JAMES JOYCE - ULYSSES

RUMBOLD

I’m near it myself. ( he undoes the noose ) Rope which hanged the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal Highness. ( he plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails ) My painful duty has now been done. God save the king!

EDWARD THE SEVENTH

( dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and sings with soft contentment )

On coronation day, on coronation day,

O, won’t we have a merry time,

Drinking whisky, beer and wine!

PRIVATE CARR

Here. What are you saying about my king?

STEPHEN

( throws up his hands ) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish empire of his. Money I haven’t. ( he searches his pockets vaguely ) Gave it to someone.

PRIVATE CARR

Who wants your bleeding money?

STEPHEN

( tries to move off ) Will someone tell me where I am least likely to meet these necessary evils? Ca se voit aussi a Paris . Not that I … But, by saint Patrick …..!

(The women’s heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.)

STEPHEN

Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that eats her farrow!

OLD GUMMY GRANNY

( rocking to and fro ) Ireland’s sweetheart, the king of Spain’s daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them! ( she keens with banshee woe ) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! ( she wails ) You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?

STEPHEN

How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where’s the third person of the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.

CISSY CAFFREY

( shrill ) Stop them from fighting!

A ROUGH

Our men retreated.

PRIVATE CARR

( tugging at his belt ) I’ll wring the neck of any fucker says a word against my fucking king.

BLOOM

( terrified ) He said nothing. Not a word. A pure misunderstanding.

PRIVATE COMPTON

Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He’s a proBoer.

STEPHEN

Did I? When?

BLOOM

( to the redcoats ) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Isn’t that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our monarch.

THE NAVVY

( staggering past ) O, yes! O God, yes! O, make the kwawr a krowawr! O! Bo!

(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the pilgrim warrior’s sign of the knights templars.)

MAJOR TWEEDY

( growls gruffly ) Rorke’s Drift! Up, guards, and at them! Mahar shalal hashbaz.

THE CITIZEN

Erin go bragh!

(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.)

PRIVATE CARR

I’ll do him in.

PRIVATE COMPTON

( moves the crowd back ) Fair play, here. Make a bleeding butcher’s shop of the bugger.

(Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the king.)

CISSY CAFFREY

They’re going to fight. For me!

CUNTY KATE

The brave and the fair.

BIDDY THE CLAP

Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.

CUNTY KATE

( blushing deeply ) Nay, madam. The gules doublet and merry saint George for me!

STEPHEN

The harlot’s cry from street to street

Shall weave Old Ireland’s windingsheet.

PRIVATE CARR

( loosening his belt, shouts ) I’ll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

BLOOM

( shakes Cissy Caffrey’s shoulders ) Speak, you! Are you struck dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred lifegiver!

CISSY CAFFREY

( alarmed, seizes Private Carr’s sleeve ) Amn’t I with you? Amn’t I your girl? Cissy’s your girl. ( she cries ) Police!

STEPHEN

( ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey )

White thy fambles, red thy gan

And thy quarrons dainty is.

VOICES

Police!

DISTANT VOICES

Dublin’s burning! Dublin’s burning! On fire, on fire!

(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete’s singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters blisters. It rains dragons’ teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O’Brien against Daniel O’Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M‘Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John O’Leary against Lear O’Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O’Donoghue of The Glens against The Glens of The O’Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the fieldaltar of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi O’Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head and collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant’s head an open umbrella.)

FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN

Introibo ad altare diaboli.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE

To the devil which hath made glad my young days.

FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN

( takes from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host ) Corpus meum.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE

( raises high behind the celebrant’s petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is stuck ) My body.

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED

Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!

(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

ADONAI

Dooooooooooog!

THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED

Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!

(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

ADONAI

Goooooooooood!

(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.)