Ulysses: “Aeolus”

James Joyce

“Before Nelson’s pillar trams slowed, shunted,

changed trolley…” (7.3)

• The area around the pillar in Sackville (now O’Connell) Street

functioned as the central terminal and departure point for most of

Dublin’s trams.

“Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey” (7.4)

• Suburban communities on Dublin Bay southeast of Dublin five, six,

and eight miles, respectively.

“Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure, Palmerston

Park and upper Rathmines” (7.4-5)

• All in the inland area south of central Dublin (two to two and a half

miles from Nelson’s Pillar).

“Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Ringsend and

Sandymount Tower” (7.5-6)

• Ringsend is on the south bank of the Liffey at its mouth,

Sandymount Green is in Sandymount less than a mile to the south,

and the tower is one-half mile south-southeast of the green.

“Under the porch of the general post office

shoeblacks called and polished” (7.15-16)

• Fronts on Sackville (now O’Connell) Street between Henry Street

and Prince’s Street North.

“I’ll take it round to the Telegraph office” (7.26-27)

• The offices of the Evening Telegraph were in the same large

rambling building as the offices of the Freeman’s Journal and

National Press.

“Davy Stephens, minute in a large capecoat, a small felt hat

crowning his ringlets, passed out with a roll of papers under

his cape, a king’s courier” (7.28-30)

• A conspicuous Dublin character who styled himself the “prince of the

news vendors”.

• He kept a newsstand at Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire)

“WILLIAM BRAYDEN, ESQUIRE, OF OAKLANDS,

SANDYMOUNT” (7.38-39)

• William Henry Brayden (1865-1933), an Irish barrister and editor of

the Freeman’s Journal.

“Mario the tenor” (7.53)

• Giovanni Matteo Mario, cavaliere de Candia (1810-83). An Italian

tenor.

“Through a lane of clanking drums he made his

way towards Nannetti’s reading closet” (7.74-75)

• Joseph Patrick Nannetti (1851-1915), the Irish-Italian master printer

and politician. (Pictured on the right.)

“Queen Anne is dead” (7.90)

• Queen Anne (1665-1714; queen of Great Britain and Ireland 1702-

14).

“M.A.P.” (7.97)

• M(ainly) A(bout) P(eople), a penny weekly published every

Wednesday.

“Two crossed keys here. A circle.” (7.142)

• The emblem of the House of Keys

“He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly

distributing type. Reads it backwards first. Quickly he

does it. Must require practice that.” (7.204-06)

• The Linotype typesetting machine.

“Then the twelve brothers, Jacob’s sons.” (7.210)

• Bloom associates Jacob’s twelve sons with the twelve tribes of

Israel.

“Citronlemon? Ah, the soap I put there.” (7.226-27)

• The odor associates the soap with the citron (Ethrog) central in the

ritual of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.

“ERIN, GREEN GEM OF THE SILVER SEA”

(7.236)

• From Thomas Moore’s (1779-1852) “Let Erin Remember the Days

of Old”

“A recently discovered fragment of Cicero” (7.270)

• Roman orator and statesman (106-43 B.C.)

“Their wigs to show the grey matter. Brains on

their sleeve like the statue in Glasnevin” (7.305-6)

• Barristers wear wigs as emblems of their intelligence the way the

statue Bloom noticed in the cemetery wore a heart as a symbol of

devotion.

“Myles Crawford began on the Independent.”

(7.308)

• The Irish Daily Independent, a Dublin newspaper founded by Parnell

after his fall, though it did not begin to be published (18 December

1891) until over two months after Parnell’s death.

“Daughter engaged to that chap in the inland

revenue office with the motor.” (7.341)

• Automobiles were not numerous enough to require registration and

license numbers in Ireland before 1903, and in 1904 automobiles

were still something of an event in Dublin’s streets.

“And here comes the sham squire himself!” (7.348)

• Francis Higgins (1746-1802), so called because, though he was an

attorney’s clerk in Dublin, he married a respectable young woman by

palming himself off as a country gentleman.

“O, HARP EOLIAN!” (7.370)

• An aeolian harp is a stringed instrument designed to be played by

the winds (of Aeolus) rather than by human fingers.

“We are the boys of Wexford, Who fought with

heart and hand.” (7.427-28)

• From an Irish Ballad of 1798, “The Boys of Wexford.”

• The Boys of Wexford earned part of their reputation at the expense

of the North Cork Militia.

• http://youtu.be/SmBTjeowz4k

“THE CALUMET OF PEACE” (7.464)

• The American Indian peace pipe.

“Our old ancient ancestors, as we read in the first

chapter of Guinness’s, were partial to the running

stream.” (7.496-98)

• A common pun in Dublin. Conjoins Genesis with Guinness’s, the

famous Dublin brewery.

“Do you know that story about chief baron Palles?”

(7.502)

• Christopher Palles (1831-1920), Irish barrister and lord chief baron

of the Exchequer, that is, the chief judge in the court of Exchequer, a

division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland.

“An Irishman saved his life on the ramparts of Vienna.

