Ulysses
BLOOM: _(Impassionedly.)_ These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as
they recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they?
Machines is their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving
apparatuses, supplanters, bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual
murder, hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts
upon our prostituted labour. The poor man starves while they are
grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and
phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. But their reign
is rover for rever and ever and ev...
_(Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring
up. A streamer bearing the legends_ Cead Mile Failte _and_ Mah Ttob
Melek Israel _spans the street. All the windows are thronged with
sightseers, chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the Royal
Dublin Fusiliers, the King’s own Scottish Borderers, the Cameron
Highlanders and the Welsh Fusiliers, standing to attention, keep back
the crowd. Boys from High school are perched on the lampposts,
telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings,
rainspouts, whistling and cheering. The pillar of the cloud appears. A
fife and drum band is heard in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. The
beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and
waving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high,
surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the procession
appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard
tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are
followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of
Dublin, his lordship the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the mayors
of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish
representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the
cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapter of
the saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the
bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue,
archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most
reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all
Ireland, the chief rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the
baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary
secretary of the society of friends. After them march the guilds and
trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers,
millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners,
trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers,
farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack
manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters,
corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export
bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse
repository hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters,
riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing
contractors. After them march gentlemen of the bedchamber, Black Rod,
Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the master of horse, the lord great
chamberlain, the earl marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of
state, saint Stephen’s iron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers
on foot blow a sennet. Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome.
Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, bareheaded, in a crimson velvet
mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward’s staff, the orb and
sceptre with the dove, the curtana. He is seated on a milkwhite horse
with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with golden
headstall. Wild excitement. The ladies from their balconies throw down
rosepetals. The air is perfumed with essences. The men cheer. Bloom’s
boys run amid the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and
wrenbushes.)_
BLOOM’S BOYS:
The wren, the wren,
The king of all birds,
Saint Stephen’s his day
Was caught in the furze.
A BLACKSMITH: _(Murmurs.)_ For the honour of God! And is that Bloom? He
scarcely looks thirtyone.
A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: That’s the famous Bloom now, the world’s greatest
reformer. Hats off!
_(All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.)_
A MILLIONAIRESS: _(Richly.)_ Isn’t he simply wonderful?
A NOBLEWOMAN: _(Nobly.)_ All that man has seen!
A FEMINIST: _(Masculinely.)_ And done!
A BELLHANGER: A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker.
_(Bloom’s weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.)_
THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: I here present your undoubted
emperor-president and king-chairman, the most serene and potent and
very puissant ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First!
ALL: God save Leopold the First!
BLOOM: _(In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and
Connor, with dignity.)_ Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.
WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(In purple stock and shovel hat.)_ Will
you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your
judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging?
BLOOM: _(Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears.)_ So may the
Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do.
MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom’s
head.) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem._ Leopold,
Patrick, Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!
_(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He
ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers
put on at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in
Christ church, Saint Patrick’s, George’s and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar
fireworks go up from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic
designs. The peers do homage, one by one, approaching and
genuflecting.)_
THE PEERS: I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly
worship.
_(Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor
diamond. His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless
intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception
of message.)_
BLOOM: My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula
Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day
repudiated our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the
princess Selene, the splendour of night.
_(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black
Maria. The princess Selene, in moonblue robes, a silver crescent on her
head, descends from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants. An outburst of
cheering.)_
JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: _(Raises the royal standard.)_ Illustrious Bloom!
Successor to my famous brother!
BLOOM: _(Embraces John Howard Parnell.)_ We thank you from our heart,
John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of
our common ancestors.
_(The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter.
The keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He
shows all that he is wearing green socks.)_
TOM KERNAN: You deserve it, your honour.
BLOOM: On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at
Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with
telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do
we yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the
left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering
their warcry _Bonafide Sabaoth_, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man.
THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Hear! Hear!
JOHN WYSE NOLAN: There’s the man that got away James Stephens.
A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Bravo!
AN OLD RESIDENT: You’re a credit to your country, sir, that’s what you
are.
AN APPLEWOMAN: He’s a man like Ireland wants.
BLOOM: My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell
you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye
shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new
Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future.
_(Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of
Ireland, under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new
Bloomusalem. It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the
shape of a huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the
course of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished.
Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds.
Numerous houses are razed to the ground. The inhabitants are lodged in
barrels and boxes, all marked in red with the letters: L. B. Several
paupers fall from a ladder. A part of the walls of Dublin, crowded with
loyal sightseers, collapses.)_
THE SIGHTSEERS: _(Dying.) Morituri te salutant. (They die.)_
_(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trapdoor. He points
an elongated finger at Bloom.)_
THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Don’t you believe a word he says. That man is
Leopold M’Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins.
BLOOM: Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M’Intosh!
_(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his
sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful
enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing
committees, are reported. Bloom’s bodyguard distribute Maundy money,
commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive
Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in
sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock,_
billets doux _in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers
of toad in the hole, bottles of Jeyes’ Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days’
indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes,
season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal and
privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of
the World’s Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of the
Baby (infantilic), 50 Meals for 7/6 (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth?
(historic), Expel that Pain (medic), Infant’s Compendium of the
Universe (cosmic), Let’s All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser’s Vade Mecum
(journalic), Loveletters of Mother Assistant (erotic), Who’s Who in
Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart (melodic), Pennywise’s Way
to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and scramble. Women press
forward to touch the hem of Bloom’s robe. The lady Gwendolen Dubedat
bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses him on both
cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph is
taken. Babes and sucklings are held up.)_
THE WOMEN: Little father! Little father!
THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS:
Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home,
Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone.
_(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)_
BABY BOARDMAN: _(Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth.)_
Hajajaja.
BLOOM: _(Shaking hands with a blind stripling.)_ My more than Brother!
_(Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple.)_ Dear old
friends! _(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls.)_
Peep! Bopeep! _(He wheels twins in a perambulator.)_ Ticktacktwo
wouldyousetashoe? _(He performs juggler’s tricks, draws red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his
mouth.)_ Roygbiv. 32 feet per second. _(He consoles a widow.)_ Absence
makes the heart grow younger. _(He dances the Highland fling with
grotesque antics.)_ Leg it, ye devils! _(He kisses the bedsores of a
palsied veteran.)_ Honourable wounds! _(He trips up a fat policeman.)_
U. p: up. U. p: up. _(He whispers in the ear of a blushing waitress and
laughs kindly.)_ Ah, naughty, naughty! _(He eats a raw turnip offered
him by Maurice Butterly, farmer.)_ Fine! Splendid! _(He refuses to