allant
upstanding gentleman, who do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of
Britain's  fighting men  who helped to win our battles. Got his majority for
the heroic defence of Rorke's Drift.
     FIRST WATCH Regiment.
     BLOOM (<i>Turns to the gallery</i>.)  The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of the
earth, known the  world  over.  I think  I  see some old comrades in arms up
there among you. The R. D. F. With our own Metropolitan police, guardians of
our homes, the pluckiest lads  and  the finest  body of men, as physique, in
the service of our sovereign.
     A VOICE Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain?
     BLOOM (<i>His hand on the shoulder of the first watch</i>.) My old dad too was
a J.P. I'm as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with the colours
for king and country in the absentminded war under General Gough in the park
and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was mentioned in dispatches.
I did all a  white man could.  (<i>With quiet  feeling</i>.) Jim Bludso.  Hold  her
nozzle again the bank.
     FIRST WATCH Profession or trade.
     BLOOM Well, I  follow a literary occupation. Author-journalist. In fact
we are  just  bringing out  a collection of prize stories of which  I am the
inventor, something  that is an  entirely new departure. I am connected with
the British and Irish press. If you ring up...
     (<i>Myles Crawford strides  out jerkily, a  quill between his  teeth.  His
scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw  hat</i>. <i>He dangles a  hank
of Spanish onions  in  one hand and  holds  with the other hand a  telephone
receiver nozzle to his ear</i>.)
     MYLES  CRAWFORD  (<i>His  cock's  wattles</i>  wagging.)  Hello,  seventyseven
eightfour.  Hello.  <i>Freeman's  Urinal</i>  and  <i>Weekly Arse wiper</i> here. Paralyse
Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom?
     (<i>Mr  Philip  Beaufoy,  palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate
morning  dress, outbreast pocket with  peak of handkerchief showing, creased
lavender  trousers and  patent  boots. He  cames  a lace portfolio  labelled</i>
Matcham's Masterstrokes.)
     BEAUFOY  (<i>Drawls</i>.)  No, you aren't, not by  a long shot if I know it. I
don't  see  it,  that's  all. No  born  gentleman,  no  one  with  the  most
rudimentary  promptings  of a  gentleman  would  stoop to  such particularly
loathsome  conduct.  One of  those,  my lord. A  plagiarist.  A  soapy sneak
masquerading as  a literateur.  It's perfectly  obvious  that  with the most
inherent  baseness  he has  cribbed  some  of my  bestselling books,  really
gorgeous  stuff,  a perfect gem,  the love  passages  in  which are  beneath
suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions with  which  your
lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout the kingdom.
     BLOOM (<i>Murmurs with  hangdog  meekness</i>.) That  bit  about  the laughing
witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may... ?
     BEAUFOY (<i>His lip  upcurled,  smiles  superciliously  on the court</i>.) You
funny ass, you! You're too beastly awfully  weird for  words! I don't  think
you  need  over  excessively  disincommodate  yourself  in that  regard.  My
literary agent  Mr  J. B. Pinker  is in attendance.  I presume, my lord,  we
shall receive the usual witnesses' fees, shan't we?  We are considerably out
of pocket over  this bally pressman  johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has
not even been to a university.
     BLOOM (<i>Indistinctly</i>.) University of life. Bad art.
     BEAUFOY (<i>Shouts</i>.) It's a damnably foul lie showing the moral rottenness
of the man! (He <i>extends his  portfolio</i>.) We have here damning evidence,  the
<i>corpus  delicti</i>,  my lord,  a specimen  of my maturer work disfigured by the
hallmark of the beast.
     A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY
     Moses, Moses, king of the jews,
     Wiped his arse in the Daily News.
     BLOOM (<i>Bravely</i>.) Overdrawn.
     BEAUFOY You  low  cad!  You ought  to  be ducked  in the horsepond, you
rotter! (<i>To the  court</i>.) Why,  look  at the  man's  private life!  Leading a
quadruple  existence! Street angel and  house devil. Not fit to be mentioned
in mixed society. The arch conspirator of the age.
     BLOOM (<i>To the court</i>.) And he, a bachelor, how.
     FIRST WATCH The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll.
     THE CRIER Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid!
     (<i>Mary Driscoll,  a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has  a bucket
on the crook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand</i>.)
     SECOND WATCH Another! Are you of the unfortunate class?
     MARY  DRISCOLL (<i>Indignantly</i>.) I'm  not a bad one. I bear  a respectable
character  and was four months in my last  place.  I was in a situation, six
pounds a year and my chances with Fridays  out, and I  had to leave owing to
his carryings on.
     FIRST WATCH What do you tax him with?
     MARY DRISCOLL He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself
as poor as I am.
