Ulysses page-by-page: Page 18 (1.551-587) "You couldn't... Calvary."

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Delaney: [41]

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— You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you?
— It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer.

SD sees himself as the first to solve a riddle posed three centuries earlier

Delaney: [42]

— You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox?
— Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes. It's quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father.
— What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself?
Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending in loose laughter, said to Stephen's ear:
— O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father!
— We're always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is rather long to tell.

SD gets to expound his theory, stone sober, in episode 9. Briefly, his veryclosereading of all Shakespeare's works leads him to see WS's relation to his wife as central, with Gertrude in Hamlet playing her role.

'stolewise' like leaningplace is a real word, neat but rarely used.

why "shade" not 'shades'?

"Kinch the elder" is Simon Dedalus (John Joyce) who'll appear presently in the fictional flesh. Japhet was one of three sons of Noah (the infamous biblical drunk) who turn up often in FW. "Japhet in Search of a Father" was the title of an 1836 bestseller never mentioned in FW (so the novel itself is probably irrelevant).

Delaney: [43]

Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands.
— The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said.
— I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this tower and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. That beetles o'er his base into the sea, isn't it?
Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant towards Stephen but did not speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires.
— It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again.

"We"?
"as they followed" meticulously choreographed to show character and relationship (SD and H follow BM)

Hamlet I.iv (Haines gets the quote exactly right)
'beetles' comes from beetle-browed or scowling; it's not Elsinore itself but a cliff that juts dangerously, and the danger is that the malevolent Ghost will cause Hamlet to fall to his death.

BM may be self-censoring the quote's continuation, because it's too close to SD's issues? "...And there assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason And draw you into madness?"

SD momentarily sees himself as they see him, dirty and poor and sad

"wonderful tale" diminishes WS
'bring to halt' is much less common than '...to a halt'

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.
— I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused. The Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the Father.

this is the first we've heard of Haines' eyes. "firm and prudent" is generous. (1920 notesheet: "Haines I was polite.")

Rule Britannia ♬

'smoke-plume' and 'smoke plume' are slightly more common than "smokeplume"

the mailboat would have been due north, not south!? could JAJ have been working with a skewed mental map? "southward" is all land, not water

(everything else is so crystalline that "vague" is jarring)

calling it "tacking" implies some familiarity with sailing. The Muglins are a shoal to avoid.

Delaney: [44]

Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked at them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved a doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and began to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice:

— I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard.
    My mother's a jew, my father's a bird.
    With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree.
    So here's to disciples and Calvary.

OG, later that year:
I'm the queerest young fellow that ever was heard.
My mother's a Jew; my father's a Bird
With Joseph the Joiner I cannot agree
So 'Here's to Disciples and Calvary.' [more]

jew (for Catholics, an awkward fact); bird (Holy Ghost); joiner (carpenter)

GoogleMap

mysteries: wrong compass direction

[DD 02:55-04:05]