(the puzzle is why Joyce rejected these newly discovered drafts)
Let's start in August 1923, with the winner.
After six months of false starts, James Joyce is finally happy with this vignette of Tristan and Isolde's first(??) kiss. Going sentence by sentence: *
The handsome sixfoottwo rugger and soccer champion and the belle of Chapelizod in her ocean blue brocade bunnyhugged scrumptiously in the dark behind the chief steward's cabin while with sinister dexterity he alternately rightandlefthandled fore and aft her palpable rugby and association bulbs.
Most of these words can still be discerned in lines 21-31 of the published page 384.
We've got the archetypal young man and young woman, on a ship at night, progressing towards intercourse, hiding from society's (aka the chief steward's) eyes. Tris sees it as sport/performance/giving? (bulbhandling), Issy as charm/romance/taking? (bunnyhugging). Or, she hears the scene narrated by a women's magazine, he by a sports reporter. Tris successfully balances the righteous with the 'sinister'.
Cf Jul: Penelope 103 "like all bad men he looks attractive"
The 'bunnyhug' was a dance
'palpable' = the sense of touch
(I can't tell if Rugby and Association Football was ever really a single thing...?)
Cf earlier draft: "Isolde, her longfamous lashes butterflykissing his near and farfamous cheek, felt him sweeter than cherry or plum, than candy kisses or Lipton's fruitcake, than the hawthorn valley in the [month]{first fortnight} of May, than the finest {band} music going than lovely {thick with the} sleep. She murmured {googooeyes}:" (longfamous:time::farfamous:space?) (so many 'f's!)
As Joyce is alluding to the T&I legend via Wagner and Bedier, they're newly under the spell of a love potion, and she's betrothed to his uncle, King Mark.
She murmurously asked for some but not too much of the best poetry reflecting on the situation her reason being that by the light of the moon of the silvery moon she loved to spoon before her honeymoomoon.
She wants him to play the romantic role as she's imagined it, using poetry to charm. 'Some but not too much' is part of a 'metrics' motif. 'Reflecting on' is a mirror/modality motif. Her 'reason' is just a feeling.
(See lines 20-29 of the published page 385.)
"By the light of the silvery moon, I want to spoon" [1909 song] (Lots of quoted poetry and song lyrics.)
Cf "--Smiling Johnny, pleaded she gynelexically, do you care for meemee just a [wherry little]{weeny mossel}?" (subject after verb; 'gynelexically' implies feminine logic?)
"She murmured {googooeyes}... pleaded she gynelexically... She murmurously asked"
Onomatopoeia/babytalk: "bunnyhugged scrumptiously... honeymoomoon... dazedcrazedgazed... passionpanting... milkymouthily... rightjingbangshot... shiveryshaky quiveryquaky mixumgatherum yumyumyum... twittingly twinkling... ittly ittly hankyfuss... ittly ittly nibblenose... meemee... weeny mossel... staggerhumanity... sobstuff... butterflykissing... googooeyes... goody twoshoes, aunty Nance, stepladder, green peas, love me little, funny toast, lovers' lever, love me long... knickybockies"
He promptly then elocutioned to her in decasyllabic iambic hexameter: "Roll on, thou deep and darkblue ocean, roll!"
(See lines 35-36 of the published page 385.)
He recites Byron's iambic pentameter... but Joyce hears an implied Alexandrine???
"ocean blue... darkblue ocean, roll... darkblue ocean roll... darkblue rolling ocean" [swatches] [dark]
Cf March/June? "Up they gazed, skyward to stardom, while in his girleen's ear that loveless lover, sinless sinner breathed:" (he's not at all athletic yet!)
Cf "Offsong and partially selfstrangled tried to reply he:" (subject after verb)
Cf "He, {her whitehaired {dough}boy,} hero of tens of serums, {carrier of the ovum,} Kisser of hundreds, blocker of thousands, ejaculator of jugfuls, ?loudly [spoke]{?sniffled}, his {nasal} voice falling in strange ineffectual dropkick, so; in the language of diplomacy..."
It was a gorgeous sensation he being exactly the right man in the right place and the weather conditions could not possibly have been improved.
Joyce later annotated these three Issy-sentences as hypotaxis, in contrast to T's parataxis.
For the moment, Issy's in a good/manic mood. [FW 386.34]
Cf "It wasn't exactly anything he said or it wasn't anything he actually did but all the same it was something about him like the way he was always sticking his finger into his trousers pocket and then sticking it into his eye like a borny baby, the great big slob or the once she dropped her ittly ittly hankyfuss and the way so graceful he picked it up with his near hoof and footed it up so politefully to her ittly ittly nibblenose. She was tearing..." (eyes forming tears?)
Cf "She lifted her head, her eyes [content]{supremely satisfied}. For now she [knew] {that he was a loveslave for ?life} [and] {rather gathered} {from his persiflage} that she was {the one}..."
Cf earlier draft: "Isolde, her longfamous lashes butterflykissing his near and farfamous cheek, felt him sweeter than cherry or plum, than candy kisses or Lipton's fruitcake, than the hawthorn valley in the [month]{first fortnight} of May, than the finest {band} music going than lovely {thick with the} sleep."
Her role was to roll on the darkblue ocean roll that rolled on round the round roll Robert Roly rolled round.
[FW 389.08]
Robert may represent the cad from Exiles, Robert Hand.
"Roly" suggests roly-poly/plump (so not athletic Tris?).
Tristan aka Tris aka "Robert Roly... ?Trist... Smiling Johnny... Daniel"
Roderick O'Conor has been "heeltapping round his own right royal round rollicking table" since March. There might also be an echo of Kevin's concentric circles (since April): Issy-on-ocean around Robert around a 'round roll'. Or, Issy around Tristan?
She gazed while his deepsea peepers gazed O gazed O dazedcrazedgazed into her darkblue rolling ocean eyes.
Issy and Tristan now mirroring each other equally?
[FW 389.26]
He then having dephlegmatised his throat uttered as follows from his voicebox: "Isolde!"
