28 (U327.593)

So be off now, says he, 

28th cast. page 327, line 593.

 

So be off now, says he, and do all my cousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer’s blessing, and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap and the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he taught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess and widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of the month whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the nape from his long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping young ravisher in the four fields of all Ireland.

Stephen, Mr. Bloom, and the medical students are chatting in the lounge of the National Maternity Hospital.

Episode 14  traces the stylistic history of English prose from the past to the present with stylistic sketches. This section is attributed to the style of Jonathan Swift's  The Tale of a Tub (1704). A text of allegory and satire.

In correspondence with the motifs in The Odyssey, the maternity hospital is on the island of Trinacie, the island of the sun god. Odysseus' men eat the sun god's domestic cattle, despite being forbidden to do so.

 

Therefore, the bull appears as a major motif in Episode 14.

 

The word "bull" means (1) an adult male of domestic cattle, (2) an encyclical of the Pope, and (3) a typical Englishman as John Bull. In the passage before and after this, the history of the Pope, the King of England, and Ireland is discussed in relation to cattle. This is a tough passage to decipher.

 

In the first sentence, “he” is Nicholas, a farmer, who says to the bull, "So be off now". Nicholas is Pope Hadrian IV, and the bull seems to be referring to the Catholic Church and the Pope's encyclical. Harry is King Henry II.

So be off now, says he, and do all my cousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer’s blessing, and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. 

 

Hadrian IV (ca. 1100 - 1159) was the only Pope (reigned 1154 - 1159) from England. His real name was Nicholas Breakspear. In 1155, Hadrian IV issued a papal bull called Laudabiliter, authorizing King Henry II of England to invade Ireland.  He wanted to bring the Church of Ireland, where heresy was widespread, under the Catholic Church and cultivate the whole island.

 

Henry II (1133 - 1189), King of England, invaded Ireland in 1171 and became the first King of England to land in Ireland. He became the first Lord of Ireland and forced the Irish kings to swear an oath of obedience.

 

"Mr Vincent" is Vincent Lynch, a medical student and Stephen's friend. The second sentence is his narrative, referring to Henry II's invasion of Ireland and his indoctrination by the Catholic Church.

But the slap and the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he taught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess and widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of the month whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the nape from his long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping young ravisher in the four fields of all Ireland.

The word "cowhouse" means a chamber of confession.

 

In the " The Tale of a Tub ", there is a passage where the word bull is used to describe a callte and an encyclical. "Peter" is the personification of Catholicism.

" But of all Peter’s rarities, he most valued a certain set of bulls, whose race was by great fortune preserved in a lineal descent from those that guarded the golden-fleece.  Though some who pretended to observe them curiously doubted the breed had not been kept entirely chaste, because they had degenerated from their ancestors in some qualities, and had acquired others very extraordinary, but a foreign mixture."

Jonathan Swift, The Tale of a Tub and The History of Martin (Section Ⅳ)

John Bull triumphant

 File:John Bull triumphant. (BM 1851,0901.22).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

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27 (U199.831)

Stephen went down Bedford row, 

27th cast. page 119, line 831.

 

  Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against his shoulderblade. In Clohissey’s window a faded 1860 print of Heenan boxing Sayers held his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood round the roped prizering.

 

Episode 10. Right before the 6th blog. Stephen is walking down Bedford row toward the riverbank.

 

I notice that the eye in "held his eye" is singular. I think this means that he glanced at it.

 

The boxing match between American John Camel Heenan (1834 - 1873) and Englishman Tom Sayers (1826 - 1865) took place on April 17, 1860 in Farnborough, Hampshire, a few kilometers south of London. Considered the first international title fight, the bout between the two great champions was greeted with great enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

In those days, boxing was called bare-knuckle boxing, fought with bare hands, and the fight lasted until the knockdown. And it was illegal.

 

Sayers, 34 years old, weighed 66 kilograms and was 172 centimeters, while Heenan, 26 years old, weighed 88 kilograms and was 188 centimeters, giving Sayers a disadvantage in terms of age and size.

