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The Internet Oxen of the Sun (Ulysses ch14)

  1a           1b          1c        2a        2b       2c, this page
Arvals       Mandeville   Pepys    Goldsmith  Lamb       Dickens
Sallust      Malory       Defoe    Burke      DeQuincey  Newman
Malmesbury   Elizabethan  Swift    Sheridan   Landor     Pater
Anglo-Saxon  Milton       Addison  Junius     Macaulay   Ruskin
moralities   Bunyan       Sterne   Gibbon     Huxley     Carlyle
                                   gothic                slangs

the Oxen coda consists of some 400 sentence-fragments in ten paragraphs. all but the first sentence are spoken slang, without attributions, so it's like listening in the pitch dark to many simultaneous voices, and trying to determine who's saying which, and what they mean-- a staggering puzzle!

one of the main categories of clue is that most of the slang expressions fit into certain fixed categories: song-lyrics, Cockney, Scots, Oxford, Latin, pidgin, French, military, American, sport, babytalk, Romany, US black, etc.

detailed analysis: [ftp txt] [notes]

All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street.

'buster' = drinking bout
'armstrong' = with arms linked

cf ch7: "All off for a drink. Arm in arm." [Eolus]

Bonafides. Where you slep las nigh? Timothy of the battered naggin. Like ole Billyo.

bonafide travellers could drink later than the usual 11pm closing

sir Timothy O'Brien was a popular c1800 publican located near St Patrick's Cathedral, who was called "The Knight of the Battered Naggin" perhaps because his deformed cups allowed him to serve less than full measures.

maybe one of the revellers is playfully challenging another for his bonafides, and he replies that he stayed at Sir Timothy's???

(I suspect that thruout this section Joyce is playing games with our expectations about alternating speakers, trying to maximize our confusion.)

'like old Billyo' normally means 'with great speed'

Any brollies or gumboots in the fambly? Where the Henry Nevil's sawbones and ole clo?

'brollies' = contraceptive diaphragms
'gumboots' = condoms
(so the speaker is almost certainly Bannon)

'Where the Henry Nevil' = where the devil (rhyming slang)
'sawbones' = the surgeon, Dixon
'ole clo' = Bloom, because he and Molly sold old clothes ten years earlier [Sirens]

Sorra one o me knows. Hurrah there, Dix! Forward to the ribbon counter. Where's Punch? All serene.

'Sorra one o me' = sorrow one of me = devil one of me = not one of me (Scots, implies Crotthers)

'Punch' = Punch Costello

'All serene' = correct, safe, favorable (this was a saying of JAJ's 'uncle' William O'Connell, aka Uncle Charles: PoA2)

Jay, look at the drunken minister coming out of the maternity hospal! Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius. A make, mister. The Denzille lane boys.

'Jay' = Jesus (euphemism)
Stephen, dressed in black and wearing a soft hat, resembles a Protestant minister, and blesses the street urchins (Oxen-note: "SD salutes the urchins, himself in them.")

Latin = "May Almighty God bless you, Father and Son" (the filial blessing in the Dismissal portion of the Mass)

'A make' = a halfpenny
'Denzille lane boys' = slang for the Invincibles, supposedly

Hell, blast ye! Scoot. Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of the bleeding limelight. Yous join uz, dear sir? No hentrusion in life. Lou heap good man. Allee samee dis bunch.

'Isaacs' = Jew (ie, Bloom)
'heap good': (American Indian expression)

someone is inviting Bloom along, probably Dixon who knows Bloom is a good man, and who sees the rest as all-the-same

so probably it was Dixon cursing the boys, and Bloom more gently saying 'Scoot'

En avant, mes enfants! Fire away number one on the gun. Burke's! Burke's! Thence they advanced five parasangs. Slattery's mounted foot. Where's that bleeding awfur? Parson Steve, apostates' creed! No, no, Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead.

French = "Forward, my children" (the French speaker may be Lenehan or Costello, or SD?)

five parasangs = 17 miles (a cliche from Xenophon's Anabasis: [etext] stats. Mulligan quoted Anabasis in ch1 [Thalatta] and Simon mentions Xenophon in ch7: Eolus)

'Slattery's mounted foot': comic song by Percy French about a private army of cowards and drunks [lyrics&autostart midi] [melody-gif]

'awfur' = author (plus awful)
'Steve': historically, this should be Madden/Davin/Clancy, who called James 'Jim' (or 'Jebh') [cite]

'apostates' creed': parody of Apostles' Creed [etext] Stephen recalls the parody in ch9, crediting it properly to Johann Most [Scylla]

'Abaft' = toward the rear (stern) of a ship

'No, no, Mulligan!': the revellers are progressing chaotically along Holles street. it may be that Mulligan started off in the wrong direction-- even trying to sneak away from Stephen? or maybe someone is contesting who wrote the blasphemous parody.

Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee! What's on you? Ma mère m'a mariée.

'Keep a watch on the clock': an Oxen-note credits this to Dixon

it's almost 11pm (closing time)

'Mullee' = Mulligan
'What's on you?' = what's bothering you (cf Citizen to Garryowen in ch12: Cyclops)

'Ma mère m'a mariée' = My mother has married a husband off on me (from a bawdy French song about a woman with a tiny husband)

probably this is Mulligan explaining/complaining that he has to meet Haines at the train station at 11:10

British Beatitudes! Ratamplan Digidi Boum Boum. Ayes have it.

one faction wants Stephen to recite his parody of the Beatitudes, another faction prefers Most's Creed

'Ratamplan Digidi Boum Boum": Gifford claims this is a refrain in "Ma mere...". 'rataplan' = drumbeat (French)

'Ayes' = votes of the Beatitudes-faction?

