06 December 2022

And, Cod, Says He

 

And, Cod, Says He (RFW 044.05-20)

Our analysis of the Cad’s Side of the Story—a retelling of HCE’s Oedipal Encounter in the Phoenix Park with the Cad with a Pipe—continues. At a crucial point in that original encounter, HCE pointed towards the Wellington Memorial and solemnly declared himself innocent of the crimes that were being laid at his door:

Shsh shake, co-comeraid! Me only, them five ones, he is equal combat. I have won straight. Hence my no-nationwide hotel and creamery establishments which for the honours of our mewmew mutual daughters, credit me, I am woowoo willing to take my stand, sir, upon the monument, that sign of our ruru redemption, any hygienic day to this hour and to make my hoath to my dear sinnfinners, even if I get life for it, upon the Open Bible and befu before the Great Taskmaster’s eye (I lift my hat!) and in the Presence of the Deity Itself andwell of Bishop and Mrs Michan of High Church of England as of all such of said my immediate withdwellers and of every living sohole in every corner wheresoever of this globe in general which useth of my British to my backbone tongue and commutative justice that there is not one tittle of truth, allow me to tell you, in that purest of fibfib fabrications. (RFW 029.07-19)

The paragraph we are now examining rehashes this moment.

First-Draft Version

Unlike the two previous paragraphs, this one was present in Joyce’s first draft of this passage:

And says he: As sure as eggs is what they are in high quarters my business credit will stand as straight as that monument’s fabrication before the hygienic globe of the Taskmaster’s eye (and here the reverent sabbath and bottle breaker uncovered himself of his boater cordially inviting the adolescents whom he was wising up to do likewise. (Hayman 70)

Note the echoes of the earlier passage:

And another phrase from earlier in the encounter—in high quarters (RFW 028.34)—is also repeated here.

The adolescents are the three schoolboys to whom HCE or the Cad—in this passage they are essentially one and the same—is retelling the tale. They represent HCE’s sons Shem & Shaun and the Oedipal Figure who embodies the two of them. In the published version, however, this plural has become the singular adullescence, which leads John Gordon to identify it with HCE’s daughter Issy:

Standing before the round mantel mirror, as always when in that position ‛cordially inwiting the adullescence [Issy up the chimney] who he was wising up to do in like manner ... (Gordon 131)

Does the hygienic globe of the Taskmaster’s eye refer to the Sun in the sky? In the original encounter in the park, any hygienic day probably refers to Sunday, a day on which people were encouraged to engage in healthy recreations, such as walking in the park.

As usual, Joyce went on to elaborate this initial draft not only by altering what he had first written (eg changing Taskmaster’s to Great Schoolmaster’s) but also by inserting several parenthetical passages. In its final form, this short paragraph has four main parentheses, which take up almost two-thirds of the whole. And the longest of these is itself interrupted by two nested parentheses. At least one of these revisions strengthened the link with the earlier passage in Chapter I.2: he altered high quarters to high British quarters, echoing HCE’s British to my backbone.

Joseph Campbell

Radio Advertisement

In A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, Joseph Campbell & Henry Morton Robinson arrived at a very different interpretation of this paragraph:

Or hear this voice coming over the radio, and again you will recognize the living accent of HCE. Over the microphone, with crocodile tears, he summons attention to himself. Tuck away your nightly novel, girlie; listen to him advertising his credits in oleaginous, foreign English, as he calls the whole universe to witness: “Sure as my Liffey eggs,” says he, “is known to our good householders, ever since the ancient centuries of the mammoth, to be that which they commercially are in high British quarters, my tavern and cow-trade credits will immediately stand oh-oh-open, as straight as that neighboring monument’s fabrication, before the whole hygienic glllllobe, before the great schoolmaster’s smile!”†
†Through the sound of the radio advertisements, we hear the voice of HCE calling the whole universe to witness that his wares are as straight and true as the Wellington Monument, and have been so since the beginning of time. “The great schoolmaster’s smile” is God’s own countenance approving of this universal salesman. (Campbell & Robinson 68 and fn)

This interpretation, it seems, was deduced from the phrase Mass Taverner’s at the mike again! It never would have occurred to me, but we might as well keep it in mind.

