"Menly about peebles."

(260.1-262.2)  And now the fun begins.  In the Skeleton Key, Campbell and Robinson say that the second chapter of the second book of Finnegans Wake is "perhaps the most difficult in the book."  In his Reader's Guide, Tindall argues that this chapter is denser than the previous one.  He adds that the next chapter is even denser before saying that "we must content ourselves with calling Chapters IX, X, and XI [Tindall uses running chapter numbers, I'm following Campbell and Robinson in resetting the chapter numbers with each book] the densest part of the Wake."  Joyce explained that "the technique here is a reproduction of a schoolboy's (and schoolgirl's) old classbook complete with marginalia by the twins, who change sides at half time, footnotes by the girl (who doesn't), a Euclid diagram, funny drawings etc."

This is, then, the chapter in which the children -- Shaun, Shem, and Isabel -- do their homework.  The "text" of the classbook, or textbook, is found in the center of the page, with Shem's commentary written in italics on the left side (at least initially), Shaun's commentary written in capital letters on the right side (at least initially), and Isabel's commentary written in footnotes.  Shem's commentary is more amusing and irreverent (such as when he refers to HCE by writing, "With his broad and hairy face, to Ireland a disgrace.").  Shaun's is more academic and pretentious (such as when he calls the directions to HCE's pub an "IMAGINABLE ITINERARY THROUGH THE PARTICULAR UNIVERSAL.").  And I guess you could say that Isabel's is more "right" in a Joycean sense (such as when a description of ALP's rainbow-colored clothing gives Isabel occasion to imagine a game of strip poker she'll play when she's an adult:  "When we play dress grownup at alla ludo poker you'll be happnessised to feel how fetching I can look in clingarounds.")

In keeping with the pattern of the Wake, the chapter begins at the beginning:  "As we there are where are we are we there from tomtittot to teetootomtotalitarian.  Tea tea too oo."  This is a sort of cosmic zooming in, moving from the void that existed before the Word to the present, even if we can't really be sure where the present is.  The children give us directions back to the pub, with the various landmarks representing a subject of the children's study.  For exmple, "Tycho Brache Crescent" references the astronomer, while "Berkeley Alley" references the philosopher.  After a trip along the ever-present river and through the hills, to the pub, where "maker mates with made (O my!)," we once again meet HCE and ALP, the creators of the children's world.  There are still a lot of questions about "this upright one" and his "zeroine":

Terror of the noonstruck by day, cryptogam of each nightly bridable.  But, to speak broken heaventalk, is he?  Who is he?  Whose is he?  Why is he?  Howmuch is he?  Which is he?  When is he?  Where is he?  How is he?  And what the decans is there about him anyway, the decemt man?

These questions, it seems, will be answered in this chapter.  The narrator tells us that HCE and ALP will be explained presently:  "Easy, calm your haste!  Approach to lead our passage!"

"Grant sleep in hour's time, O Loud!"

(257.3-259.10)  Ok, so maybe Isabel wasn't quite up in her room at the end of yesterday's reading, but instead sadly sulked about because she had to go to bed soon.  Glancing back over the end of that passage, it seems like her family is trying to cheer her up at the very top of page 257.  And, moving into today's passage, we see the children -- "all boy more all girl" -- "running about their ways, going and coming, now at rhimba rhomba, now in trippiza trappaza, pleating a pattern Gran Geamatron showed them of gracehoppers, auntskippers and coneyfarm leppers."  This looks like the children -- Shaun, Shem, and Isabel -- running, hopping, skipping, and jumping all throughout the house (and perhaps HCE's pub, if HCE is the "Huddy" in "store Huddy").  As the "tinny" clock lets us know that it's 8 p.m., the children chant a kind of Wakeian nursery rhyme.  As they move about, HCE seems to be trying to gather them up as he barks at his customers in parentheticals that interrupt the rhyme, such as "(You'll catch it, don't fret, Mrs Tummy Lupton!  Come indoor, Scoffynosey, and shed your swank!)."  It could also be the children that HCE's yelling at, although he does seem to be broaching some adult subject matter here:  "(You're well held now, Missy Cheekspeer, and your panto's off!  Fie, for shame, Ruth Wheatacre, after all the booz said!)."  Regardless, the rhyme is brought to an abrupt end by another thunderword, which, by incorporating Danish, Italian, German, Irish, and other foreign words for "shut the door!" (as noted by McHugh), indicates the slamming of the door that shuts the children safely inside the house.  The play of the chapter finally reaching its conclusion, we her the crowd's applause with "Byfall." (which McHugh identifies as the German "Beifall," meaning "applause") and "Upploud!"

This being the first chapter in the second book of the Wake, the thunderword reminds us that we are in the divine age of Vico's four-part cycle.  Fittingly, then, the thunderword calls to the childrens' minds apocalyptic words like "Rendningrocks" ("Ragnarök") and "gttrdmmrng" ("Götterdämmerung").  This leads into a kind of peace settlement between Shem and Shaun in which Shem (Nick) accedes to Shaun (Mick):  "And let Nek Nekulon extol Mak Makal and let him say unto him:  Immi ammi Semmi."

This seeming peace achieved (at least temporarily), the chapter ends with a prayer for the children, who have "entered into their habitations."  The prayer, addressed to "O Loud," recognizes that troubles will eventually befall the children, but asks for the strength to persevere:  "Loud, heap miseries upon us yet entwine our arts with laughters low!"  This first chapter of the Wake's second book thus fittingly ends with silence:  "Mummum."

"For they are now tearing, that is, teartoretorning."

(255.12-257.2)  Thereto returning from another extended absence (I know, I know), the reading resumes with more shouts being hurled about in contemplation of HCE's arrival.  As noted by McHugh, much of this is the children calling upon various orders of knights for their protection, but also found in here is Shem (Pliny the Younger) writing more drummed-up accusations ("calamolumen of contumellas") about HCE ("Pliny the Elder").  This paragraph begins to wrap up with the children shouting to HCE, "And for the honour of Alcohol drop that you-know-what-I've-come-about-I-saw-your-act air!"  And it concludes with exaltation of ALP at the expense of her husband:  "Punch may be pottleproud but his Judy's a wife's wit better."

This invocation of ALP/Judy introduces her into the scene.  The producer of the play, "Mr John Baptister Vickar" (both St. John the Baptist and Giambattista Vico) puts HCE (the Adam figure of the Wake) to sleep and from his side draws his "cutletsized consort," ALP (the Eve figure of the Wake).  Here the narrator gives us the physical measurements of this "foundling filly."  She stands five foot five inches; weighs 150 pounds ("ten pebble ten"); measures 37-29-37; and is 23 inches around her thighs, 14 inches around her calves, and 9 inches around her feet.

At the arrival of the parents, all the children run home.  With their dismissal, Joyce also dismisses the Irish writers who came before him, including Edmund Burke, Yeats, Synge, Wilde, Shaw, Swift, and Sterne.  As those luminaries scatter home like children at the arrival of HCE (who in one sense represents Joyce himself at this moment in the books), Joyce delivers a grand proclamation about the Wake and its effect:  "For here the holy language.  Soons to come.  To pausse."

With their playtime done, the children tear into their homework and evening snacks.  They have a lot of subjects to tackle, including French, religion, science, literature, Irish history, geography, and geometry.  This being the Wake, these subjects often run together and get jumbled into each other.  The youngest of the children, Isabel, is sent up to bed.  The reading ends with her in the sky (her upstairs bedroom) sad.  The narrator asks, "What is amaid today todo?"

Tomorrow (I guarantee it . . . tomorrow):  the chapter's conclusion.

"Hocus Crocus, Esquilocus"

(253.19-255.11)  Maybe the tears aren't coming this time.  Glugg has failed to answer the riddle for the third time -- "as tiercely as the duece before" -- but now "there is a hole in the ballet trough which the rest fell out."  In other words, there's something missing in the dance this time, and the rest of the routine (Glugg's tears, the Flora's heckles, Chuff's triumph) won't recur.

Why?  Perhaps it should have been obvious.  We're faced with the "sudden and gigantesquesque appearance unwithstandable as a general election in Barnado's bearskin amongst the brawlmiddle of this village childergarten of the largely longsuffering laird of Lucanhof."  This can only mean one thing (or maybe not, since it's the Wake, but bear with me):  In the middle of the children's pantomime the long-suffering giant of the Wake -- HCE -- is about to suddenly appear.

But how do we account for him?  He may have been hurled from the water onto the Irish coast, for he is the reappearing, mystical being through which the "human chain extends" just as the Christian tradition was passed down from St. John to St. Polycarp to St. Irenaeus to St. Patrick.  He is certainly legendary, as he has at least 1001 names (the "thousandfirst" of which is "Hocus Crocus, Esquilocus, Finnfinn the Faineant" and is only known to heroes).  The charges against him remain the same.  It's HCE, older than Adam, that we're once again "recurrently meeting."