     BLOOM  (<i>In  housejacket  of  ripplecloth,  flannel  trousers,  heelless
slippers, unshaven,  his hair  rumpled softly</i>.) I treated you white. I  gave
you mementoes, smart emerald  garters far above your station. Incautiously I
took your part when you  were accused of  pilfering. There's a medium in all
things. Play cricket.
     MARY DRISCOLL (<i>Excitedly</i>.) As God is looking  down on  me this night if
ever I laid a hand to them oysters!
     FIRST WATCH The offence complained of? Did something happen?
     MARY DRISCOLL He surprised me in the rere of the premises, your honour,
when the  missus was out shopping one morning with a  request  for  a safety
pin. He  held me and I was discoloured  in four places as  a result. And  he
interfered twice with my clothing.
     BLOOM She counterassaulted.
     MARY DRISCOLL (<i>Scornfully</i>.) I had  more respect for the  scouringbrush,
so  I had. I  remonstrated with him, your lord,  and  he  remarked:  Keep it
quiet!
     (<i>General laughter</i>.)
     GEORGES  FOTTRELL (<i>Clerk of the  crown and peace, resonantly</i>.) Order in
court! The accused will now make a bogus statement.
     (<i>Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins a
long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had  to say  in his
stirring address to the grand-jury. He was down and out  but, though branded
as a black sheep, if he might  say so, he meant  to  reform, to retrieve the
memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a purely
domestic animal. A seven months' child, he had been carefully brought up and
nurtured by an aged bedridden parent.  There might  have been  lapses  of an
erring father but he wanted to  turn over a new leaf and now,  when at  long
last in sight of the whipping post, to lead a  homely life in the evening of
his days, permeated by the affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of
the  family. An acclimatised Britisher he had seen that  summer eve from the
footplate of an engine cab of the Loop line  railway  company while the rain
refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of  loveful
households  in  Dublin  city and  urban  district of  scenes truly rural  of
happiness of the  better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one and ninepence
a dozen, innocent British born bairns lisping prayers to the  Sacred Infant,
youthful scholars grappling  with their pensums, model young  ladies playing
on the pianoforte or anon all with  fervour reciting the family rosary round
the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with
their swains  strolled  what  times  the strains of  the organtoned melodeon
Britannia metalbound  with  four acting  stops  and  twelvefold  bellows,  a
sacrifice, greatest bargain ever...</i> )
     (<i>Renewed  laughter. He mumbles  incoherently.  Reporters  complain that
they cannot hear</i>.)
     LONGHAND AND  SHORTHAND  (<i>Without looking  up  from  their  notebooks</i>.)
Loosen his boots.
     PROFESSOR MACHUGH (<i>From the presstable, coughs and calls</i>.) Cough it up,
man. Get it out in bits.
     (<i>The crossexamination  proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A lace bucket.
Bloom himself Bowel trouble.  In  Beaver street.  Gripe,  yes. Quite  bad. A
plasterers  bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered  untold  misery. Deadly
agony.  About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes,  some spinach. Crucial moment. He
did not look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather a mess. Not completely. A</i> Titbits
<i>back number</i>.)
     (<i>Uproar  and  catcalls.  Bloom,  in  a  torn  frockcoat   stained  with
whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of sticking-plaster
across his nose, talks inaudibly</i>.)
     J. J. O'MOLLOY (<i>In barrister's grey  wig and stuffgown, speaking with a
voice of  pained  protest</i>.) This is  no place  for  indecent  levity  at the
expense of an erring mortal disguised  in liquor. We are not in a beargarden
nor  at  an Oxford  rag  nor is this a travesty  of justice. My client is an
infant, a poor  foreign  immigrant  who started scratch as a stowaway and is
now trying to turn an honest penny. The trumped up misdemeanour was due to a
momentary  aberration   of  heredity,  brought  on  by  hallucination,  such
familiarities as the alleged  guilty occurrence being  quite permitted in my
client's native place, the land of the Pharaoh. <i>Prima facie</i>, I put it to you
that  there was no  attempt  at carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and
the  offence complained of by  Driscoll,  that her virtue was solicited, was
not repeated. I would deal inespecial with atavism. There have been cases of
shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's family. If the accused could speak
he could  a tale unfold one of the strangest  that  have ever  been narrated
between the covers of a book.  He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from
cobbler's weak  chest. His submission is that he  is of Mongolian extraction
and irresponsible for his actions. Not all there, in fact.
     BLOOM   (<i>Barefoot,  pigeonbreasted,  in  lascar's  vest  and  trousers,
apologetic toes turned  in, opens his tiny mole's  eyes and looks about  him
dazedly, passing a  slow hand across his  forehead. Then he hitches his belt
sailor fashion  and with  a shrug  of oriental  obeisance salutes the court,
pointing one  thumb  heavenward</i>.)  Him  makee velly  muchee fine  night. (<i>He
begins to lilt simply</i>.)
