Bootlaces a  penny,  cassidy's hag, blind stripling,
Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other the</i>... )
     BLOOM Don't ask me. Our  mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought
the half of the... I swear on my sacred oath...
     BELLO (<i>Peremptorily</i>.)  Answer. Repugnant  wretch! I  insist on knowing.
Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good-ghoststory or a line of
poetry, quick, quick,  quick! Where? How? What  time? With how  many? I give
you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr... !
     BLOOM (<i>Docile, gurgles</i>.) I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant...
     BELLO (<i>Imperiously</i>.) O get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak when
you're spoken to.
     BLOOM (<i>Bows</i>.) Master! Mistress! Mantamer!
     (<i>He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fall</i>.)
     BELLO  (Satirically.)  By  day  you  will  souse  and bat our  smelling
underclothes, also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines with
dress pinned up and a dishclout  tied to  your tail. Won't that be nice? (<i>He
places a ruby ring on her finger</i>.) And there now! With this ring I thee own.
Say, thank you, mistress.
     BLOOM Thank you, mistress.
     BELLO You will make the beds, get my  tub ready, empty the pisspots  in
the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a  sandy one. Ay,
and rinse the seven of  them well, mind,  or lap it up like champagne. Drink
me piping hot. Hop!  you  will  dance attendance or I'll lecture you on your
misdeeds, Miss Ruby,  and spank  your bare bot  right  well, miss, with  the
hairbrush.  You'll  be  taught  the  error  of  your  ways.  At  night  your
wellcreamed  braceleted hands  will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered
with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such favours knights
of old laid down their lives. (<i>He  chuckles</i>.) My boys will be no end charmed
to  see you  so ladylike, the  colonel, above  all. When they come here  the
night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First,
I'll have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta
Marsh (I was  in  bed with him just  now  and another  gentleman  out of the
Hanaper and  Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a
short  knock. Swell the  bust.  Smile.  Droop  shoulders. What  offers?  (<i>He
points</i>.) For that lot trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket  in mouth.
(<i>He bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep  in  Bloom's vulva</i>.) There's fine
depth for you! What,  boys? That give you a hardon? (<i>He shoves his  arm in a
bidder's face</i>.) Here, wet the deck and wipe it round!
     A BIDDER A florin!
     (<i>Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell</i>.)
     A VOICE One and eightpence too much.
     THE LACQUEY Barang!
     CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean.
     BELLO  (<i>Gives a  rap with his  gavel</i>.) Two bar.  Rockbottom figure  and
cheap  at the  price.  Fourteen hands high. Touch and  examine  his  points.
Handle him. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If I had
only my gold piercer here!  And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid gallons  a
day. A pure stock getter, due to lay within the hour. His sire's milk record
was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Whoa, my jewel! Beg up!
Whoa! (<i>He brands his initial Con  Bloom's croup</i>.) So! Warranted  Cohen! What
advance on two bob, gentlemen?
     A DARKVISAGED MAN (<i>In disguised accent</i>.) Hoondert punt sterlink.
     VOICES (<i>Subdued</i>.) For the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid.
     BELLO  (<i>Gaily</i>.) Right. Let them all  come.  The  scanty, daringly short
skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent
weapon  and transparent  stockings, emeraldgartered, with the  long straight
seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal  to  the better  instincts  of  the
<i>blasè</i> man about  town. Learn  the smooth mincing walk on four  inch Louis XV
heels, the  Grecian bend with  provoking croup, the thighs  fluescent, knees
modestly  kissing. Bring  all your  power of  fascination to  bear  on them.
Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.
     BLOOM  (<i>Bends  his  blushing  face into  his armpit  and  simpers  with
forefinger in mouth</i>.) O, I know what you're hinting at now.
     BELLO  What else are  you  good  for, an  impotent thing like  you? (<i>He
stoops  and,  peering, pokes with his fan  rudely under the fat suetfolds of
Bloom's haunches</i>.)  Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here?  Where's your curly
teapot gone to or  who  docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, sing. It's
as limp as a boy of six's doing his  pooly  behind a  cart. Buy a bucket  or
sell your pump. (<i>Loudly</i>.) Can you do a man's job?
     BLOOM Eccles Street.
     BELLO (<i>Sarcastically</i>.) I  wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world but
there's  a man of brawn  in possession  there. The tables are turned, my gay
young fellow! He is  something  like  a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for you,
you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it.
He  shot his  bolt, I can tell  you! Foot to foot, knee  to  knee, belly  to
belly,  bubs to breast! He's no eunuch. A shock of red hair he has  sticking
out  of him behind like  a furzebush!  Wait for nine  months,  my lad!  Holy
ginger,  it's kicking and coughing up and  down  in her guts  already!  That
makes  you  wild,  don't  it?  Touches  the spot? (<i>He  spits  in  contempt</i>.)
Spittoon!
     BLOOM I was indecently treated, I... inform the police. Hundred pounds.
Unmentionable. I.
     BELLO  Would if  you  could, lame  duck. A  downpour we  want, not your
drizzle.
