100 (U22.116) Stephen, his throat itching, answered:

 Cast 100. Page 22, line 116.

　Stephen, his throat itching, answered:

　—The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.

　He stood up and gave a shout of nervous laughter to which their cries echoed dismay.

　A stick struck the door and a voice in the corridor called:

　—Hockey!

　

Episode 2. At 10 a.m., Stephen is working as a teacher for young boys at Mr. Deasy’s private school.

This is the moment when he reveals the answer to the riddle he had set. Stephen’s riddle is one of the most famous puzzles in the novel. The scene then shifts as the boys rush outside to play hockey.

A. The riddle

The riddle runs as follows:

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

（U21.102-）

There exists a well-known earlier form of this riddle, which Stephen has slightly modified. 

See P. W. Joyce, English As We Speak It in Ireland (1910), Chapter XII.

Riddle me, riddle me right:
What did I see last night?
The wind blew,
The cock crew,
The bells of heaven
Struck eleven.
’Tis time for my poor sowl to go to heaven.

(answer)
The fox burying his mother under a holly tree.

It is not at all clear why the answer to Stephen’s version should be “the fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.” I will outline my current thoughts.

B. Why the answer is a fox

This may derive from Aesop's Fables. There is a story involving a cock that marks time and a fox.

There is a story in which a cock that tells the time (it is the rooster that announces the hour) and a fox both appear.

No. 252: The Dog, the Cock, and the Fox

A dog and a cock made friends and set out traveling together. …

When the night had passed and dawn broke, the cock, as usual, crowed loudly to mark the time.

Hearing this, a fox came along, thinking to eat him, and stood beneath the tree …

The cock replied:

“Brother, go to the foot of the tree and call to the watchman there—he will open the door for you.”

When the fox went to call out, the dog suddenly sprang upon him, seized him, and tore him to pieces.

 

"aesops fables Milo winter 1919 ill the dog, cock and fox" by janwillemsen is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

 

Bringing in Aesop here is not especially unnatural. In Episode 11, in the hotel bar, Lenehan sings to a barmaid: 

　She took no notice while he read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly:

　—Ah fox met ah stork. Said thee fox too thee stork: Will you put your bill down inn my troath and pull upp ah bone?

　He droned in vain. Miss Douce turned to her tea aside.

(U245.248-)

This is a misremembered version of the Aesop fable The Wolf and the Crane (also known as The Wolf and the Stork), in which the wolf has been replaced by a fox. The fact that it is deliberately turned into a fox may be a hint from Joyce.

"aesops fables Milo winter 1919 ill the wolf and the crane" by janwillemsen is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. 

Thus, I take it that the fox’s grandmother was killed by the dog and the cock.

After this, in Episode 3, Stephen sees a dog on the beach and recalls the riddle, thinking, “burying his grandmother.” He then imagines “a pard, a panther” tearing at a corpse.

His hindpaws then scattered the sand: then his forepaws dabbled and delved. Something he buried there, his grandmother. He rooted in the sand, dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the sand again with a fury of his claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in spousebreach, vulturing the dead.

(U39.359-)

I think this passage supports the idea that the fox was killed by the dog.

C. Who the fox is

A little further on, there is this passage: “She was gone. She had scarcely lived. A poor soul has gone to heaven.” And: “a fox scraping in the earth.” Stephen’s mother died of illness a year earlier.

She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes. She had saved him from being trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor soul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped.

(U23.144)

Stephen is identifying himself with the fox, and the fox’s grandmother with his mother. At the time of his mother’s death, he experienced something painful, and he has displaced his mother into the figure of a grandmother.

In Chapter 5 of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which depicts the period before this novel, Stephen says the following—one of the most famous lines in that work:

I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile and cunning.

Silence, exile, and cunning—these are qualities well suited to a fox.

D. Who killed the fox

Episode 15. The brothel scene. This is the passage discussed in Cast 68. A little after eleven at night, when alcohol can no longer be served, Stephen recalls the riddle from the morning. The riddle is slightly altered.

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

 (U454.3561-)

...

STEPHEN:

The fox crew, the cocks flew,
The bells in heaven
Were striking eleven.
’Tis time for her poor soul
To get out of heaven.

