, would be a universal language
From the seventeenth century onwards, various philosophers, notably Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), attempted to define a universal language that would allow scientists, math emat icians, and philosophers to describe all knowledge within one unified system (Frederick Copleston, History of Philosophy, vol. 4, p. 268). The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) was the first of many to call music ‘the universal language of mankind’ (Prose Works, p. 305). Stephen expressed a similar idea about gesture in Stephen Hero: ‘ “There should be an art of gesture”, said Stephen one night to Cranly’ (p. 184). After he finished writing Ulysses, Joyce attended at least one lecture by Marcel Jousse (French Jesuit and anthropologist, 1886–1961), who argued that gesture was the essential condition of all language (Mary and Padraic Colum, Our Friend James Joyce, pp. 130–31). Joyce makes reference to Jousse in Finnegans Wake: ‘In the beginning was the gest he jousstly says’ (p. 468).
15.106: gift of tongues
‘And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they [the apostles] were all together in one place: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak’ (Acts 2:1–4).
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15.106–7: the first entelechy See note at 9.208.
15.109: Pornosophical philotheology
Porne (Ancient Greek): prostitute. Sophia (Ancient Greek): wisdom. Thus, ‘pornosophical philotheology’ would imply a mishmash of philosophy and theology inappropriately enunciated in the red-light district. In his broadside poem ‘The Holy Office’, Joyce wrote: ‘I, who dishevelled ways forsook / To hold the poets’ grammar book, / Bringing to tavern and to brothel / The mind of witty Aristotle’.
15.109: Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street
Lower Mecklenburgh Street (now Railway Street) intersects Mabbot Street (now James Joyce Street).
15.111: shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates See note at 9.250 for Shakespeare and note at 9.234 for Socrates.
15.111–12: Even the allwisest Stagyrite was . . . mounted by a light of love
That is, Aristotle, who came from Stagira (see note at 9.720). Light of love: courtesan (see note at 9.249–50). Aristotle’s light of love was Herpyllis, his mistress. A print by Hans Baldung Grien (German artist and printmaker, c.1484–1545) entitled ‘Aristotle and Phyllis’ (1513) depicts Aristotle mounted by a woman as though he were a horse. It is ‘based on the legend that Alexander’s beautiful favorite got revenge on his woman- scorning tutor by persuading the old sage to get down on all fours and carry her naked through the garden as a prelude to enjoying her sexual favors’ (Judith Yarnall, Transformations of Circe, p. 101).
15.117: the loaf and jug of bread or wine in Omar
After stanza 12 of the third edition of Edward Fitzgerald’s (1809–83) translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Persian astronomer and poet, 1048–1131): ‘A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, / A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou / Beside me singing in the Wilderness—/ Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!’ (p. 90); in earlier editions this is stanza 11, and there are some variants, such as ‘Flask of Wine’ rather than ‘Jug of Wine’ (p. 163). This is one of the most famous and quoted lines from Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát (with thanks to Alexander Bubb).
15.120: Damn your yellow stick See note at 14.1579.
15.122: la belle dame sans merci
La belle dame sans merci (French): ‘the beautiful lady without mercy’; the title of a poem from 1819 by John Keats (1795–1821); the title derives from an earlier French poem on courtly love, La Belle Dame sans Mercy (c.1424), by Alain Chartier (c.1385–1430).
15.122: Georgina Johnson See note at 9.195.
15.122–23: ad deam qui laetificat juventutem meam
Ad deam qui laetificat juventutem meam (Latin): ‘to the goddess who gladdens my youth’; after the altarboy’s reply to the priest’s call at the beginning of the Ordinary of the Latin
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870 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Mass ‘Introibo ad altare Dei’ (see note at 1.5), ‘Ad deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam’ (To God who gladdens my youth) (John Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 260). Stephen’s transposition of gender is incomplete, if deum becomes deam, then the qui should be changed to quae.
15.125: span
Span: ‘the distance from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger [. . .] when the hand is fully extended’ (OED).
15.129: It skills not
See note at 9.804–05.
15.129: customhouse
See note at 10.297. Although it is nearby, it is not possible to see the Custom House from Lower Mecklenburgh Street.
15.130: Here take your crutch and walk
After the Gospel of John, where Jesus heals a cripple at the pool of Bethsaida, saying, ‘Arise, take up thy bed, and walk’ (John 5:8, see also Matthew 9:6, Mark 2:9, Luke 5:24).
15.137: flaring cresset
Cresset: ‘A vessel of iron or the like, made to hold grease or oil, or an iron basket to hold pitched rope, wood, or coal, to be burnt for light’; by extension, a torch (OED).
15.138: cesspools
Cesspool: ‘A well sunk to receive the soil from a water-closet, kitchen sink, etc.: properly one which retains the solid matter, and allows the liquid to escape’ (OED). By the mid–late nineteenth century, sewer systems began to displace the cesspool as the primary means of dealing with human waste (EB11, s.v. sewerage).
15.139: middens See note at 3.151.
15.142: under the railway bridge Bloom appears
The Loop Line Bridge (see note at 5.138) crosses over Talbot Street (which is parallel to and south of Montgomery Street). Bloom is about 370 metres behind Stephen and Lynch.
15.144: Gillen’s
P. Gillen: hairdresser, 64 Talbot Street (Thom’s, p. 1605).
15.145: Nelson’s image
That is, Vice- Admiral Horatio Nelson (British naval hero, 1758–1805); see also note at 7.1018.
15.146: lugubru Booloohoom
See 11.1005 and note at 11.1005–06.
15.146: Gladstone
See note at 5.323–24.
15.148: Wellington See note at 12.196.
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15.148: bonham
Bonham: a sucking pig; from the Irish banbh (OED).
15.149: jollypoldy the rixdix doldy
In The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, Iona and Peter Opie list several rhymes which follow a similar pattern, such as ‘Joan the roan, / The rix six stoan’ (p. 158). In Stephen Hero, a similar rhyme is used on Stephen and his sister Isabel: ‘Stephen, the Reepehn, the Rix-Dix Deephen’ and ‘Isabel, the Risabel, the Rix-Dix Disabel’ (p. 165).
15.150: Antonio Rabaiotti’s door
Rabaiotti ran a flotilla of ice cream gondolas (see note at 10.229), but this is his restaurant at 65 Talbot Street (Thom’s, p. 1605).
15.154: N.g.
That is, ‘No good’ (Partridge).
15.155: Olhausen’s
W. Olhausen: pork butcher, 72 Talbot Street, a few doors away from Rabaiotti’s (Thom’s, p. 1605).
15.158: crubeen See note at 7.951.
15.168: Cormack’s corner
Thomas Cormack: grocer, tea, wine, and spirit merchant, 74 Talbot Street at the corner with Mabbot Street (Thom’s, p. 1605).
15.170: Aurora borealis or a steel foundry?
Bloom’s question was repurposed from the unused Doherty fragment from A Portrait (see the headnote to ‘Telemachus’), where Doherty asks ‘Was it electric light or the aurora bor ealis?’ (Robert Scholes and Richard Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 108 and JJA, vol. 10, p. 1220; A. Walton Litz, The Art of James Joyce, p. 133).
15.170: brigade
That is, the Dublin fire brigade, which was seen at the end of ‘Oxen’ (14.1569–71).
15.171: Beggar’s bush
Beggar’s bush (or Beggarsbush): an area in south-eastern Dublin, near Irishtown, named after the beggars ‘who solicited alms by day and demanded them at the pistol point after dark’ (D. A. Chart, Story of Dublin, p. 336). It lies about 2.4 km south-east of Bloom’s present position.
15.172: London’s burning, London’s burning! On fire, on fire!
From the children’s song or round ‘Scotland’s Burning’: ‘Scotland’s burning, Scotland’s burning, / Look out, look out, / Fire, fire, fire, fire / Pour on water, pour on water’. Versions of the song with London substituted for Scotland are common (Kaye Pottie and Vernon Ellis, Folksongs of the Maritimes, p. 12). The song dates back to at least Shakespeare’s time (Sidney Lanier, Shakespeare and his Forerunners, vol. 2, pp. 47–48).
15.174: Talbot street
Bloom has been walking west along Talbot Street from Amiens Street Station (now Connolly Station) in the direction of Mabbot Street. Lynch and Stephen, who are ahead of Bloom, have turned off Mabbot Street onto Lower Mecklenburgh Street.
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15.185: sandstrewer
Sandstrewer: Joyce’s neologism for the special tram car that cleans the tracks and sprays dry sand down afterwards (Michael Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, p. 69).
15.192: pugnosed
See 5.132 for another (or, possibly the same) pugnosed driver.
15.193: keys
Key: the bolt used to connect the rail tracks (OED).
15.195: the hat trick
‘Any trick with a hat, e.g. one performed by a conjurer’; and also, in various sports (but originally in cricket), ‘a set of three wins, goals, or other successes achieved by a particular person or team’ and, more broadly, ‘a set of three achievements’ (OED).
15.200: Sandow’s exercises again. On the hands down See both notes at 4.234.
15.201: The Providential
There was no insurance company called ‘Providential’. Bloom might be referring to either Provident Life, whose Dublin agent was located at 113 Grafton Street (Thom’s, p. 1597), or the Provident Clerks’ Guarantee and Accident Offices, whose head office for Ireland was at 27 Westmoreland Street (Thom’s, advertisements, p. 39).
15.201–02: Poor mamma’s panacea
Bloom’s potato; see notes at 14.1480–81 and 4.73.
15.203: the black Maria
Black Maria: the van used by the police to transport prisoners (Partridge).
15.203: Leonard’s corner
Frances Leonard: ‘prov. stores, grocery, ironmongery, glass and delft warehouse, timber, slate and tile merchant, post office receiver and money order office’, 64–66 Upper Clanbrassil Street, at the corner with the South Circular Road (Thom’s 1892, p. 1769). By 1904, Leonard had ceased trading and his shop had broken up into two establishments: James Forsythe, ironmonger, china, glass, delft, and colour merchants at 64 Upper Clanbrassil Street and M. T. Collins, general draper, ladies’ and children’s outfits, shoe warehouse, post office, and money order office at 65–66 Upper Clanbrassil Street (Thom’s, p. 1455). However, the name ‘Leonard’s Corner’ remained—and still remains— current for the intersection of Upper and Lower Clanbrassil Streets with the South Circular Road (JJD, p. 115). Bloom grew up nearby at 52 Clanbrassil Street (see note at 17.1869).
15.203–04: Third time is the charm. Shoe trick
Combines two proverbial expressions: ‘The third time’s lucky’ and ‘The third is a charm’ (ODEP). ‘Shoe trick’ plays off the sense of ‘hat trick’ as a ‘set of three achievements’ (see note at 15.195).
15.207: True word spoken in jest See note at 12.1658.
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15.207: Lad lane
Lad Lane runs from Lower Baggot Street south-west to the Grand Canal. Within Ulysses, Bloom has not been to Lad Lane.
15.208: Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost cattle
Presumably Bloom remembers the proverbial saying ‘shitten luck is good luck’ (Partridge, s.v. luck, shitten) and wonders why this could be the case. His rationalisation is that cow pats could indeed be lucky because they would lead to lost cattle (suggested by Harald Beck).
15.209: Mark of the beast
In Revelation, John writes of the beast that ‘causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of the same’ (13:16–17 in the King James).
15.210: That tired feeling See note at 13.86–87.
15.212: O’Beirne’s wall
This is the wall of O’Beirne Brothers: tea and wine merchants, 62 Mabbot Street, at the corner with Talbot Street (Thom’s, p. 1537).
15.213: visage unknown, injected with dark mercury
The most common treatment for syphilis at this time was mercury, either by injection, oral consumption, or inhalation of mercurial vapour. Mercury is highly toxic and was associated with a whole range of debilitating side effects (EB11, s.v. venereal disease). In the Odyssey, Hermes (Mercury) protects Odysseus from harm on Circe’s island by providing him with the plant called moly, ‘It was black at the root, but with a milky flower [. . .] It is hard for mortal men to dig up, but the gods have power to do all things’ (X.304–06). ‘Homer’s moly may be nothing more than a mythical plant, but since the name “moly” was used in Greek to designate actual plants, much debate ensued’ (Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, Ancient Botany, p. 59).
15.216: Bueñas noches, señorita Blanca. Que calle es esta?
Bueñas noches, señorita Blanca. Que calle es esta? (Spanish): ‘Good evening, Miss White. What is this street?’ ‘Bueñas’, which Joyce wrote (Rosenbach f. 6), is incorrect (and would be pronounced bwen-yas); properly it should be Buenas. See also note at 13.1208–09.
15.218: Sraid Mabbot
Sráid Mabbot (Irish): Mabbot Street. See also note at 12.897–98.
15.220: Esperanto
Esperanto: an artificial international auxiliary language invented by L. L. Zamenhof (Polish ophthalmologist, 1859–1917) in 1887. The idea behind it was that it would serve as a universal second language, thereby facilitating concord between nations (Brewer’s). In the early twentieth century, there were various clubs promoting Esperanto throughout Europe and it enjoyed some popularity in England and also, albeit to a lesser extent, Ireland (Peter Forster, The Esperanto Movement, pp. 23, 269–70). It never quite attained the level of widespread, worldwide acceptance requisite to such a project.
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874 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.220: Slan leath See note at 12.819.
15.220: Gaelic league spy
For the Gaelic League, see note at 7.796. Esperanto was viewed with suspicion by some advocates of the revival of the Irish language. For example, an article for Sinn Féin by Peadar Ó Maicín (1878–1916), entitled ‘Esperanto and Irish’, criticised Anthony Traill (1838–1914), the Provost of Trinity College, for his ‘zeal for the promotion of the artificial auxiliary language Esperanto [which] has outlived the indifference, hostility and ridicule of his friends [. . .] I believe the reason why Esperanto has been taken up here in Ireland is the detrimination [sic] of the Gall-Gaedheal not to have Irish at any price. And Dr Traill believing that Esperanto is their only weapon to fight Irish-Ireland with has determined to use that weapon’ (8 June 1912, p. 6; Dominic Manganiello, Joyce’s Politics, p. 144).
15.221: fireeater
Fire-eater: an ‘excessively belligerent person, especially if under no necessity to fight’ (Partridge). That is, the citizen from ‘Cyclops’.
15.222: sackshouldered ragman
Ragman: ‘A person who collects or deals in rags, old clothes, etc.; a rag dealer’ (OED). On his shoulder he bears a sack of rags and bones (mentioned above at 15.29).
15.231–32: Touring Club
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were various organisations and clubs devoted to catering to the needs of cycling holidaymakers, a newly popular trend in the Irish tourism industry. ‘Road surfaces were improved with cycling tourists in mind, finger posts were erected to help them navigate, guidebooks were written to aid them on their journeys, hotels were spruced up for them’ (Brian Griffin, ‘Cycling Tourism in Ireland’, p. 189).
15.232: Stepaside
Stepaside: a village 11 km south of central Dublin.
15.233: Irish Cyclist
The Irish Cyclist: a weekly magazine with offices at 2 Dame Court (Thom’s, pp. 1357, 1467). They occasionally organised cycling tours for their readers (Griffin, ‘Cycling Tourism in Ireland’, p. 191).
15.233–34: In darkest Stepaside
After the title of Sir Henry Morton Stanley’s (British-American explorer, 1841–1904) book In Darkest Africa (1890) and also William Booth’s (founder of the Salvation Army, 1829–1912) social critique of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment, In Darkest England and the Way Out (1890).
15.234: Rags and bones
Rag-and-bone: ‘Designating a collector or seller of old clothes and other discarded items that can be reused’ (OED).
15.234–35: Wash off his sins of the world
From John’s Gospel, in which, upon seeing Jesus, John the Baptist says: ‘Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world’ (1:29).
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15.243: sweets of sin See note at 10.606.
15.245: pickpockets
The streets of Monto were rife with pickpockets (Finegan, The Story of Monto, p. 11).
15.247: The retriever
The dog in ‘Circe’ changes species throughout the episode (the use of the definite article implies that this is the same dog throughout). Here, it is a retriever, elsewhere, ‘the sniffing terrier’ (15.356), ‘the whining dog’ (15.577), ‘The dog [. . .] panting’ (15.633), ‘The retriever’ (15.659), ‘The wolfdog’ (15.663), ‘the setter’ (15.667), ‘The mastiff’ (15.672–73), ‘the munching spaniel’ (15.690), ‘The bulldog’ (15.693), ‘the gorging boarhound’ (15.705–6), ‘my educated greyhound’ (15.708), ‘The beagle’ (15.1204), ‘His dachshund coat’ (15.1206), ‘The pack of stag hounds’ (15.3954), and ‘A pack of bloodhounds’ (15.4328).
15.249: elder in Zion
A reference to the anti-Semitic tract, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, first published in Russia in 1905. These were forged documents purporting to be plans by a cabal of Jews to rule the world and control financial markets and disrupt Christian morals. They were first exposed as forgeries by Philip Graves, a London Times reporter, in 1921 (Brewer’s). Rudolph’s appearance is typical of early-twentieth-century anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews, ‘unshaven, heavy eyelids, hooked nose’ (Neil R. Davison, James Joyce, ‘Ulysses’, and the Construction of Jewish Identity, p. 96).
15.249: magenta tassels
Tzitzit (Hebrew): fringes, threads intertwined with blue cord. ‘The Bible commands the wearing of tzitzit (Num. 15:37–41) on the corners of garments. Originally every male garment had tzitzit’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.250–52: Yellow poison streaks
Rudolph Bloom poisoned himself with aconite (see note at 17.624).
15.253: Second halfcrown waste money today
In ‘Sirens’, Bloom decided he could spend a half-crown (two shillings and sixpence) on a postal order he could send to Martha Clifford as a gift (see note at 11.866–68). This second half-crown waste could refer to the anticipated expenses in Monto.
15.253–54: drunken goy ever
Goy (plural, goyim) (Hebrew and Yiddish): gentile (i.e. a non-Jew). See also note at 8.49.
15.257: Ja, ich weiss, papachi
Ja, ich weiss papachi (Yiddish and German): ‘Yes, I know, papa.’
15.260: Are you not my son Leopold See note at 5.203.
15.262: and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob
In Exodus 3:6, God identified Himself to Moses as ‘I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Abraham is also the name of the old man in Leah (see note at 5.203).
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876 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.264: Mosenthal See note at 5.200.
15.264: All that’s left of him
P. W. Joyce defines this Hiberno-English expression as ‘a mock way of speaking, as if the hard usage of the world had worn him to a thread’. He gives the following example: ‘ “Is Frank Magaveen there?” asks the blind fiddler. “All that’s left of me is here”, answers Frank’ (PWJ, p. 46).
15.270: Alpine hat
The Alpine hat was much in vogue in Naples in the 1860s and a few years later in New York. ‘It was steeple-crowned, with wide brim, and a broad black ribbon round the crown which was further decorated by a feather. It differed from the familiar Tyrolese hat [. . .] chiefly in having the brim turned up, instead of down, and in having a deep, regular dent or cleft in the top of the crown’ (‘The Clothes Mania’, The Atlantic Monthly, May 1869, vol. 23, no. 139, p. 532). ‘The Alpine hat took half our heads by storm, because it held out to us the alluring prospect of being safely picturesque’ (p. 535).
15.270: Waterbury keyless watch
Waterbury, Connecticut, was a leading centre of watch manufacture in the United States (EB11, s.v. Waterbury). Keyless watch: a watch that is wound up without the use of a special key (OED).
15.271: double curb Albert
Curb: a chain or strap (OED). Albert chain: ‘a type of chain originally used to attach a watch to a waistcoat, typically having a bar at one end to be drawn through a buttonhole, the watch being secured to the other end’ (OED, s.v. Albert); thus a double curb Albert is a watch with two chains. The term appears frequently in ads for watches.
15.272: Harriers
Harriers: a common name for a cross-country running team. The Trinity College Dublin Harriers Club was founded in 1886 (Trevor West, The Bold Collegians, p. 46).
15.274–75: They make you kaputt
Kaputt (German): dead, finished, destroyed, broken; in Yiddish, kaput. Joyce consistently spelt this word ‘kaputt’; on a late page proof a scribal mark (unclear if it was made by Joyce) deleted the final t to make the spelling conform to the Yiddish (JJA, vol. 26, p. 53). Gabler rejects this variant and reverts to the earlier (German) spelling. The phrase ‘They make you kaputt’ approximately translates the colloquial German phrase ‘macht uns kaputt’ (with thanks to Harald Beck); see also note at 15.3651–53.
15.275: Leopoldleben
In German, when used as a suffix to a name, Leben (life) adds a suggestion of affection or intimacy.
15.279: Goim nachez!
Joyce glossed this Yiddish phrase for his German translator as ‘Christian folly!’ (Alan Cohn, ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, p. 194). The literal meaning is ‘The gratification of the gentiles!’; see note at 15.253–54 for goim and note at 14.1526 for nachez.
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15.283: pantomime dame
Pantomime dame: ‘a conventional comic character of a middle-aged woman played by a man and featured in many pantomimes’ (OED, s.v. pantomime).
15.283: mobcap
Mob cap: ‘A large cap or bonnet covering much of the hair, typically of light cotton with a frilled edge, and sometimes tied under the chin with ribbon, worn indoors by women in the 18th and early 19th centuries’ (OED).
15.283: widow Twankey’s
Widow Twankey is Aladdin’s mother in the pantomime (SS, p. 204).
15.285: crispine net
Crispine (also known as a crespine or crispinette, which is suggested by Joyce’s phrasing ‘crispine net’): a mediaeval-style headdress for noblewomen consisting of a net of gold or silver coils, sometimes ornamented with jewels, that would confine the hair into a fixed shape, typically two half-globes on each side of the head (Katherine Lester and Bess Viola Oerke, Accessories of Dress, pp. 124–25).
15.288: blay
Blay (Hiberno-English): unbleached (OED).
15.289: an Agnus Dei
Agnus Dei (Latin): lamb of God; the name of a waxen medallion stamped with the figure of a lamb and blessed by the Pope, worn around the neck or kept as an object of devotion (Catholic Encyclopedia); see also note at 8.9.
15.289: a shrivelled potato See note at 4.73.
15.289: celluloid doll
Celluloid: ‘Plastic made from pyroxylin and camphor, widely used in manufacturing’ (OED). Celluloid was the first commercial plastic and was invented in 1869 as an artificial substitute for ivory in making billiard balls. Soon thereafter it was widely used for making dolls (Clara Fawcett, Dolls, p. 121).
15.290: Sacred Heart of Mary
Ellen Bloom’s oath uses the name of a religious order that was founded in 1848 by Jean Gailhac at Béziers, in France, for the work of teaching and the care of orphans. The Sacred Heart of Mary has institutions in Ireland, England, Portugal, and the United States (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Congregations of the Heart of Mary).
15.290: at all, at all?
A common Hiberno-English catchphrase denoting exasperation: ‘A mother says to her mischievous child, “Oh blessèd hour, what am I to do with you at all at all!” ’ (PWJ, p. 196).
15.297–98: Beside her mirage . . . in Turkish costume
Molly’s Turkish costume is the same as from Bloom’s dream of her the previous night (see 13.1240–41). It follows from Gustave Flaubert’s description of the Queen of Sheba in The Temptation of Saint Antony (1874): ‘Her robe of gold brocade, regularly divided by fur belows of pearls, jet, and sapphires, is drawn tightly round her waist by a close-fitting
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15.298: Opulent curves
From the novel Sweets of Sin, which Bloom perused in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.612).
15.300: white yashmak See note at 11.943.
15.306: from this out
From this out (Hiberno-English): from now on (OED, s.v. out).
15.313: Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain
This also follows from Flaubert’s description of the Queen of Sheba in The Temptation of Saint Antony: ‘A chain of plate gold, passing under her chin, runs along her cheeks till it twists itself in spiral fashion around her head’ (p. 63). This scene in Saint Antony itself echoes a scene from Flaubert’s earlier novel Salammbô (1862): ‘Between her ankles she wore a gold chainlet to regulate the length of her steps’ (p. 18; Scarlett Baron, Strandentwining Cable, pp. 156–57).
15.315: bobbing howdah
Howdah: ‘A seat to contain two or more persons, usually fitted with a railing and a canopy, erected on the back of an elephant’ (OED). Sometimes, however, as here, the howdah is placed on the back of a camel.
15.317: wristbangles angriling
Angriling: Joyce’s neologism which echoes the word bangles for onomatopoeic effect and also suggests angrily and ting-a-ling.
15.319: Nebrakada! Femininum! See note at 10.849.
15.329: stomacher
Stomacher: ‘an ornamental covering for the chest (often covered with jewels) worn by women under the lacing of the bodice’ (OED).
15.334: This moving kidney
Bloom confuses the kidney he had for breakfast and the soap he purchased for Molly at Sweny’s, which has been in his pocket all day. Moving kidney is also another name for the medical condition floating kidney (Century Dictionary), for which see note at 14.1426.
15.338–39: We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I . . . polish the sky
After an advertising slogan for Brooke’s Monkey Brand soap from the 1890s: ‘We’re a capital couple the Moon and I, / I polish the Earth, she brightens the sky: / And we both declare, as
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15. ‘Circe’ 879 half the world knows, / Though a capital couple, we “won’t wash clothes” ’ (Harald Beck, ‘Brooke’s Soap’, p. 4).
15.340–41: Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of the soapsun
See note at 5.463 for Sweny. This image suggests the closing lines of Flaubert’s Temptation of Saint Antony: ‘In the very middle of [the sky], and in the disc of the sun itself, shines the face of Jesus Christ. Antony makes the sign of the cross, and resumes his prayers’ (p. 360).
15.343: Three and a penny
The soap and lotion that Bloom purchased at Sweny’s cost 3s. 1d. Bloom still owes the money because the chemist offered to let Bloom pay when he returns for the lotion (5.513–15).
15.351: Ti trema un poco il cuore?
Ti trema un poco il cuore? (Italian): ‘Does your heart tremble a little?’; after a line from Zerlina to Don Giovanni in ‘Là ci darem la mano’: ‘Mi trema un poco il cor’ (My heart trembles a little); see also note at 4.314.
15.353: pouter pigeon
Pouter pigeon: ‘A domestic pigeon of a breed characterized by a greatly inflatable crop’ (OED).
15.355: that Voglio
See note at 4.327–28.
15.359–60: There’s no-one in it
There’s no-one in it: a literal translation of the Irish phrase Nil aoinne ann, there’s no-one there (Dent).
15.362: Bridie Kelly See note at 14.1068.
15.364: Hatch street See note at 14.1064.
15.370: flash houses. Ten shillings
Flash house: a brothel (Partridge). Specifically, in Monto, a flash house was the most expensive type of brothel. The entry fee for a flash house was at least 10 shillings, with additional charges for liquor and sex. ‘In the first-class establishments, known as the flash houses, there was an air of some grandeur, with expensive furniture and fittings, rugs in the halls and carpet on the stairs, elaborate floral decorations and an abundance of mirrors and private rooms. These houses attempted to copy the ambience of the celebrated brothels of Paris’ (Finegan, The Story of Monto, p. 10). ‘The upper end of Mecklenburg Street, even in Monto’s heyday during the latter decades of the nineteenth century and up until 1925 in the twentieth century, had a certain seedy respectability, containing only a few brothels for the wealthy. Most of the brothels were in the lower end of the street’ (Curtis, To Hell or Monto, pp. 114–16).
15.370: polis
That is, police; this spelling reflects the pronunciation in Hiberno-English and Scottish English (OED).
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15.371: Sixtyseven is a bitch
Evidently, 67 is the number of a constable who patrols the brothel district; see also note at 15.4336.
15.373: bloodied clout
Clout: a rag or handkerchief (OED).
15.375: With all my worldly goods I thee and thou
After the groom’s lines in the Catholic marriage vow: ‘with all my worldly goods I thee endow’; see also note at 13.216. For ‘thee and thou’ see also note at 9.448.
15.384: the secrets of my bottom drawer
Bottom drawer: ‘a place in which, traditionally, a woman stored household linen in prepar ation for her marriage; a stock of such linen or other household objects collected in prepar ation for marriage or for setting up home’ (OED, s.v. bottom).
15.386: Mrs Breen See note at 8.203.
15.386: frieze
Frieze: a coarse wool cloth, generally of Irish manufacture, with a nap on one side (OED).
15.401: Black refracts heat See note at 4.79–80.
15.402: Rescue of fallen women. Magdalen asylum
Magdalen: generic name for an asylum for saving prostitutes (Brewer’s); named after Mary Magdalene, a follower of Jesus (Mark 16:9, Luke 8:2). The nearest one is only about 200 metres distant, the Magdalen Asylum at 104 Lower Gloucester Street, founded in 1822 (Thom’s, p. 1386). The complex extended to 68–80 Lower Mecklenburgh Street (Thom’s, p. 1611) and was thus next door but one to Bella Cohen’s establishment (see note at 15.1287). It was also known as the Gloucester Street Laundry and was called by locals ‘the penitentiary’. ‘Since the eighteenth century, the Magdalen asylums [. . .] had been used to rescue and reform “fallen women”. Often called Magdalen laundries because the women were put to work washing clothes, by the early twentieth century there were at least twenty-three such institutions and, unlike in earlier times, they seemed to be more preoccupied with “wayward daughters” and unmarried mothers than prostitutes’ (Diarmaid Ferriter, Occasions of Sin, p. 32). Such laundries were lucrative businesses and the ‘penitents’ worked there ‘free until “the nameless graves in the cemetery” claim their poor bodies’ (Michael McCarthy, Priests and People in Ireland, p. 423).
15.409: Othello black brute
At the beginning of Othello, Iago tells Desdemona’s father Brabantio that ‘an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe’ (I.i.89–90). Up until 1930, and with the sole exception of Ira Aldridge (1807–67) in the nineteenth century, Othello was always played by a white actor, usually in blackface make-up (Virginia Mason Vaughan, Othello: A Contextual History, pp. 181–82).
15.410: Eugene Stratton See note at 6.184.
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15.410: bones and cornerman at the Livermore christies
Bones: the name given to the member of a minstrel group who plays the percussion instrument called the bones, similar to castanets. Corner-man: ‘The end man of a row of blackface minstrels’. Christy: generic name for blackface minstrels, after the Christy Brothers (all OED). The Livermore Brothers’ World Renowned Court Minstrels were a popular group who played Dublin in 1894 (Freeman’s Journal, 3 Feb. 1894, p. 4, col. a).
15.411: Bohee brothers
The Bohee Brothers’ Operatic Minstrels played in Dublin and other venues throughout Ireland in the 1890s. The brothers were George and James Bohee, and their troupe, which was from London, included other performers. ‘The Brothers Bohee, who are the “stars” of the company have attained a mastery of the banjo such as is extremely rare’ (Freeman’s Journal, 29 Aug. 1893, p. 5, col. a). Unlike most minstrels, the Bohees were actually black performers who wore black facepaint over their skin (Robert Toll, Blacking Up, p. 216; Cheryl Herr, Joyce’s Anatomy of Culture, p. 157).
15.413: Sambo
See note at 12.1325.
15.415–16: white kaffir eyes
The White-Eyed Kaffir: the stage name of George H. Chirgwin (1854–1922), a British music-hall entertainer who performed in blackface with a white diamond painted about the eye. The white eye-diamond was popular in Dublin minstrel shows (Herr, Joyce’s Anatomy of Culture, p. 157). Kaffir: a derogatory epithet for a black person (OED).
15.420–23: There’s someone in the house with Dina . . . Playing on the old banjo
From the song ‘Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah’ (c.1835–48), music by J. H. Cave (James J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music, pp. 513–14). The lyrics were incorporated, with some modification, into the later song ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad’ (1894) (p. 309). Dina or Dinah was a stereotypical name for a female slave (Ervin Jordan, Black Confederates, p. 137).
15.424: raw babby faces
Babby: common colloquial variant of baby (Partridge). The action of wiping off the mask was frequently part of a minstrel performance (Herr, Joyce’s Anatomy of Culture, pp. 157–58).
15.431: ruck
Ruck, from rúcach (Hiberno-English): ‘a rough, boorish person’ (Dolan).
15.433: square party
Square party: a party of four people, sometimes two women and two men, after the French partie carrée (OED).
15.434: conjugials
The spelling conjugial (as opposed to conjugal) follows Emanuel Swedenborg; see note at 9.631–32.
15.435: dear gazelle
From Thomas Moore’s long poem ‘Lalla Rookh’ (1817): ‘I never nursed a dear gazelle, / To glad me with its soft black eye, / But when it came to know me well, / And love me, it was
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882 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses sure to die’ (ll. 283–86; Poetical Works, p. 409). The phrase also appears in his poem ‘The Gazelle’: ‘Welcome, dear gazelle, to thee’ (ll. 13 and 17; p. 249).
15.437: holy show See note at 11.198.
15.443: retrospective arrangement See note at 6.150.
15.443: Old Christmas night
Old Christmas is the Irish name for the ‘Twelfth day’ of Christmas, 6 January. It was the only Christmas celebrated until the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, which was ordained by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, but adopted in Great Britain and Ireland only in 1752 (PWJ, pp. 183–84; EB11, s.vv. Christmas; Gregorian Calendar).
15.443: Georgina Simpson’s
Georgina Simpson (1876–1955). In 1904, she lived at 127 Tritonville Road, Sandymount and worked as a telegraphist (Igoe, p. 276).
15.444: Irving Bishop game
That is, mind-reading; after Washington Irving Bishop (1847–89), an American mind- reader (or thought-reader) and magician, a popular stage entertainer in Dublin and elsewhere. ‘The announcement that Mr W. Irving Bishop is about to pay Dublin a visit is likely to excite some interest. Mr Bishop is a “thought reader”, and in various senses “a man of mystery”. He describes his present provincial tour as farewell séances prior to resuming his investigations of the mysteries of the Orient. He will appear in the Antient Concert Rooms on Wednesday next and the three following evenings’ (Freeman’s Journal, 6 Oct. 1883, p. 5, col. c).
15.450–51: blue masonic badge
‘No matter how the idea may have arisen, it seems that, from the early 18th century, blue has been deemed the color appropriate to the Craft Degrees and Lodges’ (Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia).
15.453: Ireland, home and beauty See note at 10.232.
15.455: The dear dead days beyond recall. Love’s old sweet song
‘Once in the dear, dead days beyond recall’ is the first line of ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’; see note at 4.314.
15.457–60: I’m teapot with curiosity . . . simply teapot
After the parlour game ‘Teapot’ in which a pre-selected word is replaced by teapot for comic effect (David Parlett, Botticelli and Beyond, p. 28). In this case, the word is burning.
15.467: The witching hour of night See note at 6.750.
15.469: Là ci darem la mano See note at 4.314.
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15.472: dancecard
Dance-card: ‘a card bearing the names of (a woman’s) prospective partners at a dance’ (OED, s.v. dance).
15.473: Voglio e non See note at 4.327–28.
15.476: beauty and the beast See note at 13.837.
15.479: Denis Breen See note at 8.304.
15.479: Wisdom Hely’s See note at 6.703.
15.481: Little Alf Bergan See note at 8.320.
15.482: pall
Pall: a shroud or cloak, or, figuratively ‘something regarded as enveloping a situation with an air of gloom, heaviness, or fear’ (OED); both these senses are appropriate here.
15.482: ace of spades See note at 8.253.
15.485: U. p: up See note at 8.258.
15.487: High jinks below stairs
That is, the servants—who typically work downstairs—celebrating or merry-making. Joyce explained this expression in reference to a line in Finnegans Wake: ‘There is merriment above (larks) why should there not be high jinks below stairs?’ (Ellmann, p. 594 n.; Dent). High jinks is a parlour game (OED).
15.487: glad eye
Glad eye: a come-hither look (Partridge).
15.492: pigeon kiss
A ‘pigeon kiss’ is part of the complex courtship ritual of pigeons: ‘they rub their beaks together, then the hen will feed the male from her beak, or goes through the motions of doing so’ (Barbara Allen, Pigeon, p. 29). This type of kissing recalls Molly’s giving of the seedcake to Bloom on their date at Howth (see 8.906–07). Joyce got this expression from Havelock Ellis’s (English physician, 1858–1939) Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1906): ‘Later on, [the maidservant] used to insert my penis into her vulva, while she was rubbing it, at the same time giving me a pigeon kiss. This modus operandi was much appreciated by me’ (vol. 5, p. 257; Ronan Crowley, ‘Looking at Animals without Seeing Them’, pp. 8–9).
15.492–93: The answer is a lemon
The answer is a lemon: a catchphrase used as a derisive reply (Partridge).
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15.495–96: The home without potted . . . incomplete
From the advert for Plumtree’s potted meat (see note at 5.144–47).
15.496: Leah
See note at 5.194.
15.496: Mrs Bandmann Palmer See note at 5.194–95.
15.499: Richie Goulding See note at 3.76.
15.499: three ladies’ hats pinned on his head
In ‘Hades’, Bloom remembered this about Richie: ‘Waltzing in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady’s two hats pinned on his head’ (6.57–59).
15.500: Collis and Ward See note at 6.56.
15.501: skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash
The skull and crossbones are used in some Masonic rites, specifically some Templar degrees or orders and especially in some French degrees (Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia). Limewash: a mixture of lime and water, used as whitewash (OED, s.v. lime).
15.502: polonies See note at 4.141.
15.502–3: Findon haddies
Findon haddies (or Finnan haddock): fish cured with the smoke of peat turf or green wood (OED, s.v. finnan).
15.503: tightpacked pills See note at 11.615.
15.506: Bald Pat, bothered beetle
See note at 11.287 for bothered. Beetle: used in the phrase ‘as deaf (or as dumb) as a beetle’ (OED).
15.516: Bright’s! Lights! See note at 11.615.
15.521: deluthering
Deluthering (also spelt deludhering, Hiberno-English): deluding. For example, from Alfred Perceval Graves’s (Irish poet and songwriter, 1846–1931) ‘Spinning-Wheel Song’: ‘Hush! He’s been deluthering you, / Deluthering you with swords and drums, / And now I think ’tis soothering you, / ’Tis soothering you, he comes’ (The Irish Poems, p. 128).
15.521: cock and bull story
A cock and bull story: a long and rambling or incredible yarn, a tall tale (Brewer’s); see also note at 14.579.
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15.534: Jewman’s melt
From the Hiberno-English insult ‘hoor’s [i.e. whore’s] melt’ (Dolan, s.v. melt). To melt: ‘to experience the sexual spasm’ (Partridge). See also note at 10.916 for jewman.
15.537: Saint Andrew’s cross
St Andrew’s cross is depicted in the form of a white X on a blue field, because, according to tradition, St Andrew was crucified on such a cross. It is the national emblem of Scotland and the emblem of the highest rank of knighthood in Scotland (Brewer’s).
15.538: brogues
See note at 2.255.
15.539: billycock hat
Billycock (or bullycock) hat: a ‘low-crowned felt hat worn by men’ (OED); an alternate name for a bowler hat (with thanks to Jolanta Wawrzycka).
15.541: Fairyhouse races
The Fairyhouse racetrack is 24 km north-west of Dublin in County Meath and is the home of annual steeplechase races, including the Irish Grand National (Terry Kelleher, The Essential Dublin, pp. 100–01).
15.543: Saxe tailormade
A tailor- made outfit in Saxon blue, a colour associated with the German province Saxony (OED).
15.543: Leopardstown
Leopardstown: the name of a town and a racetrack 9.7 km south-east of Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1787).
15.546–47: a three year old named Nevertell
The only recorded horse in Great Britain or Ireland named Nevertell was foaled in 1910 and went to stud in 1912. No horse with this name ever ran at Leopardstown, but a horse named Never Again won there on 26 December 1912 (Igoe, p. 321).
15.547: Foxrock
In 1904, Foxrock Estate was considered part of the village of Stillorgan (Thom’s, p. 1787); it is 9.7 km south-east of Dublin. An upper-class, mostly Protestant suburb (Bennett), Foxrock is adjacent to Leopardstown.
15.548: shanderadan
Shanderadan: variant of shandrydan, jocular for a ‘rickety old-fashioned vehicle’ (OED).
15.549–50: Mrs Hayes
This name possibly comes from Letitia Hayes (née Powell), one of the daughters of Major Malachi Powell, the model for Brian Tweedy (see note at 4.63) (Andrew Tierney, JJON).
15.556: ducky
See note at 13.609.
15.557: tammy toque
Tammy: ‘A fine worsted cloth of good quality’ (OED).
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15.565: Mrs Joe Gallaher’s
Louisa Gallaher (née Powell, 1862–1916): the wife of Joe Gallaher, the brother of Fred Gallaher, who was the model for Ignatius Gallaher (see also notes at 6.58 and 18.1068). Louisa Gallaher was the daughter of Major Malachi Powell, the model for Molly’s father, Brian Tweedy (see note at 4.63).
15.566: advisers or admirers
Repeats a slip of the tongue from ‘Cyclops’ (12.767–69).
15.570: Rogers Unknown.
15.570: Maggot O’Reilly
Maggot: ‘whimsical fellow’ (Partridge).
15.571: Marcus Tertius Moses See note at 10.508.
15.578: hellsgates
Gogarty uses this expression in his poem ‘The Hay Hotel’, a lighthearted account of his adventures in Monto: ‘Where is Piano Mary say, / Who dwelt where Hell’s Gates leave the street’ (The Poems & Plays of Oliver St. John Gogarty, p. 455, ll. 41–42). In a note to this poem, A. Norman Jeffares explains, ‘It might be assumed that “Hell’s Gates” was probably a colloquial name for some alley or building off a street in Monto’ (p. 754). Gogarty also uses this term in As I Was Going Down Sackville Street: ‘They were safe in every shebeen from the Gloucester Diamond to Hell’s Gates, when the “kips” were in full blast’ (p. 303; see also Tumbling in the Hay, p. 265; with thanks to Harald Beck). (The Gloucester Diamond is the name of the intersection between Upper and Lower Gloucester Streets.)
15.580: gaffer
Gaffer: ‘The foreman or overman of a gang of workmen; a headman’ (OED).
15.584: Cairns Unknown.
15.585: the scaffolding in Beaver Street
Beaver Street runs parallel to Mabbot Street and connects Lower Mecklenburgh Street and Montgomery Street.
15.585: he was after doing it See note at 12.323.
15.586: porter
See note at 3.152.
15.587: Derwan’s plasterers
James Derwin: builder and alderman for Drumcondra Ward; he lived at 114 Lower Drumcondra Road (Thom’s, pp. 1347, 1687; SS, pp. 239–40). The spelling mistake is Joyce’s.
15.590–91: Spattered with size and lime of their lodges
Lime (calcium oxide) is the main component of mortar, sometimes thickened with size, a generic term for a thickening or stiffening agent (OED). The word lodge suggests the Freemasons.
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15.596: Glauber salts
Glauber’s salts (or sodium sulphate decahydrate) are used as a laxative and cathartic. It was first produced in 1656 by Johann Rudolf Glauber (German chemist, 1604–70) (OED).
15.601: middle leg
Middle leg: penis (Partridge).
15.604: plodges
To plodge: to walk heavily and slowly through water, mud, or soft ground (OED).
15.606: a shebeenkeeper
Besides brothels, Monto was also home to numerous unlicensed liquor houses, or shebeens (see note at 12.802) (Finegan, Story of Monto, p. 14).
15.611: Purdon street
Purdon Street bisected Mabbot Street and Beaver Street and was parallel to Lower Mecklenburgh Street and Montgomery Street. It no longer exists. ‘Purdon Street was known as “The Man Trap” because when they [the prostitutes] got the men down there there was no way out’ (Terry Fagan, Monto, p. 25).
15.611: Shilling a bottle of stout
The inflated price of a shilling for a bottle is explained by this being an unlicensed bar (‘shebeen’) operating after hours. ‘The largest takings—apart from downright robberies— were not from prostitution but from drink. A bottle of Guinness stout, then twopence in the public houses in the city, cost three shillings in Monto’ (Finegan, Story of Monto, p. 14). Three shillings is 36 pence and is thus highly extortionate.
15.616: balmy
Balmy: ‘weak-minded, idiotic’ (OED).
15.620: Portobello barracks See note at 8.801–02.
15.623: We are the boys. Of Wexford See note at 7.427–28.
15.627: Bennett? He’s my pal. I love old Bennett See note at 10.1133–34.
15.630–31: The galling chain . . . native land
From the chorus of ‘The Boys of Wexford’: ‘We are the boys of Wexford / Who fought with heart and hand, / To burst in twain the galling chain / And free our native land’ (see note at 7.427–28).
15.632–33: at fault
At fault: ‘in the position of having failed’; originally a fox-hunting term for when the dog has lost the scent of its prey (OED, s.v. fault).
15.636: Nice mixup. Scene at Westland row
Mulligan and Haines went back to Sandycove from Westland Row Station (now Pearse Station) on the 11:25 train (see note at 14.1027). They abandoned Stephen and Lynch who, instead, headed north on a train to Amiens Street Station (now Connolly Station).
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888 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Bloom, following behind them, mistakenly entered a first-class carriage with only a third-class ticket, and then inadvertently missed the Amiens Street stop. Bloom got off at the following stop (Killester) and took the next incoming train back to Amiens Street (JJD, p. 66).
15.638: Malahide
See note at 3.243 for Malahide. Bloom is mistaken: ‘there were no through trains from Westland Row to Amiens Street and then on to Malahide, only those trains that went to Howth’ (JJD, p. 66).
15.638: siding
See note at 15.2.
15.639: Once is a dose
A common expression, since the mid-nineteenth century, in advertisements for patent medicines, meaning that one is enough (John Simpson, JJON).
15.640–41: Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy See notes at 4.502–03 and 8.277.
15.642: Relieving office here
Relieving Office: the name given to an agency appointed to administer relief to the poor as authorised by the Poor Laws. ‘The relieving office is the rubicon between independence and pauperisation’ (Good Words, Dec. 1884, vol. 25, p. 823). Here used in reference to a different type of ‘relief ’ (with thanks to Harald Beck).
15.642: cheapjacks
Cheap Jack: ‘a travelling hawker who offers bargains, usually putting up his wares at an arbitrary price and then cheapening them gradually’ (OED, s.v. cheap).
15.642: organs
Organ: a workman who lends money to his co-workers at exorbitant interest rates (Partridge).
15.643–44: What do ye lack?
What d’ye lack: a salesman’s cry (OED, s.v. lack).
15.645–46: If I had passed Truelock’s window that day . . . would have been shot
Richard Trulock, gunsmith, 13 Parliament Street (Thom’s, p. 2028). The misspelling is Joyce’s. The reference seems to be to the suicide of Richard Trulock’s older brother and business partner, Samuel Trulock. Samuel shot himself in the mouth in his shop on the afternoon of 30 May 1889 (Freeman’s Journal, 31 May 1889, p. 5, col. c).
15.648: Kildare street club toff
See note at 5.560–61 for the Kildare Street Club and note at 10.745 for toff.
15.652: birdseye cigarettes
Bird’s-eye tobacco: ‘A variety of manufactured tobacco in which the ribs of the leaves are cut along with the fibre’ (OED, s.v. bird’s-eye).
15.655: Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin See note at 10.606.
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15. ‘Circe’ 889
15.658: One and eightpence too much
Simon Dedalus’s wry comment after hearing the story of Reuben Dodd Jr being rescued from the Liffey (6.291; and see notes at 6.264–65 and 6.286).
15.661: rencontres
Rencontres (French): casual meetings.
15.661–62: Chacun son goût
French, ‘Each to one’s own (taste)’; properly, ‘Chacun à son goût’, although the shorter form is commonly found.
15.663: Garryowen See note at 12.120.
15.667: stalestunk
Stale: ‘Urine; now only of horses and cattle’ (OED).
15.669: Sizeable for threepence
The sheep’s trotter purchased at Olhausen’s (15.155–59) cost threepence (17.1471), the crubeen, or pig’s foot, cost four pence (17.1472).
15.670–71: Two and six See note at 11.866–68.
15.672–73: The mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself
Recalls Virgil’s account of Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog at the gates of Hades in the Aeneid, being distracted by drugged food: ‘His triple mouths / yawn wide with rapid hunger as he clutches / the cake’ (VI.555–57).
15.674: two raincaped watch
The streets in Monto were patrolled nightly by civilian volunteers from the Dublin White Cross Vigilance Association, a social purity organisation. They would approach the brothels’ potential customers and demand their names and addresses in order to dissuade their intended activities through intimidation. By 1892, the association claimed to have put thirty-five brothels out of business (Katherine Mullin, James Joyce, Sexuality and Social Purity, pp. 179–80, 184–85). See also note at 15.1287.
15.677: Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom
Bloom’s name is presented in a sequence of cases, as if it were a Greek noun (in Greek, unlike English, the ending of the word varies between the cases). The cases are presented in the sequence: nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative (the vocative, ‘O, Bloom!’ is omitted). Latin, unlike Greek, has an additional case, the ablative, which would be rendered as ‘with Bloom’.
15.680: Commit no nuisance
A common formula, appearing in signs and local ordinances; an injunction against ‘Something harmful or offensive to the public’ (OED, s.v. nuisance).
15.684: Banbury cakes See note at 8.74–75.
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890 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.688: Trained by kindness
Bloom’s phrase echoes rhetoric attributed to Bob Doran by the ‘Cyclops’ narrator: ‘he [Doran] talking all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and intelligent dog’ (12.492–94).
15.689–90: Bob Doran . . . sways over the munching spaniel
In ‘Cyclops’, Bob Doran (see note at 5.107) made a drunken show of feeding Garryowen (12.487–97).
15.695: area
Area: ‘A sunken court giving access to the basement of a house, separated from the pavement by railings, with a flight of steps providing access’ (OED).
15.697: Prevention of cruelty to animals See note at 12.1062.
15.699–700: Harold’s cross bridge
Harold’s Cross Bridge (now Robert Emmet bridge) crosses over the Grand Canal in southern Dublin; it connects Clanbrassil Street to the southern inner suburb Harold’s Cross.
15.700: Bad French
French: euphemism for swearing or impolite English; as in the phrase ‘Pardon/Excuse my French’ (OED).
15.701–2: All tales of circus life are highly demoralising See note at 4.346.
15.703: Signor Maffei See note at 4.348–49.
15.709: the bucking broncho Ajax
Broncho: variant spelling of bronco (OED, s.v. bronco). Ajax is a commonly-used name for a horse; for example, one of the attractions listed in an announcement for the Circus, Menagerie, and Museum of Shelby, Pullman, and Hamilton is ‘Ajax, the Broncho steeds’ (The Greenville [Mississippi] Times, 8 Oct. 1881, p. 3, col. b). Of possible additional relevance, there are two Ajaxes in the Iliad, both rivals to Odysseus. Ajax the Greater fights and almost defeats Hector in a duel (VII.206–312), and Ajax the Lesser almost defeated Odysseus in a race until he was tripped by Athena (XXIII.774).
15.710–11: Block tackle and a strangling pulley
Block tackle (or tackle block): ‘a pulley or system of pulleys mounted in a case, used to increase the mechanical power of the ropes running through them’ for the purpose of lifting a great weight (OED, s.v. tackle).
15.712: Leo ferox there, the Libyan maneater
Leo ferox (Latin): ‘ferocious lion’. The specific reference is unknown.
15.713–14: Fritz of Amsterdam, the thinking hyena Unknown.
15.714: possess the Indian sign
The Indian sign: ‘Power or an advantage over someone; a curse, a jinx’ (OED).
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15. ‘Circe’ 891
15.716: Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride of the ring See note at 4.346.
15.720: high grade hat See note at 4.69–70.
15.721: Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon See note at 10.1115.
15.721–22: von Blum Pasha. Umpteen millions
Sir Julius Blum (1843–1919): Hungarian-born Jewish financier; he ‘lived in Egypt where he was appointed director of the Austro-Egyptian bank in 1869, and finance minister from 1879 until 1890 when he moved to Vienna to direct the Austrian Creditanstalt. He was widely known as Blum Pasha’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia). ‘Pasha was the highest official title of honour in the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in the Turkish Republic until 1934, when all Ottoman titles were abolished. In everyday speech, however, the title Pasha is still sometimes used after the given names of well-known generals and admirals. The title was also used in former Ottoman possessions in the Middle East and North Africa’ (OED). Umpteen: any undefined number (Partridge). Joyce originally wrote the name as ‘Blum Pasha’ (Rosenbach f. 18) and the typist changed this to ‘Bloom Pasha’ (JJA, vol. 15, p. 31). On a page proof, Joyce added the German particule von to make the name ‘von Bloom Pasha’ (JJA, vol. 26, p. 50), which is how the name appeared in all editions previous to Gabler. Gabler creates a composite form of the name by reverting to the form ‘Blum’ while retaining the subsequently-added particule (UCSE, p. 982; Sam Slote ‘Correcting Joyce’, pp. 59–60).
15.722: Donnerwetter!
Donnerwetter! (German): ‘I’ll be damned!’; literally, ‘thunder weather’.
15.728: cadi’s dress coat
Cadi: ‘A civil judge among the Turks, Arabs, Persians’ (OED).
15.729: Legion of Honour
The Legion of Honour, from the French Légion d’honneur: an award of distinction established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 as a reward for military or civil service (OED).
15.730: Junior Army and Navy
The Junior Army and Navy: a London club for officers of middle rank in the British Army; located at 12 Grafton Street, London. Membership of clubs like this was considered as a stepping stone to admission to the more illustrious and prestigious clubs (Ralph Nevill, London Clubs, p. 31).
15.730–31: Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor’s Walk See note at 6.568.
15.733: No fixed abode
That is, no place of permanent residence; the phrase is most often used in legal contexts (OED).
15.733–34: Unlawfully watching and besetting
To unlawfully watch and beset: a legal phrase meaning to stalk with criminal intent; besetting: ‘The action of surrounding with hostile intent’ (OED; John Simpson, JJON).
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892 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.740: that old joke, rose of Castile See note at 7.591.
15.740–41: The change of name. Virag See note at 12.1639.
15.742: Lady in the case
Lady in the case: ‘used to indicate that a woman is the cause of a situation or the key to solving a problem’ (OED, s.v. lady). ‘Very common in Dickens and nineteenth-century fiction generally’ (Dent).
15.747: inspector
Police inspectors do not routinely patrol the streets. In 1902, there were 24 inspectors and 956 constables on the Dublin Police Force (Thom’s, p. 691).
15.749: THE DARK MERCURY See note at 15.213.
15.750: The Castle See note at 8.362.
15.752: crimson halter See note at 5.343.
15.752: the Irish Times See note at 8.323.
15.753–54: Lionel, thou lost one! See notes at 7.58 and 7.59–60.
15.759: on the square, he gives the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft
Being on the square: being a freemason (Partridge). Fellow Craft: the Second Degree in the Craft Rite of Freemasonry. Bloom’s gesture is one of the Freemason’s ‘signs of distress’, a signal used to identify oneself as a Freemason in order to request assistance from other Freemasons. ‘The sign is given by taking hold of the left breast, with the right hand, as though you intended to tear a piece out of it, then draw your hand with the fingers partly clenched, from the left to the right side, with some quickness, and dropping it down to your side. The due-guard is given by raising the left arm until that part of it between the elbow and shoulder is perfectly horizontal; and raising the rest of the arm in a vertical position, so that part of the arm below the elbow, and that part above it forms a square. This is the due- guard. The two are always given together by Masons, and are called the sign and due-guard of a fellow craft: they would not be recognized by a Mason, if given separately’ (Avery Allyn, A Ritual of Freemasonry, p. 61).
15.760: worshipful master
The master is the chief officer of a Masonic lodge. ‘Worshipful’ is not part of the master’s title but is simply a term of respectful address (Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia).
15.760: light of love
See note at 8.961–62 for the Masonic term ‘light of love’ and also note at 9.249–50.
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15. ‘Circe’ 893
15.760–61: The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc
Joseph Lesurques (1763–96) was executed by guillotine for the armed robbery of the Lyons mail. However, in 1800 it was discovered that a man named Dubosc, who bore a striking resemblance to Lesurques, was the actual culprit. He was himself guillotined. This story provided the basis for a play by Eugène Moreau, Paul Siraudin, and Alfred Delacour, Le Courrier de Lyon. In 1854, this play was adapted into English by Charles Reade (1814–84) as The Courier of Lyons: or The Attack Upon the Mail, later known as, simply, The Lyons Mail (EB11, s.v. identification).
15.761: Childs fratricide case See note at 6.469.
15.762: By striking him dead with a hatchet.
Thomas Childs was beaten to death with his own fire irons (Adrian Hardiman, Joyce in Court, p. 131); a hatchet was not the murder weapon.
15.763: Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned See note at 6.474–75.
15.765–66: Peggy Griffin
That is, Margaret Griffin (b. 1893), whose brother George Booth Griffin (b. c.1887) played fullback for the Bective Rangers (see following note) in the early 1900s (John Simpson, JJON).
15.767: the Bective rugger fullback
The Bective Rangers: a Dublin-based rugby team, founded in 1881 and originally associated with Bective House College. ‘In Joyce’s day the Bective first fifteen contained several Old Belvederians and it turned out that Joyce used to go to their grounds in Ballsbridge to watch the team play’ (Ulick O’Connor, The Joyce We Knew, p. 15).
15.770: the pass of Ephraim) Shitbroleeth
The password for the Fellow Craft degree of masonry (see note at 15.759) is ‘Shibboleth’ (Allyn, A Ritual of Freemasonry, p. 65). Shibboleth (Hebrew): ‘sheaf of corn’; the word used in Judges 12:6 as a password by the men of Gilead to determine if the speaker was one of their own or an enemy Ephraimite since the Ephraimites could not correctly pronounce this word. Bloom’s ‘Shitbroleeth’ seems to be an insult directed to the Watch and incorpor ates a reference to the tongue twister ‘The Leith police’, which is used by police to test the sobriety of drunkards (see note at 14.1565) and is thus a kind of shibboleth.
15.775: mare’s nest
Mare’s nest: ‘a muddle; a misconception’ (OED).
15.776: scapegoat
Scapegoat: ‘One who is blamed or punished for the sins of others’ (OED). In his 1530 translation of the Bible, William Tyndale translated the Hebrew word Azazel with the English word scapegoat, a translation that is now considered spurious. The Vulgate renders this word as caper emissarius, which the Douay Bible, in turn, translates as ‘emissary goat’. Since 1884, many translations have treated the word Azazel as a proper name that ‘means something like “angry god” ’ (Paul J. Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary). The King James follows Tyndale and uses ‘scapegoat’: ‘And [Aaron] shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots
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894 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat’ (Leviticus 16:7–10). On the scapegoat are put the people’s sins, and it is sent off to empty lands.
15.779: Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy
Major General: ‘An officer of general rank, ranking below a lieutenant general’; ‘a two-star general’ (OED). See notes at 4.63, 11.508, and 13.1108.
15.780–81: Got his majority for the heroic defence of Rorke’s drift
On 22 January 1879, 4,000 Zulu soldiers attacked the British post at Rorke’s Drift, which was successfully defended by about 120 soldiers (EB11, s.v. Zululand). Majority: ‘The rank or office of major’ (OED).
15.785: royal Dublins See note at 5.68.
15.785: salt of the earth
Salt of the earth: any person of ‘great worthiness, reliability, honesty, etc.’ (OED). From Christ’s Sermon on the Mount: ‘You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men. You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid’ (Matthew 5:13–14).
15.788: finest body of men See note at 4.178.
15.791: Up the Boers!
See note at 8.434. ‘The Boer War and its aftermath brought fresh business to Monto’ (Finegan, Story of Monto, p. 13).
15.791: Who booed Joe Chamberlain? See note at 8.423–24.
15.793: J. P.
JP: abbreviation for ‘Justice of the Peace’.
15.794: Britisher
Britisher: ‘A British subject; a native or inhabitant of Britain’; the term originated in the American revolutionary war to designate those who were pro-British as opposed to those who supported independence (OED).
15.795: absentminded war
This is the Boer War; see note at 9.125; after the title of An Absent-Minded War: being some reflections on our reverses and the causes which have led to them, By a British Officer (Captain William Eliott Cairnes, 1863–1902), published by John Milne (London) in 1900 (Harald Beck, JJON).
15.795: general Gough in the park
Bloom confuses two different generals named Gough. The General Gough commemorated by a statue in Phoenix Park is the Irish-born Hugh Gough (1779–1869), who fought in various colonial campaigns in India and China, but died before the first Boer War began (1880–81) (ODNB). His statue in Phoenix Park was erected in 1880 and destroyed in 1957
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15. ‘Circe’ 895 (Bennett, s.v. statues, equestrian). Sir Hubert de la Poer Gough (1870–1963) fought in the second Boer War (1899–1902), but was not made a general until 1911. In March 1914, he was involved in what is called the ‘Curragh Incident’. In anticipation of the passage of the Third Home Rule Bill of 1914 (the implementation of which was ultimately deferred by the onset of the First World War), General Gough—stationed at Curragh Camp in County Kildare— threatened to resign rather than be deployed to coerce Ulster Unionists to not oppose the Bill. While this whole affair was prompted by a misunderstanding, Gough’s actions led the British government to declare that no military force would be used in support of the Bill. Ultimately, Gough’s ‘mutiny’ emboldened the Unionists (ODNB; NHI, vol. 6, pp. 140–42).
15.796: Spion Kop
Spion Kop is a large hill in Natal, 39 km west-south-west of Ladysmith. On 24–25 January 1900, the Boers, commanded by General Louis Botha, scored a major victory over the advancing British forces commanded by Sir Redvers Buller (EB11, s.v. Sir Redvers Buller).
15.796: Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein: the capital of the Orange Free State in southern Africa. It was taken and occupied without Boer opposition on 13 March 1900 by the British under the command of Lord Frederick Roberts (EB11).
15.797–98: Jim Bludso. Hold her nozzle again the bank
From ‘Jim Bludso (of the Prairie Belle)’, a nineteenth-century American ballad by John Hay (1838–1905): ‘And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire—/ A thousand times he swore, / He’d hold her nozzle agin the bank / Till the last soul got ashore’ (Charlotte Fiske Bates, The Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song, p. 781).
15.806: Myles Crawford See note at 7.307.
15.811: seventyseven eightyfour See notes at 7.219–20 and 7.385.
15.813: Bluebags?
Blue bag: ‘a barrister’s (originally a solicitor’s) brief bag of blue fabric’; hence, ‘A person carrying such a bag’ (OED).
15.814: Mr Philip Beaufoy See note at 4.502–03.
15.817: portfolio labelled Matcham’s Masterstrokes
See note at 4.502, where Beaufoy’s story was called ‘Matcham’s Masterstroke’.
15:819: Not by a long shot if I know it
Beaufoy combines two clichés. The phrase ‘Not by a long shot’ was originally an Americanism for ‘hopelessly out of reckoning’ (OED, s.v. shot). The phrase ‘Not if I know it’ is colloquial in the United Kingdom since the mid-nineteenth century and is similar in meaning to the expression ‘not if I can help it’ (OED, s.v. know).
15.819–20: I don’t see it, that’s all
Again Beaufoy combines two clichés. The expression ‘I don’t see it’ was originally an Americanism, but was common in the United Kingdom by the 1860s (OED, s.v. see). Dent
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896 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses notes that the combining of these clichés precedes Beaufoy. In his novel The Belton Estate (1865), Anthony Trollope (1815–82) wrote, ‘I don’t see it myself;—that’s all’ (vol. 2, p. 302).
15.820: No born gentleman
Another cliché. For example: ‘Lawry Looby wouldn’t like to be “a born gentleman” for many reasons’ (PWJ, p. 49).
15.824–25: a perfect gem
Another cliché. This expression is typically used in reviews. Dent cites two examples from Punch magazine. The first is from a parody review: ‘Not Shakespeare himself could have penned a gem so perfect’ (5 Mar. 1898, p. 100). The second is from a serious review: ‘All the stories are admirable, but “A Farewell Appearance” is a perfect little gem’ (5 Nov. 1898, p. 305).
15.829–30: laughing witch hand in hand From ‘Matcham’s Masterstroke’ (4.513–15).
15.832–33: You funny ass, you! You’re too beastly awfully weird for words!
Beaufoy again resorts to clichés. Henry James (American novelist, 1843–1916) wrote in his short story ‘Flickerbridge’ (1903): ‘You’ll be too weird for words’ (The Better Sort, p. 161). The adverb beastly is a stereotypically English colloquialism, it means ‘unpleasant, bad,’ and can act as a generic intensifier. Partridge dates it back to possibly as early as 1509.
15.834: disincommodate
Disincommodate: ‘Blend of discommodate [to disturb] and incommodate [inconvenient]’ (OED).
15.834–35: Mr J. B. Pinker
J. B. Pinker (1863–1922): Joyce’s London literary agent from 1915 onwards (Ellmann, p. 384 et passim). He died in New York of pneumonia six days after Ulysses was published.
15.836: bally
Bally: ‘a vague intensive (usually as a euphemism for bloody): confounded, dashed, blasted’; somewhat dated and stereotypically English (OED).
15.837: jackdaw of Rheims
‘The Jackdaw of Rheims’: one of the stories collected in the Legends (1840) of ‘Thomas Ingoldsby’ (Reverend Richard Harris Barham, 1788–1845). In it, a jackdaw steals a cardinal’s ring and, after being revealed as the thief, is canonised as ‘Jem Crow’ (Brewer’s).
15.843: foul lie
Another cliché. An example of this phrase can be found in the novel Called Back (1883) by Hugh Conway (pseudonym of Frederick John Fargus, 1847–85): ‘I was invaded, conquered, and crushed to the ground by the foul lie which might be truth’ (p. 111).
15.843: the moral rottenness of the man!
Yet another cliché. In his travel narrative From Far Formosa, George Leslie Mackay wrote: ‘The filthy streets are indicative of the moral rottenness’ (p. 164).
15.843–44: corpus delicti
Corpus delicti: Latin, ‘the body of the crime’; ‘The material thing in respect to which a crime has been committed; thus a murdered body or some of the stolen property would be a “corpus delicti” ’ (Brewer’s).
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15. ‘Circe’ 897
15.844–45: hallmark of the beast See note at 15.209.
15.847–48: Moses, Moses, king of the jews . . . Daily News
After an anti-Semitic Dublin street rhyme used to taunt Jewish children on the streets of Little Jerusalem: ‘Holy Moses, King of the Jews, / Bought his wife a pair of shoes. / When the shoes began to wear, / Holy Moses began to swear. / When the shoes were quite worn out, / Holy Moses began to shout’ (Leslie Daiken, Out Goes She, p. 17; Cormac Ó Gráda, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce, p. 184).
15.852: ducked in a horsepond
Another cliché. An example of this one can be found in Ambrose Bierce’s (American writer, 1842–1914) Devil’s Dictionary (1881–1906, published 1911): ‘Atholston relates that a ghoul was caught by some sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury and ducked in a horsepond’ (p. 117).
15.852: rotter
Rotter: ‘An objectionable person’ (Partridge).
15.854: Street angel and house devil
Street angel and house devil: proverbial for a woman who gives a pleasant impression to the public but is unpleasant at home (Dent).
15.861: Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid!
Mary Driscoll: the Blooms’ maid when they were living in Rathmines, at Ontario Terrace, in 1897–98. She was alluded to, but not by name, in ‘Oxen of the Sun’ (14.922–23); see also 18.55–58.
15.865: of the unfortunate class
Unfortunate: ‘A fallen woman; a prostitute’ (OED). The respectable residents of the Monto area referred to the prostitutes as ‘unfortunates’ (Curtis, To Hell or Monto, p. 183).
15.868–69: six pounds a year and my chances
Chances: opportunities (OED); used in classified ads, for example, ‘Wanted, smart General, good attendant, wages £10; excellent chances’ (Irish Times, 8 Oct. 1909, p. 2, col. d). £6 a year was a low salary for a maid; see note at 17.1544.
15.876: I treated you white
That is, ‘I treated you fairly’. White: American slang, honourable or fair-dealing. Partridge explains: ‘the selfimputed characteristics of a white man’. The expression moved to the United Kingdom by the late nineteenth century.
15.878: There’s a medium in all things
From Horace’s Satires, ‘est modus in rebus’ (there is measure in all things) (I.i.106), and since, proverbial (Dent).
15.878: Play cricket
To play cricket: to act fairly or act honourably (OED).
15.885: the rere of the premises See note at 5.339.
15.887: twict
Twict: Dublin dialect form of twice (OED, s.v. twice).
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898 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.893: Your lord
Confuses the two titles ordinarily used in addressing British judges, ‘my lord’ and ‘your lordship’, but never ‘your lord’ (OED, s.v. lord).
15.895: GEORGE FOTTRELL See note at 12.1872.
15.898: waterlily
The lily is a traditional symbol of chastity, innocence, and purity (Brewer’s).
15.902: the memory of the past See note at 13.438–39.
15.904: sevenmonths’ child
That is, a child born two months premature (OED, s.v. seven).
15.907: whipping post
Whipping post: ‘a post set up, usually in a public place, to which offenders are or were tied to be whipped’ (OED).
15.909: Britisher See note at 15.794.
15.910: footplate of an engine cab
Footplate: ‘A platform in the cab of a steam locomotive used by members of the crew’ (OED).
15.911: Loop line railway See note at 5.138.
15.913: scenes truly rural
The collocation ‘truly rural’ is a longstanding cliché, dating back to the eighteenth century. For example: ‘amid the beautiousness of this truly rural scene [. . .] with mountains of considerable heighth [sic] a rearing themselves majestic all around, with the trees a-bowing graceful to the breeze [. . .], with rivulets a-trickling and waterfalls a-roaring over lumps of paving-stones in the rough and not a public house for miles’ (Judy, 29 Aug. 1900, vol. 60, no. 1740, p. 49).
15.914: Dockrell’s wallpaper See note at 8.171.
15.916: pensums
Pensum: ‘A piece of work; a duty or allotted task; a school task or lesson to be prepared’ (OED).
15.919: boreens
Boreen (Hiberno-English): country lane (Dolan).
15.920: melodeon Britanniametalbound
Melodeon: ‘A kind of simple reed organ with a single keyboard, usually powered by pedal- operated bellows’ (OED). Britannia metal: ‘an alloy consisting chiefly of tin, antimony, and
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15. ‘Circe’ 899 copper, resembling silver in appearance and formerly much used for cheap tableware’ (OED, s.v. Britannia).
15.925: LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND
Shorthand: ‘A method of speedy writing by means of the substitution of contractions or arbitrary signs or symbols for letters, words’; typically used by stenographers in courts of law. Longhand: ordinary handwriting (both OED).
15.926: Loosen his boots
John McCormack (see note at 6.222) used this expression in his autobiography from 1918 in an analogous sense: ‘I well remember a criticism of a tenor whose high notes were a little “tight”. He was singing some operatic aria and the top note was not to the satisfaction of one of those self-constituted critics, who remarked in a loud voice, “loosen his boots, and let his high notes come free” ’ (John McCormack: His Own Life Story, p. 287; with thanks to Harald Beck).
15.927: PROFESSOR MACHUGH See note at 7.237.
15.930: Gripe
Gripe: ‘An intermittent spasmodic pain in the bowels. Usually pl., colic pains’ (OED).
15.934: Titbits
See note at 4.467.
15.938: J. J. O’MOLLOY See note at 7.282.
15.939: stuffgown
Stuffgown: a gown made of a woollen fabric called stuff; worn by a junior counsel, as opposed to the silk gown that would be worn by a King’s or Queen’s Counsel (OED, s.v. stuff).
15.941: disguised in liquor Disguised: drunk (OED).
15.941: beargarden
Bear-garden: ‘a place originally set apart for the baiting of bears, and used for the exhibition of other rough sports, fig. a scene of strife and tumult’ (OED, s.v. bear).
15.941: Oxford rag See note at 1.163.
15.942: My client is an infant
Infant: ‘In common law, one who has not completed his or her twenty-first year’ (OED).
15.947: Prima facie
Prima facie (Latin): ‘at first sight’; in English legal usage, ‘on the face of it’ (OED).
15.950: atavism
Atavism: ‘Recurrence of the disease or constitutional symptoms of an ancestor after the intermission of one or more generations’ (OED).
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900 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.951–52: he could a tale unfold See note at 8.419–20.
15.954: cobbler’s weak chest
Cobbler’s chest: ‘A deformity of the chest marked by a sinking in at the lower extremity of the sternum’ (Century Dictionary); also known as funnel chest or hollow chest.
15.954: Mongolian extraction
Mongolian: formerly used to describe someone afflicted with Down’s syndrome, now regarded as offensive (OED). As an example, the OED cites J. L. H. Down’s Clinical Lectures (1866): ‘The Mongolian type of idiocy occurs in more than ten per cent of the cases which are presented to me.’
15.957: pigeonbreasted
Pigeon-breast: ‘A deformed human chest, laterally constricted, so that the sternum is thrust forward, as in a pigeon’ (OED).
15.957: lascar’s vest and trousers
Lascar: an East Indian sailor (OED).
15.969–70: The Mosaic code has superseded the law of the jungle See note at 7.755–56.
15.975: the hidden hand See note at 8.458–59.
15.978: cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning
From the Gospel of John when the Pharisees bring an adulterous woman to Jesus and proclaim she must be punished. Jesus replied, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’ (John 8:7).
15.979: dastard
Dastard: ‘One who meanly shrinks from danger; a mean, base, or despicable coward’ (OED).
15.980: whitest man I know See note at 15.876.
15.982: Agendath Netaim See note at 4.191–92.
15.983: do the handsome thing
That is, ‘To act generously or graciously; to do the right thing’ (OED, s.v. handsome).
15.985: A penny in the pound
One penny in the pound: a standard levy for various purposes. For example, the Poor Rate, a revenue in support of the poor raised through a levy on real estate (see note at 16.945), was sometimes set at one penny in the pound, that is, one penny was charged for every pound of the property’s assessed value (although other rates were also employed): ‘Two justices allowed a rate of one penny in the pound for the relief of the poor in the parish of S–’ (John Tidd Pratt, The Laws Relating to the Poor, vol. 1, p. 112).
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15. ‘Circe’ 901
15.986: lake of Kinnereth See note at 4.154–55.
15.986–87: blurred cattle cropping in silver haze See 4.158 and 4.201.
15.987: Moses Dlugacz
See note at 4.46. He was also described as ‘ferreteyed’ in ‘Calypso’ (4.152).
15.989: orange citron See note at 4.196.
15.991: Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 13
See note at 4.199. In ‘Calypso’, Joyce wrote the correct post code (W.15), whereas here he wrote W.13 (Rosenbach f. 23).
15.994: blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones
In ‘Aeolus’, Bloom thinks of O’Molloy: ‘The hectic flush spells finis for a man’ (7.293); hectic flush is associated with phthisis, that is, pulmonary tuberculosis (see notes at 7.293 and 8.392).
15.995: John F. Taylor See note at 7.792–93.
15.999: recently come from a sickbed See note at 7.814.
15.999: A few wellchosen words
In ‘Aeolus’, Lenehan characterised Seymour Bushe’s speech at Childs’s murder trial (see note at 7.755–56) as ‘A few wellchosen words’ (7.759).
15.1000: avine
Avine: variant of ‘avian’ (OED).
15.1000–01: proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe
Seymour Bushe (see note at 6.470) had a very large nose (Hardiman, Joyce in Court, p. 154).
15.1002–03: pensive bosom . . . of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring
Combines phrases from both Dawson’s bombastic speech and Bushe’s speech at Childs’s murder trial; ‘pensive bosom’ is from Dawson (7.246–47) and ‘soultransfigured . . . soultransfiguring’ is from Bushe (7.771).
15.1003: prisoner at the bar
Prisoner at the bar: ‘a person in custody on a criminal charge, and on trial in a court of justice’ (OED, s.v. prisoner).
15.1007: court dress See note at 10.1130.
15.1007: Can give best references. Messrs Callan, Coleman See notes at 6.158 and 11.857.
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902 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1008: Wisdom Hely See note at 6.703.
15.1008: Joe Cuffe See note at 6.392.
15.1008: V. B. Dillon See note at 8.159–60.
15.1011: sir Robert and lady Ball
See note at 8.110; Ball married Frances Elizabeth Steele in 1868 (DIB).
15.1012: at the levee
Levee: ‘an assembly held (in the early afternoon) by the sovereign or his representative, at which men only are received’ (OED).
15.1013: MRS YELVERTON BARRY
After Barry Yelverton (1736–1805): the first Viscount Avonmore, lawyer, and MP. He was made a viscount to reward his support of the Act of Union (DIB).
15.1015: dolman
Dolman: ‘A kind of mantle with cape- like appendages instead of sleeves, worn by women’ (OED).
15.1015: brilliants
Brilliant: ‘A diamond of the finest cut and brilliancy’ (OED).
15.1015–16: panache of osprey
Panache: ‘A tuft or plume of feathers, esp. for a headdress or as a decoration for a helmet, hat, or cap’. Osprey: ‘An egret plume decorating a woman’s hat or bonnet; (also) an artificial plume or other ornament resembling this’ (both OED).
15.1017: prentice backhand
Prentice: abbreviation of apprentice; thus ‘prentice hand’ refers to the work of a novice or beginner. Backhand: ‘handwriting with the letters sloped backwards’ (both OED).
15.1017–18: North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit
Riding: a division of a county or district in the United Kingdom or one of its colonies (OED). County Tipperary lies in the province of Munster in the south of Ireland and was divided into two ridings, North and South (Thom’s, p. 1220). Tipperary is in the Leinster circuit, not the Munster circuit (p. 1221). Circuit: ‘The journey of judges (or other persons) through certain appointed areas, for the purpose of holding courts or performing other stated duties at various places in succession; the visitation of the judges for holding assizes’ (OED). Ireland was divided into five circuits for visiting judges (Thom’s, p. 915).
15.1018: James Lovebirch See note at 10.601.
15.1019–20: the gods . . . Theatre Royal See note at 11.623–24.
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15. ‘Circe’ 903
15.1020: command performance of La Cigale
Command performance: a performance instigated by royal command (OED, s.v. command). Cigale (French): grasshopper. This could be either La Cigale (1877) by Henry Meilhac (1831–97) and Ludovic Halévy (1834–1908), translated into English in 1879 by John H. Delafield; or La Cigale et la fourmi (The Grasshopper and the Ant), by Henri- Alfred Duru (1829–89) and Henri Chivot, music by Edmond Andran (1840–1901), translated into English by F. C. Burnaud (1890) (Bowen, p. 262).
15.1022: Dunsink time See note at 8.109.
15.1023: Monsieur Paul de Kock See note at 4.358.
15.1023–24: The Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays
The translation of the title of a novel by Charles-Paul de Kock (see note at 4.358), La Dame aux trois corsets (1878), as used in the 22-volume translation of all de Kock’s works into English, billed as ‘first time in English—unexpurgated’ (London: Mathieson & Co., 188?). See note at 3.431 for stays.
15.1025: MRS BELLINGHAM
After Sir Daniel Bellingham (c.1620–72), who served in various municipal offices in Dublin before becoming Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1665–66. He was the first Lord Mayor to use the prefix Lord (DIB).
15.1026: mantle
Mantle: ‘A long sleeveless cloak [. . .] Its application is now chiefly restricted to long cloaks worn by women and to the robes worn by royal, ecclesiastical, and other dignitaries on ceremonial occasions’ (OED).
15.1027: brougham See note at 7.1048.
15.1029–30: sir Thornley Stoker’s
Sir William Thornley Stoker (1845–1912): president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and surgeon to Richmond hospital. He had a large and lucrative practice (DIB). He lived at 8 Ely Place (Thom’s, p. 2018). His brother was Bram Stoker (1847–1912), author of Dracula.
15.1030–31: cold snap of February ninetythree
February 1893 was ‘[s]everely inclement [. . .] with all the usual accompaniments of winter—sleet, hail and snow’ (Irish Times, 27 Feb. 1893, p. 6, col. d).
15.1034–35: blossom of the homegrown potato plant
In the language of flowers, the potato blossom means charity or benevolence (Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, p. 188).
15.1035: forcingcase
To force: ‘To hasten by artificial means the maturity of (plants, fruit, etc.)’ (OED); thus a forcingcase is some compact form of hothouse.
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15.1035: model farm
The Model Farm in Glasnevin, also known as the Albert Institution, was administered by the Department of Agriculture (Thom’s, p. 1697). See also note at 4.154–55.
15.1040: Bluebeard
Bluebeard: a legendary figure who murdered his wives. The most famous literary portrayal of him is in Charles Perrault’s (French writer, 1628–1703) Contes du temps (1697) (Brewer’s).
15.1040–41: Ikey Mo See note at 9.607.
15.1043: the darbies
Darbies: handcuffs (Partridge).
15.1046: Venus in furs
Venus in Furs: the English translation of Venus im Pelz (1870), by Leopold von Sacher- Masoch (Austrian writer, of Ukrainian Galician extraction, 1835–95), from whose name derives the word masochism (OED). See also note at 10.591–92.
15.1046: my frostbound coachman
In Venus in Furs, Severin’s masochistic role-playing includes adopting the name ‘Gregor’ and acting as Wanda’s coachman during a trip and dressing in her livery: ‘It is a Cracovian costume in her colors, light blue with red facings, and red quadrangular cap, ornamented with peacock feathers’ (p. 134).
15.1047: Palmer Unknown.
15.1049–50: armorial bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon
Armorial bearings: coat of arms. Escutcheon: the surface upon which the armorial bearings appear, traditionally a shield (both OED). Buck: male deer; couped head: cut off smoothly; or: gold. This is actually a description of the Bellingham crest, not their coat of arms (Michael O’Shea, Joyce and Heraldry, p. 148). A crest is the ‘heraldic ornament found atop the helm of an armorial achievement’ (p. 151). As described here, the Bellingham crest consists of a buck’s head, couped, or (that is, a severed, golden buck’s head). The Bellingham arms: Argent, three bugle horns, sable, stringed and garnished, or [gold] (Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage, p. 240).
15.1057: THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS
In 1536, Gilbert Talboys, son of Sir George Talboys, was made the first Baron Talboys of Kyme, in Lincolnshire. None of his children had any issue, so the baronetcy expired after one generation (T. C. Banks, The Dormant and Extinct Baronage of England, vol. 1 p. 419).
15.1058: amazon costume
‘In French, the sidesaddle riding habit was called a costume amazone, and the female rider herself dubbed an Amazone’ (Alison Matthews David, ‘Elegant Amazons’, p. 180).
15.1058: hard hat
Considering that her outfit consists of a vermilion waistcoat, as in hunting attire, the hard hat would be a hunting cap as worn by equestrians.
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15. ‘Circe’ 905
15.1059: braided drums See note at 5.112.
15.1061–62: All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland
All Ireland: either a national sport team or a sporting event featuring a match between provincial teams; the term is used in a variety of sports (Paul Rouse, Sport and Ireland, p. 7). The Rest of Ireland is used infrequently and only in special circumstances. For example, on 13 July 1872, the Irish Times reported on a match at Trinity College between the University Cricket Club and ‘The Rest of Ireland’, that is, a team composed of Irish players unaffiliated with Trinity (p. 2, col. b). There is no record of a sporting event featuring one team called ‘All Ireland’ versus another called ‘the Rest of Ireland’.
15.1063: Captain Slogger Dennehy of the Inniskillings
In 1904, there was no officer named Dennehy in the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons (Thom’s, pp. 562–63). Inniskilling (or Enniskillen) is the seat of County Fermanagh.
15.1063: chukkar
Chukka (properly, chucker or chukker): the name for each of the periods into which a polo match is divided (OED).
15.1064: cob
Cob: a short-legged horse, often ridden by heavier persons (OED).
15.1072–73: to bestride and ride him, to give him a most vicious horsewhipping
After Wanda in Venus in Furs: ‘What will happen when I begin to carry your dreams to their realization, when I shall lead a gay, free life and have a circle of admirers about me, when I shall actually fulfil your ideal, tread you underfoot and apply the lash?’ (p. 123).
15.1088: I’ll make you dance Jack Latten
‘ “I’ll make you dance” is a common threat heard everywhere: but “I’ll make you dance Jack Lattin” is ten times worse—“I’ll make you dance excessively” ’ (PWJ, p. 172). The spelling ‘Latten’ is Joyce’s.
15.1096: without effusion
Effusion: ‘the pouring out of blood by a wound’ (OED).
15.1104: Give him ginger
‘Feague, to feague a horse, to put ginger up a horse’s fundament, to make him lively and carry his tail well’ (Francis Grose, Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, quoted by Harald Beck, JJON).
15.1105: cat-o’-nine-tails
Cat-o’-nine-tails: ‘A whip with nine knotted lashes; till 1881 an authorized instrument of punishment in the British navy and army’ (OED).
15.1108: Forget, forgive
The plea ‘forgive and forget’ dates back to the thirteenth century (ODEP). One example which follows the same pattern as Bloom’s request is from Shakespeare’s Richard II: ‘Wrath- kindled gentlemen, be rul’d by me; / Let’s purge this choler without letting blood—/ This we prescribe, though no physician; / Deep malice makes too deep incision. / Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed’ (I.i.152–56).
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15.1109: he offers the other cheek
After Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount: ‘You have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other’ (Matthew 5:38–39).
15.1116: rowel
Rowel: ‘A small spiked revolving wheel or disc attached to the end of a spur’ (OED).
15.1122: Davy Stephens, ringletted See note at 7.28–30.
15.1125: Messenger of the Sacred Heart
The Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart was founded in 1888 by James Aloysius Cullen, S.J., the Spiritual Father of Belvedere College (Davison, James Joyce, ‘Ulysses’, and the Construction of Jewish Identity, p. 45). Still published, it enjoyed ‘what was probably the largest circulation of all time among religious periodicals in Ireland’ (Andrew McCarthy, ‘Publishing for Catholic Ireland’, p. 254).
15.1125: Evening Telegraph See note at 2.412.
15.1128: The very reverend Canon O’Hanlon in cloth of gold cope
See note at 13.448 for Canon O’Hanlon, note at 13.572 for cope, and note at 13.283–84 for the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
15.1129–30: Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S.J. See note at 10.1173–74 for Conroy and note at 13.283 for Hughes.
15.1133–35: Cuckoo
See note at 13.1289–91.
15.1137: THE QUOITS See note at 4.59.
15.1138: Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag
Jig-a-jig: sexual intercourse (Partridge).
15.1143: the featureless face of a Nameless One
From the title of James Clarence Mangan’s (1803–49) poem ‘The Nameless One’ (Collected Works, vol. 4, pp. 222–24). The voice here is unmistakeably that of the narrator of ‘Cyclops’.
15.1145: Weight for age
A weight-for-age horse race: ‘A sort of handicap in which the weights carried are apportioned according to certain conditions. Horses of the same age carry similar weights, ceteris paribus’ (Brewer’s).
15.1145: Gob, he organised her See 12.1001–02.
15.1149: Arse over tip
Arse over tip: head over heels (Partridge).
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15. ‘Circe’ 907
15.1149: Hundred shillings to five
That is, the odds on Throwaway (20 to 1 against); see note at 12.1219.
15.1153: Another girl’s plait cut
In his study of deviant sexual behaviour, the Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), Baron Richard von Krafft-Ebing (German psychiatrist, 1840–1902) recorded the case history of a man with a fetish to cut the hair off young girls: ‘One evening he could not resist the impulse to cut off a girl’s hair. With the hair in his hand, at home, the sensuous process was repeated. He was forced to rub his body with the hair and envelop his genitals in it. Finally, quite exhausted, he grew ashamed, and could not trust himself to go out for several days’ (p. 159).
15.1153: Jack the Ripper
The murderer who called himself ‘Jack the Ripper’ killed five (perhaps more) prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. To this day, his true identity remains a mystery (Brewer’s).
15.1156: And in black. A mormon. Anarchist
Bloom is wearing black because he is in mourning. Because of this attire, he is identified as either a Mormon or an anarchist, both of whom also (according to stereotype) wear black.
15.1158: no fixed abode See note at 15.733.
15.1159: bawd and cuckold See note at 9.1021.
15.1160: commission of assizes See note at 8.1152.
15.1162: sir Frederick Falkiner See note at 8.1151.
15.1164–65: From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns See notes at 7.756–57 and 7.768.
15.1167–68: rid Dublin of this odious pest
In both October 1892 and January 1902, Frederick Falkiner made anti-Semitic comments in court while sentencing Jewish individuals who had been accused of minor offences. In both cases he subsequently apologised publicly. At the 1902 incident, he told the defendant, Henry Kahn, who had been accused of window-breaking, ‘You are a specimen of your race and nation that cause [sic] you to be hunted out of every country’ (Hyman, p. 163).
15.1168: he dons the black cap
The black cap: ‘a small square of black cloth. In Britain it was worn by a judge when passing the death sentence’ (Brewer’s).
15.1169–70: Mountjoy prison See note at 12.272.
15.1173–74: subsheriff Long John Fanning See note at 7.106.
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908 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1174: smoking a pungent Henry Clay See note at 10.1001–02.
15.1176: Who’ll hang Judas Iscariot?
After betraying Jesus to the Romans for thirty pieces of silver, Judas Iscariot tried to return the blood money, but no-one would take it back. ‘And casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, [Judas] departed: and went and hanged himself with an halter’ (Matthew 27:5).
15.1177: H. Rumbold See note at 12.430.
15.1177: jerkin
See note at 3.304–05.
15.1180: knuckledusters
Knuckle-duster: ‘A metal instrument made to cover the knuckles, so as to protect them from injury in striking, and at the same time to add force to a blow given with the fist thus covered’ (OED).
15.1182–83: Hanging Harry, your Majesty, the Mersey terror
A judge is addressed as ‘my lord’ or ‘your lordship’, not ‘your majesty’. The River Mersey runs through Liverpool, which is where Rumbold hails from.
15.1183: Neck or nothing
Swift uses the phrase in his Polite Conversation: ‘Neck or nothing; come down, or I’ll fetch you down: Well, but I hope the poor Fellow has not sav’d the Hangman a Labour’ (p. 117).
15.1184: George’s church See note at 4.78.
15.1188: Gulls
From ‘Lestrygonians’ (8.73–78).
15.1189: Zoo
The Zoological Gardens of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland are in the south-eastern part of Phoenix Park. The zoo was established in 1831 (Thom’s, pp. 706, 887).
15.1191–92: Hynes . . . That three shillings
In reference to the three shillings Bloom had lent Hynes and which he (subtly) asked for in ‘Aeolus’ (see 7.119 and note at 7.113–14).
15.1199: Infernal machine
Infernal machine: ‘an apparatus (usually disguised as some familiar and harmless object) contrived to produce an explosion for the criminal destruction of life or property; formerly, an explosive apparatus used in military operations’ (OED).
15.1204: scorbutic
Scorbutic: afflicted with scurvy (OED); Dignam died of apoplexy (see note at 14.474).
15.1205: He has gnawed all
This image might derive from seventeenth-century mythology of the vampire as a supernatural being who eats corpses. ‘These early vampires were also necrophages, because they
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15. ‘Circe’ 909 were believed to eat not only their own bodies but those of the deceased around them. Indeed, such a creature was simultaneously vampire and ghoul—both a chewing corpse and a chewer of corpses’ (William Orem, ‘Corpse-Chewers: The Vampire in Ulysses’, p. 63).
15.1206: dachshund coat
Dignam appears to have become a shape-shifting ghoul (see note at 15.4200).
15.1207: brown mortuary habit See note at 1.104.
15.1208: ghouleaten
See note at 1.278 for ghoul.
15.1210: Doctor Finucane
Thomas Dawson Finucane (1823–1920): apothecary and accoucheur (male midwife); he lived at 34 Main Street in the Dublin suburb of Blackrock (Thom’s, p. 1870).
15.1218: Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam’s spirit. List, list, O list!
Combines two lines from Hamlet’s ghost; see notes at 8.67–68 and 9.144.
15.1220: The voice is the voice of Esau
See notes at 9.981 and 5.203. This recalls one of the heresiarchs who accosts St Antony in Flaubert’s The Temptation of Saint Antony: ‘His [Jesus’s] soul was the soul of Esau’ (p. 131; see also notes at 15.2572–73 and 15.2599–2600).
15.1224: It is not in the penny catechism
The Penny Catechism is the common nickname of A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, ‘The basic text used by English Roman Catholics since the middle of the nineteenth century [. . .] the catechism was intended for use by the Catholic laity, including schoolchildren’ (John Bowden, Encyclopedia of Christianity). Church doctrine explicitly warns against all forms of superstitious belief (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Spiritism).
15.1226: metempsychosis See note at 4.339.
15.1230: Mr J. H. Menton See note at 6.568.
15.1232: wall of the heart hypertrophied
Hypertrophy: ‘enlarged by excessive growth’ (OED). See note at 14.474.
15.1232: Hard lines
Hard lines: an unfortunate or difficult occurrence; originally a nautical expression, based on a ship’s ropes becoming unmanageable from being wet or icy (Partridge).
15.1233: cut up
Cut up: vexed, hurt, dejected (Partridge).
15.1235: buttermilk See 12.355–57.
15.1236: John O’Connell See note at 6.710.
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15.1237–38: Father Coffey See note at 6.595.
15.1238: wrynecked
Wry-necked: having a crooked neck (OED).
15.1238: surplice
Surplice: a white linen vestment that priests wear over the cassock (OED).
15.1239: staff of twisted poppies
A staff of poppies recalls Morpheus, the God of sleep. The staff Coffey uses here recalls the aspergill; see note at 6.589.
15.1241–42: Namine. Jacobs. Vobiscuits. Amen
Parodies a phrase common in Roman Catholic liturgy, including the funeral mass: dominus vobiscum (‘the Lord be with you’) (Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 259). See also note at 12.495 for Jacob’s biscuits.
15.1246: with pricked up ears
Alludes to the painting from 1898 by Francis Barraud called ‘Dog looking at and listening to a Phonograph’, which shows a dog (named Nipper) cocking his ear to listen to a gramophone. The painting’s alternate title is ‘His Master’s Voice’. This painting was used as the corporate logo of the Gramophone Company in the United Kingdom (now known as HMV) and its American affiliate, the Victor Talking Machine Company, which was later acquired by RCA (Thomas J. Rice, ‘His Master’s Voice and Joyce’, p. 158).
15.1246: Overtones See note at 4.549–50.
15.1249: U.P.
See note at 8.258.
15.1249–50: Field seventeen . . . Plot, one hundred and one
The subdivisions of Prospect cemetery, Glasnevin (see note at 6.486) are called ‘Sections’, not ‘Fields’. Some sections have individual names. Individual burial plots are designated on an alphanumeric grid. For example, Michael Carey, the first person buried in the cemetery, is in section 2 (also known as Curran’s Square), burial place O43 (Map of Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin, p. 9). A contemporaneous burial form designates individual plots on the basis of this alphanumeric grid (with thanks to Fritz Senn).
15.1250: House of Keys See note at 7.142.
15.1255: coalhole
Coal-hole: a coal cellar (OED).
15.1255: brown habit See note at 6.422.
15.1256–57: obese grandfather rat
This is the ‘obese grey rat’ that Bloom saw near the end of ‘Hades’ (6.973).
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15. ‘Circe’ 911
15.1257–58: Dignam’s voice, muffled, is heard baying under ground
Possibly an allusion to the end of Act I of Hamlet when the ghost of King Hamlet ‘cries under the stage’ (I.v.157). In ‘Hades’, when the gravediggers are shovelling dirt on Dignam’s casket, Bloom wonders what it would be like to be buried alive (6.865–66).
15.1258–59: Dignam’s dead and gone below
After ‘Old Roger,’ a singing game for children. One child is elected to play ‘Old Roger’ and lies flat on his back pretending to be dead. The other children circle around him and sing, ‘Old Roger is dead and laid in his grave, / Laid in his grave, laid in his grave’ (Iona and Peter Opie, The Singing Game, pp. 250–51).
15.1259: Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted
See note at 8.989. Rochford is ‘robinredbreasted’ because in his initial appearance he wears a ‘claret waistcoat’ (8.990).
15.1262: Reuben J. A florin I find him
See notes at 6.264–65 and 6.286 for the story of Reuben Dodd and the florin. To find: in legal use, to determine a penalty or fee (OED).
15.1263: My turn now on See note at 10.466.
15.1263–64: Follow me up to Carlow
The title of a patriotic song by Patrick J. McCall (1861–1919). This tells the story of Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne (1544–97), who successfully resisted Queen Elizabeth’s forces in Ireland (Bowen, p. 263).
15.1265: daredevil salmon leap
‘In their ascent salmon are able to pass obstructions, such as waterfalls and weirs of considerable height, and the leaps they make in surmounting such impediments and the persist ence of their efforts are very remarkable’ (EB11). Salmon Leap is also the name of a waterfall on the Liffey, just west of Dublin where the fish leap up (P. W. Joyce, Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 109). ‘Daredevil leap’ is a common collocation; for example, ‘the announcements may be expected to commence just before Schreyer’s famous “daredevil” leap of 120 ft. [36.6 m] into a tank’ (Daily Mirror, 18 Jan. 1906, p. 5, col. b).
15.1272: Icky licky micky sticky
Micky (or mickey) (Hiberno-English): the penis (Partridge). Icky: ‘a general term of disapproval: nasty, repulsive, sticky’ (OED); the OED’s earliest reference is from 1938.
15.1273: Yummyyum
The OED dates yummy to 1899.
15.1279: Zoe Higgins
Zoe (Greek): life (OED). Higgins was the maiden name of Bloom’s mother (17.536).
15.1285: Mrs Mack’s
Annie Mack (née Alexander, c.1830–1907): born in Scotland, she moved to Dublin sometime around 1880 and became one of the most successful madames in Dublin’s brothel district (John Simpson, JJON). Over the years, she used various names and was associated with various addresses. In 1904, her main establishment was at 85 Lower Mecklenburgh
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912 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Street (Thom’s, p. 1611). Several of Gogarty’s Monto poems refer to her, and he describes her in Tumbling in the Hay: ‘Her face was brick-red. Seen sideways, her straight forehead and nose were outraged by the line of her chin, which was undershot and outthrust, with an extra projection on it, like the under-jaw of an old pike’ (p. 251).
15.1287: eightyone. Mrs Cohen’s
Bella Cohen’s (see note at 15.2742) establishment was actually at 82 Lower Mecklenburgh Street (Thom’s, p. 1611). Joyce has switched its address with the headquarters of the White Cross Vigilance Association (see note at 15.674), which was next door at no. 81 (Finegan, The Story of Monto, p. 15; Mullin, James Joyce, Sexuality and Social Purity, p. 177).
15.1287: You might go farther and fare worse
Proverbial, from the sixteenth century (ODEP). It appears in Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation. Lady Answerall, in the second conversation, says ‘Come, Sir John, you may go further, and fare worse’ (p. 135).
15.1287–88: Mother Slipperslapper See note at 6.16.
15.1289: pays for her son in Oxford
Perhaps after George Bernard Shaw’s (Irish playwright and author, 1856–1950) play Mrs Warren’s Profession (1893). When Vivie Warren is shocked to learn that her mother was able to pay for her education at Cambridge through money she earns as a brothel owner, Mrs Warren’s business partner Crofts tells Vivie: ‘you’ve always lived on it. It paid for your education and the dress you have on your back’ (Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, vol. 1, pp. 219–20).
15.1302: Mesias See note at 6.831.
15.1304: hard chancre
Chancre: ‘an ulcer occurring in venereal diseases’ (OED).
15.1310: shrivelled potato
See note at 4.73 for the potato and note at 15.1357 for why it is shrivelled.
15.1315: For keeps
From Clarence E. Mulford (American writer, 1883–1956) novel Bar-20 Days: ‘ “I’ll wing you for keeps with yore own gun!” ’ (p. 37; Harald Beck, JJON).
15.1323: I never loved a dear gazelle
This is the first line of Lewis Carroll’s (English mathematician and writer, pseudonym of Charles Dodgson, 1832–98) ‘Theme with Variations’ (Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll, p. 788), which parodies a line from Thomas Moore’s poem Lalla Rookh, ‘I never nursed a dear gazelle’ (see note at 15.435).
15.1327: womancity
That is, Jerusalem; after William Blake’s description in The Four Zoas, ‘Night the Ninth: Being the Last Judgement’: ‘Because the Lamb of God Creates himself a bride & wife / That we his Children evermore may live in Jerusalem / Which now descendeth out of heaven a City yet a Woman / Mother of myriads redeemd & born in her spiritual palaces / By a New Spiritual birth Regenerated from Death’ (Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 391). Blake’s
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15. ‘Circe’ 913 description of Jerusalem as God’s bride derives from the Book of Revelation: ‘And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband’ (21:2).
15.1332: odalisk
Odalisk (or odalisque): a female slave in a harem (OED).
15.1333–34: Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim
Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim (Hebrew): ‘I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem’; from the Song of Solomon (1:4). A more standard transliteration would be: ‘Schrorah ani venavah, banoth Yerushalaim’ (Marilyn Reizbaum, ‘The Jewish Connection, Cont’d’, p. 230). Zoe’s ‘Hierushaloim’ instead of Yerushalaim suggests a Cockney pronunciation.
15.1338: you know what thought did?
You know what thought did?: a mocking catchphrase said in response to anyone who says ‘I think’, as Bloom has just done (Partridge). The further response, should the first person ask ‘What?’ is ‘Ran away with another man’s wife’. In the coarser version of this exchange, the final reply is, instead, ‘Lay in bed and beshat himself, and thought he was up’ (Dent).
15.1341: sepulchre of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones
This is the Biblical City of David, which is on one of the hills (Zion or Sion) upon which Jerusalem was built (the names Zion, City of David, and Jerusalem are equivalent). The City of David is where the kings of Israel, such as David (1 Kings 2:10) and Solomon (1 Kings 11:43), are buried.
15.1347: swaggerroot
This nonce-word or bit of forgotten slang suggests a combination of cigarette and cheroot (and maybe also swagger-stick a short cane), a small and thin cigar with both ends clipped off that is made in Southern India (OED).
15.1353: stump speech
Stump: ‘a place or an occasion of political oratory’ (OED). In minstrel shows, a comical ‘stump speech’ was a prominent feature of the performance, offering ‘a long-winded, supposedly intellectual discourse on a topic’ that is ‘full of jokes and malapropisms’ as well as ‘comic truths’ (Judith Chaffee and Olly Crick, The Routledge Companion to Commedia Dell’Arte, p. 439).
15.1355: corduroy overalls
Corduroy was typically associated with working-class clothing (Laura Ugolini, Men and Menswear, p. 28).
15.1355: black gansy
Gansey (gansy is a variant spelling, Hiberno-English): a knitted jersey (Dolan).
15.1355: red floating tie
A floating tie was a common style of cravat or bow in the early twentieth century; it has a large and loose knot (Irish Examiner, 20 June 1930, p. 4, col. c).
15.1356: apache cap
The apache cap was an oversized soft cap with a visor and was popular in the early twentieth century (Daily Mirror, 13 Dec. 1911, p. 10, col. b).
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914 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1356–57: Sir Walter Ralegh . . . that potato and that weed
Sir Walter Raleigh (English explorer and poet, 1552–1618) did introduce tobacco to Europe from the New World (EB11, s.v. tobacco). However, potatoes arrived separately: first, they were brought by the Spanish from South America to Europe in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Finally, in 1719, potatoes were brought from Europe (specifically, Ireland) to North America (Brewer’s, s.v. potato); see also note at 15.1360. Joyce’s spelling ‘Ralegh’ is one of several spellings the man himself used for his name. ‘The spelling Raleigh, which posterity has preferred, happens to be one he is not known to have ever employed’ (William Stebbing, Sir Walter Ralegh, p. 31). One of Darantiere’s typesetters erroneously ‘corrected’ the spelling to ‘Raleigh’ on the final page proof (JJA, vol. 26, p. 124), which is how the name appeared in all editions until Gabler’s. In ‘Scylla’, Joyce used the form ‘Raleigh’ (9.628).
15.1357: killer of pestilence by absorption
A reference to the belief that potatoes cure rheumatism (see note at 14.1480–81). One of the examples that Opie and Tatem cite—from the Sussex Country Magazine in 1933—claims that potatoes carried in the pocket will ‘shrivel till hard as a stone, and are then said to have absorbed and become full of the uric acid drawn from the patient’s body’ (Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. Potato cures rheumatism).
15.1358–59: poisoner of the ear, eye, heart . . . all
See note at 7.750 for ‘poisoner of the ear’. When it was first introduced into Europe, tobacco was widely considered as having palliative or even medicinal properties. But through the nineteenth century, an increasing number of doctors recognised deleterious effects. ‘During the first two decades of the twentieth century medical researchers produced an enormous literature on the toxicology of tobacco. It is difficult to summarize this work because of its diverse character but, in examining the titles of these studies, certain patterns of enquiry emerge. First of all, there was a great deal of research on the effect of tobacco on intellect, efficiency and growth. This had more to do with the moral arguments about tobacco that were then current than any new departure in the scientific study of tobacco use. Second, there were many studies purporting to deal with tobacco consumption as a form of addiction’ (Jordan Goodman, Tobacco in History, p. 122).
15.1360: another person whose name I forget brought the food
‘Hieronymus Cardan, a monk, is supposed to have been the first to introduce [the potato] from Peru into Spain, from which country it passed into Italy and thence into Belgium’ (EB11, s.v. potato).
15.1364: Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin!
After the story of Dick (Sir Richard) Whittington (c.1350–1423), Lord Mayor of London three times, in 1397, 1406, and 1419, famed for his philanthropy. Although he was of the nobility, he was celebrated in the popular imagination as a poor country boy who went to London to seek his fortune. Dejected, he planned to return home but was persuaded by ringing bells that seemed to say, ‘Turn again Whittington / Thrice Lord Mayor of London’. This legend first emerged in nursery rhymes and was later popularised in a pantomime by Samuel French (American theatrical entrepreneur, 1821–98) (ODNB; Brewer’s). The pantomime ‘Dick Whittington and his Cat’ was the Gaiety Christmas panto in 1894 (Freeman’s Journal, 27 Dec. 1894, p. 5, col. c) and played in other venues in Dublin in subsequent years as well.
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15. ‘Circe’ 915
15.1366: in alderman’s gown and chain
In 1904, Dublin had twenty aldermen (one for each of the city’s municipal wards) and sixty town councillors (three for each ward), with the Lord Mayor chosen annually from the aldermen or town councillors (Thom’s, p. 1335). During formal and ceremonial occasions, aldermen wear gowns of either scarlet, violet, or black, as well as a chain necklace that denotes their rank (EB11, s.v. robes).
15.1366–67: Arran Quay, Inns Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock
These are five of Dublin’s twenty political wards, from which aldermen and town councillors are elected to the Municipal Council. They run in this order, from west to east, along the north bank of the Liffey (Thom’s, pp. 1347–48).
15.1367–68: run a tramline, I say, from the cattlemarket to the river See 6.400–02 and note at 4.109–10.
15.1368: the music of the future
Music of the future: from the German Zukunftsmusik (literally, future-music). At first, this was a polemical label for the music of both Franz Liszt (Austro-Hungarian composer, 1811–86) and Richard Wagner (German composer, 1813–83), but it eventually came to be synonymous with the music (and philosophy) of Wagner alone. The origin of the term is controversial. Liszt’s companion, the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, claims that she coined it, after the premiere of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin at Weimar in 1850. Wagner himself in his autobiography gives partial credit to the music critic Ludwig Bischoff, who attacked the Wagner circle as Zukunfstmusiker (musicians of the future). Wagner also claimed that he had suggested the term by the title of his book, Kunstwerk der Zukunft (the artwork of the future), published in 1850. In 1860, Wagner wrote a prefatory letter to a collection of his opera texts in a French translation. This preface was published the following year in the original German as an independent pamphlet with the title Zukunftsmusik. The word eventually became a rallying cry, representing not only Wagner’s revolutionary musical techniques, but also his social views, expressed in his voluminous literary output (Richard Wagner, The Music of the Future; Jack Stein, Richard Wagner and the Synthesis of the Arts, pp. 149–55; with thanks to Vincent Deane).
15.1369: Cui bono?
Properly, the Latin phrase cui bono means ‘whom does it benefit’, although it is widely taken in English usage to mean more simply, ‘to what use or good purpose’ (OED).
15.1369–70: Vanderdeckens in their phantom ship of finance
Wagner gives his Dutchman no name, but in some versions of the legend, including Frederick Marryat’s novel The Phantom Ship (1839), Vanderdecken is the name of the captain of the Flying Dutchman (see note at 13.1078). This phrase also suggests ‘Commodore’ Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877), an American financier of Dutch ancestry and the prototypical robber-baron. His first commercial enterprise involved steam ferries, which earned him the popular sobriquet, but not official naval rank, ‘Commodore’. In the 1860s, he moved his main business interests away from steamships and into railways (EB11).
15.1372: Three times three See note at 14.645.
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916 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1376: burgesses
Burgess: a magistrate or a member of the government of a city (OED).
15.1376–77: freemen of the city
Freemen: ‘The term is more specifically applied to one who possesses the freedom of a city, borough or company. Before the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, each English borough admitted freemen according to its own peculiar custom and by-laws. The rights and privileges of a freeman, though varying in different boroughs, generally included the right to vote at a parliamentary election of the borough, and exemption from all tolls and dues’ (EB11).
15.1377–78: Timothy Harrington, late thrice Lord Mayor of Dublin
Timothy Harrington (1851–1910): elected Lord Mayor of Dublin three times: 1901, 1902, and 1903 (Thom’s, p. 1398), which was an unprecedented length of service to that date. Originally a journalist and an advocate for tenants’ rights, he became a barrister and served as an MP from 1883 until his death. He was a staunch ally of Parnell (DIB). In 1904, he lived at 5 Esplanade Terrace in Bray (Thom’s, p. 346); see also note at 15.1364.
15.1378–79: mayoral scarlet
On most public occasions, the Lord Mayor wears robes of scarlet. Upon being presented to the monarch or during his investiture, he wears a violet robe. During solemn religious rit uals, the robe is black (EB11, s.v. robes).
15.1379: gold chain
This is the ‘Great Chain’, a 22-carat gold ceremonial chain given to the city of Dublin in 1698 by King William III (Bennett, s.v. Civic Regalia).
15.1379–80: councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens See both notes at 10.1011.
15.1382: mace
The Lord Mayor has several ceremonial maces, such as the ‘Great Mace’, which was made in 1717–18 by Thomas Bolton, the Lord Mayor in 1716, who was also a goldsmith (Bennett, s.v. Civic Regalia).
15.1385–86: Cow Parlour off Cork street
Cow Parlour is a small, unimposing street off Cork Street (Thom’s, p. 1400). Cork Street branches off from the Coombe and is the main road that connects Dublin to the inner southern suburbs of Drimnagh and Harold’s Cross. It lies in an area formerly connected with Huguenot weavers (see note at 5.465). The name Cow Parlour is supposedly a corruption of the French ‘coupe ourlet’, or hem section, ‘from dressmaking work once associated with the place’ (Kathleen Breathnach, ‘The Last of the Dublin Silk Weavers’, p. 135).
15.1386: Boulevard Bloom
None of the streets in Dublin bears the name boulevard. Furthermore, the collocation Boulevard Bloom—as opposed to Bloom Boulevard—follows the form of a French toponym.
15.1390: flying Dutchmen
See notes at 15.1369–70 and 13.1078.
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15. ‘Circe’ 917
15.1391: upholstered poop See note at 11.580–81.
15.1391: reck
Reck: ‘care, heed, regard’ (OED).
15.1391–92: Machines is their cry
Echoes the condemnation of mechanisation in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848): because of the Industrial Revolution, ‘the worker becomes a mere appendage to the machine’ (Karl Marx, Later Political Writings, p. 7).
15.1393–94: hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts
The first translation of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) into English, by Helen MacFarlane (1850), begins with: ‘A frightful hobgoblin stalks throughout Europe’ (Martin Puchner, Poetry of the Revolution, p. 53). Later translations prefer spectre in place of hobgoblin: ‘A spectre stalks the land of Europe—the spectre of communism’ (Marx, Later Political Writings, p. 1). The German word Marx uses is Gespenst: ghost, spirit, sprite.
15.1395: grassing their royal mountain stags
To grass: ‘to bring down (birds, game) by a shot’ (OED; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.1396: shooting peasants and phartridges
The substitution of peasant for pheasant for humorous effect is not original to Joyce; for example: ‘Lord had capital sport on the moors yesterday, having in the course of two hours bagged five brace of peasants’ (Hogg’s Weekly Instructor, 7 June 1845; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.1396: pelf
Pelf: stolen goods, also money and riches (OED).
15.1397: But their reign is rover for rever and ever and ev
After the Hallelujah chorus of Handel’s Messiah (see note at 8.1163–64), which quotes Revelation 11:15 in the King James: ‘The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.’
15.1398: Venetian masts
Venetian mast: a pole with ribbons of several colours wound around it; used as decoration on a float, or along the route of a parade (OED, s.v. venetian).
15.1399: Cead Mile Failte
Céad Míle Fáilte (Irish): ‘a hundred thousand welcomes’; a traditional Irish greeting, also the title of a poem by Gerald Griffin (Irish writer, 1803–40).
15.1400: Mah Ttob Melek Israel
Mah Ttob Melek Israel (Hebrew): ‘How goodly is your King, Israel’; this seems to conflate two passages from the Old Testament. In Numbers, Balaam praises the Israelites: ‘How beautiful are thy tabernacles, O Jacob, and thy tents, O Israel! [Mah tovu ohalecha Yaacov]’ (24:5). In 2 Samuel, a drunk King David danced in front of a large assembly. When Michal, Saul’s daughter, berated him for his exhibitionism, David responded that he was dancing
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918 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses before God. To this Michal sarcastically replied: ‘How glorious was the king of Israel to day [mah nikhbad ha’yom melech Israel]’ (6:20).
15.1402: Royal Dublin Fusiliers See note at 5.68.
15.1402–03: King’s Own Scottish Borderers See note at 5.74.
15.1403: Cameron Highlanders
The full name of this regiment was The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (Thom’s, p. 604).
15.1403: Welsh Fusiliers
The full name of this regiment was the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (Thom’s, p. 588).
15.1407: The pillar of the cloud appears See note at 7.865–66.
15.1408: Kol Nidre
Kol Nidre (Hebrew): ‘all vows’; the title of a chanted prayer central to ceremonies at synagogue on the Eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1408: beaters
Beater: ‘A man employed in rousing and driving game’ (OED).
15.1409: imperial eagles
A military emblem of both the Roman empire and others. ‘The ability to fly and fulminate, to rise so as to dominate and destroy baser forces, is doubtless the essential characteristic of all eagle-symbolism’ (J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols).
15.1410: chryselephantine
Chryselephantine: ‘Of gold and ivory: applied to statues overlaid with gold and ivory’ (OED).
15.1412–13: John Howard Parnell, city marshall, in a chessboard tabard
See note at 8.500 for J. H. Parnell. Tabard: ‘a short surcoat open at the sides and having short sleeves, worn by a knight over his armor’ and emblazoned with the armorial bearings of the sovereign. It is the official dress of a herald or pursuivant (for which see next note) (OED). It has a chessboard pattern because of John Howard Parnell’s fondness for chess; see note at 10.1046–47
15.1413: Athlone poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms
The Pursuivant is the lowest-ranking and the King of Arms the highest-ranking heraldic officer in the College of Arms. In Ireland, ‘in the court of the Ulster King of Arms [. . .] there are two Heralds and four Pursuivants’ (OED, s.v. pursuivant). Poursuivant is the French spelling.
15.1414: Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson See note at 10.1010.
15.1415: his lordship the lord mayor of Cork
In 1904–05, the Lord Mayor of Cork was Augustine Roche (Thom’s 1905, p. 1308). The honorific ‘lordship’ is equivalent to ‘right honourable’, but is used when the person in question is not explicitly named (OED).
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15. ‘Circe’ 919
15.1415–16: their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford
In 1904–05, the mayors of Limerick, Sligo, and Waterford were, respectively, Michael Donnelly (Thom’s 1905, p. 1321), Thomas Flanagan (p. 1328), and Sir James A. Power (p. 1331). Under the Local Government Act (Ireland) of 1898, Galway did not have its own borough administration council and thus no mayor (p. 1316). These officers are called ‘their worship’ because their rank is Mayor and not Lord Mayor (OED).
15.1416–17: twentyeight Irish representative peers
Following the Act of Union, the non-ecclesiastical peers of Ireland ‘elected 28 representatives for life, and supply vacancies as they occur by the exertion of the same elective power’ (Thom’s, p. 213).
15.1417: sirdars, grandees and maharajahs
Sirdar: Indian military chief. Grandee: ‘A Spanish or Portuguese nobleman of the highest rank’. Maharaja: Indian prince (all OED).
15.1418: cloth of estate
Cloth of estate: the canopy spread over a throne, or held over the head of royalty (OED).
15.1418: Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade
The City of Dublin Fire Brigade Fire Station, John J. Myers, Lieutenant, 12 Winetavern Street (Thom’s, p. 1625).
15.1420: bishop of Down and Connor
In 1904, the Catholic bishop of Down and Connor was the Most Reverend Henry Henry, D.D. (Thom’s, p. 991). The bishop of the United Dioceses of Down, Connor, and Dromore in the Protestant Church of Ireland (Dromore is a separate diocese in the Catholic Church) was the Right Reverend Thomas James Welland, D.D. (Thom’s, p. 949).
15.1420–21: His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue archbishop of Armagh
The archdiocese of Armagh is the centre of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. In 1904, the Cardinal-Archbishop of the province was His Eminence Michael Cardinal Logue, D.D. (1840–1924), Primate of all Ireland (Thom’s, p. 988). In A Portrait, Mr Dedalus dismisses Logue as ‘the tub of guts up in Armagh’ (p. 32).
15.1421–22: primate of all Ireland
Both the Catholic archbishop of Armagh and the Protestant Church of Ireland archbishop of Armagh take the title ‘Primate of all Ireland’ (P. W. Joyce, Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland, s.v. Armagh).
15.1422: His Grace, the most reverend Dr William Alexander
In 1904, the Archbishop of the Diocese of Armagh in the Protestant Church of Ireland was the Most Reverend William Alexander (1824–1911), D.D., D.C.L., LL.D. (Thom’s, p. 942).
15.1423: chief rabbi
There was no chief rabbi in Ireland in 1904; the office was not created until 1918 (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Ireland). The office of the chief rabbi is not analogous to that of cardinal in the Catholic Church and, instead, is concerned with ‘representing the Jews of a country in their relations with the secular authorities’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Chief rabbinates).
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920 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1424: presbyterian moderator
The title of the leader of the Irish Presbyterian Church is Moderator. In 1904, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland was Reverend John MacDermott, in Belfast (Thom’s, p. 1018).
15.1424: baptist
The President of the Baptist Union of Ireland in 1904 was Pastor J. Dinnin Gilmore (Thom’s, p. 1026).
15.1424: anabaptist
Anabaptists: ‘a name given by their enemies to various sects which on the occasion of Luther’s revolt from Romanism denied the validity of infant baptism, and therefore baptized those whom they quite logically regarded as not having received any Christian initi ation at all’ (EB11). In 1904, no Anabaptist sect, as such, existed in Ireland.
15.1425: methodist
In 1904, the President of the Methodist Church in Ireland was the Reverend John Shaw Banks, D.D. (Thom’s, p. 1024d).
15.1425: Moravian
In Ireland at this time, the Moravian Church was also called the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United Brethren. In 1904, there were ten congregations in Ireland, but there was no head minister (Thom’s, pp. 1026, 1364). This church was founded in Moravia, in eastern Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), hence its name (OED).
15.1425–26: honorary secretary of the society of friends
In 1904, John Bewley Beale (1832–1910) was the registering officer for the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Dublin, offices at 6 Eustace Street (Thom’s, p. 1487).
15.1426: guilds and trades and trainbands
The medieval institutions of guilds and trades are represented by costumed participants on public occasions, such as the installation of a new mayor of London. Train-band: ‘A trained company of citizen soldiery, organized in London and other parts in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries’ (OED).
15.1429: tabinet
Tabinet: a blend of silk and wool (OED).
15.1430: farriers
Farrier: ‘One who shoes horses; a shoeing-smith; hence, also one who treats the diseases of horses’ (OED).
15.1430: Italian warehousemen
Italian warehouse: ‘a shop where Italian groceries, fruits, olive oil, etc. are sold’ (OED, s.v. Italian).
15.1433: fellmongers
Fellmonger: ‘A person who deals in or processes animal skins, esp. one whose occupation is to remove the wool from sheepskins before tanning’ (OED).
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15. ‘Circe’ 921
15.1435: riddlemakers
The OED lists two distinct possible meanings for riddle, both of which are plausible here: a puzzle or ‘A coarse-meshed sieve, used to separate sand from gravel, ashes from cinders, etc.’ (s.v. riddle).
15.1435: egg and potato factors
Factor: a mercantile agent (OED).
15.1436–37: gentlemen of the bed chamber
Lord of the bedchamber: ‘the designation given to noblemen holding certain offices in attendance on the person of the sovereign’ (OED, s.v. lord).
15.1437: Black Rod
The Black Rod’s job is to keep order in the House of Lords and to summon the House of Commons to the House of Lords for such events as when a bill receives royal assent. The name derives from the staff of office, a black wand with a gold lion perched on top (Brewer’s). In 1904, the Black Rod was General Sir Michael Biddulph (Thom’s, p. 510).
15.1437: Deputy Garter
The Order of the Garter is the highest order of Knighthood in Great Britain, and includes the sovereign, the Prince of Wales, twenty-four knights companions, and various princes and foreign royalty. The Deputy Garter is the Garter King of Arms, the executive officer of the sovereign for the Order of the Garter (Brewer’s, s.v. Garter, the most noble order of). In 1904, the Deputy Garter was Sir Albert W. Woods (Thom’s, p. 510).
15.1437: Gold Stick
The ceremonial office of the Captain and Gold Stick of His Majesty’s Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms was held by the Right Honourable Baron Belper in 1904 (Thom’s, p. 106).
15.1437: master of horse
The master of the horse is the officer in charge of the British sovereign’s horses (OED, s.v. master). In 1904, this office was held by the Duke of Portland (Thom’s, p. 105).
15.1438: lord great chamberlain
The Lord Great Chamberlain governs the Palace of Westminster. In 1904, this office was held by the Right Honourable the Marquis of Cholmondeley (Thom’s, p. 105).
15.1438: earl marshal
The Earl Marshal is head of the College of Arms. In 1904, this office was held by the Duke of Norfolk (Thom’s, p. 150).
15.1438–39: high constable carrying the sword of state
The Lord High Constable: ‘the supreme judge of military offences and of questions of chivalry’; this office was abolished in 1521 and has since been revived only ‘temporarily for particular occasions, esp. the sovereign’s coronation’ (OED, s.v. constable).
15.1439: saint Stephen’s iron crown
Saint Stephen (975–1038): the first King of Hungary (r. 1001–38). His gold crown was given to him by Pope Sylvester II (r. 999–1003) and for centuries has stood as a symbol of
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922 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Hungary (EB11, s.v. Stephen of Hungary). Joyce got this information from Arthur Griffith, who incorrectly states that this crown was iron (The Resurrection of Hungary, p. 4; Wolfgang Wicht, Utopianism in James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, p. 80).
15.1440: chalice and bible
At their coronation, British sovereigns must declare themselves ‘defenders of the faith’. The chalice and Bible are carried as part of the coronation ceremony to symbolise this commitment (EB11, s.v. coronation).
15.1440: sennet
Sennet: a series of notes played on trumpets to signal the arrival of an important group (OED).
15.1440: Beefeaters
Beefeater: ‘Popular appellation of the Yeomen of the Guard, in the household of the Sovereign of Great Britain, instituted at the accession of Henry VII in 1485’ (OED).
15.1441: an arch of triumph
While there are several arches of triumph throughout the world, the largest and most famous is the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which ‘commemorates the military triumphs of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic troops’ (EB11, s.v. Paris).
15.1443: Saint Edward’s staff
Saint Edward’s staff is used in the coronation of British monarchs. The original staff was believed to have dated back to the reign of Edward the Confessor (Saint Edward, r. 1042–66) (EB11, s.v. sceptre).
15.1443–44: orb and sceptre with the dove
These are two important pieces of the coronation regalia. The King’s orb is a golden ball, 15 cm in diameter, mounted with a cross and banded with gems and pearls. The orb symbolises monarchical rule and harmony, and derives from the orb with the figure of victory associated with the Roman emperors. The sceptre with the dove (symbolising peace) is a rod peaked with a golden dove (EB11, s.v. regalia).
15.1444: curtana
Curtana: a blunted sword carried before the monarch at the coronation (OED).
15.1445: caparisoned
That is, the horse is decked with caparisons, ornamental cloth hangings, armour, etc. (OED).
15.1445: headstall
Headstall: the part of the bridle that fits around the horse’s head (OED).
15.1448–49: hawthorn and wrenbushes
The hawthorn was Henry VII’s chosen device, after his recovery of the crown from a hawthorn bush at the Battle of Bosworth Field (Brewer’s). In the Irish tradition of ‘Hunting the Wren’, on St Stephen’s Day (26 December), children in costume go from house to house with pieces of holly or gorse from which a dead wren hangs. At each house, the children sing and demand money to pay for the wren’s burial (Seán O Súilleabháin, A Handbook of Irish Folklore, p. 353).
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15. ‘Circe’ 923
15.1451–54: The wren, the wren . . . in the furze
From ‘The Wren, the Wren’, performed by wrenboys on St Stephen’s Day (see the previous note): ‘The wren, the wren, the king of all birds, / Saint Stephen’s Day was caught in a furze, / Although he is little, his family’s great; / I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat // [Chorus] Sing hey! Sing ho! Sing holly, sing holly! / A drop just to drink, it would cure melancholy’ (Bauerle, pp. 514–16). Furze: Ulex europeus; see note at 12.158.
15.1456: For the Honour of God!
After the Jesuits’ motto: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the greater glory of God) (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. The Society of Jesus).
15.1456–57: scarcely looks thirtyone
According to Roman cultural practices, a man was an adulescens, a youth, from the age of 15 to 30 (Lewis and Short, Latin Dictionary, s.v. adulescentia). According to the Gospel of Luke, Christ was ‘about the age of thirty years’ when he began his ministry (3:23).
15.1458: A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER
Pavior: ‘A person who lays paving’. Flagger: ‘One who flags or lays down flagstones’ (both OED).
15.1467: BELLHANGER
Bell-hanger: one who hangs and repairs bells (OED, s.v. bell).
15.1468: He has the forehead of a thinker
The founding principle for phrenology was that the intelligence, character, and quality of an individual could be determined and diagnosed by the shape and contour of the skull. In general, all the higher faculties of intelligence were assumed to be located in the forehead (EB11). While phrenology was ‘the nineteenth century’s most popular and popularized “science” ’ (Roger Cooter, The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science, p. 2) and still retained some cultural purchase in the early twentieth century, it was largely discredited as a valid scientific theory by the mid-nineteenth century.
15.1469: Bloom’s weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest
See note at 4.101–02.
15.1470: THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR See note at 15.1420.
15.1477: dalmatic and purple mantle
Dalmatic: a loose ‘robe worn by kings and emperors at coronation and other solemnities’ (OED). Since Roman times, purple has been conventionally associated with royalty (Brewer’s).
15.1480: shovel hat See note at 3.417.
15.1480–82: Will you to your power cause law and mercy to be . . . belonging
Combines and modifies two separate parts of the British coronation oath: ‘Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the dominions thereto belonging according to the statutes in parliament agreed on, and the respective laws and customs of the same?’ and ‘Will you to the utmost of
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924 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses your power cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?’ (EB11, s.v. oath).
15.1484: placing his right hand on his testicles, swears
In the Old Testament, Abraham commands his servant to take an oath by placing his hand on Abraham’s thigh (Genesis 24:2–3); likewise, Jacob extracts a similar oath from his son Joseph (47:29–31). ‘An oath sworn with genitalia in hand makes a powerful symbol and is a contract not easily broken: the implication is that the bearing of false witness brings a curse not only upon oneself, but one’s house and future line’ (Joshua T. Katz, ‘Testimonia Ritus Italici’, p. 193). The double meaning of the Latin word testis, both ‘witness’ and ‘testicle’, has led to the folk-belief that witnesses in Roman courts cupped their testicles with their hands as they presented evidence. However, there is no proof that this was actually the case (pp. 196–98).
15.1484–85: So may the Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do
At the end of the coronation ceremony, the monarch says ‘All this I promise to do’ in response to a series of questions that pertain to upholding and preserving the Church of England and its clergy (EB11, s.v. oath).
15.1486: MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH See note at 15.1420–21.
15.1487: pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom’s head
As part of the coronation ceremony, before the monarch is vested, he is anointed with holy oil in order to sanctify and distinguish his person (EB11, s.v. coronation). Cruse: a small vessel for liquids (OED). The oil used to anoint the monarch is spermaceti oil (see note at 14.601), which, along with other oils, was also used as an ingredient in hair oils and pomades (Carl Deite, A Practical Treatise on the Manufacture of Perfumery, p. 284).
15.1487–88: Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem
Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem (Latin): ‘I proclaim to you a great joy. We have an executioner’; a variation on the senior cardinal deacon’s pronouncement declaring a new pope: Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus pontificem (I proclaim to you a great joy: we have a pope) (EB11, s.v. papacy).
15.1488: Patrick, Andrew, David, George
Patrick, Andrew, David, and George are, respectively, the patron saints of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England.
15.1490: mantle of cloth of gold
Following the anointing of the monarch with holy oil, he is clothed in royal vestments, concluding with the mantle of gold (EB11, s.v. coronation).
15.1490: ruby ring
The ruby ring is the coronation ring of Scotland. Immediately after the crown is placed on the monarch’s head, the ring is placed on his wedding finger (EB11, s.v. coronation).
15.1491: stone of destiny
This is the Stone of Scone, or the coronation stone. It was removed from Scone, Scotland in 1296 by Edward I of England to Westminster Abbey, where it remained under the throne occupied by the monarch during coronation. It was returned to Scotland in 1996 and is
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15. ‘Circe’ 925 now housed in Edinburgh Castle. It is the ‘stone of destiny’ because Scottish tradition says that wherever the stone rests, there will be the Scottish ruler (Brewer’s).
15.1491–92: representative peers put on at the same time their twentyeight crowns
During coronation ceremonies, all peers of the realm don their coronets or caps once the monarch is crowned (EB11, s.v. peerage). See also note at 15.1416–17.
15.1492: Joybells See note at 10.156.
15.1493: Christ church, Saint Patrick’s
These are Dublin’s two medieval cathedrals, now part of the Church of Ireland. Saint Laurence O’Toole (see note at 7.1012) initiated the construction of Christ Church in the 1170s on the site of an older church. St Patrick’s Cathedral stands on the site where St Patrick is thought to have baptised converts to Christianity. A church has stood on this site since 450, and in 1191 this was replaced by the present cathedral, the largest church in Ireland (Bennett, s.vv. Christ Church; St Patrick’s Cathedral).
15.1493: George’s See note at 4.78.
15.1493: gay Malahide See note at 10.156.
15.1494: Mirus bazaar fireworks See note at 8.1162.
15.1495: The peers do homage
After crowning a new sovereign, the attending peers, or noblemen, approach him and, as part of the ceremony, ‘do homage’ by bowing and swearing the Oath of Fealty (EB11, s.v. coronation).
15.1498: I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly worship
The first sentence of the Oath of Fealty taken by the peers during the coronation ceremony (EB11, s.v. coronation).
15.1499–1500: Koh-i-Noor diamond
Koh-i-Noor (Persian): ‘Mountain of Light’. The Koh-i-Noor diamond is one of the largest diamonds in the world. It was discovered in 1550 and passed through the hands of numerous rulers before it was surrendered to the British Crown when Britain won the second Sikh War in 1849, and it has remained in British hands ever since as one of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. ‘There is a tradition that it always brings ill luck to its possessor’ (Brewer’s).
15.1500: palfrey
Palfrey: ‘A horse for ordinary riding (as distinct from a warhorse); esp. a small saddle horse for a woman’ (OED).
15.1500–01: Wireless intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters
Wireless (radio) transmission across the Atlantic was first achieved in December 1901 when Guglielmo Marconi (Italian inventor, 1874–1937) transmitted the Morse signal for ‘S’ from Cornwall in England to St John’s, Newfoundland in Canada. Commercial
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926 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses trans-Atlantic radiotelegraphy began in 1907. The first stations were in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia in Canada and Clifden in Ireland (Anton A. Huurdeman, The Worldwide History of Telecommunications, pp. 269–70). In 1912, Joyce visited Clifden in an unsuccessful attempt to interview Marconi (Letters, vol. 2, p. 299). The first successful interplanetary transmission post-dates Ulysses: the flyby of Venus by the Mariner 2 spacecraft on 14 December 1962; in an editorial, The New York Times hailed it as ‘the birth of the interplanetary age’ (17 Dec. 1962, p. 6, col. a).
15.1504–05: We hereby nominate . . . hereditary Grand Vizier
Bloom repeats an act of the Roman Emperor Caligula (ad 12–41, r. 37–41), who appointed his favourite horse, Incitatus, to the college of priests and the consulship (EB11, s.v. Gaius Caesar). Copula Felix (Latin): Happy Union. Grand Vizier: Western name for the chief minister to the ruler of an Islamic country (OED).
15.1506–07: princess Selene, the splendour of night Selene: the Greek goddess of the moon (Brewer’s).
15.1508: morganatic spouse
Morganatic: ‘Designating or relating to a marriage in which a man of high rank marries a wife of lower rank, but neither the wife nor any children of the marriage have any claim to the possessions or title of the husband’ (OED).
15.1509: Black Maria See note at 15.203.
15.1517–18: promised land of our common ancestors
Combines the Biblical notion of Israel with the idea of Ireland as a country promised to a people by God; see note at 7.873.
15.1520: keys of Dublin, crossed See notes at 7.25 and 7.142.
15.1521: he is wearing green socks
For what it’s worth, Charles Stewart Parnell was much derided for never wearing green. He called it ‘a colour I detest’ (Robert Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 400).
15.1525-26: On this day twenty years ago . . . at Ladysmith
The enemy at Ladysmith were the Boers, who fought the British in the British-held colony of Natal during the Boer War. The British garrison at Ladysmith, a town in Natal, was contested from 29 October 1899 to 28 February 1900, when troops directed by General Buller relieved the fortress (EB11, s.v. Natal). Thus ‘twenty years ago’ is an exaggeration for 1904.
15.1526: howitzers and camel swivel guns
Howitzer: ‘A short piece of ordnance, usually of light weight, specially designed for the horizontal firing of shells with small charges, and adapted for use in a mountainous country’. Swivel-gun: ‘a gun or cannon, usually a small one, mounted on a swivel so as to turn horizontally in any required direction’ (both OED). Buller’s troops at Ladysmith included one howitzer battery (Arthur Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War, p. 205). Camel-mounted swivel-guns, or camel swivel guns, were not used by British military forces. These are also called zamburaks or shutarnals. ‘Although probably an Indo-Mughal innovation, zamburaks were more systematically employed by the eighteenth-century Afghan armies [. . .],
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15. ‘Circe’ 927 their use subsequently spreading to Iran and the Middle East’ (Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare, p. 128).
15.1527: Half a league onward!
From Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, a paean to the doomed attack on Russian artillery troops by the Light Brigade during the Crimean War (1853–56): ‘Half a league, half a league / Half a league onward, / All in the valley of Death / Rode the six hundred’ (ll. 1–4).
15.1527: All is lost now! See note at 11.629.
15.1529: Plevna See note at 4.63.
15.1530: Bonafide Sabaoth
Bona fide (Latin): in good faith, or, more colloquially, genuine (OED). Sabaoth: the Greek form of the Hebrew word tseboath, armies or hosts. This appears in Romans 9:29 and James 5:4 as ‘the Lord of Sabaoth’, suggesting God as a divine warrior.
15.1530: Saracen
Saracen: ‘an Arab; by extension, a Muslim, esp. with reference to the Crusades’ (OED).
15.1531: CHAPEL OF FREEMEN TYPESETTERS
Chapel: a printer’s workshop or a printing office, or a meeting of workers in a printing office that functions like a union meeting (OED); see also note at 7.195.
15.1533: JOHN WYSE NOLAN See note at 8.950–51.
15.1534: There’s the man that got away James Stephens See notes at 3.241–42 and 12.881.
15.1535: A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY See note at 8.1153.
15.1539: AN APPLEWOMAN
In ‘Lestrygonians’, Bloom bought two Banbury cakes from an ‘old applewoman’ (8.74).
15.1542–43: verily it is even now at hand
In Matthew, Jesus declares, ‘Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (4:17; see also 3:2, 10:7, Mark 1:15, and Luke 21:31). He also uses the expression ‘verily’ several times.
15.1544: golden city which is to be
From the conclusion of Joseph McCabe’s (English Freethinker, 1867–1955) The Religion of Woman: An Historical Study (1905): ‘Many women are to-day looking with a new yearning over the narrow enclosures we have built about them. They are demanding—and it is a noble demand—that we admit them to work at our side in the making of the Golden City that is to be. They are prepared to rise from the groove in which their lives have lain, not through their fault’ (p. 194; Crowley and Lernout, ‘Joseph McCabe in Ulysses’). In Revelation, the New Jerusalem is described as ‘pure gold, like to clear glass’ (21:18).
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15.1544: new Bloomusalem
See notes at 12.1473 and 15.1327.
15.1544–45: Nova Hibernia
Nova Hibernia (Latin): ‘New Ireland’.
15.1546–47: Thirtytwo workmen wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland
There are thirty-two counties in Ireland. This image recalls the reception given to Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, when Hungary achieved a measure of independence. He was cheered by representatives—‘professional men, merchants, artisans, and farmers, all clad in national costume’—from each of Hungary’s fifty-two counties (Arthur Griffith, Resurrection of Hungary, p. 75).
15.1547: Derwan the builder See note at 15.587.
15.1548: with crystal roof See note at 12.87.
15.1553–54: all marked in red with the letters: L. B.
Just as ‘His Majesty’s vermilion mailcars’ bear ‘on their sides the royal initials, E. R.’ (7.16–17)—thereby marking Ireland as the domain of Edward VII (E. R. = Edward Rex [king]; see note at 7.17)—so too Bloom’s initials adorn the New Bloomusalem (although his are just L. B., not L. R.).
15.1555: walls of Dublin
By the time of the Norman invasion in 1170, what then existed as Dublin was fortified with walls. It is not known when the walls were built, but most of the old city walls were gone by the end of the eighteenth century. The only surviving gateway is St Auden’s Arch along with a small part of the wall in Cook Street. Public protest saved it from demolition in 1880 (Bennett, s.v. walls).
15.1557: Morituri te salutant
Morituri te salutant (Latin): ‘These about to die salute you’; Roman gladiators said this to the emperor before engaging in combat.
15.1558: A man in a brown macintosh See note at 6.805.
15.1561–62: Leopold M‘Intosh, the notorious fireraiser
Fireraiser: an arsonist (Brewer’s). After John McIntosh, a Scotsman who rented a house on Patrick Street in order to make gunpowder and explosives for Robert Emmet. An explosion in this factory led Henry Charles Sirr (see note at 10.785–86) to investigate. McIntosh was then convicted of treason and hanged (Patrick Joseph McCall, In the Shadow of St Patrick’s, pp. 42–43).
15.1562: Higgins
Higgins is Bloom’s mother’s maiden name (17.536) as well as the prostitute Zoe’s surname.
15.1564: So much for M‘Intosh!
After a famous (or notorious) emendation made by Colley Cibber (English actor, 1671–1757) to Shakespeare’s Richard III (1700): ‘Off with his head—So much for Buckingham’
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15. ‘Circe’ 929 (IV.iii.188). The phrase ‘so much for Buckingham’ was Cibber’s invention. While this line has drawn the ire of some critics, it nonetheless has remained popular in subsequent per formances and has even been called ‘possibly the most famous Shakespearean line that Shakespeare did not write’ (Elaine M. McGirr, Partial Histories, p. 124).
15.1565–66: with his sceptre strikes down poppies
According to a later legend, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (ruled c.534–510 bc), the last of the legendary kings of Rome, received in his garden a messenger from his son inquiring what he (the son) should do in the town of Gabii. Tarquinius walked through his garden striking the heads off the tallest poppies. The messenger who saw this did not understand what it meant. But when he told Tarquinius’s son, the son knew—and proceeded to put the chief men of the town to death (EB11, s.v. Tarquinius).
15.1567: graziers
Graziers (see note at 12.837–38) are first among the ‘many powerful enemies’ Bloom ter minates because he lost his job working for Joseph Cuffe at the cattle-market after an argument with a grazier; see 12.836–38.
15.1569: Maundy money
Maundy money: the money given by the British monarch to the infirm and poor on Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday. Special coins are struck for the occasion (Brewer’s).
15.1569: commemoration medals
Commemoration medals were traditionally distributed at great state occasions such as coronations or other celebrations of state (EB11, s.v. medal).
15.1569: loaves and fishes See note at 14.720.
15.1570: temperance badges See note at 12.689.
15.1570: Henry Clay cigars See note at 10.1001–02.
15.1571: rubber preservatives
Condoms; after the French word for condom, préservatif. The English word preservative did formerly have the meaning of prophylactic (OED). See note at 9.1101.
15.1572: billets doux
Billets doux (French): ‘sweet notes’; that is, love letters.
15.1574: Jeyes’ Fluid
Jeyes’ Fluid: the proprietary name of a disinfectant fluid manufactured by Jeyes Sanitary Compounds Co., Ltd., of London (OED).
15.1574: purchase stamps
Purchase stamps (more commonly called trading stamps): ‘a stamp given by a retailer to a customer upon purchase of goods of a certain value, which is redeemable in large numbers for various articles from the company issuing the stamp, thereby providing an incentive for the customer to make further purchases from the retailer’ (OED, s.v. trading).
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15.1574: 40 days’ indulgences
Indulgences—from ‘indulgentia’, forbearance, as in kindness for not exacting the full measure of what is due—are the remission of the temporal punishment of sins once the sin has been confessed (Catholic Encyclopedia). Thus, a ’40 days’ indulgence’ is the remission of 40 days of punishment in Purgatory, which is a very small amount. ‘In 1414, John Cely, bishop of Down, having erected and consecrated an altar in Christ Church, Dublin, to the honour of the Virgin Mary, granted forty days’ indulgences to all the canons who should celebrate mass, and devoutly pray at the said altar’ (Richard Mant, History of the Church of Ireland, p. 93).
15.1576–77: royal and privileged Hungarian lottery See note at 8.184–85.
15.1577: penny dinner counters See note at 8.237–38.
15.1578: Froggy and Fritz Apparently fictitious.
15.1578: Care of the Baby
Perhaps J. P. Cozier Griffith’s (1856–1941) The Care of the Baby (1895, with numerous reprints and subsequent editions).
15.1579: 50 Meals for 7/6
Apparently fictitious, but guides to inexpensive dining and cooking were (and still are) prevalent; although, considering that Bloom’s meal at the Ormond cost 1s. 9d. (11.1002), 7s. 6d. for a single meal is expensive.
15.1579: Was Jesus a Sun Myth?
The specific title is fictitious, but it follows from the proposition, in vogue at the turn of the twentieth century, that there never was an historical Jesus and that Christianity had instead developed as a reworking of both pagan myths and Jewish beliefs. One proponent of this theory, J. M. Robertson (English journalist and politician, 1856–1933), wrote: ‘we know from other sources that the Sun-God Horos, son of the Virgin Isis, was represented annually as born at the winter solstice [. . .] Jesus is a mere adaptation of these ancient pagan materials’ (Christianity and Mythology, p. 331).
15.1580: Expel that Pain
Apparently fictitious (but, potentially, useful).
15.1580–81: Infant’s Compendium of the Universe
Apparently fictitious; Bloom does own two books on astronomy: The Story of the Heavens (see notes at 8.110 and 17.1373) and A Handbook of Astronomy (see note at 17.1391).
15.1581: Let’s All Chortle Apparently fictitious.
15.1581: Canvasser’s Vade Mecum
Apparently fictitious. Vade mecum (Latin): ‘go with me’; ‘A book or manual suitable for carrying about with one for ready reference [. . .] (Sometimes used as the title of such a work.)’ (OED).
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15.1582: Loveletters of Mother Assistant
Apparently fictitious. ‘Mother’s Assistant’ is a generic name for either a child-rearing manual or a book of instruction aimed for children; such as The Mother’s Assistant, or the Young Child’s Catechism (1817). The Mother’s Assistant and Young Lady’s Friend was the title of an American magazine, first published in 1841, that contained moral instruction for raising proper Christian children.
15.1582–83: Who’s Who in Space
The first Who’s Who—a biographical dictionary of notable people in the United Kingdom— was published in 1849 by A. & C. Black in London and has been updated annually ever since. Versions exist for other countries as well. A Who’s Who in Space (by Michael Cassutt) actually now exists; it is a biographical listing of astronauts. This was first published in 1987 and has been updated sporadically since then.
