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Delaney: [1]

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan
came from the stairhead,

WORD: stately

the word 'stately' is most often conventionally followed by 'mansions'
Delaney reads it as an adverb, but it's not (his anagram business is also misleading)
Joyce emphasizes a duality between Church and State (the chapter ends with a priest) but Mulligan here is acting more priestly than royal

STYLE: cunning

Joyce crafts each sentence to win our trust, but also to hint that we'll have to pay close attention to solve the many casual riddles.
(Odysseus cunningly designed the Trojan Horse to sneak warriors into the enemy camp)

WHO: Buck Mulligan

Malachi Roland St John 'Buck' Mulligan [pix] [mentions] was based on Oliver St John Gogarty [wiki] [resources]

STYLE: libelous

it's the first of many lacerating portraits of lightly disguised real Dubliners in the book, often using their real names, risking libel charges and wounding them deeply.

WHERE: roof of Martello tower at Sandycove, Ireland

Sandycove, Ireland [map]
roof of Martello tower [pix and info] [mentions]

WHAT: stairhead

top steps of very narrow spiral staircase enclosed in west side of Tower wall

RESEARCH: dimensions?

we need the exact dimensions of stairhead, parapet, gunrest
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre stage was twice as wide as the towertop of Telemachus

ALLUSION: Homer

this is the primary Homeric 'suitor' from Stephen's point of view, 'plump' because he's gorging on food usurped from the missing Odysseus (but he's simultaneously Odysseus using the TROJAN HORSE strategem to usurp the city of Troy)

VOICE: Mulligan?

Benstock suggests the opening sentences are in Mulligan's voice (but Mulligan is a mocker of all voices)

MYSTERY: choreography?

"came from... came forward" (whose point of view is this? not Mulligan's own)

gunrest and stairhead
(camera looking SW, i think)

bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

NUANCE: bearing

'bearing' turns the act into a ritual (Catholic Mass)

WHAT: bowl

meant to be held in one hand while other hand whisks lather
traditionally a mug with a handle
later described as nickel (implausible unless nickelplated silver)

PRONUNCIATION: lather

rhymes with 'bother' not 'slather'

BACKSTORY: lather

apparently he did the whisking downstairs, where the water was

WHAT: mirror

mirror (women's paddle-shaped?, cracked) will be propped on parapet, fits in dressinggown pocket
RESEARCH: possible dimensions of mirror

WHAT: razor

folding straightrazor, fits in pocket when closed

MYSTERY: 'cross' dimensions?

"crossed" implies the mirror can be seen as one bar of a cross, the razor as the other

SYMBOLISM: cross

cross as Christian symbol

A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled,
was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air.

WHAT: dressinggown

yellow silk, worn over pants

NUANCE: why 'A' not "His'?

"A yellow dressinggown" (why 'A' not "His'?)

BACKSTORY: pants

"ungirdled" (we'll see he's wearing trousers too) cf cincture

NUANCE: by

"sustained gently behind him [by | on] the mild morning air" (without saying so, JAJ implies it's silk)

WEATHER: mild

average Dublin temperatures on 16 June: low 49°F, high 64°F (coincidentally about the same as when Joyce actually stayed there in September)
the thick granite walls of the Tower must have held the cold

TIME: morning

It's about 8:30am on Thursday 16 June 1904. The sun rose at 3:30am. (53° north, cf Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)

He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
— Introibo ad altare Dei.

CHOREOGRAPHY: held aloft

probably with both hands

QUOTE: Catholic Mass

QUOTE: Catholic Mass, in Latin
[Introibo ad altare Dei] ritually mumbled not intoned?
'introibo' is 'I will go in to' the altar of God, not 'up to'

ALLUSION: Homer

Homer's Odyssey begins with an invocation of the Muse

STYLE: italics

notice that italics in Ulysses signify: foreign languages, quotations, and song lyrics or poems. never internal monolog, never simple emphasis.

ECHO: Black Mass

cf U556: "FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN Introibo ad altare diaboli." (this Black Mass scene will be hallucinated as set in the room below)

STYLE: Buck's blasphemies

Joyce's portrait of Gogarty was drawn specifically to reveal his blasphemous/ obscene side to his conformist patients in Dublin, confronting OG with his social hypocrisies. (His peers would already have known him well.)

OG w/JAJ, 1909: "'Well do you really want me to go to hell and be damned'. I said 'I bear you no illwill. I believe you have some points of good nature. You and I of 6 years ago are both dead. But I must write as I have felt'. He said 'I don't care a damn what you say of me so long as it is literature'. I said 'Do you mean that?' He said 'I do. Honest to Jaysus. Now will you shake hands with me at least?' I said 'I will: on that understanding.'"

