un doubted emperor
president and king chairman, the most serene and potent and very puissant
ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First!
ALL God save Leopold the First!
BLOOM (In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and Connor
with dignity.) Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.
WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH (In purple stock and shovel hat.) Will
you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments
in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging?
BLOOM (Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears.) So may the
Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do.
MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH (Pours a cruse of hair oil over Bloom's
head.) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem. Leopold, Patrick,
Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!
(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He
ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers put on
at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in Christ church,
Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up
from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs. The peers do
homage, one by one, approaching and genuflecting.)
THE PEERS I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly
worship.
(Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor
diamond. His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless intercontinental
and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.)
BLOOM My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix
hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated our
former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the
splendour of night.
(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black
Maria. The princess Selene, in moon blue robes, a silver crescent on her
head, descends from a Sedan chair borne by two giants. An outburst of
cheering.)
JOHN HOWARD PARNELL (Raises the royal standard.) Illustrious Bloom!
Successor to my famous brother!
BLOOM (Embraces John Howard Parnell.) We thank you from our heart,
John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of our
common ancestors.
(The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The
keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows all
that he is wearing green socks.)
TOM KERNAN You deserve it, your honour.
BLOOM On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at
Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with
telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do we
yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the left our
light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering their warcry,
Bonafide Sabaoth, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man.
THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS Hear! Hear!
JOHN WYSE NOLAN There's the man that got away James Stephens.
A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY Bravo!
AN OLD RESIDENT You're a credit to your country, sir, that's what you
are.
AN APPLEWOMAN He's a man like Ireland wants.
BLOOM My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell
you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall ere
long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the
Nova Hibernia of the future.
(Thirtytwo workmen wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland,
under the guidance of Derwan the builder construct the new Bloomusalem. It
is a colossal edifice, with crystal roof built in the shape of a huge pork
kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its extension
several buildings and monuments are demolished. Government offices are
temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses are razed to the
ground. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all marked in red
with the letters: L. B. Several paupers fall from a ladder. A part of the
walls of Dublin, crowded with loyal sightseers, collapses.)
THE SIGHTSEERS (Dying) Morituri te salutant. (They die.)
(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trap-door. He points
an elongated finger at Bloom.)
THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH Don't you believe a word he Says. That man is
Leopold M'Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins.
BLOOM Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M'Intosh!
(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his
sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful
enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing committees,
are reported. Bloom's bodyguard distribute Maundy money, commemoration
medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay cigars,
free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives, in sealed envelopes tied with
gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock, billets doux in the form of
cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers of toad in the hole, bottles of
Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins,
dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, season tickets available for all
tram lines, coupons of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny
dinner counters, cheap reprints of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy
and Fritz (politic), Care of the Baby (infantilic), So Meals for 7/6
(culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? (historic), Expel that Pain (medic),
Infant's Compendium of the Universe (cosmic), Let's All Chortle (hilaric),
Canvasser's Vade Mecum (journalic), love-letters of Mother Assistant
(erotic), Who's Who in Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart
(melodic), Pennywise's Way to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and
scramble. Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom's robe. The lady
Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses
him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph
is taken. Babes and sucklings are held up.)
THE WOMEN Little father! Little father!
THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS
Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home,
Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone.
(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)
BABY BOARDMAN (Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth.) Hajajaja.
BLOOM (Shaking hands with a blind stripling.) My more than Brother!
(Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple.) Dear old friends!
(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls.) Peep! Bopeep! (He
wheels twins in a perambulator.) Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? (He performs
juggler's tricks, draws red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet
silk handkerchiefs from his mouth.) Roygbiv. 32 feet per second. (He
consoles a widow.) Absence makes the heart grow younger. (He dances the
Highland fling with grotesque antics.) Leg it, ye devils! (He kisses the
bedsores of a palsied veteran.) Honourable wounds! (He trips up a fat
policeman.) U.p.: up. U.p.: up. (He whispers in the ear of a blushing
waitress and laughs kindly.) Ah, naughty, naughty! (He eats a raw turnip
offered him by Maurice Butterly, farmer.) Fine! Splendid! (He refuses to
accept three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, journalist.) My dear
fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to a beggar.) Please accept. (He
takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.) Come
on, boys! Wriggle it, girls!
THE CITIZEN (Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emerald
muffler.) May the good God bless him!
(The rams' horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)
BLOOM (Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and
reads solemnly.) Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur
Hanukah Ros chaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah
Talith.
(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.)
JIMMY HENRY The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic
Majesty will now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal advice,
solution of doubles and other problems. All cordially invited. Given at this
our loyal city of Dublin in the year I of the Paradisiacal Era.
