by James Joyce
Well, old Humber was as glommen as grampus, with the tares at his thor and the buboes for ages and neither bowman nor shot abroad and bales allbrant on the crests of rockies and nera lamp in kitchen or church and giant’s holes in Grafton’s causeway and deathcap mushrooms round Funglus’ grave and the great tribune’s barrow all darnels ocummule, sittang sambre on his sett, drammen and drommen, usking queasy quizzers of his ruful continence, his childlinen scarf to encourage his obsequies, where he’d check their debths in that mormon’s thames, be questing and handsel, hop, step and a deepend, with his berths in their toiling moil, his swallower open from swolf to fore and the snipes of the gutter pecking his crocs, hungerstriking all alone and holding doomsdag over hunselv, dreeing his weird with his dander up and his fringe combed over his eygs and droming on loft till the sight of the sternes after zwarthy kowse and weedy broeks and the tits of buddy and the loits of pest and to peer was Parish worth thette mess. You’d think all was dodo belonging to him, how he durmed adranse in durance vaal. He had been belching for severn years. And there she was, Anna Livia, she darent catch a winkle of sleep, purling around like a chit of a child, Wendawanda, a fingerthick, in a Lapsummer skirt and damazon cheeks for to ishim bonzour to her dear dubber Dan, with neuphraties and sault from his maggias. And an odd time she’d cook him up blooms of fisk and lay to his heartsfoot her meddery eygs, yayis, and staynish beacons on toasc and a cupenhave so weeshwaashy of greenland’s tay or a dzoupgan of mokau kaffue au sable or Sinkiang sukry or his ale of ferns in trueartpewter and a shinkobread (hamjambo, bana?) for to plaise that man hog stay his stomicker till her pyrraknees shrunk to nutmeg graters while her togglejoints shuck with goyt, and as rash as she’d russ with her peakload of vivers up on her sieve (metauwero rage it swales and rieses!) my hardey Hek he’d kast them frome him with a stour of scorn as much as to say you sow and you sozh, and if he didn’t peg the platteau on her tawe, believe you me, she was safe enough. And then she’d esk to vistule a hymn, The Heart Bowed Down or The Rakes of Mallow or Chelli Michele’s La Calumnia è un Vermicelli or a balfy bit or Old Jo Robidson. Sucho fuffing a fifeing ’twould cut you in two! She’d bate the hen that crowed on the turrace of Babbel. What harm if she knew how to cockle her mouth! And not a mag out of Hum no more than out of the mangle weight. Is that a faith? That’s the fact. Then riding the ricka and roya romanche, Annona, gebroren aroostokrat Nivia, dochther of Sense and Art, with Sparks’ pirryphlickathims funkling her fan anner frostivying tresses dasht with virevlies—while the prom beauties sreeked nith their bearers’ skins!—in a period gown of changeable jade that would robe the wood of two cardinals’ chairs and crush poor Cullen and smother MacCabe. O blazerskate! Theirs porpor patches! And brahming to him down the feedchute, with her femtyfyx kinds of fondling endings, the poother rambling off her nose: Vuggybarney, Wickerymandy! Hello, ducky, please don’t die! Do you know what she started cheeping after, with a choicey voicey like waterglucks or Madame Delba to Romeoreszk? You’ll never guess. Tell me. Tell me. Phoebe, dearest, tell, O tell me and I loved you better nor you knew. And letting on hoon var daft about the old warbly sangs from over holmen, High hellskirt saw ladies hensmoker lilyhung pigger, and soay and soan and so firth and so forth in a tone sonora, and Oom Bothar below like Bheri-Bheri in his sandy cloak, so umvolosy, as deaf as a yawn, the stult! Go away! Poor deef old deery! Yare only teesing! Anna Liv? As Chalk is my judge! And didn’t she up in sorgue and go and trot doon and stand in her douro, puffing her old dudheen, and every shirvant siligiril or wensum farmerette walking the pilend roads, Sowy, Fundally, Daery or Maery, Milucre, Awny or Graw, usedn’t she make her a simp or a sign to slip inside by the sullyport? You don’t say, the sillypost? Bedouix but I do! Calling them in one by one (To Blockbeddum here! Here the Shoebenacaddie!) and legging a jig or so on the sihl to show them how to shake their benders and the dainty how to bring to mind the gladdest garments out of sight and all the way of a maid with a man and making a sort of a cackling noise like two and a penny or half a crown and holding up a silliver shiner. Lordy, lordy, did she so? Well, of all the ones ever I heard! Throwing all the neiss little whores in the world at him! To inny captured wench you wish of no matter what sex of pleissful ways two adda tammar a lizzy a lossie to hug and hab haven in Humpy’s apron!