HCE being HCE, he's still viewed as an invader, and the children are quick to shout, "Defend the King!" (the king, presumably, is Chuff/Shaun, the one who took his departed father's place).  Realizing that "at last is Longabed going to be gone to, that more than man," the children prepare for battle:  "Attach him!  Hold!"  They question why HCE must be awakened, but it seems as if their attack won't be very effective, as their continuing conjectures are suddenly cut off:  "if other who joined faith when his depth charge bombed our barrel spillway were to -- !"  This abrupt halt at the end of today's reading indicates that something major is about to happen, perhaps even as early as tomorrow.

"But listen to the mocking birde to micking barde making bared!"

(251.21-253.18)  Today's passage begins with a vision of Glugg as Izod's tutor.  He would be a good one, covering tantalizing passages of Dante ("dantellising"), Galileo ("Galilleotto"), and Machiavelli ("Smachiavelluti").  It would be like "Headmaster Adam" teaching "Eva Harte" (or, as the Wake has it, Glugg would be her "toucher").

Now the time for Glugg and Chuff's confrontation has arrived.  The two engage in a thrust-parry dialectic.  Instead of the heated confrontation that we might expect, however, the exchange involves one side offering a blessing and the other offering thanks.  The two "crown pretenders" become wrought together, and in the "transfusion" the Floras can no longer tell which is Glugg and which is Chuff.  Unable to rely on their strongly held prejudices, they now rely on an inverse of Darwinism to discover who the victor will be:  the "assent of man" will occur here through "naturel rejection."

As might be expected, the Glugg figure comes out of the confrontation dejected:  "Creedless, croonless hangs his haughty.  There end no moe red devil in the white of his eye."  He realizes progress is impossible even over long stretches of history.  Things will be the same for him as they are for "his grandson's grandson's grandson's grandson," just as it was for "the grandmother of the grandmother of his grandmother's grandmother."  Nothing changes.  "I have done it equals I so shall do," just as "look at me now means I once was otherwise."  Glugg should ask Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for the strength to stick by Izod, "by gum," and to not give her up without a plucky fight with "buckskin gloves."

The passage ends with what McHugh identifies as Glugg's third guess as to the riddle's solution:  "But Noodynaady's actual ingrate tootle is of come into the garner mauve and they nice are stores of morning and buy me a bunch of iodines."  This means that his guess is violet (or mauve).  Obviously, this isn't the answer Izod had hinted at.  That likely means more tears are coming soon.

"So see we so as seed we sow."

(249.5-251.20)  The winning word winked to Glugg is, "Luck!"  As noted by McHugh, this is Izod both wishing Glugg luck and telling him to look, for the answer to the riddle has been set right in front of him.  Hearing that word, Glugg is transported in a way into "the house of breathings," or Izod's mouth, in which the word in "all fairness" lies.  What follows is a passage that sets forth the construction and features of Izod's mouth/house, with its "roof" of "massicious jasper" and "canopy"-tongue of "Tyrian awning" that rises and descends.  Amongst milk, rhubarb, roasted meats, consonants, and vowels, the "word" exists in Izod's mouth.

But just after Izod wishes Glugg luck, the Floras gather around her before him, pretending to help but instead shouting taunts at him.  It's 29 bloomers versus one man.  They ask him if he's going to wear a rosy ribbon, and he pretends to tie one around himself.  They ask if he's going to clean their chimneys, and he pretends to sweep.  They ask if he can say adieu to his future wife, and he pretends to cut up and bite off their heads and spit them into a pail.

Now the Floras are scolded for wasting time, for the ultimate showdown between Glugg and Chuff is imminent.  Language mirroring that of Macbeth appears here, perhaps positioning Glugg as Macbeth and Chuff as Macduff.  Glugg, the foul-smelling libeler, is set in opposition to the fair-smelling Floras, who trail Izod.  They follow Chuff and bet their money on him as they place God's scourge on Glugg.

Glugg stands there blinking, "[t]hrust from the light, apophotorejected."  His clothes are spotted with the marks of his foul deeds and thoughts.  The passage ends with him still apparently frazzled by the Floras.  He rightly sees them as standing in opposition to him -- "They vain would convert the to be hers in the word," or, in other words, they won't help to make Glugg into Izod's husband -- but he also lusts over them:  "Gosh, they're fair ripecherry!"  And so Glugg continues to mirror the complex relationship his father, HCE, had with the predecessors of these young women.

"a smuggler for lifer"

(247.17-249.4)  We pick up with Glugg dejected, once again, before Chuff.  And, once again, he's in tears:  "He wept indeiterum" (as noted by McHugh, "indeiterum" = "inde iterum," Latin for "after that again").  As he stands there, "[h]ighly momourning," he sees his future before him, one where he remains "[m]elained from nape to kneecap."  His sad state is contrasted with Izod's, who is "vied [white] from her girders [garters] up."  The Floras bear false witness against Glugg, striking a hidden wound to his ego.  He washes this bruise with "Soldwoter" -- the saltwater of his tears.  He can see the truth in black and white with his "eyetrompit," or telescope.  In contrast to this black and white, the Floras taunt him with a variety of colors, one for each Flora (for example, "apple, bacchante, custard, dove, eskimo, feldgrau," and so on).

As the Floras taunt him, however, Izod stands both beside and apart from them.  The majority of page 248 is dedicated to Izod providing Glugg with numerous hints to help him solve the riddle.  The answer, which she hints at around and around without every actually stating it out loud, is "heliotrope."  One gets the sense that Glugg's not going to get it, though.

As Izod hints at the answer, she also explains her current situation.  She's got a suitor -- a "bellyswain" -- who is strong but knows as much about being a husband as a colorblind person knows about matching garments.  She wants Glugg and Chuff to make peace:  "Shake hands through the thicketloch!  Sweet swanwater!"  Finally, there is something imminent on the horizon:  "And somebody's coming, I feel for a fect."  The passage draws to a conlcusion with Izod urging Glugg to action, rather than to sit there looking at the colors of the Floras, for her suitor -- Chuff -- will go to work on her while Glugg stands idly by:  "You can colour up till you're prawn while I go squirt with any cockle.  When here who adolls me infuxes sleep."  Today's reading ends with Izod giving Glugg a word of encouragement:  "Wink's the winning word."

Izod clearly wants Glugg to succeed in answering the riddle, but with Glugg's anxiety (much like his father, HCE's) combined with the taunting of the Floras and the opposition from the cocksure Chuff, Izod's assistance may not be enough.  Tomorrow, we'll draw closer to what is feeling like Glugg's inevitable fate.

"Like a Finn at a fair."

(245.6-247.16)  Now that it is night and all the animals in Phoenix Park are asleep, the narrator (who it, in spite of what I said yesterday, now looks like has been the more general narrator -- rather than Glugg -- since the interruption beginning at the top of page 244) says that all the fish in "Liffeyetta's bowl" have ceased their theological debates.  The narrator asks the watchman how the watch is proceeding.  

"It goes," the watchman ultimately answers.  "It does not go.  Darkpark's acoo with sucking loves."  Love and lust are in the air, and the watchman says that soon "tempt-in-twos" (the two young women who tempted HCE) and "hunt-by-threes" (the three soldiers who reported HCE) will stroll and strut through the park, along with many other young women and men.  But some, if not all, of these meetings might not go on as foreseen.

The scene quickly shifts -- perhaps unsurprisingly with, "Bing.  Bong.  Bangbong.  Thunderation!" -- to the pub, where we find mugs, rooms, and floors covered in sawdust.  Mr Knight -- "Mr. Night," aka the dreamer, HCE -- is our tapster, his "alefru" wife is at his side, Watsy Lyke is assisting behind the bar, and our old friend Kate is keeping the place clean.  Almost as soon as we find ourselves in the pub, we learn that "[o]ur thirty minutes war's alull."  All is quiet on the field of gore until we hear a horn.  HCE seems jolted by this noise:  "Housefather calls enthreateningly."  Thunder and lightning signal that something big is imminent.  As the lady of the house stirs her soup, the bubbles tell her of the future:  "the coming man, the future woman, the food that is to build, what he with fifteen years will do, the ring in her mouth of joyous guard, stars astir and stirabout."  We now hear that what's coming is the final battle between Glugg and Chuff:  "But ein and twee were never worth three.  So they must have their final since he's on parole."  This is also a significant moment for Izod:  "Now for la belle!  Icy-la-Belle!"

