Time: 　8 A.M., Thursday, June 16, 1904

Scene:
a Martello tower at Sandycove on the shore of Dublin
Bay seven miles southeast of the center Dublin

Organ:　None

Art:　Theology

Colors:　white, gold

Symbol: heir

Technique: narrative (young)

Correspondences:
Telemachus, Hamlet - Steven, Antinous (and Hamlet's
Uncle, Claudius) -Mulligan, Mentor -the milkwoman)

Background:
Book 1 of The Odyssey opens with an invocation of the
muse, followed by an account of a council of the gods on
Olympus at which Zeus decides that it is time for Odys-
seus to return home. The scene then shifts to Ithaca,
where we find Telemachus, Odysseus's son, "a boy, day-
dreaming" of his father's return' He is unhappy, threat-
ened with betrayal and displacement by the suitors who
have collected around his mother, Penelope, during his
father's absence. These arrogant men, led by Antinous
(whose name means "antimind") and Eurymachos
("wide fighter"), mock the omens sent by Zeus, going so
far as to plot Telemachus's death and to boast that they
will kill Odysseus should he return alone. In the council
on Olympus, Pallas Athena (the goddess of the arts of
war and peace, of domestic economy, and of human wit
and intuition) is revealed as Odysseus's patron. In Book
1 she appears to Telemachus disguised as Mentes, king
of Taphos and an old friend of the family, and advises
him to assert his independence of his mother and jour-
ney to the mainland in search of news of his father. In
Book 2, now disguised as Mentor, the guardian of Odys-
seus's house and slaves during his absence, Athena en-
courages Telemachus and helps him find ship and crew
for the voyage to the mainland.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a
bowl1 of lather on which a mirror and a razor2 lay crossed. A yellow3
dressinggown, ungirdled4, was sustained gently behind him by the mild
morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

--Introibo ad altare Dei. 5

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out
coarsely:

--Come up, Kinch!6 Come up, you fearful jesuit!7

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest8. He faced
about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the 　　　　　　　10
awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent
towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and
shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms
on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face
that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair,
grained and hued like pale oak.

Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered
the bowl smartly.

--Back to barracks!9 he said sternly.

He added in a preacher's tone: 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　20

--For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine10: body and soul and
blood and ouns11. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A
little trouble about those white corpuscles12. Silence, all.

He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused
awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there
with gold points. Chrysostomos13. Two strong shrill whistles14 answered
through the calm.

--Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the
current, will you?

He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering 　　　　　　　　30
about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and
sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages15. A
pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.

--The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name16, an ancient Greek!

He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,
laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily
halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he
propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and
lathered cheeks and neck.

Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　40

--My name is absurd too: Malachi17 Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a
Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must
go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid?

He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:

--Will he come? The jejune jesuit!

Ceasing, he began to shave with care.

--Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.

--Yes, my love?

--How long is Haines18 going to stay in this tower?

Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　50

--God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks
you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money
and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you
have the real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you
is the best: Kinch, the knifeblade.

He shaved warily over his chin.

--He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is his
guncase?

--A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk19?

--I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark 　　　　　　　60
with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a
black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If
he stays on here I am off.

Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped
down from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.

--Scutter!20 he cried thickly.

He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's
upper pocket, said:

--Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.

Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a　　　　　　　　　 70
dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly.
Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:

--The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. You
can almost taste it, can't you?

He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his
fair oakpale hair stirring slightly.

--God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweet
mother21? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton22.
Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them in the
original. Thalatta! Thalatta!22 She is our great sweet mother. Come and 　　　　　　　 80
look.

Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he
looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth
of Kingstown23.

--Our mighty mother!24 Buck Mulligan said.

He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes25 from the sea to Stephen's
face.

--The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That's why she won't let
me have anything to do with you.

--Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　90

--You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother
asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I'm hyperborean26 as much as you. But to
think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and
pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you...

He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant
smile curled his lips.

--But a lovely mummer! he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest
mummer of them all!

He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously.

Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against 　　　　　　100
his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coatsleeve.
Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in
a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its
loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath,
that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes.
Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet
mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a
dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her
deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her
rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 110

Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.

--Ah, poor dogsbody!27 he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt and a
few noserags. How are the second-hand breeks28?

--They fit well enough, Stephen answered.

Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip.

--The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God
knows what poxy bowsy29 left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair stripe,
grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You look damn
well when you're dressed.

--Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey30.　　　　　　　　　　　　　 120

--He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. Etiquette
is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.

He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the
smooth skin.

Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its
smokeblue mobile eyes.

--That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, says you
have g.p.i31. He's up in Dottyville32 with Connolly Norman33. General para-
lysis of the insane!

He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad 　　　　　　　　 130
in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and the
edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong wellknit
trunk.

--Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard!

Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a
crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me34. Who chose this face
for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.

--I pinched it out of the skivvy's35 room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her all
right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead him
not into temptation36. And her name is Ursula37..　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 140

Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes.

--The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror38, he said. If Wilde
were only alive to see you!

Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness:

--It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant39.

Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen's and walked with him round
the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he had thrust
them.

--It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. God knows 　　　　　150
you have more spirit than any of them.

Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The cold
steelpen.

--Cracked lookingglass of a servant! Tell that to the oxy40 chap downstairs
and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and thinks you're not
a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or some
bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I could only work together
we might do something for the island. Hellenise it41.

Cranly's arm42. His arm.

--And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I'm the only one 　　　　　　　160
that knows what you are. Why don't you trust me more? What have you up
your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I'll bring
down Seymour43 and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave Clive
Kempthorpe44.

Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms. Palefaces45:
they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another. O, I shall expire!
Break the news to her gently46, Aubrey!47 I shall die! With slit ribbons of his
shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the table, with trousers
down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen48 with the tailor's shears. A
scared calf's face gilded with marmalade. I don't want to be debagged!49 　　　　　　　170
Don't you play the giddy ox with me!

Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A
deaf gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold's50 face, pushes his
mower on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of
grasshalms.51

To ourselves52 .... new paganism53 .... omphalos.54

--Let him stay, Stephen said. There's nothing wrong with him except at
night.

--Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I'm quite
frank with you. What have you against me now?　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　180

They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head55 that lay on
the water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm quietly.

--Do you wish me to tell you? he asked.

--Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don't remember anything.

He looked in Stephen's face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow,
fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of
anxiety in his eyes.

Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said:

--Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother's
death?　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　190

Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said:

--What? Where? I can't remember anything. I remember only ideas and
sensations.56 Why? What happened in the name of God?

--You were making tea, Stephen said, and went across the landing to get
more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the drawingroom.
She asked you who was in your room.

--Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget.

--You said, Stephen answered, O, it's only Dedalus whose mother is beastly
dead.

A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck Mul-　　　　200
ligan's cheek.

--Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that?

He shook his constraint from him nervously.

--And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You
saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and
Richmond57 and cut up into tripes in the dissectingroom. It's a beastly thing
and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel down to
pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why? Because
you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the wrong way.
To me it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes are not funct- 　　　　　　　　210
ioning. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle58 and picks buttercups off
the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You crossed her last wish in death
and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like some hired mute from
Lalouette's.59 Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I didn't mean to offend the
memory of your mother.

He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping wounds
which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly:

--I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.

--Of what then? Buck Mulligan asked.

--Of the offence to me, Stephen answered.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　220

Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel.

--O, an impossible person! he exclaimed.

He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post, ga-
zing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew
dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he felt
the fever of his cheeks.

A voice within the tower called loudly:

--Are you up there, Mulligan?

--I'm coming, Buck Mulligan answered.

He turned towards Stephen and said:　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　230

--Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola,60 Kinch,
and come on down. The Sassenach61 wants his morning rashers.

His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level with
the roof:

--Don't mope over it all day, he said. I'm inconsequent. Give up the moody
brooding.62

His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of the
stairhead:

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　240
For Fergus rules the brazen cars.63

Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stair-
head seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water
whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea.
The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings, merging
their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim
tide.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in deep-
er green. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters64. Fergus' song: I
sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her door 　　　　　　　　250
was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to
her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words, Stephen:
love's bitter mystery.

Where now?

Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a
gaud of amber beads65 in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny
window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce66 sing in
the pantomime of Turko the Terrible67 and laughed with others when he
sang:

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　I am the boy　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　260
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　That can enjoy
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Invisibility.68

Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And no more turn aside and brood.

Folded away in the memory of nature69 with her toys. Memories beset his
brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had
approached the sacrament70. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar, roast-
ing for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely fingernails
reddened by the blood of squashed lice71 from the children's shirts.

In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its 　　　　　　　　　　270
loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath,
bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes.

Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On me
alone72. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured
face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their
knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum
turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat73.

Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!

No, mother! Let me be and let me live74.

--Kinch ahoy!　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　280

Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the
staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul's cry,
heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words.

