(514.7-516.2) The reading for today is another one of those transition passages in which we seem to be moving from one major point (the wedding ball) to another (what might be a significant, if somewhat brief, monologue from Shaun). A lot of the fun in today's passage is the back and forth between Shaun and the old man. I'll mostly leave it to you to uncover that as you read for yourself.
The passage begins with HCE, after his moment of glory in which he encountered (and married) ALP, disappearing. Like Christ, who harrowed hell after his crucifixion, HCE found himself in a "hellfire club" and spent "[t]hree days three times" in the "Vulcuum." Since there was "no hay in Eccles's hostel" (Eccles Street, we remember, was home to Mr. Bloom in Ulysses), the old man wonders where HCE was. "Name or redress him and we'll call it a night!" he says to Shaun.
Shaun's answer is typically vague: ". i . . ' . . o . . l . " As McHugh notes, the blanks can be filled in here to produce "Finn's Hotel," which both calls to mind the place where Joyce's wife, Nora, was employed when the couple met and emphasizes HCE's status as a reincarnated version of Finn MacCool. The old man asks, "You are sure it was not a shuler's shakeup or a plighter's palming or a winker's wake etcaetera etcaeterorum you were at?" In other words, was Shaun present for a particular one of Vico's ages: birth, marriage, death, or the ricorso/return to the beginning? "Precisely," Shaun says. He was present for all of them at once.
Shaun goes on to say that he heard nothing from Goodman Fox, the church sexton who was in a fight with Magraw in Saturday's passage. Frustrated with Shaun's evasions, the old man urges Shaun to explain what else happened that night:
I want you, witness of this epic struggle, as yours so mine, to reconstruct for us, as briefly as you can, inexactly the same as a mind's eye view, how these funeral games, which have been poring over us through homer's kerryer pidgeons, massacreedoed as the holiname rally round took place.
"Sure I told you that afoul," Shaun replies. "I was drunk all lost life." He still doesn't want to answer -- either he's told the old man before, or he was so drunk that he forgot what happened. Still, it appears that the old man's encouragement at the end of today's passage will prompt Shaun to give at least a partial account in tomorrow's reading to satisfy his questioner.
(512.7-514.6) The old man begins today's reading by correctly guessing that the "liffey" that was getting the life squeezed out of it at the end of yesterday's reading was ALP, "Annabella, Loveabella, Pullabella" and the "musked bell of this masked ball!" HCE caught her eye there and converted her to his "herreraism." Shaun spends much of today's reading agreeing with what the old man says, in a sense turning the tables for a moment.
Shaun says that the night occurred in 1132 AD ("Amnis Dominae . . . . A laughin hunter and Purty Sue."). He also confirms a roll call of incarnations of central figures from the Wake who were also in attendance at the ball/wedding: Jorn (Shaun); Jambs (Shem, who, as McHugh notes, dances crazily in the manner that Joyce did when drunk); Lillabil Issabil (Isabel); the "quobus quartet," Normand, Desmond, Osmund, and Kenneth (the four old men); and the "twelve-podestalled table," (the twelve members of the jury). The scene at the ball, Shaun says, was quite the sight: "All our stakes they were astumbling round the ranky roars assumbling when Big Arthur flugged the field at Annie's courting."
(510.13-512.6) Today's reading begins with the old man pursuing a slightly different line of inquiry. "Come to the ballay at the Tailors' Hall," the old man tells Shaun, directing his attention back to the ballet or ball that occurred on the evening in question. "Every old skin in the leather world" was "thomistically drunk" that evening, he notes. The rowdy attendees wielded "nasty blunt clubs" as plates were thrown and tumblers containing the remnants of porter rolled around. Following the ball was a wedding breakfast, during which the radio broadcast predicted the comeback of "the grandsire Orther," HCE. Shaun agrees with the old man's description of the ball and adds that the guests "came from all lands beyond the wave for songs of Inishfeel." There were two people whom he thinks were sober, though: "the right reverend priest, Mr Hopsinbond" and "the reverent bride eleft, Frizzy Fraufrau."
The old man says that the "wedding beastman" was a man named Magraw, and asks Shaun whether he saw him. "I horridly did," Shaun says. He saw "the irreverend Mr Magraw" at midnight kicking the church sexton, "red-Fox Good-man." As this row was happening, Shaun and some other men were tickling Magraw's wife in the hall. The old man asks Shaun whether he established personal contact with Magraw. Shaun says that he didn't, but he believes the fight was about a pint of porter.
The old man soon asks Shaun what ALP was wearing. Campbell and Robinson note how the description he gives in reply references cutting-edge visual artists active during the time the Wake was written, such as Klee and Dalí: "Just a floating panel, secretairslidingdraws, a budge of klees on her schalter, a siderbrass sehdass on her anulas findring and forty crocelips in her curlingthongues." And how was HCE -- "father of Izod" -- doing during all this? Fantastic, Shaun says. He was the "the Megalomagellan of our winevatswaterway, squeezing the life out of the liffey."
(508.12-510.12) Today's reading begins with an elaboration of the culious epiphany from yesterday. Shaun definitely saw a pantless HCE/Thom. "Ay, another good button gone wrong," Shaun sighs. The old man brings up the two young women in the park -- here, "the subligate sisters, P. and Q." -- and asks whether they were in the same pickle (i.e., in the park with their pants down). Shaun replies, "Peequeen ourselves, the prettiest pickles of unmatchemable mute antes I ever bopeeped at, since the town go went gonning on Pranksome Quaine," likening the two pretty, peeing queens to the Prankquean (who herself perhaps had a tendency to piss porter).
"And were they watching you as watcher as well?" asks the old man, thinking that the young women could see Shaun in the park. "Where do you get that wash?" replies Shaun, talking in a straightforward manner for once. "This representation does not accord with my experience. They were watching the watched watching. Vechers all." (I think the "Vechers all" refers to everyone present being both a watcher and a lecher.)
The old man returns to HCE, "friend Tomsky, the enemy," asking Shaun, "[D]id you gather much from what he let drop?" (This is just one of many defecation jokes in today's passage.) Shaun says that he was "rooshian mad," but later adds that he was "dung sorry" for HCE and that he was "rooshianmarodnimad" with himself for being sorry for HCE. He won't judge HCE, though, for, as he explains, actions carry different meanings in different cultures: "But what seemed sooth to a Greek summed nooth to a giantle. Who kills the cat in Cairo coaxes cocks in Gaul."
Eventually, Shaun comes out and says that he saw HCE pull down his pants and produce "a piece of first perpersonal puetry that staystale remains to be. Cleaned." ("Booms of bombs and heavy rethudders?" asks the old man, very interested in HCE's bowel movements. I told you so.) The old man says that the "tail" -- both Shaun's story and HCE's bottom -- nearly takes his breath away. He asks Shaun how many people got married after this night, but Shaun won't say.
(506.11-508.11) Resuming yesterday's discussion of the fall of Satan from the Tree of Life, the old man asks Shaun if he was there when Satan fell and whether that was how Satan (who shares characteristics with HCE) "became the foerst of our treefellers." Shaun answers yes to both questions, and says that Satan was "the fanest of our truefalluses." Shaun adds that sometimes he feels that he's far away from this "capocapo promontory" (perhaps the Tree, perhaps Satan), while other times he feels as if it's "making me onions woup all kinds of ways" (perhaps close enough to be making Shaun onion soup, or to cause Shaun to weep as if he were exposed to the cut onions?).
