Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Rise and Shine: The Dawn Prayers of Book IV (Part 2)


The final paragraph of page 593, in a style mimicking The Egyptian Book of the Dead, declares:
The eversower of the seeds of light ... Pu Nuseht ... lord of risings in the yonderworld ... speaketh. (FW p. 593)
The sun, in the form of an Egyptian priest named "Pu Nuseht" ("The sun up" reversed), now speaks.

What does it say? 
93 million miles away from, came one to represent the nation
This is a gathering of the masses that come to pay respect to the Wu-Tang Clan---
Oh wait, that's Wu-Tang Clan wordsmith Masta Killa on "Triumph". The declarations of "tohp triumphant" (FW p. 593) ["tohp" is backward phot- Greek photo meaning "light"] on the other hand, are actually quite similar. "Light is provided through sparks of energy from the mind that travels in rhyme form," Masta Killa waxes. The blind can now see, the darkness has given way to light, and the people are called to unite as one. "Sonne feine" on 593 is Sinn Fein, the Irish slogan "We, Ourselves" fighting for independence, as well as the fine shining sun.

The opening pages of the final chapter in Finnegans Wake are declarations of revolution, simultaneously the uprising of sunlight beginning to clear away darkness and a political uprising of the populace against oppression. The sun is up and it's awakening all Finns, "Calling all downs to dayne" (FW 593), the dawn of a resurrection, the rising of the sun and the people embodied by HCE, "Here Comes Everybody." Page 593, as we found, contains many references to the Easter Rising of 1916, the entire page essentially playing upon the heavily symbolic name of the event and the actual historical occurrence of an Irish revolt. Page 594 continues this theme with "Svadesia salve!" where Svadesia is "self-governing" in Hindustani and "salve" is the salvation of the people, also a healing salve, a renewal of sins and sense with the sun's rise.

We dug into page 594 in a recent Austin Wake reading group and extracted enough material out of just one page to take us beyond our typical two hour meeting time. We could probably study this one page for weeks. It's one long paragraph of exclamations and descriptions of light rays mingling with solar situated monoliths during ancient equinox/solstice ritual celebrations.

There's a lot going on here.

So much that, while these pages are fascinating enough to compel me to compose these posts in the first place, I'm hesitant to try breaking down this page to the same degree I did page 593. This could go on forever. A man has written an entire book about this page.



(For all the full details and annotations of each line, let me point you toward two essential resources for studying this or any Wake page: FWEET and Annotated Finnegans Wake with Wakepedia both of which explicate the passage in far more detail than I am willing to get into here.)

There is a very obscure internet book I occasionally like to refer back to for Wake insights. It features the best title you'll ever read: Again! Again! Again! Again! The mighty maze of human being and the freeing of conscience: James Joyce's whirling mandala or The great Finnegans Wake game. As the title suggests, it's definitely an eccentric study but also a serious one. The author, Peter Nigel Best, is prone to long appreciative and passionate contemplations of Joyce's art with a special emphasis on exposing the vast webs of etymology Joyce weaves through every page of his text. For his study, Best selects three pages to dig into as thoroughly as possible, one of them is page 594. (See page 3 of his book here and scroll down to the chapter titled "rosy hues endless.") In fact, the same author previously composed a book-length study of page 594 entitled Dawn: A study of the present age and Finnegans Wake through a close look at FW page 594: one page sufficient for our time. This one is also super obscure, I'm in the process of trying to obtain a copy.

Best describes the setting of page 594 this way:
Fw594’s basic narrative scene is the greeting of the sun on Easter morning, with a rekindling of the new year’s fire on a Henge altarstone. The time is dawn of history/early 20th century/any time of hope and new beginning. The place is Stonehenge/Dublin/London/your breakfast room.
And Joseph Campbell, describing this section of the book in The Skeleton Key, says the following:
Finnegans Wake in toto is the fourfold aspect of every living moment: the whole round is entirely present with every tick of the clock. Book IV is that aspect of the tick which translates "not yet" into "now." It opens with the dim cries of angelic voices calling. They are convening the mystical guardians of the new aeon to their positions. The avatars, or vehicles, of the new law are summoned to prepare to become manifest.

