"Shaun! Shaun! Post the post!"

(403.1-405.2)  Chapter I of Book III of Finnegans Wake begins with the clock tolling 12 as HCE and ALP ("his Anastashie") are asleep in their bed.  (Campbell and Robinson note that later in the book we will learn that, after having passed out on the floor of the pub and dreamed the dream that comprises Book II, Chapter 4, HCE wakes up and goes upstairs to sleep in his bed.)  Also present in the room is a "blautoothdmand" (a blue-toothed demon) staring at the sleeping couple.  The demon, identified as Gugurtha, seems to be ogling ALP, the "most beautiful woman of the veilch veilchen veilde."  Before moving on with the story, the narrator repels the demon, saying, "Come not nere!  Black!  Switch out!"

With Gugurtha seemingly dealt with, the narrator moves into the real meat of the chapter.  During this "zero hour," the narrator thought that he (or she) heard "the peal of vixen's laughter among midnight's chimes" when the darkness renders "all animated greatbritish and Irish objects nonviewable to human watchers."  There was a chance, however, that the gleam of something floating down the river (perhaps "garments of laundry") could be seen.  As the narrator (maybe it's HCE) was "jogging along in a dream as dozing I was dawdling," he (I'm going to go with the male pronoun here, since it does seem like it's HCE recounting the dream) thought that he heard nature echoing certain words:  "Shaun!  Shaun!  Post the post!"

"I heard him so!" the narrator says.  As the figure came closer into view, a lamp on his belt illuminated his body.  What was once "a shaddo" was now clearly "the laddo!"  He was once a small lad, but now he was "growing to stay" and was a man.  He appeared "dressed like an earl in just the correct wear," and his Irish postman's outfit, which the narrator lays out in detail, consists of "everything the best."  At the conclusion of today's passage, the narrator confirms that the man was none other than "Shaun himself." 

Two pages in, this chapter strikes me as being very literal and straightforward.  We'll see how things progress tomorrow.

A Nutter Moment of Arrest and Remembrandts

(400-402)  As I did after completing Book I of Finnegans Wake (more than eight months and nearly 200 pages ago), I am going to spend today's time in the Wake doing a quick recap of where I've been as I've made my way through this challenging section of Joyce's book.

In the first chapter, we see HCE's children engaged at play in a loose type of theatrical, or play, format.  The chapter presents, once again, the struggle between the two sons, here Chuff and Glugg.  Glugg repeatedly makes a fool out of himself as he tries to prove his worthiness to Chuff, Izod, and the chorus of Floras.  Eventually, HCE comes out to call the children into the house, and a tentative peace is reached as Glugg (Shem) acquiesces to Chuff (Shaun).

The Book's second chapter keeps its focus on the children.  This time, we're presented with a sort of inside look as the children do their school work, with running commentary from Shaun, Shem, and Isabel appearing in the margins and footnotes of the text.  This challenging chapter culminates in a geometry lesson of sorts in which the family dynamic is presented in a diagram that demonstrates how the brothers' opposed natures resolve themselves into one, with their mother, ALP, representing the vessel through which their life springs forth.

With the children in bed after their studies, the third chapter of Book II returns our focus to HCE, who is presiding over the rowdy crowd in his pub.  This chapter's also a challenging one, with multiple digressions appearing in the form of radio ads, television plays, and interruptions from the pub patrons.  The running stories, told variously by HCE and the patrons, include the tales of the Norwegian Captain and the Russian General, both of which are types of HCE.  The chapter moves toward a kind of haphazard trial that results in HCE being convicted for his sins.  HCE gives an impassioned defense of his life during the trial, but ends up alone in his pub, downing the remnants of the drinks left over by the patrons and ultimately passing out drunk on the floor.

With HCE down for the count, the fourth and final chapter of the book consists of HCE's dream of Tristan and Iseult as they consummate their love while on a ship traveling away from Ireland.  The four old men, who in one incarnation sat as judges over HCE, feature prominently throughout the chapter, spying on the two lovers and going into long digressions about their past.  It ends on a positive note, with Tristan and Iseult affirming their love for each other.

Personally it's been a long odyssey getting through Book II.  As I mentioned, I took more than eight months to read this one Book, and I originally set out to read the entire Wake in a year.  I've been getting better at being more disciplined about this project in recent weeks, though, so I'm optimistic that I'll be able to finish the book before the year's done.  With this renewed sense of mission, I'm excited about diving into Book III tomorrow.

"led it be!"

(397.7-399.34)  Today's reading -- the final passage from Book II of the Wake -- consists of three distinct sections.  The first section begins with the narrator reminded, "like another tellmastory repeating yourself," of the days when the four old men "used to be in lethargy's love, at the end of it all."  They would huddle up, worn out, at the end of the day and eat their not-so-savory meal, which included "their bowl of brown shackle and milky and boterham clots, a potion a peace, a piece aportion."  At this late date, "they were all sycamore and by the world forgot," having caught a disease from the Flemish invaders and eaten that bad crab that appeared in Wednesday's reading.  They would read letters by the candlelight and eventually "one by one sing a mamalujo" (with "mamalujo" being in one sense an abbreviation for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) to Tristan, "the heroest champion of Eren."