--Dedalus, come down, like a good mosey75. Breakfast is ready. Haines is
apologising for waking us last night. It's all right.

--I'm coming, Stephen said, turning.

--Do, for Jesus' sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our
sakes.

His head disappeared and reappeared.

--I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it's very clever. Touch him 　　　　　　　　290
for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean76.

--I get paid this morning, Stephen said.

--The school kip?77 Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid?78 Lend us one.

--If you want it, Stephen said.

--Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We'll have a
glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent sovereigns.

He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of
tune with a Cockney accent:

--O, won't we have a merry time,　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　300
Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
On Coronation,
Coronation day!
O, won't we have a merry time
On Coronation day!79

Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shavingbowl shone, forgot-
ten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there all
day, forgotten friendship?

He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness,
smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck. So 　　　　　　　310
I carried the boat of incense80 then at Clongowes81. I am another now and yet
the same. A servant too. A server of a servant.82

In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan's gowned form
moved briskly to and fro about the hearth, hiding and revealing its yel-
low glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor from
the high barbacans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of coalsmoke
and fumes of fried grease floated, turning.

--We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will you?

Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the
hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open 　　　　　　　320
the inner doors.

--Have you the key? a voice asked.

--Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack83, I'm choked!

He howled, without looking up from the fire:

--Kinch!

--It's in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward.

The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been set
ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the doorway,
looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and sat down
to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside him. Then 　　　　　　　　　330
he carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set them down
heavily and sighed with relief.

--I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when .... 84 But, hush! Not a
word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey. Haines,
come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts.85 Where's
the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk.86

Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from
the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.

--What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight.

--We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There's a lemon in the 　　　　　　　　　340
locker.

--O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove
milk.

Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly:

--That woman is coming up with the milk.

--The blessings of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his
chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I
can't go fumbling at the damned eggs.

He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three plates,
saying:　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　350

--In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti.87

Haines sat down to pour out the tea.

--I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do
make strong tea, don't you?

Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman's
wheedling voice:

--When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan88 said. And when I
makes water I makes water.

--By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.

Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　360

--So I do, Mrs Cahill,89 says she. Begob, ma'am, says Mrs Cahill, God send
you don't make them in the one pot.

He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled
on his knife.

--That's folk,90 he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five lines
of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of Dundrum91.
Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind.

He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his
brows:

--Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of 　　　　　　　370
in the Mabinogion92 or is it in the Upanishads?93

--I doubt it, said Stephen gravely.

--Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray?

--I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the
Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary
Ann.

Buck Mulligan's face smiled with delight.

--Charming! he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth and
blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming!

Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened 　　　　　　　　380
rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf:

--For old Mary Ann 94
She doesn't care a damn.
But, hising up her petticoats ....

He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned.

The doorway was darkened by an entering form.

--The milk, sir!

--Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug.

An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow.

--That's a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 390

--To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure!

Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker.

--The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of the
collector of prepuces.95

--How much, sir? asked the old woman.

--A quart, Stephen said.

He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white
milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and a
tilly.96 Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a mes-
senger.97 She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out. Crouching 　　　　　　 400
by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on her toadstool,
her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed about her
whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old woman,98
names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of an immor-
tal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean,99
a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, whether he
could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour.100

--It is indeed, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups.

--Taste it, sir, she said.

He drank at her bidding.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　410

--If we could live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat loudly,
we wouldn't have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten guts. Living
in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with dust, horsedung
and consumptives' spits.

--Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.

--I am, ma'am, Buck Mulligan answered.

--Look at that now, she said.

Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice that
speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: me she slights. To
the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there is of her but 　　　　　　　　　　　 420
her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the
serpent's prey.101 And to the loud voice that now bids her be silent with
wondering unsteady eyes.

--Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her.

--Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines.

Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently.

--Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you?102

--I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from the west,103
sir?

--I am an Englishman, Haines answered.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 430

--He's English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak Irish in
Ireland.

--Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I'm ashamed I don't speak the
language myself. I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows.

--Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely. Fill us
out some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma'am?

--No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the milkcan
on her forearm and about to go.

Haines said to her:

--Have you your bill? We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn't we?　　　　　　　　　　　　　 440

Stephen filled again the three cups.

--Bill, sir? she said, halting. Well, it's seven mornings a pint at twopence
is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three mornings a quart
at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling. That's a shilling and one and two
is two and two, sir.

Buck Mulligan sighed and, having filled his mouth with a crust thickly but-
tered on both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search his trouser
pockets.