Like filings drawn toward a horseshoe magnet, the fillies -- the Floras -- march "[a]rranked in their array" down Vico Road (both the road in Dublin and Vico's endless cycle of history) toward the field of battle.  Glugg (Shem, described here as "that dark deed doer," "Jerkoff," and "Yem") and Chuff (Shaun, described here as "this wellwilled wooer," "Eatsoup," and "Yan") haven't been on speaking terms since their battle of "Whatalose" (Waterloo), and their battle will determine which one will walk out with Izod, who is in danger of living a life of solitude.

Now Jeremy (a form of Jerry, another name for Shem) arrives back on the scene.  He confronts Chuff by saying, "Boo, you're through!"  Chuff counters, "Hoo, I'm true."  McHugh translates the following lines as Jeremy/Glugg asking Chuff how he's doing.  Chuff responds that he's not doing too bad.  This throws Glugg back into a state of dejection:  "Kod knows.  Anything ruind.  Meetingless."

It seems that Glugg's dejection arises from his realization that Chuff is in pretty good shape, while Glugg has been suffering.  What will come of the final battle?  It looks like we might find out tomorrow.

"We are circumveiloped by obscuritads."

(243.8-245.6)  Ok, so I ended up spending four days, rather than one, putting myself back together again.  Oh well.  I'm back at it and hopefully ready to roll for the long haul.

Anyway, back to the Wake.  Today's reading picks up in the middle of the long paragraph we began in the last passage, dealing with Glugg's "fiery goosemother," Avenlith.  Glugg further explains his father's relationship with Glugg's mother, which began when his father "harboured her" and eventually wed her.  She nurtured him during his time of need, and eventually promised him that if he'd clean up his pub she would "make massa dinars" (both big dinners and lots of money).  She would also reform her own wanton ways and align herself with the Roman church.  In particular, she'd give "mezzo scudo" (roughly translated by McHugh as Italian for "half her coins") to "Sant Pursy Orelli" (Saint Persse O'Reilly) in an offering toward masses for votes and widows.

With Glugg's introduction to his mother complete, the narrative is interrupted by what sounds like a kind of Greek chorus (perhaps the Floras?) that tells us to be cautious when listening to Glugg:  "Hear, O worldwithout!  Tiny Tattling!  Backwoods, be wary!  Daintytrees, go dutch!"  This warning is immediately followed by the approach of someone who "relights our spearing torch, the moon."  This signals the coming of night.  Shops are shut, songs are sung in the synagogue, and the children are called home at their curfew.

We now embark on another longish paragraph (which covers just short of two full pages), which details what happens during the night, when "[i]t darkles . . . all this our funnanimal world."  Both humankind and the wild animals are cold.  The mother is in the house, and it sounds like the father is at the pub.  Much of the remaining lines of today's passage are dedicated, on one level, to detailing all the animals that are asleep in Phoenix Park:  among them, the birds, the lion, the panther, the elephant, the rhino, the hippo, the beagles, the peacocks, the camel, and the apes.  Amidst this, the narrator (still Glugg, I'm thinking right now) calls for lights, and "Hanoukan's Lamp" -- in one sense the Hanukkah lamp -- is lit.

"foriverever her allinall"

(241.8-243.8)  Maybe it's just me, but I found today's reading tough.  Perhaps I'm hitting a bit of a Wake wall right now, as I've gotten a post up daily (umm . . . I just realized that could be read as a Joycean pun . . . my apologies . . . it was unintentional, but I'm now obliged to leave it in . . . or something . . . ) for the past 40 or so days (after a lackluster showing throughout July and August).  Maybe, instead of hitting the wall, let's say that I've fallen off the Wake wall, so don't be surprised if I take a day off tomorrow so that this Humpty Dumpty can put himself back together again.

But yeah, back to the Wake itself.  The passage picks up in the middle of the long paragraph in which the resurrected Glugg tells the story of his father.  As could be expected from a story about a version of the embattled HCE told by a version of the perhaps equally-embattled Shem, we hear a lot more about the accusations levied against Glugg's father, Anaks Andrum.  (In their Skeleton Key, Campbell and Robinson note the significance that the newly repentant Glugg isn't actually confessing his own sins, but those of his father.)  This includes everything from more sexual deviance to being a hostile invader.  You know, the stuff we're now accustomed to hearing about HCE.  We even get an appearance from the two young temptresses ("They white liveried ragsups, two Whales of the Sea of Deceit") and the three accuser-soldiers ("they bloodiblabstard shooters, three Dromedaries of the Sands of Calumdonia") from Phoenix Park.  Glugg defends Andrum -- he says he's an upright man ("persona erecta") and a wise one (the people eat his "praverbs" up like vittles) -- but, nevertheless, Andrum was ultimately put on trial, convicted by "a jury of matrons," and sent up "Suffrogate Strate."

Glugg now turns his attention toward the ALP figure of his tale, "his fiery goosemother," Avenlith.  Of her, Glugg says, "She just as fenny as he is fulgar" -- in one sense, Avenlith's as funny as Andrum's vulgar.  The two parents will stick together forever -- or as Glugg says, "foriverver" -- as Avenlith wouldn't "swop" him for "Howarden's Castle, Englandwales."  We all know her -- she's been around for more than 111 years.  She frightens all souls, yet gets a pain in her stomach when we engage in war.  

For more on Avenlith/ALP, check back with me tomorrow (and if not then, Saturday).

"But low, boys low, he rises"

(239.16-241.7)  Our reading for today begins by wrapping up the subject of yesterday's passage, the Flora's enlightenment.  "Hightime is ups" -- it's time to move on -- "be it down into outs according!"  Eventually these "romance catholeens" (both the romantic young women and the Roman Catholics) will be emancipated, but until that happens, the Floras will go on dancing "in gyrogyrorondo."

But as the Floras were dancing up the hillside around Chuff, a sound of "oaths and screams and bawley groans with a belchybubhub and a hellabelow" could be heard.  The dark and hellish language indicates that these sounds are coming from the outcast Glugg, and we presently learn that "poor Glugger was dazed and late in his crave, ay he, laid in his grave."  This being Finnegans Wake, though, we haven't heard the last of Glugg.  Indeed, he now rises "with his spittyful eyes and whoozebecome woice."

The resurrected Glugg has turned over a new leaf.  He examines his conscience and recants his heresies.  This "wheedhearted boy of potter and mudder, chip of old Flinn the Flinter, twig of the hider that tanned him" is now going to tell his story.  He begins by talking of his direct relation, his father, here "Anaks Andrum" (one meaning for this offered by McHugh is the Greek "anax andrôn," which translates to "lord of men").  Andrum, we learn, is the proprietor of a "Drugmalt storehuse" (much like HCE's pub).  He seems to be an upstanding gentleman, but rumors persist about him.  Some say he has committed bribery.  And some ditch diggers say that he has used candy to lure young women "with pruriest pollygameous inatentions."  What else is said about this version of HCE?  We'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out . . . .

"Behose our handmades for the lured!"

(237.10-239.15)  In discussing the single long paragraph that makes up today's reading, Tindall writes in his Reader's Guide, "Nothing much happens in the interlude of several pages that follows 'And they said to him' (237.10).  What the girls say to Shaun (238-39) is mostly about 'drawpairs' or drawers."  This is true to some extent.  Nothing here really advances the narrative.  It's simply the Floras continuing to celebrate Chuff/Shaun.  And, yes, there is more talk about undergarments.  But I'm going to disagree with Tindall on this one.  A lot is happening in this paragraph, and I think this masterful passage presents a key to understanding a significant portion of the Wake.

On the surface level, this is the Floras expanding upon their admiration for Chuff.  On a deeper level, it's clear that the Floras are seeking some kind of enlightenment or knowledge from him.  He is the "pageantmaster, deliverer of softmissives" -- teacher, judge, and postman -- who travels "round the world in forty mails" to gain ultimate experience "sightseeing and soundhearing and smellsniffing and tastytasting and tenderumstouching."  The Floras ask him to "send us, your adorables, thou overblaseed, a wise and letters play of all you can ceive . . . from your holy post now you has ascertained ceremonially our names."  They punctuate their request with a summary of Chuff's innocence and goodness:

Unclean you are not.  Outcaste thou are not.  Leperstower, the karman's loki, has not blanched at our pollution and your intercourse at ninety legsplits does not defile.  Untouchable is not the scarecrown is on you.  You are pure.  You are pure.  You are in your puerity.

But what kind of enlightenment or knowledge do the Floras seek from Chuff?  The answer seems to be varied.  References (identified by McHugh, as are the other references I'll discuss here) to the Buddha in this paragraph indicate that they seek a spiritual enlightenment ("Return, sainted youngling, and walk once more among us!").  References to the Indian caste system indicate that they seek social advancement ("Our breed and better class is in brood and bitter pass.").  Most prominently, though (and this is where the panties come in), it seems these young women seek sexual maturity ("so pleasekindly communicake with the original sinse we are only yearning as yet how to burgeon.").

