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Ulysses
by James Joyce
The original, just squashed down to read in about an hour


(Zurich, London, Paris, 1920)



James Joyce's attempt at writing Ireland's National Epic has repeatedly been chosen, by literary experts, as simply the best book of all time. Which is strange, as ordinary people tend to denounce it as pretentious and unreadable twaddle. Why the difference? Apart from its odd, fragmented, form, 'Ulysses' makes very little sense unless the reader is already familiar with its many references to earlier books, including the general outline of the ancient tale on which it is vaguely based. Anyone who has read The Hundred Books this far, shouldn't have too much trouble.

Most versions of Ulysses are abridged to some extent, intentionally or not. Squashed Ulysses is not nearly as abridged as some of the audio, cinema, theatre or TV versions, but abridged it is, not condensed. Every phrase is the phrase Joyce wrote, in the order Joyce wrote it. It is just odd sentences of fiddly stuff inbetween which have been thrown away.

If some passages may not seem to ‘follow on’ correctly, or be full of mistakes, or not make any sense at all - this is not generally a fault of the abridgment.

Ulysses is like that.

Abridged: Glyn Hughes


Ulysses
This edition is available in print...


1: Telemachus


STATELY, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned: Introibo ad altare Dei. (1).Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

Stephen Dedalus stepped up, and sat down on the edge of the gunrest.

- Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly. How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?

- God, these bloody English! Bursting with money and indigestion. Lend us your noserag to wipe my razor.

Stephen suffered him to pull out a dirty crumpled handkerchief.

- The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. You can almost taste it, can't you?

He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly.

- God! The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton.(2) Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! You must read them in the original.

He turned abruptly his grey eyes to Stephen's face.

- To think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for her. And you refused. How are the secondhand breeks?

- Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey.

- He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers. Look at yourself!

Stephen peered at the mirror held out to him.

- It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant.

- A voice within the tower called loudly: Dedalus, come down. Breakfast is ready.

In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan's gowned form moved briskly to and fro.

- The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk.

- We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There's a lemon in the locker.

- O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove milk.

Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly:

- That woman is coming up with the milk.

- Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug.

An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow. He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps.

- Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.

- I am, ma'am, Buck Mulligan answered.

Haines spoke to her, confidently.

- Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said.

- Irish, Buck Mulligan said.

- I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from the west, sir?

- I am an Englishman, Haines answered.

- He's English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak Irish in Ireland.

She curtseyed and went out.

- That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your national library today.

- Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said. Are you coming, you fellows?

Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out and down the ladder. At the foot of the ladder Haines asked:

- Do you pay rent for this tower?

- Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan said.

- Bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello you call it?

- Billy Pitt had them built, when the French were on the sea. But ours is the omphalos.

- What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen. This tower and these cliffs remind me of Elsinore.

- I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere. The Father and the Son idea.

- You're not a believer, are you? Haines asked. You are your own master, it seems to me.

- I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an Italian.

- Italian? Haines said.

- The imperial British state, Stephen answered, and the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.

- I can quite understand that, Haines said calmly. We feel in England that we have treated you rather unfairly. It seems history is to blame.

They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder.

- My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I'm the Ubermensch.

- Are you going in here, Malachi?

- We'll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the path and smiling at wild Irish.

Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon.

2: Nestor


- YOU, ARMSTRONG, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus?

A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong's satchel.

- Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier.

All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter.

- Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book, what is a pier.

- A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the water. A kind of a bridge. Kingstown pier, sir.

- Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge.

A stick struck the door and a voice in the corridor called:

- Hockey!

Quickly they were gone. Sargent who alone had lingered came forward slowly, showing an open copybook. The word SUMS was written on the headline. Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal.

- Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them to you, sir.

Stephen touched the edges of the book. Ugly and futile. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him underfoot, a squashed boneless snail. Sitting at his side Stephen solved out the problem. He proves by algebra that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather.

- Can you work the second for yourself?

- Call into my study for a moment, Mr Deasy said.

Blowing out his rare moustache Mr Deasy halted at the table.

- First, our little financial settlement, he said.

A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth.

- Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money.

- No thanks at all, Mr Deasy said. You have earned it.

The same room and hour, the same wisdom.

- He knew what money was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. Do you know what is the pride of the English? I will tell you, he said solemnly. I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life. Can you feel that?

Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues. McCann, one guinea. Temple, two lunches, Cousins, ten shillings, Koehler, three guineas, Mrs MacKernan, five weeks' board.