--Pay up and look pleasant, Haines said to him, smiling.

Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the thick rich 　　　　　　 450
milk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in his fingers and
cried:

--A miracle!

He passed it along the table towards the old woman, saying:

--Ask nothing more of me, sweet.
All I can give you I give.104

Stephen laid the coin in her uneager hand.

--We'll owe twopence, he said.

--Time enough, sir, she said, taking the coin. Time enough. Good morning,
sir.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　460

She curtseyed and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan's tender chant:

--Heart of my heart, were it more,
More would be laid at your feet.105

He turned to Stephen and said:

--Seriously, Dedalus. I'm stony.106 Hurry out to your school kip and bring us
back some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland expects
that every man this day will do his duty.107

--That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your national
library today.108　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 470

--Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said.

He turned to Stephen and asked blandly:

--Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch?

Then he said to Haines:

--The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month.

--All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream,109 Stephen said as he let honey
trickle over a slice of the loaf.

Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the
loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke:

--I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me.　　　　　　　　　　　　 480

Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit.110 Con-
science. Yet here's a spot.111

--That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol of
Irish art is deuced good.

Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the table and said with warmth
of tone:

--Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines.

--Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just thinking
of it when that poor old creature came in.

--Would I make any money by it? Stephen asked.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 490

Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast112 of the
hammock, said:

--I don't know, I'm sure.

He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen and
said with coarse vigour:

--You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for?

--Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the
milkwoman or from him. It's a toss up, I think.

--I blow him out about you,113 Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along
with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 500

--I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him.

Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen's arm.

--From me, Kinch, he said.

In a suddenly changed tone he added:

--To tell you the God's truth I think you're right. Damn all else they are
good for. Why don't you play them as I do? To hell with them all. Let us get
out of the kip.

He stood up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his gown, saying
resignedly:

--Mulligan is stripped of his garments.114

He emptied his pockets on to the table.

--There's your snotrag, he said.

And putting on his stiff collar and rebellious tie he spoke to them, chi-
ding them, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and rummaged
in his trunk while he called for a clean handkerchief. God, we'll simply
have to dress the character. I want puce gloves and green boots.115 Contra-
diction. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.116
Mercurial Malachi.117 A limp black missile flew out of his talking hands.

--And there's your Latin quarter hat,118 he said.

Stephen picked it up and put it on. Haines called to them from the
doorway:

--Are you coming, you fellows?

--I'm ready, Buck Mulligan answered, going towards the door. Come out,
Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose.

Resigned he passed out with grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh
with sorrow:

--And going forth he met Butterly.119

Stephen, taking his ashplant120 from its leaningplace, followed them out and,
as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and locked it.
He put the huge key in his inner pocket.

At the foot of the ladder Buck Mulligan asked:

--Did you bring the key?

--I have it, Stephen said, preceding them.

He walked on. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan club with his heavy bath-
towel the leader shoots121 of ferns or grasses.

--Down, sir! How dare you, sir!

Haines asked:

--Do you pay rent for this tower?

--Twelve quid,122 Buck Mulligan said.

--To the secretary of state for war,123 Stephen added over his shoulder.

They halted while Haines surveyed the tower and said at last:

--Rather bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello124 you call it?

--Billy Pitt125 had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were on
the sea.126 But ours is the omphalos.127

--What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen.

--No, no, Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. I'm not equal to Thomas Aqu-
inas128 and the fiftyfive reasons129 he has made out to prop it up. Wait
till I have a few pints in me first.

He turned to Stephen, saying, as he pulled down neatly the peaks of
his primrose waistcoat:

--You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you?

--It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer.

--You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox?

--Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes.130
It's quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is
Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his
own father.

--What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself?

Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending
in loose laughter, said to Stephen's ear:

--O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father!131

--We're always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is
rather long to tell.

Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands.

--The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said.

--I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this tower
and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. That beetles o'er his
base into the sea,132 isn't it?

Buck Mulligan turned suddenly. for an instant towards Stephen but did not
speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in cheap
dusty mourning between their gay attires.

--It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again.

Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent.
The seas' ruler,133 he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the
smokeplume of the mailboat134 vague on the bright skyline and a sail tacking
by the Muglins.135

--I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused. The
Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the Father.136

Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked at
them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had
suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved
a doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and
began to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice:

--I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard.
My mother's a Jew,137 my father's a bird.138
With Joseph the Joiner139 I cannot agree.
So here's to disciples and Calvary. 140

He held up a forefinger of warning.

--If anyone thinks that I amn't divine
He'll get no free drinks when I'm making the wine141
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.