The second section focuses more on the lovers, Tristan and Iseult, particularly on the time after the affair described yesterday, when Tristan "got a useful arm busy on the touchline, due south of her western shoulder, down to death and the love embrace."  With the two united, the four old men are set to "say oremus prayer and homeysweet homely, after fully realising the gratifying experiences of highly continental evenements."  The four old men are "right glad" and will never forget the two lovers, for "still they loves young dreams."

The chapter (and Book II) concludes with a song for Tristan and Iseult.  The wealth of King Mark is not enough to buy Iseult's love, and rather than "bide with Sig Sloomysides or the grogram grey barnacle gander," she will wait for Tristan to get "his glut of cold meat and hot soldiering."  Tristan knows that "she was always mad gone on me," and Iseult consents to his proposal at the song's end, saying, "Mick, Nick the Maggot or whatever your name is, you're the mose likable lad that's come my ways yet from the barony of Bohermore."

With the song concluded, the four old men and their mysterious companion (here a braying ass) laugh with joy as the boat continues to move down the river.  "The way is free," the narrator says.  "Their lot is cast."  The closing words of this ultimately positive chapter are "led it be!"  What a peaceful dream for the embattled HCE.

"it was then a pretty thing happened"

(395.26-397.6)  In writing Finnegans Wake, Joyce wasn't afraid to get a bit salty.  That much is clear through the first 395 pages or so that I've gotten through.  References to sex appear frequently, and there's quite a lot of talk of urination.  But for my money (which isn't worth all that much . . . remember, I'm doing this blog for my own edification), today's passage is the bawdiest so far in the Wake.  It's clearly sexy and provocative, but Joyce's achievement here is that the passage can be as erotic as the reader wants it to be.

The four old men have finished their addresses to each other, and now the narrator takes over to recount "a pretty thing happened of pure diversion mayhap."  Tristan, groping Iseult with "his flattering hend," finds a proverbial sweet spot, causing that "vivid girl, deaf with love" to let out a "queeleetlecree of joysis crisis" (a wee little cry of "Jesus Christ!").  The two are now presented with "the golden importunity of aloofer's leavetime," and this is the moment when readers can choose their own adventure, in a sense.  Tristan, the narrator says, "as quick, is greased pigskin, Amoricas Champius, with one aragan throust, druve the massive of virilvigtoury flshpst the both lines of forwards (Eburnea's down, boys!) rightjingbangshot into the goal of her gullet."  (Note how this passage echoes those lines from the book's opening page:  "Sir Tristam, violer d'amores, . . . had passencore rearrived from North Amorica . . . .")  In one sense, the narrator describes Tristan and Iseult "frenching," with Tristan sticking his tongue past Iseult's teeth and into her throat.  In another sense, the narrator describes the act of Tristan sexually penetrating Iseult.  McHugh notes that "massive" stands for "missive," which stands for tongue.  On the other hand, it doesn't require much of an imagination (or depraved mind) to take "massive of virile victory" one step further, especially in a book full of genitalia puns.

In the next paragraph, the narrator explain's Iseult's part in this affair.  She's "a strapping modern old ancient Irish prisscess," with "nothing under her hat but red hair and solid ivory . . . and a firstclass pair of bedroom eyes, of most unhomy blue . . . the charm of favour's fond consent!"  Iseult's role as seductress is fairly clear.  "Could you blame her, we're saying, for one psocoldlogical moment?" the narrator asks.  "What would Ewe do?"  It's not right to expect Iseult to be dedicated to King Mark, "that so tiresome old milkless a ram, with his tiresome duty peck and his bronchial tubes."  Instead, Tristan and Iseult come together for an affair, "the twooned togethered, and giving the mhost phassionable wheathers, they were doing a lally a lolly a dither a duther one lelly two dather three lilly four dother."  I dunno, it sure sounds to me like they're having sex, and the narrator says that this is "a fiveful moment for the poor old timetetters [the four old men, who are peeping on the lovers], ticktacking, in tenk the count."  As the encounter concludes, the narrator describes "her knight of the truths thong plipping out of her chapellledeosy, after where he had gone and polped the questioned."  That "thong plipping out of" Iseult could either be Tristan's tongue, or his "member," and your reading of that phrase will color your interpretation of whether the paragraph's final, one-word sentence -- "Plop." -- describes the sound of that tongue coming out of Iseult's mouth or the result of Tristan's ejaculation.

See what I meant?  Pretty bawdy.  But also stellar prose.  The passage ends with a short paragraph describing the effect of the scene on the four old men:  "it was tootwoly torrific, the mummurrlubejubes!"  As a result of this terrible, yet terrific thing that they've witnessed, the four old men are "now happily buried," indicating that they're either dead or happily (re)married.  

It's going to be hard to top this passage in terms of pure, Joycean fun, but we'll see what happens tomorrow, when we reach the conclusion of this final chapter of Book II of the Wake.

