_(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by
stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening
their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from
the top of Nelson’s Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness’s brewery,
asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gasovens, hanging
themselves in stylish garters, leaping from windows of different
storeys.)_
ALEXANDER J DOWIE: _(Violently.)_ Fellowchristians and antiBloomites,
the man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian
men. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of
Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the
cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite,
bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. A
worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his
nostrils. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him.
Caliban!
THE MOB: Lynch him! Roast him! He’s as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox!
_(Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from
upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial
value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread,
sheep’s tails, odd pieces of fat.)_
BLOOM: _(Excitedly.)_ This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke
again. By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my
brother Henry. He is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin’s Barn.
Slander, the viper, has wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, _sgenl
inn ban bata coisde gan capall._ I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi
Mulligan, sex specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf.
DR MULLIGAN: _(In motor jerkin, green motorgoggles on his brow.)_ Dr
Bloom is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace’s
private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary
epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of
elephantiasis have been discovered among his ascendants. There are
marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also latent.
He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in
consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of a
family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to
be more sinned against than sinning. I have made a pervaginal
examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427 anal,
axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be _virgo
intacta._
_(Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.)_
DR MADDEN: Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming
generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in
spirits of wine in the national teratological museum.
DR CROTTHERS: I have examined the patient’s urine. It is albuminoid.
Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent.
DR PUNCH COSTELLO: The _fetor judaicus_ is most perceptible.
DR DIXON: _(Reads a bill of health.)_ Professor Bloom is a finished
example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable.
Many have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint
fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense.
He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the
court missionary of the Reformed Priests’ Protection Society which
clears up everything. He is practically a total abstainer and I can
affirm that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food,
cold dried grocer’s peas. He wears a hairshirt of pure Irish
manufacture winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He
was, I understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree
reformatory. Another report states that he was a very posthumous child.
I appeal for clemency in the name of the most sacred word our vocal
organs have ever been called upon to speak. He is about to have a baby.
_(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American
makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, blank
cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange,
I. O. U’s, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets
are rapidly collected.)_
BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother.
MRS THORNTON: _(In nursetender’s gown.)_ Embrace me tight, dear. You’ll
be soon over it. Tight, dear.
_(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white
children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive
plants. All the octuplets are handsome, with valuable metallic faces,
wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern
languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each
has his name printed in legible letters on his shirtfront: Nasodoro,
Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindorée, Silversmile, Silberselber,
Vifargent, Panargyros. They are immediately appointed to positions of
high public trust in several different countries as managing directors
of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability
companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.)_
A VOICE: Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?
BLOOM: _(Darkly.)_ You have said it.
BROTHER BUZZ: Then perform a miracle like Father Charles.
BANTAM LYONS: Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger.
_(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes
through several walls, climbs Nelson’s Pillar, hangs from the top ledge
by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals
several sufferers from king’s evil, contracts his face so as to
resemble many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat
Tyler, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry
Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold
Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot
simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back,
eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.)_
BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: _(In papal zouave’s uniform, steel cuirasses as
breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane
moustaches and brown paper mitre.) Leopoldi autem generatio._ Moses
begat Noah and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O’Halloran and
O’Halloran begat Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath
begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and
Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat
Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz
begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat
Lewy Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat
O’Donnell Magnus and O’Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and Christbaum
begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty Rhodes
begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat
Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone
begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely
begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom _et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel._
A DEADHAND: _(Writes on the wall.)_ Bloom is a cod.
CRAB: _(In bushranger’s kit.)_ What did you do in the cattlecreep
behind Kilbarrack?
A FEMALE INFANT: _(Shakes a rattle.)_ And under Ballybough bridge?
A HOLLYBUSH: And in the devil’s glen?
BLOOM: _(Blushes furiously all over from frons to nates, three tears
falling from his left eye.)_ Spare my past.
THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: _(In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with
Donnybrook fair shillelaghs.)_ Sjambok him!
_(Bloom with asses’ ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed
arms, his feet protruding. He whistles_ Don Giovanni, a cenar teco.
_Artane orphans, joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison
Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round in the opposite direction.)_