After a brief transition in which Shaun takes offense to the old man's description of ALP ("Never you mind about my mother or her hopitout," he says), the old man returns his full attention to HCE, instructing Shaun to "[c]onsider yourself on the stand now and watch your words, take my advice." The old man describes HCE -- here under the alias "Toucher 'Thom'" -- as a 50 year-old who "has more dirt on him than an old dog has fleas" and who spends most of his time at the Green Man pub, where "he steals, pawns, belches and is a curse, drinking gaily two hours after closing time." When he's not in the bar, he's bothering the public as they do their grocery shopping. Shaun replies that this man is "mad as the brambles" and "has kissed me more than once, I am sorry to say."
After evading questioning for a moment, the old man urges Shaun to "wash and brush up your memoirias a little bit." He then tells Shaun he's wondering whether Thom, a Methodist who some say isn't really named Thom, wore "his cowbeamer and false clothes of a brewer's grains pattern with back buckons" on the night in question.
"I bet you are," replies Shaun to this old man, who said he was wondering. "Well, he was wandering, you bet, for I am sorry to have to tell you, hullo and evoe, they were coming down from off him." This revelation (that Thom's clothes were falling off of him) elicits a reply: "How culious an ephiphany!" The normal back-and-forth pattern of the past few pages would indicate that this "HCE" reply comes from the old man who has been examining Shaun, but it seems to me that it might be spoken by one of the other three old men, for the next line of dialogue -- which I'll get to in tomorrow's reading -- appears to be spoken by the examiner.
(504.3-506.10) The examination of Shaun resumes with the old man conducting the questioning asking Shaun to elaborate about the tree mentioned at the end of yesterday's reading. This tree, which stood in the sun and shade, certainly was the tree of life (Campbell and Robinson offer a discussion of how the tree corresponds to numerous mythical antecedents), for all of life sprung from it, including "tuodore queensmaids and Idahore shopgirls and they woody babies." The "killmaimthem pensioners" threw stones at the tree to try to knock off cranberries and "pommes annettes" for "unnatural refection," and "handpainted hoydens" found their husbands on the tree's branches. The serpent from the Garden of Eden -- Eve's "downslyder" -- also spent some time on the tree, prompting "sinsinsinning since the night of time." Shaun concludes this entertaining description of the tree by describing "each and all of their branches meeting and shaking twisty hands all over again in their new world through the germination of its gemination from Ond's outset till Odd's end." The tree, like human history as described by Vico, is constantly renewing.
Nothing but the "rocked of agues" could compare to the tree. Another iteration of the tree/stone theme that has featured throughout the Wake, the rock, which is only hinted at briefly here, is the "steyne of law" that stands opposite of the tree but also completes it, much like the relationship of Shaun and Shem. Returning to the tree and Satan's fall, Shaun and the old man team up to offer a playful retelling of that fall at the end of today's passage. The old man asks whether Satan ended up on his sore bottom end ("soredbohmend") because God ("Knockout") literally kicked him out of heaven. Shaun replies that God, "the Grand Precurser," "thundered at him to flatch down off that erection and be aslimed of himself for the bellance of hissch leif."
(502.6-504.2) It appears we're settling in for a little while, in a sense, because today's reading continues the dialogue between Shaun and the old man who is conducting a kind of courtroom witness examination. The first part of the passage has Shaun continuing to give a description of the "entire horizon cloth" as it was on the night in question. The moon (actually "a pair of pritty geallachers," according to Shaun . . . perhaps he means that the bottoms of the two young women were exposed that evening) was shining, and the weather was alternately hot ("Absolutely boiled.") and cold ("Obsoletely cowled.").
The reason we're looking into the events of this particular evening becomes clearer as the reading progresses. This was the night when "the illassorted first couple first met with each other" (both Adam and Eve and HCE and ALP) in "the wellknown kikkinmidden" (the Garden of Eden and the dump where ALP's letter was found). Outside of that kikkenmidden was a warning sign that read, "Trickpissers vill be pairsecluded," both telling people to keep out and letting them know that they might come upon a pair of urinating women. There was also an elm tree (the "evernasty ashtray" and "overlisting eshtree"), which doubled as "the grawndest crowndest consecrated maypole in all the reignladen hsitory of Wilds." The tree is a kind of Tree of Life. Shaun says that "we are fed of its forest, clad in its wood, burqued by its bark and our lecture is its leave."
(500.6-502.5) This reading was one of the quicker ones. Page 500 is spare on text, as it features the chaos occasioned by the underground noise. It's a fun page that Tindall calls "a musical arrangment, as intricate and agreeable as the Sirens episode of Ulysses."
There are a few themes that wind in and out of the page. One is the sound of bloody war. A voice cries, "We'll gore them and gash them and gun them and gloat on them." Another shouts, "O, widows and orphans, it's the yeomen! Redshanks for ever! Up Lancs!" A second theme theme is that of a transaction, or more specifically, someone being sold. "Sold!" a voice says. "I am sold!" Later, we hear, "Brinabride, bet my price!" Another theme is lovers' longing. "Me!" someone says. "I'm true. True! Isolde. Pipette. My precious!"
As this symphony of sorts goes on, the old men (I presume) try to communicate via radio. "Now we're gettin it," one says. "Tune in and pick up the forain countries! Hello!" A moment of silence (denoted by the word "SILENCE." centered on the page) interrupts the proceedings. When the voices resume, we see that a play is now being acted out on a stage. The scene is a witness being examined in court, perhaps using a telephone or two-way radio. The subject of the examination is "a particular lukesummer night, following a crying fair day." The witness describes the night, which was lit by bonfires. We learn that there was rain somewhere far off, as well as snow in the Himalayas. The examination will pick up again tomorrow . . . .
(498.6-500.5) Wow, I've hit page 500. There's still a decent amount of work for me to do to finish the Wake, but I've come a long way since May 2014. This Fall will be a busy one for me, but I'm hoping to roll with the momentum that's kept me going the past couple of months and reach the end of this project sometime in November. It's sure to be lots of fun.
But back to the book. Today's reading picks up Shaun's list of attendees at HCE's wake. These "murdering Irish" drink the"fresh stout and good balls of malt" of "beers o'reyely," and ALP prepares the food, which in one sense is HCE's body. HCE is "most highly astounded, as it turned up, after his life overlasting, at thus being reduced to nothing." The old men salute HCE, saying, "God save you king! Muster of the Hidden Life!" But the drunken HCE awakes, as Shaun says: "I had four in the morning and a couple of the lunch and three later on, but your saouls to the dhaoul, do ye. Finnk. Fime. Fudd?"
As with the story ALP recently told, the old men don't believe what Shaun has just said. "Impassable tissue of improbable liyers!" says one, who then asks Shaun whether he's going to continue to sit on the hill repeating himself. Shaun answers, "I mean to sit here on this altknoll where you are now, Surly guy, replete in myself, as long as I live, in my homespins, like a sleepingtop, with all that's buried ofsins insince insensed insidesofme."