Don’t you forget! Maximilian Karl O’Donnell, graf von

Tirconnell in Ireland.” (7.540-42)

• Maximilian Karl Lamoral Graf [Earl or Count] O’Donnell von [of] Tirconnell

(b.1812), the Austrian-born son of an Irish expatriate.

• On 18 February 1853 he attended the emperor on his daily walk around the

bastions that encircled old Vienna. When the emperor was attacked and

wounded by a knife-wielding Hungarian tailor, O’Donnell knocked the would-be

assassin down and prevented further attack.

“Lord Jesus? Lord Salisbury?” (7.557-58)

• Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil, third marquess of Salisbury

(1830-1903), was leader of the Conservative party in England and

hence anti-Gladstone and against any concession to the Irish.

• He was prime minister of England 1885-86, 1886-92, and 1895-

1902.

“Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt

to retrieve the fortunes of Greece.” (7.568-69)

• Pyrrhus launched a campaign against Sparta that appeared to have

as its goal the capture of all of the Peloponnesus.

• The “oracle” that misled Pyrrhus was a dream that he read as

promising him success in his attempt to reduce Lacedaemon

(Sparta), the capital of Laconia.

“In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says.” (7.583)

• Sallust, Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86-34 B.C.), was a Roman

historian and active partisan of Caesar.

• His public career, in the course of which he acquired a large fortune,

was apparently marked by corruption and a willingness to oppress

those under his command and governance.

“Like fellows who had blown up the Bastille”

(7.600)

• The Bastille St. Antoine, a fortress-prison in Paris, was stormed and

destroyed by a revolutionary mob 14 July 1789. The date is usually

regarded as marking the beginning of the French Revolution.

“Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland

between you? You look as though you had done the

deed. General Bobrikoff.” (7.601-2)

• Nikolai Ivanovitch Bobrikoff (1857-1904), a Russian general, governor-

general, and commander in chief of the military district of Finland (1898-

1904).

• He was given dictatorial powers and he used them ruthlessly to suppress

Finland’s constitutional liberties and to carry out the policy of Russianizing

Finland.

• He was assassinated on 16 June 1904.

“That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time of the

invincibles, murder in the Phoenix park…” (7.632-33)

• Refers to the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish (pictured

below), British secretary for Ireland, and Thomas Henry Burke, his

undersecretary. Not in 1881, but in 1882.

• They were stabbed to death in Phoenix Park by members of the

Irish National Invincibles

“Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean. Joe Brady and

the rest of them. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the

car” (7.639-40)

• All three were members of the Invincibles. Joe Brady earned the reputation

of having been the chief assassin. “Young Tim” Kelly cut their throats.

Kavanagh drove the getaway cab. “Skin-the-Goat” James Fitzharris drove

a decoy cab.

“Take page four, advertisement for Bransome’s

coffee, let us say.” (7.654)

• A widely advertised coffee distributed by Bransome & Co., Ltd., of

London.

“T is viceregal lodge.” (7.661)

• The residence of the lord lieutenant of Ireland, in the northwest

quadrant of the park.

“Then Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took

him on to the Star.” (7.687)

• Thomas Power O’Connor, the Irish journalist and politician who

founded and edited several newspapers and weeklies in London,

including the Star and the Sun and the Weekly Sun, M.A.P., and

T.P.’s Weekly.

“Now he’s got in with Blumenfeld.” (7.688)

• Ralph D. Blumenfeld (1864-1948), an American-born

newspaperman and editor who in 1904 became the expatriate editor

of the Daily Express in London.

“That’s talent. Pyatt! He was all their daddies!”

(7.688-89)

• Félix Pyat (1810-89), a French social revolutionary and journalist, had a

checkered career on the European Revolutionary Committee in Belgium and

England; he was involved in the Paris Commune in 1871 before escaping to

London. He contributed to several newspapers and edited several revolutionary

journals.

“Where have you a man now at the bar like those

fellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like

silvertongued O’Hagan.” (7.706-07)

• James Whiteside (1804-76), an Irish barrister famous for his forensic eloquence and for his

defense of Daniel O’Connell in 1844 and of Smith O’Brien in 1848. (Pictured on the left.)

• Isaac Butt (1813-79), an Irish barrister and politician. Known as the “father of Home Rule,”

he was also famous for his participation in the defenses of Smith O’Brien and of the Fenian

Conspirators. (Pictured in the middle.)

• Thomas O’Hagan (1812-85), a barrister and a jurist. His reputation in Ireland was mixed

because he defended the union of the Irish and English parliaments and because he

seemed to benefit from what was regarded as a pro-English stance. (Pictured on the right.)

“Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and

Demosthenes and Edmund Burke?” (7.731-32)

• Henry Grattan (1746-1820), Irish statesman and orator, a leader in Ireland’s struggle for

increased legislative independence (1782) and a leader of opposition to the Act of Union.

• Henry Flood (1732-91), Irish statesman and orator, played a prominent part in Irish political

opposition to English dominion.

• Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.), reputed to have been the greatest of the Greek orators.

