Ulysses

    If you see Kay
    Tell him he may
    See you in tea
    Tell him from me.

Hornblower:  (In EPHOD and HUNTINGCAP, ANNOUNCES) And he shall carry the sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, and to Lilith, the nighthag.  And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham.

(All the people cast soft pantomime stones at bloom.  Many BONAFIDE
travellers and OWNERLESS dogs come near him and defile him.  Mastiansky
and Citron approach in GABERDINES, wearing long EARLOCKS.  They WAG their
beards at bloom.)

Mastiansky and Citron:  Belial!  Laemlein of Istria, the false Messiah! 
Abulafia!  Recant!

(George R Mesias, Bloom’s tailor, appears, A tailor’s goose under his
arm, presenting A bill)

Mesias:  To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings.

Bloom:  (RUBS his hands cheerfully) Just like old times.  Poor Bloom!

(Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded Iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his
shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, APPROACHES the PILLORY.)

Reuben J:  (WHISPERS Hoarsely) The squeak is out.  A split is gone for the flatties.  Nip the first rattler.

The fire brigade:  Pflaap!

Brother buzz:  (INVESTS bloom in A yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat.  He places A bag of gunpowder round his neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying) Forgive him his trespasses.

(LIEUTENANT MYERS of the Dublin fire brigade by general request sets fire
to bloom.  LAMENTATIONS.)

The citizen:  Thank heaven!

Bloom:  (In A SEAMLESS garment marked I. H. S. Stands upright amid Phoenix
flames) Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin.

(He EXHIBITS to Dublin REPORTERS traces of burning.  The daughters of
Erin, in black garments, with large PRAYERBOOKS and long lighted candles
in their hands, kneel down and pray.)

The daughters of Erin: 

    Kidney of Bloom, pray for us
    Flower of the Bath, pray for us
    Mentor of Menton, pray for us
    Canvasser for the Freeman, pray for us
    Charitable Mason, pray for us
    Wandering Soap, pray for us
    Sweets of Sin, pray for us
    Music without Words, pray for us
    Reprover of the Citizen, pray for us
    Friend of all Frillies, pray for us
    Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us
    Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us.

(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O’BRIEN, sings the
chorus from HANDEL’S Messiah Alleluia for the lord god omnipotent
reigneth, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn.  Bloom becomes mute,
shrunken, carbonised.)

Zoe:  Talk away till you’re black in the face.

Bloom:  (In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an EMIGRANT’S red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading A black bogoak pig by A SUGAUN, with A smile in his eye) Let me be going now, woman of the house, for by all the goats in Connemara I’m after having the father and mother of a bating. (With A tear in his eye) All insanity.  Patriotism, sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race.  To be or not to be.  Life’s dream is o’er.  End it peacefully.  They can live on. (He gazes far away MOURNFULLY) I am ruined.  A few pastilles of aconite.  The blinds drawn.  A letter.  Then lie back to rest. (He breathes softly) No more.  I have lived.  Fare.  Farewell.

Zoe:  (STIFFLY, her finger in her NECKFILLET) Honest?  Till the next time.  (She SNEERS) Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or came too quick with your best girl.  O, I can read your thoughts!

Bloom:  (BITTERLY) Man and woman, love, what is it?  A cork and bottle.  I’m sick of it.  Let everything rip.

Zoe:  (In sudden SULKS) I hate a rotter that’s insincere.  Give a bleeding whore a chance.

Bloom:  (REPENTANTLY) I am very disagreeable.  You are a necessary evil.  Where are you from?  London?

Zoe:  (GLIBLY) Hog’s Norton where the pigs plays the organs.  I’m Yorkshire born. (She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple) I say, Tommy Tittlemouse.  Stop that and begin worse.  Have you cash for a short time?  Ten shillings?

Bloom:  (SMILES, NODS slowly) More, houri, more.

Zoe:  And more’s mother? (She PATS him OFFHANDEDLY with velvet paws) Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola?  Come and I’ll peel off.

Bloom:  (Feeling his OCCIPUT dubiously with the UNPARALLELED embarrassment of A harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled pears) Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew.  The greeneyed monster.  (EARNESTLY) You know how difficult it is.  I needn’t tell you.

Zoe:  (Flattered) What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for. (She PATS him) Come.

Bloom:  Laughing witch!  The hand that rocks the cradle.

