"Wonder is that young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him today. Last time I saw him he had his heels on view. Been walking in muck somewhere. Careless chap. What was he doing in Irishtown?" Eolus
Suppose:
...the answer to this question of what-Stephen-was-doing-in-Irishtown can only be answered by resolving the devilishly complex side-issue of how the mourners were seated in the carriage in 'Hades'?
And suppose:
...other important mysteries can only be resolved when we guess what Stephen was doing in Irishtown?
...may appear as a dot between the 'B' and the 'R' on this 1907-1911 map but not on this 1906-1909 one. (Could the standard be on Westland Row? How did pointsmen route the trams? electrically or mechanically?)
Another suggesting MC is at 5:00 or 1:00 and SiD at 11:00 or 7:00:
"-- How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow in salute.
-- He doesn't see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do?
-- Who? Mr Dedalus asked.
-- Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff.
Just that moment I was thinking.
Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: passed."
If the Red Bank is really to their right, it seems unlikely Boylan could see greetings from the 7 and 11 seats unless their occupants bent across. But there's a preponderance of evidence that Bloom is facing MC, so we'd have MC and JP at 5 and 7 (with JP's leaning across unmentioned), LB at 1, SiD at 11.
(I'm starting to suspect that Joyce meticulously constructed this riddle to emerge very very slowly from the vague language hints, like an old photograph developing.)
Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking pace.
crepe wreaths for funeral doors
They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the doorframes.
tramtracks were embedded in the street
(was there an alternate, slower path without the bumpy tracks?)
"Rattle his bones over the stones; He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns" [lyrics] [♬]
cf p66 "He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes"
— What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.
(again, what's the alternate?)
"through both windows" = looking anxiously left and right
(there's no reason for Power to be disoriented unless he's facing backwards...?)
— Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.
— That's a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died out.
the consensus is that the "custom" here is going through downtown so people can pay respects, but Bloom thinks it's just quicker, and another possible custom is tipping one's hat (no-one would know, anyway, whose funeral it is... right?)
a Finnegans Wake draft supports this: "he converted many of the natives, boys and men, to put off their hats from their old sinful bodies as often as they passed another temple and showed them the way to by instruction and example"
All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a wide hat.
StreetView, with the former Watery lane on the right
"at gaze" probably implies he's looking out his own side (whichever this is)
Joyce was about 5'11, and anorexically thin for most of his life (112 pounds in 1928)
it will be observed later that Stephen's shoes were/are muddy, so this may (or may not) be after Proteus
— There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.
— Who is that?
— Your son and heir.
— Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.
if Bloom is pointing out his own side, SiD must not be facing him on the same side
The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus fell back, saying:
Patsy Dignam on p241 seems to complain the tram isn't running
— Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates!
for some reason SiD couldn't see him clearly (reducing the chance that LB saw him ahead, because then they would have passed him)
Latin pronunciation controversial
— No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.
— Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of dung, the wise child that knows her own father.
Watery Lane was only two blocks from Strasburg Terrace
the Murray faction in 1901
cf p39
paternity motif
cf U-14: "Who can say? The wise father knows his own child." after Merchant of Venice II.2.78 'if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child.'
Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros: the bottleworks: Dodder bridge.
these locations seem to be named in reverse order
[1909 map calls it Ringsend Bridge]
Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady's two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing his back. Thinks he'll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent profit.
to wear two hats at once, one would presumably have to partially fit inside another (on p424 it becomes three)
Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in after him, curving his height with care.
Joyce explained Power later as 37yo Tom Devin: "... all the pleasant nights we used to have singing. Mr Devin's song was ♬ 'O boys, keep away from the girls I say.' The moral of it fell on deaf ears in my case and I don't think it meant very much to him either. He used to play the ♬ Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana—a version of his own and would have been a fine pianist if he had studied as he had a very agreeable touch on the keys. He used to collapse with laughter after a preliminary scream in a high tone at certain sallies of my father's. He must have been a fine looking fellow when he was young and he had charming manners. He comes into Ulysses under the name of 'Mr Power' and also into 'Dubliners.' [Grace]" the Devin faction in 1901 and 1911
Traffic in Ireland keeps to the left, like Britain but unlike most of the rest of the world. Complicating matters, in a late revision Joyce moved the Dignams from #10 to #9, which he may or may not have realised relocated it to the north side of the street, which should have meant they entered from the opposite side. But in either case, he didn't change the seating arrangement.
I'd expect (with no support) that the forward-facing seats (at 7:00 and 5:00) were the most desirable, so if the first one to enter took a rear-facing seat, it would be a sign of humility. Occupying the far seats first rather than the near just seems logical unless they had other motives (but it's not certain which side they're entering from).
He pulled the door to after him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriage window at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she was passed over. Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad to see us go we give them such trouble coming.
Job seems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he'd wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know who will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the same after. Unclean job.
armstrap
the hearse itself would have had glass sides, and led the procession:
in his schemata, Joyce coins the term 'incubism' for the 'technic' of this episode, hinting that he's trying to capture the point-of-view of the corpse: passively jostled, attracting various sorts of attention
Hamlet IV.v "In hugger-mugger to inter him"
"slipperslapper" [♬]
New Bridge Avenue 1901
(Dignam's Cottages, Irishtown Rd 1901?)
