(stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor in leper grey with a wreath of faded orange blossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face worn and noseless, green with grave mould. her hair is scant and lank. she fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on stephen and opens her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. a choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.)the choir
liliata rutilantium te confessorum...
iubilantium te virginum...
(from the top of a tower buck mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)buck mulligan she's beastly dead. the pity of it! mulligan meets the afflicted mother. (he upturns his eyes.) mercurial malachi.
the mother (with the subtle smile of death's madness.) i was once the beautiful may goulding. i am dead.
stephen (horrorstruck.) lemur, who are you? what bogey man's trick is this?
buck mulligan (shakes his curling capbell.) the mockery of it! kinch killed her dogsbody bitchbody. she kicked the bucket. (tears of molten butter fall from his eyes into the scone.) our great sweet mother! epi oinopa ponton.
the mother (comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of wetted ashes.) all must go through it, stephen. more women than men in the world. you too. time will come.
stephen (choking with fright, remorse and horror.) they said i killed you, mother. he offended your memory. cancer did it, not i. destiny.
the mother (a green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth.) you sang that song to me. love's bitter mystery.
stephen (eagerly.) tell me the word, mother, if you know now. the word known to all men.
the mother who saved you the night you jumped into the train at dalkey with paddy lee? who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers? prayer is all powerful. prayer for the suffering souls in the ursuline manual, and forty days' indulgence. repent, stephen.