Zoe:  Babby!

Bloom:  (In BABYLINEN and PELISSE, BIGHEADED, with A CAUL of dark hair, FIXES big eyes on her fluid slip and COUNTS its bronze buckles with A chubby finger, his moist tongue lolling and LISPING) One two tlee:  tlee tlwo tlone.

The buckles:  Love me.  Love me not.  Love me.

Zoe:  Silent means consent. (With little parted talons she CAPTURES his hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the PASSTOUCH of secret MONITOR, Luring him to doom.) Hot hands cold gizzard.

(He HESITATES amid SCENTS, music, TEMPTATIONS.  She leads him towards the
steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her painted
eyes, the RUSTLE of her slip in whose SINUOUS folds LURKS the lion reek
of all the male brutes that have possessed her.)

The male brutes:  (EXHALING sulphur of rut and dung and RAMPING in their
LOOSEBOX, faintly roaring, their DRUGGED heads swaying to and fro) Good!

(Zoe and bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated. They
examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his
hasty bow.  He TRIPS AWKWARDLY.)

Zoe:  (Her lucky hand instantly saving him) Hoopsa!  Don’t fall upstairs.

Bloom:  The just man falls seven times. (He stands aside at the threshold)
After you is good manners.

Zoe:  Ladies first, gentlemen after.

(She crosses the threshold.  He HESITATES.  She turns and, holding out her
hands, draws him over.  He hops.  On the ANTLERED rack of the hall hang A
man ’S hat and waterproof.  Bloom UNCOVERS himself but, seeing them,
frowns, then smiles, PREOCCUPIED. A door on the return landing is flung
open.  A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, BROWNSOCKED, passes with
an APE’S gait, his bald head and GOATEE beard upheld, hugging A full
WATERJUGJAR, his TWOTAILED black braces dangling at heels.  AVERTING his
face quickly bloom bends to examine on the HALLTABLE the SPANIEL eyes of
A running fox:  Then, his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into the
musicroom.  A shade of mauve tissuepaper DIMS the light of the chandelier. 
Round and round A moth flies, COLLIDING, escaping.  The floor is covered
with an OILCLOTH Mosaic of JADE and azure and cinnabar RHOMBOIDS. 
FOOTMARKS are stamped over it in all senses, heel to heel, heel to
hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, A Morris of shuffling feet without body
phantoms, all in A scrimmage HIGGLEDYPIGGLEDY.  The walls are TAPESTRIED
with A paper of YEWFRONDS and clear GLADES.  In the grate is spread A
screen of PEACOCK feathers.  Lynch SQUATS crosslegged on the hearthrug of
MATTED hair, his cap back to the front.  With A wand he beats time slowly. 
Kitty Ricketts, A bony pallid whore in navy costume, DOESKIN gloves
rolled back from A coral WRISTLET, A chain purse in her hand, sits
perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself
in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece.  A tag of her CORSETLACE hangs
slightly below her jacket.  Lynch INDICATES mockingly the couple at the
piano.)

Kitty:  (COUGHS behind her hand) She’s a bit imbecillic. (She signs with A
waggling forefinger) Blemblem. (Lynch lifts up her skirt and white
petticoat with his wand she SETTLES them down quickly.) Respect yourself. 
(She HICCUPS, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which her hair
GLOWS, red with HENNA) O, excuse!

Zoe:  More limelight, Charley. (She goes to the chandelier and turns the
gas full cock)

Kitty:  (PEERS at the GASJET) What ails it tonight?

Lynch:  (DEEPLY) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

Zoe:  Clap on the back for Zoe.

(The wand in Lynch’s hand flashes:  A brass poker.  Stephen stands at the
pianola on which SPRAWL his hat and ashplant.  With two fingers he repeats
once more the series of empty FIFTHS.  Florry Talbot, A blond feeble
GOOSEFAT whore in A TATTERDEMALION gown of mildewed strawberry, LOLLS
SPREADEAGLE in the SOFACORNER, her limp forearm pendent over the bolster,
listening.  A heavy stye DROOPS over her sleepy eyelid.)

Kitty:  (HICCUPS again with A kick of her HORSED foot) O, excuse!

Zoe:  (Promptly) Your boy’s thinking of you.  Tie a knot on your shift.

