72 (U368.600) THE GAFFER: (Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.)

Cast 72. Page 368, line 600.

THE GAFFER: (Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.) And when Cairns came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing it into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings for Derwan’s plasterers.

THE LOITERERS: (Guffaw with cleft palates.) O jays!

(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)

BLOOM: Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman.

THE LOITERERS: Jays, that’s a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the men’s porter.

(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.)

THE WHORES:

Are you going far, queer fellow?
How’s your middle leg?
Got a match on you?
Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.

 Johann Rudolf Glauber

File:Portrait of Johann Rudolph Glauber Wellcome M0013765.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

This is from Episode 15. Bloom has just arrived in the brothel district. This passage comes just before the one discussed in Cast 25. He is passing through the area where a foreman and a group of loafers are hanging about.

Bloom is now at the “hellsgates” near the corner of Mabbot Street and Mecklenburgh Street (marked with a star ★ on the map). He is on his way to Bella Cohen’s brothel (marked with a diamond ♦). Beaver Street (the street enclosed in an oval) is not far from where he is standing. It is in fact on the scaffolding there that Stephen will shortly be harassed by the British soldiers, as mentioned in the previous blog entry.

(At the corner of Beaver street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)

（U479.4365）

The foreman is telling the story of how a workman named Cairns urinated into a plasterer’s bucket of porter. As we saw in Cast 51, Bloom encounters a number of “coincidences” today. This is one of them. But what exactly is the coincidence here? It relates to something Bloom recalls in Episode 13. Bloom had revisited Dignam’s house after leaving Barney Kiernan’s pub, and at that time he relieved himself standing up. That, supposedly, is the coincidence. Whether this is really the correct interpretation is not entirely clear, but I have not been able to find a better one.

Good job I let off there behind the wall coming out of Dignam’s. Cider that was. Otherwise I couldn’t have.

（U302.860）

I could not find “Jays” in the dictionary. According to Gifford’s note, it means “Jesus.”

“Glauber salts” is sodium sulfate, formerly used as a laxative. It is also called “Glauber’s salt” after the German-Dutch pharmacist and chemist Johann Rudolf Glauber (1604?–1670), who discovered it.

In the prostitutes’ little street song, “Got a match on you?” I think “match” means “a partner” or “someone lined up.”

Now then, the bucket keeps turning up insistently later on as well.

In the hallucinated courtroom scene, Bloom is put under examination. He is suspected of having defecated into the bucket in Beaver Street.

(The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A large bucket. Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes. Quite bad. A plasterer’s bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery. Deadly agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial moment. He did not look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather a mess. Not completely. A Titbits back number.)

（U377.930）

In the scene I mentioned a moment ago, where Stephen gets into a quarrel with the British soldier, King Edward VII appears. (This too is part of the hallucination.) The King is dressed in Masonic robes and carries a trowel and a plasterer’s bucket. Printed on the bucket, in French, is a warning against urination.

(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. ・・・ He is robed as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left hand he holds a plasterer’s bucket on which is printed Défense d’uriner. A roar of welcome greets him.)

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.) Peace, perfect peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. ・・・

(・・・Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.)

（U482.4449～）

In fact, Edward VII really was a Freemason. Since Freemasonry originally grew out of guilds of masons, stonecutters, and builders, the trowel is one of its symbols. So perhaps the appearance here of words such as “size and lime” (materials used in plaster and cement) and “lodges” is connected with that Masonic association. But why Joyce chooses to connect that theme with this particular spot remains a mystery.

For the method behind this blog, see ☞ Here.

71 (U485.4569) PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king?

 Cast 71. Page 485, line 4569

PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king?

STEPHEN: (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish empire of his. Money I haven’t. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it to someone.

PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money?

 

This comes near the end of Episode 15. Bloom and Stephen have just come out of the brothel. The two of them get into a quarrel after being harassed by British soldiers. This is a little after the passage discussed in Cast 39 of this blog. I explained the origin of Private Carr there.

A little before this passage, Stephen says in his own mind that he must kill “the priest and the king.” That is why Carr picks a fight and demands to know what he said about the king. In 1904, Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom.

　STEPHEN: (Laughs emptily.) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. (He taps his brow.) But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king.

・・・

　PRIVATE CARR: (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) What’s that you’re saying about my king?

（U481. 4437－4446）

So when Carr repeats the same challenge here, Stephen responds with “monotonous!” 

“Brutish empire” is, of course, a pun on British and brutish.

