"End here."

(627.4-628.16)  After noticing HCE's change, ALP knows that her time is up.  Just as he is being replaced by the sons, she is being replaced by her daughter.  "Be happy, dear ones!" she says.  "May I be wrong!  For she'll be sweet for you as I was sweet when I came down out of me mother."  ALP, the great river-mother, could have stayed in her childhood bedroom in the sky, yet she dropped down to earth for us.  "First we feel," she says.  "Then we fall."  

"And let her rain now if she likes," ALP goes on, granting her royal crown to Isabel, who will now reign.  "Gently or strongly as she likes.  Anyway let her rain for my time is come.  I done me best when I was let."  ALP has grown weary of the world and her planet of children, who she says are "becoming lothed to me."  HCE, she says, is not the regal man she once thought she was, but rather a bumpkin.  "I thought you the great in all things, in guilt and in glory," she tells him.  "You're but a puny."  Worn out from bearing her burden, she is "[l]oonely in me loneness."  She'll slip away before the children wake up.  "They'll never see," she says.  "Nor know.  Nor miss me."

As we turn to the final page of Finnegans Wake, it is time for ALP to return to her "cold mad feary father," the great sea.  She only has one leaf left from those that fell on her from the trees (the last leaf, or page, of the Wake, McHugh notes).  She'll carry that leaf to remind her of everything that we've seen pass.  Perhaps she'll see HCE, the great father, appear "under whitespread wings like he'd come from Arkangels."  If he did, she says, "I sink I'd die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup" on the shore.

"End here," says ALP in the book's final lines.  "Us then.  Finn, again!"  As she dissolves into the sea, she is given the "keys," both to her heart and to heaven, and sings a song of her (and our) travels:  "A way a lone a last a loved a long the"

And with those words, the journey has ended.  I can now say that I've read Finnegans Wake.

"How glad you'll be I waked you!"

(625.8-627.4)  And so I've reached the penultimate passage of this project.  ALP's monologue becomes clearer as the day grows brighter.  Outside, she can see "the muchrooms, come up during the night."  Dublin ("Eblanamagna") can be seen "loomening up out of the dumblynass," although it's "still sama sitta" (the same city, and, as Tindall points out, the same shit).  McHugh notes that the Liffey went completely dry for a minute or two in 1452, a fact that gives added dimension to ALP's instruction to HCE:  "If I lose my breath for a minute or two don't speak, remember!  Once it happened, so it may again."  

Looking back on her life, ALP has had her share of suffering and sadness, and she mourns the dead.  "Why I'm all these years within years in soffran, allbeleaved," she says.  "To hide away the tear, the parted.  It's thinking of all.  The brave that gave their.  The fair that wore.  All them that's gunne."  But, she says, "I'll begin again in a jiffey."  And when her life and her river begin to flow again, HCE will be rejuvenated as well:  "My!  How well you'll feel!  For ever after."

As the wind blows outside ("Wrhps, that wind as if out of norewere!"), ALP once again thinks about the past, when she met HCE as a child and they began their courtship.  "How you said how you'd give me the keys of me heart," she remembers.  "And we'd be married till delth to uspart.  And though dev do espart.  O mine!"  She senses, that HCE is changing now, though.  For a moment, she thinks it might be her that's changing ("I'm getting mixed," she says), but then it becomes clear:  "Yes, you're changing, sonhusband, and you're turning, I can feel you, for a daughterwife from the hills again."  HCE, whose position is being replaced by his sons, is undergoing another metamorphosis, and it's just in time for the Wake to conclude (and begin again).

"Ourselves, oursouls alone."

(623.3-625.8)  A quick note on the title of this post:  Throughout the Wake, Joyce makes frequent reference to (and parody of) the slogan of Sinn Féin (and the movement), which is popularly translated as "Ourselves Alone" (but perhaps is more accurately translated as just "Ourselves").  It's used in a variety of contexts, but I particularly like this one, which applies it in a way that illustrates the depth and us-against-the-world nature of the marriage of HCE and ALP:  "Ourselves, oursouls alone."

Today's reading continues in the same tone and manner as the previous two.  Thinking about what she and HCE could do today, ALP imagines that they could go to Howth Castle (where the book begins!) to see the king, or "the Old Lord."  He has been well-received by the Earwickers before, so he's likely to greet them warmly.  She tells the still-sleeping HCE that if he behaves himself and if ALP is successful in her role as a polite Prankquean, the king might "knight you an Armor elsor daub you the first cheap magyerstrape."  But she recognizes that these are "[p]lain fancies" from a brain "full of sillymottocraft."  "Aloof is anoof," she says.  "We can take or leave."

Instead, the two can go to the coast and wait for ALP's letter (now stuffed in a bottle and cast into the water) to arrive ashore.  This thought prompts her to remember her youthful days, before she met HCE, when she wrote this version of the letter and dreamed of meeting the man of her dreams (the "mains of me draims").  She wrote about these hopes in the letter, but "buried the page" when she met HCE.  Now, she is merely content as they "cohabit respectable."  She kind of gives HCE a hard time, telling him to complete the Tower of Babel that this master-builder has always said he'd complete.  "Tilltop, bigmaster!" she teases.  "Scale the summit!  You're not so giddy any more.  All your graundplotting and the little it brought!"  She's made a home on this "limpidy marge" in Chapelizod.  "Park and a pub for me," she says, summing up her life.

She then goes back to the days of their courtship.  "You will always call me Leafiest, won't you, dowling?" she remembers telling HCE, her "Wordherfhull Ohldhbhoy!"  He may come from dubious origins (she herself doesn't seem entirely sure of his past), but she tells him that "you done me fine!"  After all, he's "[t]he only man was ever known could eat the crushts of lobsters."

"I could lead you there and I still by you in bed."

(621.8-623.3)  "It is the softest morning that ever I can ever remember me," says ALP as her final monologue resumes in today's reading.  Her speech proceeds in the same relaxed, meandering tone that it began with in the previous two pages.  This is beautiful prose, and it's shaping up to be a fitting ending for the Wake (a book for which I had been thinking it might be impossible to write a good ending).

The rain for the day will not begin, ALP says, until the proper time has come.  She looks forward to breakfast ("The trout will be so fine at brookfisht.") just as she imagines how well the fish will be doing at a certain point in the river.  She has a list of things for HCE to take care of in this new day (for instance, he has to buy her a new girdle when he goes to the market).  For now, though, she's content to let him sleep beside her in bed (where she notably reaches down for a moment to grab his penis).  "One time you told you'd been burnt in ice," she remembers as she thinks about the trials HCE has endured, including a Tim Finnegan-esque fall from a ladder.  "And one time it was chemicalled after you taking a lifeness.  Maybe that's why you hold your hodd as if.  And people thinks you missed the scaffold.  Of fell design."  Despite his scars, ALP still remembers HCE as a young man, and she treasures the youth that remains in him, or at least exists in the past.  "I'll close me eyes," she says.  "So not to see.  Or see only a youth in his florizel, a boy in innocence, peeling a twig, a child beside a weenywhite steed.  The child we all love to place our hope in forever."  She chooses to focus on these good moments of HCE's life, rather than the bad, for, as she says, "All men has done something."

As she imagines taking a morning walk with her husband, ALP can see the birds wishing HCE "sweet good luck."  She believes that in the next election, HCE will be redeemed ("elicted") and that his enemies will "never reduce me."  Going back to the thought of the walk ("A gentle motion all around.  As leisure paces."), she recalls previous times of happiness from before the previous dark night/era of their lives.  "It seems so long since, ages since," she says.  "As if you had been long far away.  Afartodays, afeartonights, and me as with you in thadark."  But even as they rest in bed, she will return him to those good times, at least until the enemies come attacking again, pursuing HCE, as they did once before, like a fox in a fox hunt with "his three poach dogs" (the three soldiers) "aleashing him."  But ALP concludes today's reading by noting that HCE "came safe through" that attack, and she implies that he will do the same again today.

"I am leafy speafing."

(619.20-621.8)  I've now officially hit the home stretch in this project.  The final paragraph of Finnegans Wake begins on page 619 and stretches almost nine full pages to the book's end.  I've got a busy week coming up here, so I may not be able to meet my goal of finishing by the end of the month.  If I don't, though, I'll finish for sure on Sunday, which is November 1.  I think Joyce would be pleased with me finishing the Wake either on Halloween or All Saints' Day.

On to the text.  The final paragraph begins with light finally shining down on Dublin:  "Soft morning, city!"  Our narrator for the rest of the book is ALP, who tells us, "I am leafy speafing" (she's both Anna Livia and the River Liffey).  It is silent around the house and city.  "Not a sound, falling," she says.  "Lispn!  No wind no word.  Only a leaf, just a leaf and then leaves."

