"her chastener ever"

(552.35-554.10)  And so we've reached the end of this long (81-page) chapter, which began with Shaun, newly departed from Isabel and her 28 classmates, slumped on a hill, and ends with the voice of HCE proclaiming his triumphs through Shaun to the four old men, who became four young chaps along the way.

The final paragraph of HCE's address begins with blessings falling down on those assembled in St. Patrick's cathedral like wintry percipitation ("wholehail, snaeffell, dreardrizzle or sleetshowers of blessing").  After his architectural deeds, HCE set about educating ALP, spreading before her the seven wonders of the world, both in their classical form (for example, "chopes pyramidous and mousselimes and beaconphires," which, McHugh notes, stand for Cheops' Pyramid, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and the Lighthouse at Alexandria) and in the form of statues of great figures from Irish and English history (for example, "the Pardonell of Maynooth" for Parnell and "Nielsen, rare admirable" for Admiral Nelson).

HCE planted "a quickset vineyard" for his "own hot lisbing lass," which is another form of Phoenix Park, "a Queen's garden of her phoenix."  He also brewed beer for his pub.  The final benefit he bestowed upon ALP and Dublin involved transportation.  He laid down paved roads, upon which a variety of horses trod, including "claudesdales withe arabinstreeds," "madridden mustangs," and "buckarestive bronchos."  Rickshaws, taxis, and sedans also transported the people along these roads, and smaller horses seemed to dance along the roads for ALP's pleasure.  HCE concludes that "she lalaughed in her diddydid domino to the switcheries of the whip."  "Down with them!" ALP would shout.  "Kick!  Playup!"

The third chapter of Book III of the Wake concludes with a line in which HCE's voice echoes ALP's laughter and acknowledges the four young chaps/old men who have been interrogating Shaun through its course:  "Mattahah!  Marahah!  Luahah!  Joahanahanahana!"  These final laughs conceal a deeper emotion, though, for as McHugh notes, "hana" is Czech for "shame."  

"hereround is't holied!"

(550.8-552.34)  I tackled a slightly longer passage (well, three-quarters of a page extra) for today's reading -- the penultimate reading of this third chapter in the third Book of the Wake -- in order to cover the full penultimate paragraph of HCE's address (through Shaun) to the four young chaps.  It's a dense one and took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but taking the extra time today (and shortening length of tomorrow's reading) was worth the benefit of what I guess I could call "narrative coherency."

Anyway, after ALP became a jewel in the eyes of the patrons of HCE's pub, HCE fed her "spiceries for her garbage breath."  These include spices, of course, but also nuts, vegetables, meats, sweets, and coffee.  HCE says that it was all "food convenient herfor, to pass them into earth" (maybe good food for the digestive system?).  He also gave her powder and oils for her skin, as well as a variety of grooming devices (which seem geared toward her genital areas, including "clubmoss and wolvesfoot for her more moister wards").  Within their home hung hand-painted portraits of Dublin (and world) elite, particularly the city's "lewd mayers and our lairdie meiresses."  ALP would show off her legs dancing the "bloodanoobs" (the Blue Danube) while HCE, "the lumpty thumpty of our interloopings" (remember, he's Humpty Dumpty), "fell clocksure off my ballast."  As she stood in her underwear before her window, the men outside "admired her in camises." This thought prompts HCE to speculate that he could've been a great designer of women's lingerie, noting that "were I our pantocreator would theirs be tights for the gods."

But HCE's good intentions weren't entirely focused upon ALP.  He explains that "I said to the shiftless prostitute, let me be our fodder; and to rodies and prater brothers; Chau, Camerade!"  He brought about improvements to the city so that "all be made alive."  He made an outhouse ("an erdcloset with showne ejector") for ALP, universities for the students, terminals for the travelers, and Catholic and Protestant cathedrals ("twinminsters, the pro and the con") for the faithful.  He also "pushed," or inspired, a number of architects and city planners that he goes on to name.

Finally (or, "thirdly"), he "did reform and restore for my smuggy piggiesknees, my sweet coolocked, my auburn coyquailing one" St. Patrick's Cathedral ("her paddyplace on the crossknoll with massgo bell").  A joyful noise rang inside this central church, and all proclaimed, "May all have mossyhonours!" (or, may the lord have mercy on us).  To this, the four young chaps each shout, "Hoke!" (as McHugh notes, "hail!" in German).

