"Behose our handmades for the lured!"

(237.10-239.15)  In discussing the single long paragraph that makes up today's reading, Tindall writes in his Reader's Guide, "Nothing much happens in the interlude of several pages that follows 'And they said to him' (237.10).  What the girls say to Shaun (238-39) is mostly about 'drawpairs' or drawers."  This is true to some extent.  Nothing here really advances the narrative.  It's simply the Floras continuing to celebrate Chuff/Shaun.  And, yes, there is more talk about undergarments.  But I'm going to disagree with Tindall on this one.  A lot is happening in this paragraph, and I think this masterful passage presents a key to understanding a significant portion of the Wake.

On the surface level, this is the Floras expanding upon their admiration for Chuff.  On a deeper level, it's clear that the Floras are seeking some kind of enlightenment or knowledge from him.  He is the "pageantmaster, deliverer of softmissives" -- teacher, judge, and postman -- who travels "round the world in forty mails" to gain ultimate experience "sightseeing and soundhearing and smellsniffing and tastytasting and tenderumstouching."  The Floras ask him to "send us, your adorables, thou overblaseed, a wise and letters play of all you can ceive . . . from your holy post now you has ascertained ceremonially our names."  They punctuate their request with a summary of Chuff's innocence and goodness:

Unclean you are not.  Outcaste thou are not.  Leperstower, the karman's loki, has not blanched at our pollution and your intercourse at ninety legsplits does not defile.  Untouchable is not the scarecrown is on you.  You are pure.  You are pure.  You are in your puerity.

But what kind of enlightenment or knowledge do the Floras seek from Chuff?  The answer seems to be varied.  References (identified by McHugh, as are the other references I'll discuss here) to the Buddha in this paragraph indicate that they seek a spiritual enlightenment ("Return, sainted youngling, and walk once more among us!").  References to the Indian caste system indicate that they seek social advancement ("Our breed and better class is in brood and bitter pass.").  Most prominently, though (and this is where the panties come in), it seems these young women seek sexual maturity ("so pleasekindly communicake with the original sinse we are only yearning as yet how to burgeon.").

And it is in this exploration of the Floras' desire to fully unlock their burgeoning sexuality that we get a perspective that has mostly been missing up to this point in the Wake.  We've heard a lot about the two young women and three soldiers in the park (in today's passage, "How their duel makes their triel!" along with references to Wellington and Napoleon that go back to the book's first chapter), but until now those two young women have served more as foils to HCE than as fully realized actors in the Wake's play.  Today's passage describes, in Wakeian terms, how these girls become women, or how Eve became Eve.  In language that perverts Mary's fiat, "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord," the Floras say, "Behose our handmades for the lured!"  Rather than becoming instruments of salvation, they're turning into lures toward the fall.  At the present, they are immature amateurs, but "yet well come that day we shall ope to be ores."  In one sense, they welcome the day that their potential shall be unearthed and they will be revealed to be the precious metals that they are.  In another sense, there will come the day that they will hope (or, if we're being more crass, "open up") to be whores.  "No more hoaxites!" they say, indicating their desire to be undeceived, but also foreshadowing the effects of their new knowledge:  Hamlet's no more marraige ("Hochzeit" is German for "marriage").

So yeah, if you can't tell, I find this passage totally fascinating.  In one sense, it can be argued that it's a throwaway bit of transition.  But on closer inspection, it contributes valuable and indispensable depth to Joyce's book.