I might also mention an apt comment by John Gordon, Professor Emeritus in English at Connecticut University: Here as elsewhere, HCE’s speech is partly an election address (Gordon 54.25). I would go further, and suggest that one compare this speech with HCE’s famous apologia from Chapter III.3, known as Haveth Childers Everywhere, which was published in book form in 1930:

Haveth Childers Everywhere

The Bare Bones

With the encumbering parentheses removed, the final version of this paragraph reads as follows:

And, Cod, says he with mugger’s ears in his eyes: Meggeg, m’gay chapjappy, I call our univalse to witness, as sicker as moyliffey eggs is known by our good househalters from yorehunderts of mamooth to be which they commercially are in ahoy high British quarters my guesthouse and cowhaendel credits will immediately stand ohoh open as straight as that neighbouring monument’s fabrication before the hygienic glllllobe before the Great Schoolmaster’s. Smile! (RFW 044.05-20)

Note how the last and longest parenthesis—eight lines in the first edition—interrupts the word glllllobe. The four extra l’s in globe represent HCE’s guilty stutter, which was prominent in the earlier passage in Chapter I.2.

  • Cod God. There is always something very fishy about HCE’s self-exonerations. Also Cad, as this passage rehashes HCE’s original response to the Cad with a Pipe.

  • with mugger’s ears in his eyes with crocodile tears in his eyes. Anglo-Indian: mugger, a species of large crocodile (Crocodylus palustris), from the Hindi: मगर [magar], crocodile. Joyce recorded this in VI.B.10:116h: mugger (crocodile). Crocodile tears refers to an insincere display of grief, from the ancient belief that crocodiles shed tears while consuming their prey. John Gordon suggests mother’s tears, which are usually sincere. The first edition’s tears was emended to ears in his eyes in The Restored Finnegans Wake, but as John Gordon points out, mugger’s tears also alludes to Majesty, which explains the point of the following parenthesis (Gordon 54.20-1). Finally, mugger’s anticipates Maggis in the next line.

A Mugger Crocodile in Sri Lanka

  • mugger Joyce once told Padraic Colum that HCE’s encounter with the Cad was inspired by a real incident in which his father was waylaid by a mugger in the Phoenix Park while collecting rates (Colum 159 : Ellmann 34).

  • ears ... eyes The combination of the two senses of sight and sound reminds us of Television kills telephony two pages ago. In Finnegans Wake, Shem has a good ear but poor eyesight, while Shaun is the opposite. The conflation of the two senses probably symbolizes the Oedipal Figure, who embodies both brothers. As we have seen, however, the first edition simply read tears.

  • Meggeg In the Circe episode of Ulysses, the Nannygoat bleats Megeggaggegg! (Ulysses 513). Here, it may represent the fallow deer (note the following fellow in the first edition) in the Phoenix Park, as well as HCE’s guilty stutter, but note that the preceding parenthesis ends with a reference to a goat.

  • m’gay chapjappy my good chap : happy. Rose & O’Hanlon associate this with Joyce’s note VI.B.7:224f my dear fellow, but they removed the word fellow which was added to chapjappy at the ninth stage of drafting. -jappy could refer to Japan (cf Ulysses 406). The preceding paragraph included a multilingual babble of phrases, but Japanese was not one of the languages represented. On the other hand, that paragraph included an allusion to St Patrick (A’Cothraige), who is depicted as a Japanese Buddhist bonze in the concluding chapter of Finnegans Wake. There is also a clear allusion later in this paragraph to the Japanese Emperor Meiji.

St Patrick as a Japanese Buddhist Monk

  • univalse universe. FWEET suggests that the word conflates whole universe. Perhaps the presence of the l is just the result of the familiar L/R Interchange (O’Hehir 1967:392-393). VI.B.44: 92f simply records the phrase without indicating the source. The French: valse, waltz is probably not relevant. John Gordon suggests one voice, in contrast to the babble of voices in the preceding paragraph (Gordon 54.23).

