Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Page 6 (1.106-144) "threadbare... see you."


editions: [1922] [html] [arch] [1922] [$2] [$4]
notes: [Th] [G&S] [Dent] [wbks] [rw] [images] [hyper]
Delaney: [9] [10] [11] Useen: [15] [16] [17] [map] [*]
Delaney: [8]

<
threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting. 

 
bile green


Delaney: [9]

Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.
— Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt and a few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks?
— They fit well enough, Stephen answered.
Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip. 




— The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You look damn well when you're dressed.
— Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey.
— He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.


"what poxy bowsy left them off"
bowsy/bowsey/bowsie/bowzy = fool
bousy = ruffian, drunk
bowsie = whore
poxy = carrying STDs
left off = donated or sold to 2ndhand shop?
cf Hamlet I.ii

He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the smooth skin. 



Delaney: [10]
Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its smokeblue mobile eyes.
— That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, says you have g.p.i. He's up in Dottyville with Conolly Norman. General paralysis of the insane!


palps = fleshy parts of fingertips (rarely used of humans)
"turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face" (very odd phrasing)
"the Ship" a pub (probably with Haines, too)
"g.p.i." was suspected to be caused by syphilis by 1904, but only proved in 1913. Symptoms included "loss of social inhibitions, asocial behavior, gradual impairment of judgement, concentration and short-term memory, euphoria, mania, depression, or apathy"
Kevin Birmingham agrees

Dottyville
CN in 1901:


He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong wellknit trunk.
— Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard!
Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.
— I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula.


Mercurial Mulligan re-imagines the mirror as a signalling device, and the surrounding landscape as populated with listeners



"the tidings" are usually the news of Jesus' birth
'O wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us!'
'to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature'
"Someone killed her... Who chose this face for me?" (more anthropomorphism)
[cracked lookingglass]
1st use of 1st person interior
"It asks me" SD imagines the mirror talking to him 
(Ursula got a nicer mirror than she could afford, when it broke)
(it's small enough to fit in his gownpocket
but large enough to cover the latherbowl)
their servants in 1901 were 18yo Annie Doyle and 21yo Annie ?Breman
'Ursula' was not an uncommon Irish name [93 in 1901]

Delaney: [11]
Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes.
— The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If Wilde were only alive to see you!


[The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror... Wilde]

>



mysteries:


[DD 01:58-03:36]
[DD 00:00-01:45]


[IM 08:32-11:35]

[LV1 09:47-12:51]

[LV2 07:05-09:38]


telemachus: 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23


1 comment:

  1. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.

    Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.

    -- Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt and a few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks?

    -- They fit well enough, Stephen answered.

    Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip.

    -- The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You look damn well when you're dressed.

    -- Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey.

    -- He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.

    He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the smooth skin.

    Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its smokeblue mobile eyes.

    -- That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, says you have g.p.i. He's up in Dottyville with Conolly Norman. General paralysis of the insane!

    He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong wellknit trunk.

    -- Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard!

    Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.

    -- I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula.

    Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes.

    -- The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If Wilde were only alive to see you!

    ReplyDelete