8: Davy Byrne's----THE LAESTRYGONIANS

Thoughts of luncheon are never far from Mr Bloom's mind throughout this episode. The only immediate business he has in hand is a visit to the national library to trace, in a back number of the Kilkenny People, an advertisement which he has promised one of his customers to get republished. Meanwhile he profits by the empty hour to indulge his "Wanderlust," his hobby of seeing the habitations of many men and observing their various minds.

The timeball on the Ballast Omce reminds him of Sir Robert Ball's Story of the Heavens, and the cryptic word paralax enters his mind. "A procession of whitesmocked men marched slowly towards him along the gutter, scarlet sashes across the boards. Bargains. Like that priest they are this morning we have sinned: we have suffered." He remembers the time when he worked for Hely, how he disliked collecting debts at a convent He also remembers the past with Molly: Those were good times, halcyon days, when Marion was gentle yet. His musings are interrupted by the greetings of Mrs Breen, an old flame, now married to an "old mosey lunatic".

Bloom learns from Mrs. Breen that their friend Mina Purefoy is in the lying-in hospital, Holles Street. As he walks on, undecided where to take his lunch, he inwardly condoles with the unfortunate Mrs Purefoy. The sight of a squad of constables reminds him how he got involved in a crowd of young medicals demonstrating against the Boer war. "Silly billies: mob of young cubs yell their guts out." Mr Bloom has little sympathy with political fanatics, though he takes an academic interest in the technique of conspiracy. A heavy cloud hides the sun, and his mood is darkened by a sense of the endless, futile routine of things, trams pass one another, ingoing, outgoing, ceaselessly clanging along grooved circuits. He sees A.E. (Mr Geo. Russell) in conversation with a young woman and wonders if she is Lizzie Twigg, one of the numerous Dublin girls who answered his advertisement for a typist "to aid gentleman in literary work."

Mr Bloom enters a restaurant but the sight of the carnivores at their feed revolts him. Nauseated, Mr Bloom backs out. "Couldn't eat a morsel here.... Out. I hate dirty eaters." He remembers the time when he was employed in the cattlemarket. It is not surprising that Mr Bloom, after his reminiscence of the variegated massacre of the slaughter-house, considers, almost approvingly, the daintier diet of the cannibal. At last, in Davy Byrne's, after a cheese sandwich and a glass of Burgundy, Mr Bloom finds that his dark moment passing and yields to an evocation of remembered beauty. Meanwhile the other customers at Davy Byrne's are discussing the runners for the Ascot Gold Cup; Bantam Lyons tells Paddy Leonard that Mr Bloom has given him a tip for the race, a lie which is destined to land Mr Bloom later in the day in trouble with a Cyclops. On his way to the Museum (to examine the anatomy of the Greek goddesses there exhibited) he plays the Good Samaritan to blind piano-tuner.

Approaching the museum, he espies Blazes Boylan in the offing; as before (see the Hades episode) on the occasion of a similar glimpse of his wife's lover, Mr Bloom's perturbation is indicated by a breaking up of the silent monologue and a self-deluding attention to something about his person. The comedy is played to himself, not for the benefit of possible onlookers.

From its first words, a catalogue of kinds of candy, to its last, this chapter of Ulysses invokes the episode in Book X of the Odyssey in which most of the Achaeans are slaughtered by the cannibalistic Laestrygonians. Myriad references to food, eating, digestion, and the slaughter of meat animals complement more precise analogues, such as the echo of Homer's climactic description of the Laestrygonians decimating the harbor-bound Achaean fleet, "And like folk spearing fishes [bearing] home their hideous meal," in Bloom's thoughts about a community kitchen: "Want a soup pot as big as the Phoenix Park. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it" (168).