(U455.3576-)

A little later, he says: “Thirsty fox… burying his grandmother. Probably he killed her.” The “thirsty fox” refers to Stephen himself, craving drink, yet he could not literally have killed his grandmother (his mother). Rather, this expresses a sense of guilt—“I let her die,” or “it is as if I killed her.”

STEPHEN: Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next Lessing says. Thirsty fox. (He laughs loudly.) Burying his grandmother. Probably he killed her.

(U456.3508)

In Episode 1, his housemate and friend Mulligan tells Stephen: “My aunt thinks you killed your mother.” This must weigh heavily on his mind. He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen’s face.

　He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen’s face.
　—The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That’s why she won’t let me have anything to do with you.
　—Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily.

(U5.85)

Moreover, after Stephen’s mother’s death, Mulligan remarks, “It’s only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead.” Stephen takes this as an insult, and it becomes decisive in their estrangement.

—You said, Stephen answered, O, it’s only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead.

(U7.198)

Stephen seems to cast Mulligan as the one who killed his mother.

In Episode 1, the English lodger Haines had apparently been raving the previous night about a “black panther” and brandishing a gun. In the earlier passage from Episode 3 (see section B), Stephen imagines “a panther” tearing at a corpse. This suggests that he also casts Haines, along with Mulligan, as an aggressor.

—He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is his guncase?

(U4.57)

In Chapter 5 of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in conversation with his friend Cranly , Stephen says that he fears dogs, horses, firearms, the sea, thunderstorms, machinery, and country roads at night.

　Stephen, struck by his tone of closure, reopened the discussion at once by saying:
　—I fear many things: dogs, horses, firearms, the sea, thunderstorms, machinery, the country roads at night.
　—But why do you fear a bit of bread?
　—I imagine, Stephen said, that there is a malevolent reality behind those things I say I fear.

Dogs and guns are his enemies.

E. Why the bells strike eleven

Some interpretations suggest that eleven, as the number following ten, symbolizes renewal or resurrection, and that it corresponds to the hour of Dignam’s funeral in Episode 6.

However, the cock crowing at eleven remains strange.

A possible explanation comes from funeral customs: bells are sometimes tolled once for each year of the deceased’s life. If so, the fox may have been eleven years old.

Given that a fox’s lifespan is roughly ten years, this would make the fox an old one—hence, a grandmother.

F. The meaning of the holly

We have previously considered the symbolism of hawthorn and mistletoe. Here, we turn to holly.

• In pre-Christian Celtic belief, holly was sacred to the druids. The year was divided between the Oak King (winter solstice to summer solstice) and the Holly King (summer solstice to winter solstice).
• In ancient Rome, holly was used during the Saturnalia festival.
• In Christian tradition, holly became associated with Christmas. Its spiked leaves symbolize the crown of thorns, and its red berries the blood of Christ.
• Holly was believed to possess protective, even magical qualities, and was often paired with ivy. In symbolic terms, holly (with red berries) could represent the feminine, while mistletoe (with white berries) represented the masculine; together they suggested fertility and new life.

Across Europe, holly has long been a symbol of immortality and rebirth.

The fox’s grandmother, then, is buried beneath the holly in the hope of regeneration and resurrection.

Holly

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ilex_aquifolium_Atlas_Alpenflora.jpg

The method of this blog is explained  Here..

99 (U609.58) like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace

 Cast 99. Page 609, line 58.

like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace padding out her false bottom to excite him bad enough to get the smell of those painted women off him once or twice I had a suspicion by getting him to come near me when I found the long hair on his coat without that one when I went into the kitchen pretending he was drinking water

 

The present-day buildings of Ontario Terrace

 

Episode 18. The final chapter. It is Molly Bloom’s interior monologue as she lies in bed. A long, uninterrupted flow of words without periods or commas, divided into eight large sentences. This passage comes from near the beginning of the first of those.

Molly is recalling the times when Bloom was involved with other women. Mary refers to Mary Driscoll, the maid who had been in the Bloom household. In Episode 15, she is summoned in the hallucinatory trial scene to testify against Bloom.