Like a pompous opera tenor? (a Shaun?) [FW 394.20-24? after skipping five pages of Mmlj]
Latinate/multisyllabic: "dephlegmatised... insinuated desideration of his declaration... oculise... multimathematical immaterialities... exteriorates... precautiously... procathedral of amorous seductiveness... uranographically... sagaciously ... persiflage... gynelexically... clandestine fornication... proleptically... glaucomatose... cataractic... cataclysmic cataglottism"
By elevation of eyelids that she addressed insinuated desideration of his declaration.
Cf "She lifted her head, her eyes [content]{supremely satisfied}"?
-- Isolde, O Isolde, when theeupon I oculise my most inmost Ego most vaguely senses the profundity of multimathematical immaterialities whereby in the pancosmic urge the Allimmanence of That Which Is Itself exteriorates on this here our plane of disunited solid liquid and gaseous bodies in pearlwhite passionpanting intuitions of reunited Selfhood in the higher dimensional Selflessness.
"palpable... immaterialities"
Cf the philosophical jargon of July's B&P
Cf March "Gaunt in gloom/ The pale stars their torches/ Enshrouded wave/ Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume/ Arches on soaring arches,/ Night's sindark nave/ Seraphim/ The pale stars awaken/ To service till/ In muted gloom each lapses, muted, dim/ Raised when she has and shaken/ Her thurible/ And long and loud/ To night's nave upsoaring/ A starknell tolls/ As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,/ Voidward from the adoring/ Waste of souls" (Nightpiece)
Cf "Lady, I am not worthy. [If you but knew]{You little ?know}. Why were we ?born in two different places? Wherefore have we met yesterday so to speak? Why this strangulation, this yearning for a bonum arduum as distinguished from a bonum simpliciter? {Will you accept a portion of my divided heart?} Well away, alas, for death in, with, for and on account of my well beloved I mutely yearn." (disunited bodies/ different places... divided heart)
Cf Issy(?) "My precious since last we parted it seems to me that I have been ?continually in your company, even when I close my eyes at night. {I am continually} seeing you hearing you, meeting you in different places so that I['m] {am} beginning to wonder whether my soul does not take leave of my body in sleep and go to seek you and what is more find you or [perhaps]{perchance} [?or ?perchaps] this is only a phantasy. ?Tell me Daniel, my precious darling." (different places)
Cf "--{Mais} pourquoi es-tu [entrée]{andrée} dans ma ?fie, Henritte S, je ?croyais mon âme déjà morte" (Why have you entered my ?life, I believe my soul's already dead???)
Hear, O hear, all ye caller herrings! Silent be, O Moyle! Milky Way, strew dim light!
I read this as T's art actually moving the stars...? (Cf the seabirds mocking their kiss?)
Cf "true new blind bottomless staggerhumanity love at first sight"
She reunited milkymouthily his hers and their disunited lips and quick as greased lightning the Breton champion drove the advance messenger of love with one virile tonguethrust past the double line of ivoryclad forwards fullback rightjingbangshot into the goal of her gullet.
Why reunited?
Cf "Love she wanted the obtainable, true new blind bottomless staggerhumanity love at first sight for which reason she again kissed him and he, being an inborn gentleman, counterkissed" ('again')
Now what do you candidly suppose she, a strapping young Irish princess scaling nine stone twelve in her pelt, cared at that precise physiological moment about tiresome old King Mark, that tiresome old pantaloon in his tiresome old twentytwoandsixpenny shepherd's plaid trousers?
9 stone 12 = 138 lbs
Cf? "tiresome old pantaloon... mousy mop... damned old dinner of burnt loinchops and ignoble potatoes... pig's arse and cabbage... silversides boiled cowbeef... purpletop swedes... his nasal voice falling in strange ineffectual dropkick"
Cf epithets "tiresome old pantaloon... you damned sneakylooking soaper... the great big slob... you thing... your stinking putrid soul... you scum... you bloody bitch... [?ginger ?bitch]{mousy mop}... old buzzard... rummest old rooster"
Not as much as a pinch of henshit and that's the meanest thing that was ever known.
I see here, barely, the elsewhere-strong motif of Issy's moodswings.
Cf Dec22? "How do you do, you damned sneakylooking soaper you think you're not going to fork out? How do you do, Mr X! You haven't got in yet I know what you're after nor you won't. I hope you're quite well"
Cf March "Go away from me instantly, she cried..."
Cf "--Go away from me instantly you thing, she roared. Curse your stinking putrid soul and all belonged to you, you scum. Forget me not!
-- Perfect, you bloody bitch, he said..."
Cf "-- Go away instantly, she roared, you scum!
-- Perfect, he said, you bloody bitch...
-- Curse your stinking putrid soul to hell, you thing, and all belonged to
you..."
Cf "she knew full well that she was the one and not that mousy mop ?Katiagnes O Halloran [with the] golliwog curls."
Cf Tris "he pastloveyed her with a blackedged expression."
Cf "O, can that sobstuff! My own loverman must not talk like that, answered the bold puss impatiently after her waiting patiently all through the damned old dinner of burnt loinchops and ignoble potatoes with everybody talking from soup to nuts about loinchops and potatoes and the pig's arse and cabbage the day before and the silversides boiled cowbeef of the day before that again with purpletop swedes and equally ignoble potatoes without a morsel of appetite."
No, on the contrary, if the truth must be told lovingly she lovegulped his pulpous propeller and both together in the most fashionable weather they both went all of a shiveryshaky quiveryquaky mixumgatherum yumyumyum.Echoing "It was a gorgeous sensation he being exactly the right man in the right place and the weather conditions could not possibly have been improved."
After which before the traditional ten seconds were up Tristan considerately allowed his farfamed chokegrip to relax and precautiously withdrew the instrument of rational speech from the procathedral of amorous seductiveness.
