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from the pianola coffin.)
DON JOHN CONMEE Now, Father Dolan! Now. I'm sure that Stephen is a very
good little boy.
ZOE (Examining Stephen's palm.) Woman's hand.
STEPHEN (Murmurs.) Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read
His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock.
ZOE What day were you born?
STEPHEN Thursday. Today.
ZOE Thursday's child has far to go. (She traces lines on his hand.)
Line of fate. Influential friends.
FLORRY (Pointing.) Imagination.
ZOE Mount of the moon. You'll meet with a... (She peers at his hands
abruptly.) I won't tell you what's not good for you. Or do you want to know?
BLOOM (Detaches her fingers and offers his palm.) More harm than good.
Here. Read mine.
BELLA Show. (She turns up Bloom's hand.) I thought so. Knobby knuckles,
for the women.
ZOE (Peering at Bloom's palm.) Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and
marry money.
BLOOM Wrong.
ZOE (Quickly.) O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That
wrong?
(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises,
stretches her wings and clucks.)
BLACK LIZ Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook.
(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off.)
BLOOM (Points to his hand.) That weal there is an accident. Fell and
cut it twenty-two years ago. I was sixteen.
ZOE I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.
STEPHEN See? Moves to one great goal. I am twenty two too. Sixteen
years ago I twentytwo tumbled, twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his
hobbyhorse. (He winces.) Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?
(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and
writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)
FLORRY What?
(A hackneycar number three hundred and twentyfour, with a
gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook,
trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The
Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia
Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)
THE BOOTS (Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.)
Haw, haw, have you the horn?
(Bronze by gold they whisper.)
ZOE (To Florry.) Whisper.
(They whisper again.)
(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set
sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan, in a yachtsman's cap and white
shoes, officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan s shoulder.)
LENEHAN Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a
few quims?
BOYLAN (Seated, smiles.) Plucking a turkey.
LENEHAN A good night's work.
BOYLAN (Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks.) Blazes
Kate! Up to sample or your money back. (He holds out a forefinger.) Smell
that.
LENEHAN (Smells gleefully.) Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah!
ZOE AND FLORRY (Laugh together.) Ha ha ha ha.
BOYLAN bumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear. )
Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom up yet?
BLOOM (In a flunkey's plum plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings
and powdered wig.) I'm afraid not, sir, the last articles...
BOYLAN (Tosses him sixpence.) Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash.
(He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head.) Show me in. I
have a little private business with your wife. You understand?
BLOOM Thank you, sir. Yes, sir, Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir.
MARION He ought to feel himself highly honoured. (She plops splashing
out of the water.) Raoul, darling, come and dry me. I'm in my pelt. Only my
new hat and a carriage sponge.
BOYLAN (A merry twinkle in his eye.) Topping!
BELLA What? What is it?
(Zoe whispers to her.)
MARION Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I'll
write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise
weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and
stamped receipt.
BELLA (Laughing.) Ho ho ho ho.
BOYLAN (To Bloom, over his shoulder.) You can apply your eye to the
keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.
BLOOM Thank you, sir, I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness
the deed and take a snapshot? (He holds an ointment jar.) Vaseline, sir?
Orangeflower?... Lukewarm water?...
KITTY (From the sofa.) Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What.
(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur lip-lapping
loudly, poppysmic plopslop.)
MINA KENNEDY (Her eyes upturned.) O, it must be like the scent of
geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! Stuck
together! Covered with kisses!
LYDIA DOUCE (Her mouth opening.) Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round the
room doing it! Ride a cock horse. You could hear them in Paris and New York.
Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.
KITTY (Laughing.) Hee hee hee.
BOYLAN'S VOICE (Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach.) Ah!
Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht!
MARION'S VOICE (Hoarsely, sweetly rising to her throat.) O!
Weeshwashtkissima, pooisthnapoohuck!
BLOOM (His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself) Show! Hide! Show!
Plough her! More! Shoot!
BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY. KITTY Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee!
LYNCH (Points.) The mirror up to nature. (He laughs.) Hu hu hu hu hu
hu.
(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare,
beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the
reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.)
SHAKESPEARE (In dignified ventriloquy.) 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks
the vacant mind. (To Bloom.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible.
Gaze. (He crows with a black capon's laugh.) Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit
his Thursdaymomun. Iagogogo!
BLOOM (Smiles yellowly at the whores.) When will I hear the joke?
ZOE Before you're twice married and once a widower.
BLOOM Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon, when measurements
were taken near the skin after his death...
(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with
deathtalk, tears and Tunny's tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds, her
bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a pen
chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late husband's
everyday trousers and turnedup boots, lace eights. She holds a Scottish
widow's insurance policy and lace marqueeumbrella under which her brood runs
with her, Patsy hopping on one short foot, his collar loose, a hank of
porksteaks dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy with a crying cods mouth, Alice
struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, her streamers flaunting aloft.)
FREDDY Ah, ma, you're dragging me along!
SUSY Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over!
SHAKESPEARE (With paralytic rage.) Weda seca whokilla farst.
(The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeares
beardless face. The marqueeumbrella sways drunkenly, the children run aside.
Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and kimono
gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twisting japanesily.)
MRS CUNNINGHAM (Sings.) And they call me the jewel of Asia.
MARTIN CUNNINGHAM
(Gazes on her impassive.) Immense! Most bloody awful demirep!
STEPHEN Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Queens lay with prize bulls.
Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgross father made the first
confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the
house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was open.
BELLA None of that here. Come to the wrong shop.
LYNCH Let him alone. He's back from Paris.
ZOE (Runs to Stephen and links him.) O go on! Give us some parleyvoo.
(Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace, where he
stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile on
his face.)
LYNCH (Pommelling on the sofa.) Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrr rrrmmmmm.
STEPHEN (Gobbles, with marionette jerks. ) Thousand places of
entertainment to expenses your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and
other things perhaps her heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very
eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like
are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for
bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english how much smart they
are on things love and sensations voluptuous. Misters very selects for is
pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they
tears silver which occur every night. Perfectly shocking terrific of
religion's things mockery seen in universal world. All chic womans which
arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man
debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. (He clocks his tongue
loudly.) Ho, la la! Ce pif qu'il a!
LYNCH Vive le vampire!
THE WHORES Bravo! Parleyvoo!
STEPHEN (Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself)
Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles
big damn ruffians. Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very
amiable cos turned. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns
pleasure turpitude of old mans? (He points about him with grotesque gestures
which Lynch and the whores reply to.) Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or
lifesize tompeeptoms virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times.
Enter gentlemen to see in mirrors every positions trapezes all that machine
there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in
warm veal liver or omelette on the belly piхce de Shakespeare.
