No room. Let it go.
Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand.
Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here.
Except Guinness’s barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by
design.
He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Now
if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn’t. Chance.
We’ll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made
me feel so young.
Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone.
Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. I
won’t go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes a
moment. Won’t sleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat
again. No harm in him. Just a few.
O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me
do love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed
met him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair
heave under embon _señorita_ young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan
Winkle red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tail
end Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return
next in her next her next.
A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloom
with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just
for a few
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo.
The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest’s house cooed where Canon
O’Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were
taking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup
and talking about
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo.
Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house to
tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there
because she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty
MacDowell, and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was
sitting on the rocks looking was
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo.
[ 14 ]
Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.
Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send
us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us
bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.
Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa!
Universally that person’s acumen is esteemed very little perceptive
concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by
mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that
which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in
them high mind’s ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain
when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being
equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more
efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have
progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent
continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when
fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollent
nature’s incorrupted benefaction. For who is there who anything of some
significance has apprehended but is conscious that that exterior
splendour may be the surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality or
on the contrary anyone so is there unilluminated as not to perceive
that as no nature’s boon can contend against the bounty of increase so
it behoves every most just citizen to become the exhortator and
admonisher of his semblables and to tremble lest what had in the past
been by the nation excellently commenced might be in the future not
with similar excellence accomplished if an inverecund habit shall have
gradually traduced the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs to
that thither of profundity that that one was audacious excessively who
would have the hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offence
can for anyone be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel
simultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with prophecy
of abundance or with diminution’s menace that exalted of reiteratedly
procreating function ever irrevocably enjoined?
It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historians
relate, among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its nature
admirable admired, the art of medicine shall have been highly honoured.
Not to speak of hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves,
their greatest doctors, the O’Shiels, the O’Hickeys, the O’Lees, have
sedulously set down the divers methods by which the sick and the
relapsed found again health whether the malady had been the trembling
withering or loose boyconnell flux. Certainly in every public work
which in it anything of gravity contains preparation should be with
importance commensurate and therefore a plan was by them adopted
(whether by having preconsidered or as the maturation of experience it
is difficult in being said which the discrepant opinions of subsequent
inquirers are not up to the present congrued to render manifest)
whereby maternity was so far from all accident possibility removed that
whatever care the patient in that allhardest of woman hour chiefly
required and not solely for the copiously opulent but also for her who
not being sufficiently moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcely
could subsist valiantly and for an inconsiderable emolument was
provided.
To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to be
molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent
mothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received
eternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the
case was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying
desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be
received into that domicile. O thing of prudent nation not merely in
being seen but also even in being related worthy of being praised that
they her by anticipation went seeing mother, that she by them suddenly
to be about to be cherished had been begun she felt!
Before born bliss babe had. Within womb won he worship. Whatever in
that one case done commodiously done was. A couch by midwives attended
with wholesome food reposeful, cleanest swaddles as though
forthbringing were now done and by wise foresight set: but to this no
less of what drugs there is need and surgical implements which are
pertaining to her case not omitting aspect of all very distracting
spectacles in various latitudes by our terrestrial orb offered together
with images, divine and human, the cogitation of which by sejunct
females is to tumescence conducive or eases issue in the high sunbright
wellbuilt fair home of mothers when, ostensibly far gone and
reproductitive, it is come by her thereto to lie in, her term up.
Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night’s oncoming. Of
Israel’s folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Stark
ruth of man his errand that him lone led till that house.
Of that house A. Horne is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there teeming
mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale
so God’s angel to Mary quoth. Watchers tway there walk, white sisters
in ward sleepless. Smarts they still, sickness soothing: in twelve
moons thrice an hundred. Truest bedthanes they twain are, for Horne
holding wariest ward.
In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildhearted eft rising
with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping
lightens in eyeblink Ireland’s westward welkin. Full she drad that God
the Wreaker all mankind would fordo with water for his evil sins.
Christ’s rood made she on breastbone and him drew that he would rathe
infare under her thatch. That man her will wotting worthful went in
Horne’s house.
