(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."
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