The old men now begin to grow alarmed as they hear a sound that seems to be coming from inside of the hill. "He may be an earthpresence," says one, believing that the buried HCE might be making the noise. "Was that a groan or did I hear the Dingle bagpipes Wasting war and? Watch!" The mystery is concerning. "Whoishe whoishe whoishe whoishe linking in?" asks one in a state of excitement. "Whoishe whoishe whoishe?" Another identifies the noisemaker as the "dead giant manalive" and says, "They're playing thimbles and bodkins." We'll get more hints as to who the mysterious figure is tomorrow.
(496.2-498.6) Once again, one of the old men mocks ALP, beginning today's reading by saying, "Lordy Daw and Lady Don!" HCE, he says, "was boycotted and girlcutted in debt and doom, on hill and haven." Once again recalling the old nursery rhyme, he summarizes HCE's fall by saying, "Bumpty, tumbty, Sot on a Wall, Mute art for the Million." No one on the surface of the Earth "would come next or nigh him, Mr Eelwhipper." ALP (via Shaun) confirms this, saying, "All ears did wag, old Eire wake as Piers Aurell was flappergangsted."
One of the old men shouts, "Recount!" This seems to trigger a transition from ALP's voice back to Shaun's natural, personal voice. Retaining a bit of the voice of ALP, he literally re-counts the story on his "fingall's ends," explaining how the two young girls occasioned HCE's fall, and the three soldiers witnessed it: "This liggy piggy wanted to go to the jampot. And this leggy peggy spelt pea. And theese lucky puckers played at pooping tooletom."
One of the old men prompts Shaun to "change that subjunct from the traumaturgid" and return to HCE. Did he deal in tea before running the pub, or did he deal in sugar? The old man likens HCE's imperial reach to that of the British Empire (as noted by Campbell and Robinson), stretching out to the Americas of "Christy Columb." The old man goes on to ask, "His producers are they not his consumers?" He's asking Shaun to discuss the relationship between HCE and the people and to explain how those who hastened his downfall benefited from what he left behind.
This prompts a long (well, two-page) paragraph from Shaun. In the portion of that paragraph contained in today's reading, Shaun lists the multitude of people who arrived at the house for HCE's wake. On one level, Shaun describes various locations in and around Dublin and Ireland from which the mourners came. On another level, he suggests that HCE was mourned by people from all over the world. America (presumably North and South), Asia, Africa, and Australia are named by Shaun, for example, when he says the people came "from America Avenue and Asia Place and the Affrian Way and Europa Parade and besogar the wallies of Noo Soch Wilds." Dignitaries like "Piowtor the Grape" (Peter the Great) attended the festivities at HCE's "licensed boosiness primises" near the magazine wall in Phoenix Park, as did "boot kings and indiarubber umpires and shawhs from paisley and muftis in muslim and sultana reiseines and jordan almonders and a row of jam sahibs and a odd principeza in her pettedcoat and the queen of knight's clubs and the claddagh ringleaders." At the end of today's passage, Shaun also lists J.B. Dunlop, "the best tyrent of ourish times," and an unnamed count who rode a donkey up the staircase.
(494.6-496.1) The reading for today begins with one of the old men mocking ALP (as voiced by Shaun). "Extinct your vulcanology for the lava of Moltens!" he says. Taking on an aggressive tone that sticks for at least the rest of today's passage, ALP responds by saying, "It's you not me's in erupting, hecklar!"
One of the old men returns to the scene we've retraced so many times before: HCE's sin in Phoenix Park. Using the language of the cosmos, he identifies HCE as "Satarn" (both Saturn and Satan). The two young women are "the pisciolinnies Nova Ardonis and Prisca Parthenopea," and the three soldiers are "Ers, Mores and Merkery." The four old men, in turn, "weep in the mansions" over the four corners of the sky. This comparison complete, another old man returns to mocking ALP: "Eva's got barley under her fluencies!" He paints HCE as a lewd lowlife, who creeps around schoolyards hoping to tempt young girls.
ALP has had enough. "I will confess to his sins and blush me further," she says. She will rebuke the "libels of snots," about whom she says, "Synamite is too good for them." She attacks a certain Sullivan, a "wreuter of annoyimgmost letters and skirriless ballets in Parsee French" who has damaged HCE's reputation. Of him, ALP says that "he is not fit enough to throw guts down to a bear." The townsfolk are ready to hang HCE, but she's ready to bury them, and after she has taken care of them, her and HCE (who she calls "my Riley" and "my Finnyking") will laugh. Near the end of her aggressive defense, ALP insinuates that the two young women in the park, the "legintimate lady performers of display unquestionable," were paid to tempt HCE toward their fall.
The old men don't buy ALP's defense, and say that she is misled. She concludes today's reading by replying, "Alas for livings' pledjures!"
(492.8-494.5) One of the four old men identifies ALP's voice (as spoken by Shaun) at the beginning of today's reading. He asks whether it was she who sang to HCE after he was placed behind bars. She says (through Shaun, of course) that she tended to HCE during his confinement even as she still kept up with her daily errands about town. HCE sat "humpbacked in dry dryfilthyheat" during this time of imprisonment. He was identified as "forbidden fruit" by the "sexual clergy" and awaited "a basketful of priesters" who were coming to "aroint him with tummy moor's maladies." ALP goes on (in a brief monologue that rambles on without sentence breaks, much like Molly Bloom's monologue at the end of Ulysses) to describe how HCE spotted his picture in the "Foraignghistan sambat papers Sunday feactures," where the "Ballad of Persse O'Reilly" was also reprinted. This "charmer" looked to ALP "with the so light's hope on his ruddycheeks and rawjaws" and demonstrated his continued sexual virility to her by showing her "his propendiculous loadpoker." His advice to her, she says, was for her to run away from Ireland and its "parasites."
"Which was said by whem to whom?" asks one of the old men about this advice. ALP is evasive: "It wham. But whim I can't whumember." The old man grows impatient with what he calls ALP's fantasies and lies, and he essentially orders her to speak. "My heart, my mother!" ALP says. "My heart, my coming forth of darkness! They know not my heart, O coolun dearast! Mon gloomerie! Mon glamourie!" She is heartbroken, and she isn't enjoying this line of inquiry. She does, however, latch on to one of the old man's seemingly offhanded comments about a rainbow. "Yes, there was that skew arch of chrome sweet home, floodlit up above the flabberghosted farmament and bump where the camel got the needle," she says, and she concludes today's reading by identifying the colors of that rainbow via their corresponding minerals.
(490.6-492.7) The old man questioning Shaun now wonders who exactly the Nola or Nolan whom Shaun has spoken of is. Shaun gives Nolan's first name as "Gottgab," but the old man wonders whether Nolan is Shaun's doppelganger, Shem. Shaun says that he has surpassed this "Treble Stauter" (trouble starter), but the two are united by a woman: "She's write to him she's levt by me, Jenny Rediviva!" This woman -- either ALP or Isabel, presumably -- writes letters to each brother, Shaun ("Mr Nobru") and Shem ("Mr Anol"). Talk of receiving letters prompts the old man to ask, "When your contraman from Tuwarceathay is looking for righting that is not a good sign?" Shaun says that it's not a good sign, hinting at the implications arising from the letter Shem played a part in composing with ALP.