Loth to irk in Horne’s hall hat holding the seeker stood. On her stow
he ere was living with dear wife and lovesome daughter that then over
land and seafloor nine years had long outwandered. Once her in
townhithe meeting he to her bow had not doffed. Her to forgive now he
craved with good ground of her allowed that that of him swiftseen face,
hers, so young then had looked. Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom of
blushes his word winning.
As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrow she feared. Glad
after she was that ere adread was. Her he asked if O’Hare Doctor
tidings sent from far coast and she with grameful sigh him answered
that O’Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word to hear
that him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All she there told him, ruing
death for friend so young, algate sore unwilling God’s rightwiseness to
withsay. She said that he had a fair sweet death through God His
goodness with masspriest to be shriven, holy housel and sick men’s oil
to his limbs. The man then right earnest asked the nun of which death
the dead man was died and the nun answered him and said that he was
died in Mona Island through bellycrab three year agone come Childermas
and she prayed to God the Allruthful to have his dear soul in his
undeathliness. He heard her sad words, in held hat sad staring. So
stood they there both awhile in wanhope sorrowing one with other.
Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the
dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came
naked forth from his mother’s womb so naked shall he wend him at the
last for to go as he came.
The man that was come in to the house then spoke to the nursingwoman
and he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay there in
childbed. The nursingwoman answered him and said that that woman was in
throes now full three days and that it would be a hard birth unneth to
bear but that now in a little it would be. She said thereto that she
had seen many births of women but never was none so hard as was that
woman’s birth. Then she set it all forth to him for because she knew
the man that time was had lived nigh that house. The man hearkened to
her words for he felt with wonder women’s woe in the travail that they
have of motherhood and he wondered to look on her face that was a fair
face for any man to see but yet was she left after long years a
handmaid. Nine twelve bloodflows chiding her childless.
And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there
nighed them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. And there
came against the place as they stood a young learningknight yclept
Dixon. And the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed
that they had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where
this learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be
healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a
horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a
salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice. And he
said now that he should go in to that castle for to make merry with
them that were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should go
otherwhither for he was a man of cautels and a subtile. Also the lady
was of his avis and repreved the learningknight though she trowed well
that the traveller had said thing that was false for his subtility. But
the learningknight would not hear say nay nor do her mandement ne have
him in aught contrarious to his list and he said how it was a
marvellous castle. And the traveller Leopold went into the castle for
to rest him for a space being sore of limb after many marches
environing in divers lands and sometime venery.
And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy
and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not
move more for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and
knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white
flames that they fix then in the horns of buffalos and stags that there
abound marvellously. And there were vessels that are wrought by magic
of Mahound out of seasand and the air by a warlock with his breath that
he blases in to them like to bubbles. And full fair cheer and rich was
on the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. And there
was a vat of silver that was moved by craft to open in the which lay
strange fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men nie that this be
possible thing without they see it natheless they are so. And these
fishes lie in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because of
the fatness that therein is like to the juices of the olivepress. And
also it was a marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a
compost out of fecund wheatkidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of
certain angry spirits that they do in to it swells up wondrously like
to a vast mountain. And they teach the serpents there to entwine
themselves up on long sticks out of the ground and of the scales of
these serpents they brew out a brewage like to mead.
And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halp
thereto the while all they that were there drank every each. And childe
Leopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat
in amity for he never drank no manner of mead which he then put by and
anon full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour glass and
his neighbour nist not of this wile. And he sat down in that castle
with them for to rest him there awhile. Thanked be Almighty God.
This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them at
the reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailing
for there was above one quick with child, a gentle dame, whose time
hied fast. Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered
what cry that it was whether of child or woman and I marvel, said he,
that it be not come or now. Meseems it dureth overlong. And he was ware
and saw a franklin that hight Lenehan on that side the table that was
older than any of the tother and for that they both were knights
virtuous in the one emprise and eke by cause that he was elder he spoke
to him full gently. But, said he, or it be long too she will bring
forth by God His bounty and have joy of her childing for she hath
waited marvellous long. And the franklin that had drunken said,
Expecting each moment to be her next. Also he took the cup that stood
tofore him for him needed never none asking nor desiring of him to
drink and, Now drink, said he, fully delectably, and he quaffed as far
as he might to their both’s health for he was a passing good man of his
lustiness. And sir Leopold that was the goodliest guest that ever sat
in scholars’ hall and that was the meekest man and the kindest that
ever laid husbandly hand under hen and that was the very truest knight
of the world one that ever did minion service to lady gentle pledged
him courtly in the cup. Woman’s woe with wonder pondering.
Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to be
drunken an they might. There was a sort of scholars along either side
the board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint Mary
Merciable’s with other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars of
medicine, and the franklin that hight Lenehan and one from Alba Longa,
one Crotthers, and young Stephen that had mien of a frere that was at
head of the board and Costello that men clepen Punch Costello all long
of a mastery of him erewhile gested (and of all them, reserved young
Stephen, he was the most drunken that demanded still of more mead) and
beside the meek sir Leopold. But on young Malachi they waited for that
he promised to have come and such as intended to no goodness said how
he had broke his avow. And sir Leopold sat with them for he bore fast
friendship to sir Simon and to this his son young Stephen and for that
his languor becalmed him there after longest wanderings insomuch as
they feasted him for that time in the honourablest manner. Ruth red
him, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave.
For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns each
gen other as touching birth and righteousness, young Madden maintaining
that put such case it were hard the wife to die (for so it had fallen
out a matter of some year agone with a woman of Eblana in Horne’s house
that now was trespassed out of this world and the self night next
before her death all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of her
case). And they said farther she should live because in the beginning,
they said, the woman should bring forth in pain and wherefore they that
were of this imagination affirmed how young Madden had said truth for
he had conscience to let her die. And not few and of these was young
Lynch were in doubt that the world was now right evil governed as it
was never other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but the
law nor his judges did provide no remedy. A redress God grant. This was
scant said but all cried with one acclaim nay, by our Virgin Mother,
the wife should live and the babe to die. In colour whereof they waxed
hot upon that head what with argument and what for their drinking but
the franklin Lenehan was prompt each when to pour them ale so that at
the least way mirth might not lack. Then young Madden showed all the
whole affair and said how that she was dead and how for holy religion
sake by rede of palmer and bedesman and for a vow he had made to Saint
Ultan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not let her death whereby
they were all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen had these words
following: Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe and
parent now glorify their Maker, the one in limbo gloom, the other in
purgefire. But, gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that we
nightly impossibilise, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, Very
God, Lord and Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We
are means to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends
than we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he what ends.
But he had overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him was
that he would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid or
leman if it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of lustihead.
Whereat Crotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi’s praise of that
beast the unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn, the
other all this while, pricked forward with their jibes wherewith they
did malice him, witnessing all and several by saint Foutinus his
engines that he was able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to
do. Thereat laughed they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sir
Leopold which never durst laugh too open by reason of a strange humour
which he would not bewray and also for that he rued for her that bare
whoso she might be or wheresoever. Then spake young Stephen orgulous of
mother Church that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons,
of Lilith, patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of
brightness or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius
saith, by the influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or
an she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, _effectu
secuto_, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of
Averroes and Moses Maimonides. He said also how at the end of the
second month a human soul was infused and how in all our holy mother
foldeth ever souls for God’s greater glory whereas that earthly mother
which was but a dam to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith he
that holdeth the fisherman’s seal, even that blessed Peter on which
rock was holy church for all ages founded. All they bachelors then
asked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person as
risk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted
all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that
as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a
layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an
accident it was good for that mother Church belike at one blow had
birth and death pence and in such sort deliverly he scaped their
questions. That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, and, or I err, a pregnant
word. Which hearing young Stephen was a marvellous glad man and he
averred that he who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord for he
was of a wild manner when he was drunken and that he was now in that
taking it appeared eftsoons.
But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had
pity of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour and
as he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only
manchild which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of art
could save so dark is destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heart
for that evil hap and for his burial did him on a fair corselet of
lamb’s wool, the flower of the flock, lest he might perish utterly and
lie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter) and now sir
Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked upon him
his friend’s son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness
and as sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for
all accounted him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure
for young Stephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and
murdered his goods with whores.