     BLOOM To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll!... We... Still...
     BELLO (<i>Ruthlessly</i>.)  No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by  woman's will
since  you  slept  horizontal in Sleepy  Hollow your night of twenty  years.
Return and see.
     (<i>Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold</i>.)
     <I>SLEEPY HOLLOW</I> Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!
     BLOOM  (<i>In tattered  moccasins with  a  rusty fowlingpiece, tip toeing,
fingertipping, his haggard bony  bearded  face  peering through the  diamond
panes, cries out</i>.) I see her! It's she! The first night at Mat Dillon's! But
that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and he.
     BELLO  (<i>Laughs  mockingly</i>.)  That's  your  daughter,  you  owl,  with a
Mullingar student.
     (<i>Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled,  her  bluescab in
the seawind simply swirling,  breaks from the arms of her lover  and  calls,
her young eyes wonderwide</i>.)
     MILLY My! It's Papli! But. O Papli, how old you've grown!
     BELLO Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writing table where we never wrote,
Aunt Hegarty's armchair,  our classic reprints of old masters. A man and his
men friends are living there in clover. <i>The Cuckoos' Rest!</i> Why not? How many
women had you, say? Following  them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them
by your smothered grunts.  What,  you male prostitute? Blameless  dames with
parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the goose, my gander, O.
     BLOOM They... I
     BELLO (<i>Cuttingly</i>.)  Their heelmarks will  stamp  the Brusselette carpet
you bought at Wren's auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp  to find
the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried
home in the  rain  for art for art's sake. They will violate  the secrets of
your  bottom drawer. Pages will be  torn from  your handbook of astronomy to
make them  pipespills. And they will spit in your ten shilling  brass fender
from Hampton Leedom's.
     BLOOM Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return.
I will prove...
     A VOICE Swear!
     (<i>Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowie knife between his
teeth</i>.)
     BELLO As a  paying guest or  a kept man?  Too late. You have  made your
secondbest bed and others  must lie in it. Your epitaph is  written. You are
down and out and don't you forget it, old bean.
     BLOOM Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody... ?
     (<i>He bites his thumb</i>.)
     BELLO  Die and be damned  to  you if you have any  sense  of decency or
grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you skipping to
hell and  back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have. If you have none
see you damn well get it, steal it,  rob it! We'll bury you in our shrubbery
jakes  where you'll be dead and  dirty with old Cuck  Cohen, my stepnephew I
married, the bloody old gouty  procurator  and sodomite  with a crick in his
neck,  and my other ten  or eleven husbands, what ever  the  buggers'  names
were,  suffocated  in  the one  cess pool.  (<i>He explodes in  a  loud phlegmy
laugh</i>.)  We'll manure you, Mr  Flower! (<i>He  pipes scoffingly</i>.) Byby,  Poldy!
Byby, Papli!
     BLOOM (<i>Clasps his head</i>.)  My will power! Memory! I have sinned! I  have
suff... (<i>He weeps tearlessly</i>.)
     BELLO (<i>Sneers</i>.) Crybabby! Crocodile tears!
     (<i>Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to the
earth. The passing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the circumcised, in
sackcloth  and  ashes, stand  by  the wailing wall.  M. Shulomowitz,  Joseph
Goldwater  Moses  Herzog, Harris  Rosenberg,  M. Moisel,  J.  Citron, Minnie
Watchman,  0.  Mastiansky,  the Reverend  Leopold  Abramovitz, Chazen.  With
swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the recreant Bloom</i>.)
     THE CIRCUMCISED (<i>In a dark guttural chant as they  cast dead sea  fruit
upon him, no flowers.) Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad</i>.
     VOICES  (<i>Sighing</i>.)  So he's  gone. Ah,  yes. Yes,  indeed. Bloom? Never
heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There's the widow. That so? Ah, yes.
     (<i>From  the  suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.  The pall of
incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oak frame a nymph with  hair
unbound, lightly  clad in teabrown art colours, descends from her grotto and
passing under interlacing yews, stands over Bloom</i>.)
     THE YEWS (<i>Their leaves whispering</i>.) Sister. Our sister. Ssh.
     THE NYMPH (<i>Softly</i>.) Mortal! (<i>Kindly</i>.) Nay, dost not weepest!
     BLOOM  (<i>Crawls  jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight,
with dignity</i>.) This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of habit.
     THE NYMPH Mortal!  You found me in  evil company, high  kickers, coster
picnic  makers, pugilists, popular  generals, immoral  panto  boys  in flesh
tights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La  Aurora and Karini, musical act, the
hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt of rock oil.
I  was surrounded  by the stale smut of clubmen,  stories to  disturb callow
youth,  ads  for transparencies,  truedup  dice  and  bustpads,  proprietary
articles  and why wear  a truss with  testimonial  from ruptured  gentleman.
Useful hints to the married.
     BLOOM  (<i>Lifts a turtle head towards her lap</i>.)  We  have met before.  On
another star.