15.1583: Songs that Reached Our Heart
After the titles of various song anthologies, such as Harps of Gold: Songs which Reach the Heart (1909).
15.1584: Pennywise’s Way to Wealth
Apparently fictitious, but after the proverbial expression ‘Penny-wise, poundfoolish’ (Brewer’s).
15.1585: Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom’s robe
After Matthew 9:20–22: ‘And behold a woman who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him [Jesus], and touched the hem of his garment. For she said within herself: If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed. But Jesus turning and seeing her, said: Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour’ (see also Mark 5:27, 6:56, and Luke 8:44).
15.1586: lady Gwendolen Dubedat See note at 8.889.
15.1588: Babes and sucklings
‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger’ (Psalm 8:2 in the King James; see also Matthew 21:16).
15.1591: Little father!
‘It is high time to explain that the famous “Little father” does not mean “little” father at all! The Old Russian word for father, bat’ushka, does not suggest an atom of the tone in which “little father” or the German “Vaterchen” [sic] is pronounced. This way of translating it is sickly-sentimental! No, bat’ushka is used either in a grave, deferential way—and that is how it came first to be applied in the olden days to the Princes and later to the Tsars, and is still the habitual form of addressing the priests; or else it is used in a very argumentative tone, essentially Russian [. . .] which one never hears in English society, [. . .] it carries some familiarity, some respect, some rebuke, some humour some surprise—very often all of them at the same time!’ (Nadine Jarintzov, The Russians and their Language, pp. 50–51).
15.1593–94: Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home . . . Leo alone
After the nursery rhyme, ‘Clap hands, clap hands, / Till father comes home; / For father’s got money, / But mother’s got none’ (ODNR, p. 196).
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932 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1597: BABY BOARDMAN
Edy Boardman’s younger brother appeared in ‘Nausicaa’ and here reprises his attempt at speech; see 13.392 and 13.398.
15.1602: pussy fourcorners
After the game ‘Puss in the Corner’ (variants of the name include ‘Puss in Four Corners’) in which four children stand at the corners of a square. A fifth child, playing the ‘Puss’, stands in the middle of the square. The children at the corners taunt the Puss and change places with each other when the Puss is not looking, and the Puss then has to try to reach one of the vacated corners (Iona and Peter Opie, Children’s Games in Street and Playground, p. 207).
15.1602: Peep! Bopeep!
Samuel Johnson defined ‘bo-peep’ as ‘The act of looking out and then drawing back as if frightened, or with the purpose to fright some other’; after the nursery rhyme ‘Little Bo- Peep’ (ODNR, p. 93).
15.1603: Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe?
After the nursery rhyme from Mother Goose’s Melody (c.1785): ‘Is John Smith within? / Yes, that he is. / Can he set a shoe? Aye, marry two. / Here a nail, and there a nail, / Tick, tack, too’ (ODNR, p. 247).
15.1605: Roygbiv
See note at 13.1075–76.
15.1605: 32 feet per second See note at 5.44–45.
15.1606: Absence makes the heart grow younger
After the proverb ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’ (ODEP).
15.1609: U. p.: up. See note at 8.258.
15.1611: Maurice Butterly, farmer
Maurice Butterly: a magistrate, Court Duff House, Blanchardstown (Thom’s, pp. 1135, 1821). See also note at 1.527. On the 1901 census, his son Joseph is listed as a farmer.
15.1619: The rams’ horns sound for silence
The horn of a ram (in Hebrew, shophar) is the battle trumpet of the ancient Israelites and is used to signal various Jewish religious holidays (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1619–20: The standard of Zion is hoisted
The Zionist flag—a central Shield of David set off by two broad blue horizontal stripes— was first adopted in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress and is now the flag of Israel (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1623: Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth
The first four letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Rather than say anything meaningful, Bloom is simply cobbling together Hebrew words he happens to know, most of which are related to Jewish religious practices.
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15. ‘Circe’ 933
15.1623: Hagadah See note at 7.206.
15.1623: Tephilim
See note at 13.1157–58.
15.1623: Kosher See note at 4.278.
15.1623–24: Yom Kippur See note at 8.35–36.
15.1624: Hanukah
Hanukah (also transliterated as Hanukkah or Chanukkah; Hebrew): ‘dedication’; an eight- day celebration that commemorates Judas the Maccabee’s victory over Antiochus Epiphanes in 165 bc (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1624: Roschaschana
Roschaschana (also transliterated as Rosh Hashanah; Hebrew): ‘head of the year’; the holiday that marks the start of the Jewish New Year (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1624: Beni Brith
Beni Brith (also transliterated as B’nai B’rith; Hebrew): ‘Sons of the Covenant’; the name of an international Jewish fraternity founded in 1843 in New York City (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1624: Bar Mitzvah
Bar Mitzvah (Hebrew): ‘Son of Command’; a ceremony undertaken by a Jewish male at the age of thirteen that marks his initiation into the Jewish religious community as well as signalling his arrival at early manhood (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1624: Mazzoth
Mazzoth (Hebrew): the plural form of the word mazzah, the flat, unleavened bread that the Jews were forced to eat as they fled their enslavement in Egypt. During the Passover Seder (see note at 7.206), the breaking and distribution of the mazzoth is an important ritual (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1625: Askenazim
The Askenazim (or Ashkenazim): ‘Jews of middle and northern Europe as distinguished from Sephardim or Jews of Spain and Portugal’ (OED); the name is the plural of Ashkenaz, one of Noah’s great-grandchildren (Genesis 10:3) and also the name of a kingdom that was allied with Israel against Babylon (Jeremiah 51:27). Ashkenaz was also the Mediaeval Jewish name for Germany (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1625: Meshuggah See note at 8.314.
15.1625: Talith
Talith (or tallit; Hebrew): prayer-shawl; a scarf-like garment worn by Jewish men during their morning prayers and worn all day on Yom Kippur (OED).
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934 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1626: Jimmy Henry See note at 10.982.
15.1629: Court of Conscience
Courts of Conscience: small claims courts set up in London and other cities and replaced by the County Courts (Brewer’s); also figurative for a moral tribunal (OED).
15.1629: His Most Catholic Majesty
‘His Most Catholic Majesty’ is a traditional title of the king of Spain (Brewer’s, s.v. majesty).
15.1630: Free medical and legal advice
Newspapers such as the Weekly Freeman ran advice columns (see note at 7.95) as well as advertisements for various types of advice, such as this presumably jocular ad for an establishment in Castlebar, the county town for Mayo: ‘Money Free! Medical Advice! Financial Advice! Match Making Advice! FREE [. . .] John Fogarty, Wholesale and Retail Establishment, Castle Street’ (Connaught Tribune, 14 Oct. 1917, p. 1, col. a).
15.1630: solution of doubles and other problems
Double acrostic puzzles were popular in Irish and British newspapers, such as the Irish Times, in the late nineteenth century. ‘An acrostic consisted of a series of clues, and the first letter of each answer in turn spelt out a word—the answer to the acrostic. A double acrostic consisted of a similar set of clues (at first typically in verse), and the first and last letters of each answer in turn spelt out two words—the answer to the double acrostic’ (John Simpson, JJON).
15.1633: PADDY LEONARD See note at 6.142.
15.1639: NOSEY FLYNN See note at 8.737.
15.1640: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?
Under British law this is not permitted (Hardiman, Joyce in Court, p. 106). Bloom used to work in insurance (see note at 13.845) and has been helping sort out some of the complications around Dignam’s insurance (see note at 12.764).
15.1642–43: by the law of torts you are bound over in your own recognisances
Tort: the breach of a duty imposed by law, in consequence of which someone is entitled to take legal action to seek damages (OED). The law of torts is thus a key component of civil law, such as any infraction regarding insurance policies. However, Bloom claims that the terms of Flynn’s bail (£5) are dictated under the law of torts, which means that he has confused civil law with criminal law.
15.1645: A Daniel did I say?
A Daniel: Elizabethan idiom, a fair-minded person; after ‘the prophet [in the Book of Susanna in the Apocrypha] celebrated for his sagacity as a judge’ (Alexander Schmidt, Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary). ‘A Daniel, still say I, a second Daniel! / I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word’ (The Merchant of Venice, IV.iv.340–41).
15.1645: Peter O’Brien See note at 12.190.
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15. ‘Circe’ 935
15.1648: PISSER BURKE See note at 12.504.
15.1651–54: Acid. Nit. Hydrochlor dil., 20 minims . . . ter in die
Latin abbreviations for chemist’s supplies (see also note at 5.477). Minim: ‘The least pos sible portion of something; a tiny particle, a jot. Formerly also in scientific use’ (OED). Acid. Nit. Hydrochlor. Dil.: diluted nitric and hydrochloric acid; used for afflictions of the liver (C. J. S. Thompson, The Compendium of Medicine and Pharmacy, p. 65). Tinct. Mix. Vom.: tincture of nux vomica (‘the foul nut’), which contains strychnine; formerly prescribed for a variety of conditions (p. 296). Extr. Taraxaci liq.: a liquid extract of the root of the dandelion plant, which was used as a tonic and for liver complaints (p. 243; OED, s.v. taraxacum). Joyce mistakenly wrote ‘taraxel’ (JJA, vol. 20, p. 53). Aq. Dis. Ter in die: distilled water, (taken) three times a day (with thanks to Harald Beck).
15.1655: CHRIS CALLINAN
See note at 7.690–91. For Callinan, Bloom, and astronomy, see 10.554–74.
15.1656: What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran?
Aldebaran is the brightest star in the constellation Taurus (see note at 14.1108–09). When a star’s position is measured at various intervals, its coordinates appear to change slightly because of the effect of parallax produced by the earth’s orbit around the sun (see note at 8.110). In effect, Callinan is asking for the measurement of this apparent shift in its position, which can then be used to calculate its distance (Robert Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], pp. 443–48). However, the qualifying phrase ‘subsolar ecliptic’ is nonsensical. The ecliptic is the apparent orbit of the sun around the earth as observed from the earth, thus it is by def inition subsolar (pp. 5, 233). Since the measurement of stellar distance is made through ascertaining the parallax of a star caused by the earth’s orbit around the sun, the phrase ‘subsolar ecliptic’ is redundant if not meaningless. If the word elliptic were used in place of ecliptic, the qualifying phrase would make some sense since, through the parallax effect, over the course of one year a star appears to trace out in the sky an ellipse whose diameter is inversely proportional to its distance. Ball uses the word elliptic in reference to stellar parallax (pp. 444–45). The word subsolar would still be a superfluous addition to the question, but the question would at least no longer be nonsensical.
15.1658: K.11
See 8.90–92 for the source of Bloom’s answer. In 1910, the parallax of Aldebaran was measured as 0.073 seconds of arc, indicating a distance of 44.7 light years (Kelvin McKready, A Beginner’s Star-Book, p. 139). Contemporary measurements place its parallax at 0.048 seconds of arc, indicating a distance of about 68 light years. The answer Bloom gives, K.11, takes the form of the Draper classification of stellar spectral class (temperature). Aldebaran is a type K.5 star (Henry Norris Russell et al., Astronomy II, p. 637); the subclass designations run from 1 to 10, so K.11 is an incorrect form.
15.1659: JOE HYNES See note at 6.111.
15.1662–63: When my progenitor . . . the uniform of the Austrian despot
That is, Bloom is claiming that his Hungarian ancestor served in the Austrian army and was imprisoned, perhaps in the failed Hungarian revolution against the Austrian Empire in
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936 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses 1848–49. This would make Franz Joseph I (1830–1916, r. 1848–1916) the Austrian despot (Thornton). The comment is perhaps modelled after a much-recirculated line widely mis attributed to Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81, Prime Minister 1868, 1874–80). When Daniel O’Connell made light of Disraeli’s Jewish ancestry, Disraeli is supposed to have retorted: ‘Yes I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon’ (Davison, James Joyce, ‘Ulysses’, and the Construction of Jewish Identity, pp. 30–31, 250 n. 54). O’Connell did disparage Disraeli for his Jewish pedigree when Disraeli unsuccessfully ran for parliament in 1835. Disraeli replied in a series of letters published in the London Times, none of which include this exact line (William Monypenny, Benjamin Disraeli, vol. 1, pp. 286–95).
15.1672: LARRY O’ROURKE See note at 4.105.
15.1673: eightday licence
In Ireland in 1904, pubs were strictly licensed to sell spirits for either six or seven days a week, but only during prescribed hours. The regulation of licensing was a contentious political issue in the early twentieth century. Various licensing acts passed at the start of the 1900s made it harder both for an aspiring publican to acquire a new licence and for the government to revoke an existing licence (John Greenaway, Drink and British Politics since 1830, pp. 53–90).
15.1678: CROFTON See note at 6.247.
15.1683: our own house of keys
That is, when will Ireland have its own parliament and thus enjoy home rule; see notes at 7.142 and 7.150.
15.1685–86: the plain ten commandments
The phrase ‘the plain ten commandments’ was a stock phrase in nineteenth-century preaching; for example, ‘And whether Popery conquers us or not, some other base superstition will conquer us if we go on upon our present course, and set up any new-fangled, self- invented righteousness of our own, instead of the plain Ten Commandments of God’ (Charles Kingsley, Sermons for the Times, p. 102). The Ten Commandments are at Exodus 20:3–17 and Deuteronomy 5:7–21.
15.1687: Three acres and a cow
The slogan ‘three acres and a cow’ was used by Jesse Collings (1831–1920, English MP, 1880–1918) in 1885 as part of his programme to advocate for government intervention in rural regeneration. The idea was that land should be so cheap that every farmer could afford to own ‘three acres and a cow’. The Conservative government of Lord Salisbury opposed Collings’s reform and this opposition led to their defeat in the election of 1885 and the installation of Gladstone’s Liberal party (Avner Offer, Property and Politics, pp. 41–42). Gladstone was forced to dissolve his government after less than six months because of the failure of the Home Rule Bill (see note at 17.1789–90). ‘The home-rule controversy of 1886 scattered the group of radical land-reformers that had gathered round the agricultural labourers’ movement. They were henceforth in opposing political camps. [Joseph] Arch and his associates adhered to the Gladstonian party, Collings and his associates became unionists, and the effectiveness of both
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15. ‘Circe’ 937 groups was destroyed’ (ODNB, s.v. Jesse Collings). ‘Three Acres and a Cow’ was also the title of a song from 1885 by Arthur Lloyd (Scottish singer and songwriter, 1839–1904).
15.1687: Saloon motor hearses
Saloon: ‘A type of motor car with a closed body for four or more passengers’ (OED). Saloon motor hearses began to be advertised in the late 1910s, although motor hearses appeared earlier. For example, ‘Saloon Motor Hearse. Funerals conducted to all parts of the Country [. . .] Robert Neely’ (Derry Journal, 5 Mar. 1917, p. 1, col. a). See also note at 6.406.
15.1688: Compulsory manual labour for all
Perhaps after the novel London Lavender (1912) by E. V. Lucas (English writer, 1868–1938): ‘But what I really want to see in force more than anything else [. . .] is compulsory manual labour for everybody. A kind of public conscription’ (p. 68).
15.1688–89: All parks open to the public day and night
In 1904, most of the Georgian parks within Dublin were not open to the general public. St Stephen’s Green was opened to the public in 1880 (see note at 17.897–98), but Merrion Square (see note at 10.1104), Fitzwilliam Square, Mountjoy Square, and Rutland Square (now Parnell Square) were reserved for fee-paying subscribers (DD, pp. 180, 223, 226, 254). Of these, only Fitzwilliam Square still remains closed to the public.
15.1689: Electric dishscrubbers
‘Now that the electrical dish washer, by which a child can do 10,000 plates and cups in a day, has been invented [. . .] doubtless the noble institution of marriage will be once more revived among even advanced thinkers’ (The Sun (New York, NY), 12 July 1891, p. 24, col. e).
15.1691: esperanto See note at 15.220.
15.1692: dropsical impostors
See note at 12.1785 for dropsy, an affliction attributed to the Citizen. The phrase ‘dropsical impostors’ was a used as a term of reproval: ‘At another, it is an old dropsical impostor, whom thousands of blaspheming dupes venerate as a second virgin quick of a new Messiah!’ (The Quarterly Review, July 1832, vol. 47, no. 94, p. 408; with thanks to Harald Beck).
15.1693: free love
A slogan adopted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by various writers and activists opposed to the principles of exclusively monogamous marriage. The term was first coined by John Henry Noyes (American preacher, 1811–66), who established a utopian community in Oneida, New York based on his principles, which lasted from 1848 to 1881. Noyes was adamant that within his community ‘free love’ did not equate to anarchic socialism: ‘We are not “Free Lovers” in any sense that makes love less binding or responsible than it is in marriage’ (John Henry Noyes, History of American Socialisms, p. 640).
15.1693: a free lay church in a free lay state
The slogan ‘a free church in a free state’ was first used by József Eötvös (Hungarian statesman, 1813–71): ‘The liberal slogan, which appeared in Hungary in the 1840s, was equivocal: some understood by it the Church’s freedom from the State, others the State’s freedom from the Church’ (László Péter, Hungary’s Long Nineteenth Century, p. 413 n. 22).
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938 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1694: O’MADDEN BURKE See note at 7.505.
15.1695: Free fox in a free hen roost
A derisive parody of Eötvös’s slogan ‘a free church in a free state’ (see note at 15.1693); ori ginated by Ferdinand Kürnberger (Austrian writer, 1821–79) and recirculated since (Harald Beck, JJON).
15.1701: mixed bathing
Mixed bathing, even for members of the same family, was not countenanced in the United Kingdom following the Baths and Washhouses Act, 1846. Such strictures were legally enforced in many locations. ‘Between 1890 and 1918 the calls for the provision of mixed bathing, or family bathing, became increasingly frequent, and were often successful’ (Christopher Love, A Social History of Swimming in England, p. 31).
15.1703–04: Kildare Street museum See note at 8.921–22.
15.1705: Venus Callipyge See note at 9.616.
15.1705: Venus Pandemos See note at 14.1494.
15.1706: Venus Metempsychosis
A joke. For metempsychosis, see note at 4.339.
15.1706: plaster figures See note at 8.921–22.
15.1707: new nine muses
The nine Muses of Greek mythology were the children of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess associated with memory; these are: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (lyric poetry or hymns), Euterpe (flutes), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (the mimic arts), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), and Urania (astronomy) (Brewer’s).
15.1708: Plural Voting
Until 1948 in the United Kingdom, a single voter could legally cast a vote in multiple constituencies: where they lived, where they owned property (if different), and their university constituency (if eligible). Those who owned numerous properties could potentially cast many votes. Such plural voting privileged the wealthy, landowning classes. Unionists opposed attempts to rectify this imbalance in democracy since plural voting had gained them an additional twenty-nine seats in Parliament at the expense of the Liberals in the election of December 1910 (Ian Packer, Lloyd George, Liberalism and the Land, pp. 136–37).
15.1711: FATHER FARLEY See note at 5.332–33.
15.1712: episcopalian
Episcopalian: ‘One who belongs to an episcopal church; esp. a member of the Anglican Church’ (OED). The Church of England, the Church of Ireland, and the Episcopal Church in the United States are among the many member churches of the Anglican Communion.
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15. ‘Circe’ 939
15.1712: anythingarian
Anythingarian: an individual of ‘no fixed or decided views’ (Partridge).
15.1714: MRS RIORDAN See note at 6.378.
15.1716: MOTHER GROGAN See note at 1.357.
15.1720: One of the old sweet songs See note at 4.314.
15.1723: I vowed that I would never leave her . . . tooraloom See note at 5.14–15.
15.1726: HOPPY HOLOHAN See note at 5.96.
15.1729: Stage Irishman!
Stage Irishman: a character-type common in music hall routines and drama from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth. ‘The stage Irishman habitually bears the generic name of Pat, Paddy or Teague. He has an atrocious Irish brogue, makes perpetual jokes, blunders and bulls [see note at 14.579] in speaking, and never fails to utter, by way of Hibernian seasoning, some wild screech or oath of Gaelic origin at every third word; he has an unsurpassable gift of “blarney” and cadges tips and free drinks. His hair is of a fiery red; he is rosy-cheeked, massive and whisky-loving. His face is one of simian bestiality, with an expression of diabolical archness written all over it. He wears a tall felt hat (billicock or wideawake) with a cutty clay pipe stuck in front, an open shirt-collar, a three-caped coat, knee-breeches, worsted stockings and cockaded brogue-shoes’ (Maurice Bourgeois, John Millington Synge and the Irish Theatre, pp. 109–10).
15.1731: The Rows of Casteele See notes at 7.471–72 and 7.591.
15.1735: THE VEILED SIBYL
Sibyl: ‘A prophetess of classical legend’ (Brewer’s).
15.1740: THEODORE PUREFOY
Mr Purefoy, the husband of Mina Purefoy, is here seen in fishing gear because in ‘Oxen of the Sun; he is said ‘to be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys off Bullock harbour dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or in a punt he has trailing for flounder and pollock’ (14.518–21).
15.1741: oilskin jacket
Oilskin: ‘Cloth waterproofed with oil [. . .]. Now (usually): a garment or set of garments made of such cloth’ (OED).
15.1746: prussic acid See note at 12.1582.
15.1746: aconite
See note at 17.624.
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940 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1748: Nelson’s Pillar See note at 6.293.
15.1748–49: the great vat of Guinness’s brewery
Guinness’s Brewery in St James’s Gate (see note at 5.388) has many large vats rather than a single immense one. A Frenchwoman writing in the 1880s of her visit to the brewery— already a popular tourist attraction—notes that the vat-house has twenty-seven vats which together can hold almost 30 million litres of beer: ‘The visitor who has the curiosity to poke his nose through one of the openings made in the side may have a very good idea of the feelings the Duke of Clarence experienced when he was drowning in the butt of Malmsey, with the difference, that if he fell headlong into this seething frothy mixture, he would be asphyxiated by the carbonic acid gas it gives off, before he could arrive at the surface. It would be a very pleasant way of committing suicide’ (quoted in Thomas and Valerie Packenham, Dublin: A Traveller’s Companion, p. 86).
15.1750: hanging themselves in stylish garters
After the expression ‘He may go hang himself in his own garters’ (i.e. he can do whatever he wants), proverbial since the late sixteenth century (ODEP); but here used literally.
15.1752: ALEXANDER J. DOWIE See notes at 8.13–14 and 14.1580–84.
15.1755: stinking goat of Mendes
Mendes was an ancient Egyptian city in the Nile delta which was home to a cult that worshipped a ram (E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, p. 27). According to Herodotus (Greek historian, fifth century bc), ‘Mendes is the Egyptian name both for Pan and for a goat. In this province in my lifetime, a goat had intercourse with a woman, in full view of everybody—a most surprising incident’ (The Histories, II.46, p. 104).
15.1756: cities of the plain See note at 4.221–22.
15.1757: bronzed with infamy
From a controversial sermon by the Reverend Richard Blacow, of St Mark’s, Liverpool, in which he accused Queen Caroline (the queen consort of George IV, 1768–1821) of being an adulteress. This was delivered shortly after her funeral. The case was widely publicised; Barlow was imprisoned and fined for libel. In his sermon, he proclaimed, ‘she returned to this hallowed soil so hardened in sin, so bronzed with infamy, so callous to every feeling of decency or of shame, as to go on Sunday last, clothed in the mantle of adultery, to kneel down at the altar of that God who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity’ (The Observer, 5 Feb. 1821, p. 4, col. e; Harald Beck, JJON).
15.1757–58: white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse
There are no white bulls mentioned in the book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse of John the Apostle (the Greek apokalypsis means revelation). However, a white bull is mentioned in the Book of Enoch, an apocryphal text (c. second–first centuries bc). In a section known as the Animal Apocalypse, Enoch describes one of his dreams to his son: ‘And in my sleep I saw that white bull likewise grow and become a great white bull, and from him proceeded many white oxen which resembled him. And they began to beget many white oxen which resembled them, one following the other (in due succession)’ (85:9–10).
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15. ‘Circe’ 941
15.1758: Scarlet Woman
From the description of the Whore of Babylon: ‘And the woman was clothed round about with purple and scarlet, and gilt with gold, and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of the abomination and filthiness of her fornication’ (Revelation 17:4). See also note at 14.620.
15.1760: Caliban! See note at 1.143.
15.1762: He’s as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox!
‘Mr Fox’ was one of several aliases that Parnell used during his relationship with Kitty O’Shea; others were ‘Preston’, ‘Stewart’, and ‘Smith’ (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, pp. 552–54).
15.1765: condensed milk tins
Condensed milk was first made in 1835 and commercially introduced in 1856 (EB11, s.v. Food Preservation). It was largely used by ‘the poorer part of the population’ and the Food Act of 1899 included provisions to guard against nutritionally deficient condensed milk (s.v. Adulteration).
15.1768: This is midsummer madness
In Twelfth Night, Olivia comments on Malvolio’s dramatic change in character, ‘Why, this is very midsummer madness’ (III.iv.61).
15.1769: as the unsunned snow
From Cymbeline, when Posthumus believes his wife, Imogen, is guilty of adultery: ‘I thought her / As chaste as unsunned snow’ (II.v.12–13); Blacow quotes this sarcastically in his sermon against the recently deceased Queen Caroline (see note at 15.1757).
15.1770: number 2 Dolphin’s Barn
Occupied in 1904 by Daniel Whelan, victualler (Thom’s, p. 1476); see also note at 11.898–900.
15.1770–71: Slander, the viper, has wrongfully accused me After Cymbeline: ‘This viperous slander enters’ (III.iv.37).
15.1771–72: sgeul i mbarr bata coisde gan capall
Sgéal i mbarr bata cóisde gan capall (Irish): ‘a pointless tale [literally, tale in the top of a stick] is a horseless coach’ (Brendan O Hehir, Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 350). Joyce made at least one mistake in the Irish: he wrote ‘sgeul im barr’ (possibly ‘ban’) (JJA, vol. 15, p. 304), which Gabler emends to the correct form. The typist further mangled the line, making the first half almost nonsensical, ‘sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall’ (JJA, vol. 15, p. 315), which is how this line appeared in all editions prior to Gabler’s.
15.1775: jerkin
See note at 3.304–05.
15.1776: Dr Eustace’s private asylum
Dr Henry M. Eustace: physician and surgeon, ‘private lunatic asylum for gentlemen and ladies, Hampstead and Highfield, Glasnevin’ (Thom’s, p. 1699); he also had offices at 41 Grafton Street (p. 1506).
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942 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1778: elephantiasis
Elephantiasis: ‘The name given to various kinds of cutaneous disease, which produce in the part affected a resemblance to an elephant’s hide’ (OED); the most famous victim was Joseph Carey Merrick (1862–90), known as the ‘Elephant Man’.
15.1780: Ambidexterity is also latent
According to some superstitions, ambidexterity is a sign of untrustworthiness, since the ambidextrous are equally adept at using both hands (Brewer’s).
15.1780–81: prematurely bald from selfabuse
After the superstition that masturbation leads to baldness (Richard Webster, Encyclopedia of Superstitions, p. 232).
15.1783: more sinned against than sinning See note at 13.432.
15.1785: axillary
Axillary hairs: armpit hair (OED).
15.1785–86: virgo intacta
Virgo intacta (Latin): intact virgin; that is, the hymen has not been broken by sexual intercourse.
15.1787: his high grade hat See note at 4.69–70.
15.1788: DR MADDEN See note at 14.190.
15.1789: Hypsospadia
Properly spelled hypospadias: ‘A congenital malformation consisting in a fissure of the lower wall of the male urethra, the result of arrested development’ (OED).
15.1790: preserved in spirits of wine
Spirits of wine: ‘alcohol, rectified spirit’ (OED); formerly used as a preserving agent in taxidermy (EB11, s.v. taxidermy).
15.1791: teratological museum
Teratology: ‘The study of monstrosities or abnormal formations in animals or plants’ (OED). There was no teratological museum in Dublin in 1904.
15.1792: DR CROTTHERS See note at 14.191.
15.1793: albuminoid
Albuminoid: that is containing albumin, a protein (OED, s.vv. albuminoid; albumin). Kidneys normally filter and retain proteins, so albuminoid urine indicates a serious impairment, which can be produced by a variety of causes, such as syphilis or alcoholism (EB11, s.v. kidney diseases).
15.1794: the patellar reflex intermittent
The patellar reflex test measures the leg’s reaction to a light blow directed at the tendon beneath the patella (kneecap) (OED, s.v. patellar).
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15.1795: DR PUNCH COSTELLO See note at 14.193.
15.1796: fetor judaicus
Fetor judaicus (Latin): ‘Jewish odour’; see note at 12.452–53.
15.1797: DR DIXON See note at 8.429–30.
15.1798–99: the new womanly man
‘Womanly man’ follows from ideas propounded by the Austrian anti-Semitic and misogyn istic author Otto Weininger (1880–1903) in Geschlecht und Charakter (1903; translated as Sex and Character, 1906). Weininger asserted that ‘Judaism is saturated with femininity [. . .] to such an extent that the most manly Jew is more feminine than the least manly Aryan’ (p. 306). Weininger’s book attempts to assert rigid categories of both gender and race: ‘In Weininger’s model the sexes are clearly delineated, articulated in differing and telling proportions in each individual’ (Reizbaum, James Joyce’s Judaic Other, p. 110). Edward Payson Vining (see note at 9.518–19) calls Hamlet a ‘womanly man’ in his book The Mystery of Hamlet; An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem (p. 59).
15.1801: feebleminded
Feeble-minded: in legal use to denote a degree of cognitive impairment; as defined in a 1908 parliamentary report: ‘ “Feeble-minded”, i.e., persons who may be capable of earning a living under favourable circumstances, but are incapable from mental defect existing from birth or from an early age: (a) of competing on equal terms with their normal fellows; or (b) of managing themselves and their affairs with ordinary prudence’ (quoted in the OED, s.v. feeble).
14.1802–03: Reformed Priests’ Protection Society
The Reformed Priests’ Protection Society, Captain R. Wade Thompson, honorary secretary: 13 D’Olier Street (Thom’s, p. 1475). Founded in 1844, the society provided assistance to priests ‘who conscientiously abandon the Church of Rome for the pure faith of the Gospel’ (p. 1389).
15.1805: grocer’s peas
Grocer’s peas: pale, mushy, processed peas. The qualifier grocer’s denotes inferior quality or mass-produced merchandise (OED, s.v. grocer).
15.1805: hairshirt
Hair-shirt: ‘A shirt made of haircloth, worn by ascetics and penitents’ (OED).
15.1808: Glencree reformatory See note at 8.160.
15.1808–09: very posthumous child
Posthumous child: ‘born after the death of its father’ (OED).
15.1818: MRS THORNTON See note at 4.417.
15.1827: Nasodoro
Nasodoro (Italian): ‘Nose of gold’.
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944 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1827: Chrysostomos See note at 1.26.
15.1827: Maindorée
Maindorée (French): ‘Gilt-hand’.
15.1828: Silberselber
Silberselber (German): ‘Silver-itself ’.
15.1828: Vifargent
Vifargent (French): ‘Quicksilver’ (that is, mercury).
15.1828: Panargyros
Panargyros (Greek): ‘All silver’.
15.1834: Messiah ben Joseph or ben David
In Jewish folklore, the true Messiah is a descendant of King David (i.e. Ben David) and is preceded by a Messianic descendent of Joseph (i.e. Ben Joseph) (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia). Messiah (Hebrew): ‘The Anointed One’. Ben (Hebrew): ‘son of ’. In the Old Testament, the word Messiah refers to any leader of the Jewish peoples or to anyone with a special mission ordained by God. In post-exilic times, the Messiah is the leader who re-establishes the land of Israel as the spiritual home for the Jewish people. See also note at 8.13.
15.1836: You have said it
In Luke 23:3, after having been accused by the Jewish elders and head priests of declaring himself the Messiah, Jesus is brought before the Roman governor, Pilate: ‘And Pilate asked him, saying: Art thou the king of the Jews? But he answering, said: Thou sayest it.’
15.1837: BROTHER BUZZ See note at 5.450.
15.1838: perform a miracle like Father Charles
Father Charles (1821–93), born Andrew Houben of Limburg, Holland, was a member of the Passionist Order. He came to the Passionist house of Mount Argus, in Harold’s Cross, Dublin in 1857, and stayed there until 1866. ‘Father Charles had a reputation for sanctity, and enormous numbers of people flocked to visit him because of the great number of miraculous cures said to have been brought about through his prayers’ (Anne Nolan, ‘Father Charles of Mount Argus, 1821–1893’, p. 841). He was beatified in 1988 and canonised in 2007.
15.1840: Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger
The Saint Leger: a horse race run every September at Doncaster, England (Thom’s, p. 29); one of the so-called ‘classic races’, that is, one of the five most prestigious horse races in Britain. Prophesy was frequently used in newspaper coverage of horse races in place of the more humble predict; for example, the 16 June 1904 Freeman’s Journal ran a column of racing tips under the headline ‘To-Day’s Prophecies’ (p. 6, col. j).
15.1842: Nelson’s Pillar
See note at 6.293.
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15.1844: king’s evil
King’s evil: another name for scrofula (see note at 15.41), ‘supposedly cured by the royal touch [. . .] last practised by Queen Anne who touched Dr Johnson without effecting a cure in 1712’ (Brewer’s).
15.1845: Lord Beaconsfield
In 1876, the title of 1st Earl of Beaconsfield was bestowed upon Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81; Prime Minister 1868, 1874–80), the English author, politician, and statesman. As a staunch defender of Britain’s imperial might, Disraeli was opposed to Irish Home Rule, but he was also sympathetic to the plight of the Catholics in Ireland (ODNB).
15.1845–46: Lord Byron
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824): English poet, famous for his good looks as well as his poetry. He died at Missolonghi, serving the cause of Greek independence (Brewer’s). In A Portrait, Stephen is beaten up by schoolfellows for saying that Byron is the greatest poet, rather than Tennyson. Byron, they say, is ‘a heretic and immoral too’ (p. 81). Stephen’s schoolyard defence of Byron is closely based on an incident from Joyce’s own boyhood. Stanislaus recalls how the young James was badly beaten and thrown against a barbed wire fence for his hero-worship of Lord Byron. James came running home to his mother, crying, with his clothing ripped (My Brother’s Keeper, pp. 73–74).
15.1846: Wat Tyler
Wat Tyler (d. 1381) led the unsuccessful Peasants’ Revolt against excessive oppression and taxation in England in 1381 (EB11).
15.1846: Moses of Egypt See note at 7.833.
15.1846: Moses Maimonides See note at 2.158.
15.1846–47: Moses Mendelssohn See note at 12.1804.
15.1847: Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving (born John Brodribb, 1838–1905): successful English actor and theatre director, known for his Shakespearean productions (ODNB).
15.1847: Rip van Winkle See note at 13.1112.
15.1847: Kossuth
Lajos (Louis) Kossuth (1802–94): Hungarian lawyer and statesman. One of the leaders of the 1848 revolt against Austrian rule; in May 1849, he was appointed the president of the newly established Hungarian Republic. He was deposed in August amidst internecine struggles and increased Austrian aggression. The Republic itself was reabsorbed into the Austrian Empire soon thereafter (EB11, s.v. Hungary).
15.1847–48: Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78): Swiss philosopher whose writings are associated with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution (EB11).
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946 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1848: Baron Leopold Rothschild
Leopold de Rothschild (1845–1917): younger brother of Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, both being the scions of a prominent Jewish European family of bankers. He was a philanthropist of Jewish causes and served as the president of the United Synagogue (EB11, s.v. Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild).
15.1848: Robinson Crusoe See note at 6.811.
15.1848–49: Sherlock Holmes
The fictional consulting detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (English author, 1859–1930) in 1887 and serialised in The Strand from 1891–1893 and again from 1901 intermittently until 1927. The serialisations in The Strand ‘famously captured the imagination of the late Victorian reading public straight away, elevating the magazine’s already decent sales figures to over 500,000 copies per issue’ (Clare Clarke, Late Victorian Crime Fiction in the Shadows of Sherlock, p. 2).
15.1849: Pasteur
Louis Pasteur (1822–95): French chemist whose studies of fermentation and bacteria led to the germ theory of infection (EB11).
15.1850: bids the tide turn back
According to Henry of Huntingdon (c.1088–c.1157), Canute (king of England, Norway, and Denmark, 995–1035) once commanded the rising tide of the Thames to retreat and not sully either his land or his robe. ‘The tide, however, continuing to rise as usual dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person. Then the king leaped backwards, saying: “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth and sea obey by eternal laws” ’ (The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, p. 199).
15.1850–51: eclipses the sun by extending his little finger
In ‘Lestrygonians’, Bloom ‘held out his right hand at arm’s length towards the sun [. . .] The tip of his little finger blotted out the sun’s disk’ (8.564–66).
15.1852: BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO
Nuncio (Italian): messenger or ambassador. See note at 12.1066–67.
15.1853: papal zouave’s uniform
The uniform of the Papal Zouave (see note at 12.1067) is picturesque: ‘The Zouaves wear dark blue red-trimmed jackets and waistcoats, with a light blue cummerbund, baggy red trousers with blue piping and dark blue or white spats. The headdress is a red tasselled cap (chechia). The “false pockets” round which the braid circles on the front of the jacket are red for the 1st, white for the 2nd, yellow for the 3rd and blue for the 4th Zouaves. Zouave officers have the ordinary officer’s tunic, with blue-black collar and gold ornaments, but wear it unbuttoned (showing a red cummerbund) and without epaulettes. The cuff is pointed and slit almost to the elbow, the edges of the slit being gold laced according to rank and having a scarlet lining. Only the service kepi is worn. The red trousers have the usual black stripe, and are cut very wide’ (EB11, s.v. uniform).
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15.1853: cuirasses
Cuirass: ‘A piece of armour for the body (originally of leather); spec. a piece reaching down to the waist, and consisting of a breast-plate and a back-plate, buckled or otherwise fastened together’ (OED).
15.1855: Leopoldi autem generatio
Leopoldi autem generatio (Latin): ‘Now the generation of Leopold was in this wise’ (that is, in this way); after Matthew 1:18 in the Vulgate, ‘Christi autem generatio sic erat’ (Now the generation of Christ was in this wise). This verse follows a detailed listing of Christ’s geneal ogy (1:1–17).
15.1855: Moses begat Noah
In the Bible, Noah preceded Moses. Noah’s father was Lamech (Genesis 5:25–32). Moses’s father is unnamed; he is simply called ‘a man of the house of Levi’ (Exodus 2:1).
15.1855: Noah begat Eunuch
Noah’s sons were Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Genesis 10:1). Perhaps Eunuch might be a play on the name Enoch, who was Noah’s great-grandfather (Genesis 5:19–32). Enoch is also the name of a son of Cain and the father of Irad (Genesis 4:17–18).
15.1856: Eunuch begat O’Halloran
Normally, eunuchs do not beget children. Technically, Halloran would beget O’Halloran. There are two distinct branches of the O’Hallorans in Ireland, one from Clare and the other from Galway (Edward MacLysaght, Irish Families, p. 170).
15.1856: Guggenheim
Presumably Meyer Guggenheim (1828–1905): a Swiss Jew who emigrated to Philadelphia and eventually made a fortune in the business of smelting and refining metal (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia). Of possible additional relevance is a prominent Triestine businessman, Carlo Guggenheim-Loria (John McCourt, ‘Tarry Easty’, p. 47).
15.1857: Agendath begat Netaim See note at 4.191–92.
15.1858: Le Hirsch
Baron Maurice de Hirsch (1831–96): German banker and philanthropist, known for his assistance to Jews living under anti-Semitic regimes in Europe. In 1891, he established the Jewish Colonization Association, which encouraged Jews to emigrate from Europe (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia). Hirsch was a very common surname in Trieste when Joyce was living there (John McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 226).
15.1858: Jesurum
One of Joyce’s English students in Trieste was named Immanuel Jesurum (Stelio Crise, Epiphanies & Phadographs, p. 57). Jesurum is a common Jewish surname in Trieste (McCourt, ‘Tarry Easty’, p. 47).
15.1858: MacKay
Another typical Irish surname, a corruption of Mackey (Edward MacLysaght, The Surnames of Ireland, p. 203).
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948 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1859: Ostrolopsky
Perhaps a corruption of Ostropolsky, ‘Eastern Pole’ in various Slavic languages.
15.1859: Smerdoz
Perhaps a reference to Smerdis, younger son of Cyrus the Great, the King of Persia. On his deathbed, Cyrus appointed Smerdis governor of the eastern provinces. In 523 bc, Smerdis’s brother Cambyses had him murdered in secret out of fear that he might attempt a rebellion. The following year, a priest from Media claimed to be Smerdis and proclaimed himself king (EB11). This also might be derived from the Triestine word smerdon, a shit, a good- for-nothing (McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 226).
15.1860: Weiss begat Schwarz
Weiss (German): white. Schwarz (German): black. One of Joyce’s English students in Trieste was named Oscar Schwarz, and Ottocaro Weiss was a Triestine student Joyce met while in Zürich during World War I (McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 226).
15.1861: Adrianopoli
Adrianopoli or Adrianople: a city in Turkey named after the Roman Emperor Hadrian (76–138, r. 117–138); known today as Edirne. In 1904, it was the third largest city in Turkey. From 1361 until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Adrianople was the residence of the Ottoman sultans (EB11).
15.1861: Aranjuez
Aranjuez: a city in Spain 42 km south-south-east of Madrid and a holiday destination for the court of the Spanish royal family (EB11).
15.1861–62: Lewy Lawson
Probably Sir Edward Levy-Lawson (1833–1916), editor and proprietor of the Daily Telegraph. He was Jewish (ODNB).
15.1862: Ichabudonosor
Combines Ichabod and Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar in the King James). Ichabod (Hebrew): ‘No glory’; his mother gave him this name because of her grief over the capture of the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 4:21). Nebuchadnezzar II: King of Babylonia (r. 605–562 bc); he conquered Jerusalem, destroyed Judea, and burned the Temple of Solomon (2 Kings 24–25).
15.1863: O’Donnell Magnus
Magnus (Latin): ‘great’, a title often affixed to the name Red Hugh O’Donnell; see note at 12.179.
15.1863: Christbaum
Christbaum (German): ‘Christ tree’; that is, a Christmas tree.
15.1864: ben Maimun
Ben Maimun (Hebrew): ‘of the house of Maimun’; the Hebraic form of the name Maimonides; see note at 2.158.
15.1864: Dusty Rhodes See note at 14.1546.
15.1865: Benamor
Combines Ben (Hebrew): ‘son of ’ with amor (Latin): love; thus, ‘Son of Love’.
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15.1865: Jones-Smith
Combines the two most stereotypically common English surnames.
15.1866: Savorgnanovich
In Russian, the suffix -ovich means son of; thus Savorgnanovich means ‘son of Savorgnan’. Savorgnan is an Italian surname. One of Joyce’s teaching colleagues in Trieste was Count Franco Savorgnan di Brazzà, who came from a family of Venetian nobles. ‘In adding the common Slav suffix “ovich” to Savorgnan, Joyce was doing the opposite of what an irredentist with Slav roots would have done’ (McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 226).
15.1866: Jasperstone
The jasper-stone is mentioned several times in the Bible, most notably in Exodus and in Revelation (Exodus 28 and 39; Revelation 21:2, 11, and 18–19).
15.1867: Vingtetunieme
Vingt-et-unieme (French): twenty-first (this is the 27th name listed in the genealogy).
15.1868: Szombathely begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom
Szombathely (Hungarian): ‘Saturday place’ (pronounced Som-baht-hay); a town in Hungary 260 km west of Budapest and the birthplace of Bloom’s father Rudolph Virag (17.535). Szombathely is listed in the Guida di Trieste as a Hungarian market town. Joyce might have chosen this town because of a Triestine named Marino de Szombathely (b. 1890), who ‘was working on an Italian translation of the Odyssey in the same period Joyce was writing Ulysses and with whom he shared many acquaintances’ (McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 96).
15.1868–69: et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel
Et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel (Latin): ‘and the name of him will be called Emmanuel’; after two passages in the Vulgate Bible. Isaiah 7:14 prophesies a messiah for Israel: et voca bitis nomen eius Emmanuhel (and you will call his name Emmanuel). Matthew 1:23 presents Jesus as the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy: et vocabunt nomen eius Emmanuhel (and they shall call his name Emmanuel). Emmanuel (Hebrew): ‘with us is God’.
15.1870: A DEADHAND
Dead-hand (more commonly mortmain): a legal term that is ‘applied to land held inalienably by ecclesiastical or other corporations, and stems from the medieval practice in which peasants turned their lands over to the Church’ (Brewer’s).
15.1871: writes on the wall
Daniel 5 tells of Nebuchadnezzar’s son, King Belshazzar, and his great feast served in golden vessels stolen from the Jews’ temple in Jerusalem. During the feast, ‘fingers, as it were of the hand of a man’ appeared and wrote a cryptic message on the wall (5:5). Daniel is summoned to interpret the writing, which predicts Belshazzar’s death and the dividing of his kingdom between the Medes and Persians.
15.1871: cod
Cod: a parody, hoax, joke (OED).
15.1872: CRAB
See note at 9.1182.
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950 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1873: cattlecreep
Creep: an enclosure for feeding young animals (OED).
15.1874: Kilbarrack
Kilbarrack: a suburb 11km north-east of Dublin, on the coast on the way towards Sutton and Howth.
15.1876: Ballybough bridge
Ballybough Bridge crosses the Tolka River in the suburban neighbourhood of Fairview, outside the north-eastern boundaries of the city of Dublin.
15.1877: A HOLLYBUSH See note at 2.102–07.
15.1878: devil’s glen
The Devil’s Glen: a scenic wooded area in County Wicklow. ‘Nothing in the county of Wicklow pleases or astonishes more, perhaps, than this glen. Its roaring torrent; its cliffs; its winding paths, presenting at every turn some new beauty that startles or delights; its waterfall; the magnificent forest trees which overshadow one of its sides; the huge masses of naked rock which impend over the other, “tottering to their fall”, all present a scene inconceivably grand and beautiful’ (A Three Days’ Tour in the County of Wicklow, pp. 49–50).
15.1880: frons to nates
Frons: front. Nates: the buttocks (both OED).
15.1882: THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS
Parnell rose to prominence advocating on behalf of tenants dispossessed of their property by rapacious landlords (see notes at 12.1367 and 16.606). However, during the O’Shea divorce scandal (see note at 2.394), evicted tenants turned angrily on Parnell and claimed that he was holding onto the Paris Funds, which were meant to help them, for his own private advancement (Frank Callanan, The Parnell Split, pp. 287–89).
15.1883: Donnybrook fair shillelaghs
Shillelagh (or shillelah, Hiberno-English): an oak club used in fighting (PWJ, p. 321). For Donnybrook Fair, see note at 5.561.
15.1883: Sjambok
Sjambok: an Afrikaans name for a whip made of rhinoceros or hippopotamus hide used to administer punishment or for driving cattle (OED).
15.1885: with asses’ ears
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, King Midas was given the ears of an ass by Apollo after he had judged Pan’s pipe playing superior to Apollo’s lyre playing (XI.181).
15.1886: He whistles Don Giovanni, a cenar teco See note at 8.1040.
15.1887: Artane orphans
See note at 6.537.
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15.1887–88: Girls of the Prison Gate Mission
Dublin Prison Gate Mission: 40 Blackhall Place, ‘Established (1876) for the purpose of affording employment and elementary instruction to women and young girls leaving the City Short Sentence Prisons’ (Thom’s, p. 1372).
15.1890–91: You hig, you hog, you dirty dog! . . . love you!
Variants of this rhyme—‘a rather special kind of Valentine anti-message, lovingly pouring vituperation and scorn upon the object of one’s affections’—have been in circulation since the mid-nineteenth century (John Simpson, JJON).
15.1893–96: If you see Kay . . . from me
‘If you see Kay’: acrostic, F U C K. ‘See you in tea’: acrostic, C U N T. We have been unable to locate older examples of these acrostics.
15.1897: HORNBLOWER See note at 5.555.
15.1898: ephod
Ephod: ‘A Jewish priestly vestment, without sleeves, slit at the sides below the armpits, fastened with buckles at the shoulders, and by a girdle at the waist’ (OED; see Exodus 28:4 and 39:2).
15.1898: huntingcap See note at 10.1264.
15.1898–99: he shall carry the sins of the people to Azazel . . . wilderness Azazel: see note at 15.776.
15.1899–1900: Lilith, the nighthag See note at 14.242–43.
15.1900–01: Agendath Netaim See note at 4.191–92.
15.1901: Mizraim, the land of Ham
Mizraim: from the Hebrew mitsrayim, the Old Testament name for Egypt, which is called ‘the land of Ham’ (Psalm 78:51 in the King James), after Noah’s youngest son. Ham’s second son is named Mizraim (Genesis 10:13–14).
15.1902–03: bonafide travellers See note 14.1440–41.
15.1904: Mastiansky and Citron See notes at 4.204–05 and 4.205.
15.1904: gaberdines
Gaberdine: ‘a garment worn by Jews’ (OED); after a line of Shylock’s in The Merchant of Venice: ‘You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, / And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine’ (I.iii.112–13).
15.1904–05: long earlocks
In Leviticus 19:27, Jewish men are commanded, ‘Nor shall you cut your hair roundwise: nor shave your beard’.
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952 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.1907: Belial
Belial (Hebrew): wicked or worthless; as in the epithet ‘Children of Belial’ (e.g., Deuteronomy 13:13, Judges 19:22, and 1 Samuel 2:12). In the New Testament, Paul uses it as a proper noun for that which is opposed to Christ, and therefore the equivalent of Satan (2 Corinthians 6:15).
15.1907: Laemlein of Istria, the false Messiah
‘A German, Asher Lämmlein (or Lämmlin), appeared in Istria, near Venice, proclaiming himself a forerunner of the Messiah (1502). He announced that if the Jews would show great repentance, mortification, contrition and charity, the Messiah would not fail to come in six months. [. . .] Asher Lämmlein gained a troop of adherents, who spread his proph ecies. [. . .] Even Christians are said to have believed in Asher Lämmlein’s Messianic prophecy. But the prophet died, or suddenly disappeared, and with him the extravagant hopes came to an end’ (Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. 4, pp. 482–83)
15.1907: Abulafia
Abulafia (Arabic, father of health) is the surname of a widespread family of Spanish origin. The most prominent member of this family is Abraham Ben Samuel Abulafia (1240–c.1291). ‘Kabbalist and pseudo-messiah. He travelled widely in Palestine, Greece, and Italy, returning to Spain where he proclaimed himself a prophet. In 1280 he went to Rome to attempt the conversion of Pope Nicholas III to Judaism, and was saved from death at the stake only by the pope’s sudden decease. Abulafia incurred the enmity of the rabbis [. . .] by his proph ecies of imminent redemption and his alleged messianic pretentions’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
15.1908: George R Mesias, Bloom’s tailor
See note at 6.831 for Mesias. Joyce wrote the wrong middle initial, ‘S Mesias’ (JJA, vol. 15, p. 306). Gabler emends to the correct initial, R for Robert (UCSE, p. 1076).
15.1908: tailor’s goose
Tailor’s goose: a smoothing iron (OED, s.v. goose).
15.1914–17: {missing lines}
The ‘missing’ passage indicated by the line numbers skipping from 15.1913 to 15.1918 is the result of Gabler initially misinterpreting a complex sequence of revisions that Joyce had made. In December 1921, Joyce attempted to add a short unit of dialogue to the page proofs of a passage that he had previously designated as being ready to print (JJA, vol. 26, pp. 171, 175). Since Maurice Darantiere—the printer for the first edition of Ulysses—was unable to add this new dialogue, Joyce modified it and inserted it instead into a later section of ‘Circe’ (JJA, vol. 26, p. 316; 15.4506–09). Gabler, having access to the discarded proof page, initially inserted this passage into the originally intended location, which is how it appeared in the 1984 edition. For the 1986 edition, realising his mistake, he took the passage out. The skip is to maintain consistency in line numbering with the earlier edition (UCSE, pp. viii, 1748; Daniel Ferrer, ‘Reflections on a Discarded Set of Proofs’, pp. 49–53).
15.1918: Reuben J. Dodd, blackbearded Iscariot
See note at 6.251 for Reuben Dodd. Traditionally, Judas Iscariot is portrayed with red hair and beard (Brewer’s).
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15.1918: bad shepherd
A bad shepherd is the opposite of Jesus Christ, who calls himself ‘the good shepherd’ (John 10:14). Judas supposedly descended from the tribe of Reuben, which was a pastoral tribe (Judges 5:15–16; EB11 s.vv. Judas; Reuben); this would make him the ‘bad shepherd’.
15.1919: drowned corpse of his son See note at 6.264–65.
15.1922: squeak
Squeak: a piece of information leaked to the police (Partridge).
15.1922: split
Split: ‘a police spy, an informer’ (Partridge).
15.1922: flatties
Flatty: a policeman (Partridge).
15.1922: Nip
To nip: to steal (Partridge).
15.1923: rattler
Rattler: a horse-drawn coach (Partridge).
15.1925: Pflaap
In ‘Oxen’, Pflaap is also used as the sound of the passing fire brigade (14.1569).
15.1926: BROTHER BUZZ See note at 5.450.
15.1927–28: yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat
In the Middle Ages, those accused of heresy were forced to wear ‘crosses of yellow felt sewn on to the clothes or sometimes of tongues of red, letters, &c’ (EB11, s.v. Inquisition). Jews also were forced to wear yellow habits in some Italian states during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Brewer’s, s.v. yellow); see also note at 1.2. In Germany and Poland, Jews were enjoined to wear pointed hats (Léon Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism, vol. 1, p. 66).
15.1928–29: hands him over to the civil power
Those accused of heresy were given one final chance to confess; ‘if they did not consent, they were handed over to the secular arm. [. . .] In effect, handing over to the secular arm was equivalent to a sentence of death, and of death by fire’ (EB11, s.v. Inquisition).
15.1929: Forgive him his trespasses
From the Lord’s Prayer: ‘and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us’ (Maynooth Catechism, p. 3); after Matthew 6:9–13 (see also Luke 11:4).
15.1930: Lieutenant Myers
John J. Myers (1863–1927): Lieutenant, City of Dublin Fire Brigade, 12 Winetavern Street (Thom’s, p. 1625).
15.1935: seamless garment
Jesus’s garment at his crucifixion is described as ‘without seam, woven from the top throughout’ (John 19:23).
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15.1935: I.H.S.
See note at 5.372.
15.1935–36: amid phoenix flames
The phoenix is a mythical bird that lives a set number of years, after which time it returns to Egypt to build an exotic nest for itself. It then sings a dirge, sets fire to the nest by fanning flames with its wings, burns to ashes, then comes back to life. This myth was adopted by some Christian writers as a symbol for the resurrection of Christ (Brewer’s).
15.1936: Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin
As Jesus is bearing his cross towards his crucifixion, he turns to the weeping women who are following him and says, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children’ (Luke 23:28 in the King James). For the Daughters of Erin, see note at 9.1192.
15.1941: Kidney of Bloom, pray for us
After the Litany of Loreto (see note at 13.287–89), where each invocation to Mary is followed by the appeal ‘pray for us’: ‘Holy Mary, pray for us / Holy Mother of God, pray for us’ etc.
15.1947: Sweets of Sin See note at 10.606.
15.1948: Music without Words See note at 11.1092.
15.1952: Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence See note at 14.1480–81.
15.1953: Vincent O’Brien
Vincent O’Brien (1870–1948): conductor of the Palestrina Choir at the Metropolitan Pro Cathedral in Dublin (DIB). Joyce studied music under him for a time (Ellmann, p. 151). Joyce’s schoolfriend William Fallon notes: ‘At the Bull Wall where free bathing facilities were provided, [Joyce] had become friendly with a fellow swimmer, Dr. Vincent O’Brien. Vincent O’Brien was John McCormack’s singing teacher, and was the first, I believe to make Joyce’s fine singing voice known to the public’ (O’Connor, The Joyce We Knew, p. 45).
15.1954: the chorus from Handel’s Messiah See notes at 8.1163–64 and 15.1397.
15.1955: Joseph Glynn See note at 5.395.
15.1960: In caubeen with clay pipe
For caubeen, see note at 9.295. Bloom’s outfit is that of a stage Irishman, for which see note at 15.1729.
15.1960–61: emigrant’s red handkerchief bundle
In Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, &c., Anna Maria Hall (Irish writer, 1800–81) describes how impoverished Irish emigrants were: ‘One poor fellow, who, as he said, had seen better days (and I believe him, for he, though ragged, had yet a dignified air), held a little handkerchief bundle in his hand as he landed, and on it being remarked that he had not much baggage, he said, “No, sir; no, indeed, this is all my baggage” ’ (vol. 3, p. 446 n.)
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15.1961: bogoak See note at 3.82.
15.1962: sugaun
Sugaun: a rope of hay or straw (PWJ, p. 338).
15.1962: with a smile in his eye See note at 12.161.
15.1963–64: I’m after having the father and mother of a bating
For ‘I’m after’, see note at 12.323. The spelling ‘bating’ indicates a strong north Dublin pronunciation of ‘beating’. For ‘the father and mother of a beating’, see note at 12.956.
15.1965: To be or not to be See note at 11.905.
15.1965: Life’s dream is o’er
‘Life’s Dream Is O’er’: a duet by Joseph Ascher (1829–69) (Music News, Dec. 1920, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 22).
15.1967: pastilles of aconite See note at 17.624.
15.1970: neckfillet
Fillet: a thin strip of cloth used as edging on a garment (OED).
15.1983: Hog’s Norton where the pigs plays the organs
To be from Hog’s Norton where the pigs play upon the organs: to be rural, ill-mannered, uncouth (Brewer’s).
15.1984–85: Tommy Tittlemouse
Tommy Tittlemouse is a nursery rhyme: ‘Little Tommy Tittlemouse / Lived in a little house; / He caught fishes / In other men’s ditches’ (ODNR, p. 416).
15.1985: short time
Short time: ‘A visit to a prostitute for one copulation only’ (Partridge).
15.1988: houri
Houris: ‘The large black-eyed damsels of Paradise, possessed of perpetual youth and beauty, whose virginity is renewable at pleasure’ (Brewer’s).
15.1991: pianola
Pianola: a player piano; proprietary name for ‘A device by means of which a piano may be played automatically, using a piano roll [. . .] The prototype of the piano-playing device which came to be known as the pianola was constructed in Detroit in 1895 by Edwin Scott Votey (1856–1931); in its original form it consisted of a cabinet placed in front of a piano, with felt-covered wooden “fingers” which would depress the keys in accordance with impulses controlled by a piano roll’ (OED).
15.1993: occiput
Occiput: ‘The back or hinder part of the head’ (OED).
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15.1993–94: unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry See note at 7.166–70.
15.1995: The greeneyed monster
That is, jealousy. In Othello, Iago disingenuously warns Othello: ‘Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy. / It is the green- eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on’ (III.iii.165–67; see also The Merchant of Venice, III.ii.110).
15.1998: What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for
After the proverb ‘What the eye sees not, the heart craves not’; with many variants (ODEP).
15.2001: Laughing witch!
‘Laughing witch’: from ‘Matcham’s Masterstroke’ (see note at 4.502). The phrase is a clichéd description for a wild girl; for example, ‘catching a dark-eyed, laughing witch of a creature in my arms, I imprinted on her glowing cheek, and then on her pouting lips, kisses’ (The Knickerbocker, Jan. 1836, vol. 7, no.1, p. 41).
15.2001: The hand that rocks the cradle See note at 11.1183–84.
15.2005: pelisse
Pelisse: a garment worn outdoors by children over their other clothing (OED).
15.2009: Love me. Love me not. Love me
From the game in which children pluck petals off a flower, traditionally a daisy, attributing alternating phrases to each: ‘She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not’.
15.2011: Silent means consent
After the proverb ‘silence gives consent’ (ODEP).
15.2011–12: her forefinger giving to his palm the passtouch of secret monitor
‘The Secret Monitor or Trading Degree is the specific title of a Master who has the duty of helping his brothers in trades and bargains with signs: “When you take the hand of a brother, if you grip him in the centre of the hand with two fingers, it means desist, if you grip him with one finger, it means proceed” ’ (Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry, p. 154).
15.2013: Hot hands cold gizzard
After the proverb, ‘A cold hand and a warm heart’ (ODEP).
15.2017: lion reek See note at 10.623.
15.2019: sulphur of rut and dung See 10.623.
15.2019: ramping in their loosebox
Ramping: ‘Standing erect, rearing, showing fierceness’ (OED). Loosebox: ‘a separate compartment or stall for a horse, etc., in a stable, or railway truck’ where the animal is free to move about (OED, s.vv. loose; box).
15.2020: their drugged heads
In the Odyssey, Circe’s palace is protected by animals ‘whom the goddess had given evil drugs and enchanted’ (X.213).
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15.2025: Hoopsa! Don’t fall upstairs
Falling upstairs is supposedly a good omen and portends a wedding in the immediate future (Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. stairs, stumbling going up).
15.2027: The just man falls seven times
‘For a just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again: but the wicked shall fall down into evil’ (Proverbs 24:16).
15.2027–28: After you is good manners
From Swift’s Polite Conversation: ‘Oh! Madam; after you is good Manners’ (p. 141).
15.2044: in all senses
Sense: direction (OED). In context, this means in all directions, after the French word sens, which refers to both meaning and direction. According to the OED, the English word sense does also refer to direction, but only very rarely.
15.2045: morris See note at 2.155.
15.2047–48: screen of peacock feathers
Peacock screen: an elegant ornament placed in front of a hearth (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.2050: Kitty Ricketts
Joyce’s description of Kitty Ricketts ‘suggests the real-life Becky Cooper in her younger days as a whore. Becky was probably the best-known Dublin prostitute from the beginning of the century until the 1920s’ (Finegan, Story of Monto, pp. 33–34).
15.2073: series of empty fifths
An empty fifth is a combination of two notes separated by five degrees of the scale, such as C and G, without the third degree (which means there is no indication of major or minor tonality). Stephen seems to be playing the ‘circle of fifths’: ‘The arrangement of the tonics of the 12 major or minor keys by ascending or descending perfect 5ths, thus making a closed circle’ (Grove).
15.2073–74: Florry Talbot
Possibly Florrie Power (b. 1875), who lived at 36 Faithful Place (Igoe, p. 287; 1911 census).
15.2074: tatterdemalion
Tatterdemalion: ragged, tattered (OED).
15.2076: bolster
Bolster: ‘A cushion or pad for leaning or sitting upon’ (OED).
15.2087–88: whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it
The music is Benedetto Marcello’s (Italian nobleman and composer, 1686–1739) Estro poetico- armonico (1724–27), a setting for voices and strings of Italian translations of the first fifty Psalms (EB11). For the penultimate Psalm (49), he used what he believed to be an ancient Greek melody from the Homeric hymn to Demeter (see the following note); for his settings of the other psalms he used Spanish-Jewish cantorial melodies (E. L. Epstein, ‘King David and Benedetto Marcello in the Works of James Joyce’, pp. 83–84). Thus, Stephen says it doesn’t matter whether Marcello copied a pre-existing melody (‘found it’) or created an original composition (‘made it’).
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15.2088: It may be an old hymn to Demeter
The Hymn to Demeter is the second of the Homeric Hymns, which were written between 800 and 400 bc; the Hymns ‘belong to the tradition of Greek poetry linked to the name “Homer” ’ (The Homeric Hymns, p. xi). Demeter was the goddess of crops and vegetation; in Rome she was called Ceres (Brewer’s).
15.2089: or also illustrate Coela enarrant gloriam Domini
Coela enarrant gloriam Domini (Latin): ‘The heavens relate the glory of the Lord’; paraphrases the opening of Psalm 18:2 (19:1 in the King James): ‘Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei’ in the Vulgate and ‘The heavens shew forth the glory of God’ in the Douay. The Vulgate reads ‘Dei’ (of God) instead of ‘Domini’ (of the Lord).
15.2089–90: nodes or modes
In musicology, a node is ‘A point, line or surface which, in a vibrating body, is at rest’ (Grove). For modes, see the following note.
15.2090: hyperphrygian and mixolydian
These are two of the modes in the Greek musical system; however, no Greek writer gave a technical definition of modes. Starting in the Middle Ages, modes are defined as a certain octave scale pattern of tones and semitones with a definite tonal centre. The Estro poetico- armonico primarily follows the hypolydian mode. However, parts of it range from the hyperphrygian (more accurately, the hypophrygian) to the mixolydian. The hypophrygian spans the octave B–b whereas the mixolydian is based on g–g’. Therefore, these two modes are separated by almost a complete octave (Grove, s.v. mode).
15.2091–92: priests haihooping round David’s . . . or what am I saying Ceres’ altar
Stephen momentarily confuses the two sources for Marcello’s Estro poetico-armonico, the Biblical and the Hellenic (see note at 15.2087–88). He means to say ‘Ceres’s altar’ since Marcello made use of what he believed was the melody to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, who was known by the Romans as Ceres. However, Stephen first mixes up the Greek goddess with King David (who wrote the Psalms) and then tries to correct himself, but first he mistakenly says Circe before getting it right by saying Ceres, who, unlike King David, would have been venerated by priests. Joyce’s ‘haihooping’ is probably from ‘The Last Chance of Crusty Dick’ by William D. Williams: ‘The Apaches had ambushed the wagon- train [. . .] “Hai, whoop”, each man was shouting to his horses’ (McClure’s Magazine, Dec. 1902, vol. 20, no. 2, p. 201; with thanks to Harald Beck).
15.2092: David’s tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist
Tip from the stable: that is, straight from the horse’s mouth (Dent). Some Psalms, such as Coela enarrunt gloriam Dei, have a heading, ‘To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David’ (Psalm 18). Stephen’s point is that David was divinely inspired and thus in a position to give his chief bassoonist inside information.
15.2093: Mais, nom de nom
Mais, nom de nom (French): ‘But, name of [the] name’; colloquially, it functions as a mild intensifier such as ‘But, in the name of God!’
15.2094: Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe
Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe (French): ‘Sow your wild oats. Youth must pass.’
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15.2095: Which side is your knowledge bump?
In the pseudo-science of phrenology (see note at 15.1468), a bump is ‘One of the promin ences on the cranium associated [. . .] with special mental faculties and propensities’ (OED, s.v. bump).
15.2097: It is because it is. Woman’s reason
After Two Gentlemen of Verona: ‘I have no other but a woman’s reason: / I think him so because I think him so’ (I.ii.25–26).
15.2097–98: Jewgreek is greekjew
Suggests Galatians 3:28: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ This phrase inverts Matthew Arnold’s binary of the Hellenic and the Hebraic (see note at 1.158).
15.2098: Extremes meet
Proverbial, since Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: ‘No midway ’Twixt these extremes at all’ (III.iv.19; ODEP).
15.2101: Whetstone! See note at 9.977–78.
15.2106: fundamental and the dominant
The fundamental: the lowest note (root or tonic) of a musical chord (OED). The dominant is the fifth note of a chord. The interval from the fundamental to the dominant is the greatest perfect interval of a chord (Grove).
15.2111–12: Interval which. Is the greatest possible ellipse . . . The octave. Which
Stephen is trying to describe basic harmonic progression. The progression begins with the fundamental note (or tonic) and moves to the dominant before returning to the fundamental (Grove). This particular progression is a common warm-up technique (with thanks to Michelle Witen).
15.2115: The Holy City
‘The Holy City’ (1892): a hymn by Frederic Weatherly (1848–1929) and Stephen Adams (born Michael Maybrick, 1844–1913). The song describes a dream in which Jerusalem succumbs to darkness after the Crucifixion but again becomes a city of promise after the resurrection. In Stephen Hero, Father Moran describes this song as ‘beautiful, full of melody and yet—religious’ (p. 66): Last night I lay a-sleeping, There came a dream so fair: I stood in old Jerusalem, Beside the temple there; I heard the children singing, And ever as they sang, Me-thought the voice of Angels, From Heav’n in answer rang, Me-thought the voice of angels From heav’n in answer rang
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960 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses ‘Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Lift up your gates and sing, Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna to your King’. And then methought my dream was chang’d, The streets no longer rang, Hushed were the glad Hosannas The little children sang; The sun grew dark with mystery, The morn was cold and chill, As the shadow of a cross arose Upon a lonely hill. Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Hark! How the Angels sing: ‘Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna to your King!’ And once again the scene was changed, New earth there seem’d to be, I saw the Holy City Beside the tideless sea; The light of God was on its streets, The gates were open wide, And all who would might enter, And no one was denied. No need of moon or stars by night, Or sun to shine by day, It was the new Jerusalem That would not pass away, It was the new Jerusalem That would not pass away. Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Sing for the night is o’er! Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna for evermore! Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna for evermore! (Bauerle, pp. 135–39)
15.2117: What went forth to the ends of the world to traverse not itself See note at 9.1042–44.
15.2119–20: Damn that fellow’s noise in the street See note at 2.386.
15.2121: Ecco!
Ecco! (Italian): ‘behold!’
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15.2123: whinny
In his entry for ‘Cosgrave’ (the model for Lynch; see note at 14.190) in his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote: ‘His laugh is like the whinny of an elephant. His trunk shakes all over and he rubs his hands delightedly over his groins’ (Scholes and Kain, The Workshop of Dædalus, p. 93; JJA, vol. 7, p. 111). Likewise, Lynch’s laugh is described as a whinny in A Portrait (pp. 201, 205).
15.2135: Antichrist
The personification of the enemy of Christians and, indeed, of the good itself. His appearance is involved with the end of time and its reckonings: ‘Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists: whereby we know that it is the last hour’ (1 John 2:18, see also 1 John 2:22 and 2 John 7).
15.2140–41: Sea serpent in the royal canal
Although the Antichrist is unnamed in the Book of Revelation, he does appear there as a dragon-like beast: ‘And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy’ (13:1). For the practice of newsboys blurting out ridiculous headlines, see note at 7.969.
15.2144: A time, times and half a time
‘And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman, who brought forth the man child: And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the desert unto her place, where she is nourished for a time and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent’ (Revelation 12:13–14).
15.2145: Reuben J. Antichrist See note at 6.251.
15.2145: wandering jew See note at 2.362.
15.2146: pilgrim’s wallet
Wallet: a bag for holding provisions as used by pilgrims (OED), but in this case a wallet for holding money.
15.2149: his only son, saved from Liffey waters
In various apocalyptic texts, the wrath God will wreak during the Final Judgement is compared to the loss of a son: ‘I will bring up sackcloth upon every back of yours [. . .]: and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the latter end thereof as a bitter day’ (Amos 8:10); see also note at 6.264–65.
15.2151: Punch Costello See note at 14.193.
15.2151: hipshot
Hip-shot: having a dislocated hip-joint (OED).
15.2151: hydrocephalic, prognathic
Hydrocephalus: a disease in which serous fluid accumulates in the cranial cavity, resulting in an expansion of the skull. Prognathic: ‘Having projecting or forward-pointing jaws or lower jaw’ (both OED).
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15.2152: Ally Sloper nose
Ally Sloper: a cartoon character in an illustrated penny weekly, Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday, published in London. Sloper’s appearance was quite comical: ‘A dissipated-looking old man with a red and swollen nose’ (J. Reading Ware, Passing English of the Victorian Era, p. 6).
15.2159–60: Il vient ! C’est moi ! L’homme qui rit ! L’homme primigène!
Il vient ! C’est moi ! L’homme qui rit ! L’homme primigène! (French): ‘He’s coming! It’s me! The man who laughs! Primal man!’ L’Homme qui rit is the title of an 1869 novel by Victor Hugo (French writer, 1802–85).
15.2161: Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux !
Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux ! (French): ‘Gents and ladies, place your bets!’; typically said by a croupier at a roulette table as he sets the wheel going.
15.2162: Les jeux sont faits!
Les jeux sont faits! (French): ‘The bets are made!’; that is, no more bets can be made.
15.2163: crepitant
Crepitant: crackling (OED).
15.2163: Rien va plus
Rien va plus (properly, rien ne va plus, French): ‘Nothing goes anymore’; that is no more bets may be placed, spoken by a croupier at the roulette table as the wheel starts to slow down. Joyce wrote ‘va plus’ on the Rosenbach (f. 36); the typescript reads the more correct ‘n’va plus’ (JJA, vol. 15, p. 216). Gabler reverts to the Rosenbach reading.
15.2166: The end of the world
Until 1756, Montgomery Street was called World’s End Lane (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 70).
15.2171–73: Jerusalem! . . . Hosanna
From ‘The Holy City’; see note at 15.2115.
15.2175–76: second coming of Elijah See note at 8.13.
15.2176–77: from zenith to nadir the End of the World
After the description of a vision of the apocalypse in Blake’s Milton: ‘Four Universes round the Universe of Los remain Chaotic, / Four intersecting Globes, & the Egg-formed World of Los / In midst; stretching from Xenith to Nadir, in midst of Chaos’ (Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 134).
15.2177–78: twoheaded octopus in gillie’s kilts, busby and tartan filibegs
For the octopus, see note at 8.520–22. Gillie: an aide to a Highland chief and, by extension, a synonym for a Scotsman. Busby: a tall fur hat with a bag hanging from the top at the right side, it is worn by officers in the British army. Filibeg: a kilt (all OED).
15.2179: Three Legs of Man
The triskelion (Greek, three-legged): a heraldic emblem for the Isle of Man, as well as Sicily and Mananaan MacLir (see note at 3.56–57). This may also refer to the Riddle of the Sphinx
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15. ‘Circe’ 963 that only Oedipus was able to solve. The question is ‘What goes on four feet, on two feet, and three, But the more feet it goes on the weaker it be?’ The answer is man, since he crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright as an adult, and leans on a cane in old age (Brewer’s, s.v. Sphinx).
15.2181–82: Wha’ll dance the keel row, the keel row, the keel row?
Keel: a coal-barge which carries coal from the Upper Tyne to the harbour at Tynemouth (OED). From the Scottish dance tune ‘Smiling Polly, or The Keel Row’. The last verse: ‘And weel may the keel row, / The keel row, the keel row; / And weel may the keel row, / That my laddie’s in’ (Bauerle, pp. 517–18). The dance is an ‘eightsome reel. First the principal individual moves in the center of the ring dancing. Then he chooses his partner and is later joined one after another by the others, until all are involved in the identical dance’ (Bowen, p. 276).
15.2183–84: Elijah’s voice, harsh as a corncrake’s, jars on high
Possibly suggests this passage from Jeremiah: ‘The Lord shall roar from on high, and shall utter his voice from his holy habitation: roaring he shall roar upon the place of his beauty: [. . .] The noise is come even to the ends of the earth’ (25:30–31). For corncrake, see note at 11.806.
15.2184–85: loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced
Lawn: ‘This fabric used for the sleeves of a bishop’. Verger: a minor church official, one who takes care of the church interior or carries a rod or other symbol before the dignitaries of a church or cathedral (both OED). See note at 15.1238 for surplice.
15.2186: old glory
Old Glory: a nickname for the Stars and Stripes, the national flag of the United States (OED, s.v. old).
15.2188: ELIJAH
See note at 8.13–14.
15.2189: Jake Crane Unknown.
15.2189: Creole Sue
‘My Creole Sue’: a popular American song from the late nineteenth century, with words and music by Gussie L. Davis (1863–99) (Maud Cuney-Hare, Negro Musicians and their Music, p. 49).
15.2189–90: Dove Campbell Unknown.
15.2190: Abe Kirschner Unknown.
15.2190: coughing with your mouths shut
From Vision: A Magazine for Youth: ‘COUGHING WITH YOUR MOUTH SHUT: If you ever attend a service in which Billy Sunday [see note at 14.1580–84] preaches you may get a little lecture on the art of coughing’ (1918, vol. 31, p. 122; with thanks to Harald Beck).
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964 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2191: trunk line
Trunk line: ‘A telephone line connecting two exchanges a long way apart [. . .] [or] a line connecting selectors or the like of different rank within an exchange’ (OED).
15.2191: God’s time
During a parliamentary debate on the Time (Ireland) Bill (subsequently Act), 1916, which shifted Irish time to British time (see note at 8.109), Tim Healy (see note at 7.800) proclaimed: ‘It is called “English” time, but it is no more English time than any other time. It is God’s time. [An HON. MEMBER: “Sun time”.] Yes, sun time. That it should be called English time or Irish time is a gross absurdity. It is just like people who, if their name is Doyle, and they insert seventeen letters after it, call it Gaelic spelling. I do not. I will never be associated with bad spelling or bad time keeping as a mark of patriotism’ (Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 17 Aug. 1916, p. 2223; with thanks to Adrian Howlett). Previously, the phrase ‘God’s time’ was used to criticise the introduction of standardised time zones in the United States, which was done at the behest of the railroad industry to simplify their timetables (John F. Stover, The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads, p. 45).
15.2191–92: Tell mother you’ll be there
‘Tell Mother I’ll be There’: an American song from 1890 by Charles Fillmore (1860–1952) (Bowen, p. 277).
15.2192: slick ace
‘ “Slick ace” cards are offered as one of the newer novelties. The aces in these decks have been treated with a substance which makes it possible to cut to an ace every time regardless of the shuffle’ (Sioux City Journal, 24 Feb. 1924, p. 32; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.2193: eternity junction
From the suicide note of an Englishman named Henry Collins, which was widely reported, ‘Just to let you know I’ve gone on my holidays. I don’t think I shall return, so shall only take a single ticket, you see the fares are so expensive. I think of booking to Eternity Junction’ (Daily Mirror, 5 Aug. 1920, p. 4; John Simpson, JJON).
15.2194: Are you a god or a doggone clod?
The contrast between god and clod (as in the idea of man as a clod of clay or earth) was a long- standing cliché that was prevalent in turn- of- the- century American evangelical preaching (John Simpson, JJON).
15.2194: the second advent
That is, the second coming of Jesus Christ.
15.2195: Coney Island
Coney Island, on the seaside at the southern end of Brooklyn, in New York City, is a beachfront famous for its many amusements and rides located along a boardwalk 3 km long (EB11).
15.2197–98: Be on the side of the angels
A colloquial expression; coined by Benjamin Disraeli (see note at 15.1845) in a speech in opposition to Darwin’s theory of evolution, made on 25 November 1864 at the Oxford Diocesan Society: ‘That question is this: is man an ape or an angel? I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate, with ignorance and abhorrence, these new-fangled theories’ (ODEP).
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15. ‘Circe’ 965
15.2198: Be a prism
The idea of being a prism was a common metaphor in Christian proselytising; for example, from a sermon printed in the London-based journal The Indian Female Evangelist: ‘May not the prism be a type of active Christian?’ (Apr. 1878, vol. v, no. 26, p. 60).
15.2198: higher self
The ‘higher self ’ is a key concept in Theosophy, which Blavatsky defines as ‘the real Ego who alone is divine and god’ (The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 445). The term also occurs within Christian writings, for example, ‘The higher self of the individual man infolds more of the consciousness of God than the lower, but lower and higher are the same thing’ (R. J. Campbell, The New Theology, p. 32).
15.2199: Gautama See note at 5.328.
15.2199: Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–99): American lawyer, orator, and politician. Known as the great agnostic, his religious beliefs cost him his political career. In 1896 he wrote a book entitled Why I Am an Agnostic (EB11).
15.2200: vibration
Thomas Jefferson Shelton (1849–1929), an American evangelist in the mould of John Alexander Dowie (see note at 8.13–14), advertised and sold telepathic cures that he called ‘vibrations’: ‘Thomas J. Shelton of Denver is not satisfied with being a plain J. C., he claims to be God Almighty. [. . .] Shelton will send you vibrations that will bring you success in business, make the lady of your desire love you nearly to death, and cure you of that tired feeling’ (Philistine, 1900, vol. 11, p. 120). Even though his schemes were much derided, they proved highly lucrative (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.2200: nobble
To nobble: ‘to seize, catch, get hold of ’ (Partridge).
15.2200–01: a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number
Joy-ride: ‘A pleasure trip in a motor car, aeroplane, etc., often without the permission of the owner of the vehicle’ (OED); the earliest citations date from 1909. Back number: ‘A number of a magazine, periodical, etc., earlier than the current one; hence colloquial (originally US), one who or a thing which is behind the times, out of date, or useless’ (OED). The meaning of buck is less certain. Given the context, it may be used in the sense of the ‘body of a cart or wagon’ (OED). It could also mean dollar (with, given the locale, a double sense of copulate) or belonging to ‘the lowest grade of a specific military rank’ (OED).
15.2201: lifebrightener
From an advert for Fels-Naptha, an American laundry soap: ‘Work-Saver, clothes-saver, clothes-whitener, life brightener—Fels-Naptha’ (Baltimore American, 16 July 1904; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.2202: The hottest stuff
Hot stuff can mean strong liquor or also ‘an exciting or alluring person or thing, esp. something sexually explicit’ (OED); originally an Americanism but in use in the United
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966 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Kingdom. Joyce uses the expression in ‘A Little Cloud’ in Dubliners: ‘I’ve been to all the Bohemian cafés. Hot stuff!’ (p. 76).
15.2202–03: the cutest snappiest line out
A popular advertising cliché of the 1920s (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.2203: supersumptuous
Another popular advertising cliché of the 1920s (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.2206: Seventyseven west sixtyninth street
This takes the form of a Manhattan street address, although Dowie (see note at 8.13–14) never lived in New York (furthermore, while 77 West 69th Street is a plausible address, this specific address never existed). From 1890 onwards, Dowie was based in Chicago, which also has a West 69th Street, but the street numbering scheme in that city precludes the possibility of a number 77.
15.2207: sunphone
Thomas Shelton explained that his power of ‘vibrations’ (see note at 15.2200) derived from the sun. By 1916, he had begun marketing a ‘sunphone’: ‘Among the advertisements in the convention program are offered many roads to hope and happiness through the medium of thought. T. J. Shelton advertises Sunphone and Sunsense, which “leads you into real and genuine telepathy so that you can talk to God, your neighbor, and yourself ” ’ (Miami Herald, 27 Sep. 1916; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.2207: Bumboosers, save your stamps
Bum boozer: ‘a desperate drinker’ (Partridge). The phrase ‘Bumboosers, save your stamps’ was a common formula used in theatrical advertisements, the point being that drunkards need not apply. ‘It is to be feared that this line has been seen in the advertisements for artistes in the commoner theatrical papers: “Bum-boozers—save your stamps” ’ (James Redding Ware, Passing English of the Victorian Era, p. 55; Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
15.2211: Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh
A distortion of the chorus from ‘The Holy City’ (see note at 15.2115): ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, / Lift up your gates and sing, / Hosanna in the highest, / Hosanna for evermore’.
15.2220: wusser
Wusser: variant of worser, ‘More reprehensible morally, more wicked; less virtuous; having a more evil disposition; more cruel or unkind’ (OED). The OED cites Benjamin Disraeli’s 1845 novel Sibyl as an example: ‘ “It’s the butties”, said Nixon; “they’re wusser nor tommy”. ’
15.2223: twig
To twig: to understand (Partridge).
15.2223–24: he aint saying nothing
After a recurrent line in ‘The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story’, one of the Uncle Remus stories, by Joel Chandler Harris (see note at 7.94–95): ‘Tar-Baby ain’t sayin’ nothin’’ (Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings, p. 8, et passim).
15.2227: Constitution hill
Constitution Hill is a section of road that runs north and south from the centre of Dublin behind King’s Inns and the Registry of Deeds. In 1904, it was a low-rent tenement district (Thom’s, p. 1461).
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15. ‘Circe’ 967
15.2227–28: I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in the brown scapular
Confirmation: ‘A sacrament in which the Holy Ghost is given to those already baptized in order to make them strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ [. . .] In the Western Church the sacrament is usually administered by the bishop’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). See note at 4.176 for brown scapular.
15.2228: Montmorency
The De Montmorencys were an old and distinguished Anglo-Irish family of Norman ancestry related to the Fitzmaurices (MacLysaght, Irish Families, Their Names, Arms, and Origins, p. 231). The paterfamilias in 1904 was Willough John Horace, fourth Viscount Frankfort De Montmorency (Thom’s, p. 323).
15.2231: larrup
To larrup: to beat, thrash (Partridge).
15.2233: Hennessy’s three star
An expensive French cognac (known today as Hennessy V.S., for ‘very special’). The firm was founded by Irishman Richard Hennessy (c.1729–1800) in 1765 (DIB).
15.2234: Whelan
Identity unknown (a Whelan was mentioned in ‘Lestrygonians’; see note at 8.353).
15.2236: In the beginning was the word See note at 14.1390.
15.2236: in the end world without end See note at 2.200–01.
15.2236–37: Blessed be the eight beatitudes
Jesus spoke of the eight Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount; each is prefaced by the phrase ‘Blessed are’ (Matthew 5:3–12; a similar but shorter list of beatitudes is recounted in Luke 6:20–23).
15.2241: THE BEATITUDES See note at 14.1459–60.
15.2242: barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–91): American showman who, in 1871, founded the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’, the most popular circus of the late nineteenth century (EB11).
15.2244: LYSTER
Lyster’s (see note at 9.1) attire is typical of the clothes worn by a Quaker during the seventeenth century, the era when that religion was founded: ‘the broad-brimmed hat [. . .], knee- breeches [. . .] and grey stockings’ (The Art-Journal, 1 June 1871, p. 157).
15.2246: Seek thou the light See note at 9.332–33.
15.2247: He corantos by See note at 9.12.
15.2247: Best
See note at 9.74.
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968 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2248: John Eglinton See note at 9.18.
15.2249: mandarin’s kimono
In ‘Scylla and Charybdis’, Mulligan’s nickname for Eglinton was ‘the chinless Chinaman’ (9.1129). Mandarin: ‘An official in any of the senior grades of the former imperial Chinese civil service’; and, by derivation, ‘A person (esp. an official) who commands considerable power or importance (frequently one perceived as reactionary and secretive)’. The kimono is not Chinese, but ‘A long Japanese robe with sleeves’ (all OED).
15.2249: Nankeen yellow
Nankeen: ‘A kind of pale yellowish cloth, originally made at Nanking [China] from a yellow variety of cotton’ (OED).
15.2250: pagoda hat
Pagoda hat: a hat with a pointed top, sometimes tiered, made of straw or bamboo and common in China, Thailand, and Malaysia. Westernised adaptations, made of other materials, such as silk, date to the eighteenth century (Rudolf Broby-Johansen, Body and Clothes, p. 171).
15.2254: don’t you know See note at 5.185.
15.2254–55: A thing of beauty . . . Keats says
From John Keats’s poem Endymion (1818): ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever: / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness’ (ll. 1–3).
15.2257: greencapped dark lantern See 9.29.
15.2259: Tanderagee
Tanderagee: a small town about 30 km south of Lough Neagh, in County Armagh.
15.2261: ollave
See note at 9.30.
15.2262: Mananaan MacLir
This is A.E. in the guise of Mananaan MacLir (see note at 3.56–57). See also note at 9.190–91.
15.2264: elvers
Elver: a young eel (OED).
15.2265: bicycle pump See note at 8.523–24.
15.2268: Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor! Ma!
In The Candle of Vision, A.E. claims that the basic elements of human speech, namely vowels and consonants, ‘are the sound correspondences of powers which in their combin ation and interaction make up the universe’ (p. 120). Although he does not discuss ‘Aum’, he did write a poem entitled ‘Om’ (a variant spelling; see also note at 1.85). In his book, he does discuss each of the other vocables here, except for Hek: ‘I imagine a group of the ancestors lit up from within, endowed with the primal blessings of youth and ecstasy [. . .] I can imagine them looking up in the fire in the sky and calling out “El” if it was the light
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15. ‘Circe’ 969 they adored, or if they rejoiced in the heat and light together they would name it “Hel”. Or if they saw death, and felt it as the stillness or ending of motion, of breath, they would say “Mor”. Or if the fire acting on the water made it boil, they would instinctively combine the sound equivalents of water and fire, and “Wal” would be the symbol. If the fire of life was kindled in the body to generate its kind, the sound symbol would be “Lub”. When the axe was used to cut, its hardness would prompt the use of the hard or metallic affinity in sound, and “Ak” would be to cut or pierce. One extension of meaning after another would rapidly increase the wealth of significance, and recombinations of roots the power of expression. The root “M” with its sense of finality would suggest “Mi” to diminish, and as to measure a thing is to go to its ends, “Ma” would also mean to measure, and as to think a thing is to measure it, “Ma” would also come to be associated with thinking’ (pp. 129–30).
15.2268–69: White yoghin of the gods
Yogin is the term Blavatsky uses for a practitioner of the Indian mysticism yoga (the usual English word is yogi). ‘In the ecstatic Yogin, in the illuminated Seer, the spirit will shine like the noon-day sun’ (Isis Unveiled, vol. 1, p. xviii).
15.2269: Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos
Hermes Trismegistus (Ancient Greek): Thrice-greatest Hermes; an epithet used for the author of a third-century collection of writings ‘in which it was sought to combine Neo- Platonic philosophy, Philonic Judaism, and cabalistic theosophy, and so provide the world with some acceptable substitute for [. . .] Christianity’ (EB11). Unsurprisingly, these texts were influential for the Theosophists. Pimander, from Poimandres, is the title of the first of the texts ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus (G. R. S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, vol. 1, p. 3). The name Poimandres is formed irregularly from the Greek. Mead writes that ‘the name “Poimandres” may be a Greek transliteration of an Egyptian name [. . .] In any case “Man-Shepherd” was certainly the idea conveyed to the Non-Egyptian by the name, however philologically unsound its form may be in Greek’ (vol. 2, pp. 51– 52).
15.2270: Punarjanam patsypunjaub!
Punarjanam (Hindi): rebirth. The Theosophists used the Sanskrit equivalent, Punarjanman (Powis Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 110). Patsy: nickname for Patrick. Punjaub (or Punjab): the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, now split between India and Pakistan (OED).
15.2271: beware the left, the cult of Shakti
Shakti (Sanskrit): power; specifically the female generative power, which is associated with the left-hand side, whereas male energy is located on the right (Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 127).
15.2272: Shiva, darkhidden Father!
Shiva: one of the three gods of the Hindu trinity; both the destroyer and the regenerator (Hoult, Dictionary of Some Theosophical Terms, p. 129).
15.2273: its cooperative dial See note at 9.269–70.
15.2275: Aum! Baum! Pyjaum!
A.E. does not mention ‘Baum’ or ‘Pyjaum’ in The Candle of Vision; see note at 15.2268.
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970 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2275: I am the light of the homestead!
See note at 2.412 for the Irish Homestead. The exclamation ‘I am the light of the world’ was made by Christ (John 8:12). See also note at 9.63–64.
15.2275–76: I am the dreamery creamery butter See note at 9.63–64.
15.2277: A skeleton judashand strangles the light
In John 8:12, Jesus says: ‘I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life’; thus Judas would be that which strangles the light.
15.2284: fag
Fag: cigarette (OED).
15.2288: pot
Pot (pronounced po; French): a drink. Context, however, clearly indicates that Zoe means cigarette. Presumably, she is trying to impress Lynch by using a French word, but, unfortunately, she uses the wrong word. The first French translation also uses the word pot here (James Joyce, Ulysse, p. 563).
15.2292: nixie’s green
Nixie: ‘In German folklore: a water sprite or nymph having a human torso and the tail of a fish’ (OED).
15.2297: makes sheep’s eyes
To cast sheep’s eyes at: to look amorously or longingly at (Dent).
15.2304: Lipoti Virag
Bloom’s grandfather, ‘Leopold’ Virag. See also note at 12.1816.
15.2304: basilicogrammate
That is, royal secretary or scribe. Basilikos (ancient Greek): royal. Grammateus (ancient Greek): secretary, registrar. The title basilikos grammateus for a royal scribe is attested in papyri (Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. basilikos). The Anglicised form basilicogrammate was used in archaeological and antiquarian texts from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Joyce’s immediate source was W. C. Wrankmore’s translation of Moritz Busch’s Guide for Travellers in Egypt (1858). From the detailed description of Chamber 16 at the Egyptian complex at Memnonium (modern Ramesseum): ‘In the inner chamber, the inhabitant of the tomb, a basilicogrammate or king’s secretary is placed before a tribunal of the dead, as is usual, previous to his admittance to Osiris’ (p. 114). Joyce took notes from this book on a ‘Circe’ notesheet (Notesheet Circe 19.9–13; John Simpson, JJON).
15.2308–09: Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell See note at 8.302.
15.2309: Egyptian pshent
Pschent: ‘The double crown of ancient Egypt’ (OED).
15.2312: Szombathely See note at 15.1868.
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15. ‘Circe’ 971
15.2321: our tribal elixir of gopherwood
Gopher wood: the material Noah used for building the ark (Genesis 6:14). The Hebrew word gofer is of uncertain meaning (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary). The King James translates it as ‘gopher wood’, the Douay as ‘timber planks’.
15.2322: tightly staysed
For stays, see note at 3.431.
15.2325: Hippogriff
Hippogriff: a mythical creature, ‘like a griffin, but with body and hind-quarters resembling those of a horse’ (OED).
15.2329: pannier
Pannier: a skirt that is extended and expanded either through padding or an interior frame (OED)
15.2331: gull has been mulcted
Gull: a credulous person. To mulct: to extract money from (both OED).
15.2333: Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today
After the proverb, ‘Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today’ (ODEP).
15.2334: Parallax! See note at 8.110.
15.2334–35: Did you hear my brain go snap?
After Leonora Piper (1857–1950), a spiritualist medium from Boston. When coming out of a trance, she often asked, ‘Did you hear my head snap?’ (Michel Sage, Mrs Piper and the Society for Psychical Research, p. 176; Gilbert, p. 332 n.).
15.2335: Pollysyllabax!
A nonsense word that combines polysyllable with parallax.
15.2340: flapper
Flapper: a young prostitute; in the early twentieth century the word was applied to ‘a very immoral young girl’ (Partridge).
15.2341: Lily of the alley
After the Song of Solomon: ‘I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys’ (2:1).
15.2341: bachelor’s button discovered by Rualdus Colombus
Bachelor’s button: a type of flower of round or button-like shape (OED); in this case, used in reference to the clitoris. ‘It is indeed but three centuries since the clitoris was so little known that (in 1593) Realdus Columbus actually claimed the honor of discovering it. Columbus was not its discoverer, for Fallopius speedily showed that Avicenna and Albucasis had referred to it’ (Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. 5, pp. 129–30). Ellis is incorrect about the date: Matteo Realdo Colombo’s (Italian anatomist, 1516–59) audacious claim to have ‘discovered’ the clitoris was published in his book Da Re Anatomica, which came out shortly after his death in 1559. In one of his later Ulysses notebooks (Buffalo V.A.2.b), Joyce wrote ‘button discovered by Rualdus Columbus 1593’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 84; JJA, vol. 12, p. 107).
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972 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2342: Tumble her See note at 9.259–60.
15.2345: oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull
That is, her hair; the word vegetable is used in the sense of ‘endowed with the power or faculty of growth, as opposed to the powers of sensation, movement or rational thought’ (OED). By saying it is oxygenated, he means that it is bleached: ‘Oxygenated water, or hydric peroxide, is used as a bleaching agent for the hair and skin, converting brunettes into blondes’ (Elias Hudson Bartley, Text-book of Medical Chemistry, p. 133).
15.2345: What ho, she bumps!
‘What ho! She bumps!’: a satirical and slightly obscene catchphrase applied to ‘any display of vigour—especially feminine’ (Partridge); also a music-hall song from 1899 by Harry Castling (1865–1933) and A. J. Mills (1872–1919), although the expression pre-dates the song (Bowen, pp. 278–79).
15.2345–46: ugly duckling
From Hans Christian Andersen’s (Danish writer, 1805–75) story of this name about a misfit mistaken for an ugly duckling who grows up into a beautiful swan (Brewer’s).
15.2346: longcasted
Cast: form or shape (OED); thus, long-casted, tall.
15.2346: deep in keel
Keel (Scottish dialect): posterior (Partridge); thus, deep in keel, having large buttocks.
15.2348: When you come out without your gun
From the catchphrase ‘the things you see when you haven’t got your gun’, said at the sight of an oddly dressed or strange-looking person (Partridge).
15.2350–51: Pay your money, take your choice
After the catchphrase, ‘You pays your money and you takes your choice’ (ODEP).
15.2351: How happy could you be with either
After John Gay’s (English playwright and poet, 1685–1732) The Beggar’s Opera (1728): ‘How happy could I be with either’ (II.xiii, air 35, p. 55).
15.2361–62: When coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size
Foie gras (French, literally ‘fat liver’): ‘goose or duck liver which is grossly enlarged by methodically fattening the bird [. . .] The enlarged liver has been counted a delicacy since classical times’ (Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 318).
15.2363: fennygreek and gumbenjamin
Fennygreek (properly spelled fenugreek): ‘A leguminous plant (Trigonella Fœnum Græcum) cultivated for its seeds’. Gum benjamin: a popular corruption of gum benzoin, ‘A dry and brittle resinous substance with a fragrant odour and slightly aromatic taste [. . .] used in the preparation of benzoic acid, in medicine, and extensively in perfumery’ (both OED).
15.2365: Fleshhotpots of Egypt See note at 3.177–78.
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15. ‘Circe’ 973
15.2366: Lycopodium
Lycopodium: ‘A plant of the cryptogamous genus Lycopodium: a club-moss’; powder made from its seeds is called ‘vegetable brimstone’ because of its flammability (OED). It stimulates the mucous membranes and can work as an aphrodisiac (W. B. A. Scott, ‘On the Physiological and Therapeutic Action of Aloes’, p. 80).
15.2366–67: Slapbang! There he goes again
After the title of a music-hall song, ‘Slap Bang! Here We Are Again’ (1866; also known as ‘Jolly Dogs’) by Harry Copeland (Bowen, p. 280).
15.2371: Contact with a goldring
‘The peasantry, both in England and Ireland [. . .] fancy any growth like a wart on the skin may be removed by rubbing a wedding ring upon them’ (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions).
15.2371–72: Argumentum ad feminam
Argumentum ad feminam (Latin): ‘Argument against the woman’; after the expression in logic argumentum ad hominem, argument against the man, that is, discrediting an argument by discrediting the person making it (OED, s.v. ad hominem).
15.2372–73: consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosaurus
After the Roman formula for telling dates, ‘in the consulship of X and Y’. ‘Because the consulship was an annual magistracy, and because two new consuls generally assumed the office each year, these consular changeovers could be used as reference points for referring to a specific year’ (David Matz, Daily Life of the Ancient Romans, p. xv). Diplodocus: a large herbivorous dinosaur. Ichthyosaurus: an extinct sea animal, with features akin to reptiles and fish (both OED).
15.2373: Eve’s sovereign remedy
Sovereign remedy: ‘Efficacious or potent in a superlative degree’ (OED, s.v. sovereign).
15.2374: Huguenot See note at 5.465.
15.2376–77: Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg
Wheatmeal: a type of brown flour, intermediate between wholemeal and white flour (Davidson, Oxford Companion to Food, p. 315). Wheatmeal, honey, and nutmeg are some of the ingredients for German Honey Cake: ‘Warm together six ounces of honey and two ounces of butter. Sift into this six ounces of flour, half a teaspoonful of ground cloves and nutmeg mixed, the same of chopped lemon peel and carbonate of soda. Roll out thinly, and cut into fancy shapes. Bake in a quiet oven’ (Anglo-Celt, 11 May 1912, p. 11, col. g).
15.2379: Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax
For lycopodium, see note at 15.2366 and for syllabax, see 15.2335.
15.2381: wartsblood spreads warts
This is essentially correct. A wart is an outgrowth of blood vessels from the skin supported by fibrous tissue and a covering of hardened skin. Warts tend to manifest in batches and are spread by irritation from the wart to adjacent skin (EB11).
Dictionary: NOSD
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974 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2385: mnemotechnic
Mnemotechnic (or mnemonics): ‘the art of refreshing, improving, or developing the memory, especially by artificial aids; a system of precepts and rules intended to aid or improve the memory’ (OED, s.v. mnemonics).
15.2385: La causa è santa. Tara. Tara See note at 8.623–24.
15.2388: Rosemary
Ophelia: ‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance—pray you, love, remember’ (Hamlet, IV.v.173).
15.2389: The touch of a deadhand cures
Touching a dead man’s hand is supposed to cure warts and other ailments and blemishes (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstition, s.v. corpse’s hand cures).
15.2394: aconite
See note at 17.624.
15.2395: muriatic
Muriatic acid: the commercial name for hydrochloric acid which, in a concentrated dose, is fatal if ingested (OED).
15.2395: priapic pulsatilla
Pulsatilla vulgaris (or pasque flower) is a plant with purple bell-shaped leaves that grows wild throughout Europe (OED, s.v. pasque flower). Like lycopodium (see note at 15.2366), it stimulates the mucous membranes and can work as an aphrodisiac (Scott, ‘On the Physiological and Therapeutic Action of Aloes’, pp. 80–81)—hence its being called ‘priapic’.
15.2396–97: caustic . . . Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck
From Syphilis and Local Contagious Disorders (1881), a medical textbook by Berkeley Hill (1834–92) of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh: ‘Warts may be removed either by excision or by caustic. Small ones may be snipped off with scissors, and the base cauterised with lunar caustic. Large masses cannot be cut off on account of the free hæmorrhage that follows; and the écraseur, or wire loop, should be used to remove them. The loop should not include the skin, and should be tightened very slowly to prevent hæmorrhage after the mass is cut through’ (p. 473).
15.2397: the Bulgar and the Basque
The Basque here is Catalina de Erauso (1592–1650), a Basque nun who left her religious order in St Sebastian and fled to South America. Now dressed as a man and assuming the name of Alonso Díaz Ramírez de Guzmán, she participated as a soldier in the conquest of Peru and Chile. Thomas de Quincey (English writer, 1785–1859) wrote an extended essay on her, The Spanish Military Nun (1847). We have been unable to locate an example of a cross-dressing Bulgarian woman. The word bulgar might here refer to that word’s etymological connection to bugger: ‘The word “bugger” has its origins in the Middle Ages. Heresy had flourished during the tenth century in Bulgaria, and each new manifestation of unorthodoxy throughout Europe was described as one more branch of the Bulgarian heresy. Heretics were believed to be addicted to every vice, and their sexual practices were much sensationalised from the pulpits by friars’ (Patrick Higgins, A Queer Reader, p. 41; see also OED, s.v. bugger).
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15. ‘Circe’ 975
15.2399–2400: devote an entire year to the study of the religious problem
According to Stanislaus Joyce, Joyce’s college friend Francis Sheehy-Skeffington (see note at 2.256) ‘intended to devote a year’ to the consideration of the religious question (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 152; with thanks to Liam Whelan). Throughout the nineteenth century, the phrases ‘the religious problem’ or ‘the religious question’ were used in a variety of different contexts, suggesting that there is not just the one religious problem. In general, this was often used to refer to negotiating the tension between religiosity and rationalism within an industrialised, post-Enlightenment society. For example: ‘The religious question is the struggle between what is called the scientific spirit and religion’ (Emile De Laveleye, ‘The Future of Religion’, The Contemporary Review, vol. 54, July 1888, p. 1). The phrase was also used in reference to the rights of a religious group within a particular country, such as those of Catholics in Ireland; for example, ‘The question of Nationality is second only in importance to the religious question; because on that great National question depends what Catholics and Protestants alike hold dear,—public liberty’ (Thomas Burke, Ireland and the Irish, p. 161).
15.2400–01: summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million
The problem of squaring the circle, of producing a square with the same area as a given circle, is of ancient origin, going back to Archimedes. In 1882, Ferdinand Lindemann (1852–1939) proved that a Euclidean construction for squaring the circle is impossible (EB11, s.v. circle). There was never any reward offered for solving this problem. Before Lindemann found the solution, the British mathematician Augustus De Morgan (1806–71) was contacted by an agricultural labourer who claimed to have solved the problem and was seeking his assistance in claiming a reward of £100,000 from the Lord Chancellor. ‘Since the Government stood to draw no conceivable benefit from a rule-and-compass exercise, the source of these rumours is baffling; there may be a clue in the prize that was actually offered in the eighteenth century for a method of discerning a ship’s longitude’ (Hugh Kenner, ‘Ulysses’, p. 167). Joyce initially wrote 1882 as the date for Bloom’s attempt (Rosenbach f. 41), which was the year Lindemann solved the problem. On the first post- publication errata sheet for Ulysses, Joyce included a revision to change the year to 1886 (JJA vol. 12, pp. 205, 212, 220).
15.2401: Pomegranate
A pomegranate is mentioned in the Song of Solomon 4:3, which Bloom quotes in Hebrew in ‘Ithaca’ (see note at 17.729).
15.2401–02: From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step
Translates Napoleon’s wry comment to De Pradt, the Polish ambassador, after his retreat from Moscow, ‘Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas’ (quoted in Dominique Georges Frédéric De Pradt, Histoire de l’Ambassade, p. 215).
15.2402–03: stockingette gusseted knickers, closed
Stockingette (or stockinet): ‘A knitted textile fabric of considerable elasticity used chiefly in the making of undergarments’ (OED, s.v. stockinet). Gusset: ‘A triangular piece of material let into a garment to strengthen or to enlarge some part, esp. in order to afford ease in movement’ (OED). Victorian underwear was joined at the waist, but open and crotchless. ‘ “Closed” knickers did not appear until the twentieth century, or shortly before’ (Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams, p. 102).
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976 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2404: camiknickers
Cami-knickers: ‘an undergarment which combines camisole and knickers’ (OED, s.v. cami-).
15.2409: But tomorrow is a new day will be
After the proverb ‘Tomorrow is a new day’ (ODEP).
15.2412: pig’s whisper
Pig’s whisper: ‘a very brief space of time’ (OED, s.v. pig).
15.2413: lured by the smell
‘Smell is probably a very important factor among insects [. . .] in locating foods, in locating suitable places to deposit eggs, and in finding mates. If the females of our larger moths, newly emerged from the cocoon, are exposed out-of-doors their odors usually attract males of their species from considerable distances’ (C. L. Metcalf and W. P. Flint, Fundamentals of Insect Life, p. 109).
15.2413: pulchritudinous
Pulchritudinous: beautiful (OED).
15.2414: extendified pudendal nerve in dorsal region
The pudendal nerve is the nerve complex of the genitalia (pudenda), in this case, the nerve on the back (dorsal) side of the genitalia. Havelock Ellis wrote: ‘the dorsal nerve of the clitoris is relatively three or four times larger than that of the penis’ (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. 5, p. 130). In one of his later Ulysses notebooks (Buffalo V.A.2.b), Joyce wrote: ‘dorsal nerve of Cl[itoris] 4 times longer than man’s’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 85; JJA, vol. 12, p. 107).
15.2415–17: They had a proverb in the Carpathians . . . our era
The Carpathian Mountains extend throughout central and eastern Europe (EB11). This proverb is (usually) attributed to Benjamin Franklin (American statesman, 1706–90): ‘Tart Words make no Friends: spoonful of honey will catch more flies than gallon of vinegar’ (A Benjamin Franklin Reader, p. 296). The year 5550, measured on the Jewish calendar, corresponds to ad 1789–90.
15.2421–22: An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye
The attraction of moths to candlelight is proverbial, but there is no settled explanation for this phenomenon, although it probably involves the insect’s compound (that is, complex) eye (Mark Young, The Natural History of Moths, p. 69).
15.2426–27: Chase me, Charley!
‘Chase me Charlie!’: a song from 1899 written by C. G. Cotes and composed by Bennett Scott. Subsequently a music- hall catchphrase associated with flirtatious ladies (John Simpson, JJON).
15.2429: Bee or bluebottle See note at 4.483–84.
15.2432–33: Spanish fly in his fly
Spanish fly (or cantharides): an ointment made with cantharides (a type of beetle), used medicinally and formerly considered an aphrodisiac (OED, s.v. cantharides).
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15. ‘Circe’ 977
15.2433: mustard plaster
Mustard plaster (or mustard poultice): an anti-irritant made with mustard (OED).
15.2433: his dibble
Dibble: penis (Partridge).
15.2434: Bubbly jock!
Bubbly jock (Scottish dialect): ‘A turkeycock. Also fig.: something to be feared’ (OED).
15.2434: Open Sesame!
Open sesame: a catchphrase used as an invocation ‘of securing access to what would normally be inaccessible’; from the story ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’ from the Arabian Nights (OED). By the early nineteenth century, use of this phrase was general and often without allusion to the Arabian Nights (Dent).
15.2437: Redbank oysters See note at 8.865.
15.2439: truffles of Perigord
Périgord: a region in south-western France known for its truffles (Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 833).
15.2440: viragitis
That is womanliness, or perhaps, from context, impotence. Joyce’s coinage derives from virago—a man-like woman (see note at 15.51)—but also a woman, ‘after the Vulgate rendering of Gen. ii. 23’ (OED).
15.2441–42: Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular
After Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta Patience (1881): ‘I’ll tell him that unless he will consent to be more jocular—[. . .] To cut his curly hair, and stick an eyeglass in his ocular’ (The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, p. 403).
15.2444: woman’s bivalve case
Bivalve: ‘Having two leaves or folding parts, as a shutter or door’ (OED); thus, the labia.
15.2445–46: Yet Eve and the serpent contradicts
That is, women do not fear creeping things, as Bloom had just asserted, because Eve was not afraid of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. However, the serpent had legs when it approached Eve and only became a creeping animal afterwards as punishment (Genesis 3:14).
15.2447: Serpents too are gluttons for women’s milk
According to a Welsh folktale, a woman named Teagu saved her husband from being strangled by a snake by exposing her breast to the serpent. The snake then left the man to latch on to the exposed breast. ‘Now the appropriateness of the milk is explained by the belief that snakes are inordinately fond of milk, and that belief has, I presume, a foundation in fact’ (John Rhys, Celtic Folklore, vol. 2, p. 690).
15.2449: Elephantuliasis
Presumably Bloom means Elephantis, a writer from classical Greece known only through references made by other classical writers. Suetonius (Roman biographer, second century
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978 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses ad) reports that the Emperor Tiberius’s library was filled with sex manuals by Elephantis (Suetonius, vol. 1, p. 354). ‘Although the actual text of Elephantis is unknown, her name was synonymous in the sixteenth century with manuals of sexual positions’ (Bette Talvacchia, Taking Positions, p. 53). The spelling here also suggests the disease elephantiasis (see note at 15.1778). Joyce originally wrote ‘Elephantulus’ (Rosenbach f. 42), but changed it to ‘Elephantuliasis’ on a note to the printer in which he also wished him a merry Christmas and a happy new year (JJA, vol. 26, p. 210).
15.2452: outlandish
Outlandish: from a foreign country, or bizarre (OED); both senses are feasible here.
15.2452: distended udders See 12.114.
15.2456: saurian’s lair
Saurian: crocodile or large lizard (OED).
15.2457: Ant milks aphis
Aphis: ‘A family of minute insects, also called plant-lice, which are very destructive to vegetation. They are prodigiously prolific, multiplying through the summer by parthenogenesis; they form the food of lady-birds, and are tended by ants for the honeydew which they yield, whence sometimes called ant-cows’ (OED); hence Bloom’s remark ‘ant milks aphis’.
15.2457: Instinct rules the world See note at 11.1183–84.
15.2462: Who’s dear Gerald? See note at 15.3009–10.
15.2463: O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned
Recalls Stephen Dedalus’s defence of the martyred heretic Giordano Bruno (Italian phil osopher, 1548–1600) in A Portrait, for which see note at 2.159.
15.2464: mit
Mit (German): with.
15.2465: tablenumpkin
That is, a table napkin. Also, numpkins: a dolt (EDD; with thanks to Harald Beck).
15.2467: he snaps his jaws suddenly on the air
From Virgil’s Aeneid, when Aeneas chases Turnus like a stag: ‘the lively Umbrian hound hangs close / to him with gaping mouth; at every instant / he grasps, he grinds his jaws but, baffled, bites / on nothing’ (XII.753–55).
15.2469–75: I’m a tiny tiny thing . . . Bing! Source—if any—unknown.
15.2480: drooping plumed sombrero
This sombrero recalls the ‘wideleaved sombrero’ worn by the sinister figure Bloom encountered by O’Beirne’s Wall (15.214).
Dictionary: NOSD
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15. ‘Circe’ 979
15.2481: Jacob’s pipe See note at 14.1057.
15.2483: romantic Saviour’s face
In ‘Aeolus’, Bloom was asked by Red Murray if William Brayden, the editor of the Freeman’s Journal, looked like ‘Our Saviour’ (7.52). Bloom replied that he also looked like the tenor singer Mario Giovanni Matteo (see note at 7.53).
15.2485: Mario, prince of Candia See note at 7.53.
15.2486: goffered ruffs
Goffered: ‘Of frills, etc.: Fluted, crimped’. Ruff: ‘A frill worn around the neck; spec. a detachable article of neckwear characteristic of Elizabethan and Jacobean costume, consisting of starched linen, muslin, etc., often fluted and typically standing out around the neck’ (both OED).
15.2489–90: There is a flower that bloometh
The title of a song from the opera Maritana (1845), for which see note at 5.563.
15.2492: dewlap
Dewlap: ‘The fold of loose skin which hangs from the throat of cattle’; applied ‘humorously to pendulous folds of flesh about the human throat’ (OED).
15.2495–96: Filling my belly with husks of swine. . . . I will arise and go to my
After the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11–32, which tells of a son who squanders his inheritance and is reduced to filling ‘his belly with the husks the swine did eat’ (15:16). Starving, he says ‘I will arise and will go to my father’ (15:18), who welcomes him back despite his behaviour.
15.2497: thou art in a parlous way
Parlous: perilous (OED); from As You Like It: ‘Thou are in a parlous state, shepherd’ (III.ii.45).
15.2501: Almidano Artifoni See note at 10.338.
15.2504: Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto
Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto (Italian): ‘Think about it. You are ruining everything’. In ‘Wandering Rocks’, Artifoni said the first sentence (10.351), not the second.
15.2506: Love’s old sweet song See note at 4.314.
15.2508–09: the letter about the lute See note at 16.1765.
15.2511: The bird that can sing and won’t sing
After the proverb, ‘The bird that can sing and won’t sing must be made to sing’ (ODEP).
15.2512: Philip Drunk and Philip Sober
After the legendary story in which a woman said she would appeal against the harsh judgement set by Philip of Macedon. Philip incredulously asked her to whom she would appeal; her reply, ‘To Philip sober’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Philip sober).
Dictionary: NOSD
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980 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2513: embrasure
Embrasure: ‘A slanting or bevelling in the sides of an opening to a wall for a window or door, so that the inside profile of the window is larger than that of the outside’ (OED).
15.2514: Matthew Arnold’s face See note at 1.173.
15.2516: Take a fool’s advice
From Sir Walter Scott’s (Scottish writer, 1771–1832) Kenilworth (1831): ‘Take a fool’s advice, neighbour Goldthread. Tempt not the sea, for she is a devourer’ (p. 6); modified from the proverbial expression ‘A fool may give a wise man counsel’ (ODEP; Dent).
15.2517: Three pounds twelve
Stephen’s salary from Deasy’s school, which he was paid in ‘Nestor’ (2.222).
15.2518: if youth but knew See note at 2.238.
15.2518–19: Mooney’s en ville, Mooney’s sur mer
See note at 11.263–64 for the first two pubs on Stephen’s pub crawl.
15.2519: Moira, Larchet’s
The second pair of drinking establishments visited by Stephen on his pub crawl. See note at 6.248 for the Moira. Larchet’s Hotel and Restaurant: 11 College Green; named after its proprietor, John Edward Larchet (Thom’s, p. 1458). Stephen would have visited these establishments after meeting Dilly in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.800–80; JJD, p. 79).
15.2519: Holles street hospital, Burke’s
The third pair of stops on Stephen’s pub crawl, as documented in ‘Oxen of the Sun’. See note at 8.281–82 for the Holles Street Hospital, and notes at 14.1391 and 14.1467 for Burke’s.
15.2522: bosh
Bosh: ‘Contemptible nonsense’ (OED).
15.2522: I paid my way
Echoes Deasy’s claim about the proudest boast of an Englishman (2.251).
15.2522–23: If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality
‘The octave forms the starting point of a new scale of identical intervals but different pitch’ (OED, s.v. octave); thus an octave is the same note reduplicated into a different register; see also note at 11.830–31.
15.2524: Zoe mou sas agapo
Zoe mou sas agapo (Greek): ‘My life, I love you’; or also, ‘My Zoe, I love you’ (Zoe: Greek, life). This is the epigraph for and refrain in Lord Byron’s poem ‘Maid of Athens, Ere We Part’ (1810, 1812). This poem was set to music and became a popular ballad (Bowen, p. 282).
15.2525: Atkinson See note at 9.1141.
15.2526: Mac somebody
Unclear. Considering that this ‘Mac Somebody’ discussed Swinburne, one possibility might be the fellow that medical student Gogarty calls ‘Weary Mac’ in his semi-autobiographical
Dictionary: NOSD
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15. ‘Circe’ 981 novel Tumbling in the Hay. His real name is unknown. ‘Weary had got his name [. . .] because of a certain slowness or serenity of manner’ (p. 5).
15.2527: Swinburne See note at 1.77–78.
15.2531: Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak
In Matthew 26:40–41, Jesus reproaches his disciples when they fall asleep while he goes to pray: ‘What? Could you not watch one hour with me? Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak.’ The expression is proverbial (Dent).
15.2533: Are you out of Maynooth? See note at 12.1459.
15.2537: rigadoon of grasshalms
Rigadoon: ‘A lively dance in 2/4 time for two persons, originating in the Provence region of France’ (OED). For grasshalm, see note at 1.174.
15.2543: Roman collar
Roman collar: ‘a clerical collar (originally so called because worn predominantly by Roman Catholic priests)’ (OED, s.v. Roman).
15.2546: To hell with the pope!
‘To hell with the Pope!’: a standard cry and invective used by virulent anti-Catholics (Daniel O’Connell, Observations on Corn Laws, p. 25).
15.2546: Nothing new under the sun See note at 13.1104–05.
15.2547: Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens
Unknown; but the title suggests that this work is similar to Chiniquy’s The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional (see note at 15.2548).
15.2547–48: Why I left the church of Rome See note at 8.1070–71.
15.2548: the Priest, the Woman and the Confessional
The title of the most notorious and sensationalistic anti-Catholic book by Charles Pascal Telesphore Chiniquy (see note at 8.1070–71), published in 1874. ‘Chiniquy alleges numerous sexual relationships between penitents and their confessors, the most elaborate being the tale of “Geneva” who purportedly disguised herself as a man for many years so that she could set up house with her priest’ (Chrissie Van Mierlo, James Joyce and Catholicism, p. 61).
15.2548: Penrose
The ‘priestylooking’ fellow with voyeuristic tendencies first mentioned in ‘Lestrygonians’; see notes at 8.178, 8.1114, and 18.573.
15.2549: Flipperty Jippert
Flipperty Jippert: a demon; best known from King Lear, ‘the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet’ (III. iv.120).
15.2549: pudor
Pudor: ‘due sense of shame; bashfulness, modesty’ (OED).
Dictionary: NOSD
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982 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2550: rushrope
Rush rope: a rope made of rush, ‘Any of numerous marsh or waterside plants characterized chiefly by stiff, pithy, or hollow stems’ (OED, s.v. rush).
15.2550: yoni to man’s lingam
Yoni (Sanskrit): vagina. Lingam (Sanskrit): penis.
15.2553: Coactus volui See note at 10.1113.
15.2554: spucks
After the German verb spucken, to spit, but with an English ending since in German the third-person singular is spuckt.
15.2555: yadgana
Yadgana (also jaghana, Sanskrit): buttocks.
15.2558–59: penance. Nine glorias for shooting a bishop
Gloria: any of several Christian formulae that begin with ‘Gloria’, such as the Gloria Patri, the Gloria tibi, and the Gloria in excelsis. Typically, penance involves the recitation of prayers prescribed by the priest, prayers such as one of the Glorias. These would have to be recited multiple times (Alexander Klauder, Catholic Practice at Church and at Home, pp. 85–88). Nine Glorias would be a surprisingly mild penance for such a deed. Also, to shoot a bishop: to have a wet dream (Partridge, s.v. shoot).
15.2562: A dry rush
Rush: a surge of euphoria (OED). Thus Gifford plausibly suggests (though he offers no source) that a dry rush means sexual stimulation without ejaculation.
15.2571: mooncalf nozzle
Moon-calf: abortion, misshapen birth or a person born with an undeveloped brain (OED). Nozzle: nose (Partridge).
15.2571–72: Verfluchte Goim!
Verfluchte Goim! (Yiddish): ‘Cursed Gentiles!’
15.2572–73: He had a father, forty fathers . . . the pope’s bastard
After chapter 4 of Flaubert’s Temptation of Saint Antony, when an assembly of Heresiarchs, including Arius (see note at 1.657), Sabellius (see note at 1.659–60), and the followers of Valentinus (see note at 1.658–59) confront Antony with many differing theories about Jesus’s status: ‘He was Sem, son of Noah!’; ‘He was Melchisidech!’; ‘He was nothing but a man!’; ‘He assumed the appearance of one! He simulated the passion!’; ‘He is a development of the Father!’; ‘Father and Son are two forms of a single God!’ (pp. 130–31).
15.2572: Pig God!
A literal translation of the Italian curse, Porco Dio!
15.2573: two left feet
The Devil is said to have two left feet (Brewer’s). Having two left feet is also an expression for clumsiness (OED, s.v. left). Folio 7v. in the Book of Kells (see note at 17.755) is an illustration of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus wherein ‘[i]t will be noticed that by some
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15. ‘Circe’ 983 curious error both the feet of the Virgin are right feet, while those of the Child are both left’ (Edward Sullivan, The Book of Kells, p. 9).
15.2573: Judas Iacchias
Iacchus: a minor Greek deity associated with the Eleusinian mysteries. The Cainites, a Gnostic sect, inverted the Judeo-Christian order by praising Cain and claiming that Judas Iscariot (rather than Christ) possessed ‘the true Gnosis’ (Augustus Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, vol. 1, p. 448).
15.2573: Libyan eunuch See note at 14.707–10.
15.2573: the pope’s bastard
Many Popes have sired illegitimate children, including Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, 1431–1503), who had numerous illegitimate offspring before he became Pope and at least one child born after he became Pope in 1492 (EB11).
15.2575: A son of a whore. Apocalypse
If Jesus were the son of the Scarlet Woman, or Whore of Babylon, who appears in Revelation 17:8, that would make him the Antichrist and the harbinger of the Apocalypse.
15.2578–79: Mary Shortall that was in the lock . . . Jimmy Pidgeon
Beyond any immediate reference to an unfortunate prostitute named Mary, this alludes to Mary and the Holy Spirit who (as dove, or pigeon) impregnated her (see notes at 3.161–62 and 3.167). The ‘lock’ would be the Westmorland Lock (Government) Hospital for the Relief of Destitute Female Patients Exclusively, on Townsend Street. ‘The Institution is used not only as a means of curing physical disease, but as a reformatory for the moral reclamation of the patients, many of whom have, through the efforts of the respective chaplains and lady visitors of both religious denominations, been restored to their families, provided with employment in the Hospital, or persuaded to enter penitentiaries’ (Thom’s, p. 1380).
15.2579: the blue caps
The Blue Caps: the Dublin Fusiliers (Partridge).
15.2580–81: we all subscribed for the funeral
To subscribe for: ‘To give an undertaking to provide a specified amount of money, usually as one of a number of individuals doing so collectively in order to raise funds for a particular purpose’ (OED). In ‘Hades’, Lambert commented that Martin Cunningham was arran ging a subscription for Dignam’s family (6.564–66).
15.2583–85: Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, Philippe? . . . Philippe
Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, Philippe? . . . Philippe (French): Who has put you in this wretched condition, Philip?—It was the blessed pigeon, Philip’; after Taxil’s La Vie de Jésus (see note at 3.161–62). Because the question is here addressed to a man, the ‘mis’ is correct. In French, sacré means both blessed and damned.
15.2587: And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls . . . whore’s shoulders
Echoes ‘Nausicaa’: ‘a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown tresses was never seen on a girl’s shoulders’ (13.510–11).
Dictionary: NOSD
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15.2590: Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes
Élie Metchnikoff (Russian biologist, 1845–1916): one of Louis Pasteur’s pupils in Paris and, from 1904, deputy director of the Pasteur Institute. In 1904, he infected anthropoid apes with syphilis by inoculation. His work on this won him the Nobel Prize in 1908 (London Times, 17 July 1916, p. 7, col. d).
15.2592: Locomotor ataxy
Locomotor ataxy: an ‘inability to co-ordinate the voluntary movement, constitutional unsteadiness in the use of legs, arms, etc.’ (OED, s.v. ataxy); a symptom of syphilis, as well as of other afflictions.
15.2596: Three wise virgins See note at 7.937.
15.2598: agueshaken
Ague: an acute fever in its cold, shivering stages (OED).
15.2599: lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower
Love philtre: love potion (OED, s.v. love). Whitewax and orangeflower are some of the ingredients of the lotion that Bloom ordered for Molly at Sweny’s in ‘Lotus Eaters’ (5.490–93); see also notes at 5.491 and 5.493.
15.2599–2600: Panther, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories
Genitories: the testicles (OED). In Logos Alethes (the True Discourse, c.180), the second- century Greek philosopher Celsus put forward the first philosophical criticism of Christianity. He claimed that Jesus was actually fathered by a Roman centurion called Panthera. While Celsus’s work has not survived, much of it, including the assertion about Panthera, is quoted in Origen’s (theologian, c.185–c.253) rebuttal, Contra Celsum: ‘the mother of Jesus is described as having been turned out by the carpenter who was betrothed to her, as she had been convicted of adultery and had a child by a certain soldier named Panthera’ (I:32, p. 31). See also note at 1.57. This is alluded to in the Temptation of Saint Antony, in the scene with the assembly of Heresiarchs (see note at 15.2572–73): ‘his mother, the woman who sold perfumes, surrendered herself to Pantherus, a Roman soldier, under the corn-sheaves, one harvest evening’ (p. 131; see also note at 15.1220).
15.2600–01: he sticks out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue
Virag’s action parallels that taken by demons in the fifth valley of the Malebolge in Dante’s Inferno: ‘They wheeled round by the dike on the left; but first each pressed his tongue between his teeth at their leader for a signal and he made a trumpet of his rear’ (XXI.136–39); Stephen remembered part of this passage in ‘Scylla and Charybdis’; see note at 9.34. The scorpion tongue is associated with treachery; from Chaucer’s ‘Manciple’s Tale’: ‘ “Traitour”, quod he, “with tongue of scorpion’ (l. 271, The Riverside Chaucer, p. 285).
15.2601: fork
Fork: crotch (Partridge).
15.2601–2: He burst her tympanum
In An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, John of Damascus (Syrian monk, 676–749) claimed that Mary’s ear was the bodily organ of Christ’s conception: ‘While the conception was by hearing, the birth was by the usual orifice through which children are born,
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15. ‘Circe’ 985 even though there are some who concoct an idle tale of His being born from the side of the Mother of God’ (St John of Damascus, Writings, p. 365). For tympanum, see note at 11.536.
15.2603: Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok! Kuk! See note at 15.2268.
15.2604: Ben Jumbo Dollard, rubicund
See note at 8.119 for Dollard and note at 11.1158 for rubicund. Jumbo: a big clumsy person (OED); see also note at 12.1496.
15.2605–06: fatpapped
Pap: a man’s breast (OED).
15.2607: bagslops
Both bags and slops mean loose-fitting trousers (OED).
15.2609: nakkering castanet bones See note at 11.1152–53.
15.2610: When love absorbs my ardent soul See note at 11.530.
15.2611: Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley
For Callan see note at 13.960 and for Quigley see note at 14.318.
15.2614: Big Ben! Ben my Chree! See note at 11.1160.
15.2620: severed female head
The ‘severed female head’ might be in reference to Brigid Gannon, the woman whom Henry Flower was accused of killing by drowning (see note at 5.62).
15.2621: When first I saw See note at 11.665.
15.2626: Dreck!
Dreck (Yiddish): junk, trash, shit.
15.2628: cow’s lick
‘When the hair in front over the forehead turns at the roots upward and backward, that is a cow’s lick, as if a cow had licked it upwards. The idea of a cow licking the hair is very old in Irish literature’ (PWJ, p. 241).
15.2628: Steered by his rapier
Recalls Brayden’s entrance in ‘Aeolus’, ‘steered by an umbrella’ (7.45–46).
15.2629: his wild harp slung behind him
From Thomas Moore’s song ‘The Minstrel-Boy’: ‘And his wild harp slung behind him. / “Land of song!” said the warrior-bard’ (ll. 4–5, Moore’s Irish Melodies, p, 99).
15.2633: K. 11.
See note at 8.90–92.
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986 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2633: Post No Bills See note at 8.101.
15.2633: Dr Hy Franks See note at 8.97–98.
15.2635: All is lost now See note at 11.629.
15.2636: Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm
In the Inferno, Dante encounters Bertram de Born carrying his severed head on his arm as if it were a lantern (XXVIII.199).
15.2638: Quack!
In ‘Lestrygonians’, Bloom called Dr Hy Franks ‘That quack doctor for the clap’ (8.96).
15.2639: Exeunt severally
Exeunt: ‘A stage direction [. . .] signifying that at this point two or more actors leave the stage’. Severally: separately (both OED). Exeunt severally is a standard stage direction; for example, King Lear III.vii.106.
15.2641–42: the fighting parson who founded the protestant error
That is, Martin Luther (1483–1546), the instigator of the Protestant Reformation (EB11). The phrase ‘Protestant error’ is a common collocation in Catholic writing. For example, from the Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on Johann Eck (German theologian, 1486–1543): ‘he was the first to champion the cause of Catholic teaching against Protestant error; and he became Luther’s ablest opponent, skilful, untiring, and thoroughly equipped in theology.’ ‘The fighting parson’: nickname of William Gannaway Brownlow (1805–77), a Methodist minister and journalist who became the governor of Tennessee. ‘ “Parson” Brownlow was noted for his fierce and witty polemics against his enemies, whether Presbyterians and Baptists with whom he often sparred, or Confederates whom he bitterly opposed’ (George Thomas Kurian and Mark A. Lamport, Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States, p. 344).
15.2642: Antisthenes, the dog sage
See note at 7.1035. Antisthenes is credited as being the founder of the Cynics. The name Cynic derives from the Greek kynikos, which means literally dog-like. ‘The Cynics were so called because Antisthenes held his school in the gymnasium called Cynosarges, set apart for those who were not of pure Athenian blood. Cynosarges means white dog’ (Brewer’s, s.v. cynic).
15.2643: last end of Arius Heresiarchus. The agony in the closet See note at 1.657 for Arius and note at 3.52 for his last end.
15.2649: spoiled priest
Spoiled priest (Hiberno-English): ‘a postulant for the priesthood who left the seminary before ordination’ (Dolan).
15.2653: Cardinal sin
Cardinal sin: ‘a sin considered to be one of the primary or major transgressions; spec. one of the seven capital or deadly sins’ (OED). ‘It is not then the gravity of the vice in itself that makes it capital but rather the fact that it gives rise to many other sins. These are
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15. ‘Circe’ 987 enumerated by St. Thomas (I–II:84:4) as vainglory (pride), avarice, gluttony, lust, sloth, envy, anger’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. sin).
15.2653: Monks of the screw
The Monks of the Screw (also known as the Order of St Patrick): a short-lived society of prominent Irish statesmen, lawyers, and intellectuals; founded in 1783 and disbanded in 1795. This was primarily a social club, and the members affected the trappings of ascetic life and met wearing monks’ habits. John Philpot Curran (see note at 7.740) wrote a song entitled ‘The Monks of the Screw’ (William Henry Curran, The Life of John Philpot Curran, pp. 80–84).
15.2654: His Eminence
Cardinals carry the title Eminence (OED).
15.2654: primate of all Ireland See note at 15.1421–22.
15.2655: red soutane
Soutane: ‘A long buttoned gown or frock, with sleeves, forming the ordinary outer garment of Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, and worn under the vestments in religious services’ (OED). The colour denotes rank: white for the Pope, cardinals black with scarlet trim, bishops black with red trim, and priests wear solid black. The scarlet soutane is for doctors in theology and canon law (Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 509).
15.2656: Seven dwarf simian acolytes
The simian acolytes: perhaps in reference to the double meaning of the word primate: a chief bishop or a mammalian order (OED). Possibly also in reference to Flaubert’s Temptation of Saint Antony, where the tail of the Queen of Sheba’s gown is carried by a monkey: ‘As she comes forward, she swings a green parasol with an ivory handle surrounded by vermillion bells; and twelve curly negro boys carry the long train of her robe, the end of which is held by an ape, who raises it every now and then’ (p. 64).
15.2559: rosary of corks See note at 11.695.
15.2664–67: Conservio lies captured . . . three tons
In the notes under the heading ‘Pappie’ in his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote these lyrics along with the comment that they were ‘[t]he verses he quotes most’ (Scholes and Kain, The Workshop of Dædalus, p. 104; JJA, vol. 7, pp. 145–46). The source is unknown.
15.2671–76: O, the poor little fellow . . . duckloving drake
After the second verse of the raucous Irish comic ballad ‘Nell Flaherty’s Drake’: ‘His neck it was green—most rare to be seen, / He was fit for a queen of the highest degree; / His body was white—and would you delight—/ He was plump, fat and heavy, and brisk as a bee. / The dear little fellow, his legs they were yellow, / He would fly like a swallow, and dive like a hake, / But some wicked savage, to grease his white cabbage, / Has murdered Nell Flaherty’s beautiful drake’ (D. J. O’Donoghue, The Humour of Ireland, p. 240). This song has been taken to be a reference to the execution of Robert Emmet (see notes at 6.977–78 and
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988 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses 10.764), however this could be simply a function of its performances within nationalist settings rather than original intent (Éva Guillorel and David Hopkin, ‘Oral Cultures and Traditions of Social Conflict’, p. 19).
15.2675: graize
That is, grease, sung in a strong Irish accent.
15.2677: midges
Midge: ‘A small insect resembling a gnat’ (OED).
15.2679: By the hoky fiddle
By the hoaky: an expletive, mainly nautical, from c.1820 (Partridge). ‘By the hoky fiddle’ is also attested; from ‘The Doin’s of Happy Hooligan’, a story written in a broad Irish dialect, ‘But th’ lacrosse matches! Be th’ hokey fiddle! They was cur-yous’ (The Coast, Dec. 1903, vol. 6, no. 6, p. 199).
15.2683: Easter kiss
Easter kiss: part of the traditional Easter Sunday mass. ‘After Lauds all those who are present give each other the Easter kiss, not excluding even the beggar. One says: “Christ is risen”; the other answers: “He is truly risen” ’ (Catholic Encyclopedia s.v. Easter).
15.2688–91: Shall carry my heart to thee . . . my heart to thee!
Stanislaus recalls this as one of his father’s songs: ‘The third “heart” was, of course, a corona on a high note’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 133). Simon Daedalus sings this in Stephen Hero (p. 160); otherwise unknown.
15.2692: trick doorhandle Trick: defective (OED).
15.2702: Thank your mother for the rabbits
A Hiberno-English stock phrase used as an acknowledgement of gratitude, especially in times of scarcity (Harald Beck, JJON).
15.2708: Fingers was made before forks
A proverbial expression used to point out that formality is unnecessary (Brewer’s).
15.2710: French lozenges
That is, the piece of chocolate, with the implication that it is an aphrodisiac. The word French carries with it ‘the implication of sexual adventurousness or explicitness’ (OED). ‘The aphrodisiac role of chocolate was well known within the Mayan and Aztec cultures; these peoples believed it invigorated men and made women less inhibited [. . .] Chemical content apart, scientists continue to debate whether chocolate should be classified as an aphrodisiac’ (Stefania Moramarco and Loreto Nemi, ‘Nutritional and Health Effects of Chocolate’, p 148).
15.2711: Have it now or wait till you get it?
This phrase is included in Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation. Neverout asks Miss Notable for more tea and Miss Notable then asks: ‘Will you have it now, or stay till you get it?’ (p. 63).
15.2717: bazaar
See note at 8.1162.
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15.2718: the viceroy was there with his lady See note at 8.1162.
15.2718: gas
Gas (Hiberno-English): fun (Dolan).
15.2719: Toft’s hobbyhorses
Hobby horse: ‘A wooden horse fixed on a “merry-go-round” at a fair’ (OED). This was one of the amusements owned and operated by the Toft family. They installed their amusements at a variety of fairs, carnivals, horse races, and festivals throughout Ireland for many years beginning in the 1880s. For example, the Wicklow Newsletter for 26 July 1917 advertises ‘Toft’s Hobbyhorses and Sideshows’ appearing at the forthcoming Wicklow Regatta (p. 3, cols a–b).
15.2721: In Svengali’s fur overcoat
Svengali: a character in the popular novel Trilby (1894) by George du Maurier (Franco- British artist and author, 1834–96). Trilby is an artist’s model in Paris who falls under the influence of the villainous Svengali, a German-Polish musician and mesmerist: ‘And just then who should come by, rolling in his carriage and pair, smothered in furs, and smoking a big cigar of the Havana, but Svengali’ (pp. 112–13).
15.2721: Napoleonic forelock
Napoleon’s brushed-forward lock is one of the trademarks of his portraits. Napoleon is supposed to have been initiated into Freemasonry on the isle of Malta in 1798 (Brewer’s).
15.2724: sign of past master
Past Master: the honorary degree held by the Master of a Lodge, the local chapter of the secret brotherhood of freemasons. Bloom performs two signs: the Master ‘steps off with the left foot, placing the heel of the right at the toe of the left, so as to bring the feet at right angles [. . .] He then gives his sign, placing the thumb of the right hand upon the lips, the fingers clenched’ (Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry, p. 89).
15.2736: Aphrodisiac See note at 15.2710.
15.2736: Tansy and pennyroyal
Tansy is an aromatic and bitter plant used in cooking and as a stomach medicine. Pennyroyal is a type of mint used in cooking and medicinally (both OED). Both are mild stimulants. Tansy and pennyroyal teas, pills, and preparations were used as abortifacients in the second half of the nineteenth century (Janet Farrell Brodie, Contraception and Abortion in 19th-Century America, p. 225).
15.2737: Vanilla calms or?
Vanilla is ‘[a]n active stimulant of a very agreeable taste; it acts chiefly upon the organs of generation. It is used as a general stimulant, but more particularly as an aphrodisiac and emmenagogue, also as an aromatic in other preparations’ (‘A New Practical Formulary’, London Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. 6 no. 154, 10 Jan. 1835, p. 790).
15.2737: Mnemo
See note at 15.2385.
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15.2737–38: Red influences lupus
Lupus: a non-infectious disease in which the body’s immune system attacks substances occurring normally in the body. ‘Professor Niels Finsen of Copenhagen first used the ultra- violet rays of solar light in the treatment of skin diseases, notably of lupus’ (EB11, s.v. Surgical Instruments and Appliances).
15.2738: women’s characters, any they have
Paraphrased from Alexander Pope’s (English poet, 1688–1744) ‘Epistle 2. To a Lady’: ‘Nothing so true as what you once let fall, / “Most women have no characters at all” ’ (ll. 1–2, The Major Works, p. 350).
15.2739: Eat and be merry for tomorrow See note at 8.754.
15.2640: Aphro
Aphros (Greek): foam. Aphrodite was so called because she sprang from the foam of the sea (though in Homer she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione) (Brewer’s). See also note at 9.610.
15.2741: Try truffles at Andrews
Andrews and Co.: tea and coffee dealers, and wine and spirit merchants, 19–22 Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1798).
15.2742: Bella Cohen
Ellen ‘Bella’ Cohen (c.1850–c.1906) ran several brothels in various parts of Dublin before eventually settling in as the madame of the establishment at 82 Lower Mecklenburgh Street, which she ran from 1888 to 1906. Under the name Ellen Cannell, she is possibly connected with other addresses during this period. According to police records, she claimed to be Protestant and to have been born in Gloucester (John Simpson, JJON).
15.2744: tasselled selvedge
Selvedge: ‘The edge of a piece of woven material finished in such a manner as to prevent the ravelling out of the weft’ (OED, s.v. selvage).
15.2745: Minnie Hauck in Carmen
Minnie Hauck (1852–1929): American mezzo-soprano most famous for her role as the title character in George Bizet’s Carmen (1875), which she sang some 500 times during her career (Grove).
15.2746: keeper rings
Keeper ring: a ring which keeps another ring, especially a wedding ring, safely on the finger (OED).
15.2746: carboned
That is, blackened, from a charcoal make-up pencil for the eyes.
15.2750: I’m all of a mucksweat
Muck sweat: ‘A profuse sweat; (fig.) a panic, a frantic state of mind’ (OED).
15.2753: embonpoint See note at 10.616.
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15. ‘Circe’ 991
15.2753: falcon eyes
The word Circe, in Greek, kirke, is a rare feminine form of kirkos, hawk or falcon (Liddell and Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon). In the Zürich notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.a), Joyce wrote ‘Circe—the hawk’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 21; JJA, vol. 12, p. 146).
15.2759–60: Petticoat government
Petticoat government: the control of men by women (with the imputation of shrewishness), when women ‘wear the trousers’ (Brewer’s).
15.2772: Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which women love
Suggests Severin’s submissiveness to Wanda in Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs (see also note at 15.1072–73).
15.2777: desiderate
To desiderate: ‘To desire with a sense of want or regret; to feel a desire or longing for; to feel the want of; to desire, want, miss’ (OED).
15.2779: the too late box See note at 5.53.
15.2781–82: draught of thirtytwo feet per second . . . falling bodies
The law of falling bodies (see note at 5.44–45) is not applicable to air currents since air cannot fall within air.
15.2783: sciatica in my left glutear muscle
Sciatica: ‘Originally: pain in the hip; disease causing such pain. In later use: spec. the condition of having pain along the course of the sciatic nerve, radiating from the hip down the back of the leg, and most commonly resulting from protrusion of a lumbar vertebral disc [. . .] In the early 17th cent. Sometimes used euphemistically as a name for syphilis, of which pain in the joints or sciatic nerve may be a symptom’ (OED). Glutear: more commonly gluteus, pertaining to ‘[o]ne of the three large muscles [. . .] which form the buttock, and serve to move the thigh in humans’ (OED, s.v. glutaeus).
15.2785: king David and the Sunamite
In the Book of Kings, King David’s servants brought him a beautiful young virgin, ‘Abisag a Sunamitess’ (1 Kings 1:3), to marry when he was very old and infirm. In the King James, she is called ‘Abishag, a Shunamite’. The Shunamites (or Sunamites) were natives of Shunem, an ancient town identified with modern Solem, at the foot of Mount Gilboa (Achtemeier, Harper’s Bible Dictionary). Although David did not have sexual relations with Abisag, she was considered as one of his wives by Solomon (1 Kings 2:13–25).
15.2786: he shared his bed with Athos See note at 6.125.
15.2786–87: A dog’s spittle as you probably
Since Bloom is cut off mid-sentence, it is unclear whether he was about to say that a dog’s saliva is beneficial or whether it is harmful, which it certainly is if the dog has rabies. On the other hand, numerous cultures hold beliefs in the curative power of dog’s saliva. ‘There is even a French saying, “Langue de chien, langue de médecin” which translates to “A dog’s tongue is a doctor’s tongue”. Perhaps there is some validity to this since recent research has
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992 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses shown that dogs’ saliva actually contains a number of antibacterial and antiviral compounds’ (Aubrey Fine, Handbook on Animal-Assisted Therapy, p. xv).
15.2789: Mocking is catch
In Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation, Lady Answerall says: ‘Have a Care; they say, mocking is catching’ (p. 101).
15.2789–90: Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince’s. Liver and kidney
See 11.357 and 11.359. In ‘Sirens’, Richie Goulding had steak and kidney pie, Bloom liver and bacon (11.499).
15.2795: exposure at dewfall on the searocks See 13.1081–83; see also note at 13.1083.
15.2805: black knot
Black knot: ‘a fast knot as distinguished from a running knot’ (OED, s.v. black).
15.2806: worked the mail order line for Kellett’s
David Kellett: draper, 19–21 South Great George’s Street (Thom’s, p. 1917). If this claim is true, then presumably Bloom started working for Kellet’s after his job working as a travelling salesman for his family’s firm in 1886 (see note at 17.53–54) and before he began working for Hely’s in 1888 (see note at 6.703 and 8.158).
15.2807: I knelt once before today
In ‘Hades’, at Dignam’s funeral (6.585–87).
15.2810: plump buskined hoof and a full pastern
Buskin: ‘a calf-high or knee-high boot or covering for the foot and leg, typically made from cloth or leather; a half-boot’. Pastern: the human ankle, bur originally ‘[t]he part of a horse’s foot between the fetlock and the hoof ’ (both OED). Hoof has been low colloquial for the human foot since the sixteenth century (Partridge).