About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood empty
so as there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowed
their approach from him that still plied it very busily who, praying
for the intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledge
the vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray. Now drink
we, quod he, of this mazer and quaff ye this mead which is not indeed
parcel of my body but my soul’s bodiment. Leave ye fraction of bread to
them that live by bread alone. Be not afeard neither for any want for
this will comfort more than the other will dismay. See ye here. And he
showed them glistering coins of the tribute and goldsmith notes the
worth of two pound nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a song
which he writ. They all admired to see the foresaid riches in such
dearth of money as was herebefore. His words were then these as
followeth: Know all men, he said, time’s ruins build eternity’s
mansions. What means this? Desire’s wind blasts the thorntree but after
it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark
me now. In woman’s womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the
maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away.
This is the postcreation. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. No question but
her name is puissant who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer,
Healer and Herd, our mighty mother and mother most venerable and
Bernardus saith aptly that She hath an _omnipotentiam deiparae
supplicem_, that is to wit, an almightiness of petition because she is
the second Eve and she won us, saith Augustine too, whereas that other,
our grandam, which we are linked up with by successive anastomosis of
navelcords sold us all, seed, breed and generation, for a penny pippin.
But here is the matter now. Or she knew him, that second I say, and was
but creature of her creature, _vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio_, or
she knew him not and then stands she in the one denial or ignorancy
with Peter Piscator who lives in the house that Jack built and with
Joseph the joiner patron of the happy demise of all unhappy marriages,
_parceque M. Léo Taxil nous a dit que qui l’avait mise dans cette
fichue position c’était le sacré pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder_
transubstantiality _oder_ consubstantiality but in no case
subsubstantiality. And all cried out upon it for a very scurvy word. A
pregnancy without joy, he said, a birth without pangs, a body without
blemish, a belly without bigness. Let the lewd with faith and fervour
worship. With will will we withstand, withsay.
Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and would
sing a bawdy catch _Staboo Stabella_ about a wench that was put in pod
of a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did straightways now attack:
_The first three months she was not well, Staboo,_ when here nurse
Quigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor was
it not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have all
orderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that no
gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an
ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in
habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her
hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of
them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness
some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all
chode with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at,
thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou
chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou,
to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the
good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet,
margerain gentle, advising also the time’s occasion as most sacred and
most worthy to be most sacred. In Horne’s house rest should reign.
To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in
Eccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why he
had not cided to take friar’s vows and he answered him obedience in the
womb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days. Master
Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds
and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue
of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all
intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But he
said very entirely it was clean contrary to their suppose for he was
the eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the more
and they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing
and deflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island,
she to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain,
with burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyries
and the anthem _Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium_ till she was
there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable hymen minim by those
delicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont that is
in their _Maid’s Tragedy_ that was writ for a like twining of lovers:
_To bed, to bed_ was the burden of it to be played with accompanable
concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most
mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous
flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium
of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed,
but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher
for, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen
said indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between
them and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous for
life ran very high in those days and the custom of the country approved
with it. Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay
down his wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words
to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French
letters to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to
whom mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower it
will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. _Orate, fratres,
pro memetipso_. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thy
generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by
my word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication
in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou
sinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of
servants. Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why
hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for
a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian
of dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth
now, my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo
and from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with
milk and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: my moon
and my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone for
ever in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a kiss of ashes hast
thou kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior, he proceeded to
say, hath not been illumined by the wit of the septuagint nor so much
as mentioned for the Orient from on high which brake hell’s gates
visited a darkness that was foraneous. Assuefaction minorates
atrocities (as Tully saith of his darling Stoics) and Hamlet his father
showeth the prince no blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the noon
of life is an Egypt’s plague which in the nights of prenativity and
postmortemity is their most proper _ubi_ and _quomodo_. And as the ends
and ultimates of all things accord in some mean and measure with their
inceptions and originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leads
forth growth from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis
that minishing and ablation towards the final which is agreeable unto
nature so is it with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us into
life: we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over
us dead they bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, among
bulrushes, a bed of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of a
mountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat
and the ossifrage. And as no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor
to what processes we shall thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet or
to Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we would backward see
from what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetched
his whenceness.
Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly _Etienne chanson_ but he
loudly bid them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vast
majestic longstablished vault, the crystal palace of the Creator, all
in applepie order, a penny for him who finds the pea.
Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack
See the malt stored in many a refluent sack,
In the proud cirque of Jackjohn’s bivouac.