And it is in this exploration of the Floras' desire to fully unlock their burgeoning sexuality that we get a perspective that has mostly been missing up to this point in the Wake.  We've heard a lot about the two young women and three soldiers in the park (in today's passage, "How their duel makes their triel!" along with references to Wellington and Napoleon that go back to the book's first chapter), but until now those two young women have served more as foils to HCE than as fully realized actors in the Wake's play.  Today's passage describes, in Wakeian terms, how these girls become women, or how Eve became Eve.  In language that perverts Mary's fiat, "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord," the Floras say, "Behose our handmades for the lured!"  Rather than becoming instruments of salvation, they're turning into lures toward the fall.  At the present, they are immature amateurs, but "yet well come that day we shall ope to be ores."  In one sense, they welcome the day that their potential shall be unearthed and they will be revealed to be the precious metals that they are.  In another sense, there will come the day that they will hope (or, if we're being more crass, "open up") to be whores.  "No more hoaxites!" they say, indicating their desire to be undeceived, but also foreshadowing the effects of their new knowledge:  Hamlet's no more marraige ("Hochzeit" is German for "marriage").

So yeah, if you can't tell, I find this passage totally fascinating.  In one sense, it can be argued that it's a throwaway bit of transition.  But on closer inspection, it contributes valuable and indispensable depth to Joyce's book.

"Thyme, that chef of seasoners"

(235.6-237.9)  Today's passage begins with the Floras' orison rising to the sky.  They then present a vision of an idyllic, suburban future in which "we and I" -- seemingly both one and all of the Floras -- will live the good life with Chuff.  I get the impression that this is Joyce parodying the sort of middle class dream of the time (one which was crushed by his father's financial troubles) and also mocking some literary style with which I'm not familiar.  There's also some mocking of T.S. Eliot here:  the Chuff in this vision is in the same line of work as Eliot as "a bank midland mansioner," among other things, and both "The Waste Land" ("Xanthos!  Xanthos!  Xanthos!") and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" ("wibfrufrocksfull of fun!") are referenced in the paragraph.

On the literal level, the vision has the couple settling down in an upper-class suburb of Dublin on a lot teeming with trees of all varieties.  Their house is outfitted luxuriously "to make Envyeyes mouth water and wonder when they binocular us from their embrassured windows in our garden rare."  They have servants, a car, a chauffeur, a dog, and a cat.  They welcome distinguished guests like Lady Marmela Shortbred and Prince Le Monade and sing songs.  (The songs here are parodies of popular tunes, such as the previously-alluded to "So come on, ye wealthy gentrymen wibfrufrocksfull of fun!" for "God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.")  In short, they've got it made.

The narrator says that since the days of "Roamaloose and Rehmoose" (Romulus and Remus, again), there's been continuous dancing (reminiscent of the dance of the Floras around Chuff).  While ostensible progress has been made, the dancing has continued (and will continue), with the "danceadeils and cancanzanies . . . as lithe and limbfree limber as when momie mummed at ma."

The reading concludes today with a brief passage that can best be described as "The Flower Dance of the Floras."  The young women are compared to flowers, and they look toward Chuff as the life-sustaining sun.  Their reaction to Chuff is thus the complete opposite from their reaction to Glugg, and it's significant that unlike Glugg, who is unable to see the colors of the Floras, Chuff "can eyespy through them, to their selfcolours."

"a skarp snakk of pure undefallen engelsk"

(233.11-235.5)  Standing before Izod once again, Glugg lets "punplays pass to ernest" and tries to answer the riddle three more times.  As before, he gives three incorrect answers:  "jaoneofergs" (which McHugh roughly translates as "yellow anger"), "mayjaunties" (which McHugh roughly translates as "May jaundice"), and "per causes nunsibellies" (which McHugh roughly translates as "by chance nuns' bellies," which Joyce apparently believed were yellow).  McHugh notes that the first three answers proposed by Glugg focus on the color red, while these three focus on the color yellow.  (Does that mean the next three will focus on the color blue?)  Gluggs second round of incorrect responses once again draws the ire of the Floras, who yell, "Asky, asky asky!  Gau on!  Micaco!  Get!"

Glugg can understand English, so "he did a get . . . and slink his hook away."  Once again, he "was bedizzled and debuzzled."  Chuff, on the other hand, is victorious.  Of all of Ireland's heroes, the narrator says, Chuff was "the whitemost, the goldenest!"  The Floras shower him with love and adoration, offering him "neuchoristic congressulations, quite purringly excited" and "allauding to him by all the licknames in the litany with the terms in which no little dulsy nayer ever thinks about implying except to her future's year."

The Floras now begin to sing "Hymnumber twentynine" (representing the 28 young women, plus Izod).  They chant their "madiens' prayer" as they're "prostitating their selfs eachwise and combinedly" (they are thus maidens and Arabic holy men ("mahdi") who prostitute and prostrate themselves to Chuff -- this is Joyce in his classic sacrilegious mode).  Today's passage ends with the Floras concluding their hymn with a parody of the familiar Father/Son/Holy Ghost blessing:  "For the sake of the farbung [dye] and of the scent and of the holiodrops [heliotrope].  Amems."

"feastking of shellies by googling Lovvey"

(231.9-233.10)  After Glugg's wistful poem, we see him nurturing new delusions of grandeur (for instance, he sees himself as "feastking of shellies by googling Lovvey") as he was struck with a painful toothache, which felt like one of his wisdom teeth "had been zawhen intwo."  His face convulsed in pain, and he swore up and down.  "Though he shall live for millions of years a life of billions of years," the narrator says, "from their roseaced glows to their violast lustres, he shall not forget that pucking Pugases."

But the narrator says that even after all of this -- his exile and his pain -- Gulgg soon "rehad himself."  This renewal came not through prayer or "contrite attrition," but through "esercizism" (both exorcism and asceticism).  The somewhat lengthy paragraph beginning near the bottom of page 231 and ending near the bottom of page 232 details how Glugg "resumed his soul."  In short, he went into further convulsions because of his pain, which burned like hellfire.  This pain was on display for all to see:  "Lookery looks, how he's knots in his entrails!  Mookery mooks, it's a grippe of his gripes.  Seekeryseeks, why his biting he's head off?"  (Note the Mookse and Gripes reference in that quotation.)

Suddenly, "The worst is over."  Just as he was preparing for "the major operation," he receives (here the narrative switches back to the present tense) a message from Izod via radio waves ("herzian waves").  The message says, "Isle wail for yews, O doherlynt!"  This once again compares Glugg/Shem to a tree (the yew) while Izod says, "I wail for you, oh darling!" or "I'll wait for you, oh darling!" or "I wail for you, oh Dublin!"  He also receives a telegram from her, which says that she has ended her affair with Chuff and that Glugg should stop sobbing and come back to her.

With this, Glugg makes haste to return and finds himself once again before the Floras.  The narrator says that if he hadn't gotten a toothache, he would have told them a tall tale of how he won fame on the continent.  The Floras -- Angelinas, here -- are told to hide their colors (their panties) from Glugg because a man ought not to lodge his eyes there.  With a sing-song rhythm, an instruction is given to the Floras ordering them to confuse Glugg ("Find the frenge for frocks and translace it into shocks of such as touch with show and show.").  Tomorrow, we will find out if Glugg is able to redeem himself from his previous disaster.

"Was liffe worth leaving?"

(229.17-231.8)  After reciting the Ulysses-like chapters Glugg planned to write after his exile, the narrator tells how Glugg decided that he would "bare to the untired world" (both the world that isn't tired and the entire world) the story of HCE ("wholefallows, his guffer") and ALP ("her Lettyshape, his gummer").  This story -- the Finnegans Wake that would follow Glugg's Ulysses -- would be written on Glugg's "fleshskin" with his "quillbone," recalling the Wake-like tale Shem wrote on his own skin using ink made from his own waste.  This "most moraculous jeeremyhead sindbook for all the peoples" would be "thoroughly enjoyed by many so meny on block," perhaps envisioning the success that Joyce wished for his Wake.  The story written by Glugg would tell of his own lost innocence; his suffering at the hands of his family, the angels, and the devils; his exile from his home (relayed in Wakeian Humpty Dumpty language:  "why they provencials drollo eggspilled him out of his homety dometry narrowedknee domum"); his sufferings; and finally his tryst in paradise after torments of a thousand years.

With his work completed, Glugg would sit through several centuries, during which time he would receive payment in music and personal company.  Glugg would let Izod have all the music, while he would have "recourse of course to poetry."  He wouldn't be satisfied, though.  Instead, he would have "tears for his coronaichon, such as engines weep."  With his reverie concluded, Glugg asks the critical question:  "Was liffe worth leaving?"  This asks both whether the Liffey (his homeland) is worth leaving, as well as whether life is worth living (and, presumably, whether life is also worth leaving).  Glugg's answer?  "Nej!"  (McHugh notes that this is Danish for "No!")