"peace, perfect peace"

(548.19-550.7)  Today, HCE continues the narrative of his life with ALP.  Following their wedding, he outfitted her with fine, name-brand clothing, jewelry, and undergarments (e.g., "trancepearances such as women cattle bare and peltries piled, the peak of Pim's and Slyne's and Sparrow's, loomends day lumineused luxories on looks" and a necklace of "shells of moyles marine to swing their saysangs in her silents").  Candles were lit to light the streets, and peace and plenty came to the country:  "for days there was no night for nights were days and our folk had rest from Blackheathen and the pagans from the prince of pacis:  what was trembling sod quaked no more, what were frozen loins were stirred and lived."  Even time itself appeared to cease its gloomy march, as the days and months lost their negativity:  "gone the septuor, dark deadly dismal doleful desolate dreadful desperate, no more the tolvmaans, bloody gloomy hideous fearful furious alarming terrible mournful sorrowful frightful appaling."  Instead, there was "peace, perfect peace."

HCE bottled up the sea water and served it in his pub.  He settled in Dublin, he says, with "the little crither of my hearth."  He fed her generously with both knowledge and food, and she drew the praise of HCE's patrons.  The passage ends with an interruption from the four young chaps, who begrudgingly give HCE some credit as one notes that the "S.S. Paudraic's in the harbour," perhaps indicating that it's nearly time for our ship to sail (which makes sense, since there's less than five pages left in this chapter).

"malestream in shegulf"

(546.29-548.19)  In today's reading, HCE makes an abrupt change in subject matter.  He shifts from himself to his wife, here referred to by what might be termed her "maiden" name, Fulvia Fluvia.  He trusts in her honor.  If she had turned her back on her ways and traveled uphill in search of lovers, or if she had been seduced by the words of "prolling bywaymen," there would be reason to investigate her.  But "it was vastly otherwise," HCE says.  She "ever did ensue tillstead the things that pertained unto fairnesse."  And even when she did not fawn on him, he "waged love on her:  and spoiled her undines" (spoiled her undying-ly, or soiled her undies).  

HCE then retraces how his relationship with ALP blossomed.  He admits that he was firm with her and jealously guarded her from the world.  He took her overland and settled in Dublin.  There, he says, he "knew her fleshly when with all my bawdy did I her whorship, min bryllupswibe" (he both worshiped her body and, like a bawd, treated her whorishly).  The two became one, "malestream in shegulf."  He marked her as his own forever, and married her (with "Impress of Asias" and "Queen Columbia" as her bridesmaids).  He gave her a name "to carry till her grave":  "my durdin dearly, Appia Lippia Pluviabilla."  At the conclusion of today's reading (which ends in mid-paragraph, since the one I'm in the midst of spans almost three full pages), he adds, "I did umgyrdle her about, my vermincelly vinagerette, with all loving kindness as far as in man's might it lay and enfranchised her to liberties of fringes."

"as respectable as respectable can respectably be"

(544.27-546.28)  Today's passage picks up with HCE's descriptions of those who lived in his Dublin, such as the "harmless imbecile supposingly weakminded" and the "lieabed sons [who] go out with sisters immediately after dark."  Joyce identifies the source material for his parody when he has HCE state, "[C]alories exclusively from Rowntrees and dumplings."  The land upon which these "villeins" reside is given by HCE to "the men of Tolbris, a city of Tolbris."  The secondary sources note that this deed language parodies the language used by Henry II (here, HCE signs the deed as "Enwreak us wrecks") to give Dublin to the citizens of Bristol.  (HCE also bequeaths his vouchers, knife, and snuff box.)

Surveying his life, HCE says that he has "looked upon my pumpadears in their easancies" (the two young women) and that his "drummers have tattled tall tales of me in the land" (the drummers are the three soldiers appearing once again).  He was a magnanimous and steady lawgiver who revolutionized the land with his "eructions" (both eruptions and erections).  The king thanked him for his work and gave him a nickname that "is second fiddler to nomen."  (This, of course, goes way back to the second chapter of the Wake, in which the king gives HCE the name "Earwicker.")  HCE also earned a coat of arms that features "two young frisch" that are "devioled of their habiliments" (emblematic of the two young women) and "a terce of lanciers" (emblematic of the three soldiers) and bears the motto "Hery Crass Evohodie" (translated by McHugh to "Yesterday tomorrow today").  HCE concludes this portion of his address by saying that the elders wonder about HCE's origins, including whether he was the product of forced group marriage, or carried from the sky by a swarm of locusts, but HCE suggests that he might be all these things simultaneously. 

"haunted, condemned and execrated, of dubious respectability"

(542.12-544.27)  HCE continues to list his accomplishments in today's reading, but, curiously enough, as the listing goes on, a few dents appear in his recently-donned armor.  His language also becomes more obscure, or at least susceptible to double-meaning.  For instance, he says that "in Forum Foster I demonsthrenated my folksfiendship, enmy pupuls felt my burk was no worse than their brite."  Was he a generous friend or an avenging enemy to the people of Dublin?  Still, it's clear that he delivered food to the people ("I gave bax of biscums to the jacobeaters and pottage bakes to the esausted") and succor to the weary ("In the humanity of my heart I sent out heyweywomen to refresh the ballwearied").  His "great great greatest of these charities" was improving the moral life of the people:  he "devaluerised the base fellows for the curtailment of their lower man."  He replicated his success abroad ("I ran up a score and four of mes while the Yanks were huckling the Empire" -- McHugh notes that this refers to the saying that there are 24 places named Dublin in the U.S.), and he has received "omominous letters and widely-signed petitions full of pieces of pottery about my monumentalness as a thingabolls."  