To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two designing females. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in art shades. Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my time.

'To be printed': the text of Stephen's parody, presumably (cf Haines' proposed collection of SD's sayings? Telem)

'Druiddrum' = Druid + Dundrum (Ratamplan... Druiddrum)
Yeats' sisters started the Dun Emer Press in 1903 in Dundrum, primarily to publish deluxe editions of Yeats's poetry.

'Calf covers' = slaughtered oxen
'pissedon green': Bloom will be reminded of this joke (crediting it to Mulligan) when he notices a 'discolouration' on the seat of the easychair in his livingroom [Ithaca]

'art shades': cf Mulligan in ch1 "A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen." [Telem]

'Most beautiful book': cf Mulligan in ch9 "The most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time." [Scylla] misquoting Yeats' 1902 preface to Lady Gregory's 'Cuchulain' "I think this book is the best that has come out of Ireland in my time." [Wayback]

Silentium! Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are (atitudes!) parching.

'Silentium' = silence (Latin)
'Get a spurt on' = get a move on 'Tention' = attention (military slang) also tension?
'annex': Odysseus's men stealing the sacred oxen

"Tramp, Tramp, Tramp The Boys Are Marching" was a Civil War marching song about imprisoned soldiers waiting to be freed by their fellows [RealAud] [gif]

'atitudes' = be-atitudes, attitudes

Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs, battleships, buggery and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beerbeef trample the bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers. Thunderation! Keep the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops boosebox.

by analogy with Matthew 5 [KJV] we should imagine King Edward reciting "Blessed are the drinkers of beer, blessed are the eaters of beef, etc"

this scene will be re-hallucinated by Stephen in ch15: "(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fast past in noisy marching.) THE BEATITUDES: (Incoherently.) Beer beef battledog buybull businum barnum buggerum bishop." [Circe]

'Whether on the scafford high... When for Irelandear... We fall': lyrics from 'God Save Ireland' [etext] (tune borrowed from 'Tramp Tramp Tramp': midi)

Halt! Heave to. Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You hurt? Most amazingly sorry!

'Heave to' = turn to face bad weather; stop; stop and turn
'Heave' = vomit; pull on rope (cf pull alltogether, below)

'Scrum' = "A tight formation between the two opposing teams in readiness for the ball to be put in the tunnel between the two front rows and brought out into play" (aka scrummage) [cite]

'touch kicking' = punting the ball out of bounds [rugby] (Oxen-note: "free (touch kicking)")

they're now outside Burke's, and find something-- a bottle, or a stone?-- to use for rugby. Stephen will discover in ch16 that he's hurt his hand [Eumeus] --perhaps he's calling his hands 'tootsies' here.

Query. Who's astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall. Declare misery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me this week gone.

'damnall': cf Heron in Portrait [PoA2]
'Declare misery' = declare bankruptcy? 'Bet' = beaten, (or lost a bet?) cf "on the ropes" in boxing context [Cyclops]

'nantee' = not any (slang?)
'saltee' = a penny (Parlyaree jargon, Italian-based)

not a red cent (Americanism)
at me: literal translation of Irish 'agam'

so here are five different speakers pleading penury

Yours? Mead of our fathers for the Übermensch. Dittoh. Five number ones.

'Yours': someone-- likely Stephen-- is generously taking responsibility for the bill

(cf Homer-- Eurylochus convinces the men to violate their oath: Butcher-Lang)

'Übermensch': probably Mulligan

'number ones' = bottles of Bass Ale

You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the cabby's caudle. Stimulate the caloric. Winding of his ticker. Stopped short never to go again when the old.

'sir': probably Bloom, addressed by Stephen, Dixon, or the barkeep

'Ginger cordial': a temperance drink [recipe]

'Chase me': cf Virag in ch15 "Chase me, Charley!" [Circe] also Moynihan in Portrait "Chase me, ladies, I'm in the cavalry!" [PoA5]

'caudle' = warm wine or ale with sugar, egg, bread, spices, for the ailing (cabbies can't drink and drive)

'caloric': Bloom's feeling a chill?

'Winding of his ticker': as Nosey Flynn affirmed in ch8 "If you ask him to have a drink first thing he does he outs with the watch to see what he ought to imbibe" [Lestryg] but he notices now that his watch stopped at 4:30 (end of Sirens)

'Stopped short never to go again when the old': from 1876 hit 'My Grandfather's Clock' [lyrics]

(Joyce plays on the ambiguity of 'ticker' for watch or heart, with the ginger drink metaphorically 'winding' Bloom's heart.)

Absinthe for me, savvy? Caramba! Have an eggnog or a prairie oyster.

'Absinthe': possibly Stephen's order
'Caramba' = yikes! (Spanish) 'prairie oyster': a hangover cure [recipe]

(if Stephen ordered the absinthe, can Bloom be the one advising moderation, already?)

Enemy? Avuncular's got my timepiece. Ten to. Obligated awful. Don't mention it.

