Yes, because he never did a
thing like that before...
like the City Arms Hotel,
when he used to pretend to be
laid up with a sick voice...
doing his highness to make himself
interesting to that old f*gg*t Mrs Riordan.
still I like that in him...
polite to old women like that
and waiters and beggars.
She never left us a farthing
all for masses for herself
and her soul greatest miser ever...
telling me all her ailments
she had too much old chat
in her about politics...
and earthquakes
and the end of the world and... O Jesus!
Let us have a bit of fun first !
Yes, we came somewhere...
really, and the story he made up,
a pack of lies to hide it.
Yes, because the day before
yesterday he was scribbling a letter...
When I came in to show him
Dignam's death in the paper...
Poldy...
As if something had told me...
They say Paddy Dignam is dead.
and he pretended to be thinking
about business! Fool!
Not that I care two straws
now who he does it with.
Though I'd like to find out.
Like that slut! That Mary...
padding out her false
bottom to excite him.
All his fault of course
ruining servants...
and then proposing that she could
eat at our table on Christmas
if you please!
I see you've been taking in
the views, Poldy.
O no, thank you, not in my
house stealing my oysters.
Yes, because he couldn't
possibly do without it that long
so he must do it somewhere.
Why can't you go kiss a man
without going and marrying him first ?
I wish some man or other would take me
sometime when he's there
and kiss me in his arms.
Nothing like a kiss long
and hot down to your soul...
almost paralyses you.
I wonder was he satisfied with me
I didn't like his slapping me behind.
Though I laughed I'm not a horse.
Good-bye, Mr. Boylan.
Yes, because he must have come 3 or 4 times
with that tremendous big red
brute of a thing he has.
I thought the vein or whatever the dickens they
call it was going to burst though his nose.
I never in all my life felt anyone had
one the size of that...
to make you feel full up.
what's the idea making us like that
with a big hole in the middle of us...
like a Stallion driving it up into you?
What I went through with Milly...
Not satisfied till they have us
swollen out like elephants.
That's it!
I had a great breast of milk
with Milly enough for two.
I had to get him
to suck them they were so hard.
Why all those veins and things?
It's curious the way it's made.
Two the same...
in case of twins.
supposing I risked having another one.
Not off him.
Poldy's more spunk in him!
He knows a lot of mixedup things.
He says he has no soul inside,
only grey matter...
because he doesn't know
what it is to have one.
They're all so different!
O, let them all go and
smother themselves for the fat lot I care.
I wished he was here or somebody
to let myself go with and come again like that.
I feel all fire inside me.
I was coming for about 5 minutes
with my legs round him.
O Lord, I wanted to shout
out all sorts of things,
"f*ck" or "sh*t" or anything at all.
They're not all like him thank God.
Some of them want you to be so nice about it.
O Lord...
I can't wait till Monday.
Introibo ad altare dei.
For this, O dearly beloved,
is the genuine Christ: body and soul.
Slow music, please. Silence all.
Thanks, old chap.
Switch off the current, will you?
Lend us a loan.
The bard's noserag!
A new new art colour for our Irish poets:
snotgreen.
You can almost taste it, can't you?
God! The snotgreen sea.
The scrotumtightening sea.
She is our great sweet mother.
The aunt thinks you k*lled your mother.
That's why she won't
let me have anything to do with you.
Someone k*lled her.
You could have knelt down, damn it,
when your dying mother asked you to.
To
think of your mother begging you
with her last breath
to kneel down and pray for her.
And you refused.
Poor dogsbody!
What have you got against me now?
-Do you wish me to tell you?
-Yes, what is it?
Do you remember the first day I went
to your house after my mother's death?
I can't remember anything.
I remember only ideas and sensations.
Why? What happened?
-Your mother asked you who was in your room
-Yes? What did I say?
You said: "O, it's only Dedalus
whose mother is beastly dead."
Did I say that?
Well? What harm is in that?
And what is death,
your mother's or yours or my own?
I suppose I did say it.
I didn't mean to offend
the memory of your mother.
-I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.
-Of what then?
-Of the offence to me!
-O, an impossible person!
Look at the sea.
What does it care of offences?
Come on, the Englishman
wants his breakfast.
Don't mope over it all day.
I'm inconsequent.
Give up the moody brooding.
"Fergus' song":
I sang it alone in the house
holding down the long dark chords
Her door was open:
she wanted to hear my music.
Silent with awe and pity
I went to her.
She was crying in her wretched bed.
For those words, Stephen:
"love's bitter mystery."
Pray for me, Stephen."
Going around the corner.
Be back in a minute.
You don't want anything for breakfast?
Not there.
In the trousers I left off.
No use disturbing her.
All right till I come back anyhow.
Be a warm day I fancy.
Specially in these black clothes feel it more.
Black conducts, reflects...
refracts is it?,
the heat, makes you feel young.
Somewhere in the east: early morning:...
set off at dawn.
Travel round in front of the sun,
steal a day's march. Keep it up
for ever never grow a day older technically.
Wander through awned streets.
Turbaned faces going by.
Dark caves of carpets,
Wander along all day.
Might meet a robber or two.
Well,
meet him.
Probably not a bit like it really.
Kind of stuff you read.
Now, my miss.
Thank you, my miss.
And one shilling threepence change.
For you,
please?
To catch up and walk behind her
if she went slowly,
behind her moving hams.
Pleasant to see
first thing in the morning.
Hurry up, damn it.
Make hay while the sun shines.
They like them sizeable.
Prime sausage.
Threepence, please.
Thank you, sir. Another time.
-Good morning.
-Good morning,sir.
No Sign. Gone. Still an idea behind it.
What matter? To smell the gentle smoke
of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter.
Jesus, I'm melting
as the candle remarked when...
Hush! Not a
word more on that subject!
Dedalus, wake up! Bread, butter, honey.
Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts.
Where's the sugar?
-Jaysus, there's no milk.
-We can drink it black.
There's a lemon in the locker.
O, damn you and your Paris fads! I want
milk. The blessings of God on you!
I'm giving you two lumps each,
Mulligan, you do
make strong tea?
When I makes tea I makes tea,
as old mother Grogan used to say.
And when I
makes water, well, I makes water.
By Jove, it is tea!
Dedalus. I'm stony-broke.
Hurry out to your school kip
and bring us back some money.
Today the bards must drink and junket.
Ireland expects that every man
this day will do his duty.
That reminds me that I have to visit
your national library today.
Our swim first. Is this the day
for your monthly wash, Kinch?
The unclean bard makes a point
of washing once a month.
All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream.
I intend to make a collection
of your sayings if you will let me.
Wait till you hear him on Hamlet.
Ready.
Come, Kinch. I suppose
you have eaten all we left.
Poldy!
Who are the letters for?
A letter for me from Milly,
and a card to you from Milly.