She tells HCE, who is on the bed beside her, to wake up:  "Rise up, man of the hooths, you have slept so long!  Or is it only so mesleems?  On your pondered palm.  Reclined from cape to pede."  ALP says that there's "a great poet" in HCE, but lately he has "bored me to slump."  Still, they're both "good and rested."  She gathers his clothes, which have freshly arrived from the laundry and once again urges him to wake up:  "And stand up tall!  Straight.  I want to see you looking fine for me."  She says that HCE reminds her "of a wonderdecker I once," a man who was perhaps one of her old lovers or someone who featured prominently in her dream of the previous evening (she calls back to figures featured throughout the Wake, like Wellington, "the Iren duke's").  The children are still sleeping, for there's "no school today."  The boys are "so contrairy," and take too much after HCE, it seems:  "When one of him sighs or one of him cries 'tis you all over.  No peace at all."  We learn that HCE desperately wanted a daughter:  "[W]hat you wouldn't give to have a girl!  Your wish was mewill.  And, lo, out of a sky!"  ALP says that her and HCE won't "disturb their sleeping duties," but it's time for them to journey into the day.  "Come!" she says.  "Step out of your shell!"

"erect, confident and heroic"

(617.30-619.19)  Much of the last half of ALP's letter is devoted to bringing us up to speed on what's happening in her part of Dublin and to correcting misconceptions.  A woman named Lily Kinsella has married a man named Mr. Sneakers.  She bought a bottle of medicine, which may or may not have been used to poison HCE.  "We are advised the waxy is at present in the Sweeps hospital and that he may never come out!" ALP notes.  If we look through our "leatherbox," we will one day see a postcard depicting the scene, with Lily on a sofa as HCE would "begin to jump a little bit to find out what goes on when love walks in besides the solicitous bussness by kissing and looking into a mirror."

ALP asserts that she was not treated poorly by the police when they investigated HCE's death.  The family was never "chained to a chair," and she says that "no widower whother soever followed us about with a fork on Yankskilling Day."  She would, however, like to lodge a complaint against a seargeant Laraseny that would cause his health to be "constably broken into potter's pance."  

After crediting "Adam, our former first Finnlatter" for "his beautiful crossmess parzel," which contained cakes, ALP concludes her letter on a hopeful note.  "Hence we've lived in two worlds," she says.  In one world, a version of HCE is buried under the Hill of Howth:  "He is another he what stays under the himp of holth."  In the other world, the legitimate (and perhaps new) HCE will wake:  "The herewaker of our hameframe is his real namesame who will get himself up and erect, confident and heroic when but, young as of old, for my daily comfreshenall, a wee one of woos."

ALP signs her letter "Alma Luvia, Pollabella."  In a postscript, she notes that she's "about fetted up now" and "[w]orns out."  Apparently the night in the Wake has not fully refreshed her.  I, however, am fairly well refreshed, and excited to tackle the final ten pages of the Wake beginning tomorrow.

"Kingen will commen. Allso brewbeer."

(615.11-617.29)  Consistent with what we've seen before, this version of ALP's letter can be rambling, and shifts direction many times throughout the course of today's passage.  Campbell and Robinson do a nice job of listing out the various subjects covered in the letter, so I won't try to replicate their work here.  

The letter, which is addressed to "Reverend," finds ALP at "Dirtdump" (both the dump near Phoenix Park and "Dear Dirty Dublin") and often seems to be about the Wake itself.  She says that "we have frankly enjoyed more than anything these secret workings of natures" and "was really so denighted of this lights time."  Like the night, the Wake is soon to be over:  "Yon clouds will soon disappear looking forwards at a fine day."  She remembers her time with HCE, such as when they rode "on the top of the longcar, as merrily we rolled along," and she pictures him now "looking at us yet as if to pass away in a cloud."

She warns off HCE's detractors and attackers multiple times, like when she says, "Sneakers in the grass, keep off!"  Past moments from the book are hinted at, and HCE's demise is doubly traced to the pipe-smoking Cad's attack and Buckley's shot:  "For a pipe of twist or a slug of Hibernia metal we could let out and, by jings, someone would make a carpus of somebody with the greatest of pleasure by private shootings."  Now that HCE is dead, he is invulnerable to both physical and lyrical attacks:  "Once you are balladproof you are unperceable to haily, icy and missilethroes."

Over the course of the evening, ALP explains, the sons have changed roles.  "Tomothy and Lorcan, the bucket Toolers, both are Timsons now they've changed their characticuls during their blackout."  As they ascend to their new roles in the family and world, music is prepared for HCE's "fooneral," which "will sneak pleace by creeps o'clock toosday."  It will be a grand affair:  "Kingen will commen.  Allso brewbeer."  Among the attendees will be Isabel's 28 classmates and the 12 patrons of HCE's pub ("from twentyeight to twelve," a phrase which doubles as the time the ceremonies will commence).  "Don't forget!" emphasizes ALP.  "The grand fooneral will now shortly occur.  Remember.  The remains must be removed before eaght hours shorp.  With earnestly conceived hopes.  So help us to witness to this day to hand in sleep."

"What has gone? How it ends?"

(613.8-615.10)  The reading for today is another particularly challenging one, but it's equally rewarding to try to unpack.  Tindall writes that this is a kind of transition passage, clearing the way from St. Patrick's victory in yesterday's reading to a final look at ALP's letter in the coming pages.

Day ("dayleash") is upon us now.  With this new beginning, it is time for transformations to occur.  "And let every crisscouple be so crosscomplimentary, little eggons, youlk and meelk, in a farbiger pancosmos," the narrator says.  The couples we've seen -- husbands and wives, warring brothers -- will take on a greater significance after they've eaten their breakfast, or "brarkfarsts."

Today "there is bound to be a loveleg day for mirrages in the open."  As the Wake prepares to repeat itself, we will see new marriages, just as we will see new mirages, in the open world of a new dream-within-a-dream.  New clothes are a necessity for this rearrival in a new world:  "You got to make good that breachsuit, seamer.  You going to haulm port houlm, toilermaster."  Meanwhile, old clothes -- just like old stories and gossip -- will return from the washers at the Liffey:  "Delivered as.  Caffirs and culls and onceagain overalls, the fittest surviva lives that blued, iorn and storridge can make them.  Whichus all claims.  Clean.  Whenastcleeps.  Close."

In this transition state, we're left to wonder where we are.  "What has gone?" the narrator asks.  "How it ends?"  We maintain our focus on the present, but in doing so also feel simultaneously drawn toward and repelled from the past and the future:  "It will remember itself from every sides, with all gestures, in each our word.  Today's truth, tomorrow's trend."  To cope with this jarring moment, the narrator instructs us:  "Forget, remember!"

The final paragraph of the reading is a great one.  It strikes me in one sense as being Joyce's commentary on the construction and purpose of the Wake.  The book is a "wholemole millwheeling vicociclometer, a tetradomational gazebocroticon."  It is known to every "Matty Marky, Lukey or John-a-Donk" and follows "a clappercoupling smeltingworks exprogressive process."  To "the farmer, his son and their homely codes" (the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost), this process is "known as eggburst, eggblend, eggburial, and hatch-as-hatch can" (Vico's four ages represented in the breakfast ritual).  Like a digestive system, Joyce takes "separated elements of precedent decomposition for the verypetpurpose of subsequent recombination."  In doing so, he details the "sameold gamebold adomic structure of our Finnius the old One" (HCE and his various forms) and prepares it so that it's ready for our breakfast nourishment, "piping hot, as sure as herself pits hen to paper and there's scribings scrawled on eggs."  Pretty great, huh?

"And here are the details."

(611.3-613.7)  I agree with Tindall when he notes that today's passage is one of the more obscure parts of the Wake.  The debate between Balkelly/Bilkilly/Belkelly/Balkally (whatever you want to call him) and Patrick is a nuanced one exploring the nature of human perception and knowledge.  I'll keep my discussion of it brief, as the daily nature of the blog doesn't give me much time to ponder the nuances here (i.e., I need a lot of time to think about this part).