OG 1922: "That bloody Joyce whom I kept in my youth has written a book you can read on all the lavatory walls of Dublin" (cf OG's own obscene songs)

Delaney: [2]

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
— Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

NUANCE: halted by what?

"Halted" (by what?)

WHAT: stairs (pic)

"the dark winding stairs"

NUANCE: called down

Joyce seems to have rejected the obvious 'called down' in favor of 'up' or 'out' (depending on the draft)
"called [up | out] coarsely" (given the thick walls and narrow stairs, he'd have to be loud)

ALLUSION: Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet, opening line of III.3:
FRIAR LAURENCE Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:

NUANCE: Kinch

p4: "O, my name for you is the best: Kinch, the knifeblade."
cf kink and cinch
Dialect Dictionary: "A loop, twist, noose of a rope, a hitch. (cf kink}. Kinsch-pin: a pin or stick used in twisting the ropes which bind anything together to make them firmer. A sudden twist in wrestling. An unfair or unexpected advantage; a favour; a hold. 'To keep kinches' = to act together. To manage anything dexterously (to keep their kinches). To twist, loop, knot, to tighten by twisting. To strain a muscle. A hole dug in a grassy beach; having the bottom and side puddled with clay ('the kinch was filled to the brim'). The young fry of fish. A small portion or quantity ('a kinch of bread')"
Mulligan will use "Kinch" 20 times in this episode, less than 10 times more in the rest of the book (is there any evidence Gogarty used it of Joyce?)

ECHO: (scene)

images from this episode will reappear at the climax of episode 15:
U539: "(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)
BUCK MULLIGAN She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. (He upturns his eyes.) Mercurial Malachi.
THE MOTHER (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) I was once the beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.
STEPHEN (Horrorstruck.) Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman's trick is this?
BUCK MULLIGAN (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten butter fall from his eyes on to the scone.) Our great sweet mother! Epi oinopa ponton."

MOTIVATION: ego?

'Not having an audience is intolerable for Mulligan'? cite

NUANCE: come/fearful

had he assumed SD was following him? is he accusing SD of balking at the stairs?

ECHO: jejune jesuit

p4: "Will he come? The jejune jesuit!"

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest.
He faced about and blessed gravely thrice
the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains.

NUANCE: Solemnly

"Stately... coarsely... Solemnly" Buck is switching (mercurially) between an apparently solemn performance and an actually coarse character
(so the coarseness was an aside)

CHOREOGRAPHY: hands

again holding shaving stuff down with one hand?

WHAT: gunrest

gunrest (about 6" high, 6ft diameter)
actually called a 'traversing platform' or 'pivot block' [pdf]
"gunrest" usually refers to a support at the barrel end, for aiming
(but who'd remember what they'd officially called it in 1805?)

CHOREOGRAPHY: faced about

He had to be facing the gunrest as he mounted it, but now he turns around 180 degrees to face the stairs again

RESEARCH: blessed

is this a gesture or a phrase?

ECHO: gravely

"Stately... coarsely... Solemnly... gravely"
episode 6 (Hades) ends in a graveyard

RESEARCH: thrice

"thrice" (3 each or 3 total?)

WHERE: surrounding country

"surrounding country" land to south and west
he omits the bay (water to north and east not blessed!?)

WHERE: mountains

mountains in southwest
"awaking" not 'awakening'

Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus,
he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air,
gurgling in his throat and shaking his head.

WHO: Stephen Dedalus

maybe a parody of exorcism? [1913] "a simple and authoritative adjuration addressed to the demon in the name of God" but Stephen will call it blessing

he must use his free hand while holding the shaving stuff in the other

TROJAN HORSE: we should probably see this opening as the active betrayal of Stephen and Ireland to the British and the Roman Catholics, as Odysseus betrayed Troy with the deceptive strategem of the Trojan horse

Delaney: [3]

Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy,
leaned his arms on the top of the staircase

Delaney shifts between DEEdalus and DEDalus (apparently no-one knows how Joyce said it!?) DAYdalus is also possible

(I was wondering would he would lend me five shillings) = $25 now

"displeased and sleepy" (what had been the scene downstairs, before this opening? BM must have woken SD but not Haines?) (when does SD shave?)
"top of the staircase" he's still only halfway out, so either on the lip in front of him or maybe the ends of the parapet

and looked coldly
at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him,
equine in its length,
and at the light untonsured hair,
grained and hued like pale oak.

"looked" he has to look several feet up
"coldly" BM is trying but failing to be funny
"blessed" not an exorcism then?
"equine... oak" probably intended to suggest the Trojan horse, full of hidden enemies

"ungirdled... untonsured" (SD contrasting BM with priest)
if BM's hair was tonsured, how would SD have found that fitting? renouncing women?

white oak

Delaney: [4]

Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror
and then covered the bowl smartly.
— Back to barracks! he said sternly.