Cf "his near and farfamous cheek... "partially selfstrangled... this strangulation... farfamed chokegrip" (Dec22 B10.72 "that woman ought to be strangled")
-- I'm real glad to have run on to you, ?Trist, you fascinator, you! she said, awfully bucked by her gratifying experience of the love embrace from a bigtimer like him with an interesting tallow complexion from whom great things were expected as he was evidently a notoriety in the poetry department as well for he never saw an orange but he thought of a porringer and to cut a long story short taking him by and large he meant everything to her just then, her beau ideal of a true girl's friend neither big ugly nor small nice.
for Issy, romance is a calculation?
tallow complexion = pale, sickly. Cf "With feverish pallor {indicating ?strong action of the higher seas on a teetotal stomach"
Echoing "It was a gorgeous sensation he being exactly the right man in the right place and the weather conditions could not possibly have been improved."
==========
0. B10.50 Dec 1922 []
"How do you do, you damned sneakylooking soaper you think you're not going to fork out? How do you do, Mr X! You haven't got in yet I know what you're after nor you won't. I hope you're quite well"
1a. March 1923
T. recites a gloomy poem to I. as they stargaze
she's upset and sends him away, then changes her mind
he changes direction
strewing, the strikingly shining, the twittingly twinkling, and (as he truly remarked) the lamplights of lovers.
Up they gazed, skyward, while in her ear that loveless lover breathed:
Gaunt in gloom
The pale stars their torches
Enshrouded wave
Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume
Arches on soaring arches,
Night's sindark naveSeraphim
The pale stars awaken
To service till
In muted gloom each lapses, muted, dim
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thuribleAnd long and loud
To night's nave upsoaring
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls-- Go away from me instantly, she cried.
-- Perfect, he said.
He took leave of her and went before many instants had passed.
-- No, come back, she cried. I can't live without you.
-- It's important, he said, stopped and circulated at walker's pace in an opposed direction.
1b. June 1923
still stargazing, T brags to I how kind and sensitive he is
she starts to agree but then flipflops
he again goes away, angrily
she reverses herself and he reverses himself
their nephew-aunt relationship is mentioned
strewing, the strikingly shining, the twittingly twinkling, our true home and (as he uranographically remarked) the lamplights of lovers in the Beyond.
Up they gazed, skyward to stardom, while in his girleen's ear that loveless lover, sinless sinner breathed:
-- How gentle and kind I am, Issy. I never hurt the feelings of another. And I say, what a lovely nature is mine!
It wasn't exactly anything he said or it wasn't anything he exactly did but all the same it was something about him like the way he was always sticking his finger into his trousers pocket and then sticking it into his eyes like a borny baby, the great big slob that she let out a whistle or the once she dropped her ittle hankyfuss and the way so graceful he picked it up with his hoof and footed it up politefully to her ittle nibblenose.
-- Go away from me instantly you thing, she roared. Curse your stinking putrid soul and all belonged to you, you scum. Forget me not!
-- Perfect, you bloody bitch, he said.
He took leave of her and circulated as bidden. Hearing his name called before many instants had passed he most sagaciously ceased to walk about and turned, his look now charged with purpose.
-- No, come back, she cried. How sweetly you have responded to us. I so want you!
-- It's important, her nephew, who was very continental, said, stopped and circulated at walker's pace in an opposed direction.
1c.
very similar, but I's first response is to brag similarly
T remains angry when he first returns
she praises his response as noble/loyal
strewing, the strikingly shining, the twittingly twinkling and as he uranographically remarked the lamplights of lovers in the Beyond.
Up they gazed skyward to stardom while in his girleen's ear that loveless lover sinless sinner breathed
-- How gentlemanlike am I, Issy. I never hurt the feelings of another?
-- And, ?Tris, what a sweet nature is mine, is not it?
It wasn't exactly anything he said or it wasn't anything he actually did but all the same it was something about him like the way he was always sticking his finger into his trousers pocket and then sticking it into his eye like a borny baby, the great big slob or the once she dropped her ittly ittly hankyfuss and the way so graceful he picked it up with his near hoof and footed it up so politefully to her ittly ittly nibblenose. She was tearing.
-- Go away instantly, she roared, you scum!
-- Perfect, he said, you bloody bitch.
He took French leave of her and circulated as bidden. Before many instants had passed she let out a whistle. Hearing his name called most sagaciously he ceased to walk about and turned on her, his look now charged with purpose seemed to say.
-- Curse your stinking putrid soul to hell, you thing, and all belonged to you
-- No, come back, she ?ogled. Forget me not. I do so want you!
-- It is perfect, her all but nephew said.
Having ?already stopped he turned and circulated in reverse direction and presently halted vis a vis his soon to be aunt who welcomed him as she said:
-- How nobly you have responded to our call, loyal one.
2a.
she's gained confidence regarding rivals
he's sad and sickly, nostalgic for past lovers
she calls him 'Smiling Johnny' and asks for reassurance
he expresses morbid philosophical doubts about loving her(?)
she scolds him for his selfpity
2b.
she's bothered by dull recent meals(!)
she wants perfect love and "again" kisses him
he justifies kissing her back because the female should rule(?)
he asks her to swear she's a virgin
3.
I. 'kisses' his cheek with her eyelashes
she tells him she feels his presence even when they're apart
she says "Tell me Daniel"???
his?? ovum and his semen are praised(?)
he says "Mais pourquoi es-tu [entre'e]
je ??croyais mon a^me deja morte"
(why have you entered my life, I believe my soul's already dead???)
(Henriette was one of T's named lovers in 2a)
4.
Issy's virtues are described:
prudence, geography (minimal), charm (postures),
poor health, minimal piety, minimal zoology,
sloppy housekeeping, pity even for the devil,
charity that involved stripping off clothes
A (published).
in passing, Mamalujo remark T kissing I
B (published).
T&I are happily groping, aboard a ship
she asks for a poem
he babbles philosophical jargon
she's moved, and kisses him
she thinks of Mark's flaws
she thinks T is perfect for her
from 1a to 1b to 1c, they seem to mirror each other more fully
2b probably follows 2a.
2a might follow B, or 3???
in 1a, 2a, 3 and B T expresses something deep and risky.
in 1a and 2a she reacts badly, in B she reacts well.
2a, 2b, A and B include reminiscing
in 2a, is the mousy mop Katiagnes a forerunner of Kate the mop?