Glugg then briefly looks back over his own life and his family's history.  He concludes his thoughts on the family's downfall by remarking, "Ones propsperups treed, now stohong baroque," in one sense echoing the tree/stone dichotomy by saying, "Once prosperous tree, now stone broke."  He then asks his own riddle:  "where was a hovel not a havel?"  No one answers, so he says, "while itch ish shome."  So, a hovel is not a hovel (or a "havel," which McHugh notes is a term of reproach) when it is home.  This echoes the riddle young Shem asked his playmates in chapter seven:  "When is a man not a man?  When he is a Sham."

The passage ends with a four-line poem that looks forlornly on Glugg's "dear olt tumtum home."  Does this mean Glugg's going to return to his tormentors?  Maybe we'll see tomorrow . . .

"Gelchasser no more!"

(227.19-229.16)  Maybe I spoke too soon about finding my groove for this chapter.  Today's reading was another tough one.  But, as I've learned to do, I persisted in working my way through and made it to a point where I was able to find enjoyment and (at least some) sense in the passage.

The narration shifts away from yesterday's focus on the Floras and moves back to Glugg.  (Interestingly, it also shifts from the present tense to the past tense.)  After failing to solve the riddle, Glugg was filled with woe and rage, and he "displaid all the oathword science of his visible disgrace" (a sort of anti-sacrament, for a sacrament is defined as an outward sign of inward grace).  No gesture made by Izod or the Floras revealed anything to Glugg.  Reeling, he turns to the seven sacraments of the Catholic church.  This is one point that I missed on my first reading and found much clearer after consulting my three secondary sources.  The paragraph beginning on page 227 and ending on 228 shows Shem engaging in the seven sacraments, but also turning them on their heads.  For instance, for the sacrament of communion he "wrestled a hurry-come-union with the Gillie Beg," and for the sacrament of marriage he "had a belting bout, chaste to chaste, with McAdoo about nothing."

The disappointment before his peers and his turning toward -- and upturning of -- religion parallel Joyce's own life.  This biographical turn is reinforced when we see that Glugg swore off his homeland and faith ("Macnoon maggoty mag!  Cross of a coppersmith bishop!").  He also swore to a resolution, forming a plan for what he would do during his exile.  First, he would "split" for the European continent.  Glugg would catch a boat and follow "the bruce, the coriolano and the ignacio."  The secondary sources explain how this is Glugg making use of the tools of Joyce's literary alter ego, Stephen Dedalus:  silence (Robert Bruce hid in silence), exile (Coriolanus became an exile), and cunning (St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuit order he founded are known for their intelligence).  Silence, exile, and cunning are further explored a few lines later:  "Mum's for's maxim, ban's for's book and Dodgesome Dora for hedgehung sheolmastress.  And Unkel Silanse coach in diligence.  Disconnection of the succeeding."

Now "Gelchasser no more!" (girl chaser no more), Glugg would further follow Joyce's path by pursuing his vocation as a writer after his exile while still keeping his attention turned toward his homeland.  He would fire off "his farced epistol to the hibruws," in which he would proclaim free love and tea leaves for everybody, all the tinned salmon in the world, and harm and aches -- and/or ham and eggs -- until further orders.  In this role, Gulgg would became "General Jinglesome."

But his woe and rage would not be fully abated.  He wanted to inform the "old sniggering publicking press and its nation of sheepcopers" about the "whole plighty troth" between ALP ("the lalage of lyonesses") and HCE ("her knave arrant").  And at the end of today's reading, we learn that Glugg planned to pen chapters recalling those of Ulysses:  for instance, "Had Days" (referencing the Hades chapter of Ulysses) and "A Wondering Wreck" (referencing the Wandering Rocks chapter).

"The same renew."

(225.15-227.18)  Well, it's possible I am getting the hang of this chapter, because today's reading did, in fact, go more smoothly than the past few days' passages.  And what an entertaining and masterful passage it is.

We begin with a lamenting of Glugg's sorry state.  "What she meaned he could not can," the narrator says.  Switching to the present tense, the narrator goes on to suggest that things would turn out better for Glugg if only he would talk instead of gawk and stop worrying so much (recalling the sins of HCE, the nervous, stuttering, voyeuristic father).  Glugg finally gives three guesses -- "monbreamstone," "Hellfeuersteyn," and "Van Diemen's coral pearl" -- but none of them are the correct answer to the riddle.  Unfortunately for Glugg, "He has lost."

The Floras celebrate Glugg's defeat by sending him away and forming a ring around Chuff.  Izod is in tears, though, for "[s]he's promised he'd eye her."  She "sits a glooming so gleaming in the gloaming," and the narrator asks us to "[b]e good enough to symperise."  Izod would go anywhere to join Glugg.  "If it's to nowhere she's going to too," the narrator adds.  But, this being the Wake, Izod won't stay in tears forever, for "we know how Day the Dyer works."  Once this day has passed, "among the shades that Eve's now wearing she'll meet anew fiancy, tryst and trow."  Chuff will replace Glugg as the object of Izod's fancy, and become her fiancé.

As Izod sits weeping, the Floras dance around Chuff.  This begins a fascinating passage.  The Floras are identified by color in words that represent the seven colors of the rainbow and spell out "R-A-Y-N-B-O-W."  They are now "all but merely a schoolgirl," but as they perform their dance through oodles of years and endless eons, we see the seven types of women they eventually become.  Some are rich, some are widowed, and some are actresses.  With this momentary scene of foreshadowing completed, we go back in time to the present as they are identified by name in a pattern that spells "rainbow" in reverse:  "And these ways wend they.  And those ways went they.  Winnie, Olive and Beatrice, Nelly and Ida, Amy and Rue."  "Here they come back, all the gay pack, for they are the florals," the narrator explains.  One imagines the Floras dancing around Chuff in one direction, moving time forward, then dancing in the other direction -- coming back -- moving time back to the present.

"Breath and bother and whatacurss."

(223.19-225.14)  Standing face to face with Glugg, Chuff, the "evangelion," said, "Arrest thee, scaldbrother!"  Chuff proffered a shamrock ("his trifle," which McHugh notes corresponds with the "trefoil" used by St. Patrick to demonstrate the Holy Trinity) as an apparent peace offering.  Instead of peace, Glugg got a riddle:  "Who are you?  The cat's mother.  . . . What do you lack?  The look of a queen."  "[B]uzzling is brains," Glugg sought the solution to the problem posed by the riddle:  "But what is that which is one going to prehend?"

Glugg sought the answer from the four elements and four authors of the gospels, but received no assistance from them:  "With nought a wired from the wordless either."  He went off to question the four old men who have figured so prominently in the Wake.  They didn't help, either, so he sent four curses upon them:  he fouled the water, threw stones, poisoned their dinner of duck and gravy, and made off with the rest of the meat.

The narrator isn't without some sympathy for Glugg's predicament:  "Ah ho!  This poor Glugg!  It was so said of him about of his old fontmouther.  Truly deplurabel!  A dire, O dire!"  He "inhebited" his father's "freightfullness," and so it's fitting that -- in a call back to the riddle of the Prankquean -- his "fontmouther . . . sprankled his allover with her noces of interregnation:  How do you do that lack a lock and pass the poker, please?"  Put simply, Glugg's subconsciousness was in a "limbopool."

He goes back to the Floras.  Seeing them, Glugg decided that he wanted to know what colors of the rainbow they stood for and wore on their drawers.  He decided to ask their "commoner guardian at the next lineup" so that he could "reloose that thong off his art."  The Floras laughed at Glugg, and hinted at the fact that Glugg had pissed his pants.  

Dejected, Glugg plopped down to the ground "with the belly belly prest," much like the serpent in Genesis.  He then summarized his, and humankind's general plight with poignancy:  "Breath and bother and whatacurss.  Then breath more bother and more whatacurss.  Then no breath no bother but worrawarrawurms.  And Shim shallave shome."  In other words, life is breath, bother, and insurmountable trouble (what a curse); then breath, more bother, and more insurmountable trouble; and, finally, worrying, wormy death.  And Shem recognizes that he will have some of all of this.

I've struggled with this chapter at times, particularly because there's a lot of density to the language so far.  I'm beginning to get a feel for it, though, so I think it'll go smoother and smoother as we move forward (and as I try to remember to focus primarily on the stuff closer to the surface level during this "preliminary" run through the book).  More from Glugg tomorrow . . . .

"Melodiotiosities in purefusion by the score."