15.2814: To be a shoefitter in Manfield’s
Manfield & Sons: boot and shoe warehouse, 78–79 Grafton Street and 43 Lower Sackville Street (Thom’s, p. 1950). In the Psychopathia Sexualis, Krafft-Ebing records many cases of foot fetishism, including one young man who opened a women’s shoe store in order to fulfil his desires: ‘He was excited sexually by fitting shoes for his female patrons’ (p. 173). He claims that shoe fetishism stems from a ‘masochistic desire for self-humiliation’ (p. 114).
15.2814–15: my love’s young dream
After Thomas Moore’s ‘Love’s Young Dream’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 64).
15.2817: Clyde Road ladies
Clyde Road: an upscale street in Pembroke Township, south-south-east of the centre of Dublin.
15.2818: cobweb hose
Cobweb hose: sheer stockings (cobweb: ‘a light, finely- woven or gauze- like material’ (OED)). The term was widely used in advertisements, and such hosiery was typically associated with Parisian fashions (John Simpson, JJON).
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15. ‘Circe’ 993
15.2824: Handy Andy
Handy Andy: the hapless and buffoonish title character of a novel from 1842 by Samuel Lover (1797–1868); the subtitle of Handy Andy is A Tale of Irish Life. The novel begins: ‘Andy Rooney was a fellow who had the most singularly ingenious knack of doing everything the wrong way [. . .] so the nickname the neighbours stuck upon him was Handy Andy, and the jeering jingle pleased them’ (p. 1). The novel ends with Handy Andy entering the peerage as Lord Scatterbrain. In 1844, Thomas Dunn English (American politician, writer, and songwriter, 1819–1902) adapted Lover’s novel for the stage.
15.2827: tache
Tache: a fastening which attaches two parts together (OED).
15.2834: BELLO
Joyce initially wrote ‘BELLA’ here and switched to ‘BELLO’ on a page proof (JJA, vol. 26, p. 204), thereby clearly signalling this gender inversion in the stage directions. See also note at 15.2863.
15.2835: hard basilisk stare See note at 3.116.
15.2835: Hound of dishonour
Perhaps an allusion to the ancient Irish mythical hero Cuchulin (see note at 12.176), whose name means ‘Hound of Culann’. Sometimes he is called ‘the Hound of Ulster’ (Ellis).
15.2839: Adorer of the adulterous rump!
Krafft-Ebing claims that oscula ad nates (rump kissing) is a symptom of masochism (Psychopathia Sexualis, p. 126).
15.2843: Dungdevourer!
Krafft-Ebing describes this type of coprophilia (sexual excitement derived from the ingestion of excrement) as the most extreme symptom of masochism (Psychopathia Sexualis, p. 123).
15.2848–49: On the hands down See note at 4.234.
15.2851: Truffles!
Truffles are an edible, subterranean tuber which specially trained pigs detect and unearth (EB11). Nowadays, dogs are used.
15.2852–53: on all fours, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his feet
In the Odyssey, Circe transforms Odysseus’s crew into pigs (X.237–41), but Odysseus himself is spared such a transformation because of his possession of the magical herb moly (see note at 15.213).
15.2854–55: attitude of most excellent master
Part of the ritual of becoming a Most Excellent Master: ‘The members all kneel and join hands [. . .] The most excellent master now kneels and joins hands with the rest. They all then repeat in concert the words, “For he is good, for his mercy endureth forever”, six times, each time bowing their heads low towards the floor’ (Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry, p. 103).
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15.2858: puttees
Puttees: strips of cloth wrapped around the lower part of the leg, from the knee top to the ankle, worn for support and protection by soldiers and hunters (OED).
15.2859: alpine hat See note at 15.270.
15.2859: moorcock’s feather
Moorcock: ‘The male of the red grouse’ (OED).
15.2860: places his heel on her neck
After Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs: ‘whichever of the two fails to subjugate will soon feel the feet of the other on his neck’ (p. 56). Richard von Krafft-Ebing wrote that ‘[i]n the majority of cases of masochism the act of being trod upon with feet plays a part as an easily accessible means of expressing the relation of subjection’ (Psychopathia Sexualis, p. 114).
15.2863: BLOOM
On the earliest draft of this scene, Joyce originally had Bloom’s name as ‘Leopoldina’ at this point, thereby clearly signalling the moment of gender inversion. On the same draft, he reverted to ‘Bloom’ (NLI MS 35,958 f. 13), thereby maintaining some ambiguity in the stage directions with this gender inversion. See also note at 15.2834.
15.2864: I promise never to disobey
This passage derives from a letter to the fetish magazine Bits of Fun, which frequently included tales of male cross-dressing: ‘By the time she had finished I was absolutely exhausted and redhot, and promised with bitter tears never to disobey her lightest word in future’ (Bits of Fun, 7 Aug. 1920, quoted in Peter Farrer, Confidential Correspondence on Cross Dressing, Part Two, p. 239). Photo Bits (see note at 4.370) merged with Bits of Fun in 1916. After various bouts of prosecution and censorship, the magazine folded in December 1920. In the autumn of 1920, Joyce asked Budgen to send him ‘some comic papers of as bold a type as might be found on our puritan shores’ (JJMU, pp. 246–47), and Budgen sent him several copies of Bits of Fun (Letters, vol. 1, p. 144; Jennifer Burns Levin, ‘How Joyce Acquired the “Stale Smut of Clubmen” ’, pp. 255–56). This line also suggests the oath of Entered Apprentices, a part of the Masonic initiation rite (see note at 15.4951–52).
15.2866: You little know what’s in store for you
In Venus in Furs, after Severin signs a contract with Wanda in which he promises to be her ever-obedient slave, she taunts him with the punishments she will soon inflict and says ‘You shall know me!’ (p. 151).
15.2867: Tartar
Tartar: a cruel and savage person, supposed to resemble the inhabitants of central Asia, known as Tartars; when applied to a woman ‘it denotes a vixen or shrew’ (Brewer’s).
15.2867: your little lot
Lot: ‘(With possessive pronoun—his, your, etc.) A man’s genitals’ (Partridge).
15.2867: break you in
At the climax of Venus in Furs, Wanda takes on a Greek lover, Alexis, and abandons Severin. Before leaving him, she forces Severin to submit to a whipping from Alexis. When he takes up the lash, Alexis says to Wanda: ‘Now watch me break him in’ (p. 206).
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15. ‘Circe’ 995
15.2867–68: Kentucky cocktails
Kentucky cocktail: made of two parts bourbon and one part pineapple juice shaken over ice. Also relevant, cocktail: harlot (Partridge).
15.2868–69: If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be inflicted
This passage derives from a letter to the fetish magazine Bits of Fun: ‘the very approach of her requisite and beautifully rustling uniform would overawe him completely and set him trembling with anticipation of punishment and pain soon to be inflicted’ (Bits of Fun, 7 Aug. 1920, quoted in Farrer, Confidential Correspondence on Cross Dressing, Part Two, p. 239).
15.2869–70: gym costume
That is, either clothing designed for exercising in a gymnasium, as was becoming the habit in the latter half of the nineteenth century (Dio Lewis, The New Gymnastics, p. 18), or, naked (since in ancient Greek, gymnos means naked).
15.2891: bastinado
Bastinado: ‘A blow with a stick or cudgel; a whack or thwack; esp. one upon the soles of the feet’ (OED).
15.2892: knout
Knout: ‘A kind of whip or scourge, very severe and often fatal in its effects, formerly used in Russia as an instrument of punishment’ (OED).
15.2894–95: I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback
Krafft-Ebing records the account of a masochist who longed to be ridden like a horse: ‘I made my back horizontal, and she mounted astride, after the manner of a man. I then did the best I could to imitate the movements of a horse, and loved to have her treat me like a horse, without consideration’ (Psychopathia Sexualis, p. 102).
15.2896: Matterson’s
Matterson & Sons: merchants, 12 Hawkins Street (Thom’s, p. 1953). However, in the Dublin Street Directory, the store at that address is listed as ‘Fry, O and R general commission agents, flour, cheese, ling, herring and butter stores’ (p. 1515).
15.2896: Guinness’s porter See note at 3.152.
15.2897: Stock Exchange cigar
Stock Exchange cigar: a cigar manufactured by the Stock Exchange Cigar Company, 11 Wall Street, New York City (John Simpson, JJON).
15.2898: Licensed Victualler’s Gazette
The Licensed Victualler’s Gazette and Hotel Courier: a weekly trade publication, published in London. This paper also included sporting and cultural news (Waterloo Directory). Joyce recorded in his Trieste notebook that his father used to read the Licensed Victualler’s Gazette (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 104; JJA, vol. 7, p. 146).
15.2902: turning turtle
To turn turtle: to turn over on one’s back (OED).
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996 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2916: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him
In Venus in Furs, right after Severin signs the contract forcing him to be Wanda’s slave (see note at 15.2864), she summons three maidservants to tie him securely (p. 150). Krafft-Ebing records similar scenes of degradation in his Psychopathia Sexualis: ‘The mistress [. . .] sits a-straddle on my chest or on my face, using my body as a table’ (p. 91).
15.2923: Mrs Keogh Unknown.
15.2932: Keating Clay is elected vicechairman of the Richmond asylum
The Evening Telegraph for 16 June 1904 reported that Robert Keating Clay (1835–1904), a distinguished Dublin solicitor and philanthropist, had been appointed Vice-Chairman of the Richmond Asylum (p. 4, col. g), for which see note at 1.205–06. Clay had been ill since December 1903 and died on 4 July 1904, shortly after his appointment to the Richmond Asylum (Irish Times, 5 July 1904, p. 5, col. c).
15.2933–34: Guinness’s preference shares are at sixteen three quarters
According to the Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904: ‘Guinness Ordinary, for a few shares, rose 1/16, to 55 3/8, while the Preference maintained previous value, 16 11/16’ (p. 4, col. c).
15.2934–35: Craig and Gardner
Craig, Gardner, and Co.: chartered accountants, 40–41 Dame Street (Thom’s, p. 1841).
15.2935–36: And that Goddamned outsider Throwaway at twenty to one See note at 12.1219.
15.2942: figged fist
Figged fist: a contemptuous and obscene gesture made by pushing the thumb between the first two fingers, also known as the ‘Fig of Spain’ (Partridge). This may be an allusion to the opening of Canto 25 of Dante’s Inferno, when ‘the thief lifted up his hands with both the figs [le fiche], crying: “Take that, God, for at Thee I square them!” ’ (XXV.1–3). This gesture, le fiche, was already obscene in Dante’s time (Charles S. Singleton, The Divine Comedy: Inferno: Commentary, p. 428).
15.2944: A cockhorse to Banbury cross
From a nursery rhyme typically sung whilst pretending to ride a toy horse, called a ‘cock-horse’ (OED): ‘Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross’, with several variants (ODNR, pp. 65–67).
15.2944–45: Eclipse stakes
The Eclipse Stakes have been run at Sandown Park, Surrey, since 1886. It is named after Eclipse (1764–89), a famous racehorse of the eighteenth century. It is the oldest Group One race in the flat-race calendar and was worth more than twice the Derby when it was first run (Wray Vampleu and Joyce Kay, Encyclopedia of British Horse Racing, pp. 107, 119). In 1904, it was held on 16 July (Freeman’s Journal, 16 July 1904, p. 7, cols a–b).
15.2946–47: horserides cockhorse
Cockhorse: astride or mounted upon; the word also carries the figurative sense of triumph antly or haughtily (OED).
15.2947: leaping in the, in the saddle
After the description of the viceroy’s outriders in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.795).
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15.2947–49: The lady goes a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot . . . a gallop
After a nursery rhyme: ‘This is the way the ladies ride, / Nimble, nimble, nimble, nimble; / This is the way the gentlemen ride, / A gallop a trot, a gallop a trot’ (ODNR, p. 257).
15.2953: suckeress
Suckstress: a female who fellates, or a low colloquialism for a lesbian (Partridge).
15.2957–58: This bung’s about burst
Bung: ‘A stopper; spec. a large cork stopper for the ‘mouth’ of a cask, i.e. the hole in the bulge by which it is filled’; also the buttocks (OED).
15.2959: by Jingo See note at 6.866.
15.2959–60: sixteen three quarters See note at 15.2933–34.
15.2965–66: a thing under the yoke
In Venus in Furs, as one of his punishments, Severin is yoked to a plough, driven by Wanda’s servant-girls (p. 162). In Roman history, vanquished armies were ‘subjugated’, sent under the yoke (sub jugum), as a sign of their humiliation.
15.2967: Ruby Cohen
Combines Bella Cohen’s name with Ruby, from Ruby: the Pride of the Ring (see note at 4.346).
15.2967: shot silk
Shot: ‘Woven with warp-threads of one colour and weft-threads of another, so that the fabric (usually silk) changes in tint when viewed from different points’ (OED).
15.2973: As they are now, so will you be See note at 6.961.
15.2975–76: You will be laced with cruel force . . . coutille
This passage derives from a letter to the fetish magazine Bits of Fun: ‘My body being thus stretched and contracted to the utmost, she laced me into corsets with cruel force’ (Bits of Fun, 7 Aug. 1920, quoted in Farrer, Confidential Correspondence on Cross Dressing, Part Two, p. 239). Coutille: a close-woven type of canvas used in making stays, corsets, and mattresses (OED, s.v. coutil).
15.2976: whalebone busk
Busk: ‘A strip of wood, whalebone, steel, or other rigid material attached vertically to the front section of a corset so as to stiffen and support it’ (OED).
15.2980: houseflag
House flag: ‘The distinguishing flag of a shipping company, or of a vessel’s owner’ (OED, s.v. house).
15.2980: Alice
Reference unclear.
15.2981: Martha and Mary See note at 5.289.
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998 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.2985: charming soubrette See note at 10.380–81.
15.2986: I tried her things on
Krafft-Ebing gives many examples of cross-dressing: ‘In this form it is no longer the woman herself, dressed [. . .] that constitutes the principal sexual stimulus, but the sexual interest is so concentrated on some particular article of female attire that the lustful idea of this object is entirely separated from the idea of woman, and thus attains an independent value’ (Psychopathia Sexualis, p. 164).
15.2991: domino
Domino: ‘A kind of loose cloak, apparently of Venetian origin, chiefly worn at masquerades, with a small mask covering the upper part of the face, by persons not personating a character’ (OED).
15.2994–95: Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne Hotel See note at 8.350 for Mrs Dandrade and note at 8.351 for the Shelbourne.
15.2997: Demimondaine
Demimondaine: a woman of questionable reputation and social standing (OED).
15.3001–02: lieutenant Smythe-Smythe
Presumably fictitious. ‘Double-barrelled’ surnames are stereotypically British upper-class.
15.3002: Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell, M.P.
Not included in the listing of members of Parliament in Thom’s. To block: to have sexual intercourse (Partridge).
15.3002: signor Laci Daremo See note at 4.314.
15.3003: blueeyed Bert
After ‘blue-eyed boy’: a favourite to whom great preference is shown (Partridge).
15.3003–04: Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame
After Henry Flower. See note at 6.369–70 for the Gordon Bennett race.
15.3004: Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus
Croesus: the last king of Lydia (560–546 bc), who was so rich that his name is synonymous with wealth (ODEP). Quadroon: ‘A person who is by descent three-quarters white and onequarter black’; now considered offensive (OED).
15.3004: wetbob eight
Wetbob: Eton slang for a boy who participates in water sports, i.e. rowing and sailing, rather than cricket and rugby (Brewer’s). There are eight rowers in a full crew shell.
15.3005: Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton
Manorhamilton: a village in the north-west of Ireland, in County Leitrim, about 25 km east of Sligo. ‘Bobs’ is perhaps in reference to Lord Frederick Sleigh Roberts of Kandahar and Waterford (see note at 14.1332).
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15.3006–07: wouldn’t it make a Siamese cat laugh?
To make a cat laugh: ‘said of something excruciatingly funny’ (OED, s.v. cat). Originally Joyce simply wrote ‘cat’ and on a page proof first specified ‘Manx cat’ before changing it to ‘Siamese cat’ on the same proof (JJA, vol. 26, p. 231).
15.3009–10: It was Gerald converted me to be a true corsetlover
Joyce derived this name from a letter from a man calling himself ‘Archie’ to the fetish maga zine Bits of Fun, which frequently included tales of male cross-dressing: ‘I very much envy “Gerald” for being put into such lovely girl’s clothes and for having nice friends to make a fuss of him while he was in them’ (Bits of Fun, 9 Oct. 1920, quoted in Farrer, Confidential Correspondence on Cross Dressing, Part Two, p. 255). (‘Gerald’ was also mentioned in a letter published in the 16 Oct. issue; Farrer, pp. 16, 256–57). ‘Corset-Lover’ was the pseudonym of another correspondent to this magazine (Ronan Crowley, ‘Fusing the Elements of “Circe” ’, p. 352).
15.3010: the High School play Vice Versa
Vice Versa (subtitled A Lesson to Fathers): a novel from 1882 by F. Anstey (real name, Thomas Anstey Guthrie, 1856–1934); adapted into a play by Edward Rose (1849–1904) in 1883 and, again, by Guthrie himself in 1910. Joyce acted in a production of Vice Versa on 10–11 January 1898, when he was a student at Belvedere College (Ellmann, p. 56). Since Bloom’s final year of high school was in 1880 (see 17.1195) he could not have acted in Vice Versa.
15.3011: stays
See note at 3.431.
15.3024: jinkleman
Jinkleman: A baby-talk pronunciation of gentleman.
15.3025–26: By the ass of the Dorans
After the traditional Irish ballad ‘Doran’s Ass’, which tells of how Paddy Doyle, drunk, cannot distinguish Doran’s ass from his own beloved, Biddy Toole (Bowen, p. 286).
15.3029: Black church
The Black Church: the nickname for St Mary’s Chapel of Ease (Church of Ireland). Built in 1830 in a gothic revival style (Bennett, s.v. St Mary’s). It is so called because it ‘is built of a singularly dark stone which produces a sombre and funereal effect’ (Chart, Story of Dublin, p. 294). It stands off Mountjoy Street, on St Mary’s Place (Thom’s, p. 1540).
15.3030–31: Miss Dunn at an address in D’Olier street
Possibly related to Joseph Dunn, poulterer and fishmonger, 26 D’Olier Street (Thom’s, p. 1476). Boylan’s typist is named Miss Dunne (see note at 10.368). While the address of Boylan’s office is unspecified, there was an ‘Advertising Co. (limited)’ at 15 D’Olier Street (p. 1475). D’Olier Street is named after Jeremiah D’Olier (1745–1817), Sheriff of Dublin and one of the founders of the Bank of Ireland (McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 81). Westmoreland Street (see note at 8.155) and D’Olier Street branch off at O’Connell Bridge. D’Olier Street runs west to College Street and leads into Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street. The most common local pronunciation is duh-leer, with the stress on the second syllable.
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1000 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3036: vitriol works
Dublin Vitriol Works, Ballybough Bridge (Thom’s, p. 1859). Vitriol oil: concentrated sulphuric acid (OED), which was used in the bleaching of linen cloth (EB11, s.v. bleaching).
15.3039: stimulated by gingerbread See note at 15.1104.
15.3040: postal order See note at 8.1132.
15.3043: Go the whole hog
To go the whole hog: ‘To go all the way, to do the thing thoroughly’ (OED); see also note at 13.882. In the Odyssey, Circe uses her potions to transform Odysseus’s men into swine: ‘they took on the look of pigs, with the heads and voices / and bristles of pigs, but the minds within them stayed as they had been / before’ (X.239–41); so, not quite the whole hog.
15.3045: Poldy Kock See note at 4.358.
15.3045: Bootlaces a penny See note at 6.229–30.
15.3045: Cassidy’s hag
See 4.224–25 for the hag and note at 4.224 for Cassidy’s.
15.3045–46: blind stripling
The blind stripling Bloom helped across Dawson Street in ‘Lestrygonians’ (8.1075–1105).
15.3046: Larry rhinoceros
That is, Larry O’Rourke (see note at 4.105). See note at 11.264 for rhino.
15.3049: Our mutual faith
Bloom assumes Bella Cohen is Jewish because Cohen (and the related form Coen) is a common Jewish surname, though in Ireland it ‘has usually no Jewish connotation’ (MacLysaght, The Surnames of Ireland, p. 49); see also note at 15.2742.
15.3049: Pleasants street See note at 4.209–10.
15.3066: we ladies
Joyce took this phrase from Queen Victoria’s published diary, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868): ‘Albert had walked a great deal, and we ladies got off after it became most uneven’ (p. 121; Ronan Crowley, ‘The Queen is Not a Subject’, p. 201; NLI II.i.2 f. 5v).
15.3068: With this ring I thee own
After of the Christian marriage service, ‘With this ring I thee wed and plight unto thee my troth’ (Klauder, Catholic Practice at Church and at Home, p. 127); see also note at 15.375.
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15.3077: Miss Ruby See note at 4.346.
15.3084: on the turf
The turf: the world of horse-racing (OED); see note at 7.606. Partridge notes that a woman ‘on the turf ’ is a prostitute. Corley uses this phrase in this context in ‘Two Gallants’ in Dubliners: ‘She’s on the turf now’ (p. 53).
15.3084: Charles Alberta Marsh
Marsh was referred to earlier, but not by name, as Bella’s ‘tipster that gives her all the winners’ (15.1289).
15.3085–86: Hanaper and Petty Bag office
Hanaper: ‘The department of the Chancery, into which fees were paid for the sealing and enrolment of charters and other documents’; abolished in 1832 (OED). Petty Bag: ‘An office of the common-law jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, dealing with suits for and against the Lord Chancellor’s staff ’; abolished in 1889 (OED). In Dublin in 1904, the Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper and Permanent Secretary was J. Nugent Lentaigne (1847–1915) (Thom’s, p. 898).
15.3086: maid of all work See note at 3.234.
15.3086–87: short knock See note at 4.62.
15.3088–89: he bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom’s vulva
This derives from a passage from Havelock Ellis’s (English physician, 1858–1939) Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1906): ‘F. was tall, dark and handsome, but had never made any advances to me, nor had I to her. She was making love to her father’s mare after a singular fashion. Stripping her right arm, she formed her fingers into a cone, and pressed on the mare’s vulva. I was astonished to see the beast stretching her hind legs as if to accommodate the hand of her mistress, which she pushed in gradually and with seeming ease to the elbow. At the same time she seemed to experience the most voluptuous sensation, crisis after crisis arriving’ (vol. 5, p. 85; Crowley, ‘Looking at Animals without Seeing Them’, p. 11).
15.3094: Dillon’s lacquey See note at 7.412.
15.3098: One and eightpence too much
Simon Dedalus’s wry comment after hearing the story of Reuben Dodd Jr being rescued from the Liffey (6.291 and see notes at 6.264–65 and 6.286).
15.3102: Two bar
See note at 10.1136–37.
15.3102: Rockbottom figure
Rock-bottom prices: the lowest possible prices (OED); the OED gives examples of this phrase from American advertisements from 1873 onwards.
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1002 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3102–03: cheap at the price
This catchphrase was used in advertisements from the early nineteenth century onwards; for example, from an advertisement for The Natural History of Selburne by Gilbert White, ‘The engravings alone would be astonishingly cheap at the price of the volumes’ (The Examiner, 14 Sep. 1834, p. 592).
15.3103: Fourteen hands high
The height of horses is measured in units called hands; 1 hand = 4 inches = 10.2 cm (OED). The most successful racehorses are typically between 15 and 16 hands high (EB11, s.v. Horse).
15.3106: stockgetter
Stock getter: ‘an animal that is chosen or kept for breeding purposes’ (OED, s.v. stock).
15.3108: croup
Croup: ‘The rump or hind-quarters of a beast, esp. of a horse or other beast of burden’ (OED).
15.3113: the Caliph. Haroun Al Raschid See note at 3.366.
15.3115–19: Let them all come . . . blasé man about town
This passage derives from a letter to the fetish magazine Bits of Fun: ‘Phyllis is still stubborn, though; it is wonderful, her spirit, considering her physical pain, I think [. . .] However, we shall surely “tame” her soon. I fail to see any further idea we can utilise though. Her skirts now are so short we can’t possibly shorten them. As a matter of fact, the young minx rather likes showing so much leg, as her legs are undoubtedly pretty and slim, and look fascinating in the fine silk hose, especially from behind, where one sees the long straight seams trailing away up past the back of her knees’ (‘Flapper Discipline’, 2 Oct. 1920; Ronan Crowley ‘Dressing up Bloom for “Circe” ’, p. 3).
15.3116: pantalette
Pantalette (usually pantalettes): ‘Long, loose pants with a frill or ruffle at the bottom of each leg, showing beneath a skirt and worn by young girls in the early to mid 19th cent.; (later also) trousers or knickerbockers worn by women under skirts, esp. for active pursuits such as cycling’ (OED).
15.3119: mincing walk
Mincing: ‘Of speech, manner, behaviour, physical features, attributes, etc.: affectedly dainty, elegant, or mannered. In later (usually derogatory) use often associated with an effeminate or effete manner or behaviour in a man, esp. a homosexual’ (OED).
15.3119: four inch Louis Quinze heels
Louis heels: named after Louis XIV (1638–1715, r. 1643–1715), not Louis XV (1710–74, r. 1715–74); although the mistake in attribution is common and both names were in circulation in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. ‘A breasted heel with a reverse curve and flared base. [. . .] During the 17th century, King Louis XIV of France, who was only 5 feet 3 inches [1.6 m] tall, had shoes with high heels specially made to increase his height. The trend caught on’ (Paul Roberts, Heels Part 1, p. 67).
15.3120: Grecian bend
Grecian bend: ‘an affected carriage of the body, in which it is bent forward from the hips’ (OED, s.v. Grecian); the expression was made popular by a song from 1868 performed by
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15. ‘Circe’ 1003 the female impersonator William Horace Lingard (English comic singer, 1839–1927) (Michelle Durden, ‘Not Just a Leg Show’).
15.3120: fluescent
The word fluescent does not appear in the OED or the Century Dictionary but is attested elsewhere. Usage suggests that it is synonymous with fluorescent (‘vividly colourful’ (OED)); for example: ‘H. and Son respectfully informs the Public that their China Galleries are stocked with the largest Selection in Ireland of Dinner Sets in Ironstone, the New “Fluescent Blue”, &c. &c., at every price’ (Freeman’s Journal, 5 Dec. 1844, p. 1, col. b). Context suggests a different possible meaning, as a derivation from fluent, ‘Moving easily or gracefully’ (OED, s.v. fluent).
15.3122: Gomorrahan vices
Gomorr(h)ean: sinful (OED); after Gomorrah, one of the cities of the plain destroyed by God for its wickedness (Genesis 19). In French, the word gomorrheen refers to lesbians and lesbianism, as an analogue to sodomite, although this usage is unattested in English. Joyce’s spelling is idiosyncratic.
15.3129: Manx cat!
A Manx cat lacks a tail, having instead only a tuft of hair (EB11, s.v. cat). The Latin word penis means tail.
15.3130: cockyolly
Cockyolly: a pet name, usually applied to a bird (OED).
15.3131: doing his pooly
That is, urinating. Pooly: ‘A small pool, spec. of urine’ (OED).
15.3137: my gay young fellow
The word gay has a complex history. The likeliest sense here is ‘dedicated to social pleasures; dissolute, promiscuous; frivolous, hedonistic’; senses that are well-attested from the sixteenth century through to the twentieth. By the eighteenth century it also acquired a derivative sense, ‘living by prostitution’, which might also be relevant here. By at least the 1930s, it also acquired the meaning homosexual, but, as the OED notes, it is difficult to precisely establish when this sense emerged: ‘It is likely that, although there may be innuendo in some cases, these have been interpreted anachronistically in the light either of the context [. . .] or of knowledge about an author’s sexuality.’
15.3139: muff
Muff: ‘A foolish, stupid, feeble, or incompetent person’; also, since the early eighteenth century, the female genitalia or pubic hair (OED).
15.3142: furzebush
Furze: ‘The popular name of Ulex europæus, a spiny evergreen shrub with yellow flowers, growing abundantly on waste lands throughout Europe’ (OED); see note at 12.158. There is an area in Phoenix Park known as the Furze or the Furry Glen; see note at 11.633. Furze is also used to name ‘the female pubic hair, viewed as an entity’ (Partridge).
15.3149: lame duck
Lame duck: someone who is disabled or otherwise disadvantaged (Partridge).
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1004 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3151: I forgot! Forgive! See note at 15.1108.
15.3154: in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years See notes at 13.1112 and 13.1115.
15.3156: wold
Wold: ‘Forest, forest land; wooded upland’ (OED).
15.3158: Rip Van Wink! Rip van Winkle!
During his hunting trip in the Catskills, Rip Van Winkle ‘heard a voice from a distance, hallooing, “Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!” ’ (Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book, p. 38).
15.3160: rusty fowlingpiece
Fowling-piece: ‘A light gun for shooting wild fowl’ (OED); see note at 13.1116.
15.3161: peering through the diamond panes See 9.649–50.
15.3162: The first night at Mat Dillon’s!
See note at 6.697 for Mat Dillon and note at 11.725 for the problem of the ‘first night’.
15.3165: owl
Owl: a solemn dullard (OED).
15.3167–68: Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled . . . seawind See 4.240–42 and 4.435–36.
15.3168: simply swirling
From the song ‘Those Lovely Seaside Girls’; see note at 4.282.
15.3171: Papli
See note at 4.397.
15.3173–74: aunt Hegarty’s
Hegarty is Bloom’s maternal grandmother’s maiden name (17.537), so Aunt Hegarty would be her sister, Bloom’s great-aunt.
15.3178: Turn about
A truncation of the proverb ‘Turn about is fair play’. The earliest, and only, example cited in ODEP comes from Robert Louis Stevenson’s (Scottish writer, 1850–94) The Wrecker (1892): ‘You had your chance then; seems to me it’s mine now. Turn about’s fair play.’
15.3178–79: Sauce for the goose, my gander, O See note at 11.877.
15.3183: Brusselette carpet
Brussels carpet: ‘a kind of carpet having a back of stout linen thread and an upper surface of wool’ (OED, s.v. Brussels). The suffix -ette denotes this as an imitation Brussels fabric (OED).
15.3184: Wren’s auction See note at 6.446.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1005
15.3185–86: little statue you carried home in the rain for art for art’s sake
For the statue, see notes at 17.1428 and 18.1350–51. ‘Art for art’s sake’: from the French l’art pour l’art, a widespread slogan in the nineteenth century, later associated with aestheticism and its proponents such as Wilde, Pater, and Swinburne. The phrase is usually credited to Victor Cousin (French philosopher, 1792–1867). In a lecture at the Sorbonne, in 1818, he proclaimed: ‘De même, l’art [. . .] est à son tour un pouvoir indépendant. Il ne relève que de l’lui-même [. . .] Il faut comprendre et aimer la morale pour la morale, la religion pour la religion, l’art pour l’art’ (All the same, art [. . .] is, in its turn, an independent power. It belongs only to itself [. . .] One must understand and love morality for morality’s sake, religion for religion’s sake and art for art’s sake) (Du Vrai, du beau et du bien, p. 197).
15.3187: handbook of astronomy See note at 17.1391.
15.3188: brass fender
Fender: ‘A metal frame placed in front of a fire to keep falling coals from rolling out into the room’ (OED).
15.3189: Hampton Leedom’s
Hampton Leedom and Co.: ‘wax and tallow chandlers, hardware, delph, and china merchants’, 50 Henry Street (Thom’s, p. 1929).
15.3194: Swear!
In Hamlet, the ghost commands ‘Swear!’ repeatedly from under the stage as Hamlet orders Horatio and the others to swear to secrecy about the ghost’s appearance (I.v.148, 155, 161, 181).
15.3198–99: You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it
After the proverb, ‘As you make your bed, so you must lie in it’ (ODEP); see also note at 9.698 for the ‘secondbest bed’.
15.3199: Your epitaph is written See note at 11.1275.
15.3205–06: I can give you a rare old wine . . . to hell and back
After Circe’s instructions to Odysseus to return home via Hades: ‘Dig a pit of about a cubit in each direction, / and pour it full of drink offerings for all the dead, first / honey mixed with milk, then a second pouring of sweet wine’ (Odyssey, X.517–19).
15.3208: Cuck Cohen See note at 9.1025.
15.3211: cesspool See note at 15.138.
15.3215: I have sinned! I have suff See note at 5.372.
15.3218: Crybabby
Babby: a regional/dialect variant of baby (EDD).
15.3218: Crocodile tears
Crocodile tears: feigned tears (OED, s.v. crocodile).
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1006 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3220: passing bell
A passing bell is rung when someone is dying or immediately after death, requiring the faithful to say prayers for the soul of the deceased (OED).
15.3220–21: the circumcised, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall
Counting Bloom, there are ten people here, the minimum number for a minyan, a communal prayer in Judaism. The wearing of sackcloths and the placing of earth, dust, and ashes on the head are common traits of Jewish mourning rituals (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.vv. minyan; mourning). The Western Wall in Jerusalem is the only remaining part of Herod’s Temple, which was destroyed on 9 August ad 70 by the Romans (s.v. western wall). ‘It is called the Wailing Wall among non-Jews because Jews used to mourn at the wall for the destruction of the Temple’ (Alan Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend).
15.3221–22: M. Shulomowitz
Israel Shmulowitz (b. c.1852): the secretary of the Jewish Library, 57 Lombard Street West; his home was 6 South Spencer Street. Thom’s lists him as ‘M. Shumolovitz’ in the entry for the Library on Lombard Street (p. 1535). Joyce spelt his name Shulomowitz. The man himself spelt his name as Shmulowitz on the 1901 census, where his occupation is listed as ‘Hebrew teacher’. Hyman suggests that ‘M. Shulomowitz’ may refer to Israel’s son Isaac Myer Shmulowitz (1877–1940), ‘the Dublin correspondent of the London Hebrew weekly, Hayehudi, who left for South Africa in 1904 [. . .] Shmulowitz returned to Ireland some years later and settled in Cork’ (p. 328 n. 4). However, this is unlikely since, according to both the 1901 and 1911 censuses, Isaac was a draper living in Dublin, so his father Israel is the likelier candidate.
15.3222: Joseph Goldwater
Joseph Goldwater, 77 Lombard Street West (Thom’s, p. 1535).
15.3222: Moses Herzog See note at 12.17–18.
15.3222–23: Harris Rosenberg
Harris Rosenberg (b. 1844), 63 Lombard Street West (Thom’s, p. 1535). He emigrated from Poland and arrived in Dublin in 1895 (Igoe, p. 264).
15.3223: M. Moisel
See note at 4.209–10.
15.3223: J. Citron
See note at 4.204–05.
15.3223: Minnie Watchman
Minnie Watchman, 20 St Kevin’s Parade (Thom’s, p. 1589). Thom’s lists this name as ‘Mr. Minnie Watchman’, but she was a woman (Hyman, p. 329 n. 9).
15.3223: P. Mastiansky See note at 4.205.
15.3224: the reverend Leopold Abramovitz, chazen
Reverend Leopold Abramovitz (1849–1905), ‘Jewish minister’, 3 St Kevin’s Road (Thom’s, p. 1589). Chazzan: ‘A cantor or precentor in a Jewish synagogue’ (OED).
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15. ‘Circe’ 1007
15.3225: pneuma
Pneuma: a medieval musical term for ‘a group of notes sung to one (inarticulate) syllable at the end of a plain-song melody’; from the Greek word for breath, pneuma (OED).
15.3225: recreant
Recreant: ‘Designating a person who admits to having been defeated or overcome; that yields or surrenders; in a condition of surrender or defeat; defeated; (hence) cowardly, faint-hearted, craven, afraid’ (OED).
15.3227: dead sea fruit
Dead Sea fruit, also called the Apples of Sodom: proverbial for disillusionment; after the fruit that grows near the Dead Sea, which look beautiful but have an ashen taste (Brewer’s, s.v. Apples of Sodom).
15.3227: no flowers
Orthodox Jews do not allow flowers at funerals or by the graveside (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. mourning).
15.3228: Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad See note at 7.209.
15.32332: suttee pyre See note at 6.547–48.
15.3232: flame of gum camphire
Camphire: archaic spelling of camphor, ‘it is used in pharmacy, and was formerly in repute as an antaphrodisiac’ (OED, s.v. camphor).
15.3234: nymph with hair unbound
‘The Bath of the Nymph’ from Photo Bits; see note at 4.370.
15.3235: interlacing yews
Yew trees are commonly planted in churchyards, because as long-lived evergreens they are a symbol of immortality (Brewer’s).
15.3245: highkickers See note at 13.704.
15.3245: coster picnicmakers
Coster: short for costermonger, a hawker who sells fruit from a barrow, especially apples (costards); a term of contempt since Shakespeare’s day (OED, s.vv. coster; costermonger); see also note at 9.243. Coster singer: a music-hall performer who adopts the persona of a cockney vendor. Picnic Society: a London institution begun in the early 1800s which promoted entertainments such as vaudeville shows or pantomimes (OED).
15.3246: panto boys
The leading male role in a pantomime (see note at 1.258) is usually played by a woman; this is called the principal boy or, as here, a panto boy (OED, s.v. principal).
15.3247: shimmy dancers
Shimmy: ‘A lively modern dance resembling a foxtrot accompanied by simulated quivering or shaking of the body which first achieved wide popularity in the early nineteen-twenties’ (OED); thus, anachronistic for 1904.
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1008 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3247: La Aurora and Karini, musical act
La Amora and Karini were ‘a Spanish gymnastic and dancing act’ (Sunday Independent, 18 July 1920, p. 4, col. d) that appeared at the Tivoli Theatre in Dublin for a week in July 1920. They began performing as a duo in 1910 (John Simpson, ‘La Amora and Karini’, p. 4). Joyce wrote ‘Amora’ (Rosenbach f. 52), but the typist (understandably) misread his handwriting and typed ‘Aurora’ instead (JJA, vol. 15, p. 255).
15.3248: rock oil
Rock oil: petroleum (OED).
15.3250: transparencies
Transparency: ‘A picture, print, inscription, or device on some translucent substance, made visible by means of a light behind’ (OED).
15.3250: truedup dice
Trued-up: made precise, straight (OED, s.v. true). Advertisements of the era do indeed tout trued-up dice, such as this from Hunt & Co.: ‘We are now making perfect squared-up or trued-up dice. Every one is guaranteed to caliper or measure right to the one thousandth part of an inch’ (Toys and Novelties, vol. 18, no. 6, June 1921, p. 109).
15.3256: Rubber goods. Neverrip brand
Neverrip: a brand of condoms available in Europe from at least 1901 (see note at 9.1101). The term never-rip has been an advertiser’s expression for clothing since the nineteenth century (John Simpson, JJON).
15.3257: I cure fits or money refunded
‘I cure fits!’ was the headline of an advertisement for Dr Henry Root’s patent medicine cure for epilepsy. Root gave a postal address of 183 Pearl Street, New York. His medicine was widely advertised worldwide from the early 1860s through to the early twentieth century (John Simpson, JJON). Root’s ads did not use the phrase ‘or money refunded’, though this had been a cliché in small advertisements, especially for patent medicines, since at least the 1840s.
15.3258: Professor Waldmann’s wonderful chest exuber
Starting in the early 1910s, a variety of journals throughout Europe carried advertisements for the ‘Exuber Bust Developer’, which was marketed by a ‘Madame Hélène Duroy’ of 11 rue de Miromesnil, Paris. This was advertised until at least the 1930s. For example, an advertisement in the Parisian paper Le Matin bears the tagline ‘Une belle poitrine’ (a beautiful bust) and features a photograph and the endorsement of the music-hall actress Flavienne Merindol. The ad also lists thirteen satisfied customers and says how much their chests grew; for example, ‘Mme T. M., rue des Abbesses, 18 [cm] in 23 [days]’ (3 Dec. 1918, p. 4, col. c; with thanks to Harald Beck). Professor Waldmann is unknown.
15.3259: Mrs Gus Rublin
Gus Ruhlin (1872–1912): American boxer; known throughout the 1890s as the ‘Akron Giant’. His wife Sarah Ruhlin (née Mulrooney) was a prominent suffragette and political activist, who exploited her husband’s fame for the women’s suffrage movement and went by the name ‘Mrs Gus Ruhlin’. The spelling mistake is Joyce’s (John Simpson, JJON).
15.3261: Photo Bits See note at 4.370.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1009
15.3265: my shame
Shame: the genitalia (OED).
15.3268: a thing of beauty See note at 15.2254–55.
15.3274: Steel wine
Steel wine: a medicinal drink fortified with iron (OED, s.v. steel).
15.3274–76: that English invention . . . inoffensive vent See note at 17.1820–21.
15.3277: Frailty, thy name is marriage See note at 12.1227–28.
15.3289: The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea long ago See notes at 4.59 and 4.60.
15.3293: commode See note at 4.383.
15.3294: eleven stone nine
Molly weighs 163 pounds, or 74 kg.
15.3295: orangekeyed See note at 4.330.
15.3299: Poulaphouca
Poulaphouca: a waterfall on the River Liffey at Wicklow, 32 km south of Dublin; its name means ‘Pool of Pooka’, Pooka being a Celtic fairy and the model for Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (P. W. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 188).
15.3304: JOHN WYSE NOLAN See note at 8.950–51.
15.3305: Irish National Forester’s See note at 12.1268.
15.3316: pigeonbreasted
See note at 15.957.
15.3316: bottleshouldered See note at 8.595.
15.3321: old Royal stairs See note at 11.623–24.
15.3323: There were sunspots that summer
See note at 8.568 for sunspots. The original Theatre Royal burned down in 1880 (Bennett). There was a ‘very low minimum’ of sunspot activity in 1879 (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 41), so there would have been few sunspots in 1880.
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1010 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3324: tipsycake
Tipsycake: a cake soaked in wine or spirits (OED).
15.3324: Halcyon days See note at 13.334.
15.3326: Master Donald Turnbull
These are the names of Bloom’s schoolfriends at Erasmus Smith High School (see note at 5.42). In 1904, a Donald Munro Turnbull (1859–1908) was listed at 53 Harcourt Street, the street where the school is located (Thom’s, p. 2028).
15.3326–27: Master Abraham Chatterton
Abraham Chatterton (1862–1949): an alumnus of Erasmus Smith High School and, in 1904, the registrar (SS, p. 213); he was a Justice of the Peace and lived at 10 Clyde Road (Thom’s, pp. 863, 1830).
15.3327: Master Owen Goldberg See note at 8.404.
15.3327: Master Jack Meredith
In 1904, John W. Meredith lived at 97 Haddington Road (Thom’s, p. 1955).
15.3327–28: Master Percy Apjohn See note at 17.1251–52.
15.3331: Mackerel! See note at 8.405.
15.3333: hobbledehoy See note at 6.271.
15.3334: Again! I feel sixteen!
Bloom left the Erasmus Smith High School in 1880, when he was 14 years old (see note at 17.1194–95).
15.3335: Montague street
Montague Street is off Harcourt Street, on the west side of the street, near the Erasmus Smith High School.
15.3335–36: the High School See note at 5.42.
15.3341: hamadryads
Hamadryad: ‘A wood-nymph fabled to live and die with the tree which she inhabited’ (OED).
15.3341: boles
Bole: the trunk of a tree (OED).
15.3346: sward
Sward: ‘The surface of soil covered with grass or other herbage’; but its other meaning, skin, is also relevant, considering the innuendo of this passage (OED).
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15. ‘Circe’ 1011
15.3348: Poulaphouca See note at 15.3299.
15.3354: The flowers that bloom in the spring
From Act II in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado (1885): ‘The flowers that bloom in the spring, / Tra la, / Breathe the promise of merry sunshine, / As we merrily dance and we sing, / Tra la’ (The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, p. 709).
15.3354: pairing time
Pairing time: ‘the season at which birds pair; the age at which the sexes begin to pair off ’ (OED).
15.3354–55: Capillary attraction
Capillary attraction: the force that causes liquids to rise in fine tubes and wicks, and to spread in other absorbent materials such as blotting paper (EB11, s.v. capillary action).
15.3355: Lotty Clarke Unknown.
15.3357: Rialto bridge
A steep bridge which crosses over the Grand Canal between Kilmainham and Dolphin’s Barn; it lies 2.5 km west on the South Circular Road from Bloom’s boyhood home at 52 Clanbrassil Street. It is named after the Rialto Bridge in Venice (Chart, Story of Dublin, pp. 330–31).
15.3360: Staggering Bob See note at 8.724.
15.3366: girling
Girling: ‘The action or practice (by a man) of consorting with women or of seeking out female company’ (OED); the OED dates the expression to the late eighteenth century.
15.3367: Ben Howth through rhododendrons See both notes at 8.911.
15.3372: thistledown and gorsespine
Thistle-down: ‘The down or pappus which crowns the “seeds” or achenes of the thistle, and by means of which they are carried along by the wind’ (OED). Gorse spine: the spine from gorse; spine: a thorn (OED).
15.3373: Circumstances alter cases
Proverbial; ODEP cites J. Payn’s In Market Over! (1895): ‘Circumstances alter cases even with the best of us’.
15.3374: Thirtytwo head over heels per second
See note at 5.44–45 for the law of falling bodies. Head over heels: when used literally, falling, tumbling; or used metaphorically to suggest a complete lack of being in control (such as the state of being in love); an inversion of the earlier (and more logical) expression ‘heels over head’ (OED, s.v. head).
15.3375: Giddy Elijah
See notes at 8.13 and 12.1910–12.
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1012 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3375–76: government printer’s clerk
Bloom used to work for Alexander Thom’s; see note at 7.224.
15.3377–78: dummy of Bloom, rolled in a mummy
‘In some island cultures, the bodies of the dead are wrapped in cloth and weighted with stones before being dropped into the ocean. In the British navy in the nineteenth century, the dead were sewn in the hammocks with shot at their feet before being launched overboard’ (Christine Quigley, The Corpse: A History, p. 96).
15.3378: roteatingly
Joyce clearly wrote ‘roteatingly’ (Rosenbach f. 55). The typist interpreted this as ‘rakatingly’, and Joyce then corrected the word back to ‘roteatingly’ on the typescript (JJA, vol. 15, pp. 112, 259). On a galley proof, the word was set as ‘rotatingly’, but Joyce again corrected back to ‘roteatingly’ (JJA, vol. 20, p. 174). Thus the word managed to appear unmolested in the first edition. These corrections show that Joyce is insisting on the element rote within this word. Rote: ‘The roaring of the sea or surf on the shore’; ‘A wheel used as an instrument of torture’ (both OED); both senses are pertinent here (Slote, ‘Correcting Joyce’, p. 56). Another possibility might be rot-eatingly.
15.3378: Lion’s Head cliff See note at 8.901–02.
15.3382: Bailey and Kish lights the Erin’s King
The Baily lighthouse (see note at 13.409), on the same side as the Lion’s Head cliff. See note at 3.267 for the Kish lightship and note at 4.434 for the Erin’s King.
15.3385: COUNCILLOR NANNETTI See note at 7.75.
15.3386: alpaca
Nannetti was wearing an alpaca jacket in ‘Aeolus’; see note at 7.131.
15.3386: yellowkitefaced
In ‘Aeolus’, Bloom thought Nannetti’s complexion was ‘sallow’ with perhaps ‘a touch of jaundice’ (7.135). Kite: ‘A bird of prey of the family Falconidæ and subfamily Milvinæ, having long wings, tail usually forked, and no tooth in the bill’ (OED). Kite-faced was an insult: ‘you kite-faced, spindle-shaped, red-headed guttersnipe’ (Robert Blatchford, Tommy Atkins of the Ramchunders, p. 129; with thanks to Harald Beck).
15.3387–88: When my country takes her place . . . I have See note at 11.1275.
15.3390: Done. Prff!
Bloom’s fart from the end of ‘Sirens’ (11.1293–94).
15.3392: We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a place
The nymph is referring to Bloom’s earlier question as to whether the statues of ancient goddesses in the National Museum had anuses (see 8.929–32 and 9.609–17).
15.3393: We eat electric light See note at 8.927.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1013
15.3398: quassia
Quassia: ‘The bitter- tasting wood, bark, or root of Quassia amara; a medicinal preparation made from this, usually by infusion, used as an antipyretic or parasiticide’ (OED).
15.3399–3400: Hamilton Long’s syringe
See note at 5.464–65 for Hamilton Long. In the nineteenth century, a wide variety of syringes were available for use as enemas: ‘Those fanatics of colonic irrigation, the Victorians, could have chosen from 39 varieties offered by the Maw’s catalogue of 1868, and for their delight they were made of every material, some wildly decorated but all discreetly fitting into anonymous cases. The smaller ones were from 18 cm long and were made of brass or pewter, or even glass, with a rubber or twine bound plunger; some would have been attached to a bladder full of liquid. A silk covered rubber tube ended in either an ivory plug for rectal irrigation or a long brass-mounted rubber tube for the vagina’ (Elisabeth Bennion, Antique Medical Instruments, p. 170).
15.3405: Peccavi!
Peccavi! (Latin): ‘I have sinned!’; see also note at 5.372.
15.3405: living altar
‘Living altar’ is a common collocation in religious texts, but is also used in reference to the Black Mass. From an article on Satanism and the Black Mass in Paris: ‘On [the large black altar] was a mattress, and on the mattress lay prone the perfectly nude form of a beautiful woman. This was the “postulant”—“the living altar”, as she was called in the jargon of this Satanic sect’ (The Broadway Magazine, Nov. 1904, vol. 13, no. 8, p. 18; with thanks to Harald Beck).
15.3407: the hand that rules See note at 11.1183–84.
15.3409: cooeeing
See note at 9.38–39.
15.3411: Show us See note at 4.331.
15.3418: Came from a hot place
In Swift’s Polite Conversation, Lady Answerall explains to Lord Sparkish why the tea is so hot: ‘Why, it came from a hot Place, my Lord’ (p. 86).
15.3420: in war panoply with his assegai
Panoply: a suit of armour (OED). Assegai: a slender wood spear tipped with a metal point (OED, s.v. assagai).
15.3422: Ware Sitting Bull!
Ware: ‘a warning cry’ (OED). Sitting Bull (c.1831–90): one of the most famous Native American political leaders in the second half of the nineteenth century. He led a band of Hunkpapa Lakota to victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn in the Great Sioux War of 1876 (EB11).
15.3425: divaricated
To divaricate: to spread apart (OED).
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1014 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3425–26: the last favours
The last favour: sexual intercourse; translated from the French les dernières faveurs (OED, s.v. favour). As an example, the OED cites William Wycherley’s (English dramatist, c.1640–1716) The Plain Dealer (1676): ‘She [. . .] granted you the last favour, (as they call it)’ (V.iii).
15.3426–27: white sateen coatpans
Sateen: a cotton or wool material with a satin-like look (OED). Pan (French): coat-tail.
15.3429: Poulaphouca See note at 15.3299.
15.3434: in nun’s white habit, coif and huge winged wimple
A Carmelite nun’s habit. Thérèse of Lisieux (see note at 6.161) was ‘a familiar nineteenth-century image of one who wore the Carmelite habit’ (Elizabeth Kuhns, The Habit, p. 101).
15.3435: Tranquilla convent. Sister Agatha
See note at 8.143–44 for the convent. Agatha is the name of the nun Bloom tried to remember in ‘Lestrygonians’ (8.145) and ‘Nausicaa’ (13.781). This nun is named after Saint Agatha (d. 251), a famous martyr from Sicily (Catholic Encyclopedia).
15.3435: Mount Carmel
The Carmelites take their name from Mount Carmel, a ridge which extends for 21 km from the plain of Esdraelon to the Mediterranean Sea, where it ends in the southernmost promontory on the Bay of Haifa. It is associated with the prophets Elijah and Elisha (Isaiah 35:2, Amos 9:3, and 1 Kings 18). Since the thirteenth century, it has been the site of monasteries such as the Carmelite Monastery (Catholic Encyclopedia).
15.3436: apparitions of Knock and Lourdes See notes at 5.365 and 5.365–66.
15.3438–39: Where dreamy creamy gull . . . waters dull
The second version of Bloom’s ‘poem’ from ‘Lestrygonians’ (8.549–50; see note at 8.62–63).
15.3442: the Coombe See note at 5.280.
15.3444–47: O Leopold lost the pin of his drawers . . . To keep it up
After the song that Bloom recalled hearing the ‘sluts of the Coombe’ sing, O Mairy lost the pin of her drawers (see note at 5.281–84).
16.3450: postulants and novices
Both postulant and novice refer to candidates for admission into a religious order. ‘The status of postulant usually precedes that of novice [. . .], although the terms are occasionally used synonymously’ (OED, s.vv. postulant; novice).
15.3454: Deciduously! See note at 14.1499.
15.3460: poniard
Poniard: ‘a small, slim dagger’ (OED).
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15. ‘Circe’ 1015
15.3461: elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins) Nekum!
The Elected Knights of Nine are the sixth of the Eleven Ineffable Degrees in Freemasonry. The sign of this degree is to have one brother strike the other’s forehead; ‘the brother will answer by carrying his hands to his forehead, as if to examine the supposed wound, plunge the poniard at the breast, crying “Nekum” (i.e. vengeance)—the brother replies by carrying his hand to his heart, saying “Necar” ’ (Allyn, Ritual of Freemasonry, p. 292). The Elect of Nine is part of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, which is not worked in Ireland (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, p. 870).
15.3463: Nebrakada! See note at 10.849.
15.3463: Cat o’ nine lives!
Combines the proverb that a cat has nine lives (ODEP) with the cat-o’-nine-tails (see note at 15.1105).
15.3464: The fox and the grapes
‘The Fox and the Grapes’: one of Aesop’s fables. The fox tries to leap up a vine to taste some grapes, but fails each time. ‘After toiling in vain and being unable to reach it, he went away beguiling his grief with these words: “The grapes are sour, not ripe as I supposed” ’ (Babrius and Phaedrus, Fables, pp. 31).
15.3464: What do you lack See note at 15.643–44.
15.3465: your barbed wire
Bloom is under the misapprehension that barbed wire was invented by a nun; see note at 8.154.
15.3466: Brophy Unknown.
15.3466–67: spoutless statue of the watercarrier
Aquarius, the eleventh sign of the zodiac, is represented as ‘a man pouring water from a vessel’ (Brewer’s).
15.3467: good Mother Alphonsus
Possibly in reference to the Monastery of St Alphonsus (Church and Monastery of the Redemptoristines), Saint Alphonsus Road, Fairview (a suburb of Dublin). In 1904, the superioress of this monastery was Reverend Sister Mary Stanislaus (Thom’s, p. 1684).
15.3467: Reynard
Reynard: the hero of the fourteenth-century epic prose poem Reynard the Fox. ‘Reynard typifies the church; his uncle, Isengrin the wolf, typifies the baronial element; and Nodel the lion, the regal’ (Brewer’s).
15.3469–70: a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks
Recalls Dante’s dream of the Siren in the Purgatorio: ‘he [Virgil] seized the other and laid her bare in front, tearing her clothes, and showed me her belly. That awoke me with the stench that came from her’ (XIX.31–33). Earlier in the dream, the Siren says that she ‘turned
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1016 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Ulysses, eager on his way, to my song’ (XIX.22–23). This is a rather odd claim, since Homer’s Odysseus successfully resists the temptations of the Sirens (Od., XII.153–200). However, since Dante’s knowledge of Homer was second-hand and thus not always accur ate, some commentators of Dante’s works postulate that Dante had confused the Sirens with Circe (Charles S. Singleton, The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio, pp. 450–51).
15.3473: mucosities
Mucosity: ‘a fluid containing or resembling mucous’ (OED); in this context, semen.
15.3474: pay on the nail
To pay on the nail: to pay at once, without hesitation (Brewer’s, s.v. nail).
15.3474–75: You fee mendancers on the Riviera
That is, women hire (or ‘fee’) male escort-dancers at fashionable Mediterranean luxury resorts. By the turn of the century, both the French and Italian rivieras were popular beach destinations for affluent Europeans (EB11).
15.3475: a keen
Keen: an Irish funeral song, traditionally accompanied with wailing in lamentation for the dead (OED).
15.3481: You’ll know me the next time
Zoe said this exact line to Bloom immediately after she took Bloom’s potato away from him (15.1321).
15.3483: Passée
Passée (French, feminine): past, gone, faded.
15.3483: Mutton dressed as lamb
Mutton dressed as lamb: an older woman dressed as a young one; a mostly Cockney expression from the 1860s (Partridge).
15.3484–85: A raw onion the last thing at night . . . complexion
From ‘Our Ladies’ Column. Written for Women by a Woman’: ‘Seeing this reminds me of a woman I know who was told by some girls that their beautiful complexions were the result of eating half a raw onion every night for six months’. After one bite of the onion, ‘there began and ended her six months’ complexion cure [. . .] “Better”, she decided, “no complexion and no onion” ’ (The Skibbereen Eagle, 14 Oct. 1905, p. 8, col. e).
15.3490: Fbhracht
This word was set as ‘Fohracht’ on the page proofs (JJA, vol. 20, p. 179); a previous draft, in an amanuensis’s hand, reads ‘Fbhracht’, which is not any clearer (JJA, vol. 14, p. 323). There is no extant draft of this passage in Joyce’s hand.
15.3492: nailless middle finger
Middle finger: the penis; a vulgar colloquialism since the late nineteenth century (Partridge).
15.3493: spunk
Spunk: seminal fluid; the OED’s earliest example is from a pornographic novel called My Secret Life from c.1890: ‘It seemed to me scarcely possible, that the sweet, well dressed, smooth-spoken ladies [. . .] could let men put the spunk up their cunts.’ The word acquired
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15. ‘Circe’ 1017 this sense by analogy: the word mettle which has an equivalent meaning (spirit, courage, pluck) used to have the same obscene sense (OED, s.vv. spunk; mettle).
15.3494: cockscomb
Cock’s-comb: the crest of a cock (OED).
15.3496: Dead cod!
Cod: scrotum (Partridge).
15.3498: kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor!
Kipkeeper: brothelkeeper (see note at 9.552 for kip). Gleet: morbid discharge from the urethra (OED), an effect of gonorrhoea or some other venereal disease (‘pox’).
15.3500: dead march from Saul See note at 6.374.
15.3502: Mind your cornflowers
This expression seems to be unique to Ulysses; context suggests it means something like ‘watch your step’. Corn-flower: any of several plants that grows amongst corn (see note at 12.116), such as the common bluebottle, the wild poppy, the corn-cockle, or the corn- marigold (OED).
15.3503: The cat’s ramble through the slag
A derisive comment on the piano playing, based on the title of a traditional Irish jig, ‘The Cats’ Rambles to the Child’s Saucepan’ (Michael MacDonagh, Irish Life and Character, p. 363). Slag: refuse matter (OED).
15.3505: What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own
This proverbial expression can be found verbatim in Swift’s Polite Conversation (p. 170).
15.3511: Forfeits
Forfeits: a parlour game in which objects are forfeited by players as a penalty for making mistakes in the game. The objects are redeemable by paying an appropriate fine or penalty (Century Dictionary).
15.3515–18: Give a thing and take it back . . . down below
A children’s rhyme that accompanies a giving or swapping game which originated in Laurencetown, County Galway (Iona and Peter Opie, Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, p. 133).
15.3522: To have or not to have that is the question See note at 11.905.
15.3525–26: Those that hides knows where to find
Proverbial; listed in the ODEP as ‘He that hides can find’.
15.3530: pianola
See note at 15.1991.
15.3533–34: This silken purse I made out of the sow’s ear of the public
Contradicts the proverb, ‘You cannot make a Silk Purse out of a Sow’s Ear’ (ODEP).
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1018 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3536: Dans ce bordel où tenons nostre état
Dans ce bordel où tenons nostre état (French): ‘In this brothel where we hold court’; slightly modified from the refrain of François Villon’s (French poet, c.1431–c.1463) Ballade de la grosse Margot (Ballad of Fat Margot), which comprises lines 1591–1627 of his collection Le Testament (1461): ‘En ce bordeau où tenons nostre estat’ (ll. 1600, 1610, 1620, 1627). Joyce uses the modern French spelling of état as well as the modern French word bordel instead of the older bordeau, but retains Villon’s older form of nostre instead of notre.
15.3543: It’s ten shillings here See note at 15.370.
15.3546: brevi manu
Brevi manu (Latin): ‘offhand, summarily’ (literally, ‘with short hand’).
15.3560: it’s long after eleven
Pubs closed at 11:00 pm (see note at 9.1105), so the only places to serve liquor after closing time were unlicensed premises, which would charge extortionate rates; see note at 15.611.
15.3562: No bottles
In the Trieste notebook, under the heading ‘Dedalus (Stephen)’, Joyce wrote: ‘He disliked bottles’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 95; JJA vol. 7, p. 117).
15.3577–81: The fox crew, the cocks flew . . . out of heaven See note at 2.102–07.
15.3583–84: lays a half sovereign. . . Three times ten
Stephen, in his inebriated state, has paid a cumulative total of 40 shillings (or £2): first the banknote (15.3531) that is here identified as a ‘poundnote’, then a gold coin that is presumably a half-sovereign (15.3541), and finally an additional two crowns (15.3546). In order to prevent Stephen from being further exploited, Bloom here returns the pound note (20 shillings) to Stephen and pays a half-sovereign (10 shillings) for himself, making the total payment 30 shillings (‘three times ten’). The entrance fee to the brothel is 10 shillings (see note at 15.370), so Bloom has paid the entrance fee for himself while Stephen has paid for himself and for Lynch. Monto prostitutes were skilled at robbing their clients ‘and even on occasion made off with their clothing’ (Finegan, The Story of Monto, p. 12).
15.3586: slyboots
Slyboots: a crafty or wily person, especially one who seems simple or straightforward (Partridge).
15.3586: old cocky
Cocky: a term of endearment (OED).
15.3588: Deep as a drawwell
As deep as a well: proverbial, usually in the sense of physical depth, but also metaphorically. Dent cites William Carleton’s (Irish novelist, 1794–1869) story ‘Geography of an Irish Oath’: ‘Faix, Pether, you’re a cunnin’ shaver, an’ as deep as a draw well.’
15.3594: The distrait or absentminded beggar
See note at 9.118–20 for distrait and note at 9.125 for absentminded beggar.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1019
15.3599: Lucifer
That is, a lucifer match, a friction match made of wood tipped with a flammable substance (OED).
15.3604: Be just before you are generous See note at 2.262–63.
15.3609: Proparoxyton
Proparoxyton: in ancient Greek, a word with an acute accent on its antepenultimate syl lable (OED). However, the word eleven has its stress on the penultimate syllable, so the correct term would be paroxyton. In A Portrait, Stephen imagines a woman singing ‘Et tu cum Jesu Galilæo eras’, and we read of her voice ‘shining clearer as the voice intoned the proparoxyton and more faintly as the cadence died’ (p. 244).
15.3609: Moment before the next Lessing says
In his aesthetic treatise Laokoön (1766), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (German philosopher and dramatist, 1729–81) argued that the plastic arts can only represent a single moment of action, an Augenblick, (the ‘blink of an eye’). In contrast, writing can represent ‘different parts bit by bit [nach und nach], over the course of time’ (Laokoön, p. 113). Stephen mentioned Lessing and Laokoön in A Portrait (p. 211).
15.3610: Thirsty fox
The fable of the Fox and the Grapes (see note at 15.3464) has a hungry fox.
15.3610–11: Burying his grandmother. Probably he killed her See note at 2.102–07.
15.3620: Georgina Johnson See note at 9.195.
15.3620: dead and married
After the expression ‘dead and buried’. An example of this common phrase is in the Douay Bible’s commentary on Psalm 87: ‘When I shal [sic] be dead and buried, I can not denounce thy praises as now I can to mortal men.’ This rearrangement of the proverbial expression pre-dates the publication of Ulysses; for example: ‘My shoes stand for a reading notice under the Dead and Married Ads’ (The Academy, 27 June 1903, no. 1625, p. 638).
15.3621–22: Parlour magic
Parlour magic: ‘conjuring tricks, etc., performed in or suited to a parlour’ (OED, s.v. parlour).
15.3628: Lynx eye
In his diary entry for 2 April near the end of A Portrait, Stephen wrote of ‘lynxeyed Lynch’ (p. 250). Lynx are proverbial for the keenness of their sight (OED).
15.3628–29: Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago
Apparently Stephen broke his glasses on 15 June, since he is not wearing any glasses on 16 June. When he was a schoolboy at Clongowes, he also broke his glasses and was then punished by Father Dolan for failing to do his exercises (Portrait, pp. 49–59); see also notes at 7.618 and 9.211.
15.3629: Distance. The eye sees all flat See note at 3.418–19.
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1020 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3630–31: Ineluctable modality of the visible See note at 3.1.
15.3631–32: The beast that has two backs See note at 7.752.
15.3636: Mr Lambe from London Unknown.
15.3638: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world
After John the Baptist’s greeting of Jesus at John 1:29: ‘Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world’. The Latin version of these lines is used in the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) section of the Mass after the elevation of the consecrated host and before the congregation comes forward to receive communion (Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 281).
15.3640: Dona nobis pacem
Dona nobis pacem (Latin): ‘Grant us peace’; the concluding phrase from the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) section of the Mass (Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 281).
15.3649–50: bloodoath in The Dusk of the Gods
From Wagner’s Die Götterdämmerung, the last opera of Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). Although now better known as The Twilight of the Gods, the opera’s title was translated as The Dusk of the Gods in 1888 by the Oliver Ditson Company and also in 1911 by Oliver Huckel. In Act I, Siegfried takes a blood oath of friendship with Gunther so that he may marry his sister Gutrune. However, he is being manipulated by Hagen and this blood oath sets in motion his own death and the downfall of the gods (Timothy Martin, Joyce and Wagner, pp. 44, 207).
15.3651–53: Hangende Hunger . . . kaputt
(Incorrect and nonsensical German): ‘Hanging hunger over us, / inquisitive woman, / ruins us all’. Properly, it should be ‘Hangender Hunger’; the phrase ‘Nagender Hunger’ (gnawing hunger) is a fairly common collocation. While this precise sentence is not in Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, it ‘matches exactly the meter of Wagner’s music’ (Martin, Joyce and Wagner, p. 44). The phrase ‘fragende Frau’ appears in the second opera of the cycle, Die Walküre, Act I, scene 2 (p. 60). Likewise, also of possible relevance, from Act III, scene 1: ‘Mutigen Trotzes / ertrag alle Müh’n, / Hunger und Durst’ (Bold in defiance, / endure every ill, / hunger and thirst) (p. 98; with thanks to Harald Beck). For ‘macht uns alle kaputt’, see note at 15.274–75.
15.3655: Hamlet, I am thy father’s gimlet!
The jocular substitution of gimlet for ghost dates to at least the late eighteenth century (Ronan Crowley, JJON); see note at 8.67–68. Gimlet (Hiberno-English): a half-glass of whiskey (Partridge).
15.3656–57: No wit, no wrinkles
Zoe refers to the superstition that a wrinkled brow indicates intelligence. An illustration of this belief can be found in Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation. When Miss Notable remarks ‘I never heard that’, Neverout responds ‘Why, then, Miss, you have a wrinkle—more than ever you had before’ (pp. 101–02).
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15. ‘Circe’ 1021
15.3657: Two, three, Mars, that’s courage
Zoe is reading Stephen’s palm and is counting the small areas of the palm known as ‘mounts’. There are three mounts on the inner line of the upturned palm: the Mount of Mars lies in between the base of the little finger and the heel of the hand. This mount symbolises active courage and self-possession (Henry Frith and Edward Heron Allen, The Language of the Hand, p. 90).
15.3660: Sheet lightning courage
Sheet lightning: gin (OED); so sheet lightning courage, like Dutch courage, is bravery brought on by drinking.
15.3660: The youth who could not shiver and shake
After the title of the Grimms’ fairy tale ‘The Boy Who Could Not Shiver and Shake’.
15.3663–64: I see it in your face. The eye, like that See note at 7.618.
15.3666: Pandybat See note at 9.211.
15.3668: Father Dolan
The prefect of studies at Clongowes Wood College from chapter one of A Portrait; based on Father James Daly, S.J. (1847–1930), the prefect at Clongowes during Joyce’s time there. He was notorious for being a strict disciplinarian (Bruce Bradley, James Joyce’s Schooldays, pp. 69–71).
15.3671–72: Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? . . . in your eye See note at 7.618.
15.3673: Don John Conmee
See note at 5.322–23 for Conmee; see note at 9.211 for Conmee’s rescue of Stephen from Dolan’s punishment and note at 10.174 for Don.
15.3681: His criminal thumbprint on the haddock
After the belief that the two dark marks on the haddock’s neck are impressions made by St Peter’s finger and thumb (Brewer’s).
15.3685: Thursday. Today
While Stephen’s exact birthdate is never specified, Joyce was born on Thursday, 2 February 1882. And 16 June 1904 was also a Thursday.
15.3687: Thursday’s child has far to go
After the nursery rhyme: ‘Monday’s child is fair of face, / Tuesday’s child is full of grace, / Wednesday’s child is full of woe, / Thursday’s child has far to go’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Monday).
15.3687–88: Line of fate. Influential friends
The ‘Line of Fate’ is a line on the palm from the middle of the wrist to the base of the middle finger. A clear line denotes that one will enjoy a ‘wide circle of influential friends’ (Ray Douglas, Handbook of Palmistry, p. 129).
15.3690: Imagination
The Mount of the Moon is the fleshy part of the palm at the heel of the hand below the little finger, and its presence signifies imagination (Frith and Allen, Language of the Hand, pp. 85, 90).
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1022 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3698–99: Knobby knuckles for the women
‘Few women have their joints developed, so few women have the faculty of combination; [. . .] if their hands are knotty, their intellects are, so to speak, diluted’ (Frith and Allen, Language of the Hand, p. 69).
15.3701–02: Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and marry money
‘Grating-marks, a kind of beatified gridiron upon the hand, are also considered as unfortunate’ (Frith and Allen, Language of the Hand, p. 151).
15.3706: Short little finger
From a manual of palmistry from 1792 and much reprinted since: ‘Observe the finger of Mercury, that is the little-finger, if the end of it exceeded the joint of the ring-finger, such a man will rule his own house, and his wife will be pleasing and obedient to him, but if it be short, and reach not the joint, he will have a shrew, and she will wear the breeches’ (The Conjuror’s Magazine, Apr. 1792, p. 376).
15.3706: Henpecked husband
Rip Van Winkle is described as ‘an obedient hen-pecked husband’ (Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book, p. 34).
15.3707–08: Black Liz, a huge rooster . . . clucks
See note at 12.846–49 for Black Liz. ‘It is a very easy thing to hypnotize a chicken by drawing a circle of chalk on the ground, then laying the chicken within the circle and placing its beak on the chalk line’ (Turf, Field and Farm, 25 Jan. 1901, vol. 70, no. 4, p. 81).
15.3710: Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook See note at 12.846–49.
15.3716: I see, says the blind man
Partridge defines this as a ‘would-be humorous way of saying “I understand” ’. Jonathan Swift uses two variations of this expression in the Polite Conversation: ‘A blind Man would be glad to see that’ (p. 63), and ‘Would I could see it, quoth blind Hugh’ (p. 81).
15.3716: Tell us news
Partridge defines this as a ‘catch-phrase retort to an old story or a stale jest’. In Swift’s Polite Conversation, Neverout says to Miss Notable, ‘Indeed, Miss, you are very handsome’. Her reply is ‘Poh! I know that already; tell me News’ (p. 99).
15.3718: See? Moves to one great goal See note at 2.380–81.
15.3720–21: Hurt my hand somewhere
There is no indication in Ulysses as to how Stephen injured his hand. Presumably, there is no visible trace of the wound, since Zoe would have probably mentioned this during her palm-reading.
15.3723: backhand See note at 15.1017.
15.3727–28: driven by James Barton, Harmony avenue, Donnybrook See note at 11.878–79.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1023
15.3729: Ormond boots See note at 11.89.
15.3733–34: Haw haw have you the horn? See note at 11.432.
15.3735: Bronze by gold
From ‘Sirens’; see note at 11.64.
15.3739: yachtsman’s cap See note at 7.984.
15.3744: quims
Quim: coarse term for female genitalia (OED).
15.3750–51: Up to sample
A journalistic catchphrase—not limited to just advertising—that means ‘of appropriate or expected quality’; for example, ‘the barley had not been up to sample, or fit for malting purposes’ (Freeman’s Journal, 29 July 1861, p. 4, col. d).
15.3753: Lobster and mayonnaise
Context suggests that this derives from lobster pot, coarse slang for the female pudenda (Partridge).
15.3760: in flunkey’s prune plush coat
Flunkey: ‘A male servant in livery, esp. a footman, lackey; usually with implied contempt’ (OED). Recalls Severin’s outfit in Sacher-Masoch’s Venus and Furs, for which see note at 15.1046.
15.3764: antlered head
Traditionally, a cuckolded husband is characterised by horns coming out of his head (Brewer’s, s.v. To wear the horns).
15.3770: Raoul darling
The adulterous lover from The Sweets of Sin; see note at 10.606.
15.3770: I’m in my pelt
In one’s pelt (Hiberno-English): naked (OED, s.v. pelt). Also suggests the title of Sacher- Masoch’s Venus in Furs, in the original German: Venus im Pelz; the English word pelt is related to the German Pelz, fur (OED).
15.3778: pishogue See note at 12.1058.
15.3778: Pimp
Pimp: ‘a person who arranges opportunities for (illicit) sexual intercourse; a procurer. Now: a man who takes a proportion of the earnings of a prostitute, usually in return for arran ging clients, providing protection, etc.’; this sense goes back to at least the seventeenth century, but other meanings are also relevant here: ‘A person who panders to an undesirable or immoral impulse, appetite’ and also ‘a voyeur’ (all OED); see also note at 5.191.
15.3779: Bartholomona, the bearded woman Unknown.
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1024 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3788: You can apply your eye to the keyhole
This suggests the 1897 American Mutoscope film ‘What is Seen through a Keyhole’ (which was remade by the French firm Pathé in 1901 as ‘Par le trou de la serrure’). This was part of a thriving sub-genre of ‘what the butler saw’ mutoscope films (Mullin, James Joyce, Sexuality and Social Purity, p. 150); see note at 13.794.
15.3789: go through her
To go through: coarse slang, to copulate with a woman; from the 1870s (Partridge).
15.3792: Vaseline See note at 12.1718.
15.3793: Orangeflower See note at 5.491.
15.3804: Ride a cockhorse See note at 15.2946–47.
15.3816: Shoot
To shoot: to ejaculate; from at least the 1880s (OED).
15.3820: The mirror up to nature
From Hamlet’s advice to the actors in ‘The Mouse-Trap’, the play-within-a-play: ‘Suit the action to the word, the word to the action [. . .] hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure’ (III.ii.16–24). Lynch uses the allusion to Hamlet to indicate that in the mirror the image of the antlered hat rack in the hall (15.2032) is superimposed over the image of Bloom’s head. The resulting effect, seen by Lynch and the whores, is that Bloom has horns (see note at 15.3764).
15.3823: antlered
See note at 15.3764.
15.3826: ’Tis the loud laugh bespeaks the vacant mind
After Oliver Goldsmith’s (Anglo-Irish author, 1728–74) poem The Deserted Village (1770): ‘And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind’ (l. 122; Works, vol. 1, p. 57). Shakespeare uses the phrase ‘vacant mind’ in Henry V: ‘Who, with a body filled and vacant mind’ (IV.i.248; with thanks to Tim Conley).
15.3828: capon’s
Capon: a castrated rooster and, by extension, a eunuch (OED).
15.3828–29: Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Iagogogo!
This is a brief and somewhat crude plot summary of Shakespeare’s Othello where Iago goads Othello into believing that his wife Desdemona has been unfaithful. Othello ultim ately murders her in her bed, choking her in a jealous rage.
15.3835–36: Even the great Napoleon . . . after his death
The English doctors who performed Napoleon’s autopsy recorded that the measurements of Napoleon’s body resembled those of a woman, particularly his enlarged breasts (Sir Walter Scott, The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, vol. 3, pp. 353–57).
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15. ‘Circe’ 1025
15.3838: Tunny’s tawny sherry
See note at 10.1128. Here, Joyce wrote the incorrect ‘Tunney’s’ (Rosenbach f. 63) although he wrote the correct form in ‘Wandering Rocks’; Gabler emends to the correct form (UCSE, p. 1238).
15.3839: weeds
See note at 5.460–61.
15.3840: pen chivvying her brood of cygnets See note at 9.161–62.
15.3842: large eights
A typical shoe size for a man of average height (see note at 7.448–49).
15.3842: Scottish Widows’ insurance policy
See note at 13.1227 for the Scottish Widows Life Assurance Society. For the Dignams’ problems with Paddy’s life assurance, see notes at 6.536 and 12.764.
15.3843–45: Patsy hopping on one shod foot . . . a hank of porksteaks dangling
In ‘Wandering Rocks’, Patsy is struggling with his collar while carrying pork-steaks (10.1122 and 10.1140–41). See ‘Cyclops’ for the location of his missing boot (12.367–68).
15.3845: Freddy whimpering
One of Dignam’s sons, mentioned at 13.319.
15.3851: the beeftea is fizzing over
Beef-tea: ‘the juice of beef extracted by prolonged simmering in a very little water, used as a nutritious food for invalids’ (OED, s.v. beef). Boiling beef-tea reduces its nutritious profile. Joyce uses this expression again in Finnegans Wake: ‘mawmaw, luk, your beeftay’s fizzin over’ (p. 308); otherwise, unknown.
15.3853: Weda seca whokilla farst
That is, ‘Wed the second who kills the first’; see note at 9.679.
15.3854: Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare’s beardless face See note at 6.345.
15.3857: merry widow hat
A broad-brimmed and feather-trimmed hat after the style of hat worn by the heroine of the light opera The Merry Widow (1907), by the Hungarian composer Franz Lehar (1870–1948). This light opera was so popular that entrepreneurs applied the phrase ‘merry widow’ to a variety of different products. In particular, the Merry Widow hat was a ‘fashion furor’ (Orly Leah Krasner, ‘Birth Pangs, Growing Pains and Sibling Rivalry’, p. 37). The name also suggests Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.
15.3861: And they call me the jewel of Asia! See note at 6.355–57.
15.3863: Immense! See note at 6.142.
15.3863: demirep
Demi-rep: ‘A woman whose character is only half reputable; a woman of doubtful reputation’ (OED).
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1026 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3865: Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti
Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti (Latin): and the horns of the just shall be exalted; after Psalm 74:11 in the Vulgate (75:10 in the King James): et omnia cornua impiorum confringam / exaltabuntur cornua iusti: ‘And I will break all the horns of sinners: but the horns of the just shall be exalted.’
15.3865: Queens lay with prize bulls. Remember Pasiphae See note at 9.854.
15.3867: Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens See note at 14.986–87.
15.3867–68: suine scions of the house of Lambert
An allusion to the ‘well-known family of Lambert’: for five successive generations, the males suffered from a skin disease that left their skin covered with bristles (George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, pp. 823–24) Suine: ‘Piglike, porcine’ (OED); Ulysses is its only recorded usage.
15.3868–69: And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was open
After Genesis 9:21–22, ‘And drinking of the wine [Noah] was made drunk, and was uncovered in his tent. Which when Cham the father of Chanaan had seen, to wit, that his father's nakedness was uncovered, he told it to his two brethren without.’ As punishment for seeing his father make a spectacle of himself, Ham’s descendants were condemned to be servants.
15.3871: Come to the wrong shop See note at 14.1180–81.
15.3873: He’s back from Paris
For the problem of the date of Stephen’s return from Paris, see note at 16.1181.
15.3875: parleyvoo
Parleyvoo: the French language (Partridge); from the French parlez vous, ‘do you speak?’
15.3883: lovely ladies saling gloves
That is, lovely ladies selling love (Ian MacArthur, ‘Some Notes for Ulysses’, p. 532).
15.3885: cocottes
Cocotte (French): ‘woman of loose morals’ or ‘prostitute’.
15.3886: dancing cancan
Cancan: ‘A kind of dance made popular at the public balls in Paris, with extravagant and indecent gestures’ (OED).
15.3889: heaven and hell show
Le Ciel (French, Heaven) and L’Enfer (French, Hell) were two adjacent cabarets on the Boulevard de Clichy in Paris. The façade to L’Enfer was highly ornate and the building’s entrance was a large devil’s mouth. ‘Inside male and female devil musicians [. . .] would play music from Faust, flames darted from the walls, and Satan wandered the cavern before consigning the clientele to the “hot room,” where, as convention dictated, there were “many notables” and “charming society” ’ (David Pike, Metropolis on the Styx, p. 149; with thanks to Aida Yared).
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15. ‘Circe’ 1027
15.3889–90: with mortuary candles . . . every night
The Cabaret du Néant, a rival of L’Enfer, was at 34 Boulevard de Clichy in Paris. It was ‘decorated like a Paris mortuary, with coffins for tables, and even a suitable odor of decay, chemically produced. A lugubrious young man would give a discourse on the horrors of death, illustrated by magic lantern slides, and then take visitors to see the “chambre de la mort”, a special effects show of “pretty young women” slowly decomposing into a “semi- liquid mass of corruption” ’ (Pike, Metropolis on the Styx, p. 149; with thanks to Aida Yared).
15.3892: vampire man debauch nun
The cabarets Stephen is referring to would include performances of actresses (who were often prostitutes) dressed as nuns (with thanks to Aida Yared). See also note at 3.397.
15.3893: dessous troublants
Dessous troublants (French): ‘disturbing lower parts’.
15.3893: Ho, là là! Ce pif qu’il a!
Ho, là là! Ce pif qu’il a! (French): ‘Oh, ho, ho. What a nose he has’. Cabaret performer and owner Aristide Bruant (1851–1925) would taunt bourgeois clientele with such phrases when they entered his working-class cabaret (with thanks to Aida Yared).
15.3896: Vive le vampire!
Vive le vampire! (French): ‘Long live the vampire!’
15.3902: Demimondaines See note at 15.2997.
15.3905: Caoutchouc
Caoutchouc (also known as India-rubber, or gum elastic): the milky resin of certain South American trees that coagulates into a highly elastic, rubber-like substance (OED).
15.3909: omlet on the belly pièce de Shakespeare
The French pronunciation of ‘Hamlet’ is homophonous with ‘omelette’; omlet is an attested variant spelling (OED). See note at 9.121.
15.3915: double entente cordiale. O yes, mon loup
Double entente cordiale. O yes, mon loup (French): ‘double cordial understanding. O yes my wolf ’. Loup: a term of endearment used for a loner. ‘Double entente cordiale’ combines double entendre (double understanding or meaning) and entente cordiale (cordial understanding; see note at 12.1387). In 1905, Joyce wrote to Stanislaus: ‘Nora is reading the slip by fits and starts to a tune of “Old Tom Gregory, Has a big menagerie”, which seems to me what old Thornton would have called a double entente’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 88).
15.3915–16: Waterloo. Watercloset
Waterloo, Belgium, was the site of Napoleon’s famous last stand, where he lost to Wellington and Blücher on 18 June 1815, In part, the wet ground contributed to Napoleon’s defeat by preventing his troops from a final offensive (EB11, s.v. Waterloo campaign); Stephen’s joke with watercloset might be in reference to this. The word Waterloo has come to signify any decisive or final defeat (OED). A watercloset was Arius’s Waterloo (see note at 3.52). Alternatively, the word watercloset might be in reference to MacHugh’s comment in ‘Aeolus’ that the British Empire installed sewers and waterclosets in the territories they had conquered (7.489–95).
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1028 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3922: I dreamt of a watermelon See note at 3.367.
15.3926: Across the world for a wife
The title of a novel (1897) by the Australian writer Guy Newell Boothby (1867–1905)—also an apt summary of The Odyssey.
15.3928: Dreams go by contraries
‘ “Dreams go by contraries” is a received axiom. Thus we have the sayings, “To dream of the dead, good news of the living” [. . .] On this principle, to dream of finding money is con sidered unlucky’ (Burne, Shropshire, quoted in Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. Dreams by contraries).
15.3930: Street of harlots
From Stephen’s dream; see note at 3.367.
15.3930–31: In Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow See note at 3.130–31.
15.3935: And ever shall be. World without end See note at 2.200–01.
15.3936: Pater! Free! See note at 9.954.
15.3940: O merde alors!
O merde alors! (French): ‘Oh, shit!’
15.3941: Holà! Hillyho!
The command with which a falconer recalls his falcon. In Hamlet, Marcellus summons the prince with, ‘Hillo, hi, ho, my lord!’; to which Hamlet replies, ‘Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come’ (I.v.115–16). Holà (French): an interjection and a request to stop (whoa would be an equivalent in English).
15.3947–48: Wouldn’t let them within the bawl of an ass
Oh you didn’t come within the bray of an ass of it (Hiberno-English): ‘A person not succeeding in approaching the house or spot he wants to reach; hitting wide of the mark in shooting; not coming to the point in argument or explanation [. . .] This is the echo of a very old custom. More than a thousand years ago distance was often vaguely measured in Ireland by sound’ (PWJ, p. 180). Joyce used this expression in a letter to his brother Stanislaus from 1905, in which he says of his newborn son Giorgio, ‘Thanks be to the Lord Jaysus no gospeller has put his dirty face within the bawl of an ass of him yet’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 124).
15.3948: An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed
A coat of arms with a red (gules) eagle in flight (volant) with its wings spread (displayed) on a field of silver (argent). This is similar to the coat of arms of Joyce’s father as well as of the Joyces of County Galway (Michael O’Shea, James Joyce and Heraldry, p. 49).
15.3949: Ulster king at arms! See note at 15.1413.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1029
15.3952: A stout fox drawn from covert
After Stephen’s riddle; see note at 2.102–07.
15.3955–56: to be blooded
To blood: in hunting, ‘To give (a young hound) a first taste, or sight and smell, of the blood of game’; also: ‘To smear the face of (a novice at hunting) with the blood of a first kill’ (OED).
15.3956: Ward Union See note at 8.341.
15.3956: live with them
To live with hounds: in hunting, to keep pace with the hounds (OED).
15.3957: Six Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone
These serve as meeting points for the Ward Union Staghounds fox hunt in County Meath (see note at 8.341). For example: ‘Hunting Appointments. December. [. . .] Ward Union Hounds—11th, Blackbull; 13th, Six Mile Stone, Ashbourne Road; 15th, Ballintry Gate; 18th, Eighth Mile Stone, Ashbourne Road; 20th, Flathouse; 22d, The Ward; 24th, Dunboyne; 27th, Nine Mile Stone, Ashbourne Road’ (Freeman’s Journal, 10 Dec. 1858, p. 2, col. f). The Flathouse (or Flat House) is a large pasture field near Dunboyne in County Meath (M. O’Connor Morris, Hibernia Venatica, p. 29). The various ‘Mile Stones’ are demarcations along the Ashbourne Road, which was built in the early nineteenth century and runs from Finglas (see note at 6.507) to Ashbourne and Slane in Meath (Weston St John Joyce, The Neighbourhood of Dublin, p. 457). While Six Mile Stone is associated with the Ward Union, Six Mile Point is not. Rather, it is a beach in County Wicklow, about 64 km from the Ward Union headquarters in Ashbourne.
15.3958: footpeople
Footpeople are locals who accompany the foxhunt on foot, typically uninvited. Sometimes they are an annoyance to the hunters, other times they can be useful if they understand the game and are knowledgeable about the terrain (T. E. Kebbel, ‘English Love of Sport’, p. 59).
15.3958: salmongaffs
Gaff: ‘A barbed fishing spear; also, a stick armed with an iron hook for landing large fish, esp. salmon’ (OED).
15.3961: dicers
Dicer: ‘One who plays or gambles with dice; a person addicted to dicing’ (OED).
15.3961: crown and anchor
Crown and anchor: ‘a gambling game played with three dice each having faces bearing a crown, an anchor, and the four card-suits; the players place their bets on a board or cloth bearing similar figures’ (OED).
15.3961: thimbleriggers See note at 2.310.
15.3962: broadsmen
Broadsmen: card- sharpers, expert players of cards who swindle their opposition (Partridge).
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1030 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3962: Crows
Crow: a confederate on watch, one who looks out against discovery while his companions rob or steal (Partridge).
15.3965: Racing card
Racing (or race) card: The programme of races at a meeting; it contains information useful for spectators who wish to place a bet (Vampleu and Kay, Encyclopedia of British Horse Racing, p. 223).
15.3966: Ten to one the field! See note at 2.309–10.
15.3967: Tommy on the clay
Unknown; obviously some kind of gambling or racing jargon (perhaps invented by Joyce). Of possible relevance, Tommy: ‘A fool, a simpleton’ (OED). To clay: ‘To play the bunco or gold-brick game on one’, which involves ‘the swindler approaching the confiding stranger and inducing him to advance some money on a bar of gold bullion’ (Eric Partridge, Dictionary of the Underworld).
15.3968: Ten to one bar one
This phrase indicates that bets can be placed, at ten-to-one odds, against the favourite winning the race (OED, s.v. bar).
15.3969: spinning Jenny
Spinning Jenny: a gambling apparatus (OED).
15.3971: Sell the monkey
Monkey: £500; typically used in relation to gambling (OED).
15.3974: A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost
This scene re-enacts Throwaway’s victory at the Gold Cup race on 16 June; see note at 12.1219.
15.3975: his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars
From Stephen’s thoughts about Jonathan Swift in ‘Proteus’ (3.110–11).
15.3976–77: Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel
Three horses that lost to Throwaway at the Gold Cup. For Sceptre, see notes at 7.388–89 and 10.511. For Maximum II, see note at 5.532–33. For Zinfandel, see note at 8.330–31.
15.3977–78: duke of Westminster’s . . . Ceylon
These three horses did not run in the Gold Cup against Throwaway; rather, Stephen saw pictures of them on the wall in Mr Deasy’s office in ‘Nestor’. Deasy himself appears at 15.3981 and the whole passage at 15.3977–93 draws on imagery and language from ‘Nestor’. For Shotover, see note at 2.301–02. For Repulse, see note at 2.301. For Ceylon, see note at 2.302–03.
15.3979: leaping, leaping in their, in their saddles See 10.794–95 and 15.2947.
15.3980: isabelle nag
Isabelle (or isabella): ‘Greyish yellow; light buff ’. Nag: ‘A small riding-horse or pony; (col loq.) a horse, now esp. an old or feeble one’ (both OED). According to a legend recorded in
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15. ‘Circe’ 1031 Isaac Disraeli’s (British writer, 1766–1848) Curiosities of Literature, ‘Isabella, daughter of Philip II and wife of the Archduke Albert, vowed not to change her linen till Ostend was taken; this siege, unluckily for her comfort, lasted three years; and the supposed colour of the archduchess’s linen gave rise to a fashionable colour, hence called l’Isabeau, or the Isabella; a kind of whitish-yellow-dingy’ (vol. 1, p. 217). However, the OED has an example of this word from 1600, which predates the siege of Ostend (1601–04).
15.3980: Cock of the North
Cock of the North: the nickname of the Scotsman George Gordon (1770–1836), 5th Duke of Gordon. Under his command, the Gordon Highlanders quelled the 1798 Wexford Catholic peasant insurrection (SS, p. 24). Prior to that, he had been stationed in Gibraltar (ODNB).
15.3982–83: nag on spavined whitegaitered feet
Spavin: ‘A hard bony tumour or excrescence formed at the union of the splint-bone and the shank in a horse's leg, and produced by inflammation of the cartilage uniting those bones; a similar tumour caused by inflammation of the small hock bones’ (OED). The typist could not read ‘spavined’ so left this word blank (JJA, vol. 15, pp. 129–30). On a galley proof, Joyce emended this to read instead ‘nag, stumbling on whitegaitered feet’ (JJA, vol. 20, p. 198). Gabler emends to the original form (UCSE, p. 1251).
15.3983: jogs along the rocky road See note at 2.284–85.
15.3984: THE ORANGE LODGES See note at 2.270.
15.3985: Get down and push
‘When coachmen encountered difficulties they instructed their passengers “First class keep your seat, Second class get down and walk, Third class get down and push” ’ (Heather Hurley, The Old Roads of South Herefordshire, p. 84; with thanks to Guy Jackson).
15.3989: Per vias rectas! See note at 2.282.
15.3991: mutton broth with dancing coins of . . . turnips, potatoes
The ingredients for Irish Stew; see note at 6.940. For the dancing coins, see note at 2.448–49.
15.3993: THE GREEN LODGES
The usual term is the Ribbon Lodges, a collective name for the various agrarian, Catholic secret societies that agitated against Protestant and Unionist landowners. The first so- called Ribbon society was founded in 1826, although such secret societies first emerged in the early eighteenth century. The name derives from the wearing of a white ribbon on the hat to enable mutual recognition at night. The Defenders (see note at 2.273–74) were a precursor to these societies and, likewise, the Fenians a successor (Kee, The Green Flag, pp. 299–303). By calling them the ‘Green Lodges’, Joyce is signalling that these organisations stand in direct and mutual opposition to the Orange Lodges (see note at 2.270).
15.3994: Soft day, sir John! See note at 2.286.
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1032 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.3998: noise in the street See note at 2.386.
15.4002–03: Yet I’ve a sort of a . . . relish for
From the chorus of ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’ (see note at 10.1242): ‘I’ve a sort of Yorkshire Relish for my little Yorkshire Rose’.
15.4012: augur’s rod See note at 3.410–11.
15.4013: tripudium See note at 3.448.
15.4017–18: Professor Goodwin See note at 8.185–86.
15.4018: court dress See note at 10.1130.
15.4019: Inverness cape
Inverness cape: ‘an overcoat with a removable cape’ (OED, s.v. Inverness).
15.4024: Anybody here for there?
From a staple joke much reprinted in newspaper humour columns in the 1890s about a railway porter asking ‘Is there anybody here for there?’, that is, ‘Do any passengers want to disembark?’ (John Simpson, JJON).
15.4027: My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl See note at 10.1242.
15.4032: Professor Maginni See note at 8.98.
15.4034–35: slate frockcoat
Part of Maginni’s ensemble in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (see note at 10.56–57).
15.4035: gorget of cream tulle
Gorget: ‘An ornament for the neck’ (OED). Thus, in context, a gorget of cream-coloured tulle would be a cravat.
15.4038: clouded cane
Clouded cane: a cane with cloud-like markings (OED, s.v. clouded). From Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1712): ‘Sir Plume, of Amber Snuff-box justly vain, / And the nice Conduct of a Clouded Cane’ (IV.123–24, Major Works, p. 94). Joyce also used this expression in his 1900 essay ‘Drama and Life’: ‘what does it avail that into our hands we have given us a clouded cane for an alpenstock’ (OCPW, p. 29).
15.4039: oxter
See note at 12.254.
15.4042–43: Madam Legget Byrne’s
Mr and Mrs Talbot Leggett Byrne: dancing teachers, 27 Adelaide Road and 63 Mountjoy Square (Thom’s, pp. 1552, 1822). The spelling mistake is Joyce’s. At the Mirus Bazaar (see
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15. ‘Circe’ 1033 note at 8.1162), Mr and Mrs Leggett Byrne presented a programme of children’s dances (Freeman’s Journal, 1 June 1904, p. 6, col. d).
15.4043: Levenston’s
See note at 8.1139. Joyce wrote the incorrect ‘Levinstone’s’ here (Rosenbach f. 68). Gabler emends to the correct form (UCSE, p. 1256).
15.4044: Katty Lanner
Katharina (Katti) Lanner (1829–1908): internationally famous Austrian ballet dancer and choreographer. From 1876, she took charge of the National Training School of Dancing in London, and she served as choreographer for Her Majesty’s Theatre and later the Empire Theatre, both in London (ODNB). The spelling mistake is Joyce’s.
15.4044: terpsichorean
That is, pertaining to dancing. Terpsichore is the muse of the art of dancing (OED).
15.4045–46: Tout le monde en avant! Révérence! Tout le monde en place!
French dancing instructions. Tout le monde en avant: Everybody forward (Charles d’Albert, Dancing, p. 14). Révérence: Curtsey (p. 131). Tout le monde en place: Everybody stay in place.
15.4052–53: Two young fellows were talking about their girls . . . behind From ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
15.4054: the morning hours See note at 4.526.
15.4054–55: goldhaired, slimsandalled, in girlish blue See 4.240–42, 4.435–36, and 15.3167–68.
15.4058: mocking mirrors See 2.159.
15.4060: Carré! Avant deux! Breathe evenly! Balancé!
French dancing instructions. Carré: square; the ‘form in which square dances are arranged’ (Charles d’Albert, Dancing, p. 34). Avant deux: two steps forward (p. 14). Balancé: ‘With this expression is always implied the conception of remaining in place. (1) glide r.f. to 2nd or 4th position, dégagé [transferring weight from one foot to the other]; (2) glide l.f to 3rd position, front or rear, and lightly raise the heels and let them down again’ (p. 14).
15.4074: My little shy little lass has a waist
From ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
15.4077: cipria
Cipria (Italian): face powder.
15.4080: Avant huit! Traversé! Salut! Cours de mains! Croisé!
French dancing instructions. Avant huit: Forward eight steps (D’Albert, Dancing, p. 34). Traversé: Cross over (p. 144). Salut: Nod. Cours de mains: the dance instruction is actually ‘tours de mains’, turn of the hands, ‘holding partner’s hands while walking round in a circle’ (p. 144). Croisé: ‘Ladies exchanging places in square dances’ (p. 55).
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1034 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4083: curchycurchy
Parodies the dance instructions to curtsey, ‘now applied to a feminine movement of respect or salutation, made by bending the knees and lowering the body’ (OED). In its definition of curt sey, the OED cites an example of the expression ‘curtsey curtsey’ being modified in this manner. From Westminster Drollery (1672): ‘And every Girle did curchy, / Curchy, curchy on the Grasse’.
15.4086: Heigho! Heigho! See note at 4.546–48.
15.4090: Les tiroirs! Chaîne de dames! La corbeille! Dos à dos!
French dancing instructions. Faire les tiroirs (or, as here, simply Les tiroirs): literally ‘move like a chest of drawers’; a movement in which opposite lines of dancers cross the stage (D’Albert, Dancing, p. 90). Chaîne de dames: literally ‘chain of women’, ‘Two ladies meet in the centre of the set, taking right hands and pass on with l. hand to opposite gentleman and return to places in the same way’ (p. 36). La corbeille: literally ‘basket’, ‘Name given to various figures in Square dances and Cotillons’ (p. 43). Dos à dos: back-to-back; ‘Two dancers move round each other, r. shoulder to r. shoulder and back to back, they go either across to opposite side or return to place’ (p. 62).
15.4091: Arabesquing
Arabesque: ‘Ballet. A position in which the dancer stands on one leg, with the other leg extended behind with the knee straight and the foot pointed’ (OED). The word arabesque could also be used metaphorically here in the sense of a movement ‘characterized by flowing lines’.
15.4092: simply swirling
From ‘Those Lovely Seaside Girls’; see note at 4.282.
15.4098: Boulangère! Les ronds! Les ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots!
Boulangère! Les ronds! Les ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots! (French): ‘Baker! The circles! The bridges! Hobby-horses! Snails!’ Ronds: ‘any movement in a circle’ (D’Albert, Dancing, p. 131). Boulangère: a circular dance (a rond) for multiple couples (p. 24).
15.4103–04: Dansez avec vos dames! Changez de dames! . . . Remerciez!
Dansez avec vos dames! Changez de dames! . . . Remerciez! (French): ‘Dance with your ladies! Change ladies [partners]! Give the little bouquet to your lady! Thank each other!’
15.4106–07: Best, best of all . . . Barraabum!
From the first verse of ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
15.4109: the hobbyhorses at the Mirus bazaar!
See note at 8.1162 for the Mirus bazaar and note at 15.2719 for Toft’s hobbyhorses.
15.4111: bittern’s
Bittern: ‘A genus of grallatorial birds (Botaurus), nearly allied to the herons, but smaller’ (OED).
15.4112: Toft’s cumbersome whirligig See note at 15.2719.
15.4113: roundabout the room
Roundabout: a circular dance, or the amusement park ride, or, as an adverb meaning ‘on every side’ (OED); all these senses are pertinent here.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1035
15.4115: Yorkshire through and through
From the chorus of ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
15.4120: Pas seul!
Pas seul: ‘A dance or figure for one person’ (OED).
15.4123: jujuby See note at 8.4.
15.4123–25: Stephen with hat ashplant . . . under thigh
When living in Zürich, Joyce would sometimes, when the mood struck, ‘interrupt a Sunday afternoon walk in the fashionable Bahnhofstrasse by flinging his loose limbs about in a kind of spider dance, the effect accentuated by his tight trouser-legs and wide cloak, diminutive hat, and thin cane’ (Ellmann, p. 430). His daughter-in-law Helen later remarked that ‘[l]iquor went to his feet, not head’ (p. 430 n.).
15.4125–26: tallyho hornblower See notes at 5.555 and 10.1264.
15.4126–27: Toft’s cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders See note at 15.2719.
15.4128: leaping spurn soil foot See note at 1.244.
15.4130–31: Though she’s a factory lass . . . fancy clothes
From the chorus of ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
15.4134: TUTTI
Tutti (Italian): ‘all’; in music it is an instruction for all players or singers to join in (OED).
15.4135: Bis
Bis (Latin): ‘twice’; used by French and Italian audiences in place of encore (Brewer’s).
15.4139: Dance of death
‘An allegorical representation of Death (usually a dancing skeleton or corpse) leading all sorts and conditions of men to the grave’ (Brewer’s).
15.4140: lacquey’s bell
At Dillon’s auction rooms; see notes at 7.412 and 10.281.
15.4141: Conmee on Christass
Christ rode into Jerusalem on the back of an ass: ‘And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt’ (John 12:14–15).
15.4141: lame crutch and leg sailor
This is the one-legged sailor from ‘Wandering Rocks’, first seen when Conmee refuses to give him any change (10.7–11).
15.4142: cockboat
Cockboat: a small, light boat usually towed behind a larger vessel (OED).
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1036 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4142–43: through and through. Baraabum!
From the chorus of ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
15.4143: bellhorses
Bell-horse: a horse decked with bells, flowers, ribbons, etc. as a part of May Day celebrations (OED).
15.4143: Gadarene swine
Gadara: a town near the south-eastern end of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus met a man (or two men, in Matthew’s version) possessed by devils. He cast the devils out of the man and caused them to enter into a herd of nearby swine. The herd then plunged off a cliff into the sea (Matthew 8:28–34, Mark 5:1–20, and Luke 8:26–29).
15.4144: Corny in coffin
That is, Corny Kelleher; see note at 5.12–13.
15.4144: steel shark stone onehandled Nelson
That is, the 3.9-metre-high Portland stone statue of Lord Horatio Nelson which stood atop Nelson’s Pillar; see notes at 6.293 and 7.1018.
15.4145: Frauenzimmer See note at 3.30.
15.4145: plumstained
The old women from Stephen’s Parable of the Plums; see 7.941 and 7.1024–27.
15.4145–46: Gum, he’s a champion
After a line in the chorus of ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’ (see note at 10.1242): ‘Eh! by gum, she’s a champion!’
15.4146: Fuseblue
See 3.239: ‘The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear’.
15.4146: peer from barrel
Perhaps a reference to Barons Iveagh and Ardilaun, Edward Cecil Guinness and Arthur Edward Guinness, scions of the Guinness family who were made peers of the realm; see notes at 5.304 and 5.306.
15.4146: rev. evensong Love
Evensong: the service in the Anglican and Episcopal churches corresponding to vespers in the Catholic Church; performed at sunset (OED). See note at 10.437–38 for Hugh C. Love.
15.4146–47: on hackney jaunt Blazes
In ‘Sirens’, Boylan took a jaunting car (see note at 10.556) to the Ormond Hotel (11.302) and a hackney car (see note at 7.1047) from the Ormond to Eccles Street (11.878).
15.4147: blind coddoubled bicyclers
After a line from the song ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye’; for which see note at 5.551–52.
15.4147–48: Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes
Dilly is one of Stephen’s sisters (see note at 10.233). Snowcake: a cake made from sugar, butter, eggs, and lemon (OED, s.v. snow). The phrase ‘no fancy clothes’ comes from the chorus of ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1037
15.4149: mashtub See note at 12.678.
15.4149–50: sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!
Recalls the end of ‘Wandering Rocks’ where the viceregal cavalcade, as it passes Trinity College, hears the music of a band playing ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
15.4153: midges
See note at 15.2677.
15.4157: Stephen’s mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor
Recalls the appearance of Hamlet’s father’s ghost in Hamlet in I.5 and in III.4, where it is seen and heard only by Hamlet.
15.4159: her face worn and noseless, green with gravemould See 3.479–81.
15.4164–65: Liliata rutilantium te confessorum . . . virginum See note at 1.276–77.
15.4166–67: particoloured jester’s dress of puce and yellow
Particoloured: ‘Partly of one colour and partly of another or others’ (OED). In ‘Scylla and Charybdis’, Mulligan was described as a jester (9.1110). In ‘Telemachus’, his dressing-gown is ‘yellow’ (1.2–3), and his waistcoat is primrose (also yellow; 1.550). He also expresses a desire to add puce gloves and green boots to his ensemble (1.516).
15.4168: smoking buttered split scone in his hand See 10.1087–88.
15.4170: She’s beastly dead See 1.198–99.
15.4170: Mulligan meets the afflicted mother
After the fourth of the Stations of the Cross, ‘Jesus meets his afflicted mother’ (Patrick Moran, Catholic Prayer Book, p. 369); see also note at 1.510. Joyce took this line from a bit of Dublin gossip. ‘Gogarty, returning home late one night during his medical course, staggered up the steps of his home on Rutland Square, reciting a station of the Cross at each step until, as he reached the top of the stairs and his worried mother opened the door, he concluded “Gogarty meets the afflicted mother” ’ (Ellmann, p. 366).
15.4171: Mercurial Malachi See note at 1.518.
15.4173–74: May Goulding
Joyce’s mother was Mary Jane (‘May’) Joyce, née Murray (1859–1903). She married John Stanislaus Joyce in 1880, and they had many children, not all of whom survived (see note at 8.31). She was deeply religious and had an abiding love of music. Her numerous pregnancies and the strain of John Stanislaus’s drink-fuelled behaviour as well as the family’s descent into poverty almost certainly contributed to her deteriorating health. After many months of illness, she died of cancer (initially, implausibly, diagnosed as cirrhosis of the liver) on 13 August 1903. Her death put a tremendous strain on the family (John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, pp. 253–55). In a letter of 29 August 1904,
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1038 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Joyce wrote to Nora: ‘My mother was slowly killed, I think, by my father’s ill-treatment, by years of trouble, and by my cynical frankness of conduct’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 48). In A Portrait, Stephen is close to his mother, as Joyce was to his.
15.4176: Lemur
Lemures: ‘The name given by the Romans to evil spirits of the dead’ (Brewer’s). The Latin word exists only in the plural, but the singular would be lemur.
15.4178: The mockery of it See note at 1.116.
15.4180: Our great sweet mother! See note at 1.77–78.
15.4180: Epi oinopa ponton See note at 1.78.
15.4182: breath of wetted ashes
See 1.104–05, 1.271–72, 2.146, 3.46, and 14.380.
15.4183: More women than men in the world See note at 6.546–47.
15.4187: He offended your memory See 1.218–20.
15.4190: Love’s bitter mystery
From the second stanza of William Butler Yeats’s poem ‘Who Goes With Fergus?’ (l. 8); see note at 1.239–41.
15.4192–93: The word known to all men See note at 9.427–31.
15.4195–96: at Dalkey with Paddy Lee
Before marrying Mary Murray, John Joyce was briefly engaged to Annie Lee, the sister of his friend Paddy Lee (Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 49). In 1904, Patrick Joseph Lee (b. c.1861) lived at 2 Convent Road in Dalkey (Thom’s, p. 1673). In a letter to Stanislaus on 3 December 1904, Joyce asked, ‘by the way, do you ever see Paddy Lee?’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 72).
15.4196: Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers?
Joyce borrows here from his Epiphany 34: ‘She comes at night when the city is still; invis ible, inaudible, all unsummoned. She comes from her ancient seat to visit the least of her children [. . .] Who has pity for you when you are sad among the strangers? Years and years I loved you when you lay in my womb’ (PSW, p. 194).
15.4197–98: Prayer for the suffering souls . . . and forty days’ indulgence
The Ursulines: a formal order of cloistered nuns founded in 1535 by Angela Merici to educate women and nurse the sick (Catholic Encyclopedia). The Ursuline Manual is a prayer book that originated at the Ursuline Convent in Cork. The ‘Devotion for the Souls in Purgatory’ is a prayer to reduce the torments inflicted upon suffering souls in Purgatory. “There are many who make any exertion or personal sacrifice to save a fellow-creature from much less pains than are endured in purgatory, yet who hear with unconcern of that
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15. ‘Circe’ 1039 prison of fire, where thousands are tormented; amongst whom are perhaps a parent, a brother, sister, or dead friend of theirs. This is generally owing to the weakness of our faith’ (Ursuline Manual, p. 311). In an earlier hallucination, Bloom dispensed 40 days’ indulgences in the hope of maintaining his fleeting power (see note at 15.1574).
15.4200: The ghoul! Hyena!
See note at 1.278 for ghoul. In Arabic folktales, the ghoul is a shape-shifter that can take ‘the form of hyenas and other carrion-eating creatures’ (S. T. Joshi, Icons of Horror and the Supernatural, vol. 1, p. 244).
15.4202: my other world See 5.245.
15.4203–04: Years and years I loved you . . . womb Continues from Epiphany 34; see note at 15.4196.
15.4214: His noncorrosive sublimate
Sublimation: ‘The action or process of converting a solid substance by heating directly into vapour without liquefaction or decomposition’. Corrosive: ‘Having the quality of eating away or consuming by chemical action’ (both OED). Thus, noncorrosive sublimate would be that which is not destroyed during the process of sublimation; in context, this would be the human soul which remains even when burned in the fires of purgatory or hell. This idea of sublimating hell- fires echoes the sermon from A Portrait: ‘Our earthly fire consumes more or less rapidly according as the object which it attacks is more or less combustible so that human ingenuity has even succeeded in inventing chemical preparations to check or frustrate its action. But the sulphurous brimstone which burns in hell is a substance which is specially designed to burn for ever and for ever with unspeakable fury. Moreover our earthly fire destroys at the same times as it burns so that the more intense it is the shorter is its duration: but the fire of hell has the property that it preserves that which it burns and though it rages with incredible intensity it rages for ever’ (p. 121). Corrosive sublimate: Mercuric Chloride, HgCl2, formerly used as a poison or disinfectant (OED); also used for embalming corpses (Christine Quigley, The Corpse, p. 267). A ‘non- corrosive sublimate of mercury ethylendiamine’ was marketed under the brand name Sublamin (The British and Colonial Druggist, 9 Oct. 1908, p. xxix).
15.4214: corpsechewer
See note at 1.278 and note at 15.1205.
15.4214–15: Raw head and bloody bones! See note at 8.726.
15.4219: God’s hand!
‘In the early days of Christian art, Christians hesitated to depict the countenance of their God, but the presence of the Almighty was frequently indicated by a hand issuing from a cloud that hid the awe-inspiring and glorious majesty of God, which “no man could behold and live” (Exodus 33:20). The origin of this symbol rests in the frequent scriptural references to the hand and arm of the Lord, symbols of His almighty power and will’ (George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, p. 47).
15.4220: green crab
May Goulding (and May Joyce) died of cancer. The Latin word cancer means crab. See also note at 14.102.
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1040 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4227: Ah non, par exemple!
Ah non, par exemple! (French): ‘Ah no, by my word!’
15.4227: The intellectual imagination!
Stephen’s phrase ‘the intellectual imagination’ echoes Matthew Arnold’s (see note at 1.173) phrase ‘imaginative reason’. While Stephen’s phrase inverts Arnold’s, both denote a synthesis or synergy between intellect and imagination. From Arnold’s lecture ‘Pagan and Medieval Religious Sentiment’, first delivered at Oxford in March 1864: ‘But the main elem ent of the modern spirit’s life is neither the senses and understanding, nor the heart and imagination; it is the imaginative reason’ (Essays in Criticism: First Series, p. 212).
15.4227–28: With me all or not at all See note at 3.452.
15.4228: Non serviam!
Non serviam! (Latin): ‘I will not serve!’ In A Portrait, Father Arnall says Satan’s sin was ‘the sin of pride, the sinful thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve’ (p. 117). Stephen later invokes this phrase, explaining to Cranly that he will not perform his Easter duty because ‘I will not serve’ (p. 239).
15.4232: O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him!
From the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (and used in other prayers): ‘O most sacred heart of Jesus, have mercy on us’ (Ursuline Manual, p. 397). The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is typically in June.
15.4239–40: Inexpressible was my anguish . . . Mount Calvary
From the 1841 edition of the Ursuline Manual, a prayer entitled ‘A Reparation of Honour to the Sacred Heart, to be made on the Feast itself, or at any other time, in presence of the Blessed Sacrament’: ‘Inexpressible, we know, was the bitterness with which the multitude of our sins overwhelmed thy tender heart; insufferable the weight of our iniquities which pressed thy face to the earth in the garden of Olives, and insurmountable thy anguish, when expiring with love, grief, and agony, on Mount Calvary, in thy last breath thou wouldst reclaim sinners to their duty and repentance’ (p. 398; Áine Nolan, JJON). For Calvary, see note at 1.587.
15.4242: Nothung!
Nothung (German): ‘needful’; the name of the magic sword forged by Wotan, the king of the gods, in Wagner’s four-opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. In Die Walküre, the second opera in the cycle, Siegmund, the human son of Wotan, pulls Nothung from out of the ash tree trunk where Wotan had embedded it. This sets off a chain of actions which leaves Siegmund dead and Nothung shattered by Wotan’s spear. In Siegfried, the third opera, Siegmund’s son Siegfried re-forges Nothung and uses it to kill the dreaded dragon Fafner. This ultimately leads to the end of the old regime of Wotan and the gods and establishes a new world order. Stephen’s ‘manner of brandishing the ashplant imitates Siegfried’s destruction of Mime’s anvil in the memorable forging scene of Siegfried’ (Martin, Joyce and Wagner, p. 43).
15.4245: ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry Reprises a line from ‘Nestor’; see note at 2.9.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1041
15.4285–86: chimney’s broken
Chimney: ‘A tube of glass placed over the wick of a lamp to protect the flame and promote combustion’ (OED). What Stephen has smashed is not a chandelier in any usual sense of the word, but merely a gas lamp.
15.4297: Bulldog
Bull-dog: ‘A sheriff ’s officer’ (Partridge). Monto’s madams hired ‘bully boys’ and ‘fancy men’ to keep order in the brothels (Fagan, Monto, p. 13).
15.4297: he’s a Trinity student
Untrue; like Joyce, Stephen attended University College Dublin (see note at 7.503), from which he has already graduated. Bloom’s statement implies that Stephen is Protestant, and thus part of the ruling minority in Ireland (see also note at 7.801).
15.4298: Gentlemen that pay the rent
Gentleman who pays the rent (Hiberno-English): pig (Partridge).
15.4298–99: he makes a masonic sign See note at 15.759.
15.4299: Nephew of the vicechancellor
Also untrue. In ‘Aeolus’, Bloom imagines that Ned Lambert is related to the Vice Chancellor; see note at 7.262.
15.4302: ragging See note at 1.163.
15.4306: your own son in Oxford See note at 15.1289.
15.4308: Incog!
Incog: abbreviation of incognito (OED).
15.4317: hackney car See note at 7.1047.
15.4318–19: Corny Kelleher See note at 5.12–13.
15.4321: ickylickysticky yumyum kisses See notes at 15.1272 and 15.1273.
15.4325: Incog Haroun Al Raschid
See note at 3.366 for Haroun al Raschid and note at 15.4308 for incog.
15.4326: fleet step of a pard See 9.1214 and note at 3.363.
15.4327: strewing the drag
Drag: ‘The line of scent left by a fox’ (OED).
15.4329: Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap See note at 5.555 for Hornblower and note at 10.1264 for his cap.
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1042 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4331: at fault
At fault: used here in its original sense as a fox-hunting term, off the scent, not on the right track (see note at 15.632–33).
15.4333: lugs laid back See note at 9.390.
15.4334: biscuitboxes
Presumably boxes of Jacob’s biscuits, as featured in ‘Cyclops’ (see 12.1812–902 and note at 12.495).
15.4334: woman’s slipperslappers See note at 6.16.
15.4335: hue and cry See note at 7.447.
15.4336: follow my leader
After the children’s game ‘Follow the Leader’ or ‘Follow my Leader’ (Iona and Peter Opie, Children’s Games in Street and Playground, pp. 267–68).
15.4336: 65C, 66C
These two patrolmen have not previously appeared in Ulysses, although constable 67 was mentioned earlier in ‘Circe’ (15.371). See note at 10.217 for the C Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police.
15.4336: night watch See note at 15.674.
15.4336: John Henry Menton See note at 6.568.
15.4337: Wisdom Hely See note at 6.703.
15.4337: V B Dillon See note at 8.159–60.
15.4337: Councillor Nannetti See note at 7.75.
15.4337: Alexander Keyes See note at 7.25.
15.4338: Larry O’Rourke
See note at 4.105.
15.4338: Joe Cuffe See note at 6.392.
15.4338: Mrs O’Dowd See note at 12.513.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1043
15.4338: Pisser Burke See note at 12.504.
15.4339: Nameless One
At 15.1143, the ‘Cyclops’ narrator is given this moniker, which derives from a Mangan poem.
15.4339: Mrs Riordan See note at 6.378.
15.4339: the Citizen See note at 12.58.
15.4339: Garryowen See note at 12.120.
15.4341: Chris Callinan See note at 7.690–91.
15.4341: sir Charles Cameron See note at 10.538.
15.4341–42: Benjamin Dollard See note at 8.119.
15.4342: Lenehan See note at 7.300.
15.4342: Bartell d’Arcy See note at 8.181.
15.4342: Joe Hynes See note at 6.111.
15.4342: red Murray See note at 7.25.
15.4343: Brayden See note at 7.38.
15.4343: T. M. Healy See note at 7.800.
15.4343: Mr Justice Fitzgibbon See note at 7.794.
15.4343–44: John Howard Parnell See note at 8.500.
15.4344: the reverend Tinned Salmon See note at 8.496.
15.4344: Professor Joly See note at 8.573–74.
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1044 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4344: Mrs Breen See note at 8.203.
15.4345: Denis Breen See note at 8.304.
15.4345: Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy See note at 8.277.
15.4345–46: Westland Row postmistress See note at 5.53.
15.4346: C. P. M‘Coy See note at 4.454
15.4346: friend of Lyons
The ‘railway bloke’ seen drinking with Bantam Lyons at Burke’s pub at the end of ‘Oxen of the Sun’ (14.1510) was angry that Bloom did not share his ‘knowledge’ that Throwaway would win the Gold Cup.
15.4346: Hoppy Holohan See note at 5.96.
15.4347–48: pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady
In ‘Lotus Eaters’, a pugnosed driver blocked Bloom’s view of a rich lady; see 5.122–32 and see also note at 15.192.
15.4348: Davy Byrne
See note at 8.697.
15.4348: Mrs Ellen M‘Guinness See note at 10.61.
15.4349: Mrs Joe Gallaher See note at 15.565.
15.4349: George Lidwell See note at 11.227.
15.4349: Jimmy Henry See note at 10.982.
15.4350: superintendent Laracy
John Laracy (1842–1906), Lower Castle Yard: superintendent of the B division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (Thom’s, p. 851).
15.4350: Father Cowley See note at 10.884–85.
15.4350–51: Crofton out of the Collector-general’s See note at 6.247.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1045
15.4351: Dan Dawson See note at 6.151.
15.4351: dental surgeon Bloom See note at 10.1115.
15.4352: Mrs Bob Doran
Née Polly Mooney; see note at 12.398–400.
15.4352: Mrs Kennefick
Unknown. The name Kenefick is associated with County Cork (MacLysaght, The Surnames of Ireland, p. 175), and the 1901 census confirms that this is a prevalent name there, so perhaps there is a connection with John Stanislaus Joyce.
15.4352–53: Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan See note at 8.950–51.
15.4353: handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwidebehindinClonskeatram
This incident is not mentioned elsewhere in Ulysses. See note at 7.4 for Clonskea and the tram thereto.
15.4354: bookseller of Sweets of Sin
See note at 10.594 for the bookseller and note at 10.606 for Sweets of Sin.
15.4354–55: Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad See note at 8.889.
15.4355–56: Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck
Mrs Gerald Moran and Mrs Stanislaus Moran: Roebuck Hill, Dundrum (Thom’s, p. 1695).
15.4356: Drimmie’s See note at 13.845.
15.4356: Wetherup See note at 7.337.
15.4356–57: colonel Hayes
Unclear; possibly Barter Hayes (1829–1908): chief inspector of police for the Great Southern and Western Railway, 25 Conyngham Road (Thom’s, p. 1461; Igoe, p. 138). Thom’s gives his first name as ‘Baxter’, but the 1901 census lists him as ‘Barter’. Adams suggests Lt. Col. Clarence Henry Hayes of the 1st Bengal Lancers and the Indian Staff Corps, who appears in the Army List for 1902 (SS, p. 156).
15.4357: Mastiansky, Citron
See notes at 4.205 and 4.204–05.
15.4357: Penrose
See notes at 8.1114 and 18.573.
15.4357: Aaron Figatner
See note at 11.149.
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1046 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4357–58: Moses Herzog See note at 12.17–18.
15.4358: Michael E. Geraghty See note at 12.20.
15.4358: Inspector Troy See note at 12.1.
15.4358: Mrs Galbraith See note at 18.476.
15.4358–59: the constable off Eccles street corner Bloom passes him by in ‘Calypso’ (4.177–78).
15.4359: old doctor Brady
See notes at 17.2140 and 18.576.
15.4360: the mystery man on the beach See 13.1060.
15.4360: a retriever
Presumably the same as the shape-shifting retriever first seen at 15.247 and throughout this episode.
15.4360–61: Mrs Miriam Dandrade See note at 8.350.
15.4362: THE HUE AND CRY See note at 7.447.
15.4365: Beaver street See note at 15.585.
15.4371: fifth of George and seventh of Edward
Ostensibly a reference to George V (1865–1936, r. 1910–36, and, thus, anachronistic in 1904) and Edward VII (1841–1910, r. 1901–10). However, this need not be anachronistic. In the United Kingdom, Acts of Parliament are referred to by monarch, so ‘fifth of George’ would be the fifth Act passed under a monarch named George and, likewise, ‘seventh of Edward’ the seventh Act passed under a monarch named Edward (D. J. Gifford and Don Salter, How to Understand an Act of Parliament, p. 17). There are no Acts named ‘fifth of George’ or ‘seventh of Edward’ relevant to Ireland, but there is an infamous ‘sixth of George’, passed in 1720 under George I. ‘This act deprived the Irish house of lords its appellate jurisdiction and asserted the right of the British parliament to make laws binding Ireland’ (NHI, vol. 4, p. 78).
15.4371–72: History to blame
Haines’s line in ‘Telemachus’ (1.649).
15.4372: Fabled by mothers of memory See note at 2.7.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1047
15.4376: vocative feminine. Probably neuter. Ungenitive
The vocative: one of six grammatical cases in Latin (or one of five in Greek); used for addressing or invoking people or things. Had Stephen addressed Cissy by name in Latin, he would have used the vocative feminine. Since the Latin word for prostitute, scortum, is neuter, had he addressed her in Latin as a prostitute, it would have been in the vocative neuter. The genitive is another case (denoting relation between objects), but the word also means ‘Pertaining to generation’ (OED).
15.4383: only a shilling whore
One shilling was a typical going price for a street prostitute at this time (Judith Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, p. 265 n. 63).
15.4387: Sisyphus
Sisyphus’s punishment in Hades is to eternally roll a huge stone to the top of a hill; as soon as it nears the top it rolls down again, forcing him to start over. According to some post- Homeric sources, Sisyphus is Odysseus’s father (Brewer’s). In the Odyssey, Odysseus sees Sisyphus’s punishment (XI.593–600).
15.4388: Uropoetic
Uropoetic: pertaining to the secretion of urine (OED, s.v. uropoietic).
15.4392: doesn’t half
Not half: a Cockney expression that reverses the sense of the statement, not unlike a double negative (OED, s.v. half; Partridge). In this case, the statement ‘he doesn’t half want a thick ear’ means ‘he wants a thick ear’.
15.4392: thick ear
Thick ear: an ear swollen as the result of a blow (Partridge).
15.4392: blighter
Blighter: ‘A contemptible or unpleasant person’ (OED).
15.4395: LORD TENNYSON See note at 3.492.
15.4397: Theirs not to reason why
From Tennyson’s poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ (1854): ‘Theirs not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die’ (ll. 13–15); see also note at 15.1527.
15.4402: Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts
After one of Jonathan Swift’s formulations on Irish civil liberties (Drapier’s Letters, Letter 4): ‘For, in reason, all government without the consent of the governed, is the very definition of slavery: but, in fact, eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one single man in his shirt’ (Works, vol. 7, p. 182).
15.4402–03: Shirt is synecdoche. Part for the whole
Synecdoche: in rhetoric, ‘A figure by which a more comprehensive term is used for a less comprehensive or vice versa; as whole for part or part for whole’ (OED).
15.4407: The bold soldier boy See note at 12.193.
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1048 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4413: Noble art of selfpretence
After the phrase ‘the noble art of self-defence’, that is, boxing or fencing (Brewer’s, s.v. Noble Science).
15.4414: Hand hurts me slightly See note at 15.3720–21.
15.4415: Enfin ce sont vos oignons
Enfin ce sont vos oignons (French): ‘Well, it’s your business’; oignons (French slang): one’s concerns, one’s business (literally, onions).
15.4417: DOLLY GRAY
The title character in the song ‘Goodbye, Dolly Gray’ (1898), by Americans Will D. Cobb and Paul Barnes, originally written for the brief Spanish-American War (1898), but also associated with the Boer War (1899–1902). In the song, Dolly is the girl left behind by her soldier lover (Bowen, p. 297).
15.4418–19: the sign of the heroine of Jericho.) Rahab
The Heroine of Jericho: a Masonic order conferred upon wives and widows of Masons. The order’s name comes from the biblical story of Rahab, the harlot who protects the men sent to spy on the city of Jericho (Joshua 2:1–6:25). William Blake used the name Rahab for the Whore of Babylon in The Four Zoas: ‘Rahab / Who is Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots’ (Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 379).
15.4419: Cook’s son, goodbye
From Kipling’s ‘The Absent-Minded Beggar’ (see note at 9.125): ‘We must help the girl that Tommy’s left behind him / Cook’s son—Duke’s son—son of a belted Earl’ (ll. 23–24; Selected Poems, p. 89).
15.4420: girl you left behind See note at 9.246–47.
15.4427: oblate orange
Oblate: a sphere that is flattened at the poles (OED). Sir Isaac Newton (English scientist, 1643–1727), by applying his theory of gravitation, was the first to deduce that the shape of the earth is an oblate spheroid (EB11, s.v. earth). Charles Hutton (English mathematician, 1737–1823) explicitly compared the earth’s shape to an orange: ‘[the earth] approaches nearly to the shape of an orange, or an oblate spheroid, being a little flatted at the poles, and raised about the equatorial parts’ (A Philosophical and Mathematical Dictionary, vol. 1, p. 441; with thanks to Harald Beck).
15.4435: philirenists
Philirenist: a peace-lover, from the Greek philo-, lover + eirene, peace.
15.4435: the tsar
In 1899, Czar Nicholas II (1868–1918, r. 1894–1917) initiated the Hague Conference of the Nations, the first modern attempt to ratify universal laws of engagement during wartime. ‘His pacific tendencies were shown by his systematic opposition to all bellicose excitement [. . .] In spite, however, of his desire for peace he let his country drift into the disastrous war with Japan’ (EB11). In A Portrait, Stephen refuses to sign the Czar’s peace petition (pp. 194–98).
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15. ‘Circe’ 1049
15.4435–36: the king of England
See note at 12.1399 for Edward’s sobriquet, le roi pacificateur.
15.4436–37: But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king
Stephen’s comment here in his confrontation with Private Carr suggests William Blake’s experience with a drunk and bellicose English solider. On 12 August 1803, Blake found John Scofield—a private in Captain Leathe’s troop of First Royal Dragoons—drunk in Blake’s garden at Felpham and ordered him out. In retaliation, Scofield, seconded by another private, accused Blake and his wife of treasonous statements. Blake was tried and acquitted of high treason on 10 January 1804. Blake’s subsequent works contain many disparaging references to Scofield, whose name is variously misspelt (as Schofield, Scofeld, etc.) (S. Foster Damon, A Blake Dictionary, s.v. Scofield). Blake’s own account of the incident is found in a ‘Memorandum in Refutation of the Information and Complaint of John Scolfield’ (Complete Poetry and Prose, pp. 734–35). Although Blake was acquitted, his poetry does express cynicism towards state religion and country. From ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ (in Songs of Experience): ‘And because I am happy & dance & sing, / They think they have done me no injury, / And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King, / Who make up a heaven of our misery’ (ll. 9–12, Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 23). And, from ‘Merlin’s Prophecy’: ‘The harvest shall flourish in wintry weather / When two virginities meet together / The King & the Priest must be tied in a tether / Before two virgins can meet together’ (ll. 1–4, Complete Poetry and Prose, p. 473). Stanislaus Joyce writes that Joyce once quoted these lines to Gogarty (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 161).
15.4449: Edward the Seventh appears in an archway
‘The Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, was according to persistent report, not unacquainted with Monto, particularly during the period of his military service at the Curragh [a military camp in County Kildare (EB11)] as a young man, in 1861 [. . .] [He] is reputed to have entered the high-class brothels through secret underground passages reserved for distinguished visitors’ (Finegan, Story of Monto, p. 6). There is potential evidence that such underground passages existed: during some road works on Talbot Street, a tunnel was discovered that led from the Custom House in the direction of Monto (Curtis, To Hell or Monto, pp. 160–61).
15.4450: the Sacred Heart
While the British monarch retains some pre-Reformation Catholic symbols and insignia, the Sacred Heart is a post-Reformation Catholic image. In the seventeenth century, Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque (see note at 6.954) ‘was the instrument of the introduction of the specific worship of the Sacred Heart into the Church by a decision of the supreme authority’ (EB11).
15.4451: insignia of Garter and Thistle
The British sovereign is a member of these orders of knighthood. The Order of the Garter, Britain’s highest, was founded by Edward III c.1348. The Order of the Thistle (Scottish), founded by James II in 1687, is second in rank to the Garter (both Brewer’s).
15.4451: Golden Fleece
The Golden Fleece: an order of knighthood established by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy in 1429 upon his marriage to the Infanta Isabella of Portugal. The order once contained both Spain and Austria, but the two branches split in 1713 (Brewer’s).
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1050 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4451–52: Elephant of Denmark
Christian I (pan-Scandinavian monarch, 1426–81, r. 1448–81) is believed to have established the Danish Order of the Elephant in 1462, although it may be even older. In addition to the sovereign and his sons, there are thirty knights. The collar is of gold elephants and towers (Brewer’s).
15.4452: Skinner’s and Probyn’s horse
Skinner’s Horse (or the Yellow Boys): a cavalry of irregulars serving in India in the early nineteenth century; named after its leader, James Skinner (1778–1841) (EB11). Probyn’s Horse (the 11th King Edward’s Own Lancers): named after its commander, General Sir Deighton Macnaghten Probyn (1833–1924), who had a career as an officer in India (Sidney Lee, King Edward VII, vol. 2, p. 55).
15.4452: Lincoln’s Inn bencher
Lincoln’s Inn: one of the four English Inns of Court, the organisations with exclusive right to admit lawyers to the bar. Its senior members are called benchers. Edward VII was made a bencher in 1861 when he was Prince of Wales (EB11, s.v. Inns of Court).
15.4453: ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts
King Edward VII was an honorary member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, a training regiment founded in 1637 by Robert Keayne, a member of the Honourable Artillery Company of London (Souvenir Portrait Album of Members: Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts).
15.4454: He sucks a red jujube See note at 8.4.
15.4454–55: grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron
Edward VII was a Freemason; see note at 5.75. The trowel is a symbol of the third degree of masonry: ‘Its symbolism is usually said to be that of spreading the cement which binds the brethren together’ (Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia). The Freemason’s apron is of white lambskin. The white is for purity. The lambskin ‘is dictated by the ancient burnt offering of lambs’ (Coil’s).
15.4455: made in Germany
See note at 9.766 for the expression ‘made in Germany’ and see note at 12.1390 for the German pedigree of the British monarchy.
15.4457: Défense d’uriner
Défense d’uriner (French): ‘No urinating’.
15.4459: Peace, perfect peace
After the hymn ‘Peace, Perfect Peace’ (1875) by Bishop Edward Henry Bickersteth (1825–1906) (Charlotte Bickersteth Wheeler, Chimes from By-Gone Years, p. 270).
15.4462: Mahak makar a bak
Mahak-makar-a-bak: the third password of the Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason; it means ‘God be praised, we have finished it’ (Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry, p. 246).
15.4470–71: the age of patent medicines
Patent medicine: ‘a proprietary medicine manufactured under patent and available without prescription’ (OED, s.v. patent). These were widely advertised with extravagant claims
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15. ‘Circe’ 1051 about their efficacy. Most patent medicines were ineffectual, and many relied on alcohol, cocaine, opium, or morphine for any palliative effect. In 1912, a Select Committee was established by the House of Commons to investigate the myriad brazen frauds perpetrated by the purveyors of patent medicines (Thomas Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England, pp. 168–83).
15.4473: But I say: Let my country die for me
After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the high priest Caiaphas warned his people against following Jesus: ‘You know nothing. Neither do you consider that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this he spoke not of himself: but being the high priest of that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation’ (John 11:49–51). In Stephen Hero, Stephen expressed a similar non-nationalistic sentiment. Mr Heffernan had asked Stephen if he felt any duty or love towards his mother-country. Stephen responds: ‘Honestly, I don’t [. . .] My own mind [. . .] is more interesting to me than the entire country.’ Stephen is then asked, ‘Perhaps you think your mind is more important than Ireland!’ and Stephen says it is (pp. 247–48). See also 16.1164–65.
15.4476: Joking Jesus See note at 1.584–99.
15.4477: white jujube
See note at 8.4.
15.4477: phosphorescent face
Alludes to the luminous crucifix Bloom thought of in ‘Lestrygonians’; see note at 8.18–19.
15.4478–79: My methods are new and are causing surprise . . . their eyes
From the third stanza of Gogarty’s ‘Song of the Cheerful (but slightly sarcastic) Jesus’, which was not part of Gogarty’s recitation in ‘Telemachus’; see also note at 1.584–99.
15.4481: Kings and unicorns!
‘Since 1603 the Royal Arms have been supported by (dexter) the English lion and (sinister) the Scottish unicorn’ (Brewer’s, s.v. lion).
15.4484: knackers
Knackers: testicles (Partridge).
15.4484: Jerry
Unclear; in the early nineteenth century, jerry was used as a variant form of jere, a low colloquialism for the posterior (Partridge, Dictionary of the Underworld, s.vv. jere; jerry).
15.4487: Absinthe. Greeneyed monster See notes at 3.210 and 15.1995.
15.4497: Green rag to a bull
Stephen is the green rag because he is Irish. Red, the colour of matadors’ flags, is changed to green, the colour of Ireland. The soldiers are the Bull because they are John Bulls, i.e. Englishmen (Partridge; see note at 16.1774–75).
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1052 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4498: Kevin Egan See note at 3.164.
15.4498–99: Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o’-day boy’s hat
In ‘Proteus’, Stephen remembered Egan’s Spanish tasselled shirt (3.230). See note at 3.241 for peep-o’-day boy’s hat.
15.4501: vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes See note at 3.232–33.
15.4502: Patrice Egan See note at 3.163.
15.4502–03: nibbling a quince leaf
In ‘Proteus’, Stephen thought of Patrice Egan’s ‘plump bunny’s face’ (3.165).
15.4505: Socialiste!
See note at 3.169–72.
15.4506: DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY
This multi-lingual name with Continental and Irish elements suggests the Wild Geese (see note at 3.164). The name also suggests Sir John Pope Hennessy (1834–91): elected MP for North Kilkenny in December 1890, defeating Vincent Scully, the candidate backed by Parnell. Previously, he had been a colonial governor (DIB). This passage was initially drafted for earlier in ‘Circe’ but Joyce relocated it here; see note at 15.1914–17.
15.4507: hauberk
Hauberk: ‘A piece of defensive armour: originally intended for the defence of the neck and shoulders; but already in 12th and 13th c. developed into a long coat of mail, or military tunic, usually of ring or chain mail, which adapted itself readily to the motions of the body’ (OED).
15.4507: two wild geese volant
Volant: in heraldic art, flying (OED). See note at 3.164 for wild geese.
15.4508–09: Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos . . . gravy!
A jumble of various languages, meaning (approximately): ‘Throw your eyes/yourself to the floor, you big fat John Bulls all covered in gravy!’ Werf (German): ‘throw’. Eyke: suggests the German ich, ‘I’, and also the English eye. Footboden: suggests the German Fußboden, floor. Porcos: suggests the Italian porco, pig (the plural is porci). Johnyellows inverts ‘yellowjohns’, for which see note at 12.1255. Todos (Spanish): ‘entirely’.
15.4517: Green above the red
‘The Green Above the Red’: a song by the Irish nationalist poet and politician Thomas Osborne Davis (1814–45) (Denis MacCarthy, The Book of Irish Ballads, pp. 186–88).
15.4517: Wolfe Tone See note at 10.378.
15.4522: Hands up to De Wet
Hands up to: surrender to (OED, s.v. hand). See note at 8.435.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1053
15.4524: shillelagh See note at 15.1883.
15.4525–30: May the God above . . . Irish leaders
The London Times of 21 January 1921 reported on the trial of Sinn Féin agitators in Liverpool who were charged with bomb-making. Along with explosive materials, their home contained ‘rhymes of a seditious nature’, one of which is the model for the Citizen’s rhyme here: ‘May the God above send down a dove / With teeth as sharp as razors, / To cut the throats of the English dogs / Who shot our Irish leaders’ (p. 7, col. d). This rhyme is itself based on a toast from the 1830s: ‘May God above, send down his love, / With swords as sharp as sickles, / To cut the throats of gentlefolks, / Who grudge poor men their victuals!!!’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
15.4531: THE CROPPY BOY See note at 11.991.
15.4534: I bear no hate to a living thing . . . beyond the king
From the seventh verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’; see notes at 11.1068 and 11.1072.
15.4536: RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER
See note at 12.430. The epithet ‘Demon Barber’ comes from George Dibdin Pitt’s (1799–1855) play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1842).
15.4537: gladstone bag
Gladstone bag: ‘an English travelling-bag or portmanteau of leather stretched on a light iron frame. It is from 22 to 24 inches [56 to 61 cm] long, in two or more compartments, so as to contain a dress-suit without crushing or creasing the garments: so named in compliment to William E. Gladstone’ (Century Dictionary).
15.4538–39: cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcey to slay Mogg
In November 1890 in London, Mrs Mary Eleanor Pearcey (real name Wheeler) was found guilty of murdering Mrs Phoebe Hogg and her 18-month-old infant with a cleaver. The case attracted considerable public interest (London Times, 19 Nov. 1890, p. 3, col. f). ‘Mogg’ is Joyce’s mistake.
15.4539–41: Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife . . . ear to ear
On 31 October 1917, Louis Voisin, a French butcher resident in London, and Berthe Roche killed Mrs Emilienne Gérard. Part of her body was disposed of in a meat sack in Regent Square, and the rest was placed in Voisin’s cellar (London Times, 29 Nov. 1917, p. 3, col. f).
15.4541–42: Phial containing arsenic retrieved from the body . . . to the gallows
On 14 September 1911, Mr and Mrs Frederick Seddon poisoned Miss Barrow, a lodger of some means, with arsenic. It was originally thought that the victim died of natural causes, but tests performed after an exhumation showed arsenic had caused her death. Seddon was hanged for the crime (London Times, 15 Mar. 1912, p. 6, col. f).
15.4547: Horhot ho hray hor hother’s hest
That is, ‘forgot to pray for mother’s rest’; from the sixth verse of ‘The Croppy Boy’; see note at 11.1040–43.
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1054 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4548–49: A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting
‘In certain cases, exceptional no doubt but authenticated, erection and true ejaculation do take place during hanging’ (Léon Thionet, quoted in Jeffrey Meyers, ‘Erotic Hangings in “Cyclops” ’, p. 346); see also note at 12.464–65. Gout: ‘A large splash’ (OED).
15.4550: Mrs Bellingham See note at 15.1025.
15.4550: Mrs Yelverton Barry See note at 15.1013.
15.4550–51: the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys See note at 15.1057.
15.4555: Ten shillings a time
A time: colloquial, ‘for each item’ (OED, s.v. time). In ‘Cyclops’, Alf Bergan stated that some people are willing to pay money to buy small pieces of rope that were used to kill criminals (12.445).
15.4562–64: On coronation day, on coronation day . . . beer and wine! See note at 1.300–05. For the spelling whisky, see note at 1.301.
15.4568–69: He wants my money and my life
Your money or your life: a clichéd catchphrase employed by highway robbers, or, more precisely, literary representations thereof (ODEP).
15.4569: want must be his master
This old catchphrase occurs in Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation. Neverout sees Miss Notable’s diamond and says ‘Miss, I want that Diamond-Ring of Yours’. She replies, ‘Why, then, Want’s like to be your Master’ (p. 92).
15.4576: Ça se voit aussi à Paris
Ça se voit aussi à Paris (French): ‘This also happens in Paris’.
15.4576–77: But, by saint Patrick See note at 9.520–21.
15.4578: Old Gummy Granny
A decrepit version of the allegorical figuration of Ireland as an old woman, for which see notes at 1.543–44 and 9.36–37.
15.4578–79: sugarloaf hat
Sugar-loaf hat: ‘A conical hat, pointed, rounded or flat at the top, worn during the Tudor and Stuart periods and after the French Revolution’ (OED, s.v. sugar-loaf). The image of a grandmother in a sugarloaf hat seems to derive from Thomas Dekker and John Webster’s Westward Ho, Act V, scene 3: ‘Doe not I know you Granam? and that Suger-loafe?’ (cited in the OED).
15.4579–80: deathflower of the potato blight
Death flower: ‘a flower associated with death, such as one traditionally placed on or beside a coffin or on a grave’ (OED, s.v. death). See note at 2.269 for the potato blight.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1055
15.4582: I know you, gammer!
Gammer: ‘A rustic title for an old woman’ (OED). See also note at 15.4578–79.
15.4582: Hamlet, revenge!
This line is not from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but rather is the only extant line from an earlier, anonymous play now referred to as the Ur-Hamlet (c.1587). While the text of this play is lost, its existence is known from several sources. Thomas Lodge (English physician and writer, c.1558–1625) writes in his book Wit’s Misery (1596) of ‘the ghost which cried so miserably at the Theatre, like an oyster-wife, Hamlet, revenge’ (p. 56). In light of the reference to Dekker and Webster’s Westward Ho (see note at 15.4578–79), Thomas Dekker (c.1572–1632) uses this line in his play Satiro-Mastix (1601–2): ‘No Fye’st; my name’s Hamlet reuenge’ (p. 46).
15.4582–83: The old sow that eats her farrow!
From A Portrait: ‘Do you know what Ireland is? asked Stephen with cold violence. Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow’ (p. 203).
15.4585: the king of Spain’s daughter
From a nursery-rhyme: ‘I had a little nut tree, / Nothing would it bear / But a silver nutmeg / And a golden pear; // The King of Spain’s daughter / Came to visit me, / And all for the sake of / My little nut tree’ (ODNR, pp. 330–31). A more proximate reference is the third stanza of Padraic Colum’s poem ‘A Drover’, which was published in George Russell’s anthology New Songs (see notes at 9.290–91 and 9.303): ‘Then the wet, winding roads, / Brown bogs with black water; / And my thoughts on white ships / And the King o’ Spain’s daughter’ (ll. 9–12). The reference to Spain is probably motivated by ‘Spain’s perceived or hoped for support of Ireland at various stages of the national struggle (the battle of Kinsale of 1601–2 marking the high point of Spanish involvement)’ (Terence Killeen, JJON).
15.4586: alanna
Alanna (Hiberno-English): ‘my child’ (Dolan).
15.4586: Strangers in my house See notes at 1.661 and 9.36–37.
15.4586: bad manners to them!
Bad manners to you: ‘a mild imprecation, to avoid [saying] “bad luck to you”, which would be considered wicked: reflecting the people’s horror of rude or offensive manners’ (PWJ, p. 70).
15.4586: keens
See note at 9.556.
15.4587: banshee See note at 11.630.
15.4587: Ochone!
Ochone (Hiberno-English): ‘alas’ (Dolan, s.v. ochón).
