by James Joyce
To the added strains (so peacifold) of his majesty the flute, that onecrooned king of inscrewments, Piggott’s purest, ciello alsoliuto, which Mr Delaney (Mr Delacey?), horn, anticipating a perfect downpour of plaudits among the rapsods, piped out of his decentsoort hat, looking still more like his purseyful namesake as men of Gaul noted, but before of to sputabout, the snowycrested curl amoist the leader’s wild and moulting hair, “Ductor” Hitchcock hoisted his fezzy fuzz at bludgeon’s height, signum to his companions of the chalice, for “the Loud Fellow, boys” and “silentium in curia!” (our maypole once more where he rose of old!) and the canto was chantied there, chorussed and christened, by the old tollgate, Saint Annona’s Street and Church.
And around the lann the rann it rann and this is the rann that Hosty made. Spoken. Boyles and Cahills, Skerretts and Pritchards, viersified and piersified, may the treeth we tale of live in stoney. Here lines the refrains of. Some vote him Vike, some mote him Mike, some dub him Llyn and Phin while others hail him Lug, Bug, Dan, Lop, Lex, Lax, Gunne or Guinn. Some apt him Arth, some bapt him Barth, Coll, Noll, Soll, Will, Well, Wall, but I parse him Persse O’Reilly else he’s called no name at all. Together. Arrah, leave it to Hosty, frosty Hosty, leave it to Hosty for he’s the mann to rhyme the rann, the rann, the rann, the king of all wranns. Have you here? (Some ha) Have we where? (Some hant) Have you hered? (Others do) Have we whered? (Others dont) It’s cumming! It’s brumming! The clip, the clop! (All cla) Glass crash. THE (klikkaklakkaklaskaklopatzklatschabattacreppy
crottygraddaghsemmihsammihnouithappluddyappladdypkonpkot!)
BALLAD OF PERSSE O’REILLY
(as sung by Phoblacht)
Music by O. Gianni! Words by A. Hames¡
Ardite, arditi!
Music cue.
Sh sh sh! Sh sh sh! Sh! Sh! Sh!
Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
(Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
Hump, helmet and all?
He was one time our king of the castle
Now he’s kicked about like a rotten old parsnip
And from Green Street he’ll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy,
(Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy.
Jail him and joy.
He was fafafather of all schemes for to bother us
Slow coaches and immaculate contraceptives for the populace,
Mare’s milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,
Openair love and religion’s reform,
(Chorus) And religious reform,
Hideous in form.
Arrah, why, says you, couldn’t he manage it?
I’ll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,
Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys
All your butter is in your horns.
(Chorus) His butter is in his horns.
Butter his horns!
(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt on ye! Rhyme the rann, the king of all ranns!
Balbaccio, balbuccio!
We had chaw chaw chops, chairs, chewing gum, the chickenpox and china chambers
Universally provided by this softsoaping salesman.
Small wonder He’ll Cheat E’erawan our local lads nicknamed him
When Chimpden first took the floor
(Chorus) With his bucketshop store
Down Bargainweg, Lower.
So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous
But soon we’ll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery
And ’tis short till Sheriff Clancy’ll be winding up his unlimited company
With the bailiff’s bom at the door,
(Chorus) Bimbam at the door.
Then he’ll bum no more.
Sweet bad luck on the waves washed to our island
The hooker of that hammerfast viking
And Gall’s curse on the day when Eblana Bay
Saw his black and tan man-o’-war,
(Chorus) Saw his man-o’-war
On the harbour bar.
Where from? roars Poolbeg. Cookingha’pence, he bawls, Donnezmoi scampitle, wick an wipin’ fampiny
Fingal MacOscar Onesime Bargearse Boniface
Thok’s min gammelhole Norveegickes moniker
Og as ay are at gammelhole Norveegickes cod.
(Chorus) A Norwegian camelold cod.
He is, begod.
Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil ye! Up with the rann, the rhyming rann!
It was during some freshwater garden pumping
Or, according to the Nursing Mirror, while admiring the monkeys
That our heavyweight heathen Humpharey
Made bold a maid to woo.
(Chorus) Woohoo, what’ll she doo!
The general lost her maidenloo!
He ought to blush for himself, the old hayheaded philosopher,
For to go and shove himself that way on top of her.