     Li li poo lil chile,
     Blingee pigfoot evly night.
     Payee two shilly...
     (<i>He is howled down</i>.)
     J.  J. O'MOLLOY (<i>Hotly  to the populace</i>.) This is a lonehand fight.  By
Hades,  I  will not  have any client  of  mine gagged  and badgered in  this
fashion  by a  pack  of curs  and  laughing  hyenas.  The  Mosaic  code  has
superseded the law of the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically without
wishing for  one  moment to  defeat  the  ends  of  justice, accused was not
accessory  before the  act and prosecutrix has not  been  tampered with. The
young person was treated by defendant as if she  were his very own daughter.
(<i>Bloom takes J.  J. O'Molloy's hand and raises it to his lips</i>.) I shall call
rebutting evidence  to prove up to the hilt that the hidden hand is again at
its old game. When  in doubt persecute Bloom. My client, an innately bashful
man, would be the last man in the world to do  anything ungentlemanly  which
injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong
turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own
sweet will on her. He wants to go  straight. I regard him as the whitest man
I know. He is  down  on his luck at present  owing to the mortgaging  of his
extensive property at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which
will now  be  shown.  (<i>To  Bloom</i>.)  I suggest that you will do the  handsome
thing.
     BLOOM A penny in the pound.
     (<i>The mirage  of the  lake of Kinnereth  with blurred cattle cropping in
silver haze is projected on the wall.  Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed  albino, in
blue dungarees, stands up in  the gallery, holding  in each  hand  an orange
citron and a pork kidney</i>.)
     DLUGACZ (<i>Hoarsely</i>.) Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 13.
     (<i>J.  J. O'Molloy steps on  to a low plinth and holds the  lapel of  his
coat with solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with sunken
eyes, the blotches of phthisis  and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor.  He
applies his  handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of
rosepink blood</i>.)
     J. J.  O'MOLLOY (<i>Almost voicelessly</i>.)  Excuse me, I am suffering from a
severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen words. (<i>He
assumes the  avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour
Bushe</i>.) When the angel's  book comes to be opened if  aught that the pensive
bosom has inaugurated of  soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves
to live I say accord the  prisoner at the  bar  the sacred  benefit  of  the
doubt. (<i>A paper with something written on it is handed into court</i>.)
     BLOOM  (<i>In court  dress</i>.)  Can  give best  references.  Messrs  Callan,
Coleman. Mr  Wisdom  Hely J.  P. My  old chief Joe  Cuffe. Mr V. B.  Dillon,
ex-lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the highest .
Queens of Dublin Society. (<i>Carelessly</i>.) I was just  chatting this  afternoon
at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir  Robert and lady Ball, astronomer
royal, at the levee. Sir Bob, I said...
     MRS YELVERTON  BARRY  (<i>In  lowcorsaged opal  balldress and  elbowlength
ivory  gloves,  wearing  a  sabletrimmed  brick  quilted  dolman, a comb  of
brilliants and panache  of  osprey in  her hair</i>.) Arrest him  constable.  He
wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the
North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James Lovebirch. He
said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes  as I sat in a box of
the  <i>Theatre Royal</i> at a command performance of <i>La Cigale</i>.  I deeply inflamed
him, he said. He made improper overtures to me to misconduct myself at  half
past four  p.m. on the following Thursday, Dunsink  time. He offered to send
me through the post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled <i>The
Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays</i>.
     MRS BELLINGHAM (<i>In cap  and  seal coneymantle,  wrapped up to the nose,
steps out of her  brougham  and scans through tortoiseshell  quizzingglasses
which  she  takes from  inside her  huge opossum  muff</i>.) Also  to me. Yes, I
believe it is the same objectionable person. Because he closed  my  carriage
door outside  sir Thornley  Stoker's one  sleety day during the cold snap of
February ninetythree when even the grid of the wastepipe  and ballstop in my
bath  cistern  were frozen. Subsequently  he enclosed a bloom  of  edelweiss
culled  on the  heights,  as he  said, in my honour. I had it examined by  a
botanical expert and elicited the information that it  was  a blossom of the
homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the model farm.
     MRS YELVERTON BARRY Shame on him!
     (<i>A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins sues forward</i>.)
     THE SLUTS  AND  RAGAMUFFINS  (<i>Screaming</i>.)  Stop  thief!  Hurrah  there,
Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo!
     SECOND WATCH (<i>Produces handcuffs</i>.) Here are the darbies.