Stephen has no money because, a little earlier, Bloom took charge of it for safekeeping.

　BLOOM: (Quietly.) You had better hand over that cash to me to take care of. Why pay more?

（U456.3600）

A few passages come to mind as places where Stephen’s view of the state is revealed.

In Episode 1, Haines—the Englishman staying at Stephen’s lodging—asks him about his loyalties. Stephen replies that he serves two masters: England and Italy. That is, the British Empire and the Roman Catholic Church. His phrase here, “want must be his master,” may perhaps echo the earlier idea of “a servant of two masters.” And his earlier line about having to kill “the priest and the king” clearly belongs to the same pattern.

　—I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an Italian.

　—Italian? Haines said.

・・・

　—The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.

（U17.638-）

Then in Episode 16, during Stephen’s conversation with Bloom at the cabman’s shelter, Stephen says that it is not he who belongs to Ireland, but Ireland that belongs to him—and that is why it matters.

　You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I may be important because I belong to the faubourg Saint Patrice called Ireland for short.

　—I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated.

　—But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important because it belongs to me.

・・・

　—We can’t change the country. Let us change the subject.

（U527.1160-）

Stephen has complicated feelings toward both Britain and Catholicism—the country and religion that, in one sense, formed him. Yet inwardly he still values Ireland with a loyalty and attachment entirely his own.

Portrait of Edward VII, king of the United Kingdom in 1904

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:H.M._King_Edward_VII.jpg

For the method behind this blog, see ☞ Here.

70 (U139.666) O! A bone!

 Cast 70. Page 139, line 666

O! A bone! That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoem choked himself at Sletty southward of the Boyne. Wonder what he was eating. Something galoptious. Saint Patrick converted him to Christianity. Couldn’t swallow it all however.

　—Roast beef and cabbage.

　—One stew.

 

"Mmm... Irish stew" by jeffreyw is licensed under CC BY 2.0

This is from Episode 8. Bloom has gone into Burton’s restaurant on Duke Street in search of lunch. It comes just before the passage discussed in Cast 3 of this blog. He is watching the vulgar way the customers are eating. One of them has just gnawed down to the bone.

The red circle marks Burton’s at 18 Duke Street. Bloom dislikes the place and instead goes to eat at Davy Byrne’s at No. 21, marked in blue.

Cormac mac Airt was a High King of Ireland in medieval Irish legend. Depending on the source, his reign is placed anywhere from the beginning of the second century to the end of the fourth.

The poem Bloom is recalling from school is thought to be The Burial of King Cormac by the nineteenth-century Irish poet Sir Samuel Ferguson.

　　Anon to priests of Crom was brought —

　　Where, girded in their service dread,

　　They minister'd on red Moy Slaught —

　　Word of the words King Cormac said.

　　They loosed their curse against the king;

　　They cursesd him in his flesh and bones;

　　And daily in their mystic ring

　　They turn'd the maledictive stones,

　　Till, where at meat the monarch sate,

　　Amid the revel and the wine,

　　He choked upon the food he ate,

　　At Sletty, southward of the Boyne.

　　High vaunted then the priestly throng,

　　And far and wide they noised abroad

　　With trump and loud liturgic song

　　The praise of their avenging God.

According to the legend, Cormac converted from Druidism to Christianity, and the Druids, resentful of this, cursed him so that he died by choking on a salmon bone. Since the poem itself does not specify what kind of bone it was, Bloom is presumably wondering what exactly lodged in his throat.

Saint Patrick (c. 387?–461) was the missionary and bishop who spread Christianity in Ireland and became the country’s patron saint. Historically, however, the dates do not match, so he cannot literally have been the one to convert Cormac.

Bloom’s joke is that the High King of Ireland never fully accepted Christianity: playing on the image of choking on a bone, he says Cormac “couldn’t swallow it all.”

“galoptious” is an unfamiliar word, but it belongs to a whole family of odd spellings—galumptious, galuptious, galloptious, galluptious, goluptious, golopshus, and so on. It means something like “splendid” or “temptingly delicious.” It is said to derive from the Latin voluptuous.

The person ordering the stew is, of course, just another customer at Burton’s. One naturally assumes it would be Irish stew.

The whole paragraph containing this line is a vivid description of filthy eating habits, and one of the standout pleasures of reading Ulysses.

For the method behind this blog, see ☞ Here.

69 (U576.1179) How did he elucidate the mystery of an invisible attractive person

 Cast 69. Page 576, line 1179

How did he elucidate the mystery of an invisible attractive person, his wife Marion (Molly) Bloom, denoted by a visible splendid sign, a lamp?

