(FW) Finnegans Wake: Throwing Whimsey around Like Blazes pp 97.02-98.01.

Contents

Sources

  • Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake
  • Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake
  • Combined Lexicon and Occasional Summaries from Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com) and Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake 

100 Words

[Note: My speculation will always appear in brackets so that you can easily ignore it.]

Sources

Pages 96.02 [Beginning of Sentence] -97.02 [End of Sentence]

 

Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake

…Gun dogs of all breeds were (97)hot on his scent. From his lair he darted across Humphries Chase from Mullinsshob and Peacockstown, then bearing right upon Tankardstown, then through Raystown and Horlockstown and, looping the loup, to Tankardstown again. He was lost upon Ye Hill of Rut in full winter coat with tickered pads, pointing for his rooming house. He was hidden, then, close in covert, miraculously raven fed and sustained by his cud. Hence hounds hide home. Vainly violence, virulence, and vituperation sought to goad him fouth. 

But his hesitEncy [sic] will give him away. 26

Assemblymen murmured, “Reynard is slow!”

There was heard from his hideout an obscure noise. One feared for his days and tried to name what had happened. Was that a yawn? ’Twas his stomach. Did he eruct? Blame his liver. Was it a gush from his visuals. Pung? Deliver him, O Lord! In Fugger’s Newsletter, it was declared that he had laid violent hands on himself. His sons were exhibited in the Forum, and a daughter was born to him, amidst general acclaim (98)” (Campbell and Robinson 92-93).

26 As noted by Herbert Gorman, (James Joyce, Farrar, and Reinhart, 1939, P. 35), Richard Pigott, who had forged letters, implicating Parnell, betrayed himself in the witness box by misspelling the word hesitancy. Finnegans week is shot through with recollections of the fate of Parnell, but perhaps nowhere more richly than in these episodes of the scandal, trial, death, and resurrection. Parnell and Pigott are amalgamated in the figure of HCE.

 

William York Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake

“By a sudden metamorphosis, not surprising in a dream, Earwicker becomes a fox, pursued by the hunt, “keen for the worry.” Allusions to the beast epic of Reynard the Fox (Mikkelraved.” 97.17 is its title in Danish) make his story traditional, while hints of Mr. Fox (one of the names, Parnell assumed when he hid himself – not, however, among maidens) and of James Joyce, hounded into exile, make his story immediate. Parnell is brought in by Pigotts, “hesitancy” and Joyce, an “underlined overlord” (97.24-25), by many autobiographical details (Tindall 92).

 

Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com)
and
Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake [Entries below introduced by line numbers “l n.nn” and italicized]

97.02

holt = a place of refuge or abode, an animal’s lair or den esp. that of an otter.
outratted = rat – to desert one’s party, side, or cause, esp. in politics; to go over as a deserter + lit. ausrotten (ger) – exterminate. + [expose] + [dogs like Jack Russell Terriers are called ratters. They follow prey like foxes down tunnels into their dens]

Juletide’s = yuletide – the season of Yule, Christmas-tide
corsslands = crossland – land belonging to the church (Irish.)
MULLINAHOB = House, 2 miles South-East of Ratoath, County Meath. 

l.4 Townlands in vicinity of Ratoath, Co. Meath: Peacocktown, Tankardstown, Raystown, Harlockstown, Cheeverstown, Loughlinstown, Nuttstown, Boolies (area hunted by Ward Union Staghounds)
PEACOCKSTOWN = Townland, parish and barony of Ratoath, County Meath. 
bearing – to mov[ing] with effort, with persistence, or with a distinct bias in some direction.
TANKARDSTOWN = Townland, parish and barony of Ratoath, County Meath

l.5 Nolan; ‘Fitz Urze’ means ‘son of bear’; Reginald Fitz Urse: chief murderer of Thomas à Becket; lion’s tail (G Lowe:lion)
outlier = one that sleeps outdoors; animal outside enclosure +[an atypical person]
noelan = Noël (fr) – Christmas
Loewensteil = Lowenanteil (ger) – lion’s share
Fitz = one whose surname begins with fitz i.e. an Irishman of Anglo Norman extraction.
Urse = a bear + Fitz Urse, Mr Loewensteil – according to Mrs Christiani, a scramble of German, Norman French, Latin, meaning “Mr Lion’s-share Bear-son.” 
basset = a short-legged dog used in unearthing foxes and badgers.

l.6 Du bruin: brown, Bruno; swart: black
beater = a man employed in rousing and driving game [ahead of a hunter]
misbadgered = misbrand – to brand falsely + badger – a plantigrade quadruped (Meles vulgaris), intermediate between the weasels and the bears, found in Europe and Middle Asia.
bruin = brown bear; the name of the bear in Reynard the Fox + bruin (Dutch) – brown.
swart = a dark color + sort

RAYSTOWN -= Townland in barony of Ratoath, County Meath

l.8 F loup; ECH [ear canny hare]
louping the loup = to loop the loop – to perform the feat of circling in a vertical loop, orig. on a specially prepared track, later in an aeroplane + loup – leap, flee + loup (fr) – wolf.
canny – skilful, clever, ‘cunning’
hare – to run or move with great speed; a rodent quadruped of the genus Lepus, having long ears and hind legs, a short tail, and a divided upper lip.

Loughlinstown = townland, county Meath 
Nuttstown = townland, county Meath 
wind = to move so as to encircle; to perceive (an animal) by the scent conveyed by the wind + [ out of breath]
Boolies = booly – a temporary enclosure for the shelter of cattle or their keepers + BOOLIES – Townland, parish of Kilbride, barony of Ratoath, County Meath. (Other townlands of this common name, which means “milking places,” are excluded [?] by the context.) 

check = a stop in the progress of the hounds through the failure of the scent

l.12 Rutland Square, D (sloping); thicker
Rut = [a hill might be the inverse of a small hill] + [animal copulation]
ticker = something that ticks; heart, guts
pointing = [indicating like a dog might]
rooming house – lodging house + (notebook 1922-23): ‘pointing for his kennel’ + Quarterly Review Oct 1922, 274: ‘Reynard the Fox’: ‘a beautiful dog-fox… Full fed, and therefore at peace with all things, he was pointing for his own kennel, somewhere in one of the breaks’.

l.13 hessians: boots with tassels at the top in front
nordest = [northernmost]
top royal = lofty, grand, fine
hessian = high boot
fuchers = Fuchs Reinhard – German poem (Reynard the Fox) + fuchs (ger) – fox + (notebook 1922-23): ‘old deaf fox’ + Quarterly Review Oct 1922, 275: ‘Reynard the Fox’: ”He was deaf,’ said my friend laconically. ‘Old foxes often lose their hearings as old dogs do”.

l.14 Elijah was fed by ravens
volponism = volpone – a cunning schemer or miser + volpone (it) – fox + Volpone or The Fox – play by Ben Jonson, 1606, in which the fox “dies” and “comes to life” again. 

l.15 Parts of the cow’s stomach: rumen, retinaculum, omasum, & abomasum

l.16 Abraham
sherriness = sherry – Originally, the still white wine made near Xeres (now Jerez de la Frontera, a town in Andalusia, near Cadiz); in modern use, extended to a class of Spanish fortified white wines of similar character.

l.17 Da Mikkelraev: Reynard the Fox; Syllabub: drink made of wine & creamwhipped together; Mick/Nick
syllabub = a drink or dish made of milk (freq. as drawn from the cow) or cream, curdled by the admixture of wine, cider, or other acid, and often sweetened and flavoured + (notebook 1922-23): ‘Syllabub: warm milk milked into 2 pints of Port & sherry, clotted cream, cinnamon comfits’ → Daily Mail 29 Nov 1922, 8/5: ‘Grandfather’s Syllabub’: ‘”When I was a girl… we would have no… thought of omitting syllabub for the Christmas festivities… a pint from the sherry… fetch up a bottle of port and pour out a pint of that also. Both lots of wine went into a big old china bowl and were sweetened with sugar… Father would pet one of the quietest of the cows and feed it with apples while I milked her into the bowl… After waiting about 20 minutes… pile up the bowl with clotted cream… put in a little powdered cinnamon. On the top we grated nutmeg and stuck in some sweetmeats… nonpareil comfits”‘.
Mikkelraev = according to Mrs Christiani, Danish ‘Reynard the Fox’. 

l.18 (fasting)
preservative = tending to preserve, protective + FDV: Preserving perseverance in the reeducation of his intestines was the his the best rebuttal whereby he got the big bulge on all the crowd of spasoakers in that one street town.
perservance = persistance, steadfastness + (notebook 1922-23): ‘preserving perseveres’.
reeducation = reeducate – to train the physically disabled in the use of muscules in new functions or of prosthetic appliances in old functions.

rebuttal – = refutation, contradiction [Joyce’s note: ‘rebuttal’]
whilk = which

spasoakers = spa – a medicinal or mineral spring or well + soaker – one who soaks (to drink, imbibe, esp. to excess) something.

protown = lit. Vorort (ger) – suburb + (notebook 1922-23): ‘1 street town’ + Leader 11 Nov 1922, 320/1: ‘Current Topics’: ‘We would not insult the thriving and historic town of Ardee by referring to it as a village, but of all the towns we ever saw in Ireland, it is a one-street town’.
virulence = extreme acrimony or bitterness of temper or speech; violent malignity or rancour + FDV: Vainly virulence, violence, & vituperation sought wellnigh utterly to end the reign of the great shipping mogul and linen lord; it was one more dearer than all who was to make him a the nine days’ jeer for the lounge lizards of the pumproom.

l.22 attack
vituperation = blame, censure, reproof, or (esp. in later use) the expression of this, in abusive or violent language.
wellnigh = very nearly, almost wholly or entirely
attax = attach – to arrest, lay hold of, seize, ‘nail’; indict, accuse, charge.

l.23 pons: bridge; enrage
depontify = pontify – to play the pontiff; to speak or behave ‘pontifically’, or with assumption of authority or infallibility + pons (l) – bridge → depontifacio (l) – to unbuild the bridge.
inroad = to invade
ongoad = goad – to irritate; to instigate or impel by some form of mental pain or annoyance.

l.24 mogul: autocrat
unhume = humus (l) – the earth
mogul = the Great Mogul – the common designation among Europeans of the emperor of Delhi, whose empire at one time included most of Hindustan; the last nominal emperor was dethroned in 1857.
uderlinen = underwear usu. of lightweight material

End of Paragraph

hesitant – hesitating; irresolute, undecided; stammering
hesitancy – Richard Pigott’s misspelling of that word before an investigating commission revealed him as a forger of letters supposedly written by Parnel (in those letters Parnel condones the Phoenix Park murders of May 1882.)
atake – to overtake, catch + atake … ashe = anagrams of Kate, Shea

ashe = ash
tittery = Of laughter, remarks, etc.: having a nervous, tittering quality
taw = to treat (a person) abusively or with contumely; to vex, torment; to harass, afflict; to abuse (obs.)
tattery = ragged, tattered
humponadimply = nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty

wincey = fabric used for warm shirts, skirts and pyjamas

End of Paragraph

l.28 Reynard: the fox in Roman de Renart
assembly man = a member of an assembly

End of Paragraph

l.30 liver; O Lord
eruct = to belch
deliver + lieber (ger) = dear + libber (Anglo-Irish) – a flipper, an untidy person + Vico believed that the fear of divinity arises in all nations from Jove’s discipline of Prometheus, who, chained to Mount Caucasus, is visited daily by a vulture who devours his liver, only for it to grow back the next day, continuing the cycle until the day Hercules unbinds him. 
gush (Slang) – smell
visuals = a picture images of a motion picture film; Of organs: Endowed with the power of sight + victuals – articles of food.
pung (Danish Slang) = cod

orelode = a vein of metal ore + øre (Danish) – ear.