- For the moment, no, Stephen answered.

- That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus, with some of your literary friends. I have a letter here for the press. It's about the foot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two opinions on the matter.

May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of Laissez Faire which so often in our history. Pardoned a classical allusion. Known as Koch's preparation. In every sense of the word take the bull by the horns.

- I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said.

He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his voice spoke.

- Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. History shows that England is in the hands of the jews.

- History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

- The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said.

Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:

- That is God.

Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!

- What? Mr Deasy asked.

- A shout in the street, Stephen answered.

3: Proteus


INELUCTABLE modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Shut your eyes and see. Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and shells.

Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? Seems not. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer sand towards the Pigeonhouse. A woman and a man. The bloated carcass of a dog. Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats. He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock, carefully. For the rest let look who will.

4: Calypso


MR LEOPOLD BLOOM ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. The coals were reddening. Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right.

- Mkgnao!

- Milk for the pussens, he said.

On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by the bedroom door.

- You don't want anything for breakfast?

A sleepy soft grunt answered. No. She didn't want anything. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar.

His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey.

Not there. In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. No use disturbing her. He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number seventyfive. Be a warm day I fancy. He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages, polonies, black and white. A final kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. Girl in front. Quick.

- Threepence, please.

His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket.

- Thank you, sir. Another time.

He walked back along Dorset street, with newspaper, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim: planters' company. To purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish government. You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with olives, oranges, almonds or citrons. Can pay in yearly instalments. Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin. Quiet long days: pruning, ripening. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates. No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. The oldest people. Folding the page into his pocket he turned into Eccles street, hurrying homeward.

Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm yellow twilight towards her tousled head.

- Who are the letters for?

- A letter for me from our Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And a letter for you.

As he went down the kitchen stairs she called:

- Poldy!

- What?

- Scald the teapot.

He scalded and rinsed out the teapot and crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed hungrily against him. He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the teapot on the tray. Everything on it? Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle.

- Who was the letter from? he asked.

- O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme.

- What are you singing?

- La Ci Darem with J. C. Doyle, she said, and Love's Old Sweet Song.

She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking:

- What time is the funeral? There's a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the fire?

- The kidney! he cried suddenly.

5: The Lotus Eaters


BY LORRIES along sir John Rogerson's quay Mr Bloom walked soberly with newspaper to glance through the door of the postoffice. No-one. In.

- Are there any letters for me? he asked.

The postmistress handed him back through the grill a letter. He glanced at the typed envelope.

Henry Flower Esq, c/o P. O. Westland Row, City.

He strolled out and turned to the right. He unrolled his newspaper baton idly and read idly:
What is home without
Plumtree's potted meat?
Incomplete
With it an abode of bliss.

He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer. He passed the cabman's shelter and opened the letter within the newspaper. A flower. I think it's a. A yellow. Not annoyed then? What does she say?
Dear Henry

I am sorry you did not like my last letter. I am awfully angry with you. Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? Dear Henry, when will we meet? Remember if you do not reply I will punish you. Henry dear, do not deny my request before my patience are exhausted. Goodbye now, write by return to your longing

Martha
P. S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to know.

Going under the railway arch he took the envelope, tore it swiftly in shreds and scattered them towards the road. He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S.J. on the African Mission. Save China's millions. Buddha their God taking it easy with hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning. He walked southward along Westland row. Sweny's in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move.

- Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then orangeflower water...

- Yes, sir, the chemist said. Have you brought a bottle?

- No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I'll call later in the day and I'll take one of these soaps.

- Fourpence, sir.

Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax. He strolled out of the shop, newspaper baton under his arm, the coolwrappered soap in his left hand. At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said:

- Hello, Bloom. What's the best news? Is that today's?

Bantam Lyons's blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton.

- I want to see that French horse that's running today.

- Keep it, Mr Bloom said. I was going to throw it away.

- Throwaway I'll risk it, he said. Here, thanks.

He sped off towards Conway's corner. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it lately. He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid stream. This is my body. He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.

6: Hades


THE BLACK carriage creaked and swayed past Watery lane. Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros: the bottleworks: Dodder bridge. Nelson's pillar.

- Better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said.

- The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes. Poor Paddy! He's gone from us.

Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose. A lot of money he spent colouring it.

- As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Dedalus said. He went very suddenly.

- The best Death, Mr Bloom said.

No-one spoke. A tiny coffin flashed by. A mourning coach. A baby. Mistake of nature. Rattle his bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns.

- But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his own life.

