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.

The method of this blog ⇒ Here