All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap in my hip pocket. Better shift it out of that. Wait for an opportunity.
All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning: then nearer: then horses' hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and swaying.
Wallace Markfield's 1964 novel "To an Early Grave" makes an NYC comedy out of this episode, filmed in 1968 as "Bye Bye Braverman" with an explicit detailed route four men take to a funeral
Title: Hades
Scene: The Graveyard
Hour: 10-11/ 11 a.m.
Color: black-white
Persons: Ulysses, Elpenor, Ajax, Agamemnon, Hercules, Eriphyle, Sisyphus, Orion, Laertes etc, Prometheus, Cerberus, Tiresias, Hades, Persephone, Telemachus, Antinous
Correspondences: Dodder, Grand and Royal Canals, Liffey -The 4 Rivers; Cunningham-Sisyphus
Father Coffey-Cerberus,
Caretaker-Hades,
Daniel O'Connell-Hercules,
Dignam-Elpenor,
Parnell-Agamemnon,
Mentor-Ajax
Technic: Narration, Dialogues, incubism
Science, Art: religion
Sense (Meaning): Descent to Nothing
Organ: Heart
Symbol: Cemetery, Sacred Heart, The Past, The Unknown Man, The Unconscious, Heart, trouble, Relics, Heartbreak, caretaker
Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt.
"Jack Fleming" may be the missing husband of the Blooms' housekeeper, Mrs Fleming, thus partly based on 'Dante' Hearn Conway (of PoA fame), whose husband disappeared with her fortune
"They" = Irish emigrants?
on p41 we saw Stephen-- an emigrant who did come back-- use this phrase ironically for his groatsworth of mou en civet
He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets.
This building was the closed Turkish Baths nextdoor to Swenys, but Joyce seems to have relocated it westward.
College sports today I see. He eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist doubled up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round like a wheel. Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: college. Something to catch the eye.
no one knows what a horseshoe poster looks like: the poster must be rectangular, depicting a sideways horseshoe shape that represents a racing cyclist (maybe head, back, arms, with no legs or wheels?)
the poster is over the gate (on the brick wall to the left?)
"It grieved my heart to see you sail, Though from my heart you took leg-bail; ♬ Like a cod you’re doubled up head and tail, Och, Johnny, I hardly knew ye!"
(is the horseshoe shape also made of words?)
Hamlet II.2.483-484: 'Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven'
There's Hornblower standing at the porter's lodge. Keep him on hands: might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower? How do you do, sir?
on p55 Bloom imagined: "come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker too"
from the context, "on hands" must mean 'on good terms' (Bloom's practical opportunism)
"on the nod" = with the porter's special permission
this bit of dialog is just in Bloom's head, rehearsing a future exploit. nor is 'Hornblower' a name in the Irish census: perhaps it describes his uniform (but Molly will capitalise it too):
Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather. Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Buller broke a window in the Kildare street club with a slog to square leg.
"like that" why not like this?
lotuseaters lazily watch cricket
Bloom seems more knowledgeable about cricket than he credits the Irish ("They" not 'We') 1895 cricket in Phoenix(?) Park
"Duck for six wickets" implies perfect ineptitude Buller StreetView now
Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid stream. This is my body.
Luke 22:19 "And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me." (cf p77 "Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse why the cannibals cotton to it. ")
He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.
"riprippled" joycean onomatopoeia
various nonaquatic plants are nicknamed 'mother of thousands' because they propagate readily ("limp" may imply he's picturing having just masturbated in the bath)
his nightly accounts in ch17 will include one shilling and sixpence (~US2014 $10) for "Bath and Gratification"
an 1860 pricelist for the mosque-style baths on Lincoln (closed in 1904)
— No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I'll call later in the day and I'll take one of those soaps. How much are they?
— Fourpence, sir.
Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax.
— I'll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny.
— Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you come back.
— Good, Mr Bloom said.
At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said:
— Hello, Bloom, what's the best news? Is that today's? Show us a minute.
StreetView now
mentioned on p71 as drinking at Conway's last night with M'Coy and Doran
(how might Bloom have handled this if he still had Martha's letter hidden there?)
Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.
Bantam Lyons' yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears' soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.
current thinking is that mineral oil is better than vegetable for dandruff
— I want to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?
He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar. Barber's itch. Tight collar he'll lose his hair. Better leave him the paper and get shut of him.
— You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.
— Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the second.
race odds:
Zinfandel: 5 to 4
Sceptre: 7 to 4
Maximum II: 10 to 1 Throwaway: 20 to 1
— I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.
Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.
— What's that? his sharp voice said.
— I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away that moment.
Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms.
— I'll risk it, he said. Here, thanks.
He sped off towards Conway's corner. God speed scut.
Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender turkey.
(belief in lucky omens is another lazy Lotus-eaters motif)
Lyons respects Bloom enough to take the 'tip' seriously
the adman in Bloom includes the "large tender" hype