Here is page 594 of Finnegans Wake in full:

Vah! Suvarn Sur! Scatter brand to the reneweller of the sky, thou who agnitest! Dah! Arcthuris comeing! Be! Verb umprincipiant through the trancitive spaces! Kilt by kelt shell kithagain with kinagain. We elect for thee, Tirtangel. Svadesia salve! We Durbalanars, theeadjure. A way, the Margan, from our astamite, through dimdom done till light kindling light has led we hopas but hunt me the journeyon, iteritinerant, the kal his course, amid the semitary of Somnionia. Even unto Heliotropolis, the castellated, the enchanting. Now if soomone felched a twoel and soomonelses warmet watter we could, while you was saying Morkret Miry or Smud, Brunt and Rubbinsen, make sunlike sylp om this warful dune's battam. Yet clarify begins at. Whither the spot for? Whence the hour by? See but! Lever hulme! Take in. Respassers should be pursaccoutred. Qui stabat Meins quantum qui stabat Peins. As of yours. We annew. Our shades of minglings mengle them and help help horizons. A flasch and, rasch, it shall come to pasch, as hearth by hearth leaps live. For the tanderest stock with the rosinost top Ahlen Hill's, clubpubber, in general stores and. Atriathroughwards, Lugh the Brathwacker will be the listened after and he larruping sparks out of his teiney ones. The spearspid of dawnfire totouches ain the tablestoane ath the centre of the great circle of the macroliths of Helusbelus in the boshiman brush on this our peneplain by Fangaluvu Bight whence the horned cairns erge, stanserstanded, to floran frohn, idols of isthmians. Overwhere. Gaunt grey ghostly gossips growing grubber in the glow. Past now pulls. Cur one beast, even Dane the Great, may treadspath with sniffer he snout impursuant to byelegs. Edar's chuckal humuristic. But why pit the cur afore the noxe? Let shrill their duan Gallus, han, and she, hou the Sassqueehenna, makes ducksruns at crooked. Once for the chantermale, twoce for the pother and once twoce threece for the waither. So an inedible yellowmeat turns out the invasable blackth. Kwhat serves to rob with Alliman, saelior, a turnkeyed trot to Seapoint, pierrotettes, means Noel's Bar and Julepunsch, by Joge, if you've tippertaps in your head or starting kursses, tailour, you're silenced at Henge Ceol-


Vah!
This one syllable contains so much meaning. Continuing this chapter's heavy usage of Sanskrit (the chapter often conflates Ireland with the Far East), the word vah summons a litany of action verbs. An online Sanskrit dictionary will be helpful throughout this exercise. Here are some of the many meanings attached to vah:
  • to flow
  • to carry along
  • to lead, conduct
  • to offer (sacrifice)
  • to spread, diffuse
  • to marry
  • to bear, suffer, endure
It's also "Go!" in Italian. The sun's rays make their first appearance of the day and instantly burst an exclamation of action. It's a powerful call to awaken, to spring back to life, to take action and move in the daytime world. 

Suvarn Sur! 
Sovereign sir! Suvarna Sura is also Sanskrit "golden, shining Lord." The sovereign sir is HCE as Here Comes Everybody, the sovereign populace of the world embodied in one regular dude in Dublin waking up one morning. The sun, the golden shining Lord, is summoning him to get up and take action. 


Scatter brand to the reneweller of the sky, thou who agnitest!
Scatter brained or scatter fire (brand in Dutch is "fire", a flaming torch or a branded mark), the renewal of the sky, thou who ignitest! The passage contains plenty of reference to fire, especially concentrated in this sentence. The symbolism of the Paschal fire of Easter is invoked here, suggesting a cleansing and renewal of the universe through fire. Fire can be both a destructive and creative force.

