"Breath and bother and whatacurss."

(223.19-225.14)  Standing face to face with Glugg, Chuff, the "evangelion," said, "Arrest thee, scaldbrother!"  Chuff proffered a shamrock ("his trifle," which McHugh notes corresponds with the "trefoil" used by St. Patrick to demonstrate the Holy Trinity) as an apparent peace offering.  Instead of peace, Glugg got a riddle:  "Who are you?  The cat's mother.  . . . What do you lack?  The look of a queen."  "[B]uzzling is brains," Glugg sought the solution to the problem posed by the riddle:  "But what is that which is one going to prehend?"

Glugg sought the answer from the four elements and four authors of the gospels, but received no assistance from them:  "With nought a wired from the wordless either."  He went off to question the four old men who have figured so prominently in the Wake.  They didn't help, either, so he sent four curses upon them:  he fouled the water, threw stones, poisoned their dinner of duck and gravy, and made off with the rest of the meat.

The narrator isn't without some sympathy for Glugg's predicament:  "Ah ho!  This poor Glugg!  It was so said of him about of his old fontmouther.  Truly deplurabel!  A dire, O dire!"  He "inhebited" his father's "freightfullness," and so it's fitting that -- in a call back to the riddle of the Prankquean -- his "fontmouther . . . sprankled his allover with her noces of interregnation:  How do you do that lack a lock and pass the poker, please?"  Put simply, Glugg's subconsciousness was in a "limbopool."

He goes back to the Floras.  Seeing them, Glugg decided that he wanted to know what colors of the rainbow they stood for and wore on their drawers.  He decided to ask their "commoner guardian at the next lineup" so that he could "reloose that thong off his art."  The Floras laughed at Glugg, and hinted at the fact that Glugg had pissed his pants.  

Dejected, Glugg plopped down to the ground "with the belly belly prest," much like the serpent in Genesis.  He then summarized his, and humankind's general plight with poignancy:  "Breath and bother and whatacurss.  Then breath more bother and more whatacurss.  Then no breath no bother but worrawarrawurms.  And Shim shallave shome."  In other words, life is breath, bother, and insurmountable trouble (what a curse); then breath, more bother, and more insurmountable trouble; and, finally, worrying, wormy death.  And Shem recognizes that he will have some of all of this.

I've struggled with this chapter at times, particularly because there's a lot of density to the language so far.  I'm beginning to get a feel for it, though, so I think it'll go smoother and smoother as we move forward (and as I try to remember to focus primarily on the stuff closer to the surface level during this "preliminary" run through the book).  More from Glugg tomorrow . . . .

"Melodiotiosities in purefusion by the score."

(221.18-223.18)  With the cast of characters for "The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies" introduced and the scene set, today's reading begins with an extended list of credits for the production.  We find out, for example, that the play features "[d]ances arranged by Harley Quinn and Coolimbeina" (as McHugh notes, this includes both characters from the pantomime and 18th century Irish actors George Harley and James Quinn).  We also, significantly, find the "[j]ests jokes, jigs and jorums for the Wake lent from the properties of the late cemented Mr T. M. Finnegan R.I.C." (referencing the book's mythical namesake, with "R.I.C." standing for "Royal Irish Constabulary," and, presumably, serving as a play on R.I.P.).

We also get more hints as to the role of the play in the larger context of the Wake.  The towering figures of HCE (the mountain) and ALP (the river) are referenced when we learn that the play prominently features "summit scenes of climbacks castastrophear, The Bearded Mountain (Polymop Baretherootsch) and The River Romps to Nursery (Maidykins in Undiform)."  And the play is "wound up for an afterenactment by a Magnificent Transformation Scene showing the Radium Wedding of Neid and Moorning and the Dawn of Peace, Pure, Perfect and Perpetual, Waking the Weary of the World."  So, maybe the Wake's final flourish will serve to unite night and day, to bring hope to all, and to rouse the weary.

The plot of the play, or the "argument" as it's termed here, now starts.  Chuff (the Shaun figure) was an angel, who brandished his sword like the archangel Michael (the Mick of the play's title).  Glugg had the devil (the Nick of the play's title) in him, and typical of the earlier portrayal of Shem, he's shown here as being repulsive and moody.  The Floras (the Maggies of the title, here, "the evelings," referencing both their role as the daughters of Eve and Joyce's short story, "Eveline") were present, too, "pierceful in their sojestiveness" and making enticing gestures.  Izod conducts the Floras, who represent the seven colors of the rainbow, in a heliotrope dance.  At the conclusion of today's reading, Glugg stumbles up, and then stands face to face with Chuff, ready to fight.