With indirect and direct verbal allusions or affirmations: with subdued affection and admiration: with description: with impediment: with suggestion.

This is from Episode 17. The entire episode is written from beginning to end in the form of questions and answers.

Late at night, Stephen has been brought back to the Bloom household. After spending some time in the kitchen, the two men step out into the back yard. From a second-floor rear window of the house, they can see the light of the oil lamp in the bedroom where Bloom’s wife Molly is sleeping.

Invisible — visible

indirect — direct

form a pair.

There is alliteration in allusions, affirmations, affection, and admiration.

There is also an echoing rhyme in affection, admiration, description, and suggestion.

The etymology of elucidate is the Latin “to make bright,” so it forms a verbal link with splendid and lamp.

Fire and light in the darkness are a characteristic motif of this episode.

Bloom seems to have said something to Stephen about Molly, but we do not know what he said. Even from the surrounding context, I cannot quite make out the meaning of this question and answer.

After this, the two men fall silent and look at one another.

This may, perhaps, be one of the unexpectedly important mysteries of the novel.

René Magritte, Good Fortune

"Rene Magritte - Good Fortune" by irinaraquel is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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68 (U454.3564) STEPHEN: (At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.)

 Cast 68. Page 454, line 3564

STEPHEN: (At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.) No bottles! What, eleven? A riddle!

ZOE: (Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the top of her stocking.) Hard earned on the flat of my back.

LYNCH: (Lifting Kitty from the table.) Come!

KITTY: Wait. (She clutches the two crowns.)

FLORRY: And me?

LYNCH: Hoopla!

(He lifts her, carries her and bumps her down on the sofa.)

This is from Episode 15. In one room of Bella Cohen’s brothel are the prostitutes Zoe, Kitty, and Florry, together with Bloom, Stephen, and Stephen’s friend Lynch.

A Pianola was a brand name for the player piano. It was developed in 1895 by the American businessman and inventor Edwin Scott Votey (1856–1931) and marketed in 1898 by the Aeolian Company. It operated by means of air pressure from pedals and a perforated music roll.

Since the novel’s present is 1904, it would have been quite a new piece of technology at the time.

When the prostitutes tell Stephen that it is already past eleven, he says, “No bottles!” The significance of eleven is that, under the law, it was illegal to serve alcohol after 11 p.m.

Stephen is remembering the riddle he gave in class at school that morning.

—This is the riddle, Stephen said:

　　　　　　　　The cock crew,
　　　　　　　　The sky was blue:
　　　　　　　　The bells in heaven
　　　　　　　　Were striking eleven.
　　　　　　　　’Tis time for this poor soul
　　　　　　　　To go to heaven.

　（U22.102）

I could not determine exactly what “pettigown” means. It seems to be a blend of petticoat and gown. Since gown has many meanings, here I take it to mean a kind of nightdress.

 “gown: lingerie consisting of a loose dress designed to be worn in bed by women”

The phrase “be flat on one’s back” means to be lying down, unable to get up.

The three prostitutes demand ten shillings each. Stephen pays a total of forty shillings: one one-pound note (worth 20 shillings), one half-sovereign gold coin (worth 10 shillings), and two crown coins (together worth 10 shillings). (Bloom later manages to recover ten shillings.)

Zoe takes the half-sovereign, and Kitty grabs the two crowns.

For reference, ten shillings in 1904 would be worth about £40 today.

“Hoopla” means a ring-toss game. Lynch throws Kitty onto the sofa as if tossing a hoop.

Now then, the real point of interest in this scene is the act of lifting up.

Throughout Ulysses, the gesture of lifting a petticoat or skirt appears again and again.

First, in Episode 1, when the old milk woman brings milk to Stephen’s dwelling, Mulligan sings a teasing little song.

—For old Mary Ann
She doesn’t care a damn.
But, hising up her petticoats...

（U18.384）

In Episode 3, in Stephen’s thoughts on the strand, he recalls Mulligan’s song as he watches the seaweed by the shore.

Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water swaying and upturning coy silver fronds.

（U41.462）

In Episode 7, in the parable Stephen tells to the editor and others after leaving the newspaper office, two old women climb Nelson’s Pillar and hitch up their skirts.

But it makes them giddy to look so they pull up their skirts...

・・・

—And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the statue of the onehandled adulterer.