  • sicker German: sicher, sure.

  • Phrase: as sure as eggs is eggs, most certainly. Joyce recorded it in Scribbledehobble (VI.A:804bs): as sure / as eggs are what they are (Connolly 156).

  • moyliffey Moyliffey, (Irish: Magh Life, Plain of Liffey) is a plain in County Kildare through which the River Liffey flows. The river, in fact, takes its name from the plain. Originally, the Liffey was called the Ruirthech. Also my Livia, an allusion to HCE’s wife ALP. In the opening chapter, she appeared as a hen, so the eggs may be hers literally speaking.

  • German Haushälter, housekeepers. The literal translation is householders. As Gordon notes, for an extended period, British “householders” were the only citizens qualified to vote in Parliamentary elections (Gordon 54.25).

  • German: Jahrhundert, century.

Administrative Map of Sussex

  • Hundred of Manhood The account of HCE’s original encounter with the King on the road outside his tavern linked HCE to the Earwickers of Sidlesham in the Hundred of Manhood (RFW 024.06-07). An administrative district of this name was once to be found on this part of the Sussex coast, close to Bognor, where Joyce was staying when he conceived the Humphriad.

  • yore ... mammoth The householders HCE is addressing date back to days of yore, when mammoths still haunted these regions.

  • German: Gasthaus, inn, tavern, guest-house.

  • German: Kuhhandel, horse trading, shady bargaining.

  • German: Händel, Haendel, squabbles, brawls. The composer Handel, whose original name in German was Händel, is probably not relevant, but another early composer, John Taverner), is named a few lines above.

  • my guesthouse ... will ... stand ... open This harks back to the Prankquean Episode, which was based upon an encounter between Grace O’Malley and the Earl of Howth. One of the consequences of this clash was the custom observed in Howth Castle of always keeping the doors open at mealtimes against the arrival of unexpected guests.

  • hygienic glllll ... obe Gordon suggests an 1884 article: “The latest fad, according to Figaro), is a hygienic restaurant.” This is a restaurant where the meals are specially prescribed by nutritionists for dyspeptic customers.

Hygienic Restaurant (Edwards 242)

  • glllllobe Not only the Earth but also Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

  • Great Schoolmaster’s God’s As we have seen, Joyce originally repeated Great Taskmaster’s from the original encounter in the Park before altering it. Perhaps Shakespeare is also meant.

First Parenthesis

The first of this paragraph’s six interpolations comes after ears in his eyes:

(Would you care to know the prise of a liard? Maggis, nick your nightynovel! Mass Taverner’s at the mike again! And that bagbelly is the buck to goat it!)

In the first edition this passage was not enclosed within parentheses. It was not present in the draft of this chapter which appeared in transition in June 1927. Note that this parenthesis, which has a royal element, was suggested by the equation mugger’s tears = Majesty before mugger’s tears was emended to mugger’s ears in his eyes:

transition, Number 3 (Jolas & Paul 36)

  • Would you care to know the prise of a liard? This phrase was taken from an anecdote about Henri IV of France, which Joyce came across in Édouard Trogan’s Les Mots Historiques du Pays de France:

Pour Henri IV, il est resté le roi populaire, le bon roi Henri. Il s’arrêtait dans ses promenades pour s’informer du prix des choses: « Je voudrais savoir le prix d’un liard, disait-il, afin de ne point trop demander à ces pauvres gens. »
[As for Henry IV, he remained the popular king, Good King Henry. He used to stop on his walks to learn the cost of things: “I would like to know the price of a farthing”, he would say, “so as not to ask too much of these poor people.” (Trogan 36, 106)

  • rise ... lier The Fall|Rise Motif.

  • French: liard, a French coin worth a quarter of one sou, a pittance, a trifling amount.

