(381.9-382.30) Happy Bloomsday! I'm celebrating, not by reading reading an excerpt from Ulysses as I would've done a few years ago (and will almost certainly do next year), but by finishing the third chapter of Book II of Finnegans Wake. I feel like Joyce would be pleased either way.
We pick up with the narration of "the three muskrateers," who conclude the chapter by explaining what HCE/King Roderick O'Conor did after being left alone in the pub/kingdom after closing time. In short, he goes "heeltapping through the winespilth and weevily popcorks that were kneedeep round his own right royal round rollicking toper's table," overwhelmed with "black ruin like a sponge out of water," singing songs. Foremost among these "bellcantos" is "the blackberd's ballad I've a terrible errible lot todue todie todue tootorribleday."
As HCE/Roderick staggers about singing he feels "the wonderful midnight thirst" and proceeds to do "what the Irish, boys, can do": "suck up, sure enough, like a Trojan, whatever surplus rotgut, sorra much, was left by the lazy lousers of maltkights and beerchurls in the different bottoms of the various different replenquished drinking utensils left there behind them." He indiscriminately downs whatever's left over, be it "chateaubottled Guiness's or Phoenix brewery stout it was or John Jameson and Sons or Roob Coccola or, for the matter of that, O'Connell's famous old Dublin ale that he wanted like hell." He does this until the sun rises, or
till that hen of Kaven's shows her beaconegg, and Chapwellswendows stain our horyhistoricold and Father MacMichael stamps for aitch o'clerk mess and the Litvian Newestlatter is seen, sold and delivered and all's set for restart after the silence.
That "restart after the silence," as the secondary sources note, indicate that after this long night in the tavern, the morning is set for a Viconian renewal and yet another rebirth for the once-again fallen HCE.
In a final flourish, HCE/Roderick, recalling the ship theme from earlier in the chapter, begins to set sail, with "Larry's on the focse and Faugh MacHugh O'Bawlar at the wheel." For a final image, the Three Muskrateers portray him passing out in a drunken stupor: "our wineman from Barleyhome he just slumped to the throne." "So sailed the stout ship Nansy Hans," they conclude. In the end of the chapter, the Three Muskrateers (versions of those three soldiers who witnessed HCE's misdeed in Phoenix Park) fade into the evening sky: "Now follow we out by Starloe!"
This was a challenging chapter, but it's one that concludes with another memorable flourish. The final Three Muskrateers bit, which takes up the last three pages of the chapter, is equal to the powerful finishes of many of the Wake's other chapters. This passage is one to return to as an example of Joyce at his best.
(379.17-381.9) Ok, today's reading concludes the crowd's shouted insults to HCE, who sits alone in his pub after closing time, and propels us toward the conclusion of the third chapter of Book II of Finnegans Wake. The crowd begins its wrap up by noting that HCE wil "be the deaf of us." Nevertheless, the crowd maintains a soft spot for him (that soft spot corresponds with its collective thirst), and goes as far as saying, "But of all your wanings send us out your peppydecked ales and you'll not be such a bad lot." Their following shouts are interrupted by the tolling of bells: "B E N K!"; "B I N K"; "B U N K"; and "B E N K B A N K B O N K." In the Skeleton Key, Campbell and Robinson suggest that these words represent the fall of Finnegan/HCE as he absorbs the verbal punches of the crowd, while that book's editor, Edmund L. Epstein, notes that the predominant interpretation of the words is that they represent the "midnight Angelus" and signal the changing power structure of the family. I like both interpretations.
Anyway, seeing as how this is the crowd's "last fight," and that they say, "We're been carried away," the crowd leaves it to "the three muskrateers" -- "Keyhoe, Danelly and Pykemhyme" -- to tell what happens next to HCE in his "Malincurred Mansion." This indicates that this chapter has been narrated by the patrons of the pub, and I think that's accurate on one level. The wrapping up takes up the majority of the final three pages of the chapter, and introduces HCE as "King Roderick O'Conor, the paramount chief polemarch and last preelectric king of Ireland." Notably, the historic Roderic O'Connor was indeed the last high king of Ireland, and his ineffectiveness resulted in Ireland's fall to Henry II's England. HCE/Roderick is not necessarily the last (i.e., the least) king of Ireland, the three men note. It's just that he was "the eminent king of all Ireland himself after the last preeminent king of all Ireland, the whilom joky old top that went before him in the Taharan dynasty, King Arth Mockmorrow Koughenough of the leathered leggions." Arth was a good king, who made sure that each poor man had a poached fowl in his pot. Roderick/HCE, now, finds himself "all alone by himself in his grand old handwedown pile" after his "unimportant" people/patrons left for "their castles of mud, as best they cud."
And "what do you think he did," the three men ask. We'll find out when we reach the chapter's conclusion tomorrow.
(377.14-379.17) The crowd continues to hurl insults at HCE, setting the scene of Isabel's wedding by noting that the "Mumblesome Wadding Murch" is "cranking up to the hornemoonium," along with further examples of "poetry wed music."
From the wedding scene, the crowd transitions to images of HCE's death and funeral. There's the "hearse and four horses" in which the "interprovincial crucifixioners" cast lots to determine which of the sons of the now Christ-like HCE they will adopt and how they'll let ALP know that "our myterbilder his fullen aslip." The four old men, again in the guise of the four authors of the Gospels (i.e., "Mr Justician Luk de Luc") are in attendance at the funeral/crucifixion procession as they await "a dathe with a swimminpull." "Isn't it great he is swaying above us for his good and ours," asks the crowd while envisaging HCE's dead corpse hanging above them. "Fly your baloons, dannies and dennises! He's doorknobs dead! And Annie Delap is free!"