T is called gentle(man) in 1b, 1c, 2a, and 2b
Mmlj are called gentlemen in A
in B, T fondles I "with sinister dexterity he alternately rightandlefthandled fore and aft"
in 3, I kisses T's "near and farfamous cheek"
2a and 3 mention "different places"
the theme of reversals is echoed in the earliest(?) ROC vignette ("switchbackward road") with ROC himself circling the table in one direction only (are we sure the 1st attempts with T&I aren't earlier?)
==========
page 5Over them the winged ones screamed their glee, seahawk, seagull, curlew and plover, kestrel, capercailzie. All the birds of the sea they trolled out rightbold and they heard of the kiss of Tristan and Isolde. So sang sea birds:page 6Three caws for Mister Mark
Sure he hasn't got much of a bark
And sure any he has is all beside the mark.
O [Eagle]{Wreneagle} Highflighty wouldn't it be a sky of a lark
To see that old buzzard whooping around in his shirt in the dark
And he hunting about for his speckled trousers in Palmerston park
O moulty Mark
You're the rummest old rooster ever crawled out of a Noah's ark
And you think you're the cock of the walk:
Fowl's up! Tristan's a spry young spark
That'll tread her and wed her and bed her and red her
Without even winking the tale of a feather
And that's how that chap's going to make his money and markThe Four Waves of [Ireland]{Erin} also heard, leaning upon the staves of memory. Four eminently respectable old [gentlemen]{heladies} they looked, got up in sleek holiday toggery for the occasion: grey half tall [hat]{toque}, {tailormade} frock coats to match, fathomglasses and soforth, you know, for all the worlds' {apart from the salt water} like the fourth viscount Powerscourt {or North the auctioneer} at the Royal Dublin Society's annual horseshow. They had seen their share: the capture of Sir Arthur Casement in the year 1132, [the] Coronation of Brian by the Danes at Clonmacnois, the drowning of Pharaoh ?Fhitzharris in the (proleptically) red sea.
The drowning of poor Mat Keane of Dunlearery, the scattering of the flemish armada off the coasts of Galway and Longford, the landing of St Patrick at Tara in the year 1798, the dispersal of the French fleet under General Boche in the year 2002. And such was their memory that they had been appointed lectern professors to the four chief seats of learning in Erin, the universities of Killorcure, Kill-them-all, Killeachother, Killkelly-on-the-Flure, whither they wirelessed four times weekly lectures in the four modes of history, past, present, absent and future. Saltsea widowers all four they had been many ages before summarily divorced by their respective [consorts]{shehusbands} (with whom they had parted on the best of terms) by a decree absolute issued by Mrs Justice [Smashman]{Squelchman} in the married male offenders court at Bohernabreena, one for inefficiency in backscratching, two for having broken {rere-}wind [from behind] without having first made a request in writing on stamped foolscap paper, three for having attempted hunnish familiarities after a meal [of] decomposed crab, four on account of [the general appearance of his face]{his general cast of countenance}. Though that was ever so long ago they could still with an effort of memory and by counting [carefully]{accurately} the four {periwinkle} buttons of the fly of their knickybockies recall the name of the four beautiful sisters Brinabride who were at the moment touring the United States of Africa.page 7
Yet were they fettersome and lured by the immortal rose of Wombman's beauty, often would they cling [to the sides]{tentacularly about the ships' waists} of the Northwall and Hollyhead boats and the Isle of Man tourist steamers, peering with glaucomatose eyes through the cataractic portholes of honeymoon cabins or saloon ladies' toilet apartments. But when those jossers aforesaid, the Four Waves of Erin, heard the detonation of the osculation (cataclysmic cataglottism) which with ostentation (osculum cum basio ?necuom suavioque) Tristan to Isolde gave, then lifted they up round Ireland's shores the wail of old men's [?glee.]{planxty:}page 8Highchanted the elderly Waves of Erin, in four-part Palestrian melody, four for all, all one in glee of grief of loneliness of age but with a bardic licence, there being about of birds and stars and noise quite a sufficient [number]{quantity}.
This plashed their wavechant:
A birdless heaven, seadusk and one star,
low in the west
And thou, poor heart, love's image, faint and far.
Rememberest
Her seacold eyes and her soft foamwhite brow
And fragrant hair,
Falling as through the silence falleth now
Dusk from the air.
A why wilt thou remember these.
A why,
Poor heart, repine,
If the dear love she yielded with a sigh
Was never thine!
Isolde, her longfamous lashes butterflykissing his near and farfamous cheek, felt him sweeter than cherry or plum, than candy kisses or Lipton's fruitcake, than the hawthorn valley in the [month]{first fortnight} of May, than the finest band music going, than lovely thick with the sleep. She murmured googooeyes:
-- My precious since last we parted it seems to me that I have been continually in your company, even when I close my eyes at night. I am continually seeing you, hearing you, meeting you in different places so that I am beginning to wonder whether my soul does not take leave of my body in sleep and go to seek you and what is more find you or [perhaps]{perchance} this is only a phantasy. Tell me Daniel, my precious darling.
Cf? Jul: Exiles2 107 "T steps aside + has a look at himself"
page 1He, her whitehaired doughboy, hero of tens of ?serums, carrier of the ovum, Kisser of hundreds, blocker of thousands, ejaculator of jugfuls, loudly [spoke]{sniffled}, his nasal voice falling in strange ineffectual dropkick, so, in the language of diplomacy:
-- Mais pourquoi es-tu [entrée]{andrée} dans ma ?fie, Henritte S, je ?croyais mon âme déjà morte.
page 2She lifted her head, her eyes [content]{supremely satisfied}. For now she ?[knew] ?{full well that he was a loveslave for ?life} [and she] ?{rather gathered} ?{from his persiflage} that she was {the one} and not that [?ginger ?bitch]{mousy mop} ?[with the golliwog curls] ?Katiagnes O Halloran.