There is not much to analyze in detail this time, so instead I have marked on a map of Dublin the places where Bloom is known, in the novel, to have lived.

Eason's new plan of Dublin and suburbs / Eason & Son, Ltd.（1908）

1. 52 Clanbrassil Street
   From 1866 — Bloom’s address at the time of his birth.
   A commemorative plaque for Bloom can still be seen on the building today.
   
   
2. Pleasants Street
   From 1888 — Around the time Bloom married Molly.
   
   
3. Lombard Street West
   From 1892 —
   
   
4. Raymond Terrace
   From 1893 —
   
   
5. City Arms Hotel, 54 Prussia Street
   From 1893 —
   Now the site of the Free University of Ireland and a pub called Clarkes City Arms.
   
   
6. Holles Street
   From 1894 —
   
   
7. Ontario Terrace
   From 1897 —
   This is the location mentioned in this passage; it is the period Molly is recalling here.
   
   
8. 7 Eccles Street
   From 1903 —
   The Blooms’ residence at the time of the novel (1904).
   The site is now occupied by the Mater Private Hospital Dublin.

The method of this blog is explained Here.

98 (U549.205) its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns:

 Cast 98. Page 549, line 205.

its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts:

Episode 17. This chapter is written entirely in a question-and-answer format. Shortly after 2 a.m., Bloom brings Stephen back to his house and, in the kitchen, turns on the tap to prepare cocoa for him.

“What in water did Bloom … admire?” In response to this question about Bloom’s perception of the properties of water, forty-three items are listed at great length.

The passage quoted in Cast 66 comes from the middle of that list. This Cast falls in the middle of the list and describes four of the properties.

• Imperturbability
• Gradation of colours
• Vehicular ramifications
• Violence

The word “maelstroms,” one of the last items in the list, appears in a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, A Descent into the Maelström (1841). The maelstrom refers to a powerful tidal current and the whirlpools it creates in the waters around Mosken Island in the Lofoten archipelago of Norway.

Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe's story "Descent into the Maelstrom" by Harry Clarke (1919)

File:Maelstrom-Clarke rotated.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

 

This blog’s method is explained  Here.

97 (U179.1219) Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street.

 Cast 97. Page 179, line 1219.

　Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds. Frail from the housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in a flaw of softness softly were blown.

　Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline: hierophantic: from wide earth an altar.

            Laud we the gods
　And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
　From our bless’d altars.

The colonnade of the National Library of Ireland.

File:Dublino, national library of ireland, 01.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

The closing passage of Episode 9. Stephen has just followed his companion Mulligan out of the library.

Map of the city of Dublin and its environs, constructed for Thom's Almanac and Official Directory（1898）

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A little before this point, there is the following passage:

　The portico.

　Here I watched the birds for augury. Ængus of the birds. They go, they come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered.

（U173.1205-）

Stephen recalls that he had once thought about augury while standing in the portico of this library. This episode appears in Chapter 5 of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which depicts the period prior to Ulysses. Reading that passage helps in understanding the present section of this blog.

What birds were they? He stood on the steps of the library to look at them, leaning wearily on his ashplant. They flew round and round the jutting shoulder of a house in Molesworth Street. The air of the late March evening made clear their flight, their dark darting quivering bodies flying clearly against the sky as against a limp-hung cloth of smoky tenuous blue.

 

Why was he gazing upwards from the steps of the porch, hearing their shrill twofold cry, watching their flight? For an augury of good or evil?

 

The colonnade above him made him think vaguely of an ancient temple and the ashplant on which he leaned wearily of the curved stick of an augur.

Kind air defined the coigns of houses

The opening phrase of this blog passage, “Kind air defined the coigns of houses,” is a poetic expression characteristic of Stephen, but its meaning is difficult to grasp.

First, “coigns of houses” seems to refer to the corners of buildings (cf. American Heritage Dictionary).

It likely corresponds to “the jutting shoulder” in the passage from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Then what does “Kind air defined the coigns of houses” mean?

“Define” usually means “to define,” but it can also mean “to delineate clearly.”

If we take into account the line from A Portrait—“The air of the late March evening made clear their flight”—then here it likely means that the corners of the buildings appeared clearly through the gentle air.