"flapping and cycling, and dooing a doonloop"

(393.4-395.25)  Today we get to our fourth (and final) address from the four old men, this one coming from Matt.  After beginning by passing the Eucharistic loaf introduced by Lucas, Matt laments "Poor Andrew Martin Cunningham," one of the chapter's drowned men.  With that preface complete, Matt begins the proper part of his address by foregoing the sad times recalled by Lucas and instead going back to the happier times of their youths, when they were "in auld land syne (up) their four hosenbands, that were four (up) beautiful sister misters, now happily married."  (McHugh notes that the parenthetical "up"s found throughout this chapter could be the drunken four old men hiccuping.)

It's worth emphasizing how much Matt's whirlwind tour of the happier scenes of their youth serves to counterbalance the gloomy tone of Lucas's reminiscences.  There was plenty of seafood (in contrast to the scraps of food available for the wretched Matt in Lucas's address), and the four friends spent their time "always counting and contradicting every night 'tis early the lovely mother of periwinkle buttons" (of an alluring lady, quite possibly ALP).  The coo-coo clock would wake them at all hours of the night, and they'd peek out the window to see if the morning paper had come.  They never rested and instead played, delivered their gospels, and dreamed.  They repeated this cycle ("dooing a doonloop," spinning around like Dunlop tires) and followed "the wake of their good old Foehn again" (Finnegan, again) on their "clipperbuilt."

Soon after these idyllic memories are recounted, Matt slowly transitions (almost as if he's coming to his senses) to the scene that's before them, which Lucas totally ignored during his address:  Tristan and Iseult on the boat.  This begins with vague near-references, such as "till he was instant and he was trustin [Tristan], sister soul in brother hand, the subjects being their passion grand," when discussing the foursome's early love for nursery rhymes.  Eventually, Matt fully returns to the present when he describes the four old men, "like a foreretyred schoonmasters, and their pair of green eyes and peering in, so they say, like the narcolepts on the lakes of Coma, through the steamy windows, into the honeymoon cabins."  They're peeping into the cabins, just like HCE was accused of doing, and gazing at "all the hunnishmooners and the firstclass ladies."  Now fully in the present moment, Matt concludes his address by lustily describing Tristan and Iseult as they embrace "all improper" in their cabin.  He ends by saying, "And all, hee hee hee, quaking, so fright, and shee shee, shaking.  Aching. Ay, ay."

"Ah dearo dearo dear!"

(391.12-393.3)  Today's passage is the biggest downer of those that I've read to date in this chapter.  Gone is the "leaping laughing" that Marcus spoke of in yesterday's reading.  Lucas, continuing to talk about the four old men's time at the auction with Mrs. Dowager Justice Squalchman, remembers how "poor Mark or Marcus Bowandcoat" embarrassed himself by when "he forgot himself, making wind and water, and made a Neptune's mess of all of himself" (in other words, when he peed his pants) and when he "forgot to remember to sign an old morning proxy paper" that was to be delivered to the Mrs. Dowager Justice.

Worse off than Marcus was "poor Dion Cassius Poosycomb."  Dion is another man who drowned, like those we encountered earlier in the chapter.  He didn't drown literally, however.  His fatal mistake was having "eten a bad carmp in the rude ocean," or eaten bad crab in the Red Sea.  His terrible food poisoning left him "dead seasickabed . . . in the housepays for the daying at the Martyr Mrs MacCawley's."  There, Dion slipped away as he tried to hold his nurse's hand and remember what day he was born on.  Lucas can only exclaim, "Ah dearo dearo dear!"

"And where do you leave Matt Emeritus?" Lucas now asks.  It's not immediately clear whether this Matt -- "The laychief of Abbotabishop" -- is the Matt of the four old men, or whether the "Emeritus" signals that Lucas is thinking of a previous Matt (perhaps HCE).  This Matt was poorly dressed, and sat below groud in order to perform an expiatory rite.  His sin is unclear, but we learn that he was joined by a woman (perhaps his wife?) who gripped "an old pair of curling tongs" with which she was considering killing Matt.  "It was too bad entirely!" says Lucas after cataloging the scant food present for Matt and the woman.

Concluding his depressing address, Lucas finally exhorts his peers to participate in the Eucharist with him:  "and so now pass the loaf for Christ sake.  Amen.  And so.  And all."

"The good go and the wicked is left over."

(389.30-391.12)  Today's passage begins with an interruption to Marcus's address:  "Queh?  Quos?"  (This seems to be someone -- the narrator, maybe, or one of the other three old men -- seemingly asking, "And?  Who?")  Marcus resumes by saying that it was "so scalding sorry" for the four old men, along with "their familiar" (a mysterious figure who has been hinted at before and pops up at least twice in today's reading) and Lally (some kind of public servant associated with the four old men).  At this point in their shared history, Lally was down on his luck:  he "lost part of his half a hat and all belongings to him."  Lally was trying to forget the past when Buckley shot the Russian General ("when the burglar he shoved the wretch in churneroil").  Marcus establishes Buckley in opposition to both Lally ("the ballast master of Gosterstown") and the Russian General ("his old fellow, the Lagener").  With the General lying down dead, "with his ladder up" (like Tim Finnegan, who "died" after having fallen off his ladder), Buckley "couldn't stop laughing over Tom Tim Tarpey, the Welshman, and the four middleaged widowers."