"The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies"

(219.1-221.17)  The first chapter of Book II of Finnegans Wake looks to be a type of play-within-a-play, or I guess more correctly a play-within-a-book.  The chapter opens with, "Every evening at lighting up o'clock sharp and until further notice in Feenichts Playhouse."  This opening serves as an announcement that the play is about to commence, and the scene is, in one sense, a playhouse in the vicinity of Phoenix Park.  And the title of the play, we're told, is "The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies."  This signals that the play is going to feature the children:  Shaun and Shem (Mick and Nick are aliases for the brothers) and Isabel and her friends ("maggies" has been used as a general title for the young women throughout the Wake).

After this introductory paragraph, most of the remainder of today's reading is a list of the characters who will feature in the play.  First we have Glugg, the Shem figure ("Mr Seumas McQuillad") who is "the bold bad bleak boy of the storybooks" who falls into disgrace.  The 28 friends of Isabel -- the titular Maggies -- are The Floras, the "month's bunch of pretty maidens."  Isabel's character in the play is Izod, the "bewitching blonde who dimples delightfully and is approached in loveliness only by her grateful sister reflection in a mirror."  Shaun is Chuff ("Mr Sean O'Mailey"), "the fine fairhaired fellow of the fairytales."  ALP and HCE are, respectively, Ann and Hump.  Rounding out the cast are The Customers (the "dozen of representative locomotive civics" who drink in HCE's pub), Saunderson (a pub employee), and Kate (our familiar housekeeper).  Today's reading ends with, "Time:  the pressant."  With the scene set, we'll get to the action tomorrow.

A Moment of Rust and Remembrunts

(217-218)  Yesterday's reading marked the end of the first of the four books of the Wake.  Since there's two blank pages in between books (well, one page does have the "II" signifying that the next book's coming up, but you get the point), I figured I'd spend today's Wake time taking a step back and doing a quick survey of where we've been.

Book I has eight chapters.  In the first, we got the introduction for the entire Wake, setting forth Finnegan as the precursor/parallel of HCE.  The second chapter in a sense presented HCE's origin story, telling us about his background and how he fell, ultimately culminating in "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly."  Chapter three picks up where the previous chapter left off, detailing the fallout surrounding HCE's public disgrace and ending with HCE asleep in his "doge."  In the fourth chapter, we see HCE's burial and learn about what has happened following his demise.  As many commentators have explained, these four chapters fit nicely into Vico's cycle of human existence:  The first chapter deals Finnegan, the prehistoric god (the age of gods), the second with HCE and his exploits (the age of kings), the third with society's handling of HCE (the age of democracy), and the fourth with the resulting vaccum and return to the beginning (the age of chaos, or the ricorso).

The second half of Book I shifts the focus away from HCE and toward his family.  Chapter five provides the full introduction to ALP.  Chapter six delves into all of the primary characters of the Wake in a question-and-answer format.  Shem (and by implication, his brother Shaun) is the focus of the seventh chapter, and the eighth chapter returns to the subject of ALP and the family in general.

And so, tomorrow we'll move forward, and embark on our journey through Book II of Finnegans Wake.  I'm psyched.

"Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle's to be."

(214.10-216.5)  While finishing their duties, one washerwoman shouts that she sees a figure in the distance:  "the great Finnleader himself."  This would signal a return of HCE, but her counterpart doesn't believe it.  She says, "Throw the cobwebs from your eyes, woman, and spread your washing proper!"  Unsatisfied to stop there, she accuses the woman who had the vision of being drunk.  After some more talk about how hard they've been working, the vision appears to the woman again:  "Holy Scamander, I sar it again!"  But the other woman's still not having it.  "Subdue your noise, you hamble creature!" she shoots back.  "What is it but a blackburry growth or the dwyergray ass them four old codgers owns."

With night imminent, the women see a light in the distance, which could be a lighthouse or a boat.  The washing's done, so the women begin to take their leave of each other.  Before they go, though, they share final remembrances of ALP and HCE:  "Ah, but she was the queer old skeowsha anyhow, Anna Livia, trinkettoes!  And sure he was the quare old buntz too, Dear Dirty Dumpling, foostherfather of fingalls and dotthergills."  The women recognize that the family cycle will go on and on:  "Teems of times and happy returns.  The seim anew.  Ordovico or viricordo."  (This references Vico's theory of history as an endless cycle.)

Now the river has widened and begun flowing to the point where the distance and noise keep the women from understanding each other.  "Are you not gone ahome?" one asks.  "What Thom Malone?" the other replies, repeating what she thought she heard.  "I feel as old as younder elm," says one, referencing the idea from yesterday that the two women are turning into the stone and tree from the fable of the Mookse and the Gripes.  "A tale told of Shaun or Shem?" replies the other, mishearing what her opposite has said and hinting at what's to come in the Wake.  The chapter ends fittingly with one of the women encouraging the story to go on, while the day of the chapter -- and the first book of the Wake -- arrives at its completion:

Night now!  Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm!  Night night!  Telmetale of stem or stone.  Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of.  Night!