BELLA (Clapping her belly, sinks back on the sofa with a shout of
laughter.) An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... Omelette on the...
STEPHEN (Mincingly.) I love you, Sir darling. Speak you englishman
tongue for double entente cordiale. O yes, mon loup. How much cost?
Waterloo. Watercloset. (He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger.)
BELLA (Laughing.) Omelette...
THE WHORES (Laughing.) Encore! Encore!
STEPHEN Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon.
ZOE Go abroad and love a foreign lady.
LYNCH Across the world for a wife.
FLORRY Dreams go by contraries.
STEPHEN (Extending his arms.) It was here. Street of harlots. In
Serpentine Avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where's the red
carpet spread?
BLOOM (Approaching Stephen.) Look.
STEPHEN No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World
without end. (He cries.) Pater! Free!
BLOOM I say, look...
STEPHEN Break my spirit, will he? O merde alors! (He cries, his vulture
talons sharpened.) Hola! Hillyho!
(Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.)
SIMON That's all right. (He swoops uncertainly through the air,
wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard wings.)
Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those halfcastes.
Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep our flag flying!
An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. Ulster king at arms! hai
hoop! (He makes the beagle's call giving tongue.) Bulbul! Burblblbrurblbl!
Hai, boy!
(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. A
stout fox drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother,
runs swift for the open, bright-eyed, seeking badger earth, under the
leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, sniffing their
quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrblng to be blooded. Ward Union huntsmen and
huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six Mile Point, Flathouse,
Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, salmongaffs,
lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors
with bullswords, grey negroes waving torches. The crowd bowls of dicers,
crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse
bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.)
THE CROWD
Card of the races. Racing card!
Ten to one the field!
Tommy on the clay here!
Tommy on the clay!
Ten to one bar one.
Ten to one bar one.
Try your luck on spinning Jenny!
Ten to one bar one!
Sell the monkey, boys!
Sell the monkey!
I'll give ten to one!
Ten to one bar one!
(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost,
his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of
bucking mounts. Skeleton horses: Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the
Duke of Westminsters Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beauforts' Ceylon, prix
de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rusty armoured, leaping, leaping in their
saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain, on a broken-winded isabelle nag, Cock of
the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett
Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockey stick at the ready. His nag,
stumbling on whitegaitered feet, jogs along the rocky road.)
THE ORANGE LODGES (Jeering.) Get down and push, mister. Last lap!
You'll be home the night!
GARRETT DEASY (Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with
postage stamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the
prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at a schooling gallop.) Per
vias rectas!
(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag, a torrent
of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips,
potatoes.)
THE GREEN LODGES Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour!
(Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the
windows, singing in discord.)
STEPHEN Hark! Our friend, noise in the street!
ZOE (Holds up her hand.) Stop!
PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON and CISSY CAFFREY
Yet I've a sort a
Yorkshire relish for...
ZOE That's me. (She claps her hands.) Dance! Dance! (She runs to the
pianola.) Who has twopence?
BLOOM Who'll.
LYNCH (Handing her coins.) Here.
STEPHEN (Cracking his fingers impatiently.) Quick! Quick! Where's my
augur's rod? (He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his foot
in tripudium.)
ZOE (Turns the drumhandle.) There.
(She drops two pennies in the slot. Glow pink and violet lights start
forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor Goodwin, in
a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent
in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his hands fluttering.
He sits tinily on the piano stool and lifts and beats handless sticks of
arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsels grace, his bowknot bobbing.)
ZOE (Twirls around herself heeltapping.) Dance. Anybody here for there?
Who'll dance?
(The pianola, with changing lights, plays in waltz time the prelude to
My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. Stephen throws his ashplant on the table and
seizes Zoe around the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards the
fireplace. Stephen, aiming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to waltz her
around the room. Her sleeve, falling from gracing arms, reveals a white
fleshflower of vaccination. Bloom stands aside. Between the curtains,
Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins a silk hat.
With a deft kick, he sends it spinning to his crown and jauntyhatted skates
in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a go-et of cream
tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief tight
lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. In his buttonhole is a
dahlia. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then wedges it
tight in his oxter. He places a hand limply on his breastbone, bows and
fondles his flower and buttons.)
MAGINNI The poetry of motion, art of callisthenics. No connection with
Madam Legget Byrne's or Levinstone's. Fancy dress balls arranged.
Deportment. The Katty Lanner steps. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean
abilities. (He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet.) Tout le
monde an avant! Rиvиrence! Tout le monde en place!
(The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms,shrivels,
shrinks, his live cape falling about the stool. The air, in firmer waltz
time, pounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow, fade,
gold, rose, violet.)
THE PIANOLA Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls,
girls, Sweethearts they'd left behind.
(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slim, in girlish
blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance, twirling their
skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Laughing linked,
high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting
their arms.)
MAGINNI (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Carrи! Avant deux! Breathe
evenly! Balance!
(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing
to each other, shaping their curves, bowing vis a vis. Cavaliers behind them
arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising from
their shoulders.)
HOURS You may touch my.
CAVALIERS May I touch your?
HOURS O, but lightly!
CAVALIERS O, so lightly!
THE PIANOLA My little shy little lass has a waist.
(Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours
advance, from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their
cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey gauze
with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.)
MAGINNI Avant! huit! Traversи! Salut! Cours de mains! Croisи!
(The eight hours steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight
hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets
of dull bells. Weary, they curchycurchy under veils.)
THE BRACELETS Heigho! Heigho!
ZOE (Twisting, her hand to her brow.) O!
MAGINNI Los tiroirs! Chaнne de dames! La corbeille! Dos ю dos!
(Arabesquing wearily, they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving,
unweaving, curtseying, twisting, simply swirling.)
ZOE I'm giddy.
(She frees herself droops on a chair, Stephen seizes Florry and turns
with her.)
MAGINNI Boulangхre! Los ronds! Los ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots!
(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands, the night hours link,
each with arching arms, in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn
cumbrously.)
MAGINNI Dansez avec vos dames! Changes de dames! Donnes le petit
bouquet a votre dame! Remerciez!
THE PIANOLA
Best, best of all,
Baraabum!
KITTY (Jumps up.) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus
bazaar!
(She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A
screaming bit tern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling Toft's
cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room.)
THE PIANOLA My girl's a Yorkshire girl.
ZOE Yorkshire through and through. Come on all!
(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)
STEPHEN Pas seul!
(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arm's, snatches up his ashplant from the
table and takes the floor. All wheel, whirl, waltz, twirl. Bloombella,
Kittylynch, Florryzoe, jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in
middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh,
with clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho horn blower blue green yellow flashes.
Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled,
bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.)
THE PIANOLA
Though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they
scotlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)
TUTTI Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore!