Thinking about the four old men again reminds Marcus of themselves -- "the four of the Welsh waves" -- in their better days, when they went about "leaping laughing, in their Lumbag Walk, over old Battleshore and Deaddleconch, in their half a Roman hat, with an ancient Greek gloss on it."  This was four years after they were all divorced, when they would part without sadness, but rather "raining water laughing."  Those days are over now, however, and all that is good is gone:  "The good go and the wicked is left over.  As evil flows so Ivel flows."

Next up is Lucas's address.  He jumps right in, remembering when "Carpery of the Goold Fins was in the kingship of Pooland."  His thoughts are focused upon "Mrs Dowager Justice Squalchman," who wore "her fullbottom wig and beard" at "the Married Male Familyman's Auctioneer's court in Arrahnacuddle."  Johnny, Lucas says, was frightened of the Mrs. Dowager Justice "on account of her full bottom."  As they walked around the auction grounds, the mysterious familiar person (here referred to as "a hing") trailed them because he was derelict in his duties "grooming her ladyship." 

"O weep for the hower when eve aleaves bower!"

(387.32-389.29)  After a relatively straightforward first four pages of this fourth chapter of Book II of the Wake, I've hit a denser -- or perhaps more accurately, a more obscure -- passage today.  The reading begins by resuming Johnny's address.  He's still on the subject of Merkin Cornyngwham's drowning.  Johnny says that the "arzurian deeps" have covered Cornyngwham's bones, and he adds that his widow is preparing her memoirs in tribute to him.  As we've seen throughout the Wake, this is another example of the father being displaced by the son:  "Where the old conk crusied now croons the yunk."  In this sense, Cornyngwham is another example of King Mark and HCE, and Johnny elaborates on this at the conclusion of his address.  Stating the names and some other words backward (for instance, "Kram of Llawnroc" is Mark of Cornwall), Johnny says that Mark exited through a door and Tristan entered the room, where he proceeded to cause Iseult to tumble into an embrace.  Johnny's address ends with him sobbing ("Sobbos.") and asking for salvation ("Sabbus.").

Immediately following Johnny's address comes the address of Marcus, who takes up the theme of death on the sea.  He reminds his peers of the "Flemish armada, all scattered, and all officially drowned" off the coast of Ireland after having converted "our first marents" and "Lapoleon."  Next, he brings up "the Frankish floot of Noahsdobahs," which disembarked "from under Motham General Bonaboche."  After the Frankish fleet appeared, a man (Napoleon?  HCE?  Mark?  Tristan?) arrived and conquered, "poghuing her scandalous and very wrong, the maid, in single combat, under the sycamores, amid the bludderings from the boom and all the gallowsbirds in Arrah-na-Poghue."  This seduction/invasion occurred near the Queen's Colleges, which, as Marcus recalls, served as the site for "grandest gloriaspanquost universal howldmoutherhibber lectures on anarxaquy out of doxarchology."  These lectures were received by the collegians, the saints, the sages, and the religious dissenters.  

After going off on a long tangent related to those lectures (a tangent I'm not having the easiest time following on this read through), Marcus returns to the seducer/invader near the Colleges and/or Tristan in the boat, who the four old men (and perhaps those in attendance at the lectures) hear "kiddling and cuddling her, after the gouty old galahat, with his peer of quinnyfears and his troad of thirstuns, so nefarious."

In a sense, the address Marcus gives is just as much a recycling as it is a continuation of Johnny's address.  Both have as their major themes the scandal of Tristan and Iseult's affair and the almost sentimental yearning for the days of old.  More to come tomorrow . . . .

"they were four dear old heladies"

(385.18-387.32)  After having turned their thoughts toward "the dear prehistoric scenes" of their young lives, the four old men return their attentions to the present time and resume their peeping observation of Tristan, "that mouth of mandibles, vowed to pure beauty," and Iseult, "his Arrah-na-poghue."  Iseult coughs and orders Tristan to sing "a dozen of the best favourite lyrical national blooms in Luvillicit, though not too much."  The four old men view the scene as "a seatuition so shocking and scandalous" and accordingly "thank God, there were no more of them."  

In a nice piece of Wakeian ambiguity, we read:  "and there they were, like a foremasters in the rolls, listening, to Rolando's deepen darblun Ossian roll."  Is the "they" here the four old men, or is it Tristan and Iseult?  The "foremasters" could mean the four old men, but it could also mean the two lovers on a four-post bed on a four-masted ship.  Of course, it could be both the old men and the couple.  Regardless, the four old men again find themselves "wishening for anything at all of the bygone times, the wald times and the fald times and the hempty times and the dempty times," including "four farback tumblerfuls of woman sqaush," as they watch the scene on the ship, "listening and spraining their ears for the millennium and all their mouths making water."

The rest of the day's passage comes from the perspective of one of the four old men, Johnny.  He agrees that what's been recounted so far of their young days is accurate, and he dives back into the reminiscence.  His thoughts turn to a Dublin auctioneer prominent in their youth, James H. Tickell.  This lofty figure "made the centuries" and has seen and encountered a world of things.  He dressed in a manner fit "to find out all the improper colleges," where he would presumably peddle his wares.

