James Joyce "Ulysses"

(A fragment)

In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering green-goldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant¹ will float away. I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing chafing against the low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsscciss ooos.² Vehement breath of waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks, in cups of rocks³ it slops: Hop, slop. slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool,⁴ flower unfurling. '

Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats,⁵ in whispering water swaying and upturning coy silver fronds.⁶ Day by day: night by night: lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary: and, whispered to, they sigh. Saint Ambrose⁷ heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting, awaiting the fullness of their times, diebus ac noctibus iniursia patiens ingemiscit⁸. To no end gathered: ⁹ vainly then released, forth flowing, wending back: loom of the moon.¹⁰ Weary too in sight of lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in her courts, she draws a toil of waters.

Five fathoms¹¹ out there. Full fathom five thy father lies.¹² At one he said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar.¹³ Driving before it a loose drift of rubhle, ¹⁴ fanshoals of fishes,¹⁵ sillv shells. A corpse rising saltwhite from the undertow, ¹⁶ bobbing ¹⁷ landward, a pace a pace a porpoise. ¹⁸ There he is. Hook it quick. Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. ¹⁹ We have him. Easy now.

Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. ²⁰ A quiver of minnows,²¹ fat of a spongy titbit... God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose ²² becomes featherbed mountain. ²³ Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a urinous offal²⁴ from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale ²⁵ he breathes upward the stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to the sun.

A seachange this brown eyes saltblue.²⁶ Seadeath, mildest of all deaths known to man. Old Father Ocean. Prix de Paris: ²⁷ beware of imitations. Just you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there? Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect²⁸, Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum.²⁹ No. My cockle hat and staff³⁰ and his my sandal shoon. ³¹ Where? To evening lands. Eve­ning will find itself.

He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make their end. By the way next when is it? Tuesday will be the longest day. Of all the glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn Tennyson,³² gentleman poet. Già.³³

(J. Joyce. Ulysses.- Paris, 1930, pp. 48—50)

¹ ashplant — here: walking-stick made of ash

² These words render the speech of the waves ("the wavespeech").

³ cups of rocks — hollows and cavities in the rocks

⁴ foampool — shallow water covered with foam

⁵ hising up their petticoats — these are words occurring in a song that Stephen had heard his friend Mulligan sing earlier the same morning

⁶ upturning coy silver fronds — shyly raising their silvery stems and leaves

⁷ Saint Ambrose — a Catholic saint (5th century)

⁸ diebus ac noctibus iniursia patiens ingemiscit (Lot.) — he who suffers injuries complains day and night

⁹ to no end gathered— brought together without any purpose

¹⁰ loom of the moon — here: entirely subject to the influence of the moon (the ebb and flow are caused by the attraction of the moon, a loom is a machine for weaving yam or thread into fabric: its shuttle is constantly moving back and forth)

¹¹ fathom — about 180 cm, a measure chiefly used to state depth

¹² full fathom five thy father lies — quotation from Ariel's song in Shakespeare's play The Tempest (Act I, Scene 2)

¹³ bar — here: bar of sand across the mouth of a harbour

¹⁴ rubble — stones

¹⁵ fanshoals of fishes — a number (a shoal) of fishes resembling in form a large fan

¹⁶ undertow— here: under the water

¹⁷ bobbing — here: swinging

¹⁸ a porpoise — a sea-animal; a pace a pace a porpoise — moving slowly, pace after pace, like a porpoise (note the alliteration)

¹⁹ sunk though he be beneath the watery floor — a line from Milton's poem Lycidas that had occurred to Stephen earlier that same morning when he first heard about the drowned man

²⁰ bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine — Stephen means the evil smell of the dead body surrounded by dirty sea-water

²¹ a quiver of minnows etc. — his body has become the titbits (choice morsel) for minnows

²² barnacle goose — arctic goose visiting England in winter

²³ God becomes man etc. — God makes the man, the man is drowned and eaten by the fish, the goose eats the fish and is used to make featherbeds

²⁴offal — remains

²⁵ hauled stark over the gunwale — his naked body is hauled overboard

²⁶ Stephen means that the sea changes brown eyes into saltblue, giving the eyes of the dead its own colour.

²⁷ Prix de Paris (French) — the first prize received m Paris. Joyce implies that death by drowning being the easiest, it would be sure to be awarded the biggest prize, in preference to all other deaths. The French words and the English phrases following it are the words of common advertisements.

²⁸ allbright he falls etc. — a free quotation from Milton's Paradise Lost

²⁹ dico, qui nescit occasum (Lat.) — I say he knows no death

³⁰ cockle hat — a hat bearing the badge of a pilgrim, a scallop shell; staff — here: pilgrim's stick

³¹ my sandal shoon — quotation from Byron's Childe Harold: "not in vain he bore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell" (shoon — arch. plural of shoe)

³² Of all the glad new year, mother... — the beginning of a hackneyed quo­tation from Tennyson's poem The May Queen: "Of all the glad new year, mother, the maddest, merriest day", the optimistic ending is sacrificed for the sarcastic "rum tum tiddledy tum" whose rhythm is meant to render the rhythm of Tennyson's poem.

³³ Lawn Tennyson — a play on words: Tennyson — tennis, thence lawn tennis(on)

³⁴ già (Ital.) — already; Joyce means that Tennyson, the gentleman poet, belongs to the past