Berkeley (let's call him that today, since McHugh notes that a significant portion of this passage is based upon the philosopher's Theory of Vision) represents the ancient Irish druid tradition (he's the "archdruid of islish chinchinjoss").  To put it in a crude summary, his theory is that fallen humanity can only see an object by the one of the seven "gradationes of solar light" that the object is unable to absorb.  This seems inadequate, to say the least, since we identify things (in particular, their colors) by what they are not.  The enlightened being, the "seer in seventh degree of wisdom," however, is knowledgeable of the "true inwardness of reality" and can see things as they truly are, particularly the six colors/"gloria of light" that they actually retain.  Like the reader, for whom much of this is obscure, Patrick is not able to "catch all that preachybook."  By means of explanation, Berkeley uses the king, who is standing nearby, as an example.  Berkeley points to six features of the king's appearance that Patrick perceives, respectively, as the colors red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo, and violet.  Each of these, Berkeley explains, retains the color green.  Berkeley, being the enlightened Irish native, sees that color green in everything.

When it's Patrick's turn to respond, his company of monks is unsure of who will win the debate, given the "possible viriditude" of Berkeley's argument and the "probable eruberuption" of Patrick's.  His argument is less intricate.  He wipes his nose with a handkerchief and (according to my understanding) says that we know an object simply by what it is, "the sound sense sympolin a weedwayedwold of the firethere the sun in his halo cast.  Onmen."  The sun, like God's light, shines upon everything and illuminates it as it is, and we know it as such.

Patrick's argument wins the day, as the helots shout, "Good safe firelamp!" (both "God save Ireland!" and "the good, safe sun!").   

"we are waiting"

(609.9-611.2)  Also witnessing the journey with us has been the four old men's ass, which will be roaming about the city.  All will occupy Wynn's Hotel, which will open shortly, when the sun has risen and given "to every seeable a hue and to every hearable a cry and to each spectacle his spot and to each happening her houram."  In the mean time, we are waiting for "Hymn."

Most of the remainder of today's reading consists of a dialogue between two figures, Muta and Juva (who link back to Mutt and Jute from near the Wake's beginning).  These two see smoke rising in the distance, smoke that both indicates the awakening at HCE's home and the arrival of another outsider, St. Patrick (here both "the Chrystanthemlander" and "the Eurasian Generalissimo").  Patrick stands in opposition to Bulkily (the Buckley to Patrick's Russian General), who is "fundementially theosophagusted over the whorse proceedings."  Also present is the resurrected king (who comes from "undernearth the memorialorum").  A contest between St. Patrick and Bulkily is about to begin, and the king is betting on both sides:  "He has help his crewn on the burkely buy but he has holf his crown on the Eurasian Generalissimo," Juva says.

As Tindall notes, Muta and Juva reach an understanding through their dialogue (as opposed to Mutt and Jute, who are unable to communicate with each other).  Muta suggests that the impending contest illustrates that

when we shall have acquired unification we shall pass on to diversity and when we shall have passed on to diversity we shall have acquired the instinct of combat and when we shall have acquired the instinct of combat we shall pass back to the spirit of appeasement.

Juva agrees, adding, "By the light of the bright reason which daysends to us from the high."  What Muta argues is that when we are unified, we'll find differences between ourselves, which will cause us to battle each other, but in battling, we will eventually reach peace.  This is the constant dialectic between both the brothers throughout the Wake and throughout history:  peace leads to war, which leads back to peace.  By means of emphasizing this idea, the peaceful end of this dialogue is jarred with a single-word paragraph:  "Shoot."

The reading ends with a description of another horse race.  As the racing happens, the narrator tells us that "Paddrock and bookley chat."  The substance of that debate will appear in tomorrow's passage.

"Into the wikeawades warld from sleep we are passing."

(607.17-609.8)  And, I'm back.  After that brief absence, I am ready for the home stretch and renewed in my determination (which I mentioned last week) to finish Finnegans Wake by the end of the month.

We pick up with the "lovesoftfun" of the wake in which the new generation celebrates the passing of the old.  As expected, the revelers have gotten a bit drunk and end up stumbling over one another.  "A polog, my engl!" offers one reveler, who apologizes to his angel for his actions.  "Excutes.  Om still so sovvy."

Meanwhile, the day is drawing nearer, and the "regn of durknass" is "snowly receassing."  The sun -- "Solsking the First" -- will soon "processingly show up above Tumplen Bar" and will be cheered by the new HCE, "Boergemester 'Dyk' ffogg of Isoles."

The narrator goes on to tell us that what we've been reading in "this vague of visibilities" has been a story of "just the draeper, the two drawpers assisters and the three droopers assessors confraternitisers."  Obviously, this is HCE, the two young women who dropped their drawers in the park, and the three soldiers, or as the narrator puts it again, "Uncle Arth, your two cozes from Niece and (kunject a bit now!) our own familiars, Billyhealy, Ballyhooly and Bullyhowley."

It seems that ALP is awake, and that the sound of her voice gladdens the sleeping HCE ("the cocklyhearted dreamerish") as she makes the morning tea.  We've reached the point where "the week of wakes is out and over" and a weak wick will turn into a fierce flame as "the Phoenican wakes."  As we pass into the "wikeawades warld" from sleep, the narrator calls, "Come, hours, be ours!"  It's not yet time to wake, though.  "But still," says the narrator.  "Ah diar, ah diar!  And stay."

The conclusion of today's reading looks back upon the book, which was "allso agreenable."  We toured "the no placelike no timelike absolent" and got everyone all mixed up, "like so many unprobables in their poor suit of the improssable."  On this journey, the narrator notes, we were joined by the four old men/gospel authors, "Matamarulukajoni."

"lovesoftfun at Finnegan's Wake"

(605.4-607.16)  It's not an exaggeration to say that a book could be written about either of the two paragraphs in today's reading.  They're loaded, plain and simple.  My secondary sources do fairly well in breaking down these complex passages, so, for today, I'll just try to do a brief synopsis to keep these pages fresh in my mind when I return to them.

To put it most simply, the first paragraph tells the story of Saint Kevin, an Irish monk who contemplates "the primal sacrament of baptism or the regeneration of all man by affusion of water" from a bathtub inside a "honeybeehivehut" on an island in a lake.  This basic narrative can be explored through any number of depths, however.  Within this single paragraph, McHugh notes that Joyce sets forth and explores the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the celestial hierarchy (looking into the levels of religious and transcendent being), the liturgical colors and canonical hours (looking into the daily and seasonal cycles of human beings), and the gifts of the Holy Spirit and sacraments (looking into the way that human beings align themselves with the eternal).  Also contained in this paragraph are the practices of monks and the official path to canonized sainthood.  At the moment, it's tough for me to think about anything to say about this paragraph in this space, except to note that this is Joyce at his absolute best.

The second paragraph in the reading takes a step back from the direct focus on Kevin and looks at him in relation to his father and at the family unit in general.  HCE, as the original form of Kevin, was the "first exploder to make his ablations in these parks" and "was indeed that lucky mortal which the monster trial showed on its first day out."  Together, HCE and ALP formed the "fairypair" that formed Kevin.  The motto of this "MacCowell family" (the family of Finn MacCool) is, "Great sinner, good sonner."  Somehow, the father-son relationship becomes a great sort of cuckoo clock, in which the Biblical brothers Jacob and Esau appear at the quarter hours and lead into "the apostles at every hours of changeover."  And this hourly changeover serves as a signal for the father ("old Champelysied") to move on/pass away (or, "seek the shades of his retirement") and for the new generation ("young Chappielassies") to joyously take the old generation's place ("to tear a round and tease their partners lovesoftfun at Finnegan's Wake"). 

"Oyes! Oyess! Oyesesyeses!"

(603.34-605.3)  I've read a shorter passage today (really, just over a page).  This is mostly to try and stop at the end of a paragraph (and avoid ending in mid-paragraph), but it also serves nicely to set up what looks to be an important (and slightly longer) reading tomorrow.  The readings have gone slightly over the past few days (or at least it seems so), so I'm still good to go on my daily pace.  (Given my frequent starts and stops through most of this project, you'll forgive me for mentioning now that I've posted 67 days in a row, a fact in which I take a slight bit of pride.  Don't worry, though:  I'm in the midst of a couple of busy weeks, so I'll inevitably miss a day or two soon.  Still, I'm determined to finish the Wake by the end of the month.  So close . . . .)

"But what does Coemghem, the fostard?" the narrator once again asks on our behalf.  The question wasn't completely answered when it was first asked in yesterday's reading (are any questions in the Wake ever answered?), so a second shot is taken here.  We first look to a depiction of Kevin in a stained glass window (a "novened iconostase of his blueygreyned vitroils"), which is just barely being lit by the morning sun's first rays.  Kevin comes from the "vinebranch of Heremonheber," which, as McHugh explains, means he's a descendant of the legendary progenitors of the Irish race (Heremon and Heber).  His homeland is "leaved invert and fructed proper," connecting him (as McHugh notes) to the ancient crest of the Finnegan family.  We must remember that it's still morning, though, and "the cublic hatches endnot open yet for hourly rincers' mess," which means that it's not yet time for early morning mass, for the pub to be open, and for Kevin to wake.  The "[b]esoakers loiter on" (the drunks wait for their drink) and the night traffic has not given way to the early morning "milk train" and commuter transportation.