And what was the wyerye rima she made? Odet! Odet! Tell me the trent of it while I’m lathering hail out of Denis Florence MacCarthy’s combies. Rise it, flut ye, pian piena! I’m dying down off my iodine feet until I lerryn Anna Livia’s cushingloo, that was writ by one and rede by two and trouved by a poule in the parco! I can see that. I see you are. How does it tummel? Listen now. Are you listening? Yes, yes! Indeed I am! Tarn your ore ouse! Essonne inne!
By earth and the cloudy but I badly want a brandnew bankside, bedamp and I do, and a plumper at that!
For the putty affair I have is wore out, so it is, sitting, yaping and waiting for my old Dane hodder dodderer, my life in death companion, my frugal key of our larder, my much altered camel’s hump, my jointspoiler, my maymoon’s honey, my fool to the last Decemberer, to wake himself out of his winter’s doze and bore me down like he used to.
Is there irwell a lord of the manor or a knight of the shire at strike, I wonder, that’d dip me a dace or two in cash for washing and darning his worshipful socks for him now we’re run out of horsebrose and milk?
Only for my short Brittas bed I made’s as snug as it smells it’s out I’d lep and off with me to the slobs della Tolka or the plage au Clontarf to feale the gay aire of my salt troublin bay and the race of the saywint up me ambushure.
Onon! Onon! Tel me more. Andelle me every tiny teign. I want to know every single ingul. Down to what made the potters fly into jagsthole. And why were the vesles vet. That homa fever’s winning me wome. If a mahun of the horse but hard me! We’d be bundukiboi meet askarigal. Well, now comes the hazelhatchery part. After Clondalkin the Kings’s Inns. We’ll soon be there with the freshet. How many aleveens had she in toll? I can’t rightly rede you that. Close only knows. Some say she had three figures to fill and confined herself to a hundred eleven, wan by wan by wan, making meanacuminamoyas. Olaph lamm et, all that pack? We won’t have room in the kirkeyaard. She can’t remember half of the cradlenames she smacked on them by the grace of her boxing bishop’s infallible slipper, the cane for Kund and abbles for Eyolf and ayther nayther for Yakov Yea. A hundred and how? They did well to rechristien her Pluhurabelle. O loreley! What a loddon lodes! Heigho! But it’s quite on the cards she’ll shed more and merrier, twills and trills, sparefours and spoilfives, nordsihks and sudsevers and ayes and neins to a litter. Grandfarthing nap and Messamisery and the knave of all knaves and the joker. Heehaw! She must have been a gadabout in her day, so she must, more than most. Shoal she was, gidgad! She had a flewmen of her owen. Then a toss nare scared that lass, so aimai moe, that’s agapo! Tell me, tell me, how cam she camlin through all her fellows, the neckar she was, the diveline? Casting her perils before our swains, from Fonte-in-Monte to Tidingtown and from Tidingtown tilhavet. Linking one and knocking the next, tapting a flank and tipting a jutty and palling in and pietaring out and clyding by on her eastway. Waiwhou was the first thurever burst? Someone he was, whuebra they were, in a tactic attack or in single combat. Tinker, tilar, souldrer, salor, Pieman Peace or Polistaman. That’s the thing I’m elwys on edge to esk. Push var and push vardar and come to uphill headquaters! Was it waterlows year, after Grattan or Flood, or when maids were in Arc or when three stood hosting? Fidaris will find where the Doubt arises like Niemen from Nirgends found the Nihil. Worry you sighin foh, Albern, O Anser? Untie the gemman’s fistiknots, Qvic and Nuancee! She can’t put her hand on him for the moment. Tez thelon langlo, walking weary! Such a loon werrabackwoods to row! She sid herself she hardly knows whuon the annals her graveller was, a dynast of Leinster, a wolf of the sea, or what he did or how blyth she played or how, when, why, where and who offon he jumpnad her and how it was gave her away. She was just a young thin pale soft shy
slim slip of a thing then, sauntering by silvamoonlake, and he was a heavy trudging lurching lieabroad of a Curraghman, making his hay for whose sun to shine on, as tough as the oaktrees (peats be with them!) used to rustle that time down by the dykes of killing Kildare, for forstfellfoss with a plash across her. She thought she’d sankh neathe the ground with nymphant shame when he gave her the tigris eye! O happy fault! Me wish it was he! You’re wrong there, corribly wrong! ’Tisn’t only tonight you’re anacheronistic! It was ages behind that when nullahs were nowhere, in county Wickenlow, garden of Erin, before she ever dreamt she’d lave Kilbride and go foaming under Horsepass bridge, with the great southerwestern windstorming her traces and the midland’s grain-waster asarch for her track, to wend her ways byandby, robecca or worse, to spin and to grind, to swab and to thrash, for all her golden lifey in the barleyfields and pennylotts of Humphrey’s fordofhurdlestown and lie with a