"Howe of the shipmen, steep wall!"

(24.16-26.24)  Today's passage offered the Wake's smoothest sailing yet (at least on the surface level).  Part of this must be attributable to this passage's narrator.  We're still at the wake, where the whiskey has just woken Finnegan.  Seeing this, a person attending the wake begins an extended address to Finnegan, essentially telling him that it's better that he stay dead.  The mourner (as I'll call the narrator for now) implies that the world has changed since Finnegan's been out of commission.  After all, the mourner explains, the roads have changed, and Finnegan could get lost wandering around Dublin.  Or he might come across "some sick old bankrupt" or "a slut snoring with an impure infant on a bench," either of which " '[t]would turn you against life."

The mourner recognizes that it's hard to leave this world, but he tells Finnegan that he's better off where he is now before listing the attractive features of Finnegan's funeral plot and the distinguished company he'll have in "the land of souls" (said company includes "Guinnghis Khan" -- a mixture of Arthur Guinness and Genghis Kahn).  The mourner promises that the living in attendance at the wake will take good care of Finnegan's grave and will bring him "offerings of the field," including opium, honey, and goat's milk.

The mourner then goes into detail explaining how Finnegan's fame has spread throughout the world.  The implication here is that since he's become a legend in death, he ought not to go about messing it up by coming back to life.  In keeping with this idea, the mourner gives an extended near-quotation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead that in sum tells Finnegan that he's been given a good burial, and now isn't the time for him to be waking up.  The first paragraph of this address ends with the mourner exhorting Finnegan to "steep wall" -- or sleep well (with a reference to the steep wall from which he fell).

As someone who hails from the U.S., I dug this passage's many references to Huckleberry Finn (which McHugh's Annotations helped me to catch).  These references blended with numerous additional references to the Egyptian Book of the Dead (again, props to McHugh) to create a sense of Finnegan floating down the Mississippi into eternity (to paraphrase Ulysses).  As I mentioned, the reading was easier today, but still plenty rich.