(Kitty Ricketts bends her head.  Her boa UNCOILS, slides, GLIDES over her
shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground.  Lynch lifts the curled
CATERPILLAR on his wand.  She snakes her neck, NESTLING.  Stephen glances
behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)

Stephen:  As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it.  The rite is the poet’s rest.  It may be an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate COELA ENARRANT GLORIAM DOMINI.  It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David’s that is Circe’s or what am I saying Ceres’ altar and David’s tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightness of his almightiness.  MAIS NOM de NOM, that is another pair of trousers.  JETEZ la GOURME.  FAUT que JEUNESSE SE PASSE. (He stops, points at Lynch’s cap, smiles, laughs) Which side is your knowledge bump?

The cap:  (With SATURNINE spleen) Bah!  It is because it is.  Woman’s reason.  Jewgreek is greekjew.  Extremes meet.  Death is the highest form of life.  Bah!

Stephen:  You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. 
How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty?  Whetstone!

The cap:  Bah!

Stephen:  Here’s another for you. (He frowns) The reason is because the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval which …

The cap:  Which?  Finish.  You can’t.

Stephen:  (With an effort) Interval which.  Is the greatest possible ellipse.  Consistent with.  The ultimate return.  The octave.  Which.

The cap:  Which?

(Outside the gramophone begins to BLARE The Holy City.)

Stephen:  (ABRUPTLY) What went forth to the ends of the world to traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self.  Wait a moment.  Wait a second.  Damn that fellow’s noise in the street.  Self which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become.  ECCO!

Lynch:  (With A mocking WHINNY of laughter GRINS at bloom and Zoe Higgins)
What a learned speech, eh?

Zoe:  (BRISKLY) God help your head, he knows more than you have forgotten.

(With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)

Florry:  They say the last day is coming this summer.

Kitty:  No!

Zoe:  (EXPLODES in laughter) Great unjust God!

Florry:  (OFFENDED) Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist.  O, my foot’s tickling.

(RAGGED barefoot newsboys, jogging A WAGTAIL kite, patter past, yelling.)

The newsboys:  Stop press edition.  Result of the rockinghorse races.  Sea serpent in the royal canal.  Safe arrival of Antichrist.

(Stephen turns and sees bloom.)

Stephen:  A time, times and half a time.

(Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, A clutching hand open on his spine,
STUMPS forward.  Across his loins is slung A pilgrim’s wallet from which
PROTRUDE PROMISSORY notes and dishonoured bills.  ALOFT over his shoulder
he bears A long BOATPOLE from the hook of which the SODDEN HUDDLED mass
of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the slack of its
breeches.  A HOBGOBLIN in the image of punch Costello, HIPSHOT,
CROOKBACKED, HYDROCEPHALIC, PROGNATHIC with RECEDING forehead and ALLY
SLOPER nose, tumbles in SOMERSAULTS through the gathering darkness.)

All:  What?

The HOBGOBLIN:  (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his
eyes, squeaking, KANGAROOHOPPING with outstretched clutching arms, then
all at once THRUSTS his LIPLESS face through the fork of his thighs) IL
VIENT!  C’est MOI!  L’HOMME qui RIT!  L’HOMME PRIMIGENE! (He WHIRLS round
and round with DERVISH HOWLS) SIEURS et dames, FAITES VOS JEUX! (He
CROUCHES juggling.  Tiny ROULETTE planets fly from his hands.) LES JEUX
SONT FAITS! (The planets rush together, uttering CREPITANT cracks) RIEN
VA plus! (The planets, BUOYANT BALLOONS, sail swollen up and away.  He
springs off into vacuum.)

Florry:  (SINKING into TORPOR, crossing herself SECRETLY) The end of the world!

(A female tepid EFFLUVIUM leaks out from her.  NEBULOUS obscurity OCCUPIES
space.  Through the drifting fog without the gramophone BLARES over coughs
and FEETSHUFFLING.)

The gramophone:  Jerusalem!

Open your gates and sing

Hosanna …

(A rocket rushes up the sky and BURSTS.  A white star fills from it,
PROCLAIMING the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah. 
Along an infinite invisible TIGHTROPE taut from zenith to Nadir the end
of the world, A twoheaded octopus in GILLIE’S kilts, BUSBY and tartan
filibegs, WHIRLS through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the
three legs of man.)

The end of the world:  (With A scotch accent) Wha’ll dance the keel row, the keel row, the keel row?

