by James Joyce
Drop me the sound of the findhorn’s name, Mtu or Mti, som-bogger was wisness. And drip me why in the flenders was she frickled. And trickle me through was she marcellewaved or was it weirdly a wig she wore. And whitside did they droop their glows in their florry, aback to wist or affront to sea? In fear to hear the dear so near or longing loth and loathing longing? Are you in the swim or are you out? O go in, go on, go an! I mean about what you know. I know right well what you mean. Rother! You’d like the coifs and guimpes, snouty, and me to do the greasy jub on old Veronica’s wipers. What am I rancing now and I’ll thank you? Is it a pinny or is it a surplice? Arran, where’s your nose? And where’s the starch? That’s not the vesdre bene-diction smell. I can tell from here by their eau de Colo and the scent of her oder they’re Mrs Magrath’s. And you ought to have aird them. They’ve moist come off her. Creases in silk they are, not crampton lawn. Baptiste me, father, for she has sinned! Through her catchment ring she freed them easy, with her hips’ hurrahs for her knees’dontelleries. The only parr with frills in old the plain. So they are, I declare! Welland well! If tomorrow keeps fine who’ll come tripping to sightsee? How’ll? Ask me next what I haven’t got! The Belvedarean exhibitioners. In their cruisery caps and oarsclub colours. What hoo, they band! And what hoa, they buck! And here is her nubilee letters too. Ellis on quay in scarlet thread. Linked for the world on a flush-caloured field. Annan exe after to show they’re not Laura Ke — own’s. O, may the diabolo twisk your seifety pin! You child of Mammon, Kinsella’s Lilith! Now who has been tearing the leg of her drawars on her? Which leg is it? The one with the bells on it. Rinse them out and aston along with you! Where did I stop? Never stop! Continuarration! You’re not there yet. I amstel waiting. Garonne, garonne!
Well, after it was put in the Mericy Cordial Mendicants’ Sitter-dag-Zindeh–Munaday Wakeschrift (for once they sullied their white kidloves, chewing cuds after their dinners of cheeckin and beggin, with their show us it here and their mind out of that and their when you’re quite finished with the reading matarial), even the snee that snowdon his hoaring hair had a skunner against him. Thaw, thaw, sava, savuto! Score Her Chuff Exsquire! Everywhere erriff you went and every bung you arver dropped into, in cit or suburb or in addled areas, the Rose and Bottle or Phoenix Tavern or Power’s Inn or Jude’s Hotel or wherever you scoured the countryside from Nannywater to Vartryville or from Porta Lateen to the lootin quarter you found his ikom etsched tipside down or the cornerboys cammocking his guy and Morris the Man, with the role of a royss in his turgos the turrible, (Evro-peahahn cheic house, unskimmed sooit and yahoort, hamman now cheekmee, Ahdahm this way make, Fatima, half tum!) reeling and railing round the local as the peihos piped und uban-jees twanged, with oddfellow’s triple tiara busby rotundarinking round his scalp. Like Pate-by-the-Neva or Pete-over-Meer. This is the Hausman all paven and stoned, that cribbed the Cabin that never was owned that cocked his leg and hennad his Egg. And the mauldrin rabble around him in areopage, fracassing a great bingkan cagnan with their timpan crowders. Mind your Grimm-father! Think of your Ma! Hing the Hong is his jove’s hang — nomen ! Lilt a bolero, bulling a law ! She swore on croststyx nyne wyndabouts she’s be level with all the snags of them yet. Par the Vulnerable Virgin’s Mary del Dame! So she said to herself she’d frame a plan to fake a shine, the mischiefmaker, the like of it you niever heard. What plan? Tell me quick and dongu so crould! What the meurther did she mague? Well, she bergened a zakbag, a shammy mailsack, with the lend of a loan of the light of his lampion, off one of her swapsons, Shaun the Post, and then she went and consulted her chapboucqs, old Mot Moore, Casey’s Euclid and the Fashion Display and made herself tidal to join in the mascarete. O gig goggle of gigguels. I can’t tell you how! It’s too screaming to rizo, rabbit it all! Minneha, minnehi mina-aehe, minneho! O but you must, you must really! Make my hear it gurgle gurgle, like the farest gargle gargle in the dusky dirgle dargle! By the holy well of Mulhuddart I swear I’d pledge my chanza getting to heaven through Tirry and Killy’s mount of impiety to hear it all, aviary word! O, leave me my faculties, woman, a while! If you don’t like my story get out of the punt. Well, have it your own way, so. Here, sit down and do as you’re bid. Take my stroke and bend to your bow. Forward in and pull your overthepoise! Lisp it slaney and crisp it quiet. Deel me long-some. Tongue your time now. Breathe thet deep. Thouat’s the fairway. Hurry slow and scheldt you go. Lynd us your blessed ashes here till I scrub the canon’s underpants. Flow now. Ower more. And pooleypooley.