Abruptly, Johnny shifts his monologue back toward "long long ago in the old times Momonian" and remembers all the great events that have happened during his lifetime, going all the way back to "the drowning of Pharoah and all his pedestrians and they were all completely drowned into the sea, the red sea" before returning to the more contemporary "poor Merkin Cornyngwham, the official out of the castle on pension, when he was completely drowned off Erin Isles."  This could be a reference to King Mark, but it also recalls Martin Cunningham, a character from Ulysses who McHugh notes was based on a man named Matthew Kane, an Irish official who drowned in 1904 (and who additionally served as a model for the man drowned at sea referenced in Ulysses).

We'll get to the conclusion of Johnny's thoughts tomorrow.

"They were the big four, the four maaster waves of Erin"

(383.1-385.18)  Today I begin the fourth (and final) chapter of Book II of Finnegans Wake.  This chapter is a short one (a mere 17 pages -- compare that with the 74 pages of the previous chapter and the 49 pages of the chapter before that), but perhaps that's to be expected, since it's the fourth stage in the Viconian cycle of this Book, a stage of chaos that returns us to the primitive, natural order of things.  

Judging by the first two pages of text in the chapter, it also looks like it will be a comparatively "easy" chapter to read through, but still a typically rewarding one.  The chapter begins with a poem, the first line of which reads, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"  (Tindall notes in his Reader's Guide that this line provided at least part of the inspiration for the naming of the subatomic particle, quark.)  The rest of the poem, which is heavy on references to various types of birds (indicating that those three quarks are three cheers, three quarts (probably of beer), and three bird's squawks), tells the tale of the legendary King Mark of the Tristan and Iseult story, references to which have appeared throughout the Wake.  Mark -- like HCE -- has been made a fool of ("wouldn't un be a sky of a lark / To see that old buzzard whooping around for uns shirt in the dark / And he hunting round for uns speckled trousers around by Palmerstown Park?"), as his nephew, Tristan, is in the process of seducing Mark's intended bride.

The first paragraph following the opening poem indicates that the poem was a song sung by "seaswans" that witnessed Tristan and Iseult kissing.  Seeing as we left off with the "stout ship Nansy Hans" sailing away at the end of the last chapter, this indicates that the scene we're beginning to see unfold is the sea voyage of Tristan and Iseult, who are departing Ireland (in the passed-out HCE's dream).

In addition to the sea birds, the four old men also witness this sea voyage.  These men -- "the big four, the four maaster waves of Erin, all listening, four" -- are Matt Gregory, Marcus Lyons, Luke Tarpey, and Johny MacDougall, or Irish versions of the four authors of the Gospels.  The four spy on Tristan and Iseult, "with their palms in their hands" as they are "spraining their ears, luistening and listening to the oceans of kissening, with their eyes glistening."  In a reversal of the prominent event underlying the Wake, the four old men are guilty of the sin of peeping, which HCE so infamously committed in Phoenix Park.  They watch Tristan and Iseult as the couple sits "on the fifteen inch loveseat, behind the chieftaness stewardesses cubin."  Tristan is "the hero, of Gaelic champion, the onliest one of her choice."  He's not altogether gentle, as he's "palpably wrong and bulbubly improper, and cuddling her and kissing her" as the two become one:  "Trisolanisans."

Watching the two lovers, the four old men grow nostalgic.  They remember their younger days, when they themselves "used to be at that time in the vulgar ear cuddling and kiddling her, after an oyster supper in Cullen's barn, from under her mistlethrush kissing and listening."  They were four collegians then, "peep of tim boys and piping tom boys, raising hell while the sin was shining."

As seen in the quoted excerpts here, there's already a lot of repetition in this chapter's language, indicating the even more dream-like nature of the text that will unfold over the next week or so.  Tomorrow, we'll return to the four old men as they watch and reminisce.

"what the Irish, boys, can do"

(381.9-382.30)  Happy Bloomsday!  I'm celebrating, not by reading reading an excerpt from Ulysses as I would've done a few years ago (and will almost certainly do next year), but by finishing the third chapter of Book II of Finnegans Wake.  I feel like Joyce would be pleased either way.

We pick up with the narration of "the three muskrateers," who conclude the chapter by explaining what HCE/King Roderick O'Conor did after being left alone in the pub/kingdom after closing time.  In short, he goes "heeltapping through the winespilth and weevily popcorks that were kneedeep round his own right royal round rollicking toper's table," overwhelmed with "black ruin like a sponge out of water," singing songs.  Foremost among these "bellcantos" is "the blackberd's ballad I've a terrible errible lot todue todie todue tootorribleday."

As HCE/Roderick staggers about singing he feels "the wonderful midnight thirst" and proceeds to do "what the Irish, boys, can do":  "suck up, sure enough, like a Trojan, whatever surplus rotgut, sorra much, was left by the lazy lousers of maltkights and beerchurls in the different bottoms of the various different replenquished drinking utensils left there behind them."  He indiscriminately downs whatever's left over, be it "chateaubottled Guiness's or Phoenix brewery stout it was or John Jameson and Sons or Roob Coccola or, for the matter of that, O'Connell's famous old Dublin ale that he wanted like hell."  He does this until the sun rises, or 

till that hen of Kaven's shows her beaconegg, and Chapwellswendows stain our horyhistoricold and Father MacMichael stamps for aitch o'clerk mess and the Litvian Newestlatter is seen, sold and delivered and all's set for restart after the silence.

