Stopped at "collector of prepuces." Penguin (15.14)
Last week we had left Stephen lost in his thoughts looking at his own image in Buck Mulligan's cracked mirror. Now we find both the friends still on top of the tower overlooking the sea. Mulligan who is aware of Stephen's moroseness makes an attempt to find out its reason, but really cannot comprehend it even when Stephen comes out with it. Mulligan tries to patch it up, and goes down the staircase for breakfast, asking Stephen to come down too and to give up the moody brooding. Stephen is still consumed with memories of his mother. We meet Haines for the first time at the breakfast table. There is bread, butter, honey and thick black tea. But no milk. Just then an old woman enters with a milk jug.
Many writers - Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Shakespeare - Irish folk stories and poems, as well as plays staged in the Dublin theaters are referred to on these pages.
Oscar Wilde's words that life imitates art, and that genius is reduced to the position of a cracked looking glass is alluded to by Stephen, when he bitterly refers to the cracked mirror as the symbol of Irish art. Incidentally Mulligan also quotes Oscar Wilde saying "the rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror" (from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray), but relents soon. Either he genuinely feels that it is not fair to tease Stephen like that or he is not totally comfortable with the serious mood of his friend.
Mulligan makes an overture of friendship to Stephen asking him, "Why don't you trust me more? What have you up your nose against me?" A bit of poking by Mulligan results in Stephen revealing the background for his aloofness. Stephen had overheard, during a visit to Mulligan's house, Mulligan telling his mother referring to his friend, "it's only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead." Even after being reminded of his words, Mulligan does not see why they should offend Stephen. He does not understand that whereas he himself encounters death often being a medical student, the mother's death was Stephen's first confrontation with death, and that his words could sound as being irreverent and offensive to Stephen. Before going down for breakfast, Mulligan attempts to soothe Stephen's feelings, pointing to the sea and saying, "Look at the sea. What does it care about offenses?" Clearly he still does not get how and why he has offended Stephen.
As Mulligan disappears down the stairs, singing lines from Yeats's "Who goes with Fergus", Stephen still dallies on top of the tower, thinking of his mother. How she wanted to hear his music (to his singing the above poem), how she had come after her death, silently, in his dream. That incidence had wrenched out a cry from Stephen's heart: "No, Mother. Let me be and let me live." Stephen wants to live without the memory of the deathbed scene. But at this time he is a haunted young man. Stephen finally goes down, carrying Mulligan's shaving-bowl. This simple act links Ulysses to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, as Stephen recalls his carrying the boat of incense at Clongowes.
We meet Haines for the first time at the breakfast table. He has come to Ireland to study Irish folk arts. There is bread, butter, honey and fry prepared by Mulligan for breakfast. And there is thick black tea with sugar. The milk woman is late. When Haines says, "Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don't you?", Mulligan jokes - yet again - saying, "When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water." Don Gifford notes that mother Grogan appease as a character in an anonymous Irish song, "Ned Grogan" (1.357) but that song does not contain these lines, neither is it spoken of in the Mabinogion (Welch folk tales) nor in the Upanishads (Indian philosophical works)!
Last week we had left Stephen lost in his thoughts looking at his own image in Buck Mulligan's cracked mirror. Now we find both the friends still on top of the tower overlooking the sea. Mulligan who is aware of Stephen's moroseness makes an attempt to find out its reason, but really cannot comprehend it even when Stephen comes out with it. Mulligan tries to patch it up, and goes down the staircase for breakfast, asking Stephen to come down too and to give up the moody brooding. Stephen is still consumed with memories of his mother. We meet Haines for the first time at the breakfast table. There is bread, butter, honey and thick black tea. But no milk. Just then an old woman enters with a milk jug.
Many writers - Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Shakespeare - Irish folk stories and poems, as well as plays staged in the Dublin theaters are referred to on these pages.
Oscar Wilde's words that life imitates art, and that genius is reduced to the position of a cracked looking glass is alluded to by Stephen, when he bitterly refers to the cracked mirror as the symbol of Irish art. Incidentally Mulligan also quotes Oscar Wilde saying "the rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror" (from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray), but relents soon. Either he genuinely feels that it is not fair to tease Stephen like that or he is not totally comfortable with the serious mood of his friend.
Mulligan makes an overture of friendship to Stephen asking him, "Why don't you trust me more? What have you up your nose against me?" A bit of poking by Mulligan results in Stephen revealing the background for his aloofness. Stephen had overheard, during a visit to Mulligan's house, Mulligan telling his mother referring to his friend, "it's only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead." Even after being reminded of his words, Mulligan does not see why they should offend Stephen. He does not understand that whereas he himself encounters death often being a medical student, the mother's death was Stephen's first confrontation with death, and that his words could sound as being irreverent and offensive to Stephen. Before going down for breakfast, Mulligan attempts to soothe Stephen's feelings, pointing to the sea and saying, "Look at the sea. What does it care about offenses?" Clearly he still does not get how and why he has offended Stephen.
As Mulligan disappears down the stairs, singing lines from Yeats's "Who goes with Fergus", Stephen still dallies on top of the tower, thinking of his mother. How she wanted to hear his music (to his singing the above poem), how she had come after her death, silently, in his dream. That incidence had wrenched out a cry from Stephen's heart: "No, Mother. Let me be and let me live." Stephen wants to live without the memory of the deathbed scene. But at this time he is a haunted young man. Stephen finally goes down, carrying Mulligan's shaving-bowl. This simple act links Ulysses to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, as Stephen recalls his carrying the boat of incense at Clongowes.
(Source: http://www.crsbooks.net/personal/local/kildarepages/clongowes.html)
We meet Haines for the first time at the breakfast table. He has come to Ireland to study Irish folk arts. There is bread, butter, honey and fry prepared by Mulligan for breakfast. And there is thick black tea with sugar. The milk woman is late. When Haines says, "Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don't you?", Mulligan jokes - yet again - saying, "When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water." Don Gifford notes that mother Grogan appease as a character in an anonymous Irish song, "Ned Grogan" (1.357) but that song does not contain these lines, neither is it spoken of in the Mabinogion (Welch folk tales) nor in the Upanishads (Indian philosophical works)!
Chandra