     MRS  BELLINGHAM  He addressed me  in  several handwritings with fulsome
compliments as a Venus in furs and  alleged profound pity for my  frostbound
coachman Balmer while  in the same breath he expressed himself as envious of
his  earflaps  and fleecy  sheepskins and of his fortunate proximity  to  my
person,  when standing behind  my chair wearing my  livery and the  armorial
bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon  garnished sable, a buck's head couped
or. He lauded almost extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves
in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and eulogised  glowingly my other hidden
treasures in  priceless lace which, he  said, he  could conjure up. He urged
me, stating that he felt it  his  mission in life to urge me,  to defile the
marriage bed, to commit adultery at the earliest possible opportunity.
     THE  HONOURABLE  MRS  MERVYN  TALBOYS  (<i>In  amazon  costume, hard  hat,
jackboots cockspurred,  vermilion waistcoat,  fawn musketeer  gauntlets with
bra idea drums, long  train held up and hunting crop with  which she strikes
her welt  constantly</i>.) Also me. Because he saw me on the polo ground of  the
Ph<oe>nix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. My eyes,
I  know,  shone  divinely  as  I  watched  Captain  Slogger Dennehy  of  the
Inniskillings  win  the  final  chukkar  on  his darling cob  <i>Centaur</i>.  This
plebeian  Don Juan observed  me from  behind  a hackney  car and sent me  in
double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris
boulevards,  insulting  to any  lady.  I  have  it  still. It  represents  a
partially nude senorita,  frail and lovely (his wife as he solemnly  assured
me,  taken  by  him  from  nature), practising  illicit intercourse  with  a
muscular torero, evidently a  blackguard.  He urged  me to do  likewise,  to
misbehave,  to sin with officers of the garrison. He implored me to soil his
letter in an unspeakable  manner, to chastise him  as he richly deserves, to
bestride and ride him, to give him a most vicious horsewhipping.
     MRS BELLINGHAM Me too.
     MRS YELVERTON BARRY Me too.
     (<i>Several highly  respectable Dublin  ladies hold  up  improper  letters
received from Bloom</i>.)
     THE HONOURABLE  MRS MERVYN TALBOYS  (<i>Stamps  her  jingling spurs  in  a
sudden paroxysm of sudden fury</i>.) I  will, by  the God above me. I'll scourge
the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I'll flay him alive.
     BLOOM  (<i>His  eyes  closing,  quails  expectantly</i>.)  Here? (<i>He squirms</i>.)
Again! (<i>He pants cringing</i>.) I love the danger.
     THE  HONOURABLE MRS  MERVYN  TALBOYS Very much so! I'll make it hot for
you. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that.
     MRS BELLINGHAM Tan  his  breech well, the upstart!  Write the stars and
stripes on it!
     MRS  YELVERTON BARRY Disgraceful! There's no excuse for him!  A married
man!
     BLOOM All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling
glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation.
     THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (<i>Laughs derisively</i>.)  O,  did you, my
fine fellow? Well,  by the living  God, you'll get the surprise of your life
now, believe me,  the most  unmerciful  hiding a man ever bargained for. You
have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury.
     MRS  BELLINGHAM (<i>Shakes  her  muff and  quizzing-glasses vindictively</i>.)
Make him smart, Hanna  dear. Give  him ginger. Thrash the  mongrel within an
inch of his life. The cat-o' nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him.
     BLOOM (<i>Shuddering,  shrinking,  joins his  hands with  hangdog mien</i>.) O
cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty.  Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let
me off this once. (<i>He offers the other cheek</i>.)
     MRS  YELVERTON  BARRY  (<i>Severely</i>.) Don't  do so  on  any  account,  Mrs
Talboys! He should be soundly trounced!
     THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (<i>Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently</i>.)
I'll do  no such thing. Pig dog  and always was ever since he was pupped! To
dare  address me! I'll flog him black and blue  in the public  streets. I'll
dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a wellknown cuckold. (<i>She swishes
her hunting crop savagely in  the air</i>.) Take down his  trousers without loss
of time. Come here, sir! Quick! Ready?
     BLOOM (Trembling, beginning to obey.) The weather has been so warm.
     (<i>Davy Stephens, ringleted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys</i>.)
     DAVY STEPHENS  <i>Messenger of the Sacred Heart</i> and <i>Evening Telegraph</i> with
Saint Patrick's Day  Supplement.  Containing the  new  addresses of all  the
cuckolds in Dublin.
     (<i>The very reverend  Canon  O'Hanlon in cloth of gold cope  elevates and
exposes a marble  timepiece. Before him Father Conroy  and the reverend John
Hughes S.J. bend low</i>.)
     THE TIMEPIECE (<i>Unportalling</i>.)
     Cuckoo
     Cuckoo
     Cuckoo
     (<i>The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle</i>.)
     THE QUOITS Jigjag, Jigajiga. Jigjag.
