"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.