That "restart after the silence," as the secondary sources note, indicate that after this long night in the tavern, the morning is set for a Viconian renewal and yet another rebirth for the once-again fallen HCE.

In a final flourish, HCE/Roderick, recalling the ship theme from earlier in the chapter, begins to set sail, with "Larry's on the focse and Faugh MacHugh O'Bawlar at the wheel."  For a final image, the Three Muskrateers portray him passing out in a drunken stupor:  "our wineman from Barleyhome he just slumped to the throne."  "So sailed the stout ship Nansy Hans," they conclude.  In the end of the chapter, the Three Muskrateers (versions of those three soldiers who witnessed HCE's misdeed in Phoenix Park) fade into the evening sky:  "Now follow we out by Starloe!"

This was a challenging chapter, but it's one that concludes with another memorable flourish.  The final Three Muskrateers bit, which takes up the last three pages of the chapter, is equal to the powerful finishes of many of the Wake's other chapters.  This passage is one to return to as an example of Joyce at his best.

"the auspicious waterpoof monarch of all Ireland"

(379.17-381.9)  Ok, today's reading concludes the crowd's shouted insults to HCE, who sits alone in his pub after closing time, and propels us toward the conclusion of the third chapter of Book II of Finnegans Wake.  The crowd begins its wrap up by noting that HCE wil "be the deaf of us."  Nevertheless, the crowd maintains a soft spot for him (that soft spot corresponds with its collective thirst), and goes as far as saying, "But of all your wanings send us out your peppydecked ales and you'll not be such a bad lot."  Their following shouts are interrupted by the tolling of bells:  "B E N K!"; "B I N K"; "B U N K"; and "B E N K  B A N K  B O N K."  In the Skeleton Key, Campbell and Robinson suggest that these words represent the fall of Finnegan/HCE as he absorbs the verbal punches of the crowd, while that book's editor, Edmund L. Epstein, notes that the predominant interpretation of the words is that they represent the "midnight Angelus" and signal the changing power structure of the family.  I like both interpretations.

Anyway, seeing as how this is the crowd's "last fight," and that they say, "We're been carried away," the crowd leaves it to "the three muskrateers" -- "Keyhoe, Danelly and Pykemhyme" -- to tell what happens next to HCE in his "Malincurred Mansion."  This indicates that this chapter has been narrated by the patrons of the pub, and I think that's accurate on one level.  The wrapping up takes up the majority of the final three pages of the chapter, and introduces HCE as "King Roderick O'Conor, the paramount chief polemarch and last preelectric king of Ireland."  Notably, the historic Roderic O'Connor was indeed the last high king of Ireland, and his ineffectiveness resulted in Ireland's fall to Henry II's England.  HCE/Roderick is not necessarily the last (i.e., the least) king of Ireland, the three men note.  It's just that he was "the eminent king of all Ireland himself after the last preeminent king of all Ireland, the whilom joky old top that went before him in the Taharan dynasty, King Arth Mockmorrow Koughenough of the leathered leggions."  Arth was a good king, who made sure that each poor man had a poached fowl in his pot.  Roderick/HCE, now, finds himself "all alone by himself in his grand old handwedown pile" after his "unimportant" people/patrons left for "their castles of mud, as best they cud."  

And "what do you think he did," the three men ask.  We'll find out when we reach the chapter's conclusion tomorrow.

"The lewdningbluebolteredallucktruckalltraumconductor!"

(377.14-379.17)  The crowd continues to hurl insults at HCE, setting the scene of Isabel's wedding by noting that the "Mumblesome Wadding Murch" is "cranking up to the hornemoonium," along with further examples of "poetry wed music."

From the wedding scene, the crowd transitions to images of HCE's death and funeral.  There's the "hearse and four horses" in which the "interprovincial crucifixioners" cast lots to determine which of the sons of the now Christ-like HCE they will adopt and how they'll let ALP know that "our myterbilder his fullen aslip."  The four old men, again in the guise of the four authors of the Gospels (i.e., "Mr Justician Luk de Luc") are in attendance at the funeral/crucifixion procession as they await "a dathe with a swimminpull."  "Isn't it great he is swaying above us for his good and ours," asks the crowd while envisaging HCE's dead corpse hanging above them.  "Fly your baloons, dannies and dennises!  He's doorknobs dead!  And Annie Delap is free!"

The crowd now addresses the legend of HCE, both his Christ-like nature and his universality:  "One fledge, one brood till hulm culms evurdyburdy."  His name is found in the sound of the thunder and the flash of the lightning.  He is, indeed, "The lewdningbluebolteredallucktruckalltraumconductor!" (most literally, "the lightning-blue-bolted electrical tram conductor," but this title also encompasses HCE's lewdness and the dream ("traum")-like nature of the Wake).  Once again -- either through resurrection or through mistake of fact by the crowd earlier -- HCE is alive, yet dying -- "He's alight there still, by Mike!" -- yet the "playgue will soon be over."  As an invader, HCE's language is different from that of the crowd:  "You talker dunsker's brogue men we our souls speech obstruct hostery.  Silence in thought!  Spreach!  Wear anartful of outer nocense!"  This thought leads to talk of a letter before the crowd perhaps begins its final barrage:  "Give him another for to volleyholleydoodlem!  His lights not all out yet, the liverpooser!"