His address to the four young chaps takes a marked turn when he begins to describe the population that he has uplifted (in what Tindall, as well as Campbell and Robinson, refers to as tenancy ads).  This takes the form of an extended parody of the third edition of Seebohm Rowntree's Poverty:  A Study of Town Life (as noted by McHugh in his Annotations and discussed at some length by Atherton in his The Books at the Wake).  Rowntree detailed the life of the impoverished in England during Joyce's youth, and Joyce in turn, details the eccentricities of the "bonders and foeburghers, helots and zelots, strutting oges and swaggering macks, the darsy jeamses, the drury joneses, redmaids and bleucotts, . . . all who have received tickets" in the Wake.  This passage, which is fairly entertaining, is straightforward and carries into tomorrow's reading.  It generally indicates that life in Dublin isn't as great as HCE has suggested it is.  There's a "house lost in dirt and blocked with refuse, getting on like Roe's distillery on fire," a "floor dangerous for unaccompanied old clergymen," and a place which has "nearest watertap two hundred yards' run away," among other disadvantages, alternately amusing and tragic.

"New highs for all!"

(540.13-542.12)  "Things are not as they were," says HCE at the beginning of today's reading, picking up where he left off in yesterday's reading in describing the changes to Dublin since his arrival.  "Let me briefly survey," he says, but it's not entirely 100 percent accurate to call his survey a brief one, since it looks like it will last for a couple of days' worth of readings for me.

HCE covers a number of subject areas related to the city which rests, as he says, "[o]n me, your sleeping giant."  The town is virtually free from crime, with "[b]laublaze devilbobs gone," "hairtrigger nicks . . . quite out of time," and "[t]huggeries . . . reere as glovars' metins."  The ladies, HCE says, can go out freely in the middle of day and later play hide-and-seek in the park.  Architecturally, the "spearing spires" of his "wellworth building" soar amid the town's seven hills.  A thriving economy has developed, and HCE has met all invaders "pepst to papst."  For the "sleeking beauties" he has "spinned their nightinveils," and dulcet sounds arise from the landscape.  Potatoes and berries are plentiful, and he collects clean rainwater in his "bathtub of roundwood" and conveys it "with cheers and cables, roaring mighty shouts, through my longertubes of elm."  At the end of today's passage, HCE notes that he has provided tramcars for the suburbanites and tea for the recovering alcoholics.

"Ous of their freiung pfann into myne foyer."

(538.18-540.12)  As HCE continues to address the four young chaps through Shaun, he starts to sound less defensive and begins to engage in some self-promotion.  Momentarily returning to the allegations that he addressed yesterday, he laughs them off:  "My herrings!  The surdity of it!  Amean to say.  Her bare idears, it is choochoo chucklesome.  Absurd bargain, mum, will call."  As for the two young women in the park, he says that even if he were their "covin guardient," he wouldn't know what to do with them.  He suggests that the three soldiers who reported him (here each is called "Deucollion" in turn, making them rascally testicles) were just out to get him and offered trumped up charges.  "What a shrubbery trick to play!" he says.

HCE is willing to swear to his "unclothed virtue" by the Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park ("the longstone erectheion of our allfirst manhere").  He's a cultured man, he says, always thinking "in a wordworth's of that primed favourite continental poet, Daunty, Gouty and Shopkeeper, A.G." (Dante, Goethe, and Shakespeare).  He says that he has "had my best master's lessons" and is "doing my dids bits and have made of my prudentials good."  Admitting to some humility, he asks, "Have I said ogso how I abhor myself vastly (truth to tell) and do repent to my netherheart of suntry clothing?"

The "amusin part" of it all, HCE says, is how much better off Ireland is since he arrived "over the deep drowner Athacleeath to seek again Irrlanding, shamed in mind."  He brought his "imperial standard" and established a residence, then -- ever the man of the people -- set up his pub for rough men and average women.  The city was once a "hole of Serbonian bog," but now is a "city of magnificent distances."  HCE ruled with a sword and staff under the patronage of popes ("Urban First"), emperors ("Champaign Chollyman"), and kings ("Hungry the Loaved and Hangry the Hathed").  Famine and epdemics -- "the two-toothed dragon worms with allsort serpents" -- have completely vanished, and "notorious naughty livers are found not on our rolls."  After championing the country's natural beauty, HCE concludes this portion of his statement by saying, "Give heed!"  The four young chaps each give heed in turn, urging listeners to visit the Dublin suburb of Drumcondra.

"The elephant's house is his castle."