He, the gentleman, was sadvisaged. First he was ?{a martyr to indigestion,} rather liable to piles procured by sitting on stone walls ?{where he contracted a stubborn cough} ?{while revelling in the beauty of nature} and over and above that by medical advice of Dr Codd he had been lowering daily [draughts]{potions} of extract of willow bark to keep off the Hibernian flu. With feverish pallor ?{indicating ?strong action of the higher seas on a teetotal stomach} he beheld the holy ghosts of his undergradual loves, Henriette atop of the haycock, Nenette de l'Abbaye behind the taproom dor, Marie Louise all fun and fleas, tipsy Suzanne catch as catch can, and last but not least the rawboned housekeeper of the local parish priest ?Ghupthly, he pastloveyed her ?{with a blackedged expression}.
-- Smiling Johnny, pleaded she {gynelexically}, do you care for memeee just a [{wherry} little]{weeny mossel}?
Offsong and partially selfstrangled tried to reply he:
-- ?{Yes,} lady, I am not worthy. You little know. Why were we born in two different places? Wherefore have we met yesterday so to speak? Why this strangulation, this yearning for a bonum arduum as distinguished from a bonum simpliciter? {Will you accept a portion of my divided heart?} Well away, alas, for death in, with, for and on account of my well beloved I mutely yearn.
-- O, can that sobstuff! My own loverman must not talk like that, answered [Isolde]{the [Dublin]{bold} puss}
impatiently after her waiting patiently all through the damned old dinner of burnt loinchops and ignoble potatoes with everybody talking from soup to nuts about loinchops and potatoes and the pig's arse and cabbage the day before and the silversides boiled cowbeef of the day before that again with purpletop swedes and equally ignoble potatoes without a morsel of appetite.page 9Love she wanted the obtainable, true new blind bottomless staggerhumanity love at first sight for which reason she again kissed him and he, being an inborn gentleman, counterkissed because it was his one maxim in this life that if a lady, for example, wanted a bite of a piece of Stilton cheese and he happened, for argument' sake, to have a quarter of a pound or so of Stilton cheese in his pocket why he'd just simply put his hand in his pocket, don't you know, and well he'd just give her the cheese, don't you see, to take a bite off. However first and foremost, before testing her triangle to prove whether she was as the newspapers reported a wife intacta, he asked her whether she had ever indulged in clandestine fornication.
-- No, Nein, Never, she sang. By the axecleft of my notch! By the hair of my dearest parents! By the inviolable devil of Ben Bulben! By the fresh water ?pullan ?heavy
Her mournful embracer pointed to the starry host. By them he bade her swear, them that were and are and shall be, the silently
page 10strewing, the strikingly shining, the twittingly twinkling and as he uranographically remarked the lamplights of lovers in the Beyond.
Up they gazed skyward to stardom while in his girleen's ear that loveless lover sinless sinner breathed
-- How gentlemanlike am I, Issy. I never hurt the feelings of another?
-- And, ?Tris, what a sweet nature is mine, is not it?
It wasn't exactly anything he said or it wasn't anything he actually did but all the same it was something about him like the way he was always sticking his finger into his trousers pocket and then sticking it into his eye like a borny baby, the great big slob or the once she dropped her ittly ittly hankyfuss and the way so graceful he picked it up with his near hoof and footed it up so politefully to her ittly ittly nibblenose. She was tearing.
-- Go away instantly, she roared, you scum!
-- Perfect, he said, you bloody bitch.
He took French leave of her and circulated as bidden. Before many instants had passed she let out a whistle. Hearing his name called most sagaciously he ceased to walk about and turned on her, his look now charged with purpose seemed to say.
-- Curse your stinking putrid soul to hell, you thing, and all belonged to you
-- No, come back, she ?ogled. Forget me not. I do so want you!
-- It is perfect, her all but nephew said.
Having ?already stopped he turned and circulated in reverse direction and presently halted vis a vis his soon to be aunt who welcomed him as she said:
-- How nobly you have responded to our call, loyal one.
Shortly after having ?come into this vale of tears, the little stranger Kevineen delighted himself by sporting with the sponge on tubbing night. As a growing boy under the influence of holy religion instilled into him across his grandmother's old ?king ?Jones's knee he grew more and more pious like the time God knows when ejaculating for forty days indulgence and ten quarantines he sat down on the plate of mutton broth. He simply had no time for girls and things and often used he to say to his dearest mother and dear sisters as how his dearest mother and dear sisters were good enough for him. Of him we are further told that at the age of six he wrote a school prize essay on kindness to freshwater fish.
page 4For her prudence she always left the key of her press in the lock of her press, the pen of the inkbottle in the neck of the ink bottle. Never were they lost.
For her learning in geog she knew that Italy was a jackboot, India a pink ham and France a patched quilt.
For her charm she knew how to stagemanage her legs in the several positions of goody twoshoes, aunty Nance, stepladder, green peas, love me little, funny toast, lovers' lever, love me long.
For her health only her in the house got the measles when she was a bottlefed babe.
For her piety Isolde's night prayer and orison so ran:
-- Howfar wartnevin alibithename Kingcome illbedone nerth tisnevin. Usisday daybread givesdressp sweegivethem dresspas gainstus leesnot tootntation liversm evil Men.For her learning in zoog she knew lamb, lamb a young sheep.
For her domestic economy she cleaned the chimney flue by setting fire to an Irish Times and hooshing it blazing up the flue and she washed the hall by standing leaving her wet umbrella ?sweeping open in a corner.
For her pity there were times she even pitied the damned old devil himself playing demon patience after his lunch of hot air fanning himself with his asbestos slippers in the coolingroom in hell.
For her charity one day when it was sneezing cold she met a beggargirl in the park and, having no small change about her, she went behind a bramblebush, slipped off her sprigged petticoat and gave it to the beggargirl who instantly disappeared (she having been in point of fact Saint Dympna who got up the exhibition of poverty on purpose) along with the petticoat. On another occasion there was a pestilence caused by a certain dragon who said it would go on for ever unless she took off all her clothes and walked from Cape Clear to Mizzen Head. So she did this. And everybody pulled down all their blinds in Ireland. The dragon was then converted and entered a nunnery.
