"this is the rann"

(44.6-46.4) It's now time for Hosty's song.  The opening phrase of the first full paragraph on page 44 -- "around the lawn the rann it rann" -- is a rich one.  On one literal level, it can mean "around the lawn the rain it ran," indicating that rain begins to fall on the crowd assembled for the ballad's debut.  There's so much more, though.  "Lawn" can also mean "land."  "Rann," as McHugh writes in his Annotations, is also Irish for "verse" and Greek for "flowed."  So, the phrase could also mean "around the land the verse it flowed" or "the rain it flowed" or "the verse it rained."  As always, you'd probably be correct in saying it means all those things.

This is a fun paragraph.  The sentence "Here line the refrains of." means both "here's the song" and "here lie the remains of HCE's life/reputation."  There's a list of all the names by which HCE might be called, but the narrator ends this by saying, "I parse him Persse O'Reilly else he's called no name at all."  "Persse O'Reilly" sounds a lot like the French "perce-oreille," which McHugh translates as -- you guessed it -- "earwig."  But McHugh also notes that the name also evokes Pearse and O'Rahilly, who were involved in the Easter Rising, as well as John Boyle O'Reilly of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, whose unit composed treasonous ballads.  Moving on, Hosty is cheered by the crowd for producing "the rann, the rann, the king of all ranns."  In the Skeleton Key, Campbell and Robinson explain that this recalls the verse sung on St. Stephen's Day in Ireland:  "The Wren, the Wren, the King of all Birds."  As part of this tradition, a wren is killed and carried about the town.  Campbell and Robinson accordingly link the wren, which is a symbolic scapegoat, to HCE, who is the scapegoat of this story.

Before "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly" begins, Joyce inserts another thunderword (heard after a glass crashes).  McHugh notes that this third thunderword (the first appears on the opening page, and the second appears during the story of the Prankquean) contains a number of foreign words for "clap," so in addition to the thunderword symbolizing a fall as usual (the fall here is literally the glass held by an audience member falling and shattering on the ground and figuratively HCE's fall from public grace), it's also the audience's applause.

The ballad itself is the easiest reading so far in the Wake.  It's "simple," but still well-written (and entertaining).  It equates HCE with Humpty Dumpty who falls and crumples by the Magazine Wall in Phoenix Park.  He was once "our King of the Castle," but now he's on his way to "the penal jail of Mountjoy."  Among the sins of this revolutionary "fafafather of all schemes for to bother us" are introducing "immaculate contraceptives for the populace" and promoting "Openair love and religion's reform."  Criticism of his business practices are summed up in the nickname given to him by the local lads:  He'll Cheat E'erawan."

I'll get to the rest of the song (and the end of the second chapter) in tomorrow's first reading.  I'm also going to spend some time scouring the web to see if I can find a recording of "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly."  Joyce gives us the music for the ballad, but given my very rudimentary musical literacy (if you can play music by ear, why learn how to play off of sheet music?), it would probably take me a few hours to play a passable version on my piano.