- It is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham's large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent. He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones. That afternoon of the inquest. Verdict: overdose. Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son Leopold. No more pain.

The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones. Crossguns bridge: the royal canal.

The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed. Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket.

Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Do they know what they cart out here every day? Funerals all over the world everywhere every minute. Thousands every hour.

The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates and into the mortuary chapel. Which end is his head? They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book with a fluent croak. Father Coffey. With a belly on him like a poisoned pup. Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage.

- Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, domine.

The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy's bucket and shook it over the coffin.

Holy water that was, I expect. Every mortal day a fresh batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in childbirth, men with beards, bald businessmen, consumptive girls with little sparrows' breasts.

- In paradisum.

The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart.

Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day idea. Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps.

Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.

- What is he? he asked. Wasn't he in the stationery line?

Ned Lambert smiled.

- Yes, Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for blottingpaper.

Poor Dignam! Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from the holy land. The Irishman's house is his coffin.

An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the pebbles. A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. Cremation better. Ashes to ashes. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Poor papa. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life.

7: Aeolus


A NEWSPAPER OF THE METROPOLIS


- THERE IT IS, Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes.

- Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I'll take it round to the Telegraph office.

WE SEE THE CANVASSER AT WORK


Nature notes. Cartoons. Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle Toby's page for tiny tots. Country bumpkin's queries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure for flatulence? Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti's desk.

- Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you remember? He wants it in for July.

The foreman moved his pencil towards it.

- But he wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He wants two keys at the top. Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top.

The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was pushed in.

- Excuse me, J. J. O'Molloy said, entering. Is the editor to be seen?

- Very much so, MacHugh said. Seen and heard.

EXIT BLOOM


- I'm just running round to the library, Mr Bloom said, about this ad of Keyes's. Want to fix it up.

The editor, leaning against the mantelshelf, stretched forth an arm amply.

- Begone! he said. The world is before you.

THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME


- We think of Rome, imperial, imperious, imperative, Professor MacHugh said. What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: It is meet to be here. let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman who follows in his footsteps, gazed about him in his toga and he said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct a watercloset.

- Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said.

Mr O'Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered.

- I escort a suppliant, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led by Experience visits Notoriety.

- Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned...?

Bullockbefriending bard.

8: The Lestrygonians


A PROCESSION of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. He read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S. Wisdom Hely's. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked.

- O, Mr Bloom, how do you do?

- O, how do you do, Mrs Breen?

- How is Molly those times? Haven't seen her for ages.

- Milly has a position down in Mullingar, you know. Yes. In a photographer's there.

- And your lord and master? Said Bloom.

She took a folded postcard from her handbag.

- Read that, she said. He got it this morning.

- What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U.P.?

- U.P.: up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. And now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. He's going to take an action for ten thousand pounds, he says. She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch.

Change the subject.

- Do you see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Bloom asked.

- She's in the lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She's three days bad now.

- O, Mr Bloom said. I'm sorry to hear that. Poor thing! Three days! That's terrible for her.

A bony form strode along the curbstone. Tight as a skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head.

- Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts. Watch!

- Is he dotty? Mrs Breen asked.

His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr Bloom said smiling. Watch!

- Denis will be like that one of these days, she said. Goodbye. Remember me to Molly, won't you?

A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian file. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets. Policeman's lot is oft a happy one.

Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. Feel better then.

His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slush of greens. See the animals feed. Men, men, men. Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A man spitting halfmasticated gristle. Get out of this. Out. I hate dirty eaters. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne's. Stopgap. Keep me going. He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street.

He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub.

- Hello, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his nook. How's things?

- Tiptop... Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and... let me see.

Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham and his descendants musterred and bred there. Potted meats. What is home without Plumtree's potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Dignam's potted meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together.

- Wife well?

- Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?

Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips.

- Mustard, sir?

Feel better. Burgundy. Good pick me up. Kilkenny People in the national library now I must. Mr Bloom passed the reverend Thomas Connellan's bookstore. Why I Left The Church Of Rome? A blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone with his slender cane. No tram in sight.

- Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked.

The blind stripling did not answer.

9: Scylla and Charybdis


URBANE, to comfort them, the quaker librarian purred:

- Our young Irish bards have yet to create a figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare's Hamlet.

- The deepest poetry of Shelley, Russell oracled out of his shadow, the words of Hamlet bring our minds into contact with the eternal wisdom, Plato's world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.

- The schoolmen were schoolboys first, Aristotle was once Plato's schoolboy. Stephen said superpolitely.