15.4587: Silk of the kine! See note at 1.403.
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1056 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4587–88: You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?
From ‘The Wearing of the Green’: ‘I met with Napper Tandy, / And he took me by the hand, / Saying, How is old Ireland? / And how does she stand?’ (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, pp. 515–16); see note at 3.259–60.
15.4590: The hat trick! See note at 15.195.
15.4591: Soggarth Aroon?
Soggarth Aroon: ‘my dear priest’, from the Irish sagart a rún; the title of a patriotic song by Irishman John Banim (1798–1842) which tells of a peasant’s devotion to his priest (Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 126).
15.4591: The reverend Carrion Crow
In Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857), Homais, standing over Emma Bovary’s death-bed, ‘compared priests to carrion crows lured by the smell of death’ (p. 302).
15.4602: a proBoer See note at 8.434.
15.4607: Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our monarch
In 1900, Queen Victoria recognised the sacrifices of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the Boer War by creating a new regiment of the Household Brigade called the Irish Guards (Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery, eds., A Military History of Ireland, p. 380).
15.4609: make the kwawr a krowawr!
That is, in slurred speech, something like ‘make war’.
15.4611: Casqued halberdiers
Casqued: wearing armour on the head. Halberdiers: soldiers bearing halberds, a combin ation of a spear and a battle-axe (all OED).
15.4611–12: pentice of gutted spearpoints
Pentice: variant of penthouse which, in military use means, ‘A structure which provides protection from the enemy; esp. a makeshift portable shelter formed of soldiers’ shields held over their heads’ (OED, s.v. penthouse).
15.4612: Turko the terrible See note at 1.258.
15.4613: bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements
The uniform of an officer in the Grenadier Guards; see note at 5.67–68.
15.4615–16: the pilgrim warrior’s sign of the knights templars
The Knights Templar: originally a twelfth-century military order charged with protecting pilgrims to Palestine. From the eighteenth century, the name was resurrected as a Masonic order which claims to be a continuation of the ancient order (Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia).
15.4618: Rorke’s Drift See note at 15.780–81.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1057
15.4618: Up, guards, and at them!
The legendary, if apocryphal, attack order attributed to Lord Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo (Brewer’s).
15.4618–19: Mahal shalal hashbaz
After ‘Maher-shalal-hashbaz’: the password of the Masonic Knights Templars (Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry, p. 196); from the Hebrew, ‘the spoil speeds, the prey hastens’, the name God commands Isaiah use for his second son (Isaiah 8:1–4).
15.4621: Erin go bragh!
Erin go bragh: ‘Ireland forever’, from the Irish Éire go bráth; a popular patriotic catchphrase and the title of an old Irish air. Subsequently used as the title and/or refrain in various Irish patriotic songs; a particularly raucous example is ‘Erin go Bragh’, words by Bryant: ‘Oh, then his shillelagh, he flourishes gaily, / With rattle ’em, battle ’em, crack and see-saw; / Och, liberty cheers him, each foe to it fears him, / While he roars out the chorus of Erin go bragh’ (The Irish Comic Vocalist’s Companion, p. 13).
15.4622: Major Tweedy See note at 4.63.
15.4630: Garryowen
That is, the song ‘Garryowen’; see note at 12.120.
15.4630: God save the king See note at 8.4.
15.4634: The brave and the fair
Proverbial, after John Dryden’s ‘Alexander’s Feast’ (1697): ‘None but the brave deserves the fair’ (l. 15).
15.4638: gules doublet and merry saint George
Gules: red, as used in heraldry (OED). The English soldiers are wearing red uniforms. St George (d. ad 303): the dragon-slaying patron saint of England (Brewer’s).
15.4641–42: The harlot’s cry from street to street . . . windingsheet
From William Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’ (see note at 2.355–56); Stephen here substitutes ‘Ireland’s’ for ‘England’s’.
15.4648–49: link between nations and generations . . . sacred lifegiver! See note at 3.37.
15.4655–56: White thy fambles, red thy gan . . . dainty is See note at 3.381–84.
15.4660: Dublin’s burning! Dublin’s burning! On fire, on fire! See note at 15.172.
15.4661: Brimstone fires spring up
Brimstone is generally associated with divine vengeance for sin, as in God’s punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24).
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1058 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4661–62: Gatling guns
The Gatling gun, invented by American Richard Jordan Gatling (1818–1903) in the 1860s, was an early form of machine gun, automatically loading cartridges to enable lengthy outbursts of gunfire without pausing to reload (OED).
15.4662: Pandemonium
The word pandemonium, from the Greek pan, all + daimon, demon, was coined by John Milton in Paradise Lost in reference to the congress of the devils: ‘At Pandemonium, the high capital / Of Satan and his peers’ (I.756). The word is now used to mean ‘a place or state of utter confusion and uproar; a noisy disorderly place’ (OED).
15.4665: Pikes clash on cuirasses
Pike: ‘a pointed staff used as a weapon’. Cuirass: ‘A piece of armour for the body (originally of leather); spec. a piece reaching down to the waist, and consisting of a breast-plate and a back- plate, buckled or otherwise fastened together’ (both OED). Although a simple weapon, the pike proved remarkably effective against the British cavalry in the rebellion of 1798. In his history of that rebellion, Philip Harwood calls the pike, Ireland’s ‘national weapon’ (History of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, p. 162).
15.4667: eyries
Eyrie: ‘The nest of a bird of prey’ (OED).
15.4667: gannets
Gannet: ‘The Solan goose’ (OED).
15.4667: cormorants
Cormorant: ‘A large and voracious sea-bird (Phalacrocorax carbo), about 3 feet [91 cm] in length, and of a lustrous black colour’ (OED).
15.4667: goshawks
Goshawk: ‘A large short-winged hawk’ (OED).
15.4668: woodcocks
Woodcock: a migratory game-bird, Scolopax rusticula. It has a long bill, short legs, large eyes, and variegated plumage. It is common in Europe and North America and is especially prevalent in the United Kingdom and Ireland (OED; EB11).
15.4668: peregrines
Peregrine: ‘a powerful falcon, Falco peregrinus, of cosmopolitan distribution, breeding chiefly on mountains and cliffs and much valued for falconry on account of its fast and spectacular flight’ (OED).
15.4668: merlins
Merlin: ‘A small falcon’ (OED).
15.4668: blackgrouse
Black grouse: ‘A large grouse of northern Eurasia, Tetrao tetrix (family Tetraonidae), the male of which is chiefly glossy black with a lyre-shaped tail, noted for its breeding display’ (OED).
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15. ‘Circe’ 1059
15.4668: sea eagles
Sea-eagle: ‘An eagle of the genus Haliaëtus, esp. the White-tailed Eagle, H. albicilla, which older writers confounded with the Osprey or so-called Fishing Eagle’ (OED).
15.4669: gulls
See note at 3.335.
15.4669: albatrosses
Albatross: ‘Any of various very large oceanic birds constituting the family Diomedeidae (order Procellariiformes), having long, narrow wings and typically white plumage, and found chiefly in the southern oceans’ (OED).
15.4669: barnacle geese
See note at 3.477–79.
15.4669: The midnight sun is darkened
After Luke’s description of the moments after Christ died on the cross: ‘And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst’ (Luke 23:45).
15.4670–71: The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from . . . Mount Jerome
From the description of the post-crucifixion: ‘the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent. And the graves were opened: and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, came into the holy city, and appeared to many’ (Matthew 27:51–53). See note at 6.486 for Prospect (Glasnevin) Cemetery and note at 6.513 for Mount Jerome Cemetery.
15.4671: white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks
After Christ’s description of the Last Judgement: ‘And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty [. . .] And all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left’ (Matthew 25:31–33).
15.4672–74: Tom Rochford . . . leaps into the void
Rochford’s leap into the void recalls his heroism in Dublin’s sewers, for which see note at 8.1000.
15.4676–77: Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs After ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’; see note at 10.1242.
15.4677–78: Society ladies lift their skirts
Suggests the old women at the top of Nelson’s Pillar in ‘The Parable of the Plums’ (7.1013) and the time Stephen lay passed out in his vomit (9.1192–94).
15.4678–79: Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride . . . on broomsticks
‘Laughing witch’: from ‘Matcham’s Masterstroke’ (see note at 4.502). In Robert Burns’s ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ (1791), Tam sees a young witch wearing a ‘cutty sark, o’ Paisley harn’ (l. 169). Cutty sark (Scottish dialect): short-cut dress (OED, s.vv. cutty; sark).
15.4680: Quakerlyster See note at 9.1.
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1060 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4680–81: It rains dragons’ teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows
The image of dragon’s teeth changing into armed men derives from the myth of Cadmus (Brewer’s, s.v. Cadmus). See also a 1779 speech by Irish statesman Walter Hussey Burgh (1742–83): ‘Talk not to me of peace. Ireland is not at peace. It is smothered war. England has sown her laws as dragon’s teeth, and they have sprung up armed men’ (Tom Kettle, Irish Orators and Oratory, p. 110).
15.4681–82: the pass of knights of the red cross
The Knight of the Red Cross: a Masonic degree which has various passes (Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry, p. 169).
15.4682: Wolfe Tone See note at 10.378.
15.4683: Henry Grattan See note at 7.731.
15.4683: Smith O’Brien See note at 6.226.
15.4683: Daniel O’Connell See note at 2.269.
15.4684: Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt (1846–1906): Irish revolutionary and politician. He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1865 and formed the National Land League with Parnell in 1879. Its goal was to reform the laws that favoured absentee landlords and prevented oppressed tenant farmers from owning the land they lived on (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 35–37). Originally an ally of Parnell, they later divided on the issue of the nationalisation of land ownership. After Parnell’s affair with Kitty O’Shea was made public, Davitt sided with the anti-Parnellites (DIB).
15.4684: Isaac Butt See note at 7.707.
15.4684: Justin M‘Carthy against Parnell
Justin McCarthy (Irish writer and politician, 1830–1912) led the faction of the Irish Parliamentary Party that advocated Parnell’s ousting in the aftermath of the disclosure of his affair with Kitty O’Shea (see note at 2.394). On 6 December 1890, McCarthy prevailed and he became the new party chairman (DIB).
15.4685: Arthur Griffith See note at 3.227.
15.4685: John Redmond
John Redmond (1856–1918): Parnellite MP who managed to reunite the Irish Parliamentary Party under his leadership from 1900–18. However, by this time the political landscape had changed, and Redmond and the IPP found themselves eclipsed by the emerging Republican and Sinn Féin movements which were inspired by Arthur Griffith (DIB).
15.4685–86: John O’Leary against Lear O’Johnny
John O’Leary (1830–1907): Irish nationalist and journalist. He publicly supported Parnell after the scandal with Kitty O’Shea became public. After Parnell’s death, he withdrew from
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15. ‘Circe’ 1061 public life (DIB). From this point on in the list, the antagonists’ names are inversions. He is memorably invoked in the refrain of Yeats’s poem ‘September 1913’: ‘Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, / It’s with O’Leary in the grave’ (ll. 7–8, 15–16, 23–24).
15.4686: Lord Edward Fitzgerald See note at 10.785–86.
15.4687: The O’Donoghue of the Glens
The O’Donoghues are a prominent Irish family of ancient stock. Unlike the majority of the Irish nobility, they were able to hold on to their lands—which were at Glenflesk, County Kerry—after the Tudor conquests (Peter Berresford Ellis, Erin’s Blood Royal, pp. 143–45). The title ‘The O’Donoghue of the Glens’ refers to the ‘Chief of the Name’, the paterfamilias.
15.4688: centre of the earth See note at 1.176.
15.4689: fieldaltar of Saint Barbara
See note at 12.1711 for St Barbara. She is the patron saint of gunsmiths and artillerymen. One of her symbols is a tower (J. C. J. Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend).
15.4689–90: Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns
A Black Mass is being performed here. There is no set formula for a Black Mass, rather it follows the general pattern of inverting the practices of a Roman Catholic Mass in order to worship Satan and curse Jesus Christ (Ruben van Luijk, Children of Lucifer, p. 43). Bleached candles are customary at a Catholic Mass (Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 407), hence black candles being used at a Black Mass. During the Catholic Mass, the candles are placed on the altar’s surface, not on its horns at the side. The gospel side of the altar is the north side, the side on which the gospel is read. The epistle side is the south side, to the left of the priest when he faces the congregation (p. 296).
15.4690: barbacans See note at 1.316.
15.4691–92: On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason
Black Masses often feature a woman’s body as the altar, to reverse the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Mass (Van Luijk, Children of Lucifer, pp. 44–45). ‘Goddess of unreason’ inverts ‘goddess of reason’, the name given by French revolutionary Jacques Hebert (1757–94) to the quasi-deity that would replace the Christian God in the new republic (Brewer’s, s.v. reason).
15.4693: Father Malachi O’Flynn
Combines Malachi Mulligan with Father O’Flynn (see note at 8.713).
15.4694: reversed chasuble, his two left feet back to front
Chasuble: ‘An ecclesiastical vestment, a kind of sleeveless mantle covering the body and shoulders, worn over the alb and stole by the celebrant at Mass or the Eucharist’ (OED). By being reversed, it fits in with the inversions of the Black Mass. See also note at 15.2573 for the two left feet.
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1062 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4695: camp mass
That is, a Mass celebrated at an army camp; for example: ‘Striking scenes of devotion marked the Corpus Christi celebrations at the Curragh Camp Mass’ (Irish Independent, 9 June 1939, p. 13, col. a).
15.4695: The Reverend Mr Hugh C. Haines Love M.A.
Combines Haines with the Reverend Hugh C. Love (see note at 10.437–38). Haine is the French word for hate.
15.4696: plain cassock
A plain cassock would be the black cassock of a priest unaffiliated with a religious institute. Before the twelfth century, the cassock was worn by the laity as well as by clergy (Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 508–09); see also note at 15.2655.
15.4699: Introibo ad altare diaboli
Introibo ad altare diaboli (Latin): ‘I will go unto the altar of the Devil’; see note at 1.5.
15.4701: To the devil which hath made glad my young days
After the altarboy’s reply to the priest’s call at the beginning of the Ordinary of the Latin Mass; see note at 15.122–23.
15.4703: blooddripping host
Actual blood has been substituted for the wine used in the Catholic Mass.
15.4703: Corpus meum
Corpus meum (Latin): ‘my body’; from the prayer of Consecration of the Host, before Communion: ‘Hoc est enim corpus meum’ (For this is my body) (Walsh, The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church, p. 276).
15.4705–06: raises high behind the celebrant’s petticoat . . . buttocks
After a passage in George Moore’s The Lake (1905): ‘stepping from stone to stone, he stood on the last one as on a pedestal, tall and gray in the moonlight—buttocks hard as a faun’s, and dimpled like a faun’s when he draws himself up before plunging after a nymph’ (pp. 330–31). The character referred to here is named Father Oliver Gogarty. Joyce quoted this passage in a letter to Stanislaus dated 31 August 1906 (Letters, vol. 2, p. 154). This scene in The Lake, of Father Gogarty’s staged drowning, is based on Father Thomas Connellan’s own faked drowning (see note at 8.1070) (Luke Gibbons, Joyce’s Ghosts, p. 193).
15.4707: THE DAMNED
At the Last Judgement, the Damned and the Blessed will be divided; see note at 15.4671.
15.4708: Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!
Reverses the phrase ‘Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth’, which is supposed to be loudly proclaimed during the Last Judgement (Revelation 19:6 in the King James). Backwards language, like this and ‘Dooooooooooog’ below at 15.4711, is a feature of the Black Mass (Van Luijk, Children of Lucifer, p. 21).
15.4709: Adonai
See note at 12.1915.
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15. ‘Circe’ 1063
15.4713: Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! See note at 15.4708.
15.4718: Kick the Pope
‘Kick the Pope’: originally an alternative title for the song ‘Garryowen’ (see note at 12.120) and the title preferred by Loyalists. By the early twentieth century, this phrase migrated to other songs, including ‘Dolly Brae’—which commemorated the Battle of Dolly Brae in 1849, at which many Catholics died (John Simpson, JJON).
15.4718: Daily, daily sing to Mary
A Catholic hymn (in Latin, ‘Omni die dic Mariae’); ‘a marvellously raucous hymn to our Lady’ (George William Rutler, The Stories of Hymns, p. 76).
15.4726: dialectic, the universal language
Aristotle’s conception of dialectic would be one of the first attempts at establishing a universal language (see note at 15.105–06): ‘The traditional logic, or dialectic, of Aristotle’s “Organon”—the science and art of (mainly deductive) reasoning—found its proper application in exploring the domain of purely natural truth, but in the early Middle Ages it began to be applied by some Catholic theologians to the elucidation of the supernatural truths of the Christian Revelation’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. dialectic).
15.4730: Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit
Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit (Latin): ‘Judas leaves. And hangs himself with a noose’; paraphrases Matthew 27:5 in the Vulgate, ‘et abiens laqueo se suspendit’ (and departing he [Judas] hangs himself with a noose). At some point in 1904, Joyce approached a woman in St Stephen’s Green, not realising that she was accompanied. Her escort came forward and struck Joyce, leaving him with a black eye, sprained wrist and ankle, and cuts on his chin and hand. Joyce was with Vincent Cosgrave, the model for Lynch (see note at 14.190), who stood by and offered no assistance (Ellmann, p. 161). In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote under the heading ‘Cosgrave’: ‘His hands are usually in his trousers’ pockets. They were in his trousers’ pockets when I was knocked down on S. Stephen’s Green’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 93; JJA, vol. 7, p. 111).
15.4735: This feast of pure reason
After the title of Immanuel Kant’s (German philosopher, 1724–1804) treatise, Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Alexander Pope’s phrase ‘feast of reason’ (‘The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace Imitated’, l. 128).
15.4736: OLD GUMMY GRANNY See notes at 1.543–44 and 9.36–37.
15.4737: acushla
Acushla (Hiberno-English): darling (OED); see also note at 9.775.
15.4737–38: At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven
Executions in the United Kingdom were typically scheduled to happen at 8:00 am (Michael Palmer, The Midnight Lie, p. xix); see also note at 2.102–07.
15.4738: Ireland will be free
After the patriotic song ‘The Shan Van Vocht’ (‘The Poor Old Woman’; see also note at 1.543–44): ‘Yes! Ireland shall be free / From the centre to the sea’ (Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 20).
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1064 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
15.4744: he’s incapable
From the phrase ‘drunk and incapable’: ‘(in police reports), i.e. so drunk as to be incapable of taking care of himself ’ (OED, s.v. incapable).
15.4752: Carbine in bucket!
That is, ‘Put away your weapon’. Carbine: medium- sized firearm. Bucket: holster (both OED).
15.4763: coward’s blow
Coward’s blow: ‘a blow given to provoke a boy or else be branded a coward’ (PWJ, p. 240).
15.4771: raincaped watch See note at 15.674.
15.4793: Bennett’ll shove you in the lockup
That is, Sergeant Major Bennett; see note at 10.1133–34.
15.4805: weepers See note at 6.603.
15.4808: O, the very man!
Corny Kelleher is evidently a ‘police tout’ or informer (see note at 5.14 and see 10.217–26), which is why Bloom supposes that Corny Kelleher has influence with the police.
15.4809: sprung
Sprung: drunk (Partridge).
15.4813: with drawling eye
Corny Kelleher’s bad eye; see 6.93, 6.685, and 12.1081.
15.4813–14: I know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup . . . Twenty to one See note at 12.1219.
15.4817–18: out of that See note at 3.353.
15.4826: wipe your name off the slate
That is, ‘to obliterate or cancel a record, usu. of a debt, misdemeanour’ (OED, s.v. slate).
15.4827–28: With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom See note at 5.14–15.
15.4849: bounden duty
Bounden: older, archaic form of bound (OED). The phrase ‘bounden duty’ (obligation) is used in the Anglican Holy Communion: ‘It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God’ (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 264).
15.4861–62: Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet’s
Commercial (or commercial traveller): a travelling salesman. Fizz: champagne (Partridge). See note at 13.900 for Jammet’s. If Corny has come from Jammet’s, his route is somewhat indirect (JJD, p. 34).
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15. ‘Circe’ 1065
15.4864: Behan’s car
Behan is Kelleher’s cab-driver, as he explains shortly: ‘Behan our jarvey there’ (15.4881). On a Ulysses notesheet Joyce wrote ‘Corn. Kell. business card sober drivers specialty’ (Notesheet Circe 7.90), the point being that Kelleher attracts clients with the promise of sober drivers.
15.4866: just going home by Gardiner street
Gardiner Street runs north from the back of the Custom House up to Dorset Street, about 280 metres distant from Bloom’s house. Gardiner Street also passes through Monto, thereby providing Bloom with an alibi to explain his presence here.
15.4868: mots
See note at 10.1142–43.
15.4870: with lacklustre eye
Corny’s squint: see 6.93 and notes at 10.208 and 12.1081.
15.4884: Cabra
In 1904, Cabra was mostly farmland within the large inner suburb Phibsborough, which lies just beyond the north-west section of Dublin’s North Circular Road (Thom’s, pp. 1655, 1741). In 1902, John Joyce moved to 7 St Peter’s Terrace (now St Peter’s Road), off the Cabra Road, in Phibsborough. This is the address at which he is listed in the 1904 Thom’s (pp. 1743, 1914); see also Ellmann, pp. 105–06.
15.4886: Sandycove
The Martello Tower is in Sandycove, about 11 km south of Dublin; hence Corny Kelleher’s reluctance to drive there.
15.4926: The name if you call. Somnambulist
There is a common, but incorrect, assumption that a sleep-walker might awaken if they hear their name. ‘In many cases [the sleep-walker] does not hear, the auditory centres not responding; but in others suggestive words may alter the current of his dream and lead him to perform other actions than what he intended to do. On awaking there is either no memory of what has taken place or the dim recollection of a fading dream’ (EB11, s.v. somnambulism).
15.4930: Black panther. Vampire
Combines Haines’s dream of a black panther (see note at 1.57) with Stephen’s vampire poem (see note at 3.397–98 and note at 3.397).
15.4932–33: Who. . . drive. . . Fergus now . . . shade
Fractured lines from W. B. Yeats’s poem ‘Who Goes With Fergus?’; see note at 1.239–41.
15.4938: One pound seven See note at 17.1475.
15.4942–43: shadows . . . dim sea See note at 1.239–41.
15.4951–52: swear that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal
Fragments from the oath of Entered Apprentices: ‘I, [. . .], of my own free will and accord, in presence of Almighty God, and this worshipful lodge of free and accepted Masons, erected
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1066 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses to God and dedicated to the holy St. John, do hereby and hereon, most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear, that I will always hail, ever conceal, and never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts, point or points, of the secret arts and mysteries, of ancient Freemasonry [. . .] binding myself under no less penalty than to have my throat cut across, from ear to ear, my tongue torn out by the roots, and my body buried in the rough sands of the sea, a cabletow’s length from the shore, at low water mark, where the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four hours; so help me God, and keep me steadfast, in the due performance of the same’ (Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry, pp. 11–12; Ulrich Schneider, ‘Freemasonic Signs and Passwords in the “Circe” Episode,’ p. 309). Bloom is performing the role of Secret Master and is initiating Stephen as a Mason.
15.4956: attitude of secret master
Secret Master: the fourth degree in the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (among others); it is a relatively low rank (Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia, s.v. Rites, Masonic, Scottish Rite). Its sign ‘is given by placing the two forefingers of the right hand on the lip’ (Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry, p. 232). The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is not worked in Ireland (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, p. 870).
15.4957: fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped
For changeling, see note at 3.308. Rudy was born on 29 December 1893 and thus would have been 11 in 1904.
15.4958: Eton suit See note at 6.76.
15.4958: glass shoes and a little bronze helmet
The glass shoes recall the story of Cinderella, and the bronze helmet suggests Mercury (see notes at 1.601 and 15.213).
15.4959–60: He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page
Hebrew is read right to left (see note at 7.206–07). In Judaism, it is a widespread custom, but not a religious duty, to kiss holy objects, such as prayer books (Ronald Eisenberg, Dictionary of Jewish Terms, p. 222).
15.4965: diamond and ruby buttons See note at 18.1311–12.
15.4967: A white lambkin
Lambkin: a little lamb (OED). When Rudy was buried, his corpse bore ‘a fair corselet of lamb’s wool’ (14.269).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’
a b c d
h
g f e
i j
Map 16 Custom House (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = D. Bergin (46 Amiens Street); b = j. Mullett (45 Amiens Street); c = Signal House (36 Amiens Street); d = North Star Hotel (26–30 Amiens Street); e = Dock Tavern (1 Store Street); f = City Morgue (3 Store Street); g = Police station, C Division (3 Store Street); h = J. Rourke (5–6 Store Street); i = Custom House; j = Cabman’s shelter
Time: 1–2 am (12–1 am in the Linati schema) Location: The cabman’s shelter, near the Custom House Organ: Nerves Art: Navigation Symbol: Sailors Technic: Narrative (old)
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1068 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Correspondences: Eumaeus: Skin- the- Goat; Ulysses Pseudangelos: Sailor; Melanthius: Corley After ‘Circe’, the final section of three episodes, called the ‘Nostos’ (homecoming), begins. However, Bloom defers one last time his inevitable homecoming by taking Stephen to a nearby cabman’s shelter so he can recuperate. The shelter—a small wooden structure (see note at 16.8)—is by the Custom House and thus in the opposite direction from Bloom’s home (map 16). As part of this episode’s decorum of awkwardly mixed styles, it contains many foreign expressions, which are italicised to indicate their foreign provenance even though all such words have been thoroughly Anglicised (see, for example, note at 16.44).
16.3: orthodox Samaritan fashion
After the parable of the Good Samaritan who helped an injured Jew on the roadside after the man was ignored by a priest and a Levite (Luke 10:30–37). The Samaritan religion is an offshoot of Judaism. Relations between the Jews and the Samaritans have not been without tensions (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
16.6: pump of Vartry water
All water pumps within Dublin at this time carried water from the Vartry River; see note at 17.164–82 for an account of Dublin’s water supply. The majority of the water pumps were located on the (more prosperous) south side of the Liffey (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 269).
16.8: off the reel
Off the reel: spontaneously (OED).
16.8: cabman’s shelter
This cabman’s shelter is at the intersection of Beresford Place and Custom House Quay, by the Custom House (see note at 10.297), near the Loop Line Bridge and Butt Bridge. It is unlisted in Thom’s but can be seen in contemporary photographs (David Spurr, Architecture and Modern Literature, p. 201). It was a small wooden structure that was open late at night and served coffee and light fare. Dublin’s cabman’s shelters were operated by the Coffee Palace (see note at 11.486) (DD, p. 73).
16.9: Butt bridge See note at 7.642.
16.11: mineral
Mineral: mineral water and also any ‘effervescent non-alcoholic drink’ (OED, s.vv. mineral; mineral water).
16.11: was the rub
After Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy: ‘To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub’ (III.i.64).
16.17: e.d. ed
Context suggests exhausted. The expression predates Joyce, but is used in the sense of ended; from the story ‘An Irish Election in the Time of the Forties’ by William Carleton: ‘ “Burnside”, said he, “I fear it is e-d-ed with us. Several of the dead men have been bribed by
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1069 the enemy” ’ (Dublin University Magazine, Sep. 1847, vol. 30, no. 177, p. 290). The French translation of Ulysses, which Joyce had a hand in, renders this as ‘flappis’, tired (Ulysse, p. 657; Richard K. Bass, ‘Additional Allusions in “Eumaeus” ’, p. 321).
16.20: yeoman service See note at 14.686.
16.21: along Beaver street or, more properly, lane
Bloom and Stephen turn off Lower Tyrone Street onto Beaver Street (see note at 15.585). There is no Beaver Lane and Beaver Street is not especially narrow.
16.22: farrier’s
J. Kavanagh: farrier, 14–15 Beaver Street (Thom’s, p. 1424). For farrier, see note at 15.1430.
16.22–23: livery stables at the corner of Montgomery street
Thom’s lists a livery stable at 42 Montgomery Street, at the intersection with Beaver Street (p. 1549).
16.24: debouching See note at 8.406.
16.24: Amiens street
Earlier in the day, Amiens Street would have been a good place to find a carriage because of Amiens Street Station (now Connolly Station); see note at 16.35.
16.24: Dan Bergin’s
Daniel Bergin: grocery, tea, and wine shop, 46 Amiens Street, at the intersection with Montgomery Street (Thom’s, p. 1412).
16.25: Jehu
Jehu: a fast or reckless driver, or a coachman generally (Partridge); from 2 Kings 9:20: ‘the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Namsi, for he drives furiously’.
16.27: North Star hotel
The North Star Hotel: 26–30 Amiens Street, across from the train station (Thom’s, p. 1971).
16.33: bevelling around
Joyce’s use of the word bevelling appears to be idiosyncratic. One meaning of the word bevel is ‘Oblique; esp. at more than a right angle’ (OED). Amiens Street intersects Montgomery Street diagonally, so turning the corner involves an angle that is greater than 90°, thus bevelling seems to mean turning at greater than a right angle. Joyce also uses this word in the Dubliners story ‘Counterparts’: ‘Nosey Flynn bevelled off to the left’ (p. 94; with thanks to Harald Beck).
16.33: Mullett’s
John Mullett: tea, wine, and spirit shop, 45 Amiens Street (Thom’s, p. 1412).
16.34: Signal House
The Signal House: a grocery and spirit shop, Thomas Hayden proprietor, 36 Amiens Street (Thom’s, p. 1412).
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1070 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.35: Amiens street railway terminus
The terminus of the Great Northern Railway, a railway company servicing Belfast and other station stops in the north (Thom’s, p. 1412); now called Connolly Station.
16.37: gone the way of all buttons
After the proverbial phrase ‘to go the way of all flesh’; that is, ‘to die; (in extended use) to disappear, fall into disrepair, be discontinued’ (OED). Bloom’s button popped off in ‘Circe’; see 15.3439.
16.41: Jupiter Pluvius
Jupiter: the Roman king of the gods. As god of the sky and heavens, he controlled the weather and climate. Pluvius (Latin): ‘rainy’ or ‘rain bringing’. ‘Jupiter Pluvius has got out his water-can’ was a catchphrase from c.1870 for ‘it is raining’ (Partridge, s.v. water can).
16.42–43: Dublin United Tramways Company’s sandstrewer
See note at 15.185 for sandstrewer and note at 7.6–7 for Dublin United Tramways Company (and here the correct form of the name is used).
16.44: à propos
À propos (also apropos) (French): with regard to; Anglicised since the seventeenth century (OED, s.v. apropos).
16.46: Great Northern railway station See note at 16.35.
16.48: backdoor of the morgue
Dublin’s city morgue has entrances at 3 Store Street and at 2–4 Amiens Street (Thom’s, pp. 1411, 1599). In context, the backdoor would be the Amiens Street entrance.
16.49–50: Dock Tavern
Bloom and Stephen turn onto Store Street. The Dock Tavern: 1 Store Street, at the corner of Store and Amiens Streets (Thom’s, p. 1599).
16.50–51: Store street, famous for its C division police station
The C Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police had its barracks in the same building block as the Dublin City Morgue at 3 Store Street (Thom’s, p. 1599).
16.52: warehouses of Beresford place
Beresford Place connects to Store Street across from the north side of the Custom House. It forms half of the arc (with Memorial Road forming the other half) that encloses the Custom House from the rear. In 1904, several timber and petroleum warehouses were located there (Thom’s, p. 1426).
16.52–54: Ibsen, associated with Baird’s the stonecutter’s . . . in Talbot place
D. G. Baird and J. Paul Todd: ‘engineering works, mechanical engineers and founders’, 20–25 Talbot Place, around the corner from Store Street (Thom’s, p. 1604). From A Portrait: ‘he foreknew [. . .] that as he went by Baird’s stonecutting works in Talbot Place the spirit of Ibsen would blow through him like a keen wind’ (p. 176). This phrasing echoes a line from Joyce’s essay ‘Ibsen’s New Drama’ (1900), a review of When We Dead Awaken, when he says of the character Maja, ‘Her airy freshness is as a breath of keen air. The sense of free, almost
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1071 flamboyant life, which is her chief note, counter balances the austerity of Irene and the dullness of Rubek’ (OCPW, p. 46). As a young man, Joyce was a great admirer of Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian playwright, 1828–1906) and even learned Danish so he could read him in his original language. While Ibsen is only mentioned one time in A Portrait, he is discussed frequently in Stephen Hero, where Stephen calls him—and not Shakespeare—the successor to Dante (p. 41). See Ellmann, pp. 42, 71–76, 85–87.
16.54–55: fidus Achates See note at 6.49.
16.55–56: James Rourke’s city bakery
‘City Bakery—James Rourke, baker and flour merchant’, 5–6 Store Street (Thom’s, p. 1599).
16.57: our daily bread See note at 4.82.
16.58: the staff of life
After the proverb, ‘Bread is the staff of life’ (ODEP).
16.58: earn your bread
Bread: ‘Livelihood, means of subsistence’, since the early eighteenth century (OED).
16.58–59: O tell me where is fancy bread?
After The Merchant of Venice, ‘Tell me where is fancy bred, / Or in the heart or in the head? / How begot, how nourished? / Reply, reply’ (III.ii.63–66). Fancy bread: ‘Bread not of the ordinary texture, size, and weight of the standard “household” and “cottage” loaves’ (OED). The OED’s definition cites John Kirkland’s The Modern Baker: ‘The greatest diversity of opinion prevails amongst bakers as to what is fancy bread. The rough interpretation of the term as recognized by the Bread Laws is: Bread that cannot readily be mistaken for plain bread. The distinguishing mark [. . .] is some difference in shape or glaze: but the baker [. . .] makes it include all sorts which involve more labour in manufacture, or entail greater cost for materials.’
16.60: En route
En route (French): on the way; Anglicised since the eighteenth century (OED).
16.63: re
Re: referring to, about, concerning; a borrowing from the Latin, in use in English since at least the early eighteenth century. ‘The use as a preposition was formerly much criticized in usage guides’ (OED).
16.63–64: swell mobsmen
Swell mobsmen: pickpockets who dress and behave like respectable citizens (Partridge, s.vv. swell mob; swell mobsmen).
16.67: jiujitsu
Jiujitsu, or jujitsu: an ancient Japanese form of self-defence. ‘About the beginning of the 20th century, masters of the art began to attract attention in Europe and America, and schools were established in Great Britain and the United States, as well as on the continent of Europe’ (EB11).
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1072 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.70–71: man in the gap See note at 12.186.
16.71: at the eleventh hour
This proverbial phrase meaning ‘just in time’ is from Jesus’s parable of the workers in Matthew 20 (Brewer’s).
16.71: finis
See note at 7.293.
16.73: bridewell See note at 8.421.
16.73: Mr Tobias
Matthew Tobias: the commissioner for oaths and the prosecuting solicitor of the Dublin Metropolitan Police; his office was at 7 Eustace Street (Thom’s, p. 1487).
16.74: old Wall
See note at 8.396.
16.74: Mahony
Daniel Mahony: divisional magistrate of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (Thom’s, p. 851).
16.75: bruited about
Bruited: gossiped (OED).
16.77: unscrupulous in the service of the Crown
The specific case referred to here, if any, is unknown. See note at 12.1 for the DMP.
16.78–79: A division in Clanbrassil street
The Dublin Police Barracks for the A Division were located on Upper Kevin Street (Thom’s, p. 1523), not Clanbrassil Street. This is near New Street, a continuation of Clanbrassil Street.
16.79: swear a hole through a ten gallon pot
In context, this means to lie. Partridge lists several similar expressions that mean to lie: ‘swear through an inch board’; ‘swear through a nine-inch plank’. P. W. Joyce glosses the expression ‘He’d swear a hole in an iron pot’ with ‘Said of a great swearer’ (PWJ, p. 129).
16.80: Pembroke road
Pembroke Road: a wealthy residential street in Ballsbridge, south-eastern Dublin.
16.87: squandermania
Squandermania: ‘An insane desire or obsession to spend money recklessly or to waste assets’ (OED); the OED’s earliest example is from 1920.
16.87: demimonde
Demi-monde: ‘The class of women of doubtful reputation and social standing, upon the outskirts of “society” ’; from the French demi-monde (literally, half-world); Anglicised since the mid-nineteenth century (OED). See also note at 15.2997.
16.88: £. s. d.
See note at 8.38.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1073
16.89–90: much vexed question of stimulants
Stimulant: alcoholic drink (OED). Temperance movements began to spread throughout Europe in the 1830s. The earliest groups were motivated by moral and religious convictions. But starting in the 1850s, the motivation was more hygienic and social. ‘Intemperance is no longer generally regarded as a matter of individual morality, but as a means to the public health (because of its effects on the offspring) and as a danger to national welfare (inasmuch as it promotes criminality and immorality, while lessening mental and economic productivity)’ (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Temperance Movements). Some groups advocated full abstinence whereas others promoted moderation (see note at 12.683). In Ireland, temperance movements were often allied with nationalist causes (see notes at 12.692 and 12.536).
16.91: aperient virtues
Aperient: ‘opening the bowels’ (OED); ‘aperient virtues’ is a common collocation. Similarly, when Bloom breaks wind at the end of ‘Sirens’, he attributes it to drinking burgundy (11.1290–91).
16.96: confrères but one
That is, Lynch. Confrère (French): ‘companion’; Anglicised since the fifteenth century (OED).
16.97: circs
Circs: circumstances (Partridge).
16.98: that one was Judas See note at 15.4730.
16.101: back of the Customhouse See note at 10.297.
16.101: Loop Line bridge See note at 5.138.
16.106: the corporation watchman See note at 7.646.
16.109: quondam
See note at 14.940.
16.109: Gumley See note at 7.645.
16.118: on the qui vive
To be on the qui vive: to be on the alert; originally a sentinel’s challenge in French (the phrase’s literal meaning is ‘who should live?’ and the expected answer is ‘vive le roi’, long live the king); Anglicised since the early eighteenth century (OED).
16.119: not funkyish in the least See note at 4.435.
16.123: famished loiterers of the Thames embankment category
‘After the Boer War ended in 1902 the economy had been shaky and there was a noticeable increase in sleeping-out on the Embankment. Since their construction in the 1860s the
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1074 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses London Embankments had been a traditional haunt for down-and-outs, attracted by the makeshift bed space on the benches and under the bridges’ (Lionel Rose, ‘Rogues and Vagabonds’, p. 92).
16.125: boodle
Boodle: money; originally an American expression (OED).
16.126: point a moral
Originally coined by Samuel Johnson (English writer and lexicographer, 1709–84) in ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes’ (1749): ‘He left the name, at which the world grew pale, / To point a moral, or adorn a tale’ (ll. 221–22). The ‘he’ in question is the overweening Charles XII of Sweden (1682–1718, r. 1697–1718), who was killed at the siege of Fredriksten in Norway; ‘contemporaries thought he had been shot by one of his own men’ (Samuel Johnson, Selected Poetry and Prose, p. 63 n. 52).
16.130: cornjuice
Cornjuice: whiskey (OED, s.v. corn), generally used in reference to the cheap and bad kind (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON).
16.130: Lord John Corley
Corley first appeared as one of Joyce’s ‘Two Gallants’ in Dubliners (Lenehan is the other ‘gallant’): ‘His head was large, globular and oily; it sweated in all weathers; and his large round hat, set upon it sideways, looked like a bulb which had grown out of another [. . .] At present he was about town. Whenever any job was vacant a friend was always ready to give him the hard word. He was often to be seen walking with policemen in plain clothes, talking earnestly’ (Dubliners, p. 51). The implication of the last sentence is that, like Corny Kelleher, he is a police informant (see note at 5.14). Corley is based on Michael Corley (1850–1916), an acquaintance of Joyce’s in Dublin (Ellmann, p. 305). During his trip to Dublin in 1909, Joyce wrote to Stanislaus that Corley asked for money every time he saw him (Letters, vol. 2, p. 275).
16.130–31: his genealogy came about in this wise
After the preamble to Christ’s genealogy: ‘Now the generation of Christ was in this wise’ (that is, in this way) (Matthew 1:18); see also 15.1855.
16.132: the G division
See note at 8.420 for the G Division. In ‘Two Gallants’ we learn that ‘Corley was the son of an inspector of police’ (Dubliners, p. 51). The real-life Michael Corley’s father was a Dublin police officer (Ellmann, p. 219 n.).
16.133: Louth farmer
County Louth is north of Dublin on Ireland’s east coast. It is primarily rural, with many farms (Thom’s, p. 1188).
16.134: New Ross
The town of New Ross is in County Wexford, south-eastern Ireland, on the river Barrow. See note at 10.793.
16.136–37: house of the lords Talbot de Malahide See note at 10.156.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1075
16.137–38: mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind
Thom’s includes a lengthy description of Malahide Castle and environs: ‘The Castle is a large square building, flanked by lofty circular towers, and stands on a high limestone rock, commanding a fine view of the town and bay [. . .] The demesne is adorned with groups of stately trees, and the grounds and gardens of the Castle are beautifully laid out. It is open daily to visitors’ (p. 1733).
16.140: washkitchen
Wash-kitchen: the section of a house or a kitchen designated for doing laundry (OED, s.v. wash).
16.147: a mean bloody swab
Swab (also swabber): ‘a low or unmannerly fellow’ (OED, s.vv. swab; swabber).
16.154: all in
All in: ‘in an irretrievably poor state; irrevocably bad’ (OED).
16.156: on the rocks See note at 11.485.
16.158: gentleman usher
Usher: ‘An assistant to a schoolmaster or head-teacher; an under-master, assistant-master’ (OED). ‘The term “Gentleman Usher” is normally applied to high-ranking officials in government administration; in Dublin, the expression was most closely associated with an official at the Viceregal Court. [. . .] “Gentleman usher” is perhaps used ironically in Ulysses’ (John Simpson, JJON).
16.161–62: stuck twice in the junior at the christian brothers
That is, he had to repeat the Junior Grade because he failed the Junior Grade intermediate exam, which was set by the Intermediate Education Board of Ireland. Progressing to secondary schooling was conditional upon a passing mark on this exam (John Coolahan, Irish Education, p. 63). For more on this system, see note at 17.551–52. For the Christian Brothers, see note at 8.2.
16.165: tart
Tart: an unchaste woman; originally a term of endearment for a woman (Partridge).
16.166: dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs Maloney’s
Doss-house: a cheap rooming-house (OED, s.v. doss). Marlborough Street is to the west of where Stephen and Bloom stand. Thom’s does not list a Mrs Maloney on Marlborough Street, although it does list numerous tenements which could have served as dosshouses (pp. 1538–39).
16.167: tanner
See note at 8.926.
16.167: M‘Conachie Unknown.
16.168–69: the Brazen Head over in Winetavern street
The Brazen Head: 20 Lower Bridge Street (Thom’s, p. 1432); near but not on Winetavern Street. The oldest tavern in Ireland, dating back to at least 1613 and possibly much earlier (Bennett).
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16.169–70: suggestive to the person addressed of friar Bacon
According to legend, the English monk Roger Bacon (c.1214–94) built a brazen head, that is, a brass head that could speak. ‘It was said if Bacon heard it speak he would succeed in his projects; if not, he would fail’ (Brewer’s). Robert Greene’s (see note at 9.130) play The Honourable Historie of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594) dramatises this legend.
16.174: rigmarole
Rigmarole: ‘a long unintelligible story. [. . .] The word is certainly a corruption of ragman- roll, once a very common expression for a long list of names, hence a long unconnected story’ (Skeat, Etymological English Dictionary).
16.175–76: haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco
Haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco (Latin): ‘hardly unacquainted with troubles, I know how to aid the wretched’; after Dido in Virgil’s Aeneid: ‘Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco’ (I.630) (Hardly unacquainted with trouble, I know how to aid the wretched). In his Trieste notebook, Joyce wrote, ‘[Pappie] gave me money to wire to Nora on Christmas Eve [1909], saying: “Non ignorus malorum miseris soccorere disco” ’ (Robert Scholes and Richard Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 103; JJA, vol. 7, p. 145).
16.177: screw
Screw: salary (Brewer’s).
16.181: the needful
The needful: necessary money (Partridge).
16.189: fagged out
Fagged out: exhausted (Partridge).
16.194: halfcrowns
The half-crown coin (two shillings and sixpence) had a diameter of 32 mm and the penny a diameter of 31 mm, so they were almost the same size, although the penny was bronze and the half-crown silver. In ‘Circe’, Bloom offered to hold Stephen’s money for safekeeping and Stephen handed him £1 6s. 11d. (15.3600–07), which has not yet been returned. The fact that Stephen still has some money in one of his pockets means that he did not hand over all his money. These half-crowns could not have been part of his salary from Mr Deasy since that consisted of two one-pound banknotes, a sovereign, two crown coins, and two shilling coins (2.208–22). Furthermore, these coins could not be change given from Stephen’s earl ier expenditures since his salary is not enough to account for having a half-crown left over after all the money he has spent so far. One likely answer then is that this is part of the money he had on him at the start of the day (Harald Beck and Clive Hart, ‘Stephen’s Budget’, p. 3; see also note at 14.286–87).
16.198–99: the Bleeding Horse in Camden street
The Bleeding Horse pub, proprietor J. & M. Ryan: 25 Upper Camden Street (Thom’s, p. 1441). In James Sheridan Le Fanu’s (Irish writer, 1814–73) novel The Cock and Anchor (1845), the Bleeding Horse appears as a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
16.199: billsticker
Bill-sticker (also bill-poster): ‘One whose business it is to post up bills and advertisements’ (Century Dictionary).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1077
16.202: the Carl Rosa
The Carl Rosa Opera Company frequently performed in Dublin around the turn of the century. The Carl Rosa performed English language versions of well- known operas throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland (Sebastian Knowles, Bronze by Gold, pp. 3–5). The company was founded in 1873 by the German-born Rosa (1842–89). After he died, Rosa’s company continued performing until 1960 (Grove).
16.203: crossing sweeper
Crossing sweeper: ‘a person who sweeps a (street-) crossing’ (OED, s.v. crossing).
16.205–06: Bags Comisky
Possibly Patrick Comisky, ‘whose nickname derives from his occupation—carrier’ (Richard Bass, ‘Additional Allusions in “Eumaeus” ’, p. 321). The 1911 census lists him as sixty-nine years old.
16.206–07: Fullam’s, the shipchandler’s
John Fullam, ‘ship chandler, bonded stores, rope, sail, and twine manufacturer’: 6 Eden Quay, 4 Rogerson’s Quay and 54 Denzille Street (Thom’s, p. 1876).
16.207: Nagle’s
J. Nagle’s pub: 9 Cathedral Street and 25 North Earl Street (Thom’s, pp. 1445, 1481).
16.208: O’Mara
Unknown. However, a similarly lowly character of the same name is mentioned in Finnegans Wake: ‘O’Mara, an exprivate secretary of no fixed abode’ (p. 40).
16.208: Tighe
Unknown. Likewise in Finnegans Wake: ‘Tune in, tune on, old Tighe, high, high, high, I’m thine owelglass’ (p. 408).
16.209: lagged
To lag: to arrest someone (Partridge; OED).
16.213: watchman’s sentrybox See note at 7.646.
16.223–24: in every deep, so to put it, a deeper depth
Probably after a line of Satan’s in Milton’s Paradise Lost: ‘Which way I fly is Hell; myself is Hell; / And in the lowest deep a lower deep / Still threatening to devour me opens wide, / To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav’n’ (IV.75–78).
16.225: in the dock See note at 12.1100.
16.226: rara avis
Rara avis (Latin): ‘rare bird’; used to refer to anything out of the ordinary (Brewer’s); Anglicised since the early seventeenth century (OED).
16.228: thick
Thick: ‘Excessive in some disagreeable quality; too much to manage or to stand; spec. too gross, indecent, or indelicate’ (OED).
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16.231: blandiloquence
Blandiloquence: ‘flattering talk’ (OED).
16.237: bucketdredger
Bucket-dredger: a ship that excavates the beds of rivers and navigable waters by means of scoops or buckets (OED, s.vv. bucket; dredge; dredger). See also note at 3.471.
16.237: Eblana
One of the Dublin Corporation dredgers in the Liffey was called the Eblana (Evening Herald, 19 Aug. 1901, p. 4, col. b). See also note at 12.83 for the word Eblana.
16.238: Customhouse quay
Custom House Quay faces the Custom House on the north bank of the Liffey. It was the site of the Dublin Port and Docks Board, the King’s Timber Yard, and various merchants (Thom’s, pp. 1466–67).
16.247: Everyone according to his needs or everyone according to his deeds
After Karl Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875): ‘from each according to his abil ities, to each according to his needs!’ (Later Political Writings, p. 215). And, from Paul’s letter to the Romans: ‘[God] will render to every man according to his deeds’ (2:6 in the King James).
16.248: Walking to Sandycove is out of the question See note at 15.4886.
16.258: I believe he is in Dublin somewhere
While Simon’s address is unspecified, in 1904 John Joyce lived in Cabra; see note at 15.4884.
16.261: raconteur
Raconteur (French): a story-teller, in English used especially of a skilled story-teller; Anglicised since the early nineteenth century (OED).
16.263: unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus See note at 15.636.
16.265: euchred
To euchre: to outwit (OED).
16.266: bally
See note at 15.836.
16.269–70: Stephen’s mind’s eye . . . family hearth
Suggests Hamlet: ‘My father, methinks I see my father [. . .] In my mind’s eye’ (I.ii.184–86).
16.270: his sister Dilly sitting by the ingle
Ingle: a fire, especially a fire burning in a hearth (OED).
16.271–76: waiting for some weak . . . square of brown paper
This memory derives from a description of the Dedalus family kitchen originally written for the unused Doherty fragment from A Portrait (see the headnote to ‘Telemachus’): ‘The rank smell of fried herrings filled the kitchen and the bare table was strewn with greasy plates to which glutinous fish-bones and crusts were stuck by a congealing white sauce.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1079 Clammy knives and forks were abandoned here and there. A big soot-coated kettle sat in which had been drained of the last dregs of cocoa, the midst of the disorder beside a large jam-jar still half-full of the oatmeal water which had served for milk. Under the table the tortoiseshell cat was chewing ravenously at a mess of charred fish heads and eggshells heaped on a square of brown paper’ (Scholes and Kain, Workshop of Dædalus, p. 108 and JJA, vol. 10, pp. 1220–21; A. Walton Litz, The Art of James Joyce, pp. 133–34).
16.271: Trinidad shell cocoa See note at 3.327.
16.273: oatmealwater
Oatmeal water: a mixture of water and oatmeal (usually with sugar or salt) (OED, s.v. oatmeal), at this time used as an inexpensive substitute for milk (with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy).
16.273: Friday herrings
Until 1967, the Roman Catholic Church deemed Fridays ‘days of abstinence’, meaning that no meat could be eaten then (John Bowden, Encyclopedia of Christianity), thereby making fish a staple of the Friday diet (see note at 16.276–77).
16.275: mangle
Mangle: ‘a machine for rolling and pressing linen and cotton clothing’ (OED).
16.276–77: third precept of the church
The third precept in Donlevy’s Catechism is ‘To eat no flesh-meat on Fridays, Saturdays, or other days of abstinence’ (p. 121). In the Maynooth Catechism it is the second precept (p. 40).
16.278: quarter tense or if not, ember days
Quarter tense is the Irish name for ember days, the four fasting periods of the year: the Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays following the first Sunday in Lent; Whitsunday; Holy Cross Day (14 September); and St Lucia’s Day (13 December) (OED, s.vv. ember; quarter tense). The closest ember days to 16 June were those after Whitsunday (22 May in 1904).
16.281: guide, philosopher and friend
From Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man: ‘Shall then this verse no future age pretend / Thou wert a guide, philosopher, and friend?’ (IV.389–90).
16.281–82: He knows which side his bread is buttered on
To know which side your bread is buttered on: to know one’s own interest (Brewer’s). In ‘Telemachus’, Mulligan’s bread is ‘thickly buttered on both sides’ (1.447).
16.285: a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic
Some of the anti-tobacco campaigns of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries claimed that tobacco had narcotic and even hallucinatory properties (Jordan Goodman, Tobacco in History, pp. 118–21); see also note at 15.1358–59.
16.292: rescue of that man from certain drowning See note at 1.62.
16.293: Skerries
Skerries: a resort and fishing village on the northern Dublin coast, about 30 km to the north of Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1785).
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16.293: Malahide See note at 3.243.
16.297: cussedness
Cussedness: ‘stubbornness; cantankerousness; contrariness’ (OED).
16.309: men’s public urinal
There was a urinal located on Eden Quay near the cabman’s shelter and Butt Bridge; it is visible in old photographs.
16.314–19: Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? . . . testa più
(Italian): ‘Madonna-Whore, make him give us the money! Am I right? Bloody asshole!’; ‘Let’s get this straight. Half a sovereign more [i.e. 10 shillings]. . .’; ‘So that’s what he says, now’; ‘Half ’; ‘Rascal! His filthy dead ancestors!’; ‘But listen! Five more per head . . .’.
16.323: anent
Anent: ‘in reference to’ (OED).
16.323–24: Skin-the-Goat, Fitzharris, the invincible
See note at 5.378 for the Invincibles and note at 7.640 for Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris, who worked as a night watchman at a cabman’s shelter after his release from prison (see note at 7.642).
16.326: noctambules
Noctambule: ‘A person who walks or moves about at night’ (OED, s.vv. noctambule; noctambulist).
16.334: sangfroid
Sangfroid (French): absence of agitation, indifference (literally, cold blood); Anglicised since the mid-eighteenth century (OED).
16.335: The hoi polloi
Hoi polloi (Ancient Greek): ‘the many’, used in a derogatory sense to mean ‘the rabble’; Anglicised since the nineteenth century. ‘In English use normally preceded by the definite article even though hoi means “the” ’ (OED).
16.337: bibulous
Bibulous: ‘Addicted to drinking or tippling’ (OED).
16.342: quandary over voglio See note at 4.327–28.
16.342: protégé
Protégé (French): ‘A person (sometimes spec. a boy or man) who receives the protection or patronage of another; a person who is guided and supported by someone with greater experience or influence’; Anglicised since the late eighteenth century (OED).
16.342–43: à propos See note at 16.44.
16.346: Bella Poetria!
Bella Poetria! (Mangled Italian): ‘Beautiful Poetry’; the Italian word for poetry is poesia, not poetria.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1081
16.347: Belladonna. Voglio
Belladonna. Voglio: (Italian): ‘Beautiful woman. I want’. Belladonna is also another name for the poisonous plant nightshade, which, in small doses, can be used medicinally (OED). Rather than say anything meaningful, Bloom is simply using any Italian words he knows; see also note at 4.327–28.
16.354: tête-à-tête
Tête-à-tête (French): ‘head-to-head’; that is, a conversation; Anglicised since the late seventeenth century (OED).
16.363: Cicero, Podmore. Napoleon, Mr Goodbody, Jesus, Mr Doyle
For Cicero, see note at 7.270. In Latin, the word cicero means chickpea and thus, by a further substitution Podmore since chickpeas grow in pods. In Italian, Buona parte means Good body (Napoleon Bonaparte was of Corsican birth). In Greek, Christos means Anointed One; and oil is typically used for anointing and thus, through a chain of substitutions we go from Jesus to Christ to Anointed to Oiled to Mr Doyle (SS, p. 223 n.). On a ‘Cyclops’ notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Names. Buonaparte (Goodbody) Cicero (Podmore) Christ (Doyle) Racine (Root)’ (Notesheet Cyclops 2.5–6); Jean Racine (1639–99) was a French dramatist and his surname means root.
16.364: Shakespeares were as common as Murphies
Murphy is the most common surname in Ireland (MacLysaght, Surnames of Ireland, p. 230). ‘The name Shakespeare is extremely widespread’ (EB11, s.v. Shakespeare). Furthermore, both names are common in the sense of not being associated with nobility.
16.364: What’s in a name? See note at 9.901.
16.365–66: Our name was changed too See 17.1869–72.
16.367: weather eye
To have one’s weather eye open: to be watchful and alert (OED).
16.368: boarded
To board: ‘to make advances to’; which follows from the nautical sense of the word, ‘To come close up to or alongside (a ship), usually for the purpose of attacking’ (OED).
16.376: bunged up from excessive use of boose
Bunged: closed, shut-up (OED); see also note at 12.281–82 for the word’s connection with alcohol. Boose: variant spelling of booze, alcoholic drink; used especially in the sense of drinking to excess (OED).
16.376–77: good old Hollands
Hollands (also known as genever, its Dutch name): the oldest type of gin (OED, s.vv. genver; Hollands). ‘Broadly speaking, British gin is prepared with a highly rectified spirit, whereas in the manufacture of Dutch gin a preliminary rectification is not an integral part of the process’ (EB11, s.v. gin).
16.404–05: Buffalo Bill shoots to kill . . . never will
Buffalo Bill: stage name of William Frederick Cody (1847–1917), American frontiersman and entertainer. He founded the Wild West Show and toured the United States and Europe
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1082 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses (Brewer’s). This verse comes from Memories of Buffalo Bill (1919), by his wife, Louisa Frederici Cody: ‘Buffalo Bill, Buffalo Bill, / Never missed and never will; / Always aims and shoots to kill, / And the comp’ny pays his buffalo bill!’ (p. 113; Ronan Crowley, JJON).
16.407: the Bisley
The Bisley: an annual contest of the English National Rifle Association, held every July since 1890 at Bisley Common, 48 km south-west of London (EB11, s.v. rifle).
16.411: diamond cut diamond
Diamond cut diamond: ‘Cunning outwitting cunning’ (Brewer’s).
16.412: Hengler’s Royal Circus See note at 4.349.
16.412: I seen him do that
See note at 10.225. This expression recurs frequently throughout this episode.
16.415: D. B. Murphy
On the fair copy manuscript Joyce wrote the name as ‘D. B. Murphy’ (Rosenbach f. 10), but because of the way Joyce writes a capital ‘D’, the typist mistook this for a ‘W’ and thus typed in the initials ‘W. B.’ instead (JJA, vol. 15, p. 377). Gabler reverts to D. B., the form last attested in Joyce’s hand, but he notes that the suggestion of Yeats’s name with the mistaken initials W. B. ‘adds an ironic touch to the motif of dubious identity in the chapter’ (UCSE, p. 1750). On an earlier draft (now privately owned), Murphy’s initials were ‘J. J.’ (Sam Slote, ‘Preliminary Comments on Two Newly Discovered Ulysses Manuscripts’, p. 25).
16.415: Carrigaloe
Carrigaloe is an area in Queenstown, for which see note at 11.851.
16.417: Queenstown harbour See note at 11.851.
16.418: Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle
Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle: garrisons at the west and east entrance, respectively, to Queenstown (now Cobh) harbour (EB11, s.v. Queenstown).
16.419–20: My little woman’s down there. She’s waiting for me Suggests Penelope awaiting Odysseus’s return to Ithaca.
16.420: For England, home and beauty See note at 10.232.
16.423: shieling
Shieling (Scottish): a primitive hut near a cattle pasture (OED).
16.423–24: diddled Davy Jones
To diddle: ‘To cheat or swindle’ (OED). Thus, ‘diddling Davy Jones’ means to outsmart the sea by escaping drowning; see note at 13.1164.
16.424: blind moon
That is, a new moon; blind: ‘Enveloped in darkness’ (OED).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1083
16.424: Across the world for a wife See note at 15.3926.
16.425: Alice Ben Bolt
From the song ‘Ben Bolt’, words by Thomas Dunn English and music by Nelson Kneass, which tells of the return of a sailor to his wife Alice after a 20-year absence only to find her dead and buried (Bowen, p. 305).
16.425–26: Enoch Arden
‘Enoch Arden’: a narrative poem by Tennyson (1864) in which Arden returns home after a 10-year absence following a shipwreck and finds his wife Annie married to their childhood friend Philip Ray.
16.426: Rip van Winkle See note at 13.1112.
16.426–27: does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc O’Leary
From the sentimental Irish ballad ‘Caoch the Piper’ by John Keegan (Irish poet, 1809–49), which tells of Caoch’s twenty-year absence: ‘Does anybody hereabouts / Remember Caoch the Piper?’ (ll. 59–60; H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 212). Elsewhere in the ballad his name is given as Caoc O’Leary.
16.428: John Casey
‘Caoch the Piper’ was written by John Keegan (see previous note). John Keegan Casey (poet and Fenian, 1846–70) is someone else. He was briefly imprisoned in 1867 for his Fenian activities, and this took a great toll on his health; he died three years thereafter and his funeral attracted some 50,000 mourners (DIB).
16.429–30: The face at the window!
The title of a popular play from 1897 by F. Brooke Warren. In Tennyson’s ‘Enoch Arden’, when Enoch returns he spies into his old house and sees ‘[h]is wife his wife no more, and saw the babe / Hers, yet not his, upon the father’s knee’ (ll. 755–56).
16.433: grasswidow
Grass widow: a woman with an absent husband (OED); see also note at 7.539.
16.434: rocked in the cradle of the deep
‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep’ (1832): words by Emma Willard and music by Joseph Philip Knight. This song ‘describes the peaceful quality that a watery grave holds for a believer’ (Bowen, p. 306).
16.434–35: uncle Chubb or Tomkin
Chubb (also ‘chub’): a blockhead (Partridge, s.v. chub). Tomkin: ‘little Tom’.
16.435–36: the Crown and Anchor
Crown: nautical, ‘The end of the shank of an anchor, or the point from which the arms proceed’. ‘Crown and anchor’ is a gambling game involving special dice (OED).
16.437: postmortem child
That is, a child born after its father’s death. Post-mortem (Latin): after death; Anglicised since the eighteenth century (OED).
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1084 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.438: With a high ro! and a randy ro! and my galloping tearing tandy, O!
From ‘Galloping Randy Dandy O’, a sailor’s song. The chorus of one version goes: ‘Heave and pull and heave away, / Way-aye, roll! and go, / The anchor’s aboard and the cables are stowed, / My galloping Randy Dandy O!’ (Joanna Colcord, Songs of American Sailormen, p. 116).
16.443: chaw
Chaw: chewing tobacco (OED).
16.450–51: threemaster Rosevean from Bridgwater with bricks
This is the ship Stephen saw at the end of ‘Proteus’; see note at 3.504. See also note at 10.1098–99.
16.452: A.B.S.
That is, Able Bodied Seaman: ‘a sailor capable of performing all duties; spec. a rank of sailor in the Royal Navy above ordinary seaman and below leading seaman’ (OED, s.v. able).
16.460: We was chased by pirates one voyage
While piracy on the high seas remained a real threat until the early eighteenth century, piracy had been almost entirely eradicated by the mid-nineteenth century (EB11, s.v. pirate and piracy).
16.461: growlers
Growler: a small iceberg (OED).
16.462: Captain Dalton Unknown.
16.462–63: the best bloody man that ever scuttled a ship
In Don Juan, Byron calls Haidée’s pirate-father Lambro ‘the mildest manner’d man / That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat’ (III.321–22; Byron, p. 498).
16.463: Gospodi pomilyou
Gospodi pomilyou (also transliterated as Gospodi pomiluj) (Old Church Slavonic (the language of the Russian Orthodox Church)): ‘Lord have mercy on us’. In the Russian Orthodox Church, ‘Gospodi pomilyou is the counterpart of Kyrie eleison [see note at 7.559]’ (Frederick K. Lang, ‘Ulysses’ and the Irish God, p. 250).
16.464: You seen queer sights See note at 10.225.
16.464: don’t be talking See note at 8.229.
16.466: a crocodile bite the fluke of an anchor
From a story about reptiles at London Zoo: ‘An alligator is a far more amiable creature than a crocodile. There are two tiny six-months-old crocodiles in the Reptile House, but they are so fierce they will fly at anything, and even try to bite a bunch of keys’ (Daily Mirror, 20 May 1920, p. 13, col. c). In his notes for ‘Eumaeus’, Joyce wrote ‘crocodiles eat bunches of keys’ (Notesheet Eumaeus 6.49) and then, when drafting this episode, exaggerated their prowess at biting (John Simpson, JJON). Fluke: ‘One of “the broad triangular plates of iron on each arm of the anchor, inside the bills or extreme points, which, having entered the ground, hold the ship” (Admiral Smyth)’ (OED).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1085
16.470–71: maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and the livers of horses
In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), John Locke (English philosopher, 1632–1704) writes that ‘Garcilasso de la Vega tells us of a people in Peru, which were wont to fat and eat the Children they got on their female captives’ (p. 71).
16.474: Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia
Choza de Indios (Spanish): ‘Indians’ hut’. El Beni: a province in north-eastern Bolivia, east of the Andes; population in 1900: 32,180 (EB11, s.v. Bolivia). Being landlocked, Bolivia is an unlikely destination for a sailor. Such a postcard as is described here does exist, and it was published by Arnó Hermanos (the Arnó Brothers), a publisher based in La Paz (Aida Yared, JJON).
16.478: osier
Osier: ‘Any of several willows with tough pliant branches used in basketwork’ (OED).
16.479: Chews coca all day
Coca: ‘The name in Bolivia of Erythroxylon Coca, a shrub six or eight feet high; hence, applied to its dried leaves, which have been employed from time immemorial, with powdered lime, as a masticatory, appeaser of hunger, and stimulant of the nervous system’ (OED). ‘Coca is highly esteemed by the natives, who masticate the leaf, and is also an article of export for medicinal purposes’ (EB11, s.v. Bolivia).
16.479: tarpaulin
Tarpaulin: a nickname for a sailor (Partridge).
16.480: diddies
Diddy (Hiberno-English): a woman’s breast (PWJ, p. 247).
16.486: Glass. That boggles ’em. Glass
John Smith (English explorer, c.1580–1631) wrote of his encounters with the Native Americans that ‘Perspective Glasses, burning Glasses [. . .] so far exceeded their capacities that they thought they were rather the workes of gods than men’ (Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles, vol. 1, p. 23).
16.489: Tarjeta Postal, Señor A. Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago, Chile
Tarjeta Postal (Spanish): postcard. Boudin: a French type of sausage, as well as a derogatory term for a corpulent woman. The Galería Beeche was a passageway or arcade that ran through a large building in downtown Santiago (sometimes called the Beeche Building). Joyce clearly wrote ‘Becche’ (Rosenbach f. 12; John Simpson, JJON). The words Tarjeta Postal and possibly also Señor would have been pre-printed on the card (as was customary with Bolivian postcards of this era) and the rest would have been written in by hand (Aida Yared, JJON).
16.490: There was no message
‘In 1904 it would not be surprising if the back of a postcard bore no message. In fact postcards from that era are known as “undivided back”, with the back strictly dedicated to writing the address of the recipient. The message, if any, would be written on any available space around or within the image on the front of the card’ (Aida Yared, JJON).
16.491: Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated
Both of Joyce’s schemata for ‘Eumaeus’ list Ulysses Pseudangelos (Greek: false messenger) as the Homeric correspondence for the sailor. This is the title of a lost play briefly
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1086 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses mentioned by Aristotle in the Poetics (1455a) in a passage that has long vexed translators and commentators (Aristotle’s Poetics, p. 29 n. 17). In ‘Eumaeus’, Murphy not only brings a false message, but he himself is also a phony, a pseudo-Ulysses, with his various tall tales of seagoing. But in Homer, Odysseus himself is also something of a faker; for example, when he returns home to Ithaca, Athena changes his appearance into that of a decrepit old man (Odyssey, XIII.429–38). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Odys & Pseudo = 2 impostors’ (Notesheet Eumaeus 5.105).
16.492: William Tell See note at 12.189.
16.493: Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in Maritana
In Act III of the opera Maritana (see note at 5.563), Lazarillo is forced to shoot his friend Don Cæsar de Bazan, the opera’s hero, but Lazarillo misses and the bullet harmlessly lodges in Cæsar’s hat.
16.494: the former’s ball passed through the latter’s hat
Although used to describe a scene from Maritana (see previous note), this phrase is from a story about a duel, originally reported on 26 September 1821 and reprinted in the ‘100 years ago in the Freeman’s Journal’ column: ‘Early on Saturday morning a meeting took place in a field beyond Portobello, Dublin, between J. M—n and J. H—t, Esqrs., both students of College; after an exchange of shots, in which the former’s ball passed through the latter’s hat, the seconds interfered, and the business was amicably terminated’ (Freeman’s Journal, 1 Oct. 1921, p. 4, col. h; Harald Beck, JJON).
16.496–97: boxed the compass
To box the compass: to adapt to one’s circumstances (Partridge); literally, to name the 32 points of the compass in order and backwards (OED).
16.497: on the strict q.t.
On the strict q.t.: on the quiet or secretly (Partridge).
16.498: bona fides
Bona fides (Latin): good faith, guilelessness; Anglicised since the mid-eighteenth century (OED).
16.500–01: Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea
The British and Irish Steam Packet Company provided trips from Dublin to London on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with stops at Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton, and Portsmouth (Thom’s, p. 1354); the total distance travelled was approximately 1,030 km. Thom’s lists Plymouth first, although moving eastward, Falmouth is first. Via: by way of; from the Latin via (road, path); Anglicised since the eighteenth century (OED).
16.503: going to Holyhead
The trip from Kingstown Harbour (outside of Dublin) to Holyhead, in north-western Wales on the Isle of Anglesey covered a distance of 113 km and, in 1904, lasted roughly two and a half hours. This was the faster way to London. See note at 13.1242–43.
16.505: Egan
Alfred W. Egan: secretary, British and Irish Steam Packet Co., 3 North Wall Road (Thom’s, p. 1863).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1087
16.507: planking down the needful
To plank: to deposit money (Partridge). See note at 16.181 for needful. Perhaps Joyce derived the expression from Marguerite Barclay’s Letters from Fleet Street (1910): ‘cajoled her man into planking down the needful’ (p. 91; with thanks to Harald Beck).
16.507: breaking Boyd’s heart
Breaking Boyd’s heart: a Dublin expression for risking bankruptcy; after Sir Walter Boyd (1833–1918), a judge on the Court of Bankruptcy, Ireland (1885–97) (Richard Wall, An Anglo-Irish Dialect Glossary for Joyce’s Works, p. 53).
16.508–09: fare to Mullingar . . . was five and six, there and back
In ‘Calypso’, Bloom thought that the price of a return ticket to Mullingar was 2s. 6d. (4.452–53).
16.510: bracing ozone
Ozone: ‘An allotropic form of oxygen [. . .] produced from molecular oxygen by electrical discharge and in the upper atmosphere by ultraviolet light. Also colloquial: fresh, invigorating air’, because ‘[o]zone was formerly supposed to have a tonic effect and was erroneously believed to be present in fresh air’ (OED). 16.512–13: Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton For the geographic incongruity, see note at 16.500–01.
16.514: our modern Babylon
That is, London, ‘so called on account of its wealth, luxury and dissipation’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Babylon). Babylon is archetypal for the evils of the metropolis; Revelation 18:10 reads: ‘Alas! alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city: for in one hour is thy judgment come.’
16.515: tower, abbey, wealth of Park lane
That is, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, and Park Lane. Park Lane is a major thoroughfare that abuts the eastern end of Hyde Park. At the start of the twentieth century, it had many of the largest and grandest houses in London (Ben Weinreb, Christopher Hibbert, Julia Keay, and John Keay, The London Encyclopaedia, pp. 624–25).
16.518: concert tour of summer music
Bloom thought about such a tour in ‘Lestrygonians’ (8.1064). Joyce himself planned such a tour; see note at 16.1765.
16.519: Margate with mixed bathing
Margate is an English coastal resort in Kent. By the turn of the twentieth century, the strictures against mixed bathing were starting to unwind (see note at 15.1701). A short news item in The Swimming Magazine in 1898 notes that there was mixed bathing at Margate, among other locations (Christopher Love, A Social History of Swimming in England, p. 31).
16.520: hydros
Hydros: abbreviation of ‘hydropathic establishments’ (Partridge), resorts or spas that offered various types of hydrotherapy such as mineral baths.
16.520–21: Eastbourne, Scarborough, Margate and so on, beautiful Bournemouth English coastal resort towns.
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1088 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.521: the Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are a group of islands in the English Channel, off the coast of Normandy. Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark belong to the British Crown and are referred to collectively as the Channel Islands; the nearby Îles Chausey belong to France (EB11).
16.521: bijou spots
Bijou: luxurious; from the French word for jewel; Anglicised since the late seventeenth century (OED).
16.522–23: hole and corner scratch company
Hole and corner: underhand or secret (Partridge). Scratch: hastily assembled (OED).
16.523–24: Mrs C P M‘Coy type lend me your valise and I’ll post you the ticket See note at 5.149.
16.524–25: all star Irish caste
Clearly the word cast is intended, not caste (a people, stock, or breed). The OED notes that the two words are often confused (s.v. caste).
16.526: Elster Grimes See note at 6.186.
16.527: Moody-Manners
The Moody-Manners Opera Company: established in 1898 by the Irish bass and impresario Charles Manners (born Southcote Mansergh, 1857–1935) and his wife, the English soprano Fanny Moody (1866–1945). By 1902, there were two Moody-Manners Companies: the principal one in London and a touring company. Financial difficulties led to the second company disbanding in 1910, and the Moody-Manners Company gave its final performance in 1916 (Grove).
16.529: bounce
Bounce: ‘Energy, vitality; spirit, exuberance, verve’ (OED); the OED’s earliest example is from 1909.
16.530: That was the rub See note at 16.11.
16.533: apropos See note at 16.44.
16.533: Fishguard-Rosslare route
In 1906, the Great Western Railway inaugurated a steamship service between Fishguard in south-western Wales and Rosslare in south-eastern Ireland (EB11, s.v. Fishguard).
16.534: on the tapis
On the tapis: under discussion, under consideration (tapis (French): carpet); the OED’s earliest example of this phrase in English is from 1690 (s.v. tapis).
16.534: circumlocution departments
After the phrase ‘circumlocution office’: an inefficient government office or any bureaucracy that does things in a roundabout way; coined by Charles Dickens in Little Dorrit (Partridge).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1089
16.537–38: average man, i.e. Brown, Robinson and Co.
By the late nineteenth century, the names Brown and Robinson (sometimes ‘Brown, Robinson, and Co.’, sometimes ‘Brown, Robinson, and Jones’) were used as all-purpose, generic, and anonymous names, in general meaning ‘the average customer’ (John Simpson, JJON).
16.543–44: since my old stick-in-the-mud took me for a wife
From the music-hall song ‘At My Time of Life’, words and music by T. W. Connor: ‘There was none o’ yer “Highty Flighty” girls, / yer “Hi-Tiddley Hity” girls, / When my old “Stick- in-the-mud” took me for a wife’ (Ulrich Schneider, ‘ “A Rollicking Rattling Song of the Halls” ’, p. 93).
16.545: venue
The French word venue (a coming) was Anglicised from the fourteenth century, but with the meaning of an attack or assault. Its sense as a scene or setting of an event dates to the eighteenth century (OED).
16.549–50: bracing tonic for the system
‘Bracing the system’: a popular advertising slogan for many patent medicines and tonics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (John Simpson, JJON).
16.551: Poulaphouca See note at 15.3299.
16.551–52: farther away from the madding crowd
From Thomas Gray’s poem ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ (1751): ‘Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife’ (l. 73); Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) used this line as the title for his novel Far From the Madding Crowd (1874).
16.552: Wicklow, rightly termed the garden of Ireland
‘The County of Wicklow has long been called “The Garden of Ireland” and richly does it merit the name’ (F. H. Mares, Sunny Memories of Ireland’s Scenic Beauties, p. ii).
16.553: wheelmen
Wheelmen: cyclists (Partridge).
16.554: wilds of Donegal See note at 12.1831.
16.554: coup d’œil
Coup d’œil (French): ‘general view’; Anglicised from the eighteenth century (OED). From the early twentieth century, Donegal was promoted as a tourist destination: ‘Artists and photographers will find no lack of charming subjects in every direction’ (Edgar Shrubsole, Picturesque Donegal, p. 2).
16.555–56: not easily getatable
In 1904, the only train service between Dublin and Donegal was via the Dublin to Derry/ Londonderry main line on the Great Northern Railway, with a transfer at Strabane in County Tyrone onto the Donegal Line branch service (Thom’s, pp. 770–71). In 1906, the Great Northern Railway acquired the Donegal Line, which led to improved service (Irish Independent, 26 July 1906, p. 5, col. b; Shrubsole, Picturesque Donegal, pp. 11–12).
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1090 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.557: Howth
For Howth, see note at 3.133.
16.558: Silken Thomas
In 1534, during his rebellion, Silken Thomas (see note at 3.314) planted artillery on the promontory of Howth to prevent English troops from landing at the harbour (Annals of Ireland, p. 405). This was a relatively minor incident during his rebellion and is not usually mentioned in the accounts of the uprising.
16.558: Grace O’Malley
Grace O’Malley also known as Gráinne O’Malley or Granuaile (c.1530–c.1603): noblewoman and sea captain. According to legend, she was so offended at being refused entrance to Howth Castle that she kidnapped the son and heir of the Earl of Howth and held him to ransom until the Earl agreed to keep his door open at dinner time (DIB).
16.559: George IV
George IV (1762–1830, r. 1820–30): ‘the first English king to visit Ireland in peace’ (D. A. Chart, The Story of Dublin, p. 344), landed at Howth on 12 August 1821 (Thom’s, p. 2098).
16.559: rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel See both notes at 8.911.
16.560–61: in the spring when young men’s fancy
From Tennyson’s ‘Locksley Hall’ (1842): ‘In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove; / In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love’ (ll. 19–20). Here, in reference to Bloom’s romantic encounter with Molly on Howth (see, e.g., 8.899–916).
16.562: on their left leg
Left-legged: ‘clumsy in walking’ (Lester Berrey and Melvin Van den Bark, The American Thesaurus of Slang, p. 259).
16.563: three quarters of an hour’s run from the pillar
Howth is about 15.5 km distant from Nelson’s Pillar (see note at 6.293). A tram-ride from Nelson’s Pillar to Howth had a running time of 45 minutes and cost 5d. This involved a change of tram at Clontarf. The Clontarf to Howth tram was run by the Clontarf & Hill of Howth Tramroad, which was a separate entity from the DUTC (Michael Corcoran, Through Streets Broad and Narrow, pp. 46–47).
16.570: doughty
Doughty: valiant, often used humorously (OED).
16.570–73: little pills like putty . . . a flower
On a ‘Circe’ notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Chinese boxes with little wax pellets. Put these in water— they open. One a boat, another waterlily etc’ (Notesheet Circe 3.21–24). He then transferred a shortened version of this note to a ‘Eumaeus’ notesheet (Notesheet Eumaeus 5.25–26).
16.573: Cooks rats in your soup . . . the chinks does
Rat meat is a long-standing staple of the Chinese diet. Likewise, rat infestations were common occurrences on maritime voyages. ‘It is well known that rats are eaten as an ordinary dish by many nations—by the South Sea islanders, by many of the African tribes, by the
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1091 Chinese, and even by the French. In China it is a common custom for the natives to come on board a ship entering harbour and give a few dollars for permission to catch rats for the purpose of eating them’ (‘Rats on Board Ship’, Nautical Magazine, Dec. 1875, vol. 44, no. 12, p. 986). Chink: derogatory for a Chinese person (OED).
16.576: Trieste
Trieste is a city on the Adriatic coast. Joyce and his family lived in Trieste from 1905 until 1915 (interrupted by a brief sojourn in Rome in 1907) when it was part of the Austro- Hungarian Empire and its principal seaport. After World War I (which they spent in Zürich), the Joyces returned to Trieste, by which time it had been ceded to Italy. They remained only briefly before moving to Paris in 1920. ‘It was in Trieste that Joyce wrote most of the stories of Dubliners, all of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Exiles, and significant sections of Ulysses’ (John McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 3).
16.580: knockingshop
Knocking-shop: a brothel (Partridge).
16.580: count of
Count: account (OED), thus count of = because of.
16.580: tryon
Try-on: an attempt to best someone (Partridge).
16.581–82: Prepare to meet your God
After the Book of Amos when God chastises the people of Israel for not demonstrating faith in him: ‘Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this to thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel’ (4:12 in the King James).
16.586: dénouement
Dénouement (French): ‘the final solution or issue of a complication, difficulty, or mystery’; Anglicised since the mid-eighteenth century (OED).
16.589: cold steel See note at 1.153.
16.590–92: they thought the park murders of the invincibles . . . knives
After the Phoenix Park Murders (see note at 5.378), but before the arrest of the Invincibles, Michael Davitt (see note at 15.4684) propounded the theory that the murderers could not have been Irish. ‘There is not one instance in the long list of outrages in Ireland, where the dagger was used. The shot-gun and the stick have always been the weapons employed, and the knife or dagger has been unknown. [. . .] I know that the dagger has always been the weapon of the Continental secret societies’ (D. B. Cashman, The Life of Michael Davitt, pp. 237–38).
16.593–94: where ignorance is bliss
From the ending of Thomas Gray’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’ (1747): ‘where ignorance is bliss, / ’Tis folly to be wise’ (ll. 99–100).
16.595: entre nous
Entre nous (French): ‘between us’; used to indicate that what is being said should be held in confidence; Anglicised since the seventeenth century (OED).
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1092 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.596: alias
Alias: an alternative name; a borrowing from post-Classical Latin and Anglicised since the fifteenth century (OED).
16.599: beggaring description
From Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: ‘For her own person, / It beggared all description’ (II.ii.202–03).
16.603: choza de See note at 16.474.
16.604: pondering in pensive mood
From William Wordsworth’s ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ (1807): ‘For oft, when on my couch I lie / In vacant or in pensive mood’ (ll. 19–20).
16.606: days of the land troubles
In the late 1870s, long-standing tensions between the landowner class and tenant farmers led to the so-called ‘Land War’: agitation, sometimes violent, against unfair rents and the rapacious landlords who levied them (see, e.g., notes at 12.182 and 12.1367) and brutal counter-assaults by the authorities. This led to the formation of the Land League, led by Parnell and Michael Davitt (see note at 15.4684), which advocated for the rights of impoverished tenant farmers (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 26–52). The League was the immediate precursor to Parnell’s campaign for Home Rule (R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 399).
16.608: eightyone to be correct, when he was just turned fifteen
To be correct: 1882 was the year of the Phoenix Park Murders (see note at 7.632). Bloom was born between February and May 1866 (see also note at 5.198–99).
16.611: Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar
In Dante’s Inferno, Ulysses tells of how he sailed past the Rock of Gibraltar only to meet his end in a storm by Mount Purgatory (XXVI.107–42). See note at 16.634–36.
16.614: Europa point
Europa Point: the southernmost tip of Gibraltar (EB11, s.v. Gibraltar).
16.620: soi-disant
Soi-disant (French): self-proclaimed; Anglicised since the mid-eighteenth century, with the additional senses of would-be, pretended (OED).
16.622–23: Salt junk all the time
Salt junk: hard, salted beef, for eating on long voyages (OED); also rhyming slang for drunk (Partridge).
16.624–25: not likely to get a great deal of change out of
Not to get any (or much) change out of: ‘to get little or no result, return, or satisfaction from (a person or situation)’; from the mid-nineteenth century (OED, s.v. change).
16.626: woolgathering
To be wool-gathering: ‘To let one’s mind wander from the matter in hand; to be absent minded. As children sent to gather wool from hedges wander hither and thither, apparently aimlessly’ (Brewer’s).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1093
16.627–28: covered fully three fourths of it See note at 17.193.
16.628–29: to rule the waves See note at 12.1213.
16.629–30: North Bull at Dollymount
North Bull Island (also Bull Island): a large sand bank island off Dollymount, north-east of Dublin. ‘Until the end of the 17th century, Bull Island did not exist. During the 18th century work done by the Ballast Office along the south edge of the Liffey channel changed the pattern of sand deposition in the bay, and Bull Island began to grow’ (J. W. de Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin, p. 51). The island is connected to the mainland by the Bull Wall, which was built in 1820 (Bennett). The island’s name is said to derive from ‘the bull-like roaring of the surf there on stormy days’ (Chart, The Story of Dublin, p. 340).
16.632–33: fresh woods and pastures new as someone somewhere sings
Combines the last line of Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ (see note at 2.57), ‘To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new’ (l. 193) with a line from Byron’s Don Juan, ‘As some one somewhere sings about the sky’ (IV.874).
16.634: to find out the secret for himself
Echoes Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (American poet, 1807–82) ‘The Secret of the Sea’ (1841): ‘ “Would’st thou”—so the helmsman answered, / “Learn the secret of the sea?” ’ (ll. 29–30).
16.634–36: floundering up and down the antipodes . . . tempting the fates
Antipodes: the far ends of the earth, those places precisely opposite ours (OED). In canto XXVI of Dante’s Inferno, Dante encounters Ulysses, who tells of how he died by trying to sail past the Rock of Gibraltar, which had traditionally been taken as the western boundary beyond which no one could sail. Far past the Rock lies Mount Purgatory, which, according to Dante’s geography, rises directly opposite from Jerusalem (Charles S. Singleton, The Divine Comedy: Inferno: Commentary, pp. 464–66). So, according to Dante, Ulysses floundered at the antipode, tempting his fate: ‘and with our poop turned to the morning we made of the oars wings for the mad flight, always gaining on the left. Night then saw all the stars of the other pole and ours so low that it did not rise from the ocean floor. Five times the light had been rekindled and as often quenched on the moon’s under-side since we had entered on the deep passage’ (Inferno, XXVI.124–32).
16.637: minutiae
Minutiae: small or trivial matters; a borrowing from post-Classical Latin; Anglicised since the mid-eighteenth century (OED).
16.641–42: the hell idea and the lottery and insurance
On a notesheet Joyce wrote: ‘Lottery—insurance swindle: one chap thinks next fellow is going to lose (hell for the other fellow)’ (Notesheet Cyclops 7.26–27).
16.643: lifeboat Sunday
Lifeboat Sunday: an annual fundraising event and public demonstration of life-saving operations put on by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution all along the coastal regions where lifeboats are needed. It was instituted in 1891 (J. C. Dibdin and John Ayling, The Book of the Lifeboat, pp. 44–45).
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1094 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.648: Ireland expects that every man See note at 1.467–68.
16.650: Kish
See note at 3.267.
16.651–52: with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy . . . weather See note at 4.434.
16.653: the Rover
The name of Murphy’s ship and some of the details in his story derive from ‘The Irish Rover’, a song attributed to J. M. Crofts, which is about a ship called the Irish Rover that sails from Cork with a cargo of bricks and after seven years trapped in fog the narrator is the sole survivor: On the fourth of July, eighteen hundred and six, We set sail from the sweet cove of Cork, We were sailing away with a cargo of bricks, For the grand city hall in New York. ’Twas a wonderful craft, she was rigged fore and aft, And how the wild wind drove her. She stood several blasts, she had twenty-seven masts, And we called her the Irish Rover. [Chorus] So fare thee well my own true love, I’m going far from you, And I will swear by the stars above Forever I’ll be true to you, Tho’ as I part, it breaks my heart, Yet when the trip is over I’ll come back again in true Irish style Aboard the Irish Rover. (Walton’s New Treasury of Irish Songs and Ballads 2, p. 69)
16.661: Henry Campbell, the townclerk
Henry Campbell (1858–1924): Dublin’s town clerk from 1893–1920. He had been an MP (1885–92) and served as Parnell’s private secretary from 1880 until Parnell’s death in 1891 (DIB). He steadfastly stood by Parnell’s side during the aftermath of the revelation of Parnell’s affair with Katherine O’Shea (see note at 2.394). His loyalty led him to be called Parnell’s ‘most devoted follower’ (Robert Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 558). He was friends with John Stanislaus Joyce (John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, p. 269).
16.662: carking
Carking: burdensome or distressing (OED).
16.663: nosepaint
Nosepaint: liquor (Partridge). In context, though, this is the red nose sometimes found on heavy drinkers.
16.666: Skibbereen father
After the anonymous Irish ballad about the Famine, ‘Skibbereen’, in which a father tells his son all the many reasons why they emigrated and left Skibbereen (Sean Williams, Focus: Irish Traditional Music, pp. 67–68).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1095
16.675: mariner’s hope and rest
That is, a ship’s anchor, a common tattoo for sailors. ‘In Christian symbolism the anchor is the sign of hope’ (Brewer’s).
16.675: the figure 16
Stuart Gilbert explains this by quoting from a book called Les Tatouages (Tattoos), from a series called the ‘Collection de Psychologie Populaire du Docteur Jaf ’: ‘Blasio vit à Naples une prostituée ayant sur le ventre une femme nue, sur la mamelle de laquelle on lisait les deux nombres 6 et 16 qui, dans l’argot napolitain, signifient coït antérieur et postérieur; au- dessous était écrit le nom de la femme, à côté de celui de l’amant qui avait dessiné le tatouage’ (Blasio saw a prostitute in Naples who had on her stomach a naked woman, on whose nipple was seen the two numbers 6 and 16, which in Neapolitan slang signify anter ior and posterior [i.e. vaginal and anal] coition; below was written the woman’s name, next to that of her lover who had designed the tattoo) (Les Tatouages, p. 89). Gilbert diplomatic ally emended the quotation to read ‘deux formes de coït’—two forms of coition—without further elaboration (p. 364 n. 1).
16.700: gallowsbird humour
Gallows-bird: a corpse on or from a gallows, or a person that deserves to be hanged (Partridge). Thus, gallows-bird humour: black humour (or gallows humour).
16.702–03: As bad as old Antonio . . . ownio See note at 6.373.
16.704: The face of a streetwalker glazed and haggard
This is the same prostitute Bloom saw at the end of ‘Sirens’ (11.1252–53).
16.706: more grist to her mill See note at 9.748.
16.708–09: pink sheet of the Abbey street organ
That is, the Evening Telegraph; see notes at 2.412 and 7.27.
16.712–15: that afternoon on Ormond quay . . . washing
In ‘Sirens’, Bloom recalled the earlier meeting: ‘Psst! Any chance of your wash. Knew Molly. Had me decked. Stout lady does be with you in the brown costume. Put you off your stroke, that’ (11.1255–57).
16.714: does be with you See note at 8.972.
16.718: Bewley and Draper’s
Bewley and Draper’s: ‘general merchants, manufacturers of mineral waters, and wholesale wine merchants and druggists, and ink manufacturers’, 23 and 27 Mary Street (Thom’s, p. 1541).
16.718: marking ink
Marking ink: ‘an indelible ink used for marking linen’ (OED, s.v. marking).
16.719–20: love me, love my dirty shirt
After the proverb, ‘Love me, love my dog’ (Brewer’s). Giacomo Joyce ends with: ‘Envoy: Love me, love my umbrella’ (PSW, p. 241).
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1096 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.720: he desired the female’s room more than her company
Room: ‘Contrasted with company, in phrases denoting that the absence of a person is preferred to his or her presence, as his (also her, etc.) room is better than his (also her, etc.) company’ (OED).
16.727: The gunboat
Context suggests that this is some expression, presumably derogatory, for a prostitute, but we have been unable to find confirmation or other examples. Partridge notes that one meaning of the word gun is as an abbreviation of gonorrhoea; thus gunboat might mean a carrier of this venereal disease. Alternatively, of possible relevance, the Gunboat was the name of a pub frequented by prostitutes in London’s docks that was in operation up until the early twentieth century (Melissa Hope Ditmore, Encyclopedia of Prostitution, vol. 1, p. 256).
16.729: Lock hospital See note at 15.2578–79.
16.737: Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy the soul
After Christ’s pronouncement to his disciples: ‘And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell’ (Matthew 10:28).
16.738: She buys dear and sells cheap See note at 2.359.
16.741: instanter
Instanter (Latin): immediately, forthwith; Anglicised since the late seventeenth century (OED).
16.743: licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities
The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869 authorised the compulsory medical examination of women suspected of being prostitutes to test for the presence of venereal diseases (Vike Martina Plock, Joyce, Medicine, and Modernity, p. 135).
16.744: paterfamilias
Paterfamilias (Latin): father or head of household; Anglicised since the late fifteenth century (OED).
16.746: ventilated
To ventilate: to discuss, debate (OED).
16.753: inventions as X rays See note at 8.1029–30.
16.756–57: it is a simple substance and therefore incorruptible
Aquinas defines the soul as ‘simple’ in the sense of pure and unadulterated (OED), that is, without contrariety (Summa Theologica, I, q. 75, a. 6; see note at 3.48). Bloom, however, misunderstands Stephen’s use of simple (16.764).
16.757–58: immortal, I understand, but for the . . . First Cause
Aquinas regards the soul as incorruptible. He does not address the question of whether God could destroy the soul. See notes at 3.48 and 3.48–49.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1097
16.759–60: corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens
Corruptio per se (Latin): ‘corruption by itself ’. Corruptio per accidens (Latin): corruption by accident. ‘For a thing may be corrupted in two ways—in itself and accidentally’ (Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, q. 75, a. 6). See notes at 16.756–57 and 3.48.
16.762: sublunary
Sublunary: down-to-earth or mundane; literally, below the moon (OED).
16.763: demurrer
Demurrer: an objection or exception to something (OED).
16.767: Röntgen
See note at 8.1029–30.
16.767: the telescope like Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (American inventor, 1847–1931) did not invent the telescope, but he is credited with many other inventions. ‘Among his principal inventions are his system of duplex telegraphy [. . .]; his carbon telephone transmitter; [. . .] the phonograph, which records and reproduces all manner of sounds; the cinematograph, which his improvements made practic able; and his method of preparing carbon filaments for the incandescent electric lamp’ (EB11).
16.768: Galileo
Galileo Galilei (Italian scientist, 1564–1642) did not invent the telescope, but he was among the first to use a telescope for astronomical observations. ‘The practical discovery of the instrument was certainly made in Holland about 1608, but the credit of the original invention has been claimed on behalf of three individuals, Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Jansen, spectacle-makers in Middelburg, and James Metius of Alkmar’ (EB11, s.v. Galileo Galilei).
16.780: in toto
In toto (Latin): ‘entirely’; Anglicised since the seventeenth century (OED).
16.783: Hamlet and Bacon See notes at 9.410 and 9.411.
16.790: proverbially bad hat
After the phrase ‘what a shocking bad hat’, that is, what poor form. This phrase was in vogue in the 1830s. ‘For some time, it seems, anyone with a hat not quite up to par was subject to have it ruined in an impromptu scene of giddy public humiliation’ (Partridge, Dictionary of Catch Phrases).
16.792: Coffee Palace See note at 11.486.
16.801–02: Sulphate of copper poison SO4 or something
The proper notation for copper sulphate is CuSO4. It is used as a herbicide, fungicide, and pesticide. From the mid-nineteenth century, greengrocers used copper sulphate on bottled peas since it enhanced their greenness. However, from the 1880s such practice was discouraged since it was found that copper sulphate was ‘dangerous to health’ (Weekly Irish Times, 8 Apr. 1905, p. 23, col. c; John Simpson, JJON).
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1098 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.805–06: Dr Tibble’s Vi-Cocoa
Dr Tibbles’ Vi-Cocoa, Ltd.: 60–62 Bunhill Row, London. The misplaced apostrophe is Joyce’s. They ran a full-page advertisement (a rarity at the time) in the 14 December 1897 Freeman’s Journal, which proudly proclaimed: ‘Nothing has ever been discovered that can approach it in giving lightness of heart, joy of life, fleetness of foot, and that general feeling of comfort which only comes from a full capacity to enjoy every pleasure, moral, intellectual, and physical.’ The bulk of the advertisement consists of multiple ‘unsolicited’ testimonials from various nurses. The product was made from cocoa, kola, malt, and hops (p. 7).
16.811: good genius
Good genius: a protective spirit that attends a person throughout his life (Brewer’s, s.v. genius).
16.812: gormandising
To gormandise: to eat hungrily, voraciously, or as a glutton (OED).
16.813: sine qua non
Sine qua non (Latin): ‘without which not’; that is, an essential requirement; Anglicised since the late sixteenth century (OED).
16.816: knife. I can’t look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history See note at 2.48–49.
16.821: Our mutual friend’s
From the title of Charles Dickens’s novel Our Mutual Friend (1864–65). Properly speaking, two people cannot have a mutual friend, for the word mutual implies a reciprocal relationship: ‘the friendship between two friends should be mutual, but this mutuality cannot be extended to a third party’ (Brewer’s).
16.821: apropos
See note at 16.44.
16.822: confidante
Confidante: the feminine form of confidant, ‘A person trusted with private affairs, commonly with affairs of love’ (OED, s.v. confidant). ‘It may be that this was first formed to represent the sound of the French confidente, and that the masculine confidant was formed from it. The feminine is the more common in use’; Anglicised since the eighteenth century (OED, s.v. confidante).
16.822: sotto voce
Sotto voce: ‘In a subdued or low voice’ from the Italian, ‘soft voice’; Anglicised since the eighteenth century (OED).
16.823: like old boots See note at 12.496.
16.828: spoof
Spoof: hoax, humbug (in use from the 1880s); only in the 1950s did this word acquire the sense of a send-up or parody (OED).
16.831: Sherlockholmesing See note at 15.1848–49.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1099
16.833: cut of his jib See note at 13.774.
16.833: jail delivery
Jail-delivery: leaving prison whether through lawful release or escape (OED).
16.835: oakum and treadmill fraternity
That is, the criminal fraternity. Picking oakum was common prison labour in the United Kingdom (Ernest Pettifer, Punishments of Former Days, p. 157). The treadmill, introduced in 1818, was used for discipline and punishment. ‘It was a large hollow cylinder of wood on an iron frame, round the circumference of which were a series of steps about seven and a half inches apart. The worker, steadying himself by a handrail above his head, trod on these, his weight causing the mill to commence to revolve, and compelling him to take each step in turn’ (p. 151).
16.835–36: He might even have done for his man
To do for: to kill (Partridge). Bloom does not necessarily believe Murphy’s story that he killed a Greek named Antonio in Trieste. Fritz Senn suggests that this recalls Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, when he assumed a disguise and several times told the lie that he had fled his native Crete because he had killed a man: ‘I have fled, an exile because I killed the son of Idomeneus, Orsilochus, swift of foot’ (Odyssey, XIII.259-60; Fritz Senn, Inductive Scrutinies, p. 185); at this moment, Odysseus is telling his story to Athena, who is herself in disguise. See also note at 16.491.
16.838: in durance vile
Durance: ‘Forced confinement, imprisonment; constraint. Now esp. in phr. in durance vile’ (OED).
16.839–40: dramatic personage of identical name . . . our national poet
Shakespeare has several Antonios: the best known is from The Merchant of Venice. Other Antonios are in The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
16.844: any ancient mariner
After Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798).
16.844–45: draw the long bow about the schooner Hesperus
To draw the long bow: to exaggerate or tell a tall tale (Brewer’s). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (1807–82) ballad ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ (1840) deals with an 1839 shipwreck; it begins: ‘It was the schooner Hesperus, / That sailed the wintry sea’. In book XXI of the Odyssey, after the suitors have tried and failed to string the great bow of Odysseus, the hero himself (disguised as a beggar) succeeds in accomplishing the feat.
16.846–47: couldn’t probably hold a proverbial candle to
Couldn’t hold a candle to: a proverbial expression used to denote someone (or, here, something) that is inferior to someone else. It derives from lowly link boys who held candles or torches in theatres and other night entertainments (Brewer’s, s.v. candle).
16.849: Giants . . . you see once in a way
Odysseus encountered various giants during his travels, such as Polyphemus the Cyclops, ‘not like a man [. . .] but more like a wooded peak of the high mountains’ (Odyssey, IX.190–92) and the Lestrygonians, who are likened to giants (X.120).
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1100 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.850: Marcella the midget queen
Her Royal Highness Marcella, Queen of Midgets, the Smallest and Prettiest Little Vocalist: stage name of Elizabeth Paddock (c.1875–1955), a regular performer at the Henry Street Waxworks (Tim Conley, ‘Marcella the Midget Queen’).
16.851: waxworks in Henry street
Henry Street Waxworks: 30 Henry Street, run by Charles Augustus James, ‘hardware and fancy dealer’ (Thom’s, p. 1517). ‘On the ground floor was an emporium in which everything cost 6½d.; on the first floor was a variety show; and the second and third floors were the waxworks’ (JJD, p. 113).
16.851–52: some Aztecs, as they are called, sitting bowlegged
‘In the first place, sitting cross-legged is not an Aztec custom. [. . .] In the picture-writings of the Aztecs, the men sit doubled up, with their chins almost touching their knees’ (Edward Burnett Tylor, Anahuac, p. 190).
16.858: Sinbad
Sinbad: an old sailor (Partridge); after the character Sinbad who appears in several stories of the Arabian Nights.
16.859: Ludwig, alias Ledwidge
Ludwig: the stage name of the Irish baritone William Ledwidge (1847–1923); so, properly speaking, it should be Ledwidge, alias Ludwig. In 1877, he became the chief baritone for the Carl Rosa company (see note at 16.202). ‘He was perhaps the greatest Vanderdecken of his day. Wagner is said to have given him a score of The Flying Dutchman, inscribed: “To the incomparable Vanderdecken” ’ (DIB). See note at 16.596 for alias.
16.860–61: the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the management See note at 6.188 for the Gaiety and note at 11.1050 for Gunn.
16.861: Flying Dutchman
Wagner’s opera Der Fliegende Holländer (1840–41), an adaptation of the legend of the Flying Dutchman (see note at 13.1078), had its first English production on 3 October 1876 by the Carl Rosa Opera Company (see note at 16.202). William Ledwidge played the title role (Samuel Holland Rous, Victrola Book of the Opera, p. 157).
16.868: little Italy there near the Coombe
According to the Irish Times, the Italians in Dublin ‘form a special community in Chancery lane and its neighbourhood’ (20 May 1891, p. 6, col. d). Chancery Lane is an L-shaped street about 600 metres distant from the Coombe (see note at 5.280), but would be considered a different part of the city: the Coombe lies to the west and just to the south of St Patrick’s Cathedral whereas Chancery Lane is to the north and the east, and thus closer to the city centre (John Simpson, JJON).
16.870: pothunting
Pot-hunting: ‘hunting game for food or monetary gain rather than for sport’ (OED).
16.870: harmless necessary animal of the feline persuasion
After the phrase ‘harmless necessary cat’ from The Merchant of Venice (IV.i.55); and subsequently the epitome of a hackneyed phrase (Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage, s.v. Hackneyed Phrases).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1101
16.871: tuckin
Tuck-in: a hearty meal (OED, s.v. tuck).
16.871: de rigueur
De rigueur (French): ‘obligatory’; literally, ‘of strictness’; Anglicised since the mid- nineteenth century (OED, s.v. de).
16.873: Spaniards, for instance, he continued, passionate temperaments
After the long-standing, traditional stereotype that southern Europeans are more hot- headed than the supposedly sober and staid northern Europeans. For example, from Jean- Jacques Rousseau’s (Swiss philosopher, 1712–78) Essay on the Origin of Languages: ‘Southern languages must have been lively, resonant, accentuated, eloquent, and often obscure because of their vigor; northern languages must have been muted, crude, articulated, shrill, monotone and clear’ (pp. 274–75).
16.874: Old Nick See note at 14.619.
16.875: quietus
Quietus: ‘A release or respite from life; an ending of life, death; something that causes death’ (OED); from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy: ‘When he himself might his quietus make / With a bare bodkin?’ (III.i.75–76).
16.878–79: born in (technically) Spain, i.e. Gibraltar Incorrect (technically); see note at 4.60.
16.883: Roberto ruba roba sua
Roberto ruba roba sua (Italian): ‘Roberto steals his things’.
16.886–87: Dante and the isosceles triangle Miss Portinari he fell in love with
In the Vita Nuova (New Life, 1293–94), Dante writes of his love for Beatrice, a woman whom he had seen only three times in his life. Beatrice’s salvation of Dante is one of the main themes in the Divine Comedy. Giovanni Boccaccio (Italian poet, 1313–75) identifies Beatrice as Bice (Beatrice) Portinari (1266–90), the wife of Simone de’ Bardi, a Florentine banker (Esposizioni sopra la Comedia, vol. 1, p. 114). On a notesheet, Joyce cryptically wrote: ‘passionate haste of Dante, Leonardo and san Tommaso Mastino are the classic examples (SD)’ (Notesheet Eumaeus 6.17–18). This note might derive from a passage from Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance: ‘Dante’s belief in the resurrection of the body, through which even in heaven Beatrice loses for him no tinge of flesh-colour or fold of raiment even, and the Platonic dream of the passage of the soul through one form of life after another, with its passionate haste to escape from the burden of bodily form altogether, are, for all effects of art or poetry, principles diametrically opposite’ (p. 48).
16.887: Leonardo
That is, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), artist, sculptor, and engineer, and, like Dante, from Florence (EB11).
16.887–88: san Tommaso Mastino
That is, St Thomas Aquinas. Mastino (Italian): mastiff; as in Stephen’s epithet for St Thomas, ‘the bulldog of Aquin’ (see note at 9.863).
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1102 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.889–90: All are washed in the blood of the sun See note at 8.9.
16.890: Kildare street museum See note at 8.921–22.
16.897: Rumpled stockings
See 8.542: ‘Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless.’
16.900–01: ships lost in a fog, collisions with icebergs
Suggests one of Coleridge’s marginal glosses to ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’: ‘And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating ice’ (note to l. 71; Coleridge, p. 49).
16.902: doubled the cape
Either Cape Horn, at the tip of South America, or the Cape Agulhas, at the tip of southern Africa (the Cape of Good Hope, the legendary home of the Flying Dutchman, is near but not at the southernmost point). To double: ‘To sail or pass round or to the other side of (a cape or point), so that the ship’s course is, as it were, doubled or bent upon itself ’ (OED). Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner doubles Cape Horn.
16.905: pious medal he had that saved him
Probably a St Christopher’s medal, after the belief that St Christopher protects travellers (Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. St Christopher, protects travellers).
16.906–07: wreck off Daunt’s rock, wreck of that illfated Norwegian barque
On Christmas Eve 1895, a heavy storm caused the Palme, a Finnish ship commanded by Captain Axel Emanuel Weren, to run aground off Blackrock, just south of Booterstown, in Dublin Bay, not Daunt’s Rock (which is off Cork harbour). The ship’s officers and crew were saved a day later, but fifteen Irish lives were lost when one of the lifeboats capsized (Irish Times, 27 Dec. 1895, p. 5, col. i–p. 6, col. d). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Daunt’s rock petrified ship’ (Notesheet Eumaeus 6.198). This creates a link to the fate of the Phaeacian ship that brought Odysseus from Scheria home to Ithaca. When the Phaeacians returned to Scheria, an enraged Poseidon turned the ship to stone in the harbour (Odyssey, XIII.159–64).
16.908: Henry Campbell See note at 16.661.
16.910–11: Albert William Quill . . . Irish Times
Albert Quill (1843–1908), a Dublin barrister, wrote a sentimental poem about the shipwreck of the Palme entitled ‘The Storm of Christmas Eve 1895’. It was published in the Irish Times of 16 January 1896 (p. 5, col. d) under the headline ‘An Antispastic Dithyramb’.
16.912–13: crowds . . . petrified with horror See note at 16.906–07.
16.913–15: case of the s.s. Lady Cairns of Swansea . . . hands on deck
On 20 March 1904, the Mona, a German ship, ran into the Lady Cairns, an English ship, some 40 km east of Dublin Bay’s Kish Lightship, in rough conditions and poor visibility. The ships were heading in opposite directions and the Lady Cairns sank, with the loss of all
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1103 her crew (Irish Times, 21 Mar. 1904, p. 5, col. c). Legal actions were still taking place in the Admiralty Court on 16 June 1904 (see note at 10.627).
16.916: collision bulkhead
Bulkhead: ‘One of the upright partitions serving to form the cabins in a ship or to divide the hold into distinct watertight compartments, for safety in case of collision or other damage.’ The collision bulkhead is the bulkhead in the front of the ship (OED, s.v. bulkhead).
16.919: unfurl a reef
To let out a reef: to undo buttons after a heavy meal (Partridge). Here, though, the point is that Murphy needs to urinate. Reef: one of the horizontal portions of sail which can be rolled up or folded in order to increase or reduce the amount of canvas exposed to the wind (OED).
16.925: ship’s rum
That is, naval rum or grog, the daily ration of diluted rum given to sailors in the British Navy (Brewer’s, s.v. grog).
16.930: old stager See note at 6.974.
16.933: puncheon
Puncheon: ‘a large barrel or cask, esp. one of definite capacity, varying for different liquids and commodities’ (OED). Here, referring figuratively to Murphy’s flask of rum.
16.934–35: all radically altered since his last visit
Construction on the Loop Line Bridge (see note at 5.138) was finished in 1891 (Bennett, s.v. Custom House Docks Development).
16.938: giving it a wide berth
To give a wide berth to: ‘to keep well away from, steer quite clear of ’ (OED). This expression, appropriately nautical in origin, derives from this sense of berth: ‘Convenient sea-room, or a fit distance for ships under sail to keep clear, so as not to fall foul on one another’ (OED).
16.939: bilgewater
Bilge-water: ‘The water that collects in the bilge of a ship through leakage or otherwise, and becomes disgustingly foul and noxious’ (OED). In this context, Murphy’s urine.
16.943–43: watcher of the corporation stones See note at 7.646.
16.944: Gumley aforesaid See note at 7.645.
16.945: on the parish rates
That is, dependent upon the Poor Rate, a revenue in support of the poor raised through a levy imposed on real estate on the basis of its rental value. Paupers only received money in exchange for working in a designated Poor Law Union workhouse, where conditions were deliberately designed to be harsh in order to discourage false claimants (Joseph O’Brien, Dear, Dirty Dublin, pp. 170–72). The Poor Law workhouse ‘provided an umbrella institution which relieved the sick, the aged, invalids, acted as a refuge for unmarried mothers, battered
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1104 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses and deserted wives and abandoned children in addition to the able-bodied unemployed. It was a somewhat inappropriate method of assisting many types of distress due to the requirement to enter a workhouse. A subordinate problem was the social stigma attached. There is some evidence that the so called “respectable” poor tried to avoid it’ (Mary Daly, Dublin, pp. 83–84). See also note at 12.1000.
16.945: Pat Tobin
Patrick Tobin (1863–1928): secretary to Dublin Corporation’s municipal paving committee. He lived at 2 North St Vincent Street (Thom’s, pp. 1348, 1590).
16.947–48: the arms of Morpheus
That is, asleep (Partridge); Morpheus is the name Ovid gave to the god of dreams (Brewer’s).
16.948: hard lines See note at 15.1232.
16.951–52: to make general ducks and drakes of
To make ducks and drakes of: to squander money (Partridge).
16.953: stiver
Stiver: any coin of little value (OED).
16.957–58: falling off in Irish shipping, coastwise and foreign as well
The number and tonnage of ships registered out of Dublin declined from 318 vessels and 61,894 metric tons in 1898 to 294 vessels and 58,820 metric tons in 1902, as did the number and tonnage of foreign ships cleared outwards (from sixty-five vessels and 40,108 metric tons in 1898 to forty vessels and 28,344 metric tons in 1902). However, coasting trade over the same period increased slightly (from 4,547 vessels and 1,205,678 metric tons in 1898 to 4,664 vessels and 1,269,150 metric tons in 1902) (Thom’s, p. 1338).
16.959: Palgrave Murphy boat
Palgrave, Murphy, and Co.: Dublin steamship proprietors, 17 Eden Quay. They were agents for steamers from the Mediterranean, Spain, Portugal, France, and Holland, and for the Liverpool Underwriters’ Association (Thom’s, p. 1882).
16.959: Alexandra basin
Alexandra Basin: a large dock on the north side of the Liffey, part of the man-made peninsula that juts out into the harbour at the mouth of the Liffey. It opened in 1885 and was named after Alexandra, Princess of Wales (De Courcy, The Liffey in Dublin, pp. 4–5).
16.960: only launch that year
As of 16 June, there had been only one launch that year. On 4 May, a tugboat named the Anna Liffey was launched. She was built for the Dublin Port and Docks Board (and not Palgrave Murphy). The Freeman’s Journal report on the launching notes that this is the eighth vessel built at the yard and that another, a coaster, is on the stocks, and a tenth is in the planning stages (5 May 1904, p. 2, col. i). The coaster, the Bay Fisher, was launched on 31 August (1 Sep. 1904, p. 6, col. a).
15.963: au fait
Au fait (French): familiar with (a subject or issue); Anglicised since the mid-eighteenth century (OED).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1105
16.964–65: why that ship ran bang against the only rock in Galway bay See note at 2.326.
16.966: Worthington
Robert Worthington: a Dublin railway contractor involved in a 1912 scheme to establish a commercial harbour at Galway Bay, and not one of the backers of the original Galway Harbour project of the 1850s (Irish Times, 7 Feb. 1912, p. 7, col. c).
16.967: palmoil
See note at 10.731.
16.968: Captain John Lever of the Lever line
John Orell Lever (1824–97) was not a sea captain but a Manchester businessman who served as the director of the ill-fated Galway Line (see note at 2.326). Lever was blamed for the failure of the Line, although he was hardly the only one responsible for its mismanagement (Timothy Collins, Transatlantic Triumph and Heroic Failure, p. 148).
16.973: seconds or thirds
Musical terms. Seconds and thirds are tones two or, respectively, three diatonic degrees above or below any given note (OED).
16.976: liquid fire
Liquid fire: bad whiskey (Partridge).
16.977: libation-cum-potation
Libation: a drink-offering. Cum (Latin): with; Anglicised since the late sixteenth century. Frequently used, as here, ‘as a connective word forming compounds to indicate a dual nature or function’. While libation and potation can be synonyms, properly speaking, the libation is the pouring out of a drink and the potation is the drinking of a drink (all OED). So ‘libation-cumpotation’ is an elaborate way of specifying that he poured the drink and he drank it.
16.978: soirée
Soirée (French): evening party; Anglicised since the late eighteenth century (OED).
16.978: son of a seacook
Son of a sea-cook: a term of abuse with nautical origins (Partridge).
16.979–82: The biscuits was as hard as brass . . . Johnny Lever, O!
After the anonymous sea shanty ‘Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her’. There are numerous versions of this song with up to 25 stanzas, with many variations and improvisations (Bowen, p. 309).
16.980: as salt as Lot’s wife’s arse
As salt as Lot’s wife’s backbone: very salty (Partridge); see note at 8.136 for Lot’s wife.
16.986: forcible-feeble philippic
Forcible feeble: feeble but making great presence of vigour. Philippic: ‘any discourse of the nature of a bitter attack, invective, or denunciation’ (both OED).
16.989: coal in large quantities
From 1900–02, Ireland produced between 105,000 and 126,000 metric tons of coal per year (Thom’s, p. 679). By way of comparison, the average annual production of coal in England during the same period was about 193 million metric tons (p. 672). See also note at 16.1035–36.
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1106 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.989–90: six million pounds worth of pork exported every year
In 1902, Ireland exported 637,972 pigs worth £1,446,070 to Britain (Thom’s, p. 639).
16.990–91: ten millions between butter and eggs
In 1905, Irish butter exports were estimated at just under £3.4 million (Report on the Trade in Imports and Exports at Irish Ports, p. x) and in 1904, egg exports were just under £2.5 million (p. xv).
16.996: colonel Everard down there in Navan growing tobacco
Navan is the county town of County Meath, 45 km north-west of Dublin. In 1904, the Irish Homestead reported that Colonel N. T. Everard, a gentleman farmer, was experimenting with growing tobacco at his farm in Randlestown, County Meath. Everard devoted 8 hectares to tobacco and told the Homestead that ‘[i]t is only in Co. Meath that its cultivation is organized on a considerable scale’ (9 July 1904, pp. 568–69; Thornton). According to a 1908 report, ‘In the year 1904 it was decided to carry out experiments on a more extensive scale, in order that the commercial possibilities of the crop might be adequately tested. In the year mentioned tobacco was grown on twenty acres. The number of centres and the area under tobacco have subsequently increased; and during last year (1907) the experiments were carried out in seven counties, viz., Louth, Meath, King’s County, Kilkenny, Wexford, Cork, and Limerick [. . .] So far, it has been demonstrated that the tobacco plant grows exceptionally well in several districts in Ireland on soils which are typical of large areas throughout the country. All classes of tobacco have been grown with a notable uniformity of success’ (Handbook to the City of Dublin and the Surrounding District, p. 437).
16.996–97: Where would you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon?
In a letter printed in the Irish Homestead of 4 June 1904, M. J. Hickey of Enniscorthy writes that ‘Irish bacon is the best in the world. The Danes produce good bacon, so do the Germans and the Americans, but their experts admit that it has not the same flavour as ours’ (p. 465; Thornton).
16.998: crescendo
Crescendo (Italian): ‘increasing’; used as a command in music for an increase in the volume and intensity of the tone; Anglicised since the eighteenth century (OED).
16.999: pelf
See note at 15.1396.
16.1001: The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin
Look-in: ‘A chance of success’ (Partridge). The strength and prowess of the Japanese military during the Russo-Japanese War (see note at 4.116–17) and the rise of German economic and military might from the latter half of the nineteenth century posed a potential threat to the hegemony of the British Empire that was already in evidence before the onset of World War I. ‘If, at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Germany’s diplomatic room of maneuver seemed restricted, Russia’s eventual defeat in East Asia shifted Europe’s equilibrium in Germany’s favor’ (T. G. Otte, ‘The Fragmenting of the Old World Order’, p. 102).
16.1002: The Boers were the beginning of the end
It is now a commonplace observation that the Boer War was ‘the beginning of the end of the British Empire, though it certainly did not seem so at the time’ (Byron Farwell, The Great Boer War, p. xii). See also note at 8.434.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1107
16.1002: Brummagem England
Brummagem: variant of the name of Birmingham, used as an adjective to mean resembling Birmingham in some way; usually, but not always, derogatory. For example, it is used to mean counterfeit, after Birmingham’s reputation as a centre for the manufacture of counterfeit coins in the seventeenth century. In the nineteenth century, as Birmingham became a centre for mass production, the term Brummagem was used to designate anything cheap and tawdry (OED). Of possible relevance here, it also was used in reference to Birmingham’s model of strong local government; the OED cites Punch: ‘When England’s all Brumma gemised, and I’m boss of it, won’t it be prime’ (23 Feb. 1895, p. 87). Specifically, when Joseph Chamberlain (see note at 8.423–24) had been mayor of Birmingham in the 1870s, he improved the city’s public services and facilities. Later, he proposed exporting his Birmingham model of local government to Ireland as a means of weakening demand for Home Rule. ‘It might be true to say of Chamberlain that he saw Ireland as a rather larger Birmingham with slightly more Irish inhabitants than his native city’ (Harry Browne, Joseph Chamberlain, Radical and Imperialist, p. 44).
16.1003: Ireland, her Achilles heel
After Coleridge’s line about ‘Ireland, that vulnerable heel of the British Achilles’ (The Friend, vol. 2, p. 213). Also, in the ‘Preface for Politicians’ in George Bernard Shaw’s John Bull’s Other Island (1904): ‘the Irish coast is for the English invasion-scaremonger the heel of Achilles’ (p. xxv). ‘Achilles’s heel’ is proverbial for a weak spot, after the non-Homeric tale of Achilles’s mother dipping him in the River Styx to make him invulnerable. Since she held him by the ankle, that was the one spot unaffected by the river’s power (Brewer’s, s.v. Achilles tendon).
16.1008–09: Ireland, Parnell said, could not spare a single one of her sons
In reference to the possibility of Protestant-majority Ulster province splitting off from the rest of the island and remaining under British control, Parnell said: ‘we cannot afford to lose a single Irishman’ (quoted in F. S. L. Lyons, Charles Stewart Parnell, p. 362).
16.1010: finale
Finale (Italian): the conclusion; Anglicised since the eighteenth century (OED). See also note at 16.71.
16.1021: tarpaulin See note at 16.479.
16.1021–22: The Irish catholic peasant. He’s the backbone of our empire
Recalls a remark made in Stephen Hero by Stephen’s godfather Fulham: ‘Our Irish peasantry [. . .] is the backbone of the nation’ (p. 244).
16.1022: Jem Mullins
James Mullin (1846–1919): born in Cookstown, County Tyrone to a poor peasant family. He studied to become a doctor and immigrated to Cardiff, where he became involved in Irish politics and served as chair for the local branch of the Irish National League. ‘His last years were devoted to an autobiography, The story of a toiler’s life, published posthumously (Dublin, 1921); a valuable account of mid-Victorian Ulster plebeian life and the self- fashioning of a determined, acerbic, and sometimes slightly off-putting Irishman and professional’ (DIB). Joyce misspelt his name.
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1108 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.1031: pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for
Conflates two lines from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy: ‘To be or not to be’ (III.i.56) and ‘’tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wished’ (III.i.63–64).
16.1035–36: in a hundred million years the coal seam . . . played out
In the nineteenth century, British industrial and economic prosperity depended on coal: ‘Britain became the first nation to base its economic civilisation on mineral fuel and rose to be the world’s largest economy’ (Richard Hayman, Coal Mining in Britain, p. 5). Accordingly, the extent of Britain’s coal reserves was a pressing question. In 1900, P. Frech extrapolated that the coalfields in northern England would be exhausted in 100–200 years and the other British coalfields in 250 years. On the other hand, 100 million years is of the order of magnitude that it takes for a coalfield to form underground (EB11, s.v. coal). In his Trieste notebook, Joyce sets down a different figure: ‘There is hope for [Ireland]: in 500 years the coal supply of England will run out’ (Scholes and Kain, The Workshop of Daedalus, p. 101; JJA, vol. 7, p. 135). The figure of 500 years was an earlier estimate that did not take into account the possibility of increasing consumption and was thus subsequently challenged (W. Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question, p. 52). Seam: a thin stratum in between two thicker strata (OED). ‘Sister isle’ and ‘sister kingdom’ were common epithets in Ireland, since the late eighteenth century, for England, and also vice versa. For example, from John Mitchel’s (Irish author and nationalist, 1815–75) Jail Journal (1854): ‘British statesmen were as desirous as ever to regulate in their minutest detail all the trade and traffic of her sister island’ (p. 18).
16.1037: how the cat jumped
To see how the cat jumps: ‘To observe the course of events’ (Partridge).
16.1041: chummies See note at 6.319.
16.1044: Fitzharris, the famous invincible
See note at 5.378 for the Invincibles and notes at 7.640 and 7.642 for Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris.
16.1045: being on all fours with
Being on all fours with: being on an equal footing with or presenting an exact analogy to (OED s.v. all fours).
16.1047: the others seeing least of the game See note at 13.903.
16.1049–50: give people like that the goby
To give someone the go-by: ‘To ignore; to abandon; to refuse to recognise’ (Partridge).
16.1051: golden rule See note at 13.42.
16.1052: felonsetting
‘Felon setting is a peculiarly Irish term, which recalls a deep and ancient hatred of the informer, a central figure in Irish history. It is felon setting to whisper to the Guards or the Special Branch about what the boys are up to’ (The Guardian, 6 June 1970, p. 11, col. g; cited in the OED).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1109
16.1052: Dannyman
Dannyman: an informer; after Danny Mann, a sinister character in The Collegians (1829), for which see note at 6.186. See also note at 5.14.
16.1053–54: turning queen’s evidence or king’s now like Denis or Peter Carey
See note at 5.379 for James Carey (the man in question) and note at 5.380 for his brother Peter Carey. Denis Carey was Bloom’s incorrect guess for James’s first name in ‘Lotus Eaters’ (see note at 5.381). In ‘Lestrygonians’, Bloom correctly remembered James’s first name (see note at 8.442–43). Since the trial took place in the reign of Queen Victoria, ‘queen’s evidence’ would have been the correct term for evidence given for the prosecution from an accessory against his accomplice (Brewer’s, s.v. Evidence).
16.1059: cold steel See note at 1.153.
16.1060–61: off the same bat as
Properly, the expression should be ‘of the same bat’, that is, of the same kind or type, as in the phrase ‘all (of) the same bat’: ‘all the same sort’ (EDD, s.v. bat). Originally, Joyce wrote ‘on all fours with those love vendettas’ (Rosenbach f. 28) and changed it to ‘off the same bat as those love vendettas’ on a page proof (JJA, vol. 27, p. 114), possibly because he uses the expression ‘being on all fours with’ earlier in this paragraph (see note at 16.1045).
16.1065: liaison
Liaison (French): an intimate relation between two people; Anglicised since the early nineteenth century (OED).
16.1066–67: merely drove the car for the actual perpetrators Inaccurate; see note at 7.640.
16.1068–69: plea some legal luminary saved his skin on
On 15 May 1883, Fitzharris was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder. He was sentenced to penal servitude for life and was released after serving fifteen years. Most of the other Invincibles were executed (DIB). J. O. Byrne and S. McInerney (instructed by Gerald Byrne, solicitor) were Fitzharris’s legal counsel (Freeman’s Journal, 16 May 1883, p. 2, col. d).
16.1071–72: died naturally or on the scaffold high See note at 8.440.
16.1074–75: snapping at the bone for the shadow
Refers to Aesop’s fable ‘The Dog and his Shadow’, in which a dog, carrying a hunk of meat in his mouth, sees his shadow reflected in a stream, with what appears to be a larger hunk than his own; ‘he let the meat go and dashed for the shadow. This he did not find, nor the meat that he had dropped. Still hungry he crossed back the way he came’ (Babrius and Phaedrus, Fables, p. 99).
16.1076: Mr Johnny Lever
That is, the sailor Murphy, who improvised a witty song on Johnny Lever; see note at 16.979–82.
16.1077: Old Ireland tavern
Old Ireland hotel and tavern: 10 North Wall Quay, close to the docks (Thom’s, p. 1560).
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16.1078: come back to Erin See note at 12.1828.
16.1085–86: A soft answer turns away wrath
‘A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger’ (Proverbs 15:1).
16.1089: soft impeachment
This phrase comes from the last scene of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s (Irish playwright, 1751–1816) The Rivals (1775), where Mrs Malaprop confesses to a minor deception, saying ‘I own the soft impeachment’ (The School for Scandal and Other Plays, p. 82; Senn, Inductive Scrutinies, p. 187).
16.1091: Ex quibus
From Romans 9:5 in the Vulgate: ‘ex quibus est Christus secundum carnem’ (of whom is Christ, according to the flesh). This passage appears in an expression of Paul’s ambivalence at preaching the Gospel when he himself is a Jew by birth: ‘For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh, Who are Israelites, to whom belongeth the adoption as of children, and the glory, and the testament, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises: Whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen’ (Romans 9:3–5).
16.1096–98: every country . . . government it deserves
The saying ‘Every country has the government it deserves’ (Toute nation a le gouvernment qu’elle mérite) was originally coined by the French philosopher and political writer, Joseph Marie, Comte de Maistre (1753–1821) (Lettres et opuscules inédits, vol. 1, p. 264). The phrase ‘distressful country’ is from the ballad ‘The Wearin’ of the Green’ (see note at 3.259–60).
16.1104: bloody bridge battle
Originally named Barrack Bridge, Bloody Bridge was the second bridge built across the Liffey and was completed in 1674 (see note at 10.1183). This interfered with the commercial interests of a ferry company, which sent some employees to destroy the bridge. They were arrested, but during an attempted escape, four saboteurs were killed. The bridge was thus informally dubbed ‘Bloody Bridge’. In 1861, a new bridge was built on the same site and named the Queen Victoria Bridge; this was renamed Rory O’More Bridge in 1939 (Bennett, s.v. Rory O’More Bridge).
16.1104–05: seven minutes’ war . . . between Skinner’s alley and Ormond market
Conflates various conflicts: the Seven Weeks’ War of 1866 between Prussia and Austria and the pan-European Seven Years’ War of 1756–63 (both EB11). The more local resonance is to the street brawls between rival gangs that flared in the streets of Dublin in the mid- eighteenth century. The earliest such feud was between the Liberty Boys, south- side weavers, and the Ormond Boys, north-side butchers (Chart, The Story of Dublin, p. 101). ‘Every few years there was a flare-up, and an alarmed response by the city authorities. But the violence was limited, stylised and geographically contained, and the contests were recreational, not political’ (David Dickson, Dublin, p. 174). Ormond Market was at the rear of Ormond Quay and was demolished in 1890; Skinner’s Alley was on the south side, west of St Patrick’s Cathedral.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1111
16.1112: bump of combativeness
In phrenology (see note at 15.1468), the bumps of combativeness are to be found on the back of the head, above the asterion, which is the bone behind the ears (EB11, s.v. phrenology).
16.1112: gland of some kind
According to the glandular theory posited by Benjamin Ward Richardson (British phys ician 1828–96), diseases were due to glandular dysfunction (Michael Worboys, Spreading Germs, p. 85).
16.1113: punctilio
Punctilio: ‘minute detail of action or conduct’ (OED); from the Italian puntiglio, a small point.
16.1116: They accuse
In context, this phrase evokes J’Accuse (I accuse), the title of a letter by French novelist Émile Zola (1840–1902), addressed to Félix Faure (see note at 3.233–34), and first published in the newspaper Aurore on 13 January 1898. Zola protested against the French government’s jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer found guilty of spying in the face of overwhelming evidence of his innocence (see note at 3.230–31). Zola’s letter led to the case being retried in 1899. Although Dreyfus was convicted a second time, he was subsequently granted clemency and freed in September 1899 (EB11, s.v. Zola, Émile).
16.1121–22: Spain decayed when the inquisition hounded the jews out
During the Spanish Inquisition, which started in 1480, Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain. ‘Both were industrious classes, and the loss of their services was disaster to Spain. [. . .] The commercial authorities of towns like Barcelona, who knew the value of converted Jews, endeavoured to moderate the zeal of the inquisitors’ (EB11, s.v. Spain).
16.1122–24: England prospered when Cromwell . . . imported them
Edward I expelled Jews from England in 1290. In 1654, in the face of parliamentary oppos ition, Oliver Cromwell allowed Jews and non-Anglican Protestants to live and worship lawfully in England. Cromwell’s tolerance resulted in ‘the great Jewish immigration into England with all its important consequences’ (EB11, s.v. Oliver Cromwell). On the other hand, Cromwell’s reputation in Ireland is not exactly one of tolerance; see notes at 12.1507 and 12.1785.
16.1128: Spain again, you saw in the war, compared with goahead America
That is, the Spanish-American War of April–August 1898. America’s swift victory against the under-equipped Spanish forces decisively signalled the end of Spain’s imperial influence. The peace treaty ‘clearly stipulated that [Spanish] rule in the New World must be considered at an end’ (EB11, s.v. Spain).
16.1128–29: Turks. It’s in the dogma
In Bloom’s mind, because they are Muslims, Turks value death in a Holy War (jihad) as a guarantee of salvation, therefore the quality of their lives during peacetime is of little importance to them. ‘By Mahommedan commentators the commands in the Koran are not interpreted as a general injunction on all Moslems constantly to make war on the infidels. It is generally supposed that the order for a general war can only be given by the caliph (an
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1112 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses office now claimed by the sultans of Turkey). [. . .] In the belief of Moslems every one of their number slain in a jihad is taken straight to paradise’ (EB11).
16.1130–31: That’s the juggle on which the p.p.’s raise the wind on false pretences
Juggle: ‘a trick or act of skill performed by legerdemain’. PP: parish priest (both OED). See note at 7.995 for to raise the wind.
16.1134: pro rata
Pro rata parte (Latin): ‘in proportion’ (the word parte is usually elided); Anglicised since the late sixteenth century (OED).
16.1135: in the neighbourhood of £300 per annum
This is a very comfortable neighbourhood. According to a government report, the highest salary a skilled workman in Dublin in 1905 could expect was 38s. 3d. per week (Cost of Living of the Working Classes, p. 560), which works out to £99 9s. per annum. When John Stanislaus Joyce was working at the Rates Office, he enjoyed the highest salary of his lifetime: in 1892, his salary was £300 and was supplemented by an additional £128 in emoluments (Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 107).
16.1138–39: Ubi patria, as we learned . . . in Alma Mater, vita bene
Ubi patria, vita bene (Latin): ‘Where my country is, life is good’; an inversion of the Latin proverb ‘ubi bene, ibi patria’ (Where it is well with me, there is my country). The literal meaning of patria is fatherland. Alma mater: a person’s former school (in Latin, literally, ‘bounteous mother’) (OED).
16.1143–44: changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the morning
Stephen was in Ringsend (see note at 3.156–57) this morning during ‘Proteus’. He walked north from Leahy’s Terrace, at the north end of Sandymount Strand, to the South Wall in Ringsend.
16.1150: pro. tem.
Pro tem: abbreviation of pro tempore (Latin): ‘for the time being’.
16.1161: faubourg Saint Patrice
Faubourg Saint-Patrice (French): ‘St Patrick’s suburb’. Literally, faubourg means ‘false city’. Many of Paris’s oldest suburbs were named after saints (Faubourg Saint Denis, Faubourg Saint Antoine, etc.), but there is no Faubourg Saint Patrice.
16.1164–65: I suspect . . . that Ireland must be important because it belongs to me
This refashions a passage in Stephen Hero, where Mr Heffernan asked Stephen if he felt any duty to, or love for, his mother country. Stephen responds: ‘Honestly, I don’t [. . .] My own mind [. . .] is more interesting to me than the entire country.’ Stephen is then asked, ‘Perhaps you think your mind is more important than Ireland!’, to which Stephen replies, ‘I do, certainly’ (pp. 247–48).
16.1181: just come back from Paris
In ‘Ithaca’ we learn that Stephen’s mother was buried on 26 June 1903 and thus would have died on or around 23 June (see note at 17.951–52). This would mean that the telegram Simon sent Stephen calling him back to Dublin (see note at 3.199) would have been sent at some point before then. Therefore, Stephen left Paris about one year before 16 June 1904
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1113 and thus could not feasibly be said to have ‘just come back from Paris’. Because of this, Hans Walter Gabler speculates that Stephen visited Paris a second time after his mother’s death and has returned at some point shortly before the events of Ulysses (‘Stephen in Paris’). Even if this is not the case, Stephen’s chronology differs from Joyce’s: Joyce left Dublin for Paris in October 1902 and returned in April 1903, remaining in Dublin until his departure, with Nora, in October 1904 (Ellmann, pp. 111–33, 182–85).
16.1185–86: O’Callaghan, for one, the halfcrazy faddist
Presumably in reference to the medical student named O’Callaghan with whom Joyce stayed for one night in 1904 before moving into the Tower with Gogarty (Ellmann, p. 171). Stanislaus Joyce calls him a ‘goodnatured, thick- headed fellow’ (Complete Dublin Diary, p. 34).
16.1187: rotto
Rotto: drunk (OED).
16.1189: a suit of brown paper (a fact)
In Sarah Hammond Palfrey’s (American writer, 1823–1914) short story ‘Mr. John Rollins’s Revenge’ (1889), a hapless sailor finds himself, after being assaulted and drugged, clad in a suit of brown paper. In an accompanying note, Palfrey claims: ‘I have met with the item of the brown-paper suit, told, if I recollect right, as a fact’ (p. 733). ‘Towards the end of the nineteenth century references to the “suit of brown paper” become more numerous’ (John Simpson, JJON).
16.1190: dénouement See note at 16.586.
16.1191–92: a strong hint to a blind horse
Mangles the proverbial saying ‘a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse’, which means that however obvious a hint may be, the other person may not see it, thereby making it useless. The phrase is often used in a contrary sense to mean that there are certain understandings best not put into writing (Brewer’s).
16.1192: John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard
John Mallon (1839–1915): Irish policeman who, after several promotions, served as Assistant Commissioner of the DMP from 1893 until his retirement in 1902. He was involved in tracking down the Invincibles and was known as the ‘Irish Sherlock Holmes’ (DIB). Mallon’s tact and probity led him to being tasked with arresting Parnell in October 1881 for his work on behalf of the Land League (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, pp. 390–91). Lower Castle Yard, in Dublin Castle, is the headquarters of the DMP (Thom’s, p. 851).
16.1193–94: section two of the criminal law amendment act
Section two of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 forbids soliciting women for unlawful sexual liaisons. Possibly a confusion with section 11 (since two in Roman numerals is II), which legislated against male homosexual acts, which are called ‘outrages on decency’ (Frederick Mead and A. H. Bodkin, The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, p. 68).
16.1194: subpœnaed
When Joyce added this word on a galley proof, he clearly used the œ ligature (JJA, vol. 20, p. 319). Normally, the word subpoena does not take a ligature, but in English the less usual
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1114 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses word poena (punishment, penalty) more commonly does (OED, s.vv. subpoena, poena; with thanks to John Simpson).
16.1195: pick of brains
Pick (Hiberno-English): a bit, a small amount; from the Irish pioc (Brendan O Hehir, A Gaelic Lexicon for ‘Finnegans Wake’, p. 352).
16.1196: six sixteen
See note at 16.675. Also suggests the date of Ulysses: the sixteenth day of the sixth month.
16.1197–99: the tattoo which was all the go in the seventies . . . then heir apparent
In the late nineteenth century, tattoos were in vogue amongst the English upper classes and nobility. Edward VII received his first tattoo in 1862 (Janey Levy, Tattoos in Modern Society, p. 23).
16.1200: upper ten
Upper ten: abbreviation of ‘upper ten thousand’, originally an American expression for the wealthy few or the aristocracy (OED, s.v. upper).
16.1202: Cornwall case
A reference to the notorious 1884 ‘Dublin Castle Scandal’, which centred on Gustavus Cornwall (1820–1903), the Chief Secretary of the General Post Office in Ireland. William O’Brien, the editor of United Ireland (see note at 16.1503), alleged in print that Cornwall and two other Crown employees were engaged in homosexual activity, which was then illegal. Cornwall then sued for libel but lost because three men testified to having had sexual relations with him. He was subsequently indicted for committing criminal sexual acts, but was acquitted (Morris Kaplan, Sodom on the Thames, pp. 176–78).
16.1204: Mrs Grundy
Mrs Grundy: a personification of middle-class propriety, after the character in the play Speed the Plough (1798) by English writer Thomas Morton (c.1764–1838) (Brewer’s).
16.1210: filip
Filip: ‘Something that serves to rouse, excite, or animate; a stimulus’ (OED); usually spelt fillip.
16.1212: not caring a continental
That is, not caring at all. Not worth a continental: worth nothing (Brewer’s).
16.1226: submerged tenth
Submerged tenth: the segment of society in perpetual poverty (OED, s.v. submerged); coined by ‘General’ William Booth (1829–1912), founder of the Salvation Army, in his popular and widely discussed book, In Darkest England; and the Way Out (1890), where he claimed that 10 per cent of the population of England—3,000,000 people—were destitute (p. 23).
16.1227: To improve the shining hour
From Isaac Watts’s (English theologian, 1674–1748) poem and hymn ‘Against Idleness and Mischief ’: ‘How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour’ (ll. 1–2; Divine and Moral Songs for Children, p. 38).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1115
16.1229: Philip Beaufoy See note at 4.502–03.
16.1230–31: rate of one guinea per column See note at 4.503–04.
16.1232: pink edition extra sporting of the Telegraph
The ‘Last Pink’ edition of the Evening Telegraph (see note at 2.412) contained late sporting results that were not in other newspapers.
16.1235: postcard was addressed A. Boudin See note at 16.489.
16.1237–38: give us this day our daily press See note at 4.82.
16.1239: H. du Boyes, agent for typewriters
The Evening Telegraph for 16 June 1904 does not include this advertisement, but Thom’s lists ‘H. Boyes, agent for Williams’ Type Writer and Supplies’ at 5 Upper Ormond Quay (p. 1813).
16.1240: Great battle, Tokio
From the headline to a story about the Russo-Japanese War in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph: ‘THE WAR. / BIG BATTLE AT TELISSA. / Russian Defeat. / Japs Take 300 Prisoners and 14 Guns. / (Press Association War Special) / Tokio, Thursday’ (p. 2, col. i). Telissa (or Telissu) lies on the Liao-tung Peninsula, west of modern-day North Korea and now part of China. ‘Tokio’ was the preferred spelling in English until the early twentieth century.
16.1240–41: Lovemaking in Irish, £200 damages
Another headline in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph: ‘GAELIC LEAGUE AND LOVE AFFAIRS. / Breach of Promise Action from Kilkenny, / Amusing Correspondence. / Verdict for £200’ (p. 3, col. c). The lengthy article describes the suit brought by Miss Maggie Delaney, a young woman not yet 21, against Mr Frank P. Burke, an Inland Revenue officer and Gaelic League supporter for not proposing to her after having courted her. Miss Delaney won the case. The paper reports the feelings the jury expressed at the end of the trial: ‘laudable as the Gaelic movement was, and laudable as its desire was to preserve the Irish tongue, it was not to be made a vent under which men like the plaintiff were to be allowed to outrage the best instincts of men, and to tear and break women’s hearts.’
16.1241: Gordon Bennett
From the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph’s coverage of the Gordon Bennett race (see note at 6.369–70): ‘Gordon-Bennett Cup. / To-Morrow’s Contest’ (p. 2, col. f). A second story about an explosion that happened during the preparations for the race appeared on the next page: ‘The Motor Car Race / EXCITING SCENE IN HOMBURG / Racing Cars in Danger from Blazing Petrol’ (p. 3, col. b).
16.1241: Emigration Swindle
From the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph’s coverage of the Canada emigration swindle (see note at 7.383): ‘Bogus Emigration Agent. / Case in the Police Court’ (p. 3, col. b).
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1116 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.1241–42: Letter from His Grace. William ✠
That is, the Most Reverend William J. Walsh, the Archbishop of Dublin; see note at 5.325. The Cross Pattée, a cross with each arm spread or dovetailed, is used by Catholic bishops and archbishops along with their name (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Ecclesiastical Heraldry). See also note at 7.181 for the letter.
16.1242–44: Ascot meeting . . . long odds
The Evening Telegraph’s article on the Gold Cup makes no comparison between Throwaway and Sir Hugo (p. 3, col. h). Sir Hugo, which did win the 1892 Derby at 40–1 odds, was owned by Lord Bradford (SS, p. 165). In 1892, one week before the Epsom Derby, Captain Robert Marshall (English playwright, 1863–1910), then a lieutenant stationed in the West Indies, had a dream which he interpreted as predicting Sir Hugo would win the race. In 1903, after Marshall had become an established author, one of his former colleagues wrote about his dream for the London magazine M.A.P. (see note at 7.97) (Peter Fishback, JJON ).
16.1244: New York disaster. Thousand lives lost
From the headline in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph about the General Slocum (see note at 8.1146–47): ‘APPALLING AMERICAN DISASTER. / EXCURSION STEAMER ON FIRE. / 485 BODIES RECOVERED’ (p. 4, col. b).
16.1244–45: Foot and Mouth
That is, Mr Deasy’s letter on the subject. There was no such letter about foot and mouth disease in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph. See note at 2.321–22.
16.1245: Funeral of the late Mr Patrick Dignam
The 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph did not report on any of that day’s funerals, even fictitious ones such as Dignam’s.
16.1248: Hynes put it in, of course See note at 6.111.
16.1249–50: no 9 Newbridge Avenue, Sandymount
This property was unoccupied in 1904 (Thom’s, p. 1781); by 1905, a Mrs Bedford lived there (Thom’s 1905, p. 1838).
16.1253: obsequies
Obsequy: in plural, ‘A funeral rite or ceremony; a funeral. Also: a commemorative rite or service (performed at the grave of the deceased or elsewhere)’ (OED).
16.1253: at which many friends of the deceased were present
At this time, the generally accepted style for listing mourners in the newspaper report of the funeral had family members first, then clergy, then dignitaries such as politicians (if any), then close friends, and thereafter, anyone else, such as more casual acquaintances (with thanks to Ed Mulhall and Terence Killeen). See also note at 6.878.
16.1254–55: (certainly Hynes wrote it with a nudge from Corny) . . . and Son See note at 5.12–13.
16.1256: Bernard Corrigan (brother-in-law)
Paddy Dignam’s brother-in-law. He is mentioned but not named in ‘Hades’ (6.634). In ‘Wandering Rocks’, Patsy Dignam thought of his Uncle Barney (10.1127).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1117
16.1256–57: Jno. Henry Menton, solr.
Jno: abbreviation of John. Solr.: abbreviation of solicitor. See note at 6.568.
16.1257–58: .)eatondph . . . douradora
In a linotype machine—which produces one line of type at a time—when a typesetter made a mistake, he would quickly fill out the rest of the line by typing out random keys quickly. The slug with the incorrect line would then be extracted and replaced by the redone line. On a linotype composing machine, the leftmost column of letters, from top to bottom, are lower-case ‘e t a o i n’ and the next column is ‘s h r d l u’. Therefore, this sequence would be easy to type quickly in case of an error. Indeed, soon after the Freeman’s Journal starting using linotype machines, the string ‘etaoin shrdlu’ would occasionally appear as the result of compositors forgetting to remove slugs of garbled type (for example, 17 Apr. 1899, p. 6, col. b). One possibility is that Joyce misremembered ‘eatondph’ for ‘etaoin’. ‘Another alternative, and one which seems to have much to commend it, is that Joyce represents the compositor becoming distracted after typing John Power’s name and then producing a line of botched type while his mind was elsewhere’ (John Simpson, JJON). On the Rosenbach Manuscript, the botched line of type takes up exactly one line of the manuscript (f. 34).
