Oh Shoot! We have more Fergus action! My dense head. I thought it was just a cool name. I was wrong. I'm pretty sure we are talking about the Irish Folktale Icon Fergus mac Róich. He's a character in series of books called called the Ulster Cycle, which is a big part of Irish/Celtic mythology. He was a king of Ulster before he was bamboozled by a fellow named Conchobar mac Nessa and in turn took up with Nessa's enemy and continued making Irish folklores.
"She heard old Royce sing in the pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed with others when he sang:
I am the the boy
That can enjoy
Invisibility
I am not sure, there's a lot of Ulysses stuff online which I dont care to dig through.
Stephen keeps looking out at the sea, starts daydreaming about his mom, and the little things. Then things take a turn, we go from third person to first person for a moment. I'm guessing this is Stephens perspective.
"Her glazing eyes, staring our of death , to shake and bend my soul. On me alone. The Ghost candle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. Her eyes onme to strike me down.
"liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdent: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat" (Google translates to
"confessed to inspire the stars shining around the company, iubilantes Virgin Mary hold")
Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!
This memory/dream shakes Stephen up pretty good until he is interrupted by Buck Mulligan calling him down stairs for breakfast and listening to Haines apologizing for waking everyone up the previous night.
But not before Buck squeezes some money out of him, first a quid, the a guinea, THEN four quid.
I just googled the old british money system, and turned right around. Never again.
Unless it seems insanely important, I will not spend time trying to figure out that mess. Life is too short.
Stephen goes down stairs singing about coronation day.
Here's a confusing part. He went downstairs. But we're still with someone at the parapet holding Bucks shaving bowl. Back to first person.
"Warm sunshine marrying over the sea. The nickel shavingbowl shone, forgotten on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there all day, Forgotten Friendship?
He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness, smelling the clammy slaver of lather in which the brush was stuck. So I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant."
Who the hell is this? I think maybe James Joyce himself, reflecting on his own memories.
wordsputtogether
Is this an Irish thing? a lot of words are joined together. "drawingroom""dissectingroom" "stairhead" "featherfans" "dancecards" "muskperfumed" "shavingbowl". Maybe it was just how they did it back then, I have a copy of Gulliver's Travels where all the nouns are capitalized. I'm assuming that's just a holdover from German.
Glossary
Stairhead - The top of staircase, Yup, makes sense. Ŝtupokapo por la Esperantoj tie
Spurned - Rejected with contempt. I thought it was something like that. Just wanted to double check.
Lightshod - Ohh!! "LightSHOE"d! I read it as "LightSHAWD" - I guess it means being nibble. I don't think Lightshawd means anything.
Dancecard - Seriously, these are cards that ladies would take with them to balls to keep track of the fellows she danced with.
Gaud - A fancy and useless nick-nack
Parapet - a small wall, or a railing around a roof or a balcony. It's what John Cleese stood on when he insulted King Arthur and threw animals at him
Places
Clongowes - a boarding school for boys, The school was founded the Jesuits in 1814, One of five Irish Jesuit schools.