(221.18-223.18)  With the cast of characters for "The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies" introduced and the scene set, today's reading begins with an extended list of credits for the production.  We find out, for example, that the play features "[d]ances arranged by Harley Quinn and Coolimbeina" (as McHugh notes, this includes both characters from the pantomime and 18th century Irish actors George Harley and James Quinn).  We also, significantly, find the "[j]ests jokes, jigs and jorums for the Wake lent from the properties of the late cemented Mr T. M. Finnegan R.I.C." (referencing the book's mythical namesake, with "R.I.C." standing for "Royal Irish Constabulary," and, presumably, serving as a play on R.I.P.).

We also get more hints as to the role of the play in the larger context of the Wake.  The towering figures of HCE (the mountain) and ALP (the river) are referenced when we learn that the play prominently features "summit scenes of climbacks castastrophear, The Bearded Mountain (Polymop Baretherootsch) and The River Romps to Nursery (Maidykins in Undiform)."  And the play is "wound up for an afterenactment by a Magnificent Transformation Scene showing the Radium Wedding of Neid and Moorning and the Dawn of Peace, Pure, Perfect and Perpetual, Waking the Weary of the World."  So, maybe the Wake's final flourish will serve to unite night and day, to bring hope to all, and to rouse the weary.

The plot of the play, or the "argument" as it's termed here, now starts.  Chuff (the Shaun figure) was an angel, who brandished his sword like the archangel Michael (the Mick of the play's title).  Glugg had the devil (the Nick of the play's title) in him, and typical of the earlier portrayal of Shem, he's shown here as being repulsive and moody.  The Floras (the Maggies of the title, here, "the evelings," referencing both their role as the daughters of Eve and Joyce's short story, "Eveline") were present, too, "pierceful in their sojestiveness" and making enticing gestures.  Izod conducts the Floras, who represent the seven colors of the rainbow, in a heliotrope dance.  At the conclusion of today's reading, Glugg stumbles up, and then stands face to face with Chuff, ready to fight.

"The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies"

(219.1-221.17)  The first chapter of Book II of Finnegans Wake looks to be a type of play-within-a-play, or I guess more correctly a play-within-a-book.  The chapter opens with, "Every evening at lighting up o'clock sharp and until further notice in Feenichts Playhouse."  This opening serves as an announcement that the play is about to commence, and the scene is, in one sense, a playhouse in the vicinity of Phoenix Park.  And the title of the play, we're told, is "The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies."  This signals that the play is going to feature the children:  Shaun and Shem (Mick and Nick are aliases for the brothers) and Isabel and her friends ("maggies" has been used as a general title for the young women throughout the Wake).

After this introductory paragraph, most of the remainder of today's reading is a list of the characters who will feature in the play.  First we have Glugg, the Shem figure ("Mr Seumas McQuillad") who is "the bold bad bleak boy of the storybooks" who falls into disgrace.  The 28 friends of Isabel -- the titular Maggies -- are The Floras, the "month's bunch of pretty maidens."  Isabel's character in the play is Izod, the "bewitching blonde who dimples delightfully and is approached in loveliness only by her grateful sister reflection in a mirror."  Shaun is Chuff ("Mr Sean O'Mailey"), "the fine fairhaired fellow of the fairytales."  ALP and HCE are, respectively, Ann and Hump.  Rounding out the cast are The Customers (the "dozen of representative locomotive civics" who drink in HCE's pub), Saunderson (a pub employee), and Kate (our familiar housekeeper).  Today's reading ends with, "Time:  the pressant."  With the scene set, we'll get to the action tomorrow.

A Moment of Rust and Remembrunts

(217-218)  Yesterday's reading marked the end of the first of the four books of the Wake.  Since there's two blank pages in between books (well, one page does have the "II" signifying that the next book's coming up, but you get the point), I figured I'd spend today's Wake time taking a step back and doing a quick survey of where we've been.

Book I has eight chapters.  In the first, we got the introduction for the entire Wake, setting forth Finnegan as the precursor/parallel of HCE.  The second chapter in a sense presented HCE's origin story, telling us about his background and how he fell, ultimately culminating in "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly."  Chapter three picks up where the previous chapter left off, detailing the fallout surrounding HCE's public disgrace and ending with HCE asleep in his "doge."  In the fourth chapter, we see HCE's burial and learn about what has happened following his demise.  As many commentators have explained, these four chapters fit nicely into Vico's cycle of human existence:  The first chapter deals Finnegan, the prehistoric god (the age of gods), the second with HCE and his exploits (the age of kings), the third with society's handling of HCE (the age of democracy), and the fourth with the resulting vaccum and return to the beginning (the age of chaos, or the ricorso).

The second half of Book I shifts the focus away from HCE and toward his family.  Chapter five provides the full introduction to ALP.  Chapter six delves into all of the primary characters of the Wake in a question-and-answer format.  Shem (and by implication, his brother Shaun) is the focus of the seventh chapter, and the eighth chapter returns to the subject of ALP and the family in general.

And so, tomorrow we'll move forward, and embark on our journey through Book II of Finnegans Wake.  I'm psyched.

"Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle's to be."

(214.10-216.5)  While finishing their duties, one washerwoman shouts that she sees a figure in the distance:  "the great Finnleader himself."  This would signal a return of HCE, but her counterpart doesn't believe it.  She says, "Throw the cobwebs from your eyes, woman, and spread your washing proper!"  Unsatisfied to stop there, she accuses the woman who had the vision of being drunk.  After some more talk about how hard they've been working, the vision appears to the woman again:  "Holy Scamander, I sar it again!"  But the other woman's still not having it.  "Subdue your noise, you hamble creature!" she shoots back.  "What is it but a blackburry growth or the dwyergray ass them four old codgers owns."

With night imminent, the women see a light in the distance, which could be a lighthouse or a boat.  The washing's done, so the women begin to take their leave of each other.  Before they go, though, they share final remembrances of ALP and HCE:  "Ah, but she was the queer old skeowsha anyhow, Anna Livia, trinkettoes!  And sure he was the quare old buntz too, Dear Dirty Dumpling, foostherfather of fingalls and dotthergills."  The women recognize that the family cycle will go on and on:  "Teems of times and happy returns.  The seim anew.  Ordovico or viricordo."  (This references Vico's theory of history as an endless cycle.)

Now the river has widened and begun flowing to the point where the distance and noise keep the women from understanding each other.  "Are you not gone ahome?" one asks.  "What Thom Malone?" the other replies, repeating what she thought she heard.  "I feel as old as younder elm," says one, referencing the idea from yesterday that the two women are turning into the stone and tree from the fable of the Mookse and the Gripes.  "A tale told of Shaun or Shem?" replies the other, mishearing what her opposite has said and hinting at what's to come in the Wake.  The chapter ends fittingly with one of the women encouraging the story to go on, while the day of the chapter -- and the first book of the Wake -- arrives at its completion:

Night now!  Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm!  Night night!  Telmetale of stem or stone.  Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of.  Night!

And that's the conclusion of the eighth chapter, as well as the first book.  We've come a long way -- 216 of the Wake's 628 pages -- but we have a longer way to go.  Time, and the story, go on.  Bring on the tale of Shem and Shaun.

"every telling has a taling and that's the he and the she of it"

(212.20-214.10)  We're winding down to a close here in chapter eight of Finnegans Wake.  Just today's reading and tomorrow's, and then we're done with this extended look at ALP.  With the catalog of gifts given by ALP completed ("My colonial, wardha bagful!" one woman says), the washerwomen move back to their work.  "Throw us your hudson soap for the honour of Clane!" one says.  "The wee taste the water left.  I'll raft it back, first thing in the marne."  They continue bickering, and one notes that while the other gets all the swirls on her side of the river, her unfortunate friend just gets the snuff papers tossed into the water by Jonathan Swift (and, by proxy, HCE, for Swift -- who also had an ambiguous relationship with two young women -- is a version of HCE).  At least this woman gets to read the "[f]oul strips of his chinook's bible," which features amusing titles "drawn on the tattlepage" (among these titles are parodies of the works of Oscar Wilde, John S. Mill, and George Eliot).  One woman has spotted a piece of china below the river, but laments the fact that it seems to have disappeared.

The hour is now getting late.  In the dusk, the women are slowly turning into the tree and the stone that remained on the scene at the conclusion of the fable of the Mookse and the Gripes.  "My branches lofty are taking root," one woman says.  The woman are tired ("O, my back, my back, my bach!" one complains), and so they set to finishing their washing with the refrain, "Wring out the clothes!  Wring in the dew!"

They haven't finished discussing ALP, though.  One asks, "Wharnow are alle her childer, say?"  The other responds, "Some here, more no more, more again lost alla stranger."  We hear of the fates of a few.  One branch has married into a family in Spain, for example, while others are wearing "yangsee's hats" (meaning some have become Americans (yankees) and some have become Chinese (from the Yang-tze River)).  But as the night comes, the women have a harder time hearing each other.  "Do you tell me that now?" one asks.  Soon after, one says she's hard of hearing because of "that irrawaddyng I've stoke in my aars."

