Ulysses
STEPHEN: Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter.
Ungenitive.
VOICES: No, he didn’t. I seen him. The girl there. He was in Mrs
Cohen’s. What’s up? Soldier and civilian.
CISSY CAFFREY: I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to
do—you know, and the young man run up behind me. But I’m faithful to
the man that’s treating me though I’m only a shilling whore.
STEPHEN: _(Catches sight of Lynch’s and Kitty’s heads.)_ Hail,
Sisyphus. _(He points to himself and the others.)_ Poetic. Uropoetic.
VOICES: Shes faithfultheman.
CISSY CAFFREY: Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.
PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn’t half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff
him one, Harry.
PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy.)_ Was he insulting you while me and him was
having a piss?
LORD TENNYSON: _(Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket
flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded.)_ Theirs not to reason why.
PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry.
STEPHEN: _(To Private Compton.)_ I don’t know your name but you are
quite right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in
their shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.
CISSY CAFFREY: _(To the crowd.)_ No, I was with the privates.
STEPHEN: _(Amiably.)_ Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion
every lady for example...
PRIVATE CARR: _(His cap awry, advances to Stephen.)_ Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN: _(Looks up to the sky.)_ How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of
selfpretence. Personally, I detest action. _(He waves his hand.)_ Hand
hurts me slightly. _Enfin ce sont vos oignons._ _(To Cissy Caffrey.)_
Some trouble is on here. What is it precisely?
DOLLY GRAY: _(From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign
of the heroine of Jericho.)_ Rahab. Cook’s son, goodbye. Safe home to
Dolly. Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.
_(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)_
BLOOM: _(Elbowing through the crowd, plucks Stephen’s sleeve
vigorously.)_ Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.
STEPHEN: _(Turns.)_ Eh? _(He disengages himself.)_ Why should I not
speak to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate
orange? _(He points his finger.)_ I’m not afraid of what I can talk to
if I see his eye. Retaining the perpendicular.
_(He staggers a pace back.)_
BLOOM: _(Propping him.)_ Retain your own.
STEPHEN: _(Laughs emptily.)_ My centre of gravity is displaced. I have
forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle
for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably
the tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. _(He taps
his brow.)_ But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
BIDDY THE CLAP: Did you hear what the professor said? He’s a professor
out of the college.
CUNTY KATE: I did. I heard that.
BIDDY THE CLAP: He expresses himself with such marked refinement of
phraseology.
CUNTY KATE: Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite
trenchancy.
PRIVATE CARR: _(Pulls himself free and comes forward.)_ What’s that
you’re saying about my king?
_(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on
which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the insignia of
Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner’s and
Probyn’s horse, Lincoln’s Inn bencher and ancient and honourable
artillery company of Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed
as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron,
marked_ made in Germany. _In his left hand he holds a plasterer’s
bucket on which is printed_ Défense d’uriner. _A roar of welcome greets
him.)_
EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.)_ Peace,
perfect peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys.
_(He turns to his subjects.)_ We have come here to witness a clean
straight fight and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck.
Mahak makar a bak.
_(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom
and Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket
graciously in acknowledgment.)_
PRIVATE CARR: _(To Stephen.)_ Say it again.
STEPHEN: _(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.)_ I understand your
point of view though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the
age of patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this
is the point. You die for your country. Suppose. _(He places his arm on
Private Carr’s sleeve.)_ Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my
country die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I didn’t want it
to die. Damn death. Long live life!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and
with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent
face.)_
My methods are new and are causing surprise.
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.
STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! _(He falls back a pace.)_ Come somewhere
and we’ll... What was that girl saying?...
PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one
into Jerry.
BLOOM: _(To the privates, softly.)_ He doesn’t know what he’s saying.
Taken a little more than is good for him. Absinthe. Greeneyed monster.
I know him. He’s a gentleman, a poet. It’s all right.
STEPHEN: _(Nods, smiling and laughing.)_ Gentleman, patriot, scholar
and judge of impostors.
PRIVATE CARR: I don’t give a bugger who he is.
PRIVATE COMPTON: We don’t give a bugger who he is.
STEPHEN: I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.
_(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o’-day
boy’s hat signs to Stephen.)_
KEVIN EGAN: H’lo! _Bonjour!_ The _vieille ogresse_ with the _dents
jaunes_.