landleaper, wellingtonorseher. Alesse, the lagos of girly days! For the dove of the dunas! Wasut? Izod? Are you sarthe an suir? Not where the Finn fits into the Mourne, not where the Nore takes lieve of Bloem, not where the Braye divarts the Farer, not where the Moy changez her minds twixt Cullin and Conn and tween Cunn and Collin? Or where Neptune sculled and Tritonville rowed and leandros three bumped heroines two? Neya, narev, nen, nonni, nos! Then whereabouts in Ow and Ovoca? Was it ystwith wyst or Lucan Yokan or where the hand of man has never set foot? Dell me where, the fairy ferse time! I will if you listen. You know the dinkel dale of Luggelaw? Well, there once dwelt a local heremite, Michael Arklow was his riverend name (with many a sigh I aspersed his lavabibs!), and one venersderg in junojuly, oso sweet and so cool and so limber she looked, Nance the Nixie, Nanon L’Escaut, in the silence, of the sycomores, all listening, the kindling curves you simply can’t stop feeling, he plunged both of his newly anointed hands to the core of his cushlas in her singimari saffron strumans of hair, parting them and soothing her and mingling it, that was deep-dark and ample like this red bog at sundown. By that Vale Vowclose’s lucydlac, the reignbeau’s heavenarches arronged orranged her. Afrothdizzying galbs, her enamelled eyes indergoading him on to the vierge violetian. Wish a wish! Why a why? Mavro! Letty Lerck’s lafing light throw those laurals now on her daphdaph teasesong petrock. Maass! But the majik wavus has elfun anon meshes. And Simba the Slayer of his Oga is slewd. He cuddle not help himself, thurso that hot on him, he had to forget the monk in the man, so, rubbing her up and smoothing her down, he baised his lippes in smiling mood, kiss akiss after kisokushk (as he warned her niver to, niver to, nevar), on Anna-na-Poghue’s freckled forehead. While you’d parse secheressa she hielt her souff. But she ruz two feet hire in her aisne aestumation. And steppes on stilts ever since. That was kissuahealing with bantur for balm! O, wasn’t he the bold priest? And wasn’t she the naughty Livvy? Nautic Naama’s now her navn. Two lads in scoutsch breeches went through her before that, Barefoot Byrne and Wallowme Wade, Lugnaquillia’s noblesse pickts, before she had a hint of a hair at her fanny to hide or a bossom to tempt a birch canoedler, not to mention a bulgic porterhorse barge. And ere that again, leada, laida, all unraidy, too faint to buoy the fairiest rider, too frail to flirt with a cygnet’s plume, she was licked by a hound, Chirripa-Churruta, while poing her pee, pure and simple, on the spur of the hill in old Kippure, in birdsong and shearingtime, but first of all, worst of all, the wiggly livvly, she sideslipped out by a gap in the Devil’s Glen while Sally her nurse was sound asleep in a sloot and, feefee fiefie, fell over a spillway before she found her stride and lay and wriggled in all the stagnant black pools of rainy under a fallow coo and she laughed innocefree with her limbs aloft and a whole drove of maiden hawthorns blushing and looking askance upon her.
Drop me the sound of the findhorn’s name. Mtu or mti, sombogger was wisness. And drip me why in the flenders was she frickled. And trickle me through was she marcellewaved or was it weirdly a wig she wore. And whitside did they droop their glows in their florry, aback to wist or affront to sea? In fear to hear the dear so near or longing loth and loathing longing? Are you in the swim or are you out? O go in, go on, go an! I mean about what you know. I know right well what you mean. Rother! You’d like the coifs and guimpes, snouty, and me to do the greasy jub on old Veronica’s wipers. What am I rancing now and I’ll thank you? Is it a pinny or is it a surplice? Arran, where’s your nose? And where’s the starch? That’s not the vesdre benediction smell. I can tell from here by their eau de Colo and the scent of her oder they’re Mrs Magrath’s. And you ought to have aird them. They’ve moist come off her. Creases in silk they are, not crampton lawn. Baptiste me, father, for she has sinned! Through her catchment ring she freed them easy, with her hips’ hurrahs for her knees’ dontelleries. The only parr with frills in old the plain. So they are, I declare! Welland well! If tomorrow keeps fine who’ll come tripping to sightsee? How’ll? Axe me next what I haven’t got! The Belvedarean exhibitioners. In their cruisery caps and oarsclub colours. What hoo, they band! And what hoa, they buck! And there’s her nubilee letters too. Ellis on quay in scarlet thread. Linked for the world on a flushcaloured field. Annan exe after to show they’re not Laura Keown’s. Ormond the diabolo twisk your seifety pin! You child of Mammon, Kinsella’s Lilith! Now, who has been tearing the leg of her drawars on her? Which leg is it? The one with the bells on it. Rinse them out and aston along with you! Where did I stop? Never stop! Continuarration! You’re not there yet. I amstel waiting. Garonne, garonne!