They've still got a little bit to discuss, however, as I mentioned, above.  We'll get to the chapter's finale tomorrow.

"life past befoul his prime"

(210.22-212.19)  Today's reading completes the catalog of gifts handed out by ALP to her multitude of children.  There's references here to saints ("snakes in clover, picked and scotched, and a vaticanned viper catcher's visa for Patsy Presbys" is a reference to Saint Patrick), rival authors ("for Will-of-the-Wisp and Barny-the-Bark two mangolds noble to sweeden their bitters" is a reference to Nobel Prize-winning Irish authors Yeats and Shaw), and Joyce himself ("a tibertine's pile with a Congoswood cross on the back for Sunny Twimjim" -- Clongowes Wood is the school that Joyce and his literary alter ego, Stephen, attended).

We also get references to characters we've met in the Wake.  One of the major characters gets lumped in with the rest of the rabble with "a sunless map of the month, including the sword and stamps, for Shemus O'Shaun the Post."  The Earwickers' maid is featured with "a stiff steaded rake and good varians muck for Kate the Cleaner."  And ALP accounts for a whole crop of people (some of whom featured prominently in the spreading of rumors about HCE and the resulting composition of "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly"):  

whatever you like to swilly to swash, Yuinness or Yennessy, Laagen or Niger, for Festus King and Roaring Peter and Frisky Shorty and Treacle Tom and O. B. Behan and Sully the Thug and Master Magrath and Peter Cloran and O'Delawarr Rossa and Nerone MacPacem and whoever you chance to meet knocking around.

Of personal note, I was pleased to see "a pig's bladder balloon for Selina Susquehanna Stakelum," since the I was born just near where the Susquehanna River (nice how the river name contains the word "Anna," huh?) runs through Central Pennsylvania.  Also, the last gift-receiving group accounted for is Isabel's 28 sisters, which includes one young woman named Lezba Licking (there's a Joycean lesbian joke in there) whose name accounts for the closest river reference (that I've seen to this point in the chapter) to where I live now:  the Licking River (at least, I'm counting it as a reference to the Ohio Licking).

The passage ends with the final gift, which is given to Isabel:  "So on Izzy, her shamemaid, love shone befond her tears as from Shem, her penmight, life past befoul his prime."  Thus, ALP's daughter gets the gift of love, while her son, Shem, bears the burden of falling in his father's footsteps.

"I promise I'll make it worth your while."

(208.27-210.22)  Upon leaving her house and heading out, ALP must've made a good impression, for one of the washerwomen says that she was crowned "chariton queen."  As she went on to "meander by that marritime way in her grasswinter's weeds," a chorus of "drouthdropping surfacemen" were in awe of her and said that she either got a facelift or had been doped.

The other washerwoman then asks, "But what was the game in her mixed baggyrhatty?"  ALP carried her bag -- which is the one ALP obtained from her son, Shaun the postman -- on her journey like Santa Claus.  She embraced her daughter, Isabella (here "Isolabella"), and ran with her reconciled sons, Shem and Shaun (here fashioned after the original Romans, Romulus and Remus, as "Romas and Reims").  From the bag, ALP gave gifts to these three, as well as all of her other children.  

The rest of the passage begins a long catalog of all of the gifts given by ALP.  This part is fairly easy to read (for the Wake), and entertaining to boot.  Some of the more interesting and fun gifts (and recipients) I found in today's reading include "for sulky Pender's acid nephew deltoïd drops, curiously strong;" "a brazen nose and pigiron mittens for Johnny Walker beg;" "a papar flag of the saints and stripes for Kevineen O'Dea" (combining paper flag, papal flag, and the stars and stripes); and "a seasick trip on a government ship for Teague O'Flanagan."  It looks like there's a full boatload of more gifts coming in tomorrow's reading . . .

"Hustle along, why can't you?"

(206.29-208.26)  Today's reading consists mostly of detailed descriptions of ALP.  It's pretty straightforward (as far as I can tell), and I really don't have much to add to Joyce's text at this point.

The passage begins with ALP bathing, grooming, and clothing herself.  As with the rest of the chapter to this point, the language often carries two connotations:  one for ALP the woman, the other for ALP the river.  After she's ready to go out, she has her "boudeloire maids" go to "His Affluence, Ciliegia Grande and Kirschie Real," to make an appointment to visit.  She grabs the mailbag she got from Shaun, and goes forth from her "bassein" (or, river basin).

The description is interrupted here by the other washerwoman, who asks her counterpart to pick up the pace.  Resuming, we hear ALP described as "a bushman woman, the dearest little moma ever you saw."  To support this description, we get a full report on what she wore as she stepped out of the house.  Again, there's not much to add to Joyce's description.  I like the word he uses here for "ear":  "laudsnarers."  McHugh points out that "Laut" is German for "sound," so here Joyce is using "sound snarers," which is great because . . . that's what ears do.  I also enjoy the description of ALP's riding coat:  "her blackstripe tan joseph was sequansewn and teddybearlined, with wavy swansruff" particularly for the word "teddybearlined."  Along with her outfit and accessories, ALP carries a coin in each pocket, which "weighed her safe from the blowaway windrush."  The washerwoman wraps up the description of ALP's ensemble by noting one of its key features with more river language:  "the rreke of the fluve of the tail of the gawan of her snuffdrab siouler's skirt trailed ffiffty odd Irish miles behind her lungarhodes."

Oh, and by the way, I was also glad to see another reference to Manneken Pis here, when ALP asks His Affluence's wife if she can spare her husband for a second:  "a request might she passe of him for a minnikin."

"Never stop! Continuarration! You're not there yet."

(204.21-206.28)  As the eighth chapter of the Wake progresses, the two washerwomen's interactions start getting a bit more amusing and testy.  Toward the beginning of today's passage, one woman asks, among other things, why ALP was "frickled" (freckled) and whether she had wavy hair or "was it weirdly a wig she wore."  All these questions start wearing at the other woman's patience, and the two have a tenser exchange:  "O go in, go on, go an!  I mean about what you know.  I know right well what you mean.  Rother!"  This leads into a digression in which the women discuss their work, including whose garments are whose and what state the clothes are in.  For instance, one says, "That's not the vesdre benediction smell.  I can tell from here by their eau de Colo and the scent of her oder they're Mrs Magrath's.  And you ought to have aird them."

After the women shake themselves from this digression, one of them resumes the story of ALP, picking up just after HCE's fall.  Once the news got out, the woman says, even the snow that fell on HCE's hair was against him.  Everywhere -- "in cit or suburb or in addled areas" -- HCE's image was turned upside down and even the idle cornerboys mocked him.  He was in bad shape, but ALP stood by him.  As one woman says, ALP "said to herself she'd frame a plan to fake a shine, the mischiefmaker, the like of it you niever heard."

What was ALP's plan?  She obtained "a shamy mailsack" from her son, Shaun, and then "consulted her chapboucqs."  Before this washerwoman details the rest of the plan, however, the other woman begins to laugh at the story, which prompts her to ask whether her companion really wants to hear the story at all.  They then begin to bicker in an amusing passage:

O but you must, you must really!  Make my hear it gurgle gurgle, like the farest gargle gargle in the dusky dirgle dargle!  By the holy well of Mulhuddart I swear I'd pledge my chanza getting to heaven through Tirry and Killy's mount of impiety to hear it all, aviary word!  O, leave me to my faculties, woman, a while!  If you don't like my story get out of the punt.  Well, have it your way, so.  Here, sit down and do as you're bid.

The passage ends with one of the women scrubbing "the canon's underpants."  We'll accordingly have to wait until tomorrow to get more of the story of ALP's plan to avenge her husband.

"Push up and push vardar and come to uphill headquarters!"

(202.4-204.20)  Today's passage was another challenging, yet fascinating one.  And once again, after going through the process of moving from overwhelming confusion to the point where a dim light of understanding went on, I realized that sometimes the more challenging the Wake gets, the more rewarding it ends up being.  Done with discussing ALP's children, the washerwomen move on to the subject of ALP's own promiscuity.  One says, "She must have been a gadabount in her day, so she must, more than most."  She went all the way from the river's source to the ocean, one woman says, "[c]asting her perils before our swains."  But, one asks, who was ALP's first lover?  The short, but completely vague, answer is, "Someone he was, whuebra they were, in a tactic attack or in single combat."

