by James Joyce
The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary chamber on the face of God’s earth and their land in the hands of a dozen gamehogs and cottonball barons. That’s the great empire they boast about of drudges and whipped serfs.
— On which the sun never rises, says Joe.
— And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The unfortunate yahoos believe it.
They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth, and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid.
— But, says Bloom, isn’t discipline the same everywhere. I mean wouldn’t it be the same here if you put force against force?
Didn’t I tell you? As true as I’m drinking this porter if he was at his last gasp he’d try to downface you that dying was living.
— We’ll put force against force, says the citizen. We have our greater Ireland beyond the sea. They were driven out of house and home in the black 47. Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were laid low by the batteringram and the Times rubbed its hands and told the whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as redskins in America. Even the Grand Turk sent us his piastres. But the Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was full of crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro. Ay, they drove out the peasants in hordes. Twenty thousand of them died in the coffinships. But those that came to the land of the free remember the land of bondage. And they will come again and with a vengeance, no cravens, the sons of Granuaile, the champions of Kathleen ni Houlihan.
— Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was...
— We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Ned. Since the poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at Killala.
— Ay, says John Wyse. We fought for the royal Stuarts that reneged us against the Williamites and they betrayed us. Remember Limerick and the broken treatystone. We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the wild geese. Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield and O’Donnell, duke of Tetuan in Spain, and Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria Teresa. But what did we ever get for it?
— The French! says the citizen. Set of dancing masters! Do you know what it is? They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. Aren’t they trying to make an Entente cordiale now at Tay Pay’s dinnerparty with perfidious Albion? Firebrands of Europe and they always were.
— Conspuez les Français, says Lenehan, nobbling his beer.
— And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven’t we had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George the elector down to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that’s dead?
Jesus, I had to laugh at the way he came out with that about the old one with the winkers on her, blind drunk in her royal palace every night of God, old Vic, with her jorum of mountain dew and her coachman carting her up body and bones to roll into bed and she pulling him by the whiskers and singing him old bits of songs about Ehren on the Rhine and come where the boose is cheaper.
— Well, says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now.
— Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There’s a bloody sight more pox than pax about that boyo. Edward Guelph-Wettin!
— And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests and bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic Majesty’s racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his jockeys rode. The earl of Dublin, no less.
— They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says little Alf.
And says J. J.:
— Considerations of space influenced their lordships’ decision.
— Will you try another, citizen? says Joe.
— Yes, sir, says he. I will.
— You? says Joe.
— Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less.
— Repeat that dose, says Joe.
Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about.
— Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it. Perpetuating national hatred among nations.
— But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse.
— Yes, says Bloom.
— What is it? says John Wyse.
— A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same place.
— By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that’s so I’m a nation for I’m living in the same place for the past five years.
So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck out of it:
— Or also living in different places.
— That covers my case, says Joe.
— What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen.
— Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland.
The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, gob, he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner.
— After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief to swab himself dry.
— Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and repeat after me the following words.
The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish facecloth attributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og MacDonogh, authors of the Book of Ballymote, was then carefully produced and called forth prolonged admiration. No need to dwell on the legendary beauty of the cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can distinctly discern each of the four evangelists in turn presenting to each of the four masters his evangelical symbol, a bogoak sceptre, a North American puma (a far nobler king of beasts than the British article, be it said in passing), a Kerry calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney, the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins, Ireland’s Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh’s banks, the vale of Ovoca, Isolde’s tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital, Cape Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch’s castle, the Scotch house, Rathdown Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, Castleconnel rapids, Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, Jury’s Hotel, S. Patrick’s Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college refectory, Curley’s hole, the three birthplaces of the first duke of Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse, Fingal’s Cave — all these moving scenes are still there for us today rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow which have passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time.
— Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which?
— That’s mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman.
— And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted. Also now. This very moment. This very instant.
Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar.
— Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs to us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle.
— Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.
— I’m talking about injustice, says Bloom.
— Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men.
That’s an almanac
picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old lardyface standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he’d adorn a sweepingbrush, so he would, if he only had a nurse’s apron on him. And then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as limp as a wet rag.
— But it’s no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it’s the very opposite of that that is really life.
— What? says Alf.
— Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is there. If he comes just say I’ll be back in a second. Just a moment.
Who’s hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning.
— A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love.
— Well, says John Wyse. Isn’t that what we’re told. Love your neighbour.