16.1258–59: must be where he called Monks the dayfather about Keyes’s ad
Bloom imagines that Monks was the typesetter for the funeral report and that the botched line of type happened when Nannetti called out for him (7.186), thereby breaking his concentration. But it was not Monks who was setting the report when Bloom walked through the case-room, it was just an unnamed typesetter (7.204). See note at 7.25 for Keyes’s ad, note at 7.185 for Monks, and note at 7.195 for Dayfather.
16.1259: Thomas Kernan See note at 5.19–20.
16.1259: Stephen Dedalus
Stephen did not attend Dignam’s funeral.
16.1259–60: Edw. J. Lambert
That is, Ned Lambert; see note at 6.111.
16.1260–61: C P M‘Coy
McCoy (see note at 4.454) was not at the funeral; see note at 6.882.
16.1261: M‘Intosh
See note at 6.805. For the source of Hynes’s confusion, see 6.891–97.
16.1263: bitched type
Bitched: spoilt, bungled (OED, s.v. bitch).
16.1268: Is that first epistle to the Hebrews
There is only one epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament.
16.1269: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it
Stephen’s pun on foot and mouth disease employs a common colloquialism, ‘Every time I open my mouth, I put my foot in it’ (Brewer’s, s.vv. foot; bull).
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1118 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.1276: third event at Ascot on page three
Follows from the account of the Gold Cup race at Ascot in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph (p. 3, col. h). According to the Telegraph, Throwaway was in front right from the start. See also note at 14.1128–30.
16.1277–78: Value 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs . . . For entire colts and fillies
The purse for the Gold Cup was ‘1000 sovereigns with 3000 sovereigns in specie in add ition, out of which the second shall receive 700 sovs. and the third 300 sovs’ (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. h). That is, the winner receives £1,000 (sovereigns) and an additional £3000 is distributed amongst the top three horses, with £2,000 going to the winner, £700 to second place, and £300 to third. Entire: used of male animals that have not been castrated (OED).
16.1278: Mr F. Alexander’s Throwaway, b.h. by Rightaway-Thrale
B.h.: bay horse; bay is a reddish-brown colour and is one of the six official colours used for racehorses. This abbreviation h denotes that the horse is an uncastrated male (OED; Wray Vampleu amd Joyce Kay, Encyclopedia of British Horse Racing, p. 80). Throwaway’s parents were Rightaway and Theale (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. h). His owner was F. Alexander and his jockey was William Lane (see note at 14.1137). Thrale is Joyce’s mistake.
16.1279: lord Howard de Walden’s Zinfandel (M. Cannon) See note at 8.830–31.
16.1280: Mr W. Bass’s Sceptre
See notes at 7.388–89 and 10.511 for Spectre and note at 12.1221 for its owner, William Bass.
16.1280–81: 20 to 1 Throwaway (off)
Off: standard abbreviation for offered in reporting betting odds. From the Evening Telegraph: ‘20 to 1 agst Throwaway (off)’ (16 June 1904, p. 3, col. h; John Simpson, JJON).
16.1285: Winner trained by Braime
The name of Throwaway’s trainer was Braime (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. h).
16.1285–86: Lenehan’s version of the business . . . buncombe
Buncombe: humbug (OED); see also note at 14.1128–30 for Lenehan’s version of the business. On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘Lenehan gave wrong account of race’ (Notesheet Eumaeus 5.17).
16.1286–87: 1000 sovs with 3000 in specie See note at 16.1277–78.
16.1287–89: J. de Bremond’s . . . Maximum II
Maximum II’s (see note at 5.532–33) owner was a Frenchman named J. de Bremond (Evening Telegraph, 16 June 1904, p. 3, col. h).
16.1289: Lovemaking damages See note at 16.1240–41.
16.1298–99: Return of Parnell . . . said he saw him in South Africa See note at 6.923.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1119
16.1301: committee room no 15
Committee Room 15 in the British Houses of Parliament was the site of the meeting on 6 December 1890 in which the Irish Parliamentary Party split over the issue of Parnell’s affair with Katharine O’Shea. Timothy Michael Healy (see note at 7.800) led a majority of the Irish Parliamentary Party members that attempted to depose Parnell from his leadership. As the chair of the meeting, Parnell was able to block their move on a procedural technicality. His opponents responded by walking out of the meeting, leaving Parnell with a shattered party (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, pp. 584–95).
16.1303: marrowbones
Marrowbones: the knees (OED).
16.1304–05: The coffin they brought over was full of stones See note at 6.923.
16.1305: De Wet, the Boer general
There were rumours after Parnell’s death that General De Wet (see note at 8.435) was really Parnell. Michael Davitt addressed the issue in his book The Boer Fight for Freedom (1902): ‘Some of De Wet’s admirers trace a resemblance—on the evidence of one of his pictures—between himself and the late Mr Parnell, in general appearance; a comparison which may have given birth to the legend (believed in by some very romantic souls, I am told) that the greatest guerilla general of modern times is no other than the late leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party still in the flesh. There is a transient likeness to Mr. Parnell in De Wet, when the face is seen in profile, with the hat on, and covering the large head and broad forehead which were not conspicuous features in the physical structure of the Irish leader. The head and face are more powerful and massive than Mr. Parnell’s, but possess none of the refinement or handsome lines which gave to the latter’s looks, previous to his illness in 1887, their well-remembered impress of dignified attractiveness’ (p. 165).
16.1306: He made a mistake to fight the priests
Initially, the Irish Catholic Church withheld comment on Parnell’s affair, although this changed by November 1890. On 30 November, Archbishop Walsh (see note at 5.325) proclaimed: ‘If the Irish leader would not, or could not, give a public assurance that his honour was unsullied, the Party that takes him or retains him as leader can no longer count on the support of the bishops of Ireland’ (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 570). However, the catalyst for the schism in the Irish Parliamentary Party was the moral outrage of English Protestant Non-Conformists (Protestants who did not belong to the established Church of England), not Irish Catholics. Their indignation prompted Gladstone’s statement that the Liberal alliance was jeopardised by Parnell’s continued leadership of the Irish Party (Foster, Modern Ireland, p. 424).
16.1307: Bloom (properly so dubbed)
Up until this point in Ulysses, the narrative voice has primarily called Bloom ‘Mr Bloom’ (there are some exceptions: two headlines in ‘Aeolus’ (7.429 and 7.962), most of ‘Sirens’, parts of ‘Cyclops’, a few times in ‘Oxen’ (14.504, 14.507, 14.1393, 14.1401, and 14.1535), and the stage directions in ‘Circe’). From this point onwards—having been temporarily called ‘Boom’ from the typo in the Evening Telegraph—he is called simply ‘Bloom’ (with one exception: see note at 17.314–15).
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1120 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.1308: in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels
Tar-barrels are used to make bonfires, particularly ones for executing criminals (OED).
16.1309–10: it was twenty odd years
Odysseus returned home to Ithaca twenty years after he set out for Troy, whereas in 1904 Parnell had only been dead for thirteen years.
16.1313: Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia
Parnell’s death certificate indicates five days of rheumatic fever, excessive fever, and a weak heart as the causes of his death. Already in frail health, he fell ill after giving a speech in the rain in County Galway on 27 September 1891; he died on 6 October (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, pp. 4, 607).
16.1313–14: just when his various different . . . nearing completion
Untrue. ‘Parnell’s death coincided with the nadir of his political fortune’ (Frank Callanan, The Parnell Split, p. 171).
16.1316: after a wetting See note at 16.1313.
16.1316–17: failing to consult a specialist
In his final month, Parnell declined to be examined by Sir Henry Thompson, a specialist whom he had consulted in London, reportedly because he was reluctant to pay his travel expenses (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, pp. 606, 608).
16.1320: nobody being acquainted with his movements even before
The public revelation of Parnell’s affair with Katharine O’Shea was received with great shock by the general public, even though it had been an open secret amongst his friends and associates for many years (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, pp. 536–38, 542).
16.1321–22: Alice, where art thou
‘Alice, Where Art Thou?’: a song by Wellington Guernsey (Irish composer, poet, and soldier, 1817–85) and Joseph Ascher (Dutch-Jewish composer, 1829–69). It tells of a forlorn lover looking for his mate only to discover that she has died (Bowen, pp. 311–12).
16.1322–23: aliases such as Fox and Stewart See note at 15.1762.
16.1326: commanding figure, a sixfooter
‘Parnell was always a good-looking man. One who knew him in his twenties described him as tall, slim and handsome “with the figure and face of a Greek statue” ’ (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 47).
16.1328–29: ruled the roost . . . few and far between
Among the main figures who emerged after Parnell’s downfall and death were Timothy Healy (see note at 7.800), John Redmond (see note at 15.4685), and Justin McCarthy (see note at 15.4684). None was as successful as Parnell.
16.1329–30: idol with feet of clay
This expression is used for someone held in high esteem but later found to have serious weaknesses (Brewer’s); from the Book of Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a statue
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1121 made of gold, silver, brass, and iron, but with clay feet. Daniel interprets this to mean that ‘the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken’ (Daniel 2:42).
16.1330: seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on him
Including Parnell himself, there were seventy-two members of the Irish Parliamentary Party present at the meeting in Committee Room 15 (see note at 16.1301). Of those seventy- two, forty-five walked out of the meeting and twenty-six stayed with Parnell (Callanan, The Parnell Split, p. 53).
16.1331–32: And the identical same with murderers. You had to come back See note at 13.1254–55.
16.1334–35: they broke up the type in the Insuppressible or was it United Ireland
United Ireland was founded in 1881 as a pro-Parnell newspaper. In December 1890, Matthew Bodkin, its acting editor, turned against Parnell, who then dismissed Bodkin and took control of the paper himself. On 10 December, anti-Parnellites occupied the paper’s offices, and the next day Parnell and his supporters stormed the building and retook control (without breaking up the printing presses). The anti-Parnellites then created their own newspaper, the Insuppressible (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, pp. 587–88).
16.1335–36: handed him his silk hat when it was knocked off
During the storming of the offices of United Ireland on 11 December 1890, Parnell was indeed hatless. An eyewitness recounts: ‘His face was ghastly pale save only that on either cheek a hectic crimson spot was glowing. His hat was now off, his hair dishevelled, the dust of conflict begrimed his well-brushed coat’ (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 588).
16.1337–38: the little misadventure mentioned between the cup and the lip
After the proverb, ‘There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip’, that is, success is never certain and plans can always go awry (Brewer’s, s.v. cup).
16.1338–39: what’s bred in the bone See note at 1.598.
16.1339–40: set the terrier
The terrier was originally bred to pursue its ‘quarry (the fox, badger, etc.) into its burrow or earth’ (OED). Possibly alludes to Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, when he is attacked by Eumaeus’s dogs: ‘Suddenly the wild-baying dogs caught sight of Odysseus. They ran at him with a great outcry and Odysseus prudently sat down on the ground, and the staff fell out of his hand. But there, beside his own steading, he might have endured a shameful mauling, but the swineherd, quick and light on his feet, came hurrying to him across the porch, and let fall from his hand the shoe he was holding. He shouted at the dogs and scared them in every direction’ (Odyssey, XIV.29–35; Senn, Inductive Scrutinies, p. 162).
16.1343–46: like the claimant in the Tichborne case . . . Bellew was it
Refers to a famous case of faked identity, in which Arthur Orton (1834–98), alias Thomas Castro, a butcher from Australia, claimed to be Roger Charles Tichborne (1829–54), the heir of Sir James Francis Tichborne (1784–1862), who drowned at sea on a ship called the Bella. In 1865, Orton came forward to claim the estate and, despite his lack of resemblance to the deceased, his mother, Lady Tichborne, believed him. After much legal manoeuvring, he was proven to be an imposter when Lord Bellew, a schoolmate of Roger
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1122 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Tichborne, testified that he had tattooed the initials ‘R. C. T.’ on his friend and Orton had no such mark. In 1873, he was found guilty of perjury (EB11, s.v. The Tichborne claimant). Upon his release from prison, Dan Lowrey (see note at 10.495) invited him to plead his case at his music hall in front of a jeering audience (Eugene Watters and Matthew Murtagh, Infinite Variety, pp. 80–81).
16.1349: A more prudent course
This is exactly what Odysseus did when he returned to Ithaca in Books XIII and XIV of the Odyssey. Following Athena’s advice, he disguises himself and, at first, stays with the hospit able swineherd Eumaeus whilst assessing the situation with the suitors in his house. Guided by extreme caution, he even tests the virtue of his son Telemachus before revealing his identity to him.
16.1352: That bitch, that English whore
That is, Katharine O’Shea (1845–1921), Parnell’s lover and eventually his wife (1890–91); see also note at 2.394. Timothy Healy (see note at 7.800) described her as ‘a proved British prostitute’ in a speech made not long after Parnell’s death (Callanan, The Parnell Split, p. 187).
16.1352: shebeen See note at 12.802.
16.1354: the soi-disant townclerk Henry Campbell
The cabdriver is not the one who has remarked on his resemblance to Henry Campbell (see note at 16.661) and thus he is not really a soi-disant (self-proclaimed) Henry Campbell.
16.1355: She loosened many a man’s thighs
There is no evidence that Katharine O’Shea was unfaithful with anyone but Parnell, and they married soon after her divorce in 1890 (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 563). The cabdriver’s invective against Katharine O’Shea echoes Eumaeus’s lamentation to the disguised Odysseus: ‘So my lord would have done much for me if he had grown old here, / but he perished, as I wish Helen’s seed could all have perished, / pitched away, for she has unstrung the knees of so many / men’ (XIV.67–70); the Butcher and Lang translation reads here: ‘the loosening of many a man’s knees’ (p. 224). On a notesheet Joyce wrote, ‘Eum. curses Helen’ (Notesheet Eumaeus 6.102).
16.1356: husband was a captain or an officer
Katharine’s first husband was Captain William Henry O’Shea (1840–1905), an officer in the 18th Hussars. He married Katharine in 1867 and, after experimenting with several business schemes, became MP for County Clare in 1880 (DIB).
16.1357: cottonball See note at 12.1349.
16.1359: entourage
Entourage (French): a group of people who surround or accompany someone; Anglicised since the mid-nineteenth century (OED).
16.1363: with the usual affectionate letters that passed between them
Love letters between Parnell and Katharine O’Shea became evidence at the divorce trial in November 1890 (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 550).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1123
16.1368–69: though the thing was public property all along See note at 16.1320.
16.1372: proclaim it to the rank and file from the housetops
To proclaim from the house-top: ‘To announce something in the most public manner possible’ (Brewer’s); from Luke 12:3: ‘For whatsoever things you have spoken in darkness, shall be published in the light: and that which you have spoken in the ear in the chambers, shall be preached on the housetops.’
16.1374: literally electrifying everybody See note at 13.564.
16.1376–77: scrambling out of an upstairs apartment . . . a ladder
During the O’Sheas’ divorce trial, their cook, Caroline Pethers, testified that on several occasions Parnell escaped from the O’Sheas’ house by means of two rope fire escapes in order to avoid being caught by Captain O’Shea. Although many people believed the story to be a fabrication, it became a joke in music halls and increased Parnell’s public humili ation (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 553).
16.1378: lubric
Lubric: wanton or lascivious (OED).
16.1379–80: it was simply a case of the husband not being up to scratch
Although the O’Sheas were more often apart than together over the course of their thirteen- year marriage, their relationship was evidently not without affection. It seems that Captain O’Shea turned a blind eye to his wife’s affair with Parnell for the sake of his own political advancement. Apparently he had previously agreed to a de facto rather than real divorce, partly to safeguard his claims to a share of Katharine’s inheritance from her aunt, who finally died in May 1889. As it worked out, though, O’Shea had no claim on any of the £7 million fortune (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, pp. 534–35).
16.1382–83: falling a victim to her siren charms and forgetting home ties
Recalls Circe’s warning about the Sirens in the Odyssey: ‘You will come first of all to the Sirens, who are enchanters / of all mankind and whoever comes their way; and that man / who unsuspecting approaches them, and listens to the Sirens / singing, has no prospect of coming home and delighting / his wife and little children’ (XII.39–43).
16.1388: A magnificent specimen of manhood
Various pictorial supplements published in the Weekly Freeman’s (see note at 7.94) in the 1880s depicted Parnell as a manly man in the prime of his manliness as he challenged British authorities (‘Hide and Seek’, 4 Aug. 1888) or protected young women meant to allegorically represent Ireland (‘Love’s Device’, 17 Jan. 1885; ‘The Labourer is Worthy of His Hire’, 14 Apr. 1883).
16.1390–91: farewell, my gallant captain
This phrase appears in Act I of the opera Maritana (see note at 5.563), in which Don Cæsar vanquishes a cruel and merciless captain of the guard in a duel: ‘Farewell, my gallant Captain! / I told you how ’twould be; / You’ll not forget, brave captain, / The lesson due to me! / Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!’ (Bowen, p. 313).
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1124 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.1391: the 18th hussars See note at 16.1356.
16.1395: priests and ministers of the gospel
Minister of the gospel: a Protestant clergymen (OED, s.v. minister). See note at 16.1306 for the reaction of both Irish Catholic and English Non-Conformist Protestants to the revelation of Parnell’s affair.
16.1396: his beloved evicted tenants See note at 15.1882.
16.1397: yeoman service See note at 14.686.
16.1399–1400: heaping coals of fire on his head
To heap coals of fire on the head of a foe: ‘To melt down his animosity by deeds of kindness’ (Brewer’s). After Proverbs 25:21–22: ‘If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat: if he thirst, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap hot coals upon his head, and the Lord will reward thee.’
16.1400: fabled ass’s kick
Refers to Aesop’s fable of the ass and the wolf: the ass has a thorn stuck in his hoof and persuades a passing wolf to remove it. After the wolf has removed the thorn with his teeth, the ass ‘lashed out with his heels against the tawny beast while his mouth was still open, smashing in his whole face, snout and jaws alike’ (Babrius and Phaedrus, Fables, p. 159).
16.1401: retrospective kind of arrangement See note at 6.150.
16.1404: Irishtown strand
The seashore in Irishtown, on the south side of Dublin. In fact, Bloom has been to Irishtown twice on 16 June: first to join the Dignam funeral procession in ‘Hades’ and later, in ‘Nausicaa’, he was on the strand itself after advising Mrs Dignam (who lives nearby) on Paddy’s life insurance policy.
16.1408–09: she also was Spanish or half so
Katharine O’Shea was not half-Spanish, but Captain O’Shea had many Spanish relations and shortly after their marriage the couple lived in Spain, where he pursued some business projects (DIB).
16.1412: about blood and the sun See note at 8.9.
16.1414: The king of Spain’s daughter See note at 15.4585.
16.1415–16: farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions . . . Scilly
Garbles several lines from the ballad ‘Spanish Ladies’: ‘Farewell and adieu to you Spanish ladies’; ‘From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues’; ‘The first land we made it is called the Deadman, / Then Ramhead off Scilly, Start, Northland, Isle of Wight’ (Bauerle, pp. 27–28). Deadman’s Point is across from Plymouth in Cornwall, the nearby Ramhead is a headland
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1125 on Cornwall’s coast, and the Scilly Isles are a group of 140 islands off Land’s End, Cornwall. This was a song Joyce liked to sing (Ellmann, p. 154 n.). See note at 17.309–10 for Spanish onions.
16.1419–20: especially there, it was as she lived there. So, Spain See note at 16.1408–09.
16.1421: Sweets of
That is, The Sweets of Sin; see note at 10.606.
16.1422: that Capel street library book See note at 4.360.
16.1432: In Old Madrid See note at 11.733.
16.1435: Lafayette of Westmoreland street See note at 14.1221–22.
16.1444: barely sweet sixteen
After the romantic ballad ‘When You Were Sweet Sixteen’ (1898) by James Thornton (1861–1938). ‘ “Sweet Sixteen” has the feel of a sweet Irish melody, even though it was written in America for American audiences’ (Michael Lasser, America’s Songs II, p. 13).
16.1447: posed for the ensemble
To pose for the ensemble: to pose naked (Harald Beck, JJON).
16.1450–51: he had seen those Grecian statues . . . National Museum
For the statues and the National Museum, see note at 8.921–22. See also 8.920–32 and 9.609–17.
16.1453: Saint Joseph’s sovereign thievery
Perhaps an allusion to Joseph’s suspicions towards Mary’s infidelity as told in Taxil’s Vie de Jésus; see note at 3.161–62. The word thievery is barely legible on the Rosenbach fair copy (f. 39) and was omitted by the typist (JJA, vol. 15, p. 396); see the following note.
16.1453–54: alors (Bandez!) Figne toi trop
Alors (Bandez!) (French): All right (get a hard on!). Figne (French obscenity from the late nineteenth century): anus (Napoléon Hayard, Dictionnaire Argot-Français). The phrase ‘Figne toi trop’ is mangled, illogical, and non-grammatical; literally, it translates as ‘ass-hole you too much’. The phrase ‘Figne toi’ sounds similar to ‘Pougne toi’ (masturbate). Presumably, the French is Stephen’s mental interjection. The Rosenbach Manuscript is not entirely clear, so the typist had exceptional problems with this passage and mispunctuated it, omitting six barely legible words, which include the French interjection (Rosenbach f. 39; JJA, vol. 15, p. 396). Gabler admits that his transcription and editorial restoration here are ‘tentative’ (UCSE, p. 1751). Considering that the statues in the National Museum have just been mentioned, this might be a reference to an anecdote recounted in the Pseudo- Lucian’s Affairs of the Heart, in which a young man was so enamoured of the Venus of Praxiteles (see note at 9.616) that he locked himself in the temple with the statue overnight and tried to make love to it. ‘These marks of his amorous embraces were seen after day
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1126 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses came and the goddess had the blemish to prove what she’d suffered’ (Lucian, p. 177, quoted in Valérie Bénéjam, ‘Stephen and the Venus of Praxiteles’, p. 72).
16.1454–55: Whereas no photo could because it simply wasn’t art
In his early commonplace notebook, Joyce wrote: ‘Can a photograph be a work of art?’ Answer: ‘A photograph is a disposition of sensible matter and may be so disposed for an aesthetic end but it is not a human disposition of sensible matter. Therefore it is not a work of art’ (Scholes and Kain, The Workshop of Dædalus, p. 55; NLI I.ii ff. 11v, 13v).
16.1456: Jack Tar’s
Jack Tar: a sailor (Partridge); and see note at 16.479.
16.1457: a very few minutes
Joyce took this phrase from Queen Victoria’s published diary, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868): ‘A very few minutes brought us to the celebrated ford of the Tarff’ (p. 233; Ronan Crowley, ‘The Queen is Not a Subject’, p. 201; NLI II.i.2 f. 8r).
16.1463: inward voice See note at 14.1007.
16.1467: while gauging her symmetry See note at 7.166–70.
16.1468: embonpoint See note at 10.616.
16.1470–71: I looked for the lamp which she told me
From Thomas Moore’s ‘The Song of O’Ruark, Prince of Breffni’: ‘I look’d for the lamp which, she told me, / Should shine when her Pilgrim return’d’ (Moore’s Irish Melodies, p. 91). For Tiernan O’Rourke, Prince of Breffni, see note at 2.393.
16.1472–73: book about Ruby with met him pike hoses ( sic ) See note at 4.339 for metempsychosis and note at 4.346 for Ruby.
16.1474–75: with apologies to Lindley Murray
Lindley Murray (1745–1826), an American-born Quaker minister, wrote the standard English grammar textbook of his time, Grammar of the English Language (1795). ‘By 1850 Murray’s grammar book had sold nearly two million copies, in Britain alone it went through 65 editions, and because it was reprinted in the United States and was also used throughout Europe, India, and other parts of the British Empire, it was a major contributor to the development of English as a world language’ (John Algeo and Carmen Acevedo Butcher, The Origins and Development of the English Language, p. 173). The ‘apologies’ refer to Molly‘s solecism ‘It must have fell down’ (4.326).
16.1477: distingué
Distingué (French): distinguished; Anglicised since the early nineteenth century (OED).
16.1482: splash page
Splash: ‘The prominent display in a newspaper of an advertisement, headline, or story; the material so displayed’ (OED); Ulysses is the earliest example cited in the OED for this usage, but there are earlier examples not cited therein; from The Maelstrom (1916) by Frank Froest:
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1127 ‘A double column portrait of “William Smith” appeared on the splash page’ (p. 160; with thanks to Harald Beck).
16.1490–91: the decree nisi and the King’s proctor tries to show cause why
A divorce is first granted provisionally by a decree nisi (Latin: unless) (see note at 12.1159). After a period of time (often, but not necessarily, six months), unless a complaint or new fact arises to prevent the divorce, a ‘decree absolute’ is granted. However, an Irish petitioner resident in Ireland was not eligible to secure a decree absolute. ‘The King’s (or Queen’s) Proctor is the legal advisor of the Crown whose duty it is to intervene in in divorce suits, after a decree nisi has been pronounced, and before the decree is made absolute, if he has reason to suspect collusion between the parties to the suit’ (Every Man’s Own Lawyer, cited in Peter Kuch, Irish Divorce/Joyce ‘Ulysses’, p. 211). ‘On 17 November 1890, after two days of unchallenged evidence against his wife and Parnell, Captain W. H. O’Shea obtained a decree nisi of divorce. The evidence rendered Parnell ludicrous as well as dishonourable’ (Callanan, The Parnell Split, p. 9).
16.1496: Erin’s uncrowned king
‘Erin’s uncrowned king’: an epithet once bestowed on Daniel O’Connell and later applied to Parnell, first by Timothy Healy at a rally in Toronto in 1880 (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 223).
16.1498: mantle of adultery
From the sermon by Richard Blacow in which he accused the recently deceased Queen Caroline of adultery (see note at 15.1757).
16.1500–01: penetrated into the printing works . . . United Ireland See note at 16.1334–35.
16.1503: O’Brienite scribes
In December 1890, Matthew Bodkin (see note at 16.1334–35) was standing in as acting editor of United Ireland for its regular editor, William O’Brien (Irish nationalist leader and journalist, 1852–1928), who was in America raising funds for Irish tenants evicted in the recent agrarian disputes. O’Brien put his support behind the anti-Parnellites while he was in America (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 603).
16.1505: Though palpably a radically altered man
During the struggle over the leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Parnell’s appearance degenerated from his previous customary fastidiousness. A journalist, who had not seen Parnell for several years, wrote that he was ‘less studied in his attire than formerly. His face was paler, his hair more meagre and it was unkempt and long at the back’ (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, p. 587).
16.1508: their idol had feet of clay See note at 16.1329–30.
16.1518: stake in the country
Parnell inherited the estate of Avondale (built in 1777), near Rathdrum in County Wicklow, from his father (DIB).
16.1520: bred in the bone See note at 16.1338–39.
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16.1524: ornament of the legal profession
Ornament: ‘A person who enhances or adds distinction to his or her sphere’ (OED). That is, John Henry Menton; see note at 6.568.
16.1526–27: after the burial of a mutual friend . . . in his glory
After the final line of the poem ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore’ by Charles Wolfe (Irish poet and clergyman, 1791–1823): ‘But we left him alone with his glory’ (l. 32).
16.1533–34: unless it ensued . . . to be a party to it
It is almost certain that Captain O’Shea knew of the affair between his wife and Parnell; see note at 16.1539.
16.1534–35: usual boy Jones
The boy Jones: a secret informant (Partridge).
16.1539: promising to sever the connection and not receive his visits any more
On 13 July 1881, Captain O’Shea challenged Parnell to a duel. The duel never happened because Katharine O’Shea managed to convince her husband that her affair with Parnell was over. At the divorce trial in 1890, Captain O’Shea testified that he had believed his wife’s assurances. However, there remains some doubt about the veracity of his statement since the evidence suggests that O’Shea was aware of the affair for its full duration (Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy, pp. 364–67).
16.1550: liaisons
See note at 16.1065.
16.1551: fair and forty
Fair and forty: a common catchphrase from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for an older, attractive woman (John Simpson, JJON).
16.1555: nice dose See note at 8.101.
16.1558: conditio sine qua non
Conditio sine qua non (Latin): the fundamental or indispensable condition (see also note at 16.813).
16.1559: Miss Ferguson See 15.4950.
16.1560: lodestar
Lodestar: A ‘guiding star; that on which one’s attention or hopes are fixed’ (OED).
16.1564: complimentplaying
The usual expression is to pay someone a compliment, not play. Joyce clearly wrote ‘complimentplaying’ on the Rosenbach Manuscript (f. 42); the typist typed ‘compliment paying’ (JJA, vol. 15, p. 397), which Joyce corrected to ‘complimentpaying’ on a galley proof (JJA, vol. 20, p. 361), thereby restoring the compound word, but neglecting the original malapropism, which was how this word appeared in all editions before Gabler’s.
16.1570: eggflip made on unadulterated maternal nutriment
Eggflip: eggnog; made with raw eggs, milk, nutmeg, and rum or brandy (OED).
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16.1571: Humpty Dumpty
That is, an egg; after the nursery rhyme that dates back to at least 1803. In the nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty is not explicitly an egg, but is usually interpreted as such (ODNR, pp. 213–16).
16.1577: The day before yesterday
Not necessarily so: in ‘Telemachus,’ Stephen ‘let honey trickle over a slice of the loaf ’ (1.476–77) and a little later Mulligan says to him, ‘You have eaten all we left, I suppose’ (1.524).
16.1578: Literally astounded See note at 13.564.
16.1582: quasi
Quasi (Latin): almost, as it were; Anglicised since the late fifteenth century.
16.1583: Buckshot Forster days
William Edward ‘Buckshot’ Forster (1818–86): English MP and Irish Chief Secretary from May 1880 to May 1882. ‘The sobriquet “Buckshot”, by which he became known, derived from the previous administration’s decision that the RIC should use buckshot in riots, to avoid accidental death from stray rounds of ball’ (DIB). ‘There has been so much injustice in Irish history that the anomaly by which this marginally humanitarian administrative gesture, which was not his, should have earned the well-meaning Forster an ineradicable reputation for brutality must seem of trifling importance’ (Kee, The Green Flag, p. 382 n.).
16.1585: evicted tenants’ question See notes at 15.1882 and 16.606.
16.1592: step farther than Michael Davitt
See note at 15.4684 for Davitt and note at 12.1122–23 for the Brehon laws he advocated.
16.1593: backtothelander
Back to the Land was the title of a pamphlet from 1881—first published in serial form in the Freeman’s Journal—by Thomas Nulty (1818–98), the Catholic bishop of Meath. Nulty advocated for the ‘reform of the Irish land tenure system for the benefit of the tenant farmer class to which he belonged’ (DIB). Ultimately, Nulty argues against private ownership of land: ‘Now a system of land tenure which thus despoils the people of a nation of a vast amount of their earnings, which transfers a valuable property which they have created by the patient, painful and self-denying efforts of their labor, to a class who do not labor at all, and make no sacrifices whatever, can, I think, be fairly characterized as a system of national spoliation’ (Back to the Land, pp. 58–59).
16.1602: destruction of the fittest
This inversion of Herbert Spencer’s phrase ‘the survival of the fittest’ (see note at 14.1285) was itself a common catchphrase, appearing in anti-Evolutionary tracts and other contexts (John Simpson, JJON).
16.1609: Ontario Terrace
Ontario Terrace, in Rathmines, runs just south of the Grand Canal. The Blooms lived at Ontario Terrace around 1897–98, after living at Holles Street and before moving to Eccles
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16.1611: Sandymount or Sandycove
The Martello Tower in ‘Telemachus’ is located in Sandycove. Sandymount (where ‘Proteus’ and ‘Nausicaa’ are set) is considerably closer to central Dublin. There is also a Martello Tower in Sandymount; see note at 13.44–45.
16.1621: a cup of Epps’s cocoa
Epps’s Cocoa, manufactured by James Epps and Company of Holland Street, Blackfriars, London was a popular brand in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. According to its advertisements it was ‘[t]he most nutritious [. . .] grateful and comforting [. . .] for breakfast and supper [. . .] with natural flavour only’ (Irish Examiner, 17 Aug. 1901, p. 1, col. h).
16.1623: as warm as a toast on a trivet
Conflates two different catchphrases, ‘warm as toast’ (Robert Allen, Allen’s Dictionary of English Phrases, s.v. warm) and ‘right as a trivet’, stable or thoroughly right, from trivet: a three-footed stand (OED).
16.1625–26: that merry old soul See note at 8.394.
16.1626: grasswidower See note at 7.539.
16.1629–30: Sheriff street lower
Lower Sheriff Street runs east of the Amiens Street railway terminal and, in 1904, was populated by tenements and low-rent houses (Thom’s, p. 1593).
16.1631: the mermaids’
Mermaid: sixteenth-century expression for a courtesan (Brewer’s).
16.1635: potheen
Potheen (or poteen or poitín) (Hiberno-English): ‘home-made (illicit) spirits, once distilled from potatoes in a little pot (hence the name)’ (Dolan, s.v. poitín).
16.1635: blarney See note at 7.984.
16.1637: passim
Passim (Latin): here and there; Anglicised since the seventeenth century (OED).
16.1638: blood and ouns champion
See note at 1.21–22 for ‘blood and ’ouns’; used here in reference to the Citizen.
16.1640: The most vulnerable point too of tender Achilles See note at 16.1003.
16.1642: Carrick-on-Shannon
Carrick-on-Shannon: ‘a small town, deriving its sole importance from being the county town of Leitrim’ (John Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 300). It is 145 km to the west-north-west of Dublin.
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16.1642: county Sligo See note at 14.614–15.
16.1645: My diggings are quite close
Diggings: lodgings or accommodation (OED). 7 Eccles Street is 1.6 km distant from the cabman’s shelter.
16.1651: Brazen Head See note at 16.168–69.
16.1653: prize titbits See note at 4.502.
16.1654: concert tours in English watering resorts See note at 16.518.
16.1654: hydros
See note at 16.520.
16.1655–56: duets in Italian with the accent perfectly true True: accurate (OED). See note at 4.327–28.
16.1657: the world and his wife
The world and his wife: proverbial for ‘everyone’; from Swift’s Polite Conversation, ‘Why; there was all the World, and his Wife’ (p. 175).
16.1657: from the housetops See note at 16.1372.
16.1662–63: the former viceroy, earl Cadogan . . . the cabdrivers’ association dinner
George Henry Cadogan (1840–1915), 5th Earl Cadogan: Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1895 to 1902 (ODNB). The dinner for the Cabdrivers’ Benevolent Association in London, at which he presided, took place on 27 June 1904 (London Times, 28 June 1904, p. 6, col. f; SS, pp. 230–31).
16.1666–67: sir Anthony MacDonnell had left Euston . . . secretary’s lodge
Sir Antony MacDonnell (1844–1925): the Under Secretary to Ireland (Thom’s, pp. vi, 398); the mistake in his name is Joyce’s. The Under Secretary resided at a different lodge than the Chief Secretary. The London Times of 17 June 1904 reported that ‘Sir Antony MacDonnell left Euston yesterday for the Under-Secretary’s lodge, Phoenix-park, Dublin’ (p. 6, col. c). No Dublin paper carried this story (SS, p. 231).
16.1669: the ancient mariner See note at 16.844.
16.1677: cove
Cove: fellow or chap; originally thieves’ cant (OED).
16.1680: The Arabian Nights Entertainment
The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment (or The Thousand and One Nights): a collection of medieval Arabic stories. The collection was published in a full, unexpurgated English version, translated by Sir Richard Burton, in 1885–88 (Brewer’s).
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16.1680–81: Red as a Rose is She
Red as a Rose is She (1870): a romantic novel by Rhoda Broughton (1840–1920). Broughton’s ‘heroines are independent-minded, sometimes foolishly over-impetuous, extremely open in voicing their feelings, and deplore all kinds of mid-Victorian stuffiness. Broughton’s story-lines and situations were often considered risqué’ (ODNB).
16.1683: found drowned
There is no ‘found drowned’ story in the Evening Telegraph of 16 June 1904, although there is a story with the headline ‘Rescue from Drowning’ (p. 3, col. e). See note at 3.471.
16.1683: exploits of King Willow
King Willow: cricket (OED, s.v. king); since cricket bats are made of willow.
16.1683–84: Iremonger having made a hundred and something . . . for Notts
The 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph reported on a cricket match between Nottingham (Notts) and Kent. The game was still in progress when the paper went to press—and, indeed, it resumed the following day. As they were going to press, they have the Nottingham player James Iremonger on 155 not out with Nottingham at 290 for two wickets (p. 3, col. f). They also include a stop-press score of 330 for two (col. g).
16.1697: literally See note at 13.564.
16.1698: the last of the Mohicans
Last of the Mohicans: the last of anything (Partridge); from the title of James Fenimore Cooper’s novel (see note at 12.184–85).
16.1699: for all who ran to read
After the proverbial expression ‘he who runs may read’ (Dent; ODEP), the idea being that the text is so large and legible that it can be read by someone running by. The proverb derives from Habakkuk 2:2: ‘And the Lord answered me, and said: Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables: that he that readeth it may run over it’.
16.1700: do
Do.: abbreviation for ditto (OED).
16.1701: Wetherup See note at 7.337.
16.1702: séance
Séance (French): a sitting, a gathering; Anglicised—usually omitting the accent—since the late eighteenth century (OED).
16.1704: élite
Élite (French): the choice part of society or a group of people; Anglicised—usually omitting the accent—since the early nineteenth century (OED).
16.1705–06: dolce far niente See note at 5.32.
16.1716: his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles See note at 16.1003.
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1133
16.1727: the arms of Murphy
To be in the arms of Murphy: to be asleep (Partridge); see also note at 16.947–48.
16.1727–28: dreaming of fresh fields and pastures new See note at 16.632–33.
16.1728: apropos See note at 16.44.
16.1728: coffin of stones See note at 6.923.
16.1729–30: stoning to death on the part of . . . odd constituencies
In 1890, Parnell’s Irish Parliamentary Party held 86 of the 103 parliamentary constituencies in Ireland (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 62, 64); see note at 16.1330. The phrase ‘stoning to death’ suggests the many Biblical stonings. Perhaps the best-known story is that of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr (Acts 7:55–60).
16.1735: across Beresford place
Bloom and Stephen will walk north-east towards Eccles Street via Lower Gardiner Street, which intersects Beresford Place across from the rear of the Custom House.
16.1735–36: Wagnerian music . . . was a bit too heavy for Bloom
Bloom is not the first (nor would he be the last) to find Wagner’s music heavy. For example, in Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Nietzsche calls Wagner’s overture to the Meistersinger ‘magnificent, overcharged, heavy, late art’ (p. 173).
16.1737–38: Mercadante’s Huguenots, Meyerbeer’s . . . on the Cross
Bloom confused the composers Mercadante and Meyerbeer in ‘Sirens’ (see note at 11.1275) and in ‘Cyclops’ (see note at 12.1804). For Mercadante’s Seven Last Words on the Cross, see note at 5.403–04. For Meyerbeer’s Huguenots, see note at 8.623–24.
16.1738–39: Mozart’s Twelfth Mass he simply revelled in, the Gloria See note at 5.404.
16.1740: literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat
To knock into a cocked hat: to damage, to defeat (Partridge). See note at 13.564 for literally.
16.1742: Moody and Sankey hymns
Dwight L. Moody (1837–99) and Ira D. Sankey (1840–1908) were a team of American evangelists, who edited collections of Protestant hymns popularised by the Salvation Army (Brewer’s).
16.1742–43: Bid me to live and I will live thy protestant to be
The first two lines from Robert Herrick’s (1591–1674) poem ‘To Anthea, Who May Command Him Anything’ (1648). The poem was adapted into a song on at least two occasions: once by Henry Lawes, into a song known as ‘Bid Me to Live’, and again by John L. Hatton (1809–86). Neither, however, is a hymn (Bowen, p. 318).
16.1744: Rossini’s Stabat Mater See note at 5.397–98.
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1134 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.1747–48: the jesuit fathers’ church in upper Gardiner street See note at 10.2.
16.1752–53: light opera of the Don Giovanni description
Although it contains much humour, Mozart’s Don Giovanni (see note at 4.314) is hardly light opera, a term better applied to more popular entertainments.
16.1753: Martha
Martha (see note at 7.58) is a better example of light opera.
16.1753: penchant
Penchant (French): inclination, tendency; Anglicised since the seventeenth century (OED).
16.1754–55: severe classical school such as Mendelssohn
Bloom’s assessment of Felix Mendelssohn (see note at 12.1804) is not entirely accurate. ‘To a large degree, his music reflects a fundamental tension between Classicism and Romanticism in the generation of German composers after Beethoven’ (Grove).
16.1756: par excellence
Par excellence (French): above all; Anglicised since the sixteenth century (OED).
16.1756–57: Lionel’s air in Martha, M’appari See note at 11.587.
16.1762: Shakespeare’s songs, at least of in or about that period
The consensus among Shakespeare scholars is that Shakespeare did not himself write the music that accompanied the songs in his plays, but that these pieces were written by others (John Long, Shakespeare’s Use of Music, p. 54). Joyce, like Stephen, had great enthusiasm for the songs and poems of the Elizabethan period (Ellmann, p. 150). From A Portrait: ‘His mind when wearied of its search for the essence of beauty amid the spectral words of Aristotle or Aquinas turned often for its pleasure to the dainty songs of the Elizabethans’ (p. 176).
16.1762: lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the herbalist
John Dowland (1562–1626): a lutenist, famed for his collection entitled Songs or Ayres (1597–1603). He lived in Fetter Lane in London from the early 1600s (Diana Poulton, John Dowland, p. 62). In ‘Scylla and Charybdis’, Stephen alluded to a line from Maurice Clare’s book A Day with William Shakespeare, which mentioned John Gerard the herbalist and his garden by Fetter Lane (see note at 9.651–52). See also note at 11.907. In his youth, Joyce liked to sing Dowland’s ‘Weep ye no more, sad fountains’ (Ellmann, p. 52).
16.1763–64: annos ludendo hausi, Doulandus
Slight misquotation from the Latin dedication of a poem written for John Dowland by his friend Henry Peacham: ‘Iohannes Doulandus / Annos ludendo hausi’ (John Dowland: I exhausted my years in playing) (Poulton, John Dowland, p. 71). The phrase ‘Annos ludendo hausi’ is an anagram of ‘Iohannes Doulandus’, but this is lost in the misquotation. Joyce clearly wrote ‘anno’ (Rosenbach f. 49). Gabler emends to ‘annos’ to match Peacham’s line (UCSE, p. 1751).
16.1765: Mr Arnold Dolmetsch
Arnold Dolmetsch (1858–1940): French-born and London-based musician and instrument maker. He was a key figure in the revival of historically accurate musical techniques and
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1135 instrumentation (ODNB). In 1904, Joyce solicited Dolmetsch to make him a lute; on 3 June 1904, he wrote to Gogarty: ‘My idea for July and August is this—to get Dolmetsch to make me a lute and to coast the south of England from Falmouth to Margate singing old English songs’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 54). Dolmetsch demurred. In his reply he wrote: ‘I have made one lute, some years ago, but it is doubtful whether I shall make any others. It would certainly be very expensive [. . .] The lute is moreover extremely difficult to play’ (quoted in Lillian Ruff, ‘James Joyce and Arnold Dolmetsch’, p. 227).
16.1766–67: Farnaby and son with their dux and comes conceits
Giles Farnaby (c.1563–c.1600) and his son Richard (b. c.1594): English Renaissance musicians and composers. Dux (Latin): leader. Comes (Latin): companion. ‘That verse in a canon which first enters with the melody to be imitated is called Dux (leader) or Antecedent, and any imitating v. is called Comes’ (Grove, s.v. Canon). ‘Farnaby was less well suited to polyphonic genres than to variations, where his weakness in generating expansive paragraphs mattered little and his resourcefulness in presenting rich figurative detail and unusual textures counted for much’ (Grove).
16.1767–68: Byrd (William) . . . Queen’s chapel
William Byrd (or Byrde) (c.1540–1623): Organist and composer, served as organist at Elizabeth I’s Chapel Royal from 1572 with Thomas Tallis (c.1510–85), his godfather and musical mentor. His ‘greatest single accomplishment [was] the perfection of English virginal music from primitive beginnings’ (Grove). Virginals: a musical instrument resembling a spinet (OED).
16.1769: Tomkins who made toys or airs
The Tomkinses were a notable family of English musicians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but by far the most noteworthy was Thomas Tomkins (1572–1656), organist and composer and student of William Byrd. He was a prolific writer of anthems and madrigals, and he also wrote the well-known toy ‘made at Poole Court’ (Grove). Toy: ‘A light, friv olous, or lively tune’. Air: ‘a song with simple or unobtrusive accompaniment’ (both OED).
16.1769: John Bull
Dr John Bull (c.1562–1628): English organist, composer, singer, and Oxford professor of music. He composed numerous pieces for organ, virginals, and vocals (ODNB).
16.1774–75: John Bull the political celebrity of that ilk
John Bull: the popular personification of the English government and the English national character; popularised by Dr John Arbuthnot (1667–1735) in his political satire The History of John Bull, first published as a series of pamphlets, beginning in 1712 (Brewer’s).
16.1784–85: fourwalker, a hipshaker . . . a headhanger
None of these descriptive words is listed in the OED (with the sole exception of tail-dangler, for which only one usage—this one—is cited).
16.1785: putting his hind foot foremost
After the expression ‘to put one’s best foot forward: ‘to walk as fast as possible’ or ‘to try to make a good impression’ (Brewer’s).
16.1789: noodly
Noodly: foolish (EDD).
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1136 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.1792–93: camel, ship of the desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his hump
Camels store fat, not water, in their humps (EB11). ‘Ship of the desert’ is a common nickname for a camel (Brewer’s). See note at 16.1635 for potheen.
16.1794: nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees
In the opening lines of his Metaphysics, Aristotle points out that bees, while intelligent, cannot be trained: ‘those [animals] which are incapable of hearing sounds are intelligent though they cannot be taught, e.g., the bee, and any other race of animals that may be like it’ (980b).
16.1795–96: alligator tickle the small of his back
Immobilising alligators can be done by (carefully) rubbing their bellies (William J. Ray, ‘The Experience and Agency of Hypnosis’, p. 227).
16.1796: chalk a circle for a rooster See note at 15.3707–08.
16.1796: tiger my eagle eye
‘The tiger always endeavors a rear attack to avoid this look [straight in the eye], and there is scarcely an animal, but that can be kept in check if not allowed to escape the eye of the person attacked’, or so claimed L. W. de Laurence in The Science of Hypnotism (p. 113).
16.1797: the brutes of the field
The phrase ‘beasts of the field’ occurs frequently in the Bible (e.g. Genesis 2:20).
16.1800–1: in medias res
In medias res (Latin): ‘in the middle of things’.
16.1808: Lady Fingall’s Irish industries, concert on the preceding Monday
The Irish Industries Association, at 21 Lincoln Place (Thom’s, p. 1909), encouraged folk industries in Ireland, and occasionally gave concerts to benefit the cause. The Lord Lieutenant’s wife (see note at 8.339) was the Association president and Elizabeth Mary Margaret Plunkett, Countess of Fingall, was on the Association’s committee (Irish Times, 12 Nov. 1904, p. 21, col. b). There was no concert sponsored by this organisation in June 1904. Joyce sang at a concert given in honour of Countess Fingall’s visit to Ireland on 14 May 1904 (Ellmann, p. 151). On 27 August 1904, he sang at a concert at the Antient Concert Rooms (see note at 6.222) that was sponsored by the Irish Industries Association (Evening Herald, 27 Aug. 1904, p. 4, col. f).
16.1810–11: Youth here has End by Jans Pieter Sweelinck . . . of Amsterdam
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (c.1562–1621): church composer and organist at the Oude Kerk (Old Church) in Amsterdam (Grove). Stephen has slightly distorted the actual title, which is Mein junges Leben hat ein End (My young life has an end) (Bowen, pp. 319–20). Joyce refers to this piece in Giacomo Joyce: ‘Jan Pieters Sweelink [sic]. The quaint name of the old Dutch musician makes all beauty seem quaint and far. I hear his variations for the clavichord on an old air: Youth has an end. In the vague mist of old sounds a faint point of light appears: the speech of the soul is about to be heard. Youth has an end: the end is here. It will never be. You know that well. What then? Write it, damn you, write it! What else are you good for?’ (PSW, p. 240). On a notesheet Joyce wrote: ‘Jans Pieter Sweelinck studied Venice, then went Amsterdam in Shakespeare’s time. Variations: My youth has here an end Johannes Jeep’ (Notesheet Eumaeus 6.85–87).
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16. ‘Eumaeus’ 1137
16.1811: frows
Frow: ‘A woman, a lady; a wife. Chiefly of Dutch or German women, or of others compared to them’ (OED); from the Dutch vrouw and German Frau.
16.1812: an old German song of Johannes Jeep
Johannes Jeep (c.1582–c.1650): German composer and organist. He composed many hymns and psalm settings but is best known for the thirty- four secular songs of his Studentengärtlein (1614) (Grove). This specific song is called Dulcia dum loquitur cogitat insidias (While she talks sweetly she intends a trap).
16.1815–16: Von der Sirenen Listigkeit . . . dichten
(German): ‘Of the sirens’ cunning / do the poets rhyme’. From Johannes Jeep’s Dulcia dum loquitur (Das Erbe Deutscher Musik, vol. 29, pp. 26–27). For the sirens (and their cunning), see note at 16.1382–83.
16.1817: extempore
Ex tempore (Latin): spontaneously; in Latin this is two words, but in English one; Anglicised since the sixteenth century (OED).
16.1823: Barraclough See note at 11.797.
16.1825: entrée
Entrée (French): entry, ‘The privilege or right of entrance’; Anglicised since the eighteenth century (OED).
16.1835: conversaziones
Conversazione: ‘In Italy, the name for an evening assembly for conversation, social recre ation, and amusement [. . .] From about the close of the 18th c. [in English] chiefly applied to assemblies of an intellectual character, in connection with literature, art, or science’ (OED).
16.1836–37: causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex
A flutter in the dovecotes: a commotion, an uproar; the expression was common in the nineteenth century; for example: ‘Once more there has been a flutter in the dovecotes of the circulating libraries’ (The Athenæum, 18 May 1889, no. 3212, p. 628).
16.1851–52: Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just
Both were members of the Arthur Rousbey Opera Company in the 1890s. St Austell’s real name was W. H. Stephens (SS, p. 73).
16.1852: genus omne
Genus omne (Latin): ‘entire genus or kind’; more typically used as part of the phrase ‘et hoc genus omne’, and all this sort of thing.
16.1856: King street house
That is, the Gaiety Theatre, 48–49 South King Street (Thom’s, p. 1528); see note at 6.188.
16.1868: fools step in where angels
After Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism (1711): ‘For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread’ (l. 625); and since, proverbial.
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1138 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
16.1879: scythed car
Scythed: ‘Furnished with a scythe; esp. Hist. [. . .] of war-chariots provided with scythes fastened to a revolving shaft projecting from the axle-trees; attributed by classical writers to the Persians and the Britons’ (OED). The song ‘The Low Back’d Car’ (see notes at 16.1886–88 and 12.687–88) contains the following lines: ‘In battle’s wide commotion, / The proud and mighty Mars, / With hostile scythes demands his tythes / Of death, in warlike cars’ (Bauerle, pp. 457–59).
16.1880: contretemps See note at 13.614.
16.1882: Gardiner street lower See note at 16.1735.
16.1884: Und alle Schiffe brücken
Incorrect and misspelt German, literally, ‘And all ships bridge’ (the mangled words ‘Schiffe brücken’ suggest the German word Schiffbruch, shipwreck). This phrase is similar to the final line of Johannes Jeep’s song (see note at 16.1812) in both vowel sound and metre: ‘und laß dich nicht betrügen’ (And don’t let yourself be betrayed). It is unclear whether the mistake originates with Stephen, with Bloom, or with Joyce (Harald Beck, JJON).
16.1886–88: as he sat on his lowbacked car . . . Father Maher
‘As we drove in her low-backed car, / To be married by Father Maher’: from the song ‘The Low Back’d Car’ (Bauerle, pp. 457–59); see note at 12.687–88.
16.1889–90: sirens, enemies of man’s reason See note at 16.1382–83.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ h
g f e
d
c
b
a
Map 17 Custom House to Eccles Street (25 inch OSI map 1907/9); a = Beresford Place; b = Lower Gardiner Street; c = Middle Gardiner Street; d = Mountjoy Square West; e = Gardiner’s Place; f = North Temple Street; g = St George’s Church, Hardwicke Place; h = 7 Eccles Street
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1140 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Time: 2–3 am (1–2 am in the Linati schema) Location: 7 Eccles Street Organ: Skeleton Art: Science Symbol: Comets Technic: Catechism (impersonal) Correspondences: Eurymachus: Boylan; Suitors: scruples; Bow: reason ‘Ithaca’ takes the form of a catechism, with seemingly dispassionate questions and answers. The qualification seemingly is not trivial: not all the answers are immediately pertinent or accurate or objective. It is as if at least some of the answers were devised by a rogue annotator. The logistics of Bloom’s final homecoming are dealt with quickly and precisely: the route taken from the cabman’s shelter to Eccles Street is given right at the outset; see note at 17.2–7 (map 17). Bloom’s address, 7 Eccles Street, was that of Joyce’s friend J. F. Byrne (‘Cranly’) in 1909 when Joyce paid a return visit to Dublin. Some of the events of ‘Ithaca’ derive from those of an evening Joyce and Byrne spent together on that visit (see notes at 17.84–89 and 17.93–94). In drafting ‘Ithaca’, Joyce relied on a wide range of sources from diverse fields such as astronomy, mathematics, economics, advertising, insurance, philately, etc. Only some of these have thus far been identified.
17.2–7: from Beresford place they followed . . . Hardwicke place
An accurate account of the route from the cabman’s shelter to 7 Eccles Street. The total distance is 1.6 km and the walk would take about 20 minutes. The portion along Middle Gardiner Street is uphill. This route would be exactly the same—although in the opposite direction—as the route Bloom would have taken that morning from his home to Butt Bridge and then Sir John Rogerson’s Quay for the start of ‘Lotus Eaters’ (JJD, p. 71).
17.5: by an inadvertence as far as the farthest corner of Temple street
Inadvertence: oversight (OED). The inadvertence is that they should have turned up Temple Street at the nearer corner, which is at the eastern side, but instead they accidentally crossed to the farther corner. Bloom’s house is on the north-eastern side of Eccles Street, not the western.
17.8: circus before George’s church
Circus: a circular range of houses (OED). The footpath at Hardwicke Place forms a semi- circle directly across the street from the front of St George’s Church (see note at 4.78).
17.9–10: chord in any circle being less than the arc which it subtends
Chord: ‘Mathematics. The straight line joining the extremities of an arc’. Subtend: ‘(of an angle, chord, etc.) to have bounding lines or points that meet or coincide with those of (an arc or line)’ (both OED). That is, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line: ‘If any two points be taken in the circumference of a circle, the straight line which joins them shall fall within the circle’ (Euclid, Elements, p. 74). Rather than walk along the circumference of the semi-circle in Hardwicke Place, Bloom and Stephen cut across in a straight line.
17.11: duumvirate
Duumvirate: a coalition of two men (OED).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1141
17.13–14: influence of gaslight . . . growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees
Paraheliotropic: describes leaves orientating themselves to avoid physiological problems caused by excessive absorption of sunlight. For glowlamp, see note at 2.72. From a story in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph: ‘Some of the queer things which happen to flowers when they are exposed to the electric light are described by the “Washington Post”. [. . .] In a modern plant experimental laboratory the electric light arc creates transformations that astonish the most hardened investigator. Reds are converted into purples, and blacks and whites into all the colours of the rainbow. But the flowers fade quickly. Born in a day and night, their period of usefulness is measured by the same short span of existence. When brought to the light of day they grow sickly and fade rapidly’ (p. 1, col. i; Fritz Senn, ‘Trivia Ulysseana IV’, pp. 177–78). ‘Electric lighting by arc appeared with the opening of the Fleet Street generating station [in 1892] when 81 electric arc lamps were erected to light the principal streets. A new generating station at Pigeon House fort opened in 1903 and, apart from the arc lamps, the city continued to be lit by gas’ (Bennett, s.v. Public Lighting).
17.14–15: exposed corporation emergency dustbuckets
The word emergency is not used in its usual sense, but rather as meaning: ‘A juncture that arises or “turns up” ’ (OED); that is, as needed. For the Dublin Corporation, see note at 6.400. Dust bucket was the name for a container used for household refuse from tenements. From a report on a meeting of the Board of Guardians of the South Dublin Union: ‘The way dust buckets were emptied into carts from tenement houses, where, perhaps, there was sickness, at all hours of the day, was the cause of disseminating more microbes and disease than any other cause. [The Chairman] suggested that dust buckets should be emptied early in the morning, or else the carts should bring a clean set of buckets which would replace the full ones’ (Freeman’s Journal, 26 Apr. 1901, p. 2, col. b; with thanks to Anne Marie D’Arcy). In terms of Bloom and Stephen’s route to Eccles Street, Thom’s lists many tenements on Lower Gardiner Street (pp. 1498–99).
17.15: ecclesiastical celibacy See note at 14.589–90.
17.17: maleficent influence of the presabbath
For a Jew, the ‘presabbath’ is Friday. Friday is considered unlucky by Christians (because Christ was crucified on a Friday) and by the ancient Romans (Brewer’s).
17.21: insular manner of life
Insular: ‘Of or pertaining to an island; inhabiting or situated on an island’ (OED).
17.22: cisatlantic
Cisatlantic: on this side of the Atlantic Ocean (OED).
17.22: indurated
Indurated: ‘rendered callous or stubborn’ (OED).
17.25: obtunding
To obtund: ‘To blunt, deaden, dull, deprive of sharpness or vigour, render obtuse’ (OED).
17.28–29: dietary and civic selfhelp
The term self-help was popularised, but not coined, by Samuel Smiles (English writer, 1812–1904) with the title of his 1859 book Self-Help, with Illustrations of Character and
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1142 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Conduct. ‘The book later came to stand for the coarsest strain of Victorian materialism, but in fact it reflected an association of the moral aspects of the Calvinism Smiles had been taught as a child [. . .] Smiles emphasized the importance of the application of good character to the problems of daily life as the key to individual and social improvement and illustrated his message with biographical examples’ (ODNB).
17.29–30: the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature
Joyce concludes his 1902 essay on James Clarence Mangan by writing: ‘all those who have written nobly have not written in vain, though the desperate and weary have never heard the silver laughter of wisdom. Nay, shall not such as these have part, because of that high, original purpose which remembering painfully or by way of prophecy they would make clear, in the continual affirmation of the spirit?’ (OCPW, p. 60). Joyce reworked this in Stephen Hero: ‘The age, though it bury itself fathoms deep in formulas and machinery, has need of these realities which alone give and sustain life [. . .] Thus the spirit of man makes a continual affirmation’ (p. 85).
17.33: Patrick son of Calpornus, son of Potitus, son of Odyssus
St Patrick begins his Confessions with his genealogy: ‘Ego Patricius [. . .] patrem habui Calpornium diaconum filium quondam Potiti presbyteri’ (I Patrick [. . .] had for a father the deacon Calpornius, son of the late presbyter Potitus) (David N. Dumville, Saint Patrick, A.D. 493–1993, p. 192). In the Book of Armagh—which includes an early, shorter, variant version of the Confessions and which is held at Trinity College—the phrase ‘filii Odissi’ appears as a marginal addition by the name Potitus, thereby indicating that Potitus is the ‘son of Odissus’ (pp. 191–92). Other manuscript versions of St Patrick’s text do not contain this addition. Calpornus and Odyssus are attested variant spellings.
17.33–34: sent by pope Celestine I
According to tradition, St Patrick was sent to Ireland by Pope Celestine I (see note at 12.1699), but this is unconfirmed. Celestine did send an earlier missionary to Ireland, Palladius (Liam de Paor, Saint Patrick’s World, p. 154).
17.34: in the year 432
Just as there is some ambiguity regarding St Patrick’s date of birth (see note at 12.573) and the location of his arrival in Ireland (see note at 12.1671), the date of his arrival is likewise uncertain, although 432 is the traditionally associated year (NHI, vol. 1, pp. 306, 680).
17.34–35: year 260 or thereabouts in the reign of Cormac MacArt († 266 A.D.)
In ‘Lestrygonians’, Bloom imagined that St Patrick had converted Cormac Mac Art (d. c.266) to Christianity since, according to some legends, Cormac was the first person in Ireland to convert to Christianity. However, Bloom’s point rested on various misapprehensions; see note at 8.663–65.
17.36: at Sletty and interred at Rossnaree
See note at 8.663–65. From Samuel Ferguson’s (1810–86) poem ‘The Burial of King Cormac’: ‘bury me at Rossnaree’ (l. 31). Rosnaree, 4.8 km south-east of Slane on the south bank of the river Boyne in County Meath, is traditionally called the burial place of King Cormac (Annals of Ireland, p. 123).
17.39-40: circular motion in a relaxing atmosphere
That is, Bloom thinks Stephen collapsed from dancing to the tune ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’ in ‘Circe’: ‘The air, in firmer waltz time, sounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely’ (15.4048–49).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1143
17.40–42: the reapparition of a matutinal cloud . . . woman’s hand
Matutinal: ‘Of or relating to the morning, esp. the period just after waking; occurring or performed early or in the morning’ (OED). Stephen saw the cloud ‘cover the sun slowly, wholly’ at Sandycove in ‘Telemachus’ (1.248), Bloom saw it after he left Dlugacz’s butcher’s shop on Dorset Street in ‘Calypso’ (4.218). The ‘matutinal cloud’ itself did not reappear in ‘Circe’, but since the cloud’s appearance in ‘Telemachus’ triggered Stephen’s recollection of his mother and her deathbed, the reapparition in ‘Circe’ would refer to the ghost of his mother. The phrasing here suggests the description of the cloud that spells the end of the drought prophesied by Elijah during the reign of Ahab: ‘Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand’ (1 Kings 18:44 in the King James; in the Douay, the cloud is likened to a foot). The title of the Dubliners story ‘A Little Cloud’ also derives from this passage. In ‘Circe’, Zoe said that Stephen had a ‘Woman’s hand’ (15.3678).
17.48: Owen Goldberg See note at 8.404.
17.48: Cecil Turnbull
Possibly the brother of Donald Turnbull; see note at 15.3326.
17.49–50: Longwood avenue and Leonard’s corner . . . Bloomfield avenue
Bloomfield Avenue, Longwood Avenue, and Clanbrassil Street (where Bloom grew up; see note at 17.1869) are adjacent, parallel streets. Synge Street is nearby. See note at 15.203 for Leonard’s Corner.
17.51: Percy Apjohn See note at 17.1251–52.
17.52–53: Gibraltar villa and Bloomfield house . . . of Uppercross
Gibraltar Villa, on Dolphin’s Barn Road in south-western Dublin, was occupied in 1904 by Daniel Moulang (Thom’s, p. 1670); see also note at 11.86. Bloomfield House, on Crumlin Road (which becomes Dolphin’s Barn Road north of the South Circular Road), in the village of Crumlin, Uppercross barony, was occupied in 1904 by a J. D. Richardson (p. 1670). See note at 7.91–92 for barony.
17.53–54: In 1886 . . . prospective purchasers
Bloom began working as a door-to-door salesman for his family’s firm in 1881, the year after he left high school (see note at 14.1049–50). This means that he was still working as such in 1886, which is the same year his father died (17.623). Either Rudolph Bloom kept the jewellery and moneylending business after he acquired the Queen’s Hotel in Ennis, or Bloom began working as a door-to-door salesman for a different firm (or Joyce confused the chronology).
17.57: Mathew Dillon’s house in Roundtown See note at 6.697.
17.58: Julius (Juda) Mastiansky
See note at 4.205 for Phineas Masliansky (whose surname is incorrectly listed in Thom’s as Mastiansky, hence Joyce’s spelling); it is unclear if Julius is supposed to be a different individual or whether Joyce made a mistake with the first name. The name Julius Masliansky (or its misprint, Mastiansky) is not recorded in the Dublin Jewish community (Hyman, p. 329 n. 10).
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1144 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.59: Lombard street, west See note at 6.829.
17.63–65: the progressive extension of the field of . . . interindividual relations
That is, as one gets older (‘the progressive extension of the field of individual development’), one encounters fewer opportunities for conversations with other people (‘a restriction of the converse domain of interindividual relations’). Joyce took some of the terminology here from Bertrand Russell’s (British philosopher and mathematician, 1872–1970) Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919): ‘The field of a relation consists of its domain and converse domain together’ (p. 32). In a late Ulysses notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.b), Joyce wrote: ‘field = domain & converse’ and ‘converse domain of relations’ (Phillip Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, pp. 105–06; JJA, vol. 12, p. 119).
17.67–69: From inexistence to existence . . . none perceived
In a late notebook for Ulysses (Buffalo V.A.2.b), under the heading ‘Ithaca’, Joyce wrote: ‘0 = 1/many, ∞ = many/1, other = 1/1’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 106; JJA, vol. 12, p. 119). This derives from Bertrand Russell’s (British philosopher and mathematician, 1872–1970) Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919): ‘It will be observed that zero and infinity, alone among ratios, are not one-one. Zero is one-many, and infinity is many- one’ (p. 65).
17.71: housesteps of the 4th of the equidifferent uneven numbers
7 Eccles Street was the seventh house on the north-east side of Eccles Street and the fourth uneven-numbered house (JJD, p. 33). Equidifferent: having equal differences (OED).
17.78–79: he had reminded himself twice not to forget
Bloom had remembered that his key was in the pocket of his other trousers in ‘Calypso’ (4.72–73) and in ‘Lotus Eaters’ (5.468), although in ‘Lotus Eaters’ he did not so much remind himself not to forget as lament that he had already forgotten.
17.82: To enter or not to enter
After Hamlet: ‘To be or not to be’ (III.i.60).
17.84: A stratagem
Recalls the first line of the Odyssey; see note at 14.134.
17.84–89: Resting his feet . . . impact of the fall
In 1909, when Joyce was visiting Dublin, he returned with his friend J. F. Byrne (see note at 1.159) late at night to Byrne’s home at 7 Eccles Street. Byrne, having forgotten his key, executed the same manoeuvre as Bloom: ‘Nonchalantly I put my hand in the back pocket of my trousers for the hall door key, but the key wasn’t there. It was upstairs in my trousers in my bedroom. It wasn’t by any means the first time I found myself on the outside of a hall door to my residence without the instrument of ingress; so I wasn’t a bit dismayed [. . .] so I simply climbed over the railing to the right of the hall door, dropped down to the front area, and went in to the basement of the house by the unlocked side door’ (J. F. Byrne, Silent Years, p. 157). On 2 November 1921, as he was working on ‘Ithaca’, Joyce wrote to his Aunt Josephine Murray in Dublin to find out ‘Is it possible for an ordinary person to climb over the area railings of no 7 Eccles street, either from the path or the steps, lower himself down from the lowest part of the railings till his feet are within 2 feet or 3 [61 or 91 cm] of the ground and drop unhurt. I saw it done myself but by a man of rather athletic build.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1145 I require the information in detail in order to determine the wording of a paragraph’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 175). Since Josephine Murray was unable to answer Joyce’s question, he gave Bloom the same height and weight as Byrne in order to maintain verisimilitude (see notes at 17.86 and 17.91).
17.84: dwarf wall
That is, the raised stone pier beneath the railings.
17.84: area
See note at 15.695 for area. According to old photographs, the area at 7 Eccles Street did not have steps that led up to the street (William York Tindall, The Joyce Country, p. 145).
17.86: five feet nine inches and a half
Bloom is 1.77 metres tall. He shares his height with Joyce’s friend J. F. Byrne (Byrne, Silent Years, p. 157); see note at 17.84–89. While such historical records are not perfectly reliable, the average height of an Irishman born in the 1870s has been estimated at 1.68 metres or 5½ feet (Timothy J. Hatton, ‘How Have Europeans Grown So Tall?’, p. 351).
17.91: his body’s known weight of eleven stone and four pounds
Bloom weighs 71.7 kg or 158 lbs (1 stone = 14 pounds or 6.35 kg), which was Byrne’s weight in 1909 (Byrne, Silent Years, p. 157); see note at 17.84–89 and also note at 17.93–94.
17.91: avoirdupois
See note at 12.38–40.
17.93–94: Francis Froedman . . . of 19 Frederick street, north
Francis Froedman: ‘pharmaceutical chemist’, 19 North Frederick Street and 46 Upper Dorset Street (Thom’s, p. 1876), just around the corner from Eccles Street. On the evening in 1909 when Joyce was with Byrne (see note at 17.84–89), before they returned to Byrne’s home at 7 Eccles Street, they both weighed themselves, at Joyce’s suggestion, at a penny-in- the-slot weighing machine at a chemist on the corner of Frederick Street (Byrne, Silent Years, p. 157).
17.94: last feast of the Ascension
The Feast of the Ascension commemorates Christ’s ascent into heaven and is celebrated 40 days after Easter. In 1904, it fell on Thursday 12 May (Thom’s, p. 1). Joyce derives almost all the calendric information in this passage (17.94–99) from the first page of Thom’s.
17.95: bissextile year
A bissextile year is a leap year (OED). The first page of Thom’s states that 1904 is a ‘bissextile, or leap year’.
17.96: jewish era five thousand six hundred and sixtyfour
‘The year 5665 of the Jewish Era commences on September 10, 1904’ (Thom’s, p. 1).
17.97: mohammedan era one thousand three hundred and twentytwo
‘The year 1322 of the Mahometan Era commences on March 18, 1904’ (Thom’s, p. 1).
17.97–98: golden number 5
From the first page of Thom’s: ‘Chronological Cycles 1904. Golden Number, 5.—Epact, 13.— Solar Cycle, 9.—Dominical Letters CB.—Roman Indiction, 2.—Julian Period, 6617’ (Thom’s,
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1146 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses p. 1). All these numbers are used to calculate the date of Easter Sunday. The golden number indicates what year of metonic cycle we are currently in. It is calculated by adding 1 to the current year and dividing by 19: if there is a remainder, it is the golden number, if not the golden number is 19 (OED, s.v. golden). Metonic: ‘the cycle of 19 tropical years (conventionally equated to 235 synodic months) in which the moon returns to almost the same apparent position relative to the sun, so that new and full moons occur at the same dates in the corresponding year of each cycle’ (OED).
17.98: epact 13
Epact: ‘The number of days in the age of the moon on the first day of the year’ (OED); thus, in 1904, the moon was 13 days into its cycle at the beginning of the year.
17.98: solar cycle 9
Solar cycle: ‘a period of 28 years, at the end of which the days of the week (according to the Julian Calendar) recur on the same days of the month’ (OED, s.v. cycle); calculated by adding 9 to the current year and dividing by 28.
17.98: dominical letters C B
Dominical letters are used to denote the Sundays in a particular year and leap years have two Dominical letters (OED, s.v. Dominical).
17.98: Roman indiction 2
After the Roman indiction, a 15-year cycle originally instituted by the Emperor Constantine in ad 313 for taxation purposes (OED). 1904 was the second year of this cycle. Joyce wrote ‘indication’ on the page proofs where he first added this passage (JJA, vol. 27, p. 140). As this passage was added on 25 January 1922—thereby making it one of the last things he wrote for Ulysses—Joyce had no opportunity to revise this before Ulysses’s publication on 2 February. Gabler thus assumes this is an error and emended it to the technically correct form ‘indiction’ (UCSE, p. 1752).
17.99: Julian period 6617
Julian period: ‘a period of 7980 Julian years, proposed by Joseph Scaliger in 1582 as a universal standard of comparison of chronology, consisting of the product of the numbers of years in the solar and lunar cycles and the cycle of the indiction (28 × 19 × 15)’ (OED, s.v. Julian).
17.99: MCMIV
The Roman numeral for 1904 is the only piece of calendric information in this passage not present on the first page of Thom’s. Joyce wrote the incorrect—and meaningless—‘MXMIV’ (JJA, vol. 27, p. 140). As with ‘indiction’ (see note at 17.98), Gabler emended this to the correct form, in this case ‘MCMIV’ (UCSE, p. 1752). The title page of Thom’s does provide the Roman numeral for 1904, the alternate form ‘MDCCCCIV’ (p. i).
17.101: stable equilibrium
‘[I]f a body is in stable equilibrium, the center of gravity is at the lowest position’ (G. A. Wentworth and G. A. Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 46; Yi Jean Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 642).
17.102–03: raised the latch . . . applied at its fulcrum
‘A rigid bar capable of turning about a fixed axis is called a lever, and the axis is called the fulcrum’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 36; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 642).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1147 ‘[A lever] consists of a rigid structure of any shape (a straight bar being the normal form), fixed at one point called the fulcrum, and acted on at two other points by two forces, tending to cause it to rotate in opposite directions round the fulcrum. [. . .] Levers are said to be of the first, second, or third kind or order according as the fulcrum, the weight, or the power is in the midmost position of the three’; the first kind ‘consists of a rigid structure of any shape (a straight bar being the normal form)’ (OED, s.v. lever). Thus, the door-latch is a lever of the first kind.
17.105: lucifer match See note at 15.3599.
17.105–06: inflammable coal gas by turning on the ventcock
Coal gas: ‘A mixture of gases (chiefly hydrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide) obtained by the destructive distillation of coal and formerly used for lighting, heating, and cooking’. Vent-cock: ‘a device for admitting air to a vessel from which liquid is to be drawn, or permit the escape of gas’ (both OED).
17.107: quiescent candescence
Quiescent: motionless. Candescence: ‘dazzling whiteness or brightness’ (both OED).
17.110–11: gasflame of 14 CP, a man lighting a candle of 1 CP
CP: candlepower, a unit used to measure the absolute brightness of an object (OED, s.v. candle). ‘The unit of illuminating power in common use is a sperm candle [. . .] It is called the standard candle. The candle power of any light is the number of standard candles which will have the same illuminating power as the light’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 381; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 652).
17.120: listed feet
That is, wearing listed slippers; list: ‘The selvage, border, or edge of a cloth, usually of different material from the body of the cloth’ (OED) Thus, a listed slipper has an outsole— typically of fabric—that is sewn onto the main body.
17.125: spoonseat deal chairs
Spoon-back: ‘the back of a chair (of a type esp. popular in the late-18th and 19th cent.) curved concavely to fit the shape of the occupant; a chair of this style’. Deal: ‘A slice sawn from a log of timber (now always of fir or pine), and usually understood to be more than seven inches [17.8 cm] wide, and not more than three [7.6 cm] thick; a plank or board of pine or fir-wood’ (both OED).
17.128–29: Abram coal at twentyone shillings a ton
The Abram Coal Co.: Bickershaw, Wigan, England. This was a high-quality coal. Between 1896 and 1910, the price fluctuated between 16s. a ton (1,016 kg) and 28s. 6d. a ton; in June 1904, its price was 19s. a ton (John Simpson, JJON).
17.129–30: yard of Messrs Flower and M‘Donald of 14 D’Olier street
Flower and McDonald: ‘coal importers, salt manufacturers, coke, charcoal, and corn merchants’, 14 D’Olier Street (Thom’s, p. 1475). Flower and McDonald sold Abram coal from 1893 to 1914 (John Simpson, JJON).
17.132–33: allowing its carbon and hydrogen . . . oxygen of the air
‘The various substances which we employ for the artificial production of heat and light, such as wood, coal, petroleum, and coal gas, consist largely of hydrogen and carbon, but
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1148 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses more especially carbon. In the act of burning the substance breaks up into its elements; the hydrogen and the carbon then unite with oxygen from the air’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 169; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, pp. 648–49).
17.136–38: Brother Michael in the infirmary . . . Kildare
Brother Michael ran the infirmary at Clongowes (see note at 1.311). This fire is described in A Portrait: ‘The fire rose and fell on the wall. It was like waves. Someone had put coal on and he heard voices. They were talking. It was the noise of the waves’ (pp. 26–27). This can be dated to October 1891, since immediately afterwards, the news of Parnell’s death is announced (Parnell died 6 October). Twice again in A Portrait, Stephen remembers this (pp. 93 and 109). Brother Michael is based on Brother John Hanly (1832–97), the infirmarian at Clongowes from 1881 until his death (Kevin Sullivan, Joyce among the Jesuits, pp. 32–33; Igoe, p. 206).
17.138–39: Simon Dedalus, in an unfurnished room . . . Fitzgibbon street
Simon Dedalus’s attempts to warm the family’s half-furnished new home are described in A Portrait: ‘The parlour fire would not draw that evening and Mr Dedalus rested the poker against the bars of the grate to attract the flame [. . .] —There’s a crack of the whip left in me yet, Stephen, old chap, said Mr Dedalus, poking at the dull fire with fierce energy. We’re not dead yet, sonny. No, by the Lord Jesus (God forgive me) nor half dead’ (pp. 65–66). In A Portrait, the specific address of this scene is not given, but it is clearly indicated that it takes place in the Dedalus family’s first residence within Dublin city (p. 66). The Joyces’ first Dublin residence was 14 Fitzgibbon Street (see note at 10.47). On the Rosenbach draft, Joyce originally wrote ‘North Richmond street’ and subsequently emended to ‘Fitzgibbon street’ (Rosenbach blue f. 3); see also note at 17.143.
17.139–41: his godmother Miss Kate Morkan in the house . . . Usher’s Island See note at 8.417.
17.141–42: his aunt Sara . . . 62 Clanbrassil street
For Sara Goulding, see note at 3.61 and for Richie, see note at 3.76. At the time Joyce’s parents got married, in 1880, the Murrays lived at 7 Upper Clanbrassil Street (Vivien Igoe, James Joyce’s Dublin Houses, p. 12).
17.143: twelve North Richmond street
The Joyces lived at 13 North Richmond Street from late 1895 or early 1896 to 1897 (Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 134). Joyce appears to have mistaken the house number: no. 12 was occupied by a doctor’s widow, Juliana Mitchell, from the 1870s to 1898. Likewise, Ellmann misidentifies the house as no. 17 because, by an odd coincidence, it was occupied for many years by a different John Joyce. Ellmann also places the move earlier, to 1894, but the previous occupant of no. 13 was alive until March 1895 (Ellmann, p. 42; Costello, p. 134 n.). Despite the lack of direct documentation, no. 13 is the only address on North Richmond Street in which the Joyces could have lived in the mid to late 1890s (Danis Rose, ‘Solider than Most’, p. 108). North Richmond Street and envir ons appear frequently throughout Joyce’s works. For example, North Richmond Street is the home of the young narrator of ‘Araby’ in Dubliners, and in Finnegans Wake it appears—again with the incorrect house number—as ‘12 Norse Richmound’ (p. 420). Neither Stephen Hero nor A Portrait explicitly state that Stephen ever lived on North Richmond Street.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1149
17.144: feast of Saint Francis Xavier 1898
The feast of St Francis Xavier (1506–52), follower of Loyola and patron of Belvedere College, is 3 December. Evidently a reference to the scene in A Portrait where, after the hellfire sermon during the boys’ retreat in honour of St Francis, Stephen returns home and sits by a fire in the kitchen (p. 145). In A Portrait, the year is not specified. Joyce left Belvedere in June 1898 (Ellmann, p. 56) and probably attended the retreat in 1896 or 1897 (Ellmann, p. 48; Costello, James Joyce, p. 142).
17.144–46: dean of studies, Father Butt, in the physics’ theatre . . . north
This scene is described in chapter 5 of A Portrait. Stephen walks into the physics theatre where the dean of studies demonstrates to Stephen how to light a fire, an act he calls ‘one of the useful arts’. Stephen finds this disquieting: ‘His very body had waxed old in lowly service of the Lord—in tending the fire upon the altar [. . .] —and yet had remained ungraced by aught of saintly or of prelatic beauty. Nay, his very soul had waxed old in that service without growing towards light and beauty.’ Stephen then says to the dean: ‘I am sure I could not light a fire’ (p. 185). In A Portrait, the dean is unnamed; he is based on the real-life dean of studies at University College, Father Joseph Darlington (1850–1939) (Sullivan, Joyce among the Jesuits, p. 171). In 1904, University College Dublin occupied the buildings at 85–87 St Stephen’s Green South (Thom’s, p. 858). The physics theatre is on the first floor of no. 85 and faces the Iveagh Gardens. This complex of three buildings opened as the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) in 2019. 16 St Stephen’s Green North is on the other side of the park; it was the address of the palace of the Church of Ireland’s archbishop of Dublin, Joseph F. Peacocke (p. 1597). See also note at 7.503. J. F. Byrne claims that the incident with Darlington lighting a fire in the physics theatre happened when he, not Joyce, was present (Silent Years, pp. 33–37).
17.146–47: Dilly (Delia) in his father’s house in Cabra See note at 15.4884.
17.150: a row of five coiled spring housebells
This is not the doorbell, but the bells in various rooms from which servants could be called. J. F. Byrne—resident at 7 Eccles Street in 1909 (see note at 1.159)—confirms that this house was thus equipped: ‘There was no one in the house except my two cousins, whose bedroom was on the top back floor. I couldn’t think of rousing them with the clattering kitchen bell’ (Silent Years, p. 157; Harald Beck, JJON). ‘We apply steel springs in a hundred ways to cause small but necessary return movements (e.g., the spring of an electric bell)’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 23; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 642).
17.154: Lisle suspender tops
Lisle thread: ‘a hard twisted cotton thread, originally produced at Lisle, France’ (OED).
17.160: range
Range: ‘a fireplace, grate, or simple apparatus used for cooking’ (OED).
17.161: hob
See note at 1.267–68.
17.164–82: Yes. From Roundwood reservoir . . . solvent, sound
In the 1860s, the Vartry River was dammed at Roundwood, a small village in County Wicklow, to create a reservoir which provided the water supply for Dublin and its suburbs.
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1150 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses From Roundwood, pipes and filters led to reservoirs at Stillorgan and from there to the city. Work began on 10 November 1862 and was completed six years later. Much of the cost was recouped by a water rate levied on homeowners, which proved to be controversial since the residents of the more affluent townships resented paying for the water supply for the whole metropolitan area (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 265). This passage derives from the description of the completion of the Vartry Water Works in Thom’s Dublin Annals for the year 1868: ‘The works completed this year [. . .] consist of a large storage reservoir, near Roundwood, in the County Wicklow, which covers an area of 410 acres [166 hectares], and can hold 2,400,000,000 gallons [11,000,000,000 litres] of water, equal to seven months supply. Attached are filter beds, through which all the water is passed before being admitted into mains; the water is conveyed through a tunnel nearly 3 miles [4.8 km] long to Callowhill, and thence through an iron pipe, 33 inches [84 cm] diameter, to Stillorgan, a distance of about 22 miles [35 km]. This reservoir contains 84,000,000 gallons [381,000,000 litres], and the level is 250 feet [76 m] above the quays in Dublin. The water is conveyed from those reservoirs by 2-inch [5 cm] pipes, 27 inches [69 cm] diameter, to the city boundary at Leeson street bridge, and is thence distributed over the city. The total cost of works has been, embracing every charge, about £550,000’ (p. 2102). This also suggests a passage in the Odyssey: ‘Now, as they went down over the stony road, and were coming close to the city, and had arrived at the fountain, sweet-running and made of stone, and there the towns people went for their water, Ithakos had made this, and Neritos, and Polyktor’ (XVII.204–07).
17.167: Dargle
See note at 7.1008–09.
17.167: Rathdown
Rathdown: a barony (that is, a sub-unit of a county), by the coast, at the southern end of County Dublin. Its name comes from a medieval settlement, abandoned and ruined since the seventeenth century (John D’Alton, The History of the County of Dublin, pp. 806–08).
17.167: Glen of the Downs
The Glen of the Downs: a deep woodland ravine in County Wicklow (John Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 312).
17.168: 26 acre reservoir at Stillorgan
There are two reservoirs at Stillorgan. As part of the original Vartry River project of the 1860s (see note at 11.619), a reservoir of 363,800,000 litres was built; in 1885, a second reservoir of 428,300,000 litres was added (Bennett, s.v. Water Supply).
17.171: from prolonged summer drouth
See note at 4.44 for drouth. There is no record of a drought in Ireland in the summer of 1904. The total rainfall in Dublin for 1904 was 63.5 cm, about 7.6 cm below average. In May 1904, there was an above-average rainfall of 6.8 cm; in June, there was a below-average rainfall of 2.7 cm (Thom’s 1905, p. 797).
17.173: Mr Spencer Harty, C.E.
George Spencer Harty (1838–1922), CE (City Engineer): ‘borough surveyor and waterworks engineer’ (Thom’s, p. 1349); he lived at Ranelagh, Merrion Road, Ballsbridge (p. 1893). Dublin’s Main Drainage Scheme was completed in 1906 (see note at 3.150), during his tenure as City Engineer, for which he was awarded the Freedom of the City in 1907 (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, pp. 257, 264).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1151
17.176–77: recourse being had to the impotable water . . . as in 1893
The Dublin Annals in Thom’s records for 1893: ‘Unprecedented drought. Scarcity of water at Roundwood Reservoir. Grand Canal supply resorted to (Oct. 16)’ (p. 2105). The water of the canals was contaminated with raw sewage (see note at 3.150).
17.177: South Dublin Guardians
The South Dublin Guardians: the administrative section of Poor Law Guardians (see note at 16.945). There was no drought in 1904 (see note at 4.44). A letter in the 15 June 1904 Irish Daily Independent by Ignatius Rice discusses how the waterworks committee, for which he was the legal counsel, was engaged in legal action against the South Dublin Guardians for violating the terms of their agreement with the waterworks committee. ‘The evidence of waste and misuse was enormous at the new trial, as it was, in fact the meter showing the consumption of water to be far above the fifteen gallons [57 litres] per head per day, sworn by an independent expert to be the usual allowance for domestic purposes, and showing a consumption of as much as 20,000 gallons [75,700 litres] at night, when the water was supposed to be hardly used at all’ (p. 6, col. f). Allegations of water wastage by the Guardians were an ongoing political problem at this time, since many rate-payers in Dublin were outraged by the costs associated with supporting paupers (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, pp. 270–74).
17.181: Mr Ignatius Rice, solicitor
Ignatius Rice (1870–1955): law agent for the Dublin waterworks committee (Thom’s, p. 1348); he lived at 1 Waltham Terrace, Blackrock (p. 1996). See also the previous note.
17.183: Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier
The Latin word aquarius means water-carrier (see note at 15.3466–67). In Deuteronomy 29:11 (King James), ‘the drawer of thy water’ refers to the lowest rank of society.
17.185–86: constancy to its nature in seeking its own level
After the proverbial saying ‘water always seeks its own level’: first attributed to George Clinton (first governor of New York, 1739–1812) in 1778: ‘Money it is said and justly is like water always seeking a Level’ (Public Papers, vol. 3, p. 725).
17.186: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator’s projection
Gerardus Mercator (1512–94): Flemish geographer, mathematician, and cartographer, who developed a map projection system (1568) still widely in use today (EB11), despite its inaccuracies. For the preponderance of water on the earth’s surface, see note at 17.193.
17.186–88: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench . . . 8000 fathoms
1 fathom = 6 feet or 1.8288 metres. The depth of the Sunda Trench, south of Java, was sounded in 1906 and found to be 3,828 fathoms. The deepest part of the ocean is, however, the Marianas Trench, near Guam, which was measured in 1899 as being 5,629 fathoms deep (EB11, s.v. ocean and oceanography). Contemporary measurements place the depth of the Sunda Trench as 4,073 fathoms and the Marianas Trench as 6,033 fathoms. Joyce clearly wrote ‘Sundam’ (Rosenbach blue f. 4), an unusual spelling.
17.188: the restlessness of its waves and surface particles
‘A wave consists of a series of particles all in different phases of vibration’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 354).
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17.190: hydrostatic . . . hydrokinetic
Hydrostatic refers to the equilibrium of liquids, and hydrokinetic refers to their motion (both OED).
17.191: neap and spring tides
Neap tide occurs just after the first and third quarters of the moon, at which time the high tides are at their lowest. Spring tide, its opposite, occurs on the days just after the new and the full moon, when the high-water level attains its peak (OED).
17.191–92: its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps
‘The icy covers of the Earth’s polar regions and high mountains have classically been seen as sterile, harsh environments with excessively low temperatures, large pH variations, and dangerous levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation, too poor in liquid water to sustain life. However, not only the lakes, but also the ice and snow covering these lakes, harbor rich, diverse, complex microbial communities’ (Birgit Sattler and Michael Storrie-Lombardi, ‘L.I.F.E. in Antarctic Lakes’, p. 97).
17.193: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe
Approximately correct: the earth is ‘29% of land and 71% of water, or a ratio of 1:2.43’ (EB11, s.v. ocean and oceanography).
17.193–95: its indisputable hegemony . . . tropic of Capricorn
The Tropic of Capricorn (the southernmost point at which the sun can be directly overhead) lies at a latitude of 23° 26´ south of the equator (OED, s.v. tropic). The only landmasses below this line are the southern third of South America, the southern end of Africa, the southern half of Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and Antarctica.
17.194: leagues
League: ‘An itinerary measure of distance, varying in different countries, but usually estimated roughly at about 3 miles [4.82 km]; apparently never in regular use in England, but often occurring in poetical or rhetorical statements of distance. Marine league n. a unit of distance = 3 nautical miles or 3,041 fathoms [5.56 km]’ (OED).
17.195–96: multisecular stability of its primeval basin
Multisecular: ‘that has existed for many ages’ (OED, s.v. multi-). The oceans’ basins are not stable at all; indeed, ‘most earthquakes are due, directly or indirectly, to the explosive action of steam, formed chiefly by the leakage of sea-water through the ocean floor’ (EB11, s.v. earthquake).
17.196: its luteofulvous bed
Luteofulvous: ‘of a tawny yellow colour’ (OED, s.v. luteo-). This probably refers to diatom ooze; ‘the characteristic deposit in high latitudes in the Indian Ocean [. . .] is usually yellowish-grey and often straw-coloured when wet, though when dried it becomes white and mealy’ (EB11, s.v. ocean and oceanography).
17.196–98: capacity to dissolve . . . millions of tons of the most precious metals
‘Silver and gold also exist in solution in sea-water. Malaguti and Durocher estimate the silver in sea-water as 1 part in 100,000,000 or 1 grain in 1,430 gallons. If this estimate is correct there exists dissolved in the ocean a quantity of silver equal to 13,300 million metric tons, that is to say 46,700 times as much silver as has been produced from all the mines
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1153 in the world from the discovery of America down to 1902’ (EB11, s.v. ocean and oceanography).
17.196–97: hold in solution all soluble substances
‘A solid insoluble in one liquid may be soluble in another’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text- Book of Physics, p. 144; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 646).
17.199: formation of homothetic islands
Homothetic: ‘similar and similarly placed’ (OED). ‘The Pacific and Indian Oceans are studded with islands in a state of formation, which owe their origins to the polypi and corallines’ (Louis Figuier, The Ocean World, p. 22).
17.200: alluvial deposits
Alluvial deposits: ‘earth, sand, and other transported matter left by water flowing over land not permanently submerged’ (OED).
17.200: its weight and volume and density
‘Pure water, being so easily procured in any quantity, is used largely as a standard of reference in metrology and in the quantitative definition of physical properties. Thus a “gallon” [3.79 l] is defined as the volume at 62°F. [16.7°C] of a quantity of water whose uncorrected mass, as determined by weighing in air of 30-in. pressure and 62°F. of temperature, is equal to 10 lb avoirdupois [4.54 kg]. The kilogramme in like manner is defined as the mass of 1 cubic decimetre of water, measured at the temperature corresponding to its maximum density (4°C.)’ (EB11, s.v. water).
17.201: tarns
Tarn: a small mountain lake (OED).
17.201–02: its gradation of colours . . . and frigid zones
‘The colour of the sea is continually varying. According to the testimony of the majority of observers, the ocean seen by reflection, presents a fine azure blue or ultramarine (caeruleum mare). [. . .] Near the shore it becomes more green or glaucus, and more or less brilliant, according to circumstances [. . .] According to Scoresby, the Polar Seas are brilliant ultramarine blue. Castaz says of the Mediterranean, that it is celestial blue, and Tuckey describes the equinoctial Atlantic as being of a vivid blue’ (Figuier, The Ocean World, p. 13).
17.202: vehicular ramifications
Vehicular: ‘Of the nature of, serving as, a vehicle’. Ramification: ‘A subdivision or single part of a complex structure analogous to the branches of a tree, esp. of veins, arteries, and other parts in animals and plants, and of rivers’ (both OED). In other words, waterways help vehicles move.
17.205: Artesian wells
‘Artesian wells are wells of small diameter bored into the earth till a water-soaked layer of soil is reached, situated between layers impervious to water’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text- Book of Physics, p. 58; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 643).
17.206: freshets
Freshet: ‘A small stream of fresh water’; ‘A flood or overflowing of a river caused by heavy rains or melted snow’ (OED).
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1154 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.206: spates
Spate: ‘A flood or inundation; esp. a sudden flood or rising in a river or stream caused by heavy rains or melting snow’ (OED).
17.206: groundswells
Groundswell: ‘A deep swell or heavy rolling of the sea, the result of a distant storm or seismic disturbance’ (OED).
17.206–07: watersheds, waterpartings
Watershed: ‘The line separating the waters flowing into different rivers or river basins; a narrow elevated tract of ground between two drainage areas; a water-parting’ (OED, s.v. watershed).
17.208: its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve
That is, water engulfs the whole of the earth’s globe. A curve is ahorizontal, that is, not flat.
17.209–10: revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments
Rhabdomancy: ‘the art of discovering ores, springs of water, etc., in the earth by means of a divining rod’. Hygrometric: ‘measuring, or relating to, the degree of humidity of the atmosphere or other bodies’ (both OED).
17.210–11: hole in the wall at Ashtown gate
For the Hole in the Wall pub and its water pump, see note at 5.296–97. One of three turnstile entrances to Phoenix Park is part of the pub’s premises. However, the Hole in the Wall entrance is not the Ashtown Gate, which is about 1 km distant and is the most northerly entrance to the park.
17.211–12: simplicity of its composition . . . oxygen
‘It appears that 1 volume of oxygen unites with just 2 volumes of hydrogen to form water’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 166; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 649).
17.212–13: its healing virtues
‘Many waters are valuable medicinal agents owing to their contained gases and salts’ (EB11, s.v. water).
17.213: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea See note at 4.219–20.
17.214: runnels
Runnel: ‘A small stream of water; a rill, a rivulet; a trickle’ (OED).
17.218: bights
Bight: ‘a bend in a river’ (OED).
17.218: guts
Gut: ‘A channel or run of water, a branch of a stream; a sound, strait’ (OED).
17.219: minches
Minch: the channel between the Outer Hebrides and the north-west coast of Scotland (EB11, s.v. the Hebrides); perhaps used more generically here to mean any channel.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1155
17.220: arms of sea
Arm of the sea: ‘A stretch of water, esp. a long or narrow one, which projects or extends from the main body of the sea’ (OED, s.v. arm).
17.221: millwheels
Waterwheel: ‘A wheel driven by water and used to power machinery, esp. that of a mill or pump’ (OED).
17.221: turbines
‘The remarkable installation of electric power at Niagara Falls, not yet completed, has furnished new data respecting the possible efficiency of this mode of transmitting power. Enormous alternating generators, weighing 80 tons [81,284 kg] each, and revolving 250 times per minute, are driven by turbine water wheels, the fall of water being 140 ft. [42.7 m]. Each generator yields a current of 5,000 H.P. [3,677 kW], and its commercial efficiency is estimated to be 97%’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 343; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 652).
17.221: dynamos See note at 10.821.
17.222: scutchmills
Scutch-mill: ‘a mill for preparing flax’ (OED, s.v. scutch).
17.223: graving docks
Graving dock (also, dry dock): ‘a narrow basin into which a single vessel is received, and from which the water is then pumped or let out, leaving the vessel dry for the purpose of repair. (Sometimes also used for building ships)’ (OED, s.v. dock).
17.224: harnessed tides
‘Tide mills were in use in Spain in mediaeval times, and in Russia in the 18th century. In the 19th century tide mills were at work in Italy, where tidal power was used to pump sewage [. . .] Coastal regions are the most accessible portions of the ocean and hence they are potentially valuable sites for man to harness tidal energy’ (M. P. M. Reddy, Descriptive Physical Oceanography, p. 400).
17.224: watercourses falling level to level
‘[You] can get no work out of water unless it is falling from a higher level to a lower’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 250; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, pp. 650–51).
17.224–25: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe) Anacoustic: unable to hear. Photophobe: repelled by light.
17.226–27: constituting 90% of the human body
Slight exaggeration. ‘When a cook stirs up fat or jelly in hot water, she makes a colloid solution. Speaking broadly, the human body is such an affair. That is, it is about seventy-five per cent. water, the rest jelly and bones. The nerves and brain cells are eighty or eight-five per cent. water’ (The Fortnightly Review, June 1902, vol. 71, no. 426, pp. 1020–21).
17.227: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes
Lacustrine: ‘Of or pertaining to a lake or lakes. Said esp. of plants and animals inhabiting lakes, and Geology of strata, etc., which originated by deposition at the bottom of lakes’ (OED). ‘Chemically [a marsh] is productive of such gases as arise from decomposing
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1156 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses vegetation and are transitory in their effects, and in the production of hydrated iron oxide, which may be seen floating as an iridescent scum at the edge of rusty, marshy pools’ (EB11, s.v. marsh).
17.227: fens
Fen: ‘Low land covered wholly or partially with shallow water, or subject to frequent inundations; a tract of such land, a marsh’ (OED).
17.228: flowerwater See note at 4.316.
17.228: stagnant pools in the waning moon
The waning moon carries a number of negative associations, such as decay and decline in health, fortune (Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. moon affects birth/health/death, etc.).
17.231–32: partially consumed tablet of Barrington’s lemonflavoured soap
John Barrington & Sons (Ltd.): merchants and manufacturers, 201–202 Great Britain (now Parnell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1802). Bloom bought the soap in ‘Lotus Eaters’ (5.512–13). Presumably, it is partially consumed because he used it in the bath he took in-between ‘Lotus Eaters’ and ‘Hades’.
17.233–34: neverchanging everchanging water
Water is never-changing because, on a chemical level, it is simply two atoms of hydrogen bonded to one of oxygen. See note at 8.94 for the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus’s maxim that water is ever-changing because it is ever-flowing. The phrase ‘everchanging . . . neverchanging’ recurs at 17.2309–10.
17.235: holland cloth
Holland cloth: a cloth first made in Holland and originally a plain linen fabric of unbleached flax. It is used for cleaning fabrics, such as aprons, blinds, and clothes.
17.238–39: his last bath having taken place . . . the preceding year
On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘SD big job keep body clean’ (Notesheet Oxen 5.76). See also 1.475.
17.240: aquacities
According to Stanislaus Joyce, Joyce’s college friend Daniel Sheehan coined the word aquacity (Complete Dublin Diary, p. 23). However, the word did exist before Sheehan’s invention as an adjectival form of water, with intermittent examples from 1638 up to a racing report in the Irish Independent for 27 February 1908: ‘A dismal drippy day at Warwick, the “ambient aquacity” being relieved by the successes of Irish jumpers’ (p. 3, col. a; John Simpson, JJON). The OED has a listing for a similar word-form, aquosity.
17.244: epigastric
The epigastrium is the part of the abdomen immediately over the stomach (OED).
17.246: thenar
Thenar: the sole of the foot (OED).
17.250: salt ling
Ling: a cod-like fish indigenous to the seas off northern Europe, usually served salted and/ or dried (OED).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1157
17.251–52: absence of the former in the lastnamed . . . the latter in the firstnamed
That is, butter (the ‘lastnamed’) has no protein, whereas bacon (the ‘firstnamed’) is highly calorific. Therefore, the fish—in this case, ling—represents the best nutritional balance between calories and protein. Eugen Sandow’s book Strength and How to Obtain It includes a table that copies information from an American study on the relative amounts of protein and energy in various foods. The information is presented as a function of price and, as it is an American study, the prices are given in cents. Sandow notes that this information should still be useful for his English audience as a guide. For example, 12 cents worth of bacon has 9 grams of protein and 7,295 kilocalories; 7 cents worth of salt cod has 259 grams of protein and 1,105 kilocalories; 30 cents of butter has 0 grams of protein and 3,080 kilocalories (p. 35). On one of his notesheets, Joyce copied this information and translated the American cents to British pence (Notesheet Ithaca 12.49–51).
17.257: ebullition
Ebullition: boiling (OED). ‘Vaporization takes place in two ways: evaporation [. . .] and boiling or ebullition’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 109; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 645).
17.257: Fanned by a constant updraught . . . chimneyflue
‘The chief causes of smoky chimneys are: [. . .] Too large a flue [. . .] Insufficient ventilation [. . .] If two flues are in adjoining rooms [. . .] it is likely to cause a down-draft’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 126; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 645).
17.260: bituminous coal
Bituminous coal—softer and with a lower carbon content than anthracite coal—was widely used as an industrial fuel, and sometimes, as here, a domestic fuel (EB11, s.vv. coal; anthracite).
17.260: compressed mineral form
‘Coal consists mainly of the mineralized remains of plants which were deposited as peat in former geological periods, esp. the Carboniferous and Permian’ (OED).
17.261: foliated fossilised decidua
Foliated: furnished with leaves (OED). Decidua: means ‘falling down’ in Latin and, relatedly, ‘deciduous’ in Italian. Thus coal (see previous note) comes from fossilised leaves that have fallen down. In English, decidua means ‘The altered endometrium that lines the uterus during pregnancy, [which] forms the maternal part of the placenta, and is shed at parturition’ (OED); but, clearly, that sense is not relevant here.
17.262: heat (radiant)
Radiant heat ‘is not properly heat at all, but the energy of vibration of the intervening ether, being identical, within a certain range of wave-length, with light’ (OED, s.v. heating). ‘When radiant heat falls on a body part of it is reflected from the surface, another part is absorbed by the body, and the remainder is transmitted through the body’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 133; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 646).
17.263: omnipresent luminiferous diathermanous ether
Luminiferous: light-conducting. Diathermanous: able to freely transmit radiant heat (both OED). Until Einstein’s theory of relativity effectively proved otherwise, scientists posited that space was filled with invisible and weightless ether, which was believed ne ces sary to conduct light, heat, and other forms of radiation. Writing in 1910, E. T. Whittaker, the professor of Astronomy at Trinity College and the Astronomer Royal
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1158 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses of Ireland, stated that ‘[t]he aether is the solitary tenant of the universe, save for the infinitesimal fraction of space which is occupied by ordinary matter’ (A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, p. 1). Throughout the book, Whittaker uses the term luminiferous medium.
17.263–64: Heat (convected)
‘The transference of heat by the motion of heated matter carrying the heat along with it is called convection’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 125; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 645).
17.270–71: 72 thermal units . . . 50° to 212° Fahrenheit
Incorrect. 1 British Thermal Unit (BTU) is the amount of heat needed to raise 1 pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit (EB11, s.v. heat). Therefore, 162 BTUs are needed to raise 1 pound of water from 50°F to 212°F. 50°F = 10°C; 212°F = 100°C, the boiling point of water at sea level. 1 BTU = 1,055 joules.
17.273: falciform
Falciform: sickle-shaped (OED).
17.287: humected
Humected: moistened (OED).
17.287: which was to be done
‘Which was to be done’ is a literal translation of the Latin phrase quod erat faciendum. In translations of Euclid’s Elements, it is common practice to conclude the problems with QEF to signify ‘Thus we have done the operation required’ (Brewer’s, s.v. QEF).
17.294: the end justified the means
The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs traces this proverbial expression back to the Medulla Theologiae Moralis of the German Jesuit writer Hermann Busenbaum (1600–68): Cum finis est licitus, etiam media sunt licita (When the end is legitimate, the means are also legitimate).
17.295: heliotherapy, psychophysicotherapeutics, osteopathic surgery
Heliotherapy: ‘the treatment of disease by exposure to the sun’s rays’ (OED). Osteopathy: ‘A system of complementary medicine that emphasizes the role of malalignments or imbalances of the musculoskeletal system in the causation of disease, and uses manipulation as a primary method of treatment’ (OED). Psychophysicotherapeutics: Joyce’s neologism, curing the body by treating the mind.
17.299–300: moustachecup, uninverted, and saucer of Crown Derby See note at 4.283–84.
17.301: shammy
Shammy: Anglicised spelling of chamois, ‘a kind of soft, pliable leather’ (OED).
17.302: comfits
See note at 8.3–4.
17.304: empty pot of Plumtree’s potted meat See note at 5.144–47.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1159
17.305: Jersey pear
Its full name is a Louise Bonne de Jersey pear: ‘a pear to be picked towards the end of September, but not until it has what Brooke calls “a painted, varnished look; the red must be shining red, and the greener portion must be turning yellow” ’ (Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 609).
17.306: William Gilbey and Co’s white invalid port
W. & A. Gilbey, ltd.: ‘wine growers and spirit merchants, distiller and importers’, main offices at 46–47 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street and branch offices throughout Dublin and in London and Edinburgh (Thom’s, p. 1880). In ‘Wandering Rocks’, Boylan claimed that the bottle of port was ‘for an invalid’ (10.322). Gilbey, ‘one of the leading wine and spirit merchants in Britain, stated in its 1897 company report that inserting the word “invalid” onto the labelling of various ports, wines and champagnes had greatly increased sales of these products. Gilbey had used this marketing strategy for a number of years; for example, their 1885 price list included a large section on “special wines for the use of invalids” ’ (Thora Hands, Drinking in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, pp. 122–24).
17.307: Epps’s soluble cocoa See note at 16.1621.
17.308: Anne Lynch’s choice tea
Anne Lynch & Co.: tea merchants with offices at 69 George’s Street South, 1 Talbot Street, 162 King Street North, 59 Grafton Street, and 6 Westland Row (Thom’s, p. 1934).
17.309–10: two onions, one, the larger, Spanish . . . the other, smaller, Irish
‘Spanish onions are a large category of generally mild globe onions’ (Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 573). While several varieties of onion are grown in Ireland, there is no category, as such, of Irish onions.
17.311: Irish Model Dairy’s cream
‘Model Farm, Department For Agriculture and Technical Instruction Ireland, Glasnevin’ (Thom’s, p. 1958).
17.312: naggin
See note at 4.224.
17.313: acidulous
Acidulous: slightly sour (OED).
17.314–15: quantity subtracted for Mr Bloom’s and Mrs Fleming’s breakfasts
Joyce clearly wrote ‘Mr Bloom’s’ (Rosenbach blue f. 5). David Hayman suggests that Joyce made a mistake and that this should be Mrs Bloom, since elsewhere in ‘Ithaca’ it is stated that the cream is ‘ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife Marion (Molly)’ (17.365) (‘Balancing the Book’, p. 71). See note at 6.17 for Mrs Fleming.
17.317: a battery of jamjars
Battery: ‘a collection of similar pieces of apparatus grouped together as a set’ (OED).
17.318: proveniences
Provenience: origin or derivation; a chiefly North American spelling of provenance (OED).
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1160 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.329: Bernard Kiernan’s licensed premises . . . street See note at 11.910.
17.330: David Byrne’s . . . 14 Duke street
The address is 21 Duke Street, not 14 (Thom’s, p. 1480); see note at 8.697.
17.331: Graham Lemon’s See note at 8.6.
17.332–33: Elijah, restorer of the church in Zion See note at 8.13–14.
17.333–34: F. W. Sweny and Co (Limited) See note at 5.463.
17.338–39: Turkish and Warm Baths, 11 Leinster street See note at 5.549–50.
17.339–41: the light of inspiration . . . the language of prediction See note at 7.867–69.
17.345-47: counterestimating against an actual loss . . . successful interpretation
That is, had Bloom bet on Throwaway (‘a successful interpretation’), he might have thought himself talented at betting, even though he knows nothing about horse racing. This hypothetical beginner’s luck would have been followed by many defeats (‘total sum of possible losses proceeding originally’ from this first success). Therefore, however successful one may be when beginning something, it is difficult to counter-estimate against the future losses that will accrue.
17.351–53: What satisfied him? . . . Light to the gentiles
This implies that Bloom finally understands the Throwaway business (see notes at 12.1219 and 12.1550–51). It seems that the satisfaction here ascribed to Bloom (‘To have brought a positive gain to others. Light to the gentiles’) comes from the realisation that his remark to Lyons in ‘Lotus Eaters’—‘I was just going to throw it away’ (5.531, 5.534)—was misinterpreted as a tip to bet on Throwaway (which Lyons ultimately did not do). In ‘Eumaeus’, Bloom had read the result of the Gold Cup in the Evening Telegraph (see note at 16.1242–44). In theory, then, he has all the information needed to arrive at this conclusion—although, admittedly, the idea that he will have done so is improbable.
17.353: Light to the gentiles
From Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah: ‘I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth’ (Isaiah 49:6 in the King James). See also note at 12.1489.
17.361: his symposiarchal right
Symposiarchal: that which pertains to a symposiarch, the ‘leader of a convivial gathering’ (OED).
17.361–62: moustache cup of imitation Crown Derby See note at 4.283–84.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1161
17.369: jocoserious
Jocoserious: ‘Half jocular, half serious; partly in jest and partly in earnest; blending jokes and serious matters’ (OED).
17.369–70: Epps’s massproduct, the creature cocoa
See note at 16.1621 for Epp’s cocoa. Creature: ‘A material comfort; something which promotes well-being, esp. food’ (OED). The word creature is used in this sense during the Holy Communion in the Anglican Mass: ‘Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech Thee; and grant us that we receiving these Thy creatures of bread and wine, according to Thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of His death and passion, may be partakers of His most blessed Body and Blood’ (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 266). Thus, one creature, the bread and wine, is a Mass product, while the other creature, the cocoa, is a mass- produced product. Joyce wrote on a notesheet: ‘SD cocoa “creatura” ’ (Notesheet Ithaca 11.94).
17.379–80: concave surface of a spoon . . . flow of heat was conducted
‘A silver spoon and an iron spoon are dipped into the same vessel of hot water. The silver spoon becomes hot much quicker than the iron spoon’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 129; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 646).
17.395: Shamrock, a weekly newspaper
The Shamrock: A National Weekly Journal of Irish History, Literature, Science, Arts &c., published from 1866 to 1922 (Tom Clyde, Irish Literary Magazines, p. 131); its offices were at 32 Lower Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1408). The magazine ran a column on each issue’s last page called ‘A Conversazione’ where the editors would reply to readers’ letters, but without printing the original letters. While they did not run competitions for poetry, they would print reader-submitted poems in this column, but, more frequently, they would simply acknowledge the submission without printing the poem and with a harsh judgement; for example, ‘ “Douglas”.—The verses are crude of thought, and uneven in measure. You seem to possess one valuable element of poetic composition—pathos’ (24 July 1875, vol. 1, no. 458, p. 696).
17.410: kinetic poet
In A Portrait, Stephen proclaimed, ‘The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. The arts which excite them, pornographical or didactic, are therefore improper arts. [. . .] Beauty expressed by the artist cannot awaken in us an emotion which is kinetic or a sensation which is purely physical. It awakens, or ought to awaken, or induces, or ought to induce, an esthetic stasis, an ideal pity or an ideal terror, a stasis called forth, prolonged and at last dissolved by what I call the rhythm of beauty’ (p. 205). Bloom’s poetry is ‘kinetic’—and thus ‘improper’ according to Stephen—because it seeks to induce motion and desire instead of ‘an esthetic stasis’.
17.413: music sweet
Echoes the first two lines of the first poem in Chamber Music (see note at 11.979): ‘Strings in the earth and air / Make music sweet’ (PSW, p. 13).
17.417–18: R. G. Johnston
R. G. Johnston is credited as the composer, arranger, and selector of the music to Sindbad the Sailor (Freeman’s Journal, 26 Dec. 1892, p. 4, col. a); see also notes at
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1162 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses 17.422–23 and 17.424–27. From the Freeman’s Journal review of the pantomime: ‘It should be mentioned that the music arranged by Mr. Johnson [sic] is uncommonly good. The overture, for instance, is most excellent and will well bear reproduction’ (27 Dec. 1892, p. 6, col. d).
17.419: If Brian Boru could but come back and see old Dublin now See note at 12.177.
17.420–21: Michael Gunn, lessee of the Gaiety Theatre . . . street See note at 6.188 for the Gaiety and note at 11.1050 for Gunn.
17.422–23: annual Christmas pantomime Sinbad the Sailor
The Christmas pantomime Sindbad the Sailor opened in Dublin at the Gaiety on 26 December 1892. The second edition, featuring new songs, was first performed on 30 January 1893 (Freeman’s Journal, 31 Jan. 1893, p. 7, col. a). According to an advertisement in the 26 December 1892 Freeman’s Journal, the sixth scene is set in ‘Diamond Valley’ (p. 4, col. a). Sindbad is a variant spelling of Sinbad.
17.424–27: written by Greenleaf Whittier . . . Bouverist
Further details from the advertisement for Sindbad the Sailor in the 26 December 1892 Freeman’s Journal (p. 4, col. a), but with some discrepancies. The Freeman’s Journal lists the name of the pantomime’s author as ‘Greenleaf Withers, Esq’. Joyce clearly wrote ‘Whittier’ (JJA, vol. 21, p. 40), presumably out of confusion with the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92). Withers was a renowned pantomime author; in later years, he modified his pseudonym to ‘Greenleaf Withers Brown’ (Irish Times, 1 June 1906, p. 7, col. d): ‘One of the many attractions of Dublin used to be the pantomimes written in couplets by Greenleaf Withers Brown’ (Ramsay Colles, In Castle and Court House, p. 260). The name ‘Nellie Bouverist’ combines the names of two of the performers: Kate Neverist and Nellie Bouverie. ‘R. Shelton’ is listed in the advert as ‘B. Shelton’. The other names are as in the advert (SS, pp. 78–79). There was no production of Sindbad in 1897 (see following note). Also featured in the pantomime was Edward Royce in the role of Captain William McTurco (see notes at 1.257 and 1.260–62).
17.429–30: anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria . . . fish market
Thom’s Dublin Annals lists 22 June 1897 as the official date for commemoration of Victoria’s diamond (60th) jubilee (p. 2105). The previous entry, for 11 May, notes the opening of the Dublin Fish Market (see note at 12.87). Thus, Bloom’s composition would have been attempted between these two dates (the 11 May opening being ‘posticipated’ and the 22 June jubilee being ‘anticipated’). Victoria was born in 1819, not 1820 (EB11).
17.432: respective visits of Their Royal Highnesses, the duke and duchess of York
On 18 August 1897, ‘Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York arrived in Dublin and received an enthusiastic reception. [. . .] Their Royal Highnesses left Dublin on the 29th, and after making a tour through Ireland took their departure for Scotland, from Belfast, on 8th September’ (Thom’s, p. 2105). At the time, the Duke and Duchess of York were the future George V and his wife Victoria Mary.
17.433: His Majesty King Brian Boru See note at 12.177.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1163
17.434: professional emulation
Emulation: ‘Ambitious rivalry for power or honours; contention or ill-will between rivals’ (OED). That is, if he wrote topical verses on happenings in Dublin at the time, Bloom would have had to mention the ‘recent erections’ of the Grand Lyric Hall and the Theatre Royal. But, since his song was to be performed at the Gaiety Theatre, Bloom could not decide whether he should be respectful to these other two t heatres (etiquette) or be rudely dismissive (emulation).
17.435: Grand Lyric Hall on Burgh Quay
On 26 November 1897, ‘The Grand Lyric Hall on Burgh-quay, formerly the Conciliation Hall, opened’ (Thom’s, p. 2105).
17.435–36: Theatre Royal in Hawkins street See note at 11.623–24.
17.442: Everybody’s Book of Jokes
Several books with this title exist, such as Everybody’s Book of Jokes, Retorts, Bulls, Jests, Rhymes, Conundrums, Anecdotes, Puns, and Children’s Sayings: Over 3000 Selections, Old and New (London: Saxon & Co., 1890).
17.444: new lord mayor, Daniel Tallon
Daniel Tallon (see note at 4.128) elected Lord Mayor on 1 December 1897, took office on 1 January 1898 (DIB).
17.444–45: new high sheriff, Thomas Pile
Thomas Devereux Pile (1856–1931) took office as high sheriff on 1 January 1898. He was knighted and elected Lord Mayor in 1900 and served until 1901 (Thom’s, p. 431).
17.445: new solicitorgeneral, Dunbar Plunket Barton
Sir Dunbar Plunket Barton (see note at 9.519–20) was sworn in as Solicitor General for Ireland on 1 January 1898 (Thom’s, p. 2105).
17.447–48: in 1888 . . . Stephen was 6
Stephen, like Joyce, was born in 1882, although the exact date is not specified in either Ulysses or A Portrait.
17.450: ratio of 16 to 0
In ordinary arithmetic, it is impossible to divide by zero: ‘if you really could divide by zero, then all numbers would be the same. [. . .] They aren’t equal, so you can’t legitimately divide by 0. a/0 doesn’t mean anything’ (Robert Kaplan, The Nothing that Is, pp. 73–74).
17.456: maximum postdiluvian age of 70
According to the Old Testament, pre-Deluge lifespans were often hundreds of years. However, after the Flood, lifespans started to diminish. Seventy is not put forward as an absolute maximum, but the book of Psalms does state that ‘three score and ten years’ (89:10) is the length of a lifetime; see note at 14.859.
17.456–57: Bloom, being 1190 years alive having been born in the year 714
Mathematical error: if Bloom were 1190 in the year 1952, he would have been born in 762, not 714. Evidently, Joyce accidentally substituted the current year of 1904 for the projected year, 1952 (SS, p. 183).
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1164 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.457–58: maximum antediluvian age, that of Methusalah, 969 years
See note at 12.1581. Joyce’s spelling ‘Methusalah’ combines the Douay Bible’s ‘Mathusala’ with the King James Bible’s ‘Methusaleh’.
17.459–61: until he would attain that age in the year 3072 . . . 81,396 B.C.
Two mathematical errors: if Stephen were 1,190 years old in the year 3072 and the ratio of 17:1 (‘the proportion existing in 1883’) were to remain in effect, then Bloom would be 20,230 years old and thus born in 17158 bc. Joyce appears to have accidentally substituted 70 for 17 to come up with the figure 83,300. Furthermore, he subtracted 83,300 from 1904 to yield 81396 bc when he should have subtracted it from 3072, for that is the projected year when Stephen would be 1190 (SS, p. 183).
17.467–68: in the lilacgarden of Mathew Dillon’s house . . . Roundtown
See note at 6.697 for Dillon. Dillon’s supposed address, Medina Villa, Kimmage Road, does not appear in Thom’s Terenure/Roundtown listings until 1899. In 1904, it was occupied by A. McDermott (Thom’s, p. 1792).
17.470: Breslin’s hotel
Breslin’s Royal Marine Hotel, Strand, Bray, owned and operated by Edward Breslin (Thom’s 1892, pp. 1545, 1832). Breslin died on 7 June 1897 (Liam Clare, Victorian Bray, p. 28), and the hotel was soon thereafter renovated and renamed the Marine Station Hotel by its new owners, the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway (Thom’s 1901, p. 1573). The Joyce family lived in Bray, at 1 Martello Terrace, from 1887 to 1891 (Igoe, James Joyce’s Dublin Houses, pp. 19–21). The hotel is 650 metres down the road from the Joyces’ former residence. In A Portrait, the Dedalus family lived at an unspecified address in Bray when Stephen was young (p. 70).
17.479: Mrs Riordan (Dante)
For Mrs Riordan, see note at 6.378. The first chapter of A Portrait recounts the Christmas dinner following the death of Parnell on 6 October 1891 at the Dedalus household in Bray in which Dante defended the Catholic priests who condemned Parnell (pp. 27–39). Evidently, she left the Dedalus household shortly thereafter, hence her departure, as listed here, on 29 December 1891.
17.481–82: City Arms Hotel . . . 54 Prussia Street
See note at 8.716. The correct address is 55 Prussia Street, not 54. Thom’s lists the incorrect address in the Street Directory and the Trades Directory (pp. 1574, 2069) and the correct address elsewhere (pp. 1831, 1975; JJD, p. 104).
17.484–86: clerk in the employment of Joseph Cuffe . . . North Circular road See note at 6.392 for Joseph Cuffe.
17.487: corporal work of mercy See note at 12.125.
17.491: Mr Gavin Low’s place of business See note at 14.572.
17.492: onelensed binocular fieldglasses
Field glasses are synonymous with opera glasses and are also known as Galilean binoculars. These are the simplest type of binocular and employ a single lens at the front of each ocular.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1165 It produces an upright low-magnification image. These were popular until the mid- nineteenth century when they were superseded by more sophisticated binocular designs that employed prisms and compound lenses (Norman Butler, Building and Using Binoscopes, pp. 65–66).
17.495: landaus
Landau: ‘A four-wheeled carriage, the top of which, being made in two parts, may be closed or thrown open. When open, the rear part is folded back, and the front part entirely removed’; named after the town Landau in Germany, where such a vehicle was first made (OED).
17.495: ponytraps
Trap: ‘A small carriage on springs; usually, a two-wheeled spring carriage, a gig, a spring- cart’ (OED).
17.496: brakes
See note at 2.308.
17.495–96: from the city to the Phoenix Park
The North Circular Road feeds into the eastern end of Phoenix Park.
17.498–99: rondel of bossed glass
Rondel: ‘A circular object or shape’. Bossed: ‘Made to swell out or project, rounded out’ (both OED).
17.500: velocipedes
Velocipede: a general word for vehicles propelled by the pressure of the feet on pedals, including, but not limited to bicycles and tricycles (OED).
17.504: bezique cards See note at 12.507.
17.505–06: catarrhal deafness
Catarrh: ‘Inflammation of a mucous membrane; usually restricted to that of the nose, throat, and bronchial tubes, causing increased flow of mucus, and often attended with sneezing, cough, and fever’ (OED). ‘The most common form of deafness among adults is the chronic catarrhal type. This is a disease of the middle ear which is characterized by a thickening of the drum membrane and a stiffening of the joints and ligaments between the little bones of the ear. [. . .] The degree of deafness depends upon the extent of the disease and upon the length of time it has been present’ (Charles Borden, ‘Diseases of the Ear, Nose and Throat’, p. 722). The term is not in current use as it covers what are now known to be a variety of different conditions.
17.506: colza oil
Colza oil is extracted from colza, or cole (also called rape) seeds. It can be used as a lamp oil (OED).
17.506–07: statue of the Immaculate Conception
Artistic representations of the Immaculate Conception tend to show Mary surrounded by her attributes (J. G. Clay, The Virgin Mary and the Traditions of Painters, p. 78). For immacu late conception, see note at 9.840.
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1166 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.507–08: her green and maroon brushes . . . Davitt
From A Portrait: ‘Dante had two brushes in her press. The brush with the maroon velvet back was for Michael Davitt and the brush with the green velvet back was for Parnell. Dante gave him a cachou every time he brought her a piece of tissue paper’ (p. 2). See note at 15.4684 for Michael Davitt.
17.513–14: Eugen Sandow’s Physical Strength and How to Obtain It See note at 17.1397.
17.514–15: designed particularly for commercial men . . . sedentary occupations
Sandow did not claim that his exercises were particularly intended for commercial men in sedentary occupations, but, in his autobiographical sketch, he writes that his inspiration for physical development was awakened as a child by seeing statues of Roman athletes. He says that his father explained to him that these ancient athletes ‘knew nothing of the modern luxuries of civilization’ (Eugen Sandow, Strength, p. 89). ‘The recovery of Hellenistic corporeality was regarded as a remedy for deteriorating turn-of-the-century muscles and bodies’ (Vike Martina Plock, Joyce, Medicine, and Modernity, p, 116).
17.515–16: in front of a mirror
‘It is desirable to exercise before a looking-glass. For you can follow the movements of the various muscles; and to see the muscles at work, and to mark their steady development, is itself a help and a pleasure’ (Sandow, Strength, pp. 13–14).
17.517: pleasant rigidity
Rigidity: ‘abnormal resistance to active or passive movement in the body, typically resulting from increased muscle tone in certain neurological disorders’ (OED).
17.520: ringweight
Ring-weight: a weighted object, such as a ball or a kettle-weight, with a handle. ‘In Ring Weight-lifting the principal feat, of course, is to hold these out at arm’s length’ (Arthur Saxon, The Text-Book of Weight-Lifting, p. 64).
17.520–24: full circle gyration . . . abdominal muscles
The full circle gyration is a 360° swivel on the parallel bars. ‘The Half Lever. From the back rest, bend at the waist and raise the legs until they are horizontal, supporting the whole weight at the hands; the position you then reach is called the “half lever” ’ (A. F. Jenkin, Gymnastics, pp. 17–18). ‘The “arm” portion of the exercise is unsurpassable for the development of the triceps, while the raising of the legs to the “half-lever”, as it is called, is equally beneficial to the abdominal and hip muscles, which, as a rule, get far less than their share of work’ (Louis Hoffmann, Home Gymnastics, p. 146).
17.534–38: Bloom, only born male transubstantial heir . . . consubstantial heir
Presumably Bloom is a transubstantial heir because his father, Rudolph, is dead, whereas Stephen is consubstantial because his father still lives. See also note at 1.658 for consubstantial and note at 14.307–08 for transubstantial.
17.535: Szombathély
See note at 15.1868. In this instance, Joyce incorrectly adds an accent to Szombathely, but elsewhere in Ulysses he spells this Hungarian town correctly (Tekla Mecsnóber, ‘Joyce, the Fall, and the Magyar Language’, p. 102).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1167
17.537: Karoly
Károly is a common Hungarian name and is equivalent to Charles in English. Unlike Szombathely, normally Károly takes an accent.
17.537: Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty)
Hegarty is a common Irish surname, primarily associated with Ulster (Edward MacLysaght, The Surnames of Ireland, p. 153); thus only one of Bloom’s grandparents is native Irish.
17.539: Richard and Christina Goulding (born Grier)
Stephen’s maternal grandparents, the parents of his mother Mary, Uncle John, and Uncle Richie. Joyce’s maternal grandparents were John (d. 1894) and Margaret Theresa Murray (née Flynn, d. 1881) (Costello, James Joyce, p. 26).
17.540–41: cleric or layman
The Catholic Church does allow laypeople, even non-Christians, to perform baptisms in cases of necessity; the only requirement is that the ceremony follows the form used by the Church (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. baptism).
17.542: Bloom (three times)
From Donlevy’s Catechism: ‘Q. Is it lawful to receive Baptism twice? A. No, it is not lawful to receive it upon any account more than once; because it imprints a spiritual character in the soul, which shall never be blotted out. Hebrews 6.4, 5, 6; 2 Corinthians 1.22’ (p. 213).
17.542: the reverend Mr Gilmer Johnston
The name Gilmer Johnston might derive from Albert Edward Johnston, who was a curate of St Luke’s Church, the Coombe from 1887 to 1888 (Igoe, p. 157).
17.543: the protestant church of Saint Nicholas Without, Coombe
The parish church of St Nicholas Without (Church of Ireland) was originally a transept (division) within St Patrick’s Cathedral. In 1707, the southern part of the parish was divided to form the new parish of St Luke, for which a new church was built just off the Coombe in 1713–16. In October 1861, the transept gave its final service and the two parishes were reunited, with St Luke’s Church serving both (Bennett, s.v. St Nicholas Without). Therefore, ‘the protestant church of St Nicholas Without, Coombe’ is a technically correct (if unused) designation for St Luke’s Church, the Coombe, in its capacity as the parish church of St Nicholas Without (Thom’s, p. 1462). The church was closed in 1975 and is now called Thomas Burgh House.
17.543–44: James O’Connor, Philip Gilligan and James Fitzpatrick
See note at 8.156–67 for Philip Gilligan; the identities of James O’Connor and James Fitzpatrick are unknown.
17.544–45: pump in the village of Swords
Swords: a village about 13 km north of Dublin. Its name comes from a well (in Irish, sórd) supposedly blessed by St Colum Cille (see note at 12.1699) (Manus O’Donnell, The Life of Colum Cille, p. 60).
17.545–46: the reverend Charles Malone, C.C. . . . Three Patrons, Rathgar
The Church of the Three Patrons: 49 Rathgar Road. In 1904, the reverend Charles Malone was still curate (Thom’s, p. 1756). Bloom’s second ‘official’ baptism is unnecessary since the Catholic Church recognises baptisms performed by other Christian churches (Catholic
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1168 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Encyclopedia, s.v. baptism; see also note at 17.542). Unlike Stephen and Bloom, Joyce was baptised in the Chapel of Ease, Roundtown (now called the Church of St Joseph, Terenure), by the Reverend John O’Mulloy, C.C. (Ellmann, p. 23).
17.550: dame’s school
Dame school: a private elementary school run by a woman, usually an old woman or a widow (OED, s.v. dame). The term covered a wide range of institutions, from dingy basements that catered to working-class children to non-institutionalised preparatory schools for middle- and even upper-class children. The Elementary Education Act 1870 established universal education at the primary school level, thus leading to the slow demise of the dame school (D. P. Leinster-Mackay, ‘Dame Schools: A Need for Review’).
17.550: high school See note at 5.42.
17.551–52: preparatory, junior, middle and senior grades of the intermediate
Following from the Intermediate Examination Act of 1878, school curricula in Ireland were standardised and, starting from the junior grade onwards, progression across the various grades of high school was contingent upon passing a series of competitive national examin ations, known as the ‘intermediates’. Children moved through the grades at different rates, depending upon ability (John Coolahan, Irish Education, pp. 61–65). In A Portrait, Stephen does so well on the intermediates that he wins money (p. 97); likewise, Joyce performed well when he took the exam in 1897 and 1898 (Ellmann, pp. 51, 56). Joyce progressed through these various grades—preparatory, junior, middle, and senior—at Belvedere College (see note at 10.20–21) from 1893 to 1898 (see Bruce Bradley, James Joyce Schooldays, pp. 84–142). ‘Joyce’s record was good, but not conspicuously above the average of a promising student’ (C. P. Curran, James Joyce Remembered, p. 5).
17.553–54: matriculation, first arts, second arts . . . the royal university
As with high school, progression through university, at this time, depended upon passing a series of annual examinations: matriculation, first university (typically called first arts), second university (second arts), and, finally, the BA (or the arts degree). Joyce undertook his coursework at University College Dublin, but the examinations were set by the Royal University (see note at 7.503) (Sullivan, Joyce among the Jesuits, p. 158).
17.566: aeronautic parachute
Although the principles of the parachute were long recognised by such inventors as Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), the first known demonstration was by Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (1757–1837) in 1783, who descended from the tower of the Montpellier observatory (EB11).
17.566: reflecting telescope
The principle of the reflecting telescope was first described by the Scottish mathematician James Gregory (1638–75) in his Optica Promota (1663), but he was unable to build one. Sir Isaac Newton adapted Gregory’s plans and built a working reflecting telescope; he presented his second version to the Royal Society of London in December 1671 (EB11, s.v. telescope).
17.566–67: spiral corkscrew
Corks were first used to stop bottles in the late seventeenth century (EB11, s.v. cork); the earliest recorded use of the word corkscrew in the OED is from 1720.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1169
17.567: safety pin
The safety pin was invented in 1849 by the American Walter Hunt (1796–1859) (EB11, s.v. brooch).
17.567: mineral water siphon
The prototype of the modern mineral siphon, the Regency portable siphon, was patented by Charles Plinth in 1825. Antoine Perpigna improved the design in 1837 (EB11, s.v. siphon).
17.567–68: canal lock with winch and sluice
Modern pound locks, in use in China since the tenth century, have only been used in Europe since the fourteenth century, and their design has been improved over the years (EB11, s.v. canal). Winch: ‘A hoisting or hauling apparatus consisting essentially of a horizontal drum round which a rope passes and a crank by which it is turned’ (OED). For sluice, see note at 6.439.
17.568: suction pump
Suction or displacement pumps have been found among the ruins of Pompeii (Hydrostatics, pp. 17–18).
17.572: catapults
In context, this would be a slingshot—‘An instrument consisting of a forked stick with an elastic band fastened to the two prongs, used to shoot small stones, bullets, peas’ (OED, s.v. catapult)—not the large siege armament.
17.574: orreries
Orrery: a mechanism which represents the movements of the planets by means of clockwork (OED).
17.577–80: Ephraim Marks and Charles A. James . . . 30 Henry street
Ephraim Marks (c.1857–1940) ran a penny (1d.) bazaar at 42 South Great George’s Street (Thom’s, p. 1951). His brother, Michael Marks (1859–1907), founded the British retail chain Marks and Spencer, which grew out of a penny bazaar he ran in Leeds (ODNB; Hyman, p. 144). See note at 16.851 for Charles Augustus James’s Henry Street waxworks.
17.581–82: condensed in triliteral monoideal symbols
Triliteral: consisting of three letters (OED). Monoideal: Joyce’s neologism, having or expressing one solitary idea (the OED lists only Ulysses in its entry).
17.583–84: to arrest involuntary attention
In his book The Theory of Advertising (1904), Walter Dill Scott applies principles from ‘the psych ology of involuntary attention’ to advertising (p. 32). For his notes on business and commerce, Joyce looked at Howard Bridgewater’s Advertising, or the Art of Making Known (1910), which summarised Scott’s findings in a chapter entitled ‘The Psychology of Advertising’. Joyce recorded ‘Absence of counter attractions’ (JJA, vol. 3, p. 605), which comes from Bridgewater’s book: ‘The power of any object to force itself into our attention depends on the absence of counter attractions’ (p. 17; Matthew Hayward, ‘The Bloom of Advertising’, pp. 51–54).
17.586: K. 11. Kino’s 11/- Trousers See note at 8.90–92.
17.587: House of Keys. Alexander J. Keyes
See notes at 7.25 and 7.150 for the two different Houses of Key(e)s.
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1170 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.589: Calculate when it burns out
From the advertisement for Barclay’s boots (see note at 17.591) in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph: ‘Come and get a pair of boots free. We have a candle five feet high in the window of each of our shops. Guess the time they will burn out. You will receive at each shop a pair of our famous Gladiator 10/6 boots free. Ask for guessing paper—it costs you nothing, not even a purchase’ (p. 2, col. b). This guessing game was a popular gimmick used in advert isements for various American stores in the 1890s and 1900s (see for example, Atchison Globe, 22 May 1891, p. 1, cols e–g). Such ads typically implored their prospective customers to guess rather than calculate when the candle would burn out.
17.590: non-compo boots
Compo: ‘A substance or preparation formed by combination or mixture of various ingredients. Applied in various trades to particular mixed substances used in the operations of the trade’ (OED, s.vv. composite; compo). In shoe manufacturing, compo refers to the use of composite materials for waterproofing (John Bedford Leno, The Art of Boot and Shoemaking, p. 93). This term does not appear in Barclay and Cook’s advertisement in the Evening Telegraph.
17.590: 1 candle power See note at 17.110–11.
17.591: Barclay and Cook, 18 Talbot Street
Barclay and Cook’s boot shop: 104 Talbot Street and 5 South Great George’s Street, as per the advertisement in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph (p. 2, col. b). In Thom’s, this is listed as Gordon Barclay, boot dealer, 104 Talbot Street and 16 North Earl Street (p. 1802).
17.592–94: Bacilikil . . . Uwantit
Bacilikil: an Irish-made disinfectant, advertised between 1921 and 1923. Veribest and Uwantit: marketing terms from the turn of the century, applied to a variety of different products (Eamonn Finn and John Simpson, JJON).
17.597: What is home without Plumtree’s Potted Meat? See note at 5.144–47.
17.600: Manufactured by George Plumtree, 23 Merchants’ quay
Plumtree was manufactured in Southport, England, with its address given variously as 184 Portland Street and 13 Railway Street. 23 Merchants’ Quay is the address of its Dublin agent (Thom’s, p. 1543; Matthew Hayward, ‘Plumtree’s Potted Meat’, pp. 62–63). Individual pots stated the English address, rather than the Irish one.
17.601: Councillor Joseph P. Nannetti See note at 7.75.
17.608: showcart See note at 8.132.
17.619: backhands See note at 15.1017.
17.622–32: Queen’s Hotel, Ennis, county Clare . . . 4 Main street, Ennis
The Queen’s Hotel is located at 19 Church (now Abbey) Street in Ennis, County Clare. Joyce derived some of the details of Rudolph Bloom’s suicide from an article in the Irish
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1171 Independent: ‘Isaac Marshall, a Yorkshire man, who recently purchased the Queen’s Hotel, Ennis, was found dead yesterday, hanging from a beam in the coachhouse. Mrs Marshall, a Clare lady said at the inquest that she knew of nothing to trouble deceased. Suicide during temporary insanity was the verdict’ (2 Oct. 1917, p. 3, col. c). Marshall was born in 1872 and had purchased the Queen’s Hotel in January 1916 (Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, pp. 73–74; Harald Beck, JJON). It is unclear how Rudolph would have been able to afford to buy the hotel. In the Zürich notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.a), Joyce wrote the following about the fate of Odysseus’s parents: ‘Antikleia dies of grief (suicide) / Laertes goes to country’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 15; JJA, vol. 12, p. 137), so Rudolph Bloom shares his fate with Odysseus’s mother. And on a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘SD’s story. “Queen’s Hotel” LB coincidence’ (Notesheet Ithaca 14.37).
17.624: monkshood (aconite)
Aconite: poisonous plants of the order Ranunculaccae, especially monkshood or wolf ’s- bane. It is highly toxic, although it has some limited but definite pharmaceutical applications and was used as a local, topical palliative for sciatica and neuralgia. It stimulates then paralyses the neurological system, and it ‘contains considerable quantities of the alkaloid pseudaconitine, which is the most deadly poison known’ (EB11).
17.626: chloroform
Chloroform: ‘a valuable anaesthetic, a colourless liquid, possessing an agreeable smell and a pleasant taste. [. . .] Externally chloroform is an antiseptic, a local anaesthetic if allowed to evaporate, and a rubefacient, causing the vessels of the skin to dilate, if rubbed in’ (EB11).
17.627: medical hall of Francis Dennehy, 17 Church street, Ennis Francis Dennehy is fictional. Church Street is now called Abbey Street.
17.631–32: the general drapery store of James Cullen, 4 Main street, Ennis
James Cullen is unknown. There is no ‘Main Street’ in Ennis, but there is one in Enniskillen (County Fermanagh), another in Enniskerry (County Wicklow), and another in Enniscorthy (County Wexford). The main commercial street in Ennis was called Gaol Street and is now called O’Connell Street.
17.639: second coincidence
The first coincidence is that Bloom and Stephen both have a story to tell about the Queen’s Hotel in Ennis. The second is that both have an interest in writing and story-telling. Twice Bloom has thought of writing a story for Titbits in the manner of Philip Beaufoy (4.518–20 and 16.1227–31).
17.640–41: A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums
The story Stephen told at the close of ‘Aeolus’; see notes at 7.1057 and 7.1057–58.
17.644: My Favourite Hero
Joyce was assigned ‘My Favourite Hero’ as a composition topic during his first two years at Belvedere College and chose to write on Odysseus, of whom he had read in Charles Lamb’s The Adventures of Ulysses (Ellmann, p. 46).
17.644: Procrastination is the Thief of Time
From Edward Young’s (1683–1765) Night Thoughts (1742): ‘Procrastination is the thief of time’ (Night 1, l. 393, p. 13) and now proverbial (ODEP).
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1172 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.650: Philip Beaufoy See note at 4.502–03.
17.650: Doctor Dick
Doctor Dick: the nom de plume of Denis Downing, ‘A well-known sporting journalist of Dublin, who wrote for Sport and Evening Herald, etc., over signature of “Dr. Dick”. He wrote many songs for pantomimes and for the Dublin Press [. . .]. He was a native of Co. Cork, and died in Dublin on June 17, 1909, aged 38’ (D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland, p. 119). The Irish Playgoer and Amusement Record has this to say about the Theatre Royal’s 1899 production of Robinson Crusoe: ‘we don’t know any man but Doctor Dick who would have the audacity to make Robinson Crusoe into an Irishman, let alone a Kerrymen [sic]’ (vol. 7, no. 7, Christmas 1899, p. 6).
17.650: Heblon’s Studies in Blue
Heblon: the pseudonym of Joseph K. O’Connor (1878–1961), a Dublin barrister. His Studies in Blue (1900) contains ‘[s]ketches, true to life, and cleverly told, of the most disreputable side of Dublin slum-life, as seen, chiefly, in the Police Courts. Amusing, but at times ver ging on vulgarity’ (Stephen J. Brown, Ireland in Fiction, p. 237).
17.654–56: summer solstice on the day but three following, videlicet . . . 8.29 p.m. Videlicet: usually abbreviated as viz, ‘That is to say’ (OED). The summer began at 9:00 pm on 21 June (Thom’s, p. 1). Sunrise was at 3:33 am and sunset at 8:29 pm (p. 14). June 21 is the feast day of St Aloysius Gonzaga (see note at 12.1704–05).
17.661: halma
Halma (Greek, ‘leap’): a game similar to checkers (OED).
17.661: spilikins
Spillikins: a game in which sticks are tossed in a pile. The object is then ‘to pull off each by means of a hook without disturbing the rest’; Joyce’s spelling with one l is an attested variant (OED; s.v. spillikin).
17.661: nap
Nap: a card game named after the emperor Napoleon III (OED).
17.662: spoil five
Spoil-five: ‘a round game of cards which is said to be “spoiled” if no player wins three out of a possible five tricks’ (OED; s.v. spoil-).
17.662: bezique
See note at 12.507.
17.662: twentyfive
Twenty-five: ‘A variety of spoil-five, in which the “game” or winning score is twenty- five’ (OED).
17.662: beggar my neighbour See note at 12.1491.
17.663–64: policeaided clothing society
The Police Aided Children’s Clothing Society: 188 Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street. ‘The object of the Society is to provide destitute children with clothes on the
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1173 recommendation of the police, in such a way that the clothes cannot be pawned or otherwise misappropriated by the parents’ (Thom’s, p. 1392).
17.667–68: warm cigar divan
Thom’s lists seven cigar divans (that is, cigar lounges) in Dublin (p. 2055).
17.681: balance of power
Balance of power: ‘a phrase in international law for such a “just equilibrium” between the members of the family of nations as should prevent any one of them from becoming sufficiently strong to enforce its will upon the rest’ (EB11).
17.684–85: copperas, green vitriol and nutgall
Used in making ink. Copperas and green vitriol are the same thing: the ‘proto-sulphate of iron or ferrous sulphate’ (OED, s.v. copperas). Nutgall: ‘An oak gall’ (OED).
17.686: metempsychosis See note at 4.339.
17.686–87: alias (a mendacious person mentioned in sacred scripture)
Molly confuses the word alias with Ananias, a character mentioned in Acts 5:1–11. After selling his land, he donates some of the proceeds to the apostles, but keeps some money for himself. As a result of this deceit, he is smitten and dies.
17.690–92: The false apparent parallelism . . . proved true by experiment
This passage derives from the description of a scale in Wentworth and Hill’s A Text-Book of Physics: ‘The subject of equilibrium is illustrated by the conditions which a good balance must satisfy. (1) A balance should be true; that is, the beam should remain horizontal when equal masses are in the pans [. . .] (2) A balance should be stable [. . .] (3) A balance should be sensitive [. . .] Double Weighing. This is a method of obtaining the true weight of a body by the use of a false balance (balance with unequal arms)’ (p. 48; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 643).
17.706: She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked woman with umbrella
During a 1936 visit to Fredericksburg in Denmark, Joyce was with Nora and the journalist Ole Vinding when it began to rain. ‘Joyce turned reproachfully to his wife, “Why didn’t you bring an umbrella, Nora?” “I hate umbrellas”, she said, as Molly had said before her. Vinding sided with her by saying the umbrella was comical, but Joyce smiled and replied, “I don’t think so. I think the umbrella is a royal instrument. I know a young lord of Cambodia who lives in Paris; because of his high rank his father has the right to carry seven umbrellas, and my noble friend himself walks with six umbrellas, suspended one over the other. Yes, the umbrella is a mark of distinction” ’ (Ellmann, p. 694).
17.711: Moses Maimonides, author of More Nebukim
More Nebukim is the Hebrew title of Moses Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed; see note at 2.158.
17.712: Moses Mendelssohn See note at 12.1804.
17.713–14: there arose none like Moses
After the saying: ‘From Moses [of Egypt] to Moses [Maimonides] there was none like Moses’ (Alan Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend, s.v. Maimonides).