There is a popular legend in Ireland involving Saint Patrick lighting the Paschal Fire across from the ceremonies at the Hill of Tara on the eve of Easter. Read more about it here

The word "agnitest" contains Agni who is the Hindu god of fire, a very important deity in Hinduism, a personification of the sacrificial fire. Here Agni is both a destructive and renewing force.

Adding to the sacrificial theme is "Agnus Dei" ("agnitest! Dah!") which is the "Lamb of God" in Latin, the Catholic emblem for Christ as a sacrificial lamb. 

The renewal of the sky is also the dawn of a new celestial age and new cosmic cycle, the era of a new pole star---the word "reneweller" contains the word newel, the central supporting pillar of a spiral staircase like the cosmic axis or world tree. We recently took an in-depth look at the theme of renewing celestial cycles and world trees in Finnegans Wake on this blog using Roy Benjamin's essential article on the subject. There he cites Hamlet's Mill where the Hindu fire god Agni is called "a great circle connecting the celestial poles."

Clearly we are at a pivotal moment, the sun is rising during the spring equinox and its appearance symbolizes a new era. 

Dah!
Another powerful Sanksrit verb, "to burn, to consume in fire." The sun is a flaming ball of fire. Continuing the Agni thread of meaning though, it's also a sacrificial fire of renewal.

Arcthuris comeing!
The return of King Arthur is upon us. The messiah is coming. Finn again wakes. The etymological root of the name Arthur actually connects with the star Arcturus (the brightest star in the northern hemisphere) which is in the constellation Ursa Major (ursa is Latin "bear"---also Art is apparently Celtic for "bear"). Again, Roy Benjamin's essay on the precessional myths in the Wake is helpful here. He quotes from Hamlet's Mill regarding Arcturus/Arthur: "when Arcturus (alpha Bootis, supposed to be an archer, Ursa Major being his bow) shoots down the North Nail with his arrow on the last day, the heaven will fall, crushing the earth and setting fire to everything." Benjamin links back to the line on page 593 "we have fused now orther" suggesting this is Arthur fusing together a new order while also lighting the fuse that will blow up the old order. The theme of the sacrificial, destructive and creative fire continues.

Be! Verb umprincipiant through the trancitive spaces!
I love what Joyce is doing here. Opening the paragraph with "Vah! ... Dah! ... Be! ... Verb...!"

"Verb umprincipiant through the trancitive spaces!"

In Principio erat Verbum: (Latin) "In the beginning was the Word." The opening of the New Testament's fourth gospel, the book of John. It feels like the big bang, a new universe bursting into life through the transitive spaces.

A transitive verb is something.

"Trancitive" also contains trance, a religious trance, the transitive species of earth awakening to morning and spiritually en-tranced devotees of the sun involved in these solar prayers.

There is also in "umprincipiant" the word incipient; a dawning, a new growth, a beginning.

I see this statement as many things, among them the image of text (verbum) traveling through the transient blank space, a self-reflective description of the dynamic of the page but also a universe bursting into form, light traveling through darkness to create worlds.


Kilt by kelt shell kithagain with kinagain.
The killed (soliders killed by shells or Celts) will get to return and be with kith and kin again. A resurrection of the dead and a renewing of the cycle. Starting over again. Returning to the prehistoric age, celt being a prehistoric tool, an axe or chisel.

Kelt is also a salmon, the fish associated with Finn MacCool who bit into the Salmon of Wisdom.

Plenty more here, shell is a powerful word in Joyce's art. See Peter Nigel Best's analysis of the structure of this line where he says "The sentence has an x-shape. It links the divine three above with the earthly three below."

Kilt by kelt
shell
kithagain with kinagain

We elect for thee, Tirtangel. 
Tintagel in Wales is the setting for the Arthurian round table legends. And tir is Irish for earth or land, as Tír na nÓg the "Land of Youth" in Irish legend.

We elect, we thee elect, choose or pick or vote for this Arthurian earth angel, a new messiah.