First she let her hair fal and down it flussed to her feet its teviots winding coils. Then, mothernaked, she sampood herself with galawater and fraguant pistania mud, wupper and lauar, from crown to sole. Next she greesed the groove of her keel, warthes and wears and mole and itcher, with antifouling butter-scatch and turfentide and serpenthyme and with leafmould she ushered round prunella isles and eslats dun, quincecunct, allover her little mary. Peeld gold of waxwork her jellybelly and her grains of incense anguille bronze. And after that she wove a gar-land for her hair. She pleated it. She plaited it. Of meadowgrass and riverflags, the bulrush and waterweed, and of fallen griefs of weeping willow. Then she made her bracelets and her anklets and her armlets and a jetty amulet for necklace of clicking cobbles and pattering pebbles and rumbledown rubble, richmond and rehr, of Irish rhunerhinerstones and shellmarble bangles. That done, a dawk of smut to her airy ey, Annushka Lutetiavitch Pufflovah, and the lellipos cream to her lippeleens and the pick of the paintbox for her pommettes, from strawbirry reds to extra violates, and she sendred her boudeloire maids to His Affluence, Ciliegia Grande and Kirschie Real, the two chirsines, with respecks from his missus, seepy and sewery, and a request might she passe of him for a minnikin. A call to pay and light a taper, in Brie-on-Arrosa, back in a sprizzling. The cock striking mine, the stalls bridely sign, there’s Zambosy waiting for Me! She said she wouldn’t be half her length away. Then, then, as soon as the lump his back was turned, with her mealiebag slang over her shulder, Anna Livia, oysterface, forth of her bassein came.
Describe her! Hustle along, why can’t you? Spitz on the iern while it’s hot. I wouldn’t miss her for irthing on nerthe. Not for the lucre of lomba strait. Oceans of Gaud, I mosel hear that! Ogowe presta! Leste, before Julia sees her! Ishekarry and washe-meskad, the carishy caratimaney? Whole lady fair? Duodecimo — roon? Bon a ventura? Malagassy? What had she on, the liddel oud oddity? How much did she scallop, harness and weights? Here she is, Amnisty Ann! Call her calamity electrifies man.
No electress at all but old Moppa Necessity, angin mother of injons. I’ll tell you a test. But you must sit still. Will you hold your peace and listen well to what I am going to say now? It might have been ten or twenty to one of the night of Allclose or the nexth of April when the flip of her hoogly igloo flappered and out toetippit a bushman woman, the dearest little moma ever you saw, nodding around her, all smiles, with ems of embarras and aues to awe, between two ages, a judyqueen, not up to your elb. Quick, look at her cute and saise her quirk for the bicker she lives the slicker she grows. Save us and tagus ! No more? Werra where in ourthe did you ever pick a Lambay chop as big as a battering ram? Ay, you’re right. I’m epte to forgetting, Like Liviam Liddle did Loveme Long. The linth of my hough, I say ! She wore a ploughboy’s nailstudded clogs, a pair of ploughfields in themselves: a sugarloaf hat with a gaudyquiviry peak and a band of gorse for an arnoment and a hundred streamers dancing off it and a guildered pin to pierce it: owlglassy bicycles boggled her eyes: and a fishnetzeveil for the sun not to spoil the wrinklings of her hydeaspects: potatorings boucled the loose laubes of her laudsnarers: her nude cuba stockings were salmospotspeckled: she sported a galligo shimmy of hazevaipar tinto that never was fast till it ran in the washing: stout stays, the rivals, lined her length: her bloodorange bockknickers, a two in one garment, showed natural nigger boggers, fancyfastened, free to undo: her black-stripe tan joseph was sequansewn and teddybearlined, with wavy rushgreen epaulettes and a leadown here and there of royal swansr
uff: a brace of gaspers stuck in her hayrope garters: her civvy codroy coat with alpheubett buttons was boundaried round with a twobar tunnel belt: a fourpenny bit in each pocketside weighed her safe from the blowaway windrush; she had a clothes-peg tight astride on her joki’s nose and she kep on grinding a sommething quaint in her fiumy mouth and the rrreke of the fluve of the tail of the gawan of her snuffdrab siouler’s skirt trailed ffiffty odd Irish miles behind her lungarhodes.