Begob, he’s the crux of the catalogue
Of our antediluvial zoo,
(Chorus) Messrs Billing and Coo.
Noah’s larks, good as noo.
He was joulting by Wellinton’s monument
Our rotorious hippopopotamuns
When some bugger let down the backtrap of the omnibus
And he caught his death of fusiliers,
(Chorus) With his rent in his rears.
Give him six years.
’Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children
But look out for his missus legitimate!
When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker
Won’t there be earwigs on the green?
(Chorus) Big earwigs on the green,
The largest ever you seen.
Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudodanto! Anonymoses!
Then we’ll have a free trade Gaels’ band and mass meeting
For to sod the brave son of Scandiknavery
And we’ll bury him down in Oxmanstown
Along with the devil and Danes,
(Chorus) With the deaf and dumb Danes,
And all their remains.
And not all the king’s men nor his horses
Will resurrect his corpus
For there’s no true spell in Connacht or hell
(bis) That’s able to raise a Cain.
Chest Cee! ’Sdense! Corpo di baraggio! You spoof of visibility in a freakfog, of mixed sex cases among goats, hill cat and plain mousey, Bigamy Bob and his old Shanvocht! The Blackfriars treacle plaster outrage be liddled! Therewith was released in that kingsrick of Humidia a poisoning volume of cloud barrage indeed! Yet all they who heard or redelivered are now with that family of bards and Vergobretas himself and the crowd of Caraculacticors as much no more as be they not yet now or had they then notever been. Canbe in some future we shall presently here amid those zouave players of Inkermann the mime mumming the mick and his nick miming their maggies, Hilton St Just (Mr Frank Smith), Ivanne Ste Austelle (Mr J. F. Jones), Coleman of Lucan taking four parts, a choir of the O’Daley O’Doyles doublesixing the chorus in Fenn MacCall and the Serven Feeries of Loch Neach, Galloper Tropples and Hurleyquinn, and the zitherer of the past with his merrymen all, zimzim zimzim. Of the persins sin this Eyrawyggla saga (which, thorough readable to int from and, is from tubb to buttom all falsetissues, antilibellous and nonactionable and this applies to its whole wholume) poor Osti-Fosti, described as quite a musical genius in a small way and the owner of an exceedingly niced ear, with tenorist voice to match, not alone, but a very major poet of the poorly meritary order (he began Tuonisonian but worked his passage up as far as the we-all-hang-together Animandovites), no one end is known. If they whistled him before he had curtains up they are whistling him still after his curtain’s doom’s doom. Ei fù. His husband, poor old A’Hara (Okaroff?), crestfallen by things and down at heels at the time, they squeak, accepted th
e (Zassnoch!) ardree’s shilling at the conclusion of the Crimean War and, having flown his wild geese, alohned in crowds to warnder on like Shuley Luney, enlisted in Tyrone’s horse, the Irish whites, and soldiered a bit with Wolsey under the assumed name of Blanco Fusilovna Bucklovitch (spurious) after which the cawer and the marble halls of Pump Court Columbarium, the home of the old seakings, looked upon each other and queth their haven evermore for it transpires that on the other side of the water it came about that on the field of Vasileff’s Cornix inauspiciously with his unit he perished, saying, This papal leafless to old chap give, rawl chawclates for mouther-in-louth. Booil. Poor old dear Paul Horan, to satisfy his literary as well as his criminal aspirations, at the suggestion thrown out by the doomster in loquacity, so says the Dublin Intelligence, was thrown into a Ridley’s for inmates in the northern counties. Under the name of Orani he may have been the utility man of the troupe capable of sustaining long parts at short notice. He was. Sordid Sam, a dour decent deblaneer, haunted always by his ham, at a word from Israfel the Summoner passed away painlessly after life’s upsomdowns one hallowe’en night, ebbrous and in the state of nature, propelled from the unwashed Behind into the unwished Beyond by footblows coulinclouted upon his oyster and atlas on behanged and behooved