A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled back. Loud on
left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the
storm that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to
flout and witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate and
paganry. And he that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed wan as
they might all mark and shrank together and his pitch that was before
so haught uplift was now of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart
shook within the cage of his breast as he tasted the rumour of that
storm. Then did some mock and some jeer and Punch Costello fell hard
again to his yale which Master Lenehan vowed he would do after and he
was indeed but a word and a blow on any the least colour. But the
braggart boaster cried that an old Nobodaddy was in his cups it was
muchwhat indifferent and he would not lag behind his lead. But this was
only to dye his desperation as cowed he crouched in Horne’s hall. He
drank indeed at one draught to pluck up a heart of any grace for it
thundered long rumblingly over all the heavens so that Master Madden,
being godly certain whiles, knocked him on his ribs upon that crack of
doom and Master Bloom, at the braggart’s side, spoke to him calming
words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was no other thing
but a hubbub noise that he heard, the discharge of fluid from the
thunderhead, look you, having taken place, and all of the order of a
natural phenomenon.
But was young Boasthard’s fear vanquished by Calmer’s words? No, for he
had in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words be
done away. And was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the
other? He was neither as much as he would have liked to be either. But
could he not have endeavoured to have found again as in his youth the
bottle Holiness that then he lived withal? Indeed no for Grace was not
there to find that bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of the
god Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub of Phenomenon? Heard?
Why, he could not but hear unless he had plugged him up the tube
Understanding (which he had not done). For through that tube he saw
that he was in the land of Phenomenon where he must for a certain one
day die as he was like the rest too a passing show. And would he not
accept to die like the rest and pass away? By no means would he though
he must nor would he make more shows according as men do with wives
which Phenomenon has commanded them to do by the book Law. Then wotted
he nought of that other land which is called Believe-on-Me, that is the
land of promise which behoves to the king Delightful and shall be for
ever where there is no death and no birth neither wiving nor mothering
at which all shall come as many as believe on it? Yes, Pious had told
him of that land and Chaste had pointed him to the way but the reason
was that in the way he fell in with a certain whore of an eyepleasing
exterior whose name, she said, is Bird-in-the-Hand and she beguiled him
wrongways from the true path by her flatteries that she said to him as,
Ho, you pretty man, turn aside hither and I will show you a brave
place, and she lay at him so flatteringly that she had him in her grot
which is named Two-in-the-Bush or, by some learned, Carnal
Concupiscence.
This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse of
Mothers the most lusted after and if they met with this whore
Bird-in-the-Hand (which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a
wicked devil) they would strain the last but they would make at her and
know her. For regarding Believe-on-Me they said it was nought else but
notion and they could conceive no thought of it for, first,
Two-in-the-Bush whither she ticed them was the very goodliest grot and
in it were four pillows on which were four tickets with these words
printed on them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek by
Jowl and, second, for that foul plague Allpox and the monsters they
cared not for them for Preservative had given them a stout shield of
oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspring
that was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield which was
named Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil and Mr
Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon,
Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company,
were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in a
very grievous rage that he would presently lift his arm up and spill
their souls for their abuses and their spillings done by them
contrariwise to his word which forth to bring brenningly biddeth.
So Thursday sixteenth June Patk. Dignam laid in clay of an apoplexy and
after hard drought, please God, rained, a bargeman coming in by water a
fifty mile or thereabout with turf saying the seed won’t sprout, fields
athirst, very sadcoloured and stunk mightily, the quags and tofts too.
Hard to breathe and all the young quicks clean consumed without
sprinkle this long while back as no man remembered to be without. The
rosy buds all gone brown and spread out blobs and on the hills nought
but dry flag and faggots that would catch at first fire. All the world
saying, for aught they knew, the big wind of last February a year that
did havoc the land so pitifully a small thing beside this barrenness.
But by and by, as said, this evening after sundown, the wind sitting in
the west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increased and
the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first
and after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder
and in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the
smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or
kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the
pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke’s lawn, thence through
Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was
before bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but no
more crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice
Fitzgibbon’s door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the
college lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman’s gentleman that had but come
from Mr Moore’s the writer’s (that was a papish but is now, folk say, a
good Williamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are
now in with dance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town from
Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M’s brother will stay a
month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there,
he bound home and he to Andrew Horne’s being stayed for to crush a cup
of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big of
her age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain and
so both together on to Horne’s. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford’s journal
sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixon
jun., scholar of my lady of Mercy’s, Vin. Lynch, a Scots fellow, Will.