The crowd now addresses the legend of HCE, both his Christ-like nature and his universality: "One fledge, one brood till hulm culms evurdyburdy." His name is found in the sound of the thunder and the flash of the lightning. He is, indeed, "The lewdningbluebolteredallucktruckalltraumconductor!" (most literally, "the lightning-blue-bolted electrical tram conductor," but this title also encompasses HCE's lewdness and the dream ("traum")-like nature of the Wake). Once again -- either through resurrection or through mistake of fact by the crowd earlier -- HCE is alive, yet dying -- "He's alight there still, by Mike!" -- yet the "playgue will soon be over." As an invader, HCE's language is different from that of the crowd: "You talker dunsker's brogue men we our souls speech obstruct hostery. Silence in thought! Spreach! Wear anartful of outer nocense!" This thought leads to talk of a letter before the crowd perhaps begins its final barrage: "Give him another for to volleyholleydoodlem! His lights not all out yet, the liverpooser!"
Today's passage highlights one of the limitations of my two-page per day method. This long paragraph is one discrete unit, and breaking it up dulls its overall effect. Nevertheless, I'll finish this paragraph tomorrow, and Tuesday will bring the chapter to its conclusion.
(375.13-377.14) The verbal onslaught from the assembled crowd outside of HCE's pub continues throughout today's reading. The description of HCE's trial continues, with the crowd explaining that even the judge will be bought by HCE's antagonists ("With His Honour Surpacker on the binge."). HCE's inevitable guilty verdict will cause him to have "loss of fame from Wimmegame's fake."
The focus of the crowd's attention soon turns toward HCE's family, with particular emphasis on his children. Regarding his sons, the crowd says, "You fought as how they'd never woxen up, did you, crucket?" This is the crowd saying that HCE never thought his sons would wake up -- or grow up (McHugh notes that "woxen up" stands in for the Danish "vokse op," which translates to "grow up") -- to supplant him. Now is their time, though. ALP will be featured in the papers, alongside HCE after the guilty verdict. She'll be reduced to "bribing the halfpricers to pray for her widower in his gravest embazzlement" (with HCE apparently being convicted of embezzlement in addition to the embarrassment in the park). Disgraced, HCE will be pictured wearing "stolen mace and anvil," while ALP will be "burrowed in Berkness cirrchus clouthses." Interestingly enough, the crowd mentions how one man -- "the fancy cutter" -- peeped on ALP, much like HCE: "Much as she was when the fancy cutter out collecting milestones espied her aseesaw on a fern. So nimb, he said, a dat of dew." HCE's not the only one guilty of his sin, then. He's just the only one being prosecuted for it (probably because of his outsider status).
The crowd goes on to talk about Isabel's eventual wedding day, at which the disgraced HCE will be "getting hoovier, a twelve stone hoovier, fullends a twelve stone hoovier." Drawing parallels between Isabel and the Irish stories of Diarmaid and Grania (with HCE as Finn), the crowd goes through the courtship process. On the wedding day -- while the groom's "in the greenhouse, gattling out his. Gun!" (or urinating) -- HCE seems to be persona non grata, standing outside without a way in. "Slip on your ropen collar and draw the noosebag on your head," says the crowd, implying that HCE might as well dress for his suicide rather than for his daughter's wedding. He can get in, though, if he would sneak around to the entrance "and come front sloomutren to beg in one of the shavers' sailorsuits."
The crowd's really going at HCE, and it looks like their insults will continue for another two days of reading.
(373.13-375.13) Maybe the patrons haven't gotten as far from the pub as I had thought last Tuesday. Alone in his establishment, HCE now receives a long (i.e., an almost four-pages long paragraph) diatribe that appears to be unleashed upon him by the assembled crowd (of patrons, presumably) outside. This verbal attack is a bit cacophonous and chaotic, but it seems to follow a general path.
"He shook be ashaped of hempselves, hiding that shepe in his goat," begins the crowd, attacking HCE's physical appearance by disparaging the hump on his back. They compare him to Richard III, chanting, "Heigh hohse, heigh hohse, our kindom for an orse!" (Could Joyce be channeling the Seven Dwarves' "Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to work we go" from the Disney film here? Snow White and the Seven Dwarves premiered in 1937, and the full version of the Wake wasn't published until May 1939. Hmm . . . .) HCE's sin in the park is brought up again ("Wholehunting the pairk on a methylogical mission"), as is HCE's mutable nature: "Lodenbroke the Longman, now he canseels under veerious persons but is always that Rorke relly!" (he's always Persse O'Reilly).
The crowd believes that HCE is fundamentally evil: "When you've bled till you're bone it crops out in your flesh. To tell how your mead of, mard, is made of." They threaten to tell HCE's story to a newspaper editor, who will print it with "[s]creamer caps and invented gommas, quoites puntlost, forced to farce!" "The pipette," HCE's supposed victim will "say anything at all for change," indicating that the crowd will pay her to elaborate on the facts. When the authorities begin to investigate him, they'll get a kitchen peeler to also testify falsely against him "wearing an illformation," which the crowd will be able to procure "dirt cheap at a sovereign a skull!"
As part of some type of early punishment, the crowd encourages HCE to mutilate himself: "Just press this cold brand against your brow for a mow. Cainfully! The sinus the curse. That's it." They produce more witnesses ("Greevy" and "Noordeece") before telling him that "it's all us rangers you'll be facing in the box before the twelfth correctional." HCE will go to trial, they say, and the scandal recounted in the courtroom will cause the ladies to "dye for the shame."