and behicked and behulked of his last fishandblood bedscrappers, a Northwegian and his mate of the sheawolving class. Though the last straw glimt his baring this stage thunkhard is said (the pitfallen gagged him as “Promptboxer”) to have solemenly said—as had the brief thot but fell in till his head like a bass dropt neck fust in till a bung crate (cogged!): Me drames, O Loughlins, has come through! Now let the centuple celves of my egourge, as Micholas de Cusack calls them, and of all of whose I in my hereinafter of course by recourse demission me, by the coincidance of their contraries reamalgamerge in that identity of undiscernibles where the Baxters and the Fleshmans may they cease to bidivil uns and (but at this poingt though the iron thrust of his cockspurt start might have prepared us we are wellnigh stinkpotthered by the mustardpunge in the tailend) this outandin brown candlestock melt Nolan’s into peese! Han var. Disliker as he was to druriodrama, her wife Langley, the prophet, and the decentest dozendest short of a frusker whoever stuck his spickle through his spoke, disappeared (in which toodooing he has taken all the French leaves unveilable out of Calomnequiller’s Pravities) from the sourface of this earth, that austral plain he had transmaried himself to, so entirely spoorlessly (the mother of the book with a dustwhisk tabularasing his obliterature done upon her involucrum) as to tickle the speculative to all but opine (since the Levey who might have been Langley may have really been a redivivus of paganinism or a volunteer Vousden) that the hobo (who possessed a large amount of the humoresque) had transtuled his funster’s habitat to its finsterest interrimost. Bhi she. Again, if Father Dan Browne, tea and toaster to that quaintestest of yarnspinners, is Padre Don Bruno, treu and troster to the queen of Iar-Spain, was the reverend, the sodality director, that eupeptic viceflayer, a barefaced carmelite, to whose palpitating pulpit (which of us but remembers the rarevalent and hornerable Fratomistor Nawlanmore and Brawne?) sinning society sirens (see the—Roman Catholic—presspassim) fortunately became so enthusiastically attached and was an objectionable ass who very occasionally cockaded a raffles ticket on his hat which he wore all to one side like the hangle of his pan (if Her Elegance saw him she’d have the canary!) and was semiprivately convicted of malpractices with his hot-washed tableknife (glossing over the cark in his pocket) that same snob of the dunhill, fully several yearschaums riper, encountered by the General on that redletter morning or maynoon jovesday? Were they? Fuitfuit.
When Phishlin Phil wants throws his lip ’tis pholly to be fortuneflouting and whoever’s gone to Mix Hotel by the salt say water there’s nix to nothing we can do for he’s never again to sea. It is nebuless an autodidact fact of the most commonfaced experience that the shape of the average human cloudyphiz, whereas sallow has long daze faded, frequently altered its ego with the possing of the showers. (Not original!) Whence it is a slipperish matter, given the wet and low visibility (since in this scherzarade of one’s thousand one nightinesses that sword of certainty which would indentifide the body never falls), to idendifine the individuone in scratch wig, squarecuts, stock, lavaleer, regattable oxeter, baggy pants and shufflers (he is often alluded to as Slypatrick, the llad in the llane) with already an incipience (lust!) in the direction of area baldness (one is continually flrstmeeting with odd sorts of others at all sorts of ages!) who was asked by free boardschool shirkers in drenched coats overawall, Will, Conn and Otto, to tell them overagait, Vol, Pov and Dev, that fishabed ghoatstory of the haardly creditable edventyres of the Haberdasher, the two Curchies and the three Enkelchums in their Bearskin ghoats! Girles and jongers, but he has changed alok syne Thorkill’s time! Ya, da, tra, gathery, pimp, shesses, shossafat, okodeboko, nine! Those many warts, those slummy patches, half -sinster wrinkles (what has come over the face on wholebroader ?) and (shrine of Mount Mu save us!) the large fungopark he has grown! Drink!
