Wednesday, September 16, 2015

"malestream in shegulf"

(546.29-548.19)  In today's reading, HCE makes an abrupt change in subject matter.  He shifts from himself to his wife, here referred to by what might be termed her "maiden" name, Fulvia Fluvia.  He trusts in her honor.  If she had turned her back on her ways and traveled uphill in search of lovers, or if she had been seduced by the words of "prolling bywaymen," there would be reason to investigate her.  But "it was vastly otherwise," HCE says.  She "ever did ensue tillstead the things that pertained unto fairnesse."  And even when she did not fawn on him, he "waged love on her:  and spoiled her undines" (spoiled her undying-ly, or soiled her undies).  

HCE then retraces how his relationship with ALP blossomed.  He admits that he was firm with her and jealously guarded her from the world.  He took her overland and settled in Dublin.  There, he says, he "knew her fleshly when with all my bawdy did I her whorship, min bryllupswibe" (he both worshiped her body and, like a bawd, treated her whorishly).  The two became one, "malestream in shegulf."  He marked her as his own forever, and married her (with "Impress of Asias" and "Queen Columbia" as her bridesmaids).  He gave her a name "to carry till her grave":  "my durdin dearly, Appia Lippia Pluviabilla."  At the conclusion of today's reading (which ends in mid-paragraph, since the one I'm in the midst of spans almost three full pages), he adds, "I did umgyrdle her about, my vermincelly vinagerette, with all loving kindness as far as in man's might it lay and enfranchised her to liberties of fringes."

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