by James Joyce
Nowthen, leaving clashing ash, brawn and muscle and brass-made to oust earthernborn and rockcrystal to wreck isinglass but wurming along gradually for our savings backtowards mother-waters so many miles from bank and Dublin stone (olympiading even till the eleventh dynasty to reach that thuddysickend Ham-laugh) and to the question of boney’s unlawfully obtaining a pierced paraflamme and claptrap fireguard there crops out the still more salient point of the politish leanings and town pursuits of our forebeer, El Don De Dunelli, (may his ship thicked stick in the bottol of the river and all his crewsers stock locked in the burral of the seas!) who, when within the black of your toenail, sir, of being mistakenly ambushed by one of the uddahveddahs, and as close as made no matter, mam, to being kayoed offhand when the hyougono heckler with the Peter the Painter wanted to hole him, was consistently practising the first of the primary and imprescriptible liberties of the pacific subject by circulating (be British, boys to your bellybone and chuck a chum a chance!) alongst one of our umphrohibited semitary thrufahrts, open to buggy and bike, to walk, Wellington Park road, with the curb or quaker’s quacknostrum under his auxter and his alpenstuck in his redhand, a highly commendable exercise, or, number two of our acta legitima plebeia, on the brink (beware to baulk a man at his will!) of taking place upon a public seat, to what, bare by Butt’s, most easterly (but all goes west!) of blackpool bridges, as a public protest and naturlikevice, without intent to annoy either, being praisegood thankfully for the wrathbereaved ringdove and the fearstung boaconstrictor and all the more right jollywell pleased, which he was, at having other people’s weather.
But to return to the atlantic and Phenitia Proper. As if that were not to be enough for anyone but little headway, if any, was made in solving the wasnottobe crime cunundrum when a child of Maam, Festy King, of a family long and honourably associ-ated with the tar and feather industries, who gave an address in old plomansch Mayo of the Saxons in the heart of a foulfamed potheen district, was subsequently haled up at the Old Bailey on the calends of Mars, under an incompatibly framed indictment of both the counts (from each equinoxious points of view, the one fellow’s fetch being the other follow’s person) that is to see, flying cushats out of his ouveralls and making fesses immodst his forces on the field. Oyeh! Oyeh! When the prisoner, soaked in methyl-ated, appeared in dry dock, appatently ambrosiaurealised, like Kersse’s Korduroy Karikature, wearing, besides stains, rents and patches, his fight shirt, straw braces, souwester and a policeman’s corkscrew trowswers, all out of the true (as he had purposely torn up all his cymtrymanx bespokes in the mamertime), deposing for his exution with all the fluors of sparse in the royal Irish vocabulary how the whole padderjagmartin tripiezite suet and all the sulfeit of copperas had fallen off him quatz unaccountably like the chrystalisations of Alum on Even while he was trying for to stick fire to himcell, (in feacht he was dripping as he found upon strip-ping for a pipkin ofmalt as he feared the coold raine) it was attempted by the crown (P.C. Robort) to show that King, elois Crowbar, once known as Meleky, impersonating a climbing boy, rubbed some pixes of any luvial peatsmoor o’er his face, plucks and pussas, with a clanetourf as the best means of disguising him-self and was to the middlewhite fair in Mudford of a Thoorsday, feishts of Peeler and Pole, under the illassumed names of Tykingfest and Rabworc picked by him and Anthony out of a tellafun book, ellegedly with a pedigree pig (unlicensed) and a hyacinth. They were on that sea by the plain of Ir nine hundred and ninetynine years and they never cried crack or ceased from regular paddlewicking till that they landed their two and a trifling selves, amadst camel and ass, greybeard and suckling, priest and pauper, matrmatron and merrymeg, into the meddle of the mudstorm. The gathering, convened by the Irish Angri-cultural and Prepostoral Ouraganisations, to help the Irish muck to look his brother dane in the face and attended thanks to Larry by large numbers, of christies and jew’s totems, tospite of the deluge, was distinctly of a scattery kind when the bally-bricken he could get no good of, after cockofthewalking through a few fancyfought mains ate some of the doorweg, the pikey later selling the gentleman ratepayer because she, Francie’s sister, that is to say, ate a whole side of his (the animal’s) sty, on a struggle Street, Qui Sta Troia, in order to pay off, hiss or lick, six doubloons fifteen arrears of his, the villain’s not the rumbler’s rent.
