31 (U349.1574)

 Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o’ me.

 31st cast. page 349, line 1574.

Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o’ me. Denzille lane this way. Change here for Bawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is. Righto, any old time. Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis. You coming long? Whisper, who the sooty hell’s the johnny in the black duds?

 

Episode 14. It is about eleven o'clock at night. After leaving the National Maternity Hospital, Stephen, Mr Bloom and a group of medical students go out for a drink at the nearby Burke's pub. Stephen, Lynch and Mr. Bloom, who is following them, are now on their way to the 'Night town', the brothel district.

Episode14 traces the stylistic history of English prose from the past to the present in the form of stylistic copying. This is the last part of the episode, which is a mixture of colloquialisms, slang, and dialects around the year 1904.  It is written in such a way that it is not clear who is saying which lines.

A simple re-write might look something like this

 

Stephen: Lynch!

Lynch: What is it?

Stephen: Join along of me, towards Denzil lane. Here let's change to the brothel. "We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is".

The phrase "We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is" is from a poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82), The Blessed Damozel (1850).

       Stephen turns the mystical and sacred into the vulgar.

The poem is about a maiden who dies young and pines from the balustrade of the palaces of heaven for the lover she left behind on earth.

 

"We two," she said, "will seek the groves  

Where the lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names

Are five sweet symphonies,

Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,

Margaret and Rosalys.

 

Lynch: Right you are. I'm ready anytime..

Stephen: ”Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis.”

     This phrase comes from Psalm (149.5) of the Old Testament.


 Exsultabunt sancti in gloria; 
lætabuntur in cubilibus suis. 

          (The saints shall rejoice in glory:

    they shall be joyful in their beds.) 

 This means that the saints of Israel should rejoice because of the glory that has been restored to them, and sing for joy not only during the day, but also at night in your beds

 Stephen perverted and turned a sacred verse into a vulgar one. 

Lynch: (To Mr. Bloom) Will you come along with me?  (whispering to Stephen ) Who's that asshole in the black suit?  

    The first half is talking to Mr. Bloom, the second half is talking to Stephen.

    Mr. Bloom attended the funeral of his friend Dignam this morning, so he is         
    wearing mourning clothes.


It's a passage we might skip, but I'd never expect to find so many different things.



The Blessed Damozel painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Blessed Damozel.jpg - Wikimedia Commons


 The method of this blog  Here 


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