 

The fight was, of course, a betting event, and 12,000 spectators gathered in the meadow around the ring. The fight lasted two hours and twenty-seven minutes. After the police intervened, the fight went on for five more rounds before the referee called it a draw.

 

Another boxing match that is mentioned many times in Ulysses is that between Keogh and Bennett, which took place on May 22, 1904, just a few days after the current date of the novel, June 16, 1904.Keogh, from Ireland, beat Bennett, a British sergeantmajor. Keogh is a real boxer, but Bennett is a fictional boxer.

 

While Heenan vs. Sayers is a legendary Anglo-American rivalry, Keogh vs. Bennett is the current England-Ireland rivalry. It introduces the theme of nationalism into the novel.

 

I don't know what “a square hat” is, but looking at the picture, it seems to be a silk hat.It is a pairing of “square” and “round”. This is really brilliant.

Heenan vs Sayers

"VICTOR DUBREUIL (American, active 1880 - 1910). The International Contest between Heenan & Sayers, circa 1880s" by Diversity Corner is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

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26 (U643.1601)

yes and all the queer little streets 

26th cast. page 643, line 1601.

 

yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes

 

Episode 18. The last episode is the stream of consciousness of Mr. Bloom's wife, Molly.

It is 36 pages long and consists of eight sentences without periods or commas, with commas only at the end of the fourth and eighth sentences.

 

It was past three in the night.  the novel is about to end in ten lines.

 

She recalls Mr. Bloom's proposal of marriage on the hill of Howth, which was triggered by her desire to decorate her room with flowers. She remembers the British Gibraltar where she was born and raised, associating it with the fact that Mr. Bloom said, "You are a flower of the mountain”.

 

The Rose Garden would be in Alameda Park in Gibraltar. (U643.1599)

 

Ulysses is based on a motif from the Odyssey. I think Gibraltar is taken because Odysseus crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to the underworld.

 

The flowers are the flowers in the botanical gardens of Gibraltar, the rhododendrons of the hill of Howth, Molly herself, a mountain flower, and Bloom, whose name means flower.

Statue of Molly Bloom

"15 de abril 2016 Jardines de la Alameda de Gibraltar (47)" by infogibraltar is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The statue of Morrie Bloom in Alameda Park. The base is inscribed with just this passage.

 

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25 (U368.608)

(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond.

 

25th cast. page 368, line 608.

 

(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two redcoats.) 

　THE NAVVY: (Belching.) Where’s the bloody house?

　THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout. Respectable woman.

 

Episode 15. After midnight. Mr. Bloom followed the two drunken men, Stephen and Lynch, to the brothel district. Around the corner from Mabbot Street into Mecklenburg Street.

 

The two soldiers were probably Compton and Carr, who would later conflict with Stephen. At the time, Dublin was a British city and British soldiers wore red uniforms.

 

The gramophone also seems to be that appears later and plays The Holy City. (U413.2170)

 

I don't know what a trunk is, but I understood it to be a trumpet because it is said to be brazen.

 

I don't understand "rear" either.I understood it to mean something like "to stand up" or "to lift up" in the dictionary.

 

The word "shebeen" is an Irish term for a pub that serves liquor without a license.

 

In 1904, the regular pub closed at 11:00 p.m., but you could still drink in the shebeen . One shilling in those days was about 4 pounds. It may have been more expensive than the regular price, but it didn't seem like an absurd rip-off.

 gramophone 

"Antique Reproduction RCA Victor Phonograph Gramophone with Dark Aged Bronze Horn outdoor wicker is a favorite of ours! So is this find by crescentkatie." by Wicker Paradise is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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24 (U244.213)

—Sweat of my brow,

24th cast. page 244, line 213.

 

—Sweat of my brow, says Joe. ’Twas the prudent member gave me the wheeze.

—I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and Greek street with his cod’s eye counting up all the guts of the fish.

 

It's really interesting to read these parts.

 

Episode 12. In Barney Kiernan's pub, Joe Hynes, a newspaper reporter, is drinking with a group of "the citizen”. Hynes pulls out a one pound gold coin and buys everyone a drink. 1￡ in 1904 was equivalent to 80￡ in today's value.

