II - Chapter 12

Overall chapter impression:

And we're off with another 'WTF?'. Who is this guy ('I') and apart from his colloquialisms how come I can generally understand him and what's going on?

Notes: (commentary and/or scribble I wrote to look at/up later)

Videlicet. I can't believe how happy that has made me. 😄

Hop-of-my-thumb: short person?

I don't get the 'verb me my noun' bit and don't see anything in google.

Avoirdupois: in a book about the Trojan war with someone named Troy in the chapter's first sentence. Anything at all, or just me?

Mavourneen: a word popularised in 1915. 'my darling'. Readers would know it but this mob (probably) didn't.

Holy Michan - with its routing coffins and the mummified inhabitants that want to shake your hand. xRef: Capuchin monks

Is eugenic just for the alliteration? I don't get it. Were gum trees selectively bred or something? He doesn't alliterate anything else.**

Lovely maidens ... singing the most lovely songs - the Sirens are back?

Cran. Herring measurement. 37.5 gal. What is with imperial measurements? Oh. Tl/dr; when 'pined'(? OED) it comes down to 30 gal, but also it's Scottish for a net-drop into an open-ended barrel and has changed a bit since the 1700s. Was 42, or 45. I give 'em this one. 🤣

Creel. One half OR one quarter of a cran. Sigh. I take it back.

Heroes voyage from afar. Eblana is Dublin (circa 140AD) - at least it was in Joyce's time, though now it may be further north. Slievemargy isn't that far away either, but then nor are the rest of the places listed.

Can't find O'Connell Fitzsimon - possibly Daniel the liberator, but he only has the first name.

Food list. First we devolve to 'and's for commas, then we give up on joining niceties altogether and just start stringing words together.

Pelurious. Furry or hairy. Coined by Joyce. From pelury, a word seen once in The Chronicle of John Harding (Hardyng). One assumes the gooseberries are kiwifruit, not Cape gooseberries.

More from that food para: wain - cart, wagon; foison - abundance; vetch - some lupin like legume, not sure if it comes in fat units?; bere - barley.

Bulllock with three 'l's. ToDo: check Bullockbefriending for 'l' count

Beeve: a beef creature.

I've already looked up kine.

Shannon the unfathomable: is shallow, about 0.5m deep in places.

Who knew the meaning of gloryhole when this first came out? Oh, wait on, apparently nobody. Ummm, this might be the (unknown) first reference. The para following doesn't disagree either.

Repartee: Irish 17th century guerrilla fighters, anti-Cromwell, then anti-Charles.

MacAnaspey: local in-joke.

Ell ~ cubit

The whole hero para: I think he missed single-eyes coz I'm pretty sure this is Cyclops. - A minute later: Oh, fuck me. Aye said I.

Why is Cyclops wearing buskins under his brogues?

There are a bunch of Irish heroes mentioned many of whom aren't even slightly Irish (eg, Chris Columbus, last of the Mohicans, Muhammad, Cleo, queen of Sheba). I will look some of them up later. Is the narrator (I?) the one imagining Citizen as Cyclops? Is the Citizen even supposed to represent Cyclops or am I making stuff up? This chapter is weird.

Joe scored at the races. I didn't even know they'd started.

Bloom lives at Eccles Street, so the subsidised organ isn't Molly.

What is the point with the BDM reading? Because non-Irish names? birth vs death count?

Still don't get the u.p. Up thing, but it seems to be funny.

Rhino - money. Have I done this?

I see the bung brothers. Also, 3 paras to say: Alf bought a beer and paid for it.

There are two Paddy Dignams? Also Joe is from Belfast.

Jivic rays. What? Are we waving lyrical about Cyclops/Citizen again.

Later, no I think this is Dignam's ghost.

F. You Joyce. Telephone, elevator hot/cold water closet.

Bawways: another Joyceian coinage.

Citizen doesn't like Bloom. What IS he doing walking up and down outside the pub?

Little sleepwalking bitch. If this isn't metaphor for sleeping around it's just nasty. Stravaging is just roaming, wandering so no allusions there.