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1174 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.718: pupil of a rabbinical philosopher
In Contra Apionem, Josephus (Roman Jewish historian, ad 37–c.95) claims that Aristotle had been impressed by a Jewish scholar: ‘It is easy to know that not the most worthless of Greeks but those most admired for their wisdom, not only were aware of the Jews, but even admired those of them whom they encountered. For Clearchus, the pupil of Aristotle [. . .] says in the first book of On Sleep that Aristotle his teacher related the following concerning a certain Jewish man, and attributes this account to Aristotle. It is written thus: “[. . .] while we were spending time around Asia, the fellow turned up in the same places and met both us and certain others of the scholastics, testing their wisdom. But as he had been living together with many of those with an education, he was rather imparting somewhat of the things he had”. Aristotle has said this in [the work of] Clearchus, detailing furthermore a great and wonderful steadfastness and self-control of the Jewish man in his lifestyle’ (I.175–82; cited from Bezalel Bar- Kochva, The Image of the Jew in Greek Literature, pp. 44–46). Clearchus did exist, but very few of his writings have survived. The factualness of this passage in Josephus has been widely contested, and the absence of any reference in Aristotle’s extant works to Jews makes his claims highly suspect (pp. 47–49).
17.720: anapocryphal
Anapocryphal: Joyce’s neologism, authentic, unhidden (Greek: an-, not + apokryphos, hidden).
17.720: illustrious sons of the law
‘The Jewish Rabbis observe a very strict method in the instruction of their children, and others, according to age and capacity; at five years old they were filii legis, sons of the law to read it; at thirteen they were called filii praecepti, sons of the precept to understand the law’ (John Spencer, Kaina Kai Palaia, p. 131).
17.720–21: children of a selected or rejected race
Fundamental to Judaism is the concept of being the ‘Chosen People’, that is, that the Jews are ‘elected by God to carry the message of His Law to the world’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia). The idea is based on the covenant between God and Abraham (Genesis 15), which was renewed in the Sinai (Exodus 19:5). Conversely, the Jews could be considered a ‘rejected race’ because of all the persecutions they have suffered.
17.722: Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn See note at 12.1804.
17.722: Baruch Spinoza
See notes at 11.1058 and 12.1804.
17.723: Mendoza (pugilist)
Daniel Mendoza (c.1765–1836): London-born Jew and one of the most innovative and renowned pugilists of his era (Neil R. Davison, ‘Pugilism in Ulysses: Round Two’, pp. 722–28). ‘His popularity encouraged young Jews to gain fistic proficiency, with the result [. . .] that abusive treatment of the Jewish community began to lessen’ (ODNB).
17.723: Ferdinand Lassalle
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–64): German socialist of Jewish ancestry. He first achieved prominence in representing the Countess Hatzfeldt in her ultimately successful divorce. Starting in the early 1860s, he became a vocal and prominent advocate for the working class. He
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1175 published widely on socialism and political philosophy and founded the Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein (General German Workers’ Alliance). He was killed in a duel before achieving any substantial, material success with his movement, but the rise of socialism in Germany at the start of the twentieth century can be traced back to his efforts. George Meredith’s (1828–1909) novel The Tragic Comedians (1880) tells the story of his life (EB11).
17.727: suil, suil, suil arun, suil go siocair agus suil go cuin
Irish, ‘Come, come, come, O love; Quietly come to me, softly move’; from the chorus of the anonymous eighteenth-century Irish ballad ‘Shule Aroon’, which is of an Irish girl singing to her soldier-sweetheart, wishing him to return (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 302).
17.729–30: kifeloch, harimon rakatejch m’baad l’zamatejch (thy . . . pomegranate)
Kifeloch, harimon rakatejch m’baad l’zamatejch (Hebrew): from the Song of Solomon 4:3 (reappears at 6:7); in the Douay: ‘Thy cheeks are as a piece of a pomegranate, besides that which lieth hid within’; and in the King James: ‘thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks’. Joyce originally wrote the correct Hebrew form Kifelach (Rosenbach green f. 6), but this was misread by a typist (JJA, vol. 16, pp. 67–68). The English translation provided here does not follow from any specific translation of the Bible; it is closer to the 1599 Geneva Bible than to the Douay or the King James: ‘thy temples are within thy locks as a piece of a pomegranate’.
17.731: glyphic comparison of the phonic symbols of both languages
That is, a comparison of the written letters in both Hebrew and Irish. Properly, the word graphic designates a written symbol. Glyphic: ‘Carved, sculptured’, from glyph, ‘A sculptured mark or symbol’ (OED, s.vv. glyphic; glyph).
17.734: entituled
After the archaic form of entitle, intitule (OED, s.v. intitule).
17.734: Sweets of Sin See note at 10.606.
17.736–37: Irish characters for gee, eh, dee, em, simple and modified
In Irish, a modified vowel carries an accent (or fada). A modified consonant carries a séimhiú, or dot above the letter; this softens or aspirates the letter (in modern Irish orthography, the séimhiú is represented by an h after the consonant rather than by a dot). There is no Irish word gadm (phonetically eh represents a).
17.738–40: Hebrew characters ghimel, aleph, daleth . . . and 100
Bloom attempts to give the Hebrew letters which correspond to the Irish ones Stephen has just written. Gimel (g) is the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet; aleph (a) the first; daleth (d) the fourth; mem (m) the thirteenth; qoph (or koph, q) the nineteenth. The numerical values Bloom provides are correct: gimel = 3; aleph = 1; daleth = 4; qoph = 100 (in Hebrew, numbers are represented by letters, not by separate characters).
17.741–42: the extinct and the revived
That is, in 1904, Irish and Hebrew were both, to a degree, extinct and also in the process of being revived. Apart from in the west of Ireland, Irish was almost extinct by 1904 (see note at
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1176 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses 1.428–29), although the Gaelic League was very much engaged in its revival (see note at 7.796). As for Hebrew, its use as a daily language declined precipitously after the diaspora of the second century ad. While there had been intermittent attempts at revival over the cen turies, it was only with the emergence of Zionism in the 1880s that a resurgence took hold. Hebrew ‘became a spoken language again; the first daily newspaper appeared in 1886; and in 1913 the Jewish community in Palestine enforced its exclusive use in Palestinian schools [. . .] and in 1948, [Hebrew] became the official language of Israel’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
17.743: accidence
Accidence: the part of grammar that deals with the inflection of words (OED).
17.745: What points of contact existed between these languages
In his 1907 lecture ‘Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages’, Joyce claimed that Irish ‘is eastern in origin and has been identified by many philologists with the ancient language of the Phoenicians’ (OCPW, p. 110). Joyce is referring to Charles Vallancey’s (British antiquarian scholar, 1721–1812) An Analysis of the Antiquity of the Irish Language: ‘On a collation of the Irish with the Celtic, Punic, Phœnician and Hebrew languages, the strongest affinity, (nay a perfect identity in very many words) will appear’ (p. 21). ‘Vallencey’s work initiated a renewed interest in a distinctly Oriental heritage for Ireland from an Anglo-Irish patriot perspective, and rejected English representations of Irish barbarity. Much of the Irish antiquarian work produced in this seventy- year period stemmed from Vallancey’s speculations’ (Joseph Lennon, Irish Orientalism, p. 88). ‘It is noteworthy that [Vallancey] never became fluent in the Irish language or developed lasting methods for Orientalism or Celticism. But the fact that most of his theories were dead wrong did not prevent his work from having impact’ (p. 89).
17.747: diacritic aspirations
Hebrew does not have diacritic aspirations (although these are used in transliterating Hebrew). In Irish, diacritic aspirations used to be indicated by the séimhiú (see note at 17.736–37).
17.747: epenthetic
Epenthetic letters or syllables are those inserted in the middle of a word (OED). In Irish, epenthetic vowels are pronounced but not spelled.
17.747–48: servile letters
Servile: in Semitic grammar, ‘Of a letter: not belonging to the root of the word in which it occurs; serving to express a derivative or flexional element’ (OED). Servile letters also exist in Irish, but not exactly in the same manner. ‘The servile letters in Hebrew are prepositions or conjunctions incorporated with the words to which they are prefixed. [. . .] The servile letters in Irish are in general only the final n of the preposition in or an changed for euphony into a letter of the same organ with the initial letter of the following word’ (Conor McSweeny, Self-Instruction in Irish: Spelling and Pronunciation, p. 14).
17.748–51: both having been taught on the plain of Shinar . . . progenitors of Ireland
The idea that the Jews and the Irish share a common ancestor comes from The History of Ireland by Geoffrey Keating (Irish historian, c.1569–c.1644), which attempts to provide a genealogy that links the Irish ruling house all the way back to Adam through Feinius Farsaidh, the son of Baoth, son of Magog, the grandson of Noah, and thus the ancestor of both the Phoenicians and the proto-Irish Milesians (see note at 12.1308–10): ‘When Feinius Farsaidh became king of Scythia, he determined to become perfectly acquainted with the various languages that had
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1177 sprung up after the confusion of tongues which had taken place long before at the tower of Babel’ (vol. 2, p. 3); ‘The principal reason why Feinius Farsaidh went to the Plain of Seanair, together with his school, was that he might be with the people whose native language was Hebrew, and that it might thus come about that he and his school would acquire a full and perfect knowledge of that language’ (p. 5); ‘it was two hundred and forty-two years after the Deluge that Feinius established the school in the Plain of Seanair’ (p. 9). Shinar (Seanair): the site of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:2). Heber (or Eber) and Heremon: two of the three sons of Mileadh; see note at 12.1125. Throughout his History, Keating ‘is engaging in battle with the ignorant foreigners who have written about Ireland and Irish history [. . .]. The preface to Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Éirinn scrutinises the historical tradition [. . .] and declares the cultural independence of Gaelic society’ (Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, ‘Forged and Fabulous Chronicles’, p. 247).
17.752: homiletic
Homiletic: of the nature of a homily, or sermon (OED). When he added this passage on to a page proof, Joyce wrote the incorrect ‘homilectic’ (JJA, vol. 27, p. 161). Gabler emends to the correct form (UCSE, p. 1512).
17.752: toponomastic
Toponomastic: ‘Of or pertaining to place-names’ (OED).
17.753: culdees
See note at 12.194–95.
17.753: Torah
Torah (Hebrew): ‘doctrine’, ‘law’; the Hebrew name for the first five books of the Old Testament, also known as the Five Books of Moses, and, by extension, all the teachings of Judaism (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
17.754: Talmud (Mischna and Ghemara)
Talmud (Hebrew): ‘teaching’, ‘learning’; the oral law of Judaism, as distinct from the Scriptures. The Talmud is divided into the Mishna (Hebrew), the text of the oral law, and the Gemara (Aramaic), which supplements the Mishna. The Talmud exists in two distinct ive versions: the Palestinian, from ad c.400, and the Babylonian, from a century later (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
17.754: Massor
Massorah (Hebrew): tradition; the transmission of Jewish tradition or the tradition itself. Joyce’s form, ‘Massor’, is the infinitive of the Hebrew verb ‘to transmit’ (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
17.754: Pentateuch
Pentateuch: the first five books of the Old Testament, after the Greek word for five books (OED). This is synonymous with Torah (see note at 17.753), which is the term preferred within Judaism.
17.754–55: Book of the Dun Cow
One of the oldest surviving Irish manuscripts, from ad c.1100 (in Irish, Leabhar na h-Uidhre), based on an older, non-extant book. Its name comes from the tradition that the original manuscript was written on vellum made from the skin of St Kieran’s pet cow at Clonmacnoise (George Brandon Saul, Traditional Irish Literature and Its Backgrounds, p. 48).
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1178 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.755: Book of Ballymote See note at 12.1439–40.
17.755: Garland of Howth
An illuminated medieval manuscript of the Latin Gospels, now in the Trinity College library. It was discovered on Ireland’s Eye, an island off Howth (NHI, vol. 1, p. 531).
17.755: Book of Kells
The most celebrated of Irish illuminated books, the Book of Kells was created in the eighth or ninth century. It contains the four Latin Gospels, based on the Vulgate of St Jerome. It was housed at the Abbey of Kells in County Meath until 1654 and is now in the Trinity College library (Brewer’s Irish). Joyce called it ‘the most purely Irish thing we have, and some of the big initial letters which swing right across a page have the same essential quality of a chapter of Ulysses’ (quoted in Ellmann, p. 545).
17.755: their dispersal
Both the Jews and the Irish have long histories of dispersal and exile; ‘both peoples have been dispossessed of their homeland and forced into exile, and both still aspire to reclaiming control of the land of their forefathers’ (John McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 237). Indeed, the word diaspora is used in reference to the dispersal of both the Jews and the Irish.
17.756–57: synagogical and ecclesiastical rites in ghetto (S. Mary’s abbey) See note at 10.412–13.
17.757–58: masshouse (Adam and Eve’s tavern)
Mass-house: ‘In 17th–18th c. a common designation used by Protestants for a Roman Catholic place of worship’ (OED). See note at 12.805–06 for ‘Adam and Eve’s’ Church.
17.758–59: proscription of their national costumes . . . jewish dress acts
Russian laws of the early nineteenth century compelled Russia’s Jews to adopt German modes of dress (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. costume). In Ireland, proscription of native outfits was never an explicit issue in the Penal Laws, which circumscribed the rights of Catholics (see note at 14.683–84).
17.759: restoration in Chanah David of Zion
In Isaiah 29:1, there is a reference to Jerusalem as Kiryat Chanah David: ‘the city where David dwelt’ (King James translation). Thus Chanah David is Jerusalem, and the ‘restor ation in Chanah David of Zion’ means the Zionist goal of the rebirth of a Jewish state centred on Jerusalem. ‘As the only objective allusion to Herzlian Zionism in the novel, the phrase “Chanah David” reframes the modern political movement as one inseparable from the ancient Judaic concept by casting it in the Hebraic tradition of Jerusalem as a symbol for Israel in a once sovereign Jewish nation’ (Neil R. Davison, ‘ “Still an Idea behind It” ’, p. 390).
17.759–60: the possibility of Irish political autonomy or devolution
Devolution: ‘In Irish politics, with reference to a scheme proposed as a substitute for Home Rule’ (OED). The OED cites A. S. T. Griffith-Boscawen’s Fourteen Years in Parliament (1907): ‘In the middle of the summer holidays [1905] the country had been startled by the promulgation by Lord Dunraven and his friends of a plan of “devolution” of Irish Government, which was neither Unionism nor Home Rule, but a sort of half-way house, in
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1179 which Irishmen of all persuasions were to live in happiness for ever after.’ From Chaim Weizmann’s introduction to Harry Sacher’s Zionism and the Jewish Future, which Joyce owned (Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, p. 126): ‘Palestine will be the country in which Jews are to be found, just as Ireland is the country in which Irishmen are to be found, though there are more Irishmen outside of Ireland than in it’ (p. 8; McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 279 n. 139).
17.763–64: Kolod balejwaw pnimah . . . homijah
(Hebrew): ‘While yet within the heart-inwardly / The soul of the Jew yearns’; the opening of ‘Hatikvah’ (The Hope), the anthem of the Zionist movement and now the Israeli national anthem; lyrics written by Nephtali Herz Imber (1856–1909) in the early 1880s and set to a traditional melody (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia; Bowen, p. 324). Ellmann relates that, in 1921, Joyce played the ‘Hatikvah’ on the piano for A. J. (‘Con’) Leventhal (1896–1979), then a Jewish student at Trinity College (later a lecturer in French there and a lifelong friend of Samuel Beckett) who was visiting him in Paris. ‘They spoke of the various Jewish families whose names were mentioned in Ulysses [. . .] Joyce asked particularly about the Blooms, and was relieved to hear from Leventhal that they had all left the city. He showed Leventhal some of the Hebrew words in Ulysses, but refused to credit his suggestion that there was some confusion between the Spanish and German transliterations—an error that persists in the published text’ (Ellmann, p. 513). Most of Joyce’s transliterations from the Hebrew are imperfect (see notes at 15.1333–34, 15.1400, and 17.729), but this one from the ‘Hatikvah’ is acceptable. In general, it seems that Joyce’s transliterations follow from Sephardi (i.e. Spanish) pronunciation, but there are some possible Ashkenazi (i.e. German) pronunciations mixed in (see note at 15.1625 for Sephardim and Ashkenazim). When Joyce was writing Ulysses, there were no firm and set rules for Hebrew transliteration into English (with thanks to Ruben Borg and Talia Abu).
17.765: distich
Distich: a couple of lines of verse (OED).
17.768: periphrastic
Periphrastic: roundabout, circumlocutory (OED).
17.770: epigraphic
Epigraphic: ‘Of or pertaining to inscriptions’ (OED).
17.772–73: cuneiform inscriptions (Semitic) . . . ogham writing
Cuneiform: ‘a form of writing, extensively used in the ancient world, especially by the Babylonians and Assyrians. [. . .] The name “cuneiform” is fitting, for each character or sign is composed of a wedge, or a combination of wedges, written from left to right’ (EB11). Ogham: ‘An alphabet for the Irish language using groups of one to five strokes, which were presented as notches on the equivalent of a tallystick or on the edges of standing stones or vertical posts. [. . .] The characters, 20 in all, were represented by parallel lines touching a central base line’ (Brewer’s Irish). Virgular: ‘Of Ogham characters, etc.: Having the shape of small thin rods; consisting of slender rod-like lines or strokes’ (OED). Quinquecostate: having five ribs (OED, s.vv. quinque-; costate). ‘[It] is not a little singular that M. Gebelin, a learned foreigner, drew attention to a resemblance, which he was the first to observe, between the Oghams and the Assyrian Cuneiform characters—a remote one, no doubt; but the simple wedge, which receives its power and value from its combinations and position [. . .] has a nearer affinity to the Irish score than to any other known character’ (J. Windele,
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1180 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses ‘Ancient Irish Ogham Inscriptions’, p. 44). Gebelin is Antoine Court de Gébelin (1725–84), a French scholar and author of the nine-volume, although incomplete, Le Monde primitif (The Primitive World) (EB11).
17.775: signature in Irish
Stephen’s signature in Irish would read: Steafán Ó Deadaluis.
17.783: traditional figure of hypostasis
That is, how Jesus (the ‘hypostasis’) is traditionally depicted; see note at 3.124.
17.784: Johannes Damascenus
Johannes Damascenus (c.676–c.749): theologian and Doctor of the Church, also known as John of Damascus. He ‘described our Lord as beautiful and tall, with fair and slightly curling locks, dark eyebrows which met in the middle, an oval countenance, a pale complexion, olive-tinted, and of the colour of wheat, with eyes bright like His Mother’s’ (James Hastings, Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, vol. 1, p. 315).
17.784: Lentulus Romanus
The most famous account of Jesus’s appearance is found in a forged letter of about the twelfth century, supposedly written in Biblical times by Publius Lentulus, governor of the people of Jerusalem, to the Roman Senate: ‘There has appeared in our times [. . .] a man of tall stature, beautiful, with a venerable countenance, which they who look on it can both love and fear. His hair is waving and crisp, somewhat wine-coloured, and glittering as it flows down over his shoulders, with a parting in the middle, after the manner of the Nazarenes. His brow is smooth and most serene; his face is without any spot or wrinkle, and flows with a delicate flush. His nose and mouth are of faultless contour; the beard is abundant, and hazel coloured like his hair, not long but forked. His eyes are prominent, brilliant, and change their colour. In denunciation he is terrible; in admonition, calm and loving, cheerful, but with unimpaired dignity. He has never been seen to laugh, but oftentimes to weep. His hands and his limbs are beautiful to look upon. In speech he is grave, reserved, modest; and he is fair among the children of men’ (Hastings, Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, vol. 1, p. 315). He is not usually called ‘Lentulus Romanus’, which simply means Lentulus the Roman.
17.784: Epiphanius Monachus
St Epiphanius of Salamis (c.315–403): an influential Christian monk and, from 367, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus (Catholic Encyclopedia). Monachus (Medieval Latin): monk. Epiphanius inveighed against the use of imagery in Christian worship, specifically depictions of Christ, since these could in no way be accurate. He implored the Emperor Theodosius (347–95, r. 379–95) to remove paintings and mosaics from churches (Thomas F. X. Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, pp. 17–18).
17.785: leucodermic, sesquipedalian with winedark hair
Leucodermic: white-skinned (OED, s.v. leuco-). Christ’s hair is ‘somewhat wine-coloured’ in the forged letter said to be by Lentulus (see the note at 17.784). See note at 1.78 for winedark. Sesquipedalian: after the Latin word sesquipedalia, a foot and a half (sesqui, one and a half + ped, foot), coined by Horace (Roman poet, 65–68 bc) in his Ars Poetica: ‘sesquipedalia verba’, ‘words a foot and a half long’ (l. 97). In English, it has come to mean: ‘Of many syllables’; ‘A person or thing that is a foot and a half in height or length’; and ‘Very tall or very big’ (OED). Here it is used to also suggest the incorrect meaning ‘six feet tall’, which is in reference to a peculiar Irish folk-belief. In ‘Happy and Unhappy Theologians’, W. B. Yeats
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1181 quotes an unnamed woman from County Mayo who claimed that ‘Christ [. . .] alone of all men was exactly six feet high, all others are a little more or a little less’ (The Celtic Twilight, p. 72). Joyce refers to this in Stephen Hero, when Stephen proclaims, ‘I don’t believe, for example, that Jesus was the only man that ever had pure auburn hair [. . .] Nor that he was the only man that was exactly six feet high, neither more nor less’ (p. 134).
17.789–90: the very reverend John Conmee S.J. See note at 5.322–23.
17.790–91: reverend T. Salmon, D.D. . . . Trinity college See note at 8.496.
17.791: Dr Alexander J. Dowie See note at 8.13–14.
17.792: Seymour Bushe, K.C. See note at 6.470.
17.792: Rufus Isaacs, K.C.
Rufus Daniel Isaacs (1860–1935): in June 1904, he was a prominent and successful Jewish lawyer in London. In August that year, he was elected MP in a by-election. In 1910, he was appointed Attorney General and in 1913, he was made the Lord Chief Justice of England. He was knighted in 1911 and in 1926, he was dubbed the first Marquess of Reading (ODNB).
17.793: Charles Wyndham, high comedian
Charles Wyndham (born Charles Culverwell, 1837–1919) trained as a surgeon in Dublin and became a successful actor in London (with roles not limited to comedies). He was knighted in 1902 (ODNB).
17.794: Osmond Tearle († 1901)
George Osmond Tearle (1852–1901): English actor; formed his own travelling company in 1877, producing mostly Shakespeare (ODNB). In his memoir Silent Years, J. F. Byrne writes of the times Joyce and he went to the theatre together: ‘In the dramatic field we looked forward to the occasional visits of, for instance, Osmond Tearle, whose repertory was chiefly, but not exclusively, Shakespearean. Tearle’s locale was always the Gaiety Theatre; and in that theatre, whether we were attending opera, play, or pantomime, Joyce had the peculiar whim to sit at the extreme right of the top gallery (the gods)’ (p. 66).
17.798: decocted
To decoct: to boil (OED).
17.802–28: Little Harry Hughes and his schoolfellows all . . . among the dead
After an old ballad that tells the story of the murder of a young boy in about the year 1255. ‘St Hugh of Lincoln, a native of Lincoln, was a child about ten years old when he was found dead on premises belonging to a Jew. It was said, and the story was generally believed, that the boy had been scourged and crucified in imitation of the death of Jesus Christ. Great and general indignation was aroused, and a number of Jews were hanged or punished in other ways. The incident is referred to by Chaucer in the Prioress’s Tale and by Marlowe in the Jew of Malta’ (EB11, s.v. Hugh, St). The story of St Hugh is ‘the most famous alleged occurrence of Jewish ritual murder in England’ (Joseph Jacobs, ‘Little St Hugh of Lincoln’, p. 41); see note at 6.771 for ritual murder and blood libel. Francis James Child presents eighteen different versions of
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1182 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses the ballad in his anthology English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–98), with numerous variants, but all agree on the story and many details. In only one version is the victim called ‘Harry Hughes’, but in that version the ‘Jew’s daughter’ is instead called the ‘Duke’s daughter’ (there are other differences between this version and Joyce’s). This version was found sung by a little girl in New York who had heard it from her Irish-born grandmother. In most other versions that Child presents, the victim is called ‘Sir Hugh’ (vol. 5, pp. 234, 251–52). Child does not provide any musical score. The version Joyce presents does not match any known single source and is possibly a conflation of multiple versions. Jacques Benoist- Méchin wrote out the music for this song as it appears in Ulysses (Ellmann, p. 521). In his early commonplace book, Joyce transcribed a different version of this ballad, ‘Sir Hugh, or the Jew’s Daughter’, which he identified as a Scottish ballad copied from Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (NLI I.ii: f. 10r; Luca Crispi, ‘A Commentary on James Joyce’s National Library of Ireland “Early Commonplace Book” ’).
17.837: immolates
To immolate: ‘To sacrifice, offer in sacrifice; to kill as a victim’ (OED).
17.842: the law of the conservation of energy
In physics, the law of the conservation of energy is ‘Energy can assume a great variety of forms, but cannot be created or destroyed’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 256; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 651).
17.844: ritual murder See note at 6.771.
17.846: continued fraction of veridicity
Continued fraction: ‘a fraction whose denominator is an integer plus a fraction, which latter fraction has for its denominator an integer plus a fraction, and so on’ (OED, s.v. con tinued). Veridicity: truthfulness (OED, s.vv. veridicity; verdical).
17.847–48: atavistic delinquency
This literally translates the Italian phrase ‘delinquenza atavica’, which was coined by Enrico Ferri (Italian criminologist, 1856–1929) to characterise violent, anti-social criminal acts, such as murder and assault—acts that follow from ancient (i.e. atavistic) barbarities. Ferri distinguishes these acts from ‘delinquenza evolutiva’ (evolutionary delinquency), which might be beneficial to society (Sociologia Criminale, pp. 546–59).
17.860: in Holles street and in Ontario terrace
Given Milly’s birth date (15 June 1889), this places the Blooms’ residence at Holles Street during 1895–96, and at Ontario Terrace by June 1897. When they moved from Ontario Terrace to Eccles Street is less clear.
17.865: 15 June 1889
Milly’s date of birth (see 4.415).
17.868–69: she had blond ancestry . . . Herr Hauptmann Hainau
This name suggests Julius Jakob von Haynau (1786–1853), an Austrian general notorious throughout Europe for brutally suppressing insurgencies in Italy and Hungary (1848–49) (F. K. Stanzel, ‘All Europe Contributed to the Making of Bloom’, p. 623). Joyce’s spelling of his name and other details probably derive from a short, anonymous novel published in
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1183 1851 in the German satirical publication Almanach zum Lachen (Almanac of laughter): ‘Hauptmann Hainau Hainaunino, there is a wondrous Jewish maiden among our hostages. Her body is noble and her hair ravenblack like the Rose of Jericho’ (p. 37; Harald Beck, JJON).
17.870: hallucination, lieutenant Mulvey
According to Aristotle’s Masterpiece, the appearance of a child can be affected by the imagination of the mother during the act of conception: ‘as appeared in a queen who had her imagination on a blackamore; and in an Ethiopian queen, who brought forth a white child, because her imagination was upon a white colour’ (p. 270). For Mulvey, see note at 13.889.
17.876: duke’s lawn See note at 10.1110–11.
17.878–79: the South Circular road See note at 4.109–10.
17.879: Elsa Potter Unknown.
17.880: Stamer street
Stamer Street connects Harrington Street/South Circular Road and Lennox Street in the Jewish district in south central Dublin.
17.891: valerian
Valerian: ‘One or other of the various species of herbaceous plants belonging to the widely- distributed genus Valeriana, many of which have been used medicinally as stimulants or antispasmodics’ (OED). Cats are attracted to the smell of valerian and frequently roll around on the plant (EB11).
17.897–98: lake in Stephen’s green
The large, artificial pond along the northern side of the park at St Stephen’s Green. Work on the park began in 1666, and over the years the park has undergone various phases of renovation. In 1814, it was turned into a private park. In 1877, Sir Arthur Guinness (later Lord Ardilaun; see note at 5.306) proposed a substantial redevelopment of the park, at his own expense, with the aim of re-opening it to the public. The renovated park opened in 1880 (Bennett).
18.911: oviparous
Oviparous: egg producing (OED).
17.913: imbalsamation
Imbalsamation: an obsolete term for embalming (OED).
17.914: bob, wheelgear and regulator
Bob: ‘The weight at the end of a pendulum’. Regulator: ‘A pendulum, spring, or other device for controlling the speed of a clock or watch so that it accurately keeps time’ (both OED).
17.914–16: translation in terms . . . moveable indicators on an unmoving dial
Joyce derives some of the terminology from Wentworth and Hill’s A Text-Book of Physics: ‘An extended body can move in two different ways: (1) It may have a motion of pure
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1184 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses translation, like that of an up and down saw [. . .] (2) It may have a motion of pure rotation, like that of a circular saw’ (p. 177; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 649).
17.918–19: 5 ⁵⁄₁₁ minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical progression
Every hour and five ⁵⁄₁₁ minutes, the hour and minute hands of a clock are in the same pos ition; this is because the hour hand moves at one-twelfth the rate of the minute hand (The Penny Magazine, vol. 4, no. 191, 28 March 1835, p. 118). The first time this happens, after they have both begun at twelve, will be at 1:05 and ⁵⁄₁₁ minutes. The second time it happens, the time will be 2:10 and ¹⁰⁄₁₁ minutes, and so on until the next time they reach 12:00 and the cycle begins again. This is an arithmetical progression, a series in which each term is derived from the previous one by adding a given quantity, known as the common difference. In this case, sixty minutes, divided by eleven, is five and ⁵⁄₁₁ minutes. Or, as Joyce more succinctly put it on a notesheet: ‘LB taught Milly to read clock’ (Notesheet Ithaca 5.79).
17.921: 27th anniversary of his birth
Bloom was born in 1866 (see note at 5.198–99), making this 1893.
17.922: moustachecup of imitation Crown Derby porcelain ware See note at 4.283–84.
17.923: quarter day
Quarter days are the dates which begin the quarters of the year and on which rents fall due. ‘In England and Ireland the quarter-days are Lady Day (March 25), Midsummer Day (June 24), Michaelmas (Sept. 29), and Christmas (Dec. 25)’ (OED).
17.927: moiety See note at 3.78.
17.929: diambulist
Diambulist: Joycean neologism, daywalker.
17.930: noctambulist
Noctambulist: ‘nightwalker’ (OED).
17.931–32: Thursday (proper) and Friday (normal)
Proper: ‘strictly applicable; accurate, correct; literal, not metaphorical’. Normal: conventional (both OED). It should be Thursday (normal) and Friday (proper). That is, now that it is past midnight, properly speaking, it is Friday 17 June, but in normal speech one would still call it Thursday.
17.939: acquisition of correct Italian pronunciation See note at 4.327–28.
17.947–48: the late Mrs Emily Sinico . . . 14 October 1903
See note at 6.997 for Mrs Sinico. In Dubliners, Mrs Sinico’s death occurs in November (p. 113), not October. The Sydney Parade railway station is located in the suburb of Merrion on Sydney Parade Avenue (Thom’s, p. 1736). See also note at 17.1453–54.
17.951–52: interment of Mrs Mary Dedalus, born Goulding, 26 June 1903
If Mrs Dedalus was buried on 26 June, she probably died on or about 23 June. Joyce’s mother, May (see note at 15.4173–74), died on 13 August 1903, at the age of 44 (Ellmann, p. 136).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1185
17.952–53: vigil of the anniversary of the decease of Rudolph Bloom The date of Rudolph Bloom’s death was 27 June (17.623).
17.957–59: without interest, a sum of money (£1-7-0) . . . to the former
In ‘Circe’, Bloom offered to hold Stephen’s money for safekeeping, and Stephen handed him £1 6s. 11d. (15.3600–07). But Bloom did give interest since he rounded it up in Stephen’s favour to £1 7s.: ‘One pound seven, say’ (15.3613).
17.966–67: Ship hotel and tavern, 6 Lower Abbey street
See note at 1.127. The pub was at 5 Lower Abbey Street; number 6 was occupied by Suche and Rudd, tailors (Thom’s, p. 1407).
17.968: National Library of Ireland, 10 Kildare street
See note at 1.469–70. The National Library is at 9 Kildare Street (Thom’s, p. 1968); number 10 was occupied by the Church of Ireland Training College (Female department) (p. 1524).
17.968–69: National Maternity hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street See note at 8.281–82.
17.971: right line
Right line: a straight line (OED, s.v. right).
17.973–74: mutually selfexcluding propositions
These propositions are mutually exclusive in that one is for Bloom and Stephen residing together, and the other is for them residing apart.
17.975–76: Albert Hengler’s circus See note at 4.349.
17.976: Rotunda, Rutland square See note at 6.321–22.
17.980: imprevidibility
Imprevidibility: Joycean neologism, unforeseeability.
17.982–83: J. and T. Davy, family grocers, 1 Charlemont Mall, Grand Canal
J. and T. Davy: ‘family grocers, wine and spirit merchants’, 1 Charlemont Mall on the Grand Canal in south central Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1446). Charlemont Mall is just across the canal from Bloom’s old house on Ontario Terrace.
17.998: ultimate functions
From Bertrand Russell’s (British philosopher and mathematician, 1872–1970) Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919): ‘the “ultimate oscillation” of a function as the argument approaches a from below [. . .]’ (p. 112); which, in a late notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.b), Joyce simplified to ‘ultimate function’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 110; JJA, vol. 12, p. 120).
17.1012–13: proceeding syllogistically from the known to the unknown
Syllogistically: logically (OED). In his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, Bertrand Russell writes: ‘But whether the axiom [of infinity] is true or false, there seems no known method of discovering’ (p. 143); which, in a late notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.b), Joyce adapted
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1186 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses to ‘no known method known to unknown’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 103; JJA, vol. 12, p. 118).
17.1021–22: exodus from the house of bondage See note at 7.208–09.
17.1023–28: Lighted Candle in Stick . . . STEPHEN
Stephen and Bloom depart the house as if in a religious procession, with Stephen muttering a psalm. Diaconal: ‘Of or belonging to a deacon’; deacon: in a Catholic church, ‘The cleric who acts as principal assistant at a solemn celebration of the Eucharist; the “gospeller” ’ (both OED). In A Portrait, Stephen entertains the desire to become a deacon, but not a priest (pp. 158–59).
17.1029: intonation secreto
Secreto (Latin): ‘in private’, ‘secretly’. In the Mass, there is a prayer spoken secreto (in a low voice) by the celebrant, after the offertory and before the preface (John J. Wynne, The Mass, p. 13).
17.1030–31: The 113th, modus peregrinus: In exitu Israel de Egypto . . . barbaro
Modus peregrinus (Latin, ‘foreign mode’), or properly tonus peregrinus (‘foreign tone’): a Gregorian chant reciting tone used particularly for this psalm, which is known as the Pilgrim’s Psalm (Grove). From Psalm 113:1–2 in the Vulgate and Douay (114:1–2 in King James), on the Exodus: ‘When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people: Judea made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion’. The Passover Haggadah includes this verse (The Union Haggadah, p. 129). Additionally, it is sung as part of the Mass on the 21st Sunday after Pentecost (Wynne, The Mass, p. 415). Furthermore, for good measure, in the Purgatorio, Dante and Virgil encounter a ship of the redeemed, filled with passengers singing this psalm (II.46–48).
17.1038: the garden See note at 4.472.
17.1039: The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit
Heaven-tree: ‘a mythical tree growing from the underworld, through the earth, and up to heaven, which figures in some Malay and Polynesian beliefs’ (OED, s.v. heaven). Possibly an allusion to the end of Dante’s Inferno, when Dante and Virgil exit Hell: ‘The Leader and I entered on that hidden road to return into the bright world, and without caring to have any rest we climbed up, he first and I second, so far that I saw through a round opening some of the fair things that Heaven bears; and thence we came forth to see again the stars’ (XXXIV.133–39).
17.1042: evolution increasingly vaster
Evolution: ‘The action or process of opening out, unfolding, or unrolling; esp. the unfolding or progression of a series of events in orderly succession’; and in mathematics, ‘the extraction of any root from any given power’ (OED). See also note at 17.1057.
17.1042–43: moon invisible in incipient lunation, approaching perigee
Lunation: the time from one new moon to the next; a lunar cycle. Perigee: the point in the moon’s orbit when it is closest to the earth (both OED). The moon was new on 13 June at 8:45 pm, thus it would be in the early stages of its lunar cycle—‘incipient lunation’—on 16 June. The moon rose at 6:40 am and set at 10:17 pm on 16 June and thus would not be visible at this hour. The moon was in perigee on 17 June at noon (Thom’s, p. 14).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1187
17.1043: lattiginous
Lattiginous: Joyce’s neologism, milky (from the Italian lattiginoso).
17.1044: uncondensed milky way
See note at 15.1765 for condensed milk. In a certain sense, the Milky Way is actually rather condensed: ‘when we reach the Milky Way itself, the eye is almost unable to separate the single points of light, which are packed so closely together that they produce the appearance to the naked eye of a broad, but very irregular, band of dim light, which even in a powerful telescope in some places can hardly resolve into stars’ (Robert Ball, The Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 474).
17.1045–46: lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000 ft deep . . . earth
Aristotle claimed in the De Generatione Animalium that stars could be seen in the daytime if an observer were placed at the bottom of a deep shaft or well (780b21). This has since been disproven, first in 1674 by Robert Hooke (English polymath, 1635–1703) in An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations (pp. 25–26). This passage in ‘Ithaca’ follows from the beginning of chapter 20 of Charles Dickens’s Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: ‘In the ground-floor front of a dingy house, at the very farthest end of Freeman’s Court, Cornhill, sat the four clerks of Messrs. Dodson & Fogg, two of his Majesty’s attorneys of the courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster, and solicitors of the High Court of Chancery—the aforesaid clerks catching as favourable glimpses of heaven’s light and heaven’s sun, in the course of their daily labours, as a man might hope to do, were he placed at the bottom of a reasonably deep well; and without the opportunity of perceiving the stars in the day-time, which the latter secluded situation affords’ (p. 168).
17.1046–48: Sirius (alpha in Canis Major) . . . of our planet
Sirius (alpha in Canis Major), the brightest star in the sky, is 8.6 light years distant (EB11, s.v. Canis Major). Ten light years equals 94,610,000,000,000 km. Sirius’s volume was unknown in 1904 (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 428); contemporary measurements put its size as 6 million times the volume of the Earth. See note at 14.1108–09 for alpha as a stellar designation.
17.1048: Arcturus
Arcturus, in the constellation Boötes (the Ploughman), is the second brightest star in the northern sky after Sirius (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 422).
17.1048–49: precession of equinoxes
The earth’s axis of rotation is not around a fixed point, but itself rotates. This rotation ‘produces an apparent change in the place of a star, which is known by the term “precession” ’ (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 492).
17.1049–50: Orion with belt and sextuple sun theta and nebula . . . contained
The nebula at theta in the constellation Orion is one of the most notable sights in the heavens, and ‘[theta of Orion is] in itself the most striking multiple star in the whole heavens. It consists really of six stars’ (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 467). The belt of Orion (stars zeta, epsilon, and delta) is a notable feature of the constellation.
17.1050–51: moribund and of nascent new stars such as Nova in 1901
This nova (Latin, ‘new’) was first observed in the northern constellation Perseus in February 1901 by T. D. Anderson and was the first nova since 1604 to outshine ordinary stars. It
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1188 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses immediately became the brightest star in the sky, though faded drastically in a matter of months (EB11, s.v. star). Novae are not really new but, rather, are old stars that were too dim to be seen prior to their explosion.
17.1051–52: our system plunging towards the constellation of Hercules
In the earlier editions of The Story of the Heavens, Robert Ball writes that William Herschel (see note at 17.1110) discovered that the sun and its attendant solar system are moving in space and ‘it is towards Hercules that the motion of the solar system is directed’ ([1888], p. 438). For the revised and expanded 1900 edition, he changed the direction to the constellation Lyra (p. 459), which is a small constellation adjacent to Hercules.
17.1052–53: parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars
For parallax, see note at 8.110. Since the sun is itself not stationary, its own motion, over time, contributes a further parallax effect, which is known as parallactic drift (W. M. Smart, Text-Book on Spherical Astronomy, pp. 217–23).
17.1053: evermoving wanderers
Beyond effects of apparent motion caused by parallax, the so-called fixed stars themselves have their own proper motion, as was first discovered by Edmund Halley (1656–1742) in 1718 (Smart, Spherical Astronomy, p. 249). The word planet derives from the Greek planetes, wanderer (OED).
17.1054–55: years, threescore and ten See note at 17.456.
17.1057: involution
In various different senses, the word involution is opposed to the word evolution (see note at 17.1042). In the immediate context, it means ‘A rolling, curling, or turning inwards’; but it also means ‘A retrograde process of development; the opposite of evolution; degeneration’, and in mathematics, ‘The multiplication of a quantity into itself any number of times, so as to raise it to any assigned power. Hence, in extended sense, the raising of a quantity to any power, positive, negative, fractional, or imaginary’ (OED).
17.1058: geological periods . . . stratifications of the earth
Stratum: ‘A natural layer or bed of sediment or rock having a consistent composition and representing a more or less continuous period of deposition’ (OED). ‘Stratified rocks are arranged in three grand divisions, called Periods; which divisions have reference to the order of time in which the strata, or beds, appear to have been formed’ (Rosina Zornlin, Recreations in Geology, p. 31).
17.1059: entomological organic existences
That is, insects. Entomological: of or pertaining to insects (OED). From Camille Flammarion’s Astronomy for Amateurs: ‘If we lift a stone in the path, we discover a crawling population. If we gather a flower, detach a leaf, we everywhere find little insects living a parasitic existence’ (p. 339; Ronan Crowley, JJON).
17.1060: mounds, of microbes
There are five categories of response in this paragraph, each beginning with of: ‘Of the eons of geological periods . . .’; ‘of the myriad minute entomological organic existences’; ‘of microbes, germs . . .’; ‘of the incalculable trillions . . .’; and ‘of the universe of human serum . . .’.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1189 Initially, Joyce separated these categories with commas and, for the sake of clarity, he changed these to colons on a galley proof (JJA, vol. 21, p. 69). (Throughout the Rosenbach draft of ‘Ithaca’, Joyce consistently used commas to separate individual items in the various lists and he changed these to colons on the galley proof pages.) However, he neglected to change the comma that precedes ‘of microbes’, even though microbes are clearly a different category from insects (‘entomological [. . .] existences’), which creates a slight confusion in this list (John Turner, ‘ “Miles of porches of ears” ’, pp. 980–81). Typically, in modern English usage, either a comma or semi-colon can be used to mark off clauses of co-ordinate value. However, the colon takes up this function in the Prayer-Book version of the Psalms (H. W. Fowler, Modern English Usage, p. 589). Likewise, in French, the colon, and not the semi-colon, takes this function. And so, Joyce’s use of the colon follows either the French or the Prayer-Book form.
17.1060–61: microbes, germs, bacteria
From Camille Flammarion’s Astronomy for Amateurs: ‘A drop of water contains thousands of curious and agile creatures. A grain of dust from the streets of Paris is the home of 130,000 bacteria’ (p. 339; Ronan Crowley, JJON).
17.1062–63: molecules contained by cohesion . . . single pinhead
A molecule is ‘a group of atoms chemically bonded together and acting as a unit’ (OED). ‘The mutual attraction of the molecules of a body for one another is called cohesion’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 153; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 647). This passage probably derives from a vision of St Antony near the end of Flaubert’s Temptation of St Antony: ‘he perceives little globular bodies as large as pins’ heads, and garnished all round with eye-lashes. A vibration agitates them [ANTONY] [. . .] I have seen the birth of life [. . .] I would like to [. . .] penetrate every atom, to descend to the very depths of matter’ (pp. 359–60; Scarlett Baron, Strandentwining Cable, p. 201).
17.1063–64: universe of human serum . . . red and white bodies
‘Blood is an opaque, viscid liquid of bright red colour [. . .] Its opacity is due to the presence of a very large number of solid particles, the blood corpuscles, having a higher refractive index than that of the liquid in which they float [. . .] When observed in bulk they have a red colour, their presence in fact giving the typical colour to blood. These are the red blood corpuscles [. . .] Mingled with them in the blood are a smaller number of corpuscles which possess no colour and have therefore been called white blood corpuscles’ (EB11, s.v. blood).
17.1064–65: themselves universes of void space constellated with other bodies
‘This conception of matter, as infinitely divisible and continuous, was taught by Anaxagoras more than four centuries before the Christian era, and in the philosophy of Aristotle the same ideas are found’ (EB11, s.v. atom).
17.1065: in continuity
‘With regard to limits, we may distinguish various grades of what may be called “continuity” in a series. [. . .] The first definition [. . .] would be to define it as consisting in what we have called “compactness”, i.e. in the fact that between any two terms of the series there are others’ (Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, p. 100). In a late Ulysses notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.b), Joyce recorded the word continuity (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 110; JJA, vol. 12, p. 120).
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1190 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.1065–66: divisible component bodies . . . again divisible
In 1921, Niels Bohr (Danish physicist, 1885–1962) wrote: ‘new discoveries have shown that an atom is very far from being indivisible and unchangeable; rather, an atom has a more or less complicated structure; it is a world in itself, a “microcosm”, an “ordered aggregate in miniature”, in a more literal sense than anyone had ever dreamed’ (The Periodic System, p. 85). Work on subatomic particles began in earnest in 1897 with the discovery of the electron by J. J. Thomson (English physicist, 1856–1940) (EB11, s.v. electron).
17.1067–69: dividends and divisors . . . nought nowhere was never reached
This describes the derivative of a function, a central concept in differential calculus. A derivative is a differential coefficient between two variables where the difference between the variables shrinks towards—but never reaches—zero. For example, in a graph measuring change in time in the x-axis and change in distance in the y-axis, the derivative would be used to determine the speed at any single point in the graph. This is calculated as a slope between two points whose distance diminishes but never quite reaches zero. ‘As we repeat this process, the numerator and the denominator will each diminish, but [. . .] will never be 0. This is precisely what Joyce is referring to in the phrase “dividends and divisors ever diminishing without actual division”. [. . .] This process of computing the limit of the change in distance divided by the change in time is an example of computing the derivative of a function and is what Joyce is referring to when he writes “if the progress were carried far enough, nought nowhere was never reached” ’ (Ray Mines and Reed Way Dasenbrock, ‘ “Nought Nowhere Was Never Reached” ’, pp. 30–31).
17.1071–72: in 1886 when occupied with the problem of the quadrature of the circle See note at 15.2400–01.
17.1074: the 9th power of the 9th power of 9 . . . India paper
After an old riddle for mathematicians, the largest number that can be expressed with just three digits is nine to the ninth to the ninth, a number which would have 369,693,100 digits (C. A. Laisant, Mathematics, pp. 100–01). Hugh Kenner estimates that the figure of thirty-three closely printed volumes, with 1,000 pages each, would feasibly accommodate such a number (‘Ulysses’, pp. 167–68). In the Vita Nuova, Dante writes of the mystical symbolism of the number nine since it is the trinity times itself, that is, 3 x 3 (p. 61). India paper: ‘a very thin tough opaque printing paper, used chiefly for bibles and prayer books’ (OED).
17.1079: billions
Joyce uses the word billion in the French and American sense of one thousand million (1,000,000,000) and not in the former British sense of one million million (1,000,000,000,000) (OED).
17.1080–81: the potentiality of being raised . . . kinetic elaboration
‘Potential Energy. When a body is raised above the surface of the earth a certain amount of work is expended in overcoming the attraction between the body and the earth. The body in its elevated position has now the power to do work. It is only necessary for the body to fall; in falling the body acquires kinetic energy, and this energy may be expended in doing various kinds of work. [. . .] The energy of a body which depends on its position, and not on its velocity, is called potential energy’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text- Book of Physics, pp. 238–39; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 650).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1191
17.1086–87: human organism . . . atmospheric pressure of 19 tons
A pressure of 1 atmosphere is equal to 101,325 Pa (one Pascal = 1 N/m2) or 14.7 psi. ‘A man’s body exposes to the atmosphere an average surface of about 18 sq. ft. [1.67 m2]; hence he experiences a total pressure of about 19 tons [189,316 Newtons]’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, p. 73; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 643). That is, this figure of 19 tons represents the pressure of one atmosphere over the total surface area of an average man’s body.
17.1089–90: line of demarcation between troposphere and stratosphere
Troposphere: ‘The lowest region of the atmosphere [. . .], marked by convection and a general decrease of temperature with increasing height’. Stratosphere: ‘The region of the atmosphere above the troposphere: (originally) the zone in which temperature changes little with altitude, up to a height of about 20 km (12 miles) (disused); (in later use) the zone in which temperature increases with altitude, extending up to a height of about 50 km (31 miles) above the earth.’ The boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere is called the tropopause, ‘The height of the earth’s tropopause, which varies seasonally, ranges between about 14–18 km over the equator and 5–8 km over the poles’ (all OED).
17.1091: nasal haemorrhage . . . vertigo
‘If we ascend a high mountain or go down under the water in a diving bell, the change of pressure is very quickly felt and may cause vertigo, heart trouble, or other serious consequences’ (Wentworth and Hill, A Text- Book of Physics, p. 73; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, pp. 643–44).
17.1093–96: differently anatomically constructed . . . equivalent conditions
‘The same body would have a different weight in different planets. A cubic inch of lead [16.4 cc] weighs, on the surface of the earth, 6½ oz. [468 g]; in the sun it would weigh 11 2/5 lbs. [5.17 kg]. The earth is nearly four times as dense as the sun; but the latter is so much larger than the former, that a man of moderate size would weigh two tons [2,032 kg] on its surface; and, with his present muscular strength, he would be unable even to move’ (James William McGauley, Lectures on Natural Philosophy, vol. 1, p. 15).
17.1096: apogean humanity
Apogean, from the Greek apogaion, away from the earth (OED, s.v. apogee) is used in its Greek rather than its English sense. Thus, apogean humanity means a race which is not on the earth but on some other planet.
17.1099–1100: to vanities, to vanities of vanities and to all that is vanity
‘Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes: vanity of vanities, and all is vanity’ (Ecclesiastes 1:2).
17.1102: The minor was proved by the major
In logic, a syllogism consists of three parts: the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion. The major premise is the predicate of the conclusion and the minor is the subject (EB11, s.v. syllogism). For example: ‘All men are mortal. Greeks are men. Therefore, all Greeks are mortal’. In a correct syllogism, the minor premise is proved by the major.
17.1104: The various colours significant of various degrees of vitality
The chemical properties of stars differ according to their age and energy output, and these can be measured through spectroscopic observation. Stars of a certain class tend to be of a
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1192 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses similar hue, but a star’s colour is a secondary attribute of its spectral class (Russell et al., Astronomy II: Astrophysics and Stellar Astronomy, pp. 601–11). See also note at 15.1658.
17.1104–05: white, yellow, crimson, vermilion, cinnabar
The colours listed here approximate the colours and order indicated in the Draper system of stellar class (first devised in the 1890s at Harvard): bluish-white; white; yellow; orange; red; very red (Russell et al., Astronomy II, p. 610). Cinnabar is equivalent to vermilion (OED).
17.1105–06: magnitudes revealed up to and including the 7th
The brightness of stars and celestial objects is measured in magnitudes; higher numbers mean dimmer objects. Typically, the unaided human eye can perceive only as far as the sixth magnitude (EB11, s.v. star). ‘Even opera-glasses disclose stars of the seventh magnitude’ (Flammarion, Astronomy for Amateurs, p. 66; Ronan Crowley, JJON).
17.1106: waggoner’s star
The Waggoner is the constellation Auriga. The most notable star in Auriga is Capella, one of the brightest in the sky (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 414).
17.1107: Walsingham way
Walsingham Way: ‘the Milky Way, supposed formerly to have been used as a guide by pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham’; Walsingham is a town in Norfolk (OED).
17.1107: chariot of David
In Ireland, Ursa Major is sometimes called King David’s Chariot (George Reed, Dark Sky Legacy, p. 87).
17.1107: annular cinctures of Saturn
That is, the rings of Saturn. Annular: ring-shaped. Cincture: girdle (both OED).
17.1108: condensation of spiral nebulae into suns
In many nebulae, Orion being just one example, the ‘vapour gradually cools down, and ultimately condenses into a star, or a cluster of stars’ (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 528). However, work done by Edwin Hubble (1889–1953) and other astronomers in the 1920s and 1930s (and thus after Ulysses was published) established that spiral nebulae—a distinct class of nebula—are galaxies unto themselves, ‘independent stellar systems, scattered through extragalactic space. “Comparable galaxies” carried the additional implication that the dimensions of nebulæ were more or less comparable with those of the galactic system itself ’ (Edwin Hubble, The Realm of the Nebulæ, p. 97),
17.1108–09: interdependent gyrations of double suns
Robert Ball writes that after many years of careful, painstaking observation of double stars, ‘[i]t has been proved that the motion of each of the stars is performed in an ellipse which contains the centre of gravity of the two stars in its focus [. . .] From the binary stars came a whisper across the vast abyss of space. That whisper told us that the law of gravitation is not peculiar to the solar system’ (Story of the Heavens [1900], pp. 436–37).
17.1108–09: independent synchronous discoveries of Galileo, Simon Marius
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) and Simon Marius (1573–1624) each claimed to have discovered four of Jupiter’s moons, Marius in 1609 and Galileo in 1610. Galileo accused Marius of plagiarism (John Russell Hind, The Solar System, pp. 135–36).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1193
17.1110: Piazzi
Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826): Italian astronomer. He was the first discoverer of an asteroid, on 1 January 1801, which he named Ceres, and in 1803 he published a catalogue of the fixed stars, which he enlarged in 1814 (EB11).
17.1110: Le Verrier
Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (1811–77): French mathematician and astronomer. His calculations of the position of Neptune based on perturbations in the orbit of Uranus led to its discovery in 1846. The English astronomer John Couch Adams (1819–92) made similar calculations (EB11, s.v. Neptune); see also the note on Galle at 17.1110.
17.1110: Herschel
Sir Frederick William Herschel (1738–1822): German-born British astronomer. On 13 March 1781, he discovered the planet Uranus. Soon thereafter, he was appointed the King’s private astronomer. He is responsible for many other significant contributions to astronomy (EB11).
17.1110: Galle
Johann Gottfried Galle (1812–1910): German astronomer. He co-discovered Neptune on 23 September 1846, using Le Verrier’s calculations (EB11, s.v. Neptune).
17.1110–11: systematisations attempted by Bode and Kepler
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) devised three laws of planetary motion in 1619. His ‘third law establishes a relation between the mean distances and the periodic times of the various planets. [. . .] The squares of the periodic times are proportional to the cubes of the mean distances’ (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 142). Johann Bode’s (1747–1826) law states that planetary distance follows a numerical progression. This led to the discovery of the asteroid Ceres (see the note on Piazzi at 17.1110) (Ball, p. 230).
17.1112–13: almost infinite compressibility of hirsute comets . . . orbits
Comet: from the Greek kometes, ‘wearing long hair’ (OED); hence hirsute. Comets are mostly gaseous, thus having ‘almost infinite compressibility’. Cometary orbits form ‘a very extreme type of ellipse’ (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 341).
17.1113: from perihelion to aphelion
Perihelion: the point of orbit closest to the sun. Aphelion: the point of orbit furthest from the sun (both OED).
17.1114: sidereal origin of meteoric stones
Sidereal: of or pertaining to the stars (OED). ‘Though [meteors] only become visible in the atmosphere they are extra-terrestrial planetary bodies’ (EB11, s.v. meteor).
17.1114–15: Libyan floods on Mars . . . the younger astroscopist
In 1877, Giovanni Schiaparelli (Italian astronomer, 1835–1910) claimed that the Martian continent he named Libya was subject to flooding (Camille Flammarion, The Planet Mars, p. 256). Schiaparelli also proposed the controversial (and now disproved) idea that Mars is covered by a network of canals. In 1888, some six years after the birth of Stephen (‘the younger astroscopist’), Henri Joseph Perrotin (French astronomer, 1845–1904) claimed that Libya had disappeared completely: ‘The inundation (or other phenomenon) of the contin ent of Libya, which I believe I show on earlier drawings (1882), may well be a periodic phenomenon’ (p. 342). Contemporaneous observers did not confirm this observation
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1194 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses (p. 348). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote, ‘Libyan floods Mars 1882–1888’ (Notesheet Ithaca 10.67).
17.1115–17: annual recurrence of meteoric showers . . . 10 August
‘Every one knows the shooting stars of August 10th, because they arrive in the fine warm summer evenings so favourable to general contemplation of the Heavens. The phenom enon lasts till the 12th, and even beyond, but the maximum is on the 10th. When the sky is very clear, and there is no moon, hundreds of shooting stars can be counted on those three nights, sometimes thousands. [. . .] Our forefathers also called them the tears of St. Lawrence, because the feast of that saint is on the same date’ (Flammarion, Astronomy for Amateurs, p. 208; Ronan Crowley, JJON).
17.1117–18: new moon with the old moon in her arms
From the anonymous Scottish ballad ‘Sir Patrick Spens’: ‘Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, / With the old Moon in her arms’ (ll. 25–26) (Bowen, p. 328).
17.1119–23: appearance of a star (1st magnitude) . . . Cassiopeia
See notes at 9.928–29 and 9.936. Cassiopeia is a circumpolar constellation and thus, in the northern hemisphere, never goes below the horizon or sets (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], pp. 412–13).
17.1123–26: a star (2nd magnitude) . . . the birth of Leopold Bloom
Bloom was born in 1866 (see note at 5.198–99). On 12 May 1866, a nova, T Coronae Borealis, appeared in the constellation Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown. After a few days, it faded (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 431). Corona Septentrionalis is an older, alternative name for this constellation (and translates as northern crown), although it is more commonly found in Italian than in English. Septentrional: northern; from the classical Latin name for the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear), Septentriones (literally, seven plough-oxen) (OED s.vv. Septentrion; septentrional).
17.1128–29: Andromeda about the period of the birth of Stephen Dedalus
Stephen Dedalus was born in 1882. S. Andromedae, a nova, appeared in the Andromeda constellation in 1885; this was actually a supernova from within the Andromeda Galaxy (Patrick Moore, Astronomers’ Stars, pp. 142–44).
17.1129–30: the constellation of Auriga some years . . . Rudolph Bloom, junior
Rudy Bloom was born in December 1893. In January 1892, a nova was discovered in the constellation Auriga (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], pp. 432–33).
17.1133: transit of shadow
Transit: ‘The passage of an inferior planet (Mercury or Venus) across the sun’s disk, or of a satellite or its shadow across the disk of a planet; formerly also applied to an occultation of a star or planet by the moon, or of a star by a planet’ (OED).
17.1139: heaventree See note at 17.1039.
17.1140: Utopia
Utopia: coined by Saint Thomas More (1478–1535) and the title of his most famous book (1516); from the Greek, ou + topos, literally meaning ‘No Place’ (OED).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1195
17.1142: suppositious apposition
Apposition: ‘The placing of things in close superficial contact; the putting of distinct things side by side in close proximity’ (OED). Suppositious: hypothetical (OED).
17.1149: ardent sympathetic constellations
Ardent: ‘Glowing or gleaming like fire’ (OED). Sympathy: ‘Physical action at a distance (so used by old writers against astrology, who argue that the influence of the stars is not phys ical sympathy and not moral sympathy, and therefore does not exist at all): as, the sympathy between lodestone and iron’ (Century Dictionary).
17.1154: selenographical
‘Its [The moon’s] geographical (or more correctly, selenographical, Selene, moon) map was drawn out more than two centuries ago’ (Flammarion, Astronomy for Amateurs, p. 56; Ronan Crowley, JJON).
17.1155–56: lake of dreams . . . the ocean of fecundity
‘The Moon became the favourite object of astronomers, and the numerous observations made of it authorized the delineation of very interesting selenographic charts. In order to find one’s way among the seas, plains, and mountains that make up the lunar territory, it was necessary to name them. The seas were the first to be baptized, in accordance with their reputed astrological influences. Accordingly, we find on the Moon, the Sea of Fecundity, the Lake of Death, the Sea of Humours, the Ocean of Tempests, the Sea of Tranquillity, the Marsh of Mists, the Lake of Dreams, the Sea of Putrefaction, the Peninsula of Reverie, the Sea of Rains, etc.’ (Flammarion, Astronomy for Amateurs, p. 258; Ronan Crowley, JJON).
17.1159: tellurian
Tellurian: terrestrial (OED).
17.1162: forced invariability of her aspect
Only one side of the moon is ever visible from the earth; this is because ‘it revolves on its axis in the same time in which it performs its revolution’ (EB11).
17.1163: her potency over effluent and refluent waters
Effluent: flowing forth or outwards. Refluent: flowing back (both OED). The moon’s gravity controls the tides of the earth’s oceans, with the range of tides affected by the lunar cycle (EB11, s.v. tide). Even the most ancient humans recognised that the 28-day lunar cycle mirrored the 28-day menstrual cycle (Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton, and Emily Toth, The Curse, p. 263).
17.1165: to render insane See note at 8.245.
17.1166: terribility
Terribility: a rare variant of terribleness, ‘frightfulness, dreadfulness, awfulness’ (OED).
17.1175: Frank O’Hara
Frank O’Hara: ‘window, blind, curtain poles and revolving shutter manufacturer’, 17 Aungier Street (Thom’s, p. 1418). In the listing of Nobility, Gentry, Merchants, and Traders, Thom’s gives the incorrect address of 16 Aungier Street (p. 1977; JJD, pp. 121–22).
17.1178: visible splendid sign
Splendid: used in the sense of the Latin word splendidus, bright (OED).
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1196 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.1193: irruent
Irruent: rushing in violently or hastily (OED).
17.1194–95: ultimate year at High School (1880)
Since Bloom was born in 1866 (see note at 5.198–99), he would have been about 14 years old when he left high school. See note at 5.42 for Erasmus Smith High School.
17.1196: scholars
Scholar: ‘One who is taught in a school; esp. a boy or girl attending an elementary school’ (OED). This sense remained current in Hiberno-English longer than in British English (Dolan).
17.1198: vesical pressure
Vesical: pertaining to the urinary bladder (OED).
17.1202: pilosity
Pilosity: hairiness (OED). Joyce wrote ‘pelosity’ (Rosenbach blue f. 16); Gabler emends to the correct form (UCSE, p. 1548).
17.1203: problem of the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus circumcised
Sacerdotal: priestly (OED). According to Paul, Jesus ‘received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the justice of the faith’ (Romans 4:11). This creates a theological conundrum: if Christ was born perfect, did his circumcision compromise his perfection (his ‘sacerdotal integrity’). For example, St Athanasius (bishop of Alexandria, c.296–373) wrote, ‘who was so impious as to say and also to assert that that divinity, which was consubstantial with the father, [was circumcised] and that imperfection came to be out of perfection?’ (quoted in Andrew S. Jacobs, Christ Circumcised, p. 86).
17.1203–05: 1 January, holiday of obligation to hear mass and abstain . . . work
Christ was circumcised on his eighth day (Luke 2:21), so 1 January is the Feast of the Circumcision, a holy day of obligation, on which Catholics are required to attend Mass and to avoid unneces sary servile work (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.vv. Feast of the Circumcision; Ecclesiastical Feasts).
17.1205–09: problem as to whether the divine prepuce . . . hair and toenails
That is, the vexing question of whether Jesus’s circumcised foreskin and other bodily relics are worthy of supreme veneration. Latria: ‘The supreme worship which is due to God alone’ (OED). According to some theologians, there can be degrees of reverence, depending on the type of object. For example, Pedro de Cabrera (Spanish theologian, 1539–1616) wrote: ‘In the third degree are those things which by contact with our Lord partook of His holiness, and remained dignified even in the estimation of his believers; as the Cross, nails, thorns, spear, &c.; and these are to be adored with Latria’ (quoted in William Palmer, Letters to N. Wiseman, p. 22). Hyperdulia: the ‘veneration paid by Roman Catholics to the Virgin Mary’ (OED). A relic that is purportedly Christ’s foreskin was housed in the Church of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian in Calcata, near Rome (Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend; see also David Farley, An Irreverent Curiosity).
17.1211–13: from Vega in the Lyre above the zenith . . . Leo
Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, named after Orpheus’s lyre (EB11, s.v. Lyra). Coma Berenices (The Tress of Berenice): a constellation in the northern hemisphere. Leo: a constellation in the southern hemisphere.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1197
17.1214: the centripetal remainer . . . the centrifugal departer
Centripetal: centre-seeking. Centrifugal: directed away from the centre (both OED). Thus Stephen is centrifugal in that he is leaving Bloom’s home, and Bloom is centripetal in that he is staying.
17.1215: arruginated
Arruginated: Joycean neologism, rusty; after the Italian arrugginire, to grow rusty.
17.1217: wards
Ward: ‘Each of the incisions in the bit of a key [. . .] In untechnical (literary and popular) use these applications are sometimes reversed, the word being taken to denote the cavities of the lock or the solid parts of the key’ (OED).
17.1221–23: Standing perpendicular at the same door . . . two right angles
‘The first part of this makes sense because Bloom and Stephen are shaking hands, and wherever their hands meet, their arms would form an angle less than 180°. However, as their hands separate, one hand would not normally be centrifugal and the other centripetal. [. . .] The only way that we can conceive the hands to be centripetal and centrifugal with respect to a given point is to imagine them as forces acting on each other: we therefore must picture one of the hand-shakers pulling the other’s hand towards him and the other resisting this (perhaps gentle) tug and moving his hand away’ (Ray Mines and Reed Way Dasenbrock, ‘ “Nought Nowhere Was Never Reached” ’, p. 27).
17.1224: tangent
The word tangent means touching, from the Latin tangens (OED). But the word is primarily used in geometry, meaning ‘meeting at a point and (ordinarily) not intersecting’ which is fitting since Bloom and Stephen are shaking hands.
17.1227: church of Saint George See note at 4.78.
17.1230–31: Liliata rutilantium . . . excipiat
See note at 1.276–77. The words ‘te confessorum’ (of confessors . . . you) are omitted.
17.1233–34: Heigho, heigho . . . heigho
See note at 4.546–48. The number of heighos indicates that it is half past the hour.
17.1240: Bernard Corrigan See note at 16.1256.
17.1243–44: The double reverberation . . . resonant lane
Bloom listens as Stephen walks down Eccles Lane (see notes at 4.178 and 4.472). One of Joyce’s notes for ‘Ithaca’ indicates that Stephen is not playing a Jew’s harp but rather that the sound of his footsteps resembles that of a jew’s harp: ‘SD bootsoles on flags of hollow lane twanged a fourfold chord, scale of a jew’s mouth harp’ (Notesheet Ithaca 9.80–81). Jew’s harp (or jaw harp): ‘A small musical instrument consisting of a flexible tongue or reed at one end to a typically lyre-shaped frame, which is played by holding the frame between the teeth and plucking the free end of the tongue or reed with the finger, using the jaw and mouth as a resonator’ (OED).
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1198 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.1246: The cold of interstellar space
Absolute zero, the point at which there is a complete absence of heat, is reached at -273.15°C. Scientists of the time knew that interstellar space was at almost absolute zero (EB11, s.v. cold).
17.1247: Fahrenheit
Fahrenheit: a scale of temperature, devised by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (German scientist, 1686–1736), inventor of the mercury thermometer, in which the freezing point of water is 32° and its boiling point is 212°. He defined the scale in 1724 ‘such that the temperature of a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride was 0°; one of ice and water without salt was 32°; and body temperature was 96°. But doubt has been expressed whether he actually used the first of these to define his zero’ (OED).
17.1247: Centigrade
Centigrade: a scale of temperature, devised by Anders Celsius (Swedish astronomer, 1701–44) in 1742, and also known as the Celsius scale. 0° is defined as the freezing point of water and 100° as the boiling point (OED, s.vv. Centigrade; Celsius).
17.1247: Réaumur
Réaumur: a scale for temperature, devised by René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (French scientist, 1683–1757) in c.1730, where 0° was defined as the freezing point of water and 80° as the boiling point. ‘Réaumur’s scale was seen as simpler than Fahrenheit’s and as a consequence came into use in some countries. The subsequent devising of the even simpler Celsius scale soon afterwards led to the Réaumur scale being largely superseded’ (OED).
17.1248: proximate dawn
On 17 June, the sun rose at 3:33 am (Thom’s, p. 14).
17.1251–52: Percy Apjohn (killed in action, Modder River)
Percy Apjohn was a friend of Bloom’s from High School. The name might derive from Thomas Barnes Apjohn (1839–1911), the only Dublin-based male Apjohn listed in the 1901 census (Igoe, p. 16). There is no record of Apjohn as having served in the British military (SS, pp. 214–15). Modder River, in South Africa, was the site of a battle in the Boer War, fought on 28 November 1899 (Byron Farwell, The Great Boer War, pp. 100–02).
17.1252–53: Philip Gilligan (phthisis, Jervis Street hospital)
Gilligan died in 1894 (see note at 8.156–57). The Jervis Street Hospital and Charitable Infirmary, 14–20 Jervis Street (Thom’s, p. 1523). See note at 8.392 for phthisis and its prevalence in Ireland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
17.1253: Matthew F. Kane (accidental drowning, Dublin Bay) See note at 5.331 for Kane, the model for Martin Cunningham.
17.1254: Philip Moisel (pyemia, Heytesbury street)
Philip Moisel (1866–c.1903) is the son of Nisan Moisel (see note at 4.209–10). He lived in Heytesbury Street and immigrated to southern Africa where he died in or around 1903 (Hyman, pp. 190–91). Pyaemia: septicaemia (OED).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1199
17.1254–55: Michael Hart (phthisis, Mater Misericordiae hospital)
Michael Hart (one of the models for Lenehan; see note at 7.300) died of phthisis (see note at 8.392) in 1898 at the Jervis Street Hospital, not the Mater Misericordiae Hospital (see note at 1.205–06) (John Simpson, JJON).
17.1255: Patrick Dignam (apoplexy, Sandymount) See note at 14.474.
17.1257: The disparition of three final stars See note at 13.1077.
17.1257–58: apparition of a new solar disk See note at 17.1248.
17.1260–61: charades in the house of Luke Doyle, Kimmage
Earlier in Ulysses, Luke Doyle and the game of charades were located at his house in Dolphin’s Barn (see notes at 4.345, 8.274, and 13.1106), which is in Dublin City proper. On the other hand, Kimmage is a neighbourhood within Terenure, a southern suburban village. Mat Dillon lives on Kimmage Road in Terenure (see note at 17.467–68). For this inconsistency, see note at 11.725 and Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, p. 144.
17.1262: diurnal phenomenon
Diurnal: ‘daily. Chiefly of the motion of the heavenly bodies’ (OED).
17.1262–63: his gaze turned in the direction of Mizrach, the east
Mizrach (Hebrew): rising sun, east; ‘The direction of prayer for Jews living in the western world, who turn towards Jerusalem while reciting the amidah’ (Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend).
17.1264: paraphenomena
Paraphenomenon: an event that happens alongside and accompanies another event (OED, s.v. para-).
17.1266: avine music
Avine: variant of avian (OED).
17.1281: A sofa . . . had been translocated
To translocate: to move from one place to another, to dislocate (OED). Hugh Kenner proposes that Molly would be unable to move the furniture around the living room by herself, so she enlisted Boylan to the task of translocation. ‘And so, it seems we are to imagine Blazes Boylan, redfaced, putting his shoulder to the sideboard, tugging at the piano, lifting and carrying the sofa and the majolicatopped table, relocating the heavy chair, the light chair . . .’ (‘Molly’s Masterstroke’, p. 26). However, on a notesheet, Joyce wrote ‘Molly will change furniture’ (Notesheet Circe 3.69). Furthermore, Ian Gunn and Clive Hart write that, despite appearances, Joyce does not provide full information about the disposition of the furniture before and after the translocation, thereby making it impossible to determine the full extent of the rearrangement and thus whether it could have been undertaken by Molly alone or not. ‘The reader is told the original and final positions of the sofa and sideboard, but only the original position of the two chairs and the final positions of the table and piano’ (JJD, p. 72).
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1200 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.1282: ingleside
Ingle-side: fireplace (OED, s.vv. ingle; ingle-side).
17.1284: majolicatopped
Majolica: earthenware with coloured decoration on a white tin glaze (OED, s.vv. majolica; maiolca).
17.1301: supermanence
Supermanence: Joycean neologism, ‘more than permanent’ (i.e. super permanent).
17.1303: Cadby
Charles Cadby: a London-based manufacturer of moderately priced pianos; in business from 1839 to 1885 (Martha Novak Clinkscale, Makers of the Piano, vol. 2, p. 69).
17.1307: Love’s Old Sweet Song See note at 4.314.
17.1308–09: Madam Antoinette Sterling
Antoinette Sterling (1850–1904): a popular American contralto, primarily based in London (EB11).
17.1309: ad libitum
Ad libitum (Latin): ‘at the pleasure [of the performer]’. In music, it is an instruction that the performer may vary the tempo or otherwise alter the piece at will (Grove).
17.1309: forte
Forte (Italian): strong, loud; ‘A musical direction indicating a strong, loud tone in performance’ (OED).
17.1310: pedal
Pedal: on a piano, presumably the left pedal, also called the ‘soft pedal’, which ‘on grand pianos acts to shift the entire action sideways so that the hammers do not strike all of the strings provided for each note’ (Grove). That is, an instruction to depress the left pedal.
17.1310: animato
Animato (Italian): ‘lively’; a musical direction to increase the tempo (Grove).
17.1310: sustained pedal
Sustaining pedal: ‘A name often used for the right pedal of the piano, which when depressed raises the dampers from all the strings, allowing them to vibrate freely in sympathy with any notes being played’ (Grove). That is, an instruction to depress the right pedal.
17.1310: ritirando
Ritirando (Italian): ‘taking back’, ‘taking possession of ’; not a musical term. Presumably Joyce’s mistake for ritardando: ‘a musical direction indicating a gradual reduction of speed’ (OED).
17.1310: close
Close: ‘The conclusion of a musical phrase, theme, or movement’ (OED).
17.1315–16: Dr Malachi Mulligan’s scheme . . . of green
See 14.1455–56. In 1904, Gogarty (and thus, presumably, Mulligan) was still a medical student: he became a medical doctor in June 1907 upon successfully passing his final examin ations (Ulick O’Connor, Oliver St John Gogarty, p. 124).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1201
17.1321–22: black diminutive cone
That is, incense. Echoes Odysseus cleaning out his palace with sulphur after the massacre of the suitors (XXII.493–94).
17.1325: Agendath Netaim See note at 4.191–92.
17.1327: rutilance
Rutilance: glowing with a ruddy or golden light (OED, s.v. rutilant).
17.1333: homothetic See note at 17.199.
17.1335: Connemara marble See note at 12.1252.
17.1336: 4.46 a.m. on the 21 March 1896
Significance unknown. Since the clock is analogue, it would not properly distinguish between a.m. and p.m.
17.1336: Mathew Dillon See note at 6.697.
17.1336–37: a dwarf tree of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade
Arborescence: ‘Tree-like growth or formation’ (OED). This is presumably a tree clipping kept under glass and growing very slowly (i.e. at a glacial pace). For example, from Mary Hampden’s Every Woman’s Flower Garden: ‘Outdoor Myrtles. Prune into shape in March. Cuttings 8 inches [20 cm] long, inserted singly in 6-inch [15 cm] pots of leaf mould and coarse silver sand, nearly to the base of pots; pots to stand in water-filled saucers, from June onwards, under glass’ (p. 313).
17.1338: Luke and Caroline Doyle
In real life, Luke Doyle’s (see note at 8.274) wife was named Mary, not Caroline (John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello, John Stanislaus Joyce, p. 81). See also note at 13.1106.
17.1339: Alderman John Hooper See note at 6.950.
17.1342: pierglass
Pier-glass: ‘A large mirror, originally one fitted in the space between two windows, or over a chimney piece’ (OED).
17.1346: compassionated
To compassionate: to regard with compassion (OED). Bloom, here, is compassionated because he is being regarded with compassion by the owl.
17.1350: solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative)
Ipsorelative: relative to oneself (ipse (Latin): self). Aliorelative: relative to another (alius (Latin): other). Joyce derived aliorelative from Bertrand Russell’s (British philosopher and mathematician, 1872–1970) Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy: ‘A relation is said to be aliorelative, or to be contained in or imply diversity, if no term has this relation to itself. Thus, for example, “greater”, “different in size”, “brother”, “husband”, “father” are aliorelatives;
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1202 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses but “equal” “born of the same parents”, “dear friend” are not’ (p. 32). In a footnote, Russell adds that the word aliorelative derives from Charles S. Peirce (American philosopher, 1839–1914). In a late notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.b), Joyce wrote: ‘aliorelative—brother ipso— equal’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 105; JJA, vol. 12, p. 119).
17.1352–53: Brothers and sisters had he none . . . grandfather’s son
As this is an only child, the answer to the riddle is ‘himself ’, that is, the man is looking at himself in the mirror (making this an ipsorelative riddle). Many variants of this riddle exist, some of which are aliorelative; for example: ‘Brothers and sisters I have none / Yet that man’s father is my father’s son’ (The Cultivator and Country Gentleman, 19 July 1866, p. 51). In this case, the man is looking at his son.
17.1358: inverted volumes improperly arranged
The list provided might not be of the full contents of the Blooms’ library, but rather only of the books that are inverted and improperly arranged. Joyce believed that ‘putting books in the bookcase upside down was a feminine trait; when he found some of his own books inverted, he would ask Nora and Lucia which of them had done it, smiling triumphantly if either confessed’ (Ellmann, p. 463).
17.1362: Thom’s Dublin Post Office Directory, 1886
Alexander Thom & Co (see note at 7.224) published, in addition to Thom’s Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the less comprehensive Post Office Dublin Directory and Calendar, both updated annually. The Post Office Directory only included the Dublin-specific information from the larger edition (the street directory, the County Dublin directory, the directory of Nobility, Gentry, Merchants, and Traders, and the Trades directory) and excluded the various directories that deal with the United Kingdom (such as the British, Foreign, and Colonial directories) and the rest of Ireland.
17.1363: Denis Florence M‘Carthy’s Poetical Works
Denis Florence MacCarthy (1817–82): Irish poet and translator. His writings include Ballads, Poems and Lyrics (1850), Underglimpses and Other Poems (1857), and Irish Legends and Lyrics (1858). ‘At the height of his fame MacCarthy was popularly regarded as one of Ireland’s foremost poets, and was often referred to as the poet laureate of Ireland’ (DIB). The collection of his poems is called Poems (1882), not Poetical Works. MacCarthy once lived at Summerfield House, 63 Dalkey Avenue in Dalkey, the house in which the Clifton School is located (Ellmann, p. 153), which was the site of ‘Nestor’.
17.1364–65: copper beechleaf bookmark at p. 5
The volume of MacCarthy’s poems has two poems on pages 4 and 5, ‘The Seasons of the Heart’ and the first stanza of ‘Kate of Kenmare’. The bookmark appears to have been chosen in reference to the fifth line of the fourth stanza of ‘The Seasons of the Heart’: ‘when yellow leaves from sheltered nooks’ (Richard Wall, ‘Bloom’s Bookmarks’, p. 208).
17.1365: Shakespeare’s Works (dark crimson morocco, goldtooled)
While the title Works is generic for an edition of Shakespeare, this might well be The Works of William Shakespeare, edited by the editor of the ‘Chandos’ classics (1892). This edition has dark-red half-leather binding and a gilt title, thus matching the description given here. Joyce owned a copy of this edition, and it is part of his Trieste library (Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce, p. 127).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1203
17.1366: The Useful Ready Reckoner
Presumably one of two titles: The Ready Reckoner: or, The Trader’s Useful Assistant, in Buying and Selling All Sorts of Commodities, Either Wholesale or Retail, published annually since the late eighteenth century. Or, considering that Bloom used to work in the cattle market (see note at 6.392), The Graziers Ready Reckoner, or, A Useful Guide for Buying and Selling Cattle, by George Renton (1802).
17.1367: The Secret History of the Court of Charles II
Presumably, Charles McCormick’s two-volume work The Secret History of the Court and Reign of Charles II, by a member of his privy council (1792).
17.1368: The Child’s Guide
Presumably, The Child’s Guide (1730?); later editions are titled The Child’s Guide to Knowledge. This is a short booklet that provides instruction through the format of a catech ism (with thanks to Fritz Senn).
17.1369: The Beauties of Killarney
The title of the book as given on the title page is Picturesque Guide to the Lakes of Killarney (1851). The title as given on the spine is ‘The Beauties of Killarney’ (Susan Bazargan, ‘Searching for Voyages in China by Viator’; John Simpson, JJON). See also note at 10.839.
17.1370: When We Were Boys by William O’Brien, M.P.
See note at 16.1503 for O’Brien. His novel When We Were Boys (1890), written in prison, is set in Glengariff, County Cork at the time of the Fenian rising of the 1860s.
17.1371: envelope bookmark at p. 217
O’Brien’s novel places a great deal of emphasis on letters, specifically letters sending money from exiles in America back to Ireland, so the envelope bookmark is appropriate. In the novel, a young English Life-Guard Captain, Reginald Neville, comes to Ireland in pursuit of a woman named Mable Westropp and, in so doing, thoroughly immerses himself in Irish culture and custom: ‘Doubtless, if Miss Westropp had not shown that wild interest of hers in the natives, he would have come and gone without observing particularly whether the people were black, white, or yellow; whether they spoke Gaelic or Cherokee; but now that his attention was directed to the subject, he began to find a certain opiate charm in the lazy Spanish melancholy of the place’ (O’Brien, When We Were Boys, p. 217; Wall, ‘Bloom’s Bookmarks’, pp. 209–11).
17.1372: Thoughts from Spinoza
This book was Bloom’s father’s; see note at 11.1058. No such book has been located; perhaps this title is a simplification of a longer title, such as Frederick Pollock, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (1880).
17.1373: The Story of the Heavens by Sir Robert Ball
Robert S. Ball’s The Story of the Heavens (1885), reprinted multiple times and revised in 1900, is a comprehensive introduction to astronomy. This book is the source of much of Bloom’s (and Joyce’s) knowledge of astronomy. See note at 8.110 for Robert Ball.
17.1374: Ellis’s Three Trips to Madagascar
William Ellis (1794–1872), a British Congregationalist missionary, wrote several books about the African island of Madagascar. The full title of Bloom’s book is Three Visits to
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1204 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Madagascar during the years 1853–1854–1856. Including A Journey to the Capital; With Notices of the Natural History of the Country and of the Present Civilization of the People (1858).
17.1375: The Stark-Munro Letters by A. Conan Doyle
The Stark Munro Letters (the hyphen Joyce puts in is incorrect) (1895), by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), the creator of Sherlock Holmes. An epistolary novel that is somewhat autobiographical.
17.1375–76: City of Dublin Public Library, 106 Capel Street See note at 4.360.
17.1376–77: May (Whitsun Eve) 1904 See note at 4.483–84.
17.1377: due 4 June 1904
The library declared this particular overdue book missing in 1906 (Hugh Kenner, ‘Ulysses’, p. 143 n.). According to the library’s circular, books could be checked out for a maximum of two weeks, and the overdue charge was 2d. for each week, or portion of a week, thereafter (with thanks to Aida Yared and Fritz Senn).
17.1379: Voyages in China by “Viator”
‘Viator’ (Latin, traveller): a pseudonym used by several nineteenth-century writers. For example, the Presbyterian missionary E. F. Chidell wrote books about the East under the name Viator, such as Overland to Persia (1906). Joyce might have in mind Souvenirs d’un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet, et la Chine pendant les années 1844, 1845 et 1846 (1850) by two Lazarist missionaries, Evariste Régis Huc and Joseph Gabet. This was translated into English by William Carew Hazlitt as Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China during the years 1844–1846 (1852) (Bazargan, ‘Searching for Voyages in China by Viator’).
17.1380: Philosophy of the Talmud
Possibly Sepher Haggadah: Consisting of Parables and Legends from Talmud and Medrash (1914). See note at 17.754 for the Talmud.
17.1381: Lockhart’s Life of Napoleon
John Gibson Lockhart’s (1794–1854) biography of Napoleon, first published in London in 1829 under the name The History of Napoleon Buonaparte, was reprinted numerous times. From the 1850s onwards, a number of revised and abridged editions, retitled The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, were issued in Britain and America.
17.1383: Soll und Haben by Gustav Freytag
Gustav Freytag’s (1816–95) novel Soll und Haben (‘Debit and Credit,’ 1855) was one of the best-selling German books of the late nineteenth century. ‘It presents an unsavory caricature of the Jew as usurer and generally ignoble as part of its fictional history of the rise of the middle class in Germany’ (Marilyn Reizbaum, James Joyce’s Judaic Other, p. 28). ‘In counterpoint to the rise of Germanic youth, there is a Jewish subplot. In view of the anti- Semitic, racist, colonialist tendency, it might be revealing to know that Freytag’s novel was apparently standard reading among assimilated and educated Jews in Germany, which may be one reason why Bloom should have it in his library’ (Fritz Senn, ‘Annotations’, p. 5).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1205
17.1383: Gothic characters
Gothic (or blackletter) is the earliest form of type and is typically dense and ornate with a strong contrast between thick and thin strokes. In Germany, it was regarded as the national typeface and was used in most books printed there until well into the twentieth century (D. C. Greetham, Textual Scholarship, pp. 229–34).
17.1384: cigarette coupon bookmark at p. 24
The bookmark is appropriate here since Freytag’s novel features the affairs of T. O. Schroeter, tobacco merchants. Because there are multiple editions with black boards and Gothic characters, each with different paginations, it is impossible to determine what precise passage is on page 24 in the copy in Bloom’s library. However, it would fall within the third chapter, ‘which tells the story of Baron Rothsattel, who represents the declining aristocracy in the novel; the rising German middle class, which is equated with civilization, is represented by the hero, Anthony Wohlfart’ (Wall, ‘Bloom’s Bookmarks’, p. 212).
17.1385: Hozier’s History of the Russo-Turkish War
Colonel Sir Henry Montague Hozier (1842–1907) wrote and edited The Russo-Turkish War; including an account of the rise and decline of the Ottoman Power, and the history of the Eastern Question, 2 vols (1877–79). The two Russo-Turkish Wars were fought in 1828–29 and 1877–78 (EB11).
17.1386: Garrison Library, Governor’s Parade, Gibraltar
Evidently, Molly’s father signed out Hozier’s History of the Russo-Turkish War when he was stationed in Gibraltar; ‘the garrison library has excellent reading rooms and a large number of volumes of miscellaneous interest’ (EB11, s.v. Gibraltar). Governor’s Parade, the street where the library is found, is more properly known as ‘Gunner’s Parade’.
17.1388: Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland by William Allingham
Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland: A Modern Poem (1864, 1869): a long narrative poem in heroic couplets by the Irish poet William Allingham (1824–89). The poem provides a sympathetic look at the dilemma of Irish peasants and censures the depredations of the worst members of the Anglo-Irish power structure. At the same time, the ideology of the poem ultimately endorses reform of the extant power structure, not revolution and home rule’ (Linda K. Hughes, ‘The Poetics of Empire and Resistance’, p. 103).
17.1391: A Handbook of Astronomy
Probably A Handbook of Astronomy by Dionysius Lardner (1875). Lardner’s book is a close match to the description: it has a brown leather cover and coloured plates. Other than the absence of marginal comments, its typographic features (see the following note) also match the description (Cleo Hanaway-Oakley, James Joyce and the Phenomenology of Film, p. 95).
17.1392–93: antique letterpress . . . small pica
Antique: in typography, ‘A popular style of display type in which all the lines are of uniform thickness’. Letterpress: ‘text, printed using a relief process; relief printing, as distinguished from other processes as lithography or intaglio printing’. Long primer: ‘a size of type approximately equal to 10 point’. Nonpareil: ‘A size of type (6 points) larger than ruby and smaller than emerald’. Brevier: ‘The name of the type in size between Bourgeois and Minion’; so-called because this font size is typically used in breviaries. Small pica: ‘a size of type of about 11 points, between long primer and pica’ (all OED).
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17.1394: The Hidden Life of Christ
Possibly The Hidden Life of Jesus: a Lesson and Model to Christians, by Henri-Marie Boudon (1869), translated from the French by Edward Healy Thompson. This is a hardcover with black boards.
17.1395: In the Track of the Sun
In the Track of the Sun, by Frederick Diodati Thompson (1893) describes the author’s trip round the world. Thompson left New York on 14 October 1891, heading west, and returned to New York from London on 18 May 1892.
17.1395: titlepage missing
The title page of Bloom’s copy may be missing, but in ‘Calypso’ Bloom remembered what it contained; see note at 4.100.
17.1395–96: recurrent title intestation
Intestation: title or inscription, that is a running header; from the Italian intestazione. In English, the word intestation means ‘Deprivation of the right of making a will’ (OED), a sense that is clearly not relevant here. In the Track of the Sun does indeed have running headers: the book’s title on the verso pages and a brief summary of the page’s content on the recto.
17.1397: Physical Strength and How to Obtain It by Eugen Sandow
For Sandow, see note at 4.234. Sandow’s book is more of an exercise in self-promotion rather than a manual of exercises: pages 9–35 contain only cursory information about exercises and include chapters that are effectively advertisements for Sandow’s own products, such as his School of Physical Culture and the ‘Sandow-Whitely Improved Exerciser’ (see note at 17.1816–17); pages 36–83 contain letters of testimonial from Sandow’s pupils; the rest of the book, pages 89–157, is Sandow’s autobiography, ‘Incidents of My Professional Career’, which includes photographs of Sandow in various striking, athletic poses.
17.1398–1402: Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry . . . Southwark
A mostly accurate transcription of the title page of the book’s fourth edition from 1711 (the first edition was from 1701), making good use of the long s: ‘lower-case form of the letter s, printed ſ, and formerly used at the beginning or in the middle of a word. This letter form fell out of general use in printed works in English at the beginning of the 19th cent’ (OED, s.v. long). ‘Short, but yet Plain ELEMENTS OF GEOMETRY SHEWING How by a Brief and Eaſie Method, moſt of what is neceſſary and Uſeful in Euclide, Archimedes, Apollonius, and other Excellent Geometricians, both Ancient and Modern, may be Underſtood. Written in French by F. Ignat. Gaſton Pardies. And rendred into Engliſh, By JOHH [sic] HARRIS, D.D. And Secretary to the Royal Society. The Fourth Edition Corrected. London, Printed for R. Knaplock at the Biſhop’s Head, and D. Midwinter at the Three Crowns in St. Paul’s Church-Yard. MDCCXI’ (p. i). The dedicatory epistle is not mentioned on the title page: ‘To My Worthy Friend Charles Cox Eſquire, Member of Parliament for the Burgh of Southwark’ (p. iii).
17.1405: Michael Gallagher . . . Enniſcorthy, county Wicklow
Michael Gallagher: identity unknown. Enniscorthy is and was in County Wexford, not Wicklow. Duffry (other attested spellings are Duffrey and Duffery, but not Dufery) Gate led out into a wooded area around Enniscorthy called the Duffry, now part of the town proper. The Duffry Gate was the site of a battle in the 1798 uprising (Edward Hay, History of the
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1207 Irish Insurrection of 1798, pp. 139–40; see also note at 8.437). Since the long s (see the previous note) was used in printing, it is unlikely to have been used in the ‘calligraphed statement’ Gallagher wrote in his copy of the book.
17.1412: incuneated
Incuneated: Joycean neologism, ‘wedged in’; from the Italian incuneare, to wedge in.
17.1413: closestool
Close-stool: a chamberpot enclosed within a stool or box (OED).
17.1415: Which volume was the largest in bulk
Each of the two volumes of Hozier’s History measures 21.5 cm x 27.5 cm x 4.8 cm.
17.1422: mnemotechnic See note at 15.2385.
17.1425: Plevna See note at 4.63.
17.1428: image of Narcissus
In Greek myth, Narcissus is the beautiful youth so enamoured of his reflection in a fountain that he jumped in to reach it and died (Brewer’s). The story is told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (III.340–510). See also note at 18.1350–51 for Molly’s description of this statue.
17.1429: P. A. Wren, 9 Bachelor’s Walk See note at 6.446.
17.1431: collar (size 17)
A size 17 collar is larger than average and would be appropriate for a man of Bloom’s build (see notes at 17.86 and 17.91).
17.1438: incrispated
Incrispated: ‘Stiffly curled, wrinkled’ (OED).
17.1440: umbilicular fossicle
Umbilicular: ‘Directed towards the navel’ (OED). Fossicle: little ditch, that is, the diminutive of the Latin fossa, ditch. This word is not Joyce’s neologism: while unlisted in the OED, it can be found, for example, in a descriptive catalogue of molluscs; ‘within iridescent, white with violet spots, a tooth and fossicle in each valve’ (Sylvanus Hanley, Catalogue of Recent Bivalve Shells, p. 213).
17.1447: cicatrice
Cicatrice: ‘The scar of a healed wound’ (OED).
17.1448: infracostal
Infracostal: below the ribs (OED).
17.1448–49: sting inflicted 2 weeks and 3 days previously (23 May 1904)
See note at 4.483–84; the incident in question was 3 weeks and 3 days previously.
17.1450: prurition
Prurition: from pruritus, itching (OED).
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1208 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.1453–54: occasion (17 October 1903) . . . Mrs Emily Sinico, Sydney Parade
See note at 6.997 for Mrs Sinico. Originally, Joyce wrote that the date of Mrs Sinico’s interment was 10 October (Rosenbach green f. 14), which creates a problem since elsewhere in this episode the date of her death is given as 14 October (see note at 17.947–48). While earlier in the text of this episode, the passage with her date of death at 17.948 was drafted after this passage with the date of the interment; it was added on a now-missing typescript (UCSE, p. 1530). The incongruity made it into the first edition of Ulysses, and Joyce corrected it by changing the date of the funeral to 17 October in the list of corrections for the second printing (JJA, vol. 12, p. 183).
17.1455: Compile the budget for 16 June 1904
Bloom’s budget takes the form of a double-entry ledger where all debits are recorded in the left-hand column and all income in the right. A double-entry ledger allows for cross-checking since ‘if the clerical work be correctly performed, the aggregate amount entered up upon the debit side of the ledger must at all times equal the aggregate amount entered up upon the credit side; and thus a complete list of all ledger balances will show an agreement of the total debit balances with the total credit balances’ (EB11, s.v. book- keeping). However, the clerical work has not been correctly performed in this budget as presented, since Bloom’s expenses related to his visit to Bella Cohen’s are omitted, as is a proper accounting of the ‘loan’ from Stephen. The missing expenses are: an additional 1d. train fare from Westland Row to Amiens Street (see note at 15.636), the 10s. entry fee to the brothel (see note at 15.3583–84), 1s. to repair Bella Cohen’s lamp (15.4312), and 1d. ‘interest’ to Stephen (see notes at 17.957–59 and 17.1475), for a total of an unaccounted 11s. 2d. Setting aside the issue of the loan to Stephen, since its net effect is just a 1d. debit, Bloom’s total credit is £1 12s. 3d. (cash in hand at the start of the day plus his salary). Assuming that the chocolate is accurately priced at 1d., rather than 1s. (see note at 17.1472), and adding in the missing 11s. 2d., Bloom’s total expenses are £1 6s., which leaves a balance (i.e. cash in hand at the end of the day) of 6s. 3d. (£1 6s. + 6s. 3d. = £1 12s. 3d.). An additional complication with the budget is that different figures are presented in different editions of Ulysses (although, other than Danis Rose’s ‘Reader’s Edition’, they all omit the unaccounted 11s. 2d.). In the Gabler edition, while the budget overall is incomplete, the sums add up correctly based on the figures provided. This was not the case in the first edition of Ulysses, where the numbers did not add up correctly (see note at 17.1472).
17.1458: 1 Pork kidney 0-0-3
From Dlugacz’s butcher in ‘Calypso’ (4.182).
17.1458: Cash in Hand 0-4-9
This is the money Bloom has at the start of the day.
17.1459: 1 Copy Freeman’s Journal 0-0-1
Bloom’s purchase of the paper is not in Ulysses; the paper is first seen in ‘Lotus Eaters’ (5.49).
17.1459: Commission recd Freeman’s Journal
Bloom was paid just before ‘Aeolus’ begins, since he tells Hynes that he has just seen the cashier (7.115–16). Since Bloom’s payment is called a commission, this probably means that he does not draw a regular salary from the Freeman’s Journal; rather, his payment is based
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1209 on a percentage of the advertising sales he generates for the paper. Bloom’s commission is the same as what appears to be Molly’s concert fee (see note at 10.391–92).
17.1460: 1 Bath and Gratification 0-1-6
Gratification: gratuity (OED). Between ‘Lotus Eaters’ and ‘Hades’.
17.1460: Loan (Stephen Dedalus) See note at 17.1475.
17.1461: Tramfare 0-0-1
Between ‘Lotus Eaters’ and ‘Hades’; see the headnote to ‘Hades’.
17.1462: In Memoriam Patrick Dignam 0-5-0
In ‘Hades’, Lambert commented that Martin Cunningham was arranging a subscription (see note at 15.2580–81) for Dignam’s family (6.564–66) and in ‘Wandering Rocks’, John Wyse Nolan noted that ‘Bloom put his name down for five shillings’ (10.974).
17.1463: 2 Banbury cakes 0-0-1
From the street vendor in ‘Lestrygonians’ (8.74–75).
17.1464: 1 Lunch 0-0-7 At Davy Byrne’s (8.776).
17.1465: 1 Renewal fee for book 0-1-0
Not shown in ‘Wandering Rocks’, but would have taken place immediately after Bloom shows Sweets of Sin to the shopman (10.641).
17.1466: 1 Packet Notepaper and Envelopes 0-0-2 From Daly’s in ‘Sirens’ (11.306–8).
17.1467: 1 Dinner and Gratification 0-2-0
At the Ormond Hotel in ‘Sirens’: the dinner came to 1s. 9d.; Bloom included a tip and rounded up to 2s. (11.1002–3).
17.1468: 1 Postal Order and Stamp 0-2-8
The purchase is unrecorded, but happened in-between ‘Sirens’ and ‘Cyclops’. Bloom calculates the sum in ‘Sirens’: see notes at 8.1132 and 11.866–68. The postal order was for 2s. 6d.; the additional 2d. is the surcharge for sending an inland money order valued at less than £1 (Thom’s, p. 1077; Julieann Veronica Ulin, ‘Philatelic Ulysses’, p. 65).
17.1469: Tramfare 0-0-1
Between ‘Nausicaa’ and ‘Oxen of the Sun’, see the headnote to ‘Oxen of the Sun’.
17.1470: 1 Pig’s Foot 0-0-4
From Olhausen’s butcher in ‘Circe’ (15.155–59).
17.1471: 1 Sheep’s Trotter 0-0-3
Likewise, from Olhausen’s (15.155–59).
17.1472: 1 Cake Fry’s Plain Chocolate 0-1-0
J. S. Fry and Sons: a Bristol-based confectioner who, in 1847, produced the first solid chocolate by combining cocoa powder with sugar and cocoa butter to make a paste that
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1210 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses could be moulded (Andrew Smith, Encyclopedia of Junk Food, p. 48). The purchase of this bar (called a ‘cake’) is not recorded in Ulysses; the chocolate is first seen in ‘Circe’ (15.144). On the typescript where he added this item into the budget, Joyce clearly wrote that the price of the chocolate was 1 shilling (JJA, vol. 16, p. 132)—which makes it preternaturally expensive. On a subsequent proof page, the price became 1 penny (JJA, vol. 21, p. 89), which is an historically accurate price. This is how this item figured in the budget in the first edition and all editions previous to Gabler’s. Gabler reverted the price to 1 shilling because that was the last figure attested in Joyce’s hand (UCSE, p. 1752). Assuming all the other figures in the debit column stay the same, if the chocolate is 1 shilling (as in Gabler’s edition), then the numbers in the debit column as presented all add up properly. On the other hand, if the chocolate is 1 penny (as in the 1922 edition), then the numbers do not add up. And so, in the first edition of Ulysses, the budget was mathematically incorrect. In the errata for the second printing of Ulysses, Joyce changed the balance (17.1476) from 16s. 6d.—the figure given in the first edition and in Gabler—to 17s. 5d (JJA, vol. 12, p. 183). This is an alternative way of restoring a correct balance to the budget as presented while keeping the chocolate reasonably priced at 1 penny. But, even in this case, such a budget would be inaccurate since it still omits various expenses (see notes at 17.1455 and 17.1476).
17.1473: 1 Square Soda Bread 0-0-4
As with the chocolate above, the purchase is unrecorded in Ulysses and the soda bread is first seen in ‘Circe’ (15.144). Soda bread is bread raised with bicarbonate of soda and is quickly made and does not need strong flour. ‘The bread has been popular in Ireland since the late 19th century’ (Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 752).
17.1474: 1 Coffee and Bun 0-0-4
From the cabman’s shelter in ‘Eumaeus’ (16.1697–98).
17.1475: Loan (Stephen Dedalus) refunded 1-7-0
Stephen ‘loaned’ Bloom £1 6s. 11d. and Bloom returned £1 7s., thereby rounding up in Stephen’s favour (see note at 17.957–59). Bloom’s generosity is un-noted in the budget since the loan in the debit column (£1 7s.) matches the loan in the credit column, when it should be recorded as £1 7s. in the debit column and £1 6s. 11d. in the credit column for a net debit of 1d.
17.1476: Balance 0-16-6
This is the cash Bloom has left at the end of the day. The figure of 16s. 6d. is correct if the chocolate is priced at 1 shilling and the rest of the budget is accurate. But, if the chocolate is accurately priced at 1 penny, and assuming the rest of the budget is accurate, the balance would then be 17s. 5d. (see note at 17.1472). Calculating his expenditures by adding in the missing expenses and assuming that the chocolate is priced at 1d. rather than 1s., Bloom would actually have a balance of 6s. 3d. (see note at 17.1455). Since Bloom’s budget omits various expenses, his actual end-of-the-day balance is less than the reported balance. In ‘Eumaeus’, when Bloom pays 4d. for the coffee and bun, the four pennies are called ‘the last of the Mohicans’ (16.1698), presumably because these are the last copper coins Bloom has. Since the 3d. coin is silver, it is entirely possible to reach the sum of 6s. 3d. with just silver coins, so Bloom could well have spent the last of his copper coins at the cabman’s shelter.
17.1477: £ 2-19-3
Once the loan to Stephen is properly factored into the budget, the total in both columns would be £2 19s. 2d.: the total credits (excepting the loan) are £1 12s. 3d. and Stephen
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1211 handed Bloom £1 6s. 11d. (see note at 17.1475), which adds up to £2 19s. 2d. See also notes at 17.1455 and 17.1476.
17.1479: divestiture
Divestiture: undressing (OED).
17.1483: disnoded
To disnode: Joycean neologism, to untie a knot; from nodus (Latin): knot.
17.1484: took off each of his two boots for the second time
Bloom first removed his boots at 17.111. Presumably, he put them back on at some point before going to the back garden with Stephen, but this is unnoted in the text.
17.1486: effracted
Effracted: broken out, from the Latin ex (out) + frangere (to break). The OED lists only one instance of this word, from 1657, and gives the definition (not operative here) of ‘broken off ’.
17.1491: ungual
Ungual: pertaining to a nail or a claw (OED).
17.1494–95: Mrs Ellis’s juvenile school
Other than the information that she ran Bloom’s nursery school, unknown.
17.1499: primogeniture, gavelkind or borough English
Primogeniture: inheritance by the first- born. Gavelkind: inheritance divided equally amongst all male heirs (originally practised in Kent). Borough-English: inheritance by the youngest son (all OED).
17.1500: demesne
Demesne: ‘land possessed or occupied by the owner himself ’ (OED). Originally, ‘Land held by the manorial lord and not set out to tenants. It was farmed by tenants owing labour services and by hired labour. Leasehold was first used on demesne land and became a lucrative source of income for the lord’ (Joseph Byrne, Dictionary of Irish Local History, p. 97).
17.1501: roods and perches See note at 12.1864–65.
17.1501: valuation £42
In 1901, the average land holding in County Dublin (outside the city) was valued at £54 (Thom’s, p. 680). See note at 13.1125–26 for property valuations in Ireland.
17.1501: turbary
Turbary: land where turf or peat for fuel may be dug up (OED).
17.1503: Rus in Urbe
Rus in Urbe (Latin): ‘the country in the city’; from Martial’s (Roman poet, c.40–c.102) epigram XII.57. There is a Rus-in-urbe Terrace on Glenageary Road, Kingstown with six units (Thom’s, p. 1728).
17.1504: Qui si sana
Qui si sana (Italian): ‘Here one [is] healthy’. Qui-si-Sano was the motto of the home of John Reinhardt, 12 Newtown Avenue, Blackrock (south of Dublin) (Thom’s, p. 1641). (Sana is feminine, sano is masculine).
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1212 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.1504: purchase by private treaty in fee simple
Private treaty: ‘a form of property sale effected by a private agreement between the seller and a bidder, rather than by auction, public tender, etc.’ (OED). For fee simple, see note at 14.682.
17.1507: Virginia creeper See note at 4.476.
17.1508: carriage finish
Carriage finish: the type of smooth, shiny, and durable varnish typically, but not exclusively, associated with carriages. ‘The varnishing of a carriage is a very delicate job [. . .] No other trade is so intelligent in the use of varnish, or so exacting upon the varnish-maker’ (People’s Text-Book on Varnish, p. 7).
17.1511: interjacent
Interjacent: ‘Lying or existing between; intervening, intermediate’ (OED).
17.1513–14: quickset hornbeam
Quickset: ‘cuttings or young plants of this kind collectively; esp. hawthorn’ or ‘A hedge made with such cuttings; (occasionally also) a dense thicket’. Hornbeam: ‘A tree of the genus Carpinus (family Betulaceæ), native to Asia, Europe, and North America’ (both OED).
17.1514: situate
See note at 7.91–92.
17.1516–17: Dundrum, south, or Sutton, north
Dundrum and Sutton are suburbs of Dublin: the former is 8 km to the south of the city, and the latter is 13 km to the north. ‘Dundrum is recommended for the purity of its air, and in summer is much resorted to by invalids’ (Thom’s, p. 1693). Sutton is on the isthmus between the mainland and Howth. The 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph calls Howth, ‘that invigorating health resort’ (p. 2, col. e).
17.1518: phthisical subjects
See note at 8.392 for phthisis. In treating tuberculosis, ‘[t]he continuous supply of pure fresh air is the main desideratum, a cool climate being greatly superior to a tropical one’ (EB11, s.v. climate).
17.1519: feefarm grant, lease 999 years
Fee-farm: ‘that kind of tenure by which land is held in fee-simple [see note at 17.1504] subject to a perpetual fixed rent, without any other services’ (OED). ‘It has been a common practice in Ireland to grant leases for ever, or for 999 years, or renewable for lives on the payment of a certain fine’ (The Tradesman, Jan. 1813, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 39).
17.1519: messuage
Messuage: a ‘dwelling-house with its outbuildings and curtilage and the adjacent land assigned to its use’ (OED).
17.1520: 2 lancets
Lancet: short for lancet-window, ‘a high and narrow window terminating in a lancet [pointed] arch’ (OED).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1213
17.1522: close range and scullery
Close range: an enclosed range (close: ‘shut; having no part left open’ (OED)). Scullery: ‘A small room attached to a kitchen, in which the washing of dishes and other dirty work is done; a back kitchen’ (OED).
17.1522: linen wallpresses
Press (Hiberno-English): a cupboard for airing and drying linen and clothes (Dolan); a seemingly essential feature of an Irish home.
17.1522–23: fumed oak
Fumed oak: ‘oak which has been darkened by exposure to ammonia vapour’ (OED, s.v. fume).
17.1523: Encyclopaedia Britannica
In 1904, this would be either the ninth edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1875–89), with twenty-four volumes plus an index, or the tenth edition (1902–3), which was the ninth edition with a supplement of eleven volumes. The eleventh edition—which Joyce used for Ulysses and later Finnegans Wake—was published in 1910–11 and consisted of twenty-eight volumes plus an index. This was a thorough revision and reconceptualisation of the encyclopaedia: it had more than double the entries of its predecessor, but each was of a more manageable length. The eleventh ‘was the standard reference work used by Anglophone writers of the period’ (Paul K. Saint-Amour, Tense Future, p, 199).
17.1523–24: New Century Dictionary
The Century Dictionary is a multi-volume unabridged dictionary and encyclopaedia published between 1889 and 1891 by the Century Company of New York. Until the Oxford English Dictionary was completed in 1928 (its publication began in 1884), the Century Dictionary was widely considered to be ‘the best completed dictionary of the English language’ (Richard W. Bailey, ‘Centennial Celebration of The Century Dictionary’, p. 1). The New Century Dictionary is a two-volume abridged version that first appeared in 1927 (and thus after Joyce had finished Ulysses).
17.1525–26: vulcanite automatic telephone receiver
Vulcanite: ‘Hard vulcanized rubber’ (OED). An automatic telephone is one which can connect directly to its intended destination without the need to first contact an intervening central switchboard operator to complete the connection. The first automatic dialling system was invented in 1889 by A. B. Strowger in Chicago. While technical development progressed rapidly, automatic telephone receivers were far from universal in the 1920s, let alone in 1904 (William Aitken, Automatic Telephone Systems, pp. 1–2).
17.1526: adjacent directory
From the 1890s onwards, F. Gill published the List of Subscribers in Ireland, a telephone directory that covered all of Ireland. The 1900/1901 edition ran to just twenty-two pages. In 1910, telephones had become sufficiently ubiquitous that the National Telephone Company started publishing a separate directory devoted just to Dublin city and adjoining areas. Thom’s was not a telephone directory and did not include telephone numbers in the main directory until the late 1910s.
17.1526: handtufted Axminster carpet
Axminster: a town in Devon, England, 37 km north-east of Exeter; a centre for the production of imitation oriental carpets in England since the early eighteenth century (EB11, s.v. carpet).
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1214 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.1527: loo table
Loo table: a type of round table; named after the card game of the same name (OED).
17.1528: ormolu mantel chronometer clock
Ormolu: a gold-coloured alloy of copper, zinc, and tin (OED).
17.1529: barometer with hygrographic chart
Barometer: ‘An instrument for determining the weight or pressure of the atmosphere, and hence for judging of probable changes in the weather’ (OED). Hygrograph: ‘an instrument for registering automatically the variations in the humidity of the air’ (OED, s.v. hygro-).
17.1530: fitments
Fitment: ‘A piece of furniture. Usually in pl.’ (OED).
17.1534: chandelier lustre
Lustre: ‘one of the prismatic glass pendants often attached in circles to a chandelier’ (OED).
17.1534: bentwood perch
Bent-wood: ‘Wood curved by machinery, used for making furniture’ (OED).
17.1535: embossed mural paper at 10/- per dozen
This would be very expensive wallpaper, considering that the wallpaper the Blooms had when they lived on Lombard Street West, which was the cheapest available, cost 1s. 9d. per dozen (see note at 8.171).
17.1538: newel
Newel: ‘A post at the head or foot of a staircase, supporting a handrail; (also) a similar post at a turning point of a staircase’ (OED).
17.1538: balusters
Baluster: ‘The upright posts or rails which support the handrail, and guard the side, of a staircase; often applied to the whole structure of uprights and handrail’ (OED).
17.1538–39: steppedup panel dado
Dado: ‘the lower part of the wall of a room, typically reaching up to waist height, when decorated differently from the upper part’ (OED). This dado adorns the wall adjacent to the staircase, therefore it is ‘stepped-up’, that is, it ascends at the angle of the stairs.
17.1540: reclining and shower
A reclining bath has one end raised at an angle to allow the bather a semi-seated reclining position. ‘The ordinary size for a reclining bath is 5 ft. 6 in. [168 cm] long at top, 4 ft. 6 in. [137 cm] long at bottom, and 2 ft. 3 in. [69 cm] deep, but many are fixed larger, where water is abundant’ (William R. Maguire, Domestic Sanitary Drainage and Plumbing, p. 273).
17.1541: bracket lamp
Bracket lamp: ‘A gas-pipe with a burner, and often a support for a shade or globe, projecting from a wall or pillar. Such brackets are commonly provided with one or more joints, in order that the position of the light may be changed, and that the bracket may be folded in a small space when not in use’ (Century Dictionary, s.v. bracket).
17.1542: oleograph
Oleograph: a picture printed in oil-colours as though it were an oil-painting (OED).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1215
17.1544: betweenmaid
Between-maid: ‘A maidservant who assists both the cook and the housemaid’ (OED).
17.1544–45: salary . . . annual bonus (£1)
According to contemporaneous situations vacant advertisements, the annual salary for a general cook was £12 and for a general servant £8–£10 (Freeman’s Journal, 31 May 1906, p. 2, col. d).
17.1546: the 65 system
More commonly known in Ireland as the ‘65 Rule’, the provision that civil servants must retire upon reaching the age of 65 and are guaranteed a pension if they have served for a certain min imum number of years (Freeman’s Journal, 26 Mar. 1895, p. 5, cols e–g). The civil service was unusual in offering a pension to retired employees. Typically, domestic servants received no pension from their employer, and in the United Kingdom, state-funded pensions only entered into force with the Old-Age Pension Act of 1908 (EB11, s.vv. pension; old age pensions).
17.1547: pantry, buttery, larder
In modern usage, a pantry, a buttery, and a larder all name the same thing: a room (or large cupboard) set aside for storing assorted provisions and kitchen equipment. However, the ori ginal meaning of a pantry is a storeroom for bread (from the French paneterie). Likewise, the original meaning of buttery is a place for storing liquor, and a larder is for storing meat (all OED).
17.1547: refrigerator
The Century Dictionary gives a description of turn-of-the-century refrigerators: ‘Domestic refrigerators are made in a great variety of shapes, and may be either portable or built into the walls of a house. They range from the common ice-box (which in its simplest form is merely a metal-lined wooden box with facilities for drainage, kept partly filled with ice on which fish or meat may be kept) to large and elaborate ice-chests and ice-rooms.’
17.1547: outoffices
Outoffice: ‘A separate building serving as an office for a manor house, farmhouse, etc.; an outbuilding’ (OED).
17.1549–50: carbon monoxide gas supply throughout
In the early twentieth century in Ireland and the United Kingdom, most domestic gas supply would have been coal gas (see note at 17.105–06). ‘Coal gas, which contains toxic carbon monoxide, was largely replaced by natural gas in household supplies in the 1940s–70s’ (OED, s.v. coal gas).
17.1552: tennis and fives court
Fives: ‘A game in which a ball is struck by the hand against the front wall of a three-sided court’ (OED). While a tennis court and a fives court are not identical, courts that could be used for both games were common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Angela Schattner, ‘Tennis Courts and Bowling Greens’, p. 29). In 1911, the cost of a tennis court was about £2,000 (EB11, s.v. tennis).
17.1552: shrubbery
Shrubbery: ‘A plantation of shrubs; a plot planted with shrubs’ (OED).
17.1553: rockery
Rockery: ‘A heaped arrangement of rough stones with soil between them, planted with rock plants’ (OED).
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1216 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.1555–56: chrome tulips
That is, chrome-coloured tulips. Chrome: ‘Applied to the yellow pigment and colour obtained from chromate of lead’ (OED). This collocation is not unique to Joyce; from a poem by Henry Savage, published in 1915: ‘Let but young April raise a finger tip / The great chrome tulips have me in their grip’ (Escapes and Escapades, p. 37).
17.1557–59: sir James W. Mackey (Limited) . . . 23 Sackville street, upper
Sir J. W. Mackey (ltd): ‘wholesale & retail seed & bulb merchants, & nurserymen; dealers in all classes of chemical manures, sheep dips, hay, and cattle spices’, 23 Upper Sackville Street (Thom’s, p. 1585). Because Joyce is following the entry in Thom’s so closely, this is the only time in Ulysses that he uses the toponym Sackville Street (see note at 5.70).
17.1560: glasstopped mural enclosures
That is, broken glass would be set into the top of the ‘mural enclosures’ (walls) to discourage thieves and poachers.
17.1561: lumbershed
Lumber: ‘Disused articles of furniture and the like, which take up room inconveniently, or are removed to be out of the way; useless odds and ends’ (OED).
17.1563: steelyard
Steelyard: ‘A balance consisting of a lever with unequal arms, which moves on a fulcrum; the article to be weighed is suspended from the shorter arm, and a counterpoise is caused to slide upon the longer arm until equilibrium is produced’ (OED).
17.1564: swatheturner
Swath-turner: ‘a machine used for turning over swaths of hay’ (OED, s.v. swath).
17.1564: carriagesack
Carriage-sack: a bag for carrying things; carriage: ‘That which is carried’ (OED).
17.1565: haytedder
Hay-tedder: a device that teds hay—that is, it strews and scatters new-mown hay to dry (OED, s.v. tedder).
17.1565: billhook
Bill-hook: ‘A heavy thick knife or chopper with a hooked end, used for pruning, cutting brushwood, etc.’ (OED).
17.1568: A rabbitry and fowlrun
Rabbitry: ‘A place in which rabbits are kept’. Fowl-run: ‘a place where fowls may run, an establishment for breeding fowls’ (both OED).
17.1568: dovecote
Dovecote: ‘A house for doves or pigeons; usually placed at a height above the ground, with openings for the doves to enter by, and internal provision for roosting and breeding’ (OED).
17.1570: harmonically accorded Japanese tinkle gatebell
Accorded: ‘Harmonized’ (OED). After Japan was forced to end a long period of self- imposed isolation in 1853, the opening-up of trade with the Western world led to a widespread interest in Japanese culture, art, décor, and furniture, which was called Japonisme (Ayako Ono, Japonisme in Britain, pp. 1–2). ‘Japanese bells are among the finest in the
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1217 world, for in their size, construction, and decoration, the bell-maker of Nippon has reached a high level of efficiency’ (Frederick Hadland Davis, Myths and Legends of Japan, p. 140).
17.1571: waterbutt
Water butt: ‘A large barrel or similarly-shaped container used to collect and store rainwater’ (OED).
17.1576–77: draught conveyance
That is, a vehicle pulled by a beast of draught, ‘a horse or other animal used for drawing a cart, plough, etc.’ (OED, s.v. draught).
17.1578: solidungular cob
Solidungular: having a whole or uncloven hoof (OED, s.vv. solidungular; soliped). Horses and related animals are solidungular. See note at 15.1064 for cob.
17.1578: roan gelding, 14h
A roan gelding is a horse of bay, sorrel, or chestnut colour that has been castrated (OED s.vv. roan; gelding); this one would be 14 hands of height, or 142 cm.
17.1579: erigible
Erigible: erectable (OED).
17.1580: Saint Leopold’s See note at 12.1695.
17.1580: Flowerville
Joyce probably got this name from Floraville, a rural residence in Clondalkin, a village 10 km south-west of Dublin. Major Malachy Powell (see note at 4.63) lived there between 1872 and 1878. An auction notice from 1862 describes the house as ‘gentleman-like’. It was ‘set in its own grounds with gatehouse, sweeping avenue, a handsome lawn, walled garden of half an acre in extent, greenhouse and out-offices. Attached were 29 acres [11.7 hectares] of good farm land mainly under grass, but with three to four acres under wheat, oats and potatoes’ (Andrew Tierney, JJON). However, Joyce might have found this name elsewhere since ‘Floraville’ was in use for several residences in Dublin’s suburbs, such as one in Novara Road, Bray (Thom’s, p. 1652).
17.1582: Harris tweed cap, price 8/6
Harris is the southern portion of Lewis-with-Harris, the most northerly island of the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. ‘Harris has obtained a great reputation for tweeds. The cloth has an aroma of heather, and is made in the dwellings of the cotters, who use dyes of long- established excellence’ (EB11, s.v. Lewis-With-Harris). The price of 8s. 6d. seems inflated: tweed caps at this time typically cost no more than 4s. (for example: Longford Leader, 17 Aug. 1912, p. 8, col. a).
17.1583: garden boots with elastic gussets
Gusset: ‘An elastic insertion in the side of a boot’ (OED).
17.1593: macadamised
To macadamise: to pave roads according to the system of John Loudon McAdam (Scottish engineer, 1756–1836). ‘McAdam’s method for repairing roads used a consolidated subsoil, only slightly cambered, on which were laid two layers of cleaned, uniformly small pieces of
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1218 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses broken stone. The first layer was to be consolidated (originally by the passage of traffic) before the next was put down. He did not approve of the placing of any kind of foundation under the layers of stone, of the use of sand or gravel as binding material, or of the smoothing of the surface by heavy rollers; the term “macadamizing”, however, is now used for methods involving some or all of these practices’ (OED).
17.1594: natation
Natation: swimming (OED).
17.1595: unmolested river boating
Unmolested: untroubled (OED); therefore an ‘unmolested river’ means a river with calm water. There should be a comma after ‘river’ to set ‘natation in secluded fresh water and unmolested river’ off from ‘boating in secure wherry or light curricle with kedge anchor on reaches free from weirs and rapids’. This passage was inserted by Joyce on a now-missing typescript page (UCSE, p. 1578). It is unclear whether the mispunctuation was the fault of Joyce or the typist of the retyped page (JJA, vol. 16, p. 147).
17.1595–96: secure wherry or light curricle with kedge anchor
Wherry: a barge (OED). Curricle: a ‘small boat made of wickerwork covered with some water-tight material (originally hides or skins), used by the ancient Britons, and still by fishermen on the rivers and lakes of Wales and Ireland’ (OED, s.v. coracle). Kedge anchor: a ‘small anchor with an iron stock used in mooring or warping’ (OED).
17.1596: period of estivation
Estivation: ‘The passing or spending of the summer’ (OED).
17.1597: vespertinal perambulation
Vespertinal: of the evening (OED, s.vv. vespertine; vespertinal).
17.1600–01: lecture of unexpurgated exotic erotic masterpieces Lecture: ‘The action of reading, perusal’ (OED).
17.1602: gimlet
Gimlet (also gimblet): ‘a piece of steel of a semi-cylindrical form, hollow on one side, having a cross handle at one end and a worm or screw at the other’ (J. Gwilt, An Encyclopaedia of Architecture (1842), cited in the OED).
17.1602: bullnose plane
‘A bullnose plane refines joinery and gets into corners. [. . .] [It is] a shoulder plane with a short, stout nose’ (Working with Handplanes, p. 22). Typically, a woodworking toolkit would have more planes than just a bullnose plane.
17.1604: stripper cows
Stripper: ‘A cow not in calf, but giving very little milk’ (OED).
17.1604: pike of upland hay
Pike: ‘A pointed or peaked stack of hay, made up (of a number of hay-cocks) temporarily in the hayfield, until it can be carted to the farm-yard’. Upland: ‘High ground, as opposed to meadow or marsh’ (both OED). Upland hay is generally considered superior: ‘I will maintain that there is more nourishment in one ton of good upland hay, than there is in three tons of that sort’ (John Spurrier, The Practical Farmer, p. 124).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1219
17.1610: resident magistrate
Resident magistrate: ‘a magistrate resident in the place in which he or she serves; spec. one acting as a representative of the British government in a semi-independent state’ (OED, s.v. resident). Thom’s lists sixty-seven resident magistrates for Ireland (p. 851).
17.1610: justice of the peace
Justice of the peace: a magistrate appointed by the monarch ‘to preserve the peace in a county, town, or other district, and discharge other local magisterial functions’ (OED).
17.1611: Semper paratus
Semper paratus (Latin): ‘always prepared’.
17.1611–12: duly recorded in the court directory
Court-guide: ‘a directory (or section of a general directory) containing the names and addresses of the nobility, gentry, and people in “society” (the theory being that it contains the names of all persons who have been presented at court)’ (OED). Thom’s contains a court guide, the section entitled ‘List of the Nobility, Gentry, Merchants and Traders, Public Offices, &c., &c., in the City of Dublin and Suburbs’ (pp. 1795–2045).
17.1612–13: M.P., P.C., K.P., L.L.D. (honoris causa)
These abbreviations stand for the following titles: Member of Parliament, Privy Councillor, Knight of the Order of St Patrick, and Doctor of Laws. Honoris causa (Latin): by reason of honour; that is, an honorary degree.
17.1614: fashionable intelligence See note at 13.197–98.
17.1614–15: Mr and Mrs Leopold Bloom have left . . . for England
A standard formulation in a society column; for example: ‘Sir Richard and Lady Griffith have left Kingstown for England’ (Freeman’s Journal, 2 May 1893, p. 13, col. a).
17.1627–28: law merchant
Law merchant: ‘the practice of merchants as established by judicial decisions and administered in the Courts of markets and fairs such as a Pie-Powder Court. From the time of Lord Mansfield (Lord Chief Justice, 1756–1788), Law Merchant became assimilated to the common law’ (Brewer’s).
17.1628: traversers in covin
To traverse (legal): ‘To contradict formally’. Covin: ‘A privy agreement between two or more to the prejudice of another’ (both OED).
17.1630: kindlings
Kindling: either ‘A brood or litter (now esp. of rabbits)’ or ‘small pieces of wood’ (OED); either sense is feasible in context.
17.1630: venville rights
Venville rights: an ancient privilege extended to residents of certain parishes adjacent to Dartmoor, in south-west Devonshire. ‘The tenants in venville are said to have the right to take anything off Dartmoor that may do them good except green oak and venison’ (W. F. Collier, ‘Venville Rights on Dartmoor’, pp. 378–79).
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1220 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.1630: obsolete by desuetude
Desuetude: ‘The passing into a state of disuse’ (OED). Venville rights cannot be rendered obsolete by desuetude. ‘The existing venville tenants are the descendants of settlers on the land in very ancient days, exercising extensive rights over the land as village communities. Their rights are very valuable and are unimpeachable’ (Collier, ‘Venville Rights on Dartmoor’, pp. 384–85).
17.1631: orotund
Orotund: ‘Originally (of a voice, speaker, or utterance): imposing, clear, resonant; such as is suited to public speaking, reading, or recitation. Now frequently in contemptuous use: inflated, bombastic; pompous, magniloquent’ (OED).
17.1635: Percy Apjohn See note at 17.1251–52.
17.1638–39: Society for promoting Christianity among the jews See note at 8.1073.
17.1641: Daniel Magrane and Francis Wade Unknown.
17.1643–44: political theory of colonial (e.g. Canadian) expansion
By the late nineteenth century, the Canadian government, nominally under British imper ial rule, enjoyed a degree of autonomy such that it was effectively independent. Because of this, it was seen as a possible model for Home Rule in Ireland: ‘Chamberlain and other Unionists had a valid constitutional point when they met reassurances about the reserve supremacy of the Imperial Parliament with the objection that such supremacy was at that time still retained by the British Parliament over Canada, but that no one would ever realistically think of trying to assert it’ (Robert Kee, The Green Flag, p. 389).
17.1644: evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin (1809–82) published his most important books The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, in 1859 and 1871 respectively (ODNB).
17.1647: James Fintan Lalor
James Fintan Lalor (1807–49): Irish republican and political journalist. He argued for the precedence of land reform over all other political issues and promoted what he called ‘moral insurrection’ against the landholding classes (DIB).
17.1647–48: John Fisher Murray
John Fisher Murray (1811–65): Irish journalist and nationalist. In 1848, he contributed to the Young Ireland organ the United Irishman and called on Irishmen to take arms in pursuit of self-government (DIB).
17.1648: John Mitchel
John Mitchel (1815–75): leader of the Young Ireland group. A journalist for the Nation and the founder of the United Irishman in 1848. On 13 May 1848, he was arrested for treason and was sentenced to fourteen years in exile. In 1853, he escaped from the penal colony in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and fled to America. He returned to Ireland in 1875 and was elected MP for Tipperary days before he died (DIB).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1221
17.1648: J. F. X. O’Brien
James Francis Xavier O’Brien (1828–1905): American Union army surgeon and Irish Fenian rebel. He left for Ireland after the conclusion of the Civil War. The British sentenced him to death for treason for his role in the Fenian rising in Cork (1867), but he was released in 1869. He became a Home Rule MP for South Mayo and later, Cork City (1885–1905) (DIB).
17.1648–49: agrarian policy of Michael Davitt See note at 15.4684.
17.1649: constitutional agitation of Charles Stewart Parnell
Parnell’s efforts to secure Home Rule for Ireland followed constitutional principles as opposed to the more radical factions within the Irish nationalists. ‘He insisted that the choice of parliamentary methods was dictated by practical considerations and the prospect of success’ (DIB).
17.1650: M.P. for Cork City
In 1875, Parnell first won a seat in Parliament, representing Meath. In 1880, he was elected for Mayo, Meath, and Cork and chose to sit for Cork (DIB).
17.1650–51: reform of William Ewart Gladstone (M.P. for Midlothian, N.B.)
See note at 5.323–24 for Gladstone. Gladstone was MP for the Liberal party for Midlothian (Edinburghshire), Scotland in 1880–94, his last term in Parliament (ODNB). NB: the abbreviation for North Britain, i.e. Scotland, which was in use up until the early twentieth century (OED, s.v. n). ‘Gladstone’s policies can be summed up in the Liberal slogan: “Peace, Retrenchment, Reform” ’ (Athena S. Leoussi, Nationalism and Classicism, p. 124).
17.1653–54: on Northumberland road . . . into the capital
As part of their campaign for Home Rule, the Marquess of Ripon and John Morley (see the following two notes) visited Dublin in 1888, where they were awarded the Freedom of the City. They arrived in a lavish procession on 1 February; Joyce shifts the date to 2 February, his birthday. The procession was met by a large and enthusiastic crowd. ‘The procession while drawn up and waiting the arrival of the visitors, stretched in a double line from Westland-row over Mount-street Bridge to Northumberland-road. At first there was a confused mass of men and flags and flaring torches, stacks of flags at intervals, frequent bands and horsemen scattered here and there. But out of the apparent disorder in a short time an imposing column of processionists was formed [. . .] Some one hundred and twenty different bodies took part, not less than 20,000 were in line, with over 2,000 torches’ (Proceedings in Connection with the Visit to Dublin of the Marquess of Ripon, pp. 30–31).
17.1656: marquess of Ripon
George Frederick Samuel Robinson (1827–1909): first Marquess of Ripon (a Yorkshire cathedral city, north of Leeds). A member of Gladstone’s Liberal Party, Ripon held various political positions during his career and served as Viceroy of India from 1880 to 1884. Ripon, who had converted to Catholicism in 1874, was popular in Ireland because of his abiding commitment to Home Rule and other associated policies (ODNB).
17.1656: (honest) John Morley
John Morley (1838–1923): Viscount Morley of Blackburn; he accompanied the Marquess of Ripon on his trip to Dublin in 1888. He was one of the principal architects of the Home
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1222 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Rule Bill of 1886 (see note at 17.1789–90) and is credited with influencing Gladstone’s thinking about Home Rule (ODNB). ‘In Ireland he was enormously popular and fifty years ago his portrait hung side by side with that of the “Grand Old Man” [Gladstone] on many an Irish cottage wall. “Honest John” Morley was the affectionate name that was given him’ (Irish Press, 24 Dec. 1938, p. 7, col. g).
17.1658–59: Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised . . . Society
Joyce originally wrote the ‘Irish Civil Service Building Society’ (Rosenbach green f. 18), which was an actual building society, with its headquarters at 25 Westmoreland Street (Thom’s, p. 1352). Building society: ‘a society in which the members periodically contribute to a fund out of which money may be lent to any of their number for the purpose of building (or purchasing) a house’ (OED, s.v. building). The ICSBS was founded in 1864 and incorporated in 1874; it was originally established to cater to civil servants, but soon expanded to a wider customer base (Irish Times, 19 Aug. 2014, p. 13, cols c–e). Joyce changed the name to the fictitious ‘Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised Friendly Stateaided Building Society’ on a page proof (JJA, vol. 27, p. 185).
17.1659–66: a maximum of £60 per annum . . . headrent included
Head-rent: ‘rent payable to the freeholder’ (OED, s.v. head). ‘Translated, this means that the prospective purchaser, with an assured income of £360 per annum, was entitled to buy a property worth £1200, of which price he would pay £400 down and finance the remainder with an £800 mortgage. [. . .] the calculations made by Joyce in preparing the faircopy were based on reality and that he probably had an actual copy of the ICSBS prospectus [see the previous note] to hand. The one anomaly, the 2½% interest rate, can be explained. The annual rental quoted (£64) is in fact very close to the payment that would have to be made for an £800 mortgage over 20 years at a rate of interest of 5%. Joyce must have been aware of the rental but not of the interest rate, which he proceeded to derive himself in the following (incorrect) manner: first, he rounded off the figure to £60 (justifying this by claiming that it included the head rent, which in reality would have been of the order of a few pounds); second, he deduced that £40 of this must be earmarked for paying off the principal because £40 x 20 = £800; third, he computed that this left £20 for interest and £20 is 2½% of £800, QED. What Joyce did not take into account was that as he was paying off the principal over the twenty-year period this would effectively double the interest rate because he would not have had the benefit of the full £800 over the full period’ (Danis Rose, ‘The Source of Mr Bloom’s Wealth,’ p. 130).
17.1674: A private wireless telegraph . . . (Dunsink time)
Bloom’s scheme of having the results of an English race telegraphed to him privately before the Dublin bookies closed bets, in order to take advantage of the 25-minute time difference between GMT and Dublin, is entirely feasible (see note at 10.510). Newspapers from this time reported on various instances of swindlers finding ways to exploit the possibilities of betting by telegraph, such as a case in Liverpool where a telegraph operator delayed the result of a race from coming in, thereby allowing an accomplice to place a bet on a horse that had already won (Belfast Newsletter, 14 July 1897, p. 5, col. e). For Dunsink time, see note at 8.109.
17.1680–81: 7 schilling, mauve, imperforate, Hamburg, 1866
The Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg issued stamps from 1859 to 1867. There is no stamp that matches this description since no 7-schilling stamp was issued in 1866. There was an
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1223 1865 7-schilling, mauve, perforated stamp (Stanley Gibbons Priced Catalogue of Stamps of Foreign Countries, p. 72); an imperforate variant is also listed but it was probably never issued (Ulin, ‘Philatelic Ulysses’, p. 71). The Stamp-Collector’s Magazine recommended Hamburg stamps for novice collectors because of their attractive design, low cost, and ease of acquiring a full set (1873, vol. 11, no. 126, p. 82).
17.1681–82: 4 pence, rose, blue paper, perforate, Great Britain, 1855
This—rose printing on bluish paper—describes either of two stamps, which bear different watermarks. Either would make this the most valuable stamp in Bloom’s imaginary collection. According to the 1920 Stanley Gibbons Priced Catalogue of Stamps, this stamp is worth, depending on the watermark, either £18 or £25 (Ulin, ‘Philatelic Ulysses’, p. 69).
17.1682–83: 1 franc, stone . . . Luxembourg, 1878
An accurate description of this stamp: its colour is listed as ‘bistre’ (blackish-brown or stone). This is a 37½ centimes stamp with a horizontal imprint at bottom that revalues the stamp at one franc (a ‘surcharge’). In addition, it bears the diagonal overprint ‘OFFICIEL’, indicating that it is for government use only. A rouletted stamp is one perforated by a revolving toothed wheel (OED). According to the 1920 Stanley Gibbons Priced Catalogue of Stamps, this stamp is worth £15 (Ulin, ‘Philatelic Ulysses’, pp. 69, 72–73).
17.1685: incendiated
To incendiate: An affected expression for ‘To set fire to, burn, make a fire of ’ (OED).
17.1686: flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict
The phrase ‘flotsam, jetsam, lagan, and derelict’ is common in maritime law regarding shipwrecks, salvage, and the ownership of recovered property, that is, whether it belongs to the original owner, the salvager, or the crown (EB11, s.v. wreck). Flotsam: ‘Such part of the wreckage of a ship or its cargo as is found floating on the surface of the sea’. Jetsam: ‘Goods discarded from a ship and washed ashore; spec. such material thrown overboard in order to lighten a vessel’. Lagan: ‘Goods or wreckage lying on the bed of the sea’. Derelict: ‘A piece of property abandoned by the owner or guardian; especially a vessel at sea’ (all OED).
17.1687: A Spanish prisoner’s donation of a distant treasure
After the confidence trick ‘The Spanish Prisoner’, which dates back at least as far as the nineteenth century. In its basic form, the con man tells the victim (whether in person or by post) that he is acting as an agent for a wealthy man falsely imprisoned in Spain. If he can secure enough funds to obtain his release, then the ‘prisoner’ will reward those who helped free him. The victim, lured by the prospect of ‘a distant treasure’ then gives money to the con man (Michael Benson, Cons and Frauds, pp. 65–70).
17.1688: specie
In specie: ‘Coin; coined money’ (OED).
17.1694: to 32 terms
Another confidence trick. A sum of money doubled a sufficient number of times becomes surprisingly large. In this case, the sum of a geometric progression of 2 (i.e. doubling) beginning with ¼ d. and continuing for 32 terms is £4,473,924, 5s., 3¾ d. The formula for finding the sum of such a progression is: the first term (in this case ¼ d.), minus the first
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1224 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses term (¼ d.) times the common ratio (here 2) raised to the power of the number of terms in the sequence (here 32) all divided by 1 minus the common ratio (here 2). Thus, (¼ − (¼ × 232)) / (1 − 2) (E. K. Ummer, Basic Mathematics for Economics, Business and Finance, pp. 58–59). The result of this operation is 1,073,741,823.75: this is the total number of pence, which then resolves into £4,473,924, 5s., 3¾ d.
17.1695–96: to break the bank at Monte Carlo See note at 12.185–86.
17.1696–97: quadrature of the circle, government premium £1,000,000 See note at 15.2400–01.
17.1699: dunams of waste arenary soil
See note at 4.195 for dunam. Arenary: sandy (OED).
17.1700: Agendath Netaim, Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.15
See note at 4.191–92 for Agendath Netaim and note at 4.199 for its address.
17.1707–08: 4,386,035, the total population of Ireland . . . 1901
The 1901 census counted the total population of Ireland at 4,458,775 (Thom’s, p. 686). In 1906, the population was 4,386,035 (L. Paul-Dubois, Contemporary Ireland, p. 523).
17.1710–11: harbour commissioners
The commissioners of the Dublin Port and Docks Board, which consists of twenty-eight members, led by the Lord Mayor (Thom’s, p. 1350).
17.1711: white coal
White coal: Hydroelectric power (OED).
17.1712: at Dublin bar See note at 3.471.
17.1713: Poulaphouca
See note at 15.3299. A dam was completed at Poulaphouca in 1939 (Bennett, s.v. water supply).
17.1713: Powerscourt
Powerscourt, former seat of Viscount Powerscourt: a noted manor on the Dargle at Enniskerry, near Dublin. The waterfall at Powerscourt (91 metres) is the highest in Ireland. ‘It is a charming excursion through the deer-park to Powerscourt Waterfall, where the Dargle is precipitated over a rock 300 ft. in height, immediately under the N.E. side of the Douce Mountain’ (Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 310).
17.1713: catchment basins
‘The catchment-basin is a term applied to all that part of a river-basin from which rain is collected, and from which therefore the river is fed’ (Thomas Huxley, quoted in OED, s.v. catchment).
17.1714: W.H.P.
‘The power imparted to the water by the pump is called water horsepower and is denoted by WHP’ (Thomas B. Lawson, Fundamentals of Aquacultural Engineering, p. 115).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1225
17.1714–18: A scheme to enclose the peninsular delta . . . mixed bathing
At least one of Bloom’s schemes has been pursued: today, two golf courses take up most of North Bull (Bennett). See note at 16.629–30 for North Bull Island. In 1904, in Dublin, there were no locations for mixed bathing (for which see note at 15.1701).
17.1721–22: fluvial fairway between Island bridge and Ringsend
Island Bridge is at the western edge of Dublin, where there is a weir. See note at 3.156–57 for Ringsend. Fluvial fairway: a navigable channel in a river (OED, s.vv. fluvial; fairway).
17.1722: charabancs
Char-à-banc: ‘A kind of long and light vehicle with transverse seats looking forward. Also, a motor-coach’ (OED).
17.1724–25: repristination of passenger and goods traffics over Irish waterways
From 1850 onwards, Ireland’s extensive network of canals lost passenger and goods traffic to the railways (NHI, vol. 6, p. 314).
17.1726–27: A scheme to connect by tramline the Cattle Market . . . the quays See note at 4.109–10.
17.1729: Great Southern and Western railway line
Great Southern and Western Railway Company: terminus, 95–97 North Wall Quay (Thom’s p. 1561).
17.1730: Midland Great Western Railway
Midland Great Western railway: terminus, 43–45 North Wall Quay (Thom’s p. 1560).
17.1731–32: Great Central Railway
Great Central Railway (England): John Fairclough, chief agent in Ireland, 5–6 North Wall Quay (Thom’s p. 1560).
17.1732: Midland Railway of England
Midland Railway of England: Frank D. Anill, general agent, 9 North Wall Quay (Thom’s, p. 1560).
17.1732–33: City of Dublin Steam Packet Company
City of Dublin Steam Packet Co.: 13A, 16, and 19 North Wall Quay, and 15 and 16 Eden Quay (Thom’s, pp. 1483, 1560).
17.1733: Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Co.: 13 North Wall Quay (Thom’s, p. 1560).
17.1733–34: Dublin and Glasgow Steam Packet Company
Dublin and Glasgow Steam Packet Co.: 70–72 North Wall Quay (Thom’s, p. 1561).
17.1734–35: Glasgow, Dublin and Londonderry . . . (Laird line)
Glasgow, Dublin and Londonderry Steam Packet Co., Ltd. (Laird line): 73–75 and 87–89 North Wall Quay (Thom’s, p. 1561). Alex Laird was their shipping agent.
17.1735–36: British and Irish Steam Packet Company
British and Irish Steam Packet Co.: 3 North Wall Quay (Thom’s, p. 1560).
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17.1736: Dublin and Morecambe Steamers
Dublin and Morecambe Steamers: 87–89 North Wall Quay (Thom’s, p. 1561). Alex Laird was their shipping agent.
17.1736–37: London and North Western Railway Company
London and North-western Railway Co.: 48–57 North Wall Quay (Thom’s, p. 1561).
17.1737: Dublin Port and Docks Board Landing Sheds
The penultimate listing for North Wall Quay in Thom’s is ‘Nine landing sheds, property of Dublin Port and Docks Board’; no street number is indicated (p. 1561).
17.1738–40: transit sheds of Palgrave, Murphy . . . Underwriters’ Association
The final listing for North Wall Quay in Thom’s is ‘Messrs. Palgrave’s transit shed’ (p. 1561). The rest of this item derives from elsewhere in Thom’s: ‘Palgrave, Murphy, & Co. steam ship owners, agents for steamers from Mediterranean, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Holland, &c. and for Liverpool Underwriters’ association, 17 Eden quay’ (p. 1982).
17.1742: Dublin United Tramways Company, limited See note at 7.6–7.
17.1744–45: protasis . . . apodosis
The protasis and apodosis are, respectively, the if and then clauses in a conditional propos ition (OED).
17.1748: Blum Pasha See note at 15.721–22.
17.1748: Rothschild See note at 15.1848.
17.1749: Guggenheim See note at 15.1856.
17.1749: Hirsch
See note at 15.1858.
17.1749: Montefiore See note at 4.156.
17.1749: Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913): American financier, banker, and philanthropist (EB11).
17.1749: Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller (1839–1937): American industrialist and philanthropist; his Standard Oil Company enjoyed a near-monopoly on the oil business until the Supreme Court broke it up in 1911 (EB11).
17.1750: fortunes in 6 figures
An understatement: at its high point, John D. Rockefeller’s wealth, for example, was almost two billion dollars. Thus his fortune extended to 10 figures, which made him the richest man in the world during his lifetime (New York Times, 24 May 1937, p. 8, col. a).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1227
17.1760: 70 years of complete human life See note at 17.456.
17.1766–67: aberration of the light of reason
Aberration: ‘A deviation or departure from what is normal, usual, or expected, typically an unwelcome one’ (OED). While this phrase plays on the metaphorical expression ‘light of reason’, the ‘aberration of light’ is an astronomical phenomenon: a deviation in the apparent position of a star as seen through a telescope that is caused by the motion of the earth (Wentworth and Hill, A Text-Book of Physics, pp. 378–79; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 652).
17.1771–72: reduced to its simplest and most efficient terms
To reduce: in mathematics, ‘To convert (a fraction) into a different form, esp. one with the lowest possible values of numerator and denominator’ (OED).
17.1775: A Vere Foster’s handwriting copybook
Vere Foster’s Copy-Books, Bold Writing or Civil Service Series: school copy-book materials produced by Vere Henry Lewis Foster (1819–1900), an Anglo-Irish philanthropist. ‘In 1864 he came up with an ingenious method of instruction in penmanship, the foundation for clerical employment. He devised a model headline copybook, shaped to suit a child’s needs’ (DIB). His copy-books were standard fare in Irish schools well into the early twentieth century. Joyce’s 1904 essay ‘A Portrait of the Artist’ was written in a Vere Foster copy-book that had belonged to his youngest sister Mabel (1893–1911) (JJA, vol. 7, pp. 70–94).