(Over the possing drift and choking BREATHCOUGHS, Elijah’s voice, harsh
as A CORNCRAKE’S, jars on high.  PERSPIRING in A loose lawn SURPLICE with
FUNNEL sleeves he is seen, VERGERFACED, above A ROSTRUM about which the
banner of old glory is draped. He THUMPS the parapet.)

Elijah:  No yapping, if you please, in this booth.  Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut.  Say, I am operating all this trunk line.  Boys, do it now.  God’s time is 12.25.  Tell mother you’ll be there.  Rush your order and you play a slick ace.  Join on right here.  Book through to eternity junction, the nonstop run.  Just one word more.  Are you a god or a doggone clod?  If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready?  Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it’s up to you to sense that cosmic force.  Have we cold feet about the cosmos?  No.  Be on the side of the angels.  Be a prism.  You have that something within, the higher self.  You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll.  Are you all in this vibration?  I say you are.  You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number.  You got me?  It’s a lifebrightener, sure.  The hottest stuff ever was.  It’s the whole pie with jam in.  It’s just the cutest snappiest line out.  It is immense, supersumptuous.  It restores.  It vibrates.  I know and I am some vibrator.  Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A. J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that?  O. K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street.  Got me?  That’s it.  You call me up by sunphone any old time.  Bumboosers, save your stamps. (He shouts) Now then our glory song.  All join heartily in the singing.  Encore! (He sings) Jeru …

The gramophone:  (Drowning his voice) Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh … (The
disc RASPS GRATINGLY against the needle)

The three whores:  (COVERING their ears, SQUAWK) Ahhkkk!

Elijah:  (In ROLLEDUP shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top of his voice, his arms uplifted) Big Brother up there, Mr President, you hear what I done just been saying to you.  Certainly, I sort of believe strong in you, Mr President.  I certainly am thinking now Miss Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them.  Certainly seems to me I don’t never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you.  Mr President, you come long and help me save our sisters dear. (He winks at his audience) Our Mr President, he twig the whole lot and he aint saying nothing.

Kitty-Kate:  I forgot myself.  In a weak moment I erred and did what I did on Constitution hill.  I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in the brown scapular.  My mother’s sister married a Montmorency.  It was a working plumber was my ruination when I was pure.

Zoe-Fanny:  I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it.

Florry-Teresa:  It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy’s three star.  I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the bed.

Stephen:  In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without end. 
Blessed be the eight beatitudes.

(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students’ GOWNS, four abreast, GOOSESTEPPING, tramp fist past in noisy marching)

The beatitudes:  (INCOHERENTLY) Beer beef battledog buybull businum barnum buggerum bishop.

Lyster:  (In QUAKERGREY KNEEBREECHES and BROADBRIMMED hat, says discreetly) He is our friend.  I need not mention names.  Seek thou the light.

(He CORANTOS by.  Best enters in HAIRDRESSER’S attire, SHINILY LAUNDERED, his locks in CURLPAPERS.  He leads John Eglinton who wears A MANDARIN’S kimono of NANKEEN yellow, LIZARDLETTERED, and A high PAGODA hat.)

Best:  (Smiling, lifts the hat and displays A shaven poll from the crown of which bristles A PIGTAIL TOUPEE tied with an orange TOPKNOT) I was just beautifying him, don’t you know.  A thing of beauty, don’t you know, Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says.

John Eglinton:  (PRODUCES A greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards A corner:  With carping accent) Esthetics and cosmetics are for the boudoir.  I am out for truth.  Plain truth for a plain man.  Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them.

(In the cone of the searchlight behind the COALSCUTTLE, OLLAVE, holyeyed,
the bearded figure of Mananaun MACLIR BROODS, chin on knees.  He rises
slowly.  A cold SEAWIND blows from his druid mouth.  About his head WRITHE
eels and ELVERS.  He is ENCRUSTED with weeds and shells.  His right hand
holds A bicycle pump.  His left hand GRASPS A huge CRAYFISH by its two
talons.)

Mananaun MACLIR:  (With A voice of waves) Aum!  Hek!  Wal!  Ak!  Lub!  Mor!  Ma!  White yoghin of the gods.  Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos. (With A voice of whistling SEAWIND) Punarjanam patsypunjaub!  I won’t have my leg pulled.  It has been said by one:  beware the left, the cult of Shakti.  (With A cry of STORMBIRDS) Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father! (He SMITES with his bicycle pump the CRAYFISH in his left hand.  On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the zodiac.  He WAILS with the VEHEMENCE of the ocean.) Aum!  Baum!  Pyjaum!  I am the light of the homestead!  I am the dreamery creamery butter.