We are jolted by an ecstatic calling to order:  "Oyes!  Oyeses!  Oyesesyeses!"  The "primace of the Gaulls, protonotorious, I yam as I yam" (yes, McHugh agrees with me that is a Popeye reference in the Wake) is about to give "a Gael warning."  We are to learn about "the miracles, death and life" of Kevin, a servant and "filial fearer" of God, the Lord Creator.  And it looks like that lesson will truly appear in tomorrow's reading.

"may he live for river!"

(601.30-603.33)  Having sung their song, the 29 girls now call for Kevin/Shaun to come forth:  "Ascend out of your bed, cavern of a trunk, and shrine!"  Kate is in the kitchen cooking breakfast, and it is time for Kevin to found his own country, "Newer Aland" (a new New Z-land).  "Be smark," the girls instruct Kevin, who has "the curling, perfect-portioned, flowerfleckled, shapley highhued, delicate features swaying."

Now that we know that Kevin is the one to come, the narrator asks a pertinent question on our behalf:  "What does Coemghen?"  Kevin/Coemghen has been viewed as an upright man, a "woodtoogooder," and the narrator wonders, "Is his moraltack still his best of weapons?"  He is a young version of HCE, so it is natural that "[h]is face is the face of a son."  

These brief descriptions of Kevin are cut off somewhat abruptly by the arrival of the four old men's ass -- here the "ass of the O'Dwyer of Greyglens" -- which gives information to "an indepondant reporter, 'Mike' Portlund" of "the Durban Gazette."  Portlund records what the ass says and sets it forth here in the form of brief headlines that detail the events surrounding HCE's wake.  "Deemsday," the reporter writes.  "Bosse of Upper and Lower Byggotstrade, Ciwareke, may he live for river!  The Games funeral at Valleytemple."  Pub History is uncovered at the wake, which devolves into outrage.  

Amid the mob at the funeral is Kevin, "Mr Hurr Hansen," who is most concerned at the moment with the "merryfoule of maidens happynghome from the dance."  The ladies seem taken with "Shoon the Puzt" (Shaun the Post, or Kevin) and call to him, saying, "Bring us this days our maily bag!"  Others seem to offer him a warning, though, and he is given the tragic example of Parnell, whose extramarital affair helped in part to cause his downfall.  Parnell's fall is also a form of HCE's fall.  "Haves you the time," Kevin is asked, recalling the troubling question the Cad asked HCE.  "Heard you the crime, senny boy?"  Kevin must beware the "[h]yacinssies with heliotrollops," who are "[n]ot once fullvixen freakings and but dubbledecoys."

"He. Only he. Ittle he."

(599.25-601.29)  Today's passage opens up with a one-word sentence:  "Where."  It proceeds to situate us under clouds ("Cumulonublocirrhonimbant") in an area of newly-grown "poplarest wood" that's "eminently adapted for the requirements of pacnincstriken humanity."  It's a place where we're reminded that "Father Times and Mother Spacies boil their kettle with their crutch."

We're brought to "the pool of Innalavia," (the home waters of ALP).  This "river of lives" brings about "the regenerations of the incarnations of the emanations of the apprentations of Funn and Nin," our common father and mother.  Here, "an alomdree begins to green," and "a slab slobs."  In other words, the new father of nations is preparing to step forth while the old one (HCE) sleeps.  (After all, we learn that we're "whereinn once we lave 'tis alve and vale," or HCE's pub, the Inn where we live until we say, "Hail and Farewell!")  On the opposite banks of the river, we see "this shame rock" and "that whispy planter," the stone and tree that are always appearing and always opposed, like Shaun and Shem.  Under the water of "that greyt lack" (the lake is "Erie," which is especially cool for me, since Lake Erie is the Great Lake that forms the northern border of my home state of Ohio), we can see a new city beginning to seep forth.

Along the "samphire coast" the 29 girls, "the daughters of the cliffs," begin to sing a song about the one whose arrival is imminent.  He is the "dweam of dose innocent dirly dirls":  "Keavn!  Keavn!"  So, as it's been hinted at in the previous pages, the one coming to replace HCE is his son, Shaun/Kevin.  The girls' song grows louder as they take the form of churches throughout Dublin whose bells clang in honor of Kevin, making a holy sound:  "Prayfulness!  Prayfulness!"

"Ere we are!"

(597.24-599.24)  A beam of light (a "shaft of shivery in the act") appears at the beginning of today's reading, ready to light the new day for HCE, the "sleeper awakening."  The day finds humanity refreshed ("Humid nature is feeling itself freely at ease with the all fresco.") and newly enlightened ("You have eaden fruit.").  As "day, slow day" arrives, the narrator bids yesterday farewell and welcomes the morning.

"There is something supernoctural about whatever you called him it," the narrator says, and we learn that the HCE of today may not necessarily be the HCE of yesterday:  "This-utter followis that odder fellow.  Himkim kimkim."  (As my secondary sources explain, Shaun, in one sense, is this new HCE that is rising as the young generation replaces the old at the end of the cycle.)  The hours of the era of "Grossguy and Littlelady," or HCE and ALP, are passing away.  

The new generation will follow the "pfath they pfunded," and at the end of today's reading the narrator explains in clearer (for the Wake), if overly formal, language that this is how things go in the cycle of humanity, and although "solid and fluid" (the permanent forms of the archetypal family) have "to a great extent persisted," we have passed through Vico's stages.  

At least one of the narrator's listeners is unimpressed, though.  "Gam on, Gearge!" the bumpkin says.  "Nomomorphemy for me!"  He thinks the narrator is just suffering from some indigestion (perhaps intellectual constipation), and reminds us all that "[t]here's a tavarn in the tarn" (taking us back, appropriately, to HCE's pub).

"Conk a dook he'll doo."

(595.30-597.23)  It's time for HCE to wake ("Conk a dook he'll doo," the rooster says), but he's still asleep.  "So let him slap, the sap!" taunts the rooster, which is here also called "the friarbird."  "Till they take down his shatter from his shap."

A number of names are given for HCE, the "child, a natural child."  Here's some of the ones I particularly like:

• "behold, he returns"
• "fincarnate"
• "sire of leery subs of dub"
• "without links, without impediments, with gygantogyres, with freeflawforms"
• "sure, straight, slim, sturdy, serene, synthetical, swift"

Like HCE, we've also been dozing as we read Joyce's dream book:  "You mean to see we have been hadding a sound night's sleep?  You may so."  But the book, like the sleeping HCE, is "just about to rolywholyover" (when the final sentence of the book leads directly into its opening sentence).  There are two sides to everything, the narrator says.  These include "the yest and the ist" (the west and the east, yesterday and today), "the wright side and the wronged side," and "feeling aslip and wauking up."  We all embrace these dichotomies, and everyone, from HCE to us, has to "doze."

Today's passage, which is still very close to the beginning of the chapter, seems to be setting things up.  Perhaps we'll begin to see what exactly is being set up when we tackle tomorrow's reading.

"A hand from the cloud emerges, holding a chart expanded."

(593.1-595.29)  Book IV begins with a bang (or, maybe more appropriately, an invocation:  "Sandhyas!  Sandhyas!  Sandhyas!").  It makes sense that, as the closing chapter of the Wake, this one will mirror the opening chapter and provide a sort of general postscript to go with the general introduction of the book's opening.  That means that we may be in for some densely packed pages.  And densely-packed could be a way to describe these first few pages.

A new day is dawning, and HCE is alerting everyone with the news:  "Calling all downs to dayne.  Array!  Surrection!  Eireweeker to the wohld bludyn world.  O rally, O rally, O rally!"  The light comes to all from "the reneweller of the sky" to illuminate the continuation of the human cycle of birth and death.  As the narrator explains, "Kilt by kelt shell kithagain with kinagain."  References to soap and washing emphasize that the dirty and old is being remade into the fresh and new.

We soon go on a quick tour of the landscape to see those places that will be renewed by the light.  "We may plesently heal Geoglyphy's twentynine ways to say goodbett an wassing seoosoon liv," the narrator says.  We get a long list of things that we'll find throughout the new day, many of which McHugh notes double as Irish counties (for example, "for limericks, for waterfowls, for wagsfools, for louts, for cold airs, for late trams").  And at the conclusion of today's reading, we get a reminder that while HCE and ALP rest, "a successive generation has been in the deep deep deeps of Deepereras," ready to unseat them.