SIMON Think of your mother's people!
STEPHEN Dance of death.
(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer piglings,
Conmee on Christass lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded
ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe' through and through, Baraabum! On nags,
hogs, bellhorses, Gadarene swine, Corny in coffin. Steel shark stone one
handled Nelson, two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling
bawling. Gum, he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong love
on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no
fancy clothes. Then in last wiswitchback lumbering up and down bump mash tub
sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)
(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes
closed, he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn
roundabout. Bright midges dance on wall. He stops dead.)
STEPHEN Ho!
(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor in leper
grey with a wreath of faded orange blossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face
worn and noseless, green with grave mould. Her hair is scant and lank. She
fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless
mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing
voicelessly.)
THE CHOIR
Liliata rutilantium te confessorum...
Iubilantium te virginum...
(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress
of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her,
a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)
BUCK MULLIGAN She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the
afflicted mother. (He upturns his eyes.) Mercurial Malachi.
THE MOTHER (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) I was once the
beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.
STEPHEN (Horrorstruck.) Lemur, who are you? What bogey man's trick is
this?
BUCK MULLIGAN (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch
killed her dogsbody bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten
butter fall from his eyes into the scone.) Our great sweet mother! Epi
oinopa ponton.
THE MOTHER (Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of
wetted ashes.) All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in the
world. You too. Time will come.
STEPHEN (Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) They said I killed
you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny.
THE MOTHER (A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth.)
You sang that song to me. Love's bitter mystery.
STEPHEN (Eagerly.) Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word
known to all men.
THE MOTHER Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey
with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers?
Prayer is all powerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline
manual, and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen.
STEPHEN The ghoul! Hyena!
THE MOTHER I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that
boiled rice every night after your brain work. Years and years I loved you,
O my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb.
ZOE (Fanning herself with the grate fan.) I'm melting!
FLORRY (Points to Stephen) Look! He's white.
BLOOM (Goes to the window to open it more.) Giddy.
THE MOTHER (With smouldering eyes.) Repent! O, the fire of hell!
STEPHEN (Panting.) The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody bones!
THE MOTHER (Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen
breath.) Beware! (She raises her blackened, withered right arm slowly
towards Stephen's breast with outstretched fingers.) Beware! God's hand! (A
green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in
Stephen's heart.)
STEPHEN (Strangled with rage.) Shite! (His features grow drawn and grey
and old.)
BLOOM (At the window.) What?
STEPHEN Ah non, par exemple! The intellectual imagination! With me all
or not at all. Non serviam!
FLORRY Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out.)
THE MOTHER (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.) O Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O divine Sacred
Heart!
STEPHEN No! No! No! Break my spirit all of you if you can! I'll bring
you all to heel!
THE MOTHER (In the agony of her deathrattle.) Have mercy on Stephen,
Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love,
grief and agony on Mount Calvary.
STEPHEN Nothung!
(He hits his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier.
Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all
space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
THE GASJET Pwfungg!
BLOOM Stop!
LYNCH (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Here! Hold on! Don't
run amok!
BELLA Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark,
beats the ground and flees from the room past the whores at the door.)
BELLA (Screams.) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoors. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede
from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)
THE WHORES (Jammed in the doorway, pointing.) Down there.
ZOE (Pointing.) There. There's something up.
BELLA Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) There. You
were with him. The lamp's broken.
BLOOM (Rushes to the hall, rushes back.) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE He tore his coat.
BELLA (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.) Who's to pay for
that? Ten Shillings. You're a witness.
BLOOM (Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.) Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you
lifted enough off him? Didn't he...
BELLA (Loudly.) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A
ten shilling house.
BLOOM (His hand under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet
lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the
chimney's broken. Here is all he...
BELLA (Shrinks back and screams.) Jesus! Don't!
BLOOM (Warding off a blow.) To show you how he hit the paper. There's
not a sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY (With a glass of water enters.) Where is he?
BELLA Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student.
Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a
masonic sign.) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You don't
want a scandal.
BELLA (Angrily.) Trinity! Coming down here ragging after the boat races
and paying nothing. Are you my commander here? Where is he? I'll charge him.
Disgrace him, I will. (She shouts.) Zoe! Zoe!
BLOOM (Urgently.) And if it were your own son in Oxford! (Warningly.) I
know.
BELLA (Almost speechless.) Who are you incog?
ZOE (In the doorway.) There's a row on.
BLOOM What? Where? (He throws a shilling on the table and shouts.)
That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. (He hurries out through
the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, spilling water from her tilted
tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to
the right where the fog has cleared off From the left arrives a jingling
hackney car. It slows to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor
perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two
silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall uses on her
whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with
a ghostly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and
Kitty still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's
hood and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun
al Baschid, he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the
railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn
envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of
bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho
cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follows from far, picking up the
scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their
tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, runs, zigzags,
gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps,
biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, womans slipperslappers. After
him, freshfound, the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my
leader: 65 C 66 C night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon,
Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'Rourke, Joe Cuffe, Mrs O'Dowd
Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen,
Whatdoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatslike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwith,
Chris Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell
d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice
Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly,
Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland Row
postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, man in the street,
other man in the street, Footballboots, pugnosed driver rich protestant
lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe Gallaher George Lidwell,
Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of
the Collector Generals, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs
Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan,
handsomemamedwomanrubbed againstwidebehindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of
Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus
Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of Drimmies colonel Hayes, Mastiansky,
Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E. Geraghty,
Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles Street corner old
doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a retriever Mrs
Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.
THE HUE AND CRY (Helterskelterelterwelter) He's Bloom! Stop Bloom!
Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stop him on the corner!
(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting
stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot
what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)
STEPHEN (With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.) You are
my guests. The uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh of
Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy Caffrey.) Was he insulting you?
STEPHEN Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter.
Ungenitive.
VOICES No, he didn't. The girl's telling lies. He was in Mrs Cohen's.
What's up? Soldiers and civilians.
CISSY CAFFREY I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to do
- you know and the young man ran up behind me. But I'm faithful to the man
that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore.
STEPHEN (Catches sight of Kitty's and Lynch's heads.) Hail, Sisyphus.
(He points to himself and the others.) Poetic. Neopoetic.
VOICES She's faithfultheman.
CISSY CAFFREY Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.
PRIVATE COMPTON He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff
him one, Harry.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy.) Was he insulting you while me and him was
having a piss?
LORD TENNYSON (In Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded,
flowingbearded.) Their's not to reason why.
PRIVATE COMPTON Biff him, Harry.
STEPHEN (To Private Compton. ) I don't know your name but you are quite
right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their
shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.
CISSY CAFFREY (To the crowd.) No, I was with the private.
STEPHEN (Amiably.) Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every
lady for example...