Madden, T. Lenehan, very sad about a racer he fancied and Stephen D.
Leop. Bloom there for a languor he had but was now better, he having
dreamed tonight a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers
on in a pair of Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be
for a change and Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleading
her belly, and now on the stools, poor body, two days past her term,
the midwives sore put to it and can’t deliver, she queasy for a bowl of
riceslop that is a shrewd drier up of the insides and her breath very
heavy more than good and should be a bullyboy from the knocks, they
say, but God give her soon issue. ’Tis her ninth chick to live, I hear,
and Lady day bit off her last chick’s nails that was then a twelvemonth
and with other three all breastfed that died written out in a fair hand
in the king’s bible. Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes the
sacrament and is to be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys
off Bullock harbour dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or in
a punt he has trailing for flounder and pollock and catches a fine bag,
I hear. In sum an infinite great fall of rain and all refreshed and
will much increase the harvest yet those in ken say after wind and
water fire shall come for a prognostication of Malachi’s almanac (and I
hear that Mr Russell has done a prophetical charm of the same gist out
of the Hindustanish for his farmer’s gazette) to have three things in
all but this a mere fetch without bottom of reason for old crones and
bairns yet sometimes they are found in the right guess with their
queerities no telling how.
With this came up Lenehan to the feet of the table to say how the
letter was in that night’s gazette and he made a show to find it about
him (for he swore with an oath that he had been at pains about it) but
on Stephen’s persuasion he gave over the search and was bidden to sit
near by which he did mighty brisk. He was a kind of sport gentleman
that went for a merryandrew or honest pickle and what belonged of
women, horseflesh or hot scandal he had it pat. To tell the truth he
was mean in fortunes and for the most part hankered about the
coffeehouses and low taverns with crimps, ostlers, bookies, Paul’s men,
runners, flatcaps, waistcoateers, ladies of the bagnio and other rogues
of the game or with a chanceable catchpole or a tipstaff often at
nights till broad day of whom he picked up between his sackpossets much
loose gossip. He took his ordinary at a boilingcook’s and if he had but
gotten into him a mess of broken victuals or a platter of tripes with a
bare tester in his purse he could always bring himself off with his
tongue, some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that every
mother’s son of them would burst their sides. The other, Costello that
is, hearing this talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, he
says, Frank (that was his name), ’tis all about Kerry cows that are to
be butchered along of the plague. But they can go hang, says he with a
wink, for me with their bully beef, a pox on it. There’s as good fish
in this tin as ever came out of it and very friendly he offered to take
of some salty sprats that stood by which he had eyed wishly in the
meantime and found the place which was indeed the chief design of his
embassy as he was sharpset. _Mort aux vaches_, says Frank then in the
French language that had been indentured to a brandyshipper that has a
winelodge in Bordeaux and he spoke French like a gentleman too. From a
child this Frank had been a donought that his father, a headborough,
who could ill keep him to school to learn his letters and the use of
the globes, matriculated at the university to study the mechanics but
he took the bit between his teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar
with the justiciary and the parish beadle than with his volumes. One
time he would be a playactor, then a sutler or a welsher, then nought
would keep him from the bearpit and the cocking main, then he was for
the ocean sea or to hoof it on the roads with the romany folk,
kidnapping a squire’s heir by favour of moonlight or fecking maids’
linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. He had been off as many times
as a cat has lives and back again with naked pockets as many more to
his father the headborough who shed a pint of tears as often as he saw
him. What, says Mr Leopold with his hands across, that was earnest to
know the drift of it, will they slaughter all? I protest I saw them but
this day morning going to the Liverpool boats, says he. I can scarce
believe ’tis so bad, says he. And he had experience of the like brood
beasts and of springers, greasy hoggets and wether wool, having been
some years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, a worthy salesmaster
that drove his trade for live stock and meadow auctions hard by Mr
Gavin Low’s yard in Prussia street. I question with you there, says he.