Kildare Street is the street in front of the library. The buildings on the opposite side are not flat façades; they have articulated corners.

Chimneys can also be seen.

Augury

Augury is a ritual practiced in ancient Rome to determine matters of state. Specially appointed augurs observed the flight, cries, and feeding patterns of birds according to elaborate rules in order to discern the will of the gods.

Standing in the library porch, Stephen imagines ancient Roman temples and augury, then shifts to the druids of ancient Ireland. This chain of associations leads him to the soothsayer in the final scene of Cymbeline. The smoke rising from the chimneys along Kildare Street becomes, in his mind, the smoke rising from an altar used in divination. (In Cymbeline, the soothsayer is actually Roman, not a druid.)

“Cease to strive” is likely an inner voice telling him to stop contending with Mulligan. Just as ancient Britain (in the Celtic age) and the Roman Empire are reconciled in Cymbeline. However, that hope is not realized on this day; it seems that the two quarrel later, between the maternity hospital scene in Episode 14 and the nighttown scene in Episode 15.

Smoke from the chimneys

“two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming” deliberately repeats “plume.”

“in a flaw of softness softly were blown.” likewise repeats “soft.”

“Plume” has two meanings: (1) a long feather or plume, (2) a column of smoke or cloud, the latter derived from the former. In this novel it appears to be used in both senses, and perhaps quite deliberately as an important word.

Let us look at examples of (2), smoke:

Episode 1. The Englishman Haines, who calls Hamlet a wonderful tale, gazes at the horizon; smoke rises from a mailboat.

　—It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again.
　Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent. The seas' ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the smokeplume of the mailboat vague· on the bright skyline and a sail tacking by the Muglins.

(U16.575)

Episode 4. Bloom boils water in the kitchen to make tea for his wife; a plume of steam rises from the spout of the teapot.

On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout.

(U51.271)

Episode 8. As Bloom steps onto O’Connell Bridge, a puff of smoke rises from a barge carrying export stout bound for England.

As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England.

(U125.44)

Episode 11. In James Kavanagh’s wine room, the sub-sheriff John Fanning smokes a cigar; a plume of smoke rises from his lips.

Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips.

（U203.113）

Episode 15. Bloom, wrapped like a mummy, falls from a cliff into the sea; a tourist vessel, the Erin’s King, emits a spreading plume of smoke from its funnel.

　THE DUMMYMUMMY：Bbbbblllllblblblblobschb!
　(Far out in the bay between Bailey and Kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards the land.)

（U449.3383）

The rising columns of smoke seem to be connected, in one way or another, with England and with its authority. Drinking tea is part of English culture. and as noted in Cast 90, the Erin’s King was built in Liverpool.

For the method of this blog, see Here.

96 (U629.972) I suppose the people gave him that nickname

 Cast 96. Page 629, line 972.

I suppose the people gave him that nickname going about with his tube from one woman to another I couldnt even change my new white shoes all ruined with the saltwater and the hat I had with that feather all blowy and tossed on me how annoying and provoking because the smell of the sea excited me of course the sardines and the bream in Catalan bay round the back of the rock they were fine all silver in the fishermens baskets old Luigi near a hundred they said came from Genoa

Episode 18. The final episode. Molly’s thoughts in bed, the interior monologue of Bloom’s wife. A vast unbroken flow of words without periods or commas, composed of eight sentences; this passage belongs to the sixth of them.

Molly suggests that “Paul de Kock” might be a nickname. Charles-Paul de Kock （1793 – 1871）was a French writer whose novels depicting life in Paris enjoyed enormous popularity throughout 19th-century Europe. He was so widely read in England that it was even said that “the best-known French author in England is Paul de Kock.”

Paul de Kock, portrait pour Le Drôlatique, n°20 du 24 août 1867. Lithographie de Charles Pipard. Musée Carnavalet

File:Le Drolatique N20 Paul de Kock.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Molly, earlier in Episode 4 (the morning scene), asks Bloom to bring her another book by Paul de Kock.

—Did you finish it? he asked.
—Yes, she said. There’s nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the first fellow all the time?
—Never read it. Do you want another?
—Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock’s. Nice name he has.　