to lay violent hands on oneself – to commit suicide + FDV: He had laid violent hands on himself, lain down, fagged out, with equally melancholy death. He had left the country by via subterranean tunnel lined shored with bedboards. [An infamous private ailment (variovenereal) (variolovenereal) had claimed him.] [He had walked into a pond while intoxicated up to that point where braces meet buttons braced shirts meet knickerbockers.] Ten The helping hands of five had rescued him from seven feet of semifresh water. Aerials reported buzzed of a finding of a bloody [antichill cloak] with a tailor’s tab reading V. P. H. & all shivered to think what beast had devoured him The black hand had done him in On his postern had been nailed the title: Move up, Dumpty. Make room for Humpty! and this time no mistake the boys had done him in. Indeed several wellwishers bought went so far as to buy copies of the evening editions just to make sure whether he was genuinely quite dead. But on the morrow morn of the suicide suicidal murder [unrescued] & expatriated half past eight ¼ to 9 o’clock saw the unfailing spike of smoke plume punctual from his chimneypipe 7th gable and ten thirsty p.m., the lamps of maintenance lighted for the long night a suffusion of the leadlight panes. Therefore let it be neither said nor thought that the inhabitant of that sacred edifice was a parable merely nor [more strictly] H.C.E. a nonens. Not one of his many contemporaries seriously doubted or for long of his real legitimate existence. 

l.32 Fugger’s Newsletter: collection of letters sent by agency to Count Edward Fugger
Fugger’s News Letter = 36,000 pages of manuscript (the first known examples of newsletters) sent by agents to Count Edward Fugger from 1568 to 1605, written in Italian, German, Latin, dog-Latin. 
lain = p. of lie
all in = completely tired, exhausted
fag out = to exhaust by toil or heavy activity

l.33 triduum (R.C. church): 3 days of prayer before a feast; Roman Saturnalia (in December) lasted several days
triduum = a period of three days
Saturnalia = Roman Antiq. The festival of Saturn, held in the middle of December, observed as a time of general unrestrained merrymaking, extending even to the slaves; a period of unrestrained licence and revelry.

l.34 G Zwilling; twin
willingsons = wellington – a high boot
forum = Rom. Ant. The public place or market-place of a city. In ancient Rome the place of assembly for judicial and other public business; The Forum Romanum (in Rome), with its wealth of temples, arches, and stats, occupied low ground between the Capitoline and Palatine Hills. It contained a temple of Saturn, built against the Capitoline Hill. 

jenny = the female name
infanted =infant – to give birth to, to bring forth (a child)
the Yard = short for ‘Scotland Yard’, the chief London police office.

l.36 mistletoe (used to kill Balder)
houx (fr) = holly
epheus = Efeu (ger) – ivy
measure = to judge or estimate the greatness or value of (a person, a quality, etc.) by a certain standard or rule.
missile = missilia, res missiles, largesse (consisting of sweets, perfumes, etc.) thrown by the Roman emperors to the people.

END Page 97

l.1 The Hundred of Manhood (030.08)
wimmering = wimmern (ger) – to lament, moan
Weibes = Weib (ger) – woman, wife
END

100 Words: A few words about the personal exploration of this month’s text 

[These entries are somewhat random, thoughts that arise from reading the text and brief research about the page. These are hardly intended to be academic criticism.]

[Joyce loved the literary device of the suspicious letter. In Ulysses, he introduced the literary stylings of Blazes Hugh Boylan and the pseudonymous Martha Clifford. On Page 97 of FW, Joyce offers a forged note implicating Charles Stewart Parnell with prior knowledge of the Phoenix Park Murders. That correspondence is mere history, but it inspired the chicken-scratched dump jotting implicating HCE in all vileness from Human Concupiescience Everywhere. The Pigott of Page 97 is Richard, newspaper publisher, drinker, gambler, debtor, forger, and fatally flawed speller. In an attempt to clear his debts, in 1887,  he invented a note ostensibly written by Parnellite Pat Egan and signed by Charles Stewart himself. It “proved” that Parnell knew of the Phoenix Park assassinations in 1882. Pigott’s forgery was discovered on cross-examination by attorney Charles Russell. Richard had a known Pigo-dillo for misspelling a word featured therein— “hesitEncy” Russell, with soothing manner and misdirection, focused his questioning on the lowercase “h.” He asked Pigott to write a series of words including hesitancy, suggesting to the satisfaction of the court and the public that the note was forged. The publisher privately confessed the forgery and fled to Spain where he committed suicide.

{Joyce’s fascination with the Park murders is suspicious. At the time of the murders, Joyce was more than three months old, detractors insisted the author was involved in the assassinations. In his defense, Sunny Jim produced a note proving that, as the murders were occurring, he was taking a piano lesson}] 

 

A Table of Themes as They Appear in Ulysses’ Episodes

Themes Episodes
 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
The Artist’s Isolation X x x x x x x x x x x
“‘History,’ Stephen said, ‘is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake’” x x x x X x x x x x x
“a shout/noise/cries in the street” x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Drowning x x x x x x x x x x
Oxen, Cattle, and Horses x x x x x x x x x x x x
A Mother’s Love x x x x x x x x x
The fox and the holly bush, a gypsy dog, and midwives x x x x x x x x x x x x
Sadomaschoism x x x x x x x x x x
Buttons and Pins x x x x x x x x x x x x
The Faithless Wife X x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Scents x x x x x x x x x
Swoons and narcotics x x x x x x x x
Suicide x x x x x x x x x x
The Odyssey as a Substructure for Ulysses, Bloom as Odysseus x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
The Exotic East x x x x x x x x x x x x
Metempsychosis, Shared Experiences, Transformation, and Shape-Changing x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
The reliability and malleability of sensation x X x x x x x x x x x
Prophesy, the coming of Elijah, and “almosting” x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Shakespeare x x x x x x x x x x x x

(FW) Finnegans Wake: Throwing Whimsey around Like Blazes pp 96.02-97.02-2

Contents

Sources

  • Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake
  • Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake
  • Combined Lexicon and Occasional Summaries from Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com) and Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake 

100 Words

[Note: My speculation will always appear in brackets so that you can easily ignore it.]

Sources

Pages 96.02 [Beginning of Sentence] -97.02 [End of Sentence]

 

Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake

An explanation of the text is followed by bracketed comments from Campbell and Robinson: “And then about the old House by Chapelizod; Lillytrilly and Mrs. Niall of the Nine Corsages, 24 the old markkiss, their besterfather, and dear Sir Armoury, and all the goings on, so very wrong, so long ago, while the four were on retreat under Father Whisperer. And then about his bold advances, and the two saucy sisters – peep! {Suddenly the four break into an argument:} “You’re a liar, excuse me,” says one. “I will not and you’re another,” says the second. And long, Lally Tompkins, holding their breach of peace for them, bidding them to give and to take, and all will be forgotten. {Whereupon they make up again with a handshake and another drink.} It was too bad to be falling out about her kindness and about the shape of OOOOOOOOOurang’s time. “Well, all right, Lally. And shake a hand. And poor us out another. For Christ’s sake. Amen.”

{That concludes the whole affair of the early life and death of HCE…. All might be said to be over. Every theme of Finnegans Wake has been sounded. Yet the dream cycle has hardly begun; HCE has hardly opened his career. No sooner have those in his week become reconciled to his departure, then the news is out that he has disappeared from his grave, and is at large, and may be anywhere. In numerable and highly confused reports describe his resurrection.

This opens to scholarship a new end, exceedingly difficult problem: what became of HCE?}

Well? [Campbell and Robinson continue]

Such evidence, as we have been able to gather may not be dependable. It may not bring the truth to light, as fortuitously as an astronomer’s calculation might reveal a hitherto unknown planet in the heavens, or as all the languages of the world have evolved from the root of some funner’s stotter.25 Yet soundest sense now holds that by playing ‘possum our sacred ancestor saved his brush with his posterity. His escape was like that of a fox (Campbell and Robinson 91-92).

24 Niall of the Nine Hostages, hero of the Irish cycles.

25 Vico would have all languages evolve from the attempts of the patriarchs to name the Thunderer. All the rumor and action of Finnigans Wake develops from the stuttering of HCE in the park encounter.

 

William York Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake

Tindall’s Reader’s Guide connects the previous pages with our current page. He says, (94.23-96.24.”With ‘meeting waters,’ Tom Moore joins Stella and Vanessa). During these reminiscences, they break into song for ‘all rogues lean to rhyme.’ Earwicker, a greater rogue, has fallen for those trickling girls, but without his fall, there could be no Wake; for ‘the sibspeeches of all mankind have foliated…from the root of some funner’s stotter’ (96.30-31).

By a sudden metamorphosis, not surprising, and a dream, your wicker becomes a fox pursued by the hunt, ‘keen. For the worry.’Illusions to the beast, epic of Raynor, the Fox…” (Tindall 92).

[Endnotes]

96.13-14 “Peepette” in connection with “saucissters” refers to The Journal to Stella.“Peepette” is “ppt” (or poppet) in Swift’s “little language,” modified by Joyce to include peeping and peeing. Cf. “tapette…pettest,” 79-23. Like H.C.E. At this point, Swift is an old man with two girls (Tindall 96].

 

Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com)
and
Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake [Entries below introduced by line numbers “l n.nn” and italicized]

96.02

l.2 some fellow’s; rose
Sunfella’s = sunflower – the heliotrope; preson of resplendent beauty
rhinoceritis = rhinocerot’s nose – Used as a descriptive of a sneer + rhinoceritis (l) – inflammation of a nose-horn.
roe = a small species of deer

l.3 pr All roads lead to Rome; contradicting
rogue = a rascal + roads
lean = to incline or tend in thought, affection, or conduct + lead
rhyme = verse marked by consonance of the terminal sounds + Rome

l.4 N Lille Trille laa paa en hylie (nursery rhyme eq. to Humpty Dumpty); Niall of the Nine Hostages: Ir High King
pon = upon
hilly = characterized by hills; abounding in hills + Norwegian: Lille Trille laa paa en hylle (nursery rhyme similar to Humpty Dumpty).
Nial (or Niall) of the Nine Hostages = father of Leary, ruled Ireland in the 4th century, raided Britain, was deserted by his own men and conquered by the Romans. A later Nial was perhaps slain by Hamlet.

l.5 King Mark; marquis; Da far: father
corsage = a bodice
markiss = marquis
besterfar = bestefar (Norwegian) – grandfather
arrah = exp. of surprise or excitement

Reduplication is an alleged trait of Hiberno-English strongly associated with stage-Irish and Hollywood films (to be sure, to be sure). It is virtually never used in reality.ar bith corresponds to English at all, so the stronger ar chor ar bith gives rise to the form at all at all (‘I’ve no money at all at all’).