（U121.1013）

In Episode 8, Bloom remembers the night of Professor Goodwin’s concert, when a gust of wind blew Molly’s skirts up.

Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin.

（U128.193）

In Episode 9, Mulligan says to Stephen that at Camden Hall, the women playing the Daughters of Erin had to lift their skirts to step over him.

—O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured, multicoloured, multitudinous vomit!

（U178.1192）

In the hallucination scene of Episode 15, Bloom’s mother Ellen searches for smelling salts, lifting her skirt and rummaging in the pouch inside her petticoat.

ELLEN BLOOM: ・・・O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him! My smelling salts! (She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out.) Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all at all?

（U358.288）

Also in Episode 15, in the brothel scene, Lynch lifts Kitty’s skirt and white petticoat with his wand.

KITTY:・・・ (Lynch lifts up her skirt and white petticoat with the wand. She settles them down quickly.) Respect yourself. (She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which her hair glows, red with henna.) O, excuse!

（U410.2059）

In Episode 15 again, Bella the madam lifts her gown slightly and strikes a pose.

(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked. Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers draws out and in her laces.)

（U431.2909）

Still in Episode 15, Zoe lifts her slip and shows Stephen her thigh. She takes from the top of her stocking the potato she earlier took from Bloom.

ZOE: Here. (She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh, and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking.) Those that hides knows where to find.

（U453.3524）

Then comes the present scene. (U454.3564) Zoe tucks the coin into her stocking.

In Episode 15, in the hallucination where Dublin is on fire and people are fleeing, society ladies lift up their skirts.

Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves.

（U488.4697）

In Episode 15 again, in the black mass scene, the Protestant clergyman Love, who studies the Fitzgerald family, lifts Father O’Flynn’s petticoat.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: (Raises high behind the celebrant’s petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is stuck.) My body.

（U489.4705）

In Episode 18, in Molly’s drifting consciousness, she recalls that Bloom was fascinated by the skirts of girls on bicycles blowing upward.

hes mad on the subject of drawers thats plain to be seen always skeezing at those brazenfaced things on the bicycles with their skirts blowing up to their navels

（U614.290）

Also in Episode 18, Molly remembers Bloom begging her to lift up her petticoat.

he had made me hungry to look at them and beseeched of me to lift the orange petticoat I had on with the sunray pleats

（U615308）

For Stephen, this gesture is associated with old women; for Bloom, it is tied to his erotic tastes.

"Alla-pianola" by paola.natalia58 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

For the method behind this blog, see Here.

67 (U403.1816) (General commotion and compassion. Women faint.

Cast 67. Page 403, line 1816

(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, blank cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I. O. U’s, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets are rapidly collected.)

BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother.

MRS THORNTON: (In nursetender’s gown.) Embrace me tight, dear. You’ll be soon over it. Tight, dear.

This is from the hallucination scene in Episode 15. Bloom transforms into a woman and gives birth.

Miss Thornton is the midwife. She attended the births of Bloom’s son Rudy and daughter Milly. (U54.417)

Taken literally, there is not much more to unpack here. But the items collected in the street donation somehow feel familiar. So let me force a few associations from elsewhere in the novel.

① Gold and silver coins and banknotes

These recall the wages Stephen receives from Mr Deasy in Episode 2: two one-pound notes, one sovereign, two crown pieces, and two shillings. And, as mentioned in Cast 29 of this blog, the gold coin even dances on Mr Deasy’s shoulder.

He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and laid them carefully on the table.

—Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away.

・・・

A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth.

・・・

He shot from it two crowns and two shillings.

—Three twelve, he said. I think you’ll find that’s right.

—Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers.

② Blank cheques

These bring to mind Davy Byrne’s pub in Episode 8, where Bloom goes for lunch. As I mentioned in Cast 42, the stingy proprietor once cashed a cheque for him.

He entered Davy Byrne’s. Moral pub. He doesn’t chat. Stands a drink now and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.

 （U140.733）

③ Jewels

In Episode 10, Stephen peers in at the jeweller old Russell polishing a gem.

Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned it and held it at the point of his Moses’ beard. Grandfather ape gloating on a stolen hoard.

 (U198.812)

④ Treasury bonds

These are revealed in Episode 17: the £900 of Canadian 4% government stock stored in the second drawer of the Blooms’ cupboard.

certificate of possession of £ 900, Canadian 4% (inscribed) government stock (free of stamp duty): 

(U194.1065)

⑤ Maturing bills of exchange

These recall the promissory notes and dishonoured bills protruding from the beggar’s wallet of the Jewish moneylender Reuben J. Dodd, who appeared in Episode 15 and in Cast 35 of this blog.