     (<i>A panel of fog rolls back rapidly,  revealing rapidly in  the  jurybox
the  faces  of Martin  Cunningham,  foreman  silkhatted,  Jack  Power  Simon
Dedalus,  Tom  Kernan,  Ned  Lambert,  John  Henry  Menton, Myles  Crawford,
Lenehan, Paddy Leonard Nosey  Flynn,  M'Coy and the  featureless  face of  a
Nameless One</i>.)
     THE NAMELESS ONE  Bareback  riding. Weight for  age. Gob, he  organised
her.
     THE JURORS (<i>All their heads turned to his voice</i>.) Really?
     THE NAMELESS ONE (<i>Snarls</i>.) Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five.
     THE JURORS (<i>All their heads lowered in  assent</i>.) Most  of us thought as
much.
     FIRST WATCH He is  a marked man. Another girl's plait cut. Wanted: Jack
the Ripper. A thousand pounds reward.
     SECOND WATCH (<i>Awed, whispers</i>.) And in black. A mormon. Anarchist.
     THE  CRIER  (<i>Loudly</i>.)  Whereas Leopold  Bloom of no  fixed  abode  is a
well-known  dynamitard,  forger,  bigamist,  bawd and cuckold  ad  a  public
nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of assizes
the most honourable.
     (<i>His Honour sir Frederick Falkiner recorder of Dublin, in judicial garb
of  grey stone rises from the  bench, stonebearded. He bears  in his arms an
umbrella sceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns</i>.)
     THE  RECORDER  I will put an end  to this white  slave traffic  and rid
Dublin  of this odious pest. Scandalous! (<i>He dons the black cap</i>.) Let him be
taken, Mr Subsheriff,  from the dock  where  he  now stands and detained  in
custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty's pleasure and there be hanged
by the neck until he is dead  and therein fail not at your peril or  may the
Lord have-mercy on  your soul. Remove  him. (<i>A  black skullcap descends upon
his head</i>.)
     (<i>The subsheriff long  John  Fanning  appears,  smoking a  pungent Henry
Clay</i>.)
     LONG  JOHN  FANNING  (<i>Scowls  and calls with  rich  rolling utterance</i>.)
Who'll hang Judas Iscariot?
     (<i>H.  Rumbold,  master  barber in  a bloodcoloured jerk  in and tanner's
apron, a  rope  coiled over his  shoulder mounts the block. A life preserver
and  a  nailstudded bludgeon are stuck  in his  belt.  He  rubs  grimly  his
grapping hands, knobbed with knuckledusters</i>.)
     RUMBOLD  (<i>To the recorder  with sinister  familiarity</i>.)  Hanging Harry,
your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or nothing.
     (<i>The bells of George's church toll slowly, loud dark iron</i>.)
     THE BELLS Heigho! Heigho!
     BLOOM  (<i>Desperately</i>.) Wait.  Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence.
Girl  in  the  monkeyhouse. Zoo.  Lewd chimpanzees.  (<i>Breathlessly</i>.)  Pelvic
basin.  Her artless blush unmanned me. (<i>Overcome with  emotion</i>.) I left  the
precincts.  (<i>He  turns to a figure  in  the crowd,  appealing</i>.) Hynes, may I
speak to you? You know me. That three shillings  you can keep. If you want a
little more .
     HYNES (<i>Coldly</i>.) You are a perfect stranger.
     SECOND WATCH  (<i>Points to  the  corner</i>.)  The  bomb is here. FIRST WATCH
Infernal machine  with  a  time  fuse. BLOOM No, no. Pig's feet.  I was at a
funeral. FIRST WATCH (<i>Draws his truncheon</i>.) Liar!
     (<i>The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey  scorbutic face of  Paddy
Dignam. He has gnawed all.  He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. He  grows
to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes  a brown mortuary habit.
His green eyeflashes bloodshot. Half of one ear all the nose and both thumbs
are ghouleaten</i>.)
     PADDY DIGNAM (<i>In a hollow voice</i>.) It is true. It was my funeral. Doctor
Finucane pronounced  life  extinct when  I  succumbed  to the  disease  from
natural causes.
     (<i>He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously</i>.)
     BLOOM (<i>In triumph</i>.) You hear?
     PADDY DIGNAM Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. List, list, O list!
     BLOOM The voice is the voice of Esau.
     SECOND WATCH (<i>Blesses himself</i>.) How is that possible?
     FIRST WATCH It is not in the penny catechism.
     PADDY DIGNAM By metempsychosis. Spooks.
     A VOICE O rocks.
     PADDY DIGNAM (<i>Earnestly</i>.) Once I was in the employ of  Mr J. H. Menton,
solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk. Now
I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The poor wife
was  awfully cut up. Dow  is she bearing  it?  Keep her  off that bottle  of
sherry.  (<i>He looks  round him</i>.) A lamp. I must satisfy  an animal need. That
buttermilk didn't agree with me.