And a letter for you.
Do you want the blind up?
That do?
She got the things.
Hurry up with that tea. I'm parched.
The kettle is boiling.
-Poldy?
-What?
Scald the teapot.
-What is your idea of Hamlet?
-No. Wait till I have a few pints in me first.
You couldn't manage it under three pints,
Kinch, could you?
It has waited so long, it can wait longer.
You pique my curiosity. Is it some paradox?
Pooh! It's quite simple. He proves by algebra...
that Hamlet's grandson is
Shakespeare's grandfather...
and that he himself is the ghost of his own.
-What? He himself?
-The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus.
I think I read a theological
interpretation of it somewhere.
The Father and the Son idea.
The Son striving to be
atoned with the Father.
You're not a believer, are you? I mean,
a believer in the narrow sense of the word.
Creation from nothing and miracles
and a personal God.
There's only one sense of the word,
it seems to me.
Yes, of course. Either you believe
or you don't, isn't it?
Personally I couldn't stomach
that idea of a personal God.
You don't stand for that, I suppose?
You behold in me a horrible
example of free thought.
Why, I should think you are able to free yourself.
You are your
own master, it seems to me.
- I am a servant of two masters: an English and an Italian.
- I forgot the Italian.
I got a card from Bannon.
Says he found a sweet young
thing down in Westmeath.
Photo girl he calls her.
Snapshot, eh?
And a third, there is
who wants me for odd jobs.
-Italian? What do you mean?
-The imperial British State...
and the Holy Roman Catholic
and Apostolic Church.
I can quite understand that.
An Irishman must think
like that, I daresay.
We feel in England that
we have treated you rather unfairly.
It seems history is to blame.
Of course I'm a Britisher and I feel
I don't want to see my country
fall into the hands of German Jews either.
That's our national problem, just now.
What a time you were!
Who was the letter from?
O, Boylan. He's bringing the programme
for the tour this afternoon.
What are you singing?
"La ci darem"
and"Love's Old Sweet Song".
-Would you like the window open a little?
-What time is the funeral?
Eleven, I think. I didn't see the paper.
No!
No!
That book.
It must have fell down.
Show here. I put a mark in it.
There's a word I wanted to ask you.
-"Metem","metem"...
- Met him what?
Here. What does that mean?
- Metempsychosis?
- Yes. Who's he when he's at home?
Metempsychosis.
It's Greek: from the Greek.
-That means the transmigration of souls.
-O, rocks!
Tell us in plain words.
-Did you finish it?
-Yes. There's nothing smutty in it.
-Is she in love with the
first fellow all the time?
-Never read it. Do you want another?
Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's.
Nice name he has.
Some people believe that we go on
living in another body after death.
They call it reincarnation.
Metempsychosis is what
the ancient Greeks called it.
They used to believe
you could be changed into an animal...
or a tree, for instance.
What they called nymphs, for example.
There's a smell of burn.
Did you leave anything on the fire?
The kidney!
You, Armstrong. What was the end of Pyrrhus?
-End of Pyrrhus, sir?
-I know, sir. Ask me, sir.
No. Wait. You, Armstrong.
Do you know anything about Pyrrhus?
Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus...
a p?er?
Tell me now what is a pier.
A pier, sir, a thing out in the waves.
-A kind of... Kingstown pier, sir.
-Kingstown pier.
-Yes, a disappointed bridge.
-How, sir? A bridge is across a river.
-Tell us a story, sir.
-Do, sir. A ghoststory.
-Who can answer a riddle?
-A riddle, sir? Ask me, sir.
-Ask me, sir.
-A hard one, sir.
-Here is the riddle:
"The cock crew,
The sky was blue:
The bells in heaven
Were striking eleven.
'Tis time for this poor soul
To go to heaven."
-What is that?
-What, sir?
-Again, sir. We didn't hear.
-What is it, sir? We give it up.
The fox burying his grandmother
under a hollybush.
Hockey!
Mr Deasy told me to write them out
all again and show them to you, sir.
-Do you understand how to do them?
-Numbers eleven to fifteen.
Mr Deasy said I was to
copy them off the board, sir.
-Can you do them yourself?
-No, sir.
Let's take a look.
He proves by algebra that Shakespeare's
ghost is Hamlet's grandfather.
Futility! Ugly and futile.
Yet someone had loved him,
borne him in her arms and in her heart.
But for her the race of the world
would have trampled him underfoot...
a squashed boneless snail.
She had loved his weak watery blood drained
from her own.
Was that then real?
The only true thing in life?
Her glazing eyes, staring out of death,
to shake and bend my soul.
Ghostly light
on the tortured face.
Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror.
Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!
No, mother!
Let me be and let me live.
Do you undestand now?
-Yes, sir.
-Can you work the second for yourself?
Like him was I, these sloping shoulders,
this gracelessness.
My childhood bends beside me.
Mine is far and his secret.
Secrets, silent, stony...
sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts.
-It's very simple.
-Yes, sir. Thanks.
-You had better get your stick and go out to the others.
-Yes, sir.
Dearest Papli,
Thanks ever so much
for the lovely birthday present.
It suits me splendid.
Everyone says I am quite the belle.
I am
getting on well in the photo business now.
We are going on a picnic tomorrow.
Give my love to mummy and to yourself
a big kiss and thanks.
I hear them at the piano
downstairs.
There is a young student comes here
some evenings named Bannon.
I must now close with fondest love
Your fond daughter, Milly.
P.S.: Excuse bad writing.
Fifteen yesterday.
Curious, fifteenth of the month too.
Her first birthday away from home.
Remember the morning she was born,
running to knock up Mrs Thornton
in Denzille Street.
Jolly old woman. Lots of babies
she must have helped into the world.
She knew from the first...
-You can come in now, sir.
-...poor little Rudy wouldn't live.
It's a little boy.
She knew at once.
He would be eleven now if he had lived.
Coming out of the her shell.
Young student, Bannon.
She knows how to mind herself.
But if not? No, nothing has
happened.
Of course it might.
Wait in any case till it does.
Destiny.
Wonder have I time for a bath this morning.
Better be careful not to get
these trousers dirty for the funeral.
Now... No great hurry.
The king was in his
countinghouse.
Our prize titbit: Mitcham's Masterstroke.
Written by Mr Philip
Beaufoy, Playgoers' Club, London.
Payment at the rate of one guinea
a column has been made to the writer.
Hope it's
not too big bring on piles again.
No, just right.
Print anything now.
Silly season.
Might manage a sketch.
By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom.
Invent a story or
a proverb, which?
Is that Boylan well off? He has money.
What time
is the funeral?
Better find out in the paper.
Poor Dignam.
Yes, prize titbit,
Mitcham's Masterstroke.
One, two, Three.
-Three twelve. I think you'll find that's right.