'Enemy': how goes the enemy? = what time is it?
'Avuncular' = Bloom; or ambiguously here, slang for the pawnbroker

apparently Bloom has borrowed a watch to reset his. (Oxen-note: "LB sets watch right")

Got a pectoral trauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got bet be a boomblebee whenever he wus settin sleepin in hes bit garten. Digs up near the Mater. Buckled he is. Know his dona? Yup, sartin, I do. Full of a dure. See her in her dishybilly. Peels off a credit. Lovey lovekin. None of your lean kine, not much. Pull down the blind, love.

Dixon is filling someone in on what he knows about Bloom.

'Pos' = positive
'whenever': (why this form?)
'Digs' = lodgings (theatrical slang)
'Mater' = Mater Misericordia Hospital in Eccles Street
'Buckled' = married
'Full of a dure' = 'the full of a door' = an ample woman
'See': (why not 'Seen'?)
'dishybilly' = deshabille (French + pun = Lenehan???)
'lean kine': in Genesis 41 [KJV] Pharaoh's dream of seven lean years (interpreted by Joseph) a note for Oxen reads "Joseph's dream"

Zoe to LB in ch15: "Come and I'll peel off." [Circe]

'Pull down the blind, love': music hall song refrain, a woman's preparation for lovemaking

Molly will remember a peeping med student, but his name was Penrose and it was fifteen years earlier [Penelope]

Two Ardilauns. Same here. Look slippery. If you fall don't wait to get up. Five, seven, nine. Fine!

'Two Ardilauns' = two pints of Guinness (Ardilaun Guinness)

'Same here': probably the standard joke, pretending to think the order was two-for-one-drinker instead of two-for-two

early draft had "Same here look slippery"

'Look slippery' = look sharp? = head's up

'If you fall don't wait to get up' = 'hurry!'

maybe Stephen is keeping track of the drinks he's stood so far: 5 Bass + 2 Guinness + 2 Guinness? or maybe counting out the coins?

Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And her take me to rests and her anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. Your starving eyes and allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O gluepot.

'mincepies... rests... rum': rhyming slang for eyes, breasts, bum

'no kid' = no kidding (cf Zoe to SD in ch15: "No kid." Circe)

'rests' = beds, couches
'anker' = 8 1/2 gallons

'Your starving eyes and allbeplastered neck' = Your starry eyes and alabaster neck?

'allbeplastered' = Bloom's bee plaster?

'gluepot' = the smell of cum (slang) (part of a subtle motif haunting Bloom, post-wank: "omelette on the belly" [Circe] "Jewman's melt!" Circe)

Sir? Spud again the rheumatiz? All poppycock, you'll scuse me saying. For the hoi polloi. I vear thee beest a gert vool.

Bloom is emptying his pockets, perhaps to give Bannon the condom-- perhaps in unbuttoning his suitcoat he's released the gluepot-odor?

'the hoi polloi': solecism ('hoi' = 'the')
'I vear thee beest a gert vool' = I fear you are a great fool

for once, Bloom is seen as more superstitious than others.

Well, doc? Back fro Lapland? Your corporosity sagaciating OK? How's the squaws and papooses? Womanbody after going on the straw? Stand and deliver. Password. There's hair.

'Lapland' = the society of women; or the female sex; or the maternity hospital; or the ends of the earth

'Your corporosity sagaciating OK?' = 'you doing okay?' (heard by JAJ late 1921 from Myron Nutting: see e519)

'Womanbody' = woman
'on the straw' = in childbed
'deliver': pun (obstetrician, highwayman)

'There's hair': supposedly, a musichall song where girlfriends, the Prince of Wales, and an orangutan all admire the singer's hair with this phrase. (likely: double entendre re pubic hair?)

cf Nameless in ch12, looking at the Police Gazette: "--O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is! --There's hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off of that one, what?" [Cyclops]

Ours the white death and the ruddy birth. Hi! Spit in your own eye, boss! Mummer's wire. Cribbed out of Meredith.

'Ours the white death and the ruddy birth": from Swinburne [etext] cf Mulligan betraying SD to Haines in ch10: "--They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell. He will never capture the Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the white death and the ruddy birth. That is his tragedy. He can never be a poet..." [WRocks]

'Spit in your own eye': cf? WWI toast: Here's mud in your eye

Oxen notes: "'O ours is the ruddy birth.' SD spits. ?Dixon suave, civil. SD wishes to ?Irish him but no. ?Kerwe's" So Mulligan quotes Swinburne, and SD spits in anger???

maybe: Mulligan considers that his own carelessness about death-etc is the proper attitude for a poet, as in Swinburne's poem. Stephen must believe the opposite, that unless you care enough to fight you'll be stuck in history's slavery.

SD's telegram [Scylla] said "The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done" from Merdith's 'The Ordeal of Richard Feverel'. An Oxen-note makes it clear that Mulligan read it aloud this evening at George Moore's soiree, and it was Moore who spotted the source.

Jesified orchidised polycimical jesuit! Aunty mine's writing Pa Kinch. Baddybad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi.

'orchidised': some kind of medical reference to testicles (Greek 'orkhis')-- Gifford suggests 'having inflamed testicles'

'polycimical' = infested with bedbugs (cimex = bedbug)

'Aunty mine's writing Pa Kinch': Pa Kinch was himself threatening to write Mulligan's aunt: "But with the help of God and His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother or his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate." [Hades]

Carlyle used 'goody-good' [etext]

Hurroo! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the nappy. Here, Jock braw Hielentman's your barleybree. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot boil! My tipple.

