"a farfar and a morefar"

(138.20-140.7)  In this passage, we get the much-anticipated conclusion to the first question of chapter six, as well as that question's answer and two other sets of questions and answers.

The first question concludes in much the same fashion as its run throughout the opening pages of this chapter, wrapping up with references to HCE's incarnation as Tim Finnegan the builder with phrases like, "stutters fore he falls and goes mad entirely when he's waked."  And what answer is given to this first question?  "Finn MacCool!"  This ties HCE (and his other incarnations) with the great figure from Irish legend.

The next handful of questions run considerably shorter than the first.  They don't get much shorter then the second one, but what it lacks in verbosity it makes up for in obscurity:  "2.  Does your mutter know your mike?"  Maybe, in one sense, this is Shaun (aka Mick, aka Mike) being asked if his mother knows him.  Again, though, it's not that clear.  Anyway, the answer has Shaun recognizing both his father ("that pontificator and circumvallator") and his mother ("Ann alive").  Shaun's answer becomes a bit of an ode to ALP (McHugh indicates that it is based upon the song "The Bells of Shandon") that is one part laudatory and two, or three, parts bawdy:  "If Dann's dane, Ann's dirty, if he's plane she's purty, if he's fane, she's flirty, with her auburnt streams, and her coy cajoleries, and her dabblin drolleries, for to rouse his rudderup, or to drench his dreams."  The ode is (of course) heavy on the river imagery, and it concludes that if the venerated authors of the law ("hot Hammurabi" and "cowld Clesiastes") could "espy her pranklings," they would "renounce their ruings, and denounce their doings, for river and iver, and a night.  Amin!"

The third question returns to a theme that's appeared a number of times already in the Wake:  Dublin's motto, "Obedientia civium urbis felicitas," or "Citizens' obedience is City's happiness."  The questioner asks, "Which title is the true-to-type motto-in-lieu" for what might be a Wakeian version of Dublin's city seal.  A number of examples of what the motto is not are listed.  Shaun (assuming, consistent with the last question, that he's the one being questioned) answers with a play on the motto:  "Thine obesity, O civilian, hits the felicitude of our orb!"

The questions, at least so far, almost serve as a sort of early mid-term examination on the Wake's themes and personages.  After a long opening salvo, they're rolling in now.  We've got three more coming tomorrow.