Cast 71. Page 485, line 4569
PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king?
STEPHEN: (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish empire of his. Money I haven’t. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it to someone.
PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money?
This comes near the end of Episode 15. Bloom and Stephen have just come out of the brothel. The two of them get into a quarrel after being harassed by British soldiers. This is a little after the passage discussed in Cast 39 of this blog. I explained the origin of Private Carr there.
A little before this passage, Stephen says in his own mind that he must kill “the priest and the king.” That is why Carr picks a fight and demands to know what he said about the king. In 1904, Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom.
STEPHEN: (Laughs emptily.) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. (He taps his brow.) But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
・・・
PRIVATE CARR: (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) What’s that you’re saying about my king?
（U481. 4437－4446）
So when Carr repeats the same challenge here, Stephen responds with “monotonous!”
“Brutish empire” is, of course, a pun on British and brutish.
Stephen has no money because, a little earlier, Bloom took charge of it for safekeeping.
BLOOM: (Quietly.) You had better hand over that cash to me to take care of. Why pay more?
（U456.3600）
A few passages come to mind as places where Stephen’s view of the state is revealed.
In Episode 1, Haines—the Englishman staying at Stephen’s lodging—asks him about his loyalties. Stephen replies that he serves two masters: England and Italy. That is, the British Empire and the Roman Catholic Church. His phrase here, “want must be his master,” may perhaps echo the earlier idea of “a servant of two masters.” And his earlier line about having to kill “the priest and the king” clearly belongs to the same pattern.
—I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an Italian.
—Italian? Haines said.
・・・
—The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.
（U17.638-）
Then in Episode 16, during Stephen’s conversation with Bloom at the cabman’s shelter, Stephen says that it is not he who belongs to Ireland, but Ireland that belongs to him—and that is why it matters.
You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I may be important because I belong to the faubourg Saint Patrice called Ireland for short.
—I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated.
—But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important because it belongs to me.
・・・—We can’t change the country. Let us change the subject.
（U527.1160-）
Stephen has complicated feelings toward both Britain and Catholicism—the country and religion that, in one sense, formed him. Yet inwardly he still values Ireland with a loyalty and attachment entirely his own.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:H.M._King_Edward_VII.jpg
For the method behind this blog, see ☞ Here.
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