'Collar the leather' = grab the football?

maybe: Odysseus uses an oxhide to fashion a raft as his ship is sinking [Butcher-Lang]

'Roun': round? run?
'nappy': beer or ale (18th C)

'Jock' = J. Crotthers?
'Jock braw Hielentman': from a drinkingsong by Robert Burns "Sing hey my braw John Highlandman!" [lyrics&midi]

'Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot boil!' = Long may your chimney smoke and your soup pot boil (Scots)

tipple: any drink [def]

Merci. Here's to us. How's that? Leg before wicket. Don't stain my brandnew sitinems.

'How's that?': in cricket, an appeal to the umpire (eg, asking beforehand is one's own/ another's stance okay?)

'Leg before wicket': cricket expression for cheating by blocking one's wicket

earlier draft: 'Don't splash my new sit in ems' (who's wearing new pants? not SD) did they almost get dripped on because his leg was in the wrong place? eg, up on the bar's footrailing?

Give's a shake of pepper, you there. Catch aholt. Caraway seed to carry away. Twig? Shrieks of silence.

someone's eating... an egg? meat? a prairie oyster?
'Catch aholt': is the pepper-shaker being passed?

'Caraway seed': used to disguise alcohol on breath

'Twig?' = do you understand? (probably Lenehan, cf 'get the wheeze?' in ch7)

'Shrieks of silence': nobody laughed at Lenehan's joke, probably because the atmosphere is tense after SD spat

the following section seems to be the crowd being polled about going to nighttown together:

Every cove to his gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. Les petites femmes.

'Every cove to his gentry mort': from Richard Head's 1673 'The Canting Academy' cf "No Gentry Mort hath prats like thine/ No Cove e're wap'd with such a one" = approx 'No silken Girl hath thighs like thine, No Doe was ever buck'd like mine' [cite]

cove = fellow
'mort' = woman shared by gypsies (cf Beaumont and Fletcher, above)

'Venus Pandemos' = the common goddess of all the people (cf Venus Urania, her heavenly complement: Plato)

Les petites femmes = prostitutes ('Les petites femmes des boulevards', from an American song, 'Desperado') [naughty postcards]

Bold bad girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at her. Hauding Sara by the wame.

so Bannon is headed back to Mullingar, having apparently gotten his condom... from Bloom?

'axing': JAJ to SJ, 15 March 1905 "Nora says I am to tell you she is axing at you!"

'Hauding Sara by the wame' = holding Sara by the waist (Scots)

longshot: Aunt Sara = JAJ's Aunt Josephine

an earlier draft had 'Mine.' after '...wame.'

On the road to Malahide. Me? If she who seduced me had left but the name.

Kipling: On the road to Mandalay (dreaming of running off with a Burmese girl) [etext]

(but Malahide [map] and Mullingar [map] are in opposite directions!?)

'Me?' = 'You're asking me where I'm going from here?' (maybe)

"When he who adores thee has left but the name": Thomas Moore song: (paraphrase) will you weep for me when I'm being defamed, after dying for you? [lyric]

Oxen-note: "Venus Pandemos. (to the woman who seduced him)"

'wame... name': hidden rhyme?

What do you want for ninepence? Machree, Macruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull alltogether. Ex!

9d = cost of whore, or of drinks?

'cruiskeen' = my drinking jug (Irish drinking song: lyrics)
Moll Peatley's jig = fuck (Dublin slang)

nautical saying: "A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together" [info]

'pull' = long drink

'Ex!' = 'drink up!' (German student slang) (Latin? [dict] maybe from 'exbibo'? def )

Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like seeing as how no shiners is acoming, Underconstumble?

'Waiting': in Paris the convention in bars was to pay at the end of the night, not cash-on-delivery as in Ireland. Stephen has volunteered to pay but (apparently) forgotten that the time is now.

'deciduously' = decidedly (pun, maybe Lenehan)

the Oxen coda has been seen as corresponding to the afterbirth, which technically should consist of the placenta, the umbilical cord, and the decidua [cite]

'shiners' = any silver or gold coins

'Underconstumble' = understand, plus underconstable plus stumble (coinage credited Swift's Polite Conversation)

the allusion to constables may be a veiled threat to call a cop if the drinks aren't paid for

He've got the chink ad lib. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. Us come right in on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the oof. Two bar and a wing.

'chink' = money
'ad lib' = ad libitum = as much as one likes

i saw nearly three pounds on him a short time ago that he said was his

'oof' = money
'Two bar and a wing' = two shillings and a penny = 25p

You larn that go off of they there Frenchy bilks? Won't wash here for nuts nohow. Lil chile velly solly. Ise de cutest colour coon down our side. Gawds teruth, Chawley. We are nae fou. We're nae tha fou. Au reservoir, Mossoo. Tanks you.

'bilks' = swindlers

'coon' = black person (Amer); knowing fellow (Eng)

"We are na fou, we're nae that fou" = We are not drunk (full), we're not that drunk (from Burns' "Willie Brew'd A Peck O' Maut") [translation]

'Au reservoir': Lenehan?

'Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir.