(A skeleton JUDASHAND STRANGLES the light.  The green light WANES to mauve.  The GASJET WAILS whistling.)

The GASJET:  Pooah!  Pfuiiiiiii!

(Zoe runs to the chandelier and, CROOKING her leg, ADJUSTS the mantle.)

Zoe:  Who has a fag as I’m here?

Lynch:  (TOSSING A cigarette on to the table) Here.

Zoe:  (Her head perched aside in mock pride) Is that the way to hand the
pot to a lady? (She STRETCHES up to light the cigarette over the flame,
twirling it slowly, showing the brown TUFTS of her armpits.  Lynch with
his poker lifts boldly A side of her slip.  Bare from her garters up her
flesh appears under the sapphire A NIXIE’S green.  She puffs calmly at her
cigarette.) Can you see the beautyspot of my behind?

Lynch:  I’m not looking

Zoe:  (Makes sheep’s eyes) No?  You wouldn’t do a less thing.  Would you suck a lemon?

(SQUINTING in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at bloom, then
TWISTS round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker.  Blue fluid
again flows over her flesh.  Bloom stands, smiling DESIROUSLY, twirling
his thumbs.  Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her spittle and,
gazing in the mirror, SMOOTHS both eyebrows.  Lipoti Virag,
BASILICOGRAMMATE, CHUTES rapidly down through the chimneyflue and STRUTS
two steps to the left on GAWKY pink STILTS.  He is SAUSAGED into several
overcoats and wears A brown macintosh under which he holds A roll of
parchment.  In his left eye flashes the MONOCLE of Cashel Boyle O’CONNOR
Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell.  On his head is perched an Egyptian PSHENT. 
Two Quills project over his ears.)

Virag:  (HEELS together, bows) My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely.  (He coughs thoughtfully, drily) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh?  Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you are a particular devotee.  The injection mark on the thigh I hope you perceived?  Good.

Bloom:  Granpapachi.  But …

Virag:  Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I should opine.  Backbone in front, so to say.  Correct me but I always understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity.  In a word.  Hippogriff.  Am I right?

Bloom:  She is rather lean.

Virag:  (Not UNPLEASANTLY) Absolutely!  Well observed and those pannier pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip.  A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted.  Meretricious finery to deceive the eye.  Observe the attention to details of dustspecks.  Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today.  Parallax! (With A nervous twitch of his head) Did you hear my brain go snap?  Pollysyllabax!

Bloom:  (An elbow resting in A hand, A forefinger against his cheek) She seems sad.

Virag:  (CYNICALLY, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left eye with A finger and barks Hoarsely) Hoax!  Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful.  Lily of the alley.  All possess bachelor’s button discovered by Rualdus Columbus.  Tumble her.  Columble her.  Chameleon. (More GENIALLY) Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item number three.  There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye.  Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull.  What ho, she bumps!  The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel.

Bloom:  (REGRETFULLY) When you come out without your gun.

Virag:  We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong.  Pay your money, take your choice.  How happy could you be with either …

Bloom:  With …?

Virag:  (His tongue UPCURLING) Lyum!  Look.  Her beam is broad.  She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat.  Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation, which leave nothing to be desired save compactness.  Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture.  When coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size.  Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber.  That suits your book, eh?  Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after.  Wallow in it.  Lycopodium. (His throat TWITCHES) Slapbang!  There he goes again.

Bloom:  The stye I dislike.

Virag:  (ARCHES his eyebrows) Contact with a goldring, they say.  ARGUMENTUM ad FEMINAM, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros.  For the rest Eve’s sovereign remedy.  Not for sale.  Hire only.  Huguenot. (He TWITCHES) It is a funny sound. (He coughs ENCOURAGINGLY) But possibly it is only a wart.  I presume you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on that head?  Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.

Bloom:  (REFLECTING) Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax.  This searching ordeal.  It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of accidents.  Wait.  I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said …

Virag:  (SEVERELY, his nose HARDHUMPED, his side eye winking) Stop twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk.  See, you have forgotten.  Exercise your mnemotechnic.  La CAUSA E Santa.  Tara.  Tara. (ASIDE) He will surely remember.