Insistent as the Homeric correspondence is, Bloom is not in danger of being eaten, and does not himself eat a great deal. When the last words of the chapter draw it more subtly, however, the altered terms of the correspondence indicate its real purpose. The adventure of Odysseus with the Laestrygonians ends as follows:

Quickly then I called to my company and bade them dash in with the oars, that we might clean escape this evil plight. And . . . to my delight my barque flew forth to the high seas away from the beetling rocks....

Similarly, at the end of the chapter, Bloom is rushing to the museun entrance in order to escape the notice of Boylan. Although there is no mention of food, the parallel is plain. Furthermore, Bloom's Laestrygonian attacker is Boylan, and linked thoughts of Molly's lotion and the soap which he associates with the East, her place of origin, interrupt those of escape and the "cold statues" with which he will be "safe"; he even notices that it is "After two" o'clock and recalls "Afternoon she said." The episode concludes two patterns that run through the chapter, and it combines them. One is the Homeric correspondence; the other is the pattern of references to Molly, Bloom's former happines with her, and her increasingly imminent rendezvous with Boylan.

For example, Boylan and the time of day occur again and again in Bloom's thoughts. Soon after the chapter begins, while thinking of advertisement media, he remembers the posters of a "quack doctor for the clap," and:

If he ...

0!

Eh?

No . . . No.

No, no. I don't believe it. He wouldn't surely?

No, no.

Mr Bloom moved forward raising his troubled eyes.

Think no more about that. After one. (151-52)

He dismisses the possibility that Boylan has a venereal disease, but his "after one" is the first indication in the chapter that he cannot dismiss the situation itself. A dozen pages later, when he has decided to have lunch, it imposes itself unrelentingly. He reviews more fully than he had done in the fourth chapter (kitchen) the circumstances of Molly's meeting with Boylan twelve days before, and concludes: "Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must" (165). He then enters the Burton restaurant, whose repulsive nature and gluttonous patrons provide the most blatant Laestrygoman parallel, and promptly decides to leave it. Before he does so, however, "He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters" until "His eyes said," '~--Not here. Don't see him" (167). His searching for Boylan in a place he intends to leave is unusual enough; but, as he would know in a normal frame of mind, there is absolutely no possibility that the affluent and natty rake would patronize a restaurant like the Burton. When he finally does secure his lunch at Davy Byrne's public house, he must face conversation about Boylan from Nosey Flynn, which in turn prompts him to observe: "Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet" (170). He then plans for his dinner: "Just a bite or two. Then about six o'clock I can. Six, six. Time will be gone then" (172), and recalls his earlier sight of Boylan, during the funeral (91). Leaving the public house, he hums a snatch from the ubiquitous Don Giovanni, part of the passage in which the Commendatore is preparing his revenge (177). Although he mistranslates it slightly, he understands its context; and the pathos of his wish fulfilment over. shadows the irony of his identification with the Commendatore. He thinks of another chance sight of Boylan (178) and then, as a climax to the pattern, is confronted by Boylan in the flesh outside the National Library and Museumthe end of the chapter culminates both the correspondence to the episode of the Laestrygonians in the Odyssey and Bloom's distress over Molly and over her rendezvous with Boylan.

Boylan and his impending visit to Molly plague Bloom most after he decides to eat lunch because the references in the chapter to food, eating, and the rest are the vehicle for an analogy between the predatory ferocity of the ancient Laestrygonians and that of Bloom's anxieties. Precisely as do the "Laestrygonian" diners in the Burton, the impending rendezvous takes away his appetite; he will eat at six, for "Time will be gone then." The Homeric correspondence is thus a symbolic statement of the major action of the chapter, which is Bloom's constant suffering because of reminders of his situation, both in his thoughts and in events.