（U53.358）

“Kock” sounds like “cock”. That is why Molly assumes that a writer of popular fiction like Paul de Kock must be using a pseudonym. I had thought so as well. However, according to his biography, his father also bore the name de Kock, so it is in fact his real name.

After that, Molly suddenly drifts into memories of her birthplace, Gibraltar.

Catalan Bay is a bay on the eastern side of Gibraltar. In the middle of the peninsula stands the large rock formation known as Rock of Gibraltar. The town lies on the western side, while the eastern side drops off in steep cliffs. Thus “round the back of the rock” means that Catalan Bay lies on the far side, out of view from the town.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Gibraltar_-_Places_mentioned_in_Simon_Susarte_episode_-_Adapted_from_W.H._Smyth_1831.jpg

The name “Catalan Bay” derives from Catalan soldiers who supported the British and Dutch forces when they captured Gibraltar during the War of the Spanish Succession in 1704 and later settled there.

In addition, from the 17th to the 18th century, fishermen from Genoa migrated to this bay and made their living by fishing. This is the background to the mention of old Luigi, said to be from Genoa and nearly a hundred years old.

"Catalan Bay" by VisitGibraltar.gi is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

For the method used in this blog, ☞ click Here .

95 (U269.1314) And he took the last swig out of the pint.

 Cast 95. Page 269, line 1314.

　And he took the last swig out of the pint. Moya. All wind and piss like a tanyard cat. Cows in Connacht have long horns. As much as his bloody life is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled multitude in Shanagolden where he daren’t show his nose with the Molly Maguires looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the holding of an evicted tenant.

　—Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have?

　—An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion.

　—Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you asleep?

　—Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsopp. Right, sir.

Episode 12. In Barney Kiernan’s pub, the nationalist known as “the Citizen” is in conversation with the others. Lenehan (a freelance racing journalist) and John Wyse Nolan arrive together, and Terry is behind the bar.

They have been lamenting the decline of Ireland, once a great power. The Citizen has just been thundering about filling Irish harbours with warships again. This passage follows immediately after.

It is the Citizen who drains the pint. The unnamed narrator of this episode mocks his grandiose rhetoric. These inner comments are not heard by the other characters. The lines following the dash mark the spoken dialogue.

The narrator’s vigorous colloquial style makes this passage especially lively, though in the end much remains elusive.

Moya

“Moya” comes from the Irish mar dhea, sometimes spelled “moryah.” It means “as if,” or “as though”—something like “yeah, right” in tone. It is a characteristic Hiberno-English expression, a sceptical interjection used to convey doubt, contradiction, or mockery.
All wind and piss like a tanyard cat

What exactly is meant by “all wind and piss”? There is the phrase “pissing in the wind,” meaning something futile or empty—talk with no substance. It likely carries that same sense here. Not so much “fart and piss,” but rather something pointless, without effect.

Then comes the problem of “a tanyard cat.” There is a slang expression “big dog of the tanyard,” meaning an important or influential person or thing, though its origin is unclear.

However, it turns out—surprisingly—that dog excrement was historically an important raw material in tanning. Up until the nineteenth century (indeed, until around the First World War), there were even people who made a living collecting it from the streets.

From this, one might suppose that the “dog of the tanyard” came to signify something important. If so, the narrator’s use of “tanyard cat” could be a deliberate inversion—suggesting something useless or insignificant.

Cows in Connacht have long horns

“Cows in Connacht have long horns” likely parallels the idea that distant things are exaggerated—like saying “Far away cows have long horns.” In other words, it refers to boastful or inflated talk.

Molly Maguires

Shanagolden is a small village in County Limerick, in the south of Ireland. It is not associated with any particularly famous historical event and why it appears here is unclear.

The Molly Maguires were a secret society formed in early eighteenth-century Ireland, organizing resistance by tenant farmers against landlords—for example, opposing evictions. Later groups of the same name appeared in the United States and became known for violent resistance to exploitation in mining communities.

“As much as (one’s) life is worth to do …” means that doing something is dangerous—risking one’s life.

The Citizen is presumably anti-landlord and anti-Protestant, so why he would be targeted by the Molly Maguires is not entirely clear.

