We stopped at "Do like us." (Penguin 635.27), (Gabler 15.2539)
We continue our sojourn with Circe, a world of reality and fantasy. One learns to appreciate these pages for their richness in creativity, if one simply accepts the mysterious happenings without asking whether anything makes any sense!
Oh yes, Bloom is back! And continues to hallucinate, peppered as usual with reality. This time he fantasizes about his grandfather, Lipoti Virag, who, dressed most fantastically, partly like an Egyptian royal scribe (basilicogrammate), chutes down like Santa Claus through the chimneyflue. He also wears a brown macintosh like the unknown person at Paddy Dignam's funeral in the morning. The grandfather (granpapachi) tries to educate the grandson about the various women assembled there without naming any. He calls Bloom's attention to the injection mark on the thigh of one. (Recall Zoe earlier had called the men's attention to the beautyspot on her behind.) Regarding Number two, the grandfather has comments on her dress, color, and glimpses of lingerie, which he says appeals to Bloom in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. Bloom agrees that she is rather lean, and seems sad. (We had read earlier that Kitty Ricketts was a bony pallid whore, and that a tag of her corset lace was hanging slightly below her jacket / Penguin p. 621). Lipoti Virag says that where as Number two is the lily of the alley (Joyce has combined here the titles of the songs, 'Lily of the Valley' and 'Sally in Our Alley'; Gifford / 15.2341), Number three, who has plenty visible to the naked eye, is the ugly duckling of the party. (Number three is Florry Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat whore / Penguin p. 621). Advising Bloom to: 'Pay your money, take your choice', Lipoti Virag forwards his theory on how an elephantine size is reached: Pellets of new bread with fennygreek (i.e., fenugreek) and gumbenjamin (gum benjamin aka benzoin resin) swamped down by potions of green tea.
Next Virag (a) tells Bloom about all kinds of remedies for all kinds of things like stye in the eye (contact with a goldring), warts (wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg), (b) admonishes him to exercise his mnemotechnic, and (c) shows his parchmentroll, declaring, 'this book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars.'
At every step of this conversation, grandpapachi Virag undergoes Circean metamorphoses. While talking about the three whores, he barks cynically, hoarsely. Talking about the parchmentroll, he crows derisively. As Bloom gazes at the light, hearing the everflying moth, he prompts into his (Bloom's) ear in a pig's whisper, a discourse on insects, while his yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally... Once he had a hardhumped nose, later a glowworm's one.
We continue our sojourn with Circe, a world of reality and fantasy. One learns to appreciate these pages for their richness in creativity, if one simply accepts the mysterious happenings without asking whether anything makes any sense!
Oh yes, Bloom is back! And continues to hallucinate, peppered as usual with reality. This time he fantasizes about his grandfather, Lipoti Virag, who, dressed most fantastically, partly like an Egyptian royal scribe (basilicogrammate), chutes down like Santa Claus through the chimneyflue. He also wears a brown macintosh like the unknown person at Paddy Dignam's funeral in the morning. The grandfather (granpapachi) tries to educate the grandson about the various women assembled there without naming any. He calls Bloom's attention to the injection mark on the thigh of one. (Recall Zoe earlier had called the men's attention to the beautyspot on her behind.) Regarding Number two, the grandfather has comments on her dress, color, and glimpses of lingerie, which he says appeals to Bloom in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. Bloom agrees that she is rather lean, and seems sad. (We had read earlier that Kitty Ricketts was a bony pallid whore, and that a tag of her corset lace was hanging slightly below her jacket / Penguin p. 621). Lipoti Virag says that where as Number two is the lily of the alley (Joyce has combined here the titles of the songs, 'Lily of the Valley' and 'Sally in Our Alley'; Gifford / 15.2341), Number three, who has plenty visible to the naked eye, is the ugly duckling of the party. (Number three is Florry Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat whore / Penguin p. 621). Advising Bloom to: 'Pay your money, take your choice', Lipoti Virag forwards his theory on how an elephantine size is reached: Pellets of new bread with fennygreek (i.e., fenugreek) and gumbenjamin (gum benjamin aka benzoin resin) swamped down by potions of green tea.
Next Virag (a) tells Bloom about all kinds of remedies for all kinds of things like stye in the eye (contact with a goldring), warts (wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg), (b) admonishes him to exercise his mnemotechnic, and (c) shows his parchmentroll, declaring, 'this book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars.'
At every step of this conversation, grandpapachi Virag undergoes Circean metamorphoses. While talking about the three whores, he barks cynically, hoarsely. Talking about the parchmentroll, he crows derisively. As Bloom gazes at the light, hearing the everflying moth, he prompts into his (Bloom's) ear in a pig's whisper, a discourse on insects, while his yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally... Once he had a hardhumped nose, later a glowworm's one.
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| (Giovanni Matteo Mario) |
Bloom, now Henry Flower, enters, resembling the tenor Mario of the romantic Savior's face, from left upper entrance. He carries a silver-stringed inlaid dulcimer, which turns into a guitar, when Henry starts to strum it. Stephen is in his own world, telling himself to play with your eyes shut, thinking of visiting old Deasy or telegraph. In the morning he had walked along the Sandymount strand, with eyes closed to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and shells (Episode 3, Proteus). His music teacher, Almidono Artifoni - we had met him in Wandering Rocks, episode 10 - makes an appearance, urging Stephan to think it over. ('Ci refletta'). Florry asks Stephen to sing something. Stephen hesitates. Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Two strangers, siamese twins, philip drunk and philip sober, appear in the window embrasure, arguing. (To appeal 'from Philip Drunk to Philip Sober' is to ask reconsideration of a matter that has been decided in haste and on impulse / Gifford 15.2512).