     THE NYMPH (<i>Sadly</i>.)  Rubber goods. Neverrip. Brand as  sup  plied to the
aristocracy. Corsets  for men.  I cure fits  or money refunded.  Unsolicited
testimonials  for  Professor  Waldmann's  wonderful  chest  exuber. My  bust
developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.
     BLOOM You mean <i>Photo Bits?</i>
     THE NYMPH I do. You bore me away, framed me  in  oak and tinsel, set me
above your marriage couch. Unseen, one  summer eve,  you kissed me  in  four
places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame.
     BLOOM (<i>Humbly kisses her long  hair</i>.) Your  classic  curves,  beautiful
immortal.  I was glad  to look on  you, to praise  you,  a  thing of beauty,
almost to pray.
     THE NYMPH During dark nights I heard your praise.
     BLOOM (<i>Quickly</i>.) Yes, yes. You mean  that  I... Sleep reveals the worst
side of  everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of my bed or
rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest there is
that  English  invention,  pamphlet  of  which  I  received  some days  ago,
incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless inoffensive vent. (<i>He
sighs</i>.) 'Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage.
     THE NYMPH (<i>Her  fingers in  her  ears</i>.) And words. They are not  in  my
dictionary.
     BLOOM You understood them?
     THE YEWS Ssh.
     THE NYMPH (<i>Covers her face with her hand</i>.) What have I not seen in that
chamber? What must my eyes look down on?
     BLOOM  (<i>Apologetically</i>.) I know. Soiled personal linen,  wrong side  up
with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea, long ago.
     THE NYMPH (<i>Bends her head</i>.) Worse! Worse!
     BLOOM  (<i>Reflects precautiously</i>.) That antiquated commode. It wasn't her
weight. She scaled  just eleven stone nine.  She put  on nine  pounds  after
weaning. It was a crack  and  want of glue. Eh? And  that absurd orangekeyed
utensil which has only one handle.
     (<i>The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade</i>.)
     THE WATERFALL
     Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
     Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.
     THE YEWS (<i>Mingling  their boughs</i>.)  Listen. Whisper. She is right,  our
sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous summer
days.
     JOHN  WYSE  NOLAN  (<i>In the  background, in  Irish National For  ester's
uniform,  doffs  his plumed  hat</i>.)  Prosper! Give shade  on languorous days,
trees of Ireland!
     THE  YEWS  (<i>Murmuring</i>.) Who came  to Poulaphouca  with  the high school
excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade?
     BLOOM  (<i>Pigeonbreasted,   bottleshouldered,  padded,   in   nondescript
juvenile grey and black striped suit, too small for him, white tennis shoes,
bordered  stockings with turnover tops, and  a red school cap with badge</i>.) I
was in my teens, a growing boy. A little  then sufficed,  a jolting car, the
mingling  odours  of  the ladies' cloakroom and  lavatory, the throng penned
tight on the old Royal stairs, for they love crushes, instincts of the herd,
and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice.  Even  a pricelist of their
hosiery. And  then the heat. There were sunspots that summer. End of school.
And tipsycake. Halcyon days.
     (<i>Halcyon  Days, high school boys in blue and white football jerseys and
shorts,  Master  Donald  Turnbull, Master  Abraham Chatterton,  Master  Owen
Goldberg, Master Jack  Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a clearing of
the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom</i>.)
     THE HALCYON DAYS Mackerel! Live us again. Hurray!
     (<i>They cheer</i>.)
     BLOOM  (<i>Hobbledehoy,  warmgloved,  mammamufflered, stunned  with  spent
snowballs,  struggles to rise</i>.)  Again! I feel sixteen! What  a lark!  Let's
ring  all  the  bells in Montague Street. (<i>He cheers feebly</i>.) Hurray for the
High School!
     THE ECHO Fool!
     THE YEWS  (<i>Rustling</i>.) She  is  right, our sister.  Whisper.  (<i>Whispered
kisses are  heard in all the  wood.  Faces of  hamadryads peep out  from the
boles and  among the leaves  and break blossoming into  bloom</i>.) Who profaned
our silent shade?
     THE NYMPH (<i>Coyly through parting fingers</i>.) There! In the open air?
     THE YEWS (<i>Sweeping downward</i>.) Sister, yes. And on our virgin sward.
     THE WATERFALL
     Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
     Phoucaphouca Phoucaphouca.
     THE NYMPH (<i>With wide fingers</i>.) O! Infamy!
     BLOOM  I was precocious. Youth. The fauns. I  sacrificed  to the god of
the forest.  The flowers that  bloom  in  the spring. It  was  pairing time.
Capillary attraction is a natural phenomenon. Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired,  I
saw at  her  night  toilette through  ill-closed curtains, with  poor papa's
operaglasses. The wanton  ate grass  wildly.  She  rolled downhill at Rialto
Bridge  to tempt me  with her  flow  of animal  spirits. She  climbed  their
crooked tree and  I... A saint  couldn't resist it. The  demon possessed me.
Besides, who saw?