-Thank you, sir.
Don't carry it like that.
You'll pull it out somewhere and lose it.
You just buy yourself a pocketbook.
You'll find it very useful.
-Mine would be often empty.
-Because you don't save.
You don't know what money is.
But one day you must feel it.
Generous people but we must also be just.
I fear those big words
which make us so unhappy.
That reminds me.
You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus,
with some of your literary friends.
I have a letter here for the press.
I have put the matter into a nutshell:
It's about the foot and mouth disease.
I want that to be printed.
Mark my words.
England is in the hands of the Jews.
And they are
the signs of a nation's decay.
As sure as we are standing here...
the Jew merchants are already
at their work of destruction.
Old England is dying.
If not dead by now.
A merchant is one who buys cheap
and sells dear...
Jew or gentile, is he not?
They sinned against the light.
And you can see the darkness in their eyes.
History is a nightmare
from which I am trying to awake.
I am happier than you are.
I foresee that you will not be here long.
You were not born to be a teacher.
-A learner rather.
-And here what will you learn more?
Who knows? But life is the great
teacher.
-As regards this...
-Yes. If you can have that published at once.
-I'll try. I know two editors slightly.
-That will do. There is no time to lose.
Good morning, sir.
Just one moment.
-Yes, sir.
-I just wanted to say.
Ireland, they say, has the honour of being
the only country which never persecuted the Jews.
-Do you know that? No.
-And do you know why?
-Why, sir?
Because she never let them in.
She never let them in. That's why.
Are there any letters for me?
Dear Henry, I am sorry
you did not like my last letter.
Why did you enclose the stamps?
I am awfully angry with you.
I do wish I could punish you for that.
Are you not happy in your home
you poor little naughty boy?
I often think of the beautiful
name you have.
When will we meet?
I think of you so often
you have no idea.
Please write me a long letter
and tell memore. Remember:
if you do not I will punish you.
Goodbye now, naughty darling,
and write by return to your longing
Martha.
P.S.: Do tell me what kind of perfume
does your wife use.
I want to know.
Hello, Bloom. What's the best news?
Is that today's? Show us a minute.
I want to see about that
French horse that's running today.
-Where the bugger is it?
-You can keep it.
Ascot Gold Cup.
Wait. Half a mo.
You can keep it.
I was just going to throw it away.
What's that?
I say you can keep it.
I was going to throw it away that moment.
I'll risk it. Thanks.
Now, tea.
Ineluctable modality of the visible.
At least that if no more, thought
through my eyes.
Signatures of all things I am here to read...
seaspawn and seawrack...
the nearing tide.
Snotgreen, bluesilver: coloured signs.
Shut your eyes and see.
You are walking through it howsomever.
I am, a stride at a time.
A very short space of time
through very short times of space.
Exactly:
and that is the ineluctable modality of the
audible
Open your eyes. No. Jesus!
I am getting on nicely in the dark.
My ash sword hangs at my side.
Tap with it: they do.
My two feet in these two boots
are at the ends of these two legs.
Am I walking into eternity
along Sandymount strand?
Open your eyes.
Wait.
That dream!
Yes, a street of harlots.
That man led me, spoke.
I was not afraid.
Open your eyes now. I will.
One moment. Has all vanished since?
If I
open and am for ever in the black.
I will see if I can see.
See now. There all the time without you...
and ever shall be, world without end.
My Latin quarter hat.
God, we must simply dress the character.
You were a student, weren't you?
Of what in devil's name?
You were going to do wonders...
With mother's money order,
eight shillings.
A fiery missionary to Europe,
pretending to speak broken English.
Rich booty you brought back:
a blue telegram.
"Mother dying.
come home father."
The aunt thinks you k*lled your mother.
I will not sleep there when
this night comes.
Take all.
Keep all.
My soul walks with me.
There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus.
-Who is that?
-Your son and heir.
Where is he?
-Was that Mulligan cad with him?
-No. He was alone.
He's in with a lowdown crowd.
That Mulligan is a contaminated
bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts.
His name stinks
all over Dublin.
Noisy selfwilled man. Full of his son.
He is right. Something to hand on.
If little Rudy had lived.
See him grow up.
Hear his voice in the house.
My son.
Me in his eyes.
Strange feeling it would be.
From me.
Must have been that morning
she was at the window...
watching the two dogs at it by
the wall.
"Give us a touch, Poldy", she said.
-"God, I'm dying for it".
-God, I'm dying for it.
Come on.
How life begins.
Got big then.
Had to refuse the Greystones concert.
My son inside her.
I could have helped him on in life. I could.
Make him independent.
Learn German too.
But the worst thing is...
the man who takes his own life.
Temporary insanity, of course.
We must take a charitable view of it.
They say a man who does it is a coward.
It is not for us to judge.
Poor papa.
Poor man.
The letter.
For my son Leopold.
Just that moment I was thinking.
The nails, yes.
He's coming in the afternoon.
Is there anything more in him
that they she sees?
Worst man in Dublin.
But a type like that.
The nails. I am just
looking at them: well pared.
-How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom?
-O, very well.
I hear great accounts of it.
It's a good idea, you see...
Are you going yourself?
Well, no.
In point of fact I have to go down
to the County Clare...
on some private business.
You see the idea is to tour the chief towns.
What you lose on one you make up on the other.
Quite so.
Quite so.
The flood is following me.
I can watch it from here.
These sands the language tide.
Sands and
stones. Heavy of the past.
I could not save her.
I want her life still to be hers,
mine to be mine.
I could not save her.
Bitter death.
The ineluctable modality of
the ineluctable visuality.
The virgin in the window.
Keen glance you gave her.
She lives in Leeson Park.
Touch me. Soft eyes.
Soft soft soft hand.
I am lonely here. Sad, too.
Touch. Touch me.
I am caught in this burning scene.
Pain is far.
And the blame? As I am, I am.
All or not at all.
Better get this job over quick.
God becomes man becomes fish...
becomes barnacle becomes featherbed
mountain.
Dead breaths I living breathe.
I daresay the soil around here
must be quite fat with corpsemanure...
bones, flesh, nails. Dreadful.
Of course the cells or whatever they
are go on living.
Live for ever practically.
Nothing to
feed on feed on themselves.
But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots.
Poor Dignam.
His last lie on the earth in his box.
When you think of them all
it does seem a waste of wood.
They could invent something with
a kind of panel sliding let it down that way.
Ay but they might object
to be buried out of another fellow's.
They're so particular.
Lay me in my native earth.
Bit of clay from the holy land.
I see what it means.
To protect him as long as possible
even in the earth.
The Irishman's house is his coffin.
Embalming in catacombs, mummies the same idea.
Who is that lankylooking galoot
in the macintosh? Never seen before.
Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first.
Lourdes cure,
statues bleeding.
