We read as far as "Take that in your right
hand and repeat after me the following words"
(Penguin 430) (Gabler 12.1437).
We encounter more nationalistic talk
between the pub goers, who praise the Irish language, in contrast to which the
English, a mere "patois"
(12.1191), has left its traces in Europe only in the "cabinet d'aisance" (the WC) (12.1205). This triggers another
interpolation, written as if about an ancient Irish hero in the old Irish past,
drinking a toast to his foes (the English) while sitting on a WC:
He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the
medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan Lamh Dearg
Abu, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty valorous heroes,
rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster silent as the deathless
gods. (12.1210)
Bloom mingles in the talk, a little awkwardly (he doesn't have the
verbal agility as his fellow Irish countrymen) and rather provocatively (cf.
his comment: "Some people can see the mote in others' eyes but they can't see
the beam in their own." (12.1237)). Fritz Senn suggests that Bloom's
(uncharacteristic) aggression might be due to his being acutely aware of what
is going on at the same time in his home.
The men's talk eventually moves to how England exploited Ireland and
left it virtually without trees (the issue of deforestation was indeed a
genuine concern at the time). The ensuing interpolation, true to type (and to
the question of what we do when we have no trees) brings up the idea of
breeding trees in a parody of a tree wedding: "The
fashionable international world attended en masse this
afternoon at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high
chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley" (12.1266), followed by a list of all the attendants ("Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll
Ash, Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde
Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper,
...") and an account of what they were wearing, "a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on
an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished
with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by
bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze ..." (12.1266).
Back in the pub, the rather forceful pro-Irish, anti-foreigner talk
proceeds and orders for drinks continue to be placed. The question "What
will you have" is answered unanimously - and yet variously - with "an
imperial yeomanry", a "Half one", "a hands up", a
"bottle of Allsop" (12.1318). Within only a few lines, the characters have come up with
four different names for the same drink, i.e. beer. Fritz Senn says some
passages of Cyclops could be read as an encyclopedia of the many different ways
in which one can order the same drink (for those interested in reading an essay
on this, see Fritz Senn. "Logodeadalian Bypaths: Evading the
Obvious". Hypermedia Joyce Studies.
March 2015. Available through: http://hjs.ff.cuni.cz/main/essays.php?essay=senn). Incidentally, the various names also make
an insiders' code as they would only be known to the regulars of the pub.
The reading closed on more aggressive talk about the English (the way
they starved the Irish, their use of cruelty in discipline and training etc.), as
well as on the French (a "set of dancing masters" (12.1385)) and the
Germans (the "sausage eating bastards" (12.1391)), and on increasingly
aggressive behaviour toward Bloom (he is ridiculed and insulted).
The last thing this blog has time for, but can't resist pointing out, is
the hilarious parody of the catholic Credo at lines 12.1354 ff.:
They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth,
and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of
the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, flayed and
curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again from the bed,
steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further orders whence he shall
come to drudge for a living and be paid.
Compare with the original:
I believe in God, the Father
Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of
the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was
buried. He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He
ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to
judge the living and the dead.
Next week, we will pick up from the Citizen's mighty spit and the
handkerchief with which he has just wiped himself (12.1438).
