The reading stopped at "Leopold, Patrick, Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!"
(Penguin 605.5), (Gabler 15.1489)
During our previous session, we had stopped our reading just when Sir Frederick Falkiner, the recorder (a barrister acting as a judge), had passed the sentence on Bloom that he be detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during his Majesty's pleasure and there be hanged by the neck until he is dead. H. Rumbold, master barber - he was mentioned earlier in the Cyclops episode when Joe Hynes had read aloud a letter of application from him for the job of a hangman - gets ready to do the job. (Joyce has named the hangman after Sir Horace Rumbold, the British minister to Switzerland in 1918.)
Bloom desperately asks him to wait, defending himself saying (that he has a) good heart, (that he fed the) gulls, turns to Hynes, one of the spectators in the court, to support him, only to be told coldly that Hynes considers him as a perfect stranger. The second watch points to something saying that it is a bomb. Bloom denies it and identifies it as a pig's feet (he had bought one earlier), and says that he was at a funeral.
(Penguin 605.5), (Gabler 15.1489)
During our previous session, we had stopped our reading just when Sir Frederick Falkiner, the recorder (a barrister acting as a judge), had passed the sentence on Bloom that he be detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during his Majesty's pleasure and there be hanged by the neck until he is dead. H. Rumbold, master barber - he was mentioned earlier in the Cyclops episode when Joe Hynes had read aloud a letter of application from him for the job of a hangman - gets ready to do the job. (Joyce has named the hangman after Sir Horace Rumbold, the British minister to Switzerland in 1918.)
Bloom desperately asks him to wait, defending himself saying (that he has a) good heart, (that he fed the) gulls, turns to Hynes, one of the spectators in the court, to support him, only to be told coldly that Hynes considers him as a perfect stranger. The second watch points to something saying that it is a bomb. Bloom denies it and identifies it as a pig's feet (he had bought one earlier), and says that he was at a funeral.
The word funeral leads to the appearance of Paddy Dignam's ghost that materializes as the beagle (the dog is back!!) lifts his snout, and his dachshund coat becomes a brown mortuary habit. The apparition declares, "I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. List, list, O list" echoing the ghost of Hamlet's father saying, "I am thy father's spirit...List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love..." Diagram's ghost had appeared earlier in the Cyclops episode, where it had described how their abodes were equipped with every modern home comfort such as talafana, alavatar, ... At that time the ghost had requested a quart of buttermilk (and) this was brought and evidently afforded relief, though now it says, "That buttermilk didn't agree with me.'"The figures of the caretaker and priest who presided over Dignam's funeral that morning also appear. Finally the ghost worms down through a coalhole, baying under ground, the song: "Dignam's dead and gone below", a take on the Children's song, Old Roger is dead and gone to his grave.
With the disappearance of Dignam, Bloom is (i.e, we are) back in reality. He hears piano music coming from a house. That he hears (or imagines) kisses chirping, shows that the house is a brothel. Bloom fantasizes that kisses start flying about him, twittering, warbling, cooing! Zoe Higgins, a young English whore, comes down the steps. Asking him whether he is looking for someone, she tells him that 'He's inside with his friend'. (Stephan is inside Mrs Cohen's establishment with Lenehan.) Now follows quite a 'hot' section with Zoe handling Bloom, sliding her hand into his left trouser pocket and bringing out a hard black shrivelled potato that Bloom had been carrying along with him the entire day!
As midnight chimes from distant steeples, Bloom is back in his fantasy world. Wearing an alderman's gown and chain, he is told, 'Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin! (These sentences are based on a charming children's story, Dick Whittington and His Cat.) Bloom makes an impassioned speech, '... better run a tramline from the cattle market to the river. That's the music of the future. That's my programme....' There is a grand procession headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal of Dublin. The procession, the participants (royal Dublin fusilier, king's own Scottish borderers, Cameron Highlanders, Welsh Fusiliers, lord mayors of Dublin, of Cork, other mayors, sirdars, grandees, maharajahs,...) and the spectators (windows thronging with sightseers, boys perched on lampposts, telegraph poles,...) are described on two pages that follow. Joyce had warned us earlier with his 'List, list, O list!'
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| (British Royal Insignia with the crown, scepter and orb) |
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| (The white horse that will carry Kalki, Indian miniature painting from ca. 1795) |
Bloom appears bearing the symbols of the English royalty, seated - just as Kalki, the tenth incarnation of the Indian god, Vishnu - on a milkwhite Horse! Boys run around singing the wren song. A coronation scene follows with the bishop of Down and Connor, the Church of Ireland, proclaiming Bloom as the emperor-resident and king-chairman and the Archbishop of Armagh anointing him, proclaiming 'Habemus Carneficem' (We have an executioner ). Naturally, a take on Habemus Papam!