(536.28-538.17)  While HCE says that "I have bared my whole past," he continues his defense in today's reading.  He's willing to go to court to clear his name, and he has plans to be baptized and converted "into a selt" so that he can "westerneyes" England.

HCE devotes a fair amount of time to defending himself against a charge that I don't remember being brought yet.  He says that he denies having partnered with his friend, Mr Billups, to purchase a slave, "Blanchette Brewster from Cherna Djamja, Blawland-via-Brigstow," or to sell a share in her.  Immediately following this assertion, he turns back to Kate's recent statement, in which she spoke of HCE's interest in her.  "Thou, Frick's Flame, Uden Sulfer, who strikest only on the marryd bokks, enquick me if so be I did cophetuise milady's maid!" he says.  To do so would be ridiculous, he goes on, adding, "Such wear a frillick for my comic strip, Mons Meg's Monthly, comes out aich Fanagan's Weck, to bray at by clownsillies in Donkeybrook Fair."  (I would like to read HCE's comic strip.)

The "tradefully unintristid" HCE almost seems to protest too much.  "Inprobable!" he later continues.  "I do not credit one word of it from such and suchess mistraversers.  Just feathers!  Nanenities!"  To do the things he's been accused of would be like contracting a sexually transmitted disease, he says.  He wouldn't do it for any price.  "So hemp me Cash!" he concludes at the end of today's reading.  "I meanit."

"Flap, my Larrybird!"

(534.7-536.27)  "Calm has entered," begins HCE in today's reading, indicating that the interruptions at the end of yesterday's passage have ceased (at least momentarily).  He says that "there is luttrelly not one teaspoonspill of evidence at bottomlie to my babad, as you shall see."  Not only is he certain of his innocence, but he has also retained a law firm (which has a reach over all four corners of the globe), "Misrs Norris, Southby, Yates and Weston, Inc," to warn against publication of libel regarding HCE.

The root of HCE's problems is none other than the "caca cad."  "Strangler of soffiacated green parrots!" HCE calls him.  "I protest it that he is, by my wipehalf."  Sherlock is looking for the Cad, of whom HCE says, "Let me never see his waddphez again!"  Before all this happened, HCE was in a lofty position and set to present the keys to the city to "Majuscules, His Magnus Maggerstick."  But now, because of this "[f]irst liar in Londsend," HCE is reduced to "[l]owest basemeant in hystry!"  

The four young chaps chime in briefly again (with one thinking that HCE's voice is that of "Whitehed," which, McHugh notes, is an alias of Finn MacCool).  HCE's voice resumes, as "Old Whitehowth," who has "lived true thousand hells."  Here, HCE seems to merge with Oscar Wilde ("poor O.W. in this profundust snobbing").  "I askt you, dear lady, to judge on my tree by our fruits," the voice says.  "I gave you two smells, three eats.  My freeandies, my celeberrimates:  my happy bossoms, my allfalling fruits of my boom.  Pity poor Haveth Childers Everywhere with Mudder!"  In the next paragraph, the voice identifies O.W./Haveth Childers Everywhere as "Communicator, a former colonel."  Another "disincarnated spirit," Sebastion, also seeks to "fernspreak shortly with messuages from my deadported," but HCE suggests that they "make an appunkment for a future date" to hear from him.  Most of the remainder of the passage seems dedicated to reporting on the state of Wilde/HCE in the afterlife.  He enjoys smoking and having "his glad stein of our zober beerbest in Oscarshal's winetavern," and HCE adds, "The boyce voyce is still flautish and his mounth still wears that soldier's scarlet though the flaxfloyeds are peppered with salsedine."  HCE may tell his/Wilde's "second storey" one day, but for now, he says, it "looks like someone other bearing my burdens," something which he can't allow.

"Here we are again!"

(532.6-534.6)  The voice of HCE has returned (through his son, Shaun).  His time away has not necessarily humbled him, for he claims that he's known throughout the world, wherever English is spoken, as a clean-living man.  In fact, he says, "I think how our public at large appreciates it most highly from me that I am as cleanliving as could be and that my game was a fair average since I perpetually kept my ouija ouija wicket up."  

The bulk of his statement in today's passage consists of a defense of his life.  He "never was nor can afford to be guilty of crim crig con of malfeasance trespass against parson with the person of a youthful gigirl frifrif friend."  To do so would be bad for business.  He compliments ALP, "the ripest littlums wifukie around the globelettes globes" and praises her small feet.  To corroborate his testimony, he offers proof from "our private chaplain of Lambeyth and Dolekey, bishop-regionary," who knows the couple well.

As HCE's initial words draw to a close, his monologue is interrupted or distorted by interference from a radio station.  The broadcast gives prices for hogs, for instance, and ends with a typical sign-off:  "Thnkyou!  Thatll beall fortody.  Cal it off.  Godnotch, vrybioly.  End a muddy crushmess!  Abbreciades anew York gustoms.  Kyow!  Tak."  The four young chaps close today's reading with a few offhand remarks, serving as a momentary interlude before HCE resumes his defense in tomorrow's reading.