_(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince
leaf.)_
PATRICE: _Socialiste!_
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: _(In medieval hauberk,
two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a
mailed hand against the privates.)_ Werf those eykes to footboden, big
grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
BLOOM: _(To Stephen.)_ Come home. You’ll get into trouble.
STEPHEN: _(Swaying.)_ I don’t avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.
BIDDY THE CLAP: One immediately observes that he is of patrician
lineage.
THE VIRAGO: Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.
THE BAWD: The red’s as good as the green. And better. Up the soldiers!
Up King Edward!
A ROUGH: _(Laughs.)_ Ay! Hands up to De Wet.
THE CITIZEN: _(With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)_
May the God above
Send down a dove
With teeth as sharp as razors
To slit the throats
Of the English dogs
That hanged our Irish leaders.
THE CROPPY BOY: _(The ropenoose round his neck, gripes in his issuing
bowels with both hands.)_
I bear no hate to a living thing,
But I love my country beyond the king.
RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: _(Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants,
advances with gladstone bag which he opens.)_ Ladies and gents, cleaver
purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin
dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the
cellar, the unfortunate female’s throat being cut from ear to ear.
Phial containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent
Seddon to the gallows.
_(He jerks the rope. The assistants leap at the victim’s legs and drag
him downward, grunting: the croppy boy’s tongue protrudes violently.)_
THE CROPPY BOY:
Horhot ho hray hor hother’s hest.
_(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts
of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs
Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys
rush forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)_
RUMBOLD: I’m near it myself. _(He undoes the noose.)_ Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal
Highness. _(He plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and
draws out his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.)_ My
painful duty has now been done. God save the king!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and
sings with soft contentment.)_
On coronation day, on coronation day,
O, won’t we have a merry time,
Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king?
STEPHEN: _(Throws up his hands.)_ O, this is too monotonous! Nothing.
He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some
brutish empire of his. Money I haven’t. _(He searches his pockets
vaguely.)_ Gave it to someone.
PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money?
STEPHEN: _(Tries to move off.)_ Will someone tell me where I am least
likely to meet these necessary evils? _Ça se voit aussi à Paris._ Not
that I... But, by Saint Patrick...!
_(The women’s heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears
seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her
breast.)_
STEPHEN: Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that
eats her farrow!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Rocking to and fro.)_ Ireland’s sweetheart, the
king of Spain’s daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to
them! _(She keens with banshee woe.)_ Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine!
_(She wails.)_ You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?
STEPHEN: How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where’s the third person of
the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.
CISSY CAFFREY: _(Shrill.)_ Stop them from fighting!
A ROUGH: Our men retreated.
PRIVATE CARR: _(Tugging at his belt.)_ I’ll wring the neck of any
fucker says a word against my fucking king.
BLOOM: _(Terrified.)_ He said nothing. Not a word. A pure
misunderstanding.
THE CITIZEN: _Erin go bragh!_
_(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals,
decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce
hostility.)_
PRIVATE COMPTON: Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He’s a proboer.
STEPHEN: Did I? When?
BLOOM: _(To the redcoats.)_ We fought for you in South Africa, Irish
missile troops. Isn’t that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by
our monarch.
THE NAVVY: _(Staggering past.)_ O, yes! O God, yes! O, make the kwawr a
krowawr! O! Bo!
_(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted
spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in
bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes, gilt
chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes the line.
He gives the pilgrim warrior’s sign of the knights templars.)_
MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Growls gruffly.)_ Rorke’s Drift! Up, guards, and at
them! Mahar shalal hashbaz.
PRIVATE CARR: I’ll do him in.
PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Waves the crowd back.)_ Fair play, here. Make a
bleeding butcher’s shop of the bugger.
_(Massed bands blare_ Garryowen _and_ God save the King.)
CISSY CAFFREY: They’re going to fight. For me!
CUNTY KATE: The brave and the fair.
BIDDY THE CLAP: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.
CUNTY KATE: _(Blushing deeply.)_ Nay, madam. The gules doublet and
merry saint George for me!
STEPHEN:
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave Old Ireland’s windingsheet.
PRIVATE CARR: _(Loosening his belt, shouts.)_ I’ll wring the neck of
any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.
BLOOM: _(Shakes Cissy Caffrey’s shoulders.)_ Speak, you! Are you struck
dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman,
sacred lifegiver!
CISSY CAFFREY: _(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr’s sleeve.)_ Amn’t I with