Safe in the arms of kingdom come.
Wake up this time next year.
O, Rudy, you would be 11 years old now.
Holy water that was, I expect.
He must be fed up with that job,
shaking that thing over all
the corpses they trot up.
Every mortal day a fresh batch:
middleaged men, old women, children,
women dead in childbirth,
men with beards,
baldheaded businessmen,
consumptive girls
with little sparrows' breasts.
All the year round he prayed the same
thing over them all:
sleep. On Dignam now.
Well, it's a long rest.
Feel no more.
Must be damned unpleasant.
Can't believe it at first.
Mistake must be: somebody else.
Try the house opposite.
People talk about you a bit: forget you.
Don't forget to pray for him. Remember
him in your prayers.
Then they follow:
dropping into a hole, one after the other.
-Foot and mouth?
-The letter is not mine.
Mr Garrett Deasy asked me to....
Hush, I know him,
and knew his wife too.
She had the foot and mouth
disease and no mistake!
I want you to write something for me.
But foot and mouth disease! All balls!
Give them something
with a bite in it.
Put us all into it.
-You can do it.
-"Telegraph"! Racing special!
"Telegraph"!
Racing special!
"Telegraph"!
Racing special!
"Telegraph"!
Racing special!
"Telegraph"!
Racing special!
-O, Mr Bloom, how do you do?
-O, how do you do, Mrs Breen?
How is Molly these times?
Haven't seen her for ages.
In the pink.
How are all your charges?
Still on the baker's list.
You're in black, I see.
You have no...
No. I have just come from a funeral.
O, dear me. I hope it wasn't any near relation.
Dignam. An old friend of mine.
He d*ed quite suddenly, poor fellow.
Heart trouble, I believe.
-Funeral was this morning.
-Sad to lose the old friends.
Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy?
Do you mean Mina Purefoy?
No, Philip Beaufoy I was thinking.
Playgoers' Club.
Mitcham often thinks of
the masterstroke.
Did I pull the chain? Yes.
The last act.
I just called to see if she over it.
She's in the Holles Street hospital.
She's three days bad now.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Yes. And a houseful of kids at home.
It's a very stiff
birth, the nurse told me.
There he is, I must run after him.
He's a caution to rattlesnakes.
-Goodbye. Give my regards to Molly, won't you?
-I will.
Tea. Tea, I forgot the tea.
God, three days.
Three days groaning on a bed.
Dreadful!
Lucky Molly got over hers lightly.
They should invent
something for that.
Life with hard labour.
Oldwoman that lived in a shoe
she had so many children.
See that?
Gone. Every morsel.
They never expected that.
Manna from heaven.
I'm not going to throw any more.
Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw.
They spread foot and
mouth disease too.
How can you own water really?
It's always flowing in a stream,
never the same,
which in the stream of life we trace.
O yes, the stream of life.
What was the name of that
priestylooking chap was always squinting?
Weak eyes. Pen something. Pendennis?
My memory is getting. Pen...?
O it's years ago.
Their little frolic after meals.
Who will we do it on?
I pick the fellow in black. Here goes.
Must be thrilling from the air.
Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg
up in the trees near
Goose green playing the monkeys.
Mackerel they called me.
How time flies!
Pillowed on my coat she had her hair,
my hand under her nape,
O wonder! The sky.
Coolsoft with
ointments her hand touched me, caressed...
her eyes upon me did not turn
away.
Ravished over her I lay,
full lips full open, kissed her mouth.
Yum.
Softly she gave me in my mouth
the seedcake warm and chewed.
Joy: I ate it:
joy.
Young life, her lips that gave me pouting.
Soft warm sticky
gumjelly lips.
Flowers her eyes were,
take me, willing eyes.
Hot I tongued her. She kissed me.
All yielding she tossed my hair.
Kissed, she kissed me.
Twentyeight I was.
She twentythree.
When we left Lombard Street something changed.
Could
never like it again after Rudy.
Can't bring back time. Like holding
water in your hand.
I was happier then. Or was that I?
Or am I now?
Would you go back to then?
Just beginning then.
Would you?
All these questions are purely academic.
Art has to reveal
to us ideas, formless spiritual essences.
The deepest poetry of Shelley,
the words of Hamlet bring our minds
into contact with the eternal
wisdom, Plato's world of ideas.
All the rest is the speculation of
schoolboys for schoolboys.
The schoolmen were schoolboys first.
-Aristotle was once Plato's schoolboy.
-And has remained so, one should hope.
What is a ghost?
One who has faded
into impalpability through death,
through absence.
Elizabethan London lays as far from Stratford
as corrupt Paris lies from virgin Dublin.
Who is the ghost returning
to the world that has forgotten him?
Who is King Hamlet?
The play begins.
A player comes on under the shadow.
It is the ghost,
a king and no king...
and the player is Shakespeare who has
studied "Hamlet" all the years of his life
He speaks the words to the young player:
Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit,
To a son he speaks,
he son of his soul, the son of his body,
Hamnet Shakespeare
who d*ed in Stratford that
his namesake may live for ever.
Is it possible that that player...
speaking his own words
to his own son's name...
is it possible that he did not draw or foresee
the logical conclusion of those premises:
you are the dispossessed son:
I am the m*rder*d father:
your mother is the guilty queen,
Ann Shakespeare, born Hathaway?
Do you mean to fly in the face
of the tradition of three centuries?
Her ghost at least has been laid for ever.
She d*ed, for literature at least,
before she was born.
She d*ed sixtyseven years after she was born.
She saw him into and out of the world.
She took his first embraces. She bore
his children
and she laid pennies on his
when he lay on his deathbed.
The world believes
that Shakespeare made a mistake
and got out of it as quickly
and as best he could.
A man of genius makes no mistakes.
His errors are the portals of discovery.
Do you want to cross?
You're in Dawson Street.
Molesworth Street is opposite.
Do you want to cross?
There's nothing in the way.
I'll see you across.
Do you want to go to Molesworth Street?
-Yes. South Frederick Street.
-Come.
Say something to him.
Better not do the condescending.
They mistrust what you tell them.
Pass a common remark.
The rain kept off.
-Thanks, sir.
-Right now?
Second turn on the left.
Stains on his coat.
Slobbers his food, I suppose.
Tastes all different for him.
A child's hand, his hand. Like
Milly's was.
Sensitive. See things in their forehead perhaps.
Bloodless pious face like a fellow
going in to be a priest.
Penrose! That was that chap's name.
Quite noisy here.
Good opportunity.
It is. It is. To the right. Museum. Goddesses.
Quick. Safe in a minute.
Handsome building.
Sir Thomas Deane designed.
Is it?
Almost certan.
Won't look. Get on.
Not following me?
Didn't see me perhaps. Light in his eyes.
No. Didn't see me.
My heart!