     (<i>The portly figure of John O'Connell, caretaker stands forth, holding a
bunch of keys tied with  crape. Beside  him stands Father  Coffey, chaplain,
toad  bellied, wrynecked,  in  a  surplice and  bandanna  nightcap,  holding
sleepily a staff of twisted poppies</i>.)
     FATHER COFFEY (<i>Yawns, then chants with a  hoarse croak</i>.) Namine. Jacobs
Vobiscuits. Amen.
     (<i>Foghorns   stormily  through   his  megaphone</i>.)  Dignam,  Patrick  T.,
deceased.
     PADDY DIGNAM (<i>With pricked up ears, winces</i>.) Overtones.
     (<i>He wriggles forward, places an ear to the ground</i>.) My masters' voice!
     JOHN O'CONNELL Burial  docket letter number  U. P. Eightyfive thousand.
Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one.
     (<i>Paddy   Dignam   listens   with    visible   effort,   thinking,   his
tailstiffpointed, his ears cocked</i>.)
     PADDY DIGNAM Pray for the repose of his soul.
     (<i>He worms down through a coal hole, his brown habit trailing its tether
over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat  on fungus
turtle paws under a  grey carapace. Dignam's voice, muffled, is heard baying
under ground:  Dignam's dead and gone below. Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted,
in cap and breeches, jumps from his two-columned machine</i>.)
     TOM  ROCHFORD (<i>A hand  to his breastbone, bows</i>.) Reuben J.  A  florin I
find him. (<i>He  fixes the manhole  with  a resolute stare</i>.) My  turn now  on.
Follow me up to Carlow.
     (<i>He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air  and is engulfed in the
coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble eyes of nought. All recedes. Bloom
plodges forward again. He  stands  before a  lighted  house,  listening. The
kisses, winging  from  their  bowers, fly about  him, twittering,  warbling,
cooing</i>.)
     THE KISSES (<i>Warbling</i>.) Leo!  (<i>Twittering</i>.) Icky licky  micky sticky for
Leo!  (<i>Cooing</i>.)  Coo  coocoo!  Yummyumm Wom worn! (<i>Warbling</i>.)  Big  comebig!
Pirouette! Leopopold! (<i>Twittering</i>.) Leeolee! (<i>Warbling</i>.) O Leo!
     (<i>They  rustle,  flutter upon  his garments, alight, bright giddyflecks,
silvery sequins</i>.)
     BLOOM A man's touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here.
     (<i>Zoe  Higgins,  a  young  whore in a sapphire  slip,  closed with three
bronze buckles, a slim black  velvet  fillet  round her  throat, nods, trips
down the steps and accosts him</i>.)
     ZOE Are you looking for someone? He's inside with his friend.
     BLOOM Is this Mrs Mack's?
     ZOE No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen's.  You might  go  farther and fare worse.
Mother Slipperslapper. (<i>Familiarly</i>.)  She's on the  job herself tonight with
the vet, her tipster, that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in
Oxford. Working overtime but her luck's turned today. (<i>Suspiciously</i>.) You're
not his father, are you?
     BLOOM Not I!
     ZOE You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight?
     (<i>His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand slides over his
left thigh</i>.)
     ZOE How's the nuts?
     BLOOM Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier I suppose. One
in a million my tailor, Mesias, says.
     ZOE (<i>In sudden alarm</i>.) You've a hard chancre.
     BLOOM Not likely.
     ZOE I feel it.
     (<i>Her hand slides into  his left  trouser  pocket  and brings out a hard
black shrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist lips</i>.)
     BLOOM A talisman. Heirloom.
     ZOE For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh?
     (<i>She  puts  the potato greedily into  a  pocket,  then  links  his arm,
cuddling him with supple warmth. He  smiles uneasily.  Slowly, note by note,
oriental music is played.  He gazes in the tawny crystal of her eyes, ringed
with kohol. His smile softens</i>.)
     ZOE You'll know me the next time.
     BLOOM (<i>Forlornly</i>.) I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure to.
     (<i>Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are  lakes. Round
their shores  file  shadows  black  of cedargroves.  Aroma rises,  a  strong
hairgrowth  of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of  sapphire, cleft by the
bronze flight  of eagles.  Under it lies the  womancity, nude, white, still,
cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth roses murmur
of scarlet  winegrapes.  A  wine  of shame,  lust,  blood  exudes, strangely
murmuring</i>.)
     ZOE (<i>Murmuring singsong  with the  music, her  odalisk lips  lusciously
smeared  with  salve of  swinefat  and  rosewater.)  Schorach ani  wenowach,
benoith Hierushaloim</i>.
     BLOOM (<i>Fascinated</i>.) I thought you were of good stock by your accent.
     ZOE And you know what thought did?
     (<i>She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth  sending on him
a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre
of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones</i>.)
     BLOOM (<i>Draws back,  mechanically caressing  her right bub  with  a flat
awkward hand</i>.) Are you a Dublin girl?
