(79.14-81.11) Today's reading is heavy on what I'm tending to refer to as transitional passages. These passages are chock full of good stuff, but I've found them to be the toughest ones to unravel, possibly because I'm struggling to find some context for them.
The short paragraph on page 79 is one such passage. We've left off HCE sucking on his own fat while hibernating in his grave, and we now shift our attention to the living ladies. We're told that they "did not disdain those pagan ironed times" when, like earwigs (or, HCE), every human being had to resign him or herself to the grave. The Venuses of those days were giggling and glib temptresses, the Vulcans were "guffawably eruptious," and the whole wide world of wives was brimming with inanities. The narrator says that it's a fact that in those times, any young woman would readily pray with (and perhaps prey on) any troubled soul. This sort of spiritual/predatory vocation becomes a means of seduction in which the young woman would woo and win the will of her conquest, ultimately claiming his hand in marriage. (I said this was a short paragraph, but even the short paragraphs of the Wake have tremendous depth to them.)
We now come upon a brief passage describing the widow Kate Strong, who has vivid memories of the days when HCE lived. Kate's appearance immediately calls to mind her predecessor or younger self, "the mistress Kathe," who gave us the tour of the Willingdone Museyroom in the first chapter of the Wake. Kate now supplies an image of HCE's household -- "a homelike cottage of elvanstone" -- as a total dump, with everything from chicken droppings to rotten vegetables strewn about the premises. Kate bears at least part of the responsibility for the condition of the place, because she was the housekeeper, and she "cleaned but sparingly." At some point, she cleaned the house out and deposited all the garbage near the "Serpentine in Phornix Park." The place became a veritable haven for scavengers, but we're told that this was the right place and the right time for the trash to be deposited: the battles ("ructions") were over, and this is the spot "where race began" and where "by four hands of forethought the first babe of reconcilement is laid in its last cradle of hume sweet hume." So, once again, we've got hints of an impending resurrection.
God, or "Allhighest," is the prominent figure in the next paragraph, joined by gods from a wide variety of religions. We are mere mortals in comparison to God, and each one of us will fall into our graves while God says, "as it was let it be." The voice of God thunders down like Jove's bolt, calling to the scavengers and ordering them to get out of the park. The scavengers scamper out.
Even though we weren't "trespassing on his corns either," we're now leaving the park like the scavengers. We're on an impressive road, the construction of which required the effort of Hercules. In fact, we're told that this road was built on the backs of slaves: "And a hungried thousand of the unemancipated slaved the way." HCE's mausoleum now stands behind us, and ahead of us are faltering milestones. The passage concludes with us standing before the temple of St. Fiacre, and the narrator orders us to halt. It's a perfect place, if there ever was one, to wrap up the day's reading.
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