(371.11-373.12) Well, it looks like I was wrong yesterday when I said the customers had been cleared out of the pub. They're still there, and HCE was hearing the new version of Hosty's ballad over the noise of his drunken patrons. Hearing this song, he both recalls the original ballad and sees his life flash before his proverbial eyes (he "reromembered all the chubbs, chipps, chaffs, chuckinpucks and chayney chimebells That he had mistributed in port, pub, park, pantry and poultryhouse . . . "). The patrons, meanwhile, are occupied with finishing "the last dropes" of their drinks before they get locked in the pub for the night. HCE urges them to finish, but they protest, "clamatising for an extinsion of his hostillery."
Meanwhile, the sound of the ballad continues to creep toward the pub. Soon "those Mullinguard minstrelsers are marshalsing, par tunepiped road" near the spot of HCE's fall, where "that poor man of Lyones, good Dook Weltington, hugon come errindwards, had hircomed to the belles bows and been cutattrapped by the mausers." Finally, the patrons "all pour forth" and head out of the pub. Everyone's leaving, except for HCE: "Tuppeter Sowyer, the rouged engenerand, a battler of the beauyne." The patrons wave goodbye to the pub and move away after "they caught the wind abroad . . . all the rockers on the roads and all the boots in the stretes."
The song's verses appear in between these scenes and present another telling of the tale of HCE's fall, and we now see "hasty hosty" trailing the last patrons to leave the pub. The last two verses of his song detail HCE's fall and expulsion:
His bludgeon's bruk, his drum is tore.
For spuds we'll keep the hat he wore
And roll in clover on his clay
By wather parted from the say.
The gangstairs strain and anger's up
As Hoisty rares the can and cup
To speed the bogre's barque away
O'er wather parted from the say.
Unaccounted for until near the end of today's passage are the four old judges, who ended up pretty drunk: "The for eolders were aspolootly at their wetsend in the mailing waters, trying to. Hide! Seek! Hide! Seek!" The each sneak toward their respective destinations at the four points of the compass. In the end, HCE is finally alone: "Horkus chiefest ebblynuncies!"
(369.16-371.10) Ok, after dismal showings in the months of April and May, I'm here on June 1 having failed to meet my original goal of finishing the Wake in a year and, in fact, having another 40% or so of the book remaining. It's time to recommit myself (I know, I've said that before). The new plan (which I'm thinking is a conservative approach) is to have the book completed by the end of this year, which would mean that the blog would be more appropriately titled Twenty Months in the Wake. But we'll keep it the way it is.
Anyway, back to the text. We left off with the jurors present. During their time in the pub (and in the world), they've taken in a lot of rumors, gossip, and stories about HCE: "They had heard or had heard said or had heard said written." Once again, they recount some of the tales. One short account neatly summarizes HCE's fall: There was a king who came to a court, he fell in love, he became unmannerly ("last mannarks maketh man when wandshift winneth womans"), and stories are told about this "whoson of a which."
The next paragraph details the aftermath of the fall. ALP wrote a letter with "authorsagastions" from Shem. Isabel, "that Madges Tighe" and intended recipient of that letter ("the postulate auditressee"), was hoping that Shaun (the Postman and "Michal"/Mike) would deliver the letter to this now fatherless girl. HCE was missing in action at the homestead, for he was "feeling not up to scratch." He roamed about Dublin ("Dix Dearthy Dungbin") and "skittered his litters like the cavaliery man in Cobra Park for ungeborn yenkelmen." The accounts devolve into a cacophony of the jurors patting each other on their backs and wondering if "these remind to be sane?"
Nobody in the pub is a perfect angel, though. The patrons were all "in the same boat of yourselves too," and this very evening they've greedily drunken "the most diliskious of milisk" with "but dribble a drob" going down each man's "rothole." The narrator now names the twelve men who have been the audience/patrons for the chapter (in addition, I suppose, to the four judges and six jurors). I'll avoid typing out their names here, but they're prominently listed in the middle of page 370.
The drunken patrons now see the equally drunken HCE reappear as his head "subrises thus tous out of the rumpumplikin oak." This is both HCE standing up after being beneath the bar (was he getting something below, or had he passed out?) and HCE rising from his wooden casket. He now assumes the role of bouncer and tells everyone to leave: "Boumce!" Perhaps angered by the accusations and rumors, he refers to the patrons as devils and calls them "soulths of bauchees." He rinses the dirty glasses and yells that there's five more minutes left before it's time to "[s]hatten up ship!" Campbell and Robinson point out that this is the chapter coming full circle, with HCE's pub suddenly becoming an actual ship, much like the Norwegian Captain's.
With the patrons cleared out of the pub, HCE hears "from fard a piping." The piping is a song, which seems to be approaching the pub and is a new version of Hosty's "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly." This link is triggered by the line, "Ostia, lift it! Lift at it, Ostia! From the say! Away from the say!" Aside from "Ostia" being a version of "Hosty," the shout of the patrons outside the pub echoes the shout of the throng gathered to hear Hosty's ballad: "Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil ye!"
(367.20-369.15) Upon surveying the scene in the pub, HCE -- like the Norwegian Captain of his tale -- discovers "the residuance of a delugion: the foggy doze still going strong." The people of the pub, just like the people of Ireland in the story of the captain, are in a drunken haze that heightens their natural prejudices and biases against the invading HCE/captain. The four judges, in their "fourdimmansions," are among those drunkenly lost in the fog as they prepare to weigh in on the falsities and perverted truths surrounding HCE, or, in other words, the "[w]ringlings upon wronglings among incomputables about an uncomeoutable."