It turns out that ALP herself doesn't really know the man's identity:  "She sid herself she hardly knows whuon the annals her graveller was, a dynast of Leinster, a wolf of the sea, or what he did or how blyth she played or how, when, why, where and who offon he jumpnad her and how it was gave her away."  One woman says that the man was "a heavy trudging lurching lieabroad of a Curraghman, making his hay for whose sun to shine on, as tough as the oaktrees."  

But the other disagrees:  "You're wrong there, corribly wrong!"  She continues, "It was ages behind that when nullahs were nowhere."  This begins a brilliant passage in which the women (as pointed out by Campbell and Robinson) roughly trace the course of the Liffey backward toward its source.  At the same time, they're also tracing ALP's personal progression back from a sexually active adult to a blossoming young woman to an innocent child.  They move immediately back in time from the lieabroad of a Curraghman to "county Wickenlow, garden of Erin, before she ever dreamt she'd lave Kilbridge and go foaming under Horsepass bridge."  Back in "the dinkel dale of Luggelaw" (where McHugh says Saint Kevin spent some time), she had a romantic encounter with "a local heremite, Michael Arklow."  Entranced by ALP, Arklow "plunged both of his newly anointed hands, the core of his cushlas, in her singimari saffron strumans of hair, parting them and soothing her and mingling it."  This is Akrlow both dipping his hand in the stream and running them through ALP's hair.  Aroused, Akrlow "had to forget the monk in the man so, rubbing her up and smoothing her down, he baised his lippes in smiling mood, kiss akiss after kisokushk (as he warned her niver to, niver to, nevar) on Anna-na-Poghue's of the freckled forehead."  This encounter profoundly moved ALP, who thereafter rose two feet higher in her own estimation "[a]nd steppes on stilts ever since."

But before Arklow, "[t]wo lads in scoutsch breeches went through her."  These two lads -- Barefoot Burn (I wonder if this is the Scot, Robert Burns?) and Wallowme Wade -- had their encounters (which aren't described in any detail) before ALP, the person, hit puberty ("before she had a hint of a hair at her fanny to hide or a bossom to tempt a birch canoedler") and before ALP, the river, had reached a point where she could support large ships ("a bulgic porterhouse barge").  And before that, she was playfully licked by a hound when she was "too faint to buoy the fairest rider, too frail to flirt with a cygnet's plume."  Finally, when she was just a slight trickle at the river's source, "she laughed innocefree with her limbs aloft and a whole drove of maiden hawthorns blushing and looking askance upon her."  All in all, these two pages serve as reminders of Joyce's brilliance.

"We won't have room in the kirkeyaard."

(200.4-202.3)  Yesterday we left off with the washerwomen discussing how ALP donned a luxurious gown, and today we pick up with them recounting how she was "brahming" (or singing) love songs (that sometimes tilt toward the bawdy end of the spectrum) to HCE.  HCE, however, was unmoved by ALP's songs, because he was "as deaf as a yawn."  ALP walked out of the house, but instead of exacting some kind of revenge on HCE for ignoring her attempts to arouse him, she instead stood in the doorway, smoking a pipe and making signs to every woman that walked by to come into the house.  One by one, she would show the women how to perform a striptease and offer them a silver coin.  According to the washerwomen, then, ALP was "[t]hrowing all the neiss little whores in the world at him" to "hug and hab haven in Humpy's apron!"

The women then change the subject from ALP's procuring of prostitutes for HCE to the contents of ALP's letter.  In this telling, the letter consists of a poem or song written by ALP, the first verse of which is, "By earth and the cloudy but I badly want a brandnew bankside, bedamp and I do, and a plumper at that!"  The song goes on to explain that ALP is waiting for HCE "to wake himself out of his winter's doze and bore me down like he used to."  In the meantime, she looks for work from a lord or knight so that she can feed her family, and she ends the song by expressing her desire to leave her bed and breathe the salty air on the beach.  If you read the "bankside" of the opening verse literally, this is a song of the river waiting for the winter to end so that the snow will thaw and the flowing water of spring will cut deeper riverbanks and enable the river to run to the ocean.  If you read "bankside" as "backside," however, it's a song of sexual frustration, with ALP wishing to be more attractive so that either HCE will become interested in her again or she will be able to leave the marital bed and seek new pleasures down by the ocean.

The third subject of today's reading is ALP's children.  One washerwoman asks how many children ALP had.  No one seems to know for sure, but the most prominent theory indicates that she has 111.  Some say that she had these children "wan bywan bywan" (one by one by one, or 1-1-1), and that she can't remember half of their names.  "They did well to rechristien her Pluhurabelle," one woman says.  It seems that another theory is that ALP had a number of litters of children, ranging from twins and triplets to octuplets and nonuplets.  In regard to this unbelievable number of children, one washerwoman references perhaps my favorite philosopher in saying, "We won't have room in the kirkeyaard."

"Tell us in franca langua. And call a spate a spate."

(198.3-200.4)  As chapter eight of the Wake progresses onward, it quickly becomes clear that the depth of ALP's character is going to be explored almost as much (if not equally as much) as HCE's.  The two washerwomen concede that despite his faults, HCE did work to make a living:  "He erned his lille Bunbath hard, our staly bred, the trader.  He did.  Look at here.  In this wet of his prow."  And just as HCE isn't all bad, ALP isn't all good.  "Shyr she's nearly as badher as him herself," one woman says.  In fact, one woman alleges that ALP ordered women to entertain HCE, or, as it's said in the text, to "tickle the pontiff aisy-oisy."  The woman goes so far as to call ALP a "proxenete," which McHugh identifies as someone who negotiates a marriage, or, in French slang, a bawd.  Another story is that ALP could be seen sitting before her window pretending to play a dirge on a fiddle, even though she didn't know how to play the fiddle.

The conversation turns back toward HCE, who is said to have become "as glommen as grampus" at some point and driven to be a hermit by the troubles of the world.  He sat somber on his seat, engaging in a hunger strike, dreaming incessantly (is the Wake the result of his endless dreaming?), and belching for "severn years."  During this period, ALP was greatly concerned about HCE.  She "darent catch a winkle of sleep," and cooked meals (variously featuring eggs, Danish bacon, green tea, black coffee, and ham sandwiches) for him.  The ungrateful HCE would cast the meal aside, stare at ALP, and call her a so-and-so.  Undeterred, ALP would whistle for him.

Today's reading concludes with the aristocratic ALP, casting sparks from her fan and sporting fireflies in her frosty tresses, clothed in a luxurious jade gown.  This is an abrupt stopping point, but we're in the middle of a four-page paragraph, so I'll hold off on going further until tomorrow.

"As you spring so shall you neap."

(196.1-198.2)  Chapter eight of Finnegans Wake does indeed pick up where chapter seven left off:  ALP.  Its opening lines, formatted in the shape of a triangle (ALP's symbol) tell us all we need to know about the chapter's content:

O 

tell me all about 

Anna Livia!  I want to hear all

The chapter starts out as two women having a conversation as they wash HCE's clothes from opposing banks of the river.  (They must be at a narrow part of the river, for their heads bump when they stoop across the river to cross.  One woman says, "And don't butt me -- hike! -- when you bend.")  Naturally, their conversation meanders back and forth between ALP and her husband.  Also prominently featured in their dialogue are a torrent of river names, both famous and obscure, that keep the river theme prominent in the reader's mind.

The chapter begins with the recounting of and adding to the rumors surrounding HCE.  They begin by referring to the nefarious conduct that the three soldiers reported HCE engaged in with respect to the two young women in Phoenix Park:  "whatever it was they threed to make out he thried to two in the Fiendish park."  With this in mind, it's clear that HCE's reputation is as foul as his clothes.  "He's an awful old reppe," one says.  "Look at the shirt of him!  Look at the dirt of it!  He has all my water black on me."

Talk soon turns to the marriage between HCE and ALP.  Much like Joyce's own marriage, rumors abound about the legitimacy of their vows:  "Was her banns never loosened in Adam and Eve's or were him and her but captain spliced?"  In other words, did they receive a proper Catholic wedding (in Adam and Eve's, the church referenced on the book's first page), or were married in a civil service?  Regardless, it appears that HCE (represented by the hill of Howth) and ALP (represented by the flowing river Liffey) consider their marriage valid (as did Joyce in regard to his own marriage):  "Flowey and Mount on the brink of time makes wishes and fears for a happy isthmass.  She can show all her lines, with love, license to play.  And if they don't remarry that hook and eye may!"

The talk also touches on HCE's status as immigrant/invader.  It's unclear whether he gained material wealth from ALP after he "raped her home" or whether he's broke, with "[n]ot a grasshoop to ring her, not an antsgrain of ore."  Thus, even though one woman says, "I know by heart the places he likes to saale, duddurty devil!" and "I know he well," it seems at this early point in the chapter that neither woman has the full and accurate story of HCE and ALP.  Nevertheless, as that same woman says, "But toms will till."