PRIVATE CARR (His cap awry, advancing to Stephen.) Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN (Looks up in the sky.) How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of
self-pretence. Personally, I detest action. (He waves his hand) Hand hurts
me slightly. Enfin, ce sont vos oignons.
(To Cissy Caffrey.) Some trouble is on here. What is it, precisely?
DOLLY GRAY (From her balcony waves her handkerchief giving the sign of
the heroine of Jericho.) Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly.
Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.
(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)
BLOOM (Elbowing through the crowd plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.)
Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.
STEPHEN (Turns.) Eh? (He disengages himself) Why should I not speak to
him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? (He
points his finger.) I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye.
Retaining the perpendicular.
(He staggers a pace back.)
BLOOM (Propping him.) Retain your own.
STEPHEN (Laughs emptily.) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have
forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for
life is the law of existence but modern philirenists, notably the tsar and
the king of England, have invented arbitration. (He taps his brow.) But in
here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
BIDDY THE CLAP Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor
out of the college.
CUNTY KATE I did. I heard that.
BIDDY THE CLAP He expresses himself with much marked refinement of
phraseology.
CUNTY KATE Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite
trenchancy.
PRIVATE CARR (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) What's that you're
saying about my king?
(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on
which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched, with the insignia of Garter
and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinners' and Probyns'
horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of
Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect
and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left
hand he holds a plasterers bucket on which is printed: Dиfense d'uriner. A
roar of welcome greets him.)
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.) Peace, perfect
peace. For identification bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. (He turns to his
subjects.) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we
heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a back.
(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and
Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts the bucket graciously in
acknowledgement.)
PRIVATE CARR (To Stephen.) Say it again.
STEPHEN (Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.) I understand your point
of view, though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of
patent medicine. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point.
You die for your country, suppose. (He places his arm on Private Carr's
sleeve.) Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me.
Up to the present it has done so. I don't want it to die. Damn death. Long
live life!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Levitates over heaps of slain in the garb and with
the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.)
My methods are new and are causing surprise.
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.
STEPHEN Kings and unicorns! (He falls back a pace.) Come somewhere and
we'll... What was that girl saying?...
PRIVATE COMPTON Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one
into Jerry.
BLOOM (To the privates, softly.) He doesn't know what he's saying.
Taking a little more than is good for him. Absinthe, the greeneyed monster.
I know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right.
STEPHEN (Nods, smiling and laughing.) Gentleman, patriot, scholar and
judge of impostors.
PRIVATE CARR I don't give a bugger who he is. PRIVATE COMPTON We don't
give a bugger who he is.
STEPHEN I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.
(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day
boys hat signs to Stephen.)
KEVIN EGAN H'lo. Bonjour! The vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes.
(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbit face nibbling a quince
leaf.)
PATRICE Socialiste!
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY (In medieval hauberk, two
wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand
against the privates.) Were those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of
johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
BLOOM (To Stephen.) Come home. You'll get into trouble.
STEPHEN (Swaying.) I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.
BIDDY THE CLAP One immediately observes that he is of patrician
lineage.
THE VIRAGO Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.
THE BAWD The red's as good as the green, and better. Up the soldiers!
Up King Edward!
A ROUGH (Laughs.) Ay! Hands up to De Wet.
THE CITIZEN (With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)
May the God above
Send down a cove
With teeth as sharp as razors
To slit the throat
Of the English dogs
That hanged our Irish leaders.
THE CROPPY BOY (The rope noose round his neck, gripes in his issuing
bowels with both hands.)
I bear no hate to a living thing,
But love my country beyond the king.
RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER (Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants,
advances with a gladstone bag which he opens.) Ladies and gents, cleaver
purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered
the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the
unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing
arsenic retrieved from the body of Miss Barrow which sent Seddon to the
gallows.
(He jerks the rope, the assistants leap at the victims legs and drag
him downward, grunting: the croppy boys tongue protrudes violently.)
THE CROPPY BOY Horhot ho hray ho rhother's hest.
(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of
sperm spouting through his death clothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs
Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush
forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)
RUMBOLD I'm near it myself. (He undoes the noose.) Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time as applied to His Royal Highness. (He
plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head
again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) My painful duty has now
been done. God save the king!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket and
sings with soft contentment.)
On coronation day, on coronation day,
O, Won't We have a merry time,
Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
PRIVATE CARR Here. What are you saying about my king?
STEPHEN (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He
wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish
empire of his. Money I haven't. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it
to someone.
PRIVATE CARR Who wants your bleeding money?
STEPHEN (Tries to move off.) Will some one tell me where I am least
likely to meet these necessary evils? гa se voit aussi ю Paris. Not that
I... But by Saint Patrick!...
(The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears
seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.)
STEPHEN Aha! I know you, grammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that
eats her farrow!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Rocking to and fro.) Ireland's sweetheart, the king
of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them!
(She keens with banshee woe.) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! (She wails.)
You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?
STEPHEN How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of
the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.
CISSY CAFFREY (Shrill.) Stop them from fighting!
A ROUGH Our men retreated.
PRIVATE CARR (Tugging at his belt.) I'll wring the neck of any bugger
says a word against my fucking king.
BLOOM (Terrified.) He said nothing. Not a word. A pure
misunderstanding.
THE CITIZEN Erin go bragh! _
(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals,
decorations, trophies of war wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.)
PRIVATE COMPTON Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer.
STEPHEN Did I? When?
BLOOM (To the redcoats.) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish
missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our
monarch.
THE NAVVY (Staggering past.) O, yes. O, God, yes! O, make the kwawr a
krowawr! O! Bo!
(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spear
points. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap
with hackle plume and accoutrements, with epaulette, gilt chevrons and
sabretache, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the
pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Growls gruffly.) Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them!
Mahal shalal hashbaz.
PRIVATE CARR I'll do him in.
PRIVATE COMPTON (Waves the crowd back.) Fair play, here. Make a
bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger.
(Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the king.)
CISSY CAFFREY They're going to fight. For me!
CUNTY KATE The brave and the fair.
BIDDY THE CLAP Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.
CUNTY KATE (Blushing deeply.) Nay, Madam. The gules doublet and merry
Saint George for me!
STEPHEN The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old
Ireland's windingsheet.
PRIVATE CARR (Loosening his belt, shouts.) I'll wring the neck of any
fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.
BLOOM (Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.) Speak, you! Are you struck
dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred
lifegiver.
CISSY CAFFREY (Alarmed seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) Amn't I with you?
Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. (She cries.) Police!
STEPHEN (Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)
White thy fambles, red thy gan
And thy quarrons dainty is.
VOICES Police!
DISTANT VOICES Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire!
(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns
boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse
commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech.
Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses.
Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from
marsh lands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, connorants,
vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlin, blackgrouse, sea
DON JOHN CONMEE Now, Father Dolan! Now. I'm sure that Stephen is a very
good little boy.
ZOE (Examining Stephen's palm.) Woman's hand.
STEPHEN (Murmurs.) Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read
His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock.
ZOE What day were you born?
STEPHEN Thursday. Today.
ZOE Thursday's child has far to go. (She traces lines on his hand.)
Line of fate. Influential friends.
FLORRY (Pointing.) Imagination.
ZOE Mount of the moon. You'll meet with a... (She peers at his hands
abruptly.) I won't tell you what's not good for you. Or do you want to know?
BLOOM (Detaches her fingers and offers his palm.) More harm than good.
Here. Read mine.
BELLA Show. (She turns up Bloom's hand.) I thought so. Knobby knuckles,
for the women.
ZOE (Peering at Bloom's palm.) Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and
marry money.
BLOOM Wrong.
ZOE (Quickly.) O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That
wrong?
(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises,
stretches her wings and clucks.)
BLACK LIZ Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook.
(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off.)
BLOOM (Points to his hand.) That weal there is an accident. Fell and
cut it twenty-two years ago. I was sixteen.
ZOE I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.
STEPHEN See? Moves to one great goal. I am twenty two too. Sixteen
years ago I twentytwo tumbled, twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his
hobbyhorse. (He winces.) Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?
(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and
writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)
FLORRY What?
(A hackneycar number three hundred and twentyfour, with a
gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook,
trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The
Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia
Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)
THE BOOTS (Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.)
Haw, haw, have you the horn?
(Bronze by gold they whisper.)
ZOE (To Florry.) Whisper.
(They whisper again.)
(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set
sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan, in a yachtsman's cap and white
shoes, officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan s shoulder.)
LENEHAN Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a
few quims?
BOYLAN (Seated, smiles.) Plucking a turkey.
LENEHAN A good night's work.
BOYLAN (Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks.) Blazes
Kate! Up to sample or your money back. (He holds out a forefinger.) Smell
that.
LENEHAN (Smells gleefully.) Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah!
ZOE AND FLORRY (Laugh together.) Ha ha ha ha.
BOYLAN bumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear. )
Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom up yet?
BLOOM (In a flunkey's plum plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings
and powdered wig.) I'm afraid not, sir, the last articles...
BOYLAN (Tosses him sixpence.) Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash.
(He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head.) Show me in. I
have a little private business with your wife. You understand?
BLOOM Thank you, sir. Yes, sir, Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir.
MARION He ought to feel himself highly honoured. (She plops splashing
out of the water.) Raoul, darling, come and dry me. I'm in my pelt. Only my
new hat and a carriage sponge.
BOYLAN (A merry twinkle in his eye.) Topping!
BELLA What? What is it?
(Zoe whispers to her.)
MARION Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I'll
write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise
weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and
stamped receipt.
BELLA (Laughing.) Ho ho ho ho.
BOYLAN (To Bloom, over his shoulder.) You can apply your eye to the
keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.
BLOOM Thank you, sir, I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness
the deed and take a snapshot? (He holds an ointment jar.) Vaseline, sir?
Orangeflower?... Lukewarm water?...
KITTY (From the sofa.) Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What.
(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur lip-lapping
loudly, poppysmic plopslop.)
MINA KENNEDY (Her eyes upturned.) O, it must be like the scent of
geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! Stuck
together! Covered with kisses!
LYDIA DOUCE (Her mouth opening.) Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round the
room doing it! Ride a cock horse. You could hear them in Paris and New York.
Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.
KITTY (Laughing.) Hee hee hee.
BOYLAN'S VOICE (Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach.) Ah!
Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht!
MARION'S VOICE (Hoarsely, sweetly rising to her throat.) O!
Weeshwashtkissima, pooisthnapoohuck!
BLOOM (His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself) Show! Hide! Show!
Plough her! More! Shoot!
BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY. KITTY Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee!
LYNCH (Points.) The mirror up to nature. (He laughs.) Hu hu hu hu hu
hu.
(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare,
beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the
reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.)
SHAKESPEARE (In dignified ventriloquy.) 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks
the vacant mind. (To Bloom.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible.
Gaze. (He crows with a black capon's laugh.) Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit
his Thursdaymomun. Iagogogo!
BLOOM (Smiles yellowly at the whores.) When will I hear the joke?
ZOE Before you're twice married and once a widower.
BLOOM Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon, when measurements
were taken near the skin after his death...
(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with
deathtalk, tears and Tunny's tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds, her
bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a pen
chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late husband's
everyday trousers and turnedup boots, lace eights. She holds a Scottish
widow's insurance policy and lace marqueeumbrella under which her brood runs
with her, Patsy hopping on one short foot, his collar loose, a hank of
porksteaks dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy with a crying cods mouth, Alice
struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, her streamers flaunting aloft.)
FREDDY Ah, ma, you're dragging me along!
SUSY Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over!
SHAKESPEARE (With paralytic rage.) Weda seca whokilla farst.
(The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeares
beardless face. The marqueeumbrella sways drunkenly, the children run aside.
Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and kimono
gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twisting japanesily.)
MRS CUNNINGHAM (Sings.) And they call me the jewel of Asia.
MARTIN CUNNINGHAM
(Gazes on her impassive.) Immense! Most bloody awful demirep!
STEPHEN Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Queens lay with prize bulls.
Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgross father made the first
confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the
house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was open.
BELLA None of that here. Come to the wrong shop.
LYNCH Let him alone. He's back from Paris.
ZOE (Runs to Stephen and links him.) O go on! Give us some parleyvoo.
(Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace, where he
stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile on
his face.)
LYNCH (Pommelling on the sofa.) Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrr rrrmmmmm.
STEPHEN (Gobbles, with marionette jerks. ) Thousand places of
entertainment to expenses your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and
other things perhaps her heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very
eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like
are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for
bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english how much smart they
are on things love and sensations voluptuous. Misters very selects for is
pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they
tears silver which occur every night. Perfectly shocking terrific of
religion's things mockery seen in universal world. All chic womans which
arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man
debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. (He clocks his tongue
loudly.) Ho, la la! Ce pif qu'il a!
LYNCH Vive le vampire!
THE WHORES Bravo! Parleyvoo!
STEPHEN (Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself)
Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles
big damn ruffians. Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very
amiable cos turned. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns
pleasure turpitude of old mans? (He points about him with grotesque gestures
which Lynch and the whores reply to.) Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or
lifesize tompeeptoms virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times.
Enter gentlemen to see in mirrors every positions trapezes all that machine
there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in
warm veal liver or omelette on the belly piхce de Shakespeare.
BELLA (Clapping her belly, sinks back on the sofa with a shout of
laughter.) An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... Omelette on the...