Perhaps because the subject has turned slightly toward women, the old man asks Shaun if he had been with two women named Sindy and Sandy, names perhaps for the two young women in the park. Shaun responds that he wasn't, because he was "intending a funeral." Seizing upon this and Shaun's earlier talk of a tryst, the old man asks if Shaun, "without releasing seeklets of the alcove," could confirm whether the old man had heard the name of the man who committed the sin in the park. Shaun responds with another bit of verse, saying that the man was "Marak," and that he dropped his drawers in the park and had to borrow clothes from the Bishop of York. This talk brings HCE back to the forefront and prompts one of the old men to say, "A being again in becomings again."
Now comes a shift in the chapter. It appears that Shaun begins to speak about his father using his mother's voice. "And he said he was only taking the average grass temperature for green Thurdsday, the blutchy scaliger!" says Shaun, revealing HCE's excuse to ALP for going out to the park that fateful night. That night, Shaun says, "Mr Hairwigger . . . hadded twinned little curls!" One of the old men confirms the shift in Shaun's voice (both physically and stylistically). "How voice you that, nice Sandy man," the old man says. "Not large goodman is he, Sandy nice. Ask him this one minute upthrow inner lotus of his burly ear womit he dropped his Bass's to P flat." But was the affair with the two girls the reason HCE fell, the old man asks? Yes, Shaun exclaims, he was driven mad ("Loonacied!"), betrayed ("Judascessed!!!!"), and ultimately killed ("faulscrescendied!!!!!!!").
(488.13-490.5) Following up on Shaun's thoughts about the twin brothers in eternal opposition to each other, the old man wonders who this other is. This prompts Shaun to go further in depth about his brother's whereabouts and troubles. This "skipgod" (scapegoat) was expelled from his native land "for looking at churches from behind." Shaun quotes from a telegram he received from Shem, indicating that Shem is starving and begging his brother for cash. There are some people who believe Shem is dead and mourn him, but others are waiting for his return. Shaun hopes that Shem will escape the gallows, and he wonders whether Shem is living safely in "austrasia" off the hush money he received from Shaun or has hopped off to some other place. Each of the two brothers, as alike as they are different, feels that he is the one living properly and that the other is wrong: "He feels he ought to be as asamed of me as me to be ashunned of him." Shem is destitute, with worn down boots and no gloves, and his brother asks the old men to spare some change for the exile. "I am no scholar but I loved that man who has africot lupps with the moonshane in his profile, my shemblable!" he says. "My freer!"
The old man praises Shaun's words for his brother. Shaun calls his address his "nonday diary" and "allnights newseryreel," titles apt for the Wake, as well. Did Shem derive any victory from being a vexed victim, the old man asks? "Mighty sure!" Shaun replies. Shem, Shaun says, was hit in the small of his back by a perambulator, and "he's been failing of that kink in his arts over sense."
(486.6-488.12) The inquiry concerning the relationship between Shaun and Shem continues in today's reading, with a brief interlude. "The old order changeth and lasts like the first," says one of the old men (I can't tell which, and McHugh admits that it's hard to prove that it's one or the other), recognizing that Shaun now stands in the role of the departed HCE. He proceeds to perform a "little psychosinology" experiment, a kind of ritualistic vision quest. He places a piece of "burial jade" shaped like the letter T upright against Shaun's temple and asks, "Do you see anything templar?" Shaun says that he sees a French pastry cook, who stands for the exiled Shaun or Shem. The old man then places the jade horizontally against Shaun's lips and asks, "What do you feel, liplove?" Shaun says that he feels a lady with gold hair and white arms, who stands for either ALP or Isabel. Finally, the old man inverts the jade and places it, upside down, against Shaun's breast and asks, "What do you hear, breastplate?" Shaun replies that he hears "a hopper behidin the door slappin his feet in a pool of bran," indicating the otherworldly presence of HCE, prepared to hop back to life once again.
After expressing delight in the "irmages" of Shaun's "triptych vision," the old man asks Shaun whether it's ever occurred to him that he could be substituted by his brother, Shem. Shaun has thought of this, going as far as trying on his brother's clothes, and in doing so hefelt that he was "stretching, in the shadow as I thought, the liferight out of myself in my ericulous imaginating." Ultimately, he says, he's not himself at all "when I realise bimiselves how becomingly I to be going to become" -- he's constantly changing, and in order to be who he must be he must not be himself.
"O, is that the way with you, you craythur?" mocks the old man. "In the becoming was the weared, wontnat!" It's getting harder to tell whether it's Shaun or Shem who stands before the four, and the man asks, "Are you imitation Roma now or Amor now?" Shaun refuses to answer the question and instead speaks of his imminent departure and subsequent return in a manner perhaps intended to further confuse his inquisitors. "Gangang is mine and I will return," he says. "Out of my name you call me, Leelander. But in my shelter you'll miss me. When Lapac walks backwords he's darkest horse in Capalisoot. You knew me once but you won't know me twice."
The old man wonders whether Shaun is being truthful, and asks whether Shaun speaks as one or two. Shaun says that Bruno and Nola have just explained the matter, and presents a complex proof of the idea that the twins Shaun and Shem stand in eternal opposition and reliance upon each other, "eternally provoking alio opposite equally as provoked."
(484.10-486.5) Shaun continues his defensive reply to Mark by voicing his suspicion that Mark is trying to convince everyone that Shaun is not truly Irish. He's had enough of the four old men -- these "laycreated cardonals" -- and he feels that they're ungrateful for everything he's done for them and the rest of the Irish people. "I brought you from the loups of Lazary and you have remembered my lapsus langways," he says. He should be treated with more respect, for he has a coat of arms bearing (as McHugh notes) the motto of the Prince of Wales. What's more, his name, "Suck at" (McHugh notes that Sucat was the name St. Patrick's parents gave him), is the first name God will call on doomsday. "Hastan the vista!" shouts Shaun at Mark, anticipating the Terminator's catch phrase by half a century. "Or in alleman: Suck at!"
Luke responds to Shaun's defensive outburst in kind. "Suck it yourself, sugarstick!" he says. Noting the rambling and cross-lingual nature of Shaun's replay, Luke soon asks, "Are we speachin d'anglas landadge or are you sprakin sea Djoytsch?" (I like the idea of calling Wakeian language "Djoytsch," which in one sense stands for "Joyce.") Luke goes on to joke that Shaun's language confuses his ears as much as it confuses everyone else's: "If you hored him outerly as we harum lubberintly, from morning rice till nightmale, with his drums and bones and hums in drones your innereer'd heerdly heer he."
A perhaps fed up Shaun raises the stakes after this assault on his word usage by devolving his language even further. "Me no angly mo, me speakee Yellman's lingas," says Shaun in an accent mocking Chinese speakers of English. "Nice Doc Mistel Lu, please!" In this mocking reply, he does seem to indicate that he's gotten into the mess he's in by virtue of his mother's influence, just as his father -- the falling and rising "Jackinaboss" who "belongashe" -- did.