 

The first is a line from Hynes.

 —Sweat of my brow, says Joe. ’Twas the prudent member gave me the wheeze.

 

" Sweat of my brow " is from the Bible. This is what God said to Adam.

 

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. “

 Genesis (the King James Version), 3:19

 

This morning at the newspaper, Hynes was able to get paid after being advised by Mr. Broom that he could get paid if he caught the accountant now. Mr. Bloom had said this in order to gently remind Hynes that he owed him money, but Hynes was unaware of it. (U99.112)

 

The "prudent member" refers to Mr. Bloom, which means he is a member of the Freemasons. Mr. Bloom is Jewish, is also considered a Freemason, and is discriminated against among his peers in Dublin, a Catholic society.

 

Prudence , along with fortitude, temperance, and justice, are the cardinal virtues, the central virtues of the West since ancient Greece. I couldn't find any confirmation that this was in the doctrine of Freemasonry.

 

I am not sure if Mr. Bloom is really a Freemason. I think not. He is often misunderstood.

 

The word "wheeze" means "a wheezing sound like asthma," but in Irish slang it can also mean "good idea" or "pun“. In this case, it refers to the advice Mr. Bloom gave Hynes on the accountant. As Hines is referring to the sweat of his brow, this is not the information on the winning horse.

 

This word appears in three other places in Ulysses.

1. On McCoy's "usual hand" in lending his bag
   

   "Didn't catch me napping that wheeze..." (U62.178)

   
   
   
2.  On Lenehan's favorite pun
   

   "-The Rose of Castile...See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel...Gee! "　(U111.591)

   　　
3. On the good idea of borrowing trousers at the Bloom's house (a story mentioned in the 19th issue of this blog)
   

   "The wife was playing the piano in the coffee palace on Saturdays for a very trifling consideration and who was it gave me the wheeze she was doing the other business? "(U211.487)

　　　

All of them are used in the slang sense. And all of them are used in humorous situations. For Joyce, wheezy is a privileged vocabulary.

 

The second is the narrator's dialogue.

—I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and Greek street with his cod’s eye counting up all the guts of the fish.

 

As I mentioned in my blog post #15, Naoki Yanase argued that the narrator of this Episode is a dog. (Solving the Mystery of James Joyce, 1996)

 

The word "slop" is a colloquial word meaning "to slosh around in the muck" or "to stroll”. It certainly sounds like a word a dog would use.

 

According to Mr. Yanase, "says" is an accent of "said.

 

There was a fish market (demolished at the beginning of this century) on the east side of Greek street running north-south from Pill lane (now Chancery street) running east-west. Further east of the fish market is the Dublin City Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Markets (under redevelopment from 2019).

Mr. Bloom was walking through the fish market on his way to Barney Kiernan's  when he was witnessed by the narrator.

 

For some reason, Mr. Bloom recalls seeing the clock in Pill lane later in Episode 13. (U306.986)

 

Cod's eye, also slang, but there are many possibilities when I look it up.

 

　　Fool's eye.

　　The eye of a dullard

　　Drunkard's eye

　　Misshapen eye

　　Squint eye

 

I don't know what it means "counting up all the guts of the fish", but it's a really funny phrase.

 

Mr. Bloom had sauteed kidneys of pork (not lamb, it seems) for breakfast, and at the beginning of Episode 4 he says that he also likes fried cod's roes.

 

The narrator of this episode seems to know Mr. Bloom's taste.

City Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Markets

 "CONSTRUCTION WORK UNDER WAY - FISH MARKET CAR PARK [ST. MICHAN'S STREET DUBLIN]-147082" by infomatique is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Parking lot at the site of the fish market. Beyond that is the vegetable and fruit market.

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23 (U510.432)

The face at the window!

23rd cast. page 510, line432.

 

The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but I’ve come to stay and make a fresh start.

 

Episode 16. Midnight. After leaving the brothel, Mr. Bloom comes to a cabman's shelter to take care of drunken Stephen. There he listens to a sailor who calls himself Murphy. This passage is a description of Mr. Bloom's mind.