STEPHEN (Mincingly.) I love you, Sir darling. Speak you englishman
tongue for double entente cordiale. O yes, mon loup. How much cost?
Waterloo. Watercloset. (He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger.)
BELLA (Laughing.) Omelette...
THE WHORES (Laughing.) Encore! Encore!
STEPHEN Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon.
ZOE Go abroad and love a foreign lady.
LYNCH Across the world for a wife.
FLORRY Dreams go by contraries.
STEPHEN (Extending his arms.) It was here. Street of harlots. In
Serpentine Avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where's the red
carpet spread?
BLOOM (Approaching Stephen.) Look.
STEPHEN No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World
without end. (He cries.) Pater! Free!
BLOOM I say, look...
STEPHEN Break my spirit, will he? O merde alors! (He cries, his vulture
talons sharpened.) Hola! Hillyho!
(Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.)
SIMON That's all right. (He swoops uncertainly through the air,
wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard wings.)
Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those halfcastes.
Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep our flag flying!
An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. Ulster king at arms! hai
hoop! (He makes the beagle's call giving tongue.) Bulbul! Burblblbrurblbl!
Hai, boy!
(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. A
stout fox drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother,
runs swift for the open, bright-eyed, seeking badger earth, under the
leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, sniffing their
quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrblng to be blooded. Ward Union huntsmen and
huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six Mile Point, Flathouse,
Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, salmongaffs,
lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors
with bullswords, grey negroes waving torches. The crowd bowls of dicers,
crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse
bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.)
THE CROWD
Card of the races. Racing card!
Ten to one the field!
Tommy on the clay here!
Tommy on the clay!
Ten to one bar one.
Ten to one bar one.
Try your luck on spinning Jenny!
Ten to one bar one!
Sell the monkey, boys!
Sell the monkey!
I'll give ten to one!
Ten to one bar one!
(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost,
his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of
bucking mounts. Skeleton horses: Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the
Duke of Westminsters Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beauforts' Ceylon, prix
de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rusty armoured, leaping, leaping in their
saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain, on a broken-winded isabelle nag, Cock of
the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett
Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockey stick at the ready. His nag,
stumbling on whitegaitered feet, jogs along the rocky road.)
THE ORANGE LODGES (Jeering.) Get down and push, mister. Last lap!
You'll be home the night!
GARRETT DEASY (Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with
postage stamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the
prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at a schooling gallop.) Per
vias rectas!
(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag, a torrent
of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips,
potatoes.)
THE GREEN LODGES Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour!
(Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the
windows, singing in discord.)
STEPHEN Hark! Our friend, noise in the street!
ZOE (Holds up her hand.) Stop!
PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON and CISSY CAFFREY
Yet I've a sort a
Yorkshire relish for...
ZOE That's me. (She claps her hands.) Dance! Dance! (She runs to the
pianola.) Who has twopence?
BLOOM Who'll.
LYNCH (Handing her coins.) Here.
STEPHEN (Cracking his fingers impatiently.) Quick! Quick! Where's my
augur's rod? (He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his foot
in tripudium.)
ZOE (Turns the drumhandle.) There.
(She drops two pennies in the slot. Glow pink and violet lights start
forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor Goodwin, in
a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent
in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his hands fluttering.
He sits tinily on the piano stool and lifts and beats handless sticks of
arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsels grace, his bowknot bobbing.)
ZOE (Twirls around herself heeltapping.) Dance. Anybody here for there?
Who'll dance?
(The pianola, with changing lights, plays in waltz time the prelude to
My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. Stephen throws his ashplant on the table and
seizes Zoe around the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards the
fireplace. Stephen, aiming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to waltz her
around the room. Her sleeve, falling from gracing arms, reveals a white
fleshflower of vaccination. Bloom stands aside. Between the curtains,
Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins a silk hat.
With a deft kick, he sends it spinning to his crown and jauntyhatted skates
in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a go-et of cream
tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief tight
lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. In his buttonhole is a
dahlia. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then wedges it
tight in his oxter. He places a hand limply on his breastbone, bows and
fondles his flower and buttons.)
MAGINNI The poetry of motion, art of callisthenics. No connection with
Madam Legget Byrne's or Levinstone's. Fancy dress balls arranged.
Deportment. The Katty Lanner steps. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean
abilities. (He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet.) Tout le
monde an avant! Rиvиrence! Tout le monde en place!
(The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms,shrivels,
shrinks, his live cape falling about the stool. The air, in firmer waltz
time, pounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow, fade,
gold, rose, violet.)
THE PIANOLA Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls,
girls, Sweethearts they'd left behind.
(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slim, in girlish
blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance, twirling their
skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Laughing linked,
high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting
their arms.)
MAGINNI (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Carrи! Avant deux! Breathe
evenly! Balance!
(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing
to each other, shaping their curves, bowing vis a vis. Cavaliers behind them
arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising from
their shoulders.)
HOURS You may touch my.
CAVALIERS May I touch your?
HOURS O, but lightly!
CAVALIERS O, so lightly!
THE PIANOLA My little shy little lass has a waist.
(Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours
advance, from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their
cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey gauze
with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.)
MAGINNI Avant! huit! Traversи! Salut! Cours de mains! Croisи!
(The eight hours steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight
hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets
of dull bells. Weary, they curchycurchy under veils.)
THE BRACELETS Heigho! Heigho!
ZOE (Twisting, her hand to her brow.) O!
MAGINNI Los tiroirs! Chaнne de dames! La corbeille! Dos ю dos!
(Arabesquing wearily, they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving,
unweaving, curtseying, twisting, simply swirling.)
ZOE I'm giddy.
(She frees herself droops on a chair, Stephen seizes Florry and turns
with her.)
MAGINNI Boulangхre! Los ronds! Los ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots!
(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands, the night hours link,
each with arching arms, in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn
cumbrously.)
MAGINNI Dansez avec vos dames! Changes de dames! Donnes le petit
bouquet a votre dame! Remerciez!
THE PIANOLA
Best, best of all,
Baraabum!
KITTY (Jumps up.) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus
bazaar!
(She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A
screaming bit tern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling Toft's
cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room.)
THE PIANOLA My girl's a Yorkshire girl.
ZOE Yorkshire through and through. Come on all!
(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)
STEPHEN Pas seul!
(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arm's, snatches up his ashplant from the
table and takes the floor. All wheel, whirl, waltz, twirl. Bloombella,
Kittylynch, Florryzoe, jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in
middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh,
with clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho horn blower blue green yellow flashes.
Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled,
bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.)
THE PIANOLA
Though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they
scotlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)
TUTTI Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore!