"Hell's Confucium and the Elements!" one of the old men shouts in reply, noting the confusion stemming from Shaun's mocking of Confucius. "Tootoo moohootch!" This isn't the talk of a postman, he says. He tells Shaun to give up his "sob story" and go back to his "lambdad's tale," then asks whether Shaun is the Roman Catholic Patrick who came to Ireland in 432 ("Are you roman cawthrick 432?"). Shaun responds with another bit of obscure verse that can be taken in any number of interpretive directions. Here's one shot from me:
Quadrigue my yoke. [I am a slave of four masters, like St. Patrick was alleged to have been, as noted by McHugh.]
Triple my tryst. [Perhaps, I am Tristan in each of the first three of Vico's ages.]
Tandem my sire. [Like Stephen Dedalus, I serve two lords, the King of England, and the pope of the Catholic Church.]
(482.9-484.10) In their Skeleton Key, Campbell and Robinson explain that today's reading sees the inquiry of the four old men transitioning from the subject of HCE to the subject of his twin sons, Shaun and Shem. The passage begins with a voice berating John, who had spoken at the end of yesterday's reading. McHugh doesn't note who is doing this berating, but it seems to me that it is Shaun because the speaker says that he "would go near identifying you from your stavrotides," and it wouldn't make sense that one of the other three old men would need to identify John at this stage in the game. Shaun, then, sort of heckles John, telling this least verbose (to this point) of the four to "pull your weight!"
McHugh identifies the next speaker as Matthew. He asks Shaun whether he knows a young man by the name of Kevin who found ALP's letter after it was uncovered by the hen in the dump. Shaun is evasive regarding Kevin. He doesn't quite let on that he is actually Kevin, but instead says that this "sinted sageness" would sometimes be silent and focused inwardly, as if in prayer. He ends his reply by getting defensive toward Matthew, telling him, "I no way need you."
Mark is the next speaker, according to McHugh. He suggests that the person who discovered the letter will prove to be a great literary mind: "The prouts who will invent a writing there ultimately is the poeta, still more learned, who discovered the raiding there originally." That letter, like the Book of Kells and Finnegans Wake, can be decoded by people who approach it in the proper frame of mind: "What can't be coded can be decorded if an ear aye sieze what no eye ere grieved for." With both the letter and the Wake, he explains, "we have occasioning cause causing effects and affects occasionally recausing altereffects." He then takes the inquiry a step further and suggests that they "twist the penman's tale posterwise." Speaking of the letter, he says, "The gist is the gist of Shaum but the hand is the hand of Sameas." In other words, the letter appears to have been written by Shem, meaning that Shaun has been falsely taking credit for it. "There is a strong suspicion on counterfeit Kevin and we all remember ye in childhood's reverye," he says. After recounting Kevin/Shaun's ostentatious youthful displays of virtue, Mark ultimately asks, Shaun whether he shares suspicions about Kevin's tale: "Now, have you reasonable hesitancy in your mind about him after fourpriest redmass or are you in your post?"
This puts Shaun on the defensive and prompts an almost two page-long response that carries into tomorrow's reading. He insults Mark and asks what Shem has to do with him. He's not his brother's keeper. What's more, he's upset that Mark, his "sexth best friend," once was delighted to support Shaun but now seems bent on defaming him.
More to come from Shaun tomorrow . . . .
(480.6-482.8) While going through today's reading for the first time, I found the dialogue tough to follow, given the fact that Joyce doesn't identify who is speaking. I could usually get a sense of when Shaun was speaking, but the others were harder to identify. McHugh's annotations are particularly helpful in identifying the speakers, and from here on out you can assume that I've identified the speaker by consulting his book. As I've gone on, I've found (with McHugh's help, naturally) that there are certain characteristics to look for in identifying the speaker, such as the fact that Matthew has an Ulster accent ("Whu's he? Whu's this lad, why the pups?" in today's reading, or "First if you don't mind" on page 477). We'll see how it goes as the chapter progresses.
Today's passage features the four old men continuing to inquire about Shaun's father, HCE. "I will crusade on with the parent ship, weather prophetting," says Mark, indicating that he's still focusing on the ship of yesterday's reading, as well as HCE's parental relationship with Shaun. First, Shaun denies that he actually is HCE's biological son, and instead says that the perfidious welsher was just a foster father who gave Shaun his "breastpaps to suck" (alluding, as McHugh notes, to a primitive adoption ritual to which St. Patrick refused to submit). Matthew asks, once again, who Shaun is, and receives the reply, "Hunkalus Childared Easterheld."
Mark believes he has some insight regarding the situation. He recognizes in Shaun "[a] child's dread for a dragon vicefather," and he theorizes that in being raised by HCE, Shaun is like those people of various legends who were raised by wolves. This line of inquiry makes Shaun nervous. He begins to stutter like his father as he repeats his suspicion that the four old men are out to get him: "I am dob dob dobbling like old Booth's, courteous. The cubs are after me, it zeebs, the whole totem pack, vuk vuk and vuk vuk to them, for Robinson's shield." One of the old men asks Shaun to repeat himself, but talk slower, thus prompting Shaun to tell the story of HCE in a somewhat cryptic style:
Hail him heathen, heal him holystone!
Courser, Recourser, Changechild................?
Eld as endall, earth......................?
After another question prompts Shaun to hint that that the Wake, like life, may just be a dream ("Dream. Ona nonday I sleep. I dreamt of a somday. Of a wonday I shall wake. Ah!"), Mark chimes in again with a theory of his own regarding the Wake and HCE's story. It's a tale that "recurs in three times the same differently" and comes down "from the asphalt to the concrete, from the human historic brute," from Finnegan to HCE. "We speak of Gun, the farther," Mark says, expecting Shaun to elaborate on his parentage. "And in the locative. Bap! Bap!"
Shaun replies by noting the mystery surrounding his father, offering an assortment of locations where he may have been born. He also offers the possibility that HCE could be "every at man like myself, suffix it to say, Abrahamsk and Brookbear!" Shaun explains his inheritance from his father, saying, "By him it was done, bapka, by me it was gone into, to whom it will beblive, Mushame, Mushame!" In fact, Shaun says, HCE could be father to us all, "all your and my das."
Asked near the conclusion of today's reading to identify his father, Shaun recalls the name of Persse O'Reilly, "Me das has or oreils. Piercey, Piercey, piercey, piercey!" This triggers a shock of recognition from one of the old men: "White eyeluscious and muddyhorsebroth Pig Pursyriley!" Where do we find him, one man asks? "Hastille, Lucas and Dublinn!" John guesses, before concluding the passage by perhaps suggesting that HCE is soon to be reborn, or perhaps just taking the opportunity to be vulgar. "Vulva! Vulva! Vulva! Vulva!"
(478.6-480.5) Yesterday's reading featured the beginning of the conversation between the four old men and Shaun. Today's reading sees the escalation of that conversation into "question time." One of the old men (McHugh identifies him as Mark) begins by questioning Shaun about his native tongue -- his "malherbal Magis landeguage." Mark says that Shaun's language, which contains many rhyming words and many terms for "monarch," does not have one pronounceable word for "majesty" and offers no description of how a soul can reach heaven ("hopenhaven"). Shaun counters by saying, in rough French, that he has found the key (presumably to heaven) in the fields, in the form of St. Patrick's clover.