Remarkable evidence was given, anon, by an eye, ear, nose and throat witness, whom Wesleyan chapelgoers suspected of being a plain clothes priest W.P., situate at Nullnull, Medical Square, who, upon letting down his rice and peacegreen cover-disk and having been sullenly cautioned against yawning while being grilled, smiled (he had had a onebumper at parting from Mrs Molroe in the morning) and stated to his eliciter under his morse mustaccents (gobbless!) that he slept with a bonafides and that he would be there to remember the filth of November, hatinaring, rowdy O, which, with the jiboulees of Juno and the dates of ould lanxiety, was going, please the Rainmaker, to decembs within the ephemerides of profane history, all one with Tournay, Yetstoslay and Temorah, and one thing which would pigstickularly strike a person of such sorely tried observational powers as Sam, him and Moffat, though theirs not to reason why, the striking thing about it was that he was patrified to see, hear, taste and smell, as his time of night, how Hyacinth O’Donnell, B.A., described in the calendar as a mixer and wordpainter, with part of a sivispacem (Gaeltact for dungfork) on the fair green at the hour of twenty-four o’clock sought (the bullycassidy of the friedhoffer!) to sack, sock, stab and slaughter singlehanded another two of the old kings, Gush Mac Gale and Roaring O’Crian, Jr., both changelings, unlucalised, of no address and in noncommunicables, between him and whom, ever since wal-lops before the Mise of Lewes, bad blood existed on the ground of the boer’s trespass on the bull or because he firstparted his polarbeeber hair in twoways, or because they were creepfoxed andt grousuppers over a nippy in a noveletta, or because they could not say meace, (mute and daft) meathe. The litigants, he said, local congsmen and donalds, kings of the arans and the dalk-eys, kings of mud and tory, even the goat king of Killorglin, were egged on by their supporters in the shape of betterwomen with bowstrung hair of Carrothagenuine ruddiness, waving crim-son petties and screaming from Isod’s towertop. There were cries from the thicksets in court and from the macdublins on the bohernabreen of: Mind the bank from Banagher, Mick, sir! Pro-dooce O’Donner. Ay! Exhibit his relics! Bu! Use the tongue mor! Give lip less! But it oozed out in Deadman’s Dark Scenery Court through crossexanimation of the casehardened testis that when and where that knife of knifes the treepartied ambush was laid (roughly spouting around half hours ‘twixt dusk in dawn, by Waterhose’s Meddle Europeic Time, near Stop and Think, high chief evervirens and only abfalltree in auld the land) there was not as much light from the widowed moon as would dim a child’s altar. The mixer, accordingly, was bluntly broached, and in the best basel to boot, as to whether he was one of those lucky cocks for whom the audible-visible-gnosible-edible world existed. That he was only too cognitively conatively cogitabun-dantly sure of it because, living, loving, breathing and sleeping morphomelosophopancreates, as he most significantly did, when-ever he thought he heard he saw he felt he made a bell clipper — clipperclipperclipper. Whether he was practically sure too of his lugs and truies names in this king and blouseman business? That he was pediculously so. Certified? As cad could be. Be lying ! Be the lonee I will. It was Morbus O’ Somebody? A’Quite. Szer-day’s Son? A satyr in weddens. And how did the greeneyed mister arrive at the B.A.? That it was like his poll. A cross-grained trapper with murty odd oogs, awflorated ares, inquiline nase and a twithcherous mouph? He would be. Who could bit you att to a tenyerdfuul when aastalled? Ballera jobbera. Some majar bore too? Iguines. And with tumblerous legs, redipnomi-nated Helmingham Erchenwyne Rutter Egbert Crumwall Odin Maximus Esme Saxon Esa Vercingetorix Ethelwulf Rupprecht Ydwalla Bentley Osmund Dysart Yggdrasselmann? Holy Saint Eiffel, the very phoenix! It was Chudley Magnall once more between the deffodates and the dumb scene? The two childspies waapreesing him auz