More like ’tis the hoose or the timber tongue. Mr Stephen, a little
moved but very handsomely told him no such matter and that he had
dispatches from the emperor’s chief tailtickler thanking him for the
hospitality, that was sending over Doctor Rinderpest, the bestquoted
cowcatcher in all Muscovy, with a bolus or two of physic to take the
bull by the horns. Come, come, says Mr Vincent, plain dealing. He’ll
find himself on the horns of a dilemma if he meddles with a bull that’s
Irish, says he. Irish by name and irish by nature, says Mr Stephen, and
he sent the ale purling about, an Irish bull in an English chinashop. I
conceive you, says Mr Dixon. It is that same bull that was sent to our
island by farmer Nicholas, the bravest cattlebreeder of them all, with
an emerald ring in his nose. True for you, says Mr Vincent cross the
table, and a bullseye into the bargain, says he, and a plumper and a
portlier bull, says he, never shit on shamrock. He had horns galore, a
coat of cloth of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of his
nostrils so that the women of our island, leaving doughballs and
rollingpins, followed after him hanging his bulliness in daisychains.
What for that, says Mr Dixon, but before he came over farmer Nicholas
that was a eunuch had him properly gelded by a college of doctors who
were no better off than himself. So be off now, says he, and do all my
cousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer’s blessing,
and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap and
the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he
taught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess
and widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of the
month whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the
nape from his long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping young
ravisher in the four fields of all Ireland. Another then put in his
word: And they dressed him, says he, in a point shift and petticoat
with a tippet and girdle and ruffles on his wrists and clipped his
forelock and rubbed him all over with spermacetic oil and built stables
for him at every turn of the road with a gold manger in each full of
the best hay in the market so that he could doss and dung to his
heart’s content. By this time the father of the faithful (for so they
called him) was grown so heavy that he could scarce walk to pasture. To
remedy which our cozening dames and damsels brought him his fodder in
their apronlaps and as soon as his belly was full he would rear up on
his hind quarters to show their ladyships a mystery and roar and bellow
out of him in bulls’ language and they all after him. Ay, says another,
and so pampered was he that he would suffer nought to grow in all the
land but green grass for himself (for that was the only colour to his
mind) and there was a board put up on a hillock in the middle of the
island with a printed notice, saying: By the Lord Harry, Green is the
grass that grows on the ground. And, says Mr Dixon, if ever he got
scent of a cattleraider in Roscommon or the wilds of Connemara or a
husbandman in Sligo that was sowing as much as a handful of mustard or
a bag of rapeseed out he’d run amok over half the countryside rooting
up with his horns whatever was planted and all by lord Harry’s orders.
There was bad blood between them at first, says Mr Vincent, and the
lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks in the world and an
old whoremaster that kept seven trulls in his house and I’ll meddle in
his matters, says he. I’ll make that animal smell hell, says he, with
the help of that good pizzle my father left me. But one evening, says
Mr Dixon, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal pelt to go to
dinner after winning a boatrace (he had spade oars for himself but the
first rule of the course was that the others were to row with
pitchforks) he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull and
on picking up a blackthumbed chapbook that he kept in the pantry he
found sure enough that he was a lefthanded descendant of the famous
champion bull of the Romans, _Bos Bovum_, which is good bog Latin for
boss of the show. After that, says Mr Vincent, the lord Harry put his
head into a cow’s drinkingtrough in the presence of all his courtiers
and pulling it out again told them all his new name. Then, with the
water running off him, he got into an old smock and skirt that had
belonged to his grandmother and bought a grammar of the bulls’ language
to study but he could never learn a word of it except the first
personal pronoun which he copied out big and got off by heart and if
ever he went out for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to write
it upon what took his fancy, the side of a rock or a teahouse table or
a bale of cotton or a corkfloat. In short, he and the bull of Ireland
were soon as fast friends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says Mr
Stephen, and the end was that the men of the island seeing no help was
toward, as the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft,
loaded themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all
masts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread
three sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed
anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three times
three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea
to recover the main of America. Which was the occasion, says Mr
Vincent, of the composing by a boatswain of that rollicking chanty:
_—Pope Peter’s but a pissabed.