Guns now appear, threatening to bring the bullets' thunder upon any who do not respect the law. "Keep backwards, please, because there was no good to gundy running up again," the narrator warns. "Guns. And it was written up in big capital. Guns. Saying never underrupt greatgrandgosterfosters!" The judges set forth what amounts to their Ten Commandments (there might not be exactly ten, but close enough here), many of which have already been broken by HCE, as Campbell and Robinson note. Some of these cover theft ("Not to pad them behaunt in the fear." -- McHugh notes that "pad" is slang for "rob"), murder ("Not to go, tonnerwatter, and bungley well chute the rising gianerant."), and lusty behavior ("Never to weaken up in place of the broths."). These commandments set forth, the patrons join in song, first proclaiming how "the wisehight ones" have delivered to HCE "the punch of quaram on the mug of truth," and then chanting that if these "justicestjobbers" don't convict HCE, then "they'll find another faller."
The narrator goes on to describe the appearance and place of origin of the four judges (who at the beginning of today's passage were linked with the symbols of the four evangelists): (1) Matthew, "Squarish large face with the atlas jacket," "Gregorovitch" (Moscow); (2) Mark, "Brights, brownie eyes in bluesackin shoeings," "Leonocopolos" (Athens); (3) Luke, "Peaky booky nose over a lousiany shirt," "Tarpiacci" (Rome); and (4) John, "Ruddy stackle hair besides a strawcamel belt, "Duggelduggel" (Dublin). Like us, these four judges have been in the pub the entire time, "[a]ndoring the games, induring the studies, undaring the stories, end all" (McHugh notes that this last quote encompasses all of Book II of the Wake: the children's games of the first chapter, the children's studies of the second chapter, the stories of the current chapter, and the brief concluding summary of the fourth and final chapter).
The reading concludes with a listing of six jurors who are also present: Mr. G. B. W. Ashburner, Mr. Faixgood, Mr. I. I. Chattaway, Mr. Q. P. Dieudonney, Mr. T. T. Erchdeakin, and Mr. W. K. Ferris-Fender. These men are joined, of course, by HCE, "the tout that pumped the stout" that set this entire chapter in motion.
(365.15-367.19) As HCE's defense continues, he goes on the attack. "No mum has the rod to pud a stub to the lurch of amotion," he says (McHugh notes that this is an echo of a famous Parnell quote: "No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation."), indicating that human emotions (such as lust) cannot be checked, nor can the consequences of our actions. He was royally devoted to his "little love aprencisses, my dears, the estelles," but returned to ALP with "the colories fair fled from my folced cheeks!"
HCE now delivers the strongest part of his defense "Wickedgapers, I appeal against the light!" he says. "A nexistence of vividence!" There really is no concrete evidence of his alleged sin, just the word of the three soldiers who spied on him in the park. HCE turns toward one of those soldiers, addressing him as "me dare beautiful young soldier." HCE flatters the soldier a bit, and hints at offering him the hand of "my deepseep daughter" before challenging him to produce any evidence that HCE is "the catasthmatic old ruffin sippahsedly improctor to be seducint trovatellas, the dire daffy damedeaconesses." If the soldier can produce any evidence, then HCE will willingly appear before the crown prosecutors, as that will ensure this Caesar's downfall, making the day a new Ides of March, "a good dayle to be shattat."
HCE is now finished. "Here endeth chinchinatibus with have speak finish," the narrator says. Appearing next in this impromptu trial are the four old men, who each say something not immediately related to the proceedings. Maybe they're drunk, or maybe they really don't care much about HCE's plea. After all, the narrator says "threestory sorratelling was much too many." We will hear more from them in the next passage.
(363.17-365.15) After listening to the mocks and attacks of his patrons, HCE plays the better man, making a peace offering of sorts by shaking their hands and taking their leave before beginning his defense.
He immediately and clearly admits his guilt while asserting that it's both a happy (the "felix culpa") and common fault: "Guilty but fellows culpows!" He did see the two young women urinating in the park (terming their actions "trisspass through minxmingled hair"), and he acknowledges his ignoble origins ("I may have hawked it, said, and selled my how hot peas") and his questionable practices in the past ("I could have emptied a pan of backslop down drain by whiles of dodging a rere from the middenprivet appurenant thereof"). But he's not a bad man. He's just "[m]issaunderstaid."
HCE says that he dismisses those "who would bare whiteness against me" and that he has 22,000 supporters ready to mail "parchels' of presents for future branch offercings" on his behalf. He's a lustful man ("Want I put myself in their kirtlies I were ayearn to leap with them and show me too bisextine."), but as for his other faults, he has reformed himself according to ritual, righting himself in both the spiritual and civic senses: "I have abwaited me in a water of Elin and I have placed my reeds intectis before the Registower of the perception of tribute in the hall of the city of Analbe." And it's no big deal if ALP goes out cackling about HCE's faults "to abery ham in the Cutey Strict," because HCE will readily say "the warry warst against myself" and has "with gladdyst tone ahquickyessed" to his infidelities.
HCE is working himself into quite a lather, and his defense -- which comes in the form of a single paragraph that's more than three pages long -- will conclude tomorrow.
(361.17-363.16) Today's passage opens up with the continuation of "the dewfolded song of the naughtingels." The song describes the leaves of the trees, which are "full o'liefing" and "fell alaughing" over the Irish citizenry. They "leaved the most leavely of leaftimes and the most folliagenous" until HCE, "the marrer of mirth and the jangtherapper of all jocolarinas" came to Ireland. In effect, the song says, he wiped out any trace of joy from the country, for the leaves "were as were they never ere." But still, even in the face of the invader, we can still laugh like the leaves did while we're alive.