Bloom:  Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over parasitic tissues.  Then nay no I have an inkling.  The touch of a deadhand cures.  Mnemo?

Virag:  (EXCITEDLY) I say so.  I say so.  E’en so.  Technic. (He TAPS his PARCHMENTROLL energetically) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars.  Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla.  Virag is going to talk about amputation.  Our old friend caustic.  They must be starved.  Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck.  But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? (With A dry SNIGGER) You intended to devote an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million.  Pomegranate!  From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.  Pyjamas, let us say?  Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed?  Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers? (He crows DERISIVELY) Keekeereekee!

(Bloom SURVEYS uncertainly the three whores then gazes at the veiled mauve light, hearing the EVERFLYING moth.)

Bloom:  I wanted then to have now concluded.  Nightdress was never.  Hence this.  But tomorrow is a new day will be.  Past was is today.  What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester.

Virag:  (PROMPTS in A pig’s whisper) Insects of the day spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the inferiorly pulchritudinous fumale possessing extendified pudendal nerve in dorsal region.  Pretty Poll! (His yellow PARROTBEAK GABBLES NASALLY) They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era.  One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar.  Bear’s buzz bothers bees.  But of this apart.  At another time we may resume.  We were very pleased, we others. (He coughs and, bending his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with A scooping hand) You shall find that these night insects follow the light.  An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye.  For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion which Doctor L.B. says is the book sensation of the year.  Some, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic.  Perceive.  That is his appropriate sun.  Nightbird nightsun nighttown.  Chase me, Charley! (he blows into Bloom’s ear) Buzz!

Bloom:  Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I …

Virag:  (His face IMPASSIVE, laughs in A rich feminine key) Splendid!  Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. (He GOBBLES GLUTTONOUSLY with turkey wattles) Bubbly jock!  Bubbly jock!  Where are we?  Open Sesame!  Cometh forth! (He UNROLLS his parchment rapidly and reads, his glowworm’s nose running backwards over the letters which he claws) Stay, good friend.  I bring thee thy answer.  Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us.  I’m the best o’cook.  Those succulent bivalves may help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis.  Though they stink yet they sting. (He wags his head with cackling RAILLERY) Jocular.  With my eyeglass in my ocular. (He SNEEZES) Amen!

Bloom:  (ABSENTLY) Ocularly woman’s bivalve case is worse.  Always open sesame.  The cloven sex.  Why they fear vermin, creeping things.  Yet Eve and the serpent contradicts.  Not a historical fact.  Obvious analogy to my idea.  Serpents too are gluttons for woman’s milk.  Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry.  Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis.

Virag:  (His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes STONILY FORLORNLY closed, PSALMS in outlandish MONOTONE) That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known …

Bloom:  I am going to scream.  I beg your pardon.  Ah?  So. (He repeats) Spontaneously to seek out the saurian’s lair in order to entrust their teats to his avid suction.  Ant milks aphis. (PROFOUNDLY) Instinct rules the world.  In life.  In death.

Virag:  (Head askew, arches his back and HUNCHED WINGSHOULDERS, peers at the moth out of BLEAR bulged eyes, points A HORNING claw and cries) Who’s moth moth?  Who’s dear Gerald?  Dear Ger, that you?  O dear, he is Gerald.  O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned.  Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass tablenumpkin? (He MEWS) Puss puss puss puss! (He sighs, draws back and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw) Well, well.  He doth rest anon. (he snaps his jaws suddenly on the air)

The moth: 

    I’m a tiny tiny thing
    Ever flying in the spring
    Round and round a ringaring. 
    Long ago I was a king
    Now I do this kind of thing
    On the wing, on the wing! 
    Bing!

(He rushes against the mauve shade, flapping noisily) Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats.

(From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry flower comes
forward to left front centre.  He wears A dark mantle and drooping plumed
sombrero.  He carries A SILVERSTRINGED inlaid DULCIMER and A LONGSTEMMED
BAMBOO Jacob’s pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as A female head.  He wears
dark velvet hose and SILVERBUCKLED pumps.  He has the romantic SAVIOUR’S
face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache.  His SPINDLELEGS and
SPARROW feet are those of the tenor Mario, prince of CANDIA.  He SETTLES
down his GOFFERED RUFFS and MOISTENS his lips with A passage of his
amorous tongue.)