17.1779: queen Alexandra of England
Alexandra (1844–1925) was Edward VII’s wife, the daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark. The couple married in 1863 (ODNB).
17.1779: Maud Branscombe See note at 13.857.
17.1780: a Yuletide card
‘Christmas cards were also another Victorian invention, beginning in the 1840s and taking off in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, firmly establishing themselves as a middle-class habit’ (Martin Johnes, Christmas and the British, p. 75).
17.1781: parasitic plant
That is, mistletoe, an appropriate picture for a Christmas card. ‘The whole genus is parasitical’ (EB11).
17.1781: the legend Mizpah
Mizpah: ‘May the Lord watch between us’ (OED). Mizpah cards (and other mementoes inscribed with this word) were a popular type of forget-me-not in the late nineteenth century. ‘The Victorian concept of Mizpah captured all aspects of absence, from temporary separation to final parting in death’ (Mary Maillard, Whispers of Cruel Wrongs, p. 15). The idea is based upon the use of the Hebrew word Mizpah, which names a watchtower in Genesis 31:52: ‘Shall be a witness: this heap, I say, and the stone, be they for a testimony, if either I shall pass beyond it going towards thee, or thou shalt pass beyond it, thinking harm to me.’
17.1782: Mr + Mrs M. Comerford
Mr M. Comerford: Neptune View, 11 Leslie Avenue, Dalkey (Thom’s, p. 1836).
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17.1782: versicle
Versicle: ‘A short or single metrical line; a little verse’ (OED).
17.1785: Messrs Hely’s, Ltd., 89, 90 and 91 Dame street
See note at 6.703 for Hely’s. Its address was 27–30 Dame Street (see also note at 8.142 for another problem with the address).
17.1786: gilt “J” pennibs
J-pen or J-nib: ‘a broad-pointed pen, stamped with the letter J’ (OED, s.v. J). These were very common in the nineteenth century and were used for everyday writing.
17.1789–90: William Ewart Gladstone’s Home Rule bill of 1886
Under pressure from Parnell, whose party held the balance of power in the House of Commons after the general election of 1885, Gladstone set forward a Home Rule Bill on 8 June 1886. It failed 343 to 313 because 95 members of his Liberal Party sided with the Conservatives. Gladstone resigned as Prime Minister on 26 June (Edmund Curtis, History of Ireland, pp. 328–30). He became Prime Minister again in 1892 and, in September 1893, submitted a second Home Rule Bill, which passed the Commons but was struck down in the House of Lords (p. 332).
17.1791: S. Kevin’s Charity Fair
St Kevin’s Church (Protestant): 27–30 South Circular Road (Thom’s, p. 1451); built in 1889.
17.1799–1800: reversed alphabetic . . . cryptogram
The cipher is quadrilinear, that is, on four lines. Reversed alphabetic means that each letter corresponds with its opposite letter at the other end of the alphabet (A becomes Z, B becomes Y, etc.). Boustrophedonic means the lines are written alternately from left to right and from right to left (from the Greek word boustrophedon, ox turning—i.e. as an ox does when plowing) (OED, s.v. boustrophedon). Punctated: dotted (OED); here the idea is that full stops stand in for vowels. Decoded, the cipher reads: ‘Martha / Clifford / Dolphins / Barn’. However, the last line is not boustrophedonic (Sebastian Knowles, The Dublin Helix, pp. 21–23). Also, Joyce wrote the incorrect ‘boustrephodontic’ (JJA, vol. 27, p. 195), which Gabler emends to the correct form (UCSE, p. 1592).
17.1802: Modern Society
Modern Society: a London-based weekly gossip magazine which ran from 1880 to 1917; ‘its circulation was neither large nor “classy”. It had a pink cover which most of its purchasers tore off and threw away, so that they might not be known as readers of it’ (Waterloo Directory).
17.1804: rubber preservatives See notes at 15.1571 and at 9.1101.
17.1805: Box 32, P.O., Charing Cross, London, W.C. A plausible address.
17.1806: creamlaid
Creamlaid: ‘of a cream color and laid, or bearing linear water-lines as if laid: applied to paper’. Laid paper ‘shows in its fabric the marks of the close parallel wires on which the paper-pulp was laid in the process of its manufacture’ (Century Dictionary, s.vv. cream- laid; laid).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1229
17.1808: the Royal and Privileged Hungarian Lottery See note at 8.184–85.
17.1809: erotic photocards
From the 1880s up until the early twentieth century, erotic postcards, ranging from softcore to hardcore pornography, were popular. The term photocard is appropriate here, since cards of the type Bloom has were never intended to be sent through the post. ‘The images in sexual postcards ranged from Greek statues to children urinating, from sexualized images of food to scenes of seduction, from beautiful women to the grotesque, from the exotic to the everyday’ (Lisa Z. Sigel, ‘Filth in the Wrong People’s Hands’, p. 861). ‘Sexualized postcards were not segregated from other types of postcards or from working class life more generally. Vendors sold postcards in corner stores, in markets, in tobacconists, in newsagents’ shops and on the street’ (p. 873). At a meeting of the Dublin Corporation in June 1904, the open sale of ’suggestive postcards’ in the city centre was condemned (Freeman’s Journal, 7 June 1904, p. 7, col. a).
17.1809: buccal coition
Buccal: ‘of or pertaining to the cheek’ (OED); thus ‘buccal coition’: oral sex.
17.1814: 1d adhesive stamp, lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria
The penny lilac stamp was the most-issued Victorian stamp: in total, some 33 billion penny lilac stamps were produced between 1881 and 1901 (Chris West, A History of Britain in Thirty-Six Postage Stamps, p. 34).
17.1816–17: use of Sandow-Whiteley’s pulley exerciser
Chapter 7 of Sandow’s book Strength and How to Obtain It (see note at 17.1397), describes (and promotes) the Sandow-Whitely improved exerciser, a system of pulleys attached to a door (pp. 32–33). Whitely is only identified as a professor. Whiteley is Joyce’s misspelling.
17.1817–18: chest 28 in and 29½ in, biceps 9 in and 10 in . . . 12 in
These measurements are grossly disproportionate to Bloom’s height and weight (see notes at 17.86 and 17.91). A man of Bloom’s stature would be expected to have a chest of around 40 to 42 inches (102 to 107 cm). Joyce derived these measurements from the testimonial section of Sandow’s book, but the individual in question, Thomas A. Fox from Limehouse, is only 5 feet (1.52 metres) tall and weighs just 7 stone (44.5 kg), and thus is considerably smaller than Bloom. Fox gives measurements for before and after two years’ training under Sandow’s system: chest 29 and 32½ inches (74 and 83 cm); upper arm 10 and 13 inches (25 and 33 cm); forearm 9½ and 12 inches (24 and 30 cm); thigh 16½ and 20 inches (42 and 51 cm); calf 11 and 13 inches (28 and 33 cm) (Sandow, Strength, pp. 37–41; Kenner, ‘Ulysses’, pp. 164–65). Eugen Sandow is almost the same height as Bloom (5 foot 9¼ inches; 1.76 m), and he gives his own measurement as: chest 48 inches (122 cm); upper arm 19½ inches (50 cm); forearm 17 inches (43 cm); thigh 26 inches (66 cm); calf 18 inches (46 cm) (Sandow, Strength, p. 157).
17.1820–21: Wonderworker, Coventry House, South Place, London, E C
The ‘Wonder Worker’ was a small, spade-shaped Bakelite contraption advertised as a cure for haemorrhoids. It was patented in 1917 and produced by Frederick Adolph Werner, Coventry House, South Place, London, E.C.2. (Robert Janusko, JJON).
17.1825: thaumaturgic
Thaumaturgic: ‘wonder-working’ (OED).
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17.1826–32: It heals and soothes while you sleep . . . lasts a lifetime
From an advertisement for the Wonder Worker: ‘For piles, hæmorrhoids and all rectal troubles. A natural unfailing cure. Instant relief. Soothing and comforting. No doctors, no medicines. Lasts a life-time. To be inserted in the Rectum during sleep. No discomfort or unpleasantness. To enjoy good health, sleep and rest, no man or woman should be without it’ (Robert Janusko, JJON). According to a different advertisement, it cost 7s. 6d. (Ronan Crowley, JJON).
17.1836: absentminded beggar See note at 9.125.
17.1839: South African campaign
That is, the Boer War; see note at 8.434.
17.1842: find M. C.
The fact that Martha Clifford uses a post office address for her correspondence has led some critics to postulate that, like Henry Flower, her name is a pseudonym. Thus, as with the man in the macintosh (see note at 6.805), there has been some speculation as to her identity. The main candidates are: Miss Dunne (see note at 10.368) (Stanley Poss, ‘Ulysses and the Comedy of the Immobilized Act’, p. 79); Gerty MacDowell (Fritz Senn, ‘Nausicaa’, p. 298); Nurse Callan (see note at 13.960) (Patrick Hogan, ‘Find MC’); or an unnamed foreign woman (Andrew G. Christensen, ‘Ulysses’s Martha Clifford: The Foreigner Hypothesis’). Michael Begnal suggests, perhaps not entirely seriously, that she is actually Ignatius Gallaher (see note at 6.58) (‘The Unveiling of Martha Clifford’).
17.1846: Mrs Josephine Breen, born Josie Powell See note at 8.203.
17.1847: Miss Callan See note at 13.960.
17.1855–56: endowment assurance
Endowment assurance: ‘a form of life insurance providing for the payment of an endowment or fixed sum to the insured person at a specified date, or (usually) to his representatives on his death, should that take place before the specified date of payment’ (OED, s.v. endowment); see also note at 17.1857–60. In the early twentieth century, the term assurance was used ‘to differentiate life- assurance, and fire- and marine- insurance’ (OED, s.v. assurance).
17.1856: Scottish Widows’ Assurance Society See note at 13.1227.
17.1857: intestated Millicent (Milly) Bloom
Context suggests that Milly is the sole designated beneficiary of Bloom’s insurance policy. This word is used in the sense of the Italian intestare, to assign. The English word intestate means a person who has died without having prepared a will (OED).
17.1857–60: coming into force at 25 years . . . £133-10-0, at option
A profit policy allows the policyholder to share in the profits of the insurance company, usually at a higher premium than a non-profit policy (G. W. Richmond and F. H. Sherriff, Pitman’s Dictionary of Life Assurance, p. 552). ‘The endowment assurance policy with profits
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1231 is a deservedly popular form of assurance, because it not only supplies life assurance protection from the outset over an agreed number of years, but combines with the profitable investment of savings for the policy-holder. [. . .] The primary object of the policy is life assurance [. . .] But he is also accumulating his payments at a profit should he survive. At the same time, should he be temporarily pressed financially, the policy possesses a comparatively high surrender and loan value, and he can also surrender it for a proportionate fully-paid up policy should he desire to do so or be forced to discontinue. What he obtains is the return of his premiums with interest at the end of the agreed term, plus life assurance for the full face value of his policy during the whole of the term. He, therefore, protects his dependents, saves money regularly, and obtains a return on his investment at maturity should he survive’ (pp. 204–05). The phrasing here suggests that of a schedule attached to a policy, but without further information about this particular policy it is impossible to give a definitive explanation of its operation. One thing is clear: this is a policy for people with some means. Based on the information provided and on the mechanics of such policies at this time, a likely (but not certain) interpretation is that Bloom has a life cover of £500 until the age of 65, with that sum going to his designated beneficiary, Milly. Assuming he lives past that age and had not previously cashed out the policy, its value would then be the sum of what was paid in, plus accumulated interest (i.e. the profit), minus commission and charges. Alternatively, Bloom has the option of cashing out the policy before he reaches the age of 65, although in such a case he would almost certainly lose the £500 life cover. At age 60, he can cash out his policy for a payment of £430. The amount increases to £462 10s. if he cashes out the policy between the ages of 60 and 65. Alternatively, if he chooses to exercise his right to stop payment (‘at option’), he would receive a lump-sum payment of the premiums already paid in plus interest already accrued (minus commission and charges), which, as of 16 June 1904, amounts to £133 10s. Or, he could wait and be eligible for a reduced policy of £299 10s. at the end of the original 25-year term. The phrasing of the second part is unclear: typically, when a policy is ‘paid up’, that is the policyholder stops making payments before the end of the term, he can either receive a reduced amount at the time of surrender or a larger amount at the end of the original term, not both (with thanks to Frank Bannister and Bill Fields).
17.1861: Ulster Bank, College Green branch See note at 14.1324–25.
17.1862: a/c
A/c: account.
17.1863: £18-14-6
A not insignificant sum; the annual rental value of 7 Eccles in 1904 was £28 (Thom’s, p. 1482).
17.1863–64: net personalty
Personalty: ‘personal belongings’ (OED).
17.1864–65: £900, Canadian 4% (inscribed) . . . (free of stamp duty)
The Freeman’s Journal for 9 March 1904 carried an announcement for investing in Canadian government stock: ‘This is a Four per Cent stock of the Canadian Government,
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registered and inscribed, issued in June, 1885 [. . .] £3,499,900 of this stock is inscribed and registered and can be transferred in any amount free of charge except a small stamp duty of 2s. 6d. per £100 stock’ (p. 5, col. f). In a subsequent article, Lord Dunraven (Anglo-Irish journalist, 1841–1926) castigated the Freeman’s Journal for misleading their readers about the soundness of such an investment: ‘[People] who have neither the time nor the money to enquire into the matter themselves are deluded into believing [they] can get four or five or six per cent for their money’ (30 May 1904, p. 5, col. i). Indeed, this stock never yielded 4% interest and, furthermore, its value declined so precipitously that by 1922 any investment would have been lost (Peter Kuch, Irish Divorce/Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, pp. 188–92). Stamp duty: tax (OED, s.v. stamp).
17.1865–66: Catholic Cemeteries’ (Glasnevin) Committee
Dublin Catholic Cemeteries Committee: 4 Rutland (now Parnell) Square East (Thom’s, p. 1581). It was founded by the Catholic Association in 1828 and was responsible for taking care of Glasnevin cemetery (see note at 6.486).
17.1869: 52 Clanbrassil street
Unusually, Joyce does not specify whether this is Upper Clanbrassil Street or Lower Clanbrassil Street. 52 Lower Clanbrassil Street is a short distance north of Leonard’s Corner (see note at 15.203) at South Circular Road and 52 Upper is a short distance south. 52 Lower Clanbrassil Street lies within the Jewish district known as ‘Little Jerusalem’, whereas 52 Upper Clanbrassil Street lies just outside. However, Jewish settlement on Lower Clanbrassil Street did not begin until the 1880s, and thus after Bloom was born (Cormac Ó Gráda, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce, pp. 105–08). In 1982, a plaque was placed on 52 Upper Clanbrassil Street commemorating it as the birthplace, ‘in Joyce’s imagination’, of Leopold Bloom. The decision to choose Upper Clanbrassil Street was motivated by the fact that the house at 52 Lower Clanbrassil Street had since been demolished, so only the building at 52 Upper Clanbrassil Street was period-appropriate (with thanks to Robert Nicholson; see also Bennett, s.v. Clanbrassil Street Upper).
17.1870: Szombathely See note at 15.1868.
17.1875: daguerreotype See note at 8.174.
17.1876–77: atelier of their (respectively) 1st and 2nd cousin, Stefan Virag
If, as stated, Rudolph Virag and Stefan Virag—who runs the daguerreotype atelier—are first cousins, then Leopold Virag (Rudolph’s father) is Stefan’s uncle, not his second cousin. If, on the other hand, Leopold Virag and Stefan Virag are the first cousins, then Rudolph Virag and Stefan technically would be first cousins once removed, although the term second cousin is often used in such instances (OED, s.v. cousin).
17.1877: Szesfehervar
The proper spelling of the name of this Hungarian town is Székesfehérvár; it lies about 66 km south-west of Budapest. It ‘was formerly a town of great importance, being the coron ation and burial place of the Hungarian kings from the 10th to the 16th century’ (EB11, s.v. Szeged). Like Szombathely, it is also listed in the Guida di Trieste as a market town (McCourt, The Years of Bloom, p. 264 n. 35).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1233
17.1878: haggadah book
See note at 7.206 for haggadah. On the Rosenbach draft, as in ‘Aeolus’ and ‘Circe’ (15.1623), Joyce here initially used the variant spelling ‘hagadah’ (Rosenbach blue f. 20). He emended this to ‘haggadah’ on a galley proof (JJA, vol. 21, p. 119), but this emendation was not implemented on the next proof (p. 127), so the word remained unchanged until Gabler’s edition (UCSE, pp. 1598, 1848).
17.1879–80: passage of thanksgiving in the ritual prayers for Pessach (Passover)
At the conclusion of the Passover Seder, a lengthy grace is said. The prayer of thanksgiving begins with, ‘Let us bless Him of whose bounty we have partaken and through whose goodness we live’ (The Union Haggadah, p. 56). And it concludes, ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who createst the fruit of the vine’ (p. 60). After this prayer, a door is ritually opened and closed for Elijah.
17.1880: Queen’s Hotel, Ennis See note at 6.529–30.
17.1882: lecture
See note at 17.1600–01.
17.1885: Athos
See note at 6.125.
17.1885–86: das Herz . . . Gott . . . dein . . .
Das Herz . . . Gott . . . dein . . . (German): ‘the heart . . . God . . . your . . .’
17.1890: aconite
See note at 17.624.
17.1890–91: grains and scruples
Pharmaceutical measurements. 1 grain = 64.8 mg (there are 7,000 grains to the pound). 1 scruple = 20 grains (both OED).
17.1897: The prohibition of the use of fleshmeat and milk at one meal See notes at 4.278 and 8.751.
17.1898: hebdomadary
Hebdomadary: weekly (OED). Drinking (kosher) wine is a standard practice on the Jewish Sabbath.
17.1898: perfervidly
That is, very fervidly. The prefix per- sometimes, as here, means extremely, very (OED, s.v. per-).
17.1899: circumcision of male infants See note at 1.394.
17.1900: supernatural character of Judaic scripture
For a devout Jew, the Torah ‘was revealed directly by God to Moses in the wilderness during the Exodus and was written down by him [. . .] the other two sections [of the Bible] were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit’ (Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend, s.v. Bible).
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17.1900–01: ineffability of the tetragrammaton
Tetragrammaton: Greek, ‘the word of four letters’, specifically in reference to the Hebrew name for God, YHWH (Yahweh), which is regarded as ineffable (OED). ‘Of all the various names of God, the tetragrammaton alone is thought of as a true name, the others being descriptions. So sacred is the name that even a-do-nai [“my Lord”] is only used in prayer, otherwise it is referred to as ha-shem (“the name”) because of the prohibition of taking God’s name in vain. Today, the correct pronunciation of the tetragrammaton has been forgotten’ (Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend).
17.1901: sanctity of the sabbath
One of the Ten Commandments is an injunction against work on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:9–10, also Deuteronomy 5:12–15). In Jewish law, this commandment has been strictly interpreted and for orthodox Jews even the most basic quotidian tasks are prohibited on the Sabbath (Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend).
17.1907: retrospective arrangement See note at 6.150.
17.1909: Maria Theresia, empress of Austria, queen of Hungary
Maria Theresa (1717–80): Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Bohemia and Hungary (1740–80), and wife of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I (Maria Theresia is the German spelling of her name). In general, Maria Theresa was not well regarded by Jews within the Austro-Hungarian Empire because of various regressive policies inaugurated during her reign. Trieste was an exception: she was praised within the Jewish community because her policies for that city allowed Jews to flourish there (McCourt, The Years of Bloom, pp. 220–21).
17.1910: having taken care of pence . . . taken care of themselves
After a proverb advocating frugality, ‘Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves’ (ODEP).
17.1918–19: narcotic toxin
On a notesheet, Joyce wrote ‘RB took drugs’ (Notesheet Ithaca 3.80) and on another ‘R. B. tootache [sic] drugs’ (Notesheet Ithaca 12.38–39). Perhaps this is in reference to the aconite which Rudolph used to kill himself; while poisonous, it is used to treat sciatica and neuralgia (see note at 17.624), but it lacks a narcotic effect.
17.1924: gooseberry fool
Gooseberry fool: ‘A dish composed of fruit stewed, crushed, and mixed with milk, cream, or custard’ (OED, s.v. fool).
17.1927: senescence
Senescence: ‘The process or condition of growing old’ (OED).
17.1928: eructation
Eructation: belching (OED).
17.1935: negative irrational unreal quantity
Negative number: any number less than zero. Irrational number: a number that cannot be expressed as a fraction where both terms are integers. Unreal number: presumably an
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1235 imaginary number, a number whose square is a negative number (all EB11, s.v. number). With imaginary numbers, the negative makes no difference (i.e. i = -i).
17.1936: descending helotic order
That is, ‘descending order of poverty and servitude’. Helot: ‘One of a class of serfs in ancient Sparta, intermediate in status between the ordinary slaves and the free Spartan citizens’ (OED).
17.1937: dun
See note at 3.71.
17.1938: poor rate See note at 16.945.
17.1938: cess collector
Cess (derived from assess): an assessment, tax, or levy. By the early twentieth century, this was superseded in British English by the word rate, however cess remained current in Hiberno-English for longer.
17.1944–45: Old Man’s House (Royal Hospital), Kilmainham
The Royal Hospital for Ancient and Maimed Officers and Soldiers, Inchicore Road, Kilmainham, west Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1716). ‘The Hospital is maintained by an annual parliamentary grant, and provides every necessary comfort for upwards of 140 veterans and officers. The hospital, though retaining its old title of “Royal Hospital, Kilmainham”, is within the boundary of the city of Dublin’ (p. 1715). The hospital was colloquially known as the ‘Old Man’s House’ (Irish Daily Independent, 25 Aug. 1894, p. 2, col. g).
17.1945: Simpson’s Hospital
Simpson’s Hospital: Great Britain (now Parnell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1434). ‘Founded by the late George Simpson, esq., of this City, for the reception of reduced but respectable men of good character who are permanently disabled either through effects of gout or want of sight’ (p. 1382).
17.1947: disfranchised ratesupported
At this time in the United Kingdom, anyone dependent on the Poor Rate (see note at 16.945) was ineligible to vote (EB11, s.v. Vote).
17.1951: latration
Latration: barking (OED).
17.1955: change of state
From Wentworth and Hill’s A Text- Book of Physics: ‘Summary of Heat Effects [. . .]: (1) change of volume [. . .] (2) Change of temperature (3) Change of state’ (p. 120; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 645).
17.1960: purchase
Purchase: ‘contrivance; machination’ (OED).
17.1972: hachures
Hachure: in cartography, ‘The lines used in hill-shading to indicate the more or less steep slope of the surface’ (OED).
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17.1974: cliffs of Moher
The ocean cliffs of Moher extend for about 8 km near Liscannor, County Clare, on the west coast of Ireland. They reach a height of 231 metres (Brewer’s Irish).
17.1974: windy wilds of Connemara See note at 14.614–15.
17.1974–75: lough Neagh with submerged petrified city
See note at 12.1454. An ancient legend has it that Lough Neagh was once a small fairy fountain that suddenly grew, submerging settlements (P. W. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 177).
17.1975: Giant’s Causeway See note at 3.293.
17.1975–76: Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle See note at 16.418.
17.1976: Golden Vale of Tipperary
At the heart of County Tipperary, the Golden Vale runs from Cashel to the city of Limerick and is the richest farming region in Ireland (Brewer’s Irish).
17.1976: islands of Aran
The three Aran Islands lie off Galway Bay, County Galway. Fishing is the main activity (Brewer’s Irish).
17.1976–77: pastures of royal Meath
In the first century, Tuathal carved out a fifth province, royal Meath, ‘the province of the Ard-Righ or High King of all Ireland’ (Seumas MacManus, Story of the Irish Race, p. 37). It lies between the modern counties of Meath, Westmeath, and Longford.
17.1977: Brigid’s elm in Kildare See note at 12.1262–63.
17.1977–78: Queen’s Island shipyard in Belfast
Queen’s Island: a man-made island on the bank of Belfast’s harbour that formerly housed major shipbuilding yards (Brewer’s Irish, s.v. Dargan’s Island).
17.1978: Salmon Leap See note at 12.1459.
17.1978: lakes of Killarney See note at 12.1451.
17.1981–82: Pulbrook, Robertson and Co . . . 5 Dame street, Dublin
Thom’s directory of Nobility, Merchants, and Traders incorrectly lists Pulbrook, Robertson & Co. at 5 Dame Street (p. 1991). Elsewhere, the accurate information is given: 5 Leinster Chambers, an office building at 43 Dame Street. In life, their agent was R. J. Thornton (p. 1469; JJD, p. 124). In Ulysses, Tom Kernan is their agent (see note at 5.19–20).
17.1982: mosque of Omar
Otherwise known as the Dome of the Rock; built in Jerusalem in 688 on the site of Solomon’s Temple and named after the caliph Omar, who took Jerusalem in 637 (EB11, s.v. Jerusalem).
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17.1982–83: gate of Damascus
The Damascus Gate affords access to the northern side of the old city of Jerusalem (EB11, s.v. Jerusalem). There is a picture of the Gate of Damascus in Frederick Thompson’s In the Track of the Sun (p. 40).
17.1983–84: straits of Gibraltar (the unique birthplace of Marion Tweedy)
Technically, Molly was born on Gibraltar (see note at 4.60), not the straits of Gibraltar, which is the strip of water that separates the Iberian peninsula from Morocco and connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean.
17.1984–85: Parthenon (containing statues of nude Grecian divinities)
The Parthenon: a temple to Athena that stands on top of the Acropolis, built during the reign of Pericles, between 447 and 432 bc. Much of it has been damaged over the centuries, including the enormous gold and ivory statue of Athena, which was removed in the fifth century ad (EB11). Earlier in Ulysses, Bloom expressed some interest in statues of Greek goddesses (8.920–32 and 9.609–17).
17.1985–86: Wall street money market (which controlled international finance)
In 1904, London was the pre-eminent financial centre in the world, but after World War I, Wall Street ‘had become the sun around which the world’s other financial markets, including London now revolved’ (John Steele Gordon, The Great Game, p. 209).
17.1986–87: Plaza de Toros at La Linea, Spain (where O’Hara . . . bull)
La Línea de la Concepción is a small Spanish town at the border with Gibraltar, effectively a suburb for Gibraltar and home to many day labourers for the British colony (EB11, s.v. Gibraltar). In the 1870s, a British soldier in the Gibraltar garrison, John O’Hara, became a proficient and popular bullfighter, billing himself as Don Juan O’Hara. O’Hara was in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, not the Cameron Highlanders (Philip B. Sullivan, ‘Los Toros in Ulysses’, pp. 3–4). Gibraltar lacks a bullring, but there are bullrings in nearby towns such as La Línea that are easy to access (Horace Wyndham, The Queen’s Service, p. 176).
17.1987–88: Niagara (over which no human being had passed with impunity)
Not true: on 24 October 1901, Anna Edson Taylor, a school teacher from Michigan, became the first person to successfully ride over Niagara Falls in a barrel (Archer Butler Hulbert, The Niagara River, pp. 141–43).
17.1988–89: Eskimos (eaters of soap)
According to some (spurious) travellers’ tales in circulation since the nineteenth century, the Inuit (Eskimos) were reputed to eat soap and candles. The confusion probably happened because tallow and blubber are a part of the Inuit diet and tallow can be used to make soap (John Simpson, JJON).
17.1989: forbidden country of Thibet (from which no traveller returns)
‘Thibet’ is an acceptable transliteration (OED). Shortly after conquering Tibet in 1720, China sealed off the border between Tibet and India. While there had been attempts to enter Tibet during its isolation, these were very risky. Tibet’s seclusion was maintained until a British and Indian expedition, led by Colonel (subsequently Sir) Francis Edward Younghusband (1863–1942), breached the border on 12 December 1903. Encountering opposition at various points along their incursion, the expedition reached Lhasa on 3 August 1904. Irish papers routinely covered the expedition; the Freeman’s Journal of 16 June
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1238 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses 1904 has a brief story on ‘The Tibet Campaign’ (p. 5, col. c). A peace treaty concluded on 7 September opened up the border (EB11). This sentence also alludes to Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy: ‘The undiscover’d country from whose bourn / No traveller returns’ (III.i.79–80).
17.1990: bay of Naples (to see which was to die)
A misunderstanding of the old Italian saying, ‘Vedi Napoli e poi muori’ (See Naples and then die) (Brewer’s). Gustave Flaubert (1821–80) likewise mocks this saying in the ‘Dictionary of Received Ideas’, which is typically included as an appendix to his novel Bouvard and Pécuchet (1881), ‘If you are talking to a scholar, always say: Parthenopeia. “See Naples and die” ’ (p. 318).
17.1990: the Dead Sea See note at 4.219–20.
17.1992: At sea, septentrional
See note at 17.1123–26 for septentrional. Polaris, or the North Star, in the constellation Ursa Minor, ‘being situated very close to the north pole is of incalculable service to navigators’ (EB11, s.v. Ursa Minor).
17.1992–96: polestar, located at the point of intersection . . . delta of Ursa Maior
The north star (or Polaris or pole star) can be found by extending a straight (or right) line from the stars Beta Ursa Major to Alpha Ursa Major (the two outermost stars in the cup of the Big Dipper). At about five times the length of the distance between Alpha and Beta lies Polaris at the end (or omega) of this line. Polaris also forms one corner of an approximate right triangle, whose other points are the stars Alpha and Delta of Ursa Major (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 411). Ursa Maior is a variant form of Ursa Major.
17.1996: On land, meridional, a bispherical moon Meridional: southern (OED).
17.1998: imperfectly occluded skirt
Skirt: ‘An underskirt or petticoat’ (OED).
17.1998: carnose
Carnose: fleshy (OED).
17.1999: pillar of the cloud by day See note at 7.865–66.
17.2000: occultation
Occultation: ‘Disappearance from view or notice’ (OED).
17.2001–05: £5 reward, lost, stolen or strayed . . . leading to his discovery
Lost, stolen, or strayed: the standard first line in a lost-dog advertisement, an idiosyncratic staple of small ad columns in Irish newspapers from the early eighteenth century into the early twentieth century (although some examples can be found as recently as the early twenty-first century). For example: ‘Lost, Stolen or Strayed from 31 Smithfield a rough Wheaten Terrier; answers to the name of Billy’ (Freeman’s Journal, 1 Apr. 1901, p. 1, col. d). Joyce combines this cliché line with some phrases taken from a missing-person ad that appeared in various Dublin newspapers, with occasional modifications, between 8 May
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1239 and 4 June 1902: ‘£100 REWARD. MISSING, Gentleman, aged 40, height about 5 ft. 5 in. [1.65 m], slight built, square shoulders, fair complexion, rather long brown hair, heavy light brown moustache (may now have grown a beard), blue eyes. He was dressed in a grey tweed suit, soft black felt hat, black boots, and light rainproof overcoat when last seen on Friday afternoon, the 2nd inst., in Dublin. The above Reward will be paid for his discovery. Apply 16 Molesworth street’ (Irish Times, 30 May 1902, p. 1, col. b; John Simpson, JJON).
17.2008: Everyman See note at 14.107.
17.2008: Noman
Noman (in Greek, outis): the name Odysseus adopts to disguise himself from the Cyclops Polyphemos (IX.366–67). Stuart Gilbert refers to a mediaeval etymology for the Greek name Odysseus, that it is formed by a combination of outis (nobody) + Zeus (god) (p. 268; see also Ellmann, p. 361). Joyce made a note of this in one of his Greek notebooks (Buffalo VIII.A.4): ‘NO/God / Odusseus / outis Zeus’ (JJA, vol. 3, p. 332). This etymology is now known to be fanciful and spurious (R. J. Schork, Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce, pp. 87–88).
17.2010: Honour and gifts of strangers, the friends of Everyman
In the morality play Everyman (see note at 14.107), Everyman’s friends are named Fellowship, Kindred, Cousin, Goods, and Good Deeds.
17.2010–11: A nymph immortal, beauty, the bride of Noman
The nymph Calypso offers to make Odysseus her husband as well as give him immortality, however Odysseus turns her down (Odyssey, V.206–10).
17.2013–14: extreme limit of his cometary orbit
In a letter to Frank Budgen from 28 February 1921, Joyce wrote that in ‘Ithaca’, ‘Bloom and Stephen thereby become heavenly bodies, wanderers like the stars at which they gaze’ (Selected Letters, p. 278). See note at 17.1112–13 for cometary orbits.
17.2014: variable suns and telescopic planets
Variable sun: more properly called a variable star, a star whose brightness changes (Ball, Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 430). Telescopic planet: a planet that can only be seen through a telescope, of which there were two known when Joyce was writing Ulysses, Uranus (discovered 1781) and Neptune (discovered 1846).
17.2017: suncompelled
‘It is now well known that several of these bodies make periodic returns. After having been invisible for a certain number of years, a comet comes into view, and again retreats into space to perform another revolution’ (Ball, The Story of the Heavens [1900], p. 338).
17.2017–18: summons of recall
In the Odyssey, Zeus sends Hermes to Calypso’s island to tell him that he may return home to Ithaca (V.29–42).
17.2018–19: constellation of the Northern Crown See note at 17.1123–26.
17.2019–20: reappear reborn above delta in the constellation of Cassiopeia See notes at 9.928–29, 9.936, and 17.119–23.
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1240 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.2021: estranged avenger, a wreaker of justice on malefactors, a dark crusader
Odysseus could be considered ‘a wreaker of justice on malefactors’ when he returns home in Book XXII of the Odyssey, since he kills the parasitic suitors who had invaded his home. The term dark crusader suggests Edmond Dantès, the hero of Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), who wreaks vengeance on those who had imprisoned him. In A Portrait, Stephen thinks of Dantès as ‘that dark avenger’ (p. 62).
17.2022: sleeper awakened
Suggests Rip van Winkle; see note at 13.1112.
17.2023: Rothschild See note at 15.1848.
17.2023: the silver king
Possibly Horace Tabor (American prospector and politician, 1830–99), known as the ‘silver king’ because of the wealth he generated during the Colorado silver boom of the 1870s (David Karsner, Silver Dollar: The Story of the Tabors, p. 225). Also the title of a popular melodrama from 1882 by Henry Arthur Jones (1851–1929) and Henry Herman (1832–94).
17.2034: statue of Narcissus, sound without echo, desired desire
In Roman myth, Echo is a nymph who fell in love with Narcissus (see note at 17.1428), but since her love was not returned, she withered until only her voice remained (Brewer’s).
17.2038: calefaction
Calefaction: warming, heating (OED).
17.2039: mangling
Mangle: ‘A machine for squeezing water from and pressing linen, clothing, etc., after washing’ (OED). On a notesheet, Joyce wrote: ‘LB trousers under MB—mangling done on premises’ (Notesheet Ithaca 4.52).
17.2040–41: spring mattress
Spring mattress: ‘one having metallic springs beneath the hair or moss filling’ (OED).
17.2041: woollen mattress (biscuit section)
Biscuit: soldiers’ slang for the standard issue military mattress (OED), applied in this case to the Blooms’ woollen mattress. Molly’s father had served in the army (see note at 4.63).
17.2044: breakfast (burnt offering)
The burnt offering was in the highest class of sacrifice in ancient Jewish rite. Instead of being eaten, the offering was utterly consumed by fire (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Sacrifice). Bloom burned the kidney somewhat in ‘Calypso’ (4.380–87).
17.2045: holy of holies
The inner sanctum of the Temple at Jerusalem is called the holy of holies. It kept the ark of the covenant and even shetiyyah, the foundation stone at the supposed centre of the earth upon which the world was created (Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend).
17.2045: the bath (rite of John)
That is, John’s baptising of Jesus in the River Jordan (Matthew 3:13–17); this was not properly a Jewish ritual.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1241
17.2046: funeral (rite of Samuel)
‘Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel mourned for him, and buried him in Ramatha his city. And Saul had put away all the magicians and soothsayers out of the land’ (1 Samuel 28:3).
17.2046–47: advertisement of Alexander Keyes (Urim and Thummim)
Urim (Hebrew): light. Thummim (Hebrew): perfection. The Urim and Thummim are tablets that are attached to the breastplate of an ancient Jewish high priest and are used for divination (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia). For Keyes, see note at 7.25.
17.2047: the unsubstantial lunch (rite of Melchisedek)
Melchisedek (Melchizedek in the King James): a king and priest at the time of Abram: ‘But Melchisedech the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God, Blessed him, and said: Blessed be Abram by the most high God, who created heaven and earth’ (Genesis 14:18–19).
17.2048: museum and national library (holy place)
The holy places in Judaism are the Wailing Wall (see note at 15.3220–21), Abraham’s tomb at Hebron, the site of Jacob’s dream at Bethel, and various other sites that commemorate Biblical events (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Holy Places). See note at 1.469–70 for the National Library and note at 8.921–22 for the National Museum.
17.2048–49: the bookhunt along Bedford row, Merchants’ Arch, Wellington Quay
All these streets are close to each other. See note at 10.830 for Bedford Row, note at 10.315 for Merchants’ Arch, and note at 10.532 for Wellington Quay. See also note at 10.594.
17.2049: Simchath Torah
Simchath Torah (Hebrew): ‘rejoicing of the Torah’; the ceremony that concludes the Torah reading at the end of Sukkoth (the Feast of the Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles), a week- long religious holiday (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
17.2050: Shira Shirim
Shir Ha-shirim (Hebrew): ‘Song of Songs’; that is, the Biblical Song of Solomon.
17.2051: holocaust See note at 8.1147.
17.2051–52: a blank period of time
The action between ‘Cyclops’ and ‘Nausicaa’, which is unrepresented in Ulysses. Bloom and Cunningham take a carriage to visit Paddy Dignam’s widow to console her and give her the money they have raised. ‘House of mourning’ comes from Ecclesiastes 7:3 (7:2 in the King James).
17.2053: wilderness
The word wilderness is frequently used in the Bible to describe the wanderings of the Jewish people; for example, ‘And they said to Moses: Perhaps there were no graves in Egypt, therefore thou hast brought us to die in the wilderness: why wouldst thou do this, to lead us out of Egypt?’ (Exodus 14:11).
17.2053–54: rite of Onan See note at 14.472.
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1242 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.2054: heave offering
Heave offering: ‘In the Levitical law: An offering which was “heaved” or elevated by the priest when offered; also used of other offerings, e.g. those for the construction of the tabernacle’ (OED). ‘And the wave breast and heave shoulder shall ye eat in a clean place’ (Leviticus 10:14 in the King James; see also Deuteronomy 12:6).
17.2055: Mrs Bella Cohen, 82 Tyrone street, lower
82 Lower Tyrone Street is Bella Cohen’s correct address as listed in Thom’s street directory (p. 1611); an incorrect street number is given in ‘Circe’ (see note at 15.1287 and see note at 15.2742 for Bella Cohen). By 1904, Tyrone Street had been renamed Mecklenburgh Street, but both names remained current and Thom’s includes a cross-reference to Tyrone Street at Mecklenburgh Street (p. 1542).
17.2056: medley
Medley: ‘Combat, conflict; fighting, esp. hand-to-hand fighting between two groups of combatants [. . .] Now rare’ (OED).
17.2056: Armageddon
Armageddon: the site of ultimate battle between good and evil during Christ’s second coming (Revelation 16:16); Armageddon is Greek for Har Megiddo (Mount Megiddo), the site of various battles in the Old Testament (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
17.2057: cabman’s shelter, Butt Bridge
See note at 16.8 for the shelter and note at 7.642 for Butt Bridge.
17.2058: atonement
That is, Yom Kippur, or the Jewish Day of Atonement; see note at 8.35–36.
17.2061–62: a brief sharp unforeseen heard loud lone crack . . . table
This may be seen as a parallel to the crack of thunder Zeus sends to Odysseus and the suitors (Odyssey, XXI.413). On a notesheet, Joyce described this occurrence as ‘the table farted’ (Notesheet Ithaca 7.127).
17.2062: strainveined
Strain: ‘A thread, line, streak’ (OED). The OED cites John Skelton’s (c.1463–1529) Magnyfycence: ‘The streynes of her vaynes as asure Inde blewe’.
17.2066: Who was M‘Intosh? See note at 6.805.
17.2070: Where was Moses when the candle went out?
This question is a long-standing children’s riddle meant to confuse, probably of American origin. It appears in Mark Twain’s (American writer, 1835–1910) Huckleberry Finn (1885), although it is probably older: ‘he asked me where Moses was when the candle went out. [. . .] “I don’t know where he was”, says I; “where was he?” “Why, he was in the dark! That’s where he was!” ’ (pp. 99–100). According to another answer, ‘Down in the cellar eating sauerkraut’ (Partridge, Dictionary of Catch Phrases).
17.2071: What imperfections in a perfect day
‘Perfect’ is used in the sense of ‘finished’ (OED); that is, 16 June 1904 is now over.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1243
17.2072: disvested See note at 17.1479.
17.2075: certain quantity of tea from Thomas Kernan See note at 5.19–20.
17.2075–76: Pulbrook, Robertson and Co See note at 17.1981–82.
17.2079–80: performance of Leah . . . Gaiety Theatre
See notes at 5.194 and 5.194–95 for Leah and note at 6.188 for the Gaiety.
17.2082–83: Royal Dublin Fusiliers, of Gibraltar See note at 5.68.
17.2083: Rehoboth, Dolphin’s Barn
Rehoboth is used in several toponyms in the vicinity of Dolphin’s Barn and the South Circular Road, after a large townhouse built for the Morton family in the eighteenth century. The townhouse was divided into three separate residences by the late nineteenth century (C. T. McCready, Dublin Street Names, p. 94). In ‘Penelope’, Molly confirms the specific address as Rehoboth Terrace (18.1182–83), which comprises two residences on the South Circular Road by Dolphin’s Barn (Thom’s, p. 1577). In Hebrew, Rehoboth means ‘broad places’ and is the name of several locations in the Old Testament.
17.2085: terminus of the Great Northern Railway, Amiens street See note at 16.35.
17.2087: parallel lines meeting at infinity
In Euclidean geometry, parallel lines never meet, no matter how far they may be extended (see note at 17.10). But in non-Euclidean geometry (such as the one developed by Bernhard Riemann), parallel lines intersect at infinity (EB11, s.v. geometry).
17.2093: India mull
Mull: ‘A thin variety of plain muslin fabric’, from the Hindi word mulmul (OED, s.vv. mull; mulmul).
17.2094: opoponax, jessamine See note at 13.1010–11.
17.2094: Muratti’s Turkish cigarettes
B. Muratti and sons: a London-based tobacconist that manufactured and sold a brand of ‘high-class Turkish cigarettes’ (Financial Times, 20 May 1911, p. 12, col. c).
17.2096: batiste
Batiste: ‘The French word for cambric; applied, in commerce, to a fine light fabric of the same texture, but differently finished, and made of cotton as well as of linen’ (OED).
17.2096: accordion underskirt of blue silk moirette
Accordion: ‘something having or consisting of a series of folds resembling the bellows of an accordion’. Moirette: ‘A textile fabric made to imitate moiré’ (both OED).
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1244 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.2102: commode See note at 4.383.
17.2102: cretonne
Cretonne: ‘The French name of a strong fabric of hempen warp and linen woof; applied in England to a stout unglazed cotton cloth printed on one or both sides with a pattern in colours, and used for chair covers, curtains, and the like’ (OED).
17.2103: Orangekeyed See note at 4.330.
17.2104–5: Henry Price . . . 21, 22, 23 Moore street
Conflates two Prices. The name comes from Henry Price: ‘hardware, chandlery, and fancy goods’, 27 South Great George’s Street and 16 Fade Street. The shop and address belong to George Price, ‘basket, fancy goods, and ironmongery merchant’, 21–23 Moore Street (Thom’s, p. 1990). Five other George Prices intervene between the listing of this George Price and Henry Price in Thom’s directory.
17.2117: brass quoits See note at 4.59.
17.2126: If he had smiled why would he have smiled
Joyce wrote to Frank Budgen on 10 December 1920: ‘At first I had not thought of the slaughter of the suitors as in Ulysses’ character. Now I see it can be there too’ (Selected Letters, p. 274). Budgen later wrote: ‘Appropriately it is in the bedroom that Bloom meets and disposes of the suitors. From this base he reviews and takes the salute of his wife’s admirers [. . .] It is in the unsmiled smile of his equanimity that the bowstring of the lord of 7 Eccles Street most loudly twangs. It slaughters the suitors of Marion as effectively as did the divinely aided Ulysses those of Penelope. With bloodless thought Bloom banishes his rivals to nonentity, and it must be admitted that he does his work just as sweepingly well as the more bloody-minded archer king of Ithaca’ (JJMU, pp. 266–67).
17.2133: Assuming Mulvey to be the first term
For Mulvey, see note at 13.889. It is an assumption to put Mulvey first since he and Molly did not have consummated intercourse; see 18.809–16 for the extent of their sexual relations.
17.2133: his series
The fact that this listing of Molly’s ‘lovers’ is called ‘his series’ suggests that the list is motiv ated by Bloom’s awareness of his wife as an object of desire. Indeed, as is made clear in ‘Penelope’, Molly has had consummated intercourse with only one of the men named here, Boylan.
17.2133: Penrose
In ‘Lestrygonians’, Bloom remembered Penrose (see notes at 8.178 and 8.1114) spying on Molly (8.176–79); see also note at 18.573.
17.2133: Bartell d’Arcy
For D’Arcy, see note at 8.181. In ‘Penelope’, Molly remembers that he kissed her ‘on the choir stairs’ (18.274).
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1245
17.2134: professor Goodwin
See notes at 4.291 and 8.185–86 for Goodwin, Molly’s accompanist on the piano; see also 18.336–39.
17.2134: Julius Mastiansky
See notes at 4.205 and 17.58 for Mastiansky. See also 18.417–20 for Molly’s memories of his wife.
17.2134: John Henry Menton
For Menton, see note at 6.568. In ‘Hades’, Menton recalls having danced with Molly (6.696–98); in ‘Penelope’, Molly’s memories of him are less than fond (18.38–44).
17.2134–35: Father Bernard Corrigan
Paddy Dignam’s brother-in-law is named Bernard Corrigan (see note at 16.1256), but he does not appear to be a priest. In ‘Penelope’ Molly recalls a Father Corrigan (see note at 18.107).
17.2135: farmer at the Royal Dublin Society’s Horse Show
For the RDS Horse Show, see note at 7.193. And, for Bloom’s memory of Molly’s reaction to a farmer at the show, see 13.998–1000.
17.2136: Maggot O’Reilly See note at 15.570.
17.2136: Matthew Dillon See note at 6.697.
17.2136–37: Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of Dublin)
See note at 8.159–60. Both Bloom and Molly remember him ogling her at the Glencree dinner (13.892–93 and 18.427–30).
17.2137: Christopher Callinan
For Callinan, see note at 7.690–01. See also the following note.
17.2137: Lenehan
For Lenehan, see note at 7.300. In ‘Wandering Rocks’, Lenehan recalls jostling against Molly during the carriage ride home after the Glencree dinner; Callinan was also in the carriage (10.554–60).
17.2137: Italian organgrinder See 11.1092–93.
17.2138: unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre
For this ‘unknown gentleman’ who spied on Molly with his opera-glass, see 11.1059–60 and 18.1113–14.
17.2138: Benjamin Dollard
For Dollard, see note at 8.119. For the time he visited the Blooms wearing unfortunately tight (and revealing) trousers, see 11.554–56 and 18.1285–90.
17.2138–39: Simon Dedalus
For Simon, see note at 6.4 and for his flirtatiousness, see note at 18.1293.
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1246 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.2139: Andrew (Pisser) Burke
For Burke, see note at 12.504; and see 18.964–67 for him spying on Molly.
17.2139: Joseph Cuffe
Bloom’s former boss; see note at 6.392; and see 18.510–13.
17.2139: Wisdom Hely
Another one of Bloom’s former bosses; see note at 6.703.
17.2139–40: Alderman John Hooper See note at 6.950.
17.2140: Dr Francis Brady See note at 18.576.
17.2140: Father Sebastian of Mount Argus
Father Sebastian Keens (1832–91) at St Paul’s College of the Passionist Fathers, Mount Argus, Harold’s Cross (Thom’s 1878, p. 1522); he was ‘a famous preacher much admired in the better social circles of Dublin’ (Costello, James Joyce, p. 60).
17.2140–41: a bootblack at the General Post Office
Boot-black: a shoe cleaner (OED). Not mentioned elsewhere in Ulysses.
17.2142: no last term
From Bertrand Russell’s (British philosopher and mathematician, 1872–1970) Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy: ‘A series of the form x0, x1, x2, . . . xn, . . . in which there is a first term, a successor to each term (so that there is no last term), no repetitions, and every term can be reached from the start in a finite number of steps, is called a progression’ (p. 8). Joyce wrote ‘no last term’ in a late Ulysses notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.b; Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 106; JJA, vol. 12, p. 119).
17.2146: bester
Bester: ‘A person who gets the better of others by dishonest or fraudulent means; a swindler’ (OED).
17.2152: epicene
Epicene: ‘having characteristics of both sexes’ (OED).
17.2155: abnegation
Abnegation: ‘Denial to oneself of something esteemed or desired; renunciation of a personal right, claim, etc.; an act of sacrifice’ (OED).
17.2163–64: the agent and reagent of attraction
These are terms in chemistry. Agent: ‘A substance that brings about a chemical or phys ical effect or causes a chemical reaction’. Reagent: ‘A substance used in testing for other substances, or for reacting with them in a particular way; (more widely) any substance used in chemical reactions’ (both OED). That is, the agent is the cause and the reagent the reactor.
17.2171: George Mesias, merchant tailor and outfitter, 5 Eden Quay See note at 6.831.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1247
17.2179: natured nature
Natured nature: translation of the Medieval Latin natura naturata, ‘Nature as a created entity or system; the natural phenomena and forces in which creation is manifested’, as opposed to natura naturans (naturing nature), ‘Nature as a creative force or process; the essential or divine creative power’ (both OED).
17.2185: mayhem
Mayhem: ‘Criminal Law. The infliction of physical injury on a person, so as to impair or destroy that person’s capacity for self-defence’ (OED).
17.2196–98: outrage (matrimony) . . . had not been outraged
The word outrage has a lot of different senses, many (if not all) of which could be applied here: ‘Mad, passionate, violent, or disorderly behaviour’; ‘An act of violence’; ‘gross or malicious wrong or injury done to feelings, principles, etc.’; ‘lack of moderation, extravagance, excess’; ‘Excess of boldness or pride; foolhardiness, rashness; presumption’; ‘A violent effort or exertion of force’; ‘Fierce and overwhelming indignation, anger, etc., experienced in response to some injustice or affront’ (all OED).
17.2201: two wrongs did not make one right
After the proverbial saying ‘Two wrongs do not make a right’ (ODEP).
17.2206: introduction of emulation See note at 17.434.
17.2210–11: conscious reactor against the void of incertitude See 9.840–42 and 17.1014–15.
17.2212–13: presupposed intangibility of the thing in itself
After Immanuel Kant’s (German philosopher, 1724–1804) concept of the ‘thing in itself ’ (Ding an Sich): an object understood absolutely apart from any sense perception or cognition of it and thus something that is unknowable. ‘The sensuous world contains nothing but phenomena, which are mere representations, and always sensuously conditioned; things in themselves are not, and cannot be, objects to us’ (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 332).
17.2215: fallaciously inferred
From Bertrand Russell’s (British philosopher and mathematician, 1872–1970) Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919): ‘It is inferred thence—fallaciously, unless the multiplicative axiom is true’ (p. 112); which, in a late Ulysses notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.b), Joyce simplified to ‘fallaciously inferred’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 110; JJA, vol. 12, p. 120).
17.2218–23: aorist preterite proposition . . . passive voice
Aorist: one of the past tenses in Ancient Greek, ‘with none of the limitations as to completion, continuance, etc., which belong to the other past tenses’. Preterite: ‘expressing past action or a past state’ (both OED). Presumably, the two propositions are ‘He fucked her’ (‘masculine subject’ and ‘direct feminine object’) and ‘She was fucked by him’ (‘feminine subject’ and ‘complementary masculine agent’). Quasi-monosyllabic: this suggests that the second fucked is pronounced as almost having two syllables (fuck-èd), perhaps in imitation of Molly’s pronunciation.
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1248 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.2225–26: nescient matter Nescient: ignorant (OED).
17.2230–31: land of the midnight sun
A nickname for Norway, where, during the summer months, the sun shines at midnight. This phenomenon occurs in other countries of high latitude but this name has only been applied to Norway (Brewer’s).
17.2231: islands of the blessed
The Islands of the Blessed (or Fortunate Islands): in classical mythology, far-off lands where the gods’ favourites go at death to live in joy (Brewer’s, s.v. Fortunate Islands). Byron’s lyric ‘The Isles of Greece’ (see following note) has the lines: ‘Their place of birth alone is mute / To sounds which echo further west / Than your sires’ “Islands of the Blest” ’ (ll. 10–12).
17.2231: isles of Greece
From ‘The Isles of Greece’, a 16-stanza lyric between stanzas 86 and 87 of the third canto of Byron’s Don Juan (1821): ‘The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! / Where burning Sappho loved and sung’ (ll. 1–2; Byron, p. 509).
17.2231–32: land of promise
The land of Canaan was promised to Abraham and his descendants in Genesis 12:5–7, and in Exodus 3:8, the promise is repeated to Moses.
17.2233: milk and honey See note at 14.377.
17.2238: solicitous adversion
Properly, the word adversion means ‘attention, perception’ (OED), but here seems to be used in the literal sense of a turning towards: ad- (towards) + vertere (to turn). See also note at 17.2246.
17.2243: osculation
Osculation: ‘The action of kissing; a kiss’ (OED).
17.2245: velation
Velation: the act of covering with a veil or the condition of being veiled (OED). Evidently, Bloom is here covering himself with the sheets.
17.2246: solicitous aversion
Aversion: ‘The action of turning away oneself ’ (OED); see also note at 17.2238.
17.2256–57: performance by Mrs Bandmann Palmer . . . Gaiety Theatre See notes at 5.194 and 5.194–95 for Leah and note at 6.188 for the Gaiety.
17.2258–59: Wynn’s (Murphy’s) Hotel, 35, 36 and 37 Lower Abbey street
‘Commercial and Family Hotel (late Wynn’s), Mr. D. J. Murphy, proprietor’: 35–37 Lower Abbey Street (Thom’s, p. 1408).
17.2259: peccaminous
Peccaminous: sinful (OED).
17.2259: entituled See note at 17.734.
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17. ‘Ithaca’ 1249
17.2260: Sweets of Sin See note at 10.606.
17.2260: a gentleman of fashion
Gentleman of fashion: a stock phrase for a well-dressed and culturally refined gentleman; for example, ‘during that carnival of sporting, any English gentleman of fashion [. . .] may be accommodated with a nag or two’ (Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, p. 359).
17.2262: postcenal gymnastic display Postcenal: ‘after dinner’ (OED, s.v. post-).
17.2275–76: (8 September 1870)
8 September, Molly’s birthday, is celebrated as the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Catholic Encyclopedia); that is, Mary’s birthday.
17.2276: 8 October
Joyce and Nora left Dublin for the Continent on 8 October 1904 (Costello, James Joyce, p. 232), which Joyce considered—according to a 1906 letter to Stanislaus—the date of their ‘espousal’ (Letters, vol. 2, p. 172). Espousal can mean a formal (and, thus, legal) wedding ceremony, but also ‘A union or alliance of one thing or person to another, likened to a marriage or betrothal’ (OED). Joyce and Nora were legally married on 4 July 1931 (Ellmann, p. 637).
17.2278–79: with ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ That is, consummated sexual intercourse. See also note at 10.168.
17.2282: a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days
Mathematical error. From 27 November 1893 (the date of the Blooms’ last ‘complete carnal intercourse’) to 16 June 1904 is 10 years, 6 months, and 20 days. The figure Joyce provides—10 years, 5 months, and 18 days—is the time between Rudy’s birth (29 December 1893) and 16 June 1904. Odysseus spent ten years wandering after the end of the Trojan War before he returned home, and Dante endured 10 years of torment between Beatrice’s death and the experience of grace recounted in the Divine Comedy.
17.2287: indicated by catamenic hemorrhage
That is, her first menstruation. Catamenia: ‘menstrual discharge’ (OED).
17.2303: Listener, S. E. by E.: Narrator, N. W. by W.
‘Both lie on their left sides (17.2312–18), Molly facing towards the windows, Bloom towards Molly’s body, from which posture he is able to kiss her buttocks’ (JJD, p. 73). They are sleeping head to foot. On 7 December 1906, Joyce wrote to Stanislaus from Rome: ‘Our room is quite small: one bed: we sleep “lying opposed in opposite directions, the head of one towards the tail of the other” ’ (Letters vol. 2, p. 202).
17.2303–04: 53rd parallel of latitude, N., and 6th meridian of longitude, W. Dublin’s coordinates are 53°20'38" North and 6°17'30" West (Thom’s, p. 1335).
17.2306: state of rest
Joyce derived the phrase ‘state of rest’ from Wentworth and Hill’s A Text-Book of Physics: ‘Large perfect crystals are never formed unless the liquid is kept in a state of perfect rest’ (p. 146; Chow, ‘Sifted Science’, p. 647).
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1250 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
17.2308: both carried westward
Since the earth rotates from west to east, one would expect the Blooms to be carried eastward.
17.2309–10: everchanging . . . neverchanging See note at 17.233–34.
17.2313: attitude of Gea-Tellus
That is, Mother Earth. Gea (more usually, Gaia or Ge): ‘personification of the Earth and original mother of all beings’ (OED, s.v. Gaia). Tellus: Gaia’s Roman equivalent (OED).
17.2314: Narrator
Suggests the end of the Odyssey, when Odysseus and Penelope tell each other of what they endured during Odysseus’s absence: ‘shining Odysseus told of all the cares he inflicted / on other men, and told too of all that in his misery / he had toiled through’ (XXIII.306–08). Odysseus is not completely forthright: he includes Circe and Calypso in his story but gives no indication of a romance with them, nor does he mention Nausicaa (even though he would have nothing to conceal about the extent of their relationship).
17.2317: Percy Apjohn See note at 17.1251–52.
17.2320: He rests. He has travelled
After Tennyson’s poem ‘Ulysses’: ‘I cannot rest from travel’ (l. 6).
17.2322–26: Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor . . . Xinbad the Phthailer
The pantomime Sindbad the Sailor (see note at 17.422–23) featured, in addition to the eponymous Sindbad, the characters Tindbad (the Tailor) and Whinbad (the Whaler) (SS, p. 80; Cheryl Herr, Joyce’s Anatomy of Culture, pp. 122–23). The other names in this list are not from the pantomime.
17.2328–29: there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc’s auk’s egg
Roc: ‘A gigantic mythical bird of prey, legendary in the Middle East’ (OED). In the Arabian Nights, in the story of his second voyage, Sinbad finds a huge roc’s egg and escapes from an island to the ‘valley of diamonds’ by tying himself to the roc’s leg (The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, p. 44). This became a standard set-piece in Sinbad pantomimes (see note at 17.422–23). For auk’s egg, see note at 9.446–47. See also note at 15.2400–01 for squaring the circle.
17.2332: •
On the Rosenbach draft, Joyce left clear instructions to his French typist and typesetters that the reply to the final question (‘Where?’) is a ‘point’ (Rosenbach blue f. 32); in French point means both ‘point’ and ‘full stop’. For the typesetters, he left additional instructions that the point should be ‘bien visible’ (prominent) (JJA, vol. 21, p. 140). The typesetters followed Joyce’s directions, and there is a large point, of a sort, in the first edition, although because of typesetting limitations it wound up a bit square. The size of the point has varied across different editions of Ulysses. Furthermore, occasionally, individual printings of Ulysses incorrectly omit the point because someone at the printers had thought it was a mistake and blotted it out, thereby incorrectly leaving the episode’s final question bereft of an answer. Translations are especially susceptible to this problem, and many of them lack the final point of ‘Ithaca’, even though it is literally the easiest thing in Ulysses to translate.
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18. ‘Penelope’ Time: 3–4 am (time not noted in the Gilbert schema; ∞ in the Linati schema; see note at 18.1231–32) Location: 7 Eccles Street and elsewhere Organ: Flesh Symbol: Earth Technic: Monologue (female) Correspondences: Penelope: Earth; Web: movement Joyce described ‘Penelope’ as the clou (French, key) of Ulysses. ‘There are eight sentences in the episode. It begins and ends with the female word Yes. It turns like the huge earthball slowly and surely and evenly round and round spinning. Its four cardinal points being the female breasts, arse, womb and cunt’ (Selected Letters, p. 285). The Rosenbach draft of the episode includes apostrophes; Joyce only decided to eliminate these on the first pulling of galley proofs (see, for example, JJA, vol. 21, p. 148; Luca Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, p. 173 n. 136). Joyce never visited Gibraltar, Molly’s birthplace and childhood home. In order to represent Gibraltar in Molly’s memories, Joyce had to rely on a number of different guidebooks, such as Henry Field’s Gibraltar, Frederic Stephens’s A History of Gibraltar and its Sieges, and the Gibraltar Directory and Guide Book, the closest equivalent to a Thom’s directory for Gibraltar (map 18).
18.1: Yes
According to Herbert Gorman, Molly’s predilection for the word Yes was inspired by Lillian Wallace, the wife of Richard Wallace, an illustrator Joyce knew in Paris. One day, Joyce sat listening as Mrs Wallace talked to a young painter at her country house. ‘The conversation was long-winded and dull and as Joyce drowsily listened he heard his hostess continually repeating the word “yes”. She must have said it a hundred and fifty times and in every possible nuance of voice. And suddenly Joyce realized that he had found the motif word for the end of Ulysses’ (James Joyce, p. 281). See also note at 18.1608–09.
18.1: because
The logic that underlies Molly’s use of the word because is made clear later when she thinks: ‘yes he came somewhere Im sure by his appetite anyway love its not or hed be off his feed thinking of her’ (18.34–36). That is, her monologue begins with thoughts that Bloom’s hunger must have been caused by sex (David Lodge, The Modes of Modern Writing, p. 143).
18.1: he never did a thing like that before
‘A Thing He Had Never Done Before’: a song by C. W. Murphy (1875–1913) (Ruth Bauerle, ‘Words and Music’, pp. 21–23).
18.2: City Arms hotel See note at 8.716.
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Map 18 Gibraltar (from Karl Baedeker, Spain and Portugal: Handbook for Travellers, 1913).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1253
18.4: old faggot
Faggot (Hiberno-English and regional English): ‘A woman, esp. one considered to be troublesome, useless, or slatternly; frequently with modifying adjective, as old faggot, lazy faggot’ (OED).
18.4: Mrs Riordan See note at 6.378.
18.5: had a great leg of
To have a great leg of (Hiberno-English): to have a great influence on (Dent).
18.5–6: masses for herself and her soul
That is, Mrs Riordan left her money to the Church so that masses would be held in her memory to shorten her stay in purgatory; see note at 6.857.
18.7: methylated spirit
Methylated spirit: ‘ethanol that has been made unfit for drinking (and exempt from excise duty) by the addition of about ten per cent methanol (usually also with some pyridine and a violet dye), used as a chemical reagent, solvent, fuel, etc.’ (OED).
18.8: end of the world
Stanislaus Joyce recalls Elizabeth Conway, the model for Mrs Riordan (see note at 6.378), taking the Joyce children to the National Gallery to see a painting called ‘The Last Day’: ‘It represented a tremendous cataclysm, black thunder clouds lowering, lurid lightning flashing, mountain tops crashing down, and little naked figures of all the wicked in all the contortions of despair—Oh, why did I do it!—imploring mercy, while huge rocks fell on them. In another corner of the picture, the blessed were being catapulted up to heaven with their arms crossed on their breasts’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 33).
18.13–14: Mr Riordan there . . . I suppose he was glad to get shut of her
Elizabeth Conway, the original upon whom Mrs Riordan was based (see note at 6.378), was a jilted bride. When she inherited a large sum of money from her brother, she decided to marry rather than enter the convent. But after a couple of years of marriage, her husband absconded to Buenos Aires with most of her money (Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother’s Keeper, pp. 31–32). See note at 5.530 for get shut of.
18.14–16: her dog smelling my fur . . . get up under my petticoats especially then
‘Women in their menses or who have given birth recently [. . .] will also often find dogs impolitely sniffing at their genital region’ (Stanley Coren, How Dogs Think, p. 62). After he finished Ulysses, Joyce wrote a poem titled ‘Post Ulixem Scriptum’ (dated 12 March 1925), which is a celebration of Molly Bloom to the air of ‘Molly Brannigan’: ‘I arrayed her for the bridal, but, O, she proved the bane of me. / With more puppies sniffing round her than the wooers of Penelope / She’s left me on the doorstep like a dog for to die’ (PSW, p. 132).
18.19–20: dring it into him
To dring: ‘To crowd, press, squeeze’; also applied figuratively (OED).
18.23: puling
Puling: whining (OED).
18.25: the south circular
The South Circular Road; see note at 4.109–10.
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1254 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.25–26: choir party at the sugarloaf Mountain See note at 8.166.
18.26: Miss Stack Unknown.
18.29: never see thy face again
From the song ‘The Last Watch’ by Ciro Pinsuti (1829–88), words by Fred E. Weatherly (1848–1929); this was popular in the 1880s (Harald Beck, JJON).
18.32–33: if it was a thing
If it was a thing (Hiberno-English): ‘if it was the case that’/‘if it happened that’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
18.35: off his feed
To be off one’s feed: ‘to have no desire for food; to have lost one’s appetite’ (OED).
18.37: the hotel story he made up a pack of lies
That is, the story Bloom told about having dinner at Wynn’s Hotel (see note at 17.2258–59).
18.38: Menton
See note at 6.568 and see also 17.2134.
18.40: Pooles Myriorama
Myriorama: ‘A form of public entertainment in which a large number of different panoramic scenes or images are shown in succession, supported by lighting and other special effects, often including a commentary’ (OED). Charles W. Poole’s travelling opera company, Poole’s Myriorama, appeared frequently in Dublin throughout the 1890s (SS, p. 74). One Dublin appearance, at the Rotunda in October 1895, was described in the Freeman’s Journal: ‘There was a well filled house and the various features in the entertainment were greeted with well-deserved applause. Many notable scenes of recent years are brought in a most realistic manner before the gaze of the audience, who are also treated to some wonderfully life-like mechanical effects’ (8 October 1895, p. 5, col. h).
18.42: make up to me
To make up to someone: to make romantic or sexual advances (OED).
18.42: mouth almighty
Mouth almighty: a catchphrase for a noisy and talkative person (Partridge).
18.43: boiled eyes
Dent cites various examples of the phrase ‘boiled eyes’ which suggest it is equivalent to glassy-eyed. From Dickens’s Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: ‘He had that dull- looking boiled eye which is so often to be seen in the heads of people who have applied themselves during many years to a weary and laborious course of study’ (p. 275).
18.43: stupoes
Stupe: a fool (OED).
18.52: no fool like an old fool
Proverbial, in common use at least since 1546 with John Heywood’s Proverbs (ODEP).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1255
18.55–56: that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace Mary Driscoll, the Blooms’ former maid; see note at 15.861.
18.63: oysters 2/6 per doz
An historically plausible price, which would put oysters very much in the category of a luxury food. An 1894 advertisement in the Freeman’s Journal announces: ‘Great reductions in price from 2s. 4d. to 2s. per dozen [. . .] The reduction has been made owing to the finding of a very Extensive Bed supposed to be useless for the last thirteen years, and now corrected with well-matured oysters’ (5 Apr. 1894, p. 4, col. b). See also note at 8.875–76.
18.78: the Tolka
See note at 8.588–89.
18.78–79: in my hand there steals another
From the song ‘Dreaming’ by Milton Wellings (1850–1929), words by Edward Oxenford (1846–1929): ‘In my hand there steals another’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
18.80: the young May Moon shes beaming love See note at 8.598–90.
18.82: going to the Gaiety See note at 6.188.
18.88: frigging
To frig: to masturbate (OED).
18.91–92: the jews temples gardens when I was knitting that woollen thing
Since Molly is knitting ‘that woollen thing’ (see 14.269 and 18.1448), this dates this event to 1893, before Rudy’s birth, when the Blooms were living at Raymond Terrace (see note at 6.78). This might mean that the ‘jews temple’ is the synagogue on Adelaide Road (Thom’s, p. 1411), the main synagogue in Dublin at this time (see note at 10.412–13), which is only about 600 metres distant. However, it seems unlikely that Molly would encounter ‘some dean or bishop’ by a synagogue. Possibly she means Palmerston Park, in Rathmines, which is near the street named Temple Gardens.
18.95: the german Emperor is it
Either Kaiser Wilhelm I (1797–1888, r. 1861–88) or his son Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941, r. 1888–1918); the Blooms were courting in 1888, the year Wilhelm II succeeded his father.
18.107: Father Corrigan
No Father Corrigan is listed in Thom’s index of Catholic clergy in Ireland (p. 1011). See notes at 16.1256 and 17.2134–35.
18.115: bullneck in his horsecollar
Horse collar: a long, wide collar (Partridge).
18.121: give something to H H the pope for a penance
H.H.: His Holiness (that is, the Pope). Molly is mistaken, according to Donlevy’s Catechism, ‘it is much more grievous and more abominable [. . .] to sin with a person in holy orders’ (p. 103).
18.124: I suppose he was thinking of his fathers
That is, Boylan was supposedly thinking of his father’s horses; see note at 12.998.
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1256 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.125: who gave him that flower The girl at Thornton’s; see 10.327–32.
18.126: whisky
For the spelling whisky, see note at 1.301.
18.128: stagedoor johnnies
Stagedoor Johnny: ‘a (young) gentleman who frequents stagedoors for the company of actresses’ (OED s.v. stage).
18.129–30: that American that had the squirrel
Presumably a squirrel-fur coat as opposed to a pet squirrel. The OED records squirrel as elliptical for a squirrel-fur coat and notes that such coats were fashionable in the nineteenth century (with thanks to Harald Beck).
18.130: talking stamps with father
In ‘Calypso’, Bloom remembered that Molly’s father collected stamps and imagines that his collection was a good one (4.64–65).
18.132: port and potted meat See note at 5.144–47.
18.134: thunder woke me up
The same thunder heard in ‘Oxen of the Sun’ (14.409).
18.136: Hail Mary See note at 5.431.
18.139: act of contrition See note at 10.91–92.
18.139–40: candle I lit that evening . . . for the month of May
Convent and Church of the Calced Carmelites: 56–62 Aungier Street, at the corner with Whitefriar Street (Thom’s, pp. 1419, 1621). See note at 12.1682–84 for calced.
18.143: when I lit the lamp
Evidently Molly, frightened by the thunder, immediately lit her lamp. Because of the various additions Joyce made, primarily on the typescript (JJA, vol. 16, p. 303), it can be difficult to make sense of this passage. On the Rosenbach Manuscript, excluding manuscript insertions, this reads: ‘he had all he could do to keep himself from falling asleep after the last time after we took the potted meat and claret yes because I fell sound asleep myself the moment I popped into bed till that thunder woke me up God be merciful to us when I lit the lamp yes’ (f. 3).
18.148: he must have eaten oysters
‘Oysters are associated with male potency.’ ‘Myths about the aphrodisiac powers of oysters have proliferated in most cultures for centuries and may have a basis in truth due to the high zinc content of the meat’ (Rebecca Stott, Oyster, p. 155).
18.154: spunk
See note at 15.3493.
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1257
18.160: give us a swing out of your whiskers
To have (or give) a swing on (or out of) someone’s whiskers: an expression of contempt for the vanity or folly of the person addressed. The expression was used in the early twentieth century (Harald Beck, JJON).
18.163: Jesusjack the child is a black
This racist phrase is modelled after the Dublin street rhyme: ‘Janey Mac / My shirt is black / What’ll I do for Sunday? / Go to bed and cover your head / And don’t get up till Monday’ (Eilís Brady, All In! All In!, p. 171). See also note at 1.323 for Janey Mac.
18.164–65: you couldnt hear your ears
‘An odd expression:—“You are making such noise that I can’t hear my ears” ’ (PWJ, p. 201).
18.169: Josie Powell See note at 8.203.
18.171: spooning See note at 1.700.
18.172: Georgina Simpsons See note at 15.443.
18.175–76: about Our Lord being a carpenter
Jesus began life as a carpenter, following in the footsteps of Joseph: ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Jude’ (Matthew 13:55; see also Mark 6:3).
18.178: first socialist he said He was
From the 1880s up until the early twentieth century, numerous small groups of socialistminded reformers emerged within various Christian denominations. While far from homogenous, many ‘felt that it was impossible to be what they deemed “Christian” without being simultaneously what they deemed “socialist” ’ (Peter D’Alroy Jones, The Christian Socialist Revival, p. 7). Some of these Christian socialists quoted Matthew 19:21 to prove that Christ was a ‘socialist preacher’: ‘Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me’ (Samuel Smith, Fallacies of Socialism Exposed, p. 20).
18.181: that family physician
Possibly Molly is referring to ‘The Family Physician’, an addendum to most eighteenth and- nineteenth century editions of Aristotle’s Masterpiece (for which see note at 10.586). If not, then there were numerous Victorian medical manuals entitled The Family Physician, such as The Family Physician: A Manual of Domestic Medicine by Physicians and Surgeons of Principal London Hospitals (1894) (Vike Martina Plock, Joyce, Medicine, and Modernity, pp. 136, 145–46).
18.185: Floey
See note at 6.1013.
18.185: lord Byrons poems See note at 15.1845–46.
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1258 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.195: plabbery
The rare Hiberno-English word plabbery is an Anglicisation of plobaire, defined by Dineen in his Irish-English Dictionary (see note at 9.967) as one ‘who speaks… indistinctly’. But it also draws on a number of closely related Irish words, such as plobaireacht, ‘excessive talking, indistinct utterance’ and plab, ‘a soft or foolish person’. Molly’s point here is that Bloom’s declarations are rambling and loquacious (with thanks to Vincent Deane).
18.204: glauming
To glaum (Hiberno-English): ‘to snatch greedily’ (Dolan, s.vv. glaum; glam).
18.205: did you wash possible
To wash possible: to wash one’s genitalia (John Simpson, JJON).
18.209: trying to look like Lord Byron
‘If Byron was what respectable women wanted, the cultivated heterosexual Englishman could take his cue accordingly. [. . .] As John Edmond Reade [. . .] claimed in 1829, “open- shirt collars, and melancholy features; and a certain dash of remorse, were . . . indispensable to young men” ’ (Andrew Elfenbein, Byron and the Victorians, p. 67). See also note at 15.1845–46 for Byron.
18.214: grigged
See note at 6.761.
18.223: when the maggot takes him
After the expression, ‘When the maggot bites’: ‘when the fancy takes us’ (Brewer’s).
18.229: a postcard U p up See note at 8.258.
18.229: O sweetheart May
After the song ‘Sweetheart May’ (1895) by Leslie Stuart (British composer, 1863–1928). It tells of an eight-year-old girl, May, who asks the narrator to promise to marry her. Years later, he returns to find her engaged (Andrew Lamb, Leslie Stuart, p. 56).
18.234–35: Mrs Maybrick that poisoned her husband
In August 1889, Mrs Florence Elizabeth Maybrick (née Chandler, 1862–1941), of Liverpool, was found guilty of poisoning her husband, James Maybrick (1839–89) with arsenic that she had extracted from fly paper. She was sentenced to be hanged, but the Lord Chancellor intervened and commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment because there was reasonable doubt: her husband had been taking medications that contained arsenic and other poisons (ODNB). She was released on 25 January 1904 (Irish Times, 1 Feb. 1904, p. 5, col. b).
18.240–41: Arsenic . . . hed say its from the Greek
The word arsenic derives from the Greek arsenikon; however, the Greeks used that word to refer to yellow arsenic or arsenic trisulphide (As2S3), a pigment. White arsenic (the poison) is arsenic trioxide (As2O3). Arsenikon itself derives from the Greek arsenikos, yellow orpiment, and beyond that to an unattested Middle Iranian word with subsequent influence of the Greek word arrenikos, masculine (OED). See 4.341.
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1259
18.247: the DBC
The Dublin Bread Company; see note at 8.464.
18.255: the Irish times See note at 8.323.
18.261–62: stone for my month a nice aquamarine
Molly’s birthday is 8 September (8.629), and the birthstone for September is chrysolite or sardonyx. Aquamarine, a type of beryl, is the birthstone for October (George Kunz, Curious Lore of Precious Stones, p. 316).
18.263: I made him spend once with my foot To spend: to ejaculate (OED).
18.263–64: night after Goodwins botchup of a concert See note at 8.185–86.
18.266: Lombard street west See note at 6.829.
18.269: Katty Lanner See note at 15.4044.
18.270–71: because the stoppress edition just passed See note at 13.1174–75.
18.271: Lucan dairy
The Lucan Dairy Company had fifteen locations in Dublin and three in the suburbs (Thom’s, p. 1934).
18.273: Bartell dArcy
See note at 8.181 and see also 17.2133.
18.274: choir stairs See note at 5.332.
18.274–75: Gounods Ave Maria
Charles François Gounod’s (French composer, 1818–93) setting for the Ave Maria (Hail Mary). ‘Gounod’s celebrated Ave Maria consists of a melody superimposed on the C major prelude from the first book of Bach’s Das wohltemperierte Clavier’ (Grove, s.v. Ave Maria).
18.275–76: what are we waiting . . . on the brow and part
From the song ‘Goodbye’ (1881), words by G. J. Whyte Melville (1821–78) and music by Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846–1916): ‘What are we waiting for? Oh, my heart! / Kiss me straight on the brows! and part again!’ (Bauerle, pp. 538–44).
18.276–77: my low notes he was always raving about
Looking at the range of Molly’s repertory as indicated in Ulysses, James Van Dyck Card concludes that she is a soprano with what he calls a ‘short top’, that is, she has difficulty going beyond high A. Molly’s limitations would not necessarily have been an impediment, since the practice of transposition was common at the turn of the twentieth century (‘Molly Bloom, Soprano’, pp. 599–600).
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1260 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.285: Kenilworth square
Kenilworth Square, Rathgar: a small park west of Rathmines and about 1.5 km south-east of Rehoboth, Dolphin’s Barn, where the Tweedys lived when they moved to Dublin from Gibraltar (see note at 17.2083).
18.289: hes mad on the subject of drawers
Frank Budgen writes that ‘Throughout his life Joyce remained faithful to the underclothing of ladies of the Victorian era [. . .] They were to Joyce feminine attributes of even greater value than the curves and volumes of the female body itself ’ (JJMU, p. 255).
18.290: skeezing See note at 12.407.
18.290: those brazenfaced things on the bicycles
At this time, women riding bicycles would still be considered at least potentially scandalous and would be allied with what was called the ‘New Woman’ movement, an early form of feminism that started in the 1890s and lasted well into the twentieth century. ‘Predominantly middle class, they aspired to higher education, to the vote, and to careers; they might ride bicycles, smoke cigarettes, or embrace dress reform, and they uniformly displayed an uncomfortable readiness to shock the sensibilities of traditionalists’ (Claudia Nelson, Family Ties in Victorian England, p. 67).
18.292: open air fete
Open-air fête: a community social event, common in the Victorian era and usually held to raise money for a church or charity. It was typically held in a park and featured ‘bands, concert parties, open air dancing, punch and judy, and fireworks in the evening’ (Ron Carrington, Alexandra Park and Palace, p. 166).
18.294–95: corner of the Harolds cross road
Harold’s Cross Road: a large main road that leads out of Dublin to the outer suburbs south- west of the city. It passes close by Kenilworth Square.
18.296: Zingari colours
Zingari (Italian): gypsies. I Zingari: an amateur cricket club with no home pitch, and thus a ‘nomadic’ club (James Pycroft, The Cricket-Field, p. 19). Zingari colours are black, red, and gold. I Zingari visited Dublin frequently (Patrick Hone, Cricket in Ireland, p. 51).
18.297: slyboots
See note at 15.3586.
18.303: openwork sleeves
Open-work: ‘embroidery having designs outlines in purl-stitch, with twisted or single bars connecting purled edges and material under bars cut away’ (Mary Brooks Picken, A Dictionary of Costume and Fashion, p. 112).
18.306: O Maria Santisima
O Maria Santisima (Italian): ‘O Most Holy Mary’. According to Henry M. Field, ‘Ave Maria Santissima’ was a common cry from the Spanish watchmen in Gibraltar (Gibraltar, p. 10). Joyce originally wrote ‘Santissima’ (JJA, vol. 16, p. 308), but emended to ‘Santisima’ on a galley proof (JJA, vol. 21, p. 202).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1261
18.307: dreeping in the rain
That is, dreeping wet: thoroughly soaked (EDD, s.v. dreep).
18.313: Gardner
Fictitious: Lieutenant Stanley Gardner of the 8th Battalion of the 2nd East Lancashire Regiment (see note at 18.389).
18.318: what a Deceiver
Many post-Homeric sources, notably Virgil’s Aeneid and Dante’s Inferno, include ‘denunciations of Ulysses as a nefarious liar’ (W. B. Stanford, The Ulysses Theme, p. 22).
18.322–23: Henny Doyle . . . something in the charades See notes at 13.1106 and 13.1112.
18.328: I liked the way he made love
To make love: ‘To pay amorous attention; to court, woo’; only from the late 1920s did this phrase become a euphemism for sexual intercourse (OED, s.v. love).
18.329–30: mine was the 8th
Molly’s birthday is 8 September (8.629).
18.336: frostyface
In his Trieste Notebook, Joyce wrote, ‘He [John Joyce] calls Canon Keon frosty face’ (Robert Scholes and Richard Kain, Workshop of Daedalus, p. 104; JJA, vol. 7, p. 146).
18.336: Goodwin
See note at 8.185–86.
18.344: it was 1/4 after 3 when I saw the 2 Dedalus girls
Katey and Boody Dedalus (see note at 10.233) live in Cabra (see note at 15.4884), about 1.5 km north-west of Eccles Street. Presumably, they attend a school east or south-east of Eccles Street; see note at 8.153–54.
18.346–47: that lame sailor for England home and beauty See note at 10.232.
18.347–48: there is a charming girl I love
In ‘Wandering Rocks’, the tune Molly whistled was not named (10.249). ‘It Is a Charming Girl I Love’ (Bowen, p. 331) is a song from the first act of The Lily of Killarney (see note at 6.186).
18.349: this day week were to go to Belfast Molly is to sing in Belfast on 25 June (5.152).
18.350: his fathers anniversary the 27th
The date of Rudolph Bloom’s death was 27 June (17.623).
18.353: some protestant clergyman
At the turn of the twentieth century, Belfast, unlike Dublin, was a predominantly Protestant city: Catholics represented only 24 per cent of the city’s population (NHI, vol. 6, pp. 155–56).
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18.357–58: going to the Mallow concert at Maryborough ordering boiling soup
Mallow: a town near Cork and 230 km south-west of Dublin. Maryborough (now Portlaoise), about 80 km south-west of Dublin, is one of the train’s stops (Thom’s, p. 1207).
18.361: holy show See note at 11.198.
18.365: theyd have taken us on to Cork
The Great Southern and Western Railway runs from Dublin to Cork and Queenstown, with stops in Maryborough and Mallow (Thom’s, p. 1152). Cork is some 32 km beyond Mallow.
18.375: St Teresas hall Clarendon St
St Teresa’s Total Abstinence and Temperance Loan Fund Society: 43–44 Clarendon Street (Thom’s, p. 1457).
18.376: Kathleen Kearney
From the Dubliners story ‘A Mother’, Kathleen Kearney is a young accompanist pushed by her mother into a humiliating scene at an Irish Revivalist concert. Joyce modelled her on Eileen Reidy, who was to have been his accompanist at a concert in August 1904 but left before the performance (Ellmann, p. 168). There is a popular Irish song called ‘Kate Kearney’ by Lady Morgan (1776–1859) and a famous tourist attraction in Killarney called Kate Kearney’s Cottage (Brewer’s Irish). Thus, in Dubliners, Joyce writes: ‘When the Irish Revival began to be appreciable Mrs Kearney determined to take advantage of her daughter’s name and brought an Irish teacher to the house’ (p. 137).
18.377: the absentminded beggar
Singing a pro-British, propagandistic song like ‘The Absent-Minded Beggar’ (see note at 9.125) has cost Molly ‘dearly in terms of the middle class, albeit predominantly Catholic, nationalist circles she moves in, at least since her marriage’ (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘ “Eating Orangepeels in the Park” ’, p. 158).
18.378: Lord Roberts See note at 14.1332.
18.378: I had the map of it all
He has the map of Ireland written all over his face: ‘he is unmistakably Irish’ (Partridge, s.v. map of England).
18.380: the Stabat Mater See note at 5.397–98.
18.381: putting Lead Kindly Light to music
‘Lead, Kindly Light’ (1833): a popular hymn with words by John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801–90). The hymn was written when Newman was still an Anglican priest; after many years of doubt, he converted to Catholicism in 1845 (ODNB). In 1931, Joyce explained to Adrienne Monnier in a letter that this hymn is where Newman announced the start of his conversion to the Catholic Church (Letters, vol. 1, p. 305). The hymn was already set to music: it is often sung to a melody by John B. Dykes (English Protestant clergyman and hymnist, 1823–76), which was written in 1865, although other melodies have been used as
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1263 well, thereby allowing the possibility for Bloom’s (plagiarised) version (Bowen, p. 332; Bauerle, pp. 545–46).
18.381–82: till the jesuits found out he was a freemason
The Catholic church has a long history of enmity against the Freemasons due to their secrecy and ‘unsectarian’ character (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Masonry).
18.383: Sinner Fein
That is, Sinn Féin; see note at 8.458.
18.385: that little man
That is, Arthur Griffith (see note at 3.227), who was 1.65 metres (5 feet 5 inches) tall (Ulick O’Connor, A Terrible Beauty is Born, p. 25).
18.387: there was a boycott
In 1903, Arthur Griffith formed the National Council, an organisation to protest against Edward VII’s visit to Ireland in July of that year (NHI, vol. 6, p. 115). The Council was the precursor to Sinn Féin (see note at 8.458).
18.388: Pretoria
The administrative capital of the southern African Republic of Transvaal, and an important location during the Boer War. The evacuation of Pretoria by the Boer leader Paul Kruger (see note at 18.394–95) in May 1900 was a turning point in the war (EB11).
18.388: Ladysmith and Bloemfontein
See note at 15.1525–26 for Ladysmith and note at 15.796 for Bloemfontein.
18.389: Gardner lieut Stanley G . . . of enteric fever
See note at 18.313 for Gardner. Enteric fever: typhoid (OED, s.v. enteric). A childhood friend of Nora’s named Kearns ‘died—perhaps serving with the British Army during the Boer War—of enteric fever at Bloemfontein’ (Peter Costello, James Joyce, p. 248). There was no 8th Battalion of the Second East Lancashire Regiment; only the 1st Battalion fought at Bloemfontein (R. de Montjoie Rudolf, Short Histories of the Territorial Regiments of the British Army, p. 303). In his account of the Bloemfontein campaign, Arthur Conan Doyle writes how the 1st Battalion of the Second East Lancashire Regiment was decimated by ‘the great outbreak of enteric among the troops’, which he notes was not much reported at the time (The Great Boer War, p. 370). Joyce originally assigned Gardner to the 8th Battalion of the Second Somerset Light Infantry and changed this to the East Lancashire Regiment, presumably when he learned that the Somerset Light Infantry were never near Bloemfontein (JJA, vol. 21, p. 207; Thomas Jackson Rice, ‘Conan Doyle, James Joyce, and the Composition of Ulysses’, pp. 211–12). In making this change, Joyce retained the designation ‘8th Bn’.
18.390: khaki
See note at 9.133.
18.394–95: oom Paul and the rest of the old Krugers
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (1825–1904), known as ‘Oom Paul’ (Oom: Dutch, uncle): Boer statesman and President of Transvaal, 1883–1900. He imposed strict measures against the uitlanders or foreigners—often British—who settled in the Transvaal to exploit the region’s resources, especially its gold mines. Kruger adamantly opposed British
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1264 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses annexations of the small provinces of southern Africa, but was unable to resist when the British forces reasserted dominion during the Boer War (EB11).
18.398: Spanish cavalry at La Roque
San Roque: a Spanish garrison town about 10 km from Gibraltar. In the Zürich notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.a), Joyce twice wrote the correct name ‘S Roque’ (Phillip Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts for ‘Ulysses’, pp. 60, 69; JJA, vol. 12, pp. 98, 101), but he wrote the incorrect ‘La Roque’ when he added this passage on a typescript (JJA, vol. 16, p. 310). This reference is anachronistic, ‘the Alcántara Spanish Cavalry Regiment left the town in 1823’ (Harald Beck and John Simpson, JJON). San Roque’s residents are largely descendants of the Spanish inhabitants of Gibraltar who fled after the English conquest in 1704. ‘Thus there may be said to have existed two cities of Gibraltar, one the actual, occupied by the English, and the other the moral, composed of Spaniards who had fled from that city [. . .] Thus in all public acts the people of San Roque are still styled “the inhabitants of Gibraltar, residing at San Roque” ’ (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 71).
18.399: Algeciras
Algeciras: a Spanish seaport in the province of Cádiz, about 16 km from Gibraltar. It serves as the military centre for the Spanish forces around the British colony of Gibraltar: ‘Modern Algeciras was rebuilt by Charles III in 1760, to be a hornet’s nest against Gibraltar’ (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 55).
18.400: the 15 acres
The Fifteen Acres: an area in Phoenix Park traditionally used for military reviews (D. A. Chart, Story of Dublin, p. 312).
18.400: Black Watch
The Black Watch, or the Royal Highlanders Regiment: a Scottish infantry regiment whose soldiers wear kilts of dark tartan (Brewer’s). Molly could be remembering the Black Watch when they were in either Gibraltar or Dublin: since the 1st Battalion was stationed in Gibraltar in 1878–79 and the 2nd in Dublin in 1886–88 (Arthur Swinson, A Register of the Regiments and Corps of the British Army, p. 227). Molly moved to Dublin at some unspecified point in the second half of 1886 (Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, pp. 138–41).
18.401–02: 10th hussars the prince of Wales own
The Prince of Wales’ Own Hussars was the 10th regiment of the cavalry (Thom’s, p. 563).
18.402: the lancers
There were several regiments of lancers: the 5th (Royal Irish Lancers), the 9th (Queen’s Royal Lancers), the 12th (Prince of Wales’s Royal Lancers), the 16th (Queen’s Lancers), the 17th (Duke of Cambridge’s Own Lancers), and the 21st (Empress of India’s Lancers) (Thom’s, pp. 562–64).
18.402–03: the Dublins that won Tugela
On 15 December 1899, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers fought in an unsuccessful battle at the Tugela River valley during the Boer War. The British forces, under the command of Sir Redvers Henry Buller, suffered heavy losses and the RDF ‘had the severest losses of any of the troops engaged’ (de Montjoie Rudolf, Short Histories of the Territorial Regiments of the British Army, p. 723). In February 1900, the British forces again stormed the valley, ultim ately with greater success, but also at great cost to the RDF, as 600 men died out of a force of a little over 1,200 (p. 724).
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18.403: his father made his money over selling the horses for the cavalry See note at 12.998.
18.409: bell it
To bell: ‘To utter loudly, to bellow forth’ (OED).
18.413: washy
Washy: pale (OED).
18.415: scrooching down on me
To scrooch: ‘to crouch or bend’ (OED).
18.417: Mrs Mastiansky
See note at 4.205. See also 17.2134.
18.419: tingating cither
Ting-a-ting: ‘the sound of the continued ringing of a small bell, or the like’ (OED, s.v. ting); tingaling is more common; Ulysses is the only example in the OED of tingating. For cither, see note at 4.206.
18.421: stylish tie and socks with the skyblue silk things on them
See the description of Boylan’s attire in ‘Wandering Rocks’ (10.1243–44) and note at 10.1241–42.
18.424–25: 20 quid he said he lost over that outsider
As with so many people in Ulysses, Boylan failed to bet on Throwaway, the outsider who won the Gold Cup (see note at 12.1219).
18.426: Lenehans
See note at 7.300 and see also 17.2137.
18.427: the Glencree dinner See note at 8.160.
18.427: joult
Joult: variant of jolt, a journey ‘with a succession of jolts, as on an uneven road’ (OED, s.v. jolt).
18.428: featherbed mountain See note at 10.555.
18.428–29: lord Mayor looking at me with his dirty eyes Val Dillon See note at 8.159–60 and see also 17.2136.
18.441: Manola
Manola: a nickname for a ‘vivacious working- class beauty’ from Madrid (Deborah L. Parsons, A Cultural History of Madrid, p. 21). ‘La Manola’ (1848) is a song by Paul Henrion (1819–1901), lyrics by Ernest Bourget (1814–64), translated into English as ‘Sweet Love Arise’ (Kurt Gänzl, Victorian Vocalists, p. 487).
18.442: silkette
Silkette: ‘A fabric made of silk and cotton, chiefly used for lining dresses’ (OED).
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18.443: laddered
Laddered: that is, the stockings have a run in them; ‘so called from the appearance of the thread’ (OED, s.v. ladder).
18.443: Lewers
Either Mrs R. G. Lewers’ ladies’ outfitting warehouse, 67 Grafton Street, or (Samuel) Lewers & Co., outfitters, 33 Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1931).
18.446: kidfitting corsets
Kid fitting corset: a term widely used in advertising since the 1870s to describe a corset that includes fittings made of soft kidskin, also known as kid fittings (John Simpson, JJON).
18.446–47: the Gentlewoman
The Gentlewoman: a popular weekly fashion magazine, published in London and appearing between July 1890 and August 1926 (Waterloo Directory).
18.447: elastic gores
Gore: ‘Any wedge-shaped or triangular piece of cloth forming part of a garment and serving to produce the difference in width required at different points, esp. used to narrow a skirt at the waist’ (OED).
18.451: ORourkes See note at 4.105.
18.453: cottage cake See note at 10.1128.
18.453: bottle of hogwash
Hogwash: ‘the swill of the brewery or kitchen given to hogs [. . .] Contemptuously applied to weak inferior liquor or any worthless stuff ’ (OED).
18.455: breathing exercises
Molly later specifies that these are Concone’s exercises (see note at 18.617–18). ‘The Concone exercises are not simply breathing exercises. They demand discipline and faithful, daily vocalizing to produce smooth melodic lines, crisp staccato notes, careful intervallic leaps, distinctive grace notes and trills. If Molly practiced daily exercises like these with any success, she would be able not only to sing solos and to project her voice against the far wall, but also to perform the several duets she mentions (including the duet for two sopranos in Rossini’s Stabat Mater) without sacrificing her own line or unbalancing her partner’s line’ (Margaret Honton, ‘Concerning Concone’, p. 115).
18.456: antifat
Anti-fat: a generic name for any substance used to counteract obesity (OED).
18.462: beeftea
See note at 15.3851.
18.463: opoponax and violet See note at 13.1010–11.
18.467–68: lash it around
To lash: to lavish, to squander (OED).
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18.470–71: brown costume
Presumably this is the same outfit referred to by the deranged ‘whore of the lane’ whom Bloom saw in ‘Sirens’ and ‘Eumaeus’ and at some previous time. In ‘Sirens’, the woman refers to Molly as the ‘Stout lady does be with you in the brown costume’ (see note at 11.1256–57); see also 16.713–15.
18.474–75: 4 years more I have of life up to 35
At this point, Molly mistakenly states she is 31 years old.
18.475: Ill be 33 in September Molly will be 34 in September.
18.476: Mrs Galbraith
Possibly Mrs H. Denham Galbraith, 58B Rathmines Road, Rathmines (Thom’s, p. 1764). This address is close to Molly’s former home at Rehoboth Terrace, in Dolphin’s Barn (SS, p. 155). She is also mentioned in ‘Circe’ (15.4358).
18.479: Kitty OShea in Grantham street
Not the Kitty O’Shea who was mistress and later wife of Charles Stewart Parnell (see note at 2.394). This is probably the ‘Miss O’Shea’ who lived at 3 Grantham Street in the 1880s (Thom’s 1887, p. 1415; SS, p. 239), which is just south of Pleasants Street, where the Blooms lived after their marriage in 1888.
18.481–82: Mrs Langtry the jersey lily the prince of Wales was in love with
Lillie Langtry (1853–1929): English actress, born Emilie Le Breton and nicknamed ‘the Jersey Lily’, as she was born on the island of Jersey. In 1874, she married Edward Langtry (1847–97) and a few years later began an affair with the Prince of Wales. She was the Prince’s ‘first official mistress’ (Theo Aronson, The King In Love, p. 41).
18.486–87: tin thing around her . . . yes he had the oyster knife
It is not known if this story about Lily Langtry wearing a chastity belt (the ‘tin thing’) is true or even if it had ever been rumoured to be true before Joyce.
18.488–90: works of Master Francois Somebody . . . bumgut fell out
That is, the French satirical writer and monk François Rabelais (c.1494–c.1553). In The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel (1534), Gargantua’s odd and unpleasant birth is described: ‘A little while after she began to groan, lament, and cry. Then suddenly came the midwives from all quarters, who groping her below, found some peloderies, which was a certain filthy stuff, and of a taste truly bad enough. This they thought had been the child, but it was her fundament, that was slipped out with the mollification of her straight entrail, which you call the bum-gut, and that merely by eating of too many tripes, as we have showed you before. [. . .] By this inconvenient the cotyledons of her matrix were presently loosed, through which the child sprang up and leaped, and so, entering into the hollow vein, did climb by the diaphragm even above her shoulders, where the vein divides itself into two, and from thence taking his way towards the left side, issued forth at her left ear’ (vol. 1, pp. 27–28). The edition of the Urquhart translation published by A. H. Bullen (1904) is credited to ‘Master Francis Rabelais’.
18.493: Ruby and Fair Tyrants he brought me that twice
See note at 4.346 for Ruby: the Pride of the Ring and note at 10.601 for Fair Tyrants.
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18.494–95: part about . . . a cord flagellate
‘Molly’s brief plot summary does not resemble the action of Lovebirch’s novels or those of several other writers working in the subgenre he helped popularize. In fact, Lovebirch’s novels usually concern the “disciplining” of young girls, typically by sadistic older women, not the masochistic devotion of young men to their cruel antagonists’ (Stephen Watt, ‘ “Nothing for a Woman in That” ’, p. 76).
18.496: after the ball
‘After the Ball’ (1892): a song by Charles K. Harris (1867–1930); a ‘waltz of unrequited love’, it proved very successful in the 1890s (Michael Lasser, America’s Songs II, p. 1).
18.497: infant Jesus in the crib at Inchicore
Inchicore: a suburb of Dublin. Every year, the Church of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate displays a Christmas crib. Stanislaus Joyce recalls outings to ‘see the crib at Inchicore, with the wax figures of the Holy Family and Magi and the shepherds and horses and oxen, sheep and camels stretching all round the hall in cheap and dusty grandeur’ (My Brother’s Keeper, p. 33).
18.500–01: H R H he was in Gibraltar the year I was born
That is, His Royal Highness, the King of England, Edward VII. As Prince of Wales, he visited Gibraltar in 1859 and 1876, but not in 1870, the year Molly was born (Sidney Lee, Edward VII, vol. 1, pp. 69, 409).
18.501–02: where he planted the tree
On a visit to Gibraltar in 1903, Edward VII planted a tree in the Governor’s residence to commemorate his visit (Manchester Guardian, 13 Apr. 1903, p. 4, col. f).
18.507: plottering
To plotter: variant of the Hiberno-English plouter, ‘To move or work ineffectually or aimlessly’ (OED, s.v. plouter).
18.510: Mr Cuffes
See note at 6.392. See also 17.2139.
18.512: mirada
Mirada (Spanish): a look or a glance.
18.512–13: stiff as the mischief
Mischief: euphemism for the devil (OED). Stiff as the devil: severe, unyielding (Partridge).
18.516–17: Todd and Burns See note at 6.539.
18.517: Lees
Edward Lee: draper, with shops in Dublin at 48 Mary Street and 6–7 Upper Abbey Street and three other shops in the suburbs (Thom’s, p. 1928).
18.520: mathering
Context suggests mixing or pouring, or gathering; perhaps related to the Hiberno-English word mether (from the Irish meadar), ‘A wooden vessel used for measuring liquids; a square wooden drinking vessel, frequently used as a measure of liquor’ (OED).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1269
18.524: that place in Grafton street
Since Grafton Street is lined with shops, this could refer to any of a number of establishments.
18.540–41: like those statues in the museum See note at 8.921–22.
18.542–43: two bags full
Echoes the nursery rhyme, ‘Baa, baa black sheep, / Have you any wool? / Yes sir, yes sir, / Three bags full; / One for the master, / And one for the dame, / And one for the little boy / Who lives down the lane’ (ODNR, p. 88).
18.544–59: that disgusting Cameron highlander . . . bang of something there
Because the typesetters were confused by the numerous additions Joyce made on the typescript page (JJA, vol. 16, p. 315), they misplaced this lengthy passage—composed as a sequence of marginal additions—on the galley proofs, where it appears, incongruously, between ‘that I asked him’ and ‘and that word met something’ (18.565; JJA, vol. 21, pp. 210–11). Additionally, they omitted the two words ‘about her’ that should be between those two phrases. This misplacement exists in all editions previous to Gabler. Various passages in ‘Penelope’ were likewise misplaced by the typesetters and restored in Gabler’s edition, but this is the longest such instance.
18.545: Cameron highlander
See note at 15.1403. The Cameron Highlanders were stationed in Gibraltar from June 1879 to August 1882 (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 22).
18.546: where the statue of the fish used to be
In the Alameda Gardens (see note at 18.643–44) in Gibraltar there used to be a statue of a man harpooning a fish. This had been the figurehead of the San Juan, a Spanish battleship captured during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (Traveller’s Handbook for Gibraltar, p. 54). The statue was removed in 1884.
18.548: Queens own
That is, the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, who were stationed at the garrison in Gibraltar from June 1879 to August 1882 (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 22).
18.548–49: the Surreys relieved them
The 1st East Surreys relieved the Cameron Highlanders at the Gibraltar garrison in August 1882 (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 21).
18.550: mens greenhouse See note at 8.97.
18.550–51: Harcourt street station
The railway station for the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway, on Harcourt Street at the intersection with Harcourt Road in south-east Dublin (Thom’s, p. 1513).
18.552: 7 wonders of the world
The seven wonders of the ancient world were: the Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Tomb of Mausolus, the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia by Phidias, and the Pharos (lighthouse) of Alexandria (Brewer’s).
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18.553: the Comerfords party See note at 17.1782.
18.555: 93 the canal was frozen See note at 15.1030–31.
18.557: meadero
Meadero (Spanish): urinal.
18.560–61: some rich fellow in Holles street when he lost the job in Helys
The Blooms lived on Holles Street during 1895–96 (see notes at 11.493 and 17.860). Bloom started work at Hely’s when he married Molly in 1888 (see note at 8.158), but by 1893 he was working at Cuffe’s (17.483–86). There are various possible explanations for this discrepancy: Bloom was rehired by Hely’s after his stint at Cuffe’s, or Molly has confused Hely’s with Cuffe’s, or the mistake was the result of Joyce’s imperfect arrangement of the Blooms’ chronology (Crispi, Becoming the Blooms, p. 249 n. 124).
18.562: strumming in the coffee palace
Strumming: playing carelessly or unskilfully (OED). See note at 11.486 for the Coffee Palace.
18.562–63: bath of the nymph See note at 4.370.
18.564: that Spanish photo he has See note at 17.1809.
18.565: something with hoses in it See 4.331–43 and note at 4.339.
18.573: student that stopped in No 28 with the Citrons Penrose
Bloom remembered Penrose and his voyeurism in ‘Lestrygonians’ (see notes at 8.178 and 8.1114). Citron lived at 17 St Kevin’s Parade (see note at 4.204–05), not 28. See also 17.2133.
18.576: doctor Brady
The only Dr Francis Brady in Ireland in 1904 was in Carnew, County Wicklow (Thom’s, p. 869). See also 17.2140 for his first name.
18.576: Belladonna See note at 16.347.
18.578: beyond everything
Joyce took this phrase from Queen Victoria’s published diary, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868): ‘the crowd of boats was beyond everything’ (p. 299; Ronan Crowley, ‘The Queen is Not a Subject’, p. 204; NLI II.i.2 f. 11v).
18.579: somebody ought to put him in the budget
That is, in the newspaper, given that budget is a ‘frequent title for a journal’ (OED).
18.598: Loves old sweeeetsonnnng See note at 4.314.
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18.601: Photo Bits See note at 4.370.
18.607: levanter
The levanter: a harsh, easterly Mediterranean wind (OED). According to Frederic Sayer’s History of Gibraltar, the levanter ‘generally blows during the summer months [. . .] Its presence is quickly recognized. Dull, aching pains creep through the bones, the tongue is parched and dry, while the atmosphere is saturated with a sticky dampness; appetite vanishes, energy leaves you, and an oppressive languor paralyzes both mind and body’ (p. 479).
18.608–09: like a big giant compared with their 3 Rock mountain
The Rock of Gibraltar rises to 429 metres at its highest point (EB11). Three Rock Mountain (see note at 12.1830) has an elevation of just over 450 metres. The Rock of Gibraltar, however, presents a more dramatic vista for the way it rises straight up from the sea.
18.610: red sentries
The British military was, of course, famous for its red uniforms (see note at 5.68). Perhaps Joyce was thinking of this description in Field’s Gibraltar: ‘It has been objected to these brilliant uniforms that they make the soldiers too conspicuous a mark for the sharpshooters of the enemy. But, however, nothing can be finer on parade’ (pp. 45–46).
18.610: poplars
The White Poplar is common on Gibraltar (EB11, s.v. Gibraltar); see also note at 18.643–44.
18.612: Mrs Stanhope
Molly’s childhood friend Hester Stanhope is based on Emily Lyons, a childhood friend of Nora’s from Galway (Igoe, p. 278). Lyons’s name appears on two notesheets (Notesheet Penelope 3.8; Penelope 7.26). Lyons also appears in Joyce’s notes for Exiles, where she is called a ‘dark-complexioned gipsy-looking girl friend’ (JJA, vol. 11, p. 31). Joyce took the name from Lady Hester Stanhope (1776–1839), a noblewoman who was renowned as a traveller throughout Europe and Asia. She first stopped in Gibraltar in 1810, before eventually settling in Lebanon where she indulged in mysticism (ODNB); ‘during her journeys she adopted the costume of the country and often dressed in men’s clothing’ (Michael Begnal, ‘Molly Bloom and Lady Hester Stanhope’, p. 64).
18.613: B Marche paris
Au Bon Marché (now called Le Bon Marché): a large Paris department store, with its main entrance at 38 rue de Sèvres. Originally founded in 1838, it was expanded and remodelled in the 1860s and 1870s into a block-spanning, purpose-built structure, co-designed by Gustave Eiffel (Michael Miller, The Bon Marché, pp. 41–43). It is considered the first modern department store.
18.613: my dearest Doggerina
Variants of the word dog were commonly used terms of endearment; for example, ‘Are we not cross, old dog-sey wog-sey, very cross and snappish?’ (Christian World Magazine, June 1866, p. 42; Harald Beck, JJON). See also the following note.
18.616: wogger she called him
Wogger: from wog, ‘a very young child’—a term of endearment of ‘affectionate idiocy’, but also used to refer to any non-white person, often but not always in a derogatory
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1272 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses sense (Partridge; OED). Wog and cognate words were linked to dog as terms of endearment; for example, ‘How could Caruso know that it was only dear, fat, lazy, old Mr. Dogger Wogger, who had oceans of cat friends that knew him to be perfectly kind and harmless?’ (Mary Shaw Attwood, Adventures of Six Little Pussy-Cats, p. 34; Harald Beck, JJON).
18.617: in old Madrid See note at 11.733.
18.617: Waiting
See note at 11.730.
18.617–18: Concone is the name of those exercises
Giuseppe Concone (1810–61): Italian singing instructor best known for his books, such as Thirty Exercises For the Voice (Honton, ‘Concerning Concone’, p. 115); see also note at 18.455.
18.623: captain Grove
Evidently, an army friend of Molly’s father in Gibraltar; otherwise unknown. On the Rosenbach Manuscript, Joyce inconsistently spelt the name as both Grove (here and 18.644) and Groves (18.690, 18.1583).
18.626: bullfight at La Linea See note at 17.1986–87.
18.626: that matador Gomez was given the bulls ear
Traditionally, the bull’s ear is presented to a bullfighter after an outstanding performance. Although there were numerous matadors named Gomez, if this bullfight occurred between 1883 and 1886, then this is probably Fernando Gómez García (1845–97), known as El Gallo (the rooster), ‘one of Spain’s really great matadors’ (Philip Sullivan, ‘Los Toros in Ulysses’, pp. 3–4).
18.628: Killiney hill
Killiney Hill is on the coast at the southern edge of Dublin’s suburbs near Dalkey. A public park was opened in 1887. ‘At the summit of Killiney Hill, from which grand views are obtained, is an obelisk, erected in 1741’ (John Cooke, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland, p. 305).
18.628: all staysed up
For stays, see note at 3.431.
18.631: banderilleros
Banderillero: a bullfighter who uses a banderilla, a dart decorated with a streamer that is plunged into the neck and shoulders of a bull (OED, s.vv. banderillero; banderilla). The banderillero precedes the matador, who is supposed to kill the bull.
18.633: mantillas
Mantilla: ‘A large light veil or scarf, often of black lace, worn by (esp. Spanish) women over the head and covering the shoulders’ (OED).
18.635: bell lane
A street in Gibraltar (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 55). There is also a Bell’s Lane in Dublin, off Ely Place and near St Stephen’s Green (Thom’s, p. 1425).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1273
18.643–44: at the band on the Alameda esplanade
‘Alameda.—A public promenade with which very few Spanish towns are not provided: the name is taken from Alamo, poplar tree. They are between the North and South towns. Before 1814 this place consisted of a parade-ground only with the name of the Red Sands; but the then Governor, Sir George Don, caused it to be planted in terraces with trees and shrubs, which are now most luxuriant [. . .] Beautiful walks lead in all directions through the gardens, which form the most attractive feature of Gibraltar, and the favourite resort of the inhabitants, who crowd thither to listen to the music of the military bands which play twice a week during the year’ (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 39).
18.644: captain Grove See note at 18.623.
18.645: the church
That is, the Cathedral Church of Saint Mary (Santa Maria) the Crowned, Gibraltar’s Roman Catholic church. The church ‘appears to have been originally a Moorish Mosque, and by no means an insignificant one [. . .] The church was re-modelled and rebuilt by Ferdinand and Isabella when Gibraltar was annexed to the Crown, when the north side was extended and the Royal Arms engraved thereon; the stone [with the engraving] may still be seen on the wall in the inner court’ (Gibraltar Directory 1883, pp. 27–28).
18.649–50: he was like Thomas in the shadow of Ashlydyat
The Shadow of Ashlydyat (1863), a novel by Mrs Henry (Ellen Price) Wood (1814–87). Molly claims that Grove is like Thomas Godolphin, the novel’s protagonist, because both are ‘disappointed and gay at the same time’. However, this does not really describe Thomas, but it is apposite to Thomas’s brother George, who is often described as ‘gay and careless’ (vol. 2, p. 25). Ashlydyat is the name of the Godolphin family estate.
18.653: the Moonstone to read that was the first I read of Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone (1868): a novel by Wilkie Collins (see also note at 10.368). ‘The Moonstone has remained second only to The Woman in White in popularity among Collins’s novels. Although not the first detective story, it is a classic of the genre, with many features repeatedly borrowed by later writers’ (ODNB).
18.653: East Lynne
East Lynne (1861): a popular novel by Mrs Henry (Ellen Price) Wood (1814–87). ‘East Lynne’s extraordinary success stemmed from Wood’s skill in interweaving two genres which became mainstays of popular fiction, the sentimental woman’s novel and the sensation novel (forerunner of the detective story). The book takes up contemporary issues such as divorce, feminine individuality, sexuality, family rupture, and class tension’ (ODNB). East Lynne was also successfully staged as a play. Millicent Bandmann-Palmer (see note at 5.194–95) appeared in East Lynne at the Gaiety Theatre on 15 June 1904 (Stephen Watt, Joyce, O’Casey, and the Irish Popular Theatre, p. 27).
18.654: the shadow of Ashlydyat Mrs Henry Wood See note at 18.649–50.
18.654: Henry Dunbar
Henry Dunbar (1864): one of eighty novels by the London-born writer Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835–1915). Along with Mrs Henry Wood and Wilkie Collins, she was one of the early pioneers of the sensation novel (ODNB).
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18.655: Mulveys photo See note at 13.889.
18.656: Lord Lytton Eugene Aram
Eugene Aram: A Tale (1832): a novel by Baron Lytton, or Edward Bulwer-Lytton (English writer and statesman, 1803–73). The hero of the novel, the eponymous Aram, is ‘a high- minded philosopher who, ground down by poverty, had been induced to take part in a robbery which turned to murder. Wracked for years by guilt, he is subsequently redeemed by love, only to be arrested on the day of his wedding. Predictably, the book gave rise to a storm of indignant protest, even as it ran through numerous editions. Bulwer’s condes cending aristocratic manner and air of intellectual superiority had already provoked the hostility of reviewers’ (ODNB, s.v. Edward Bulwer-Lytton). Bulwer-Lytton’s novel is based on the story of the real-life Eugene Aram (1704–59), a philologist who was hanged for murder. His arrest was dramatised in Thomas Hood’s ballad ‘The Dream of Eugene Aram’ (1829). ‘As a linguist [Aram] recognized Celtic as part of the European family of languages and rejected the sequential origins of European languages in favour of a lateral relationship as descendants of a common mother tongue’ (ODNB).
18.656–57: Molly bawn she gave me by Mrs Hungerford
Molly Bawn (1878): a novel by Margaret Hungerford (Irish writer, c.1852–97). The title translates as ‘Blonde (or Fair) Molly’ and derives from an Irish ballad of the same name. The novel is ‘a light-hearted romance set, like many of her later novels, amid the landed Irish gentry’ (DIB).
18.658–59: the one from Flanders a whore always shoplifting
That is, Moll Flanders (1722) by Daniel Defoe. While Defoe’s Moll is a thief and a prostitute, she is not from Flanders. ‘From the Middle Ages to the 19th century, Flemish women were considered by the English to be the best prostitutes, hence the surname “Flanders” ’ (Melissa Hope Ditmore, Encyclopedia of Prostitution, vol. 1, p. 318).
18.673: lips were taittering
From Havelock Ellis’s (1850–1939) Studies in the Psychology of Sex: ‘Even in the absence of sexual excitement there is a vague affection, occurring in both married and unmarried women, and not, it would seem, necessarily hysterical, characterized by quivering or twitching of the vulva; I am told that this is popularly termed “flackering of the shape” in Yorkshire and “taittering of the lips” in Ireland’ (vol. 5, pp. 163–64). Ellis does not indicate his sources, and the expression is otherwise unattested (Vincent Deane, JJON).
18.675: very peculiarly
Joyce took this phrase from Queen Victoria’s published diary, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868): ‘the beech-trees grow very peculiarly’ (p. 285; Crowley, ‘The Queen is Not a Subject’, p. 204; NLI II.i.2 f. 11v).
18.678–79: waiting always waiting to guiiiide him toooo me
From the final verse of ‘Waiting’ (see note at 11.730): ‘O stars shine out your brightest! / O nightingale, sing sweet / To guide him to me, waiting / And speed his flying feet, / To guide him to me, waiting / And speed his flying feet’ (Bowen, pp. 334–35).
18.679: damn guns bursting
Queen Victoria’s birthday (24 May) was celebrated on Gibraltar with a barrage of gunfire even louder than the nightly sundown gunfire (see note at 13.1206). ‘Nothing like it is seen or heard in any other part of the world’ (Henry Field, Gibraltar, p. 26).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1275
18.680: all over the shop
All over the shop: ‘Much scattered, spread out’ (Partridge).
18.681–82: when general Ulysses Grant . . . landed off the ship
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–85): American general and President of the United States (1869–77). In March 1864, Grant was placed in supreme command of the Union forces during the American Civil War, which he led to victory the following year. ‘Grant had thus brought the great struggle to an end, and was universally regarded as the saviour of the Union’ (EB11). Grant visited Gibraltar in November 1878, as part of a post-presidential journey around the world. He arrived by steamer from the Spanish port city of Cádiz. His visit was greeted with much fanfare and included a mock battle (Ulysses S. Grant III, Ulysses S. Grant: Warrior and Statesman, p. 378). His journey included a brief stop in Dublin in January 1879 (p. 381).
18.683–84: old Sprague the consul that was there from before the flood
Horatio Jones Sprague (1823–1901): the American consul in Gibraltar. ‘He is the oldest Consul in the service, having been forty years at this post, where his father, who was appointed by General Jackson, was Consul before him [. . .] Through all these years he has maintained the honor of the American name, and to-day there is not within the walls of Gibraltar a man—soldier or civilian—who is more respected than this solitary representative of our country’ (Field, Gibraltar, p. 7). Sprague became Consul in 1848 (The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, vol. 25, p. 149).
18.684: in mourning for the son
Horatio Sprague’s sons were alive when Grant visited Gibraltar in 1878. His wife, Antonia Sprague (1837–77), died a little over a year before the visit. Their eldest son, John Louis Sprague (1855–86) was Vice-Consul when Grant visited, but died eight years later. His younger brother Richard Louis (1871–1934) became Vice-Consul in 1893 and succeeded his father as Consul in 1901 (The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, vol. 25, p. 149).
18.687: old longbearded jews
‘Here are long-bearded Jews in their gabardines; and Turks in their baggy trousers, taking up more space than is allowed to Christian legs; with a mongrel race from the Eastern part of the Mediterranean, known as Levantines; and another like unto them, the Maltese’ (Field, Gibraltar, pp. 33–34). In 1878, there were 1,465 Jews in Gibraltar, out of a total population of 25,700 (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 20).
18.687: jellibees
Jellibee: Molly’s rendition of galabiya, ‘A smock-like garment worn in Arabic-speaking Mediterranean countries’ (OED). Although an Arabic word, the garment is associated with Jews: ‘A black jellaba and cap, such as the Jews must wear in Morocco’ (A. E. W. Mason, Truants, cited in OED).
18.687: and levites
Levites: descendants of Levi and, thus, one of the twelve tribes of Israel (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, s.vv. Levi; Levite).
18.688: assembly and sound clear
Assembly: ‘A military call by drum or bugle’. Sound clear: presumably the ‘all clear’; ‘Used to indicate that there is no danger or obstruction, and that it is safe to proceed’ (both OED).
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18.688: gunfire for the men to cross the lines See note at 13.1206.
18.690: captain Groves See note at 18.623.
18.690: Rorkes drift See note at 15.780–81.
18.690: Plevna See note at 4.63.
18.690–91: sir Garnet Wolseley and Gordon at Khartoum
Sir Garnet Wolseley (1833–1913): Dublin-born British Army general. In the war in the Sudan in the 1880s, he led an unsuccessful attempt to relieve the beleaguered general Charles George Gordon (1833–85) at Khartoum in 1884–85 (EB11, s.vv. Wolseley; Sudan).
18.692: grog
See note at 16.925.
18.696: Bushmills whisky
Bushmills, a town in County Antrim with the first licensed distillery, dating from 1608, making it ‘the world’s oldest licit source of whiskey’ (Brewer’s Irish). For the spelling whisky, see note at 1.301.
18.702: hotchapotch
That is, a hotchpotch: ‘A confused mixture of disparate things; a medley, a jumble’ (OED).
18.702: hands hanging off me
That is, Bloom won’t touch her. To hang off: ‘to show hesitation in coming to close quarters’ (OED, s.v. hang).
18.704: that medical in Holles street the nurse was after
That is, Dr O’Hare and Nurse Callan; see notes at 13.961 and 13.960.
18.707–08: shake hands twice with the left
Combines two superstitions: it is considered unlucky to shake hands with someone twice, and shaking hands with the left hand ‘signifies that you have or will have many false friends’ (Cora Linn Daniels and C. M. Stevans, Encyclopædia of Superstitions, vol. 1, p. 316).
18.709: Westland row chapel See note at 5.318.
18.711: gougers
See note at 12.693.
18.711: up in the City Arms See note at 2.416–17.
18.714: pots and pans and kettles to mend any broken bottles
After an old tinker’s cry: ‘Have you a brass pot, iron pot, kettle, skillet, or a frying-pan to mend’ (‘Old London Cries’, Fraser’s Magazine, Feb. 1847, vol. 35, no. 206, p. 187).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1277
18.716: that wonderworker See note at 17.1820–21.
18.718–19: Mrs Dwenn . . . from Canada Unknown.
18.720: pisto madrileno
Pisto: a Spanish stew of chopped tomatoes and red or green peppers. Madrileño (Spanish): in the style of Madrid (Alison Armstrong, The Joyce of Cooking, p. 9).
18.720: Floey Dillon See note at 6.1013.
18.721–22: her father
Mathew Dillon; see note at 6.697 and see also 17.2136.
18.723: Miss Gillespie Unknown.
18.723: piannyer
A jocular pronunciation of piano. Joyce originally wrote ‘piannyer’ (Rosenbach f. 11v.). The typist mangled this as ‘puannyer’ (JJA, vol. 16, p. 320). On a galley proof, Joyce emended to ‘pyannyer’ (JJA, vol. 21, p. 14). Gabler reverts to the earlier form (UCSE, p. 1676).
18.726: Nancy Blake Unknown.
18.731: if its a thing See note at 18.32–33.
18.736–37: in old Madrid stuff silly women believe love is sighing I am dying
In reference to the song ‘In Old Madrid’ (see note at 11.733): ‘Come my love, the stars are shining, / Time is flying, / Love is sighing, / Come, for thee a heart is pining, / Here alone I wait for thee! / Far, far away from old Madrid, / Her lover fell, long years ago, for Spain; / A convent veil those sweet eyes hid; / And all the vows that love had sigh’d were vain!’ (Bauerle, pp. 407–13).
18.740–41: long crossed letters
Crossed: ‘(of a letter) written with lines crossing at right angles’ (OED). ‘Irate men confronted with “crossed letters” alleged the practice was of female origin’ (Harald Beck, JJON).
18.741: Atty Dillon
See note at 13.1106–07.
18.741–42: four courts See note at 10.625–26.
18.742: the ladies letterwriter
That is a manual of writing letters, which would include templates or sample letters for a variety of different purposes that could be copied verbatim. Many examples exist, such as Samuel Orchart Beeton’s Beeton’s Complete Letter-Writer for Ladies and Gentlemen: a Useful Compendium of Epistolary Materials, Gathered from the Best Sources, and Adapted to Suit
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1278 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses an Indefinite Number of Cases (1873). During their courtship in the summer of 1904, Nora used such a letter-writer to compose her letters to Joyce until he asked her to write in her own style (Ellmann, pp. 167–68).
18.744–45: with equal candour . . . answer to a gentlemans proposal affirmatively
From a sample letter in Samuel Beeton’s Complete Letter-Writer on accepting a gentleman’s proposal for marriage: ‘You ask me very plainly whether I will be your wife, and I answer with equal candour, I will’ (p. 49; with thanks to Harald Beck).
18.747: ashpit.
Ash-pit: ‘a hole in which ashes and household refuse are thrown away’ (OED, s.v. ash-hole). Ash-pits were a widely used means for the disposing of household waste; in 1882, there were 18,165 open ash-pits within Dublin’s city limits (Anne Marie D’Arcy, ‘Vartryville’, p. 278). On the Rosenbach draft, each of the episode’s eight paragraphs ended with a full stop. Joyce deleted these on the galley proofs, but he left the full stops at the end of the fourth and eighth sentences.
18.748: Mulveys was the first
See note at 13.889 and see also 17.2133.
18.748: Mrs Rubio
Mrs Rubio was the Spanish housekeeper in the Tweedy home in Gibraltar. Rubio is a common surname in Gibraltar (as is reflected in the Gibraltar Directory). ‘There are several women named “Maria Rubio” in the Census of Gibraltar, 1901, all of whom were housekeepers’ (Igoe, p. 265).
18.751: horquilla
Horquilla (Spanish): hairpin.
18.751: disobliging
To disoblige: ‘To refuse or neglect to oblige; not to consult or comply with the convenience or wishes of (a person); hence, to put a slight upon, affront, offend’ (OED).
18.754: Atlantic fleet coming in
Anachronistic: the Atlantic fleet of the British Royal Navy was stationed in Gibraltar, but it was formed in 1905 and thus well after Molly had left (J. R. Hill, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy, p. 287).
18.756: carabineros
Carabinero (Spanish): a national police officer, especially a border guard.
18.756: 4 drunken English sailors took all the rock from them
Although this is untrue, Molly’s belief is based on a spurious tale that was in circulation. From Reverend William Robertson’s Journal of a Clergyman during a Visit to the Peninsula in the Summer and Autumn of 1841: ‘A foolish story respecting this important siege is current in France [. . .] It is pretended that the success of the besiegers was mainly to be attributed to grog, and that this, the strongest place in Europe, was captured by a few drunken sailors, who, happening to approach the fortifications, landed unobserved, hoisted a red jacket to proclaim their success, and being reinforced, captured the town’ (pp. 282–83). In truth, Gibraltar was captured on 24 July 1704 by a well-armed coalition of British and Dutch troops. While the island was well-fortified, the Spanish forces
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1279 numbered only 150 and were substantially out-manned by the British and Dutch (EB11; Field, Gibraltar, p. 64).
18.757: Santa Maria See note at 18.645.
18.759: black blessed virgin with the silver dress
That is, a ‘Black Madonna’, a depiction of Mary with dark skin. ‘Nuestra Senora de Montserrat, Patrona de Cataluna (“Our Lady of Montserrat, Patron Saint of Catalonia”), is one of the most celebrated images in Spain [. . .]. The image is small, black, and carved of wood, but possesses magnificent robes and jewels’ (EB11, s.v. Montserrat).
18.760: the sun dancing 3 times on Easter Sunday morning
After the old Irish superstition, a remnant of pre-Christian pagan worship, in which ‘[p]eople used to be out early on Easter Sunday to see the sun dance in honour of the Resurrection’ (James Bonwick, Irish Druids, p. 195).
18.760: priest was going by with the bell bringing the vatican to the dying
Molly mistakes ‘vatican’ for viaticum, the ‘Holy Communion given to those in danger of death’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). The priest delivering the viaticum is accompanied by a procession of acolytes and clerics, one of whom carries a bell that is rung continually (Rituale Romanum, p. 114).
18.761–62: blessing herself for his Majestad
Majestad (Spanish): majesty. It is unclear if Mrs Rubio is blessing herself for Su Majestad (i.e. His Majesty), the King of Spain, or for the Majesty of Christ, prompted by the bells that accompany the priest bringing the viaticum.
18.763: the Calle Real
The Calle Real (Spanish): ‘Royal Street’, its name in English is Waterport Street, and it is one of the two main streets in Gibraltar’s commercial district, which is in the peninsula’s northern half. ‘The commercial portion of the city comprises two parallel and principal streets: one, Waterport Street, which consists of small shops and retail houses; the other, Irish Town, where are situated the wholesale and merchants’ stores. Both thoroughfares are badly built and inconveniently narrow’ (Frederick Sayer, The History of Gibraltar, p. 455).
18.764: he tipped me just in passing
To tip: to touch or to wink at (OED); either sense is possible here.
18.766–67: father was up at the drill instructing
If Molly’s father (see note at 4.63) was ‘up at the drill instructing’, he would be neither a major, as Bloom thinks (see note at 13.1108), nor a ‘drum-major’ (see note at 11.508), or even a major general (see note at 15.779), but rather a sergeant-major. This rank is the highest grade of non-commissioned officer. ‘In most regiments the serjeant-major, under the direction of the adjutant, is directed to drill every young officer who comes into the regiment’ (C. James, New Military Dictionary, quoted in the OED).
18.767: language of stamps
Before the standardisation of placing postage stamps in the upper-right corner of envelopes, the placement and orientation of stamps could be used to convey a coded message. Astra Cielo’s book Fortunes and Dreams has a brief chapter entitled ‘The Language of
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1280 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Postage Stamps’. For example, ‘Placing the stamp half an inch from the upper and right- hand edges means: “Expect me tonight” ’ (p. 211).
18.768: shall I wear a white rose
‘Shall I Wear a White Rose?’ (1877): a song by H. Savile Clarke (1841–93) and Emily Bardsley Farmer. The song is about a girl anticipating meeting her beau and, as the song progresses, ‘the anticipation becomes near surety as the wedding seems only a day or so off ’ (Bowen, p. 336).
18.769–70: Moorish wall
The Moorish Wall is one of the defensive fortifications on Gibraltar; it runs along the northern side of the town (Sayer, History of Gibraltar, p. 455). Along with the Moorish Castle (see note at 18.1592), it was built by the Moors in 932 (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 16).
18.770: my sweetheart when a boy
‘My Sweetheart When a Boy’ (1870): words by Frederick Enoch with music by Wilford Morgan. ‘The persona of the song is a man remembering his girl from his youth [. . .] Molly changes the persona by making Mulvey the boy she is thinking about’ (Bowen, pp. 336–37).
18.774: de la Flora
De la Flora (Spanish): ‘of the flower’.
18.775: true word spoken in jest See note at 12.1658.
18.775: there is a flower that bloometh See note at 13.438–39.
18.779: pesetas and the perragordas
Despite being under British rule, before 1898 only Spanish money was used in Gibraltar (EB11). The peseta was the main unit of Spanish currency. Perra gorda (Spanish): ‘fat bitch’; the colloquial name for the 10 céntimo coin (Fred Ober, Rambles in Sunny Spain, p. 31).
18.779–80: Cappoquin he came from he said on the black water
Cappoquin: a small town in County Waterford, on the River Blackwater. ‘The name Cappoquin comes from the Irish Ceapach-Chuinn, which means “Conn’s plot of land”, but no one can tell who this Conn was’ (P. W. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, p. 229). Joyce originally wrote ‘Waterford’ and changed it to ‘Cappoquin’ on a galley proof (JJA, vol. 21, p. 257).
18.781: it was May when the infant king of Spain was born
Alfonso XIII (1886–1941) was born on 17 May 1886, which was about six months after his father, Alfonso XII, died. His mother, Maria Christina (1858–1929), ruled as regent until 17 May 1902, when her son acceded to the throne (Weekly Irish Times, 24 May 1902, p. 17, cols c–d).
18.782–83: on the tiptop under the rockgun
The Rock Gun is ‘mounted on the highest point of the rock, 1,400 feet [427 metres] in the air’ (Field, Gibraltar, p. 26).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1281
18.783–84: OHaras tower I told him it was struck by lightning
O’Hara’s Tower was a Gibraltar lookout: it stood 427 metres above sea level on Sugar Loaf Hill, making it one of the highest points on Gibraltar. It was struck by lightning shortly after it was built (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 15).
18.784: Barbary apes they sent to Clapham
See note at 13.1205. ‘About two years ago, the attention of the keepers of the Alameda gardens, was arrested by an unusual screaming of monkeys, and they presently saw one of very large size pursued most hastily by two or three others. [. . .] The governor ordered the fugitive to be properly treated, and finally had him transported to the zoological gardens in the Regent’s Park [London]’ (Traveller’s Hand-book for Gibraltar, pp. 64–65; Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 64). There was formerly a zoo near Clapham Common.
18.785: all over the show
All over the show: ‘throughout or in every part of an area; in every aspect’ (OED).
18.785: Mrs Rubio See note at 18.748.
18.786: rock scorpion
Rock scorpion: a non-English native of Gibraltar (Field, Gibraltar, p. 34).
18.786: Inces farm
Ince’s farm is on the upper slopes of the Rock of Gibraltar, near the Moorish Wall (Traveller’s Hand-book for Gibraltar, p. 64).
18.790: firtree cove
Fig Tree Cave lies on Gibraltar’s east coast, a bit less than 1 km south of Sandy Bay (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 30). Joyce clearly wrote ‘firtree cove’ (Rosenbach f. 13), but there is no such place on Gibraltar. On the rough map he drew of Gibraltar on his notesheets, Joyce placed ‘Firtree Cove’ just north of Monkey’s Cave, which is the correct location of Fig Tree Cave (Notesheet Penelope 3).
18.791: galleries and casemates
The Windsor and Union Galleries are fortifications tunnelled into the north face of the Rock of Gibraltar. ‘There is no excavation in the world, for military purposes, at all approaching them in conception or execution’ (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 31). Casemate: ‘A vaulted chamber built in the thickness of the ramparts of a fortress’ (OED).
18.791–92: Saint Michaels cave with the icicles or whatever . . . hanging down
St Michael’s is the largest cave in Gibraltar, located 335 metres above sea level in central Gibraltar, south of the Signal Station. ‘The entrance is small, but within is a species of lofty hall, 220 feet [67 metres] long, 90 [27 m] wide and 70 [21 m] high, supported by stalactite pillars, which when lighted up has a most beautiful effect, for some of these pillars are thirty, forty and fifty feet [9, 12, 15 m] in height, and on the top of them arches are formed, so that the whole resembles the interior of a Gothic Cathedral’ (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 42).
18.793: plotching
Plotch: blotch, spot (OED).
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1282 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.793–94: the way down the monkeys go under the sea to Africa when they die
Barbary apes live in both Gibraltar and North Africa, although they cannot swim. ‘The wild and impossible theory of a communication under the sea between Gibraltar and the Barbary coast has been started by some ingenious people [. . .]; but the simple fact seems to be that they were brought over from the opposite coast at different times and increased in numbers’ (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 22).
18.795: Malta boat
Malta was a stop on the London- based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company’s Mediterranean Line; Gibraltar agents: Smith, Imossi & Co., Irish Town (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 118).
18.802: embarazada
Embarazada (Spanish): pregnant.
18.817: Molly darling
‘Mollie Darling’ (1871): a song by Will S. Hays (American poet and songwriter, 1837–1907) (Bowen, pp. 337–38).
18.822: block
To block: to have sexual intercourse with (Partridge).
18.824: firtree cove See note at 18.790.
18.825: hes young still about 40 Bloom is thirty-eight.
18.826: the black water See note at 18.779–80.
18.830: the Chronicle
The Gibraltar Chronicle & Official Gazette: a weekly newspaper published out of the Garrison Library, Governor’s (Gunner’s) Parade (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 22).
18.831: Benady Bros
Mordajai Benady (1863–1946) and Samuel Benady (1865–1940): brothers who ran a grocery store on Engineer Lane (Igoe, p. 26). The 1883 Directory spells their name Benadi (p. 154), but other sources, including the 1901 census of Gibraltar, use the spelling Benady.
18.833–34: over middle hill round . . . the jews burialplace
Middle Hill is one of the various summits on the Rock of Gibraltar; it stands in between the Rock-Gun to its north (see note at 18.782–83) and Sugarloaf Hill to its south (see note at 18.783–84) (Sayer, History of Gibraltar, p. 451). The first Jewish cemetery in Gibraltar was adjacent to the Protestant cemetery, but in 1756, a separate cemetery was established on the Upper Rock at the peninsula’s southern end, near the Jews’ Gate. This was in use until 1848; now known as the Old Jewish Cemetery, it is probably the one Molly is referring to. In 1848, a new Jewish cemetery was established in the northern part of the peninsula (Tito Benady, ‘The Jewish Community of Gibraltar’, p. 153). The Old Jewish Cemetery is about a 2.3 km walk from Middle Hill. Perhaps the guardhouse is O’Hara’s Tower (see note at 18.783–84), which is near the path between Middle Hill and the Cemetery.
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1283
18.837: HMS Calypso
The HMS Calypso, a screw cruiser, third class, served as a drill ship for the Royal Naval Reserve in North American and West Indian waters in 1904 (Thom’s, p. 541).
18.837: that old Bishop
From 1881 to 1898, the Catholic bishop with jurisdiction over Gibraltar was the Right Reverend Gonzalo Canilla (1846–98), D.D., Bishop of Lystra, Vicar Apostolic (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 140). A ‘vicar apostolic’ is a ‘titular bishop stationed in a country where episcopal sees have not yet been established’ (Century Dictionary).
18.838: womans higher functions
A phrase used by early feminist writers to advocate for equality between the genders and, likewise but derisively, by reactionary religious and political leaders to inveigh against such equality. For example, from the essay ‘The Social Position of Women in the Present Age’ by John Boyd-Kinnear, which appeared in the volume Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture (1869): ‘It is because fathers do not think of their daughters’ future,—because they often regard them as only so much goods to be got rid of in the market, and therefore only to be dressed and adapted for the market,—that the daughters are so unfit for any higher function’ (p. 366).
18.838–39: girls now riding the bicycle See note at 18.290.
18.839: new woman bloomers
Bloomers were originally ‘Loose trousers reaching to the knee or knickerbockers worn by women for bicycling, gymnasium practice’; only later did the word become associated with ‘a woman’s knee-length undergarment’ (OED). In the 1850s, these were popularised, but not invented, by the American women’s rights advocate Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818–94) as part of the ‘rational dress’ movement. ‘Rational (also called hygienic or reform) dress reacted against the alleged impracticality and restrictiveness of women’s fashions. [. . .] In England, some women adopted the Bloomer costume, particularly for use in women’s athletics, which became more and more popular toward the end of the century. Major strides toward dress reform, however, did not begin in England until the 1880s’ (Christine Kortsch, Dress Culture in Late Victorian Women’s Fashion, p. 77). See also note at 18.290 for the ‘New Woman’ movement.
18.839–40: God send him sense and me more money
After the proverb, ‘God send you more wit, and me more money’ (ODEP; Swift, Polite Conversation, p. 176); this is typically said when someone proposes something foolish.
18.844: Briggs does brig
To brig: that is, brigue: ‘To engage in plots or intrigues; to solicit or canvass, esp. for election, in an underhand way’; a borrowing from the French verb briguer, to aspire to, to pursue (OED). This reading is reinforced by the French translation of this passage: ‘Briggs je brigue tu brigues’ (Ulysse, p. 831), where Molly begins conjugating the verb briguer. The identity of Briggs is unknown. In the Zürich notebook, Joyce wrote this as ‘Griggs does brig’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts, p. 63; JJA, vol. 12, p. 99).
18.848: Lunita Laredo
Molly’s mother; she seems to have left the family or died when Molly was a girl. This name is based on Luna Laredo (1864–97), whose name Joyce probably took from the Gibraltar
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1284 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses Directory (Lunita is a diminutive of Luna). ‘Her full name was Luna de Samuel Laredo. Luna was a common Jewish female first name, and Laredo was a Jewish family name’ (Igoe, p. 171).
18.848–49: along Williss road to Europa point
Europa Point is the southernmost point of Gibraltar (EB11). Willis’s Road runs on the north-west side of Gibraltar near the Moorish Castle (see note at 18.1592). From there, a series of paths leads south to Europa Point, which is a little over 4 km distant.
18.849: twisting in and out all round the other side of Jersey
In context, this means that Mulvey had his hand under Molly’s shirt, referred to as a jersey, a woman’s close-fitting tunic (OED), used here as a pun with Jersey island, the largest of the English Channel Islands. The phrasing comes from the popular 1853 song ‘The Other Side of Jordan’ by Christy’s Minstrels (E. M. Mackney, Mackney’s Songs of Negro Life, pp. 30–31; with thanks to Harald Beck).
18.856: up Windmill hill to the flats
Windmill Hill, in southern Gibraltar, stands about 90–120 metres above sea level (EB11). Windmill Flats is the plateau at the top of the hill and the site of the Windmill Barracks.
18.857: Captain Rubios
Perhaps related to the Tweedys’ housekeeper Mrs Rubio (see note at 18.748); otherwise identity unknown.
18.858: the B Marche paris See note at 18.613.
18.859–60: I could see over to Morocco . . . and the Atlas mountain
Morocco is 14 km distant from Gibraltar and is easily visible. But even with a spyglass, the Bay of Tangier would not be visible. The Atlas Mountains (which run through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) are more than 320 km distant at their closest. ‘Thus loitering by the way, you come at last to the top of the Rock, where a scene bursts upon you hardly to be found elsewhere in the world, since you are literally pinnacled in the air, with a horizon that takes in two seas and two continents’ (Field, Gibraltar, p. 13).
18.861: Molly darling See note at 18.817.
18.862: the elevation
Elevation: in Mass, ‘The lifting up of the Host for the adoration of the people’ (OED).
18.865: peau dEspagne See note at 5.500.
18.866: Claddagh ring
Claddagh is a section of Galway City. The Claddagh ring has been in use as a wedding ring in Galway since the early eighteenth century. It is made of gold or silver and consists of a heart supported by two hands (Brewer’s Irish).
18.869: opal or pearl
The opal is supposedly an omen of misfortune (Brewer’s).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1285
18.870: pure 18 carrot gold
That is, 18 carat gold. Carat: ‘A proportional measure of one twenty-fourth used in stating the fineness of gold’ (OED). 18-carat gold contains 18 parts gold to 6 parts alloy, and thus is not ‘pure’. Joyce wrote ‘carrot’ on the Rosenbach Manuscript (f. 13v). This was changed to ‘carat’ in between the final page proofs and the first edition (UCSE, p. 1853) and thus appears as such in all editions until Gabler’s.
18.871: sandfrog shower from Africa
On 14 May 1921—as Joyce was writing this episode—a shower of frogs fell on Gibraltar: ‘During a thunderstorm yesterday a shower of frogs fell on the North front. Thousands of these small hopping creatures, unusual at the Rock, may be seen in the hedges, and have aroused much curiosity. Some seven years ago a similar phenomenon occurred and later a shower of sand covered everything with a pink deposit’ (Observer, 22 May 1921, p. 13, col. d; Austin Briggs, JJON).
18.871–72: that derelict ship . . . Marie the Marie whatyoucallit
Derelict: abandoned (OED). ‘Marie Celeste: A brigantine (properly the Mary Celeste) found abandoned with sails set between the Azores and Portugal in 1872. The ship’s one boat, sextant, chronometer, register, and crew were missing and no trace of them was ever found. It remains one of the unsolved mysteries of the sea’ (Brewer’s, s.v. Marie Celeste). As Brewer’s notes, the ship’s name was the Mary Celeste, but she is commonly, mistakenly referred to as the Marie Celeste. After she was found abandoned, she was taken to Gibraltar (London Times, 14 Feb. 1873, p. 9, col. b).
18.874–75: once in the dear deaead days beyondre call From ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’; see note at 4.314.
18.876: I hate that istsbeg
From ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’: ‘the mists began to fall’.
18.878: Kathleen Kearney See note at 18.376.
18.878–79: Miss This Miss That Miss Theother
Miss This, Miss That, Miss The Other: a catchphrase for a group of generic women, in use since the 1830s (Harald Beck, JJON) .
18.879: skitting
To skit (Hiberno-English): ‘to laugh and giggle in a silly way’ (PWJ, p. 325).
18.884–85: Alameda on an officers arm like me on the bandnight See note at 18.643–44.
18.890: all father left me in spite of his stamps See note at 18.130.
18.896–97: comes looooves old See note at 4.314.
18.897–98: My Ladys Bower . . . the moated grange at twilight
‘My Lady’s Bower’ (1887): by F. E. Weatherly (1848–1929) and Hope Temple (1859–1938). The first verse: ‘Thro’ the moated grange at twilight, / My love and I we went, / By empty rooms and lonely
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1286 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses stairs, / In lovers’ sweet content, / And round the old and broken casement, / We watch’d the roses flow’r, / But the place we lov’d the best of all, / Was call’d “My Lady’s Bow’r” ’ (Bowen, p. 339).
18.899: Winds that blow from the south See note at 8.183.
18.905–06: if we had even a bath itself See note at 4.463–64.
18.907: piano quietly
Piano: ‘As a musical direction: softly, quietly’ (OED).
18.909: wherever you be let your wind go free
The first line of a comic epitaph that continues, ‘For holding my wind was the death of me’ (Victory Pomeranz, ‘More Trivia Ulysseana’, p. 94).
18.912: porkbutchers See note at 4.46.
18.913: smuts
Smut: ‘Soot or sooty matter’ (OED).
18.918: skeeting
To skeet: to move quickly (OED).
18.919: sierra nevada
The Sierra Nevada: a mountain range along the southern coast of Spain, mostly in Granada and Almería provinces (EB11).
18.930: Findon haddy See note at 15.502–03.
18.936: licking and lecking
To leck: variant of leak, to urinate (OED, s.vv. leck; leak); alternatively, lecken (German): to lick (suggested by Harald Beck).
18.941: plum and apple
Plum and apple: any jam (Partridge).
18.941–42: the London and Newcastle Williams and Woods
Two separate firms. The London and Newcastle Tea Company had four branches in Dublin (Thom’s, p. 2084) and its headquarters was in Newcastle upon Tyne. Williams & Woods: an Irish confectionery and jam producer, 205–206 Great Britain (now Parnell) Street (pp. 1434, 2040).
