Michael Groden — James Joyce's Ulysses
English 4520F — Fall 2013
1) from James Joyce,
Finnegans Wake
excerpt from Book 1, Chapter 1
page 3, line 1 to page 6, line 12
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riverrun, past
Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram, violer
d'amores, fr'over the
short sea, had passen-
core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy
isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor
had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse
to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper
all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair
in
vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a
peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory
end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.
The fall
(bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and
later
on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of
the
offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of
Finnegan,
erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly
sends
an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:
and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the
park
where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev-
linsfirst loved livvy.
What clashes here of wills
gen wonts, oystrygods
gaggin fishy-
gods! Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu
Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh! Where the Baddelaries partisans are still
out to mathmaster Malachus Micgranes and the Verdons cata-
pelting the camibalistics out of the Whoyteboyce of Hoodie
Head. Assiegates and boomeringstroms. Sod's brood, be me fear!
Sanglorians, save! Arms apeal with larms, appalling. Killykill-
killy: a toll, a toll. What chance cuddleys, what cashels aired
and ventilated! What bidimetoloves sinduced by what tegotetab-
solvers! What true feeling for their's hayair with what strawng
voice of false jiccup! O here here how hoth sprowled met the
duskt the father of fornicationists but, (O my shining stars and
body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of
soft advertisement! But was iz? Iseut? Ere were sewers? The oaks
of ald now they lie in peat yet elms leap where askes lay. Phall
if
you but will, rise you must: and none so soon either shall the
pharce for the nunce come to a setdown secular phoenish.
Bygmester Finnegan, of the
Stuttering Hand,
freemen's mau-
rer, lived in the broadest way immarginable in his rushlit
toofar-
back for messuages before joshuan judges had given us numbers
or Helviticus committed deuteronomy (one yeastyday he sternely
struxk his tete in a tub for to watsch the future of his fates
but ere
he swiftly stook it out again, by the might of moses, the very
wat-
er was eviparated and all the guenneses had met their exodus so
that ought to show you what a pentschanjeuchy chap he was!)
and during mighty odd years this man of hod, cement and edi-
fices in Toper's Thorp piled buildung supra buildung pon the
banks for the livers by the Soangso. He addle liddle phifie
Annie
ugged the little craythur. Wither hayre in honds tuck up your
part
inher. Oftwhile balbulous, mithre ahead, with goodly trowel in
grasp and ivoroiled overalls which he habitacularly fondseed,
like
Haroun Childeric Eggeberth he would caligulate by multiplicab-
les the alltitude and malltitude until he seesaw by neatlight of
the
liquor wheretwin 'twas born, his roundhead staple of other days
to rise in undress maisonry upstanded (joygrantit!), a waalworth
of a skyerscape of most eyeful hoyth entowerly, erigenating from
next to nothing and celescalating the himals and all,
hierarchitec-
titiptitoploftical, with a burning bush abob off its baubletop
and
with larrons o'toolers clittering up and tombles a'buckets
clotter-
ing down.
Of the first was he to bare
arms and a name:
Wassaily Boos-
laeugh of Riesengeborg. His crest of huroldry, in vert with
ancillars, troublant, argent, a hegoak, poursuivant, horrid,
horned.
His scutschum fessed, with archers strung, helio, of the second.
Hootch is for husbandman handling his hoe. Hohohoho, Mister
Finn, you're going to be Mister Finnagain! Comeday morm and,
O, you're vine! Sendday's eve and, ah, you're vinegar! Hahahaha,
Mister Funn, you're going to be fined again!
What then agentlike brought
about that tragoady
thundersday
this municipal sin business? Our cubehouse still rocks as
earwitness
to the thunder of his arafatas but we hear also through
successive
ages that shebby choruysh of unkalified muzzlenimiissilehims
that
would blackguardise the whitestone ever hurtleturtled out of
heaven. Stay us wherefore in our search for tighteousness, O
Sus-
tainer, what time we rise and when we take up to toothmick and
before we lump down upown our leatherbed and in the night and
at the fading of the stars ! For a nod to the nabir is better
than wink
to the wabsanti. Otherways wesways like that provost scoffing
bedoueen the jebel and the jpysian sea. Cropherb the crunch-
bracken shall decide. Then we'll know if the feast is a flyday.
She
has a gift of seek on site and she allcasually ansars helpers,
the
dreamydeary. Heed! Heed ! It may half been a missfired brick, as
some say, or it mought have been due to a collupsus of his back
promises, as others looked at it. (There extand by now one thou-
sand and one stories, all told, of the same). But so sore did
abe
ite ivvy's holired abbles, (what with the wallhall's horrors of
rolls-
rights, carhacks, stonengens, kisstvanes, tramtrees,
fargobawlers,
autokinotons, hippohobbilies, streetfleets, tournintaxes, mega-
phoggs, circuses and wardsmoats and basilikerks and aeropagods
and the hoyse and the jollybrool and the peeler in the coat and
the mecklenburk bitch bite at his ear and the merlinburrow bur-
rocks and his fore old porecourts, the bore the more, and his
blightblack workingstacks at twelvepins a dozen and the noobi-
busses sleighding along Safetyfirst Street and the
derryjellybies
snooping around Tell-No-Tailors' Corner and the fumes and the
hopes and the strupithump of his ville's indigenous romekeepers,
homesweepers, domecreepers, thurum and thurum in fancymud
murumd and all the uproor from all the aufroofs, a roof for may
and a reef for hugh butt under his bridge suits tony) wan warn-
ing Phill filt tippling full. His howd feeled heavy, his hoddit
did
shake. (There was a wall of course in erection) Dimb! He stot-
tered from the latter. Damb! he was dud. Dumb! Mastabatoom,
mastabadtomm, when a mon merries his lute is all long. For
whole the world to see.
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