a de Vologue but the renting of his rock was from the three wicked Vuncouverers Forests bent down awhits, arthou sure? Yubeti, Cumbilum comes! One of the ox-men’s thingabossers, hvad? And had he been refresqued by the founts of bounty playing there — is — a — pain — aleland in Long’s gourgling barral? A loss of Lordedward and a lack of sir-philip a surgeonet showeradown could suck more gargling bubbles out of the five lamps in Portterand’s praise. Wirrgeling and maries? As whose wouldn’t, laving his leaftime in Black-pool. But, of course, he could call himself Tem, too, if he had time to? You butt he could anytom. When he pleased? Win and place. A stoker temptated by evesdripping aginst the driver who was a witness as well? Sacred avatar, how the devil did they guess it! Two dreamyums in one dromium? Yes and no error. And both as like as a duel of lentils? Peacisely. So he was pelted out of the coram populo, was he? Be the powers that be he was. The prince in principel should not expose his person? Mac-chevuole! Rooskayman kamerad? Sooner Gallwegian he would say. Not unintoxicated, fair witness? Drunk as a fishup. Askt to whether she minded whither he smuked? Not if he barkst into phlegms. Anent his ajaciulations to his Crosscann Lorne, cossa? It was corso in cursu on coarser again. The gracious miss was we not doubt sensible how yellowatty on the forx was altered? That she esually was, O’Dowd me not! As to his religion, if any? It was the see-you-Sunday sort. Exactly what he meant by a pederast prig? Bejacob’s, just a gent who prayed his lent. And if middleclassed. portavorous was a usual beast? Bynight as useful as a vomit to a shorn man. If he had rognarised dtheir gcourts marsheyls? Dthat nday in ndays he had. Lindendelly, coke or skilllies spell me gart without a gate? Harlyadrope. The grazing rights (Mrs Magistra Martinetta) expired with the expiry of the goat’s sire, if they were not mistaken? That he exactly could not tell the worshipfuls but his mother-inwaders had the recipis for the price of the coffin and that he was there to tell them that herself was the velocipede that could tell them kitcat. A maun-darin tongue in a pounderin jowl? Father ourder about the mathers of prenanciation. Distributary endings? And we recom-mends. Quare hircum? No answer. Unde gentium fe . . . ? No ah. Are you not danzzling on the age of a vulcano? Siar, I am deed. And how olld of him? He was intendant to study pulu. Which was meant in a shirt of two shifts macoghamade or up Finn, threehatted ladder? That a head in thighs under a bush at the sunface would bait a serpent to a millrace through the heather. Arm bird colour defdum ethnic fort perharps? Sure and glomsk handy jotalpheson as well. Hokey jasons, then, in a pigeegeeses? On a pontiff’s order as ture as there’s an ital on atac. As a gololy bit to joss? Leally and tululy. But, why this hankowchaff and whence this second tone, son-yet-sun? He had the cowtaw in his buxers flay of face. So this that Solasistras, setting odds evens at defiance, took the laud from Labouriter? What displaced Tob, Dilke and Halley, not been greatly in love with the game. And, changing the venders, from the king’s head to the republican’s arms, as to the pugnaxities evinxed from flagfall to antepost during the effrays round fatherthyme’s beckside and the regents in the plantsown raining, with the skiddystars and the morkern-windup, how they appealed to him then? That it was wildfires night on all the bettygallaghers. Mickmichael’s soords shrieking shrecks through the wilkinses and neckanicholas’ toastingforks pricking prongs up the tunnybladders. Let there be fight? And there was. Foght. On the site of the Angel’s, you said? Guinney’s Gap, he said, between what they said and the pussykitties. In the middle of the garth, then? That they mushn’t toucht it. The de-voted couple was or were only two disappainted solicitresses on the job of the unfortunate class on Saturn’s mountain fort? That was about it, jah! And Camellus then said to Gemellus: I should know you? Parfaitly. And Gemellus then said to Camellus: Yes, your brother? Obsolutely. And if it was all about that, egregious sir? About that and the other. If he was not alluding to the whole in the wall? That he was when he was not eluding from the whole of the woman. Briefly, how such beginall finally struck him now? Like the crack that bruck the bank in Multifarnham. Whether he fell in with what they meant? Cursed that he suppoxed he did. Thos Thoris, Thomar’s Thom? The rudacist rotter in Roebuck-dom. Surtopical? And subhuman. If it was, in yappanoise lan — guage, ach bad clap? Oo! Ah! Augs and ohrs with Rhian O’- kehley to put it tertianly, we wrong? Shocking! Such as turly pearced our really’s that he might, that he might never, that he might never that night? Treely and rurally. Bladyughfoulmoeck-lenburgwhurawhorascortastrumpapornanennykocksapastippata — ppatupperstrippuckputtanach, eh? You have it alright.