• Edmund Burke (1729-97), an Irish-born English parliamentarian, orator, and essayist. He

advocated policies of conciliation toward both Ireland and prerevolutionary America.

“Ignatius Gallaher we all know and his Chapelizod

boss, Harmsworth of the farthing press…” (7.732-33)

• Alfred C. Harmsworth, Baron Northcliffe (1865-1922), and English

editor and publisher, was born at Chapelizod, just west of Dublin.

• He started the weekly journal, Answers. Gained control of the

London Evening News, founded the London Daily Mail, and

published Harmsworth’s Magazine.

“…and his American cousin of the Bowery

guttersheet …” (7.733-34)

• Harmsworth’s personal friend, the American publisher Joseph

Pulitzer (1847-1911).

“…Pue’s Occurrences and our watchful friend The

Skibbereen Eagle.” (7.734-35)

• Pue’s Occurrences the first daily newspaper in Dublin, founded in

1700 and published for half a century.

• The Skibbereen Eagle a general weekly newspaper, published in

Skibbereen, County Cork.

“Dr. Lucas. Who have you now like John Philpot

Curran?” (7.739-40)

• Charles Lucas (1713-71), an Irish physician and a patriot. He was a

frequent contributor to the Freeman’s Journal. (Pictured on the left.)

• John Philpot Curran (1750-1817), an Irish barrister, patriot and orator

who had a reputation for animating every debate he was involved in.

“And he cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the

Vatican.” (7.756-57)

• Michelangelo (1475-1564) carved the Moses as part of a

mausoleum for Pope Julius II.

“That Blavatsky woman started it.” (7.784)

• Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-91) was a Russian traveler and

Theosophist who expanded her interest in spiritualism and the occult with

rather impressionistic studies of the esoteric doctrines of India, the Middle

East, and the medieval cabalas, both Christian and Jewish.

“Mr. Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had

spoken and the paper under debate was an essay (new for

those days), advocating the revival of the Irish tongue.”

(7.794-96)

• Gerald Fitzgibbon (1837-1909), Irish, but a devoted Freemason and a

staunch Conservative (hence anti-Home Rule). He was made lord justice of

appeal in 1878; and as commissioner of national education, he was

regarded as one of those who were attempting to Anglicize Ireland.

“He is sitting with Tim Healy.” (7.800)

• Timothy Michael Healy (1855-1931) was an Irish politician and

patriot who first distinguished himself as Parnell’s “lieutenant” and

later, when he became one of the leaders of the move to oust

Parnell from leadership of the Irish Nationalist party, as Parnell’s

“betrayer.”

“Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Miles of ears of

porches. The tribune’s words, howled and scattered to the

four winds. A people sheltered within his voice.” (7.880-82)

• The “tribune” in this passage is Daniel O’ Connell, who so styled himself, identifying

with “the People of Ireland … in their wishes and wants, speaking their sentiments

and [seeking] to procure them relief.”

• The meeting at the Hill of Tara was held Sunday, 13 August 1843; patriotic Irish

estimates the crowd at seven hundred fifty thousand to one million people.

• Next to the Tara meeting, the most impressive was held at the Rath of Mullaghmast,

1 October 1843.

“Two Dublin vestals” (7.923)

• The vestal virgins were priestesses of Vesta, the Roman goddess of

hearth and home whose temple was the hearth of Rome, the oldest

temple in the city.

“They want to see the views of Dublin from the top

of Nelson’s pillar.” (7.931)

• In the middle of Sackville (now O’Connell) Street, a column 121 feet

tall, surmounted by a thirteen-foot statue of Admiral Lord Nelson.

• Spiral stairs led to a platform 120 feet in the air.

“Rathmines’ blue dome, Adam and Eve’s, saint

Laurence O’Toole’s.” (7.1011-12)

• Our Lady of Refuge, Rathmines (1850), two miles south of Nelson’s Pillar. (Pictured

on the left.)

• Adam and Eve’s was a Franciscan church five-eighths of a mile west-southwest of

the pillar. (Pictured in the middle.)

• Saint Laurence O’Toole’s was a Roman Catholic church in Seville Place.

“You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said,

a disciple of Gorgias, the sophist.” (7.1035-36)

• Antisthenes (444-370 B.C.), a Greek philosopher and a pupil of Gorgias.

• Gorgias (427-399 B.C.), a Greek Sophist and rhetorician known as “the

Nihilist” for his three propositions: (1) nothing exists; (2) if anything existed,

it could not be known; (3) if anything did exist, and could be known, it could

not be communicated. (Pictured on the right.)

“Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich.” (7.1040)

• Penelope Rich Née Devereux (1562-1607), Sir Philip Sidney’s love;

the object of his devoted attentions, literary and otherwise.

“He halted on sir John Gray’s pavement island and

peered aloft at Nelson through the meshes of his wry

smile.” (7.1067-68)

• A statue on a pedestal in the middle of Sackville Street.

• Sir John Gray was a Protestant Irish patriot, owner and editor of the

Freeman’s Journal.