As slow their ship, the sea being slight, upon the face of waters moved by courtesy of God that handsome brineburnt sixfooter Gaelic, rugger and soccer champion and the dinkum belle of Lucalizod quite charming in her oceanblue brocade and an overdress of net darned with gold well in advance of the newest fashion exhibits bunnyhugged scrumptiously when it was dark whilst they dissimulated themself on the eighteen inch loveseat behind the chieftaness stewardess's cabin whilst also with sinister dexterity he alternately rightandlefthandled fore and aft, on and offside her palpable rugby and association bulbs. She, after a cough, murmurously then gave her firm order for tootsweet if he wouldn't please mind some though not too much of the six best national poetry quotations reflecting on the situation so long as it was a stroke or two above it's a fine night and yon moon shines bright and all to that, the plain fact of the matter being that being a natural born lover of nature in all her moods and senses, by the light of the moon, of the silvery moon she longed to spoon before her honeyoldmoon at the same time drinking in long draughts of purest air serene and revelling in the great outdoors. That mouth of mandibles vowed to pure beauty promptly elocutionised to her a favourite lyrical bloom bellclear in iambic decasyllabic hexameter:
-- Rollon thoudeep andamp anddark blueo ceanroll!
Lady, it was just too gorgeous for words, the whole sensation. The sea, of a lovely tint embellished by the best charms of nature, with its wellmannered wavelets (the dirty horrid rude ones from the Belfast and Lagan Lough neighbourhood being very properly locked up in cubbyhole) looked really awfully pretty at the mid hour of night and more especially he being emphatically the right man in the right place, the weather conditions could not possibly have been improved upon. Praises be to fair sea. Her rôle was to roll onthedark blueo ceanroll that rolled on round the round roll that Robert Roly rolled round. Breathtaking beauty, Ireland's bonniest, she did but gaze while from his altitude of onehundredandthirtytwo lines his deepseapeepers gazed O gazed O dazedcrazedgazed into her darkblue rolling ocean orbs.
-- Thanks ever so much she sighed, thrilled by that olive throb of his nude neck, and ever so much again for that tiny quote. It sort of made everything ever so much more delightful. How perfectly sweet of you!
Nothing if not amorous, he, rosecrumpler, thrilldriver, sighinspirer, having prealably dephlegmatised his guttur of that ticklish frog in the throat, his useful arm getting busy on the touchline due south of her western shoulder, uttered what was to follow with grand passion from his toploftical voicebox:
-- Isolde!
By elevation of eyelids t'ward her dear coolun that She invoked insinuated desideration of more declaration.
He was instant and he declared:
-- Isolde! O Isolde! Sister soul and hand! When theeuponthus Sir Tristan binoculises his most unwitting ego most subconsciously senses the deprofundity of multimathematical immaterialities whereby in the pancosmic urge the allimmanence of That Which Itself is Itself Alone exteriorates on this here our plane in disunited solid, liquid and gaseous bodies in pearlwhite passionpanting intuitions of reunited selfhood in the higherdimensional selfless Allself.
Hear, O hear, all ye caller herring! Silent be, O Moyle! Milky Way, strew dim light!
Right here a pretty thing happened. When her flattering hand of pure diversion mayhap had jessaminely at the just right moment shut his duckhouse the vivid girl, deaf with love, (you know her, that angel being, one of passion's fadeless wonderwomen! You dote on her! You love her to death!) with a queer little cry reunited milkymouthily his her then their disunited lips when, tonguetasting the golden opportunity of a lifetime, quick as greased pigskin the Armorican champion with one virile tonguethrust drove the advance messenger of love flash past the double line of eburnean forwards rightjingbangshot into the goal of her gullet.
Now, I am just putting it direct to you as one manowoman to another, what the blankety blank diggings do you for example candidly suppose that she, a strapping young modern old ancient Irish princess a good eighteen hands high and scaling nine stone twelve paddock weight in her madapolam smock with nothing under her hat but red hair and solid ivory not forgetting a firstrate pair of bedroom eyes of most unholy hazel cared at that precise psychoanalytical moment about tiresome old King Mark that tiresome old milkless ram with his duty peck and his bronchial tubes, the tiresome old ourangoutan beaver in his tiresome old twentytwoandsixpenny shepherd's plaid trousers? Not as much as a pinch of henshit and that's the meanest thing now was ever known since Adam was in the boy's navy. No, heaven knows, far from it, if the unvarnished truth must be told at the very first blush lovingly she lovegulped her American's pulpous propeller and both together in the most fashionable weather they all went off a lulliloving a dither me die me dandy O after which, believing in safety first, before the regulation ten seconds were up volatile Brittany considerately allowed his farfamed sparking plug chokegrip to relax and precautiously withdrew the instrument of rational speech from the procathedral of amorous seductiveness.
-- I'm right glad I ran on to you, Tris, you fascinator you! Miss Erin said, when she had won free, laughing at the same time delightfully in dimpling bliss, being awfully bucked by her gratifying experience of the love embrace from a highly continental bigtimer the like of him possessed of a handsome face well worth watching with an interesting tallow complexion from which great things very expected as a film star for she fully realised that he was evidently a notoriety in the poetry department as well for he never saw her to drink an orange but he offered to bring her a porringer and to cut a long story short taking him by and large the onliest boy of her choice meant pretty well everything to her just then, her beau ideal of a true girl's friend with red blood in his veins neither big ugly nor small nice.
Over them the winged ones screamed shrill glee: seahawk, seagull, curlew and plover, kestrel and capercailzie. All the birds of the sea they trolled out rightbold when they smacked the big kuss of Trustan with Usolde.
So sang seaswans:
-- Three quarks for Muster Mark
Sure he hasn't got much of a bark
And sure any he has it's all beside the mark
But O Wreneagle Highflighty wouldn't un be a sky of a lark
To see that old buzzard whooping about for uns shirt in the dark
And un hunting round for uns speckled trousers around by Palmerston Park.
Hohohoho moulty Mark
You're the rummest old rooster ever flopped out of a Noah's ark
And you think you're cock of the wark.
Fowls, up! Tristy's the spry young spark
That'll tread her and wed her and bed her and red her
Without even winking the tail of a feather
And that's how that chap's going to make his money and mark!
