ULYSSES

DISTANT VOICES

Dublin’s burning! Dublin’s burning! On fire, on fire!

(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete’s singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters blisters. It rains dragons’ teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O’Brien against Daniel O’Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M‘Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John O’Leary against Lear O’Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O’Donoghue of The Glens against The Glens of The O’Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the fieldaltar of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi O’Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head and collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant’s head an open umbrella.)

FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN

Introibo ad altare diaboli.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE

To the devil which hath made glad my young days.

FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN

(takes from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host) Corpus meum.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE

(raises high behind the celebrant’s petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is stuck) My body.

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED

Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!

(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

ADONAI

Dooooooooooog!

THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED

Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!

(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

ADONAI

Goooooooooood!

(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.)

PRIVATE CARR

(with ferocious articulation) I’ll do him in, so help me fucking Christ! I’ll wring the bastard fucker’s bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!

(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)

BLOOM

(runs to Lynch) Can’t you get him away?

LYNCH

He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! (to Bloom) Get him away, you. He won’t listen to me.

(He drags Kitty away.)

STEPHEN

(points) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit.

BLOOM

(runs to Stephen) Come along with me now before worse happens. Here’s your stick.

STEPHEN

Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.

OLD GUMMY GRANNY

(thrusts a dagger towards Stephen’s hand) Remove him, acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. (she prays) O good God, take him!

CISSY CAFFREY

(pulling Private Carr) Come on, you’re boosed. He insulted me but I forgive him. (shouting in his ear) I forgive him for insulting me.

BLOOM

(over Stephen’s shoulder) Yes, go. You see he’s incapable.

PRIVATE CARR

(breaks loose) I’ll insult him.

(He rushes towards Stephen, fist outstretched, and strikes him in the face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. He lies prone, his face to the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)

MAJOR TWEEDY

(loudly) Carbine in bucket! Cease fire! Salute!

THE RETRIEVER

(barking furiously) Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.

THE CROWD

Let him up! Don’t strike him when he’s down! Air! Who? The soldier hit him. He’s a professor. Is he hurted? Don’t manhandle him! He’s fainted!

A HAG

What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the influence. Let them go and fight the Boers!

THE BAWD

Listen to who’s talking! Hasn’t the soldier a right to go with his girl? He gave him the coward’s blow.

(They grab at each other’s hair, claw at each other and spit.)

THE RETRIEVER

(barking) Wow wow wow.

BLOOM

(shoves them back, loudly) Get back, stand back!

PRIVATE COMPTON

(tugging his comrade) Here. Bugger off, Harry. Here’s