  • liar

Je voudrais savoir le prix d’un liard (Trogan 37)

  • Maggis, nick your nightynovel! There is an obvious allusion here to The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies, which is the children’s game played by Shaun or Chuff (Michael the Archangel), Shem or Glugg (Old Nick, the Devil), and their sister Issy or Izod (Nuvoletta, accompanied here by her schoolmates, the Maggies) in Chapter II.1. In VI.B.46:45c, Joyce wrote: mike / maggies (nuvoletta), which makes clear the identity of Issy and her schoolmates.

  • Dublin Slang: nick, steal.

  • naughty novel In Finnegans Wake, Issy is fond of reading romantic novels, but Nick|Shem, as James Joyce, is the author of the naughty novel Ulysses and the night-novel Finnegans Wake.

  • Mass Taverner’s As we saw above, this alludes to the English Renaissance composer John Taverner, who is remembered for his many settings of the Mass. His surname, of course, is HCE’s occupation. The first edition had Travener’s, which was probably just a misspelling. There was also a Taverner’s Bible, so the meaning could be: Put down that naughty book, Issy, and take up the Good Book instead. The master of the tavern is coming! (Gordon 54.21-2)

  • Travers John P Anderson, author of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah, suggests an allusion to Mary Travers, the young woman who damaged the reputation of Oscar Wilde’s father William Wilde, when she published a pamphlet implying that he sexually assaulted her while she was a patient of his. When a libel case related to the scandal came to court, Mary Travers won but was awarded only one farthing (a liard) in compensation. If guilty, Sir William was a lord and a liar (and a lier, if he adopted the missionary position while raping Travers). The offending pamphlet was published under the title Florence Boyle Price: A Warning (cf prise). William Wilde was an ear-and-eye doctor (ears in his eyes). The full story is recounted by Frank Harris in the opening chapter of his biography of Oscar Wilde (Harris 1-15).

William Wilde

  • Slang: mike, microphone. This led Campbell & Robinson to interpret this passage as an advertisement on the radio.

  • bagbelly This word (two words in the first edition) refers to the traditional etymology of the Irish: Fir Bolg, the name of one of the early races of Celts who colonized Ireland.

Next comes the Taking of the Fir Bolg here below. Ireland was waste for a space of two hundred years after the capture of Conaing’s Tower, till the Fir Bolg came, [as we have said in the poem]. From the lands of the Greeks they came, fleeing from the impost which the Greeks had laid upon them—carrying clay on to bare rock-flags and making them flowery plains. Those men made them long canoes of the bags [bolcaib] in which they were wont to carry the clay, and they came to Ireland, in quest of their patrimony. As everyone does, they partitioned Ireland ... Fir Bolg then, from the bags [bolgaib] in which they used to carry the earth are they named. (Macalister 15 ... 17)

  • Irish: bolg, belly. A more recent interpretation of Fir Bolg links the name to the Irish for belly. For the record, Bolg is cognate with the Latin Belgae, the name of the Celtic race of which the Fir Bolg were an offshoot. Ultimately, it is probably derived from the Indo-European: *bheleg-, to shine, flash (especially of lightning) (O’Rahilly 52 : Pokorny 124). HCE has a big belly.

  • is the buck to goat it! is the boy to get it! : is about to get it! A male goat is called a buck, as is a male deer. As we saw above, the following Meggeg echoes the nannygoat from Ulysses.

Francis I of France

  • goat it These words echo the French: gâtera tout, will spoil all, taken from another anecdote in Édouard Trogan’s Les Mots Historiques du Pays de France. This one concerns Louis XII and his heir, the future Francis I (VI.B.46:51s):

Il était, du reste, très bon pour les pauvres et déclarait: J’aime mieux voir les courtisans rire de mon avarice, que le peuple pleurer de mes dépenses. Son successeur ne l’imita guère en cela. Louis XII avait dit de lui: Ce gros garçon gâtera tout. François I<super</sup illustra cependant son règne par l’amour des letters et des arts.
[He was, moreover, very kind to the poor and declared: I would rather see the courtiers laugh at my avarice than the people cry at my expenses. His successor hardly imitated him in this. Louis XII had said of him: This fat fellow will spoil everything. Francis I, however, illuminated his reign with his love of letters and the arts.] (Trogan 32, 106)

HCE is also a fat fellow.

