"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.