Mr Dedalus, your views are most illuminating
Is it your view, then,
that she was not faithful to the poet?
Where there is a reconciliation there must
have been first a sundering.
I was prepared for paradoxes
from what Malachi Mulligan said...
but I may as well warn you:
you that if you want to shake my belief that
Shakespeare...
is Hamlet you have a stern task before you.
As we weave and unweave our bodies,
their molecules shuttling to and fro,
so does the artist
weave and unweave his image.
And through the ghost of the unquiet father...
the image
of the unliving son looks forth.
In the intense instant of imagination...
when the mind is a fading coal,...
I may see myself as I sit here now...
but by reflection from that
which then I shall be.
-You were speaking of the gaseous vertebrate, if I mistake not?
-Yes, indeed.
A most instructive discussion.
Mr Mulligan.
-On Shakespeare.
-Shakespeare? I seem to know the name.
Come, Kinch. Come, wandering bard.
Come, Kinch. You have eaten all we left.
Life is many days. This will end.
We shall see you tonight. Notre ami Moore
says that Malachi Mulligan must be there.
Monsieur Moore...
lecturer on French letters to the youth of
Ireland.
I'll be there.
Come, Kinch, the bards must drink. Can you walk
straight?
Good day.
The wandering Jew. He knows you.
He knows your old fellow.
Did you see his eye?
He looked upon you to lust after you.
Kinch, thou art in peril.
Did you get any money?
Where would I get money?
Sceptre will win in a canter.
Yeah, I plunged a bit myself. Not on my own.
Can't you look for some money somewhere?
I will. I've looked all along
the gutter in O'Connell Street.
So I'll try this one now.
"Sweets of Sin".
More in her line. Let's see.
All the dollarbills her husband gave her
were spent in the stores on
wondrous gowns and costliest frillies...
For him! For Raoul!
-Gotta go.
-Have you got the horn or what?
Her mouth glued on his
in a luscious voluptuous kiss...
while his hands felt for the opulent
curves inside her deshabill?.
I'll take this one.
"Sweets of sin"?
That's a good one.
You bitch's bastard!
I see Bloom put his name down
for five shillings.
Quite right,
put it in too.
What's that bloody freemason doing out there
prowling up and down?
-Who?
Bloom.
He's up and down there on point duty
for the last ten minutes.
Hello Bloom. What'll you have?
Thank you, no. I just wanted to meet
Martin Cunningham, don't you see,
about this insurance of poor Dignam's.
Martin asked me to go to the house.
-But you'll have a drink.
-No, I can't.
-You are here now.
-Have a drink!
-What'll be?
-Well, just take a cigar, thank you.
A cigar for Bloom.
To the memory of the dead.
The friends we love
are by our side, the foes we hate
before us.
I hear that Blazes Boylan is running
a concert tour up in the North.
-He is, isn't he?
-Who?
Ah, yes. That's quite true.
Yes, a kind of summer tour, you see.
A holiday.
-Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she?
-My wife? She's singing, yes.
I think it will be a success too.
He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent.
Mr. Bloom, could you please tell Mrs. Dignam...
What's up with you. You look like a fellow
that had lost a bob and found a tanner.
Gold Cup, Throwaway, at twenty to one.
A rank outsider. And I didn't back her.
-And Bass's mare?
-Still running.
Boylan shoved two quid
on my tip Sceptre for himself and a lady friend.
Mr. Bloom.
What is your nation if I may ask?
lreland.
I was born here. Ireland.
And I belong to a race too,
that is hated and persecuted.
Also now. This very moment.
This very instant.
Robbed. Plundered. Insulted.
Persecuted.
Are you talking about the new Jerusalem?
-I'm talking about injustice.
-Right.
Stand up to it then with force like men.
But it's no use.
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?
Love.
I'm talking about the opposite of hatred.
I must go now. 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?
Universal love.
A new apostle to the gentiles.
Isn't that what we're told.
Love your neighbours.
Beggar my neighbours is his motto.
Fair kind of Romeo and
Juliet he'd make anyway.
Hi, Stephen.
What did you buy this for?
To learn French?
-Is it any good?
-It's all right.
Mind father doesn't pawn it on you.
I suppose all my books are gone.
Some. We had to.
-I know where he's gone.
-Who?
Bloom. The courthouse is a blind.
He had a few bob on Throwaway
and he's gone to gather in the shekels.
Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on.
He's the only man in Dublin has it.
I'm looking for Bloom.
Does anybody know where he is?
Where is he? Defrauding widows and orphans.
Charity to the neighbour.
Where is he?
We can't wait.
A wolf in sheep's clothing.
Virag from Hungary.
Cursed by God. That's what he is.
-I was just round at the courthouse looking for you.
-Courthouse my eye!
And your pockets hanging down
with gold and silver.
Typical Jew. All for number one.
Cute as a shithouse rat. That's what you are.
Hundred to five.
-Beg your pardon
-Come on boys.
Keep it to yourself. Tell no one.
It's a secret.
-Bye bye all.
-Three cheers for Israel!
Mendelssohn was a Jew...
and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza.
And the Saviour was a Jew
and his father was a Jew.
-Your God.
-He had no father. Drive ahead.
Well, his uncle was a Jew.
Your God was a Jew.
Christ was a Jew like me!
By Jesus, I'll batter him
for calling his name in vain.
I'll bleeding crucify him!
Foreigners coming in here,
stealing our women, stealing our work!
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee; blessed art thouthou
amongst women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee; blessed art thou
amongst women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee; blessed art thou
amongst women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee; blessed art thou
amongst women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
-I want the ball.
-No.
-It's my ball and I want it.
-No, no!
It's Jackey's turn.
-You are not my sister. I want the ball!
-No, off the two of you!
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee; blessed art thou
amongst women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now
and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee; blessed art thou
amongst women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now
and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now
and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee; blessed art thou
amongst women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now
and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee; blessed art thou
amongst women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Tommy, Jackey!
We're going!
Come on!
O, she's lame!
Poor girl.
That's why she's
left on the shelf.
A defect is ten times worse
in a woman.
Glad I didn't know it
when she was on show.
Hot little devil all the same.
Near her monthlies, I expect.
Anyhow I got the best of that.
Devils they are when that's coming on them.
Still you have to get rid of it somehow.
Did me good all the same.
"The Mystery Man on the Beach",
prize titbit by Mr Leopold Bloom.
Payment at the rate
of one guinea per column.
This wet is very unpleasant.
Better detach.
All quiet on Howth now.
Where we lay.
The rhododendrons.
I am a fool perhaps.
All that old hill has seen.
Names change: that's all.
Take the train there tomorrow.
No. Returning not the
same. The new I want.
Nothing new under the sun.
Now, drink!
For this is not my body
but my soul's bodiment.