He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, running for-
ward to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like fins
or wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted:

--Goodbye, now, goodbye! Write down all I said
And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead.
What's Bred in the Bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet's breezy 142.... Goodbye, now, goodbye!

He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole,143 fluttering
his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat144 quivering in the
fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries.

Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and said:

--We oughtn't to laugh, I suppose. He's rather blasphemous. I'm not a
believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of
it somehow, doesn't it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner?

--The ballad of Joking Jesus, Stephen answered.

--O, Haines said, you have heard it before?

--Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily.

--You're not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in the
narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing145 and miracles and a perso-
nal God.146

--There's only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said.

Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a green
stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it.

--Thank you, Stephen said, taking a cigarette.

Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. He put it back in his side-
pocket and took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang it
open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk towards
Stephen in the shell of his hands.

--Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe or you
don't, isn't it? Personally I couldn't stomach that idea of a personal God.
You don't stand for that, I suppose?

--You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible example
of free thought.147

He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his
side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels. My
familiar,148 after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! A wavering line along the
path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark. He wants that
key. It is mine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt bread.149 Give him the key
too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his eyes.

--After all, Haines began ....

Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was not
all unkind.

--After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your own
master,150 it seems to me.

--I am a servant of two masters,151 Stephen said, an English and an Italian.

--Italian? Haines said.

A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me.

--And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs.

--Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean?

--The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and the
holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.

Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he
spoke.

--I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think like
that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you rather unfairly.
It seems history is to blame.

The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph of their
brazen bells: et unam sanctam Catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam:152
the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts, a
chemistry of stars.153 Symbol of the apostles154 in the mass for pope Marcel-
lus,155 the voices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation: and behind their
chant the vigilant angel of the church militant disarmed and menaced her
heresiarchs.156 A horde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry: Photius157 and the
brood of mockers158 of whom Mulligan was one, and Arius,159 warring his life
long upon the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine,160
spurning Christ's terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius 161
who held that the Father was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spo-
ken a moment since in mockery to the stranger.162 Idle mockery. The void
awaits surely all them that weave the wind:163 a menace, a disarming and a
worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael's164 host, who
defend her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their shields.

Hear, hear! Prolonged applause. Zut! Nom de Dieu! 165

--Of course I'm a Britisher, Haines's voice said, and I feel as one. I don't
want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews166 either. That's our
national problem, I'm afraid, just now.

Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching: businessman,
boatman.

--She's making for Bullock harbour.167

The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay with some disdain.

--There's five fathoms out there,168 he said. It'll be swept up that way when
the tide comes in about one.169 It's nine days today.170

The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting for
a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, saltwhite.
Here I am.

They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on
a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. A
young man clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly frogwise his
green legs in the deep jelly of the water.

--Is the brother with you, Malachi?

--Down in Westmeath.171 With the Bannons.

--Still there? I got a card from Bannon.172 Says he found a sweet young thing
down there. Photo girl he calls her.

--Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure.

Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near
the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones, water
glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair,173 water rilling
over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black sagging
loincloth.

Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines
and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and lips
and breastbone.174

--Seymour's back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur of
rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army.

--Ah, go to God! Buck Mulligan said.

--Going over next week to stew. You know that red Carlisle girl,175 Lily?

--Yes.

--Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto176 with money.

--Is she up the pole?177

--Better ask Seymour that.

--Seymour a bleeding officer! Buck Mulligan said.

He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying
tritely:

--Redheaded women buck like goats.178

He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt.

--My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I'm the ubermensch.179 Toothless Kinch
and I, the supermen.

He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his
clothes lay.

--Are you going in here, Malachi?

--Yes. Make room in the bed.

The young man shoved himself backward through the water and reached
the middle of the creek in two long clean strokes. Haines sat down
on a stone, smoking.

--Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked.

--Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast.

Stephen turned away.

--I'm going, Mulligan, he said.

--Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep my chemise flat.

Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped
clothes.

--And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there.

Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing.
Buck Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly:

--He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord.180 Thus spake
Zarathustra.

His plump body plunged.

--We'll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the path
and smiling at wild Irish.

Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon.181

--The Ship,182 Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve.

--Good, Stephen said.

He walked along the upwardcurving path.

Liliata Rutilantium.
Turma circumdet.
Iubilantium te Virginum.183

The priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly.184 I will
not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.

A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning
the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a
seal's,185 far out on the water, round.

Usurper.186