"Fuddling fun for Fullacan's sake!"

(530.23-532.5)  We only get a little bit of information from Sackerson, as channeled by Shaun.  In two lines of verse (which, McHugh notes, roughly quote Ibsen in his native tongue), Sackerson tells us that HCE has flooded the world and that he will torpedo HCE's ark with pleasure.  One of the four young chaps laments HCE's lechery:  "With her shoes upon his shoulders, 'twas most trying to beholders when he upped their frullatullepleats with our warning."  He goes on to call HCE a "disgrace to the homely protestant religion!"  Another of the young chaps wonders, "And it's we's to pray for Bigmesser's conversions?"  He calls Kate -- here, "Kitty the Beads" -- hoping for more information.  "She's deep, that one," he notes.

Kate (speaking here through Shaun, of course) begins her entertaining testimony by calling for prayers for HCE, whose death she mourns:  "Master's gunne he warrs the bedst."  She then proceeds to describe her activities in the Earwicker household.  These descriptions take on double meanings (of course, it's the Wake, after all):  In one sense she describes the cooking she did for the family, but in another she describes the work she did to make HCE hot.  For instance, she "messaged his dilltoyds sausepander mussels on the kisschen table."  This could be her preparing mussels for cooking, or it could be her massaging HCE's muscles.  Regardless, Kate says that he "sizzled there watching" her.  In the third part of her testimony, she describes doing the can-can for HCE, "showing my jiggoty sleeves and all my new toulong touloosies."  "Whisk!" says Kate, imitating (as McHugh notes) the sound of her dress lifting as she danced.  "There's me shims and here's me hams and this is me juppettes, gause be the meter!  Whisk!  What's this?  Whisk!  And that?"  In summing up, Kate calls her dancing "[f]uddling fun for Fullacan's sake!"

"All halt!" shouts one of the young chaps, upset with the way in which the examination has proceeded.  "Sponsor programme and close down.  That's enough, genral, of finicking about Finnegan and fiddling with his faddles."  He calls for a final ballot to remove all doubt.  This means that he wants HCE, the ultimate authority, to testify.  "Search ye the Finn!" calls the young chap, ordering HCE to be produced for examination.  "The sinder's under shriving sheet.  Fa Fe Fi Fo Fum!  Ho, croak, evildoer!  Arise, sir ghostus!"  Excitement permeates the air as we prepare to once again hear HCE's voice tomorrow.

"the brandnew braintrust"

(528.14-530.22)  We begin today with one of the old men (identified by McHugh as Mark) wrapping up the passage involving Isabel.  He compares her to the Virgin Mary, tracing her life through Vico's stages:  "Think of a maiden, Presentacion.  [Youth]  Double her, Annupciacion.  [Marriage]  Take your first thoughts away from her, Immacolacion.  [Death]"  Isabel will be ever shining, yet the old man suggests that she should be hidden or cloistered away, or at least veiled.

The remainder of today's reading consists of a long interruption of sorts by Matthew (as identified by McHugh, which makes sense because he refers to the other three old men near the beginning of his speech).  "Jump the railchairs or take them, as you pleace, but and, sir, my queskins first, foxyjack!" says Matthew, asking for a chance to examine the witness.  Before he gets to his list of questions, though, a type of shift occurs.  The four old men morph into four "bright young chaps of the brandnew braintrust," and the questioning takes on a slightly different, seemingly more inquisitive, tone.  His questions are rather lengthy and come at a rapid-fire pace, giving Shaun no chance to reply.  First, he wonders about the story behind the two young women, here identified as "Misses Mirtha and Merry, the two dreeper's assistents."  Were they on the up-and-up, having their papers signed by their previous employer?  And how, Matthew asks, did HCE (here called "O'Bejorumsen or Mockmacmahonitch," indicating his foreignness) find himself running a pub ("come into the awful position of the barrel of bellywash")?  Where were the three soldiers ("the doughboys, three by nombres, won in ziel") -- who, incidentally, he says were acting "contrary to military rules" -- when they happened upon HCE?  Is it true that HCE is co-owner of a circus (to which Matthew will be taking his children when the tickets are half-price) and that he ("the shamshemshowman") sought assistance from the police when he claimed he was being molested by women in the city?  And, finally, did HCE send his son to get a jar of porter to give ALP while HCE caroused around town?

With these (and a few other) questions rattled off, Matthew calls for Sackerson, who "reported on the whole hoodlum," to testify.

"Woman will water the wild world over."