Henry:  (In A low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his guitar) There is a flower that bloometh.

(Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp.  GRAVE bloom regards ZOE’S neck.  Henry gallant turns with pendant DEWLAP to the piano.)

Stephen:  (To himself) Play with your eyes shut.  Imitate pa.  Filling my belly with husks of swine.  Too much of this.  I will arise and go to my.  Expect this is the.  Steve, thou art in a parlous way.  Must visit old Deasy or telegraph.  Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep impression.  Though our ages.  Will write fully tomorrow.  I’m partially drunk, by the way. (He touches the keys again) Minor chord comes now.  Yes.  Not much however.

(Almidano Artifoni holds out A BATONROLL of music with vigorous MOUSTACHEWORK.)

Artifoni:  CI RIFLETTA.  LEI ROVINA TUTTO.

Florry:  Sing us something.  Love’s old sweet song.

Stephen:  No voice.  I am a most finished artist.  Lynch, did I show you the letter about the lute?

Florry:  (SMIRKING) The bird that can sing and won’t sing.

(The Siamese twins, Philip drunk and Philip sober, two Oxford DONS with LAWNMOWERS, appear in the window EMBRASURE.  Both are masked with Matthew Arnold’s face.)

Philip sober:  Take a fool’s advice.  All is not well.  Work it out with the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot.  Three pounds twelve you got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew.  Mooney’s en ville, Mooney’s sur mer, the Moira, Larchet’s, Holles street hospital, Burke’s.  Eh?  I am watching you.

Philip drunk:  (IMPATIENTLY) Ah, bosh, man.  Go to hell!  I paid my way.  If I could only find out about octaves.  Reduplication of personality.  Who was it told me his name? (His lawnmower begins to PURR) Aha, yes.  Zoe MOU SAS AGAPO.  Have a notion I was here before.  When was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere.  Mac Somebody.  Unmack I have it.  He told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it, no?

Florry:  And the song?

Stephen:  Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Florry:  Are you out of Maynooth?  You’re like someone I knew once.

Stephen:  Out of it now. (To himself) Clever.

Philip drunk and Philip sober:  (Their LAWNMOWERS PURRING with A RIGADOON of grasshalms) Clever ever.  Out of it out of it.  By the bye have you the book, the thing, the ashplant?  Yes, there it, yes.  Cleverever outofitnow.  Keep in condition.  Do like us.

Zoe:  There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of business with his coat buttoned up.  You needn’t try to hide, I says to him.  I know you’ve a Roman collar.

Virag:  Perfectly logical from his standpoint.  Fall of man. (HARSHLY, his PUPILS waxing) To hell with the pope!  Nothing new under the sun.  I am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens.  Why I left the church of Rome.  Read the Priest, the Woman and the Confessional.  Penrose.  Flipperty Jippert. (He WRIGGLES) Woman, undoing with sweet pudor her belt of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni to man’s lingam.  Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat.  Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins.  Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the stiff one. (He cries) COACTUS VOLUI.  Then giddy woman will run about.  Strong man grapses woman’s wrist.  Woman squeals, bites, spucks.  Man, now fierce angry, strikes woman’s fat yadgana. (He CHASES his tail) Piffpaff!  Popo! (He stops, SNEEZES) Pchp! (He worries his butt) Prrrrrht!

Lynch:  I hope you gave the good father a penance.  Nine glorias for shooting a bishop.

Zoe:  (SPOUTS WALRUS smoke through her nostrils) He couldn’t get a connection.  Only, you know, sensation.  A dry rush.

Bloom:  Poor man!

Zoe:  (Lightly) Only for what happened him.

Bloom:  How?

Virag:  (A DIABOLIC RICTUS of black luminosity CONTRACTING his visage, CRANES his scraggy neck forward.  He lifts A MOONCALF nozzle and HOWLS.) VERFLUCHTE GOIM!  He had a father, forty fathers.  He never existed.  Pig God!  He had two left feet.  He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the pope’s bastard. (He LEANS out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his eye Agonising in his flat SKULLNECK and YELPS over the mute world) A son of a whore.  Apocalypse.

Kitty:  And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn’t swallow and was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all subscribed for the funeral.

Philip drunk:  (GRAVELY) qui VOUS A MIS DANS cette FICHUE position, PHILIPPE?