And that's the conclusion of the eighth chapter, as well as the first book.  We've come a long way -- 216 of the Wake's 628 pages -- but we have a longer way to go.  Time, and the story, go on.  Bring on the tale of Shem and Shaun.

"every telling has a taling and that's the he and the she of it"

(212.20-214.10)  We're winding down to a close here in chapter eight of Finnegans Wake.  Just today's reading and tomorrow's, and then we're done with this extended look at ALP.  With the catalog of gifts given by ALP completed ("My colonial, wardha bagful!" one woman says), the washerwomen move back to their work.  "Throw us your hudson soap for the honour of Clane!" one says.  "The wee taste the water left.  I'll raft it back, first thing in the marne."  They continue bickering, and one notes that while the other gets all the swirls on her side of the river, her unfortunate friend just gets the snuff papers tossed into the water by Jonathan Swift (and, by proxy, HCE, for Swift -- who also had an ambiguous relationship with two young women -- is a version of HCE).  At least this woman gets to read the "[f]oul strips of his chinook's bible," which features amusing titles "drawn on the tattlepage" (among these titles are parodies of the works of Oscar Wilde, John S. Mill, and George Eliot).  One woman has spotted a piece of china below the river, but laments the fact that it seems to have disappeared.

The hour is now getting late.  In the dusk, the women are slowly turning into the tree and the stone that remained on the scene at the conclusion of the fable of the Mookse and the Gripes.  "My branches lofty are taking root," one woman says.  The woman are tired ("O, my back, my back, my bach!" one complains), and so they set to finishing their washing with the refrain, "Wring out the clothes!  Wring in the dew!"

They haven't finished discussing ALP, though.  One asks, "Wharnow are alle her childer, say?"  The other responds, "Some here, more no more, more again lost alla stranger."  We hear of the fates of a few.  One branch has married into a family in Spain, for example, while others are wearing "yangsee's hats" (meaning some have become Americans (yankees) and some have become Chinese (from the Yang-tze River)).  But as the night comes, the women have a harder time hearing each other.  "Do you tell me that now?" one asks.  Soon after, one says she's hard of hearing because of "that irrawaddyng I've stoke in my aars."

They've still got a little bit to discuss, however, as I mentioned, above.  We'll get to the chapter's finale tomorrow.

"life past befoul his prime"

(210.22-212.19)  Today's reading completes the catalog of gifts handed out by ALP to her multitude of children.  There's references here to saints ("snakes in clover, picked and scotched, and a vaticanned viper catcher's visa for Patsy Presbys" is a reference to Saint Patrick), rival authors ("for Will-of-the-Wisp and Barny-the-Bark two mangolds noble to sweeden their bitters" is a reference to Nobel Prize-winning Irish authors Yeats and Shaw), and Joyce himself ("a tibertine's pile with a Congoswood cross on the back for Sunny Twimjim" -- Clongowes Wood is the school that Joyce and his literary alter ego, Stephen, attended).

We also get references to characters we've met in the Wake.  One of the major characters gets lumped in with the rest of the rabble with "a sunless map of the month, including the sword and stamps, for Shemus O'Shaun the Post."  The Earwickers' maid is featured with "a stiff steaded rake and good varians muck for Kate the Cleaner."  And ALP accounts for a whole crop of people (some of whom featured prominently in the spreading of rumors about HCE and the resulting composition of "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly"):  

whatever you like to swilly to swash, Yuinness or Yennessy, Laagen or Niger, for Festus King and Roaring Peter and Frisky Shorty and Treacle Tom and O. B. Behan and Sully the Thug and Master Magrath and Peter Cloran and O'Delawarr Rossa and Nerone MacPacem and whoever you chance to meet knocking around.

Of personal note, I was pleased to see "a pig's bladder balloon for Selina Susquehanna Stakelum," since the I was born just near where the Susquehanna River (nice how the river name contains the word "Anna," huh?) runs through Central Pennsylvania.  Also, the last gift-receiving group accounted for is Isabel's 28 sisters, which includes one young woman named Lezba Licking (there's a Joycean lesbian joke in there) whose name accounts for the closest river reference (that I've seen to this point in the chapter) to where I live now:  the Licking River (at least, I'm counting it as a reference to the Ohio Licking).

The passage ends with the final gift, which is given to Isabel:  "So on Izzy, her shamemaid, love shone befond her tears as from Shem, her penmight, life past befoul his prime."  Thus, ALP's daughter gets the gift of love, while her son, Shem, bears the burden of falling in his father's footsteps.