Second Parenthesis

The second parenthesis comprises a single word, and comes after Joyce’s elaborate parody of the phrase as sure as eggs is eggs:

(conventional!)

  • conventional eggs eggs laid by caged hens, as opposed to pasture-raised or free-range eggs. This interpolation was already present when an early draft of this chapter appeared in transition (June 1927).

The Wellington Monument

Third Parenthesis

The third interpolation is the long one that interrupts the word gllll (...) obe. It describes how HCE lifted his hat as he was pointing towards the Wellington Monument, during the original encounter (RFW 029.14). It contains two nested parentheses of its own, which are omitted here:

(this was where the reverent sabboth and bottlebreaker with firbalk forthstretched touched upon his tricoloured boater which he uplifted by its pickledhoopy ... whileas oleaginosity of ancestralolosis sgocciolated down the both pendencies of his mutsohito liptails ... cordially inwitin the adullescence who he was wising up to do in like manner what all did so as he was able to add)

  • reverent ALP’s Letter (RFW 481.28–485.10) addresses HCE as Revered. May we add majesty? Note that the passage immediately before this hints at the phrase as sure as eggs is eggs.

  • sabboth and bottlebreaker sabbath breaker and bottle breaker This refers back to the paragraph (RFW 041.32–042.20) in which the Cad|HCE is shooting at empty bottles on a Sunday evening. The misspelling of sabbath may imply sabotage. Ships are traditionally launched by breaking a bottle on their hulls. Note the word boater in the next line. The Fir Bolg are said to have sailed from Greece to Ireland in boats made from their bags. And three lines above, we have ahoy, another nautical term (ahoy high also represents HCE’s guilty stutter).

  • firbalk Fir Bolg. A balk is a wooden crossbeam in the roof of a house. This one, I suppose, is made of fir. Does it refer to HCE’s cane? In the original encounter, HCE pointed towards the Wellington Monument with his gauntleted hand. Gordon also suggests fir bark: topsoil covering used for potting and gardening (Gordon 54.30). I’m not convinced.

  • tricoloured The Irish and French flags are tricolours (French: tricolore). But HCE is a West Brit, so his three colours are probably those of the Union Jack.

Straw Boaters and Pickelhauben

  • boater a type of straw hat. In Ulysses, Blazes Boylan—the villain of the piece—wears a straw boater (Ulysses 525).

  • German: Pickelhaube, a spiked helmet. The Pickelhaube was introduced by the Prussian army in the 19th century, but it was also used by the Germans during World War I.

  • whileas while : whereas.

  • oleaginosity (archaic) the quality of being oily, oily nature. In the Museyroom Episode it was Wellington’s Oedipal opponent Napoleon (the three lipoleum boyne) who was oily.

  • ancestralolosis In English, the suffix -osis generally denotes diseases or pathological conditions. The meaning seems to be that HCE’s oily sweating is due to a pathological condition that he has inherited from his degenerate ancestors—a bit like Original Sin.

  • Ancient Greek: λοῦσις [loûsis], washing, bathing (O’Hehir 1977:36). I prefer to regard ancestralolosis as ancestralosis with an extra lo due to HCE’s stutter, which is always indicative of his guilt. That is, he is still stained with Original Sin, which was a sin of concupiscence.

  • Italian: sgocciolare, to drip, to trickle.

  • pendency (archaic) the state of being pendent, suspended, hanging. Joyce pluralizes it because he is referring to both handles of HCE’s moustache.

  • mustachio moustache, especially a large or lush one.

  • Mutsohito Personal name of the Japanese Emperor Meiji (1867-1912), who presided over the Meiji Restoration. Later in life, he did sport a drooping moustache.

Emperor Meiji (Mutsohito)

  • Japanese: むっつ [muttsu], six (when counting small items). FWEET gives it, but I don’t see the relevance.

  • Japanese: ひと [hito], person

  • liptails The drooping ends of HCE’s moustache resemble tails at the ends of his lips.