 

In Ulysses, each episode uses a different style and technique, and it is a pleasure to savor them. When I read through the book for the first time, I liked the style of Episode 16.

 

The narrative uses difficult phrases to describe trivial matters, uses foreign words more than usual, and uses many clichéd idioms and proverbs. The effect is curious, as if someone lacking literary talent is trying to elaborate rhetorical phrases, or an amateur is trying to write a learned text. Why did Joyce adopt this style of writing?

 

In this passage, too, the words are slightly out of sync with what is intended, making it a bad sentence that is difficult to grasp. “Truth” ,“fact” and its derivatives, are often used in this episode. The ironic effect is that we don't know the truth or facts at all.

 

Now, Mr. Bloom hears a story from a sailor who hasn't been home for seven years, and he fantasizes about the scene of his return.

 

The husband, who has been absent from home for a long time due to some reason such as a voyage or going off to war, returns unexpectedly to his wife. The wife may even be living with another man.... These incidents have happened in real life and have been featured in fiction many times.

 

Ben Bolt (1843), poem by Thomas Dunn English, music by Nelson Kneass (U510.425)  →　youtube

 

Alfred Tennyson's poem Enoch Arden (1864) (U510.425)

 

Washington Irving's short story Rip Van Winkle (1819) (U510.426)

 

“Tichborne case”, an incident that took place in England in the 1860s and 1870s (U531.1343)

 

These are mentioned in Ulysses.

 

I can also think of

 

"Martin Guerre case" occurred in 16th century France.

 (Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre,1983)

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne's novels Wakefield (1835) and The Scarlet Letter (1850)

 

Balzac's novel Colonel Chabert (1832)

 

Somerset Maugham's play Too ManyHusbands (1923)

 

In the first place, The Odyssey, which underlies Ulysses, is the story of Odysseus who went to war and returns to his wife Penelopeia after many years of itinerancy, and this framework is an important motif of the novel.

Poster for Enoch Arden

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enoch_Arden_(1911_film).jpg?uselang=ja

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22 (U151.26)

Smile. Smile Cranly’s smile.

22nd cast. page 151, line 26.

Smile. Smile Cranly’s smile. 

　　　First he tickled her

　　　Then he patted her

　　　Then he passed the female catheter

　　　For he was a medical 

　　　Jolly old medi...

 

The first part of Episode 9. Stephen discusses Shakespeare at the National Library with Eglinton and others.

 

This song is according to Gifford's annotations (Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses. Don Gifford and Robert J. Seidman. University of California Press. 1988) is a part of Oliver St. John Gogarty's playful song "Song of Medical Dick and Medical Davy". As far as I can find, the following passage (U172.908) seems to be the same, but I cannot find the passage mentioned above. It might be Joyce's creation.

 

　　　Then outspoke medical Dick

　　　To his comrade medical Davy...

 

Gogarty is the model for Mulligan, Stephen's roommate and a medical student.

 

Just before this, when Eglinton teased Stephen about whether he had found six medical students to dictate his creation for him, he thought of a playful song about medical students.

 

The first line, "smile," is a noun or a verb. It's  a verb, I guess.

 

The repetition of “smile”。Footnote of “her”, “her” and “catheter”.

 

Who is Cranley?

 

He is a friend of Stephen from his University College days, who appears in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which describes the period preceding Ulysses. Cranley is based on John Francis Byrne (1880-1960), who was Joyce's closest friend.　

I'm not sure why Cranley is mentioned here.

 

I traced Cranley's appearance in A Portrait. Cranley is smiling in two scenes. "He just listened to me in silence," he smiles like a priest. I think Stephen was trying to catch Eglinton's teasing with Cranly's smile.

 

One more thing. As a biographical fact, Joyce became friends with Gogarty in late 1902, at a time when he and Byrne had fallen out. (James Joyce,1959) He may have associated Gogarty with the smile of Byrne (Cranley).