Our lust is brief
We are means to those small creatures
within us and nature has other ends than we.
What means?
In woman's womb word is made flesh
but in the spirit of the maker all flesh that
passes becomes the word that shall not pass away.
This is the postcreation.
All of us linked togheter with
successive navelcords.
Seed, breed and generation.
we are all born in the same way
but we all die in different ways.
You have spoken of the
past and its phantoms. Why think of them?
If I call them into life
will not the poor ghosts
troop to my call?
-Who supposes it?
-I, Stephen...
bullockbefriending bard,
am lord and giver of their life.
Hark this and remember:
time's ruins build eternity's mansions.
The end comes suddenly.
So and not otherwise was the transformation,
violent and instantaneous, upon the
utterance of the word.
Burke!
Pray, sir, was you in need of
any professional service
we could give?
Come, Kinch, Come.
Good night.
Lord knows where they are gone.
Drunks cover distance double quick.
What am I following him for?
Get this job over quick.
God becomes man becomes fox
becomes barnacle becomes sea.
Dead breaths I living breathe.
I will not sleep there tonight.
Home also I cannot go.
Stitch in my side.
Why did I run?
I'll miss him.
Run. Quick.
What is the password?
-"Buenas noches"?
-"No".
-"Merci".
-"No, no, no"!
-Esperanto?
-"No".
What are you doing down this place?
Have you no soul?
Are you not my son Leopold?
Are you not my dear son Leopold
who left the house of his father,
who left the God of his fathers Abraham
and Jacob?
Ja, ich weiss, papachi. I suppose so, father.
Watch them chaps.
I remember. Mud head to foot.
They challenged me to a sprint.
It was muddy. I slipped.
Poldy!
Molly!
This is Marion, my dear man, when you speak to
me.
Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?
No, no. Not the least little bit, Marion.
Ten shillings a maidenhead.
Fresh thing was never touched.
With all my worldly goods I thee and thou.
You did that to me.
I hate you.
I? When? You're dreaming.
I never saw you.
When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer.
Dirty married man!
I love that you did that to me.
-Mister!
-Madam...
Madam, when we last had this pleasure by
letter
dated the sixteenth...
-Mr. Bloom!
You down here in the haunts of sin!
I caught you nicely! Scamp!
Not so loud my name.
Whatever do you think of me?
You're looking splendid.
Absolutely it.
Seasonable weather we are having
this time of year.
Black refracts heat.
Short cut home here.
Interesting quarter.
Rescue of fallen women.
Magdalen asylum.
I am the secretary...
Now, don't tell a big fib!
O just wait till I see Molly
Account for yourself this very
minute or woe betide you!
She often said she'd like to visit.
Slumming.
The exotic, you see.
A little frivol, shall we, if
you are so inclined?
Would you like me perhaps to embrace
you just for a fraction of a second?
O, you ruck!
You ought to see yourself!
Caught in the act!
I am doing good to others.
Come. Name and address.
I have forgotten for the moment.
Ah, yes!
Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon.
You have heard of von Blum Pasha.
Umpteen millions.
Owns half of Austria. Egypt.
Proof!
Henry Flower. No fixed abode.
Unlawfully watching.
This is the flower in question.
It was given me by a man
I don't know his name.
We are engaged you see, sergeant.
Lady in the case.
Love entanglement.
Dash it all. It's a way we gallants
have in the navy.
The uniform that does it.
I'll introduce you, inspector.
She's game.
Do it in the shake of a lamb's tail.
Don't you believe a word.
That man is Leopold Macintosh,
the notorious fireraiser.
His real name is Higgins.
Call the woman Driscoll!
Call the woman Driscoll!
What do you tax him with?
He made a certain suggestion
but I thought more of myself
as poor as I am.
I treated you white.
I gave you mementos,
smart garters far above your station.
Incautiously I took your part
when you were accused of pilfering.
Play cricket.
As God is looking down on me if
ever I laid a hand to them oysters!
Of the offence complained?
Did something happen?
He surprised me in the rere
of the premises, Your honour,
when the missus was out.
He held me
and I was discoloured in four places as a result.
-And he interfered with my clothing.
-She counterassaulted.
I had more respect for the scouringbrush,
Your honour.
I remonstrated with him a lot,
and he replied:
keep it quiet.
Order! Order!
Order in court!
This is no place for indecent levity at
the expense of an erring mortal.
My client is an infant,
a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as
a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny.
If the accused could speak
he could a tale unfold
one of the strangest that have
ever been narrated between the covers of a book.
His submission is that he is of Mongolian
extraction and irresponsible for his actions.
Not all there, in fact.
Arrest him! He
sent me an anonymous letter in backhand
He offered to send through the post
a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock.
and also to me.
Yes, I believe it is
the same objectionable person.
Also me.
He implored me
to soil his letter
in a most unspeakable manner,
to chastise him as he richly deserves,
to bestride and ride him,
to give him a most
vicious horsewhipping.
-Me too.
-Me too.
Me too!
Me too. Me too.
Me too.
Order in court!
I will put an end
to this white sl*ve traffic
and rid Dublin of this odious pest.
Take him away from the dock
where he now stands.
Be him hanged by the neck until he is dead.
Lord have mercy on your soul.
-Remove him.
-No, no. Pig's feet.
-I was at a funeral.
-Liar!
It is true.
It was my funeral.
How was that possible?
-By metempsychosis.
-O rocks!
You see, it's true.
It's from the Greek:
transmigration of the soul.
Some people believe that we go on l
iving in another body after death.
They call it reincarnation
Metempsychosis is what the
ancient Greeks called it.
They used to believe you could be
changed into an animal or a tree...
Make a speech about it.
My beloved subjects,
a new era is about to dawn.
I, Bloom, tell you verily
it is even now at hand.
Yea, on the word of a Bloom,.
ye shall ere long enter into
the golden city which is to be,
the new Bloomusalem
in the Nova Hibernia of the future.
What am I to do about my rates and taxes?
-Pay them, my friend.
-Thank you.
When will we have our own house of keys?
I stand for the reform of municipal
morals and the plain ten commandments.
Hey!
-New worlds for old.
-Hey!
Union of all, Jew, Moslem and Gentile.
-Hey!
-Electric dishscrubbers!
Hey!
No more patriotism of barspongers
and dropsical impostors!
Hey!
Free money, free love and
a free lay church in a free lay state
-Hey!
-What about mixed bathing?
-Whenever possible.
-Hey!
He is an episcopalian, an agnostic,
an anythingarian seeking
to overthrow our holy faith.
I'm disappointed in you!
You are a bad man!
I'm a Bloomite and I glory in it.
I believe in him in spite of all.
I'd give my life for him,
-the funniest man on earth.
-I bet she's a bonny lassie.
My hero god!
Give us a tune, Bloom.