l.7 Sir Amory Tristram: 1st Earl of Howth
armoury = armour collectively; an armed force; the workshop of an armourer

churpelizod = house by the churchyard – Church House, Chapelizod [Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: The House by the Churchyard] + churpe – chirp + [Isolde’s Chapel]

l.9 Da gammeldags: old-fashioned
retreat = Eccl. A period of complete seclusion devoted to religious exercises.
gammeldags (Danish) = old-fashioned + gammel (Danish) – old, ancient.

l.10 Milltown Park, D: Jesuit house of studies (Milton’s house is paradise)
Milton’s Park = MILLTOWN – Former village, now residential district, South Dublin, in the Clonskeagh area. Milltown Park is not a recreation ground but a Jesuit house of studies in Sandford Road + Milton, John (1608-74) – English poet, author of Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained. Milton was not just a poet, but also a politician, secretary to Cromwell, who was beastly to Ireland. Milton was a blind poet, like Homer.

languish = the action or state of languishing (to grow weak, faint, or feeble; to droop in spirits; to pine with love, grief, or the like) + James Joyce: Ulysses.5.261: ‘Language of flowers’.

l.13 bad
Saucicissters = saucisse (French, Slang) – whore
a dearbhrathairin og mo chroidhe (a drahirin og mukhri) (gael) – O young little brother of my heart! + song Draherin O Machree (Anglo-Irish) – Dear Little Brother of My Heart + machree – my dear.

l.14 Moor: s The Meeting of the Waters; Swift: ‘Ppt’
Meeting waters = to make water – to urinate + Thomas Moore: Irish Melodies: song The Meeting of the Waters.
peepette = urinate

miman = maman (fr) – mummy

l.16 Ulster, Munster, Leinster & Connacht (the 4 provinces of Ireland) [used her, mused her, licksed her and cuddled.]
farmer = one who cultivates a farm, whether as tenant or owner; the eldest son of the occupier of a farm (dial.); an ignorant rustic, a stupid or gauche person.
groom = a servant who attends to horses; a bridegroom
mused = muse – to gaze meditatively

lully = the kidney (of a cow)
breach of the peace = breach of promise – the breaking of engagement

lolly = hard candy
to give and take = to yield partialy to demands of others (and obtain satisfactory agreement); to exchange repartee, blows, etc.
pasht = paist (pasht) (gael) – spirit + past

 

l. 22 s ‘…We’ll tak a cup of kindness yet for the sake of Auld Lang Syne’
kindness = affection, love + song Auld Lang Syne: ‘We’ll tak a cup of kindness yet for the sake of Auld Lang Syne’.
pet = any person who is fondled, or treated with special kindness or favour; a darling, favourite.

orang (Malay) = man
lelly = leally (loyally, truly)

l.24 G schenk uns mehr: pour us more, give us more; I An Seanchas Mór:corpus of early Ir. law ‘ The Great Register’; Succat: St Patrick’s baptismal name; so be it
schenkusmore = An Seanchas Mor (un shanekus mor) (gael) – The Great Register, corpus of early Irish law + schenk uns mehr (ger) – pour us more, give us more.
craig = crag
be it suck = be it that – to be the case or the fact + [lolly]

END of Paragraph

FDV: Even should not the framing [up] of such fictions [in the evidential order] bring any truth to light [in good time] as fortuitously as some false setting of a starchart might [(heaven aiding)] reveal the presence of an unknown being in space chaos of space The best soundest opinion now holds that by so playing possum our highest common ancestor most effectually saved his brush. Dogs of all breeds were speaking with various marked provincial accents, hot to run him on a scent breasthigh, but from the good day he last was viewed pointing for home in his 7mile [rolltop] boots a deaf fox’s wisdom kept him safe in covert miraculously ravenfed & sustained by the clotted creamclotted sherriness of cinnamon syllabub. Preserving perseverance in the reeducation of his intestines was the his the best rebuttal whereby he got the big bulge on all the crowd of spasoakers in that one street town. Vainly virulence, violence, & vituperation sought wellnigh utterly to end the reign of the great shipping mogul and linen lord; it was one more dearer than all who was to make him a the nine days’ jeer for the lounge lizards of the pumproom.
frame up – to devise falsely (as a criminal charge against an inocent man) [(notebook 1922-23): ‘frame up’].

evidential = of or pertaining to evidence

dim = obscure, not clear to the mind or understanding
starchart = star chart – a chart showing the positions of the stars + (notebook 1922-23): ‘false setting of starmap discover new star’.

l.30 Da forhøre: examine; subspecies; sib:amity, clan, family; Vico says mankind’s first words were onomatopoeic
forehear = to hear beforehand

l.31` G stotter: stutter
stotter = error, slip, blunder; to stumble, stagger + Henrik Ibsen: Samfundets Støtter (Pillars of Society).

l.32 amongst; mental specialists; St. Augustine, ‘Securus iudicat orbis terrarum’ (‘ The verdict of the world is secure’)- the phrase influenced Newman (cf. Apologia)
mentalist = an advocate of mentalism (doctrine that mind is the fundamental reality); a mind reader or fortune teller.
securus iudicat orbis terrarum (l) = free from care, the circle of the lands judges; i.e. untroubled, the world judges (St. Augustine) + securus (l) – peaceful + iudico (l) – judge + orbis (l) – circle + terra (l) – earth.
play possum = to feign ignorance, to pretend to be asleep or dead, to feign or pretend illness + (notebook 1922-23): ‘saves his brush play ‘possum”.

l.33 Gr hahios: saintly; HCE; Gr kurios:lord; brush: fox’s tail
hagio (gr) = holy
curious = exciting curiosity, somewhat surprising, strange, singular, odd; queer.
brush = a quick light touch or momentary contact, a brief encounter; a girl, a young woman; a bushy tail (the brush of a fox) + Quarterly Review Oct 1922, 268: ‘Reynard the Fox’: ‘saves his brush, but it is not likely that… he acts with deliberate intent… the promptings of instinct, of which the most notable example is the trick of ‘playing possum”.

l.35 hairs; tailsie: in Scottish Law, the limitation of a freehold estate to a person & his heirs
posterity = the descendants collectively of any person, all who have proceeded from a common ancestor.
coparcenor = coparcener – a joint heir
tailsie = heir in tail (Sc. of entail, of tailsie) – the person who succeeds or is entitled to succeed to an entailed estate by virtue of the deed of entail (the settlement of the succession of a landed estate, so that it cannot be bequeathed at pleasure by any one possessor; a predetermined order of succession).

l.36 the pope’s address: ‘Urbi et Orbi’ (‘the City & the World’)
gundog – a dog trained to accompany the ‘guns’ (hunters) + FDV: Dogs of all breeds were speaking with various marked provincial accents, hot to run him on a scent breasthigh, but from the good day he last was viewed pointing for home in his 7mile [rolltop] boots a deaf fox’s wisdom kept him safe in covert miraculously ravenfed & sustained by the clotted creamclotted sherriness of cinnamon syllabub.
beagling = beagle – to hunt game with a beagle + (notebook 1922-23): ‘dog was speaking’.renounce – announce, declare, proclaim
urbiandorbic =urbi et orbi – to the city (of Rome) and to the world. Also transf., for general information or acceptance; to everyone.

END of Page 96
bugle = a hunting-horn, originally made of the horn of a ‘bugle’ or wild ox; to sound a bugle.
run = to rush at a person with hostile intention, to make an attack on + (notebook 1922-23): ‘ran him’ + Quarterly Review Oct 1922, 271: ‘Reynard the Fox’: ‘in the early summer greyhounds can seldom be induced to attack a she-wolf. They will run her readily, but never hurt her when overtaken’.
breasthigh = breast high scent – a scent so strong that dogs course heads up + (notebook 1922-23): ‘hounds find scent is breasthigh’.+ [breast thigh]

l.2 quarry
worry = the act of biting and shaking an animal so as to injure or kill it (properly of hounds when they seize their quarry) + (notebook 1922-23): ‘the worry’.

END of Sentence

100 Words: A few words about the personal exploration of this month’s text 

[These entries are somewhat random, thoughts that arise from reading the text and brief research about the page. These are hardly intended to be academic criticism.]

[ Let’s turn our trumpets to the strumpets. While the two girls in Phoenix Park might deserve that insult, Swift’s Stella and the girl he called Vanessa do not. In “Cadenus and Vanessa” Swift makes himself CADenus. The Dean certainly treated both women in the fashion of a cad. Joyce may have had that in mind when planting Swift’s women in the Wake’s shifting roles. That would appeal to Joyce who tells of pursuing a young pupil in Giacomo Joyce.” Whether Joyce pursued one student or three, remains a mystery, but Familyman Jim enjoyed the idea of a too-young tryst. Neither Swift nor Joyce expected his poem to be published, but Joyce returned to the theme of romantic double-teaming in the Sirens episode of Ulysses. There Misses Douce and Kennedy are ignored by old, bald, deaf Pat. Pat is ugly as Swift and equally indifferent to the girls’ cries for attention.]

JamesJoyceReadingCircle ~Usage by Nation APR 2023.

Albania 1 0.1%
Argentina 5 0.5%
Australia 31 3.0%
Bangladesh 4 0.4%
Brazil 11 1.1%
Bulgaria 2 0.2%
Canada 35 3.4%
Chile 1 0.1%
Finland 22 2.2%
France 10 1.0%
Georgia 8 0.8%
Germany 11 1.1%
Ghana 1 0.1%
Greece 6 0.6%
Hong Hong 2 0.2% Mourn with the Hong Kong People
India 7 0.7%
Ireland 146 14.3%
Israel 1 0.1%
Italy 49 4.8%
Japan 3 0.3%
Jersey 7 0.7%
Kenya 5 0.5%
Mexico 10 1.0%
Netherlands 3 0.3%
Pakistan 1 0.1%
Peru 3 0.3%
Philippines 14 1.4%
Poland 4 0.4%
Portugal 1 0.1%
South Africa 1 0.1%
South Korea 0.0%
Spain 8 0.8%
St. Lucia 0.0%
Sweden 23 2.3%
Switzerland 5 0.5%
Taiwan 2 0.2% Stand with the Taiwanese People
Thailand 0.0%
Ukraine 0.0% Celebrate Ukrainian Freedom
Uruguay 0.0%
UK 48 4.7%
US 512 50.2%
Viet Nam 5 0.5% 38 Nations

(FW) Finnegans Wake: Throwing Whimsey around Like Blazes pp 95.02- 96.01

Contents

Sources

  • Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake
  • Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake
  • Combined Lexicon and Occasional Summaries from Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com) and Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake 

100 Words

[Note: My speculation will always appear in brackets so that you can easily ignore it.]

Sources

Pages 95.02 [Beginning of Sentence] -96.01 [End of Sentence]

 

Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake

The Skeleton Key condenses the retelling: “…The smell of him! The graces in the rossies playing him pranks! Old HCE!” “Sure,” replies another of them, “I sniffed that lad long before anyone. And I mind the time the redheaded girl, and myself were out, love-making down Sycamore Lane: “My perfume of the pampas,” says she (meaning me), putting out her netherlights, and I’d sooner one precious sip at your pure mountain dew, then enrich my acquaintance with that big brewer’s belch.’”

And so they went on, the four-bottle men, the annalists: about that old incident in the bushes – how she was lost in the ferny distance, and how he was like an earwig in an ear, anear, and the rustlings and twitterings and the raspings, and all the scandalmongers, and the laughing jack ass (Campbell and Robinson 95-96).

