Thursday, March 19, 2015

"I will turn my thinks to things alove"

(327.15-329.13)  We pick up today with the long paragraph that begins on page 326 and introduces us to the young woman that the head tailor has seemingly selected for the Norwegian Captain.  Let's call this young woman Tina, since in yesterday's reading she was apparently referred to as "Tina-bat-Talur" (McHugh notes that "bat" is Hebrew for "daughter of," hence Tina, daughter of tailor).  In today's reading, the head tailor continues to extol Tina's virtues.  For example, she makes "every Dinny dingle after her down the Dargul dale," or, in other words, she leaves everybody tingling as she walks by.  Amid these continuing praises, the head tailor takes a moment to warn the captain in an aside, telling him to cool his jets until he gets to know her better:  "wait awhile, blusterbuss, you're marchadant too forte and don't start furlan your ladins till you' ve learned the lie of her landuage!"

We learn that part of Tina's role as the captain's wife will be to "work her mireiclles and give Norgeyborgey good airish timers, while her fresh racy turf is kindly kindling up the lovver with the flu."  Not only is she to show the captain a good time, but it also seems that in inflaming his sexual desire she will burn him up and turn him to ashes that will waft up the chimney (and thus bring peace to the land).  Underscoring this point, the head tailor says that she "with a roaryboaryellas would set an Eriweddyng on fire, let aloon an old Humpopolamos with the boomarpoorter on his brain."  She must be quite a lady.


Eventually, the head tailor -- the "marriage mixter" -- addresses Kersse, who is Tina's "coaxfonder" (or godfather), in order to convince him that the Norwegian Captain is a proper match.  Although the captain has a deservedly bad reputation ("the clonk in his stumble strikes warn"), the head tailor says that he'll be harmless once wedded.  It's declared that the captain, "Heri the Concorant Erho" (or HCE, the conquering hero), will be wedded at "Sing Mattins in the Fields" by "the Referinn Fuchs Gutmann."  And once the marriage has been consummated, Tina "will make a suomease pair and singlette" (or, as Campbell and Robinson explain, twin boys and a girl).  The head tailor concludes his speech by calling the captain "the bettest bluffy blondblubber of an olewidgeon what overspat a skettle in a skib."  With this, the captain is captured in the wedding arrangement:  "Cawcaught.  Coocaged."

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