Svadesia salve! We Durbalanars, theeadjure.
Svadesia is the slogan of Indian independence, Sanskrit "self-governing" or "self-guidance." And salve is Latin "save" as in salvation and salve, a healing ointment. 

Interesting cluster of meaning in "Durbalanars": We Dubliners and the Sanskrit Durbala or Durvala "of little strength, weak." Durbal anar is Persian "faithless, insincere, ugly, bad." Dur is Irish "withered, hardened, obstinate." Anar is Irish "wretchedness, needy."


A way, the Margan, from our astamite, through dimdom done till light kindling light has led we hopas but hunt me the journeyon, iteritinerant, the kal his course, amid the semitary of Somnionia. Even unto Heliotropolis, the castellated, the enchanting. 
One of those sentences that requires a few attentive readings just to begin to capture the essence of. 

A way, the Margan. Marga is Sanskrit "way, course, path." Margan is also morning or morgen German "tomorrow." The path the sun has traveled underneath the earth, as in The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the sun's journey through the underworld, the darkness of "dimdom done [kingdom come]... amid the semitary of Somnionia." The cemetery of the somnolent, the dead of night. The word "astamite," aside from sounding like estimate, is also Sanskrit astamite "after sunset."

A cluster of words here having to do with a path, a course, a journey. The sun's journey "till light kindling light has led" to "Heliotropolis" which is the city of the sun but also literally the movement of the sun. The phoenix bird burned and resurrected at Heliopolis the ancient Egyptian city. 

Hunt and journey on through time and space, itinerant through the callous course. In "iteritinerant" is also iter (Latin)  "a passage, especially the passage between the third and fourth ventricles in the brain."

The City of the Sun with its enchanted castles is Dublin the city of HCE ("Heliotropolis, the castellated, the enchanting"), the master builder. Sunlight and its message is making its way through the underworld journey of night now finally into the enchanted brain ventricles of the sleeping HCE.

And of course now his brain is once again invaded by (or reminded of?) an advertisement. As on page 593, it's an ad for soap:


Now if soomone felched a twoel and soomonelses warmet watter we could, while you was saying Morkret Miry or  Smud, Brunt and Rubbinsen, make sunlike sylp om this warful dune's battam. Yet clarify begins at. Whither the spot for? Whence the hour by? See but! Lever hulme! 
An ad for Sunlight Soap and also a plea for peace and positivity among the human race in the face of global strife.

If someone fetched a towel and someone else warm water we could, while you were miring in dirty smut and rubbed in burnt brown, make sunlike shine with Sunlight Soap on this awful war-full Dane's or dune's bottom or battle. As Peter Nigel Best puts it: "Make sun shine out of this war-full blackarse world."

The rising sun cleanses the darkness of night, enlightens the earth and every Tom, Dick, and Harry or Margaret, Mary, Smith, Brown, and Robinson, if we unite for a common cause, can make something positive out of this ugly war-torn, anal aggression dominated world. 

Here the whole Joycean message is contained. He combines the lofty affirming and profound enlightment of om with the dirty, shitstained earthly bottom. The high and the low (very low, look up the word "felch" if you must). As above, so below. 

Yet clarify begins at... dawn? There is so much "not yet" in Finnegans Wake, now it's finally yet. It is time to clarify, to start bringing this obscure jibberish mess of mottage to the light of clarity. "Whither the spot for? Whence the hour by?" Let us orient ourselves in time and space. The unconscious, passed out rational mind, beginning to awaken. What time is it? What day is it? Where am I? Where must I be today? The daytime mind awakens. This is also a recall back to the ALP chapter, "We'll meet again, we'll part once more. The spot I'll seek if the hour you'll find." (FW p. 215) The ALP chapter focuses on the cleansing theme, washerwomen scrubbing clothes at the river of renewal. 

Mixing the transcendent with the everyday is Joyce's ultimate specialty. 