     ZOE (<i>Catches a stray hair deftly  and twists it to her coil</i>.) No bloody
fear. I'm English. Have you a swaggerroot?
     BLOOM (<i>As  before</i>.) Rarely smoke, dear.  Cigar now  and then.  Childish
device.  (<i>Lewdly</i>.) The  mouth can be better engaged than with a  cylinder of
rank weed.
     ZOE Go on. Make a stump speech out of it.
     BLOOM (<i>In workman's corduroy  overalls,  black gansy  with red floating
tie and  apache  cap</i>.)  Mankind is incorrigible. Sir  Walter Raleigh brought
from the new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer of pestilence
by absorption, the  other a poisoner of the ear,  eye, heart, memory,  will,
understanding, all.  That is to  say, he brought the  poison a hundred years
before another  person whose  name I forget brought the food. Suicide. Lies.
All our habits. Why, look at our public life!
     (<i>Midnight chimes from distant steeples</i>.)
     THE CHIMES Turn again, Leopold! Lord Mayor of Dublin!
     BLOOM (<i>In alderman's  gown and  chain</i>.)  Electors of  Arran  Quay, Inns
Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run  a tramline,  I say, from
the cattlemarket  to the river.  That's the  music of  the future. That's my
programme. <i>Cui Bono?</i>  But  our buccaneering  Vanderdeckens in  their phantom
ship of finance...
     AN ELECTOR Three times three for our future chief magistrate!
     (<i>The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps</i>.)
     THE TORCH BEARERS Hooray!
     (<i>Several wellknown burgesses,  city  magnates and freemen  of the  city
shake hands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late thrice
Lord Mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and white silk
tie,  confers  with  councillor  Lorcan  Sherlock,  locum tenens.  They  nod
vigorously in agreement</i>.)
     LATE LORD  MAYOR  HARRINGTON (<i>In  scarlet robe with mace, gold  mayoral
chain  and lace white silk  scarf</i>) That alder man sir Leo Bloom's speech  be
printed at the expense of  the ratepayers.  That the house  in which  he was
born be  ornamented  with  a commemorative tablet  and that the thoroughfare
hitherto known  as  Cow  Parlour  off Cork street  be  henceforth designated
Boulevard Bloom.
     COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK Carried unanimously.
     BLOOM (<i>Impassionedly</i>.) These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen  as they
recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they? Machines is
their  cry,   their  chimera,   their   panacea.  Laboursaving  apparatuses,
supplanters,  bug-bears,  manufactured monsters for mutual  murder,  hideous
hobgoblins produced by a horde  of capitalistic lusts upon  our  prostituted
labour. The poor man starves  while they are grassing their  royal  mountain
stags  or shooting  peasants and phartridges in  their purblind pomp of pelf
and power. But their reign is rover for rever and ever and ev...
     (<i>Prolonged applause. Venetian  masts, maypoles and festal arches spring
up. A  streamer bearing the  legends</i> Cead  Mille  Failte <i>and</i> Mah  Ttob Melek
Israel  <i>spans  the street. All the  windows  are thronged  with  sightseers,
chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the royal Dublin Fusiliers,
the  Kings  Own  Scottish Boraerers, the Cameron  Highlanders and the  Welsh
Fusiliers, standing to attention, keep back the crowd. Boys from High school
are  perched on  the  lampposts,  telegraph  poles,  windowsills,  cornices,
gutters,  chimneypots,  railings,  rainspouts,  whistling and  cheering. The
pillar of  the cloud appears. A fife and drum band is  heard in the distance
playing  the  Kol  Nidre. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted,
trailing  banners  and  waving  oriental palms.  The  chryselephantine papal
standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the
procession appears  headed  by  John  Howard  Parnell,  city marshal,  in  a
chessboard tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are
followed by  the  Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of  Dublin,
the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo
and Watedord, twentyeight Irish  representative peers, sirdars, grandees and
maharajahs  bearing  the  cloth  of  estate,  the Dublin  Metropolitan  Fire
Brigade, the chapter of the saints  of finance in their plutocratic order of
precedence, the  bishop  of Down and  Connor His  Eminence Michael  cardinal
Logue  archbishop  of Armagh,  primate of all  Ireland,  His Grace, the most
reverend Dr William Alexander archbishop  of Armagh, primate of all Ireland,
the  chief  rabbi,  the presbyterian  moderator, the heads  of  the baptist,
anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the
society of friends. her them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with
flying colours: coopen, bird  fanciers,  millwrights, newspaper  canvassers,
law  scriveners,  masseurs,  vintners,  trussmakers,  chimney  sweeps,  lard
refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church
decorators, bootjack  manufacturers,  undertaken,  silk mercers, lapidaries,
salesmasters,  corkcutters,  assessors of  fire  losses, dyers and cleaners,
export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters,  heraldic seal engravers, horse
repository  hands,  bullion   broken,   cricket   and  archery   outfitters,
riddlemakers,  egg  and  potato   factors,  hosiers  and  glovers,  plumbing
contractors. After them march gentlemen of the bed chamber Black Rod, Deputy
Garter Gold Stick, the master of  hone, the lord great chamberlain, the earl
marshal,  the  high constable carrying the sword of  state, saint  Stephen's
iron  crown, the chalice and  bible.  Four buglers  on  foot blow a  sennet.