SIMON Think of your mother's people!
STEPHEN Dance of death.
(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer piglings,
Conmee on Christass lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded
ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe' through and through, Baraabum! On nags,
hogs, bellhorses, Gadarene swine, Corny in coffin. Steel shark stone one
handled Nelson, two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling
bawling. Gum, he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong love
on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no
fancy clothes. Then in last wiswitchback lumbering up and down bump mash tub
sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)
(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes
closed, he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn
roundabout. Bright midges dance on wall. He stops dead.)
STEPHEN Ho!
(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor in leper
grey with a wreath of faded orange blossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face
worn and noseless, green with grave mould. Her hair is scant and lank. She
fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless
mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing
voicelessly.)
THE CHOIR
Liliata rutilantium te confessorum...
Iubilantium te virginum...
(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress
of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her,
a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)
BUCK MULLIGAN She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the
afflicted mother. (He upturns his eyes.) Mercurial Malachi.
THE MOTHER (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) I was once the
beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.
STEPHEN (Horrorstruck.) Lemur, who are you? What bogey man's trick is
this?
BUCK MULLIGAN (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch
killed her dogsbody bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten
butter fall from his eyes into the scone.) Our great sweet mother! Epi
oinopa ponton.
THE MOTHER (Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of
wetted ashes.) All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in the
world. You too. Time will come.
STEPHEN (Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) They said I killed
you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny.
THE MOTHER (A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth.)
You sang that song to me. Love's bitter mystery.
STEPHEN (Eagerly.) Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word
known to all men.
THE MOTHER Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey
with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers?
Prayer is all powerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline
manual, and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen.
STEPHEN The ghoul! Hyena!
THE MOTHER I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that
boiled rice every night after your brain work. Years and years I loved you,
O my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb.
ZOE (Fanning herself with the grate fan.) I'm melting!
FLORRY (Points to Stephen) Look! He's white.
BLOOM (Goes to the window to open it more.) Giddy.
THE MOTHER (With smouldering eyes.) Repent! O, the fire of hell!
STEPHEN (Panting.) The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody bones!
THE MOTHER (Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen
breath.) Beware! (She raises her blackened, withered right arm slowly
towards Stephen's breast with outstretched fingers.) Beware! God's hand! (A
green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in
Stephen's heart.)
STEPHEN (Strangled with rage.) Shite! (His features grow drawn and grey
and old.)
BLOOM (At the window.) What?
STEPHEN Ah non, par exemple! The intellectual imagination! With me all
or not at all. Non serviam!
FLORRY Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out.)
THE MOTHER (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.) O Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O divine Sacred
Heart!
STEPHEN No! No! No! Break my spirit all of you if you can! I'll bring
you all to heel!
THE MOTHER (In the agony of her deathrattle.) Have mercy on Stephen,
Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love,
grief and agony on Mount Calvary.
STEPHEN Nothung!
(He hits his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier.
Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all
space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
THE GASJET Pwfungg!
BLOOM Stop!
LYNCH (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Here! Hold on! Don't
run amok!
BELLA Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark,
beats the ground and flees from the room past the whores at the door.)
BELLA (Screams.) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoors. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede
from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)
THE WHORES (Jammed in the doorway, pointing.) Down there.
ZOE (Pointing.) There. There's something up.
BELLA Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) There. You
were with him. The lamp's broken.
BLOOM (Rushes to the hall, rushes back.) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE He tore his coat.
BELLA (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.) Who's to pay for
that? Ten Shillings. You're a witness.
BLOOM (Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.) Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you
lifted enough off him? Didn't he...
BELLA (Loudly.) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A
ten shilling house.
BLOOM (His hand under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet
lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the
chimney's broken. Here is all he...
BELLA (Shrinks back and screams.) Jesus! Don't!
BLOOM (Warding off a blow.) To show you how he hit the paper. There's
not a sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY (With a glass of water enters.) Where is he?
BELLA Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student.
Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a
masonic sign.) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You don't
want a scandal.
BELLA (Angrily.) Trinity! Coming down here ragging after the boat races
and paying nothing. Are you my commander here? Where is he? I'll charge him.
Disgrace him, I will. (She shouts.) Zoe! Zoe!
BLOOM (Urgently.) And if it were your own son in Oxford! (Warningly.) I
know.
BELLA (Almost speechless.) Who are you incog?
ZOE (In the doorway.) There's a row on.
BLOOM What? Where? (He throws a shilling on the table and shouts.)
That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. (He hurries out through
the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, spilling water from her tilted
tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to
the right where the fog has cleared off From the left arrives a jingling
hackney car. It slows to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor
perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two
silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall uses on her
whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with
a ghostly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and
Kitty still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's
hood and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun
al Baschid, he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the
railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn
envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of
bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho
cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follows from far, picking up the
scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their
tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, runs, zigzags,
gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps,
biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, womans slipperslappers. After
him, freshfound, the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my
leader: 65 C 66 C night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon,
Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'Rourke, Joe Cuffe, Mrs O'Dowd
Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen,
Whatdoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatslike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwith,
Chris Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell
d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice
Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly,
Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland Row
postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, man in the street,
other man in the street, Footballboots, pugnosed driver rich protestant
lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe Gallaher George Lidwell,
Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of
the Collector Generals, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs
Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan,
handsomemamedwomanrubbed againstwidebehindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of
Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus
Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of Drimmies colonel Hayes, Mastiansky,
Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E. Geraghty,
Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles Street corner old
doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a retriever Mrs
Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.
THE HUE AND CRY (Helterskelterelterwelter) He's Bloom! Stop Bloom!
Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stop him on the corner!
(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting
stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot
what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)
STEPHEN (With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.) You are
my guests. The uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh of
Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy Caffrey.) Was he insulting you?
STEPHEN Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter.
Ungenitive.
VOICES No, he didn't. The girl's telling lies. He was in Mrs Cohen's.
What's up? Soldiers and civilians.
CISSY CAFFREY I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to do
- you know and the young man ran up behind me. But I'm faithful to the man
that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore.
STEPHEN (Catches sight of Kitty's and Lynch's heads.) Hail, Sisyphus.
(He points to himself and the others.) Poetic. Neopoetic.
VOICES She's faithfultheman.
CISSY CAFFREY Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.
PRIVATE COMPTON He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff
him one, Harry.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy.) Was he insulting you while me and him was
having a piss?
LORD TENNYSON (In Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded,
flowingbearded.) Their's not to reason why.
PRIVATE COMPTON Biff him, Harry.
STEPHEN (To Private Compton. ) I don't know your name but you are quite
right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their
shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.
CISSY CAFFREY (To the crowd.) No, I was with the private.
STEPHEN (Amiably.) Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every
lady for example...