As slow their ship, the sea being slight, upon the face of waters moved by courtesy of God that handsome brineburnt sixfooter Gaelic, rugger and soccer champion and the dinkum belle of Lucalizod quite charming in her oceanblue brocade and an overdress of net darned with gold well in advance of the newest fashion exhibits bunnyhugged scrumptiously when it was dark whilst they dissimulated themself on the eighteen inch loveseat behind the chieftaness stewardess's cabin whilst also with sinister dexterity he alternately rightandlefthandled fore and aft, on and offside her palpable rugby and association bulbs. She, after a cough, murmurously then gave her firm order for tootsweet if he wouldn't please mind some though not too much of the six best national poetry quotations reflecting on the situation so long as it was a stroke or two above it's a fine night and yon moon shines bright and all to that, the plain fact of the matter being that being a natural born lover of nature in all her moods and senses, by the light of the moon, of the silvery moon she longed to spoon before her honeyoldmoon at the same time drinking in long draughts of purest air serene and revelling in the great outdoors. That mouth of mandibles vowed to pure beauty promptly elocutionised to her a favourite lyrical bloom bellclear in iambic decasyllabic hexameter:
-- Rollon thoudeep andamp anddark blueo ceanroll!
Lady, it was just too gorgeous for words, the whole sensation. The sea, of a lovely tint embellished by the best charms of nature, with its wellmannered wavelets (the dirty horrid rude ones from the Belfast and Lagan Lough neighbourhood being very properly locked up in cubbyhole) looked really awfully pretty at the mid hour of night and more especially he being emphatically the right man in the right place, the weather conditions could not possibly have been improved upon. Praises be to fair sea. Her rôle was to roll onthedark blueo ceanroll that rolled on round the round roll that Robert Roly rolled round. Breathtaking beauty, Ireland's bonniest, she did but gaze while from his altitude of onehundredandthirtytwo lines his deepseapeepers gazed O gazed O dazedcrazedgazed into her darkblue rolling ocean orbs.
-- Thanks ever so much she sighed, thrilled by that olive throb of his nude neck, and ever so much again for that tiny quote. It sort of made everything ever so much more delightful. How perfectly sweet of you!
Nothing if not amorous, he, rosecrumpler, thrilldriver, sighinspirer, having prealably dephlegmatised his guttur of that ticklish frog in the throat, his useful arm getting busy on the touchline due south of her western shoulder, uttered what was to follow with grand passion from his toploftical voicebox:
-- Isolde!
By elevation of eyelids t'ward her dear coolun that She invoked insinuated desideration of more declaration.
He was instant and he declared:
-- Isolde! O Isolde! Sister soul and hand! When theeuponthus Sir Tristan binoculises his most unwitting ego most subconsciously senses the deprofundity of multimathematical immaterialities whereby in the pancosmic urge the allimmanence of That Which Itself is Itself Alone exteriorates on this here our plane in disunited solid, liquid and gaseous bodies in pearlwhite passionpanting intuitions of reunited selfhood in the higherdimensional selfless Allself.
Hear, O hear, all ye caller herring! Silent be, O Moyle! Milky Way, strew dim light!
Right here a pretty thing happened. When her flattering hand of pure diversion mayhap had jessaminely at the just right moment shut his duckhouse the vivid girl, deaf with love, (you know her, that angel being, one of passion's fadeless wonderwomen! You dote on her! You love her to death!) with a queer little cry reunited milkymouthily his her then their disunited lips when, tonguetasting the golden opportunity of a lifetime, quick as greased pigskin the Armorican champion with one virile tonguethrust drove the advance messenger of love flash past the double line of eburnean forwards rightjingbangshot into the goal of her gullet.
Now, I am just putting it direct to you as one manowoman to another, what the blankety blank diggings do you for example candidly suppose that she, a strapping young modern old ancient Irish princess a good eighteen hands high and scaling nine stone twelve paddock weight in her madapolam smock with nothing under her hat but red hair and solid ivory not forgetting a firstrate pair of bedroom eyes of most unholy hazel cared at that precise psychoanalytical moment about tiresome old King Mark that tiresome old milkless ram with his duty peck and his bronchial tubes, the tiresome old ourangoutan beaver in his tiresome old twentytwoandsixpenny shepherd's plaid trousers? Not as much as a pinch of henshit and that's the meanest thing now was ever known since Adam was in the boy's navy. No, heaven knows, far from it, if the unvarnished truth must be told at the very first blush lovingly she lovegulped her American's pulpous propeller and both together in the most fashionable weather they all went off a lulliloving a dither me die me dandy O after which, believing in safety first, before the regulation ten seconds were up volatile Brittany considerately allowed his farfamed sparking plug chokegrip to relax and precautiously withdrew the instrument of rational speech from the procathedral of amorous seductiveness.
-- I'm right glad I ran on to you, Tris, you fascinator you! Miss Erin said, when she had won free, laughing at the same time delightfully in dimpling bliss, being awfully bucked by her gratifying experience of the love embrace from a highly continental bigtimer the like of him possessed of a handsome face well worth watching with an interesting tallow complexion from which great things very expected as a film star for she fully realised that he was evidently a notoriety in the poetry department as well for he never saw her to drink an orange but he offered to bring her a porringer and to cut a long story short taking him by and large the onliest boy of her choice meant pretty well everything to her just then, her beau ideal of a true girl's friend with red blood in his veins neither big ugly nor small nice.
Over them the winged ones screamed shrill glee: seahawk, seagull, curlew and plover, kestrel and capercailzie. All the birds of the sea they trolled out rightbold when they smacked the big kuss of Trustan with Usolde.
So sang seaswans:
-- Three quarks for Muster Mark Sure he hasn't got much of a bark And sure any he has it's all beside the mark But O Wreneagle Highflighty wouldn't un be a sky of a lark To see that old buzzard whooping about for uns shirt in the dark And un hunting round for uns speckled trousers around by Palmerston Park. Hohohoho moulty Mark You're the rummest old rooster ever flopped out of a Noah's ark And you think you're cock of the wark. Fowls, up! Tristy's the spry young spark That'll tread her and wed her and bed her and red her Without even winking the tail of a feather And that's how that chap's going to make his money and mark!