— That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love, moya! He’s a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet.
Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love a certain person. And this person loves that other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody.
— Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power, citizen.
— Hurrah, there, says Joe.
— The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen.
And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle.
— We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket. What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text God is love pasted round the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit in the United Irishman today about that Zulu chief that’s visiting England?
— What’s that? says Joe.
So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts reading out:
— A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was presented yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the heartfelt thanks of British traders for the facilities afforded them in his dominions. The delegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of which the dusky potentate, in the course of a happy speech, freely translated by the British chaplain, the reverend Ananias Praisegod Barebones, tendered his best thanks to Massa Walkup and emphasised the cordial relations existing between Abeakuta and the British empire, stating that he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an illuminated bible, the volume of the word of God and the secret of England’s greatness, graciously presented to him by the white chief woman, the great squaw Victoria, with a personal dedication from the august hand of the Royal Donor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of firstshot usquebaugh to the toast Black and White from the skull of his immediate predecessor in the dynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty Warts, after which he visited the chief factory of Cottonopolis and signed his mark in the visitors’ book, subsequently executing a charming old Abeakutic wardance, in the course of which he swallowed several knives and forks, amid hilarious applause from the girl hands.
— Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn’t doubt her. Wonder did he put that bible to the same use as I would.
— Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful land the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly.
— Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse.
— No, says the citizen. It’s not signed Shanganagh. It’s only initialled: P.
— And a very good initial too, says Joe.
— That’s how it’s worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag.
— Well, says J. J., if they’re any worse than those Belgians in the Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man what’s this his name is?
— Casement, says the citizen. He’s an Irishman.
— Yes, that’s the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can out of them.
— I know where he’s gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.
— Who? says I.
— Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on Throwaway and he’s gone to gather in the shekels.
— Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a horse in anger in his life?
— That’s where he’s gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to back that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip. Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He’s the only man in Dublin has it. A dark horse.
— He’s a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe.
— Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out.
— There you are, says Terry.
Goodbye Ireland I’m going to Gort. So I just went round the back of the yard to pumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was letting off my (Throwaway twenty to) letting off my load gob says I to myself I knew he was uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in Slattery’s off) in his mind to get off the mark to (hundred shillings is five quid) and when they were in the (dark horse) pisser Burke was telling me card party and letting on the child was sick (gob, must have done about a gallon) flabbyarse of a wife speaking down the tube she’s better or she’s (ow!) all a plan so he could vamoose with the pool if he won or (Jesus, full up I was) trading without a licence (ow!) Ireland my nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be up to those bloody (there’s the last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos.
So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper all kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off of the government and appointing consuls all over the world to walk about selling Irish industries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that puts the bloody kybosh on it if old sloppy eyes is mucking up the show. Give us a bloody chance. God save Ireland from the likes of that bloody mouseabout. Mr Bloom with his argol bargol. And his old fellow before him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping the country with his baubles and his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms. Any amount of money advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No security. Gob, he’s like Lanty MacHale’s goat that’d go a piece of the road with every one.
— Well, it’s a fact, says John Wyse. And there’s the man now that’ll tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham.
Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power with him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the collector general’s, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the registration and he drawing his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the country at the king’s expense.
Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their palfreys.
— Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party. Saucy knave! To us!
So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice.
Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard.
— Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow.
— Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our steeds. And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it.
— Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare larder. I know not what to offer your lordships.
— How now, fellow? cried the second o
f the party, a man of pleasant countenance, So servest thou the king’s messengers, master Taptun?
An instantaneous change overspread the landlord’s visage.
— Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king’s messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The king’s friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my house I warrant me.
— Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us?
Mine host bowed again as he made answer:
— What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog’s bacon, a boar’s head with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon of old Rhenish?
— Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios!
— Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare larder, quotha! ’Tis a merry rogue.
So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom.
— Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans.
— Isn’t that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen about Bloom and the Sinn Fein?
— That’s so, says Martin. Or so they allege.
— Who made those allegations? says Alf.
— I, says Joe. I’m the alligator.
— And after all, says John Wyse, why can’t a jew love his country like the next fellow?
— Why not? says J. J., when he’s quite sure which country it is.
— Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton.
— Who is Junius? says J. J.
— We don’t want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.
— He’s a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it was he drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know that in the castle.
— Isn’t he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power.
— Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, the father’s name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the father did.