Hellsbells, I’m sorry I missed her! Sweet gumptyum and no-body fainted ! But in whelk of her mouths? Was her naze alight? Everyone that saw her said the dowce little delia looked a bit queer. Lotsy trotsy, mind the poddle! Missus, be good and don’t fol in the say! Fenny poor hex she must have charred. Kickhams a frumpier ever you saw! Making mush mullet’s eyes at her boys dobelon. And they crowned her their chariton queen, all the maids. Of the may? You don’t say! Well for her she couldn’t see herself. I recknitz wharfore the darling murrayed her mirror. She did? Mersey me! There was a koros of drouthdropping sur- facemen, boomslanging and plugchewing, fruiteyeing and flower-feeding, in contemplation of the fluctuation and the undification of her filimentation, lolling and leasing on North Lazers’ Waal all eelfare week by the Jukar Yoick’s and as soon as they saw her meander by that marritime way in her grasswinter’s weeds and twigged who was under her archdeaconess bonnet, Avondale’s fish and Clarence’s poison, sedges an to aneber, Wit-upon-Crutches to Master Bates: Between our two southsates and the granite they’re warming, or her face has been lifted or Alp has doped!
But what was the game in her mixed baggyrhatty? Just the tembo in her tumbo or pilipili from her pepperpot? Saas and taas and specis bizaas. And where in thunder did she plunder? Fore the battle or efter the ball? I want to get it frisk from the soorce. I aubette my bearb it’s worth while poaching on! Shake it up, do, do! That’s a good old son of a ditch! I promise I’ll make it worth your while. And I don’t mean maybe. Nor yet with a goodfor. Spey me pruth and I’ll tale you true.
Well, arundgirond in a waveney lyne aringarouma she pattered and swung and sidled, dribbling her boulder through narrowa mosses, the diliskydrear on our drier side and the vilde vetchvine agin us, curara here, careero there, not knowing which medway or weser to strike it, edereider, making chattahoochee all to her ain chichiu, like Santa Claus at the cree of the pale and puny, nistling to hear for their tiny hearties, her arms encircling Isola-bella, then running with reconciled Romas and Reims, on like a lech to be off like a dart, then bathing Dirty Hans’ spatters with spittle, with a Christmas box apiece for aisch and iveryone of her childer, the birthday gifts they dreamt they gabe her, the spoiled she fleetly laid at our door! On the matt, by the pourch and inunder the cellar. The rivulets ran aflod to see, the glashaboys, the pollynooties. Out of the paunschaup on to the pyre. And they all about her, juvenile leads and ingenuinas, from the slime of their slums and artesaned wellings, rickets and riots, like the Smyly boys at their vicereine’s levee. Vivi vienne, little Annchen! Vielo Anna, high life! Sing us a sula, O, susuria! Ausone sidulcis! Hasn’t she tambre! Chipping her and raising a bit of a chir or a jary every dive she’d neb in her culdee sacco of wabbash she raabed and reach out her maundy meerschaundize, poor souvenir as per ricorder and all for sore aringarung, stinkers and heelers, laggards and primelads, her furzeborn sons and dribblederry daughters, a thousand and one of them, and wickerpotluck for each of them. For evil and ever. And kiks the buch. A tinker’s bann and a barrow to boil his billy for Gipsy Lee; a cartridge of cockaleekie soup for Chummy the Guardsman; for sulky Pen-der’s acid nephew delto‹d drops, curiously strong; a cough and a rattle and wildrose cheeks for poor Piccolina Petite MacFarlane; a jigsaw puzzle of needles and pins and blankets and shins between them for Isabel, Jezebel and Llewelyn Mmarriage; a brazen nose and pigiron mittens for Johnny Walker Beg; a papar flag of the saints and stripes for Kevineen O’Dea; a puffpuff for Pudge Craig and a nightmarching hare for Techertim Tombigby; waterleg and gumboots each for Bully Hayes and Hurricane Hartigan; a prodigal heart and fatted calves for Buck Jones, the pride of Clonliffe; a loaf of bread and a father’s early aim for Val from Skibereen; a jauntingcar for Larry Doolin, the Ballyclee jackeen; a seasick trip on a government ship for Teague O’Flanagan; a louse and trap for Jerry Coyle; slushmincepies for Andy Mac-kenzie; a hairclip and clackdish for Penceless