PADDY LEONARD What am I to do about my rates and taxes?
BLOOM Pay them, my friend.
PADDY LEONARD Thank you.
NOSEY FLYNN Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?
BLOOM (Obdurately.) Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you are
bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five
pounds.
J.J. O'MOLLY A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O'Brien!
NOSEY FLYNN Where do I draw the five pounds?
PISSER BURKE For bladder trouble?
BLOOM
Acid. nit. hydrochlor dil., 20 minims,
Tinct. mix. vom., 4 minims.
Extr. taraxel. lig., 30 minims.
Aq. dis. ter in die.
CHRIS CALLINAN What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of
Aldebaran?
BLOOM Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. II.
JOE HYNES Why aren't you in uniform?
BLOOM When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the
Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours?
BEN DOLLARD Pansies?
BLOOM Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens.
BEN DOLLARD When twins arrive?
BLOOM Father (pater, dad) starts thinking.
LARRY O'ROURKE An eight day licence for my new premises. You remember
me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I'm sending around a dozen of
stout for the missus.
BLOOM (Coldly.) You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no
presents.
CROFTON This is indeed a festivity.
BLOOM (Solemnly.) You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament.
ALEXANDER KEYES When will we have our own house of keys?
BLOOM I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten
commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile.
Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses.
Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and
night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must
now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival, with masked licence, bonuses
for all, esperanto the universal brotherhood. No more patriotism of
barspongers and dropsical impostors. Free money, free love and a free lay
church in a free lay state.
O'MADDEN BURKE Free fox in a free henroost.
DAVY BYRNE (Yawning.) Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!
BLOOM Mixed races and mixed marriage.
LENEHAN What about mixed bathing?
(Bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration.
All agree with him. The keeper of the Kildare Street Museum appears,
dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked
goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos Venus Metempsychosis, and plaster
figures, also naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic
Music, Amor Publicity, Manufacture, liberty of Speech, Plural Voting,
Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless
Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.)
FATHER FARLEY He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an any thingarian
seeking to overthrow our holy faith.
MRS RIORDAN (Tears up her will.) I'm disappointed in you! You bad man!
MOTHER GROGAN (Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom.) You beast! You
abominable person!
NOSEY FLYNN Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs.
BLOOM (With rollicking humour.)
I vowed that I never would leave her,
She turned out a cruel deceiver.
With my tooraloom tooraloom tooralcom tooraloom.
HOPPY HOLOHAN Good old Bloom! There's nobody like him after all.
PADDY LEONARD Stage Irishman!
BLOOM What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of
Casteele. (Laughter.)
LENEHAN Plagiarist! Down with Bloom!
THE VEILED SIBYL (Enthusiastically.) I'm a Bloomite and I glory in it.
I believe in him in spite of all. I'd give my life for him, the funniest man
on earth.
BLOOM (Winks at the bystanders.) I bet she's a bonny lassie.
THEODORE PUREFOY (In fishing cap and oilskin jacket.) He employs a
mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature.
THE VEILED SIBYL (Stabs herself.) My hero god! (She dies.)
(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by
stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their
veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from the top of
Nelson's Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating
themselves by placing their heads in gas ovens, hanging themselves in
stylish garters, leaping from windows of different storeys.)
ALEXANDER J. DOWIE (Violently.) Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the
man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian men. A
fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave
precocious signs of infantile debauchery recalling the cities of the plain,
with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the
white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman,
intrigue is the very breath of his nostrils. The stake faggots and the
caldron of boiling oil are for him. Caliban!
THE MOB Lynch him! Roast him! He's as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox!
(Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from upper
and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value,
hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheeps'
tails, odd pieces of fat.)
BLOOM (Excitedly.) This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again.
By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my brother Henry. He
is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn. Slander, the viper, has
wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan
capall. I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist to give
medical testimony on my behalf.
DR MULLIGAN (In motor jerkin, green motoroggles on his brow.) Dr Bloom
is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's private
asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is
present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of elephantiasis have
been discovered among his ascendants. There are marked symptoms of chronic
exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also latent. He is prematurely bald from
selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has
metal teeth. In consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his
memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made
a pervaginal examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427
anal, axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be virgo intacta.
(Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.)
DR MADDEN Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming
generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in spirits
of wine in the national teratological museum.
DR CROTTHERS I have examined the patient's urine. It is albuminoid.
Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent.
DR PUNCH COSTELLO The fetor judaicus is most perceptible.