English selling their hanging skills in job applications?!? Oh God, they did, too.

Hang their own fathers: referencing Charles?

Nice nonsex double (triple?) entendre with deterrent effect.

Did Joyce just find out about hanging erections? 🤣

'I' doesn't like suckjobs

Ballalley: handball court

Is 'pisser' good or bad?

Ok, I get it already. Molly is fat

Loodheramaun ~ big and lazy.

Ok, if I understand the section with Molly and phenomenon, Bloom is trying to convince Molly to dally with the lazy nephew. I don't get the not eating meat bit, but it's def. not a Jewish thing. Later Bloom takes him out and gets him drunk?

Sinn Fein only!

Friends OTEI. The first one is something like 'pretty good kisses', or maybe 'kisses pretty good', depending on whether one puts the surname first. I don't know if I will puzzle out the rest on first read. Maybe after I've got through Homer.

Speranza: not the composer, Oscar Wilde's mum.

What's happening? I get we're waxing whimsical, but seriously, I think the LSD is kicking in. Boomerangs! Ninefooter? 20-odd people have 'several hundred ladies' and gentlemen's gold and silver watches? Hollywood-style sit-com execution. The fiancee-hopping fiancee is interesting. 'I' is a complete nutjob to think up all that shit.

A para or two of relative normalcy, and then he's off again after the dog starts sniffing around him - and all to get to the barman bringing a drink of water for the dog.

isosyllabic Welsh englyn. 🤣

The wife comes out top dog. I'm curled up on the floor crying.. Bloom you deserve everything you get. I hope Blazes does get Milly. I hope she's not even yours.

Then Bob takes 5 paras to leave.

Segue back to foot and mouth and some other animal husbandry weirdness. (Does Joyce know gara plus klook equals glark!).

Saw the 'most interesting discussion' paras come. I'm learning to read this stuff!

Saw the boxing match coming.

Milk in the cocoanut, and the absence of hair on the animal's chest. I read the paper and still don't get it.

Blazes doing the tootle on the flute - that doesn't parse, unless it's purely musical. His own flute, maybe?

Whatwhat. What?

Chaste? More like chased!

And U. p. Up rears it's ugly head - again, still not making any sense.

Half and half: bisexual? Neither fish nor flesh, seems to align. - or it could just be a saying.

Pishogue: spell, superstition.

The adulteress... Brought the Saxon robbers here. Yup, not the bloke in government, but his mistress. Fuck off Joyce - she was the used not the user.

Bloom stuff I don't entirely get. I think it's religion, not lifestyle this time.

Police gazette actual article. "... just as she was about to kiss his official lips". 🤣

Throwaway won the race. The most-tipped horse: Sceptre didn't. Boylan et al lost money on the race. (I have a feeling Joyce may have had a plunge himself, given the plethora of Sceptre references

Woe is Ireland - today's issue for the old women's club is: trees.

And he's off with forest wedding whimsy! Including a guest list of tree people.

Gloaming grey! 😁

Mention of the anti treating league and now rounds and rounds are being bought! 😁

Cabinet d'aisance: toilet.

Boo to the English, boo to the French. These guys are redneck right wingers! 🤣

Love it when GB people use royals real surnames! Prolly shouldn't say GB.

A nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet??

The Macintosh is back. He's a widower.

Never backed a horse in anger in his life. 🤣

1534, the year of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. He was Lord of Offaly.

Stuff that hasn't changed. Ads for penile enlargement, navy having customs and related complaints

Stuff I don't get:

What was all that about the Jewish thief/con artist at the beginning of the chapter?

U.p.: Up. I really hope this gets explained somewhere.

Crofter or Crofton or whatever. ???

What is with all the lists? Irish heroes, trees, harvest foods, saints, the list (of lists) goes on. Is this chapter supposed to be in the style of Leviticus?

Where did the time go? It seems like about 2-3 hours have disappeared (or earlier events and such took longer than I've calculated).

And, in conclusion:

Still convinced Joyce is playing Bloom as niche-cuck, not actual-cuck.

Seems early 20C Eire had a particularly anti-semitic feel about it.