Take in. Respassers should be pursaccoutred. Qui stabat Meins quantum qui stabat Peins. 
I don't have a good grasp of these lines so I refer you to Peter Nigel Best and the other resources noted above.


As of yours. We annew. 
As of the days of yore, we have annual rituals of renewal.

As you (the ancestors) did, we renew.

"annew" is also Anu, the Sumerian sky god.

Annu was the Egyptian name for the aforementioned city Heliopolis (City of the Sun).

Swedish ännu is "yet, still" and ånyo is "again."


Our shades of minglings mengle them and help help horizons. A flasch and, rasch, it shall come to pasch, as hearth by hearth leaps live. 
Shades and shadows mingle and mix (mengen Ger. "to mix") to expand the illuminating horizon. Hip, hip, hooray!

A flash of light and, quickly (rasch Ger. "quickly"), it shall come to pass, as hearts leap alive and hearths leap alight with fire.

The Paschal fire of Easter is present in "pasch" and the fire of the hearth is lit.

For the tanderest stock with the rosinost top Ahlen Hill's, clubpubber, in general stores and. 
Sounds like another advertisement sneaking its way in here (the ads add another layer of meaning to the word "brand" from the first line).

For the tenderest meat... etc.

Plenty more to try to dissect here, though.

The "tanderest stock" hints at Dutch tandenstoker for "toothpick." A toothpick with a rosy or resin top could be a torch carried by the acolytes in ceremony we're about to encounter. The word "rosinost" also contains ost for east, the sun rising ("rosin") in the east lighting up the horizon with a rose hue.

The Hill of Allen in County Kildare, Ireland was the headquarters of Finn MacCool in Irish legend. Wikipedia notes: "During the construction of the tower a large coffin containing human bones was unearthed which were said to be those of Fionn mac Cumhaill. These were re-interred under the site."

HCE in the role of Mr. Porter, lives above the pub he owns and operates, so he's a "clubpubber."

The concluding "in general stores and" is an odd one, sounding like a radio advertisement that gets suddenly cut off. Finishing with an "and" encapsulates the essence of the Wake though, the end is not the end but an "and" with more to come.

I also read in here that there is lots of stock and supplies of information generally stored within every word of the Wake, even a simple, generic word like "and."


Atriathroughwards, Lugh the Brathwacker will be the listened after and he larruping sparks out of his teiney ones.
I love this first word, although one can never be sure what the hell it means. I just love the sound of it, especially in parallel with the name that follows. "Atriathroughwards, Lugh the Brathwacker"---notice the paralleling ath and ugh sounds, among other things.

"Atriathroughwards" certainly calls to mind afterwards (and the word "after" appearing later in the sentence reinforces this), but also an atrium is the front entrance way of an ancient Roman house so it's a mix of beginning & end, a jumbling of before and after that we saw with the backward words on the previous page and again later on this page with "why pit the cur afore the noxe?" (Why put the cart before the ox/horse?).

With the atrium also being the main upper cavities of the heart, this word also has biological resonances to it and links back to "hearth by hearth leaps live" from a couple sentences earlier. (As discussed in my review of Joyce's Book of the Dark, there is a biological foundation in Finnegans Wake that is especially concerned with the heart.) The connection with "hearth by hearth" is strengthened by the origin of the word atrium as relates to architecture, from the Online Etymological Dictionary: "from Latin atrium 'central court or main room of an ancient Roman house, room which contains the hearth'... on notion of 'place where smoke from the hearth escapes' (through a hole in the roof)."

Moving on, Lugh is the Celtic sun god (and he's got an extensive Wikipedia page), brath in Irish is "judgement, doom." The sun god will return and smack sparks of fire (teine Irish "fire") out of his children (larrup means to whip or thrash someone). Feels like HCE awakening to reprimand his kids who've been plotting his downfall, dancing over Finnegan's grave.