 

William York Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake

Tindall adds a few lines of summary and an endnote: They agreed that, although acquitted, H.C.E. stinks – like the wind of the “manure works.” So they go on, “the fourbottle men,” the four “analists” (anal and Annals of the Four Masters), reviewing Earwicker’s alleged misdemeanor in the Park…” (Tindall 92)

95.8 “Dyinboosycough.” References to Dion Boucicault and his play Arrah-na-Pogue generally appear in connection with A.L.P. or Shaun. Shaun the Post (92.13) is a character in this play (Tindall 96).

 

Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com)
and
Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake [Entries below introduced by line numbers “l n.nn” and italicized]

 

95.02

gush  =  a whiff, smell
mon = man

l. 3 G Bock: he-goat; Grace O’Malley
Ballybock = BALLYBOUGH – Road, bridge over Tolka River, North-East Dublin, and name of surrounding area between Summerhill and Fairview. Vitriol works at Ballybough Bridge were operated by the Dublin and Wicklow Manure Co, Ltd. Baile bocht, Ir “poortown.”
tradewind  = any wind that ‘blows trade’, i.e. in a constant course or way; a wind that blows steadily in the same direction (obs.)
O’Moyly = moyly – gently, demurely + Thomas Moore: Irish Melodies: song The Song of Fionnuala: ‘Silent, oh Moyle’.

l. 4 Angl rossy: impudent girl; blush: face
O’Briny = briny – salty; sea
rossie = a wandering woman; Used as a disparaging term for a woman + rossy (Anglo-Irish) – impudent girl, brazen woman (from rásach (Anglo-Irish) – rambling woman, gipsy, jilt) + song Sweet Rosie O’Grady.
chaff = to banter, rail at, or rally, in a light and non-serious manner, or without anger, but so as to try the good nature or temper of the person ‘chaffed’

l. 5 Prankquean
to do – excited and usu. exaggerated stir, bustle + today + todo (sp) – everyone.

forsailoshe = ber om forladelse! (Danish) – beg your pardon!

ginabawdy meadabawdy = song ”Comin’ through the Rye” by Robert Burns: ‘Gin a body meet a body / Comin thro’ the rye, / Gin a body kiss a body, / Need a body cry?’ = (English Translation): ‘Should a body meet a body / Coming through the rye, / Should a body kiss a body, / Need a body cry?’
yerra = a mild oath
heed = to care for, concern oneself about; to take notice of, give attention to = [he-hed = laughed]

l. 8 Gasometer: Sir John Rogerson’s Quay D; Copenhagen; Dion Bouciault (wrote:Arrah-na-Pogue, The Colleen Bawn &tc.)
gasometer = apparatus for holding and measuring gases; In James Joyce’s day, the cylindrical gasometer on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay (S bank of Liffey) was the most noticeable feature of the Dub skyline.
hooping coppin = hoop – to clasp, enclose, surround + hooping cough – a contagious disease chiefly affecting children, and characterized by short, violent, and convulsive coughs, followed by a long sonorous inspiration called the hoop (whoop) + Dublin superstition that gasworks’ air cures whooping cough (Ulysses.6.121: ‘Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures’).

l. 9 nr Cock Robin: ‘All the birds of the air’; Minnie Cunningham: male impersonator in Dan Lowrey’s Music Hall
bird = a young man, child; a maiden, a girl; a man + nursery rhyme Cock Robin: ‘All the birds of the air’.
Minxy = minxi (l) – I have urinated

l. 10 Dear Dirty Dublin; Burns: ‘John Anderson, my jo, John’
jo = sweetheart, dear
hold hard = (orig. a sporting phrase): To pull hard at the reins in order to stop the horse; hence gen. to ‘pull up’, halt, stop. Usually in imper. (colloq.)

telesmell = tele – – at distance, distant

l.12 HCE; H2S (stink)
heaving = heave – to lift, raise

l.14 North Quay Wall, D; 1132
Kay = heave – to lift, raise

l.15 Open Sesame; seaweed; White-eyed Kaffir; C.H. Chirgwin, C19 music hall entertainer; James Whiteside defended O’Connell; semen’s
Whiteside Kaffir = kaffir – one who is not a muslim, infidel + Whiteeyed Kaffir – G.H. Chirgwin, 19th century music hall entertainer, appeared in Dan Lowrey’s Music Hall (Ulysses.12.1552: ‘that whiteeyed kaffir’) + Whiteside, James (1804-76) – Dublin lawyer, defended O’Connell and William Smith O’Brien.
sayman = a maker or seller of say (a cloth of fine texture resembling serge) + semen (l) – seed + say (Anglo-Irish Pronunciation) – sea.

l.16 St. Patrick
effluvium = emanation
puffing out = to puff out – to issue, arise in puffs
thundering = awesome in virtue of impresive greatness or magnitude

l.17 I tá t-am… agat: you have a …time
cabbage (Slang) = cheap cigar
thawt = thought – rower’s bench + that
gull = a credulous person, one easily imposed upon, a dupe, simpleton, fool
pawsdeen = Fion, Paustheen – an Irish air + paistin fionn (pashtin fin) (gael) – fair-haired child; An Paistin Fionn, “The Fair-haired Girl,” a song.

l. 18 Paustheen Fionn;I go barradh: excellently; G Danke schön; Lancashire
Goborro = tomorrow + go barradh (gubore) (gael) – excellently.
good bye + go bog (gubug) (gael) – easily, softly.
Sez I = Joyce’s note: ‘- says you’

sniffed = sniff – to perceive as if by smell, to smell out, to suspect, to sneer at
when I was in my (Anglo-Irish) = when I was

l.20 Da farfar:grandfather
farfather = far out – remote, distant + farfar (Danish) – grandfather.

l.21 Dan Lowrey’s Musichall, Sycamore St. D
firstnighting = first night – the night on which a play, or a particular representation of a play, is first produced on the stage
Sycomore Lane = SYCAMORE STREET – Originally Sycamore Alley, since 1869 Sycamore Street; runs North from Dame Street to Essex Street, West of Eustace Street. Site of Dublin GPO 1709-1755, “Sycamore Tree” pub ca 1733, Dan Lowry’s Star Music Hall and Theatre of Varieties, late 19th century.

l.22 G Bett pissabeds
frisking = frisk – to move briskly and sportively; to dance, frolic, gambol, jig.
kurkle = purple

lushiness = lustiness – lustfulness; carnal nature or character; pleasantness, pleasure, delight (obs.)
pampa = the name given to the vast treeless plains of South America south of the Amazon, esp. of the Argentina and the adjacent countries

put out – to extinguish, put an end to; (of a woman) to offer oneself for sexual intercourse.
mountain dew – a fanciful term for whisky illicitly distilled on the mountains.

l.26 give a brewer’s fart: befoul oneself
belch = a slang name for poor beer.

END of Paragraph

And so they went on….Be it suck! (96.24) = And so they went on, unquam & nunquam & linseed & colic, about the whosebefore and the wheresafter & all the scandalmonkers & the poor craigs that used to be at that time living & lying & rating & riding round Nunsbelly Square. And contradrinking themselves. I differ with ye! Are you sure of that now? You’re a liar, excuse me! I will not & you’re another! And Lully holding the breach of the peace for them. To give & to take. And to forgo the past. Ah, now, it was too bad to be falling out over the the shape of theourang’s time! Well, all right Lully! And shakeahand. And schenk us more. For Craig sake. Ah, well! Be it soak!

l.27 4 canopic jars containing innards of the body surrounded Egyptian mummies; Annals of the Four Masters:I ungaim: I anoint
fourbottle = bottle (Slang) – to bugger (a woman), to engage in sodomy
unguam = unguentum (l) – ointment, perfume + unquam (l) – at any time, ever

l.28 G Anschluss: connection; umquam: ever; L nunquam: never; I longaim: I lap up
linguam (l) = tongue + song Father O’Flynn: ‘Sláinte and sláinte and sláinte again’.
Anschluss – annexation or union, spec. of Austria to Germany

anear = close, near

l.30 G fern; found dead
rustling = a rustling sound; bustling activity + (notebook 1924): ‘night noises rustlings twittering raspin tingling scuttling’ → The dense African forest by night was full of sounds, all intimately known to the native. Crawford: “For the hundreds of night-sounds — rustlings, twitterings, raspings, tinglings, and roarings — are all known to even Africa’s tot, the ears being called his ‘eyes of darkness.’” These two poetical observations both made it into the Wake. The night sounds appear in I.4 on FW 095.31, when the ‘fourbottle men’ are discussing how Anna Livia got lost in he[“the”?] woods (Robbert-Jan Henkes)
twittering = light tremulous chirping of a bird or birds; a sound resembling or likened to this
rasping = a grating sound

l. 31 cuckooings
painting = colouring, pictorial decoration, a picture + panting
uukuings = cuckoo – to utter the call of the cuckoo (uniformly repeated call), or an imitation of it.

 

l.32 boycott
hist = a sibilant exclamation used to enjoin silence
springaparts = to spring apart – to burst asunder
bybyscuttlings = by by – bye bye + scuttle – to run with quick, hurried steps + [to intentionally sink a ship]

scandalmunkers = scandalmonger – one who makes injurious report concerning another which may be the foundation of legal action.
craig = crag + crag – a steep or precipitous rugged rock; the throat, the neck.

rating = rate – to estimate the (nature) worth or value of; to appraise, value; to drive away, to scold.

buds = bod (bud) (gael) – penis + proverb A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

END of Page

jackass – a male ass, a he-ass + (notebook 1924): ‘jackass (Austr. bird)’ → Jespersen: The Growth and Structure of the English Language 159n (sec. 157): ‘The settler heard a bird laugh in what he thought an extremely ridiculous manner, its opening notes suggesting a donkey’s bray – he called it the ‘laughing jackass.’ His descendants have dropped the adjective, and it has come to pass that the word ‘jackass’ denotes to an Australian something quite different from its meaning to other speakers of our English tongue’.

END 96.01

 

gush  =  a whiff, smell

l. 8 Gasometer: Sir John Rogerson’s Quay D; Copenhagen; Dion Bouciault (wrote:Arrah-na-Pogue, The Colleen Bawn &tc.)
gasometer = apparatus for holding and measuring gases; In James Joyce’s day, the cylindrical gasometer on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay (S bank of Liffey) was the most noticeable feature of the Dub skyline.
hooping coppin = hoop – to clasp, enclose, surround + hooping cough – a contagious disease chiefly affecting children, and characterized by short, violent, and convulsive coughs, followed by a long sonorous inspiration called the hoop (whoop) + Dublin superstition that gasworks’ air cures whooping cough (Ulysses.6.121: ‘Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures’).

telesmell = tele – – at distance, distant

“H2CE3 that would take a township’s
breath away!”

l.12 HCE; H2S (stink)
heaving = heave – to lift, raise

Hydrogen sulfide is a chemical compound with the formula H2S. It is a colorless chalcogen-hydride gas, and is poisonous, corrosive, and flammable, with trace amounts in ambient atmosphere having a characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs.[11] The underground mine gas term for foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide-rich gas mixture

l.17 I tá t-am… agat: you have a …time
cabbage (Slang) = cheap cigar

sniffed = sniff – to perceive as if by smell, to smell out, to suspect, to sneer at
when I was in my (Anglo-Irish) = when I was

pampa = the name given to the vast treeless plains of South America south of the Amazon, esp. of the Argentina and the adjacent countries

put out – to extinguish, put an end to; (of a woman) to offer oneself for sexual intercourse.
mountain dew – a fanciful term for whisky illicitly distilled on the mountains.

l.26 give a brewer’s fart: befoul oneself
belch = a slang name for poor beer.

