"Estout pourporteral!"

(97.29-99.20)  Today's reading was (again) confusing at first, but it can be summarized fairly neatly:  HCE is nowhere to be found, and rumors of his exploits are everywhere around.

The passage begins with the simple sentence, "One feared for his days."  From there, the narrator questions whether HCE made some kind of noise (a yawn, a stomach growl) while hiding.  What follows is another series of possibilities -- a short catalog of rumors spread around Dublin -- punctuated by brief sentences indicating breakthroughs and/or breakdowns in communication/communication technology (e.g., "Sparks flew." or "Wires hummed." or "Mush spread." or "Morse nuisance noised.").

First, there's the possibility that HCE killed himself in a fit of despair.  Then, it's suggested that perhaps he returned to his native country after digging a hole out of Ireland and stowing away on a ship.  In this story, he is now "Turk of the theater" somewhere in Asia Major, where he alternately throws money at belly dancers and begs for change on the streets.  Another story sets forth the theory that he visited a priest and was then recalled by God, who "scrapheaped" him.  It's then hinted that he might have contracted some kind of sexually transmitted disease ("An infamous private ailment (vulgovarioveneral)") that killed him and "closed his vicious circle, snap."  (Of interest after this suggestion, McHugh notes that the punctuation sentence here -- "Jams jarred." -- could be James Joyce punning on his own name.)

You can get the picture as to what's going on.  No one knows for sure what has happened to HCE, but that's not going to stop anyone from offering up an opinion.  Much like Joyce himself, everyone's got a story to tell, and some are going to be more interesting or entertaining than others (but none as interesting or entertaining as Joyce's).

The fun phrase of the day here is "Estout pourporteral!"  This appears in this context:

We were lowquacks did we not tacit turn.  Elsewere there here no concern of the Guinnesses.  But only the ruining of the rain has heard.  Estout pourporteral!

As someone who's enjoyed his fair share of beers, I appreciate how the Guinness unlocks the tongue of the taciturn and enables them to lowquack loquaciously so that there's something to listen to beyond the rain.  The brewers and their patrons shout their praise to stouts and porters.  But McHugh also notes that "esto perpetua" is Latin for "be perpetual," and that "est tout pour" is French for "is all for."  So the shouting's not only for stouts and porters being poured, but also a rallying cry for life and for bottomless glasses of beer.