"'Tis": (what is what? maybe someone said 'good evening'?) 'What say?' = shall we? (or, what did you say?)

perhaps we're hearing one side of a conversation, the other side being spoken softly/privately? so 'In the speakeasy' and 'Tight' might be answers to unheard questions.

'I shee you': maybe 'I get your point'

Bantam, two days teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have a glint, do. Gum, I'm jiggered.

'teetee' = TT = teetotal
'Bowsing' = drinking (to excess, for enjoyment
"One time nought but claret drinking": song, The Rakes of Mallow [lyrics&midi]

Bantam here may serve as an Odysseus-figure, resisting the temptation to eat Helios's sacred oxen

'Garn' = go on, get away with you (Cockney)
'glint' = glance, look
'Gum' = God (euph)
'I'm jiggered' = i'll be damned ( = Jesus + buggered?)

this is all just teasing Bantam Lyons. he's turned up earlier in Dubliners [Boarding] [IvyDay?] in ch5 [Lotus] and ch8 [Lestryg]

since ch5 and ch14 are symmetrical poles (overreligious and over-irreligious), Lyons' double-appearance should illuminate these motifs

And been to barber he have. Too full for words.

'been to barber he have': cf JAJ "The double-thudding Anglo-Saxon motive recurs from time to time... to give the sense of the hoofs of oxen."

'barber': cf LB in ch5: "Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove!" [Lotus]

'Too full for words': this expression is normally applied sentimentally to hearts, but Bloom deflated it in ch5 by applying it to horses with their mouths full [Lotus]

With a railway bloke. How come you so? Opera he'd like? Rose of Castile. Rows of cast. Police! Some H2O for a gent fainted. Look at Bantam's flowers.

'railway bloke': mysterious, unless it's Lenehan punning even more clumsily than usual. (is Bantam carrying roses?)

'How come you so?' how come you say so? (or, how did you become so?)

Cyclops note: "Bantam Lyons buys flowers for girl: drunk fall about"

Gemini, he's going to holler. The colleen bawn, my colleen bawn. O, cheese it! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a firm hand.

'holler' = sing?

'colleen bawn': there was a 1906 song of this name [pic], but probably others earlier, too

'cheese it': Dent suggests Joyce relied on a dictionary that mistakenly glosssed this as 'be quiet' (instead of 'run away')

'blurry' = bloody
'Dutch oven' = mouth (maybe boxing slang, implying Punch Costello)

Had the winner today till I tipped him a dead cert. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the jady coppaleen.

Lenehan is speaking of Lyons (see ch10 WRocks)

'dead cert': cf Lenehan in ch7: [Eolus]

JAJ: "The ruffin cly etc is gipsy = the devil take the head of S.H. who gave me (the name) of) the good-for-nothing little horse (ie. which did not win Gold Cup)"

'The ruffin cly the nab' = The devil take the head (...of the constable) (from Head's Canting Academy)

'Stephen Hand' = historical Dubliner who illegally intercepted a bad racing tip (but on a different date)

'jady': 'jade' = good for nothing or vicious horse
'coppaleen' = little horse (Anglo-Irish)

Atherton suggests Lenehan is using cant to obscure the incriminating details from any potential eavesdroppers, as criminals do.

cf Odysseus's men stealing the sacred oxen

He strike a telegramboy paddock wire big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joey and grahamise. Mare on form hot order.

JAJ: "Telegramboy etc = S.H met a telegramboy who was bringing a private racing telegram from the stable of the celebrated English brewer Bass to the police depot in Dublin to a friend there to back B's horse Sceptre for the Cup. S.H. gives boy 4 pence, opens the telegram over steam (grahamising), recloses it and sends the boy on with it, backs Sceptre to win and loses. (This really happened and his name was Stephen Hand though it was not the Gold Cup)"

'strike' = come upon?
'joey' = fourpenny piece
'Mare on form' = Sceptre is in good shape to win
'hot order' = favorite, with heavy betting

Guinea to a goosegog. Tell a cram, that. Gospeltrue. Criminal diversion? I think that yes. Sure thing. Land him in chokeechokee if the harman beck copped the game. Madden back Madden's a maddening back.

'Guinea to a goosegog' = long odds
'goosegog' = gooseberry

Skeffington coincidentally tells a story of JAJ betting him he wouldn't buy a halfpenny's worth of gooseberries and pay with a gold sovereign [e62]

'cram' = a lie
'Tell a cram' = telegram (pun)
'chokee' = prison
'harman beck' = constable (Richard Head)

'Madden... Madden': Sceptre ridden by O. Madden, bet on by W Madden

O, lust, our refuge and our strength. Decamping. Must you go? Off to mammy. Stand by. Hide my blushes someone. All in if he spots me.

JAJ: "'O, lust, our refuge and our strength' 'John Thomas, her spouse' 'Through yerd our Lord, Amen' parodies of phrases in the prayer read after Low Mass in the language of the country, written by Leo XIII. [etext] It begins 'O God, our refuge + our strength' and goes on. Other phrases are 'Saint Joseph, her spouse,' 'Through Christ our Lord. Amen'. John Thomas and yerd are slang and O.E. for Schwanz"

Bloom overheard the 'official' version in ch5: [Lotus]

'mammy': (someone is married? or is this Mulligan towards Haines?)