18.944: Buckleys See note at 4.45.
18.945: scrag of mutton
Scrag: ‘The lean and inferior end of a neck of mutton’ (OED).
18.945: pluck
See note at 13.24.
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1287
18.947: Mrs Fleming See note at 6.17.
18.948: the furry glen or the strawberry beds
The Furry (or Furze) Glen lies at the south-western corner of Phoenix Park. It is ‘a deep hollow lined on either side with furze bushes and unnumerable hawthorn trees’ (Chart, Story of Dublin, p. 314). Strawberry Beds is a village just to the west of Phoenix Park. ‘The fields are almost vivid in their bright, living green, and the foliage is nearly as gay as its hues’ (p. 315).
18.952: ruck of Mary Ann coalboxes
That is, a crowd of Dublin women dressed up for an outing. Ruck: a crowd (OED). In context, coalbox is a bonnet, after the expression coal-scuttle bonnet, ‘a woman’s bonnet resembling an inverted coal scuttle, usually having a wide projecting brim covering the top and sides of the face’ (OED, s.v. coal scuttle; with thanks to Harald Beck). There might be a joke on coalbox here since ruck is also a ‘particular measure or quantity of coal’ (OED).
18.953: Whit Monday is a cursed day too no wonder that bee bit him
‘Whitsuntide has always been considered by the Irish as a very fatal and unlucky time’ (Lady Wilde, Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland, p. 108). For Whitsunday and the bee, see note at 4.483–84. In some parts of Ireland, the bad luck extends to Whitmonday (William Huth, JJON).
18.955: Bray
See note at 1.181.
18.956: steeplechase for the gold cup
The Ascot Gold Cup (see note at 5.532) is not a steeplechase, which is a race in which the horses leap over obstacles (OED).
18.965: Burke out of the City Arms hotel
See note at 12.504 for Andrew ‘Pisser’ Burke and note at 8.716 for the City Arms Hotel.
18.968–69: Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion
See note at 10.606 for Sweets of Sin. See note at 17.2260 for the phrase ‘gentleman of fashion’.
18.969: Mr de Kock See note at 4.358.
18.972: that feather all blowy and tossed on me
In context, this means that the feather was being blown about unpleasantly and uncontrollably, thereby annoying Molly (with thanks to Ruth Frehner). In Hiberno-English, the preposition on can function as a ‘dative of disadvantage’, ‘which covers a range of detrimental relationships’ (Jeffrey Kallen, Irish English Volume 2: The Republic of Ireland, p. 173).
18.972–73: annoying and provoking
Joyce took this phrase from Queen Victoria’s published diary, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868): ‘We heard, to our great distress, that we had only gone 58 miles [93 km] since eight o’clock last night. How annoying and provoking this is!’ (p. 3; Crowley, ‘The Queen is Not a Subject’, pp. 201–02; NLI II.i.2 f. 11v).
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18.973–74: sardines and the bream in Catalan bay
‘There is also a small barrack for a detachment at Catalan Bay, a small village on the eastern side of the Rock, ensconced in a sandy bay, and occupied principally by fishermen of Genoese origin’ (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 34).
18.975: old Luigi
One of the Genoese fishermen; see the previous note.
18.979: I never brought a bit of salt in
Bringing salt into a new home is supposedly auspicious (Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. House, moving).
18.985: lake of Como
Lake Como: ‘one of the most celebrated lakes in Lombardy, Northern Italy. [. . .] Its beauties have been sung by Virgil and Claudian, while the two Plinys are among the celebrities associated with the lake. The shores are bordered by splendid villas’ (EB11, s.v. Como, Lake).
18.987–88: will you be my man will you carry my can
‘A singular child’s play, descending from a time when such a feudal system was in force, is still practiced in Dublin, parts of Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland. One child places his hands together, another takes them between his [. . .] and holding them firmly, asks: “Will you be my man?” The other answers: “I will”. “Will you carry my can?” “I will”. “Will you dig my grave?” “I will” ’ (George Sigerson, History of the Land Tenures and Land Classes of Ireland, pp. 92–93 n.; Harald Beck, JJON).
18.988–89: leather medal with a putty rim Leather medal: a booby prize (Brewer’s).
18.992: Lloyds Weekly news
Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper: founded in 1842 and ‘one of the most successful newspapers of the Victorian period and the first of the cheap Sunday newspapers aimed at the working class. By 1850 the paper was selling 49,000 copies a week. The politics of the paper were Liberal to radical, though not as extreme as those of a number of its competitors’ (ODNB, s.v. Edward Lloyd).
18.1005: to learn to take photographs on account of his grandfather See note at 17.1876–77.
18.1006: Skerrys academy
George E. Skerry & Co.: shorthand, typewriting, and commercial college, 10 Harcourt Street (Thom’s, p. 1513). Skerry’s also had a branch school at 76 St Stephen’s Green South (p. 1597). According to their advertisement in the 16 June 1904 Evening Telegraph: ‘The most successful coaching establishment in Ireland for Civil Service and Bank Examinations’ (p. 4, col. c).
18.1006: like me getting all 1s at school
That is, marks of only one out of ten; one being the lowest possible mark. This is probably Molly exaggerating the fact that she received poor marks, rather than an accurate representation of her report cards. In the early nineteenth century, the British government established regimental schools for the children of soldiers and, by the end of the century,
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1289 these were supplemented by a variety of denominational schools (Anja Kellermann, A New New English, p. 35). The 1883 Gibraltar Directory lists six schools on the peninsula (p. 141).
18.1008–09: the way he plots and plans everything out Recalls the first line of the Odyssey; see note at 14.134.
18.1012: doing the loglady
That is, being stiff and inert, like a log (with thanks to Harald Beck).
18.1014: gimcrack statue
Gimcrack: ‘showy but unsubstantial’ (OED). See notes at 17.1428 and 18.1350–51 for this statue.
18.1016: teem
To teem: ‘To drain the water off ’ (OED).
18.1023–24: Tom Devans See note at 10.1196.
18.1024: Murray girls
A John Murray (b. c.1840) lived at 79 Eccles Street (Thom’s, p. 1482), across the street from the Blooms’ house. According to both the 1901 and 1911 censuses, he was the only occupant of the house.
18.1026: Nelson street
Nelson Street runs parallel to Dorset Street and intersects Eccles Street.
18.1031: I oughtnt to have stitched it and it on her it brings a parting
After the superstition that mending an article of clothing while it is still being worn will lead to some kind of misfortune for the person wearing that item (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. Clothes: mending while wearing).
18.1032: last plumpudding too split in 2 halves
After the superstition that a loaf of bread (or cake or pudding) breaking in halves is a bad omen (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. bread: loaf, cake, etc. breaks).
18.1034: pan calling the kettle blackbottom
After the proverbial expression ‘the pot calling the kettle black’. The earliest entry in ODEP is similar to Molly’s line, from the Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew (1700): ‘ “The Pot calls the kettle black A– ”, when one accuses another of what he is as Deep in himself.’
18.1038: the Only Way in the Theatre royal
The Only Way: a stage version of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859), written by the Irish clerics Reverend Freeman Crofts Wills (c.1849–1913) and Canon Frederick Langbridge, at the request of John Martin-Harvey (see note at 13.417). The phenomenal success of the production helped secure Martin-Harvey’s fame and career (ODNB, s.v. Martin-Harvey). The production debuted at the London Lyceum and its Dublin premiere at the Theatre Royal (see note at 11.623–24) was on 9 October 1899 (Freeman’s Journal, 7 Oct. 1899, p. 4, col. b).
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1290 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1038: out of that See note at 3.353.
18.1041–42: at the Gaiety for Beerbohm Tree in Trilby
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853–1917): English actor and theatre manager. In October 1895, he performed in Dublin at the Gaiety (see note at 6.188) in a touring production of Trilby, based on the novel of the same name (see note at 15.2721). This production was very well received and enjoyed full houses for the duration of its two-week run (Freeman’s Journal, 14 Oct. 1895, p. 5, col. g). The play was staged again in Dublin in 1900, but this was less popular than the 1895 production (Stephen Watt, Joyce, O’Casey, and the Irish Popular Theater, p. 103).
18.1045: Switzers window
Switzer’s & Co., Ltd.: department store and draper, silk mercer, milliner, dressmaker, ladies’ outfitter, and furniture dealer, 88–93 Grafton Street, with tailors at 43–45 Wicklow Street and 1–5 Clarendon Street (Thom’s, p. 1507). The shop catered to the upper classes (D. A. Levistone Cooney, ‘Switzer’s of Grafton Street’, pp. 160–61). In 1991, Brown Thomas (see note at 8.620) acquired Switzer’s and relocated into its former premises on Grafton Street (p. 164).
18.1047: the Broadstone See note at 5.117.
18.1048: to dance attendance
To dance attendance: ‘to wait (upon a person) with assiduous attention and ready obsequiousness’ (OED).
18.1049: down with the mumps
In ‘Hades’, Bloom thought that Milly’s only experience with serious, childhood infectious disease involved measles (6.123).
18.1052: Conny Connolly
Connie Connolly was the sister of Albrecht and Vincent Connolly, classmates of James Joyce’s from Belvedere College (Ellmann, p. 365).
18.1055: Martin Harvey See note at 13.417.
18.1056: it must be real love if a man gives up his life for her
Molly refers to the plot of The Only Way (see note at 18.1038), based on Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, in which the hero, Sydney Carton, sacrifices his life so that his beloved’s husband can live.
18.1066–67: theres no use going to the fair
Going to the fair: taunting, teasing (Dent). Joyce uses this expression in Stephen Hero: ‘Simon, said Mrs Daedalus, you always go to the fair with the story. Can’t you be reason able?’ (p. 216).
18.1067: like a fishwoman
Presumably this means the same thing as ‘like a fish-wife’, in a harsh or scolding manner (Brewer’s).
18.1068: half a stone
That is, 7 lbs or 3.18 kg.
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1291
18.1068: Mrs Joe Gallaher
See note at 15.565 for Mrs Gallaher. The incident Molly remembers was based on a real event, but it was Mrs Gallaher’s sister, Mrs Clinch (see note at 13.867), who rode with Friery (Ellmann, p. 46 n.).
18.1069: trottingmatches See note at 5.298.
18.1070: Friery the solicitor
Christopher Friery (1859–1926): solicitor, offices at 52 Rutland Square; he served as coroner for the northern district of County Dublin (Thom’s, pp. 921, 1139, 1581). He appears in Gogarty’s semi-fictional memoir Tumbling in the Hay, where he is called ‘Friery, the Coroner’ (p. 97, et passim).
18.1075: not to leave knives crossed
After the superstition that it is bad luck to cross knives at a table (Edwin and Mona Radford, Encyclopedia of Superstitions, s.v. crossed things).
18.1086–87: the night he walked home with a dog See 16.1607–10.
18.1090: one thing laughing at the other
One thing laughing at another: ‘an ill-assorted collection of things’; the expression dates back to the mid-nineteenth century (Harald Beck, JJON) .
18.1091: the intermediate See note at 17.551–52.
18.1111: box that Michael Gunn gave him See note at 11.1050.
18.1111–12: Mrs Kendal and her husband at the Gaiety
Mr and Mrs William Hunter Kendal: the stage names of actors William Hunter Grimston (1843–1917) and his wife, born Margaret (Madge) Brunton Robertson (1849–1935). ‘Kendal always acted opposite his wife and their careers became inseparable’ (Igoe, p. 163). They appeared in several productions at the Gaiety from the 1870s onwards.
18.1113: Drimmies
Because The Wife of Scarli premiered in Dublin on 22 October 1897 (see note at 18.1117–18), Bloom’s tenure at Drimmie’s (see note at 13.845) can be dated to c.1896–97, but beyond this it is impossible to precisely fix the dates of his tenure there.
18.1113–14: gentleman of fashion. . . with his glasses
See 11.1059–60 and see also 17.2138. See note at 17.2260 for the phrase ‘gentleman of fashion’.
18.1115: Spinoza and his soul thats dead
Spinoza (see note at 11.1058) argued against the existence of an immortal soul. In Appendix 2 of his Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being, he writes: ‘As man is a created finite thing, &c., it necessarily follows that what he has of Thought, and what we call the Soul, is a mode of the attribute which we call Thought, and that nothing else except this mode belongs to his essence: so much so that when this mode comes to naught, the soul perishes also’ (p. 157).
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18.1117: to the last tag
Tag: the final line of a play (OED).
18.1117–18: wife of Scarli
The Wife of Scarli (1897): English adaptation, by G. A. Greene, of the Italian play Tristi Amori (Sorrowful Loves) by Giuseppe Giacosa. First performed in Dublin at the Gaiety on 22 October 1897. The play presents an adulterous wife—the eponymous wife of Scarli—and her lover sympathetically (Evening Herald, 13 Oct. 1897, p. 1, col. a). Of the London production, The Era praised Olga Nethersole, the actress who played Emma Scarli: ‘She played the part of Emma with sympathetic charm. She was truly womanly, and won the hearts and drew the tears of her audience’ (11 Sep. 1897, p. 11, col. c).
18.1129: sweets of sin See note at 10.606.
18.1135: suckin
Suck-in: a ‘disappointing or deceptive incident, event, or result’ (Partridge).
18.1137: commode See note at 4.383.
18.1141: kissing comfits See note at 8.3–4.
18.1141: scout
To scout: variant of scoot, ‘to eject liquid forcibly; to squirt; to flow or gush forth’ (EDD).
18.1143: bubbles on it for a wad of money
After the superstition that the appearance of bubbles on liquids such as coffee and tea foretells an improvement in finances (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. tea, bubbles on). Applying this superstition to bubbles on urine was common amongst Dublin schoolchildren (with thanks to Gerry O’Flaherty).
18.1148: the jersey lily See note at 18.481–82.
18.1148: O how the waters come down at Lahore
After the opening lines of Robert Southey’s (1774–1843) poem ‘The Cataract of Lodore; Described in Rhymes for the Nursery’ (1823): ‘ “How does the water / Come down at Lodore?” / My little boy ask’d me’ / Thus, once on a time; / And moreover he task’d me / To tell him in rhyme’ (Poems, p. 9). Lodore is a waterfall in England’s Lake District; Lahore is the capital of Punjab province (EB11), which is in modern-day Pakistan.
18.1151: Whit Monday See note at 4.483–84.
18.1153: Floey
See note at 6.1013.
18.1153–54: Dr Collins for womens diseases on Pembroke road
John Rupert Collins (c.1878–1966), MB, BS: 65 Pembroke Road (Thom’s, pp. 870, 1835).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1293
18.1155–56: rich ones off Stephens green
St Stephen’s Green is surrounded by houses built by the ‘Irish aristocracy during their period of power. Each was inspired by a desire to excel his fellows in the size and splendour of his mansion’ (Chart, Story of Dublin, p. 238).
18.1157: cochinchina
Cochin-China, a former French colonial region (1862–1948), which included Saigon and the Mekong delta, now part of southern Vietnam; ‘hence, short for Cochin-China fowl, a breed of poultry from Cochin-China’ (OED).
18.1161: smathered
To smather (Hiberno-English): to hit or daub (Dolan).
18.1171–72: I wouldnt trust him too far to give me chloroform
Chloroform was widely used as an anaesthetic in the second half of the nineteenth century (EB11, s.vv. anaesthesia; chloroform). In 1864, Oscar Wilde’s father William Wilde (surgeon and polymath, 1815–76) was accused by one of his long-term patients, Mary Travers, of raping her while she was under the influence of chloroform. Eventually Travers sued Wilde’s wife Speranza (see note at 12.539) for alleging that she was making unfounded allegations. Ultimately, the jury sided with Travers and upheld the charge of libel, but awarded her only a farthing in damages (Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, pp. 13–15; Plock, Joyce, Medicine, and Modernity, p. 138).
18.1174: strap
Strap: ‘A bold forward girl or woman’ (PWJ, p. 336).
18.1176: his mad crazy letters
In December 1909, Joyce and Nora wrote a remarkable series of erotic and highly explicit letters to one another when Joyce was in Dublin and Nora in Trieste (Brenda Maddox, Nora, pp. 103–6). These are reproduced in Selected Letters (pp. 180–92). The first letter in the sequence, from 1 December 1909, remains unpublished and was thought missing until it was sold at auction in 2004 (Peter Selley, Formerly the Property of Stanislaus Joyce, pp. 48–50). While Nora’s letters have not survived, it is clear from what Joyce writes that she responded in kind.
18.1177–78: a thing of beauty and of joy for ever See note at 15.2254–55.
18.1182–83: the first night ever . . . Rehoboth terrace
See note at 17.2083 for Rehoboth Terrace and note at 11.725 for the problem of the ‘first night’.
18.1184–85: my being jewess looking after my mother See note at 18.848.
18.1185–86: half sloothering smile
To sloother (Hiberno-English): to flatter, cajole, coax (Dolan, s.v. sluther).
18.1186: the Doyles See note at 8.274.
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1294 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1187: blather
Blather: babble, nonsense (OED).
18.1187–88: home rule and the land league
Along with Home Rule, land reform was the key issue of Irish politics in the late nineteenth century. The Irish National Land League was founded in October 1878 by Michael Davitt (see note at 15.4684).
18.1188: strool
Strool (Scottish dialect): a stream of liquid (OED).
18.1189: Huguenots
That is, Les Huguenots; see note at 8.623–24.
18.1189: O beau pays de la Touraine
French, ‘O lovely land of Touraine’; the first aria from Act II of Meyerbeer’s opera Les Huguenots (see note at 8.623–24). Molly’s version would presumably only include the first section, which lasts about four minutes; the second part requires a chorus. This aria is demanding on the singer and requires a high virtuosic ability to roll off intricate passage work without the slightest sign of strain (with thanks to Vincent Deane).
18.1192: Brighton square
Brighton Square (actually a triangle): an area in Rathgar, a suburb about 5 km south of the centre of Dublin. It seems that Molly and her father must have lived there briefly before moving to Rehoboth Terrace, Dolphin’s Barn, which is where she lived before she married Bloom. In 1882, James Joyce was born at his family’s home at 41 Brighton Square (Ellmann, p. 21).
18.1194: Albion milk and sulphur soap
Albion milk and sulphur soap: a brand of bath soap, made in London at 76 New Oxford Street; advertised as ‘The glory of woman—the pride of man’ (The Era, Jan. 1885, p. 102). Sulphur soap: ‘a medicinal soap containing elemental sulphur for use in treating skin complaints’ (OED, s.v. sulphur).
18.1196: alnight sitting
That is, a session of Parliament that runs through the night. For example, ‘The House of Commons, after its all-night sitting, was very dull and listless this afternoon’ (Irish Times, 3 Aug. 1916, p. 4, col. f). Joyce clearly wrote ‘alnight’ (Rosenbach f. 22).
18.1199: hard bolster
Bolster: a tubular pillow, usually stuffed with something firm, which extends from one side of the head of a bed to the other (OED).
18.1201–02: that Indian god he took me to show . . . in Kildare street
The statue is of Buddha; see note at 5.328. The posture Molly describes, breathing with hand on nose, is a Hindu practice called Pranyam (S. Krishnamoorthy Aithal, ‘Allusions to the Buddha in Ulysses’, p. 511).
18.1203–04: bigger religion than the jews and Our Lords both put together
This is only true if all non-western religions are amalgamated. The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1906 gives the following estimates from a ‘competent authority’: 477,080,158 Christians; 7,186,000 Jews; 147,900,000 Buddhists; 190,000,000 Hindus; 256,000,000
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1295 ancestor worshippers and Confucians; 176,834,372 Muslims; 43,000,000 Taoists; 14,000,000 Shintoists; and 117,681,669 Polytheists (s.v. Religious statistics, p. 343).
18.1207: old press See note at 17.1522.
18.1213: old Cohen
The Gibraltar Directory 1883 lists two Cohens: Abraham S. Cohen, in Market Lane, and Dris (sic) Cohen in Waterport Street (p. 155). See also note at 9.718 for the Homeric reson ance to beds.
18.1214: Lord Napier
General Robert Cornelis Napier (1810–90): Commander-in-Chief of British forces in India from 1869 to 1875, and Governor of Gibraltar from 1876 to 1883 (EB11). Regarding Bloom’s thoughts on the bed’s provenance, see 4.61–62.
18.1216–17: Raymond terrace
The Blooms lived in Raymond Terrace in 1893; see note at 6.78.
18.1217: Ontario terrace
The Blooms lived at Ontario Terrace around 1897–98; see notes at 16.1609 and 17.860.
18.1217: Lombard street
The Blooms lived on Lombard Street West in 1892–93; see note at 6.829.
18.1217: Holles street
The Blooms lived on Holles Street during 1895–96; see notes at 11.493 and 17.860.
18.1218: his huguenots See note at 8.623–24.
18.1219: frogs march
Reference unknown; possibly an allusion to the ‘Soldier’s Chorus’ in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots (Bowen, p. 341). Frog’s march: carrying away a drunk, especially to a police station (Partridge).
18.1220: City Arms hotel
The Blooms lived at the City Arms Hotel from 1893 to 1894; see note at 8.716.
18.1220: worse and worse says Warden Daly
Possibly Reverend James Daly (1790–1864), Protestant Warden of Galway from 1810 to 1840, the last holder of that office. He succeeded his father who had held that office for 50 years (J. Fleetwood Berry, The Story of St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church, Galway, p. 74). According to his obituary, ‘[h]e was charitable to the poor [. . .] and was considered to be one of the most distinguished preachers in Ireland’ (Freeman’s Journal, 8 Jan. 1864, p. 3, col. b).
18.1223: Thoms
Bloom worked at Thom’s publishing firm in or around 1894; see note at 8.157.
18.1224: Helys
Bloom started work at Hely’s when he married Molly in 1888 (see note at 8.158); see also 17.2139 and note at 18.560–61.
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1296 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1224: Mr Cuffes
Bloom worked for Cuffe (see note at 6.392) at the cattle market from 1893 to 1894 (17.483–86). See also 17.2139.
18.1224: Drimmies
Bloom worked for Drimmie’s in 1896–97; see note at 13.845 and note at 18.1113.
18.1225: his old lottery tickets See note at 8.184–85.
18.1227: Sinner Fein See note at 8.458.
18.1228: little man
Arthur Griffith: see notes at 18.385 and 3.227.
18.1229: Coadys lane
Coady’s Lane runs off West Road at the North Strand Road. Coady’s Cottages are off Bessborough Avenue, which runs south-east off the North Strand (Thom’s, p. 1400).
18.1231–32: Georges church bells wait 3 quarters the hour 1 wait 2 oclock
Joyce does not give a specific time for ‘Penelope’ on either schema. On the Linati schema, ‘Ithaca’ is set at 1.00 am and so, by inference, ‘Penelope’ would be at 2.00. But on the Gilbert schema, ‘Ithaca’ is set at 2.00, thereby shifting ‘Penelope’ to 3.00. See note at 4.78 for the church and note at 4.546–48 for the bells.
18.1233: area
See note at 17.84.
18.1235: French letter See note at 9.1101.
18.1238: tucked up in bed . . . the Aristocrats Masterpiece
That is, Aristotle’s Masterpiece; see note at 10.586. Molly is probably referring to a picture that appears in some editions of Aristotle’s Masterpiece and is entitled ‘Position of the Embryos in a plural Conception’ (Stephen E. Soud, ‘Blood-Red Wombs and Monstrous Births’, p. 201).
18.1245: in Holles street
See notes at 11.493 and 17.860.
18.1246–48: naked the way the jews used when somebody dies . . . to be petted
An exaggeration of shib’ah (or shivah), the first phase of mourning in the Jewish tradition. During this week-long period, mourners refrain from wearing any adornments, deny themselves the comfort of sitting on anything other than the floor or bare earth, and give up sexual intercourse (New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia).
18.1248–49: I stood out enough for one time
To stand out: not to take part in a match, game, or dance (OED)—that is, ‘when I wouldnt let him lick me in Holles street one night’ (18.1245).
18.1251: wethen
Wethen (or whethen): a mild exclamation, probably a phonetic dialect spelling of ‘why then’ (EDD).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1297
18.1257: College races
The College Races: a series of track and field athletic events hosted annually by Trinity College in College Park. This was a major event on the calendar of high society Dublin. In 1904, they were held on 9 June (Irish Times, 9 June 1904, p. 5, col. d).
18.1257–58: Hornblower with the childs bonnet on top of his nob
See note at 5.555 for ‘Hornblower’ and note at 10.1264 for the bonnet. Nob: head (OED).
18.1258: let us into by the back way See note at 5.555–56.
18.1259: throwing his sheeps eyes See note at 15.2297.
18.1259: skirt duty
Skirt duty: either ‘eyeing the girls’ (Lester Berrey and Melvin Van den Bark, American Thesaurus of Slang, p. 813) or acting in a way that attracts men’s attention (OED). Either sense (or both) fits the context of Molly’s description of Bloom and the two women.
18.1263: reversed arms
Reversed arms: weapons carried with the butts slung or pointed upwards, contrary to normal practice (OED, s.v. reverse). From Henry Field’s Gibraltar: ‘walking near the barracks, I met a company with reversed arms bearing the body of a comrade to the grave’ (p. 46).
18.1264: L Boom See 16.1260.
18.1264–65: Tom Kernan that drunken little barrelly man . . . mens W C drunk See note at 10.513–14.
18.1266–67: the two Dedaluses and Fanny MCoys husband
Fanny McCoy’s husband is Charley (see note at 4.454). He did not attend Dignam’s funeral, nor did Stephen, but both are listed as having done so in the Evening Telegraph report, as seen in ‘Eumaeus’ (16.1259–61).
18.1267–68: a turn in her eye See note at 12.1497.
18.1270: dabbling on a rainy day
To dabble: ‘To move (with feet or hands, or the bill) in shallow water, liquid mud, etc., so as to cause some splashing; to play about in shallow water’ (OED).
18.1272: Jack Power keeping that barmaid
Bloom thought about this in ‘Hades’ (6.244–45).
18.1274–75: grey over the ears
Bloom noticed this in ‘Hades’ (6.242–43).
18.1281: unless he was insured See note at 12.764.
18.1281: teetotum
Teetotum (Hiberno-English): ‘A very little person’ (OED).
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1298 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1282–83: Bill Bailey wont you please come home
‘Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home’ (1902): a famous American ragtime song by Hughie Cannon (1877–1912) about a woman waiting in vain for her lover’s return (Lasser, America’s Songs II, p. 17).
18.1285: the Glencree dinner See note at 8.160.
18.1285: Ben Dollard base barreltone See note at 6.145. See also 17.2138.
18.1286: swallowtail
Swallow-tail: a swallow-tailed coat, that is a coat with a pair of pointed or tapering skirts (OED, s.vv. swallow-tail; swallow-tailed).
18.1287–88: his big Dolly face like a wellwhipped childs botty
Dolly: silly or foolish. Botty: baby-talk for a child’s bottom (both Partridge).
18.1289: preserved seats
That is, reserved seats. This joke was in wide circulation in the late nineteenth century; for example, from Stage Whispers by Charles Henry Ross (1881): ‘Which are the preserved seats? She meant the reserved seats of course’ (p. 35).
18.1290: trowlers That is, trousers.
18.1291: screwed See note at 11.621.
18.1291: singing the second verse first
This was a habit of John Joyce’s. In My Brother’s Keeper, Stanislaus Joyce writes that when his father performed ‘he would delight his friends in the audience by singing the second verse of a song before the first’ (p. 49).
18.1291: the old love is the new
After the title of the song ‘The Old Love And The New’ by Frederic H. Cowen (1852–1935), words by R. E. Francillon (1841–1919) (Harald Beck, JJON).
18.1292: so sweetly sang the maiden on the hawthorn bough
Slight misquotation from the song ‘The Old Love And The New’ (see the previous note): ‘So blithely sang the blackbird / On the hawthorn bough’ (ll. 1–2); ‘So blithely sang the maiden through the snow’ (l. 20) (Harald Beck, JJON).
18.1293: always on for flirtyfying
In A Portrait, Stephen was told: ‘Your father [. . .] was the boldest flirt in the city of Cork in his day’ (p. 94). See also 17.2138–39.
18.1293: Maritana See note at 5.563.
18.1293–94: Freddy Mayers
Frederick Mayer (1863–1919): general manager of Joseph Poole’s Myriorama opera company; see note at 18.40 (John Simpson, JJON).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1299
18.1294: Phoebe dearest
‘Phoebe Dearest, Tell O Tell Me’ by Claxson Bellamy and J. L. Hatton (1809–86) (Bowen, pp. 342–43).
18.1295: goodbye sweetheart sweetheart he always sang it See note at 11.320.
18.1297: O Maritana wildwood flower
A duet in Act III of Maritana (see note at 5.563), sung by the hero Don César and his wife Maritana. When the song begins, the Don (incorrectly) believes that Maritana is being unfaithful. The first verse: ‘Oh, Maritana, wildwood flow’r, / Did they but give thee a prouder name / To place thee in a kingly bower / And deck thee with gilded shame!’ (Bowen, p. 343).
18.1298: a bit too high for my register even transposed See note at 18.276–77.
18.1303: drapery
Drapery: the consciously artistic clothing of a human figure in sculpture, painting, or photography (OED).
18.1305–06: driving down to the Kingsbridge station with his father and mother
Kingsbridge Station (now Heuston Station) is the last stop on the Great Southern and Western railway, the main line between Dublin and Cork (Thom’s, p. 1083). Stephen and Simon’s departure from Dublin is described in A Portrait: ‘Stephen was once again seated beside his father in the corner of a railway carriage at Kingsbridge. He was travelling with his father by the night mail to Cork’ (p. 86). Joyce and his father went to Cork in 1894, when James was twelve, to sell the last of the family’s properties there in order to pay off Reuben J. Dodd (see note at 6.251).
18.1309: deathwatch too ticking in the wall
Deathwatch: ‘The popular name of various insects which make a noise like the ticking of a watch, supposed by the ignorant and superstitious to portend death’ (OED).
18.1311–12: lord Fauntleroy suit
The Lord Fauntleroy suit: an outfit modelled after that worn by the young protagonist of the popular novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924). It consisted of a velvet suit and knickerbockers and a shirt with a vandyke collar and cuffs made or trimmed with lace. This was popular (among parents) in the late nineteenth century (Kathryn McKelvey, Fashion Source Book, p. 190).
18.1312–13: when I saw him at Mat Dillons
See note at 6.697 for Mat Dillon, see note at 11.725 for the problem of the ‘first night’, and see 14.1359–78 for another description of the scene Molly remembers here.
18.1314: cards
Bloom envisioned Molly reading the cards that morning; see 5.155–56.
18.1315: union with a young stranger neither dark nor fair you met before
‘The first shuffle and division of the pack into three reveals three hearts—king, knave, and seven—which indicates that the lady whom the queen represents has a firm man friend, who is neither fair nor dark’ (P. R. S. Foli, Fortune-Telling by Cards, p. 38; Steven Bond and Ronan Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
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1300 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1316–17: my face was turned the other way
‘Now, from the queen of hearts we will proceed to count seven, taking into consideration the way the lady’s face is turned. It is to the left, consequently the seventh card from her is the queen of spades, the seventh from which is the king of hearts, and the seventh again is the ten of hearts’ (Foli, Fortune-Telling, p. 39; Bond and Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
18.1317–18: 10 of spades for a journey by land
‘Ten [of spades]: a journey by land’ (Foli, Fortune-Telling, p. 37; Bond and Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
18.1318: there was a letter on its way
‘The ace of clubs shows that a letter is on its way’ (Foli, Fortune-Telling, p. 46; Bond and Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
18.1318–19: scandals too the 3 queens
‘Three queens together generally betoken some mischief or scandal, but as they are guarded by kings it will probably not amount to much’ (Foli, Fortune-Telling, p. 39; Bond and Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
18.1319: 8 of diamonds for a rise in society
‘Eight [of Diamonds]: Society’ (Foli, Fortune-Telling, p. 44; Bond and Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
18.1320: 2 red 8s for new garments
‘[T]wo red eights promise new garments to the inquirer’ (Foli, Fortune-Telling, p. 23; Bond and Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
18.1324–25: I thought he was a poet like lord Byron See note at 18.209.
18.1328: hes 23 or 24
Stephen was born in 1882 (although the date is unspecified), so he is either twenty-one or twenty-two.
18.1330: Eppss cocoa See note at 16.1621.
18.1332–33: I hope hes not a professor like Goodwin See notes at 4.291 and 8.185–86. See also 17.2134.
18.1335: where softly sighs of love the light guitar
From ‘In Old Madrid’ (see note at 11.733): ‘Long years ago in old Madrid, / Where softly sighs of love the light guitar, / Two sparkling eyes a lattice hid, / Two eyes as darkly bright as love’s own star!’ (Bauerle, pp. 407–13).
18.1337: Tarifa
Tarifa: a minor seaport in the Cádiz province of Spain and the southernmost city of mainland Europe. It lies about 8 km away from Europa Point and is well within range of the lighthouse there (EB11).
18.1338–39: two glancing eyes a lattice hid
From ‘In Old Madrid’; see note at 18.1335. In the song, the eyes are ‘sparkling’, not ‘glancing’.
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1301
18.1339–40: two eyes as darkly bright as loves own star From ‘In Old Madrid’; see note at 18.1335.
18.1342: Billy Prescotts ad
See note at 5.460 for William Prescott and note at 8.1059 for the ad.
18.1343: Keyess ad See note at 7.25.
18.1343: Tom the Devils ad
Presumably not one of Bloom’s clients. Tom the Devil was the nickname given to a sergeant in the North Cork Militia (see note at 7.359) in the rebellion of 1798; he was infamous for devising cruel tortures: ‘Moistened gunpowder was frequently rubbed into the hair cut close, and then set on fire’ (Edward Hay, History of the Irish Insurrection of 1798, p. 106).
18.1345: ruck
See note at 8.142.
18.1346: Margate strand
Margate Strand: a section of beach on the eastern side of the isthmus called the North Front, which joins Gibraltar to mainland Spain. It was named after the English seaside resort (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 48; Field, Gibraltar, p. 134).
18.1350–51: curly head and his shoulders his finger up for you to listen
The statue of Narcissus that Bloom purchased (see note at 17.1428). Based on Molly’s description, this statue can be identified as a reproduction of a bronze statue of Narcissus unearthed from Pompeii in 1862 (Ralph W. Rader, ‘Why Stephen’s Hand Hurts’, p. 444 n. 2).
18.1356: hed be so clean
On the contrary; see 17.238-39.
18.1360: if the wishcard comes out
The ‘wish card’ is the nine of hearts: ‘the sign of riches, and of high social position accompanied by influence and esteem. It may be affected by the neighbourhood of bad cards’ (Foli, Fortune-Telling, p. 9; Bond and Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
18.1383: my uncle John has a thing long
‘My man John had a Thing that was Long’ by John Eccles (c.1688–1735): a lewd song that was popular in Victorian glee clubs and ‘sung like a canon by at least three voices simultaneously’ (Frederick William Dame, ‘The Part(ed) Song’, pp. 48–49).
18.1384: corner of Marrowbone lane
Marrowbone Lane is in south-western Dublin and runs from Thomas Court to Cork Street (Thom’s, p. 1539) in Dolphin’s Barn, near where Molly lived with her father.
18.1390: those houses round behind Irish street
There was no Irish Street in either Gibraltar or Dublin. However, there is an ‘Irish Town’ in both Dublin and Gibraltar, and context is unclear as to which one Molly has in mind. See note at 6.34 for the Irishtown in Dublin. In Gibraltar, Irish Town is the name of one of the two main streets in the city’s commercial district; see note at 18.763.
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1302 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1394: coronado
Coronado (Spanish): crowned or tonsured; Molly means cornudo, horned or cuckolded.
18.1396: the wife in Fair Tyrants See note at 10.601.
18.1402: throw my hat at him See note at 13.478.
18.1406: didnt he kiss our halldoor
Bloom’s habit of kissing the door follows from the Jewish custom of kissing the mezuzah (see note at 13.1157–58), even though there is no mezuzah on the threshold of 7 Eccles Street.
18.1413: those wildlooking gypsies
In the early twentieth century, many middle-class Irish people viewed the Traveller communities with suspicion, if not outright racist prejudice. In the early twentieth century, they were seen as ‘a doomed anachronism, whose habits allegedly defied modern notions of personal hygiene and market rationality’ (Eugenio F. Biagini, ‘Minorities’, p. 451).
18.1414: Rathfarnham
Rathfarnham: a parish and village in Uppercross and Rathdown baronies, County Dublin, 6.5 km south of the centre of Dublin.
18.1414–16: Bloomfield laundry . . . model laundry
The Bloomfield Steam Laundry Co. owned a model laundry in Edmondstown, Rathfarnham (Thom’s, p. 1755). This was a commercial laundry, as opposed to a charitable one (for which see note at 15.402) (Helen Saunders, ‘ “Dirty Cleans”: Laundry in Ulysses’, p. 117).
18.1416–17: sending me back over and over . . . odd stockings
‘Disputes of the kind Molly complains of were not uncommon: one man took a laundry to court, in 1906, for failing to return a tweed suit’ (Saunders, ‘ “Dirty Cleans”: Laundry in Ulysses’, p. 122).
18.1420: that KC lives up somewhere this way
In 1904, most King’s Counsel lived in fashionable parts of the south side of Dublin like Fitzwilliam Square and Merrion Square. Thom’s lists three King’s Counsel with addresses in Mountjoy Square (on the north side), about 800 metres distant from the Blooms: Timothy Michael Healy (see note at 7.800), MP, 1 Mountjoy Square; Michael C. Macinerney, 22 Mountjoy Square; and Denis B. Sullivan, 56 Mountjoy Square (all Thom’s, pp. 903, 1552).
18.1420: Hardwicke lane
Hardwicke Lane is a small side alley that connects Upper Dorset Street to Hardwicke Street, just south of St George’s Church and about 200 metres from the Blooms’ house (Thom’s, p. 1402).
18.1421–22: the boxing match See note at 8.800–01.
18.1425–26: half of those sailors are rotten again with disease See note at 5.72.
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1303
18.1426: out of that See note at 3.353.
18.1426: for the love of Mike
For the love of Mike: ‘For goodness’ sake!’ (Partridge).
18.1427: the winds that waft my sighs to thee
The song ‘The Winds That Waft My Sighs to Thee’ (1856): words by Henry W. Challis and music by William V. Wallace (Irish composer, 1812–65), who also composed the music to Maritana, for which see note at 5.563 (Bowen, p. 345).
18.1428: Don Poldo de la Flora
An approximate translation of Bloom’s name into Spanish; see note at 18.774.
18.1429–30: dark man in some perplexity
‘The business appears again, and a dark man seems to be in some perplexity’ (Foli, Fortune- Telling, p. 40; Bond and Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
18.1430: between 2 7s too in prison
‘A court card placed between two cards of the same grade—for instance, two nines, two sevens, &c., shows that the one represented by that card is threatened by the clutches of the law, and may be lodged at His Majesty’s expense’ (Foli, Fortune-Telling, p. 23; Bond and Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards’).
18.1431: slooching
Combines slouching and mooching; mooching: sneaking or idling about (Partridge).
18.1446: we came together when I was watching the two dogs See 6.77–81 for Bloom’s recollection of this.
18.1453–54: nightwalkers and pickpockets
Night-walker: ‘a nocturnal thief or miscreant’ (OED).
18.1462: arrah
See note at 12.141.
18.1463–64: Delapaz Delagracia
The Gibraltar Directory 1896 lists a John de la Paz on Cumberland Place, and a Joseph de Gracia on Victualling Office Lane (pp. 109, 112). There is no one of either name in the Gibraltar Directory 1883.
18.1464–65: father Vilaplana of Santa Maria
The Reverend Ildefonso Vilaplana was a priest at the Cathedral Church of Santa Maria on Gibraltar (see note at 18.645) between 1910 and 1926 (Igoe, p. 299).
18.1465–66: Rosales y OReilly in the Calle las Siete Revueltas
Calle de las Siete Revueltas (Spanish): ‘Street of the Seven Turns’; its English name is City Mill Lane. The 1901 census of Gibraltar lists John Rosales and James O’Reilly living in House 29, City Mill Lane (a ‘House’ in this context is a courtyard-style building with small flats and communal toilet facilities) (Igoe, pp. 263–64).
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1304 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1466: Pisimbo
The 1901 census of Gibraltar lists Manuel Eulogio Pesimbo living at 8 Parody’s Passage (Igoe, pp. 247, 352).
18.1466: Mrs Opisso in Governor street
Mrs Catherine Opisso: milliner and dress maker, Governor’s Street (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 112).
18.1468: Paradise ramp
Paradise Ramp: the English name for Escalera de Cardona (Stairway of Cardona), a street that ascends the Rock of Gibraltar (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 34).
18.1468: Bedlam ramp
Bedlam Ramp: another name for Witham’s Ramp, which runs up the western slope of the Rock of Gibraltar to the lunatic asylum (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 34).
18.1468: Rodgers ramp
Rodger’s Ramp: the English name for Los Espinillos, which runs up the western slope of the Rock of Gibraltar (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 34).
18.1469: Crutchetts ramp
Crutchett’s Ramp: also known as ‘Portuguese Town’, is the English name for La Calera, another stairway street that runs up the western slope of the Rock of Gibraltar (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 34).
18.1469: devils gap steps
The Devil’s Gap: the English name for Escalera del Monte (Stairway of the Mountain), which runs from the south-western end of the town to Devil’s Bellows, a ravine dividing the Rock of Gibraltar from the plateau of Windmill Hill Flats (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 34).
18.1470: harumscarum
Harum-scarum: a reckless, giddy person (OED).
18.1471–72: como esta usted muy bien gracias y usted
Como esta usted muy bien gracias y usted (Spanish): ‘How are you?’ ‘Very well, thank you. And yourself?’
18.1474: Mrs Rubio See note at 18.748.
18.1475: Valera
Juan Valera y Alcalá Galiano (1824–1905): Spanish diplomat and man of letters. His best- known work is the 1874 novel Pepita Jiménez, which was translated into English in 1886 and adapted into an opera in 1896 (EB11).
18.1475: questions in it all upside down the two ways
In Spanish, exclamations and questions begin with inverted punctuation marks and conclude with marks right side up.
18.1479–80: so long as I didnt do it on the knife for bad luck
Perhaps after the superstition that it is bad luck to use a knife instead of a spoon for stirring (Opie and Tatem, Dictionary of Superstitions, s.v. knife, stirring with).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1305
18.1482: Abrines
R. & J. Abrines; ‘Wines, Spirits, Ales, Groceries & Provisions Stores, Contractors to Her Majesty’s Government’, 27 Waterport Street, with three branches (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 105).
18.1483: criada
Criada (Spanish): maidservant.
18.1483: room looks all right since I changed it See note at 17.1281.
18.1484–85: not knowing me from Adam
Not to know (someone) from Adam: ‘not to know or recognize (a person) (at all); to be unacquainted with’ (OED, s.v. Adam).
18.1486–87: dos huevos estrellados senor
Dos huevos estrellados señor (Spanish): ‘two fried eggs, sir’ (as with the apostrophes, Joyce omitted the tilde).
18.1493: gesabo
See note at 13.990 where Joyce uses a different (but also non-standard) spelling.
18.1495: red slippers like those Turks See 13.1240–41.
18.1497: Walpoles
Walpole Brothers Ltd: Irish linen & damask manufacturers, house furnishing linen drapers, hosiers, outfitters, 8–10 Suffolk Street; with branches in London (Kensington and Knightsbridge), Belfast, and Waringstown (Thom’s, p. 1600).
18.1498–99: Im sick of Cohens old bed See note at 18.1213.
18.1499: over to the markets
The Dublin Corporation Fruit, Vegetable, and Fish Market; see note at 12.87.
18.1502: Mamy Dillon See note at 13.1106–07.
18.1505: moustachecup she gave him See note at 4.283–84.
18.1507: mi fa pieta Masetto
Mi fa pieta Masetto (Italian): ‘I’m sorry for Masetto’; one of Zerlina’s lines from Là ci darem la mano; see note at 4.314.
18.1508: presto non son piu forte
Presto non son piu forte (Italian): ‘All at once my strength is failing’; another of Zerlina’s lines from Là ci darem la mano; see note at 4.314.
18.1509: out of that See note at 3.353.
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1306 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1510: micky
See note at 15.1272.
18.1512: handrunning
Hand-running: consecutively (OED).
18.1516–17: adulteress as the thing in the gallery said See note at 18.1117–18.
18.1517–18: in this vale of tears
After Psalm 83:67 (84:5–6 in the King James): ‘Blessed is the man whose help is from thee: in his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps, in the vale of tears, in the place which he hath set’; and used as a stock phrase since.
18.1521: open my drawers See note at 15.2402–03.
18.1535: plum and apple See note at 18.941.
18.1541–42: well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus
Angelus: ‘a short practice of devotion in honour of the Incarnation repeated three times each day, morning, noon, and evening, at the sound of the bell’ (Catholic Encyclopedia). In this case, the nuns would be at the Dominican Convent of Our Lady of Sion, 18–21 Eccles Street (Thom’s, p. 1482). The morning angelus is at 6:00 am and the evening at 6:00 pm.
18.1543: an odd priest or two for his night office
Night office: ‘a part of the canonical office or monastic cycle of prayer traditionally performed during the night’ (OED, s.v. night); see also note at 10.184.
18.1548: Lambes
Alicia Lambe: fruiterer and florist, 33 Upper Sackville (O’Connell) Street (Thom’s, p. 1925).
18.1548: Findlaters See note at 4.128.
18.1550: Fridays an unlucky day See note at 17.17.
18.1553–54: shall I wear a white rose See note at 18.768.
18.1554: fairy cakes
Fairy cake: ‘a small individual sponge cake, typically covered with icing or other decoration’ (OED).
18.1554: Liptons
Lipton’s: tea, wine, spirit, and provision merchants, 59–61 Dame Street; 1–2 Eustace Street; 23 Merchants’ Quay; 58 Henry Street; 4 Upper Baggot Street, and 105 Upper George’s Street, Kingstown, with stores in London, Glasgow, and Liverpool (Thom’s, p. 1931); founded by Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton (see note at 12.188–89).
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1307
18.1566: go and wash the cobbles off
Cobble: ‘Coal of the size of small cobble stones’ (OED); these would be used primarily for kitchen fires (Harald Beck, JJON).
18.1571–72: the sun shines for you he said
According to Ellmann, this line was spoken in Italian (Il sole s’è levato per Lei, The sun rises for you) to Nora Joyce by Roberto Prezioso, editor of the Italian newspaper Piccolo della Sera, and a good friend of the Joyces in Trieste (p. 316). Prezioso became infatuated with Nora and tried unsuccessfully around 1911–12 to have an affair with her, a situation which helped inspire Joyce’s play Exiles (1914). Joyce previously used this line in Exiles, when the maid Brigid says to Bertha apropos Richard: ‘Sure he thinks the sun shines out of your face, ma’am’ (p. 141).
18.1572: rhododendrons See note at 8.911.
18.1574: I gave him the bit of seedcake See note at 8.907.
18.1575: leapyear like now yes 16 years ago
1888, the year that Bloom proposed to (and married) Molly, was a leap year, as was 1904.
18.1582–83: Mr Stanhope and Hester See note at 18.612.
18.1583: captain Groves See note at 18.623.
18.1584: all birds fly
‘All birds fly’: an Irish parlour game associated with, but not limited to, wakes. Players sit in a circle and imitate the flying of a bird when the leader says so, but the leader can try to fool the players by instructing them to fly like a non-flying animal. Any player so fooled is chastised (Seán Ó Súilleabháin, Irish Wake Amusements, pp. 105–06).
18.1584: I say stoop
Stoop: a variant of the children’s game ‘Tag’ (Iona and Peter Opie, Children’s Games in Street and Playground, pp. 7, 86).
18.1584: washing up dishes
Suggests another children’s game.
18.1585: governors house
The Governor has two residences: The Convent, in the town, and The Cottage, located at the east side of the peninsula (Gibraltar Directory 1896, p. 5).
18.1585–86: the thing round his white helmet
White helmets are standard issue for British Army soldiers serving in tropical and subtropical climates (such as Gibraltar). For ceremonial duties, such as guard duty at the Governor’s residence, the helmet is ornamented with plumes, spikes, and chains (Dress Regulations for the Army, p. 8).
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1308 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1587: auctions in the morning
Daily auctions were held in the Commercial Square, Plaza del Martillo (Martillo: Spanish, auction house), also known as the Jew’s market (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 39).
18.1589: Duke street
There is no Duke Street in Gibraltar. There is, however, a Duke Street in central Dublin, off Grafton Street, but context suggests Molly is thinking of Gibraltar. She might be referring to the Calle Duque de Tetuan (The Duke of Tetuan Street) in La Línea de la Concepción, the Spanish town that borders Gibraltar (see note at 17.1986–87); this street is ‘the handsomest and most animated street in the city’ (Karl Baedeker, Spain and Portugal, p. 475).
18.1590: Larby Sharons
Larbi Sharon (b. 1863), egg and poultry dealer, first ran ads in the Gibraltar Directory for 1912 (SS, p. 232). Joyce misspelt his name.
18.1590: the poor donkeys
According to Henry Field’s Gibraltar, women sometimes used little donkeys to ascend the Rock (p. 12). The 1883 Gibraltar Directory notes that donkeys can be easily hired (p. 130; James Van Dyck Card, ‘A Gibraltar Sourcebook for “Penelope” ’, p. 168).
18.1591: vague fellows
Vague: vagrant (OED). Gilbert suggests Molly might be thinking of the Spanish word for vagrant, vago (p. 404 n.).
18.1591–92: the big wheels of the carts of the bulls
In towns without a formal bullring, ‘a ring was created by drawing carts and trucks together to form a plaza on the outskirts of town’ (Carrie B. Douglass, Bulls, Bullfighting, and Spanish Identities, p. 41). See also note at 17.1986–87.
18.1592: the old castle
The Moorish Castle, the oldest known man-made structure on Gibraltar, lies in the north end of the peninsula. ‘This was once a stately palace, and a large, strong and magnificent pile of fortification before the time of artillery, although even now it is riddled with shot-marks, the honourable scars of the siege. It is one of the oldest Moorish buildings in Spain, supposed to have been commenced by Tarik, but not completed until 725 [. . .] The Officers’ Quarters, Casemate Barracks now occupy the ground’ (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 43).
18.1594: Ronda
Ronda: a Spanish town to the north of Gibraltar, 64 km west of Malaga. The old town of Ronda was the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 96).
18.1595: posadas
Posada (Spanish): wayside inn or guesthouse.
18.1595: 2 glancing eyes a lattice hid
From ‘In Old Madrid’; see note at 18.1335.
18.1595: kiss the iron
That is, the iron of the window grille.
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18. ‘Penelope’ 1309
18.1597: Algeciras See note at 18.399.
18.1597: serene
In Spanish, a sereno is a night watchman, after his cry as he makes his rounds. Sereno means serene, quiet, or as a night watch might say in English, ‘All is well’ (Gilbert, p. 404 n.). In a late Ulysses notebook (Buffalo V.A.2.b), Joyce wrote, ‘sereno watchman put out light to piss’ (Herring, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts for ‘Ulysses’, p. 72; JJA, vol. 12, p. 102).
18.1598: awful deepdown torrent
The town of Ronda (see note at 18.1594) is by the River El Tajo: ‘In the centre of the town is a bridge dividing the old portion from the new, crossing the Tajo, with several waterfalls underneath, and renowned in the district as a most romantic bit of scenery’ (Gibraltar Directory 1883, p. 96; with thanks to Harald Beck).
18.1598: the sea the sea See note at 1.80.
18.1599: figtrees
‘The sunshine of Africa rests in the clefts of the rocks; in every sheltered spot the vine and fig-tree flourish, and the almond-tree and the myrtle’ (Field, Gibraltar, p. 13).
18.1599: Alameda gardens See note at 18.643–44.
18.1601: jessamine
See note at 13.1010–11.
18.1602: a Flower of the mountain
‘Gibraltar is not a barren cliff; its very crags are mantled with vegetation, and wild flowers spring up almost as in Palestine. Those who have made a study of its flora tell me that it has no less than five hundred species of flowering plants and ferns, but one-tenth of which have been brought from abroad; all the rest are native. [. . .] you inhale the fragrance of the locust and the orange blossoms; while the clematis hangs out its white tassels, and the red geranium lights up the cold gray stone with rich masses of color’ (Field, Gibraltar, pp. 12–13).
18.1603: or shall I wear a red See note at 18.768.
18.1604: Moorish wall See note at 13.889–90.
18.1608–09: yes I said yes I will Yes.
Molly’s final repetitions of ‘yes’ recall the conclusion to Claudio Monteverdi’s (Italian composer, 1567–1643) opera Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland), with libretto by Giacomo Badoaro (1602–54). In the final duet, Ulysses is reunited with Penelope. Penelope sings, ‘Sì, sì, vita, sì, sì!’ (Yes, yes, life, yes, yes), Ulysses sings, ‘Sì, sì, core, sì, sì!’ (Yes, yes, heart, yes, yes), then the two sing together, ‘Del piacer, del goder / venuto è il dì! / Sì, sì, vita! / Sì, sì, core, sì, sì!’ (Pleasure and joy / has come today / Yes, yes, life! / Yes, yes, heart, yes, yes’ (p. 127; Richard Corballis, ‘Who Taught Molly to Say “Yes”?’). For the final full stop, see note at 18.747.
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1310 Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses
18.1610–11: Trieste-Zurich-Paris 1914–1921
The earliest known reference Joyce made to writing Ulysses was on a postcard (in German) to his brother Stanislaus on Bloomsday 1915: ‘I have written something. The first episode of my new novel Ulysses is written’ (Selected Letters, p. 209). This was just before Joyce left Trieste for Zürich. It is possible that Joyce began work on Ulysses in 1914, but as that was a busy year for him—he finished A Portrait and wrote Exiles and Giacomo Joyce—it is unlikely (Rodney Wilson Owen, James Joyce and the Beginnings of ‘Ulysses’, pp. 68–69). The 1914 start date might be in reference to the Doherty fragment originally intended for A Portrait but which served as the partial basis for ‘Telemachus’ (see the headnote to ‘Telemachus’). Joyce lived in Zürich from 1915 to 1919 and, after a brief return stay in Trieste, moved to Paris in July 1920 (Ellmann, p. 482). Publication was originally planned for the autumn of 1921, but Joyce’s continuing revisions delayed this until early the following year. The writing of Ulysses ended with some revisions to the final set of page proofs for ‘Penelope’, which were received by Darantiere, the printer, on 31 January 1922 (JJA, vol. 27, pp. 255, 275), just days before publication on Joyce’s fortieth birthday, 2 February. To make this deadline, Darantiere was able to get the first two copies to Sylvia Beach by express train on the morning of Joyce’s birthday (Ellmann, p. 524). The remaining copies of the first edition were printed over the following weeks, with production completed by mid-March (Maurice Darantiere to Sylvia Beach, 16 March 1922, unpublished letter, the University at Buffalo).
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Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing of ‘Oxen of the Sun’ Both the beginning and end of ‘Oxen of the Sun’ are written in complex, synthetic styles that corres pond to no actual author or period of English literary history. Joyce called them ‘the headpiece and tailpiece of opposite chaos’ (Letters, vol. 3, p. 16). Elsewhere, he said that the opening represents the ‘unfertilized ovum’ (Letters, vol. 1, p. 139), and, likewise, the ending could be understood as the squalls of the newborn babe. The opening suggests the roots of pre-Germanic English by using Latinate vocabulary and gram mar without accommodation to modern English usage and diction. The effect is of a cumbersome over-literal translation. The closing section is very different, but no less obscure. The ‘adventures’ of the young men leaving the hospital in search of drink at a nearby pub are rendered through a string of unattributed snippets of brazenly demotic speech, with much overlapping or simultaneous dia logue. Paragraph breaks indicate a break in the action or a shift of focus. Individual speakers are frequently (but not always) identifiable on the basis of context or their individuating patois (for example, Crotthers, the young Scottish doctor, speaks in a Scottish dialect). Both paraphrases rely on conjecture and are presented here, in conjunction with the annotations to these sections, in the hopes they will be help readers navigate the chaos.1
The Opening (14.01–70) 1st paragraph Let us go sunwise/rightward/auspiciously to Holles Street. (× 3)
2nd paragraph Send us, Dr Horne, a speedy birth at your hospital. (× 3)
3rd paragraph It’s a boy! (× 3)
4th paragraph, 1st sentence Universally, that person’s wits are reckoned to be very imperceptive concerning those matters that are thought most profitable for study by the best and brightest who does not know what the wisest people (who certainly deserve veneration for their learning) are known to maintain constantly. These wisest people know that, other circumstances being equal, no exterior splendour more effica ciously asserts the prosperity of a nation than the measure of how far forward its solicitude for pro liferation of the species has progressed. (That is, obstetrics and the provision for population increase are the most needful and worthwhile sciences.) The absence of this solicitude for reproduction is the origin of all evils, but when this solicitude is present it attests to all-powerful nature’s uncorrupted blessing.
4th paragraph, 2nd sentence For who is there who has ever understood anything of some significance that does not know that a people’s exterior splendour could just be the façade of a mired and decadent reality? Or, to take
1 Earlier versions of these two paraphrases appeared in the James Joyce Quarterly: Marc A. Mamigonian and John Noel Turner, ‘A Parallel Paraphrase of the Opening of “Oxen of the Sun” ’ and John Turner, ‘A Commentary on the Closing of “Oxen of the Sun” ’. Clive Hart and Harald Beck prepared their own version of the closing, in the format of a stage-play, in order to demarcate the different speakers, which is published in JJON.
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1312 Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing a different tack, is there anyone so unenlightened as not to see that no gift of nature can compare with the bounty of population increase, and to see that it befits every good citizen to encourage and remind his fellows of this? A good citizen should tremble lest what his nation began very well in the past fails to be done as well in the future. And this will happen if a shameless habit shall gradually lead the honourable customs astray that the ancestors passed on. Ultimately, this would bring about that deepest depth where one would have to be excessively audacious just to have the courage to rise up and affirm that there can be no more odious offence for anyone than to consign to oblivious neglect that redemptive command (‘Be fruitful and multiply’). This com mand is also a promise. It enjoined on all mortals the function of repeatedly procreating, and the decree carries with it a prophecy of abundance (if followed), or a menace of diminution (if ignored).
5th paragraph, 1st sentence We shall not wonder, then, at the words of the best historians, who say that the Celts (who admired nothing but what is itself admirable) honoured the art of medicine most highly.
5th paragraph, 2nd sentence Not only have the Irish maintained hospitals, leper-yards, sweating chambers, and plague-graves, but their greatest medical families (the O’Shiels, the O’Hickeys, and the O’Lees) have diligently written down the cures for all manner of diseases, such as the trembling withering and the loose boycon nell flux.
5th paragraph, 3rd sentence Certainly, in every public work of any seriousness the preparation should be commensurate with the importance. The Celts therefore adopted a plan whereby maternity was as far as possible removed from unplanned contingencies, so that whatever care a woman in that most taxing hour needed would be provided and for a token sum—not just for the rich but also for a poor woman who could scarcely, if at all, subsist vigorously. (It is difficult to say whether the Irish did this out of foresight or as the fruit of their experience in the matter. Inquirers who have looked into the issue subsequently have had differing opinions that have not as yet been brought into agreement to make the answer to this question manifest.)
6th paragraph, 1st sentence To an expectant mother, then, nothing whatsoever was allowed to be harmful. All the citizens believed first and foremost that there could be no prosperity at all without prolific mothers. As the gods had received eternal life, so mortals had received self-generation. Therefore, it befit them, beholding an expectant mother, when she was so great with child, ready to give birth in the vehicle carrying her toward the hospital, that there be an immense desire among all the people, impelling on them, that she be received into a maternity hospital.
6th paragraph, 2nd sentence Oh, what a prudent thing of a prudent nation, a thing worthy of being praised, not only when it is seen but even when it is told of: that the Irish regard an expecting woman, by anticipation, with the same concern as they do a mother—and that an expecting woman could suddenly begin to feel that she was to be cherished by the people!
7th paragraph, 1st–3rd sentences The babe is in bliss before it is born. It is worshiped before its birth. Whatever was done for unborn children was done for their advantage and comfort.
7th paragraph, 4th sentence Expectant mothers have the attendance of midwives, good food to eat, and clean baby-clothes fore sightfully set there, as though the baby were already born. But, additionally, there are such drugs and
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Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing 1313 surgical implements as are needed. Also, there are pictures of exotic locales and of religious and secular figures to distract the mother’s eye, for the contemplation of such images helps ease women’s labour. And so it stands here in the high, sun-bright, well-built, fair maternity hospital—where women who are about to give birth, whose pregnancy is plainly well-advanced, come to lie in, their term of pregnancy being over.
The Closing (14.1440–1591) The paragraphs below correspond to Joyce’s paragraphs. The words in bold are Joyce’s—all of the text which closes the episode is presented here. The commentary is in plain type; passages in square brackets are paraphrases of Joyce’s text; interpolations are in angled brackets; and passages within parentheses are additional notes. All off for a buster [all off for a drinking spree], armstrong [arm in arm], hollering down the street. Someone says they should claim to be bona fide travellers—Bonafides—because in Ireland such travellers could be served after closing time. Accordingly, two of the youths rehearse how to respond to the bartender’s expected inquiry about their purported travels. One asks: Where you slep last nigh? The other’s joking response is: Timothy of the battered naggin. (This is in reference to an early nineteenth-century Dublin inn; see note at 14.1441.) (Nothing further comes of this idea of pretending to be travellers.) Someone gives the order to move like the Devil: Like old Billyo. (Throughout the drinking scene there’s considerable anxiety about getting served, for closing time, 11:00, is imminent.) Someone asks if anyone has an umbrella or some galoshes against the rain: Any brollies or gumboots in the fambly? Someone asks: Where the Henry Nevil’s sawbones and ole clo? [Where the Devil’s Dr Dixon and Stephen (who’s dressed in second-hand clothes).] The question is answered: Sorra one o me knows [I have no idea]. Dixon is seen emerging from the building: Hurrah there, Dix! The group must hurry on to the bar: Forward {to} the ribbon counter (ribbon = slang for liquor). Someone asks: Where’s Punch? He answers: All serene [Here I am, I’m fine]. Some urchins see Stephen leaving the building and say: Jay, look at the drunken minister coming out of the maternity hospal! Mulligan then blesses the guttersnipes: Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius [May Almighty God bless you, Father and Son]. The street kids start beg ging: A make [halfpenny], mister. These urchins are, as someone says, The Denzille lane boys. (Denzille Lane intersects Holles Street almost directly across the street from the hospital.) Bloom joins up with the drinking party and tells the street boys to move along: Hell, blast ye! Scoot. And then someone praises Bloom, facetiously, making light of his Jewishness: Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of the bleeding limelight. The party acknowledges Bloom and asks him if he wants to join them: Yous join uz, dear sir?, saying it would be no intrusion at all, No hentrusion in life; adding, mock ingly, that he’s a fine man, Lou heap good man, and that everyone is equal in their group, Allee samee dis bunch. The Francophile Lenehan calls out to his juniors: En avant, mes enfants! [Onward, my children!]—again we see the urgency of getting to the bar soon. (Burke’s pub is very close to the hospital.) Members of the drinking party begin to describe themselves as an army advancing on the enemy, Burke’s pub: Fire away number one on the gun. Burke’s! Burke’s! Their movements are likened to an ancient Greek mercenary army: Thence they advanced five parasangs. (Presumably this line is the Xenophon-quoting Mulligan’s.) Appropriately, someone brings up ‘Slattery’s Mounted Fut’, Percy French’s comic song about a group of Irish mountain men who fight a mock-battle in search of beer: Slattery’s mounted foot. Mulligan looks around for Stephen: Where’s that bleeding awfur [author]? He wants Stephen, who has just been called a minister by the boys, to recite the Apostates’ Creed: Parson Steve, apostates’ creed. This must be the travesty of the Apostles’ Creed which Stephen recites to himself immediately after Mulligan appears in ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ (9.493–99). But Stephen refuses: No, no. Someone calls to Mulligan, who is lagging behind, to hurry up because closing time is imminent: Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead. Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Someone asks Mulligan what’s wrong with him that he’s so slow: Mullee! What’s on you? He responds with the beginning of a dirty French song, Ma mère m’a mariée [‘My mother has married me’]. Someone calls out for the British Beatitudes! ‘The British Beatitudes’ is the students’ marching chant, which enumerates a set of imperial virtues that play on various stereo types of the British. Mulligan sings Retamplatan digidi boum boum, a set of nonsense words
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1314 Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing from the French song he’s singing (see note at 14.1454). Someone (it’s not clear who or why) says: {the} Ayes have it. Echoing his previous sneers at the Irish Revival, Mulligan says either the French song he sings or else the British Beatitudes (it’s unclear which) is To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two designing females (see note at 1.365–66) with Calf covers of pissedon green, which is the Last word in art shades. Repeating his jest at Yeats at the end of ‘Scylla and Charybdis’, Mulligan says it will be the Most beautiful book {to} come out of Ireland {in} my time (see note at 9.1164). Stephen, presumably, gets impatient with this and cries out in Latin: Silentium! [Silence!]. They must hurry: Get a spurt on. Again, the voyage to Burke’s is put in soldier-talk: Tention [Attention]. Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! As they march, the students prepare to chant the Beatitudes (atitudes!) and insert parching for marching because they are thirsty: Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are (atitudes!) parching. The British Beatitudes are: Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs, battleships, buggery and bishops. Someone begins to sing a patriotic song (‘God Save Ireland’, by T. D. Sullivan), the words of which are inter spersed with jumbled bits from the British Beatitudes: Whether on the scaffold high. Beerbeef trample the bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers. Meanwhile, the marching line is falling apart: Thunderation! Keep the durned millingtary step. We fall. (The words ‘We fall’ both end the singing of ‘God Save Ireland’ and show that the youths are stumbling on the street.) The Beatitudes reach their end: Bishops boosebox. The boosebox is the pub and the speaker is Mulligan. They arrive at Burke’s: someone cries Halt! Heave to. Their entry into Burke’s gives rise to thoughts of Rugger [Rugby]. Scrum in is the Rugby call to huddle together at the beginning of each posses sion. Someone’s toes get stepped on as the party walks into Burke’s, drawing the cries, No touch kicking and Wow, my tootsies! The person who did the stepping-on apologises: You hurt? Most amazingly sorry! Now, they are inside the pub. Query. Who’s astanding this here do? [Who’s buying the drinks?] Not me, says one, because I’m the Proud possessor of damnall [nothing]. Another says, Declare misery [I’m broke]. A third, probably Lenehan, says he Bet to the ropes [lost money on a bet]. A fourth says, Me nantee saltee [I haven’t got a penny]. A fifth observes: Not a red [penny] at me this week gone. Stephen, who will be buying, seeing no other way, breaks the stalemate by asking Mulligan what he wants: Yours? Mulligan says: Mead of our fathers for the Übermensch. A bunch of people nod and say Dittoh. So Stephen orders five number ones [Bass] for them. Someone asks Bloom what he wants, You, sir?, and Bloom orders a Ginger cordial. The other men find this choice of drink funny: Chase me, the cabby’s caudle [I’ll be damned, he’s having a cab-driver’s hot-toddy]. Bloom (or a medical student?) says this drink will Stimulate the caloric [vital heat]. Seeing Bloom, someone says: Winding of his ticker [he’s winding his watch]. Someone sings a line from the song ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’: ‘{it} Stopped short never to go again when the old man died’. Stephen orders his own drink: Absinthe for me, savvy? (savvy = do you understand?). In response to Stephen’s order one of his friends says Caramba! [My word!] and then offers advice: Have an eggnog or a prairie oyster [a seasoned raw egg]. Perhaps the speaker’s point is that Stephen should coat his stomach before he fills it with the green poison absinthe. Or maybe the point is that Stephen should give up the absinthe altogether and just settle his stomach after all the drinking he’s done today. Bloom asks someone the time, and the person responds: Enemy? That is, You want to know the time? (Enemy = time.) But this person can’t help Bloom, because Avuncular’s got my timepiece [avuncular is slang for a pawnbroker]. Someone else says Ten to [10:50 (ten minutes before closing)], and Bloom says Obligated awful, drawing the response Don’t mention it, which brings the matter to a close. Someone asks Dixon: Got a pectoral trauma, eh, Dix? [i.e., is it a fact that Dixon treated Bloom for a pectoral trauma (the bee sting of Whitmonday)?]. This may be a kind of response to ‘Stimulate the caloric’ above. Dixon seems to have told some members of the drinking party that he met Bloom when he treated his bee sting—otherwise this question (‘Got a pectoral trauma?’) would have to refer to Dixon himself, where it clearly doesn’t. Dixon says: Pos{itive} fact. Got bet be a boomblebee whenever he wus settin sleepin in hes bit garten [Bloom got stung when he was sleeping in his garden]. (This habit of getting poisoned while asleep in the garden, of course, is one of many connections between Bloom and King Hamlet.) Bloom’s Digs {are} up near the Mater hospital. The talk switches to Molly: Buckled [married] he is. Know his
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Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing 1315 dona [lady, after Italian and Spanish]? Yup, sartin, I do. Full of a dure [she’s a big woman (a door ful)]. See her in her dishybilly [You should see her in her déshabillé]. Mrs Bloom takes off her clothes in a creditable manner: Peels off a credit. Molly Bloom is a Lovey lovekin (lovekin = lover). She is None of your lean kine, not much [she’s not too thin]. Someone quotes the chorus of a song about amorous modesty: Pull down the blind, love [i.e. maybe Molly shouldn’t put herself on sight in her déshabillé: she should pull down the blind if she’s going to be in a state of undress]. Three Guinnesses are ordered: Two Ardilauns. Same here. (Two Guinnesses plus one, ‘Same here’.) The waiter or publican is told to hurry: Look slippery. If you fall don’t wait to get up. [Hurry up!] So far the first round of drinks consists of: five ‘number ones’, one ginger cordial, one absinthe, and three Guinnesses. There are ten members of the party: Stephen, Bannon, Crotthers, Madden, Costello, Lenehan, Lynch, Mulligan, Dixon, and Bloom. (Haines is not with them but is going to meet Mulligan at Westland Row Station at 11:10, as he ‘announced’ at 14.1027.) Someone says Five, seven, nine. Fine! Since there are ten people drinking, this may be a count of the drinks which have been ordered: five (the number one Basses), seven (these five plus Stephen’s and Bloom’s drinks), nine (all of the above plus the first two Guinnesses), Fine (all of the above plus the tenth drink, the ‘same here’, another Guinness, making for three Guinnesses). That is, everyone has now ordered. The talk returns to Molly Bloom’s features. She is described in rhyming slang: Got a prime pair of mincepies [eyes], no kid. And her take me to rests [breasts] and her anker of rum [bum]. Must be seen to be believed. Your starving eyes and allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O gluepot. (From a joke about an uneducated servant trying to woo a maid by copying his master; see note at 14.1479–80.) Bloom catches the ear of one of the medicals (Dixon?) and asks whether the potato his mother gave him is really any good at warding off plague and pestilence. (A common superstition holds that old potatoes prevent rheumatism.) The medical asks if he heard Bloom aright: Sir? Spud again the rheumatiz? [spud against the rheumatism]. The medical proceeds to tell Bloom that it is worthless: All poppycock, you’ll scuse me saying. For the hoi polloi. I vear thee beest a gert vool [I fear you’re a great fool]. Someone else comes up to Dixon: Well, doc? Back fro{m} Lapland? [the maternity hospital]. Your corporosity sagaciating O.K.? [how’s it going?] How’s the squaws and papooses [women and children]? (These questions identify Dixon’s present interrogator as some one outside of tonight’s drinking party—some friend who has bumped into Dixon at Burke’s.) Womanbody after going on the straw? [Are the women all resting after giving birth?] Stand and deliver is an obstetrical joke, in this context—but, literally, it’s what a highwayman says. This is the second time that ‘Stand and deliver’ has been said in a bar, with a jocular injunction to say the Password (see 12.129 for the other). The mock password given, There’s hair, was a music hall refrain (see note at 12.1176), or perhaps it refers to the patients’ pubic hair which Dixon is privileged to see. Hearing childbirth discussed, Mulligan steps up and delivers again his quote from Swinburne (see note at 10.1073–74): Ours the white death and the ruddy birth. Dixon, it seems, tells Stephen, Hi! Spit in your own eye, boss! (Probably this is a retort for spraying spittle.) Mulligan produces Stephen’s telegram: Mummer’s wire. The text of the telegram (The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done) was taken from chapter 24 of George Meredith’s novel The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: Cribbed out of Meredith. Mulligan goes on, addressing Stephen some more: Jesified orchidised (orchidised = testicle-ised: implying that Stephen has a venereal disease) polycimical [bug-infested] jesuit! Once again, the threat of Mulligan’s aunt rears itself (see note at 9.552–53): Aunty mine’s writing Pa Kinch. Baddybad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi. The drinks arrive. Someone says Hurroo! [Hey!] Collar the leather, youngun. (In context, this means ‘Grab the drink, young fellow’.) The dialect becomes Scottish for the next several lines. Presumably, the Scottish student Crotthers is either talking or being addressed here. Someone says Roun wi{th} the nappy (nappy = ale). This person continues: Here, Jock braw Hielentman’s your barleybree [Here, John brave Highlandman, is your beer]. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot boil [Long may your chimney smoke and your soup-pot boil]! The drinks continue to be sorted out and arranged: one person takes up his drink, saying My tipple; another person is handed his and replies Merci. A toast is made: Here’s to us. Someone asks How’s that? To which the response is given, Leg before wicket, which is rhyming slang for that’s the ticket (i.e. everything’s fine). Both
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1316 Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing expressions—‘How’s that’ and ‘Leg before wicket’—are used in cricket, so the response plays off the double sense of the question ‘How’s that?’ Someone’s a little reckless with his drink, drawing the reproach Don’t stain my brandnew sitinems [trousers]. Bloom (probably) asks for some pepper (pepper is a supposed cure for flatulence; see note at 14.1492): Give’s a shake of peppe{r}, you there. Lenehan (probably) tosses him a shaker, saying Catch aholt. Perhaps Bloom then reaches for some caraway seeds as well. Lenehan, the punster, says: Caraway seed to carry away. (Caraway seeds relieve flatulence). Then Lenehan asks Twig? [do you get my pun?], but he is met with the Shrieks of silence of auditors dumbstruck by his typically lamentable wordplay. The conversation switches to talk of women. Stephen, who uses thieves’ cant, says: Every cove to his gentry mort [Every fellow to his noble woman] (see note at 3.372–73). Either Stephen or Mulligan, probably, mutters Venus Pandemos. Someone says Les petites femmes [little women]. Bannon describes his beloved Milly Bloom: Bold bad girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at [asking about] her. Someone quotes Burns: Hauding [holding] Sara by the wame [belly, womb]. Lynch talks about being On the road to Malahide earlier in the day with his Kitty where they were nearly caught unawares by Father Conmee (10.199–202). Someone else is asked whom he loves: Me? If she who seduced me had left but the name (after the first line Thomas Moore’s song ‘When He, Who Adores Thee’). His interlocutor, knowing this means his only lovers are the cheapest of prostitutes, says: What do you want for ninepence? Someone proclaims his love is nought but beer: Machree, Macruiskeen [‘my heart’s love is my little jug’ from ‘The Cruiskeen Lawn’, an Irish drinking song]. Someone says he’d like to have some easy sex: Smutty Moll [Moll is generic for a prostitute—in immediate context, not Mrs Bloom] for a mattress jig. Then they drink their pints down: And a pull all together. Ex! [Ex!, or trink ex!, is German for ‘Bottoms up!’]. The bartender is asked if he’s waiting to be paid: Waiting, guvnor? Members of the drinking party then seem to answer for him: Most deciduously [decidedly]. Bet your boots on. The bill still hasn’t been paid, and the bartender looks Stunned like seeing as how no shiners [money] is acoming. Someone points this out to Stephen: Underconstumble [Understand?]? Someone else tells the bar tender not to worry: He’ve got the chink ad lib [Stephen’s got money in abundance]. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn [I saw nearly three pounds on him a while ago that he said was his]. (Stephen displayed £2 19s. earlier in the episode at 14.286–87.) The tone gets just a little desperate, and Stephen is reminded that he invited them to go drinking: Us come right in on your invite, see? Someone tells Stephen the bill is his responsibility: Up to you, matey. Out with the oof [money]. The sum due is Two bar and a wing [2 shillings one pence]. Stephen, who has been to Paris, is asked if that is where he learned this practice of hesitating over the payment for a round he was supposed to buy: You larn that go off of they there Frenchy bilks [cheaters]? If so, he is told that it won’t work back here in Dublin: Won’t wash here for nuts nohow. Stephen ‘apologises’ in mock Chinese and black dialects: Lil chile velly solly [Little child is very sorry]. Ise de cutest colour coon down our side. Then he says Gawds teruth, Chawley [God’s truth, Charley]. Meantime, Crotthers (probably) quotes Burns, crying out: We are nae fou. We’re nae tha fou [We are not drunk. We’re not that drunk]. Next, perhaps we can hear Lenehan closing the paragraph: Au reservoir, Mossoo. Tanks you [i.e., Au revoir, monsieur. Thank you]. Lenehan is just walking off a few steps to a different part of the bar and he’s taking leave of Stephen and thanking him for the drink. Most of the odd and cryptic paragraph which follows is Lenehan’s lament at his failure in today’s Gold Cup race. He had backed Sceptre and convinced Bantam Lyons to switch his bet from Throwaway, the winner, to Sceptre. Lenehan sees Bantam Lyons and says ’Tis, sure [It is him, I’m sure]. His interlocutor can’t hear him amid the din: What say? Lenehan responds: In the speakeasy. (Maybe speakeasy has two significations here, so this means ‘in the pub’ and ‘speak sotto voce’.) Lenehan sees that Bantam’s drunk: Tight. I shee you, shir. Bantam had been an abstainer for two days until he lost at the track: Bantam, two days teetee. But now he is Bowsing nowt but claretwine [drinking nothing but claret]. Garn! Have a glint, do. [Go on! Have a look at Bantam, do!] Bantam has shaved off his moustache (as Bloom noticed in ‘Lotus Eaters’ at 5.521): Gum, I’m jiggered. And been to barber he have. Someone says Too full for words. Perhaps Bantam is so drunk that he’s too full of wine to talk? Bantam is sitting With a railway bloke. Someone says: How come you so? (Maybe this is Lenehan’s interlocutor, saying ‘How come you so furtive?’) Lenehan reprises his ‘joke’ from the morning and says: Do you know what opera Bantam’s friend the railway bloke
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Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing 1317 would like?: Opera he’d like? Answer: Rose of Castile. (See note at 7.591.) The interlocutor pre tends to faint from shock at Lenehan’s pun and so someone (Lenehan himself?) cries: Police! Some H2O for a gent fainted. It is observed that Bantam has flowers for his wife (to atone for the wretch edly drunken state he’ll be in when he gets home?): Look at Bantam’s flowers. Poor miserable Bantam starts to sing a song: Gemini, he’s going to holler. Bantam sings: The colleen bawn, my colleen bawn. So one of the party, objecting to his singing, says: O, cheese it! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a firm hand [O, be quiet! Shut his bloody mouth with a firm hand]. Lenehan says: Had the winner today till I tipped him a dead cert. Lenehan goes on: The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the jady coppaleen [The devil take the head of Stephen Hand who gave me the good-for-nothing little horse (Sceptre)]. He strike a telegramboy paddock wire big bug Bass to the depot [He (Stephen Hand) met a telegramboy with a wire from the horse stable of the bigshot Bass to the police depot]. (Note that these sentences are told in the clipped style of telegrams.) Shove him a joey and grahamise [Stephen Hand shoved the telegram-boy a fourpenny piece (joey) and steamed open the telegram (grahamised it)]. The telegram’s text is given to us as: Mare on form hot order [the mare (Sceptre) is in good form and a ‘hot order’ (fast horse)]. Guinea to a goosegog [furthermore, the odds are long]. Lenehan goes on: Tell a cram [telegram], that. Gospeltrue. (See note at 14.1514–17 for the background to the story about Stephen Hand.) Lenehan wonders about the risk Stephen Hand ran in opening the telegram: [Was it a] Criminal diversion? I think that yes. Sure thing. Land him in chokeechokee [prison] if the harman beck [constable] copped the game. Meantime, Madden returns to the group: Madden back Madden’s a maddening back (from urinat ing?). Someone, Stephen probably, starts to parody a prayer from the Mass: O, lust, our refuge and our strength. (Desecrated phrases from this prayer will pop up a couple of times before the para graph is over.) Bantam gets up and starts to leave: Decamping. Perhaps it is the railway bloke who tries to detain Bantam: Must you go? Bantam replies: Off to mammy. (Presumably, Bantam Lyons has married and become a father since his bachelor days recorded in ‘The Boarding House’ in Dubliners.) Lenehan, alarmed lest Bantam see him after the racing tip fiasco, says: Stand by. Hide my blushes someone. All in if he spots me. Someone jokingly plays the wife, saying: Comeahome, our Bantam. As part of the good-byes, someone says: Horryvar, mong vioo (Au revoir, mon vieux: Goodbye, old man). Perhaps this is Lenehan softly mouthing a French farewell to the departing Lyons. Bantam starts to leave without the flowers for his wife, prompting the remark Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel. But before he lets him go, Bantam’s friend from the railway wants to know where he can get good tips like the one on Throwaway: Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt? [Confidentially, who gave you the tip for that colt, Throwaway?] Bantam is implored to tell: Pal to pal. Jannock [honest]. A line from the mock prayer intrudes itself: Of John Thomas, her spouse (after the line from the prayer, ‘of Saint Joseph, her spouse’). Bantam points out Bloom and tells his surprised friend: No fake, old man Leo. S’elp me, honest injun. (See 5.534.) Bantam adds: Shiver my timbers if I had [bet on Throwaway? lied just now?]. The railway man says: There’s a great big holy friar [holy friar is rhyming slang for bloody liar]. Bantam’s friend from the railway then launches an anti-Semitic complaint against Bloom, who has hoarded his racing knowledge. It is voiced in a mock Yiddish accent: Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez [Jewish kind of thing to do], vel, I vil get misha mishinnah [I’ll be damned]. The paragraph con cludes with a liturgical desecration (closing the ‘O, lust, our refuge. . .’ business): Through yerd [penis] our lord, Amen. It’s time for a second round of drinks. You move a motion? Steve boy, you’re going it some [getting carried away]. More bluggy [bloody] drunkables? Someone begs Stephen for another free drink, noting, though, that he needs a moment to ‘terminate’ the ‘inaugurated’ drink he is working on: Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of most extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate one expensive inaugurated libation? Someone says Give’s a breather (‘wait a minute before another round’). Appropriately, someone (Punch Costello? Mulligan?) sings a line of ‘Staboo Stabella’ (a lewd song, written by Gogarty, which Costello sang at 14.317): Landlord, landlord, have you good wine, staboo? Crotthers asks for a drink in Scottish dialect: Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree [Ho! man, a little drop to taste]. At the prospect of a second round, Stephen says: Cut and come again [I have plenty of money, take as much as you like]. Stephen calls to the bartender: Right. Boniface! (Boniface = innkeeper), and he
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1318 Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing orders a round of absinthe: Absinthe the lot. Then Stephen announces their goal in mock Latin: Nos omnes biberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posterioria nostria [We shall all have drunk the green poison (absinthe)—let the devil take our backsides]. The bartender announces for all to hear: Closingtime, gents. Bloom motions to Stephen that he, for one, does not need any absinthe, which catches Stephen’s attention (Eh?). Stephen then tells the bartender: Rome boose [wine] for the Bloom toff. Someone says I hear you say onions? (This must be Bannon, express ing shock and dismay at the name Bloom.) At this revelation of Bloom’s identity, Bannon, Milly Bloom’s boyfriend, becomes alarmed and says: Bloo? Cadges ads? Photo’s papli, by all that’s gorgeous. Someone tells Bannon: Play low, pardner (= Lay low?). Slide. Bannon takes leave: Bonsoir la compagnie. A phrase of another travesty of a prayer from the Mass follows: And snares of the poxfiend. (See note at 5.443–47.) Someone asks Where’s the buck and Namby Amby [Bannon]? Skunked? (To skunk is to leave in the lurch.) This tells us that Buck Mulligan (who has the tower key) has left silently to meet Haines at Westland Row Station, where, leaving Stephen skunked behind in Dublin, they will take a tram for the roughly 11 km journey back to Sandycove. They have given Leg bail [escaped custody on foot]. Crotthers says in Scottish dialect: Aweel, ye maun e’en gang yer gates [well, you must go your way]. Realising he has been outdone by Mulligan, Stephen says: Checkmate. King to tower. Then Stephen’s plight is set forth in phonetic spelling: Kind Kristyann wil yu help yung man hoose frend tuk bungalo kee tu find plais whear tu lay crown of his hed 2 night. Crickey, I’m about sprung [drunk]. One of the young men says: Tarnally doggone my shins if this beent the bestest puttiest longbreak yet [this is the best sum mer holiday yet]. Someone, probably Crotthers, asks for a plain bun for Stephen: Item, curate [bartender], couple of cookies for this child (cookie = Scottish dialect, a plain bun). When told there are none to be had, he cries out: Cot’s plood and prandypalls, none! [God’s blood and brandy-balls (which are a type of sweet, but here probably a euphemism for balls = testicles. So the curse as a whole says ‘God’s blood and testicles!’)] Not a pite [bite] of sheeses [cheeses]? The par ody of the prayer from the Mass intrudes again: Thrust syphilis down to hell and with him those other licensed spirits . . . Who wander through the world. (The spirits are licensed, not wicked as in the prayer, because of the play on alcohol.) Meanwhile the bartender has cried out that he’s closing up: Time! The second round (absinthe) has appeared. Toasts are made: Health all! says one, which draws the response: À la vôtre! [To your health!]. Next, the man in the macintosh is described. First, someone, probably Crotthers, sees him and exclaims: Golly, whatten tunket’s [what in hell’s] yon guy in the mackintosh? He looks like Dusty Rhodes [a cartoon tramp]. Peep at [Look at] his wearables [clothes]. Macintosh, it turns out, is quite down on his luck. Someone says By mighty [By almighty God]! What’s he got? And the answer comes: Jubilee mutton [not a lot (see note at 14.1547)]. Then someone suggests that beef-tea might cure Macintosh’s constitutional dissipation: Bovril, by James. Wants it real bad. Furthermore, Macintosh’s socks are either threadbare and full of holes, or else entirely absent: D’ye ken bare socks? One of the medical students is asked if he’s seen Macintosh at the Richmond Lunatic Asylum: Seedy cuss in the Richmond? (Seedy = shabby; cuss = a person.) Yes, someone says, he’s well known at the Richmond: Rawthere [Rather]! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis. (See note at 14.1549.) Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread we calls him. (Macintosh appears in the last para graph of ‘Wandering Rocks’ eating dry bread at 10.1272.) That, sir, was once a prosperous cit{izen}. Macintosh was once in love: Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all forlorn. But she died [Slung her hook, she did]. Here see lost love. And this is why Macintosh wanders and, per haps, why he haunts random funerals. His plight is parodied as if he were a Wild West hero: Walking Mackintosh of lonely canyon. Someone notes that they must drink and then go to bed: Tuck and turn in (tuck = drink). It’s Schedule time (scheduled closing time). Watch out for the police [Nix for the hornies]. Bloom notices people talking about ‘Macintosh’ and he hopes to find out something about this mysterious man. He tells someone, either Lenehan or Stephen (see note at 14.1554), that he saw Macintosh at his friend Paddy’s funeral this morning. Bloom’s auditor doesn’t quite catch it all and replies: Pardon? Seen him [Macintosh] today at a runefal? Chum o yourn passed in his checks? [Friend of yours died?] Ludamassy [Lord have mercy]! Mock-sympathy for Dignam’s children is expressed: Pore piccaninnies! Thou’ll no be telling me thot, Pold veg (= Leopold vegetable (?))!
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Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing 1319 Bloom is mocked for caring about Paddy Dignam: Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos frien Padney was took off in black bag? More mock-consolations follow: Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. I never see the like since I was born. Tiens, tiens, but it is well sad, that, my faith, yes. The talk suddenly switches to tomorrow’s Gordon Bennett race (see note at 6.369–70). One man must have said that driver X, whose car has a live axle drive, will win. The response (that driver X will not win) is couched in an automobile metaphor: O get, rev on a gradient one in nine [O come on, accelerate on a steep incline (which was very difficult for cars of this era, see note at 14.1558–59)]. The rejoinder continues and the claim is that the racer Camille Jenatzy will win: Live axle drives are souped. Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow. The Russo-Japanese war, another bit of current events, comes up here. Jappies? High angle fire, inyah! Sunk by war specials. Be worse for him, says he, nor any Rooshian. The bartender cries out: Time all. There’s eleven of them [it’s 11:00 closing time]. Get ye gone. One of the drinkers exhorts his companions toward the door: Forward, woozy wobblers! As they leave, one of the party speaks, perhaps to the people who yet remain in Burke’s: Night. Night. May Allah, the Excellent One, your soul this night ever tremendously conserve. Outside, one of the party, probably Crotthers, cries out: Your attention! And he protests, in jest: We’re nae tha fou [we’re not that drunk]. Then he tries out a sobriety test used by the British police: The Leith police dismisseth us. But, the speaker fails the test: The least tholice. Someone says Ware hawks for the chap puking. This could either mean watch out for the fel low who’s puking or watch out for cops on his behalf (‘ware hawks’ is an old expression meaning watch out for the police; hawk = constable). Whoever it is, he is Unwell in his abominable regions. We hear the sound of puking: Yooka. Someone departs: Night. Someone starts singing a song: Mona, my thrue love. More puking: Yook. More song: Mona, my own love. More puke: Ook. The fire brigade with its horn comes by; most of the party will decide to follow it to see the fire. Hark! someone cries, Shut your obstropolos (noisy mouth). Then we see Pflaap! Pflaap! (This is the brigade’s horn.) Then someone cries Blaze on. And someone says There she goes. And someone sees that it is the fire brigade: Brigade! And the men change direction to follow the fire brigade: Bout ship. Mount street way. Someone cries Cut up! [i.e. go this way]. The horn sounds again Pflaap! Someone lets out the fox-hunting cry of Tally ho, as they chase after the fire brigade. It is noticed that Stephen (probably) is not heading with them: You not come? In the chase behind the fire brigade, someone cries out Run, skelter, race. The horn goes Pflaaaap! Stephen calls out: Lynch! Lynch responds Hey? Stephen calls out Sign on long o me. Denzille lane this way. Change here for Bawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is. Stephen wants Lynch to go to a brothel with him. Lynch agrees to go: Righto, any old time. Stephen quotes the last of the Psalms (149:5) out of context: Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis [The prostitutes will rejoice in their beds]. (The Psalm says it is the saints who shall rejoice.) The words You coming long? are spoken by Stephen, but it’s not clear whether he is still asking Lynch if he wants to go or if he’s inviting Bloom to join them to the red light district. Lynch walks up to Stephen and asks him who Bloom is: Whisper, who the sooty hell’s the johnny in the black duds? Stephen cuts him off, saying: Hush! Sinned against the light and even now that day is at hand when he shall come to judge the world by fire. At the mention of fire, the brigade’s horn sounds: Pflaap! Stephen notes that Bloom will judge the world Ut implerentur scripturae [‘that the scrip tures might be fulfilled’]. Lynch, perhaps, tells Stephen Strike up a ballad. Stephen obliges, launch ing into Mulligan’s obscene poem: Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical Davy. Lynch interrupts him when he sees a poster for John Alexander Dowie, the new Elijah, on the side of the Merrion hall: Christicle, who’s this excrement yellow gospeller on the Merrion hall? (As in A Portrait, yellow is Lynch’s preferred swear-word.) He reads the poster: Elijah is coming! Washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Then Dowie’s poster speaks, ending the episode. Dowie says: Come on, you winefizzling ginsizzling booseguzzling existences! Come on, you doggone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers [braggarts, cheats], false alarms and excess baggage! Come on, you triple extract of infamy! Alexander J. Christ Dowie,
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1320 Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing that’s my name, that’s yanked to glory most half this planet from Frisco beach to Vladivostok. The Deity aint no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to you that He’s on the square and a corking fine business proposition. He’s the grandest thing yet and don’t you forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus. You’ll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half [very much so]. He’s got a coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in his backpocket. Just you try it on.
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1322 Bibliography Arnold, Matthew, The Study of Celtic Literature (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1912). Arnold, Matthew, The Poems of Matthew Arnold (London: Humphrey Milford, 1913). Arnold, Matthew, Culture and Anarchy, ed. J. Dover Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938). Aronson, Theo, The King in Love: Edward VII’s Mistresses (London: Murray, 1988). Athanasius, Historical Tracts (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1843). Atkinson, Juliette, ‘The London Library and the Circulation of French Fiction in the 1840s’, Information & Culture 48.4 (2013). Atkinson, Robert, The Book of Ballymote (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1887). Atkinson, William Walker, Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism (London: L. N. Fowler, 1909). Attwater, Donald, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965). Attwood, Mary Shaw, Adventures of Six Little Pussy-Cats (Boston: Murray Press, 1915). Aubrey, John, Brief Lives, ed. Andrew Clark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1898). Augustine, The Confessions, tr. John K. Ryan (Garden City: Image Books, 1960). Augustine, The City of God, tr. John O’Meara (London: Penguin, 1984). Babrius and Phaedrus, Fables, tr. Ben Edwin Perry (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965). The Babylonian Talmud, tr. Michael Levi Rockinson (New York: New Amsterdam Book Co., 1896). Baddeley, M. J. B., Ireland (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1909). Baedeker, Karl, Spain and Portugal (London: Dulau and Co., 1901). Bagwell, Richard, Ireland Under the Tudors (London: Longmans, 1890). Bailey, Richard W., ‘Centennial Celebration of The Century Dictionary’, Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 17 (1996). Baker, Roger, Drag (New York: New York University Press, 1994). Ball, Robert, The Story of the Heavens (London: Cassell, 1888). Ball, Robert, The Story of the Heavens, new and rev. edn (London: Cassell, 1900). Ball, Robert, Reminiscences and Letters of Sir Robert Ball (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1915). Ball, Stephen, ed., Dublin Castle and the First Home Rule Crisis: The Political Journal of Sir George Fottrell, 1884–1887 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Balleydier, Alphonse, Tales of Naval and Military Life (London: Burns and Lambert, 1859). Banks, T. C., The Dormant and Extinct Baronage of England (London: J. White, 1807). Barceloux, Donald, Medical Toxicology of Drug Abuse (New York: Wiley, 2012). Barclay, Marguerite, Letters from Fleet Street (London: Frank Palmer, 1910). Baring-Gould, William S. and Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose (New York: Bramhall House, 1962). Bar-Kochva, Bezalel, The Image of the Jew in Greek Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). Barnett, Annie and Lucy Dale, An Anthology of English Prose (London: Longmans, Green, 1912). Baron, John, The Life of Edward Jenner (London: Henry Colburn, 1827). Baron, Scarlett, Strandentwining Cable (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Barrère, Albert, Argot and Slang: A New French and English Dictionary of the Cant Words (London: Whittaker and Company, 1889). Barrington, Jonah, Personal Sketches of His Own Times, 3rd edn (London: Lynch Conway, 1871). Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, Vol. 1, The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 2, tr. G. T. Thomson and Harold Knight, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (London: Continuum, 2004). Bartlett, Thomas, ‘Ireland, Empire, and Union’, in Ireland and the British Empire, ed. Kevin Kenny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Bartlett, Thomas and Keith Jeffery, eds, A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Bartley, Elias Hudson, Text-book of Medical Chemistry (Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, 1890). Barton, Dunbar Plunket, Links Between Ireland and Shakespeare (Dublin: Maunsel, 1919). Barton, Dunbar Plunket, Links Between Shakespeare and the Law (London: Faber and Gwyer, 1929). Bass, Richard K., ‘Additional Allusions in “Eumaeus” ’, James Joyce Quarterly 10.3 (Spring 1973).
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Bibliography 1323 Bassett, Troy J. and Christina M. Walter, ‘Booksellers and Bestsellers’, in Book History, vol. 4, ed. Ezra Greenspan and Jonathan Rose (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001). Bates, Charlotte Fiske, The Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1882). Baudelaire, Charles, Œuvres complètes, ed. Marcel A. Ruff (Paris: Seuil, 1968). Bauerle, Ruth, ‘Introduction: Some Notes We Haven’t Heard in Joyce’s Music’, in Picking Up Airs, ed. Ruth Bauerle (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993). Bauerle, Ruth, ‘Words and Music’, in Picking Up Airs, ed. Ruth Bauerle (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993). Baumann, Heinrich, Londinismen (Slang und Cant) (Berlin: Langenscheidtsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1902). Bazargan, Susan, ‘Searching for Voyages in China by Viator’, Hypermedia Joyce Studies 11.1 (2010–2011), online. Beach, Sylvia, Shakespeare and Company (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991). Beal, Joan C., English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Beary, Kevin Florentine Locutions (New York: Intemperate Stage, 1991). Beaumont, Francis and John Fletcher, The Maid’s Tragedy, ed. Andrew Gurr (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). Beck, Harald, ‘Brooke’s Soap’, James Joyce Broadsheet 85 (February 2010). Beck, Harald, ‘ “Aeolus” – A Sightseeing Tour’, in Publishing in Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, ed. William S. Brockman, Tekla Mecsnóber, and Sabrina Alonso (Leiden: Brill, 2018). Beck, Harald and Clive Hart, ‘Stephen’s Budget’, James Joyce Broadsheet 74 (June 2006). Beck, Harald and Alistair Stead, ‘Resolving “Risolve” ’, James Joyce Broadsheet 72 (October 2005). Bede, Ecclesiastical History (London: J. M. Dent, 1910). Beeton, Isabella, The Book of Household Management (London: Beeton, 1861). Beeton, Samuel Orchart, Beeton’s Complete Letter-Writer: a Useful Compendium of Epistolary Materials, Gathered from the Best Sources, and Adapted to Suit an Indefinite Number of Cases (London: Ward, Lock and Tyler, 1873). Begnal, Michael H., ‘The Mystery Man of Ulysses’, Journal of Modern Literature 2.4 (November 1972). Begnal, Michael H., ‘The Unveiling of Martha Clifford’, James Joyce Quarterly 13.4 (Summer 1976). Begnal, Michael H., ‘Molly Bloom and Lady Hester Stanhope’, in Joyce and Popular Culture, ed. R. B. Kershner (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996). Belchem, John, Irish, Catholic and Scouse (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007). Bell, M. David, ‘The Search for Agendath Netaim’, James Joyce Quarterly 12.3 (Spring 1975). Benady, Tito, ‘The Jewish Community of Gibraltar’, in The Sephardi Heritage, Vol. 2: The Western Sephardim, ed. R. D. Barnett and W. M. Schwab (Grendon: Gibraltar Books, 1989). Bender, Abby, ‘The Language of the Outlaw: A Clarification’, James Joyce Quarterly 44.4 (Summer 2007). Bénéjam, Valérie, ‘Stephen and the Venus of Praxiteles’, in Cultural Studies of Joyce, ed. R. B. Kershner (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003). Bennett, Andrew, Suicide Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Bennion, Elisabeth, Antique Medical Instruments (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979). Benson, Michael, Cons and Frauds (New York: Chelsea House, 2009). Benstock, Bernard, ed., The James Joyce Literary Supplement: ‘Ulysses’: The Text—The Debates of the Miami Joyce Conference, 3 (Fall 1989). Bentley, Michael, Lord Salisbury’s World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Bentley-Cranch, Dana, Edward VII: Image of an Era 1841–1910 (London: H.M. Stationery Office in association with the National Portrait Gallery, 1992). Benzenhöfer, Udo, ‘What the Brandenburghers Called Sturzgeburt’, James Joyce Broadsheet 22 (February 1987). Benzenhöfer, Udo, ‘Joyce and Embryology: Giulio Valenti’s Lezioni Elementari di Embriologia as a Source for “Oxen of the Sun” ’, James Joyce Quarterly 26.4 (Summer 1989).
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1324 Bibliography Berend, Ivan T., An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Berkeley, George, Siris (Dublin: 1744). Berkeley, George, A New Theory of Vision, ed. A. D. Lindsay (London: Dent, 1910). Berkeley, George, Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues, ed. Howard Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Berrey, Lester and Melvin Van den Bark, The American Thesaurus of Slang, 2nd edn (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1953). Berry, J. Fleetwood, The Story of St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church, Galway (Galway: O’Gorman and Co., 1912). Besant, Annie, On the Nature and the Existence of God (London: Thomas Scott, 1875). Besant, Annie, The Ancient Wisdom (London: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1897). Besant, Annie, Esoteric Christianity (London: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1901). The Bhagavad-Gita, tr. Henry Q. Judge, 10th edn (Los Angeles: United Lodge of Theosophists, 1920). Biagini, Eugenio F., ‘Minorities’, in The Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland, ed. Eugenio F. Biagini and Mary E. Daly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Biale, David, ‘Masochism and Philosemitism’, Journal of Contemporary History 17.2 (April 1982). Bianchi, Leonardo, A Text-Book of Psychiatry for Physicians and Students, tr. James H. MacDonald (London: Baillière, Tindall, and Cox, 1906). The Bible: King James Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Bierce, Ambrose, The Devil’s Dictionary (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1911). Birnbaum, Philip, A Book of Jewish Concepts (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1964). Black, William, Goldsmith (London: Macmillan and Co., 1909). Blackburn, Simon, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). Blackstone, William, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1769). Blake, William, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, rev. edn, ed. David V. Erdman (New York: Random House, 1988). Blakemore, Colin and Sheila Jennett, The Oxford Companion to the Body (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Blatchford, Robert, Tommy Atkins of the Ramchunders (London: The Clarion Press, 1913). Blavatsky, H. P., Isis Unveiled (New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877). Blavatsky, H. P., The Secret Doctrine (London: The Theosophical Publishing Company, 1888). Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich, The Institutions of Physiology, 3rd edn, tr. John Elliotson (London: Burgess and Hill, 1820). Blyth, Henry, The Pocket Venus (New York: Walker and Company, 1966). Boccaccio, Giovanni, Esposizioni sopra la Comedia, ed. Giorgio Padoan (Milan: Mondadori, 1965). Boccaccio, Giovanni, Decameron, ed. Vittore Branca (Milan: Mondadori, 1985). Boccaccio, Giovanni, Decameron, tr. G. H. McWilliam, 2nd edn (London: Penguin, 1995). Boehme, Jacob, The Signature of All Things, tr. Clifford Bax (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1912). Bohr, Niels, Collected Works, Vol. 4: The Periodic System (1920–1923), ed. J. Rud Nielsen (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing, 1977). Bombaugh, Charles C., Gleanings for the Curious from the Harvest Fields of Literature (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1890). Bonapfel, Elizabeth M., ‘Marking Realism in Dubliners’, in Doubtful Points: Joyce and Punctuation, ed. Elizabeth M. Bonapfel and Tim Conley (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014). Bond, Steven and Ronan Crowley, ‘SD Was on the Cards: P. R. S. Foli’s Fortune-Telling by Cards (1904) in “Penelope” ’, Genetic Joyce Studies 11 (Spring 2011), online. Bonwick, James, Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions (London: Griffith, Farran, 1894). The Book of Common Prayer (London: John Murray, 1863). The Book of Enoch: Professor Dillmann’s Ethiopic Text, ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893). Booth, William, In Darkest England; and the Way Out (London: The Salvation Army, 1890). Borden, Charles R. C., ‘Diseases of the Ear, Nose and Throat: Fourth Paper’, The American Journal of Nursing, 16.8 (May 1916).
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1326 Bibliography Brown, Stephen J., Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel, 1919). Brown, Stephen J., The Press in Ireland (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1937). Brown, Terence, The Life of W. B. Yeats (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2001). Brown, Terence, The Irish Times: 150 Years of Influence (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). Browne, Harry, Joseph Chamberlain, Radical and Imperialist (London: Longman, 1974). Browne, Thomas, Works, ed. Simon Wilkin (London: George Bell and Sons, 1888). Browning, Robert, Selected Poems, ed. Daniel Karlin (London: Penguin, 2004). Bruno, Giordano, Cause, Principle and Unity: And Essays on Magic, ed. and tr. Robert de Lucca and Richard J. Blackwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Bruster, Douglas, To Be or Not to Be (London: Continuum, 2007). Bryan, Donough, Gerald Fitzgerald, the Great Earl of Kildare (Dublin: Talbot, 1933). Buckley, Amelia, The Winners in Life’s Race (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1883). Buescher, Gabriel, The Eucharistic Teaching of William Ockham (Louvain: E. Nauwelaerts, 1950). Bulfin, William, Rambles in Eirinn (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1907). Bullard, Loring, Healing Waters (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004). Bullen, A. H., Some Longer Elizabethan Poems (London: Archibald Constable and Co., 1903). Bullogh, Vern L., ed., Encyclopedia of Birth Control (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2001). Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, Eugene Aram: A Tale (London: George Routledge and Co., 1854). Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, Richelieu (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1875). Bunyan, John, The Pilgrim’s Progress, ed. George Cruikshank (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1904). Burgoyne, F. J., Library Construction (London: George Allen, 1897). Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland (London: Burke’s Peerage, 1899). Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage (London: Burke’s Peerage, 1976). Burke, Bernard, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (London: Harrison, 1866). Burke, Thomas, Ireland and the Irish (New York: Lynch, Cole and Meehan, 1873). Burke, Thomas, Limehouse Nights (London: Grant Richards, 1917). Burns, Robert, Selected Poems, ed. Carol McGuirk (London: Penguin, 1993). Burnyeat, M. F., ‘Enthymeme: Aristotle on the Rationality of Rhetoric’, in Essays on Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’, ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). Busby, Roy, British Music Hall: An Illustrated Who’s Who from 1850 to the Present Day (London: Paul Elek Incorporated, 1976). Busch, Moritz, Guide for Travellers in Egypt and Adjacent Countries Subject to the Pasha, tr. W. C. Wrankmore (London, Trübner, 1858). Bussolini, Jake, Jake’s Fishing Facts (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2013). Butler, Alban, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, ed. Herbert J. Thurston and Donald Attwater (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1990). Butler, Norman, Building and Using Binoscopes (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017). Butler, William Allen, Poems (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co, 1871). Butt, Isaac, Irish Life (London: How and Parsons, 1840). Byrne, J. F., Silent Years (New York, Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953). Byrne, Joseph, Dictionary of Irish Local History (Cork: Mercier Press, 2004). Byron, George Gordon, The Corsair (London: John Murray, 1815). Byron, George Gordon, Byron, ed. Jerome J. McGann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). Cadbury, Edward, Cécile Matheson, and George Shann, Women’s Work and Wages (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907). Callanan, Frank, The Parnell Split (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992). Cambrensis, Giraldus, The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, tr. Richard Colt Hoare, ed. Thomas Wright (London: H. G. Bohn, 1863). Campbell, R. J., The New Theology (New York: Macmillan, 1907). Campbell, Thomas, Poetical Works, ed. W. A. Hill (London: Edward Moxon, 1851). Campion, Thomas, Poetical Works, ed. Percival Vivian (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1903). Cappock, Margarita, ‘The Royal Visits to Dublin’, Dublin Historical Record 52.2 (Autumn 1999).
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Bibliography 1327 Caprani, Vincent, ‘The Grandfather Knew Him’, in Names and Disguises: Joyce Studies in Italy 3, ed. Carla De Petris (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991). Carens, James F., ‘Some Points on Poyntz and Related Matters’, James Joyce Quarterly 16.3 (Spring 1979). Carlyle, Thomas, Past and Present (London: Oxford University Press, 1909). Carpenter, Kenneth J., The History of Scurvy and Vitamin C (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Carrington, Ron, Alexandra Park and Palace (London: Greater London Council, 1975). Carroll, Lewis, The Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 1996). Casey, Charles, Philitis (Dublin: Carson Brothers, 1876). Casey, Christine, Dublin: The City within the Grand and Royal Canals and the Circular Road with the Phoenix Park (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). Cashman, D. B., The Life of Michael Davitt (Glasgow: Cameron and Ferguson, 1882). Cassius Dio, Roman History, tr. Earnest Cary, ed. Herbert Baldwin Foster (London: William Heinemann, 1914). Cassutt, Michael, Who’s Who in Space (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987). Castelein, A., Le Rigorisme, la question du nombre des élus et la doctrine du salut (Brussels and Paris: Société de St-Charles Borromée, 1899). Catalogue of Pictures and Other Works of Art in the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, Ireland (Dublin: Thom’s, 1908). Catalogue of Standard and Popular Works for the Study of European Languages (London: Hachette, 1902). The Catechism Ordered by the National Synod of Maynooth (Dublin: Gill, 1891). Catterall, R. D., The Venereal Diseases (London: Evans Brothers, 1967). The Century Dictionary (New York: The Century Co., 1902). Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, Don Quixote, tr. John Ormsby (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1920). Chaffee, Judith and Olly Crick, The Routledge Companion to Commedia Dell’Arte (London: Routledge, 2015). Chardenal, C. A., The Standard French Primer (London: Hachette, 1877). Chart, D. A., The Story of Dublin (London: Dent, 1932). Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). Cheadle, Eliza, Manners of Modern Society, 2nd edn (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1872). Chesney, Elizabeth A., The Rabelais Encyclopedia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004). Chesterton, G. K., The Victorian Age in Literature (London: Williams and Norgate, 1918). Child, Francis James, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1882–98). The Child’s Guide (London?, 1730?). Childers, Erskine, The Framework of Home Rule (London: Edward Arnold, 1911). Chilesotti, Oscar, Biblioteca di rartià musicali (Milan: Ricordi, 1883). Chiniquy, Charles Pascal Telesphore, Why I Left the Church of Rome (London: 1883). Chow, Yi Jean, ‘Sifted Science: Joyce’s References to George Albert Wentworth and George Anthony Hill’s A Text-Book of Physics’, James Joyce Quarterly 52.3/4 (Spring–Summer 2015). Christensen, Andrew G., ‘Ulysses’s Martha Clifford: The Foreigner Hypothesis’, James Joyce Quarterly 54.3/4 (Spring–Summer 2017). Christy, George, Bones and Banjo Melodist (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, n.d.). Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, tr. J. E. King (London: Heinemann, 1927). Cicero, Cicero, tr. H. Rackham (London: Heinemann, 1948). Cielo, Astra, Fortunes and Dreams (New York: George Sully, 1917). Cirlot, J. E., A Dictionary of Symbols, tr. Jack Sage (New York: Dover, 2002). Clare, Liam, Victorian Bray (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1998). Clare, Liam, ‘The Dublin Cattle Market’, Dublin Historical Record 55.2 (Autumn 2002). Clare, Maurice, A Day with William Shakespeare (London: Hodder & Staughton, 1913). Clark, Brenna Katz, The Emergence of the Irish Peasant Play at the Abbey Theatre (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982).
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1328 Bibliography Clarke, Clare, Late Victorian Crime Fiction in the Shadows of Sherlock (London: Palgrave, 2014). Clater, Francis and D. McTaggart, Everyman His Own Horse and Cow Doctor (London: Milner and Co., n.d.). Clay, John Gough, The Virgin Mary and the Traditions of Painters (London: J. T. Hayes, 1873). Clinkscale, Martha Novak, Makers of the Piano (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Clinton, George, Public Papers of George Clinton (Albany: Jack B. Lyon, 1900). Cloney, Thomas, A Personal Narrative of 1798 (Dublin: James McMullen, 1832). Clyde, Tom, Irish Literary Magazines (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2003). Cody, Louisa Frederici and Courtney Ryley Cooper, Memories of Buffalo Bill (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1919). Cohn, Alan M., ‘Joyce’s Notes on the End of “Oxen of the Sun” ’, James Joyce Quarterly 4.3 (Spring 1967). Cohn-Sherbok, Dan, ed., Blackwell Dictionary of Judaica (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 1993). Coil, Henry Wilson, Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia, ed. William Moseley Brown, William Cummings, and Harold Van Buren Voorhis (New York: Macoy, 1961). Colcord, Joanna, Songs of American Sailormen (New York: Norton, 1938). Cole, Samuel Valentine, The Great Grey King and Other Poems Old and New (Boston: Sherman, French and Co., 1914). Coleman, Karen, Haunting Cries: Stories of Child Abuse in Catholic Ireland (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2010). Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, The Friend (London: Rest Fenner, 1818). Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, Coleridge’s Shakespeare Criticism, ed. Thomas Middleton Rayson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930). Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. H. J. Jackson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). Colles, Ramsay, In Castle and Court House: Being Reminiscences of Thirty Years in Ireland (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1911). Collier, Aine, The Humble Little Condom (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007). Collier, W. F., ‘Venville Rights on Dartmoor’, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association (Plymouth: W. Brendon and Son, 1887). Collins, Anthony, A Discourse of Free-Thinking (London: 1713). Collins, James, Life in Old Dublin (Dublin: James Duffy & Co. Ltd., 1913). Collins, Timothy, Transatlantic Triumph and Heroic Failure (Doughcloyne, Cork: The Collins Press, 2002). Collins, Wilkie, The Woman in White, ed. John Sutherland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Collins, William, The Poetical Works, ed. W. Mom Thomas (London: George Bell and Sons, 1904). Colum, Mary and Padraic Colum, Our Friend James Joyce (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1958). Colum, Padraic, My Irish Year (London: Mills and Boon, 1912). Colum, Padraic, Arthur Griffith (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1959). Conan Doyle, Arthur, The Stark Munro Letters (London: Longmans, 1895). Conan Doyle, Arthur, The Great Boer War (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1900). Conan Doyle, Arthur, A Study in Scarlet (New York: Street and Smith, 1900). Congreve, William, The Mourning Bride, Poems and Miscellanies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928). Conley, Tim, ‘Marcella the Midget Queen’, James Joyce Quarterly 48.1 (Fall 2010). Conrad, Joseph, Lord Jim (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Page, and Co., 1925). The Constitutional Year Book for 1891 (London: Harrison and Sons, 1891). Conway, Hugh, Called Back (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1919). Cooke, John, Handbook for Travellers in Ireland (London: Edward Stanford, 1906). Coolahan, John, Irish Education (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1981). Cooney, D. A. Levistone, ‘Switzer’s of Grafton Street’, Dublin Historical Record 55.2 (Autumn 2002). Cooter, Roger, The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Copleston, Frederick, A History of Philosophy (London: Continuum, 2003).
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1330 Bibliography Curran, Constantine P., ‘Patrick Byrne: Architect’, Studies 33.130 (June 1944). Curran, Constantine P., Dublin Decorative Plasterwork of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: Alec Tiranti, 1967). Curran, Constantine P., James Joyce Remembered (London: Oxford University Press, 1968). Curran, Constantine P., Under the Receding Wave (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1970). Curran, William Henry, The Life of John Philpot Curran (New York: Redfield, 1858). Curtin, Jeremiah, ed., Hero-Tales of Ireland (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1894). Curtis, Edmund, A History of Ireland (London: Methuen, 1978). Curtis, Lewis Perry, Jr, Apes and Angels: the Irishman in Victorian Caricature (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1971). Curtis, Maurice, The Liberties (Dublin: History Press Ireland, 2013). Curtis, Maurice, To Hell or Monto (Dublin: History Press Ireland, 2015). Cusack, Mary Francis, A History of the City and County of Cork (Dublin: McGlashan and Gill, 1875). Daiken, Leslie, Out Goes She; Dublin Street Rhymes (Dublin: Dolmen, 1963). D’Albert, Charles, Dancing: Technical Encyclopedia on the Theory and Practice of the Art of Dancing (London: 1913). D’Alton, John, The History of the County of Dublin (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1838). Daly, John Augustín, Leah the Forsaken (London: Samuel French, 1862). Daly, Leo, James Joyce and the Mullingar Connection (Dublin: Dolmen, 1975). Daly, Mary E., Dublin: The Deposed Capital (Cork: Cork University Press, 1984). Daly, Mary E., Mona Hearn, and Peter Pearson, Dublin’s Victorian Houses (Dublin: A. & A. Farmar, 1998). Dame, Frederick William, ‘The Part(ed) Song’, Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung 41 (1996). Damon, S. Foster, A Blake Dictionary (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973). Daniel, George, The Modern Dunciad, Virgil in London, and Other Poems (London: William Pickering 1835). Daniels, Cora Linn and C. M. Stevans, Encyclopædia of Superstitions (Milwaukee: J. H. Yewdale and Sons Co., 1903). Dante, Inferno, tr. John D. Sinclair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961). Dante, Purgatorio, tr. John D. Sinclair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961). Dante, Paradiso, tr. John D. Sinclair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961). Dante, Il Convivio, tr. Richard H. Lansing (New York: Garland, 1990). Dante, Vita Nuova, tr. Mark Musa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). D’Arbois de Jubainville, Marie Henri, The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology, tr. Richard Best (Dublin: Hodges Figgis, 1903). Darby, Eleanor, Legends of Many Lands (London: William Freeman, 1870). D’Arcy, Anne Marie, ‘The Middle English Lyric’, in Readings in Medieval Texts: Interpreting Old and Middle English Literature, ed. David F. Johnson and Elaine M. Treharne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). D’Arcy, Anne Marie, ‘Joyce and the Twoheaded Octopus of Judéo-Maçonnerie’, The Review of English Studies, new series 64.267 (November 2013). D’Arcy, Anne Marie, ‘ “Vartryville”: Dublin’s Water Supply and Joyce’s Sublation of Local Government’, Joyce Studies Annual (2013). D’Arcy, Anne Marie, ‘Dindsenchas, Mr Deasy, and the Nightmare of Partition in Ulysses’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 114C (2014). D’Arcy, Anne Marie, ‘ “Eating Orangepeels in the Park”: Largesse, Libel, amd Public Actions in Ulysses’, in Joyce and the Law, ed. Jonathan Goldman (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2017). D’Arcy, Anne Marie, ‘ “Those Jews they said killed the Christian boy”: The Shadow of Kishinev in Ulysses’, in Reimagining the Jews of Ireland, ed. Zuleika Rogers and Natalie Wynn (Berlin and New York: Peter Lang, 2019). D’Arcy, Anne Marie, John McCafferty, Marina Ansaldo, and Jason McElligott, James Joyce: Apocalypse and Exile (Dublin: Marsh’s Library, 2014). Darlington, Joseph, ‘The Catholicity of Shakspere’s Plays: A Lecture’ I, New Ireland Review 8 (December 1897).
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1338 Bibliography Griffin, Susan M., ‘Awful Disclosures’, PMLA 111.1 (Jan. 1996). Griffith, Allen, Lessons in Elocution (Chicago: Adams, Blackmer, and Lyon, 1872). Griffith, Arthur, The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland (Dublin: James Duffy, 1904). Griffith, J. P. Cozier, The Care of the Baby (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1895). Griffiths, Bill, A Dictionary of North-East Dialect, 3rd edn (Alnwick: Northumbria Press, 2011). Grimke, Sarah Moore and Mary S. Parker, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1838). Grimm, J. L. K. and W. K. Grimm, Grimms’ Tales for Young and Old, tr. Ralph Manheim (New York: Anchor Books, 1983). The Groans of Ireland in a Letter to a Member of Parliament (Dublin: George Faulkner, 1741). Groden, Michael, ‘Ulysses’ in Progress (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977). Groden, Michael, ‘A Response to John Kidd’s “An Inquiry into Ulysses: The Corrected Text” ’, James Joyce Quarterly 28.1 (Fall 1990). Groden, Michael, ‘The National Library of Ireland’s New Joyce Manuscripts’, Journal of Modern Literature 26.1 (Fall 2002). Groden, Michael, ‘Joyce at Work on “Cyclops” ’, James Joyce Quarterly, 44.2 (Winter 2007). Grose, Francis, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, ed. Eric Partridge (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1963). Gryta, Caroline Nobile, ‘Who is Signor Maffei?’, James Joyce Quarterly 21.4 (Summer 1984). Guénon, René, Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion, tr. Alvin Moore, Jr, Cecil Bethell, Hubert, and Rohini Schiff (Hillsdale: Sophia Perennis, 2003). A Guide through Glasnevin Cemetery (Dublin: M. H. Gill, 1879). Guide to Ireland (Dublin: Irish Tourist Association, 1934). Guillorel, Éva and David Hopkin, ‘Oral Cultures and Traditions of Social Conflict’, in Rhythms of Revolt: European Traditions and Memories of Social Conflict in Oral Culture, ed. Éva Guillorel, David Hopkin, and William Pooley (London: Routledge, 2018). Guthrie Wright, C. E., School Cookery Book (London: Macmillan, 1881). Guthrie, W. K. C., The Sophists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971). Gwynn, Denis, Daniel O’Connell (Cork: Cork University Press, 1947). Gwynn, Edward, Edward Martyn and the Irish Revival (London: Jonathan Cape, 1930). Hachlili, Rachel, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1988). Haeckel, Ernst, The Riddle of the Universe, tr. Joseph McCabe (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1900). Haig, Alexander, Uric Acid (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1904). Hales, John W., Essays and Notes on Shakespeare (London: George Bell and Sons, 1892). Hall, Anna Maria, Lights and Shadows of Irish Life (London: Henry Colburn, 1838). Hall, Anna Maria, Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, &c., (London: Jeremiah How, 1843). Hall, Anna Maria, Stories of the Irish Peasantry (Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1850). Hall, J. B. Random Records of a Reporter (London: Simpkin Marshall, 1928). Hammond, Gerald, The Language of Horse Racing (New York: Routledge, 2016). Hampden, Mary, Every Woman’s Flower Garden (New York: Duffield and Co., 1915). Hanaway-Oakley, Cleo, James Joyce and the Phenomenology of Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Hand, Wayland D., Magical Medicine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). Handbook to the City of Dublin and the Surrounding District (Dublin: University Press, 1908). A Handbook for Visitors to Paris (London: John Murray, 1879). Hands, Thora, Drinking in Victorian and Edwardian Britain: Beyond the Spectre of the Drunkard (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, 2018). Hanley, Sylvanus, Catalogue of Recent Bivalve Shells (London: Williams and Norgate, 1842–1856). Hanna, J. W., ‘An Inquiry into the True Landing Place of St Patrick in Ulster’, Ulster Journal of Archæology 11.1 (January 1905). Hannavy, John, ed., Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography (New York: Routledge, 2008). Hansson, Heidi, ‘The Book of Gilly’, in Irish Women’s Writing, 1878–1922, ed. Anna Pilz and Whitney Standlee (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016). Harbison, Peter, Ancient Irish Monuments (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1997).
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1340 Bibliography Henderson, William George, Missale ad usum Percelebris Ecclesiae Herfordensis (Leeds: McCorquodale, 1874). Henry of Huntingdon, The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, tr. and ed. Thomas Forester (London: Henry Bohn, 1853). Heraclitus, Fragments, tr. T. M. Robinson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987). Herodotus, The Histories, tr. Aubrey de Sélincourt, rev. John Marincola (London: Penguin, 1972). Herr, Cheryl, Joyce’s Anatomy of Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986). Herrick, Robert, Poetical Works (London: William Pickering, 1825). Herring, Philip, Joyce’s Notes and Early Drafts for ‘Ulysses’ (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977). Herring, Philip, Joyce’s Uncertainty Principle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). Hervey, Thomas Kibble, Poems, ed. Mrs T. K. Hervey (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1866). Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, tr. M. L. West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). Hibbert, Christopher, The Great Mutiny: India 1857 (New York: Viking, 1978). Hibbert, Christopher, Queen Victoria (Cambridge: Da Capo, 2001). The Hibernian Cabinet (London: T. Hughes, 1817). Hickey, Kieran, Faithful Departed: The Dublin of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ (Dublin: Lilliput, 2004). Higgins, Patrick, A Queer Reader (London: Fourth Estate, 1995). Hill, Berkeley, Syphilis and Local Contagious Disorders (London: Smith, Elder, 1881). Hill, J. R., ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Hill, Janet Mackenzie, The Book of Entrées (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912). Hill, Thomas Edie, Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms (Chicago: Moses Warren and Co., 1875). Hilton, Matthew, Smoking in British Popular Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). Hind, John Russell, The Solar System, (New York: Putnam, 1852). Hirst, Barton Cooke and George A. Piersol, Human Monstrosities (Philadelphia: Lea Brothers, 1891). Hobson, Randy and Teresa Sullivan, The Social Organisation of Work, 5th edn (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2012). Hodgart, Matthew J. C. and Mabel P. Worthington, Song in the Works of James Joyce (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959). Hoffmann, Louis, Home Gymnastics (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1892). Hogan, Patrick, ‘Find MC’, James Joyce Literary Supplement 6.2 (Fall 1992). Hogendorn, Jan and Marion Johnson, The Shell Money of the Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Holder, Charles Frederick, The Quakers in Great Britain and America (New York: Neuner, 1913). Holderness, Graham, Nine Lives of William Shakespeare (London: Continuum, 2011). Holdsworth, Joseph, Geology, Minerals, Mines and Soils of Ireland (London: Houlston and Wright, 1857). Hölldobler, Bert and Edward Wilson, The Ants (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). Holzknecht, Karl J., The Backgrounds of Shakespeare’s Plays (New York: American Book Company, 1950). Homer, The Iliad, tr. Charles Merivale (London: Strahan and Co., 1869). Homer, The Odyssey, tr. S. H. Butcher and A. Lang (London: Macmillan, 1887). Homer, The Odyssey, tr. Alexander Pope (London: Grant Richards, 1903). Homer, The Odyssey, tr. William Cowper (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1910). Homer, The Iliad, tr. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961). The Homeric Hymns, tr. Michael Crudden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Hone, Patrick, Cricket in Ireland (Tralee: The Kerryman, 1956). Honton, Margaret, ‘Concerning Concone’, James Joyce Quarterly 13.1 (Fall 1975). Hooke, Robert, An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations (London: John Martyn, 1674). Hooper, Conal, ‘Sport in Ulysses’, in Voices on Joyce, ed. Anne Fogarty and Fran O’Rourke, (Dublin: UCD Press, 2015).
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1344 Bibliography Kelly, H. P., Irish Bulls and Puns (New York: Carey-Stafford, 1906). Kelly, Joseph, Our Joyce (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998). Kenna, Shane, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa (Sallins: Merrion Press, 2015). Kenner, Hugh, ‘Molly’s Masterstroke’, James Joyce Quarterly 10.1 (Fall 1972). Kenner, Hugh, ‘Ulysses’, rev. edn (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). Kenny, Colum, The Enigma of Arthur Griffifth: ‘The Father of Us All’ (Newbridge: Merrion Press, 2020). Kenny, Peter, The Joyce Papers 2002 (Dublin: NLI, 2002). Kenny’s Bookshop and Art Galleries 75 Years (Galway: Kenny’s Bookshop, 2015). Keogh, Dermot, Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland (Cork: Cork University Press, 1998). Keogh, Dermot and Andrew McCarthy, Limerick Boycott: Anti-Semitism in Ireland (Cork: Mercier Press, 2005). Keohler, Thomas Goodwin, Songs of a Devotee (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2010). Kerridge, Eric, Textile Manufactures in Early Modern England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985). Kershner, R. Brandon, The Culture of Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ (New York: Palgrave, 2010). Kettle, Tom, Irish Orators and Oratory (Dublin: Talbot, 1916). Kevles, Daniel, In the Name of Eugenics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). Khayyám, Omar, Rubáiyát, tr. Edward FitzGerald (New York: Books Inc., n.d.). Kiberd, Declan and P. J. Mathews, eds, Handbook of the Irish Revival (Dublin: Abbey Theatre Press, 2015). Kidd, John, ‘An Inquiry into Ulysses: The Corrected Text’, Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America 82.4 (December 1988). Kidd, John, ‘Errors of Execution in the 1984 Ulysses’, Studies in the Novel 22.2 (Summer 1990). Kiely, David M., John Millington Synge (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1994). Kilgarriff, Michael, Sing Us One of the Old Songs: A Guide to Popular Song 1860–1920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Killeen, Jarlath, The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Killeen, Terence, ‘Myths and Monuments: The Case of Alfred H. Hunter’, Dublin James Joyce Journal 1 (2008). Killeen, Terence, ‘Marion Hunter Revisited: Further Light on a Dublin Enigma’, Dublin James Joyce Journal 3 (2010). Kimball, Jean, ‘Love and Death in Ulysses: “Word known to all men” ’, James Joyce Quarterly 24.2 (Winter 1987). Kimball, Jean, ‘Love in the Kidd Era: An Afterword’, James Joyce Quarterly 29.2 (Winter 1992). King, Greg, The Mad King (London: Aurum, 1997). Kingsley, Charles, Sermons for the Times (London: John W. Parker and Son, 1855). Kipling, Rudyard, American Notes (Boston: Brown and Company, 1899). Kipling, Rudyard, Selected Poems, ed. Peter Keating (London: Penguin, 1993). Klauder, Alexander, Catholic Practice at Church and at Home, 6th edn (New York: Benziger, 1899). Knowles, James Sheridan, William Tell (London: Thomas Dolby, 1825). Knowles, Sebastian D. G., ‘That Form Endearing: A Performance of Siren Songs’, in Joyce in the Hibernian Metropolis, ed. Morris Beja and David Norris (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1996). Knowles, Sebastian D. G., ed., Bronze by Gold: The Music of Joyce (New York: Routledge, 1999). Knowles, Sebastian D. G., The Dublin Helix (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001). Knowles, Sebastian D. G., At Fault (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2018). Knowlson, James, Damned to Fame (London: Bloomsbury, 1996). Kohut, George Alexander, Some Passover Rhymes and Their Parallels (Philadelphia: Office of The Jewish Exponent, 1903). Koloski-Ostrow, Ann Olga, The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015). Kortsch, Christine Bayles, Dress Culture in Late Victorian Women’s Fashion (London: Routledge, 2016). Kott, Jan, The Theater of Essence (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1984).
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Bibliography 1355 Pokorny, Julius, ‘Perlen der irischen Literatur’, Irische Blätter 1 (1917). Poliakov, Léon, The History of Anti-Semitism, tr. Richard Howard (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). Pollock, Frederick, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (London: C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1880). Pomeranz, Victory, ‘O’Callaghan on His Last Legs’, James Joyce Quarterly 9.1 (Fall 1971). Pomeranz, Victory, ‘More Trivia Ulysseana’, James Joyce Quarterly 15.1 (Fall 1977). Pope, Alexander, Moral Essays (Glasgow: R. Urie, 1754). Pope, Alexander, The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, ed. John Wilson Croker (London: John Murray, 1871). Pope, Alexander, The Major Works, ed. Pat Rogers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Porter, Roy, ‘ “The Secrets of Generation Display’d” ’, in ’Tis Nature’s Fault, ed. Robert Purks MacCubbin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Poss, Stanley, ‘Ulysses and the Comedy of the Immobilized Act’, ELH 24.1 (March 1957). Potter, Matthew, ‘Keeping an Eye on the Tsar: Frederick Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle’, in Irish Journalism before Independence, ed. Kevin Rafter (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011). Pottie, Kaye and Vernon Ellis, Folksongs of the Maritimes (Halifax: Formac Publishing Co., 1992). Potts, Willard, ed., Portraits of the Artist in Exile (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979). Potts, Willard, ed., Joyce and the Two Irelands (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000). Poulton, Diana, John Dowland, 2nd edn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). Powell, Kerry, Women and Victorian Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Power, Frank and Peter Pearson, The Forty Foot: A Monument to Sea Bathing (Dublin: Environmental Publications, 1996?). Power, Mary, ‘Why Miss Dunne Was Reading The Woman in White’, James Joyce Quarterly 13.2 (Winter 1976). Power, Mary, ‘The Discovery of Ruby’, James Joyce Quarterly 18.2 (Winter 1981). Power, Mary, ‘Molly Bloom and Mary Anderson’, Joyce, Modernity, and its Mediation, ed. Christine van Boheemen-Saaf (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1989). Pratt, John Tidd, The Laws Relating to the Poor, 6th edn (London: Joseph Butterworth and Son, 1827). Preminger, Alex and T. V. F. Brogan, eds, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Prescott, Tara, ‘ “Guttapercha Things” ’, in De-Familiarizing Readings, ed. Alan W. Friedman and Charles Rossman (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009). Preuss, Julius, Biblical and Talmudic Medicine, tr. Fred Rosner (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004). Proceedings in Connection with the Visit to Dublin of the Marquess of Ripon, K.G. and the Right Hon. John Morley, M.P. 1st to 3rd February, 1888 (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1888). Procter, Adelaide A., Complete Works (London: George Bell and Sons, 1905). Prunty, Jacinta, Dublin Slums 1800–1925: A Study in Urban Geography (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1998). Prunty, Jacinta, ‘Improving the Urban Environment’, in Dublin through Space and Time, ed. Joseph Brady and Anngret Simms, 2nd edn (Dublin: Four Courts, 2007). Pseudo-Lucian, Affairs of the Heart, Lucian, tr. M D. MacLeod (London: William Heinemann, 1961). Puchner, Martin, Poetry of the Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). Pulling, Christopher, They Were Singing (London: G. G. Harrap, 1952). Pycroft, James, The Cricket-Field (London: Longman, Green, 1862). Quaid, David A., Robert Emmet: His Birth-place and Burial (Dublin: J. Duffy, 1902). Queen Victoria, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1868). Quigley, Christine, The Corpse: A History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1996). Quinlivan, Patrick and Paul Rose, The Fenians in England (London: John Calder, 1982). Quinn, Robin, The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (Stroud: the History Press, 2016). Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, tr. John Selby Watson (London: George Bell, 1892). Rabelais, François, Gargantua and Pantagruel, tr. Thomas Urquhart and Peter Antony Motteux (London: A. H. Bullen, 1904).
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1356 Bibliography Rader, Ralph W., ‘Why Stephen’s Hand Hurts’, James Joyce Quarterly 26.3 (Spring 1989). Radford, F. L., ‘ “Christfox in Leather Trews”: The Quaker in the Library in Ulysses’, English Literary History 39.3 (September 1972). Radford, Edwin and Mona A. Radford, Encyclopedia of Superstitions (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949). Raleigh, John Henry, ‘Who Was M’Intosh?’, James Joyce Review 3.1–2 (1959). Raleigh, John Henry, ‘On the Way Home to Ithaca’, in Irish Renaissance Annual II, ed. Zack Bowen (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1981). Randolph, Vance, Blow the Candle Out (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1992). Rands, W. B., Lilliput Levee (London: Alexander Strahan, 1867). Range, Matthias, British Royal and State Funerals (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2016). Rappaport, Helen, Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003). Rathjen, Friedhelm, ‘Molly through the Garden / Reaching for the Bloom’, James Joyce Quarterly 32.1 (Fall 1994). Rathjen, Friedhelm, ‘Silence, Migration, and Cunning: Joyce and Rushdie in Flight’, James Joyce Quarterly 39.3 (Spring 2002). Raugh, Jr, Harold E., The Victorians at War (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2014). Ray, William J., ‘The Experience and Agency of Hypnosis from an Evolutionary Perspective’, in Hypnosis and Conscious States, ed. Graham A. Jamieson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Reade, Amos [pseudonym of Anne Margaret Rowan], Norah Moriarty; or, Revelations of Modern Irish Life (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1886). Reade, Amye, Ruby. A Novel. Founded on the Life of a Circus Girl (London: Author’s Cooperative, 1889). Reddy, M. P. M., Descriptive Physical Oceanography (Lisse: Balkema, 2001). Reed, David, The Popular Magazine in Britain and the United States, 1880–1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997). Reed, George, Dark Sky Legacy (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1989). Reel, Guy, ‘The National Police Gazette’ and the Making of the Modern American Man (New York: Palgrave, 2006). Regis, Balthasar, Discourse Shewing that the Yoke of Our Lord Jesus Christ Is Easier than the Yoke of Sin, 2nd edn (London: J. Oliver, 1753). Reichart, Peter A., ‘Toothpastes Containing Betel Nut’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 39.1 (January 1984). Reizbaum, Marilyn, ‘The Jewish Connection, Cont’d’, in The Seventh of Joyce ed. Bernard Benstock (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). Reizbaum, Marilyn, James Joyce’s Judaic Other (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). Renan, Ernest, Caliban (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1878). Report on the Trade in Imports and Exports at Irish Ports (Dublin: Thom’s, 1906). Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 1897 (Plymouth: W. Brendon and Son, 1897). Reports from the Select Committee on Oyster Fisheries (London: House of Commons, 1876). Resnick, Irven M., ‘Medieval Roots of the Myth of Jewish Male Menses’, The Harvard Theological Review 93.3 (Jul. 2000). Rhys, John, Celtic Folklore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901). Rice, Thomas J., ‘His Master’s Voice and Joyce’, in Cultural Studies of Joyce, ed. R. B. Kershner (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003). Rice, Thomas J., ‘Conan Doyle, James Joyce, and the Composition of Ulysses’, James Joyce Quarterly 53.3/4 (Spring Summer 2016). Richards, Thomas, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). Richardson, Samuel, Clarissa (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1932). Richardson’s Choice Songster for 1836 (Derby: Thomas Richardson, 1836). Richmond, G. W., and F. H. Sherriff, Pitman’s Dictionary of Life Assurance (London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1930).
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Bibliography 1357 Rickard, John, Joyce’s Book of Memory: The Mnemotechnic of ‘Ulysses’ (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999). Ridpath, Ian and Wil Tirion, The Monthly Sky Guide, 6th edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). A Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry (London: Renshaw and Kirkman, 1837). Rituale Romanum (Baltimore: J. Murphy, 1873). Rixson, Derrick, The History of Meat Trading (Nottingham: Nottingham University Press, 2000). Roberts, Alexander and James Donaldson, eds, The Anti-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986). Roberts, Paul G., Heels Part 1 (New York: Fashion Industry Broadcast, 2014). Robertson, J. M., Christianity and Mythology (London: Watts and Co., 1900). Robertson, William, Journal of a Clergyman during a Visit to the Peninsula in the Summer and Autumn of 1841 (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1845). Robinson, James, Joyce’s Dante (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Rock, Daniel, Hierurgia (London: Joseph Booker, 1833). Rockwell, Joan, Fact in Fiction (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974). Rodmell, Paul, Opera in the British Isles, 1875–1918 (London: Routledge, 2016). Rogers, Charles, ed., Life and Songs of the Baroness Nairne, 3rd edn (London: Charles Griffin and Co., 1872). Romer C. F. and A. E. Mainwaring, The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers (London: A. L. Humphreys, 1908). Ronan, Myles, ‘Religious Life in Old Dublin’, Dublin Historical Record 2.3 (March 1940). Rooney, William, Poems and Ballads (Dublin: M.H. Gill, 1901). Roscher, W. H., ed. Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1884–1937). Rose, C. Brian and Gareth Darbyshire, The Golden Age of King Midas: Exhibition Catalogue (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). Rose, Danis, ‘The Source of Mr Bloom’s Wealth’, James Joyce Quarterly 25.1 (Fall 1987). Rose, Danis, ‘Solider than Most: John Joyce’s House in North Richmond Street’, James Joyce Quarterly 31.2 (Winter 1994). Rose, Danis and John O’Hanlon, The Lost Notebook (Edinburgh: Split Pea Press, 1989). Rose, Lionel, ‘Rogues and Vagabonds’: Vagrant Underworld in Britain 1815–1985 (Oxford: Routledge, 1988). Rose, Richard, ed., International Handbook of Elections, rev. edn (Washington DC: CQ Press, 2000). Ross, Charles Henry, Stage Whispers (London: ‘Judy’ Office, 1881). Ross, David A., Critical Companion to William Butler Yeats (New York: Facts on File, 2009). Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, Poetical Works, ed. William M. Rossetti (London: Ellis and Elvey, 1900). Rossman, Charles, guest ed., Studies in the Novel: A Special Issue on Editing ‘Ulysses’, 22.2 (Summer 1990). Rosten, Leo, The Joys of Yiddish (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968). Roth, Cecil and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds, The New Standard Jewish Encyclopaedia (Jerusalem: Massada Publishing, 1970). Roth, Mitchel, Prisons and Prison Systems (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006). Rous, Samuel Holland, Victrola Book of the Opera, 4th edn (Camden: Victor Talking Machine Co., 1917). Rouse, Paul, Sport and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The First and Second Discourses and Essay on the Origin of Languages, tr. Victor Gourevitch (New York: Harper and Row, 1986). Rowan, Jonathan Bricke, ‘Who Is M’Intosh?’, James Joyce Quarterly 51.4 (Summer 2014). Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing Laws, vol. 7—Ireland (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1898). The Royal Readers, no. V (London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1876). Ruff, Lillian M., ‘James Joyce and Arnold Dolmetsch’, James Joyce Quarterly 6.3 (Spring 1969). Rundell, Maria Eliza, New Family Receipt-Book, new edn (London: 1810). Russell, Bertrand, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1919).
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1358 Bibliography Russell, George (A.E.), Ideals in Ireland (London: Unicorn, 1901). Russell, George (A.E.), ‘Religion and Love’, Dana (June 1904). Russell, George (A.E.), ed., New Songs; a Lyric Selection (Dublin: O’Donoghue, 1904). Russell, George (A.E.), Deirdre (Dublin: Maunsel, 1907). Russell, George (A.E.), The Candle of Vision (London: Macmillan, 1918). Russell, George (A.E.), Collected Poems (London: Macmillan, 1919). Russell, George (A.E.), Selections from the Contributions to the ‘Irish Homestead’, ed. George Summerfield (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1978). Russell, Henry Norris, Raymond Smith Dugan, and John Quincy Stewart, Astronomy II: Astrophysics and Stellar Astronomy (Boston: Ginn, 1927). Russell, Inge and Graham Stewart, Whisky Technology, Production and Marketing, 2nd edn (Oxford: The Academic Press, 2014). Rutler, George William, The Stories of Hymns (Irondale: EWTN, 2016). Ryan, John, Remembering How We Stood: Bohemian Dublin at the Mid-Century (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1975). S. A., Arts and Industries in Ireland: I. John Henry Foley II. Irish Wool and Woolens (Dublin: M. H. Gill, 1882). Sacher, Harry, Zionism and the Jewish Future (London: John Murray, 1917). Saint-Amour, Paul K., Tense Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). St John, Ambrose, The Raccolta (London: Burns and Lambert, 1857). St John-Stevas, Norman, Life, Death and the Law (Washington, DC: BeardBooks, 2002). Sadler, Thomas, A Complete System of Practical Arithmetic (Shrewsbury: W. Williams, 1773). Safranski, Rüdiger, Nietzsche, tr. Shelley Frisch (London: Granta, 2002). Sage, Michel, Mrs Piper and the Society for Psychical Research, tr, Noralie Robertson (New York: Scott-Thaw, 1904). Saintsbury, George, ed., Elizabethan and Jacobean Pamphlets (London: Percival and Co., 1892). Saintsbury, George, ed., A History of English Prose Rhythm (London: Macmillan, 1912). Sampson, George, The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, rev. by R. C. Churchill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Sanders, Lise, Consuming Fantasies (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2006). Sandow, Eugen, Strength and How to Obtain It (London: Gale & Polden, 1897). Sandulescu, C. George and Clive Hart, eds, Assessing the 1984 ‘Ulysses’ (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1986). Satlow, Michael L., Curating Judaism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006). Sattler, Birgit and Michael Storrie-Lombardi, ‘L.I.F.E. in Antarctic Lakes’, in Polar Microbiology, ed. Asim K. Bej, Jackie Aislabie, and Ronald M. Atlas (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2010). Saul, George Brandon, Traditional Irish Literature and Its Backgrounds (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1970). Saunders, Helen, ‘Maurice Wilkins and Ulysses’, Dublin James Joyce Journal 10 (2017). Saunders, Helen, ‘ “Dirty Cleans”: Laundry in Ulysses’, James Joyce Quarterly 55.3/4 (Spring– Summer 2018). Saunders, Helen, ‘On National Dress and the Problem of Authenticity in Ulysses’, Irish Studies Review (2019). Savage, Henry, Escapes and Escapades (London: Pomegranate Press, 1915). Savory, Jerold and Patricia Marks, The Smiling Muse: Victoriana in the Comic Press (Philadelphia: The Art Alliance Press, 1985). Saxon, A. H., P. T. Barnum (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989). Saxon, Arthur, The Text-Book of Weight-Lifting (London: ‘Health and Strength’ Limited, 1908). Sayer, Frederic, The History of Gibraltar (London: Saunders, Otley and Co., 1862). Sayers, William, ‘ “A faded 1860 print of Heenan boxing Sayers” ’, James Joyce Quarterly 47.2 (Winter 2010). Schattner, Angela, ‘Tennis Courts and Bowling Greens as Early Leisure Venues in Sixteenth- to Eighteenth-Century London and Bath’, in Sport’s Relationship with Other Leisure Industries, ed. Dion Georgiou and Benjamin Litherland (London: Routledge, 2017).
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