(Delaney forgets the 1st line)

holding bowl in one hand, lifting mirror and razor with the other
(is he checking on/ addressing the lather? or addressing SD? or addressing himself?)
the consensus seems to be that 'letting the lather rest' is no practical help
(cf Molly U62 "having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket")

shift from priest to military officer (cf below U22 "—Seymour a bleeding officer, Buck Mulligan said.")

MYSTERIES:
after trying and failing to make SD laugh, is BM now sending the priest-persona away? back to task of shaving?
(other guesses: soldiers in bars at curfew; soldiers after battle; soldiers after morning inspection)
WHO (impersonated): army sergeant?
WHO (addressed): lather, or Stephen, or himself?
WHERE: army barracks, downstairs sleeping quarters?
"barracks" implies offduty/relaxed?

TROJAN HORSE: the Greeks put on a show of going 'back to their barracks' leaving the horse behind

He added in a preacher's tone:
— For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine:
body and soul and blood and ouns.

preacher not priest, English not Latin
WHAT: "this" = lather? Ireland? life? Stephen? himself?
"dearly beloved" common address in KJV New Testament

Christine not Christina (royalty not impostor?) [17thC princess] Christian?
anachronism: a 1906 study of multiple personality named the victim Christine

MYSTERIES:
"[Christine | christine]"
(could 'genuINE christINE' rhyme? adding the feminine ending suggests a shockingly transsexual Jesus)
"ouns" rhymes with wounds

TROJAN HORSE: is he reassuring the Trojans that the horse is a sincere gift?

Slow music, please.
Shut your eyes, gents.
One moment.
A little trouble about those white corpuscles.
Silence, all.

MYSTERIES:

WHO: musician(s)
TROJAN HORSE: a rhythmic chant might have been used to time the tugging while dragging the heavy horse inside the city gates

WHO: gents
TROJAN HORSE: the Trojans ignoring their doubts

WHAT: corpuscles
TROJAN HORSE: the immune system suspects the intruders?

WHO: all
TROJAN HORSE: both Trojans and hidden usurpers?

Mulligan can see the mailboat passing, and apparently knows the timing of its whistle, so he improvises a magic trick

his personae so far have been mercurial, but this passage shifts into low gear, even hypnotic:
"Slow music, please. [he's about to attempt something dramatic, and asks an imaginary piano player to change the tone]
Shut your eyes, gents. [men only-- more intimate? shut eyes to listen better? reassuring them they won't be missing anything important? cf U37: "Shut your eyes and see." U174: "Want to try in the dark to see." U405: "Closingtime, gents."]
A little trouble about those white corpuscles. [discovered in 1843, role in immune system not yet recognised; his own or Christine's? blood into red/white wine?]
Silence, all." [theatre director? are the corpuscles noisy?]

JAJ's 1908 notes on OG: "He speaks fluently in two jargons, that of the paddock and that of the science of medicine."

He peered sideways up and gave a long low whistle of call,
then paused awhile in rapt attention,
his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points.
Chrysostomos.

WHO: someone or something called with a whistle

cf U28? "on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped."

"gold points" (visible fillings? or two gold teeth? well cared-for anyway)
"Christine... Chrysostomos"
"Chrysostomos." [essay] not italics here because it's a name, not foreign language. (Benstock: 1st stream-of-consciousness)

WHO: Chrysostomos
TROJAN HORSE: the golden-tongued orator has tricked his victims

this may be the first of many glimpses of SD-the-emerging-artist, searching for words and phrases that describe things precisely while 'constructing an enigma of manner' [more]

"Stately... coarsely... Solemnly... gravely... smartly... sternly... briskly... gravely"

Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm.
— Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely.
Switch off the current, will you?

cf? U40: "And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating it. Dringdring! And two streets off another locking it into a pyx. Dringadring! And in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own cheek. Dringdring! Down, up, forward, back." (Gifford: During the celebration of the Mass a bell (the sacring bell) is rung several times, at the Sanctus, at the elevation of the host... and at the Communion (when the celebrant used also to genuflect).)

cf? U556: "THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Dooooooooooog!
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! (From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Goooooooooood!"

British accent; giving orders even to God? Dr Frankenstein?

MYSTERIES:
"Two strong shrill whistles answered" (apparently he knows the mailboat's routine well enough to enlist it in this joke, hoping to time it just right-- a neat trick when it works) (but would the mailboat's whistles be shrill or deep?)
"current" (the Tower didn't have electricity yet. i think even the water had to be pumped.)
WHO: an assistant is closer to the switch, turning it off so it's safe to approach something? an executed victim who's now dead? (since 1890)
TROJAN HORSE: a British officer declaring victory, safe to lower defenses