DR DIXON (Reads a bill of health.) Professor Bloom is a finished
example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable. Many
have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint fellow on
the whole, coy though not feeble-minded in the medical sense. He has written
a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the
Reformed Priests' Protection Society which clears up everything. He is
practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw
litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer's peas. He wears a
hairshirt winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He was, I
understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory.
Another report states that he was a very posthumous child. I appeal for
clemency in the name of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been
called upon to speak. He is about to have a baby.
(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American
makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, bank cheques,
banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I.O.U.s,
wedding rings' watch-chains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets are rapidly
collected.)
BLOOM O, I so want to be a mother.
MRS THORNTON (In nursetender's gown.) Embrace me tight, dear. You'll be
soon over it. Tight, dear.
(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white
children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive
plants. All are handsome, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade,
respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern languages
fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each has his name
printed in legible letters on his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger,
Chrysostomos, Maindorče, Silversmile, Silberselber Vifargent, Panargros.
They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several
different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of
railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vice chairmen of hotel
syndicates.)
A VOICE Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?
BLOOM (Darkly.) You have said it.
BROTHER BUZZ Then perform a miracle.
BANTAM LYONS Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger.
(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes
through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the the ledge by
his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals several
sufferers from kings evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many
historical personages, lord Beaconsfield, lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses of
Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle,
Rossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe,
Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different
directions, bids the tide turn back, eclipses the sun by extending his
little finger.)
BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO (In papal zouave's uniform, steel cuirasses as
breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches and
brown paper mitre.) Leopoldi autem generatio. Moses begat Noah and Noah
begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O'Halloran and O'Halloran begat Guggenheim and
Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le
Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat
Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss
begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli began Aranjuez
and Aranjuez begat Lewy Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and
Ichabudonosor begat O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum
and Christbaum begat Ben Maimun and Ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty
Rhodes begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat
Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone begat
Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely begat
Virag and Virag begat Bloom et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel.
A DEADHAND (Writes on the wall.) Bloom is a cod. A CRAB (In bush
ranger's kit.) What did you do in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack?
A FEMALE INFANT (Shakes a rattle.) And under Ballybough bridge?
A HOLLYBUSH And in the devil's glen?
BLOOM (Blushes furiously all over from front to nates, three tears
falling from his left eye.) Spare my past.
THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS (In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with Donnybrook
fair shillelaghs.) Sjambok him!
(Bloom with asses' ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed arms,
his feet protruding. He whistles Don Giovanni, a cenar teco. Artane orphans,
joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison Gate Mission, joining
hands, caper round in the opposite direction.)
THE ARTANE ORPHANS
You big, you bog, you dirty dog!
You think the ladies love you!
THE PRISON GATE GIRLS
If you see kay
Tell him he may
See you in tea
Tell him from me.
HORNBLOWER (In ephod and huntingcap, announces.) And he shall carry the
sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, and to
Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all from
Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham.
(All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Many bonafide
travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and defile him. Mastiansky and
Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. They wag their beards
at Bloom.)
MASTIANSKY AND CITRON Belial! Laemlein of Istria! the false Messiah!
Abulafia!
(George S. Mesias, Bloom's tailor, appears, a tailor's goose under his
arm, presenting a bill.)
MESIAS To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings.
BLOOM (Rubs his hands cheerfully.) Just like old times. Poor Bloom!
(Reuben J. Dodd, black bearded Iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his
shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.)
REUBEN J. (Whispers hoarsely.) The squeak is out. A split is gone for
the flatties. Nip the first rattler.
THE FIRE BRIGADE Pflaap!
BROTHER BUZZ (Invests Bloom in a yellow habit with embroidery of
painted flames and high pointed hat. He places a bag of gunpowder round his
neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying.) Forgive him his
trespasses.
(Lieutenant Myers of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets
fire to Bloom. Lamentations.)
THE CITIZEN Thank heaven!
BLOOM (In a seamless garment marked I. H. S. stands upright amid
phoenix flames.) Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin.
(He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. The daughters of
Erin, in black garments with lace prayerbooks and long lighted candles in
their hands, kneel down and pray.)
THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN Kidney of Bloom, pray for us. Flower of the Bath,
pray for us. Mentor of Menton, pray for us. Canvasser for the Freeman, pray
for us. Charitable Mason, pray for us. Wandering Soap, pray for us. Sweets
of Sin, pray for us. Music without Words, pray for us. Reprover of the
Citizen, pray for us. Friend of all Frillies, pray for us. Midwife Most
Merciful, pray for us. Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence,
pray for us.