     (<i>Staggering Bob,  a  whitepolled calf  thrusts a  ruminating  head with
humid nostrils through the foliage</i>.)
     STAGGERING BOB Me. Me see.
     BLOOM Simply satisfying  a  need. (<i>With  pathos</i>.) No girl would when  I
went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn't play.
     (<i>High  on   Ben   Howth  through   rhododendrons  a  nannygoat  passes,
plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping curvants</i>.)
     THE NANNYGOAT (<i>Bleats</i>.) Megegaggegg! Nannannanny!
     BLOOM  (<i>Hatless,   flushed,  covered  with   burn  of  thistledown  and
gotrepine</i>.) Regularly engaged. Circumstances alter cases. (<i>He gazes intently
downwards  on  the  water</i>.) Thirtytwo  head  over  heels  per second.  Press
nightmare. Giddy Elijah. Fall from  cliff. Sad  end  of government printer's
clerk. (<i>Through  silversilent  summer  air  the dummy of Bloom, rolled  in a
mummy, rolls  rotatingly from the Lion's Head cliff  into the purple Waiting
waters</i>.)
     THE DUMMYMUMMY Bbbbblllllbbblblodschbg?
     (<i>Far out  in the bay between  Bailey  and  Kish lights  the</i> Erin's King
<i>sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her  funnel  towards the
land</i>.)
     COUNCILLOR NANNETI (<i>Alone  on deck,  in dark alpaca, yellow  kitefaced,
his hand  in his waistcoat opening, declaims</i>.)  When my  country  takes  her
place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then let my epitaph
be written. I have...
     BLOOM Done. Prff.
     THE  NYMPH (<i>Loftily</i>.)  We immortals, as  you saw today, have not such a
place and no hair there either. We are  stonecold and  pure. We eat electric
light. (<i>She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger
in her mouth</i>.) Spoke to me. Heard from behind. How then could you... ?
     BLOOM (<i>Pacing the  heather abjectly</i>.) O, I have  been  a  perfect  pig.
Enemas too I have administered. One third of a pint of quassia, to which add
a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long's syringe,
the ladies' friend.
     THE NYMPH In  my  presence.  The  powderpuff.  (<i>She blushes and makes a
knee</i>.) And the rest.
     BLOOM (<i>Dejected</i>.) Yes. <i>Peccavi!</i> I have paid homage on that living altar
where  the  back changes  name.  (<i>With  sudden fervour</i>.) For why should  the
dainty scented jewelled hand, the hand that rules... ?
     (<i>Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the treestems,
cooeeing</i>.)
     THE VOICE OF KITTY (<i>In the thicket</i>.) Show us one of them cushions.
     THE VOICE OF FLORRY Here.
     (<i>A grouse wings clumsily through the underwood</i>.)
     THE VOICE OF LYNCH (<i>In the thicket.)</i> Whew! Piping hot!
     THE VOICE OF ZOE (<i>From the thicket</i>.) Came from a hot place.
     THE  VOICE  OF  VIRAG (<i>A  birdchief bluestreaked  and  feathered in war
panoply  with  his  assegai,  striding  through a  crackling  canebrake over
beechmast and acorns</i>.) Hot! Hot! Ware Sitting Bull!
     BLOOM It overpowers me. The warm impress of  her warm form. Even to sit
where  a  woman has sat,  especially  with divaricated  thighs, as though to
grant the last  favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white
sateen coatpans. So womanly full. It fills me full.
     THE WATERFALL
     Phillaphulla Poulaphouca
     Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.
     THE YEWS Ssh! Sister, speak!
     THE NYMPH (<i>Eyeless, in nun's white habit,  coif and huge winged wimple,
softly, with remote eyes</i>.)  Tranquilia convent. Sister Agatha. Mount Carmel,
the  apparitions of Knock and  Lourdes. No  more desire.  (<i>She reclines  her
head,  sighing</i>.) Only  the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy gull waves o'er the
waters dull.
     (<i>Bloom half rises. His back trousers button snaps</i>.)
     THE BUTTON Bip!
     (<i>Two sluts of the Coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly</i>.)
     THE SLUTS
     O Leopold lost the pin of his drawers
     He didn't know what to do,
     To keep it up,
     To keep it up.
     BLOOM  (Coldly.) You  have broken  the  spell. The last straw. If there
were only  ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices?  Shy but
willing, like an ass pissing.
     THE  YEWS (<i>Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating,  their skinny arms
ageing and swaying</i>.) Deciduously!
     THE NYMPH Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! (<i>A large moist stain appears
on her robe</i>.) Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of  a
pure  woman.  (<i>She clutches in her robe</i>.) Wait,  Satan.  You'll sing no more
lovesongs.  Amen. Amen.  Amen. Amen.  (<i>She draws a poniard and, clad in  the
sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins</i>.) Nekum!
     BLOOM (<i>Starts  up, seizes her hand</i>.) Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat of nine lives!