So there they were listening in as hard as they could all four of them they were the big four the four waves of Erin all listening four there was old ?wran Gregory and then besides old Tom there was old Phelim O' Hogan the four waves and oftentimes they used to be saying here now we are the four of us old Tom and Old Phelim and old Jeremy the four of us and sure thank God there are no more of us and old Jeff O'Gorman the four of us and no more of us and so now pass the fish for the Lord's sake amen the way they used to be saying grace before fish for auld lang syne there they were spraining their ears listening and listening to all the kissening with their eyes glistening all the four when he was cuddling his colleen not the cullen no the colleen bawn cuddling her and kissing her with his pogue like Arrah na pogue they all four used to be cuddling and kissing and listening in the good days Dion Boucicault of Arrah na Pogue when they were all four collegians in the queen's colleges it brought it all back again as fresh as ever Matt and Marcus and now there he was and his Arrah na Pogue before the four of them and now thank God there were no more of them and he poguing and poguing they were listening with their mouths watering so pass the pogue for Christ sake Amen listening and watering all the four Luke and Johnny MacDougall for anything at all for a cup of of kindness yet for four big tumblers of woman squash with them all four listening and spraining their ears and their mouths making water
Ah well sure that s the way and there was poor Matt Gregory leaning on his staff of memory and Gregory and the others and now really and truly they were four dear old heladies and they looked so nice and respectable with their grey half tall hat and tailormade frock coat and then they had their fathom glasses to find out the fathoms and their tall hats just now like lord Powerscourt or the auctioneer there near the place near that street Trinity College that arranges all the auctions of valuable houses Smith like the auctioneer Smith or not Smith that sells all the fine houses and mansions James H North Mike North the auctioneer going to the horse show with all the people over from England and American visitors in his grey half tall hat and his fathom glasses to find out all the horses. And poor Marcus Lyons and poor Johnny and the four of us and there they were now listening the four saltwater widowers and all they could remember long long ago when my heart knew no care the landing of sir Arthur Casement in 1132 and the coronation of Brian by the bishop and then there was the drowning of Pharaoh and they were drowned in the sea the red sea and then poor Martin Cunningham out of the castle when he was drowned off Dunleary in the red sea and and then there was the Flemish Armada all scattered and all drowned off the coast of Cunningham and Saint Patrick and all they remembered and then there was the French fleet in 1132 landing under general Boche and there he was cuddling and poguing her in Arranapogue behind the queen's colleges. And then they used to give the lectures in Roman history in all the four collegians in the four trinity colleges Killorcure and Killthemall and Killeachother and Kilkelly-on-the-Flure those were the four great history colleges for auld lang syne all the Roman history past and present and present and absent and past and present and future arma virumque romano. Ah dearo a dear how it all came back to them to hear him there kissing her and cuddling her in his Roman arms ah dearo dear it was so sorry for the four of us Tim Tom Tarpey and the four shehusbands the four waves in their hat and thank God they were all summarily divorced by their shehusbands in the bygone days but still they parted on the best of terms by decree absolute well they could remember Justice Squelchman in 1132 at the Married Male Offenders' Court in Arrahnapogue. Poor Johnny MacDougall and the four masters because she was backscratching all divorced by their four master and poor Marcus Powerscourt by decree absolute because he broke wind in the pew and because he forgot to make a request in writing on stamped paper before saying his grace before fish and then there was poor Dion Boucicault all divorced too poor Dion because he attempted to well he ah well now sure we won't be too hard on him attempted some hunnish familiarities after eating a bad crab in the red sea ah dearo dearo dear and where do you leave Matt poor Matt in his grey frock hat all divorced by woman squelch and all on account the appearance of his face poor Matt Gregory. of his mouth watering so now pass the face for Christ' sake Amen. Poor Matt Gregory
Poor Martin Cunningham! And still and all they were always thinking of their four masters that were four beautiful sisters and there they were always counting the lovely periwinkle buttons in the front part of their dresses and there she was the beautiful four sisters and that was her name and they were looking for her everywhere in all the fathoms and then they had their night tentacles and they used to be all hanging around all the waists of the ships the steamships and peering in through the steaming windows into the honeymoon cabins on board the big steamers and saloon ladies toilet apartments and rubbing off the cataract off the windows to see all the honeymooners and all the toilet ladies and their familiarities saying their grace before meals and watering and there they used to be counting all their peributtons to remember her beautiful name poor Gregory and Johnny the four sisters and there she was now asthore as in days of yore of planxty Gregory they used to be always singing and so now they started their singing and old Luke for auld luke syne and we make a cupboard coinerset for the pays savole shanghai..
Hear, Isolde la belle! Tristan, sad hero, hear! *
Anno Domini nostri sancti Jesu Christi
Nine hundred and ninetynine pound sterling in the black bowels of the bank of Ulster.
Braw pennies and good gold pounds, by God, my girleen, 'll prank thee finely
And no damn lout 'll come courting thee or, by the Holy Ghost, there'll be murder!O come all ye sweet nymphs of Dingle beach to cheer Brinabride from Sybil a - riding
In her curragh of shells of daughter-of-pearl and her silverymoonblue mantle round her!
Crown of the waters, brine on her brow, she'll dance them a jig and jilt them fairly.
Yerra, why would she ride with Sir Sloomysides or the gogram grey barnacle gander?You'll not be lonesome, Lizzy my love, when your yank is the worst for his steel and his soldiering
Nor wake in winter, widow machree, for you'll have my old Balbriggan surtout.
Wisha, won't you agree now to take me for nothing at all as your own nursetender?
A power of fine fellows died game right enough. But who lives for you?I had that one long before anyone in this place.
It was of a good Friday too and as I'm given now to understand, she was clean mad gone on me.
Grand goosegreasing we had entirely with an eiderdown picnic to follow
'By the cross of Christ, Mac Dougall' says she after 'but you're the most likable lad that's come my ways yet from the barony of Bohermore'.