Sport’s a common thing. It was the Lord’s own day for damp (to wait for a postponed regatta’s eventualising is not of Battlecock Shettledore-Juxta-Mare only) and the request for a fully armed explanation was put (in Loo of Pat) to the porty (a native of the sisterisle—Meathman or Meccan?—by his brogue, ex-race eyes, lokil calour and lucal odour which are said to have been average clownturkish—though the capelist’s voiced nasal liquids and the way he sneezed at zees haul us back to the craogs and bryns of the Silurian Ordovices—who, the lesser pilgrimage accomplished, had made pats’ and pigs’ older inselt, the southeast bluffs of the stranger stepshore, a regifugium persecutorum, hence hindquarters) as he paused at evenchime for some or so minutes (Hit the pipe, dannyboy! Time to won, barmon. I’ll take ten to win.) amid the devil’s one duldrum (Apples by her blossom window and Charlottes at her tosspanomancy his sole admirers, his only tearts in store) for a fragrend calabash during his weekend pastime of executing with Anny Oakley deadliness (the consummatory pairs of provocatives, of which remained provokingly but two, the ones he fell for, Lili and Tutu, cork em!) empties which had not very long before contained Reid’s family (you ruad that before, soaky, but all the bottles in soddemd histry will not soften your bloodathirst!) stout. Having reprimed his repeater and resiteroomed his timespiece His Revenance, with still a life or two to spare for the space of his occupancy of a world at a time, rose to his feet and there, far from Tolkaheim, in a quiet English garden (commonplace!), since known as Whiddington Wild, where the joyshots rang no more his simple intensive curolent vocality, my dearbraithers, my most dearbrathairs, as he, so is a supper as is a sipper, spake of the One and told of the Compassionate, called up before the triad of precoxious scaremakers (scoretaking: Spegulo ne helpas al malbellulo, Mi kredas ke vi estas prava, Via dote la vizago rispondas fraulino) the now to ushere mythical habiliments of Our Farfar and Arthor of our doyne.
Television kills telephony in brothers’ broil. Our eyes demand their turn. Let there be seen! And wolfbone balefires blaze the trailmost if only that Mary Nothing may burst her bibby buckshee. When they set fire then she’s got to glow so we may stand some chances of warming to what every soorkabatcha, tum or hum, would like to know. The first Humphrey’s latitudinous baver with puggaree behind (calaboose belong bigboss belong Kang the Toll), his fourinhand bow, his elbaroom surtout, the refaced unmansionables of gingerine hue, the vertebrated slate umbrella, his gruff woolselywellesly with the finndrinny knopfs and the gauntlet upon the hand which in an hour not for him solely evil had struck down the mighthe mighthavebeen D’Esterre of whom his nation seemed almost already to be about to have need. Then, stealing his thunder, but in the befitting legomena of the smaller country (probable words, possibly said, of field family gleaning), a bit duskish and flavoured with a smile, seein as ow his thoughts consisted chiefly of the cheerio, he aptly sketched for our soontobe second parents (sukand see whybe!) the touching seene. The solence of that stilli
ng! Here one might a fin fell. Boomster rombombonant! It scenes like a landescape from Wildu Picturescu or some seem om some dimb Arras, dumb as Mum’s mutyness, this mimage of the seventyseventh kusin of Kristansen is odable to os across the wineless Ere no oedor nor mere eerie nor liss potent of suggestion than in the tales of the tingmount. (Prigged!)
And there oftafter, jauntyjogging, on an Irish visavis, insteadily with shoulder to shoulder Jehu will tell to Christianier, saint to sage, the humphriad of that fall and rise while daisy winks at her pinker sister among the tussocks and the copoll between the shafts mocks the couple on the car. And as your who may look like how on the owther side of his big belt try your tyrs and cloes your noes and paradigm maymay rererise in eren. Follow we up his whip vindicative. Thurston’s! Lo bebold! La arboro, lo petrusu. The augustan peacebetothem oaks, the monolith rising stark from the moonlit pinebarren in all fortitudinous ajaxious rowdinoisy tenuacity, the angelus hour with ditchers bent upon their farm usetensiles, the soft belling of the fallow deers (doerehmoose genuane!) advertising their milky approach as midnight was striking the hours (letate!), and how brightly the great tribune outed the sharkskin smokewallet (imitation!) from his frock, kippers, and, by Joshua, he tips un a topping swank cheroot, none of your swellish soide, quoit the reverse, and how manfally he says, pluk to pluk and lekan for lukan, he was to just pluggy well suck that brown boyo, my son, and spend a whole half hour in Havana. Sorer of the kreeksmen, would not thore be old high gothsprogue? Wherefore he met Master, he mean to say, he do, sire, bester of redpublicans, at Eagle Cock Hostel on Lorenzo Tooley Street and how he wished his Honour the bannocks of Gort and Morya and Bri Head and Puddyrick, yore Loudship, and a starchbox sitting in the pit of his St Tomach’s—a strange wish for you, my friend, and it would poleaxe your sonson’s grandson utterly though your own old sweatandswear floruerunts heaved it hoch many as the times when they were turrified be the hitz.