The song ended, the narrative shifts back toward the patrons of the pub. They ask HCE to stop his storytelling and refill their glasses, shouting, "Back to Droughty!" With their glasses full, they proceed to mock and attack HCE. They are unanimous, with their "roasted malts with toasted burleys," in "condomnation of his totomptation and for the duration till his repepulation." While they refer to HCE's sin in Phoenix Park in an aside -- "(to say nothing of him having done whatyouknow howyousaw whenyouheard whereyouwot . . .)" -- this particular attack is aimed closer to the proverbial bone, toward HCE's family and home life. Of HCE, they say that "he, that hun of a horde, is a finn." Of ALP, they say that "she, his tent wife, is a lap, at home on a steed, abroad by the fire."
Their attack now focuses on HCE's house. While the family's lodgings indicate that they are poor, they have hopes of rising in class: "Auspicably suspectable but in expectancy of respectableness." Here, on the second half of page 362, Joyce uses as his source material passages from B. Seebohm Rowntree's Poverty, A Study of Town Life, a 1902 investigative report on the life of the poor in England. In The Books at the Wake, James S. Atherton notes that Joyce's use of Rowntree's book is a prime example of Joyce using entire passages from another author's work but changing them in the slightest way to transform the material. Here, rather than the documentarian's objective presentation of the life of the poor, we get the taunter's mocks: "a sofa allbeit of hoarsehaar with Amodicum cloth, hired payono, still playing off, used by the youngsters for czurnying out oldstrums, three bedrooms upastairs, of which one with fireplace (aspectable), with greenhouse in prospect (particularly perspectable)."
The passage closes with the patrons asking HCE whether he always was as detestable as he is now. Once again, they throw the sin in the park in his face: "Why, hitch a cock eye, he was snapped on the sly upsadaisying coras pearls out of the pie when all the perts in princer street set up their tinker's humn . . . with them newnesboys pearcin screaming off their armsworths." Here, they claim that HCE was found out by the stealthy "Deductive Almayne Rogers," which name McHugh notes sounds just like "Old Man River." Finally, they mock HCE, wondering whether his children have been baptized and whether they can afford to pay the paperboy. The verdict? "He's their mark to foil the flouter and they certainly owe."
It looks like we get HCE's defense of these accusations tomorrow.
(359.21-361.17) The reading today begins with a two-word sentence/paragraph/line: "Group A." I don't see any Group B coming up, so what "Group A" is supposed to indicate is another Wake mystery, at least for me. Regardless, we learn in the next paragraph that we've "jest . . . beamed listening through . . . his haulted exceprt from John Whiston's fiveaxled production, The Coach With The Six Insides." This is another radio program. Perhaps it's referring to what we've just heard in the pub, or perhaps it's referring to something we haven't heard.
Another radio broadcast begins. It sounds like one to which we should be particularly attentive, since it's preceded by, "Attention! Stand at!! Ease!!!" This program is referred to as "the dewfolded song of the naughtingels": the dew-folded song of the nightingales, or the two-folded song of the naughty girls (those always-nearby two young women from the park). The song, which takes up the bulk of the remaining passage, is often sing-songy, sometimes beautiful, and (unsurprisingly) mostly obscure. It's rooted in the musical greats -- from "beethoken" to "badch" to "sweetmoztheart" -- and it deals with themes prominent throughout the Wake.
One interruption occurs in the middle of the song. It's some patrons of the pub noting that they recognize the radio presenter, "Roguenaar Loudbrags, that soddy old samph!" One of the patrons adds, "We knows his ventruquulence."
The song tells us that it's the "golden sickle's hour," in which we must reap the harvest of HCE after his fall and feast on this "enormanous his," this "Panchomaster," in imitation of the Eucharist. After this immigrant is made to feel comfortable in Ireland ("teach him twisters in tongue irish"), his fall is brought about by the two young women: "And move your tellabout. Not nice is that, limpet lady! Spose we try it promissly. Love all." HCE falls for their flirtations: "How a mans in his armor we nurses know. Wingown welly, pitty pretty Nelly! Some Poddy pitted in, will anny petty pullet out? Call Kitty Kelly! Kissykitty Killykelly! What a nossowl buzzard! But what a neats ung gels!"
(357.17-359.20) After confessing his relations with the two young women (or was he just talking about pictures in the book he's been reading?), HCE turns introspective. He talks of "idylly turmbing over the loose looves leaflets" of the book while sitting on the toilet and contemplating himself "wiz my naked I." In doing so, he gets the notion that "I am cadging hapsnots as at murmurrandoms of distend renations from ficsimilar phases or dugouts in the behindscenes of our earthwork." In other words, HCE gets the sense that what he's reading in the book, and what he's living in his own life, are repetitions or foreshadows of what has come and what will be. In other other words, this means that he has a sense of his place in Finnegans Wake.
This is a very dense and rich passage of the book, one that I can't really fully unpack at this point in this endeavor. Regardless, star this particular section as one that might be a key to the Wake. HCE goes on to say that the noise made by his children (the "loudest reports from my threespawn bottery parts") lets him know that, by virtue of the act of procreation, he has "remassmed me, my travellingself, as from Magellanic clouds, after my contractual expenditures, through the peroffices of merelimb." As a father, he has ensured his immortality, or at least his reincarnation. In this, he says, "I, my good grief, I am, I am big altoogooder." He is bigger than himself, and he is better than himself.
With this, HCE completes (or at least comes to a temporary stopping point in) the story of the Norwegian Captain, which he began early in this chapter (and which I started reading a couple of months ago . . . wow, I've gotten really slow at this reading Finnegans Wake thing). The captain arrives on the beach with his family to loud applause from the populace. They live happily ever after (or "winxed and wanxed like baillybeacons") until "we woksed up oldermen."