(526.16-528.13)  After hearing Shaun's song about the trinity formed by him, Shem, and their shame, one of the old men likens that trinity to the three soldiers and wonders where the two "jinnyjos" fit in.  A voice, which seems to be John's (it is answering an address to "Walker John Referent") but could be Shaun's (as Yawn/John have been merging, or close to merging, in recent pages) answers that HCE was "larking in the trefoll of the furry glans with two stripping baremaids, Stilla Underwood and Moth MacGarry."  But now a third girl comes into the scene.  This girl "was that one that was always mad gone on him."  She rests by the river "making faces at her bachspilled likeness in the brook after and cooling herself in the element, she pleasing it, she praising it."  One of the old men believes that this girl could be Isabel:  "It seems to same with Iscappellas?  Ys?  Gotellus!  A tickey for tie taughts!"

This girl must be Isabel, for Shaun now channels the voice of his sister for another somewhat-extended monologue that is delivered in her voice.  The monologue is primarily addressed to her reflection in the river -- "meme mearest" -- but at times it seems to be delivered to her lover (who himself sometimes bears similarities to her father, HCE ("dare all grandpassia"), who is gone but was "so pleasing at Strip Teasy up the stairs").  Much of the monologue is devoted to Isabel complimenting herself:  her skin ("a perfect apposition with the coldcream"), her hair ("Could I but pass my hands some, my hands through, thine hair!"), and her hands ("Chic hands."), among other things.  She adores her lover, and she goes on to speak about the time "when I turned his head on his same manly bust and kissed him more."  She's afraid that he might kiss and tell, but she and her reflection will keep the story "a glorious lie between us" so that "not a novene in all the convent loretos, not my littlest one of all, for mercy's sake need ever know, what passed our lips or."

Isabel proceeds to imagine her wedding ceremony, which "will all take bloss as oranged at St Audiens rosan chocolate chapelry."  After picturing the wedding mass, her reflection begins to fade.  "And listen, you, you beauty, esster, I'll be clue to who knows you, pray Magda, Marthe with Luz and Joan, while I lie with warm lisp on the Tolka," she says at the end of her monologue, just as the reflection finally fades completely ("I'm fay!").

"You are taxing us into the driven future"

(524.22-526.15)  Today's reading begins with Tom's voice finishing his brief monologue.  He picks up on Coppinger's image of 12 fish in a "cunifarm school of herring" swimming along, "[b]utting, charging, bracing, backing, springing, shrinking, swaying, darting, shooting, bucking and sprinkling their dossies sodouscheock with the twinx of their taylz" (McHugh notes that these fishy actions correspond with the 12 zodiac signs, which I think is pretty cool) on their way to "a libidous pickpuckparty."  This, Tom says, is how Coppinger "visualises the hidebound homelies of creed crux ethics."  Hmm.

The old men begin to argue about this monologue.  One suggests that Shaun, channeling Tom, is an "absexed" heretic.  Another has trouble following this "otherwise accurate account" and asks what kind of fish was involved and wonders whether Shaun is "taxing us into the driven future."  One of them makes the connection between the fish and "Parasol Irelly" (HCE, aka Persse O'Reilly), the father of nations who spawns "ova and fry like a marrye monach all amanygoround his seven parish churches."  This prompts Shaun, now as Hosty, to compose a new verse about the fishy HCE/O'Reilly, which focuses on his lechery:

There's an old psalmsobbin lax salmoner fogeyboren Herrin Plundehowse.
Who went floundering with his boatloads of spermin spunk about.
Leaping freck after every tom and wet lissy between Howth and Humbermouth.
Our Human Conger Eel!

After the verse is sung, the old men see HCE and try to catch him in a fishnet.  He gets away, having "skid like a skate and berthed on her byrnie," but one of the old men says "never a fear," for eventually HCE will be caught, "slitheryscales on liffeybank," when he washes ashore from "the bubblye waters of, babblyebubblye waters of" (language recalling the memorable end of the Wake's first Book) the Liffey and sleeps on the sand.

But, one of the old men asks, could the two fishermen (one on each side of the bank) coexist without "their tertium quid" (third part)?  Shaun answers this question with another verse, indicating the manner in which he and his brother, Shem, form a unified, trinitarian whole via the aid of that third part (another form, or effect, of HCE):

Three in one, one and three.
Shem and Shaun and the shame that sunders em.
Wisdom's son, folly's brother.

"Now the long form and the strong form and reform alltogether!"

(522.24-524.22)  As one would expect, the old man continues to grow more frustrated with Shaun's laughter during the examination.  Shaun suggests that he doesn't mean any offense.  "Are you to have all the pleasure quizzing on me?" he asks.  "I didn't say it aloud, sir.  I have something inside of me talking to myself."  The old man isn't buying it, though.  "You're a nice third degree witness, faith!" he responds.  "But this is no laughing matter."  He suggests that Shaun should be psychoanalyzed, but Shaun wants none of this "expert nursis sympathy" and says that he "can psoakoonaloose myself any time I want (the fog follow you all!) without your interferences or any other pigeonstealer."