(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Mr Vincent O'Brien, sings
the Alleluia chorus, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Bloom becomes
mute, shrunken, carbonised.)
ZOE Talk away till you're black in the face.
BLOOM (In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an
emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a black bogoak pig
by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye.) Let me be going now, woman of the
house, for by all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and
mother of a bating. (With a tear in his eye.) All insanity. Patriotism,
sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race. To be or not to be. Life's
dream is o'er. End it peacefully. They can live on. (He gazes far away
mournfully.) I am ruined. A few pastilles of aconite. The blinds drawn. A
letter. Then lie back to rest. (He breathes softly.) No more. I have lived.
Fare. Farewell.
ZOE (Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet.) Honest? Till the next
time. (She sneers.) Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or came too
quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts.
BLOOM (Bitterly.) Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle.
ZOE (In sudden sulks.) I hate a rotter that's insincere. Give a
bleeding whore a chance.
BLOOM (Repentantly.) I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil.
Where are you from? London?
ZOE (Glibly.) Hog's Norton where the pigs play the organs. I'm
Yorkshire born. (She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple.) I say,
Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a short
time? Ten shillings?
BLOOM (Smiles, nods slowly.) More, houri, more.
ZOE And more's mother? (She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Are
you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I'll peel
off.
BLOOM (Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled
embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled
pears.) Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed
monster. (Earnestly.) You know how difficult it is. I needn't tell you.
ZOE (Flattered.) What the eye can't see the heart can't grieve for.
(She pats him.) Come.
BLOOM Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle.
ZOE Babby!
BLOOM (In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair,
fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a chubby
finger, his moist tongue tolling and lisping.) One two tlee: tlee tlwo
tlone.
THE BUCKLES Love me. Love me not. Love me.
ZOE Silent means consent. (With little parted talons she captures his
hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the pass touch of secret monitor,
luring him to doom.) Hot hands cold gizzard.
(He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards
the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her painted
eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of
all the male brutes that have possessed her.)
THE MALE BRUTES (Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their
loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and fro.) Good!
(Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.
They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his
hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.)
ZOE (Her lucky hand instantly saving him.) Hoopsa! Don't fall upstairs.
BLOOM The just man falls seven times. (He stands aside at the
threshold.) After you is good manners.
ZOE Ladies first, gentlemen after.
(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out
her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the an tiered rack of the hall hang a
man's hat and waterproof Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing them, frowns,
then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is thrown open. A man
in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with an apes gait,
his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full waterjugjar his
twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting his face quickly Bloom
bends to examine on the halltable the spaniel eyes of a running fox: then,
his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into the musicroom. A shade of mauve
tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. Round and round a moth flies,
colliding, escaping. The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade
and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in all
senses, heel to heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris of
shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy.
The walls are tapes-tried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the
grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on
the hearth rug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he
beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume,
doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in her hand,
sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and glancing at
herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A tag of her corset lace
hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the
piano.)
KITTY (Coughs behind her hand.) She's a bit imbecilic. (She signs with
a waggling forefinger.) Blemblem. (Lynch lifts up her skirt and white
petticoat with the wand. She settles them down quickly.) Respect yourself.
(She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which her hair glows,
red with henna.) O, excuse!
ZOE More limelight, Charley. (She goes to the chandelier and turns the
gas full cock.)
KITTY (Peers at the gasjet.) What ails it tonight?
LYNCH (Deeply.) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.
ZOE Clap on the back for Zoe.
(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen stands at the
pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he repeats
once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat
whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in
the sofa corner, her limp forearm pendent over the bolster, listening. A
heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.)
KITTY (Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot.) O, excuse!
ZOE (Promptly.) Your boy's thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift.
(Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over
her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled
caterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen glances
behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)
STEPHEN As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto
Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet's rest. It may be an old
hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Cla enarrant gloriam Domini. It is
susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian
and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David's that is
Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip from the stable to
his chief bassoonist about his almightiness. Mais, nom de nom, that is
another pair of trousers. Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He
stops, points at Lynch's cap, smiles, laughs.) Which side is your knowledge
bump?
THE CAP (With saturnine spleen.) Bah! It is because it is. Woman's
reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form of
life. Bah!
STEPHEN You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes.
How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? Whetstone!
THE CAP Bah!
STEPHEN Here's another for you. (He frowns.) The reason is because the
fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval
which .
THE CAP Which? Finish. You can't.
STEPHEN (With on effort.) Interval which. Is the greatest possible
ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which.
THE CAP Which? (Outside the gramophone begins to blare The Holy City.)
