Cast 90. Page 54, line 432.
He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window. Day I caught her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anemic a little. Was given milk too long. On the Erin’s King that day round the Kish. Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale blue scarf loose in the wind with her hair.
It has long been known that giving milk too long in infancy can contribute to anaemia.
Milk contains calcium and phosphorus, and these can combine with iron in the gut and interfere with iron absorption. Iron is essential for producing haemoglobin in red blood cells, so if haemoglobin levels fall, anaemia can result.
Bloom is remembering a time when he and his daughter took a trip on the steamship Erin’s King out to the Kish lightship.
I found an article on Erin’s King in IRELAND'S SAILING, BOATING & MARITIME MAGAZINE. To sum it up:
- The Erin’s King had originally been a steamship called the Heather Bell, built in Liverpool in 1865. It belonged to the city of Wallasey in England and was used as a ferry between Wallasey and Liverpool.
- In 1891 it was sold privately for £950, renamed Erin’s King, and put into service as a sightseeing pleasure boat on Dublin Bay.
- Its route was a circular excursion departing from and returning to Custom House Quay in Dublin, taking passengers out around the Kish lightship.
- It was broken up in 1900.
Admiralty Chart No 1415 Dublin Bay, Published 1875
File:Admiralty Chart No 1415 Dublin Bay, Published 1875.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
The novel is set in 1904, so Bloom and Milly’s outing must have taken place before 1900, but the text does not tell us exactly when.
Off the coast of Dublin lies a sandbank called the Kish Bank, dangerous for shipping and liable to cause wrecks. For that reason a lightship was stationed there from 1811 onward.
A lightship is a ship that serves the function of a lighthouse. It is used where the water is too deep for a lighthouse to be built, marking safe sea routes. In 1965 an actual lighthouse was built there, taking over the lightship’s role.
"tub" has a number of meanings, but here it is probably “a slow-moving, clumsy ship or boat” (Collins Dictionary).
That would fit, since the Erin’s King was already in the last stage of its second life by then.
If so, "pitch" here means : to heave up and down lengthwise.
"funky" also has several meanings, but from the context it must mean “frightened” or “nervous”.
For Bloom, the memory of riding on the Erin’s King with Milly is a happy one, and he will recall it several times over the course of the day.
In Episode 8, he remembers throwing cake to the gulls from the Erin’s King.
He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin’s King picked it up in the wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping.
(U125.60)
In Episode 13, he remembers tossing old newspapers to the men on the lightship.
He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing, slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank the anchored lightship twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom. Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and breeches buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in the Erin’s King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the zoo.
(U310.1184)
In Episode 15, the Erin’s King sails across the sea into which Bloom’s mummy falls.
THE DUMMYMUMMY: Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg!
(Far out in the bay between Bailey and Kish lights the Erin’s King sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards the land.)
(U449.3382)
In Episode 16, during his conversation with the sailor, Bloom again recalls how rough the sea had been around the Kish lightship.
…the Irish lights, Kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment, rounding which he once with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, not to say stormy, weather.
(U515.650)
For Bloom, his daughter Milly — and also the young girls such as Gerty in Episode 13 — are associated with the shore and with the sea.
And the Erin’s King is bound up not only with his memories of his daughter, but also with the dropping of objects and with the motion of rising and falling.
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