Cast 97. Page 179, line 1219.
Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds. Frail from the housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in a flaw of softness softly were blown.
Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline: hierophantic: from wide earth an altar.
Laud we the gods
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
From our bless’d altars.
The colonnade of the National Library of Ireland.
File:Dublino, national library of ireland, 01.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
The closing passage of Episode 9. Stephen has just followed his companion Mulligan out of the library.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A little before this point, there is the following passage:
The portico.
Here I watched the birds for augury. Ængus of the birds. They go, they come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered.
（U173.1205-）
Stephen recalls that he had once thought about augury while standing in the portico of this library. This episode appears in Chapter 5 of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which depicts the period prior to Ulysses. Reading that passage helps in understanding the present section of this blog.
What birds were they? He stood on the steps of the library to look at them, leaning wearily on his ashplant. They flew round and round the jutting shoulder of a house in Molesworth Street. The air of the late March evening made clear their flight, their dark darting quivering bodies flying clearly against the sky as against a limp-hung cloth of smoky tenuous blue.
Why was he gazing upwards from the steps of the porch, hearing their shrill twofold cry, watching their flight? For an augury of good or evil?
The colonnade above him made him think vaguely of an ancient temple and the ashplant on which he leaned wearily of the curved stick of an augur.
Kind air defined the coigns of houses
The opening phrase of this blog passage, “Kind air defined the coigns of houses,” is a poetic expression characteristic of Stephen, but its meaning is difficult to grasp.
First, “coigns of houses” seems to refer to the corners of buildings (cf. American Heritage Dictionary).
It likely corresponds to “the jutting shoulder” in the passage from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Then what does “Kind air defined the coigns of houses” mean?
“Define” usually means “to define,” but it can also mean “to delineate clearly.”
If we take into account the line from A Portrait—“The air of the late March evening made clear their flight”—then here it likely means that the corners of the buildings appeared clearly through the gentle air.
Kildare Street is the street in front of the library. The buildings on the opposite side are not flat façades; they have articulated corners.
Chimneys can also be seen.
Augury
Augury is a ritual practiced in ancient Rome to determine matters of state. Specially appointed augurs observed the flight, cries, and feeding patterns of birds according to elaborate rules in order to discern the will of the gods.
Standing in the library porch, Stephen imagines ancient Roman temples and augury, then shifts to the druids of ancient Ireland. This chain of associations leads him to the soothsayer in the final scene of Cymbeline. The smoke rising from the chimneys along Kildare Street becomes, in his mind, the smoke rising from an altar used in divination. (In Cymbeline, the soothsayer is actually Roman, not a druid.)
“Cease to strive” is likely an inner voice telling him to stop contending with Mulligan. Just as ancient Britain (in the Celtic age) and the Roman Empire are reconciled in Cymbeline. However, that hope is not realized on this day; it seems that the two quarrel later, between the maternity hospital scene in Episode 14 and the nighttown scene in Episode 15.
Smoke from the chimneys
“two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming” deliberately repeats “plume.”
“in a flaw of softness softly were blown.” likewise repeats “soft.”
“Plume” has two meanings: (1) a long feather or plume, (2) a column of smoke or cloud, the latter derived from the former. In this novel it appears to be used in both senses, and perhaps quite deliberately as an important word.
Let us look at examples of (2), smoke:
Episode 1. The Englishman Haines, who calls Hamlet a wonderful tale, gazes at the horizon; smoke rises from a mailboat.
—It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again.
Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent. The seas' ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the smokeplume of the mailboat vague· on the bright skyline and a sail tacking by the Muglins.
Episode 4. Bloom boils water in the kitchen to make tea for his wife; a plume of steam rises from the spout of the teapot.
On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout.
(U51.271)
Episode 8. As Bloom steps onto O’Connell Bridge, a puff of smoke rises from a barge carrying export stout bound for England.
As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England.
Episode 11. In James Kavanagh’s wine room, the sub-sheriff John Fanning smokes a cigar; a plume of smoke rises from his lips.
Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips.
（U203.113）
Episode 15. Bloom, wrapped like a mummy, falls from a cliff into the sea; a tourist vessel, the Erin’s King, emits a spreading plume of smoke from its funnel.
THE DUMMYMUMMY：Bbbbblllllblblblblobschb!
(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.)
The rising columns of smoke seem to be connected, in one way or another, with England and with its authority. Drinking tea is part of English culture. and as noted in Cast 90, the Erin’s King was built in Liverpool.
For the method of this blog, see Here.
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