Mr Best came forward, amiable, towards his colleague.

- Haines is gone, he said. He's quite enthusiastic, don't you know, about Hyde's Lovesongs of Connacht. I couldn't bring him in to hear the discussion. He's gone to Gill's to buy it.

- The peatsmoke is going to his head, John Eglinton opined.

We feel in England. Penitent thief. Gone.

- He will have it that Hamlet is a ghoststory, John Eglinton said for Mr Best's behoof.

- Young Hamnet was son of Shakespere's body. Is it possible that that player Shakespeare did not draw the conclusion: I am the murdered father: your mother is the guilty queen, Ann Shakespeare, born Hathaway?

- Ann Hathaway? Mr Best's quiet voice said forgetfully. Yes, we seem to be forgetting her as Shakespeare himself forgot her.

- The world believes that Shakespeare made a mistake

- Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

Portals of discovery opened to let in the quaker librarian, softcreakfooted, bald, eared and assiduous.

- Reminds one of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Our national epic has yet to be written, Dr Sigerson says. We are becoming important, it seems.

- Mr Lyster, an attendant said from the door ajar. There's a gentleman here, sir. He wants to see the files of the Kilkenny People for last year.

A patient silhouette waited, listening.

- If you just follow the atten... Or, please allow me... This way... Please, sir...

- What's his name? Buck Mulligan cried. Ikey Moses? Bloom. The wandering jew. I fear thee, ancient mariner.

- We want to hear more, John Eglinton decided with Mr Best's approval. We begin to be interested in Mrs S, and other lady friends as Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet, sings.

10: Wandering Rocks

THE SUPERIOR, the very reverend John Conmee S.J. reset his smooth watch in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to three. Just nice time to walk to Artane.

* * *


A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell's corner, skirting Rabaiotti's icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards Larry O'Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably:

- For England, Home and beauty.

A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it into the cap held out to her.

* * *


Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen. Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds twice with her potstick and wiped her brow.

* * *


Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump. H. E. L. Y.'S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane, plodding towards their goal.

The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil.

- Send it at once, will you? he said. It's for an invalid.

- Yes, sir. I will, sir.

Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet.

* * *


Mr Bloom turned over idly pages of The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk. Crooked botched print. The shopman let two volumes fall on the counter.

- Them are two good ones, he said.

Mr Bloom, alone, looked at the titles. Fair Tyrants by James Lovebirch. Know the kind that is. Had it? Yes. No: she wouldn't like that much. He read the other title: Sweets Of Sin. Let us see. He read where his finger opened.

- All the dollarbills her husband gave her were spent in the stores on wondrous gowns and costliest frillies. For him! For Raoul!

Mastering his troubled breath, he said:

- I'll take this one.

The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum.

- Sweets Of Sin, he said, tapping on it. That's a good one.

* * *


As they trod across the thick carpet Buck Mulligan and Haines chose a small table near the window, opposite a longfaced man whose beard and gaze hung intently down on a chessboard. Haines opened his newbought book.

* * *


Almidano Artifoni walked past Holles street, past Sewell's yard. Distantly behind him a blind stripling tapped his way by the wall of College park.

* * *


William Humble, earl of Dudley, and lady Dudley, accompanied by lieutenantcolonel Heseltine, drove out after luncheon from the viceregal lodge. The viceroy was most cordially greeted on his way through the metropolis. By the provost's wall came jauntily Blazes Boylan, stepping in tan shoes and socks with skyblue clocks to the refrain of My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. His Excellency acknowledged punctually salutes from rare male walkers, the salute of two small schoolboys at the garden gate of the house said to have been admired by the late queen when visiting the Irish capital with her husband, the prince consort, in 1849.

11: The Sirens


BRONZE by gold, miss Douce's head by miss Kennedy's head, over the crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing steel. A man. Bloom. Bloowho went by bearing in his breast the sweets of sin, by Wine's antiques, for Raoul.

Where eat? The Clarence, Dolphin. On. For Raoul. Eat. If I net five guineas with those ads. The violet silk petticoats. Not yet. The sweets of sin. To Martha I must write. Two sheets cream vellum paper one reserve two envelopes when I was in Wisdom Hely's wise Bloom Henry Flower bought. For Raoul.

Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he strode. See the conquering hero comes. Horn. Have you the? Horn. Haw haw horn.

By the window, warily walking, went Bloom, unconquered hero.