 

John Francis Byrne

Photograph of Mr. John Francis Byrne ('Cranly'). is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

To use for commercial purposes, please contact the UCD Digital Library See: http://digital.ucd.ie/terms/

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21 (U171.868)

When Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another poet of the same name

 21th cast. page 171, line 868.

 

When Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another poet of the same name in the comedy of errors wrote Hamlet he was not the father of his own son merely but, being no more a son, he was and felt himself the father of all his race, the father of his own grandfather, the father of his unborn grandson who, by the same token, never was born, for nature, as Mr Magee understands her, abhors perfection.

 

Episode 9. In the library, Stephen is discussing his theory about Shakespeare.

 

Since many biographical facts about Shakespeare are unknown, several theories about who he really was have been discussed since early times.

 

Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare is an amalgamation of these alleged identities.

 

1. Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland (1576 - 1612)
2. Francis Bacon, philosopher and Lord Chancellor (1561 - 1626)
3. Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (1573 - 1624)

 

Henry Wriothesley is known as the nobleman to whom Shakespeare dedicated his poetry collection Venus and Adonis (1593), but I don't know if there is any theory that this man is Shakespeare.

 

Stephen argues for a theory that identifies Shakespeare with the murdered father-king in Hamlet.

 

It is difficult to make sense of the passage.

 

“・・・he was not the father of his own son merely but, being no more a son, he was and felt himself the father of all his race, the father of his own grandfather, the father of his unborn grandson who, by the same token, never was born,・・・”

 

I don't know what it means to be not only the father of his own son, but also the father of all his race and the father of unborn grandson.

 

Just before that, there is a line from Stephen, "the Father was Himself His Own Son". He is stating the theological theory that God the Father was His own Son.

 

I think he is equating Shakespeare with God in this passage.

 

Hamnet, the son of Shakespeare, died at the age of eleven and had no children, and Hamlet, the son of his father Hamlet (Shakespeare), had no children. Christ, the Son of God, also had no children.

On the other hand, both God and Shakespeare were the creators of all mankind.
That's what he is saying.

 

The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare's early comedies. Since Shakespeare had a so-called "shotgun marriage" with Anne Hathaway, I think Stephen is referring to him as the poet of the comedy of errors.

 

Mr. Magee is the real name of Eglinton (William Kirkpatrick Magee, 1868 - 1961), a writer and librarian who is discussing with Stephen in this library. Or rather, Eglinton is a character in the work who is modeled after the real Eglinton.

 

"Nature abhors perfection" is probably a parody on Aristotle's "Nature abhors a vacuum. Plato versus Aristotle is the topic of this Episode, and Stephen is an Aristotelian.

Henry Wriothesley

"Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton" by lisby1 is marked with CC PDM 1.0

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20 (U432.2819)

THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight.

 20th cast. page 432, line 2819.

THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight.

 

BLOOM: (Crosslacing.) Too tight?

 

THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I’ll kick your football for you.

 

Episode 15. It is written in the form of a fantastic play.

 

Bella Cohen's brothel. Bella, the madam of the brothel, appears and has Bloom tie the laces of her boots on a chair.

 

Ulysses is based on a motif from Homer's Odyssey. Bella Cohen corresponds to the witch Circe.  Circe uses magic to turn people into animals.

 

The passage just before here says: “a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked.” The pastern is "a part of the leg of a horse between the fetlock and the top of the hoof", so a hoof would be the foot of a Bella transformed into a horse's hoof. Or at least the foot of a hoofed animal.

 

Handy Andy is the main character in the novel Handy Andy (1842) by the Irish composer and novelist Samuel Lover(1797 - 1868). Hired as an servant of a landowner, Andy was a man of peculiar talent who did everything wrong.

 

At a later date, the proper noun "Handy Andy" became a general noun meaning "a hired hand who does all the little jobs," "a handyman," or "a do-it-yourselfer“. Today, it seems to have become a trade name for DIY stores.

 

I happened to find this passage in Chapter 9 (page 229) of Finnegans Wake. “Wild primates not stop him frem at rearing a writing in handy antics."

