Report from the March 2012 Meeting

pp. 110-111

We picked up at the top of p.110. “Here…” we are advised by another lawyer type narrator to “…let a few artifacts fend in their own favour” (110.01), one of which we explored in this meeting – “About that original hen” (110.22) who is said to be “Belinda of the Dorans” (111.05). But right away, this narrator’s introduction to these “artifacts” read as artificial or arti-fiction more than anything capable of fending in its own favor. This narrator’s introduction appears influenced by folklore and myth, and eventually collapses into a form of paradoxical double-talk filled with qualifiers which lead to no clear meaning:

“The river felt she wanted salt [From: Story of Confucious, Master Kung by Carl Crow (1940)]. That was just when Brien [Brian Boru, First High King of Ireland (10^th century) and founder of the Brien dynasty] came in. The country asked for bearspaw for dindin! [Story of Confucious, Master Kung + dinner] And boundin aboundin it got it surly. We who live in heaven [the gods?], we of the clover kingdom [Ireland? Or China—the “Flowery Kingdom”], we middlesins [Milesian – Mythological inhabitants of Ireland who conquered the Tuatha Dé Danann + middle-sin (i.e. Purgatory)] people have often watched the sky overreaching land” (110.01-06).

As the paragraph continues there are several allusions to Irish writers and historians. Joyce inserts himself here with a reference to his 1907 critical writing, “Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages” [from Critical Writings, a text that also creates a narrative for Irish pre-history]. The reference to this text is created by Joyce combining Saint” and “Sage into “Our isle of Sainge” (110.06).  However Sainge could also be J.M. “Sainge” [Synge], whose earlier works, like “Riders to the Sea,” focused on Irish-Gaelic peasants on the Aran Islands. There is also a “stern chuckler” [Laurence Sterne] and a reference to “Mayhappy” [Trinity College Dublin historian/classicist/mentor to Oscar Wilde, and famed Dublin-curmudgeon [perhaps a play on “happy”], John Pentland Mahaffy], whose one-liner “in Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs” appears later in the paragraph as “where the possible was the impossible and the improbable the inevitable” (110.06-07; 110.11-12).

            There are also, as we discovered, none-Irish literary references as well—particularly to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”: “me ken or no me ken Zot is the Quiztune” [Zot is German for obscene, Dutch for Fool, Albanian for God, Hebrew for That. + …to be or not to be, that is the question…]; Hamlet’s lady-friend, Ophilia, also appears in the “Drainophilias” [maybe Drown Ophilia, or maybe Joyce prophesizing a “love of Drain-o”]. There is also Voltaire, or from Christian scripture a reference to the “vaal [Veil] of tares [tears]” (110.09-15), Pha, child of Apollo, who rode the Chariot of Fire, “Phaiton parks his car” (110.10), Aristotle, “Harrystotalies [Ar-ee-stot-uh-lees] and the vivle [Bible]” (110.17). With reference to all these forms of writing, the paragraph ends by unweaving any discernible information in a somewhat clear prose of double-talk, suggesting all of these texts may be infinitely interpretable [as with ALPs letter] because:

“…nobody after having grubbed up a lock of cwold cworn [cold corn] aboove his subject […] will go out of his way to applaud him on the [unbiased] back of his remark for utterly impossible as are all these events they are probably as like those which may have taken place as any others which never took person at all are ever likely to be” (110.16-21).

The paragraph concludes with “Ahahn!” which, likewise, cannot fend for itself as Joyce presents it in this paragraph. It may be read as “Ahem” as with someone clearing their throat, “Amen” as with the close of a Christian prayer, “Aha!” as with Eureka; Ahab, in reference to nautical and water references from the paragraph, or “A hen” or “a hahn” [German for  rooster] which leads us to our next paragraph, “About that original hen.” (110.21-22).

Yes, what about that original hen? [“hen” or “sin”]. We start with a reminder of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” “April is the cruelest month.” In this paragraph we find that after the rot and waste of “Midwinter” comes the “Premver” [Primavera or Spring] and the “promise of a pril [April – the cruelest month]” (110.23), or the promise of the renewal of life. Whether this renewal is part of “life’s old sahatsong [sad song / sweet song / shat-shit song] we are left unsure.  We discussed whether this section may refer back to the hen’s [biddies – slang for domestic fowl (79.30)] found at Kate Strong trash-heap of “rotten witchawubbles” (79.30-31), here in the form of a “cold fowl behaviourising strangely” [a hen behaves strangely, a hen strangely rising] atop the “fatal midden [a dungheap] […] its limon […] fragments of orangepeel, the last remains of an outdoor meal […] and raw raw reeraw puteteurs [raw potatoes] (110.25-111.01)] to possibly plucks the letter from the trash-heap.

