Ulysses page-by-page mirror: Page 3 (1.1-29) "Stately... will you?"

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Delaney: [1] [2] [3] [4] Useen: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [map] [*]

Delaney: [1]

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
— Introibo ad altare Dei.

(The word 'stately' is most often conventionally followed by 'mansions'.)
Joyce crafts each sentence to win our trust, but also to hint that we'll have to pay close attention to solve the many casual riddles.

Benstock suggests the opening sentences are in Mulligan's voice.

"came from... came forward" (whose point of view is this?)
"A yellow dressinggown" (why 'A' not "His'?)
"ungirdled" (we'll see he's wearing trousers too) cf cincture
"sustained gently behind him [by | on] the mild morning air" (without saying so, JAJ implies it's silk)

gunrest and stairhead
(camera looking SW, i think)

[Introibo ad altare Dei] ritually mumbled not intoned?
Homer's Odyssey begins with an invocation of the Muse
'introibo' is 'I will go in to' not 'up to'

notice that italics in Ulysses signify: foreign languages, quotations, and song lyrics or poems. never internal monolog, never simple emphasis.

Joyce's portrait of Gogarty was drawn specifically to reveal his blasphemous/ obscene side to his conformist patients in Dublin, confronting OG with his social hypocrisies. (His peers would already have known him well.)
OG w/JAJ, 1909: "'Well do you really want me to go to hell and be damned'. I said 'I bear you no illwill. I believe you have some points of good nature. You and I of 6 years ago are both dead. But I must write as I have felt'. He said 'I don't care a damn what you say of me so long as it is literature'. I said 'Do you mean that?' He said 'I do. Honest to Jaysus. Now will you shake hands with me at least?' I said 'I will: on that understanding.'"
OG 1922: "That bloody Joyce whom I kept in my youth has written a book you can read on all the lavatory walls of Dublin" (cf OG's own obscene songs)

Delaney: [2]

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
— Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

"Halted" (by what?)

"the dark winding stairs"

"called [up | out] coarsely" (given the thick walls and narrow stairs, he'd have to be loud)
[Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!] [Kinch]
('Not having an audience is intolerable for Mulligan'? cite)
(had he assumed SD was following him? is he accusing SD of balking at the stairs?)

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head.

"the round gunrest" (How did J confirm this was the right technical term? Usually it refers to a support at the barrel end, for aiming. Who'd remember what they officially called it in 1805?)

(exorcism?)

Delaney: [3]

Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.

Delaney says DEEdalus, Donnelly says DEDalus (the latter rings truer for me)

(I was wondering would he would lend me five shillings) = $25 now

"displeased and sleepy" (what had been the scene downstairs, before this opening? BM must have woken SD?) (when does SD shave?)
"ungirdled... untonsured" (SD contrasting BM with priest)

white oak

Delaney: [4]

— Back to barracks! he said sternly.
He added in a preacher's tone:
— For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.

"[Christine | christine]"(could 'genuINE christINE' rhyme? adding the feminine ending suggests a shockingly transsexual Jesus)
"ouns" rhymes with wounds

He peered sideways up and gave a long low whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm.
— Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?

"gold points" (visible fillings? or two gold teeth?)
"Chrysostomos." [essay] not italics here because it's a name, not foreign language. (Benstock: 1st stream-of-consciousness)

i think what we're getting here is the first of many glimpses of SD-the-emerging-artist, searching for words and phrases that describe things precisely while 'constructing an enigma of manner'. [more]

"Two strong shrill whistles answered" (apparently he knows the mailboat's routine well enough to enlist it in this joke, hoping to time it just right-- a neat trick when it works) (but would the mailboat's whistles be shrill or deep?)
"current" (the Tower didn't have electricity yet. i think even the water had to be pumped.)

BM's persona here is hyper-mercurial-- along with his sustained evocation of a priest we also get:
"Back to barracks! [SD's commanding officer?]
Slow music [theatre director?]
Shut your eyes, gents. [emcee of girly show??]
A little trouble about those white corpuscles. [M.D.?]
Silence, all. [theatre director again. cf FW]
Thanks, old chap, That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?" [giving orders even to God? Dr Frankenstein?]
(SD is none of these?)
JAJ's 1908 notes on OG: "He speaks fluently in two jargons, that of the paddock and that of the science of medicine."

"Stately... coarsely... Solemnly... gravely... smartly... sternly... briskly... gravely"

mysteries: Christine; white corpuscles; Two strong shrill whistles answered... Switch off the current, will you?

[DD 00:00-02:43]