Today we read as far as "That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the someway in his. Squeezing or...", 16.682 (Gabler), p. 729 (Penguin).
Last week we left Bloom and Stephen in the cabman's shelter, in the "company" of - among others such - a sailor, who had started spinning stories of his adventure. (We were in fact reminded that Homer's Odysseus was also a sailor, also an adventurous one!) The sailor in the cabman's shelter continues to spin stories. Apparently, his ship anchored that afternoon but he has not yet been home to meet his little woman, who he says is waiting for me. She's my own true wife I haven't seen for seven years now. He talks of the various countries he has visited, of seeing a crocodile biting the fluke of an anchor, of maneaters from Peru that eat corpses and livers of horses. In proof he produces a picture postcard (which he claims to have been sent by a friend) of a group of savage women. The problem is, though, that the card mentions this is a scene from Bolivia, and it is addressed to a señor a boudin, in Santiago, Chile. Earlier the sailor said that his name is D. B. Murphy. So who is boudin? Here Fritz Senn drew a very interesting parallel between Homer's Odysseus and Joyce's boudin. He said: "In French, Boudin means blood sausage. Homer wrote that on the night when Odysseus returned home to find it full of suitors, he spent the night in his bed tossing and turning like a blood sausage!"
As the sailor is entertaining the people in the cabman's shelter with stories of his adventures, not many people pay attention to him. Bloom is in his own world, thinking of many things, imagining the scene at the sailor's home when he would finally return, daydreaming how it would be if he could also travel via the sea to London (the furthest he has been so far is Holyhead), and of turning this voyage to an advantage by arranging concert tours with an all Irish caste, (note the 'e' at the end of the last word) with the Tweedy-Flower grand opera company....
As Bloom emerges from his thoughts (and what is rendered here as something like an interior monologue), he finds that the sailor is still talking. About the Chinese, for example, who cook rats in soups, about seeing a man killed by an Italian in Trieste,... To demonstrate how the killing took place, the sailor pulls a clasp knife out of his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.
At which point, someone in the dark mentions the famous Phoenix Park murders, which according to this person, was done by foreigners on account of them using knives. It is at this remark, passed obviously in the spirit of where ignorance is bliss, that Stephen, who has been silent all through, exchanges meaningful glances with Bloom, both wondering whether the keeper of the cabman's shelter (supposedly Skin-the-Goat) heard what was said.
This part of the episode, which the sailor ends by opening his shirt to scratch himself (there was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater,..) and thereby displaying a tattoo showing three things: the symbol of the mariner's hope and rest (i.e an anchor), the figure 16, and a young man's side face. (Fritz Senn says, if anyone knows what the meaning of the figure 16 on a tattoo is, to please tell him. Interpretations for the figure have been offered but non has proved satisfactory so far.)
Yes, there are lots of stories in these pages. But there is also a good dose of Tennyson, Milton, Longfellow, Thomas Hardy, Shakespeare. The chapter centers on the idea of homecoming (though so far nobody seems in a hurry to get there) and it is full of tellings of the typical adventure story. Ample proof is readily produced for it, and yet, we are never quite sure and remain wary of reports, rumours and of the tales of the soit-disant sailor.
Last week we left Bloom and Stephen in the cabman's shelter, in the "company" of - among others such - a sailor, who had started spinning stories of his adventure. (We were in fact reminded that Homer's Odysseus was also a sailor, also an adventurous one!) The sailor in the cabman's shelter continues to spin stories. Apparently, his ship anchored that afternoon but he has not yet been home to meet his little woman, who he says is waiting for me. She's my own true wife I haven't seen for seven years now. He talks of the various countries he has visited, of seeing a crocodile biting the fluke of an anchor, of maneaters from Peru that eat corpses and livers of horses. In proof he produces a picture postcard (which he claims to have been sent by a friend) of a group of savage women. The problem is, though, that the card mentions this is a scene from Bolivia, and it is addressed to a señor a boudin, in Santiago, Chile. Earlier the sailor said that his name is D. B. Murphy. So who is boudin? Here Fritz Senn drew a very interesting parallel between Homer's Odysseus and Joyce's boudin. He said: "In French, Boudin means blood sausage. Homer wrote that on the night when Odysseus returned home to find it full of suitors, he spent the night in his bed tossing and turning like a blood sausage!"
As the sailor is entertaining the people in the cabman's shelter with stories of his adventures, not many people pay attention to him. Bloom is in his own world, thinking of many things, imagining the scene at the sailor's home when he would finally return, daydreaming how it would be if he could also travel via the sea to London (the furthest he has been so far is Holyhead), and of turning this voyage to an advantage by arranging concert tours with an all Irish caste, (note the 'e' at the end of the last word) with the Tweedy-Flower grand opera company....
As Bloom emerges from his thoughts (and what is rendered here as something like an interior monologue), he finds that the sailor is still talking. About the Chinese, for example, who cook rats in soups, about seeing a man killed by an Italian in Trieste,... To demonstrate how the killing took place, the sailor pulls a clasp knife out of his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.
At which point, someone in the dark mentions the famous Phoenix Park murders, which according to this person, was done by foreigners on account of them using knives. It is at this remark, passed obviously in the spirit of where ignorance is bliss, that Stephen, who has been silent all through, exchanges meaningful glances with Bloom, both wondering whether the keeper of the cabman's shelter (supposedly Skin-the-Goat) heard what was said.
This part of the episode, which the sailor ends by opening his shirt to scratch himself (there was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater,..) and thereby displaying a tattoo showing three things: the symbol of the mariner's hope and rest (i.e an anchor), the figure 16, and a young man's side face. (Fritz Senn says, if anyone knows what the meaning of the figure 16 on a tattoo is, to please tell him. Interpretations for the figure have been offered but non has proved satisfactory so far.)
Yes, there are lots of stories in these pages. But there is also a good dose of Tennyson, Milton, Longfellow, Thomas Hardy, Shakespeare. The chapter centers on the idea of homecoming (though so far nobody seems in a hurry to get there) and it is full of tellings of the typical adventure story. Ample proof is readily produced for it, and yet, we are never quite sure and remain wary of reports, rumours and of the tales of the soit-disant sailor.
