dixon: And I did make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as might suffice. Why? Oh, blame young Dedalus. Come and join the boys.

  bloom: Really, I . . . Ah yes, I see him. Just for a brief while then . . .

  bloom is now in the middle of student hilarity.

  costello: The baby must live and the mother die, despite the law and the judges and our holy whore of a Church, for does it not say in the scriptures that the woman shall bring forth in pain? How can she bring forth in pain if she’s beastly dead?

  Stephen (drunk): You go not far enough, Master Costello. Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe and parent now glorify their maker, the one in limbo gloom, the other in purge fire. But what of those God-possibled souls that we nightly impossibilize, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost? We catch our seed in sacks or else drop it on the ground, which is the sin of Onan. Is not this murder, a crime against the bellowing bulls of fertility?

  dixon: What saist thou, Master Bloom?

  bloom: Well, er – Let the mother die, for then the Church gets both birth pence and death pence at the one blow.

  dixon: Thou saist sooth, pardie. A pregnant word.

  stephen: Yea verily. He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord.

  costello (crashing his fist on the table): Let us have this song about the jolly swashbuckler of Almany that did put this wench in pod.

  (He sings.)

  The first three months she was not well, Staboo stabbo . . .

  The door opens. The nurse enters.

  nurse: For shame. I will not have this noise.

  lynch: And rightly so, fair madam. A murrain seize the dolt.

  stephen: Thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in the peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, thou dykedropt, thou abortion, thou. Shut thy drunken drool, ape.

  bloom: The occasion is sacred. A baby is to be born.

  The door closes. The nurse has left.

  No. 18

  lenehan (singing softly, joined by other voices in harmony):

  Too many babies born

  Too many babies born

  A fertile womb is a thing of gloom:

  Soon there won’t be standing room.

  The minstrels of Scene Eight sing.

  minstrels:

  Copulation without population:

  This is the thing we all desire.

  May God preserve the condom,

  The pessary too, of course,

  But hasten the day when we can slay

  The life force at its source.

  Masturbation means no procreation,

  But hasn’t got the true erotic fire.

  Coitus interruptus is somewhat out of date,

  And as for God’s safe periods it’s often hard to wait.

  We ought to have a spermicide served hot upon a plate,

  Then cop-u-late.

  Copulation without population:

  It’s what every nation requires.

  Why should we fill our houses

  With messy squalling brats?

  We need every square inch we can spare

  For parrots, dogs and cats.

  Pedication as a variation

  Sets trilling all the hot erotic wires,

  But love has only one true seat, so all the poets state,

  A postlapsarian paradise for Adam and his mate,

  With ‘Raising Cain forbidden’ written on the outer gate,

  As well as COP -

  (Why bring the police into it?)

  ULA-

  (United Lechery Association?)

  TETETETE

  Cop-u-late!

  There is a terrific roll of thunder, like a herd of bulls.

  stephen: Loud on left Thor thunders, in anger awful the hammer hurler!

  costello: Can’t you keep God out of it?

  stephen: Ah, wretched company, that was the voice of the god that is in a very grievous rage that will spill your souls for the spillings done by you contrariwise to his word.

  During the above mulligan comes in.

  mulligan: Thus spake Zarathustra, sometime professor of French letters in the University of Oxtail. Jesus God, I’m wet. The drought is broken at last. St Peter’s bulls are pissing out of full bladders. Talking of drought, fill us out some of that holy water there.

  Noise of pouring and drinking. Rustle of paper.

  lenehan: Let’s see yon gazette before it returneth to the pulp whence it came.

  mulligan: Good even, sir. Was you in need of our professional assistance?

  bloom: No, no, not at all. I await news of Mrs Purefoy, suffering sorely I hear and late on her delivery.

  mulligan: What? I marvel that that old bearded Bible-thumper could knock another chick out of her at his time of life.

  lenehan: Your letter of the foot and mouth disease is in.

  mulligan: Ah, so you’ve become –

  stephen: Bullock-befriending bard.

  lenehan: Damnable chunks of misbegotten horseflesh. Zinfandel, Sceptre, down down down. May the holy trinity of ultimate equinity, sire, dam and holy gelding, let light on the fetlocks of Throwaway a stinking gleet and strike its crupper with deadly ulcers.