Handy Andy by Samuel Lover

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19 (U222.560)

Well, of course that’s what gives him the base barreltone.

19th cast. page 222, line 560.

Well, of course that’s what gives him the base barreltone. For instance eunuchs. Wonder who’s playing. Nice touch. Must be Cowley. Musical. Knows whatever note you play. Bad breath he has, poor chap. Stopped.

 

By chance, for the third time in succession, a close place was chosen. In the saloon of the Ormond Hotel, the big Ben Dollard singing, accompanied on the piano by father Cowley. The tune is "Love and War" by Thomas Simpson Cooke. Mr. Broom listens to it in the restaurant next door.

 

In 1894, Ben Dollard, who was singing at a charity concert at the Glencree Reformatory, had no formal dress, so he went to the Bloom family, who at that time had a second-hand clothes shop and a costume rental business, and borrowed a tailsuit. (U222.554) ,(U220.474) and (U636.1285)

 

The trousers were so tight that the bulge in the crotch could be clearly seen. So. Mr. Bloom alludes to the castrated singer.

 

He again thinks: "Good voice he has still. Good voice he has still. No eunuch yet with all his belongings." (U233.1027)

 

“The base barreltone” is a cross between a draught-like barrel(Dollard’s big body) and a bass-baritone. The red triangular beer brand "Bass" is also used.

 

I don't understand the meaning of “bad breath”.

 

“Poor”, because father Cowley is in debt to a Jewish moneylender, Reuben, and has fallen on hard times. (U200.890)

 

Episode 11 is written in music-like language: “Stop” is from an organ stop (sound plug).

Farinelli, a famous Italian castrato singer 

"Portrait de Farinelli par Bartolomeo Nazari (Grand Palais, Paris)" by dalbera is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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18 (U225.699)

 If he doesn’t break down.

A passage very close to my last blog has been chosen: page 225, line 699.

 

If he doesn’t break down. Keep a trot for the avenue. His hands and feet sing too. Drink. Nerves overstrung. Must be abstemious to sing. Jenny Lind soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half pint of cream. For creamy dreamy.

 

 Episode 11, At the Ormond Hotel. Mr. Bloom is eating in the restaurant.

 

Stephen's father, Simon finally sings, encouraged by father Cowley, who plays the piano. English translation of "M' apparì"  from the opera "Martha" (1847) by the German composer Friedrich von Flotow.

 

The song by Lionel, a farmer, who cannot forget Harriet, a maid of honor to Queen Anne, who has been disguised as a maidservant. She goes by the false name of Martha.

 

Mr Bloom has a secret correspondence with a woman he has never met under the false name of Henry Flower. It is a coincidence that her name is Martha. Martha is probably also an alias. I fancy that his correspondent may not even be a woman.

 

“Keep a trot for the avenue” is a reference to Simon's singing. Mr. Bloom knows that Boylan, his wife's lover, is on his way to the Blooms' house in a carriage, and there may be an allusion to this.

 

The word “overstrung” refers to the strings of a musical instrument. In correspondence with The Odyssey, it reminds us of the strings of Odysseus' bow.

 

He thinks that “his hands and feet sing”, but this is imaginary, as Simon is out of sight of Mr. Bloom due to his position.

 

Jenny Lind is Johanna Maria Lind (1820 - 1887), a Swedish opera singer.She was the singer who toured America with the showman P.T. Barnum in the musical film The Greatest Showman (2017).

 

She was one of the most famous singers of the 19th century. Many things were named after her. The soup that she drank for her throat was called Jenny Lind Soup.

 

From what I can gather, the recipe calls for sago, not sage. Sago is a starch from the sago palm. 

 

The fact that Mr. Bloom recalls the recipe suggests that he once made the soup for his wife, the singer Molly. Mistaking sago for sage. Is this Mr. Bloom's fault, or Joyce's fault, or a mistake in editing the manuscript?

 

Boylan, Molly's lover, is a showman. There are echoes of Lind and Barnum here.

Jenny Lind

"Eduard Magnus - Portrait of Singer Jenny Lind" by irinaraquel is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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