This answer puts the old men on the offensive. "Whur's that inclining and talkin about the messiah so cloover?" one (identified by McHugh as Matthew) says. Shaun responds by giving his name -- "Trinathan partnick dieudonnay" -- and asking whether the old men have seen Isabel.
When asked if he's in his homeland, Shaun says yes, and returns to the subject of Isabel. "Have you seen my darling only one?" he asks. "I am sohohold!" An old man (McHugh says it's Matthew) asks Shaun why he's so cold, but Shaun seems to be distracted. "The woods of fogloot!" he says. "O mis padredges!" (McHugh's annotations indicate that this is Shaun pining for Ireland and his ancestors.) McHugh identifies the next speaker as John, who says that he knows this area of Ireland "better than anyone" and asks Shaun -- "Pat Whateveryournameis" -- whether Shaun knows his cousin, Jasper Dougal. "Dood and I dood," Shaun answers. He knows Dougal, but he's now wondering why the four old men have called upon him. "Do not flingamejig to the twolves!" Shaun exclaims, indicating his fear of being thrown to the wolves and the the twelve members of the jury that convicted his father, HCE.
One of the old men (identified by McHugh as Mark) now begins the serious inquiry. There have been reports of a burial, a recovery of material from a dump, and a person engaging in an act that constitutes a nuisance. These three events sound like incidents surrounding HCE's fall. Mark notes that Shaun has called the hillock where they are a "mound or barrow," and suggests that there was a burial boat that predated this burial mound. This might be the Viking ship that carried HCE to Ireland. Shaun replies a bit cryptically, but at the end of today's reading confirms that there was, indeed a ship, which flew a "raven flag," the "Wolf of the sea."
(476.3-478.5) The four old men have made of themselves "a crack quatyouare of stenoggers," ready to record what they learn about Shaun like four stenographers. Once they reach the top of the hillock they see Shaun before them. "All of asprawl he was laying too amengst the poppies and . . . he was oscasleep asleep," the narrator says.
The four stand around Shaun's body, their senses upended to the point where "they could not rightly tell their heels from their stools" as they crouch down around "his cubical crib." Question time is drawing near, the narrator explains. We're now introduced to dialogue for the first time in the chapter, and given the style of the Wake, it can be hard to decipher who is saying what. Here's the first exceprt:
--He's giving, the wee bairn. Yun has lived.
--Yerra, why dat, my leader?
--Wisha, is he boosed or what, alannah?
--Or his wind's from the wrong cut, says Ned of the Hill.
--Lesten!
--Why so and speak up, do you hear me, you sir?
--Or he's rehearsing somewan's funeral.
--Whisht outathat! Hubba's up!
McHugh suggests, and I think it makes sense, that here the four old men are speaking in order: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew thinks Shaun has died. Mark asks why. Luke suggests he is drunk. John thinks he might be out of breath. And so on. I do like Luke's idea that Shaun is rehearsing for a funeral.
The narrator explains that the four men have unraveled a net (variously called "drifter nets," "chromous gleamy seiners' nets," "azurespotted fine attractable nets," and "nansen nets") above Shaun, seemingly to catch him when he wakes. Finally, he does wake up, and the men begin to question him. One (McHugh suggests it's Matthew) asks Shaun to identify the ground upon which he's resting. "The same prehistoric barrow 'tis, the orangery," Shaun says, suggesting that they're standing on the dump where ALP's letter was discovered. In this orangery, Shaun says, he has letters for his darling, "Typette" (Isabel). How many letters? "Millions," Shaun says. "For godsends. For my darling dearling one."
(474.1-476.2) In introducing the third chapter of Book III of Finnegans Wake, Tindall writes that, despite its length (81 pages), this chapter is "one of the easier ones" in the book and asserts, "If the chapter were shorter, we should miss a lot of fun." Here's hoping he's right.
Following the Viconian cycle, this chapter represents the third age of human existence, the democratic age of the people. It mirrors the third chapter in Book II of the Wake, which presented HCE among his customers in his pub and traced the interweaving action and discussion throughout the evening until closing time. This chapter begins with Shaun -- now called "Yawn" to indicate his exhaustion -- lying on a hillock, wailing. His "dream monologue" (the sermon he delivered to the girls in the previous chapter) is over, but his "drama parapolylogic" has not yet begun.
Hearing the wailing, the four old men reappear and come to see Shaun. There has been a fair amount of language likening Shaun to Christ throughout Book III, and here the four old men take on the form of the Three Magi ("three kings of three suits and a crowner") come to see the reclining Shaun/Jesus. This also fits in with the idea that Shaun is growing younger as Book III progresses: He was an adult in the first chapter, was an adolescent in the second chapter, and is now an infant in the third chapter. Having found Shaun, the four old men express fear seven times: "Feefee! phopho!! foorchtha!!!aggala!!!!jeeshee!!!!!paloola!!!!!!ooridiminy!!!!!!!" (McHugh notes that these words translate to "fear," "death," or "The Mad Dog" in a variety of languages.) Shaun's body is at the center of Ireland: "one half of him in Conn's half" (McHugh notes that ancient Ireland was divided into "Conn's half" and "Owen's half") and "the whole of him nevertheless in Owenmore's five quarters" (McHugh notes that Ireland was once divided into five parts, but now is divided into four parts). Wild potatoes grow over his body, which incorporates elements of the cosmos (e.g., "And his veins shooting melanite phosphor, his creamtocustard cometshair and his asteroid knuckles, ribs and members.").
The four old men have come to conduct an inquiry regarding Shaun. Here, they're introduced as Shanator Gregory (Matthew), Shanator Lyons (Mark), Dr Shunadure Tarpey (Luke), and Shunny MacShunny, MacDougal the hiker (John). It appears that two of these men are aligned in a sense with Shaun, while the other two are aligned with Shem. First, there is the space-time division. Gregory is "seeking spoor through the deep timefield," indicating that he, like Shem, is concerned with time. Lyons is "trailing the wavy line of his partition footsteps," indicating that he, like Shaun, is concerned with space. The sleepy Dr Shunadure (move the "a" up two spots and you've got Shaundure) Tarpey is aligned with Yawn/Shaun. And the outcast or shunned Shunny MacShunny MacDougal is aligned with Shem. The four men are trailed by their ass, which seems to be taking on a more prominent role in this chapter.
(471.35-473.25) The final pages of the second chapter of Book III of Finnegans Wake consist of a kind of salute to Shaun, coming from a general narrator, or perhaps Isabel (if we're thinking that Isabel delivered the final lines in yesterday's reading). "[M]ay the good people speed you, rural Haun, export stout fellow that you are," the narrator says. His time has passed, and the baby talk of the infants has turned into the wise language of the preachers: "The googoos of the suckabolly in the rockabeddy are become the copiosity of wiseableness of the friarylayman in the pulpitbarrel."
The narrator bids Shaun to return to Ireland, but recognizes that he may be gone for good. "My long farewell I send to you, fair dream of sport and game and always something new," the narrator says. "Gone is Haun! My grief, my ruin!" While Shaun's "paling light lucerne we ne'er may see again," dozens of people long for the day when Shaun might return again. The narrator tells Shaun that "life will be a blank without you because avicuum's not there at all," and adds that we're all fated to fade into "the yesterselves we tread to turnupon."