PRIVATE CARR (His cap awry, advancing to Stephen.) Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN (Looks up in the sky.) How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of
self-pretence. Personally, I detest action. (He waves his hand) Hand hurts
me slightly. Enfin, ce sont vos oignons.
(To Cissy Caffrey.) Some trouble is on here. What is it, precisely?
DOLLY GRAY (From her balcony waves her handkerchief giving the sign of
the heroine of Jericho.) Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly.
Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.
(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)
BLOOM (Elbowing through the crowd plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.)
Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.
STEPHEN (Turns.) Eh? (He disengages himself) Why should I not speak to
him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? (He
points his finger.) I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye.
Retaining the perpendicular.
(He staggers a pace back.)
BLOOM (Propping him.) Retain your own.
STEPHEN (Laughs emptily.) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have
forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for
life is the law of existence but modern philirenists, notably the tsar and
the king of England, have invented arbitration. (He taps his brow.) But in
here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
BIDDY THE CLAP Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor
out of the college.
CUNTY KATE I did. I heard that.
BIDDY THE CLAP He expresses himself with much marked refinement of
phraseology.
CUNTY KATE Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite
trenchancy.
PRIVATE CARR (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) What's that you're
saying about my king?
(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on
which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched, with the insignia of Garter
and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinners' and Probyns'
horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of
Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect
and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left
hand he holds a plasterers bucket on which is printed: Dиfense d'uriner. A
roar of welcome greets him.)
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.) Peace, perfect
peace. For identification bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. (He turns to his
subjects.) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we
heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a back.
(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and
Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts the bucket graciously in
acknowledgement.)
PRIVATE CARR (To Stephen.) Say it again.
STEPHEN (Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.) I understand your point
of view, though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of
patent medicine. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point.
You die for your country, suppose. (He places his arm on Private Carr's
sleeve.) Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me.
Up to the present it has done so. I don't want it to die. Damn death. Long
live life!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Levitates over heaps of slain in the garb and with
the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.)
My methods are new and are causing surprise.
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.
STEPHEN Kings and unicorns! (He falls back a pace.) Come somewhere and
we'll... What was that girl saying?...
PRIVATE COMPTON Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one
into Jerry.
BLOOM (To the privates, softly.) He doesn't know what he's saying.
Taking a little more than is good for him. Absinthe, the greeneyed monster.
I know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right.
STEPHEN (Nods, smiling and laughing.) Gentleman, patriot, scholar and
judge of impostors.
PRIVATE CARR I don't give a bugger who he is. PRIVATE COMPTON We don't
give a bugger who he is.
STEPHEN I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.
(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day
boys hat signs to Stephen.)
KEVIN EGAN H'lo. Bonjour! The vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes.
(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbit face nibbling a quince
leaf.)
PATRICE Socialiste!
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY (In medieval hauberk, two
wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand
against the privates.) Were those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of
johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
BLOOM (To Stephen.) Come home. You'll get into trouble.
STEPHEN (Swaying.) I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.
BIDDY THE CLAP One immediately observes that he is of patrician
lineage.
THE VIRAGO Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.
THE BAWD The red's as good as the green, and better. Up the soldiers!
Up King Edward!
A ROUGH (Laughs.) Ay! Hands up to De Wet.
THE CITIZEN (With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)
May the God above
Send down a cove
With teeth as sharp as razors
To slit the throat
Of the English dogs
That hanged our Irish leaders.
THE CROPPY BOY (The rope noose round his neck, gripes in his issuing
bowels with both hands.)
I bear no hate to a living thing,
But love my country beyond the king.
RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER (Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants,
advances with a gladstone bag which he opens.) Ladies and gents, cleaver
purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered
the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the
unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing
arsenic retrieved from the body of Miss Barrow which sent Seddon to the
gallows.
(He jerks the rope, the assistants leap at the victims legs and drag
him downward, grunting: the croppy boys tongue protrudes violently.)
THE CROPPY BOY Horhot ho hray ho rhother's hest.
(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of
sperm spouting through his death clothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs
Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush
forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)
RUMBOLD I'm near it myself. (He undoes the noose.) Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time as applied to His Royal Highness. (He
plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head
again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) My painful duty has now
been done. God save the king!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket and
sings with soft contentment.)
On coronation day, on coronation day,
O, Won't We have a merry time,
Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
PRIVATE CARR Here. What are you saying about my king?
STEPHEN (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He
wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish
empire of his. Money I haven't. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it
to someone.
PRIVATE CARR Who wants your bleeding money?
STEPHEN (Tries to move off.) Will some one tell me where I am least
likely to meet these necessary evils? гa se voit aussi ю Paris. Not that
I... But by Saint Patrick!...
(The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears
seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.)
STEPHEN Aha! I know you, grammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that
eats her farrow!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Rocking to and fro.) Ireland's sweetheart, the king
of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them!
(She keens with banshee woe.) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! (She wails.)
You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?
STEPHEN How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of
the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.
CISSY CAFFREY (Shrill.) Stop them from fighting!
A ROUGH Our men retreated.
PRIVATE CARR (Tugging at his belt.) I'll wring the neck of any bugger
says a word against my fucking king.
BLOOM (Terrified.) He said nothing. Not a word. A pure
misunderstanding.
THE CITIZEN Erin go bragh! _
(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals,
decorations, trophies of war wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.)
PRIVATE COMPTON Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer.
STEPHEN Did I? When?
BLOOM (To the redcoats.) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish
missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our
monarch.
THE NAVVY (Staggering past.) O, yes. O, God, yes! O, make the kwawr a
krowawr! O! Bo!
(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spear
points. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap
with hackle plume and accoutrements, with epaulette, gilt chevrons and
sabretache, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the
pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Growls gruffly.) Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them!
Mahal shalal hashbaz.
PRIVATE CARR I'll do him in.
PRIVATE COMPTON (Waves the crowd back.) Fair play, here. Make a
bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger.
(Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the king.)
CISSY CAFFREY They're going to fight. For me!
CUNTY KATE The brave and the fair.
BIDDY THE CLAP Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.
CUNTY KATE (Blushing deeply.) Nay, Madam. The gules doublet and merry
Saint George for me!
STEPHEN The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old
Ireland's windingsheet.
PRIVATE CARR (Loosening his belt, shouts.) I'll wring the neck of any
fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.
BLOOM (Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.) Speak, you! Are you struck
dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred
lifegiver.
CISSY CAFFREY (Alarmed seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) Amn't I with you?
Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. (She cries.) Police!
STEPHEN (Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)
White thy fambles, red thy gan
And thy quarrons dainty is.
VOICES Police!
DISTANT VOICES Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire!
(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns
boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse
commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech.
Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses.
Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from
marsh lands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, connorants,
vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlin, blackgrouse, sea