d little harry hughes and his schoolfellows all went out for to play balland the very first ball little harry hughes playedhe drove it o'er the jew's garden wall.
and the very second ball little harry hughes playedhe broke the jew's windows all.
how did the son of rudolph receive this first part?
with unmixed feeling. smiling, a jew, he heard with pleasure and saw the unbroken kitchen window.
recite the second part (minor) of the legend.
then out there came the jew's daughter
and she all dressed in green.
`come back, come back, you pretty little boy,and play your ball again.'
`i can't come back and i won't come back
without my schoolfellows all,
for if my master he did hear
he'd make it a sorry ball.'
she took him by the lilywhite hand
and led him along the hall
until she led him to a room
where none could hear him call.
she took a penknife out of her pocket
and cut off his little head,
and now he'll play his ball no more
for he lies among the dead.
how did the father of millicent receive this second part?
with mixed feelings. unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew's daughter, all dressed in green.
condense stephen's commentary.
one of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. once by inadvertence, twice by design he challenges his destiny. it comes when he is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope and youth holds him unresisting. it leads him to a strange habitation, to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates him, consenting.
why was the host (victim predestined) sad?
he wished that a tale of a deed should be told of a deed not by him should by him not be told.
why was the host (reluctant, unresisting) still?
in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy.
why was the host (secret infidel) silent?
he weighed the possible evidences for and against ritual murder: the incitation of the hierarchy, the superstition of the populace, the propagation of rumour in continued fraction of veridicity, the envy of opulence, the influence of retaliation, the sporadic reappearance of atavistic delinquency, the mitigating circumstances of fanaticism, hypnotic suggestion and somnambulism.