"Sample!  Sample!" someone responds, perhaps encouraging Shaun to psychoanalyze himself.  At this point in the proceedings, the structure of the old man-Shaun dialogue breaks down.  The voice of Sylvia Silence, the girl detective, suggests the possibility that the evil of HCE's sin might ultimately result in general good ("might nevewtheless lead somehow on to good towawd the genewality").   Another, more "judicial"-sounding voice, proposes that HCE/Shaun "may be been as much sinned against as sinning" before calling for "the long form and the strong form and reform alltogether!"  A third voice paints HCE ("Hotchkiss Culthur's Everready") as a racehorse who is present at Dublin Bay and ready to perform as a stud.

These various voices prompt a long, digression-filled monologue from an unnamed voice, which must be that of Treacle Tom, for he speaks frequently of his "inmate friend," Frisky Shorty.  The two were engaged in a friendly argument at the "Doddercan Easehouse" and having a chat with their "hosty" (the pub host, but also Hosty, the composer of "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly") about diseases.  Tom and Frisky wanted to get to the bottom of HCE's story, so they "approached a reverend gentlman of the name of Mr Coppinger with reference to a piece of fire fittings."  Coppinger consulted a piece of writing by "Mr J. P. Cockshott."  It's not clear yet what they all discovered.  Perhaps it will be revealed in tomorrow's reading.

"bushes have eyes, don't forget"

(520.22-522.23)  As the old man and Shaun continue to banter back and forth, the old man once again grows impatient.  "What hill ar yu fluking about, ye lamelookond fyats!" he says to Shaun.  "I'll discipline ye!"  He asks Shaun whether he'll swear to the second version of his story and recant everything he said when he recounted HCE's fall the first time.

"Ay say aye," replies Shaun, effectively swearing that he swore falsely.  The old man still isn't quite satisfied, though, and he goes on to ask Shaun how much he's getting paid for all this swearing.  "Vurry nothing," replies Shaun, insisting that he isn't seeing a penny for "the whole dumb plodding thing."  Not even a drink?  "Bushmillah!" Shaun says.  "Do you think for a moment?  Yes, by the way.  How very necessarily true!  Give me fair play.  When?"  Clearly, Shaun is having it both ways, giving contradictory answers.  Still, it's the Wake, so perhaps each side of the contradiction is true.  Nevertheless, the old man eventually grows so frustrated with Shaun's wavering that he challenges him to step outside:  "Guid!  We make fight!  Three to one!  Raddy?"  (Earlier on page 521, Shaun has seemingly merged with John, making the fight three old men versus one.)  Shaun doesn't want to fight, though.  He'd rather sail down the Queen's road.  "Farewell, but whenever!" he says.  "Buy!"

But the old man doesn't let Shaun leave the witness stand yet, and he concedes that perhaps Shaun's contradictions are indicative of the complex interplay of actors and actions present within HCE's story.  "Let me once more," he says.  "There are sordidly tales within tales, you clearly understand that?  Now my other point."  This other point is whether Shaun knew that HCE had been "accused of a certain offence or of a choice of two serious charges, as skirts were divided on the subject."  Shaun acknowledges this fact:  "You hear things.  Besides (and serially now) bushes have eyes, don't forget.  Hah!"  Would Shaun rather play "bull before shebears" or "the hindlegs off a clotheshorse," the old man wonders.  He also asks whether there were any "orangepeelers or greengoaters" on Shaun's "sylvan family tree."  Shaun laughs off this question as well:  "Buggered if I know!  It all depends on how much family silver you want for a nass-and-pair.  Hah!"

Shaun's laughter draws the old man's wrath again.  "What do you mean sir, behind your hah!" he asks.  "Nothing, sir," Shaun replies.  "Only a bone moving into place.  Blotogaff.  Hahah!"

"Vary vary finny!"

(518.15-520.21)  The discussion of the fight between HCE and the "new" version of the Cad resumes at the beginning of today's reading.  The two exchanged blows (and, apparently, weapons) "like their caractacurs in an Irish Ruman" and threw bottles at each other, for they "did not know that the war was over."  But after that war was done, the two men "meed peace."  Shaun, however, agrees with the old man that the wars will continue despite the peace between these two giants.  As the old man suggests, "this pattern pootsch punnermine of concoon and proprey went on, hog and minne, a whole whake, your night after larry's night" and is repeated "a thousand and one times."

The old man turns back to his continuing cross examination of Shaun, whom he believes may be inconsistent with the truth.  "Didget think I was asleep at the wheel?" the old man asks.  He wonders how Shaun could attest under oath before the "tall grand jurors of thathens of tharctic" that the moon was shining at the same time that there was plenty of rain.  Shaun affirms this previous statement, but implies that he may not have been truthful before when he said that he had witnessed firsthand everything to which he has attested.  Instead, he says, at least part of the story was "told me as an inspired statement by a friend of myself."