See me he might. Avoid. What is he doing in the Ormond? Something to eat? I too was just. Ormond? Best value in Dublin. Diningroom. Sit tight there. Pat, deaf waiter. See, not be seen. Come on. Dinner fit for a prince.

- Let me see. Let me see. Cider. Yes Pat, bottle of cider. Liver and bacon. Right, sir.

Bloom ate liv. Clean here at least. Best value in Dub. Piano music. Piano players. Numbers it is. All music when you come to think.. Two multiplied by two divided by half is twice one. Musemathematics.

Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat went.

Bloom dipped, Bloo mur: dear sir. Dear Henry wrote: dear Mady. Got your lett and flow.

Folly am I writing? Husbands don't. That's marriage does, their wives. Sauce for the gander.

- Answering an ad? keen Richie's eyes asked Bloom.

- Yes, Mr Bloom said.

Blot over the other so he can't read. Something detective read off blottingpad. Poor Mrs Purefoy. Done anyhow.

Postal order, stamp. Postoffice lower down. Walk now. Gassy thing that cider: binding too. Music. Gets on your nerves. Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady, with sweets of sin with frillies for Raoul went Poldy on.

Tap blind walked tapping by the tap the curbstone tapping, tap by tap. Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane.

Prrprr. Must be the bur. Fff! Oo. Rrpr. Pprrpffrrppffff. DONE.

12: The Cyclops


I WAS just passing the time of day at the corner of Arbour hill when I see Joe Hynes.

- Are you a strict t.t? says Joe.

- Not taking anything between drinks, says I.

- Come around to Barney Kiernan's, says Joe. I want to see the Citizen.

So we turned into Barney Kiernan's and there, sure enough, was the Citizen up in the corner having a great confab with himself and that bloody mangy mongrel, Garryowen.

- Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how's the old heart, Citizen? says he.

- Never better, says he.

The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was that of a broadshouldered deepchested shaggybearded ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero. From his girdle hung a row of seastones graven with rude tribal images of Irish heroes of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Brian of Kincora, Father John Murphy, Captain Boycott, Charlemagne, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castile, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, sir Thomas Lipton, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha.

- Ah, well, says Joe, handing round the boose. Drink that, Citizen.

Ah! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint.

Old Garryowen started growling again it was that Bloom that was skeezing round the door.

- Come in, come on, he won't eat you, says the Citizen.

- And Joe has these letters from hangmen and starts reading; Sir I beg to offer my services in the abovementioned painful case I hanged Joe Gann in Bootle jail on the 12 of febuary 1900 and I hanged...

- The dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe. Here, says he, take them to hell out of my sight. Hello, Bloom, says he, what will you have?

Bloom saying he wouldn't and he'd just take a cigar.

- They're all barbers, says he, from the black country that would hang their own fathers for five quid down and travelling expenses.

So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom comes out with the why and the wherefore and the old dog smelling him all the time I'm told those Jewies does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about I don't know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on.

- Sinn Fein! says the Citizen. The friends we love are by our side and the foes we hate before us.

So then the Citizen begins talking about the Irish language and all the shoneen games like lawn tennis and about hurley. And of course Bloom had to have his say too. I declare to my antimacassar that Bloom could talk steady an hour about a straw on the floor.

- Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it. Perpetuating national hatred among nations.

- Do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse.

- A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same place.

- What is your nation if I may ask? says the Citizen.

- Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland. And I belong to a race that is hated and persecuted. This very moment.

- Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says Citizen.

- The Saviour was a Jew, his father was a Jew. Your God.

- Whose God? says the Citizen.

- Your God was a Jew. Christ was a Jew like me.

Gob, the Citizen made a plunge back into the shop.

- By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody Jewman for using the holy name. By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.

The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of Come Back To Erin.

Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly, the old tinbox clattering along the street. And the last we saw was a car rounding the corner and old sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it.

When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness like a shot off a shovel.

13: Nausicaa


THE SUMMER evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting on the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore. The three girl friends were seated there, enjoying the evening scene. Cissy Caffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and Jacky, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits with caps to match.

- O, look, Cissy!

And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over the trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple.

- It's fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said. Come on, Gerty.

But Gerty leaned back far to look up where the fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fall back looking up and there was no-one to see only him and her when she revealed all, and she seemed to hear the panting of his heart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew too about the passion of men like that. Besides there was absolution so long as you didn't do the other thing before being married and there ought to be women priests that would understand.

And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind blank and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain. O, soft, sweet, soft!

Ah! She glanced at him as she bent forward quickly. He was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he) stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes. What a brute he had been! At it again? Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. That was their secret, only theirs.