  There is more thunder.

  mulligan: Noise of agreement. Our God is a betting God. That damnable rain. My pants are shrinking.

  dixon: Nay, Master Mulligan. That’s no shrinking. Incipient ventripotence. Is it an ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle or male womb, or else a wolf in the belly?

  mulligan (hitting his paunch): There’s a belly that never bore a bastard.

  costello: ’Tis the new Messiah. Drink to it.

  lynch: For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

  dixon: Alleluia!

  mulligan: Drink, dirty Dedalus. Drink, Herr Blumenfeld.

  stephen: No.

  bloom: Well, I think I’ve had enough really, thanks all the –

  stephen: Mulligan the usurper.

  mulligan: The jejune Jesuit has somewhat to say.

  stephen: Usurper. Chider of my spirit. Waster of my goods.

  mulligan: Waster of your goods? Where are my secondhand pants that you defiled, lying all night in your multitudinous mulberry-coloured vomit?

  stephen: I paid the rent to the tower. A year in advance. You have the key in your pocket.

  mulligan: Haines is keeper of the key. Rightly so. He is of the race of the keeper of the kingdom. Ask Haines.

  stephen: And you, Mulligan, are of the brood of mockers. A mocker and a bloody usurper.

  mulligan (quietly): Thou speakest not as thou shouldest, O dirty Dedalus of my heart.

  bloom: I think we ought to sit down quietly and discuss, discuss –

  lenehan: Foot and mouth disease?

  The door opens, the nurse enters.

  nurse: It is all over. Mrs Purefoy has been brought to bed of a fine boy.

  The students cheer.

  mulligan: By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed and no botch. Thou art, I trow, the remarkablest progenitor in this chaffering all-including most farraginous chronicle. Haines!

  For haines has entered, drunk.

  haines: Scum scum scum.

  The nurse tut tuts and leaves.

  bloom: Give a kind word from me and my wife to the happy mother.

  mulligan: The ruler of the seas is half seas over. What have you been imbibing, Haines?

  haines: Irish, Irish, mad mad Irish. Keep them down, scum.

  He belches dangerously.

  haines: A bloody black panther. Fire in its guts. I’ll fire in its guts.

  mulligan: Bloody fool. Grab that bloody revolver. Ah, got it.

  haines: Two black panthers. Damned island’s crawling with them. Give me that blasted gun.

  mulligan: Nice weapon. British made. See, Dedalus. Smell it.

  stephen: Usurper. Usurper. Usurper.

  mulligan: You’re out, Dedalus. You’ve been usurped. How about some money? You got paid today.

  bloom: I think everybody’s been drinking a bit too much. Things will look very different in the morning.

  mulligan: Ah, Ikey Moses. Beware, Dedalus. He lusts after you. Get thee a breech pad. Money, come on. Think of all those little debts that have been piling up.

  haines is being sick.

  bloom: Look, Dr Mulligan, if that’s your name, I recommend that you leave him alone. He’s not well, he’s not sober.

  stephen: Sober enough to judge impostors and usurpers.

  Lynch, Lynch, sign along of me. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is.

  bloom: Look, Mr Dedalus, I think you ought to go home.

  stephen: Home? Home? The decaying mansion of the Dedaluses? I fancy a night in a whore’s bed. Come, Lynch, nay, let’s go together.

  (To bloom.) For God’s sake leave me alone and let me live!

  costello: Burke’s! A few jars before closing time!

  The students join the cry and all dash out.

  bloom (following): Mr Dedalus! Mr Dedalus!

  Scene Nine

  Nighttown. Street music: barrel organ, singing.

  private carr: Way for the parson.

  private compton: What ho, parson.

  stephen: Jolly soldier boys. In mourning for lost innocence.

  carr: Lost what?

  stephen: Vidi aquam egredentiem de templo. Alleluia.

  compton: He’s barmy. Come on, Harry.

  a bawd: Sssst. Come here till I tell you. Maidenhead inside. Only ten bob. You won’t get a virgin in the flash houses.

  stephen: Credo in Mariam semper virginem.

  bawd (spitting): Trinity medicals. All prick and no pence.

  bloom is heard approaching, panting. A bicycle rings.

  cyclist: Out of the way, shitbreeches.

  bloom: Stitch in my side. Shouldn’t have run. All this mist. Can’t see. That’s him singing.

  stephen (distant): Tantum ergo sacramentum . . .

  bloom: Over there somewhere. Money in his pocket. Drunk. No. No. Seeing things. Not possible. Indiges. Cheese sandwich and burg. Don’t believe it.

  molly: Poldy.

  bloom: Molly!

  molly: Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me. Has poor little hubby cold feet? Oh, Poldy, Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud. Go and see life. The wide world. Gibraltar.

  No. 19

  She sings, castanetting.

  Gibraltar,

  I have laid my heart on your altar,

  And my trembling lips start to falter

  When I think of your blue Andalusian skies . . .

  bloom: Boylan!

  boylan (sings):

  Señora,

  Give a welcome to your adorer,

  With a kiss and little bit more, a

  Touch and a clutch and a yes in your eyes.

  molly:

  The bed

  Is a little bit jingly, he said.

  boylan

  We can lie on the sofa instead,

  Or even the floor.

  They dance the last bars with loud ‘Olés’ and frank amorous noises.

  bloom: Seeing things. Imagination. Clear this damned mist away.

  prostitute: Any good in your mind, pigeon?