Because the major action is what it is, Bloom's conversation with Nosey Flynn is significantly similar to an earlier conversation with M'Coy (74). Flynn asks after Molly and asks if she is doing any singing. He mentions the "tour" to Belfast, and Flynn says:

-No. 0, that's the style. Who's getting it up? (170)

The Belfast concert had also come up in the conversation with M'Coy in the fifth chapter (post office) :

-That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it up? (74)

Bloom had explained "It's a kind of tour, don't you see. . . . Part shares and part profits," and M'Coy, satisfied, had prepared to take his leave. Now, after a little delay, punctuated by the concluding verses of an ironically relevant bawdy limerick ("His five hundred wives / Had the time of their lives / It grew bigger and bigger and bigger), he responds to Flynn:

-Getting it up? he said. Well, it's like a company idea, you see. Part shares and part profits.

-Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn't Blazes Boylan mixed up in it?

A warm shock of air heat of mustard haunched on Mr Bloom's heart. (170)

The recurrence of the same phrase, as the form of the critical question, serves to accentuate the fact that in this chapter Bloom ceases to find it possible to avoid thinking about his situation, something he was able to manage for long stretches in previous chapters; both the phallic motif of his limerick and Flynn's scratching make the sexual pun in the phrase unmistakable. All occasions do inform against him. He is beset by "Laestrygonians." (Flynn goes on to discuss Boylan's virtues, concluding, "0' by God, Blazes is a hairy chap.")

The sixth chapter (cemetery) disclosed that Bloom's situation involves much more than the imminent prospect of his wife's taking a lover; that is only an immediate manifestation of it. His son is dead, and his wife is becoming progressively more estranged. No less distressing than his thoughts about Molly's affair with Boylan are those about his own relationship with her. Again and again in the chapter Bloom thinks about Molly and their former happiness together, and these thoughts gnaw at him fiercely:

Milly was a kiddy then. Molly had that elephant-grey ress. . . . She didn't like it because I sprained my ankle first day she wore. . . . Fitted her like a glove, shoulder and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well . . . . People looking after her.

Happy. Happier then. Snug little room . . . . Milly's tubbing water. . . . Funny she looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. (153)

Windy night that was I went to fetch her. . . . Remember her laughing at the wind, her blizzard collar up. . . . Remember when we got home raking up the fire. . . . Could see her in the bedroom from the hearth unclamping the husk of her stays. White.

Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her. Always liked to let herself out. Sitting there after till nearly two, taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy. (154)

And, as the nadir of his misery, he remembers rhapsodically the consummation of their love on the Hill of Howth, and then makes a relevant comparison:

Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.

Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. . . . Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns on Howth. Below us bay sleeping sky. No sound. The sky. . . . Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub my hand under her nape, you'll toss me all. 0 wonder! Coolsoft with ointment. . . . was kissed All yielding she tossed my halr. Kissed, kissed me.

Me. And me now. Stuck, the flies buzzed" (173-74).

Its most apparent effect is emphasis, which is warranted, not only is Bloom's revery, but the incident on Howth is also the subject Molly's final thoughts in the book. Bloom's despondent comparison is dramatized and the comparison validated. The copulating flies associate directly with the prospective lovers on Bloom's mind, are a comment on their relationship and their attitude toward it. The gnawing thoughts that are the major action of the chapter, thoughts of Boylan, of the forthcoming rendezvous, of the difference between the past and the present, and Molly's desirableness, are all distilled in Bloom's "Me. And me now,' in the four words with which he acknowledges to himself that he has lost his happiness, his wife, and his self-respect--all of which, for him, are won or lost together.

Bloom's situation "now," on the day of the novel, which he drearily regards in this chapter, is fully clarified in the chapter as well. The fourth chapter, which introduced him, revealed that he serves Molly, and not with resentment de spite her shrewish exploitation of him but dotingly, so that he is very troubled over the impending adultery. At the same time he regards it as inevitable, and even possibly derives the "weak pleasure" of a bawd from the affair. The next chapter depicted his various devices for escaping the problems of his relationship with his wife, all of them tawdry, and none likely to be very successful. In the sixth chapter, he considered briefly the significance of the increasing deterioration of that relatiorlship. He is isolated from his social peers and, through the deaths of his father and his son, isolated from his family line. Estrangement from Molly will deprive him of his last meaningful contact with other human beings and any chance of restoring his familial ties through a son.