Peter; that twelve sounds look for G. V. Brooke; a drowned doll, to face down-wards for modest Sister Anne Mortimer; altar falls for Blanchisse’s bed; Wildairs’ breechettes for Magpeg Woppington; to Sue Dot a big eye; to Sam Dash a false step; snakes in clover, picked and scotched, and a vaticanned viper catcher’s visa for Patsy Presbys; a reiz every morning for Standfast Dick and a drop every minute for Stumblestone Davy; scruboak beads for beatified Biddy; two appletweed stools for Eva Mobbely; for Saara Philpot a jordan vale tearorne; a pretty box of Pettyfib’s Powder for Eileen Aruna to whiten her teeth and outflash Helen Arhone; a whippingtop for Eddy Lawless; for Kitty Coleraine of Butterman’s Lane a penny wise for her foolish pitcher; a putty shovel for Terry the Puckaun; an apotamus mask for Promoter Dunne; a niester egg with a twicedated shell and a dynamight right for Pavl the Curate; a collera morbous for Mann in the Cloack; a starr and girton for Draper and Deane; for Will-of-the-Wisp and Barny-the-Bark two mangolds noble to sweeden their bitters; for Oliver Bound a way in his frey; for Seumas, thought little, a crown he feels big; a tibertine’s pile with a Congoswood cross on the back for Sunny Twimjim; a praises be and spare me days for Brian-the Bravo; penteplenty of pity with lubilashings of lust for Olona Lena Magdalena; for Camilla, Dromilla, Ludmilla, Mamilla, a bucket, a packet, a book and a pillow; for Nancy Shannon a Tuami brooch; for Dora Riparia Hopeandwater a cooling douche and a warmingpan; a pair of Blarney braggs for Wally Meagher; a hairpin slatepencil for Elsie Oram to scratch her toby, doing her best with her volgar fractions; an old age pension for Betty Bellezza; a bag of the blues for Funny Fitz; a Missa pro Messa for Taff de Taff; Jill, the spoon of a girl, for Jack, the broth of a boy; a Rogerson Crusoe’s Friday fast for Caducus Angelus Rubicon-stein; three hundred and sixtysix poplin tyne for revery warp in the weaver’s woof for Victor Hugonot; a stiff steaded rake and good varians muck for Kate the Cleaner; a hole in the ballad for Hosty; two dozen of cradles for J.F.X.P. Coppinger; tenpounten on the pop for the daulphins born with five spoiled squibs for Infanta; a letter to last a lifetime for Maggi beyond by the ashpit; the heftiest frozenmeat woman from Lusk to Livienbad for Felim the Ferry; spas and speranza and symposium’s syrup for decayed and blind and gouty Gough; a change of naves and joys of ills for Armoricus Tristram Amoor Saint Lawrence; a guillotine shirt for Reuben Redbreast and hempen suspendeats for Bren-nan on the Moor; an oakanknee for Conditor Sawyer and mus — quodoboits for Great Tropical Scott; a C3 peduncle for Karma — lite Kane; a sunless map of the month, including the sword and stamps, for Shemus O’Shaun the Post; a jackal with hide for Browne but Nolan; a stonecold shoulder for Donn Joe Vance; all lock and no stable for Honorbright Merreytrickx; a big drum for Billy Dunboyne; a guilty goldeny bellows, below me blow me, for Ida Ida and a hushaby rocker, Elletrouvetout, for Who-is-silvier — Where-is-he?; whatever you like to swilly to swash, Yuinness or Yennessy, Laagen or Niger, for Festus King and Roaring Peter and Frisky Shorty and Treacle Tom and O. B. Behan and Sully the Thug and Master Magrath and Peter Cloran and O’Delawarr Rossa and Nerone MacPacem and whoever you chance to meet knocking around; and a pig’s bladder balloon for Selina Susquehanna Stakelum. But what did she give to Pruda Ward and Katty Kanel and Peggy Quilty and Briery Brosna and Teasy Kieran and Ena Lappin and Muriel Maassy and Zusan Camac and Melissa Bradogue and Flora Ferns and Fauna Fox–Good-man and Grettna Greaney and Penelope Inglesante and Lezba Licking like Leytha Liane and Roxana Rohan with Simpatica Sohan and Una Bina Laterza and Trina La Mesme and Philomena O’Farrell and Irmak Elly and Josephine Foyle and Snakeshead Lily and Fountainoy Laura and Marie Xavier Agnes Daisy Frances de Sales Macleay? She gave them ilcka madre’s daughter a moonflower and a bloodvein: but th
e grapes that ripe before reason to them that devide the vinedress. So on Izzy, her shame-maid, love shone befond her tears as from Shem, her penmight, life past befoul his prime.