Philip sober:  (Gaily) C’ETAIT le SACRE pigeon, PHILIPPE.

(Kitty UNPINS her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her HENNA hair.  And A prettier, A daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on A WHORE’S shoulders.  Lynch puts on her hat.  She WHIPS it off.)

Lynch:  (LAUGHS) And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes.

Florry:  (NODS) Locomotor ataxy.

Zoe:  (Gaily) O, my dictionary.

Lynch:  Three wise virgins.

Virag:  (AGUESHAKEN, PROFUSE yellow spawn foaming over his bony EPILEPTIC lips) She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower.  Panther, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. (He sticks out A flickering PHOSPHORESCENT scorpion tongue, his hand on his fork) Messiah!  He burst her tympanum. (With GIBBERING BABOON’S cries he jerks his hips in the CYNICAL spasm) Hik!  Hek!  Hak!  Hok!  Huk!  Kok!  Kuk!

(Ben Jumbo dollard, rubicund, MUSCLEBOUND, HAIRYNOSTRILLED, HUGEBEARDED, CABBAGEEARED, SHAGGYCHESTED, SHOCKMANED, fat- PAPPED, stands forth, his loins and GENITALS tightened into A pair of black bathing BAGSLOPS.)

Ben dollard:  (NAKKERING CASTANET bones in his huge padded paws, YODELS JOVIALLY in base barreltone) When love absorbs my ardent soul.

(The virgins nurse Callan and nurse Quigley burst through the RINGKEEPERS and the ropes and mob him with open arms.)

The virgins:  (GUSHINGLY) Big Ben!  Ben my Chree!

A voice:  Hold that fellow with the bad breeches.

Ben dollard:  (SMITES his thigh in abundant laughter) Hold him now.

Henry:  (Caressing on his breast A SEVERED female head, MURMURS) Thine heart, mine love. (He plucks his LUTESTRINGS) When first I saw …

Virag:  (SLOUGHING his skins, his multitudinous PLUMAGE MOULTING) Rats! 
(He YAWNS, showing A COALBLACK throat, and closes his jaws by an upward
push of his PARCHMENTROLL) After having said which I took my departure. 
Farewell.  Fare thee well.  DRECK!

(Henry flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with A POCKETCOMB and
gives A cow’s lick to his hair.  Steered by his RAPIER, he GLIDES to the
door, his wild harp slung behind him.  Virag reaches the door in two
ungainly STILTHOPS, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the
wall A PUSYELLOW FLYBILL, butting it with his head.)

The FLYBILL:  K. II.  Post No Bills.  Strictly confidential.  Dr Hy Franks.

Henry:  All is lost now.

(Virag UNSCREWS his head in A trice and holds it under his arm.)

VIRAG’S head:  Quack!

(EXEUNT SEVERALLY.)

Stephen:  (Over his shoulder to Zoe) You would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error.  But beware Antisthenes, the dog sage, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus.  The agony in the closet.

Lynch:  All one and the same God to her.

Stephen:  (DEVOUTLY) And sovereign Lord of all things.

Florry:  (To Stephen) I’m sure you’re a spoiled priest.  Or a monk.

Lynch:  He is.  A cardinal’s son.

Stephen:  Cardinal sin.  Monks of the screw.

(His eminence Simon Stephen cardinal Dedalus, PRIMATE of all Ireland,
appears in the doorway, dressed in red SOUTANE, sandals and socks.  Seven
dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, UPHOLD his train,
peeping under it.  He wears A battered silk hat sideways on his head.  His
thumbs are stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread.  Round his neck
hangs A rosary of corks ending on his breast in A corkscrew cross. 
RELEASING his thumbs, he INVOKES grace from on high with large wave
gestures and PROCLAIMS with bloated pomp:)

The cardinal: 

    Conservio lies captured
    He lies in the lowest dungeon
    With manacles and chains around his limbs
    Weighing upwards of three tons.

(He looks at all for A moment, his right eye closed tight, his left cheek
puffed out.  Then, UNABLE to repress his merriment, he rocks to and fro,
arms AKIMBO, and sings with broad rollicking humour:)

    O, the poor little fellow
    Hihihihihis legs they were yellow
    He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake
    But some bloody savage
    To graize his white cabbage
    He murdered Nell Flaherty’s duckloving drake.