A Final Moment of Wrest and Red Ember Ants

(591-592)  As is traditional when I finish a Book in the Wake, today's post is a quick recap of where we've traveled throughout Book III.  It's one last break (and a moment to pat myself on the back for having finally gotten into a consistent Wake groove over the past month or so) before I dive into the final Book (and chapter) of the Wake and (hopefully) finish Joyce's ultimate masterpiece before the end of the month.  I've already given some thought about the question of what I'm going to do once I've finished the Wake.  The answer is probably read more Joyce.

Like Book II, Book III contains four chapters.  Campbell and Robinson call Book III "the book of the desired future," a future that is "not the future really germinating in the nursery upstairs . . . but the mirage-future of the idealizing daydreams of the half-broken father."  The figure of Shaun dominates the Book's first two chapters (and half-dominates the third).  It's midnight in the pub, and the great (as the first chapter in the Book, this one represents Vico's prehistoric age of giants) figure of Shaun appears before the narrator.  He gives us the fable of the Ondt and the Gracehoper (once again illustrating the warring, yet perhaps complimentary, natures of the brothers), spends times talking about ALP's letter, and attacks his brother, Shem, before leaving to the acclaim of the assembled crowd.

The second chapter finds Shaun (now Jaun) pausing in his travels to lecture the 29 girls from St. Brigid's school.  Parts of the chapter take the form of the Roman Catholic mass, and Shaun delivers the bulk of his message in a sermon to the girls.  The message is a bit didactic and rambling, urging the girls to virtue and threatening them to behave (or else).  Eventually, he proclaims his affection for his sister, Isabel, and expresses a fair amount of jealousy over her.  Shaun sets himself up as an example for the girls to follow.  As the clock nears two in the morning, Shaun says it's time for him to leave, but, given his long-winded manner, it still takes him a while to go.  He offers more advice and imagines a life with Isabel, who soon expresses her affection for him without necessarily reciprocating the desire.  He once again attacks his brother but does offer a few compliments after he's established Shem (Dave)'s baseness.  After a couple more false starts, Shaun finally leaves.

The third chapter is the centerpiece of Book III, and it begins with Shaun (now Yawn) at rest on the top of a hill.  The four old men come upon him and conduct an extended inquiry, trying to determine something (or everything) about HCE and his family.  The story is traced and retraced, and the facts and players shift and change throughout the retellings.  Soon, the voices of these players appear, through the vessel of Shaun, and offer their own testimony to the four old men, who eventually become four young chaps.  The voice of HCE finally appears, and it gives yet another defense of his life.  The chapter ends with HCE shouting out (perhaps playfully, perhaps mockingly) the names of his four inquisitors.

The final chapter of Book III takes place primarily in the bedroom of HCE and ALP.  Kate discovers HCE drunk in the pub (where we left him in Book II), and he soon makes his way to bed.  As husband and wife are about to enjoy each other's company, a noise is heard in the house, which turns out be Shem (here Jerry) crying.  ALP soothes her child, and someone (either HCE and ALP, or the three children) watches until everything is quiet again.  When things have quieted, the couple finally do enjoy marital relations as the four old men (and perhaps a police officer outside) watch.  Witnesses yet again recount the rises and falls of HCE, and we conclude with a final, approving image of HCE, the father of us all.

"our all honoured christmastyde easteredman"

(589.12-590.30)  Now we reach the conclusion of Book III of Finnegans Wake.  Pretty exciting, I'd say.

Yesterday, we left off with HCE raking in the dough.  What did he do with his riches?  Luke says that he crept around at night on the prowl.  He lived out the age-old story, then:  "Humbly to fall and cheaply to rise, exposition of failures."  A succession of tragedies, which mirror stories from the Bible, befell him.  For instance, he experienced Adam's fall:  "First for a change of seven days license he wandered out of his farmer's health and so lost his early parishlife."  He also went through a flood like Noah when "a main chanced to burst and misflooded his fortunes, wrothing foulplay over his fives' court and his fine poultryyard wherein were spared a just two of a feather in wading room only."  The "crowning barleystraw" occurred "when an explosium of his distilleries deafdumped all his dry goods to his most favoured sinflute."  Penniless, he hit rock bottom, "weeping worrybound on his bankrump."  No one would give him a loan or pay any insurance money, for everyone believed him "a chameleon at last."  "His reignbolt's shot," Luke says.  "Never again!"

But this is not how we should ultimately judge HCE, argues Luke, as "the now nighs nearing as the yetst hies hin."  There will be a new day for HCE, "our all honoured christmastyde easteredman."

Luke's conclusion leads directly into John's very brief "[f]ourth position of solution."  John has the "[f]inest view from horizon" from which to present the "[t]ableau final."  He sees HCE and ALP sleeping peacefully just before the imminent dawn.  The four have worked the subject of HCE "to an inch of his core."  In parting, John presents a final image of ALP as she "blesses her bliss for to feel her funnyman's functions."

The chapter ends, as McHugh notes, with the audience applauding the play that has been presented to us throughout this chapter:  "Tiers, tiers and tiers.  Rounds."  It's not the most lyrical of the Wake's chapter endings, but it's suitably succinct in its recognition of our excitement for the book's final chapter.

"our hugest commercial emporialist"

(587.3-589.11)  In the relative still of the night, Luke comes upon two more witnesses who can give information on HCE, an unnamed speaker and his "auxy," Jimmy d'Arcy.  These two, who could be HCE's two sons, had "only our hazelight to see with" when the romantic action was happening a few pages ago.  They watched as if they were in the theater -- here, "Theoatre Regal" -- peeping as they ate snacks like "nutty woodbines" and "cadbully's choculars."  They knew HCE from when he joined them "in the snug at the Cambridge Arms of Teddy Ales," and the speaker notes that HCE was on good behavior there.  (HCE's association with them reminds us that he, Shaun, and Shem together could also be another form of the three soldiers who accused HCE of the sin in the park.)  

The speaker also tells us that ALP would call HCE (now also known as Fred Watkins) "Honeysuckler."  He doesn't seem to buy the prevailing story about HCE in the park.  He refers to the two young girls as "the waitresses, the daintylines, Elsies from Chelsies, the two legglegels in blooms" and the three soldiers as "those pest of parkies, twitch, thistle and charlock."  The speaker implies that, contrary to the Lord's Prayer, the three soldiers weren't "for giving up their fogging tresspasses."  He identifies the sleeping HCE, saying, "That's him wiv his wig on, achewing of his maple gum, that's our grainpopaw, Mister Beardall, an accompliced burgomaster, a great one among the very greatest, which he told us privates out of his own mouf he used to was."  In closing, the speaker notes that even after the Cad came back, ALP would dance seductively for HCE and "pair her fiefighs fore him with just one curl."

Further up the river, near the "seepoint," Luke finds the three soldiers, "Mr Black Atkins" and the "tanapanny troopertwos."  "[W]ere you there?" Luke asks.  Did they see HCE defecating ("Number two coming!  Full inside!") or urinating ("Mizpah low, youyou, number one, in deep humidity!") in the park?  We don't really find out the answer to these questions, only that there were trees in the park like the ones by the sea, trees that doubled as great figures from Irish history (as noted by McHugh), such as "the barketree" (Edmund Burke) and "the o'corneltree" (Daniel O'Connell).

Luke closes today's reading by summarizing the story once again.  There were two "pretty mistletots, ribboned to a tree," who were liberated by HCE.  After this first fall from grace, four "missywives" followed suit, and eventually there were fifty couples and one hundred children.  People became rich, and HCE "forged himself ahead like a blazing urbanorb, brewing treble to drown his three golden balls, making party capital out of landed self-interest, light on a slavey but weighty on the bourse, our hugest commercial emporialist, with his sons booing home from afar and his daughters bridiling up at his side."

"Let each one learn to bore himself."

(585.22-587.2)  (As an initial matter, this post, more than most, could bear an "Explicit Content" advisory, so be forewarned, reader.)  Ok, so HCE and ALP's lovemaking didn't quite end during yesterday's reading.  Today's passage begins with the two fully united, "whiskered beau and donahbella."  "O yes!  O yes!" we hear as the climax occurs.  "Withdraw your member!  Closure.  This chamber stands abjourned.  (McHugh notes that "chambre" is French slang for "cunt," so there you go.)  As the two lovers return to their resting state, we see a much debated line:  "You never wet the tea!"  There seems to be a contingent (at least based upon what I've read in my secondary sources, which admittedly are more on the "vintage" side of things) that believes this is ALP saying that HCE never gets the job done.  Tindall disagrees with this reading -- he says it means that HCE always wears a contraceptive (HCE's liquid/semen never wets/fertilizes ALP's teabag/egg) and I think I agree with him.  There's a lot of language indicating that something is happening (the "O yes!  O yes!" is a prime example), and Luke said that this event is "precedent" for population shortages in "Donnelly's orchard" and "Fairbrother's field."

