"Oyes! Oyess! Oyesesyeses!"

(603.34-605.3)  I've read a shorter passage today (really, just over a page).  This is mostly to try and stop at the end of a paragraph (and avoid ending in mid-paragraph), but it also serves nicely to set up what looks to be an important (and slightly longer) reading tomorrow.  The readings have gone slightly over the past few days (or at least it seems so), so I'm still good to go on my daily pace.  (Given my frequent starts and stops through most of this project, you'll forgive me for mentioning now that I've posted 67 days in a row, a fact in which I take a slight bit of pride.  Don't worry, though:  I'm in the midst of a couple of busy weeks, so I'll inevitably miss a day or two soon.  Still, I'm determined to finish the Wake by the end of the month.  So close . . . .)

"But what does Coemghem, the fostard?" the narrator once again asks on our behalf.  The question wasn't completely answered when it was first asked in yesterday's reading (are any questions in the Wake ever answered?), so a second shot is taken here.  We first look to a depiction of Kevin in a stained glass window (a "novened iconostase of his blueygreyned vitroils"), which is just barely being lit by the morning sun's first rays.  Kevin comes from the "vinebranch of Heremonheber," which, as McHugh explains, means he's a descendant of the legendary progenitors of the Irish race (Heremon and Heber).  His homeland is "leaved invert and fructed proper," connecting him (as McHugh notes) to the ancient crest of the Finnegan family.  We must remember that it's still morning, though, and "the cublic hatches endnot open yet for hourly rincers' mess," which means that it's not yet time for early morning mass, for the pub to be open, and for Kevin to wake.  The "[b]esoakers loiter on" (the drunks wait for their drink) and the night traffic has not given way to the early morning "milk train" and commuter transportation.

We are jolted by an ecstatic calling to order:  "Oyes!  Oyeses!  Oyesesyeses!"  The "primace of the Gaulls, protonotorious, I yam as I yam" (yes, McHugh agrees with me that is a Popeye reference in the Wake) is about to give "a Gael warning."  We are to learn about "the miracles, death and life" of Kevin, a servant and "filial fearer" of God, the Lord Creator.  And it looks like that lesson will truly appear in tomorrow's reading.