The final paragraph of today's reading consists of the people "disassembling and taking him apart," like a kind of reverse-Humpty Dumpty. The people here could be either the people of Ireland or the patrons of the pub (or both), and the "him" here could be either the Norwegian Captain or HCE (or both). This taking apart consists of (as McHugh notes) analyzing which of six heretical beliefs the Captain/HCE have dabbled in. These beliefs all, fittingly enough, deal with various analyses of humankind's means of salvation following Adam's fall. At the moment, it's unclear to me where this fits in with the chapter. I may not get an answer quite soon, because it looks like next up is another radio interruption.
(355.8-357.17) Today's reading fully sets aside the Butt-Taff dialogue and squarely situates us back in the pub. The patrons offer some commentary about the play, with one saying, "Shutmup," just before another adds, "And bud did down well right." The narrator notes the universality of the tale, because, after all, "the law's own libel lifts and lames the low with the lofty." Night (the curtains?) closes on the players, and they receive their reward: "After their battle thy fair bosom."
HCE -- "the lord of the seven days, overlord of sats and suns" -- now delivers an extended analysis of the play that he and his patrons have seen. It is "tootrue enough," he says. We are all wanderers in the wilderness ("nobbut wonterers in that chill childreness"), he adds, and then suggests the tale of the Russian General's fall is a metaphor for the "overthrew of each and ilkermann of us." The tale calls to mind the first riddle of the universe ("the farst wriggle from the ubivence"): "whereom is man, that old offender, nother man"? The answer given here is "wheile he is asame." So, a man is another man when he is the same (as the other man, one would presume). McHugh notes that this riddle recalls Shem's riddle from the Wake's seventh chapter, and this echo adds nice depth to both passages.
HCE's analysis now begins to really wander. He begins reminiscing about the meals of his youth before noting that he has lately been reading a suppressed book (perhaps Ulysses, or maybe even the Wake). He goes on to heap praise upon this story of "a timmersome townside upthecountrylifer." This thought is soon interrupted when his attention turns toward two figures "among others pleasons whom I love and which are favourests to mind." Anytime we see two people paired together in the Wake, we can safely bet we're reading about either the twins Shaun and Shem or the two young women from the park, and we quickly see that HCE's recalling those women again. Regarding one, he says that he has "pushed my finker in for the movement" and that she "is highly catatheristic." Regarding the other, he says that he has "fombly fongered [her] freequuntly" and that she "is deeply sagnificant." So, at least for now, HCE is admitting to having engaged in a "manual" form of intimate relations with these young women. Perhaps tomorrow we'll hear the reaction of the patrons (who are also HCE's judges) to this confession.
(353.6-355.7) Today concludes the Butt-Taff dialogue in nice Wakeian fashion. Butt, responding to Taff's previous sort of awe-inspired doubt about whether Butt actually did shoot the Russian General, says, "Yastar! In sabre tooth and sobre saviles!" He explains that he once again saw the general about to defecate on the Irish soil. He watched the general "beheaving up that sob of tunf for to slaimhis, for to wollpimsolff" (pulling up a piece of soil to both claim the land for his own and to wipe his backside), and, seeing this "instullt," he "gave one dobblenotch and I upps with my crozzier," shooting the general.
The final interruption to the Butt-Taff dialogue now appears. This interruption likens the shooting of the Russian General (or the son (Butt-Shaun) overtaking the father (the general-HCE)) to the "abnihilisation of the etym" -- the nuclear explosion generated by the annihilation of the atom, or the consciousness-shattering act of erasing the Word. The fallout of this action spreads across the continents, and Joyce prophetically (remember, the Wake was published in 1939) foresees "perceivable moletons skaping with mulicules" in London ("Pinkadindy," or Piccadilly) and Hawaii ("Hullulullu," or Honolulu) two sites of bombings during World War II.
Returning to the dialogue, Taff hears a noise upstairs and wonders what the commotion is ("Wharall thubulbs uptheaires! Shattamovick?"). The stage notes have Butt becoming faint upon hearing this noise, and he replies, "Shurenoff! Like Faun MacGhoul!" Apparently, the spirit -- or the reincarnation -- of the Russian General is back to haunt Butt.
At this point, Butt and Taff merge together. They shake hands and make peace between themselves. Speaking in unison, they recall the times when "old the wormd was a gadden" (or the times of Eden when all the world was a garden) when "samuraised twimbs" (Cain and Abel, or Shaun and Shem, or Butt and Taff) were born. With the reincarnation of the Russian General, the world has returned to that state. The general will "be buying buys and go gulling gells with his flossim and jessim of carm, silk and honey" while Butt and Taff are "playing lancifer lucifug and what's duff as a bettle." They will do so until the time to overthrow the "father" comes again: "So till butagain budly shoots thon rising germinal let bodley chow the fatt of his anger and badley bide the toil of his tubb."
The passage concludes with a final bit of stage notes, which indicate that "[t]he pump and pipe pingers are ideally reconstituted." We've returned to the beginning of Vico's cycle, and the viewers of the Butt-Taff play are left to figure out where things stand.
(351.5-353.5) Butt's defense continues in a very undefensive tone. Instead of lamenting or justifying his past actions, he revels in them. He looks back on those "hellscyown days for our fellows" and recalls how "our woos with the wenches went wined for a song" as their chaplain plied everyone with cigarettes. Butt's thoughts turn toward the prostitutes he encountered while a soldier. He "did not give one humpenny dump" for the cheaper prostitutes, the "thusengaged slavey generales of Tanah Kornalls, the meelisha's deelishas." Instead, he says, he frequented the high-class brothels, such as "my respectables soeurs assistershood off Lyndhurst Terrace, the puttih Misses Celana Dalems" (McHugh notes that Lyndhurst Terrace was a Hong Kong brothel area) and "His Herinesss, my respeaktoble medams culonelle on Mellay Street, Lightnints Gundhr Sawabs" (Malay Street, McHugh adds, was a Singapore brothel area).