Anyway, with all this excitement done, things begin to quiet down in the Earwicker household.  A brief list of nighttime rules for those lodging at HCE's pub appears.  "Others are as tired of themselves as you are," says Luke in a passage I like.  "Let each one learn to bore himself."  There will be no "cobsmoking, spitting, pubchat, wrastle rounds, coarse courting, smut etc" during "those hours so devoted to repose."  And the lodgers should be careful about doing their own fornication, lest the maid will begin a gossip chain that will result in half the town knowing about it.  "This is seriously meant," Luke says.  "Here is a homelet, not a hothel."

And if the police officer -- who, as he walked by outside, could see the shadows of HCE and ALP in the windows as they were having sex -- were to walk by again, he would see no light shining in those windows.  In fact, if he "brought his boots to pause in peace," he wouldn't hear a sound from the house, either.  He would only hear the flow of the river, "telling him all, all about ham and livery, stay and toast ham in livery."

"How blame us?"

(583.26-585.21)  Like the police officer at the end of yesterday's reading, we now join Luke in peeping at HCE and ALP as they enjoy marital relations through much of today's reading.  As Luke describes the act (ALP has "a trumbly wick-in-her"), he draws frequent comparisons to cricket, which go right over my head.  Without going into the gritty details, I'll note that the sex stuff is a little more straightforward and understandable.  ALP gives her husband some instructions ("scorch her faster, faster") and warns HCE lest he break the condom ("burst his dunlops and waken her bornybarnies making his boobybabies").  Everything is interrupted (or perhaps brought to a climax -- it's unclear to me at this point) when the rooster crows.

The end of the reading finds Luke giving plentiful thanks for having been able to witness this moment.  He now claims "exclusive pigtorial rights of herehear fond tiplady his weekreations," and those photos will be published in "next eon's issue of the Neptune's Centinel and Tritonville Lightowler," which have "the widest circulation round the whole universe."  His expressions of thanks seem to blend into the rooster's crowing as Luke gives credit to everything from the lamp that lit the room ("modest Miss Glimglow") to the mattress in the bedroom ("neat Master Mettresson") and HCE's condom ("patient ringasend as prevenient").  All are called to "condeal" (congeal?  condole?) with HCE, and all are asked to "kindly feel" for ALP at this time when "the dapplegray dawn drags nearing nigh for to wake all droners that drowse in Dublin."  (We must be getting near the end of this chapter, and of the Wake, I'd say.)

"We have to had them whether we'll like it or not."

(581.26-583.25)  Despite the tragedy surrounding HCE, which Mark lamented yesterday, things might be made more amenable through the presence of Shaun (or Shem), the "another like that alter but not quite such anander and stillandbut one not all the selfsame and butstillone just the maim and encore emmerhim."  HCE begot sons who will replace him, and for that Mark suggests that we offer "a snatchvote of thanksalot" to HCE, "the huskiest coaxing experimenter that ever gave his best hand into chancerisk."  We should accordingly wish HCE and ALP a long life and the ability to "turn a deaf ear closshed" to their enemies, who will exist for all of eternity.

After all, Mark says, "We have to had them whether we'll like it or not."  HCE and ALP are the universal parents, and we're stuck with them, just as Ireland is stuck with the invader's presence.  Neither they nor us will be able to "escape life's high carnage of semperidentity," and we'll all eventually be staring straight at our respective demises.  So, while we're here, we should sing a song (as Mark does in closing) to "Humpfrey, champion emir," who "holds his own."

At this point, we now take a look from the "[t]hird position of concord" (our third perspective in the chapter, after Matthew's first position of harmony and Mark's second position of discordance).  The pattern of the chapter suggests that Luke presents this view, which he describes by saying, "Excellent view from the front."  Since this is the straight-on view of concord, and since this book was written by Joyce, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that, as we gaze at HCE "now in momentum," we see him engaging in sexual intercourse with ALP.  Luke approves, saying, "By the queer quick twist of her mobcap and the lift of her shift at random and the rate of her gate of going the pace, two thinks at a time, her country I'm proud of."  Isabel (the "datter") "sleeps in peace," and Shem and Shaun (the "twillingsons") "turn in trot" (turn and toss in bed), but HCE and ALP -- "pairamere" (equivalent to the French for father and mother) -- "goes it a gallop, a gallop."  The petite ALP is described in this passage as a moon orbiting HCE's Jupiter ("juniper").  Their shadows can be seen outside of the house by "the park's police" who "peels peering by."

"I'm sorry to say I saw!"

(579.26-581.25)  "Now their laws assist them and ease their fall!" proclaims Mark at the beginning of today's passage.  We've seen the good side of HCE and ALP, so it's only fitting that we see some bad now.  After they "met and mated and bedded and bucked and got and gave and reared and raised," the couple caused some damage to Ireland, at least according to Mark, who says that they also "planted and plundered and pawned our souls and pillaged the pounds of the extramurals and fought and feigned with strained relations and bequeathed us their ills," and so on.  This passage (and all of today's reading) is on the straightforward end of the Wake spectrum, and one can tell that Joyce had a delightful time in putting together its top-notch, lively, sing-song language.

The couple will wreak havoc, but "bullseaboob and rivishy divil" will rise again and again, until "the book of dates he close."  Even then, Isabel -- "gentle Isad Ysut" -- will call "to Finnegan, to sin again and to make grim grandma grunt and grin again while the first grey streaks steal silvering by for to mock their quarrels in dollymount tumbling."  For now, they rest in their room "near the base of the chill stair" in HCE's "hydrocomic establishment."  ALP, "his ambling limfy peepingpartner" is "the slave of the ring" who, Mark argues, will ultimately set in motion the chain of events that will result in everyone buying into "the ballad that Hosty made."

But the public was ready to buy into that ballad anyhow, Mark says.  At every "mock indignation meeting" (there seems to be a lot of those happening nowadays), one could hear "vehmen's vengeance vective vollying" as HCE was called an invader and outlander.  As they "hauled home with their hogsheads" from HCE's pub, the meeting attendees would roar, "[F]ree boose for the man from the nark, sure, he never was worth a cornerwall fark, and his banishee's bedpan she's a quareold bite of a tark."

Mark sounds a bit guilty for the hatred that has grown for HCE, "the yet unregendered thunderslog," whom ALP has had to drop into a hiding hole.  "Ah, dearo!" Mark says.  "Dearo, dear!"  All of this was caused by the four old men ("the carryfour"), the three soldiers ("the trivials"), the two young women ("their bivouac") and HCE ("his monomyth").  Mark ends today's passage with sincere regret:  "Ah ho!  Say no more about it!  I'm sorry!  I saw.  I'm sorry!  I'm sorry to say I saw!"

"Herenow chuck english and learn to pray plain."

(577.36-579.25)  We've got a fun (and fairly straightforward) passage today.  We begin with one of the parents wondering whether one of the children, presumably Jerry, is stirring.  He's fast asleep, though, and the sound was "only the wind on the road outside for to wake all shivering shanks from snorring."

The next two paragraphs identify HCE and ALP.  HCE, "Misthra Norkmann that keeps our hotel," is in his nightclothes.  "Hecklar's champion ethnicist," Mark calls him.  "He's the dibbles own doges for doublin existents!" notes Mark, highlighting the Dubliner's multiple iterations.  "But a jolly fine daysent form of one word.  He's rounding up on his family."  ALP is the "bodikin by him."  Mark calls her "missness wipethemdry," calling back to the way she soothed the crying Jerry earlier in the chapter.

They're on a marriage journey together and currently returning from "their diamond wedding tour," moving "under talls and threading tormentors, shunning the startraps and slipping in sliders, risking a runway, ruing reveals, from Elder Arbor to La Puirée, eskipping the clockback, crystal in carbon, sweetheartedly."  The remainder of the passage consists of a list of entertaining items, which Campbell and Robinson fittingly term "slogans."  I imagine these slogans could be posted in HCE's pub.  A couple of my favorites are:

• "Hot and cold and electrickery with attendance and lounge and promenade free."
• "Mind the Monks and their Grasps."
• "Hatenot havenots."
• "My time is on draught.  Bottle your own."