  A growling man comes up and pursues her. She giggles, squeals, screams.

  bawd: He’s getting his pleasure. Fresh thing that never was touched. Ten bob. There’s no one knows except her old dad and he’s dead drunk. Eh, I know you, mister. Bloom the cuckold.

  The cuckoo march from the Mirus Bazaar starts up. The citizen cries out.

  citizen: Order in court! Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a well-known dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a public nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of assizes –

  crawford: I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! Let him be taken, Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during the state’s pleasure and there be hanged by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Remove him.

  bloom: Wait. Innocent. You, Hynes. Hynes, you know me. The three shillings I lent you you can keep. If you want a little bit more . . .

  hynes: You are a perfect stranger.

  No. 20

  bloom: (sings in the style of a czardas):

  Gentlemen of the jury.

  Let me explain.

  I am a man misunderstood.

  I am being made a scapegoat of.

  I am a respectable married man

  Without a stain on my character.

  My wife is the daughter of a most distinguished commander,

  A gallant upstanding gentleman.

  Major General Brian Tweedy,

  One of Britain’s fighting men

  Who helped to win her battles.

  Down with injustice

  Bad habits

  Suicide

  Lies.

  Why, look at our public life . . .

  The crowd cheers and bells chime.

  crowd:

  Turn again, Leopold,

  Lord Mayor of Dublin.

  bloom:

  Do you want to know my programme?

  I stand for the reform of municipal morals

  And the plain ten commandments.

  New worlds for old –

  crowd:

  New worlds for old –

  bloom:

  Union of Jew, Muslim and Gentile.

  Three acres and a cow

  For all children of nature.

  crowd:

  Nature.

  bloom:

  Electric dish-scrubbers

  And saloon motor hearses.

  Compulsory manual labour for all.

  All parks open to the public day and night.

  Tuberculosis, lunacy, war, and mendicancy

  Now cease.

  crowd: Now cease.

  bloom: General amnesty, Esperanto,

  The universal brotherhood.

  A weekly carnival

  With masked licence,

  Bonuses for all.

  No more patriotism of bar-spongers

  And dropsical impostors.

  Free money, free love,

  And a free lay church in a

  Free lay state.

  burke: Free fox in a free hen roost.

  bloom: Mixed races and mixed marriages.

  lenehan: What about mixed bathing?

  mr dedalus: Proposed that the house where Sir Leo Bloom was born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork Street be henceforth designated Bloom Boulevard.

  citizen: Carried unanimously.

  The crowd cheers.

  bloom: Carnival!

  The band strikes up a waltz.

  lenehan: For the honour of God! And is that Bloom? He scarcely looks thirty-one.

  nurse: Isn’t he simply wonderful?

  doran: That’s the famous Bloom now, the world’s greatest reformer.

  hynes: All that that man has seen.

  lambert: And done.

  nurse: A classic face. He has the forehead of a thinker.

  A fanfare interrupts the dance.

  burke: I here present your undoubted emperor president and king chairman, the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First!

  No. 21

  crowd (sings):

  God save King Leo,

  Pride of our nation,

  Let all creation

  Honour his name.

  bloom: Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.

  stephen: Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem. Leopold Patrick Andrew David George, be thou anointed.

  all the men: We do become your liege men of life and limb to earthly worship.

  bloom: My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall ere long enter into the garden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem.

  Music. The crowd exhales in wonder.

  See, my subjects. Crystal roof, forty thousand rooms, built in the shape of a pork kidney.

  No. 22

  crowd (sings):

  Let the trumpets sound his glory.

  Be united, Whig and Tory,

  In a bond of adulation:

  Bless the wonder of our nation.

  hynes: Don’t you believe a word he says. That man is Leopold Macintosh, the notorious fire raiser. His real man is Higgins.

  bloom: Shoot him. Dog of a Christian.

  A firing squad fires.

  bloom: So much for Macintosh.

  citizen (choking with emotion): May the good God bless him!

  A ram’s horn sounds for silence.

  bloom: Raise the standard of Zion. Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Ashkenazim Meshuggah.

  crawford: Official translation: His most Catholic majesty will now administer open air justice.

  hynes: What am I to do about my rates and taxes?

  bloom: Pay them, my friend.

  mr dedalus: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?

  bloom: Sir, take notice that by the law of torts you are bound in your own recognizances for six months in the sum of five pounds.

  doran: What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran?

  bloom: Glad to hear from you, Chris. K eleven.

  hynes: Why aren’t you in uniform?

  bloom: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the Austrian despot in a dark prison, where was yours?

  burke: Fellow Christians and anti-Bloomites, the man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a fiendish libertine, a stinking goat of Mendes. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. The stake, faggots and the cauldron of boiling oil are ready for him. Caliban!