Today's passage highlights one of the limitations of my two-page per day method.  This long paragraph is one discrete unit, and breaking it up dulls its overall effect.  Nevertheless, I'll finish this paragraph tomorrow, and Tuesday will bring the chapter to its conclusion.
 

"You'll have loss of fame from Wimmegame's fake."

(375.13-377.14)  The verbal onslaught from the assembled crowd outside of HCE's pub continues throughout today's reading.  The description of HCE's trial continues, with the crowd explaining that even the judge will be bought by HCE's antagonists ("With His Honour Surpacker on the binge.").  HCE's inevitable guilty verdict will cause him to have "loss of fame from Wimmegame's fake."

The focus of the crowd's attention soon turns toward HCE's family, with particular emphasis on his children.  Regarding his sons, the crowd says, "You fought as how they'd never woxen up, did you, crucket?"  This is the crowd saying that HCE never thought his sons would wake up -- or grow up (McHugh notes that "woxen up" stands in for the Danish "vokse op," which translates to "grow up") -- to supplant him.  Now is their time, though.  ALP will be featured in the papers, alongside HCE after the guilty verdict.  She'll be reduced to "bribing the halfpricers to pray for her widower in his gravest embazzlement" (with HCE apparently being convicted of embezzlement in addition to the embarrassment in the park).  Disgraced, HCE will be pictured wearing "stolen mace and anvil," while ALP will be "burrowed in Berkness cirrchus clouthses."  Interestingly enough, the crowd mentions how one man -- "the fancy cutter" -- peeped on ALP, much like HCE:  "Much as she was when the fancy cutter out collecting milestones espied her aseesaw on a fern.  So nimb, he said, a dat of dew."  HCE's not the only one guilty of his sin, then.  He's just the only one being prosecuted for it (probably because of his outsider status).

The crowd goes on to talk about Isabel's eventual wedding day, at which the disgraced HCE will be "getting hoovier, a twelve stone hoovier, fullends a twelve stone hoovier."  Drawing parallels between Isabel and the Irish stories of Diarmaid and Grania (with HCE as Finn), the crowd goes through the courtship process.  On the wedding day -- while the groom's "in the greenhouse, gattling out his.  Gun!" (or urinating) -- HCE seems to be persona non grata, standing outside without a way in.  "Slip on your ropen collar and draw the noosebag on your head," says the crowd, implying that HCE might as well dress for his suicide rather than for his daughter's wedding.  He can get in, though, if he would sneak around to the entrance "and come front sloomutren to beg in one of the shavers' sailorsuits."

The crowd's really going at HCE, and it looks like their insults will continue for another two days of reading.

"This is not the end of this by no manners means."

(373.13-375.13)  Maybe the patrons haven't gotten as far from the pub as I had thought last Tuesday.  Alone in his establishment, HCE now receives a long (i.e., an almost four-pages long paragraph) diatribe that appears to be unleashed upon him by the assembled crowd (of patrons, presumably) outside.  This verbal attack is a bit cacophonous and chaotic, but it seems to follow a general path.

"He shook be ashaped of hempselves, hiding that shepe in his goat," begins the crowd, attacking HCE's physical appearance by disparaging the hump on his back.  They compare him to Richard III, chanting, "Heigh hohse, heigh hohse, our kindom for an orse!"  (Could Joyce be channeling the Seven Dwarves' "Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to work we go" from the Disney film here?  Snow White and the Seven Dwarves premiered in 1937, and the full version of the Wake wasn't published until May 1939.  Hmm . . . .)  HCE's sin in the park is brought up again ("Wholehunting the pairk on a methylogical mission"), as is HCE's mutable nature:  "Lodenbroke the Longman, now he canseels under veerious persons but is always that Rorke relly!" (he's always Persse O'Reilly).

The crowd believes that HCE is fundamentally evil:  "When you've bled till you're bone it crops out in your flesh.  To tell how your mead of, mard, is made of."  They threaten to tell HCE's story to a newspaper editor, who will print it with "[s]creamer caps and invented gommas, quoites puntlost, forced to farce!"  "The pipette," HCE's supposed victim will "say anything at all for change," indicating that the crowd will pay her to elaborate on the facts.  When the authorities begin to investigate him, they'll get a kitchen peeler to also testify falsely against him "wearing an illformation," which the crowd will be able to procure "dirt cheap at a sovereign a skull!"

As part of some type of early punishment, the crowd encourages HCE to mutilate himself:  "Just press this cold brand against your brow for a mow.  Cainfully!  The sinus the curse.  That's it."  They produce more witnesses ("Greevy" and "Noordeece") before telling him that "it's all us rangers you'll be facing in the box before the twelfth correctional."  HCE will go to trial, they say, and the scandal recounted in the courtroom will cause the ladies to "dye for the shame."

"O'er wather parted from the say."