  • inviting

  • Agenbite of Inwit Remorse of Conscience, the title (Correctly Ayenbite ...) of a Middle English tract on Christian morality. Stephen Dedalus famously references it on several occasions in Ulysses (eg Ulysses 16).

  • adolescents The three schoolboys to whom the Cad|HCE is retelling the tale, but see above for Gordon’s alternative interpretation.

  • adulation

  • dull stupid, lacking intelligence. The Cad|HCE is trying to sharpen the boys’ wits.

  • wising up informing, disabusing. This verb is generally used intransitively, meaning to become informed, to be disabused, to cop on: eg I wised up. Here, however, the Cad|HCE is trying to sharpen the adolescents’ dull wits. VI.B.11:143f: wise up adolescent. In the first draft, it is clear that the Cad|HCE is inviting the three schoolboys to emulate him by removing their hats.

  • up to As Gordon points out, up is doing double duty here. HCE, as usual, was up to no good when he was encountered in the Park (Gordon 54.36).

Thomas Carlyle

Fourth Parenthesis

The fourth parenthesis breaks the first draft’s of the Taskmaster’s eye into before the Great Schoolmaster’s. Smile!

(I tell you no story.)

This transparent parenthesis—transparenthesis?— echoes HCE’s allow me to tell you in the original encounter in the Park (RFW 029.19). VI.B.31:219c: I tell you no story.

  • story lie. See liard above.

Fifth Parenthesis

The first of two nested interpolations that interrupt the long third parenthesis follows the reference to the Cad|HCE lifting his hat:

(he gave Stetson one and a penny for it)

  • Stetson John B Stetson, an American milliner famous for his cowboy hats. His Boss of the Plains, was a particularly popular, wide-brimmed hat that became synonymous with the Wild West. Another popular Stetson was the ten-gallon hat. The original encounter in the Park between HCE and the Cad with a Pipe was portrayed as though it was a duel between two gunslingers.

Silent Movie Star Tom Mix in a Stetson Ten-Gallon Hat

  • one and a penny one shilling and one penny. In old money, a shilling was worth twelve pence (12 d), so the hat cost 13 d. Does this make it lucky or unlucky? In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter’s top hat cost 10/6 (ten shillings and sixpence).

Sixth Parenthesis

The second of the two nested interpolations follows the description of the sweat dripping from the ends of the Cad’s|HCE’s moustache:

(Sencapetulo, a more modestuous conciliabulite never curled a torn pocketmouth)

  • Sencapetulo The uppercase S suggests that this is a proper name, though the word is not capitalized in VI.B.46:137f: sencapetulo! Saint Patrick was referenced in the preceding paragraph. Sucat was St Patrick’s original name. The L/R Interchange would account for the l. Is Seneca in there? Probably not. Adaline Glasheen does list Sencapetulo in her Third Census of Finnegans Wake, but she marks the entry with an asterisk to indicate that she does not know who it refers to (Glasheen 258).

  • Esperanto: senkapetulo, without money.

  • Spanish: capitulo, chapter.

  • majestuous (archaic) majestic. See mugger’s tears above.

  • modest Being both majestic and modest, HCE is full of contradictions.

  • Latin: conciliabulum, a place of assembly : a marketplace : a place for courts : a brothel. A conciliabulite, then, would be a person who frequents a conciliabulum.

  • conciliabule conventicle, a small private or secret assembly. The word is used especially to describe secret meetings of religious dissidents.

  • conciliable a small or secret assembly, a conventicle, especially an ecclesiastical council considered to be illegally assembled or schismatic.

  • conciliable capable of being conciliated, reconcilable.

Sam Elliott Curls His Torn Pocketmouth

  • a torn pocketmouth VI.B.31:139a: mouth like / a torn pocket. This colloquial expression is not Joyce’s, but I do not know where he picked it up. Rick Jolly includes it in his Jackspeak_, a guide to British naval slang (Jolly 163). This would be appropriate, given the other nautical terms in this paragraph. The phrase curled a torn pocketmouth anticipates the last word in this paragraph: Smile!

And that’s as good a place as any to beach the bark of our tale.

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