(567.13-569.17) Today's passage was perhaps the toughest one I've encountered in this chapter. We begin with news that the queen will be sending her liege to lead the nobles on a fox hunt. This must be big news, and a big event, for everyone wants to be there. "Yet if I durst to express the hope how I might be able to be present," Mark says. The roads and rails will be jammed with travelers: "All these peeplers entrammed and detrained on bikeygels and troykakyls and those puny farting little solitires! Tollacre, tollacre!"
In preparation for the occasion, the twins will make peace: "Britus and Gothius shall no more joustle for that sonneplace but mark one autonement." The royal envoy's impending visit won't be the reason for that peace, though. Instead, it will come about by Isabel's tears. "It is how sweet from her, the wispful, and they are soon seen swopsib so a sautril as a meise," Mark says.
But these events pale in comparison to the arrival of the king, and his reception of HCE. HCE -- "our boorgomaister, thon staunch Thorsman" -- will get dressed up in his best clothes for the king's arrival and stand among the throng of people, "restrained by chain of hands." He will "receive Dom King at broadstone barrow meet a keys of goodmorrow on to his pompey cushion." McHugh notes that this mirrors the reception that Abraham Bradley King, then Lord Mayor of Dublin, gave to King George IV (he gave him a key to the city and was knighted on the spot), but I also read this as Mark saying HCE will greet the king with a kiss on the ol' arse. Flattered by HCE's welcome, the king will single him out: "Arise, sir Pompkey Dompkey! Ear! Ear! Weaker!" HCE will read a speech to the king (consisting of the Greek alphabet), and the king will make lewd remarks to the ladies on the balconies. And church bells throughout Dublin's city center and four corners will ring out in celebration of the moment.
I admit that I'm a bit confused (at least for the moment) how we got from HCE's "pole" in yesterday's reading to this royal visit. Perhaps it will become clear tomorrow.
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