'Hide my blushes': Lenehan hiding from Lyons? (not Bannon from Bloom-- too early) maybe Mulligan from SD? (longshot: echoes Beaumont & Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy: "...hide The blushes of the bride" etext)

Comeahome, our Bantam. Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel.

'Horryvar, mong vioo' = au revoir, mon vieux = goodbye old fellow (French)

'cowslips': Bantam's flowers are for his new girl, for whom he shaved to look younger ...so he's going to meet her at 11pm?!?

Atherton thinks Bantam is married, and so is perhaps hoping to smooth over after a fight? but in Lotus he seems an aging bachelor...

Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt?

'Wha gev ye thon colt?' = Who gave you that colt? (earlier draft)

someone (Lenehan?) asks: confide in me. who gave you that colt?

Throwaway was a five-year-old, not a colt

colt: maybe 'cold', or girl? (ie, Milly)

hypothesis: earlier we heard: "...Alec Bannon, who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or a cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars..." [Oxen]

since Bannon was definitely definitely after a condom, with no other suggestion of a military appointment (colour or cornetcy), Joyce may be using a 'co-' code, with 'colt' again standing for 'condom' here.

Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her spouse. No fake, old man Leo.

'Jannock' = honest, candid (Eng slang)
'Of John Thomas, her spouse' = of St Joseph her spouse (parody)
'John Thomas' = penis

JAJ: "...John Thomas and yerd are slang and O.E. for Schwanz"

'old man Leo': either Lyons is crediting Bloom with giving him the Throwaway tip, or Bannon is crediting him for the condom (or for Milly herself, the coltish girl?)

'Leo': if it's Bannon, he may just have Bloom's first but not last name

according to the Homeric parallel, 'Leo' here may be Helios, and the 'colt' the stolen oxen

S'elp me, honest injun. Shiver my timbers if I had. There's a great big holy friar. Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. Through yerd our lord, Amen.

'if I had': if I had lied? if I had timbers?? if I had mentioned Milly's name in front of LB???

JAJ: "'holy friar' = 'bloody liar'."

JAJ: "sheeny nachez = sheeny = jew, nachez = thing. Just what you'd expect a jew (judisch) to do (cf Goim nachez in Circe when Rudolph Bloom speaks = christian folly!)"

JAJ: "misha mishinnah = a bad violent and unprepared for death or end (judisch" (cf ch6 on Dignam and last rites? Hades)

the Yiddish dialect and use of 'sheeny' suggests Mulligan

somehow, that Milly's father Leo "gev ye thon colt" is a shocking jewish thing. turning loose a nubile teen? giving a condom to her boyfriend?

yerd = penis (Old English)

You move a motion? Steve boy, you're going it some. More bluggy drunkables? Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of most extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate one expensive inaugurated libation?

'move a motion': maybe, to propose going somewhere else, or to drink another round? Cf Bloom in ch16 "And he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit... by moving a motion." [Eumeus]

'going it' = reckless dissipation
'bluggy' = bloody (cf Finnegans Wake: "thon bluggy earwiggers": fw031)

'stooder' = recipient of free drinks, or maybe one who has stood drinks in the past

Give's a breather. Landlord, landlord, have you good wine, staboo? Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree.

'Give's a breather': maybe someone is tired of Lenehan-or-whoever's wordplay? (also cf Bello to LB: Circe)

'breather': newborn's-first-breath motif again

'Landlord, landlord, have you good wine, staboo': supposedly from a bawdy song of Gogarty's, sung earlier by Punch: [Oxen]

'staboo': it's taboo?

JAJ: "'pree' cf Burns Willie brewed a peck of malt And Rab and Allen came to pree Scotch for: examine and taste whisky."

Cut and come again. Right Boniface! Absinthe the lot. Nos omnes biberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posteriora nostria.

'Cut and come again': a saying implying abundance
'Boniface' = innkeeper
'Right Boniface': rightface or right about-face?

longshot: in 1295, Pope Boniface VIII named Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome as 'doctors' of the early church, alluded to by Bloom in ch5: "The doctors of the church: they mapped out the whole theology of it." [Lotus]

'Absinthe the lot': Stephen orders a last round of absinthe for all?

Latin: "We will all drink green poison and the devil take our hindmost"

in earlier drafts Joyce seems to have debated 'capiat' vs 'capiet' (present-subjunctive 'take' vs future-indicative 'will take') [lookup tool]

green poison = absinthe (suicide motif?) also, sacred oxen as 'poison'

Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you say onions? Bloo? Cadges ads? Photo's papli, by all that's gorgeous.

'Rome boose' = wine or rum
'toff' = a dandy

cf ch15: "BLOOM: ...Second drink does it. Once is a dose." [Circe] so where was the first?

'I hear you say onions?': maybe figuratively 'did I hear you say something that made me wrinkle my nose?' (cf Gerty in ch13: "Looked round. She smelt an onion." [Nausikaa]

'Cadges' = begs

it's only here that Bannon makes the Bloom-Milly connection... but the reaction isn't fear but mirth...

Play low, pardner. Slide. Bonsoir la compagnie. And snares of the poxfiend. Where's the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail.

