Joyce J. Ulysses

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 having
itself, parturient in vehicle the reward 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 babe bliss 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 they 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 mild-hearted eft rising
with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping lightens
in eyeblink Ireland's westward welkin! Full she dread 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 year 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 into 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
forth all to him 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 young 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 learning knight 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 learning
knight 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 into
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 subtle. Also the lady was of his avis and reproved the learning knight
though she trowed well that the traveller had said thing that was false for
his subtility. But the learning knight 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 sometimes 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
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
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 blares into 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 olive
press. And also it was marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a
compost out of fecund wheat kidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain
angry spirits that they do into 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 wist not of his 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 high! 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 when he 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 purge fire. But,
gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly unpossibilise,
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 ford that he rued for her that bare whoso she might be or wheresoever.
Then spoke 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 bring forth 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 seldom seen 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 goldsmiths' 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 cam 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
parce que M. Lиo Taxil nous a dit que qui l'avait mise dans cette fichue
position c'иtait le sacrи pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder
transsubstantiality 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 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 not 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 with
menace of blandishments others whiles all chode with him, a murrain seize
the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in
the 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 truth, 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, said 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 broughtest 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 the 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 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 water 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 pale 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 not 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 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
and 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 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 flags 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 running 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, Vin. Lynch, a Scots
fellow, Will. Madden, T. Lenehan, very sad for a racinghorse 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 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 to 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 woman, 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 boiling-cook'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
brandy shipper 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 or moonlight or fecking maid's linen or choking chickens 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 wools, 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
of 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 cattle breeder 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 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 then 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 bull's 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
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 drinking trough 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
bull's 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 up
on 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.
A man's a man for a' that.
Our worthy acquaintance, Mr Malachi Mulligan, now appeared in the
doorway as the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a
friend whom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec
Bannon, who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or
a cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars. Mr Mulligan was civil
enough to express some relish of it all the more as it jumped with a project
of his own for the cure of the very evil that had been touched on. Whereat
he handed round to the company a set of pasteboard cards which he had had
printed that day at Mr Quinnell's bearing a legend printed in fair italics:
Mr Malachi Mulligan, Fertiliser and Incubator, Lambay Island. His project,
as he went on to expound, was to withdraw from the round of idle pleasures
such as form the chief business of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop
Quidnunc in town and to devote himself to the noblest task for which our
bodily organism has been framed. Well, let us hear of it, good my friend,
said Mr Dixon. I make no doubt it smacks of wenching. Come, be seated, both.
'Tis as cheap sitting as standing. Mr Mulligan accepted of the invitation
and, expatiating on his design, told his hearers that he had been led into
this thought by a consideration of the causes of sterility, both the
inhibitory and the prohibitory, whether the inhibition in its turn were due
to conjugal vexations or to a parsimony of the balance as well as whether
the prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or from proclivities
acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptial couch
defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so many agreeable
females with rich jointures, a prey for the vilest bonzes, who hide their