The final paragraph further (and explicitly) ties this chapter detailing Shaun's departure into the overall structure of the book. The narrator marvels at how Shaun did his "nine furlong mile in slick and slapstick record time" and emphasizes that "your feat of passage will be contested with you and through you, for centuries to come." In other words, Shaun's journey will be replicated throughout the course of human history. Just as the phoenix once rose from the ashes, "so too will our own sphoenix spark spirit his spyre and sunward stride the rampante flambe." In fact, the narrator can in fact see a brighter moment in history approaching: "Ay, already the sombrer opacities of the gloom are sphanished!" With that in mind, the narrator offers Shaun words of encouragement: "Brave footsore Haun! Work your progress! Hold to! Now! Win out, ye divil ye!" Now is the time to act, for soon the day will come, the dream will end, Finnegan will wake, and the present will become the past:
Walk while ye have the night for morn, lightbreakfastbringer, morroweth whereon every past shall full fost sleep. Amain.
(469.29-471.34) Having delivered his "last fireless words," Shaun sets off, with the "twentyaid add one" girls "pouring to his bysistance." A "hermetic prod or kick" causes Shaun "to sit up and take notice" as the girls "voiced approval in their customary manner by dropping kneedeep in tears over their concelebrated meednight sunflower, piopadey boy, their solase in dorckaness." The girls wail and deliver a prayer, which McHugh notes (relying upon a letter Joyce wrote to Harriet Shaw Weaver) mirrors the Maronite liturgy and consists of 29 words. This prayer likens Shaun to various trees (reemphasizing the tree/stone dichotomy that features throughout the book) and alternately addresses him as "oasis" (a source of refuge) and "Oisis" (an incarnation of Osiris or the offspring of Isis). At the prayer's conclusion, the girls say, "Pipetto, Pipetta has misery unnoticed!" This indicates the unique misery suffered by Isabel ("Pipetta") for her beloved Shaun.
Now the narrative begins to advance much quicker (we have reached the chapter's final four pages, after all). Shaun is just about to tumble into the river, but first he takes a "familiar yellow label" from Isabel, lets fall a drop, smothers a curse, chokes a guffaw, spits, and blows his own trumpet. The postman Shaun licks an "oval badge of belief" and affixes it to his brow and causes the girls to turn topsy turvy "with half a glance of Irish frisky . . . from under the shag of his parallel brows." He waves goodbye, and the girls return the gesture as they call out to him and each other, shouting their 29 names, which all translate to the word "peace." Shaun moves to embrace Isabel a final time, then moves to resume his journey, blessing the girls "with the sign of the southern cross." His hat blows off his head just before he moves "away with him at the double . . . , let off like a wind hound." The girls wave their handkerchiefs, and as Shaun fades from sight someone (Isabel, I think?) recites a prayer based upon the "Hail Mary" and says, "Where maggot Harvey kneeled till bags? Ate Andrew coos hogdam farvel!" (which McHugh translates from Danish as, "How much have we held back? To change course and so goodbye!").
Tomorrow, we reach the conclusion of this second chapter of the Wake's third book.
(467.30-469.28) Shaun seems to have some good words for his brother as he wraps up his appearance before the 29 girls. "He'll prisckly soon hand tune your Erin's ear for you," Shaun says of Dave, returning to the subject of music for a brief moment. He adds that there's "numan bitter" than Dave "to read the road roman with false steps." Shaun does say, though, that Dave gets "tootoological" when Dave says, "In the beginning was the gest . . . , for the end is with woman, flesh-without word, while the man to be is in a worse case after than before since she on the supine satisfies the verg to him!" (seemingly implying that women, not men, get the most out of sex). Shaun instructs Isabel to "pull up your furbelovs as farabove as you're farthingales" in order to hint to Dave "how to click the trigger" (or, in other words, have sex with her). "Show you shall and won't he will!" Shaun continues. "His hearing is indoubting just as my seeing is onbelieving."
As a kind of interlude, the narrator tells us that from the stress of the thunder and lightning (which, in the Wake, is always right around the corner) will come a "nikrokosmikon," or a successor who will unite both Nick (Shem) and Mike (Shaun).
The brief interlude completed, we hear what look to be Shaun's final words of the chapter. His watch tells him it's time to go, and his middle toe's itching, so it's time for him to start out. "This shack's not big enough for me now," he says. All four of the elements are ready for his journey: "The earth's atrot! The sun's a scream! The air's a jig! The water's great!" He recognizes that it's fitting for him to take the river and head out for the ocean, for, as he says, "Was not my olty mutther, Sereth Maritza, a Runningwater?" After giving a blessing with his "panromain apological," Shaun says that it's time to break ranks. "Fik yew!" he says, delivering a final insult to the girls who have endured his ramblings. "I'm through. Won. Toe. Adry. You watch my smoke." With that, Shaun is off.
(465.31-467.30) Today's passage begins with Shaun assuming the role of Polonius and offering advice to Dave/Shem and Isabel. "Be ownkind," he says. "Be kithkinish. Be bloodysibby. Be irish. Be inish. Be offalia. Be hamlet. Be the property plot. Be Yorick and Lankystare." After offering some more general advice, he returns to the idea of Isabel and Dave becoming a couple, saying, "Give us a pin for her and we'll call it a tossup." He adds, "Lets have a fuchu all round, courting cousins!" Perhaps he's persuasive, for he tells Dave that he "can feel you being corrupted" and "can see you sprouting scruples." Ultimately, he almost commands the two to fornicate: "Shuck her! Let him! What he's good for. Shuck her more! Let him again! All she wants!"
Turning away from this "romantic" topic, Shaun begins to speak of music, asking Dave whether he would play some music on his "imitationer's jubalharp." While Dave sings out of tune, Shaun says that "he could be near a colonel with a voice like that." Dave still has his bark, but has lost his bite, much like the boots that Shaun had loaned him. Shaun says that Dave needs to be more assertive: "But I told him make your will be done and go to a general and I'd pray confessions for him." This "national umbloom" won't do that, though, because he's "shoy." Members of the older generation used to keep Dave in line, but that's "all deafman's duff" to Shaun. Perhaps Dave is just fated to be, as Shaun calls him, "[i]llstarred punster, lipstering cowknucks."
(463.27-465.31) In addition to Dave/Shem's vices, Shaun is worried about his health, for Dave is "looking aged with his pebbled eyes, and johnnythin too." "Hope he hasn't the cholera," Shaun notes. Still, no one can "hold a chef's cankle" to Dave, the "joyllytan fine demented brick and the prince of goodfilips!" Shaun says that he has the "highest of respect" for him, even though he hints that he's a plagiarist (in a sequence, he calls Dave "cog," "crib," and "coppy"). While he was away, this "most omportent man" has shaved his head, and he now sports a "blackguarded eye" and "goatsbeard" (as McHugh notes, Dave looks much like Joyce, who wore a black eye patch and goatee), which are quite visible to everyone since Dave has taken off his hat. "Ah, he's very thoughtful and sympatrico that way is Brother Intelligentius, when he's not absintheminded, with his Paris addresse!" Shaun says.