Beefeaten reply, winding clarions of welcome. Under an arch of triumph Bloom
appears bareheaded, in  a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing
Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with  the dove,  the curtana. He is
seated  on  a  milkwhite  hone   with  long  flowing  crimson  tail,  richly
caparisoned, with golden heads tall. Wild excitement. The  ladies from their
balconies throw down rosepetals. The air is  perfumed with essences. The men
cheer. Bloom's boys run  amid  the bystanders  with branches of hawthorn and
wrenbushes</i>.)
     BLOOM'S BOYS
     The wren, the wren,
     The king of all birds,
     Saint Stephen's his day,
     Was caught in the furze.
     A BLACKSMITH  (<i>Murmurs</i>.) For the Honour  of God! And is that  Bloom? He
scarcely looks thirtyone.
     A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER  That's the famous Bloom now, the world's greatest
reformer. Hats off!
     (<i>All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly</i>.)
     A MILLIONAIRESS (<i>Richly</i>.) Isn't he simply wonderful?
     A NOBLEWOMAN (<i>Nobly</i>.) All that man has seen!
     A FEMINIST (<i>Masculinely</i>.) And done!
     A BELLHANGER A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker.
     (<i>Bloom's weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest</i>.)
     THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND  CONNOR I  here present your  un doubted emperor
president and king  chairman, the most serene and  potent  and very puissant
ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First!
     ALL God save Leopold the First!
     BLOOM (<i>In dalmatic and purple mantle, to  the bishop of Down and Connor
with dignity</i>.) Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.
     WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF  ARMAGH (<i>In purple stock and shovel  hat</i>.)  Will
you  to your power cause law and  mercy to be executed in all your judgments
in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging?
     BLOOM  (<i>Placing his  right hand on his testicles,  swears</i>.) So may  the
Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do.
     MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH  (<i>Pours a  cruse of hair oil over Bloom's
head.) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem</i>. Leopold,  Patrick,
Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!
     (<i>Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth  of gold  and  puts on a ruby ring. He
ascends and stands on the  stone of destiny. The representative peers put on
at the same  time their twentyeight crowns.  Joybells ring in Christ church,
Saint Patrick's, George's  and  gay Malahide. Mirus  bazaar fireworks  go up
from  all  sides with  symbolical phallopyrotechnic  designs.  The  peers do
homage, one by one, approaching and genuflecting</i>.)
     THE PEERS I do  become your  liege  man of  life  and  limb  to earthly
worship.
     (<i>Bloom  holds  up  his  right hand  on  which sparkles  the  Koh-i-Noor
diamond.  His palfrey neighs. Immediate  silence. Wireless  intercontinental
and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message</i>.)
     BLOOM My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix
hereditary  Grand  Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated  our
former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the
splendour of night.
     (<i>The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed  in the Black
Maria. The princess Selene, in moon  blue robes, a  silver crescent  on  her
head,  descends  from  a Sedan  chair  borne  by  two giants. An outburst of
cheering</i>.)
     <I>JOHN HOWARD PARNELL</I>  (<i>Raises  the  royal  standard</i>.) Illustrious Bloom!
Successor to my famous brother!
     BLOOM  (<i>Embraces John  Howard Parnell</i>.)  We  thank you  from our heart,
John, for this right royal welcome to  green Erin, the promised land of  our
common ancestors.
     (<i>The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The
keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows all
that he is wearing green socks</i>.)
     TOM KERNAN You deserve it, your honour.
     BLOOM On this day twenty  years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at
Ladysmith.  Our  howitzers and  camel swivel guns  played on  his lines with
telling effect.  Half a league onward! They  charge!  All is lost now! Do we
yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to  the left our
light horse swept across the heights  of Plevna and, uttering their  warcry,
<i>Bonafide Sabaoth</i>, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man.
     THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS Hear! Hear!
     JOHN WYSE NOLAN There's the man that got away James Stephens.
     A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY Bravo!
     AN OLD  RESIDENT You're a  credit to your country, sir, that's what you
are.
     AN APPLEWOMAN He's a man like Ireland wants.
     BLOOM My beloved subjects, a new era is about  to dawn.  I, Bloom, tell
you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall ere
long enter into the golden city which is to be