Would the departed never, nowhere, nohow reappear?
The 60th Cast. Page 598, line 2015.
Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear?
Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events. Somewhere imperceptibly he would hear and somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey the summons of recall.
Episode 17. This Episode is written from beginning to end in the form of questions and answers. It is a little after two in the morning. Mr. Bloom has brought Stephen back to his house. After Stephen has gone out again, various thoughts pass through Bloom’s mind.
Bloom is fantasizing about abandoning his family and going away to some far-off place. Perhaps because he has just seen Stephen off beneath the stars, Episode 17 is full of cosmic imagery.
This Q&A is constructed in a geometrical fashion.
never, nowhere, nohow form a set of parallel terms.
And the following correspond to one another:
departed – reappear
wander – recall
never – ever
nowhere – somewhere
nohow – somehow
selfcompelled – suncompelled
waifs and strays is originally a legal term meaning “property or animals of unknown ownership” though it later came to mean things like “street children” or “stray dogs.” Here, I think the original legal sense is what is being imagined.
The opposition between wandering and return is, of course, the basic story of Homer’s Odyssey, which underlies the central motif of Ulysses.
Path of Halley’s Comet
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PSM_V76_D020_Path_of_halley_comet.png
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