Bloom's concern about families and its obvious connection to his own lack of a son came up in the sixth chapter. But it is most prominent in the present one. He thinks not only of families but of women in terms of maternity. Bloom's interest in large families naturally reflects grief at the loss of his son. It also reflects his belief that he will never have any more children himself. And the interest in procreation and maternity which accompanies it reflects the belief that he will fail to have a son not because Molly will bear one and that one too will die but because he will, as he has done since Rudy's death, prevent her from bearing one. The extent of his interest in procreation and maternity is an index of his frustration presuming that he will provide neither. Molly vigorously protests against Bloom's sexual perversions during her soliloquy. She does not understand and the author does not declare, the reason for them. But it can be inferred from the declared source of Bloom's inhibition--Rudy's death. Bloom himself knows only that he "could never like it again after Rudy." However, he also believes that Rudy's death is his fault ("If it's healthy its from the mother. If not the man"). Without being aware of it, he fears beginning again a cycle of conception and eagerly-awaited birth that will end in death.

BLOOM'S failure to seek a son with her estranges him from Molly; estrangement from Molly denies him a son. This dilemma, which began to plague him ten and a half years before the day of the novel and threatens to continue doing so until he is destroyed, is the key to Leopold Bloom's apparently contradictory actions and attitudes.

Bloom almost wants Molly to take a lover, so guilty is he about having betrayed his responsibility to her as a husband. His sense of guilt makes him unable to attempt to prevent her from having an affair, causes him to feel unworthy of the role of husband and master in the household and prompts him to a solicitude which extends from gratifying Molly's every whim, to serving her ignominiously, to helping her adorn herself for her lover. All the apparent incongruities in his character--skirt-chasing and sexual frustration, despite his love for Molly; failure to attempt stop her adultery and even manifestations of encouragement of it, despite his distress; thoughtfulness and willing service, despite Molly's oppressive manner--are natural developments of a situation that arose out of the death of infant Rudy ten and a half years before the day of novel. Having perverted his relationship with Molly because he blamed himself for their feeble child, he has caused a situation for which he deserves blame; and having accepted that blame, he has developed into the degraded sufferer finally revealed in this chapter.

This chapter presents Bloom's character--his politics, his verbal wit, his concern with advertising and "science," and his kindness. His politics is given the most prominent treatment. He has thoughts on Ireland, public kitchens, mass demonstrations, conspiracy, infant subsidy, the British secret police, landownings. As the previous chapter clearly establishes the politics of Stephen, and of Joyce, this one does so for Bloom; it shows him in full agreement with them ahout Ireland and the Nationalist movement. One significant example of the portrayal of his concern with advertising is that the disturbing thought that Boylan might have a venereal disease grows out of a "meditation" on th subject. In the first four pages of the chapter alone he thinks about newspaper advertisements, floating advertisements, billboard advertisements, and sandwichboard advertisements. Manifestations of his scientism are not as prominent; but, during the course of the chapter, he thinks of gravity, parallax, solar eclipse, and the work of a noted astronomer, and conducts two "experiments" in sensory experience.

To complete the portrait, the chapter provides many instances of Bloom's mercy. Aside from recurring concern for the plight of Mrs. Purefoy and pity for Mrs. Breen which are related to his interest in families and maternity, there are such uncomplicated pure examples of his kindness as the incident at the very beginning of the chapter in which he buys two Banbury cakes from a peddler for "those poor birds" and feeds the gulls on the Liffey (151), and the last incident in the chapter before the sighting of Boylan, in which he meets and assists the blind "stripling," taking care to avoid making the boy self-conscious (178). The two examples of kindness neatly straddle the chapter and for good reason. Bloom's mercy is one aspect of a significant pattern of association begun in this chapter. It is as vital a part of the story of Ulysses as the nature and cause of Bloom's abject condition, and it is the final signicant element in the portrait of him. The two prominent incidents in the chapter that have not yet been considered concern this element of his character. They are his receipt of a handbill announcing the forthcoming appearance in Dublin of the American evangelist, John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907), as the chapter opens, and the discussion in Davy Byrne's of horseracing and that day's Gold Cup race at Ascot.