'Play low' = for low stakes (ie, don't take chances) (Oxen-note: "2nd hand plays low pardner")

'Slide' = decamp
'Bonsoir la compagnie' = goodnight all (maybe a songlyric)

"...be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil"

'Namby Amby': changed from 'Amby Bannon' on ealier draft, but JAJ may have forgotten he'd changed Bannon's name from Ambrose to Alec

Namby Pamby: Pope's derogatory name for Ambrose Phillips, sentimental 18th C poet

Stephen (?) notices immediately that BM and AB have skipped

'Skunked' = betrayed, left in the lurch
'Leg bail' = to decamp, escape from custody

Aweel, ye maun e'en gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann wil yu help yung man hoose frend tuk bungalo kee to find plais whear to lay crown of his hed 2 night.

'Aweel, ye maun e'en gang yer gates' = Ah well you must even go your own ways (Scots expression, continues: ...I'll have nothing to do with you)

'Checkmate. King to tower': probably SD's thought-- Mulligan to Tower (but why not 'king takes tower'?)

Stephen concludes Mulligan's disappearance implies his own eviction, and begins looking for a new place to stay.

Crickey, I'm about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my shins if this beent the bestest puttiest longbreak yet.

'sprung' = tipsy
'Tarnally' = eternally
'longbreak' = summer vacation

who are the students in the group? maybe Crotthers, Madden, Costello, Mulligan, Bannon... (probably not Dixon)

Item, curate, couple of cookies for this child. Cot's plood and prandypalls, none! Not a pite of sheeses?

'Item' = also, likewise; or compute
'curate' = bartender
'cookies' = plain buns (Scots)
'child': probably Stephen

Odysseus's men feasted six days on Helios's sacred cattle [Butcher-Lang]

'Cot's plood and prandypalls' = God's blood and brandyballs?

'pite of sheeses' = bite of cheeses?

Thrust syphilis down to hell and with him those other licensed spirits. Time. Who wander through the world. Health all. A la vôtre!

JAJ: "'Thrust Syphilis etc' end of Leo XIII's prayer-- Thrust Satan down to hell and with him those other wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls' (evil spirits = devil, licensed spirits = whisky, gin, etc)"

'Time' = closingtime
'A la vôtre' = to your health (French)

Golly, whatten tunket's yon guy in the mackintosh?

'whatten tunket' = what in thunder = what the hell

'yon guy': probably someone's looking out the front window or door of Burke's

'mackintosh': previously disappeared in: [Hades] [WRocks] [Cyclops]

Dusty Rhodes. Peep at his wearables. By mighty! What's he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, by James.

'Dusty Rhodes': c1900 American comicstrip antihero (cf Oxen-note: "mutilation paranoic bachelors Dusty Rhodes")

dusty roads: implies a wanderer

'Jubilee mutton' = a tiny portion of meat (after Queen Victoria's miscalculated gift to the poor in 1897)

'Bovril': English beeftea concentrate

in ch10 he was "eating dry bread" [WRocks]

Wants it real bad. D'ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in the Richmond?

'it': food, or money, or sex?

'D'ye ken': "D'ye ken John Peel" hunting song (Scots?)

'the Richmond' = Richmond Lunatic Asylum

Rawthere! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis. Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread we calls him.

'deposit of lead': a bullet? venereal disease? (cf Oxen-note: "Chap ?thinks ?he ?has swallowed fly, deposit of ?lead in penis, omphalos")

'Trumpery insanity' = temporary insanity (Londonism) or trumped-up = feigned?

Cyclops-note: "Bartle the Basket"
Oxen-note: "Meredith the bread"

JAJ: "Bartle the Bread = B who delivers or eats the bread usually"

That, sir, was once a prosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all forlorn. Slung her hook, she did. Here see lost love. Walking Mackintosh of lonely canyon.

'That, sir, was once': after De Quincey [mis-cite]

'cit' = citizen
'Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all forlorn': House That Jack Built

'Slung her hook' = ran away (but maybe also hung herself?)

cf 'omniscient' narrator in ch12: "The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead." [Cyclops]

possible ladies who are dead: Mrs Sinico (if Mac is Duffy or Captain Sinico); May Dedalus; various murdered girls (Wexford photogirl, Henry Flower case: info)

Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix for the hornies.

'Tuck' = drink up

'Nix for the hornies' = watch out for the cops (cf Dubliners: "...little Keogh used to keep nix and call out when he saw her father coming." Eveline)

'hornies': cf Bloom in ch8 "...especially the young hornies" [Lestryg]

cf ch15: "REUBEN J: (whispers hoarsely) The squeak is out. A split is gone for the flatties. Nip the first rattler." [Circe]

but could they be speaking, not of leaving the bar, but of Mack's inpatient status at the mental hospital?

Pardon? See him today at a runefal? Chum o yourn passed in his checks? Ludamassy! Pore piccaninnies! Thou'll no be telling me thot, Pold veg!

'runefal' = funeral (spoonerism, ie Lenehan?)

only Bloom was there

'passed in his checks' = "handed in his checks" (Oxen-note) = died

'piccaninnies': ie, the Dignam children

'veg' = vegetable? [defs]

Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos frien Padney was took off in black bag? Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. I never see the like since I was born. Tiens, tiens, but it is well sad, that, my faith, yes.

