"To me or not to me. Satis thy quest on."

(268.7-270.28)  After working through another challenging passage today, I'm more convinced that the commentators are on to something when they say that this chapter is among the most challenging -- if not the most challenging -- of the Wake.  But I'm also more convinced that the tougher the going, the more rewarding the book is.

Today's paragraph-long reading begins with a quick nod toward the twins Shem and Shuan, who will soon be fighting over arithmetic.  Our focus is promptly turned back to Isabel, who is studying grammar.  The writing is consequently loaded with grammatical and compositional references, from cases ("Take the dative with his oblative . . . ") to poetics ("Quantity counts though accents falter.").  Beyond this "surface" level is the study of another grammar:  "gramma's grammar," the grammar of human -- or, more specifically, male-female -- interaction.

The grandmother thus presents to Isabel a lecture on the "inbourne" manner in which men court women, and vice versa.  Shaun summarizes this as "EARLY NOTIONS OF ACQUIRED RIGHTS AND THE INFLUENCE OF COLLECTIVE TRADITION UPON THE INDIVIDUAL."  In brief, the grandmother explains that romantic conquest generally comes easier to men, the stereotypical aggressors who, as the seekers, tend to have the pick of mates.  Women, on the other hand, have to take what they can get.

This comes off as unenlightened until one realizes that the grandmother is teaching Isabel to use her abilities to make this patriarchal game work in her favor.  After all, she says, "It's a wild's kitten, my dear, who can tell a wilkling from a warthog."  Rather than be a "wallfloored" woman (who Isabel notes stands passively lamenting, "Is love worse living?") like those in the Respectable Irish Distressed Ladies and the Merry Mustard Frothblowers of Humphreystown Associations, the grandmother encourages Isabel to remember that "[t]he game goes on."

"Atac first, queckqueck quicks after," she says (on one level, McHugh notes that this is the old adage to "attack first, ask questions after").  Men are easily tempted.  Our old friend "oreilles" -- Persse O'Reilly -- was easily teased toward his own doom, and Eve was the catalyst that triggered Adam's downfall and caused us to lose "Wonderlawn" forever.  Isabel should be like Alice, who shattered the Lookinglass, and work to cunningly subvert the gender roles by becoming the aggressor and turning the world upside down.  By using her knowledge in this way, she will be able to heed her grandmother's advice to "never stray who'll nimm you nice and nehm the day."