Iambic Pentameter - A line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (stressed) syllable. "Two household, both alike in dignity."
Esperanto Translation: Jamba Pantametro
Ineluctable modality of
the visible: at least that if no more,
thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things
I am here to read, sea spawn and sea wrack,
the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen,
blue silver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of
the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies.
Then he was aware of them bodies be-
fore of them coloured. How? By knocking his
sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he
was and a millionaire, maestro di
color che sanno. Limit of the di-
phane in. Why in? Diaphane, adi-
aphane. If you can put your five fingers
though it it is a gate, if not a door.
Shut your eyes and see.
Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush
crackling wrack and shells. You are walking though
it how somever. I am, a stride at
a time. A very short space of time through
very short times of space. Five, six: the nach-
einander. Exactly: and that is the
ineluctable modality of
the audible. Open your eyes. No Je-
sus! If I fell over a cliff that bee-
tles o’er his base, fell through the nebenein-
ander ineluctably! I am get
ting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword
hangs at my side. Tap with it: They do. My
two feet in his boots are at the ends of
his legs, nebeneinander. Sounds solid:
made by the mallet of Los Demiur-
gos. Am I walking into eternity
a long Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick.
Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy
kens them a’. Won't you come to Sandy mount,
Madeline the mare?
Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. A cat-
alectic tetrameter of iambs
marching. No agallop: deline the mare.
Open your eyes now. I will. One Moment.
Has all vanished since? If I open and
am forever in the black adia -
phane. Basta! I will see if I can see.
See now. There all the time without you: and
Ever shall be, world without end.They came
down the steps from Leahy’s terrace prudent-
ly, Frauenzimmer: and down the shelving
shore flabbily, their splayed feet sinking in
the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, co-
ming down to our mighty mother. Number
one swung lourdily her midwife’s bag, the
other’s gamp poked in the beach. From the lib-
erties, out for the day. Missus Florence
MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe,
deeply lamented, of Bride Street. One of
her sister hoodlugged me squealing into
life. Creation from nothing. What has she
in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing
navel cord, hushed in ruddy wool. The cords
of all link back, strandentwining cable
of flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you
be as gods? Gaze in your omphalos. Hel-
lo Kinch here. Put me on to Eden ville.
Aleph, Alpha: nought, nought, one.Spouse and help mate
of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve.
She had no navel. Gaze. Belly without
blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut
vellum, no, whitehead corn, orient and
immortal, standing from everlasting
to everlasting. Womb of sin.