Imperial yeomanry

John Wyse Nolan invites the order. By pub custom, the one who invites pays. Nolan asks, and Lenehan gives the order.

Why does “imperial yeomanry” mean a drink, and what drink is it? From Terry’s reply, Nolan has ordered whisky and Allsopp beer—but which does the phrase refer to?

The “imperial yeomanry” were a volunteer cavalry force of the British Army, active mainly in the Second Boer War (the most recent British war as of 1904, the present time of the novel). They were also recruited in Ireland. Members were drawn from the middle classes and from yeomen. The term “yeoman” originally referred, from the mid-fourteenth century onward, to independent smallholding farmers; from the sixteenth century it came to denote a middle stratum of producers between the gentry and small peasants, but by the mid-eighteenth century many had fallen, through land consolidation and other pressures, into the ranks of urban or rural laborers.

After extensive searching, I found the match-holder shown below. It is a novelty item for a whisky called Usher’s Old Vatted Glenlivet, and it depicts a wounded British soldier from the Boer War.

The poem printed on it is The Absent-Minded Beggar by the English novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). It was written in 1899, at the request of the Daily Mail, in order to raise funds for soldiers fighting in the Boer War and for their families. This match-holder may well be connected with that campaign.

In other words, “imperial yeomanry” here means whisky. One can imagine such a match-holder lying on the counter of the pub.

As noted in Cast 47 of this blog, Lenehan is someone who is always being treated. Here too, brazenly, he orders the more expensive whisky, while Nolan cuts it down to a half. An Irish single measure is said to be 35.5 ml, so a half would be half of that. Most likely, the half whisky cost about the same as the small bottle of beer Nolan ordered for himself; one would hardly treat someone to something more expensive than one’s own drink.

A hands up

Thus, what John Wyse drinks is Allsopp beer. It is a historic English beer, once discontinued in 1935 but revived in 2017, known for its red hand trademark. Nolan’s phrase “a hands up” refers to this Allsopp beer.

For more on the method of this blog, see  Here.

94 (U382.1120) BLOOM: (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands:

Cast 94. Page 382, line 1120.

　BLOOM: (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands: with hangdog mien.) O cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let me off this once. (He offers the other cheek.)

　MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Severely.) Don’t do so on any account, Mrs Talboys! He should be soundly trounced!

　THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently.) I’ll do no such thing. Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped! To dare address me! I’ll flog him black and blue in the public streets. I’ll dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a wellknown cuckold. (She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the air.) Take down his trousers without loss of time. Come here, sir! Quick! Ready?

　BLOOM: (Trembling, beginning to obey.) The weather has been so warm.

Episode 15. Fantasy and reality intermingle. As noted in Cast 87 in this blog, Bloom’s trial begins after he is questioned by the night watchman. This is one of the scenes that follows. Three society ladies—Mrs Yelverton Barry, Mrs Bellingham, and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys—accuse Leopold Bloom of having sent them obscene letters.

It is not that Bloom has actually done such things; rather, his subconscious seems to be surfacing in these hallucinatory episodes.

The Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys appears in the following attire:

　THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (In amazon costume, hard hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she strikes her welt constantly.) …

(U381.1058)

An “Amazon” refers to the tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology, said to have lived around the Black Sea. By extension, an “amazon costume” denotes a woman’s riding habit for hunting: a top hat, spurred boots, long gloves, a trailing skirt, and a riding crop.

Searching for “amazon” in an online dictionary（https://www.finedictionary.com/） yields an illustration by the French artist George Barbier from Modes et Manières d’Aujourd’hui (1922). Remarkably, it matches exactly the outfit described for Mrs Mervyn Talboys.

There are many puzzling elements in this scene.

First, why is Bloom shivering with cold? It is June in the novel.

“Kismet” is a word of Ottoman Turkish origin meaning fate or destiny, and it appears several times in the novel. Why Bloom uses it here is not entirely clear.

His offering of the other cheek is based on the Gospel of Matthew (5:39):

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

“Pigdog” is slang meaning “a contemptible or worthless person.”

It is also unclear why Bloom, who has just been complaining of the cold, suddenly remarks that the weather has been very warm of late. Perhaps it is a feeble attempt to avoid having his trousers removed.

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