Upon his return, Dave receives a warm greeting from this brother. "Give us the dyed dextremity here, frother, the Claddagh clasp!" says Shaun, asking for a handshake. He goes on to ask Dave about his travels, wondering among other things how Austria and Hungary were and whether Dave met "with Peadhar the Grab at all." "You rejoice me!" Shaun says. "Faith, I'm proud of you, french davit! You've surpassed yourself!" Shaun seems to be genuine in his praise, but I wonder if there isn't something sinister lurking here.
"Be introduced to yes!" Shaun says, reacquainting Dave with his sister Isabel. "This is me aunt Julia Bride, your honour, dying to have you languish to scandal in her bosky old delltangle" (remember, the delta and triangle are symbols of their mother, ALP). Neither Dave nor Isabel recognizes the other, but Shaun is quick to point out that he's willing to share her with Dave: "She has plenty of woom in the smallclothes for the bothsforus, nephews push! Hatch yourself well! Enjombyourselves thurily!" As Shaun goes on, it's almost as if he's a pimp trying to push Isabel on Dave. "Have a hug!" he says. "Take her out of poor tuppeny luck before she goes off in pure treple licquidance. I'd give three shillings a pullet to the canon for the conjugation to shadow you kissing her from me leberally all over as if she was a cricifix." We'll see how things progress tomorrow . . . .
(461.33-463.27) Shaun punctuates the closing of Isabel's reply (which ended with "ah ah ah ah. . . .") with a resounding "MEN!" -- thus effectively closing her prayer. "Ever gloriously kind!" he tells her. "And I truly am eucherised to yours." With "his chalished drink now well in hand," he toasts the girls, saying, "[W]oo and win womenlong with health to rich vineyards, Erin go Dry!" He offers the girls some champagne and (perhaps drunkenly) swears to them that "I ne'er will prove I'm untrue to your liking . . . so long as my hole looks. Down."
"So gullaby, me poor Isley!" says Shaun, both telling her goodbye and saying she's gullible. "But I'm not for forgetting me innerman monophone for I'm leaving my darling proxy behind for your consolering, lost Dave the Dancekerl, a squamous runaway and a dear old man pal of mine too." Like the departing Christ, Shaun is leaving the girls with a substitute, here the previously departed (he ran away, after all) Dave the Dancekerl. If he could only give up sex and alcohol, Shaun says, Dave would be "the unicorn of his kind." Still, Shaun says that Dave is "the mightiest penumbrella I ever flourished on behond the shadow of a post!"
Shaun greets Dave's arrival with glee: "But soft! Can't be? Do mailstanes mumble? Lumtum lumtum! Now! The froubadour! I fremble!" When Dave arrives he looks like "he fell out of space, all draped in mufti, coming home to mourn mountains from his old continence." Arrived from a stay on the European continent and having completed "his French evolution," Dave is the returning Shem, and also the returning Joyce. "He's the sneaking likeness of us, faith, me altar's ego in miniature and every Auxonian aimer's ace as nasal a Romeo as I am, for ever cracking quips on himself, that merry, the jeenjakes," Shaun says. He's strange, Shaun adds, but loveable: "He has novel ideas I know and he's a jarry queer fish betimes, I grant you, and cantanberous, the poisoner of his word, but lice and all and semicoloured stainedglasses, I'm enormously full of that foreigner, I'll say I am!" Cementing the idea that the two are twins, Shaun says, "Got by the one goat, suckled by the same nanna, one twitch, one nature makes us oldworld kin."
Shaun does offer criticisms of Dave-Shem, of course. He's a turncoat: "To camiflag he turned his shirt." And he is notorious for borrowing money: "Isn't he after borrowing all before him, making friends with everybody red in Rossya, white in Alba and touching every distinguished Ourishman he could ever distinguish before or behind from a Yourishman for the customary halp of a crown and peace?"
(459.30-461.32) Although Isabel is in love with another boy, she says that will never forget Shaun, "not for tons of donkeys." With that in mind, she instructs Shaun to not try to compel her faithfulness by "peppering with fear," lest she murder him. Instead, she tells him, "meet me after by next appointment near you know Ships just there beside the Ship." So, she won't give up her other love for Shaun, but she'll still remain faithful to him, in her own way. "Trust us," she says. "Our game. (For fun!) The Dargle shall run dry the sooner I you deny. Whoevery heard of such a think? Till the ulmost of all elmoes shall stele our harts asthone!"
While Shaun is away, she will keep a kind of dream diary, writing in "gold pen and ink" in her "Jungfraud's Messongebook." She'll wait for him until eternity with sweets to give him upon his return, but in the meantime she'll buy herself an expensive raincoat "of pinked elephant's breath grey of the loveliest sheerest dearest widowshood over airforce blue I am so wild for." For now, though, it's time for her daily appointment with "Pinchapoppapoff, who is going to be a jennyroll" (the Russian General), apparently another lover.
Near the end of Isabel's reply, she describes the night of her "golden violents wetting," when her and her new husband will consummate the marriage. Campbell and Robinson read this passage as a kind of allegory for the Christian Church, with Shaun representing the departed Christ and Isabel representing the faith left behind by Christ, which gives itself freely to all denominations (Catholic, protestant, Russian, etc.). Following this wedding night description, she reverts back to the present, in which she talks childish ("thalk thildish") and says that before she goes to bed, she will say one little prayer.
(457.25-459.30) Up to this point, this chapter has consisted primarily of Shaun delivering a sermon to the 29 girls assembled before him. Now, however, we get to hear a new voice, that of Isabel, who in today's reading begins her reply to Shaun. "Meesh, meeshy, yes, pet," she begins. "We were too happy. I knew something would happen." Recognizing that he's about to depart, she offers him a gift of "memento nosepaper," which she tells him to use when he writes her from abroad. Her speech is loaded with language that can be interpreted in contradictory ways, indicating her sincerity and her cynicism toward her brother. For instance, regarding the notepaper, she asks Shaun "when never you make usage of it, listen, please kindly think galways again or again, never forget." That "never" could be read literally, or it could be read as "ever."
Isabel says that she will be well taken care of financially because "I am getting his pay and wants for nothing so I can live simply and solely for my wonderful kinkless and its loops of loveliness." This might indicate that she's living off of HCE's inheritance or life insurance, and so she's able to devote time to more frivolous things, like her hair. Also playing into this theme of Isabel's superficiality is the part where she discusses "nurse Madge, my linkingclass girl," with whom she'll be praying for Shaun. Nurse Madge could be the household servant Kate, but perhaps this "linkingclass girl" is the personification of Isabel's image in the mirror. Isabel likes to draw marks and mustaches on Madge's face when Madge sleepwalks, but, she tells Shaun, "[Y]ou'll love her for her hessians and sickly black stockies."
At the end of today's passage, Isabel makes a confession to Shaun. "O bother, I must tell the trouth!" she says. "My lad's loveliletter I am sore I done something with. I like him lots coss he never cusses. Pity bonhom. Pip pet. I shouldn't say he's pretty but I'm cocksure he's shy. Why I love taking him out when I unletched his cordon gate." She says that her young lover "fell for my lips, for my lisp, for my lewd speaker." She "fell for his strength, his manhood, his do you mind?" How will her relationship with this boy effect her devotion to Shaun? We'll see tomorrow . . . .