(Reuben J Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim’s wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills.

 (U415.2147)

⑥ I. O. U.’s

“I. O. U.” means “I owe you,” i.e. a written acknowledgment of debt. In Episode 9, Stephen owes one pound to George Russell (A.E.).

I, I and I. I.
A.E.I.O.U.

(U156.213)

⑦ Wedding rings

In Episode 15, the brothel madam Bella Cohen is described as wearing wedding rings on her left hand.

(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. She is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen. On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings.

 (U429.2745)

⑧ Watchchains

In Episode 13, when the girl Cissy Caffrey asks Bloom the time on the strand, he grows flustered and begins to toy with his watchchain. His watch, moreover, has stopped.

So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his watchchain, looking up at the church. 

(U236.539)

⑨ Lockets

A locket is a small pendant worn around the neck, usually containing a photograph or keepsake. In Episode 14, at the maternity hospital, the medical student Alec Bannon reveals that he is Milly Bloom’s sweetheart, and that he carries her photograph in a locket.

With these words he approached the goblet to his lips, took a complacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, opening his bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a silk riband, that very picture which he had cherished ever since her hand had wrote therein.

 (U331.754)

⑩ Necklaces

This recalls a memory in Episode 4: the amberoid necklace Bloom gave Milly when she was about four years old.

Only five she was then. No, wait: four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke.

 (U51.285)

⑪ Bracelets

In Episode 15, the dancing “hours of the night” wear bracelets that make a dull bell-like sound.

(The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy under veils.)

THE BRACELETS: Heigho! Heigho!

(U470.4083)

I rather suspect Joyce may well have had this kind of thing in mind when writing the passage.

Episode 15 feels, in a way, like a grand theatrical performance in which the characters from the rest of the novel all come back on stage—bringing their props and stage furniture with them.

Uniforms for the nurses at St George's Hospital, ca. 1892

File:St. George's Hospital Nurses Wellcome L0060863.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

For the method behind this blog, see  Here.

66 (U549.226) its potentiality derivable from harnessed tides

The 66th Cast. Page 549, line 226.

its potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe), numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity as constituting 90 % of the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon.

Episode 17. This episode is written entirely in the form of questions and answers. It is after two in the morning. Mr. Bloom has brought Stephen back to his house, and in the kitchen he turns on the tap to make cocoa for him.

What follows is a long catechism on Bloom’s knowledge of the properties of water, running to forty-three separate points.

This passage concerns the last four of them:

① its potential energy
② its fauna and flora
③ its ubiquity
④ its toxicity

“the waning moon” means the moon as it decreases from full moon toward new moon.

The opposite is “the waxing moon.”

　　　　　　

File:Tell-Whether-the-Moon-Is-Waxing-or-Waning-Step-9-Version-3.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

But why does the moon suddenly appear here?

I was not sure what to make of it.According to Gifford’s annotation, the waning moon symbolizes decline or decay on earth.So perhaps the idea is that the moon somehow presides over the corruption or putrefaction of stagnant waters.

That may sound rather far-fetched, but as I mentioned in Cast no. 60, Episode 17 is full of astronomical imagery, so in that sense it does fit.

A little later in the episode, the text explicitly links the moon with womanhood:

her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning:　

（U576.1162）

Another odd intrusion here is “flowerwater.”

What exactly is that doing in the middle of this quasi-scientific catalogue?

It refers to a perfumed water distilled from flower petals.

In Episode 4, Bloom notices on Molly a smell like old flower-water:

Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves next day. Like foul flowerwater.

—Would you like the window open a little?　

（U52.316）

And then in Episode 5, Bloom goes into the chemist’s to order flower-water for Molly.

It turns out to be orangeflower water.

But he does not collect it that day.

—Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then orangeflower water...It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax.

—And white wax also, he said.　

（U69.491）

Then again in Episode 15, in the hallucination sequence, Bloom excuses himself to Molly by saying that he was just going back to fetch it the next day:

BLOOM: I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the morning. (He pats divers pockets.) This moving kidney. Ah!　

（U360.332）

So all through the day, the thought of stale orangeflower water has been lingering somewhere in the back of Bloom’s mind.

　　　　　

The blossom of the bitter orange, from which orangeflower water is made

File:Citrus aurantium - Köhler–s Medizinal-Pflanzen-042.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

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