 

100 Words: A few words about the personal exploration of this month’s text 

[These entries are somewhat random, thoughts that arise from reading the text and brief research about the page. These are hardly intended to be academic criticism.]

Everyone agrees that HCE has an odor that arrives before he does. His powerful, natural scent is described as a brewer’s belch (flatulence) or manure in great quantity. He is also known for smelling like the gasworks off Rogerson’s Quay. The Dublin Gasworks fills the air with a stench of Hydrogen Sulphide reminiscent of rotten eggs. H2S may be foul but is also a treatment for curing whooping cough in children. As always Earwicker’s offenses are offset to some degree by his left-handed blessings. He is both a boon and a bane on humanity. As for his self-righteous accuser, his wench-for-pay describes his manly scent as a pampas perfume, thus comparing his bouquet to that of the gaucho. Those Argentine and Uruguayan cowboys lived a wild and undisciplined lives collecting ferral cattle and horses into large herds. Once the herds were of sufficient size they would produce the same fragrance that HCE is said to bear (like the manure works).

 

 

 

 

(FW) Finnegans Wake: Throwing Whimsey around Like Blazes pp 94.04 – 95.02

Contents

Sources

  • Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake
  • Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake
  • Combined Lexicon and Occasional Summaries from Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com) and Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake 

100 Words

[Note: My speculation will always appear in brackets so that you can easily ignore it.]

Sources

Pages 94.04 [Beginning of Sentence] -95.02 [End of Sentence]

 

Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake

The Campbell and Robinson version: The story [is] the solid man saved by his sillied woman, crackajoking away like a hearse on fire. The elm that whimperers at the top, told the stone, that moans when stricken. Wind broke it, wave bore it, reed wrote it, Syce ran with it, 18 hand tore it and wild went war. Hen trieved it and plate pledged peace.19 it was folded with cunning, sealed with crime, uptied by a harlot, undone by a child. It was life, but was it fair? It was free, but was it art? It made Ma make merry and Sissie so shy and rubbed some shine off Shem and put some shame on Shaun. Yet there is woe in it. The two girls together spell, famine and drought. The king spells tribulation on his throne. Are, fear, fruits, thou timid Danaïdes! 20  Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, one and two and two and three, eenie, meenie, woe is me! A pair of fig-leaf panties with almond eyes, one old lumpy lobster pumpkin, and three meddlers on the sly; Finfin funfun. And that is Hell from sin from son, a city arose. Now, tell me, tell me, tell me then. 21 What was it?

  [And the answer runs:] From Alpha to Omega!

18 Play on the child conundrum: “ A was an apple pie; B bought it; C caught it, etc. etc. What was it?”
19 Refers forward to the hen and the manuscript of the next chapter.
20 Daughters of Danaus; all slew their bridegrooms the night of the wedding.
21 leading forward to the  “Tell me all about Anna Livia” of Bk. I, chap. 8

William York Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake

Tindall begins by exploring the letter’s author: “But what is this letter, and what is it about? “Of eyebrow pencilled, by lipstipple penned,” it seems the work of a woman; yet “Wind broke it [H.C. E. breaking wind]. Wave bore it [A.L.P.]. Reed wrote of it [Shem the Penman]. Syce ran with it [Shaun the Post].” Plainly the letter affects each member of the family that is responsible for it. Maybe breaking into rhyme – a parody of “Tea for Two,” that domestic song – is the best way of getting at the matter, but the best is not good enough. What is it then it is everything from A to O – from Alpha to Omega – like the Wake itself ( 94.10-22).

Preceding these terminal letters for the letter are four lines (94.16-19) that exhibit with exemplary concentration Joyce’s use of interwoven motif. The three girls and the two soldiers, here again, Carrie new – or, rather, old – loads. As “a pair of sycopanties,” (almond) eyes suggest Mary Magdalene. As “three  meddlers,” the soldiers combine meddling with apples, no less appropriate to the fall then fig leaves. The faller is Humpty Dumpty. But from his happy fall “acity arose… A sitting arrows.” “Finfin funfun,” the motif for the Magazine wall, includes falling Finnegan and the fun at his wake. Renewal is promised, and old scandal, uncovered by the refrain of the washer woman colon “Now, tell me, tell me, tell me then!” This compendious arrangement of motifs is a summary of the Wake. The rest of the book is their rearrangement in other patterns of rhythm, meaning, and sound. Joyce disordered and ordered his limited materials endlessly. (Tindall 91-92)

[Tindall follows with more exploration of this page.]

 

Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com)
and
Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake [Entries below introduced by line numbers “l n.nn” and italicized]

 

94.04

l. 4-5 In 1717 or 1718, Swift, walking with others in the evening, stopped & looked up at an elm: ” I shall be like that tree. I shall die at the top.”; Lia Fáil: monolith at Tara that shrieked at the coronation of rightful high kings
crackajolking = crackajack – a thing of highest exellence + [crack a yolk + crack a joke]
a hearse on fire = go like house on fire – (of an event, meeting etc.) to go very well + get along like a house on fire – (of two or more people) to enjoy each other’s companionship very much, often just after meeting.

 

l. 6 Urdu syce: groom
Syce = a groom or attendant esp. in India.

[trieved = retrieved =  thieved]
plight  =  sin, offence; guilt, blame (obs.); peril, danger, risk (obs.)
pledge = to deliver, deposit, or assign as security for the repayment of a loan or the performance of some action; to pawn.

uptie =  to enclose or confine, to tie up, to connect closely, link, hinder

 

L 10 perlectio: a reading through
hunks – a term of obloquy for a surly, crusty, cross-grained old person, a miser + Hunks, Old – baited, blind bear, contemporary of Shakespeare’s.
perlection  =  the action of reading through

l. 12 I úna: famine; I íde:thirst; St. Ita’searly Ir religious poetry
Una – according to Mr O Hehir, Irish una = “famine,” personified by a woman, typical mother of a family + Una (l) – one.
Ita = ita – Irish “thirst” + ita (l) – thus, so, in this way.
spill – to let out; to perish + still

l. 13 Cornelius Agrippa, Platonist, ‘natural magician’; tripudiary: Roman divination by behavior of sacred chickens when fed tribulations
drought = thirst
Aprippa  =  Agrippa I (“Herod Agrippa”) – king of Judaea a.d. 41-44
propastored = pro – – earlier than, prior to + pastor – to serve as pastor + propastor (l) – substitute shepherd
tripulations = tribulation – a condition of great affliction, oppression, or misery + [troubles in threes like Shem, Shaun and Issy]

l. 14 threne: dirge, lamentation; G fürdite Früchte: fear fruits; 49 of the Danaides, daughters of Aegyptus killed their husbands
threne = a song of lamentation + [about his troubles three]
furcht (ger) = fear + Frucht (ger) – fruit + furchte Fruchte (ger) – fear fruits; Aeneid II.49: ‘ Tineo Danaos et dona ferentes(I fear the Greeks, though they bring gifts); Gr nr ‘ ena melo, melo mou’ (one apple, my apple’)
Danaides = Danaids – 50 daughters of Danaus. Danaus commanded each daughter to slay her husband on the marriage night. They all obeyed except Hypermestra, who spared Lynceus. In punishment for their crime the Danaïds were condemned to the endless task of filling with water a vessel that had no bottom + Vergil, Aeneid II. 49.: timeo Danaos [et dona ferentes] (l) – “I fear the Greeks [when they bear gifts]”.
milo = Greek nursery rhyme: ‘ena mêlo, mêlo mou’: ‘one apple, my apple’

l. 15 s Tea for Two; two is three
frai = frei (ger) – free
Frau (ger) = woman

l. 16 L malum: bad; apple; ‘sycophant’ derived from Gr syko, fig; amygdalon
ana = Ana, Anu – earth goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, identical, Standish O’Grady says, with Dana, called in Cormack’s glossary mater deorum hibernensium. In Gaelic ana means “riches,” in Greek ana means, among other things, “back again, anew” + ana (one) (gael) – plenty, prosperity.
mala = mala (male) (gael) – bag, sack + mala (Serbian) – little; missy + malum (l) – bad; apple.
synchopanties = sycophant – informer + sykophantes (gr) – “fig-informer” (one who informed against illegal exporters of figs from Attica).+ [ undergarments]
amygdaleine = amygdaline – resembling an almond +[ almond=shaped section of the brain, the right amygdala is the source of fear and sadness, the left is the reward system]

l. 17 G Obst:fruit; Humpty Dumpty; medlar fruit
lumpkey = lucky + nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty
pumpkin = a stupid self important person

l. 18 Da fra sin fromme; søn: from his pious son; G fromme: pious; a city
slies = on the sly – secretly
Sin = Babylonian moon-god
fromm (ger) = pious + fra sin fromme søn (Danish) – from his pious son.

upin … in = upon – in + FDV: So there you are now they were, the four of them, sitting in their judge’s chambers around their old traditional tables of the law under the auspices of Lolly to talk it all over & over again. Festy and hyacinth and gentian and & not to forget a’duna o’darnel. That was four of them and thank Court now there were no more of them. So pass the push for port sake. Be it now soon. Ah ho! And I knew do you remember his father the same [in his monapoleums] behind the war of the two roses, old Minster York before he got his [paper] dispensation from the poke. I mind the smell of him like the vitriol vetriol works of a windy day & The O’Brine O’Briny rossies, the O’Moyly gracies chaffing his him redface bluchface & playing him pranks. How do you do, North Mister? Get into my way! till they had him the mon timed to the hifork pitch of fit to be tried. Ah, dearo me forsale forsailorshe! Yerra, why’d she heed that old gasometer & his hooping coffin [& his dying boosy cough] & all the boys birds of the south side after her, [[Minxy Cunningham,] jimmies & johnnies to be her jo]? Sure, I well remember him H2CE3, that’d take your breath away. Gob, I knew him well as meself too. Coming heaving up the east-end Kay Wall by the 32 to 11 with his limelooking horses bags, Old Whitehorse the Whiteside Kaffir with his painted voice puffing [out] brown cabbage. [Thaw him a gull, me pawsdeen fiunn!] Gomorro, says ses he, Lankyshy Lankyshies! Bugger ye! ses I, O breezes west! When I had her first when I was in my grandfather & that was up Sycomore Lane. Arrah Nick, ses she, you have the nock, ses she, with your poyhn, ses she, yerynn & I’d sooner sip to yr. mountain dew to kiss me than that old brewer’s belch.
muniment room = a storage room for preservation of family or sometimes official or parochial records, papers, notebooks + The Muniment Room of City Hall, Dublin contains municipal archives going back to the 12th century.
marshalsea – name of 2 Dublin jails, the City Marshalsea (dating from 1704) and the Four Courts Marshalsea (dating from 1580), both for petty debtors.

l. 21  auspices; alpha
suspices = auspices  – patronage and kindly guidance, protection + suspicio (l) – to mistrust.