A fun one to unpack is, "Buy not from dives.  Sell not to freund."  McHugh notes that "dives" is Latin for "rich" and that this accordingly references the proverb of Sauvé that reads, "Sell nothing to a friend and do not buy from a rich man."  Of course, "freund" is not only German for "friend," but it's also very close to the name Freud.  McHugh explains that this phrase, then, can also mean, "Tell not to Freud," another joke by Joyce aimed at psychoanalyists (whom he had not time for).

The final slogan, which ends today's reading, is another memorable one:  "Let earwigger's wivable teach you the dance!"

"To bed."

(576.10-577.35)  After two days of readings that were fairly unique within the Wake, we move back toward more "conventional" material today.  The passage begins with a voice saying, "He sighed in sleep."  Another replies, "Let us go back."  A third (or is it the first?) says, "Lest he forewaken."  And finally, we hear, "Hide ourselves."  This bit of dialogue presents a characteristically Wakeian problem:  Who's speaking?  If you believe the parents are still outside of the twins' room, this is HCE and ALP saying they should go back to their own room before Jerry begins to cry again.  If you believe the children are spying on their parents, this is Shaun, Shem, and Isabel hearing HCE sigh and deciding to get back to their rooms before HCE wakes (again).  Of course, it could also be the four peeping old men (whose dialogue often appears in bursts of four short statements), or it could be any combination of these.  Regardless, after a brief wish (asking that "hovering dreamwings, folding around, will hide from fears my wee mee mannikin, keep my big wig long strong manomen, guard my bairn, mon beau" -- this is HCE's desire that he, his wife, and his children will be protected in sleep), a voice says, "To bed."

The remainder of the passage consists of a prayer (to "Prospector projector and boomooster giant builder of all causeways woesoever") requesting guidance and protection for HCE and ALP.  If you think the children were spying on their parents, this could be the children saying their prayers before going to bed.  It could also be HCE praying for himself and his wife.

I won't summarize the prayer here.  It's fairly straightforward on its own.  I do like the various titles given for HCE and ALP, such as "boniface and bonnyfeatures" and "humpered and elf."  I also like that one of the specific requests is for God to "guide them through the labyrinth of their samilikes and the alteregoases of their pseudoselves," since this is sort of what we're asking for as we read through the Wake and come across the many alter egos and pseudoselves of HCE, ALP, and family.  Finally, it's cool how another of the requests incorporates, as McHugh notes, Vico's cycle, as well as the structure of the Wake itself:  "that he may dishcover her, that she may uncouple him, that one may come and crumple them, that they may soon recoup themselves:  now and then, time on time again, as per periodicity."

"And whew whewwhew whew."

(573.33-576.9)  I went slightly over in excerpt length today, mostly on account of the fact that there's a sentence about 23 lines (or two-thirds of a page) long at the end of this passage.  This also allows me to end today's reading at the end of a paragraph and has the added bonus of shortening tomorrow's reading.

But what a doozy today's reading is.  Now I can understand a little better why Campbell and Robinson call this five-page section the most complicated in the book.  (I'll add that it's among the most interesting, challenging, and entertaining sections as well.)  The passage for today is steeped in legalese, and the references are more obscure than in yesterday's reading.  The hegemony/submission question of yesterday seems to have been a cliffhanger that will go unanswered (at least for now), and what we have today is a legal dispute regarding "the goods of Cape and Chattertone, deceased."  The case, Mark tells us, "is perhaps the commonest of all cases arising out of umbrella history in connection with the wood industries in our courts of litigation."  My hunch is that on one level it's about how ALP tries to pay for the costs of HCE's funeral (here, the "wood industries" refers to the coffin).

We start with a maxim that seems to make enough sense:  "so long as there is a joint deposit account in the two names a mutual obligation is posited."  So, it would seem that if there wasn't enough money in the joint account held by HCE and ALP, ALP would be obligated to make up the shortage and any associated fees occasioned by her tendering a bad check.  The next two pages might make your head spin as you question that simple explanation.

Campbell and Robinson suggest that this passage moves from a discussion of the couple's finances and "quickly opens out into a review of the history of Christianity in the British Isles, particularly since the days of Henry VIII (Hal Kilbride) and the Counter Reformation."  I won't dwell on the religious aspect too much right now, but in this reading, ALP -- here "Ann Doyle" -- is a junior partner of the Roman Catholic church, which owes money to a rival firm, the Anglican church.  It's clear that tithes were due to "the heathen church emergency fund" (note those HCE initials), and that Tangos, Limited (the entity Campbell and Robinson identify as the Catholic church) asserts as its defense that it made full payment of the amount due.   The fund counterclaimed that payment was invalid because it was signed by the senior partner of Tangos, who is now missing and presumed dead (he's "entered into an ancient moratorium").  The bank declined to cash the check, which the fund trustee negotiated to a third party and is now in the hands of Pango, a "rival concern" of Tangos (and the entity Campbell and Robinson identify as the Anglican church).

At trial, the jury couldn't reach a verdict, and the judge "went outside his jurisfiction altogether" and essentially ordered that Pango ("the neutral firm") is liable for the debt, and so it's natural that Pango wants Tangos to pay up.  As I noted before, the senior partner who signed the check has gone missing and was therefore unable to testify.  Instead, the junior partner, Ann Doyle (who was originally a member of the jury . . . and originally presumed to be a man) took the stand.  She proposed to settle the dispute by merging (both corporately and physically) with Pango.  (If we follow my funeral expenses theory, this would be ALP trying to pay for the funeral by marrying the man to whom she's in debt.)

The settlement arrangement was overruled by an appellate judge, who reversed the decision of the trial judge and jury of "judaces" (presumably approving the settlement) and held that, since ALP was actually a slave and had no legal rights, and since the senior partner is presumed dead and "no property at law can exist in a corpse," there could be no settlement agreement between ALP and Pango ("Pepigi's pact was pure piffle").  The conclusion?  "Wharrem would whistle for the rhino."  (Whatever that means.  McHugh identifies "rhino" as slang for "money," so perhaps the right to collect on the debt will go up for auction?)

In their Skeleton Key, Campbell and Robinson offer a summary of this passage's meaning:  "Not only romantic love but also Christian faith is snarled, knotted, and exhausted.  All the wires have been so crossed that there is no clean flow any more, either of natural or supernatural energy."  That works for me.  I'll also offer this:  Yesterday's reading dealt with the insecurities dwelling at the darkest depths of HCE's subconscious (i.e., How can I function in society given my constant and all-consuming lust and love?), and today's reading deals with the what HCE presumes are the insecurities dwelling at the darkest depths of ALP's subconscious (i.e., Who will replace my husband with when he's gone?).

"shall she submit?"

(571.27-573.32)  After remarking on HCE's noisy coughs in yesterday's reading, one of the children notes that HCE perhaps is asleep:  "He is quieter now."  (This could also be HCE remarking to ALP that Jerry has gotten over his nightmare and quieted down.)  If it's the children outside of the parents' room, they hear a noise in the parents' room and wait to listen.  If it's HCE and ALP outside of the twins' room, they hear a noise in that room and wait to listen:  "Wait!  Hist!  Let us list!"  Mark explains that the young generation will knock off the old and take control, with the children "trowelling a gravetrench for their fourinhand forebears."

Regardless of where the parents are at (in their room being spied upon by the children, or outside of the twins' room), they now realize something is amiss.  The door of Buttercup/Isabel is open.  What could be happening?

"Let us consider," Mark says.  This introduces an extended passage, presented (at least initially) by attorney Interrogarius Mealterum, which Campbell and Robinson call "probably the strangest and most complicated in the book."  Essentially, it's a summary of the sexual intrigues that could be arise if all of the thoughts or desires lurking deep within each family member's subconscious were to be acted upon, presented in the form of a legal brief.  Campbell and Robinson write, "One is struck with horror that such matters can be discussed in the boring terminology of everyday legal experience, and that this phraseology, and the social attitude it covers, should be the most characteristic expression of our time."  I haven't found the beginning of the passage particularly complicated (in comparison to many other parts of the Wake), but my lack of confusion might arise from my background in law (a lot of what I read at my job doesn't sound too far off from this).  I think that Tindall does a good job describing what makes it so successful:

The clarity of this abstract, emerging from the darkness of dream around it, insures the effect.  Recoiling in horror from man's humanity to man, we laugh; for this amorous confusion is an example of what Ruskin, a better definer than Webster, called the grotesque, a kind of art, he said, that combines the frightful and the funny.

