e Libyan maneater. A redhot
crowbar  and  some liniment rubbing  on  the burning part  produced Fritz of
Amsterdam,  the thinking hyena. (<i>He glares</i>.) I possess  the Indian sign. The
glint  of  my  eye does  it with  these breastsparklers.  (<i>With a bewitching
smile</i>.) I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride of the ring.
     FIRST WATCH Come. Name and address.
     BLOOM I have forgotten for the  moment. Ah, yes! (<i>He takes off his high
grade hat, saluting</i>.) Dr Bloom,  Leopold, dental surgeon.  You have heard of
von Bloom Pasha. Umpteen mil lions. <i>Donnerwetter</i>!  Owns half Austria. Egypt.
Cousin.
     FIRST WATCH Proof.
     (<i>A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat</i>.)
     BLOOM (<i>In red fez,  cadi's  dress coat with broad green sash, wearing a
false badge of the  Legion of Honour, picks up  the card hastily and  offers
it</i>.)  Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors: Messrs John
Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk.
     FIRST WATCH (<i>Reads</i>.) Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Un lawfully watching
and besetting.
     SECOND WATCH An alibi. You are cautioned.
     BLOOM (<i>Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower</i>.) This is
the  flower in question. It  was given me  by  a man  I don't know his name.
(<i>Plausibly</i>.) You know that old joke, rose of Castille. Bloom.  The change of
name  Virag. (<i>He murmurs privately and confidentially</i>.) We are  engaged  you
see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement. (He <i>shoulders the second
watch gently</i>.) Dash it all. It's a way we gallants have in the navy. Uniform
that does it.  (<i>He turns gravely to the first watch</i>.) Still,  of course, you
do get your Waterloo sometimes. Drop in some evening and have a glass of old
Burgundy. (<i>To the second  watch gaily</i>.) I'll introduce you, inspector. She's
game. Do it in shake of a lamb's tail.
     (<i>A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure</i>.)
     THE DARK  MERCURY The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed  out of
the army.
     MARTHA (<i>Thickveiled, a  crimson  halter round her neck, a  copy of  the
Irish  Times in  her hand, in  tone  of reproach, pointing</i>.) Henry! Leopold!
Leopold! Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name.
     FIRST WATCH (<i>Sternly</i>.) Come to the station.
     BLOOM (<i>Scared, hats himself steps back, then, plucking at his heart and
lifting his right forearm on the  square, he gives  the sign and dueguard of
fellowcraft</i>.) No,  no, worshipful master, light of  love. Mistaken identity.
The  Lyons mail. Lesurques and  Dubosc.  You remember the  Childs fratricide
case. We medical men. By striking  him  dead with a hatchet. I am wrongfully
accused. Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned.
     MARTHA  (<i>Sobbing behind her  veil</i>.) Breach of  promise. My real name is
Peggy  Griffin. He wrote to me that  he was miserable. I'll tell my brother,
the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt.
     BLOOM  (<i>Behind his  hand</i>.) She's  drunk. The  woman is  inebriated. (<i>He
murmurs vaguely the past of Ephraim</i>.) Shitbroleeth.
     SECOND WATCH (<i>Tears  in his eyes, to Bloom</i>.) You ought to be thoroughly
well ashamed of yourself.
     BLOOM Gentleman of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare's nest. I am a
man  misunderstood. I  am  being  made a scapegoat  of. I  am  a respectable
married man, without a  stain on my character. I  live  in Eccles street. My
wife,  I  am the  daughter  of a  most  distinguished  commander,  a gallant
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