Solans = Solon (638-558 B.C) – wise Athenian who replaced the severe Draconian laws. The solans are the Four as judges + Solanus (l) – the east wind

thesameagain =the same again – another drink of the same kind as the last

druly = truly
dry – impassive, unemotional, having clear impartial judgement
dring = on the drink – a time or occasion of drinking + dring- (ger) – press, penetrate.
accounting = accourt – to court + according
king’s evelyns = king’s evidence – one who gives evidence for the crown in british criminal proceedings [(notebook 1924): ‘King’s evidence’] + king’s evil – scrofula, tuberculosis of the lymph glands (formerly believed to be curable by royal touch).

kiss the bouc = to kiss the book – i.e. the Bible, New Testament, or Gospels, in taking an oath + bouc (fr) – goat.

l.30 gentian; beetroot; Betsy Ross: Am. woman reputed to have made first Am. flag; petticoat
beetyrossy = rossy (Anglo-Irish) – brazen woman

 

o’darnel = Dan O’Connell + darnel – a deleterious grass

l.32 pass the port; be it so
were no more of them = song One More Drink for the Four of Us: ‘Glory be to God that there are no more of us / For one of us could drink it all alone’.
push = fish

 

l.35 monopoly
pantaloons = trousers + pantaloon – the Venetian character in Italian comedy, represented as a lean and foolish old man, wearing spectacles, pantaloons, and slippers.
monopoleums = mono- (gr) – one-, single- + polemos (gr) – war

l. 36  War of the Roses; seamen’s; G PPriester: priest
sheemen = shaman – a priest or priest-doctor among various northern peoples of Asia.
preester = Priester (German) = priester (Dutch) – priest

 

Page 95

l. 1 papal dispensation; pope; Minos; menace

dispillsation = dispensation – Theol. A religious order or system, conceived as divinely instituted, or as a stage in a progressive revelation, expressly adapted to the needs of a particular nation or period of time, as the patriarchal, Mosaic (or Jewish) dispensation, the Christian dispensation.
poke = an annoyingly stupid individual + pope
Minace = Minos – Cretan king, son of Zeus, husband of Pasiphaë, father of Ariadne and Phaedra, patron of Daedalus, who built the labyrinth for him, in which was housed the Minotaur. After death, Minos became a judge in the underworld with Aeacus and Rhadamanthus.

l. 2 York Minster (Cathedral) (Lancashire in .18); Ballybough, district of D (had vitriol works); bock: he-goat
YORK = City, Yorkshire, North England. The archdiocese of York is 2nd only to Canterbury in the hierarchy of the Church of England. St Peter’s Cathedral is usually called the Minster, or York Minster. In the Wars of the Roses, the Anglo-Irish replicated the controversy, with the Butlers (Ormond) supporting York, and the rest of Ireland, led by the Geraldines, supporting Lancaster.

 

End (end of sentence “York?”) 95.02

 

100 Words: A few words about the personal exploration of this month’s text 

[These entries are somewhat random, thoughts that arise from reading the text and brief research about the page. These are hardly intended to be academic criticism.]

“Wind broke it. Wave bore it. Reed wrote of it. Syce ran with it. Hand tore it and wild went war.”

There is a children’s riddle about an apple pie. In 1808 “Z” published a version that said, “B bit it, C cried for it, D danced for it, E eyed it, F fiddled for it, G gobbled it, H hid it,….” There are many versions but one by the McLoughlin Brothers is notable because it  

departs from the emphasis on a single noun, focusing on verbs (e.g., give, bit, cut, eat, vow, hate), spiced with a few lines of adjective intent like “dry” and “good and great.” 

Campbell suggests that the Joyce adaptation reveals how the characters will react to the pie-letter: ALP attempting to carry it away, Issy blushing, Shem losing his luster, and Shaun acknowledging his shame. The world will erupt in a conflagration. The tale of the hen and the letter lies just ahead for us. For Joyce, it’s more about the effects of the accusation than about the dubious sin it reveals.

 

(FW) Finnegans Wake: Throwing Whimsey around Like Blazes pp 92.33 – 94.03

Contents

Sources

  • Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake
  • Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake
  • Combined Lexicon and Occasional Summaries from Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com) and Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake 

100 Words

[Note: My speculation will always appear in brackets so that you can easily ignore it.]

Sources

Pages 92.33 [Beginning of Paragraph] -94.03 [End of Paragraph]

 

Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake

Campbell and Robinson interpret: The four judges  [the For Old Men]  lay their wigs together and promulgated (93) their standing verdict of Nolan’s Brumans, 15 whereonafter King left the tribunal scott – free. His opposite stank briefs with the war cry, “Shun the Punman!” safely and soundly soccered that Poser all the way home to Drinkbottle’s Dwellings, where (as timid as your true Venus’ son, Esau) He shut himself away (like the lion in your zoo) while the girlies shouted insults through the door 16 (Campbell and Robinson 89). 

15 Nolens volens (“against one’s will”) transformed by contamination with Nolan Bruno.
16 Shem formula.

 

William York Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake

Tindall analyzes: Distracted by disorder in the court, the for “justicers,” Ulster, Munster, Pontius, and Pilate, lay their wigs together and arrive at a verdict of “Nolans Brumans”— the only possible verdict, since Bruno’s system has mixed things up. Leaving the court, “scotfree” (the Scottish verdict of “not proven”). King that “firewaterloover” (opposites joined in a Waterloo), receives the abuse of the twenty-eight “advocatesses,” who, in love with Shaun, the Post, cry, “Shun the Punman!” Festy King, with his Shem–side out, has become the author of Finnegans Wake, where he “murdered all the English he knew.” “The chassetitties belles,” like the general public, condemn this “Parish Poser,” who, like Joyce in Paris, a refugee from his parish, wrote all this garbage abaht our Farvver”— about H.C.E.  “You and your gift of your gaft… Hon!… Putor! Skam!” Seven words in seven languages confirm the shame of “Shames” Joyce (92.33- 93.21), who’s self–exposure is no less ignoble (Tindall 90).

Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com)
and
Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake [Entries below introduced by line numbers “l n.nn” and italicized]

Page 92.33

[And whereas] Distracted by [(for was not just this, [in effect,] which had just caused that the effect of that which it had caused to occur)] The four judges Unchus Uncius Munchus Muntius, Punchus and Pylax put their wigs together but could do no more than pass the usual sentence of Nolans Brumans & King having murdered all the English he knew left his court tribunal scotfree trailing his tunic in his hurry [& [thereinunder] proudly showing off the [blank] patch on to his britgits]. On To the Swiss bobbyguard’s curial but courtly courtlike: Commodore valley O hairy Arthery Arthre jennyrosy?: the firewaterloover replied returted with such a vinesmelling fortytudor ages rowdawnham rawdownhams tanyouhide that all the twofromthirty advocatesses within echo pulling up their briefs soc- pa- jus simply & safely & soundly soccered him imprumptu umprumptu rightaway like hames to Drinkbottle Dingy Dwellings like the muddy goalbird who he was, conclaiming: Hon! Verg! Putor! Nan! Putor! Sham! Shams! Shames!
distracted – mentally drawn to different objects; perplexed or confused by conflicting interests; torn or disordered by dissension or the like; much confused or troubled in mind.
justice  =  judge
laid their wigs together = Put their heads together – to have discussions together
Unitus = unctus (l) – anointed, oiled
Muncius = munitus (l) – fortified, safe + mun (mun) (gael) – urine.

Punchus and Pylax = Pontius Pilatus (l) – governor of Judaea in time of Christ + phylax (gr) – a guard.
promulgate – to proclaim

End of Page 92

l.93.01 nolens volens: willing or unwilling; Bruno of Nola

[murdered all the English he knew = the language as well as the people]
standing = that continues in existence or operation that continues to be (what the noun specifies); that does not pass away.
Nolens = nolens (l) – being unwilling + nolens volens (l) – willing or unwilling.
Brumens = bruma (l) – winter, midwinter + [Giordano Bruno of Nola] + [Brewman]
picked out = pick out – to take out by picking

l. 3 Da tomme lummer: empty pockets
tribunal = a court of justice; a judicial assembly
scotfree – exempt from injury, punishment, etc.
Tommeylommey’s = tomme lommer (Danish) – empty pockets
tunic – a garment resembling a shirt or gown, worn by both sexes among the Greeks and Romans; In modern costume. A close, usually plain body-coat.

l. 4 blind; Patrick; black patch
therein under – after, before, below in that document, statute, etc.
show off = to display with ostentation or pride
pitch = patch

l. 5 Brigid
britgits = [British britches, pants]
an’t = ain’t
plase = plase (Anglo-Irish Pronunciation) – please
rael = (Anglo-Irish Pronunciation) real
genteel = a genteel person; a gentleman (obs.)

l.6 The Curia: Papal Court; cf. Papal Swiss bodyguard; L. Qumodo vales hodie, Arator generose?: How fares your health today, noble gentleman?
Switz = Swiss – native to, or coming from, Switzerland + The Swiss Guard are the Pope’s own troops.
bobbyguard’s = bobby – policeman +  bodyguard – a guard for the person (esp. of a sovereign or dignitary); a retinue or escort.
curial = of or pertaining to a royal court, courtly + The Curia (Lat, “court”) Romana comprises the administrative and judicial institutions of the Roman Catholic Church.
courtlike = elegant, courtly

Commodore = ccommodo valeo (l) – I am seasonably well + quomodo valeo (l) – how I am well, how am I well + commodo (l) – seasonably, in time + quomodo (l) – how? + vale (l) – be well + valeo (l) – I am strong, I am well + Quomodo vales hodie, Arator generose? (l) – How fares your health today, noble gentleman? (Motif: How are you today, my dark/fair sir?).

l.7 Waterloo
hairy = heri (l) – yesterday + O’Hara
firewater – strong alcoholic beverage

l. 8 Motto of the House of Savoy: Fortitudo eius Rhodum tenuit (His Strength Has Held Rhodes); acronym FART; Li raudonas: red
rawdownhams = raudonas (Lithuanian) – red + Rhodanum (l) – the Rhône river.

l. 9 Latin; latten:brasslike alloy, used for crosses; Thomas Aquinas
latten stomach even of a tumass equinous = [Latin stomach of the corpulent…] + tumass equinous = Thomas Aquinas

clap clap = the sharp sound, applause + cap – head.

gush gash from a burner = gush (Slang) – smell +
gash = gas+ burner – the part of lamp or other fluid burning device where the flame is produced + Gas from a burner. [Trieste]: s.n., 1912. Joyce had this broadside printed in Trieste, where he was living at the time, and sent it to his brother Charles to distribute in Dublin. It is a highly personal attack on the publisher who refused to print Dubliners + REFERENCE

twofromthirty advocatesses = [28 (the number of Issy’s attending lunar handmaids)] + advocatess – a female advocate
brief – a formal or official letter, concise statement of a client’s case made for instruction of counsel in a trial at law. + [undergarments]

l. 13 G Krieg: war; Shem the Penman; ‘Jim the Penman’: James Townsend Savard, forger 
krigkry = (ger) war
shun = to shove, push + [dismiss, avoid]
soccer = the game of football as played under Association rules

l. 14 parish priest; Paris; impromptu
Poser = one who poses (to assume a certain attitude)
umprumptu = poser – one who poses (to assume a certain attitude)
rightoway = rightaway – at once, immediately, straightaway

l. 15 Angl makes a hames of:make a mess of; home; Gratiasagam: nickname for St. Patrick from his Gratias agamus reiteration in the Mass (‘let us give thanks’)
hame = home + make a hames of (Anglo-Irish) – make a mess of.
gratiasagam = gratias agamus (l) – let us give thanks + (notebook 1924): ‘Gratzagam’ → gratiasagam (grot’esogum) (gael) – nickname for St. Patrick, from his reiteration of Latin gratias agamus (when King Daire presented Saint Patrick with the gift of a cauldron, the latter is said, according to the former’s retelling, to have answered ‘Gratzacham’ as thanks, from Latin Gratias agamus: Let us give thanks).

l. 16 inkbottle
donatrices (l) = pl. of donatrix (a female donor or donator)
biss = viz – videlicet + [buss or bliss]

l. 17 Venus’ son Aeneas; venison purvey or Jacob; Robinson Crusoe [?]
venuson… dovetimid = [allusion to Aeneas] son of Venus (and Anchises). Doves are associated with Venus (O Hehir, Brendan; Dillon, John M. / A classical lexicon for Finnegans wake).
Esau – brother of Jacob, who sold his birthright (for a ‘mess of pottage’); one that sacrifices permanent for immediate temporary interest. When Isaac was old and blind, he sent Esau to hunt and bring him venison. On Rebecca’s advice, Jacob (a smooth man) put on a goatskin and carried venison to his father, who said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”
dear – dear one, darling + phrase timid as a deer.