Meirdreach an Oincuish ! But a new complexion was put upon the matter when to the perplexedly uncondemnatory bench (whereon punic judgeship strove with penal law) the senior king of all, Pegger Festy, as soon as the outer layer of stuccko-muck had been removed at the request of a few live jurors, declared in a loudburst of poesy, through his Brythonic inter-preter on his oath, mhuith peisth mhuise as fearra bheura muirre hriosmas, whereas take notice be the relics of the bones of the story bouchal that was ate be Cliopatrick (the sow) princess of parked porkers, afore God and all their honours and king’s commons that, what he would swear to the Tierney of Dundal-gan or any other Tierney, yif live thurkells folloged him about sure that was no steal and that, nevertheless, what was deposited from that eyebold earbig noseknaving gutthroat, he did not fire a stone either before or after he was born down and up to that time. And, incidentalising that they might talk about Markarthy or they might walk to Baalastartey or they might join the nabour party and come on to Porterfeud this the sockdologer had the neck to endorse with the head bowed on him over his outturned noreaster by protesting to his lipreaders with a justbeencleaned barefacedness, abeam of moonlight’s hope, in the same trelawney what he would impart, pleas bench. to the Llwyd Josus and the gentlemen in Jury’s and the four of Masterers who had been all those yarns yearning for that good one about why he left Dublin, that, amreeta beaker coddling doom, as an Inishman was as good as any cantonnatal, if he was to parish by the market steak before the dorming of the mawn, he skuld never ask to see sight or light of this world or the other world or any either world, of Tyre-nan-Og, as true as he was there in that jackabox that minute, or wield or wind (no thanks t’yous !) the inexousthausthible wassail-horn tot of iskybaush the hailth up the wailth of the endknown ab — god of the fire of the moving way of the hawks with his heroes in Warhorror if ever in all his exchequered career he up or lave a chancery hand to take or throw the sign of a mortal stick or stone at man, yoelamb or salvation army either before or after being puptised down to that most holy and every blessed hour. Here, upon the halfkneed castleknocker’s attempting kithoguishly to lilt his holymess the paws and make the sign of the Roman God-helic faix, (Xaroshie, zdrst! — in his excitement the laddo had broken exthro Castilian into which the whole audience perse-guired and pursuited him olla podrida) outbroke much yellach — ters from owners in the heall (Ha!) in which, under the mollifi — cation of methaglin, the testifighter reluctingly, but with ever so ladylike indecorum, joined. (Ha! Ha!)
The hilariohoot of Pegger’s Windup cumjustled as neatly with the tristitone of the Wet Pinter’s as were they isce et ille equals of opposites, evolved by a onesame power of nature or of spirit, iste, as the sole condition and means of its himundher manifestation and polarised for reunion by the symphysis of their antipathies. Distinctly different were their duasdestinies. Whereas the maidies of the bar, (a pairless trentene, a lunarised score) when the eranthus myrrmyrred: Show’m the Posed: fluttered and flattered around the willingly pressed, nominating him for the swiney prize, complimenting him, the captivating youth, on his having all his senses about him, stincking thyacinths through his curls (O feen! O deur!) and bringing busses to his cheeks, their masculine Oirisher Rose (his neece cleur!), and legando round his nice new neck for him and pizzicagnoling his woolywags, with their dindy dandy sugar de candy mechree me postheen flowns courier to belive them of all his untiring young dames and send treats in their times. Ymen. But it was not unobserved of those presents, their worships, how, of one among all, her deputised to
defeme him by the Lunar Sisters’ Celibacy Club, a lovelooking leapgirl, all all alonely, Gentia Gemma of the Makegiddyculling Reeks, he, wan and pale in his unmixed admir-ation, seemed blindly, mutely, tastelessly, tactlessly, innamorate with heruponhim in shining aminglement, the shaym of his hisu shifting into the shimmering of her hers, (youthsy, beautsy, hee’s her chap and shey’ll tell memmas when she gays whom) till the wild wishwish of her sheeshea melted most musically mid Ihe dark deepdeep of his shayshaun.