STEPHEN (Abruptly.) What went forth to the ends of the world to
traverse not itself. God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller,
having itself traversed in reality itself, becomes that self. Wait a moment.
Wait a second. Damn that fellow's noise in the street. Self which it itself
was ineluctably preconditioned to become. Ecco!
LYNCH (With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and Zoe
Higgins.) What a learned speech, eh?
ZOE (Briskly.) God help your head, he knows more than you have
forgotten.
(With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)
FLORRY They say the last day is coming this summer.
KITTY No!
ZOE (Explodes in laughter.) Great unjust God!
FLORRY (Offended.) Well, it was in the papers about Anti christ. O, my
foot's tickling.
(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patterpast,
yelling.)
THE NEWSBOYS Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea
serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist.
(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)
STEPHEN A time, times and half a time.
(Reuben J. Antichrist, wanderingjew, a clutching hand open on his
spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrims wallet from
which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his
shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden huddled
mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the slack of its
breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked,
hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose,
tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.)
ALL What?
THE HOBGOBLIN (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his
eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping, with outstretched clutching arms, then all
at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs.) Il vient!
C'est moi! L'homme qui rit! L'homme primigene! (He whirls round and round
with dervish howls.) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He crouches
juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les jeux son! faits!
(The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks.) Rien n'va plus. (The
planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away. He springs off into
vacuum.)
FLORRY (Sinking into torpor, crosses herself secretly.) The end of the
world!
(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity
occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over
coughs and feetshuffling.)
THE GRAMOPHONE Jerusalem! Open your gates and sing Hosanna...
(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star falls from it,
proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah.
Along an infinite invisible tight-rope taut from zenith to nadir the End of
the World, a two headed octopus in gillies kilts, busby and tartan filibegs,
whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the fob of the Three Lugs of
Man.)
THE END OF THE WORLD (With a Scotch accent.) Wha'll dance the keel row,
the keel row, the keel row?
(Over the passing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh
as a corncrakes, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn surplice with
funnel sleeves he is seen, vergefaced above a rostrum about which the banner
of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.)
ELIJAH No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole
Sue, Dave Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut.
Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God's time is
12.25. Tell mother you'll be there. Rush your order and you play a slick
ace. Join on right here! Book through to eternity junction, the nonstop run.
Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the second advent
came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe
Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it's up to you to sense
that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? No. Be on the side of
the angels. Be a prism. You have that something within, the higher self. You
can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this
vibration? I say you are. You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck
joyride to heaven becomes a back number. You got me? It's a lifebrightener,
sure. The hottest stuff ever was. It's the whole pie with jam in. It's just
the cutest snappiest line out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores.
It vibrates. I know and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and getting down to
bedrock, A. J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that?
O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That's it. You call me up
by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your stamps. (He shouts.) Now
then our glory song. All join heartily in the singing. Encore! (He sings.)
Jeru...
THE GRAMOPHONE (Drowning his voice.) Whorusalaminyour highhohhhh.
(The disc rasps gratingly against the needle.)
THE THREE' WHORES (Covering their ears, squawk.) Ahhkkk!
ELIJAH (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top
of his voice, his arms uplifted.) Big Brother up there, Mr President, you
hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of believe
strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss Higgins and
Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems to me I don't
never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just
now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long and help me save our
sisters dear. (He winks at his audience.) Our Mr President, he twig the
whole lot and he ain't saying nothing.
KITTY-KATE I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did
on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop. My mother's sister
married a Montmorency. It was a working plumber was my ruination when I was
pure.
ZOE-FANNY I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it.
FLORRY-TERESA It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of
Hennessy's three stars I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the
bed.
STEPHEN In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without
end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes.
(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon,
Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast,
goosestepping, tramp fast past in noisy marching.)
THE BEATITUDES (Incoherently.) Beer beef battledog buybull businum
barnum buggerum bishop.
LYSTER (In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says
discreetly.) He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the
light.
(He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser attire, shinily laundered,
his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a mandarin's
kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizard-lettered, and a high pagoda hat.)
BEST (Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the crown
of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot.) I was just
beautifying him, don't you know. A thing of beauty, don't you know. Yeats
says, or I mean, Keats says. (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and
flashes it towards a corner; with carping accent.) Esthetics and cosmetics
are for the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man.
Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them.
(In the cone of the search light behind the coalscuttle, ollave,
holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaan MacLir broods, chin on knees. He
rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mantle. About his head
writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His right
hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by its two
talons.)
MANANAAN MACLIR (With a voice of waves.) Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor!
Ma! White yoghin of the Gods. Occult pimander of Her