Bottome = at bottom – in reality + bottom – the sitting part of a man, the posteriors + William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream I.2.75: ‘BOTTOM:… I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove’.

l. 19 dun:fort; chastity belt; L conclamo: cry out together
chasse = chasser (French Slang) – to flirt
conclaiming = conclamo (l) – to cry together; to call to arms

l. 20 ph gift of the gab; Da farver:colours; It gridando: shouting
gift of your gaft = gift of the gab – a talent for speaking, fluency of speech
Farvver = farver (Danish) – colours
gridando = (it) shouting

l. 21 F honte: shame; It vergogna: shame; L. pudor:shame; putor: foul smell; Da skam: shame; G Scham: shame
Hon = hon – sweetheart, dear; honourable + honte (fr) – shame.
Verge = verge (fr. slang) – penis + vergogna! (it) – shame!
Nau = naire (nare) (gael) – shame
Putor = putor – foul smell, stench + pudor (l) – shame.
Skam = skam (Danish) – shame

End of Paragraph

l. 22 The Four Ends of Life: artha (success), kāma (pleasure), dharma (duty) & moksha (enlightenment); Skt kavya: poet
artha = (hind.) wealth or property; the pursuit of wealth (one of four traditional aims in life).
kama = (hind.) pleasure and love
dharma = (hind.) moral law, justice, righteousness, ideal truth, nature
moksa = (hind.) salvation of finite existence
kavya = poetic composition in Sanskrit

l. 23 plaintiffs
kay = key
plaint = audible expression of sorrow, lamentation

l. 24 Angl plausy: flattery; U.5 ‘Thallata! Thalatta!’ (in Xenophon’s Anabasis, the cry of the Ten Thousand on sighting the sea); the sooner the better; sweeten bitter
plause – applause + plausy (Anglo-Irish) – flattery (from Anglo-Irish plás).
litter = odds and ends + litir (lit’ir) (gael) – letter + letter
soother the bitther = sooner the better

eyebrow pencilled = eyebrow pencil – a kind of crayon or pencil-like stick of colouring matter, for tinting the eye-brows, eyelashes, or lips, for theatrical or cosmetic purposes.
lipstipple penned =lipstick + stipple – the method of painting, engraving, etc. by means of dots or small spots, so as to produce gradations of tone. +penned – written (with a pen)
Borrowing = borrow – to make temporary use of (words, idioms, etc.) from a foreign language or people.

l. 26 thunder

l. 27 Mangan: ‘ O my dark Rosaleen, do not sigh, do not weep!’
begging the question = beg the question – to fail to deal with or answer effectively the point that is being discussed.
stealing tinder = steal one’s thunder – to adapt for one’s own ends something effective + tinder – fire; a spark.
dark Rosa Lane = Rosaleen, Dark – personification of Ireland, like Poor Old Woman, Cathleen Ni Houlihan, etc. Mangan’s poem begins, “My dark Rosaleen, do not sigh, do not weep…”

l. 28 Moore: s Lesbia Hath a Beaming Eye; s Kevin Barry; s The Arrow & the Song; ‘There is a green island in lone Gougane Barra Where Allua of songs rushes forth like an arrow
Loosha = louche (fr) – squint
the beam in one’s eye = a blemish as palpable as a house beam + Thomas Moore: song Lesbia Hath a Beaming Eye.
lone = solitary, lonesome
Coogan Barry, his arrow of song = J. J. Callanan’s poem, “Gougane Barra” (‘There is a green island in lone Gougane Barra / Where Allua of songs rushes forth like an arrow’) + Barry, Kevin (1902-20) – the first Republican to be executed by the British since the leaders of the Easter Rising. Barry was sentenced to death for his part in an IRA operation which resulted in the deaths of three British soldiers. A ballad bearing his name, relating the story of his execution, is popular to this day + song The Arrow and the Song.

Sean Kelly’s anagram = anagram – a transposition of the letters of a word, name, or phrase, whereby a new word or phrase is formed + Ingram, John Kells (1823-1907) – Irish poet, author of “The Memory of the Dead,” which begins: “Who fears to speak of ‘ 98?/Who blushes at the name?”

l. 30 John Kells Ingram: s The Memory of the Dead: ‘…who blushes at the name’; T. D. Sullivan: s God Save Ireland [Tramp, Tramp, Tramp]
Sullivan = Sullivan, T. D. – wrote “God Save Ireland,” sung to the tune of “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.” Joyce may confuse him with his brother, A. M. Sullivan, also a verifier.

l. 31 Dufferin: s Lament of the Irish Emigrant (I’m Sitting on the Stile, Mary’; s Kathleen Mavourneen ‘ It mat for years & it may be forever’John Philpot Curran: s Acushla Machree
Dufferin = Dufferin, Lady (1807-67) – R. B. Sheridan’s granddaughter, author of Lament of the Irish Emigrant, which begins: ‘I am sitting on
the stile, Mary.’)
Kathleen May Vernon = Kathleen Mavourneen – in the song “Kathleen Mavourneen”: “It may be for years and it may be forever. . .” + mavourneen (Anglo-Irish) – my darling.
Mebbe = maybe
Curran his scotchlove machreether = Curran, John Philpot (1750-1817) – Irish lawyer, defended several United Irishmen, father of Sarah Curran, author of “Mother Machree”.

 

l. 33 Ptolemy; II Philadelphia founded library at Alexandria
Phil Adolphos = Philadelphia – (“brotherly love”) was an ancient city of Asia Minor, is the capital of Pennsylvania to which Irish emigrants like Paddy Leary, in “Off to Philadelphia,” used to go + Ptolemy II Philadelphus (308-264 B.C.) – second Macedonian king of Egypt, founded Library at Alexandria. + [Note: Philadelphia is not the capital of Pennsylvania; that is Harrisburg.]
leery = alert, knowing, wide awake; empty, hungry + Leary, Paddy – subject of song “Off to Philadelphia in the Morning.”

l. 34 Lover, Samuel (1797-1868) – Irish songwriter and novelist; wrote song Molly Bawn.
Charles Lever: Ir novelist ; wrote Charles O’Malley; Samuel Lover: Ir. novelist & songwriter
Samyouwill Leaver or Damyouwell Lover = Irish songwriter and novelist; wrote song Molly Bawn.

 

l.35 s The Bowld Sojer Boy; s Finnegan’s Wake
molly = a pampered darling
saunter = a leisurely, careless, loitering walk or ramble; a stroll + song The Bowld Sojer Boy.
Finn again’s = O’Fionnagain (o’finegan) (gael) – descendant of Fionnagan (dim. of Fionn, “fair”); anglic. Finnegan + song Finnegan’s Wake (originally ‘Tim Finigan’s Wake’, written in the early 1860’s in New York City by John F. Poole, American-Irish playwright, songwriter and theatre manager).

l. 36 ph More power to your elbow!; I samhail: ghost
sowheel = soul + samhail (souwil) (gael) – ghost, apparition + phrase More power to your elbow!

End of Page 93

 

l. 1 s The Wearing of the Green; Gretna Green; greatness
on the green = on the green – on the stage + song The Wearing of the Green.
gretnass = Gretna – attrib. in reference to marriage without the parental consent.
joyboy (Slang) = homosexual

l.2 s Widdicombe Fair; ph Looks like Mulkdoon’s picnic (means everything is untidy)
Tom Mallon = Malone, Tom – Thomas Malone Chandler is the protagonist of “A Little Cloud”. In one recension of “Finnegan’s Wake,” Tim Malone is the mourner at whose head the bucket of whisky is thrown.
slapstick = knockabout comedy or humour, farce, horseplay

l. 3 Moate, village, C o. Westmeath; W.J. Ashcroft, D music hall performer ‘ The Solid Man’
MOATE = Village, County Westmeath. Its name derives from the nearby Mote of Grania. A “Muldoon’s picnic” is a chaotic mess.
Muldoons = Mullen, Tom Mallon, Dan Meldon, Don Maldon to be identical with Muldoon, and all identical with the ancient Irish hero Maelduin. A Muldoon’s Picnic, according to Mrs Atherton’s mother, is a complete shambles.
solid = of sound mind, sane, sober minded + W.J. Ashcroft, Dublin music hall performer, ‘The Solid Man’ (because of his famous rendering of song Muldoon the Solid Man), appeared in Dan Lowrey’s Music Hall.
sillied = silly – to make silly, to be silly + [sullied]

End 94.03

 

100 Words: A few words about the personal exploration of this month’s text 

[These entries are somewhat random, thoughts that arise from reading the text and brief research about the page. These are hardly intended to be academic criticism.]

[Tindall tells that the four judges represent the old Irish kingdoms:  Untius, Muncius, Punchus, and Pylax (FW 92.35-.36), and that two judges, Punchus and Pylax, both represent Pontius Pilate. Many FW characters revolt against integration into one psyche, splitting through a literary reproduction by mitosis. Shem and Shaun can’t share a body with a reprehensible wombmate; they separate. Pilate doesn’t; unsplit, he suffers ambivalence, fearing revolt, whether he executes Christ or spares Him. He institutionalizes “innocent nondecision,” a tradition and the politico’s pet ploy. Likewise, the ancient Irish kingdoms, Punchus (Connacht) and Pylax (Laighin), are respectively the most and least Celtic sections of an ambivalent Ireland.]

(FW) Finnegans Wake: Throwing Whimsey around Like Blazes pp 92.06- 92.32

Contents

Sources

  • Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake
  • Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake
  • Combined Lexicon and Occasional Summaries from Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com) and Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake 

100 Words

[Note: My speculation will always appear in brackets so that you can easily ignore it.]

