We stopped reading at "... our ascendancy party." (Penguin 526.16), (Gabler 14.864)
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| (Map of Dublin showing Ely Pl, Baggot ct, Merrion Square & Holles St with the maternity hospital)
Last week we were in the middle of the paragraph written in the style of Samuel Pepys, the diarist. (As Fritz Senn explained, this episode is in two time frames simultaneously: one referring to the time of the day (it is 10 pm) and the other to the time frame of the history of literature.) There was a big thunder with rain following. A swash of water was flowing in Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street that was all bonedry before.
Buck Mulligan, who had been attending a party at Mr. Moore's (Penguin p. 275), had just left the party when he met the smartly dressed Alec. Bannon, who had come from Mullingar, where he had met Bloom's daughter, Milly. Mulligan knows Bannon as his (Mulligan's) brother was staying with the Bannons (Penguin p. 26). Both Mulligan and Bannon head to the maternity hospital.
In the hospital, Leop. Bloom and a covey of wags (group of young men) such as Dixon, Stephen, Punch Costello, Lenehan, Madden, Lynch are assembled. Bloom has been dreaming (thinking?) not only of Molly with red slippers on in a pair of Turkey trunks but also of Mrs Purefoy in labour and of her family ('Tis her ninth chick to live.... Her hub fifty odd and a methodist....) With the change in style imitating that of Daniel Defoe, the topic changes too to describing the behavior/character of Lenehan, a kind of sport gentleman (i.e., interested in horse races), one who often had many stories to tell. Lenehan says that the has made sure that Mr. Deasy's letter (which Stephen had brought to Mr Russell, Penguin p. 246) on the foot and mouth disease is in that night's gazette. On hearing that the cows are to be butchered, Bloom, who had once worked for Mr Joseph Cuffe, a cattle, corn and wool salesman, questions whether the cows indeed have the foot and mouth disease. What follows is a play on the word 'bull'. In the style of Jonathan Swift, the assembly talks in turn of a bull that's Irish (a statement that is apparently logical but which in fact is nonsense), of an Irish bull in an English chinashop (a proverb meaning clumsiness) and of the papal bull that was sent to the island by farmer Nicholas (aka Pope Adrian IV, granting the overlordship of Ireland to Henry II - here referred to as lord Harry - of England). The word 'bull' becomes just an excuse to discuss Irish history at length. It is at this time that Mulligan appears with Bannon. Mulligan comes in again as a harbinger of fun, of lightheartedness. He hands around a set of pasteboard cards which he had got printed that day: Mr Malachi Mulligan, Fertilizer and Incubator, Lambay Island. In flamboyant language - in fact in the style of two journalists, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, who wrote essays for the Tatler and the Spectator - Mulligan explains how it grieved him plaguily, to see the nuptial couch defrauded of its dearest pledges, and how to curb this inconvenient , he had resolved to purchase .. the freehold of Lambay island from ... Lord Talbot de Malahide, a Tory gentleman of note much in favor with our ascendancy party. |