The son of a “strandlooper” [a beach bird], appears to have “trouved” [found or taken] this artifact in the form of “the Ardagh chalice” [a two-handed Irish metal cup from early Christian-time found by a child in a potato field in Ardagh, Co. Limerick, in 1868]. This child, “keepy little Kevin” (110.32) may be a Shaun character (Kevin Porter, Book III) due to Kevin’s proximity to jute (110.26) (Mutt and Jute, Book I—pp.16-18). “Keepy little Kevin” however, could also stand in as 18 year old Kevin Barry, the first post-Easter Rebellion Irish Republican executed by the British government (in 1920), who kept his secrets through torture until his execution.  Here is an excerpt from “The Ballad of Kevin Barry”:

British soldiers tortured Barry
Just because he would not tell

The names of his brave comrades
And other things they wished to know
"Turn informer or we'll kill you"
Kevin Barry answered "No"

This Kevin, the narrator seems to insinuate, may have served his own self interests.  It appears as though the narrator presents the possibility that Kevin usurped this “patchpurple” [flowerly, ornate writing] (111.02) artifact from another child, “an iceclad shiverer” (110.24). Kevin saw (or found) in the artifact “a motive for future saintity [sanity or Saint-hood] and by euchring [tricks (or the Eucharist)]” this other “heily innocent and beachwalker”  child, [Holy-innocent or wholly innocent beachwalker] (110.33-35) with“pious clamour” as Kevin was trying to “wheedle” (110.36) raw potatoes out of Now Sealand.  The “massacre” appears like another brother battle: “a dual [twin concepts] a duel [a battle] to die [death] to day [new dawn – life], goddam and biggod [a curse (or giant dam) and a Big God (the giant-hero HCE?), sticks and stanks [material for dams, more painful than words], of most of the Jacobiters [a series of conflicts with the ambition to restore the (usurped?) Stuart dynasty into the British monarchy” (111.02-04).  

The narrator does not delve further into the discussion of Kevin, but instead returns for now on page 111 to a discussion of “the hen” or “the bird” from the previous page. “The bird in the case was Belinda [Belinda / Biddie?] of the Doran’s,” (111.05-06), who won  “Terziis [third] prize with Serni medal [silver – generally for second place] (111.06). HCE appears in the form of the contest or expo: “Cheepalizzy’s Hane [possibly hen (female) or haan (male), Dutch for rooster] Exposition” (111.06-07). Furthermore, the new matter at hand appears to be “what she was scratching [looking for] at the hour of klokking twelve [hour o’clock-ing twelve + clucking] looked for all this zogzag [whole-wide] world like a goodishsized sheet of letterpaper originating by transhipt from Boston (Mass.)” (111.07-11).

The contents of this letter do not appear to be all that interesting – it appears as a letter written about home. “Dear whom” does not give any information as to whom the letter is addressed to, though “it proceded to mention Maggy [who is Maggy?] well & allathome’s [all at home’s] health well” (111.10-11).  There is indirect mention of a wedding “some born gentleman with a beautiful present of wedding cakes for dear thankyou Chriesty” (111.13-14), and mention of a “grand funferall” [funeral - fun-for-all] for “poor Father Michael” (111.14-15), followed by general talk of “how are you Maggy & hopes soon to hear well & must not close it with fondest to the twoinns [twins – Shem & Shaun] with four crosskisses [xoxoxoxo] for holy paul [Paul - the letter writer in the Bible], holey corner [HCE?], holipoli [the many + holy city], whollyisland [?]” followed by a “pee ess [postscript-P.S.]” (111.16-18).

While the contents of the P.S. do not appear to be clear, as the talk transitions to locust who eat everything but a sign (maybe one of the plagues on Egypt?), and the taking of tea “tache of tch” (111.20) it appears as though “The stain” of “the overcautelousness [overcautiousness] of the masterpilker [bilker – a cheat, but also Ibsen’s The Master Builder, or the stains of a masterbator] here, as usual, signing the page away” (111.20-21), “marked it off on the spout [spot + spur] of the moment as a genuine relique of ancient Irish pleasant pottery of that lydialike [ladylike] languishing class known as a hurry-me-o’er-the-hazy [a note to self].

            “Why then how?” (111.25).

            It appears we have only more questions that we hope you will help us to answer