Sources

Pages 92.06 [Beginning of Paragraph] -92.32 [End of Paragraph]

 

Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake

Campbell and Robinson break down this very dense paragraph: “The hilarious hoot of Pegger’s windup contrasted as neatly with the sad tone of the Wet Pinter’s 13 as were they, ‘this one’ and ‘that one,’ equals of opposites, evolved by a one–same power of nature or of spirit, which we may call ‘that other.’ [And here a great law is illustrated; the great law, namely, of Bruno the Nolan; the law underlying the historical polar play of brother opposites generated by a common father. The law is as follows:] (1) Direct opposites, since they are evolved by a common power, are polarized for reunion by the coalescence of their antipathies. (2). As opposites, nevertheless, their respective destinies will remain distinctly diverse. [Regard, for instantce, the contrasting experiences, in this court of law, of Pegger, and the Wet Pinter;] No sooner had Pegger concluded his statement than the maidie’s of the bar fluttered and flattered around him, complimenting him, sticking hyacinths through his curls, and bringing busses to his cheeks. And it was not unobserved that of one among them all he seemed blindly, mutely, tastelessly,  innamorate “(Campbell and Robinson 88-89).

88n13: The Wet Pinter is the witness, Shem.

 

William York Tindall’s A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake

Tindall reveals some minor differences from the Campbell and Robinson interpretation: “The next two lines (92 dot 6–7) are difficult. Bruno’s Hilary, and Tristapher, Pegger, and the Wet Pinter seem to be included in the following passage on Bruno’s ‘equals of opposites… polarized four reunion by the symphysis of their antipathies’ (92.7-11)— included but not altogether accounted for. Pegger (Pegger Festy, 91.1) is Earwicker, who got the “wind up” (was frightened) after his defeat by the Prankqueen (23.14) and who, by his testimony, wound up the case. But Pegger as Shaun is the witness against Earwicker, and the Wet Pinter is the attorney for the defense. (A West Pointer is a cadet or Cad from the new world, and a Wet Pinter is a drunk — or Shem.) But Sean, giving a ‘hilariohoot.’ Has changed places with Hilary – Shem; and shams ‘tristitone’ shows that he has become Tristopher – Shaun. The Prankqueen must have had a hand in the changes of these changelings. Earwicker, falling apart, is now his changeling sons. As Shaun, he is given an ovation, and as Shem, that stinker, he goes off into exile. ‘Distinctly different where their duadestinies.’

Twenty-eight moon girls,’maidies of the bar,’ acclaiming Shaun, the Post, ring their hero round, ‘stincking thyacinths through his curls,’ while that decorated witness, like lady Chatterley is gamekeeper, loses the senses he has relied on. Twenty-ninth in the ring, Isabel, ‘a lovelooking leapgirl’ (A.L.P.), approaches her ‘shayshaun’ as Kitty O’Shea her Parnell (92.12-32). Shaun is the rising son, and the girls, as they are going to be again in Chapter IX, are heliotropic” (Tindall 89-90).

Glosses of Finnegans Wake (finwake.com)
and
Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake [Entries below introduced by line numbers “l n.nn” and italicized]

Page 92.06

l.6 Bruno’s motto: In Tristitia: Hilaris Hilaritate Tristis;  P.W. (MacDonald’s abbr. for ‘Parnell Witness’); L cum: with
halariohoot = hilarious – boisterously joyous or merry; rollicking + hoot – a laugh; a shout, outcry. + [a lariat to rope rigged to capture from a distance]F
FDV: The hilarious hilariohoot of Pegger’s Windup contrasted so neatly with the tristitone of the wet pinter’s as were they opposites, evolved by the a power powers of nature & spirit as the sole means & condition of its manifestation, polarised for reunion by the symphysis of their antipathies. Distinctly different were their destinies. Whereas While the maidies of the bar clustered fluttered & flattered around the willingly pressed, complimenting him on having all his senses about him, sticking hyacinths in his hair curls, & bringing busses to his cheeks, legando round his nice new neck for him & pizzicando at his willywags woolywags it was not unobserved by the court their worships that for by one among all wild gentian of the hills[Makegiddculling] reeks, with in unmixed admiration he seemed blindly, mutely, hands over earsspeechlessly fascinatedanamourate when while with she herupor heruponhim shining aminglement, the shay of his shifting into the shimmering of hers till the wildwishwish of her shashay melted moist musically mid the dark deepdeep of his shayshaun.

l.7 “Every power in nature & in spirit must evolve an opposite as the sole means & condition of its manifestation, & all opposition is a tendency to reunion. This is the universal law of polarity or essential dualism, first promulgated… by Giordano Bruno (Coleridge, The Friend); W.P.; L isce et ille: this & that
Windup = wind up – closing, concluding + [To build momentum before throwing a ball or a punch]
cumjustled =cum – come + cum (l) – with + justle – to knock or push against, to come into collision with + combust – to burn up, consume with fire; fig. To consume or waste as fire does. + [ jostle]
neatly = so as to present a neat appearance; in a nicely finished way
tristitone = triste – sad {Earwicker’s fragile identity
splits apart under the strain of his examination and his consciousness is amalgamated with those of his two sons.

l. 8 G einsam: single
Although what remains of Earwicker is ultimately acquitted – for this courtroom permits no proper adjudication – the judges conclude by expressing their contempt for him. (Lee Spinks: James Joyce, a critical guide)} + [Tristan]
isce et ille (l) = this (emphatic) and that
onesame =einsam (ger) – lonely, single

l. 9 L site: that of yours; G hin und her: hither & thither
iste (l) = that of yours
sole = singular, unique + Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Friend: ‘Every power in nature and in spirit must evolve an opposite as the sole means and condition of its manifestation, and all opposition is a tendency to reunion. This is the universal law of polarity or essential dualism, first promulgated… by Giordano Bruno’.
himundher = hin und her (ger) – hither and thither + [him under]

l.10 Gr symphysis: growing together
symphysis = union or fusion of parts originally or normally separate

l.11 Gr duas: 2
duasdestinies = symphysis – union or fusion of parts originally or normally separate

l.12 barmaid; 30-2 = 28; peerless
pairless = peerless [or without a titled member  or peer]
trentene = 13 + trent (fr) -30 1trent + trente (fr) – thirty.

score = 12 + [or 20]
eranthus = eranthos (gr) – spring flower
myrrmyrred = murmurred + myrris (gr) – sweet cicely; myrtle.
Show’m the Posed = Shaun the Post

willingly – with a ready will, without reluctance: with various shades of meaning from ‘with acquiescence, submissively’ to ‘with pleasure, cheerfully, gladly’ or ‘wishfully, eagerly’
pressed  =  subjected to pressure, well dressed

Swiney = Sweeney – I cannot distinguish T. S. Eliot’s Sweeney among the Nightingales from the Irish king, Sweeney, who went mad and lived in trees with wild birds (Glasheen, Adaline / Third census of Finnegans wake).
captivating  =  that captivates or enthralls + captivate – to overpower with excellence, to enthrall with charm or attractiveness + Thomas Moore: Irish Melodies: song Sweet Innisfallen [air: The Captivating Youth]

thyacinth  =  hyacinth

l.18 I fíon: wine; I deur: tear; blushes; Arch buss:kiss
O deur = [odor]
busses = kisses

l.19 I oiris: knowledge, science; My Wild
Irish Rose
Oirisher Rose = song My Wild Irish Rose + (notebook 1924): ‘masculine Irish rose’ → Key: John McCormack, His Own Life Story 74: (of Lily Foley, a soprano and later McCormack’s wife) ‘She just stood there, like a feminine Irish rose, and brought everyone to her feet’.
neece cleur = nice color + kleur (Dutch)- colour

l.20 ‘legato’ opposite of ‘pizzacato’ (music); It pizzacare: to pinch;It pizzicagnolo: delicatessen
legando (it)  =  tying
pizzicagnoling = pizzicagnolo (it) – porkbutcher, delicatessen dealer, cheesemonger + pizzicare (it) – to pinch.

woolywags =golliwog – a name invented for a black-faced grotesquely dressed (male) doll with a shock of fuzzy hair.
dandy – very good, first rate, fine + song Handy Spandy
sugar candy – sugar clarified and crystallized by slow evaporation; fig. Something sweet, pleasant, or delicious + Joyce’s note: ‘sugar de candy’ →Douglas: London Street Games 40: (a chant) ‘Charlie likes whisky, Charlie likes brandy, Charlie likes kissing girls — O sugar-de-candy’.
machree  =  my dear, my heart + song Mother Machree

postheen = Fion, Paustheen – an Irish air +  mo phaistin (mufashtin) (gael) – my little child + mo phuistin (mufushtin) (gael) – my little post.
notebook 1923: courier (facteur) i.e. postman
belive them of all his untiring young dames = Thomas Moore: Irish Melodiessong: Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms

l.22 peace in our time; Hymen

present  =  a person that is present
worship – a person of importance

l.24 defend; defame
deputised = deputize – to appoint as a deputy (a person delegated or sent (alone or as a member of a deputation) to act in the place of those who send him)
defeme = defame – to attack the good fame or reputation of (a person); to dishonour by rumour or report + [to describe as feminine]

l.25 It gemma:gem
alonely  =  solitary, lonely + Joyce’s note: ‘all all alonely’ → Douglas: London Street Games 47: (a chant) ‘Three little children sitting on the sand, All, all a-lonely’
Gentia = gentian – any plant belonging to the genus Gentiana
gemma  =  bud + Gentica Gemma (l) – national gem + gemma (it) – gem (also feminine proper name)

l.26 Macgugillycuddy’s Reeks, Co. Kerry; WP
McGILLYCUDDY’S REEKS  =  Mountain (“reek”) range West of Killarney, County Kerry. Boucicault’s Coleen Bawn had her cottage there. The hereditary title of the chief is “The M’Gillycuddy of the Reeks.”

l.27 (086.32-3)
innamorate  = inamorate – to inspire with love, to enamour

aminglement = minglement – the action of mingling; a mixture
shaym = shame + shine + [Shem]
hisu  =  [his issue (offspring)]

shimmering = shimmer – to shine with a tremulous or flickering light; to gleam faintly
youthsy: Joyce’s note: ‘youth, sir, tey’
hee’s her chap = Douglas: London Street Games 3: ‘Catch… Two boys stand at each side of the road and one in the middle, that’s Hee. One of them tries to get the ball over middles head for the other to get it but if middle gets it the throer goes Hee’ + Joyce’s note: ‘Hee middles’
Joyce’s note: ‘her chap’

shey’ll tell memmas when she gays whom = home + Joyce’s note: ‘I’ll tell ma when I get home’ → Douglas: London Street Games 29: (a chant) ‘I’ll tell Ma when I get home That the boys won’t leave me alone. They pull my hair and break my comb, I’ll tell Ma when I get home’.

l.32 I sí: she; I sé: him; season
wishwish of her sheeshea = [swish of her sashay]

End of Paragraph 92.32

100 Words: A few words about the personal exploration of this month’s text 

[These entries are somewhat random, thoughts that arise from reading the text and brief research about the page. These are hardly intended to be academic criticism.]

This passage serves up claims of guilt and innocence originating from the accused himself. The argument springs from Giordano Bruno of Nola’s thinking. Joyce, who makes all things universal and all things universal, particularly Irish, renames him Bruno the Nolan.

The Nolan was army-brat-turned-Dominican known for an uncanny memory. But Bruno contended that all Truth was relative and had to be viewed as a product of perspective. Perfect memory can, therefore, still be fallible. Speaking for HCE and myself, I’ll testify as expert witness that memory is the Grand Inquisitor and relentless prosecutor. HCE’s memory is so prodigious that he may be able to remember sins that he never committed (though he may have enjoyed the temptation). His memories are virulent too but split between Shem (sinner) and Shaun (auto de fé). They are the pugilists Excuse v Remorse in the Main Event on the boxing card that is the human psyche.