The remainder of today's reading consists of an account of what that friend relayed to Shaun.  This new version of the story implicates the four old men, implying that they too were witnesses to HCE's sin in the park.  In this telling, Luke ("Tarpey") relayed to Shaun that rain was promised on the evening in question to Mark's wife ("Mrs Lyons").  Luke also told Shaun that Luke took a walk in Phoenix Park ("feelmick's park"), where a Mr Michael Clery said that Father MacGregor (a cross between Matthew and John) was desperate for help.  Clery told Luke to go see MacGregor to tell him about the incident in the confessional (in which the Cad's wife was reported to have told her priest the story of HCE and thus started the spread of the rumors about him).  In this version, it was Mark's wife who told the priest, and it's added that she left three shillings for the church.  More of the old man's examination of Shaun will come tomorrow . . . .

"Grinwicker time"

(516.3-518.14)  Shaun begins today's reading by detailing the arrival of HCE -- "MacSmashall Swingy of the Cattleaxes" -- on the town.  HCE walked around "dragging his feet in the usual course" and was "ever so terribly naas," offering grooming advice to the men he encountered.  His niceness had a limit, though.  He grew impatient waiting for "the key of John Dunn's field" as he wondered why someone named Montague was robbed and who burned some hay.  At this point, he encountered his nemesis, another form of the Cad, who we first encountered so long ago.  This new antagonist rises "up from the bog of the depths " and appears "raging with the thirst of the sacred sponge."

Was this how that "subtler angelic warfare or photoplay finister" began between the two eternal enemies, the old man asks.  "Truly," Shaun replies, "That I may never!"  One of the men was deaf and the other was dumb, and after they exchanged insults and blows they ended up "rolled togutter into the ditch together."  Echoing the Cad's request for the time when we first encountered him, the old man asks Shaun what time this all occurred (specifically in the "Greenwicker time" zone).  The two argue whether it was 11:30 or 12:30, but agree that the date was November 11:  "The uneven day of the unleventh month of the unevented year," as Shaun says, or "A triduum before Our Larry's own day," as the old man says (St. Lawrence O'Toole's feast day is November 14, as McHugh notes).

Shaun swears that he saw this fight from 100 feet away.  "Like the heavenly militia," says Shaun as he describes the skirmish.  "So wreek me Ghyllygully!  With my tongue through my toecap on the headlong stone of kismet if so 'tis the will of Whose B. Dunn."  The passage concludes with Shaun agreeing that the "arms' parley" seemed like "meatierities forces vegateareans."

"I was drunk all lost life."

(514.7-516.2)  The reading for today is another one of those transition passages in which we seem to be moving from one major point (the wedding ball) to another (what might be a significant, if somewhat brief, monologue from Shaun).  A lot of the fun in today's passage is the back and forth between Shaun and the old man.  I'll mostly leave it to you to uncover that as you read for yourself.

The passage begins with HCE, after his moment of glory in which he encountered (and married) ALP, disappearing.  Like Christ, who harrowed hell after his crucifixion, HCE found himself in a "hellfire club" and spent "[t]hree days three times" in the "Vulcuum."  Since there was "no hay in Eccles's hostel" (Eccles Street, we remember, was home to Mr. Bloom in Ulysses), the old man wonders where HCE was.  "Name or redress him and we'll call it a night!" he says to Shaun.

Shaun's answer is typically vague:  ". i . . ' .  . o . . l . "  As McHugh notes, the blanks can be filled in here to produce "Finn's Hotel," which both calls to mind the place where Joyce's wife, Nora, was employed when the couple met and emphasizes HCE's status as a reincarnated version of Finn MacCool.  The old man asks, "You are sure it was not a shuler's shakeup or a plighter's palming or a winker's wake etcaetera etcaeterorum you were at?"  In other words, was Shaun present for a particular one of Vico's ages:  birth, marriage, death, or the ricorso/return to the beginning?  "Precisely," Shaun says.  He was present for all of them at once.

Shaun goes on to say that he heard nothing from Goodman Fox, the church sexton who was in a fight with Magraw in Saturday's passage.  Frustrated with Shaun's evasions, the old man urges Shaun to explain what else happened that night:

I want you, witness of this epic struggle, as yours so mine, to reconstruct for us, as briefly as you can, inexactly the same as a mind's eye view, how these funeral games, which have been poring over us through homer's kerryer pidgeons, massacreedoed as the holiname rally round took place.

"Sure I told you that afoul," Shaun replies.  "I was drunk all lost life."  He still doesn't want to answer -- either he's told the old man before, or he was so drunk that he forgot what happened.  Still, it appears that the old man's encouragement at the end of today's passage will prompt Shaun to give at least a partial account in tomorrow's reading to satisfy his questioner.