Joyce was at his best when writing this passage (which begins on page 572, line 18), and it really doesn't lend itself to any kind of summary.  It concerns the family and their close associates, here given Roman names (for example:  Honuphrius (HCE), Anita (ALP), Eugenius (Shaun/Kevin), Jeremias (Shem/Jerry), Felicia (Isabel), and Fortissa (Kate).  Honuphrius has engaged in any number of extramarital affairs (including, it's alleged, incestual ones with his children), and he has set in motion a plan to have Anita commit adultery as well.  Anita, like most of the other adult figures, has engaged in adultery herself, and any number of love triangles can be traced.  Anita is primarily concerned with preserving the virginity and honor of her daughter, Felicia, but she fears "reprehensible conduct" between the sons if she is successful in doing so (it's hinted that the brothers' incestual urge could be turned toward each other if they're shut off from Felicia).  Today's reading ends on a cliffhanger:  "Has he hegemony and shall she submit?"

If you're looking for a taste of the Wake to see Joyce at his best, mark this passage down as one to check out.

"Vouchsafe me more soundpicture!"

(569.17-571.26)  As today's passage begins, a priest, "Monsigneur of Deublan," blesses the crowd and begins a great feast.  All sorts of food is available:  chicken, pigeon, rabbit, pheasant, trout, salmon, sturgeon, capon, and lobsters, to name a handful.  In the midst of the feast, songs are sung to honor the king and, presumably, HCE:  "Old Finncoole, he's a mellow old saoul when he swills his fuddlers free!  Poppop array!  For we're all jollygame fellhellows which nobottle can deny!"  Soon actors are called for.  Among the plays proposed are "two genitalmen of Veruno" (Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona) and "all for love of fair pentient" (Dryden's All for Love).  After a few fine performances, which draw shouts of "Bravose!" and "Bravossimost!," a moment of silence is called for:  "The royal nusick their show shall shut with songslide to nature's solemn silence."  Numerous dances follow, causing Mark to remark, "Some wholetime in hot town tonight!"  This glorious day should be coming soon, he adds, "but it is never here that one today."  (Campbell and Robinson suggest that this scene of HCE's triumph suggests the anticipatory euphoria of foreplay experienced by HCE in bed with his wife, which makes some sense to me.)

All this talk prompts one of the listeners to ask Mark questions about HCE.  Is he ever in ill health?  No, he's "exceedingly herculeneous" (I'm reading this as like Hercules).  "One sees how he is lot stoutlier than of formerly," says Mark, before comparing HCE to Abraham.  "One would say him to hold whole a litteringture of kidlings under his aphroham."  Has he been married for long?  Yes, "ever since so long time in Hurtleforth."  He has "two fine mac sons" that, when combined, form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts:  "a superfine mick want they mack metween them."  Someone asks Mark why he's leering again.  "I am not leering, I pink you pardons," he replies.  "I am highly sheshe sherious." 

At this point, a subtle shift seems to occur, but it's possible we've been shifting all along.  Mark, who may now be one of the sons, asks, "Do you not must want to go somewhere on the present?"  It becomes apparent as the paragraph proceeds that the "somewhere" is the toilet, for someone has to urinate (they take a walk "till the number one").  The dialogue continues as they pass through the hall, indicating that Kevin and Jerry, who have been spying on their parents, are walking through the house to the "littleeasechapel" (or bathroom).  They look at pictures on the wall depicting war and nature, and eventually they seem to be joined by Isabel.  As one boy uses the facilities, the other speaks with her about her "lifesighs . . . after that swollen one" (HCE).  Isabel replies, "I am not sighing, I assure, but only I am soso sorry about all in my saarasplace."  As the reading for today comes to an end, one of the children remarks on the parents, whose noises keep the children constantly aware of their presence in the house:  "Always I am hearing them.  Horsehem coughs enough.  Annshee lispes privily."

"Alla tingaling pealabells!"

(567.13-569.17)  Today's passage was perhaps the toughest one I've encountered in this chapter.  We begin with news that the queen will be sending her liege to lead the nobles on a fox hunt.  This must be big news, and a big event, for everyone wants to be there.  "Yet if I durst to express the hope how I might be able to be present," Mark says.  The roads and rails will be jammed with travelers:  "All these peeplers entrammed and detrained on bikeygels and troykakyls and those puny farting little solitires!  Tollacre, tollacre!"

In preparation for the occasion, the twins will make peace:  "Britus and Gothius shall no more joustle for that sonneplace but mark one autonement."  The royal envoy's impending visit won't be the reason for that peace, though.  Instead, it will come about by Isabel's tears.  "It is how sweet from her, the wispful, and they are soon seen swopsib so a sautril as a meise," Mark says.

But these events pale in comparison to the arrival of the king, and his reception of HCE.  HCE -- "our boorgomaister, thon staunch Thorsman" -- will get dressed up in his best clothes for the king's arrival and stand among the throng of people, "restrained by chain of hands."  He will "receive Dom King at broadstone barrow meet a keys of goodmorrow on to his pompey cushion."  McHugh notes that this mirrors the reception that Abraham Bradley King, then Lord Mayor of Dublin, gave to King George IV (he gave him a key to the city and was knighted on the spot), but I also read this as Mark saying HCE will greet the king with a kiss on the ol' arse.  Flattered by HCE's welcome, the king will single him out:  "Arise, sir Pompkey Dompkey!  Ear!  Ear!  Weaker!"  HCE will read a speech to the king (consisting of the Greek alphabet), and the king will make lewd remarks to the ladies on the balconies.  And church bells throughout Dublin's city center and four corners will ring out in celebration of the moment.

I admit that I'm a bit confused (at least for the moment) how we got from HCE's "pole" in yesterday's reading to this royal visit.  Perhaps it will become clear tomorrow.

"The court to go into half morning."

(565.6-567.13)  We left off in yesterday's reading with Mark focusing on HCE's behind.  In today's reading, we move past that.  ALP, who stands in front of HCE and closest to the twins, the sleeping Kevin and the crying Jerry, begins to comfort her trembling son.  As thunder roars in the air, ALP tells Jerry he's only had a nightmare:  "You were dreamend, dear."  There is no panther or phantom in the room, she says.  Nor, she adds, is there a "bad bold faathern," which is maybe a white lie, since HCE is standing behind her.  "Opop opop capallo," she says, trying to cheer him up, and she goes on to tell him that his father will be taking the "lucky load to Lublin" tomorrow to do his business.  "Sonly all in your imagination, dim," she says.  She ends her comforting with a line that tells him the nightmares will wash away once morning has arrived and beautifully ties together the river and dream themes that run throughout the Wake:  "While elvery stream winds seling on for to keep this barrel of bounty rolling and the nightmail afarfrom morning nears."  

A transition that sounds just like a commercial break follows.  "When you're coaching through Lucalised, on the sulphur spa to visit, it's safer to hit than miss it, stop at his inn!" the commercial voice tells us.  It's quite clearly an ad for HCE's pub, where, we learn, we can doze in warmth and enjoy food and drink of questionable quality:  "Cried unions to chip, saltpetre to strew, gallpitch to drink, stonebread to break but it's bully to gulp good blueberry pudding."

Following the interruption, the scene resumes back in the "sleepingchambers" of HCE and ALP.  In a sense, we're slowly zeroing in on that room, moving from a wide shot of the entire house to a closer shot of the parents' bedroom.  As we view the entire house, we see all of the household.  The "court" is in "half morning," both indicating the "relaxed" time of half-mourning and, more pertinently, the halfway point between the evening and the daybreak.  "Soakersoon" (HCE's assistant) is there, as is Kate ("Katya"), who is undressing ("shakenin dowan her droghedars").  The twelve patrons/jurors -- "the "twelve chief barons" -- stand with their arms folded to make sure everything's at peace before they return to their "runameat farums."  The 28 young girls are tending to their hair and lamenting their "sadly ringless hands."  ALP, the "first mutherer," kneels, while the twins sleep.  HCE secretly has a blade drawn (creating a parallel between the plotting Lady Macbeth/Macbeth and ALP/HCE).  Finally, Isabel is doing obeisance to HCE, "first furtherer with drawn brand."  With this roll call complete, the court comes into "full morning."  Perhaps this is a stage direction, after all, for the spotlight falls back upon HCE and ALP as Mark says, "Herein see ye fail not!"

It appears that HCE and ALP are once again trying to have marital relations, as Mark's focus now turns upon a certain "stark pointing pole," which he says he sees "before my misfortune."  We learn the distances from this pole to "the dunleary obelisk," "the general's postoffice," "the Wellington memorial," and "Sara's bridge."  Maybe since the pole belongs to the universal father, HCE, it's meant to be viewed as the center of the universe.  Our narrator tells us that he leers at the scene because he wants to "see a buntingcap of so a pink on the point," or, as McHugh notes, a condom.  Mark tells us that this "buntingcap" is something used by "many burgesses by us, greats and grosses."