Fair play, madam. No pruning knife. The fox and  the grapes, is  it? What do
we lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick  enough? (<i>He clutches  her
veil</i>.) A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener,  or the spoutless
statue of the watercarrier or good Mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard?
     THE  NYMPH  (<i>With a cry,  flees  from him unveiled,  her  plaster  cast
cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks</i>.) Poli... !
     BLOOM  (<i>Calls  after  her</i>.)  As  if you didn't  get  it on  the  double
yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities  all over you. I tried it. Your
strength our weakness.  What's  our stud fee? What will you pay on the nail?
You  fee men dancers  on  the Riviera,  I read. (<i>The fleeing nymph raises  a
keen</i>.) Eh! I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. And would a
jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool someone else, not me.
(<i>He sniffs</i>.) But. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease.
     (<i>The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him</i>.)
     BELLA You'll know me the next time.
     BLOOM (<i>Composed, regards her.) Passèe</i>. Mutton dressed as lamb.  Lone in
the tooth and superfluous hairs.  A raw  onion the last thing at night would
benefit your complexion. And  take some double chin drill. Your eyes are  as
vapid  as the glass  eyes  of your stuffed fox. They  have the dimensions of
your other features, that's all. I'm not a triple screw propeller.
     BELLA (<i>Contemptuously</i>.) You're not game,  in fact. (<i>Her sowcunt barks</i>.)
Fohracht!
     BLOOM  (<i>Contemptuously</i>.) Clean  your nailless  middle finger first, the
cold spunk of your bully is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful  of
hay and wipe yourself.
     BELLA I know you, canvasser! Dead cod!
     BLOOM I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor!
     BELLA (<i>Turns  to the piano</i>.) Which  of  you  was playing the dead march
from <i>Saul?</i>
     ZOE Me. Mind your cornflowers. (<i>She darts to the piano and bangs chords
on it with  crossed  arms</i>.) The cat's ramble through the slag.  (<i>She glances
back</i>.) Eh? Who's  making love to my sweeties? (<i>She darts back to the table</i>.)
What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own.
     (<i>Kitty  disconcerted  coats her  teeth  with  the  silver  paper. Bloom
approaches Zoe</i>.)
     BLOOM  (<i>Gently</i>.) Give  me back that potato, will  you?  Zoe Forfeits, a
fine thing and a superfine thing.
     BLOOM (<i>With feeling</i>.) It is nothing, but still a relic of poor mamma.
     ZOE
     Give a thing and take it back
     God'll ask you where is that
     You'll say you don't know
     God'll send you down below.
     BLOOM There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it.
     STEPHEN To have or not to have, that is the question.
     ZOE  Here. (<i>She hauls  up a reef of her slip, revealing  her bare thigh
and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking</i>.) Those that hides knows
where to find.
     BELLA  (<i>Frowns</i>.)  Here. This isn't  a musical peepshow.  And  don't you
smash that piano. Who's paying here?
     (<i>She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out
a banknote by its corner, hands it to her</i>.)
     STEPHEN (With <i>exaggerated  politeness</i>.) This silken purse I made out of
the  sow's  ear  of  the  public. Madam, excuse  me. If you  allow  me.  (<i>He
indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom</i>.) We are all in the same sweepstake, Kinch
and Lynch. <i>Dans ce bordel oû tenons nostre ètat</i>.
     LYNCH (<i>Calls from the hearth</i>.) Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me.
     STEPHEN (<i>Hands Bella a coin</i>.) Gold. She has it.
     BELLA (<i>Looks at  the money, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty</i>.) Do you want
three girls? It's ten shillings here.
     STEPHEN (<i>Delightedly</i>.) A hundred thousand apologies.  (<i>He fumbles again
and  takes out and hands her two crowns</i>.) Permit, <i>brevi  manu</i>, my  sight  is
somewhat troubled.
     (<i>Bella goes  to the table  to count  the money  while Stephen talks  to
himself in monosyllables.  Zoe bounds  over to  the table. Kitty  leans over
Zoe's  neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty's waist, adds
his head to the group</i>.)
     FLORRY (<i>Strives heavily to rise</i>.) Ow! My foot's asleep. (<i>She limps over
to the table. Bloom approaches</i>.)
     <I>BELLA,  ZOE.  KITTY,  LYNCH, BLOOM</I>  (<i>Chattering  and  squabbling</i>.)  The
gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three allow me a moment... this
gentleman  pays  separate  who's  touching  it?...  ow...  mind  who  you're
pinching... are you staying  the night or a short time? who did?... you're a
liar,  excuse me... the  gentle man paid down  like a gentleman...  drink...
it's long after eleven.
     STEPHEN (<i>At  the pianola,  making a gesture of abhorrence</i>.) No bottles!
What, eleven? A riddle.
     ZOE (<i>Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the top
of her stocking</i>.) Hard earned on the flat of my back.
     LYNCH (<i>Lifting Kitty from the table</i>.) Come!
     KITTY Wait. (<i>She clutches the two crowns</i>.)
     FLORRY And me?
     LYNCH Hoopla! (<i>He  lifts her carries  her  and  bumps  her down on  the
sofa</i>.)