The revelation by Lyons in this chapter that Bloom provided his tip for the Gold Cup at Ascot is linked to the incident at the very beginning of the chapter in which Bloom is given the evangelist handbill, for that is referred to as "a throwaway," and the little-used term is insisted on always in preference to "handbill" or "leaflet." Further-more, the "throwaway" is identified with Bloom, source of the "throw it away" tip. He very shortly throws it away: he thinks momentarily of throwing himself into the Lilley, of committing suicide, sees gulls wheeling over the water, and then drops the "throwaway," crumpled, from the bridge instead (151). And when he first takes the handbill, the identification is suggested by an almost strained device:

Bloo . . . Me? No

Blood of the Lamb (149)

The identification is that Bloom is thereby associated at the beginning of the chapter with the two subjects of the handbill, which speaks not only of Christ but of the coming of Dowie, who, in 1901, had announced to the world that he was "Elijah the Restorer" reincarnate. The association of Bloom and Elijah is developed promptly. He reads that "Elijah is coming," reaches the bridge ove the Liffey, and contemplates suicide a direct parallel to Elijah's asking God for death in the wilderness near Beer- sheba. He throws in the crumpled handbill, then thinks of "those poor birds," and feeds the gulls wheeling over th river--an inverse parallel to the miraculous feeding of Elijah by ravens in the desert. He actually calls the Banbury cakes "manna" (151), and later in the novel he will associate the gulls with the handbill's "Elijah" ("Penny the gulls. Elijah is com," 275). Finally, of course, he has acted in a prophetic capacity, granted a revelation, although unwittingly, of the outcome of the Ascot Gold Cup race.

While the association of Bloom and Elijah is suggested in the first action of the chapter, that of Bloom and Christ is initiated in the very first paragraphs, in which the handbill incident occurs. The chapter opens with an excellent example of Joyce's verbal play in Ulysses. A combination Bloom's of experiences and interior monologue, the first paragraphs actually form a catalogue of the chapter's subject (151).

As does the "Bloo . . . Me?" reference, the linking of Christ to the bit of codfish through the luminous crucifix effects an association of Christ with Bloom.. Not only is the fish associated with Bloom as part of a personal memory, but later in the chapter, when Bloom remembers his boyhood nickname, it turns out to be the name of a fish that is symbolic of Christ: "Mackerel they called me" (160). Furthermore, Christians of the Roman era used the fish as an emblem of Christ, and the chapter is as full of the names of fish: salmon, sardine, herring, lobster, oysters, sturgeon, sole, as it is of examples of Bloom's mercy.

Manifestly, the same words that initiate the "throwaway" matter--literally, symbolically in the association of Bloon with Christ and Elijah which is effected through the handbill, and figuratively in the punning reference to the horse race tip--also initiate the parallel with Homer's Laestrygonians through reference to a slaughtered lamb and through Bloom's thoughts about a "blood victim." The passage as a whole also provides examples of Bloom's concern with science, advertising, and politics, his verbal wit, and his considerateness. Finally, in Bloom's memory of an incident involving Malaga raisins for Molly and leftover codfish that explicitly occurred before Rudy birth, it suggests the connection between the Laestrygonian correspondence and the true principal subject of the chapter, which that correspondence illuminates.

The relating of horserace tip and handbill, the associatin of Bloom with Christ and Elijah, and the linking of these new elements in the novel with the principal subject of the chapter, the nature and condition of Leopold Bloom, are all done unobtrusively; but they are done and must be acknowledged, although the reason why they are done is not apparent. As the next chapter, the ninth, does for Stephen, this chapter completes the presentation of Bloom. The rest of Ulysses develops what is presented here.