One of the old sweet songs.
I vowed that I never would leave her,
She turned out a cruel deceiver.
This is midsummer madness!
I am guiltless as the unsunned snow!
I call on my old friend,
Dr Malachi Mulligan,
sex specialist, to give
medical testimony on my behalf.
Dr Bloom is bisexually abnormal.
Traces of elephantiasis have been
discovered among his ascendants.
He is prematurely bald from selfabuse
I have made a pervaginal examination
and I declare him to be "virgo intacta".
Professor Bloom is a finished
example of the new womanly man
I appeal for clemency
in the name of the most sacred word
our vocal chords have
ever been called upon to speak.
He is having a baby.
-O, I so want to be a mother.
-Stop press!
Stop press!
Stop press!
Stop press!
Stop press!
Are you with him?
You're not his father, are you?
Not I.
How's the nuts?
A talisman. Heirloom.
For Zoe? For keeps?
For being so nice, eh?
Your boy's thinking of you.
Here's another for you.
The reason is because
the fundamental and the dominant
are separated by the greatest
possible interval which...
is the greatest possible ellipse.
-What a learned man, eh!
-God help your head.
He knows more than you have forgotten.
What went forth to the ends of the
world to traverse not itself,
God, the sun, Shakespeare,
having itself traversed in reality
itself becomes that self.
-Stop press!
-Wait a minute. Wait a second.
Noise in the street.
Stop press!
Stop press!
Result of the rockinghorse races.
Safe arrival of the Antichrist.
Imitate pa.
Play with your eyes shut.
Filling his belly.
Too much of this.
I will arise and go.
Steve, thou art in a parlous way.
Must visit old
Deasy or telegraph.
Our interview of this morning
has left on me a deep impression.
Will write fully tomorrow.
I'm partially drunk, by the way.
-Minor chord comes now.
-My word!
I'm all of a mucksweat.
-Married, I see.
-Yes. Partly, I have mislaid...
And the missus is master.
Petticoat government.
That is so.
-Have you forgotten me?
-Yes. No.
We have met.
You are mine.
-It is fate.
-Exuberant female.
Enormously I desiderate
your domination.
I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young.
I stand, so to speak,
with an unposted letter
before the too late box
of the general postoffice of human life.
Be mine. Now.
You may.
You must.
Smell my hot goathide.
Awaiting your further orders
-Hound of dishonour!
-Emperess!
Adorer of the adulterous rump!
Hugeness!
Dungdevourer!
Magnificence!
Aah!
Bow, bondslave,
before the throne of
your despot's glorious heels
so glistening in their proud erectness.
-I promise never to disobey.
-You're in for it this time!
I'll make you remember me for
the rest of your natural life.
Don't be cruel, nurse! Don't!
You're after splitting me.
O! O! Monsters!
1118
01:22:00,631 --> 01:22:06,729
No more blow hot and cold.
What you've longed for has come to pass.
Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest.
And now for your punishment frock.
You will shed your male garments,
you understand, Ruby Cohen?
And don the sh*t silk over head and shoulders.
Silk!
O crinkly! Scrapy!
I tried her things on only once.
a small prank.
Tell me something to amuse me,
smut or a bloody good ghoststory
or a line of poetry,
quick, quick!
I give you just three seconds.
One!
Two! Three!
I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant
Get out, you skunk!
Master! Mistress! Mantamer!
By day you will bath and souse
our smelling underclothes
get my tub ready
empty the pisspots and
rinse them well, mind,
or lap it up like champagne.
You will drink me piping hot.
Hop!
And there now!
With this ring I thee own.
-Say, "thank you, mistress".
-Thank you, mistress.
You'll know me the next time.
-Give me back that potato, will you?
-Forfeits, a fine thing.
There is a memory attached to it.
I should like to have it.
To have or not to have
that is the question.
Here. This isn't a musical peepshow.
And don't you smash that piano.
Who's paying here?
The fox crew,
the cocks flew,
'Tis time for her poor soul
To get out of heaven.
-This is yours.
-How is that?
Better hand over that cash to me
to take care of.
-Be just before you are generous.
-I will but is it wise?
One, seven, eleven, and five.
Six. Eleven. I don't answer
for what you may have lost.
Burying his grandmother probably.
He k*lled her.
That is one pound six and eleven.
One pound seven, say.
Doesn't matter a rambling damn.
-No, but...
-Woman's hand.
Continue. Lie.
Hold me. Caress.
-What day were you born?
-Thursday. Today.
Thursday's child has far to go.
Line of fate.
Influential friends.
You'll meet with a...
I won't tell you what's not good for you.
Or do you want to know?
More harm than good.
Here. Read mine.
Smell that.
Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah!
Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash.
I have a little business with your wife,
you understand?
Thank you, sir. Yes, sir.
Madam is in her bath, sir.
Topping!
You can apply your eye to the
keyhole and play with yourself
while I just go through her a few times.
Thank you, sir. I will, sir.
May I bring two men chums to witness
the deed and take a snapshot?
You may.
Thank you, sir.
Hide! Show! Hide!
Plough her! More!
sh**t!
Ah!
She's beastly dead. The pity of it!
Mulligan meets the afflicted mother.
Mercurial Malachi!
Who are you?
What trick is this?
All must go through it.
You too, Stephen.
Time will come.
O, look! He's white.
Giddy.
They say I k*lled you, mother.
He offended your memory.
Cancer did it, not I.
-Destiny.
-You sang that song to me.
"Love's bitter mystery".
Tell me the word, mother, if you know now.
The word known to all men.
I pray for you in my other world.
Years and years I loved you.
-Shite!
-What?
O, my son, my firstborn,
when you lay in my womb.
Repent, Stephen!
O, the fire of hell!
Beware God's hand!
With me all or not at all.
"Non serviam"!
Give him some cold water.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus,
save him from hell,
have mercy on him!
O Divine Sacred Heart!!
No! No! No!
Break my spirit, all of you, if you can!
I'll bring you all to heel!
Have mercy on Stephen,
Lord, for my sake!
No!
Rudy!
Rudy...
Rudy!
Mr. Dedalus?
Stephen!
Stephen!
Stephen!
Damn death. Long live life!
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
The only thing is to walk
then you'll feel a different man.
Yes.
I don't mean to presume to dictate to you
in the slightest degree
but why did you leave your father's house?
To seek misfortune.
A gifted man in more respects than one
and a born raconteur if ever there was one.
He takes great pride,
quite legitimately, out of you.
You could go back perhaps.
You suspect that I may be important because
I belong to the "faubourg Saint Patrice".
-I would go a step farther,
-But I suspect,
that Ireland must be important
because it belongs to me.
What belongs?
Excuse me, unfortunately,
I didn't catch the latter portion.
-What was it...?
-Whatever you like to call it.
We can't change the country.