     STEPHEN The fox crew, the cocks flew, The bells in heaven Were striking
eleven. 'Tis time for her poor soul To get out of heaven.
     BLOOM (<i>Quietly  lays a half sovereign on  the table between  Bella  and
Florry</i>.) So. Allow me. (<i>He takes up the pound note</i>.) Three times  ten. We're
square.
     BELLA  (<i>Admiringly</i>.) You're  such a slyboots, old cocky.  I could  kiss
you.
     ZOE (<i>Points</i>.) Hum? Deep as a drawwell. (<i>Lynch bends Kitty back over the
sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with the poundnote to Stephen</i>.)
     BLOOM This is yours.
     STEPHEN How is that? <i>Le distrait</i> or absentminded  beggar.  (<i>He  fumbles
again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object falls</i>.) That
fell.
     BLOOM (<i>Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches</i>.) This.
     STEPHEN Lucifer. Thanks.
     BLOOM (<i>Quietly</i>.)  You had better hand over that cash to me to take care
of. Why pay more?
     STEPHEN (<i>Hands him all his coins</i>.) Be just before you are generous.
     BLOOM I will but is it wise? (<i>He counts</i>.) One, seven, eleven, and five.
Six. Eleven. I don't answer for what you may have lost.
     STEPHEN  Why  striking  eleven?  Proparoxyton.  Moment  before the next
Lessing  says. Thirsty fox.  (<i>He  laughs  loudly</i>.) Burying  his grandmother.
Probably he killed her.
     BLOOM That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say.
     STEPHEN Doesn't matter a rambling damn.
     BLOOM No, but...
     STEPHEN  (<i>Comes  to  the table</i>.) Cigarette,  please.  (<i>Lynch  tosses  a
cigarette from the sofa to  the table</i>.) And so  Georgina Johnson is dead and
married. (<i>A cigarette appears on the  table.  Stephen looks at  it</i>.) Wonder.
Parlour magic. Married.  Hm.  (<i>He  strikes a match and proceeds to light the
cigarette with enigmatic melancholy</i>.)
     LYNCH  (Watching him.) You would have a better chance of lighting it if
you held the match nearer.
     STEPHEN (<i>Brings the match nearer his eye</i>.) Lynx eye. Must get  glasses.
Broke them yesterday.  Sixteen years ago. Distance.  The  eye sees all flat.
(<i>He draws the match away. It goes out</i>.) Brain thinks. Near: far. Ineluctable
modality of the visible. (<i>He frowns  mysteriously</i>.) Hm.  Sphinx.  The  beast
that has two backs at midnight. Married.
     ZOE It was a commercial traveller married her  and took her  away  with
him.
     FLORRY (<i>Nods</i>.) Mr Lambe from London.
     STEPHEN Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world.
     LYNCH (<i>Embracing Kitty on  the sofa,  chants deeply.) Dona nobis pacem</i>.
(<i>The cigarette slips from Stephens fingers. Bloom  picks it up and throws it
into the grate</i>.)
     BLOOM Don't smoke.  You ought  to eat.  Cursed dog I met. (<i>To Zoe</i>.) You
have nothing?
     ZOE Is he hungry?
     STEPHEN (<i>Extends his hand to  her smiling and  chants to the air of the
bloodoath in the</i> Dusk of the Gods.)
     Hangende Hunger,
     Fragende Frau,
     Macht uns alle kaput.
     ZOE (<i>Tragically</i>.)  Hamlet,  I am  thy father's  gimlet! (<i>She  takes his
hand</i>.) Blue eyed beauty, I'll read your hand. (<i>She points to his  forehead</i>.)
No  wit, no  wrinkles.  (<i>She  counts</i>.)  Two, three,  Mars,  that's  courage.
(<i>Stephen shakes his head</i>.) No kid.
     LYNCH Sheet  lightning  courage.  The youth  who could not  shiver  and
shake. (<i>To Zoe</i>.) Who taught you palmistry?
     ZOE (<i>Turns</i>.) Ask my ballocks that I haven't got. (<i>To Stephen</i>.) I see it
in your face. The eye, like that. (<i>She frowns with lowered head</i>.)
     LYNCH (<i>Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice</i>.) Like that. Pandy bat.
     (<i>Twice loudly  a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open,
the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs up</i>.)
     FATHER DOLAN Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little
schemer. See it in your eye.
     (<i>Mild, benign,  rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises
from the pianola coffin</i>.)
     DON JOHN CONMEE Now, Father Dolan! Now. I'm sure that Stephen is a very
good little boy.
     ZOE (<i>Examining Stephen's palm</i>.) Woman's hand.
     STEPHEN (<i>Murmurs</i>.) Continue. Lie. Hold  me.  Caress. I never could read
His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock.
     ZOE What day were you born?
     STEPHEN Thursday. Today.
     ZOE Thursday's child has  far to go.  (<i>She traces  lines  on his hand</i>.)
Line of fate. Influential friends.