This revelry went on until the Russian General ("his urrsian gemenal") appeared on the scene and stole the prostitutes' attentions: "and how they gave love to him and how he took the ward from us." "[M]y oreland for a rolvever," Butt declared, arming himself. "We insurrectioned," he says, "and, be the procuratress of the hory synnotts, before he could tell pullyirragun to parrylewis, I shuttm, missus, like a wide sleever! Hump to dump! Tumbleheaver!" So, Butt and his fellow soldiers revolted against the Russian General, and before he had a chance to pull his own gun, Butt shot him.
Taff, recognizing the dangerous nature of Butt, delivers praise for his counterpart's exploits. That praise, however, has hints of mockery: "Oholy rasher, I'm believer! And Oho bullyclaver of ye, bragadore-gunneral!"
Butt loves this slightly-mocking praise. "The buckbeshottered!" he shouts. "He'll umbozzle no more graves nor horne nor haunder . . . ."
Today's passage ends with Taff, a half-hearted sinner himself, expressing awe and slight disbelief that Butt did the deed: "In sobber sooth and in souber civiles? And to the dirtiment of the curtailment of his all of man? Notshoh?" Butt's response, and the conclusion of the Butt-Taff dialogue, will come in our next reading.
(349.6-351.5) The Butt-Taff dialogue is interrupted at the start of today's reading with the third televised diversion. In fact, this bit is even more explicitly televised, for McHugh notes that Joyce includes lots of language about the workings of early TV's (e.g., "scanning firespot" references the "scanning spot" of early models, which, McHugh explains in Joycean language, traversed "the picture in parallel lines slightly sloped"). The story "teleframe[d]" on the "bairboard bombardment screen" is the "charge of a light barricade," or the Charge of the Light Brigade.
Of note, this broadcast appears "following a fade of transformed Tuff and . . . a metenergic reglow of beaming Batt," indicating that the Butt-Taff dialogue could actually be televised (and that this is an interruption of that television program). For the moment, however, I'm reading it as a televised program that's interrupting the live action Butt-Taff play, which has been reflected up to this moment on the previously blank television screen that had displayed the mirrored images of Butt and Taff. We know that the images were mirrored because their names are types of mirrored (or distorted) images of themselves.
Amid the images depicting the Charge of the Light Brigade, we eventually see one figure who assumes prominence on the screen: "Popey O'Donoshough, the jesuneral of the russuates," or the Russian General. The Russian General, depicted with all the seals or medals of his uniform, makes a confession, which Campbell and Robinson and McHugh note corresponds with the Catholic sacrament of Last Rights (featuring the anointing of the eyes, nose, mouth, hands, and feet). Campbell and Robinson write that this indicates the Russian General's imminent death, and we learn that "[t]here will be a hen collection of him after avensung on the field of Hanar."
The narrative shifts back to the Butt-Taff dialogue, and all of my secondary sources point out that Butt now appears as an Oscar Wilde figure ("Mr Lhugewhite Cadderpollard with sunflawered beautonhole pulled up point blanck by mailbag mundaynism at Oldbally Court"). Butt announces to the courtroom crowd that he will now make a defense "in every circumstancias" of his "deboutcheries." He begins this defense by acknowledging that he's "had my billyfell" of the soldier's spoils of war. He and his fellow soldiers fought for "Father Petrie Spence of Parishmoslattary" and routed the heretical "huguenottes" and "allbegeneses." Overall, he enjoyed these campaigns, and he recalls "all the fun I had in that fanagan's week."
Butt's defense (which appears to take up more than two full pages of text) will continue tomorrow.
(347.34-349.5) Today's passage is a shorter one, thanks to the long passage I read yesterday. It also seemed a bit easier to get through, perhaps because today's passage was set up by yesterday's and lacks any interruptions.
Taff, after hearing Butt's account of his military history, lights a cigarette and asks whether Butt was an aide-de-camp. Butt, who is a bit drunk now (on account of the libation we saw him drinking before the interruption yesterday), doesn't answer Taff's question directly, but instead laments that he has "a boodle full of maimeries in me buzzim" (a bundle of memories -- or mammaries! -- in his bosom). Butt grows sentimental -- "medears runs sloze" -- as he laments "all them old boyars that's now boomaringing in wualholler, me alma marthyrs." He's remembering his lost compatriots, but he's also lamenting the Russians he defeated, for as McHugh notes, "boyars" was a rank of the Russian aristocracy. Butt drinks to these lost souls, these "bycorn spirits fuselaiding," even if that drink is condensed water with absinthe and vermouth.
Butt goes on to remember his associates, three soldiers named Cedric said Gormleyson, Danno O'Dunnochoo, and Conno O'Cannochar. These three -- who represent the three soldiers who witnessed HCE's sin in Phoenix Park -- were classmates of Butt at "Kong Gores Wood," which recalls Clongowes Wood College, which a young Joyce (and Stephen Dedalus in Portrait) attended. Butt and his three soldiers fraternized with "those khakireinettes, our miladies in their toileries, the twum plumyumnietcies," or the two young women in the park. Recalling these good ol' times, Butt shouts, "Hulp, hulp, huzzars! Raise ras tryracy! Freetime's free! Up Lancesters! Anathem!"