Let us change the subject.
-At what o'clock did you dine?
-Some time yesterday.
Yesterday! Ah, you mean it's after twelve!
The day before yesterday.
Walk, walk, walk your way,
walk in safety, walk with care.
Thy temple amid thy hair
is as a slice of pomegranate.
Yes, we came somewhere, really,
and the story he made up, a pack
of lies to hide it.
Yes, because the day before
yesterday he was scribbling a letter
when I came in to show him
Dignam's death in the paper
As if something had told me...
and he pretended to be thinking
about business! Fool!
Train somewhere whistling,
the strength those engines
have in them
like big giants and the water
rolling all over and out of them.
like the end of "Love's Old Sweet Song".
Mulvey was the first.
I near jumped out of my skin.
He was the first man kissed me.
It never entered my head what kissing meant
till he put his tongue in my mouth.
I put my knee up to him
a few times to learn the way.
What was that I said?
I said I was engaged for fun
to the son of a Spanish nobleman
named Don Miguel de la Flora...
many a true word spoken in jest.
What was his name?
Jack? Joe?
Harry Mulvey was it? Yes.
He said he'd come back.
Lord, its just like yesterday to me.
Perhaps h'es dead,
or k*lled, or a captain,
or an admiral.
I never thought that would be
my name: Bloom,
when I used to write it in print
to see how it looked on
a visiting card
or practising for the butcher.
"M Bloom you're looking blooming",
Josie used to say after I married him.
Well, it's better than Breen or Briggs
or those awful names with bottom in the:
Mrs Ramsbottom or some other kind of a bottom.
Mulvey I wouldn't go mad about that either.
Suppose I divorced him: Mrs. Boylan.
O, I wish he'd sleep in some bed by himself
with his cold feet on me.
Give us room even to let a fart!
Goodbye to my sleep for this night anyhow.
I hope he's not going to get in
with those medicals leading him astray
to imagine hes young again coming
in at four in the morning.
Still he had the manners
not to wake me.
What do they find to gabber about all night
squandering money and getting drunker and drunker.
Couldn't they drink water?
Then he starts giving us
his orders for eggs and tea.
Still it's the feeling,
especially now with Milly away,
such an idea for him to send the girl
down there to learn to take photographs.
Only he'd do a thing like that all the same
on account of me and Boylan.
That's why he did it. I'm certain.
The way he plots and plans everything out.
She can't feel anything deep yet.
I never came properly till I was,
what?, 22 or so.
It went into the wrong place always.
she's pretty with her lips so red.
It's a pity they won't stay that way.
God knows! There's always something wrong with us.
5 days every 3 or 4 weeks.
I bet the cat itself is better off than us.
Have we too much blood up in us, or what?
O, patience, above its pouring out of me
like the sea.
Anyhow, he didn't make me pregnant
as big as he is.
Look at the way he's sleeping.
It's well he doesn't kick,
or he might knock out all my teeth.
He's sleeping hard:
had a good time somewhere.
Of course he has to pay for it from her.
O, this nuisance of a thing.
I hope they'll have something better
for us in the other world.
still, I love to hear him falling up the
stairs of a morning
with the cups rattling on the tray.
He says he's an author
and going to be a university professor
of Italian and I am to take lessons.
I'm sure it'll be grand if I can only
get in with a handsome young poet at my age.
I wouldn't mind taking him in my mouth
even if some of it went down.
I'll make him feel all over him
till he half faints under me.
then he'll write about me,
lover and mistress,
publicly too,
with our 2 photographs in all the papers
when he becomes famous.
O, but then what am I going to do
about him though?
-Ah, This donkey!
-No, that's no way for him.
He has no manners, nor no refinement,
nor no nothing in his nature,
slapping us behind like that on my bottom
because I didn't call him Hugh
The ignoramus. Doesn't know
poetry from a cabbage.
I suppose it's because
they were so plump and tempting
he couldn't resist
They excite myself sometimes.
It's well for men all the pleasure
they get off a woman's body.
They don't know what it is to
be a woman and a mother. How could they?
That's why I suppose he's running wild.
Well, it's a poor case that
those that have a fine son like that
are not satisfied. And I none.
It wasn't my fault. We came together
when I was watching the two dogs.
I'm dying for it.
Our first death too it was.
We were never the same since.
That little woolly jacket I knitted.
I knew I'd never have another one.
O, I'm not going to think myself
into the glooms about that any more.
I know what I'll do:
I'll give him one more chance.
I'll go about rather gay not too much
singing a bit now and then
and let him have a good eyeful out of that
to make his micky stand for him.
Unless I made him stand there
and put him into me.
I've a mind to tell him every scrap.
It's all his own fault if I am an adulteress.
O, much about it if that's all the harm ever
we did in this vale of tears?
God knows it's not much.
Doesn't everybody?
Only they hide it.
Then if he wants to kiss my bottom
I'll drag open my drawers and bulge
it right out in his face as large as life
and he can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole,
and then I'll tell him I want a pound,
or perhaps 30 shillings.
And tell him I want to buy underclothes.
Then I'll wipe him off me and I'll go out.
I'll have him eying up at the ceiling.
God of heaven, there's nothing like nature:
the wild mountains, then the sea,
the waves rushing.
And as for them saying that there's no God,
I wouldn't give a snap of my two fingers
for all their learning.
Who was the first person in the universe
before there was anybody that made it all? Who?
Ah, they don't know. Neither do I.
So there you are.
They might as well try to stop
the sun from rising tomorrow.
"The sun shines for you", he said
the day we were lying among
the rhododendrons on Howth head,
in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat,
the day I got him to propose to me. Yes.
First I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth,
and it was leapyear like now, yes, 16 years ago.
My God, after that long
kiss I near lost my breath. Yes.
He said I was a flower of the mountain. Yes.
That was one true thing he said in his life
and "the sun shines for you today". Yes.
that was why I liked him because
I saw he understood or felt
what a woman is and I knew
I could always get round him.
and I gave him all the pleasure I could
leading him on till he asked me to say yes.
And I wouldn't answer first,
only looked out over the sea and the sky.
I was thinking of so many
things he didn't know:
of Mulvey and Mr. Stanhope,
and father and old captain Groves,
and the Spanish girls laughing,
and the sea, the sea,
crimson sometimes like fire,
and the glorious sunsets, yes,
and Gibraltar, as a young girl,
where I was a flower of the mountain. Yes.
And I thought:
"well, as well him as another".
And then I asked him with my eyes
to ask again. Yes.
And then he asked me would I yes to
say yes my mountain flower.
And first I put my arms around him, yes,
and I drew him down to me,
so he could feel my breasts all perfume, yes,
and his heart was going like mad.
Yes.
I said yes.
I will. Yes.
Destiny.
Bloom (2003)
Moderator: Maskath3