Well, after it was put in the Mericy Cordial Mendicants’ Sitterdag-Zindeh-Munaday Wakeschrift (for once they sullied their white kid gloves, chewing cuds of their dinner of cheekin and beggin, with their show us it here and their mind out of that and their when you’re quite finished with the reading matarial) even the snee that snowdon his hoaring hair had a skunner against him. Thaw, thaw, sava, savuto! Score Her Chuff Exsquire! Everywhere erriff you went and every bung you arver dropped into in cit or suburb or in addled areas, the Rose and Bottle or Phoenix Tavern or Power’s Inn or Jude’s Hotel, or wherever you scoured the countryside from Nannywater to Vartryville or from Porta Lateen to the lootin quarter you found his ikom etsched tipside down or the cornerboys cammocking his guy and Morris the Man, with the role of a royss in his turgos the turrible (Evropeahahn cheic house, unskimmed sooit and yahoort, hamman now cheekmee, Ahdahm this way make, Fatima, half turn!), reeling and railing around the local as the peihos piped and ubanjees twanged, with oddfellow’s triple tiara busby rotundarinking round his scalp. Like Pate-by-the-Neva or Pete-over-Meer. This is the Hausman all paven and stoned, that cribbed the Cabin that never was owned, that cocked his leg and hennad his Egg. And the mauldrin rabble around him in areopage, fracassing a great bingkang cagnan with their timpan crowders. Mind your Grimm-father! Think of your Ma! Hing the Hong is his jove’s hangnomen! Lilt a bolero, bulling a law! She swore on croststyx nyne wyndabouts she’d be level with all the snags of them yet. Par the Vulnerable Virgin’s Mary del Dame! So she said to herself she’d frame a plan to fake a shine, the mischiefmaker, the like of it you niever heard. What plan? Tell me quick and dongu so crould! What the meurther did she mague? Well, she bergened a zak, a shammy mailsack, with the lend of a loan of the light of his lampion, off one of her swapsons, Shaun the Post, and then she went and consulted her chapboucqs, old Mot Moore, Casey’s Euclid and the Fashion Display, and made herself tidal to join in the mascarete. O gig goggle of gigguels, I can’t tell you how! It’s too screaming to rizo, rabbit it all! Minneha, minnehi, minnehe, minneho! O, but you must, you must really! Make my hear it gurgle gurgle, like the farest gargle gargle, in the dusky dirgle dargle! By the twittering well of Mulhuddart I swear I’d pledge my chanza getting to heaven through Tirry and Killy’s mount of impiety to hear it all, aviary word! O, leave me my faculties, woman, a while! If you don’t like my story get out of the punt. Well, have it your own way so. Here, sit down and do as you’re bid. Take my stroke and bend to your bow. Forward in and pull your overthepoise! Lisp it slaney and crisp it quiet. Deel me longsome
. Tongue your time now. Breathe thet deep. Thouat’s the fairway. Hurry slow and scheldt you go. Lynd us your blessed ashes here till I scrub the canon’s underpants. Flow now. Ower more. And pooleypooley.
First she let her hair fal and down it flussed to her feet its teviots winding coils. Then, mothernaked, she sampood herself with galawater and fraguant pistania mud, wupper and lauar, from crown to sole. Next she greesed the groove of her keel, warthes and wears and mole and itcher, with antifouling butterscatch and turfentide and serpenthyme, and with leafmould she ushered round prunella isles and eslats dun, quincecunct, allover her little mary. Peeld gold of waxwork her jellybelly and her grains of incense anguille bronze. And after that she wove a garland for her hair. She pleated it. She plaited it. Of meadowgrass and riverflags, the bulrush and waterweed, and of fallen griefs of weeping willow. Then she made her bracelets and her anklets and her armlets and a jetty amulet for necklace of clicking cobbles and pattering pebbles and rumbledown rubble, richmond and rehr, of Irish rhunerhinestones and shellmarble bangles. That done, a dawk of smut to her airy eye, Annushka Lutetiavitch Puffovah, and the lellipos cream to her lippeleens and the pick of the paintbox for her pommettes, from strawbirry reds to extray violates, and she sendred her boudeloire maids to His Affluence, Ciliegia Grande and Kirschie Real, the two chirrines, with respecks from his missus, seepy and sewery, and a request might she passe of him for a minnikin. A call to pay and light a taper, in Brie-on-Arrosa, back in a sprizzling. The cock striking mine, the stalls bridely sign, there’s Zambosy waiting for Me! She orged she wouldn’t be half her length away. Then, then, as soon as the lump his back was turned, with her mealiebag slang over her shulder, Anna Livia, oysterface, forth of her bassein came.