Tight boots? No. She's lame! O! Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! A defect is ten times worse in a woman. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn't mind. Curiosity like a nun or a negress or a girl with glasses.

Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that little limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not pleasant. Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don't care. Complimented perhaps. Drained all the manhood out of me, little wretch. Do fish ever get seasick? Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write a message for her. Might remain. What?

I AM A


Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Thanks. Made me feel so young. O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me do love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed met him pike hoses frillies for Raoul.

Cuckoo Cuckoo

14: The Oxen of the Sun


DESHIL Holles Eamus. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Before born bliss babe had. Within womb won he worship. Seventy beds keeps he there teeming mothers are wont that they lie for to bring forth bairns hale.

Watchers tway there walk, white sisters in ward sleepless. Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy Death and the dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came naked forth from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the last for to go as he came.

The man that was come in to the house then spoke to the nursingwoman and he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay there in childbed. She said thereto that she had seen many births of women but never was none so hard as was that woman's birth.

And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there came the traveller Leopold.

And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halp thereto the while all they that were there drank every each. This meanwhile a good sister stood by the door and begged them at the reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailing. For they were right witty scholars, saying, greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters to the university of Oxtail.

15: Circe


THE MABBOT street entrance of Nighttown. Rows of grimy houses with gaping doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins. Round Rabaiotti's halted icecream gondola stunted men and women squabble. A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, shaken in saint vitus' dance. Private Carr and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics bloodbright in a lampglow.

Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the redcoats.

Bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a sidepocket. He disappears into Olhausen's, the porkbutcher's, under the downcoming rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter, puffing poldy, blowing bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the other a cold sheep's trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper. He stands at Cormack's corner, watching. Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling

THE BELLS: Haltyaltyaltyall.

(A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan of an elder in zion and a smokingcap with tassels. Yellow poison streaks are on the drawn face.)

BLOOM: (hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back) Papachi?

RUDOLPH: Have you no soul? Are you not my dear son Leopold who left the house of his father and left the God of his fathers Abraham and Jacob?

A VOICE: (sharply) Poldy!

BLOOM: I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water. (he pats divers pockets)

(A cake of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)

THE SOAP: We're a capital couple are Bloom and I. He brightens the earth. I polish the sky.

Followed by whining dog he walks on towards hellsgates.

THE WHORES: How's your middle leg? Got a match on you? Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.

Gaudy dollwomen loll in the lighted doorways, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes.

THE CRIER: (loudly) Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold ...

Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, trips down steps and accosts him.

ZOE: How's the nuts?

Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard black shrivelled potato.

BLOOM: Are you a Dublin girl?

ZOE: (curling a stray hair) No bloody fear. I'm English. Have you a swaggerroot?

BLOOM: Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then.

Midnight chimes from distant steeples.

THE CHIMES: Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin!

BLOOM: My subjects! The keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows all that he is wearing green socks. (shaking hands with a blind stripling) My more than Brother! Roygbiv. 32 feet per second.

DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: Kidney of Bloom, pray for us

BLOOM: Where are you from? London?

ZOE: I'm Yorkshire born. (she holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple) I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I'll peel off.

Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated. Lynch squats crosslegged on the hearthrug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he beats time slowly.

ZOE: More limelight, Charley. (she goes to the chandelier and turns the gas full cock)

STEPHEN: God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller. Wait a moment. Wait a second. Damn that fellow's noise in the street.

Stephen turns and sees Bloom. Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew.

THE GRAMOPHONE: Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh...

VIRAG: My name is Virag Lipoti. (coughs) Promiscuous nakedness, eh?

FLORRY: Sing us something. Love's old sweet song.

ZOE: There was a priest down here two nights ago. You needn't try to hide, I says to him. I know you've a Roman collar.

VIRAG: Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Why I left the church of Rome.

His eminence Simon Stephen cardinal Dedalus, primate of all Ireland, appears in the doorway, followed by Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress. She is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan. She has a sprouting moustache and large pendant beryl eardrops.

BELLA: My word! I'm all of a mucksweat.

THE FAN: (flirting quickly, then slowly) Married, I see.

BLOOM: (cowed) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your domination. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter.

BELLO: (laughs loudly) Holy smoke! You little know what's in store for you. Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him. What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? Up! Up! It's as limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. Can you do a man's job?

BLOOM: (quickly) Yes, yes. Frailty, thy name is marriage. O, I have been a perfect pig. Enemas too I have administered. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long's syringe, the ladies' friend.