     FLORRY (<i>Pointing</i>.) Imagination.
     ZOE Mount of the moon.  You'll meet with  a... (<i>She peers at  his hands
abruptly</i>.) I won't tell you what's not good for you. Or do you want to know?
     BLOOM (<i>Detaches her  fingers and offers his palm</i>.) More harm than good.
Here. Read mine.
     BELLA Show. (<i>She turns up Bloom's hand</i>.) I thought so. Knobby knuckles,
for the women.
     ZOE  (<i>Peering  at Bloom's  palm</i>.) Gridiron. Travels beyond the  sea and
marry money.
     BLOOM Wrong.
     ZOE  (<i>Quickly</i>.)  O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That
wrong?
     (<i>Black  Liz,  a  huge  rooster  hatching  in a  chalked circle,  rises,
stretches her wings and clucks</i>.)
     BLACK LIZ Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook.
     (<i>She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off</i>.)
     BLOOM (<i>Points to his hand</i>.) That  weal there  is an accident. Fell  and
cut it twenty-two years ago. I was sixteen.
     ZOE I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.
     STEPHEN See?  Moves to  one great goal.  I  am twenty two too.  Sixteen
years ago I twentytwo tumbled, twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell  off  his
hobbyhorse. (<i>He winces</i>.) Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?
     (<i>Zoe  whispers  to  Florry. They  giggle.  Bloom releases his  hand and
writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves</i>.)
     FLORRY What?
     (<i>A   hackneycar  number   three   hundred  and   twentyfour,   with   a
gallantbuttocked mare, driven by  James Barton, Harmony Avenue,  Donnybrook,
trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying  on the  sideseats. The
Ormond  boots  crouches behind on the axle. Sadly  over the crossblind Lydia
Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze</i>.)
     THE BOOTS (<i>Jogging, mocks them with  thumb and  wriggling wormfingers.</i>)
Haw, haw, have you the horn?
     (<i>Bronze by gold they whisper</i>.)
     ZOE (<i>To Florry</i>.) Whisper.
     (<i>They whisper again.)
     (Over  the  well  of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater  straw set
sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan, in a yachtsman's cap and white
shoes, officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan s shoulder</i>.)
     LENEHAN Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off  a
few quims?
     BOYLAN (<i>Seated, smiles</i>.) Plucking a turkey.
     LENEHAN A good night's work.
     BOYLAN (<i>Holding up four thick  bluntungulated fingers,  winks</i>.)  Blazes
Kate! Up to  sample or your money back. (<i>He holds out  a forefinger</i>.)  Smell
that.
     LENEHAN (<i>Smells gleefully</i>.) Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah!
     ZOE AND FLORRY (<i>Laugh together</i>.) Ha ha ha ha.
     BOYLAN <i>bumps  surely from the car  and  calls loudly for all to hear</i>. )
Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom up yet?
     BLOOM (<i>In  a flunkey's plum plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings
and powdered wig</i>.) I'm afraid not, sir, the last articles...
     BOYLAN (<i>Tosses him sixpence</i>.) Here, to buy yourself  a gin  and splash.
(<i>He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered  head</i>.) Show me in. I
have a little private business with your wife. You understand?
     BLOOM Thank you, sir. Yes, sir, Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir.
     MARION He ought to feel himself highly honoured. (<i>She  plops  splashing
out of the water</i>.) Raoul, darling, come and dry me. I'm in  my pelt. Only my
new hat and a carriage sponge.
     BOYLAN (<i>A merry twinkle in his eye</i>.) Topping!
     BELLA What? What is it?
     (<i>Zoe whispers to her</i>.)
     MARION  Let him  look, the pishogue!  Pimp!  And  scourge himself! I'll
write to a  powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise
weals out  on  him  an  inch thick and make him  bring  me back a signed and
stamped receipt.
     BELLA (<i>Laughing</i>.) Ho ho ho ho.
     BOYLAN (<i>To  Bloom, over  his shoulder</i>.) You can apply your eye  to  the
keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.
     BLOOM Thank you, sir, I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness
the deed  and take a snapshot? (<i>He  holds  an ointment  jar</i>.) Vaseline, sir?
Orangeflower?... Lukewarm water?...
     KITTY (From the sofa.) Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What.
     (<i>Florry  whispers  to  her.  Whispering  lovewords  murmur  lip-lapping
loudly, poppysmic plopslop</i>.)
     MINA KENNEDY (<i>Her eyes upturned</i>.)  O,  it  must be  like  the  scent of
geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every  bit of her! Stuck
together! Covered with kisses!
     LYDIA DOUCE (<i>Her mouth opening</i>.) Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round the
room doing it! Ride a cock horse. You could hear them in Paris and New York.
Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.
     KITTY (<i>Laughing</i>.) Hee hee hee.
     BOYLAN'S VOICE (<i>Sweetly, hoarsely,  in  the  pit  of his  stomach</i>.) Ah!
Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht!
     MARION'S   VOICE  (<i>Hoarsely,  sweetly  rising   to   her  throat</i>.)   O!