The spearspid of dawnfire totouches ain the tablestoane ath the centre of the great circle of the macroliths of Helusbelus in the boshiman brush on this our peneplain by Fangaluvu Bight whence the horned cairns erge, stanserstanded, to floran frohn, idols of isthmians. Overwhere.
And here's where it gets really interesting.

In a page full of sentences that can be read over and over again, this might be the most rewarding example.

So many amazing words here like "dawnfire," "macroliths," and "isthmians." And such a clearly portrayed, densely symbolic scene summarizing the whole page's message.

The sentence presents a journey, starting from the morning's first pointed "spearspid" (spids Danish "point, tip") of sunlight, a sharp energy beam reaching toward a "tablestoane" situated at the center of "the great circle of macroliths." The Annotated FW page helpfully notes that this type of tablestone is known as a dolmen, a megalithic stone tomb of which many can be found in Ireland like this beauty in County Clare:

Paulnabrone dolmen in County Clare, Ireland. (circa ~4200-2900 BC)
The "circle of the macroliths" certainly conjures Stonehenge or any ancient stone temple built according to solar positions. This "great circle of the macroliths" is located in "Helusbelus" or Heliopolis, city of the sun (also an exclamation "Hell's Bells!"), deep within the "boshiman brush" or the indigenous woods of the bushman "on this our peneplain" which certainly rings to mind the Penelope chapter of Ulysses but in fact peneplain is a normal word, meaning: a more or less level land surface produced by erosion over a long period, undisturbed by crustal movement. That seems to contradict with "boshiman brush" but okay.

When reading this page at our reading group, that name "Fangaluvu Bight" was one we all mentally masticated for a while. There's an allusion to Fangelawa Bay in Papua New Guinea (connecting with the "boshiman brush" as well as a frequent allusion to Papua New Guinea and Oceania in these pages) we found out and "bight" is a cool geological word for a curved or recessed coastline. But we figured there had to be more there, maybe a lot more. Peter Nigel Best suggested it's actually a Zulu word, here's what he had to say about it at length:
Fangaluvu seems - incredibly, if it weren’t for that reference to the bushman nearby to give us courage - to be Zulu, Fa nga lu vu: dying on the sweetsapped nourishing thorntree, the Lamb. Fanga is Spanish and Italian: mud, alluvial, mire, clay, trouble, person of low class, vile, abject, corrupted ruined material, decadence, great material misery, squalor, sin, dishonour. Joyce would seem to intend a marriage of the Spanish-Italian and the Zulu meanings, once again tirelessly (obsessively? beatifically?) saying Heaven is close at hand, no castle stands on air, the most beautiful rose has dirty roots. (Fang in Chinese is founding, place, house, neighbourhood, etc.)
With this page lingering in my head for days, I recently woke up one morning with the random realization that "Fangaluvu Bight" also contained "fang" and "bite" which might connect with the immediately following references to dogs.

"whence the horned cairns erge"
HCE reappears again.
The journey of this sentence continues, "whence" or where the horned rock cairns emerge out of the ground, further describing a scene of prehistoric stone structures. Wiki has some more info on Ireland's horned cairns and erge is Greek "works," these structures have a function after all. Standing in a still stance, these "idols of isthmians" are there "to floran frohn" growing flora, being merry (froh German "merry") and also frowning.

"Overwhere" = over there and everywhere.

Gaunt grey ghostly gossips growing grubber in the glow. Past now pulls.
I picture a circle of acolytes, hooded ghostly entities around an ancient monolith shrine "growing grubber in the glow" of the sun's rise.

But what that sentence is actually describing is much prettier. The Gossips are a name for a pair of menhirs, prehistoric stone monoliths, off the coast of Brittany. These type of standing stone relics are scattered throughout Europe and the world. The Wake's "Gaunt grey ghostly" stone monoliths are "growing grubber" or getting coarser (grob is German "coarse") and worn down over the years. Wikipedia says the following about menhirs in Ireland: "Ireland is rich in menhirs/ standing stones which are usually located in farmer's fields and are heavily worn due to poor weather conditions and exposure to livestock."