STEPHEN: To have or not to have that is the question.

BELLA: Here. This isn't a musical peepshow. Who's paying here?

Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.

BELLA: Do you want three girls? It's ten shillings here.

BLOOM: (lays a half sovereign on the table) Allow me.

STEPHEN: Thanks.

STEPHEN: Cigarette, please.

LYNCH: You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer.

BOYLAN: You can apply your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I 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?

LYNCH: The mirror up to nature.

(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. William Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, crowned by the reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.)

SHAKESPEARE: (in dignified ventriloquy) 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks the vacant mind.

THE PIANOLA: My girl's a Yorkshire girl. And wears no fancy clothes.

STEPHEN: Nothung!

THE MOTHER: (Dying in agony) Have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake!

He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier.

THE GASJET: Pwfungg!

BELLA: Police!

Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door.

BELLA: Who pays for the lamp? (she seizes Bloom's coattail) Here, you were with him. The lamp's broken.

BLOOM: O, I know. But he's a Trinity student. (He makes a masonic sign) You don't want a scandal.

He hurries out through the hall. The Whores Point. They Blow Ickylickysticky Yumyum Kisses.

THE HUE AND CRY: (helterskelterpelterwelter) He's Bloom! Stop Bloom! Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stophim on the corner!

At the corner of Beaver street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot.

STEPHEN: (with elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly) History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.

LORD TENNYSON: (Gentleman poet in union jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded) Their's not to reason why.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry.

STEPHEN: How? Noble art of selfpretence. Personally, I detest action.

BLOOM: (plucks stephen's sleeve) Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.

Edward the seventh appears in an archway. 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 plasterer's bucket on which is printed defense d'uriner.

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (slowly, solemnly but indistinctly) Peace, perfect peace. He shakes hands with private Carr, private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and Lynch. (levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and with the halo of joking Jesus.)

VOICES: Police!

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: Introibo ad altare diaboli.

BLOOM: (runs to Stephen) Come along with me now before worse happens. Here's your stick.

STEPHEN: Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.

FIRST WATCH: Here, what are you all gaping at?

CORNY KELLEHER: Leave it to me, sergeant.

BLOOM: Father is a wellknown highly respected citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand.

STEPHEN: (Murmurs) Sshadows... the woods... white breast... dim sea.

Against the dark wall a figure appears slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, dressed in an eton suit with a book in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.

BLOOM: (Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly) Rudy!

RUDY: (Gazes, unseeing, into bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing, smiling.)

16: Eumaeus


HIS (Stephen's) mind being a bit unsteady, Bloom and his new friend took to the cabman's shelter, and a boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee, possibly delivered by the once infamous Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris. From thence by loud Italians they sang their tracks arm-in-arm across Beresford place.

17: Ithaca


OF WHAT did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary? - Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight, the Roman catholic church, the Irish nation, jesuit education, the study of medicine, Stephen's collapse.

What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination? - At the housesteps of number 7 Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket of his trousers to obtain his latchkey.

Was it there? - No.

Bloom's decision? - A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the area railings, raised the latch of the area door, gained retarded access to the kitchen through the subadjacent scullery.

What did Bloom do? - He drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for Stephen, the other for himself. Carried the iron kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to let it flow.

Did it flow? - Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of 2400 million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct by way of the Dargle, Rathdown, Glen of the Downs and Callowhill, a distance of 22 statute miles.

How did Bloom prepare a collation for a gentile? - He poured into two teacups two level spoonfuls, four in all, of Epps's soluble cocoa.

Did he find four separating forces between his temporary guest and him? - Name, age, race, creed.

What anagrams had he made on his name in youth? - Leopold Bloom, Ellpodbomool, Old Ollebo, M.P.

What two temperaments did they individually represent? - The scientific. The artistic.

What also stimulated him in his cogitations? - The financial success achieved by Ephraim Marks by his 1d bazaar and the infinite possibilities hitherto unexploited of the modern art of advertisement.

Such as not? - What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? Peatmot. Trumplee. Moutpat. Plamtroo.

What did each do at the door of egress? - Bloom set the candlestick on the floor. Stephen put the hat on his head.

For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress? - For a cat.

What spectacle confronted them? - The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.

How did they take leave, one of the other? - Standing perpendicular at the same door and on different sides of its base, the lines of their valedictory arms meeting at any point and forming any angle less than the sum of two right angles.

Did he remain? - With deep inspiration he returned, retraversing the garden, reclosing the door.