Weeshwashtkissima, pooisthnapoohuck!
     BLOOM  (<i>His  eyes  wildly  dilated, clasps himself</i>)  Show! Hide!  Show!
Plough her! More! Shoot!
     BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY. KITTY Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee!
     LYNCH  (<i>Points</i>.) The mirror up to nature.  (<i>He laughs</i>.) Hu hu  hu hu hu
hu.
     (<i>Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare,
beardless,  appears  there,  rigid  in  facial  paralysis,  crowned  by  the
reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall</i>.)
     SHAKESPEARE (<i>In dignified  ventriloquy</i>.)  'Tis the  loud laugh bespeaks
the vacant mind. (<i>To Bloom</i>.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest  invisible.
Gaze. (<i>He crows with a black capon's laugh</i>.) Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit
his Thursdaymomun. Iagogogo!
     BLOOM (<i>Smiles yellowly at the whores</i>.) When will I hear the joke?
     ZOE Before you're twice married and once a widower.
     BLOOM Lapses are condoned. Even  the great  Napoleon, when measurements
were taken near the skin after his death...
     (<i>Mrs  Dignam,  widow  woman,  her  snubnose  and  cheeks  flushed  with
deathtalk,  tears  and Tunny's tawny  sherry, hurries by in her  weeds,  her
bonnet awry,  rouging  and powdering  her  cheeks,  lips  and  nose,  a  pen
chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt  appear her late husband's
everyday trousers and  turnedup  boots,  lace  eights.  She holds a Scottish
widow's insurance policy and lace marqueeumbrella under which her brood runs
with her,  Patsy hopping on one short  foot,  his  collar  loose, a  hank of
porksteaks dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy with a crying cods mouth, Alice
struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, her streamers flaunting aloft</i>.)
     FREDDY Ah, ma, you're dragging me along!
     SUSY Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over!
     SHAKESPEARE (<i>With paralytic rage</i>.) Weda seca whokilla farst.
     (<i>The  face  of  Martin  Cunningham,  bearded,  refeatures  Shakespeares
beardless face. The marqueeumbrella sways drunkenly, the children run aside.
Under  the umbrella  appears  Mrs Cunningham  in Merry Widow hat and  kimono
gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twisting japanesily</i>.)
     MRS CUNNINGHAM (<i>Sings</i>.) And they call me the jewel of Asia.
     MARTIN CUNNINGHAM
     (<i>Gazes on her impassive</i>.) Immense! Most bloody awful demirep!
     STEPHEN  <i>Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti</i>.  Queens  lay  with  prize bulls.
Remember Pasiphae  for whose lust  my  grandoldgross  father  made the first
confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the
house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was open.
     BELLA None of that here. Come to the wrong shop.
     LYNCH Let him alone. He's back from Paris.
     ZOE (<i>Runs to Stephen and links him</i>.) O go on! Give us some parleyvoo.
     (<i>Stephen  claps hat  on head and leaps over to the  fireplace, where he
stands  with  shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread,  a painted smile on
his face</i>.)
     LYNCH (<i>Pommelling on the sofa</i>.) Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrr rrrmmmmm.
     STEPHEN  (<i>Gobbles,  with  marionette   jerks</i>.  )   Thousand  places  of
entertainment to expenses your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and
other  things  perhaps  her  heart beerchops perfect fashionable  house very
eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful  dressed much about princesses  like
are dancing cancan and  walking there parisian clowneries  extra foolish for
bachelors foreigns the same  if  talking a poor english how much  smart they
are on things love and  sensations  voluptuous.  Misters very selects for is
pleasure must  to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary  candles and they
tears  silver which  occur  every  night.  Perfectly  shocking  terrific  of
religion's things mockery seen in  universal world. All  chic  womans  which
arrive  full  of modesty then  disrobe  and squeal loud to see  vampire  man
debauch nun very  fresh young with <i>dessous troublants. (He clocks his tongue
loudly.) Ho, la la! Ce pif qu'il a!</i>
     LYNCH <i>Vive le vampire!</i>
     THE WHORES Bravo! Parleyvoo!
     STEPHEN  (<i>Grimacing with  head back, laughs loudly,  clapping  himself</i>)
Great success  of laughing. Angels much  prostitutes like and holy  apostles
big damn ruffians. <i>Demimondaines</i>  nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very
amiable  cos  turned. Or  do you are fond  better what belongs  they moderns
pleasure turpitude of old mans? (<i>He points about him with grotesque gestures
which Lynch and the whores reply to</i>.)  Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or
lifesize  tompeeptoms virgins nudities very  lesbic the kiss five ten times.
Enter gentlemen to see in mirrors every positions trapezes all that  machine
there besides also if desire  act awfully bestial butcher's  boy pollutes in
warm veal liver or omelette on the belly <i>piõce de Shakespeare.</i>
     BELLA (<i>Clapping  her  belly, sinks back  on  the  sofa with a shout  of
laughter</i>.) An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... Omelette on the