(288.4-290.4) The long parenthetical picks up with more description of Dolph/Shem. More specifically, it picks up with more unflattering details about him. He was content to let other people finish his sentences for him, as he'd rather smile edgewise (or "eggways," which gets a good footnote from Isabel, who recognizes the word "egg" as referencing HCE's role as humpty-dumpty when she adds, "Who brought us into the yellow world!"), pick at his fingernails, and tell "a reel of funnish facts apout the shee." In short, he sets forth "in fine the whole damning letter," which is the letter written by ALP telling the tale of HCE, or the Wake itself.
The second theme of today's reading establishes Dolph/Shem as an foreign invader to Ireland, a type of St. Patrick, Tristan, and Strongbow. Dolph converted the Irish natives using his brand of "znigznaks with sotiric zeal." The masses still hold to their Dolphic/Roman Catholic ways, despite attempts to have them "steeplechange back" to their "ancient flash and crash habits of old Pales time ere beam slewed cable," or back to Vico's first age. In keeping with this appearance of the idea of thunder and lightning, and of note to me as a U.S. citizen, is a reference to Benjamin Franklin, that master of lightning, here as "Benjermine Funkling."
The end of the passage takes us away from "the reptile's age" and brings us to the section's third theme, Isabel. Here, she's "the pretty Lady Elisabbess, who we see "uncrowned" and "deceptered." The narrator asks, "[I]n what niche of time is Shee, or where in the rose world trysting"? Perhaps we'll find out tomorrow . . . .
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