(371.11-373.12)  Well, it looks like I was wrong yesterday when I said the customers had been cleared out of the pub.  They're still there, and HCE was hearing the new version of Hosty's ballad over the noise of his drunken patrons.  Hearing this song, he both recalls the original ballad and sees his life flash before his proverbial eyes (he "reromembered all the chubbs, chipps, chaffs, chuckinpucks and chayney chimebells That he had mistributed in port, pub, park, pantry and poultryhouse . . . ").  The patrons, meanwhile, are occupied with finishing "the last dropes" of their drinks before they get locked in the pub for the night.  HCE urges them to finish, but they protest, "clamatising for an extinsion of his hostillery."  

Meanwhile, the sound of the ballad continues to creep toward the pub.  Soon "those Mullinguard minstrelsers are marshalsing, par tunepiped road" near the spot of HCE's fall, where "that poor man of Lyones, good Dook Weltington, hugon come errindwards, had hircomed to the belles bows and been cutattrapped by the mausers."  Finally, the patrons "all pour forth" and head out of the pub.  Everyone's leaving, except for HCE:  "Tuppeter Sowyer, the rouged engenerand, a battler of the beauyne."  The patrons wave goodbye to the pub and move away after "they caught the wind abroad . . . all the rockers on the roads and all the boots in the stretes."  

The song's verses appear in between these scenes and present another telling of the tale of HCE's fall, and we now see "hasty hosty" trailing the last patrons to leave the pub.  The last two verses of his song detail HCE's fall and expulsion:

His bludgeon's bruk, his drum is tore.
For spuds we'll keep the hat he wore
And roll in clover on his clay
By wather parted from the say.

The gangstairs strain and anger's up
As Hoisty rares the can and cup
To speed the bogre's barque away
O'er wather parted from the say.

Unaccounted for until near the end of today's passage are the four old judges, who ended up pretty drunk:  "The for eolders were aspolootly at their wetsend in the mailing waters, trying to.  Hide!  Seek!  Hide!  Seek!"  The each sneak toward their respective destinations at the four points of the compass.  In the end, HCE is finally alone:  "Horkus chiefest ebblynuncies!"

"and skittered his litters like the cavaliery man in Cobra Park"

(369.16-371.10)  Ok, after dismal showings in the months of April and May, I'm here on June 1 having failed to meet my original goal of finishing the Wake in a year and, in fact, having another 40% or so of the book remaining.  It's time to recommit myself (I know, I've said that before).  The new plan (which I'm thinking is a conservative approach) is to have the book completed by the end of this year, which would mean that the blog would be more appropriately titled Twenty Months in the Wake.  But we'll keep it the way it is.

Anyway, back to the text.  We left off with the jurors present.  During their time in the pub (and in the world), they've taken in a lot of rumors, gossip, and stories about HCE:  "They had heard or had heard said or had heard said written."  Once again, they recount some of the tales.  One short account neatly summarizes HCE's fall:  There was a king who came to a court, he fell in love, he became unmannerly ("last mannarks maketh man when wandshift winneth womans"), and stories are told about this "whoson of a which."

The next paragraph details the aftermath of the fall.  ALP wrote a letter with "authorsagastions" from Shem.  Isabel, "that Madges Tighe" and intended recipient of that letter ("the postulate auditressee"), was hoping that Shaun (the Postman and "Michal"/Mike) would deliver the letter to this now fatherless girl.  HCE was missing in action at the homestead, for he was "feeling not up to scratch."  He roamed about Dublin ("Dix Dearthy Dungbin") and "skittered his litters like the cavaliery man in Cobra Park for ungeborn yenkelmen."  The accounts devolve into a cacophony of the jurors patting each other on their backs and wondering if "these remind to be sane?"

Nobody in the pub is a perfect angel, though.  The patrons were all "in the same boat of yourselves too," and this very evening they've greedily drunken "the most diliskious of milisk" with "but dribble a drob" going down each man's "rothole."  The narrator now names the twelve men who have been the audience/patrons for the chapter (in addition, I suppose, to the four judges and six jurors).  I'll avoid typing out their names here, but they're prominently listed in the middle of page 370.

The drunken patrons now see the equally drunken HCE reappear as his head "subrises thus tous out of the rumpumplikin oak."  This is both HCE standing up after being beneath the bar (was he getting something below, or had he passed out?) and HCE rising from his wooden casket.  He now assumes the role of bouncer and tells everyone to leave:  "Boumce!"  Perhaps angered by the accusations and rumors, he refers to the patrons as devils and calls them "soulths of bauchees."  He rinses the dirty glasses and yells that there's five more minutes left before it's time to "[s]hatten up ship!"  Campbell and Robinson point out that this is the chapter coming full circle, with HCE's pub suddenly becoming an actual ship, much like the Norwegian Captain's.

With the patrons cleared out of the pub, HCE hears "from fard a piping."  The piping is a song, which seems to be approaching the pub and is a new version of Hosty's "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly."  This link is triggered by the line, "Ostia, lift it!  Lift at it, Ostia!  From the say!  Away from the say!"  Aside from "Ostia" being a version of "Hosty,"  the shout of the patrons outside the pub echoes the shout of the throng gathered to hear Hosty's ballad:  "Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil ye!"