'crytears': (cf? Oxen-note: "LB depressed")

'Padney' = nickname for Patrick (Dignam) (cf Milly in ch17 "Padney Socks": Ithaca)

JAJ: "Massa Pat = this should all be in child's and nigger English"

cf? Oxen-note: "SD drunk black greeted by arabs"

JAJ: "'But it is well sad, that, my faith, yes' (Fr Mais c'est bien triste ca, ma foi, oui) Translate word for word? ('Aber 's 'ist wohl traurig dass, meine Glaube, ja.') The English is quite unconvincing and meant to be so."

'Tiens' = well (French)
'well sad': well said, very sad

O get, rev on a gradient one in nine. Live axle drives are souped. Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow.

'O get' = get out of here
'rev on a gradient one in nine' = a car can't accelerate up an 11% grade

note copied c1917 from 17Jun 1904 London Times: "prevalence of magneto as well as high tension ignition prevalence of chains as opposed to live axel drive"

'souped' = passe (cf Bloom in ch8: "...or I was souped": Lestryg)

in the Gordon Bennett race the next day in Germany, the driver Jenatzy was favored (but lost) [results]

earlier draft: "Bet you Farman licks him hollow" (Farman didn't finish in the top three: more)

Jappies? High angle fire, inyah! Sunk by war specials. Be worse for him, says he, nor any Rooshian.

'High angle fire': the Japanese shelling gave them an advantage
'inyah' = is that so? (Irish)
'Sunk': Zeus sinks Odysseus's ship as they leave Trinacria [Butcher-Lang]
'war specials' = newspaper columns on war (or the columnists?)

Oxen-note: "Jap ship sunk by Russian war correspondents"

draft version: "I'd be worse for him, says he..." (so perhaps this is spoken by an Irish newspaperman, eg Lenehan?)

Time all. There's eleven of them. Get ye gone. Forward, woozy wobblers! Night. Night. May Allah, the Excellent One, your soul this night ever tremendously conserve.

'eleven of them': eleven o'clock (closingtime)

cf? Oxen-note: "SD drunk black greeted by arabs" (probably 'street arabs' not Muslims, though)

Your attention! We're nae tha fou. The Leith police dismisseth us. The least tholice. Ware hawks for the chap puking. Unwell in his abominable regions. Yooka. Night. Mona, my thrue love. Yook. Mona, my own love. Ook.

JAJ: "The Leith police etc a phrase which the police sergeant asks drunkards to repeat in order to test their state of sobriety.'

cf Virag in ch15 "Ware Sitting Bull" [Circe]

'abominable': probably Lenehan's lame pun

Mona, my true love: song lyric (1st verse joyful, 2nd bereaved) [gif]
Mona motif? [WRocks] [Oxen] [Eumeus]

Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes. Brigade!

'obstropolos' = obstreperous = [something Greek?]

'Pflaap': fire engine's horn, apparently

'Blaze': in ch15, Bloom will briefly hope the fire is Blazes Boylan's house [Circe]

as Odysseus and his men leave Helios's island Trinacria, Zeus smites their ship with a lightningbolt, filling it with 'sulphur' [Butcher-Lang]

Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up. Pflaap! Tally ho. You not come? Run, skelter, race. Pflaaaap!

'Bout ship': chasing the firetruck?
'Cut up': shortcut up alley?

there's good reason to suspect Macintosh was the arsonist

cf ch15: "THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH... That man is Leopold M'Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins." [Circe]

Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o me. Denzille lane this way. Change here for Bawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is. Righto, any old time.

'Sign on long o me' = fall in beside me (ie, don't follow the rest)

('along of' also means 'on account of', and an Oxen-note may imply Joyce intended to pun on this meaning: info)

Hart and Knuth think SD is taking a roundabout route to escape the others, but i think rather the group drifted back towards the hospital, and SD is splitting off as they pass Denzille lane

Ph inline: the lady -> hairy (later: -> shady)

Rossetti, "The Blessed Damozel": "We two, she said, will seek the groves where the lady Mary is" [etexts]

Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis. You coming long? Whisper, who the sooty hell's the johnny in the black duds? Hush! Sinned against the light and even now that day is at hand when he shall come to judge the world by fire. Pflaap!

'Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis' = Let them (the saints) sing aloud upon their beds (Psalm 149: English/Latin)

draft deletion: "the Johnny hanging on to us"

Lynch knows nothing of Bloom, yet

Ut implerentur scripturae. Strike up a ballad. Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical Davy.

'Ut implerentur scripturae' = That the scriptures might be fulfilled [John 17:12]

cf BM's play in ch9 [Scylla] based on Gogarty's ballad [lyrics]

Christicle, who's this excrement yellow gospeller on the Merrion hall? Elijah is coming. Washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Come on, you winefizzling ginsizzling booseguzzling existences! Come on, you dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Come on, you triple extract of infamy!

Lynch: yellow = bloody

cf Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi: "I'm the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!" [etext]

'fourflushers' = braggarts, cheats

Alexander J Christ Dowie, that's my name that's yanked to glory most half this planet from 'Frisco Beach to Vladivostok. The Deity aint no nickel dime bumshow.

'Dowie': see [Lestryg]

'bumshow' = carnival peepshow?

I put it to you that He's on the square and a corking fine business proposition. He's the grandest thing yet and don't you forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus. You'll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He's got a coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in his backpocket. Just you try it on.

'Not half': not half crazy?

draft: "He's got an unpleasant cough-mixture..."

'try it on': cf Blake's "To God": If you have form'd a Circle to go into, Go into it yourself & see how you would do.

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