-- longworth and m'curdy atkinson were there...
i hardly hear the purlieu cry
or a tommy talk as i pass one by
before my thoughts begin to run
on f. m'curdy atkinson,
the same that had the wooden leg
and that filibustering fillibeg
that never dared to slake his drouth,
magee that had the chinless mouth.
being afraid to marry on earth
they masturbated for all they were worth.
jest on. know thyself.
halted below me, a quizzer looks at me. i halt.
-- mournful mummer, buck mulligan moaned. synge has left off wearing black to be like nature. only crows, priests and english coal are black.
a laugh tripped over his lips.
-- longworth is awfully sick, he said, after what you wrote about that old hake gregory. o you inquisitional drunken jew jesuit! she gets you a job on the paper and then you go and slate her drivel to jaysus. couldn't you do the yeats touch?
he went on and down, mopping, chanting with waving graceful arms:
-- the most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time. one thinks of homer.
he stopped at the stairfoot.
-- i have conceived a play for the mummers, he said solemnly.
the pillared moorish hall, shadows entwined. gone the nine men's morrice with caps of indices.
in sweetly varying voices buck mulligan read his tablet:
everyman his own wife
or
a honeymoon in the hand
(a national immorality in three orgasms)
by
ballocky mulligan
he turned a happy patch's smirk to stephen, saying:
-- the disguise, i fear, is thin. but listen.
he read, marcato:
-- characters:
toby tostoff (a ruined pole)
crab (a bushranger)
medical dick
and (two birds with one stone)
medical davy
mother grogan (a watercarrier)
fresh nelly
and
rosalie (the coalquay whore)
he laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by stephen: and mirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men:
-- o, the night in the camden hall when the daughters of erin had to lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured, multicoloured, multitudinous vomit!