The glow of dawn lighting the coarse ancient surface of a set of gaunt ghostly grey monoliths, called Gossips (echoing back to the gossiping washerwomen of the ALP chapter again), is an incredible image. Joyce paints that masterful scene in 9 words, 7 of them starting with "g."

The ghosts of the ancient megaliths gossip in the foggy dawn glow, the days of yore ("As of yours. We annew.") calling to the present, "Past now pulls." History inflicts its will upon the now. The dead are pulling out of their grave.

Past now pulls is also "Post No Bills." Don't post any printed posters or anything on the historic monuments.

Cur one beast, even Dane the Great, may treadspath with sniffer he snout impursuant to byelegs. Edar's chuckal humuristic. But why pit the cur afore the noxe?
The word "cur" occurs twice here. Feels like an odd word in the midst of what's going on, an old mangy mutt dog sniffing among the monoliths and dawn ritual? (Aside from a mongrel pup, the word "cur" also means "why?" in Latin.)

For Joyce dog = god. He plays with this anagram throughout Ulysses, especially in the twisted "Circe" episode. And as Stephen Dedalus declares earlier in that book, God is "a shout in the street."

This dog, Dane the Great, a great dane (who also conjures Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark) now sniffs his way into trespassing somewhere, disregarding bylaws ("snout impursuant to byelegs").

Could this image also be describing the creeping rays of dawn sunlight sniffing their way on a path toward the macroliths?

That last question almost seems to say, why is a dog appearing here? "But why pit the cur afore the noxe?"

Why put the cart before the ox?
Why put/pit the dog or the occurrence or the question (why?) after/before (how brilliant that simple word, "afore," combining the two poles of time, similar to the word "wroght" merging right/wrong on the next page) the night (nox Latin "night")?
I can also hear "wipe it the cure for the night" which totally works here.


Let shrill their duan Gallus, han, and she, hou the Sassqueehenna, makes ducksruns at crooked. Once for the chantermale, twoce for the pother and once twoce threece for the waither. So an inedible yellowmeat turns out the invasable blackth.
As the cock (gallus Latin "cock") crows, the sun worshippers shrill their dawn chorus. That word "duan" is also a poem in Irish and means "grief, sorrow" in Cornish besides many different references in Japanese and Chinese.

Lots of animals appearing, all reacting to the sun's rise, there's a rooster (Gallus/HCE), a hen (ALP the "Sassqueehenna" in one of her various guises), and ducks following multiple references to dogs and an ox and then here is "an inedible yellowmeat." The latter phrase is a mutilated pun of a line from Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance: "The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable." Joyce turns it into a depiction of the sun turning away the invisible black darkness.

(Lots more here, definitely consult the annotations.)

Kwhat serves to rob with Alliman, saelior, a turnkeyed trot to Seapoint, pierrotettes, means Noel's Bar and Julepunsch, by Joge, if you've tippertaps in your head or starting kursses, tailour, you're silenced at Henge Ceol-
The clunkiest, most challenging sentence is saved for last.

I can't go too deep on this one, don't have a whole lot to say about it and am certainly light years away from comprehending it.

What I get out of this is a scene of acolytes around Stonehenge dancing and doing the turkey trot to ritually celebrate Christmas (Noel, Yule) or some other solar holiday.

The sailor and the tailor are familiar from an earlier vignette in Finnegans Wake (the story of Kersse the Tailor and the Norwegian Captain, some background here).

The page cuts off in the middle of another series of words spelling out HCE, the final word a lovely one: "Ceol," an Irish word for music or song, also conjuring the French ciel for "sky."

And with that, the celebrations of the sun through dancing, music, and sky songs continues.  

2 comments:

  1. A little off topic, but we reached page 491 this evening and read "Pirce! Perce! Quick! Queck!"

    Needless to say, we thought of you...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, I encountered that page during the Yawn recording we did. Was one of many examples where the text seemed to be speaking directly to us.

    ReplyDelete