Hearing of the two temptresses, Taff (in the stage directions) recalls certain female spies who stole his wallet amid the bustle in Bakerloo Station. He in turn shouts, "The rib, the rib, the quean of oldbrydes, Sinya Sonyavitches!" He's on a misogynistic track, viewing the young women, and all daughters of Eve, as wily temptresses at best, and whores at worst. Butt says that these women are "raday to embrace our ruddy inflamtry world!" Infantry soldiers will mingle with these women until "they've kinks in their tringers and boils on their taws," or, in other words, until their genitalia is deformed by sexually transmitted diseases. Disgraced, these soldiers will face either court martial or gonorrhea.
(345.16-347.33) I went a bit longer than two full pages for today's reading in order to avoid breaking up the long paragraph that takes up most of page 347. The longer reading was a bit of a challenge, since the passage is a tougher one in which Butt and Taff's banter is broken up by another televised interruption. We start off with Taff giving some (perhaps mocking) encouragement to Butt by offering him a drink. (The stage directions hit that the drink is a Guinness ("another guidness"), but Taff's words indicate that the drink is some kind of liquor.) Butt takes the drink, which the stage directions treat as a form of the Roman Catholic communion rite, and remarks that it's like a "boeson fiend," meaning either (or both) a bosom friend or vile enemy.
The second televised interruption of the Butt and Taff routine now appears. This "teilweisioned" interruption narrates seemingly random events in Mullingar (which, notably, is where Mr. Bloom's daughter, Milly, is living and working during Ulysses). The topics covered include fashion and farming. The interruption ends with references to Buckley and the Russian General ("Burkeley's Show's a ructiongetherall") and Finnegan's wake and resurrection ("Phone for Phineal toomellow aftermorn and your phumeral's a roselixion.").
Taff resumes the play by once again attempting to turn the audience's attention back toward Butt's stroy. "Since you are on for versingrhetorish say your piece!" he says to Butt. "How Buccleuch shocked the rosing girnirilles." (This last bit could imply Buckley merging with HCE, since it could be read as Buckley shocking the rose girls, or the two young women in Phoenix Park.) Butt tells Taft to get out of the dumps ("And don't live out the sad of tearfs, piddyawhick!") before suggesting that he make a "rpnice pschange" of subject and discuss "whattinghim," or Butt's time under Wellington.
Butt eagerly complies with this last request. "As said as would," he says. He goes on to trace his time in the military. First, he discusses the year 1132, in which "on the plain of Khorason" he was in "the Reilly Oirish Krzerszonese Milesia" under "Sirdarthar Woolwichleagues." He kind of rambles on about his doings during this period of his life, such as his time in the "Crimealian wall samewhere in Ayerland" (the wall in Phoenix Park?) and the time when he (perhaps lustily) wept "over the freshprosts of Eastchept and the dangling garters of Marrowbone."
Eventually, Butt goes back to the story of the Russian General: "But Icantenue." Butt and his compatriots had taken off after the Russians. He formed a plan on how to evade their attack and then go on the offensive. The plan is apparently successful, and Butt soon has the Russians "orussheying and patronning, out all over Crummwiliam wall." He ends today's passage saying "why it was me who . . . " but breaks off this thought by laughing: "haw haw."
(343.13-345.15) After adjusting his coat in the beginning of today's passage, Butt resumes his story. In response to Taff's request that he admit his involvement in the shooting of the Russian General, Butt says, "I don't think I did not, pojr." He then proceeds to discuss his involvement. Butt followed the General for a bit, then noticed that he seemed to be searching for a place to defecate: "he was . . . lyoking for a stooleazy for to nemesisplotsch allafranka and for to salubrate himself with an ultradungs heavenly mass." Here, Joyce is close to his maximum sacrilegious level, as the General could easily be preparing to defecate or preparing to recite prayers. Regardless, after observing the General, Butt could no longer bear the sight, and was "bibbering with vear."
Taff, as could be expected, has little sympathy for Butt's plight. He mocks his counterpart, saying, "Weepon, weeponder, song of sorrowman!" Disgusted with Butt's cowering conduct, Taff strikes him, saying, "Take the cawraidd's blow! Yia! Your partridge's last!"
Butt, "in acknuckledownedgment of this cumulikick" (as explained in the stage directions), drops down to his knees. His uniform suddenly changes, as does his bodily appearance. According to the stage directions, "his face glows green, his hair greys white, his bleyes bcome broon to suite his cultic twalette." In this state of agony, Butt explains that, while continuing to observe the General, it seemed as if the General was "recovering breadth from some herdsquatters beyond the carcasses." Perhaps this means that the General was finishing up, but when Butt got a better view under the "veereyed lights of the stormtrooping clouds," it was clear that the General was still in mid-defecation. It was too much for Butt, who wanted to shoot the General, but "adn't the arts to."
Once again, Taff mocks Butt, saying, "You hidn't the hurts? Vott Fonn!"
At this point, an interesting stage direction appears as Butt is beginning to speak again. We read that Butt hears "somrother sudly give twothree peevish sniff snuff snoores like govalise falseleep" and that Butt "waitawhishts to see might he stirs." On one level, this means that at this point in the play (and this supports my "live action" theory), one of the patrons in the pub has fallen asleep and begun to snore. The actor playing Butt waits a moment to see if the patron is going to wake up before he proceeds. In the Skeleton Key, Campbell and Robinson go to another level in their analysis. They propose that this is Butt hearing HCE snoring as he is dreaming the Wake. This would mean that HCE is dangerously close at this point to waking himself up and causing the book to end prematurely.
Fortunately for us, HCE doesn't wake up, and the narrative continues. Today's reading concludes with Butt bemoaning the fact that he was too late in trying to shoot the General. "My fate!" he says. "O hate! Fairwail! Fearwealing of the groan!" If he had caught the General pre-defecation, Butt might've taken his shot. But we do know that the General eventually is shot, so we'll continue to read on to see what happens.
