Ulysses
do. Thereat laughed they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sir
Leopold which never durst laugh too open by reason of a strange humour
which he would not bewray and also for that he rued for her that bare
whoso she might be or wheresoever. Then spake young Stephen orgulous of
mother Church that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons,
of Lilith, patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of
brightness or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius
saith, by the influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or
an she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, _effectu
secuto_, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of
Averroes and Moses Maimonides. He said also how at the end of the
second month a human soul was infused and how in all our holy mother
foldeth ever souls for God’s greater glory whereas that earthly mother
which was but a dam to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith he
that holdeth the fisherman’s seal, even that blessed Peter on which
rock was holy church for all ages founded. All they bachelors then
asked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person as
risk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted
all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that
as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a
layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an
accident it was good for that mother Church belike at one blow had
birth and death pence and in such sort deliverly he scaped their
questions. That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, and, or I err, a pregnant
word. Which hearing young Stephen was a marvellous glad man and he
averred that he who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord for he
was of a wild manner when he was drunken and that he was now in that
taking it appeared eftsoons.
But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had
pity of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour and
as he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only
manchild which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of art
could save so dark is destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heart
for that evil hap and for his burial did him on a fair corselet of
lamb’s wool, the flower of the flock, lest he might perish utterly and
lie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter) and now sir
Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked upon him
his friend’s son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness
and as sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for
all accounted him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure
for young Stephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and
murdered his goods with whores.
About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood empty
so as there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowed
their approach from him that still plied it very busily who, praying
for the intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledge
the vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray. Now drink
we, quod he, of this mazer and quaff ye this mead which is not indeed
parcel of my body but my soul’s bodiment. Leave ye fraction of bread to
them that live by bread alone. Be not afeard neither for any want for
this will comfort more than the other will dismay. See ye here. And he
showed them glistering coins of the tribute and goldsmith notes the
worth of two pound nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a song
which he writ. They all admired to see the foresaid riches in such
dearth of money as was herebefore. His words were then these as
followeth: Know all men, he said, time’s ruins build eternity’s
mansions. What means this? Desire’s wind blasts the thorntree but after
it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark
me now. In woman’s womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the
maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away.
This is the postcreation. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. No question but
her name is puissant who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer,
Healer and Herd, our mighty mother and mother most venerable and
Bernardus saith aptly that She hath an _omnipotentiam deiparae
supplicem_, that is to wit, an almightiness of petition because she is
the second Eve and she won us, saith Augustine too, whereas that other,
our grandam, which we are linked up with by successive anastomosis of
navelcords sold us all, seed, breed and generation, for a penny pippin.
But here is the matter now. Or she knew him, that second I say, and was
but creature of her creature, _vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio_, or
she knew him not and then stands she in the one denial or ignorancy
with Peter Piscator who lives in the house that Jack built and with
Joseph the joiner patron of the happy demise of all unhappy marriages,
_parceque M. Léo Taxil nous a dit que qui l’avait mise dans cette
fichue position c’était le sacré pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder_
transubstantiality _oder_ consubstantiality but in no case
subsubstantiality. And all cried out upon it for a very scurvy word. A
pregnancy without joy, he said, a birth without pangs, a body without
blemish, a belly without bigness. Let the lewd with faith and fervour
worship. With will will we withstand, withsay.
Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and would
sing a bawdy catch _Staboo Stabella_ about a wench that was put in pod
of a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did straightways now attack:
_The first three months she was not well, Staboo,_ when here nurse
Quigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor was
it not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have all
orderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that no
gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an
ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in
habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her
hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of
them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness
some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all
chode with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at,
thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou
chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou,
to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the
good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet,
margerain gentle, advising also the time’s occasion as most sacred and
most worthy to be most sacred. In Horne’s house rest should reign.
To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in
Eccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why he
had not cided to take friar’s vows and he answered him obedience in the
womb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days. Master
Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds
and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue
of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all
intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But he
said very entirely it was clean contrary to their suppose for he was
the eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the more
and they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing
and deflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island,
she to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain,
with burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyries
and the anthem _Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium_ till she was
there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable hymen minim by those
delicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont that is
in their _Maid’s Tragedy_ that was writ for a like twining of lovers:
_To bed, to bed_ was the burden of it to be played with accompanable
concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most
mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous
flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium
of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed,
but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher
for, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen
said indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between
them and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous for
life ran very high in those days and the custom of the country approved
with it. Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay
down his wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words
to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French
letters to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to
whom mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower it
will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. _Orate, fratres,
pro memetipso_. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thy
generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by
my word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication
in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou
sinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of
servants. Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why
hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for
a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian
of dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth
now, my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo
and from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with
milk and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: my moon
and my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone for
ever in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a kiss of ashes hast
thou kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior, he proceeded to
say, hath not been illumined by the wit of the septuagint nor so much
as mentioned for the Orient from on high which brake hell’s gates
visited a darkness that was foraneous. Assuefaction minorates
atrocities (as Tully saith of his darling Stoics) and Hamlet his father
showeth the prince no blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the noon
of life is an Egypt’s plague which in the nights of prenativity and
postmortemity is their most proper _ubi_ and _quomodo_. And as the ends
and ultimates of all things accord in some mean and measure with their
inceptions and originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leads
forth growth from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis
that minishing and ablation towards the final which is agreeable unto
nature so is it with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us into
life: we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over
us dead they bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, among
bulrushes, a bed of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of a
mountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat
and the ossifrage. And as no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor
to what processes we shall thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet or
to Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we would backward see
from what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetched
his whenceness.
Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly _Etienne chanson_ but he
loudly bid them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vast