What suddenly arrested his ingress? - The right temporal lobe of his cranium came into contact with a solid timber angle where, a sensible fraction of a second later, a painful sensation was registered.

Compile the budget for 16 June 1904 - DEBIT: £2.19.3.

In what ultimate ambition had all ambition now coalesced? - To purchase by private treaty in fee simple a thatched bungalowshaped 2 storey dwellinghouse of southerly aspect, surmounted by vane and lightning conductor, with porch covered by ivy or Virginia creeper, halldoor, olive green, with smart carriage finish and neat doorbrasses

What might be the name of this erigible or erected residence? - Bloom Cottage. Saint Leopold's. Flowerville.

What rapid but insecure means to opulence might facilitate immediate purchase? - A prepared scheme based on a study of the laws of probability to break the bank at Monte Carlo.

What did his drawer, unlocked, contain? - A Vere Foster's handwriting copybook, property of Milly (Millicent) Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram drawings, marked Papli, which showed a large globular head with 5 hairs erect, the trunk full front with 3 large buttons, 1 triangular foot: 2 fading photographs of queen Alexandra of England and of Maud Branscombe, actress: a Yuletide card, bearing on it a pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend Mizpah, the date Xmas 1892: a butt of red sealing wax, obtained from Messrs Hely's, Ltd., Dame street: a sealed prophecy written by Leopold Bloom in 1886 concerning the consequences of the passing into law of William Ewart Gladstone's Home Rule bill: 3 typewritten letters, addressee, Henry Flower, c/o P.O. Westland Row: 2 coupons of the Royal Hungarian Lottery: a magnifying glass: 2 erotic photocards showing a) coition between nude señorita and nude torero b) anal violation by male religious (fully clothed, eyes abject) of female religious: a press cutting of recipe for renovation of old tan boots: 1 prospectus of The Wonderworker, the world's greatest remedy for rectal complaints, recommend it to your lady and gentlemen friends, lasts a lifetime. Insert long round end: A bank passbook issued by the Ulster Bank, College Green, balance in depositor's favour: £18-14-6: a local press cutting concerning change of name by deedpoll whereas Rudolph Virag, formerly of Szombathely in the kingdom of Hungary, hereby gives notice that I have assumed the name of Rudolph Bloom: A note... it is no use Leopold to be... with your dear mother... that is not more to stand... all for me is out... be kind to Athos, Leopold... my dear son... always... of me... das Herz... Gott... dein...

Why did Bloom experience a sentiment of remorse? - Because in immature impatience he had treated with disrespect certain beliefs and practices, as the prohibition of the use of fleshmeat and milk at one meal: the sanctity of the sabbath.

Bloom's acts? - He deposited the articles of clothing on a chair, took a folded white nightshirt, inserted his head and arms into the proper apertures, and entered the bed.

What did his limbs encounter? - The presence of a human form, female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs, some flakes of potted meat.

Then? - He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.

Womb? Weary? - He rests. He has travelled.

18: Penelope


YES because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan if they only knew him as well as I do yes because the day before yesterday he was scribbling a letter when I came into the front room he covered it up with the blottingpaper pretending to be thinking about business not that I care two straws now who he does it with so long as I dont have the two of them under my nose all the time like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario Terrace padding out her false bottom to excite him he was with a dirty barefaced liar and sloven like that one denying it up to my face yes and the last time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a great squeeze singing the young May Moon shes beaming love I wish some man or other would take me sometime when hes there and kiss me in his arms theres nothing like a kiss long and hot down to your soul almost paralyses you then I hate that confession when I used to go to Father Corrigan he touched me father and what harm if he did where and I said on the canal bank like a fool but whereabouts on your person my child it never entered my head what kissing meant till he put his tongue in my mouth his mouth O yes I pulled him off perhaps hes dead or killed or a Captain or admiral its nearly 20 years I never thought that would be my name Bloom youre looking blooming Josie used to say after I married him thats 11 year yes I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over also his lovely young cock so clean and white he looks with his boyish face O move over your big carcass out of that for the love of Mike listen to him the winds that waft my sighs to thee I suppose theyre just getting up in China now combing out their pigtails well I must clean the keys of the piano with milk I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and the rosegardens and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.


Original pot from the editor's collection.




(1) Introibo ad altare Dei: 'Come to the altar of God' - the opening words of the Catholic Mass ceremony
(2) Epi oinopa ponton: a phrase used often in Homer's Odyssey, meaning 'upon the wine-dark sea'


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